Post by tjkernan on Feb 10, 2012 18:59:55 GMT -5
Ultimate WildC.A.T.S. #6
"What Dreams May Come?"
TJKernan
I had a strange dream last night.
Normal humans have six senses and rely on ten percent of their brain power at any given time during their activities that get them through their mostly pedantic days. I currently have the use of eleven senses and use over eighty percent of my brain during most activities, and have pushed myself to nearly ninety during particularly strenuous activities.
Time is something one grasp's differently when senses and brainpower exceeds far beyond human understanding. Humans, and many other sentient creatures, as far as i can tell, perceive time as a one-way street, and all of us living are seen as cars traveling on the street. There is a beginning, a life moving straight forward down this road, and an end. But 'time' is not actually constructed in such a fashion. Time has height and width and a depth all its own. While the living think they are moving in a straight line, a path, we are instead floating in an ethereal sheath of this time, enveloped in all moments, connected in ways the masses can not comprehend.
And what does this have to do with this dream? Well, dreams are another thing that the average sentient does not properly grasp. Dreams are not this collection of random thought and garbled memories strung together to create some kind of strange motion picture in our minds. Dreams are much more than that. Dreams are a window into which our gaze brings us so much more. In that window we see glimpses of other times and other places. The past and the future. Alternate worlds and alternate selves. Dreams are hard for the average mind to grasp, which is why most 'forget' them when they awake-because their brain can't comprehend and process what they have just seen.
But, I digress, and will stop with this lecture, trying to explain things meager,pedantic brains fail to comprehend. After all, I have this dream I need to speak of...
The sky was dark, but The Key could see the sun and tell it was not but midday. It was not clouds in the sky either, darkening the air above them. There was a ship, a very large craft, and it was not of terrestrial origin.
It was then that The Key looked around and noticed the building that stood on each side of him. They were nothing like any he had seen on planet Earth before, the architecture of another world.
Memories were jumbled, hazing and confusing. He was disoriented, and this was not something he was accustomed to.
The Key turned his attention back to the craft hovering in the sky. The ship was massive, going in all direction as far as his eye could see. As he watched a hole opened. It seemed small from his perspective, but considering how far away the giant craft was in the sky, the hole was likely massive. Lots of little black dots poured from the hole, one after another, like a swarm of flies.
"Key, wake up man? Are you still with us? That incoming invader swarm looks like a big one. We need to regroup with the rest of the 'CATS and The Sisterhood before they get here and prepare for the wave..."
The Key turned around to look at the man who spoke to him. He seemed both familiar and strange at the same time to him.
"Yes, Warblade, let us join our compatriots."
The Key had two realities swirling inside his head, pushing against each other, swirling in and out in a tangled mess. In one, he had never met this man before. In another, he knew this 'Warblade'. He knew his real name was Reno Bryce and that the silver liquid metal that covered his body was an alien symbiote that allowed him to make a myriad of fantastic shapes and offensive weapons.
Warblade took the lead, off and running, and The Key followed. As he ran, The Key tried concentrating, trying to separate the two realities which were fighting in his head, in order to make some sense out of what was occurring. On one hand, he remembered an exhausting day of helping Manchester Black and the rest of the team clear out the bodies of their enemies on Diabloverde, in the preparation of the next phase of their plan. In this other reality though, that memory was distant and faded. Much had happened and changed since then. Battles had been been fought. There had been deception and betrayal and everything that had once been the WildC.A.T.S. was something new and different. Alliances and allegiances had changed. From the ashes of that great battle, a new team had been forged, and now they stood...
On Khera Prima! The Key remembered now. The buildings around him looked unearthly for a reason. They were on a different planet, far across the universe.
The two men reached their destination, a large open market. Many people were standing there, armed and ready for a fight. The Key didn't recognize very many of the people. A few though stood out. They were the members of his "current team", and they seemed to be at the center of the mass, leading this motley group as it prepared to battle the invaders from the sky.
Triumph was there, hovering in the sky, though his appearance had greatly changed. His hair was no longer blonde, but instead white as snow. He no longer wore his costume, but instead wore a military uniform...
As The Key walked through the people preparing for battle, he picked up snippets of conversations and cataloged them into his mind for future use.
"I don't understand how the D'rahn escaped their prison..."
"They never had this kind of technology before, someone must be aiding them..."
"No way that ship could have passed our planetary defenses..."
"Someone said they came out of The Bleed..."
In the center of the group stood the current WildC.A.T.S. leader, Zealot. Her hair was cropped short and was white also. A thought crossed The Key's mind-Do all Kheribum of a certain age have white hair? It seemed that way, as the three full Kheribum that The Key had met-or at least thought he met, as his mind wandered between the two realities of what was once and what was happening right now-all had white hair. He looked around in the crowd, and noticed a variety of hair colors.
Zealot wore her traditional battle armor and a variety of weapons. In her hand she currently wielded her favorite sword. The Key knew that the blade signified that she was a member of The Sisterhood of the Rose, one of Khera's most powerful warrior castes. He also noticed many other women in the crowd currently carried those blades as well.
Beside Zealot stood another team member, Vera Black. Seeing her face opened another confusing hole between the two realities, and a lot of questions. She was Manchester Black's sister, one that The Key was unaware even existed in his 'older' reality. But in this current one, she had replaced her brother on the team. Her brother, who had left the team after...
The great battle. The Key tried to concentrate for a moment on the time that bridges the two separate spots of space he was existing in. He found it very peculiar and discomforting that there were foggy spots in between the two pieces. He remembered feelings of deception and betrayal. He remembered a great battle and loss and death, but the factual details, the faces and the actual events, eluded him. It was not like his brain to betray him like this.
An explosion in the sky brought back The Key from his mental contemplations. Kheran Warships came from all direction in the sky flew in to intercept the D'rahn invaders. The sky was filled with the fireworks of explosions of energy blasts.
Zealot attempted to yell at the gathered warriors, "We must get the civilians out of their homes and into the safety of the underground passages. Debris will soon fall, and likely set fire to anything it strikes. Plus, the D'rahn may deploy ground troops. At this point, we really do not know what their capabilities are, so right now we must take a defensive stance here on the ground, and protect the innocents from harm..."
As Zealot continued speaking, she began issuing specialized order to many different individual within the large gathering. The Key tried to listen, but his attention began to drift. He felt foggy...
It was then that I awoke, startled, back upon the cot in Diabloverde. My senses reeled as I attempted to absorb all the information, process what I had seen in the second reality, this possible piece of the future. Though I lay in the bed, I could still see it all so vividly, these pieces of someplace else, in a forward time. So many questions, and so few answers. It seemed much was going to change soon, and I must prepare myself. This adventure I had chosen to lead myself into was only going to get stranger, it did seem...
