Memoirs of a RAFian

[redtailedsaffa]

I notice the book titles are beginning to differ a bit from their originally planned titles in the list.

PDF of the last book:

[guitarhero01234]

Taking a guitar into a gravity chamber can't be good for its neck

[Cloak]

More like I made a mistake in the last chapter of the previous book, Saffa, and was too lazy to change it -- er, I mean, I decided to roll with it.

And, GH, it survived the training simulator, and your guitars are made of sterner stuff than ordinary guitars. What precisely? Well, that is your little secret, I think.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
The Projector

There was a scientist by the name of Dr. Emil Bradford Goode. He was an expert (though he will only admit to being knowledgeable and highly skilled) in theoretic multidimensional science. He worked in ignorance to the existence of Realm Walkers, preferring not to watch the news because of how much of it is horribly sensational and terribly macabre. Not to mention he was well aware how certain newspapers and television news could be biased, either overtly or covertly.

All he cared about was his work. He had no wife, no kids, no siblings, and his parents had long since passed away. All he had to him was his work. That's all that he had, and that's why it was so important to him.

Emil always meant well, but he came off as a bumbling, bungling fool. His naivete was, at times, charming and innocent, but, at others, irritating and dangerous. He had tanned skin with black hair, was of moderate height and was of a thin build. He wore a flannel shirt, blue jeans, black belt, and a pristine white lab coat.

He worked over a white device the size of an alligator snapping turtle, with a carapace the shape of a frisbee and a flat plastron. There were two "D"-shaped handles with gray grips towards the rear of the device, placed at a forty-five degree angle from each other. At the front of the device, where the vertex of the handles would be, there was a nozzle-like appendage that was not unlike a camera lens. It was built to be rather sturdy, and was of moderate weight -- not featherlight, but not excessively heavy.

It was a projector.

A projector into a black void of nothingness. No one has managed to breach this area of the realm, Goode was sure. Then again, he had no concept of the Realm Walkers.

He decided to call the nothingness area simply "void space", unaware that that just happened to be exactly what it was called. He was the only Dweller known to be able to penetrate the layer beyond Everlost, the Null Void, and the ghost zone. Even beyond the timeline cuticle. Enabling the Dwellers to access something no Dweller before has accessed. That no one before could even question whether or not they should have access to.

And, as the case with all inventions, despite the altruistic intents of the creator, there would always be one person -- one person at the barest minimum -- who would use the invention to hurt or harm people. With the onset of printed words, there came libelous words. With onset of the internet, there were viruses, cyberbullying, cyberstalking, and a myriad of more things.

This invention would be no different.

[Cloak]

Ah, another 190 views and we'll be at 100,000 views. That's an accomplishment, I believe.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
The Problem With Naivete

This invention wasn't one to stay under wraps for long.

A man in army general uniform with his four stars placed, rather noticeably, strolled right into Goode's ramshackle laboratory. The entry was unwarranted, unbidden, and unwelcomed. The man had black hair in a regulation crew-cut, beard stubble, a broad, blunt nose, small beady eyes, a thick build, and a large, square jaw. He had tanned skin, and a haughty air of condescending arrogance.

Dr. Goode was surprised, reacting rather benignly to this unlawful entry. Dr. Goode was far too good-natured to throw the intruder out. Especially when this newcomer seemed to be perfectly unarmed. And yet, somehow, something felt off about this guy. Something disingenuous, something deceptive, something manipulative about this guy.

"Civilian, I'm General John Jaxur," he said, without preamble.

"Dr. Emil Goode," Dr. Goode introduced himself, good-naturedly and benignly. "How may I help you?"

Dr. Goode was really stretching it by being this polite to someone who made an illegal entry, as he forced his way in. Even if you're part of the military, you cannot just enter someone's house unbidden and make demands of them, such in this way.

"I heard that you've made a portal generator," Gen. Jaxur said. "I've come to commandeer the device."

This was not the way policy sad to handle such things, especially because Jaxur was alone, and even his uniform was rather questionable. The general stars were actually on upside-down. But Dr. Goode did not know the intricacies of the policies and discipline coded with the military. He wouldn't be able to discover a fake as a true military man would have.

"Pardon?"

"I've come to collect the device," he repeated. "It's a matter of national security."

"Wait -- what?"

"I'm going to stop speaking nicely, Dr. Goode," he said, subtly suggesting a threat. "Give me the device."

Dr. Goode reluctantly relented, and handed the device over. Even though he had no legal obligation to do so. He didn't trust his gut on this one, and he just handed over a device that could be turned into a weapon.

To a guy who was obviously not a real army general. To a guy who was, in reality, a high-ranking Knight of Humanity. . . .

[redtailedsaffa]

Oh, great.

In the Saffa origin fic I'm working on, the Knights are actually starting out on a silent military re-infilitration campaign, shortly after the events of the first Knights book (Cannon's death etc). So I shouldn't be surprised.

[Cloak]

Ah. 'Kay.

I keep finding myself rereading Book LII ("RAFians Alive"). Clearly, it is one of my better books, I believe.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Ultimatum By Knight

Static.

An image comes into view, blurry at first, due to the static. The image stabilized to reveal several figures clad in steel armor. Seven, eight figures total. Of various heights and builds. The one that was obviously Jaxur was in dead-center, though his identity was as ibscured as the rest.

"Attention, world." Jaxur said, in ringing tones. They had hijacked the airwaves to put out their message, which was actually quite illegal in this day and age. "Do we have your attention?"

Then Jaxur looked at someone beyond the camera, and spoke rather abusively, "What d'you mean the camera's not on? The red light's on. Well, fix it then. We need -- oh, it's on now? Took you long enough, you useless lump!"

Jaxur tried to recapture the megalomaniacal atmosphere of the video, but it was too late. It was already ruined. But that didn't stop this high-ranking Knight of Humanity from trying to sound all impressive and grand, when, in reality, it was quite the opposite. But, thrn again, all bigots try to sound more grandiose than they truly are, refusing to see just how pathetic they truly are.

"Attention, world." he repeated. "We are but a few Knights of Humanity. We are the ones  who protect you from the filth mucking up our paradise. The vermin who come here, unbidden and unwanted and unwelcome, and saturate our Eden with their abominable unnaturalness. They defile our world with their poisonous presences. They are the very sin of both nature and technology. They were not born here. They were not created here. They don't deserve to be here."

He gave a rather pregnant pause, in an obvious attempt to allow the tone of the message to sink in, when in reality most people had just shut off their televisions.

"The common terms for these blasphemous creatures are 'aliens' or 'extraterrestrials'," Jaxur continued. "Impure beasts that haven't any right to exist. Only the human race has the fortitude, the divine blessing, to live and survive, as well as all other Terran life we have dominion over."

Another brief pause. This was becoming habitually annoying.

"So," he droned on, "we, the Knights of Humanity, issue an ultimatum to all the non-Terran, alien filth polluting our beautious planet out there. Get the hell off Earth, or we will FORCE you to comply. You have no choice. You cannot refuse. You will leave or we will send you to a far less desirable place."

He paused briefly -- did he think he was William Shatner or something?

"That is all."

Static.

***

"They cannot be serious," Saffa snorted derisively.

"They would not go through all the trouble of pirating the airwaves if they had nothing," Aquilai pointed out.

"They probably just have another Andalite toilet or something, and think that they have some sort of super-weapon, again." Parker said, dismissively. "Just because they think they have some sort of end-all weapon doesn't mean that they do."

"Yeah, just because they despise aliens doesn't mean that they're above using their technology," Goom said, dryly. "These are fanatics that we're dealing with, remember."

"Hey, if the ends meet the means . . ." Helen said vaguely.

"I don't think you said that right," Parker teased. Helen ignored him.

"Do they actually think people will capitulate to them?" Cloak said, quietly. "They've shown time and time again what jokes they are. And, yet, never before had they pulled a stunt like this. They never issued an ultimatum -- granted, this was a vague one. But this is certainly a departure from their normally laughable and ineffectual tactics and strategy."

"You think something's up," Abby put in, shrewdly.

[redtailedsaffa]

This has given me more inspiration for the fic, actually.

[Cloak]

Saffa, that's how Horse's "Revenge of the Banned" came to be, unless my information is faulty. She wasn't inspired by "Memoirs", but by the RAFparodies. All 801 of them.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Disappearances

The Knights apparently did not take to the ambivalent, indifferent reaction to their garrulous ultimatum. They did not like the fact that their ultimatum had a very low viewership. They did not like the objective fact that . . . that no one took them seriously.

Jaxur decided that this was a sign of disrespect. And this would not do, as no one, but no one disrespects him. They would just have to show people that they meant business. Yes, that's what they'd do.

They would take matters into their own hands. And, as with all lamebrain bigots, that was never a good thing.

***

"Tetramand adolescent, male. Kinecceleran adolescent, female. Pyronite adolescent, male. Osmosian adolescent, male. Methanosian adolescent, male. Anodyte adolescent, female. Human adult, male." Yarin read from a readout.

"And what do they have in common?" Saffa asked rhetorically.

"They're all adolescents?" Faerie answered irreverently. Then she conceded, "Well, except the human, that is."

"They've all disappeared," Cloak said. "The Knights are making good on their ultimatum."

"We don't know that," Helen said, at once. "It could be a veritable plethora of things we have yet to consider. They were teenagers, except for the human. They could simply have been runaways or something."

"Even if it wasn't the Knights, it wouldn't stop them from taking credit for it." Parker put in, jadedly.

"There is a correlation between the Knights' ultimatum and these disappearances," Cloak said. "They happened after a full thirty-six hours after the ultimatum was issued. No one took them seriously, as there was no mass exodus from the planet. Right, Yarin?"

"No spacecraft was detected by RAFian sensors," Yarin confirmed. "This is true."

"And I doubt that boom tubes were used," Cloak added.

"We would have registered the energy output, and boom tubes have a very unique energy output." Yarin put in.

"So, unless there was another method currently unknown to us," Cloak continued, "no one has left. Thereby no one has taken the Knights' threatening ultimatum seriously."

"There could simply be no aliens on planet at the moment," Saffa pointed out.

"Roughly 9.11% of the current population are foreign species," Yarin sniffed. "The numbers remain the same as the night before."

"Well, 9.11% of the current population are open aliens," Cloak corrected. "Malice is still in-universe, and I doubt that she would report her presence."

"I factored that in," Yarin said, sounding a little offended that he would not have taken this into account.

"The point still stands that we could have undocumented aliens here," Cloak said. "But we're getting off-track from the point. The Knights must feel that lack of compliance had forced their hand."

"But how can the Knights be causing people to disappear?" Underseen asked. "There hasn't been any trace of them since their disappearance."

"They could have kidnapped them," GH postulated, but then refuted his own suggestion, "but even that would have left evidence, however minute. Signs of a struggle, and whatnot. There was none of that was there?"

[redtailedsaffa]

Whup, nearly had Modify-Post Syndrome. Good thing I came on to document the PDF.

[Cloak]

. . . But I didn't modify my post. 

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Meeting of Polar Opposites

"In any case, something must be done," Richard said.

"Storm their headquarters and take back the hostages?" Faerie suggested, as if she was only advocating a trip to the local grocery store. "Sounds good to me."

"I was actually thing of something a bit more . . . diplomatic," Richard said. "Perhaps we can settle this whole nonviolently, and come to a peaceful conclusion."

"You're serious?" Sakki said, skeptically.

"We always take the more hostile route," SuperNate considered, "we might come to a compromise, I suppose."

"Bigots do not compromise. Bigots do not capitulate." Parker said, bluntly. "They demand. They oppress. They are hostile towards peace. They thrive and live off of hatred."

"Parker, be optimisitic," Helen conjoled.

"I'd rather be realistic," he replied dryly.

"Just because you extend the olive branch doesn't mean that it won't be angrily slapped away," GH pointed out. "They may not choose to sit down at work on a peace deal."

"They may just use it to justify their claim, or may very well become even more fanatical," Cloak said, quietly thoughtful. "Bigots have already made the decision to close their minds to facts, choosing to believe that they are superior in all senses of the word, in every aspect. The chance of getting through that mire of bigotry, especially when we don't have the advantage, especially when we don't have a bargaining chip, is effectively nil."

<Cloak makes some valid points,> Esplin said, thoughtfully. <The effort to come to a peaceful conclusion seems like a long shot.>

"All we can do is hope for the best," SuperNate said. "I know it doesn't seem likely that they'll even acquiesce to a sit-down."

"We can send a delegation of RAFians," Richard said. "Mods and prestigious RAFians, to meet a delegation of theirs. We'll see if they comply."

***

Surprisingly enough, they did comply with the request.

Richard, SuperNate, Ash, Cloak, Parker, Abby, and Saffa went as the RAFian delegation, while the Knights sent their eight, still fully armored, helmets concealing their identities. There was a thick-set one (the one who spoke in the video), a thin, female Knight, one wearing an ornate ring that he fiddled with when idle, one wearing a locket or pocket watch with an ornate "KoH" on it, one that held a gold chalice for some reason, one that wore some sort of coronet atop her helmet, one that had engraved serpents on his armor, and one who looked like he barely made it into manhood by the size and build of him. All of their expressions were inscrutable, and they all possessed melee weapons. This Cloak knew without a doubt because he Earthsighted it.

"Let's get down to business," said the lead Knight. "First of all, you will filter your ranks of the vile alien scum that dwell --"

"We are here to discuss peace," Saffa said flatly.

"No," the lead Knight contradicted, "we're here to discuss your abject capitulation."

"We never said we would capitulate to inane demands," Parker said immediately.

"You will bow to our whims," the lead Knight threatened. "Or you will go to the Void."

Cloak took particular notice of the last word.

[Cloak]

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Ruminations and Meeting's End

The meeting quickly deteriorated after that.

The Knight had walked into the meeting expecting and believing the RAFians would capitulate and abide by their terms. Abide without question. That the RAFians had come to them to essentially get their "orders" from the Knights. In their utmost arrogance, in their undeserved sense of superiority, they thought they had some divine right to order the RAFians around.

The RAFians, Cloak in particular, did not enjoy being ordered around by these arrogant pieces of a compost heap with the collective intelligence of a mouse. The RAFians took their leave, but wasn't without drama.

The lead Knight angrily told them that they were not dismissed, and to get back to the table. The RAFians did not respond, but abjectly turned their backs on them.

"Don't turn your backs on us!" the lead Knight, Jaxur, shouted angrily at the percieved disrespect. "Get back here!! You were not dismissed!!"

They unsheathed their "hidden" weapons, and stood up. The RAFians looked unimpressed.

"Get back here, or leave in pieces," Jaxur threatened, holding out a broadsword. On either side, the others held out a variety of swords, except the manchild who held out a Peter Pan-like dagger.

"You do not know who you're trifling with," Cloak growled.

"Silence, filth," Jaxur said, as Cloak was the only real overt alien of the bunch.

Cloak didn't respond but flicked his wrist, and all eight Knights flew back to the far wall. The Knights made a very detrimental miscalculation by coming to this meeting in all-metal armor. Then made another when they decide to wear their bigotry right out on their sleeve, especially to someone who was a known ferrokinetic, especially when they were wearing all-metal armor.

The RAFians left, as the Knights were humiliated.

***

On the way back, Cloak ruminated on, not the goings-on at the laughable mess of a meeting, but on the word the lead Knight used.

"Void".

Cloak did not know why the word struck such a cord with him. He thought on this, he pondered on this. He did not like the conclusion that he reached. He hoped he was wrong. He really hoped that he was wrong.

No one known had even breached Everlost, though the ghost zone and Ledgerdomain has been breached before. . . . But none have breached the timeline cuticle. . . . except the occasional Time Lord inside a TARDIS . . .

So, is that farfetched that the Void Space was breached? But that was potentially incredibly dangerous. . . .

[redtailedsaffa]

Then I must've missed it altogether. I'm getting old.

It's been a good few years, Saffa's definitely reconciled her history with the Knights. They've gotten a lot flashier since their silent days, though. Gold chalice? Really?

[Cloak]

Oh, we broke the 100,000 view mark. Yay!

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Explanations

"They couldn't have," Cloak muttered.

"Couldn't have what?" Abby said, at once.

"Made a portal into Void Space," Cloak said.

"Excuse me, but 'Void Space'?" SuperNate asked. "What's that?"

"Yes, I shouldn't have expected you to know," Cloak said. "It's one of the many layers to a realm. Just like a cell is composed over various organelles, a realm is similiar."

"This is gonna be educational, isn't it?" Saffa said.

"The outer most part of the realm is the realm cuticle, the layer that only my kind can pass through as we please when we Walk." Cloak said, going into a flow with this information dump. "Within that is Void Space, the space between timelines. It is believed to be empty, full of nothingness and darkness."

"But don't you know already? Don't you pass through this 'Void Space' every time you Walk?" Parker asked, aptly.

"Yes," Cloak acknowledged, "but Walking is very nearly instantaneous. One doesn't meander when Walking."

"Ah," Parker said, in return acknowledgement.

"Anyway, beyond that, is the various timeline cuticles, which prevents the Void Space from intermingling with actual timelines. Only a sparce few Time Lords manage to penetrate this cuticle, if my information is not incorrect." Cloak said. "Within this timeline cuticle, it gets a bit more murky. I believe there may be a lot more layers, especially when one considers that all the Lantern Corps store their personal lanterns in pocket 'dimensions' until they need to charge their rings. But the ones I know about are Everlost (a place where only ghost children go for some reason), Ledgerdomain (I believe that is where Salem and Saberhagen may have come from), and the ghost zone (which is less picky about admittance than Everlost). Perhaps the places you call 'heaven' and 'hell', as well, could be included. But those are two layers Realm Walkers cannot enter for whatever reason."

He paused as they reached the forum.

"The last two parts of a realm -- the parts that I know of any way -- is the material world, in which we are dwelling in right now. Then the realm core."

"What's the realm core?" Saffa asked.

Cloak considered a moment before saying, "It's nothing. Nothing to be concerned about."

[redtailedsaffa]

Foreshadowing there?

[Cloak]

Foreshadowing, you say?

New, shortish chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
The Void of the Knights

The Knights stormed away from meeting site when they were free to move again. Naturally, they were thoroughly disgruntled about this humiliation. But did they acknowledge their mistake, their error? No, of course not.

They searched for the poor victims from who they would take their bigoted frustrations out on. Non-Terrans -- anyone who's species wasn't borne from Earth. If the individual was born on Earth, that was immaterial to the Knights. It had to be that their species originated from the planet to be acceptable -- and even if it was so, but the species was not human in the slightest, they would deny that they were a Terran-borne species.

But that was the thing with bigotry -- it's exclusively exclusive usually with little to no rhyme or reason, whereas the more egalitarian view of things tended to be more inclusive. It's also funny how quickly fear of "the other" can escalate into hatred and oppression. Funny how it can give rise to so many awful coalitions of people, with the Knights just being one of many groups espousing hatred and bigotry -- the Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan, the Council of Conservative Citizens, and possibly an endless amount of hate groups.

And all because someone happened to be different from the individuals in question dared to live, dared to simply exist. This also wasn't a trait strictly relegated to humans, either.

The Knight managed to unmask a disguised half-Saiyan, half-human child. They sucked him into Void Space with both his parents -- his (surprisingly calm and reserved) Saiyan father and his human mother. The Knights felt nothing about such an act, as they considered the human mother rather sinful and disgusting for breeding with a nonhuman -- disregarding that Saiyans resemble humans a great deal. Then again, bigots of this nature are all about perceived purity, even though that is, at most, a stupidly trivial thing to concern yourself with.

The Knights weren't above shoving humans who did not agree with their fanatical ideology into the Void Space either. They were rather hypocritical in this way.

Sadly enough, they weren't done.

Their victims grew to include a hidden Prypiatosian-B (inside a containment suit), disguised Ewok, a hidden Cerebrocrustacean, a disguised Vulcan, a hidden Aerophibian, and a disguised Zabrak. All shoved into the Void Space.

And the Knights were still not done.