Ryuu's a genius! 9 Days Remaining -/|\- A Typical Day in August 2002

Summarizing our Progress So Far!

Now we're cooking with gas! Ryuu just had a brilliant idea! This Slenderdouche made a severe strategic error! Oh it's brilliant. We're going to find Kay tomorrow, and it's going to be brilliant! I've got my bokken/staff, a full double-ritual set for some hilarious shenanigans, and TOO MUCH CAFFEINE!

I've got 9 days before I have to face Slender-douche head-to-head. I've never had so much fun racing toward oblivion.

I didn't tell Ryuu earlier, but I'm pretty sure I spotted a few people in odd masks on the way to the hotel. Morningstar posted that he's in Jersey. Not going to lie, I'm not happy about this. Morningstar nearly killed one of my best friends, and burnt down another of my best friends' house. I will kill the son of a bitch if I see him. But right now, I'm a little more worried about our defensive position.

So me and Ryuu have to share a room tonight. I'm sleeping on the floor. There is no other option.

I would also like to refute any statements made regarding my power. I may mess around with other dimensions using my mind, but I'm useless in this one. At best, I can make an abnormal situation normal. Maybe I can do other stuff, honestly, I've always been more worried about dealing with things in other planes of existence trying to kill me.

That said, now we rest. We're not going to save anyone if we're half-dead from exhaustion.

-/|\-

A Typical Day in August 2002

The day starts simply enough. I wake up on the top bunk of my ancient bunk bed. I blink. A report flashes across my mind regarding casualties from the latest demonic thrust.

Look at a topographic map of Pennsylvania. It is cut in half by mountains near Philadelphia. Fighting occurs within the gap of these mountains, in Philadelphia when units need to retreat backwards to better defensive positions, and in the mountains themselves. There are only one, maybe two skirmishes in the mountains. On the Astral Plane area of Pennsylvania, there are dragons in those mountains. Demons are powerful, but not suicidal, and fighting Dragons on their own turf is suicidal. We try to maintain multiple lines of defense leading to Philadelphia, giving it depth and forcing the enemy to bleed for every step, but rebuilding those defenses after abandoning them is difficult.

I walk down to the kitchen in my parents' house, ordering a counter offensive as I grab a piece of banana bread. Projecting while walking, and maybe getting food or doing other simple tasks is easy. God help the son of a bitch who has to try and do it while say, driving or performing complex mental actions. There are a lot of people who think of Astral Projection as being a big damn complicated procedure that involves your soul leaving your body. By August, 2002, I'd learned all kinds of tricks for getting around that.

The counter-offensive buys us time. I reorient our lines to better prepare the main defensive walls in the astral fortifications around Philadelphia, and grit my teeth. Mine are the worst soldiers of any army that has ever operated to defend the Planet Earth. There are a few bright spots on the horizon, commanders that I vaguely remembered who actually know what they're doing, but there aren't many.

I realize that as I was sorting out the new defensive perimeter, I had walked into a wall. That hurt. I turn around, and head back to my room. This did not bode well.

I personally arrive on the battlefield and assist in the defense against the oncoming hordes as I find a position to relax in. On some level, you don't survive as a front line commander without being good at taking a hit. Authority equals asskicking, and for better or for worse, I know I'm the best there is on my side of the battlefield. So as I draw my swords and go to work, I consider the fact that Time Lord has people he's trained for years who understand the art of combat. He has the best soldiers that have ever worked for the Higher Planes. He has a great position up in New York, and I'm basically one giant defense on his southern flank that prevents him from being in serious danger. My position though? I'm in the thick of it, and it's not going to get any easier any time soon. The rule of thumb on this battlefield is that the further north you are the safer you are. For some reason, once the 7 dimensional shenanigans are sorted through, it's easier for them to operate in the southern hemisphere. The further north you are, the better the Higher Planes Armies' defenses get. But all reports agree that the good guys are getting pushed further north. The point being: I'm in the thick of it, I've got The Rogues in my face, demons at the rear, and an army that couldn't find it's own ass with two hands and a map.

My mind can't take this forever. I'm starting to get more tired as the days go by, expending more and more energy in ways that my spiritual form just can't handle. Expending vast amounts of your internal energy and restoring it rapidly is NOT healthy, and I am going way over my limit on a daily basis. The troops can't see me breaking down, not in the middle of this, so I do my best to hide it. It would be horrible for morale if they found out I wasn't holding it together like a champ. The "medics" patching my form up see it though. Rumors spread that I'm going off the deep end. No one was ever supposed to command troops while living on Earth, and they say that I'm just going to lose the ability to perceive correctly, and that I'll go absolutely nuts. I'm not sure if that happened or not.

We repel yet another enemy army. The good news is that these demons are naturally fractious. They want to fight each other and prove their own superiority as much as they want to destroy us. If they had all just gotten together and tried to sledgehammer my position, I'd have been in serious trouble.

By September, I'd be down to a force that was 85% the size of the original. But nothing makes troops better and more efficient than being stuck in the middle of a war-zone.We're still combat effective.

Of course, what I didn't realize was that my army was unofficially working for the Rogues. The majority of my higher-ranked officers still worked for Rogue General. Worse, rumors had gone round the Higher Planes that I was part of the Coup (which I WAS, and then I woke up in this life time, and WASN'T! Of course, it helped that I never remembered that other life. It's a little awkward.) Investigations were being launched.. Not that I cared or knew, I was too busy trying not to die.

And then the Rogues made their move.