Memoirs of a RAFian

[Cloak]

Now, now, Saffa! There are some books that exceed the requisite twenty chapters.

Anyway, I read Chapters Eight through Twelve of "Passing the Torch" (Book IX, I believe) during my writing class today, and apparently, I forgot to tell them that it would be a blood bath. . . .

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FIVE:
Next Victim

Erisraptor was still unaware of anything off with him. He was still unaware of taking Stevie's dyscalculia into himself, of how it was altering his judgment subtly. He ignored his new difficulties with numbers, brushing it aside with astoundingly improbable rationalizations.

All he concerned himself with was a victim. He was completely and deliberately unaware that he was becoming little more than a vampire, a vampire for youth. He wouldn't care anyway, just as long as he got his youth fix.

He spiraled over a high school stadium, where a football game was in progress. There was a parallel to be drawn between the actions seen in this football game with the headbutting of bighorned sheep and the like. With the grunts and oofs of the game, Erisraptor remained, hovering over it in tight circles, unable really to decide on which to one to take.

Were there fifteen of them down there? Thirteen*? Three? Thirteen? Twenty? Eight?

No, no, there was nothing wrong. He was just a bit confused. Wondering why this game was going on so inordinately long (it wasn't really).

All of a sudden, to Erisraptor's perceptions, the game was over and the high schoolers were milling around with after-game euphoria or after-game dysphoria or general indifference one way or the other. When did the game end?

No matter, no matter. All he need it was a victim.

He'll do.

***

"What happened here?" Underseen asked.

"I don't know," said a student, cradling the head of an octogenerian in the football regalia of the home time. "I don't know!"

"Calm yourself," Terenia said. "Just tell us what happened, don't worry about the how."

"This . . . this thing swooped down, and-and-and there was this light," the girl said, only slightly less hysterical, "and Moose was old!"

"Moose?" GH couldn't help himself.

"That's his name," she blubbered. "His nickname anyway, for being a beast on the field --"

"We gathered, dear," Terenia said, holding up a hand. "The fact remains --"

"How long ago did this happen?" GH asked, now all-business.

"I dunno," she said, calmer now, "an hour, maybe two?"

"Then why did it take --"

Suddenly, Moose started to glow. His youth was returning. His dyslexia, however, was not.


*Did I get your attention, Dino, dear?

[redtailedsaffa]

Oh yeah, I remember that book. Damn. Feels.

[DinosaurNothlit]

*Did I get your attention, Dino, dear?

Yeah, actually, you got my attention in the second chapter of this book, when you named the villain after me. 

In light of that, can I please eat this one?  Pretty please?

But, the good news is, as you can probably tell since I'm actually posting, I've finally caught up with the narrative! 

Loving everything except the current villain's first name, as usual.  In the previous book, gotta tell ya, I immediately wanted F1 to die painfully as soon as I heard "Hey!  Listen!"  GOD I hate that stupid fairy body-jacker.

And can I say how awesome it was that I accidentally averted Jervis McDowall's initial rampage by dancing?    Next time anybody criticizes my dancing skillz, I'm gonna be like, "Hey, these moves have saved lives."

Also, it's funny you mentioned the thirteen thing, because I was just thinking (waaaay back) during the Corruption episode, how my Corrupted self probably just stayed in my thread and counted out all of my possessions in neat little sets of thirteen.  Yep, that's why I wasn't in that book.    Heh, sorry, I know that isn't even remotely relevant anymore, but you just reminded me that I'd thought that.

I think that's everything I wanted to comment on.  As per usual, I used the karma button to comment on anything I couldn't wait this long to comment on.  Of course, this time I managed to get myself a full year behind (sorry, life happened), so I was speed-reading so fast that I didn't want to be interrupted by giving karma too often.  Your books are just THAT addictive. 

I need to do a re-read, too.  I hardly remember the earlier books at all.

[Cloak]

Thanks, Dino.

But, actually, Tobey Agrowch is a play on "to be a grouch".

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SIX:
Obtusely Oblivious

NO!!!

That wasn't nearly long enough!! It was like ten minutes of youth. Ten minutes was hardly enough time!! Right?

No, of course it was an insufficient length of time. What was he thinking? Why did he seem to have such difficulty with the passage of time?

He couldn't possibly be having difficulty . . . how would that be possible? He never had difficulty with numbers and such before. He made his living on numbers. How could he be having . . . was it old age? Was that to blame?

In his elderly, geriatric state, he noticed that his eyes weren't what they used to be. After all, that sign couldn't have possibly read what he thought it did. Then again it was dark out . . .

Besides, he should be worried about this. He had to get his youth back! Even though it wasn't technically his, but he brushed that aside. He had the means to take it, so why shouldn't he use it?

He had every right to take the youth from these stupid kids! These kids who would waste it, who would squander it, who didn't know what they had! He would use it right!

He chose to ignore the fact that he just spent the time he had with the misappropriated youth in just the same frivolous ways that he condemned the rightful owners of. But he, like most hypocrites, don't believe his consternations and condemnations, by definition, cannot be applied to himself.

Erisraptor quickly tired of being old once again, and immediately went on a search for a new victim, unaware of how addictive this power had become to him. He was completely taken in by the pervasive desire to be young again, having experienced it once again, all too recently. It was like giving heroin to a druggie -- he had to have more time with youth. It was an all-consuming obsession.

And he didn't even realize it.

He needed his fix . . . he needed to experience youth again . . . he needed to be young again . . . he had to be young . . .

He never considered finding a way to make the youth transfer permanent, just to be young again. All thought, both rational and emotional, did not stem beyond this fact.

He needed a victim -- he no longer thought of them witht he more PC context of "test subject". He thought of them, not as victims, but prey. He was beginning to see people under the age of thirty as perfect prey, people between thirty and forty as less than ideal, people between forty-one and fifty as snacks if need be, and those older than fifty as useless, to-be-discarded trash. But he didn't realize this rather drastic change in perspective.

THERE!!

A squirrelly boy perched in a tree. The boy was scrawny with a sort of twitchy mannerisms one would expect from someone doing something that they knew he shouldn't. He had binoculars, and the tree was with visual distance with a window of a Victorian-style house.

The kid was a peeping tom.

Erisraptor didn't care. The peeper was young enough to be prey. Erisraptor needed prey. He desperately needed prey. He didn't even consider that he might gain the kid's perversions, he needed prey. He needed the youth.

He would do.

He would do well.

[DinosaurNothlit]

And the inevitable villain decay (in this case, almost in a literal sense) BEGINS. 

But, actually, Tobey Agrowch is a play on "to be a grouch".

 . . . I really ought to have spotted that one.    Especially since one of my nicknames in high school was "To Be or Not To Be [Last Name]."

[Cloak]

Yep.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SEVEN:
The Next Step

"Saffa's reporting another victim," Yarin was saying. "Megan Hightower, age 14."

"That makes seven victims so far," Dino said.

"Steven 'Stevie' Daniels, age 7, dyscalculia. Morris 'Moose' J. Winkler, age 18, dyslexia. Rocky J. Weeds, age 16, charges of peeping. Milo Rottinoff, age 19, the only notable problem he had was mixing metaphors, which hardly a crime or something to be fussed about." SuperNate said, reading them off blandly, taking no pleasure in it. "Allison 'Allie' Grace, age 12, no problem of note. Nicholas 'Nick' Toriyama, age 12, no problem of note. And now Megan Hightower."

"What does it mean, though?" Blue asked. "There has got to be a reason, a purpose, all this."

"Not necessarily," Cloak said, in one of his thoroughly jaded moods. "There is a possibility that these all may be isolated cases --"

"Eyewitnesses say otherwise, though!" Shock interjected.

"May I finish what I was saying, Shock?" Cloak said, annoyed.

Shock fell silent, but didn't look abashed at all by his interjection.

"As I was saying," Cloak said, placing delicate emphasis on those words, "there is a possibility -- albeit very, very slim -- that these are isolated incidents. I doubt it, personally, but it should be said as we don't have much evidence against it. An eyewitness testimony can only go so far, and can be corrupted with time. And guilt."

Cloak paused briefly to marshall his thoughts as Yarin declared a Jaclyn Jillian, age twenty, was the newest victim. She had wildness to her that had the potential of being siphoned out of her with her youth, but there was no telling.

"But, as Shock obviously believes, and I'm inclined to believe myself, this was all down to a single perpetrator." Cloak continued. "I do not know how this . . . this . . . this erisraptor --"

"Eris-what?" Ash asked at once.

"Eris, as in the Greek -- or was it Roman? -- goddess of youth. And 'raptor' means 'thief', I believe. So, ergo, 'erisraptor'." Cloak said, quickly and differentially. "Anyway, as I was saying, I do not know how he -- or she -- came by this technology or power, but I'm sure it was not good. For all I know, Malice could have a hand in it."

"You think Malice is always involved," Rotiart said, snottily.

"That's because she usually is," Cloak replied easily. "In any case, I'm curious if this youth siphon, for want of a more proper term, works using actual years or relative years. Guess we'll find out in due time, I suppose."

"What does actual or relative years have to do with anything?" Abby asked.

"Perhaps nothing at all," Cloak said, thoughtfully.

"We're skirting around the bigger issue here," Gaz said. "And I don't mean that time Dino getting her head stuck in that --"

"That was the only time it happened and you know it!" Dino protested passionately.

"Moving on," Gaz said, as Laserbeak took flight and began to buzz around Dino's head, before returning to Gaz's shoulder. "The  bigger issue is the simple fact that we don't know who this Erisraptor is. Or how to make him stop."

[redtailedsaffa]

I see where Cloak is going with relative years.

[Cloak]

Do you now?

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Struggles With Oneself

Erisraptor took on a bit more than he could chew.

He was so encumbered with the perversions of Rocky to try to think coherently. He was unable to read correctly, which wasn't as big a problem as it would be with other people as he didn't enjoy reading, and usually paid no mind to signs and things. But the dyscalculia was especially debilitating to him.

Erisraptor was so encumbered that he could not enjoy the youth he stole. He could not revel in the youth. He was so weighed down with the problems and negetive aspects that he had siphoned out from his vicitms. Yet they remained with him.

He was quickly becoming little more than a mindless beast, knowing only one thing. That he had to "feed", had to take youth from others. Despite knowing in the back of his mind that he could be siphoning out something to make his life even worse. He was dimly aware to this, but he didn't care so much as getting his next youth fix.

He was an addict, fully in the throes of his addiction. He was unable to stop, even if he wanted to. He now physiologically and biologically needed it. Needed it.

Even now his current fix was starting to wear off. His body was aging back to its proper age. The first few times were completely painless, but now it was starting to get painful. Not quite excruciating, but still very noticeable and sharp.

Tobey Agrowch tried to reassert himself over his Erisraptor addiction. But it was easier said than done. It was a huge hurtle, and some could argue that he was too far gone. Tobey continued struggle against these siphoned diseases and proclivities, but it seemed utterly, utterly futile.

Suddenly, it felt as it as his entire body was cramping up, as the need for youth, the Craving came. He thirsted for youth. He acknowledged his new status as a youth vampire. These gauntlets weren't the liberators that he had once thought them to be, but traps -- trapping him in a neverending cycle, only truly experiencing youth in spurts.

Wait, there!!

Prey!!

Not only prey, but the brats that were on his lawn. They were the perfect prey, and he would feed on all of them. This would make the youth last longer, surely. And these brats had it coming.

[guitarhero01234]

Damn, this is turning into an Alice in Chains song really fast

[Cloak]

Don't know who that is. Not as much as a music expert.

New book ideas.

• Book DCCLXIV: "Search Your Feelings . . ." -- The RAFians must deal with Khan worms who possess very Van Pyrrhis tendencies.
• Book DCCLXV: "The Death Worm" -- The RAFians must deal with a very different type of Khan worm.

Don't think I rehashed anything. As always, the titles are subject to change. Anyway, the new chapter might come in late tomorrow.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER NINE:
Identity Confirmed

"Five more victims -- Jacob Ashmore, Rachel Nevin, Marco Cabrera, Cassandra Nascimento, and Tobias Ralph." Yarin reported. "There seems to have been someone who managed to make a brief video of the perpetrator."

"Put it on-screen," Richard asked, not really ordering.

The resolution of the video rather left a lot to be desired, as it wasn't all that distinct. But it illuminated several things. The erisraptor attacked from the air, not the ground. He -- unless this erisraptor was a rather masculine woman -- flew ungainly like a bloated buzzard unaccustomed to flight before the attack, but after the youth was siphoned from the victim -- he took all five in a single sitting, hopping to one after the other, which was unusual because the attack had been one victim at a time -- at which time the flight became smoother, more agile and skilled, and conveyed more power.

This told the RAFians a great already. And allowed them to get an approximation of the erisraptor's true identity.

Yet the suit, the wings, and the gauntlets . . . Cloak got the feeling that it wasn't human tech per se.

"Activating facial recognition software," Yarin said. "I know the image may be fairly grainy, but we might get lucky "

"Best to add a filter," Aquilai suggested. "I doubt this erisraptor would be any younger than thirty, forty years old. And even that is a conservative estimate."

"And filter out any predeceased subjects," Goom advised. "I'm fairly sure we aren't dealing with a Black Lantern, or zombie, or ghoul here."

"There, and now we wait for it to process." Yarin said, his four arms drooping a bit. Then the computer beeped and booped. "Huh. That was faster than expected. Looks like it could be one out of three men: A guy by the name of Tobey Agrowch. He was -- he's retired now --he was some kind of predatory insurance agent -- the kind that sells you policies, then reneges when you need it most."

"Nice guy," Cloak said caustically.

"Then there's Nero Pharr*," Yarin said, reading from the screen. It showed a thickset man with skin like it was slathered with sandpaper. He wore a three-piece suit and expression devoid of mercy. He had a wide, pointed nose, beady, pitiless eyes, and a wide flabby mouth. Not a friendly face. "A sharkish lawyer. A real cutthroat, and a real price-gouger. Retired to Acapulco, apparently."

"Doubt it's him, then," Dino said. "Why come here from Acapulco? We still have snow on the ground."

"Some people enjoy the cold," Aquilai pointed out.

"The build is slightly heavier, and he is stouter than the one in the video." Blue observed. "It cannot be him."

"The last one is Elka Fox**," Yarin said, as the screen showed a very vulpine human.

"Elka?" Rotiart said. "That's a girl's n--"

"Shut up, Rotiart," the RAFians assembled said in unison.

Yarin continued dumping the info. "He's made a career of misinformation. He made up statistics and what he called 'facts'. A truly contemptible man. Retired, made a fortune that he didn't earn or deserve."

Beep!

"And he just died. Prostate cancer." Yarin said, reading off the update.

"Well," Cloak said, "that narrows it down significantly."


*"Near or far".

** "Like a fox".

[DinosaurNothlit]

"And I don't mean that time Dino getting her head stuck in that --"

"That was the only time it happened and you know it!" Dino protested passionately.

I'm lying.  That was not the only time it happened.

"Five more victims -- Jacob Ashmore, Rachel Nevin, Marco Cabrera, Cassandra Nascimento, and Tobias Ralph." Yarin reported.

Oho I see what you did there. 

[guitarhero01234]

Don't know who that is. Not as much as a music expert.

They're a really great band. Half the songs on their second album are about addiction. Actually, I can see them using an old person becoming addicted to stealing youth as a metaphor for smack.

"Five more victims -- Jacob Ashmore, Rachel Nevin, Marco Cabrera, Cassandra Nascimento, and Tobias Ralph." Yarin reported. "There seems to have been someone who managed to make a brief video of the perpetrator."

What, no Ax Costanzo? Or would that not be subtle enough?

[Cloak]

Eh.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TEN:
Thirst For Youth and Intel

"I m-must stop," Tobey said, "I'll go on being old ag-gain."

His body trembled. He was young again, for the moment at least. His assumption that multiple victims, taken in rapid succession rather than one per go, prolongs the time he experiences with his stolen youth. It also allows himself a brief respite from the savagely gnawing Cravings, and the painful return of the youth was becoming more and more painful, he believed, with each "feeding".

It was getting to be too much for the old (well, not at the moment) man. He had grown far too weary of the infernal yo-yo effect these "feedings" brought on. When this youth wears off, he knows just what will happen. The Cravings will take him over, possess him like a demon, the Erisraptor will rise once more to take down some prey, and be satisfied to let Tobey's revolted, rational mind surface. Despising what he became. Despising what he had allowed himself to become.

He sneered at himself, thinking that this whole Erisraptor shtick was divine punishment for his actions as an insurance agent. He did not and would not dispute that he did not deserve such punishment for taking such a sociopathic joy out of causing such suffering.

"Aaah!!"

Time was up. The youth was returning where it belonged. The process of having it leeched back out of him was painful. Excruciatingly so. It was rapidly getting to the point that he found himself wishing for death after each reversion. And more, and more, and more, each time, he swears that he will not feed again. That he'll stay old.

But every time, as is the case right now, the Cravings twist his mind to desire nothing more than his next fix.

And he was eyeing a middle school which was active and milling around with a plethora of prey for the Erisraptor.

He needed to feed . . .

***

"What do we have on Tobey Agrowch?" Cloak asked.

"Other than he's apparently a grouch?" Abby asked rhetorically.

"Not all that much is known about his background," Yarin said. "Especially since his Wikipedia article is usually heavily vandalized."

"Wait, he has a Wikipedia article?" Blue asked, surprised.

"There a brief scandal a while back," Yarin said, skimming the information. "But it isn't widely known as Justin Bieber's destructive antics had so thoroughly overshadowed it. Apparently, it was just a bad PR thing."

"Justin Bieber or Tobey?" Dino asked.

Yarin turned slowly, looking at the dino fusion with all six eyes, blinking them slowly in unison.

"Oh, okay. I get the point. Put that look away."

"Apparently, he spent his entire childhood studying, with no extracurriculars. His parents were not the most well-suited for parenthood as they kept his nose to the grindstone, and did not allow him to engage in any play of any sort. He was not allowed to read anything below  the level of Shakespeare. These accusations were not ever substantiated," Yarin said.

"So, he took out his childhood frustrations on his clients," Cloak summed up.

"I would seem that way. Even got fired from one firm for his mostly unfriendly approach." Yarin said. "How did --"

"Similar childhoods," Cloak said, noncommittally.

[redtailedsaffa]

I know that feel. Though in my case, it was grandparents.

[Cloak]

Yeah, I was nothing more than an extension of my mother, at least her eyes.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Designs

"A middle, or junior high, school was attacked," Yarin said. "Saffa, GH, and Underseen are already on-scene."

A brief pause.

"GH is reporting that they captured another image of the perpetrator," Yarin reported. "They didn't get there in time to capture the erisraptor."

"He escaped again?" Richard asked.

"Yes, he didn't linger." Yarin said. "Putting the image up on screen now."

The image showed the erisraptor flying away. The face was clearer than then the last one. I was very obvious that it was a younger Agrowch. He had russet read hair now.

"Saffa's reporting in again," Yarin said. "At least fifteen students were attacked in quick succession."

"This cannot stand," Richard said, feeling utter frustration. "But we cannot stretch ourselves too thin. There is no telling the next location where he will attack. We haven't a RAFian with precognition abilities."

Cloak said nothing, but was staring at the image. Particularly the gauntlets. It couldn't be . . . and yet . . .

"We have to send out more people," SuperNate said, "Three RAFians may not be enough."

And yet . . .

"We can't cover the entire city," Dino pointed out. "People will think we're putting the city on lockdown -- and I'm pretty sure we don't have that kind of authority. That might rise the hackles of those big government types."

And yet . . .

"We need to be proactive!" Parker declared. "We can't just sit here and do nothing."

And yet . . .

"Parker, Dino has a legitimate point. If we act en masse," Aquilai said, "then --"

"Politics be damned!" Parker erupted. "There is a crisis here!"

"It's hardly a crisis!" Helen countered. "The victims suffer a moment of terror, true, but it only a moment. And the effects are not permanent."

"That doesn't mean that it isn't --" Parker began to protest.

"Those gauntlets . . ." Cloak muttered, more to himself than anyone else. "And the wings and suit, too. . . ."

"What about them?" Parker said, a bit more huffy than he had intended.

"They're Walker tech, I believe," Cloak said. "At the very least, in part."