Editing AlphaOmega/LizJournal

=Liz' Notes=

==Morning Confusion==
//My Documents/Notes/10-10-2007.txt (translated from German)<br>

My, I did write a lot last night. Probably the reason why I couldn't get out of bed this morning, too. Oh well, at least I mentioned most of the things that happened, even tired as I was, instead of rambling on about easter bunny conspiracies. Spun sugar bunnies, never again! They are sooo tasty, but then after you've eaten lots and lots of them, they finally reveal their insidious nature. Breaking out from the stomach and running around in your head, giggling and giggling ...

Uh right, dreams. I had the weirdest dream dream tonight. Maybe that's to be expected after yesterday, but it's still the first time I spent the night talking to myself. Not to mention that this other myself was kind of ... scary? Not vampire scary, no, thank god not. More like 'she's strange and kind of an asshole, but I don't really want to tell her since she might just flip out and use those swords on me'. On second thought, maybe a vampire me wouldn't have been so bad. At least it would obviously have been a not-me. Not me, a not-me? One of those. But since it was a dream and I couldn't get away because of the walls, we talked. About all kinds of things, really. University, family, music, men, parkour - obviously, though I think she didn't quite get it. She had some strange ideas about being a superhero, too. I mean, sure, you're special and all, you have greater responsibilities and aren't bound by arbitrary laws, but you are still human! The way she talked about 'normals', that really creeped me out.

At some point during that discussion we must have entered a training montage or something since the next thing I remember is doing backflips to get away from her fucking swords while she lectured me about 'chi flows' and similar stuff. I'm not one to pass up an opportunity to learn something, but who ever heard of learning something in a dream? Besides crazy people who hear god talking to them, I mean ... uh, maybe not the best example, since apparently some of my new friends <i>did</i> get a message from god and have the superpowers to show for it. Be that as it may, after some close shaves I gave her a good punch to the solar plexus and put her on her ass. Of course that didn't help much, since apparently that was the cue for everyone else to show up, from the giant dragon with a star for an eye over various  vampires, dark jedi and Nazgul to that screaming aztec king of the damned. Oh man, Sigmund Freud would have a field day with this stuff.

So, here I am sitting in my hotel room waiting for the stupid phone to finally connect to someone at Lufthansa Services so that I can cancel my flight. I already talked to mum and dad, told them that I would be staying a bit longer, something about a possible job. A white lie, if there ever was one. I can't tell them, what's really going on, after all - not that I am so sure myself. Last night out in the desert it all made sense, gods and demons and monsters and heroes destined to fight them. But now ...

I look at myself in the mirror. I'm still me, Elizabeth Albrechts. Traceuse, author, student. Still the same person I was last year. But that empty circle of shimmering gold on my forehead is also there, undeniably.

I may not understand its meaning now, but one day I will.

==An Evening of Revelations==
//My Documents/Notes/10-09-2007.txt (translated from German)<br>

Today was crazy. No, make that Crayyzeeee. I should probably put this into a different folder as it isn't really material for the book, but for now it will have to do. If I don't write this down, I'll forget things and never make sense of it all. Maybe the world can be ready for this to be published some day?<br>

Anyway, I spent most of the day helping Dale and the others with the aftermath of the convention. We should do something similar at home, I've said it many times, but this much work ... oh well, if that's the price of fun, so be it. By the time we were done it was already late afternoon and after going on a last run with the whole crew (there's a fountain at <location> that's wonderful for trick jumps, if difficult - people sure were staring) Dale offered to show me a little more of the Vegas life. Naturally that involves casinos - I'm a tourist here after all. So we ended up at the Lucky Star, played a little and had a drink or two (note: write more about that later, that's good material for the book!). Non-alcoholic of course, stupid American laws. I'd told Dale about my previous run-in with security people the evening before, so when they started looking around on the floor, we went up to the roof to catch some air.<br>

That's when the craziness started. Not only weren't we alone up there, there was a guy dressed like a movie villain who in all seriousness threatened another with some sort of gun. Not liking that at all I thought to break it up - superpowers have to be good for something, right? Imagine my surprise, when despite a nicely executed disarming maneuver the guy <i>just pops and dissolves into a cloud of smoke!</i> He proceeded to take Dale, who was pretty confused by then, hostage and withdrew to the stairs. I wanted to follow, to do something about it, but with a friend as hostage I didn't dare. It was just as well, as I probably wouldn't have met Gabriel otherwise - that was how the other guy on the roof introduced himself. He looked a bit like a teacher or maybe priest, though why a priest would follow some shady guy and try to take him down with a bottle, when that guy set up a bomb on the roof, I didn't know.<br>

At least I didn't know until he started glowing. Glowing golden, with a symbol on his forehead, just like me! That was when I realized, that it wasn't just me, that I wasn't alone with these strange events. I hadn't even realized before then how depressing it was not to know, whether there might be others, others like myself. And only slightly less impressing than the glowing aura was the way he disabled that bomb - some kind of bio-weapon - within seconds. I knew then, that together we could make sure, that the terrorist would neither hurt Dale nor get away. In hindsight it's a bit strange, but I had a feeling, that it was right for us to work together, that he could be trusted. After all, we were both ... well, whatever it is we are, despite what I found out later I'm still not entirely sure.<br>

So he went down the fire ladder, while I went down the front of the casino figuring I could overtake the MiB that way. That was some nice move there, if I say so myself, even if I used my powers (note: check out, if anyone saw me, that would be cool!), but at the time I was thinking only about making sure that Dale got away from this freak. Nobody messes with my friends! And my timing was downright perfect as I managed to catch the two, just as the bomber was jumping down the stairwell. Well, I caught Dale and made sure he got away, the asshole got whacked with a mop :D. Not that it seemed to faze him much. Anyway, that's when things became really strange: From the casino floor a group of people entered the ground level of the stairwell even as Gabriel and I tried again to get a hold of the MiB, who just did his vanishing act again.<br>

But what was really amazing, that half of those people also had auras of light like Gabriel, not even to mention the wolf-men who looked like straight out of a werewolf-movie! Apparently the bomber was similary surprised and started - and even though I've seen things like that once before it's still really weird to write it down - chanting some kind of magic. The black arts and terrible doom kind of magic. I'm not sure I want to remember all of it, but in case it becomes important, he had an aura of darkness, like the opposite of my own, and also a symbol on his forehead, though it is black and bleeds like a wound. Whatever he did, it burned symbols into the walls and then blasted a hole right into the air, like a sucking drain to some demon world, which he jumped into and disappeared.<br>

When we'd recovered from that, Gabriel promptly proceeded to drop the next shock on us. Us in that case meaning me, him, the singer from the casino (Cassidy, golden aura), several people in suits (Rob, silver aura, Johnny, swirly wind aura?), the casino owner and his bodyguard (Mr. Palmer, Mr. Prescott, both did the glowing symbol trick - more different symbols!) as well as the werewolves, who seem to be the bouncers at the casino (how's that for weird? I wonder if it is like that in every casino here ...). Anyway, apparently that freak had been to lots of different places before coming here (including a school!) and had dropped off packets everywhere. Most likely bombs like the one of the roof. Damn.<br>

We quickly resolved, that we'd have to do something (besides call the police, which Mr. Palmer did). It was like someone having a heart attack at a CPR course, all action and none of that staring and doing nothing crap. I guess, people who just stare simply don't get superpowers, which seems only just to me. Gabriel showed everyone, how his disabling trick worked, and we split up. Rob, Cassidy and I went to the church, where damn, I forgot: Cassidy had recognized the bombing maniac as a local preacher and hypocrite, a certain 'Todd Brown'. So we went to his church, since I figured he might return there and we could make sure he didn't distribute anymore dangerous stuff. Well, that and I wanted to give him a piece of my mind ... with a staff. I didn't say that though, I don't need more people talking to me about anger management and stuff. I manage my anger just fine!<br>

What we found when we got there wasn't a church anymore. Desecration, destruction and perversion and worse than that, there were women locked up in cages, probably badly abused. It soon became clear who was responsible for that, when several more women appeared (yes, appeared like out the shadows. Creepy.) who practically bragged about it and apparently wanted us to join their victims. They'd picked the wrong people, though. Robert Grimm did some sort of shapeshifting and became a huge wolf-man with silver claws, Cassidy started glowing again and I brought out the kung fu. These vampires, for that's what they were, were almost as fast as me, though, and very hardy. They could take many of my punches and strikes without even blinking, but eventually we defeated them. One strange thing happened during that fight, though: At one point it seemed like I remembered something I knew I had never done before. A technique that involved not just focus and precision, but also some sort of flowing chi energy or something like that. I never believed the sensei, when he'd spoken about chi or cosmic energy, but this ... unless I was hallucinating wildly, there was some manifestation of flames and the whole building shook!<br>

More superpowers, I guess. Who knows, what else might be possible! Anyway, by the time we'd defeated the vampires, the others were joining us at the church - and thank god, they'd managed to disable all the bombs! Together we questioned the remaining vampiress and found out something about how the whole vampirism thing works - which was all news to me, but some of the others seemed already aware. Apparently vampires can create new vampires, by drinking someone's blood, then giving them some of their own. There are many of them, they have existed for a long time and are very dedicated to keeping everyone else in the dark about their existance. And as if that wasn't already bad enough, apparently their 'Queen' has returned, whom they call 'Troyle'. And she has plans to kill every living being on the planet. And Darth Brown, the evil preacher, is some sort of favored agent of hers, now called Sins-of-the-Fathers-something-something. If I hadn't looked her in the eyes as she said all of this and if I hadn't seen the church basement, the ancient coffin, the books where apparently someone had tried to learn the history of the last two thousand years ... well, even so it seems unbelievable. But on the other hand, I had seen Brown and his plans ...<br>

As it turned out, though some of the others had known about vampires, none of them had a better idea of what was going on with ourselves. We shared our stories of how 'it' had happened, none the wiser for it, but at least we got to know each other a little bit. One interesting thing we did learn however was, that Robert not only was different in his powers from us golden people, he had seen a silver woman right before his change and figured that she was the one responsible for this. Since it seemed like the only thing to do, we took the werewolves from the casino (amazing how that sentence even makes sense! But I suppose the same is true for pretty much everything else I'm writing down today) up on their offer to meet their elders. They live, we found out, in a hidden temple out in the desert - a beautiful place with a certain primal energy to it. By the time we sat down around their fire I was pretty much ready to believe anything. Vampires, wizards, werewolves, glowing auras, shapeshifting, sorcery, ... if all that is real, how could something be impossible?<br>

Despite all that I'm still not sure, what to believe. According to the elders, we are (get this!) the reincarnations of ancient heroes come again to signal the apocalypse and save the world. We are chosen by Luna, the goddess of the moon, and Helios, the god of the sun. Oh and Rob is prophesied to kill the 'Wyrm', who apparently is the concept of evil and destruction made manifest. And he and Cassidy were married in a past life. And there's a spirit (a real spirit, I saw it!), who the werewolves worship, and yet it treats Ms. Starbreeze as its queen. And the whole temple complex belongs to her. What's really strange about all of this is, that somehow it <i>all makes sense</i>. Feels right. And yet as I write this at the same time it sounds just as unbelievable as it would to any sane person.<br>

And as if that wasn't enough, apparently there is also a man who is a star (a bright red one unlike any normal star, I saw it in the sky myself) and who took a ring that belongs to Cassidy from the spirit and warned the 'garou' (that's what the werewolves call themselves) about <i>another</i> strange being, whom they call the 'Dark One' or 'Vampire King'. He came to the garou a couple of weeks after the 'Morning Star' and killed many of them with terrible powers. He also stole weapons that were supposed to be for us, the chosen. So now there's vampire royalty who are even more dangerous than Darth Brown, that can't be good.<br>

Fortunately my fellow 'chosen' seem to feel the same way about much of this as I do. When I set myself the mission of finding out, what was really going on, so I could do something to help people, I knew that it wouldn't be easy, but that someone had to do it. Now there's suddenly a number of scary, scary things out there, none of which seem too concerned about humanity. But there are also others like myself, Chosen with powers of their own, who seem just as determined as I not to let these monsters do whatever they want. This is big! What can seven of us accomplish together but great things? Even if the elders are right and the apocalypse is coming, maybe there's still a chance ...