Memoirs of a RAFian

[Cloak]

Still gonna try to get at least Chapter 15 today. Not let the RL stress get to me.
 

CHAPTER TWELVE:
An Island's Spire

Yarin related these findings to the rest of the RAFians in the auditorium, where the meeting was being held.  Saffa made a comment about him being in Antarctica, and Abby just frowned deeply.
 
"So, Richard's somewhere where it's cold," Phoenix said.  "That not really much to go on, Yarin."
 
"It's all I got before the signal vanished." Yarin said, holding his hands out helplessly.
 
 "It's better than nothing, Phoenix," Blue called out.

"True," Phoenix said, thoughtfully.

"But that was only part of it," Yarin pressed on.  There's a mysterious floating island and several botanical oddities."

"Why does this seem so familiar?" Gaz wondered quietly. "It's like these events are based on a show that I reviewed*."

Then Yarin showed the readouts and scans in full 3D glory.  It showed the island was roughly shaped like a figure eight (without holes in the interior), but it was clearly supposed to be based on the symbol for infinity. It had a stone monolith, a marble obelisk with a crystal-like pyramidal point, on one side, and what appeared to be a pond on the other.

"A floating island?" Parker blinked.  "How is it kept aloft?"

"The Master Emerald?" Underseen guessed blithely.

"Probably some Vox technology," Cloak said, as the Vox had already been explained at the beginning at the meeting. "Perhaps some chronal dissemination or something."

"They do this kind of thing, and then they claim to keep the time stream along its proper path." Aquilai spat. "Hypocrites."

"Oh, yeah, Time Lords and the Vox have an antagonistic relationship." Cloak said.

"Yeah, we gathered," Duff interjected.

"What's that spire?" Goom asked.  "Some kind of weapon, or perhaps that's what's keeping the island aloft?"

"We . . . we should investigate." Phoenix said, still somewhat unsure.

"Too right we should," Cloak said, stepping forward. "I'm going."

"I'm not sure that's advisable, Cloak," Kelly said. "You've only just regained consciousness. You need bedrest --"

"I repeat, I'm GOING."

"And so am I." Parker announced right after.

"I volunteer," Aquilai said, but his reasons were not really hidden all that well.

"I'm going as well!" Gaz piped up.

"You're not cutting me out of this, I'm in!" Saffa declared.

Phoenix sighed heavily, "Fine.  Cloak, Parker, Aquilai, Saffa, and Gaz will go and investigate this mysterious island."

The five left to prepare.

I hope I made the right decision, Phoenix thought afterward.

***

Meanwhile, unlike the RAFians, Queen snuck off the Bannedlands to investigate.  She didn't want to have to share anything with the other Banned and trolls. She knew that there was something powerful on that island -- otherwise how did it stay up? This was her glory. This was her power to take. No one were to know -- and trolls are notoriously awful for keeping secrets and equally greedy and stupid, so she confided her plan to no one.

She had come to be on the island easily enough, simply by climbing a high mountain precipice and the falling about six feet onto the surface.

Success!

Now to get to the spire, and take that power for her own.

---
*Yes, Gaz.  I think you see what I'm getting at.

[Cloak]

Finished planning out the chapters of "The Contingency", moving on to "Muppet, Muppet Man".

• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food

The RAFians must confront a different kind of vampire.

• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation

The RAFians must confront some strange machines.

• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn

The RAFians must get Richard's Horn, a mystical musical instrument, back from Malice, who received it from a RAFian traitor.

• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream

A Wildwethel-centric book, he must deal with his feral side.

• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey

The RAFians are being preyed upon by some sentient predators.

• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem

The RAFians must deal with a powerful snot-nosed kid who, quite literally, can do whatever he wants.

• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen

Four RAFians are captured and converted into four Horsemen of the ancient, rogue Realm Walker Cataclysm.

• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks

The RAFians must deal with Heinlein aliens.

• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare

The RAFians must survive their own nightmares.

• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms

The RAFians must contend with a rather bloodthirsty leprechaun.

• Book XLIII: The Piper

The RAFians must contend with a pied piper.

• Book XLIV: Starlight Desire

The RAFians race Malice, Abomination, and the Banned to a wishing star (no, not Estelore).

• Book XLV: A War of Armor

Parker is outraged to see knockoffs of his rather unique armor and what they're being used for.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the paparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailer.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.

• Book LXVIII: They're Such Cards

The RAFians are sealed into cards, which end up trapped in an ancient leather-bound book, and it's up to three kids to free them.  An out-of-continuity book.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an oxidation ray wielded by a criminal.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Garrotik.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder-like ghost called Regiphaetos.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to Mojo's programs.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards which are ineffective on them.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind, optically-speaking.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age caused by a Diznee Ice Ifrit.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people which the Mark cannot protect the RAFians from.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims, provided they're younger than him.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Saberhagen) for a magical branding iron in Faerie's possession.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Nothing like a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  Sorry.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.

• Book XCVII: The Box

The RAFians must cage thirteen Revenants released from Pandora's Box -- each representing and amplifying a particular feeling (i.e. hatred), while looking for the perfect host.

• Book XCVIII: From the Shadows

The RAFians must save their shadows and the shadows of everyone else from being absorbed (eaten) by the Umbraraptors, but not everything is what it seems.

• Book XCIX: Grimm Prospects

The RAFians discover Malice controlling several "wesen" with control collars akin to April's in "Catwoman from Channel Six" and get stuck in one-on-one battles to the death with them.  One will die.

• Book C: Loop-De-Loop

Everyone's trapped in a temporal loop, but the only ones that realize it are Cloak, Aila, and Aquilai.

• Book CI: Get 'Em, Shaw

The RAFians face a creature native to the planet Gossamer, who's under the control of Malice.

• Book CII: Threadfall

The RAFians must exterminate an epidemic of Thread.

• Book CIII: Siren's Song

The RAFians must deal with a siren and her alluring song.

• Book CIV: Resistance is Futile

The RAFians must deal with a hybridization of the Borg and the Hive chips (Ben 10: Alien Swarm) -- which the Mark cannot protect them from, nor the Unity energy can destroy.

• Book CV: The Titan

The RAFians must contend with the Titan serum and its effects.

• Book CVI: A Stony Glare

The RAFians must deal with a hungry Stone-Biter and a petrifying venom of a Diznee Stone Ifrit.

• Book CVII: Spritely Pests

The RAFians must deal with irritating sprites, which Faerie has had some rather tenuous experiences with.

• Book CVIII: Destroy All . . . What?

The RAFians must contend with a Furon incursion, and it turns out the Nyacs have knowledge of Furons. . . .

• Book CIX: Going Backwards

A grievious malfunction in Aquilai's TARDIS causes time to reverse its flow and flow backwards.

• Book CX: Death Takes A Holiday

The RAFians must convince Death to take up his role again.  A RAFian will die in this book, and it is within the continuity.

• Book CXI: High Price Stakes

Shanker and Gaz must flee and elude Daphne, the vampire hunter.

• Book CXII: A Killer Housing Market

The RAFians must survive and either destroy or escape a killer house.

• Book CXIII: A Silenced World

The RAFians must cope with a world that has become muted and a young sorceress, Melissa Spellman.

• Book CXIV: The Bureau

The RAFians must save their own from the insideous Bureau of Lost.

• Book CXV: To Tell the Truth

Broken's apprentice, Melissa, accidentally casts a spell forcing everyone to tell the truth.

• Book CXVI: Skin Crawlers

The RAFians, repulsed and revolted, must contend with Hundred (who eventually becomes Thousand, then becomes Million, then Billion, and then, finally, Trillion).

• Book CXVII: School of Stepford Lies

The RAFians must save the children from a school that turns them into Stepford students at Terenia's school.

• Book CXVIII: Ol' Salty

The RAFians must deal with the Salt Man.

• Book CXIX: The Great Race

The RAFians hold a race that Aloth cons himself into.  Who will win?

• Book CXX: Ape Escape

The RAFians must help super intelligent apes -- Caesar the chimp, Brutus the gorilla, and Maestro the orangutan -- reconcil their misanthropy.

• Book CXXI: A Different Kind of Unity

The RAFians must contend with a parasitic "unity".

• Book CXXII: The Great Brain Robery

Someone is stealing brains for an unknown purpose.

• Book CXXIII: The Bounty Hunter

The Knights, in their hypocricy, hire a Tsul'Kalu bounty hunter to collect select RAFians (to taxidermy).

• Book CXXIV: New Controllers

The RAFians confront Zirconians.

• Book CXXV: Creeping Crystal

A wave of crystallizing energy is sweeping the land. . . .

• Book CXXVI: The Element Feeder

The RAFians deal with a creature who feeds on a specific element and matures to a different element each time as it matures. . . .

• Book CXXVII: The Rider and the Walker

The RAFians come up against the Ghost Rider.

• Book CXXVIII: Headhunters

What will happen when RAFians lose their heads?  Seriously.

• Book CXXIX: The Color Purple, Man!

The RAFians confront the Purple Man, who manages to turn the entire government against them . . .

• Book CXXX: The Nemetrix Beetle

The RAFians confront the Black Beetle with Nemetrix properties.

• Book CXXXI: It's Tought to Be A Mod

The members of a primitive forum declare Demos and Blue to be mods. . . .

• Book CXXXII: Who-Zilla?

An energy reaction begins turning RAFians into monstrous creatures in 3XXX.  Out-of-continuity book.

• Book CXXXIII: Well, Techadon-ally . . .

The RAFians confront Techadons who assign them qualitive quatilities, and refuse to acknowledge any defeats.

• Book CXXXIV: The Mind's Eye

The RAFians face Spellbinder and his realistic illusions.

• Book CXXXV: Bas-ic Instincts

Bas awakens and attempts to take control of Cloak and other felines.

• Book CXXXVI: Midas Duck

The RAFians must contend with a very strange golden idol and a greedy sneak-thief.

• Book CXXXVII: War with the Warworlds

The RAFians must defeat two heavily-armed Warworlds.

• Book CXXXVIII: Solar Sucks

The RAFians must save Estelore from a device able to suck out her stellar substance and lifeforce.

• Book CXXXIX: Hounded

The RAFians are attacked by hellhounds that only Demos can see, although Cloak can "see" them via Earthsight.

• Book CXL: Politics

The RAFians, much to Cloak's chagrin and irritation, get caught up in the middle of Realm Walker politics.

• Book CXLI: Buggy Afternoon

A Bug is after Parker's blood, to "avenge" their brother slain by the SPARTAN.

• Book CXLII: Cloak's Nightmare

Cloak has an exceedingly vivid nightmare of the Great RAFian Purge. . . .

• Book CXLIII: Cloak and the Olympians

Cloak confronts and defies the Olympians.

• Book CXLIV: Down to Earth

The RAFians have gravity-related problems.

• Book CXLV: Hittin' the Dino-Sauce

The RAFians learn the dangers of Dino-Sauce.

• Book CXLVI: Blood Feud

Shanker's past comes into light. . . .

• Book CXLVII: She's Back! A Dino Story

Pretty much a shameless parody of "We're Back! A Dinosaur Story".

• Book CXLVIII: A Journey into Her Past

Delving into Noelle's pre-RAFian life and her relationship with Ardnalil-Shicom-Maar.

• Book CXLIX: Mortality and Morality

The RAFians face some rather conceited Leviathons.

• Book CL: Utter Pandemonium

Cloak, Gaz, Saffa, Underseen, and Hunter investigate odd goings-on at a theme park island named "Haunted Island".

• Book CLI: A Reality Rewrite

Cloak, Faerie, Broken, and Broken's protege discover a magical, reality-altering typewriter.  Cloak, being a Realm Walker and the other three, being magical, are immune to its rewrites of reality.

• Book CLII: The Coming of Galacticron

The RAFians must save Earth from Galacticron.

• Book CLIII: Theft of Intellectual Property

The RAFians must contend with Brainiac.

• Book CLIV: The Contingency

The RAFians must battle the Talos Project and their living weapon -- Weapon XLIX.

• Book CLV: Muppet, Muppet Man

Parker and Gaz are turned into Muppets. ()

• Book CLVI: Larval Ambush

The RAFians must deal with insectoid creatures who are parasitoids with humans.

• Book CLVII: As the World Doesn't Turn

The RAFians must stop a group of feline aliens from stopping the world from rotating.

• Book CLVIII: Princess Pearls

A few girls of RAf discover the Princess Pearls.

• Book CLVIX: Attack of the Killer Produce

The RAfians must deal and cope with killer produce.

• Book CLX: Moonscarred Menace

The RAfians investigate mysterious disappearances on Moonscar Island.

[Cloak]

Now, another chapter for a bit.
 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Traps and Megalomania

The RAFians had arrived on the island, and began to walk toward the spire.  Cloak found the simple act of walking on this hovering island very odd and strange.

"It's like walking on one of those cliffs in what you call Looney Tunes," Cloak commented.  "It feels like every footstep will send me plunging down into an abyss."

"It's not like that for me," Saffa said, conversationally.

"Yeah, well, you can't Earthsight, can you?" Cloak said, still feeling as if he was walking on a tightrope. Saffa conceded him this point.

"Wait! That marking there --" Aquilai said pointing to a strange mark that looked like a little headless stickfigure holding up a sleeping back with a scythe-like pickaxe. "What does it mean?"

Suddenly, both ends of the valley they were in were closed off by stones. Stones that started pushing in on them.

"Vox for 'trap'?" Gaz guessed.

"I think that's very likely." Parker replied.

Cloak terrakinetically blasted the rocks away, and left the way clear.  But then the spire charged up and attempted to hit Cloak, who batted it away.

"Well, no one said that this would be easy," Aquilai shrugged.

It wasn't the first trap they had to deal with either.

***

Queen, however, had a huge honkin' head start, and, therefore, made that association earlier.  She made it to the interior of the spire.  She easily made it up to the top, and sat in a velvet throne as if it was waiting their for her. She was infused with energy shortly after, changing her color scheme to black and silver.

She now had total control over the spire and the island. It grossly increased Queen's already present megalomania.  It was too easy . . . almost like the Vox wanted her to take control over the island.  But Queen didn't even consider this.  She didn't care who did what, as long as he got the power that she wanted.

She charged up the blast of the spire to fire directly upon the RAFians. . . . Only for it to come right back at her.  The spire was rather decimated by its own power.

"No . . ." she moaned, as she was blasted to the lake as the island started to fall and crash.  "NO . . ."

"I think it's time to leave," Gaz said, going batty.

Parker accessed the Hawk Ride Armor, and told Tyr to shut up.  Aquilai and Cloak rode the same energy disc as Cloak formed it beneath their feet. Saffy was in red-tailed hawk mode.  Then Cloak picked up Queen in an energy sphere, muttering, "I had better not regret this."

Then they abandoned the island, as Saffa said, <Well, that was a bit rushed.>

[Gaz]

The floating island! Gotta watch out for those aliens and stuff.

[Underseen]

Don't you mean Angel Island Gaz?

[Cloak]

Yep. I'll try to get another two chapters up.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
The Pustule Plant

While the island investigative team were doing their thing, Yarin discovered some strange techno-organic botanical pustule. He thought it could be related to the Vox. FuBar and Raevyn were dispatched to investigate.

The two travelled there in silence, they really haven't spoken or socialized with each much in the forum.

"We have arrived at the site," Raevyn reported making flying movements rather like Yveltal in the Pokemon Direct video.

"Don't take unnecessary risks," Yarin said.

"Roger that," Raevyn said, as the avian smirked as she landed.

The plant looked like a purple, pulsating pustule with four rather fake-looking leaves at its base.

"There's no way that this thing is biological," FuBar said, scrutinizing it.

"Surely not," Raevyn agreed.

"Don't call me Shirley," FuBar said with a smirk.

"Careful with the joke," Raevyn said, with mock solemnity, "it's an antique."

FuBar opened his mouth to say something, but the putrid plant pod opened up, revealing poisonous yellow quarters with a long whip-like "tongue" that darted around. It seized FuBar by his left hind leg, and shocked him with a powerful energy discharge. FuBar succumbed to unconsciousness.

"I'm on my way!" Bladeh called out, dashing, full-pelt, toward the two distressed RAFians. Raevyn was displayed full aerial expertise in dodging the poisonous barbs that the plant shot from its fleshy quarters.

But eventually one caught her in a fleshy part of her wing. The poison acted quickly, but not instantaneously.

It let go of FuBar's leg and whipped Bladeh with it, slamming it into her with quite an amount of force.

Bladeh was the only on of the three standing, and rather wobbly at that.

[theyoungphoenix]

Oh crap!! Now something else to deal with!

[Cloak]

Well, nothing's ever really easy, Abby.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
The Plant's Grasp and Gasp

"FuBar! Raevyn! Bladeh! Come in!" Yarin yelled, having rose to his feet.

"This . . . this is . . . Bladeh," her voice crackled upon the communcations console.

"What is happening?" Yarin demanded.

"Raevyn . . . and FuBar . . . they're hurt. . . . Or worse . . . I dunno . . ."

"Stay with me, Bladeh!" Yarin said in ringing tones.

There was a crackling silence.

"Bladeh! Bladeh! Answer me."

Nothing.

Yarin's mind was made up, he arranged for Aila to monitor communications as he collected Kelly and headed for his ship.

***

It looked ver bad for the trio, though Raevyn was in a worse state due to the venom.

But all three were still alive, if barely.

Yarin's ship showed up and the plant fired its poisonous barbs at it, which deafened the air with a tinny "tink-clunk-tink-clunk". They had no effect, natually.

Yarin fired a thin welding laser at the plant, which curled, charred and soon was blackened into rather inefficient charcoal.

Yarin deftly landed, and had Kelly investigate the three. Kelly resorted to using her healing powers on Raevyn to counteract the poison. She attended to the other two when all three were safely on board.

"Setting course back to RAF," Yarin said.

***

"This creatures interfere with the experiments," the larger of the two Vox said.

"Clearly taking away there leader didn't get them to behave themselves," the other one said.

"Indeed," the first agreed.

"What shall our next move be?" the second asked, as if this was just some game they were playing.

[theyoungphoenix]

Ooh.... Interesting.

[redtailedsaffa]

This is getting weirder.

And I get something to do. Cool!

[Sakki]

Dammit, CLoak. I know Bladeh in real life. Oh the feels :c

[Cloak]

Well, she's not a background character in this book, as she usually is, is she, Sakki?

I'll try to finish off this book today.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Vox's Hostage

Days passed. Excruciating days where no information or lead surfaced. Yarin has resumed his post in communications, but had begun to lose his vigor at find Richard's signal -- kind of like breeding Pokemon for a shiny.

"My . . . RAFians . . ."

It was barely audible. Yarin had diffuculty making out the words. He was about to dismiss it when he heard:

"Can you hear me? . . ."

"Huh?" Yarin muttered inquistively.

"My RAFians? . . ."

"Richard . . . ?"

"Yarin. . . ."

"Yes! Yes, it's me." Yarin said eagerly. "Richard, where are you?"

"I dunno . . ."

"Try! What do you see? What's your environment?"

"Void. . . ."

"Richard, the signal is weakening. What else can you tell me? What else?"

"They watch. . . ."

"'They'? Who's 'they'? Richard! Answer me, please!"

"I don't know what they are. . . ."

"I'm losing you . . ." Yarin working frantically to boost the signal.

"I'm losing you."

Yarin swore loudly, in his native Nyac, as he lost the signal.

Meanwhile, Cloak and Aquilai was watching video of Stonehedge and the way that it was glowing so perversely. . . .

[Cloak]

Okay, currently on Chapter Six of "Muppet, Muppet Man", as far as chapter-plannin' is going.
 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Hedgin' a Vox Transport

"I can't believe I didn't see it before," Aquilai said.  "Stonehenge is nothing more than a Vox chronal transport. A way to get into their guarded territory."
 
Aquilai examined the video captured from the site.
 
"It's rather sloppy of them, when you think about it." the Time Lord commented. "Putting it there, right out in the open, quite conspicuous."
 
"Perhaps it wasn't sloppy at all," Cloak said, suspiciously. "It could very well be a trap."
 
"And they could have very well been careless." Aquilai insisted. "Cloak, you really shouldn't be so paranoid all the time."
 
"When I wasn't, I blundered into a trap by the Music Miser," Cloak informed him.
 
"Let it go, that happened a long time ago." Aquilai said, cuffing Cloak on the shoulder.
 
Cloak remained surly, but he had reached his decision. "Trap or no, I will go. There are a few things that I'd like to say to these Vox creeps."
 

***

"Are you sure that we shouldn't have told anyone?" Aquilai asked.
 
"Oh, I let Itellsya see me leave, and didn't you notice how I was speaking just a little loudly than necessary?" Cloak said as he scrutinized the structures. "Kinda looks like a Galvin practical joke, doesn't it?"

"I wouldn't know," Aquilai said drily. "But why would it matter if Itellsya was aware of our departure and the reasons behind it?"

"Don't you know? Itellsya is the biggest gossip in RAF." Cloak said. "And he never quite knows when to shut up, so he isn't very big on the brains category."

"So, are we going or not?" Aquilai said, stepping into the ruins.

Then the two travelled into the realm of the Vox, to retrieve Richard.

[theyoungphoenix]

Fun. Cloak, you are cleaver.

[Cloak]

How am I a cleaver? I'm a tiger-form Realm Walker.

Three more chapters to go before this book is over -- unless I split a chapter in two.
 

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Subspace Skirmish

"He's been contacting his brethren," the smaller Vox told the larger.
 
"But how?" the other queried passively, as if this was only a mild nuisance.
 
"There is not enough evidence as of yet to determine," the first said.
 
"Well, you don't speak as annoyingly as a Kraangdroid," a voice cut through to the two Vox.
 
"What's this?" the larger said.
 
"A Time Meddler and a Reality Transcender," the smaller said.
 
"That's Time Lord, you bloody hypocrites," Aquilai snarled.
 
"The Time Meddler does enjoy his self-proclaimed title of 'Lord'," the larger one said, as if this wasn't glaringly obvious.
 
"And I am a Walker," Cloak said, "a Realm Walker."
 
"You are insignificant ant," the smaller Vox said, addressing Cloak for the first time.
 
"Gnat," the larger one corrected.
 
"Gnat," the smaller one agreed.
 
"And I though my kind were arrogant," Cloak commented wearily.
 
"You cannot to anything to us in our own domain -- we know of your elemental prowess." the larger one lectured.
 
"There are no elements here for which to bend to your will," the smaller one explained.
 
"You think so?" Cloak said with a sardonic smirk and a raised eyebrow. Then he executed a right hook and seemed to mimic Guile's Sonicboom projectile which hit the larger one directly into the face (not that it was exactly a small target).
 
"The gnat dares to strike at us!!" the larger one roared.
 
"Aquilai, get Richard and prepare to leave." Cloak whispered, in an aside to Aquilai.
 
"But, I can fight!"
 
"There is nothing here for you to bend," Cloak pointed out practically. "I still can use my energy offensively. Go now."

Aquilai may not have liked it but Cloak was right.  Cloak battled rather viciously with the Vox, as Aquilai managed to seize Richard and was heading back to the transporter.

"They are taking what we rightfully took," the smaller Vox pointed out.

"You had no right in taking Richard," Cloak countered.

"We had every right! Whatever we decide is what's right!" the larger one roared.

They were swarming him now.  Cloak just smiled grimly as he removed his cloak . . .