Enter RAF

[DinosaurNothlit]

Oops, I could've sworn you were.  Sorry.  I must've gotten you mixed up with another member.

EDIT: Fixed.

[Blazing Angel]

Thank you. I'm assuming hundreds of hours of video games have made me a master marksman. Or can at least hit the bullseye.

[DinosaurNothlit]

Chapter Twenty-one

Russell and Faerie had been assigned to patrol within the main forum, making sure nothing was out of the ordinary, while most of the RAFians trained in 'Training Grounds.'

The two of them were chatting, glad to be able to catch up with one another, when it had been so long since Faerie had really been an active member of the forum.  It kind of surprised Russell that Faerie had become an innerworlder, but then, so were several other less-active members who were innerworlders too, so perhaps it wasn't that odd.

They were both laughing at a joke Faerie had told, when a familiar RAFian suddenly appeared before them, and their mirth suddenly died in the air.  What in the kree was he doing here?  Russell's nostrils flared and he suddenly galloped forward, while Faerie flew along above him.

<Explain yourself,> Russell demanded with an angry glare as he approached the figure, immediately holding his tail blade to the Caribbean man's throat.  <What are you doing here?>

There was a moment's pause before Richard could respond.  But he showed no apparent fear, even with a blade at his throat.  "Guys, it's me.  I'm Richard," he said seriously.  "The people who hacked me, they gave my account back."

"Heh, yeah right," Faerie scoffed as she leveled her bow at Richard.  "What kind of idiots do you take us for?"

"It's true, I swear it," Richard said flatly.  "I don't know why, either.  But it was like there wasn't even any security in place.  I was able to get back in, easily.  The only reason I didn't log in sooner was because I just assumed my account would still be locked off from me.  Come on, guys, it's me.  Please believe me."

<This just doesn't make sense,> Russell said suspiciously.  <We're really supposed to believe that they just gave your account back without any trouble at all?  Right after we sent a tracking device after the missing RAFians?  So they'd have to know that we know about them.  Why would they just back off without a fight?  What the heck are they playing at?>  He pressed his tail forward slightly, digging into the skin of Richard's throat and drawing a slight trickle of blood.  <What are you playing at?>

"I don't know, I don't have the answers either," Richard said, not even flinching at the injury.  Of course he wouldn't, since he couldn't actually feel it.  "I don't know any more about whoever hacked me than you do.  But it is me.  I swear.  Why would the hackers come back like this, when they would know everyone would be against them?"

"Oh, you mean, why would anyone pretend to be you?" Faerie asked sarcastically.  "And get us to trust you?  And then kidnap a bunch of RAFians off to who-knows-where?  I dunno, why would you do something like that?"

"Whatever happened, none of that was me," Richard argued back.  "And, by the way, I am well aware that you will all be watching my every move, waiting for me to make the slightest mistake.  To me, it's worth that risk to be here.  What more do you need?  So, fine.  Yes.  Be suspicious of me.  You have every right.  But allow me to be here, in my own forum.  You guys are my friends, and I want to be here to help in whatever way I can."

Russell lowered his tail blade.  In part because Richard's words were starting to penetrate his skepticism, but also in part because he'd realized that slicing the outerworlder's head off wouldn't do much anyway.  At the worst it would just get Richard's account banned, but more likely it would just be treated as a roleplayed death and he'd be able to come right back.

<Alright, you can stay,> he allowed.

"What, are you serious?  You're falling for this?" Faerie asked quizzically.  "Please tell me you aren't."

<We don't have much choice,> Russell shot back in private thought-speak.  <Not a lot we can do to keep him off the forum, is there?  He's an outerworlder.>

"Hmph," Faerie snorted, but saw his point.  She reluctantly lowered her bow, realizing it wouldn't do any more good than Russell's tail.

"Perhaps the hackers decided they no longer needed me?" Richard offered.  "What were they using my account for, anyway?"

<What, you mean you don't know?> Russell asked incredulously.  <They were kidnapping RAFians.  It sure looks like they were . . . deleted,> he sighed reluctantly.  <I don't suppose you know anything about where they might be?  A hunch, anything?>

"No.  I never found out who the hackers were, let alone what they might want," Richard said.  "I'm sorry, but I don't know anything."

<Well, we need to tell the rest of the forum that you're here,> Russell said at length.  <If you pose a threat, then everyone needs to know the danger they might be in.  Come on, we're going to the Roleplaying Board.  You can come willingly, or otherwise.  'Richard.'>

Richard nodded, and followed the other two RAFians.  The three of them boarded the glass ship, and Russell pressed the button for 'Training Grounds.'  The ship zoomed through space, but Richard looked blankly at the walls, unable to see the stars rushing past.

They arrived in the grassy field where the rest of RAF was still training.  A pall of silence fell over the field as the RAFians recognized the person standing behind Russell and Faerie.  Dracons and shredders ceased firing.  The Andalites paused mid-strike to watch.

The four other staff members strode forward from their various locations within the training grounds, a mixture of fury and confusion on their faces at the sight of Richard.

"What's going on?" Phoenix demanded as he approached.

<No idea,> Russell said.  <But he claims he's not hacked anymore.>

"Bull," Goom scoffed.  "You really think they would just leave him alone after we found them out?"

"That's what we said, too," Faerie agreed.

"Guys, it's really me," Richard said again.  "I don't know why they left me alone, either, but . . . look, I can prove it's really me."  He moved towards Goom, and the goomba backed away nervously, but Richard leaned down to whisper something to him.

Goom's eyes widened as he heard what Richard had to say.  "Guys . . . I think it's really him," he said incredulously.  "Richard is the only person who knows about that.  And it happened in a text chat.  I don't think the hackers could possibly access that.  So, it's gotta be him."

"How do we know you weren't hacked too, Goom?" Faerie asked, fingering her bow.

"Uh, I'm an innerworlder?" Goom said.  "Pretty sure we can't be hacked."

"Ahem," Terenia said with a slightly sheepish grin.  "I've hacked an innerworlder."

"You're a Yeerk, that's a bit different," Goom pointed out.  He turned to Richard.  "So, it's really you?  Whatever they needed you for, they must not anymore.  That's the only possible explanation.  There's nothing we could have done about you being hacked, from our end, and in any case the hackers wouldn't have had much to fear from us even if we could do anything."

"That's what I thought," Richard agreed.  "So, whatever they're doing, they've either gotten all they need, or figured out a way to do it without me."

"Given that what they were doing was kidnapping members, it could be either one," Goom pondered.  "We don't know why they were taking RAFians in the first place, so we have no idea how many of us they even wanted.  On the other hand, it would probably be theoretically possible, although difficult, for them to gain the information needed to take accounts without an inside-"

Terenia made a motion with her hand, cutting Goom off and simultaneously pointing out the RAFians who had crowded around the scene.  Goom got the point.  The last thing he needed to do was tarnish this good news with his own doubts.

And it was the first good news that the RAFians had gotten in a long time.  The crowd looked hesitantly hopeful, as they waited to hear what the staff had to say.

Goom cleared his throat, addressing the crowd.  He spoke with an intentional dramatic flourish, knowing that news like this couldn't possibly be delivered any other way.

"The father of RAF," he began.  "Has returned."

[Darth Revan]

*Uproar of applause and cheer!*

Great chapter Dino! Yay for reunions!

Also, I think you've inspired the name of what I may call my personal thread (should I ever make one): The RAFarmory. Definitely my kinda place.

[Horsefan1023 (Seal)]

Goom is the Doctor.  Richard whispered his true name in his ear to get him to trust him.

Headcanon accepted.

*shot*

XP

[Blazing Angel]

Yeah, that makes sense.

[Darth Revan]

Psst, your mother has a third big toe.   "Okay, it's him."

[DinosaurNothlit]

Seal: Hmm, well, that would explain how Goom was able to use that sonic screwdriver . . .

Parker: Hey, there was a reason I didn't provide any details about what Richard said!  Now everybody on the forum will know Goom's mom's horrible secret!  Way to go, man. 

Chapter Twenty-two

Aquilai seemed to be the only one not going crazy from the boredom of that blank white emptiness, while they all waited and waited for another RAFian to appear.  It had been a while since Tony had showed up, and they were all beginning to wonder whether or not any more were coming at all.

The Time Lord was passing the time, using his sonic screwdriver to probe the depths of whatever flash drive or storage area where they were being held.  He'd found that he could recover bits of what was last saved on the disk before the RAFians themselves, which, by a happy circumstance, appeared to include a few security codes to the Swiss laboratory where they were being held.  They would be outdated by now, of course.  But they might still be useful to get past the lowest levels of security.

The sonic screwdriver buzzed as Aquilai shone it at the empty air, blue glowing numbers appearing where the light hit, like those invisible black-light stamps you get at clubs and amusement parks.  For each one he found, he used his sonic to copy down the numbers into the tracking device that Tony had brought through.

He figured, if he could just time it right, he might be able to send a small object through to the other side when the next RAFian disappeared.  And the tracking device, having originated from RAF, might have a stronger connection to the site.  At least, that was the hope.

Finally having finished downloading all the codes he could find, all Aquilai could do now was wait . . .

After a while, once the excitement around Richard's return had died down, training could resume on the forum.  Everyone seemed somehow revitalized, a sense of hope pervading the air, as Richard watched stoically over the practicing RAFians.  He didn't show emotion, which was understandable since he was still unfamiliar with the finer points of roleplaying a believable character as an outerworlder.  But, nevertheless, his pride seemed almost palpable as he looked out over the forum.  His forum.

Terenia was taking a brief respite from instructing the RAFians' training, letting the other staff members take over for a while.  She scratched idly behind the ears of the red fox that was sitting next to her, as she watched the RAFians honing their skills on the practice field.  The two- well, three, counting Ash- of them were sitting under the shade of a tree within view of the training RAFians.

Marie had at first, admittedly, been a bit weirded out by people wanting to pet her, like she was a dog or something.  But she'd gotten used to it at this point, and she figured that it didn't do any good to make a fuss about it.  The RAFians certainly seemed to like petting her, and if it made them happy, she was fine with it.  To some extent, it was even kind of nice, particularly when she had an itch on her head that she couldn't reach herself.

And Marie was pretty sure that it was the case that Terenia missed her own dogs.  Which was understandable.  Marie missed Gabby, too.  So she was happy to let herself be petted.

She and Terenia had been talking about Richard's return.  Terenia was still just slightly skeptical that it was really him, of course.  Sure, Goom had said that whatever Richard knew, he could only have known if it were really him.  But he'd also mentioned that, whatever it was, had occurred via phone, and why couldn't the hackers access phone records?  So Terenia wasn't ready to rule out that possibility completely.

Marie, on the other hand, was pretty sure he was the real deal.  After all, what did he have to gain by coming back, otherwise?  The hackers had lost their element of surprise.  And with the entire forum united against them, surely the RAFians would find a way to foil whatever it was they were planning.  Surely nobody would underestimate the RAFians that poorly, Marie had thought, as she'd watched them train for battle.  The newbies were already beginning to improve, with fewer and fewer of them missing their targets.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, Marie was assailed by a high-pitched noise, like one of those sounds only dogs could hear.  But this 'sound' felt like she could hear it in every cell of her body.  Not that it was that loud, because it wasn't, but rather it seemed to resonate within her entire being.  As though whatever were making the terrible sound was inside her.  She yelped in pain, covering her head in her paws.

"What's wrong?!" Terenia asked in alarm, terrified, as she helplessly watched Marie squirm in pain.

"I don't know!" Marie yelled over the noiseless sound, which was building in intensity moment by moment.  Her own voice sounded metallic, almost electronic, as she spoke.  As she watched, she could see the grass and trees around her fading, slowly being replaced by stark and featureless white.

"Marie!" Terenia shrieked, as her friend began to fade before her very eyes.  She could see right through her, like a ghost.

She knew what was happening, of course.  Marie was being taken.  For some reason it was happening more slowly than before, as though there were some kind of resistance to whatever force was taking the RAFians.  Was it because Richard was no longer hacked?  In any case, however, she was vanishing all the same.

"No, no, no!" she yelled, grabbing roughly for Marie's fur, trying to hold onto her within this reality.  But it was no use, Marie's body was already nothing more than a static field, barely offering any resistance to Terenia's hands as they passed through her.  Marie whimpered, as she, too, realized what was happening.

Several other RAFians had heard the commotion, and were running towards the scene.  Others were running away, towards the other staff members, to get their attention and make sure they knew what was going on.

Another figure was beginning to appear, fading into existence right as Marie was fading out.  The man, a flickering and unstable hologram with blocky pieces missing from the image, was dressed in a dark suit coat and a blue tie, and he seemed to be holding something that looked like a flashlight, waving it outwards around himself as it buzzed with blue light.

"Aquilai!" Goom shouted as he rushed towards the scene.  "How'd you-"

"Shut -- I don't have --- time," Aquilai said tersely, his voice fading in and out with static.  "We think -- --- ------zerland.  Do you ---?  We're -- Switzerland.  ----- --ash drive.  ---- --- the tracking ---, I --- downloaded ----curity codes, should ---- you get past ---."

Within a few seconds, he had vanished again.  Marie was totally gone now, too.  But something had been left behind where Aquilai had been.  It was the tracking device that Lumy had sent through when Tony had vanished.  It looked different, though, with numbers scrolling past where the readout should have been.

"So, uh," Goom said anxiously, glancing around the crowd, looking for the outerworlders.  "Who wants to go to Switzerland?"

[Blazing Angel]

The only way to get there is to ski obviously

[Darth Revan]

We can always take snowmobiles. Yay Switzerland! Where everyone has a gun! No seriously, my teacher went there for a shooting competition; and he saw that in cafes, they have coat hangers built especially for guns.

[Blazing Angel]

"You act as if this is outside the norm *innocent whistling*

[DinosaurNothlit]

Punctuational note.  Blue text means posted text.  "Quoted" text means what appears within quotation marks within said post.  The two things do not always coordinate, and so I've tried to mark this difference as unconfusedly as I can.  Color-coding is yay!

Chapter Twenty-three

Cody was only halfway paying attention to the news as he ate his dinner, and halfway thinking about other things.  But he wasn't really watching the television, until he happened to glance at an odd title at the bottom of the screen.  "Trapped Inside the Internet?" the text said.

Cody quickly turned up the volume, suddenly listening closely to what the newscaster was saying.  The story was about a new supposed meme on the internet, known as 'netting,' wherein people would pretend to be trapped within a website.  The report was a fluff story, basically.  The newscaster who was reporting the story called the trend "an entirely new level of trolling."  She mentioned that this 'netting' might be linked with the recent rise in runaways, as people pretended to vanish so as to better fool their friends and families.  She then concluded the report by imploring any runaway netters to return to their families.

Cody turned the volume back down as he clutched the remote angrily, furious that a real and serious situation could have been relegated in the news to nothing more than a meme and a practical joke.  How?  How had they convinced anybody that it wasn't actually real?  Didn't people know better?  Wasn't the whole world affected by this?  Could anybody really be falling for this bull?

But, then again, the more he thought about it . . . he slowly realized that there really couldn't have been some wide, sweeping occurrence of the teleportation effect, as most RAFians had previously assumed.  Not if the news could so easily discount this entire phenomenon as merely the antics of a bunch of online loonies.

The idea of a limited effect of the mass teleport, that would at least explain why no disappearances had been in the news before now, and why none of the outerworlders' friends and family had gone missing.  That was something most of them had been wondering.  If the effect was so limited, then maybe the disappearances really could be explained away as merely a 'rise in runaways.'

It was still bull, of course, but at least it was believable bull.

The so-called 'netters' seemed not to be entirely limited to RAF, of course.  The news piece had noted World of Warcraft, as well as limited pockets within Facebook and Myspace.

And with the membership of each of those sites being what it was, if any significant percentage had been affected, half the population of the world would be gone.  Then, there would be no way that all this wouldn't have been a massive worldwide emergency situation.

But, if these speculations were true . . . why, then, was he only able to count the number of RAFian outerworlders on one hand?  Let's see, it was himself, Richard, Steph, Ash, Gaz, Nate, Myitt, Goose, okay, perhaps one and a half hands.  Yet, RAF had clearly been affected by the teleport far and away more than any other site.  Why?

What was it, that missing factor, that allowed some people to be taken into the internet, and others to be immune?  It couldn't be explained simply by the incidence of people not logging into the internet, which was the only thing that had even 'saved' the RAFian outerworlders.  No, the rest of the world depended on the internet, too.  There was absolutely no way that so many people had simply never logged on.

What, then?  What was it that was different, about RAF, and parts of Facebook, and bits of World of Warcraft?

Was it random chance?  No.  That would have been far too great a coincidence, for the entire population of a site to be affected just by the luck of the draw, when the probability of any one person being affected appeared to be so low.

Cody decided to log onto RAF, wanting something to take his mind off of the news story and the new set of questions that it posed.  He was due to log in anyway, to see how the new training regimen was going, and check for any new developments.

Whoa.  Apparently Richard was back online.  That was big news, considering that the founder had mysteriously vanished as soon as the other RAFians had found out he was hacked.

Cody looked up to the top of the screen, and saw that he had a new private message.  It was from Phoenix.

"Cody!  There you are!  Hey, we just found out where the missing RAFians are!" Phoenix said excitedly.  "Turns out they're in Switzerland.  In retrospect, we probably should have figured that out sooner, given that Switzerland was the place where all of this started," he commented, gesturing with a slight shrug.  "The point is, we need somebody to actually go there and see what's going on, and since most of us are stuck in the computer, it has to be you and the other outerworlders."

Cody immediately started typing, knowing that Phoenix was there and would be waiting for his avatar to reply.

"Where are we gonna get the money?" he typed.  "I could only just barely afford something like that, and I don't know about the others."

"Goom and Ax are working on that bit," Phoenix said uncomfortably.  "They've been trying to hack into some airline websites and see if they can get the tickets for free.  We figure, well . . . that's a pretty bad moral grey area in most cases, but we've got a pretty dire situation, and we'll do our best to pay them back when we can," Phoenix sighed, visibly not liking the idea.  "In the meantime, you guys are going to need to get your passports updated.  That's something you'll have to pay for, yourselves.  There's no way Goom and Ax can hack the government and get those."

Cody nodded, he typed, knowing that Phoenix wouldn't see the gesture otherwise.  "Have you talked to the other outerworlders yet?"

"Richard knows about all this," Phoenix posted.  "He was online when this was happening, and he's already said that he'll go.  Assuming he actually isn't still hacked, of course, which still remains to be seen.  We got ahold of Ash, Gaz, and Steph, too, and they all say they're in.  Although Gaz said she might need some help paying for the passport."

"I'd be glad to chip in some money," Cody typed.  "So, that leaves Myitt, Nate, and Goose still unaccounted for?"

"Oh, hey, here's Myitt," Phoenix said distractedly.  "She just logged on.  Let me talk to her for a sec."  He left to go talk to the brunette girl who had just appeared.

Cody waited, flexing his fingers.  He, like all the outerworlders, had learned that he had to type much faster than what he was used to, just to keep up with the inners.  The innerworlders needed only to speak, whereas the outerworlders had to type, and not only type the words they were speaking, but also the gestures and facial expressions that helped them to seem more human to the innerworlders.  It could often be exhausting, to keep up with all the things that the innerworlders just took for granted.

Even at times when, as now, he was only typing the bare minimum needed to get his point across without all the extra roleplaying text, he could still only barely keep pace with Phoenix without having to make the innerworlder impatient.

Sometimes it was hard not to be jealous, even knowing all the dangers the innerworlders faced.  It was hard not to want that easy, effortless interaction with the other members.  And to be actually living all the things Cody could only read about?  All of it sounded pretty awesome, all told.

On the other hand, from the sound of things, he was going to get his chance to play a part in the grand adventure, after all!  Cody had just been asked to go on an epic rescue mission.  To find and recover the RAFians who had been kidnapped.

It sounded almost like a mission straight from Animorphs.  Cody laughed a bit at the thought.  He could just picture Jake and the team rushing off to Switzerland on some half-planned mission to rescue a team member or ally.  Marco making all the obvious jokes about skiing and neutrality, the entire time.

The fact that he would be going all the way to Switzerland hadn't really even sunk in to Cody's mind.  Every time he tried to think about it, it just seemed too much to process.  It was a whole other country.  On the other side of the world.  And he was supposed to just pack up a few things and go?  It was easy enough to think about the idea in jest, but much harder to focus on it as a possible reality.

He would go, of course, when the time came.  But in the meantime, it was a lot to wrap his head around.

"Hey, it's me again," Phoenix said, striding up to talk to Cody again.  "Myitt says yes.  And Hunter just found me, and told me he was able to get ahold of Nate, and he said yes, too.  Which just leaves Goose.  I'm sensing a pattern, though, so I'd have to say-"  He was interrupted by a Canadian goose that had suddenly appeared and whispered something to him.

Cody knew that that was Goose, leaving Phoenix a private message of his own.  He drummed his fingers as he waited for Phoenix to tell him what had been said.

"It's unanimous," Phoenix beamed at Cody.  "You guys are going to Switzerland."

[DinosaurNothlit]

Whee, double-post!

Chapter Twenty-four

"Aw, come on," Blaze implored.  He and Yunyun were purposefully moving through the main forum, Blaze impatiently leading the way while Yunyun reluctantly followed.  "You're not scared, are you?"

Yunyun rustled her wings nervously.  "N- no," she stammered.  "It's just that, you know, none of the other RAFians have even been there yet.  And, um, it occurs to me, if they have reason to be scared, maybe we should be, too."

"So you are scared!" Blaze teased.  "Come on, we don't have to stay long.  Just a peek.  Just to see what all the fuss is."

"I just don't think it's a good idea," Yunyun argued, but still she grudgingly followed Blaze into the Roleplaying Board's glass transport.

"It's just the Bannedlands.  What's the harm?" Blaze asked with an overly casual shrug, masking the nervousness that he actually felt.  "And we won't stay there long enough to get into trouble with the Banned, I promise.  If they're even there.  Which they wouldn't be.  I mean, they aren't on RAF anymore.  That's the definition of banned."  He looked at her with a 'duh' expression on his face.

With that, he slowly and dramatically pressed the button for 'Bannedlands.'  The space outside the transport flashed by.  Maybe it was only their anticipation, but it seemed that the ride took longer than it usually did.

Blaze had, over the previous few hours, gotten extremely bored with those infernal practice sessions that the RAFians were all being made to attend in the training grounds.  Maybe it was his video game experience, but he had been one of the quicker RAFians to get the hang of the dracon beam target practice.  And he was pretty decent in a sword fight, too, thanks to getting a head start on most of the other RAFians by practicing in Intro Rando.

But the endless and repetitive drilling was just mind-numbing.  And, frankly, stupid.  He'd absolutely had to get away for a while.  Fortunately, the staff weren't being terribly draconian about attendance, so he'd been able to sneak away fairly easily.

Still, he needed something to do.  Thus, he had decided that he would go on an adventure.  And then, after he set off in search of something to do, it wasn't long before he'd run into Yunyun.  She'd looked similarly bored, so he'd taken it upon himself to find a bit of excitement for her as well.  Whether she wanted it or not.

After several long moments, their glass transport arrived in the Bannedlands, at the edge of the forum, another seemingly alternate version of RAF behind them, looking into the darkened and desolate wasteland beyond.

Clouds gathered overhead, above a jagged and sinister cityscape that towered in the distance.  Cliffs and valleys formed an eerie maze across the vista, in sharpened blocky patterns like a scene from a glitched computer game.  The dead trees, scattered across the dark dreary grey rocks, were each just the right size for a person to be hidden behind.  Each crooked and blackened tree seemed to conceal something sinister, hidden just barely out of view.  But if Blaze looked closer, there was nothing there.

Despite himself, Blaze shivered slightly.  In the distance, a wolf howled.  At least, he hoped it was only a wolf.  Who knew what other sort of strange creature it could be?

Blaze slowly crept out of the glass ship, his nerves set to a hair trigger as he ventured into the unknown territory.  Every whisper of the wind seemed to speak of evil deeds.  But still he kept up his brave stance as he pressed on, slowly gaining more and more confidence and speed the deeper he went into the strange land.

As he pressed forward, he could see around a corner of the cliffs that had blocked his view before.  Suddenly coming into his view like a dark surprise, the stark black maw of a cave appeared before him, and seemed to beckon him forward, into the unknown depths, as a long rasping sound like a growling breath issued forth from the darkness.

He lost his nerve at the sight and backtracked a few steps, running into Yunyun behind him.  They both jumped at each other's unexpected touch, but neither of them said a word to one another, silently fearing what unseen creatures might overhear even their slightest whisper.

It was an unspoken but mutual decision to make their way back to the ship.  It was hard to fight the impulse to run towards that tantalizing promise of safety, but neither of them wanted to look like a coward in front of the other.  They speedwalked back, struck and impressed by the distance that they had covered without even realizing it.

Finally they reached the ship, and gratefully pressed the 'Exit' button.  Space warped around them, the trip back seeming much shorter than the trip here had been.

But . . . Blaze could have sworn he heard something, or someone, besides the two RAFians, in the ship.  Footsteps.  There were footsteps behind him!  Still pumping with adrenaline, he whipped around, ready to attack, but there was nothing there.

"What is it?" Yunyun asked nervously.

Blaze looked around, still trying to pinpoint the source of the sound, but seeing nothing.  "Nothing.  I'm just antsy, that's all."

They reached the forum, and the doors to the ship opened themselves automatically.

Blaze was quite certain that it was just his imagination, and that he had not seen a shadowy movement dart from the ship and out of sight through the buildings of the forum.

[Blazing Angel]

Oh great, we're the stupid teenage couple.

[Darth Revan]

Haha, awesome work in with the Marco jokes Dino!

Yes Blaze, if anyone were going to unknowingly unleash a darkness from the Banned, it would be you. Though, the question becomes,[spoiler] is it an actual Banned user, or the idea of the character from a Fanfic made manifest by the site conversion? [/spoiler]