[center][h3]Barney Rynsburger[/h3][/center]

As he barreled toward the demonic storks that stood between him and the grand courthouse doors, Barney found himself hoping that the shadow judge was right about one thing: that in life or death situations, even the most ordinary person could do amazing things. Although he couldn’t explain it, something had fired him up, reigniting that tiny bit of fight buried deep within him. Where just moments ago he stared death straight in the face, resigned to a messy end between the grisly canines of the Stygian monstrosity that Pondwater called Naberius, he now ran headlong into danger in the hopes of a new lease on life. Maybe it was the example of the courageous police girl, emerging suddenly from ominous, half-remembered dreams to confront the monstrosities with a wink and a smile. Maybe it was spite that fueled him, a semblance of the same anger that burned red-hot in the hearts of Nick and Jin against Pondwater’s callous philosophy. It might be adrenaline, or he really might be crazy. Barney couldn’t say. All he knew was that he [i]was[/i] doing this. Dream or not, he was going to live.

The Shaxes both reacted once he got within range. Bright orange glyphs formed in the air around them, gathering some sort of power. Forced by the circumstances to just roll with it, Barney did not shy away until, one after another, both demons spread wide their wings to launch their offensives. Two blades of dark energy, awash in bubbling darkness, rose like shark fins from the ground and raced toward him. They ripped forward fast, but not so fast that Barney couldn’t realize that they traveled in perfectly straight lines. Rather than take his chances trying to withstand the accursed waves, the young man stepped off the line, allowing both to go right by. Without sacrificing any momentum he carried onward, barging right past the first Shax before it could strike back. It let out an horrid squawk of protest, but it was in the past, and Barney looked ahead to the doors. He tightened his arms around his head as he charged past the second shadow, dimly aware of movement in his peripherals. Nasty claws sliced into his tartan jacket and raked his sweater, but did not penetrate his thick clothing. A sudden pain lanced his upper forearm, right below the elbow, but nothing he couldn’t handle. The next moment Barney left the monster’s effective range, and another moment brought him right into the courthouse door with a slam.

As he began to push Barney realized an unexpected problem. It was [i]heavy[/i]. “Aghhh, come on!” he growled through gritted teeth as he heaved his weight against it. He noticed nothing of the sort coming in, although considering the impact left in the concrete by the captain’s baton, the guards must have remarkable strength. Enough to make opening this door look easy. For Barney it proved difficult but, as the groan of the hinges announced, doable. Knowing the Shaxes could come at him any second, he shoved the grand door shoulder-first with all his strength. A crack of orange, dusky light appeared, and quickly the opening grew larger. With a grunt of triumphant exertion readied himself for a final push and to slip through.

At that moment, however, he heard yelling from behind him, and Barney couldn’t resist the impulse to look over his shoulder. What he saw took him by surprise, although in retrospect it shouldn’t have. The others had followed him. Even after Pondwater’s condemnation to all but certain death and being sandwiched between two groups of monsters, not a single one of them had slumped down, defeated. Instead, though battered and mentally taxed, they followed in Barney’s footsteps and made for the exit. 

Though much smaller than Vincent, Dakota had risked his neck to help the older man out, the sight of which shot a pang of guilt through Barney for forgetting all about him in his rush to save his own skin, even though Vincent did get everyone else hurt. Together the pair hobbled straight for the storks that the bearded frontrunner left behind, with Vincent even mustering up a burst of energy to strike out at his attacker’s eye. With a screech the Shax flapped its wings, exposing its blood-red head and serpentine neck enough for the criminal to shove it away. Though it floated in the air under its own power the demon reeled, giving the duo an opportunity to get by. At the same time Mila clashed with the other one, whipping her leather jacket at the Shax while it lashed out with its rending beak and claws. Those same weapons snagged in the tough material, allowing Mila to stretch out its limbs as she swept by. With both shadows momentarily discombobulated Nick, Jin, and Caelum stormed through, avoiding direct confrontation. For a moment Barney feared that the schoolgirl, frozen by fear, would be lost, but Harriette risked her own life to take Alina by the hand and pull her along. She even bounced a couple shoes off the head of a Shax, delaying its recovery from Vincent’s push. No matter how they did it, in heeding the police girl’s words, the would-be defendants showed that they craved life just as much as Barney did.

In Barney’s moment of hesitation he noticed something else, as well. A growing pain in his arm drew his attention to the spot that the Shax pecked with its beak, prompting a double take. Thanks to his adrenaline it hurt a lot less than it looked like it ought to, but it turned out to be a pretty bad wound. Blood gushed from a stab wound at least an inch deep, and the sight of it shocked him. “Ahhh...ahhh!” He clapped a hand on top of it, squeezing down on his torn jacket to try and stop the flow, but his mind buzzed from more than pain. He’d already been hurt, but just now things were really starting to sink in. Dreams and nightmares could be vivid, but they were ultimately as ephemeral as the imagination that crafted them. Things were unclear, constantly shifting, and seldom held up under scrutiny. But Barney’s breathing was ragged. He could feel the warmth of his blood, taste the subtle smokiness of the air streaming in from outside, hear every panicked footfall as the others ran his way, and see the steely glimmer of the police girl’s needle as she struggled against the demons behind them. This was too real. Maybe it wasn’t reality, but despite all his self-assurances, and the fantastical spectacle around him, this couldn’t possibly be just a dream. Something in the very core of his being told him that lives were really on the line.

Barney glanced back at the others, hesitant, but only for a split second. He knew what he needed to do. Earlier he didn’t want to consider the possibility, but now he had no choice. It was past time he started actually doing the right thing. As Vincent and Dakota approached he redoubled his efforts, pushing the door not just wide enough for himself, but for the rest as well. Once he had it open he pitted his full weight against it to keep it that way, and with his hand waved the others through. “Come on, come on!” he urged them. Only once everyone made it did he let go, and as the door swung back he glanced one last time at the police girl. She stood alone, surrounded by monsters on every side, with the Pondwater’s shadow himself bearing down on her. A dark shape much larger than the judge himself loomed behind him, and though Barney could see little in the brief instant afforded to him, something about even that momentary glimpse made his skin crawl. Then the door slammed shut, sealing everyone else outside.

Once out in the open Barney quickly realized two things: that what seemed like an age had in reality been less than thirty seconds, and that everyone had a long, long way to go before they could even start considering themselves ‘safe’. The Penitentiary of Indictment stretched before the group in all its inhumane misery, crawling with awful activity, and this time Barney couldn’t keep it at a distance for long. He, and everyone else, would need to confront the Proving Grounds as they sought to take the police girl’s advice. [i]Get your sorry butts outta here[/i], she’d told them. [i]But where to?[/i]

Not to the right. The massive ray from the colossal searchlight atop the courthouse had settled in that direction, and as Vincent’s ill-fated flight earlier revealed, there could be no escape once in its glaring glow. Barney half expected it to sweep right on top of him any second now, but for the moment there seemed to be something wrong. It twitched violently, flashing red in a manner that suggested some malfunction. From here Barney couldn’t see the beacon itself, but he remembered what the police girl said. “She took out his ‘Vision’...the light!” he realized. “He must not be able to track us. Not until he gets back up there, at least. We oughta get as far away from it as we can!”

Since the docks formed a dead end in front of them, going left seemed to be the only option. Barney jogged away from the courthouse doors, trying to find somewhere, anywhere that the group could go. He took in the row of buildings across the Proving Grounds, identifying a few odd buildings out scattered among the jailhouses. His eyes settled on the small cathedral that he spied earlier, before entering the courthouse, and it struck him once again how bizarre it was that a godforsaken place like this would have such a facility. Then again, if this place somehow symbolized the real world as he suspected, maybe it stood for the little chapel squared away in a corner of the Barclay campus? Either way, right now the escapees needed a safe place to hide away from the guards. How exactly they would actually leave this hellish plane and return to the real BWU was a bridge the group could cross when they came to it. Barney raised his voice to offer his suggestion only to get cut off.

“Freeze! Hold it right there!”

Speak of the devil! From the direction of the beacon’s flickering light, more bow-legged, hole-faced guards were running. Judging by their cattle prods, they’d been monitoring the prisoners before the alarm was raised. Luckily they didn’t seem too fast, but there was no more time for deliberation. “Crap!” Barney practically exploded. “Run for the hills!”

Though he hardly intended to be a leader, he led by example. Though his wounds made running hurt, Barney had stamina to spare after a day of mostly sitting around, and with surprising speed he took off toward the left. Maybe it was his bias showing, but he didn’t really have a lot of options, so he fixed his eyes on the cathedral. Something about it called to him, and given the circumstances trusting his instincts seemed as good a plan as any. After just a few seconds he left the pavilion and entered the Proving Grounds. All of a sudden he felt like he was in a corn field. The chain link fences, topped with barbed wire, rose higher than he did, and the moment he ran in between two pens the alerted guards were sure to lose sight of him.

Of course, that left the guards who roved between or kept watch over the inmates themselves. Though his nerves told him to run like the wind, Barney heard running footsteps ahead of him, slowed to a walk to avoid attracting too much attention. A line of chained inmates trundled along the same path directly to his left, so close he could touch them, but not one among their number acknowledged him in any way. They just marched onward, their helmets bowed, focused solely on the inmate directly ahead. As the footsteps grew louder, nearing an intersection between pens, Barney ducked into the prison line. He hid himself as best he could, with the fence on the left and two inmates on the right. Though terrified that his red tartan jacket would give him away, Barney watched two guards run right by him. Hopefully anyone behind him followed his example.

The prison line marched on. Through the fence to his left Barney could see the machines, rigorously pumping unknown, venomous-looking fluids into the ports on the prisoners’ helmets, whilst sucking money out through the front. It was revolting, and though the inmates suffered in silence, they did not do so without consequence. Here and there Barney spotted shriveled husks, human bodies somehow deflated in an almost cartoonish fashion, like balloons. Some had been thrown over strung ropes like towels, giving a whole new meaning to the phrase [i]hung out to dry[/i]. So too were the racks of ownerless helmets. It occurred to Barney to grab one for a disguise, but there were none handy, and his prison line was just about to enter one of the pens under a watchful warden’s eye. He slipped out and made a run for it, keeping as low a profile as he could. He got into a cycle of waiting, watching, and dashing, able to distract himself from the wound on his arm for now. If he could keep this up without being spotted, he could reach the cathedral in just a couple minutes.