Well, people, thank you all so very much for waiting for me. At last, the fourth chapter is up and about! Whee!

I warn you that there is a little bit of profanity in this chapter.

I do not own Dark Corvo, nor do I the Crow Crescent symbol. I do, however, own David Cracker and this story.

Now, here we go!

David Cracker's Dream World, Timeless

Corvo landed in a large, green plain. As he looked around himself, he already knew that he wasn't going to like it here. There was grass- a diurnal plant- as far as the eye could see. As he began to look up, he was blinded by a bright, yellow sun shining into his eyes. He let out a little yelp in pain in response to the solar sphere.

"So," Dark Corvo started, "this is the boy's dream world? How pathetic, I was hoping to see darkness, considering the path his life is taking. Ah, well."

Corvo took to the air and flew around to find who he was looking for.

David sighed with happiness as he walked through the field. There was green grass everywhere, and clusters of flowers were scattered about all over. David's feet made a slight rustling sound as they made contact with the grass.

"Ah," David said in a relaxed tone, "Nothing like a stroll through nature to calm the senses. The only thing that could possibly ruin this would, of all things, have to be-"

As if on cue, blood red seemed to spread throughout and eventually replace the blue sky in a manner similar to that of food coloring spreading through water. The clouds seemed to turn from white to grey from the inside out, and the grass whithered as if it were on fire, until each individual blade was brown and prickly with a grey edge.

"Hey, there, you little loser," David heard a familiar voice say as a large shadow engulfed him from behind. He gulped and turned around- and sure enough, there was Arnold Bays in all his body.

Dark Corvo noticed the sky as it turned red, and the clouds darkened. Now, one might think this apocalyptic-looking setting would please Corvo. Well, that would be a misconception- as far as Corvo was concerned, if the sun was shining at all, things were abysmal.

Corvo looked around for his prey. As he slowly panned his head almost as if it were on a horizontal rail, something caught his eye to his right. He saw what looked like two people, one a little less than twice the height of the other one. This, Corvo reasoned, must be what he was looking for.

And with that, he dove in, staff in hand. Now it was time to convince the boy of just what his heart wanted- something Corvo was very good at.

"So what's up, you little son of a bitch?" Arnold Bays asked David tauntingly and almost rhetorically as he walked up to David, punching his fists into his palms.

"Look, can't you just please leave me alone?" David pleaded as he walked backwards. While it was a dream- and David knew that quite well- he still hated seeing Arnold- at all. As he continued to make futile attempts to reason with Arnold, he noticed a small flash of purple coming from behind Arnold. David tried to look over Arnold's shoulder. It was a mistake- he immediately fell backward as he attempted to do so.

Arnold lifted David up off of the ground by his shirt collar, causing David to start to whimper.

"I'm gonna take out your guts," Arnold bragged to his prey, "and shove 'em up your- UGH!!"

At that moment, a purple light began to come out of Arnold's mouth. Then it came out of his eyes. Then, he literally dissolved in mid-air, causing the younger boy to be dropped. David landed with a 'crunch' on the dry, brittle, brown grass. As David looked up to identify what had happened, he almost couldn't believe what he saw:

Levitating in front of him, about four and a half feet high, was what looked like some sort of bipedal griffin. He had two free hands, one of which bore a scepter of some kind, which was glowing the same purple as the kind that had come out of Arnold. He also had two wings, each one at least as long as his body was tall. He seemed to have almost black feathers, eyes completely white and pupil-less, and a dark-grey beak with a yellow crystal imbedded in the top of it. Perhaps the most interesting thing, though, was the fact that he seemed to be wearing a sort of cloak-slash-robe. It was black, with a light yellow symbol on it- the same color of the beak-imbedded jewel- that looked like a crescent, with a hole inside of the crescent.

Suddenly, the figure let itself land gently and bowed to David.

"Greetings," the figure said as it began to rise from its bow, "I do apologize that I did not end that sooner."

"Well," David started to stammer, not quite sure what to make of this, "thank you for coming to help me at all."

"My name," the figure grinned, "is Corvo. Dark Corvo, if you prefer titles."

Corvo reached out his hand to the sitting boy.

"Come," he said, "I'd like to chat with you a little bit".

"So, young David, I see you have been given much trouble by this… fiendish other human being," Corvo confirmed as he flew deceptively slow and gently at David's side as he walked through the still apocalyptic-looking plain that was at one point the aforementioned lush meadow.

"Yeah," David said, "Arnold really is a pain to me." David looked down to the ground, stopping in his tracks. "I just wish that he would leave me alone."

Corvo smiled inside. Now was his chance to present the second-most powerful psychological force in the world under religion: Temptation.

"You know," Corvo started up, forcing himself not to snicker, "you could make him not bother you anymore. you could make it so he never does this to your dreams again."

"I've already tried that," responded David. "He doesn't take kindly to me trying to appeal to him."

"But," Corvo said, "There's always another way to get him to stop bothering you."

"Really?" David asked doubtfully. "How so?"

"It is the most permanent method of all," hinted Corvo.

"If you are going to suggest going to the principal to get him suspended-"

"Look inside your heart, David. You know what you want."

At this point, Corvo couldn't help but to grin. "…and you know that you know."

David was puzzled by what Corvo said. Look inside your heart? What's that supposed to mean?

David figured that it must mean to look inside his thoughts. But if that was the case, then the only "inner thought" David had to get rid of Arnold was-

"Oh, my goodness," David said. "Corvo," he said softly, looking up to the Crow wizard, "you want me to kill him?"

"Well," Corvo chuckled, picking some imaginary dust off from his fingertips, "not personally. I'm merely making a suggestion to a newfound friend. And more specifically, no: you want to kill him. I just suggested looking inside yourself."

"B-but it's wrong to kill anyone, for any reason!" David stammered, partially still in shock by the suggestion.

"Even in self-defense?" Corvo responded calmly, still looking at his fingers.

David was speechless. How did the boy respond to that?

"Now, allow me to explain my purpose here. My Master, Dark Raven, sends for you. He needs you to return him to his former glory," Corvo announced, now turning his head to look David straight in the eye. "If you wish for power and vengeance upon this other human who bothers you, heed my words: when I leave, this dream will end. You will wake up to see a crow out of your window. Go outside and follow it. It will lead you to the Black Crow suit. Put it on. I will appear there before you and give instructions and advice on how and when to use its power."

And with that, Corvo took to the air and ascended into the sky, shooting straight up like a rocket.

The Crackers' House, 1:30 a.m.

David woke up slowly. He threw the covers off of himself, rose out of his bed, and stretched out his body, groaning a bit as he did so.

David looked warily about. To his left, just a nightstand with an alarm clock and a lamp on it. To his right, his barely-outfitted toy chest. In the middle, the end of his bed. In short, there was no sign of anything wrong.

"Oh, gosh," David almost whispered to himself, "that was quite a dream."

But, if it was a dream, he reasoned with himself, then how is it that he remembered it so clearly? It was, after all, only a dream… right?

"Ah, well," David said as he got up off of the bed, "maybe a glass of water will do me good." With that, he headed downstairs to get some water out of the refridgerator faucet, thinking a little bit about the dream as he descended.

David had not even taken his second sip of water when he heard a cawing outside. David sharply turned his head around, looking around the kitchen for the one who made the sound. After observing his surroundings for about thirty seconds, David shrugged it off, dismissing it as something made long off in the distance or by the wind. Once he took his second sip, however, he heard the cawing again, this time louder and clearer than before. Remembering what Corvo had said to him in his dream, David slowly and reluctantly turned around again, this time to face the window. What he saw, he couldn't believe: Outside, on a tree branch adjacent to the kitchen window, he saw a small, black bird- a crow.

So maybe the dream was real after all...

Well, there you have it. This was originally going to be much longer, but I decided to take most of it and post it as this chapter.

In any case, I hope you enjoyed this. Please review!