Memoirs of a RAFian

[Cloak]

*tempted to quote Slappy Squirrel, but resists*

BOOK XVI:
Who's Who?
Chapter One:
The Bloodbender

Estelore, Cloak, Oceanspray, and Sakki were having a discussion near the entrance of RAF -- which was located near the Introductions & Departures thread.  In fact, Cloak was leaning up against the building, having a morose look on his face.  He was trying to use this discussion to get him to forget about the familial problems he's been having.

"Cloak, relax a little," Esty coaxed.  "You're being so serious."

"Sorry," came his muted reply.

"You want to talk about it?" Sakki asked.

"Not particularly," Cloak answered evasively.

This conversation was then interrupted by a human boy -- sixteen by the look of him.  Thin and wiry, with hair like Scot McNeil's, only braided badly.  He had a ****y swagger about him, and he walked in a very deliberate way, a way that reeked of overconfidence, hubris, and an overinflated ego.  The boy wasn't a RAFian, and did not ever bear the Mark.

Sakki eyed him warily, wearing a look of deep disgust and distaste, "Oh, this should be good."

"Bow down to your new ruler, peons!" he said, with an arrogant, haughty tone.

The four didn't even flinch, just glanced at each other in a casual, unintimidated way.  A tinhorn would-be dictator?  Why did they seem to attract them all of a sudden?

"Didn't you hear me?!" he demanded.  "I, Karat, told you to BOW!"

He raised his hands as if he were bending.  Nothing happened.  He tried again.  Nothing happened.  He was starting to lose his cool as he tried a third time.  Nothing happened once again.

"What are you doing?" Estelore said with a raised eyebrow.

He tried again, failed, and started to sweat.

"If you're trying to attack us," Sakki said, examining her fingers in a haughty, bored way, "you'll have to do better.  By a large margin."

But Cloak seemed to understand what little Karat was trying to do, and he couldn't stop himself from laughing out loud heartily -- something that he isn't known for doing.

"I don't believe this!  You're trying to bloodbend us?" Cloak said behind belts of laughter.

"DON'T LAUGH AT ME!!" Karat whined.

"Little boy," Cloak said, wiping his eyes, "I must thank you -- I needed a good laugh today."

"STOP IT!"

"Look, Karat boy, you apparently need a few new lessons," Cloak said, winding down, returning to his serious disposition.  "One, you can't bloodbend without the full moon unless you're related to Yukone, apparently.  Two, you can't bloodbend being without blood to bend."

Yes, Cloak knew that bloodbending manipulated the water inside a victims body, not really just blood.  But he had a point to make.

"Oceanspray is an android, Sakki is a VOLCAROID, and the Estelore you see there is really just an avatar form." Cloak elaborated, shaking his head at the kid.  "While I do have a life-fluid, it is not blood.  It's ichor.  And you cannot bloodbend ichor.  Even if you could. . . ."

Suddenly, Cloak pulled water out of the air, and wrapped around Karat, binding him thoroughly.  He tried to use his bending to break free of this grip but found that he could not.  He tried to prevent the tears in his eyes from welling up, and Cloak released him.

"Perhaps you should go and rethink your choices in life," Cloak said, turing his back on him.  Perhaps, if he was smart, he would go on his way and rethink what he's become.  Sadly, all people with dictatorial asperations tend not to think very well over their mistakes in life.  He attempted to use the water that Cloak culled out of the air to attack him.  But Cloak forsaw this with Earth sight, and he pinioned his arms against his body with earth, much like Aang did to Yakone.

"You . . . you gonna take my bending away now?" he asked in a quavery voice.

"I'd consider it," Cloak said.  "If I had that power.  Now, get lost." Cloak said, and the earth turned like a vertical turnstile, and the bloodbender found himself at the far end of town.

"Excellent," Oceanspray smirked.  "One more bloodbender and we can get a free shake!"

Cloak did not share in his levity.  He hated feeling like a bully.

[Gaz]

Finally got caught up. Great updates and thanks for the plug back there!

[Cloak]

Anytime, and I think I may have put up the first chapter of Book XVI while you were posting.

CHAPTER TWO:
The SOS

Yarin was idly monitoring all emergency networks and communications that RAF boasted.  It was pitifully dull work, but he managed it far easier due to his technical knowledge and tetramand physiology -- that is to say, his four-armed physiology, not that he was a Tetramand.  He managed to uncover a small, flickering, orange blip.

Yarin stared at the blip for a moment, apparently it's flickering sending a discreet Morse code, and then he said, over a RAFian intercom, "RAFians, assemble! . . . In the auditorium.  Assemble in the auditorium."

***

"I've located another SOS signal," Yarin explained once every one was seated and settled.

"You mean like last time?" Blaze shouted.  He was remembering the Xenomorphic Brood incident.  He would never forget that -- neither would Gaz, Cloak, Noelle, or Parker.  "You haven't forgotten what happened then, did you, Yarin?"

Yarin stayed in the ship, manning the controls, while the others had gone inside to investigate.  At this mere thought, Cloak's body language became far more surly.

"No, not like last time, Blaze.  And no, I haven't forgotten what happened on that occasion." Yarin said, all six eyes darkening.  "I do realize that this could quite easily be a trap. . . ."

"We should investigate," said Parker.  "There could still be someone who needs our help."

<We weren't exactly a help onboard that ship,> Noelle said darkly.

"Parker's right," Cloak said, who always stood at the back of the room, stepped closer.  "We've got to do something.  It would be really callous and . . . crass . . . of us to ignore this."

"We'll have to take my ship again," Yarin said, "but no one's obligated to go."

"I'm going." Parker said, standing tall, while Helen whispered, "Then you better come back in one piece, Parker."

She had a Star Sapphire thing, and couldn't go herself.

"As am I." Cloak said, in a ringing tone.

***

In the end, it was agreed that Cloak, Parker, Blue, Phoenix, Faerie, Dino (in her compacted form, of course), and FuBar would go to check out the signal.  Blaze refused to go himself because he still had bad memories of that previous trip, and Gaz and Noelle agreed with him.

The exit of Earth's atmosphere went without a hitch.  Cloak and Parker seemed to be the surliest of the bunch.  Preparing themselves for the possible horrors that they may very well witness.  Yarin told them it would take them about a day, day and a half to get to the coordinates.

"Oh joy," Faerie said, already getting a little cabin fever.

The ride was pretty much uneventful.  Until they were attacked . . .

***

Yarin's ship returned a day later, and the eight disembarked.  The ship maintained a marginal amount of damage.

"So, how'd it go?" Blaze asked, with his sardonic smirk absent.

"Just fine," Parker said, a little wooden, "just a false alarm."

Helen rushed up to Parker, then backed away.  She looked long and hard at him, causing him to reply irritatedly, "What?"

Helen looked a little crushed, but said nothing.  This caused Ash to run her chin and narrow her eyes.

Cloak walked straight to his threat, claiming to find his "light self".

Ash was now in full suspicion of what truly happened.

"Something's just not right here," she muttered.

[Cloak]

Now . . . a new chapter.  A short chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Something's Off

The eight reintegrated back into RAF fairly easily, but Ash's suspicions of something wrong were not hers alone.  Other RAFians began to suspect something had happened that the eight aren't relating.  Gaz and Noelle were as suspicious of this as Ash was, but they concealed it.  There were small inconsistencies in the eight's behavior.* . . .

Cloak was speaking like and acting like Sepiroth -- the one in Kingdom Hearts -- for apparently no reason at all.  There didn't seem to be the slightest levity in him at all.  Some of the RAFians that didn't have contact with him on a regular basis were easily fooled.  Gaz, Ash, Noelle, among others, spotted this inconsistency immediately.

Blue was being overly and overtly obnoxious and uncharacteristicall y vain.  Which turned heads because Blue, in reality, are nither of those two things.  This Blue began to grind on the nerves of many of those which he would call friends.

Phoenix was uncharacteristicall y high-strung and demanding.  As a mod, Phoenix never abused his power or authority, and many RAFians turn to him in the absence of Richard for leadership.  But not this Phoenix -- he happily abused his authority and was uncharacteristicall y slovenly.

Parker was unusually and unnecessarily surly.  He was extremely cold and hard against Helen, which she noticed immediately.  She would insist to any who would listen that he was NOT Parker.  She would not hear anyone who tried to reason with her against this, but stubbornly stuck to her guns.

Faerie usually was a kick-butt, ask-questions-later girl.  But after this SOS trip, she became somewhat more cowardly and timid.  Those who knew her were immediately alarmed.  Horse and Mr. Guy were worried about her state of mind, and tried to coax her to tell them what happened in space.  She acted like she didn't know what they were talking about and insisted nothing happened, the SOS was a false alarm.

FuBar was loud, rowdy and rude.  This was the complete polar opposite to his reserved, dignified nature.  This new change of personality was greeted with either concern or annoyance.

Dino spent most of her time in her enlarged form, barring entering the threads.  And when she did, her switch to her compact form somehow looked . . . different.  This warranted suspicion from the more intellectual RAFians.  But in all this time back, she said not a single word.  It was as if she had lost her voice.

Yarin was apathetic and lazy, not stepping foot into the lab he shared with Demos once.  Demos found this very odd, and disconcerting in a way.

***

Gaz, Noelle and Ash got together in secret on the Thursday night after the eight had returned.

<There is something definitely off about those eight,> Noelle said in private thought-speak.

"Yes, but what?" Gaz queried.

"Could they have been affected with those aliens you dealt with?" Ash asked.

Gaz shook her head, "No, they don't affect their hosts like this.  It's like they're completely different people."

Noelle started to scan harder with her stalk eyes.  <Perhaps . . .>

"What is it, Noelle?" Ash pressed.

<Perhaps that's it, right there.> Noelle said.  <Perhaps, just perhaps, they ARE different people.>

"What clones?"

"It's not too farfetched," Gaz commented thoughtfully.  "There was that situation where Az found a lab cloning clones of him."

<What?>

"Oh, sorry, Noelle.  I forgot.  That was before your time as a RAFian.  I think."

"So they may be imperfect clones?" Ash pressed onward.

"It's a possibility as good as any other," Gaz sighed.  "They could as easily be shapeshifters with very nominal information -- or shapeshifters that are TERRIBLE actors."

<We must be sure to keep an eye on those eight,> Noelle said.

"Agreed." Gaz said.

"Agreed," Ash said.

---
*Trust me, there's gonna be a reason behind this.

[Cloak]

Yeah.  Um . . . here's the second chapter of today.  Probably gonna be short.

CHAPTER FOUR:
The Case of the Pointed-Earred Shadows

The trio kept true to their word -- even humming their own version of "RAFians On A Mission".  They watched the eight quite closely, but in a cautious, covert and courteous manner, lest their quarry figures out their intent.  They would report their findings to each other in a discreet manner and always on an unset timetable.

Eventually, they managed to compile a mental list of the goings on of the eight.

• Cloak hadn't posted a new parody in months -- which was unusual, because he wrote 90% of the 787 RAFparodies there are.
• Blue was spamming up the boards -- again something very out of character.
• Phoenix was ignoring his administrative duties and was being rather abusive towards the newbies, yearlings and veterans alike, threatening Banning -- something Phoenix would not do, he simply WOULD NOT.
• Faerie was crimping and wearing frilly dresses . . . there is no words to explain just how out of character this was.
• Parker never removing his helmet at all -- Parker would occasionally remove it to eat and the like, but it seems that he may have gone off food, until Gaz -- in bat form -- realized he'd just been eating in his thread.  Parker isn't usually so furtive.
• FuBar just WRECKED all the furniture in the forum.  There wasn't a couch or chair who hasn't met with the bite of his claws.  FuBar has much better self-control than that, so that was another suspicious act.
• Yarin was allowing his ship to fall in disrepair -- which lead Phoenix to scold him an whisper, discounting the newt listening in.
• Dino still continued with this mute act -- she grunted, snarled and such, but did not speak.

Ash was the best at sneaking around, due to her shapeshifting prowness, and Gaz, in bat form, was often overlooked, because how often do you pay attention to a small, black bat?  Noelle was the best at alerting them from danger and allowed them to keep their cover.  This was an efficient little team, but even they were prone to error.

On one of the outings, where Ash was gonna try to sneak into one of the eight's Threads, she found that she would have done better by staying away.  She managed to make it to the Member Profiles building, as an anole, but she was unaware that she was being followed as Noelle was being distracted . . . by some shadowy figure trying to hack off her tail, but not quite succeeded.  She was acting on instinct, as she could morph and demorph and be whole again.  But then the figure, who had prominent pointed ears, vanished from her view.  From all four eyes.

<Impossible!>

***

Gaz was spying on one of the eight from the eaves of a nearby board, when she felt something swipe at her!  It was shadowed figure with prominent, pointed ears trying to ensnare her in an overlarge butterfly net.  She flew out and high, silhouetted by the big, full moon.  She was tempted to say, "Gaz, Maximize" as she resumed her human form to fight, to divebomb this attacker.  But he or she dodged, and fired what looked to be a heavily modified taser, which caused voltage to stream into her body, knocking the vampire out.

***

Meanwhile, Ash was against the brick wall, looking into the doorway.  Then she felt the jolt of a million volts or so flying into her body, and she passed out.  As she did, she returned to her base form, as the wires of the modified taser retracted into the hand of a shadowed figure with pointed ears.  Then she is placed inside a stasis capsule that would keep her in a state of suspended animation.

[Gaz]

lol! Yeah...I would be tempted to say that. I think Optimus was originally going to be a bat, actually. But they changed it.

[Cloak]

Yes, that was his first figure -- and Megatron was a croc.  No, seriously, he was a crocodile.  I know this because I have both their figures -- or at least, did.  They're fairly broken by now, but still in storage.

Might post another chapter later.  But I'm also gonna be working on the RAFize Songs thread as well.  We're a little over 200 parodies away from 1000!  Of course I won't forget this thread.  But I think two chapters a day will be sufficient, unless I'm busy doing other things.

Shortish chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
RAF-aca!  RAF-aca!

Richard was aware of the strangeness of the scene.

A still-unconscious Gaz was laying next to the encapsulated Ash, who was still in suspended animation.  Loosely placed in her hand was one of the strange tasers.  It was an obvious frame-up -- someone was trying to set up Gaz as the one responsible for Ash's capsule incarceration.  But Richard said nothing about it.

"Goom," he said.  Goom waddled over, the short little Goomba he was.  He examined Ash first, and proclaimed her fine physically, as he could not assess her mental well-being.  He also mentioned that the capsule was impossible to open with conventional means.  "Okay.  Now, Gaze? -- I mean, Gaz?"

Goom looked her over, and gave her a clean bill of health, although he comments that she was very, very, very lucky that it was not worse.  He called a couple of yearlings who worked under him, after they finished training with Russell.  They began to pick up Gaz to take her to the infirmary.

"Wait," Parker said.  His voice was unusually monotone, as if he was a child reading a script.  "She obviously put that tank around Ash.  She needs to be punished."

Again, some eyes narrowed at him, including Blaze's own.  Blaze, who hide his suspicions, turned to Cloak and said, "Hey, Cloak, why don't you metalbend the thing open?"

This was a test.  Blaze knew that Cloak, while a master of the elements, was NOT a bender.  Cloak just shut his eyes tightly and opened them, without any other movement whatsoever.  Then he opened them up again, almost instantaneously, and said, "I can't."

"I see," said Blaze, as he backed a bit away from "Cloak", eyes slits and face deliberately blank.  He had failed Blaze's subtle test.  Blaze knew that Cloak could have easily popped that thing open, only this "Cloak" didn't.  Possibly because he couldn't.  Because he wasn't Cloak.  It may look like a duck, or talk like a duck, but that doesn't mean it's a duck.  Blaze was absolutely sure of this, as sure as Helen was that Parker wasn't her Parker.

"She still needs punishment," said the script-reading Parker.  "She has done wrong, a grave disjustice."

"You've no proof of that, Parker!" Kelly said fiercely.  She was another RAFian who suspected something was going on here.  Something deeper that she was not yet aware of.  "RAFian security isn't foolproof.  No security is!"

Yarin looked bored, not even caring about the jab at his work not being perfectly adequate.  This was obviously not Yarin.

Dino normally would speak out against an unjust accusation just as that, but she remained as mute as she has for the past few days.

"Quiet down, peon!" "Phoenix berated Kelly, who didn't back down.  If Parker wasn't the real Parker, than niether was Phoenix.  "You will do as I say!"

"You're not the boss here, pal," she retorted just as fiercely, "Richard's the head honcho.  But, of course, you already knew that, right?"

Juding by the look this pseudo-Phoenix wore, he didn't.  His face returned to twist Phoenix's face into one of contempt and arrogance.  "Don't cross me, girly.  You wouldn't like it."

They glared at each other, with "Phoenix" eventually backing down and walking away.

What could these things possibly be?  They aren't do very good imitations of who they're trying to impersonate.  A few RAFians thought to look it up in the species index, only to find that the whole species database was down.  It was oddly convenient.  Too convenient.  RAF had been breached -- but by whom and by what?

And what happened to the REAL Blue, Cloaky, Dino, Faerie, FuBar, Parker, Phoenix and Yarin?  Were they lost in space?  Were they on their way back here?  Where were they?  Were they even alive?

Some RAFians believed this now, but still more persisted in thinking nothing was wrong -- those would be the lurkers mostly.

[Ash]

Oh dear.

[Kelly]

Ohh, something wacky going on here!

I had a lot of catching up to do - enjoyable reading as always.

[Blazing Angel]

Subtle subtle tests, we must root out the imposters.

[DinosaurNothlit]

*finishes reading*

*nods approvingly* 

. . . *doesn't say anything*

[Cloak]

LOL, Dino.  Now it'll start to kick in, I hope.

CHAPTER SIX:
Inspection Diversion

Richard went and checked on Yarin's ship.  When he arrived, he saw that Yarin's ship had a number of malformities, which showed that Yarin's ship wasn't all that it appeared to be.  Richard went over to touch the rough inconsistencies to the form.  It appeared as if the ship was not Yarin's after all.  It appeared that it was merely shapeshifted, cloaked to look like Yarin's ship.  Though at first it was identical to the ship, now it was losing coherence as that ship.

Richard pursed his lips angrily, but said nothing.  He continued to run his fingers over the ship's hull as if looking for something.  Suddenly, with startling rapidity, the ship started to change shape.  But not to its base form, oh no.  But back to the simulation of Yarin's ship.

"What are you doing here?!" "Yarin" shouted, dropping what appeared to be a doughnut.

"Don't you DARE to take that tone with me, Mron!" Richard snarled.  But he spoke in a different, unknown language.

"Wha --" the false Yarin looked so taken aback that his secondary arms glooped back into his sides, his toes became black boots, his body became a lurid, putrid lavender spandex suit and his skin became pebbly green and his ears extended into points.  He had just revealed himself as a Skrull.  "Lord B'nt?!"

"KEEP IT DOWN, fool!  And get back into your disguise!" he said disgusted.  "Unlike you I managed to subdue and replace my double.  And I've been able to impersonate him believably.  While the eight of you, due to your incompetence and laziness, refused to read the data tracks provided!  You've all blown your cover the intelligent species at this compound.  But this is why the Empress sent me, to make sure that you eight screw-ups don't blow this mission.  I suppose I should have taken one of the eight's forms first . . . but this Richard has more power, power necessary for our goals."

Mron retook Yarin's form, quivering and bowing sycophantically.

"Now," B'nt said in tones of deteremined calm, "what did you do with the eight on the ship again?"

"Put them in hyperstasis, Lord B'nt."

"Hyperstasis?" he scowled.  "It'll have to do.  Who's guarding them?"

Apparently, B'nt was napping while the other eight were doing this or something.

"Lanker, J'strom, Trut, sir."

B'nt's face clearly showed that he thought them ill-suited for the task.

"Very well.  BE SURE that Th'r, H'keye, Pak, Satr'k, Wap, Pim, and Bl'pa get the message."

Th'r was Cloak's impersonator, H'keye was disguised as Blue, Pak was posing as Phoenix, Satr'k was pretending to be Parker, Wap was unconvincing as Faerie, Pim was too mute to be Dino, and Bl'pa was giving a disasterous performance as FuBar.  All considered to be fools and morons by B'nt.  The dregs of the Empire.  Why the dregs?  Because the Skrull Empire really didn't think much of Earth.*

"We took care of the shapeshifter and vampire, though," Mron quibbled.

"Enough of your whimpering!  The vampire will be swiftly dealt with as soon as she recovers, as will the shapeshifter" B'nt snarled.  "Go tell the others that they better start acting like their disguises a WHOLE LOT BETTER or I'll take them out myself!"

Mron shuttered horribly at the thought.

"Now, you and the others will READ THE DATA TRACKS.  And you will MEMORIZE THEM." he growled.  "And, finally, you WILL do better to DECIEVE THESE SAVAGES."

Unlike the eight, B'nt had a rather personal reason to be here.  This is why he volunteered for this invasion, and the experiments. . . .

---
*Different continuity than Marvel. . . .

[Cloak]

Oh, and here's the line up again (remember, these are tentative titles):

• Book XVII: The Last RAFian
• Book XVIII: Hostages Wild
• Book XIX: The Clone Wars
• Book XX: The Darwin Gun
• Book XXI: Other Side of the Tracks
• Book XXII: Pits of Terror
• Book XXIII: RAF Comix
• Book XXIV: The First Master
• Book XXV: RAF -- The Musical
• Book XXVI: Outage Outrage
• Book XXVII: Infinity and Eternity
• Book XXVIII: The Virus Rings
• Book XXIX: Soul-Suckers
• Book XXX: Mayhem of the Music Miser
• Book XXXI: The Metal-Maker
• Book XXXII: Richard is Missing
• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food
• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation
• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn
• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream
• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey
• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem
• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen
• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks
• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare
• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms
• Book XLIII: The Piper
• Book XLIV: The Wishing Star
• Book XLV: A War of Armor
• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague
• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons*
• Book XLVIII: Go Away!*
• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales*
• Book L: Maul*
• Book LI: Erised Orbs*
• Book LII: RAFians Alive!*
• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever*
• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils*
• Book LV: Dangerous Deals*
• Book LVI: Of One Mind*
• Book LVII: The End of Time*
• Book LVIII: Hematomimic*
• Book LIX: Sins of Youth*
• Book LX: The Replacements*
• Book LXI: Arachnoids*
• Book LXII: Personal Tissues*
• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow*
• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon* -- there'll be a little bit of "sneak peak" I suppose in tomorrow's "RAFize Songs" parody.

A (*) indicates I haven't done the chapter-by-chapter of this book yet.

'Kay.  Now . . . a bit of a plot dump, I suppose.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
The Awakening

Cloak was in a blank void of nothingness.  He felt himself curled into a ball, but he saw nothing.  Heard nothing . . .

Wait . . . what was that?  A sloshing noise?  Water?  Was he in water?

Yes. . . . Yes, he could feel it around him, he could feel it want to bow to his whim . . . he felt around using the water dynamics to figure out that he was in some sort of cylindrical tube.  He could hear snatches of voices, a language which he didn't know. . . . He waited a moment for the Realm Walker innate trick of learning a language by hearing a few words to kick in -- strangely this didn't work with any but one of the Earth languages.

"Why do they need us to guard a bunch of these tubes?" came a breathy sort of voice, like that motorcycle on Beast Machines.

"Boss told us to watch," came a thick, deep, rough voice.  "Don't think too much.  Makes head hurt."

"You're an idiot, Lankor." came a haughty, arrogant tone from a different voice.

"Don't call me names, J'strom!"

"Oh, will you both stop acting like babies!"

"But Trut --"

"Shut up the both of you," Trut snarled.  "It's bad enough that I got stuck on this backwater guarding project.  Guarding eight tube-tanks with lower lifeforms in it.  Ugh."

Cloak's mind raced.  He was being guarded . . . that must have meant he was a prisoner. . . . Then Cloak's mind registered another thing -- lower lifeform?  That Trut was calling him a lower lifeform?!

Cloak's eyes snapped open, slightly leaking energy.  Suddenly, water pressure in his tube increased expotentially until it shattered.  Then Cloak tumbled out, landing on his feet, as all cats do.  Then, before the water even touched the ground, Cloak hydrokinetic pulled into a crescent blade, paper thin, and slashed it at the other tanks which exploded in a blast of steam and water.  Cloak took the water from those tanks and created a torrent at the barred-in hallway.  This took the guards by surprise, although they intially dismissed the sounds.

The others coughed and sputtered.  But, one by one, stood up, looking rather as ticked off as Cloak himself felt.

"Some lower lifeforms, huh?" Cloak snarled.

"How'd . . ." J'Strom choked.

"What's he saying?" Phoenix asked.

"I'll translate telepathically," Yarin said, doing a Miss Martian* thing.

"Looks like you're not as high and mighty as you thought." Cloak said.  "You ambushed us, took us unawares.  That's not gonna happen this time."

The truth was the SOS was planted by these Skrulls.  They shapeshifted into beings that looked like they geniunely needed help.  The RAFians, being altruistic beings fundamentally, attempted to help -- only to be suckerpunched and gassed into unconsciousness.  Cloak was given far more because of his ability to blow the gas away, until he tired and succumbed to exhaustion.

"Security!  Security needed at Gate --"

But the communication was interrupted . . . when Parker blasted the communicators to bits.  The three fled like cowards -- although it seemed to take Lankor a moment more to realize that running would be a good option.  Cloak easily bent the metal bars out of the way so all the RAFians could walk through comfortably.  But they all felt very angry at these Skrulls, and they intended on doing something about it.

"Lemme at them, lemme at them," Faerie was muttering savagely.  "I get you all for trying to turn me into a science experiment!"

"Wait . . ." Dino said, having a thought, "what if they were keeping us here for another reason?"

"What?" Phoenix asked.

But FuBar caught Dino's line of thought, "What if they were just keeping us here to keep us out of the way?"

"Out of the way of what?" Parker asked.

Cloak facepalmed.  "They're Skrulls.  Shapeshifters.  What if they are impersonating us back at RAF?"

"Great, and we're already in such good standing with the nearby populace." Yarin commented darkly.

"We need to get back to my ship." Yarin said.

"If it's destroyed?" Blue asked logically and innocently.

"DON'T SAY THAT!" Yarin practically screamed.  His ship was to him what a TARDIS was to Aquilai or Aila.

---
*As seen on "Young Justice".

[Cloak]

Last chapter today, methinks.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
A Ship!  A Ship!

Yarin was the most intent on finding his ship again, his "baby".  Cloak made a mental note that if he was gonna fall into using baby talk when talking about his ship, he'd slap him.  So intent was Yarin, that he literally lead the group, his feet slapping on the metallic floor.  Parker took up the rear with Dino to watch their backs.

"It has to be somewhere . . ." Yarin was muttering.

"Yarin, you had better not be leading us in circles!" Faerie threatened.  "I'm not going to axe you nicely!"

They all winced at the pun, which led Faerie to query, "What?"

Yarin apparently didn't hear her, but they ran into a small problem of a group of no less than twenty Skrull soliders or so that were blocking their path.  All six of Yarin's eyes narrowed, and he snarled, "OUTTA MY WAY!!"  Then charged straight through the needlessly shocked Skrulls, but it didn't last for long.  Cloak jumped in a spiraling motion and blasted them to the ground with a blast of air.

"Phoenix, we'll have to limit the use of fire," Cloak warned, having gone through this problem before.  "We may be in a spacecraft, so the air is a precious commodity that we cannot waste."

"Right," Phoenix acknowledged.  "Better find Yarin."

"He's not too far," Cloak said.

"How'd you know that, Cloak?" Dino asked, as they proceeded quickly along the corridor.

"You've been working on your Metalsight, haven't you?" Parker asked smartly.

"On the nose, Parker." Cloak said, panting a little.  It felt as if he hadn't stretched his legs for days.  And, of course, he hadn't.  "I thought it would come in handy eventually."

"What's Metalsight?" Blue asked.

"Like seeing through the Earth, a la Toph," Cloak replied.  "Only through Metal."

"You can do that?"

"Yep," Cloak said.  "I plan to learn how to Airsight next."

"What?" FuBar asked, easily padding along.

"Able to 'see' by sensing air currents and such," Cloak said.  "It may very well not even be possible."

"There he is!" Faerie declared, then her tone turned angry and rageful.  "YARIN, WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?!  LEAVING US BEHIND!!  I OUGHTA CHOP YOU IN HALF!!"

"It's in here . . . IT'S IN HERE!!!"

"How do you know that it's in there?"

"I scanned the minds of those Skrulls." Yarin said quickly.  "It's locked!  I can't get in."

Cloak used Metalsight to see into the room, through the walls.  He wasn't even sure he could.  "I don't 'see' it, Yarin".

"It wouldn't be touching the ground!  Remember?  It hovers a few inches off the ground!!"

"Okay, okay, calm down." Cloak said, as he easily removed the door due to his mastery of Metal.  The ship was there.  But something tugged at Cloak's mind . . . it was too easy.  Way too easy.  He didn't say anything, but Dino did.  Yarin ignored her as he climbed into the ship, and caused the scarring on the hull to "heal" itself.

Then Skrulls began to swarm into the hangar area.

"Well, Faerie," Cloak said with an ironic smirk, "I hope you weren't getting to bored."

[Cloak]

*wonders if this post will be on a new page.*

Now, to stave off depression, here's a new chapter.  Short one.

CHAPTER NINE:
A Less Than Auspicious Landing

"How're you doing, Yarin?!  Fix those controls yet?!" Blue said, taking out a ninja sword -- a ninjato, specifically -- and was beginning to hack through the forces.  Faerie was doing the same thing, but finding it more irritating than fun.

"Patience, Blue . . ." Yarin muttered.

"Easy for you to say!" Blue said, then turning and slamming the bottom of the hilt onto his opponent, shouting, "Outta my face, jerk!"

They seemed to give Dino and Cloak the widest birth, but the two RAFians weren't gonna just slaughter them, but they weren't gonna let them get away either.  Due to their shapeshifting nature, Blue and Faerie assumed that they could regrow limbs and such.  And they could to a degree.  Dino just had to roar, and some of the weaker-willed ones fainted on the spot.  Others just morphed into shapes of similar size.

"Oh, dear," Dino said.  But then charged forward, knocking them aside like bowling pins.

"Repairs are complete," Yarin announced.  And the RAFians filed in, though Dino had to become more compact first.

Yarin maneuvered for to leave, when a Skrull shouted, "Close the doors, idiots!  Close them!  Close them, already!"

"Uh-oh." Parker said.

"Maximum Burn or the equivalent, Yarin!" FuBar shouted.

"But we could serious damage the --" Yarin warned.

"JUST DO IT!!"

He did, and they took the doors with them, eventually falling off just outside Saturn's rings.

***

"Shut the auxiliary doors, fools!" the same Skrull roared, holding on to a wall pipe thing for dear life.  The vacuum of space was attempting to suck them in.  But the pressure differential died as the auxiliary doors slid into place.

"The Empress'll have your heads!  You fools let them escape!" the same Skrull said, he seemed to be the commander of this base.  He was furious, this was a definite blemish on his spotless and squeaky-clean record.  There was fair bit of grumbling at this.  "SILENCE!  Alert the Earth team.  We have to contain this as much as possible.  Talk to B'nt directly.  The other foul fools would screw it up, according to the last report he sent."

"Yes, sir!"

"Oh, Lee'nent?" a sultry, female Skrull voice (which means that it was raspy and grating as well) called from hallway threshold, "What's this I hear about prisoners escaping?"

Lee'nent reluctantly turned around, stiff as a board.  "E-E-Empress!  Wha-wha-what are you doing here?"

"Don't question me," she snapped.  "I drop by for a routine inspection, and see everything meeting my expectations, then I not only hear but SEE that you allowed the prisoners to escape!  You were given this assignment because you were competent, or so I thought!  This may cost us our promised land!  Explain yourself!"

"Well, I--I--I--"

***

"Entering Earth's atmosphere in two Earth minutes." Yarin called out.

"Location?" Cloak asked, he was feeling some anxiety for some unknown reason, even to him.

"Just beside the hangar," Yarin elaborated.

"Good," Blue said.  "Then maybe we can go and stop those Skrulls from ruining our reputations."

"If they hadn't already," Parker said, somberly.

"You should write Christmas cards, Parker," Dino jested.

***

Sakki was standing right outside the RAF Hangar, where Yarin's ship was usually housed, thinking to herself and humming a tune that she alone knew.  Then she looked up and was . . . confused.  That object looked like Yarin's ship, but it couldn't be.  His ship landed three days ago!

What was going on here?

She watched as it landed daintily before her.  It was Yarin's ship . . . or a Nyac ship, at least.  What the . . .?

Then the door opened to the silhouette of eight figures. . . .