Part XI(B) - I Still Hate New York, even when it's not really New York
When we left Central Park with our little mystic circle, we reappeared back at the Duke golf course, and Brian Young was there, but it wasn't the golf course, and Brian wasn't there. It was an illusion, which we realized when Chappell told us to stop and concentrate on what was really going on. We were still in New York, but in some sort of shadow to reality, what I would probably call the "dream plane" (first class is very nice). Jon, who was unconscious in the hospital after getting trashed was there, chained to a wall, and being ripped at by more of the bat things, but that's what he gets for stealing fire from the gods. There were also some hooded guys over Jon, humming. It was a nice tune, but not much for dancing, and with only one female, we weren't really up for dancing anyway. It was just as well, as my guts were still barely contained after I was nearly eviscerated by the bat-demon, so dancing was out.
Instead of dancing, we took on the bats, but Jay (the music critic) went after the hooded guys, rather ineffectively (they didn't even seem to notice him), which was good, since they turned out to be on our side. He found that out once he made mental contact, and the humming was actually to help Jon. Gegi also tried to combat them by humming her own melody, which also didn't seem to matter. The rest of us, recognizing the real problem when we see it, took out the bats, with me now wielding the Spear, since Jon was out of it. I was careful to wait until they attacked me before I fought, since we'd been warned that the Spear was to be used in defence only. We beat all the bats, but one that several of us noticed to be different (it was more 3-D, and had a stripe) got away. I chased it through a few non-existent walls, but it ditched me quickly, so I came back. Charlie then read something Chappell gave him (which was from Prometheus Unbound), and the manacles opened, and Jon was free (but still not particularly conscious, and very paranoid about shadows, he kept trying to stab things that weren't there).
It then turned out that our mission this time was to do some mumbo jumbo bullshit about "restoring hope where there isn't any." We walked around the shadow New York, going through buildings, and floating, and seeing people's thoughts, but they couldn't perceive us. As we walked, I kept seeing someone who was a penguin, or The Penguin (making me really think this was the "dream plane"). Jay was seeing Mxyzptlk, and Jon was seeing someone else. It then resolved itself into some kind of imp thing, and attacked us. It knew Gegi, and she said that we shouldn't hurt it, it was just playing. Apparently "playing" involved chewing on people with sharp teeth. We trashed it, winning a fight for once, as it was quite small, and blew it up with potassium that Jon had. We also learned a little more about Gegi's judgement in "friends".
We got to a building, that Chappell led us to, and to a room with a sobbing woman with a raincloud over her. Her family was dead, and she was going to kill herself to join them. With some psycho-babble bullshit, Jon, Gegi, and Charlie fucked with her mind, claiming to be her family, and telling her to stay alive. She felt better, and Joe destroyed the cloud with the torch. We were done, and we left to go have a nice refreshing glass of OJ. Rah.
I suppose I was a bit confusing with my references to the dream plane. I don't think I talked about this before, and this is as good a time as any. Early on, the Chappell unit took me aside to talk about dreams, as when I'd first met him as "David Chappell" we'd talked about them somewhat, in particular, controlling them. He told me that he was afraid that he wouldn't be able to see this thing, whatever it was, through to the end, and that from our dream talks, he thought that I had the potential to learn some of the skills that he wouldn't be there to provide. This was to be accomlished by practicing dream control, with the ultimate goal of affecting reality through my dreams. So far, my progress hasn't been that great, but I'm still working on it, since I don't want to get screwed when he abandons us, and I didn't pick up the power to cover for him. Besides, why should Jay have all the fun?