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You have fallen, fallen into the void...




Somewhere inside of the massive Clockwork Castle floated around another of many dreams, this one the first but likely not the last of ancient memories of one Arcene. This one was based in a large mall that nobody from Gaia would recognize. Just in front of it in the parking lot sat six hoverbikes, and with those six bikes were six armored figures, none of them currently wearing their helmets. The one in the center, currently gesturing at a map laid out on the seat of one of the bikes, would be the only one anyone would recognize. Although his stance was more military, and he was handing out orders, this figure was what Arcene had once been. His hair was not its long silver color, instead military-short brown hair kept combed back, although it was a little messed up now thanks to the helmet.

"-You'll be on the third floor east balcony, and the private and I will take the ground floor. This is a typical patrol run so we'll be relieved later on. Until then you all know the drill." Arcene finished his short field briefing, watched the quick nods from his team before putting his helmet and sliding the face plate into place. "GP Team Alpha Seven, this is ATAC squad Twenty Seven, were here to relieve you." Arcene sends, quickly confirming and being confirmed by the Global Police team inside the mall that they were all who they were supposed to be. Thanks to the increased terror activities by the people who didn't believe that there was another alien threat from space coming, the Southern Cross had been tightening security. While it was true civilian facilities had never been hit, that wasn't being taken for granted. So Arcene's squad went into the mall, fanning out to their various positions for a long day of guard duty. Then it was like the whole scene fogged over for a moment, then came back several hours later. Nothing had been happening until one of his men went to go deal with a shoplifter. Suddenly said shoplifter pulled out some kind of energy weapon and took a potshot at the guy. This led to a run through the mall and out into the parking lot, followed by everyone ending up in cover behind the hoverbikes for a short firefight. Somehow all of the shots from the squads laser rifles didn't seem to phase the woman, and she even fired what looked like an extremely small missile from her wrist that detonated into a ball of greenish plasma against one of the bikes, leaving it scorched and damaged. This was followed by, strangely, the woman swearing and complaining about being gypped. Eventually the woman stole a bike and managed to outrun the squad. Another fogging, and it seemed to be another day in the streets. A large black robot was dashing down the main road, with a single two-legged battle tank leaping along behind it. The tank leaped up and directly at the bot, obviously intending to land on it when it was hit by an ion cannon from the side, and fell over, still trying to run. The tank landed, Arcene inside swearing as it turned and started going another direction. Then the whole scene clouded over and faded away. It was like Arcene didn't even remember all the details of what happened afterwards.

In the darkness, you are never alone

You have fallen, fallen into the void...




The swirling emanations of the fogs of a partly forming dream seemed to simply... freeze in place as the female creature spoke. Arcene happened to be facing away from her as she entered the room. Slowly the helmeted head turned to look at Eris. For some reason, bit's of Arcene's form seemed to be flickering like TV static as he silently watched her walk through the room. As she smiled at him, his entire body flickered and it was like his head was surrounded by a heavy static blur for a moment. Then, the helmet was gone, leaving Arcene's face uncovered again, although his hair was still brown, just as it had been during that time. The armor was still on him, but it was less... shiny. It had some pockmarks, scorch marks, and missing paint. It looked more battlescarred. "Who are you?" He asked suddenly as his eyes seemed to focus. It was like he had been caught in between his dreams and the castle after she had spoken, and it had taken this long for him to force his way out of the dreams and more fully into the castle.

In the darkness, you are never alone

You have fallen, fallen into the void...




Arcene's grasp on the laser rifle in his hands tightened as the creature approached him. Just before she would be within his arm's reach, he stepped away from her, the previously frozen fog swirling and becoming a little more dense throughout the room. It hadn't formed into anything, still in fragments, but it would be obvious that the fog constituted at least a piece of his sub-psyche here. "Whether I come with you depends on where we are going." He says, keeping himself out of the creatures reach.



((Why thank you ^^ I've kind of wanted to run him through some of what he's done before coming to Gaia, and this was perfect XD Plus I thought of that transition effect applying to him and doing all sorts of cool stuff XD))

In the darkness, you are never alone

You have fallen, fallen into the void...




Arcene raised an eyebrow at Eris' discussion of where they were going. That screamed trap to him. And since she had come in between his dreams, Arcene's mind was more lucid then a typical dreamers. That was probably the main reason why he was so iffy about what she was saying. When the outside voice suddenly resounded, Arcene's rifle came into both his hands as he looked around, trying to see the source. When Eris started talking again he refocused on her. Her voice was different from what he had heard, and had changed from before. So when she rushed him, he was ready for her, laser rifle coming up as he pulled the trigger to blow a hole through her...

At least that had been the plan, but as the rifle came up, it seemed to dissipate into fog. He blinked, then looked up at the charging Lamia who seemed to almost have slowed down as adrenaline kicked in, somehow functioning even in this dream. Arcene clutched at his hip pistol holster, but found it empty as well. This caused his hand to fall on his last resort weapon, yanking his combat knife from it's sheath, holding it backwards in his right hand as his legs spread apart slightly to widen his stance. Anybody who had known him on Gaia would notice that he seemed to be missing much of what he had on the world. Of course, he looked different then he did there as well. Less pale, totally different hair.

As Arcene crouched slightly, several things happened. The fog of dreams all around the room suddenly coalesced, forming three vague figures, with the rest slipping into Arcene's dream body, reducing the amount of static that had been surrounding him, his edge's sharpening and resolving. The three figure's behind him had no major features, two of them looked vaguely feminine while the third was vaguely male. Arcene himself suddenly leapt forward and low, knife sweeping in front of him at the incoming Eris. It may have been a dream construct of sorts, it's edge's were awfully solid for a dream construct outside of a dream. The leap forward was supposed to surprise Eris since he had looked defensive, and go under her guard. If it actually worked may be another story.

In the darkness, you are never alone

You have fallen, fallen into the void...




Since Eris hadn't managed to shift her guard at Arcene's surprise leap he was already setting up to follow up with it, to ensure a quick and effective attack. Even by this time in his life he had dealt with enough crazy things that he preferred to expand more energy and time rather then be surprised later because it turned out Eris would just regenerate unless he stabbed her in the head or something. But ofcourse that plan got derailed as well when, before he even hit, someone else hit her first, knocking her away and into a wall. But as soon as Arcene's peripheral vision saw the movement from the side, he had canceled his attack, diving and rolling to the side, a surprisingly athletic maneuver considering the armor he was wearing, if one didn't know that it was surprisingly flexible for the amount of armor and protection it gave. Arcene recovered from the roll outside of arms reach for Hera, knife up and defensive, and of course he looked slightly surprised. After all, this woman had appeared out of nowhere and attacked the other, and now seemed to think she knew him. The way she was dressed was strange as well, but oddly enough two members of his group had special concealed armor that was similiar, it didn't even look protective but had saved their lives several times when their primary armor was broken through. So for all he knew that was what this stuff was as well. It didn't explain why the woman seemed to know him however. And so his defense with the knife never lowered, even though Eris was down, since he didn't know if Hera was a threat. And unfortunately he had dealt with this kind of experience too. One enemy taking out the weaker one so the stronger could have their target all to themselves. And of course her commentary was slightly disorienting. She apparently knew his name as well. The three ghostly figures that had appeared behind him earlier, however, had dissipated into fog again, the dream fog drifting in fragments again. "Who are you, how do you know me, and what do you mean by cutting my hair?" He asked the three questions in rapid suggestion, since he hadn't actually cut his hair since he had been transported, which was why it was about a normal length for a typical person's short hair, rather then the military short he was used to.

In the darkness, you are never alone

]

You have fallen, fallen into the void...




Arcene seemed a little confused about Hera's comments about him being stuck in dreams. But it made sense from his perspective sort of. The fog of Arcene's dreams began a slow whirling around the room as Eris and Hera began talking, as Arcene was thinking. As Eris began to draw in energy, since this was her castle, at least some of the ambient energy was hers too, and as that began to absorb, some of the peices of fog began drifting towards eris. But as they drew closer, they began to glow, little gray bolts of something darting all over their surfaces. Then, as they got closer to Eris, they flared, imparting an entire memory to both Eris and Hera in one blaring flash of psychic energy.

Arcene and three figures that seemed shady at best, but resembled strongly those that had been formed out of fog earlier, were inside what seemed like the seedier side of some dystopian future city. People around him in the streets had all sorts of strange cybernetic augments, from metal arms to camera eyes. The four of them went inside of one building, inside was a tall seven foot man with four packages behind him standing behind a desk. Three of the packages, much like the figures, were shady at best and couldn't really be made out in any detail, while the one that could be made out was what looked like wrapped in heavy brown paper. There was a sense of some time passing, as though part of the memory had drifted away or was simply not plying here. The next thing that happened was the man saying something. "Well, your credits cleared and so did you, so I brought these, just like you asked." He said, reaching behind him and grabbing the brown package, throwing it over the desk. It was directed at Arcene, who caught the package in both arms. As the man did the same with the other packages, Arcene opened the one he had caught. Inside resided a weapon that had only recently arrived for him on Gaia. Then the man spoke. "Considering what you all claim that your planning on doing, your going to need these." He said. Then there was a flash forward, a thin man in robes throwing some kind of magical spell, a long limbed nimble man firing handguns at one of the shadowy figures that seemed to be always accompanying Arcene, then those two and a third, massive man who looked a lot like a sumo wrestler, lying on the ground, presumably dead. Parts of their bodies glowing. But then the memories ended.

There the flash stopped as the clouds around Eris seemed to ricochet away from her, flying across the room. Arcene blinked once, then twice, then his head shook a little, like he was trying to dislodge something from his head. Attentive viewers would notice that, just as in that flash, Arcene's hair had gotten a little longer again. His back bent a little, instead of as ramrod straight as it had been, like time and trials had beaten him out of his old military habits.

In the darkness, you are never alone

You have fallen, fallen into the void...




As the booms sounded against the walls outside the false hal, Arcene's fomr flickered for a moment. It seemed like this shape slid aside and, just for a moment, his full current form was visible, long silver hair and all. Just as quickly, his form in these dreams reappeared. But along with it, a man appeared. 6'1, Blonde hair, no shirt, muscled, tanned, and with a feral little smile on his face. He grabs Arcene's arm and hauls him up. "You can trust her." The man said with absolutly no introduction or anything, glancing at Hera ad throwing her a smile. Then he clapped a hand over Arcenes mouth as it opened to say something. "Don't bother asking, you know who I am." The man said, then... vanished. He faded into smoke and seemed to just float away, ignoring the borders of the illusion and even the castle itself. This left Arcene confused, which was actually exactly what he needed. Then something clicked into place in his head, and he looked at Hera. "Alright, let's get out of here." He said to Hera. He still didn't recognize her, but who the strange man that had appeared for a moment had been had clicked into his head. He could always follow his advice.

In the darkness, you are never alone