Memoirs of a RAFian

[Cloak]

Two more of Garrotik's bratty kids to go.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE:
Darkness Falls

"Looks like this place was used for a rave at least once every week," Shanker noted. "And I've fed in some really seedy areas."

"It does stink of booze, smoke, and . . . other stenches." Marie said, her vulpine nose twitching. "Shanker, you frequent places like this?"

He shrugged, and said, "Hey, a vampire's gotta drink."

Super Nate knelt and examined the detritus of the abandoned, cavernous warehouse. It was actually a stone's throw away from Malice's old base of operations (she had pulled up roots and moved into another hidey-hole months ago). The overhead lights shed a sparse illumination over the place, making it feel rather like film noire.

"It's too quiet," Super Nate pointed out.

"Must you say that?" Marie sighed discontentedly. "Every time someone says a thing like that --"

"What's that?" Shanker said, more to himself than the other two, interrupting Marie.

But she continued anyway, "Whenever someone says something like that, it always gets noisy -- and potentially messy. Always."

"Guys, look over there." Shanker said, gesturing them from the circle of light.

"If you're gonna ask me what the fox says one more time . . ." Marie growled.

Super Nate smirked a boyishly handsome smile, although Marie was being quite serious.

"No, it's . . . it's the hostages," he said. He was serious, not aloof or indifferent. Clearly, what he saw disturbed him, which caused all levity or semblance to levity to evaporate with alarming rapidity.

There seemed to be numerous teenagers of every ethnicity, every size, every build, every background, male and female -- a fair few individuals. While it would be unremarkable under normal circumstances, each and every one were huddled into the fetal position, cast into a dark light, which was easy to go unnoticed in the dark, strangely enough.

"What . . . what is this?" Super Nate said, aghast.

"The Self Shadows," came a dark, yet bored voice. "They force out a person's inner darkness and forces them to relive their darkest moments repeatedly."

"Regiumbras, I presume?" Shanker said, succinctly. He was not willing to mince words.

"Yes," she said, with a disinterest that rankled Shanker. "Not that it really matters."

"You being emo isn't the same as being dark, you know," Shanker said, scathingly.

"Whatever," Regiumbras said.

"I wouldn't say 'emo' as much a 'nihilist'," Marie said.

"Semantics," Shanker countered.

"Whatever," Regiumbras said, bored.

"Oh, I hate you," Shanker said. Though it wasn't really clear if he was serious.

"Whatever."

"That's a lame catchphrase," Marie commented.

"Regiumbras!" Super Nate said, not joining into the ambivalence and levity. "Stop this, let the kids go."

"No," Regiumbras said.

"Then you're going down," he countered.

"Whatever," came her usual response.

The battle was furious (mostly because Regiumbras didn't seem to be trying too hard, if at all -- which angered the three RAFians). Naturally, because of Regiumbras's inherent indifference, she was getting dominated and her butt kicked.

Eventually, her plated Confined Form broke, far quicker than any of her siblings.

[Cloak]

About four or so more chapters to go.

Saffa hasn't been on for a couple days. Hope everything's okay.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX:
Darkness Unbound

"Now, it gets harder," Super Nate said, "prepare yourselves."

"Yeah," Marie said, "I think were as prepared as we're gonna get."

There was no Jafar-like crazed cackle. Just ominous, "Slender Man"-esque silence, as Regiumbras Unbound rose to her true height -- rather similar to the Darksyde Heartless from "Kingdom Hearts".

Her body was actually rather androgynous, appearing to be a cross between Slender Man and that marionette from "Five Nights at Freddy's". She possessed an inhumanly thin, tetrapod body, with limbs so thin that they should not be able to support her weight (yet they did). She did not possess hands or feet, but she possessed a mass of shadow tentacles on her back. Her face was a hard, featureless, black mask which her beady white eyes peered out of it.

The RAFians were not so flippant anymore. They felt the aura cast by Regiumbras Unbound, which caused them to feel tense -- as if they were in the middle of a horror video game.

"You made a grave mistake," Regiumbras said, her voice a female variation of LittleKuriboh's Slender Man voice with a dark, sinister edge. "You allowed me to take my Unbound Form."

Marie was the first to snap out of the tense reverie they were in. "And you made a mistake, too, Regiumbras."

"Which is?" the daughter of Garrotik replied, a sinister intonation in her voice.

Super Nate followed Marie in coming to his senses. "You challenged us."

"You are the challengers," she reminded.

Shanker came to his senses. "You forced our hands. Took hostages to insure that we fought you."

"And, yet," she said, and if she had a mouth, she would be smiling a knowing smile, "and, yet, you still know little."

"What are you -- make sense!" Super Nate demanded.

"Nah, I prefer to be enigmatic, actually," she said.

"Talk!" Shanker demanded, striking Regiumbras Unbound. She looked only mildly annoyed, but then again, Shanker pulled his strike.

"No."

"Talk!"

"No."

"Talk!"

"No."

This continued for some time, until Marie sighed an annoyed sigh, saying, "Boys!"

"Clearly, we won't get any information out of her," Super Nate said, quickly assessing the situation. "We must defeat her."

"Oh, we're not subject to television censors," Marie said, crankily. "Just say it like it is. We have to kill her."

From the battle began in earnest. While she was the one that took the shortest time to break the Confined Form of, she took the longest to destroy in her Unbound Form. Even the three RAFians weren't exactly sure how they did it, as they did it in absolute darkness.

But Regiumbras was gone, leaving on the enigmatic note that she was the last fighter, despite the RAFians knowing about Regiphaetos.

[redtailedsaffa]

Yeah, sorry about that, I was out of town with the place I was in having unbelievably crappy internet service. Thanks for the concern though.

Ooh, suspense! I wonder who takes Regiphaetos. Richard?

And GH, if you want to start the Memoirs series from the beginning, I have the PDFs of all the books written so far in a zip file. All you need to do is ask.

[guitarhero01234]

Damn, I would definitely appreciate that if you could send them over.

[Cloak]

Ah. Glad you're okay, Saffa.

And you can PM me with any questions you might have, GH.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN:
The Real Goal?

"What's taking them so long?" Regiphaetos said. He was not referring to his siblings, nor his hostages. "Oh, they're dead."

He waited for a beat.

"WHY ARE THEY DEAD?!" he shrieked.*

"Maybe you shouldn't play a Death Game, then." Hunter said, impassively.

"What?!"

Apparently, Helen, Sam and Hunter caught Regiphaetos unawares. But the Lord of Phantoms was concerned with something else entirely, and, thus, his mind was elsewhere.

"You weren't expecting us?" Helen asked. "I'd be hurt if you and your siblings weren't such jerks."

"You have no idea what you're doing!" Regiphaetos raged. "You'll ruin everything!"

"Yeah," Sam shrugged, "we do that."

"So," Hunter said, arms folded, "you gonna do this the easy way or the hard way?"

"I don't have time for this," the Lord of Phantoms snapped.

"The hard way, then." Hunter said, smirking rather smugly. He aimed his gun at Regiphaetos, trained it on him. The Lord of Phantoms wasn't intimidated, but seriously annoyed. He tried to escape, but Hunter fired his gun.

Regiphaetos was surprised that it hit him. Surprised that it hurt. But the shot just winged him in the weakest part of his plated armor.

Helen looked disconcerted a bit, as it was essentially an unprovoked attack.

"Salt-filled rounds," Hunter explained. "Now, I repeat, come quietly. We needn't resort to more violent means. That was a warning shot."

"I don't have time for this!" Regiphaetos snarled. He tried to walk away, but found his way blocked by a violet and green walls. Energy constructs. "Get out of my way!!"

"So you can take more hostages?" Helen said. "I don't know where you've hidden them, but all of your brothers and sisters took hostages. You, as their obvious leader, such be no different."

Despite himself and being pressed for time, he smiled to himself as he said, "Very clever, girl. Very clever. You are a credit to your mentally-feeble species. Your bodies are adequate for the needs of my eidolon imps, but really nothing else about you humans are truly remarkable."

"Where are the hostages?" Hunter asked seriously.

No answer as Regiphaetos inwardly considered his options. He really had no interest in fighting the RAFians, but they wouldn't let him go because they knew about the hostages. The three hostages -- not Wesley, Jo and Herb, though. Those kids' bodies were ditched early on.

"Talk!" Hunter roared. "I know there are hostages! I can smell them! But I cannot pinpoint the direction they are in -- and you know it becayse you are causing it! So, talk!"

Regiphaetos was concocting a plan, a scheme, to get himself out of this situation. He wasn't looking forward to it, though, it would be painful.

"Talk." Hunter said, his animalistic fury calming into humanistic rationality.

Smiling inwardly, Regiphaetos continued his silence. But Hunter withdrew his gun, proving he wasn't without conscience.

Then Regiphaetos began to subtly goad him, as well as Sam and Helen. Eventually, their emotions got the better of them. Twin Lantern blasts and twin gunshots of salt-filled ammunition.

They gave Regiphaetos exactly the out he wanted . . .


*Obligatory Dragonball Z Abridged reference.

[Cloak]

Okay . . . might be the longest book in the entire series.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT:
From Host to Host

The three RAFians waited for a brief moment, but when nothing shifted, nothing moved in the slightest way, they immediately assumed that Regiphaetos went into his Unbound Form, but did not stick around. They did not know where he went, but knew that, as the Lord of Phantoms what his abilities may very well entail.

They quickly find the hostages. There were five teens, not the three believed by Regiphaetos himself: a willful, black-haired teen by the name of Jordan who was built like a linebacker and wore a principally green shirt with red accents; an angry, svelt teen by the name of Adam who wore red; a hopeful, likable teen by the name of Morris with short-cropped hair who wore blue with an orange-printed peace sign on it; a gossipy teen by the name of Jennifer who had naval-length blonde hair and a frilly, violet blouse; and, finally, an ambitious teen by the name of Bradley with short, densely curly, black hair and an orange shirt. The RAFians looked over these kids, who were moving as if they were waking up from either a long sleep, a drunken stupor, or both.

"Wh-what happened?" Morris had asked.

"Why are we right here?" Jennifer asked.

"How'd we get here?" Bradley asked.

"Where is here?" Adam demanded.

"What happened?" Jordan asked.

The three RAFians were not as much of fools as Regiphaetos and his minions believed. There was no question that all five were being puppeteered by Regiphaetos and four of his eidolon imps. But none of them could cast "expellocorpus" with any real effect, but that didn't matter. They had a way to accomplish this themselves, a technological way.

"You're not fooling anyone," Sam said.

"What?" Adam said.

"What do you mean?" Morris said, at once.

"What are you talking about?" Jordan said.

"You want to keep up the pretense?" Helen asked, raising her eyebrow skeptically.

"What pretense?" Morris said.

"Hunter," Sam said, "use the thing."

But Hunter was already pulling out a brown cloth bag, which had several small items that were the size of senzu beans. They were A.P. bombs -- anti-possession bombs. They worked like "expellocorpus" but for nonmagical RAFians. They work similarly to flashbang grenades, only not nearly as damaging. Not by a wide margin.

Hunter reached out and took out five bean-sized A.P. bombs, then threw them at the kids. They all shkuted protests, which stopped midway, turning into dazed moans. Four eidolon imps and their master were cast from the the teens, who were reduced to dazed states.

Regiphaetos's Unbound Form was revealed to be an indigo palette swap of Kibosh with yellow eyes, with a rather smokey appearance about him. He and his eidolon imps were as dazed as their unwilling hosts.

Unfortunately, this plan had a very noticeable hole in it. The three RAFians could not prevent repossession. They could only force dispossession. This proved to be a rather larger problem than they had anticipated.

Regiphaetos Unbound had recovered first, far quicker than the three had expected. Regiphaetos was quick on the uptake, and quickly repossessed Morris. Then he tried to escape with his "hostage suit". But the three RAFians used another A.P. bomb, casting him from Morris's body for the second time.

Regiphaetos recovered quicker than last time. This time he took over Jordan's body, but did not flee. He fished something out of the teen's pocket and revealed it to be a pocket knife. He flicked out the blade, and held it to his -- held it to Jordan's neck. Pressing it dangerously close to his jugular vein.

"Let me go," his spoke, using Jordan's voice, "or the boy dies. Your choice."

The RAFians didn't move, vaguely aware that the eidolon imps were recovering from their dazed states. If they didn't resolve this quickly, their problems will quadruple.

"Your choice," Regiphaetos intoned in Jordan's voice, "let me go, or this sack of flesh will get cold."

Sam would have made his move to make an energy construct around the pocketknife, but Helen beat him to the punch. She flung the pocketknife away, and Hunter threw another A.P. bomb. Regiphaetos was cast out -- and Hunter shot him so thoroughly with the salt ammunition and the other two kept Regiphaetos stationary.

It was over.

All of Garrotik's children were slain. All of his progeny were gone. . . .

[redtailedsaffa]

Alright GH, I'll PM you later in the day.

Now what?

EDIT: Apparently I can't send attachments via PM ( ) so I'll just post it here.

[Cloak]

Uh, Saffa? There's still one more chapter in Book 82 to go.

Whoo-kay, last chapter of this book.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE:
RAF-Maniacs!

The RAFians reunited at the forum, telling their tales of what happened. Cloak, however, remained silent and brooding. He was in one of his moods. The dust settled from the encounters. It will remain to be the talk of the town for a while.

***

"It's time for RAF-Maniacs!
And we're zany to the max!
So, just sit back and relax.
You'll laugh 'til you collapse!
We're RAF-Maniacs!
Come join Blue and Duff,
And DinosaurNothlit
Just for fun,
We run around RAF a lot.
They lock us in the forum,
Whenever we get caught!
But we break loose,
And then vamoose,
And now you know the plot!
We're RAF-Maniacs!
Horse is cute and Sakki attacks.
Demos packs away the snacks,
While Esty tries to plays the sax!
We're RAF-Maniacs!
Meet Faerie and Claire, who want to rule the universe!
Tobias and RAFians flock together,
While Terenia whacks 'em with her purse.
Saffa chases Rotiart, while traycon sings a verse,
The writers flipped.
We have no script.
Why bother to rehearse?
We're RAF-Maniacs!
We have waffle stacks!
We're zany to the max!
There's baloney in their slacks!
We're animan-y!
Totally insaney!
Here's the forum's name-y!
R-A-F!
Those are the facts."

"Abby," Cloak said, praying for patience, "give it up! It isn't gonna happen. Blue already tried that with his 'R-A-F: The Animated Series'. He only managed to get it up on DeviantArt."

"Not to mention, some of the more, uh, 'knightly' viewers might see 'RAF-Maniacs' in a poorer light than you imagine," Saffa pointed out.

"People make controversy out of anything, ," Abby said, dismissively. "Like that woman who thought Jynx was a racist stereotype. People will find anything -- especially that which is taken out of context -- offensive. There isn't anything anyone can do about that."

"Abby," Cloak continued, "the point is --"

"The point is that it would be a very successful show! I know it would be!" Abby declared. "I'll show you. You'll see."

[Cloak]

New chapter.
 

BOOK LXXXIII:
RAF -- THE TV SHOW
CHAPTER ONE:
Two Worlds, One Family

The aftermath of the whole Garrotik's progeny events still muddled about a bit, and, yet, Cloak was finding himself reflecting over his past again. As he remembered, and reflected upon, his coming to RAF, to escape the loneliness of his life and the misery of the burden his mother had foisted upon him. Coming to RAF where he discovered people who cared for his well-being in a way his mother had never had . . .

Then again, the sole reason for his creation in his mother's eyes may have simply been a means to control and manipulate his father.

Music came, unbidden and unasked for, but welcomed, though only heard by the Realm Walker.

Put your faith in what you most believe in.
Two worlds, one family.
Trust your heart.
Let fate decide.
To guide this life we see.
A paradise untouched by Walker hand,
Within this world blessed with love.
A simple life, they live in peace.
Softly tread the sand below your feet now --
Two worlds, one family.
Trust your heart.
Let fate decide.
To guide this life we see.
Beneath the shelter of the trees,
Only love can enter here.
A simple life, they live in peace.
Raise your head up.
Lift high the load.
Take strength from those that need you.
Build high the walls.
Build strong the beams.
A new life is waiting --
But danger's no stranger here."

Cloak involuntarily remembers how his mother cowed him into submission. How she neglected him, how she berated him for not perfectly performing the cleaning and cooking tasks given to him (without any regards to consent). How it became more and more clear that she did not love him unconditionally as a mother should, how it broke his heart and shattered his spirit. He was just free labor, a scapegoat that she could use.

Just like his father was before him.

No words describe a child's tears.
No words can heal a broken heart.
The dream is gone . . . but where there's hope . . ."

When she was away for a long stretch of time, Cloak escaped into the realms. He never really knew why he came to this particular area in the Prime Universe, he did not know what drew him here. But perhaps . . . perhaps something was calling out to him. . . .

Somewhere, something is calling for you.
Two worlds, one family.
Trust your heart.
Let fate decide.
To guide this life we see.

Cloak shook himself.

Why was he thing about these bad and sad times? That was a lifetime ago. He was free from all that. He was free . . . but was he? Was he really? If he kept dwelling on these awful traumas, was he freed at all?

[redtailedsaffa]

I sense major fourth wall breach coming up, lol.

[Cloak]

Not particularly, Saffa.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWO:
Ratings Gold!!

In a dark room, a large figure sat. He appeared to have a metal, scorpion-like body below his obese waist, human-like arms and fingers that were unusually long were he human. Everything else was obscured with shadow, save for his beady eyes and wide gaping maw, filled with rather large, flat teeth.* He possessed a mechanical tail that was scorpion-like but flat. He also possessed no spine, although, given his occupation of choice, that was rather unsurprising.

In strange, yet familiar, hands he held what appeared to be a high tech remote control. What he was watching . . . how did he get these images? It was inexplicable.

He was watching images of Cloak nearly getting killed by Abomination from nearly a year ago, their dealings with the viral ooze, Phoenix's dark possession by the mummudrai Mummudrai Eville, the incursion of the Technarchy Phalanx, Gaz succumbing to her darker self due to Madre de Vampyra's influence, Malice's directional stones, Horse going giant, and the RAFians dealings with the Lantern Corps.

"Interesting," he said, sounding intrigued.

Then he continued to watch video inexplicably from the formation of the Knights of Humanity, the incident with the Xenomorphic Brood, Malice gaining the Forbidden Arts, Rotiart trying to turn the RAFians against Cloak, the thing with Bibliophaetos, the debacle with the Skrull imposters, the incarceration by Collector, the evil RAFian clones, the Darwin Gun, the destruction of those two planets with rather life-changing results, and the confrontation with the Phobeest or Koh-It.

"Fascinating creatures," he muttered, his interest aroused.

The video somehow continued with the book-immersion ray, the evil MP3 player monster, Syphoon, the clash of the Eternity Stones and the Infinity Gems, the incursion of the Black Lantern rings, the dementors, the Music Miser, the Roboticizer, Richard's abduction, Malice's Transformers, Richard's Horn, Wild's battle with his feral nature, the Yautja's unsuccessful predations, Proteus, Cataclysm, and the Heinlin incursion.

"Ooo," he said, his interest rising.

The video continued, showing the nightmare-monger, the leprechaun, the pied piper, Freddy the star's wishing star hoax, Parker's armor agenda, the Hate Plague, the conflict of Helmacrons and Fmeks, RAF's brief paparazzi problem, Maul, the Black Mercy debacle, the so-called "Pain Reliever", the Veils, Shenecron and Demos's not-so-little tiff, the Unimind, the Plasmavore, the Eidolon Consciousness, the Arachnoids, Skinwalker (he bookmarked this video for future perusal), the mnemoraptors, SAL SOMNUS, Composite and Prodigy, the killer dolls, the saurian-transmogrification rays, Corruption, the symbiotes and the Xenophage, the Ectoplasmer, the Seekers, the Polarisoid and his camera, the gremlins, the oxidizer ray, the Toyman, Genosha, the Juggernaut, and, finally, Garrotik and his progeny.

"That settles it," the figure said. "I must have them! They're perfect for -- Helix! Helix!! GET IN HERE!! I have a job for you!!"


* Similar to this guy.

[Cloak]

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THREE:
Unprepared

Cloak had grown tired of sitting around brooding and musing in his thread, so he decided to take a little walk around the forum to clear his head, to try to stop him from plunge into that dark stupor that he was always in danger of when he thought of his mother and their rather dysfunctional, abusive relationship.

He walked from his thread, his cloak swept over him so none of his limbs or body could be seen. His head was bowed in thought, and he walked on shoulders squared but slumped somewhat. He was obviously still moody.

Cloak had to stop dwelling on his past. He knew he had to stop dwelling on it. But he found that he could not help himself, for whatever reason. Perhaps it was because he hadn't any really closure on the events that transpired. His mother would never admit guilt or fault for her actions, it was always someone else's fault, never hers. Her narcissism became more and more evident with age.

Cloak reflected on the guilt that he felt for believing every stupid little lie, every obverblown half-truth, every ludicrous assumption that his mother levelled at his father. He regretted that it took him this to realize and recognize this folly of his. He felt shame about accepting these lies without question, without pausing to think.

He had recently came to the conclusion that his mother never really care for him, even as a child. He came to the conclusion that he was nothing but a tool that his mother could use to manipulate his father . . . much like how she tried a similar tactic with Shadow to get abject obedience from him, lest he never see Shadow again. While his father wasn't perfect, he would actually cop to the fact he made a mistake and be big enough of a man to apologize for his actions. Whereas his mother would have made Cloak apologize to her.

Not to mention she told him the proper way to slash his wrists.

"She needs help," Cloak muttered to himself, "which she'll never g--"

His eyes widened suddenly, as a sudden . . . a sudden something appeared. It wasn't exactly evil, but it had a certain level of power Cloak recognized a low-levelled Saiyan. Cloak easily could track this disturbance, whatever it was.

RAF did not have its usual numbers on this day. Most of the RAFians were off on personal business or had family matters to attend to. Only Slushie Man, Blue, AniDragon, Faerie, Aquilai, Mr. Guy, Gaz, Parker, Horse, Underseen, Goom, Saffa, Abby, and Richard were currently milling about in the forum. Oh, and Cloak himself, of course.

But only Abby, Saffa, and Richard were present before this unwelcomed newcomer. Saffa and Abby were splayed upon the ground, as if they were just defeated and demorphed. Richard looked tired, and was trying reclaim some energy to continue the battle. He was still worn from his battle with Garrotik, and that was some time ago.

Then Cloak scrutinized this newcomer, this stranger. His first impression was a fusion of Spiral and Hoopa Unbound. She may have been a beautiful, young, human once, but any beauty she once had was gone now. She had an inhumanly long nose, red hair with a hairstyle like Akuma, a forked tail,  and the rest resembled a lithe, semi-attractive woman with skin of deep caramel color. Her eyes -- including pupil, sclera and iris -- were solidly royal purple. She had two pairs of floating mechanical arm behind her which were entwined in a double helix and stored on her back when not in use.

She looked and saw Cloak, and seemed disturbed a bit, as she had a foot into a intra-realm portal, but perhaps a different dimension of the same realm. Cloak did not miss this, but did not think anything of it at the time.

This woman stepped through the portal, and Cloak quickly followed.

[redtailedsaffa]

That was weird.

[Cloak]

Oh, the series will get weirder. When it isn't dark.

To think, in another seventeen books, Year One will be done.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FOUR:
Spineless Inspection

Cloak tucked and rolled when he exited the portal. He rolled to his feet with practiced ease as he bowled the woman abductor over. He quickly prepared to continue the battle, but the woman was not attacking. She got to her feet and was calmly walking away, u.til a loud, crude voice yelled loudly.

"Whaddya bring him here for, Helix?" it complained in the most obnoxious way imagineable. Cloak actually recognized something about that voice. "He could foul up the whole setup!"

"Mr. Jombo*, I couldn't help it! He jumped into the portal after me." she protested, as Cloak looked at the big boss man. And he was big, too. Obesely so.

"Irrelevant! Helix, just be glad that I don't send you back to the Slave Pits!"

Considerably larger than a human. The creature was humanoid with yellow skin, no hair, only three fingers on each hand (not counting the opposable thumb), no spine, and mostly atrophied legs. He sat on a mechanical plateform that was rather scorpion like.

"Sir, I --" Helix tried to protest.

Cloak knew of this species. And, by knowing this simple little fact, he knew where they were. He wasn't too pleased with it.

"DISMISSED! Go wash your hair or something. Daddy's gots business to do."

"Well," Gaz said, from behind laser bars. She didn't have Laserbeak with her (which was odd enough), and she looked rather naked without the robotic parrot. She and the others were watching from behind their own individual laser cages. "That eeriely creepy."

Gaz seemed to be more awake than the others, and Cloak was the only one not enclosed. He turned his attention to the environment and saw that they were on what could be easily mistaken for the Technodrome. It wasn't, it was just a place in the Mojoverse, which was like a suburb from the main part of the realm. It really was overly complicated.

This Jombo character appraised and scrutinized each and every RAFian he had. He spoke very much like Collector, as if they had no free will or rights. But it was hardly surprising, considering they got everything they had from slave labor.

Cloak stood up straight, and gave this Jombo a cold, icy glare. "A Spineless One."

"Namecalling, Cloak?" Horse said. "Care not to make him mad until we get out of this?"

"That's what his kind is called," Cloak said.

"And proud of it!" Jombo said, proudly.

"And they lack spines."

"I kind of gathered that," Mr. Guy said, drily.

"And they are all either network or television executives," Cloak added.

"You mean we've been captured by an insane television exec?" Goom said, genuinely surprised.

"An insane televison executive? That's a little redundant, Goom." Faerie said, dully. She took to confinement about as well as Cloak would have.

"It's a fate worse than death," Blue muttered acidly.

"Don't think you'll stay cooped up too long," Cloak said, eyeing the small remote-like device Jombo clasped tightly in his narrow hand.


*I know when I gave a brief synopsis of this book so long ago, I called him Mojo, but I decided to make it different so I could take liberties with his characterizations.

[redtailedsaffa]

Wait, who's here?