New Dream Adventures of Raven Knight

Plans: My plans tonight include returning to one or both if the Harry Potter worlds I have been visiting on a regular basis. I also want to take a shot at one or both of the Lucidity Power Trial Club tasks... the one where there is a giant tree draining the life energy of a planet and the one where I have to challenge Sonic to a footrace. With these goals in mind, I fell asleep with my light / sound machine and slipped into a WILD.

I am in a city of some kind, though it isn't really like any city I have seen before. I look around at the buildings, which all look rather futuristic, though they still look a lot like normal buildings in cities in waking life. There are many graceful paths connecting the buildings, with transport pods moving along those paths. I look around and see that there are some others there with me, I spot Sonic the Hedgehog from the video game series… he is talking to a couple of others, including Tails and Amy. Shadow is off to the side a ways doing a very good imitation of Vegeta, with his arms folded and looking in the opposite direction as if he is no more interested in Sonic than he is in a small bug that is flying around Sonic's head. I go over to Sonic and get his attention, he looks over at me with a slightly puzzled but not unfriendly look on his face. I tell him I want to challenge him to a race, he seems to think I am joking, but I say no, I am completely serious… I want to challenge him to a race. He finally sees that I am serious, so he accepts my challenge. So we get a map of the area, agree on a race course, agree that there is no actual prize for winning the race since it is just a friendly challenge, and we get set up at the starting line. There is a gunshot, and the race begins!

As the starting gun fires, Sonic launches off the starting line like a rocket, immediately taking a lead. I am using an archetype from Alex Mercer on the Prototype game (no, there were no claws or blades involved), using the fact he can run extremely fast. So I take off after Sonic, speeding up to very high speeds. The course is going down a regular street, there are cars parked along it, which I just jump over as I come to them, the speed I am running at makes that very easy to do. Up ahead I see there is a building in the way, one course goes the long way around the building, but I see that the short way would be to go over the building. Since I am using Alex Mercer as an archetype, I run right up the side of the building, over the top of it, and drop down on the other side. That turns out to be a decent shortcut, and now I can see Sonic up ahead again, or at least I can see his dust cloud… I focus on speeding up even more, but I find myself almost flying without even meaning to, and I have to re-focus on making sure I am still running and not flying. Up ahead is a tall building with a path that spirals up inside it, it leads to the pathways in the air. Sonic runs up inside, I run up the building side, and I am able to jump onto the path right behind Sonic. He looks back and sees me, gives me a small smile, then takes off again… We are now running along the paths in the sky, both of us are jumping over the transport pods that are moving along it. I am going as fast as I can, and even though I am dreaming, I remember why I hate running… but at least I'm not losing ground… Sonic jumps off of the paths to a hill not far off to the right, I follow him, and now we are running through a forest.

I see Sonic turn off to the right, but the finish line is straight ahead… so why not go in a straight line? I come face-to-face with the reason, there is a tall cliff blocking my way… well, I have no choice but to run up it ala Alex Mercer… I am able to do that for a ways, then there is an outcropping hanging out over me… Even Alex can't run upside down… so I find hand holds to make my way back out to the vertical part, but I am losing a lot of time here. With some more painfully slow climbing and then a bit more running vertically, or nearly vertically, I am at the top of the cliff. Sonic is coming from my right, moving at top speed. The finish line is up ahead, so it is down to a final sprint. Both of us are giving it all we got, I am thinking I might pass out before crossing the finish line… I'm used to flying fast… or teleporting… anything but running… Sonic and I cross the finish line at almost the exact same time. There is a judge at the finish line, who somehow saw us clearly enough to announce I beat Sonic by seven tenths of a second.

I jump in the air, happy I won, and I face plant right at the feet of Tails, who had been following along and rooting for Sonic. He looks down at me and asks if I am ok… I say I am, and I get to my tired feet… but my legs don't want to support me, I think they have decided to shut down. So I sit down. Sonic comes over and congratulates me on winning, he says he can run up paths that are nearly vertical, but he has never seen someone run up a completely vertical surface. I tell him I learned it from Alex Mercer, I say that without even thinking about the fact Sonic wouldn't have a clue who Alex Mercer is… I tell him he sure ran a good race, if it had been much longer, I think I would have run out of steam. Sonic says he wants to meet this Alex Mercer, running up vertical surfaces would be very useful at times. I say no, he doesn't want to meet Alex Mercer… I got that ability from Alex, but beyond that he is rather psychotic and tends to slice people in half as quick as look at them. Sonic looks quite shocked at that, but before he can say anything else, I wake up.