Tip your . . . what, Dpsb?
New chapter.
CHAPTER TWO:
Astound and Found
Cloak was still mulling over the whole Rachel toxin thing. A poison that increased anger and rage and hostility. He couldn't help but wonder if there were confused Red Lantern rings headed for Earth, only to stop partway because the Rachel toxin either took its fatal effect or was cured.
"Cloak?" Goom said. He was walking by, and Cloak really didn't feel like being disturbed. But he conceded silently that it was probably his fault for not going to his usual secluded spot in the forest -- or simply by sequestering himself inside his thread.
"Cloak?" Goom repeated.
"What is it, Goom?" Cloak said, surlier than he meant to. Cloak would normally have apologized for it, but Cloak was moody.
Goom blinked a bit, but let the unpleasant tone slide. "Cloak, you're not still thinking about the Hutch thing, are you?"
"It was only a temporary solution." Cloak said, repressively. "You do know that, right?"
"How so?" Goom said, patiently. "Hutch is gone."
"Doesn't mean someone else won't rise up to take his place," Cloak said. "All we did was create a power vacu-- aah!"
Cloak was interrupted by their Marks suddenly burning noticeably. It's never done this before, not like this. It was only a moment's pain, but Cloak and Goom looked aghast, as they met each other's eyes.
The Marks were not supposed to do this. They were supposed to be a means of protection. Protection against possession, against chemical seduction, against memory manipulation and alteration, against mind control. It was not supposed to work like Harry Potter's scar.
"What brought that on?" Cloak said.
"I was hoping you could tell me," Goom said.
Cloak did not know. Realm Walkers, despite what some may posture to the contrary, do
not know everything.
***
The orb that contained the virus F1 was not left lost.
It just so happened that a group of young kids were having a snowball fight nearby, and a bundled-up little boy who couldn't be more than six or seven years old found it by complete accident.
He was, as all children around his age and maturity, very curious. He did not know the risks of the device, even in this day and age of gadgetry. He reached out with his yellow-mittened hand to pick up the orb that encased the consciousness and spectral body of F1. He won't remember what happened next.
The orb glowed. Then it sank into into the boy's mitten, and then his hand. The boy's expression shifted swiftly from one of curiosity, to one of alarm, to one of fear, before changing to a pained expression. This expression lasted for about five minutes.
Then he wore a smug expression before he opened his eyes. The boy's consciousness was being rendered dormant in that five minutes and F1's consciousness was being asserted to become the dominant consciousness.
"I'm in my new body," F1 said, quietly rapturous, but the voice was that of the boy. Without any sort of distortion. "
Mine."
The orb lived up to the name that Malice had given it.
The body-jacker.
