Shades of Justice: Chapter 15

Raptarus was completely unprepared for the unrelenting power of the possibility Stygian had placed in his left eye socket. He had not slept since he had returned to earth as it ceaselessly bombarded him with ideas.

He felt his body demanding the tiny amount of sleep it required but the possibility would not stop. The longer he was awake the more annoying the possibility became. When he started to hallucinate, he knew it was time to seek Stygian out. The only problem was he had no clue how to do that, and it happened to be a topic on which the possibility had nothing to offer.

“Raptarus” Stygian’s voice echoed in his mind. “I am not some creature you can summon as you wish.” He chastised.

But Raptarus was near delirious with lack of sleep. “Please, Stygigan, I need, it, it won’t let me sleep. I need to sleep Stygian.” He rambled on and on.

Stygian was a little more than annoyed. “The weaknesses inherent in mortal beings cause me nothing but frustration. If time were of no consequence, you would all destroy yourselves, but even the eternal darkness that birthed me is nothing more than the willing slave to the hands of time. Very well Raptarus, You shall have power over the possibility shard, but when you awake I will have a job for you to complete.”

Then there was nothing but blessed silence. Raptarus burst into tears and was in a fitful state of unconsciousness within minutes. He felt euphoria wash over his mind as it sank into the dark abyss of sleep.

But it was not peaceful sleep. It folded the plans of his master into his dreams. In his dream he saw the moon reflecting off wild ocean waves, sinking beneath and passing fish of varying sizes, going deeper and deeper as he passed whales and the deepest sea creatures man knew of. He stopped in the deepest part of the earth’s oceans. Where monsters never before seen swam over the ancient fossils of deep sea titans. He could feel the currents on his skin, the ocean floor beneath his feet, so much so that his mind began to wonder if he was actually dreaming or if the possibility was using his body while his mind was unconscious. He touched his hand to the deep ocean floor and felt a vibration so dense that he worried about bodily damage. The ground gave way slowly at first but picked up speed as a nightmare older than geological memory was reborn unto the earth. It left its watery tomb and headed for the surface, every few seconds the sheer size of it caused a small fracture in Raptarus’ mind. Until finally the leviathan was fully free of its final resting place and headed for the surface. He tried to follow the leviathan but it was so quick that even considering its size he lost it quite quickly.

His dreams devolved into nonsense shortly after that. When he woke up, his feet were covered with 

sand.

Blood and Profit: Chapter 38

First contact was not something the colony senate had ever prepared for. Eamon had quietly sat through the first day of hysterically reactionary babbling from the other representatives that had nothing but the senate to focus on. By lunch time on the second day he had had his fill of official statements and oratory concerning the importance of this moment in history. He was ready to get on to the actual moment.

The policy speeches were worse. Almost immediately the entire senate became entrenched in a 'nuke first  excavate bodies later' versus 'unroll the welcome mat and share the planet' argument. Eamon avoided getting involved in the argument and spent the evening of day two researching their capability to actually nuke or in any way strike the new alien forest. It didn't take him long to discover that they didn't have a stockpile large enough of any weapon to do enough damage to matter. The satellite photos had confirmed that the alien forest was now the largest forest on the planet. The senate ended the second day having made no decision either way.

Eamon had reached his limit of bureaucracy. He messaged his aide and they met at the front steps of the senate building. Eamon was the first member of his family to run for a senate seat. He was currently the only member of the senate who was not a third, fourth or fifth generation politician and it showed. He was more interested in making sure the job got done than he was in assuring his families honor and his districts status among the colony. He did not fit in well and he had stopped trying to long ago. His aide was a sixteen year old fifth generation political wunderkind. None of the other senate members would care that Kepi was sitting in for him in the morning. He had no need to brief her, he knew she was likely more aware of the political aspects of the situation than he was. Her family had practically bred her for this job, when other children were learning their letters and basic math she was learning the senate families and the structure of the colony government. Truthfully without her he would be completely lost and he hadn't even hired her. She had appeared in his office on his second day and practically taken the place over. She ran him through education drills and briefed him on all aspects of every bill, law, and ruling the senate was considering, she never needed any notes, and he knew that when his time was up he would give the seat to her. Not because it was tradition for seats to travel down lines of ascendancy but because he and Kepi had conversations that ran long into the night about the direction they saw for the colony and what they wished for their people. She had chosen to be his aide because he was not a politician and she had every desire to change the way the senate ran and his was the seat she could accomplish her goals. No the senate would not miss him, until they discovered the force of nature that had taken his place.

He didn't want the Skyway security systems to pick his cruiser up so he had to stay dangerously close to the ground as he made his way to the forest. He didn't know what he would say when he arrived, he didn't want to think about the possibility that the species seen in satellite photos was hostile or predatory toward humans, and based on the size of the forest he knew that the task ahead of him was likely impossible but his sister's ship had landed somewhere in the forest and he was determined to make sure that she was all right. 

Lidarion: Chapter 10

After a long day Lisa and Trent are camped a few hundred feet off the road, a small camp fire is dying down. Trent was lazily pushing the embers around with a stick as they listened to the woods around them.

“What’s Lidarion actually like?” Lisa asked out of the blue.

Trent set his stick down. “You spent your honeymoon there, even if you only left your room to eat you should have seen some of the city.” He pointed out.

She smiled softly and shook her head. “With the war about to start we never made it further than the first inn we came to after we got married.”

Trent smiled. “That explains why he never said much about your honeymoon.” He said as he used his stick to turn over the last log on the fire.

She had laid down next to the fire and stared intently into a bright orange ember. “So, tell me about your home town.”

He added another piece of wood the fire and set his stick down. “Most of my memories come from a life time ago, that Lidarion doesn’t much exist anymore. Sometimes I wonder if it ever did in the first place.”

Lisa had closed her eyes. “Tell me what you remember then.” She said starting to fade out.

He moved his feet closer to the fire as the fresh wood began to light up. “My parents were the elected representatives for the farmer’s guild. They sat in on the council meetings and because of their duties we got to live in the capitol city. My father’s brother took over our family farm when they moved. I have dreams about it sometimes but I wasn’t even three when we left so I couldn’t tell you if they were even close to accurate. What I do remember is that as a child, the city seemed to stretch on for a thousand miles. It was safer back then, before the war. In the summers we would have free reign of the inner city from the steps of the royal castle in the east, through the central market district where we could go north up to the gates of the docks district. It seemed like the central market district never ended. There were always new shops to discover and new foods to try, new people to spy on and trouble to get into. I didn’t know it as a child but we were always under close watch by palace guards that made sure we never got into more trouble than we, or they could handle. Most days our little gang of royal brats would end up in the booths of the Room at the Inn. The oldest and most successful bar and inn in all of Lidarion. Lisa was older than all of us. But by all rights she was still a kid, so the fact that she ran the place herself while her parents served as the market district representatives on the advisory council impressed everyone but us. What impressed us was cinnamon milk and sweet bread snacks, and napping in the wintertime by the huge fireplace that seemed to heat the entire Inn perfectly. None of the others kids cared, but often I would break off from the group and spend hours in the royal libraries that made up a large portion of the southern knowledge district. I loved wandering through the shelves, reading the spines of books I could reach or opening scrolls just enough to read their titles before putting them back on the shelf. My best friend was Squints and his father was the royal archivist so squints had free reign of the entire district. We would spends days upon days reading from the personal diaries of the kings of old as they described the wars that settled the Kingdom of Lidarion from the feuding squabbles of the nine ancient families to the unified kingdom it had become. Every hall in every library had its purpose. Some halls were better for being the sea swept battleships of Lord Vendalth’s assault fleet. Other hallways were perfect for playing out our favorite events from the succession wars. I may have been just a kid, but we lived a hundred lifetimes in the halls of the knowledge district.” 

Trent’s attention returned the present and saw through the fire that Lisa was fast asleep, her breathing was deep and even. He put another small log on the fire and let his mind wander back to his childhood.

The XP: Chapter 10

Bob, Blackout, Stygian, Torcano, and Trart are wandering through a player run shopping district trying to come up with names.

Blackout is flipping through cooking recipes and stops suddenly. “Ok, what about Eternal Damnation?” He asked.

Bob shakes her head as she picks up a Lute/flame thrower hybrid. “Too Goth.” She decrees, strumming the lute and causing a fairly large burst of flame to explode from its neck.

“The shadow Syndicate” Stygian offers setting an unimpressive chest plate back on the counter.

“Sounds like something out of an Asian B movie.” Blackout replies.

Trart is leaning against the wall of the shop just staring out the window. “What about –“

“No.” Bob interrupts him.

Trart stands up off the wall. “But –“

“I said no.” Bob glared at him.

By the afternoon they had made their way through the shopping district and were sitting together in a café. Still trying to come up with names.

“Oh!” Torcano said with excitement. “What about Blinding Might!” He held fist in the air.

Blackout rolled his eyes. “Oh sure, and we can all wear tights and do nothing but wrestling moves.”

“Imortalis Corporeal?” Stygian offered.

Trart let his head roll back onto his shoulders. “None of us glitter so enough with the Gothic names already.” He groaned.

Blackout tried to stand with a sense of imposing severity. “Thunderstar Imperium” He boomed.

Stygian nodded. “I’m down, but if we’re going to be an 80’s hair band I wanna be the drummer.” He did some air drumming for effect as blackout stuck his tongue out at him.

“Guy’s I really think I –“ Trart started but was quickly interrupted again.

“She meant ‘no’ as in ‘nuh uh’” Blackout clarified.

A week later and they still had not agreed on a name. The competition sign up closed in thirty minutes. The entire gang was standing in front of the sign up station.

“The Cult of Anarchy” Bob offered.

“I accept!” Torcano said with excitement. “Now lets go hang out in a graveyard and read Edgar Allen Poe Stories!” His joke earned him a rude gesture from Bob.

Blackout was next. “Prisoners of Fate?” He asked.

Trart held his hands over his heart. “A painfully emotional Hermione/Dobby Fan Fic.” Blackout shrugged his shoulders and nodded in agreement.

“All right then Trart, what have you been sitting on?” Stygian asked.

Trart smiled. “The Almost Entirely Awesome Adventures of the End of the World Club.” He finished.

There was a moment of silence as the rest of the group thought it over.

“Why the hell didn’t you say something earlier?” Bob shouted and then took off running as Trart chased her to the sign up table.

Once they had finished signing up They turned to leave the table and came face to face with Wainwright, Shizaboom, and Volnado. All three of whom were well known Game Masters.

Volnado stepped to the table and looked at their clan information. “Oh Torcano, I knew you were pathetic but this is a new low even for you.” He moved back over to the other two Game Masters.

“Who the heck is this guy?” Trart asked.

Torcano’s shoulders slumped. “Trart, meet Wainwright, Shizaboom, and Volnado, my brother.”

University of Console Heroics: Chapter 10

Thompson’s book is spread open, pages down on his coffee table. Channel surfing has distracted him from his homework. There is a knock at his front door. He waits for a moment and there is another knock. He mutes the TV and then tosses the remote on his couch. “Coming.” He grunts getting up. Opening the door revealed Foster waiting anxiously on the other side.

He blew into the living room without being invited. “How did you do it? He asked. Dropping his bag against the wall before he started to pace.

Thompson shut the door. “Hello Foster, what’s new?” He asked sarcastically.

Foster paced as he explained himself. “You used to be a Combat Studies major. How did you do it?” He stopped pacing and looked to Thompson for an answer.

Thompson walked into the kitchen. “Can I get you something to drink?” He asked as he opened the fridge.

Foster flops onto the couch. “Damn it Thompson I need your help! How did you produce your energy signature?” He asked in frustration.

Thompson grabbed a soda out of his fridge and shut the door slowly. “You’ve been talking to Cynthia.” He replied.

Foster had leaned his head back on the couch and let it flop to the side so he could see Thompson. “She felt you were the next best place to get the help I need.” He explained.

Thompson opened his soda. “The only help I can give you is letting you know that you do not want my help.” He explained before he took a drink.

“I absolutely do want your help. It’s your way or I fail the class.” He pointed out.

Thompson shook his head. “That’s not true. Intro to energy had never required the production of an actual energy field. So what’s really bugging you?” He asked.

Thompson sat forward and put his head in his hands. “My mother thinks this is a waste of time. If I don’t show consistent improvement all the time she’ll take me out of school, this is the only thing I have ever wanted in my life.”

Thompson tried to stare through his soda to the bottom of the can.

Foster waited for a moment in the silence and then stood up. “Look I’m sorry I barged in here, this isn’t your problem. I”

“You don’t understand. Once you go where I have been, there is no turning back.” Thompson warned.

Foster sat back down on the couch. “I passed the point of no return a long time ago.”

Thomson sighed and set his soda on the coffee table. A small flicker of the lightest blue flame came to life on his left shoulder.  It grew down his arm picking up color and intensity as it went. Thompson held up his hand and the flames reached his fingertips as a deep arctic blue flame. He walked it from pinky to thumb and back again over and over. Foster is entranced. “I had the same troubles as you in the beginning. I was the only student in the class that hadn’t produced anything even remotely close to an energy signature and it pissed me off. Back then the class was taught by Professor Daigo. He saw my tenacity and my failure in meditation. So he showed me his secret.” Thompson closed his fist, snuffing out the flame.

Foster blinked. “Which was?”

Thompson finished his soda and walked back into the kitchen. “A different way to produce energy.”

Foster rolled his eyes. “Quit avoiding the question. How did he do it?”

Thompson retrieved another soda from the fridge. “Most of us never search themselves long enough to find it, those that do are forever changed.”

Thompson stood up. “Oh my god find what?” He almost shouted in frustration.

“The desire to kill another human being.” Thompson answered before he opened his soda. Foster sat down hard. “It’s a primal urge that goes beyond self defense. There is a darkness in all of us, buried deeper in some than in other. Most don’t even know it’s there. Once you find it within yourself only one question remains. Are you in control or is it?”

The color had fallen out of Fosters face. “Does he teach anymore?” He asked.

Thompson swirled the contents of his can for a second. “You see, the fire very nearly has a will of its own. Daigo was tired, had been for years. The kind of tired no sleep can cure.” Thompson paused for a moment, fidgeted with his soda and then started again. “Late last year he came to me, begged for my help…he had tried to many times to count but the fire wouldn’t let him go. So I helped him.” Thompson chugged his soda. Foster’s jaw hit the floor. Thompson crushed the empty can and tossed it in the garbage. “After his funeral I switched to adventure studies.”

Foster was completely blown away. “Oh my god.”

Thompson looked at him with weary eyes. “There are worse things in this life than disappointing your parents Foster, Believe me.”

Foster stood up from the couch, walked into the kitchen. Thompson passed him and grabbed the remote off the couch and went back to channel flipping. Foster opened the fridge grabbed a soda and silently watched Thompson fly by station after station of programming. 

Shades of Justice: Chapter 14

Warren had slept later than normal Saturday morning. Every inch of his body was sore. On top of school the team had been practicing together, three hours a night, every night. He kind of hated Kelly and Gordon for already being in the kind of shape that made combat practice not a shock to their entire system. Technarious sent them home Friday evening and told them that baring the appearance of any monsters or on set of catastrophes they were free for the weekend. Warren didn’t know if his decision had anything to do with Warren’s tournament or not but Warren had already notified what little fan base he had that the tournament on Saturday would be his last. He refused to call it retirement, choosing to calling it a leave of absence instead. Everyone else had either been forced to forgo their afterschool hobbies due to the ship crashing into the school or chosen to give them up for the greater good and unity of the team, and so it was only fair that he set his gaming career aside for the time being.

He head meant to catch the first bus to the mall but snoozed his alarm for over an hour. The first game of his tournament wasn’t until the early afternoon, so all he was missing was some extra practice time. He spent long enough in the kitchen to grab a pack of toaster pastries, made his way to the front door of his parents place, shouldered his bag and slid his feet into his over sized shoes. He made the bus stop just in time, flashed his monthly pass and slid into the furthest bench in the back. He was the only person on the bus and it was a long ride to the mall, the sun peeking out from behind the clouds was lulling him back to sleep. He put his headphones on and pulled music up on his phone.

QQPewpew was lit up like normal. Arthur was leaned over his counter like always, still playing his game. The faded black eye was the only remnant of Hexa’s attack on the mall. It also was an unwelcome reminder that Warrens new job was all too real and that his, their sacrifice mattered.

Arthur looked up from his Game as Warren entered the shop. “Hey Warren, you’re later than I was expecting. I already got you booted up in back.” He gestured to the back of the shop where he had set Warren up the week before. Warren walked to the back of the shop, set his bag down and dropped down in front of the computer, popped his knuckles and logged into the server. He had enough time before his match for at least two practice games possibly three if he stuck to his strategies and didn’t come up against another pacifist player in the quick game pool.

His first game had gone well, He made some reactionary economic decisions that drew the game out a little longer than he would have liked but ultimately he secured the win quickly and without purchasing a single combat unit. He pulled a water bottle from his bag as he waited for the quick game pool to find him another opponent and looked up at the front of the store where Arthur was showing a Father and his young son to a chair. Arthur set the TV in their section to the coverage of the Movers and Shakers tournament which was streaming online. He had never listened to the coverage of any of the tournaments he was in. He had studied his opponent’s games with the audio off on YouTube to figure out ways around their plans and strategies. He had never heard the announcers voices and it threw him for a momentary loop when he heard them talk about his record so far for the season and that this tournament would be the last of his career for a while.

Arthur came into the back of the store and knelt next to Warren’s table. “Hey, I know you are about to play, and this is your last tournament and all, but if it wouldn’t bother you too much, you have two fans up front who are here to watch your last tournament, they come in from time to time and I Thought it might be fun for them and honestly good for you to have a reminder of why you’re doing,” Arthur paused. “What you’re doing.” He finished off, and Warren knew he wasn’t talking about leaving the game.

Warren looked out at the Father and son sitting in a two person recliner together, they were watching 

replays and highlights of games from earlier in the day. Warren Nodded. “Yeah, sure.” He stood up. 

“You know I’ve never actually met any of my fans in person?” Warren asked.

Arthur shook his head. “Yeah, you have.” He said simply and went back to the counter. Warren followed him out to the shop and introduced himself to the father and son. He knelt next to the kids side of the recliner, signed his Uneven Bubbler hat and they talked about the game until just before his first match started.

As far as last days went, it wasn’t so bad.

Blood and Profit: Chapter 37

Mew’s bandage was sloppy but it was holding the syrupy flow of blood back. Even still it flailed and was speaking nonsense. “Must Run! Stay in the light!” It tried to stand and fell back as the bandage around its midsection soaked through.

She glanced back at the hole in the wall where the leaf ship breached the station and was surprised to see nothing. Not the hall, not the wall, not the hole. Just infinitely darkness, a black so black that it ceased to feel empty and became predatory.

Mew felt the icy grip of fear crawl down her back. “Screw that noise.” She said to herself, lifting the tree person by what felt like his shoulders. The tree person got to his feet and they made their way to the shuttle dock, slower than she felt comfortable with largely because she could feel the darkness, stalking them. By the time they reached the shuttle airlock, the tree person had passed out becoming almost entirely dead weight. She held up her hand to open the airlock door and stopped short. It suddenly occurring to her that the darkness was letting them live. That it needed them to escape so it could get to the planet below. Her hand hesitated over the button. She could keep it here, seal her and this already wounded alien’s fate and keep this dark predator from ever reaching her home below.

“It would find a way to reach the planet even if we die here.” The Alien explained.

It was all the convincing she needed, pressed the button, opened the door, and carried the tree person into the escape shuttle. As she strapped herself into the pilots chair it dawned on her that she had not spoken her worries about the darkness. The tree person had read her mind. She flipped a switch and the airlock hatches closed and the magnalocks released the escape shuttle. She moved away from the station and spun the shuttle around so she could see the station. The Darkness had done an incredible job of hiding the damage the leaf ship impact had done. It had crashed into a section divider and the station was slowly tearing itself in half. She thought she had hated the station she had spent most of her adult life, but watching as it fell apart and be swallowed up by the darkness filled her with an odd sense of remorse.

“I fear that before this is over.” The plant person was doubled over holding the end of its appendages against its wound. “The station will be the least of your losses.” She looked back at the tree person realizing that it had again read her mind. She saw its mouth flicker, double, then completely disappear with the rest of its facial features. The entire body shape of the tree person lost cohesion and became just a huge pile of vines. She shook off the questions she had and focused on steering the escape shuttle safely through atmospheric re-entry.

The back of the ship was layered with the heat shielding to make it through re-entry, which meant she couldn’t see through the front windshield and until she was through to the lower atmosphere the ships cameras were guarded behind solid heat shielding. So it wasn’t until the ships parachutes had deployed to slow her decent and the heat from the shielding had dissipated before she could engage the cameras. What she saw as they descended shouldn’t have shocked her but it did.

As each leaf ship made it through atmospheric entry and impacted with the ground a new tree grew tall and proud. The forest that had already emerged below her was getting bigger by the second, and she assumed it was very likely each one of those trees had at least one of the creatures like her new friend inside it. She looked back to check on the pile of vines and saw that the sap had hardened in the last few minutes and was no longer dripping everywhere. She didn’t know if that meant the tree person was doing better or worse.

She also couldn’t shake the feeling that there was a third passenger on the shuttle, one that could be hiding in any and every shadow she saw.