Chapter Forty-Nine: Flipside

Cruz yawned as he woke up. There were always two things he did whenever he woke up. First, he looked to see if his room was normal, or if it existed only in shades of cyan—he wanted to determine if he was waking up either in his home, or in his dream tower on Prospit's moon. After determining that he was awake and not dreaming, Cruz then plucked the joint from behind his ear, which he had rolled the previous night.

He rolled a joint every night before bed, so when he woke up he could immediately start smoking it, before he started to feel too sober. He had been doing this since he was little, and had he not been constantly stoned every hour of every day, he might have questioned his apparent aversion to sobriety. But he was stoned every hour of every day, and so the introspective questions were never asked.

Cruz lit up the joint as he hopped out of bed. He glanced at the time on his watch, giving a quiet chuckle. After Anna had dropped in the Sburb entry machines, Cruz had been very quick about creating his cruxite artifact, which happened to be an orange cruxite cigar. He'd had to bite the cigar and start smoking it to trigger the entry process.

Cruz's kernelsprite had ended up getting accidentally prototyped with one of the small Santa statues that his Abuelita liked to decorate the house with, regardless of what the time of year was. It hadn't been very helpful—there was a limit to how helpful a spirit guide could be considered to be if all it says is 'ho ho ho!'

After entering the Medium, Cruz had taken a bong rip or two, and then went to bed to take a little nap. All this running around, escaping meteors, apocalyptic storms…it was tiring! And Cruz just felt like being a lazy tard for a little bit—after passing through the hell of Sburb's entry phase, he felt he deserved it!

Then, after playing some Xbox in his dream tower on Propsit, Cruz had woken back up to the sound of birdsong. After taking his first few drags, Cruz shuffled downstairs to the kitchen. He filled a pot with water and set it on the stovetop. He then pulled a pack of chicken-flavor ramen noodles from the pantry, setting it down on the counter while he waited for the water to boil.

Cruz wandered out of the kitchen and headed into the front hall. Scratching an itch under his goatee, the teenager opened the front door and stepped outside, taking in a deep breath through his nose. His house and the yard immediately surrounding it had been transported to the top of a butte that towered over the rest of the landscape, offering a breathtaking view. The only familiar part of this new environment was the Mountain; the small hill next to Cruz's house, just on the bank of the lake where the Frog Temple had been. It had obviously been transported into the Medium alongside Cruz's house.

There were wide swathes of woods, trees with red and yellow leaves. There were streams and colorful flowers, large fields of greenish plants, birds flitting through the sky… There were also strange, glowing orbs of lights that hovered not high up off the ground, floating wherever the breeze carried them. And in the sky, Cruz could spot colorful hazes that resembled the aurora borealis, lending to the illusion that the sky itself was constantly rippling, constantly changing color. The other odd feature was the multi-colored smoke that wisped into the sky from subterranean vents, adding to the ambient color of the landscape.

And even though Santasprite was a less than helpful guide, Cruz already knew what this world was. The Land of Lights and Smoke. LOLAS, for short. He'd learned that during his dreams on Prospit.

Cruz grinned as he watched the orbs of light drift through some of the woods in the near distance, a smile slowly lighting up his face. "Now that's some trippy shit," he giggled, taking another hit from his joint, exhaling the smoke towards the sky. Then he noticed Santasprite out of the corner of his eye, hovering next to one of the bay windows. "You think that's some trippy shit, Santasprite?"

Santasprite pulsed with a bright amber light, the pompom at the end of his hat producing a small shower of orange sparks. "Ho, ho, ho!" he chuckled, showing off his broad vocabulary.

"Yeah, I figured you did…" Cruz took another hit, closing his eyes for a moment as he felt the pleasant, massage-like sensation around his temples and the back of his head. "Don't let any monsters in, aight?"

"Ho, ho, ho!"

Cruz went back into the house, returning to the kitchen. By now, the water had started to boil, so Cruz dumped the ramen into the pot. He stirred it with a wooden spoon, humming quietly to himself. The first time he heard something clang upstairs, he didn't give it much thought. He was happily stoned, and he had ramen noodles that were just about finished cooking. Life was good, right now.

But then he heard it again, a crashing noise that sounded like something shattering. Cruz's eyes flicked upwards briefly, as if he could see what was causing the commotion just by looking at the ceiling. He then turned off the burner and dumped the ramen noodles into a bowl, adding the flavor packet and stirring it all in.

Then he left the kitchen and headed upstairs, following the weird noises. Several of his Abuelita's Santa statues lay in pieces in the upstairs hallway, and he could hear the sound of tearing coming from his Abuelita's room. Frowning slightly, Cruz made his way down the hall and stepped through the master bedroom door.

One of the windows in Cruz's grandma's room was open, and there were three small, black creatures wreaking havoc on the bed. They tore stuffing from the pillows, ripped holes through the sheets, sent Santa statue crashing to the floor… The creatures were small, maybe three or four feet tall, slightly hunched over. They had a hard, black exoskeleton, sharp claws, glistening, pointed teeth, and mischievous leers.

They were imps, the smallest and weakest of the underlings. Cruz stared at them from the doorway, his joint hanging lazily from his mouth, unsure of how to react. "Hey…" he murmured, stepping into the master bedroom. "You, uh…you guys wanna ease up a bit?"

The three imps all whipped around, gazing at him with their beady little eyes. Then, before Cruz could react, all three of them leaped off the bed and rushed him. Cruz could only giggle as his joint went flying and he was tackled by the imps—this was hilarious to him. Well, hilarious until one of the imps started to sink its teeth into his thigh.

"Fuckin'…fuckin' ouch, man!" Cruz exclaimed, climbing back to his feet and prying the imp off his leg. "What was that for, little guy?"

When the other two imps started swiping at him with their claws, Cruz quickly jumped back out of the room and shut the door behind him. He could hear the imps banging and scratching at the door, but it would be a while until they were able to force their way through. Cruz backed away from the door, turning back around when he heard more noise coming from downstairs.

Cruz hurried back down the stairs, finding the front door open and more imps pouring inside. "Yo Santasprite, what did I say about letting monsters inside?" he hollered out through the open doorway as he passed it by.

"Ho, ho!" the faint reply from outside was.

But, as annoying as the imps coming in through the front door were, that wasn't what was causing Cruz alarm—it was the noise coming from the kitchen that was making him worry. He hurried back into the kitchen…and nearly wept when he saw another imp throwing the bowl of ramen noodles off the counter, and then proceeding to devour them off the floor.

"Aw, c'mon, little guy! That was my lunch!" Cruz complained. There were five or six other imps skittering about the kitchen, raising a ruckus, but he only had eyes for the sad remains of his ramen noodles. He then had to rapidly exit the kitchen after the imps started to swarm him. Cruz, disliking physical violence, had no strife specibus, so he couldn't just pull a weapon from thin air like his friends could.

That meant he had to be smart around these underlings.

I need another joint, Cruz thought to himself, remembering that he'd lost his first one. Evading the underlings who'd just ruined his lunch, Cruz headed to the front hall and went back upstairs, going straight to his bedroom. As he looked for his wallet sylladex to retrieve his supply of bud, Cruz noticed that the PalHassle icon on his computer was blinking. Someone was trying to contact him.

Cruz sat down at his computer desk and opened up PalHassle, curious who it was.

It was Adam.

-anomalousThespian began hassling conquistadorsAshes-

AT: hey
AT: cruz
AT: you there?
CA: yeah bro im so here
CA: im like
CA: the here-est of them all
CA: …
CA: heh
AT: are you…?
AT: fuck it, never mind.
AT: you get into the session yet?
AT: the medium
AT: whatever the hell cass called it; you get in?
CA: ya bro
CA: i got in
CA: went all kevin flynn on this motherfucker
CA: got me a sprite and everything
AT: yes, wonderful.
AT: you know what you're supposed to do?
AT: you're supposed to build up my house to the first gate?
CA: yeah bro i got you
CA: i just gotta go make these imps chillax aight
AT: you know anything about sprites, dude?
AT: i mean, you seem to know a lot about this game, already…
CA: yeah man i know shit about the sprites
CA: question is
CA: what do u know about the sprites
AT: …well, obviously not enough, if i'm asking you something about them.
AT: i spoke with cass
CA: o yea bro did u guys go on ur date
CA: the one theo set up for u saturday nite
CA: howd that go
AT: the world blew up, cruz; we didn't get the chance.
AT: anyway…
AT: i speak with Cass, and she tells me to prototype my sprite with something living or previously alive;
AT: something reasonably sentient, mind you.
AT: and my murdered dream self, minus an intact throat, is suddenly dumped into my bedroom.
CA: whoa man hit the brakes for a sec
CA: whats this about ur murdered dream self
CA: ur dream self is fine bro
CA: i just saw it a minute ago in ur dream tower
CA: sleepin like a fuckin baby
AT: how could you see it a minute ago? you were sleeping a minute ago?
CA: naw man
CA: i find myself on prospit sometimes if i smoke too much
CA: …
CA: i think i smoked a bowl too many this afternoon
CA: haha which reminds me
CA: i saw u in the clouds again u fuckin angel
CA: u were a fuckin angel dude hahahaha
CA: so fuckin weird
AT: yeah, about that…
AT: and wait, why the fuck are you looking at my sleeping dream self?
AT: actually, fuck it.
AT: never mind.
AT: as i was saying, shenanigans happen, and my dead dream self ends up prototyped with the eaglesprite—it'd already been merged with my roman eagle sculpture.
AT: my dream self was definitely sentient, definitely 'previously-alive', just like cass wanted.
AT: and it tries to fucking murder me when all i do is speak two words to it.
AT: and my sprite, it still has the wings.
AT: and feathers. it has fucking feathers, too.
AT: there is a glowing red sprite-version of me combined with an eagle rampaging around somewhere.
AT: there is your fucking angel that you see in prospit's clouds.
AT: my fucked-up sprite/eagle clone.
CA: naw dude prospit dont have any clouds
CA: those are skaian clouds dude from skaia
CA: and when i saw u in the clouds u werent glowin red dude
CA: and ur dream self aint fuckin dead either so
CA: i dunno what u want me to say
AT: i dunno… i guess i was only curious as to why prototyping my dream self would create a psycho.
AT: well, it doesn't really matter at this point, now, does it?
AT: oh, shit, gotta go.
AT: tami just signed on and i've been meaning to talk to her.
AT: oh, i almost forgot. can you do me a favor?
CA: yeah bro what do ya need
AT: i just need you to deploy the punch designix from the phernalia registry.
AT: put it somewhere upstairs, preferably.
AT: and move the cruxtruder upstairs, too.
CA: aight i have it…
CA: uh…
CA: ok i just set it down on the balcony outside ur window
AT: can you build a bridge from my window to the balcony, real quick?
CA: already done
AT: whoa, what the hell was that?
CA: sorry dude i just made ur roof flat
CA: made a bit more noise than i thought it would
CA: ok i just put the cruxtruder down on the roof
CA: here ill make u a ladder
CA: there we are
AT: great, cruz, thanks a bunch.
CA: aight bro later
CA: ill start building ur house once i deal with these imps

-anomalousThespian is no longer hassling conquistadorsAshes-

Cruz signed out of PalHassle. That had taken a bit longer than he'd expected, having to move the entry machines around Adam's house, but he wasn't in any rush. He got up from his computer and looked around the bedroom for his wallet sylladex…but he couldn't find it anywhere.

"Must've dropped it…" Cruz murmured, realizing that the last place it had been was his back pocket, which was now empty. Which meant that it must have fallen out in his Abuelita's bedroom. "Gotta go deal with those little guys, again…"

Cruz grabbed a lighter and pocketed it, walking out into the upstairs hallway. Thankfully, none of the imps downstairs had made their way up the staircase, yet, so the hall was clear. Cruz moved warily towards the door to his Abuelita's bedroom, as if he were afraid it would leap out and bite him like the creatures behind it would.

Curiously enough, Cruz could not hear the imps on the other side of the door. Before, they'd been making all kinds of racket, but now… There was silence.

When Cruz gently edged open the door, he took one look inside and nearly burst out into laughter. The three imps were all sitting on their asses, leaning against the front of the bed. Their eyes were glassy, and one of them had its tongue hanging out of its mouth. The imp on the left had Cruz's still-smoking joint in its mouth. As Cruz watched, the imp exhaled the smoke and let the joint be plucked out of its mouth by the imp in the middle, who proceeded to take another hit of its own.

There were underlings getting stoned in his Abuelita's room. Now, Cruz was certain he'd seen it all.

Cruz walked into the room and found his wallet sylladex lying on the floor, sitting down and grabbing it. As he retrieved some of his vast quantities of bud from the sylladex to roll another joint, he looked up and made the peace sign with his fingers to the imps, his smile widening. "You guys are probably feelin' pretty awesome right now, am I right?"

The imp in the middle, who still had the joint, blinked once. Then it cocked its head and lifted a hand, doing its best to raise two of its claws. Cruz saw that it was trying to mimic his peace sign, and that just made his day. "Right on, dude, right on! I knew you guys had some chill in you! Like fuckin'…fuckin' sour-patch kids, you know? First they're all crazy, like whoa, man, whoa! An' then they're all chill. Thanks for being my sour-patch imps."

The imp in the middle gave a slow nod, a lazy grin on its face as it passed the joint over to the imp on the right. As he watched the imps get high, an idea worked its way into the hazy, light-filled playground that was Cruz's mind. He got to work, sitting cross-legged and grinding up a good amount of the bud he'd taken out of his sylladex. Within two minutes, Cruz had four freshly-rolled joints arrayed on the floor behind him.

Cruz kept one joint for himself, but gave the other three to each of the imps. "Okay, little guys, stand up!" he said to them, energetically gesturing with his arms for them to rise. One by one, they all got to their feet, swaying slightly as they got used to the world moving around them. Then Cruz gestured for them to follow him. When they went back out into the hallway, Cruz turned to his followers. "Okay, now I want you to light these bad boys up and give 'em to your friends downstairs. Spread the love, little guys!"

The imps made their way downstairs, obviously able to understand Cruz's instructions, somehow. He'd always had a way with animals—one time, when he was seven years old, Cruz had actually managed to get a deer in his backyard to let him ride on its back. That was just the most extreme example—he couldn't actually talk to animals, but they always seemed to understand the general idea of what he was trying to tell them.

The same obviously held true for these underlings. After the three imps went downstairs to get their friends as baked as they were, it wasn't much longer than ten minutes until all the ruckus below quieted down, and Cruz could relish in the powerful scent of burning marijuana.

"Fuckin' weed, man…" Cruz giggled, lighting up his own joint and taking a deep hit. "Brings all the crazy motherfuckers together."

I watched Adam hit the ground after plummeting about a hundred feet from the top of his built-up house all the way to the front yard. He'd gone up against the two ogres that guarded his first gate, and…well, let's just say the score for right now was Ogres: 1, Adam: 0.

I couldn't help but shake my head—had I really been so useless in a fight? It wasn't like this was all that long ago…not much more than a month in the past, from my perspective.

And yeah, I'd finally remembered what my name was. Well, maybe not so much my name…but you know what I mean. Adam Tarrant. How could I have forgotten it? How could I have gone so long without remembering it? I decided to stop thinking about that—after spending several hours sobbing in the rainclouds, my thoughts had finally settled a little bit. I was no longer in danger of being subsumed by the eagle's consciousness, though I could still feel it fighting against me…

I could see images of battles—thousands of soldiers wearing armor, wielding short swords and large shields, fighting in tight formation against droves of wild men with blue paint. I had memories of snow-covered forests I'd never been to, the interiors of tents with people I'd never met, a giant wall that overlooked a wilderness to the north…

I shook my head as I descended towards my house, forcing the eagle's memories apart from my own. I did my best to keep them separate, but they always managed to sneak up on me like that… I started to get the feeling that, when my Sis told me she'd bought my eagle statuette from a random gift shop, she probably hadn't been telling the whole truth. How could an eagle statuette from a gift shop give me memories like that?

There were dozens of underlings—imps and ogres—scaling the sides of the butte my house had materialized on top of, as well as streaming out of my house itself. All of them were converging on Adam, who was lying sprawled on the front lawn, unconscious. If he didn't get some help, and now, then he'd be imp-chow.

Just looking at Adam threatened to send me over the edge again, but I took a deep breath and forced myself to stay calm. I folded my wings back and let myself shoot straight down towards the ground, slicing right through the rain and wind as if I were a bullet fired from a high-power rifle. Then just before I hit the ground, I flared my wings to their full span, arresting my fall. My mouth opened and I let out an ear-splitting screech as I sent a roaring inferno of flame slamming down into the ground below me, incinerating the ogre that was in my way so that I could land safely.

I crouched over Adam's body and let out another screech as I formed some of my own sprite energy into a Bowie knife; my favorite weapon. The oncoming imps actually drew back a few paces, made hesitant by my avian outburst. But the effect was only momentary—within two seconds, they were right back on my ass.

Unfortunately for them, this was the first real chance since my forced revival that I've had to vent my anger on something tangible, and these underlings learned that firsthand. I flexed my fingers—warped and mutated as they were—and swiped the first imp to jump at me, opening its throat with my talons. Two more imps followed suit; one ended up on the wrong end of my energy Bowie for its trouble, and I took off the head of the second with a blast of flame.

I kept the underlings away from Adam, cutting down any who came too close, but…as I went through more and more underlings, I found that I was kind of zoning out. One moment I would be dodging an ogre's fist, and then the next I'd suddenly find myself flying through the air, bathing dozens of the little shits in flame. Then I'd have to pull myself back to reality, until the cycle repeated itself.

It was the eagle's consciousness. It sensed a fight, and now it was struggling to get to the surface. And when it was able to do so, I would lose control, coming back to my senses in the middle of a mindless rampage—twice, I nearly killed Adam by accident because the eagle was trying to take control. My frustration was growing.

I weaved my way through the remaining imps and ogres, focusing much more on maintaining control of my own mind as I took them down with fast, well-aimed strikes. I tried to refrain from using fire, now—the eagle tended to take control whenever I used my fire…probably because I had to focus on the Force Aspect to invoke fire, and that detracted from my level of focus on keeping the eagle subdued.

And so, I used my knife. And when I couldn't use my knife, I flexed my talons and ripped their goddamn faces off. I tore through the remaining underlings until there was just one lone ogre left. This ogre was wary of me, and it didn't openly rush me…so, instead, I attacked it. I buried my talons into the ogre's shoulder and gave a powerful flap of my wings, sending me swinging around the ogre's side and onto its back. I then gripped my Bowie and thrust it up through the back of the ogre's neck, straight into its brain.

The large underling dropped without a sound.

I whipped back around, talons outstretched, wings twitching, my eyes jumping from one direction to the next at the speed of light, searching for my next target. I could hear more underlings on the way, but…but for now, I'd managed to clear the front yard. Gradually, I stopped seeing red at the edges of my vision.

I caught movement out of the corner of my eye, saw that Adam had regained consciousness. Good—he needed to get on his feet before the underlings came back. I wouldn't be able to hold back another wave without taking wounds, or accidentally hurting him in some way. It was a minor miracle that I hadn't fucked up already.

"Get up," I said to Adam, gesturing for him to get back on his feet.

But Adam was having none of it. "I can barely move, you fucktard!" he shouted right back.

Disgust filled me, and I could actually feel my lip curl. I could remember this, from my time in the dream bubble. I remembered lying on the ground in agony with my Sprite hollering at me to get the fuck up…and it puzzled me how I could've acted this way. How could I have been such a whiny little bitch?

"You're a goddamn Knight," I could hear myself snarling, repeating the advice that would eventually become my mantra. "Knights can get sliced up within an inch of their lives, and they can still keep right on going. So get. The fuck. Up!" My voice grew louder with each syllable until I was practically screaming in his face.

Adam bit back a harsh retort and decided to suck it up, struggling to his feet. I relented a tad bit and threw one of my former waking self's arms over my shoulder, helping him into the house. I slammed the front door shut behind me. We climbed staircase after staircase, constantly making our way up through the dozens of floors that had been added to my house by Cruz, who was Adam's server player.

The roof was over a hundred feet off the ground, just below the first gate, and I was almost starting to feel a bit tired by we reached the top. Adam was walking on his own by then, so we both went out onto the roof separately. Those two ogres who'd knocked Adam off the roof were still there, still guarding the first gate, daring Adam to come after them.

Well, now Adam had some backup. Some angry, half-eagle, clinically-insane backup. We split up when we reached the roof, each of us going after one of the ogres. My vision began to dilate as I went after my ogre; the eagle was struggling with me, again. I dealt with this ogre quickly—dodged one blow, then the next. I bared my talons and tore a sizable gash into one of the underling's upper legs, causing it to falter.

Then I grabbed one of the ogre's tusks and leaped behind it, bringing my energy knife around to the underling's neck, drawing a harsh line across its throat with it. The ogre took a couple stumbling steps, making a horrible gurgling sound as it choked on its own blood before finally collapsing.

My stomach twisted for a moment when I looked at my handiwork, already wishing I hadn't slit the underling's throat. I ran a few fingers across my own throat, wincing as I felt the wound that had killed me, back when I was just a normal old dream self. Flashes of old memories flitted through my mind—a dark, bloody knife, the empty gaze of the White Guardian, the tears of the White Queen…

I screwed my eyes shut, trying to block those memories out. Then the eagle sensed my moment of weakness and tried to go in for the kill. I felt a strong desire to fly away from the roof and go hunting for small animals, to get away from all the loud, obnoxious creatures that were gravitating to this house.

Adam Tarrant. My name is Adam Tarrant. My name is Adam Tarrant…

I repeated that to myself several times, until the eagle's memories stopped trying to drown out my own. It helped to know who I was. I looked back over to the other side of the roof, just in time to see Adam decapitate the other ogre with a sudden blast of fire. I remembered that, too—one of the very first times I'd been able to summon fire with my Aspect.

Adam had gotten the shit kicked out of him by that ogre. There was a fresh bruise on his jaw, and he appeared to have broken a rib or two. He lay semi-conscious on the ground, looking around with glazed-over eyes.

The contempt I'd been feeling didn't go away. "I can't believe I was really this incompetent against ogres…" I muttered.

But enough of that. Time to wrap up business. To be honest, the eagle's consciousness wasn't the only thing cluttering up my mind. Ever since I was revived, I realized that I suddenly…knew things…things about the incipisphere, about Sburb that I hadn't known before. It was knowledge that had never been shared with me; I just suddenly possessed it, now.

It was the knowledge of the inner workings of the incipisphere that was imparted to all sprites—it was how sprites were able to function as guides to the players. Almost like having an instruction manual downloaded directly into my brain—fuckin' "I know Kung-fu," and all that shit. And one of those acquired sprite factoids was my sprite pendant—I had, in my possession, a sprite pendant that I was bound to, and I was supposed to give it to Adam so that he could summon me if he needed my help.

Yeah, I'd rather eat rusty nails before binding myself to Adam, but it was something I had to do. I tried to ignore it, but the sprite knowledge started to irritate me, becoming like an itch I couldn't scratch. If I continued to ignore the compulsion to give Adam the pendant, I knew it would've just gotten a hundred times worse.

And so, I dried my eyes and flew down from the rainclouds, just in time to see the useless shit get his ass handed to him by those two ogres.

I folded my wings and hovered over to where Adam lay, keeping my expression blank as I looked down at him. I cleared my throat. "You obviously can't talk right now, so I'll make this brief. I'm sorry I tried to kill you back there… I'm just going through some really fucked up mental shit, after what Cass just did to me… Look it's nothing personal, but I just can't be around you for a while." I paused for a moment, then reached into my own body, right about where my heart should have been, and pulled out my sprite pendant. I lifted Adam's head, slipping the amber-colored pendant around his neck. "Here, I'm not supposed to give you this yet, but if you ever need a hand…"

I couldn't help but frown, remembering from my time in the dream bubble all the frustration I'd suffered because my Sprite had abandoned me…because I was about to abandon him. But there was nothing to be done. I couldn't change what happened, not unless I wanted us to spiral off into a doomed timeline. I decided instead to offer some parting words of encouragement that I knew Adam would forget. But still…it was something.

"Don't worry, though," I said to him. "If what I remember actually happened, you'll get along just fine without me. Just like everyone else…"

And with that, I leaned down and gathered Adam up in my arms, taking care not to jostle his broken ribs. Then I unfolded my wings—with a single, powerful flap, I propelled myself straight up into the first gate. There was a blinding flash of red light, and I felt a bit of a headache. Then I emerged from the gate in a clearing, somewhere in the middle of the Knightswood.

I left Adam where he lay. It would not be long until he was found by Glimmering Scales and Burning Dusk…and, to be perfectly honest, I didn't want to see them. One more reminder of the life that didn't belong to me…

I flew straight up, spearing through the rainclouds until I could see the darkness of space up above me. In the distance, Skaia shined like a sun, and I knew Prospit was out there, too. But then I turned my gaze off to the right, where I was able to barely glimpse at another planet. It was the exact same size as mine, a vast portion of it covered with greenish thunder clouds.

The Land of Thunder and Dwarves. Cass's planet.

My anger started to return, and the eagle within my mind started to screech. The eagle snuck around my mind and basically hijacked my central nervous system, causing my wings to beat, and I set off towards the neighboring world. I didn't fight the eagle on this one, though, because I was heading in the direction I wanted to go.

I had a bone to pick with Cass.