Things to Run Away From Really Fast

I'm at a track for horse-races, in the back. There are trailers around, and stalls as well. The place is deserted.

I don't know what clued me in to the fact that this was a dream. I think on that for a second, then shrug it off. I've been meaning to try flying. I jump into the air and swoop around for a bit. I remember to try to contain my excitement, but -

New dream. I'm probably ten years old, fighting a friend who has decided to be a witch. It's all in fun, and I trace sigils into the windows and tell her she can't get inside. In retaliation, she sets a bulletin board on fire. All of my photographs go up in flames, and I smother the fire with blue energies that aren't a tiny bit wet.

Fighting Fire. Scare Factor: 2.

Two girls hide in a closet behind the bathtub. The dream has been third person for a while now, focusing on the girls, who are part of a super-secret experiment involving clones or superpowers or whatever.

The Matron is walking into the room, and the pre-teen girls - Rae and Johanna - are hiding from her. Rae is about to leave the room and face her, hoping that she can still save Johanna from a horrible fate. Rae takes a deep breath and steps out into full view of the office -

Only to be blocked from sight by an adult stepping in front of the door. It's me. The Matron is coming in behind me, and I'm distracting her from Rae.

"It's always an... experience, hosting a representative of Cypher Industries." The Matron says, ushering me toward one of the chairs facing her desk.

"I've no doubt," I say, sending a wink at the girls hovering at the bathroom door. No doubt the Matron knows they're there, but she's ignoring them so far.

"If I may ask," she says, sitting down, "What brings you here? Our corporations have not been on the best of terms, as of late. Your safety is not assured."

"I'm supposed to give you this." I throw a sheaf of papers onto the desk in front of her.

She doesn't touch it. "And this is?"

"Oh," I say, rolling my eyes, "Roundabout legaleze that doesn't mean much. It's basically demanding access to what we consider to be our property."

"Really?" says the Matron icily, "And what property would this be?"

"You are in possession of two very special little girls. We want them; I'm taking them."

"Why shouldn't I kill you right now?" Her hands are folded on the table, her head tilted to the side.

"Oh, that's easy," I say, leaning back in my chair. "The term is 'Tactical Nuclear Missile Strike'."

"Excuse me?"

"My team is currently flying directly overhead," I say, leaning forward, "If I flatline, then they will immediately make the entire island -" I wave my hands, "Explode."

There is a beat of silence.

"Get out."

"I'll be taking the brats, then." I jump from my seat, smiling widely, and make for the door. "Pleasure doing business with you!"

Rae and Johanna are right behind me. The three of us run down the glass staircase, laughing, as the world unravels around us.

Corporate Sabotage. Scare Factor: 2.

...I am a psychopath.

I'm Dean Winchester. We're on a hunt, and I'm running from the thing we're trying to kill. I jump over the piles of wood at our job site, aiming for the window of the just-framed basement.

I'm lucid out of nowhere. I'm still running and jumping, and nothing is chasing me. I shapeshift to default, frame slimming and I'm moving faster. I vault through the window, over a chain link fence and take down the guard on the other side. He gets up and I shoot force-lightening at him, blue electricity arcing from my fingers.

The Job Site. Scare Factor: 2.

I'm running up an underground staircase. I had the route planned out ahead of time, parkour sequences that he won't be able to duplicate. I've run through the attic of a school and into this place, a spiralling staircase with nothing but a thirty-story fall down the center.

I get to level ground, and something feels off. I look at my hand. It's clawed, and pale-white, and moving on its own. I watch with sick fascination as the fingers move in impossible patterns, until I tear my gaze deliberately away, trying not to get more freaked out.

When I look behind me, nothing is following. I look down the staircase and wonder what would happen if I -

I jump.

I feel the sick thrill of falling for a few seconds, before I reach out and catch myself in a web of orange and yellow, meters from the stone floor. I float in mid-air, close my eyes in contentment, and wake up.

Spiral Staircases. Scare Factor: 5.

I'm running away from something. I'm underground, and it's dark and brown and I propel myself forward upward through the cave system. The thing I'm running away from is catching up to me, but I realize that I'm dreaming. I spin on my heel, turn around to confront the creature. I feel an icy thrill of fear when I see it. An inky black miasma chokes the air around me, and I can feel the creature's energy trying to infect my every pore.

I use that against it.

I expand my awareness, absorbing the black energy and forcing it to change, twisting it into an approximation of my own energy. I blanket the creature in a cloud of soft red and black, my aura, and allow the energy to dissippate.

All of my surroundings are gradations of red and black, and I find the atmosphere calming. All that's left of the monster is a swathe of black fabric on the ground, and a round plush toy that doesn't make much sense. I step over the toy and peer out into a gigantic cavern.

The very air starts to hum. I can feel bright blue energy spiking through the dream, interrupting the calm dark colours, and the energies start to clash as everything fades to white.

Something Blue. Scare Factor: 6.

And then I went to the dentist's office and found this:


It's identical.

"Don't see why we had to take a job on this bo shui kueh piece of rock." I grumble to myself.

Mal steps onto the loading ramp. "Who's in rutting command here, Jayne?" He doesn't wait for an answer.

"All right everybody," he says to the crew assembled inside the ship. "We've got 'til nightfall before anything needs doing. With the exception a Jayne, here," he slaps me on the shoulder and ignores my growl, "You can all enjoy the benefits of civilization until that time. Kaylee? I believe you had something you needed to pick up..."

Mal goes over to Kaylee and discusses specifics of cost and necessity, and I pick up two 20-liter buckets full of water and start trudging into the muddy rainforest.

The first group of people I run into turn out to consider this a sacred duty or something, and decide not to kill me for this reason. That's really all I can remember up until the point that I join forces with a younger girl and go climb up a tower that just appeared. My boots have been traded out for the running shoes that I wear in real life.

The tower turns into an insanely high jungle gym, of the fall-off-and-you-die variety. The four people I'm with turn this into a game, describing the best way to get to the top. There are posts built into certain places for no reason, and these turn out to be part of the puzzle. I run up a 45 degree angle and slip, barely catching myself. I keep jumping upward until I'm climbing the underside of a slide. I've reached the top, and I'm just about to pull myself up -

I wake up.

Welcome to the Jungle. Scare Factor: 3. You know, Mal, as it is my dream, technically, I'm in command.

bo shui kueh: ...a restaurant? Apparently, I need to work on my Chinese.[/QUOTE]

I'm a cross between Alice (in Wonderland) and the human form of The Last Unicorn. As per usual, I'm utterly convinced that I'm the character. I'm a lot more nervous and soft-spoken than I normally would be, and I feel completely out of my depth. I feel no indication that this could possibly be a dream.

The hunters from this clip get killed by a shapeshifter as they leave my forest.

I somehow end up with a group of soldiers. They're protecting me. I'm wearing one of their uniforms, which comes complete with this hat. The hat only makes an appearance once. After I get dressed, nobody else is wearing one.

We go into an atrium to get food. There are birds nesting on the ceiling, and we can't look up. If we do, they'll attack us. I can see them in my mind's eye. They're brightly coloured: red and blue and yellow, and they look remarkably pretty swarming above us. I have to resist the urge to look, and I keep my eyes straight ahead as I grab a vat of mashed potatoes. Of course, one of the other members of the group looks up, and we have to run away without the food.

I'm trying to draw the layout of the building we're in. Drawing seems to stabilize everything, and the rooms rearrange themselves to fit the drawing. As soon as I get involved in the plot again, everything starts back to shifting.

There's a stage. I don't remember why the stage is important. Chairs are set out for the evening, but it's mid-afternoon and no one is using them yet.

The Last Unicorn. Scare Factor: 3.

I was boring in this dream.

Two men are standing outdoors. The shorter man is yelling at the taller one.

"If you're not with us, you're against us!" He spits. Then he yells something about going back to the North if he can't support his friends.

The taller man stares back evenly, and says that there's more to the American Civil War than wounded pride.

Also, talking to Serenity about the ability to edit certain posts on DreamViews.

Choosing Sides. Scare Factor: 2.

Cell phones are evil and I talk to my brother about comic book continuities. Apparently Batman showed up in the Sandman universe. I'm playing video games in a living room. I switch the gender on a character customization screen, which affects three dreams:

- A ghost enacts vengeance on his/her killer, and both go up in flames. There's a picture of a kitten involved.

- A warrior... guy... who looks like Ichigo from Bleach saves two main characters from... something, but one of the background DCs gets killed. The costume is warm, and he looks at the river, thinking about going for a swim. Zoom back to me with the video games, looking at a character screen that looks way different than the actual character did.

- I have to capture all six million Pokemon. I also have to click across a screen to keep them happy.

I'm in the same room, which is now a bar. I'm sipping on the large chai latte I bought before the coffee shop closed. Linkara is bartending. It's someone's birthday, and he randomly slices pieces off of an angel food cake when people come in. There are two cakes; one is hiding in a cupboard somewhere.

Time Management. Scare Factor: 2.[/QUOTE]

I need to get into the Ixburg Apartments. I pull out the screen from a window on the second floor. Before I climb in, I'm distracted by a group of people in the parking lot. I recognize the character from Bum Reviews, but he runs away as soon as he sees me.

I'm Marty McFly, in a mall, talking to Lorraine, his mom. I'm either in the future or the past, and I consider the fact that my chequing accounts shouldn't be working nearly as well as they are.

I'm in dorms in a school. I have a top bunk. There's a ventillation shaft leading from above my bed to the library, and I take it there and back a few times in the middle of the night. Someone catches me once, and I look back and see that the tunnel I crawled through was too small to fit a person.

I wander through the library during the day. I pick up a book and am amused to note that they cited Encyclopedia Dramatica as a reference (I can read in dreams).

Apparently I've transferred to ACAD in Calgary. I'm mad that I've been put down as a first year, and I realize that I have to do the paperwork to transfer all of my credits from my other school.

I talk to a guy in the dorms. He introduces himself as Josh or Joshua, and I mention that one of the DV members is named Josh/Joshua. He says that he's actually Loaf (he pronounces it "loof"), isn't that a weird coincidence? Then I run into Serenity and MoSH, as well as another girl I don't recognize.

Now I'm staying with roommates away from campus, and I have to find the Student Services table so I can change my courses around.

I'm following a story about two men who were intrepid adventurers in the wilds of Saskatchewan. I float down a cliff, following the story (the DCs can't see me). I realize that I'm dreaming, and I also notice that I'm barefoot. I think that the easiest way to get around that would be to shapeshift into one of the dogs, and I could follow the story better. I trot along the side of the river, trying to catch up to the group, but I notice that the setting is fading into white, and I feel myself starting to wake up.

College. Scare Factor: 2.[/QUOTE]

Fragment: Misha Collins and I walk through a grassy field, looking for a shed or a house that contains something important.

Fragment: My own dark energies are overshadowed by the presence of bright blue.

I've somehow popped into the Sandman universe, after the end of the Lucifer series. Considering I'm the devil herself at the moment, albeit one from an alternate reality, I think it prudent to avoid people who might recognize me.

A group of the ex-Lucifer's allies are converging upon a town, ready to attack, for some reason. I have an image of him (from my avatar) crashing into one of the buildings with a semi-truck, stepping out unharmed. I realize that I'm going to have to hide my healing ability.

I make for the rooftops. I run up a ramp and leap onto the side of a three-story building, using tiny handholds to inch my way onto the roof. I get to the edge, and I pull myself up, and immediately scramble for cover at the back of the roof. Mazikeen jumps up the same way I came, armed with a sniper rifle and ready to take out enemies on the ground.

I notice that she's recovered the other half of her face.



I inch out of my hiding place to get a better look at her, and she turns around. "Lucifer?" she accuses, calling fire into the palm of her right hand.

"Um, no?" I say, "Not yours, anyway."

She doesn't seem to believe me, and being burned alive is never fun.

"'He flew outside of creation, and the nothing imposed itself upon him. Or maybe he imposed himself upon the nothing.'" I misquote, "It was something like that, anyway."

Yeah, that fireball doesn't seem to be dying down.

"I'm here to help! Really!"

"You're here to help?" She says mockingly, "What can you do?"

Some time later...

I'm a child in white, laid out over an altar. A man holds a knife out in front of him, poised to strike into my heart. Like lightening, I stand up and take the knife, slashing across his throat and spraying arterial blood into the audience. A woman licks her lips, and I wonder what it tastes like to her.

One sacrifice down.

Stray Little Devils. Scare Factor: 2.

I'm in water, dog-paddling, and it's dark. Someone lifts up the lid, and I shrink back from the light. He doesn't see me, but he puts down the blade of the propeller inches from my head, and I curse. I swim around the boat and climb on, quickly dispatching the three guards with strikes to their temples. I go about tying them up with the single length of rope I have, using slip-knots. I look for my allies in the other boats.

Something goes wrong, and I'm captured. I'm tied up, but slip free of the rope almost immediately. They take me to their leader, who looks suspiciously similar to me.

I'm with a class of young people, led by a teacher who might be from a university or college. We're shovelling rocks over the cracks in a hollow, rocky hill. The hill is shuddering as the monsters inside ram themselves against the rock, trying to break through and kill us all. We avoid these spots, trying not to antagonize them as we bury them alive. There have been attacks lately; we're trying to strengthen our defenses.

We finish that edge and go around the corner. The wall is missing. Our group freezes, coming face to face with dozens of the creatures.

They look like penguins. Misshapen, evil penguins with claws and teeth, but still. They're kind of comical, but they're still trying to eat us.

Most of the group takes off at a sprint. I hang back, along with one other student, for the first charge. Two of the little monsters come straight at me. I swing the shovel at one, knocking it away. I pull my weapon back, swing it through the second one until the shovel hits sand, impaling the penguin on the blade edge.

We've given the others some time to escape, and we take off before the rest can charge. I run fast, catching up to the others and greying my vision at the edges, when it finally clicks. I'm being chased by mutant penguins. I turn around, blasting our pursuers with telekinetic energy, scattering them into the lake/ocean behind their hills.

I've still got to find Walms, but I'm not trusting my abilities with portals lately, so I try to find one that's already active. I walk right past what might be a stargate, and look out through the windows built into the walls of the hill building I'm in.

When I look back, I see Marge Cartwright and her youngest daughter, sitting in chairs that have appeared around the room. Cartwright's eldest was in my graduating class. I say something to the effect of "Another Other Mother?" and claw my way out through the plastic-covered window.

I try to imagine a great fall out of the window, so I can get into another setting, maybe a skyscraper, but I fall four feet into the sand and land hard. I can feel the impact. Ow. I keep exploring the dream-setting.

I escape from a prison using a tazer and a group of accomplices, pick a car in the parking lot and drive it through an iron fence, and have to drive it away with an invisible hand because it won't take much more damage. While we wait for the car to get repaired, I explore an underground fairy hutch and almost get trapped inside.

Penguins. Scare Factor: 3.[/QUOTE]

My team saves a little girl's life while we steal something from her father.

I'm cycling away from Vancouver, eastwards. There are people shuffling down the road on foot, heading into the city. One of them makes a grab at my bike, and I punch him, knocking him over. A few people pass me, on bikes themselves, and an older woman tells me I shouldn't hesitate to take them out if they try to grab me. A skinny bald man further up the road is moving into my path, and I hold out an arm to clothesline him, but he stumbles away at the last second.

People are still shuffling around, but they're a little more zombie-like now. Two people are holed up in a lab, a guy with shoulder-length black hair wearing a leather jacket, and the main character from Zombieland. We have a few frantic fight scenes. I end up throwing hard punches at the zombies and wishing I had a shotgun, but punching them tends to stun them for a few seconds, so that's something. A zombie with tangled curly hair, a bigger guy, rushes us, and I accidentally tear off the bandages covering his mouth. He tries to bite me, and I swing a computer moniter into his head repeatedly, until he stops twitching.

We have to get something from the control room, so I'm rappelling down a wide chute, in circles around the wires coming from the centre. I realize too late that going in circles means that I have less rope, and I'm several metres from the ground when I run out. Climbing out the vertical hole, about twenty metres, would be practically impossible, so I untangle myself from the harness and drop to the floor. I land easily. I see a flash of what's on the other side of the exit, a conveyor belt leading to the zombie from before.

I hurtle out of the chute at full speed, launching myself at the zombie and aiming a punch at his jaw. My punch barely connects, and I realize too late that it's too weak to do anything. The zombie looks at me, and I've used up all my momentum; I panic. I push back at the zombie, telekinetically blasting it into the wall, splattering its brains over the metallic surface.

Abruptly, I realize that I'm dreaming, and I walk to the control room, throwing zombies through the walls as they try to approach. I'm having so much fun, and the remaining zombies scatter like leaves, though their landings are bloodier. I reach my destination and find a zombie!GIR and zombie!Yoda standing there waiting for me. They've gotten bigger. I try to toss them away with TK, but the move barely pushes them a few centimetres. The pair stalks menacingly toward me.

I'm lucid, though, and decide this is a complete waste of time. I decide to ignore the pair and go look for Walms. I look away from the bizarre zombies and make for the exit. Zombie!GIR is a green couch bumping up against my leg.

I'm waking up. I try to stabilize, but fail.

New dream. We're survivors in an art gallery IN SPACE while running a pet shop. We find other survivors on earth and establish an alliance. My cousins want to look at the fish.

I have the wrong prescription for contacts and I'm running away from a government conspiracy with my family. Or monsters, maybe. My brother wants to know why this is necessary.

My luggage is too heavy, after I get off the bus, but I find that if I lean a certain way, I start floating along automatically. I run into Milly's mom, Pat Green*, and we go for lunch at a vegetarian cafe.

*From high school. You realize I'm making all these names up, right?

Zombieland. Scare Factor: 3.

I take the stairs two at a time, with Angel right behind me. We reach the top floor of the Ixburg apartment building, rounding the corner so fast I slide a bit. I practically crash into the door at the end of the hallway, and start to pick the lock telekinetically.

Angel stops me with a hand on my wrist. "What if your parents are home? We could be putting them in danger."

A bit of dread creeps into my stomach, and I try to ignore it.

"They haven't lived here for years," I say dismissively. I shake free and flick the door open.

The sound of thunder in the distance. "Quick!" I say, pulling Angel by the arm. I pull him into the apartment and slam the door shut.

My mom and dad are standing in the entrance, looking surprised. My brother is there, and Sam and Dean Winchester are off in the background.

"Mom. Dad." I say, "This is... great."

Silence.

"I want you to meet my boyfriend!" I say, threading my hand through with Angel's. "This is Angel. Angel, this is my mom and dad. Who are really not supposed to be here."

Angel is rolling his eyes toward the ceiling, but at least he's saving the "I told you so" moment for later. Ben, my brother, looks completely shocked, and the other Sam's face is melting.

In fact, everyone's faces seem to be shifting at random. Angel briefly flickers into Dexter, who flickers into... some random person I don't know, and Dean's not nearly as pretty as he usually is. Ben's someone completely unrecognizable, and I push through my parents into my room, waiting for the dream to stabilize.

I'm trying to figure out how to fit both a desk and a double-sized bed into my childhood bedroom when Angel walks in. He's looking somewhat normal again. At this point, we decide, we have to stay here. The Wild Hunt will tear their way through my family whether we're here or not, so we might as well stay to protect them.

I'm having a shower when, through the window, I see a group of my brother's friends running over the lawn. Apparently I'm in the basement. I run outside, fully clothed, and look back at the building I was just in. It's an approximation of my parents' duplex, though it's currently worn down and the entire back yard is yellow and covered in weeds and vines.

I spot the group running through the back yard and I give chase, catching up and tackling the one that's supposed to be Ben. I pin him to the ground, yelling that this is a dream, and the rest of the group stands to the side, eerily still.

"Could you give us a minute?" I say, hauling my brother to his feet. "I have some questions for my brother."

I'm pretty sure this DC isn't my brother, but rather an impostor sent by Mab.

And apparently I was right, because a second later, the group of teenagers shift into unearthly horsemen and hellhounds. Mab herself appears from nowhere, wearing red and riding a horse that just might be an animated skeleton.

Mab demands my surrender. I decline.

Half a dozen faeries rush me at once. I hit the first two with a rush of pure kinetic energy, liquefying their organs and taking them out of the fight. I disarm number three and stab him in the gut with his own green dagger, letting the body drop to the ground as I pull the weapon free and look to my next opponent.

And I see, again, a trail of bright blue energy following my movements, latching onto the Fae and pulling their energy toward me. One of the fairies' power is surprisingly in tune with my own, and I hear a voice telling me to use it.

At first, I think it means the dagger, but as I focus on the energy I'd just absorbed, I realize that this isn't the power of a foot soldier. This is bigger, and I feel myself drop away from the dream, ascending higher and higher until I can see all of the stars and the Queen of the Wild Hunt is just a speck I can only barely see, and I suddenly understand why she thinks so little of those around her, because everything is so small...

When I come to awareness, Angel is next to my bed.

I groan, shielding my eyes from the light pouring in the window. "Some help you were." I grumble.

He snorts. "While you and Mab were unconscious, most of the Fae just wanted to chop off your head and be done with it. I had a hell of a time getting you out of there alive."

"I woulda been fine."

"Right." He looks dubious. "And the Dreaming?"

I look up, pulling myself into a sitting position. "This is a dream, that was a dream." I sigh, "When I wake up, I'll be reality checking all day."

The Hunt. Scare Factor: 3.5. Low-level lucidity[/QUOTE]

I'm having multiple writing-things-down-in-my-journal dreams (in one night), which is really annoying when I actually wake up and find it blank. Occasionally I can remember bits and pieces of what I wrote, but still: irritating. Apparently I'm going to have to RC more while I'm journalling.

In one of my fragments, Neil Gaiman was trying to take over the world. Apparently he's on Time Magazine's Most Influential People list, so this wouldn't be too surprising. Oh, and he's capable of adding to historical mythology.

Be afraid.

The Heist:

I'm robbing an art gallery. This is the easy part, casing the place, looking for details that might assist us in our escape. It's near closing time, and we need to know exactly how the staff shuts the place down - so we're posing as tourists, waiting to be shuffled out of the building.

The place is huge, large enough to have their own conservator on staff, a woman that I'm talking to right now. I'm pretending to be a collector, probably talking about donating a piece to the public collection. We're discussing the minutiae of restoring a particular piece, a thirteenth-century painting that I actually have no interest in (ie: we're not stealing it).

"Where are the security cameras?" I ask her. After all, I want my donation to be safe. I've spotted one camera in the entrance lobby, but none in the main areas or at the employee exits.

"Oh," says the woman, "We don't have any."

I look at her blankly for a second. "Well," I say, "That's stupid."

I look over the woman's shoulder at Johanna, the blonde ghost girl from #59, Ghost Ship. My accomplice is decidedly un-ghostly today. She's with a tour group, examining the high-tech vault that our prize is locked in. The metallic display swivels around, forms a coffin-like shape, and seals itself away, fitting like a puzzle into the tile floor. The rest of the group applauds enthusiastically, but Jo limits herself to a small smile, eyes glittering with anticipation of the challenge.


Jayne Wisener Johanna

I signal Johanna and say goodbye to the conservator. We shake hands and she tells me to contact her if I have any questions. I assure her that I will, and I slip away into the back hallways of the art gallery, off limits to the public.

Jo meets me at our planned escape route, one of the employee exits that requires a code to leave without setting off the alarm. I notice the visible red laser line over the floor, which could be stepped over easily, but the door is alarmed as well. I hear a voice over the intercom, saying that the museum will be closing in a few minutes.

There's a keypad beside me. I enter the code, which I gleaned from the mind of the conservator when I shook her hand. This is why Jo and I work together well: I get the information and she steals the priceless artifact. We split the danger and the cut. And I do my job well - the outer door swings open, and the alarm switches off.

"All guests have two minutes to exit the building," says the intercom. Jo and I grin at each other and step out into the alley. We pile into a small green car with a few other girls. This was our test run. We'll come back tomorrow night and pull the real heist.

We've stopped at a hostel/diner/convenience store. While waiting in line, I'm looking through the racks for a pair of sunglasses that don't make me look like a girl. Everything's sold out though, and apparently I already bought the last pair of sunglasses, which are either broken or missing.

DCs have been telling me, for the last few minutes, that I'm late for the Evil Meeting of Evil. This is, apparently, not a good thing, as the meeting is headed by one of the organization's scariest members. I remember being appropriately terrified earlier in the dream, but now, semi-aware, I can't see why I should be afraid of a DC. When I step outside, I see minions of the League on rows of fold out chairs, under a bright blue sky. Odd.

The terrifying speaker is a black woman with straight, shoulder length black hair, who bears a remarkable similarity to Zoe from Firefly. This, of course, means she's a badass character who I should probably Run Away From Really Fast, but instead I pretty much ignore her as she yells at me and tells me to sit down.

Not!Zoe continues her pep-talk, and I wander back into the building, finding myself in a hostel-style dorm room filled with bunk beds.

The first person I notice is a Legion-style, long-limbed teenager. I'm fascinated by how tall he is, and by the way he's swinging from what are effectively monkey-bars suspended by the bunk-beds. Apparently, the boy can't support his own weight. He stumbles into the diner/convenience store area, and his mom snaps at me not to stare.


What are you looking at?

I turn around, and suddenly there's a high speed bundle of white lace crashing into my arms. I catch the little girl as she throws her arms around me, demanding a hug from a complete stranger. I stand there awkwardly, regaining my balance.

The mom rolls her eyes when I look at her, and tells me that the girl used to suffer extreme pain when anyone touched her. Now she's cured. Okay...

I leave the strange family behind and go back outside to deal with my fellow villains. Who want me to become Doctor Insano. I tell them that I really would (I have my lab coat on and everything), but I can't find my swirly goggles - I only have a set of pink ski goggles, and those just aren't the same.


So yeah.

Johanna and I are back in the art gallery, along with another girl, Macy, who's actually outside. Macy was with us in the getaway car, and she's possessing her pet cat (her spirit animal) so we can have another set of eyes on the inside. The cat is darting through the gallery's hidden places, under tables and behind exhibits, practically invisible unless you know what you're looking for. Jo and I are about to split up, while I keep the entrances clear, when we're interrupted by the most ominous sound I have ever heard.

"KITTY!" shrieks a delighted, childlike voice. This is followed by a chilling snarl from Macy's cat.

I turn around to see that the cat is a charred pile of fur and skin on the floor, and the little girl from before looks absolutely stricken. I look upward and sigh, knowing that we won't have a chance at the painting at this point.

I'm waving at the little body, willing it up from the floor, and slowly toward the side door. At the same time, Jo and I are having a heated discussion over who gets to take care of the girl without making a scene. More so than the fireball and the crying child already have, anyway.

"Me?" I ask incredulously, "I'm not a Meta!" (I don't have superpowers.)

Jo sends a significant glance at the cat magically floating out the door, and looks back at me with a raised eyebrow.

Well, I can't argue with that.

I go over to the little girl and ask if she remembers me. She nods her head and I hold out my hand, and we all go outside.

Jo is over with Macy, who's a sobbing wreck on the ground, leaning against one of the tires of the car. She's looking at her cat, lying on the dirt a few feet away from her. Apparently, her experience was slightly traumatizing.

I lead the girl over to the cat, and kneel down beside it. I give a heartwarming speech involving the importance of responsibility and compassion, and tell her how important it is that we keep our powers under control. Then, waving a hand over the cat, I tug at it's life energy, and the cat gets up and wanders over to Macy.

"There," I say, getting up and dusting myself off. "No harm done."

An alarm starts to blare from within the gallery.

"Son of a bitch!"

All of us pile into the backseat of the car, which is suddenly filled with half a dozen girls, and we speed away.

The Heist. Scare Factor: 3.