Chapter 27: Civil War

Our morning started out normally, waking up to the smell of cooking meat, eating in silence for the most part then cleaning up our camp area surrounding the cave we'd taken residence in. Nothing out of the ordinary. What was out of the ordinary though was the strange symbol drawn around a large stump.

[What the hell is that?] - Rose

[You know you've become a lot more foul mouthed recently...] - Gil

[Don't care. Answer the question.] - Rose

I'd been so reserved since being reborn and was so unsure of myself but the last few days had done wonders at bringing me out of my shell. I wasn't quite the old me, nor was I the shy blubbering mess that I'd been since my new childhood. It was like both of those kind of "merged" together to become the real me... Sexual stuff still embarrassed me though...

Sighing at my response Master Gil finally answered my question but not before whispering something I didn't quite catch.

[<Becoming more and more like my wife.> Ahem! So to answer your question "that" is a Rune designed to allow someone to enter their own subconscious. Originally it was designed to allow for people to experience waking dreams.] - Gil

[Okay...? And that's useful how...?] - Rose

[Well it's useful because I believe that your Demon God's Wrath form has to do with your subconsciousness rather than purposeful activation. As such I want you to enter your mind and find out how to activate it consciously.] - Gil

[Activate it how?] - Rose

[Well hell if I know, I assume you want to look for something that is out of place? I'd start looking for anything that looks particularly violent as it seems to activate in response to anger or injury. As far as anything more specific, I have no clue.] - Gil

[Well that was amazingly unhelpful. Do you at least have any clue how long it will take?] - Rose

[Nope, not at all.] - Gil

[.............................] - Rose

Giving him the evil eye as he started sweating I remained silent at his completely useless "training" idea. The supposed 2000 year old immortal was sitting her basically telling me to "take a walk" 1ALUCARD!!! through my brain on the off-chance that I'd find "something". And to top it off he didn't even know what that "something" was that I needed to look for beyond the vague statement of "look for violent stuff".

[Seriously?] - Rose

[Well gods damn me this is the first time I've had to do this! It's not like I've got a huge number of Demon God pupil's under my belt!] - Gil

[..........well I guess that's fair. And if it doesn't work?] - Rose

[Well we'll try something else then. Let's get this damn thing started!] - Gil

[Fine let's do this!] - Rose

The prospect of entering my mind didn't exactly excite me. I mean gods forgive me but I knew how fucked up in was in there, hell even after 12-ish years the darkness of the internet still plagued me. Oh now that I think about it I'm glad I had asked Karen to delete my browser history if I ever died, I hope she followed though. Didn't want to traumatize my family afterall.

Feeling stupid, I found myself minutes later in a meditation pose with my tail curled around me on top of the stump inside of the intricate looking magical rune with Master Gil concentrating on something around the edge of the circle.

[Okay so take a deep breath and close your eyes, the magic will do the rest. Oh and... enjoy yourself... hehehe!] - Gil

[Wait wha...!] - Rose

Rising halfway to beat the pervert in his pervert face I suddenly saw the Rune start glowing and my vision faded...

What greeted me was and explosion of color. It was like those damn horses from My Little Horsey vomited on everything in sight. You ever seen the PottySquatty 2Reverse it and look it up, it's hilarious! commercial? Well it's like that. Nauseating amounts of pastel covered every object in sight and the sheer amount of light gave me a headache. On top of that everything seemed to be slightly fuzzy, like it wasn't quite solid, and sometimes distant objects would just fade away completely.

[How the fuck is this my mind?] - Rose

Right as I said? thought? that I saw a gigantic Popsi can roll past while crushing everything in it's path. The trail of destruction behind it was... nonexistent? Everything it ran over would spring up behind it as if nothing had happened.

[Okay so at least we know that this isn't someone else's brain. But seriously though how fucked up am I?] - Rose

Looking around at the jumble of modern buildings, medieval construction and weirdly colored plants I saw something out of place. A section of my mind in the distance looked like a dark stain on the colorful background. On top of that I could vaguely hear something that sounded like fighting in the distance.

[Hmm... I'd say that's where we need to head for if I had to guess...] - Rose

Moving through the bizarre city-scape in my mind I caught what looked like a giant set of boobs being chased by a equally huge dick and stared as they ran into a house which various sex noises then emanated from. A blush on my face as I hurried away I promptly decided to forget I ever saw that and continued my way through the weird buildings down what looked like a main street. Glancing at a street sign I noticed that it marked this street as Ego Rd.

[Wow... that's a bit on the nose don't you think?] - Rose

Moving on I realized that the sounds of fighting were now much closer and suddenly two human-like figures ran out of a side street being chased by a writhing shadow creature made of dozens of arms and claws. Turning to face that creature I saw them hold up weapons, one wielding a sword and the other... a gun?

[Huh?] - Rose

[Come on Rose, it's not weird to see guns in my own mind. More importantly that shadow creature is like 4 times their size! I gotta help them? Me? Whatever they are!] - Rose

Freezing at the unexpected appearance of modern weaponry I shook my head quickly before coiling my tail to launch me forward towards the horrifying monster that the... people? were facing. Seconds later I smashed into the side of the unexpecting creature, my forward momentum blasting it through the wall of a nearby light green building.

[Huh? Weak.] - Rose

[Are you two oka....! Uwe!] - Rose

Seemingly defeating the shadow creature I turned towards the two I had saved and was instantly thrown through a loop. The two of them looked like if you had the basic idea of what human's are shaped like and was presented with a ball of clay to build them. To put it simply they didn't look quite... finished.

[Thank you large stranger. The Id creature had nearly caught us.] - Male? Clay Person

[Yes honored stranger, they have been pushing further and further into the Ego recently because of our inability to fight them.] - Female? Clay Person

[D-Don't mention it...? U-Umm what exactly are yo...? I mean that! What exactly was that? Hehehe....] - Rose

Nervously laughing at my totally smooth save as I pointed at the massive hole in the wall behind me, I hoped they hadn't caught my slip of the tongue. Didn't want to upset something in my head without knowing what it would do afterall.

[Oh you don't know of creature's of the Id stranger? Are you a traveler from distant lands?] - Male? Clay Person

[Heheheh... S-Something like that... yeah...] - Rose

Briefly looking at each other the two clay people seemed to come to a decision and the Female? one turned to me.

[Umm we think you should speak with Logic. He will know more than we do. We can guide you.] - Female? Clay Person

[S-Sure... Lead the way.] - Rose

If I'd thought that the city behind me was strange the battlefield before me was plain crazy town. Everywhere I could see were little clay people fighting dozens of those same Id creature's from before. Now that wouldn't be that weird but every time one of the clay people "died" they would stand right up again only a few seconds later, seemingly none the worse for wear, and continue fighting. On the far side of the battlefield was what looked like a rupture in the sky. Running from the ground and into the sky as far as I could see was a "tear" in midair, out of which dozens of those Id creature's were pouring.

On a hill overseeing the battle I was lead to a person? with it's back turned to me. They were dressed in a mixture of realistic medieval armor and over the top fantasy-style fake armor. In other words they looked like the worst kind of LARPER.

[Logic. We found a traveler. It killed an Id creature that was chasing us in one blow.] - Male? Clay Person

[One hit?!? Impossible. You know as well as I do that these creature's are immortal!] - Logic?

Turning around I instantly felt my mouth open in shock at the familiar face in front of me. It had been over 12 years but I'd never really forgotten the face in front of me, it was as familiar as the one I owned now. Afterall the face of Logic was that of my old male face as Austin. Fighting down the inexplicable feeling of wrongness at seeing "my" old face I couldn't place where that feeling was coming from.

[Ahem! U-Um Logic is it?] - Rose

[Yes! And who are you large stranger? Are you a minion of the Id?] - Logic

[I don't even know what that is! What's going on here?] - Rose

[Hmm? Well it's quite simple. The Ego and the Id are currently in a civil war for control of Subconscia.] - Logic 3It's a bit on the nose but what isn't... lol