Adventures In Parodyverse: Center Stage Part 1 (UT#295 tie-in)

Center Stage Part 1 (UT#295 tie-in)

    Hatman felt an unusually cool breeze, which was odd because he was in his room at the time in bed trying to take a quick cat nap. His eyes snapped open and he looked around the room. At first he saw nothing, but then another gentle breeze moved through the room, tossing around the window curtains gently. Feeling alarmed, he sat up suddenly.

    "Do not fear," a gentle female voice whispered to him from the winds, "I am a friend."

    Though there was no light in the room he saw a woman in charcoal flowing robes materialize. She had long silver hair, crystalline white skin, and her eyes were like solid blue marbles that seemed to give off their own illumination.

    And she was pouring him a drink of water from a metal pitcher, handing the glass to him immediately after.

    He sniffed the water suspiciously - it seemed normal enough, and it was nicely chilled. He took a sip because he was so thirsty after napping. Besides, he thought, this was a dream, so drinking water couldn't kill him.

    "I am Faite. I came to deliver a message from the Hooded Hood."

    Jay frowned, wondering just how much of a friend this Faite was. "You work for the Hooded Hood?"

    "No," she replied curtly. "I deliver a message for him because it interests you, and you would be far more receptive to its content if he didn't deliver it in person."

    She made sense, Jay thought to himself. "What's the message?"

    Faite put the water pitcher down on a table that Jay remembered was added to his room by Liu Xi. That thought made his heart sink as he remembered what happened to her...

    "She is still alive," Faite said, and Jay instinctively knew she was talking about Liu Xi.

    His heart raced for a moment as he struggled to come up with a reply. "But we saw her die," he whispered weakly. "She melted away. The Parody Master took her soul and destroyed her body, and then destroyed her essence. That's what the Shoggoth told us."

    "The Shoggoth said her essence was lost, not destroyed," Faite corrected. Jay remembered back too, and knew she was correct. "She is in a place where...if she finds her way back she will have answers."

    "Answers? Answers to what?"

    "I have to go now, Jay," Faite suddenly said as the wind began to blow inside the room again. "Perhaps we will meet again."

    "Wait, please!" Jay called after her.

    "For now you must sleep," she said. She raised a single hand, and Jay found himself overcome by exhaustion. He let his head drop to the pillow and drifted off to sleep.

---

    "Jay!" he heard a voice whisper to him, but sharply enough to try and lure him out of slumber.

    "Faite..." he whispered as he opened his eyes slowly, hoping that she had returned to answer more questions. Instead he saw a worried looking Lara Night sitting on the edge of his bed.

    "I heard what happened." she whispered, her voice wavering as if she were trying not to cry. She even took a breath between sentence fragments. "I wish I could have been there. Maybe I could have done something."

    Jay remembered what Faite said, but as he began to awaken he started to worry that it was just a dream, and he couldn't believe anything he heard there. As he sat up, though, he noticed something unusual.

    The metal water pitcher still sat on the table at the opposite end of the room.

    "Lara--" he started to say, enthusiasm and shock lacing his voice. But he paused when he realized that Lara's eyes seemed to be echoing both sadness and anger, and it was better if he waited for her to finish venting her feelings.

    "It's too late now, I guess," Lara continued sadly. Her teeth were clenched as she spoke the next part, and Jay was slightly alarmed to see a brief echo of a quite alien-looking flash of lightning from behind her nearly transparent irises. "All I can do now is make the Parody Master suffer for destroying such a gentle soul."

    Jay shivered a little at the way Lara said that, and only part of it was that an electrical field from Lara was making his hair stand on end. She spoke so gently but her body shook with bottled up rage that seemed so dangerous to him for some reason. Nevertheless, he tried to persist with what he now knew was the truth. "Lara, she's alive. Liu Xi is alive somewhere."

    "Where? How do you know?" Lara asked both questions quickly.

    "Faite returned," Jay replied, somehow knowing that she was around the Parodyverse all along in spite of being retonned once. "She brought news that Liu Xi is alive. And that if she finds her way back she'll bring answers."

    Lara sat stunned for a moment next to Jay, unable to speak. Instead she suddenly wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tightly, taking a deep breath to try and curb the emotional roller coaster she had just survived. Jay hugged her back reluctantly.

    "So...what do we do now?" Lara finally asked as she let go of him.

    "Faite disappeared before she told me that," Jay sighed.

    "Oh." Lara bit her lip and looked down. "So I guess we wait and see if Liu Xi is strong enough to make it home." She continued looking down for another moment before speaking again. "If I could sense her I'd find her and make sure she gets back safely."

    "Me too," Jay mumbled in response.

    "Jay--" Lara started to say something but paused, as if she wasn't sure if it was right to ask.

    "Yes?" he prompted, encouraging her to continue.

    "That was the last straw, you know. I've been watching you guys get hurt because of the Parody Master and his friends, but I always knew you'd survive and recover. There weren't any surprises. What happened to Liu Xi...really scared me. She might still be dead, and any of you might be next."

    "I know," Jay replied sadly.

    "Well I'm angry now," Lara continued, her eyes narrowing. "I want to say to hell with accidentally damaging the Parodyverse and just hurt him any way I can." She gave him a slightly sad, ironic smile. "Good thing I have lots of self control, eh?"

    Jay couldn't help but smile a little too. "If you want the chance, Lara, I'm sure you'll get it. The only thing I ask is that you wait till the time is right, so we can have each other's backs."

    She nodded once. "I'll try. So are you much more rested now?"

    "Yeah." Jay nodded. "Something Faite did to me...I only had a couple hours' sleep but I feel like I've been sleeping half a day. I think she did that to help so I'd trust her."

    "You have anything for me to do?" Lara asked. "I'm very restless under the circumstances."

    "Let's go to the situation room and see what we have," Jay suggested. "You know, Lara, I like you better like this."

    "Angry and vengeful to the point of self destruction?" she asked jokingly.

    Jay laughed and shook his head. "No, I mean your serious side. I like that you're a fun, happy, encouraging person but it's good to see you dedicated to something."

    "I know where he is, you know," Lara suddenly said. "The Parody Master, I mean. The energy from him is like a motorboat in a bathtub, it's hard to miss. I could go straight to him and punch him in the face if I wished, but that'd be counter productive."

    "I suppose it would be," Jay noted. "When the time's right, Lara, that knowledge will help us a lot, and so will you. Meanwhile I'll just have to keep you busy so you don't think about it, eh?"

    "Yeah." Lara smiled weakly and nodded. "Let's find something to do."

TO BE CONTINUED?

-- Story written and copyrighted (C) 2006 by Jason Froikin, and may not be
-- reprinted without permission.
-- Liu Xi Xian, Yuki Shiro, Lara Night, Chiaki Bushido (Psychic Samurai) (C) 2006 by Jason Froikin, all rights reserved
-- All other characters property of their respective owners

Post By Anime Jason Sun Oct 29, 2006 at 01:43:14 pm EST	Subject Adventures In Parodyverse: Center Stage Part 1 (UT#295 tie-in)

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