Adventures in Parodyverse: Two Spirits, Part 5


    Jay Boaz awoke feeling completely wrong.  His perceptions were muted, everything was swimming and fuzzy.  He was lying down, and there was a very bright light above him, forcing him to squint.  But more importantly, he felt freezing cold, and alone.  He felt the overwhelming childlike urge to cry, but he tried to resist it.

    He turned his head when he felt a reassuring small hand threading its fingers through his own.  Beside him, sitting on the edge of what looked like a high-tech hospital bed, was Lara Night.  She wore a sweat shirt and sweat pants and no shoes or socks, and she was smiling sadly at him, her eyes tearing.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“We’re still linked, you know.”  Lara whispered.  “If you cry, I have to cry too.”

    Faite intervened quickly.  “It was an unavoidable side effect.  For a little while, the two of you will be emotionally linked.  You became more integrated, more quickly than I anticipated.”

    Lara nodded.  Then she lay close beside Jay and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, and pressed her forehead against his temple, pulling the side of the covers over her.  “You’re cold,”  she noted.  “It’s making me cold, too.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“This is going to be weird for a while, isn’t it?”  Jay finally asked.  He realized she was also doing that because his body hadn’t healed completely from his untimely death.  She was attempting to speed up his healing by maintaining contact with his head and hands.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeah.”  She laughed.  “I’d better not sleep with Dream again until the connection fades, eh?”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“You’re really going to...?”  he asked.

    She laughed.  “I was kidding.  I did that for you as much as me.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“For me?”  he asked.  “What do you mean?”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I could feel how curious you were after the tickle fight.”  she replied.  “Because of the feelings I was having, maybe, or because you were in my body and wondered about what could be.  I thought it was the opportunity of a lifetime for both of us.”

    There was silence from Jay, but she already knew what he was thinking.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Don’t worry, I’m going to take all the fallout.  As far as anyone else knows, it was all me.”

    Jay smiled a little to take the edge off of his next response.  “Lara, sometimes you scare me a little.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m a little surprised you’re not more upset.”

    He sighed deeply.  “Sometime after Mac Fleetwood started um...‘not dating’ a vampire I stopped policing other people’s lives.”

    She nodded.  “I’m going to say absolutely nothing about that, since I don’t want to feel the effects of it.”

    He smiled very slightly.  “You’re smart.  You still scare me a little, but you’re smart.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hey guys, still feeling the glow?”  Dreamcatcher Foxglove asked as he hovered over them, watching them huddle under the blanket.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Sorry, he was talking to the other me in the Lair Mansion, begging to come up here.”  Faite, who also just returned, said with a roll of her eyes.

    Lara looked up.  “The other you?  I didn’t know you could do that.”

    Faite shook her head.  “I don’t usually like to mirror myself.  It’s too hard to talk to two people at once.  This was an emergency, since I’m the only one who knew where you two went.  He also offered to look after you both when I return you to the Lair Mansion.”

    Shen Rae interrupted them.  “And then I took this glow-in-the-dark superhero for a tour first so you two could talk.”

    Lara climbed out of the bed and glanced at Dream for a moment.  She then looked at Jay, and said, “I’ll give you two some time to catch up.  You have a lot of confusing things to talk about.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“No, no.”  Dream grabbed her around the waist to stop her.  “I wanted to talk to both of you.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Ohhh, here we go.”  Jay whined, and he pulled the pillow out from under his head and buried his head within it instead.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“No, seriously, c’mere.”  He moved closer, towing Lara along with him, and then he sat down on the edge of the bed, nudging Jay to sit up.  Then he prompted Lara to sit too, and he put one arm around each of them.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I just wanted to say,”  he said, “Last night, and right now, are two of the best moments of my life.  I make fun, and I can be a little annoying sometimes, but I really love you both.”

    Lara smiled, and then looked at Jay, which encouraged him to smile too.  “Not so awkward after all,”  she said.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Speaking of awkward,”  Faite interrupted, “The Chronicler wants to chat with us.  Normally he just summons, but I wouldn’t let him.  He’s not happy.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Great.”  Lara sighed.  “Do I have to go barefoot?  He has cold floors.”

    Dream handed her a pair of sneakers.  “Faite said I should grab these for you.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Oh cool, thanks.”

    Once Lara slipped the shoes on, and Jay climbed out of the bed in his mostly repaired body, the two of them, Dream, and Faite found themselves standing on an icy cold marble floor.  They were in a large, circular room with no visible walls - only darkness - and tall, large columns that went nowhere.

    The Chronicler wore an expensive-looking suit, slicked polished hair, and a scowl.

    He approached Lara first, who stood unaffected by his mood.  “I should kick you out of this universe right now for interfering.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“It was me who interfered, not her.”  Faite pointed out.

    The Chronicler turned on her next.  “Hatman was supposed to die.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Because you decided, wrongly.”  Faite retorted.  “Remember what happened the last time you decided something unilaterally?”

    He scoffed.  “I should strip you of your powers and throw you back to the mortals, left to their mercy.”

    The female entity defiantly crossed her arms, and stared him down.  “You can’t.  I’m a member of the Council, same as you.  A founding member, at that.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“The Council?”  Lara asked.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Never mind!”  the Chronicler answered angrily.  “It’s not for you to know!”

    Faite replied anyway.  “It’s not what you’d think, it’s more a communication mechanism so cosmic office holders and cosmic entities don’t constantly contradict each other’s actions.”  She glared at the Chronicler and added, “It’s nothing requiring secrecy.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Listen up, freaks.”  The Chronicler announced after ignoring Faite.  “Hatman here was supposed to be out of the story a long time ago.  Why do you think he’s been killed so many times, or sent into limbo?  Why do you think he lost his powers?  Why did he leave the Lair Legion, and move to an out of the way place far from the Mansion?”

    He looked directly at Hatman unsympathetically and said, “It’s simply his time to go.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“No.”  Faite responded defiantly, and she shook her head.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“You went and got yourself too involved with these mortals, Miss Teenage return to Earth.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Excuse me, but she’s right.”  Lara finally spoke up as politely as she could.  “Jay’s not dead, he’s resilient.  He’s still here because he never gave up, or lost faith in himself.  It was his choice.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s not for him to decide,”  the Chronicler said.

    Lara quickly shot back, “Then why was he always given a choice?  Why was the Lair Legion given a choice to rescue him?  They haven’t really done anything extraordinary to drag him from the depths of death.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“That was her interference.”  He looked directly at Faite.  “She took a special liking to Hatman, liked his purity of spirit.  She refuses to let him go.”

    The blonde glanced at Jay, and then spoke up again.  “What if Jay still being alive is part of Faite’s story?  Then all the interference makes sense.  It’s all been tests for Faite to deal with.”

    The Chronicler rubbed his chin, and looked from Faite to Jay and back.  He finally sighed, threw up his hands, and decided, “I guess it will have to do for now.  You may all go.”

    Just as they began to turn away, the Chronicler stepped in front of Lara.  “Except you,”  he said.  “I have something else to say to you.”


TO BE CONTINUED?


-- Story written and copyrighted (C) 2011 by Jason Froikin, and may not be 
--    reprinted without permission.  
-- Yuki Shiro designed by Jason Froikin, based on designs by Masamune Shirow
--  Liu Xi Xian and the Psychic Samurai are original design by Jason Froikin
--  Lara Night is an original creation by Jason Froikin