"On the heels" I say when the last entry was almost a month ago. What I mean by that is this entry will be a related successor to the last, so go read it and come back.

First off, I now have to wonder what is rougher on me, a really bad nightmare or a really good dream. The nightmares I can wake up from. The good dreams I wake up into a world that isn't the dream. That happened right after I posted the last entry, and it bummed me out for a couple days.

But anyways, my back brain has once again delivered the goods, coming up with a creature called "Kylonions," named after the first such on to exist. They are humans gifted with the ability to reshape reality with their thoughts. By wishing it into effect, point of fact. They seem to have the same restrictions on their wishes as Genie from "Aladin," but otherwise they can go nuts. The first, Kyle, did exactly that. A gay kid from a small conservative town, when such an abundance of power fell into his lap (the power hits you at some point between puberty and your last major growth spurt), he became an oversexed dictator of that same town. He had been unable to distinguish between those who disliked him because he was different and those who disliked him because he was an asshat from the word "go," and so when he could do anything he wanted, he turned the tables on ALL of them. He forced church leaders, teachers, and even his parents to submit to his whim, and any particularly good looking boy to submit to his lust. Some he used up completely, killing them, but that didn't even slow him down. In my dream, he went from a 15 year old kid to what looked like a 40 year old, and I think that was an affect of being so abusive with his power, not a literal passage of time (since no one else aged). It of course didn't take long before no one would have defended him if they could.

Which turned out to be important, since there came calling a skull-faced person with the exact same powers as Kyle, who meant to kill him. Succeeded too, since Kyle didn't have a prayer of beating him on his own. Perhaps if he'd been in his younger body, or had ever bothered to learn the true limits of his powers, or most importantly, had heeded the warnings of his most frequent lover, who could read tarot cards and foretell a little bit. None of these things happened. The prescient lover was able to make sure everyone had evacuated before the throw down, but even he was grimly determined that Kyle be killed. So he was.

Before Kyle's doom met up with him, my dream cut to another sequence. Seriously, it was like one of those anthology movies like "the Outer Limits." I can half see a title screen splash above the two character's heads. They were the spiritual, if not literal, descendants of Kyle, a pair of sisters. The younger sister had just come into her power, and was being instructed in its use by the older. Several generations of Kylonians had risen and fallen, so the power and its cost were a bit better understood. No one had quite figured out how the power passed on, but it did more frequently happen in pairs or groups within families, and by the time of the sisters there were about a dozen going at once. As I said, some time in their teenage years their power would activate, and before long the "Shadow" would find them to take them out. Some had by this time theorized that they received the power specifically to fight the Shadow, while others believed as Kyle did in his last moments, that the use of their power called out to the Shadow wherever it came from. The older sister subscribed to the former school, while the younger felt more comfortable with the latter. They did know that it was possible to defeat the Shadow, and that once you did you were never targeted by it again. You could still be killed by it, as the only way to defeat the Shadow was in groups. Typically, these were groups of Kylonians, but the earlier few who did not follow in Kyle's footsteps were forced to ask help from their human friends and lovers, with a predictably higher casualty rate. As far as I know, the older sister (f it. Marie) had already faced her ordeal, and meant to help Wendy through hers.

So they began traveling, Marie running Wendy through an ever difficult series of test, meant to improve her combat prowess and make the use of her power something that took no more than a thought or intent. This would not be totally effective against the Shadow, since multiple competing demands upon reality sort of canceled each other out, and it came down to will vs will as much as anything, but it would help. They also met a couple other Kylonions, who also put Wendy through her paces.

During the trip though, Wendy began to notice a certain arrogance in Marie's manner, towards her of course, but even more towards normal humans. All Kylonions knew the story of Kyle, and of the few who lived up to his ideals, and so took to heart the warnings about setting themselves up above the set of creation. Despite that, Wendy couldn't help but notice that Marie and every other Kylonion who'd faced their trial clearly saw themselves as joint masters of creation. After all, only the threat of other Kylonions provided a limit on what they could do, and even that was a fear-spawned habit from their days when they could not afford to piss off any potential ally. Except humans, of course. Them they could piss off at will. Marie sometimes called them "Shadow-fodder.

As can be supposed, the Shadow attacked in the middle of trip. Point of fact, they were in "Kyle's Fortress," as the rebuilt building that had once been a high school and the spot where Kyle's had met his end had become known. Few people, and no other Kylonions lived in the town anymore, which made the sisters about as exposed as they could be.

After all that build up, I feel like a heel to sum up the battle as "they won," but yeah, that's about it. Wendy threw a flash of brilliant energy straight into the Shadow's face, burning it to a crisp. Marie had to be taken to a hospital, but they were otherwise fine. Physically. Wendy though, was more than a bit bothered by something. She'd seen something in those last moments with the Shadow, something she couldn't quite reconcile.

Her own face where the skull should have been.

Anyways, that was last night. I wanted to get it down before the details got fuzzy, and this thing was elected.