Hanging Up The Cape

Caleb never knew that aside from saving lives, his superpowers had another usage. Claiming all of the high score ranks on Mindsuckers IV: Binary Code, an arcade game about these little alien creatures that latched onto your skull and sucked your brains out, like they were slurpies. It was a puzzle game, but at the same time a first person shooter, with real time strategy aspects. Currently, he was at the rank of General, he didn't know how high the ranks could go, but right now he thought he was pretty high. His legion of pixels followed him dutifully, as he scouted for AI's. Right now, it was easy street as he tilted the control stick forward with almost zombie like diligence. At any moment he would flick the buttons and rocket into- at close inspection -a quite amazing display of dexterity.

He had been standing here for about... Nah, he couldn't remember. All he knew was that he was on pins and needles for the next appearance of the monsters. The spongy creatures left their egg sacs, or something resembling them, everywhere. They grew from the ceiling and the floor, so you never knew if you were entering their territory or not, because everything looked alike! It was his one and only complaint, but he guessed it added to the fright factor. The more he walked, the more he felt like something was going to jump out at him, and sometimes, he thought they were going to attack en masse, but they didn't... Though, eventually, they always caught up with him and attacked. And no matter what formation he used, he would lose a ton of men. He was down to twenty. The worst part about losing the soulless computer programs wasn't the fact that he would miss them... But the fact that they returned as zombies to attack him and spread the plague. Infuriating and addicting at the same time.

Here it comes... Here it comes... He could feel it coming. His eyes grew into huge saucers, until finally, he mashed down on the keys, sending his men into a flurry of action, bullets flew into the blackness as dull pink squid like creatures the glided through the sky on their webbed tentacles collapsed onto them. Caleb's PC ducked for cover, he could hear the automated voice screaming commands in the same calm tone as always. He knew this was coming, but it wasn't like he could do anything about it. He almost felt like tearing his hair out. He hated the Gliders the most, because they were so unpredictable. You could usually see the Squatters long before they could see you, they might be bigger and tougher, but they were slow. Not lightning fast like these. "NO! NO! Questo non può accadere. Questo video gioco stupido sta per drive me insane!" He shouted to no one. The mostly darkened arcade room was deserted the majority of the time, probably because no one knew where it was.

Might as well let them die. he thought regrettably, knowing that he would face his own squadron again pretty soon. The mind-controlled soldiers were his greatest fear in this game, they were armored, had guns, and went straight for him always. With a jerk of the joystick, he sent his character into a sprint, racing away from the battle with no clear marker of his destination.

Dostaria found the station interesting; it was practically infinite, what with its countless rooms and corridors. Most of them were off-limits to her though. She wandered along in partial darkness, stopping to look at anything that caught her eye.

Her mind was numb; thoughts swam sluggishly around through half-frozen mind slush, their potency lost by the time they surfaced. Ever since the incident with the Evoknights she hadn’t seen Dante. She was sure he was okay, unless something had happened between the time she passed out and awoken near the Beta zone of Station Two. He said he would be there to protect her, and that she could count on him. He couldn’t leave if he was to complete his promise, but there he wasn’t, nowhere to be seen. Dostaria blinked a turned down a hall, walking at a slow pace. Was he back on Gertragia, completing more of his conquests? She should have realized how farfetched he’d sounded! It was so cliché what he’d said to her, it could have been right out of a storybook.

Dostaria continued wandering, and stopped to stare into a darkened room with the word “ARCADE” emblazoned above the sliding translucent door. She touched her fingers to the glass-like substance and immediately the door faded away, leaving before her a vast room filled with glowing multicolored screens and controllers. Her thoughts heated up as soon as she stepped into the room. There, buried deep in a game, was Caleb. The boy who’d left her on Weavon, but not on purpose. He thought she was dead. Carefully, so as not to startle him, she moved towards him. “Caleb?” She said, hoping she didn’t make him jump.

A mushroom cloud of shockingly blue hair exploded across Caleb's screen, washing away any thoughts about the stupid video game. He froze up. His eyes twitching like his mind was processing an encyclopedia. He saw brilliant marble beaches, waves that crashed onto a shore. And the one thing that stuck out of the image was Dostaria. He could see every detail of her like she was standing right in front of him, but... Something was different. The image flashed almost instantly, the air had turned electric, a dazzling display of explosions and terrible thoughts spun through his head like they were trapped in a tornado. Images of chains, stars, spaceships and a mouse man flashed in front of his eyes. What was going on? Caleb twisted, the sound of screeching aliens and the suction cup sucking of the Mindsuckers prevented the silence that would most certainly come.

He looked at Dos, his heart outpacing a jackhammers beat. He backed up against the console like a caged rat facing a big needle. His chest heaved as he gasped for air. He barely registered the fact that she had said his name. His mind had leaped again, clinging to a single branch in a hurricane of memories, he felt hands grabbing at him, dragging him away from... From something he knew he had to get back to. Not something, but, someone... Pictures changed faster than he could register until the rocky plateau he eerily felt was familiar had become a jungle. In all of his life, he had never even been to a jungle, yet he felt like he had been there. He felt the heat, the moisture in the air, and heard the sounds of the wild. They felt like memories but he felt like he was in another body, seeing things in the eyes of someone else.

It took only a second for Caleb's mind to process this, but his emotions were in a whirlpool. But one thought rose to the surface, and beat all of the others to form a reaction. Dostaria was alive. Caleb literally leaped at Dostaria, his image blurring at the speed he crossed the small distance. His arms crossed around her in a bear hug, helped immensely by his artificial arm. He almost felt like crying, in fact, he felt the sting of salty tears and slip from his eyes. But the need too keep his 'manly' image up forced them back. Instead, he laughed hysterically with joy, yapping the same words over and over again. "You're alive, you're alive."

Caleb’s reaction was too fast for her to register. She saw him back up against the console in what looked like fear or alarm; (she couldn’t tell exactly,) then disappear for less than a fraction of a second, and finally reappear with his arms around her. He was still the same Caleb. He hadn’t changed into some other person like she feared he would in her absence. He had gotten a new arm though, which could only be a good thing. Any and all thoughts of Dante were eliminated by Caleb’s show of affection. Her arms in tremors, Dostaria returned Caleb’s hug with almost equal strength. Her eyes clenched shut and she smiled. A genuine smile. For the first time in days, no, months, she felt truly happy. Everything was okay now, nothing was eating away at the back of her mind. But she knew this was only temporary.

"It's so good to see you again," She stuttered through his shoulder.

ooc: Derp

Caleb released Dos and took a step back, a grin the size of Texas on his face. "Good to see you again!? I thought you were dead for months! I-I-I saw you explode and... Then you were with this guy, eh... Dante! That's what you called him." Caleb's habit of turning his mouth into a river of words was becoming more and more apparent. "And then... You saw that one kid from Weavon, who made that ship just go... PBBLHT! I know his name starts with a T or something... Timmy, Tyler, Todd, Tad, Taffy, Taggart, Travis, Tom... THOMAS! Yes... Thomas. But that cave girl is gone... But its still great-no... Awesome to see you again." It was odd to think how well Caleb was taking this. Most people would be going insane at the thought that one of their friends had just come back to life, but Caleb had experienced worse things, way worse things.


OOC: Cheap post, just because. T NAMES WASTE SPACE!

"H-how did you know all that?" Dostaria was a little taken aback. Did she even hear him right? Unless she'd suddenly contracted short term memory loss, she was sure she hadn't told him those things. Was Caleb a mind venturer as well as super sprinter now?! She looked at her white-haired friend. Despite the strangeness of just having several months of memory extracted from her conscious (by someone other than Dante; she was used to that from him), she found herself smiling anyway.

"Yeah... I...- After the ship exploded-" Her smile faded a little. Dostaria was reliving the scene exactly. The swollen Weavon sun was low in the sky, but it wasn't any darker on the molten landscape.. A tremor, then an earthquake. Then falling... Dostaria shivered a little. And finally; the epitome of her suffering in that short moment- Caleb staring almost straight at her, and walking away. "After the ship exploded, I got captured. And... they kept me prisoner. S-so I couldn't get back." Dostaria stared at the floor, her mind a lightyears away. Had he seen what had happened on Weavon too? A certain part of her hoped that he had, just so he could have a minuscule taste of what she'd experienced. If he'd even checked to see if she was alive! Her vision blurred, and she found herself trying to keep tears from spilling out. She wasn't mad at Caleb. She was just... she didn't know.

ooc: XI

"Y-yeah... I know..." The realization finally dawned on Caleb that everything he was saying was nonsense that was like rotting cheese settling on the black top. He didn't know where this knowledge was coming from, and for a second his mind was buzzing like a beehive trying to think up all of the possibilities that were flowing through his head. He could think of about a thousand reasons why this could be happening, mind control, some kind of empathy link, or deja vu, whatever it was it gave him a headache, and made him feel like he was strapped onto one of those spinning rides at the carnival. Caleb stared into her eyes, trying to understand what she was thinking about this... Oddity. She almost seemed frustrated or flustered, she always had been hard to decipher... People in general were hard to understand, like... Alice.

Dostaria continued, plowing right over Caleb's '"I know'".

"And then I was sold to the secretary of a politician who's name was Amos. And this guy named Dante helped me escape from Amos and he's supposed to be here but he left and..." Her words came forth like a tsunami; one that destroyed any hope she had of coming out of this without tearing up. She returned his stare. Hopefully he couldn't tell exactly how she was feeling, because she didn't know herself. She looked down in order to keep the blue glow of Caleb's game from illuminating her face straight-on. The game in question was looking livid, if a game could even do such a thing. The words "GAME OVER" were stretched across the screen in a flashing, blistering crimson. "I wanted to get back so badly. I missed you a lot." Dostaria held her arms strictly to her sides. "You're-- I think you're my best friend." Best and only, sneered the innermost part of her mind.
Thomas was her friend, and so was Dante, she guessed. But she'd really only met Thomas a couple weeks ago and Dante had ditched her. Then again, she really hadn't spent all that much time with Caleb. No matter. She couldn't take back what she'd said now.

ooc: X_X
ooc:

Caleb twisted before he heard the machine speak. He stared at the screen, his mouth hanging open and his eyes peeled wide. His shoulders slackened for a moment, and he slowly turned to look at Dos. He closed his eyes, forgetting about all of the hours he had spent on that game, and how he had gotten almost nothing out of it. The slightly depressing occurrence. He smiled at Dostaria's words, even though he could sense some kind of disturbance with in here. Like there were two of her and each were playing a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors for dominance. He raised an eyebrow as he stared at Dostaria, he couldn't think of anything else to say, and truthfully, he was a tad bit unsettled at this news. She was alive, and she had gone through all of this, more or less, with the hope of finding him again? It was something out of a horribly cliche romance novel with too many plot holes. Not that he had ever read such a thing.

"Yeah..." he said finally, not thinking to add anything more to the subject. Now that he thought about it... What had he talked about with Dos before all of this? There was so much chaos, he didn't think there was a chance there could be time for a conversation. Besides, that other guy had been there too... "Katesen..."