Ron, what happened...?

Oh, GOD!! Is she all right???
Fuck, that does it! Now I'm just pissed off!!!!

Huh... I might try doing that tonight.

Ron Caliburn wrote:I'd recommend against it.

He was way too much for her one on one, and he summoned reinforcements.

Even so...I have to try. I carried her out of that compound... I sure as hell am not gonna leave her there, now.

Wish me luck.

Ugh... Feel like crap right now... Not 'cuz of anything Not Ron did... I overexerted myself... I will say, it was a close one...

I think I've got pneumonia again 'cuz of this... Don't worry, I'll be fine. It's nothing I haven't dealt with before...

I've gotta go lay back down... I've got some good news when I feel up to sharing it... Nothing so good as to say Hannah's rescued, but...hopefully still good...

KonThaak wrote:Ugh... Feel like crap right now... Not 'cuz of anything Not Ron did... I overexerted myself... I will say, it was a close one...

I think I've got pneumonia again 'cuz of this... Don't worry, I'll be fine. It's nothing I haven't dealt with before...

I've gotta go lay back down... I've got some good news when I feel up to sharing it... Nothing so good as to say Hannah's rescued, but...hopefully still good...

This is my daughter here, don't leave me hanging.

Feeling a bit better after my nap... Dunno how long it'll last, so I'll type up as much as I can...

After reading Ei's and Shadow's accounts...I knew that Hannah wouldn't be terribly receptive to my being there... I understand the concept of one who is afraid, for themselves and for others... Therefore, when I focused my whole will into dreaming about Hannah, I focused on "showing up" invisible...if that makes any sense whatsoever... >_<;;

Anyway...it worked. She didn't seem to realize I was there... After reading Ei's account, I expected everything to look fake...but for some reason, things seemed in sharper focus than what Ei described... The animals moved naturally... The grass looked real... The only thing was, everything was scaled just a bit bigger than it should've been...like, everything was scaled to the perception of a kid... The compound had...kind of a more sinister air, I thought...like the buildings were looming more than they had in real life...

Anyway... I was there, invisible, and watching Hannah go about her chores... I didn't see anyone else from the compound, but I knew they were there... No real rhyme or reason to it. Just dream logic... There was a feeling that there were more people around, but they were always just out of sight...

I struggled with myself... I wasn't sure how to approach Hannah that wouldn't make her uneasy. As I watched her climb a hill carrying a load of feed for the chicken trough at the top of the hill, I was struck by a memory... It happened while Hannah was staying with Lex and me... Lex had, at the time, been listening to a lot of Disturbed, and Hannah had been complaining that modern music was too loud and violent...so I exposed her to a lot of other things. One of the songs she'd liked was Peter Gabriel's Solsbury Hill...and watching her struggle with a fifty-pound bag of chicken feed up a hill, and our goal of bringing her home, made me remember teaching her those lyrics.

I started singing faintly, my voice reaching only her ears... Climbing up on Solsbury Hill... I could see the city lights... Wind was blowing, time stood still... Eagle flew out of the night... At first, she stiffened, and looked around wildly... When she didn't see anything, she looked worried, and then thoughtful... As I neared the end of the first verse, "grab your things, I've come to take you home", her eyes filled with tears, and she told me to go away... I finished singing the line, and she warned me that she'd call her "Pa" if I didn't go away... I told her I was sorry, and left her alone after that...

I watched her work some more, and thought... I thought of Shadow's and Ei's accounts of being here, again...and I remembered just a phrase that had stuck with me from Ei's post:

Eilonwy Solstice wrote:...like a photograph...

I remembered that because it made me think of the Nickelback song "Photograph"... I willed into existence a photograph of the memory of Hannah and me, sitting in front of my computer, me teaching her a few modern songs I knew she'd like... On the back of the photograph was the lyrics for the Three Days' Grace song "Never Too Late"... (Yeah, I know, there's a lot of music in this story. Deal.)

Before long, I had photographs of Hannah and me in the kitchen, exchanging recipes... (Put the recipe for my skillet breakfast on the back. Always a winner.) I had a photograph of Ei, Ron, and Willie standing outside the asylum door, as Hannah passed through it to heal Gabriel's troubled soul... I put "Thank you" on the back of that one... There was the photograph of Ron walking out of a bar, sober, holding a cell phone, with the message "Coming home to see you" on the back... I had several of Ron, Hannah, and Ei together, from when I saw them together, and various things they'd said to her... The most special one was a rare one...when I caught Hannah and Ron mid-hug, once... I put "I love you" on the back of that one... I hope you don't mind, Ron...

Well... I waited until she was doing a chore where I could beat her to her destination...

...

I'm sorry, guys, I've gotta lie down some more.

No wonder Ron was so upset... I'm sorry, Ei... If I still had my old abilities, I'd fly out there and help you this weekend, illness or no...

Been a rough day... No energy right now... Get back to y'all when I can... Maybe tonight or tomorrow...

Alright... Let's see how far I can get before I hack up a lung...

Hannah was going to feed the horses, so I beat her to the feeding trough and stuck the photos inside, where she'd see them for sure... She got to the trough, and started to dump the feed inside, when she stopped, blinking... She set the feed buckets down, and reached into the trough... As she looked at them, and looked at the backs of each one, her jaw dropped... When she saw the one of her and Ron, her eyes teared up a bit...

She stiffened, and suddenly shoved the photos into a pocket--DEEP into a pocket--and started quickly dumping the feed into a trough...just as the nightmare wonder stepped into view. I almost ran when I saw him, but I held my place, and hoped my invisibility would hold up to his scrutiny...

He started barking more orders for Hannah, more chores that needed to be done, and she needed to be the one to do them... Like any good cult leader, he was keeping her exhausted to a point where she wouldn't question... For a moment, she looked up at him, and I could imagine her eyes still red from looking at the photos... Her back was turned to me, so I couldn't tell, but there was something about her expression, it hit the nightmare... His last command was given in a slightly more subdued voice...slightly. His face almost softened...almost. And then he said, "Hannah, I know this is hard on you, but I'm doing this because I love you. I want you to live a righteous life. I want you to live a life free from the wickedness of the outside world, here where you're safe. It's because I love you that I demand so much of you."

She acknowledged with a subdued nod... I felt my right arm twitch. My fingers wanted to wrap around his neck... No father expresses his love like that--I should know, now. I stood, fully, and before I had dropped the invisibility, I had his attention. My cover was blown. I didn't care, at that moment. I felt like Gabriel, wanting to destroy him...but one frightened look from Hannah, and I kept myself in check. That look conveyed so much fear...for me. She was afraid of what Nightmare Ron was going to do to me...

Already he was working some kind of rifle or other, I don't know what, but it took a half-second to ready, raise, and fire, and I used that half-second to pull the ace from my sleeve...

...

I'm sorry... That's a crappy place to cut off, I know, but I just spent five minutes coughing. I need to get something warm for my throat, and get some sleep...

If it means she's back, do you really care how?

You need a tac team to do do a snatch and grab there Caliburn?

Me and what's left of the boys might be a little loud and messy when we do an extract, but we have a 75% recovery record when we go in to pic up whoever the latest vic is. (They cant be that much worse that trying to find and rescue the victims of supernats in their lairs, can they Caliburn?)

Or maybe you would like DC to take a second look at this compound you describe, and reassess how "clear and present" the danger such a group poses to national security.

The world went black... I couldn't move. I hadn't planned on my "ace in the hole" to have this reaction... I had imitated the energy that I had produced when I disbelieved in the paranormal. I needed to find out what I was doing to the dream around me...but first, I had to wait until the sounds of bullet fire stopped pinging off of me...

Once it died down, I dropped the field...and found myself rapidly being surrounded. The nightmare had called his reinforcements.

I felt giddy. I didn't know, at that time, the extent to which they'd hurt Ei... I was just looking forward to getting some revenge. And then the twins stepped forward... They almost frightened me...but as I do when facing a demon, I reminded myself that my fear feeds them, and steeled myself. I reasoned that the negative energy field had stopped the nightmare's bullets dead; there was no reason to believe they could lay a finger on me.

Someone shot me in the side...but I managed to hold onto the idea that I was in a dream, and I ignored it as best I could. When the twins grabbed at me, I Negated... For a split second, I almost panicked. Their hands grabbed onto me before the field activated...and then they were gone. I dropped my field to find them both disappeared, their very existence negated by my anti-energies. Everyone else was stunned for the briefest of moments...and then they opened fire on me again.

I used the dream reality to allow myself to forge a force field, and run headlong into the nearest group...but before I made it to them, Mr. Nightmare canceled my force field. Bastard. I plowed into the group of gunmen, and negated them, next. That took down my greatest threat... While the negative energy field was up, I decided to have some fun.

I started trying to take down as many of the gunners as I could, as quickly as I could, negating them rather than fighting them directly, and as the field fell each time, I changed into a different video game or movie character, and used that character's natural abilities to evade injury as much as possible. It...it had some limited success. The nightmare kept canceling my transformations and abilities, but I had them back the moment I negated next, and so it became sort of a cancellation war between me and him... He canceled my abilities, I canceled his cancellation, repeat ad nauseum.

Finally, I had cleared out enough of them to make a break for it...and more were showing up fast, coming from the main area of the compound. The same ones I'd negated. Nightmare boy was simply "resurrecting" those I had negated, and was calling them back into the fight...

I shifted into V, from "V For Vendetta"... I remembered watching it with Hannah--we both cried at the end, and she had a thousand questions for me afterwards... "Behind this mask is an idea," I said, Negating again to defend myself from an increasing barrage of bullets. Once it dropped, I finished the line, "And ideas are bullet-proof. Hannah, your father and I fought to get you out of this place once... We'll do it again."

I was taking hits, now, to get that message out to her... I turned, then, with a flourish, and started getting the hell outta there. The nightmare tried to stop me, to use the dream reality to cause my feet to sink into the ground, or to make me run in place, and I knew I couldn't simply keep Negating... For one, I was fast running out of energy. For two, it cost me precious time.

I used dream logic against him... If I couldn't run across the ground, I ran across the air. I turned V's cloak into a pair of black feathered wings, and used them to start soaring, Negating twice more on my way out when the nightmare tried to stop me... I made it to the fence-line at the edge of the compound.

I felt like Swiss cheese... If I stayed there much longer, they'd have my dream-self completely destroyed. I dropped the V costume, turned, flicked them off with both hands, and stepped out...

And then I woke up. I was out of breath, feeling the exhaustion of having run and struggled across the compound...but worse than being out of breath, it hurt to breathe. I felt like someone had been slamming into me with a sledgehammer... I could tell I was fevered.

And the rest, you pretty much know...

Just a brief update, I felt up to working today, but only barely... I got out an hour later than I should've, on account of how I felt...

Good news- I found her.

Bad news- it ended up pissing out at the last minute.

Partly due to what happened to Ei (and partly because Shad wouldn't let me watch Wrestlemania yesterday) I decided to take matters into my own hands. I thought I'd try something a little different than Ei or KT, though. Admittedly, I'm not the most genteel soul, but I can get stuff done when I want to.

It started pretty much like the others said it was- Hannah was on the farm (or compound, I guess) doing a bunch of chores, Not being on the farm, personally, I couldn't say what they were, but it involved buckets.

Anyway, she wouldn't look at me, and I figured she wouldn't if I just said hello, so I went a totally different route.

"Hey, hick chick!"

Yeah, that pretty much got the desired response. She instinctly turned towards me, a pissed look in her eyes. I knew she hated being called that.

"Where do you think you are?"

"I'm home"

"EEEEEEEEE! Sorry, wrong answer. But we've got some lovely parting gifts for you. Hope you're ready to leave soon. Pack lightly."

"You're not makin' any sense. Besides, you ain't real, an' I'm not supposed to talk to imaginary people."

"Why not? You gonna get beat if you do? REAL dads don't smack their kids around. Your dad wanted more for you than that."

"My pa knows what's best for me."

"Oh? Which one? You had two, remember?"

That got her thinking, finally. She looked really confused after that, and a little worried.

"THINK, Hannah! What was this REALLY like? How many people did you REALLY call pa? And what about your mom? Where's she in all this? This isn't your home. This isn't what it was really like. Remember, Hannah! Just stop to think, and you'll remember what it was really like! You've been saying we're not real, we're just something made up, right? Well, isn't the made up part better than this? Isn't that 'pretend' life better than the backbreaking labor, the daily abuse they say is 'for your own good'? You don't deserve that pain, you deserve to be HOME. Your REAL home! Wie's been crying for you, Ron's scared he'll never see you again! THINK!!! REMEMBER WHO YOU REALLY ARE!!!!!"

I think I ended up ranting a bit longer than that, but it was clear that something got through to her. She looked scared, and worried, almost to the point of tears. And that's when trouble started, because the goon squad showed up just as I was reaching her. Jed, or Zed, or Fred or whoever it was didn't take kindly to invaders, but I was looking for a fight anyway. but I mistakenly gave him the first punch, and he slammed hard across the side of my head. I had just gotten back up, when he went for a kick to the ribs.
Almost out of breath, I reached up, gave him my own personal salute, and kicked HARD to the groin. It caught him off guard long enough to land another kick to the shins, dropping him to his knees. I put as much force behind my fists as I could, and slammed his face, dropping him to the ground.
"Hannah, remembe-"

SLAM!! My whole body just got hit by a Mack truck going 105, like I was flattened by a train. I flew God knows how far away, and I couldn't get up after that one. My whole body stopped moving, and I saw this shadow coming up on me, slowly. It was almost right on top of me when I felt myself falling backwards. Even that ended up hurting more than I thought.

And when I landed, the shadow turned out to be...Shadow.

I'm glad you got out of that alright, Angel...

This whole thing has me worried about what happens to her after each of our visits. Ron's right; we've gotta organize, ASAP.

Hopefully, she's remembering what we're saying every time.

I dunno... No matter how one of us may reach her, she always treats the next one the same.

Hey sorry Caliburn, didn't know they was kin, or that the lair was not somewhere we can just "drop in" on. Still, I hate it when they mess with kids, gets me a little riled up.