The Air and Space museum. Wonder what Bismarck wants there? Whatever it is, it seems that he may have found it.
Silverlight is engaged in a classic duel between the forces of light and darkness – literally.
And a mystic motorcycle archer! Bowbiker? No, his name is Hwarang according to the ever-so-handy Cray.
And what do you get if you cross a next gen terminator with a bullet train? Mercury the metalman! Very cool images you conjure with your descriptions.
That Crow-chick from out of town quite helps to turn the tide with her deadly wings.
Let’s hope Silverlight can shed a little light on what’s going on at the museum!
Full Version: The Stormcrow
Renee: January does not care if people are making bootleg Stormcrow shirts and the like and selling them for their own profit. Just so long as the money is not being used to fund Nazis. If people are using it to pay their rent or buy dinner, then more power to them as far as she is concerned. That is just one more way that her identity is doing some good in the world.
Silverlight does live right next door. So she's definitely going to be surprised, but happy, to see January turn up.
Hwarang the character was inspired by a K-drama called Hwarang, about the historical hwarang. That is where my picture of him below comes from.
I love the name Metro Man! Maybe that will be a comic book character in January's "real" superhero world, like Nightman, Superious, and Miss Fortune.
You know what, I had not thought of Mercury being descriptive of how he can control and reshape metal. I just took the name from the RL train that he was inspired by. I saw a picture of that once, and knew it had to be a superhero. From there I decided that rather than being a guy who wore powered armor, instead his metal control ability would *be* the power in the armor.
Acadian: You can be sure that Bismarck does not want to just get some pics of the airplanes. He's got a goal, find two lost puppies, that will level two cities in atomic fire. We are finally circling back to the events that started out this story.
I expect you will like the bow-biker. He is the result of a lot of time spent working out an arcane archer I had. Once I narrowed down that he was going to be a Korean hwarang, I was going to make him a horse-archer (since that is what the historical hwarang were). But then I thought, it's the 21st century. He should have a modern ride. So instead he has an electric motorcycle from the Technocracy.
Mercury is definitely metal. He is inspired by a couple of podcasters who are also big train nerds. They did a 9 hour or so series on the Penn Central Railroad and its bankruptcy. I think that is where I first saw a picture of the New York Central Mercury train, and knew I had to turn that into a superhero somehow.
We have some more fighty posts, before we finally get down to answering the question of what the baddies are up to in the museum.
The Atomkrieg were inspired by the real life Atomwaffen Division
Hwarang is based on Park Hyung-sik
MiG-17
Book 12.21 - Broken Arrow
"These hombres you are tangling with are the Atomkrieg," the elder hacker went on. "Bad dudes. Not big fans of you by the way. They burned an effigy of you on the steps of an Alabama courthouse a few months ago, after your fight with the National Socialist League at Motor City Pride. The local police took selfies with them while they did it."
"Their leader is a cyborg named Bismarck. He's that guy you saw earlier on the ground. He's a telekinetic, is strong, and heavily armored. The one in the air throwing down against Silverlight with elemental darkness is Reinhard. Watch it, he's a rumored to be a mage. Besides the regular goons, there's three more metas to look out for. One's a vibration emitter called Blitz. He can literally shake things apart. Another is Skorzeny, who is their commando. He can turn two-dimensional. He's good at hiding, and slicing things apart with the edges of his hands and arms. The last is a big guy named Tirpitz, classic brick. Oh, and Duck!"
January did not think, she simply did what Cray told her to. She did the splits, and splayed out her legs at a ninety degree angle to either side of her body. That dropped her down to the floor just in time to feel a whoosh of air pass by overhead. She caught sight of something big and metallic flashing past. It looked like a fist, but was far too large to be that.
She rolled back in the direction that the attack had come from, pulled in her legs, and shot them up into a double kick. She felt her boots crunch into something hard. She followed through with the motion, and leaped to her feet. She put on a half twist in the air as she did so. That put her face to face with what could only have been Tirpitz.
Everything about him was oversized and overdone. He stood about seven feet tall, and January wryly imagined that he might have been the same in width. His frame burst with muscle, and was suffused with a soft glow that January suspected was a force field. His head was encased with one of those coal scuttle helmets that the Germans had worn in the Second World War. But this one had a solid steel mask that covered the entire face as well, which was painted with a full white skull. His hands were sheathed in a pair of massively outsized metal gauntlets that shone with energy. Each knuckle was the size of a tea saucer, and was shaped like a skull.
Four of those skulls were coming January's way. She chose not to dodge or block. Instead she stood there and took it, just to see what he had. Granted, she cheated. She called upon Earth and suffused her body with that element's ideal. She was stone, she was the mountain, she was adamant. Nothing could harm her now.
He hit hard enough that the shockwave of the strike shattered a glass case beside them, and sprayed broken shards across the early radar screen displayed within. But the blow merely glanced off the side of January's face, as did his follow up to her gut. He came in for a third punch, but by this time January had a good idea of his strength.
She let go of Earth, and instead became Water. She flowed under his left cross, and continued going low. She crashed a fist against his stomach a moment later. She found that the faint glow around him was definitely a force field, for it prevented her from actually touching his body. He merely grunted in reply. She could have sworn that the skull painted upon his helmet smiled down at her.
He brought both fists straight down at her in a double blow. But she rolled aside, and he merely gouged out a massive chunk of the marble floor. She replied with a kick to his knee. But while this was usually the weak spot in any opponent, he merely grunted again, and appeared entirely unfazed.
"Long Live Death!"
January turned her head to see a pair of henchmen across the space level their rifles upon a single woman. The other heroes appeared to be too occupied with other foes to deal with them. The two neo-Nazis were likewise too far away for January to reach. Well, reach with her hands at least.
She called upon the sky. It answered by transforming into a blanket of gray clouds that rumbled with force and sheeted rain. This would be something new for her. She had never done it indoors. So she had to concentrate. She stretched her arms up to the firmament overhead, and pulled down very deliberately and precisely. She focused upon exactly what she wanted from the elements, and then willed it into reality.
The sky responded with a jagged bolt of lightning. The electricity lanced down, and crashed through the glass ceiling overhead. That shattered a wide plate of the transparent material, and sent shards of it flying down below. January hoped that would not hurt anyone. But broken glass was better than bullets.
The lightning continued down, and forked out into two distinct bolts of energy. Each of these slammed into a neo-Nazi. Both were thrown from their feet. Sparks flew around their bodies and smoke curled from their uniforms. Their rifles clattered away with metal bent and polymer melted off.
Of course all of this left January wide open to Tirpitz's next attack. She did not even have time to turn back to face him. Before she knew it, he hit her in the back of the head like a truck. She went flying forward and crashed face-first into the wide stone tiles of the floor. The world spun around her, and lights danced before her eyes.
She tried to scrabble to her feet, but she could not climb up. The floor seemed to slide out from under her boots, and she could not tell up from down. Then she felt herself lifted up into the air, only to come crashing back down a moment later. Granite tile exploded around her, as she sank down deep into the floor.
She tasted blood in her mouth, and felt fire rise inside her. This bastard was not going to be the end of her. Not by a long shot.
She kicked out hard, and felt her foot impact something. Then a strong hand clamped down upon her ankle, and flung her through the air. The next thing she knew, she saw the SR-71 coming up in front of her. She was about to crash through it!
She snapped out her wings. Their tips dug into the granite floor, and gouged deep furrows into it. Her feet came down a moment later, and again, cut more trenches into the wide stone tiles. She slowed, and came to a halt just inches from the legendary Blackbird. She took a moment to kiss the fingers of one hand, and then press them lovingly against the black hull of the famous spy plane.
She turned to see that Tirpitz was charging after her like an enraged bull. He was clearly intent upon slamming directly into her and carrying them both through the great plane. January smiled, he was telegraphing his attack from a mile away. That gave her plenty of time to respond.
She twisted slightly, so that her left side faced the neo-Nazi. Then she reached out with her left hand, and curled her fingers inward to beckon him forward. It was half invitation, half taunt. But its only real purpose was to distract him from what her right hand was doing on the other side of her body. It reached down into her belt, and pulled forth a party favor.
"There are no Nazis in Valhalla," she snarled at the oncoming brute.
He was almost upon her. Just before he could reach her she leaped skyward in a forward somersault. As she did so, she tossed her toy right in front of the Nazi's face. The flash pack went off an instant later, and sent brilliant strobes of light out in every direction. The flashes were so intense that even though January had screwed her eyes shut, she still saw bright afterimages against the back of her eyelids.
That was enough to stagger and slow the charging rhino of a Nazi. Still in the air, January reached down and wrapped her arms around the tree trunk of his neck. She continued through with the motion, and pulled him up off the ground with her. That sent them both spinning through the air back the way he had come from. But this time they ended with January slamming him down belly-first into a new crater in the granite floor.
He was slow to rise to his feet this time. January was quicker. She had some pent up anger to work out, and this guy was the perfect target to unload it upon. In her mind's eye she replaced that coal scuttle helmet and skull mask with the face of Patricia Fine. Lightning burned through her veins, and she bared her teeth in a predatory grin. It was time to end this.
She stepped up to the neo-Nazi, and rested one hand on his shoulder. She used that as a springboard to lift herself into the air above him. She came down a second later and unleashed Ragnarok. She led with her elbow, and it crashed directly into the top of his armored skull.
The Nazi's force field winked out in an instant, overwhelmed by the force of the blow. His helmet and metal mask shattered immediately afterward. That revealed him to be a man with a shaven head, a bristly five o'clock shadow, and a swastika tattoo right in the middle of his forehead. His blue eyes rolled up in his head, and he collapsed into a heap on the floor.
January turned to see another neo-Nazi that Cray had warned her about: Blitz. He was a skinny man dressed like his comrades: in a black uniform, helmet, and half skull mask. His body was a blur however, as if the space around him was shivering or shaking at some insane speed. He was not armed with a rifle. Instead he gestured with one hand, and that blur of motion lanced out from his fingers.
This beam of energy leaped out across the museum, and tore up the granite floor in a long furrow beneath it. No, it was not exactly energy. It was not like the lasers or arcane bolts that Silverlight could fire. Rather it was a disturbance in space. It seemed to cause matter to shake apart, perhaps even at a molecular or atomic level, so far as January could tell.
January followed the line of the oscillating beam, and saw that it reached out for Hwarang. The Korean-American zoomed across the floor of the museum on his motorcycle. He still fired from his arcane bow as he rode. A single one of these arrows struck the floor amidst a trio of the ordinary neo-Nazis. It exploded in a shower of blue and white energy, which quickly spread across the surface of the wide stone tiles. Frost wafted up, and January realized that it had created a sheet of ice. The Nazis slipped and slid in an almost comical fashion, and spilled most unceremoniously from their feet.
The archer looked up too late to see that Blitz's attack was homing in upon him. It sliced through a display panel about surface-to-air missiles, and then through one such missile that had been placed on exhibit. Thankfully it did not possess a warhead or fuel, so the metal skin of the weapon simply shredded under the attack with no further harm.
January was in the air by then, and she winged her way to intercept the Nazi. But an instant later his energy beam finally caught up with Hwarang. That trench he had gouged through the floor rose up to meet the center of his bike. Steel tore apart under the oscillations, and went flying in all directions.
The motorcycle lifted up as if it had exploded. Hwarang seemed to make use of the motion to leap forward off the bike. He somersaulted through the air and came down on top of a parked MiG-17. He ran across the fuselage of the craft, and drew his glowing, semi-transparent bow back to his ear.
He loosed, and five arrows shot from the string all at once. They spread out horizontally, and bent out in a wide arc, each arrow equidistant from the next. Halfway to Blitz they all bent back inward, and came homing in upon him from front, left, and right all at once. The Nazi tried to roll out of the way. But he was too slow, and all five arrows slammed home into his body at once.
The arcane arrows sliced through Blitz's oscillating energy shield as if it did not exist. They bit into his torso an instant later, and sent him straight to the ground. January wondered how much of those arrows were physical at all, or if like the standard arcane bolt it was primarily astral in nature. As Silverlight had explained, strike the aura, and the damage ground down to the physical body. As the saying went: as above, so below.
January altered her course slightly to swoop down upon the three Nazis who flailed about on the new sheet of ice. One went down when a golden arrow vanished into his body, then another. She was just about to dip a wing down to clip the last one, when a final arrow finished that terrorist off as well. January noted that all of them were still breathing, even though none showed any obvious wounds. So clearly those had been sleep or stun arrows of some kind, a handy tool for a super to have in one's kit.
At the same time though, January silently criticized herself. She had just wasted her time on henchmen that the other hero had been able to take care of on their own. That was inefficient and just poor teamwork. But then again, she supposed a lack of synergy was inevitable given that she had only just met the archer a few moments before.
January looped around and came down to land beside the glass canopy of the MiG-17, just a few feet from the Korean-American. The archer nodded to her, and then cast his eyes across the exhibit. So far as January could tell, that had taken care of all the Atomkrieg except three: Reinhard, Skorzeny, and their leader Bismarck.
Silverlight does live right next door. So she's definitely going to be surprised, but happy, to see January turn up.
Hwarang the character was inspired by a K-drama called Hwarang, about the historical hwarang. That is where my picture of him below comes from.
I love the name Metro Man! Maybe that will be a comic book character in January's "real" superhero world, like Nightman, Superious, and Miss Fortune.
You know what, I had not thought of Mercury being descriptive of how he can control and reshape metal. I just took the name from the RL train that he was inspired by. I saw a picture of that once, and knew it had to be a superhero. From there I decided that rather than being a guy who wore powered armor, instead his metal control ability would *be* the power in the armor.
Acadian: You can be sure that Bismarck does not want to just get some pics of the airplanes. He's got a goal, find two lost puppies, that will level two cities in atomic fire. We are finally circling back to the events that started out this story.
I expect you will like the bow-biker. He is the result of a lot of time spent working out an arcane archer I had. Once I narrowed down that he was going to be a Korean hwarang, I was going to make him a horse-archer (since that is what the historical hwarang were). But then I thought, it's the 21st century. He should have a modern ride. So instead he has an electric motorcycle from the Technocracy.
Mercury is definitely metal. He is inspired by a couple of podcasters who are also big train nerds. They did a 9 hour or so series on the Penn Central Railroad and its bankruptcy. I think that is where I first saw a picture of the New York Central Mercury train, and knew I had to turn that into a superhero somehow.
We have some more fighty posts, before we finally get down to answering the question of what the baddies are up to in the museum.
The Atomkrieg were inspired by the real life Atomwaffen Division
Hwarang is based on Park Hyung-sik
MiG-17
Book 12.21 - Broken Arrow
"These hombres you are tangling with are the Atomkrieg," the elder hacker went on. "Bad dudes. Not big fans of you by the way. They burned an effigy of you on the steps of an Alabama courthouse a few months ago, after your fight with the National Socialist League at Motor City Pride. The local police took selfies with them while they did it."
"Their leader is a cyborg named Bismarck. He's that guy you saw earlier on the ground. He's a telekinetic, is strong, and heavily armored. The one in the air throwing down against Silverlight with elemental darkness is Reinhard. Watch it, he's a rumored to be a mage. Besides the regular goons, there's three more metas to look out for. One's a vibration emitter called Blitz. He can literally shake things apart. Another is Skorzeny, who is their commando. He can turn two-dimensional. He's good at hiding, and slicing things apart with the edges of his hands and arms. The last is a big guy named Tirpitz, classic brick. Oh, and Duck!"
January did not think, she simply did what Cray told her to. She did the splits, and splayed out her legs at a ninety degree angle to either side of her body. That dropped her down to the floor just in time to feel a whoosh of air pass by overhead. She caught sight of something big and metallic flashing past. It looked like a fist, but was far too large to be that.
She rolled back in the direction that the attack had come from, pulled in her legs, and shot them up into a double kick. She felt her boots crunch into something hard. She followed through with the motion, and leaped to her feet. She put on a half twist in the air as she did so. That put her face to face with what could only have been Tirpitz.
Everything about him was oversized and overdone. He stood about seven feet tall, and January wryly imagined that he might have been the same in width. His frame burst with muscle, and was suffused with a soft glow that January suspected was a force field. His head was encased with one of those coal scuttle helmets that the Germans had worn in the Second World War. But this one had a solid steel mask that covered the entire face as well, which was painted with a full white skull. His hands were sheathed in a pair of massively outsized metal gauntlets that shone with energy. Each knuckle was the size of a tea saucer, and was shaped like a skull.
Four of those skulls were coming January's way. She chose not to dodge or block. Instead she stood there and took it, just to see what he had. Granted, she cheated. She called upon Earth and suffused her body with that element's ideal. She was stone, she was the mountain, she was adamant. Nothing could harm her now.
He hit hard enough that the shockwave of the strike shattered a glass case beside them, and sprayed broken shards across the early radar screen displayed within. But the blow merely glanced off the side of January's face, as did his follow up to her gut. He came in for a third punch, but by this time January had a good idea of his strength.
She let go of Earth, and instead became Water. She flowed under his left cross, and continued going low. She crashed a fist against his stomach a moment later. She found that the faint glow around him was definitely a force field, for it prevented her from actually touching his body. He merely grunted in reply. She could have sworn that the skull painted upon his helmet smiled down at her.
He brought both fists straight down at her in a double blow. But she rolled aside, and he merely gouged out a massive chunk of the marble floor. She replied with a kick to his knee. But while this was usually the weak spot in any opponent, he merely grunted again, and appeared entirely unfazed.
"Long Live Death!"
January turned her head to see a pair of henchmen across the space level their rifles upon a single woman. The other heroes appeared to be too occupied with other foes to deal with them. The two neo-Nazis were likewise too far away for January to reach. Well, reach with her hands at least.
She called upon the sky. It answered by transforming into a blanket of gray clouds that rumbled with force and sheeted rain. This would be something new for her. She had never done it indoors. So she had to concentrate. She stretched her arms up to the firmament overhead, and pulled down very deliberately and precisely. She focused upon exactly what she wanted from the elements, and then willed it into reality.
The sky responded with a jagged bolt of lightning. The electricity lanced down, and crashed through the glass ceiling overhead. That shattered a wide plate of the transparent material, and sent shards of it flying down below. January hoped that would not hurt anyone. But broken glass was better than bullets.
The lightning continued down, and forked out into two distinct bolts of energy. Each of these slammed into a neo-Nazi. Both were thrown from their feet. Sparks flew around their bodies and smoke curled from their uniforms. Their rifles clattered away with metal bent and polymer melted off.
Of course all of this left January wide open to Tirpitz's next attack. She did not even have time to turn back to face him. Before she knew it, he hit her in the back of the head like a truck. She went flying forward and crashed face-first into the wide stone tiles of the floor. The world spun around her, and lights danced before her eyes.
She tried to scrabble to her feet, but she could not climb up. The floor seemed to slide out from under her boots, and she could not tell up from down. Then she felt herself lifted up into the air, only to come crashing back down a moment later. Granite tile exploded around her, as she sank down deep into the floor.
She tasted blood in her mouth, and felt fire rise inside her. This bastard was not going to be the end of her. Not by a long shot.
She kicked out hard, and felt her foot impact something. Then a strong hand clamped down upon her ankle, and flung her through the air. The next thing she knew, she saw the SR-71 coming up in front of her. She was about to crash through it!
She snapped out her wings. Their tips dug into the granite floor, and gouged deep furrows into it. Her feet came down a moment later, and again, cut more trenches into the wide stone tiles. She slowed, and came to a halt just inches from the legendary Blackbird. She took a moment to kiss the fingers of one hand, and then press them lovingly against the black hull of the famous spy plane.
She turned to see that Tirpitz was charging after her like an enraged bull. He was clearly intent upon slamming directly into her and carrying them both through the great plane. January smiled, he was telegraphing his attack from a mile away. That gave her plenty of time to respond.
She twisted slightly, so that her left side faced the neo-Nazi. Then she reached out with her left hand, and curled her fingers inward to beckon him forward. It was half invitation, half taunt. But its only real purpose was to distract him from what her right hand was doing on the other side of her body. It reached down into her belt, and pulled forth a party favor.
"There are no Nazis in Valhalla," she snarled at the oncoming brute.
He was almost upon her. Just before he could reach her she leaped skyward in a forward somersault. As she did so, she tossed her toy right in front of the Nazi's face. The flash pack went off an instant later, and sent brilliant strobes of light out in every direction. The flashes were so intense that even though January had screwed her eyes shut, she still saw bright afterimages against the back of her eyelids.
That was enough to stagger and slow the charging rhino of a Nazi. Still in the air, January reached down and wrapped her arms around the tree trunk of his neck. She continued through with the motion, and pulled him up off the ground with her. That sent them both spinning through the air back the way he had come from. But this time they ended with January slamming him down belly-first into a new crater in the granite floor.
He was slow to rise to his feet this time. January was quicker. She had some pent up anger to work out, and this guy was the perfect target to unload it upon. In her mind's eye she replaced that coal scuttle helmet and skull mask with the face of Patricia Fine. Lightning burned through her veins, and she bared her teeth in a predatory grin. It was time to end this.
She stepped up to the neo-Nazi, and rested one hand on his shoulder. She used that as a springboard to lift herself into the air above him. She came down a second later and unleashed Ragnarok. She led with her elbow, and it crashed directly into the top of his armored skull.
The Nazi's force field winked out in an instant, overwhelmed by the force of the blow. His helmet and metal mask shattered immediately afterward. That revealed him to be a man with a shaven head, a bristly five o'clock shadow, and a swastika tattoo right in the middle of his forehead. His blue eyes rolled up in his head, and he collapsed into a heap on the floor.
January turned to see another neo-Nazi that Cray had warned her about: Blitz. He was a skinny man dressed like his comrades: in a black uniform, helmet, and half skull mask. His body was a blur however, as if the space around him was shivering or shaking at some insane speed. He was not armed with a rifle. Instead he gestured with one hand, and that blur of motion lanced out from his fingers.
This beam of energy leaped out across the museum, and tore up the granite floor in a long furrow beneath it. No, it was not exactly energy. It was not like the lasers or arcane bolts that Silverlight could fire. Rather it was a disturbance in space. It seemed to cause matter to shake apart, perhaps even at a molecular or atomic level, so far as January could tell.
January followed the line of the oscillating beam, and saw that it reached out for Hwarang. The Korean-American zoomed across the floor of the museum on his motorcycle. He still fired from his arcane bow as he rode. A single one of these arrows struck the floor amidst a trio of the ordinary neo-Nazis. It exploded in a shower of blue and white energy, which quickly spread across the surface of the wide stone tiles. Frost wafted up, and January realized that it had created a sheet of ice. The Nazis slipped and slid in an almost comical fashion, and spilled most unceremoniously from their feet.
The archer looked up too late to see that Blitz's attack was homing in upon him. It sliced through a display panel about surface-to-air missiles, and then through one such missile that had been placed on exhibit. Thankfully it did not possess a warhead or fuel, so the metal skin of the weapon simply shredded under the attack with no further harm.
January was in the air by then, and she winged her way to intercept the Nazi. But an instant later his energy beam finally caught up with Hwarang. That trench he had gouged through the floor rose up to meet the center of his bike. Steel tore apart under the oscillations, and went flying in all directions.
The motorcycle lifted up as if it had exploded. Hwarang seemed to make use of the motion to leap forward off the bike. He somersaulted through the air and came down on top of a parked MiG-17. He ran across the fuselage of the craft, and drew his glowing, semi-transparent bow back to his ear.
He loosed, and five arrows shot from the string all at once. They spread out horizontally, and bent out in a wide arc, each arrow equidistant from the next. Halfway to Blitz they all bent back inward, and came homing in upon him from front, left, and right all at once. The Nazi tried to roll out of the way. But he was too slow, and all five arrows slammed home into his body at once.
The arcane arrows sliced through Blitz's oscillating energy shield as if it did not exist. They bit into his torso an instant later, and sent him straight to the ground. January wondered how much of those arrows were physical at all, or if like the standard arcane bolt it was primarily astral in nature. As Silverlight had explained, strike the aura, and the damage ground down to the physical body. As the saying went: as above, so below.
January altered her course slightly to swoop down upon the three Nazis who flailed about on the new sheet of ice. One went down when a golden arrow vanished into his body, then another. She was just about to dip a wing down to clip the last one, when a final arrow finished that terrorist off as well. January noted that all of them were still breathing, even though none showed any obvious wounds. So clearly those had been sleep or stun arrows of some kind, a handy tool for a super to have in one's kit.
At the same time though, January silently criticized herself. She had just wasted her time on henchmen that the other hero had been able to take care of on their own. That was inefficient and just poor teamwork. But then again, she supposed a lack of synergy was inevitable given that she had only just met the archer a few moments before.
January looped around and came down to land beside the glass canopy of the MiG-17, just a few feet from the Korean-American. The archer nodded to her, and then cast his eyes across the exhibit. So far as January could tell, that had taken care of all the Atomkrieg except three: Reinhard, Skorzeny, and their leader Bismarck.
Yeah, that'd be sooo D.C., "I'm Metro Man! ... Now please watch your step, when exiting the car."
Who is Superious, if you don't mind? What sort of abilities and powers?
Ah yes, mercury's the only metal which is fluid at room temperature, as you know. Which is why it's used in thermometers. Anyway, let's see what's up this week. By the way, your YouTube link for Mercury led to a 3-second Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure clip!
They burned an effigy of Jan???
And the police proudly stood by??? How dare they. mALX and I had some long PM talks about the south by the way, since she's from Tennessee, and I've never seen anything racist when I used to travel in the south, not like in the movies, especially. But she confirmed that definitely, such things exist (in modern times, I should note). There are such things as entire towns where the law might look the other way (or worse) when such actions occur.
Blitz's superpower does sound rather cool, certainly unique from any others, so far. Too bad he's on the other side.
Whoa... Skorzeny can turn into a slideshow! Wicked! But again, too bad he's on the other side.
What can ya do? Damn, the fight isn't over! I assumed since Cray's on the comm that it is.
Lemme catch up to this in a few. Someone knocking at the door.
Manson did it first.
You're just a copycat wannabe who won't be remembered in the long run.
A Reverse Arrows spell! The part when the ice sheet makes them all fall over is great. If only...
Who is Superious, if you don't mind? What sort of abilities and powers?
Ah yes, mercury's the only metal which is fluid at room temperature, as you know. Which is why it's used in thermometers. Anyway, let's see what's up this week. By the way, your YouTube link for Mercury led to a 3-second Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure clip!
They burned an effigy of Jan???
And the police proudly stood by??? How dare they. mALX and I had some long PM talks about the south by the way, since she's from Tennessee, and I've never seen anything racist when I used to travel in the south, not like in the movies, especially. But she confirmed that definitely, such things exist (in modern times, I should note). There are such things as entire towns where the law might look the other way (or worse) when such actions occur. Blitz's superpower does sound rather cool, certainly unique from any others, so far. Too bad he's on the other side.
Whoa... Skorzeny can turn into a slideshow! Wicked! But again, too bad he's on the other side.
What can ya do? Damn, the fight isn't over! I assumed since Cray's on the comm that it is. QUOTE
and a swastika tattoo right in the middle of his forehead.
Manson did it first.
You're just a copycat wannabe who won't be remembered in the long run. A Reverse Arrows spell! The part when the ice sheet makes them all fall over is great. If only...
An exciting fight for sure - well described and action packed.
‘I’m gonna let him hit me full on in the face to see how strong he is.’ Surely, Stormcrow must have learned that trick from Rocky Balboa!
She does get flung around a fair bit here. I chuckled when she mentally pictured Patricia Fine’s face on her big foe, Tirpitz. That reminds me of a scene from ‘The Waterboy’ when Adam Sandler similarly pictured his nemesis on the face of another football player and rage-stomped him.
Precision guided lightning! Well done, Stormcrow!
The human vibrator dude blew apart Hwarang’s ride! The mystic archer barely missed a beat though as he showed what his bow could do.
Still more baddies to take out though it seems. Fight’s not over yet.
‘I’m gonna let him hit me full on in the face to see how strong he is.’ Surely, Stormcrow must have learned that trick from Rocky Balboa!
She does get flung around a fair bit here. I chuckled when she mentally pictured Patricia Fine’s face on her big foe, Tirpitz. That reminds me of a scene from ‘The Waterboy’ when Adam Sandler similarly pictured his nemesis on the face of another football player and rage-stomped him.
Precision guided lightning! Well done, Stormcrow!
The human vibrator dude blew apart Hwarang’s ride! The mystic archer barely missed a beat though as he showed what his bow could do.
Still more baddies to take out though it seems. Fight’s not over yet.
Renee: Superious is just a Superman clone, like Nightman is a Batman clone. They seem like good names for comic book characters. They are a little silly and light-hearted, like the other fictional characters in January's world, such as Jet Gladiator or Wolfstone the Barbarian.
There is nothing about that which is unique to Tennessee. That's all over the US. American law enforcement has a long association with the KKK. There have been times where police departments directly deputized mass groups of KKK members. The same goes for other right wing fascist groups. Whenever fascists march, the police protect them. The Battle of Cable Street is a prime example from the 30s. But it is no different today.
Yep, Manson did it first. One thing I don't want to do is make Nazis look cool. Because in real life they are not. They are pathetic, and always have been. Everything about them is stolen from other people, like the swastika. It was a holy symbol from South Asia for thousands of years, used by the Hindus and other religions. Then the Nazis appropriated it. They do the same with Norse Paganism. Even the term red-pilling that modern neo-Nazis love, was literally stolen from the Matrix movies (which were made by two trans women).
Acadian: Ryo did point out that January went to the Rocky Balboa school of fighting a little while ago!
Seriously though, being the team tank really does inform her decision-making process. Putting herself in the line of fire is what January always does.
You know the old saying: "If you can't be with the one you hate, hate the one you're with." Wait, well, maybe that's not the old saying. But working out some anger issues on a deserving target is always a win-win scenario.
Blitz could have had a lucrative career in porn, or followed Richard Gere's footsteps as an American Gigolo. But no, he chose to use his powers for evil...
U2 "Dragon Lady"
F-4 Phantom
Book 12.22 - Broken Arrow
She could see Reinhard floating in the air above, still locked in his duel with Silverlight. As before, the diametrically opposed abilities of the pair continued to result in a stalemate between them. Both of them were effectively out of the fight, having cancelled out one another's ability to determine its outcome.
This meant that she, Hwarang, and Mercury would now have to tip the balance themselves. With all the ordinary henchmen now taken care of, they had a golden opportunity to do exactly that. The three of them would simply scratch all the other Nazis off the list, then join in with Silverlight to take down Reinhard in the end.
January could not make out Bismarck however. An F-4 Phantom was parked between her and the last place she had seen the man. With its distinctive upturned wingtips and the downward angled horizontal stabilizers on its tail, that was a plane that January recognized. It was one of Avery's favorite planes to fly in his Air War World videogame.
She took a moment to push her senses into astral space. The auras of everyone within the exhibit instantly glowed with brilliant life, while planes, displays and artifacts faded into near total obscurity. That confirmed what she had guessed. The mundane neo-Nazis were all down, along with Tirpitz and Blitz. The auras of the latter pair were aglow with the violet threads of meta-humanity. However, Reinhard overhead showed the golden threads of a mage stitched through his own astral self. So Cray had been right about that.
Bismarck's aura was a curious thing. Large parts of it had faded to near blankness, like all the machines around her. Unlike the artifacts on display however, she felt energy that sizzled hot and strong through the mechanical parts. It was not electricity or plasma. January was quite familiar with what those felt like in the astral by now. This was something much more exotic. She wondered if it might be quantum foam? Avery had once told her that Zero Point of the Sentinels used that in his powered armor. Yet the meat portions of Bismarck's aura were laced with violet, which betrayed his meta-humanity. So from what she could gather, he was both a meta and a cyborg at the same time. That was interesting.
There was still no trace of Skorzeny at all. Unless he could cloak his presence in astral space, he must have been elsewhere. Perhaps he had some other mission to perform? Or maybe he had a falling out with the others, and he'd been given the old Ernst Röhm treatment? Nazis were catty bitches after all. Sooner or later, they always turned on one another.
Between her and the Atomkrieg's leader were a pair of smaller, weaker auras. They were huddled within the cockpit of the F-4 Phantom. It had two seats, laid out one in front of the other. Each aura hunched down in a separate chair. But Bismarck seemed to pay no attention to them. Instead she could see in the astral that he was intent upon something else. It might have been that same parachute she had seen him studying before. Now that her awareness was in astral space, she could tell that he was projecting some sort of power onto it. Or perhaps divining some sort of information from it. There was definitely a transfer of energy and information going back and forth between them, though to what purpose she could not guess.
"So... fancy bumping into you here," Hwarang said out of the corner of his mouth. All the while his eyes scanned the museum for more targets. For the moment Reinhard had moved out of view, having flown behind the U-2 spy plane that hung from the ceiling overhead. "You're the Crowgirl right?"
"At your service flower knight," January quipped. She saw the energy of his aura stir momentarily with surprise. She also noted the distinctive violet stitching of a mage throughout his astral being. So as she had already suspected, he was definitely a magician. More specifically, he was an arcane archer. January had not known that was a thing. But as Blood Raven had been wont to note, the world was indeed a wider and stranger place than anyone imagined.
"My pal Ôkami loves K-dramas. So I know what a Hwarang is. You're a long way from Ancient Silla."
"And you're a long way from the Dragon City," Hwarang smiled in return.
"I was just in the neighborhood, and thought I'd drop in." January shrugged. Then she went back to business.
"Our bad guy is down there, on the other side of that plane." She now pointed out Bismarck to Hwarang. "But we've got friendlies in the cockpit."
"You can see that?" the Korean said. "I can't get a shot from here."
"You should have come to Silverlight's astral sensing class a few days ago," January smiled. Then she nodded up to the U-2 hanging overhead. "How about from on top of that?"
"Oh, that will do nicely."
January leaned forward and cupped her fingers together to form a saddle with her hands. The archer stuck a foot within and leaped skyward. January gave him a super strength assist, and sent him rocketing up skyward. The modern flower knight somersaulted in mid-air, and came down lightly upon one wing of the great old spy plane.
January did not waste any more time watching him. She lowered her eyes to Bismarck, and the two auras in the F-4 Phantom between them. She dropped her astral perception in order to better focus on the physical world. Then she leaped out from the MiG-17, toward what she imagined was one of its old rivals. She came down lightly in front of the cockpit of the Phantom a moment later, and saw two teens huddled within.
She glanced over at Bismarck. He still stood within the same shattered display case, and continued to pore over that old parachute. Now she could see a holographic map of North America and the Atlantic Ocean spread out in the air before him. A thread of glowing energy rose from the parachute, and connected to the map. She could see it move across its surface, and create a small dot wherever it touched. It was as if the parachute was trying to pick out a specific spot on the map, but could not quite make up its mind where.
January looked back down at the two teens beneath her. Right now they were more important. They were too close. She had no idea what powers the Nazi leader might unleash if she engaged him straight away. They could all too easily be killed, even if by pure accident. That was a chance she could not take.
She bent down to grab the forward canopy, and tried to figure out how to pull it up. The teen inside the front seat shook his head with terror. He reached up to grab the glass dome, and pulled back against January's efforts. January could not blame him for not wanting to leave his hiding place, not with a supervillain just a few feet away. But it was not helping either. They could not be there when the fighting began once more.
She wished she could say something to the teens to reassure them. But Bismarck would hear it if she did. At the moment he appeared engrossed in what he was doing. But surely he would put it on hold if he noticed a superhero next to him. Nazis were not known for their restraint after all.
So January pushed harder on the canopy. She did not exert her full force. She did not want to destroy it. It was a priceless historical artifact. Not to mention the noise would certainly attract Bismarck's attention. But it appeared that the teens inside had locked it shut from inside. That forced January to gradually push harder and harder, hoping to force it open without wrecking the thing.
She wished that Ôkami was here. He could have faded through the hull of the plane, and faded right back out with the two civilians. It would have been nice, neat, and without a sound. But apparently her current, ersatz team did not include a rogue to handle such subtleties.
January heard hard, metallic clomping ring out from beyond the tail of the interceptor. Her head jerked up to see the author of the noise, though she had a sneaking suspicion that it was something railroad related. Sure enough, a moment later Mercury stamped out from behind the plane. His silvery armor glinted in the light that streamed down through the glass ceiling high overhead. His train wheels and passenger car had vanished, and the metal that had formed them had once again taken its original places around his body.
Talk about a complete lack of subtlety.
Bismarck looked up at the clamor, and his eyes set upon both January and the Philadelphian hero. The neo-Nazi raised one hand to January, and before she could react, a gray-white haze extended from his palm. It enveloped her a moment later, like a giant, glowing blanket. It felt like a giant invisible hand had clapped down around her body. Yet while she could still move her arms and legs, it was all to no avail. Nothing she did could pry the energy field from her body.
That gray-white force picked her up, and in an instant it violently jerked her sideways and down. That sent her toward the floor, and straight at Mercury. He did not see her coming until the last moment, and by then it was too late. January crashed directly into him. She felt the metal of his armor dimple under the impact. But it held, even if he went flying back head over heels.
He and January went careening across the floor in a most undignified heap of arms and legs. January imagined it must have looked like bowling for superheroes. They crashed through a display of cockpit instrument panels, only to skid to a halt amid a group of mannequins clad in the uniforms of various nations.
"Watch where you're going!" the armored hero snapped.
"Hey, it wasn't my idea!" January shot back. She pushed a dummy clad in an old Soviet uniform off of her. Then she tempered her response. "That guy's a telekinetic."
"Stormcrow, you and Mercury need to concentrate on Reinhard." Cray's voice was a calm, mellow tonic in her ears. "Leave Bismarck to Silverlight and Hwarang, he shouldn't be able to stop their magical attacks."
"Got it coach," January nodded as she rose to her feet. Apparently Bismarck had released her from his telekinetic grip, for she was once again free to move.
"Who are you talking to?" the railroad-themed hero asked, as he clambered to his feet.
"My fairy godfather," January quipped.
She idly realized that she never would have come up with such a smarmy one-liner just a few months ago. She had indeed leveled up quite a bit since then. She hoped that Cray at least appreciated the joke.
She was about to relate what the hacker had suggested to the other superhero, when Bismarck took the matter out of her hands. He turned off that energy field that he had created around the parachute. Now that he was finished with it, he tossed the piece of life-saving equipment carelessly aside.
Bismarck looked up and shot skyward. As he flew up, he reached out with both hands. That gray-white energy field reached out once more, and wrapped up the unconscious forms of Tirpitz and Blitz. They rose up in the air with him, plucked aloft by his telekinetic grip. However, the other terrorists sprawled out around the museum did not accompany them. Whether that was because Bismarck could not see them, or because he had reached his limit and could lift no more, January could not tell.
"Damn, we've got to move!" January leaped after the Nazi leader and unfurled the wings from her back. But he was too far away for her to reach. Without thinking she called for the sky overhead. Once more it turned dark as coal, and a blanket of storm clouds instantly raged overhead. Then the elements answered January's call, and a ragged bolt of lightning crashed down through the glass ceiling.
The silver white energy slammed full into Bismarck. The thunderclap that followed the blast caused the remaining windows to shake, along with the displays down upon the museum floor. But when January's eyes cleared from the bright flash, she saw that while Bismarck was a little singed, he continued to rise up in the air. He seemed otherwise unaffected by the blast.
In fact, she saw her electricity play around his frame for a moment. He smiled, and his eyes glowed brightly. The energy seemed to fall down into his body like water going down a faucet. Then his eyes turned to brilliant scarlet, and an instant later one beam of ruby light after another blossomed forth from them. These new lasers lanced up and around, and sliced through the wires that held the nearby U-2 spy plane aloft as if they were made of string.
"Speckt!" January cursed.
The U-2 was directly above that F-4 Phantom on the floor, the plane in which those two teens were still hidden. As if that was not enough, Hwarang still stood atop one of its wings. Now the archer fought to maintain his balance as his footing literally dropped out from under him. The five-missile finishing shot he had been just making against Bismarck wobbled far off course, and burned its way through the ceiling of the museum instead.
January dove for the falling plane. Even as she did, she knew that she had unwittingly caused this. Bismarck had clearly absorbed her lightning, converted it to laser energy, and finally emitted it back out once more. She had given him the ammunition he had needed to not only interrupt Hwarang's finishing move, but also to scratch the Korean-American off the playing board for what remained of the fight. Not to mention the falling U-2 now threatened to kill the two civilians that still remained below. It was a perfect storm of ineptitude on her part.
But there was no time for self-recrimination. That could come later, in the after action report. She had lives to save, before it was too late.
She called upon Air to impart greater power to her flight. She swooped under the plummeting surveillance plane, and then looped back upward. She hit the hull face-first. But at least that was intentional. She spread her arms as wide as she was able, to get the most purchase she could against the plane. Finally her wings beat furiously, and she pushed up against the weight of the falling aircraft.
A few months ago she had struggled to hold a car aloft from the edge of the Ambassador Bridge for more than just a few minutes. In the end both it - and her - had plummeted straight down into the Detroit River below. The spy plane was not very big, at least as far as planes went. In fact, it looked quite spindly with its narrow fuselage. But it had to weigh far more than that car ever could.
But as January had so recently noted, she had leveled up since then. She was not the same woman that she had been before. She had learned, exercised, and grown; both as an aerialist and as a magician. Now she poured all that she had learned into her flight, and willed herself to hold the U-2 aloft.
Air give me quickness in body and wit. Let the weights of the world fall from me.
The solid black aircraft slowed its descent as January called upon the classical element of Air to further refine her power. But it still did not stop. The floor was coming up closer and closer under her. Then Silverlight appeared beside her, and joined her on the bottom of the plane. Wings of pure light spread from the other heroine's back. They did not flap like a bird's did, as January's did. But she could feel the power within them nonetheless. They altered reality around the lunar heroine, and held her in the sky through the force of her will.
Out of the corner of her eye January saw Hwarang fall to the floor. He went down back first, and fired his bow skyward again and again as he dropped. But if his arrows hit anything, January could not tell. The bulk of the spy plane lay between her and the Nazis, whom she imagined must be making good their escape through the glass ceiling overhead.
The U-2 slowed further, but even together, the two heroines could not completely arrest its descent. Then January saw Mercury below. He had created those train wheels around his feet once more, and he rolled up behind the F-4. He pushed against the tail of the plane. After a heart-stopping moment, it went lurching forward. January could imagine she heard the man's armor chugging like a train. But maybe that was all in her head. In any case, the Cold War interceptor slid out of the way, even as January and Silverlight brought the U-2 down to a soft landing where it had sat moments before.
Mercury had cleared the Phantom out of the way with seconds to spare. He took the time afterward to remove his wheels once more, and caused the metal to flow back into the rest of his armor. Then his frame altered again, and the metal flowed straight down under his feet, and pushed him skyward. It formed what was essentially a pair of wide stilts under his boots. That lifted him to the same height as the cockpit of the interceptor.
He touched the metal rim of the canopy. January heard the bolts that had locked it shut pop open, as if through the will of Mercury alone. With that the single canopy seemed to split apart, and revealed that it was in fact divided into two halves: fore and aft. From each a curved section of glass rotated up from rear-mounted hinges. That allowed the occupants within to finally make their way out of the long, narrow cockpit.
January and Silverlight moved out from under the U-2, once they were sure it was safely down on the floor. January breathed a sigh of relief. That had been close. But they had all managed it by working together. She paused to look skyward, but saw no sign of the Nazis. They had clearly made good their escape.
"Sister, you have excellent timing," Silverlight observed. She leaned in close, and wrapped up January in a brief hug. January heard the distant wail of sirens as Silverlight pulled away. But for the moment, the exhibit space was otherwise quiet now that the battle was over.
Hwarang appeared to be uninjured from his fall. His magical bow vanished from his fingers, and he leaped up onto the wing of the plane. From there he hopped up onto one of the bulbous air intakes that ran down the sides of the fuselage, just behind the two seats of the cockpit. Mercury passed one, then the other teen from the cockpit to the Korean-American. The archer then helped them back along the intake and down to the top of the wing.
The two students were white as sheets, and shook profusely. January did not blame them. They had nearly been pasted by the falling U-2 spy plane. It was the oldest villain trick in the book. Endanger civilians to distract the heroes. It always worked too, and January knew it would continue to do so. She would always place the lives of people like those two teens over "winning" any day.
She stepped over to the edge of the wing and helped the teens down to the ground. She put on her usual post-battle smile for the public, and tried not to show any winces or make any groans from her latest set of bumps and bruises. Tirpitz could pack a wallop, especially when her guard was down. She would have to ask Silverlight if she had anything for a headache...
"Well, that could have been better, but could have been a lot worse too." With the last civilian down and safe, Mercury's legs shrank down to their normal length. The Philadelphian took in the scene around them. The exhibition hall was a mess. The floor was chewed up in numerous places with trenches and craters from the battle. Melted and broken glass was scattered everywhere, and numerous display panels and cases lay in ruins.
But there were no dead or critically wounded people that January could see. In fact, her previous astral sensing had already told her that the hall was empty, save for the last two civilians from the F-4. They were already headed to the door. All the planes had made it through intact as well. So that was something.
"Everyone goes home alive. That's the important thing." Silverlight declared.
There is nothing about that which is unique to Tennessee. That's all over the US. American law enforcement has a long association with the KKK. There have been times where police departments directly deputized mass groups of KKK members. The same goes for other right wing fascist groups. Whenever fascists march, the police protect them. The Battle of Cable Street is a prime example from the 30s. But it is no different today.
Yep, Manson did it first. One thing I don't want to do is make Nazis look cool. Because in real life they are not. They are pathetic, and always have been. Everything about them is stolen from other people, like the swastika. It was a holy symbol from South Asia for thousands of years, used by the Hindus and other religions. Then the Nazis appropriated it. They do the same with Norse Paganism. Even the term red-pilling that modern neo-Nazis love, was literally stolen from the Matrix movies (which were made by two trans women).
Acadian: Ryo did point out that January went to the Rocky Balboa school of fighting a little while ago!
Seriously though, being the team tank really does inform her decision-making process. Putting herself in the line of fire is what January always does.You know the old saying: "If you can't be with the one you hate, hate the one you're with." Wait, well, maybe that's not the old saying. But working out some anger issues on a deserving target is always a win-win scenario.
Blitz could have had a lucrative career in porn, or followed Richard Gere's footsteps as an American Gigolo. But no, he chose to use his powers for evil...
U2 "Dragon Lady"
F-4 Phantom
Book 12.22 - Broken Arrow
She could see Reinhard floating in the air above, still locked in his duel with Silverlight. As before, the diametrically opposed abilities of the pair continued to result in a stalemate between them. Both of them were effectively out of the fight, having cancelled out one another's ability to determine its outcome.
This meant that she, Hwarang, and Mercury would now have to tip the balance themselves. With all the ordinary henchmen now taken care of, they had a golden opportunity to do exactly that. The three of them would simply scratch all the other Nazis off the list, then join in with Silverlight to take down Reinhard in the end.
January could not make out Bismarck however. An F-4 Phantom was parked between her and the last place she had seen the man. With its distinctive upturned wingtips and the downward angled horizontal stabilizers on its tail, that was a plane that January recognized. It was one of Avery's favorite planes to fly in his Air War World videogame.
She took a moment to push her senses into astral space. The auras of everyone within the exhibit instantly glowed with brilliant life, while planes, displays and artifacts faded into near total obscurity. That confirmed what she had guessed. The mundane neo-Nazis were all down, along with Tirpitz and Blitz. The auras of the latter pair were aglow with the violet threads of meta-humanity. However, Reinhard overhead showed the golden threads of a mage stitched through his own astral self. So Cray had been right about that.
Bismarck's aura was a curious thing. Large parts of it had faded to near blankness, like all the machines around her. Unlike the artifacts on display however, she felt energy that sizzled hot and strong through the mechanical parts. It was not electricity or plasma. January was quite familiar with what those felt like in the astral by now. This was something much more exotic. She wondered if it might be quantum foam? Avery had once told her that Zero Point of the Sentinels used that in his powered armor. Yet the meat portions of Bismarck's aura were laced with violet, which betrayed his meta-humanity. So from what she could gather, he was both a meta and a cyborg at the same time. That was interesting.
There was still no trace of Skorzeny at all. Unless he could cloak his presence in astral space, he must have been elsewhere. Perhaps he had some other mission to perform? Or maybe he had a falling out with the others, and he'd been given the old Ernst Röhm treatment? Nazis were catty bitches after all. Sooner or later, they always turned on one another.
Between her and the Atomkrieg's leader were a pair of smaller, weaker auras. They were huddled within the cockpit of the F-4 Phantom. It had two seats, laid out one in front of the other. Each aura hunched down in a separate chair. But Bismarck seemed to pay no attention to them. Instead she could see in the astral that he was intent upon something else. It might have been that same parachute she had seen him studying before. Now that her awareness was in astral space, she could tell that he was projecting some sort of power onto it. Or perhaps divining some sort of information from it. There was definitely a transfer of energy and information going back and forth between them, though to what purpose she could not guess.
"So... fancy bumping into you here," Hwarang said out of the corner of his mouth. All the while his eyes scanned the museum for more targets. For the moment Reinhard had moved out of view, having flown behind the U-2 spy plane that hung from the ceiling overhead. "You're the Crowgirl right?"
"At your service flower knight," January quipped. She saw the energy of his aura stir momentarily with surprise. She also noted the distinctive violet stitching of a mage throughout his astral being. So as she had already suspected, he was definitely a magician. More specifically, he was an arcane archer. January had not known that was a thing. But as Blood Raven had been wont to note, the world was indeed a wider and stranger place than anyone imagined.
"My pal Ôkami loves K-dramas. So I know what a Hwarang is. You're a long way from Ancient Silla."
"And you're a long way from the Dragon City," Hwarang smiled in return.
"I was just in the neighborhood, and thought I'd drop in." January shrugged. Then she went back to business.
"Our bad guy is down there, on the other side of that plane." She now pointed out Bismarck to Hwarang. "But we've got friendlies in the cockpit."
"You can see that?" the Korean said. "I can't get a shot from here."
"You should have come to Silverlight's astral sensing class a few days ago," January smiled. Then she nodded up to the U-2 hanging overhead. "How about from on top of that?"
"Oh, that will do nicely."
January leaned forward and cupped her fingers together to form a saddle with her hands. The archer stuck a foot within and leaped skyward. January gave him a super strength assist, and sent him rocketing up skyward. The modern flower knight somersaulted in mid-air, and came down lightly upon one wing of the great old spy plane.
January did not waste any more time watching him. She lowered her eyes to Bismarck, and the two auras in the F-4 Phantom between them. She dropped her astral perception in order to better focus on the physical world. Then she leaped out from the MiG-17, toward what she imagined was one of its old rivals. She came down lightly in front of the cockpit of the Phantom a moment later, and saw two teens huddled within.
She glanced over at Bismarck. He still stood within the same shattered display case, and continued to pore over that old parachute. Now she could see a holographic map of North America and the Atlantic Ocean spread out in the air before him. A thread of glowing energy rose from the parachute, and connected to the map. She could see it move across its surface, and create a small dot wherever it touched. It was as if the parachute was trying to pick out a specific spot on the map, but could not quite make up its mind where.
January looked back down at the two teens beneath her. Right now they were more important. They were too close. She had no idea what powers the Nazi leader might unleash if she engaged him straight away. They could all too easily be killed, even if by pure accident. That was a chance she could not take.
She bent down to grab the forward canopy, and tried to figure out how to pull it up. The teen inside the front seat shook his head with terror. He reached up to grab the glass dome, and pulled back against January's efforts. January could not blame him for not wanting to leave his hiding place, not with a supervillain just a few feet away. But it was not helping either. They could not be there when the fighting began once more.
She wished she could say something to the teens to reassure them. But Bismarck would hear it if she did. At the moment he appeared engrossed in what he was doing. But surely he would put it on hold if he noticed a superhero next to him. Nazis were not known for their restraint after all.
So January pushed harder on the canopy. She did not exert her full force. She did not want to destroy it. It was a priceless historical artifact. Not to mention the noise would certainly attract Bismarck's attention. But it appeared that the teens inside had locked it shut from inside. That forced January to gradually push harder and harder, hoping to force it open without wrecking the thing.
She wished that Ôkami was here. He could have faded through the hull of the plane, and faded right back out with the two civilians. It would have been nice, neat, and without a sound. But apparently her current, ersatz team did not include a rogue to handle such subtleties.
January heard hard, metallic clomping ring out from beyond the tail of the interceptor. Her head jerked up to see the author of the noise, though she had a sneaking suspicion that it was something railroad related. Sure enough, a moment later Mercury stamped out from behind the plane. His silvery armor glinted in the light that streamed down through the glass ceiling high overhead. His train wheels and passenger car had vanished, and the metal that had formed them had once again taken its original places around his body.
Talk about a complete lack of subtlety.
Bismarck looked up at the clamor, and his eyes set upon both January and the Philadelphian hero. The neo-Nazi raised one hand to January, and before she could react, a gray-white haze extended from his palm. It enveloped her a moment later, like a giant, glowing blanket. It felt like a giant invisible hand had clapped down around her body. Yet while she could still move her arms and legs, it was all to no avail. Nothing she did could pry the energy field from her body.
That gray-white force picked her up, and in an instant it violently jerked her sideways and down. That sent her toward the floor, and straight at Mercury. He did not see her coming until the last moment, and by then it was too late. January crashed directly into him. She felt the metal of his armor dimple under the impact. But it held, even if he went flying back head over heels.
He and January went careening across the floor in a most undignified heap of arms and legs. January imagined it must have looked like bowling for superheroes. They crashed through a display of cockpit instrument panels, only to skid to a halt amid a group of mannequins clad in the uniforms of various nations.
"Watch where you're going!" the armored hero snapped.
"Hey, it wasn't my idea!" January shot back. She pushed a dummy clad in an old Soviet uniform off of her. Then she tempered her response. "That guy's a telekinetic."
"Stormcrow, you and Mercury need to concentrate on Reinhard." Cray's voice was a calm, mellow tonic in her ears. "Leave Bismarck to Silverlight and Hwarang, he shouldn't be able to stop their magical attacks."
"Got it coach," January nodded as she rose to her feet. Apparently Bismarck had released her from his telekinetic grip, for she was once again free to move.
"Who are you talking to?" the railroad-themed hero asked, as he clambered to his feet.
"My fairy godfather," January quipped.
She idly realized that she never would have come up with such a smarmy one-liner just a few months ago. She had indeed leveled up quite a bit since then. She hoped that Cray at least appreciated the joke.
She was about to relate what the hacker had suggested to the other superhero, when Bismarck took the matter out of her hands. He turned off that energy field that he had created around the parachute. Now that he was finished with it, he tossed the piece of life-saving equipment carelessly aside.
Bismarck looked up and shot skyward. As he flew up, he reached out with both hands. That gray-white energy field reached out once more, and wrapped up the unconscious forms of Tirpitz and Blitz. They rose up in the air with him, plucked aloft by his telekinetic grip. However, the other terrorists sprawled out around the museum did not accompany them. Whether that was because Bismarck could not see them, or because he had reached his limit and could lift no more, January could not tell.
"Damn, we've got to move!" January leaped after the Nazi leader and unfurled the wings from her back. But he was too far away for her to reach. Without thinking she called for the sky overhead. Once more it turned dark as coal, and a blanket of storm clouds instantly raged overhead. Then the elements answered January's call, and a ragged bolt of lightning crashed down through the glass ceiling.
The silver white energy slammed full into Bismarck. The thunderclap that followed the blast caused the remaining windows to shake, along with the displays down upon the museum floor. But when January's eyes cleared from the bright flash, she saw that while Bismarck was a little singed, he continued to rise up in the air. He seemed otherwise unaffected by the blast.
In fact, she saw her electricity play around his frame for a moment. He smiled, and his eyes glowed brightly. The energy seemed to fall down into his body like water going down a faucet. Then his eyes turned to brilliant scarlet, and an instant later one beam of ruby light after another blossomed forth from them. These new lasers lanced up and around, and sliced through the wires that held the nearby U-2 spy plane aloft as if they were made of string.
"Speckt!" January cursed.
The U-2 was directly above that F-4 Phantom on the floor, the plane in which those two teens were still hidden. As if that was not enough, Hwarang still stood atop one of its wings. Now the archer fought to maintain his balance as his footing literally dropped out from under him. The five-missile finishing shot he had been just making against Bismarck wobbled far off course, and burned its way through the ceiling of the museum instead.
January dove for the falling plane. Even as she did, she knew that she had unwittingly caused this. Bismarck had clearly absorbed her lightning, converted it to laser energy, and finally emitted it back out once more. She had given him the ammunition he had needed to not only interrupt Hwarang's finishing move, but also to scratch the Korean-American off the playing board for what remained of the fight. Not to mention the falling U-2 now threatened to kill the two civilians that still remained below. It was a perfect storm of ineptitude on her part.
But there was no time for self-recrimination. That could come later, in the after action report. She had lives to save, before it was too late.
She called upon Air to impart greater power to her flight. She swooped under the plummeting surveillance plane, and then looped back upward. She hit the hull face-first. But at least that was intentional. She spread her arms as wide as she was able, to get the most purchase she could against the plane. Finally her wings beat furiously, and she pushed up against the weight of the falling aircraft.
A few months ago she had struggled to hold a car aloft from the edge of the Ambassador Bridge for more than just a few minutes. In the end both it - and her - had plummeted straight down into the Detroit River below. The spy plane was not very big, at least as far as planes went. In fact, it looked quite spindly with its narrow fuselage. But it had to weigh far more than that car ever could.
But as January had so recently noted, she had leveled up since then. She was not the same woman that she had been before. She had learned, exercised, and grown; both as an aerialist and as a magician. Now she poured all that she had learned into her flight, and willed herself to hold the U-2 aloft.
Air give me quickness in body and wit. Let the weights of the world fall from me.
The solid black aircraft slowed its descent as January called upon the classical element of Air to further refine her power. But it still did not stop. The floor was coming up closer and closer under her. Then Silverlight appeared beside her, and joined her on the bottom of the plane. Wings of pure light spread from the other heroine's back. They did not flap like a bird's did, as January's did. But she could feel the power within them nonetheless. They altered reality around the lunar heroine, and held her in the sky through the force of her will.
Out of the corner of her eye January saw Hwarang fall to the floor. He went down back first, and fired his bow skyward again and again as he dropped. But if his arrows hit anything, January could not tell. The bulk of the spy plane lay between her and the Nazis, whom she imagined must be making good their escape through the glass ceiling overhead.
The U-2 slowed further, but even together, the two heroines could not completely arrest its descent. Then January saw Mercury below. He had created those train wheels around his feet once more, and he rolled up behind the F-4. He pushed against the tail of the plane. After a heart-stopping moment, it went lurching forward. January could imagine she heard the man's armor chugging like a train. But maybe that was all in her head. In any case, the Cold War interceptor slid out of the way, even as January and Silverlight brought the U-2 down to a soft landing where it had sat moments before.
Mercury had cleared the Phantom out of the way with seconds to spare. He took the time afterward to remove his wheels once more, and caused the metal to flow back into the rest of his armor. Then his frame altered again, and the metal flowed straight down under his feet, and pushed him skyward. It formed what was essentially a pair of wide stilts under his boots. That lifted him to the same height as the cockpit of the interceptor.
He touched the metal rim of the canopy. January heard the bolts that had locked it shut pop open, as if through the will of Mercury alone. With that the single canopy seemed to split apart, and revealed that it was in fact divided into two halves: fore and aft. From each a curved section of glass rotated up from rear-mounted hinges. That allowed the occupants within to finally make their way out of the long, narrow cockpit.
January and Silverlight moved out from under the U-2, once they were sure it was safely down on the floor. January breathed a sigh of relief. That had been close. But they had all managed it by working together. She paused to look skyward, but saw no sign of the Nazis. They had clearly made good their escape.
"Sister, you have excellent timing," Silverlight observed. She leaned in close, and wrapped up January in a brief hug. January heard the distant wail of sirens as Silverlight pulled away. But for the moment, the exhibit space was otherwise quiet now that the battle was over.
Hwarang appeared to be uninjured from his fall. His magical bow vanished from his fingers, and he leaped up onto the wing of the plane. From there he hopped up onto one of the bulbous air intakes that ran down the sides of the fuselage, just behind the two seats of the cockpit. Mercury passed one, then the other teen from the cockpit to the Korean-American. The archer then helped them back along the intake and down to the top of the wing.
The two students were white as sheets, and shook profusely. January did not blame them. They had nearly been pasted by the falling U-2 spy plane. It was the oldest villain trick in the book. Endanger civilians to distract the heroes. It always worked too, and January knew it would continue to do so. She would always place the lives of people like those two teens over "winning" any day.
She stepped over to the edge of the wing and helped the teens down to the ground. She put on her usual post-battle smile for the public, and tried not to show any winces or make any groans from her latest set of bumps and bruises. Tirpitz could pack a wallop, especially when her guard was down. She would have to ask Silverlight if she had anything for a headache...
"Well, that could have been better, but could have been a lot worse too." With the last civilian down and safe, Mercury's legs shrank down to their normal length. The Philadelphian took in the scene around them. The exhibition hall was a mess. The floor was chewed up in numerous places with trenches and craters from the battle. Melted and broken glass was scattered everywhere, and numerous display panels and cases lay in ruins.
But there were no dead or critically wounded people that January could see. In fact, her previous astral sensing had already told her that the hall was empty, save for the last two civilians from the F-4. They were already headed to the door. All the planes had made it through intact as well. So that was something.
"Everyone goes home alive. That's the important thing." Silverlight declared.
Okay, Superious is just like Superman, got it. Ah, they've also got their own version of Conan/Grognak!
No worries, you aren't anywhere near to be making Nazis look cool. We wouldn't be reading if they were portrayed as so. Correct, I know they stole their symbols from other societies. Too bad. The swastika should have completely different connotations than it does. I bet those ancients looked upon this symbol in a more positive light.
Avery has a flight simulator game. ✈ Funny how most of these Gen Zers are gamers. Not sure if it's been mentioned if Ryo also gamed, or games.
Kalea, maybe. Anyway GOOD, most of the neo-Nazis are down.
Seems like she's seeing Bismarck's yucky brain robotics. :yuck:
Yup. He's maybe kind of unique in this story.
Who is Ernst Röhm? I'm thinking one of the Nazis from way back. Looks like the fat guy on Hogan's Heroes. Anyway, that's the advantage of going into the astral, she can see everyone who's trying to hide. So what the heck could Bismarck be doing? What's he trying to 'project power' onto?
Hmm, does the parachute have anything to do with that other bionic dude (whatever he was, maybe bionic is the wrong word), Rook?
Oh no, January's encased inside whatever Bismark just threw at her. And that's interesting. Cray's now attempting to direct them. Go to Reinhard, not Bismarck. Welp, too late for that directive!
Whoa, he converts her shock energy into his own. This is one formidable foe they've got. He's just like a lot of other foes, however; there often comes a time in Stormcrow when we're saying "how're they gonna get out of THIS one?"
No worries, you aren't anywhere near to be making Nazis look cool. We wouldn't be reading if they were portrayed as so. Correct, I know they stole their symbols from other societies. Too bad. The swastika should have completely different connotations than it does. I bet those ancients looked upon this symbol in a more positive light.
Avery has a flight simulator game. ✈ Funny how most of these Gen Zers are gamers. Not sure if it's been mentioned if Ryo also gamed, or games.
Kalea, maybe. Anyway GOOD, most of the neo-Nazis are down.
Seems like she's seeing Bismarck's yucky brain robotics. :yuck:
QUOTE
So from what she could gather, he was both a meta and a cyborg at the same time. That was interesting.
Yup. He's maybe kind of unique in this story.
Who is Ernst Röhm? I'm thinking one of the Nazis from way back. Looks like the fat guy on Hogan's Heroes. Anyway, that's the advantage of going into the astral, she can see everyone who's trying to hide. So what the heck could Bismarck be doing? What's he trying to 'project power' onto?
Hmm, does the parachute have anything to do with that other bionic dude (whatever he was, maybe bionic is the wrong word), Rook?
Oh no, January's encased inside whatever Bismark just threw at her. And that's interesting. Cray's now attempting to direct them. Go to Reinhard, not Bismarck. Welp, too late for that directive!
Whoa, he converts her shock energy into his own. This is one formidable foe they've got. He's just like a lot of other foes, however; there often comes a time in Stormcrow when we're saying "how're they gonna get out of THIS one?"
Having an F-4 showcased is a plus in any story. The Phantom was a Fighter for sure but your use of the more precise term for its primary mission (Interceptor) and detailed description of how the cockpit opens, displays your customary precision when it comes to researching your subject.
"And you're a long way from the Dragon City," Hwarang smiled in return.’
- - What a natural and logical piece of the bigger story that Detroit would be now known as the Dragon City.
When Bismarck threw Stormcrow at Mercury, I was relieved that Mercury did not fully assume she was attacking him and simply yelled at her instead of insisting on fighting her. I’m figuring that these metas are famous enough to recognize each other on sight. Certainly Stormcrow is.
And Crowgirl once again reveals the Stormie side of her with a precision guided lightning bolt from the heavens. Uh-oh. Who coulda known that Bismarck would refocus the power of her lightning bolt so masterfully? This guy may be a baddie but he’s got some tactical savvy. That said, it is not Stormcrow’s fault. But of course she blames herself.
’It was the oldest villain trick in the book. Endanger civilians to distract the heroes. It always worked too, and January knew it would continue to do so. She would always place the lives of people like those two teens over "winning" any day.’
- - Henceforth, this shall be known as the Stormcrow Doctrine.
A win for sure. . . but the escape of some of her foes grates I’m sure.
The Phantom was a Fighter for sure but your use of the more precise term for its primary mission (Interceptor) and detailed description of how the cockpit opens, displays your customary precision when it comes to researching your subject. "And you're a long way from the Dragon City," Hwarang smiled in return.’
- - What a natural and logical piece of the bigger story that Detroit would be now known as the Dragon City.
When Bismarck threw Stormcrow at Mercury, I was relieved that Mercury did not fully assume she was attacking him and simply yelled at her instead of insisting on fighting her. I’m figuring that these metas are famous enough to recognize each other on sight. Certainly Stormcrow is.
And Crowgirl once again reveals the Stormie side of her with a precision guided lightning bolt from the heavens. Uh-oh. Who coulda known that Bismarck would refocus the power of her lightning bolt so masterfully? This guy may be a baddie but he’s got some tactical savvy. That said, it is not Stormcrow’s fault. But of course she blames herself.
’It was the oldest villain trick in the book. Endanger civilians to distract the heroes. It always worked too, and January knew it would continue to do so. She would always place the lives of people like those two teens over "winning" any day.’
- - Henceforth, this shall be known as the Stormcrow Doctrine.
A win for sure. . . but the escape of some of her foes grates I’m sure.
Renee: The swastika is still in use by a billion people - Hindus, Jainists, and even some Native Americans still use it. I am sure it makes for... interesting situations when Jewish people visit India and see them all over the place.
That is the Ernst Röhm. He was a gay man who was also a Nazi. Turns out that is not a good combo. They murdered him and his supporters in the Night of the Long Knives, a few years after they took power. Nazis always turn on each other in the end.
You are onto something with associating the parachute with Rook. Remember that Rook was trying to steal two nuclear bombs from a B-52 in flight. And the Atomkrieg is after two lost nuclear bombs...
Acadian: Yes, I decided to go with the factory-assigned nomenclature of interceptor for the F-4, rather than the role it was pushed into. Granted, if one chooses to identify as an Air Superiority Fighter, I will be the last one to misgender them for it!
It was originally going to be The Motor City that Hwarang referred to Detroit as. Then in a later edit I remembered the dragon, and changed it to reflect Detroit's new status.
If you go back a few weeks, Mercury did recognize January as "The Crowgirl", so he did recognize her. Thanks to everything she has been involved in, January is one of the most well known supers in the world. Even when a lot of that fame is for absolutely trite reasons, like kissing another girl on national television.
That is a good Stormcrow Doctrine. Like the Silverlight Mission Statement we ended with last week: "Everyone goes home alive."
It is only a minor victory to be sure. This particular war goes on, as we will learn in today's episode. The rest of this Book is laser focused on the Atomkrieg, and those two nuclear bombs.
Book 12.23 - Broken Arrow
"My bike!" Hwarang now stomped across the exhibition space to his broken motorcycle. He threw his hands up in the air in clear frustration. "I'm not even done paying for it!"
"Don't worry, I got you bro," Mercury insisted. The powered armor hero clomped across the torn up stone floor tiles to the motorcycle. Once there he passed a hand over the rent metal of the bike. The bits and pieces that had been scattered around leaped up into the air and all snapped back into their original places within the motorcycle. Those that were broken turned to liquid and flowed back into their proper shapes. Then they turned solid once more. In the end the bike looked as pristine as it must have when it first rolled off the factory floor.
It reminded January of how Blackhawk could reshape metals with her magnetism. She had fixed a torpedo-sized hole in a Coast Guard cutter that way. It also brought back a memory of the last time she had fought neo-Nazis. That had been the National Socialist League at Motor City Pride, in downtown Detroit. One of them had been able to control metal. He had pulled it from multiple cars and created a graceless—but effective—suit of armor for himself.
She wondered if Mercury wore a suit of powered armor at all? Or could he too, simply manipulate metal to his will? In essence, he might be the power for the armor.
"Way to go train man!" Hwarang gave the armored hero a high five, then straddled his bike. He started it up with a single click. It was the same sound January's Victory Empulse made when she fired it up. More to the point, it was the same lack of sound, as the vehicle was silent except for the sound of detritus crunching under its tires. So it was definitely electric. The Korean-American leaned over and turned sharply, and coasted up to a halt beside January and Silverlight.
"It's good to meet you Stormcrow," he said. "You've been kind of an inspiration for me. What happened at Belle Isle is what made me decide to put on the cape."
"Yeah, sorry I missed that. I barely made it past Pittsburgh before it was all over." Mercury clomped back over to join them. "We usually only work here in the Mid-Atlantic states."
"I think all the capes in the world wished they could have gotten there in time. Those of us who were able to, well we just happened to be in the right place, at the right time is all." January nodded. "So are you all a team? Silverlight never mentioned that."
"No, nothing that official," Mercury shook his head. "We're more like an anarchist mutual aid network. We're all spread out. We only come together when something is too big for one of us to handle."
"So you each have a solo book, and the comics company does an occasional limited series with you all together," January laughed. "Yeah, I get it."
That brought some chuckles from the others.
"I live up in Baltimore," Hwarang explained. Then he jerked a thumb to Mercury. "The train man here is from Philadelphia. And I see Rebel Yell didn't even turn up. He's from Richmond."
"Yes, he has a habit of not doing that," Silverlight said in a low voice. January suspected that she might be fuming.
"Guy's the only one who doesn't have to work for a living," Mercury groused, "but half the time he's never around. I'm missing work to be here."
"Yes," Hwarang murmured, "I had to cancel a lesson as well."
"Wow, that sucks. I never thought about how having a nine to five job would make doing this... thing we do... harder. What do you all do?" January frowned. Then she realized what she had just said, and how she was crossing boundaries. She held up her hands as a sign to halt. "I'm sorry, that's none of my business."
"I'm a civil engineer," Mercury said. "That's probably all I should get into though."
"I am a musician," Hwarang noted.
"Really, that slaps, I know..." January started, then stopped herself once more. She had been about to say Blackjack's name. But that was not something she was free to divulge. "I know a musician, who doesn't know that I am Stormcrow."
"Complicated isn't it?" Mercury said. "I'll tell you something kid, it doesn't get any easier, juggling lives like we do."
"We are fortunate, in that the two of us have flexible work lives," Silverlight said directly to January. "Capes who have legal empowerment are compensated by the state. So they don't need day jobs. For the rest of us though, it's not always easy balancing real life with the cape."
"Like that guy that didn't show up - Rebel Yell?" January said. "I'm guessing he's not named after the Billy Idol song, is he?"
"No, more after the War of Southern Aggression," Silverlight observed. "He's got a habit of not showing up in cases of right wing violence, or just not at all."
"And he's the only one of you who's a cop?" January noted. "What a surprise."
"Well, as much as any of us with a badge is a cop," Silverlight said. "It's not the same. It's close, but not the same."
Now January's two remotes hovered down silently from overhead. The spherical drones came to a halt before her, and she took the first and clipped it to her belt. Before she could do the same with the second, Cray's voice was once more in her ear.
"Hold up, and I'll get a picture of you all," he said. "We can put it up in the Raven's Nest."
January then motioned for the others to all stand together with her. She smiled, and waited while the drone captured the moment. Finally the hacker gave the all-clear, and she took it and added it to her utility belt as well.
"What are those things?" Mercury asked. "You got your own cameras to take pictures of you?"
"They're drones that Gadget made. All of my team carries a few now." January explained. "They let our information specialist see what is going on. His name's Cray. He's the voice in my ear, telling me not do stupid things. Which I usually do anyway..."
"Huh, people with their drones these days." Mercury shook his head. "We should get us one of them hackers too."
"So what brings a Detroit crow to a DC super battle?" Silverlight asked.
"I came to meet with a nonprofit to see if I could help them raise money for trans folks." January said. "But I saw the party you guys were having, and decided to invite myself."
"That sounds... exactly like what I'd expect!" Hwarang laughed. Then he took a more serious tone. "You've been a real ambassador for our community. You've made me think about... well maybe being a little more open about some things."
January could not help but arch an eyebrow that a Vulcan science officer might appreciate. Hwarang's use of the phrase "our community" was unmistakable. It certainly implied a great deal, unless he simply meant the super community.
In the very least she imagined that the Korean-American was Queer in some way. A man wearing lipstick was not exactly a great signal of masculinity after all. But granted, that alone did not mean he was gay or trans either. Case in point, the hair metal bands from the 80s like Poison and Motley Crue. Likewise, thanks to the K-dramas she had seen, January knew that wearing makeup was a tradition of the historical hwarang. They had been warrior poets who kicked ass for the old Korean kingdom of Silla, and looked fabulous doing it.
The police lights that now flashed against the glass windows gave January an excuse not to reply. She looked over, and saw that the street outside was now filled with emergency vehicles. She knew from experience that they were about to be inundated with law enforcement and probably paramedics. That was a good thing. They had quite a few unconscious neo-Nazis to clean up.
Then they all turned to face those emergency responders as they flooded into the hall a few moments later, as if they had been summoned by January's thoughts. Most of them spread out and began to handcuff the unconscious terrorists. But a pair of plain clothes detectives walked over to the assembled heroes. Silverlight moved to meet them, and January followed. The other two heroes did not.
"Detectives Hall, Oates," Silverlight said to each cop in turn. "It's a pleasure, as always."
The tone in the magician's voice did not suggest sincerity. Given the sour looks on the cop's faces, January suspected that the feeling might be mutual.
"Did you have to do this inside a museum?" The first one—Hall—sighed with ill-concealed exasperation. He appeared to be in his mid-fifties, but if anything his mane of golden hair looked fuller than January's. He took off the aviator sunglasses that he wore, and stared around at the devastation.
"The mayor's going to have a fit over this one, I just know it," he grumbled.
"Talk to them." Silverlight nodded over to the neo-Nazis. Officers were now bent over them, and began to strip them of their force field generators and other meta-tech items. So too their entirely ordinary weapons as well.
"What were they after?" Oates asked. He was the dark to Hall's light, with a head of thick, curly black hair and a mustache. The pair looked like they might have walked straight out of a buddy cop show from the 80s. "Was this some kind of demonstration?"
"They seemed to be interested in that parachute over there." January gestured to the life-saving gear in question, which now lay casually discarded on the floor. It was surrounded by the glass broken from the display case that had once held it.
"Detectives, this is-" Silverlight began.
"We know..." Oates cut her off in a low tone. "The whole damn world has seen her on TV."
January was not sure if he had a problem with her or not. Given that she was publically trans, lesbian, and a woman, there were plenty of reasons for why someone in his profession would feel that way. Right now she did not really care. She could already tell that he and his partner were superfluous at best. If there was going to be any follow up to this, it would be done by her and the others.
January smiled in spite of herself. It seemed that some of Blood Raven had rubbed off on her after all.
Glass crunched under her boots as January turned from the detectives and walked to the parachute. It was plain, green, and faded. She did not know much about parachutes, but this seemed old, like something from the 50s or 60s. She looked over at the broken signage that had flanked the shattered display case. She used the toes of her boots to poke a few pieces of the display back together, until she was able to read most of it.
"What is it?" Silverlight stepped up beside her, and the two police detectives trailed close behind.
"It says this chute is from a B-52 that crashed in 1961, call sign Keep 19." January noted. "It was part of a Broken Arrow incident, whatever that is."
"It's when the government loses a nuke," Mercury observed. January glanced back, to see that now he and Hwarang had moved up to meet them.
"Loses?" January wondered. "How do you lose nuclear bombs? Do they just fall between the couch cushions?"
"Oh, they find plenty of ways," Mercury grumbled. "It happens a lot more than you want to know."
"Stormcrow, you better put me on speaker," Cray said in her ear. January tapped on Sága's screen, and a moment later his voice came out loud and clear for all to hear.
"I know this case," the hacker explained. "It's infamous. The bomber was part of a program the Air Force once had to keep planes armed with nuclear bombs in the air around the clock, just in case the Russkies tried to launch a sneak attack. They eventually stopped doing it, because they lost too many planes—and nukes—from accidents and mechanical failures. This one disappeared over the Atlantic Ocean with two nuclear bombs onboard. They radioed a distress call as they went down, saying that they were under attack. But they never said by who or what, and the call abruptly stopped in mid-transmission."
"It says here that the plane was never found." Silverlight stared down at the information display at their feet. "But some wreckage did float to the surface, like part of the tail and one wing, and this same parachute."
"Yeah, a rescue attempt was launched, but the crew was never located, nor the plane," Cray said. "The Navy tried to search the seabed. But the technology for that wasn't very good back then. It's still not great today. We know more about the surface of the moon than we do about the ocean floor. They weren't even sure where it went down to begin with. It was like looking for a grain of sand in the Sahara. Eventually they had to give up. The crew is all presumed dead, at the bottom of the sea."
"The nukes didn't show up later, and no terrorist group took credit for it. Some people thought it was the Russians, and that maybe they stole the nukes to reverse engineer them. But if so, they kept it so secret that it didn't even come out when the Soviet Union dissolved, and the Kremlin's old files were finally unsealed. I don't buy that though. They didn't hesitate to shoot down our planes if we got too close to their borders. But this was over the North Atlantic. The Soviets wouldn't have had fighters that could have even reached Keep 19. Not they wouldn't have needed to steal any of our nukes. They had plenty of their own that were much bigger. This is about the same time they made the Tsar Bomba after all. In any case, the general belief is that whoever attacked them either bugged out when things got hot, or went down with the B-52."
"So why was the Atomkrieg interested in aviation history?" Silverlight wondered. "Aside from their name of course?"
"They are led by a guy calling himself Bismarck," Cray explained. "His real name is Kaleb Harris. He lived out in Idaho, and it appears he was radicalized by Ruby Ridge. He lived just one county over, and went to watch during the siege, along with a lot of other people. He got indoctrinated by right wing propaganda afterward, joined the militia movement, and tried to make a fertilizer bomb to blow up an FBI building. Apparently he read about it in the Turner Diaries. But the only thing he blew up was himself."
"So an even less competent Tim McVeigh," Mercury sighed.
"He got out of prison four years ago and disappeared." The hacker said. "He reappeared a few years later as Bismarck. No one knows who chromed him up with the cyberware. But he didn't even try to hide his identity. He formed the Atomkrieg, and has been pushing a white supremacist accelerationist agenda. Their goal is to start an apocalyptic race war that will destroy the United States, so that a fascist white ethnostate can take its place."
Mercury said nothing. But the tortured groan of bent steel spoke volumes as his fingers tightened into fists.
Detective Oates whistled. "A couple of nuclear bombs could do a lot of destroying." he noted grimly.
"So how does this parachute help him with that?" January said. "He was doing something with it, scanning it somehow. He was creating a map. I saw a hologram of it. It showed the Atlantic."
"What I have on Bismarck's abilities is that he's a cyborg," Cray said. "He's a telekinetic. From what we just saw he can absorb energy too, and can convert it to other forms and emit it back. Zero Point and Stinger tangled with him once, and they think that he does all this by manipulating quantum fields."
"He's a meta-human too," January noted. "I saw it in his aura."
"How can you tell that?" Mercury asked.
"I had good teachers," January glanced over to Silverlight, and smiled. Then she looked back down to Sága's screen. "So could he have used this quantum stuff to create a map of where that parachute was in say, 1961?"
"Yes, yes he could have." Silverlight interjected before the hacker could answer.
The detectives cursed in unison. Hall pulled out his phone and walked away. Oates began to fidget noticeably.
"So he could be headed to get the bombs right now?" January thought.
"Maybe," Cray said. "But he's going to need a submersible to get them. It's on the bottom of the ocean. Even for meta-humans, that's not an easy place to reach. Or he'll need some kind of tech or powers to survive the crushing depth, breathe the water, and not freeze to death. And he'll need a ship to store the bombs in afterward. Unless he can carry them both with his telekinesis and fly across the ocean at the same time."
With that Detective Oates pulled out his phone too. He began by telling someone that they needed to shut down all shipping in Chesapeake Bay, and possibly the entire East Coast. Then he too walked out of earshot.
"Did you get a good look at that map?" Hwarang asked.
"Not really, it was too quick," January shook her head. "Cray, what about my body cams?"
"Way ahead of you," the hacker replied. "Here it is."
Sága's screen filled with the video in question. It was taken by January's forward-facing helmet camera. The quality was good, but it shook with every motion of her head. It was enough to reveal that Bismarck's map was indeed of the North Atlantic. But exactly where was not clear. Cray slowed it to a single frame at a time. But even so the exact spot that his scan indicated was hidden behind the cyborg's shoulder.
"You have cameras in your suit?" Hwarang asked, clearly surprised by that revelation.
"Yeah," January replied. "Like the drones, they let Cray see what is going on. He saves the video. It helps when we create our after action reports, and make dossiers on our opposition."
"Clever girl," Mercury nodded. "It's like watching the tape after a football game."
"But it is still not good enough," Hwarang frowned. "Is there some magic way to reconstruct the missing video?"
That seemed impossible to January. But what she did not know about magic could fill the Atlantic. So she did not say anything.
Silverlight however, seemed to mull that over. She massaged her white marble chin with her thumb and forefinger. Then she bent down and picked up the parachute.
"Remember your magical theory Stormcrow; the Law of Contagion. Things that have been in contact remain in contact, even after they have been physically separated. This was part of Keep 19. It will lead us right back to it."
"Then let's get going," January said.
"Do you want me to get the rest of the team?" Cray asked. "I haven't yet, because you're so far away."
"If we are all out here, then there won't be anyone to cover it if something happens back home." January shook her head. "Besides, I think we can handle it."
"We have a sister who has an affinity for the sea," Silverlight observed. "Can you contact her? In the meantime I'll arrange us transport to meet her in the North Atlantic."
"You have a boat?" Hwarang asked.
"No, something better," Silverlight said, "a friend in the Pentagon."
* * *
That is the Ernst Röhm. He was a gay man who was also a Nazi. Turns out that is not a good combo. They murdered him and his supporters in the Night of the Long Knives, a few years after they took power. Nazis always turn on each other in the end.
You are onto something with associating the parachute with Rook. Remember that Rook was trying to steal two nuclear bombs from a B-52 in flight. And the Atomkrieg is after two lost nuclear bombs...
Acadian: Yes, I decided to go with the factory-assigned nomenclature of interceptor for the F-4, rather than the role it was pushed into. Granted, if one chooses to identify as an Air Superiority Fighter, I will be the last one to misgender them for it!
It was originally going to be The Motor City that Hwarang referred to Detroit as. Then in a later edit I remembered the dragon, and changed it to reflect Detroit's new status.
If you go back a few weeks, Mercury did recognize January as "The Crowgirl", so he did recognize her. Thanks to everything she has been involved in, January is one of the most well known supers in the world. Even when a lot of that fame is for absolutely trite reasons, like kissing another girl on national television.
That is a good Stormcrow Doctrine. Like the Silverlight Mission Statement we ended with last week: "Everyone goes home alive."
It is only a minor victory to be sure. This particular war goes on, as we will learn in today's episode. The rest of this Book is laser focused on the Atomkrieg, and those two nuclear bombs.
Book 12.23 - Broken Arrow
"My bike!" Hwarang now stomped across the exhibition space to his broken motorcycle. He threw his hands up in the air in clear frustration. "I'm not even done paying for it!"
"Don't worry, I got you bro," Mercury insisted. The powered armor hero clomped across the torn up stone floor tiles to the motorcycle. Once there he passed a hand over the rent metal of the bike. The bits and pieces that had been scattered around leaped up into the air and all snapped back into their original places within the motorcycle. Those that were broken turned to liquid and flowed back into their proper shapes. Then they turned solid once more. In the end the bike looked as pristine as it must have when it first rolled off the factory floor.
It reminded January of how Blackhawk could reshape metals with her magnetism. She had fixed a torpedo-sized hole in a Coast Guard cutter that way. It also brought back a memory of the last time she had fought neo-Nazis. That had been the National Socialist League at Motor City Pride, in downtown Detroit. One of them had been able to control metal. He had pulled it from multiple cars and created a graceless—but effective—suit of armor for himself.
She wondered if Mercury wore a suit of powered armor at all? Or could he too, simply manipulate metal to his will? In essence, he might be the power for the armor.
"Way to go train man!" Hwarang gave the armored hero a high five, then straddled his bike. He started it up with a single click. It was the same sound January's Victory Empulse made when she fired it up. More to the point, it was the same lack of sound, as the vehicle was silent except for the sound of detritus crunching under its tires. So it was definitely electric. The Korean-American leaned over and turned sharply, and coasted up to a halt beside January and Silverlight.
"It's good to meet you Stormcrow," he said. "You've been kind of an inspiration for me. What happened at Belle Isle is what made me decide to put on the cape."
"Yeah, sorry I missed that. I barely made it past Pittsburgh before it was all over." Mercury clomped back over to join them. "We usually only work here in the Mid-Atlantic states."
"I think all the capes in the world wished they could have gotten there in time. Those of us who were able to, well we just happened to be in the right place, at the right time is all." January nodded. "So are you all a team? Silverlight never mentioned that."
"No, nothing that official," Mercury shook his head. "We're more like an anarchist mutual aid network. We're all spread out. We only come together when something is too big for one of us to handle."
"So you each have a solo book, and the comics company does an occasional limited series with you all together," January laughed. "Yeah, I get it."
That brought some chuckles from the others.
"I live up in Baltimore," Hwarang explained. Then he jerked a thumb to Mercury. "The train man here is from Philadelphia. And I see Rebel Yell didn't even turn up. He's from Richmond."
"Yes, he has a habit of not doing that," Silverlight said in a low voice. January suspected that she might be fuming.
"Guy's the only one who doesn't have to work for a living," Mercury groused, "but half the time he's never around. I'm missing work to be here."
"Yes," Hwarang murmured, "I had to cancel a lesson as well."
"Wow, that sucks. I never thought about how having a nine to five job would make doing this... thing we do... harder. What do you all do?" January frowned. Then she realized what she had just said, and how she was crossing boundaries. She held up her hands as a sign to halt. "I'm sorry, that's none of my business."
"I'm a civil engineer," Mercury said. "That's probably all I should get into though."
"I am a musician," Hwarang noted.
"Really, that slaps, I know..." January started, then stopped herself once more. She had been about to say Blackjack's name. But that was not something she was free to divulge. "I know a musician, who doesn't know that I am Stormcrow."
"Complicated isn't it?" Mercury said. "I'll tell you something kid, it doesn't get any easier, juggling lives like we do."
"We are fortunate, in that the two of us have flexible work lives," Silverlight said directly to January. "Capes who have legal empowerment are compensated by the state. So they don't need day jobs. For the rest of us though, it's not always easy balancing real life with the cape."
"Like that guy that didn't show up - Rebel Yell?" January said. "I'm guessing he's not named after the Billy Idol song, is he?"
"No, more after the War of Southern Aggression," Silverlight observed. "He's got a habit of not showing up in cases of right wing violence, or just not at all."
"And he's the only one of you who's a cop?" January noted. "What a surprise."
"Well, as much as any of us with a badge is a cop," Silverlight said. "It's not the same. It's close, but not the same."
Now January's two remotes hovered down silently from overhead. The spherical drones came to a halt before her, and she took the first and clipped it to her belt. Before she could do the same with the second, Cray's voice was once more in her ear.
"Hold up, and I'll get a picture of you all," he said. "We can put it up in the Raven's Nest."
January then motioned for the others to all stand together with her. She smiled, and waited while the drone captured the moment. Finally the hacker gave the all-clear, and she took it and added it to her utility belt as well.
"What are those things?" Mercury asked. "You got your own cameras to take pictures of you?"
"They're drones that Gadget made. All of my team carries a few now." January explained. "They let our information specialist see what is going on. His name's Cray. He's the voice in my ear, telling me not do stupid things. Which I usually do anyway..."
"Huh, people with their drones these days." Mercury shook his head. "We should get us one of them hackers too."
"So what brings a Detroit crow to a DC super battle?" Silverlight asked.
"I came to meet with a nonprofit to see if I could help them raise money for trans folks." January said. "But I saw the party you guys were having, and decided to invite myself."
"That sounds... exactly like what I'd expect!" Hwarang laughed. Then he took a more serious tone. "You've been a real ambassador for our community. You've made me think about... well maybe being a little more open about some things."
January could not help but arch an eyebrow that a Vulcan science officer might appreciate. Hwarang's use of the phrase "our community" was unmistakable. It certainly implied a great deal, unless he simply meant the super community.
In the very least she imagined that the Korean-American was Queer in some way. A man wearing lipstick was not exactly a great signal of masculinity after all. But granted, that alone did not mean he was gay or trans either. Case in point, the hair metal bands from the 80s like Poison and Motley Crue. Likewise, thanks to the K-dramas she had seen, January knew that wearing makeup was a tradition of the historical hwarang. They had been warrior poets who kicked ass for the old Korean kingdom of Silla, and looked fabulous doing it.
The police lights that now flashed against the glass windows gave January an excuse not to reply. She looked over, and saw that the street outside was now filled with emergency vehicles. She knew from experience that they were about to be inundated with law enforcement and probably paramedics. That was a good thing. They had quite a few unconscious neo-Nazis to clean up.
Then they all turned to face those emergency responders as they flooded into the hall a few moments later, as if they had been summoned by January's thoughts. Most of them spread out and began to handcuff the unconscious terrorists. But a pair of plain clothes detectives walked over to the assembled heroes. Silverlight moved to meet them, and January followed. The other two heroes did not.
"Detectives Hall, Oates," Silverlight said to each cop in turn. "It's a pleasure, as always."
The tone in the magician's voice did not suggest sincerity. Given the sour looks on the cop's faces, January suspected that the feeling might be mutual.
"Did you have to do this inside a museum?" The first one—Hall—sighed with ill-concealed exasperation. He appeared to be in his mid-fifties, but if anything his mane of golden hair looked fuller than January's. He took off the aviator sunglasses that he wore, and stared around at the devastation.
"The mayor's going to have a fit over this one, I just know it," he grumbled.
"Talk to them." Silverlight nodded over to the neo-Nazis. Officers were now bent over them, and began to strip them of their force field generators and other meta-tech items. So too their entirely ordinary weapons as well.
"What were they after?" Oates asked. He was the dark to Hall's light, with a head of thick, curly black hair and a mustache. The pair looked like they might have walked straight out of a buddy cop show from the 80s. "Was this some kind of demonstration?"
"They seemed to be interested in that parachute over there." January gestured to the life-saving gear in question, which now lay casually discarded on the floor. It was surrounded by the glass broken from the display case that had once held it.
"Detectives, this is-" Silverlight began.
"We know..." Oates cut her off in a low tone. "The whole damn world has seen her on TV."
January was not sure if he had a problem with her or not. Given that she was publically trans, lesbian, and a woman, there were plenty of reasons for why someone in his profession would feel that way. Right now she did not really care. She could already tell that he and his partner were superfluous at best. If there was going to be any follow up to this, it would be done by her and the others.
January smiled in spite of herself. It seemed that some of Blood Raven had rubbed off on her after all.
Glass crunched under her boots as January turned from the detectives and walked to the parachute. It was plain, green, and faded. She did not know much about parachutes, but this seemed old, like something from the 50s or 60s. She looked over at the broken signage that had flanked the shattered display case. She used the toes of her boots to poke a few pieces of the display back together, until she was able to read most of it.
"What is it?" Silverlight stepped up beside her, and the two police detectives trailed close behind.
"It says this chute is from a B-52 that crashed in 1961, call sign Keep 19." January noted. "It was part of a Broken Arrow incident, whatever that is."
"It's when the government loses a nuke," Mercury observed. January glanced back, to see that now he and Hwarang had moved up to meet them.
"Loses?" January wondered. "How do you lose nuclear bombs? Do they just fall between the couch cushions?"
"Oh, they find plenty of ways," Mercury grumbled. "It happens a lot more than you want to know."
"Stormcrow, you better put me on speaker," Cray said in her ear. January tapped on Sága's screen, and a moment later his voice came out loud and clear for all to hear.
"I know this case," the hacker explained. "It's infamous. The bomber was part of a program the Air Force once had to keep planes armed with nuclear bombs in the air around the clock, just in case the Russkies tried to launch a sneak attack. They eventually stopped doing it, because they lost too many planes—and nukes—from accidents and mechanical failures. This one disappeared over the Atlantic Ocean with two nuclear bombs onboard. They radioed a distress call as they went down, saying that they were under attack. But they never said by who or what, and the call abruptly stopped in mid-transmission."
"It says here that the plane was never found." Silverlight stared down at the information display at their feet. "But some wreckage did float to the surface, like part of the tail and one wing, and this same parachute."
"Yeah, a rescue attempt was launched, but the crew was never located, nor the plane," Cray said. "The Navy tried to search the seabed. But the technology for that wasn't very good back then. It's still not great today. We know more about the surface of the moon than we do about the ocean floor. They weren't even sure where it went down to begin with. It was like looking for a grain of sand in the Sahara. Eventually they had to give up. The crew is all presumed dead, at the bottom of the sea."
"The nukes didn't show up later, and no terrorist group took credit for it. Some people thought it was the Russians, and that maybe they stole the nukes to reverse engineer them. But if so, they kept it so secret that it didn't even come out when the Soviet Union dissolved, and the Kremlin's old files were finally unsealed. I don't buy that though. They didn't hesitate to shoot down our planes if we got too close to their borders. But this was over the North Atlantic. The Soviets wouldn't have had fighters that could have even reached Keep 19. Not they wouldn't have needed to steal any of our nukes. They had plenty of their own that were much bigger. This is about the same time they made the Tsar Bomba after all. In any case, the general belief is that whoever attacked them either bugged out when things got hot, or went down with the B-52."
"So why was the Atomkrieg interested in aviation history?" Silverlight wondered. "Aside from their name of course?"
"They are led by a guy calling himself Bismarck," Cray explained. "His real name is Kaleb Harris. He lived out in Idaho, and it appears he was radicalized by Ruby Ridge. He lived just one county over, and went to watch during the siege, along with a lot of other people. He got indoctrinated by right wing propaganda afterward, joined the militia movement, and tried to make a fertilizer bomb to blow up an FBI building. Apparently he read about it in the Turner Diaries. But the only thing he blew up was himself."
"So an even less competent Tim McVeigh," Mercury sighed.
"He got out of prison four years ago and disappeared." The hacker said. "He reappeared a few years later as Bismarck. No one knows who chromed him up with the cyberware. But he didn't even try to hide his identity. He formed the Atomkrieg, and has been pushing a white supremacist accelerationist agenda. Their goal is to start an apocalyptic race war that will destroy the United States, so that a fascist white ethnostate can take its place."
Mercury said nothing. But the tortured groan of bent steel spoke volumes as his fingers tightened into fists.
Detective Oates whistled. "A couple of nuclear bombs could do a lot of destroying." he noted grimly.
"So how does this parachute help him with that?" January said. "He was doing something with it, scanning it somehow. He was creating a map. I saw a hologram of it. It showed the Atlantic."
"What I have on Bismarck's abilities is that he's a cyborg," Cray said. "He's a telekinetic. From what we just saw he can absorb energy too, and can convert it to other forms and emit it back. Zero Point and Stinger tangled with him once, and they think that he does all this by manipulating quantum fields."
"He's a meta-human too," January noted. "I saw it in his aura."
"How can you tell that?" Mercury asked.
"I had good teachers," January glanced over to Silverlight, and smiled. Then she looked back down to Sága's screen. "So could he have used this quantum stuff to create a map of where that parachute was in say, 1961?"
"Yes, yes he could have." Silverlight interjected before the hacker could answer.
The detectives cursed in unison. Hall pulled out his phone and walked away. Oates began to fidget noticeably.
"So he could be headed to get the bombs right now?" January thought.
"Maybe," Cray said. "But he's going to need a submersible to get them. It's on the bottom of the ocean. Even for meta-humans, that's not an easy place to reach. Or he'll need some kind of tech or powers to survive the crushing depth, breathe the water, and not freeze to death. And he'll need a ship to store the bombs in afterward. Unless he can carry them both with his telekinesis and fly across the ocean at the same time."
With that Detective Oates pulled out his phone too. He began by telling someone that they needed to shut down all shipping in Chesapeake Bay, and possibly the entire East Coast. Then he too walked out of earshot.
"Did you get a good look at that map?" Hwarang asked.
"Not really, it was too quick," January shook her head. "Cray, what about my body cams?"
"Way ahead of you," the hacker replied. "Here it is."
Sága's screen filled with the video in question. It was taken by January's forward-facing helmet camera. The quality was good, but it shook with every motion of her head. It was enough to reveal that Bismarck's map was indeed of the North Atlantic. But exactly where was not clear. Cray slowed it to a single frame at a time. But even so the exact spot that his scan indicated was hidden behind the cyborg's shoulder.
"You have cameras in your suit?" Hwarang asked, clearly surprised by that revelation.
"Yeah," January replied. "Like the drones, they let Cray see what is going on. He saves the video. It helps when we create our after action reports, and make dossiers on our opposition."
"Clever girl," Mercury nodded. "It's like watching the tape after a football game."
"But it is still not good enough," Hwarang frowned. "Is there some magic way to reconstruct the missing video?"
That seemed impossible to January. But what she did not know about magic could fill the Atlantic. So she did not say anything.
Silverlight however, seemed to mull that over. She massaged her white marble chin with her thumb and forefinger. Then she bent down and picked up the parachute.
"Remember your magical theory Stormcrow; the Law of Contagion. Things that have been in contact remain in contact, even after they have been physically separated. This was part of Keep 19. It will lead us right back to it."
"Then let's get going," January said.
"Do you want me to get the rest of the team?" Cray asked. "I haven't yet, because you're so far away."
"If we are all out here, then there won't be anyone to cover it if something happens back home." January shook her head. "Besides, I think we can handle it."
"We have a sister who has an affinity for the sea," Silverlight observed. "Can you contact her? In the meantime I'll arrange us transport to meet her in the North Atlantic."
"You have a boat?" Hwarang asked.
"No, something better," Silverlight said, "a friend in the Pentagon."
* * *
Good, nice to know when speculating pays off. Been wondering about Rook. Maybe he did escape from that plane, using that parachute. I can only imagine the mess that's now in the Museum!
I suspect Mercury has full command over anything metallic. Doesn't need a power-suit. Hmm. 🌡
The capes are gabbing, comparing notes, talking shop. Hmm, wait. So Hwarang is the guy who lives in (or near) Mt. Vernon you were talking bout before?
Ha ha Rebel Yell! Can't wait to meet him. Or not. Seems like he's not wanting to be on scene, except perhaps on his very specific terms.
Mercury has a day job? What kind of job? Wondering if he gets to use his unique talent at this job. Maybe he's a welder or something. Or works in a refinery. His job is nothing like this though, he works as a Civil Engineer. I'm googling that, yeah, go ahead and laugh!
Civil engineers plan, design, and supervise the construction and maintenance of building and infrastructure projects.
Okay, that's totally up his alley.
Wow.
Just had a thought about Hwarang. Bet the guy knows John Waters, maybe even offhand in some way, like not PERSONALLY, but he's seen the guy. And he knows some specific things about his persona or whatever. 🌹 Waters can be seen in public once in a while in B'more, especially while working on whatever next film. I once sat next to the guy in a dive bar, for instance (without knowing who I was next to). I'm thinking there's something there with Hwarang; some sort of interaction. Whatever.
Hall & Oates! Hall even has gold hair! Which means Oates has a mustache and silly poodle haircut. See, January might not even know the original duo.
Ah, so this does seem to be a parachute from that bomber which crashed. I can't remember if Rook had to use the 'chute. But it seems so. My memory sucks, okay? I'll just preface that right now. So going by memory, last we saw him he was stuck in the plane, and couldn't get out using any of his own devices. So maybe he had to resort to an older-fashioned method. Well... maybe not older-fashioned. From what I recently read in an unrelated story, parachutes were new at the time.
I suspect Mercury has full command over anything metallic. Doesn't need a power-suit. Hmm. 🌡
The capes are gabbing, comparing notes, talking shop. Hmm, wait. So Hwarang is the guy who lives in (or near) Mt. Vernon you were talking bout before?
Ha ha Rebel Yell! Can't wait to meet him. Or not. Seems like he's not wanting to be on scene, except perhaps on his very specific terms.
Mercury has a day job?
What kind of job? Wondering if he gets to use his unique talent at this job. Maybe he's a welder or something. Or works in a refinery. His job is nothing like this though, he works as a Civil Engineer. I'm googling that, yeah, go ahead and laugh!Civil engineers plan, design, and supervise the construction and maintenance of building and infrastructure projects.
Okay, that's totally up his alley.
QUOTE
Capes who have legal empowerment are compensated by the state. So they don't need day jobs. For the rest of us though, it's not always easy balancing real life with the cape.
Wow.
Just had a thought about Hwarang. Bet the guy knows John Waters, maybe even offhand in some way, like not PERSONALLY, but he's seen the guy. And he knows some specific things about his persona or whatever. 🌹 Waters can be seen in public once in a while in B'more, especially while working on whatever next film. I once sat next to the guy in a dive bar, for instance (without knowing who I was next to). I'm thinking there's something there with Hwarang; some sort of interaction. Whatever.
Hall & Oates!
Hall even has gold hair! Which means Oates has a mustache and silly poodle haircut. See, January might not even know the original duo. Ah, so this does seem to be a parachute from that bomber which crashed. I can't remember if Rook had to use the 'chute. But it seems so. My memory sucks, okay? I'll just preface that right now. So going by memory, last we saw him he was stuck in the plane, and couldn't get out using any of his own devices. So maybe he had to resort to an older-fashioned method. Well... maybe not older-fashioned. From what I recently read in an unrelated story, parachutes were new at the time.
”He's the voice in my ear, telling me not do stupid things. Which I usually do anyway..."
- - I have an elf who could say the same thing.
I figured that Bismarck was communing with that parachute to determine the bomb-laden B-52’s underwater resting place. Fabulous that it looks like Silverlight can sort of do the same thing.
Wow, Mercury would be worth his weight in gold at an auto body repair shop!
Oh, I forgot about WaterWoman the Calypso Neried. I bet she’ll come in very handy!
"Complicated isn't it?" Mercury said. "I'll tell you something kid, it doesn't get any easier, juggling lives like we do."
- - I know Jan/Stormcrow already has a theme song but here’s another most appropriate song highlighting that she really does live her life Between Two Worlds.
- - I have an elf who could say the same thing.
I figured that Bismarck was communing with that parachute to determine the bomb-laden B-52’s underwater resting place. Fabulous that it looks like Silverlight can sort of do the same thing.
Wow, Mercury would be worth his weight in gold at an auto body repair shop!
Oh, I forgot about WaterWoman the Calypso Neried. I bet she’ll come in very handy!
"Complicated isn't it?" Mercury said. "I'll tell you something kid, it doesn't get any easier, juggling lives like we do."
- - I know Jan/Stormcrow already has a theme song but here’s another most appropriate song highlighting that she really does live her life Between Two Worlds.
Renee: We will be seeing Rook again, once we reach the sunken plane. Though he is not what he used to be...
Hwarang is indeed the person who lives in Mt. Vernon. Rebel Yell does not show up in this story. I am not sure if I will ever actually use him. I just wanted an example of someone who was not present, to show that Silverlight's cohorts are not a real team in the full sense. As Mercury said before, they just come together sometimes to fight bigger threats.
TBH, as an engineer his job is not that different from your original ideas. He is the one checking the welds of the steel beams in a skyscraper, things like that. Which I see you found out just a sentence later.
Hwarang probably has bumped into John Waters then. I had no idea he lived in B'more. Especially if Waters is into the music scene. He's probably seen Hwarang play (in his secret identity).
I needed a pair of detectives for that scene. They are not important to the plot, and won't appear again. They are just sort of there because someone like that naturally would be. So I started thinking about partnerships. Hall and Oates just jumped into my head, and I ran with it.
This was an unused parachute. So not something that Rook could have used. Also if you go back, you will see he was still in the cockpit when the plane hit the water. So it would not have helped him in any case.
Acadian: For both Bismarck and Silverlight I basically used the same idea: the Law of Contagion in Sympathetic Magic. Or Quantum Entanglement. Things that have been in contact remain in contact. Bismarck does it with meta-technology, Silverlight with wizardry. The end result is that both can now find Keep 19, and its payload of nuclear bombs.
It is funny that you mentioned Nereids. Because later on in the story we are going to meet an actual Nereid, when Silverlight summons one for help.
Thank you for the song. That was lovely.
The Mabahith Amn El Dawla is Egypt's secret police
Joint Base Andrews can be found on the Stormcrow Map
Sikorsky CH-53K King Stallion Pic
Sikorsky CH-53K King Stallion Interior Pic
Devtac Helmet
Book 12.24 - Broken Arrow
Nitokris slinked across the rooftop of the abandoned warehouse. The tar under her feet was not only cracked, but in many places it had entirely peeled off the old rooftop. That revealed rusted metal and rotten wood underneath. The rest of the building below was a similar study in decrepitude. Broken windows peeked out from walls whose paint had peeled away decades before, and rain gutters sagged from the brackets that barely held them aloft.
However, the Brooklyn docks all around stood in stark contrast to the dilapidated structure. Evidentially most of the waterfront had been recently revitalized. Old docks and warehouses had been replaced with shiny new playgrounds, micro-breweries, offices, and retailers. The area looked to have been recently gentrified. Nitokris would not be surprised if this particular warehouse might be slated for demolition soon, to make way for a mini-mall or axe-throwing bar.
Ventilation fans rose at regular intervals along the upraised spine of the aging warehouse. Long since unpowered, their curved blades still squeaked as the August breeze passed slowly through them. It was to one of these that the Egyptian stopped and set her ear. She called up her magic, and used it to extend her hearing down through the shaft and into the open space below.
"Gruppenleiter, we should go back and rescue the others," a male voice said. It was entirely unremarkable. But her astral senses told her that it issued from the one mage in their group, the one with the elemental darkness spells.
He had some skill, but like the others, his operational security was sloppy. It had never occurred to any of them that someone might be watching them. So they did not even take the most mundane precautions, such as placing alarms or cameras around their hideout. Nor had they created any magical wards, or even scanned the area in astral space. It was wide open.
All these white nationalists seemed to be the same. They were part of the in-group whom the law protected, but did not bind. That privilege made them lazy. They had not grown up under a regime that bound them under its oppressive heel. That was aimed at those of the wrong color, or religion, or gender, or land of origin in their nation's savage utopia. It never occurred to them that the police might actually come after them. It had never happened before after all.
In spite of the persecution complex that they loved to revel in, they had no idea what real oppression felt like. They just liked to pretend to be downtrodden. They had never felt fear when looking at the open sky. They had never had to wonder if an unseen drone might drop a missile on their school bus at any moment. They had never seen the Mabahith Amn El Dawla burst into their home at night, and shoot their mother and father dead before their very eyes.
This crew was smart enough to at least wear masks. Well, most of them did at least. Their leader appeared to be beyond caring however. He had been in the system already though. He had no secret identity to escape back to at the end of the day. Nitokris imagined that made him more committed than the others. Unlike them, he had no way out, and nothing left to lose.
Not even his body. She could see in astral space that half of it was missing. The empty pieces had been replaced by the faded lines of prosthetics. They were meta-tech prosthetics however, for in the astral they brimmed with power. Combined with the meta-human talent she felt laced through the still living portions of his aura, that told her that he would be a dangerous foe to face, head on at least.
"There is no going back Reinhard," their cyborg leader replied. His voice was the rasp of sandpaper on old stone. "They have done their part to get us here. They will be remembered as holy martyrs for the cause. But the cause goes on."
"But they're with us, they-" the magician responded, only to be cut off by the cyborg.
"They are kaput!" he snapped. In spite of the German word, he spoke in prefect English. It was clearly his native tongue. All of them cosplayed at being German, but she would bet that not a single one of them had been actually born in Europe. "And if we waste our time going back for them we will be as well. No, we go on now, and finish this."
"This is our time!" his voice rose with passion and authority. "We have the power now, the power to end this Jew government that has oppressed us for so long. These liberals and their Black dogs and Homo pets won't know what hit them. They cannot stop us now. In a few hours Washington DC and New York City will both be vaporized in atomic fire."
"America will fall in an inferno of glory!" he went on. "It will be the Day of the Rope! Our kameraden will know it is time, and rise up with us. From the ashes of the Old World, we'll remake a pure state, a White state, one where people like us can stand tall and proud once more, as our forefather's did. Now what say you to this?"
"Long Live Death!" they all shouted in unison, and thrust out their hands in the flat-palmed Nazi salute.
"Skorzeny." Their leader now turned to one of the meta-human soldiers. "Report!"
"I have the rebreathers." This one said in a voice that practically over-flowed with cockiness. He was dressed like the others: in a black uniform, Nazi stahlhelm, and half-skull mask that covered his lower face. But he did not carry any meta-tech upon him. Instead Nitokris could sense the threads of meta-human power stitched through his aura. But she could not tell what his abilities were as of yet.
He held out what looked like an old-fashioned aluminum camera case. He spun it to face his leader, who stepped up and popped its lid open. Nitokris could not see exactly what was within. But the writing on the side of the case announced it as the property of the National Oceanographic Institute. An identical case lay at his feet. Clearly this was their means of surviving the ocean's depths.
Nitokris was tempted to send an arrow through each case and destroy the equipment within. That would prevent the neo-Nazis from claiming their prize. But she still needed them to lead her to the crashed bomber. So she bided her time, waited, and watched.
"Heinrich," Bismarck now turned to one of few remaining ordinary, non-meta Nazis. "What is the status of your mission?"
"The salvage ship is ours." A literally faceless neo-Nazi answered. "The others are waiting there, and are ready to go."
"Good, then we move out," the cyborg commanded. He turned to face all of his underlings, and raised his voice to a shout. "Long Live Death!"
"Long Live Death!" the others all shouted back the Franco-era fascist war cry. Nitokris wondered if they felt the irony of mixing Spanish fascism with German. Then again, their kind seemed incapable of understanding such subtleties. They were blunt instruments. But they were instruments that would lead her to two nuclear bombs.
The Accountant had been right to distrust this man, and hire her to monitor him. Bismarck clearly had his own agenda, one that even his billionaire backers would not sanction. It would definitely hurt their business interests to destroy New York City and its financial district. Perhaps even closer to home, the think tank through which they secretly financed far right groups such as this one was located within Washington DC. So too were many of the defense contractors they owned. Bismarck was planning to bite the hand that fed him, in the most literal fashion. That came as no surprise to the Egyptian. Fascists always ate their own.
She already had a paycheck coming for her discoveries. There would be a gigantic bonus if she could stop them, or at least delay them long enough for Silverlight and her cronies to do that for her. But now her mind turned with new possibilities. In the past she had killed one Egyptian president with her bare hands. She could do much more than that with two nuclear weapons...
* * *
It was less than a ten mile journey from Washington DC to Joint Base Andrews. Mercury formed those railroad wheels of his and rolled along down the surface streets to get there. Hwarang followed close behind on his Willendorf electric motorcycle. January and Silverlight soared overhead, one on wings of white light, and the other on those of a black crow.
Even with their ground-bound members, what January had taken to calling The Mid-Atlantic Coalition made good time. A nearby interstate took them out of the city core and past the Navy Yard on the Anacostia River. She recognized it from one of the computer games she had seen Avery play. But no one here was living in an old aircraft carrier, and there were no mutants or raiders lurking in the shadows. She did get to see a Cold War-era destroyer that was tied up at the docks however, so that was something at least.
They continued on through the parkways and streets of Maryland afterward, and were at the air base in no time at all. Thankfully they were expected at the gate, and an old, open-topped humvee waited there for them. January and Silverlight dropped down from the sky and climbed aboard. Hwarang remained on his motorcycle, and Mercury retained his road wheels however. The humvee led them through the streets within the sprawling complex of administrative buildings, barracks, and dining halls. She even saw a gas station and veterinarian, and January would have bet that there was a golf course as well.
Then they were out on a wide apron that was flanked on one side by a long line of massive hangars. Not one, but two actual airstrips ran parallel to one another on the other side of this staging area. Each stretched on for around two miles in length, though it was hard to tell exactly how far with any certainty. They just seemed to go for what seemed like forever.
January could not identify all the planes she saw parked on the apron itself. Lighthammer would know. Some were so big that they had to be cargo planes, or perhaps fuel tankers. Others were smaller, and were clearly fighters. She did recognize a handful of large, wedge-shaped aircraft as B-2 bombers. She had seen those looming over Belle Isle near the end of the battle there. Each was capable of leveling a mid-sized country with the push of a button. Most of the planes had USAF markings, but others appeared to belong to the Marine Corps, and still more the Navy. So as the name implied, the Joint Base really was used by all the armed services.
The humvee led them to the end of the apron. Sitting in front of the last hangar were several rows of helicopters. They were led to one that January could only describe as thicc. It was big, much bigger than the other choppers. The wide sponsons on either side of its lower hull gave it the impression of even greater bulk. It had twice the number of rotor blades of the other helicopters as well, and a long, rounded frame.
The rotors on the chopper were already turning as they arrived, and the cargo ramp in its rear lowered as the humvee stopped before it. An officer leaped out of the ground vehicle and motioned to the utility aircraft.
"Major Stevens has assigned this king stallion to you," he had to shout to be heard over the roar of the giant helicopter's engines. "It has the heaviest lift in our entire fleet, and it can refuel in mid-air if need be. He's also arranged for an additional team member, who's already on board. If you need anything more just tell the pilot."
"Thank you lieutenant," Silverlight said. Then she turned to January and the others, and motioned for them to follow her into the aircraft.
In some ways it reminded January of the interior of Viuda's spidercraft Charlotte. Like it, this vehicle was wide enough to drive a car up into. The floor was interspersed with inset rings to strap down cargo. The bare walls revealed stringers and hull ribs that ran the length and breadth of the fuselage. Jump seats were folded up along either side of the bay, and January guessed there were enough to seat about thirty. However, this ship lacked the amenities of the Charlotte. There was no water cooler, or microwave, or folding beds. There was certainly no tarantula sidekick. It was purely utilitarian.
There were two crew members in the cargo bay who greeted them as they came onboard. One of them helped Hwarang tie down his motorcycle to the floor, so that it would not slide around. The other shut the cargo ramp behind them.
As the lieutenant outside had said, also waiting there for them was a man in tan desert US Army fatigues. A full helmet covered his head. It looked more like something from a suit of powered armor than anything a common foot soldier might wear. A pistol rode at one of his hips, under his standard issue plate carrier torso armor. Otherwise he carried no obvious weapons.
"I recognize that helmet," Cray said in January's ear. "That's a next-gen prototype, he must be field-testing it."
"I'm Ranger," the newcomer declared. January wondered if that was supposed to mean something to her. "I'll be in command of this operation going forward. First I-"
Without saying a word Silverlight glided through the air past him, and disappeared into the cockpit beyond. She still held the parachute from Keep 19 in one hand. In the meantime January and the others folded down some of the jump seats that lined the walls, and made themselves comfortable.
"Hey, where's she going?" Ranger cried. "You can't do that! She can't do that. Can she do that?"
"You in the Army sonny?" Mercury sprawled out across several of the jump seats with his legs spread wide. But even man-spreading as he was, the folding chairs groaned ominously under his armored bulk.
"I am a lieutenant in the US Army, Ranger school qualified, and graduate of BUD/S," the soldier responded. January noted that his chest puffed up notably as he reeled of his accomplishments. "I've been deployed in Africa and Afghanistan for the past two years on special operations."
"Well that's nice. Take a load off and relax son." Mercury responded. He pointed one thumb toward his own chest, then nodded to the other heroes in turn. "I'm the train man. She's the bird girl, excuse me, crow girl. He's a warrior poet inspired by the ancient Korean kingdom of Silla, and Silverlight up front's the moon wizard."
January could not help but chortle softly to herself. From the seat beside her, she heard Hwarang giggle as well. But even as she snickered, January could not argue with the train man's description of them all. It was as absolutely ridiculous as it was entirely accurate. It just went to show how silly the whole super business could be; at least when no one was trying to end the world.
"What are you two laughing about?" Ranger barked defensively. The black, glossy lenses of his helmet now swiveled from Mercury to January and Hwarang.
"We were just comparing lipstick shades," Hwarang said in a totally deadpan tone. "Would you like to add something to the conversation?"
Even though his face was hidden, January could easily imagine Ranger's eyes bugging out under his helmet. In the very least, his head cocked up and sideways in surprise.
"Holy buttcakes, you're a dude?" the lieutenant nearly sputtered. Then he caught himself, and changed gears. "I mean, I didn't know you were trans like Stormcrow... I mean, ah crap, I didn't mean to misgender you. I'm so-"
"I identify as a man." Hwarang's soft red lips gleamed as they remained curled up in a smile. "So you were right."
"No kidding?" Ranger slowed down. "You've got a pretty solid androgynous anime hero vibe going, like the protagonist of a Final Fantasy game."
The helicopter rose skyward with a lurch. That sent Ranger scrambling for a jump seat beside Mercury. January saw him lean over to the other man, and heard him whisper in a low voice.
"Do you ever have a problem with chafing?" he asked. One of his hands hovered over his crotch, making it plain what he was referring to. "I spend a lot of time in the desert, and let me tell you, after half a day in the sun, I got a swamp worse than Camp Rudder down there..."
"Baby powder," Mercury nodded sagely. "It's the armored man's best friend."
It was looking like the newest member of their makeshift team was going to fit in just fine after all. January had to admit, she was curious what life was like for a meta-human in the army. On one hand—like everyone else—she knew that metas had been part of militaries since the First World War. In it Grognard and the Red Baron had become heroes for France and Germany respectively. Some would say they were the world's first superheroes.
But on the other hand those who joined the army were just as mysterious and secretive as the capes like her in the civilian world. It was for the very same reasons of course. A hostile foreign power could kidnap a meta soldier's family or loved ones, and hold them hostage to manipulate them. So while everyone knew names like Red Storm, or Panzer, or Arizona, it was usually only long after their deaths that the public learned their actual identities, if ever at all.
"So you and Silverlight know one another?" Hwarang's voice brought January around from her wool-gathering. The Korean-American sat straight as an arrow in the jump seat, all poise and grace. That made January feel self-conscious, and she likewise locked her knees together and straightened up her own posture to a more lady-like pose.
"Yeah, we're sisters," January answered breezily.
"Well, 'sisters'," she said again. Now she made quotation marks with her fingers around the second word. "We both had the same teacher: Blood Raven."
"Really, the Blood Raven?" Hwarang did not contain the look of surprise from his face. Thanks to his open faced helmet, January could easily read his expressions. Even under the face paint that covered half of his features. She kind of envied him that. It made him appear much more open, expressive, and just friendly than the solid metal which covered January's own upper features.
"I didn't think Blood Raven like... played well with others," Mercury said from across the space.
"She often does not," January laughed. "She's relentless, stubborn, opinionated, misanthropic, and a real pain in the rear. She's also a good friend, and the best mentor you could ever hope for. She's trained a lot us over the years."
"I never had a teacher," Hwarang frowned. "I just sort of had to figure this out on my own."
"Well I could send you some books that could help," January offered. "I have some by Branwen Renner that are a good starting point for magic. Plus I have a few other more esoteric ones. In fact Silverlight made an annotated English copy of the Scripta Mortis that is quite helpful. Come to think of it, I know an alchemist who makes magical face paint too. You might want to look into that as well."
Hwarang is indeed the person who lives in Mt. Vernon. Rebel Yell does not show up in this story. I am not sure if I will ever actually use him. I just wanted an example of someone who was not present, to show that Silverlight's cohorts are not a real team in the full sense. As Mercury said before, they just come together sometimes to fight bigger threats.
TBH, as an engineer his job is not that different from your original ideas. He is the one checking the welds of the steel beams in a skyscraper, things like that. Which I see you found out just a sentence later.
Hwarang probably has bumped into John Waters then. I had no idea he lived in B'more. Especially if Waters is into the music scene. He's probably seen Hwarang play (in his secret identity).
I needed a pair of detectives for that scene. They are not important to the plot, and won't appear again. They are just sort of there because someone like that naturally would be. So I started thinking about partnerships. Hall and Oates just jumped into my head, and I ran with it.
This was an unused parachute. So not something that Rook could have used. Also if you go back, you will see he was still in the cockpit when the plane hit the water. So it would not have helped him in any case.
Acadian: For both Bismarck and Silverlight I basically used the same idea: the Law of Contagion in Sympathetic Magic. Or Quantum Entanglement. Things that have been in contact remain in contact. Bismarck does it with meta-technology, Silverlight with wizardry. The end result is that both can now find Keep 19, and its payload of nuclear bombs.
It is funny that you mentioned Nereids. Because later on in the story we are going to meet an actual Nereid, when Silverlight summons one for help.
Thank you for the song. That was lovely.
The Mabahith Amn El Dawla is Egypt's secret police
Joint Base Andrews can be found on the Stormcrow Map
Sikorsky CH-53K King Stallion Pic
Sikorsky CH-53K King Stallion Interior Pic
Devtac Helmet
Book 12.24 - Broken Arrow
Nitokris slinked across the rooftop of the abandoned warehouse. The tar under her feet was not only cracked, but in many places it had entirely peeled off the old rooftop. That revealed rusted metal and rotten wood underneath. The rest of the building below was a similar study in decrepitude. Broken windows peeked out from walls whose paint had peeled away decades before, and rain gutters sagged from the brackets that barely held them aloft.
However, the Brooklyn docks all around stood in stark contrast to the dilapidated structure. Evidentially most of the waterfront had been recently revitalized. Old docks and warehouses had been replaced with shiny new playgrounds, micro-breweries, offices, and retailers. The area looked to have been recently gentrified. Nitokris would not be surprised if this particular warehouse might be slated for demolition soon, to make way for a mini-mall or axe-throwing bar.
Ventilation fans rose at regular intervals along the upraised spine of the aging warehouse. Long since unpowered, their curved blades still squeaked as the August breeze passed slowly through them. It was to one of these that the Egyptian stopped and set her ear. She called up her magic, and used it to extend her hearing down through the shaft and into the open space below.
"Gruppenleiter, we should go back and rescue the others," a male voice said. It was entirely unremarkable. But her astral senses told her that it issued from the one mage in their group, the one with the elemental darkness spells.
He had some skill, but like the others, his operational security was sloppy. It had never occurred to any of them that someone might be watching them. So they did not even take the most mundane precautions, such as placing alarms or cameras around their hideout. Nor had they created any magical wards, or even scanned the area in astral space. It was wide open.
All these white nationalists seemed to be the same. They were part of the in-group whom the law protected, but did not bind. That privilege made them lazy. They had not grown up under a regime that bound them under its oppressive heel. That was aimed at those of the wrong color, or religion, or gender, or land of origin in their nation's savage utopia. It never occurred to them that the police might actually come after them. It had never happened before after all.
In spite of the persecution complex that they loved to revel in, they had no idea what real oppression felt like. They just liked to pretend to be downtrodden. They had never felt fear when looking at the open sky. They had never had to wonder if an unseen drone might drop a missile on their school bus at any moment. They had never seen the Mabahith Amn El Dawla burst into their home at night, and shoot their mother and father dead before their very eyes.
This crew was smart enough to at least wear masks. Well, most of them did at least. Their leader appeared to be beyond caring however. He had been in the system already though. He had no secret identity to escape back to at the end of the day. Nitokris imagined that made him more committed than the others. Unlike them, he had no way out, and nothing left to lose.
Not even his body. She could see in astral space that half of it was missing. The empty pieces had been replaced by the faded lines of prosthetics. They were meta-tech prosthetics however, for in the astral they brimmed with power. Combined with the meta-human talent she felt laced through the still living portions of his aura, that told her that he would be a dangerous foe to face, head on at least.
"There is no going back Reinhard," their cyborg leader replied. His voice was the rasp of sandpaper on old stone. "They have done their part to get us here. They will be remembered as holy martyrs for the cause. But the cause goes on."
"But they're with us, they-" the magician responded, only to be cut off by the cyborg.
"They are kaput!" he snapped. In spite of the German word, he spoke in prefect English. It was clearly his native tongue. All of them cosplayed at being German, but she would bet that not a single one of them had been actually born in Europe. "And if we waste our time going back for them we will be as well. No, we go on now, and finish this."
"This is our time!" his voice rose with passion and authority. "We have the power now, the power to end this Jew government that has oppressed us for so long. These liberals and their Black dogs and Homo pets won't know what hit them. They cannot stop us now. In a few hours Washington DC and New York City will both be vaporized in atomic fire."
"America will fall in an inferno of glory!" he went on. "It will be the Day of the Rope! Our kameraden will know it is time, and rise up with us. From the ashes of the Old World, we'll remake a pure state, a White state, one where people like us can stand tall and proud once more, as our forefather's did. Now what say you to this?"
"Long Live Death!" they all shouted in unison, and thrust out their hands in the flat-palmed Nazi salute.
"Skorzeny." Their leader now turned to one of the meta-human soldiers. "Report!"
"I have the rebreathers." This one said in a voice that practically over-flowed with cockiness. He was dressed like the others: in a black uniform, Nazi stahlhelm, and half-skull mask that covered his lower face. But he did not carry any meta-tech upon him. Instead Nitokris could sense the threads of meta-human power stitched through his aura. But she could not tell what his abilities were as of yet.
He held out what looked like an old-fashioned aluminum camera case. He spun it to face his leader, who stepped up and popped its lid open. Nitokris could not see exactly what was within. But the writing on the side of the case announced it as the property of the National Oceanographic Institute. An identical case lay at his feet. Clearly this was their means of surviving the ocean's depths.
Nitokris was tempted to send an arrow through each case and destroy the equipment within. That would prevent the neo-Nazis from claiming their prize. But she still needed them to lead her to the crashed bomber. So she bided her time, waited, and watched.
"Heinrich," Bismarck now turned to one of few remaining ordinary, non-meta Nazis. "What is the status of your mission?"
"The salvage ship is ours." A literally faceless neo-Nazi answered. "The others are waiting there, and are ready to go."
"Good, then we move out," the cyborg commanded. He turned to face all of his underlings, and raised his voice to a shout. "Long Live Death!"
"Long Live Death!" the others all shouted back the Franco-era fascist war cry. Nitokris wondered if they felt the irony of mixing Spanish fascism with German. Then again, their kind seemed incapable of understanding such subtleties. They were blunt instruments. But they were instruments that would lead her to two nuclear bombs.
The Accountant had been right to distrust this man, and hire her to monitor him. Bismarck clearly had his own agenda, one that even his billionaire backers would not sanction. It would definitely hurt their business interests to destroy New York City and its financial district. Perhaps even closer to home, the think tank through which they secretly financed far right groups such as this one was located within Washington DC. So too were many of the defense contractors they owned. Bismarck was planning to bite the hand that fed him, in the most literal fashion. That came as no surprise to the Egyptian. Fascists always ate their own.
She already had a paycheck coming for her discoveries. There would be a gigantic bonus if she could stop them, or at least delay them long enough for Silverlight and her cronies to do that for her. But now her mind turned with new possibilities. In the past she had killed one Egyptian president with her bare hands. She could do much more than that with two nuclear weapons...
* * *
It was less than a ten mile journey from Washington DC to Joint Base Andrews. Mercury formed those railroad wheels of his and rolled along down the surface streets to get there. Hwarang followed close behind on his Willendorf electric motorcycle. January and Silverlight soared overhead, one on wings of white light, and the other on those of a black crow.
Even with their ground-bound members, what January had taken to calling The Mid-Atlantic Coalition made good time. A nearby interstate took them out of the city core and past the Navy Yard on the Anacostia River. She recognized it from one of the computer games she had seen Avery play. But no one here was living in an old aircraft carrier, and there were no mutants or raiders lurking in the shadows. She did get to see a Cold War-era destroyer that was tied up at the docks however, so that was something at least.
They continued on through the parkways and streets of Maryland afterward, and were at the air base in no time at all. Thankfully they were expected at the gate, and an old, open-topped humvee waited there for them. January and Silverlight dropped down from the sky and climbed aboard. Hwarang remained on his motorcycle, and Mercury retained his road wheels however. The humvee led them through the streets within the sprawling complex of administrative buildings, barracks, and dining halls. She even saw a gas station and veterinarian, and January would have bet that there was a golf course as well.
Then they were out on a wide apron that was flanked on one side by a long line of massive hangars. Not one, but two actual airstrips ran parallel to one another on the other side of this staging area. Each stretched on for around two miles in length, though it was hard to tell exactly how far with any certainty. They just seemed to go for what seemed like forever.
January could not identify all the planes she saw parked on the apron itself. Lighthammer would know. Some were so big that they had to be cargo planes, or perhaps fuel tankers. Others were smaller, and were clearly fighters. She did recognize a handful of large, wedge-shaped aircraft as B-2 bombers. She had seen those looming over Belle Isle near the end of the battle there. Each was capable of leveling a mid-sized country with the push of a button. Most of the planes had USAF markings, but others appeared to belong to the Marine Corps, and still more the Navy. So as the name implied, the Joint Base really was used by all the armed services.
The humvee led them to the end of the apron. Sitting in front of the last hangar were several rows of helicopters. They were led to one that January could only describe as thicc. It was big, much bigger than the other choppers. The wide sponsons on either side of its lower hull gave it the impression of even greater bulk. It had twice the number of rotor blades of the other helicopters as well, and a long, rounded frame.
The rotors on the chopper were already turning as they arrived, and the cargo ramp in its rear lowered as the humvee stopped before it. An officer leaped out of the ground vehicle and motioned to the utility aircraft.
"Major Stevens has assigned this king stallion to you," he had to shout to be heard over the roar of the giant helicopter's engines. "It has the heaviest lift in our entire fleet, and it can refuel in mid-air if need be. He's also arranged for an additional team member, who's already on board. If you need anything more just tell the pilot."
"Thank you lieutenant," Silverlight said. Then she turned to January and the others, and motioned for them to follow her into the aircraft.
In some ways it reminded January of the interior of Viuda's spidercraft Charlotte. Like it, this vehicle was wide enough to drive a car up into. The floor was interspersed with inset rings to strap down cargo. The bare walls revealed stringers and hull ribs that ran the length and breadth of the fuselage. Jump seats were folded up along either side of the bay, and January guessed there were enough to seat about thirty. However, this ship lacked the amenities of the Charlotte. There was no water cooler, or microwave, or folding beds. There was certainly no tarantula sidekick. It was purely utilitarian.
There were two crew members in the cargo bay who greeted them as they came onboard. One of them helped Hwarang tie down his motorcycle to the floor, so that it would not slide around. The other shut the cargo ramp behind them.
As the lieutenant outside had said, also waiting there for them was a man in tan desert US Army fatigues. A full helmet covered his head. It looked more like something from a suit of powered armor than anything a common foot soldier might wear. A pistol rode at one of his hips, under his standard issue plate carrier torso armor. Otherwise he carried no obvious weapons.
"I recognize that helmet," Cray said in January's ear. "That's a next-gen prototype, he must be field-testing it."
"I'm Ranger," the newcomer declared. January wondered if that was supposed to mean something to her. "I'll be in command of this operation going forward. First I-"
Without saying a word Silverlight glided through the air past him, and disappeared into the cockpit beyond. She still held the parachute from Keep 19 in one hand. In the meantime January and the others folded down some of the jump seats that lined the walls, and made themselves comfortable.
"Hey, where's she going?" Ranger cried. "You can't do that! She can't do that. Can she do that?"
"You in the Army sonny?" Mercury sprawled out across several of the jump seats with his legs spread wide. But even man-spreading as he was, the folding chairs groaned ominously under his armored bulk.
"I am a lieutenant in the US Army, Ranger school qualified, and graduate of BUD/S," the soldier responded. January noted that his chest puffed up notably as he reeled of his accomplishments. "I've been deployed in Africa and Afghanistan for the past two years on special operations."
"Well that's nice. Take a load off and relax son." Mercury responded. He pointed one thumb toward his own chest, then nodded to the other heroes in turn. "I'm the train man. She's the bird girl, excuse me, crow girl. He's a warrior poet inspired by the ancient Korean kingdom of Silla, and Silverlight up front's the moon wizard."
January could not help but chortle softly to herself. From the seat beside her, she heard Hwarang giggle as well. But even as she snickered, January could not argue with the train man's description of them all. It was as absolutely ridiculous as it was entirely accurate. It just went to show how silly the whole super business could be; at least when no one was trying to end the world.
"What are you two laughing about?" Ranger barked defensively. The black, glossy lenses of his helmet now swiveled from Mercury to January and Hwarang.
"We were just comparing lipstick shades," Hwarang said in a totally deadpan tone. "Would you like to add something to the conversation?"
Even though his face was hidden, January could easily imagine Ranger's eyes bugging out under his helmet. In the very least, his head cocked up and sideways in surprise.
"Holy buttcakes, you're a dude?" the lieutenant nearly sputtered. Then he caught himself, and changed gears. "I mean, I didn't know you were trans like Stormcrow... I mean, ah crap, I didn't mean to misgender you. I'm so-"
"I identify as a man." Hwarang's soft red lips gleamed as they remained curled up in a smile. "So you were right."
"No kidding?" Ranger slowed down. "You've got a pretty solid androgynous anime hero vibe going, like the protagonist of a Final Fantasy game."
The helicopter rose skyward with a lurch. That sent Ranger scrambling for a jump seat beside Mercury. January saw him lean over to the other man, and heard him whisper in a low voice.
"Do you ever have a problem with chafing?" he asked. One of his hands hovered over his crotch, making it plain what he was referring to. "I spend a lot of time in the desert, and let me tell you, after half a day in the sun, I got a swamp worse than Camp Rudder down there..."
"Baby powder," Mercury nodded sagely. "It's the armored man's best friend."
It was looking like the newest member of their makeshift team was going to fit in just fine after all. January had to admit, she was curious what life was like for a meta-human in the army. On one hand—like everyone else—she knew that metas had been part of militaries since the First World War. In it Grognard and the Red Baron had become heroes for France and Germany respectively. Some would say they were the world's first superheroes.
But on the other hand those who joined the army were just as mysterious and secretive as the capes like her in the civilian world. It was for the very same reasons of course. A hostile foreign power could kidnap a meta soldier's family or loved ones, and hold them hostage to manipulate them. So while everyone knew names like Red Storm, or Panzer, or Arizona, it was usually only long after their deaths that the public learned their actual identities, if ever at all.
"So you and Silverlight know one another?" Hwarang's voice brought January around from her wool-gathering. The Korean-American sat straight as an arrow in the jump seat, all poise and grace. That made January feel self-conscious, and she likewise locked her knees together and straightened up her own posture to a more lady-like pose.
"Yeah, we're sisters," January answered breezily.
"Well, 'sisters'," she said again. Now she made quotation marks with her fingers around the second word. "We both had the same teacher: Blood Raven."
"Really, the Blood Raven?" Hwarang did not contain the look of surprise from his face. Thanks to his open faced helmet, January could easily read his expressions. Even under the face paint that covered half of his features. She kind of envied him that. It made him appear much more open, expressive, and just friendly than the solid metal which covered January's own upper features.
"I didn't think Blood Raven like... played well with others," Mercury said from across the space.
"She often does not," January laughed. "She's relentless, stubborn, opinionated, misanthropic, and a real pain in the rear. She's also a good friend, and the best mentor you could ever hope for. She's trained a lot us over the years."
"I never had a teacher," Hwarang frowned. "I just sort of had to figure this out on my own."
"Well I could send you some books that could help," January offered. "I have some by Branwen Renner that are a good starting point for magic. Plus I have a few other more esoteric ones. In fact Silverlight made an annotated English copy of the Scripta Mortis that is quite helpful. Come to think of it, I know an alchemist who makes magical face paint too. You might want to look into that as well."
True, yeah you're right, Hwrang is somewhat new in Baltimore, forgot that. It's great he's already got some students!
Ah, okay.
Another aging, abandoned workspace. Similar to where we first saw Bismarck. Except this time we've got Nitokris. Is she friend or foe? Oh wow, she's Egyptian. Like Hoda Kotb!
Heh heh heh... "He had some skill, but like the others, his operational security was sloppy. It had never occurred to any of them that someone might be watching them. So they did not even take the most mundane precautions, such as placing alarms or cameras around their hideout. Nor had they created any magical wards, or even scanned the area in astral space. It was wide open."
... Guess we can see where this is going!
Axe-throwing BAR??
Nitokris can get into the astral plane, too. 🪐 Whoa, the law protects them. Which state is this? Must be down south (assumption). Or maybe out west somewhere. Guess I'll find out soon. Brooklyn docks, though. NYC? Hmm...
Question is, who has seen these things? Nitokris? Okay, Mabahith Amn El Dawla = Egyptian. So yeas.
But yeah, that is true about these groups of haters. They always think everyone's persecuting them. Coming after them. Which is so silly. So they stockpile all these weapons and live in a bunker. And publish creepy internet newsletters which look like zines made at a demonic version of Kinko's, circulation: more than they deserve.
Ah-ha, sounds like Bismark is here. Man, let me shush.
Bismarck's on a soapbox. All these diabolical types, they all have these moments when they're soapboxing, right?
OH [censored]. Okay, they're after the bombs, now I get it. Kinda silly though. Guess it depends what those bombs are made of, of course. I doubt they're made of something which'll just rust away. Still, seems like all kinds of trouble. There are hundreds of ancient missile silos across America, never used. Wouldn't that be easier? Then again, doubt the gov't would just leave a bunch of nuclear warheads across the land ... (famous last words).
* * *
They're at Andrews AFB, sounds like. Good thing the Enclave isn't inhabiting here.
Holy buttcakes, he's a dude!
Hmm. Brooklyn, Maryland? Would mean Bismarck hasn't got far to travel from the museum, if so. There are docks along the Patapsco river.
It's neat how the Mid-Atlantic Coalition all know of Blood Raven, but only from afar. Seems they've only heard of her ruthless side.
QUOTE
This was an unused parachute. So not something that Rook could have used. Also if you go back, you will see he was still in the cockpit when the plane hit the water.
Ah, okay.
Another aging, abandoned workspace. Similar to where we first saw Bismarck. Except this time we've got Nitokris. Is she friend or foe? Oh wow, she's Egyptian. Like Hoda Kotb!
Heh heh heh... "He had some skill, but like the others, his operational security was sloppy. It had never occurred to any of them that someone might be watching them. So they did not even take the most mundane precautions, such as placing alarms or cameras around their hideout. Nor had they created any magical wards, or even scanned the area in astral space. It was wide open."
... Guess we can see where this is going!
Axe-throwing BAR??
Nitokris can get into the astral plane, too. 🪐 Whoa, the law protects them. Which state is this? Must be down south (assumption). Or maybe out west somewhere. Guess I'll find out soon. Brooklyn docks, though. NYC? Hmm...
QUOTE
They had never had to wonder if an unseen drone might drop a missile on their school bus at any moment. They had never seen the Mabahith Amn El Dawla burst into their home at night, and shoot their mother and father dead before their very eyes.
Question is, who has seen these things? Nitokris? Okay, Mabahith Amn El Dawla = Egyptian. So yeas.
But yeah, that is true about these groups of haters. They always think everyone's persecuting them.
Coming after them. Which is so silly. So they stockpile all these weapons and live in a bunker. And publish creepy internet newsletters which look like zines made at a demonic version of Kinko's, circulation: more than they deserve. Ah-ha, sounds like Bismark is here. Man, let me shush.
Bismarck's on a soapbox.
All these diabolical types, they all have these moments when they're soapboxing, right? OH [censored]. Okay, they're after the bombs, now I get it. Kinda silly though. Guess it depends what those bombs are made of, of course. I doubt they're made of something which'll just rust away. Still, seems like all kinds of trouble. There are hundreds of ancient missile silos across America, never used. Wouldn't that be easier? Then again, doubt the gov't would just leave a bunch of nuclear warheads across the land ... (famous last words).
* * *
They're at Andrews AFB, sounds like. Good thing the Enclave isn't inhabiting here.
Holy buttcakes, he's a dude!
Hmm. Brooklyn, Maryland? Would mean Bismarck hasn't got far to travel from the museum, if so. There are docks along the Patapsco river.
It's neat how the Mid-Atlantic Coalition all know of Blood Raven, but only from afar. Seems they've only heard of her ruthless side.
Well, Bismarck and his cronies are looking for the bombs. And so is Stormcrow and her growing, motley crew. Now it seems that Nitokris might launch an attempt to snag those bombs herself for questionable purpose. I smell some twists and turns ahead.
Nit: ’From the seat beside her, she heard Hwarang giggle as wekk {well}.’
Nit: ’From the seat beside her, she heard Hwarang giggle as wekk {well}.’
QUOTE(Acadian @ May 4 2024, 03:41 PM) 
Nit: ’From the seat beside her, she heard Hwarang giggle as wekk {well}.’
This seems to have been corrected. How are you able to make edits without the dreaded "This post has been edited by X at 11:34 am..." message?
Renee: Hwarang is only new as a superhero. He was born in Korea. His mother was in the US Army at the time and his father was a Korean citizen. She stayed in Korea after she left the Army. They all moved to Baltimore when Hwarang was 10, and he's lived there ever since.
Nitokris appeared way back in Book 7: Hammer Down. She was a reinforcement brought in to help the super assassins that were after Lighthammer, in the final big battle on the docks. She is the one who set the bomb in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and used it as a distraction to make her escape at the end of the fight. She was able to hold her own against Blood Raven, which very few people in the world can say. Blood Raven also recognized Nitokris' magical armor. She has fought other women wearing the same suit over the years. The first in 1911. The second was in 1956. This Nitorkris is the third woman to wear the suit (since Ancient Egyptian times).
You haven't heard of Axe-Throwing bars? Google it. They are kind of a weird gimmick that some bars got into about a decade or so ago. They have axes you can pay to throw at targets. Its really strange.
The law has always protected white supremacists, in every part of every country. Here in Detroit just a few years ago a group of neo-Nazis staged a march at Motor City Pride downtown. The Detroit Police were there, and formed up a ring around the Nazis to protect them the entire time. And most of those cops were black.
When the FBI sends agents undercover into white supremacist groups, they deliberately keep it a secret from local law enforcement. They have to, otherwise the cops will tell the white supremacists and either murder the undercover agents, or just know better than to talk to them in the first place. That is everywhere in the US.
Look up the Battle of Cable Street. It was a march done by the British Union of Fascists back in the 1930s through London. There had been a totally different organization previously scheduled to march that day. But when the fascists came along, the original marchers had their permit rescinded, so the fascists could have the day for themselves. Thousands of cops were bussed in from all over the country to protect them while they did their march. There were thousands more cops than fascists in fact. And the cops arrested hundreds of Anti-Fascist counter protestors who came out to fight them. They did not arrest a single fascist of course.
Check out the Behind the Bastards podcast's series Behind the Police, or Behind the Uprisings to learn more. They also did a series on just the Battle of Cable Street. Come to think of it, they had a two parter on the RAM Nazi fight club. RAM trained specifically for street violence, ganging up on people 5 or 10 to 1, since Nazis are cowards. The police always ignored it when RAM did so. But if people fought back and beat the Nazis up, the cops put them in prison. RAM only eventually got shut down when the FBI went after them. But that took years.
Villains love their monologues. At least the ones like Bismarck do, who are motivated by narcissism or a cause, or both. They need to make a statement, not just do violence for its own sake.
All the nuclear weapons the US has are naturally well-guarded. Going after them means going into an air force base or missile silo that is heavily guarded. That means a real fight, and real chance the government might just use those nukes to kill them rather than lose them. That is why Rook tried to steal one from a plane in mid-air. He only had to fight six men armed with pistols to get it, and you saw how that turned out. So just grabbing one that is laying around unprotected is a lot easier, even if its on the bottom of the ocean. The scary thing is that IRL right now there around 4 to 6 nuclear weapons unaccounted for, literally just out there somewhere in the world, and no one knows where they are. That is what inspired me to write this.
Thank goodness no Enclave. But no Rivet City either, or Three Dog.
Brooklyn, New York City. I did not know there was another one. New York City is one of the Atomkrieg's targets after all, and it is the largest harbor on the US East Coast. So plenty of ships to steal there, and old warehouses to hide in.
Most people have only heard of Blood Raven as the dark avenger lurking amid Gothic steeples type. It is an image she cultivated, in order to overawe her enemies. Unlike January, she was less interested in reaching out to people and inspiring them, than she was in scaring the pants off the baddies. They are kind of like Batman and Superman that way, with the different ways they use their popularity.
I am not sure why the forum software does not show the "Edited by..." blurb. It must be a moderator only function. It is not anything I can set. Acadian reminded me that moderators have a little box we can check down under the edit window to add the "Edit by" line to the post. I just never paid attention to it.
Acadian: The game is afoot now! I threw in Nitorkis because she will have a very prominent role in future events of the season. She will become January's arch-nemesis in fact, and vice-versa. She has not appeared since way back in Book 7: Hammer Down. So it was a good opportunity to refresh people's memories. It also gave me a chance to throw some extra chaos into events, with multiple different groups now all converging upon those nuclear bombs.
As ever, thanks for finding that nit. I am surprised I missed that one.
Ranger's powers were inspired by The Exile/Victor Kohl from Marvel Rising Secret Warriors
Calypso's suit inspiration
Calypso's sailboat is a 1995 Beneteau Oceanis 440
Its interior looking forward
Its interior looking back at the ladder up to the cockpit
Book 12.25 - Broken Arrow
"Speaking of spell slingers..." Mercury looked up as Silverlight returned from the cockpit. January noted that the team's moon wizard still held the parachute in her hands. "When do we get there?"
"I am not sure," the statuesque woman explained. "I gave our pilot a bearing to rendezvous with Calypso. We will transfer to her boat once we do. We can finish the trip from there."
"You know this Calypso?" Ranger now spoke up.
"She's one of our sisters," January interjected. "She's got a way with water."
"Welcome to the motley crew Ranger." Silverlight smiled at the newest member of their ersatz team, and shook his hand. "It's good to have the extra help. We are likely to face the Atomkrieg again before all this is over. I understand from Major Stevens that they might have reinforcements as well."
"Ope!" January spoke up once more. "I didn't have the chance to mention it before, but Cray told me that they have another meta we haven't seen yet named Skorzeny. We don't know how many more other non-metas they might still have as well."
"So the Major tells me you have been overseas lately," Silverlight's gaze went from January and back to Ranger. "He did not say what you can do however."
"Yeah, they brought me back because of Belle Isle. But it was all over before my plane got there, and youse were all gone." Ranger murmured. "Anyway, I can create and solidify ionic energy. With it I can form armor, fly, create weapons, shoot ion blasts, that sort of thing."
"So a slugger, like me and the Crowgirl," Mercury nodded. "Stick with us, we're the offensive line. Silverlight here's the QB. Hwarang's the sniper. He'll get you out of any jam with an arrow up the baddies' wazoo."
"And Calypso?" Ranger asked, quite seriously.
"She's the Queen of the Waves," Silverlight declared. "The ocean is her domain. So we all do whatever she says. She's our lifeguard."
They passed the rest of the journey quietly. As she was wont to do in these down times, January took the time to center herself, and concentrated upon her breathing. With each deep breath in she pulled her mana up through her body. She imagined that she was a tree, and that the energy was water that flowed up through her trunk. She directed it out to her branches, where it dripped back down to the metaphorical ground with each exhalation. Then she breathed in once more, and repeated the process all over again.
In this way she exercised her mana, and allowed it to flow clean and pure through her body. As she did, she ran her elemental mantra through her mind.
Earth give me strength, keep me grounded, protect me from harm.
Air give me quickness in body and wit. Let the weights of the world fall from me.
Water make me flexible in thought and form. Let me flow, let me crash.
Fire give me passion and energy. Transform me in the night sky.
Spirit weave all together in balance. Bring me peace.
January was pulled from her energy exercises when the crew chief of the helicopter announced that there was a sailboat dead ahead. Silverlight directed the crew to take the helicopter down to meet it, and in no time the cargo ramp lowered once more. January sprang to her feet and headed to the back of the aircraft. Thanks to her meditation, her aches and pains from the recent fight were a thing of the past. She now felt refreshed and ready to go once more.
She glanced down at the boat below, which lacked a name upon its rear hull or a flag of origin. It was a small yacht, or a large sailboat. January was not sure which. A single mast sprouted like a tree from its slender white hull, and its sail was furled in tightly against it. The deck was relatively flat, though it angled up around the mast to form a low superstructure in the center of the vessel. She noted several solar panels installed in front of that. Behind the mast, the rear of the deck had been scooped open. Here in the cockpit of the vessel a U-shaped bench seat wrapped around the back of the boat. In the center of this space was a huge, round steering wheel, just as one would expect from a sailing ship of old.
Standing behind the wheel was Calypso. She had already taken her sea form, so her body was covered in soft green scales. These were interspersed with irregular patterns of dark blue that flowed around her body and face, contrasted by similar swathes of pink to red. She had no hair, but rather her head was framed with a nest of fin rays, like delicate fans that rose up to frame her features.
She wore her armor of course. Its base layer was of crisscrossed gray leather strips. Over that lay a set of green coral armor cut into intricate, swirling designs. A set of pauldrons ran over her shoulders, then fell down her chest in a cuirass, and wrapped across her waist and wrists. A headpiece of the same green coral covered her forehead and fell down her cheeks, but left the spiny frills that grew from the side of her head bare.
In her hand she held her staff Bagua. It looked like glass, but January knew that it was comprised of solid water. Not frozen, just solid. At its head grew a symbol of two parallel swirling lines, that constantly turned about one another to form a whirlpool. Thanks to some of her recent studies into runes and symbols, January recognized it as the Taino symbol for water.
The heroes dropped from the helicopter to the boat below. As they could fly, January and Silverlight helped their allies who could not. They left Hwarang's motorcycle behind in the big helicopter. It was not likely to be of much use in the ocean after all. That left the king stallion orbiting overhead, waiting for further instructions. January imagined it would do so until they could recover the missing nuclear bombs, and load them onboard the craft.
January and the others got their first taste of what to expect from Ranger as they moved down to the boat. He took a moment to gather himself, and then a field of brilliant blue energy flowed out of his body, and wrapped him up in a suit of very solid-looking armor. It instantly reminded January of Gadget's powered armor, which also employed ionic energy for much of its abilities, such as flying.
Ranger did just that a moment later. He stepped from the back of the helicopter and soared through the air. A trail of blue ions stretched out behind him. Once again, January was reminded of Gadget's armor. Only Ranger was clearly more adept at flying than the meta-inventor was.
Still, that made January miss her friend all the more. In spite of what she had told Cray earlier, she would have much preferred Gadget to be at her side than this new guy. She would prefer him to pretty much anyone in fact. But one did the best with what they had.
"I was not expecting to see you two again so soon!" Calypso grinned when January and Silverlight came down to land on her boat.
The Bahamian's rich, mellifluous voice did bring a smile to January's face. Even if she could not have Gadget, it was always a relief to have another of her raven sisters by her side.
"That's the great thing about this job," Mercury declared. "You never know what is coming next."
Introductions were made all around Then with a wave Calypso led them through the companionway down below the deck of the small yacht. This was accomplished by descending a hybrid of a ladder and stair. It was made up of several curved steps that jutted from the wall, each growing larger as one descended.
The interior was a narrow, roughly rectangular space, and was built from lustrous cherry wood. Directly to January's right was a communications and navigational desk, with radios, a satellite phone, GPS, and even an old-fashioned plotting board and charts. A dinner table rose up from the floor beyond, flanked by long couches on either side of it.
A kitchen area stretched out on her left, with a long counter that was topped with white laminate. She noted that it had an upraised edge to prevent anything from sliding off of it. January also saw that the oven sat upon a cradle which allowed it to rock back and forth and side to side with the motions of the boat. So it was a standard kitchen, but adapted to the unique challenges of life on the sea.
A pair of small doors at the far end of the room led farther into the bow. One of those was open, and revealed a bed barely crammed into the triangular space beyond, along with a narrow dresser and shelves. A glance behind January showed her two similar doors leading to other rooms in the stern. Another open door here revealed a bathroom, with a shower stall and toilet crammed into its tiny space.
For all that the sailboat looked big from the outside - a little under fifty feet long or so - it was definitely tiny inside. She imagined that her bedroom in the Witch House might be the same size as the entire interior of the vessel. It certainly was if she counted her adjoining bathroom and walk-in closet.
"So Cray has apprised me of our situation," Calypso intoned in her rich, lyrical voice. "This sounds dire indeed, if the Atomkrieg can reach those bombs. After all, there is a reason the US Navy was never able to recover them, nor anyone else."
"Yeah, about that," Mercury eyed the narrow seats, and instead elected to find a corner and lean his armored frame back into it. "Not all of us are exactly aquatically-inclined. Notably, I don't swim too good in all this iron."
"Yes," Hwarang agreed. "While I can swim, I don't know how to scuba dive."
"I've been through BUD/S, and have done several waterborne ops," Ranger practically bragged. "So I've got it covered."
"Well the good thing is that scuba is useless at the depths we are likely to be going," Calypso smiled.
"Wonderful," Mercury breathed. "I can't wait to hear the bad news."
"If we are only going to the bottom of the continental shelf, then we are in luck," Calypso explained. "The depth there is only two hundred meters-."
"Ummm, how far is that in freedom units?" the Philadelphian interjected, one hand held up like a student in class.
"About 650 feet or so," Silverlight mused, "If I am doing my math correctly."
"Ok, I've never been that deep before," Ranger murmured.
"It is well beyond the range of scuba, or any unaided human survivability," Calypso declared. "After that, it begins to become dangerous. Once we go down the continental slope, to the continental rise and abyssal plain beyond, the temperature will drop to just a few degrees above freezing. Then there is the pressure... Well, at that depth the good thing is that it will crush you so quickly you will not even feel yourself die."
"And we go from being biology to being physics..." Mercury noted. "You really do know how to spin a cheerful tale."
"Well, I can project into the aether," Silverlight declared. "None of that will affect me there. I won't be able to physically pick up the bombs. But I will still have use of my magic. Perhaps more importantly, I shall be able to summon elemental assistance."
"A water elemental would be handy right now," January nodded. "I don't suppose you could coax Mishipeshu out of the Great Lakes to come and help?"
"Not a chance sister," Silverlight shook her head. "The lakes are the underwater panther's domain, not the seas."
"I do have something that can help," Calypso offered. She squeezed past Mercury and leaned through the open door of one of the forward cabins. She rummaged around in one of the drawers in the dresser there, and pulled out several nautilus shells. She handed one to each of the other heroes.
January turned hers over in her gloved fingers. The sea shell was bone white, and covered in irregular, rust-colored stripes. It was not only beautiful, but an amazing display of symmetry. It formed a graceful spiral as it turned around and around itself, continually winding outward. But more than that, she felt power within, a deep reservoir of magical energy that just waited to be engaged.
"These will enable you all to breathe, speak, and survive the cold and crushing depths," the Bahamian superheroine explained. "I have had occasion to use them during rescue missions in the past. They will serve you well."
"These are magic, aren't they?" Hwarang asked. He turned his over in his hands, and studied the artifact with care.
"You missed our last lesson," January murmured, "It was all about astral sensing."
"It is magic, powerful magic. After this is all over, we can talk about training." Silverlight turned from the Korean-American to January. "It is a subject Stormcrow has been an ardent supporter of."
"We all have a lot to learn," January nodded, "especially me."
"So how do we use this... shell?" Mercury stared at the nautilus shell in his hand. "Don't tell me we have to swallow it?"
"It is a suppository," Calypso said, completely deadpan. Everyone stared back at the woman in horror. January could swear that she felt her jaw drop.
Then Calypso began to laugh.
"You should see your faces!" she grinned.
"That was not funny," Mercury shook his head.
"If we could see your expression, it would be," January admitted with a smile.
"Here, allow me to show you." Calypso leaned over, and took the nautilus shell from the man's hand. She held it up to the side of his head, and pressed it against his armored helmet. January felt magic flare to life, bright and warm. The shell moved through the metal that protected the man, as if it was sinking through water. In just a moment it disappeared from view. But January could still feel it there, wrapped about the Philadelphian in power.
"This is... not so bad," Mercury admitted. "Okay, I can do this."
With that both Ranger and Hwarang followed suit. They each raised their nautilus shells to their helmets, and allowed them to sink into their beings. Hwarang smiled afterward and nodded in approval. Ranger gave a thumbs up.
That left only January. She stared down at her shell, and made a face.
"What is wrong?" Calypso wondered.
"I don't think I'll need it," January insisted. "I have a water breathing spell, and my Nordic blood gives me 50% frost resistance. As for the pressure... well, standing up to that's what I do best. I am a tank after all."
"This isn't a video game," Silverlight warned.
"I know," January nodded. "But this is the kind of thing I am good at. I'm not a DPS rogue, I'm not crowd control, or a healer. I'm the brick. Besides, I do have a lot to learn. When I started out I relied on gadgets a lot. Well, on Gadget too. But that can be a crutch. I think relying on the wingsuit in my original armor may have kept me from developing my real wings sooner. Likewise, relying on my original suit's armor probably held me back from improving my own natural invulnerability."
"Your water breathing spell may not be adequate," Calypso cautioned. "You need more than just air alone. Pressure affects gases, especially nitrogen. It will cause the rapture of the deep, and then the bends. Show me."
January did as her sister asked. She called up her magic, and fixed her mind upon the spell she had created in her grandmother Sarah's bathroom sink. Her will forced it into reality, and a moment later a thin sheet of air formed over her mouth and nose. Even out of the water, it was clearly visible by the faint glow around the edge of the field.
"That is good, for a beginner," Calypso nodded. "But I can teach you to do better. In my current form I can naturally breathe water. But there are places in the oceans and rivers where there is no oxygen at all. They are literal death zones where nothing can survive. So I have developed a means to invoke the element of Air to supply oxygen directly to my body. I do not need to breathe at all, not in the conventional sense at least. This allows me to survive not only underwater, but also within a vacuum, or smoke, or a poisonous atmosphere."
"Awesome!" January smiled. "Teach away."
"Yes, I would like to learn this technique as well," Hwarang added.
* * *
Nitokris appeared way back in Book 7: Hammer Down. She was a reinforcement brought in to help the super assassins that were after Lighthammer, in the final big battle on the docks. She is the one who set the bomb in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and used it as a distraction to make her escape at the end of the fight. She was able to hold her own against Blood Raven, which very few people in the world can say. Blood Raven also recognized Nitokris' magical armor. She has fought other women wearing the same suit over the years. The first in 1911. The second was in 1956. This Nitorkris is the third woman to wear the suit (since Ancient Egyptian times).
You haven't heard of Axe-Throwing bars? Google it. They are kind of a weird gimmick that some bars got into about a decade or so ago. They have axes you can pay to throw at targets. Its really strange.
The law has always protected white supremacists, in every part of every country. Here in Detroit just a few years ago a group of neo-Nazis staged a march at Motor City Pride downtown. The Detroit Police were there, and formed up a ring around the Nazis to protect them the entire time. And most of those cops were black.
When the FBI sends agents undercover into white supremacist groups, they deliberately keep it a secret from local law enforcement. They have to, otherwise the cops will tell the white supremacists and either murder the undercover agents, or just know better than to talk to them in the first place. That is everywhere in the US.
Look up the Battle of Cable Street. It was a march done by the British Union of Fascists back in the 1930s through London. There had been a totally different organization previously scheduled to march that day. But when the fascists came along, the original marchers had their permit rescinded, so the fascists could have the day for themselves. Thousands of cops were bussed in from all over the country to protect them while they did their march. There were thousands more cops than fascists in fact. And the cops arrested hundreds of Anti-Fascist counter protestors who came out to fight them. They did not arrest a single fascist of course.
Check out the Behind the Bastards podcast's series Behind the Police, or Behind the Uprisings to learn more. They also did a series on just the Battle of Cable Street. Come to think of it, they had a two parter on the RAM Nazi fight club. RAM trained specifically for street violence, ganging up on people 5 or 10 to 1, since Nazis are cowards. The police always ignored it when RAM did so. But if people fought back and beat the Nazis up, the cops put them in prison. RAM only eventually got shut down when the FBI went after them. But that took years.
Villains love their monologues. At least the ones like Bismarck do, who are motivated by narcissism or a cause, or both. They need to make a statement, not just do violence for its own sake.
All the nuclear weapons the US has are naturally well-guarded. Going after them means going into an air force base or missile silo that is heavily guarded. That means a real fight, and real chance the government might just use those nukes to kill them rather than lose them. That is why Rook tried to steal one from a plane in mid-air. He only had to fight six men armed with pistols to get it, and you saw how that turned out. So just grabbing one that is laying around unprotected is a lot easier, even if its on the bottom of the ocean. The scary thing is that IRL right now there around 4 to 6 nuclear weapons unaccounted for, literally just out there somewhere in the world, and no one knows where they are. That is what inspired me to write this.
Thank goodness no Enclave. But no Rivet City either, or Three Dog.
Brooklyn, New York City. I did not know there was another one. New York City is one of the Atomkrieg's targets after all, and it is the largest harbor on the US East Coast. So plenty of ships to steal there, and old warehouses to hide in.
Most people have only heard of Blood Raven as the dark avenger lurking amid Gothic steeples type. It is an image she cultivated, in order to overawe her enemies. Unlike January, she was less interested in reaching out to people and inspiring them, than she was in scaring the pants off the baddies. They are kind of like Batman and Superman that way, with the different ways they use their popularity.
Acadian: The game is afoot now! I threw in Nitorkis because she will have a very prominent role in future events of the season. She will become January's arch-nemesis in fact, and vice-versa. She has not appeared since way back in Book 7: Hammer Down. So it was a good opportunity to refresh people's memories. It also gave me a chance to throw some extra chaos into events, with multiple different groups now all converging upon those nuclear bombs.
As ever, thanks for finding that nit. I am surprised I missed that one.
Ranger's powers were inspired by The Exile/Victor Kohl from Marvel Rising Secret Warriors
Calypso's suit inspiration
Calypso's sailboat is a 1995 Beneteau Oceanis 440
Its interior looking forward
Its interior looking back at the ladder up to the cockpit
Book 12.25 - Broken Arrow
"Speaking of spell slingers..." Mercury looked up as Silverlight returned from the cockpit. January noted that the team's moon wizard still held the parachute in her hands. "When do we get there?"
"I am not sure," the statuesque woman explained. "I gave our pilot a bearing to rendezvous with Calypso. We will transfer to her boat once we do. We can finish the trip from there."
"You know this Calypso?" Ranger now spoke up.
"She's one of our sisters," January interjected. "She's got a way with water."
"Welcome to the motley crew Ranger." Silverlight smiled at the newest member of their ersatz team, and shook his hand. "It's good to have the extra help. We are likely to face the Atomkrieg again before all this is over. I understand from Major Stevens that they might have reinforcements as well."
"Ope!" January spoke up once more. "I didn't have the chance to mention it before, but Cray told me that they have another meta we haven't seen yet named Skorzeny. We don't know how many more other non-metas they might still have as well."
"So the Major tells me you have been overseas lately," Silverlight's gaze went from January and back to Ranger. "He did not say what you can do however."
"Yeah, they brought me back because of Belle Isle. But it was all over before my plane got there, and youse were all gone." Ranger murmured. "Anyway, I can create and solidify ionic energy. With it I can form armor, fly, create weapons, shoot ion blasts, that sort of thing."
"So a slugger, like me and the Crowgirl," Mercury nodded. "Stick with us, we're the offensive line. Silverlight here's the QB. Hwarang's the sniper. He'll get you out of any jam with an arrow up the baddies' wazoo."
"And Calypso?" Ranger asked, quite seriously.
"She's the Queen of the Waves," Silverlight declared. "The ocean is her domain. So we all do whatever she says. She's our lifeguard."
They passed the rest of the journey quietly. As she was wont to do in these down times, January took the time to center herself, and concentrated upon her breathing. With each deep breath in she pulled her mana up through her body. She imagined that she was a tree, and that the energy was water that flowed up through her trunk. She directed it out to her branches, where it dripped back down to the metaphorical ground with each exhalation. Then she breathed in once more, and repeated the process all over again.
In this way she exercised her mana, and allowed it to flow clean and pure through her body. As she did, she ran her elemental mantra through her mind.
Earth give me strength, keep me grounded, protect me from harm.
Air give me quickness in body and wit. Let the weights of the world fall from me.
Water make me flexible in thought and form. Let me flow, let me crash.
Fire give me passion and energy. Transform me in the night sky.
Spirit weave all together in balance. Bring me peace.
January was pulled from her energy exercises when the crew chief of the helicopter announced that there was a sailboat dead ahead. Silverlight directed the crew to take the helicopter down to meet it, and in no time the cargo ramp lowered once more. January sprang to her feet and headed to the back of the aircraft. Thanks to her meditation, her aches and pains from the recent fight were a thing of the past. She now felt refreshed and ready to go once more.
She glanced down at the boat below, which lacked a name upon its rear hull or a flag of origin. It was a small yacht, or a large sailboat. January was not sure which. A single mast sprouted like a tree from its slender white hull, and its sail was furled in tightly against it. The deck was relatively flat, though it angled up around the mast to form a low superstructure in the center of the vessel. She noted several solar panels installed in front of that. Behind the mast, the rear of the deck had been scooped open. Here in the cockpit of the vessel a U-shaped bench seat wrapped around the back of the boat. In the center of this space was a huge, round steering wheel, just as one would expect from a sailing ship of old.
Standing behind the wheel was Calypso. She had already taken her sea form, so her body was covered in soft green scales. These were interspersed with irregular patterns of dark blue that flowed around her body and face, contrasted by similar swathes of pink to red. She had no hair, but rather her head was framed with a nest of fin rays, like delicate fans that rose up to frame her features.
She wore her armor of course. Its base layer was of crisscrossed gray leather strips. Over that lay a set of green coral armor cut into intricate, swirling designs. A set of pauldrons ran over her shoulders, then fell down her chest in a cuirass, and wrapped across her waist and wrists. A headpiece of the same green coral covered her forehead and fell down her cheeks, but left the spiny frills that grew from the side of her head bare.
In her hand she held her staff Bagua. It looked like glass, but January knew that it was comprised of solid water. Not frozen, just solid. At its head grew a symbol of two parallel swirling lines, that constantly turned about one another to form a whirlpool. Thanks to some of her recent studies into runes and symbols, January recognized it as the Taino symbol for water.
The heroes dropped from the helicopter to the boat below. As they could fly, January and Silverlight helped their allies who could not. They left Hwarang's motorcycle behind in the big helicopter. It was not likely to be of much use in the ocean after all. That left the king stallion orbiting overhead, waiting for further instructions. January imagined it would do so until they could recover the missing nuclear bombs, and load them onboard the craft.
January and the others got their first taste of what to expect from Ranger as they moved down to the boat. He took a moment to gather himself, and then a field of brilliant blue energy flowed out of his body, and wrapped him up in a suit of very solid-looking armor. It instantly reminded January of Gadget's powered armor, which also employed ionic energy for much of its abilities, such as flying.
Ranger did just that a moment later. He stepped from the back of the helicopter and soared through the air. A trail of blue ions stretched out behind him. Once again, January was reminded of Gadget's armor. Only Ranger was clearly more adept at flying than the meta-inventor was.
Still, that made January miss her friend all the more. In spite of what she had told Cray earlier, she would have much preferred Gadget to be at her side than this new guy. She would prefer him to pretty much anyone in fact. But one did the best with what they had.
"I was not expecting to see you two again so soon!" Calypso grinned when January and Silverlight came down to land on her boat.
The Bahamian's rich, mellifluous voice did bring a smile to January's face. Even if she could not have Gadget, it was always a relief to have another of her raven sisters by her side.
"That's the great thing about this job," Mercury declared. "You never know what is coming next."
Introductions were made all around Then with a wave Calypso led them through the companionway down below the deck of the small yacht. This was accomplished by descending a hybrid of a ladder and stair. It was made up of several curved steps that jutted from the wall, each growing larger as one descended.
The interior was a narrow, roughly rectangular space, and was built from lustrous cherry wood. Directly to January's right was a communications and navigational desk, with radios, a satellite phone, GPS, and even an old-fashioned plotting board and charts. A dinner table rose up from the floor beyond, flanked by long couches on either side of it.
A kitchen area stretched out on her left, with a long counter that was topped with white laminate. She noted that it had an upraised edge to prevent anything from sliding off of it. January also saw that the oven sat upon a cradle which allowed it to rock back and forth and side to side with the motions of the boat. So it was a standard kitchen, but adapted to the unique challenges of life on the sea.
A pair of small doors at the far end of the room led farther into the bow. One of those was open, and revealed a bed barely crammed into the triangular space beyond, along with a narrow dresser and shelves. A glance behind January showed her two similar doors leading to other rooms in the stern. Another open door here revealed a bathroom, with a shower stall and toilet crammed into its tiny space.
For all that the sailboat looked big from the outside - a little under fifty feet long or so - it was definitely tiny inside. She imagined that her bedroom in the Witch House might be the same size as the entire interior of the vessel. It certainly was if she counted her adjoining bathroom and walk-in closet.
"So Cray has apprised me of our situation," Calypso intoned in her rich, lyrical voice. "This sounds dire indeed, if the Atomkrieg can reach those bombs. After all, there is a reason the US Navy was never able to recover them, nor anyone else."
"Yeah, about that," Mercury eyed the narrow seats, and instead elected to find a corner and lean his armored frame back into it. "Not all of us are exactly aquatically-inclined. Notably, I don't swim too good in all this iron."
"Yes," Hwarang agreed. "While I can swim, I don't know how to scuba dive."
"I've been through BUD/S, and have done several waterborne ops," Ranger practically bragged. "So I've got it covered."
"Well the good thing is that scuba is useless at the depths we are likely to be going," Calypso smiled.
"Wonderful," Mercury breathed. "I can't wait to hear the bad news."
"If we are only going to the bottom of the continental shelf, then we are in luck," Calypso explained. "The depth there is only two hundred meters-."
"Ummm, how far is that in freedom units?" the Philadelphian interjected, one hand held up like a student in class.
"About 650 feet or so," Silverlight mused, "If I am doing my math correctly."
"Ok, I've never been that deep before," Ranger murmured.
"It is well beyond the range of scuba, or any unaided human survivability," Calypso declared. "After that, it begins to become dangerous. Once we go down the continental slope, to the continental rise and abyssal plain beyond, the temperature will drop to just a few degrees above freezing. Then there is the pressure... Well, at that depth the good thing is that it will crush you so quickly you will not even feel yourself die."
"And we go from being biology to being physics..." Mercury noted. "You really do know how to spin a cheerful tale."
"Well, I can project into the aether," Silverlight declared. "None of that will affect me there. I won't be able to physically pick up the bombs. But I will still have use of my magic. Perhaps more importantly, I shall be able to summon elemental assistance."
"A water elemental would be handy right now," January nodded. "I don't suppose you could coax Mishipeshu out of the Great Lakes to come and help?"
"Not a chance sister," Silverlight shook her head. "The lakes are the underwater panther's domain, not the seas."
"I do have something that can help," Calypso offered. She squeezed past Mercury and leaned through the open door of one of the forward cabins. She rummaged around in one of the drawers in the dresser there, and pulled out several nautilus shells. She handed one to each of the other heroes.
January turned hers over in her gloved fingers. The sea shell was bone white, and covered in irregular, rust-colored stripes. It was not only beautiful, but an amazing display of symmetry. It formed a graceful spiral as it turned around and around itself, continually winding outward. But more than that, she felt power within, a deep reservoir of magical energy that just waited to be engaged.
"These will enable you all to breathe, speak, and survive the cold and crushing depths," the Bahamian superheroine explained. "I have had occasion to use them during rescue missions in the past. They will serve you well."
"These are magic, aren't they?" Hwarang asked. He turned his over in his hands, and studied the artifact with care.
"You missed our last lesson," January murmured, "It was all about astral sensing."
"It is magic, powerful magic. After this is all over, we can talk about training." Silverlight turned from the Korean-American to January. "It is a subject Stormcrow has been an ardent supporter of."
"We all have a lot to learn," January nodded, "especially me."
"So how do we use this... shell?" Mercury stared at the nautilus shell in his hand. "Don't tell me we have to swallow it?"
"It is a suppository," Calypso said, completely deadpan. Everyone stared back at the woman in horror. January could swear that she felt her jaw drop.
Then Calypso began to laugh.
"You should see your faces!" she grinned.
"That was not funny," Mercury shook his head.
"If we could see your expression, it would be," January admitted with a smile.
"Here, allow me to show you." Calypso leaned over, and took the nautilus shell from the man's hand. She held it up to the side of his head, and pressed it against his armored helmet. January felt magic flare to life, bright and warm. The shell moved through the metal that protected the man, as if it was sinking through water. In just a moment it disappeared from view. But January could still feel it there, wrapped about the Philadelphian in power.
"This is... not so bad," Mercury admitted. "Okay, I can do this."
With that both Ranger and Hwarang followed suit. They each raised their nautilus shells to their helmets, and allowed them to sink into their beings. Hwarang smiled afterward and nodded in approval. Ranger gave a thumbs up.
That left only January. She stared down at her shell, and made a face.
"What is wrong?" Calypso wondered.
"I don't think I'll need it," January insisted. "I have a water breathing spell, and my Nordic blood gives me 50% frost resistance. As for the pressure... well, standing up to that's what I do best. I am a tank after all."
"This isn't a video game," Silverlight warned.
"I know," January nodded. "But this is the kind of thing I am good at. I'm not a DPS rogue, I'm not crowd control, or a healer. I'm the brick. Besides, I do have a lot to learn. When I started out I relied on gadgets a lot. Well, on Gadget too. But that can be a crutch. I think relying on the wingsuit in my original armor may have kept me from developing my real wings sooner. Likewise, relying on my original suit's armor probably held me back from improving my own natural invulnerability."
"Your water breathing spell may not be adequate," Calypso cautioned. "You need more than just air alone. Pressure affects gases, especially nitrogen. It will cause the rapture of the deep, and then the bends. Show me."
January did as her sister asked. She called up her magic, and fixed her mind upon the spell she had created in her grandmother Sarah's bathroom sink. Her will forced it into reality, and a moment later a thin sheet of air formed over her mouth and nose. Even out of the water, it was clearly visible by the faint glow around the edge of the field.
"That is good, for a beginner," Calypso nodded. "But I can teach you to do better. In my current form I can naturally breathe water. But there are places in the oceans and rivers where there is no oxygen at all. They are literal death zones where nothing can survive. So I have developed a means to invoke the element of Air to supply oxygen directly to my body. I do not need to breathe at all, not in the conventional sense at least. This allows me to survive not only underwater, but also within a vacuum, or smoke, or a poisonous atmosphere."
"Awesome!" January smiled. "Teach away."
"Yes, I would like to learn this technique as well," Hwarang added.
* * *
Glad to see Ranger beginning to fit in with this group as we learn of his abilities. Looks like he certainly has something to contribute when (not if) things turn south.
Calypso’s boat is pretty cool and very appropriate for one or two people. Not quite so much with a handful on board but that’s not what she’s built for.
"It is a suppository," Calypso said, completely deadpan.’ - - Brilliant!
Stormcrow’s logic about trying to develop her magic self-sufficiency is good – and consistent with her nature. Given the hazards of the super deep though, I’m glad she’s got Calypso to help guild her.
Nit - ”Besides, I do have a lot learn.” - - I realize this is dialogue, but I suspect you meant to include a ‘to’ before learn?
Calypso’s boat is pretty cool and very appropriate for one or two people. Not quite so much with a handful on board but that’s not what she’s built for.
"It is a suppository," Calypso said, completely deadpan.’ - - Brilliant!
Stormcrow’s logic about trying to develop her magic self-sufficiency is good – and consistent with her nature. Given the hazards of the super deep though, I’m glad she’s got Calypso to help guild her.
Nit - ”Besides, I do have a lot learn.” - - I realize this is dialogue, but I suspect you meant to include a ‘to’ before learn?
Ah, I see, so he basically grew up in Baltimore, or near or around it. Hwrang def knows about J. Waters then. And Nitokris has become a recurring character, at least in this one instance.
Alright, I shall. Lol. Axe-throwing bar... I was thinking of an actual BAR bar, like an alcoholic bar! ~ While this might seem like a strange segue, consider that lots of times people throw darts in alcoholic bars.
I'll look up Battle of Cable Street later. Want to catch up Stormcrow first. Yeesh, Nazi Fight Club.
Oh I believe it! Well, I already read what happens the other day; they DO figure out some ways to get into the ocean. 🚇
And thanks for explaining about the checkbox. Don't know why it bugs me, but This post has been edited by... you don't know how much time has been spent to make sure that little quip doesn't show up, especially at the bottom of stories. It's like when we submitted creative writing assignments during school, and the assignment gets returned from teacher with X number of corrections. Well, not exactly, but that's the feeling of it. Like when the story gets posted here at Chorrol, it wasn't perfect! Still needed some work! Urgh.
---------------------
Ope, there's that Midwestern phrase again. Never, ever heard anyone say 'ope' in Maryland or Jersey or D.C.
Ranger, yeah. Read this chapter the other day; nobody knows what he's about, at first. What abilities or powers he has. So it's like there's a level of trust, perhaps. He says "youse" too!
That's incredible, how adept Jan is at meditation. ☮
Yeah, thing is, everyone back home knows about D.C. and maybe what's happening now, too. Some of them must be itching to be involved, if so.
Whoa, what? "The Navy was never able to recover them..." Sounds like the military knows where the site is, at least. So if the heroes are able to do so, interesting question is, what will they do with it? 💣
Pretty awesome. Jan created her own water-breathing spell. Yeah but still, maybe she'd better stick with one of these magical shells. Looking forward to going fathoms underwater next chapter (or whenever).
Alright, I shall. Lol. Axe-throwing bar... I was thinking of an actual BAR bar, like an alcoholic bar! ~ While this might seem like a strange segue, consider that lots of times people throw darts in alcoholic bars.
I'll look up Battle of Cable Street later. Want to catch up Stormcrow first. Yeesh, Nazi Fight Club.
QUOTE
The scary thing is that IRL right now there around 4 to 6 nuclear weapons unaccounted for, literally just out there somewhere in the world, and no one knows where they are.
Oh I believe it! Well, I already read what happens the other day; they DO figure out some ways to get into the ocean. 🚇
And thanks for explaining about the checkbox. Don't know why it bugs me, but This post has been edited by... you don't know how much time has been spent to make sure that little quip doesn't show up, especially at the bottom of stories. It's like when we submitted creative writing assignments during school, and the assignment gets returned from teacher with X number of corrections. Well, not exactly, but that's the feeling of it. Like when the story gets posted here at Chorrol, it wasn't perfect! Still needed some work! Urgh.
---------------------
Ope, there's that Midwestern phrase again. Never, ever heard anyone say 'ope' in Maryland or Jersey or D.C.
Ranger, yeah. Read this chapter the other day; nobody knows what he's about, at first. What abilities or powers he has. So it's like there's a level of trust, perhaps. He says "youse" too!
That's incredible, how adept Jan is at meditation. ☮
QUOTE
Still, that made January miss her friend all the more.
Yeah, thing is, everyone back home knows about D.C. and maybe what's happening now, too. Some of them must be itching to be involved, if so.
Whoa, what? "The Navy was never able to recover them..." Sounds like the military knows where the site is, at least. So if the heroes are able to do so, interesting question is, what will they do with it? 💣
Pretty awesome. Jan created her own water-breathing spell. Yeah but still, maybe she'd better stick with one of these magical shells. Looking forward to going fathoms underwater next chapter (or whenever).
Acadian: Ranger was kind of a last minute inclusion. After the first few drafts I realized that I did not have anyone from the military involved in the recovery at all, aside from a few helpers like the helicopter crew that flew them out over the ocean. I have always known that there were supers in the military, going all the way back to WW1. So I created Ranger and added him to the crew to show that.
Calypso's boat is indeed a cozy little home for one or two. That is what she uses it for. Not the ideal headquarters for a super team however!
I am glad the suppository joke slapped. That just came to me as I was writing it. It was natural, so I kept it in. It is a nice bit of lightness in what are otherwise deadly serious events.
In many ways Stormcrow's fic is a progression fantasy. Characters learn new abilities and improve their existing ones as the stories go on. So January wanting to take this opportunity to raise her Water Breathing power to the next rank was only natural. Plus it gave me an opportunity to show someone learning a spell.
As ever, thank you for spotting that nit.
Renee: "Ope!" is a very Midwestern thing. I don't say it as much as a lot of others around here. But that is because I was a big fan of the Simpsons in the 90s, and instead I learned to say "Doh!", like Homer instead. I do try to work it in to show January's Midwestern roots, like her using the term "Pop" instead of "Soda", etc...
Eventually I plan to work White Fell from the Sentinels into a future storyline. She's a native Minnesotan. So she will not just have "Ope!" but "Oh Jeez!" and "Jeez oh Pete!" in her dialogue.
If the military knew where the bombs were, they would have found a way to recover them. No one wants to leave nuclear weapons laying around.
I did give some thought to what the heroes will do if they recover the bombs. But in the end I kept it simple.
January created all of her abilities. Her wings, her invulnerability, her strength, etc... That is what magicians do. They create change in accordance with their will.
Billy Joel - Downeaster Alexa
Crosby, Stills, and Nash - Southern Cross
Book 12.26 - Broken Arrow
Silverlight, Ranger, and Mercury went up on deck. Soon enough, January heard music wafting down from above. It was Billy Joel singing something about trolling Atlantis in his Downeaster Alexa. She could not deny the appropriateness of the music, and wondered which of her three new friends was responsible for the choice. A moment later she heard the motor of the boat start, and felt the vessel take off.
With the nautical-based theme music in the background, January and Hwarang set about learning Calypso's water breathing magic. Given that she was upgrading an existing spell, rather than starting from scratch, it was a little easier for her than it was for Hwarang. She found herself feeling sorry for the Korean-American hero. He seemed to have little exposure to magical theory at all. Also like January, it appeared that the other hero had been using magic for much of his life, in his case to hone himself into an arcane archer. He just had not understood that it was magic that he had been using until recently.
For her own part, January found that the magic came quickly to her. Magic always did when she could focus it through the metaphor of elementalism. Thanks to a lifetime of role-playing games and fantasy fiction, the very idea of elemental magic was second nature to her. So that always sang to her most clearly from across astral space. Given that this called strongly upon Air, well, that just made it even simpler. Of all the five elements, she was on the best terms with that one. She was a crow after all, the sky was her home.
So invoking Air to provide her lungs with breathable air was relatively simple. It was the added wrinkles of learning to prevent it from forming nitrogen bubbles in her blood stream that was harder. But it was not impossible. It was just a new thing to learn.
It was more difficult to learn to resist the crushing weight of the thousands of pounds of water that would soon press down upon her. But this too, was just a matter of invoking another element, that of Water. She already had experience with this element, and what it symbolized. It was a staple of her fighting. After all, Bruce Lee had said: "Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend." That was advice to be flexible, to adapt to changing situations, to flow with the tides, and learn to turn them to crash against your foes. This was simply taking things far more literally.
She had of course, directly worked with Water as well, rather than just symbolically. More than once now she had spent time in the cape underwater. Her aquatic battle against the oniare at Gull Island had been a huge wakeup call. Her recent disenchantment of the poppet Thetis under Lake Saint Clair had been another instance. By now she knew how to live and move under the waves. She simply had to embrace it to a far greater extent than before.
Embrace it she did. Soon enough she was ready to go. The gamer in her wryly imagined it as raising her water breathing power up to the next level in its perk tree. To test it, Calypso filled her kitchen sink with water, and motioned for January to try it out. She shook her head. In the movies or on TV she would have jumped into the ocean. But in the real world, one did not need to be so dramatic.
So January stuck her face in the sink. It was not very exciting. But it did get to the point. With her face under the water she opened her eyes and called upon her magic. She felt the power rise up within her, and suddenly she was no longer holding her breath. Instead her magic automatically supplied her with that breath, in place of the world outside. It was so easy, January could not believe it. She had been dreading having to suck in a lungful of water, and risk doing the whole drowning thing. But that did not happen at all. It was like she had been born underwater. She just lived there.
She smiled, and raised one hand to give a thumbs up.
"Congratulations sister, you passed," she heard Calypso say above her.
"This is dope!" January crowed when she finally did pull her head up and take in a breath of normal air. "I feel like I just leveled up."
Calypso congratulated her. Then the aquanaut turned back to Hwarang, who still struggled to learn the spell. In the meantime January climbed up the companionway to the deck above, and took in their situation. There was not much to see. Well, there was a lot to see. The entire Atlantic Ocean spread out around them. In every direction it was simply wave after wave of endless blue.
But it was a monotonous, endless nothingness as well. There were no mountains, no trees, no hills, no valleys, no forests, no buildings, no nothing. It was flat, though not so completely as to be like a pane of glass. Millions of small waves rose and fell across the surface of the ocean. It was bumpy, as silly as that sounded, and constantly in motion. It was ever changing, like chaos given form.
But it was so empty, and so the same. There was just nothing there. It seemed to go on forever, like a vast azure desert. It made January feel like she could pick a direction and go, but never come to anything. Worse, she would not even know if she could travel in a straight line. She could fly in circles without even knowing it. One could become lost forever in this blue void, never to escape.
January knew that she was being melodramatic. People had sailed the oceans for thousands of years. People had lived on them, and thrived on them. All life had originated within them. It was hardly the Abyss. But while her logical, rational brain told her these things, that base, reptilian ancestry of hers warned her to beware this strange and empty quarter of the world.
She was glad that Calypso was with them. Her sister knew how to navigate this eternal expanse. January would be lost at sea without her, literally!
January smiled in spite of herself. She was making puns at her own expense. That was a good sign.
Up here on deck she found that Mercury had taken the wheel. He stood with both hands upon the huge, round steering mechanism. He looked like a pirate from days of old, except of course that he lacked the big hat and parrot. Instead he possessed a suit of metal armor that encased him from head to toe. She noted that an MP3 player was now mounted within one arm of his suit, along with a wireless speaker. Its screen was lit up, and from it Crosby, Stills, and Nash were singing about how when you saw the Southern Cross for the first time, you understood why you went that way.
Silverlight sat on the deck ahead of him, between the main mast and the companionway that led down below. She had the parachute from Keep 19 in her hands, and bent her head down toward it. January felt a magical connection between the two. Clearly the wizard was using her powers to divine the place where the parachute had last touched these waters, nearly sixty years before.
Finally Ranger stood at the bow. With one hand held up to shade his eyes, the soldier was the classic image of an explorer scanning the horizon. He did seem to be quite at ease on the water. He certainly did not appear to share January's slight twinge of thalassophobia. So must not have been lying about his underwater accomplishments.
The sailboat itself moved fast, faster than an ordinary ship ought to. It practically leaped from the sea and darted across its surface. It shot like a missile, yet the wind did not whip against January's face, or threaten to hurl her off the stern. Instead it seemed to bend gracefully around the craft, and only a gentle breeze penetrated the bubble that appeared to invisibly protect the vessel.
That made January briefly wonder if her friendship with the Technocrat might have brought Calypso some perks. A meta-tech propulsion system would certainly account for the incredible speed of the boat. Perhaps it even folded spacetime like Heisen's own plane did? It also explained how Calypso had been able to meet them in the North Atlantic so quickly, given that she normally sailed the Caribbean.
Silverlight held up a hand. Mercury slowed the boat, and finally brought it to a halt. The Philadelphian shut the engine off, and turned to look around. January did the same. There was nothing that marked out this spot as any different from any other they had crossed. Yet the wizard looked quite assured.
"We are here," she declared.
The marble-skinned heroine rose to her feet, parachute still held in one hand. She nudged past January and descended back down into the cabin of the vessel. January followed. There she saw Hwarang's eyes light up, and he raced to the sink. The Korean-American thrust his head beneath the water that still filled it to the brim. As January had done earlier, he lifted a thumbs up to show his success.
"Now I wish I had the time to join in the lesson," Silverlight frowned. "So I will have to ask you for one of those nautilus shells Calypso."
"I thought you wished to astrally project?" The Bahamian said.
"That was before I knew you had a solution to our water situation," Silverlight explained. "Besides, this way I can bring the parachute with me."
Calypso handed the other magician one of her water talismans. Silverlight mimicked the others before and planted it against her forehead. In moments it sank clear through the white stone of her skin, and vanished from view.
"Ok, now it's my turn for show and tell." The moon wizard reached down to one wrist, and pulled off several of the small moonstones that circled the bracelet there. She handed one to each of them, and finally tossed a pair up to Mercury and Ranger above. January felt the magic within it the moment the jewel touched her gloved hand. Once again, it was clear that there was power within this device.
"These will allow me to telepathically communicate with you all," Silverlight explained. That is when January noted that while she had said it, the lunar mage's lips had not moved. Yet she heard the magician loud and clear nonetheless. "I can use this to form a mind link between us all. That will allow us to communicate without speaking, or being overheard by others."
"Neat, how do we do it?" January asked, directing her words as a thought, rather than speaking them out loud.
"I think you just did," Mercury noted.
"So does this mean you can read our minds?" January could feel Ranger's trepidation through his words. Once again, those words were not spoken out loud, but in her mind.
"You have to push your thoughts in order for them to be sensed by the others in the link," Silverlight explained. "As for me, I can always read people's minds, so long as I am in contact with them. Don't worry, I'm not going to! I learned a long time ago to leave people's private thoughts to themselves. Aside from the ethical issues, I don't want to know those things. Believe me, telepathy is not as fun as some people might imagine it to be."
Calypso took a moment and slung a curious belt around her waist. It was a simple cord, but with a belt pouch that was made of netting, rather than solid material. Within this she stuffed several handfuls of her water breathing nautilus shells. Once satisfied she tied it shut and let it hang down one hip.
"Just in case," she smiled.
"Right then. Autobots, roll out!" January thought in an overly dramatic tone. The joke had really slapped for Gadget during the Battle of Belle Isle. But the others just stared at her blankly. Apparently they were not the most science fictionally inclined.
"Come on Optimus Crow," Mercury at least salvaged some of January's pride from the deck above. "Let's get this train a rolling."
With that they climbed back up on deck. Calypso did not drop the anchor. January imagined that would have been pointless as far out as they were. It would never reach the bottom. Instead she hove to. First she turned the boat to angle it against the wind, and then locked the rudder in place. Finally she leaped to the mast and unfurled the sails. She set these to oppose the rudder. With each canceling out the other's motions, the boat barely drifted at all upon the waves.
The rest of them just stayed out of the sailor's way. Once she was finished, Calypso went back to the cockpit and opened a little secret panel in front of the steering wheel. This revealed a suite of electronic controls. January noted commands for things like changing the boat's name, color, and the like. Ideal options for a cape who wanted to keep her identity a secret. She could already see that the selection to obfuscate the name of the craft had been engaged. That explained why January had not seen it when they had approached in the helicopter.
The Bahamian skipped over these, and went for the more interesting things, such as one called stealth mode, and another that activated passive defenses. January was not sure exactly what those did, but they sure sounded like good ideas, given the circumstances.
"This will prevent us from being seen on radar, and discourage unwelcome guests from boarding the boat." Calypso explained.
Afterward she went back to the main mast. Here she ran up a red flag that had a diagonal white stripe across it. She secured this dive flag to the uppermost reaches of the spar, where it would be most readily seen from afar.
Finally she walked to one side of the boat, and unfastened one of the cords that ran from post to post along one stretch of the of the hull to create a safety rail. Once free, that left a clear path to the waves just a few feet away. She motioned for the others to follow, and then walked straight into the ocean. She pulled her arms flat against her body and held her legs stiff as a board. That drove her straight down through the water like a nail, and left only a few shallow waves behind her in passing.
Mercury took the easier way out. He stepped to the rear of the cockpit, behind the steering wheel. He leaned down and lifted up the seat. It flipped over on hinges and fell back to the stern. That created a small stairway that led down to a ledge right above the water line. January could see that this was for divers and swimmers to climb back on board. Here he stepped off, and sank down with a great splash of water.
January leaped up and over the gunwale and railing using pure knee power. She could not resist putting a somersault on it while in the air. Then she came down head-first, arms stretched out before her in a perfect dive. She knifed through the waves an instant later, and the sky vanished behind her.
The first thing she noticed was the salt. The taste of it assaulted her lips, and made her want to spit. That brought looks of amusement from some of the others. Being from the east coast, she imagined they might be accustomed to swimming in the ocean. But for January, it was her first time in a natural body of water other than the Great Lakes. It was quite a difference from the fresh water she was accustomed to.
She sank down below the waves and created her wings, which she fused with her arms. She imagined herself as less of a bird, and more of a manta ray now. Like such a ray, she used her wings in gentle undulations that swept the water aside, and pushed her ever forward. She was still flying, but through the water rather than the sky.
January glanced back to see Hwarang and Ranger just behind her. Calypso beckoned them forward, and all six of the heroes clustered around the aquanaut. She held out her staff Bagua, and the water answered its call. It seemed to turn around them in something like whirlwind. But it did not spin them around. They remained stationary in the eye of the vortex. Instead it appeared to create a sort of tunnel within the liquid. They were propelled down through it at a tremendous speed. It was like an express elevator that moved far, far faster than any normal liquid should flow.
Calypso's boat is indeed a cozy little home for one or two. That is what she uses it for. Not the ideal headquarters for a super team however!
I am glad the suppository joke slapped. That just came to me as I was writing it. It was natural, so I kept it in. It is a nice bit of lightness in what are otherwise deadly serious events.
In many ways Stormcrow's fic is a progression fantasy. Characters learn new abilities and improve their existing ones as the stories go on. So January wanting to take this opportunity to raise her Water Breathing power to the next rank was only natural. Plus it gave me an opportunity to show someone learning a spell.
As ever, thank you for spotting that nit.
Renee: "Ope!" is a very Midwestern thing. I don't say it as much as a lot of others around here. But that is because I was a big fan of the Simpsons in the 90s, and instead I learned to say "Doh!", like Homer instead. I do try to work it in to show January's Midwestern roots, like her using the term "Pop" instead of "Soda", etc...
Eventually I plan to work White Fell from the Sentinels into a future storyline. She's a native Minnesotan. So she will not just have "Ope!" but "Oh Jeez!" and "Jeez oh Pete!" in her dialogue.
If the military knew where the bombs were, they would have found a way to recover them. No one wants to leave nuclear weapons laying around.
I did give some thought to what the heroes will do if they recover the bombs. But in the end I kept it simple.
January created all of her abilities. Her wings, her invulnerability, her strength, etc... That is what magicians do. They create change in accordance with their will.
Billy Joel - Downeaster Alexa
Crosby, Stills, and Nash - Southern Cross
Book 12.26 - Broken Arrow
Silverlight, Ranger, and Mercury went up on deck. Soon enough, January heard music wafting down from above. It was Billy Joel singing something about trolling Atlantis in his Downeaster Alexa. She could not deny the appropriateness of the music, and wondered which of her three new friends was responsible for the choice. A moment later she heard the motor of the boat start, and felt the vessel take off.
With the nautical-based theme music in the background, January and Hwarang set about learning Calypso's water breathing magic. Given that she was upgrading an existing spell, rather than starting from scratch, it was a little easier for her than it was for Hwarang. She found herself feeling sorry for the Korean-American hero. He seemed to have little exposure to magical theory at all. Also like January, it appeared that the other hero had been using magic for much of his life, in his case to hone himself into an arcane archer. He just had not understood that it was magic that he had been using until recently.
For her own part, January found that the magic came quickly to her. Magic always did when she could focus it through the metaphor of elementalism. Thanks to a lifetime of role-playing games and fantasy fiction, the very idea of elemental magic was second nature to her. So that always sang to her most clearly from across astral space. Given that this called strongly upon Air, well, that just made it even simpler. Of all the five elements, she was on the best terms with that one. She was a crow after all, the sky was her home.
So invoking Air to provide her lungs with breathable air was relatively simple. It was the added wrinkles of learning to prevent it from forming nitrogen bubbles in her blood stream that was harder. But it was not impossible. It was just a new thing to learn.
It was more difficult to learn to resist the crushing weight of the thousands of pounds of water that would soon press down upon her. But this too, was just a matter of invoking another element, that of Water. She already had experience with this element, and what it symbolized. It was a staple of her fighting. After all, Bruce Lee had said: "Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend." That was advice to be flexible, to adapt to changing situations, to flow with the tides, and learn to turn them to crash against your foes. This was simply taking things far more literally.
She had of course, directly worked with Water as well, rather than just symbolically. More than once now she had spent time in the cape underwater. Her aquatic battle against the oniare at Gull Island had been a huge wakeup call. Her recent disenchantment of the poppet Thetis under Lake Saint Clair had been another instance. By now she knew how to live and move under the waves. She simply had to embrace it to a far greater extent than before.
Embrace it she did. Soon enough she was ready to go. The gamer in her wryly imagined it as raising her water breathing power up to the next level in its perk tree. To test it, Calypso filled her kitchen sink with water, and motioned for January to try it out. She shook her head. In the movies or on TV she would have jumped into the ocean. But in the real world, one did not need to be so dramatic.
So January stuck her face in the sink. It was not very exciting. But it did get to the point. With her face under the water she opened her eyes and called upon her magic. She felt the power rise up within her, and suddenly she was no longer holding her breath. Instead her magic automatically supplied her with that breath, in place of the world outside. It was so easy, January could not believe it. She had been dreading having to suck in a lungful of water, and risk doing the whole drowning thing. But that did not happen at all. It was like she had been born underwater. She just lived there.
She smiled, and raised one hand to give a thumbs up.
"Congratulations sister, you passed," she heard Calypso say above her.
"This is dope!" January crowed when she finally did pull her head up and take in a breath of normal air. "I feel like I just leveled up."
Calypso congratulated her. Then the aquanaut turned back to Hwarang, who still struggled to learn the spell. In the meantime January climbed up the companionway to the deck above, and took in their situation. There was not much to see. Well, there was a lot to see. The entire Atlantic Ocean spread out around them. In every direction it was simply wave after wave of endless blue.
But it was a monotonous, endless nothingness as well. There were no mountains, no trees, no hills, no valleys, no forests, no buildings, no nothing. It was flat, though not so completely as to be like a pane of glass. Millions of small waves rose and fell across the surface of the ocean. It was bumpy, as silly as that sounded, and constantly in motion. It was ever changing, like chaos given form.
But it was so empty, and so the same. There was just nothing there. It seemed to go on forever, like a vast azure desert. It made January feel like she could pick a direction and go, but never come to anything. Worse, she would not even know if she could travel in a straight line. She could fly in circles without even knowing it. One could become lost forever in this blue void, never to escape.
January knew that she was being melodramatic. People had sailed the oceans for thousands of years. People had lived on them, and thrived on them. All life had originated within them. It was hardly the Abyss. But while her logical, rational brain told her these things, that base, reptilian ancestry of hers warned her to beware this strange and empty quarter of the world.
She was glad that Calypso was with them. Her sister knew how to navigate this eternal expanse. January would be lost at sea without her, literally!
January smiled in spite of herself. She was making puns at her own expense. That was a good sign.
Up here on deck she found that Mercury had taken the wheel. He stood with both hands upon the huge, round steering mechanism. He looked like a pirate from days of old, except of course that he lacked the big hat and parrot. Instead he possessed a suit of metal armor that encased him from head to toe. She noted that an MP3 player was now mounted within one arm of his suit, along with a wireless speaker. Its screen was lit up, and from it Crosby, Stills, and Nash were singing about how when you saw the Southern Cross for the first time, you understood why you went that way.
Silverlight sat on the deck ahead of him, between the main mast and the companionway that led down below. She had the parachute from Keep 19 in her hands, and bent her head down toward it. January felt a magical connection between the two. Clearly the wizard was using her powers to divine the place where the parachute had last touched these waters, nearly sixty years before.
Finally Ranger stood at the bow. With one hand held up to shade his eyes, the soldier was the classic image of an explorer scanning the horizon. He did seem to be quite at ease on the water. He certainly did not appear to share January's slight twinge of thalassophobia. So must not have been lying about his underwater accomplishments.
The sailboat itself moved fast, faster than an ordinary ship ought to. It practically leaped from the sea and darted across its surface. It shot like a missile, yet the wind did not whip against January's face, or threaten to hurl her off the stern. Instead it seemed to bend gracefully around the craft, and only a gentle breeze penetrated the bubble that appeared to invisibly protect the vessel.
That made January briefly wonder if her friendship with the Technocrat might have brought Calypso some perks. A meta-tech propulsion system would certainly account for the incredible speed of the boat. Perhaps it even folded spacetime like Heisen's own plane did? It also explained how Calypso had been able to meet them in the North Atlantic so quickly, given that she normally sailed the Caribbean.
Silverlight held up a hand. Mercury slowed the boat, and finally brought it to a halt. The Philadelphian shut the engine off, and turned to look around. January did the same. There was nothing that marked out this spot as any different from any other they had crossed. Yet the wizard looked quite assured.
"We are here," she declared.
The marble-skinned heroine rose to her feet, parachute still held in one hand. She nudged past January and descended back down into the cabin of the vessel. January followed. There she saw Hwarang's eyes light up, and he raced to the sink. The Korean-American thrust his head beneath the water that still filled it to the brim. As January had done earlier, he lifted a thumbs up to show his success.
"Now I wish I had the time to join in the lesson," Silverlight frowned. "So I will have to ask you for one of those nautilus shells Calypso."
"I thought you wished to astrally project?" The Bahamian said.
"That was before I knew you had a solution to our water situation," Silverlight explained. "Besides, this way I can bring the parachute with me."
Calypso handed the other magician one of her water talismans. Silverlight mimicked the others before and planted it against her forehead. In moments it sank clear through the white stone of her skin, and vanished from view.
"Ok, now it's my turn for show and tell." The moon wizard reached down to one wrist, and pulled off several of the small moonstones that circled the bracelet there. She handed one to each of them, and finally tossed a pair up to Mercury and Ranger above. January felt the magic within it the moment the jewel touched her gloved hand. Once again, it was clear that there was power within this device.
"These will allow me to telepathically communicate with you all," Silverlight explained. That is when January noted that while she had said it, the lunar mage's lips had not moved. Yet she heard the magician loud and clear nonetheless. "I can use this to form a mind link between us all. That will allow us to communicate without speaking, or being overheard by others."
"Neat, how do we do it?" January asked, directing her words as a thought, rather than speaking them out loud.
"I think you just did," Mercury noted.
"So does this mean you can read our minds?" January could feel Ranger's trepidation through his words. Once again, those words were not spoken out loud, but in her mind.
"You have to push your thoughts in order for them to be sensed by the others in the link," Silverlight explained. "As for me, I can always read people's minds, so long as I am in contact with them. Don't worry, I'm not going to! I learned a long time ago to leave people's private thoughts to themselves. Aside from the ethical issues, I don't want to know those things. Believe me, telepathy is not as fun as some people might imagine it to be."
Calypso took a moment and slung a curious belt around her waist. It was a simple cord, but with a belt pouch that was made of netting, rather than solid material. Within this she stuffed several handfuls of her water breathing nautilus shells. Once satisfied she tied it shut and let it hang down one hip.
"Just in case," she smiled.
"Right then. Autobots, roll out!" January thought in an overly dramatic tone. The joke had really slapped for Gadget during the Battle of Belle Isle. But the others just stared at her blankly. Apparently they were not the most science fictionally inclined.
"Come on Optimus Crow," Mercury at least salvaged some of January's pride from the deck above. "Let's get this train a rolling."
With that they climbed back up on deck. Calypso did not drop the anchor. January imagined that would have been pointless as far out as they were. It would never reach the bottom. Instead she hove to. First she turned the boat to angle it against the wind, and then locked the rudder in place. Finally she leaped to the mast and unfurled the sails. She set these to oppose the rudder. With each canceling out the other's motions, the boat barely drifted at all upon the waves.
The rest of them just stayed out of the sailor's way. Once she was finished, Calypso went back to the cockpit and opened a little secret panel in front of the steering wheel. This revealed a suite of electronic controls. January noted commands for things like changing the boat's name, color, and the like. Ideal options for a cape who wanted to keep her identity a secret. She could already see that the selection to obfuscate the name of the craft had been engaged. That explained why January had not seen it when they had approached in the helicopter.
The Bahamian skipped over these, and went for the more interesting things, such as one called stealth mode, and another that activated passive defenses. January was not sure exactly what those did, but they sure sounded like good ideas, given the circumstances.
"This will prevent us from being seen on radar, and discourage unwelcome guests from boarding the boat." Calypso explained.
Afterward she went back to the main mast. Here she ran up a red flag that had a diagonal white stripe across it. She secured this dive flag to the uppermost reaches of the spar, where it would be most readily seen from afar.
Finally she walked to one side of the boat, and unfastened one of the cords that ran from post to post along one stretch of the of the hull to create a safety rail. Once free, that left a clear path to the waves just a few feet away. She motioned for the others to follow, and then walked straight into the ocean. She pulled her arms flat against her body and held her legs stiff as a board. That drove her straight down through the water like a nail, and left only a few shallow waves behind her in passing.
Mercury took the easier way out. He stepped to the rear of the cockpit, behind the steering wheel. He leaned down and lifted up the seat. It flipped over on hinges and fell back to the stern. That created a small stairway that led down to a ledge right above the water line. January could see that this was for divers and swimmers to climb back on board. Here he stepped off, and sank down with a great splash of water.
January leaped up and over the gunwale and railing using pure knee power. She could not resist putting a somersault on it while in the air. Then she came down head-first, arms stretched out before her in a perfect dive. She knifed through the waves an instant later, and the sky vanished behind her.
The first thing she noticed was the salt. The taste of it assaulted her lips, and made her want to spit. That brought looks of amusement from some of the others. Being from the east coast, she imagined they might be accustomed to swimming in the ocean. But for January, it was her first time in a natural body of water other than the Great Lakes. It was quite a difference from the fresh water she was accustomed to.
She sank down below the waves and created her wings, which she fused with her arms. She imagined herself as less of a bird, and more of a manta ray now. Like such a ray, she used her wings in gentle undulations that swept the water aside, and pushed her ever forward. She was still flying, but through the water rather than the sky.
January glanced back to see Hwarang and Ranger just behind her. Calypso beckoned them forward, and all six of the heroes clustered around the aquanaut. She held out her staff Bagua, and the water answered its call. It seemed to turn around them in something like whirlwind. But it did not spin them around. They remained stationary in the eye of the vortex. Instead it appeared to create a sort of tunnel within the liquid. They were propelled down through it at a tremendous speed. It was like an express elevator that moved far, far faster than any normal liquid should flow.
This episode just shines with creativity as Jan refines her abilities to breathe underwater, call upon water to spare her some of its pressure at depths, and use her wings to fly underwater at a manta ray does. I’m not surprised that Jan’s path is pretty self-sufficient here, relying on her magic. Nice that Calypso provided for those less magically inclined. And Silverlight’s mind link for comms will doubtless prove invaluable.
No surprise that Jan is most comfortable with the element of air. You mentioned there are five elements that comprise her elemental magic. Fire, water, air, earth, and spirit?
Optimus Crow indeed.
I was thinking they really needed to leave someone on the boat but it looks like Calypso’s craft is more capable and autonomous than it seems.
Nit: ’Of all the five elements, she {w}as on best terms with that one.’
No surprise that Jan is most comfortable with the element of air. You mentioned there are five elements that comprise her elemental magic. Fire, water, air, earth, and spirit?
Optimus Crow indeed.
I was thinking they really needed to leave someone on the boat but it looks like Calypso’s craft is more capable and autonomous than it seems.
Nit: ’Of all the five elements, she {w}as on best terms with that one.’
Yeah, they say pop in Oregon, too. They also say 'sack' instead of bag. First time I heard "would you like a sack with that?" I had a hard time keeping my face straight!
I'll take a guess that Silverlight = Billy Joel song. Hmm... no, maybe Mercury. He's an older guy from the sound of it.
Thanks to a lifetime of role-playing games and fantasy fiction, the very idea of elemental magic was second nature to her.
If only it were this easy! We'd all be able to see through walls or fly or whatever. 🪄Interesting though that all these additional factors must be considered, to dive deep like Stockton. Not just breathing underwater, but also the crush of all that water and a good balance of elemental gases must be factored into this spell they're literally creating (or upgrading) on the spot. Are we sure they don't want to practice in a pool first?
Hwrang is still struggling, yikes.
Does he absolutely need to go with them? --- Just... take a seat, buddy ?
It was bumpy, as silly as that sounded, and constantly in motion. It was ever changing, like chaos given form.
I love that, the way that is written. Indeed, water is visible chaos in a way. The potential for chaos, really, and we can view it at any time. Unlike earth-chaos (happens too slowly, or not very often in the case of quakes or landslides) or air chaos. We generally can't see air unless some other element (water vapor or snow, for instance) is being carried along. Or earth, such as a dust storm. 🌪
Appropriate that CSN is being played; Crosby is (or was?) a huge sailor back in the day.
thalassophobia.... what the heck? ... Thalassophobia (from Ancient Greek θάλασσα (thálassa) 'sea', and φόβος (phóbos) 'fear')[1] is the persistent and intense fear of deep bodies of water, such as the ocean, seas, or lakes.
Hah, I probably have that, along with acrophobia, and whatever 'fear of centipedes' translates to. Oddly, I'm not afraid or grossed-out by spiders. 🕷
They're reading each others' minds. See, this is where I believe all this technology with communication is ultimately gonna lead with us humans: phones to cellphones to smartphones (communication becomes faster, but also more personal) to Bluetooth to eventual freaking brain implants. It's all so we can communicate without needing to actually speak, or even be in the same room as some else. Except... Jan and the others on this boat can do this without all the historical devices; the way spirits are supposed to communicate in the afterworld. Well.... Silverlight did just use a 'device'. But it's magic. 
That ain't the same!
Sounds like 'Autobots, roll out' being said by Gen Y translates like "groovy" or "dig it" when boomers were in their youth. I.E., with deadpan faces or scratched heads.
Whoa, she can disguise the boat. That'll come in handy. Interesting you considered such a detail, Florens. Indeed. It's not like you can just call 911 way in the middle of nowhere.
Yeesh, looks like this new breathing spell didn't consider the taste of salt!
I'll take a guess that Silverlight = Billy Joel song. Hmm... no, maybe Mercury. He's an older guy from the sound of it.
Thanks to a lifetime of role-playing games and fantasy fiction, the very idea of elemental magic was second nature to her.
If only it were this easy! We'd all be able to see through walls or fly or whatever. 🪄Interesting though that all these additional factors must be considered, to dive deep like Stockton. Not just breathing underwater, but also the crush of all that water and a good balance of elemental gases must be factored into this spell they're literally creating (or upgrading) on the spot. Are we sure they don't want to practice in a pool first?
Hwrang is still struggling, yikes.
Does he absolutely need to go with them? --- Just... take a seat, buddy ? It was bumpy, as silly as that sounded, and constantly in motion. It was ever changing, like chaos given form.
I love that, the way that is written. Indeed, water is visible chaos in a way. The potential for chaos, really, and we can view it at any time. Unlike earth-chaos (happens too slowly, or not very often in the case of quakes or landslides) or air chaos. We generally can't see air unless some other element (water vapor or snow, for instance) is being carried along. Or earth, such as a dust storm. 🌪
Appropriate that CSN is being played; Crosby is (or was?) a huge sailor back in the day.
thalassophobia.... what the heck? ... Thalassophobia (from Ancient Greek θάλασσα (thálassa) 'sea', and φόβος (phóbos) 'fear')[1] is the persistent and intense fear of deep bodies of water, such as the ocean, seas, or lakes.
Hah, I probably have that, along with acrophobia, and whatever 'fear of centipedes' translates to. Oddly, I'm not afraid or grossed-out by spiders. 🕷
They're reading each others' minds. See, this is where I believe all this technology with communication is ultimately gonna lead with us humans: phones to cellphones to smartphones (communication becomes faster, but also more personal) to Bluetooth to eventual freaking brain implants.
It's all so we can communicate without needing to actually speak, or even be in the same room as some else. Except... Jan and the others on this boat can do this without all the historical devices; the way spirits are supposed to communicate in the afterworld. Well.... Silverlight did just use a 'device'. But it's magic. That ain't the same! Sounds like 'Autobots, roll out' being said by Gen Y translates like "groovy" or "dig it" when boomers were in their youth. I.E., with deadpan faces or scratched heads.
Whoa, she can disguise the boat. That'll come in handy. Interesting you considered such a detail, Florens. Indeed. It's not like you can just call 911 way in the middle of nowhere.
Yeesh, looks like this new breathing spell didn't consider the taste of salt!
Acadian: That was a nice interlude for January to flex her wings and take the moment to sharpen her abilities to adapt to the upcoming challenge of descending into the deep. I liked writing it because it gave another opportunity to show how magic works, and how individual's interact with it.
Jan's Elements are the classic five: Air, Earth, Fire, Water, and Spirit. Though that is not to say those are the official ones for the world. There are as many or few as each individual magician believes there are. It all depends on how you look at it.
I suppose if January was a Transformer she would turn into a Chevy Bolt, or maybe a Lightning GT.
That would have been an excellent opportunity for Calypso to have a sidekick . Or even a pet like Viuda's tarantula Toby. Sadly I never had the opportunity to get that deep into her development. Silverlight OTOH does have someone whom we will eventually meet - her contact in the Pentagon.
Renee: I made a playlist of sailing songs to listen to while I wrote the underwater scenes in this story, to help get me in the mood. Things like Downeaster Alexa, Orinoco Flow, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, Sloop John B, that sort of thing. I am listening to it right now.
Silverlight's Mind Link is a pretty standard power for Telepaths. It is basically just a psychic radio that a team can all use to communicate with.
Autobots, Roll Out! is sort of the catch phrase for the Transformers. Their leader Optimus Prime says when they go into action.
Calypso needs to have a way to disguise her boat, otherwise anyone will be able to look up the name, flag of origin, serial numbers, etc... and find out her secret identity. Otherwise it would be the same as a super driving into action with the license plates visible on their car.
Calypso's Theme Music = Elton John - The Circle of Life
Hudson Canyon can be found on the Stormcrow Map
Continental Shelf/Slope Transition
Six-Gill Shark
Hagfish
Book 12.27 - Broken Arrow
While the ocean had seemed featureless from above, down here it was something different. On one hand, yes, the water disappeared into a blue haze in all directions. But that haze was not empty. She saw fish of various kinds suspended within this liquid world all around. She could not come close to identifying any of them. She just knew that there were big ones and small ones, fat ones and sleek ones. It was like a different planet from the one she lived upon.
Soon the soft blue all around faded to deep velvet, and they passed into a realm of eternal twilight. Here the normally bright rays of the sun were nothing but a pale glimmer overhead. The distance at which everything turned to an indistinguishable haze closed in sharply now, and narrowed the world to a small space around the heroes.
Yet if anything January noted there was more life around them than before, and in ever stranger shapes. There was a little squid that swam so that one big, bulbous yellow eye eternally pointed up, and another, far smaller black eye on the other side of its body faced ever down. There was a jellyfish that looked almost like a transparent traffic cone. There were fish of all sizes and shapes, and even more types of squid, and octopi, and others.
Twilight soon melted into total blackness. Well, it would have, were it not for Silverlight. The lunar stone of her staff Mene's headpiece gave off a continuous glow. Like the moon in a night sky, it was a literal light shining through the darkness. This created a zone of illumination around the heroes. After a moment Calypso waved one hand through the water around her, and a second glow of light sprang up around them. Beyond these twin beacons, the world simply vanished into inky darkness.
January stretched out into the astral with her senses, and immediately this seemingly empty void was filled with life. She did not bother to close her eyes, as she often did when astrally sensing. There was little her meat eyes could do to distract her magical senses here. Beyond her immediate group of allies, the marine world was lit by the warm glow of both magic and life. The latter came in all shapes and sizes. Some floated aimlessly in the water, others darted to and fro with seeming purpose.
Through it all January began to detect a faint rain of particles that slowly fell down alongside them. To her meat eyes it looked like snow. To her astral senses it was clearly something biological. In fact, it was a lot of something biological. But it was not alive. In the magical realm she could sense that it was tiny bits and pieces from many, many beings. It reminded January of some sort of detritus, like nail clippings, or flaked-off skin.
"Marine snow," Calypso's telepathically projected voice rang through her skull. "That is what it is called. It is tiny bits of organic material that falls down from the upper levels of the ocean. Scales, droppings, mucus, bits of flesh from dead fish, and so on. Everything above us eventually falls down here, and becomes one of the primary fuels for life in the deep."
January turned that over in her head. It was bits of dead fish and marine mammals that were falling down around her. But then again, it was not like fish had cemeteries. When something in the ocean died it was naturally going to end up one place: the bottom.
So far her water breathing spell was holding up fine. She was now thankful that she was not straining oxygen from the water with gills like a regular fish did. Then she would be breathing in all that second-hand fish snot. Instead the element of Air itself filled her lungs and bloodstream with life-giving oxygen.
Still, she was reminded of an old quote by Joseph Campbell. "Life lives on life. This is the sense of the symbol of the Ouroboros, the serpent biting its tail. Everything that lives lives on the death of something else."
Or as Elton John might say, it was the circle of life.
"What is that?" Mercury's voice came through the mental link loud and clear, with an unmistakable note of trepidation.
January snapped her awareness around, even as Calypso slowed their descent to a halt. That gave them all a chance to see what the Philadelphian meant. It was a gigantic fish, well over twenty feet long. It could only be a shark, given its distinctive shape. But it was odd. Its dorsal fin was practically non-existent, and pushed far back along its body. Its pectoral fins were likewise smaller than normal, and its head possessed a blunt shape.
It came near enough that January could see its face with her meat eyes now. She was immediately struck by its gaze. All of the sharks January had ever seen in pictures had black eyes. Like a doll's eyes some might say. But these looked all-too human, with slightly iridescent pupils that were set within a wider white sclera. It was like a person looked back at her, rather than an animal.
"Hexanchus griseus!" Calypso exclaimed. "A sixgill shark. We are lucky indeed, to meet this fellow. They are very rare. I wish we had more time. I would love to swim with him and film him. I have not seen one this far north in the Atlantic before."
"Yeah but is it going to try to eat us?" Mercury said what January was thinking. She had seen the movie Jaws. She knew that it was fiction, and that not all sharks acted like the one in that movie. Actually that no sharks acted like the one in that movie, given that it ate ships. But that cold, rational portion of her mind was fighting with the reptilian part that was screaming at her to start punching.
"Nah, trust me bro, we taste like old jock straps to sharks." Ranger assured the other man. "I've swum with them plenty of times. They don't want none of this..."
"Speak for yourself!" Mercury laughed. "I assure you, I am highly desired! Just usually not by fish..."
"It is probably just curious because of the light," Calypso noted. "As long as it does not think we are competition for food, we are fine. Besides, it will not be able to keep up with us."
With that, Calypso whirled her staff around, and the team once more swept down into the depths. As the aquanaut had said, they left the shark far, far behind them as they continued ever to the bottom. At least January imagined that was where they were headed. She had no real way to orient herself in the utter darkness. They could have been going up, and she would not have known it.
As she had expected, the pressure began to mount as they descended. It started as a gentle touch all around her. Then it slowly turned into a tighter and tighter squeeze. But the spell Calypso had taught her adjusted as they went deeper, and countered it all the while. January could feel the water pressing in, and felt the magic pressing back. That kept her mostly in equilibrium, mostly. But the reality of the crushing weight of the water above her was ever present in her mind.
The same was true of the cold. January was keenly aware of the chill that seeped into her bones from the water around her. But whether it was due to the spell Calypso had taught her, or her own natural invulnerabilities, it did not really bother January either. Rather it merely felt like a crisp spring morning.
This might have seemed like a simple sight-seeing trip so far. But there was no mistaking the fact that this was the most dangerous journey January had ever taken. In some ways it was even more deadly than the Abyss itself. That world—as alien and inimical to life as it had been—had not tried to crush her into a fine mist and choke the life from her lungs.
Then something did come into view. It was the bottom. January could sense it beneath them through the astral. In a way it reminded her of a grassy hillside. But in this case it was not plant life that she sensed embedded within and overlaying the crust of the earth below. Rather it was a plethora of that marine detritus that snowed down from above. Along with it were numerous small animals, such as sea cucumbers, urchins, lobsters, crabs, and the like.
From this blanket of life and organic matter, she was able to make out that they stood upon the edge of an underwater ridge or escarpment. Behind them the land was relatively flat. But before them it sloped down sharply to some lower depth, as of yet unplumbed and unseen. January hoped there were no shoggoths down there. Now she regretted reading all those Lovecraft stories when she was younger...
"We are at the edge of the continental shelf," Calypso explained. "It is the relatively shallow water that rings the continents. During the last Ice Age much of this would have been above sea level. Before us is the continental slope. It angles down to the true depths below."
The ridge went off as far as she could sense to her left. But when she looked to her right, January saw that the continual slope and shelf alike were rent open by a wide, jagged slash. It was like some giant had split it open with a massive, celestial axe. It was so wide that January could not sense the far wall of this deep crevasse. She could only sense the void it created in the slope around her. It was like they hung at the edge of the Grand Canyon.
"Welcome to Hudson Canyon," Calypso declared. She moved her staff about, and the team of heroes swept off to the side. For a moment they hung suspended over the black waters of the canyon. The then they plunged straight down into the ravine. "This is a deep notch cut by the flow of the Hudson River. We are near the lower end, meaning here it is over half a mile wide."
"It feels like a different planet down here." Hwarang gave voice to what January felt. She wondered if Janos Heisen had felt the same when he had descended into the atmosphere of Jupiter.
"Which way Silverlight," Calypso turned to their eldest sister present, who still clutched the old parachute to her breast.
"That way," Silverlight pointed one marble hand out, toward the deeper water beyond the open maw of the canyon. "Somewhere down there."
"Are we close?" Mercury wondered as they swept down the canyon walls, and plunged deeper into the abyss.
"I cannot tell," Silverlight shook her head. "It's confusing now... It wants to pull me in more than one direction."
"So you mean you aren't sure which way to go?" The exasperation was clear in Ranger's psychic voice. "Has that ever happened before?"
"I don't know," Silverlight said. "I've never done this before."
"You've never done this before!" Now it was Hwarang's turn to voice consternation. "You could be leading us on a wild goose chase down here!"
"She will lead us to the wreckage," January declared with certitude. "I know it. Just give her some time."
"It could be that the plane has broken up into multiple pieces," Calypso considered. "This often happens with ships. I sometimes find parts of them miles away from the main wreckage, and even that can often be broken in two or three separate sections."
"So Keep 19 might be spread all over the bottom here," Mercury managed to whistle in January's head. "Oy vey! This makes things... more interesting."
"We will have to go one at a time, until we rule them all out," Calypso insisted. "Just pick one bearing and follow it Silverlight. We shall see what we find, when we find it."
With that they continued on, until they finally hit the very bottom at the base of the canyon. It felt strange to feel land under her feet. Or at least underwater land, such as it was. Given that there was an entire ocean on top of her, January had the feeling that the world was somehow upside down. The land was supposed to be at the top of the water, not the bottom of it!
If not for the bits of marine snow suspended all around, January would have thought that she was standing in the desert. There was no plant life here at all. Instead it was a long sheet of what looked like dirt, mixed with tiny stones and a layer of silt. The muddy surface was not featureless however. It was an endless plain of tiny hills and pockmarks, ridges and troughs. It reminded January of the surface of the moon. Though unlike that heavenly body however, most of these features were only a few inches in height or depth either way down here.
They now trudged along the bottom, and their feet kicked up small clouds of silt in their wake. They came upon a cluster of long and slender life forms, and January could not help but to lower her astral senses for a moment and look at them with purely meat eyes. They were hagfish! She could not contain her delight at seeing the serpentine creatures, with their spiky-crowned heads. They writhed and swum about, and seemed to be picking away at the carcass of some long-dead sea animal.
"Look at them!" January exclaimed. "Aren't they beautiful?"
"They look kind of gross..." Ranger murmured.
"Yeah, what's so exciting about eels?" Mercury wondered.
"Those are hagfish, not eels," Calypso pointed out.
"My original armor was made from their snot!" January declared. "Gadget still uses it too, as the base layer for his powered armor."
She wanted to reach out to try to pet one. But even now the others were following Silverlight ever onward.
"Ewww!" Ranger's disgust was clear in his mental voice.
"That's just... nasty..." Mercury added.
"No, that is brilliant!" Calypso insisted. "Hagfish eject a cloud of mucus as a defense mechanism. It is filled with extremely strong and flexible fibers. I have read that the US Navy was experimenting with using it to coat the hulls of their ships in order to reduce drag."
"It is really, really good at fire defense too. It saved my life in the Flying Dutchman fire." January turned away from the hagfish, and hurried to catch up to the others. "It's handy for stopping bullets too."
Jan's Elements are the classic five: Air, Earth, Fire, Water, and Spirit. Though that is not to say those are the official ones for the world. There are as many or few as each individual magician believes there are. It all depends on how you look at it.
I suppose if January was a Transformer she would turn into a Chevy Bolt, or maybe a Lightning GT.
That would have been an excellent opportunity for Calypso to have a sidekick . Or even a pet like Viuda's tarantula Toby. Sadly I never had the opportunity to get that deep into her development. Silverlight OTOH does have someone whom we will eventually meet - her contact in the Pentagon.
Renee: I made a playlist of sailing songs to listen to while I wrote the underwater scenes in this story, to help get me in the mood. Things like Downeaster Alexa, Orinoco Flow, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, Sloop John B, that sort of thing. I am listening to it right now.
Silverlight's Mind Link is a pretty standard power for Telepaths. It is basically just a psychic radio that a team can all use to communicate with.
Autobots, Roll Out! is sort of the catch phrase for the Transformers. Their leader Optimus Prime says when they go into action.
Calypso needs to have a way to disguise her boat, otherwise anyone will be able to look up the name, flag of origin, serial numbers, etc... and find out her secret identity. Otherwise it would be the same as a super driving into action with the license plates visible on their car.
Calypso's Theme Music = Elton John - The Circle of Life
Hudson Canyon can be found on the Stormcrow Map
Continental Shelf/Slope Transition
Six-Gill Shark
Hagfish
Book 12.27 - Broken Arrow
While the ocean had seemed featureless from above, down here it was something different. On one hand, yes, the water disappeared into a blue haze in all directions. But that haze was not empty. She saw fish of various kinds suspended within this liquid world all around. She could not come close to identifying any of them. She just knew that there were big ones and small ones, fat ones and sleek ones. It was like a different planet from the one she lived upon.
Soon the soft blue all around faded to deep velvet, and they passed into a realm of eternal twilight. Here the normally bright rays of the sun were nothing but a pale glimmer overhead. The distance at which everything turned to an indistinguishable haze closed in sharply now, and narrowed the world to a small space around the heroes.
Yet if anything January noted there was more life around them than before, and in ever stranger shapes. There was a little squid that swam so that one big, bulbous yellow eye eternally pointed up, and another, far smaller black eye on the other side of its body faced ever down. There was a jellyfish that looked almost like a transparent traffic cone. There were fish of all sizes and shapes, and even more types of squid, and octopi, and others.
Twilight soon melted into total blackness. Well, it would have, were it not for Silverlight. The lunar stone of her staff Mene's headpiece gave off a continuous glow. Like the moon in a night sky, it was a literal light shining through the darkness. This created a zone of illumination around the heroes. After a moment Calypso waved one hand through the water around her, and a second glow of light sprang up around them. Beyond these twin beacons, the world simply vanished into inky darkness.
January stretched out into the astral with her senses, and immediately this seemingly empty void was filled with life. She did not bother to close her eyes, as she often did when astrally sensing. There was little her meat eyes could do to distract her magical senses here. Beyond her immediate group of allies, the marine world was lit by the warm glow of both magic and life. The latter came in all shapes and sizes. Some floated aimlessly in the water, others darted to and fro with seeming purpose.
Through it all January began to detect a faint rain of particles that slowly fell down alongside them. To her meat eyes it looked like snow. To her astral senses it was clearly something biological. In fact, it was a lot of something biological. But it was not alive. In the magical realm she could sense that it was tiny bits and pieces from many, many beings. It reminded January of some sort of detritus, like nail clippings, or flaked-off skin.
"Marine snow," Calypso's telepathically projected voice rang through her skull. "That is what it is called. It is tiny bits of organic material that falls down from the upper levels of the ocean. Scales, droppings, mucus, bits of flesh from dead fish, and so on. Everything above us eventually falls down here, and becomes one of the primary fuels for life in the deep."
January turned that over in her head. It was bits of dead fish and marine mammals that were falling down around her. But then again, it was not like fish had cemeteries. When something in the ocean died it was naturally going to end up one place: the bottom.
So far her water breathing spell was holding up fine. She was now thankful that she was not straining oxygen from the water with gills like a regular fish did. Then she would be breathing in all that second-hand fish snot. Instead the element of Air itself filled her lungs and bloodstream with life-giving oxygen.
Still, she was reminded of an old quote by Joseph Campbell. "Life lives on life. This is the sense of the symbol of the Ouroboros, the serpent biting its tail. Everything that lives lives on the death of something else."
Or as Elton John might say, it was the circle of life.
"What is that?" Mercury's voice came through the mental link loud and clear, with an unmistakable note of trepidation.
January snapped her awareness around, even as Calypso slowed their descent to a halt. That gave them all a chance to see what the Philadelphian meant. It was a gigantic fish, well over twenty feet long. It could only be a shark, given its distinctive shape. But it was odd. Its dorsal fin was practically non-existent, and pushed far back along its body. Its pectoral fins were likewise smaller than normal, and its head possessed a blunt shape.
It came near enough that January could see its face with her meat eyes now. She was immediately struck by its gaze. All of the sharks January had ever seen in pictures had black eyes. Like a doll's eyes some might say. But these looked all-too human, with slightly iridescent pupils that were set within a wider white sclera. It was like a person looked back at her, rather than an animal.
"Hexanchus griseus!" Calypso exclaimed. "A sixgill shark. We are lucky indeed, to meet this fellow. They are very rare. I wish we had more time. I would love to swim with him and film him. I have not seen one this far north in the Atlantic before."
"Yeah but is it going to try to eat us?" Mercury said what January was thinking. She had seen the movie Jaws. She knew that it was fiction, and that not all sharks acted like the one in that movie. Actually that no sharks acted like the one in that movie, given that it ate ships. But that cold, rational portion of her mind was fighting with the reptilian part that was screaming at her to start punching.
"Nah, trust me bro, we taste like old jock straps to sharks." Ranger assured the other man. "I've swum with them plenty of times. They don't want none of this..."
"Speak for yourself!" Mercury laughed. "I assure you, I am highly desired! Just usually not by fish..."
"It is probably just curious because of the light," Calypso noted. "As long as it does not think we are competition for food, we are fine. Besides, it will not be able to keep up with us."
With that, Calypso whirled her staff around, and the team once more swept down into the depths. As the aquanaut had said, they left the shark far, far behind them as they continued ever to the bottom. At least January imagined that was where they were headed. She had no real way to orient herself in the utter darkness. They could have been going up, and she would not have known it.
As she had expected, the pressure began to mount as they descended. It started as a gentle touch all around her. Then it slowly turned into a tighter and tighter squeeze. But the spell Calypso had taught her adjusted as they went deeper, and countered it all the while. January could feel the water pressing in, and felt the magic pressing back. That kept her mostly in equilibrium, mostly. But the reality of the crushing weight of the water above her was ever present in her mind.
The same was true of the cold. January was keenly aware of the chill that seeped into her bones from the water around her. But whether it was due to the spell Calypso had taught her, or her own natural invulnerabilities, it did not really bother January either. Rather it merely felt like a crisp spring morning.
This might have seemed like a simple sight-seeing trip so far. But there was no mistaking the fact that this was the most dangerous journey January had ever taken. In some ways it was even more deadly than the Abyss itself. That world—as alien and inimical to life as it had been—had not tried to crush her into a fine mist and choke the life from her lungs.
Then something did come into view. It was the bottom. January could sense it beneath them through the astral. In a way it reminded her of a grassy hillside. But in this case it was not plant life that she sensed embedded within and overlaying the crust of the earth below. Rather it was a plethora of that marine detritus that snowed down from above. Along with it were numerous small animals, such as sea cucumbers, urchins, lobsters, crabs, and the like.
From this blanket of life and organic matter, she was able to make out that they stood upon the edge of an underwater ridge or escarpment. Behind them the land was relatively flat. But before them it sloped down sharply to some lower depth, as of yet unplumbed and unseen. January hoped there were no shoggoths down there. Now she regretted reading all those Lovecraft stories when she was younger...
"We are at the edge of the continental shelf," Calypso explained. "It is the relatively shallow water that rings the continents. During the last Ice Age much of this would have been above sea level. Before us is the continental slope. It angles down to the true depths below."
The ridge went off as far as she could sense to her left. But when she looked to her right, January saw that the continual slope and shelf alike were rent open by a wide, jagged slash. It was like some giant had split it open with a massive, celestial axe. It was so wide that January could not sense the far wall of this deep crevasse. She could only sense the void it created in the slope around her. It was like they hung at the edge of the Grand Canyon.
"Welcome to Hudson Canyon," Calypso declared. She moved her staff about, and the team of heroes swept off to the side. For a moment they hung suspended over the black waters of the canyon. The then they plunged straight down into the ravine. "This is a deep notch cut by the flow of the Hudson River. We are near the lower end, meaning here it is over half a mile wide."
"It feels like a different planet down here." Hwarang gave voice to what January felt. She wondered if Janos Heisen had felt the same when he had descended into the atmosphere of Jupiter.
"Which way Silverlight," Calypso turned to their eldest sister present, who still clutched the old parachute to her breast.
"That way," Silverlight pointed one marble hand out, toward the deeper water beyond the open maw of the canyon. "Somewhere down there."
"Are we close?" Mercury wondered as they swept down the canyon walls, and plunged deeper into the abyss.
"I cannot tell," Silverlight shook her head. "It's confusing now... It wants to pull me in more than one direction."
"So you mean you aren't sure which way to go?" The exasperation was clear in Ranger's psychic voice. "Has that ever happened before?"
"I don't know," Silverlight said. "I've never done this before."
"You've never done this before!" Now it was Hwarang's turn to voice consternation. "You could be leading us on a wild goose chase down here!"
"She will lead us to the wreckage," January declared with certitude. "I know it. Just give her some time."
"It could be that the plane has broken up into multiple pieces," Calypso considered. "This often happens with ships. I sometimes find parts of them miles away from the main wreckage, and even that can often be broken in two or three separate sections."
"So Keep 19 might be spread all over the bottom here," Mercury managed to whistle in January's head. "Oy vey! This makes things... more interesting."
"We will have to go one at a time, until we rule them all out," Calypso insisted. "Just pick one bearing and follow it Silverlight. We shall see what we find, when we find it."
With that they continued on, until they finally hit the very bottom at the base of the canyon. It felt strange to feel land under her feet. Or at least underwater land, such as it was. Given that there was an entire ocean on top of her, January had the feeling that the world was somehow upside down. The land was supposed to be at the top of the water, not the bottom of it!
If not for the bits of marine snow suspended all around, January would have thought that she was standing in the desert. There was no plant life here at all. Instead it was a long sheet of what looked like dirt, mixed with tiny stones and a layer of silt. The muddy surface was not featureless however. It was an endless plain of tiny hills and pockmarks, ridges and troughs. It reminded January of the surface of the moon. Though unlike that heavenly body however, most of these features were only a few inches in height or depth either way down here.
They now trudged along the bottom, and their feet kicked up small clouds of silt in their wake. They came upon a cluster of long and slender life forms, and January could not help but to lower her astral senses for a moment and look at them with purely meat eyes. They were hagfish! She could not contain her delight at seeing the serpentine creatures, with their spiky-crowned heads. They writhed and swum about, and seemed to be picking away at the carcass of some long-dead sea animal.
"Look at them!" January exclaimed. "Aren't they beautiful?"
"They look kind of gross..." Ranger murmured.
"Yeah, what's so exciting about eels?" Mercury wondered.
"Those are hagfish, not eels," Calypso pointed out.
"My original armor was made from their snot!" January declared. "Gadget still uses it too, as the base layer for his powered armor."
She wanted to reach out to try to pet one. But even now the others were following Silverlight ever onward.
"Ewww!" Ranger's disgust was clear in his mental voice.
"That's just... nasty..." Mercury added.
"No, that is brilliant!" Calypso insisted. "Hagfish eject a cloud of mucus as a defense mechanism. It is filled with extremely strong and flexible fibers. I have read that the US Navy was experimenting with using it to coat the hulls of their ships in order to reduce drag."
"It is really, really good at fire defense too. It saved my life in the Flying Dutchman fire." January turned away from the hagfish, and hurried to catch up to the others. "It's handy for stopping bullets too."
What a fascinating journey to the ocean floor! You clearly did a bunch of research here and it seemed very real as the heroes made their way ever deeper. I hadn’t thought of the cold but I’m sure glad they had some provisions for that.
I also hadn’t considered that the B-52 likely came apart on impact and its pieces could indeed rest miles apart. This could be like looking for a pair of nuclear needles in a haystack. . . in the dark. Don't fail us now, Moon Witch!
I also hadn’t considered that the B-52 likely came apart on impact and its pieces could indeed rest miles apart. This could be like looking for a pair of nuclear needles in a haystack. . . in the dark. Don't fail us now, Moon Witch!
Wow that shark's really aggressive. That'd be so scary. One little crack in their spyglass or if that shark dislodged some crucial equipment....
I can't believe they're all going down into the depths. And then there's no natural light.
Pressure builds as they go deeper, yeesh. 🐟 I think I've watched every OceanGate video on YouTube over these past 11 months, so I know what's happening. Can't believe they're doing this; so freaky. Good thing their spells aren't substituting whatever the magical equivalent of carbon fiber is. "You are remembered for the rules you break!" Oh yeah buddy, you got that right.
What's a shoggoth? Whoooooa. Gotta start reading that Lovecraft book again.
Yeesh, the plane's all broken up. Indeed, the impact upon the surface would've torn it up. Still. Wonder if the bomb is even here! 💣
What a world.
I'd be so afraid a hagfish would start trying to leech off their legs or something. That's another thing we heard as kids (me & friends) about the Great Lakes. Catfish as big as cars, and giant eels, too.
I can't believe they're all going down into the depths. And then there's no natural light.
Pressure builds as they go deeper, yeesh. 🐟 I think I've watched every OceanGate video on YouTube over these past 11 months, so I know what's happening. Can't believe they're doing this; so freaky. Good thing their spells aren't substituting whatever the magical equivalent of carbon fiber is.
"You are remembered for the rules you break!" Oh yeah buddy, you got that right. What's a shoggoth? Whoooooa. Gotta start reading that Lovecraft book again.
Yeesh, the plane's all broken up. Indeed, the impact upon the surface would've torn it up. Still. Wonder if the bomb is even here! 💣
QUOTE
The land was supposed to be at the top of the water, not the bottom of it!
What a world.
I'd be so afraid a hagfish would start trying to leech off their legs or something. That's another thing we heard as kids (me & friends) about the Great Lakes. Catfish as big as cars, and giant eels, too.
Acadian: I spent a lot of time reading and watching ocean documentaries like the Blue Planet serieses. Blue Planet II has a good episode called The Deep that I watched about four times to pick out details from, and just to get the look and feel of the sea floor from.
I forgot about the cold at first too. But then I remembered that the bottom of the ocean is just a few degrees above the freezing point of water. In some places it is actually lower, but the salinity of the water is so high that it cannot freeze.
My original thought was that the B-52 would be in one piece on the ocean floor. Then I started doing research on shipwrecks, and found that many are found in pieces, and sometimes their debris field can spread out across miles. Like the Titanic, or Edmund Fitzgerald. So I decided to go that route, and have Keep-19 be in pieces. It also brings home how devastating the crash into the sea was. There was no surviving it.
Renee: Those sharks can go a year between eating, so they can get very territorial on the rare occasions they have to actually eat. However, once they realized that the submersible was not there to steal their dinner, they left it alone.
I watched a lot of Jacques Cousteau when I was a children in the 70s. I rewatched them all again a couple times over lockdown. They are all on YouTube now. I was amazed at how quickly the light disappears underwater. You do not have to go that far at all before you end up in total blackness. Almost all the ocean has never seen a ray of sunlight.
Shoggoths are a creature that Lovecraft introduced in one of his last stories - At the Mountains of Madness. They were a slave race of formless protoplasms created by the race of Elder Things, who came to Earth from another planet hundreds of millions of years ago. The Elder Things also created humans, either as an accident or a joke. In time the Shoggoths rose up and slaughtered the Elder Things. Some of them still haunt the old Elder Thing cities, deep beneath Antarctic Ocean. In some of the post Lovecraft mythos stories other authors have had them actually impersonate humans, essentially wearing human skin suits. Michael Shea has some good stories with them.
I don't think we have catfish that big here! We do have regular cats though, and fish!
Honestly though, the most dangerous thing in the Great Lakes is probably E Coli. We get outbreaks sometimes because of people dumping raw sewage in the lakes.
Silverlight's Theme Music = Lindsey Sterling - Lord of the Rings Medley
B-52 Bomber
B-52 Cockpit Layout
Mark 39 Nuclear Bomb
The Nereids
Klingon Guile
Book 12.28 - Broken Arrow
They came upon the first piece of wreckage soon after. January's heart raced as they neared it, but then crashed with anti-climax when it came into clear view. It was a wing, which had been sheared off at its base by some incredible force. January imagined hitting the surface of the ocean at jet speed might do such a thing.
It was gigantic, simply massive in size. It had to be at least seventy or eighty feet long. This clearly came from no little puddle jumper. A row of engines were suspended from the bottom of the wing. They were truly cyclopean in size, and appeared even larger because they were built in pods. Each of these consisted of two engines that had seemingly been melded together side by side. There were two of these pods, so a total of four engines hung from just this wing alone.
Most of the skin of the wing was covered in what looked to January like moss or fuzz. Here and there were larger animals, such as colorful anemones that radiated tentacles so slender that they reminded her of angel hair pasta. Spiky sea urchins rolled upon the surface of the decaying metal, while crabs and lobsters skittered around them. Shrimp floated about overhead, along with schools of fish that January could not hope to identify.
"Look at those double engines that hang from the bottom of the wing. That's from a B-52 alright." Ranger spoke with certainty."I hitched a ride in one once."
It was not what they were after. But it proved that Silverlight's homing spell was working. It was just not perfect. January made sure to get video of it on her helmet camera. She held up Sága with her GPS turned on, and made sure to get it in the same picture. That would clearly mark the site. Maybe someday, someone might want to come out and collect it. If they were not kind of busy looking for a bomb, she would have suggested they take the wreckage up to the surface with them.
Silverlight took several long moments to orient herself with the parachute once more. Finally she set off again, and the rest of the team followed dutifully. They trudged down the sloping ground, and descended farther into the deep. Soon enough they discovered a second piece of wreckage. This looked like two diminutive wings that protruded from a narrow fuselage. But it was much, much too small to be what they were looking for.
Again, the wreckage was covered in that marine fuzz. January imagined that it might be bacterial growths, or algae, or some sort of microbial colonies. She seemed to recall something about the Titanic wreck being covered in that sort of thing. Along with it came even more fish and other bottom life than she had seen before on the wing. This might have been the wreckage of humanity, but here on the bottom of the sea it was an oasis for life.
That made her change her mind about bringing the wreckage up. It was better off where it was. In its life the plane had been a weapon of war, created to kill entire cities. But down here in its watery grave it had ironically become a foundation for life. She could not think of a better place for it.
"It's the tail section," Mercury noted. "But it looks like the rudder is gone. Maybe it was sheared off in the crash?"
"Or maybe it being sheared off caused the crash?" Calypso wondered.
So they continued on, and plunged ever down the slope into the abyss. By now the canyon wall on their left had long since vanished from both January's physical and astral senses. Clearly they had gone beyond it, and were out in the open ocean. The world now became nothing but the muddy bottom, which seemed to slope ever downward into infinity.
"How deep are we?" Hwarang wondered.
"Now that we are beyond the continental slope, over three thousand feet," the aquanaut replied easily. "It still gets much deeper however, down in the abyssal plain ahead."
The term "abyssal plain" made January shudder in spite of herself. She did not like the sound of that.
"How deep is it there?" Silverlight asked.
"In this part of the Atlantic?" Calypso thought about it for a moment, "I would say well over ten thousand feet."
"So, two miles underwater," January mused, "damn."
"It gets much, much deeper in other places," Calypso noted. "I found the Indianapolis at nearly twice that depth, and even that is nothing compared to Challenger Deep. The ocean is deeper than Everest is tall."
"Is it all so barren?" asked Hwarang. "Aside from a few spots like that wreckage back there, it feels like the surface of the moon down here."
"Oh no, not at all," Calypso answered quickly. "There are numerous miniature biomes down here at the bottom of the sea. In places brine pools into lakes, five times saltier than the rest of the sea. Methane bubbles up from them, which bacteria feed upon. That in turn is fed upon by mussels and other sea life, and so on. In still more places there are volcanic vents that jet superheated water and minerals up into the ocean. Vast colonies of life forms grow up around them, some with literal iron shells. You should see a whale fall. When they die their bodies eventually settle down here. They form an oasis for different animals that can last for decades."
"It does not look like it to the naked eye, but even this spot right here is filled with life," January noted. "I can feel it in the astral. There's all sorts of critters around here, under the mud, and walking on its surface. Worms, crabs, octopi, you name it, they are out there. It's a desert that's filled with life."
"There is no part of the deep ocean that is not home to life," Calypso declared. "Even at the bottom of the Mariana Trench there is life, as complex as fish no less! In fact, life on the Earth may have begun here on the bottom of the ocean, from those geothermal vents. Whenever I come down here, I usually discover at least one new species."
"We are close to the next piece," Silverlight broke in. "I think it's something big."
"I'll say," January felt it now, on the edge of her astral awareness. It looked like a wide, metal tube. The end facing them had been sheared open, as if someone had cut it off from a longer body. The cylindrical fuselage stretched forward from there, and eventually tapered at what had clearly been the nose of the plane. Here January could see the wide slits where the windows had once been set, which now lay open to the sea. This part of the craft was crumpled into a mass of tortured metal however. It looked like it had smashed head-first into a mountain. January imagined crashing nose-first into the sea would have much the same effect.
This had to be the cockpit!
Hwarang lifted his arms, and his golden bow magically appeared in his hands. He pulled back its illuminated string, and one of his shining arrows likewise formed there. He loosed it a moment later, and the missile sped off through the water as easily as it would have done through air.
It was a flare of brilliant light that flashed through the water as it sped over the bottom. It flew into the open end of the wreckage, and stuck deep inside. It caused no damage to the plane. But it did remain glowing there, like a lantern shining in the darkness. Then the Korean-American shot another of these light arrows, and another, and soon the entire area was lit up as if by streetlights.
It was indeed the cockpit of the plane. It was so big that it had two levels. Given how the fuselage had been sheared in two, they could look inside each floor, and see down the length of the plane. Nearest to them on the upper level was a pair of ejection seats that were still bolted to the deck. They faced backwards down what would have been the stern of the plane. Now they looked right out into the open water where the heroes stood.
The compartment beyond stretched out to the nose of the plane. The ceiling here was crushed down, and the metal tangled into a mess. It looked like something large had either sat upon the roof, or crashed into it. Perhaps that had been caused by a second plane, which the hijackers who had attacked the B-52 had originated from? If so, there was no sign of where that craft had gone to.
In any case, electronic panels lined the right side of the upper level. What looked like a very simple bed was cut into the instrumentation on the left side of the fuselage. At the far end January could see two more seats that faced forward in the nose of the plane. The one on the left side had a hole burned straight through its back. Then the cockpit abruptly ended in a crumpled mass of flight controls.
The lower deck was smaller. There were two seats that faced forward at the far end of the chamber. In the center was a ladder and hatchway that led to the upper deck. The hatch that would have sealed it shut was missing. January saw it nearby, half-buried in the mud behind the plane. Another hatch was still in place in the floor of the lower fuselage, and January imagined it was how the crew normally got into and out of the plane. Nearest to January there was nothing but an open passage that must have normally led back into the bomb bay of the plane. That section of the craft was now missing of course.
Something about it all made goose bumps rise on January's flesh. She knew that was not because of the temperature of the water. That did not bother her in the slightest. There was something disturbing about that wreckage. It was a wrongness, and it instantly set her on edge.
That is when she noted that there was no microbial life growing in colonies upon the metal of the fuselage. No crabs or lobsters darted through its interior. No fish swarmed around its bulk. The metal here was pristine, and almost shiny. It looked cold, like it was frozen in time.
"There is something in there," Silverlight noted.
"You are right," Calypso agreed. "But it is no sea creature, it feels almost like..."
"A bird," January finished her sister's sentence. "That's a rook, or a raven, or is it a crow? That's weird, I can usually tell the difference. It's definitely some kind of corvid though."
"So there's a dead bird in there, big deal," Mercury shrugged.
"No, it's not dead, it's alive," January insisted. "It's the only living thing in there. I can feel it. It's in the upper deck. Look where the roof is caved in, like something big sat upon it. It's somewhere in all of that mess."
"How can a bird be down here, alive?" Hwarang asked.
"I don't know, but there's only one way to find out," January declared. She pulled her feet up from the sea floor, and pushed down gently with her wings. She flew through the water, but gently enough so as to not kick up a cloud of muddy particles within her wake.
But Cray's voice stopped her. It fact, it made her jump. He had been silent for so long, that she had forgotten he was still there.
"No, that's not what we are here for," he insisted. "You need to find those bombs. Everything else is secondary."
"This might have something to do with why the plane crashed," January argued with him, she but also unintentionally sent the same thought through the mind link.
"I know, I believe you," Silverlight replied back through the telepathic connection. "But we still have to find the bombs first, before the Atomkrieg gets here, if they have not done so already."
"She is right, we have to keep looking for the bombs," Calypso sighed. "Besides, that is a gravesite. It is illegal for us to enter. Only with the express permission of the flag state could we do so, even to recover the remains. Not that it is likely there are any left after all this time. The sea is a relentless mother. She takes back all that she births."
January pulled up to a halt at the edge of the cockpit, and peered into the wreckage within. She could definitely feel that bird somewhere in the tangle of metal at the top of the upper deck. She was certain that it was a corvid. Those were the birds she knew best! But she could not tell exactly what species, which was unusual for her. She knew a raven from a crow, or a rook, or a magpie with ease. It was just obvious after all.
But this, it almost seemed like it was all those species combined. But that was impossible.
Now she could also sense something woven through that strange bird's aura. It spoke to her of high mountain peaks, of whipping winds and thundering clouds, of fearsome tornadoes, and calm gentle breezes. It was the very magical essence of Air itself, somehow stitched into the aura of the bird. It was an enchantment of some kind, using that primordial power.
With that her mind went back to the Gaia Sisters at Belle Isle. They had seeded the devastated areas of the island with primordial earth. Then they had used that raw elemental power to breathe life back into the landscape. Someone had done likewise with this bird. But they had not used it to kick start the growth of plants. Exactly what the purpose of the enchantment upon the bird was, January could not tell. That would take more time and a closer look.
But that was still not all she felt in the wreckage. There was another entity down there as well, separate from the elementally-infused bird. It was dark and cold. Clearly it was what she had first sensed upon seeing the craft. It was near the bird's aura, almost as if it guarded it. Again, it sent a shiver down January's spine and turned her blood into ice. The freezing water around her had failed to do that. But this, this did so instantly. It was a familiar feeling by now.
"There's something dead in here too," January murmured.
"Yeah, the crew," Ranger remarked. He and the others were already moving on. January could see them across the black void of the deep, illuminated by Silverlight and Calypso's lights.
"No, Calypso's right, there's nothing even left of them," January noted. That was true. She did not see any corpses within the wreck. There was not a single bone in sight, or even their uniforms. All she saw were helmets and boots. They lay scattered around the floors of each level. The boots came in pairs, and each lay with a single helmet inches away, along with other bits and bobs of metal.
January shivered. That was what remained of the crew.
"This is the other kind of dead, the un kind." January finally went on after that moment of grim realization.
"You are right, I sense it too now," Silverlight agreed. "It might be the spirit of one of the crew. Or a faded memory of one, like a stone tape."
"Come on, we can return later if we must," Calypso urged January. "We have larger marine vertebrates to fry."
January scowled, and stared back into the open cockpit one last time. But it was silent and still as the grave it literally was. Whatever undead being lurked within, it appeared content to simply lie in wait. Part of her wished it would come out. Then she might get some answers, and maybe have the opportunity to displace some anger with her fists...
January took a moment to lift Sága to her eyes and once again record the GPS coordinates with her helmet camera. Then with an effort of will she finally tore herself away. She spread her wings again, and soared across the bottom to catch up with the others. She did not have to pour on the speed. The rest of the group moved at a walking pace, nothing compared to how fast she could fly underwater. So she rejoined them in no time at all.
Silverlight had veered off to one side and led them back up the slope, but at an angle away from the direction they had come from. They stepped around a giant landing gear a moment later. January marveled to see that the rubber of its twin tires still clung stubbornly to the metal wheels. It had survived for sixty years in the salt water. She wished that she knew the brand. She would buy a set of them the next time she needed tires for her motorcycle!
Then they found another section of fuselage. This was larger than the cockpit and tail sections they had already discovered, even if both had been put together. Once again, Hwarang lit it up with his flare arrows. That revealed the stubs of wings that protruded from its ceiling, their spans having been snapped off at some point. Certainly the wing that they had found earlier must have fit into one of those stubs. The display back at the museum had said that one wing had been found floating on the surface. So that accounted for the other one that was missing.
Unlike the cockpit, this piece of wreckage was an oasis for life. The metal shell of the fuselage was dotted in microbes and larger life forms. Fish swam through its interior, while more marine animals trundled upon the ocean floor around it. It filled astral space with the warmth and brightness of living things. That came as a stark relief to January after the cold emptiness of the previous section of wreckage.
Clearly, there was nothing undead in here.
January glanced back at the cockpit. It was not very far away, perhaps only a few hundred feet at most, and was still lit up by Hwarang's flare arrows. From its dimensions, January could see that the sheared off end of the cockpit would have fit into the leading end of this piece of fuselage. She imagined that the tail section they had found earlier would likewise fit into the far end of the wreckage as well.
"This must be the last piece!" Silverlight declared.
"I sense no others here," Calypso murmured, looking to and fro. "Let us be quick!"
They moved up to the wall of the fuselage, and began moving around toward one end of the hull. That is when Mercury simply laid a hand upon the skin of the plane. As if by his will alone, the metal flowed aside to reveal structural ribs and stringers underneath. Then those too bent out of the way, and created a wide doorway in the side of the fuselage.
Nearly this entire section of plane was taken up by the bomb bay. The leading end was sealed off by a bulkhead. The open door within it revealed a chamber beyond where a pair of giant tires from one of the plane's landing gear laid upon their side. The bay itself was a giant open space. January noticed that a large hole had been cut into the ceiling here. It looked like someone might have hacked their way through it with a saw. At the other end was another bulkhead that must have led to the tail of the plane, with a door that was still locked tight.
The bombs were right there in the middle of the bay! January could see them clearly in the glow from Silverlight's lunar staff. There were two of them, one in front of the other, still mounted on their cradles. They were gigantic, much larger than she would have imagined. They were bigger than she was! Each had that standard, tubular bomb shape. But she was surprised that the tail section was only slightly thicker than the rest, and the fins that radiated from it were just tiny stubs.
Once again, Mercury whistled over their mind link.
"These things must weigh a ton," he mused.
"Three tons each," Cray's voice came over January's earpiece. "These are Mark 39 nuclear bombs. Each has a 3.8 megaton warhead. That thicker band in the back holds a parachute."
"They look intact," January mused as the studied the two bombs. In fact, they looked practically pristine. The paint was long gone of course. But the actual casings of each device were still unscathed, even at this tremendous depth. January imagined that the fuselage of the aircraft might have protected them from impact damage from the crash. Or they may have simply been built tough.
"I am not reading any radiation through Sága's sensor," Cray's voice solemnly intoned in her ear.
While the rest of them stared at the bomb, Hwarang pulled away from the group. He half climbed, half swum up to the top of the fuselage. January could not see him through the hull of the plane. Not with her meat eyes at least. But she could feel the Korean-American up there in the astral, keeping lookout.
"I can separate them from the bomb cradles with no problem," Mercury observed. "But I can't make metal levitate, or fly, or get them to the surface."
"Give me a moment, and I will summon a water elemental," Silverlight insisted. "It can do all the heavy lifting."
With that the statuesque woman closed her silver eyes, and held her hands together as if in prayer. A magic circle sprang up around her feet. Ancient Greek characters flowed between its inner and outer rings of silver light, and slowly turned around her. Rather than her usual invocation to the moon goddess Selene however, names began to spill from the wizard's lips.
"Amphitrite, Asia, Beroe, Calypso, Ceto, Clio, Clymene, Dione, Eudore, Ianeira, Melite, Neaera..."
January's ears pricked at the name of the continent, and of course at that of Calypso. Then she realized that the cultural anthropologist was not simply reciting names at random. She was recounting the Nereids: female ocean spirits of Ancient Greece. They were a specific type of nymph, or whatever you wanted to call nature spirits in general. Rather than tied to rivers or lakes like others, these were associated specifically with the ocean.
At the same time, January felt the other woman's power reach out into astral space. It was part sonar ping, part siren call across the aether. It traveled out like the ring created by a stone tossed in a pond, and echoed and rebounded off all it came across. In time the signal vanished over the astral horizon, and all went silent within the otherworld once more.
But the call was answered. January felt the force that responded through the higher realm. It existed solely there, a creature of the astral. It raced to them with near blinding speed, and in just moments it stood right beside Silverlight.
Thanks to her recent improvements to her astral sensing, January could feel the newcomer's name. She had the impression that without her recent breakthrough in that ability, she would not have been able to do so. That had been the case with the elementals she had faced months ago at Jobbie Nooner and Montserrat. Now however, it was plain to January that this was Neaera, and that she was definitely feminine in nature.
January felt the spirit's energy sort of undulate. She had no real way of describing the change that traveled through the higher being's aura. With it Neaera shifted from the astral, and ground down to the physical world. It was just as Silverlight had explained in her recent lecture. The elemental could inhabit one world or the other, and step between them at will.
At first the Nereid was a slightly lighter, brighter patch of water amongst that which surrounded them. Then January was able to make out a pair of ocean blue eyes amidst the radiance. That light shrank down, and finally coalesced into the form of a curvy woman clad in white robes that flowed about her like the sea itself. Granted, January suspected that was literally the case.
She could feel the power that rolled off Neaera. Her energy whispered thoughts of gentle currents and the patter of rain. She was the glassy surface of a calm sea, the violent crash of waves against the shore, the rolls of high swells within a storm, and the greedy tug of an undertow. She was the sea itself, possessed of will and power and magic.
But the feeling of spellbound awe and wonder that the summoning had engendered within January—and she suspected the others as well—was broken when Hwarang's voice rang out across the mind link that joined the thoughts of the heroes as one.
"Whatever you are going to do, do it fast," his mental voice rang with a sense of urgency. "We've got company, lights coming from the west!"
"Damn, the Atomkrieg is here," Calypso cursed. Her frilled head turned from the spirit to the direction that the archer had indicated. "This is going to be a running battle as we try to get the bombs out of here."
"Maybe we just need a little Klingon guile," Cray's gruff, but soft voice was in January's ear. She smiled when he explained what he had in mind...
* * *
I forgot about the cold at first too. But then I remembered that the bottom of the ocean is just a few degrees above the freezing point of water. In some places it is actually lower, but the salinity of the water is so high that it cannot freeze.
My original thought was that the B-52 would be in one piece on the ocean floor. Then I started doing research on shipwrecks, and found that many are found in pieces, and sometimes their debris field can spread out across miles. Like the Titanic, or Edmund Fitzgerald. So I decided to go that route, and have Keep-19 be in pieces. It also brings home how devastating the crash into the sea was. There was no surviving it.
Renee: Those sharks can go a year between eating, so they can get very territorial on the rare occasions they have to actually eat. However, once they realized that the submersible was not there to steal their dinner, they left it alone.
I watched a lot of Jacques Cousteau when I was a children in the 70s. I rewatched them all again a couple times over lockdown. They are all on YouTube now. I was amazed at how quickly the light disappears underwater. You do not have to go that far at all before you end up in total blackness. Almost all the ocean has never seen a ray of sunlight.
Shoggoths are a creature that Lovecraft introduced in one of his last stories - At the Mountains of Madness. They were a slave race of formless protoplasms created by the race of Elder Things, who came to Earth from another planet hundreds of millions of years ago. The Elder Things also created humans, either as an accident or a joke. In time the Shoggoths rose up and slaughtered the Elder Things. Some of them still haunt the old Elder Thing cities, deep beneath Antarctic Ocean. In some of the post Lovecraft mythos stories other authors have had them actually impersonate humans, essentially wearing human skin suits. Michael Shea has some good stories with them.
I don't think we have catfish that big here! We do have regular cats though, and fish!
Honestly though, the most dangerous thing in the Great Lakes is probably E Coli. We get outbreaks sometimes because of people dumping raw sewage in the lakes. Silverlight's Theme Music = Lindsey Sterling - Lord of the Rings Medley
B-52 Bomber
B-52 Cockpit Layout
Mark 39 Nuclear Bomb
The Nereids
Klingon Guile
Book 12.28 - Broken Arrow
They came upon the first piece of wreckage soon after. January's heart raced as they neared it, but then crashed with anti-climax when it came into clear view. It was a wing, which had been sheared off at its base by some incredible force. January imagined hitting the surface of the ocean at jet speed might do such a thing.
It was gigantic, simply massive in size. It had to be at least seventy or eighty feet long. This clearly came from no little puddle jumper. A row of engines were suspended from the bottom of the wing. They were truly cyclopean in size, and appeared even larger because they were built in pods. Each of these consisted of two engines that had seemingly been melded together side by side. There were two of these pods, so a total of four engines hung from just this wing alone.
Most of the skin of the wing was covered in what looked to January like moss or fuzz. Here and there were larger animals, such as colorful anemones that radiated tentacles so slender that they reminded her of angel hair pasta. Spiky sea urchins rolled upon the surface of the decaying metal, while crabs and lobsters skittered around them. Shrimp floated about overhead, along with schools of fish that January could not hope to identify.
"Look at those double engines that hang from the bottom of the wing. That's from a B-52 alright." Ranger spoke with certainty."I hitched a ride in one once."
It was not what they were after. But it proved that Silverlight's homing spell was working. It was just not perfect. January made sure to get video of it on her helmet camera. She held up Sága with her GPS turned on, and made sure to get it in the same picture. That would clearly mark the site. Maybe someday, someone might want to come out and collect it. If they were not kind of busy looking for a bomb, she would have suggested they take the wreckage up to the surface with them.
Silverlight took several long moments to orient herself with the parachute once more. Finally she set off again, and the rest of the team followed dutifully. They trudged down the sloping ground, and descended farther into the deep. Soon enough they discovered a second piece of wreckage. This looked like two diminutive wings that protruded from a narrow fuselage. But it was much, much too small to be what they were looking for.
Again, the wreckage was covered in that marine fuzz. January imagined that it might be bacterial growths, or algae, or some sort of microbial colonies. She seemed to recall something about the Titanic wreck being covered in that sort of thing. Along with it came even more fish and other bottom life than she had seen before on the wing. This might have been the wreckage of humanity, but here on the bottom of the sea it was an oasis for life.
That made her change her mind about bringing the wreckage up. It was better off where it was. In its life the plane had been a weapon of war, created to kill entire cities. But down here in its watery grave it had ironically become a foundation for life. She could not think of a better place for it.
"It's the tail section," Mercury noted. "But it looks like the rudder is gone. Maybe it was sheared off in the crash?"
"Or maybe it being sheared off caused the crash?" Calypso wondered.
So they continued on, and plunged ever down the slope into the abyss. By now the canyon wall on their left had long since vanished from both January's physical and astral senses. Clearly they had gone beyond it, and were out in the open ocean. The world now became nothing but the muddy bottom, which seemed to slope ever downward into infinity.
"How deep are we?" Hwarang wondered.
"Now that we are beyond the continental slope, over three thousand feet," the aquanaut replied easily. "It still gets much deeper however, down in the abyssal plain ahead."
The term "abyssal plain" made January shudder in spite of herself. She did not like the sound of that.
"How deep is it there?" Silverlight asked.
"In this part of the Atlantic?" Calypso thought about it for a moment, "I would say well over ten thousand feet."
"So, two miles underwater," January mused, "damn."
"It gets much, much deeper in other places," Calypso noted. "I found the Indianapolis at nearly twice that depth, and even that is nothing compared to Challenger Deep. The ocean is deeper than Everest is tall."
"Is it all so barren?" asked Hwarang. "Aside from a few spots like that wreckage back there, it feels like the surface of the moon down here."
"Oh no, not at all," Calypso answered quickly. "There are numerous miniature biomes down here at the bottom of the sea. In places brine pools into lakes, five times saltier than the rest of the sea. Methane bubbles up from them, which bacteria feed upon. That in turn is fed upon by mussels and other sea life, and so on. In still more places there are volcanic vents that jet superheated water and minerals up into the ocean. Vast colonies of life forms grow up around them, some with literal iron shells. You should see a whale fall. When they die their bodies eventually settle down here. They form an oasis for different animals that can last for decades."
"It does not look like it to the naked eye, but even this spot right here is filled with life," January noted. "I can feel it in the astral. There's all sorts of critters around here, under the mud, and walking on its surface. Worms, crabs, octopi, you name it, they are out there. It's a desert that's filled with life."
"There is no part of the deep ocean that is not home to life," Calypso declared. "Even at the bottom of the Mariana Trench there is life, as complex as fish no less! In fact, life on the Earth may have begun here on the bottom of the ocean, from those geothermal vents. Whenever I come down here, I usually discover at least one new species."
"We are close to the next piece," Silverlight broke in. "I think it's something big."
"I'll say," January felt it now, on the edge of her astral awareness. It looked like a wide, metal tube. The end facing them had been sheared open, as if someone had cut it off from a longer body. The cylindrical fuselage stretched forward from there, and eventually tapered at what had clearly been the nose of the plane. Here January could see the wide slits where the windows had once been set, which now lay open to the sea. This part of the craft was crumpled into a mass of tortured metal however. It looked like it had smashed head-first into a mountain. January imagined crashing nose-first into the sea would have much the same effect.
This had to be the cockpit!
Hwarang lifted his arms, and his golden bow magically appeared in his hands. He pulled back its illuminated string, and one of his shining arrows likewise formed there. He loosed it a moment later, and the missile sped off through the water as easily as it would have done through air.
It was a flare of brilliant light that flashed through the water as it sped over the bottom. It flew into the open end of the wreckage, and stuck deep inside. It caused no damage to the plane. But it did remain glowing there, like a lantern shining in the darkness. Then the Korean-American shot another of these light arrows, and another, and soon the entire area was lit up as if by streetlights.
It was indeed the cockpit of the plane. It was so big that it had two levels. Given how the fuselage had been sheared in two, they could look inside each floor, and see down the length of the plane. Nearest to them on the upper level was a pair of ejection seats that were still bolted to the deck. They faced backwards down what would have been the stern of the plane. Now they looked right out into the open water where the heroes stood.
The compartment beyond stretched out to the nose of the plane. The ceiling here was crushed down, and the metal tangled into a mess. It looked like something large had either sat upon the roof, or crashed into it. Perhaps that had been caused by a second plane, which the hijackers who had attacked the B-52 had originated from? If so, there was no sign of where that craft had gone to.
In any case, electronic panels lined the right side of the upper level. What looked like a very simple bed was cut into the instrumentation on the left side of the fuselage. At the far end January could see two more seats that faced forward in the nose of the plane. The one on the left side had a hole burned straight through its back. Then the cockpit abruptly ended in a crumpled mass of flight controls.
The lower deck was smaller. There were two seats that faced forward at the far end of the chamber. In the center was a ladder and hatchway that led to the upper deck. The hatch that would have sealed it shut was missing. January saw it nearby, half-buried in the mud behind the plane. Another hatch was still in place in the floor of the lower fuselage, and January imagined it was how the crew normally got into and out of the plane. Nearest to January there was nothing but an open passage that must have normally led back into the bomb bay of the plane. That section of the craft was now missing of course.
Something about it all made goose bumps rise on January's flesh. She knew that was not because of the temperature of the water. That did not bother her in the slightest. There was something disturbing about that wreckage. It was a wrongness, and it instantly set her on edge.
That is when she noted that there was no microbial life growing in colonies upon the metal of the fuselage. No crabs or lobsters darted through its interior. No fish swarmed around its bulk. The metal here was pristine, and almost shiny. It looked cold, like it was frozen in time.
"There is something in there," Silverlight noted.
"You are right," Calypso agreed. "But it is no sea creature, it feels almost like..."
"A bird," January finished her sister's sentence. "That's a rook, or a raven, or is it a crow? That's weird, I can usually tell the difference. It's definitely some kind of corvid though."
"So there's a dead bird in there, big deal," Mercury shrugged.
"No, it's not dead, it's alive," January insisted. "It's the only living thing in there. I can feel it. It's in the upper deck. Look where the roof is caved in, like something big sat upon it. It's somewhere in all of that mess."
"How can a bird be down here, alive?" Hwarang asked.
"I don't know, but there's only one way to find out," January declared. She pulled her feet up from the sea floor, and pushed down gently with her wings. She flew through the water, but gently enough so as to not kick up a cloud of muddy particles within her wake.
But Cray's voice stopped her. It fact, it made her jump. He had been silent for so long, that she had forgotten he was still there.
"No, that's not what we are here for," he insisted. "You need to find those bombs. Everything else is secondary."
"This might have something to do with why the plane crashed," January argued with him, she but also unintentionally sent the same thought through the mind link.
"I know, I believe you," Silverlight replied back through the telepathic connection. "But we still have to find the bombs first, before the Atomkrieg gets here, if they have not done so already."
"She is right, we have to keep looking for the bombs," Calypso sighed. "Besides, that is a gravesite. It is illegal for us to enter. Only with the express permission of the flag state could we do so, even to recover the remains. Not that it is likely there are any left after all this time. The sea is a relentless mother. She takes back all that she births."
January pulled up to a halt at the edge of the cockpit, and peered into the wreckage within. She could definitely feel that bird somewhere in the tangle of metal at the top of the upper deck. She was certain that it was a corvid. Those were the birds she knew best! But she could not tell exactly what species, which was unusual for her. She knew a raven from a crow, or a rook, or a magpie with ease. It was just obvious after all.
But this, it almost seemed like it was all those species combined. But that was impossible.
Now she could also sense something woven through that strange bird's aura. It spoke to her of high mountain peaks, of whipping winds and thundering clouds, of fearsome tornadoes, and calm gentle breezes. It was the very magical essence of Air itself, somehow stitched into the aura of the bird. It was an enchantment of some kind, using that primordial power.
With that her mind went back to the Gaia Sisters at Belle Isle. They had seeded the devastated areas of the island with primordial earth. Then they had used that raw elemental power to breathe life back into the landscape. Someone had done likewise with this bird. But they had not used it to kick start the growth of plants. Exactly what the purpose of the enchantment upon the bird was, January could not tell. That would take more time and a closer look.
But that was still not all she felt in the wreckage. There was another entity down there as well, separate from the elementally-infused bird. It was dark and cold. Clearly it was what she had first sensed upon seeing the craft. It was near the bird's aura, almost as if it guarded it. Again, it sent a shiver down January's spine and turned her blood into ice. The freezing water around her had failed to do that. But this, this did so instantly. It was a familiar feeling by now.
"There's something dead in here too," January murmured.
"Yeah, the crew," Ranger remarked. He and the others were already moving on. January could see them across the black void of the deep, illuminated by Silverlight and Calypso's lights.
"No, Calypso's right, there's nothing even left of them," January noted. That was true. She did not see any corpses within the wreck. There was not a single bone in sight, or even their uniforms. All she saw were helmets and boots. They lay scattered around the floors of each level. The boots came in pairs, and each lay with a single helmet inches away, along with other bits and bobs of metal.
January shivered. That was what remained of the crew.
"This is the other kind of dead, the un kind." January finally went on after that moment of grim realization.
"You are right, I sense it too now," Silverlight agreed. "It might be the spirit of one of the crew. Or a faded memory of one, like a stone tape."
"Come on, we can return later if we must," Calypso urged January. "We have larger marine vertebrates to fry."
January scowled, and stared back into the open cockpit one last time. But it was silent and still as the grave it literally was. Whatever undead being lurked within, it appeared content to simply lie in wait. Part of her wished it would come out. Then she might get some answers, and maybe have the opportunity to displace some anger with her fists...
January took a moment to lift Sága to her eyes and once again record the GPS coordinates with her helmet camera. Then with an effort of will she finally tore herself away. She spread her wings again, and soared across the bottom to catch up with the others. She did not have to pour on the speed. The rest of the group moved at a walking pace, nothing compared to how fast she could fly underwater. So she rejoined them in no time at all.
Silverlight had veered off to one side and led them back up the slope, but at an angle away from the direction they had come from. They stepped around a giant landing gear a moment later. January marveled to see that the rubber of its twin tires still clung stubbornly to the metal wheels. It had survived for sixty years in the salt water. She wished that she knew the brand. She would buy a set of them the next time she needed tires for her motorcycle!
Then they found another section of fuselage. This was larger than the cockpit and tail sections they had already discovered, even if both had been put together. Once again, Hwarang lit it up with his flare arrows. That revealed the stubs of wings that protruded from its ceiling, their spans having been snapped off at some point. Certainly the wing that they had found earlier must have fit into one of those stubs. The display back at the museum had said that one wing had been found floating on the surface. So that accounted for the other one that was missing.
Unlike the cockpit, this piece of wreckage was an oasis for life. The metal shell of the fuselage was dotted in microbes and larger life forms. Fish swam through its interior, while more marine animals trundled upon the ocean floor around it. It filled astral space with the warmth and brightness of living things. That came as a stark relief to January after the cold emptiness of the previous section of wreckage.
Clearly, there was nothing undead in here.
January glanced back at the cockpit. It was not very far away, perhaps only a few hundred feet at most, and was still lit up by Hwarang's flare arrows. From its dimensions, January could see that the sheared off end of the cockpit would have fit into the leading end of this piece of fuselage. She imagined that the tail section they had found earlier would likewise fit into the far end of the wreckage as well.
"This must be the last piece!" Silverlight declared.
"I sense no others here," Calypso murmured, looking to and fro. "Let us be quick!"
They moved up to the wall of the fuselage, and began moving around toward one end of the hull. That is when Mercury simply laid a hand upon the skin of the plane. As if by his will alone, the metal flowed aside to reveal structural ribs and stringers underneath. Then those too bent out of the way, and created a wide doorway in the side of the fuselage.
Nearly this entire section of plane was taken up by the bomb bay. The leading end was sealed off by a bulkhead. The open door within it revealed a chamber beyond where a pair of giant tires from one of the plane's landing gear laid upon their side. The bay itself was a giant open space. January noticed that a large hole had been cut into the ceiling here. It looked like someone might have hacked their way through it with a saw. At the other end was another bulkhead that must have led to the tail of the plane, with a door that was still locked tight.
The bombs were right there in the middle of the bay! January could see them clearly in the glow from Silverlight's lunar staff. There were two of them, one in front of the other, still mounted on their cradles. They were gigantic, much larger than she would have imagined. They were bigger than she was! Each had that standard, tubular bomb shape. But she was surprised that the tail section was only slightly thicker than the rest, and the fins that radiated from it were just tiny stubs.
Once again, Mercury whistled over their mind link.
"These things must weigh a ton," he mused.
"Three tons each," Cray's voice came over January's earpiece. "These are Mark 39 nuclear bombs. Each has a 3.8 megaton warhead. That thicker band in the back holds a parachute."
"They look intact," January mused as the studied the two bombs. In fact, they looked practically pristine. The paint was long gone of course. But the actual casings of each device were still unscathed, even at this tremendous depth. January imagined that the fuselage of the aircraft might have protected them from impact damage from the crash. Or they may have simply been built tough.
"I am not reading any radiation through Sága's sensor," Cray's voice solemnly intoned in her ear.
While the rest of them stared at the bomb, Hwarang pulled away from the group. He half climbed, half swum up to the top of the fuselage. January could not see him through the hull of the plane. Not with her meat eyes at least. But she could feel the Korean-American up there in the astral, keeping lookout.
"I can separate them from the bomb cradles with no problem," Mercury observed. "But I can't make metal levitate, or fly, or get them to the surface."
"Give me a moment, and I will summon a water elemental," Silverlight insisted. "It can do all the heavy lifting."
With that the statuesque woman closed her silver eyes, and held her hands together as if in prayer. A magic circle sprang up around her feet. Ancient Greek characters flowed between its inner and outer rings of silver light, and slowly turned around her. Rather than her usual invocation to the moon goddess Selene however, names began to spill from the wizard's lips.
"Amphitrite, Asia, Beroe, Calypso, Ceto, Clio, Clymene, Dione, Eudore, Ianeira, Melite, Neaera..."
January's ears pricked at the name of the continent, and of course at that of Calypso. Then she realized that the cultural anthropologist was not simply reciting names at random. She was recounting the Nereids: female ocean spirits of Ancient Greece. They were a specific type of nymph, or whatever you wanted to call nature spirits in general. Rather than tied to rivers or lakes like others, these were associated specifically with the ocean.
At the same time, January felt the other woman's power reach out into astral space. It was part sonar ping, part siren call across the aether. It traveled out like the ring created by a stone tossed in a pond, and echoed and rebounded off all it came across. In time the signal vanished over the astral horizon, and all went silent within the otherworld once more.
But the call was answered. January felt the force that responded through the higher realm. It existed solely there, a creature of the astral. It raced to them with near blinding speed, and in just moments it stood right beside Silverlight.
Thanks to her recent improvements to her astral sensing, January could feel the newcomer's name. She had the impression that without her recent breakthrough in that ability, she would not have been able to do so. That had been the case with the elementals she had faced months ago at Jobbie Nooner and Montserrat. Now however, it was plain to January that this was Neaera, and that she was definitely feminine in nature.
January felt the spirit's energy sort of undulate. She had no real way of describing the change that traveled through the higher being's aura. With it Neaera shifted from the astral, and ground down to the physical world. It was just as Silverlight had explained in her recent lecture. The elemental could inhabit one world or the other, and step between them at will.
At first the Nereid was a slightly lighter, brighter patch of water amongst that which surrounded them. Then January was able to make out a pair of ocean blue eyes amidst the radiance. That light shrank down, and finally coalesced into the form of a curvy woman clad in white robes that flowed about her like the sea itself. Granted, January suspected that was literally the case.
She could feel the power that rolled off Neaera. Her energy whispered thoughts of gentle currents and the patter of rain. She was the glassy surface of a calm sea, the violent crash of waves against the shore, the rolls of high swells within a storm, and the greedy tug of an undertow. She was the sea itself, possessed of will and power and magic.
But the feeling of spellbound awe and wonder that the summoning had engendered within January—and she suspected the others as well—was broken when Hwarang's voice rang out across the mind link that joined the thoughts of the heroes as one.
"Whatever you are going to do, do it fast," his mental voice rang with a sense of urgency. "We've got company, lights coming from the west!"
"Damn, the Atomkrieg is here," Calypso cursed. Her frilled head turned from the spirit to the direction that the archer had indicated. "This is going to be a running battle as we try to get the bombs out of here."
"Maybe we just need a little Klingon guile," Cray's gruff, but soft voice was in January's ear. She smiled when he explained what he had in mind...
* * *
Eerie indeed as Silverlight leads them to the various major pieces of the wreckage.
I love Hwarang’s summoned bow and his arrows of light! Hmm, I wonder what Jan is sensing in that cockpit area. I understand her reluctance to move on from this mystery, but Cray is right.
Finally they find the section with the bombs – with a hole cut in the roof. Clearly, this crash was not mechanical or pilot error in nature but the aircraft was attacked in flight.
A nereid should be most helpful in trying to deal with those bombs – still a monumental task I’m sure.
Uh-oh. The good news is that the heroes beat the baddies to the site. The bad news that they didn’t beat ‘em by much. Smells like a fight coming up. In the water. Over two miles deep. Yikes! Let’s hope Cray’s beguiling plan is a good one.
Nit: ‘Here January could see the wide slits where the windows had once been set, which now lay open {to?} the sea.’
I love Hwarang’s summoned bow and his arrows of light! Hmm, I wonder what Jan is sensing in that cockpit area. I understand her reluctance to move on from this mystery, but Cray is right.
Finally they find the section with the bombs – with a hole cut in the roof. Clearly, this crash was not mechanical or pilot error in nature but the aircraft was attacked in flight.
A nereid should be most helpful in trying to deal with those bombs – still a monumental task I’m sure.
Uh-oh. The good news is that the heroes beat the baddies to the site. The bad news that they didn’t beat ‘em by much. Smells like a fight coming up. In the water. Over two miles deep. Yikes! Let’s hope Cray’s beguiling plan is a good one.
Nit: ‘Here January could see the wide slits where the windows had once been set, which now lay open {to?} the sea.’
Jacques was great, though I didn't watch too many of those as a kid; not sure if we got that channel reliably. 
David Attenborough was awesome, too. He could describe a bunny rabbit and make it sound just as interesting as a platypus or a koala bear.
Thanks for describing shoggoth. Yeah, I really gotta read some more Lovecraft this summer.
---------------------------
Oh yeah, that's good music for Silverlight. ⭐ Cool, there are anemones. And crustaceans and so on. So they're not super-deep. But still pretty far under.
The ocean is deeper than Everest is tall.
Way taller, very true. Oh crap. "There is something in there..." Holy [censored] that's goosebumps. Could it be Rook (somehow?) or maybe it's a remnant of Rook's magic. Ah, I see.
Yikes, they did find the bomb. More than one, sounds like.
Silverlight's naming water spirits, nice.
Uh oh, someone else is here. The Atomkrieg. Yeah, they'd better hurry!
David Attenborough was awesome, too. He could describe a bunny rabbit and make it sound just as interesting as a platypus or a koala bear. Thanks for describing shoggoth. Yeah, I really gotta read some more Lovecraft this summer.
---------------------------
Oh yeah, that's good music for Silverlight. ⭐ Cool, there are anemones. And crustaceans and so on. So they're not super-deep. But still pretty far under.
The ocean is deeper than Everest is tall.
Way taller, very true. Oh crap. "There is something in there..." Holy [censored] that's goosebumps. Could it be Rook (somehow?) or maybe it's a remnant of Rook's magic. Ah, I see.
Yikes, they did find the bomb. More than one, sounds like.
Silverlight's naming water spirits, nice.
Uh oh, someone else is here. The Atomkrieg. Yeah, they'd better hurry!
Acadian: The deep ocean is a spooky, alien place, so very different from the world we normally live in. I had two basic inspirations for this particular story. One was Broken Arrow incidents, and how often the US has lost nuclear weapons. The other were undersea documentaries, from the old Jacques Cousteau show to the more modern ones like Blue Planet. The bottom of the ocean is plain. Its just a desert of silt and mud and dirt that goes on forever. But it is also eerie, given how it is eternally blanketed in total darkness, and the home of weirder and weirder life. Then finally its absolute inhospitably to life forms such as ourselves. In some ways it is the ultimate exotic fantasy world.
I knew you would appreciate Hwarang's arcane archery in this book. He will not disappoint in the near future either.
Now we have finally wrapped things back around to the prologue of Rook attempting to hijack the B-52. Everything here is his handiwork. He unwittingly set this entire story in motion.
It is nice to have an elemental on January's side for once.
Yep, the final showdown is on now. Thousands of feet on the bottom of the ocean. January has really moved up from throwing hands against Lighthammer in a suburban hotel.
Cray does have a good plan. I think you will appreciate his application of Klingon guile. He has really shone in this Book.
Renee: I think Cousteau was on PBS, so one of the UHF channels with the high numbers. 56 for us in Detroit.
There is life even the very deepest parts of the ocean. Even coral reefs live on the bottom of the sea, where sunlight has never touched. (Coral is an animal, not a plant). And of course there are the shoggoths...
You had it with Rook. He's still down here, waiting. Or at least some remnant of him and his magic is.
I was thinking over how Silverlight's elemental summoning spell might look. I went through some ideas. Then when I was looking at the names of Nereids, I decided that she would call out all their names, in the hope that one would answer. Which it did. Neaera is one of those names she called out.
Hwarang's Fight Music = Belgrade – Battle Tapes
neo-Nazi skull masks
Are We The Baddies?
Book 12.29 - Broken Arrow
"Here they come!" Hwarang's voice rang out. The Korean-American archer sent a string of glowing arrows lancing out through the ink dark sea. Each briefly illuminated the area around it like a flare as it sliced through the water. But all came to an abrupt halt against a wall of complete darkness.
It was elemental darkness in fact. January could sense that in the astral. It was the epitome of darkness itself, given form and matter by magic. That could only mean Reinhard. He had manipulated the same magical darkness at the museum battle, and used it to negate all of Silverlight's own light-based magic.
It appeared to do the same here. While Hwarang's arrows did not appear to be primordial light as some of Silverlight's attacks were, they were still magical in nature. As Reinhard's defense was likewise magical at heart, it most likely countered the attack by virtue of that alone. January's gamer brain reminded her that while it had an extra bonus vs. light-based attacks, it clearly was quite potent against all other forms of magic as well.
January glanced briefly in the opposite direction. The water elemental that Silverlight had summoned quickly receded from her astral awareness as she made her way out of the area. January marveled at how fast the Nereid moved through the water. She made Calypso seem slow and ungainly in comparison, which was saying a lot. That was no surprise however, given that the spirit was the ultimate expression of water itself. There was no beating an elemental in its own domain after all.
With that done, now all she and the others had to do was play their parts in Cray's theater production. January spread her wings and flew up over the superstructure of the crashed B-52. Hwarang still stood upon its roof, and she gave the archer plenty of room. She did not want to get in the way of one of his arrows. She had played enough video games to know that the missiles from archers on her own side were not shy about finding a home in her back. There was no turning off friendly fire in real life after all.
The neo-Nazis replied with a beam of energy that disrupted the water itself, seeming to shake it apart at the molecular level. This left a wake of hissing bubbles and roiling waves in its wake. The lance of energy slammed into the roof of the B-52 where Hwarang stood. The flower knight leaped into the air—well the water—even as the roof of the fuselage disintegrated beneath him. Tiny shards of metal fragments flew in all directions. But thankfully their force was blunted by the density of the liquid around them.
That had to be Blitz. The vibration emitter had done the same at the Smithsonian, and had ripped the floor and exhibits apart with his power there.
"There are two nuclear bombs right here you morons!" Calypso shouted at the neo-Nazis. "Do you want to die as well!"
She did not say it across the mind link. She did so in the physical world. Somehow, her voice carried as clearly underwater as it would have through the air. It was something January had heard before of course, in the nature documentaries that the Caribbean heroine had starred in. But until that moment January had forgotten that the other woman could do that. Magic was a wonderful thing, and it was such a no-brainer for an aquanaut to develop the ability to speak intelligibly underwater.
Silverlight responded with arcane bolts. But once again that wall of darkness leaped up to protect the neo-Nazis. January fumed, but waited. She did not want to rush ahead and leave the group. But her fists ached to plant themselves in Nazi faces all the same. Sadly, her best means of striking at range was to draw down lightning from the sky. But given that they were thousands of feet under the ocean that was not on the table.
Mercury appeared to be in the same boat. January briefly smiled at the metaphor she had chosen in her head. Blackjack would have been so pleased at the pun!
The metal manipulator had shown himself to be capable of propelling both balls and bolts of metal at high speeds back at the museum. But that was in the air. He gave it a go here under the waves, and fired a slender dart of metal from one hand. It initially cut through the waves like a projectile shot from a speargun. But it soon lost its force under the crushing weight of the water above, and trundled impotently to the sea floor well short of the enemy.
That reminded her of something he had said just recently. He could not levitate metal or make it fly. So apparently he was simply flinging it away from itself, much as one would throw a ball. Once he no longer touched the metal, it appeared that he was no longer able to manipulate it. Or in the very least, he could not make it defy gravity once it was out of reach.
Calypso waved her staff Bagua in a flourish. Then she took it in both hands, and mimicked using it to hammer at the oncoming neo-Nazis with a horizontal blow. January felt magic leap from the magical artifact, and spread out through the water on one side of the approaching terrorists. At the staff's call, a tremendous flow of water sprang up and smashed at the Nazis. It swept up the mud from the bottom in its wake, which revealed its outline as a long tube or river of running water. Even more water rushed in behind the roaring waves, and sprouted even more eddies and currents in the ocean nearby.
But a gray white field of light sprang up between the neo-Nazis and the onrushing crush of water. The waves crashed upon its surface, and glanced off around it. This created a small bubble of clear, calm water behind the protective dome. All the while the waves raged all around and kicked up even more clouds of mud and underwater detritus.
January heard a loud crash, as if something really big, and really solid had struck the ground. Then a shockwave ran through the ocean floor. It threw up the silt and clay in an onrushing stream, and hammered the water above into a roiling mess. This miniature earthquake ripped across the sea floor in just moments, and homed in upon Calypso.
There was something January could do about this. Her wings propelled her across the water, and an instant later she stood directly in front of her raven sister. She had just enough time to plant her feet upon the ground to summon up the element of Earth. Even here on the bottom of the Atlantic, she was stone, she was the mountain, she was adamant.
The wave of seismic energy slammed into her like a semi truck. Well, stronger than that. January knew what having one of those fall on you felt like after all. But the massive burst of kinetic energy simply broke around January and Calypso. It tore up the ground all around them, but left the circle of it at their feet completely untouched.
At least it did until all the soil farther beneath disintegrated as well. Just as the salamander had done to her on the beach at Montserrat, this seismic attack removed January's connection to the earth by simply destroying the ground too far away for her to influence. In a moment she went floating away with a solid base of earth still attached to her feet, like one of those miniatures that Ryo so loved to paint.
Calypso went with her as well, but only for a moment. The aquanaut turned her staff's powers to the water close at hand. It suddenly came pressing straight down with extraordinary force, even for the depth they were at. She and January were both thrust down hard to the sea floor once more, along with all of the silt that had been kicked up. The ground steadied under the massive pressure of water above it, and went quiet once more.
"That was probably Tirpitz striking the ground to create a seismic wave," Cray's voice noted in her ear. "It's a classic brick move."
January considered replicating the maneuver, and sending a similar earthquake right back at their attackers. But now that Calypso's water assault had abated, the Nazis rushed into close range. They were near enough that she could see them not only in the astral, but with her meat eyes as well.
It was the same crew from the museum. The cyborg Bismarck led the bunch. His snow white hair and bushy mustache made him easy to recognize, even without the shiny metal that had replaced parts of his skull, arms, and a line down the back of his neck. His cybernetic eyes glowed bright white in the darkness, while a much softer gray-white light suffused his body.
"I am thinking that light around him is a force field," Cray noted in January's ear. "It might be how he absorbs energy. Or maybe it is a manifestation of his telekinesis."
With him was the big man Tirpitz, who towered somewhere near seven feet in height. His frame burst with so much muscle that he looked like a walking ad for steroids. The soft glow that surrounded him told January that he had found another force field generator to protect him. Or perhaps his previous one had been fixed. He wore a new stahlhelm over some form of high tech rebreather that covered his face. Its lower portion had been spray painted to look like the jaws of a grinning skull. As before, his hands were sheathed in a pair of massive metal gauntlets that shone with energy. Each knuckle was the size of a saucer, and was shaped like a skull.
There was Blitz as well. His willowy outline was a wavering blur from the sheath of vibratory energy that acted as his armor. Otherwise he was clad much the same as Tirpitz, in a black uniform and World War Two Nazi helmet. He too, covered his face in a rebreather that was partially painted over with a skull.
Nazis sure loved their skulls. January wondered how it never occurred to them that they were the bad guys, when they were walking around dressed like that? Then again, committing mass murder was their idea of being good.
She noted a new player in the raiding party this time. This could only be Skorzeny. Like Blitz, he was an ordinary-sized man. He too was clad in black battle dress, a German helmet, and white skull rebreather. But unlike him and the other neo-Nazis, this man had no depth. That was not January throwing shade, it was literally the case. With only two physical dimensions, he was as flat as a piece of paper, perhaps even flatter. It gave him a strange, almost blocky appearance as he cut through the water. He was like a cardboard cutout come to life.
Finally came Reinhard. He was a wraith cloaked in elemental darkness. He did not wear a breathing apparatus. Instead he wore the same white skull mask over his lower face that he had at the museum. That made it easy to see his piercing blue eyes. They practically shone in the darkness that otherwise seemed to flow from him. What might have been a black cloak and hood flowed down from his back. Or it might have been elemental darkness masquerading as such, January could not tell for certain. She did note the silver German eagle belt buckle at his waist, the SS runes at his shoulders, and his swastika band around his upper arm. Those were plain in the darkness, as if he wanted them to be seen.
"Long Live Death!" The cry came from Bismarck, and sounded clear as day through the water.
Things happened quickly now that they came into melee range. Tirpitz drove down at Mercury with a double handed blow, aimed at driving the Philadelphian's skull down through his boots. But one wave of Calypso's staff caused a torrent of water to slam into him from the side. That sent him hurtling away, and left Mercury free to strike at Bismarck.
"This Jew's got an early Hanukkah present for you paskudnyak!" Mercury shouted vehemently back at the fascist. A short stream of metal darts shot from the armored hero. He was near enough for the metal projectiles to still carry across the water. But they still only glanced off the cyborg's force field. Then a fist of gray-white energy enveloped the Philadelphian, and sent him careening back into Calypso. That caused both to crunch deeply into the fuselage of the B-52, but they did not pierce its hull.
A burst of vibratory energy did that a moment later. It was not the massive blast of power that had tried to obliterate Hwarang at the beginning of the battle. Instead this was measured, almost surgical. It was just enough to shatter a hole in the side of the plane, but not enough to continue beyond into the interior of the craft.
Bismarck dove through this, and vanished from normal sight. Ranger immediately went after him. But Skorzeny moved to intercept, and slashed at the soldier with one of his razor-thin forearms. But Ranger created a spear of glowing ionic force, which he now brought up to ward off the blow. The narrow cutting edge of the neo-Nazi's hand struck up sparks as it slashed along the side of the weapon. But the spear did not break, and a moment later Ranger riposted by bringing the butt of the weapon around at Skorzney's ankles, as if to trip him.
January did not see how the Nazi fared against the counter. She was too busy with Bismarck. She tracked him with her astral senses, and then followed in the physical world as well. She abandoned all the care she usually took when fighting in the city, where she did not want to destroy people's houses or cars. No one was going to miss this hunk of steel on the bottom of the ocean. And in spite of what Calypso had said earlier, she was not worried about accidentally setting off the nuclear weapons.
It was not like their warheads were actually inside them anymore...
But they had to put on a good show. Besides, there was no reason not to win this fight. There were no innocent civilians for the neo-Nazis to hide behind this time. So they had a golden opportunity to end the Atomkrieg for good. She did not want to let the opportunity slip by and allow them to escape once more.
So she crashed through the hull of the plane like a proverbial bull in a china shop. She found Bismarck moving to cut through the cradle that held one of the nuclear bombs aloft. He turned as she crashed through the fuselage, but he was too slow to do anything more. January was right up in his face an instant later. She wrapped her arms around his waist and pinned his arms to his torso in the process. Then she lifted him up, twisted around, and took him right through the opposite wall of the fuselage in a belly-to-belly suplex.
It was exactly as Riven had taught her. If only her sister could see her now!
They landed in the mud outside, which absorbed much of the impact from the maneuver. The rocks of Mount Shasta—where January had learned this maneuver—were much less forgiving. A cloud of silt rose up around them, as if a smoke bomb had gone off. But January did not need to see. She had her hands on the Atomkrieg's leader, and she was not about to let go.
Instead she squeezed, with enough force to pop a boulder like a zit. That soft glow around the neo-Nazi's leader fought back, and pushed against her vise-like grip. Then it swept out and engulfed her. As before at the museum, it felt like a giant hand had wrapped around her. Also like then, she felt it pick her up, and fling her across the sea floor.
But she still held on to Bismarck. Her grip never yielded. So he went flying with her. They skidded through the top soil, and threw up a river of cloudy silt behind them. He used his telekinesis to twist them around and shove January's back down into the earth. So now she was the one gouging out that trough. Not that it bothered her in the slightest. It was only mud. Even if it had been concrete, she doubted that she would have felt it.
"You are finished groomer!" the white-haired cyborg hissed in her ear. "The bombs will be ours, and then this sick woke world of yours will be burned away! First Washington, then New York, atomic fire will burn you and your Globalist masters to ash!"
"Dream on swastika boy," January murmured. "The fiction you hide in is about to meet reality head first."
I knew you would appreciate Hwarang's arcane archery in this book. He will not disappoint in the near future either.
Now we have finally wrapped things back around to the prologue of Rook attempting to hijack the B-52. Everything here is his handiwork. He unwittingly set this entire story in motion.
It is nice to have an elemental on January's side for once.
Yep, the final showdown is on now. Thousands of feet on the bottom of the ocean. January has really moved up from throwing hands against Lighthammer in a suburban hotel.
Cray does have a good plan. I think you will appreciate his application of Klingon guile. He has really shone in this Book.
Renee: I think Cousteau was on PBS, so one of the UHF channels with the high numbers. 56 for us in Detroit.
There is life even the very deepest parts of the ocean. Even coral reefs live on the bottom of the sea, where sunlight has never touched. (Coral is an animal, not a plant). And of course there are the shoggoths...
You had it with Rook. He's still down here, waiting. Or at least some remnant of him and his magic is.
I was thinking over how Silverlight's elemental summoning spell might look. I went through some ideas. Then when I was looking at the names of Nereids, I decided that she would call out all their names, in the hope that one would answer. Which it did. Neaera is one of those names she called out.
Hwarang's Fight Music = Belgrade – Battle Tapes
neo-Nazi skull masks
Are We The Baddies?
Book 12.29 - Broken Arrow
"Here they come!" Hwarang's voice rang out. The Korean-American archer sent a string of glowing arrows lancing out through the ink dark sea. Each briefly illuminated the area around it like a flare as it sliced through the water. But all came to an abrupt halt against a wall of complete darkness.
It was elemental darkness in fact. January could sense that in the astral. It was the epitome of darkness itself, given form and matter by magic. That could only mean Reinhard. He had manipulated the same magical darkness at the museum battle, and used it to negate all of Silverlight's own light-based magic.
It appeared to do the same here. While Hwarang's arrows did not appear to be primordial light as some of Silverlight's attacks were, they were still magical in nature. As Reinhard's defense was likewise magical at heart, it most likely countered the attack by virtue of that alone. January's gamer brain reminded her that while it had an extra bonus vs. light-based attacks, it clearly was quite potent against all other forms of magic as well.
January glanced briefly in the opposite direction. The water elemental that Silverlight had summoned quickly receded from her astral awareness as she made her way out of the area. January marveled at how fast the Nereid moved through the water. She made Calypso seem slow and ungainly in comparison, which was saying a lot. That was no surprise however, given that the spirit was the ultimate expression of water itself. There was no beating an elemental in its own domain after all.
With that done, now all she and the others had to do was play their parts in Cray's theater production. January spread her wings and flew up over the superstructure of the crashed B-52. Hwarang still stood upon its roof, and she gave the archer plenty of room. She did not want to get in the way of one of his arrows. She had played enough video games to know that the missiles from archers on her own side were not shy about finding a home in her back. There was no turning off friendly fire in real life after all.
The neo-Nazis replied with a beam of energy that disrupted the water itself, seeming to shake it apart at the molecular level. This left a wake of hissing bubbles and roiling waves in its wake. The lance of energy slammed into the roof of the B-52 where Hwarang stood. The flower knight leaped into the air—well the water—even as the roof of the fuselage disintegrated beneath him. Tiny shards of metal fragments flew in all directions. But thankfully their force was blunted by the density of the liquid around them.
That had to be Blitz. The vibration emitter had done the same at the Smithsonian, and had ripped the floor and exhibits apart with his power there.
"There are two nuclear bombs right here you morons!" Calypso shouted at the neo-Nazis. "Do you want to die as well!"
She did not say it across the mind link. She did so in the physical world. Somehow, her voice carried as clearly underwater as it would have through the air. It was something January had heard before of course, in the nature documentaries that the Caribbean heroine had starred in. But until that moment January had forgotten that the other woman could do that. Magic was a wonderful thing, and it was such a no-brainer for an aquanaut to develop the ability to speak intelligibly underwater.
Silverlight responded with arcane bolts. But once again that wall of darkness leaped up to protect the neo-Nazis. January fumed, but waited. She did not want to rush ahead and leave the group. But her fists ached to plant themselves in Nazi faces all the same. Sadly, her best means of striking at range was to draw down lightning from the sky. But given that they were thousands of feet under the ocean that was not on the table.
Mercury appeared to be in the same boat. January briefly smiled at the metaphor she had chosen in her head. Blackjack would have been so pleased at the pun!
The metal manipulator had shown himself to be capable of propelling both balls and bolts of metal at high speeds back at the museum. But that was in the air. He gave it a go here under the waves, and fired a slender dart of metal from one hand. It initially cut through the waves like a projectile shot from a speargun. But it soon lost its force under the crushing weight of the water above, and trundled impotently to the sea floor well short of the enemy.
That reminded her of something he had said just recently. He could not levitate metal or make it fly. So apparently he was simply flinging it away from itself, much as one would throw a ball. Once he no longer touched the metal, it appeared that he was no longer able to manipulate it. Or in the very least, he could not make it defy gravity once it was out of reach.
Calypso waved her staff Bagua in a flourish. Then she took it in both hands, and mimicked using it to hammer at the oncoming neo-Nazis with a horizontal blow. January felt magic leap from the magical artifact, and spread out through the water on one side of the approaching terrorists. At the staff's call, a tremendous flow of water sprang up and smashed at the Nazis. It swept up the mud from the bottom in its wake, which revealed its outline as a long tube or river of running water. Even more water rushed in behind the roaring waves, and sprouted even more eddies and currents in the ocean nearby.
But a gray white field of light sprang up between the neo-Nazis and the onrushing crush of water. The waves crashed upon its surface, and glanced off around it. This created a small bubble of clear, calm water behind the protective dome. All the while the waves raged all around and kicked up even more clouds of mud and underwater detritus.
January heard a loud crash, as if something really big, and really solid had struck the ground. Then a shockwave ran through the ocean floor. It threw up the silt and clay in an onrushing stream, and hammered the water above into a roiling mess. This miniature earthquake ripped across the sea floor in just moments, and homed in upon Calypso.
There was something January could do about this. Her wings propelled her across the water, and an instant later she stood directly in front of her raven sister. She had just enough time to plant her feet upon the ground to summon up the element of Earth. Even here on the bottom of the Atlantic, she was stone, she was the mountain, she was adamant.
The wave of seismic energy slammed into her like a semi truck. Well, stronger than that. January knew what having one of those fall on you felt like after all. But the massive burst of kinetic energy simply broke around January and Calypso. It tore up the ground all around them, but left the circle of it at their feet completely untouched.
At least it did until all the soil farther beneath disintegrated as well. Just as the salamander had done to her on the beach at Montserrat, this seismic attack removed January's connection to the earth by simply destroying the ground too far away for her to influence. In a moment she went floating away with a solid base of earth still attached to her feet, like one of those miniatures that Ryo so loved to paint.
Calypso went with her as well, but only for a moment. The aquanaut turned her staff's powers to the water close at hand. It suddenly came pressing straight down with extraordinary force, even for the depth they were at. She and January were both thrust down hard to the sea floor once more, along with all of the silt that had been kicked up. The ground steadied under the massive pressure of water above it, and went quiet once more.
"That was probably Tirpitz striking the ground to create a seismic wave," Cray's voice noted in her ear. "It's a classic brick move."
January considered replicating the maneuver, and sending a similar earthquake right back at their attackers. But now that Calypso's water assault had abated, the Nazis rushed into close range. They were near enough that she could see them not only in the astral, but with her meat eyes as well.
It was the same crew from the museum. The cyborg Bismarck led the bunch. His snow white hair and bushy mustache made him easy to recognize, even without the shiny metal that had replaced parts of his skull, arms, and a line down the back of his neck. His cybernetic eyes glowed bright white in the darkness, while a much softer gray-white light suffused his body.
"I am thinking that light around him is a force field," Cray noted in January's ear. "It might be how he absorbs energy. Or maybe it is a manifestation of his telekinesis."
With him was the big man Tirpitz, who towered somewhere near seven feet in height. His frame burst with so much muscle that he looked like a walking ad for steroids. The soft glow that surrounded him told January that he had found another force field generator to protect him. Or perhaps his previous one had been fixed. He wore a new stahlhelm over some form of high tech rebreather that covered his face. Its lower portion had been spray painted to look like the jaws of a grinning skull. As before, his hands were sheathed in a pair of massive metal gauntlets that shone with energy. Each knuckle was the size of a saucer, and was shaped like a skull.
There was Blitz as well. His willowy outline was a wavering blur from the sheath of vibratory energy that acted as his armor. Otherwise he was clad much the same as Tirpitz, in a black uniform and World War Two Nazi helmet. He too, covered his face in a rebreather that was partially painted over with a skull.
Nazis sure loved their skulls. January wondered how it never occurred to them that they were the bad guys, when they were walking around dressed like that? Then again, committing mass murder was their idea of being good.
She noted a new player in the raiding party this time. This could only be Skorzeny. Like Blitz, he was an ordinary-sized man. He too was clad in black battle dress, a German helmet, and white skull rebreather. But unlike him and the other neo-Nazis, this man had no depth. That was not January throwing shade, it was literally the case. With only two physical dimensions, he was as flat as a piece of paper, perhaps even flatter. It gave him a strange, almost blocky appearance as he cut through the water. He was like a cardboard cutout come to life.
Finally came Reinhard. He was a wraith cloaked in elemental darkness. He did not wear a breathing apparatus. Instead he wore the same white skull mask over his lower face that he had at the museum. That made it easy to see his piercing blue eyes. They practically shone in the darkness that otherwise seemed to flow from him. What might have been a black cloak and hood flowed down from his back. Or it might have been elemental darkness masquerading as such, January could not tell for certain. She did note the silver German eagle belt buckle at his waist, the SS runes at his shoulders, and his swastika band around his upper arm. Those were plain in the darkness, as if he wanted them to be seen.
"Long Live Death!" The cry came from Bismarck, and sounded clear as day through the water.
Things happened quickly now that they came into melee range. Tirpitz drove down at Mercury with a double handed blow, aimed at driving the Philadelphian's skull down through his boots. But one wave of Calypso's staff caused a torrent of water to slam into him from the side. That sent him hurtling away, and left Mercury free to strike at Bismarck.
"This Jew's got an early Hanukkah present for you paskudnyak!" Mercury shouted vehemently back at the fascist. A short stream of metal darts shot from the armored hero. He was near enough for the metal projectiles to still carry across the water. But they still only glanced off the cyborg's force field. Then a fist of gray-white energy enveloped the Philadelphian, and sent him careening back into Calypso. That caused both to crunch deeply into the fuselage of the B-52, but they did not pierce its hull.
A burst of vibratory energy did that a moment later. It was not the massive blast of power that had tried to obliterate Hwarang at the beginning of the battle. Instead this was measured, almost surgical. It was just enough to shatter a hole in the side of the plane, but not enough to continue beyond into the interior of the craft.
Bismarck dove through this, and vanished from normal sight. Ranger immediately went after him. But Skorzeny moved to intercept, and slashed at the soldier with one of his razor-thin forearms. But Ranger created a spear of glowing ionic force, which he now brought up to ward off the blow. The narrow cutting edge of the neo-Nazi's hand struck up sparks as it slashed along the side of the weapon. But the spear did not break, and a moment later Ranger riposted by bringing the butt of the weapon around at Skorzney's ankles, as if to trip him.
January did not see how the Nazi fared against the counter. She was too busy with Bismarck. She tracked him with her astral senses, and then followed in the physical world as well. She abandoned all the care she usually took when fighting in the city, where she did not want to destroy people's houses or cars. No one was going to miss this hunk of steel on the bottom of the ocean. And in spite of what Calypso had said earlier, she was not worried about accidentally setting off the nuclear weapons.
It was not like their warheads were actually inside them anymore...
But they had to put on a good show. Besides, there was no reason not to win this fight. There were no innocent civilians for the neo-Nazis to hide behind this time. So they had a golden opportunity to end the Atomkrieg for good. She did not want to let the opportunity slip by and allow them to escape once more.
So she crashed through the hull of the plane like a proverbial bull in a china shop. She found Bismarck moving to cut through the cradle that held one of the nuclear bombs aloft. He turned as she crashed through the fuselage, but he was too slow to do anything more. January was right up in his face an instant later. She wrapped her arms around his waist and pinned his arms to his torso in the process. Then she lifted him up, twisted around, and took him right through the opposite wall of the fuselage in a belly-to-belly suplex.
It was exactly as Riven had taught her. If only her sister could see her now!
They landed in the mud outside, which absorbed much of the impact from the maneuver. The rocks of Mount Shasta—where January had learned this maneuver—were much less forgiving. A cloud of silt rose up around them, as if a smoke bomb had gone off. But January did not need to see. She had her hands on the Atomkrieg's leader, and she was not about to let go.
Instead she squeezed, with enough force to pop a boulder like a zit. That soft glow around the neo-Nazi's leader fought back, and pushed against her vise-like grip. Then it swept out and engulfed her. As before at the museum, it felt like a giant hand had wrapped around her. Also like then, she felt it pick her up, and fling her across the sea floor.
But she still held on to Bismarck. Her grip never yielded. So he went flying with her. They skidded through the top soil, and threw up a river of cloudy silt behind them. He used his telekinesis to twist them around and shove January's back down into the earth. So now she was the one gouging out that trough. Not that it bothered her in the slightest. It was only mud. Even if it had been concrete, she doubted that she would have felt it.
"You are finished groomer!" the white-haired cyborg hissed in her ear. "The bombs will be ours, and then this sick woke world of yours will be burned away! First Washington, then New York, atomic fire will burn you and your Globalist masters to ash!"
"Dream on swastika boy," January murmured. "The fiction you hide in is about to meet reality head first."
The battle is joined!
No calling down lightning for Stormcrow this time but they do have Calypso and that nereid.
Wow, this seems a standoff between the two groups at range. Once in melee range though, Stormcrow can do what she does best – which is sort of a cross between Rocky Balboa and a pit bull. A perk for sure is that she is unfettered from her normal concerns about innocents or collateral damage.
You, you. . . Paskudnyak!
Nit: ’Once he {no?} longer touched the metal, it appeared that he was no longer able to manipulate it.’
No calling down lightning for Stormcrow this time but they do have Calypso and that nereid.
Wow, this seems a standoff between the two groups at range. Once in melee range though, Stormcrow can do what she does best – which is sort of a cross between Rocky Balboa and a pit bull. A perk for sure is that she is unfettered from her normal concerns about innocents or collateral damage.
You, you. . . Paskudnyak!
Nit: ’Once he {no?} longer touched the metal, it appeared that he was no longer able to manipulate it.’
Yes, PBS was channel 32, which we didn't get very well in the days of rabbit ears! --- So Cousteau was spotty. We did get a local channel better, which was WBFF, channel 45 (I think it was 45). Here we can see Captain Chesapeake. Mondy the Sea Monster is just behind the captain. 
Which had something to do with Chessie, our version of Nessie.
Alright, so Nereid is the water elemental. Very nice. Would fish and other creatures be aware of Nereid?
Yikes, neo-Nazis are here too?
Oh yeah. Supposedly, whale calls can be heard hundreds of miles away, so this would be no problem, hearing underwater. Maybe her voice would sound distorted, to those who don't have one of her magical sea shells. 🐚
Stone = adamant.
The Nazis have rebreathers, ah so that's how they get their oxygen. He's wearing a skull mask? Not really funny, but it's sort of so ridiculous. 💀 That Reinhard would go through all the trouble... going for form over function, even at this depth. "LONG LIVE DEATH" he says! Really, dude?
How're they gonna get out of this one??
Which had something to do with Chessie, our version of Nessie. Alright, so Nereid is the water elemental. Very nice. Would fish and other creatures be aware of Nereid?
Yikes, neo-Nazis are here too?
QUOTE
Somehow, her voice carried as clearly underwater as it would have through the air.
Oh yeah. Supposedly, whale calls can be heard hundreds of miles away, so this would be no problem, hearing underwater. Maybe her voice would sound distorted, to those who don't have one of her magical sea shells. 🐚
Stone = adamant.
The Nazis have rebreathers, ah so that's how they get their oxygen. He's wearing a skull mask?
Not really funny, but it's sort of so ridiculous. 💀 That Reinhard would go through all the trouble... going for form over function, even at this depth. "LONG LIVE DEATH" he says! Really, dude? How're they gonna get out of this one??
Acadian: This will be the big final blowout of the book. So this fight will take a while, and go through several stages. This is just the opening moves. Eventually everything will come together in it.
The Nereid won't be appearing in the fight. But she has something more important to do, as we will eventually learn.
As ever, thanks for spotting that nit for me to fix.
Renee: Captain Chesapeake looks awesome! One of the episodes in the Lone Gunman TV show had a character like him, who was a nautically-themed host of a children's TV show.
I know Chessie, and Champ. Every body of water has its sea monster. We have the Underwater Panther - Mishipeshu - here in the Great Lakes. That is why it made an appearance in Battle of Belle Isle.
As long as the Nereid chooses to take a physical form, then other sea life will be aware of her, the same as they would anything else in the water.
neo-Nazis love their skull masks. Their fascination with skulls goes back to the original Nazis in WW2. I posted some links a few weeks back about how the RL Atomwaffen Division and Iron March used them. They were my inspiration for the Atomkrieg. Likewise, "Long Live Death" was the slogan of the Spanish fascism in the 1930s.
Two Steps From Hell – Riders of the Apocalypse
Book 12.30 - Broken Arrow
As if summoned by her words, they did run into something. Only it was January who went into it head first. It felt like a rock. But when pieces of metal and rubber shattered into a haze of debris around her, she realized that it was that giant landing gear they had passed by on their way from the cockpit to the bomb bay.
It did not really hurt, though it certainly got January's attention. The impact sent them bouncing up like a rock skipped across the surface of a lake. They tumbled for a moment, and January thought she saw the cockpit of the B-52 heading toward them. Or more accurately, she saw that they were about to plow into it.
Rather than try to avoid it, Bismarck did the opposite. He turned up the speed and took them straight at the wreckage. A moment later they slammed into the fuselage. More specifically, January did, right in the small of her back. She guessed that it was the roof, rather than the center of the plane, because she saw inky black water above.
She felt the fuselage crumple up like paper beneath her enchanted flesh. Steel and aircraft aluminum screamed in torment. It shattered into hundreds of pieces and surrounded them in a haze of fragments both large and small. Finally they came to a halt about halfway down the length of the cockpit. January's torso was deeply embedded within the hull of the craft, wrapped up by structural ribs, wiring, and distorted metal plates. But she could feel her legs hanging free above the upper floor of the cockpit below.
She felt that bird, that strange living bird, in the middle of all this. They had plowed right through its resting place in the metal roof of the plane. Now it bounced up and out of the wreckage, and went pinwheeling away into the abyss.
January also felt that other presence, that dark, cold chill that made the bottom of the ocean feel warm in comparison. It had been dormant before, perhaps sleeping. But now it was awake, and waves of not only anger, put panic rolled off it like the tide. January could taste its fear and desperation on her lips, like spoiled milk. It was so rank, it made her want to physically spit to get it out of her mind.
It rose up behind her like a cloud of misery, and moved in close. January let go of Bismarck, and tried to push him away instead. This was not the time to be locked up with him. But the neo-Nazi would not let up with his telekinetic grasp. He not only kept her pinned, he shoved her deeper into the metal of the aircraft's ceiling.
The spirit loomed up above them both, standing upon the roof of the fuselage. Thanks to his efforts to bury January in the metal, now Bismarck was closer to it than she was. Yet the neo-Nazi appeared completely unaware of its proximity, or even of its existence. Clearly he was no mage, otherwise he could not have failed to sense the creature.
January did see something with her meat eyes then. It was the shape of a man wearing a suit of black fabric and leather, fringed with rook's feathers around his neck. A cape shaped like a pair of wings floated through the water behind him. A helmet covered his head and lower face, but left the area around his eyes bare. Well, he had no eyes, or head. The helmet looked completely empty, at least physically.
That presence in the astral however, it filled the suit to overflowing with panic, desperation, and rage. No, it was outrage. It was the pure, vindictive anger of one who believed themselves to have been wronged, and was bent upon self-righteous vengeance. It spoke across the astral far more clearly than physical words ever could.
How could this have been done to him? It was not fair! It was supposed to be easy! Why were they fighting back? They weren't supposed to do that! Why didn't they just go along? Everyone would have been alright! Why did they make him do this? Why did they make him kill them all?
How had this all gone so wrong? It wasn't his fault! None of this was his fault!
Damn them. Damn them all. He would make them all pay for what they had done to him!
January was practically overwhelmed by the emotions that flowed into her across the astral. The creature screamed them out as if through a loudspeaker in the magical realm. Over and over again, it just repeated the same thing, like an old record that skipped over the same part of a song. It screeched on and on, until January actively pushed her awareness out of astral space so that she would not be subjected to its clamor.
That left her unable to move or react to what came next. She was too busy fighting against the monster's very presence in the higher realm.
So she stared on in horror as the creature—as Rook, his name was Rook—cocked back one arm. A single, long blade sprang out from his forearm. It was made of onyx-black metal, and its double-edges were serrated like teeth. Now Bismarck did seem to notice something. January felt his telekinetic grasp on her fade away, even as he turned to look up at the empty suit that now loomed over him.
The neo-Nazi was too slow. That terrible claw shot forward, and pierced his force field with ease. His telekinesis and cybernetic enhancements were just as ineffectual against the sudden strike. The blade thrust clean through his chest. His body arched sharply as the enchanted weapon went through his heart. He jerked there for a moment. Then a great cloud of air burst from his mouth, and bubbled away toward the surface far, far above.
After that the soft glow that had suffused him vanished, and the bright light in his metal eyes faded to black. His body went limp, and then slid off that terrible claw. He fell through the trench that had been gouged in the roof by January's impact. Finally he came to rest on the floor of the cockpit below.
Just like that, January was back in the Belle Isle Casino. She saw the Hierophant standing there, clad in his forbidding black and white friar's garb. A giant, invisible hand seemed to grab him, and pummel him down against the marble floor. Then it began to slowly drag him across the unyielding surface, toward the doom that waited in the summoning circle.
She heard him scream. It was a high-pitched shriek that turned her blood to ice and her insides into water. The first to go were his legs, stretched out beyond all possibility, as if they had been made of spaghetti. They cracked and ripped apart, and blood began to spray everywhere...
"Stormcrow, you've got to call for help now!" Cray's voice shouted in January's ear, and snapped her mind from the flashback. It had felt so real, that for a moment she thought that she had been there, reliving the moment all over again. But no, she was not on Belle isle. She was here, at the bottom of the ocean. She was fighting with her sisters—and a few new brothers or cousins—against a new threat.
"The others can't hear me, you've got to get help!" the hacker pleaded through her helmet's earpieces.
"I need backup, now!" January pushed the words across the mind-link. She felt numb, partly from watching a man die just inches from her, partly from relieving the death of another man that she had witnessed over a month before. Sure, he was an evil man. Both of them had been. But they were still men nonetheless. They were still people. She had never started this to kill people. Even in her super battles, she had always refrained from that. She had worked hard to avoid that.
But yet here she was, watching someone die all over again.
"That undead thing—Rook—it just killed Bismarck. It's here in the cockpit with me." She managed to force the thoughts across Silverlight's mind link.
It took an effort of will to focus. She knew that she needed to snap out of it. She had to concentrate on the here and now, or she was going to end up the same as Bismarck. That thought spurred her into action. Her heart pumped adrenaline through her blood like fuel through a jet engine. Finally it propelled her into motion once more.
Thankfully those flare arrows that Hwarang had fired earlier still shone in the darkness. They not only illuminated the bomb bay in the distance, but also the wreckage of the cockpit that January found herself falling down into. That was a good thing, because January now only had her meat eyes to work with. She did not dare try to sense into the astral around Rook. His pain would overwhelm her, as it had nearly done before.
She tore at the twisted metal around her, and tried to rip herself free of its clutches. That caused her to drop even more, as the roof of the fuselage disintegrated around her. Rook staggered before he could strike again, as the metal he stood upon shook and fell apart. He was forced back to avoid falling himself, even as January's feet came to rest upon the deck of the upper level of the cockpit below. A flight helmet lay on its side just inches away, and she saw a pair of dog tags just inches away on the metal deck. Grubb, Paul was the name stenciled upon it, along with more information on the lines below. Just beyond lay the corpse of Bismarck.
Rook leaped down under his own control a moment later however. January struggled against the bands of metal that still clutched greedily at her frame, and prevented her from raising her arms or wings to fight.
"Stormcrow, duck!" Hwarang's voice came through the mind link loud and clear.
She did not think. She just followed the arcane archer's command. Rook stepped closer as she did, and he lifted that terrible blade once more. Just as he was about to lash out with it, a series of golden lights came arcing out of the darkness. One, two, three, four, and five, they were all arrows made of brilliant golden energy. When she first saw them, they were spread out along a wide plane. Then they all arced inward, and each closed in at the monster from a different angle. An instant later they struck home, even as Rook's claw lanced down at January's head.
The five arrow finishing move slammed into the ghost like a freight train. It sent him spinning back through the water, down the length of the cockpit. He only came to a halt when he struck the crumpled in nose of the craft, his armor wedged between the pilot and co-pilot's chairs.
That reminded January that Hwarang was not just an archer, but an arcane archer. He did not fire actual arrows. Those were spells. They just looked like arrows. While January focused her magic through the classical elements, clearly Hwarang envisioned his magic through the lens of archery. January had no idea you could do such a thing. Yet as Blood Raven had been wont to point out, the world was a wider, and stranger place than anyone could ever imagine.
Best of all, it was just what the doctor ordered against a supernatural being.
January ripped out the last of the steel hull ribs that had been wrapped up around her. She flung the malformed hunk of metal back at Rook like a discus. It slammed into the ghost even as he rose to his feet between the pilot and co-pilot's seats. The force of the impact sent him back once more. He crunched through the tree of throttles that rose up in the center of the flight controls, and sank into the sea of instruments at the head of the plane.
Now that was interesting. Hwarang's attack had been magical, so of course it had harmed Rook. But there was nothing magical about the metal that January had struck him with. So even though Rook was some sort of ghost, he was tied to that suit of armor. The suit was solid, so physical actions could at least affect the armor, even if they could not directly harm the spirit within.
That was assuming there was even a real spirit in there at all of course. Silverlight had brought up the stone tape theory during her magic lesson a few days before. A magical impression could be made in a place or within an object. It would essentially play back certain events. It might be that such a magical impression had been made upon this super suit.
If that was the case, apparently this particular tape had been inadvertently created by a villain called Rook. It must have been his final thoughts and feelings that January felt playing back in the astral, over and over again in a loop. Had those charged emotions and his dying magic combined to create this ghost of a ghost within the already enchanted suit?
There would be time to speculate later. Right now January needed to act. She turned from Rook and sprang out of the open rear end of the cockpit. She cast her eyes across the bottom, to the illuminated bomb bay of the aircraft where her allies waited. Her wings snapped up and down, and she jetted away as quickly as she could to rejoin her friends there.
She did not want to fight within the cockpit. As Calypso had noted, it was a literal gravesite. As it was, there was no telling how badly she had disturbed the remains of those who had died there when the plane had crashed. Like those of Paul Grubb. The people who had perished here did not deserve to have their final resting place turned into a magical deathmatch arena.
So she soared across the deep toward the bomb bay. With luck, Rook would be chained to the cockpit, like the stories of ghosts who were trapped where they died. She could rejoin the fight against the Atomkrieg, and once they were finished they could all come back to deal with Rook. That would be nice and simple.
But of course it did not work out that way.
* * *
The Nereid won't be appearing in the fight. But she has something more important to do, as we will eventually learn.
As ever, thanks for spotting that nit for me to fix.
Renee: Captain Chesapeake looks awesome! One of the episodes in the Lone Gunman TV show had a character like him, who was a nautically-themed host of a children's TV show.
I know Chessie, and Champ. Every body of water has its sea monster. We have the Underwater Panther - Mishipeshu - here in the Great Lakes. That is why it made an appearance in Battle of Belle Isle.
As long as the Nereid chooses to take a physical form, then other sea life will be aware of her, the same as they would anything else in the water.
neo-Nazis love their skull masks. Their fascination with skulls goes back to the original Nazis in WW2. I posted some links a few weeks back about how the RL Atomwaffen Division and Iron March used them. They were my inspiration for the Atomkrieg. Likewise, "Long Live Death" was the slogan of the Spanish fascism in the 1930s.
Two Steps From Hell – Riders of the Apocalypse
Book 12.30 - Broken Arrow
As if summoned by her words, they did run into something. Only it was January who went into it head first. It felt like a rock. But when pieces of metal and rubber shattered into a haze of debris around her, she realized that it was that giant landing gear they had passed by on their way from the cockpit to the bomb bay.
It did not really hurt, though it certainly got January's attention. The impact sent them bouncing up like a rock skipped across the surface of a lake. They tumbled for a moment, and January thought she saw the cockpit of the B-52 heading toward them. Or more accurately, she saw that they were about to plow into it.
Rather than try to avoid it, Bismarck did the opposite. He turned up the speed and took them straight at the wreckage. A moment later they slammed into the fuselage. More specifically, January did, right in the small of her back. She guessed that it was the roof, rather than the center of the plane, because she saw inky black water above.
She felt the fuselage crumple up like paper beneath her enchanted flesh. Steel and aircraft aluminum screamed in torment. It shattered into hundreds of pieces and surrounded them in a haze of fragments both large and small. Finally they came to a halt about halfway down the length of the cockpit. January's torso was deeply embedded within the hull of the craft, wrapped up by structural ribs, wiring, and distorted metal plates. But she could feel her legs hanging free above the upper floor of the cockpit below.
She felt that bird, that strange living bird, in the middle of all this. They had plowed right through its resting place in the metal roof of the plane. Now it bounced up and out of the wreckage, and went pinwheeling away into the abyss.
January also felt that other presence, that dark, cold chill that made the bottom of the ocean feel warm in comparison. It had been dormant before, perhaps sleeping. But now it was awake, and waves of not only anger, put panic rolled off it like the tide. January could taste its fear and desperation on her lips, like spoiled milk. It was so rank, it made her want to physically spit to get it out of her mind.
It rose up behind her like a cloud of misery, and moved in close. January let go of Bismarck, and tried to push him away instead. This was not the time to be locked up with him. But the neo-Nazi would not let up with his telekinetic grasp. He not only kept her pinned, he shoved her deeper into the metal of the aircraft's ceiling.
The spirit loomed up above them both, standing upon the roof of the fuselage. Thanks to his efforts to bury January in the metal, now Bismarck was closer to it than she was. Yet the neo-Nazi appeared completely unaware of its proximity, or even of its existence. Clearly he was no mage, otherwise he could not have failed to sense the creature.
January did see something with her meat eyes then. It was the shape of a man wearing a suit of black fabric and leather, fringed with rook's feathers around his neck. A cape shaped like a pair of wings floated through the water behind him. A helmet covered his head and lower face, but left the area around his eyes bare. Well, he had no eyes, or head. The helmet looked completely empty, at least physically.
That presence in the astral however, it filled the suit to overflowing with panic, desperation, and rage. No, it was outrage. It was the pure, vindictive anger of one who believed themselves to have been wronged, and was bent upon self-righteous vengeance. It spoke across the astral far more clearly than physical words ever could.
How could this have been done to him? It was not fair! It was supposed to be easy! Why were they fighting back? They weren't supposed to do that! Why didn't they just go along? Everyone would have been alright! Why did they make him do this? Why did they make him kill them all?
How had this all gone so wrong? It wasn't his fault! None of this was his fault!
Damn them. Damn them all. He would make them all pay for what they had done to him!
January was practically overwhelmed by the emotions that flowed into her across the astral. The creature screamed them out as if through a loudspeaker in the magical realm. Over and over again, it just repeated the same thing, like an old record that skipped over the same part of a song. It screeched on and on, until January actively pushed her awareness out of astral space so that she would not be subjected to its clamor.
That left her unable to move or react to what came next. She was too busy fighting against the monster's very presence in the higher realm.
So she stared on in horror as the creature—as Rook, his name was Rook—cocked back one arm. A single, long blade sprang out from his forearm. It was made of onyx-black metal, and its double-edges were serrated like teeth. Now Bismarck did seem to notice something. January felt his telekinetic grasp on her fade away, even as he turned to look up at the empty suit that now loomed over him.
The neo-Nazi was too slow. That terrible claw shot forward, and pierced his force field with ease. His telekinesis and cybernetic enhancements were just as ineffectual against the sudden strike. The blade thrust clean through his chest. His body arched sharply as the enchanted weapon went through his heart. He jerked there for a moment. Then a great cloud of air burst from his mouth, and bubbled away toward the surface far, far above.
After that the soft glow that had suffused him vanished, and the bright light in his metal eyes faded to black. His body went limp, and then slid off that terrible claw. He fell through the trench that had been gouged in the roof by January's impact. Finally he came to rest on the floor of the cockpit below.
Just like that, January was back in the Belle Isle Casino. She saw the Hierophant standing there, clad in his forbidding black and white friar's garb. A giant, invisible hand seemed to grab him, and pummel him down against the marble floor. Then it began to slowly drag him across the unyielding surface, toward the doom that waited in the summoning circle.
She heard him scream. It was a high-pitched shriek that turned her blood to ice and her insides into water. The first to go were his legs, stretched out beyond all possibility, as if they had been made of spaghetti. They cracked and ripped apart, and blood began to spray everywhere...
"Stormcrow, you've got to call for help now!" Cray's voice shouted in January's ear, and snapped her mind from the flashback. It had felt so real, that for a moment she thought that she had been there, reliving the moment all over again. But no, she was not on Belle isle. She was here, at the bottom of the ocean. She was fighting with her sisters—and a few new brothers or cousins—against a new threat.
"The others can't hear me, you've got to get help!" the hacker pleaded through her helmet's earpieces.
"I need backup, now!" January pushed the words across the mind-link. She felt numb, partly from watching a man die just inches from her, partly from relieving the death of another man that she had witnessed over a month before. Sure, he was an evil man. Both of them had been. But they were still men nonetheless. They were still people. She had never started this to kill people. Even in her super battles, she had always refrained from that. She had worked hard to avoid that.
But yet here she was, watching someone die all over again.
"That undead thing—Rook—it just killed Bismarck. It's here in the cockpit with me." She managed to force the thoughts across Silverlight's mind link.
It took an effort of will to focus. She knew that she needed to snap out of it. She had to concentrate on the here and now, or she was going to end up the same as Bismarck. That thought spurred her into action. Her heart pumped adrenaline through her blood like fuel through a jet engine. Finally it propelled her into motion once more.
Thankfully those flare arrows that Hwarang had fired earlier still shone in the darkness. They not only illuminated the bomb bay in the distance, but also the wreckage of the cockpit that January found herself falling down into. That was a good thing, because January now only had her meat eyes to work with. She did not dare try to sense into the astral around Rook. His pain would overwhelm her, as it had nearly done before.
She tore at the twisted metal around her, and tried to rip herself free of its clutches. That caused her to drop even more, as the roof of the fuselage disintegrated around her. Rook staggered before he could strike again, as the metal he stood upon shook and fell apart. He was forced back to avoid falling himself, even as January's feet came to rest upon the deck of the upper level of the cockpit below. A flight helmet lay on its side just inches away, and she saw a pair of dog tags just inches away on the metal deck. Grubb, Paul was the name stenciled upon it, along with more information on the lines below. Just beyond lay the corpse of Bismarck.
Rook leaped down under his own control a moment later however. January struggled against the bands of metal that still clutched greedily at her frame, and prevented her from raising her arms or wings to fight.
"Stormcrow, duck!" Hwarang's voice came through the mind link loud and clear.
She did not think. She just followed the arcane archer's command. Rook stepped closer as she did, and he lifted that terrible blade once more. Just as he was about to lash out with it, a series of golden lights came arcing out of the darkness. One, two, three, four, and five, they were all arrows made of brilliant golden energy. When she first saw them, they were spread out along a wide plane. Then they all arced inward, and each closed in at the monster from a different angle. An instant later they struck home, even as Rook's claw lanced down at January's head.
The five arrow finishing move slammed into the ghost like a freight train. It sent him spinning back through the water, down the length of the cockpit. He only came to a halt when he struck the crumpled in nose of the craft, his armor wedged between the pilot and co-pilot's chairs.
That reminded January that Hwarang was not just an archer, but an arcane archer. He did not fire actual arrows. Those were spells. They just looked like arrows. While January focused her magic through the classical elements, clearly Hwarang envisioned his magic through the lens of archery. January had no idea you could do such a thing. Yet as Blood Raven had been wont to point out, the world was a wider, and stranger place than anyone could ever imagine.
Best of all, it was just what the doctor ordered against a supernatural being.
January ripped out the last of the steel hull ribs that had been wrapped up around her. She flung the malformed hunk of metal back at Rook like a discus. It slammed into the ghost even as he rose to his feet between the pilot and co-pilot's seats. The force of the impact sent him back once more. He crunched through the tree of throttles that rose up in the center of the flight controls, and sank into the sea of instruments at the head of the plane.
Now that was interesting. Hwarang's attack had been magical, so of course it had harmed Rook. But there was nothing magical about the metal that January had struck him with. So even though Rook was some sort of ghost, he was tied to that suit of armor. The suit was solid, so physical actions could at least affect the armor, even if they could not directly harm the spirit within.
That was assuming there was even a real spirit in there at all of course. Silverlight had brought up the stone tape theory during her magic lesson a few days before. A magical impression could be made in a place or within an object. It would essentially play back certain events. It might be that such a magical impression had been made upon this super suit.
If that was the case, apparently this particular tape had been inadvertently created by a villain called Rook. It must have been his final thoughts and feelings that January felt playing back in the astral, over and over again in a loop. Had those charged emotions and his dying magic combined to create this ghost of a ghost within the already enchanted suit?
There would be time to speculate later. Right now January needed to act. She turned from Rook and sprang out of the open rear end of the cockpit. She cast her eyes across the bottom, to the illuminated bomb bay of the aircraft where her allies waited. Her wings snapped up and down, and she jetted away as quickly as she could to rejoin her friends there.
She did not want to fight within the cockpit. As Calypso had noted, it was a literal gravesite. As it was, there was no telling how badly she had disturbed the remains of those who had died there when the plane had crashed. Like those of Paul Grubb. The people who had perished here did not deserve to have their final resting place turned into a magical deathmatch arena.
So she soared across the deep toward the bomb bay. With luck, Rook would be chained to the cockpit, like the stories of ghosts who were trapped where they died. She could rejoin the fight against the Atomkrieg, and once they were finished they could all come back to deal with Rook. That would be nice and simple.
But of course it did not work out that way.
* * *
So Rook somehow lives on. Sort of. And, happily, takes out one of Strormcrow’s foes. Not so happily, the spirit turns its ire upon Stormcrow next. Good call from Cray to snap Stormcrow out of her thoughts and return her to action. And with some help from our Arcane Archer, Strormcrow is able to get out of that confined death trap and back to her group.
Her thoughts on the possibilities of what happened to Rook and exactly what she was fighting were really interesting.
Your ominous ending implies that the two separate fights against Rook and the Atomkrieg will not remain separate for long.
Nit: ’She felt numb, party {partly} from watching a man die just inches from her, partly from relieving the death of another man that she had witnessed over a month before.’
Her thoughts on the possibilities of what happened to Rook and exactly what she was fighting were really interesting.
Your ominous ending implies that the two separate fights against Rook and the Atomkrieg will not remain separate for long.
Nit: ’She felt numb, party {partly} from watching a man die just inches from her, partly from relieving the death of another man that she had witnessed over a month before.’
Never watched Lone Gunman, but glad you can relate to our Captain Chesapeake.
But what if Nereid doesn't take a physical form? Would a smarter creature like a dolphin be able to discern the spirit's presence? Assuming Nereid is one step outside of the material, perhaps?
So Rook somehow lives on. Sort of.
Oh man, really? Let's find out.
Yeesah, she's been smashed into the debris, yikes. By the way, today is the 1-year anniversary of Titan's implosion. So it's quite apt they're all underwater lately. But yeah, that's gotta hurt. Except it doesn't. Bismarck's a douchebag. Not that I'm stating the obvious or anything.
Where are the others at this moment? Kinda silly these nazis think they're gonna get away with this. But lemme shush.
Alright, here comes Rook. What does he think of all this? Disturbing his 'peace' or whatever?
Rook's spirit does NOT rest, apparently! All these decades later he's still pissed he wasn't able to take the crew over like a proper antagonist. I understand it's not really "him", it is the remains of his will or whatever. Like his will has become stuck into the material.
If anything though, this is a really good example of a spirit who doesn't rest. From a writer's standpoint that's immersive as heck.
Whoa, Rook is pwning Bismarck. Knew something like this was going to happen. But he's also coming after January. 🤬 Rook has no affiliation with taking sides, apparently.
But what if Nereid doesn't take a physical form? Would a smarter creature like a dolphin be able to discern the spirit's presence? Assuming Nereid is one step outside of the material, perhaps?
QUOTE(Acadian @ Jun 15 2024, 03:50 PM)
So Rook somehow lives on. Sort of.
Oh man, really? Let's find out.
Yeesah, she's been smashed into the debris, yikes. By the way, today is the 1-year anniversary of Titan's implosion. So it's quite apt they're all underwater lately. But yeah, that's gotta hurt. Except it doesn't. Bismarck's a douchebag. Not that I'm stating the obvious or anything.
Where are the others at this moment? Kinda silly these nazis think they're gonna get away with this. But lemme shush.
Alright, here comes Rook. What does he think of all this? Disturbing his 'peace' or whatever?
Rook's spirit does NOT rest, apparently! All these decades later he's still pissed he wasn't able to take the crew over like a proper antagonist. I understand it's not really "him", it is the remains of his will or whatever. Like his will has become stuck into the material. If anything though, this is a really good example of a spirit who doesn't rest.
From a writer's standpoint that's immersive as heck. Whoa, Rook is pwning Bismarck. Knew something like this was going to happen. But he's also coming after January. 🤬 Rook has no affiliation with taking sides, apparently.
I’m thinking, the realization that physical actions can affect the armor could be an important thing to know.
Acadian: Rook removed Bismarck, only to increase the difficulty by adding himself to the mix. Not a good trade for January. Rook is a lot more dangerous now that he is dead.
This is going to get a lot more complicated that just two separate battles. The final player in the game is about to enter the chat.
Hwarang has really managed to shine in this fight. An Arcane Archer is a really handy thing to have on your team. They can always reach out and touch someone at just the right time.
January's thoughts give us some exposition on what the nature of Undead Rook is. It also loops us back to Silverlight's earlier magic lesson.
Renee: If the Neried is not physical, then there would be nothing for any sea life to sense. Unless they were magicians able to sense into astral space. But I have never considered if that is even possible.
Rook gave me an opportunity to explore one of the less used forms of undead: the stone tape theory. It is a somewhat oldie in the modern paranormal world, going back to the 50s or 60s I think. So it was a nice deep cut to dust off and use.
Rook only has one side: "KILL! KILL,KILL!" Honestly, that is pretty much it.
macole: The note about the physicality of the suit vs. the magical nature of the spirit within was sort of an afterthought which came to me as I was doing the later edits. Often in the stone tape theory, the spirit is tied to a place. But I decided to throw in a wrinkle and have it tied to the suit. This allows it to move around to other locations. Theoretically, it could go anywhere it wanted to. But due to its nature it does not have the self-awareness to do so. It just kills whatever comes too close.
So the suit vs the spirit won't be directly important. Except in so much that the suit provides protection for the spirit, so it will have to be defeated before the spirit can be harmed. It is one of the things that makes Rook such an insanely powerful opponent however. That suit is a magical work of art. The living Rook was good at one thing, that was enchanting magic items. And he was a genius at that. He was an idiot at everything else.
January's Fight Music = Two Steps From Hell – Never Back Down
Nitokris armor
Khopesh
Go For The Eyes Boo!
Book 12.31 - Broken Arrow
Another glowing arrow seared through the inky black waters, only to vanish somewhere behind January. She followed the arcane missile back to its source, and saw that Hwarang was perched upon the ceiling of the B-52's fuselage. The Atomkrieg and Mid-Atlantic Coalition battled on the far side of the bomber. January could only catch snatches of the individual heroes and villains, but there was no mistaking the spectacle of the super battle they were involved in. Silverlight alone was radiant, a beacon that shone through the darkness where the sun's rays had never touched.
Then January looked down from where Hwarang stood. When they had first arrived Mercury had created a large opening on this side of the fuselage to let them all in. January had added another jagged hole when she had taken Bismarck out via her suplex. Now she had a pretty clear view inside the bomb bay, and she did not like what she saw.
A woman stood within. She was clad in what looked like ancient Egyptian armor. A breastplate of resplendent bronze sheathed her torso. Beneath it a long tunic of reddish brown leather scales fell down to her knees in a wide skirt. Her waist was wrapped with a bronze belt, and her neck by a scaled gorget. Shining plates of the same metal protected her shoulders, forearms, and the shins above her sandaled feet.
She held a bronze sickle-sword in one hand. As January watched, she swung the khopesh in a smooth motion, and sliced one of the massive nuclear bombs free of its harness. It slowly trundled down toward the closed bomb bay doors under her feet. The sword vanished from the lady pharaoh's hand, and she rushed in to wrap both of her arms around the bomb and hold it aloft.
"Spleckt!" January cursed over the mind-link. "Nitokris is here! She's stealing the bombs right now!"
Hwarang ceased fire and jumped off the roof of the bomber. Thanks to the water, he floated—rather than fell—to the sea floor below. He somersaulted as he descended, and brought up his bow to fire into the fuselage behind him. He was too slow however. Nitokris had plenty of time to plant one palm on the top of the bomb and use it as a springboard to leap over it. That launched her out of the fuselage, and a moment later she planted a flying kick straight into the Korean-American's chest.
That sent Hwarang rocketing away from the crashed bomber at a truly astounding speed. Clearly, the Egyptian could hit with the best of them. It also sent the arcane archer in January's general direction. She coaxed more speed from her wings, and sped across the ocean floor to meet him. January intercepted him just before he was about to plow into the mud, and caught his midsection with one shoulder. For a moment his body folded neatly around her, in something akin to a fireman's carry. Then the archer lifted his torso, and January heard him across the mind link.
"Must, go, faster," the Korean-American said. "That undead thing is right behind us."
January swore.
She laid on even more speed. She did not want to get into it with Rook, not when Nitokris was making off with the bombs. Well, with the bomb casings at least. Evidently the Egyptian had not figured that out yet. Hopefully she never would.
Hwarang straightened out even more, so that his torso now thrust up at a right angle to January's body. Out of the corner of her eyes she saw him create his bow once more, nock an arrow, and fire back the way they had come from. Again and again he continued to do so, and filled the black sea with glowing missiles. It was the same Parthian shot he had made while on his motorcycle in the Smithsonian. Only now the flower knight was making it from January's shoulder. She hoped those arrows found their mark within Rook. But she was not about to slow down enough to turn back to see.
"Ok, time to get off the ride," January pushed the thought across the mind link at Hwarang. She angled up, then flared her wings out flat against her direction of motion. That did the equivalent of putting on the brakes, and slowed her to nearly a halt. But Hwarang continued to float forward without her, and he arced up and out toward the roof of the B-52 fuselage dead ahead.
The arcane archer spun around in a somersault once more, and shot off an arrow at Nitokris. She saw it coming however, and a tall shield appeared in one of her hands. It had a long, rectangular shape with a rounded top. That made it look like a door to January's eyes. Hwarang's arrow splashed harmlessly against it. After that the flower knight pinwheeled away through the water overhead, and landed back atop the roof of the bomber.
January saw Nitokris drop the shield. It simply vanished when she no longer needed it. Now a bow of her own appeared in her hands, and she trained it upon January. The heroine beat down with her wings once more, and poured the speed back on. That took her straight at the Egyptian. Nitokris loosed a golden arrow a moment later, but January was ready. She ducked down and the arcane missile soared over her head, and into the darkness behind her. She hoped that it would hit Rook.
January slammed into Nitokris a moment later. But the lady pharaoh was quick enough to drop her bow, and form her shield once more. January crashed into its face. She was not going nearly as fast as she would have been in the air. But even still, she struck with enough force to send the two of them back against the far wall of the plane. They hit hard enough for the metal to dimple around their bodies, but not enough to break through the fuselage.
"Not you again!" the other woman hissed with an Arabic accent.
"So nice to see you too Nitokris," January murmured. She actually heard her own voice loud and clear through the water, even though she had spoken normally. She would have to thank Calypso for that later, as it must have been a side effect of the water breathing magic the aquanaut had taught her.
"By the way, I'd like you to meet a new enemy of mine: Rook," January pushed herself away from Nitokris to get some space, and turned back just in time to see the corvid-inspired villain enter the wreckage through the same wide opening that January had used. The light from Hwarang's illumination arrows was brighter here, and made it clear that the suit was empty. Though plainly, it was quite animate.
Apparently Rook was not picky about who he killed. He immediately struck out at Nitokris with that terrible claw. She only barely parried it with her shield. Like January, she had just pulled herself out of the hull. Now the force of the blow sent her right back into it a second time.
January pushed in and sliced with a wing, intending to take that helmet clean off at the ghost's shoulders. She had hacked through concrete and steel with her wings in the past. It was just a matter of applying enough force with their narrow leading edges. She hoped she would do as well against Rook. But the suit raised a forearm and stopped the attack cold. Clearly, it had been well made.
Rook pivoted and thrust out at January with the sword that was attached to his arm. January brought her other wing around. She did not so much block the attack, as push it off to the side. That caused the serrated claw to slice through the water over her shoulder. By then Nitokris had formed her own sickle-sword, and hacked away at the ghost from behind. But again, he twisted and blocked with his other forearm.
With that she and Nitokris settled into an unspoken alliance against the ghost. They each kept well clear of the other. On January's part it was just as much to not tempt that alliance, as it was to avoid crowding the other woman. Perhaps more importantly it forced Rook to split his focus between them. She imagined that the Egyptian felt much the same. It was not like they were going to take a selfie and share a smoothie afterward.
Cray was in her head a moment later, telling her that this was indeed a villain named Rook. He had been a small time supervillain back in the late 50s and early 60s. He had robbed some banks wearing the super suit she saw before him. Apparently he was a mage, with an obvious predilection for corvids. He had never killed anyone, but then again, no one had ever been able to pose a serious threat to him either. He had only faced security guards and beat cops before, never a meta-human or another mage.
"He fell off the proverbial—and literal—radar around January of 1961," Cray finished up. "That lines up with the disappearance of Keep 19. He must have been the one that hijacked the bomber and caused it to crash."
"And killed himself and everyone else on board in the process," January murmured. "Now I see why he is so frantic in astral space. Somehow, he really screwed the pooch on this one."
January tested her new opponent. She went low with her kicks, and aimed for the feet, shins, and knees. None of those probing attacks appeared to faze Rook. She used her wings to strike at his torso, and hacked and slashed from his waist to his shoulders. But again, it was to no effect.
At the same time Nitokris continued to work on him with her sword. But just as with January's wings and fists, his armor turned aside every blow aimed at it. The Egyptian leaped back and let her sword and shield vanish, to be replaced with her bow. She drove an arcane arrow into the ghost's chest with it. But again, to no avail.
Rook was not idle during all of this of course. Even as he fended off attacks from both directions, he still was able to strike again and again with either bare fists, feet, or that serrated sword blade of his. January paid special attention to the latter. She trusted her natural invulnerability to protect her from unarmed attacks, even from a ghost. But she had already seen what that claw could do up close. She was careful to never try to block it head on. Instead every time it came her way she used her wings to push it to one side or another. That deflected the attacks harmlessly away, rather than test her defenses against a full-on strike.
This went on for some time. It felt like ages to January, but she suspected that when she reviewed her suit camera video later, it would probably only amount to a few minutes, if even that long. Fighting seemed to work that way for her. Every second felt like a minute, every minute an hour. Through it all her mouth felt as dry as a desert, and her heart raced like one of those trains that Mercury appeared to be so fond of.
January moved in closer now and loosed her fists at his head. She peppered jabs, crosses, and uppercuts across his chin, ears, nose, and eyes. Finally she struck pay dirt. Well, she struck something at least. Rook ignored every strike except the last, the one that landed in the blank space where his eyes should have been. With that his head recoiled back like it was on a spring.
January noted that it was the only spot that his helmet and the mask across his lower face did not cover. It was quite literally the only bare place in his defenses. When she struck again at the same spot, he used hands and forearms to block the attacks. Out of curiosity January relented, and moved down to work over his body instead. But he did not even bother trying to deflect those blows. He simply shrugged them off, as if they meant nothing at all.
"Go for the eyes Boo!" January cried out to Nitokris. She could not resist the Baldur's Gate reference. She was a nerd after all. "That's his weak spot."
Now she struck at him with both wings, and brought them in at his head from either side. He blocked both with his forearms. That left him wide open for January's real strike. Pushing right up to his chest, she clapped her left hand upon his shoulder, and used it to vault herself up over his head. She came down a moment later with her right elbow, and aimed it at his empty eye sockets. It was Ragnarok, the end of all things.
But he ducked his head even as she brought down her finishing blow. Instead of striking Rook in the bare patch around his eyes, her elbow slammed down hard upon the top of his helmet. The force of the impact triggered a shockwave that rolled through the interior of the fuselage. It sent both Nitokris and January flying back in opposite directions, straight into the walls of the fuselage. The hull of the aircraft shuddered all around them, and the metal audibly groaned under the strain. But it held, barely.
Rook's helmet shattered under the impact, and its pieces pinwheeled away into the water. He fell to his knees. With his helmet gone, a blank space was revealed beneath. There was just nothing there, physically at least. January was tempted to look at it in the astral. But she did not want another taste of what the ghost felt like in the magical realm. Once in a lifetime was enough to experience the thoughts and emotions of a dying man. She was not a glutton for psychic punishment.
Nitokris recovered first. Before Rook could climb back to his feet she trained her bow upon him. She loosed another glowing golden arrow a moment later, and it drove home right between where his eyes would have been. The ghost's head snapped back, the arcane arrow visible within the emptiness of his skull. But still he did not fall.
Nitokris rushed forward. Her bow vanished, and once again her khopesh and shield formed in her hands. She leaped up a few feet from the ghost, and came down sword first. Its point thrust directly into the space where the arrow was lodged. It split the arcane missile in two, and wedged itself deeply into the head of the wraith.
January felt the explosion in the astral, even though she was deliberately suppressing her ability to sense there. It was an eruption of unbound mana that tore through space and rushed out in all directions. In the physical world it manifested in a wash of gray light that burst from the blank skull like a bomb going off. January knew that light should not be that color. But she suspected that it was not simply light. It was energy. Normal magical energy was a brilliant, vibrant gold in hue, such as both Hwarang and Nitokris' arcane arrows. But while still energy, this was drained of all life. It was dead, and cold, like the undead being that had so recently inhabited the suit of enchanted armor.
In the wake of the explosion the Rook armor fell to the floor beneath their feet. January did not want to risk sensing into the astral just yet. But she had the distinct impression that whatever force—spirit or stone tape—that had animated it was now gone. It had been destroyed for once and all.
* * *
This is going to get a lot more complicated that just two separate battles. The final player in the game is about to enter the chat.
Hwarang has really managed to shine in this fight. An Arcane Archer is a really handy thing to have on your team. They can always reach out and touch someone at just the right time.
January's thoughts give us some exposition on what the nature of Undead Rook is. It also loops us back to Silverlight's earlier magic lesson.
Renee: If the Neried is not physical, then there would be nothing for any sea life to sense. Unless they were magicians able to sense into astral space. But I have never considered if that is even possible.
Rook gave me an opportunity to explore one of the less used forms of undead: the stone tape theory. It is a somewhat oldie in the modern paranormal world, going back to the 50s or 60s I think. So it was a nice deep cut to dust off and use.
Rook only has one side: "KILL! KILL,KILL!"
Honestly, that is pretty much it.macole: The note about the physicality of the suit vs. the magical nature of the spirit within was sort of an afterthought which came to me as I was doing the later edits. Often in the stone tape theory, the spirit is tied to a place. But I decided to throw in a wrinkle and have it tied to the suit. This allows it to move around to other locations. Theoretically, it could go anywhere it wanted to. But due to its nature it does not have the self-awareness to do so. It just kills whatever comes too close.
So the suit vs the spirit won't be directly important. Except in so much that the suit provides protection for the spirit, so it will have to be defeated before the spirit can be harmed. It is one of the things that makes Rook such an insanely powerful opponent however. That suit is a magical work of art. The living Rook was good at one thing, that was enchanting magic items. And he was a genius at that. He was an idiot at everything else.
January's Fight Music = Two Steps From Hell – Never Back Down
Nitokris armor
Khopesh
Go For The Eyes Boo!
Book 12.31 - Broken Arrow
Another glowing arrow seared through the inky black waters, only to vanish somewhere behind January. She followed the arcane missile back to its source, and saw that Hwarang was perched upon the ceiling of the B-52's fuselage. The Atomkrieg and Mid-Atlantic Coalition battled on the far side of the bomber. January could only catch snatches of the individual heroes and villains, but there was no mistaking the spectacle of the super battle they were involved in. Silverlight alone was radiant, a beacon that shone through the darkness where the sun's rays had never touched.
Then January looked down from where Hwarang stood. When they had first arrived Mercury had created a large opening on this side of the fuselage to let them all in. January had added another jagged hole when she had taken Bismarck out via her suplex. Now she had a pretty clear view inside the bomb bay, and she did not like what she saw.
A woman stood within. She was clad in what looked like ancient Egyptian armor. A breastplate of resplendent bronze sheathed her torso. Beneath it a long tunic of reddish brown leather scales fell down to her knees in a wide skirt. Her waist was wrapped with a bronze belt, and her neck by a scaled gorget. Shining plates of the same metal protected her shoulders, forearms, and the shins above her sandaled feet.
She held a bronze sickle-sword in one hand. As January watched, she swung the khopesh in a smooth motion, and sliced one of the massive nuclear bombs free of its harness. It slowly trundled down toward the closed bomb bay doors under her feet. The sword vanished from the lady pharaoh's hand, and she rushed in to wrap both of her arms around the bomb and hold it aloft.
"Spleckt!" January cursed over the mind-link. "Nitokris is here! She's stealing the bombs right now!"
Hwarang ceased fire and jumped off the roof of the bomber. Thanks to the water, he floated—rather than fell—to the sea floor below. He somersaulted as he descended, and brought up his bow to fire into the fuselage behind him. He was too slow however. Nitokris had plenty of time to plant one palm on the top of the bomb and use it as a springboard to leap over it. That launched her out of the fuselage, and a moment later she planted a flying kick straight into the Korean-American's chest.
That sent Hwarang rocketing away from the crashed bomber at a truly astounding speed. Clearly, the Egyptian could hit with the best of them. It also sent the arcane archer in January's general direction. She coaxed more speed from her wings, and sped across the ocean floor to meet him. January intercepted him just before he was about to plow into the mud, and caught his midsection with one shoulder. For a moment his body folded neatly around her, in something akin to a fireman's carry. Then the archer lifted his torso, and January heard him across the mind link.
"Must, go, faster," the Korean-American said. "That undead thing is right behind us."
January swore.
She laid on even more speed. She did not want to get into it with Rook, not when Nitokris was making off with the bombs. Well, with the bomb casings at least. Evidently the Egyptian had not figured that out yet. Hopefully she never would.
Hwarang straightened out even more, so that his torso now thrust up at a right angle to January's body. Out of the corner of her eyes she saw him create his bow once more, nock an arrow, and fire back the way they had come from. Again and again he continued to do so, and filled the black sea with glowing missiles. It was the same Parthian shot he had made while on his motorcycle in the Smithsonian. Only now the flower knight was making it from January's shoulder. She hoped those arrows found their mark within Rook. But she was not about to slow down enough to turn back to see.
"Ok, time to get off the ride," January pushed the thought across the mind link at Hwarang. She angled up, then flared her wings out flat against her direction of motion. That did the equivalent of putting on the brakes, and slowed her to nearly a halt. But Hwarang continued to float forward without her, and he arced up and out toward the roof of the B-52 fuselage dead ahead.
The arcane archer spun around in a somersault once more, and shot off an arrow at Nitokris. She saw it coming however, and a tall shield appeared in one of her hands. It had a long, rectangular shape with a rounded top. That made it look like a door to January's eyes. Hwarang's arrow splashed harmlessly against it. After that the flower knight pinwheeled away through the water overhead, and landed back atop the roof of the bomber.
January saw Nitokris drop the shield. It simply vanished when she no longer needed it. Now a bow of her own appeared in her hands, and she trained it upon January. The heroine beat down with her wings once more, and poured the speed back on. That took her straight at the Egyptian. Nitokris loosed a golden arrow a moment later, but January was ready. She ducked down and the arcane missile soared over her head, and into the darkness behind her. She hoped that it would hit Rook.
January slammed into Nitokris a moment later. But the lady pharaoh was quick enough to drop her bow, and form her shield once more. January crashed into its face. She was not going nearly as fast as she would have been in the air. But even still, she struck with enough force to send the two of them back against the far wall of the plane. They hit hard enough for the metal to dimple around their bodies, but not enough to break through the fuselage.
"Not you again!" the other woman hissed with an Arabic accent.
"So nice to see you too Nitokris," January murmured. She actually heard her own voice loud and clear through the water, even though she had spoken normally. She would have to thank Calypso for that later, as it must have been a side effect of the water breathing magic the aquanaut had taught her.
"By the way, I'd like you to meet a new enemy of mine: Rook," January pushed herself away from Nitokris to get some space, and turned back just in time to see the corvid-inspired villain enter the wreckage through the same wide opening that January had used. The light from Hwarang's illumination arrows was brighter here, and made it clear that the suit was empty. Though plainly, it was quite animate.
Apparently Rook was not picky about who he killed. He immediately struck out at Nitokris with that terrible claw. She only barely parried it with her shield. Like January, she had just pulled herself out of the hull. Now the force of the blow sent her right back into it a second time.
January pushed in and sliced with a wing, intending to take that helmet clean off at the ghost's shoulders. She had hacked through concrete and steel with her wings in the past. It was just a matter of applying enough force with their narrow leading edges. She hoped she would do as well against Rook. But the suit raised a forearm and stopped the attack cold. Clearly, it had been well made.
Rook pivoted and thrust out at January with the sword that was attached to his arm. January brought her other wing around. She did not so much block the attack, as push it off to the side. That caused the serrated claw to slice through the water over her shoulder. By then Nitokris had formed her own sickle-sword, and hacked away at the ghost from behind. But again, he twisted and blocked with his other forearm.
With that she and Nitokris settled into an unspoken alliance against the ghost. They each kept well clear of the other. On January's part it was just as much to not tempt that alliance, as it was to avoid crowding the other woman. Perhaps more importantly it forced Rook to split his focus between them. She imagined that the Egyptian felt much the same. It was not like they were going to take a selfie and share a smoothie afterward.
Cray was in her head a moment later, telling her that this was indeed a villain named Rook. He had been a small time supervillain back in the late 50s and early 60s. He had robbed some banks wearing the super suit she saw before him. Apparently he was a mage, with an obvious predilection for corvids. He had never killed anyone, but then again, no one had ever been able to pose a serious threat to him either. He had only faced security guards and beat cops before, never a meta-human or another mage.
"He fell off the proverbial—and literal—radar around January of 1961," Cray finished up. "That lines up with the disappearance of Keep 19. He must have been the one that hijacked the bomber and caused it to crash."
"And killed himself and everyone else on board in the process," January murmured. "Now I see why he is so frantic in astral space. Somehow, he really screwed the pooch on this one."
January tested her new opponent. She went low with her kicks, and aimed for the feet, shins, and knees. None of those probing attacks appeared to faze Rook. She used her wings to strike at his torso, and hacked and slashed from his waist to his shoulders. But again, it was to no effect.
At the same time Nitokris continued to work on him with her sword. But just as with January's wings and fists, his armor turned aside every blow aimed at it. The Egyptian leaped back and let her sword and shield vanish, to be replaced with her bow. She drove an arcane arrow into the ghost's chest with it. But again, to no avail.
Rook was not idle during all of this of course. Even as he fended off attacks from both directions, he still was able to strike again and again with either bare fists, feet, or that serrated sword blade of his. January paid special attention to the latter. She trusted her natural invulnerability to protect her from unarmed attacks, even from a ghost. But she had already seen what that claw could do up close. She was careful to never try to block it head on. Instead every time it came her way she used her wings to push it to one side or another. That deflected the attacks harmlessly away, rather than test her defenses against a full-on strike.
This went on for some time. It felt like ages to January, but she suspected that when she reviewed her suit camera video later, it would probably only amount to a few minutes, if even that long. Fighting seemed to work that way for her. Every second felt like a minute, every minute an hour. Through it all her mouth felt as dry as a desert, and her heart raced like one of those trains that Mercury appeared to be so fond of.
January moved in closer now and loosed her fists at his head. She peppered jabs, crosses, and uppercuts across his chin, ears, nose, and eyes. Finally she struck pay dirt. Well, she struck something at least. Rook ignored every strike except the last, the one that landed in the blank space where his eyes should have been. With that his head recoiled back like it was on a spring.
January noted that it was the only spot that his helmet and the mask across his lower face did not cover. It was quite literally the only bare place in his defenses. When she struck again at the same spot, he used hands and forearms to block the attacks. Out of curiosity January relented, and moved down to work over his body instead. But he did not even bother trying to deflect those blows. He simply shrugged them off, as if they meant nothing at all.
"Go for the eyes Boo!" January cried out to Nitokris. She could not resist the Baldur's Gate reference. She was a nerd after all. "That's his weak spot."
Now she struck at him with both wings, and brought them in at his head from either side. He blocked both with his forearms. That left him wide open for January's real strike. Pushing right up to his chest, she clapped her left hand upon his shoulder, and used it to vault herself up over his head. She came down a moment later with her right elbow, and aimed it at his empty eye sockets. It was Ragnarok, the end of all things.
But he ducked his head even as she brought down her finishing blow. Instead of striking Rook in the bare patch around his eyes, her elbow slammed down hard upon the top of his helmet. The force of the impact triggered a shockwave that rolled through the interior of the fuselage. It sent both Nitokris and January flying back in opposite directions, straight into the walls of the fuselage. The hull of the aircraft shuddered all around them, and the metal audibly groaned under the strain. But it held, barely.
Rook's helmet shattered under the impact, and its pieces pinwheeled away into the water. He fell to his knees. With his helmet gone, a blank space was revealed beneath. There was just nothing there, physically at least. January was tempted to look at it in the astral. But she did not want another taste of what the ghost felt like in the magical realm. Once in a lifetime was enough to experience the thoughts and emotions of a dying man. She was not a glutton for psychic punishment.
Nitokris recovered first. Before Rook could climb back to his feet she trained her bow upon him. She loosed another glowing golden arrow a moment later, and it drove home right between where his eyes would have been. The ghost's head snapped back, the arcane arrow visible within the emptiness of his skull. But still he did not fall.
Nitokris rushed forward. Her bow vanished, and once again her khopesh and shield formed in her hands. She leaped up a few feet from the ghost, and came down sword first. Its point thrust directly into the space where the arrow was lodged. It split the arcane missile in two, and wedged itself deeply into the head of the wraith.
January felt the explosion in the astral, even though she was deliberately suppressing her ability to sense there. It was an eruption of unbound mana that tore through space and rushed out in all directions. In the physical world it manifested in a wash of gray light that burst from the blank skull like a bomb going off. January knew that light should not be that color. But she suspected that it was not simply light. It was energy. Normal magical energy was a brilliant, vibrant gold in hue, such as both Hwarang and Nitokris' arcane arrows. But while still energy, this was drained of all life. It was dead, and cold, like the undead being that had so recently inhabited the suit of enchanted armor.
In the wake of the explosion the Rook armor fell to the floor beneath their feet. January did not want to risk sensing into the astral just yet. But she had the distinct impression that whatever force—spirit or stone tape—that had animated it was now gone. It had been destroyed for once and all.
* * *
Uh oh, who is this Egyptian woman. Wait a minute. Okay, she's appeared before in the story at least twice. She's probably the one who was surveilling Bismarck's hideout a few episodes back. Nitokris, that's her. So this is a 3-way rush to get to these bombs. 💣
Is it fair to say Rook is like some of the draugrs? Inanimate until all these others showed up?
That's a neat moment, when Nitokris and January automatically conjoin forces. If only to defeat Rooky-Rook.
Dammit! Was hoping they'd become besties! 💏
Oh gosh, Rook's pretty tough. It's like everything they try to bring him down, nothing seems to work. Okay, there. His helmet's shattered. Hmm, there he goes. No more Rook. But there's still Nitokris.
Will our Michigan heroine deftly be able to take on the Best Egypt has to offer? Stay tuned.
Is it fair to say Rook is like some of the draugrs? Inanimate until all these others showed up?
That's a neat moment, when Nitokris and January automatically conjoin forces. If only to defeat Rooky-Rook.
QUOTE
It was not like they were going to take a selfie and share a smoothie afterward.
Dammit!
Was hoping they'd become besties! 💏Oh gosh, Rook's pretty tough. It's like everything they try to bring him down, nothing seems to work. Okay, there. His helmet's shattered. Hmm, there he goes. No more Rook. But there's still Nitokris.
Will our Michigan heroine deftly be able to take on the Best Egypt has to offer? Stay tuned.
Nitokris is back and clearly has plans of her own for those bombs. And clearly, she is no slouch in a fight! But Rook is an equal opportunity attacker and goes for both her and Stormcrow. The enemy of my enemy is my friend – at least for this fight. Smart of Stormcrow to pummel everywhere until she finally found Rook’s weak spot and shared it with Nitokris. So the Rook is no more and this four way battle is now a three way contest.
Stromcrow has 'reoriented' numerous potential foes to the path of light. I wonder if she can salvage Nitokris?
Go for the eyes, Boo!
Stromcrow has 'reoriented' numerous potential foes to the path of light. I wonder if she can salvage Nitokris?
Go for the eyes, Boo!
Renee: Nitokris also appeared way back in Book 7: Hammer Down. She slugged it out with Blood Raven, and held her own. She was also the one spying on Bismarck and the Atomkrieg a few posts back. Everyone wants those bombs!
Draugrs are a good comparison in that regard. Rook just sits and waits until something alive comes too near. Then he kills it.
Rook became a lot tougher once he died! I suppose that is one advantage of having the singular focus of kill, kill, kill!
January will have her hands, feet, and wings more than full trying to take on the best Egypt has to offer.
Acadian: I have always been fond of the saying: "The enemy of my enemy is still my enemy." As January is about to see. Granted, she was no under no illusions. She was not expecting selfies and smoothies with Nitokris afterward. It was more like the United States teaming up with the Soviet Union during World War 2.
Turning Nitokris toward the light side is a task that I am not sure if even Luke Skywalker could manage. But January will of course try. Once she gets done throwing hands of course.
I could not resist the Boo line. Minsc and his dialogue are just a treasure. He is a very fun part of Baldur's Gate 3. Best of all it just came to instantly as I was writing. I did not have to think about it at all.
Two Steps From Hell – Myth
Book 12.32 - Broken Arrow
January pried herself out of the bent and cracked hull of the B-52. There wasn't much of the airframe left. It was a credit to the people who had built it that any of it was left standing at all. As far as she was concerned, they all deserved a raise.
She stared at Nitokris. The Egyptian had likewise been thrown back into one wall of the aircraft by the magical explosion of Rook's final death. She too had clawed herself free of the wreckage, and now stood across the bomb bay from the heroine.
January took a moment to crack her knuckles. Then she popped the vertebrae in her neck by twisting it to one side and then the other. Nitokris regarded her in return, and hefted her sword and shield.
"Time to finish this," the Egyptian murmured.
Nitokris moved in quickly. Even underwater, she was still fast, like as a striking cobra. January had to beat her wings to push herself back, otherwise she would have been sliced in two by that sickle-sword. That opened up the space between them, which prompted the other woman to drop her melee weapon and replace it with her bow.
January ached for the sky above. But the lightning was beyond her call right now. So she reached down into her belt and pulled out one of her favorite toys. It was her strobe. She held it up before her and screwed her eyes shut. A moment later it burst forth with brilliant light. Even with her eyes closed, incandescent afterimages flashed across January's eyelids.
She opened her eyes once they faded. It was just in time to see that her trick had failed to have any effect upon the other woman. Instead Nitokris loosed her arrow from her bow. January snapped her wings shut across her body out of reflex, and the arcane missile slammed home against their feathers an instant later. It was a hot, stinging sensation, but nothing more. If she had learned anything about herself, it was that her wings were the most durable part of her body. It would take a lot more than that to lay her low.
Unfortunately Nitokris followed with a lot more. Sword and shield in hand, she leaped forward with the same finishing move she had used on Rook. But January saw it coming, and was able to bring up one wing to push the other woman's khopesh off line. It was just enough to send the bronze sword blade whooshing past her ear through empty water, rather than skewering her face just as she had done to the ghost.
The Egyptian continued the attack however, and smashed forward with the edge of her shield. January met it with her other wing, and slammed the rectangular shield back. She followed with a push kick aimed at the other woman's stomach. But the Egyptian twisted aside, and hacked down with her sword, clearly intending to take January's leg off.
An upward swipe of January's left wing pushed the sickle-sword up and away. That gave her the time to pull her exposed leg back. Nitokris followed with a stamp at her instep. But the other woman was just a little too slow, and missed January's foot by an inch.
January now realized that the water had in fact slowed the other woman down. Thanks to the magic that Calypso had taught her, it was not inhibiting January's movements at all. She was at home here under the sea. But while Nitokris clearly had some magical means of surviving the depths, she was not quite as agile here as she was on land. January had fought her before in Cleveland, and the other woman had been just a little too fast for her to really match. But down here under a literal mountain of water, the Egyptian had been brought down to her own level.
In any case, the exchange had left the two women standing chest to chest. It was too close for either sword or wings. January moved for a suplex. Thanks to Riven's training, she could wrap the Egyptian up and drive her down through the deck below. But before she could do so, the lady pharaoh hammered home a head butt straight between January's eyes. It did not really hurt, but it did give her pause for a moment. That was enough time for the Egyptian to push off, and open the distance between them once more.
But that also told January something. The Egyptian did not want to fight up close. She wanted to keep the fight at range and rely on sword and shield, or even farther out with her bow.
With that January knew that she could win. She just needed to use her wings to hold Nitokris off at a distance. Then she would move in close and finish it breast to breast.
"So what are you doing here?" January asked. "Did the Atomkrieg hire you for extra muscle?"
"Those ya gazma?" The other fighter practically spat. "Not hardly. My accountant said I should invest in nuclear futures."
"What does a girl do with two slightly used atomic bombs?" January wondered as they closed in and traded blows once more. Again sword and shield rang out against her wings, and the pair danced around the two nuclear weapons in question. "Going to post some pics with them on the 'gram, get a real thirst trap going?"
"I am going to change the world with them!" the other woman snarled. "Where I come from, power flows from the barrel of a gun. I will show them who has the biggest one."
"You aren't going to make the world better with a nuclear bomb," January shook her head as the traded blows once more. "How many innocent people are you going to kill with your bigger gun?"
"That is the kind of thing my parents would say," Nitokris declared. She punctuated her words with a kick that sent January flying back down the length of the fuselage, and drove her into the metal bulkhead at the stern of the craft. "Then the secret police killed them."
"I'm sorry," January replied quite honestly as she pried herself from the metal at the back of the fuselage. Nitokris sent another arrow her way, having switched to her bow once more. But again January had time to bring her wings up, and absorb the blow on her feathers.
"That might explain some things," Cray's voice was back in her ear. "The first time this version of Nitokris was seen, it was when she killed the former president of Egypt. He had been deposed in the Arab Spring of 2011 and sent to prison. But he got transferred to house arrest in 2013. She broke in a year later and strangled him with her bare hands."
"I'm guessing he was not a nice man," January murmured, hopefully too low for Nitokris to hear.
"He was a monster," Cray said. "His secret police—the Mabahith Amn El Dawla—tortured and murdered a ton of people. Most Egyptians celebrated his death, especially since it looked like the courts were about to let him off the hook. Nitokris is still a folk hero in Egypt because of it, even though the current government has sentenced her to death in absentia."
Nitokris dropped her bow and took up her khopesh and shield once more. January dared to open herself up to astral space as she closed the distance with the other woman. The area around them was a stain in the magical realm, clouded with dark energy released by the destruction of Rook. But at least it no longer reverberated with his endless litany of pain.
If that was not enough to convince January that he was truly destroyed, then a quick glance at the Rook suit confirmed it. The black fabric and leather padding of the armor also included a fringe of rook's feathers that circled the neck. A weave of golden magic wound its way through the clothing. Even with a cursory glance, January could tell that the enchantment provided a physical and magical defense, as well as flight with its cape, and of course that terrible claw. What other powers it might confer, she could not tell without closer inspection.
But what was not there was Rook himself. Whatever undead force had animated the suit, it was now long gone. Only that cold, unforgiving fog that clogged astral space in the vicinity remained to tell of his passing. Thanks to Silverlight's magic lessons, January knew that would clear eventually. It would just take some time.
January could sense Nitokris through that dark fog of energy as well. She was a brilliant display of multi-colored light within the magical realm. As if she had not already known it, this was confirmation that she was indeed a magician. Likewise her armor, sword, shield, and bow were magical as well. In fact, she could sense that the weapons were not truly separate from the armor. There was one single enchantment that crossed the entire panoply. They were a set, in the most basic way possible.
All of them even bore that same name: Nitokris. It came to January unbidden across astral space. With it, the suit whispered to her tales of sand, and time, and millennia past. Of a great queen, if queen was even the word for a pharaoh's wife, who became a pharaoh herself. In a place where women could not do such a thing, where no queen could rule under that name, the original Nitokris had been obliged to transcend gender roles. January had been wrong. She was not a lady pharaoh, but simply a pharaoh.
She could feel that Nitokris somewhere deep within the enchantment. Not the suit, but the original woman, who had lived, and ruled, and died thousands of years ago. She had made the suit. Or maybe she was the suit? January could not tell. She would have loved to ponder the mystery further, but the suit's current wearer brought her sword around to take January's head off!
She ducked, and the bronze sickle-sword hacked a line through the aluminum of the fuselage behind January. She moved in closer. Normally January preferred to box as an out-fighter, like Ali. It gave one the opportunity to use strategy, such as footwork and feints and counters. One did not just out-fight, but out-think one's opponents that way.
But Nitokris had shown a predilection for this same style of fighting herself. January needed to take the Egyptian out of her comfort zone if she was to stand any chance of defeating her. So instead she pushed in close like a swarmer. Taking a page from the books of Roberto Duran and Rocky Marciano, she got right up into the Egyptian's face and unleashed a flurry of punches at her belly. She mixed it up with muay thai, and raked elbow after elbow across the other woman's face and neck, and drove her knees and shins into the other woman's legs and groin.
But her enemy's armor was strong. January's attacks were both physical and astral in nature. That was why she could harm magical creatures such as djieien, or intangible foes like Hungry Ghost. So even against enemies with total invulnerability, she could usually make at least some headway. But the Nitokris armor was clearly proofed against damage in both the physical world and the astral as well. January's magical attacks ran against a barrier that seemed inviolable. Again and again she smashed away, but all to no end. Nitokris stood tall through it all.
Now January knew how other people felt when they fought against her...
Nitokris put an end to the swarm with a push kick that drove January back, and opened up the range between them once more. She followed up with her sword, which January deflected with one wing. Then came a bash with the edge of her shield, which January blocked with the other wing. She was too far to reach with her hands and feet. January advanced to close the range, but Nitokris backpedaled in order to ever maintain her distance.
Damn, this woman was smart. She was not impetuous like Tirpitz had been. She would not be baited into losing her head, fighting with emotion, and abandoning skill for rage. She was one cool customer. In fact, she might have been the most dangerous opponent January had ever fought, save for Nátthrafn of course. Nitokris possessed raw power, skill, and experience. January began to suspect that she might need help with this one.
January was only vaguely aware of the fight going on outside of Keep 19's bomb bay. Occasionally she caught glimpses of it with her meat eyes, through the numerous holes that had been blasted and smashed through the fuselage by now. Her astral senses were still clouded by all that energy released from Rook's destruction. But here and there she caught snippets of the mages and their bright auras trading attacks with one another outside.
Most of her team were the latter. Calypso was a water witch par excellence. From what January could gather, she seemed to be the most potent of them all, at least here under the sea. The water was hers to command, allowing her to use the very ocean against the Atomkrieg at every turn. Her sea form—resistant to the pressures of depths far greater than this—shrugged off everything the neo-Nazis could throw at her. So without January present, she took upon the role of the tank and tied down the neo-Nazis in melee.
Silverlight was a classic wizard. That made her crowd control, among other things. She displayed that with a simple spell that January suspected was normally meant to freeze over a floor and create a slippery surface. But here under the water it created a solid block of ice that encased Tirpitz and Blitz from their feet to their knees.
This set them up for Hwarang's arcane arrows, which went singing over the ice to their exposed torsos. Reinhard tried to intervene by creating a wall of elemental darkness to block the arrows. But Mercury moved under the flying supervillain and pelted him with metal harpoons. That forced the Nazi to drop his defense of the others, and instead concentrate upon protecting himself.
Hwarang's arrows slipped harmlessly past Skorzeny however. The neo-Nazi simply twisted his two-dimensional body sideways whenever the missiles came near. That turned him practically invisible, and left nothing to hit. For he no longer presented any width, even for a magic arrow to strike.
The Nazi commando went after the archer, but was intercepted by Ranger once more. The ionic knight traded blows with both the pointed and butt ends of his energy spear, while the flat man hacked and sliced with the edges of his hands and forearms. Neither seemed able to get the better of the other in this deadly face off.
Finally Blitz emitted a wave of vibration that erupted from his body in all directions. That shattered the ice into a thousand tiny fragments. It freed both him and Tirpitz, who once again went on the offensive against the heroes. It was a reminder to January of how super fights were often a rock, paper, scissors affair. One person's abilities might counter another's, only to likewise be subverted by still a third combatant's.
Draugrs are a good comparison in that regard. Rook just sits and waits until something alive comes too near. Then he kills it.
Rook became a lot tougher once he died!
I suppose that is one advantage of having the singular focus of kill, kill, kill!January will have her hands, feet, and wings more than full trying to take on the best Egypt has to offer.
Acadian: I have always been fond of the saying: "The enemy of my enemy is still my enemy." As January is about to see. Granted, she was no under no illusions. She was not expecting selfies and smoothies with Nitokris afterward. It was more like the United States teaming up with the Soviet Union during World War 2.
Turning Nitokris toward the light side is a task that I am not sure if even Luke Skywalker could manage. But January will of course try. Once she gets done throwing hands of course.
I could not resist the Boo line. Minsc and his dialogue are just a treasure. He is a very fun part of Baldur's Gate 3. Best of all it just came to instantly as I was writing. I did not have to think about it at all.
Two Steps From Hell – Myth
Book 12.32 - Broken Arrow
January pried herself out of the bent and cracked hull of the B-52. There wasn't much of the airframe left. It was a credit to the people who had built it that any of it was left standing at all. As far as she was concerned, they all deserved a raise.
She stared at Nitokris. The Egyptian had likewise been thrown back into one wall of the aircraft by the magical explosion of Rook's final death. She too had clawed herself free of the wreckage, and now stood across the bomb bay from the heroine.
January took a moment to crack her knuckles. Then she popped the vertebrae in her neck by twisting it to one side and then the other. Nitokris regarded her in return, and hefted her sword and shield.
"Time to finish this," the Egyptian murmured.
Nitokris moved in quickly. Even underwater, she was still fast, like as a striking cobra. January had to beat her wings to push herself back, otherwise she would have been sliced in two by that sickle-sword. That opened up the space between them, which prompted the other woman to drop her melee weapon and replace it with her bow.
January ached for the sky above. But the lightning was beyond her call right now. So she reached down into her belt and pulled out one of her favorite toys. It was her strobe. She held it up before her and screwed her eyes shut. A moment later it burst forth with brilliant light. Even with her eyes closed, incandescent afterimages flashed across January's eyelids.
She opened her eyes once they faded. It was just in time to see that her trick had failed to have any effect upon the other woman. Instead Nitokris loosed her arrow from her bow. January snapped her wings shut across her body out of reflex, and the arcane missile slammed home against their feathers an instant later. It was a hot, stinging sensation, but nothing more. If she had learned anything about herself, it was that her wings were the most durable part of her body. It would take a lot more than that to lay her low.
Unfortunately Nitokris followed with a lot more. Sword and shield in hand, she leaped forward with the same finishing move she had used on Rook. But January saw it coming, and was able to bring up one wing to push the other woman's khopesh off line. It was just enough to send the bronze sword blade whooshing past her ear through empty water, rather than skewering her face just as she had done to the ghost.
The Egyptian continued the attack however, and smashed forward with the edge of her shield. January met it with her other wing, and slammed the rectangular shield back. She followed with a push kick aimed at the other woman's stomach. But the Egyptian twisted aside, and hacked down with her sword, clearly intending to take January's leg off.
An upward swipe of January's left wing pushed the sickle-sword up and away. That gave her the time to pull her exposed leg back. Nitokris followed with a stamp at her instep. But the other woman was just a little too slow, and missed January's foot by an inch.
January now realized that the water had in fact slowed the other woman down. Thanks to the magic that Calypso had taught her, it was not inhibiting January's movements at all. She was at home here under the sea. But while Nitokris clearly had some magical means of surviving the depths, she was not quite as agile here as she was on land. January had fought her before in Cleveland, and the other woman had been just a little too fast for her to really match. But down here under a literal mountain of water, the Egyptian had been brought down to her own level.
In any case, the exchange had left the two women standing chest to chest. It was too close for either sword or wings. January moved for a suplex. Thanks to Riven's training, she could wrap the Egyptian up and drive her down through the deck below. But before she could do so, the lady pharaoh hammered home a head butt straight between January's eyes. It did not really hurt, but it did give her pause for a moment. That was enough time for the Egyptian to push off, and open the distance between them once more.
But that also told January something. The Egyptian did not want to fight up close. She wanted to keep the fight at range and rely on sword and shield, or even farther out with her bow.
With that January knew that she could win. She just needed to use her wings to hold Nitokris off at a distance. Then she would move in close and finish it breast to breast.
"So what are you doing here?" January asked. "Did the Atomkrieg hire you for extra muscle?"
"Those ya gazma?" The other fighter practically spat. "Not hardly. My accountant said I should invest in nuclear futures."
"What does a girl do with two slightly used atomic bombs?" January wondered as they closed in and traded blows once more. Again sword and shield rang out against her wings, and the pair danced around the two nuclear weapons in question. "Going to post some pics with them on the 'gram, get a real thirst trap going?"
"I am going to change the world with them!" the other woman snarled. "Where I come from, power flows from the barrel of a gun. I will show them who has the biggest one."
"You aren't going to make the world better with a nuclear bomb," January shook her head as the traded blows once more. "How many innocent people are you going to kill with your bigger gun?"
"That is the kind of thing my parents would say," Nitokris declared. She punctuated her words with a kick that sent January flying back down the length of the fuselage, and drove her into the metal bulkhead at the stern of the craft. "Then the secret police killed them."
"I'm sorry," January replied quite honestly as she pried herself from the metal at the back of the fuselage. Nitokris sent another arrow her way, having switched to her bow once more. But again January had time to bring her wings up, and absorb the blow on her feathers.
"That might explain some things," Cray's voice was back in her ear. "The first time this version of Nitokris was seen, it was when she killed the former president of Egypt. He had been deposed in the Arab Spring of 2011 and sent to prison. But he got transferred to house arrest in 2013. She broke in a year later and strangled him with her bare hands."
"I'm guessing he was not a nice man," January murmured, hopefully too low for Nitokris to hear.
"He was a monster," Cray said. "His secret police—the Mabahith Amn El Dawla—tortured and murdered a ton of people. Most Egyptians celebrated his death, especially since it looked like the courts were about to let him off the hook. Nitokris is still a folk hero in Egypt because of it, even though the current government has sentenced her to death in absentia."
Nitokris dropped her bow and took up her khopesh and shield once more. January dared to open herself up to astral space as she closed the distance with the other woman. The area around them was a stain in the magical realm, clouded with dark energy released by the destruction of Rook. But at least it no longer reverberated with his endless litany of pain.
If that was not enough to convince January that he was truly destroyed, then a quick glance at the Rook suit confirmed it. The black fabric and leather padding of the armor also included a fringe of rook's feathers that circled the neck. A weave of golden magic wound its way through the clothing. Even with a cursory glance, January could tell that the enchantment provided a physical and magical defense, as well as flight with its cape, and of course that terrible claw. What other powers it might confer, she could not tell without closer inspection.
But what was not there was Rook himself. Whatever undead force had animated the suit, it was now long gone. Only that cold, unforgiving fog that clogged astral space in the vicinity remained to tell of his passing. Thanks to Silverlight's magic lessons, January knew that would clear eventually. It would just take some time.
January could sense Nitokris through that dark fog of energy as well. She was a brilliant display of multi-colored light within the magical realm. As if she had not already known it, this was confirmation that she was indeed a magician. Likewise her armor, sword, shield, and bow were magical as well. In fact, she could sense that the weapons were not truly separate from the armor. There was one single enchantment that crossed the entire panoply. They were a set, in the most basic way possible.
All of them even bore that same name: Nitokris. It came to January unbidden across astral space. With it, the suit whispered to her tales of sand, and time, and millennia past. Of a great queen, if queen was even the word for a pharaoh's wife, who became a pharaoh herself. In a place where women could not do such a thing, where no queen could rule under that name, the original Nitokris had been obliged to transcend gender roles. January had been wrong. She was not a lady pharaoh, but simply a pharaoh.
She could feel that Nitokris somewhere deep within the enchantment. Not the suit, but the original woman, who had lived, and ruled, and died thousands of years ago. She had made the suit. Or maybe she was the suit? January could not tell. She would have loved to ponder the mystery further, but the suit's current wearer brought her sword around to take January's head off!
She ducked, and the bronze sickle-sword hacked a line through the aluminum of the fuselage behind January. She moved in closer. Normally January preferred to box as an out-fighter, like Ali. It gave one the opportunity to use strategy, such as footwork and feints and counters. One did not just out-fight, but out-think one's opponents that way.
But Nitokris had shown a predilection for this same style of fighting herself. January needed to take the Egyptian out of her comfort zone if she was to stand any chance of defeating her. So instead she pushed in close like a swarmer. Taking a page from the books of Roberto Duran and Rocky Marciano, she got right up into the Egyptian's face and unleashed a flurry of punches at her belly. She mixed it up with muay thai, and raked elbow after elbow across the other woman's face and neck, and drove her knees and shins into the other woman's legs and groin.
But her enemy's armor was strong. January's attacks were both physical and astral in nature. That was why she could harm magical creatures such as djieien, or intangible foes like Hungry Ghost. So even against enemies with total invulnerability, she could usually make at least some headway. But the Nitokris armor was clearly proofed against damage in both the physical world and the astral as well. January's magical attacks ran against a barrier that seemed inviolable. Again and again she smashed away, but all to no end. Nitokris stood tall through it all.
Now January knew how other people felt when they fought against her...
Nitokris put an end to the swarm with a push kick that drove January back, and opened up the range between them once more. She followed up with her sword, which January deflected with one wing. Then came a bash with the edge of her shield, which January blocked with the other wing. She was too far to reach with her hands and feet. January advanced to close the range, but Nitokris backpedaled in order to ever maintain her distance.
Damn, this woman was smart. She was not impetuous like Tirpitz had been. She would not be baited into losing her head, fighting with emotion, and abandoning skill for rage. She was one cool customer. In fact, she might have been the most dangerous opponent January had ever fought, save for Nátthrafn of course. Nitokris possessed raw power, skill, and experience. January began to suspect that she might need help with this one.
January was only vaguely aware of the fight going on outside of Keep 19's bomb bay. Occasionally she caught glimpses of it with her meat eyes, through the numerous holes that had been blasted and smashed through the fuselage by now. Her astral senses were still clouded by all that energy released from Rook's destruction. But here and there she caught snippets of the mages and their bright auras trading attacks with one another outside.
Most of her team were the latter. Calypso was a water witch par excellence. From what January could gather, she seemed to be the most potent of them all, at least here under the sea. The water was hers to command, allowing her to use the very ocean against the Atomkrieg at every turn. Her sea form—resistant to the pressures of depths far greater than this—shrugged off everything the neo-Nazis could throw at her. So without January present, she took upon the role of the tank and tied down the neo-Nazis in melee.
Silverlight was a classic wizard. That made her crowd control, among other things. She displayed that with a simple spell that January suspected was normally meant to freeze over a floor and create a slippery surface. But here under the water it created a solid block of ice that encased Tirpitz and Blitz from their feet to their knees.
This set them up for Hwarang's arcane arrows, which went singing over the ice to their exposed torsos. Reinhard tried to intervene by creating a wall of elemental darkness to block the arrows. But Mercury moved under the flying supervillain and pelted him with metal harpoons. That forced the Nazi to drop his defense of the others, and instead concentrate upon protecting himself.
Hwarang's arrows slipped harmlessly past Skorzeny however. The neo-Nazi simply twisted his two-dimensional body sideways whenever the missiles came near. That turned him practically invisible, and left nothing to hit. For he no longer presented any width, even for a magic arrow to strike.
The Nazi commando went after the archer, but was intercepted by Ranger once more. The ionic knight traded blows with both the pointed and butt ends of his energy spear, while the flat man hacked and sliced with the edges of his hands and forearms. Neither seemed able to get the better of the other in this deadly face off.
Finally Blitz emitted a wave of vibration that erupted from his body in all directions. That shattered the ice into a thousand tiny fragments. It freed both him and Tirpitz, who once again went on the offensive against the heroes. It was a reminder to January of how super fights were often a rock, paper, scissors affair. One person's abilities might counter another's, only to likewise be subverted by still a third combatant's.
Damn. Nito's attacking Jan. No smoothie or selfie, seems like. Remind me, what happened to all the others who were underwater? Hwrang, Silverlight, and Mercury?
There it is: "I am going to change the world!!!" All these nefarious folks say something of the like, it seems.
That also seems risky, taking a glimpse into the astral even as the fight commences. But hey, what do I know? Jan knows what she's doing... Her story wouldn't have gotten this far, if not. But that is pretty wicked, the way she can glimpse way into the past, to discern who the original "Nitokris" was. Seems she (or he??) had nothing to do with the person she's dueling with now.
Okay that answers my earlier question. The others are still out there, conducting their own brawl. Dang. Jan's on her own against the Egyptian Evil.
There it is: "I am going to change the world!!!" All these nefarious folks say something of the like, it seems.
That also seems risky, taking a glimpse into the astral even as the fight commences. But hey, what do I know? Jan knows what she's doing... Her story wouldn't have gotten this far, if not. But that is pretty wicked, the way she can glimpse way into the past, to discern who the original "Nitokris" was. Seems she (or he??) had nothing to do with the person she's dueling with now.
Okay that answers my earlier question. The others are still out there, conducting their own brawl. Dang. Jan's on her own against the Egyptian Evil.
Well done to display Nito’s formidable battle prowess vs Rook before the Egyptian took on Stormcrow. The previous fight led me to gulp in worry as Nito turned to Stormcrow. My gulp turned out to be justified.
I love your clever phrasing here:
‘It would take a lot more than that to lay her low.
Unfortunately Nitokris followed with a lot more.’
Fascinating astral read of Nitokris.
Thank Kynareth that the deep venue slowed Nito down a bit while not impeding Wing Girl’s movement speed. Losing her ‘Storm’ under water is bad enough.
’In fact, she might have been the most dangerous opponent January had ever fought, save for Nátthrafn of course. Nitokris possessed raw power, skill, and experience. January began to suspect that she might need help with this one.’
- - Uh oh. Hey Cray, can you call in Blood Raven. Please?
Nits:
- - ’January shook her head as the {they} traded blows once more.’
- - It seems Nitokris is her name but you call her Nitorkris several times in this episode. Is this intentional and I have missed something or an odd typo?
I love your clever phrasing here:
‘It would take a lot more than that to lay her low.
Unfortunately Nitokris followed with a lot more.’
Fascinating astral read of Nitokris.
Thank Kynareth that the deep venue slowed Nito down a bit while not impeding Wing Girl’s movement speed. Losing her ‘Storm’ under water is bad enough.
’In fact, she might have been the most dangerous opponent January had ever fought, save for Nátthrafn of course. Nitokris possessed raw power, skill, and experience. January began to suspect that she might need help with this one.’
- - Uh oh. Hey Cray, can you call in Blood Raven. Please?
Nits:
- - ’January shook her head as the {they} traded blows once more.’
- - It seems Nitokris is her name but you call her Nitorkris several times in this episode. Is this intentional and I have missed something or an odd typo?
Renee: No smoothie, no selfie, not even a friendship bracelet. Notikris is not a gal pal.
Nitokris is mostly a mercenary who acts as muscle for money. But she has her own history, and her own drives, ambitions, and hang-up because of it. This was her chance to work out some long pent up recrimination at the people who have wronged her. Namely the fascist state that murdered her parents in front of her eyes and turned her into an orphan. But also people like her parents, who were liberals that advocated for equality and just general human decency. In Nitokris' mind, if they had not opened their big mouths, they would still be alive today.
January uses her astral sight in combat to learn more about her surroundings, and to better gauge the abilities of her enemies. It is just one of many tools she has to figure out how to defeat people and succeed.
Acadian: The Nitokris armor is one of the most interesting villains I have ever made. The suit was made by the last pharaoh of the Old Kingdom - from about 2200 BCE. January can still feel the creator's spirit there in the suit. But it has also been worn by several other people over the last century. The first was a Victorian archaeologist who discovered the pharaoh's tomb in 1911 and took the suit, and became a supervillain whom Blood Raven fought and eventually killed. Then another woman found it in 1956, and Blood Raven fought her several times, and eventually killed her too in the Sinai during the Suez Crisis. So the wearers of the suit were basically Blood Raven's arch enemies.
The current woman in the suit found it in 2014, and likewise became a supervillain (she was already a mercenary and terrorist for hire, so it was a natural evolution). I have ideas for another character who has already been introduced to wear the suit after her as well. Now the wearers of the suit are January's arch enemies. January has inherited a lot from Blood Raven, including her worst enemies.
Unfortunately, Blood Raven is not around to come to the rescue, and her other Raven Sisters have their hands full with the Atomkrieg. January is on her own. My intent with this fight is to cement Nitokris as January's arch-nemesis (at least currently), someone who can counter Jan's every move. As January noted, this is what other people feel like when they fight her.
As ever thanks for those nits. Nitorkis was indeed a typo.
Two Steps From Hell - Across the Blood Water
Nitokris' finishing move is based on the sword thrust over the shield in this video
Portable Hole
Book 12.33 - Broken Arrow
But January did not have time to gawk at the spectacle outside. She had her hands and wings more than full with Nitokris within the B-52. Again and again they traded blows. All the while January continued to try to push in close, while the Egyptian worked to keep her at bay.
None of January's blows were close to a knockout. But Nitokris did grunt and clench her teeth under the strikes, suggesting that she at least felt them. Likewise, the other woman's attacks failed to find a weak spot in January's own defenses. But her wings were feeling it every time they parried that khopesh. Now she understood why Blood Raven had forged her sword Samhain after her first encounter with one of the previous wearers of this very same Nitokris panoply. It was an incredibly dangerous suite of weapons and armor.
January wondered if this battle might just come down to pure endurance.
At least until January finally maneuvered Nitokris into a literal corner at the front of the bomb bay. So far the Egyptian had been shrewd enough to avoid that, always being aware of her surroundings. But this time a flurry of blows pushed the other woman back into the angle between the side wall of the fuselage and the forward bulkhead. When the Egyptian finally looked around herself and saw where she was, it was already too late.
January leaped in, ready to swarm with another burst of attacks. But once her feet left the floor, January recognized her mistake. Nitokris smiled, the only tell that it had been a trap. The Egyptian sprang forward off one foot to meet January far sooner than expected. Nitokris pushed her shield forward, nearly edge on. At the same time she held her sword horizontally, with the hilt beside her head and the point facing forward.
January brought a wing up to block. But Nitokris pushed down with her shield rim and shoved it off line. January lifted her other wing up across her chest at the same time. But Nitokris was too quick. She brought her khopesh forward in a cobra-like thrust. January would have thought the sickle-shaped weapon would have been awkward for such a strike. But the bronze blade darted forward like quicksilver, and lanced just over the top of January's second wing.
It struck her breastplate an instant later, and pierced the metal as if it was made of tissue paper. It sank deeper through Mr. Blackwood's base layer of meta-material beneath, and continued on into January's chest. She was tough. Bullets bounced off her. So did semi-trucks. But this sword shattered her natural invulnerability, slid right through her flesh, and only stopped at a rib.
January felt the khopesh catch against the bone, just inches from her heart. The rib snapped with a loud crack. It did not split cleanly in two. Instead the inner half pushed up, while the outer was shoved down. Rather than drive between them, the tip of the sickle-sword skittered sideways down the lower of the two halves. It ground along the length of her rib, and gouged out a trough through the bone in the direction of January's flank.
The pain was extraordinary. It felt like a supernova had gone off within her chest. January's eyes filled with both stars and tears. But she was still alive.
From pure reflex she swept up blindly with one wing. Nitokris was obliged to yank her sword free. Otherwise her arm would have been sheared off by the questing edge of January's feathers. As it was the wing hacked a great rent through the hull of the plane beside them. January staggered away, until it was her turn to feel the steel bulkhead at the front of the bomb bay at her back. The next thing she knew her legs gave out, and she slid down to a sitting position.
Blood began to seep from the wound and cloud the water around them. January hoped that would not get the attention of that shark they had seen earlier. She clapped one hand over the injury from reflex. But her breastplate was in the way, and prevented her fingers from actually touching her flesh. So it did nothing to staunch the flow of blood. Nor did it abate the pain of the broken rib, which rang out like a bell with every breath she took.
"No one has ever survived that before..." Nitokris murmured with eyes slightly widened. Still, she took a step forward, sword ready to finish things. January shoved her heels against the bomb bay doors beneath her, and tried to push her back up along the wall behind her. But her feet found no purchase, and she could not get back up into a standing position.
Then the Egyptian seemed to think better of it, and she turned away.
"I have no time to waste on you white hat. Just stay down and I will be about my business."
Nitokris reached into a pouch at her belt, and withdrew a curious object. It was a piece of cloth, night black in color. Nitokris snapped it out in the water for a moment, and it unfolded into a large round shape. She threw it to the steel bomb bay doors that created an ersatz deck under them. The dark circle seemed to stick to the twin metal panels like glue, perfectly conformed to their smooth surfaces.
January felt magic in the cloth. It reminded her of her own bag of holding, and the sanctum in the Witch House. It was bound up in the manipulation of physical dimensions. This was something that bent and broke the laws of up and down, right and left, and side to side. It was the magic of here and there, and possibly nowhere, and what governed which was which.
"A portable hole," January said as she finally understood what it was. "How many experience points did you have to spend to enchant that?"
Nitokris ignored her. She went to the first bomb, the one she had already cut from its cradle. She effortlessly pushed it to the hole, and it disappeared into the dark fabric. Clearly, whatever extra-dimensional space lay on the other side of the portal, it was quite roomy. Then the Egyptian moved to the second bomb, and hacked it free from its cradle as well. It settled to the bomb bay doors on the ground a moment later, and she moved around to push it as well.
"Little light isn't it?" January taunted her. She could not resist the smile that crept over her features.
"What did you do?" Nitokris' eyes narrowed. The Egyptian turned her face from the bomb, to January, and finally back again. Then she drew her sword once more, and with an effortless move she sliced the nuclear weapon in two. That revealed a gaping cavity within.
"Stormcrow, right belt pouch," Cray's voice was cool and calm in her ear.
January did not think. She simply did as the man said, and reached into the pocket in question. She withdrew a potion from within, and smiled once more. She popped the stopper, and before the precious liquid within could seep off into the ocean, she lifted it to her lips. She knocked back the drink a moment later. It was warm, and vaguely sweet. It reminded January of apple cider, but without the bite. Its heat spread down her throat and across her chest. Once there she could feel its magic burrow into that cracked rib, straighten out its severed pieces, and sew them back together. Just like that, the pain that had throbbed through her frame with every breath vanished. Beyond even that, it filled her body with a warm, cozy feeling. It was like curling up under a thick comforter on a winter's night and reading a good book.
"Thank you Kaelin," January murmured quietly. She was so glad that she had met the alchemist.
January rose to her feet now. A glance down at her chest showed that blood still seeped from the wound. So Kaelin's healing potion clearly had its limits. But even so, she was ready for round two.
"Did I mention that one of my new friends can control metal?" January smiled at Nitokris. "He cracked those bomb cases open with just a thought and pulled out the cores. Then he melded them right back to how they were to start with. There's not even a scratch on them."
"Did I also mention that one of my other friends has a knack for summoning spirits?" Now January nodded her head in the direction of where the Mid-Atlantic Coalition fought outside the bomber. "Think you can out swim the water elemental that carried those warheads away, before this fight even started?"
Nitokris swore in Arabic, and then switched to accented English. "This was a trap all along!"
"For the Nazis, yes," January nodded. "I have to admit, we did not expect you to walk into it too. But since you're here..."
January fell into a fighting crouch, raised her fists, and flexed her wings. Then she reached out with one hand, and beckoned Nitokris closer with her fingers.
"Valhalla waits for us."
But Nitokris did not take the bait. As January had noted before, she was a cunning fighter. Instead the supervillain looked around herself, and January felt her magic rise. She recognized the action. The other woman was sensing into the astral. That prompted January to do the same, and her suspicion was instantly confirmed when she saw the other woman's aura. Like her own, it was tuned in ardently to the magical realm.
Even as Nitokris must have been doing, January pushed beyond the dark cloud of negative energy that still created a fog within the bomb bay. Past it, she could sense the bright auras of her teammates moving in. Calypso, Silverlight, and Hwarang were easy to pick out, given the golden notes of power that sang through their magical auras. But January could feel Mercury and Ranger out there too, their meta-human auras threaded with violet cords rather than gold.
The Atomkrieg's auras were faint and motionless. Reinhard was clearly a magician, while the others were all meta-human. But all were now laid flat upon the sea floor. January could read enough of them through the fog to know that they were unconscious rather than dead. She doubted that they would rise anytime soon however.
She could feel the touch of Hwarang's stunning arrows about them. They smelled like a sleep spell. January envied the archer for that. Having a magical way to knock people out without the danger of concussions or other long-term harm would certainly be a nice tool to have in one's arsenal. Perhaps she could learn to do the same with her fists one day, and create a Sleep Punch?
"Damn you, this was my chance!" Nitokris snarled at January. But the Egyptian did not take up the offer to continue the fight. Instead she snatched up her portable hole and stuffed it into one of her belt pouches. Then she turned and darted through one of the gaping holes in the fuselage of the B-52. She vanished from sight just a moment before Mercury came in from the other side.
"Hey, did we miss anything?" the Philadelphian asked.
"Just a little girl talk," January murmured.
* * *
Nitokris is mostly a mercenary who acts as muscle for money. But she has her own history, and her own drives, ambitions, and hang-up because of it. This was her chance to work out some long pent up recrimination at the people who have wronged her. Namely the fascist state that murdered her parents in front of her eyes and turned her into an orphan. But also people like her parents, who were liberals that advocated for equality and just general human decency. In Nitokris' mind, if they had not opened their big mouths, they would still be alive today.
January uses her astral sight in combat to learn more about her surroundings, and to better gauge the abilities of her enemies. It is just one of many tools she has to figure out how to defeat people and succeed.
Acadian: The Nitokris armor is one of the most interesting villains I have ever made. The suit was made by the last pharaoh of the Old Kingdom - from about 2200 BCE. January can still feel the creator's spirit there in the suit. But it has also been worn by several other people over the last century. The first was a Victorian archaeologist who discovered the pharaoh's tomb in 1911 and took the suit, and became a supervillain whom Blood Raven fought and eventually killed. Then another woman found it in 1956, and Blood Raven fought her several times, and eventually killed her too in the Sinai during the Suez Crisis. So the wearers of the suit were basically Blood Raven's arch enemies.
The current woman in the suit found it in 2014, and likewise became a supervillain (she was already a mercenary and terrorist for hire, so it was a natural evolution). I have ideas for another character who has already been introduced to wear the suit after her as well. Now the wearers of the suit are January's arch enemies. January has inherited a lot from Blood Raven, including her worst enemies.
Unfortunately, Blood Raven is not around to come to the rescue, and her other Raven Sisters have their hands full with the Atomkrieg. January is on her own. My intent with this fight is to cement Nitokris as January's arch-nemesis (at least currently), someone who can counter Jan's every move. As January noted, this is what other people feel like when they fight her.
As ever thanks for those nits. Nitorkis was indeed a typo.
Two Steps From Hell - Across the Blood Water
Nitokris' finishing move is based on the sword thrust over the shield in this video
Portable Hole
Book 12.33 - Broken Arrow
But January did not have time to gawk at the spectacle outside. She had her hands and wings more than full with Nitokris within the B-52. Again and again they traded blows. All the while January continued to try to push in close, while the Egyptian worked to keep her at bay.
None of January's blows were close to a knockout. But Nitokris did grunt and clench her teeth under the strikes, suggesting that she at least felt them. Likewise, the other woman's attacks failed to find a weak spot in January's own defenses. But her wings were feeling it every time they parried that khopesh. Now she understood why Blood Raven had forged her sword Samhain after her first encounter with one of the previous wearers of this very same Nitokris panoply. It was an incredibly dangerous suite of weapons and armor.
January wondered if this battle might just come down to pure endurance.
At least until January finally maneuvered Nitokris into a literal corner at the front of the bomb bay. So far the Egyptian had been shrewd enough to avoid that, always being aware of her surroundings. But this time a flurry of blows pushed the other woman back into the angle between the side wall of the fuselage and the forward bulkhead. When the Egyptian finally looked around herself and saw where she was, it was already too late.
January leaped in, ready to swarm with another burst of attacks. But once her feet left the floor, January recognized her mistake. Nitokris smiled, the only tell that it had been a trap. The Egyptian sprang forward off one foot to meet January far sooner than expected. Nitokris pushed her shield forward, nearly edge on. At the same time she held her sword horizontally, with the hilt beside her head and the point facing forward.
January brought a wing up to block. But Nitokris pushed down with her shield rim and shoved it off line. January lifted her other wing up across her chest at the same time. But Nitokris was too quick. She brought her khopesh forward in a cobra-like thrust. January would have thought the sickle-shaped weapon would have been awkward for such a strike. But the bronze blade darted forward like quicksilver, and lanced just over the top of January's second wing.
It struck her breastplate an instant later, and pierced the metal as if it was made of tissue paper. It sank deeper through Mr. Blackwood's base layer of meta-material beneath, and continued on into January's chest. She was tough. Bullets bounced off her. So did semi-trucks. But this sword shattered her natural invulnerability, slid right through her flesh, and only stopped at a rib.
January felt the khopesh catch against the bone, just inches from her heart. The rib snapped with a loud crack. It did not split cleanly in two. Instead the inner half pushed up, while the outer was shoved down. Rather than drive between them, the tip of the sickle-sword skittered sideways down the lower of the two halves. It ground along the length of her rib, and gouged out a trough through the bone in the direction of January's flank.
The pain was extraordinary. It felt like a supernova had gone off within her chest. January's eyes filled with both stars and tears. But she was still alive.
From pure reflex she swept up blindly with one wing. Nitokris was obliged to yank her sword free. Otherwise her arm would have been sheared off by the questing edge of January's feathers. As it was the wing hacked a great rent through the hull of the plane beside them. January staggered away, until it was her turn to feel the steel bulkhead at the front of the bomb bay at her back. The next thing she knew her legs gave out, and she slid down to a sitting position.
Blood began to seep from the wound and cloud the water around them. January hoped that would not get the attention of that shark they had seen earlier. She clapped one hand over the injury from reflex. But her breastplate was in the way, and prevented her fingers from actually touching her flesh. So it did nothing to staunch the flow of blood. Nor did it abate the pain of the broken rib, which rang out like a bell with every breath she took.
"No one has ever survived that before..." Nitokris murmured with eyes slightly widened. Still, she took a step forward, sword ready to finish things. January shoved her heels against the bomb bay doors beneath her, and tried to push her back up along the wall behind her. But her feet found no purchase, and she could not get back up into a standing position.
Then the Egyptian seemed to think better of it, and she turned away.
"I have no time to waste on you white hat. Just stay down and I will be about my business."
Nitokris reached into a pouch at her belt, and withdrew a curious object. It was a piece of cloth, night black in color. Nitokris snapped it out in the water for a moment, and it unfolded into a large round shape. She threw it to the steel bomb bay doors that created an ersatz deck under them. The dark circle seemed to stick to the twin metal panels like glue, perfectly conformed to their smooth surfaces.
January felt magic in the cloth. It reminded her of her own bag of holding, and the sanctum in the Witch House. It was bound up in the manipulation of physical dimensions. This was something that bent and broke the laws of up and down, right and left, and side to side. It was the magic of here and there, and possibly nowhere, and what governed which was which.
"A portable hole," January said as she finally understood what it was. "How many experience points did you have to spend to enchant that?"
Nitokris ignored her. She went to the first bomb, the one she had already cut from its cradle. She effortlessly pushed it to the hole, and it disappeared into the dark fabric. Clearly, whatever extra-dimensional space lay on the other side of the portal, it was quite roomy. Then the Egyptian moved to the second bomb, and hacked it free from its cradle as well. It settled to the bomb bay doors on the ground a moment later, and she moved around to push it as well.
"Little light isn't it?" January taunted her. She could not resist the smile that crept over her features.
"What did you do?" Nitokris' eyes narrowed. The Egyptian turned her face from the bomb, to January, and finally back again. Then she drew her sword once more, and with an effortless move she sliced the nuclear weapon in two. That revealed a gaping cavity within.
"Stormcrow, right belt pouch," Cray's voice was cool and calm in her ear.
January did not think. She simply did as the man said, and reached into the pocket in question. She withdrew a potion from within, and smiled once more. She popped the stopper, and before the precious liquid within could seep off into the ocean, she lifted it to her lips. She knocked back the drink a moment later. It was warm, and vaguely sweet. It reminded January of apple cider, but without the bite. Its heat spread down her throat and across her chest. Once there she could feel its magic burrow into that cracked rib, straighten out its severed pieces, and sew them back together. Just like that, the pain that had throbbed through her frame with every breath vanished. Beyond even that, it filled her body with a warm, cozy feeling. It was like curling up under a thick comforter on a winter's night and reading a good book.
"Thank you Kaelin," January murmured quietly. She was so glad that she had met the alchemist.
January rose to her feet now. A glance down at her chest showed that blood still seeped from the wound. So Kaelin's healing potion clearly had its limits. But even so, she was ready for round two.
"Did I mention that one of my new friends can control metal?" January smiled at Nitokris. "He cracked those bomb cases open with just a thought and pulled out the cores. Then he melded them right back to how they were to start with. There's not even a scratch on them."
"Did I also mention that one of my other friends has a knack for summoning spirits?" Now January nodded her head in the direction of where the Mid-Atlantic Coalition fought outside the bomber. "Think you can out swim the water elemental that carried those warheads away, before this fight even started?"
Nitokris swore in Arabic, and then switched to accented English. "This was a trap all along!"
"For the Nazis, yes," January nodded. "I have to admit, we did not expect you to walk into it too. But since you're here..."
January fell into a fighting crouch, raised her fists, and flexed her wings. Then she reached out with one hand, and beckoned Nitokris closer with her fingers.
"Valhalla waits for us."
But Nitokris did not take the bait. As January had noted before, she was a cunning fighter. Instead the supervillain looked around herself, and January felt her magic rise. She recognized the action. The other woman was sensing into the astral. That prompted January to do the same, and her suspicion was instantly confirmed when she saw the other woman's aura. Like her own, it was tuned in ardently to the magical realm.
Even as Nitokris must have been doing, January pushed beyond the dark cloud of negative energy that still created a fog within the bomb bay. Past it, she could sense the bright auras of her teammates moving in. Calypso, Silverlight, and Hwarang were easy to pick out, given the golden notes of power that sang through their magical auras. But January could feel Mercury and Ranger out there too, their meta-human auras threaded with violet cords rather than gold.
The Atomkrieg's auras were faint and motionless. Reinhard was clearly a magician, while the others were all meta-human. But all were now laid flat upon the sea floor. January could read enough of them through the fog to know that they were unconscious rather than dead. She doubted that they would rise anytime soon however.
She could feel the touch of Hwarang's stunning arrows about them. They smelled like a sleep spell. January envied the archer for that. Having a magical way to knock people out without the danger of concussions or other long-term harm would certainly be a nice tool to have in one's arsenal. Perhaps she could learn to do the same with her fists one day, and create a Sleep Punch?
"Damn you, this was my chance!" Nitokris snarled at January. But the Egyptian did not take up the offer to continue the fight. Instead she snatched up her portable hole and stuffed it into one of her belt pouches. Then she turned and darted through one of the gaping holes in the fuselage of the B-52. She vanished from sight just a moment before Mercury came in from the other side.
"Hey, did we miss anything?" the Philadelphian asked.
"Just a little girl talk," January murmured.
* * *
Outthought and outfought by NaughtyKris – but not by much. Stormcrow’s a tough bird; even tougher with Cray whispering in her ear. Yay for healing potions! And just as help arrives, her enemy flees. Thankfully without the bombs.
Don’t like those sleeping foes outside though. . . .
Sleep punch!
“Just a little girl talk.”
Don’t like those sleeping foes outside though. . . .
Sleep punch!
“Just a little girl talk.”
Outthought and outfought by NaughtyKris – but not by much. Stormcrow’s a tough bird; even tougher with Cray whispering in her ear. Yay for healing potions! And just as help arrives, her enemy flees. Thankfully without the bombs.
Just had to spoil myself, see what happens. NaughtyKris!
Yeesh, back and forth with the blows. Indeed, seems like Endurance might be the deciding factor, along with a bit of Luck. 🎲
Uh oh. A mistake. A trap! Oh man. In her rib cage, damn.
Okay, she's gonna let Jan live. That's good. I mean, she might get away with the bomb. And it's not like she's showing mercy to our protagonist. But at least there's that. The chance is there to pwn her opponent, but she's letting Jan live.
YIKES WHAT the??? Dude. You don't slice nuclear bombs in two, what's the matta with you??
Nitokris swore in Arabic, and then switched to accented English. "This was a trap all along!"
THEES VASS a TRRAP ALLALOCK!!!
Hmm, sounds like she did get away with the first bomb, at least. Not sure if Mercury was able to dummy that one too (probably this has been stated, but my memory sucks).
Just had to spoil myself, see what happens.
NaughtyKris! Yeesh, back and forth with the blows. Indeed, seems like Endurance might be the deciding factor, along with a bit of Luck. 🎲
Uh oh. A mistake. A trap! Oh man. In her rib cage, damn.
Okay, she's gonna let Jan live. That's good. I mean, she might get away with the bomb. And it's not like she's showing mercy to our protagonist. But at least there's that. The chance is there to pwn her opponent, but she's letting Jan live.
YIKES WHAT the??? Dude. You don't slice nuclear bombs in two, what's the matta with you??
Nitokris swore in Arabic, and then switched to accented English. "This was a trap all along!"
THEES VASS a TRRAP ALLALOCK!!!
Hmm, sounds like she did get away with the first bomb, at least. Not sure if Mercury was able to dummy that one too (probably this has been stated, but my memory sucks).
Acadian: You summed it up. Out-thought and out-fought by Naughty K (that will be her rapper name 
). This was a way to establish Nitokris' villain cred, and cement her as a very dangerous opponent in the books that follow. Then again, given that the entire thing was a trap all along, Nitokris too was out-thought by the Mid-Atlantic Coalition - specifically Cray and his Klingon guile. So she's not infallible either.
And of course, January did literally take Nitokris' best move and survive it. The same move that killed Rook. As Nitokris said herself, no else has ever done that. So even though she technically won this round, Nitokris will be re-evaluating January as being possibly the most dangerous opponent she has ever faced.
As ever, January gets through with the help of friends like Kaelin and Cray.
There will be more on the sleeping foes outside in today's episode. It was originally going to be just a few paragraphs. But instead I decided to expand on it, and really dig into the morally complex issue of leaving Nazis alive.
I do like the idea of a Sleep Punch, or perhaps to rephrase, aVulcan Crow Nerve Pinch. January always seeks to resolve fights with as little harm to her opponents as possible. Especially those who are nowhere near her level.
She is definitely getting better at the super banter. She never would have had a 'girl talk' line in her back in Book 1.
Renee: Nitokris is definitely not being merciful by not finishing off January. Naughty Kris is a professional, meaning she is goal-driven. She has a specific goal in mind, and she is going to accomplish it, and not get side-tracked on other things. She is there for the bombs. Every moment she spends on January she is not accomplishing that goal. In a very real sense, January will win if she just stalls Nitokris long enough, since the rest of the Mid-Atlantic Coalition is right outside after all. So Nitokris was all about getting those bombs while she could.
Nitokris already suspected the worst when she cut the bomb in half. Granted, the worse that could happen would be exposure to radioactive material if the warheads had been inside. That would not have set the bombs off. It is very hard to do that. You have to set off a layer of conventional explosives that encircle the nuclear material with a very exact timing. That creates an implosion that drives the plutonium in on itself, and literally smashes its atoms against one another. If those conventional explosives do not go off, or if they go even a second out of order, there is no nuclear explosion.
As an aside, that actually happened in the Spanish broken arrow incident. A B-52 broke apart in mid air after an accident with a refueling tanker. It's bombs all fell to the earth. The conventional trigger explosives in two of them went off. But not in the right order, so they did not trigger a nuclear explosion. It was just the same as setting off some TNT, and it spread plutonium all over the place.
Nitokris did get away with the first bomb. But as she saw with the second one, it was empty. As January said, they had removed the warheads beforehand. Nitorkis got nothing but an empty bomb casing.
In real life, the Indianapolis and Lexington were both discovered by former Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's deep sea research group.
In a case of serendipitous coincidence, self-described fascist Nick Feuntes is bemoaning the fact that his cause is nothing but a front for wealthy elites who want to divide the poor in order to enrich themselves.
Book 12.34 - Broken Arrow
The fight was over, but there was still plenty to do. There always was in the aftermath of a battle or similar emergency. First the surviving members of Atomkrieg were gathered together. Mercury used his metal manipulation powers to pull out steel and aircraft aluminum from the battered fuselage of the B-52. At his mental command the metal flowed like water, and reformed into a cage that surrounded the unconscious terrorists.
While he did so, Calypso checked the four remaining neo-Nazis to insure they were still breathing. Their rebreathers were all still in place and functioning. Now that she was up close and had the time, January noted writing on them, along with a logo of a blue wave under a white sky.
"I recognize these rebreathers. They are meta-tech, crafted by the Laughing Man." The Caribbean heroine noted. "They are owned by a deep sea research outfit called Ocean Explorations. I have worked with them and their owner: Alan Pall. They helped me discover the Indianapolis for a documentary. These rebreathers allow people to survive even the deepest reaches of the ocean outside of a submersible. They used them to find the Lexington without me a few years later."
January recognized the Laughing Man's name. He was a meta-inventor like Gadget, with an apparent appreciation for J. D. Salinger's writing. Cray had mentioned that he had built the holographic tech that he and Blood Raven used in their computer systems back in the Raven's Nest. She also recognized Alan Pall. He was an old software billionaire turned philanthropist after his retirement.
"Or maybe he gave them to the Nazis," Mercury rumbled. "Billionaires love to fund right-wing extremists. They couldn't exist without them to divide the masses. Otherwise we peasants would all unite and rise up with our torches and pitchforks to form labor unions and demand a living wage. Not to mention make them actually pay their taxes for a change."
"I am sure Alan Pall exploited a great many people to gain his wealth," Calypso frowned. "But he never struck me as directly supporting Nazis, especially not to commit an act of terrorism like this."
"He might not have known what they were going to do," Hwarang weighed in. "If I have noticed anything about fascists, it's that they have no loyalty. They all turn on one another sooner or later."
Cray said something in January's ear, and she spoke up telepathically to repeat it for the rest of the group a moment later.
"Skorzeny was not at the fight in the museum. Cray just told me that he stole these rebreathers from Ocean Explorations at the same time. He's on their security cameras. They already reported it to the police, and it's on the news now." January noted. "Besides, the Atomkrieg's got other meta-tech too, like those force field generators most of them wear, or Tirpitz's gauntlets. From what I know of the meta-tech market, the people who made that stuff probably had no idea that Nazis were going to end up using them."
"Yes, Etsi has a whole meta-tech category that you can shop in," Silverlight murmured. "You can buy it off the shelf, or have just about anything built specifically for you. If these malakas have billionaire backers—and I expect they do—they probably bought the rest of this stuff off the internet."
"So why not just buy it all?" Hwarang wondered.
"My friend Gadget does this," January offered. "It's how he paid for the materials to make his powered armor, and my original suit for that matter. He makes a lot of force field generators. Rich people always want them, because they make them feel safe. So he can just churn them out without a buyer up front, because he knows they will all sell eventually. But deep sea diving gear? I don't think Gadget's ever been asked for something like that. I bet those are all bespoke, and there might be only a few people who can make it."
"And they probably didn't want to wait while someone built enough of them," Hwarang nodded. "So they just stole them instead. Now it makes sense."
"So where's their boss, Bismarck?" Mercury asked.
"Dead," January shook her head. She nodded back toward the fuselage of the B-52 behind her, where the Rook armor now lay forever motionless. "Rook did it."
"Maybe the rest of them should join him," the Philadelphian growled across the mind link.
"I know how you feel bro, but we can't do that," Ranger was the first to break the long silence following the metal manipulator's words. "The rules of engagement—"
"Fuck the rules!" Mercury practically shouted in January's mind. "You don't know how I feel. My great aunts, uncles, and cousins all died at Treblinka."
"Greek Mythology often comes up in my day job." Silverlight's mental voice was quiet. But it was as unwavering as steel as it reached across the mind link. "Let me tell you, there were never a bunch of fouler beings than some of the Greek gods. They were back-stabbers, murderers, and serial rapists, and those were their finer qualities! They possessed inhuman power, lacked any sense of ethics or morals, and had no one to hold them responsible for their actions. That is why they did the awful things they did."
"The most important lesson I ever learned from Blood Raven was that we do not have to abide by the laws of whatever society we happen to find ourselves within. But we must absolutely have a code of our own that we do adhere to at all times. We cannot allow our emotions to rule our powers, else we will literally become the very villains we fight. That is honestly what separates us from them. They get angry and they kill people, because they can't stop themselves. Most of them feel bad about it later, when they have calmed down. But of course by then it's too late for the people who are dead. It's too late for them too, as by then they are wanted criminals."
"I have never killed anyone, and I'm not about to start now. Not even one of these malakas." Silverlight finished in a voice that was as unyielding as the white marble of her skin.
"Janos Heisen was a Nazi. Not one of these imitators, but an original." Calypso spoke up next. "He wore a suit of powered armor in World War Two, and tried to build an atomic bomb for Hitler. Now he's a voice for peace. Thanks to the schools he created, a kid born in the Bahamas like me was able to get an education, even though I was the daughter of poor Haitian immigrants. He went to Jupiter to bring back ultra-dense hydrogen to fuel a new fusion power plant that Stinger and Zero Point of the Sentinels are building. When it goes online it will provide clean energy for half of North America. With his help we may have also just solved the problem of plastics and other garbage flooding the oceans."
"I don't think any of these creatures are going to earn a Nobel Prize," Hwarang scowled. "All of my life, I have been told that I don't have a right to even exist because of their kind. Even now their friends in politics are trying to pass laws all across the country to make that happen. So trans kids can't have medical care, and the state will take them away from their parents. They even want to make it illegal to say the word 'gay'."
"I know," January finally spoke. "I want to kill them too. I really, really do. A few months ago these very same bastards burned an effigy of me on the steps of an Alabama courthouse. The cops took selfies with them as they did it. That was after Lighthammer, Blood Raven, and I took down the National Socialist League at Motor City Pride. Then I came out, and people like them and their supporters have been screaming for my death online ever since."
"I think we all know the paradox of intolerance," she went on. "If a tolerant society tolerates intolerance, then the intolerant will murder them all. We have seen it over and over again, genocide after genocide. I am trans, so I am the first on their list these days."
"It's not really a paradox," Mercury interjected. "It's a social contract. When you agree to tolerate others who are different from you, then you gain the same right to be tolerated in turn. But when you rip up the contract to be intolerant of others, then you also give up the privilege of being tolerated in return. At that point a tolerant society has not only a right, but a responsibility to protect itself from those who would destroy it."
"Yes, you are absolutely right," January nodded. "That's what we just did here. We fought back and protected our society. But there's a lot of space between fighting back and homicide. Being able to see that is the difference between us and them. To them every problem can only be solved by mass murder. That's what makes them so despicable, that and the fact that they love it so damn much. But we can do better. We are better. We can fight them without losing our souls in the process. Otherwise we just turn into the next Robespierre."
"I have been hated all my life, but I still believe that deep down humans are good at their core. It takes mountains of propaganda and years of its steady drip, drip, drip to turn people into monsters like this. I really don't know how to undo all that reactionary programming, or if it can even be done at all. I don't know if all people can change. But I do know that some people can."
"My first enemy as a cape was Lighthammer. He was also my first ally, outside of Gadget of course. Then I fought the Junkman and Archie. At the beginning of the Battle of Belle Isle they stood alone against the Abyssals on the bridge to the mainland. I first met Gola when she tried to eat a man's remaining years in the old Eloise asylum. She later saved my life at Belle Isle, when she distracted the Hierophant long enough for me to sabotage his summoning ritual. Then of course there's the Technocrat. As Calypso noted, Janos Heisen has been a force for good in this world for longer than any of us have been alive."
"You really think that any of them are going to come to help us one day," Hwarang practically spat as he stared down at the unconscious neo-Nazis at their feet.
"I don't know," January shrugged. "Maybe not. Probably not. But one of them might, and I believe both he and I deserve the chance to find out. We all deserve a second chance to make good on our mistakes. Goddess knows I've made plenty of my own. I used to have the Nine Noble Virtues hanging up in my bedroom. Until I learned that they were written by a guy from the British Union of Fascists."
"There's a big difference between that and these guys." Mercury rumbled.
"I know. But if Gadget had not pointed it out, that might have been the start for me." January looked down to the unconscious neo-Nazis at their feet. "How many of them started the same way, thinking they were being cool edgelords sticking it to the man? There has got to be some way to pull them back."
"Only love can defeat the people that hate us," Calypso breathed. "I do not mean we have to be nice to these monsters, or love them. Our love won't make them better people. I mean we have to hold on to the love we have for everyone else, and for the world we want to live in. We have to love that enough to not let ourselves give in to our own anger and frustrations, and betray our own ideals. That is what they do. They love nothing, they have no ideals. We have to be the light, by not being like them."
"So they can all rot in a prison cell, not a grave." Silverlight's mental voice was as absolute as stone. That was the end of that. January suspected that it was not simply through the force of their unofficial leader's personality. Rather see doubted that Mercury and Hwarang possessed true murderous intent. They just had their dander up, as she did herself. Unlike the neo-Nazis, she suspected that neither man truly relished the thought of taking another's life.
January's mind was pulled from the philosophies of anti-fascism and redemption by the presence of that strange bird, that strange, living bird. She once again felt it in the astral, not a crow, or a raven, or a rook. It was not even a jackdaw or magpie. It was all manner of corvids, all mixed together and breathing with magical life.
January could not resist it. She had to see what it was. So even as the others looked on dumbfounded, she unfurled her wings and flew out into the inky blackness. She traced the path back toward the cockpit. She passed over the shattered remnants of the landing gear that she and Bismarck had plowed through. Moments later the cockpit of the B-52 once again loomed in front of her. It remained lit by Hwarang's illumination arrows, but they now guttered noticeably fainter than before. Still, they gave off enough light for January to see that the wreck was even more crumpled and damaged now, thanks to her and Bismarck's crash into its roof and the following battle with Rook on the upper deck.
She pulled up short of the wreckage. Instead she feathered back her wings against the water, and planted her feet into the thick silt below. She reached down into the mire, and drew forth the uncanny corvid from it. She dusted off flecks of muck as she pulled it out of the mud, and held it up to her face.
It was called the Ravenwing. The enchantment upon the bird told her that the instant January set her fingers to it. The enchantment! It was a not a living bird after all, but a magical artifact. The reason for her earlier confusion became clear as she studied the Ravenwing in the astral. Among other things, it was made from numerous feathers and bones of once-living corvids. January felt ravens, crows, rooks, magpies, and so on, all mixed up indiscriminately within the relic. It was all those things, and more.
"You are bleeding," Calypso's voice was strong in her mind. January glanced up to see the aquanaut floating beside her. The spiny fins around her head created a halo, and made her look like a sea goddess looming from the darkness.
January glanced down at her chest. The slit that Nitokris' sword had made in her breastplate had regenerated thanks to Mr. Blackwood's meta-materials. Even the paint had grown back over the spot. There was no blood in the water, at least not that January could see. But her chest still ached underneath.
"Nitokris really packs a wallop with that sword," January murmured. "Just a flesh wound though."
"You really do not have to put on a brave show for us," Calypso said. "We all know that you are not completely invulnerable."
"I know," January sighed. "Conveying that persona just comes natural when I'm in the cape. I am fine. I will be at least. A healing potion from our alchemist sister fixed me up, mostly at least. I can sleep off the rest tonight."
"You found the mysterious bird then?" Calypso changed the subject, and nodded down to the Ravenwing in January's hands.
"It got knocked loose in the fight." January explained. "It's a magical artifact, made from real birds. I think there's metal in there too. The enchantment on it might be the most complex thing I've ever seen, outside of the sanctum in the Witch House at least. Whoever made this was an artist, or a genius, at least at enchanting. It might contain some clues to Rook's identity."
January fished out the bag of holding from her waist, and tucked the Ravenwing inside its plain brown folds. She would want to study it later.
"I thought you said it was alive?" Hwarang asked across the mental link.
"It is, in its own way," Silverlight answered before January could reply. "Most magic items are simple. Think of a pair of socks that are always dry, or a cup that keeps your coffee always hot. They are useful. But they have no real impact on the world, so they are just objects with a tiny amount of power invested within them."
"But true artifacts, like my staff Mene, or Blood Raven's sword Samhain, or Calypso's staff Bagua, those are different. Through time and deeds they grow to be more than just tools. They not only have great power, but names, histories, predilections, and even personalities. They evolve beyond we who made them, into their own beings."
"So are they, you know, aware and intelligent?" Mercury asked. The vitriol that had so recently filled his mental voice had been replaced by genuine curiosity.
"No," Calypso answered. "Well, I at least have never known a magic item to say: 'I think, therefore I am'. They don't talk and converse with us, not in the normal sense. But they do convey their personalities, their histories, their essences, across astral space. It can feel like a voice whispering in your head. But that is more a matter of how we process the experience than anything else. They aren't really conversing."
"But give our staves a few billion years to evolve, and who knows..." Silverlight mused.
"They might be writing Shakespeare, or at least comic books," Ranger murmured. "There's a new one called Artemis Argent and the Secret of Mystery Hill that really slaps. I can't wait for the next issue."
"I know the writer," January smiled in spite of herself. "Well, I've met her. I can get you a signed copy."
"That would be rad!" the soldier cried with delight.
"Rad?" Hwarang's mental voice was tinged with obvious amusement.
"My dad says it all the time," Ranger replied. "That and cowabunga..."
"In any case, it is time we depart," Calypso declared.
January looked from her waterborne sister, to the lights of the fuselage in the distance. She could see the others clustered there in a group, waiting to go to the surface. January would be happy to leave. While she could not deny the forbidding beauty of the abyssal depths, she could also not escape the fact that she did not belong here. She was meant for the sky, like any other crow.
But it felt like they were not finished. Her eyes turned back to the wreckage of the cockpit. It was not hard for her to pick out Bismarck's body on the deck of the upper level. His cybernetic limbs were gleaming silver, and glinted brightly in the fading light of the flare arrows. What remained of the original crew also lay scattered around him now: helmets, boots, dog tags, and the like that had withstood the vicissitudes of time and tide.
"You are thinking of bringing back the bodies, all the bodies." Now it was Silverlight's voice that rang in her head. It was not a question, but a statement.
"It is what Blood Raven would do," January insisted. "She would bring them home to their families."
"We cannot," Calypso argued. "This is a gravesite already. I mean that literally. It is a violation of international law to go inside and disturb it. You and Bismarck already did that once in the fight. That was not your fault. The battle took you in there. Going back a second time, that would be unethical, even to remove him. If the United States government wishes to recover the remains, whatever may be left, that is different. But that is not our decision to make. I agree with what Silverlight just said about not needing to be slavishly devoted to the laws of nations, but this is one worth following on its own merits."
"Remember, just because we can do something, does not mean we should," Silverlight joined in. "This isn't the same as cleaning up a state park after a battle, like we did at Belle Isle. I'm an anthropologist. Dealing with human remains sometimes comes up in my field. It raises not just legal, but ethical and moral concerns. People have very visceral reactions to this, and you can cause a great deal of harm, even though you think what you are doing is right and appropriate. My profession has a long and very sordid history of doing just that. Sometimes it's better for everyone to just leave the dead where they lie. Please, take my word on it. I don't want to repeat the mistakes my colleagues have made in the past."
"I... suppose you are right," January sighed. She understood her sister's words. But it still felt like she was leaving things unfinished, just walking away.
"I do not understand your reluctance," Hwarang's mental voice came over the link. "Why are you so hung up on this. It feels... ghoulish."
"My brother was murdered recently," January explained after long moments. "I stood there and looked at his face after he was dead. I had to, otherwise I don't think I would have believed it was him. I had to see it, and my mother had to see it, to know it was real. I just... want to do what's right for the families of the people who died here, even Bismarck. If he's still got any family, they deserve the chance to have a funeral and bury him."
"I'm sorry about your brother," Hwarang's telepathic voice was somber and muted. "But Calypso is right. This is not for us to do. They are buried already. Think of it like any other burial at sea. It is a thing after all."
"I honestly think this is what Blood Raven would do," Silverlight chimed in. "She would mourn them. She would inform the families. And yes, that is a thing we can do. But they belong to the sea now."
"Ok, ok..." January finally relented. She did not look forward to doing the latter. Telling her mother that Julian was dead had been wrenching. Telling the family of the man the Hierophant had slain at Gull Island—Rafael Laurenti—had likewise been soul-crushing. To give people the worst news of their life, it took something from you. Even when they were total strangers, they were still people. You did not have to know someone to feel empathy for them after all. It was easy enough to imagine how they must feel, and conjure similar feelings within oneself.
January flew back to the others with Calypso at her side. They moved in silence now, the weight of the situation as heavy upon their shoulders as the literal weight of the water above.
Once back at the remnants of the bomb bay, January looked through one of the many holes in the side of the fuselage to the Rook suit within. She did not sense any physical remains inside the armor. As Calypso had noted, the ocean had taken care of that. She could sense the magic within the suit however. The enchantment upon it was as strong and complex as that within the Ravenwing. Now that she had studied both, she was certain that they had been made by the same person.
It was clear that Rook had been a very gifted enchanter. It was too bad he had not stayed in that lane. He could have lived a long and fruitful life. The same was true of the others who lay dead here. January suddenly felt the urge to cry. All of this suffering had taken place because of arrogant men and their blind ambitions.
* * *
). This was a way to establish Nitokris' villain cred, and cement her as a very dangerous opponent in the books that follow. Then again, given that the entire thing was a trap all along, Nitokris too was out-thought by the Mid-Atlantic Coalition - specifically Cray and his Klingon guile. So she's not infallible either. And of course, January did literally take Nitokris' best move and survive it. The same move that killed Rook. As Nitokris said herself, no else has ever done that. So even though she technically won this round, Nitokris will be re-evaluating January as being possibly the most dangerous opponent she has ever faced.
As ever, January gets through with the help of friends like Kaelin and Cray.
There will be more on the sleeping foes outside in today's episode. It was originally going to be just a few paragraphs. But instead I decided to expand on it, and really dig into the morally complex issue of leaving Nazis alive.
I do like the idea of a Sleep Punch, or perhaps to rephrase, a
She is definitely getting better at the super banter. She never would have had a 'girl talk' line in her back in Book 1.
Renee: Nitokris is definitely not being merciful by not finishing off January. Naughty Kris is a professional, meaning she is goal-driven. She has a specific goal in mind, and she is going to accomplish it, and not get side-tracked on other things. She is there for the bombs. Every moment she spends on January she is not accomplishing that goal. In a very real sense, January will win if she just stalls Nitokris long enough, since the rest of the Mid-Atlantic Coalition is right outside after all. So Nitokris was all about getting those bombs while she could.
Nitokris already suspected the worst when she cut the bomb in half. Granted, the worse that could happen would be exposure to radioactive material if the warheads had been inside. That would not have set the bombs off. It is very hard to do that. You have to set off a layer of conventional explosives that encircle the nuclear material with a very exact timing. That creates an implosion that drives the plutonium in on itself, and literally smashes its atoms against one another. If those conventional explosives do not go off, or if they go even a second out of order, there is no nuclear explosion.
As an aside, that actually happened in the Spanish broken arrow incident. A B-52 broke apart in mid air after an accident with a refueling tanker. It's bombs all fell to the earth. The conventional trigger explosives in two of them went off. But not in the right order, so they did not trigger a nuclear explosion. It was just the same as setting off some TNT, and it spread plutonium all over the place.
Nitokris did get away with the first bomb. But as she saw with the second one, it was empty. As January said, they had removed the warheads beforehand. Nitorkis got nothing but an empty bomb casing.
In real life, the Indianapolis and Lexington were both discovered by former Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's deep sea research group.
In a case of serendipitous coincidence, self-described fascist Nick Feuntes is bemoaning the fact that his cause is nothing but a front for wealthy elites who want to divide the poor in order to enrich themselves.
Book 12.34 - Broken Arrow
The fight was over, but there was still plenty to do. There always was in the aftermath of a battle or similar emergency. First the surviving members of Atomkrieg were gathered together. Mercury used his metal manipulation powers to pull out steel and aircraft aluminum from the battered fuselage of the B-52. At his mental command the metal flowed like water, and reformed into a cage that surrounded the unconscious terrorists.
While he did so, Calypso checked the four remaining neo-Nazis to insure they were still breathing. Their rebreathers were all still in place and functioning. Now that she was up close and had the time, January noted writing on them, along with a logo of a blue wave under a white sky.
"I recognize these rebreathers. They are meta-tech, crafted by the Laughing Man." The Caribbean heroine noted. "They are owned by a deep sea research outfit called Ocean Explorations. I have worked with them and their owner: Alan Pall. They helped me discover the Indianapolis for a documentary. These rebreathers allow people to survive even the deepest reaches of the ocean outside of a submersible. They used them to find the Lexington without me a few years later."
January recognized the Laughing Man's name. He was a meta-inventor like Gadget, with an apparent appreciation for J. D. Salinger's writing. Cray had mentioned that he had built the holographic tech that he and Blood Raven used in their computer systems back in the Raven's Nest. She also recognized Alan Pall. He was an old software billionaire turned philanthropist after his retirement.
"Or maybe he gave them to the Nazis," Mercury rumbled. "Billionaires love to fund right-wing extremists. They couldn't exist without them to divide the masses. Otherwise we peasants would all unite and rise up with our torches and pitchforks to form labor unions and demand a living wage. Not to mention make them actually pay their taxes for a change."
"I am sure Alan Pall exploited a great many people to gain his wealth," Calypso frowned. "But he never struck me as directly supporting Nazis, especially not to commit an act of terrorism like this."
"He might not have known what they were going to do," Hwarang weighed in. "If I have noticed anything about fascists, it's that they have no loyalty. They all turn on one another sooner or later."
Cray said something in January's ear, and she spoke up telepathically to repeat it for the rest of the group a moment later.
"Skorzeny was not at the fight in the museum. Cray just told me that he stole these rebreathers from Ocean Explorations at the same time. He's on their security cameras. They already reported it to the police, and it's on the news now." January noted. "Besides, the Atomkrieg's got other meta-tech too, like those force field generators most of them wear, or Tirpitz's gauntlets. From what I know of the meta-tech market, the people who made that stuff probably had no idea that Nazis were going to end up using them."
"Yes, Etsi has a whole meta-tech category that you can shop in," Silverlight murmured. "You can buy it off the shelf, or have just about anything built specifically for you. If these malakas have billionaire backers—and I expect they do—they probably bought the rest of this stuff off the internet."
"So why not just buy it all?" Hwarang wondered.
"My friend Gadget does this," January offered. "It's how he paid for the materials to make his powered armor, and my original suit for that matter. He makes a lot of force field generators. Rich people always want them, because they make them feel safe. So he can just churn them out without a buyer up front, because he knows they will all sell eventually. But deep sea diving gear? I don't think Gadget's ever been asked for something like that. I bet those are all bespoke, and there might be only a few people who can make it."
"And they probably didn't want to wait while someone built enough of them," Hwarang nodded. "So they just stole them instead. Now it makes sense."
"So where's their boss, Bismarck?" Mercury asked.
"Dead," January shook her head. She nodded back toward the fuselage of the B-52 behind her, where the Rook armor now lay forever motionless. "Rook did it."
"Maybe the rest of them should join him," the Philadelphian growled across the mind link.
"I know how you feel bro, but we can't do that," Ranger was the first to break the long silence following the metal manipulator's words. "The rules of engagement—"
"Fuck the rules!" Mercury practically shouted in January's mind. "You don't know how I feel. My great aunts, uncles, and cousins all died at Treblinka."
"Greek Mythology often comes up in my day job." Silverlight's mental voice was quiet. But it was as unwavering as steel as it reached across the mind link. "Let me tell you, there were never a bunch of fouler beings than some of the Greek gods. They were back-stabbers, murderers, and serial rapists, and those were their finer qualities! They possessed inhuman power, lacked any sense of ethics or morals, and had no one to hold them responsible for their actions. That is why they did the awful things they did."
"The most important lesson I ever learned from Blood Raven was that we do not have to abide by the laws of whatever society we happen to find ourselves within. But we must absolutely have a code of our own that we do adhere to at all times. We cannot allow our emotions to rule our powers, else we will literally become the very villains we fight. That is honestly what separates us from them. They get angry and they kill people, because they can't stop themselves. Most of them feel bad about it later, when they have calmed down. But of course by then it's too late for the people who are dead. It's too late for them too, as by then they are wanted criminals."
"I have never killed anyone, and I'm not about to start now. Not even one of these malakas." Silverlight finished in a voice that was as unyielding as the white marble of her skin.
"Janos Heisen was a Nazi. Not one of these imitators, but an original." Calypso spoke up next. "He wore a suit of powered armor in World War Two, and tried to build an atomic bomb for Hitler. Now he's a voice for peace. Thanks to the schools he created, a kid born in the Bahamas like me was able to get an education, even though I was the daughter of poor Haitian immigrants. He went to Jupiter to bring back ultra-dense hydrogen to fuel a new fusion power plant that Stinger and Zero Point of the Sentinels are building. When it goes online it will provide clean energy for half of North America. With his help we may have also just solved the problem of plastics and other garbage flooding the oceans."
"I don't think any of these creatures are going to earn a Nobel Prize," Hwarang scowled. "All of my life, I have been told that I don't have a right to even exist because of their kind. Even now their friends in politics are trying to pass laws all across the country to make that happen. So trans kids can't have medical care, and the state will take them away from their parents. They even want to make it illegal to say the word 'gay'."
"I know," January finally spoke. "I want to kill them too. I really, really do. A few months ago these very same bastards burned an effigy of me on the steps of an Alabama courthouse. The cops took selfies with them as they did it. That was after Lighthammer, Blood Raven, and I took down the National Socialist League at Motor City Pride. Then I came out, and people like them and their supporters have been screaming for my death online ever since."
"I think we all know the paradox of intolerance," she went on. "If a tolerant society tolerates intolerance, then the intolerant will murder them all. We have seen it over and over again, genocide after genocide. I am trans, so I am the first on their list these days."
"It's not really a paradox," Mercury interjected. "It's a social contract. When you agree to tolerate others who are different from you, then you gain the same right to be tolerated in turn. But when you rip up the contract to be intolerant of others, then you also give up the privilege of being tolerated in return. At that point a tolerant society has not only a right, but a responsibility to protect itself from those who would destroy it."
"Yes, you are absolutely right," January nodded. "That's what we just did here. We fought back and protected our society. But there's a lot of space between fighting back and homicide. Being able to see that is the difference between us and them. To them every problem can only be solved by mass murder. That's what makes them so despicable, that and the fact that they love it so damn much. But we can do better. We are better. We can fight them without losing our souls in the process. Otherwise we just turn into the next Robespierre."
"I have been hated all my life, but I still believe that deep down humans are good at their core. It takes mountains of propaganda and years of its steady drip, drip, drip to turn people into monsters like this. I really don't know how to undo all that reactionary programming, or if it can even be done at all. I don't know if all people can change. But I do know that some people can."
"My first enemy as a cape was Lighthammer. He was also my first ally, outside of Gadget of course. Then I fought the Junkman and Archie. At the beginning of the Battle of Belle Isle they stood alone against the Abyssals on the bridge to the mainland. I first met Gola when she tried to eat a man's remaining years in the old Eloise asylum. She later saved my life at Belle Isle, when she distracted the Hierophant long enough for me to sabotage his summoning ritual. Then of course there's the Technocrat. As Calypso noted, Janos Heisen has been a force for good in this world for longer than any of us have been alive."
"You really think that any of them are going to come to help us one day," Hwarang practically spat as he stared down at the unconscious neo-Nazis at their feet.
"I don't know," January shrugged. "Maybe not. Probably not. But one of them might, and I believe both he and I deserve the chance to find out. We all deserve a second chance to make good on our mistakes. Goddess knows I've made plenty of my own. I used to have the Nine Noble Virtues hanging up in my bedroom. Until I learned that they were written by a guy from the British Union of Fascists."
"There's a big difference between that and these guys." Mercury rumbled.
"I know. But if Gadget had not pointed it out, that might have been the start for me." January looked down to the unconscious neo-Nazis at their feet. "How many of them started the same way, thinking they were being cool edgelords sticking it to the man? There has got to be some way to pull them back."
"Only love can defeat the people that hate us," Calypso breathed. "I do not mean we have to be nice to these monsters, or love them. Our love won't make them better people. I mean we have to hold on to the love we have for everyone else, and for the world we want to live in. We have to love that enough to not let ourselves give in to our own anger and frustrations, and betray our own ideals. That is what they do. They love nothing, they have no ideals. We have to be the light, by not being like them."
"So they can all rot in a prison cell, not a grave." Silverlight's mental voice was as absolute as stone. That was the end of that. January suspected that it was not simply through the force of their unofficial leader's personality. Rather see doubted that Mercury and Hwarang possessed true murderous intent. They just had their dander up, as she did herself. Unlike the neo-Nazis, she suspected that neither man truly relished the thought of taking another's life.
January's mind was pulled from the philosophies of anti-fascism and redemption by the presence of that strange bird, that strange, living bird. She once again felt it in the astral, not a crow, or a raven, or a rook. It was not even a jackdaw or magpie. It was all manner of corvids, all mixed together and breathing with magical life.
January could not resist it. She had to see what it was. So even as the others looked on dumbfounded, she unfurled her wings and flew out into the inky blackness. She traced the path back toward the cockpit. She passed over the shattered remnants of the landing gear that she and Bismarck had plowed through. Moments later the cockpit of the B-52 once again loomed in front of her. It remained lit by Hwarang's illumination arrows, but they now guttered noticeably fainter than before. Still, they gave off enough light for January to see that the wreck was even more crumpled and damaged now, thanks to her and Bismarck's crash into its roof and the following battle with Rook on the upper deck.
She pulled up short of the wreckage. Instead she feathered back her wings against the water, and planted her feet into the thick silt below. She reached down into the mire, and drew forth the uncanny corvid from it. She dusted off flecks of muck as she pulled it out of the mud, and held it up to her face.
It was called the Ravenwing. The enchantment upon the bird told her that the instant January set her fingers to it. The enchantment! It was a not a living bird after all, but a magical artifact. The reason for her earlier confusion became clear as she studied the Ravenwing in the astral. Among other things, it was made from numerous feathers and bones of once-living corvids. January felt ravens, crows, rooks, magpies, and so on, all mixed up indiscriminately within the relic. It was all those things, and more.
"You are bleeding," Calypso's voice was strong in her mind. January glanced up to see the aquanaut floating beside her. The spiny fins around her head created a halo, and made her look like a sea goddess looming from the darkness.
January glanced down at her chest. The slit that Nitokris' sword had made in her breastplate had regenerated thanks to Mr. Blackwood's meta-materials. Even the paint had grown back over the spot. There was no blood in the water, at least not that January could see. But her chest still ached underneath.
"Nitokris really packs a wallop with that sword," January murmured. "Just a flesh wound though."
"You really do not have to put on a brave show for us," Calypso said. "We all know that you are not completely invulnerable."
"I know," January sighed. "Conveying that persona just comes natural when I'm in the cape. I am fine. I will be at least. A healing potion from our alchemist sister fixed me up, mostly at least. I can sleep off the rest tonight."
"You found the mysterious bird then?" Calypso changed the subject, and nodded down to the Ravenwing in January's hands.
"It got knocked loose in the fight." January explained. "It's a magical artifact, made from real birds. I think there's metal in there too. The enchantment on it might be the most complex thing I've ever seen, outside of the sanctum in the Witch House at least. Whoever made this was an artist, or a genius, at least at enchanting. It might contain some clues to Rook's identity."
January fished out the bag of holding from her waist, and tucked the Ravenwing inside its plain brown folds. She would want to study it later.
"I thought you said it was alive?" Hwarang asked across the mental link.
"It is, in its own way," Silverlight answered before January could reply. "Most magic items are simple. Think of a pair of socks that are always dry, or a cup that keeps your coffee always hot. They are useful. But they have no real impact on the world, so they are just objects with a tiny amount of power invested within them."
"But true artifacts, like my staff Mene, or Blood Raven's sword Samhain, or Calypso's staff Bagua, those are different. Through time and deeds they grow to be more than just tools. They not only have great power, but names, histories, predilections, and even personalities. They evolve beyond we who made them, into their own beings."
"So are they, you know, aware and intelligent?" Mercury asked. The vitriol that had so recently filled his mental voice had been replaced by genuine curiosity.
"No," Calypso answered. "Well, I at least have never known a magic item to say: 'I think, therefore I am'. They don't talk and converse with us, not in the normal sense. But they do convey their personalities, their histories, their essences, across astral space. It can feel like a voice whispering in your head. But that is more a matter of how we process the experience than anything else. They aren't really conversing."
"But give our staves a few billion years to evolve, and who knows..." Silverlight mused.
"They might be writing Shakespeare, or at least comic books," Ranger murmured. "There's a new one called Artemis Argent and the Secret of Mystery Hill that really slaps. I can't wait for the next issue."
"I know the writer," January smiled in spite of herself. "Well, I've met her. I can get you a signed copy."
"That would be rad!" the soldier cried with delight.
"Rad?" Hwarang's mental voice was tinged with obvious amusement.
"My dad says it all the time," Ranger replied. "That and cowabunga..."
"In any case, it is time we depart," Calypso declared.
January looked from her waterborne sister, to the lights of the fuselage in the distance. She could see the others clustered there in a group, waiting to go to the surface. January would be happy to leave. While she could not deny the forbidding beauty of the abyssal depths, she could also not escape the fact that she did not belong here. She was meant for the sky, like any other crow.
But it felt like they were not finished. Her eyes turned back to the wreckage of the cockpit. It was not hard for her to pick out Bismarck's body on the deck of the upper level. His cybernetic limbs were gleaming silver, and glinted brightly in the fading light of the flare arrows. What remained of the original crew also lay scattered around him now: helmets, boots, dog tags, and the like that had withstood the vicissitudes of time and tide.
"You are thinking of bringing back the bodies, all the bodies." Now it was Silverlight's voice that rang in her head. It was not a question, but a statement.
"It is what Blood Raven would do," January insisted. "She would bring them home to their families."
"We cannot," Calypso argued. "This is a gravesite already. I mean that literally. It is a violation of international law to go inside and disturb it. You and Bismarck already did that once in the fight. That was not your fault. The battle took you in there. Going back a second time, that would be unethical, even to remove him. If the United States government wishes to recover the remains, whatever may be left, that is different. But that is not our decision to make. I agree with what Silverlight just said about not needing to be slavishly devoted to the laws of nations, but this is one worth following on its own merits."
"Remember, just because we can do something, does not mean we should," Silverlight joined in. "This isn't the same as cleaning up a state park after a battle, like we did at Belle Isle. I'm an anthropologist. Dealing with human remains sometimes comes up in my field. It raises not just legal, but ethical and moral concerns. People have very visceral reactions to this, and you can cause a great deal of harm, even though you think what you are doing is right and appropriate. My profession has a long and very sordid history of doing just that. Sometimes it's better for everyone to just leave the dead where they lie. Please, take my word on it. I don't want to repeat the mistakes my colleagues have made in the past."
"I... suppose you are right," January sighed. She understood her sister's words. But it still felt like she was leaving things unfinished, just walking away.
"I do not understand your reluctance," Hwarang's mental voice came over the link. "Why are you so hung up on this. It feels... ghoulish."
"My brother was murdered recently," January explained after long moments. "I stood there and looked at his face after he was dead. I had to, otherwise I don't think I would have believed it was him. I had to see it, and my mother had to see it, to know it was real. I just... want to do what's right for the families of the people who died here, even Bismarck. If he's still got any family, they deserve the chance to have a funeral and bury him."
"I'm sorry about your brother," Hwarang's telepathic voice was somber and muted. "But Calypso is right. This is not for us to do. They are buried already. Think of it like any other burial at sea. It is a thing after all."
"I honestly think this is what Blood Raven would do," Silverlight chimed in. "She would mourn them. She would inform the families. And yes, that is a thing we can do. But they belong to the sea now."
"Ok, ok..." January finally relented. She did not look forward to doing the latter. Telling her mother that Julian was dead had been wrenching. Telling the family of the man the Hierophant had slain at Gull Island—Rafael Laurenti—had likewise been soul-crushing. To give people the worst news of their life, it took something from you. Even when they were total strangers, they were still people. You did not have to know someone to feel empathy for them after all. It was easy enough to imagine how they must feel, and conjure similar feelings within oneself.
January flew back to the others with Calypso at her side. They moved in silence now, the weight of the situation as heavy upon their shoulders as the literal weight of the water above.
Once back at the remnants of the bomb bay, January looked through one of the many holes in the side of the fuselage to the Rook suit within. She did not sense any physical remains inside the armor. As Calypso had noted, the ocean had taken care of that. She could sense the magic within the suit however. The enchantment upon it was as strong and complex as that within the Ravenwing. Now that she had studied both, she was certain that they had been made by the same person.
It was clear that Rook had been a very gifted enchanter. It was too bad he had not stayed in that lane. He could have lived a long and fruitful life. The same was true of the others who lay dead here. January suddenly felt the urge to cry. All of this suffering had taken place because of arrogant men and their blind ambitions.
* * *
Much effort here to the aftermath. Some sober thoughts on the meaning of life and such, rendered more melancholy I’m sure by the beautiful but natural ‘gloom’ of their inhospitable environment.
They were right to leave the crew in place. The owners of that B-52 have plenty of divers and beancounters to take care of that if desired.
’Think of a pair of socks that are always dry, or cup that keeps your coffee always hot.’
- - I’ll take one of each.
They were right to leave the crew in place. The owners of that B-52 have plenty of divers and beancounters to take care of that if desired.
’Think of a pair of socks that are always dry, or cup that keeps your coffee always hot.’
- - I’ll take one of each.
Ah I see. So maybe she wants to off January, way deep undersea, but there's no time for that.
If those conventional explosives do not go off, or if they go even a second out of order, there is no nuclear explosion...
So she knows technically that the bomb won't go off if cut in half, but still... some things you just don't do! Ask Alec Baldwin, he can explain...
Wow (about the B-52). And those shipwreck websites, gonna check those out later. Fascinated with that stuff.
So before reading, I have a Stormcrow moment to share. Was near 100 degrees yesterday but I went to the park after work anyway, because I knew hardly anyone would be there. Solitude is golden after a day of customers, ya know? Also, Even though it was super-hot, there was a near-constant breeze blowing.
Anyway, here's the first Stormcrow moment. The bird flew right up and perched on the opposite side of the bench I was sitting upon. I was in shock! I just sat there. Didn't move. I figured the bird would remain perched a moment and then leave. But it stayed.
I picked up a book, began reading, being nonchalant, you know? Bird kept sitting there. So then I went for my phone, my cheapie Nokia flip-phone, which was stuffed into my pack of course. The phone kept slipping out of my fingers, took me like 4x to grab it! Finally, got the pic above.
The bird flew away, toward the lake. A minute later, came right back! I grabbed a second picture, this time portrait instead of landscape.
It flew away a second time, this time toward a pavillion. A minute later it came back with a friend. The second crow decided not to land, though. But the bird on the bench, it began croaking. Those things are really LOUD when they're sitting right next to you, my gosh. 🦅 We actually had a conversation, me and the crow. It'd go "crraawk" and I'd answer "craawwwk!"
I figure the avian creature was after food! Must've been, right? that's the only thing I can come up with, because I'm not like January, no magic was involved. But next time I go to the park I'll make sure to bring some crackers.
------------------------------
Cool, glad the fight is over. What're they gonna do with the nazis?
Ah-ha, she's got Ravenwing, cool. Nice, this relic sounds fantastic.
January's still bleeding, sort of. Yeah, y'all need to get out of there, magic or not. Very dangerous situation, that far underwater. Listen to Calypso, hon. This is her domain, and even she's telling Jan it's time to go! ... But anyway, if the artifact contains clues to Rook's identity that'd be interesting to learn about. He was one of the antagonists I still got questions about.
Ha: "'Tis just a flesh wound!"
Agreed with the Caribbean; get the heck out of there. Plus, I don't think Branwyn would really go that far, but you know her better than I.
Silverlight joins in, wow. I mean, I can see if Hwrang or one of them lost their lives; obviously yeah, they'd bring him or her to the surface. There's just nothing for Bismarck, or any of the Nazis though. One team won, the other team lost, that's it.
The final paragraph is very pertinent. Rook could've done so much better. Wonder if we'll get to learn more about his story. If not, it's okay. Just curious.
If those conventional explosives do not go off, or if they go even a second out of order, there is no nuclear explosion...
So she knows technically that the bomb won't go off if cut in half, but still... some things you just don't do!
Ask Alec Baldwin, he can explain... Wow (about the B-52). And those shipwreck websites, gonna check those out later. Fascinated with that stuff.
So before reading, I have a Stormcrow moment to share. Was near 100 degrees yesterday but I went to the park after work anyway, because I knew hardly anyone would be there. Solitude is golden after a day of customers, ya know? Also, Even though it was super-hot, there was a near-constant breeze blowing.
Anyway, here's the first Stormcrow moment. The bird flew right up and perched on the opposite side of the bench I was sitting upon.
I was in shock! I just sat there. Didn't move. I figured the bird would remain perched a moment and then leave. But it stayed. I picked up a book, began reading, being nonchalant, you know? Bird kept sitting there. So then I went for my phone, my cheapie Nokia flip-phone, which was stuffed into my pack of course. The phone kept slipping out of my fingers, took me like 4x to grab it! Finally, got the pic above.
The bird flew away, toward the lake. A minute later, came right back! I grabbed a second picture, this time portrait instead of landscape.
It flew away a second time, this time toward a pavillion. A minute later it came back with a friend.
The second crow decided not to land, though. But the bird on the bench, it began croaking. Those things are really LOUD when they're sitting right next to you, my gosh. 🦅 We actually had a conversation, me and the crow. It'd go "crraawk" and I'd answer "craawwwk!"I figure the avian creature was after food! Must've been, right? that's the only thing I can come up with, because I'm not like January, no magic was involved.
But next time I go to the park I'll make sure to bring some crackers. ------------------------------
Cool, glad the fight is over. What're they gonna do with the nazis?
Ah-ha, she's got Ravenwing, cool. Nice, this relic sounds fantastic.
January's still bleeding, sort of. Yeah, y'all need to get out of there, magic or not. Very dangerous situation, that far underwater. Listen to Calypso, hon. This is her domain, and even she's telling Jan it's time to go! ... But anyway, if the artifact contains clues to Rook's identity that'd be interesting to learn about. He was one of the antagonists I still got questions about.
Ha: "'Tis just a flesh wound!"
QUOTE
"It is what Blood Raven would do," January insisted. "She would bring them home to their families."
"We cannot," Calypso argued. "This is a gravesite already. I
"We cannot," Calypso argued. "This is a gravesite already. I
Agreed with the Caribbean; get the heck out of there. Plus, I don't think Branwyn would really go that far, but you know her better than I.
Silverlight joins in, wow. I mean, I can see if Hwrang or one of them lost their lives; obviously yeah, they'd bring him or her to the surface. There's just nothing for Bismarck, or any of the Nazis though. One team won, the other team lost, that's it.
The final paragraph is very pertinent. Rook could've done so much better. Wonder if we'll get to learn more about his story. If not, it's okay. Just curious.
Acadian: The bottom of the ocean is a lot like the surface of the moon, in its stark beauty, surrounded by eternal night. As Buzz Aldrin said "magnificent desolation!" Though the ocean floor is a desolation that is filled with often hidden life.
January's musings on the cause of all this suffering is something I often feel as I read or listen to history and biographies. So many awful things in the world were done by people who had a choice, who could have just been a crappy artist living in a halfway house in Austria, but instead decided to be a dick.
There is always a lot for January to do after the battles are over. In movies they just fade to black once the last punch is thrown. I want to show the aftermath, so the readers can see that January is committed to every aspect of the cape life, even the onerous parts.
I would love an ever dry top, so I would not have to pull out the hairdryer to dry mine off after I get it soaking wet washing the dishes.
Renee: What amazes me about many of these WW2 and earlier wrecks they find at astonishing depths is how intact many of them are. The paint is still on them, and you can read their lettering on their hulls or crates on their decks.
That is an awesome moment with your local crows. Corvids are very intelligent and social. They remember faces, and individual people. If you make a friend with a crow, it will literally tell its buddies about you, and they will all be nice to you. If you get one mad at you, it will do the same, and every crow in the neighborhood will hate you. Given that it was in a park, this one is probably used to people, and getting treats from them. If you bring it nuts or bird food, you will make a friend for life, and probably have other crows coming to see you as well.
I was originally going to leave Rook's background a mystery. But then I decided it bore further exploration. So there is indeed more we shall learn about Rook, thanks to January bringing back the Ravenwing. That is not all. The Ravenwing is going to become a regular feature in the stories going forward.
Major Trevor Stevens will be played by RL Aldis Hodge
Jason's appearance was inspired by Michael Fassbender in Prometheus
Annie was inspired by RL Annie Liebovitz
Book 12.35 - Broken Arrow
With that they gathered on top of the makeshift cage that Mercury had built for the neo-Nazis. Calypso unleashed her magic, and the waters around responded to her command. The metal cage shot up into the inky darkness overhead like an undersea elevator, as the waves carried it and them aloft.
January stared silently down at the landscape they left behind. It was a pool of darkness, lit only with the guttering lamps of Hwarang's arrows. Soon those faded into the void, and left them surrounded by inky blackness. If not for the sensation of water rushing past, and the sight of the ever present marine snow falling about them, it would not have been possible to tell they were moving. There were just no outside landmarks to gauge their progress against. It was all just blank nothingness all around.
"You probably think I'm a monster after what I said..." Mercury murmured as they quickly ascended. He stared down at the unconscious neo-Nazis in the cage that they stood upon. "It's just that... people like this really, really make it personal."
"I know. I am no different from you." January nodded. "A few days ago I was about to throw hands with a bunch of cops. They just had me so... outraged. Thankfully Ôkami was there to hold me back."
"You?" Even across the mind-link, Hwarang's words rang with incredulity. "I thought you were like, the kindest, most empathetic super in the world. Everyone says that Blood Raven's the ruthless one. Or at least that she was."
"Take it from me, Blood Raven's killed more Nazis than any single person on the planet. And not just Nazis either..." January chose her words carefully. She knew that there were limits to what she could divulge about her former mentor's activities during the Second World War. "But I think she regrets it. She told me the same thing that she did Silverlight: we all need to have a code of our own. I think she learned that the hard way, by breaking hers. It's why I'm glad I have friends. There will always be someone like you guys to hold me back. We all need that sometimes."
Soon the void around them faded to purple velvet, and eventually vibrant blue. Finally they returned to the world of light once more. January breathed a sigh of relief to have emerged from those sunless depths. In some ways it reminded her of those ancient heroes who journeyed to the underworld, then rose again to the land of the living afterward.
January imagined that they had risen straight up from the wreckage. Because of that Calypso's sailboat was nowhere to be seen. However, another boat was there instead. Or was it a ship? January had no idea. It was a battered, rusted workhorse of the sea. It looked like a big tugboat. It had a wide-bellied hull that was festooned with old tires. A bulldog-like superstructure rose up from the foredeck, and a large crane trailed away from the back of that toward the stern. The vessel's black and blue paint was chipped and peeling away, and revealed numerous dents and scratches from hard use. The name Long Island Warrior was stenciled along the stern of the ship. January suspected that this warrior was long due for retirement.
The deep thrum of helicopter rotors came to January's ears. She looked up to see that the heavy utility helicopter that had ferried them out now hovered in the sky above. More choppers had now joined it. Several were heavily-armed Apache attack helicopters, the same kind that had participated in the Battle of Belle Isle. These lurked off to one side, to give them a clear field of fire across every inch of the ship. Finally there was another giant transport craft that loomed directly over the boat, with its rear cargo hatch sitting open. High overhead jet fighters streaked across the sky, and left fluffy white contrails behind them.
Far above them the distinctive arrowhead shapes of two B-2 bombers loitered among the clouds. Did they carry nuclear weapons, to use against the Atomkrieg if all else failed? It would certainly be ironic of the Air Force to use nukes to stop other people from stealing the nukes they had lost in the past. But given what the stakes were, January could understand why someone might make that call.
Finally she noted a guided missile cruiser sliding its way over the horizon, and closing in on their position. Clearly, the military had not been about to leave anything up to chance here.
Along the deck of the tugboat January could see several men in tactical gear. Most were bearded, and looked like they spent more time at the gym than away from it. They gathered around as Calypso steered their cage to the side of the boat. Then they all stepped back when Mercury did his thing, and caused the steel to creep up over the gunwale and flop over onto the deck.
January and the others leapt or flew up to the deck, depending on their preferred mode of travel. Ranger took point in dealing with the soldiers. Well, it turned out that they were Navy SEALs, rather than soldiers. They quickly learned that the boat was a salvage vessel from New York City, which the Atomkrieg had hijacked and brought with them to carry the bombs back to the mainland.
"I suppose that makes them pirates," Hwarang observed.
The neo-Nazis on board had not been meta-humans or magicians however. Like most of the rank and file terrorists whom they had fought at the Smithsonian, they were entirely mundane individuals. Like them, these men did possess some meta-technology in the form of force field generators. However, that had not been enough to prevent them from being overwhelmed by the SEALs.
Silverlight smiled as another military man descended from the superstructure. January noted that his beard was not as long and scruffy as the others. Instead it was a fine black mist that clung tightly to his heart-shaped features. Piercing eyes stared out from under his helmet, and his brown skin showed the first creases of middle age.
She also noted from the identification on his gear that unlike the others he was not Navy. He was Air Force, like the people who had ferried them out there on the massive helicopter. Unlike the chopper crew however, he looked like he could run a marathon without breaking a sweat, and probably still have the energy to wrestle an alligator afterward.
"Trevor!" Silverlight smiled at this newcomer stepped forward. She reached out and took his hand in a warm greeting. Then she turned to January and the other capes. "This is Calypso, Stormcrow, Mercury, Hwarang, and of course Ranger. Guys, this is my contact in the Pentagon, Major Trevor Stevens."
"It's my pleasure gentlemen, and ladies," Major Stevens nodded like a proverbial officer and a gentleman. Then he turned back to Silverlight. January noted the warmth in his smile, and wondered if their relationship might be more than just professional?
"I take it we have you to thank for all of this?" she asked him.
"It's what the general pays me for," the major replied. "Please tell me you have good news for us?"
"I have more than news," Silverlight proclaimed. She took a moment to step aside from the military operators, and moved back to the rail of the boat. She seemed to pause there for a moment. But January could feel her call out in astral space. It was not with words of course, but with magic.
Her power was answered by Neaera. In just a moment the water elemental rose up from the waves beside the boat, standing atop a pillar of water. In fact, she was the pillar of water, as her legs just sort of flowed down into and melded with the rest of the sea. She hovered there in space for a moment in defiance of gravity. Then she leaned forward over the rail of the ship. With a further contempt for physics, she did not come crashing down to the deck below as any normal wave would. She just hung there in the air.
Then her form widened. January could see some large object travel through it, causing it to expand even more. Finally a large, silvery form was disgorged from the elemental's body, and plopped down onto the deck. A moment later a second such device moved through Neaera's body, to be spat out on the deck beside the first.
Both were generally cylindrical in outline, like giant bullets or artillery shells. But they were pinched in the middle, like an hourglass or a peanut. Lines of screws ringed their ends, revealing where they might be opened up to get at the treasures within. From the way the deck groaned underfoot, it was clear that they weighed several tons apiece.
Only January did not want to get anywhere near what was inside those warheads. She raised Sága and tapped on the computer's screen. A moment later she breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that its sensors showed no signs of radiation. Given that the two nuclear weapons had been sitting on the bottom of the ocean for sixty years, they were remarkably well-preserved.
Clearly, they did not make them like they used to.
Major Stevens whistled at the sight. "Damn, I've never actually seen a nuclear warhead outside of pictures."
Then he turned back to the men under his command, and a new group came up from the depths of the ship. These men were dressed in full NBC chemical suits, and they quickly sealed up the warheads in shiny metal containment barrels. Then they loaded them into the cargo helicopter directly overhead via a set of descent cables they lowered down. January was tempted just to fly up with them and load them into the aircraft herself. But she did not want to spook the guys with guns, or the helicopter gunships nearby.
In the meantime Silverlight dismissed Neaera. The water elemental did not return to astral space however. Instead she sank back into the waves, and vanished from sight. January hoped that her future encounters with elementals and spirits would be more like this one. It had certainly been nice to meet a spirit that she did not have to fight for a change.
"So what next?" Hwarang asked.
* * *
Next was a meeting with General Millar at Joint Base Andrews. He was the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. January recognized the name. He had been in overall command of the military during the Battle of Belle Isle. At the time he had been under orders to use nuclear weapons if necessary to stop the Abyssals. Now here they were giving him two more such bombs. Once more, the irony of the situation was not lost upon January.
They returned to the base in the same wide-bodied utility helicopter that had taken them out to the ocean to begin with. It still carried Hwarang's motorcycle. A caravan of other aircraft went with them on the way back to Joint Base Andrews as well. That included the helicopter carrying the nuclear warheads of course.
January was getting used to these meet and greets, to the point where she was thinking of them as such. She remembered how nervous she had been the first time she had encountered the police as a cape. Even after that had turned out to be an entirely ordinary experience, she had still been tense and excited to meet her state's attorney general, then later the governor.
But now, well, the shine of meeting authority figures had certainly worn off. After you had shaken hands with Janos Heisen, you realized that unless they were a near immortal brain within a fully robotic body, they were just regular people after all. They just had more responsibilities—and more opportunity to abuse such responsibilities—than most others. But they still had bad breath, or used too much body spray, or ground their teeth, the same as anyone else.
The surviving members of the Atomkrieg were whisked away under heavy guard. January was glad to be rid of them. But it still reminded her of Bismarck. Would she be seeing his face in her dreams now, along with that of the Hierophant? She was not looking forward to finding out.
Calypso passed on the GPS coordinates for the site of the Keep 19 wreckage, so that it could be officially logged and placed in a graves registry. Major Stevens promised to take care of it. From what January gathered, he was some sort of intelligence agent for the Air Force. But it was not clear exactly what he did. January imagined that such ambiguity came with the territory of being a spy.
Finally there was a press conference. January was thankful that she only had to stand in the background for it. Speaking with the press was exhausting. The general did most of the talking, and Silverlight took up the rest. DC was her home after all, it was only right that she take the forefront in this case.
As much as she was glad to meet new people such as Mercury, Hwarang, and Ranger, January was relieved to make her goodbyes afterward and leave. But not before Cray took another team photo with one of her drones of course. That was another keepsake to put up in the Raven's Nest.
Her chest ached with every beat of her wings when she finally was able to take to the skies once more. That was not a good sign, given that she had half a continent to cross before she was home. She resolved to use the teleportation waypoint in Baltimore to save time, and she swung her flight path to the north.
That is when she remembered the Transgender Equality Project. Damn, she had completely forgotten about them! A glance down at Sága showed that she was many hours late. Probably far too late for her to just show up and go ahead with everything. But she did not want to completely ghost them either.
So she banked sharply to the left, until Washington DC filled her vision. The streets and buildings sprawled out through the angle between the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers. It was all familiar territory now, and January easily navigated past the Navy Yard and over the Mall beyond. She continued past the White House, and finally paused at Dupont Circle to double check the address in Sága.
She found the nonprofit just a few blocks east of the large traffic circle and the memorial fountain within it. Like much of DC appeared to be, it was on a street of town houses of varying sizes and shapes, all scrunched up tightly against one another. It made it seem like the streets were all buried at the bottom of tall, artificial canyons. Behind them was a large green park, with nearby tennis and basketball courts.
She feathered back her wings and came in for a landing on the sidewalk out front. The Transgender Equality Project's building was a multistory sandstone affair. Its ground floor was fronted by large picture windows with rounded tops, while rectangular windows took up the upper stories. In spite of the stone structure, the numerous windows gave it an open, airy feel. It felt welcoming.
January was thankful for that, given how unwelcoming certain parts of her day had been. She strode into the lobby, and everyone stopped to stare. She had to remind herself that she was in the super suit. Otherwise she would have been afraid that a roll of toilet paper was hanging down her backside, or that she had committed some other form of faux pas.
January strode to the receptionist and forced a smile to her lips. "Hi I'm-"
"Stormcrow!"
The voice of a man walking down the steps from the floor above brought January's head around. He wore a dark blue double-breasted Havana suit over an equally dark turtleneck. His hair was short and wavy, and had rakish tilt to one side. If it had not been for her astral senses, January never would have guessed that he was a trans man. So it seemed that her mundane gaydar was as poorly tuned as ever.
"Hi, I'm Jason!" the newcomer exclaimed. "We talked on the phone before."
"Jason, right, like the Argonauts." January was glad he had introduced herself, because she had completely forgotten his name. It had been a busy day, and even without all the punching and shooting, there had been a lot of new names for her to learn.
"We were afraid you weren't going to make it," the man said.
"To be honest, there were a few moments today when I was afraid of that as well." January glanced down at her breastplate. It was perfectly solid and unscratched, thanks to Mr. Blackwood's meta-material construction. But her chest ached underneath. "I'm sorry I'm late. We had some excitement at the Smithsonian, and later under the Atlantic."
"We totally understand," Jason nodded. "It was on the news. I guess you don't get all the excitement over in the Dragon City after all."
"Oh no, Silverlight really knows how to throw parties," January murmured. "You might even say they're the bomb..."
There was some more chit chat about Silverlight and Blood Raven as Jason led her up the stairs to his office. It was all coming easily enough for January now. Like the meet and greets, it turned out the super small talk was really nothing extraordinary after all. It was just the same as regular small talk in the end. She just had to be careful not to say too much at times. Such as how she could not comment on if Blood Raven had actually retired or not.
Jason made a quick phone call. Then the two of them launched into the paperwork, and Jason explained it all step by step as they worked out the details. In the middle of it all a photographer came in, looking breathless. She was a pale-skinned woman in her prime, whom January's astral senses also clocked as being trans. Her brown hair was long and straight, and a pair of glasses was perched upon the prominent nose that jutted from her long features.
"Hi, I'm Annie Leib!" she practically gushed. "I'm so glad you made it after all. I was just about to leave. I can't say how much it means to have you here. You're a real inspiration."
"Honestly, people like yourselves are an inspiration for me, just by living your life," January said without thinking. "When I was younger that seemed like more than I could ever hope for. The things other people took for granted, that was like an impossible dream to me."
A photo session followed. There had been hair and makeup people, but they had left hours before. Granted, with her helmet January did not really need the first. Still, she sometimes let her long hair fall out the back of the headgear, either loose or in a braid. She tied it back into a ponytail now, and just let it hang between the wings folded up on her shoulders. As far as makeup went, she simply touched up her lipstick and was ready to go.
It was not glamorous. Not like movies and TV shows tried to make such things seem. Annie was not a miniature tyrant who bullied her staff, not that she had one. Nor was she a disaffected dilettante thoroughly bored with it all. She was not even a snobby artiste. She was just a professional doing her job, which was mostly shooting January as she moved from one artificially heroic pose to another.
January was glad to take a break while Annie found another SD card for her camera. She took a moment to lean against the frame of one of the windows, with one arm held high. She stared out at the street below. But she did not see the cars or people. She saw Bismarck, half of his face silver metal, the other half pale skin. She saw the empty Rook armor loom overhead and lunge forward. That frightful, serrated claw—really a sword—lashed out. That was the end of Bismarck. He had been an evil overlord one moment, and nothing but red meat the next. Even now the hagfish were probably feasting upon his corpse.
A bright light flashed in front of her eyes. January blinked, and saw Annie standing before her, camera raised.
"That's it!" the photographer beamed. "That's the picture I was looking for. What were you thinking about then?"
"Death," January replied honestly. "I watched a man die today. He was an evil man. The world's no poorer for his passing. But he was still a person. And now he's... not."
First it had been Julian. Then it had been the Hierophant. Now it was Bismarck. They were all dead, with no one but themselves to blame. January just wished they would pick someone else to die around.
"Oh," Annie's smile turned to ash. "Sorry. I guess with what you do it can get pretty grim, can't it?"
"It can," January sighed. "Don't get me wrong, it's worth it every time I help someone. Every time I save a life, or just inspire someone to make things better. But other times, it's not a celebration..."
"I'm sorry, it's been a long day," January forced a smile to her lips. She hoped it did not seem as lame to Annie as it felt. "It's been a good day though. I'm glad I was able to make it here, and meet you all. You do good work here."
"Oh I'm just a freelancer, I go wherever the pictures are." Annie lowered her camera. Her voice had lost its previous enthusiasm. Now she just sounded... empathetic. "Say, do you want to stick around? It's around dinner time. We could order something. You could just take a moment to unwind and recharge your batteries..."
"Dinner!" January slapped a palm against her armored forehead. "I was supposed to cook tonight! My roommate is so going to kill me!"
"Oh, you have a roommate," Annie's face fell flat at the revelation. January could not imagine why. "Of course you do."
"I mean, who can afford to live alone in this economy?" January murmured. "He only moved in a little while ago, but it already makes a difference."
"He?" Annie looked confused. "I thought you were a... you know... lesbian?"
"I am." January could not contain her confusion. Then what the other woman meant finally dawned on her. "Not that kind of roommate. He's just an old friend. One of my D&D buddies. I don't have a girlfriend."
Not anymore at least.
"Oh yeah, that was on Gilda Gadfly," Annie frowned. "Sorry about that too. I keep putting my foot in it. This is why I get paid to take pictures, not talk."
"Your feet are just fine where they are Annie," January insisted. "Punching giant spiders is easy. It's real life that's hard."
* * *
January's musings on the cause of all this suffering is something I often feel as I read or listen to history and biographies. So many awful things in the world were done by people who had a choice, who could have just been a crappy artist living in a halfway house in Austria, but instead decided to be a dick.
There is always a lot for January to do after the battles are over. In movies they just fade to black once the last punch is thrown. I want to show the aftermath, so the readers can see that January is committed to every aspect of the cape life, even the onerous parts.
I would love an ever dry top, so I would not have to pull out the hairdryer to dry mine off after I get it soaking wet washing the dishes.
Renee: What amazes me about many of these WW2 and earlier wrecks they find at astonishing depths is how intact many of them are. The paint is still on them, and you can read their lettering on their hulls or crates on their decks.
That is an awesome moment with your local crows. Corvids are very intelligent and social. They remember faces, and individual people. If you make a friend with a crow, it will literally tell its buddies about you, and they will all be nice to you. If you get one mad at you, it will do the same, and every crow in the neighborhood will hate you. Given that it was in a park, this one is probably used to people, and getting treats from them. If you bring it nuts or bird food, you will make a friend for life, and probably have other crows coming to see you as well.
I was originally going to leave Rook's background a mystery. But then I decided it bore further exploration. So there is indeed more we shall learn about Rook, thanks to January bringing back the Ravenwing. That is not all. The Ravenwing is going to become a regular feature in the stories going forward.
Major Trevor Stevens will be played by RL Aldis Hodge
Jason's appearance was inspired by Michael Fassbender in Prometheus
Annie was inspired by RL Annie Liebovitz
Book 12.35 - Broken Arrow
With that they gathered on top of the makeshift cage that Mercury had built for the neo-Nazis. Calypso unleashed her magic, and the waters around responded to her command. The metal cage shot up into the inky darkness overhead like an undersea elevator, as the waves carried it and them aloft.
January stared silently down at the landscape they left behind. It was a pool of darkness, lit only with the guttering lamps of Hwarang's arrows. Soon those faded into the void, and left them surrounded by inky blackness. If not for the sensation of water rushing past, and the sight of the ever present marine snow falling about them, it would not have been possible to tell they were moving. There were just no outside landmarks to gauge their progress against. It was all just blank nothingness all around.
"You probably think I'm a monster after what I said..." Mercury murmured as they quickly ascended. He stared down at the unconscious neo-Nazis in the cage that they stood upon. "It's just that... people like this really, really make it personal."
"I know. I am no different from you." January nodded. "A few days ago I was about to throw hands with a bunch of cops. They just had me so... outraged. Thankfully Ôkami was there to hold me back."
"You?" Even across the mind-link, Hwarang's words rang with incredulity. "I thought you were like, the kindest, most empathetic super in the world. Everyone says that Blood Raven's the ruthless one. Or at least that she was."
"Take it from me, Blood Raven's killed more Nazis than any single person on the planet. And not just Nazis either..." January chose her words carefully. She knew that there were limits to what she could divulge about her former mentor's activities during the Second World War. "But I think she regrets it. She told me the same thing that she did Silverlight: we all need to have a code of our own. I think she learned that the hard way, by breaking hers. It's why I'm glad I have friends. There will always be someone like you guys to hold me back. We all need that sometimes."
Soon the void around them faded to purple velvet, and eventually vibrant blue. Finally they returned to the world of light once more. January breathed a sigh of relief to have emerged from those sunless depths. In some ways it reminded her of those ancient heroes who journeyed to the underworld, then rose again to the land of the living afterward.
January imagined that they had risen straight up from the wreckage. Because of that Calypso's sailboat was nowhere to be seen. However, another boat was there instead. Or was it a ship? January had no idea. It was a battered, rusted workhorse of the sea. It looked like a big tugboat. It had a wide-bellied hull that was festooned with old tires. A bulldog-like superstructure rose up from the foredeck, and a large crane trailed away from the back of that toward the stern. The vessel's black and blue paint was chipped and peeling away, and revealed numerous dents and scratches from hard use. The name Long Island Warrior was stenciled along the stern of the ship. January suspected that this warrior was long due for retirement.
The deep thrum of helicopter rotors came to January's ears. She looked up to see that the heavy utility helicopter that had ferried them out now hovered in the sky above. More choppers had now joined it. Several were heavily-armed Apache attack helicopters, the same kind that had participated in the Battle of Belle Isle. These lurked off to one side, to give them a clear field of fire across every inch of the ship. Finally there was another giant transport craft that loomed directly over the boat, with its rear cargo hatch sitting open. High overhead jet fighters streaked across the sky, and left fluffy white contrails behind them.
Far above them the distinctive arrowhead shapes of two B-2 bombers loitered among the clouds. Did they carry nuclear weapons, to use against the Atomkrieg if all else failed? It would certainly be ironic of the Air Force to use nukes to stop other people from stealing the nukes they had lost in the past. But given what the stakes were, January could understand why someone might make that call.
Finally she noted a guided missile cruiser sliding its way over the horizon, and closing in on their position. Clearly, the military had not been about to leave anything up to chance here.
Along the deck of the tugboat January could see several men in tactical gear. Most were bearded, and looked like they spent more time at the gym than away from it. They gathered around as Calypso steered their cage to the side of the boat. Then they all stepped back when Mercury did his thing, and caused the steel to creep up over the gunwale and flop over onto the deck.
January and the others leapt or flew up to the deck, depending on their preferred mode of travel. Ranger took point in dealing with the soldiers. Well, it turned out that they were Navy SEALs, rather than soldiers. They quickly learned that the boat was a salvage vessel from New York City, which the Atomkrieg had hijacked and brought with them to carry the bombs back to the mainland.
"I suppose that makes them pirates," Hwarang observed.
The neo-Nazis on board had not been meta-humans or magicians however. Like most of the rank and file terrorists whom they had fought at the Smithsonian, they were entirely mundane individuals. Like them, these men did possess some meta-technology in the form of force field generators. However, that had not been enough to prevent them from being overwhelmed by the SEALs.
Silverlight smiled as another military man descended from the superstructure. January noted that his beard was not as long and scruffy as the others. Instead it was a fine black mist that clung tightly to his heart-shaped features. Piercing eyes stared out from under his helmet, and his brown skin showed the first creases of middle age.
She also noted from the identification on his gear that unlike the others he was not Navy. He was Air Force, like the people who had ferried them out there on the massive helicopter. Unlike the chopper crew however, he looked like he could run a marathon without breaking a sweat, and probably still have the energy to wrestle an alligator afterward.
"Trevor!" Silverlight smiled at this newcomer stepped forward. She reached out and took his hand in a warm greeting. Then she turned to January and the other capes. "This is Calypso, Stormcrow, Mercury, Hwarang, and of course Ranger. Guys, this is my contact in the Pentagon, Major Trevor Stevens."
"It's my pleasure gentlemen, and ladies," Major Stevens nodded like a proverbial officer and a gentleman. Then he turned back to Silverlight. January noted the warmth in his smile, and wondered if their relationship might be more than just professional?
"I take it we have you to thank for all of this?" she asked him.
"It's what the general pays me for," the major replied. "Please tell me you have good news for us?"
"I have more than news," Silverlight proclaimed. She took a moment to step aside from the military operators, and moved back to the rail of the boat. She seemed to pause there for a moment. But January could feel her call out in astral space. It was not with words of course, but with magic.
Her power was answered by Neaera. In just a moment the water elemental rose up from the waves beside the boat, standing atop a pillar of water. In fact, she was the pillar of water, as her legs just sort of flowed down into and melded with the rest of the sea. She hovered there in space for a moment in defiance of gravity. Then she leaned forward over the rail of the ship. With a further contempt for physics, she did not come crashing down to the deck below as any normal wave would. She just hung there in the air.
Then her form widened. January could see some large object travel through it, causing it to expand even more. Finally a large, silvery form was disgorged from the elemental's body, and plopped down onto the deck. A moment later a second such device moved through Neaera's body, to be spat out on the deck beside the first.
Both were generally cylindrical in outline, like giant bullets or artillery shells. But they were pinched in the middle, like an hourglass or a peanut. Lines of screws ringed their ends, revealing where they might be opened up to get at the treasures within. From the way the deck groaned underfoot, it was clear that they weighed several tons apiece.
Only January did not want to get anywhere near what was inside those warheads. She raised Sága and tapped on the computer's screen. A moment later she breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that its sensors showed no signs of radiation. Given that the two nuclear weapons had been sitting on the bottom of the ocean for sixty years, they were remarkably well-preserved.
Clearly, they did not make them like they used to.
Major Stevens whistled at the sight. "Damn, I've never actually seen a nuclear warhead outside of pictures."
Then he turned back to the men under his command, and a new group came up from the depths of the ship. These men were dressed in full NBC chemical suits, and they quickly sealed up the warheads in shiny metal containment barrels. Then they loaded them into the cargo helicopter directly overhead via a set of descent cables they lowered down. January was tempted just to fly up with them and load them into the aircraft herself. But she did not want to spook the guys with guns, or the helicopter gunships nearby.
In the meantime Silverlight dismissed Neaera. The water elemental did not return to astral space however. Instead she sank back into the waves, and vanished from sight. January hoped that her future encounters with elementals and spirits would be more like this one. It had certainly been nice to meet a spirit that she did not have to fight for a change.
"So what next?" Hwarang asked.
* * *
Next was a meeting with General Millar at Joint Base Andrews. He was the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. January recognized the name. He had been in overall command of the military during the Battle of Belle Isle. At the time he had been under orders to use nuclear weapons if necessary to stop the Abyssals. Now here they were giving him two more such bombs. Once more, the irony of the situation was not lost upon January.
They returned to the base in the same wide-bodied utility helicopter that had taken them out to the ocean to begin with. It still carried Hwarang's motorcycle. A caravan of other aircraft went with them on the way back to Joint Base Andrews as well. That included the helicopter carrying the nuclear warheads of course.
January was getting used to these meet and greets, to the point where she was thinking of them as such. She remembered how nervous she had been the first time she had encountered the police as a cape. Even after that had turned out to be an entirely ordinary experience, she had still been tense and excited to meet her state's attorney general, then later the governor.
But now, well, the shine of meeting authority figures had certainly worn off. After you had shaken hands with Janos Heisen, you realized that unless they were a near immortal brain within a fully robotic body, they were just regular people after all. They just had more responsibilities—and more opportunity to abuse such responsibilities—than most others. But they still had bad breath, or used too much body spray, or ground their teeth, the same as anyone else.
The surviving members of the Atomkrieg were whisked away under heavy guard. January was glad to be rid of them. But it still reminded her of Bismarck. Would she be seeing his face in her dreams now, along with that of the Hierophant? She was not looking forward to finding out.
Calypso passed on the GPS coordinates for the site of the Keep 19 wreckage, so that it could be officially logged and placed in a graves registry. Major Stevens promised to take care of it. From what January gathered, he was some sort of intelligence agent for the Air Force. But it was not clear exactly what he did. January imagined that such ambiguity came with the territory of being a spy.
Finally there was a press conference. January was thankful that she only had to stand in the background for it. Speaking with the press was exhausting. The general did most of the talking, and Silverlight took up the rest. DC was her home after all, it was only right that she take the forefront in this case.
As much as she was glad to meet new people such as Mercury, Hwarang, and Ranger, January was relieved to make her goodbyes afterward and leave. But not before Cray took another team photo with one of her drones of course. That was another keepsake to put up in the Raven's Nest.
Her chest ached with every beat of her wings when she finally was able to take to the skies once more. That was not a good sign, given that she had half a continent to cross before she was home. She resolved to use the teleportation waypoint in Baltimore to save time, and she swung her flight path to the north.
That is when she remembered the Transgender Equality Project. Damn, she had completely forgotten about them! A glance down at Sága showed that she was many hours late. Probably far too late for her to just show up and go ahead with everything. But she did not want to completely ghost them either.
So she banked sharply to the left, until Washington DC filled her vision. The streets and buildings sprawled out through the angle between the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers. It was all familiar territory now, and January easily navigated past the Navy Yard and over the Mall beyond. She continued past the White House, and finally paused at Dupont Circle to double check the address in Sága.
She found the nonprofit just a few blocks east of the large traffic circle and the memorial fountain within it. Like much of DC appeared to be, it was on a street of town houses of varying sizes and shapes, all scrunched up tightly against one another. It made it seem like the streets were all buried at the bottom of tall, artificial canyons. Behind them was a large green park, with nearby tennis and basketball courts.
She feathered back her wings and came in for a landing on the sidewalk out front. The Transgender Equality Project's building was a multistory sandstone affair. Its ground floor was fronted by large picture windows with rounded tops, while rectangular windows took up the upper stories. In spite of the stone structure, the numerous windows gave it an open, airy feel. It felt welcoming.
January was thankful for that, given how unwelcoming certain parts of her day had been. She strode into the lobby, and everyone stopped to stare. She had to remind herself that she was in the super suit. Otherwise she would have been afraid that a roll of toilet paper was hanging down her backside, or that she had committed some other form of faux pas.
January strode to the receptionist and forced a smile to her lips. "Hi I'm-"
"Stormcrow!"
The voice of a man walking down the steps from the floor above brought January's head around. He wore a dark blue double-breasted Havana suit over an equally dark turtleneck. His hair was short and wavy, and had rakish tilt to one side. If it had not been for her astral senses, January never would have guessed that he was a trans man. So it seemed that her mundane gaydar was as poorly tuned as ever.
"Hi, I'm Jason!" the newcomer exclaimed. "We talked on the phone before."
"Jason, right, like the Argonauts." January was glad he had introduced herself, because she had completely forgotten his name. It had been a busy day, and even without all the punching and shooting, there had been a lot of new names for her to learn.
"We were afraid you weren't going to make it," the man said.
"To be honest, there were a few moments today when I was afraid of that as well." January glanced down at her breastplate. It was perfectly solid and unscratched, thanks to Mr. Blackwood's meta-material construction. But her chest ached underneath. "I'm sorry I'm late. We had some excitement at the Smithsonian, and later under the Atlantic."
"We totally understand," Jason nodded. "It was on the news. I guess you don't get all the excitement over in the Dragon City after all."
"Oh no, Silverlight really knows how to throw parties," January murmured. "You might even say they're the bomb..."
There was some more chit chat about Silverlight and Blood Raven as Jason led her up the stairs to his office. It was all coming easily enough for January now. Like the meet and greets, it turned out the super small talk was really nothing extraordinary after all. It was just the same as regular small talk in the end. She just had to be careful not to say too much at times. Such as how she could not comment on if Blood Raven had actually retired or not.
Jason made a quick phone call. Then the two of them launched into the paperwork, and Jason explained it all step by step as they worked out the details. In the middle of it all a photographer came in, looking breathless. She was a pale-skinned woman in her prime, whom January's astral senses also clocked as being trans. Her brown hair was long and straight, and a pair of glasses was perched upon the prominent nose that jutted from her long features.
"Hi, I'm Annie Leib!" she practically gushed. "I'm so glad you made it after all. I was just about to leave. I can't say how much it means to have you here. You're a real inspiration."
"Honestly, people like yourselves are an inspiration for me, just by living your life," January said without thinking. "When I was younger that seemed like more than I could ever hope for. The things other people took for granted, that was like an impossible dream to me."
A photo session followed. There had been hair and makeup people, but they had left hours before. Granted, with her helmet January did not really need the first. Still, she sometimes let her long hair fall out the back of the headgear, either loose or in a braid. She tied it back into a ponytail now, and just let it hang between the wings folded up on her shoulders. As far as makeup went, she simply touched up her lipstick and was ready to go.
It was not glamorous. Not like movies and TV shows tried to make such things seem. Annie was not a miniature tyrant who bullied her staff, not that she had one. Nor was she a disaffected dilettante thoroughly bored with it all. She was not even a snobby artiste. She was just a professional doing her job, which was mostly shooting January as she moved from one artificially heroic pose to another.
January was glad to take a break while Annie found another SD card for her camera. She took a moment to lean against the frame of one of the windows, with one arm held high. She stared out at the street below. But she did not see the cars or people. She saw Bismarck, half of his face silver metal, the other half pale skin. She saw the empty Rook armor loom overhead and lunge forward. That frightful, serrated claw—really a sword—lashed out. That was the end of Bismarck. He had been an evil overlord one moment, and nothing but red meat the next. Even now the hagfish were probably feasting upon his corpse.
A bright light flashed in front of her eyes. January blinked, and saw Annie standing before her, camera raised.
"That's it!" the photographer beamed. "That's the picture I was looking for. What were you thinking about then?"
"Death," January replied honestly. "I watched a man die today. He was an evil man. The world's no poorer for his passing. But he was still a person. And now he's... not."
First it had been Julian. Then it had been the Hierophant. Now it was Bismarck. They were all dead, with no one but themselves to blame. January just wished they would pick someone else to die around.
"Oh," Annie's smile turned to ash. "Sorry. I guess with what you do it can get pretty grim, can't it?"
"It can," January sighed. "Don't get me wrong, it's worth it every time I help someone. Every time I save a life, or just inspire someone to make things better. But other times, it's not a celebration..."
"I'm sorry, it's been a long day," January forced a smile to her lips. She hoped it did not seem as lame to Annie as it felt. "It's been a good day though. I'm glad I was able to make it here, and meet you all. You do good work here."
"Oh I'm just a freelancer, I go wherever the pictures are." Annie lowered her camera. Her voice had lost its previous enthusiasm. Now she just sounded... empathetic. "Say, do you want to stick around? It's around dinner time. We could order something. You could just take a moment to unwind and recharge your batteries..."
"Dinner!" January slapped a palm against her armored forehead. "I was supposed to cook tonight! My roommate is so going to kill me!"
"Oh, you have a roommate," Annie's face fell flat at the revelation. January could not imagine why. "Of course you do."
"I mean, who can afford to live alone in this economy?" January murmured. "He only moved in a little while ago, but it already makes a difference."
"He?" Annie looked confused. "I thought you were a... you know... lesbian?"
"I am." January could not contain her confusion. Then what the other woman meant finally dawned on her. "Not that kind of roommate. He's just an old friend. One of my D&D buddies. I don't have a girlfriend."
Not anymore at least.
"Oh yeah, that was on Gilda Gadfly," Annie frowned. "Sorry about that too. I keep putting my foot in it. This is why I get paid to take pictures, not talk."
"Your feet are just fine where they are Annie," January insisted. "Punching giant spiders is easy. It's real life that's hard."
* * *
A nicely detailed ‘aftermath’ as the foes and bombs are safely put to rest.
I loved your description of the battered, old but hard-working tug.
’It had certainly been nice to meet a spirit that she did not have to fight for a change.’
- - I can imagine!
Nice that Stormcrow was spared a speaking part in the press event. I am concerned about her lingering chest pain though. That was quite a wound she took.
"Oh yeah, that was on Gilda Gadfly," Annie frowned. "Sorry about that too. I keep putting my foot in it. This is why I get paid to take pictures, not talk."
- - This wonderfully crafted bit made me chuckle.
Nits:
’A moment later she breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that its sensors showed no signs of a {lose the ‘a’ perhaps?} radiation.’
’It was no {lose the ‘no’ here?} perfectly solid and unscratched, thanks to Mr. Blackwood's meta-material construction.’
I loved your description of the battered, old but hard-working tug.
’It had certainly been nice to meet a spirit that she did not have to fight for a change.’
- - I can imagine!
Nice that Stormcrow was spared a speaking part in the press event. I am concerned about her lingering chest pain though. That was quite a wound she took.
"Oh yeah, that was on Gilda Gadfly," Annie frowned. "Sorry about that too. I keep putting my foot in it. This is why I get paid to take pictures, not talk."
- - This wonderfully crafted bit made me chuckle.
Nits:
’A moment later she breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that its sensors showed no signs of a {lose the ‘a’ perhaps?} radiation.’
’It was no {lose the ‘no’ here?} perfectly solid and unscratched, thanks to Mr. Blackwood's meta-material construction.’
Yeah, I just watched a documentary on the Andrea Doria (I think, might've been some other ocean liner). The boat is not too deep, scuba divers can get in there. The main 'treasure' they've brought up are the one-of-a-kind dinnerware pieces, which has bonafide Andrea Dora logos and artwork. Folks have died trying to get just a plate or a teacup if they don't know what they're doing. 
Corvids, okay. I think I did become its friend for sure. Went back another day last week, sat at the same bench. I sat there for maybe 15 minutes before the crow returned. This time I had some Ritz crackers! Funny thing was though, once it ate a couple crackers it flew away, and didn't come back.
But I do think it remembers faces for sure.
Aww, Annie Leibowitz.
She kinda reminds me of Shelley Mars.
------------------------
The cage shoots up toward the surface, does this mean those Nazis got their blood all messed up? Too much nitrogen or whatever? Not that I care for them. But ... Hmm, maybe not. They've got their own magic (edit: meta-technology), after all.
Ah, a tugboat. Why is that ringing a bell?
Whoa, all kinds of vehicles up here on the surface: helicoptors, boats, bombers. Wonder if this has anything to do with Calypso's boat not being around. I mean, I know the ocean's a big place, and maybe it drifted off. Can't remember if it's anchored, or if that's even possible at the depth they were at. Or did someone stay behind to make sure it wouldn't drift away?
Sorry. Talking to my laptop again. And alright. Sounds like Silverlight and maybe Mercury know who the newcomers are. Phew.
Interesting.
Here's a thought. Way out here in the open sea is perhaps the first time January has been able to save the day without zillions of cameraphones pointed her way. Even when she was in the Caribbean. In the more populated areas there was a news crew, if I recall correct.
Yes, people in authority are just people, very true, January/Stormcrow. Still, I've had a few moments too when I met someone famous, or powerful or whatever. That is true there's this 'moment'. Like: this person really is just a person.
"Oh no, Silverlight really knows how to throw parties," January murmured. "You might even say they're the bomb..."
Ha hurr.
My gosh, a photo session. And all of this takes place on the same day? Yeah, she must be exhausted.
Whoa, all right YES. Alright. So, sounds like Annie's got some interest.
I hope so. Because goodbye Hannah, if so. 
Yeah, go for Annie, hon. Your roomie dinner date can get pushed along... (Unless it can't!)
Corvids, okay. I think I did become its friend for sure. Went back another day last week, sat at the same bench. I sat there for maybe 15 minutes before the crow returned. This time I had some Ritz crackers!
Funny thing was though, once it ate a couple crackers it flew away, and didn't come back. But I do think it remembers faces for sure.
Aww, Annie Leibowitz.
She kinda reminds me of Shelley Mars. ------------------------
The cage shoots up toward the surface, does this mean those Nazis got their blood all messed up? Too much nitrogen or whatever?
Not that I care for them. But ... Hmm, maybe not. They've got their own magic (edit: meta-technology), after all. Ah, a tugboat. Why is that ringing a bell?
Whoa, all kinds of vehicles up here on the surface: helicoptors, boats, bombers.
Wonder if this has anything to do with Calypso's boat not being around. I mean, I know the ocean's a big place, and maybe it drifted off. Can't remember if it's anchored, or if that's even possible at the depth they were at. Or did someone stay behind to make sure it wouldn't drift away? Sorry. Talking to my laptop again. And alright. Sounds like Silverlight and maybe Mercury know who the newcomers are. Phew.
QUOTE
hen she leaned forward over the rail of the ship. With a further contempt for physics, she did not come crashing down to the deck below as any normal wave would. She just hung there in the air.
Interesting.
Here's a thought. Way out here in the open sea is perhaps the first time January has been able to save the day without zillions of cameraphones pointed her way.
Even when she was in the Caribbean. In the more populated areas there was a news crew, if I recall correct. Yes, people in authority are just people, very true, January/Stormcrow. Still, I've had a few moments too when I met someone famous, or powerful or whatever. That is true there's this 'moment'. Like: this person really is just a person.
"Oh no, Silverlight really knows how to throw parties," January murmured. "You might even say they're the bomb..."
Ha hurr.
My gosh, a photo session. And all of this takes place on the same day?
Yeah, she must be exhausted. Whoa, all right YES. Alright. So, sounds like Annie's got some interest.
I hope so. Because goodbye Hannah, if so. Yeah, go for Annie, hon. Your roomie dinner date can get pushed along... (Unless it can't!)
Acadian: The aftermaths are now old hat to January. But something she still has to be part of, given that she has chosen to be an open and engaged part of the entire process.
When it came to describing the salvage boat that the Atomkrieg had stolen, I thought of the boat that the protagonists had in the movie Ghost Ship. That is where I got its name as well. In the movie it was the Arctic Warrior (since it is set in the Bering Sea). So I made this the Long Island Warrior, as it is based out of Brooklyn.
One of the tightropes I walk with January is that she is a tank. She shrugs off attacks that would annihilate others. She did go to the Rocky Balboa school of wearing down her opponents by letting them punch her in the face a zillion times. But if she is completely invulnerable, then there are no stakes. So while I do endeavor to show main battle tanks literally bouncing off her, there also need to be foes like Naughty Kris who can still seriously harm her. So far it seems to be working.
As usual, thanks for finding those nits and helping me fix them.
Renee: Just recently a diver here in Lake Superior died while trying to explore a wreck as well.
The neo-Nazis have those breath masks that they stole, so they don't have to worry about decompression sickness. Just as the heroes do not.
Calypso's boat is not around because they came straight up from the wrecked plane. Remember, they had to walk a bit across the bottom to find the airplane. So Calypso's boat is just over the horizon. She did not anchor it as the water was too deep. But she did heave to, setting the sail and anchor to oppose one another. That is an old technique that keeps a ship in the same place on the ocean.
January has had a few fights that were in private, like the one against Gola. But as you noted, usually they are in public, just due to the nature of being a superhero. She's often fighting against baddies that are menacing the public, like the giant spider at Ferndale Pride, or the Nazis at Motor City Pride. Often she finds out that there is a situation because it is on the news or social media in the first place, like the salamander on Montserrat. A news helicopter was showing it live, and it was on the TV at Blackwood's place.
As the kids today would say, Annie is thirsty for January. Not that January has any clue. She won't realize it until a week later, at the very end of this book. She is like me that way.
Book 12.36 - Broken Arrow
August 22 (Thursday)
The next day January slept in late, at least for her. That meant waking several hours after sunrise. Thankfully the soreness in her chest from being stabbed by Nitokris had abated. Along with it had vanished the general aches and pains accumulated from not just one, but two meta-human battles in a single day.
January silently thanked Freyja for the healing trance that Blood Raven had taught her after their battle with the National Socialist League at Motor City Pride. More to the point, she also thanked Blood Raven. Since then the regenerative sleep ritual had proved to be worth more than its proverbial weight in rare-earth minerals. Even the nightmares—such a common companion to her nights—had retreated. She might have to consider using the trance more often, just for that if nothing else.
After her morning ritual of feeding the crows, bathing, and eating a bowl of vanilla almond cereal, she decided to take it easy. She pointedly ignored both her phone and computer. She did not want to see the comments on Twitt from Patricia Fine's army of trolls, whether human or bots. Well, that part of her that wanted to slow down to look at a car accident did. But the part of her that valued her mental health absolutely did not.
She was tempted to just quit the platform and delete her account, as so many other celebrities had been driven to after being targeted by hate mobs. But she was not going to give them the satisfaction. The bullies had not run her out of school when she was younger. They were not going to do so now.
She needed to take her mind off it. The day before Ranger had said he liked the Artemis Argent comics. She had told him that she could get him signed copies. Living up to that promise would be a good start at keeping busy.
So she went to a small pile of boxes set against one wall of her bedroom. She opened one to reveal a stack of identical copies of the first issue of Artemis Argent and the Secret of Mystery Hill. She pulled out one and went to the next box, and then the next, until she found a container filled with copies of the second issue. She fished out one of those as well, and took both comic books over to her desk.
She pulled a sharpie out of one her drawers, and sat down before the first book to consider how to autograph it. She should be used to it. She had signed nearly every copy she had sold through their Jumpstarter campaign and mailed away. Her ego liked to think that these would be worth a bazillion freedom bucks some day. Her cynicism reminded her to slow her roll.
Then she remembered some of the old 90s slang that the soldier had dropped the other day, and she knew what to write.
"To one Rad Ranger, from January Ryan." She finally signed the first, using her new last name, even if it was not quite legal yet. For the second issue she simply wrote: "Cowabunga! From January Ryan"
Then she slid the comics into a mailer, printed out a label, and sealed it up. She made her way to the mail box straight away so that she would not forget. Eschewing the stairs, she simply leaped over the banister that surrounded the second floor balcony and dropped to the ground floor of the rotunda below. From there it was a long walk out the front door and down the extended driveway to the mailbox beside the street.
By the time she had walked back to her bedroom, January already had her mind on just the thing to make her really forget about the trolls online. Not that she was fixated upon them or agonizing about what they were all saying about her. Not one bit.
Now that she was back inside and safely out of sight, she called up her Stormcrow suit. Now clad in the armor, she pulled out the bag of holding from one of her belt pouches and reached into its depths. From it she withdrew the Ravenwing. The artifact still dripped with salt water. She carried it into the spacious bathroom that directly adjoined her bedroom. There she rinsed the bird-shaped magic item under the sink to rinse away the salt. Afterward she flicked it a few times to snap some of the water off. A towel took care of the rest.
When she was finished she stared into the gleaming onyx eyes of the bird. It both looked and felt so real, that she half-expected it to leap up out of her hands and fly away. She was a little disappointed that it did not, but only a little. There were secrets here that begged to be unraveled. She intended to do just that.
She made her way to the semi-circular loft that faced the driveway in the front corner of the house. There she reached out to the wards around the building, and used them to dispel the illusion that obfuscated the stair that led to the sanctum above. Then up she went, into the very heart of the Witch House.
As ever, the sanctum was a wonder. It was every size and shape at once, a sphere, a cube, a rectangle, and so on. The pebble mosaic set into the floor flowed into the strips of metal set within the walls, and finally wended through the beads that hung from the ceiling. All melded seamlessly into one another, and created a new reality every time one looked up on it.
January set the Ravenwing down on the mosaic floor, and sat down cross-legged before it. She closed her physical eyes, and opened her astral ones in their place. The power of the sanctum immediately assailed her magical senses. But as she had learned to do around intense sources of arcane power, she blocked that out. By now it was as simple an action as applying a filter to a picture on her phone. Only this one removed the excess information that would distract her. That left the magical artifact the only thing in her awareness.
As both Blood Raven and Silverlight had taught her, she focused her awareness tighter and tighter upon the strange bird. It really was a bird. She could see now that was literally made from the feathers and bones of numerous corvids. There were crows, ravens, jackdaws, magpies, and of course rooks all wrapped up within the artifact. There were no blue jays however. She wondered if the creator had known that they were corvids too?
This was why she had thought it was a living bird when she had first sensed it upon the ocean floor. It was made from real birds, and the magic within it had breathed a certain form of life into the artifact. Blood Raven had spoken of this in the past, how enchanting things gave them an existence beyond that of their creators. Silverlight had explained the same thing the previous day to the Mid-Atlantic Coalition after their final battle with the Atomkrieg.
January sensed more than just raw magical energy locked within the Ravenwing's enchantment however. Another form of power was woven into the artifact as well. It wafted gently past her face like a cool summer breeze. It froze her like an icy winter wind, it warmed her like a hot desert simoom. Across the astral it spoke to her of windy peaks, roaring hurricanes, and fearsome tornadoes.
It was Air, in the most capitalized sense. This was not the ordinary stuff that January breathed in and out of her lungs every day. It was primordial and powerful, the very magical essence of the element of air, distilled into its purest form. The Scripta Mortis had written of this. All of the magical elements could be found in their primal forms, hence their names: primordial air, earth, fire, etc...
Her mind turned to the Gaia Sisters at Belle Isle. They had healed and rejuvenated the blasted landscape using primordial earth. They had infused that purest elemental power into the land, and used it to grow grass, brush, and trees where there had been nothing but dust and ash.
The Ravenwing shone with primordial air within the astral. It laced the bones and feathers of the artifact. The elemental force came to life under January's astral touch, and the bird rose up to float in the air before her. She was not even trying to direct the artifact; it just felt her power and responded to her.
Now she did turn her will upon the artifact. She pushed her senses deeper within its weave. It resisted of course. There was a hard shell of defense around the item. One would expect so. Otherwise anyone could come along and use it as easily as picking up an unsecured phone. January would have to either use brute force to crack the artifact's metaphorical password, or she would have to be more subtle, and find a way to convince it that she was its rightful owner.
January took the subtle path. The Scripta Mortis had spoken of this as well. It detailed all forms of enchanting. It was an old book, so it was far from up to date on the history of magical practitioners or events. But it was a solid foundation in the theory and praxis of all forms of magic. Blood Raven had been correct when she had said it was perhaps the most valuable book in any magician's library.
Thankfully January liked to read. She had devoured Silverlight's annotated English copy of the Scripta Mortis like a djieien at a fly-eating contest. It had told her everything she needed to know in order to master this artifact.
Of course she had a built in advantage. Deep in the heart of her being, January was a crow. That was her touchstone, just as the moon goddess Selene was Silverlight's magical compass. January used all the elements of course, but it was air that was most sacred to her. That was where she belonged after all, high up in the sky. It was where she drew her lightning from. It was where she felt most free and alive.
The Ravenwing was the same. Like all magical artifacts worthy of that title, it had character; one might even say a personality. It was that of a bird, and not just any bird, but a corvid. It was a cousin of hers at least, if not a sister. It had been made to be so, apparently by the mysterious Rook. January still did not know who that man had been under the cape. But it was plain that he liked corvids, and that he was an extraordinary enchanter.
If only he had stuck to these lanes, he might still be alive today. Even now he could have been living out a comfortable retirement in some skyscraper, or at least a tree house. Instead his reach had exceeded his grasp, when he had tried to steal two nuclear weapons.
Rook was part of this puzzle, even if he was not its focus. He had crafted the Ravenwing, and set its original pattern. So he mattered, even though he was dead and gone. The magic item had grown beyond him and continued on, like a child that had outlived its parent. But the parent was still the one who had birthed and raised that child, for better and worse.
January tried to imagine that she was Rook, as he crafted this artifact. He had clearly poured his love of the sky—of birds in general and corvids in particular—into it. It informed every stitch of its magical threads. She followed them, and imagined it was her hands that had shaped them. She imagined the very act of doing so, as if she had traveled back in time and sat behind Rook's eyes. She followed his magical fingers, saw how he stitched and melded his power into the physical being of the artifact. How he took that primordial air and likewise laced it through the warp and weft of its design. She soon was able to anticipate his moves. She knew where he would loop his power, where he would knot it, where he would weave it back and forth into a lattice of energy.
It all came very easily to January. Even though she did not know Rook, it somehow felt as if she did. There was something about his magical touch, his footprint if you would, that seemed familiar. The more and more she felt of his magic, the more and more convinced she was that he was no stranger, nor his affinity for corvids an accident.
He was family!
The flash of inspiration hit her like a lightning bolt from a clear blue sky. She did not know how she knew. She just did. Now that she looked back over the Ravenwing again, it was more obvious than ever. Nátthrafn, Blood Raven, Stormcrow, Rook... there was no escaping their blood.
Then she was in, and her familial epiphany took a back seat to a newer discovery. The Ravenwing unfolded for her like the petals of a flower. Its magic responded to hers, and joined with her freely. It was a corvid, she was a corvid. They were sisters. It wanted to fly with her, just as January wanted to fly herself. That was why it existed, to be part of the sky, to soar, and dive, and live among the clouds.
More than that however, they were kin. Just as Blood Raven's sword Samhain knew her, so too did the Ravenwing. She could swear that the artifact recognized her blood, and responded to her as such. In a way, they were meant for one another.
It was an aircraft! This new realization hit January like a semi-truck. She had not been expecting that. She had not been expecting anything really. She had gone into this with no real idea of what the Ravenwing was. But now that she was connected to its aura, it was all so plain to her. She could sense its functions, its flight systems, its life support, all tucked away within the weave of the enchantment. She still could not reach them directly yet. Instead she sensed that they were locked away behind a specific control interface within the craft.
There were two commands she could reach however. One was to enlarge, the other was to enter. She reached out with her magic, and willed the first to respond. The Ravenwing immediately grew to life before her. It was like a balloon inflating. It spread out in all directions, and doubled and tripled in size, and still it continued to expand. January had to leap back to avoid being bowled over by the body of the craft. Her wings snapped out, and she used them to frantically fly back through the air as the craft continued to enlarge.
It finally stopped at the size of a small airplane. She guessed it might have been fifty feet long or so from nose to tail, and perhaps a little over ten feet wide at the thickest point of its chest. Then its wings spread out. They must have stretched a hundred feet from tip to tip. She moved in close, and ran her fingers over one wing. It was made of feathers, just like the glossy black feathers of her own wings. She stared at one onyx eye of the craft, and now understood that it was a canopy. She looked down at the clawed feet, and saw that they served as landing gear.
When it came to describing the salvage boat that the Atomkrieg had stolen, I thought of the boat that the protagonists had in the movie Ghost Ship. That is where I got its name as well. In the movie it was the Arctic Warrior (since it is set in the Bering Sea). So I made this the Long Island Warrior, as it is based out of Brooklyn.
One of the tightropes I walk with January is that she is a tank. She shrugs off attacks that would annihilate others. She did go to the Rocky Balboa school of wearing down her opponents by letting them punch her in the face a zillion times. But if she is completely invulnerable, then there are no stakes. So while I do endeavor to show main battle tanks literally bouncing off her, there also need to be foes like Naughty Kris who can still seriously harm her. So far it seems to be working.
As usual, thanks for finding those nits and helping me fix them.
Renee: Just recently a diver here in Lake Superior died while trying to explore a wreck as well.
The neo-Nazis have those breath masks that they stole, so they don't have to worry about decompression sickness. Just as the heroes do not.
Calypso's boat is not around because they came straight up from the wrecked plane. Remember, they had to walk a bit across the bottom to find the airplane. So Calypso's boat is just over the horizon. She did not anchor it as the water was too deep. But she did heave to, setting the sail and anchor to oppose one another. That is an old technique that keeps a ship in the same place on the ocean.
January has had a few fights that were in private, like the one against Gola. But as you noted, usually they are in public, just due to the nature of being a superhero. She's often fighting against baddies that are menacing the public, like the giant spider at Ferndale Pride, or the Nazis at Motor City Pride. Often she finds out that there is a situation because it is on the news or social media in the first place, like the salamander on Montserrat. A news helicopter was showing it live, and it was on the TV at Blackwood's place.
As the kids today would say, Annie is thirsty for January. Not that January has any clue. She won't realize it until a week later, at the very end of this book. She is like me that way.
Book 12.36 - Broken Arrow
August 22 (Thursday)
The next day January slept in late, at least for her. That meant waking several hours after sunrise. Thankfully the soreness in her chest from being stabbed by Nitokris had abated. Along with it had vanished the general aches and pains accumulated from not just one, but two meta-human battles in a single day.
January silently thanked Freyja for the healing trance that Blood Raven had taught her after their battle with the National Socialist League at Motor City Pride. More to the point, she also thanked Blood Raven. Since then the regenerative sleep ritual had proved to be worth more than its proverbial weight in rare-earth minerals. Even the nightmares—such a common companion to her nights—had retreated. She might have to consider using the trance more often, just for that if nothing else.
After her morning ritual of feeding the crows, bathing, and eating a bowl of vanilla almond cereal, she decided to take it easy. She pointedly ignored both her phone and computer. She did not want to see the comments on Twitt from Patricia Fine's army of trolls, whether human or bots. Well, that part of her that wanted to slow down to look at a car accident did. But the part of her that valued her mental health absolutely did not.
She was tempted to just quit the platform and delete her account, as so many other celebrities had been driven to after being targeted by hate mobs. But she was not going to give them the satisfaction. The bullies had not run her out of school when she was younger. They were not going to do so now.
She needed to take her mind off it. The day before Ranger had said he liked the Artemis Argent comics. She had told him that she could get him signed copies. Living up to that promise would be a good start at keeping busy.
So she went to a small pile of boxes set against one wall of her bedroom. She opened one to reveal a stack of identical copies of the first issue of Artemis Argent and the Secret of Mystery Hill. She pulled out one and went to the next box, and then the next, until she found a container filled with copies of the second issue. She fished out one of those as well, and took both comic books over to her desk.
She pulled a sharpie out of one her drawers, and sat down before the first book to consider how to autograph it. She should be used to it. She had signed nearly every copy she had sold through their Jumpstarter campaign and mailed away. Her ego liked to think that these would be worth a bazillion freedom bucks some day. Her cynicism reminded her to slow her roll.
Then she remembered some of the old 90s slang that the soldier had dropped the other day, and she knew what to write.
"To one Rad Ranger, from January Ryan." She finally signed the first, using her new last name, even if it was not quite legal yet. For the second issue she simply wrote: "Cowabunga! From January Ryan"
Then she slid the comics into a mailer, printed out a label, and sealed it up. She made her way to the mail box straight away so that she would not forget. Eschewing the stairs, she simply leaped over the banister that surrounded the second floor balcony and dropped to the ground floor of the rotunda below. From there it was a long walk out the front door and down the extended driveway to the mailbox beside the street.
By the time she had walked back to her bedroom, January already had her mind on just the thing to make her really forget about the trolls online. Not that she was fixated upon them or agonizing about what they were all saying about her. Not one bit.
Now that she was back inside and safely out of sight, she called up her Stormcrow suit. Now clad in the armor, she pulled out the bag of holding from one of her belt pouches and reached into its depths. From it she withdrew the Ravenwing. The artifact still dripped with salt water. She carried it into the spacious bathroom that directly adjoined her bedroom. There she rinsed the bird-shaped magic item under the sink to rinse away the salt. Afterward she flicked it a few times to snap some of the water off. A towel took care of the rest.
When she was finished she stared into the gleaming onyx eyes of the bird. It both looked and felt so real, that she half-expected it to leap up out of her hands and fly away. She was a little disappointed that it did not, but only a little. There were secrets here that begged to be unraveled. She intended to do just that.
She made her way to the semi-circular loft that faced the driveway in the front corner of the house. There she reached out to the wards around the building, and used them to dispel the illusion that obfuscated the stair that led to the sanctum above. Then up she went, into the very heart of the Witch House.
As ever, the sanctum was a wonder. It was every size and shape at once, a sphere, a cube, a rectangle, and so on. The pebble mosaic set into the floor flowed into the strips of metal set within the walls, and finally wended through the beads that hung from the ceiling. All melded seamlessly into one another, and created a new reality every time one looked up on it.
January set the Ravenwing down on the mosaic floor, and sat down cross-legged before it. She closed her physical eyes, and opened her astral ones in their place. The power of the sanctum immediately assailed her magical senses. But as she had learned to do around intense sources of arcane power, she blocked that out. By now it was as simple an action as applying a filter to a picture on her phone. Only this one removed the excess information that would distract her. That left the magical artifact the only thing in her awareness.
As both Blood Raven and Silverlight had taught her, she focused her awareness tighter and tighter upon the strange bird. It really was a bird. She could see now that was literally made from the feathers and bones of numerous corvids. There were crows, ravens, jackdaws, magpies, and of course rooks all wrapped up within the artifact. There were no blue jays however. She wondered if the creator had known that they were corvids too?
This was why she had thought it was a living bird when she had first sensed it upon the ocean floor. It was made from real birds, and the magic within it had breathed a certain form of life into the artifact. Blood Raven had spoken of this in the past, how enchanting things gave them an existence beyond that of their creators. Silverlight had explained the same thing the previous day to the Mid-Atlantic Coalition after their final battle with the Atomkrieg.
January sensed more than just raw magical energy locked within the Ravenwing's enchantment however. Another form of power was woven into the artifact as well. It wafted gently past her face like a cool summer breeze. It froze her like an icy winter wind, it warmed her like a hot desert simoom. Across the astral it spoke to her of windy peaks, roaring hurricanes, and fearsome tornadoes.
It was Air, in the most capitalized sense. This was not the ordinary stuff that January breathed in and out of her lungs every day. It was primordial and powerful, the very magical essence of the element of air, distilled into its purest form. The Scripta Mortis had written of this. All of the magical elements could be found in their primal forms, hence their names: primordial air, earth, fire, etc...
Her mind turned to the Gaia Sisters at Belle Isle. They had healed and rejuvenated the blasted landscape using primordial earth. They had infused that purest elemental power into the land, and used it to grow grass, brush, and trees where there had been nothing but dust and ash.
The Ravenwing shone with primordial air within the astral. It laced the bones and feathers of the artifact. The elemental force came to life under January's astral touch, and the bird rose up to float in the air before her. She was not even trying to direct the artifact; it just felt her power and responded to her.
Now she did turn her will upon the artifact. She pushed her senses deeper within its weave. It resisted of course. There was a hard shell of defense around the item. One would expect so. Otherwise anyone could come along and use it as easily as picking up an unsecured phone. January would have to either use brute force to crack the artifact's metaphorical password, or she would have to be more subtle, and find a way to convince it that she was its rightful owner.
January took the subtle path. The Scripta Mortis had spoken of this as well. It detailed all forms of enchanting. It was an old book, so it was far from up to date on the history of magical practitioners or events. But it was a solid foundation in the theory and praxis of all forms of magic. Blood Raven had been correct when she had said it was perhaps the most valuable book in any magician's library.
Thankfully January liked to read. She had devoured Silverlight's annotated English copy of the Scripta Mortis like a djieien at a fly-eating contest. It had told her everything she needed to know in order to master this artifact.
Of course she had a built in advantage. Deep in the heart of her being, January was a crow. That was her touchstone, just as the moon goddess Selene was Silverlight's magical compass. January used all the elements of course, but it was air that was most sacred to her. That was where she belonged after all, high up in the sky. It was where she drew her lightning from. It was where she felt most free and alive.
The Ravenwing was the same. Like all magical artifacts worthy of that title, it had character; one might even say a personality. It was that of a bird, and not just any bird, but a corvid. It was a cousin of hers at least, if not a sister. It had been made to be so, apparently by the mysterious Rook. January still did not know who that man had been under the cape. But it was plain that he liked corvids, and that he was an extraordinary enchanter.
If only he had stuck to these lanes, he might still be alive today. Even now he could have been living out a comfortable retirement in some skyscraper, or at least a tree house. Instead his reach had exceeded his grasp, when he had tried to steal two nuclear weapons.
Rook was part of this puzzle, even if he was not its focus. He had crafted the Ravenwing, and set its original pattern. So he mattered, even though he was dead and gone. The magic item had grown beyond him and continued on, like a child that had outlived its parent. But the parent was still the one who had birthed and raised that child, for better and worse.
January tried to imagine that she was Rook, as he crafted this artifact. He had clearly poured his love of the sky—of birds in general and corvids in particular—into it. It informed every stitch of its magical threads. She followed them, and imagined it was her hands that had shaped them. She imagined the very act of doing so, as if she had traveled back in time and sat behind Rook's eyes. She followed his magical fingers, saw how he stitched and melded his power into the physical being of the artifact. How he took that primordial air and likewise laced it through the warp and weft of its design. She soon was able to anticipate his moves. She knew where he would loop his power, where he would knot it, where he would weave it back and forth into a lattice of energy.
It all came very easily to January. Even though she did not know Rook, it somehow felt as if she did. There was something about his magical touch, his footprint if you would, that seemed familiar. The more and more she felt of his magic, the more and more convinced she was that he was no stranger, nor his affinity for corvids an accident.
He was family!
The flash of inspiration hit her like a lightning bolt from a clear blue sky. She did not know how she knew. She just did. Now that she looked back over the Ravenwing again, it was more obvious than ever. Nátthrafn, Blood Raven, Stormcrow, Rook... there was no escaping their blood.
Then she was in, and her familial epiphany took a back seat to a newer discovery. The Ravenwing unfolded for her like the petals of a flower. Its magic responded to hers, and joined with her freely. It was a corvid, she was a corvid. They were sisters. It wanted to fly with her, just as January wanted to fly herself. That was why it existed, to be part of the sky, to soar, and dive, and live among the clouds.
More than that however, they were kin. Just as Blood Raven's sword Samhain knew her, so too did the Ravenwing. She could swear that the artifact recognized her blood, and responded to her as such. In a way, they were meant for one another.
It was an aircraft! This new realization hit January like a semi-truck. She had not been expecting that. She had not been expecting anything really. She had gone into this with no real idea of what the Ravenwing was. But now that she was connected to its aura, it was all so plain to her. She could sense its functions, its flight systems, its life support, all tucked away within the weave of the enchantment. She still could not reach them directly yet. Instead she sensed that they were locked away behind a specific control interface within the craft.
There were two commands she could reach however. One was to enlarge, the other was to enter. She reached out with her magic, and willed the first to respond. The Ravenwing immediately grew to life before her. It was like a balloon inflating. It spread out in all directions, and doubled and tripled in size, and still it continued to expand. January had to leap back to avoid being bowled over by the body of the craft. Her wings snapped out, and she used them to frantically fly back through the air as the craft continued to enlarge.
It finally stopped at the size of a small airplane. She guessed it might have been fifty feet long or so from nose to tail, and perhaps a little over ten feet wide at the thickest point of its chest. Then its wings spread out. They must have stretched a hundred feet from tip to tip. She moved in close, and ran her fingers over one wing. It was made of feathers, just like the glossy black feathers of her own wings. She stared at one onyx eye of the craft, and now understood that it was a canopy. She looked down at the clawed feet, and saw that they served as landing gear.
Aw, sorry to hear. Oh my, here it is, he drowned exploring the Arlington, a 'bulk carrier'.
Yes that's right; the fight against Gola was in that abandoned building, iirc.
Whoa... Jan's really distracted! If she's unable to read Annie's signs. Then again, it's been a heck of a day.
Am really glad they're back on surface now. Yeah, good idea avoiding the social meridia. What does she feed those crows (just so I can maybe treat my park bench bird)? What cereal would Jan typically eat? I remember she feasted on frozen waffles long ago.
Lemme come back in a few. Been up since 7 this morning, gaming & editing Vicious.
Yes that's right; the fight against Gola was in that abandoned building, iirc.
Whoa... Jan's really distracted!
If she's unable to read Annie's signs. Then again, it's been a heck of a day. Am really glad they're back on surface now. Yeah, good idea avoiding the social meridia. What does she feed those crows (just so I can maybe treat my park bench bird)? What cereal would Jan typically eat? I remember she feasted on frozen waffles long ago.
Lemme come back in a few. Been up since 7 this morning, gaming & editing Vicious.
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