The Dark Ride Saga –

                 Chapter two                                            

                  Welcome to my world.

                                                                                    Disclaimers-

This is a local shop for local people:

I own only my copy of evil dead three with the alternate ending and a three foot mountain of junk food wrappers where my bin used to be. It moves. I swear! In the night it moves!...Uh and all characters except for Cal belong to those nice people at Marvel. 'Cept for Megaman. He belongs to the nice people at Nintendo.

Oh god! They know where I live!:

Archive this and I'll name my first born after you. Just tell me about it at some point.

It may become necessary to say the word ass at some point:

I'm giving this chapter a PG too, just to be safe.

Lost, Alone, Confused and dressed as a pirate:

Canon, as in so far outta whack with the real Marvel universe you could only get here by being fired from one.

Hey, I know how this ends!:

There may be some spoilers, but they'll be old.

I woke up the next morning feeling like hell. I'd made my way back to the few not-as-derelict-as-the-rest-of-the-building rooms that served as my home. With a groan I dragged myself out of the room I'd been sleeping in. On a table were the wallets and weaponry I had relieved the gang of. I wasn't feeling bad because of the fight, that had lasted only a few seconds. I was feeling terrible because I AM NOT a morning person. I idly toyed with the idea of killing everyone in the world who was but gave it up because it would have taken too much effort. Heh. Right around that point in my day, anything that doesn't involve coffee takes too much effort. I squatted in front of the table and managed after about three attempts to mutter

"Need coffee."

After some serious effort that even involved thinking at one point I made the coffee. Something wasn't right. I managed to think some more. I realized what the problem was.  I swore loudly. I don't need anything to help me do that in the morning. I had absolutely no water. With a sigh I settled down for a nice long stare at my cup of ground beans.

Hey, it might help.

It didn't. After about 15 minutes I realized this.

I looked over at my clock. It read 1:12 pm. I started swearing again. I had no idea it was so early. Little did I know that my day was only gonna get worse. I finally got around to checking the wallets of the gang members. Less than forty five dollars between them. Still that was forty five dollars more than I had before counting and thinking about the fight did make me feel a little better.

Hey!

Don't look at me like that!

I'm a guy. We hit stuff, we make fire and we chase women. In about that order. I was in a condemned building, so fire was out and for obvious reasons I wasn't ever gonna get to enjoy any sort of female companionship that I wouldn't have to pay for or dig up first. Violence it was. My (admittedly bizarre) train of thought was suddenly derailed by a not very common in this area noise. Cars. Lots of 'em. And a truck. Something else too. Something big. Mechanical. Probably a sentinel. I sighed. It was always sentinels. I had a sudden realization that slaughtering five gang members right outside the building I was living in probably wasn't a good idea. I took a moment to pack up what sparse belongings I had and then run over the fiendishly clever escape plan I'd come up with. Run, jump through the window, fall three stories to the street and run away. Percentage chance of failure? Zero. Absolutely brilliant.

There's a reason people yell at me when I try to plan anything. Can you spot it?

It took all of thirty seven seconds for this plan to fail. Thirty seven. Even for one of my plans it was bad. The jump through the window was flawless. And impressive. The three story drop wasn't something that would bother me. Hell, I'd probably walk away from a thirty story drop. It was the landing that all went wrong. I hit the road. Went through the road. Found myself sitting ass deep in sewer water. I can think on my feet though. Or my butt in this case. I was quickly up and running. After a couple of miles I figured I could stop running. Or at least slow down. I came to a Y-intersection. One path was pretty much the same as the one I was in. there was what sounded like footsteps coming from the other. If there were people down there maybe there was some place I could crash. I sighed. I hadn't been a fugitive for an hour and I was already contemplating living in a sewer. Great. I suddenly had a craving for nicotine. Couldn't exactly smoke though. More swearing. One advantage flatscans…sorry, humans have that I don't is lips.

Anyway.

I set off again. Whoever had been running had stopped. Unfortunately there was definitely the sound of fighting coming from up ahead. I moved into a bigger chamber. There were six people inside, all of them felt like mutants. It looked like five of them were squaring off against the sixth. Well, technically there were six people. Three were down. The amount of splatter was a good indication none of them were ever going to get up again. I decided to intervene. To this day I don't know why.  I moved towards the biggest person. I was assuming it was a he. The guy was huge. Huge with a capital H and a very big uge. Nine feet tall, about five across at the shoulders, a sickly green color, muscles like a sock full of footballs and worst of all, covered in faces. Not marks or scars or tattoos that looked like faces. Actual faces. With moving eyes. And mouths. They were all talking. Not the nicest mutant I've ever seen. I was suddenly glad I was using my camouflage abilities. If I stand still I'm almost impossible to see. I'm just a transparent swirl in the air when I move. I call it the Chameleon Sting. After sting Chameleon from Megaman X if you must know. I love that game. 'Cept for Sigma. I…

Sidetracked again.

Sorry.

Anyway. I was attacking the big mutant face guy. I threw a punch into the small of his back. My claw connected with a very satisfying noise that if I had to describe, I'd say was like a butcher hitting a side of meat with a cleaver. My camouflage dissipated just as every face on his body let out a howl and he pitched forward into the…well I'll call the stuff water. Remember, at the time I was in a sewer. I turned to the other mutant. This one had orange hair and purple skin. All her limbs were long thin tendrils. Odds on there were poison tipped or razor sharp. And she could see me. I didn't mention that? The Chameleon Sting only works till I take offensive action. Damned inconvenient at times, virtually deadly at others. Still, other people manage to win fights without being invisible.

I tend to go off on tangents don't I?

Sorry. Again.

The mutant woman made an almost elegant gesture towards me and her fingers extended and shot out towards me.

No

"Who are you!?!"

Or

"You'll pay for interfering."

 Straight to trying to kill me. People, well, bad guys anyway, tend to like to shout at attackers before retaliating. Strange but true. I quickly executed a flip to my left, dodging her attack and as she turned to follow me I retaliated, back flipping and catching her under her chin with a hoof. She went down in a spray of blood and teeth. Play the character endings and roll the credits 'cos this game is over.

I suddenly felt a twinge in my back. A twinge that developed into a sudden agonizing burst of pain. Thankfully I passed out at that point. I'd forgotten about the sixth person. If I had remembered I'd have assumed that the person would be thankful for my help. Big mistake.

When people talk about how one tiny decision can alter the course of someone's life, how choosing one path over another can completely alter your destiny I smile. For me, in that sewer, it happened literally and it did indeed change my life.

And got me violently stabbed in the back too.