Given the events of the week, I'd pretty much forgotten that I have more problems than just the Iowa Commune to worry about.

Specifically the fact that they weren't they only proxies I'd pissed off with negative consequences for me.

I'm referring of course to MT.  Or rather, Vadiir.  Or The Artist Formerly Known As MT.

You know, that guy I had no shred of hope of encountering and leaving with my life.  Before he knew fire Theurgy.  Oh yeah, did you know that?  He knows goddamned fiery magic.  Oh, and he had a short range teleporty thingy with him courtesy of Stripes.  This bodes well for me, eh?

Now, I know what you're wondering.  "Oh my goodness, Doctor, this guy certainly is tough! Surely you couldn't defeat him and the teleporter would make him nigh-inescapable!  How EVER did you manage to use your endless wiles to your advantage and manage to survive such a harrowing encounter?"

Simple.  I did something almost as likely to kill me as our fiery friend.

"But Doctor, how could something so deadly save your life?"

Well, I won't give you a play-by-play this time, we all saw what happens when I try that.  So, to save you from reading a novel and to save me from typing one when I should be doing other things - like sleeping, if I can manage it - I'll just tell you how it ended.

It ended with me, with several newly acquired gashes and ON FIRE, jumping off a bridge into a river all while screaming "ALLONS-Y!"  (Not "Geronimo".  Tennant's still cooler, Stripeypants.)

That's right.  I jumped off a bridge into a river while on fire.  Maybe you should start calling me "Captain" instead of Doctor, savvy?  Heheh.

Surface tension is some pretty amazing stuff, too.  I owe a few broken ribs to it.  Once I hit the water, I was paralyzed underwater for a few seconds and when I finally broke the surface I was somewhere entirely different.  Also, I was soaked and dead tired and hurt pretty badly, so my swimming wasn't exactly strong.  I managed to grab a log and float downstream until I washed ashore.  I coughed, I sputtered, I shook, and I collapsed.  And I saw that thrice-damned mask, still hanging by a chain from my beltloop.  Grinning back at me.  Mocking me.  So I tried to destroy it again in a ragefit until I decided to ragequit and spent the next several standard units of time curled up in a ball clutching my head.

I called my buds and gave them directions.  They showed up a while ago to pick me up.  My various burns, cuts, and fractures have been attended to as best as we can.  I hurt like hell, everywhere.

We're on the move once again.  I'm lying in the backseat, watching out the window.  It's the beginning of spring, and yet there's already corn sprouted everywhere.  I used to hate it with a passion, it was EVERYWHERE, it was my home state.  It was everything boring about my life.

What I wouldn't give now to just get lost in a cornfield and never come out.  No chases, no knives, no fire.  Just corn.  I miss the boring.

Right.  I'm going to try and get some restful sleep for once, god knows I need it.  Talk to ya later, guys.  Doctor, over and out.