Avatara

Where could I leave my real body?

There was a small road nearly only as wide as an alleyway filled with bins. I ran into it. It smelled of urine and I think I saw a dead rat by a drain pipe. I looked behind me for a moment but I could not see Knightmare-Grimm. Why was he not chasing me? Anyway now is my chance. I saw a large bin skip. No idea what this was doing here taking up such a narrow road but I decided to have a look at it. Nice rotten meat. Nope, I cannot leave my real body here. A rat might enter my mouth.

Ok wait, an open back door? I walked inside and there was a narrow landing area with terrible, strewn, reddy purple wallpaper with a repeating brown flower design going from top to bottom of the wall. Ahead of me is a black door with commotion going on behind it. Best not to go there. But to the right is a staircase leading to several floors above and what was probably a bas.e.m.e.nt below. I decided to go upstairs as I did not want to risk my body getting locked in a cellar.

The steps were creaky but I tried to be as quiet as I could. What sort of place is this? I saw people in burlesque type clothing on wall photos. Again I could hear commotion. So to the top floor and then I found a good spot. A small cupboard without a lock. It had a vacuum cleaner that I nudged to the side. I took out my alpha phone and put on my avatara application. The alpha phone is a web 5.0 with 5G high data satellite capabilities, crucial to my plan of overwhelming this Knightmare-Grimm monster right now. It can make calls to any signal mast in the world at a high data rate and since its release last year it outperformed every other phone on the market.

Unfortunately, I did not have super dust but there were lots of dust particles in this dingy place. Here we go, the phone makes a call to the Sheldrake communications pole and Avatara is about to activate. I feel a tingle down the back of my neck and the next moment I am standing outside the cupboard in my glistening, shimmering avatara form. My avatara looks like me but wearing a glowing motorcycle light suit, with blue and yellow glowing fluorescent strips.

I look inside the cupboard and see my lifeless real body slumped like the vacuum cleaner. I readjusted its head position as much as I could just to make sure I wouldn't have neck pain when I returned to it. I was no longer Grace Shelley but my avatara alias, Skyclad and it was time to kick some Grimm a.s.s.

***

"I am not the same as before. I AM KNIGHTMARE-GRIMM!!!"

Knightmare-Grimm mouth dribbled with delight. Walker was still lying on the pavement. The numbers of police officers had increased but no one was brave enough to approach Knightmare-Grimm's glimmering figure. One officer spoke through a megaphone but he was not listening. Knightmare-Grimm saw Grace run down an alleyway and moved to follow.

"You can't escape me Grace. Your mind, body and soul belong to me. I will drag you across the ground by your red hair and make you my slave. You will give me those kernel codes and then I will savour your tender flesh." These words that Grimm said to Grace before she fled Sheldrake enterprises in horror, words she never actually heard, repeated in his mind. Their mind. Though Knightmare was subdued within the avatara, he tried to retaliate. A frightened boy who realised his mistake too late.

"I don't care about kernel codes," said Knightmare. "This isn't fun anymore. Let me go."

"You belong to me now boy," said Grimm.

"No I do not," said Knightmare. Both souls of the avatara were arguing inside it and just like that the avatara fought with itself. The police were stunned to see the avatara hitting its own head and screaming. Knightmare-Grimm wrestled itself, punching its own face repeatedly.

"Enough," said Grimm. He overpowered Knightmare from within the avatara. "Thanks to your memory of Grace's most recent phone number we have traced Grace within hours, when it would have otherwise taken a week. But your intellect and ability to manipulate codes now belongs to me. Consider yourself as my property."

Knightmare did not reply. He could not reply. His sense of self diminishing in response to the sheer force of Byron Grimm. So now Knightmare-Grimm arms stretched out and he roared towards the sky.

"Grace!" he shouted.

"Man, the two of you are made for each other. A creepy kid merged with a creepy old man. Ha, that's double creepy."

Knightmare-Grimm eyes widened to see Walker's avatara standing opposite him. In Walker's left hand, there was a ball of light taking shape. A fireball. The man cracked a glistening cool smile.

"Heh! You think you're the only ones capable of manipulating codes? I'll never let you catch Grace!"

Walker threw the fireball at Knightmare-Grimm, engulfing him. The avatara and the surrounding four metres looked like a mass of flames outside the world famous London Pavillion. But after the flames subsided…