(Author's note: Storm Walking is a prequel to a much larger novel I have written called Storm Crossing. Any comments would be helpful, thanks)

In this timeline:
In the world of Universe One, there are those who are called Storms. They are the outlaw element from which there is no escape. Blanketed in the shadows, and financed by the faceless syndicate, it had become apparent that the Storms had begun to overrun the obsolete law enforcement, who were ill-equipped to deal with their kind of malicious straightforwardness.
When Vaxton's Void was discovered, the Storms had found yet another venue to exploit. The void itself had become a doorway into the multiverse, where the Storms could spread their ill intent and plunder alternate worlds, in which riches and fame could be found and exploited to their hearts' content.
The counterforce designed to combat the Storms, were the chasers, units of men and women who traversed the void. In their ships of wood and steel, the chasers set out to hunt and obtain their quarry for trial once they were returned to Universe One.
No storm chaser unit had been more recognized than that led by Gabriel Correll, war hero, and friend of the void's discoverer, Vonreal Vaxton. Gabriel was chosen as one of the first to explore the void. He did so with both great triumph and tragedy.

The smell of death that lingered inside the crypt, reminded Gabriel Correll of the cavern war. Like the larder of a rat's den, the putrefied stench filled his nostrils with a sick abhorrence that made Gabriel wish he were any place else but here.
Gabriel had chased the storm through the streets of the small city, past the crowds of people oblivious of their game of cat and mouse. The fugitive ran around tables outside eateries, and shoved patrons aside as he brazenly ran past them. His black, flowing trench coat blew behind him as he ran with great agility and speed.
The criminal knocked aside elderly people and stopped a ballgame that children were playing, as he ran roughshod across their playing field. He finally came upon a funeral, and with reckless abandon, entered a cemetery only to hide in a crypt nearest to the entrance.
With his visual sight disrupter (VSD) in hand, Gabriel crouched hidden behind a sarcophagus and waited for any sign of movement. The light emitter of his VSD had been fully charged and the safety clip was set to activate. Although not his weapon of choice, all had been ordered by the government of Universe One to use the humane weapon that shot a powerful pulse of light, rendering any assailant temporally blind. In this case, Gabriel's prey was a storm named Havus Jackson, who escaped from Universe One only a few days before arriving on the alternate world designated A-4576. The world, not much removed from Universe One had been visited several times by scientists who had studied the planet's cultural habits and environment. From their research, Gabriel knew to dress in clothing similar to this world's attire: khaki pants and a blue button-down shirt with wide sleeves. A black jacket that was zipped halfway to the top, covered his weapon's holster.
Havus Jackson had been considered armed and extremely dangerous. Gabriel's weapons master, Maxell Demnar, had warned him that his quarry was gifted with mind walking ' the ability to pull memories from an individual's thoughts and use them against his opponents. In the latter days of the cavern war both sides of the conflict had used volunteers to undergo tests; their goal was to, hopefully, increase the use of the human brain. Some subjects began intense training in telekinesis, the ability to move objects with a simple thought. Then there had been the few, like Havus Jackson, who had worked with great determination to increase their brain capacity, so as to achieve the power to walk through the minds of others, picking and choosing information at will, a good skill to use against a proposed enemy. The projects were abandoned soon after they began when the final initiative to end the war started. But Havus Jackson had continued to work on his powers like many others who also had worked in the project. It was this power that Havus had used to lure his victims into his venomous web. The complete origin of Havus's powers had not been privy to Maxell; however, Gabriel assumed there was more to the mind-controlling project than met the eye.
An intense pain rushed through Gabriel's mind, causing him to grab his forehead with his empty hand. He pushed his salt and pepper hair back as he ran his hand over his head. He gently hummed a child's nursery rhyme as his friend Maxell had instructed him to use as a defensive posture to block any unwanted probing from Havus Jackson.
Gabriel, whose mind had been littered with unwanted eddies, had no wish to give the gifted outlaw an outlet for his powers, so he fought hard to suppress the memories of his past. He moved slowly along the outside wall of the crypt, and listened for any sounds that were not his own. It wouldn't be long until the local law enforcement of this universe found them, and Gabriel knew they would never believe his explanation as to how he and Havus Jackson had come here.
As Gabriel stopped, he caught a glimpse of a shadow along the far wall. Lifting up his VSD, he waited patiently. His breathing became shallow, and he braced his large body against the wall behind him. He found himself full of apprehension and remorse. Weapons' fire put him on the defensive. Gabriel spun on the heels of his black boots and glanced behind his left shoulder. Hearing footfalls, he held his weapon out at arm's length and used the gun barrel as a guide to scan the dank room, but saw no one. The echoes of movement swirled around him like dancers in a pageant. Gabriel was confused. The crypt had changed shape, and resembled the stonewalls of the caverns where he had fought for eighteen years during the war.
With the footfalls now upon him, Gabriel stood steadfast as soldiers approached him. He swallowed hard, sweat beading on his forehead.
'Run, Gabriel!'� one of the troopers shouted as he ran by. 'The Eastern Block has broken through the lines. We've lost Troudgen Rock to them!'�
Gabriel stood steadfast. Troudgen Rock sent shivers down his spine. The battle had been the first action Gabriel had seen when he was eighteen years old, and ignorant to the follies of war.
Green beams of light zipped past Gabriel's head. The approaching members of the eastern block rushed at him. Gabriel fired back, and dove for cover behind a series of fallen boulders; again he fired his weapon. Blood began to pour from his forehead, and Gabriel remembered he had been badly wounded at the battle of Troudgen Rock and was rescued by'�
'Gabriel,'� Maxell said, pulling Gabriel to his feet. 'It's gone wrong.'�
Gabriel felt dazed. He fought back the memories. He tried to focus on anything that would stop this illusion.
'I'm not going to let you die,'� Maxell said as he pulled Gabriel along. 'What would Amanda think of me?'�
Amanda, Gabriel thought of his deceased wife. Although it pained him, he brought forth memories about how she died a year after the war had ended. He loved her deeply, and it pained him to remember her final days alive, but he had to use that tragedy to keep his mind focused.
'Fighting'�will not prevent me from using your mind against you,'� Havus Jackson said, in an echoed assurance. His voice sliced through Gabriel like a knife twisted in an open wound.
Gabriel fought back against the mind walker; the memories of his past gripped him like a fist and choked him. He struggled, remembering how he and Amanda fought with brave distinction in those final hours of her life. Gabriel's trust had been betrayed, by Amanda who had found passion in the arms of another after she realized Gabriel could not control his obsessive drinking over the war that had engulfed his soul.
The VSD in Gabriel's hand slipped, and fell to the floor. He paid it no mind, as his final words to Amanda came back to haunt him. 'I can't love a woman who gives her body freely to another,'� he had told her. 'I never want to look at you again,'� he said with cold emotion.
Gabriel cried out in silent remorse, falling to his knees in turmoil. He tried desperately to fight back against Havus Jackson's unique power as the Storm strolled through his most buried memories. Gabriel felt invaded and raped, as chunks of his past were pulled from their hidden places, and displayed like paintings in a gallery.
'I have you,'� the Storm's words resonated inside Gabriel's mind. 'It's funny,'� he joked. 'But I didn't think you would be so simple to invade.'� Another blast from the Storm's deadly weapon cut through Gabriel's right shoulder. Blood was blown against the wall behind him as he heard the footfalls of the Storm approaching. As he pulled himself across the stone floor, the Storm continued to explore his mind. He struggled against the invasion, his diminished will, smothered by the great weight of foreboding that held him back.
'I like it here,'� Havus Jackson mocked Gabriel. 'I might just stay a while longer.'�
Gabriel could feel parts of his mind opening, like doors being unlocked, one after another throughout his subconscious. He tried in vain to fight it, but it was like attempting to hold back an ocean wave as it flooded over him. The pain in his shoulder cut through his defenses, shattering Gabriel's attempt to hold Havus Jackson at bay. Scornful attitudes toward his daughter, drunken brawls in the city pub, and his frequent criticism against a government he hated, surfaced from the Storm's mind probing.
'If I would have found such easy victims on Universe One,'� Havus said, 'I would have stayed there. But, alas, I wore out my welcome and was forced to leave. I didn't want to leave, mind you. You could say I out stayed my welcome,'� Havus smiled. 'The bodies were stacking up and the smell became bothersome. Have you ever smelled death?'�
'I know death. After eighteen years of war, who wouldn't.'� Gabriel said. 'I've seen war, bodies dead and dying in the mud, miles beneath the surface in stalagmite filled chambers. I've watched men stand over freshly dead bodies trying to keep warm from the steam rising from the open wounds. Oh, yes, I know death,'� Gabriel paused. 'And from your record you know it, too. But tell me Jackson, how many women have you killed, unofficially'�ten?'�
Havus scoffed at Gabriel's miscalculation. 'Only amateurs stop at ten,'� he said. 'I love women. Did you know there are fourteen different ways a woman moans when a lover is pleasing her? But when you inflict pain on them, they have only one scream that ushers them into death.'� Havus stepped into view; his large inviting eyes looked coldly at Gabriel, his wide mouth that sat low on his thin face smiled to show his razor sharp teeth as saliva dripped from them. His tall body was shrouded beneath his dark coat but his long thin fingers stuck out from the coat sleeves like knives waiting to taste blood.
'You must enjoy your work,'� Gabriel said. The pain made it hard for him to think logically and he tried to sum up how a small man like Havus Jackson became such a feared name in the outlaw community.
'Oh, yes'�ah uh,'� Havus detected Gabriel's thoughts. 'You can't keep me from dancing in your memories, Chaser. I see them as if I were looking at them through glass. You wonder how someone, such as I, have become such a respectable outlaw with my peers.'�
'Respect wouldn't have been the word I would have used,'� Gabriel, said, his strength returning.
Havus chuckled with delight. 'I found that respect is not earned, but something taken by whatever means necessary.
'Well, you'll get none from me,'� Gabriel said, but could not stop the Storm from breaching his most precious thoughts; from his sixteenth birthday, to when he paid for a scholar prostitute to invade his party, or to the first time he killed a man in face to face combat. The eyes of that man had haunted him for so long. He tried to forget it, but it always hid in Gabriel's subconscious, waiting to come out to torture his soul.
'What a tattered life you have led,'� Havus told him.
Gabriel tried to focus on the crypt, the rotten smells and the sickening taste it left in his mouth. The wounded Chaser tried, with great pain to feel all around him, to search for the one thing that might bring him back to reality.
'Don't look for it,'� Havus told him. 'I won't let you find it. I can keep you alive for as long as I want, keeping you forever locked in your own nightmares.'�
I will find it, Gabriel told the Storm in a thought. When I do '
'You'll do nothing, because I control you. I control your fears and your hates, your losses and your loves. What else do you have left?'�
Gabriel had no answer. What did he have left? When he lost Amanda, he lost everything. Even his daughter, Trina, did not know how to talk to him and Gabriel's life had become blocked, without any real textures. But the smooth taste of wine gave him a sense of realism as he drank it down. That was his life now. The bottle. Inside it, he was safe, and no one could hurt him inside the bottle. No one could overpower him. Being drunk was all he had left in life. Its contents quelled all aspirations he had for personal redemption, or a future filled with new hope. The hopes, dreams, fears and troubled times engulfed Gabriel Correll with a burning desire for freedom from all he had ever done, all the deaths he had cheated, and the world in his mind.
The world of his own design had been in the universe of his choosing. It was a place where atmospheric solitude allowed him life after life, which had walked away from him. The pub, Gabriel crawled around on the crypt's floor. He had stayed many times passed out in one, sleeping off his shameful drunkenness. It had been his place of solitude after Amanda died.
Chaser, Gabriel thought. What do I have left? Is this all I am? Is this all I can be? When a man has lost his will, can life truly be a saved?
The years after his loss, Gabriel's life had been empty; he had forever lost his love, he was embroiled with hate and immune to fear. But the one thing Gabriel Correll did have in abundance was his pride, and although he had slipped from the path and made many enemies living inside the bottle, his pride had kept him alive to face another sunrise. Without pride, all men become reckless Storms full of idiocies.
Gabriel's hand found his VSD and he gripped it tightly now as he stood up from the cold dismal floor. The blood that had run from his open wound was now gone, as was the weapon used against Gabriel, all part of an illusion created by Havus Jackson.
Havus Jackson moved when he saw Gabriel regain some composure. From the corner of Gabriel's eye, he found the reality he longed for and moved towards it. Havus Jackson scurried around the coffins to get away from Gabriel who had regained his legs.
'I see you figured out my little deception,'� Havus said. 'Still, I have your thoughts,'� the Storm told him as he rushed away with the sound of fear whelping up in his throat. Havus slid on the slippery concrete floor as he rushed pell-mell toward the crypt entrance. 'I know the weakness in your heart, you think you can hide it from me, but you know you can't.'�
Gabriel stayed silent, then ran full out, blocking Havus at the crypt's door. Havus leapt forward like a defensive snake and attack Gabriel who had not recovered fully from his enemies mind attack. The memories of his past still leaked into his conscience and prevented him from defending himself to the best of his ability.
The pair struggled; Havus slugged Gabriel with his left fist across the jaw. But Gabriel refused to let Havus pass him. Again Havus swung, but this time Gabriel stopped his attack. But with an offensive attack from Havus, Gabriel's feet were knocked from out under him and the Storm Chaser fell to the cool floor.
Havus laughed. 'You think you can best me?'� he asked. 'I weakened you through your greatest flaws, love, pride, hate, and fear and I know you fear me Gabriel Correll! I read your thoughts as easy as any person can read a book. I'm just that good.'�
Gabriel pointed up his VSD but through his weaken state he could not hold on to it and Havus Jackson kicked it free from his hand, it slid across the room from them.
Gabriel, in a last ditch effort, attacked Havus with all his willpower, but the outlaw brushed Gabriel aside and bolted from the crypt into the ending day.

When Gabriel was able to force himself out of the crypt, the day sky had become dusk. Havus Jackson had scurried through the tombstone-lined ground, with a spring in every step and laughter from his mouth. Gabriel gave chase, as he fought blurred vision and a raging headache, but nevertheless, he gave chase using Havus's black cape-like jacket as a guide to follow.
Gabriel had cornered Havus against a fifteen-foot fence at the far side of the graveyard. The Storm however acted indifferently when faced by an exhausted Gabriel Correll. Gabriel bit his lower lip; the pain reminded him he was alive and not ready to give up. 'This chase is over,'� he said in bated breath, but knew the arrest would not come so easily.
Havus, who continued to smile, chuckled at Gabriel's words. Within his laugh he added: 'she would have continued to cheat on you. I see it in your thoughts'�you know it to be true. I don't lie, I simply tell you the truth of things.'�
Gabriel clinched his teeth together and leapt for Havus. Once again the pair struggled, but this time Gabriel was filled with a renewed vigor. The pair slammed against the fence, Gabriel racked Havus's face against the links but the outlaw countered by kicking up, catching his foot in Gabriel's groin. Gabriel receded back and Havus attacked again with several punches to Gabriel's mid-section.
'My, my,'� Havus said. 'I'd hoped I found a man with more brains than balls for an adversary. I guess I was wrong.'�
Gabriel countered with several punches to Havus's face, which had already been bleeding from the cuts made by the fence. Havus punched himself free, and knocked Gabriel into a tall tombstone. The granite cracked and splintered from the impact.
'Have you no respect for the dead Chaser?'� Havus jested as he kicked Gabriel across the face. The blood that had once been a hallucination now ran from Gabriel's face freely and Gabriel could feel loose teeth lose in his mouth.
'Ding, ding,'� Havus chimed. 'Round two,'� he exclaimed. Gabriel's crouched body sprung up onto Havus with a furious attack.
Gabriel swung Havus into the same tombstone he had collided with, this time breaking it at its base. Gabriel kicked the storm repeatedly wherever his foot would connect until there came no more movement from the villain.
'Haven't I told you,'� blood ran from Havus's mouth like a river. 'I would only tell you the truth.'�
'What do you know of truth?'� Gabriel asked, as he stood over the beaten villain.
'I know you can't hide from it,'� Havus said looking through swollen eyes. 'It will always be with you, just like your failings.'�
'Perhaps,'� Gabriel said, as he watched Havus Jackson slip into unconsciousness, 'but at least I came by my faults honestly.'� He paused, wiped the blood from his mouth. 'This chase is over, Havus Jackson. By the issues of the Law Deciders under code 18A of the new order act of Universe One all rights, privileges and freedoms have been revoked. You will be returned to the Deciding Judge Council where you will to sentenced to live out your remaining life on the prison universe designated Oblivion.'� Gabriel stood away from Havus. But added after a gasp of air, 'I hope one day you find the forgiveness you're looking for'�because you won't be getting it from me.'� Gabriel crouched to the ground. His thoughts rushed in on him, but this time it was because he allowed it. He rubbed the stubbles on his face and exhaled a deep breath. 'I need a drink,'� he said as he licked his lips.
End.

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