Memoirs of a RAFian

[Gaz]

I'm excited to see what'll happen this time around. These are fun.

[Cloak]

Thanks, Gazzy, I'll try to add another chapter soon.

CHAPTER TWO:
Alterations

Cloak and Shadow made their way to Aquilai's TARDIS, and were intending to walk by it, when, quite suddenly a wave of energy was sweeping closer.

"What is that?!"

"I have no idea!" Cloak shouted.

"Really?" Shadow said skeptically, breaking the fourth wall, as Realm Walkers do.

"Now's not the time, Shadow."

Suddenly, the wave swept over them, and Cloak feel to his knees.  With a shout of alarm, Shadow rushed to her uncle's side, only to have Cloak to toss his cookies all over the ground.

"Well . . . that settles it." Cloak said, with a paler face.  "I know what that was."

"What's going on out here?" Aquilai asked, opening his TARDIS's door.  Then he saw Cloak's sick, which was quickly dissolving into nothingness, and stated, "Ew."

"Time disruption, or alteration." Cloak said, leaning against a tree, trying to get better.  "It always makes me physically ill.  That's why I never time travel."

"What do you mean?" Parker said, coming out of the TARDIS, seeing the wasteland.  "Oh."

"It would seem that the five of us were unaffected." Aila summed up.  "The TARDIS obviously shielded us from it, but why aren't you two affected."

"We're Realm Walkers," Shadow said, "we aren't from this realm, and we're not affected with any time changes or reality alterations."

"Well said," Cloak praised her.

"Well, we best find the RAF of this new timeline," Aquilai said.

"What makes you think it still even exists?" Parker pointed out.

[Cloak]

'Nother chapter.  Short chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
No More

After Aquilai secured his TARDIS, they walked slowly cautious, unaware of what had changed.  Could be something quite minute, but Cloak doubted this, personally.  It would have to be something more substantial to warrant such a large change.

The vegetation seemed thinner than before, the ground seemed grayer, the grass browner.  The very sky had a rust color to it.  The very clouds seemed dirty white, forlorn and thin.  All in all, it was a very ominous atmosphere.

Cloak felt that this was a foreshadowing of something that he could not determine.  He had a very bad feeling about this.  Then they came upon the site.  Or, rather, what would have been the site.  It appeared to have been rubbed out of existance.

The ramifications of this reeled in the five's minds.  Gaz was no longer a vampire, as she'd never been sired.  Pootang never existed as the people responsible for its creation never met*.  Blocky was still locked in an ice block somewhere. . . .

Animorph fans went . . . who knows where to discuss Animorphs.  If even Animorphs existed in this timeline, that is.

"No way," Aquilai said, a look of horror upon his face.  Aila looked on the verge of tears.  Shadow stared at the absence of the threads and posts and boards with an open jaw.  Parker looked as if someone struck him with [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animaniacs]Wakko's[/url] mallet.  Cloak was feeling much the same, but he concealed his emotions, and buried them.  He knew he oughtn't do that, but it's become a bit of a habit with him.

"We cannot stay here," Cloak said, his voice a bit thick.  "We must find out what happened and correct it.  If at all possible."

---
*I assume they met on RAF.

[Cloak]

'Nother chapter -- hope this all tides you over, 'coz I won't be on Friday or the weekend.  Unless Faith and Shadow can't get a flight out.  I was tempted to call this chapter "Aila, the Explorer", a reference to a certain show that Shadow loved as a young child, but decided against it.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Adventurin'

The five eventually move away from the horrid sight, the chronial abomination.  They had to explore this new world, this new timeline.  But there was no telling what they would find, or who they'll find.  They headed north of RAF.

"Wait, isn't that the virus's cave?  Where that ooze came from?"

"Yeah," Cloak agreed, "but, in this timeline, RAF doesn't exist.  So, there was no ooze.  The virus and her two minions may have never lodged in there."

"Or they could still be in there." Shadow muttered.

"True," Aquilai concurred, "and one could argue it might not be a cave at all, just a recess in a mountain.  There's a lot we can construe from the lack of vertifiable, provable evidence and information."

"Thank you, Mr. Hawking," Parker muttered.

But they cautiously checked out the cave.  It was abandoned, but it was clearly a dwelling at one time.  But the objects within were coated with a half-inch accumulation of dust, and thick cobwebs which seemed to have been made by spiders the size of laptop computers.

"Ooookay, no one's been here in a while.  Can we go now?" Parker said, irritatedly, for he had to remove cobwebs from his visor no less then six or seven times.

"Yeah, I don't think we can get more information than this." Cloak agreed.

Then the exited and made their way to the west of the mountain, when Aila noticed something in the distance.  She blinked and queried about it.

"What's that?"

The other four glanced into the distance where only a small prinprick of red light could be seen.  It was no more detailed than that.

"Dunno," Parker said.

"Might as well see if there's answers there," Aquilai said.

"Alright, then," Cloak said, "let's go."

[Cloak]

Yeah, I'll be focusin' on this thread more than the parody threads (because I have a lot more creative ideas on this venue).  'Nother chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Viral Citadel

The five strode to the location of the red light to find a post-apocalyptic city, which appeared very blocky, as if computer generated from ten, fifteen years ago.  It was very eerie, as it was completely deserted, with tumbleweeds blowing here and there.

"I miss Horse attacking those," Cloak muttered.

"What?" Aquilai asked.

"Never mind."

The red glow persisted everywhere in the city.  Cloak's fur started to stand up beneath his cloak and he knew why.  Everywhere, he could sense evil.  It was like diving into a dark sea where you can easily feel the water pressure increasing as you go further down.  Cloak could feel the evil coming closer, becoming more oppressive, as they walked further to the citadel.

"Stop!" Cloak said, who couldn't take it anymore.  "We need to get out of here."

"Why?" Aila asked.

"Don't you feel it?  There's the presence of evil everywhere!"

"How do you know that?" Aquilai asked.

"It's a cat thing," Cloak said repressively, "are we going or not?"

But then he felt someone arm bar him to the ground, to what was a concealed ditch.  No, it was more of a dugout or fox hole.  When he got his bearings back, Cloak looked and saw a nonvampiric Gaz, non-seal Horse, Mr. Guy, a human Bear, and a still-Andalite Noelle.

"Are you fools crazy?!?!" Gaz hissed.

"Gaz!" Parker exclaimed, a bit too loudly.

<Keep it down!> Noelle snarled.

"How'd you know my name?"

"You . . . you don't remember us?" Shadow asked.

"Why should I?"

"It would be because of the chronial shift, guys," Cloak said.  "Without the existance of RAF, we would have never met any of them."

"Chronial shift?" Guy asked.  "What do you mean by that, alien?"

"I am not an alien, per se -- but that's not the point."

Suddenly, a dark shadow fell over them.

[Cloak]

Yet another chapter . . . yes, this should do nicely . . .

CHAPTER SIX:
Blood-Red Vans

The long shadow caused abject silence among the ten.  When it passed, Cloak folded back his ears, and poked his head ever so slightly out.  The shadow was caused by a strange, van-like vehicle.  It had six muddy, gray Press Tires -- tires like the ones you get when you beat Guts Man in that Mega Man racing game.  It appeared to be heavily armored, and driverless.  Cloak's ears easily picked up sounds coming from the hold.  There were people in there, but unable to get out.  It did not seem to be made of metal, but not plastic or wood either.

"Would you get in here?!" Horse hissed.

Cloak withdrew into the tunnel-like ditch.

"What was that?"

"A Blood-Red Van," Guy said, skeptical look on his face.  "Why don't you know that?  The Blood-Red Vans collect people for unknown nefarious purposes."

"How do you know they're nefarious?" Aquilai asked.

"They take you against your will," Bear spoke as if Aquilai was quite obtuse.  "What else could it be?  Daycare with free milk and cookies?"

"I didn't mean that it would --"

"Enough, you two." Gaz said.  "We cannot stay here.  We have to move."

"What about them?" Horse said.  Cloak did not like the accusatory tone.

"Leave them to their own devices, they aren't the Queen's spies."  Gaz gestured to a bracelet thing on her left arm much like the one that Leela wears.

"The WHAT?" Parker and Cloak said in unision.

"The Queen . . ." Gaz said, actually looking perplexed.  "You must know that the Queen has control of the whole of the 'Net here, right?"

"You're kidding." Cloak said without thinking.  "You must be kidding."

"You should know that I'm not . . . what is WRONG with you guys?"

"We've . . . we've come from a different timeline.  In our timeline --" And Aquilai went off and explained the situation on the whole.

"You actually expect us to believe this," Bear said with a scoff.

"You can believe it or not, it's the truth." Aquilai countered smoothly.

"Wait, you mean someone did something in the past, and alterred the future?" Guy said.

"Possibly.  We don't know." Parker said, not really paying attention to that.  His eyes were locked on the lip of the opening, worried if the van comes back.  "We can't really go back in time to find out."

Aila and Aquilai squirmed nervously.

"You can?"

"Yeah, the TARDIS has that power." Aila said in a small voice.

"And Aila's was stolen," Cloak said, facepalming.  "God, it's so obvious."

"What?" Shadow asked.

Parker answered, "Someone stole Aila's TARDIS and went back through time.  Then they did something to result in this timeline where we are persecuted, for some unknown reason."

"Can we use your TARDIS, Aquilai, to fix this mess?" Cloak asked, completely dreading the time travel.

"Yes . . . and no.  I need to repair the circuitry -- the chronial shift damaged some them.  The chameleon circuit was still active, so it should be safe.  But I do need some more parts . . ."

"Will you help us save a friend of ours in exchange for parts?  Our leader?" Gaz asked, very formally.

"Richard?" Aquilai queried quickly.

"Who's Richard?"

"Okay, that answers that question."

"Yes, we'll go." Cloak said.

[Aquilai]

Keeping me hooked!  Good job Cloak ^^

[Cloak]

Thanks, Aquilai.  Eh, probably the last chapter of the night.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Fading Star

They walked in silence for quite some time.  Cloak held his emotions in check as well as his suspicions.  He loved his fellow RAFians as he would a sibling, but this chronial shift may have done many things that would have affected their morality, their temperments, among thousands of millions of billions of trillions of other things that he hadn't the time or patience to consider.

But they followed the five chronial-Dwellers to what appeared to be a smaller open-air area.  It had a structure that appeared very much like a stargate, only more massive than any Cloak has seen before.  He could tell that it was made of metal and stone, by his mastery over those elements.

There didn't look to be any guards, but the other five did not run out toward the thing, so the two Time Lords, SPARTAN, and two Realm Walkers stayed put as well.

"Something's not right," Guy said.  "There should be guards.  They couldn't be wearing those camo suits.  We destroyed their supply of them."

Cloak spread his toes and had his hind claws just touching the surface of the earth.  He was "listening" for any vibrations.  Shadow saw this and mimicked her uncle.

"What are you two doing?" Horse said.  He did not like the tone.  But assumed living in a post-apocalyptic world would do that to someone.

"Seeing if there are guards." Cloaky said, focusing his mind on the task.

"You're crazy.  You can't possibly think that you'll be able to --" Bear began.

"There.  On the left.  'Bout twelve feet from us." Shadow said, suddenly.

"And on the right, ten feet away." Cloak concluded.

"Oh, yeah," Parker said, a bit smug, "they've mastered the Six Elements."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, wood, fire, water, air, earth, and metal.  Let's get this done." Cloak said, irritably.  "Two guards.  That hardly seems . . . enough."

<They don't think very well of us.> Noelle said.

"And who's 'they'?" Aquilai asked, with a heavy-lidded look at Bear.  "Queen?"

"The Queen and her Hounds, yes." Bear sneered.

"Enough you two." Gaz and Cloak said at the same time.

"Let's go out," Parker suggested, "free that friend of yours.  Uh, where is he?"

"She's in the middle of that stone stargate thing." Guy said.

Cloak looked again, and noticed that their was a woman in a yellow, tattered sundress with frayed-looking hair.  She looked horribly pale, emaciated and sickly.  She was fading fast.  Cloak was shocked at the sight, because he never thought he'd see such a thing.  He was sure that she was too strong for such a fate.

"Estelore!" he cried.

Gaz eyed him, "Okay, maybe this chronial shift thing isn't a load of Taxxon manure."

A silent communication went through all ten of them.  They surged forward, toward the fading star.

[Gaz]

Alternate-timeline me is kind of a bad-ass. Cool. X-D

[Cloak]

  Yeah, to think, if you hadn't been sired . . . 

[Ash]

Haha Cloaky, I love your writing style so much! Your text just.. flows. The ending of chapter 14 (book 3) also had me in splits

Great work! I might PM you some aspects of my personality so you have a better idea of me xD

[Cloak]

Well, you're not in this book, Ash, but I might take that into account for future books.(This is only book four.  I have about twenty ideas now, and only used four.)

'Nother chapter soonish.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
The Hounds

The ten rushed into the area, easily taking out the two guards, and their ten guard backup.  Then they rush to the stargate-thing.

"How do we get her out?" Horse asked.

"I . . . don't know." Gaz confessed.

"Don't you think that's kinda important?" Guy reprimanded.

"Hey!  If you have --"

But fissured had appeared along the stone structures and large cracks and flaking metal shrapnel appeared on the thing.  They grew until the entire device was reduced to dust and metal shavings.

"Elements Master, 'member?" Cloak said.

Esty was encapsulated in a mauve and lavender energy orb that Shadow had created.  She lowered Esty to Cloak, who held her up when it was clear that she could not stand by herself.  Parker rushed over to help.

"Who are you?" Estelore's voice was harshly rough and coarse, but Cloak could hear the weariness in it.

"Cloak.  A friend." Cloak said, feeling a little hurt by not being remembered.  Sure, there was a chronial shift and all, but feelings are hardly ever rational.

Suddenly, a red light flashed ominously and an alarm blared.

"That ain't good," Parker commented immediately.

"No kidding!" Aila shrieked.

Then several wolfish people appeared, although, after a moment, it was obvious that it was some sort of uniform of blood red fur.  Their mouths and chins were uncovered by the hide, but everything else seemed to be.  Cloak noticed the wristband things that the five had were activating, showing thirteen little red dots.  Queen's allies, apparently.

"The Hounds!" Bear exclaimed.

"The Queen will be delighted," the head Hound spoke with a voice like a teenage Howler, which was odd, because there are NO teenage Howlers.  "Ten more souls for the Collector."

"The what?  What the hell is a 'Collector'?"

"Silence, vermin."

"I'm not the one wearing a bograt's fur."

"The Queen will have your souls.  She will reward our loyalty."

"The Queen uses you!  She poisons your minds to obtain that which she desires." Esty roared as best as she could.  It came out a bit wheezy and weak.  She stopped to take a few breaths.  "She cares nothing for you, or the people you hurt!"

There was brief silence from the Hounds, then one of the twelve follower Hounds muttered, "Duh."

"I don't think that had the desired effect, my stellar friend." Aquilai said to Estelore.

"Beside, you ten are too late.  Her soul is already on its way to the collector." the head Hound said.

Cloak looked back with a start to see a white glow leave Esty and head to the red light.  Then her body collapsed into energy, but might brighter and powerful than any Realm Walker would have.

"NO!" all ten shouted.

"Surrender to us now," the head Hound stated very formally, as if he'd memorized it as part of a procedure.

"Oh, yeah, that's gonna happen." Aquilai and Bear said at the same time, and gave each other evil looks after realizing this.

[Cloak]

'Nother chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
The Capture

The ten battle the Hounds with all of their strength . . . except Cloak, who pulled punches, afraid of causing extensive damage to the environment and, yes, the Hounds themselves.

Cloak fought them all until he made sure the others made their way out.  Then he easily escaped by boring through the rock beneath their feet, sealing the entrace terrakinetically, of course.

The group reconvined at a delapidated house.  They all were inside the basement, where they could still hear the Hounds hunting them.  That and hearing those Blood-Red Vans all over the place.  Cloak could even feel their vibrations beneath his feet.  It was a very ominous feeling.

"Estelore . . . gone . . ." Horse was practically sobbing.  It was perfectly understandable as this Queen took her soul for means unknown.  Cloak was starting to doubt whether this "Queen" was the Banned Queen that he knew.  Estelore and Queen were friends, and he was sure the Banned Queen would never steal her soul. . . .

"All this work, all for nothing!" Gaz raged quietly.

"There is a way this can all be undone," Aila inserted.

"How?" Bear asked, looking thoroughly miserable.

"The TARDIS," Aquilai said immediately.  "We could repair it and travel back and fix it."

"Wasn't that the plan all along?" Shadow asked, the others ignored her.

"Yes," Cloak said.  "Let's go and get the parts."

"Wait.  How do we know we can trust you?"

"You don't." Cloak said, thoroughly tired of this introspection.

Suddenly, metallic-looking tentacles(Cloak knew immediately that they weren't metal) plowed into the basement roof and snared all ten of them.  They must have had some thermal radar or something.

The ten were dumped unceremoniously into the hull.  They all were hopeless entangled with each other.  Their shouts of protest overlapped each other.

"Get your elbow out of my ear!"
"As soon as you get your flipper outta my nose!"
"Don't touch that!"
"Aaaah-choo!  Your fur is tickling my nose!"
"Stop touching me!"

[Cloak]

To think, that before Block posted the first reply in this thread, I was gonna delete it.    Warning: Long chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
The Soul Reason

They did not quit arguing and fighting and protesting until they were dumped unceremoniously dumped onto a large conveyor belt where they finally managed to disentangle themselves from each other.

"What happens now?" Horse said, fearfully.

This did not make Aquilai, Aila, Parker, Shadow or Cloak feel any better.  If these five former-RAFians had no idea what was in store, how could the time-lost ones?

The conveyor belt dumped them in what looked like a room full of those surrogate robots dealies, or the last episode of "First Wave".  Only Cloak's gut feeling told him that these weren't robots at all, but actual bodies.  Shells.  Husks.

Cloak's heart fell when he saw that there were more than just adults in this macabre mausoleum, when he saw kids.  Human kids of both genders, of every ethnicity, every eye and hair color combination and length, every age and height.  Alien kids of similar varitation.  There to seem very few adults, but a butt load of kids . . . Cloak closed his eyes rather than look.

Suddenly, a black door at the end of the "body shelves" opened.

"This looks like trouble." Gaz said shrewdly.

"Indeed, it does.  But if you want to find out more, you'll have to come in." said a harsh female voice from somewhere.

The ten did as they were instructed, with Cloak muttering, "It's gotta be a trap."

"I hate it when he says that," Parker moaned.

They entered a room just like the previous one, only with far more "shelf vacancies".  In the center of the room, a spire came down from the ceiling, attached to a suit that bore a very familiar resemblance.  It was black with fluorescent orange trim, with claw-tipped fingers.  It was evidently being charged up, as if it were a cell phone.

At the far end of the room was what appeared to be a small, squat step pyramid-like structure with a high-backed, red velvet, gold throne upon it.  And the Banned Queen sat upon it.

Cloak was sure she couldn't . . . wait.  Something was off here.  Cloak could feel evil emanating from her, but this was geniune evil.  Queen's evil is more like misguided hatred.

"Oh, you've finally arrived." she said.  She looked like Queen, she sounded like Queen . . . but something was certainly off.  Cloak could not put his finger on it, but something was certainly off.  "Ten new souls to power my suit."

"WHAT?!" Parker and Cloak yelled at the same time, voices intermingling.

"Oh, you know how much power this suit has?  You know the kind of power demand it has?"

"But using people's souls?  That's a bit extreme, even for you, Queen!" Parker argued.

"Oh, you think -- eh, never mind." she strolled down from her throne, and stopped a few feet from her suit.  "Allow me to change into something a bit more comfortable."

None of the ten knew what to say to this, but knew that she could not be allowed to put on the suit.  But what happened next caused them to be frozen in horror.  Queen closed her eyes, and a red orb dislodged itself from her chest and hovered were the head would be on the suit.  It disconnected itself from the spire, which was being retracted into the ceiling, as Queen's body was removed and placed in one of the vacant spaces on the wall.  Queen's soul must have already be removed, and these empty shells, these horrid husks, were nothing more than costumes for this monstrocity to try on, and discard as it sees fit.

"That's better," the virus said, its voice now neither male or female, neither old or young, but yet all of those things as well.  "Now, to store your souls in the Anima Battery.  If you don't fight me, you won't be hurt."

They all tensed, ready for a fight.

"Oh, come now, it doesn't hurt. Much."

[Cloak]

Well, I completed the chapter planning for the next book, and I hope you'll like it -- Shadow, Horse, Gaz, Ash, Aquilai, Yarin, Demos, Sakki, and I will have confirmed parts, but things are apt to change for the good or not.  Anyway, let's get back to this book, with this relatively short chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
The Escape

"Now, now.  It doesn't hurt much," the abomination before them said.  She -- it held something that looked very much like a Spark Extractor.  It was very obvious what it's function was, and they were not about to let this, this THING, use it.  They spread out, Cloak attempted to manipulate it ferrokinetically, but it was not made of metal . . . or wood.

"Run," Gaz said.  They fled down the passage way, until Aquilai looked around feverishly.  Cloak noticed that he had grabbed some parts, but could not imagine how he got them.  Perhaps he got them from the spire while we all were too busy being horrified.  But his arms were full, until Cloak put them into his cloak -- which could also double as storage devices.

"Where's Aila?!" he shouted.

They looked behind them, and, with a pang, saw that the creature had used the Soul Extractor on Aila.  Her soul was being funneled to the Anima Battery, and her body was being . . . stored.

"Aquilai, there's nothing we can do about her now.  Go!" Parker said.

"But --"

"NOW, AQUILAI!" Cloak roared.  "We need you to fix the blasted TARDIS!!"

And off they went.  It seemed like no time before they made it to the TARDIS, with Horse, Gaz, Bear, Guy, and Noelle standing guard.  They didn't really have reason to trust the chronial-shifted ones, but apparently seeing one of their own taken to be a "trophy" had garnered some limited trust.