Reality's Exile Heroes, Name 100% Stolen from Kid Hunter

(DISCLAIMER: Any simalarities to actual events or the NSA is unintentional.)

"Okay, you've got the code set up?" A bearded man said as he leaned over the programmer's shoulder to look at the scrolling text.

"Yes sir. Once your soldiers log on and touch any part of their computer it will imprint itself onto their brain."

"Good. It's amazing how closely parts of the human brain and computer memory are so simalar."

"Sir, what site did you want me to send it to?"

"Oh, realities-exile."

Later that day the NSA learned that some words were best written down.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Beflexor, as a certain girl was called by certain people, trudged down to the basement and booted up her computer. It'd been a whole day since she'd checked the forum, and it had been more active as of late, so she'd be swimming in posts.

She logged on and set her left hand to the mouse, suddenly, she jerked her hand back with a sharp intake of breath and muttered "shoot!"

It was strange, usually she built static getting off her chair, her ass and the vinyl didn't get along well at times.

Pissed off and cold from the frigid air of the basement, she decided to go outside instead, RE could wait another hour.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There was a slightly cold breeze coming from the west, but the warm sun balanced things out. Beflexor unhooked the latch to the gate that would take her into the pasture. The goats followed her, with Bungie getting exceptionally close despite the fact that he stunk like stale pee. She made her way over to the edge where the river was and looked down, yeah, the river was pretty high today and it looked l-

She suddenly pitched forward as Bungie leaned on her. She fell off the side and into the river.

Beflexor couldn't swim.

She reached her arm up out of the water to try and grab onto something but the current was too swift. She was going to drown while Slash and Roan and all the other goats stood there and chewed their cud.

The water was icy cold and it took Beflexor's breath away, she paddled helplessly, never quite breaking the surface.

She found sudden air in which to inhale and use for screaming before she rolled over and off her bed, hitting the hard, wooden floor.

What? Was that a dream? No, she was still freezing cold, and wet...What just happened?

For some reason Realitys Exile came to mind. Drowning apparently wasn't a good enough excuse to not post.

She was alone in the house, and didn't think to call anyone she knew, so, like she did anytime she felt lost, she PMed Aiko.

Subject: OMG HOLY CRAP AIKO!!!

Aiko! I almost drowned! I was just walking around in my pasture when I fell in the water, I can't swim so I started freaking out and suddenly I was in my bedroom! Help!

Beflexor then ran upstairs to change into some dry clothes while she waited for a response.

(OOC: There ya go! Just "log on" to RE and get shockified to get your powers, yeah, it's corny, but aren't most superheroes in a realistic situation? XD)

Scout was on Reality's Exile, like he was most of the time. He sat in a swively chair with his smooth white plastic laptop on his legs. The glowing symbol of a half-eaten apple could be seen on the back of his computer.

He typed the finishing touches of a post and clicked the "Add Reply" button. He grinned. Let's see how they like that! he thought. He got up from his chair and left the computer momentarily, heading to the cupboard to get himself a delectable drink of orange squash.

Little did Scout know that while he left his computer unattended, something beyond his power was shaping the very innards of RE's structure, so that while it remained a forum for people to gather and role play, it also would become the conduit for something completely different.

When the poor, unsuspecting Scout returned to pick up his computer, it zapped him. It zapped a bit hard, and it hurt Scout's hand, so he was very annoyed. He set down the orange concoction that he was going to drink and put the computer back on his lap.

Little tiny electric shocks were going between the strands of his long, curly hair, but what did Scout know? Nothing. He continued foruming.

(I'm gunna use Em as my name for this because its what most people call me, if you wana call me darthanis/darthy... go ahead)


*Beep*
*Beep*
The lump in bed stirred and a head rose up out of the pile of red pillows on the bed.
Em rolled over and scrubbed his eyes with his wrists to get rid of the morning blurriness that so often plagued him. Pushing aside half the pile of black bedding he sat up, and touched his mousepad.
The screen on the black and silver laptop winked to life and a lazy finger called up the Xfire messages he had just recieved.

[9:20]Kiesthegruntarbiter:You awake yet?
[9:25]Kiesthegruntarbiter:Now?

Arg... Siblings... But he had a point... Em had overslept... With such dark walls and a black curtain over the basement window, it was hard to notice what time if day it was especially on an overcast day.

Em swung his legs off his bed and began to look at the other messages that had come en-masse

[9:25]Rip:You awake?
[9:25]Rip:Can you try and send sims again?

Em rifled through his files sending the sims file for the third time that week. After saying his "good morning"s to his IMs he tabbed up firefox and hit "refresh" on the tab labled "Reality's Exile"

Em managed to get a shock for his efforts and he muttered under his breath about "Cursed Cabal" and went to light his candles. Much to his surprise he was struck by a dizzy spell and imminently sat down.
"Odd... I just woke up... I don't usually get those yet... "

Em had a bad habit of talking to himself when he was alone and contemplating a particularly odd subject. Suddenly EP's Hexagonal background didn't seem so... Spiffy
As of now it was utterly confounding his brain and making his head swim.
flopping back down on his bed he decided he needed "breakfast" and went upstairs to get Tea and Orange Juice.

After finishing his "breakfast" he came back to his computer with a steaming mug of tea and decided that he would have another go at reading Reality's Exile.
Something still seemed odd about the background so he decided to post in "Real life rants" poking fun at EP and his confusing background.

"I wonder if anyone else got the same thing..."

And Em went back to chatting with his normal peoples.

Mondays were always busy days for Aiko. Not only did she have two classes in the middle of the day, but she it was the day she worked on identifying the oodles of plants she shoved into her press the previous week. Once that was done, she had an hour at home to eat a light dinner before kyuki-do lessons. By then it was generally 9 PM, and she was pretty tired. However, not too tired to avoid turning on AIM.

-Aiko- Hey EP, you online?
-EP- Yeah... Something odd happened though, and I need a professional opinion
-Aiko- Oh? What happened?
-EP- Well the SATA cable on my hard drive came loose, and when I tried to plug it back in, I got shocked. Everything looks okay, but is there any possibility something else might be damaged?
-Aiko- Oh man, you got lucky. If Aether started up okay you should be fine. Shocks generally hurt motherboards, but it must be okay if it didn't die. Tomorrow will tell, I guess. Sometimes these things don't die until you shut them down again. Cross your fingers.
-EP- Yeah... here's hoping.
-EP- Oh, question.
-Aiko- Yeah?
-EP- About jump drives, you said something that made me kinda wonder. I figure it should be more that a ship has to travel across a rift from point A to point B, not that the space occupied by the ship is folded.
-Aiko- So you think it should be more of a wormhole than space folding? I don't really see why it needs to be changed, we've sorta already got the methodology established.
-EP- Well see... space cannot occupy two points at once, they can only be adjacent.
-Aiko- Well yeah, but that doesn't mean space from one place can't touch space from another place. It matches with current quantum theory, you know.
-EP- still... it just makes more sense, I mean travelling from here to-whoa...
-EP- Aiko...
-Aiko- Did Aether explode on you again?
-EP- wtf? no... I just made a hole...
-Aiko- In what? O.o?? Your desk?
-EP- um... the air... actually... Wow, I should have taken my meds this morning...
-EP- HOLY CRAP! I MADE ANOTHER ONE!
-EP- And I can see through to the first! I'm right after all!
-Aiko- What are you going on about?
-Aiko- Didn't your mom tell you not to play with scissors? *snickers*
-EP- . . .
-EP- I'm serious here, I'm not kidding
-Aiko- Congratulations. You have made a hole. Lots of things have holes. Swiss cheese, colinders, cows, people....
-EP- BUT NOT AIR! Ever seen a hole in thin air? I have... BECAUSE I JUST MADE ONE!
-Aiko- Oh gawd, put your pants back on! That's just nasty, you're killing kittens in India!
-EP- Stobbit! I'm serious!
-EP- Oh... snap....
-EP- My cat just fell through the hole, and out the other side...
-Aiko- That's... just nasty man.
-EP- Ok... now that was just in bad taste.
-Aiko- You started it.
-EP- I'M NOT JOKING!
-EP- Ok... I can see through one hole and out the other. It's like a gate that travels six feet through nothing!
-EP- I just made one out on the porch roof, and threw a CD case through it! It's like a real spacefold!
-Aiko- Yeah, you should've taken your meds this morning. Take a break from blender for a couple of days too. I think all the modeling is getting to ya. O.o
-EP- I'm not playing around here! I can make gateways that span some serious distance!
-Aiko- Riiiiiight. Next thing you know, Sirius is gonna pop out of the woodwork.
-EP- Stop it, Aiko. You've known me for awhile now. I'm a lot of things, but a liar isn't one of them. I am folding space right in front of me here.
-Aiko- No, you're not a liar, but you are a jokester. Fine, if you're making gateways, prove it. Make one here.
-EP- How? I don't know where you are, I don't even know what your room looks like, How would I know I have the right one?
-Aiko- Easy solution to that. You want a physical address or a picture? *snickers*
-EP- Oh ha ha... I'll take both.
-EP- nubkakes...
-Downloading files directions.doc, my_room.jpg from Aiko-
-Aiko- I can't fit my whole room in the picture, but there's my chair and my computer desk.
-EP- Aight... here goes.
-Aiko- Ow! Frick!!! What the hell?! Something hit me on the back of my head?! *swivels in chair*
-EP- Odd.... *snickers*
-Aiko- Why are you snickering? That hurt!
-EP- Oh... no reason
-Aiko- Yeah, ya little twerp, I'll hav
-User Aiko has gone idle 23:14 Mon Sept 17 2007-

Aiko rubbed the back of her head and stared at the disk still spinning on the desk in front of her. It had cavemen and dinosaurs on the front. "Adventure Pinball: Forgotten Island? This isn't mine..."

Aiko chewed her lip and then stopped. "It... no waaaay..." Spinning in her chair, her jaw dropped open when she saw a portal hovering at eye level. The edges shimmered like water, but were clearly outlined by a bold line totally devoid of light. In the center of the gate was a very familiar face.

"Holy... shit... you can make holes!!!" she said in excitement. "That's AWESOME!"

EP smiled a smile rivalling the cheshire cat.

"Isn't it though? and you said I needed medication.... Serves ya right, ya unbeliever!"

"What a shit-filled day that was!" Wes shouted after he arrived home from work.

His mom had used her hour-long lunch break to pick him up from work and dropped him off at the house before going back to work, and the police lieutenant his mom worked under still hadn't given any word about him going to work there. For more than a month he had been waiting to hear about the job, which would pay substantially better than the one he had, and chances were that he wouldn't be nearly as sore in the afternoon doing filing for the concealed handguns department as he was doing all the heavy lifting, walking around, and dealing with both crappy coworkers and customers at Target.

One thing was sure, once he no longer worked for Target, he'd never go in one of their stores if he could help it.

After spending a half hour in a nice, hot shower that did wonders on his aching muscles, he slipped on a pair of undershorts and his favorite rubber-ducky-and-bubbles patterned lounge pants, then turned the computer on and paid another visit to the site where he spent more of his time, Reality's Exile, and went through the cluster of new posts.

When he was almost halfway through, he went to the kitchen to get fix a bowl of cereal. He set teh bowl down on the Ohio State coster next to the keyboard, then scooted both away from it so as not to screw it up if he spilled his food. Taking a bite, he set his hand on the mouse and got a bit of a nasty shock.

"Ow, F**K!" He shouted. It wasn't really the pain that made him shout, but the sudden surprise of it that startled him. "Damn..."

he spent about a good hour accomplishing nothing on the computer (an hour well-spent, as he saw it), then got a little tired, as anyone who has to get up at 3 AM will get before the afternoon, and decided to take a bit of a nap. Before that, though, he needed to let the dogs out. When he did, he saw that same stray that had been hanging around the house for about a week. He wasn't even sure it was a stray, since it looked like it had been taken care of, but all the same, that dog was just grating on his nerves. And, as with every animal that came around the house that didn't belong there, he yelled at it like some really pissed off drunk.

"GET THE F**K OUT OF HERE!!!!"

The dog had started to run off as soon as it saw him (mainly because he had a habit of throwing empty glass soda bottles at it, trying to scare it off), but a peculiar thing happened when he yelled at it. Either it was his imagination, or the dog was thrown to the ground and pushed a few feet, as if it had been hit by an invisible linebacker. Wes gave the dog a weird look as it started yelping and got up, running with its tail between its legs, then he just shrugged and went back inside.

For some reason, he stopped feeling tired when he hit the bed, so he decided to watch that Tenacious D movie again. After the crap he had to put up with today, a few laughs would do the trick. Besides, he didn't have to go in the next day, anyway.

"Wow, you're back early!" he called out to another driver who had just pulled in for the night. It was 1:00 AM Tuesday morning after Transcon parked Truck 6 in it's spot back in the yard. It was supposed to be a long night as one of his coworkers had called in sick Monday. The first account took less time than he thought it would, and he got to the next account that was normal for the day about a half-hour early. Not all the trucks were in, and he barely pumped off any diesel to begin with. So, hanging out at that account for the half hour to chase down anyone who needed fuel (who all said that they were okay), the rest of the night went fine. Transcon started his day at 3:00 PM Monday, and ended at 1:00 AM Tuesday.

"Yeah, light night," Johnathan replied. "Sysco is usually light on Mondays, then I even did Potelco."

"Eep," Trancon grimaced. "Nasty places."

"Well, it actually wasn't that bad tonight," he replied. "Gotta park this thing and get home. I start my second job early in the morning."

"You have a second job?"

"Oh, I've always had one. Talk with ya later, Vic!" With that, Transcon hopped into his black 2007 Ford Ranger and drove home.

The two and a half mile trip wasn't so bad. The intersection at 102nd and NE Glisan was under night construction. NW Natural Gas had been working on lines through there, and it looked like they were putting the finishing touches. The flaggers saw him coming, and sent him through on his left turn onto 102nd.

The Halo soundtrack was playing on his car deck in MP3 format. He had the music down low as he was thinking about how to work the three-way joint post between himself, Kies, and Rip. Then, his imagination went on its own as he began to think further on how to write up more short stories that involved the characters from Red vs. Blue: The Chronicles of Blood Gulch.

Five minutes later, he was in through the door of his apartment. He crossed the living room to turn on the light. Tossing down the small insulated backpack, the jacket, and the orange reflective vest, he reached into the fridge and pulled out a bottle of Porter.

This was Transcon's evening ritual. Pop the top of a beer, sit down in front of the new machine, and wiggle the mouse to turn on the screen. He tapped the Firefox shortcut on the toolbar and watched Google pop up. Next, he hit the shortcut button for Reality's Exile. As it was loading, he sat back, kicked off the work boots, lit a cigarette, then pulled from his beer bottle.

He noticed Darthy's post in Real Life Rants and reached for the mouse. A small zap caused his palm to twitch. Furrowing a brow, he lifted the mouse and looked it over. Next, he stood up and looked behind the computer desk following the mass array of cables down to the power bar.

"I've heard of people having problems with Vista," he muttered to himself, "but I call bullshit on that." It was the wrong season for static charges to randomly go off, plus his mouse casing was plastic... AND the La-Z-Boy never gave him static problems to begin with.

Considering it weird, he waved his hand and cautiously touched the mouse with his finger tips. Nothing bit him this time, so he carefully proceeded with his ritual of perusing the new posts on the forums. Transcon read Darthy's post and took a careful look at the background EP was working on. He didn't notice anything different.

After pressing 'Enter', he was routed back to the main page. The notion of the computer mouse biting him with static discharge was still nagging at his mind. So, he went back to his post and clicked the 'edit' button on the screen.

He pressed Enter again, and watched as the screen sent him back to the main page. With a sigh, as his loneliness started to wash over him as it sometimes did, he leaned backward into his recliner and relaxed some. What he could've done for some excitement to liven up his dull life.

Rip tapped at her keyboard and paused. “’Prolly still in bed...” she sighed, leaning back into her pillows and stretching out her arms. She reached her hand over and tapped at the touch pad a few times. Reality’s Exile glowed from the laptop into the dim room.

Shades hung from the windows, the one by her bed had a cloak blocking the ever so annoying day moon. She yawned again before hunching herself over her laptop and letting a finger rest on the touchpad.

“Ow!” she pulled her finger back and stuck it in her mouth. “Dagnabbit! Is this because I left you on overnight?” She let her finger touch the pad again, but nothing happened.

“Typical.” Rip groaned, leaning back into the pillow. No posts of interest on the lonely message board. She picked a piece of origami paper off of the stack on her window sill and began to fold. Maybe ten minutes went by before she was satisfied with her creation. A little dragon, something she’d been working to learn for six months. She took in a deep breath and held it, bringing the origami just in front of her face. She sat still for a moment, and let the breath out through her mouth and a loud sigh. Maybe she wasn’t satisfied…

She closed her eyes and fell back into the pillows, falling to sleep in seconds.

Arx Fatalis had just finished his breakfast: 2 Eggs, over-easy with some pepper and other doodads sprinkled on, Bacon, and some milk. Feeling plump and happy, even though he was deathly skinny, he walked into his bedroom.

But... while walking through the hallway...

*trip* "WhaaAA--" THUD!

His dog lay sleeping on the carpet, even after his owner had tripped over him and nearly landed on him.

"Gaaah! TIPPY! WHY would you do that?"

The old hound's only response was a small snort as the dog kept sleeping. Arx sighed and stepped over his old friend, walking into his bedroom.

Inside, he headed straight for the good ol' compy. Maybe someone posted in Infinity Grand Prix, or Origin, or one of the other countless RPs he was having fun in that were deathly silent. (Hint, hint.) As he reached for the mouse...

Nothing happened. Of course, why would it? It's just a mouse.

As he browsed the site, he noticed that, unfortunately, no one had helped Origin progress any farther. As he clicked and typed, however, he began to hear a strange, humming noise, but he disregarded it. His monitor was probably going bad, it was an old 21" CRT Monitor.

But, as soon as he clicked the Add Reply button on the Proverbial Cattle Prod...

Nothing happened, other than the post loading up.

"THAT should get 'em going," Arx said confidently. He fiddled around on the site before going to a few others, including his WoW guild website, MySpace, Email account, and another forum. Smiling, completed, he rolled his chair away from the desk.

He was about to walk out of the room when, in a high-pitched scream, his monitor exploded.

Shards of prismatic glass/crystal went everywhere, in the wall, in the desk, but most of them were in Arx's back.

"SON OF A B!*ch!!"

His favorite monitor. Just exploded. And to top it all off, those little bits of shrapnel gave him a nasty little shock. Storming out of the room, he punched the air, seeing as he didn't want anything else to break, but still felt it necessary to make some sort of violent motion. Off to go find some pliers to get the pieces out of his back.

Behind him, the shards of the broken monitor started forming back together.

(Err..... I suppose I'll go by the name Joshua)

Joshua more commonly know as Kies sat in his basement waiting impatiently at his brothers' computer. Why was he waiting and what for? First off Em still hadn't tried out the 2D animation program and he wanted to get to work on it and secondly, Em was still asleep.

Joshua reached for his mouse to prod Em again and see if he was awake, Joshua set his right hand on the mouse and clicked the refresh button on realitys-exile. Or would have, instead of the normal feeling the smooth black plastic oval shape of the mouse
he received a pain full shock from it. "Oww!" "I knew are electricity was bad but I didn't
think it would ever come to this." Joshua rubbed his wrist with his other hand and called up an Xfire chat window with Em.

[9:20]Kiesthegruntarbiter:You awake yet?
[9:25]Kiesthegruntarbiter:Now?

"Bah he's never awake this early" Joshua muttered to himself.

[9:25]Kiesthegruntarbiter:When I went to touch the mouse it shocked me, I think this house was made by the three stooges.

Joshua stood up and walked upstairs and in to the Kitchen, He came in to the kitchen to find Stephen his older brother eating breakfast. Ralph, his brothers' dog came zooming in the room followed by Mamita the chihuahua. The two started barking and licking him and then ran off in to the living room where they began to quarrel.

Joshua sat down and poured a bowl of mini wheats and milk and ate.

"Gah, these things always stick in your stomach like a rock!"

Joshua got up and went in to the bathroom and stood in front of the sink and began to brush his teeth. One finished he looked up in the mirror at his reflection,
He stood about 5'7 and had black hair that ran down a bit in front of his eyes in some parts. He was wearing blue jeans and a brown hoodie.

Joshua held his head "Well I guess yesterdays cold didn't go away." Well i'm never sleeping with a hood on again, his hair was all flat and pressed in front of his face and in general looked strange. Joshua fixed it as best he could so that it didn't look like he had an emo chunk and then went back downstairs. He sat down and called up another xfire chat window with EP who was strangly online(AFK noob)

[9:31]Kiesthegruntarbiter: So I got up this morning and Stephens' computer mouse zapped me.

[9:31]Kiesthegruntarbiter: And now I have this headache that won't go away.

A few days ago Beflexor was telling Jaden to come back to Reality's Exile, Lt. Jessie had 99% on Metroid Prime 3 and she was missing what she guessed to be an energy tank for that 100% Jaden thought he knew what energy tank it was, after all, he had the same problem. So PMing her where it is could be something he could do. After all, who didn't want to see the best ending to a video game?

So after eating fruit-loops he went into his sister's room to see if she was awake, as he always did. He didn't have to be very quiet since their parents were out doing something in town. To his surprise his sister wasn't there. "Now that's something I don't see very often," he said to himself.

He went downstairs and started up his computer, his sister's was already on. "She must be outside." Jaden didn't know why he could remember so much about video games, it was just something he could do, so why not help Jessie out? He was guessing it was the same energy tank as it was for him. It was in an out-of-the-way place. He went to Reality's Exile and found a post done by Lt. Jessie, he clicked the PM button. He wrote his message that would point to just where it was at, and that she would need the spider-ball to get it. While he was typing he was rubbing his sock-covered feet over the carpet under the desk, something he did from time to time while on the computer. Then, after he was almost done with the message, he got shocked through the keyboard. "Ow! Dang carpets" he shouted, "why can't these floors downstairs be hardwood floors too?" His fingers felt a little tingly while he finished the message and clicked send.

*Thump* was the sound that came from upstairs. "Mom and Dad are back from town!" Jaden said while closing the window on his computer. He ran upstairs only to find the backdoor, which the whole family used all the time, was still closed. What's was that then? He thought to himself. He walked into the living room and heard someone run downstairs. It had to have been his sister back from being outside. So he went downstairs to see if it really was her, or someone who was stealing things from the house.

When he turned the corner at the base of the stairs he found his sister's hair dripping wet and typing on the computer. "What are you doing?" He said to her in confusion.

"I'm PMing Aiko about what happened. Then I've got to change clothes."

The confusion was less since she cleared it a little, "Ok, well while you wait for a reply, and after changing clothes, do you mind if you tell me why you're dripping wet?"

EP and Aiko experimented with EP’s newfound ability until it was nearly 2AM. Tired and having classes the following day, Aiko had to call it quits. It was fun chucking ice cubes and X-Box controllers at each other, gradually increasing the mass involved, but Aiko could barely keep her eyes open. EP needed sleep too, so they decided to work on it the next time they saw each other online.

Before going to bed, Aiko made one last stop at RE. She’d been so excited about what EP could now do that she’d forgotten about the website. Refreshing the page, she toggled through the menus with her wireless mouse and keyboard with no problems at all. She noticed she had a PM in her inbox and was rather stunned by the contents.

Subject: RE: OMG HOLY CRAP AIKO!!

Are you seriously okay?! You should go to the doctor just in case you inhaled some water. Try and calm down if you can. Is Jaden around? Your parents? You must’ve passed out and somebody probably carried you back. Seriously, you should at least see a doctor, if not go to the ER.

Please let me know how everything turns out! Man, I’m glad you’re okay.
~Aiko

Shaking her head back and forth, she wondered if Beflexor’s PM was going to give her weird dreams. She generally dreamed about the last prominent thing she read or watched before bed, and this had her worried. She really hoped that Beflexor was okay.

With a yawn, she shut Bob down and crawled into bed.

-------------------

The next day went quickly for Aiko. She was eager to get back home and see if EP’s talent still existed. She managed to sneak out of the office right after her last class and she drove home.

Taking the stairs up to her bedroom two at a time, Aiko put her backpack down next to her bed and hopped into her computer chair. Reaching down, she pushed the power switch on Bob. She jerked her hand back as she got a rather powerful shock.

”Shit!” She rubbed her fingers, then stared at Bob in irritation. Fan-effing-tastic. She probably just fried her motherboard. What the hell was it with technology lately? Even the people on RE were complaining about static electricity yesterday.

Thinking all hope was lost for her pathetic computer, she pushed the button one last time. The power supply, cooling fans, and LEDs went on, but that didn’t mean much. Aiko sat sideways in her chair and held her breath as her monitor began displaying the BIOS. She didn’t exhale until Windows booted.

“I can’t believe it. I wonder how long the motherboard’s going to last. Knowing my luck this is it’s last grand finale.”

Her excitement about talking to EP dulled somewhat because of her frustration with Bob, she signed onto AIM. EP wasn’t online, so she left him an offline message.

-Aiko- Hey, I’m home. Give me a buzz when you get here. No stealing, spacewalking, or throwing anything into my room please. Just IM me.

She surfed back to RE and was somewhat surprised not to see another PM in her inbox from Beflexor. That had her worried. She loaded up X-Fire knowing that B used that instant messenger, but nobody except Em was online.

-Aiko- EP, did you see Beflexor or Jaden on X-Fire at all since yesterday? Apparently she almost drowned. You haven’t heard anything, have you?

Minimizing AIM, she double clicked Em’s name in X-Fire and decided to chat with him.

-Aiko- Heya Em, you gonna write for Seraph in the Arena soon? ^-^

*Beep*

Em looked for his latest message, clicking on the orange blinking Xfire tab.

Aiko: Heya Em, you gonna write for Seraph in the Arena soon? ^-^

Em screwed up his nose and started to think of a reply.

Em: Id love to... However I can't think of what to post. There really isn't much for Seraph to do Validus and Istus are kinda bumming around. However, I do need to post with Darthanis.

Em: The only trouble is, I'm still debating how to post with him....

Restoring RE he hit "Refresh" on his Firefox tab and noticed Transcon had replied to his post in Real-Life Rants

Em hit the "Reply" button

"Add Reply"

Looking over he noticed his candles were burning low and needed dousing. In jest of his wave of "telekinetic" dreams he had been having of late, he reached one hand out and after settling his mind on the wick of the candle, he clenched his fist shut.

The candle went out with a reluctant *puff*. Realizing the idea that HE doused the candle as completely absurd, he looked to his open window and stood up to finish blowing out the rest of his candles. Shaking his head he had a good laugh at coincidence's expense.
Sitting back down on his bed he sent Aiko another message

Em: So, hows the karate going?

*Click, Click*

Opening the tab titled "Rip" he sent her a message as well.

Em: W00t, Sims disc 2 is almost done, Only 45% left.....
Em: -_-

Most of the day had gone by in a Blur due to the fact that he had been watching "Batman Beyond" and "Batman TAS" all day.

"Sigh, I wish people posted in the fantasy section more often..."

((Please note that this took place the morning of the day we're currently on.))

Several minutes after going back to sleep, Rip's door slammed open. Ah... the beginnings of a typical morning.

"Lisha! Lisha! Lisha! Lisha, Guess what!"

Rip rolled over, pulling the heavy quilts up over her head. “Go away!” she groaned. She tucked the quilts under her knees and held on as tight as she could incase Caleb decided to steal them.

Caleb did exactly that, and to an extent, succeeded, but not nearly well enough.

"Aww come on... You gotta see this! I can make holes in the air!"

Rip released the quilts and grabbed onto her sheepskin, wrapping it around herself.

“Get out of my room, you weren’t invited!"

"Nope! But I came anyway, now get up! You gotta see this! Seriously!"

Rip didn’t answer; she just curled her fingers around the sheepskin and squeezed her eyes shut. It was getting unusually hot under her sheepskin. She poked her feet from underneath to let some of the hot air out, but it just got warmer. She started sweating.

“What in the nin-”

She threw the sheepskin from the bed and jumped back, examining a singe mark on her shirt. She looked down at the bed with a glare.

“What the deuce?”

In EP's hand sat one of the tiniest, most adorable looking little dragon Rip had ever seen. EP gave her a sheepish smile, and set the dragon down.

"Don't know where he came from, but it got you out of bed..."

Rip looked at her brother, then back down at her white sheets. Or at least, they used to be white. A black mark smeared across the sheets. She looked back at Caleb.

“I, that,”

She jumped up, ripping her blankets from each other.

“Where’d it go?”

She crawled over to the edge of the bed and glared at it.

“What is that thing?”

EP shrugged, the edges of a smile forming

"No idea, but it was sitting on top of you looking ever so forlorn, and I helped it wake you up."

Rip continued to glare at it. It let out a little squeaking noise, and then what must’ve been a cough. A puff of ash flew from his mouth into Rip’s face. “Get tha-” Something tickled the inside of her nose.

“Ah!”

She felt a sneeze coming on.

“Ah choo!”

She held up her hands and clutched her head. Opening one eye to glare back at the beast, instead there was her origami.

“Caleb, this is a terrible joke, and you know it.”

She snatched the paper dragon from him.

EP looked at the origami, then back at Rip.

"Wow... I think we have a trend here. How did you do that?"

“Stop playing games with me. You’re a bad liar and we all know it.”

She slid off the bed and pushed the door shut and took her Halo 3 hoodie off the nail on the back of the door. She slid the hoodie on and zipped it up.

“I need tea…”

She let out a sigh and put her hand on the knob.

“Where’s the lizard?”

She looked at Caleb in confusion.

EP grabbed the origami, and held it in fromt of her.

"You sneezed, and voila, it became paper. That is genius. I'd kill to be able to turn things to paper. All I can do is this though."

Pointing his hand at the ceiling over Rip's bed, EP opened a rift. The edges seemed to shimmer and distort the light passing through it like water, but the center disc of the rift stayed ominously black, with hints of dark blue highlighting.

"See?"

Rip’s eyes widened.

“What did I do last night?”

A question more directed at herself then Caleb. She pulled at the door and turned to leave the room, slamming the door into her forehead.

“Ugh!”

She slammed the door shut and leaned on it.

“Well, the dreaming theory’s been ruled out…"

EP looked at her strangely.

"Look, if you needed waking up, you could just make the dragon real again, and have him toast your feet for a bit, instead of using a door... that'd wake you up."

Rip glared at Caleb.

“You’re joking, right?”

She snatched the paper dragon by the tail and held it in front of her face.

“What, do you think if I say the magic words it’ll be a dragon. Look! Behold the breath of life!”

She blew at it.

“See, noth- ah! Caleb it’s alive!”

She threw the dragon into her closet door and jumped around behind her brother.

EP rolled his eyes, and walked over to the closet door.

"Oh come on... it's friendly!"

Opening the door, EP let the tiny dragon wander out onto the floor.

"See?"

Well Rip just looked at him for a moment.

"Ok, what's this blue thing?"

She pointed at the hole.

EP smiled widely.

"Jump. I'll show you."

She raised and eyebrown and stared at him skeptically.

"Just do it. It'll be fun! Trust me!"

Rip felt her feet firmly planet on the tile floor. She didn't feel like jumping, but she should at least try to amuse the poor boy. Rip jumped.
Underneath her, an identical portal opened. There was a brief swirl of cobalt that almost immediately bled out into a view of the room from the position of the other rift, as if someone had opened a window in the floor. She, of course, had no time for anything more than the brief relization of what was going on before falling into the floor, and out of the ceiling, landing with a heavy thud on her bed.

"See? Isn't it awesome!"

Rip just sat there staring at Caleb. "I wanna do it again..."

EP gave Rip a mischevious look.

"You think that's cool, watch this!"

Closing the rift over Rip's bed, EP opened another directly over the rift in the floor, and without hesitation, jumped in, and promptly fell out of the ceiling, and back into the floor. He continued the process for another three or four seconds before closing the rift in the ceiling, and disappearing into the floor. Seconds later, the rift in the floor closed, and EP bounced into the air, upside down, in front of Rip's uncovered window.

"QUICK!"

He disappeared breifly, then reappeared again.

"Open the-"

"-Other one!"

Rip looked at the cloak and grinned.

"No, I don't think I will..."

She sprinted from the bed and out the door.

"Tea break!"

She shouted, slamming the door behind her.

Halfway between the door to her room, and the stairs, another rift opened, and EP came flying out, landing in a crouch on the floor of the room.

"Oh that wasn't very nice of you..."

"Nice is a four letter word."

EP gave her an annoyed look, and began opening a rift in the floor.

"We jump on 3, ok?"

Stepping to the edge of the rift, EP counted down.

"Aight... 3... 2... 1... GO!"

The two of them jumped together, and with a flipflopping sensation, saw their feet fly up and out of the floor next to them, before finding themselves flying upside down through the floor, right next to where they had jumped.

However, what goes up, must always come back down. The two fell back through the floor, and popped up through the floor of the Kitchen, landing on their feet on the other end of a neatly closed rift.

"Now that... is travelling in style."

When Wes woke up the next day, he felt like his head was in a vice.

Great, he said to himself. A hangover without the fun of being drunk beforehand.

He lay there for a while, not really wanting to move. He gave a heavy sigh, then noticed something weird. He could hear someone breathing loudly next to him. It wasn't just heard, but felt. His nerves were making his hands shake, and he was practically terrified to open his eyes, for fear of seeing someone in his room. If someone was there, they were waiting on him to wake up. He mustered up his courage and opened his eyes to see... nothing. His warzone for a room was the same as it had been for the past couple months.

But he still heard the breathing. It sounded - no, felt like it was coming from right in front of him, and a bit lower than the bed, close to the floor. He listened hard and closed his eyes, trying to figure out where the sound was coming from. When Wes opened his eyes, what he saw nearly made him piss himself.

Instead of the sunlight and colors he saw just a moment ago, everything was varying shades of blue, and right around his hamster's wheel, there seemed to emanate waves of a sort. They were spherical in appearance, and when they hit him and passed through, they left a slight tingling feeling. The shock wore off when he realised that what had nearly scared him shitless... was a damn rodent that looked like a walking toupee.

A little while later, after realising that he could change his vision to see sound or light at will, Wes had accidentally found that he could push objects by shouting, at the expense of his mircowave meal that had burned his hands and made him yell his favorite four-letter word. He had attempted to take the plate his food was on out of the microwave, but it burned his fingertips, and when he yelled, it flew away from him and the contents were thrown all over the inside of the nuke box. Then, when he shouted a different choice word a little louder and turned away from the mess, one of the pots that had been sitting on the counter flew off the counter and slammed into the wall with a clang. It rang loudly in his head, but it didn't hurt his ears, oddly enough.

About an hour and a small mess later, Wes paid a visit to RE and started to excitedly pound away at the keyboard, typing up a PM to Darth, one of the few people there he talked to on a regular basis. Taking a quick look at it afterwards, he realised he would have sounded like a real nutjob or a liar, so he reworded it to make it sound like it was a trippy dream that felt so real that it was a shock to wake up and find it was only a dream, then clicked the send button.

On the way to school that morning, Scout couldn't help but notice the electrical charge accumulating around a lot of things that he was near. Like his wool cloak. It was particularly good at shocking passing pedestrians. The bus rail also seemed to like him a lot. Very shocking. He resolved to investigate this further after Algebra.

With Algebra being simply a long lecture about the current chapter, Scout found himself with a ten minute break between Algebra and his awesome Latin class. Determined to find the source of his new-found persistently negative charge, he went outside to look at the bike racks. He put his finger near the bike rack.

Tzzap.

Really, he didn't expect any less. Scout looked up. It didn't seem like rain. It hadn't thundered recently either. He held his hand over his mouth and chin in thought.

Five minutes to class. He quickly opened his computer and looked at who was online. Aiko was there, so he IMed her.