New Dream Adventures of Raven Knight

07/19/13

A New Fusion
I wake up in bed. I roll over and open my eyes to see I am not in my normal bedroom. I find I am in the bedroom of my dreamscape. I get out of bed and I almost trip over a Buddha statue on the floor. I see it at the last minute and I avoid stepping on it. There is a black cat sitting on a chair in the room. I go over to the cat and start petting it. The kitty begins to purr. While I'm petting the cat I look around the room and I see I'm not alone there. There are two men there with me. I recognize Q and Alex Mercer in the room watching me. Q takes out a pair of pendants and holds them up. He says they are the fusion amulets. He says those strange people who seem to want to take Alex with them are being very insistent, and their stories are looking very suspicious. He says the simple solution is for them to take the fusion of Alex and me so we can find out what they're up to. Q hands Alex and me a fusion amulet. Q says to put the amulets on, so I put mine on. Alex looks at his and then puts it on. The amulets activate and trigger a fusion as was done between Vegeta and Goku when they used the magic earrings to become Vegeto.

Since the result has to look like Alex, I find myself looking out of Alex's eyes. Q takes out an electronic collar of some kind. He says it creates a stasis field, but he is sure my power level can toast it at any time I choose. He puts it on Alex/me, though I can tell Alex doesn't like it one bit. Q snaps his fingers and the next instant Alex/I are in a room I don't recognize. There are a couple people waiting there, one man and one woman. Alex tries to transform in some manner but the stasis field blocks it, so instead he just glares at the two of them. The woman looks at Alex/me for a bit. She pushes a button on a device and an invisible barrier closes between Alex/me and the two people. The woman asks what we are trying to pull. They're taking Alex only, not this fusion. What? How could they know about the fusion? I pull off the amulet in frustration, causing the fusion to break apart. I am now standing next to Alex, the stasis collar falls to the ground. Alex forms both arms into blades and attacks the barrier between us and the people. The barrier displays some scratches on it but the damage isn't nearly enough to break through it. He finally stops that and goes to the back of the room. I go over to the barrier and ask who the fuck they are that could see through the fusion. The woman laughs but neither of them answers. So use some other form of fusion? The man says it's not that easy to fool them. Some other form of fusion... well when Alex consumes someone they become one... but that seems like a bad idea... but why? This is a dream, this isn't my real body. It has been blown apart, burned, cut apart, near ground zero of a nuclear detonation, and fucked up any number of ways, worst case scenario is I just wake up. No risk in a dream except for energy contamination. So I telepathically tell Alex to try to consume me. He responds aloud, says no, and asks if I'm crazy. I respond telepathically, telling him to just think his responses, and no, I'm serious. Go ahead and do it, I won't prevent it. This is just a dream for me. Just my dream body, my real body is safe in bed sleeping. He telepathically responds this time, asking if I'm sure doing that even to a dream body won't hurt me. I tell him my dream body has been stabbed, crushed, blown up, cut, at near ground zero of a nuclear blast… Nomad got turned inside out with no negative effects… so yeah, I'm sure. So just come up behind me and do it. I ask the people on the other side of the barrier what they want with Alex anyway. The man says they already told us he has to pay for his crimes. I say I want the truth this time. He says he told the truth. The woman says I shouldn't turn my back on Alex. I ignore her and tell the man I have a sensitive bullshit detector and it is going off full blast. The woman says that thing is right behind me. I ask her what thing. She says Mercer is right behind me; don't let it get a hold on me. I dismiss her concern and turn to the man. I tell him to stop feeding me bullshit and telling me it's chocolate. The woman says look out right as Alex puts his arms around me. The woman tells me to get away before it's too late; I just look at her like she's nuts. I can tell Alex is still hesitating. I telepathically tell him to get on with it already. The woman is pounding on the barrier, yelling at Alex to leave me alone. Something is surrounding me from behind; it's like being pulled into a cocoon of some kind. I don't find that alarming at all, it's actually rather warm and comfortable, until it closes over my face. Then I get a sense of claustrophobia and I have to resist an urge to power up and blast my way out. I feel weird. I wonder if getting consumed would normally hurt; I don't usually feel much pain in dreams, though the Templars have made me feel pain before. I can distantly hear the woman yelling at Alex to let me go, and then everything fades to black…
 
Realms of Darkness
I'm not sure if I woke up here or not, but I find myself floating in darkness. I go to open my eyes but I have no eyes to open. It seems I am a consciousness floating with no body, or a non-corporeal entity maybe. But I can hear. I can hear someone yelling a lot, someone is yelling that some bastard piece of shit consumed Raven and if someone else had cooperated from the start this wouldn't have happened! I am feeling somewhat pissed off, too. I finally manage to open my eyes; or rather I just start seeing. I am looking at an invisible barrier beyond which are two people whom I hate. I am pissed off at them. I want to cut them in two and consume them. What? That's not normal… I look around the side of the room I'm on. Q appears near me and looks at me strangely. He is speaking to me as if he can't see me. He asks if I am in there. My first reaction is to make some sarcastic remark. Nope. Raven has stepped out of her mind for a few moments. If she should return before her mind comes back, please tell her to wait here. I go to say that but I don't have a mouth to speak with. So I send it to Q telepathically. Q replies telepathically that a simple 'yes' would have sufficed. Q then speaks to me aloud. He says I have made a big mistake, and then adds that Raven was really the only one who wanted to protect me. He puts the stasis collar back on me. I want to ask Q what he is talking about, I am Raven, you idiota. No mouth to speak with… but then I find I do have a mouth I'm not controlling. It speaks in a man's voice and says he didn't want to do it at all, it was Raven's idea. Q says that sounds like bullshit, Raven would never have allowed that. I sense that I am not alone. There is another mind here with me, and I reach out to see who it is. Images flash through my head, memories that aren't my own. The other mind present here with me is Alex Mercer off of Prototype.

I try to communicate with him telepathically. He responds, seeming surprised to hear from me. The invisible barrier disappears. My first thought is to transform and cut both of them in half. But I counter that thought, remembering that the goal was to find out what these people are up to since it was clear they are not telling the entire truth. The man says he hadn't realized how stupid I (Alex) was to consume the one person who was trying to help me (him). I am thinking the sucker is really him and the bitch with him. She uses a device she has to open a portal and the man pushes me through it. I resist an urge to turn around and kick him in the balls so hard they get lodged in his fucking nostrils. The portal closes behind us and now we are on an open field. A man is waiting there. He says he had almost given up waiting. He looks like Leland Gaunt as seen on the Needful Things movie by Stephen King.

Somehow both harmless and malevolent at the same time. I can tell Alex doesn't recognize him which leaves me wondering why he wanted these people to bring Alex to him. He tosses a bag to the two people who brought Alex (me) here. They both look intently in the bag. Leland tells Alex (me) that he (I) fucked with the wrong people this time. He laughs in a rather friendly manner, but there is no laughter in his eyes… they look like bottomless abysses. I look into the abyss and it seems the abyss is staring back. He looks briefly puzzled so I stop looking and he finally looks away. I wonder if he could possibly see me inside of Alex. No… surely not this way… not when I was really just a part of Alex… He opens a portal and pulls Alex (me) through it… into a nightmare. Both Alex and I recognize the place instantly even though I am sure he has never seen it, it is the Dark Realm. Alex lets out a, "What the fuck?!" Leland seems pleased with Alex's surprised response. A demon appears, big and ugly. It glares down at Alex (me). It laughs and says that since Alex (I) interfered with his zombie hoards opening the portal now he (I) would pay the price by… what the fuck? The demon looks over at Leland and asks what the fuck this is? The demon says there are two consciousnesses in there, not just one! I telepathically ask Alex how he managed to piss someone off in the Dark fucking Realm. But I already know the answer. In the infected New York there were some infected that were being controlled by an external force and they had been trying to open some kind of gateway. Only certain infected enemies had that power, and Alex had consumed or killed all of them thus preventing the gateway. This must be the demon who had been planning on using the gateway. Ok… that's enough of the Dark Realm… time to go. I tell Alex he'll have to work with me on song spells, but it seems he already knows that… as well as what song spell I'm about to use… Megadeth's Crush 'Em. As the song starts, the energy from it not only breaks the stasis collar, but makes it explode and fall to the ground in pieces. The song creates gravity bombs that come down hard on the demon, pounding him into the ground in a large crater. By the time the song is over the demon has been knocked down, but he is pissed. The demon's minions start coming and attacking Alex (me). He starts dealing with them in a way he is a bit more used to by forming blades and cutting through a lot of them, I focus on the song spell Battery by Metallica and hit more of them with bolts of lightning. We get a ways away from the main demon before finding we are completely surrounded by demon minions.

So now Alex holds them back while I prepare a kick-ass Immortal Fire spell. "And suddenly, the unreal silence is broken by a lament. A lament coming up from the deepest, darkest abyss. And from the seven gates of the dark fortress the dead come back to life to face them. This is hell. Immortal fire, now rise, light my heart, light my way through the darkness, the guardian of space and time!" A massive blast of white flames extends outwards from Alex (me) and incinerates all demons in its path, rising up into the air to catch the flying ones, as well. Now to get out of there. The spell song Through the Never opens a portal out of the Dark Realm. Alex (I) jump through it and it closes behind him (me) before any demons can follow. On the other side Alex (I) is in the same field he (I) was in before our little trip to the Dark Realm. In fact, the man and the woman who had wanted Alex are still there looking at some glowing round gems that they apparently took out of the bag Leland had given them. They are so absorbed in what they are doing that they don't even notice when Alex (I) appear from the portal in the field. I am immediately pissed off at them, though I think it is really more Alex who is pissed off at them than me. He (I) goes right over and picks the man up by the back of his shirt. The woman is just staring with huge eyes, looks like she might shit her pants. The man, on the other hand, drops a stream of expletives and insults that would make a drunken sailor blush. The woman indicates for him to shut up and says he didn't really mean any of that, to which he responds that he sure as fuck did mean every word of it. Not that Alex needed him to get any more pissed off… The man doesn't even realize what is happening when Alex (I) consumes him. I now know what those orbs are… they're real materia, the magic gems from Final Fantasy 7.

And some particularly powerful ones, too. These ones use dark magic. The man at least knew exactly who he had made a deal with, a demon in the Dark Realm. He also knew exactly what he was doing when they handed Alex over to an agent of the Dark Realm. The woman pushes the bag towards Alex (me) and says to take them all as she gets up and runs away. Alex isn't at all interested in the materia, however. He (I) teleports to a point directly in front of the fleeing woman, who skids to a stop and falls on her ass. She scrambles away a few feet but doesn't make much effort to escape, perhaps deciding any attempt is futile. Instead she just holds her hands up in a fending off gesture and says she will do whatever Alex (I) wants if he (I) will just let her go. When Alex (I) grabs her she tries to say the man forced her into helping him, which Alex (I) already knows is a lie. Apparently Alex is in no mood to listen to any more of her bullshit as he (I) consumes her right there. More memories. Apparently the two people wanted to make a deal with the demon to gain more power, to use that power to invade a neighboring country (kingdom?) and obliterate all who got in their way. Not friendly people at all. And neither of them knew of or cared about any crimes Alex may have committed. I feel like I should be waking up. But not here. Alex knows what I am thinking and cooperates with opening a portal back to my inner world. On the other side there are people waiting that don't look too friendly. I telepathically tell them I am here, don't go nuts now. Q asks if I know how to separate. I tell him it should happen automatically when I wake up. If not, I'll figure it out later. And it is here that I wake up.