Batch

09-18-2013 -- Running around in England, half with a local girl, half with my friend BC, who has decided she wants to be a sort of slayer, running patrols and trying to protect the people in the area, except that she has no super strength, no powers, and really not much to defend herself with.

So it is kind of late in the evening, and we're running around some dark, cramped, and dirty streets, some bad sections of town, and we've heard some sort of prophecy about some dangerous rocks or something, and we're running up and down these streets, looking for any trouble. But as we make our way up one street, checking the shops on both sides of the street as we move along, we reach the end, and start back down the same street.

We get maybe two or three shops down before I realize that we checked both sides of the street on the way up ... it is wasteful for us to be checking the same street on the way down again, so I lead us through an alley to the next street over, and we start looking through it.

There is a small sort of statuary here, and it feels like it might tie in with the rocks a little bit, but we find no sign of any bad guys. But as we keep making our way through, we start to notice some of the Adventurers Club performers around, and they are doing some sort of craft thing. I think Graham is leading it, but Philip and Joe are also here, and though Graham is kind of friendly, the other two seem a little more stuck up, like they really don't think we can do much with these crafts. Unfortunately, they may be right.

It seems to involve taking logs (that are very quickly turning into very small twigs) and twisting and bending them into interesting shapes. We have no supplies because we didn't know we were going to be here, but I grab a small log out of a trash dumpster, and start peeling off spare branches and the like. Problem is, as things are shrinking, they are also becoming more and more brittle, and soon instead of a nicely bent up little creation, I simply have a handful of inch long twigs. I toss them aside, and get back to hunting trouble-makers.

We run down another street, where BC kind of warns off a couple of her girlfriends, and finds some guy who is hitting on her and wanting to date her. Since it is late at night and a bad area, and all the rest, even if this guy isn't too bad, I can't help but feel that her parents are not going to be too happy about this, and as they kind of start to materialize next to me as I think about them, I'm right. They aren't happy.

But it turns out the guy is bad, and one of the problems we expected. He pulls a knife on BC, and she knocks it out of his hand with a kick. So instead he grabs a gun, and starts to try and aim it at her, and I start running for the scene. He's rather incompetent, and his first couple of shots miss, but he is getting closer and closer, making dodging more and more difficult. Meanwhile, the gun is getting bigger and bigger. What started out as a pistol or revolver first grows into more of a rifle or shotgun, then some sort of very large mounted gun, perhaps about 12 feet long, with about a 90 mm diameter gun barrel that the thug is only aiming ... his partner on the other end has to 'pull the trigger' so to speak.

BC is trying to throw herself in front of this thing, to protect others, not realizing she is the one who needs protection, and I am trying desperately to get there first. I know she has no powers, but I just have this feeling that if I focus on it correctly, I can sort of adapt my bad luck to turn it into bad luck for others. I manage to shove BC out of the way, and throw myself in front of the barrel, and there is a loud sort of crack as the guy shoots. The huge shell explodes through the barrel and reaches me at the end, and ... nothing happens for a few seconds.

The crook aiming the gun sort of looks at me like 'Huh?' but his partner realizes that all that energy is going to have to go somewhere, and turns around and starts to bolt! Seems like a good idea to me, and I throw myself at BC, trying to cover her from the explosion as the large gun blows to bits, taking the thug who was aiming it with him.

BC's parents are there almost immediately, laying into their daughter and having it out with her about this foolish idea, while I can't help but think that just because we took out one or two thugs doesn't mean that there is no more trouble around here. I start to look around and find indications of more problems, but as I try to get BC's attention, she doesn't seem to be interested, anymore.

So I wander over to a small shop where I hear voices raised, and find four elderly American tourists laying into a Middle Eastern looking fellow, about the evil thing that he was just doing. Somehow they don't seem to realize that he could do evil things to them. Meanwhile, he is crouching over a large barrel of water, and as he works with it, the swarthy coloring seems to be washing off of him, and he turns out to be a pasty white Englishman who has been disguising himself as a Middle Eastern guy to hide his identity. And since they know this, they are in trouble.

He is reaching for the first of them, seemingly about to strange him, when I jump in and grab him. His three partners are also approaching. I start to wrestle with the guy, and the four old tourists keep telling him off, and I stare at them in amazement before telling them to shut up and run, before one or more of them get hurt. They finally seem to realize they are in danger, and start to scatter. Three of their fellows follow, as I wrestle with the fourth, but it takes me a couple of minutes for me to put him down, and I only succeed when I break off one of his hands and leave him in a crumpled heap on the ground.

I start down the alley that the tourists ran down, followed by the other three crooks, but I am a couple minutes behind, and am afraid I will lose them, so I leap into the air and try to fly, hoping I will move really fast and be able to catch up. Unfortunately, while I can kind of float, I have no speed, and it might be even a tad slower than running. I can't see any of them (the crooks or tourists), until I finally run into a sort of Arab laundry or something (or at least something pretending to be), and find one of the bad guys, who becomes no problem as I quickly break off his thumb. Then I wake up. Fun dream.