Memoirs of a RAFian

[Cloak]

I was tired, I guess. I am sure I typed "2", but my kindle fire must've autocorrected it, or something. The damn thing can be a pain in the friggin' neck.

case in friggin' point when I had to shut the goddamn thing down just so I could type.

Okay, I finished planning out Book CCCX ("Underseen's Brothers"), and I must say that I rather like Underseen's progression, not to mention I think his backstory is interesting. Book CCCXI ("Dark Hearts") will be an interesting, if not dark, book that will see the return of a villain, if briefly.

CHAPTER THREE:
Fainting Felines

Meanwhile, while this power conferring was happening, miles away it was felt. FuBar, Blade, Kitsu -- all the feline RAFians slumped into unconsciousness. All except Cloak, who was far too obstinate succumb to unconsciousness. But he felt it, the scope and power of this evil. He even suspected what it could be.

But it wasn't possible. They had destroy that book of pure evil. Hadn't they? So, this couldn't be possible. It was unfathomable. But yet . . . the sense of looming evil . . . there was no mistaking that.

"What's up?" Dino said, clearly alarmed. She had stomped her way to them, narrowly missing Goom, nearly giving him heart failure. That is, if Goombas, in fact, possessed hearts. "What happened?"

"Something serious," Cloak gulped out.

"Worse than the Arachnoids?" Abby asked, hiding a shutter.

"Worse than Malice?" Super Nate asked.

"Worse than an 'F' in Chemistry?" Saffa said, clearly with an exam on the brain.

Cloak looked at all assembled, and at the prone forms of the other feline RAFians. If one did not take the time to watch intently for breathing, it would be easy to mistake them for dead. It was up to him to say it.

"It has been found," he lamented.

"What has been found?" Underseen asked.

"The book, Bibliophaetos's book!" the tiger Realm Walker answered with a deep breath.

"That can't be," Gaz said, seemingly hoping that if she said it out loud it would be so.

"It is," Cloak said.

"But why now?" Phoenix said. "It's been months since the fight with Bibliophaetos."

"There are no accidents," Blaze intoned.

"Don't get all existential on us, Blaze." Goom said.

"What?"

"Never mind."

[Cloak]

Okay, new chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
In Their Skin

Ivan had walked away leaving the book behind. There wasn't anything worthwhile written in it anyway, or so he believed. He did not realize that it was more special than he believed, had a more interesting history than he was aware of.

He moved to exit, as he thought how he could get close to Cloak, to kill him (apparently, perfectly unaware that such a task is an impossible one for a Realm Dweller). He couldn't be direct about it, he would never be able to get close. He did not know about the new power that was granted to him.

"Hey! Watch it," said a teen, with a voice that clearly indicated that he was high or drunk, "ya old geezer."

"Watch how you speak to me, young man." Ivan growled.

Suddenly, this kid was up on his feet -- an angry drunk, apparently. The boy looked like someone between Greg Cipes and Justin Whalen who is trying very hard to look like Justin Bieber for some reason*. He had a flop of hair the color of a perfectly-cooked turkey, with pasty white skin beneath tan lines. He wore clothing that tended to indicate that he dressed pell-mell this morning. He was alone, and it was a very bad thing to be right now.

But, making mistakes seemed to be what this intelligence-deficient high school truant was quite good at, and never learning from them also seemed to be quite a forte. This was proven when he made his very last mistake, he got into Ivan's face.

Now, while this may not seem very grievous of an offense at first glance, this led Ivan to discover the evil power it conferred to him.

"Whatcha gonna do about, Cryptkeeper?"

Ivan place his hand on the teen's face, with the intention of pushing it off. What happened was that the teen's skin slid unnaturally beneath Ivan's fingers, and the teen's skin also slid unnaturally over his own face until the two parted company. He fell to the ground. No longer alive, though his skin looked live.

Ivan toom a step back, surprised at his unintentional pulling of the teen's skin. He was aghast for a moment or two, but the more he looked at the skin, the more it looked . . . wearable. His conscience was soon overpowered by curiosity and smidge of greed.

He went over to the boy, and fully separated the skin with the muscle and sinew. They separated far easier than normal, though with gross squishing sounds. He was a bit giddy at his thought of pulling him on, though thinking it would be as obvious as a Bug wearing an Edgar-suit.

With more gross squishing, and with some odd cracking sounds joining it, he was fully enveloped in the skin. Then he looked at his reflection in the nearest reflective mirror, albeit cracked and broken, and found, to his delight, that he looked exactly as the teen did a few minutes ago.

"Whoa, so cool." he said. He was shocked again with delight, as he spoke with a perfect, but innate, impersonation of this teen, this Harry Aloysius Gulliver. Granted, Ivan didn't know the teen's name, or anything about his history, other than the exchange the two of them just had.

But Ivan had gotten careless as he left, as he had discarded the muscle and sinew and all Harry's vital organs, but it was still recognisable as a human body. This power also preserves that "skin filler" for a time longer than normal decomposition would have set in.

---
*Based on a news article I read about some 33-year-old man in Philadelphia, I think it was, aho was having plastic surgeries to look more like the Bieber brat.

[redtailedsaffa]

That. Is disgusting.

Although I'm definitely passing chemistry.

[Cloak]

I meant it as a fear of getting an "F" on an exam.

• BOOK CCCXXXIV: "Well, That's A Mood Changer" -- A familiar villian uses biologically engineered neural parasites imbued with the power of the Mood Stones on RAF.

I'll post a new chapter when I've the energy . . .

CHAPTER FIVE:
Learning Limitations

Enthralled at his new identity and form, an identity and form he stole from a stupidly loudmouthed teenager. So estatic was he at the seeming loss of his "geezer" status, he forgot several important things. His daughter for one, though his ex-wife wasn't helping matters either by demonizing him to her, and she bought it hook, line and sinker. But Ivan . . . he no longer cared. He was too busy reveling in this newfound power.

He had not forgotten the impossible obsession to assassinate Cloak that was conferred to him with his powers. Not forgotten, just placed on the back burner for the moment. Something that he'll come back to.later after he's had his fun with this perverse form of identity theft. But Ivan never considered that this power might come with limitations, as he attended the nearest high school (which was actually just a crap shoot, as he held none of Harry's memories, and he just really lucked out on that account).

He realized the limitation qlmost immediately when his "scalp" began to bleed. He tried to pass it off to the curious passersby as nothing, saying, "Oh, you know how the scalp bleeds."

Several muttered in stage whispers, "He's high again," or "He's been drinking again," or some derivative of those two, usually prudent and correct, assumptions. How could they know that they were just looking upon a pathetic middle-aged man wearing a skin of a high schooler that inexplicably made him look like the person in life, like their double, when, by all accounts, it should look like a cheap, low-quality costume character entertainer knockoff.

Now, Ivan learned a severe drawback. These skins do not last forever, eight and a half hours tops, before they deteriorate rather quickly. This would not do, he would have to find another "disguise" -- another sign as to how these powers had warped his mind. These were no longer people to him, but mere disguises to don, naught but mere costumes to be put on. The fact that his victims lost their lives in the process meant nothing to him. He had lost all empathy for his own species, thereby losing his humanity.

He hurrried to the bathroom to check out the damage to the skin, and see if it was salvageable. He liked this skin, he didn't want to change just yet. But, looking in the mirror, he could see there was little choice. The skin color was graying ever so slightly, the texture becoming less realistic and more easily tearable. The hair color was becoming wispy, sparse, and duller in color. There was no way he would be able to continue with the act. He'd never get at Cloak.

Then someone, a thoroughly miserable-looking kid, came in and made a beeline for one of the urinals. Ivan and he were alone in the bathroom. He had brushed by Ivan with a angsty-sounding, "Sorry."

Ivan examined him covertly. The identity wasn't ideal, but this skin was pretty much done for . . . this "disguise" would have to do until he could find something better. Ivan didn't even realize that such thinking often led to addictions. That he was already addicted to this sinister form of identity theft.

The kid wore a shirt of polychromatic shirt of horizontal lines and blue jeans. The kid possessed a dark complexion, short-cropped black hair, a nondescript face, and unnaturally white teeth. He finished what he came her to do, and walked to the sink shoulders haunched forward, looking down as he washed his hands.

The hapless kid, an underclassman, became Ivan's replacement for Harry's skin, which he carelessly discarded, as it curled into decomposition. Ivan stowed the body in a locked stall, and then he put the skin on, over his damp suit again. Once again, he inexplicably resembled the kid, this Ronnie Alastor Sheldon, and spoke inexplicably with his voice, perfect mimicry.

[redtailedsaffa]

C r e e p y

[Cloak]

Eh, it's based off an episode of a series called, uh, I think it's called "Todd and the Book of Pure Evil", episode "Daddy Tissues". Granted, it is loosely based on it, as I've never seen the episode all the way through, and it's the only episode I've really seen of the series.

CHAPTER SIX:
Investigation Now!

The other feline RAFians were starting to come around, but the sense of an evil in the world had not abated totally. Cloak was getting antsy, pacing like a bored tiger in a cage. He felt like he was sitting around, doing nothing useful. He wasn't Rotiart -- he didn't enjoy shirking responsibilities, scapegoating others for his own ineptitudes.

"Cloak, you've got to calm down." Aquilai said, watching the Realm Walker with genuine concern.

Cloak acknowledged him with a look and deftly went back to his fretful pacing. A small rut in the earth began to form, but Cloak paid it no mind. Something was clearly going on, something was up. The nature of which Cloak couldn't possibly fathom, as the possibilities numbered in the billions, and Cloak's imagination was far too overactive on this venue.

"Cloak, all this stress you're putting on yourself is libel to give you an heart attack, or something," Saffa said, taking her nose out of her textbook. She needed a break, anyway. "Think of your health."

"I am perfectly fine," Cloak said, repressively.

"Cloak, all this stress can't be good for you." Abby replied gently.

"Forget the Gateburst stress!" Cloak said, unintentionally allowing some of his frustrations to vent out. "Something very severe has happened, very obviously, and we're not doing anything about it! No, we're just sitting here, going about our lives as if it has no meaning for us! It could be the Time War with the Chronians and Chronosapiens again, for all we know!"

"What Time War?" Underseen said.

"What's Chronian?" Aquilai asked, simultaneously with Saffa.

"What's a Chronosapien?" Saff asked, simultaneously with Aquilai.

"Never you mind, that a story for a different time," Cloak said, quite serious and sincere. "The point is, that people could be dying. Dying as we persist in doing nothing."

Cloak made his decision -- if he overstepped boundaries, he would take the blame, the responsibility. But something had to be done.

"I'm going to investigate," Cloak said. "The book was in that old, long-abandoned circus last time. That'll be the first place I'll investigate."

Cloak turned to leave, but a hand shot out and grasped him on the shoulder, or tried to at least. Aquilai said, "And who will watch your back? I'm going too."

Saffa shut her textbook with a snappish movement. "I'm coming, as well. I need some time away from studying."

"Me too!" Abby said.

"I'm coming!" Underseen said.

***

A shriek seared the air a few moments later. Saffa had found Harry's skeletal remains. But it was very clear it wasn't a natural death as the bones were buried in ashy decomposition. It was a truly revolting sight.

"What could possibly do this?" Aquilai said, going pale in the face.

"I have no idea." Cloak answered, truthfully.

[redtailedsaffa]

Wait! The Time War got erased from history, didn't it? From the Memoirs book of the same name.

[Cloak]

Cloak was just grasping at straws when he said that in the narrative, while it technically never happened, he/I still have memory of it, as does Shadow and the Celestialsapiens. But no one else does. It will not come into play, it was just a reference.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
New Flesh

Ivan was learning so much about high school social cases, oddly something he never paid attention to when he was in high school. As Harry, he experienced the dismissive and condescension commonly associated with kids of his like -- not the stoners or the drunks or even drug-users, but by being an arrogant snotnose. He wasn't too sure he liked it, looking back. He was just enthralled to feel young again, not really aware of the avoidance some of the kids had around him.

As this kid, this "Ronnie", in his skin, he discovered quite easily why he was so miserable. He was a magnet for the school's bullies, as he was obviously an outsider, one who didn't mesh with the societal norms, apparently. Ivan wasn't sure he liked this identity much. Perhaps he should find a new one. One with influence, one who could lure the cloaked one here so that he could --

"Oh, look, it's Ronniekins!" came a voice of a deep baritone.

Ivan looked up, and saw the athletic, sporty Nolan Theodore Brody. He was Ronnie's primary bully, and the leader of the rest. Ivan honestly couldn't see why Nolan would bother being a bully. By all outward appearances, he had the perfect family, a plethora of friends and hangers-on, an opulent home, guaranteed scholarship . . . and yet, he needed to bully Ronnie to make himself feel better?

When Ivan did not react as Ronnie would normally -- when he would not cringe at his very first word -- Nolan took this as a sign of disrespect. And those that disrespected Nolan Brody needed to be dealt with. But the complication in this was that Ivan wasn't nearly as afraid of Nolan as Ronnie was, and Ivan hadn't any access to Ronnie's long-since-evaporated mind and memories. He did not know that he was acting out of character.

"You dare disrespect me?" Nolan growled. "Bow to me, worm!"

"Why?" Ivan said scornfully. It may have been Ronnie's voice, but it was clear that it wasn't Ronnie's word. The boy never stood up to Nolan before, not even when the two of them were alone, just like now.

"Why? Why?!" Nolan said, working himself into a state. "You are a worm. I am the lord and master of this school, you stupid little maggot!"

"You have some ego, boy." Ivan said, quite forgetting to speak like Ronnie. Oh, he spoke with his voice, but the words and inflection tended to indicate an older speaker. Even Nolan noticed this, but dismissed it as some trick to get Ronnie off the hook.

Ronnie seized Ivan by the face, intending to force his point home. But he was surprised when he actually ripped the boy's face off with a gross, squishy suction sound. Nolan, when he saw what he had done was looking at the face, mouth agape. He had yet to notice the middle-aged man's face now revealed beneath Ronnie's face.

"Oh," Ivan said, in his own voice, "boy, you're gonna wish you hadn't done that."

Few moments later, Nolan was rubbing his face, appearing to press it down. In the corner was a mound of material slowly disintegrating into nothingness. Then Nolan hefted a muscle and sinew body in a fireman's lift and stowed it away in the locked bathroom stall with the other. It was a very bad idea, but Ivan was sure thst even if they were found, they couldn't be identified.

He forgot about dental records and DNA, and such.

[redtailedsaffa]

What's with the middle names?

[Cloak]

Chalk it up to a bad habit on my part, as a writer.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
School Daze

Cloak had caught a scent. It was old and degraded though, so it was difficult to follow. But the four managed it just fine. They came upon a brick and cinder block school with corrugated metal awnings painted black. There was a circle drive right out front, with a parking lot right before it. The RAFians had come from the area where the fenced-in tennis courts were. The pavement here, between two of the four fenced-in tennis courts (which were divided in a "+" intersection of paved pathways), was a rusty red color.

"High school. Figures." Saffa said harshly.

Cloak stood up straight, allowing his cloak to sweep forward, hiding his arms, legs, and tail. He knew with certainty that the creature lurked there. He could Earthsight, but with students inside it would be impossible to distinguish which one was which, especially if this creature walked exactly like a human.

"Are we going to go in?" Abby said. "Or stand out here staring at it?"

"Wait," Aquilai said, practically, "Cloak, I think that you should wear that ID mask of yours."

The mask that projected an image of a black-haired man in his late twenties with metal-framed glasses and a slight beard. A super-realistic human image that wore a pale black shirt with black at the short sleeve cuffs and collar. It was a pragmatic decision to put it on, to be sure.

"If it was an elementary school, Aquilai, I might agree to it." Cloak said. "But this is a high school. The time for holding their hands and telling them humans are the only form of sentient life in existence is past. It will be time for them to grow up and learn that just because someone's different, doesn't mean they're evil."

"Whoa, Cloak," Saffa said, referring to Cloak's gruff, on-edge manner. "Where's this coming from?"

"Let's get going," Cloak said, brushing off the question. Truth was that Cloak had a suspicion about a few members of this school's staff and faculty had pro-Knight leanings. He had watched and reports about speciesism being taught, though no proof ever surfaced. Maybe he doing this might be just be asking for trouble -- but why do sentient nonhumans have to hide?

And here, the scent was stronger. So strong, he was baffled that the other three couldn't seem to smell anything. Yet, the closer they approached, the more they seemed to detect something was stinky, but only just.

Then four walked into the office. There was a rather lovely woman with blonde hair that came just beyond her shoulders. She had a mischievous twinkle in her eye. She sat while the man behind her stood. He looked rather like if someone had decided to clone Danny DeVito and Mike O'Malley together in a single individual. His face held a slight cross expression, and the nicest explanation would be that's because all principals have such slightly miffed expressions.

Cloak knew better.

"May I help you?" the receptionist/secretary said. Her voice was one of polite interest, with no veiled hatred or condescension.

"We've come on RAFian business," Cloak said, the four flashing their Marks as if they were police badges tattoed on their hands.

"What," said the principal, with a high-pitched, snively, Principal Prickly voice, "is the nature of this 'business'?"

He addressed Aquilai, refusing to acknowledge Cloak. The nicest way to say it was that this man was intimidated by Cloak. Of course, it wasn't true. The Realm Walker had expected this.

"We've tracked a creature to your school." Cloak said. "There is a scent here -- it is really astounding that you cannot smell it actually -- and we believe that it may mean that it may have hidden its victims here."

"What is this creature?" the principal said, dismissively. As if these RAFians were students that pulled a really not clever prank. Cloak resented that inflection.

"That is what we hope to determine." Aquilai said.

The principal eyed Abby and Saffa, saying, "Aren't you two a little too young to be RAFians?"

Cloak resented again the implication that Abby and Saffa were throwing their lives away. Abby and Saffa caught this insinuation as well, and were just as resentful.

"That's neither here or there," Aquilai said primly. Cloak had to admire how he kept his composure, though he knew Aquilai was as irritated as he was. "We shall begin our investigation now, I think."

[redtailedsaffa]

*Phineas and Ferb reference*

"Yes. Yes, we are."

[Cloak]

Aw, damn. And I had set that up perfectly for that reference, too, and forgot all about it.

CHAPTER NINE:
Suspect and Suspect

Outside the office, the RAFians stayed together. Cloak was well aware of the looks that he was being given, as he was the only nonhuman who looked nonhuman, though it was mostly because of his eight-foot stature, as his Cloak obscured his other nonhuman features, and his amber eyes. His feet also were not digigrade like ordinary tigers, but plantigrade -- meaning that his heel touched the ground.

Cloak found himself feeling surprisingly indifferent to the stares. It was actually better than back n the Nexus, where he would also have to deal with the jeering. To a lot of other Realm Walkers, choosing to live in a realm on a permanent basis alongside Realm Dwellers was akin to choosing to live with a menagerie of uncaged rats. It was little wonder why Cloak preferred the company of Dwellers than haughty, supercilious, arrogant elitists like that.

Cloak stopped, stock still. He was focusing. It was the scent again, it was fluctuating between being strong and stale. That was unusual. He immediately followed it, assuming that the others would follow him. They only realized that he had gone for a moment or two before catching up. There were a lot of students in this school, at least eight hundred by a modest estimate, and, as such, it was difficult to locate the scent, and easy to get separated.

But then the minute-warning bell sounded, and Cloak noticed that some girl students had decided to block the doorway. Apparently, teenage girl humans can be just as self-important as a lot of Realm Walkers. Cloak spied one male student push them roughly aside just so he could make it to class on time, and the girls had the audacity to be indignant at this.* But they were eventually told off by a teacher.

Cloak had noticed that hallways seem to desert after the final bell sounded for the last class of the day. He was sure that some students longed for the end-of-day bell to ring, but he didn't care for the nostalgia that was welling up inside him. The RAFian quartet eventually found themselves inside the boys bathroom.

"You know," Abby said, apprehensively at seeing how hygienic a boy bathroom could be, "I don't think Saffa and I can go in there."

Saffa nodded a little too vigorously.

"Very well, then," Cloak said, who had no qualms about entering, "you two stand out here and bar entry until we had completed this leg of the investigation."

"Gladly," Saffa said. Clearly she could smell some of the nastiness in the bathroom. After all, sometimes they don't -- well, you know what? That's too much information.

"This stall's locked -- and it stinks to high heavens." Aquilai said. "There doesn't appear to be a lock, though."

"Doesn't mean there isn't one." Cloak said, knowingly.

Aquilai retched. "Why could they clean up whatever was in there?"

"How can they do that without a keyhole to unlock the door?" Cloak countered. "But there's another way."

Cloak had only intended to unlock the door. Honestly! Honestly, he did!

But the door popped off like the top of a can of soup, far easier than Cloak had expected. Toppled out of the stall were three skinless bodies in various states of decomposition. It was not an easy thing to look at, and was the source of the stink. Though the decomposition there were no, uh, "juicy" or gooey bits, it seemed to go directly from corpse to dirt.

"What do you think?" Cloak said.

"That this is disturbing beyond all reason."

"No, what could have skinned these guys." Cloak said, with a sad gesture to the bodies. How did they know that they were guys? Well, let's just say it was a bit obvious and not all of them were fully decomposed.

"Can't be Raxacoricofallapato rians," Aquilai said, the academic in him taking over. "Too messy, too sloppy. Perhaps the Foamasi, but they aren't this careless."

Cloak nodded. "Not Warwolves, either. There wouldn't be anything left over to be discovered. Not hags, they would have eaten all this."

They would have continued had they not heard Saffa scream angrily, "I SAID NO, PAL!!"

The two looked up from their examinations and ruminations, alarmed. This was escalated with the scream.

---
*True story actually. Happened at my high school (eleven years or so ago).

[redtailedsaffa]

The third-floor bathrooms at my girls' hostel could smell just as bad as a railway station on an off day. Oh Gods.

[theyoungphoenix]

Hmmm. . . Well I must be fairly lucky. The HS bathroom normally smells okay, for a bathroom, anyways. (But either way I don't have to lay eyes on it until after summer. Woot!)

[Cloak]

Abby, you haven't seen a guys' bathroom from the inside, have you? In my experience as a housekeeper, guys -- especially athletes -- tend to be a whole lot messier than girls. Now, that isn't to say that there aren't girls who are messy, but they seem to be the minority at this college.

Okay, new chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
The Chase Lost

When the two left the bathroom, which sounded a whole lot weirder than it was, they discovered and Buglizard, which just barely fit in the hallway, and intangible Psychloleopterran. The two had morphed. Why had the two morphed? If not for its intangibilty, the Psychloleopterran would have caused some property damage.

"Demorph, you two. You think this is low profile?" Cloak asked.

The two forms began to crinkle and crumble into two female human forms. Fortunately the had the foresight to wear their morphing suits.

"What happened?" Aquilai asked.

"A guy came to this bathroom, and proceeded to try to go in." Abby said, while Saffa looked thoroughly creeped out. That, Cloak felt, indicated the seriousness of the situation, as Saffa doesn't get creeped out too easily. "We stopped him. He was irritatingly arrogant, saying that he was allowed to go in. When Saffa told him that he was to use another bathroom, as an official RAFian investigation was going on inside, he sneered that he was the student president or some other such nonsense. He tried to go in again, and we stopped him. Then, I swear, he tried to come on to us, and Saffa wasn't having any of that."

"I assumed that he was drunk."

"I would have assumed he would have been in class." Aquilai said.

"I'm willing to venture a guess that he didn't have a hall pass," Cloak said, thoughtfully.

"Didn't appear so." Saffa said. "Anyway, I slapped him instinctively. But when I did . . . his . . . his face . . ."

"Yes?" Cloak prompted as gently as he could.

"His face shifted," Abby supplied. "Not like it shifted shape, like Underseen or Ash, but like the skin slid over his face. As if the skin wasn't attached. He tried to act as if it didn't happen, but Saffa morphed to her Psycholeopterran morph, because she wanted desperately to be intangible I guess."

"And why did you morph into a Buglizard?" Aquilai asked.

"Seemed like a good idea at the time," Abby answered. "And apparently, the gas Buglizards produce, cause deterioration in the skin of . . . of whatever that thing was."

"There's still time to catch it," Cloak said. But then the dismissal bell rang and the halls were flooded with students. It was impossible to get anywhere fast. "Gateburst."