Memoirs of a RAFian

[guitarhero01234]

Certainly looking forward to seeing more of Ricky. The book with the Hatter was disappointingly insufficient when it came to the amount of ass-kickings he recieved.

[redtailedsaffa]

It's a long gap between books though, so I really wonder how he'll make his comeback.

[Cloak]

Gap. Rrriiiiiiight. :shifty eyes:

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SIX:
Ifrit Inquiries

"What's what?" Parker said, at once. Then he looked and saw what Underseen saw. He blinked too.

"An ifrit," Demos said, sounding rather perplexed. "But as an ice elemental?"

"Usually a fire elemental, I suppose?" Saffa said, aptly.

"Usually," Demos confirmed.

"I'm standing right here, you know." the ifrit said. His voice was rather grating to the ears, Cloak found.

"So you are," Cloak said, slowly and quietly.

The Realm Walker did not know why, but the ifrit rubbed him the wrong way, though he seemingly had a gentle and genial nature. It could possibly because of the sudden temperature drop -- despite his form being that of an anthropomorphic Siberian tiger, Cloak wasn't the fond of the cold. He could endure it without complaint, but it didn't mean that he enjoyed it. And that his form created a disparity with his innate pacifism, though one could argue that it came from his travails and turmoil from his mother.

All around the ifrit the air was chilled, although his joints still gave out puffs of white air whenever he flexed or relaxed any voluntary muscles. "Is this where that sound came from?"

"What sound?" Saffa asked.

"The sound," he specified vaguely.

"How very descriptive," Cloak said, dryly stolid.

"Never mind that," Sakki said. "How'd you get in here with Code Avalon active . . .? Wait a minute . . ."

Sakki locked eyes on Rotiart, who was slinking away. Or trying to, anyway.

"Rotiart! You traitorous scum. What did you do?" Sakki said, in her usual stern matter, reserved for dealing with the likes of the little rat.

"I didn't do nothing!" he whined like a child half his age.

Cloak watched this, and could clearly see that Rotiart's security laxity and habitual dereliction of duty was beginning to be come a real problem. One that continually gets forgotten in light of more important priorities.

"I didn't do nothing, I tell you!"

"Is this where the sound came from?"

"Leave me alone, Sakki! I didn't do anything."

"Did the sound come from here?"

"Leave me alone!!"

"Did the sound come from you things?"

Cloak's eyes narrowed. This was going to be a long day.

[Cloak]

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SEVEN:
The Ifrit That Came Down From The Cold

"What precisely do want, uh -- do you have a name?" Saffa asked.

The ice ifrit looked at Saffa entirely too long, before saying, "Ifrit."

"Ifrit?" Saffa asked, a bit surprised.

"Yes," he said, "is it not sufficient?"

A minor distraction occurred then when Rotiart ran headlong into an oak tree, knocking him out. Sakki seemed to think that Rotiart was reasonably punished enough, and left to turn Code Avalon back on.

Saffa decided to use this diversion to return to her previous question, "Well, what is it that you are after, Ifrit?"

"The Sound," Ifrit repeated.

"Ever clear, ifrits," Demos said, dismissively, before making a point to walk away. Apparently, demons don't think well of ifrits, or Demos just didn't like this particular one.

"Is this where it originated?" Ifrit said, appearing not to have heard or seen Demos.

Cloak noticed clouds were gathering. Cloak immediately suspected the ifrit with such intensity that he startled himself with this sudden obduracy. He reasoned with himself that he inherited this stubborn intractability from his mother . . . but was he just making excuses for his actions, for his behaviors?

"You need to be more --" Parker began.

It started to snow.

"Uh," Parker said, put off by the sudden snowfall, "need to be more specific."

"The Sound," Ifrit repeated. Cloak thought his voice sounded wheezy and winded, and at the same time, rather sinister. "The strange, lilting utterances that are so novel, so new. Unlike anything that I have heard before on my tundra."

Cloak felt a sense of foreboding that he was sure was connected to this ifrit creature. He did not know why this ifrit elicited such feeling of hostility and near-fanaticism in him, but when he stepped back to analyze these feelings, he couldn't help but feel some fear in his behavior.

[redtailedsaffa]

Y'know, being from a tropical country, in normal situations I would have really appreciated the snow.

[Cloak]

Well, it gets real old here in the mountains.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Accumulation Unnoticed

"Cloak, do you really need to be all serious, doom-and-gloom right now?" Saffa said.

"The snow isn't stopping," the Realm Walker pointed out tacitly.

"Yes, but you know very well that's it's not that odd for this time of year." she said.

"It's accumulated to a foot," he pointed out stubbornly.

"Again," Guitarhero said, bundled up, without his characteristic guitar oddly enough, "like Saffa said, it's not out of the ordinary."

"It's started with the presence of the ifrit," the Elements Master insisted.

"Coincidence." Abby said, with a shrug.

"Maybe," Cloak said, "or maybe not."

"Cloak, you're really too suspicious." Gaz jibed teasingly.

The Realm Walker said nothing, just standing stoically and silent. An icy wind caused his Cloak to billow rather dramatically, accenting the RAFian's abject seriousness.

"Oh, Cloak," Saffa said, genially chastising. "Loosen up! Have some fun! Throw a snowball, or two!"

"Snow leads to ice," Cloak said, still quite serious. "Ice leads to slipping, to tough terrain to traverse."

They lapsed into a brief silence, before the Realm Walker broke it again.

"Consider carefully," he said, tone warning, "before you throw that snowball, Guitarhero."

"I'm not touching the earth, though," he protested, "how'd you --"

"You're crunching snow, compacting it, with each footstep." Cloak said swiftly.

***

The snowstorm had reached the city as well, but they were not taking it nearly as seriously -- at least a majority of the populace, anyway -- as the Realm Walker was. It was just business as usual. Nothing out of the ordinary.

"Hey!" Rollo cried out.

"Gotcha!" Ricky declared, making another snowball.

Rollo followed suit, but his was rather more hurriedly and poorly made. It felt apart midair, to Rollo's furious chagrin. Ricky nailed him again on his left shoulder, and Rollo wasn't too terribly pleased about it.

Rollo threw another, but the throw was rather too wide, and missed his cousin. Rollo was beginning to get upset and frustrated. Ricky was oblivious to how seriously his cousin was taking this.

[guitarhero01234]

I got a really good laugh out of this, since that's actually pretty accurate to how I would act in real life.

[Cloak]

Ah, good, then, GH.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER NINE:
Everlasting Snowfall

The snowing would not stop.

The single foot of snowfall quickly turned into two. Then it turned into three. Then four. It seemed to taper off there for the moment. School was cancelled, naturally, to the schoolchildren's delight, to the chagrin of their parents (or guardians or whatever caretakers they had). The hardest working people in the country -- the middle class and the working poor -- were having trouble going to their jobs in the devoted, punctual way they usually did.

The children saw the snow merely as an instrument of fun and play. The adults saw it as a major inconvenience and irritant, screwing with their carefully laid plans. Dealing with cars that refused to start like teenagers on a school day.

Cloak obstinately refused to believe that this snowfall was just a coincidence coinciding with the arrival of the ifrit. Cloak didn't really believe in coincidences. Yes, that could be just his paranoia speaking, he knew it very well. It was really difficult to reconcile his suspicious, distrusting nature. Sure, he trusted Shadow, Faith, and the RAFians (at the thought of Rotiart, he amended that to most RAFians).

He noticed that the ifrit had not vacated the vicinity, despite having the answer to the question that had momentarily consumed him. He really had no reason to dally. No reason to stick around . . .

Cloak shook his head, to shake him out of his reverie. He really shouldn't be feeling such hostility towards this creature, he knew. But he did not know why he felt as he did. He did not usually feel such hostilities about creatures he just met, he believed. He surmised that he might just be feeling cranky.

And yet . . .

And yet, Cloak still had this nagging feeling. It was persistant and unrelenting, and Cloak was inclined to listen to it. He believed he had more reason to trust this instinct than the ifrit's motives. He didn't know why, but he was reminded of that leprechaun fiasco some months ago.

The ifrit did not seem bothered -- or surprised -- with the sudden snowfall. Perhaps Cloak was seeing more into this than he should have. But he was indecisive about whether he should act or not. Action or inaction, either would be a decision of which he would have to deal with the fallout and the ramifications of such a decision.

Cloak could kill the ifrit, he knew. But he resisted the temptation, he always tried to control his emotions with an iron fist.

[guitarhero01234]

It's a cool place, it'll only get colder,
Cloak's bundled up now, wait till the Ifrit gets closer,
But the RAFians would beg to differ,
Not a single one of them can see the big picture.

. . . I would think of more, but I'm way too lazy.

[Cloak]

Nice, GH.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TEN:
Candid Admission

The snow was still not stopping.

Cloak sensed, he thought, that this unrelenting snowstorm was not naturally-occurring. He was manufactured, he thought. But the others wouldn't believe him. They knew that he was biased against the ifrit, that the Realm Walker suspected him. Perhaps he was wrong to do so, Cloak acknowledged to himself silently, perhaps he was wrong to immediately assume the worst of people that he had just met.

But he had to stick to his guns on this one. Especially because the RAFians had recently lost track of the ifrit. It was easy to do under these weather conditions. Cloak's Earthsight was fundamentally useless with all this snow separating him from the earthen ground, and he was well aware of this. After all they went through when they lost their sight, he couldn't help but felt a little cutoff.

"Do you think that I should still lighten up? Are you still enjoying the snow?" Cloak said, somewhat caustically, addressing Saffa, who slipped a bit on the inevitable ice that was generated from the snow.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," she said, dismissively. "You got me. Care to twist the knife some more?"

Cloak did not, his point was already made. To do anymore would be gloating, and Cloak had no interest in doing that.

"You guys looking Lord Freeze-Ya too?" Abby said, effectively declaring the ifrit guilty.

"I'm not really liking this," Underseen said. The cold weather was making his mimetic shapeshifting ability was slow and sluggish, and he wasn't particularly pleased with it. "And I think that's him over there."

"IFRIT!" Cloak bellowed, a tiger's roar intermingling with his voice.

"Thanks, Cloak!" It was Saffa's turn to be caustic. "I may never have the hiccups again!"

The ifrit turned around, undaunted and casual, as the quartet advanced on him. He was slightly shorter than Saffa, his forehead coming to her chin. Cloak, standing at about eight feet, towered over him, but he was not intimidated.

"Yes, Sound-Makers?"

"Did you bring this Ice Age upon us?" Cloak said, unable to keep the heated tone from his voice.

"Ice Age, you say?" it said, and Cloak noticed now his forehead came up to Saffa's eyeline. The growth wasn't obvious or really noticeable until you thought about it. "I like this term."

"Are you the culprit of this unnatural weather?" Abby said, in rather uncanny mimicry of Cloak. The Realm Walker was not amused.

"Unnatural?" he said, slowly. "You consider my Gift to you, my saving you from the unnatural uncomfortableness you were burdened with, unnatural?"

"I knew it," Cloak snarled.

[redtailedsaffa]

I'm not that short.

[Cloak]

No, but the ifrit was.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
RAFians . . . On Ice

"Gift?" Underseen said, revulsion evident. "You call plunging us into a new Ice Age a Gift?!"

"Yes," Ifrit said, surprisingly simply.

"Burying everyone in snow, smothering them in ice," Cloak said, "I have some news for you, pal. We don't consider that a 'gift.'"

The ifrit did not bristle at this not-so-subtle criticism, he did not burn with anger. He did not really burn with any emotion, electing to remain cold and aloof.

"Then you are ungrateful," the ifrit said. Now Saffa came up to his chin. Yet his head never changed size.

"Hey!" Saffa said, voice loud as the crack of a bullwhip. "We never asked for your stupid present. Maybe a little was fine, but you are going way overboard with this, pal!"

"Overboard? I am doing no such thing," Ifrit said. "If you can't see the altruism in my actions, its your fault?"

"Altruism?!" Cloak bellowed again, a tiger's roar intermingling with his words. Rage was beginning to lick at his insides like a famished predatory beast. "Is that what you truly see this as?! Altruism?!"

 "Yes," Ifrit said, as if this was obvious. "I made the temperature more tolerable. I saved you from that stifling mess that you were suffering from before."

"Whoever SAID that we were suffering?!" Abby screamed in pure frustration. "Has even occurred to you that we thrive in the climate that was hear previously?"

"Impossible," Ifrit said, coldly. He was arrogantly refusing to be reasonable, though he wore only a look of mild disinterest upon his face. "No creature could thrive at those obscene temperatures."

"Fool!" Cloak muttered under his breath.

"It is you that is the fool," Ifrit said.

Cloak glared at the ifrit. They were now eye level. He spoke warningly, "Don't make me angry, Ifrit. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry."

Ifrit scoffed, "Please."

The ifrit flicked his wrist and a stream of cold air, cryokinetic energy, came from his palm. There was no way to dodge, as Abridged Piccolo constantly insists, and all four RAFians wer frozen solid in rather shapeless blocks of ice.

Ifrit scoffed again, "Pathetic."

[redtailedsaffa]

Nice Hulk vibes Cloak.

[Cloak]

Thanks.

Now a couple of more book ideas. Hopefulley no rehashing, which is a very good problem at this point.

• Book DCCXLIX: "In-Laws" -- A female's parents come looking for her.
• Book DCCL: "Another Identity Thief" -- Someone seeks to steal Ricky's identity.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Burning Out

The ifrit left them as they were, misshapen blocks of ice. Frozen forever, unable to move, but still able to, somehow, function. Still self-aware. Still alive. The ifrit either didn't know about this, or knew and callously didn't care.

In any case, the ifrit was very much mistaken by doing this, as underestimating what a foe was capable of was always a mistake. Especially when that foe just happened to be a RAFian.

Especially when that foe just happened to be a Realm Walker.

Especially when that foe just happened to be an Elements Master, with the power of the Element of Fire, an element that can be just as fuelled by anger as any of the other five.

A loud roar that could carry for two miles erupted as Cloak had to use the Element of Fire to generate enough heat to burst explosively from the irregularly shaped ice tomb. He was absolutely livid. Fiercely angry.

But he managed to stay present enough to control and limit his power potential from going amuck. But he was still quite ticked off.

That piece of Veiled garbage had the nerve to freeze him solid! The impudence! The indignity! The unadulterated gall!

Cloak forced himself to close his eyes, to breathe, to calm down sufficiently enough to assess their situation calmly and rationally. It wasn't easy for someone used to putting a tight lid on their emotions, of bottling them up. He knew that he shouldn't do such, but it was already a deeply-ingrained defense mechanism.

First thing's first, he needed to defrost the other three, and he must do this carefully. He wished that Abby and Saffa had a cold weather morph -- to his knowledge, they had none. But never mind that now. He had to defrost them, and he did, forming a blowtorch-like flame with his index finger.

Sure, it may have been slow, but Cloak was aware how detrimental rapidly cooling a body of matter and then rapidly heating it up again could be. It would have to be slow and careful, lest he do irreparable damage . . . although, considering their morphing and shapeshifting abilities, this miht have proven to be a rather moot point.

Anyway, it took what seemed like forever, but he managed to free them. The trio looked absolutely livid, as they should, Cloak felt.

[redtailedsaffa]

Wow, I get to be Captain America for 15 seconds.

A female's parents come looking for her.

That is the most vague spoiler-free summary I've ever seen. XD