Memoirs of a RAFian

[Cloak]

Precisely.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Terror Time Again

Time in here went by slowly. Leatherhead soon bored of reading "The Trials of Apollo" or whatever the book was called -- he couldn't really focus on it. He swore he read the same paragraph fifty times without even taking anything in.

So, he grabbed his keytar, and sang, whilst giving "Nate" a deeply venomous look, though he himself wasn't so sure why he didn't like the guy. He just looked like a poser pretty boy -- the kind his dad always despised.

"You hear the screeching of a Noctowl,
You hear the wind begin to howl,
You know there's RAFian-Zillas on the prowl.
And its terror time again.
They got you running through night.
It's terror time again,
And you just might die of fright.
It's a terrifying time!"

Zachary detached himself from his mother, and went over to LH, interested in his playing, through obviously not paying a lick of attention to the lyrics. Andy just looked at him with subtle consternation at his song choice.

"Nate" just returned the glare, not thinking anything of the song.

"You hear the beating of your heart.
You know the screaming's gonna start.
Here comes the really scary part,
'Coz it's terror time again,
They've got you running through the night!
It's terror time again,
And you just might die of fright.
It's a terrifying time!"

"Nate" kept meeting LH's penetrating glare, not daring to look away and have if look like he was being weak. He didn't realize the unimportance of this, really, nor why he felt it necessary as these people were just pawns -- mere NPCs! -- to him.

"All the trees begin to moan,
And the 'Zillas grunt and groan,
Rotting faces full of slime,
Don't you know its terror time?
And it's terror time again,
They've got you running through the night.
Yes, it's terror time again,
And you might just die of fright,
It's a terrifying time!"

As the song ended, "Nate" found that he didn't like it very much. It almost sounded like a threat. A threat directed towards him. This child was making him feel most unwelcome here. And he, in his view, had more right to be here than the rest of these pathetic, useless wastrels.

He did not know that this was RAFian property, nor of Andy and LH's relationship to a RAFian -- especially one that turned -- as neither carried a Mark. Or else they might have become RAFian-Zillas themselves. Or that Susan was an ardent supporter (or "apologists" as her estranged family would call her) for RAFian endeavors (Zachary, naturally, was too young to understand or care about the finer points of this political friction). "Nate" hated the RAFians and their forum because he hated Cody -- er, Broken, -- so much.

No. No, he must calm down. If he didn't the glamour's magic might expire or drop. He had to maintain his cover. He had to maintain the identity of this idyllic, approachable teen heartthrob, unaware it made him come off as fake and phony to the kids. The glamour was holding. But for how long, he didn't know.

He was really playing Russian roulette with a potentially volatile situation, but he was arrogantly ****y that it wouldn't backfire on him. . . .

Source Song: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GkNask_pMKo

[theyoungphoenix]

what is with all the villains being so confident in themselves?? i mean really, now.

anyways, great chapter cloaky!!

[Cloak]

Thanks. Probably finish this book tomorrow.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Cracks Deepening

The next few days there was an unspoken, but obvious tension between Leatherhead and "Nate". "Nate" did not know why the boy hated him so much, but the more he thought of it, the boy was inconsequential. Useless and bothersome. Unneeded. He could swiftly be excised from the equation, and made to look like an accident. He had a vinewood wand in his bag. Vine, nine and three-quarters, rigid. It was his first wand, but he was confident that he could make more if he required it, though he had a preference for dragon heartstring rather than unicorn hair or phoenix feathers. He also had two others (rowan, unicorn hair, ten and three-quarters inches, slightly yielding; alder, unicorn hair, fourteen inches exactly, brittle; and laurel, unicorn hair, twelve and a quarter inches, quite bendy) that he had taken from their rightful owners by way of subterfuge, but this was merely souvenirs, trophies.

Although Broken was far superior in this regard, though "Nate" would never admit to it. Though Broken had only made a wand for Melissa (hornbeam, ten inches exactly, unicorn hair, surprisingly springy) and his own (alder, ten and a half inches, phoenix tailfeather, slightly yielding), the quality was better than anything "Nate" could make. He was always inferior, and was determined to prove that wrong. Cody couldn't have been so superior. Everything just came so damn easy to him. It wasn't his fault that he -- no matter, no matter. That was in the past. As now was Cody, though it was almost as if Cody was looming over him, still looking down him from wherever he went after death.

It wasn't fair! He didn't deserve these feelings of inadequacy!! He didn't deserve to work so hard only to be continually looked over and passed over for the stupid little golden child, Cody. The Sorcerer Supreme! Ha! Like he even earned that title. News flash, everyone -- he didn't! Your little golden boy didn't earn, he stole it!! Stole it from him!! "Nate" felt like he was robbed of something that was rightfully his! Denied his right to the title, to the rank!! It was rightfully his and not Cody's!! Cody always had everything just handed to him on a goddamn silver platter!!

"Nate" was so busy fuming about old wounds that he quite forgot to maintain his amicable demeanor and friendly disposition. His paranoia grew the more he thought about these unspoken and resentful slights. He was in a very fragile, vulnerable state of mind right now. Suddenly, this entire safe compound was just one big powder keg waiting impatiently to go boom.

It wasn't fair. They always gave him the easy training, the easy questions. They always gave "Nate" the hardest of the hard question s, the most trying of trials. Then they turn around and say that Cody is just better? That he's the supreme sorcerer?! That he --

LH rudely and roughly bumped "Nate". It looked like an accident, and probably was, but "Nate took it as deliberate provocation.

"Watch where you're going!!" "Nate snapped, his glamour actually rippling in his anger.

Leatherhead, who saw the rippling, stared hard into "Nate", giving him a cold, icy stare. After a few minutes, LH spoke with an accusatory tone, "I saw that, 'Nate', if that your real name. You're wearing some sort of disguise!"

[theyoungphoenix]

smart kid you got there, gh. hmmm... now to see what he does about this

[Cloak]

Well, here it is.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Cast Aside

"Nate" gave an insane-sounding giggle that caused Susan to draw Zachary closer to her. Even Leatherhead backed down a little, as the glamour faded with a flash of.light to reveal the twenty-something culprit.

"Who are you?!" Leatherhead demanded, less afraid now. Andy was very inclined to pull LH away from this strange man, but LH wasn't having any of it. Ever since this happened, Leatherhead was becoming more and more independent, though he secretly appreciated the parental instinct in Andy.

"Who am I? Who am I?" "Nate" said. "I think you had some choice words for such a question, Mr. Sirois. I believe they were 'none of your damn business'."

Well, that came back to bite him in the tail.

"What do you want?" Andy pressed.

"What do I . . . but you already know, don't you?" he accused, with a trembling, unsteady timbre to his voice. "You already know!!"

"What do we know?" Susan said, putting herself between Irate "Nate" and Zachary. She felt as if she put him in danger. "What exactly?"

"What do --" he spluttered, looking rather crazy, as he groped in his back. "You all know very well that it was me all along! You knew because you're all in league with the RAFians, with Cody!!"

"Who's Cody?" Andy blurted.

"Broken! That ludicrous nomme de plume of his!" "Nate" roared. "You know . . . you know of my enmity for him. You know that I tried to mix magicks. You know that this hell is because --"

"YOU?!" Leatherhead roared, voice intermingling with a crocodile roar. "YOU were the reason that I lost my Dad?!"

"YOU were the reason that I lost my boyfriend?!" Andy roared, just as angry as Leatherhead. "YOU were the one who turned him into that . . . that . . . that monster?!"

"An unintended side effect," he replied back breathlessly. He was so cavalier with his indifference at his dismissal of the RAFians. In his eyes, they stopped being worthwhile lives when they allied themselves to Cody. They've forfeited their lives, their value, on that day, as far as he was concerned. "But effective, nonetheless."

Leatherhead made to attack him, but he whipped out his yew wand, and shouted, "IMPERIO!" four times, making direct contact with each person. Putting them under the Imperious Curse.

[theyoungphoenix]

gdi. ugh "nate" is kinda loosing his mind a bit. well, i guess he's already lost it. but you know.

[Cloak]

Speaking of losing it --

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Doomed

"Nate" relished the sensation of casting puppet strings into the four. There was no way for them to backstab him or betray him in any way now. While he's never been under the Imperius Curse himself -- not that he remembered, anyway -- he knew that the sensation would be of wiping one's mind clean of individual thought and will. He had no one to disabuse him of his fanciful notions, to correct his logistical errors.

He smiled a rather unpleasant smile, as he approached the four in turn, judging them. Knowing that now that they were Imperiused, he could will them to do anything he pleased. They couldn't resist his magic, anymore than the RAFians could. All Mark-Bearers were monsters because of his magic, his powerful, OP magic!

He examined LH, and said with an overt sneer, "Will you tell me what L. H. stands for now?"

"L . . . l . . . lo . . ." Leatherhead struggled.

"How cute," "Nate" said, "you're fighting my curse. It's an exercise in futility, you know."

"L-loser hot-hothead," Leatherhead choked out. He still fought off the curse, but it wasn't as easy as some may think.

"And you," he said, rounding on Zachary, "you cute little bastard."

Zachary looked up, apparently not resisting the curse at all. He was too young to be able to resist it.

"What do you think of me?"

"You're really cool!" Zachary said, but the words weren't his. "Nate" was puppeting the boy, like a ventriloquist dummy. "Way better than Mommy!"

That did it. It was one thing to use Susan herself in such a way, but there was absolutely no way -- no way -- that she would allow her son to be used like that. She quickly broke and shrugged off the Imperius Curse, her sheer motherly instincts giving her strength and power. This display of strength seemed to empower Andy and Leatherhead enough to break and shrug of theirs as well.

All at once, the tables turned on "Nate". They always did. It was really unfair.

Susan made it to his wand before he could do anything and, with prodigious strength, broke the yew wand into two, neatly severing the dragon heartstring within, rendering it useless. He remembered his trophy wands, but immediately discarded that notion. They were useless as well, because the unicorn hair within them "died" ages ago.

"H-how? How'd --" "Nate" spluttered as he felt the woman's beefy hand at his throat, lifting him up, off his feet. He never realized just how tall this woman was.

"Just because a cat doesn't show you its claws," Susan snarled, sounding rather like a saber-toothed cat, "doesn't mean that it doesn't have any!!"

"Nate" began to see stars.

"Wh-why?"

"Nate" couldn't hear her response as his head began to swim. He began to swoon in and out of consciousness. And soon, very soon, all he knew was blackness and nothingness . . .

[theyoungphoenix]

"nate" should really stop underestimating people

[Cloak]

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Not Real?

Suddenly, "Nate" snapped his eyes open, and bolted upright in his shabby bed. He was breathing heavily, as if he had just died. He was sweating, but breathing. He was alive, and it was a moment before what he was seeing caught up with him.

He was alive. He wasn't in the stronghold. He was back in his magical tent with his protective enchantments around them. Back in this unobtrusive little stretch of woods. His bookbag was there, but his trophy wands were not. Made sense, as they only existed in the dream. Yes, dream. It was all a dream. None of it happened, not truly.

He should have known from the start. Every time he tried to mix those magicks they just caused explosions instead of what they were supposed to do. Granted, even he didn't know what they were supposed to do, but at least he was willing to try it, to see. He wasn't afraid of experimentation like Cody was. Cody was always afraid of getting into trouble, terrified of not exploring the unexplored! Why would boundaries exist if they weren't pushed to the limit? Why would limits exist if they weren't meant to be broken? Why was this such a difficult concept for mundane people like Cody to understand? It really wasn't that difficult.

But, clearly, he had allowed having everything delivered to him on a friggin' silver plate softened his adventurer's spirit, dulled his curiosity, dimmed his courage to discover that which had not been discovered before! His expression turned from outright jealously to a ruefully regretful.

Before they started learning the established procedures of magic, Cody was just as daring as he was. The pair of the were very mischievous pranksters. Before they got their first wands -- he examined his prized yew wand, as he reflected on this, they were inseparable. They were like brothers.

It started off fine enough. Their teachers were fair in the beginning. Then it happened, and the teachers suddenly started to favor Cody over him. They all, almost deciding unanimously to come down hard on him. For no reason, no less!! He wasn't a slacker or anything, but it's really hard to excel when your teachers and faculty and whatnot are set against you achieving anything, let alone notoriety. Yet they had nothing but praise for their darling Cody.

Just the thought about it almost made him snap his yew wand absentmindedly. He felt aggrieved at this, but he kept reminiscing over these old wounds. How unfairly treated he was, how his magical genius was overlooked, unnoticed, and spurned by those philostines! How he came to loathe them all. How he came to resent their unappreciated scoldings and tellings off.

This resentment eventually spilled over to Cody. Their relationship soured, with Cody being initially oblivious and flummoxed by the sudden change in moodiness and behavior of his friend. It was only later he divined the reasoning: Zak was deeply jealous of his skill and ability.

The lives of Zak and Cody weren't that sweet from then on . . .

[theyoungphoenix]

hah! that's great. i love it.

also thanks for making me sCREAM

[guitarhero01234]

That last sentence... Cloaky, I don't know whether to laugh or hit you

[Cloak]

New chapter.

BOOK CXXXIII:
WELL, TECHADON-ALLY . . .
CHAPTER ONE:
Animated and Loved

A poorly-pixilated GH, Saffa, and Abby sang:

"It's time for RAF-a-maniacs!
We hope your hard drive stays intact!
If this program starts to crash,
Give your CPU a whack!
We're RAF-a-maniacs!
The crew would like to buy a really snappy yacht!
They put all kinds of games in here to tie your mind in knots,
And zany animations that'll leave ya' seein' spots!
We're RAF-a-maniacs!
They morphed us into bitmaps!
If you move your mouse to click on us, it will force us to react!
We're RAF-a-maniacs!
Look at GH as he tries to pull your processor apart!
And Saffa's burning active memory with a spark!
Abby just grabbed your cursor, she wants you to restart!
We've kidnapped all the developers,
They think that they're smart!
We're RAF-a-maniacs!
Play at work and you get sacked!
If the artwork is too slacked,
Well, they've licenced us to hacks!
We're RAFly, totally insaney!
Cloak's totally flamey!
RAF-a-maniacs!
Those are the facts!"

"Abby, are you still on this kick?" Cloak said, uninterested in the game.

"Yeah, we don't merchandise," Saffa said.

GH said nothing. The other three looked at him.

"Hey, I'm thinking!" he protested.

***

"No one would miss me, Aniyu," Cloak said, later on. He was trying to get through the last layer. It was proving the most difficult. Despite everything, he found it very difficult to love himself. It, indeed, has been one reason why he was so willing to give up his life so quickly and so easily.

"Cloak," Aniyu said, her tone crisp but gentle. "Cloak, you know that is just patently untrue."

Cloak said nothing, just leaned on a window sill that was there simply because he needed to lean on something and something to look out of. Any love he had for himself at atrophied into near-nothingness by overexposure to his mother's abusive controlling tactics. He could accept her for what she had done, and for what she had allowed herself to become -- a spinster angry at the world around her.

Suddenly, images began to surround him. Saffa, Abby, Xeno, GH, Leatherhead, Dino, Broken, Faerie, Phoenix, Gaz . . . and more and more RAFians. Wheeza, his stalwart aunt who helped him so much. Faith. Shadow. More and more figures that he couldn't even see anymore.

"Still believe no one would miss you, Cloak?" Aniyu said, smiling benignly. "These are but a few lives you have touched in a positive way, but a few lives whose timelines intersect yours. These people do care about you."

She waited a moment for it all to sink in.

"Cloak," her tone now took on a tone of motherly comfort, "these are shadows of people who, regardless of how your mind distorts it, will and would miss you."

She waited a moment again.

"If they can love you," she asked, " why can't you do the same?"


Song source: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Bf23ZtAZl28

[theyoungphoenix]

hah!! the first part amuses me greatly
the second part, however, makes me really sad!! D=< dangit cloak

[Cloak]

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER TWO:
Inspector #86

A Weapon Master of Techadon was in a ship heading for Earth. Inspector 86 had a humanoid appearance with green skin, red eyes, and nasal cavities where his nose should be. He was always wearing a white, full bodysuit with various pockets and a utility belt. He had a strong sense of pride and self-preservation.

His kind were a weapons group that creates, supplies and sells weapons to anyone who can afford them their prices. They are incredibly antisocial and almost never leave their homeworld. No one has ever seen one of them -- er, no one has seen one of them and lived to tell the tale. It is even impossible to encounter the Weapon Masters when buying their products, as they usually send a remote unit to construct them.

They have powerful technology and ships, with some close to Galvan inventions. Though they don't appreciate the comparison and will go out of their way to make Galvins look bad. They have advanced suits filled with voice-activated technology and weapons that can deploy almost anything for various scenarios. They take their products very seriously and inspect events in which many of them fail, which is why Inspector #86 is coming for Earth. Apparently, this is where Malice has been getting her materials.

The Weapon Masters are cold and calculating and have no interest whatsoever with what their consumers do with the products they purchase. They have no problem with killing or kidnapping to reach their means. While some of their products, such as the Techadon Factory, are custom jobs, others, such as individual Techadon robots, can be commonly bought "off the shelf" and mass-produced. These robots that the RAFians had easily destroyed in various mundane missions. They were really considered to be nothing more of a threat than the Box Ghost in Danny Phantom. Something that they didn't need to take seriously.

The Weapon Master's boxy ship landed right in front of GH, Cerulean, Horse, and Gaz.

[theyoungphoenix]

of course malice would do crap like that. and i loved the DP ref Cloaky XD
can't wait for the next chapter