New Dream Adventures of Raven Knight

It has been forever since I have posted dreams here, so here goes...

2017, 03-21
Beaches and Dark Matters
I am on a beach, which is where I am after visualizing the beach in my hypnosis audio program. I look around on the beach and see there are a few other people there, but none of them are very close to me. I wander down the beach to see if I can identify where I am. In spite of being on the beach from my hypnosis program, it seems perfectly natural and I don’t even consider doing a reality check. I walk down the beach and I see a sand castle. It is a very nice sand castle that looks like someone put quite a bit of work into it. I am admiring the sand castle when I notice that someone is approaching me from the other end of the beach. There is a woman heading straight for me as if she has been looking for me. I try to think if I know her from somewhere, but my mind is a bit hazy. She is a Japanese woman, a very pretty one wearing a very pretty kimono. I can’t think of any Japanese people that I know, however.

I look at the sand castle for a bit longer and the woman comes over to me. She smiles and then greets me by my name, Raven. I do a double take at that, because even if I don’t remember her, she clearly remembers me. She comes over to me and looks around the beach before bringing her attention back to me. She says it is a beautiful place, and then asks me if I am aware that I am dreaming. I tell her no, this is just a hypnotic audio program I listen to when I fall asleep at night, it’s supposed to help me become lucid when I do dream. She says then let it work, do a reality check. I am about to do that when I hear someone else is approaching. I turn to look and in the distance I see what looks like a shadow moving towards the woman and me on the beach. Of course that drives any thought of a reality check right out of my mind as I am trying to figure out what that could be. As it gets closer I realize there is a person at the center of that dark cloud, which looks to be an aura of dark energy. I see a man in the center of it, but I don’t recognize who he is. He stops when he notices me and just stares for a bit, an unreadable expression on his face. He also calls me by my name, Raven, and says I should mind my own business. I am wondering how all these people seem to know me when I don’t know who they are. I turn to look at the woman and ask if she knows this man who just arrived, but the woman is gone. I ask the man who he is, and he chuckles. He says I’m not even lucid. I look at the dark energy aura around the man, and it seems to be turbulent and unstable. But I know a way to fix that. He says he won’t fight me when I’m not lucid. He turns to walk away, but I know that can’t happen here. He mentioned being lucid, but my mind is occupied with things other than dreams.

I catch up with him as he is walking away and I tell him he doesn’t have to fight, just listen to my song. He says if I insist, then turns around and throws a ball of dark energy at me. I reflexively use the Metallica song “Whiplash” to bat the blast away as I focus more on the song I need, which is called “Iron” by Within Temptation. “Left in the darkness, here on your own, woke up a memory feeding the pain. You cannot deny it, there's nothing to say, it's all that you need to fight every day.” He gets mad, asks if that is the best I can do? Back to trying to convert him to light? It’s not going to happen. I say no one is trying to convert anyone, this is sparking a dark fire. “Oh damn, the war is coming! Oh damn, you feel you want it! Oh damn, just bring it on today!” He has been attacking me, my Witchblade has formed armor to block the attacks. The attacks are interrupted when a circle of purple dark energy flame erupts around the man. “You can't live without the fire, it's the heat that makes you strong, 'cause you're born to live and fight it all the way! You can't hide what lies inside you, it's the only thing you've known, so embrace it now, and never walk away! Don't walk away!” The song continues, creating more dark energy flames. After the song ends I see the man is looking at me strangely. It looks like he is about to say something, but then he disappears without a trace. I wonder if the song worked, I’m not even sure how I can tell if it worked. I look around to see if the woman has come back since the man left, but I am now alone. Everything fades to black and I wake up.

10/20/14

Note: It has been a long time since I have posted a dream. I have been having some serious issues with depression and I have been unable to remember most of my dreams and mostly not cared about the ones I have remembered. I think I am breaking out of the darkness of depression now and I will try to post dreams more often again.

Fall Into Darkness
I am somewhere I don’t recognize, but I don’t really care about that. I feel awful. I hurt inside, my depression is giving me serious problems right now. I don’t really notice anything going on around me, just the pain inside. I finally pull myself to my feet and I look around. The room I’m in looks abandoned. It looks like whoever had been here left in a bit of chaos. It looks like it used to be an office of some kind but now it is trashed. There is some broken computer equipment lying by a desk that is almost broken in half, papers are strewn everywhere, and none of the lights are working, leaving the room only illuminated by a street light outside the window. I don’t pay too much attention to the setting, however, I walk over to the window and look out.

The window has been broken and I am able to step right out onto the ledge. I see there is a city outside, but there aren’t many lights on even though it is night time. I look down and see I am a long way up in what must be a skyscraper. There are people way down there, though there is something odd about the way they’re moving. Because of how I am feeling, however, I don’t pay too much attention to the people down below. I am just hurting so much inside. I know things will never get any better. I’m no good to anyone, and I’m no good to myself, there is only one way to escape such pain. So with absolutely no hope in my broken and dying heart I step off of the ledge and feel myself falling into the comforting embrace of death…

But no… that doesn’t happen. I fall for a bit and then I feel I am being lifted back up into the air. It feels almost like flying, which is an exhilarating feeling compared to the crushing depression I felt just seconds before. I notice that someone has put their arms around me. Someone has snatched me right out of the air, taking me into a strong and comforting embrace… and we are flying! Or it certainly feels like flying… maybe it was just a really high jump because the next thing I notice is that my rescuer and I land safely on the roof of a building next to the one I jumped from. My rescuer sets me down and now I am able to turn around and see who it is. I turn around and find myself staring directly into the blue eyes of Alex Mercer from Prototype.

From the look in his eyes it appears Alex is a mix of concerned and annoyed. He asks what I was thinking when I did something that foolish, do I want to die? I tell him that was the general idea. I tell him there really is no reason for me to continue. He looks at me for a bit longer and then asks if I even realize that I’m dreaming. He says he knows I can’t really die in a dream, but do I really want to? I stop for a bit and look at him, trying to comprehend the idea that I am just dreaming now. The pain inside has faded a lot now that I am here with Alex. He takes me into his arms and says he would love for me to be able to come to the dream state permanently so we could be together more, but not like that. He said he only wants that to happen when it is my time, he doesn’t want to see my life end like that, there is still too much that I can do in my current home world. I tell him there isn’t any hope. I tell him I can’t do it alone. I can’t face all that is against me all alone. He said I am never really alone, he is right here with me. And so is Altaïr… and Hetfield… and everyone else that is in my inner world. And even in the physical world I have my friends and my mom. I tell him that everything just feels so hopeless. He said he can help me with that… and he’ll no longer take ‘no’ for an answer. He pulls me back into his arms and holds me there, it feels comforting. I don’t even realize that he’s actually consuming me until everything around me fades to black and then I wake up feeling at peace.

I have been away from dreaming for quite a while due to having a great deal of difficulty with recall and motivation. Lately I have been taking some supplements for dream recall and I managed to remember a couple dreams, though they weren't fully lucid ones. Here are the dreams I remember:

07/06/14

Show Us Your Stuff!
I am wandering around in a neighborhood I don’t recognize. I am not lucid, and I have no idea what I am doing there or even how I got to be there. I stop and look around for a bit, trying to clear my mind. I remember that I am making plans to meet with some new people in a shared dream. I think maybe if I can find a place that looks like the meeting place we are aiming for then maybe I can have the shared dream work. I remember that we are meeting near a large tree so I search the area for a large tree. I wander aimlessly for a while, no real direction in mind, and I finally find myself in a beautiful garden. There is a pool of water there with a waterfall flowing into it. I look at that for a few minutes, the sound of the water is calming. I look around a bit more and I spot a tree that looks perfect! I head over to the tree and look at it for a few minutes. I try to imagine what it would be like to be dreaming about this tree and meeting other dreamers here. I try to imagine what it would be like to have shared dreams again and to get a confirmed match.

I close my eyes as I think about that and then I hear someone around me. When I open my eyes again there are people all around the tree! I don’t recognize them. My first thought is that I am now trespassing on private property and these people are going to be angry at me for being there even though I didn’t mean any harm. I think maybe I can slip away unnoticed, but as I am trying to leave, someone spots me. She comes over to me and says she knows me… I’m Raven Knight! She says she has heard a lot about me. So this person thinks I’m some kind of celebrity? I feel my face turn a bit red because I’m not sure where she might have heard of me. Then I think what she’s heard might not be good. I comment that you can’t believe everything you hear. She said she just wanted to see me use some of my dream powers. I am thinking that would be impossible because this isn’t a dream… but the others there also seem to want to see it so I decide to try. I focus on Damage Inc. by Metallica to create a fireball. The resultant fireball isn’t a huge one, but then I wasn’t really looking for a big one, I wouldn’t want anyone to get hurt. I am glad I was able to produce a fireball at all, and everyone around seems to think it is quite impressive even though it isn’t something huge. Some of them want to see lightning, so I use Battery by Metallica to call a small bolt of lightning. Then someone asks if I can open a portal to take them to another dimension. I am thinking it is amazing enough that I am doing all these things when I’m not dreaming, can I open a portal? That would mean I can get out of this world! I am about to focus on Through the Never by Metallica to open a portal when I wake up.

 
07/07/14

Nuclear Firestorm
I am at school. I look around and see everyone else has already left the classroom, so class is over. I wonder where my mind has been that I didn’t even notice that class had ended. I also notice I have no idea what the instructor has been talking about or if there’s anything I need to turn in that I haven’t handed in yet. I ask the instructor if there’s anything I still need to turn in, hoping it is not obvious that I haven’t been paying attention. He doesn’t seem to think there’s anything strange about my question and he just says no, I’m good. I take my things and leave the school. I get in my car to go home, but I am hearing a lot of strange things on the radio. It is weird that the radio is on, I never listen to the radio in the car, it’s always CD’s or my iPod. But there’s news on. Something about a nuclear explosion? WTF?

I reach home, and it is much like the place I live in my waking life, so nothing seems out of place. I go inside and find my mother is all ready to go. She tells me to get what I need to keep and grab the cats and leave as soon as possible. She doesn’t bother saying why or where to go, just that. And she takes the dog and leaves the house. I am just standing there, puzzled. I start looking for the cats. We have three cats, but right now I can’t find any of them. I think I will also take my computer and hard drive so I won’t lose that. But the cats come first. I keep looking for the cats. I finally get to the back door, a sliding glass door, and I look outside. I see a strange green beam shooting from the sky, from some source I can’t see. I can tell it’s going to hit in the mountains. Somehow I know the beam will trigger a nuclear explosion, so being this close to it would not be good. I have to get out of here!

I am frantically looking for the cats now. There’s no way I can leave them behind. I finally find one of them, my fluffy white cat named Princess. I scoop her into my arms and look around for my keys. Forget the carriers, there’s no time… now where are my keys?! I need to put Princess in the car and find the other two! After searching frantically for a couple minutes I realize how foolish I am being. There’s no way I can find two more cats and then get far enough from the blast to make a difference. I look outside again and the green beam is now solid and hitting the ground somewhere in the nearby mountains. Nothing to be done for it. I go away from the window and sit down in a corner at the far side of the house and wait. I see a blinding flash of light from behind the house. There was the blast. And shortly after it a searing wave of fire blasts through the house. I feel the heat as my body is incinerated, but not as pain, just as a warmth and a heavy wind. And as I feel the warmth everything fades to black.

I wake up in bed and realize the nuclear detonation was just a dream. I come out of my room and find my mom fixing pancakes for breakfast. She smiles and asks how I am this morning. I say fine, and then tell her about my dream. I point out the window at the place the nuclear blast went off at. She says she is sure glad I survived and continues making pancakes. I find one of my kitties, the fluffy black one named Shadow, and I am petting her as I wake up for real.

01/19/14

Two Worlds
I am in a place I don't recognize. It is a futuristic looking city. There are many people walking around, simply going about their daily business. No one seems upset or anything. They are talking to each other about mundane topics. There are various races present, some of them look human and others look far from being human. There are also robots. A robot that looks similar to a C3-P0 unit politely says excuse me as he comes up behind me. I look and realize I am standing in the middle of a walkway. I mutter an apology and step out of the way. The robot wishes me a nice day and continues on his way. The humanoid reptile behind him isn't so polite. She is going on about how could a mere robot have the nerve to expect a real person to move aside for him. She says she can't believe the nerve of some of these artificials. Right now I am thinking I would much rather hang out with the C3-P0 unit than her. She is just rude and annoying. After seeing she isn't going to get any response out of me she continues on her way, now muttering expletives about people who love artificials. I follow after her for a short while, not sure if she has anything to do with why I might be here. She finally stops and turns back to me. She asks what my problem is, am I having sex with that damn artificial? If I am it makes her sick. I tell her that who I am having sex with is none of her business. She snoots her nose up in the air and walks off.

I am trying to decide if I should bother following the grouch any more… I am considering doing it just to piss her off… when someone shoves me out of the way rather rudely. I look to see who and I spot the back side of a lombax in a really big hurry. I recognize that lombax! It's Ratchet from the Ratchet and Clank games! He pushes past the rude reptilian woman who gives him a piece of her mind in a stream of expletives… but he is already gone and she finds she is cursing out someone who appears to be a human male. The man thinks she is cursing at him and tells her to shut the fuck up, calling her lizard brain. She seems offended by that, which seems ironic to me. The bigot bitch is now the subject of racism. She fluffs up some strange hood type thing around her head and gets all indignant and walks away in a huff. I am about to follow Ratchet when I hear something else. Someone is calling out Ratchet's name and telling him to come back here, why are you doing this? Of course Ratchet is long gone and could not possibly hear the person calling him. I go to investigate the person calling instead. I can track Ratchet down later if I need to.

I follow the voice that called Ratchet and find a small work room. There are computers all over the place as well as an array of tools. Some of the tools are put away neatly while others are strewn on a work table. Clank is here, he is standing on the work table. He is connected to a large object sitting on the floor by what looks like a long extension cord. Wtf? He isn't looking when I come in and apparently thinks Ratchet has come back. He says he is glad I have finally come to my senses… now put his robotic ignition system right back where it belongs, and he'd better have a good explanation as to… Now Clank turns around and sees me at the door, he sees I am not Ratchet. I tell him I don't know what is going on, but I saw Ratchet running down the street as if he was being chased by a blargian snagglebeast. I tell him I believe I have been brought here to help… so what is going on? Clank looks mad for a bit, then he just looks sad. He says he wishes he knew, but he doesn't think I can be much help unless I have a robotic ignition system. I tell him I can get one of those… I think… I access the penticon chip in my brain and ask if it can replicate a robotic ignition system. It scoffs at me and says of course, just upload the exact specifications. There is a pause, Clank looks at me strangely, and then a mechanical device appears on the work table. My penticon reports the replication is complete. Clank picks up the device, opens a panel in his side, plugs a couple things in to the device before putting the whole device inside and closing the panel. He then unplugs the extension cord. He says he's glad to be off of that thing. I ask what that is. He says it's a backup power source… his internal power system won't function without the robotic ignition system… which Ratchet stole! I ask why would he do that? Clank says he doesn't know, just that he seemed to be in a big hurry when he was setting up the backup power supply… which Clank hadn't realized what that was for at the time… but there must be something wrong. The Ratchet he knows would never have done that…

Well it seems there is a bit of a mystery, and I guess I have to track Ratchet down after all. I sniff the air and comment that I smell a Templar, more to myself than to anyone around. Clank asks what that is. I say it's like saying I smell a rat, only far, far worse. A Templar… smells like the stuff that comes out of the south end of a north bound blargian snagglebeast. He cocks his head and looks at me strangely. I comment that someone is going to eat dirt. Clank apparently thinks I mean Ratchet because he says no, don't kill Ratchet… there must be a very good explanation, he's sure of it… there has to be… I tell him I don't mean Ratchet… I mean someone else I know named Robert de Sable who I suspect is somehow behind everything. He's a Templar. Gotta go find him and Ratchet before something happens that can't be undone so easily as replacing a robotic ignition system.

I head out of the work shop quickly, but I am sure Ratchet is long gone. I am wondering how to best find him when I see a ship fly overhead. It looks like the ships that are often used in the Ratchet and Clank games. I scan it with my penticon quickly and confirm Ratchet is on board. I summon my fire valkyrie, teleport aboard. I hear Clank following after me and saying he wants to come, so I also teleport him aboard. I follow after Ratchet as he heads into space. In space I use the communicator to contact Ratchet. At first he doesn't respond at all but then he apparently realizes Clank is with me and answers. He seems glad to see Clank is ok, though he also seems surprised and says he'd been told the replacement robotic ignition system wasn't due in until tomorrow… I say I replicated one. Clank wants to know what's going on. I can't really tell if Clank is pissed off or worried or what. He says there's no time to explain, there's something he's got to do… and shuts off communication. The other ship is preparing to go to warp drive, so I use a tractor beam and hold it in place. That gets Ratchet's attention back really quick and he makes contact again, now saying to let him go or they'll all be killed. All of who? The lombaxes! And he's already late, it might already be too late! Clank seems annoyed now, he says if there are lombaxes in danger, why didn't Ratchet just say so? Ratchet should have known Clank would help… Ratchet says no, he has to go alone, those are the rules. He has to give himself up or that bastard is going to kill all of them. Clank says it's no doubt a trap. Ratchet looks at something off to his side and then looks like the world is about to end. He says it's too late now… there's no way he can get there in time. I comment my ship can get there in time. Just tell me where. And there won't be any flying into a trap alone, either. He repeats he has to go alone or that bastard is going to destroy the whole planet. I use Of Wolf and Man to transform into Ratchet. Ok… now where? Clank and Ratchet are both staring at me now. I tell Ratchet if time really is running out, I just need to know where to go. Clank asks if I'm not worried that whoever this is will just kill me instead. I say no. Not at all worried. I got abilities this guy has certainly never even had nightmares about. Let's see if this asshole is counting on meeting up with a formshifting virus.

Well now I look like Ratchet, but I figure the asshole in question might also notice if a fire valkyrie comes flying in. So I use the ship computer to open a wormhole to the coordinates Ratchet provides. I tell him I'll use my transporter to swap places with him, just take my ship back to the planet, I need to use his to make sure the asshole doesn't notice a difference. He agrees to it, and my penticon does the teleportation. It feels a bit strange to see someone else sitting in the pilot's seat of my fire valkyrie… but I figure it will be ok. I fly through the wormhole. On the other side I can tell I am now on the outskirts of the galaxy. It is quite an amazing view. There is a space station hovering in the emptiness of space. That is where Ratchet has been told to go, so that is where I will go. I fly over to the station. I get a communication from the station. The transmission is from a strange alien that I recognize from the Ratchet and Clank series, he's a cragmite. Looks like Percival Tachyon from the later games. So I figure he probably wants to get rid of Ratchet, me now, because he (I'm) a lombax. He's just being an asshole. He says I am late. That is bullshit. I tell him I'm fucking early. He doesn't really respond, but the landing bay of the station opens up so I land.

In the landing bay I find I am surrounded by numerous strange creatures that look like fish wearing suits of armor. Weird. My first thought is that the sushi is delivering itself. But I figure I had better not resist or that damn Tachyon is going to do whatever it is he has been threatening to do. They use some kind of restraint to secure my hands behind my back. I test it a bit. Yeah, my viral strength can snap it like a twig. I do nothing but go with them, however. Gotta find the head of the snake. I follow the fish people into a large control room where Tachyon is standing right beside a console with a very distinctive red button. He is laughing at something. I see the largest display screen shows a city inhabited by lombaxes. I wonder where that is. Tachyon now that I'm here the show can begin. He tells me to say goodbye to the rest of my kind. While his behavior doesn't really surprise me at all, it does still piss me off. I say he gave his word that if I came he wouldn’t do that. My penticon is talking to me at the same time. It says it has accessed the targeting system and found a more appropriate target. Tachyon acts like he is surprised, then says he wouldn't have said that… I am trying to talk Tachyon out of firing the weapon, because I am not sure I can get to him before he can push the button. Maybe… but I'm not wanting to take that chance. My attempts to convince him to not do it seem to amuse him. He clearly doesn't care that the lombaxes on the screen have done nothing to him… the last thing I comment is that when someone does something like that it inevitably comes back to bite them in the ass. He says there's no one to make him pay.

So Tachyon is laughing his ass off when he makes a show of pushing the button. Nothing happens. He stops laughing and looks at the screen which still shows a city with lombaxes going about their daily business. He pushes the button again. Still nothing. He pushes it several more times, getting more frustrated with every push. I can't help but point out how anti-climatic that was. He is pissed and pounding on the button. I look over at a screen near the firing button. There's a gage that had been maxed out just a few minutes ago, now it is sitting on empty. It is the reading for the weapon charge level. I tell Tachyon it clearly already fired… maybe he needs to check his targeting coordinates. He stops pushing the red button and looks at the gage. He then looks at a terminal and begins typing something on it. He says something can't be, seems visibly upset by it. The scene of lombaxes on the screen is replaced by a scene showing the debris of what may have recently been a planet. He looks at the console, at the screen, then he glares over at me and asks how the fuck I managed to do that. I tell him I did nothing… he did that. What did you do? Blow up the wrong fucking planet? My penticon reports to me that he has successfully destroyed the planet where the cragmites had ended up after the lombaxes had sent them through a dimensional portal. I do a face palm… a double… I need more hands. He blew up his own planet!

Tachyon is pissed off beyond belief at me. He seems to think I somehow managed to access his computer system and retarget the weapon all while being restrained and right in front of him trying to talk him out of firing it. I tell him nope, this is all him. I told him it would bite him in the ass… He insists on saying I will pay for it and so will all of those other filthy lombaxes. Well I don't particularly want to consume this one… I am thinking his thoughts and memories might be too repulsive… but I also want to know if he has had dealings with Robert de Sable, if that is why I was brought here. I tell him maybe he was given a defective weapon… by who? The name wouldn't happen to be Robert de Sable, would it? He stops mid rant and looks at me. He looks like he has just figured it all out. He says Robert de Sable must be my friend! I knew the whole time that the weapon wouldn't fire where he aimed it because my friend Robert de Sable set me up. I tell him Robert is no friend of mine… but that does explain where a dumb cragmite managed to get hold of an interdimensional planet destroyer weapon. I smell a Templar. He says it doesn't matter… as soon as the weapon is charged he will make sure it is aimed at the lombax planet and blow them all out of existence. He pushes a couple buttons on the controls and the power gage starts rising as the weapon is recharging.

I decide I have had enough of Tachyon. More than enough, really. I tell him the only ones about to not exist are him and his pal Robert. He laughs at me and says there's nothing I can do about it. If it wasn't for the fact he wants me to see the rest of the lombaxes wiped out of the galaxy I'd already be dead. I tell him he talks a lot… that's because he's weak. And pathetic. He says I'm in no position to be insulting him. I break the restraints like a twig. He backs up a couple steps. He points at me and say GET HIM! So that's his whole plan? Not going to work on a virus. I don't bother shifting back to my normal form, but I do activate an Alex Mercer blade on my right arm. There are fish people all around me in their futuristic armor. My blade slices through their armor like a hot knife through butter. So I cut down the enemies that attack me. I see Tachyon staring at that scene for a bit before he apparently decides it would be a good idea to make a hasty retreat. This guy is as much of a flaky chicken-wuss as Robert himself! Come back here, you flaky jerk! Feel my blade! I am about to chase after Tachyon when I see the power gage on the weapon is at full… and still climbing. It is now overcharging. It is entering the red zone. The intercom system is now warning of imminent detonation if the charge is not stopped.

Forget Tachyon. He will most likely blow up with his station. Just to be sure the overcharge can't be aborted I smash the controls before leaving. I head back the way the fish people brought me from. My ship, or really Ratchet's ship, is still sitting in the landing bay. I jump into the ship and launch out of there. I am flying away from the station when there is a blinding explosion behind me… the whole thing just blew up. I wonder if there is any chance Tachyon got out of that alive. I figure if he did, at least he won't have access to an interdimensional planet destroyer weapon now. Scans show no signs of life in the vicinity. So I just have to go back to Ratchet and Clank and tell them the lombax planet is safe, and Tachyon is most likely subatomic particles. I use the penticon chip in my brain to open the wormhole I need to get back quickly. I land Ratchet's ship near my own fire valkyrie, which is landed not far from the work room where I originally found Clank. I get out of the ship and go to the work room. Both Ratchet and Clank are there, though I get the idea they haven't been getting along too well. I hope Robert didn't succeed in fucking things up between them with his stupid interference… I tell them that the planet destroyer is gone, Tachyon is space dust. Or at least I think he's space dust. I didn't actually see him explode. Ratchet seems relieved at that news. Clank still looks kind of pissed. It seems Ratchet is just giving him some space. I don't know if it makes any difference, but I flood the room with positive energy with a song spell I hum to myself. It does seem to have some effect. Clank doesn't look as mad, he asks me what that strange melody is. I say it is called Voices, from a show where I come from called Macross. Well all I can do is hope what Robert did doesn't leave any lasting effect, because it is here that I wake up.

01/17/14

I am in a strange place that somehow looks familiar and foreign to me at the same time. I am walking down a street in a town that looks like something out of one of my video games. Specifically out of Assassin's Creed I. Maybe Jerusalem. There are people walking on the streets and chatting casually though they all seem a bit uneasy. Like they're expecting something to happen at any moment. I notice there seem to be an awful lot of guards wandering the street as well. Many more than would seem justified in a peaceful city street. The guards also seem a little on edge. I see a commotion from off to my right and I head in that direction. There are a lot of people gathered around one spot, all talking animatedly. Some people are talking about dark magic and demons. I wonder what is going on. I push my way through the crowd to get a look at what they're talking about. People are calling the guards, apparently worried about something. Someone tells an approaching guard to use caution, this creatures has black magic and isn't afraid to use it! I head in the direction they are indicating. I am thinking this black magic user might be why I'm here.

I get to the place they have indicated before the guards close in and block it off. I find that the guards do have someone cornered, and it is definitely someone who doesn't belong here. Ratchet and Clank are here at the end of a dead end alley. The alley is blocked off by guards and Ratchet has one of his guns out and is pointing it at the guards. Clank is telling him he doesn't know if they're really enemies or if they're just confused, which must be why Ratchet isn't firing at the guards. The guards are wielding their swords at Ratchet but don't seem to dare approach, most likely due to the scorch mark on the ground... it seems Ratchet fired a warning shot and that is the "black magic" they're referring to. The talk of demons comes from the fact they've never seen anything even close to a lombax or a robot before, especially not one that appears to throw fireballs... A guard finally decided to use a ranged weapon... and he fires an arrow at Clank. The arrow hits Clank and bounces off with a *clank* noise but doesn't harm him. I get closer to them and throw a smoke bomb into the middle of the scene. I use my eagle vision to locate Ratchet and Clank and get them off of the street into a small concealed garden area that would no doubt make a very good hiding spot for an Assassin. I hear the guards behind me yelling and searching, giving orders to find them immediately. I wonder if they have a better plan on what to do if they do find them… get shot with more fireballs?

Ratchet and Clank seem quite confused as to what is going on. I tell him someone is screwing with space-time and I think I know who... and that someone is gonna be feeling my hidden blade really soon. Clank says they had just been heading to town to get a replacement part for Ratchet's space ship when a strange gateway had opened and pulled them here. Ratchet seems annoyed at being called a demon. I am thinking I need to open a portal to get them home. Before I have a chance to I spot that we aren't alone in the garden. I had originally thought it looked like a good hiding spot for an Assassin and I'm not the only one to have thought that. Altaïr is here. He is right behind Ratchet. Wait... does he also think Ratchet is some kind of demon or monster? I think he does... because he has his hidden blade out. Before he can stab Ratchet I push Ratchet out of the way and tell him to stop it. Altaïr stabs me. Of course in the dream state I am now a virus like Alex Mercer... so that does nothing except create a small injury that instantly heals. I ask Altaïr what he's doing that for. He hesitates when he sees me heal and says I must be another of the demons. He says he has heard that the Templars have enlisted demons to aid them. I say yes, they have, but neither Ratchet nor I are demons. The demon is no doubt the one who pointed Ratchet out to him. I am an Assassin from another dimension. Ratchet is also from another dimension, also not a Templar. Altaïr seems unsure of who to believe now. He says he's seen Ratchet use black magic on some guards... No. Not black magic. Just a more advanced weapon. One that doesn't really belong here, so he'll be taking it home with him.

So I need to send Ratchet and Clank home. I start focusing on opening the portal but it seems to be giving me trouble. Altaïr seems unsure of who to believe. I get the idea he is leaning towards believing me. He eyes me for a moment and then says he does believe me, that other person hadn't stayed around long enough for him to verify who's side he was on... but he can see I am an Assassin. He stares at Ratchet for a long while and that seems to annoy Ratchet a bit, who switches his tail around... which draws Altaïr's attention to it and he stares even more. Ratchet finally asks Altaïr if he's never seen a lombax before. "A what?" is Altaïr's response. I comment no, no one here has ever seen a lombax. Wrong time. Wrong planet. Wrong galaxy. Wrong fucking dimension. Robert de fucking Sable. I really want to find Robert and then rip off his favorite body part and shove it up his ass… Ratchet is asking who Robert de Sable is, but Altaïr knows exactly who I am talking about. He says Robert de Sable and his Templars will stop at nothing to get what they want, but this… a lumbet from a different planet? A different dimension? Yeah… but a lombax, not a lumbet… whatever those might be… I gotta send him home. I focus on opening a portal to send Ratchet and Clank back home.

I am focusing on the portal when Altaïr distracts me. He says Robert de Sable's name. I turn and see Robert de Sable standing at the entrance to the garden. He is laughing. Altaïr says he doesn't know what scheme the Templars are up to this time but it will fail. As long as there are Assassins around the Templars will always fail. Robert seems to be ignoring Altaïr right now. He asks me if I'm not going to send my two friends home. I hesitate in opening my portal… he seems to like the idea of me sending them home a bit too much, like maybe the Templars have fucked up my portals somehow. Like maybe if I send them "home" I'll actually be doing something to make things much worse. Robert laughs when I hesitate. Of course maybe he is just messing with me, too. And I can't keep Ratchet and Clank here… I really want to kick Robert's ass. Ratchet asks who this guy is, referring to Robert. He is the cause of a hundred paradoxes that Assassins keep having to fix… and this is just another fail. Because that's what he does. He fails. Has always failed. Will always fail. In the history books next to the name Robert de Sable they will write, "The Ultimate Infinite Failure" as the definition. Robert says he will show me a failure and throws a dark energy fireball at Altaïr. I pull the energy ball over to me and absorb it. I tell him to stop passing out dark energy. Well he has done it for the last time, anyway. I use an Alex Mercer move and drive spikes into the ground. They erupt right under Robert… right as he disappears in a blast of smoke. Shit! The chicken-wuss disappeared again! "Come back and FIGHT ME, you FLAKY JERK!"

The spikes and the commotion have apparently gotten some attention. Guards are entering the garden through the narrow entrance. They have their swords out and are attacking on sight, apparently not concerned with the idea there might be some innocent people here, too. One of them gets himself stabbed by Altair's hidden blade. A second gets shot with Ratchet's blaster, a third gets electrocuted when he tries to grab Clank. My Alex Mercer claws take out a fourth. The others aren't as quick to push through the opening. Altaïr says he knows a way out. He jumps up a wall and grabs a ledge, climbing as if he is assuming everyone else can obviously follow him. Clank jumps onto Ratchet's back and uses a jet booster to get Ratchet all the way up to the ledge Altaïr grabbed. I easily follow them as well. I guess Altaïr wasn't mistaken when he assumed everyone could follow him. Except the guards, that is. They don't seem to be able to reach the ledge. Close, but not quite. Altaïr throws a knife and takes out an archer aiming at us. A shot from Ratchet's blaster takes out that archer's partner. We get to a place that is hidden from the guards. I hear them out there still looking, but they aren't having any luck.

I go back to focusing on opening a portal to get Ratchet and Clank home. A portal opens. I look through the portal and see a place that definitely looks consistent with a Ratchet and Clank world. Robert is still in my mind laughing, still making me question whether this portal is good or not. I go through it, indicating Ratchet and Clank should follow. If it's the wrong place I can set it right once we get there. On the other side of the portal I look around and see the setting is consistent with a Ratchet and Clank world, but the inhabitants are not. The inhabitants are all reptilian creatures with big green eyes and a lot of teeth. They see us enter from a portal. Some of them just look confused, others look like something else… One of them is looking at Ratchet in a way that makes me think he wants there to be fresh lombax on the menu for tonight. I think Ratchet has the same idea, he gets a bit closer to me and says this is definitely not his home world. I tell him I know, this is another trick of Robert's. Time to get out of here. I open another portal, focusing even stronger on getting to Ratchet and Clank's home world. The portal opens and we go through it before anyone in the previous place decides to make a move. Now this world looks right. One of the people there even seems to recognize Ratchet and Clank. I think for a bit and remember his name… Big Al! So I think they're in the right place now. Which is good since here is where I wake up.

01/16/14
Out of the Shadows
I am in a strange place. I look around to see where I am. I am immediately lucid and I am just wondering where I am and what I might be doing there. I survey the area. It is a very unpleasant place, it looks like a dark and backwards version of a normal forest. Trees are large and leafless, they look dead. The sky is a dreary gray that casts the landscape into a permanent state of twilight. The land is also shrouded in a thin mist. I start walking through the trees, not really sure where I'm going, but I need to figure out why I am here. There are strange things moving in the misty shadows that I can't quite see. I look behind me and I realize I am not alone. There is a man there with me. I have to get a bit closer to him before I can see who he is, but I recognize him as soon as I'm close enough to see. Alex Mercer follows me through the bleak landscape. He asks if I have seen any sign of Dana. I tell him he is the first one I have seen here. I didn't even know I was there looking for Dana. I ask if I am looking for Dana then why has he come, I thought he wasn't speaking to her. He says no, he's not speaking to her. But there's a big difference between not speaking to her and letting some freak from a parallel dimension kill her. He says we should find her.

I turn to head off in the direction that feels right. Alex follows me and then he pauses. He says he thinks it will be easier if Dana doesn't even realize it is him. He changes form into Dante from the Devil May Cry series of video games. He says he is ready now. So the two of us continue searching through the mysterious place. After a bit longer of a search I hear a commotion in the distance. Alex has clearly heard it, too. A scream… and some cursing. A woman is screaming and yelling expletives at someone. Alex says that sounds like Dana. We both follow the sound. We find that between two particularly large trees there is an even larger spider web. About the center of the spider web there is a woman tangled up in it. She is struggling to get free, but her attempts just seem to be getting her even more hopelessly entangled. She drops some more loud expletives before calling to no one in particular to help her get loose. I can recognize from here that it is Dana Mercer, Alex's sister. She doesn't seem to have noticed that Alex and I are there, and of course she wouldn't recognize Alex even if she had noticed us. She struggles some more and then finally seems to give up on that at least for now. She looks down and sees Alex and me. She says she is so glad to see friendly faces… please help her get free. Alex gives her a dirty look and says no one has said we are friendly… maybe he's not friendly at all. I elbow Alex and tell him to cut it out, calling him Dante. I tell her we'll have her free in just a bit.

While Dana's struggles haven't attracted any of the local inhabitants to help her they have attracted the owner of the web. A large spider crawls out onto the web from a tree. The spider has the tail of a scorpion and is about the size of a Great Dane dog. When the spider gets closer to Dana she screams again. The spider is about to drive its stinger tail right into Dana's abdomen when Alex reacts. He yells at the spider thing to get the fuck away from her and calls it a few creative things. He may look like Dante, but he is using Alex Mercer abilities as he jumps up into the air and forms his arms into a claws, cutting through the web between the spider thing and Dana. The spider turns to attack Alex. Alex grabs the thing's stinger as it is about to impale him with it. He rips the stinger right off of the spider creature and then consumes the spider thing. I am thinking if he was trying to keep her from knowing who he is then he hasn't done a very good job hiding it. I climb up into the trees in a more normal manner and cut her free from the webs, lowering both of us safely to the ground. It turns out she has a number of injuries on her that I go ahead and use healing energy on. Dana is soon fully healed.

Dana doesn't seem to be paying much attention to me, however, she is looking at Alex. When he comes over near us she addresses him as Alex, though she does so in a questioning way. "Alex?" Alex gives her a bit of a dirty look and says no, it's Dante. Dante Sparda. As if it's an afterthought he transforms his claw arms back to normal human arms. Dana seems puzzled and says he's clearly infected. Alex says he's not infected with anything. He just happens to be part demon. His father was a demon… so if she has a problem with that, then fuck her. Dana points out the obvious and says Alex is clearly still upset. Alex says so he's tired of people assuming the worst about him just because he's a demon. It seems that Dana doesn't really have any doubt that she is speaking to Alex. She asks how she was supposed to know there was a fake running around. It seems Alex, on the other hand, has gotten a bit better at faking being Dante. He asks a fake what? A fake demon? She says a fake him, calling him Alex. "A fake YOU, Alex!" He repeats his name is Dante. She says she knows he's Alex, so cut the crap. He is annoyed, maybe at her for seeing it or maybe at himself for not hiding it better. He says forget it. He can't be Alex… Alex is dead. And then before anything else can be said he disappears through a portal.

Damn it! Dana looks around and curses loudly. It seems she's forgotten I'm even here because she calls after Alex asking how she's supposed to get out of this nightmare. I ask if I'm a pile of chopped liver… I can open portals, too, you know. She looks over at me as if noticing me for the first time and says sorry, she was a bit distracted. Thanks for helping her out. She adds that she has no idea what is wrong with Alex… or maybe he really told me his name is Dante? No… I knew it's Alex, though he could definitely use work on his undercover skills… She asks me if I know what his problem is. I find I'm not happy about the way she has behaved, either… it seems to me that she abandoned Alex in the second game, so I find myself quoting song lyrics… "And I watched as you turned away, you don't remember, but I do… you never even tried." Dana thinks I am being weird, but finally asks tried what. I say to figure out what was going on when she thought Alex had gone completely around the bend. I comment that I guess I can't speak for anyone else, but if someone I care about goes bat-shit crazy for no apparent reason I'm going to do whatever I can to find out what happened and get that person back. She asks who says she didn't try. I tell her Alex. And the clone, too… because when Alex consumed the clone he got all those memories, as well. So I remember when she said, "I understand that I had a brother once; a boy named Alex, a boy who used to play games with me and go skating with me and watch scary movies with me. I understand that Alex is dead now." The only problem with that was he wasn't dead… he was right there just wanting her to hear him out, but no… Now even I have that memory etched in my mind and it never even happened to me, but after being consumed by Alex repeatedly all of his memories are mine… and mine are his… Dana looks at me strangely when I say I have been consumed by Alex repeatedly, that no doubt sounds pretty crazy.

Ok, well I figure I will be waking up soon so I open a portal leading back to Dana's home world. I tell her that is the way home, so she might want to consider not taking any more unplanned excursions into parallel dimensions in the future. She looks at the portal and says no. I say that's good, because unless you know what you're doing you can end up a lot of places that make this place… which I have determined to be some part of the Shadow Realm… seem like a fantastic vacation opportunity. So take care. Dana says no again. No what? She says she isn't going home. She wants to see Alex. I tell her it's pretty obvious to me that Alex doesn't want to see her, so the answer to that one would be no. She asks if I know where Alex is. I say I don't specifically know where he is at this very second, but I know where to find him, where he will eventually come back to, or at least I hope he doesn't decide not to come back… She says she doesn't see why he should be mad at her, she's the one who thought he had turned against everyone he cared about! I tell her that there is part of the problem. Until he knows that you get the gravity of what you did when you told him he is dead, he will never, ever, ever be anything but the picture of pain you saw before. Sorry, but there's no way he will be able to heal until you get it. My Penticon chip projects a hologram of a Simpsons clip… the one where Laura Powers, a girl Bart had a crush, on rips out his heart and throws it in the trash. "You won't be needing this!" It's a short clip and it plays on a loop. Well, look at that… because that's what you did! I find myself getting upset at Dana, and I force myself to calm down… after all, it wasn't me that she did it to… but still, betraying someone I care for is the same as betraying me and I want to call her a backstabbing bitch… But I say nothing. I finally tell her if she ever gave a shit about Alex, leave him alone now. If he gets to a point where he is ready to talk to her, he will find her. I transform the portal to Dana's home world from a regular portal to a vortex portal. The portal creates a vacuum and pulls Dana through it and into her home dimension. As Dana is pulled through the portal I hear her saying she never meant to… but then her voice is cut off as the portal closes. It doesn't really matter what she said, I still plan on continuing to heal Alex… he needs to let go of the past not for Dana, but for himself. One does not forgive others for them, one needs to forgive others for themselves. That is the thought in my mind when I wake.

01/15/14

I am in a city I don't recognize. I look around to see if I can identify it. It looks like a city out of a fantasy RPG such as Skyrim or Oblivion. There are various people walking around and chatting, various races. I spot a couple orcs, several feline kajiit, and a small cluster of argonians among the more human like races. I decide since I know approximately where I am I need to find out why I'm there. In this kind of game one can often find information in a local pub. So I walk down the street, searching for an inn or a pub. I see some other shops. An apothecary, an armor shop, and a weapons shop, and then a pub. The pub is called the Drunken Troll. I know I've never heard of that particular pub in the parts of the games I've played, but that doesn't matter. Things don't always match perfectly. I go into the pub.

Inside the pub it is relatively quiet. It is the middle of the day, and there aren't too many people in there drinking yet. Two khajiit are having an animated conversation in the corner, the merchant at the bar is a nord, and a small group of wood elves seem to be celebrating something at one of the tables in the main sitting area. The nord at the bar looks bored, so I go over to him. He asks what I'll have. He says he is fresh out of nordish ale, his shipment is running late. I wonder if that could lead to a quest. Maybe some bandits are causing trouble or something like that.

I am about to ask something about it when a man enters the room, looking breathless. He is carrying a large crate which he sets on the bar. The nord says never mind... the nordish ale is here. The man who just entered looks like another nord. The delivery man says the merchant isn't going to believe what he just saw outside. The merchant laughs and asks what he saw this time, a khajiit kissing an argonian? The delivery man says nope. He saw the strangest looking miniature khajiit walking down the street talking to this little metal golem. The merchant just gives him a strange look. The delivery man adds that the little golem has wings like a bird of some kind. The merchant starts laughing. The delivery man says he is not into the skooma again, he has given up that stuff. I wonder what he has seen, so I decide to check it out. I get up and head out. The merchant calls after me that he doesn't sell skooma... he runs a reputable establishment! Come back! I tell him I'll probably be back after I check out this miniature khajiit. The merchant says the delivery man is just blowing smoke. The delivery man says he really saw it!

I go outside onto the street. I look up and down the street to see if anything looks strange. I spot what is out of place right away. Walking down the middle of the road are a couple of individuals that I would never have expected to see in a Tamriel type world. Ratchet the lombax and Clank the robot. Wtf? They are looking around in a perplexed manner. I get closer to them and I can hear them talking. Ratchet is asking Clank if he has any idea where they are. Clank says there is no place in his databases that matches this place. Ratchet says an even better question is how did they get here. Clank looks at me strangely. He says he doesn't know that, either, but the locals are staring. Ratchet looks where Clank is looking, at me, and asks if I have never seen a lombax and a robot before. I say not in this dimension. Oh, and by the way, I'm not a local. And I am pretty certain that the people here have never seen either a lombax or a robot. And I am wondering how exactly this has happened... Is someone messing with dimensions again?

A couple of people walk by, talking a bit too loud. One of them says look at the funny little khajiit. An actual khajiit looks at Ratchet and says there is no way that pathetic thing is a khajiit. Ratchet hears that and gives the khajiit a dirty look. Clank puts one hand on Ratchet and says not to start any trouble. The khajiit talks like a typical khajiit, says, "Urj'Jirr thinks that little one has an attitude problem." Ratchet looks around and says Urj'Jirr should say that to him directly instead of getting a pal to say it. The khajiit, Urj'Jirr, says, "Urj'Jirr just did. Urj'Jirr says the little one is not too bright." Now Ratchet just has a confused look on his face. He says there is definitely something wrong with the people here. Urj'Jirr looks annoyed and says, "Maybe Urj'Jirr should teach the strange one some manners." Urj'Jirr's companion takes his arm, however. Ratchet is annoyed again and says, "Well maybe Urj'Jirr should just try it... if HE has the balls!" Urj'Jirr starts to make a move, but his friend restrains him. His friend, an imperial I think, says no... he is absolutely not going to bail Urj'Jirr's ass out of jail again. The friend points at a couple of guards who are now watching us. Urj'Jirr says, "Urj'Jirr thinks the little one got lucky... this time." Urj'Jirr's friend forcibly pulls him away. Ratchet is muttering that he'll show that Urj'Jirr who was lucky... Clank tells Ratchet to calm down, they have to figure out where they are and how to get back home.

I look and make sure Urj'Jirr is really leaving, which he is, though he seems reluctant. He and his friend go into the pub. Great... just what the city needs. A drunk, conceited khajiit looking for a fight. I tell Ratchet and Clank I have no idea how they got here, but I do believe I can help them out with getting home. Clank says that would be very helpful. I focus on opening a portal to get to Ratchet and Clank's home dimension. Nothing happens right away, but I don't have time to focus long before I see a nord dressed in armor coming down the street sounding an alarm. Most everyone is running for shelter. Ratchet and Clank are just watching him, I am there with them wondering what is happening. The guard comes over when he sees we aren't running and says the goblins are attacking, everyone who can't fight needs to seek shelter. Ratchet asks who said he couldn't fight. The guard pauses and then says no one. He says if Ratchet is willing and able to help, any assistance would be appreciated and surely rewarded as well as the guard is quite outnumbered. The guard pauses... then asks if Ratchet is a khajiit... he's never seen a khajiit quite like him. Ratchet says he's a lombax. The guard makes like he knows what that means, moves off a couple steps, then stops and says, "A what?" But Ratchet doesn't notice, he is heading in the direction the guard indicated the goblin attack is in. Clank follows after, jumping up into the air and somehow getting hold on Ratchet's back for a piggy back ride.

I follow Ratchet and Clank down the street. We are going against the flow of the main crowd, but the crowd dwindles soon as we reach the edge of town. There is a wall there, and guards are closing the gate. Ratchet and Clank get through just before the gate closes. I just jump over the wall. The guards stare at that in surprise. I land next to Ratchet and Clank on the other side of the wall. There are large numbers of goblins running at the city. The guards, being quite outnumbered, are trying to hold them back. Most of the fighters are nords, but there are other races mixed in. I wonder if Urj'Jirr might be there somewhere since he had been looking for a fight. The goblins attack everyone equally. They don't care if their target is nord, khajiit, lombax, or robot... The goblins are many but not too bright. Ratchet throws a grenade bomb into a group of goblins. One of them picks it up and seems very interested in it right up to the point where it explodes in his hand and takes him out along with a few goblins right around him. No one pays the explosion much notice, as there are other explosions around caused by mages throwing fireballs. Ratchet jumps into the air, practically flying by using Clank as a jet pack and is dropping more bombs down among the goblins. I see one goblin actually try to eat one of them before it explodes. I form my arm into an Alex Mercer blade and enter into the fray, cutting a path through the attacking goblins.

The fight is pretty chaotic, so I don't see a lot of details of what is going on. But I finally spot that there seems to be one person directing the attack… and for some reason it doesn't surprise me that the person is Robert de Sable. Robert is throwing balls of flaming dark energy at those who are fighting his goblins. He throws a dark fireball at a khajiit who has his back turned. The dark fireball is detonated by an energy blast that I track back to Ratchet's gun. The khajiit notices that and turns on Robert. That is my main target… so I head over there. I get closer and recognize that khajiit… it turns out that Urj'Jirr is there, and is now closing in on Robert de Sable. Robert is more focused on Ratchet right now and not paying any attention to Urj'Jirr. I get close enough for him to hear me. Robert says there is no reason Ratchet has to stay in one piece and prepares to throw a dark energy fire ball. Urj'Jirr is right behind him and says, "Urj'Jirr thinks the goblin lover should pick on someone his own size," and whacks him upside the head with a mace. Urj'Jirr then proceeds to pound Robert repeatedly with his mace. The mace isn't getting past a dark energy shield. Robert is laughing at the khajiit's attacks. He throws a dark energy fireball at Urj'Jirr. I use a biomass shield to block it, more of the blast hits Robert than Urj'Jirr. About three grenades land right in Robert's face and explode. Several arrows stick in Robert's back, I'm not sure where those came from. Yet Robert is still laughing. He says he is much too strong to be killed by such things. An aura of dark energy flames surrounds Robert. A blast of dark energy forces everyone in his near vicinity away from him.

"HEY, ROBERT, YOU CHICKEN-WUSS!" I call out to Robert. He looks over at me and laughs some more. He just cleared the area around him, so I use the opportunity to use a ground spike attack on him from Alex Mercer's arsenal of attacks. Robert teleports over closer to Urj'Jirr, who attacks him immediately. Robert laughs at the khajiit and then says there is chaos here… his work is done. He disappears in a blast of dark energy that throws Urj'Jirr about 20 feet in my direction. " Urj'Jirr says Robert is a coward…" and then calls out, "Come back and fight, coward! Come back and face Urj'Jirr like a warrior instead of hiding like a cave rat!" But Robert doesn't respond. He is gone yet again. I run over to where he disappeared and focus on opening a portal to follow him. A portal opens and I jump through it. He is not getting away this time. Urj'Jirr follows right behind me. Wtf? That's the last thing I needed… some khajiit following me to some random dimension. On the other side I look around a forested landscape. I see no sign of Robert. Urj'Jirr is also looking around in a puzzled manner. Urj'Jirr asks where Robert has gone, then yells out again that Robert should come out and fight. I tell Urj'Jirr that Robert won't be coming out to fight… he really is too much of a coward. I know him well. And now I can't even follow him again, I have to take Urj'Jirr home. In fact, I shouldn't have followed him to begin with… I have to take Ratchet and Clank home.

I curse to myself and open a portal back to the goblin battle. When I get there and Urj'Jirr follows me I see the battle is pretty much over. Without their leader, most of the goblins have turned around and headed back to their caves. Urj'Jirr looks around and then heads over to help out the imperial I saw him with earlier. I look around to see where Ratchet and Clank are. I finally spot them not too far off. I head over in their direction, at least they're ok. So it should be as simple as returning them home. I get over to Ratchet and Clank and tell them I can still get them back home. Clank is wanting to know how they got here in the first place. I tell him someone has been doing that a lot, though I'm not sure what his goal is… still got to find that out… or just take the idiot out… I focus on opening a portal to Ratchet and Clank's home world. A portal opens and I look through into a futuristic looking city. It looks like the right place. Ratchet and Clank finally go through the portal just before everything fades and I wake up.

01/08/13

Ratchet and Templars
I am in a strange place. I look around to see where I am. It looks like a futuristic city of some kind. There are cars flying in the air and robots intermingling with the people. Additionally, the people look like they are various races from various planets. I look around and watch the variety of people and robots, completely disoriented and confused. I turn around and start walking in a direction I feel drawn in. As I do so I almost trip over a smaller robot that happens to be standing right behind me. Oops… I look down at the robot and absently apologize and say excuse me. The robot is about two feet tall and has glowing green eyes.

The robot speaks, he says not to worry about it in a pleasant voice. I am still feeling disoriented, so I turn around to walk away from the robot and walk into someone else. I curse silently at myself that I really need to watch where I'm going. This time I have walked into an alien, though I guess I am not really certain that he is the alien… maybe on this planet I am the alien. The alien is covered in fur and has large pointed ears. He stands a bit shorter than me, probably about five feet tall. Some of his facial features look a bit cat-like, though his eyes are more human like, a bit larger than normal compared to the size of his face, and they are green. He is looking at me with a rather surprised look on his face. He says to watch where I'm going, but doesn't really sound upset. I tell him I'm sorry and then head off to my left after making sure I'm not about to walk into anyone else. I have been waiting for my head to clear, but it has in fact gotten worse. I have quite a headache, so I sit down up against a light pole not far off. I close my eyes and lean back against the pole. I wait a couple minutes for my head to clear, which starts happening. I hear footsteps in front of me and then I hear the voice of the robot from earlier. He says excuse me, then asks if I am ok. He says he couldn't help but notice my vital signs are not normal. I open my eyes and see the small robot looking at me, the covers on his eyes like eyelids give him a concerned expression. Somewhere in my mind I am becoming lucid, and my spontaneous response is that nothing about me is normal… but thanks, I'll be fine. The alien I walked into earlier comes up behind the robot and asks what is going on, he calls the robot Clank. Now I can see he has a rather long tail with a tuft at the end of it and is colored like an orange tabby cat. My head is clearer and now I am feeling more embarrassed than disoriented. I pull myself to my feet, willing my head to stay clear. Now the place smells like a fart. A rancid fart. I look around and see the alien is also sniffing the air. He looks over at me and is apparently thinking the same thing, because he says it wasn't him, he thought it was me. People around us are now pointing up, screaming, and running around. The robot and the alien look up, I hear the alien ask what that is. I look up and see a space ship hovering over the city. The smell gets worse, causing me to feel light headed again. There is a blinding flash of light and then darkness.

I regain consciousness to find I am hanging upside down. I look up and see I am suspended by an energy tether. Hanging upside down has caused blood to flow to my head, and my mind is now clear. I look around and see there are others there with me. The first one I notice is a large, stupid looking guy dressed in green spandex… ugh… Qwark… from the Ratchet and Clank video game series. He has somehow become tangled up in his energy tether. He is hanging like a fish caught in a net. I can't help but laugh at that. On the other side of me is the alien from earlier… Ratchet… and the small robot from earlier… Clank. Qwark struggles pointlessly and ends up even more entangled. He announces that he is almost loose. I laugh again. He gives me a dirty look and asks what I'm laughing at. Apparently Ratchet has noticed Qwark and is not happy to see him. He is pissed off that Qwark is still alive when Ratchet claims to have blown him to pieces. Qwark says he cannot die. He adds that when he gets loose he'll be the one to get out of there, while Ratchet and his little trash can will be stuck there. He wiggles some more and then ends up with his face practically up his own butt. I end up laughing more. He says he sees I can't take my eyes off of him… and he can't blame me considering how good looking he is. I think I might vomit now. He says we can get out of here together and go somewhere that we can be alone. I do vomit. Some gross dark reddish stuff splatters on the floor below. I wonder what the fuck I have been eating to puke up stuff that looks like that. It's moving. I can control it. Of course. It's biomass. My biomass. I am no longer human in the dream state, I am more like Alex Mercer… I am a virus.

Qwark has gone silent now and is looking at my vomited biomass with a grossed out look on his face. Ok… use the biomass. It forms a tendril and reaches over to a control panel at the edge of the room. I use the tendril to operate the controls and deactivate the tethers. Ratchet falls on his face. Clank drops slowly using a rotor like a helicopter. Qwark lands right on his head with a loud crack and falls over, dazed. His face is still practically up his own ass. I land on my face. My biomass returns to me and I reabsorb it. Ratchet gets up quickly and pulls a huge wrench type thing from… um… I'm not sure where from… and charges at Qwark with it. He completely ignores Clank saying maybe we should find a way out of here first and starts pounding the shit out of Qwark. For the first few hits Qwark doesn't respond at all, perhaps still dazed from landing on his head. When he finally does respond, he responds like a total wuss and curls up into a ball. Ratchet is telling him to get up and fight back! Qwark says he would but he sprained an ankle in that fall. Maybe they should arrange a match later… I ignore that for a bit and then I notice there is quite a bit of blood. That strikes me as odd at first… there's no blood in the Ratchet and Clank games… But this isn't a game. Ratchet is still pounding on Qwark, maybe even harder than before, and there is blood spattering everywhere. Clank seems a bit stunned and is keeping his distance. Is Ratchet actually trying to kill the idiot? Maybe… but he doesn't stay a bad guy. He'll always be stupid, but not evil. For that to happen he has to stay in one piece.

So I stand up and use a tendril to pull Ratchet off of Qwark. Ratchet turns around and starts attacking my tendril. Qwark peeks out of his ball hesitantly. Ratchet sticks his wrench weapon somewhere, still not sure where… hammer space? Up his ass? Then he pulls a large gun out of the same nowhere. I see that just in time to use a second tendril to take it away before Ratchet blasts a huge hole in Qwark's face. Ratchet reaches for the gun but my tendril pulls it out of reach quickly. Qwark is trying to get up but he seems to be pretty badly hurt and collapses again. He says something about a maniac but I can't quite understand him. Ratchet is telling me to let go of him. I ignore him for now, trying to think what the situation is. I hear a clanking noise by my feet. I look over and see Ratchet smirking at me. There is an explosion that knocks me against the wall. I look back over at Ratchet and see him throw another bomb in my direction, I use biomass to surround it and contain the explosion. Instead of a big boom this one makes more of a pop crossed with a poof. Ratchet is clearly pissed at me and asks who I am and why am I working with Qwark. I tell him I'm not working with anyone, and if he would cut it out for just ten fucking minutes I could figure out what was going on. Something is clearly not right, and I would have to figure out what had happened BEFORE someone gets pounded into a bloody pulp or blasted to bits. Ratchet tries to pull away from my tendril for a bit and then finally reluctantly says he'll stop attacking Qwark… for now. My tendril releases him. I look at the gun in my other tendril for a bit, wondering again where Ratchet had kept it before taking it out. I decide maybe I don't want to know. I figure he probably has several more anyway, so I return it to its owner. He puts it away and just glares over at Qwark.

I watch Ratchet for a bit longer to be sure he is going to stick to his word, then back to figuring out what is going on. Apparently someone from outside the dimension has been screwing things up. Who would do that? The first name into my mind is Robert de Sable. Templars. They have tried to screw up other dimensions before. By killing random Altaïrs, passing out dark energy to people who can't handle it. And he would surely be watching. "ROBERT!" I call to him, "ROBERT DE SABLE! SHOW YOURSELF, YOU FLAKEY CHICKEN-WUSS!" I get no answer, though everyone there is now staring at me. Qwark has managed to move around a bit to position himself so that I am between him and Ratchet. I give him my best version of Vegeta's "That's pathetic." look. Clank asks who this Robert de Sable is. I tell him that Robert is the one I think is responsible for this. A Templar bastard that loves fucking things up in other dimensions for some unknown reason. Well, this should be easy enough to fix. Just send everyone back to where they belong, starting with Qwark, since his presence is the most likely to create issues… and I don't want to look at him. I focus on opening a portal to where Qwark should be. Nothing happens. Damn it! They're blocking portals, now I am completely convinced it is Robert. Why do Templars always have to do things the hard way?

Qwark says something quietly to me about needing nanotech. I ask what that is, then I remember it is for healing. I say I got something better… but he'd better not do anything stupid. It occurs to me that I am doing something stupid by expecting someone as stupid as Qwark to refrain from doing something stupid. So after reiterating that I don't want Qwark to do anything stupid (as if repeating it would help) I use some healing energy on him. That gets me a dirty look from Ratchet but nothing more. It gets a very interested look from Clank. I scan the area to see if I can find any sign of Robert. I can sense his energy in the area. I am locking in on it when I see Qwark is doing something stupid. He has moved around the outside edge of the circular room a bit. I'm not sure if he is trying to get behind Ratchet or trying to leave the room, neither one is ok. I use a tendril to put Qwark on a leash around his waist. He pulls at the tendril but my virus makes me stronger than him. I comment that I guess expecting him to refrain from doing something stupid is expecting way too much. There is a definite pause before he gives me a dirty look. Ratchet seems amused, though.

Back to scanning for Robert. Found him. I focus on teleporting him into the room. That works. Robert de Sable appears in front of me. He looks at me in an annoyed manner. He asks if I have to stick my nose in everywhere it doesn't belong. I tell him he is the one that needs to keep his abnormally large nose out of other people's business. But there won't be any wasting time this time. Consume Robert and find out what the Templars are up to. I wrap tendrils all around Robert and prepare to consume him. But there is nothing there! Robert isn't really there, he is just an illusion! A hologram created from Robert's own energy frequency to make him initially look real. I ask if he is seriously too much of a pathetic chicken-wuss to come out and show himself. He says he knows perfectly well what I can do now, and he's not just going to let me do it. He says he is sorry he has to go so quickly, but he has other places to attend to. He says I can't be everywhere at once and then laughs before the image vanishes. I yell at him to come back here, you flakey jerk! But he is gone. Qwark says Robert must have been afraid to face him. It's a good thing I was holding him back or he would have showed that robber a thing or two. I repeat the name to Qwark… Not robber, Robert. Robert de Sable. And you might have killed him… he just might have died laughing. He looks at me blankly. I just roll my eyes.

With Robert gone, I try to open a portal. Still nothing. It looks like we'll have to get out of here the old fashion way. I access the computer. The good news is we're still in the right dimension. Different galaxy, but there is a wormhole within range that would get all of us back to Ratchet and the others' home galaxy. And there are ships docked in the landing bay that can make the trip since there's no way everyone can fit in my Fire Valkyrie. Well Ratchet and Clank would fit in the one extra seat… and I could always strap Qwark to the roof… my Penticon could surround him with a force field to keep him alive… I chuckle to myself, but that stops short when the dream seems to become unstable. Am I going to wake up now? Now isn't a good time for me to disappear. I have the idea that Qwark would ditch Ratchet and Clank behind if given the slightest chance, and Ratchet would blow Qwark to subatomic particles if he got his chance first… I focus and manage to stabilize the dream. I look around and see Ratchet is looking at me really strangely. He asks if I am ok, he said I turned transparent there for a bit. Clank says his sensors detected a dimensional anomaly, but it is gone now. Ok, well the other three can get home just fine using one of the ships in the docking bay. The only problem would be making sure they work together. I look between Qwark and Ratchet, I figure Clank would be reasonable about it. I know Qwark doesn't stay a bad guy throughout the series, he changes. So let's just make that happen a tiny bit sooner.

I focus on the song Touch My Heart to restore the spark inside Qwark to a flame, it isn't hard to do since it was intended to happen on its own anyhow. I think it's a good thing I can fix evil, now too bad I can't fix stupid. Usually a healing spell also affects the way others respond to the person I healed, but just to make sure I send some positive energy through Ratchet as well. Clank didn't seem to think anything about what I was doing to Qwark, but he wants to know what I am doing to Ratchet… I tell him it's a good thing, positive energy. Don't worry, it'll make him feel good. Clank watches closely, but doesn't say anything when he sees Ratchet has no negative reaction. Qwark looks disoriented, though. He is muttering something about helping Chairman Drek meant he hadn't become the hero he'd wanted to be, instead he'd been a villain… I comment if it means anything, I think he was more of a hindrance to Drek than a help. He seems to like that idea at first and then gives me a strange look.

I feel the dream slipping again, and I barely manage to stabilize it. Ratchet says it happened again, I almost disappeared. Clank says that was also when the dimensional anomaly returned. I tell him I know what is happening, it's no big deal, but I have to hurry. I have a computer chip in my head… and its going to download some files directly to Clank. Basically the location of the docking bay and how to get there while encountering as few of the aliens that own this ship as possible… I have a feeling they will be hostile when encountered. And also it contains the location of the wormhole back to their galaxy. It also has the location where they need to drop Qwark off to minimize the effect this mess has on the timeline. Clank seems to understand all of that just fine. Ratchet wants to know if I'm sure they can trust Qwark. I tell him I am a soul healer, I healed some negativity in Qwark's heart so yeah, he can be trusted to not be an asshole. I add that if I could only heal stupid then everything would be great. I am trying to think if there is anything else I need to do before I wake up, but then the dream becomes unstable again. This time I can't stop it… I wake up.

12/19/13

Ratchet and Clank: Assassin's Creed Version
I am in a strange place. I look around, but I don't recognize anything about it. It looks like a different planet. There are green plants, a flowing stream, and blue skies, but the plants look foreign to me. If it were just the plants then I might just be in a kind of forest I have never seen, but there are two moons hanging in the sky, and that confirms that I am definitely on a different planet. I have no idea why I might be here so I start wandering around. I walk over to the stream and look into the water. The water is so clear that I can see the bottom. It looks clearer than any stream I have seen in my waking life. I walk away from the stream and continue exploring. There are some animals that scurry out of my path before I get a good look at them. Without really thinking about it I call out to them that I won't hurt them, come back so I can see them. Of course they don't respond. I follow a path that runs alongside the stream as it goes through a canyon and into another clear area where there is a lake. I walk over beside the lake and sit down. Maybe Avalon is telling me I need to go somewhere restful and relax for a while. This place certainly looks like it fits the bill. I look into the water where I see some golden fish with long flowing fins swimming around. It is definitely very relaxing.

I hear a sound behind me but I don't pay any attention. I am too relaxed and the sound is pretty innocuous, so I am not alarmed. Then I get hit with a blast of unstable dark energy. The blast knocks me sprawling on my face. What the fuck? The effect of the unstable dark energy is that I am immediately pissed off. I jump to my feet and turn towards the source of the attack, ready to let loose an attack of my own against what I am assuming is a Templar. But there is no Templar… instead there is a rather short furry guy there. (Ratchet from Ratchet and Clank, but I don't recognize him.) He has large pointed ears and some cat-like features, and a long tail ending in a tuft like a lion. He is standing on 2 feet like a person and has a big gun in his hands that is pointed at me. He looks pissed off. My first response is to ask, "Who the fuck are…" but he fires another blast from the gun, also dark energy. Ok… now I think slicing him into pieces is definitely in order… but something inside me tells me that is just the unstable energy talking, he is probably attacking me due to being infected with the dark energy he is using. So I look away from him, reciting some Disturbed lyrics to stabilize my energy. "I've held on too long just to let it go now. Will my inner strength get me through this somehow? Defying a curse that has taken hold, never surrender, I'll never be overcome." I feel the dark energy stabilize and join my own supply of dark energy. The furry guy asks what I have done with some 'him' that I have no idea what he is talking about.

I send a tendril (Witchblade? Viral powers?) out to snag the gun away from him. That is unexpected and I get the gun easily. I look back over at the furry guy who now looks like he expects me to turn around and shoot him with the gun. No… he has enough dark energy already. Instead I start poking around the weapon to find the dark shard that must power it. The furry guy is making fun of me for not knowing how to use my own weapon. I tell him this thing isn't mine… I am not paying attention to him, and he pulls out a smaller gun and shoots the one I took from him. It explodes in my hands. I comment that I guess that's one way to get into it… My white Assassin's robes are now black from the blast. I turn them back white. The furry guy doesn't seem to know what to do now, so he resumes demanding to know where someone named Clank is. I find the dark shard in the wreckage of the weapon. It is a genuine dark shard, and it looks like someone deliberately made it unstable. Whoever gave this guy this weapon definitely doesn't care who he exposes to the dark energy, though he may or may not have been specifically targeting this furry guy.

I turn my attention back to the furry guy and ask him where he got the weapon and the shard. I use my Eagle Vision to scan him for dark energy. He has only a minimal amount of it in him. He should be ok. He says the same person that told him what I did to Clank… now where is he? I ask him if the person who gave him the gun bothered telling him that the energy it uses is very dangerous and will corrupt and destroy anyone and anything it comes in contact with, including the person wielding it? He seems to hesitate a bit at that as if maybe questioning the person who had given him the gun. While he is pausing, I add that I have no idea who this Clank person is. Maybe I shouldn't have said that because it seems to get him upset again. He said my friend has already given me away. I ask what friend? Did the coward even give a name before sending someone else off to do his dirty work? The furry guy pauses again, then says the person's name is Robert. I do a double take, then ask if he means Robert de Sable? He says I do know who he's talking about. He says Robert told him I have Clank, and he wants him back now! I can't help but laugh… which isn't good, it just pisses the furry guy off more… I force myself to stop and then say Robert de Sable is a Templar. And there's an easy way to tell when a Templar is lying… their lips are moving! Of course he doesn't know what a Templar is. I add that Robert himself is probably the one who kidnapped Clank!

Now that the puzzle seems solved to me, I call out to Robert de Sable. I am sure he must be in the area to see if his plan has worked. "He, Robert! Come out and show yourself, you chicken-wuss! And bring back Clank with you!" I get no response. The furry guy is looking around to see if anyone answers. I loudly call Robert a chicken-wuss a few more times. No response. I tell the furry guy that I absolutely did not do anything with his friend Clank… and if the Templar bastards did, I will make sure and get him back. I return to addressing Robert, "Hey, Robert, you chicken-wuss! Come out and play! Or don't you have the balls to face me?!" I tell the furry guy that is a common aspect of Templars… the lack of balls in the males. I say it loudly enough for Robert to hear if he is listening. I comment to the furry guy that when Robert first met my friend Altaïr, he shit his pants. The furry guy says he doesn't care about Robert and Altaïr, he just wants Clank back! I tell him Clank could show up at any time… Robert is probably scared of him. I say this hoping Clank is a little guy that couldn't hurt a fly so I will be implying Robert is a mega-chicken-wuss. I tell the furry guy that I'm surprised Robert had the balls to approach him! I've seen Robert running in terror from a kitten…

Finally it seems Robert has had enough. He comes from behind a strange tree and looks pissed. He says us Assassins are the ones that sneak around in the dark. I tell him at least there has never been an Assassin so afraid to do his own mission that he tricks a… um… I point at the furry guy, who seems surprised I've never seen a lombax before. I tell him I am from very, very far away. I continue taunting Robert, no Assassin is so afraid to do his own mission that he tricks some lombax into doing his dirty work while he hides in fear! I ask him if he really thought that dark energy gun would kill me. He is mad now, and he blurts out a lot. He says the gun wasn't supposed to kill me! He says I was supposed to blast that damn lombax into subatomic particles and feed my negative energy to grow to astronomical proportions… He says I have already said I wanted to do it, so why didn't I do it?! I tell Robert to lay off the drugs… I don't even know this lombax… however I'd be glad to blast Robert into subatomic particles… bit by bit until he produces Clank. Of course now the lombax is pissed off at Robert instead of me. Robert is ignoring him. Robert seems shocked that I say I don't know the lombax. He is having a child's tantrum. He says I was the one who was planning out a hundred and one ways to kill Ratchet the Lombax! Ratchet… Clank… I curse myself silently for not realizing the source game sooner, but then it's not even a game I have played!

I am trying to figure out the easiest way to find out what Robert knows about the location of Clank. Probably to just consume him. Take care of two problems. Find Clank, and no more Robert de Sable. Now to keep him distracted while I get a bit closer… I see the lombax… Ratchet… is now looking at me strangely, probably in response to Robert's claiming I was coming up with a hundred and one ways to kill him. I remember having negative energy last night, and that will often focus itself in seemingly random directions, but I have no interest attacking Ratchet now. I focus my attention back on Robert… slowly closing the distance between us. I have to manage to consume him before he can disappear like he has a habit of doing. I act like I pity Robert. I say he should know my negativity from waking life doesn't affect me in the dream state… you silly Templar. Now stop screwing things up in dimensions where he doesn't belong… which would be all of them! I see movement, Ratchet has disappeared from sight. That surprises me that he would leave without knowing if Robert has Clank. I decide it doesn't matter, I have ways of finding him if I recover Clank. Back to Robert. Move closer.

I get closer still. Robert says I might as well give up, all the Assassins should give up, there is no way the Assassins can… GAAH! Robert is on fire! His cape and robes flare up as if he was soaked in gasoline. What the… then I see Ratchet behind him pointing a gun of some kind at Robert. Robert turns around to see what just happened, blazing with fire, but no doubt being protected from serious harm by his dark energy. He is now raging at Ratchet, saying there won't be so much as a scrap of fur left… now! He's distracted! I rush at Robert and extend viral tendrils to wrap around and consume him. He turns and glares at me, calling me a fool and saying there's nothing I can do to hurt him! But I am already consuming him! It's working! But then there is an explosion of dark energy that sends me flying backwards to slam hard into a cliff. I hear him raging at me now. He says I need to keep my fucking freak tendrils to myself. I get up from the ground where I fell after hitting the cliff. I hear him laugh. He tells Ratchet that it is my fault that his friend is now scrap metal. He vanishes in a blast of black smoke.

Ratchet runs out to where Robert was just standing, yelling at him to bring Clank back and more than a few expletives that would increase the age rating of the Ratchet and Clank games if it was included. "Come back here, you flakey jerk!" I yell after Robert. Damn! Gone again! Ratchet is yelling at me now, wanting to know where Robert went, saying he has to get Clank back before it's too late! Find Robert. I use Through the Never focused on locating Robert and Clank. My portal is being pulled in two different directions and doesn't form. So Robert doesn't have Clank… at least not right now. Ratchet seems to be very worried about Clank, so I focus the portal on him. A portal opens. I see through the portal to where there is a strange looking robot that looks like it was built by idiots… maybe by Templars. I also see Clank there, though he appears to be shut down. The robot looks surprised to see my portal open. He looks through and sees me and asks who the fuck I am. I tell him that is not important… the important thing is that he hand over that little robot behind him. He says it's not going to happen. I get pissed off at this guy quickly. "Listen here, you clinking clanking clattering collection of caliginous junk! I am not in the mood to be fucked with! Now step aside or be recycled!" I send tendrils through the portal to wrap around Clank. I am pulling Clank through the portal when the other robot tries to grab him. Another tendril delivers an electrical shock directly to the robot making him let go. I pull Clank through the portal. I tell the robot on the other side to tell Robert de Sable that he'll have to do much better than this to get the Assassins to give up… and STOP FUCKING UP OTHER DIMENSIONS! He looks at me strangely and I hear him say, "Robert de WHO?" before the portal closes. I briefly hope I'm not the one fucking up the dimension by interfering where I don't belong…

Oh, well… it's too late to do anything about it now. Ratchet doesn't help my questioning the effect I have had on this dimension when he says someone named Dr. Nefarious was sure pissed. "Doctor WHO? Is he a Templar?" Ratchet looks at me strangely. I look at the lifeless Clank. I access my Penticon chip and tell it to do a diagnostic scan. The Penticon responds that this is a simple system re-start, but he can recommend a few upgrades. I tell him Robert's and my presence in this dimension has interfered with things enough already without him leaving a super-computer version of Clank behind. Just fix him. There is some grumbling from the Penticon. Ratchet asks if Clank is ok. I tell him Clank will be fine, as soon as he wakes up. A short time passes and then Clank wakes up with some strange noises and beeps. I tell Ratchet that his friend should be fine now. I know I am about to wake up. I wonder what Robert thought to accomplish with this little mess he tried to make… I am not sure, all I know is where there are Templars there will be trouble close behind. I wake up.

12/16/13

A Fool and His Grenade Launcher
It is dark outside. I am leaning up against an old broken down car. I realize I have fallen asleep. That's not good since I am supposed to be on watch. The city we're in is teaming with zombies and strange mutant creatures that would kill us without hesitation. My boyfriend Josh is lying in a sleeping bag right near me sleeping peacefully. I am completely non-lucid and unaware of my waking life. My name is Isabell. I watch Josh as he sleeps. I wonder if I should tell him the full truth about what I am, what is inside of me. No. I can't. He would leave me alone. Alone and cold, I can't face the idea of being left alone.

I hear a sound from the other side of the car. I peek out of our hiding place. The moonlight is enough to reveal there is a man standing in the street beyond our hiding place. I am even able to identify who it is. It's Alex Mercer. Josh and I have actually been making a point of staying in the relative vicinity of Alex Mercer. He tends to keep the number of zombies and mutants in the area to a minimum, and if he has noticed us staying near him, he has ignored us. I sit back down, I figure this doesn't require me to bother Josh. Alex will surely continue to not notice us or ignore us. But it seems my movements have awakened Josh anyhow. He sits up and looks at me he asks what is up. I tell him it's nothing. I just heard something and it is Alex Mercer. He still has two more hours before his turn. He lies back down and I lean back against the wrecked car, gazing at the stars. The sky is clear, the only sounds are the quiet movements of Alex out in the street.

I jump a little when Josh suddenly sits up. He says he has it! I ask what. I don't really want to hear his answer. Usually when he says that when he has a notably stupid idea. Of course I can't really complain since it was one of these stupid ideas for him to come with me when the Outsiders had started hunting me. I wish he was back home and safe, though that would mean I would be alone now and I desperately need Josh to keep my heart safe. Without Josh I would be nothing more than a... no... I'm not going to think about that. Josh says he has a great idea. I ask what. He says we'll get rich and then get some really secluded place to stay hidden, a safe and comfortable place. I tell him good luck with that. He looks through the window of the wrecked car towards where I saw Alex. He says Alex will make us rich. I tell him to go back to sleep... he's clearly not thinking straight. He says Blackwatch has offered a huge reward to whoever can kill Alex Mercer. I face palm. I tell him sure, just sit there and give Alex a dirty look for a while until Alex dies of boredom. Now go back to sleep.

I look back to the stars again, not paying attention to Josh rummaging in a pile of stuff we've collected. He pulls out a grenade launcher. He says he has this covered. Get the reward, set up a defendable hideaway with everything we could need. He says he will be able to provide a better life for me then, when we don't have to keep moving and running from the Outsiders. Now I'm a bit alarmed. I tell him to put that thing down, adding that he must be crazy. He says no, I saw what it did to that mutant... the grenade penetrated the mutant's armor and exploded on the inside, tearing the thing apart. I tell him to put that thing away now, I'll not have him running off on some suicide mission. Besides, it's safer with Alex around... as long as no one does something stupid and pisses him off. Something stupid like firing a grenade at him. Josh says it will work. He starts to go around the car and into the open. I grab him and pull him back. I tell him to not try it. Seriously. Don't do it. He looks into my eye for a bit and then goes back to his sleeping bag. He says if I feel that strongly, he'll think of something else. He sets the weapon on the pile of stuff and lies back down. I watch him for a bit longer. He shifts uneasily and then gets up again. He says he has to take a piss. He sounds annoyed at me. Oh, well. Better he be annoyed than have him run off and get killed by Alex Mercer. He disappears between two buildings to do his business behind a dumpster.

I look back to the sky. All is quiet. But Josh is taking too long... could something have happened? Zombies or mutants this close to Alex? It would be unexpected, but not impossible. I am about to follow him into the alley. I ready my energy. I am loathe to use it, dark energy. I hate the way it makes me feel, and it adversely affects the area. But if Josh needs me to use it to save him, I will. I start towards the alley when there is an explosion behind me, out in the street where I saw Alex. A Blackwatch attack? They're always trying to blow Alex up, always failing. I peek out into the street. Now it is silent. Blackwatch has never tried just one attack... Something inside of me feels cold, it's dread.

I look from my hiding place and see what I feared. Josh is out in the street waving at me. He yells at me that I should have believed in him. Alex Mercer is history. He comes towards me slowly. The moonlight reveals his I-told-you-so grin. There is movement behind him. I look beyond Josh and I see something surprising. Alex Mercer is in two pieces! His top half is about three feet from his bottom half. Then there's more movement. The two halves are moving, coming slowly together. I motion to Josh to hurry. He goes even slower, spreading his arms out like he's some kind of victorious hero. I point at Alex, who is now merging back into one piece. He looks and seems to freeze for a bit, unable to believe what he's seeing. I motion to him to hurry. He starts running towards me. He's too far away! He circled around a building to sneak past me and my objections. But he is almost here! He has almost reached our hiding place when a taloned tendril pierces his chest. I have a split second to see the stunned look on his face before he gets pulled back the other direction. Pulled back to a seriously pissed off Alex Mercer. I have no choice but to use the dark energy to get him back. I call on the energy, I feel it rising inside me. I stand up to get Josh back... but he's already gone. Alex has already consumed him. But so fast?

I drop back out of sight, collapsing to the ground beside the wrecked car. The dark energy subsides, replaced by an icy coldness. It's so cold. Josh is gone... why did he have to be such a fucking idiot?! Why couldn't he have just listened to me?! What the fuck was he thinking?! Blackwatch has hit Alex with volleys of missiles and grenades and rockets and it has done nothing! What is one stupid explosive going to do?! I'll tell you what it'll do! It'll PISS HIM OFF! It'll just piss him off... Damn it, Josh... you IDIOT! I'm not really angry at Alex... what else would be expected after Josh... that damn idiot... had literally blasted Alex into two pieces? Of course Alex is going to fight back. Nothing else would be logical. Why did Josh have to be so stupid? I am angry at Josh for leaving me to go on what he should've known was a suicide mission. He was really all I had. What would I do without him? My mind continues like that, I find I am crying. I am relieved that I still can cry. The darkness wouldn't take over immediately. Maybe it won't. Maybe I can resist it. Maybe I can...

I am distracted from my thoughts by movement right in front of me. I look up and see Alex is standing right in front of me, looking down at me. Shit... I curse at myself. I was so caught up with Josh being gone that I had forgotten something really important. When Alex consumes someone he gets the memories of the person he consumed. Josh knew where I was hiding... so of course Alex would know that now. I had needed to depart from the hiding place immediately and disappear into the night. Easily done in the night, but I hadn't moved an inch. And now it's too late. Well, at least I don't have to worry about the darkness consuming me, Alex will take care of that... I just lean back against the wrecked car, close my eyes, and wait. I don't really care what happens. Not a good sign. I find myself hoping Alex will hurry up and kill me before darkness fills my heart. Then I will never have to feel the cold. But nothing happens. I open my eyes and he is still there looking at me. Um... what happened? Is the darkness somehow visible and making me look like an oddity? Now I am just staring back at him. The moonlight is reflecting off of his eyes in a hypnotic way. Just look at those eyes... I shake my head quickly... what the fuck am I thinking?!

I am clearing my head when Alex finally does something. He puts his arms around me and lifts me up. I wonder what he is doing. I keep my eyes closed, but I feel us moving quickly, sometimes it feels like flying. This goes on for a short while and then it seems we are inside someplace. We go through a couple more doors and then Alex carefully lies me down on what feels like a bed. This is very confusing. He would know I was with Josh, so why am I still alive? I hear Alex speaking. He says since Josh isn't here to watch me he had brought me someplace that should be safe from the infected. Infected? Does he mean zombies and mutants? They had seemed like monsters. I'd never considered maybe they were sick or infected with something... Alex says he knows I tried to keep Josh from attacking, and he had assumed Josh was Blackwatch. Josh wasn't Blackwatch... though he had been dumb enough to think they would honor their reward even if he had succeeded. So Alex doesn't plan on killing me after all. It's cold, and I shiver. My sleeping bag is back at the hiding place. I feel Alex lie down beside me, close to me. Close enough that I feel his body heat. I feel him put his arms around me... all six of them?! No... four of those "arms" are tendrils, but those are warm, too. I am feeling warmer. I want to ask Alex why he seems to be helping me after what happened with Josh. But I am also very tired. Before I can manage to ask I fall asleep, a nice and peaceful sleep, and wake up in bed.

12/11/13

A Father's Death
I wake up lying in a comfortable bed that I know right away is not my own. I am Amelia. The first thought that returns to my mind is my father turning his back on me, not caring if I live or die. I bury my head in the pillow wishing I could just fall back asleep and maybe next time I wake up all of this will be just a bad dream. I am getting close to falling asleep when I hear someone enter the room with me. A man beside the bed whispers my name quietly. "Amelia? Amelia, wake up… we have to go." Go? Go where? And who was in my room? I open my eyes and look at the man beside my bed. It's Alex Mercer. Alex Mercer! For just an instant I am alarmed and I sit up quickly, wondering if there is any quick path to escape. But then the sleep clears out of my mind. I have nothing to fear from Alex. He has made it very clear he has no interest in hurting me. And he certainly wouldn't hurt me after I helped him get the formula for the serum he needed to cure his sister Dana. He steps back a bit and says he's sorry he startled me. He says Dana is awake, so he wants to go to the hospital and see her. He says it's not safe for me to stay here alone, there has been too much activity among the infected here recently. So he wants to take me with him. For some reason his show of concern for my safety makes me want to go give him a big hug. It's not really something I am accustomed to… my sorry excuse for a father sure hadn't showed any concern for my safety…

I get out of bed and follow Alex back into the room with the computers. I ask if the infected would really come into the apartment. He points at the hole and says that's where a supreme hunter grabbed Dana right out of her computer chair and took her to Elizabeth Greene for who-knows-what malevolent purpose. He'd gotten Dana back before Greene had finished what she was doing, but that was why Dana had needed the serum. He crouches down so I can get on his back and ride piggy-back again. This time I hold on as tight as I can without him saying anything. And then he is off like a flash, into the air, over buildings, up walls, then he glides in for a landing in an alley behind a hospital. He sets me down and motions for me to follow him inside. I look around. I don't see any sign of infected around there, but I follow Alex anyway. I follow him through several halls and we finally get to a room. The room looks disturbingly like a morgue… I see a sign on the door that says that's exactly what it is. For an instant I am afraid Dana died after all, but no… Alex had said she is awake. I follow Alex into the room and close the door behind me.

In the morgue I see there are a couple dead bodies on tables. I make a point of ignoring those. Alex is with two other people talking. One of the two people is a black man in doctor's garb, and the other is a red-haired woman dressed casually, though her clothes are a bit dirty and ripped. That must be Dana. Alex motions to me to come over where he introduces me to the other two. The doctor is Dr. Ragland, one of the few people Alex feels he can trust, and the woman is Dana Mercer, which I had already guessed. Alex introduces me to them as Amelia, and says I'm the one that managed to get the formula for the serum. Dr. Ragland tells me I did a great thing, that formula saved Dana's life. I force a smile at them, though I don't feel like smiling. I can still hear my father's voice in my mind saying I am of no use to him. Kill her, eat her, fuck her… I don't care… I try to push the voice from my mind before I start crying. Alex asks if I am ok. I lie to him and say I am fine. I'm sure he doesn't want to hear about my problems.

As Alex, Dana, and Dr. Ragland are talking I just kind of move away from them. I feel uncomfortable and out of place. I feel like I don't belong there. So since no one has noticed me move away from the group I continue and leave the morgue. I find my way to the front of the hospital and look outside. There are people out there, regular people, uninfected people. None of them seem alarmed about anything, so I reason it must be relatively safe here. I go outside into the sun. It feels nice. I look around at the people walking and talking and I realize I have never felt so alone. I just walk to the stairs that lead to the front door of the hospital where I sit down, not sure where to go, not sure what to do. I spend a short time crying silently, which no one seems to notice. Or maybe just no one cares. My tears finally dry up but I still don't know where to go so I stay there.

I am still sitting there when a uniformed soldier approaches me, looking at me like he is seeing a ghost. He asks if I am Amelia. I say yes. He is stunned beyond belief. He says everyone at the base is certain I must be dead. He helps me to my feet. He continues talking. He asks how I managed to get away from Mercer. He says that ever since Mercer broke his end of the deal by refusing to release me, everyone had assumed he had probably consumed me to see if I knew anything about… I interrupt him. I ask him exactly what he thinks happened that night. He says an arrangement was made to trade some serum to Mercer for my safe return. The serum had been delivered, but Mercer had refused to let me go, and had instead taken me with him when he left. He said people had searched… I interrupt him again. The serum was delivered? No way! That bastard that calls himself my father had flat out refused to hand over the serum, he'd flat out refused to even consider it! I am so upset that I am on the verge of tears again, but this time there is a fair amount of anger mixed with my grief. That bastard is making himself out to be a victim! I tell the soldier that Alex never did anything to hurt me, in fact he had let me go. My story is not quite true, rather I snuck away while Alex had been talking to Dana and Dr. Ragland, but I have no doubt in my mind he would have let me go even if he had seen me leaving. The soldier doesn't seem to know what to say. He asks if Mercer really let me go, but doesn't wait for an answer. He said we should get back to the base, then leads me to his vehicle and we leave.

I actually have thoughts that I don't want to go back to the base. There's nothing there for me. But I don't say anything, and we drive in through the heavy gates that protect the entrance. I get out of the vehicle and walk towards the residence section. And there he is. The bastard that claims to be my father. The bastard that refused to trade a failed experiment for my safe return. That bastard… He comes over to me with his arms spread wide, saying over and over how happy he is to see that I am ok. He says he's been afraid he would never see me again. He keeps talking and I walk right over to him. Without a moment's hesitation I pull my right fist back and punch him in the face as hard as I can. SMACK! I hurt my hand when I do that. I also feel my father's nose bend unnaturally to the side. Blood spurts from the nose and all over my hand. I start yelling at him, letting the anger out. "A failed experiment? You were willing to give me up for a FAILED EXPERIMENT?! YOU ASSHOLE! YOU ROTTEN PIECE OF SHIT!"

My father takes a towel from a man who hands it to him. He holds the towel to his nose to stem the bleeding. He has the nerve to be getting mad at me. He says I shouldn't talk about what I don't understand. He says he had everything under control until Mercer grabbed me and left. I ask what part of his plan involved riddling my body with bullets as his thugs tried to shoot Alex. He says they are good enough with their weapons, they weren't going to hit me. He hesitates, then asks me how I know what serum Mercer had been after. I tell him Alex pointed out which one he needed… when I hacked into his computer. I speak plenty loud enough so anyone in the area can hear that he has what is no doubt an unauthorized copy of classified information on his personal computer. He asks if I want to get him in trouble. I say the answer is the same as his answer to, "Do you want to watch your daughter die?" He repeats that he had everything under control. He asks how I could hand classified information over to Mercer. I ask him how he was so willing to turn ME over to Alex? He says I shouldn't talk to my father like that. I tell him I'm not. My father is dead. He hesitates, not seeming to know what to say. Neither does anyone else. The room is dead silent. I tell the man who once was my father that he is nothing to me now. He is shit.

I turn and walk away from the asshole. He grabs my arm. I feel like kicking him in the balls. He says I can't just walk away, I aided and abetted the enemy. He wants to know where Mercer is right now, what he is up to, where he took me, how I managed to escape. I tell him I have no idea where Alex is right now, I can't say where he took me because it was not through a route I am used to traveling, and I didn't escape… he let me go. He asks where I last saw Mercer. I tell him I wouldn't tell him where Alex was if Alex was sneaking up right behind him! He glares at me and then speaks to a man beside him. He says I was picked up by the hospital, and that is too far away for me to have gotten on foot. So Mercer must have taken me there. Go there and make sure Mercer doesn't leave there alive! Level the entire area if you have to, but don't let Mercer escape! Someone asks what about the civilians seeking medical help there. The asshole says they don't matter, all of them are infected and just haven't shown symptoms yet. They're already dead! I tell the thing that claims to be my father that he is the absolute lowest form of life I have ever seen. The reports are all right… there is a monster running around the city. But it's not Alex, it's him. He tells one of the soldiers to escort me to my quarters and make sure I stay there. In my current state of mind I might run off and warn Mercer.

One of the soldiers takes my arm gently and uncertainly. He is clearly not comfortable with the situation. He leads me from the room. He stops once we're out of sight. His name is Steve. He says I know my father better than he does… would he really kill everyone in that hospital just on the slim chance they might be able to take Mercer with it? I tell him I would have said 'no' just last week, but now I would have to say 'yes' definitely. He says someone has to warn the hospital so they can evacuate the patients. We go into a room with some computers. He tries to open communications to the hospital but all communications are shut down. He curses, then says all the computers are on lock down since a hacker was detected… He says he will have to go to the hospital. He says I should go to my quarters where it's safe. I tell him I don't think that's safe considering how crazy my father is acting and that he seems to think I have teamed up with Alex.

Steve hesitates, then says I can go with him. We hurry to the area where the vehicles are parked and get into a Jeep and take off out the door. Speeding down the empty streets makes the trip go pretty fast, but it still seems to take forever. Questions go through my mind. How long will it take to organize a massive attack on the hospital? Is Alex still there? How about Dana? Dr. Ragland is surely still there… We finally arrive at the hospital and Steve jumps right out and runs inside. I am right behind him. While he heads for security, however, I head for the morgue. I run all the way there and I am rather winded when I get there. I go inside and find it is empty. No one is there. I'm not sure if that's good or bad. I go into the next room, which is a lab. Dana is in there sleeping on a couch. Dr. Ragland and Alex are facing the other way and talking. I am trying to catch my breath. Alex looks over and sees me there. He asks where I went off to. I tell him that's a long story, but Blackwatch is attacking the hospital any minute now, so he'll want to get Dana and Dr. Ragland out of there. Alex changes form into a soldier and leaves the room.

I follow Alex back to the front of the hospital. I can already hear helicopters in the distance approaching. And the engines of tanks. It's too late to evacuate… Alex asks Steve what is going on. Steve says the commander has gone mad… he's going to bomb the shit out of the hospital. He said we need to get as many people out as possible. Alex says there isn't time. He runs out towards the approaching enemies. I see several helicopters in the air, but I can't see the ground forces yet. Then I see Alex launch into the sky right in the middle of the group of helicopters. He explodes in a huge mass of what look like tendrils (tendril barrage devastator) that punch right through the choppers as if they are paper. The choppers explode and Alex drops back to the ground. Steve looks at me in shock… he says that other soldier was Alex Mercer! He looks around and exclaims that he was face-to-face with Alex Mercer and he's still alive! I am too far away to see any details, but I hear a lot of explosions and I can tell there is a big fight going on out there. That goes on for a while longer and then everything goes silent. Smoke is rising out there, everyone waits to see if anyone emerges.

A single soldier finally emerges from the smoke and destruction. A single soldier that does not even look injured. He gets a bit closer and looks around the area. Everyone has stopped whatever they were doing to watch what was happening. Some civilians are coming from the general direction of the smoke. They all have different descriptions of what they saw. There is only one thing that everyone agrees on. A huge Blackwatch attack force had been closing in on the hospital for unknown reasons when Alex Mercer had single handedly put a stop to the attack. The single soldier comes over near me. Steve backs away from the single soldier, who I have no doubt is Alex. The conversations around me are all about Blackwatch attacking a civilian hospital and Alex Mercer defending it, it seems a lot of people are expressing disbelief about that happening but none are really denying it. The conversation shifts to Blackwatch lying and Blackwatch cover-ups. Alex asks if I am ok. I say I am fine.

A jeep drives up to the front of the hospital. I see the asshole who was once my father in it. He gets out and glares right at me. He says he should have known. He looks at Steve and says he is in a lot of trouble. Because of him I got out and warned Mercer, and now Mercer has disappeared again. Steve glances over at Alex but says nothing. My former father turns to me and says even Steve isn't in as much trouble as I am. He says he has never been so ashamed of his own daughter. I remind him that my father is dead, I am no daughter of his. He says I am under arrest. Alex comes over beside me and tells my former father to leave me alone. My former father looks at Alex's name tag and refers to him as Brandon, telling him to mind his own business. Steve asks if my former father really ordered an attack on a civilian hospital. He says this was a rare chance to eliminate Alex Mercer, but thanks to me, the bastard got away. Steve glances at Alex again but still says nothing. Alex walks right up to my former father and says again to leave me alone. My former father says maybe he should take "Brandon" in with me, and Steve, too, if we all insist on siding with Mercer. Steve says he's not siding with anyone. Alex says my former father won't be ordering any more attacks on civilian targets. The asshole tells Alex he'll order whatever attacks he wants whenever he… Alex interrupts him by consuming him right on the spot.

Alex takes the form of my former father. Steve moves farther away, he pretends to have not noticed anything out of the ordinary. It seems no one else noticed at all, everyone is too occupied by talking amongst themselves. I am just staring. I was so very angry at that asshole who called himself my father… but I'm still not sure what to think of the fact Alex just killed him. In fact, I feel rather light headed. Maybe too much has happened just recently. Too much stress. The world is spinning. There are now three Steves and three Alexes looking at me. I feel like I am falling over. Alex gets closer and catches me before I can fall to the ground. Steve is just watching as Alex catches me before I can fall. He also seems unsure of what to say or do, and he ends up saying and doing nothing. Alex looks around, then back at me… all five of him. Alex says he will get me someplace safe. He says he won't let anything happen to me. He lies me on the back seat of the Jeep and drives away from the hospital, probably to avoid attracting any attention. We are driving along when everything fades to black and I wake up in my own bed.

12/08/13

Night Hero
I am walking home late at night. I am again completely non-lucid. My name is Rebecca. I am walking home from my job at a local diner. I am a waitress there. I really hate my job but I won't be able to get anything better until I finish school. I am in college studying Computer Science. I will soon be a Network Administrator. That will be much better. Right now I am tired and anxious to get home to bed. I had to work late because Gracie, the girl who was supposed to take over after my shift at the 24 hour diner, had been late. An hour late. So I am tired, I am pissed. Some people have no consideration for others.

I am passing an alley that could easily serve as a shortcut to get home. It would cut a good 15 minutes off of my walk. But it is a dark and creepy alley... It looks like bad things could happen there. No... I'm just being paranoid. This is a nice neighborhood. Nothing happens here. I decide I'm sure I can take the shortcut just this once and be safe. I'm 27 years old... I can manage to get home on my own! After briefly considering, I go down the alley at a fast walk. If I hurry I can shave even more than 15 minutes off of my time.

I am about halfway through the alley when I get the feeling I am being watched. I try to brush it off, I'm just being paranoid again. Still, I walk a bit faster. I am just passing an alley that branches off to the left when a dark figure emerges. A rather large and dirty man. He smells bad. He speaks as if he is talking to himself, he says, "Look what we have here!" I go to continue on my way. The man cuts me off and asks where I'm going, the fun has just started. I tell him I'm not interested. He moves faster than I thought he could and grabs my arm roughly. He pulls out a large knife and holds it at my neck. He pushes me down beside a dumpster and then the next thing I know he is on top of me. He is laughing and he smells horrible. He holds the knife at my neck again and says if I resist he'll kill me. He is holding both my wrists in one of his huge hands as he undoes his belt and zipper with the other. I fight to get free but he's too strong and he just laughs. I call for help, but there is no one to hear... no one to help me. I feel cold inside, I am about to get raped and there's nothing I can do about it. I scream and he tells me to shut up or he'll see how loud I can scream with a slit throat. He is ripping my shirt open and my skirt off...

And then he is off me. Someone has grabbed him and pulled him right off me. He curses loudly and grabs his knife as he is grabbed. He turns around and stabs the person that grabbed him. NO! This is worse than getting raped! Someone came to help me and now he might get killed for it! I try to scramble to my feet to do anything I can to keep my rescuer from being killed but I slip and fall back on my butt. My attacker is stabbing my rescuer over and over and over again, cursing loudly. "What the FUCK?! Why aren't you DYING?!" Then I realize my attacker is actually being held almost a foot off of the ground by the man who came to help me. He is stabbing violently and desperately but it doesn't seem to be doing anything. Then something skewers the man. Three razor sharp claws cut through my attacker like paper. The man's cursing changes to pained gurgles. The claws cut the man practically in two. Strange tendrils come from the other man and surround my attacker, ripping into him and literally EATING him until there's nothing left. The would-be rapist lets out some gargled screams as he is being eaten and then goes silent.

There is now just one figure standing over me. And he is not human. He is mostly human in appearance, but both of his hands are taloned claws that are still dripping with my attacker's blood. I realize who it is. I have seen news reports about this, warnings to stay away at all costs. The only sightings of this... man, if he can be called a man, was on the opposite side of New York, but here he is. I find I am looking at Alex Mercer himself, he just killed my would-be rapist, and I am next. I scramble backward, away from him, though I'm sure there is no way I can escape. His claws transform back into hands and he takes a step towards me. I am desperate to escape, I am wishing I could fit under the dumpster... but of course that's impossible. He stops and glares down at me. He looks pissed off. Great... I just met the infamous Alex Mercer and he's in a bad mood. He calls me pathetic and then turns and walks away down the alley my attacker had emerged from.

I stare after Alex, at first I am just shocked that he is leaving me alive. He didn't lay a hand... or claw... on me. That doesn't fit what I've heard at all. The news reports, the warnings, all of them describing Alex Mercer as a psychopathic madman who would happily rip apart and consume anyone he comes across... This doesn't fit at all. Then I start feeling bad. Maybe the news reports and warnings aren't true. And if they aren't, that means Alex just showed up in the nick of time and saved me from being raped and possibly murdered, and I respond like he's some kind of monster. No... I won't let that stand. It's just not right. I get up, pulling my skirt back up quickly. I call after Alex, calling his name. I see him in the alley, silhouetted against the distant street lights. He doesn't respond. I feel the need to not let this go that way. I chase after Alex. As I approach him from behind he suddenly turns, probably because he hears me approaching. As he turns he forms his claws again as if he is expecting an attack. I'm almost to him, and he has his claws spread wide away from his body, so I keep going and put my arms around him, hugging him, thanking him, trying to make up for my strange behavior earlier with a show of gratitude now.

At first it seems Alex doesn't know how to respond. Then finally I feel his arms close around me, and it is his hands rather than his claws that I feel on my back. He finally asks if I am ok, am I hurt? I tell him I'm fine, thanks to him. He lets go of me and pushes me away a couple feet. He asks what happened to me being scared of him? He adds sarcastically that I'd better run away quick before the monster kills me. He still looks annoyed. I put my arms around him again and say I'm not worried about any monster. "You killed the monster back there. He won't hurt anyone ever again." I look into Alex's blue eyes. I am overcome with the thought, "Wow... He's hot! None of those news reports said he kills rapists, saves foolish young women, and he is sooooo hot!" I tell him I want to thank him properly... then I kiss him. He doesn't really respond. Ok, now I just feel awkward.

I want to disappear into a wall or the ground again, but for a totally different reason now. Of course I would be rescued by a hot guy and then make a fool of myself in multiple ways. I take a couple steps away from Alex, calling myself stupid under my breath. I stammer that I'm sorry and turn to run back down the alley. This crazy night can't end soon enough for my liking. As I am running away a strange tendril wraps around me just under my arms like a harness. It lifts me off my feet and pulls me back to Alex. My first thought is, "Oh, shit... I pissed him off!" But I know immediately when I look at him that he is not angry. He is smiling pleasantly. Maybe even amused by my awkwardness.

Alex carefully sets me down in front of him. He says there's nothing I have to be sorry for. And then he kisses me. We kiss for a bit and then separate. After a brief silence Alex says he'll walk me home, make sure nothing else happens to me. I am perfectly happy to have Alex walk me the rest of the way home.

We talk on the way home. It turns out that since the viral outbreak was stopped Alex had been using his abilities to help those in danger. But it seemed whenever he helped someone they always acted like I had initially, like he was some kind of monster. I tell him that's because of the news reports, which I am now seeing are full of lies. He says they're no doubt sponsored by Blackwatch. They haven't given up their obsession to track him down and kill him. But without the virus spreading they have lost their excuse to maintain a military presence in the city. They must be using civilians to try to track him. Making sure they would report him and not even consider trying to talk to him and hear his side of what's happened and is still happening.

We reach my house. I am again embarrassed that am living at home with my mother at my age. But I have an agreement with my mother that I can stay there rent free as long as I am attending classes and keeping my grades up. My job at the diner is enough for other expenses. My mother meets me at the door and is shocked by my appearance. I realize I'd forgotten that my shirt was torn in the attack. She asks what happened to me. Am I ok? She looks suspiciously at Alex and asks who he is. I don't want to tell her I almost got raped, she worries enough about me walking home at night. I tell her I'm fine. I just had a little accident on the way home. Alex here stopped to see that I was ok and walked me home. My mother looks at Alex for a bit and I worry that she'll recognize him as Alex Mercer. I silently curse at myself for calling him Alex instead of making a name up. She just thanks him for seeing me safely home. Alex asks me if I work tomorrow. I say yes. He says if I don't mind, maybe he'll see me later. He smiles and walks away. My mother says he seems nice... I am tired, so I excuse myself to go to bed. I undress and lie down, surprisingly falling asleep almost right away. I wake in my own bed.

12/03/13

A Father's Betrayal
I am standing out in a parking lot at night. I am not myself, and I am completely non-lucid. My name is Amelia. I keep thinking about mistakes I made. I shouldn't have gone outside the safety of the walls of the military base. But I'd just felt so cooped up. I'd longed to feel the ocean breeze instead of smelling the stagnant exhaust of the military vehicles. And the zombie infestation had been cleared from the area. So what could be the danger? I'd forgotten about the biggest threat of all... Alex Mercer. But even if I had thought of that, what interest would he have in a 25 year old college student? I was supposed to be off at school, but I'd gotten stuck here when I had been visiting my father at the time of the outbreak. Yet here I was, in the middle of a parking lot with a strange tendril wrapped around my waist like a tether, waiting for my father's response to Alex's terms for my safe release. Alex just wanted some dumb serum. Of course my father would turn it over, I was the most important thing in his life. Sure, he had been preoccupied with his work lately, but nothing would come between us. Wow... if Alex keeps his word and releases me I will get hell for leaving the base. I'll never hear the end of it. I am mindlessly playing with the tendril on my waist, secure but not uncomfortable, interesting texture, wondering what is taking so long. What if they don't have the serum Alex wants?

Then I hear my father responding, I'm sure not much time has really passed, it just feels like that. My father is saying someone will be right out with the serum... but that's not what he said! Did he just tell Alex to go fuck himself? For a bit there is no response from Alex. My father must have a plan. That must be it. I can tell Alex isn't happy with the response. The tendril around my waist tightens uncomfortably, but only briefly, then it relaxes again like it was just a reaction to Alex being annoyed. Alex asks my father if he really wants to watch his daughter die. My father responds that Alex can do whatever he wants with me. Kill me… eat me… fuck me if that's what he wants. Alex would get nothing from him. He wouldn't turn over last week's shopping list. I am in shock… did my father just say he doesn't care if Alex kills me?

I feel like my knees are about to give out, but before I collapse I feel the tendril around my waist pulling at me, pulling gently, though. Soon I am standing beside Alex. Somewhere in my mind I am thinking he's probably going to kill me now, hoping he will at least make it quick, but the foremost thought in my mind is how could my own father betray me like that. I am silently crying, my knees give out completely, but I don't collapse. Alex is holding me up. The tendril around my waist is withdrawn, now I feel Alex's arms around me. Is he hugging me? No… he must be consuming me, that's how he's going to kill me. But nothing happens. I am crying on Alex Mercer's shoulder. I hear his voice in my ear, but it sounds distant and I don't understand what he is saying. What I do realize is that he is speaking in a comforting tone. Maybe he's not going to hurt me? Then I hear him talking to my father again, saying maybe my father would reconsider when Alex started sending me back to him piece by piece. So much for not hurting me… Immediately after he finishes saying that, however, it's back to the comforting whispers again. I strain to hear what he's saying. He doesn't mean it. He'll keep me safe. He promises. He keeps repeating that while he holds me close. I hear him mutter something about sending my father pieces of a dead body, but that won't hold up if they test DNA. Damn, he'll have to get the serum some other way.

Then my father's voice drowns out Alex's whispers. He repeats that he doesn't give a shit what Alex does to me. He says I am of no use to him. Maybe he thinks if he convinces Alex I am worthless to him that Alex will just release me and go away? That seems like an awfully risky thing to assume… My father is yelling at his own people now. He asks them what they're just standing around for? Mercer is right there in the open! Kill him! There are some voices that aren't loud enough for me to understand what is being said, then my father yelling again. What part of "she is of no use to me" did you not understand?! Open fire! I feel a quick movement as Alex turns away from my father and the base, bending both of us over and standing hunched over me. I look and see a shield has formed on his back that looks a bit like a spiked turtle shell. Bullets are ricocheting off of the shield. There is a lull in the gunfire, they are probably reloading… or preparing larger weapons. Alex is muttering some expletives and I think they are about my father. He tightens his hold on me and tells me to hold on to him as tight as I can. I wrap my arms around behind his neck. He seems to be tensed up as if about to spring, but he says to hold on tighter, as tight as I can manage. So I do, holding on so tightly that I would think it would be hurting him. But he doesn't seem to notice. Then he launches into the air, practically flying up the side of a building as I hear more gunfire and explosions around us. A couple more jumps and we are well out of range of any weapons at the base.

Alex has stopped running and jumping, so I let go of him. I try to pull away from Alex, I really just want to get away from him and find someplace I can be alone. Alex holds on to me. Of course. What had made me think he was going to just let me go? My father had failed to meet his terms… flat out refused to even consider it. I try a bit harder to pull free, but it's clear I won't be able to do it. Alex holds me closer and says to just relax, he's not going to hurt me. He says the things he told my father he would do to me was all talk, trying to shock the bastard into cooperating. It hadn't worked. He says not to worry, though, he is not going to hurt me. He says I had better stick around, though… there have been some zombies moving back into the area, but they won't get anywhere near me as long as he is there. He lets go of me now, and then paces around the roof we are on for a few minutes. He seems to be thinking about something very hard. He stops and looks over at me. I don't like the look on his face. But he quickly looks away, shaking his head and muttering something, I hear him say there has to be another way. He seems very upset about something.

I can't help it any longer and I ask what the serum he wanted is for. He looks over at me as if surprised I'm still there. He then says he needs it to cure his sister Dana. He says without the serum she will die. He goes back to pacing around the roof. Oh… his sister is sick… I guess maybe a lot of people would do whatever it takes to save a loved one. I stand there in silence for a bit. So it looks like both Alex and I will be losing someone we love. Without the serum Dana would die, and I as I feel right now my father is dead to me. I hear his voice in my mind again saying I am of no use to him. I think about it a bit longer and then something occurs to me. My father has always been a bit paranoid that someone would steal or sabotage his work. To prevent that, he has always kept a backup copy of all his data on a hidden hard drive on his home computer. Surely he has the data on the serum Alex needs. I ask Alex if the chemical formula for the serum would be helpful. My father has always said as long as he has the chemical formula, the samples are just extra insurance. Alex stops pacing and looks over at me again. He asks if I have that formula, I see a glimmering of hope in his eyes. I tell him I don't have it, but I can get it. I just need a computer with wireless capability. Alex says he knows a place and comes over to me. He crouches down and says I should get on his back and hold on at tight as I can. I put my arms around his neck and hold on. He is holding onto my legs so I am riding piggy-back. He says to hold on tighter. I hold on a little tighter, but after all I have my arms around his neck… He asks if I am actually concerned about holding on too tight… because if I am, don't be. It would take someone much stronger than me to choke him. Ok… so I hold on as tight as I can, and he launches into the air for what turns out to be a very exhilarating ride.

A short time later Alex lands on top of what looks like an apartment building. There is a hole ripped in the wall of one of the apartments and we go in through there. There are several computers along one wall along with bulletin boards filled with notes and maps. The notes and maps mean nothing to me. I sit down at the computer and turn it on. It boots quickly since it had been in standby mode. Whoever had used it last had left it on when they left. Once online I go to the wireless connection. I wonder at first if I'll be able to access the network. But I needn't have worried, Blackwatch has turned all of New York into a wi-fi zone so they can communicate. And there aren't many civilians left who would know how to access it. Once on the network I have no problems navigating to my father's personal computer. As long as he isn't in the office, he won't notice the computer receive the remote power-on command. And he is surely still on duty. There is a password to get into his computer. I think about it for a bit and then use my mother's name. Access denied. I enter my mother's name and birthday. Access denied. No, he wouldn't make it that easy. So I enter my mother's name backwards and then her birthday. Access granted. Yes! Now to access his hidden drive. Finding the drive is easy, but it has another password. I use the same password… access denied. I guess it couldn't have been that easy. Then I realize it is just looking for a number. I use my mother's birthday. Access denied. Her birthday backwards. Access denied. Shit! It says one more failed attempt results in the system being locked down. Gotta make this one count. I am a bit too aware of Alex looking over my shoulder. Even though he hasn't done anything to hurt me and it doesn't look like he will it makes me uneasy. And I need that password…

I fiddle around on the computer. I find a C# compiler. I fiddle around with code. Too bad I haven't studied code… But I find I know it anyhow! Somehow the information is just there, in my mind, like I've known it all along. (I know programming in my waking life, so that is probably where the knowledge came from.) I write some code quickly to sequentially search through numbers to identify a password. It then compares the number with the password in the database to determine if it is correct without submitting it and counting it as an attempt. I run the program, keeping my fingers crossed that it'll work. After a pause that is too long for my liking the computer finally flashes up the Access granted message. There is a list of directories that I don't understand. Alex points at one that says Batch 250 and says that's the one. I click that and he points at one that says 256b. I click on that and it opens up a list of files containing all sorts of information from the chemical composition of serum 256b to the results of experiments done with serum 256b. There is a final note on the bottom that said 256b was being terminated as a failed experiment. I stare at that word for a bit. Failed. Alex says something but I don't hear what. Right now I am thinking how my own father was willing to give up my life to protect a failed experiment. A fucking FAILED experiment! Alex carefully rolls my chair to the side and pulls another chair up to the computer. He types a quick email to a Dr. Ragland and sends off a couple of the files.

Alex leans back in his chair and sighs. He says he hopes that will allow Dr. Ragland to create an antidote for Dana. I tell him I hope she is ok. An email comes back from Dr. Ragland. It says that the files Alex sent are exactly what he needs, he will create and administer the serum right away. He says he will send another email when she is awake. I look through the broken wall into the night, which is now brightening into dawn. Now that the action of hacking into my dad's computer has passed, I am just depressed again at the way he betrayed me. I slump down in my chair, feeling like crying but no tears actually come. Alex moves his chair closer and says if it means anything, he'd never had any intention of hurting me. It doesn't mean much… I say there's no way my sperm donor could have known that. I don't want to call him my father. He gave up that title when he told Alex to go ahead and kill me. I look over at Alex, right into his blue eyes which look a lot more caring than I would have expected after the horrible things I have heard about him. But it's looking like maybe I can't believe everything I hear, especially from sources such as Blackwatch and Gentek. Alex puts his arms around me and holds me close, trying to comfort me in my depression over my father's betrayal. And it is helping. It feels nice to be held. I somehow feel safe here, and suddenly very tired. I drift off to sleep in Alex's arms and wake up in my own bed.

12/02/13

In Another Life
I am back in high school. I have absolutely no awareness of my waking life or that there is anything out of place. My name is Marcy, and I am sitting near the back of the room in a math class. It's Algebra. I'm not having any problems with it, I am good at math. More importantly, this is my last class of the day. I am anxious to get out of class and get home. I hope I can get out of the school without meeting up with the jerks that I always have problems with. Sarah, Beth, Maria, and Gene. The bell rang and I shove my books and papers into my backpack and hurry out the door. I am almost to the front door of the school when I see the very people I had been hoping to avoid. Sarah is there talking to her friends. I think I can get out of sight without being seen but it is too late. Sarah speaks loudly, saying watch out, it just got fatter in here. I look down at my body. I am moderately overweight, but it really isn't that much. Gene adds that it got uglier in here. Maria adds that it got stupider in here. Beth tries to add something but I can't understand her because she is laughing too hard. I don't want to let them bother me, but they do. It hurts. I feel like crying.

I hurry past them and out the door, figuring if that is it then I should count myself lucky. But that's not it. Sarah comes out first and shoves me to the ground. The others laugh. Gene and Beth grab my backpack from me, it had only been over one shoulder, and they take off with it. I need that! I chase after them, but I am slower since I am a bit fat. Sarah and Maria follow after me laughing and making comments about my bouncing ass. We reach the far fence of the school yard. I am so out of breath. Gene opens the backpack and starts tossing stuff out over the fence saying that it was all garbage. Beth asks Gene how she can touch stuff I have contaminated. As if just realizing that, Gene tosses the backpack over the fence as if it would bite her. Sarah shoves me into the fence and tells me the world would be better off if I went home and killed myself. I clumsily climb the fence to get my things. I fall down the other side, much to the girls' delight. I scrape my knee up, but that's it. I start collecting my things as the girls walk off, still laughing. After I get my things together I sit by the fence, tired, depressed. Why me? Why did everyone hate me? I start crying.

Not much time had passed before I sense someone watching me. I look up and see a man standing over me. He is wearing a hoodie and has very striking blue eyes. Not sure what a grown man would want with a 14 year old girl I move away a bit. He speaks in a friendly tone. He says not to go, he won't hurt me, he just saw me crying and wondered if I was ok. The fact that a complete stranger has shown concern in how I feel sets me off crying all over again. He asks what is wrong. I find his name is Alex. I'm not sure why, but I feel the need to tell him everything. About the girls harassing me here at school, harassing me online when I'm away from school, one time they had gotten physically violent and broken my nose… maybe Sarah is right and I should just kill myself. He listens sympathetically while I talk. He then holds one hand out to me to help me up. My hesitation has gone now, and I accept his help. He pulls me to my feet… but then he won't let go! He smiles in a friendly way, but what he says is not friendly at all. He says he lied when he said he wouldn't hurt me, this is actually going to hurt quite a bit. But it won't last long. And when it is done, those girls will never push me around again. No one will ever push me around again. I kick at him and try to pull away, I scream, but there is no one way out by the fence to hear me and he is much stronger than I am. He is holding my arm with his right hand… and his left hand is gone? His left hand has transformed into the claws of a beast? My first thought is Wolverine from X-Men. I'm being attacked by Wolverine?! I fight harder. Is this guy going to cut me? Yes, he is. He drives his claws into my mid section. A burning pain erupts from the place he stabbed me. He is holding me close now, whispering in my ear. He says again that it won't last long, so just hang on… it will be much better later. No one would ever hurt me again. Of course no one would hurt me! I was dying! Everything started fading to black. I wonder if anyone will miss me. Will anyone care? My mom would… my brother would… but no one at school would. They'd be glad. I am angry that they will get what they want, then I am swallowed by darkness.

I wake up sitting by the fence that goes around my school. My backpack is beside me. The light is fading. Oh, no! I fell asleep! I look at my stomach, but there is no gaping wound. No blood. Wow… that attack must have been a dream. Just a bad dream. I have to get home! I grab my backpack and run for home. I run as far as I can and then I walk fast. I am exhausted when I reach the house. There are police there, and my mother is beside herself with worry. She sees me and runs over and greets me with the biggest hug. But then she is angry. Where have I been? Why didn't I at least call? What happened? She called the police, she thought I'd been kidnapped or worse! I tell her about being harassed by the girls. I leave out the part about crying, she would consider that a weakness. I tell her I had been waiting by the fence for the girls to leave and I must have fallen asleep. I apologize many times. After a while of apologizing and having people check me out everyone decides it was an honest accident. The police leave, telling me to be more careful about where I fall asleep. I was lucky, but things do happen to girls out alone. I eat dinner, which is macaroni and cheese, then the rest of the evening is spent trying to get my homework done. But it's hard… I don't have as much time as usual since I fell asleep and had to explain everything so many times. And I can't shake the memory of the dream. The weirdest thing is I remember climbing the fence and falling and skinning my knee. But my knee isn't marked. No scratch or scrape, not even any dirt. I am unable to get my homework done before bed time. I am tired, so I crawl into bed and fall asleep right away.

My alarm wakes me up what seems like five minutes later. My sleep had been dreamless this time. I drag myself out of bed, eat some honey nut cheerios for breakfast, then I walk to school as usual. All in a haze, also as usual. As I get to school Sarah starts in on me right away. She tells me I forgot to kill myself last night. I try to ignore her. She asks if there is too much fat in the way for me to cut my wrists. I try to ignore her. She follows me down the hall to my locker while throwing out all the insults she can think of. My birth certificate should've been an apology letter from the condom factory. I'm not sure what a condom is. I should do the world a favor and disappear into fat air. They'd launch me into space but no space ship could lift me… and I'd scare the aliens. This continues. I go to my first class. Sarah is in that class so this offers me no escape. History class. I already don't like history, and with Sarah in the class, it's a nightmare. English class is next, and that offers me some reprieve. But Spanish class is the worst. Both Sarah and Beth are in the class, and the teacher doesn't seem to care what they say to me as long as it's in Spanish. Then there's lunch. I always eat alone. I have no friends. But this time I can't manage to eat alone. Sarah and friends are all around me. Sarah takes my peanut butter and jelly sandwich. She takes a bite, then spits it out in my direction before throwing the sandwich in the trash and saying she shouldn't have done that. Now she's infected. She needs an antidote, quick! I escape into my Biology class after being harassed through lunch. Thankfully, Beth and Maria ignore me in my Humanities class. Maybe they've had enough for now. Algebra is a safe class, then it's time to go home.

Again I hope to get out before being spotted by Sarah and her friends, again I fail. When I see them I duck into the girls' bathroom, hoping they didn't see me. I go into one of the stalls. The bathroom is empty and quiet. I hear the door open and someone comes in. My heart sinks when I hear Sarah's voice. She says she knows I'm in there, calling me Fatsy instead of Marcy. About five minutes pass with her standing out there throwing vulgar insults, more vulgar than I normally hear. I figure I should just go past her and leave. I can't stay here all day. So I come out and head for the door. Sarah blocks my way and says not so fast. She says she was being serious about me killing myself. I should do it. Cut the wrists. Warm water would help me bleed out faster. Hanging is an option if I have a rope. Or if my parents have a gun… no, they must not or they would've killed me a long time ago. After being hounded all day I am getting mad. I tell Sarah to get out of the way. She asks who's going to make her. She asks what I'm going to do about it. I think she wants to get into a fight but wants me to start it for some reason. She wants me to throw the first punch. She pushes at me and I briefly lose my balance. Fine… if she wants me to throw the first punch, I will! I punch her in the stomach, hoping to knock the wind out of her. To my stunned horror, my fist actually goes INTO her stomach, spraying blood everywhere. Sarah doubles over and vomits blood. I pull my fist back, I hadn't meant to do that! Really! As I pull my fist back it's like Sarah's insides are somehow caught on it, a stream of bloody tissue flows out of her wound and onto me. I think I might vomit now. The rest of Sarah's body dissolves into a bloody stream and flows onto me. The disgusting mess seems to soak into my body and then it's gone. No blood, no mess, no Sarah. I stand there in shock.

I walk out of the bathroom in a trance, leaving my backpack behind. I walk aimlessly, across the school yard. To the fence where I'd been harassed by Sarah and her friends just the previous day. I reach the fence and drop to my knees, still in shock, not knowing where to go. I try to clear my mind. I have to go home. My mom (and dad?) would be waiting for me… no… not my dad… he's dead… but he's not. My brother Josh would be there, no… it was my sisters Jenna and Sally. Sisters? I didn't have sisters! I try to think clearly, but it's as if I have two sets of conflicting memories in my mind at the same time. One of me, Marcy, and one of Sarah. Sarah, with her timid mother and overbearing father. Overbearing and ABUSIVE! Sarah's memories told me if I was late getting home that would justify a beating… and maybe a nighttime visit. Those horrible nighttime visits… But Sarah is dead now. I killed her. I become stuck on that thought. Sarah is dead and I killed her. But now I know everything about her. She wasn't mean, she was scared. Scared that there was nothing she could control, that everyone could see her weakness, everyone could see she was a victim waiting to be attacked. But if she could prove she was stronger than someone else… like that fat girl Marcy. Damn, she wished she was me. No sign of being beaten at home… Bringing a good lunch every day… Sarah is dead and I killed her.

Guilt overcomes me and I start to cry. Someone jumps the fence but I don't look. He comes over to me, pauses, then acts surprised it is me. He calls me Marcy, then says he has never seen someone figure out how to use that ability on their own before! I look up. It's the man from my dream… Alex… but his hand is normal, not claws. He doesn't look like Wolverine right now, though I am sure Wolverine doesn't have to have his claws out all the time… Anyhow, being attacked isn't really on my mind. I stand up and grab his jacket, saying over and over that Sarah is dead and I killed her. There. I told an adult. Now he would take me to the police. I had to confess, there was no choice. Sarah is dead and I killed her. But he doesn't lead me away. He shakes me until I stop repeating my confession. Tears are still streaming down my face. I look at my right hand that I had somehow used to punch right through Sarah… Alex holds me, trying to comfort me. He says he can explain what is happening. He says I "consumed" Sarah. He says I should now have Sarah's memories, too, and I do have her appearance. The extra set of memories… I say yes, I do… but how? He says that happens when we consume someone. He can do it, too. I start off on a new rant now, telling him Sarah wasn't really bad, it wasn't her fault, she's dead and I killed her… I consumed her… how can I fix it? How can I reverse it? There has to be a way! There just HAS to be a way! He looks like he's not sure what to say to help console me.

Before Alex says anything more, the other three pieces of bad news come over. More insults coming, and there was no way I could handle it right now… no way! But no one says anything mean. Beth asks who my friend is. Maria sees I've been crying and asks if I am ok, but she calls me Sarah. Gene is getting in Alex's face. She asks what he did to Sarah, why did he make her cry. I say Sarah is dead and I killed her. Maria looks genuinely concerned at that. She asks what I'm talking about. Gene goes back at Alex, calling him an asshole and asking again what he'd done to Sarah. Maria leads me away from Alex, saying I need to rest, I need to rest where my bastard father can't hurt me… I should stay over with her tonight. I know right away Sarah's father would say hell no to that and be furious if she did. And when Sarah wasn't there for his nighttime visit, he'd visit Jenna instead. Jenna… only 8 years old… she'd come to Sarah almost a year ago saying father was visiting her sometimes at night. Sarah had advised Jenna not to fight or father would hurt her more. But now I knew what I had to do. I would go home to Sarah's house and break Sarah's number one rule. I would fight back… and that bastard father of Sarah's wouldn't know what hit him.

I ask Maria for a minute of privacy during which I call my own mother and say I am going to a friend's house. She is thrilled that I have a friend. She says to keep my cell phone on. I say I will. Then I tell Maria I have to hurry home. I run most of the way. Sarah's body is that of a cheerleader, and very athletic. I go into the house and find father in a very bad mood. He's drinking again. Perfect. Maybe I can get him to take me to the basement to take my medicine. Then I'll give him his medicine. But he is more focused on mother right now. His dinner wasn't good enough. The house isn't clean enough. He pushes her against the counter while berating her loudly. I tell him to leave mother alone. Mother looks at me as if I've gone mad, so does father. He asks if I want a piece of what he's handing out. Mother tells me to go to my room right now. I say I'm not leaving until this piece of shit that calls himself my father says he's sorry for hurting mother. Mother is shocked to silence, father is now more pissed than shocked, thought the shock still shows in his face. Father asks if I really want to be talking to him like that. Because if I talk like an adult, then I get an adult's medicine. Mother breaks her silence and tells father to leave me alone, I don't know what I'm saying. I tell father I sure do know what I'm saying, and someone ought to kick him in his pathetically small balls so hard they get lodged in his fucking nostrils. Father is pissed. He grabs me roughly by the arm and says it's an adult's medicine for me, then I will never speak to him like that again. Mother pleads with father not to hurt me, but he ignores her and pulls me down into the basement. This is going perfectly.

Down in the dimly lit basement father asks what he should start with. I tell him he should start with begging me not to kill him. He says he doesn't know what has gotten into me, but I have sure gone off the deep end. I don't feel that way at all. I feel strong, like I can take on anyone. And he is weak. He has to pick on those smaller than himself. I spread my arms and tell him to come at me if he wants to die. He says he'll give me my medicine and he can't be sure I'll survive it. He grabs a board and swings it hard into my stomach. I barely feel it. He recoils as if he just smacked a concrete wall with the board. He looks at the board, then at me, then at the board again, clearly puzzled. He swings at me again. I grab the board and take it from him easily. I break it in half as if it was a twig. He steps back in shock, asking me what the fuck I am. I say it's his turn to take his medicine. I close the distance between us with two quick steps and then I repeat what happened with Sarah. I deliberately "consume" this asshole, or that's what Alex had called it. But this time I feel no guilt. Because now I know Jenna will never awaken to his nighttime visits again. Little Sally will never know a single visit. And mother will never have to take her medicine again. I punch my fist right into his gut, which brings about a shocked look of pain on his face. He screams out in pain and terror as I finish "consuming" him.

The sound has brought mother down from upstairs. I look at my hands. I am a man now, I have taken on the form of that asshole. But I don't want to look like him! I want to look like Sarah! I don't want mother to think father killed Sarah. I'm not sure what I do want mother to think… a wave of guilt hits me over Sarah, she shouldn't have died… it was never her fault. As I focus on wanting to look like Sarah I see my hands in front of me shift form. And my perspective drops a couple feet. I am Sarah again. Mother comes down the stairs and stares at me. She asks where father went, she asks if I am ok. I tell her I am ok, father took his medicine. She stops short and asks what I'm trying to say. I feel guilty about Sarah again. I go over to mother and hug her, telling her over and over that I'm sorry, I'm sooooo sorry… I know it will break her heart when Sarah disappears. And Sarah will have to disappear. I can't be both myself and Sarah at the same time. And if I disappear, then my mother will be the one crying. Mother wants to know what I've done. She says whatever it is, she's sure it can't be that bad. I tell her it is, and I can't say what it is… but she will find out soon, and I am sooooo sorry.

Mother wants to hold and comfort me, but I can't take it any longer. I pull away and run back upstairs and out the front door. I run down the street and out of sight even as I hear Sarah's mother behind me calling out. Not that much time has actually passed, and the sun is still shining. But I am in a dark place. I go down an alley to be out of sight and sit down beside a dumpster to cry. I feel some better knowing that Jenna, Sally, and Sarah's mother will no longer be hurt, but I still feel awful about what happened to Sarah. Someone comes up beside me as I am crying. I look up and it's Alex again. He asks if I can change back to Marcy. I think about my normal appearance for a bit and I feel the shift. Alex says I really am a natural. But a natural what? I ignore Alex now and go back to crying. Alex sits down beside me and puts an arm around me. He says to try not to be too hard on myself, what happened with Sarah was an accident. He asks if I really meant to hurt her. I remember wanting to knock the wind out of her, but that was it. Just a belly ache for her. I say no, I hadn't meant to hurt her. He says it was just a terrible accident, and now there was a lot I would have to learn about control so it would never happen again. Control of what? I don't know and I don't really care. I sit there, still crying, with Alex beside me trying to comfort me. I think I fall asleep like that, because then I wake up in bed as Raven again and a full understanding of what had happened in the dream.

11/26/13

Consuming Power
I am in a city I don't recognize. It is night time, and it is quite dark. Even darker than it usually is at night in a city. None of the lights seem to be on. I wonder why I might be here. I start looking around until I hear some people talking. I come around a corner and I see a man moving towards me. I realize the sky is beginning to lighten and I can make out that the man is some kind of military soldier. He has an assault rifle of some kind aimed at me.

He sounds very unfriendly as he tells me to freeze and not move. He demands to know who I am and what I'm doing there. I cooperate, not sure if he is friend or foe, ally or enemy. I give him the name Raven Knight and I say I am not there to cause any trouble. He says I already am causing trouble. I wonder how I am causing a problem, but he doesn't bother with any more questions. He opens fire on me. A spray of bullets hit my upper torso and cause a small tingling sensation. "Oh, shit! You're HIM!" the soldier says before firing a couple grenades and then turning and making a run for it. The grenades explode in my face, but I don't really notice any effect beyond a flash of light and a slight warmth. I see the soldier about to go around a corner and I think it will be bad if he gets a chance to alert the others. I use a tendril to pull him back over. I have the guy right in front of me and he is just begging me to let him go, he is also calling me Mercer… as in Alex Mercer? I don't really want to kill a guy who is begging for his life, so I am about to let go of him when I realize he has been maneuvering his right hand with some kind of gun in it… to fire a large blast right at my chest. The blast punches a hole right through me, but I don't feel a thing. I look down at the hole in my chest just in time to see it seal itself up, completely mending the Assassin's robes I am wearing, leaving no trace I have ever been shot. The man has a look of sheer terror on it now, though he has gone silent. He then starts yelling in my face, calling me a monster and saying there is no way I'm going to get out of this one alive! He thinks they really have a way to kill Alex? I have to know for sure… he already thinks I'm Alex Mercer so I just consume him and then I know everything he knows. They do have a plan to kill Alex, though this guy didn't know what it is, just to meet his commander at a certain time and place. So I'll attend that meeting in his place.

There are four other guys at the meeting and the commander. I know all of the guys as the other people in my squad. The commander holds up a large syringe of some yellow fluid that looks like piss. He says that is the answer to all of our problems. A virus that will completely destroy Alex Mercer. He laughs like he is a bit crazy. From the guy I consumed I know he has been more than a bit obsessed with Alex. He says the virus in the syringe will make the fucker consume himself. He laughs again and then gets serious. He says we only get one chance. If Mercer survives being dosed with this stuff he'll most likely be immune to it. He says someone has to dose Mercer, then when the virus has him weakened, hit the shit with everything we got until there's nothing left! Now… the plan is to distract Mercer, but someone will have to sneak in and dose him. He says the odds are against that person escaping alive, so first he's looking for volunteers. Josh says he is definitely the one. Blake says Josh is about as stealthy as a freight train. I don't say a word. I step out of sight and become invisible. I sneak behind the commander and relieve him of his gun, his backup gun, and his combat knife, using telekinesis to aid me in remaining undetected. I return to the group, becoming visible and saying I should be the one to deliver the virus. The commander asks why it should be me. I show him his guns and his knife, asking if he has lost something. He calls me Barnes and says he never realized I had it in me… the job is mine. He said to go in quickly and try to get out quickly if I can, but if I don't make it, I'll die a hero.

So then we play the waiting game. Waiting for Alex to show himself. This almost bores me into waking up. But then we get notice and depart at once. Alex is facing off against a large number of Blackwatch forces that include tanks and people. He seems pissed about something. He is asking "Where is she?" The commander tells me to do my thing and hands me the syringe of toxin.

I get out of sight and turn invisible. I get closer to Alex without any problem, thinking about the situation. The commander said if he recovers from the toxin he will be immune. That seems like a good idea. And I can make sure it doesn't kill him one way or another. Healing him… letting him consume me… so I get right behind him and drop my invisibility before completing my assigned mission by giving him the toxin. Of course that doesn't go unnoticed. Alex turns and sees me, grabbing me by the neck as quick as a blink. Then the toxin starts having its effect. Alex looks like he is in considerable pain and drops to his knees, though his grip on me doesn't lessen any. I hear what sounds like the commander yelling to fire, hit him with everything! Alex is glaring at me with more hate than I have ever seen in him, he asks what I did to him… but doesn't wait for an answer. I smile and tell him it's show time just before he consumes me. I am familiar with the process of being consumed, though this time it proves to be significantly more uncomfortable, though still not painful since I don't feel pain in dreams. A sensation of something being drained out of me, very uncomfortable. I figure that's because the Alex I know is more careful when he does it, this Alex was pissed. As I become conscious again, now fused with Alex, I hear explosions all around us. I look through Alex's eyes and see there is an energy field around us that is blocking all of the explosions safely away.

Apparently Alex already discovered one of my abilities to make an energy field. I can tell from Alex that the 'she' he had been looking for is Dana, apparently she has been kidnapped by Blackwatch. Kidnapped by the commander I'd been working for. The explosions around us finally subside. The entire area around Alex is now a huge crater with only the spot he is standing remaining unscathed. Alex stands up and looks at the Blackwatch forces all around us, I can tell he is now recovering nicely from the toxin I gave him. He beat it and will only get stronger from here. There had been people cheering all around us, but now they all fall silent. Aside from the sound of engines idling there is total silence. Alex scans the troops on the ground and spots the commander near the front of the group, apparently wanting a front row seat to watch Alex die. The commander is yelling at everyone to kill Alex, but no one seems too keen to try it after what they just witnessed. Some of them do attack, however. Alex makes a straight line for the commander, using his blade to slice through attackers as he goes. He grabs the commander by the neck and drags him up the nearest building and out of sight of the troops. The commander is trying to make a bargain with Alex to trade Dana's location for his own release, but Alex doesn't need him to tell where Dana is… Alex consumes him and immediately knows.

Alex is off like a shot, jumping off the building and gliding to the next one before sprinting along it and jumping again. Just a couple more jumps and glides and I see we are standing outside a large gate entering into a military base. It looks like a pretty strong gate, closed up tight. But apparently it's not strong enough for the new Alex Mercer… he uses another of my dream abilities and opens up with an energy blast like a Final Flash and blasts it right at the gate. The gate holds briefly and then practically vaporizes in a blast. Alex walks through the opening left by the decimated gate.

Most of the people inside are running around like they haven't got a clue what is going on. One man, however, is standing right in the middle of the main entry and facing Alex as if he thinks he might be invincible. The man says he had been hoping to see Alex here. He says he will get to kill both Mercers. Alex stops short… he already killed Dana? The man answers as if Alex had asked the question aloud. He says yes, he killed Dana… and if only Alex had been there to hear her scream. To hear her begging for mercy, to hear her calling out, "Alex! ALEX!" even though there was absolutely nothing Alex could have done to save her. He laughs. I can feel Alex getting very pissed off. I wonder if there is anything this guy can do to harm Alex. He is clearly trying to provoke Alex… And it works. Alex forms his claws and rushes at the guy with the intent to rip him limb from limb. The guy transforms into some weird tentacled thing… with lots of tentacles. Several of the tentacles wrap themselves around Alex, tightly holding him. The man laughs again and said Alex made that way too easy. Alex is the one laughing now, he says that the man should think again. He uses one of my song spells, Battery by Metallica, and hits the guy with a large bolt of lightning. The electricity flows through him, causing him to spaz out and release Alex. He is looking around with an expression that clearly says, "What the FUCK?!" Alex uses another song, Crush 'Em by Megadeth, and the force of a gravity bomb forces the man into the ground, creating a crater as it does so. The man is struggling to his feet when Alex reaches him. Alex says the man is going to wish he had never touched Dana. He consumes the guy, but the process seems to take forever and appears to be extremely painful. When it is finally done I see that he hasn't killed Dana after all, though he had been planning on it. Alex finds out Dana is still alive and heads straight for where they are holding her. An energy blast breaks through the door to the detainment area. He still has his claws formed and uses them to shred several guards into bloody ribbons. We reach the door to the cell Dana is in. Alex just rips it off its hinges and goes inside. Dana is in the back corner of the room, she backs away when she sees Alex with his claws formed. He changes back to his normal human form before approaching Dana. She seems almost unable to believe it's him. "Alex? It's really you? I knew you'd come! They kept saying they'd killed you, but I knew they had to be lying!" So with Dana on his back and holding on tightly Alex returns to the front entrance where there are numerous enemy soldiers aiming weapons at him. He doesn't even mess with them right now, it is more important to get Dana to safety. He launches into the air and flies over all of them, making it out of range before most of them can even fire. He continues running through the city towards a place he believes Dana will be safe in. I never find out where that is, however, I wake up.