Notes: It's been a long time coming, but here's the second chapter. You know, the hardest part about writing this story is writing Darien. Looking back on the original series, he doesn't really get a whole lot of development, and his background is rarely brought up. I think I remember reading somewhere that he was originally a thief. I have conveniently forgotten about that.

I guess if you've ever been to college, you know what my average day is like. Have class? Yes/No? If yes, go to class. If no, prepare for class. And by "prepare for class," I of course mean study with a schedule.

What's my schedule? Study or work for a half-hour, screw around for a half-hour. Repeat ad nauseum. Sometimes literally. All my study material is so dry that I need time to let it sit in my brain before it actually sticks there. As it happened, that day I had class, so I prepared for my day, grabbed books, and it was off to Anatomy. Oh, frabjous day.

It was a good twenty minute walk from my apartment to the classroom. It was about five minutes into that walk that I remembered that I had a test to take in Anatomy. Callooh, ca-goddamn-llay. It wasn't that I hadn't studied, I had, and knew the material pretty well. But I'll admit that I'm not a very good test-taker. My attention just isn't held by a sheet of paper. If the tests were given orally, I know I'd do very well, but what can you do?

So I walk into Anatomy and get out my test-taking stuff. Twenty minutes later I'm trying to remember what the functions of the medula oblongata are besides the cardiac and respiratory ones. Looking around the room in the vain hope that the answer will be, I don't know, written on the wall or something, I'm struck by how few people I really recognize. As a matter of fact, the only person I'd call a friend was Rita, Andrew's girlfriend. Apart from the fact that I generally keep to myself, I try to sit near the front of the classroom so my attention doesn't wander. Which means that the rest of the class is behind me, so I rarely recognize their faces. I finished up with the test as quickly as I could and brought it to the professor's desk. I waved a little at Rita as I walked out, but I wasn't sure if she'd seen me.

Which left me with most of a day and nothing to do. Meaning that clearly the best course of action was to waste some time at the arcade.

"Andr-" was as far as I could get before somebody bowled into me. I managed to keep my balance, but the other, smaller person lost hers and was knocked to the ground. Now where the heck had she come from? The automatic doors were glass, avoiding people on your way out should be pretty easy. A brunette came to help the blonde girl up off the floor.

"You oughta watch where you're going!" she said.

"You oughta watch a fashion show, it might help that stupid hairstyle."

Yeah, that would have been a clever comeback. But she and her friend were out the door before I could get it out of my mouth. Hate it when that happens.

"Aw, new girlfriend, Darien?" Andrew taunted me from one of the light gun games. He grinned and stood to stretch. "Might be a bit too young for you."

"Ah, bite me," I said as I dusted myself off. Not that I was in any way disheveled, just that I might have been blushing a bit from his remark, and no way was I letting him have that satisfaction. "Regular?"

"Yeah, been coming in here for ages. Shouldn't you be in class?"

"Finished the test early. Rita'll probably be done soon, too."

"Good to hear. You sleep well?"

Damn. Should I tell him? I don't want to worry him. That's the problem with Andrew: if I tell him something's bothering me, he'll be concerned. I don't want him to be concerned, because then I feel like I should be concerned too. I don't want to be worried, I just want to ignore it. "Okay. Weird dream, though. Not like the usual ones."

"Well, we all have 'weird dreams,' sometimes, Darien," he said slyly. "My personal favorite involves Rita, a forest, a book of poetry, and a spotted owl."

...Was that meant to be funny? Maybe it was a literature kind of of joke. I gave him a pity-chuckle. "No, not like that. I can't even remember what it was exactly, just a lot of blurry pictures."

"Well, if you want blurry, look no further," Andrew said as he gestured over to the dart board. Some people were already playing, though not very well. "Maybe it's just because I see you play so much, but I think those guys might need glasses."

I'm not saying the three guys were awful, they clearly knew what they were doing. But playing to impress a handful of nearby girls (classmates, judging by the uniforms) obviously wasn't helping their concentration much.

"You want to go over and show them what for?"

"Now why would I want to do that? Let 'em have their fun, I'll play after they leave."

At that moment, Rita walked in, and Andrew immediately stood and went to talk to her, leaving me temporarily alone. I sat down in Andrew's seat and took a look around.

Almost all of the patrons were playing games, of course, but it was always interesting to see who played what. You might think that the girls generally go for the crane games and skee-ball, but a decent amount of them were blasting zombies and other assorted bad guys alongside their male friends. Probably the biggest gathering of people was the one clustered around the newest machine, the Sailor V game.

"Darien!" I turned my head to greet Rita. "How do you think you did?"

I shrugged. "Really not sure. I think I did okay, but you know how that tends to work. How about you?"

Rita beamed. "Oh, I know I aced this one! All that studying was worth it!"

Behind her, I could see Andrew look a little downcast. She'd probably put off going out with him to study. Well, he's good enough to understand, and he doesn't complain, but I know he still gets a little jealous for her attention. "And to celebrate..." she continued before giving Andrew a sly smile. "Well, to start, why don't you show me how to play that new Sailor V game?"

Ah, Sailor V. You'd think that a vigilante dressed like a schoolgirl would attract a lot of attention. You'd be right. Sailor V had first appeared a few months ago to foil a robbery, and despite the fact that she was technically a criminal (vigilantism is bad, kids), the police had decided to cooperate with her, and now there are action figures and arcade games based on her. Have you seen Watchmen? Well, never mind.

Andrew had been pushing the Sailor V game on his regulars, and they all seemed to like it. I was keeping my distance, though, I'm better off with the classic racers.

"C'mon, I bet with Andrew coaching me, I could beat you, Darien," Rita crowed. "How about a bet? If I can beat your high score, you treat us to dinner."

Andrew could probably see the sad look in my eye, since he tried to interject for me. "Hey, Rita, there's such a long line to play..."

Honestly, I appreciated the effort. But there was no need to hide it. "I haven't played it," I interrupted. "I don't like guns."

It's silly, I know. But in the game, Sailor V is blowing away bad guys and monsters with a gun. I don't have a problem with violence in games, really, but I just bring myself to see someone with a gun as a hero. Hence why I stick to racers: the arcade's full of gun games. Sure, there's nothing bad about them, really, and in most of them you're shooting zombies or dinosaurs or something, it's just...well, I don't know, really.

I spent a while talking with Andrew and Rita before leaving them around sunset. And back to my surprisingly dull apartment. Maybe a plant or two would liven the place up, something colorful and eye-catching. Some flowers, maybe? Whatever.

I flipped through the channels trying to find something interesting. Home shopping, cartoons, old horror movie, bank robbery, something with Jon Carradine...

It took a second after I'd seen it to really process it. I switched back to the news program discussing the robbery of a local bank just earlier today. It shouldn't have mattered to me, but as I watched the report, my dream from the previous night came rushing back to me. It was hazy, of course, but I do remember those masked men...and there they were, captured on the bank's security camera footage. A group of masked robbers with guns.

What would you have done in my situation? If you had just been confronted with the fact that you may have just had a dream that predicted the future?

If you were smart, you'd write it off as a coincidence. With crime on the rise, eventually you're going to dream about a crime, and then one will happen. That's just basic probability, there.

But, for better or worse, I wasn't that smart. I was tired, I was worried about the future, and, frankly, I was bored.

If I had really had a premonition of a crime before it occurred, then there was no reason it couldn't happen again. Maybe if I struggled hard to maintain clarity, I'd be able to tell when and where the crime was going to take place. Maybe I'd be able to prevent it, or at least tip someone off about it.

Sailor V foiled crimes, and she did it without killing anyone, relying on her skill and wits. I thought back on what Light had said the night before, and leaned back on my couch, the television report still going on.

"A superhero, huh?"