Acadian: Lots more magic coming up. This chapter is chock full of it.

That will not be the last wall to face January's wrath in this chapter. Since the building is going to be torn down, she has no qualms about going all out for once.

All those questions will be answered, later in the chapter.


Renee: Jan and Avery's banter is one of the most enjoyable parts of writing this story.

Most of the Marvel superheroes don't have any magical senses. But that is because most of them are not magical in nature. There are a few like Dr. Strange and Illya Rasputin who are magicians. But I don't think their writers really dig into the idea of astral space being coexistant with mundane reality, and each reflecting the other. But I could be wrong. I never read much of either.

You don't know the devil's lettuce? I figured that would be right up your alley...

The reason why Avery can see the door through the video link, and January cannot, will be explained this episode in fact.






Book 6.11 - Eloise

Auras of warm energy glowed in the field east of the building. They flowed and pulsed with life and exertion. But not with magic, January knew enough to tell the difference between a magical person, a mundane person, and a spell by now. These were just ordinary people, driven by excitement and physical activity.

She let her astral senses drop, and recognized the two deputies from the Sheriff's substation. She waved them over. They ran up, and stared from her to their comrades, who lay in the driveway.

"Did someone taze them?" the younger, slender deputy asked. January now saw that his name tag identified him as Harbaugh.

"No, it's a sleep spell," January insisted. "It's wearing off. They both will be up soon."

"A sleep spell..." Sergeant Shula shook his head. "Is a first level wizard in there?"

"More like a gnome illusionist I would gather," January answered. "They have some talent, that is for sure. I'm headed back in."

"Wait, so you know this... magic stuff?" Deputy Harbaugh looked incredulous.

"I am this magic stuff," January answered. She could not help but show off, and allowed a peal of thunder to roll around the sky to underscore her words. Lightning flashed afterward, casting its brilliant illumination over the scene. She spun on her heel as the last flickers of light faded into the darkness, and strode back into the asylum.

She called up her astral senses once she was inside, and looked around again. Once more the eddies and tides of upset energy flowed around her. They made her heart quicken, as if the idea of hunting for a ghost in a haunted sanitarium in the middle of the night was not disturbing enough. Her chest was tight, like it always was before a real fight. She was not sure, but she thought she tasted coppery fear in her mouth, a wetness on her palms, and a dryness in her throat as well.

Were these her own fears writ large in astral space, or someone else's? She could not tell where one ended, and the other might begin. She still had a lot to learn about magic. But if she had learned anything already, it was that the only way she would improve her magical abilities was to use them.

So she leaned into her sensing, felt everything there was to feel, including all the terror that entailed. Fear was nothing new to her after all. She had lived in its grip all of her life. Fear of being found out for being trans. Fear of being persecuted for being trans. Fear of what other people would think of her. Fear of what they would do to her.

But she had learned to fight that fear long ago. She called upon that same fortitude that her mother had taught her, that same fighting spirit she had instilled in her heart. She could face anyone, anything. She just had to keep her chin high, her fists up, and keep swinging. Never give up, no matter what.

She looked back at the open doorway, which still appeared to be a solid wall. This explained why the paranormal tour was trapped in the building. Even with the exit right before their eyes, they never would have seen it. They never would have even felt the door handle if they had accidentally touched it.

"Gadget, you can still see the open doorway through the video feed right?"

"Roger that," the meta-inventor answered. "I take it you still don't?"

"Nope," she said. "It's a powerful spell. It doesn't seem to be cast on the building itself. So I am not sure how it is working. If I could find it, I might be able to unravel it. I sure feel a lot more comfortable practicing on it, then on those guys sleeping outside."

"So maybe the spell is on you?" Gadget reasoned.

"Hmm," January considered. She tried to pull her senses back, into herself. She had never really studied her own aura. How did she even do that? Could she look into a mirror? Could she make the magical version of one? Or did she just have to shift her awareness out of her body, and look down on herself, the same as people with out of body experiences described?

She slowed her breathing and willed herself to relax. To help, she moved into the Tadasana pose. Yoga always helped her ground herself, and push out the outside world. She allowed herself to relax even more, and forget the rest of reality. She no longer felt the floor under her feet, or the warm summer air on her skin. There was only herself, her breathing, and her power.

She felt into her own energy, that cool mountain lake of power that resided deep within her. She dipped into its water, and was rewarded with a truly breathtaking vista of color and sound and scent and feeling. Her bones were cool and hard, like veins of iron burrowing through a mountain. Her flesh was warm and supple, shot through with fiery blood that flowed like lava, which brought warmth and life where ever it went. Her muscles were thick cords of wood, her tendons supple cables of twine. Her lungs were vast skies of air, and everywhere, suffusing everything, was the gentle embrace of the waters of life.

She drifted through this phantasmagoria of her own self, momentarily overawed by both the complexity and outright beauty of it all. Great goddess, she was beautiful! For the first time in her life, she actually felt it, believed it, deep down in her bones. She was magnificent. Just as every other single person was. Whether she was divine energy made manifest, or just an ordinary product of nature, in the end it was the same: a symphony of energy, unique and brilliant as only she could be.

She willed herself back to her task. She had to find if there was a spell on her. It must have been something so subtle that she had not been able to sense it otherwise. She felt along her aura, until she found what she imagined corresponded to her head, and her brain, and the senses that all tied back there. She felt along those network cables bringing information into her consciousness. She cast herself into them. She felt along those millions of bits of data flowing into the computer of her mind.

And she found it. It was like a virus, worming its way around and through the stream of information going back and forth through her head. January imagined that her meat body might be curling her lip in contempt at the thing. Disgust was certainly what she felt at the sight of this alien presence that polluted her energy. Out of reflex, she grabbed for it with metaphorical fingers. It tried to slither away. But her power clamped down on its writhing, wriggling tentacles. They felt soft and wet, tasted rank, and smelled putrid. She crushed them, rent them, and flung them from her being.

When January opened her eyes again, she saw the doorway, plain as day.

She strode back outside. An ambulance had arrived, and the paramedics had loaded one of the deputies onto a stretcher. She waved them off, and stepped to the man's side. For a moment she recalled Blood Raven doing exactly the same with the burned man at the Flying Dutchman. What had his name been, Ken Reeve?

She said nothing. Instead she laid one hand upon the deputy's forehead, and closed her eyes. She shifted her senses into the astral, and felt down into the brilliant colors and sounds of his aura. She found the sleep spell, curled around his brainstem. She grasped it with both magical hands, suffocated its power, and pulled the last fragments of it from his mind.

She brushed her palms together, as if to shake off dirt, and the man's eyes shot open.

"It's here!" he gasped. He shot up into a sitting position, and raised his hands if he was holding a pistol. Thankfully the weapon was now holstered at his hip. So all he did was make an odd gesture with his hands.

January laid a comforting hand on his shoulder, and told him to relax. Then she moved to the other deputy, and broke the spell upon him as well. By the time she strode back into the asylum once more, she was feeling much more sure of herself. She had taken this illusionist's measure, and was ready to fight.

You weren’t kidding! Plenty of magic to revel in here!

"Wait, so you know this... magic stuff?" Deputy Harbaugh looked incredulous.
"I am this magic stuff," January answered. She could not help but show off, and allowed a peal of thunder to roll around the sky to underscore her words. Lightning flashed afterward, casting its brilliant illumination over the scene. She spun on her heel as the last flickers of light faded into the darkness, and strode back into the asylum.’
- - This made me cheer at how comfortable Jan is becoming with her abilities.

’Great goddess, she was beautiful! For the first time in her life, she actually felt it, believed it, deep down in her bones. She was magnificent.’
- - Here, my cheering was that Jan finally realized what we have known since early on in her saga.

Your descriptions of Jan’s magic as she looked into herself, found and purged that illusion spell were fantastic. And her newfound ability was admirably put to use on others as she purged the pair of deputies of their sleep spells.


Nit: ’Once more, she {delete ‘she’?} the eddies and tides of upset energy flowed around her.’

A lot of self-reflection in this chapter, hon.

I think Jan's level of magic is like my level of modding, especially with advanced scripting. So I can relate! In both cases, there are some books (videos in the case of modding) / tutorials, but eventually those forms of media come to an end, and we're on our own. Oh sure, Jan can ask Blood Raven plenty of questions I'd imagine, but I'm noticing Raven is nowhere to be sensed in this chapter. Maybe Raven might even say "time for you to be on your own, grasshopper". Now what, Jan?

I recently heard an interview with Wolfgang Van Halen (Eddie's son) in which he was trying to ask his father some of the tricks he'd do on guitar. And Eddie couldn't really teach his son much, because so much of it was how he'd 'feel' in the moment as he played! ... You can't always replicate the sound you're hearing somebody else play, and so on.



Then again, seems like Jan's doing okay on her own. This all seems very personal, this use of magics. Could Raven even experience any of this herself? I suppose each witch's magic will eventually become very personal, right?

Cool. She Norton'd her own Trojan worm. Kick ass, girlfriend! Question is, how did she get infected with that worm in the first place?

Acadian: Jan really shows that she is a Fighter/Mage in this chapter.

And as you noted, she is really coming into her own as a superhero, just as she is as a writer. She is finally making a real place for herself in the world, where she is confident that she belongs.


Renee: Funny that you mention that Blood Raven might someday say "It is time for you to be on your own." Remember that in a few weeks.

That is a good analogy between magic and music. As Van Halen noted, they are entirely personal things. They come from somewhere deep inside you, and that cannot be copied or duplicated. As Blood Raven told January in her first magic lesson: the hardest part of teaching someone magic, is that no one can teach you magic. You have to find your own power. Because it only comes from you.

That is a good question about where the spell came from in the first place. Someone, or something, must have cast it upon January. Without her even noticing it. There is definitely a high-level Illusionist in there somewhere.









Book 6.12 - Eloise

"This is Stormcrow!" she shouted into the shadowed corridors. "I got your message, I'm here to bring you out!"

Silence greeted her as she stalked down one hallway after another. She stopped at every room, and gave each a cursory glance. But she had yet to find any of the paranormal tourists.

"This place is huge," she murmured. "Searching it will take forever."

"Can't you do that... whammy you did when you found the djieien's heart?"

"Astral sensing?" January breathed. "I can try. It's kind of confusing when I am looking at the real world at the same time though."

A scream rent the still air. January turned this way and that, but she could not tell where it might have come from in the maze of hallways and rooms.

She closed her eyes, and slowed her racing heart with an effort of will. She let her awareness slip from her meat body. When she opened her eyes again, it was not in the physical world. It was in the other world, the world of magic and power. She turned her gaze this way and that. But she smelled it first, the hot, rank stink of abject terror. She sniffed the air, and followed that scent. Then she did see.

It was the aura of a person. It shone like a warm candle amid the otherwise dark eddies of energy that flowed through the sanitarium. January could feel that it was hot with both emotion and physical exertion. Yet even in its agitated state, it was not the brilliant flame of a magician. This was but a mundane spark in the darkness.

January immediately set out in the direction of the aura. It took her deeper into the building, away from the side she had entered from. She turned a corner, and slammed face first into a wall. She rubbed her nose. It was not a corner after all. Her astral senses were confusing her meat eyesight. It was like trying to watch two movies on the same screen at the same time, and keep up with both.

Moving along more gingerly, she made certain that the next corner was real before she stepped into it. She passed by an empty nurse's station, and strode down a long hall flanked by cubicles on either side. As before, all the doors had been removed. The floor was littered with peeled paint and other bits and pieces of detritus, which crunched softly under her booted feet.

"This is Stormcrow," she called out gently. The aura reacted to her words by crouching down, as if to hide. "It's ok, I'm here to rescue you."

She stepped into one of the small side rooms. It was empty but for a rusted metal bedframe that had been propped up in one corner. Crouched behind it, apparently for protection, was a man wearing a button-down shirt and dockers. His skin ran with sweat, and his dark hair was plastered wildly against his head. She recognized him as the bearded man who had recorded the video, albeit now much the worse for wear.

"Diego Islas?" January said gingerly. She stood still, so as not to spook him any further. "We got your video. I'm here to bring you out."

"Is it you? Is it really you?" He rubbed his eyes with shaking hands. From the way they darted to and fro, it was clear that he feared a literal boogeyman might leap out for him at any moment.

"It's really me, Stormcrow." For not the first time, January realized that her black armor and cape could be quite intimidating, especially in the dark. She probably looked like a vampire creeping up on a victim.

"Sága, light." January enunciated clearly. The screen of her digital assistant lit up brightly, illuminating the room with a cool glow. She turned her forearm inward, so it clearly lit up her face, and the white raven banner symbol emblazoned across her chest piece.

Islas fumbled with the bed frame. It screeched loudly as it skidded across the floor, and made an even greater clatter once he finally tossed it aside. He rushed up to her, and laid his hands on her arms.

"You've got to get us out here. There's... there's... some thing in here with us," he pleaded. "You've got to get us out of here."

"I will," January insisted, "that is what I am here for. Now tell me, how many others are there?"

"There were six of us, including me," he said. "There were the sisters, Anita and Lauren. Then there was the old man, Mr. Henry. He's in a wheelchair, you've got to find him. And there was Amy... I forget the name of her new boyfriend, and that other man. I've got them all in my phone, but the battery's dead."

He pulled out a massive smartphone, whose screen was easily twice the size of January's own phone. He fumbled with the screen and buttons on the side and back. But nothing happened. It fell from his shaking hands. Without really thinking about it, January shot out one of her hands, and easily plucked it from the air.

"Oh snap!" he stammered. January handed him back the phone, and he fought to shove it back into one of the pockets of his pants. Clearly, he was beyond flustered.

"Where did you last see the others?" January led him back into the hallway. His eyes darted down either end of the corridor. Then he clustered nearer to January.

"We were upstairs," he started. "On the fourth floor I think, or the maybe the third. No definitely the fourth, definitely the fourth. It was coming at us. It kept coming at us. There was all this light, and sound. It roared like a freight train. And we saw it, coming, coming at us. Oh sweet Jesus it was coming right for us!"

"This guy is either scared to death or the best actor I've ever seen," Gadget noted in her ear.

"Don't worry, I'll find them." January insisted. She led him down the corridor, back to the turn at the nurse's station. She paused there. She felt something, something close. She sniffed the air, and tasted despair. Turning her head this way and that, she focused on the feeling. She let the physical awareness fade, and concentrated on the astral. There it was, another aura down the opposite hall.

"What is it?" Islas asked. "Is it the Thing?"

"No, it's another person," January declared. She cupped one hand around her mouth, and shouted down the hallway. "It's Stormcrow, you can come out. I'm here to rescue you."

She shined Sága's light down the hallway, and pulled her awareness back from the astral. Splitting her senses like that was beginning to give her a headache. Clearly, she had a lot more magical training to do.

She heard feet sliding on the dusty floor. A few moments later the silhouette of a woman cautiously emerged from the gloom. January recognized her from the video as well. Her long waterfall of onyx hair was a mess, and her clothing disheveled. Clearly, she had been running and hiding in the darkness for some time.

"Diego, is that you?" she squinted in the dark. "Is that really you?"

"Amy!" he declared. "Come on, we're getting out of here!"

"Oh thank god!" the woman declared in a voice that was just a few octaves from turning into a shrill scream. "I want my money back! Are you crazy! I'm going to kill you once we get out of here!"

"It's not my fault!" Islas insisted. "I didn't know it was really haunted! We've been coming in here for months. This never happened before!"

January motioned for the other woman to join them. Amy turned from Islas to truly regard her for the first time. Then her face blossomed in that look of recognition that January had become used to seeing.

"It, it's you!" Amy stammered. "It's really you, Stormcrow!"

"It really is me," January agreed. "Now come on, I know the way out."

She led them both back toward the way they had come from, and Islas filled the silence with his voice.

"You know, this would be a good time for me to say how much I support you, and everything you do Stormcrow," he declared. "My brother, he's gay, and it was really hard for him when he came out. Our parents didn't take it well. It really means a lot to him that you came out, and to me. You're a role model."

"Oh shut up Diego," Amy spat. "Your brother's a Furry!"

"So, he's a Furry!" Islas countered. "He's gay too!"

"Are you two married?" January wondered aloud.

"Divorced," they both declared in unison.

"Well that explains it," Gadget murmured in January's earpiece. "Don't see what the big deal is with him being a Furry though..."

January did not either. In fact, she could relate to not feeling like you were born in the right body. She was thankful when they reached the side door. She led them out, but they both pulled up short, and stared blankly at her.

That is when January remembered the illusion. She stopped, and let physical reality fall away. She shifted purely into the astral. Then she dug into each of their auras in turn, and stripped the spell from their beings.

"How is that now?" January pulled back into mundane reality, and allowed her hands to fall to her hips in that classic superhero pose.

"The door, it's there!" Islas gasped.

"It was just a solid wall before!" Amy insisted. "It really was, now it's gone. How?"

"There was a spell on you," January explained, "an illusion. I've dispelled it."

"Oh crap, Marcus! You've got to find him," Amy suddenly gushed. She clutched at January's cubic boron nitride chest piece. "He's back in there somewhere. We got separated, we all got separated. He needs his inhaler. He's got asthma."

"Don't worry, I'll find him," January insisted, "I'll find them all."

January led them outside, to a small group of police and paramedics. She did not pause to update the cops. Instead she immediately went back inside. She was keenly aware that there were still people in the building, and something stalking them.

"You know what this reminds me of?" Gadget's voice was a comforting sound in her ear, "a predator. They charge a herd to break it up, and separate the prey animals. Then they pick out the weakest, the slowest, or the oldest. That's the one they go for, while the rest scatter."

"The man in the wheelchair, or the one with asthma?" January wondered.

"Either or," Gadget admitted.

January found the inhaler before she found Marcus. It was in a stairwell across the building. January could easily imagine it dropping from trembling fingers, or in the mad rush to escape whatever was hunting them in the tenebrous maze of corridors. Soon afterward she found Marcus and the two twin sisters, Anita and Lauren. They were easy to see, as one was fumbling along with a lighter.

January pulled loose the illusion spell that had wormed its way into their minds, and brought them out the same side door as before. That left only one, Mr. Henry, and his wheelchair.

This felt rather like a quest that one might be assigned in an Elder Scrolls game – therefore, a lot of fun to follow along as Jan rescues this ‘Come at me Bro’ crew and leads them to safety.

The feeling that she’s getting closer to unraveling the mystery of the mysterious illusionist is palpable. Can’t wait to see what happens next!

Interesting that Jan and Avery can stay in touch, even as she goes deeper and deeper into this complex. Is it possible for them to lose signal between each other? I can't remember if they ever have.

That's interesting. So the astral version of Eloise does not mirror the physical version.



I like that, a lot!



She just needs to bring some Advil along with her makeup compact next time.

What's a furry? Is that like a bear (hairy guy)? Hmm, maybe it's time for a trip to the Urban Dictionary.

1. Someone with an interest in anthropomorphic animals.

2. An anthropomorphic animal character with human traits, primarily a human/humanoid body(structure).

Hmm, sounds like I was close with the second description, just in reverse.

Avery's analogy, with separating the weak from the strong, makes a lot of sense. I like how with everything that's going on in this chapter, so much of it is guesstimating.



He pulled out a massive smartphone, whose screen was easily twice the size of January's own phone.... yikes, I found a nit?

Acadian: This does sound like a side quest. Save the Demon Hunter Bros.

January is about to meet the illusionist. Mysteries will be unraveled in the next few episodes.


Renee: They can lose contact, as it is essentially a radio/telephone link. The Junkman Isaac had a Faraday cage built into his lair that prevented her comms from working.

January often thinks about a less intimidating color scheme. But she has the whole crow thing to live up to. So black is always going to be her primary color.

Furs are both those, and people who wish they were anthropomorphic animals, like Khajiit or Argonians. I knew a guy who was a Fur - Ristin Racoon. Unlike most, he had an actual racoon suit he would wear sometimes. Basically a theme park mascot suit. I learned a lot about the whole Furry community from him.

Answers will be had in a few more episodes. January is about the meet the illusionist, and will be unraveling her secrets afterward.

You did find a nit! Arigato Chummer.







Raven Mocker pic

Nurse's Station

You Won't Make It Out Alive

The Coroner's table




Book 6.13 - Eloise

January ventured back into the asylum, and once more let her meat senses fall away. She embraced the astral fully, waved aside all the stale eddies of old fear and despair, and sensed deeper and deeper into the magical realm of power. She searched for long moments, sharpened her concentration, and focused all of her will upon the task.

Then she found it. It was above her, perhaps three or four stories. She could not be sure of distance in the magical world. She saw two auras there. One was on its side, stretched out, as if it was crawling. It was definitely human. Yet even in what was clearly a state of agitation, it was dim and faded, as if the energy of life was just a dim spark within it.

Lurking above it was something altogether different. It smelled old and musty, like a book that had been gathering dust for decades. But it was filled with energy. It radiated power in the astral, far beyond anything a mundane might possess. It felt like a parody of a human, somehow twisted by magic and darkness. It had a human's shape, vaguely, but the legs were strange, and the wings definitely did not belong on an ordinary person. They reminded January of a raven's wings, sweeping the air in the blackness overhead.

"The video wasn't faked," January said.

She knew there was no time to find a stairway up. Whoever that prone figure was, they only had seconds before the monster was upon them. There was only one thing to do. She called upon the elements, and became a hurricane. January leapt up, and effortlessly crashed through the ceiling. Brick, wood, and tile exploded everywhere as she barreled through the floor above, and kept going. She felt the next ceiling splinter beneath her onslaught as well. Then another shattered before her charge. She was an irresistible force. She was unstoppable.

She ignored the dust and debris that clouded around her. Her mind was fixed upon those two auras. They were right in front of her now, through a wall. But cinderblock could not stop her. It could not slow her. She was a storm, annihilating all in her path.

Then she was in the same room as the two auras. The monster -was it a raven, or a human? - paused with its claws just inches from the prone man's heart. January could feel the black icicles of those talons, cutting a hole in the astral. They were a hungry vortex, devouring the energy they came across. The heart it lanced toward was the opposite: glowing softly with life.

The raven-thing stopped, and January felt what she imagined might be shock flash through its aura. Then January was upon it, a tidal wave of force. She leaped with all her might, propelling her body directly into the creature. She soared over the prone man on the floor, and vaguely noted a tipped over wheelchair nearby. Then her arms wrapped around the raven-monster in a bear hug.

A brick wall shattered behind them, and another. They came to a stop in a bathroom. A row of toilets jutted from one wall, and if there had been any stalls or dividers, they were long since gone. Paint peeled away and littered the floor with detritus. A line of sinks grew from the opposite wall, perched beneath a row of broken mirrors.

The monster reached for one of the toilets, and effortlessly yanked it loose from the wall. It wielded it like a club, aimed at January's head. She lifted a forearm to block, and the porcelain shattered against the cubic born nitride plate that armored her forearm. January instantly countered with a heel strike at the creature's face, snapping its head back with the force of a semi-truck.

Claws came out of the darkness for January. Again she blocked. But neither her armor plates nor hagfish fibers could stop this attack. The black icicles of those claws passed through her body armor as if it was not even there. They bit deeply into her forearm, pierced flesh, and sliced the bright tendrils of her aura.

January bit down a gasp of pain. She knew how to take a hit. She was stone. She was the mountain. She was adamant. The claws stopped short of the bone. January willed them to, and shoved them out of her flesh, and her aura. Again she followed, this time with a front kick aimed at the monster's face. She felt something break under her foot.

I can reach out and touch you too, she thought grimly.

"Drek Stormcrow, what is it? I can't see a thing on the video?" Gadget's voice was definitely more agitated than usual.

"I think it's a raven mocker," January said. She did not have time for more. One wing came slicing out of the darkness for her. She ducked, and magical feathers hacked through a sink behind her, cutting it neatly in two.

The other wing came next. This time January did the splits, and dropped to the floor with her legs splayed out horizontally to either side. The razor wing cut nothing but empty air above her head. She only had to spare a thought to transform her cape into a pair of sable black wings of her own. With a single beat, they lifted her up into the air and backwards. She dropped to her feet out of fighting range, and took a long look at the creature across from her.

Her meat eyes still saw nothing, just blankness. But her astral senses not only saw the monster, they smelled her, like an old corpse. They felt her, like rough, dried out leather. She did not even want to explore what the creature tasted like in the magical realms. It was a strange fusion of power and decrepitude, just as it was a fusion of human and raven.

"You can see me," the creature croaked. It was an old woman's voice. It was a raven's voice. It was both, and neither. "You are a medicine worker."

"I can do more than just see you." January readied her wings. If the raven mocker could use them as weapons, then she could too. She stepped forward in a fighting crouch, her senses trained upon the magical being. She did not rush, lest she fall into a trap. But she never faltered either. Her advance was as inexorable as the tide.

They traded blows once more, wings clashing against one another in the darkness. The meeting of their auras sent off bright sparks of power in the astral, like two electrical poles crackling together. The monster's wings were separate from its arms, and it clawed at January at the same time that its wings made their assault. January countered by separating her own wings from her arms as well, and slapped away the raven mocker's talons with her forearms and hands.

The raven mocker snapped its jaws at her, and January sensed that its head was the barren skull of a raven. She slipped aside, and its beak clamped shut on empty air. She pushed in closer, and raked an elbow across the monster's throat. Then she drove a knee up into where the solar plexus would be on a human.

Claws skittered across January's face, and sprouted angry lines of fire in their wake. But January had her dander up by now. She barely felt a thing when the two of them crashed through another wall and spilled out into the hallway beyond. She ducked as a razor-edged wing hissed through the air overhead, and shattered cinderblocks beside her. Another wing came slashing in at her, forcing her to back up to avoid it.

Her legs ran into bricks, but the rest of her body kept going. She fell over backwards into what she realized was a small nurse's station a moment later. She spilled across a desk and continued her roll backward. She hit the ground and kept rolling, and was dimly aware that she had somersaulted through the open doorway of the cubicle.

She bounced back to her feet, and was ready for the raven mocker as it came at her once more. Thanks to her astral sensing, she did not need to be looking at it to sense its approach. She could feel its presence at all times. It was like having eyes in the back of her head. Yet as she had just learned, if she paid too much attention to the raven mocker in the astral, she would fail to notice the mundane realities of things like the walls all around her.

But not noticing a brick wall was less dangerous than not noticing the magical creature intent upon her destruction. So she kept all of her senses trained upon the raven mocker as she traded further blows with the creature.

Their fight took them into what might have been a patient's room. January noticed there was a flimsy wooden desk against one wall, and a stand with an ancient television set upon another. It was not a modern, sleek design with a screen as thin as a politician's morals. No, this was an old-school CRT cube of glass and lead.

January swept one of her legs out, and caught the chunk of ancient technology with the side of her foot. She kicked it like a soccer ball, and sent the twenty pound missile hurtling into the raven mocker. The creature met the improvised projectile with the leading edge of one of its wings, and it shattered into a cloud of electronics and dust.

Her mask slid down to cover her mouth and nose, and January felt the instant change to her suit's self-contained air system. With her night vision goggles already in place, that completely sealed her off from the outside world.

"Those things are highly toxic," Gadget noted in her ear. "You do not want to be breathing in all that lead."

January was thankful to have a partner watching her back, and thinking about things like that when she was too busy. For the TV had given her an idea. The raven mocker's strongest defense appeared to be its wings. If she could find a way to neutralize them, that could be the key to her success.

Without wasting another moment, she lifted the desk beside her and charged forward. She brought it down upon the raven mocker's head in an overhand blow. It reacted just as she expected, with its wings. Both of the monster's wings snapped forward to meet the desk, and drove deeply into its wooden surface.

January took that moment when its wings were occupied to step even closer and unleash a front kick. Her foot drove squarely into the monster's midsection, and propelled it back into one of the walls. Cinderblock shattered behind the creature, and it went sailing clear into the next room. The desk which January had used as a distraction fell to the floor in pieces all around her.

The raven mocker rolled across the floor of the second room, and climbed to its feet. January followed in after it. Out of the corner of her eye she noted that someone had spray-painted: "You Won't Make It Out Alive" on one wall. She sincerely hoped that was not referring to her.

She did not want to waste her advantage, and rushed in. Too late did she realize that while the monster had rolled backward, its wings had not simply dragged across the floor as she had originally thought. No, they had cut into it. With her first step the boards collapsed under her, and sent her plummeting down to the floor below.

Wood, bricks, plaster, and metal pipes shattered around her in a cloud of wreckage. She landed hard on something metal, and realized that it was a coroner's table when she rolled off it a moment later. Upon the wall beyond the head of the table was an x-ray film viewer made of glass and metal. Under it was a wide sink, a metal cabinet, and some sort of electronic device whose purpose she could even begin to guess at. It reminded her of a washing machine, given the small door in the front of the device.

The raven mocker came down on the metal table just moments after January had cleared it. The talons on its feet scored deeply into its surface. January noted grimly that the top of the table was indented to create a low depression, and it was lined with holes. Two sink-like basins hung from one end, with a hose attached. She did not like to think about the fluids those were meant to catch.

January kicked out at the table, and sent it flying back into the outer wall of the building. The raven mocker did not fall however. It was an avian after all. A single beat of its wings kept it aloft. Worse, the air generated by them shoved January back a step. That allowed the creature to drop gently to its feet a moment later.

Its wings were the key. January had to take them out of the fight. She could try using her own wings, or...

She leapt forward like a missile, arrowing directly for the raven mocker. It dodged aside, and slashed at her with one of its wings as she passed by. January used one of her own hagfish feathered appendages to block the attack, and soared through the air behind the monster. She hit the wall with both feet, and let her body collapse into the bricks like an accordion.

When she was squatting as low as she could into the wall, she pushed off of the cinderblocks and performed a backflip in the air. She landed on her feet beside the steel autopsy table, which now lay on its side. January grabbed it with both hands and hurled it at the raven mocker's chest.

As she expected, the creature's wings came out and hacked at the metal missile hurtling toward her. January was right behind it, and while the table went high, she went low. Even as the raven mocker's wings were shredding the steel furniture, she had somersaulted down to its feet.

She stepped down hard on the monster's instep, and sprang up just inches from its body. That put her inside the sweep of its wings. She brought her head directly up into its chin, and rocked its raven-like skull back. January immediately followed with a knee to the midsection, where the solar plexus would be on a human. That would have driven the air from a living being's lungs. The monster bent slightly, but nothing like a normal person would.

Since she was in close, January switched from krav maga to muay thai. She raked an elbow across its face, even as its wings beat helplessly against her back. She grabbed hold of one of the raven mocker's shoulders, and used it as a springboard to lift herself in the air. She came crashing down with her opposite elbow an instant later, and shattered the raven's skull into a thousand pieces.

What a nailbiter of a fight with a formidable foe! When Jan was trying to figure out how to neutralize the hagraven’s wings, I thought she meant to somehow literally ‘de-wing’ her ala Maleficent. Very clever to, instead, simply get well inside their effective range. Much like a dagger or fist fighter getting in the face of an opponent with a long sword. At zero range, the tide of the fight quickly changed in favor of the Stormcrow.

Wow, that raven mocker really shows how blending woman and crow/raven can turn out poorly. Not at all like the beautiful results represented by Blood Raven and Stormcrow.


Nit: ’She did not even what {want?} to explore what the creature tasted like in the magical realms.’

I once had a lucid dream in which I wondered if I could crash through a brick wall, just to see if this is possible in dreams, and sure enough I could! So I can relate ...

I can just picture her exploding through the floor as a hurricane, in comic book form. Like, the moment when she does this gets illustrated in a comic panel as this whirling dervish-looking illustration. Yikes, she's fighting another monster!



Nice word there: decrepitude. Our very own Decrepit would like that.

I can just imagine what this fight looks like from Avery's point of view. Like she's just swinging her wings around and doing all these acrobatic moves while nothing is in front of her! OH YIKES that's what the Raven Mocker looks like. That looks like something out of the Monster Manual.

You wont make it out of here alive!!! ... That's wicked awesome.

Yikes, what a mess! At least it sounds like she d3f34t3d d@t m0n$t3r though!




-- Hey, I thought this would be fun. I know January is busy sorting out her new life, dealing with monsters and crises every other day up in Detroit. But would Jan like to take a quiz? Is she a true Millennial? Okay, that website is annoying with ads all over the place, so I'll try to post only the text questions here.

If you're too busy or whatever, don't worry about this. I thought this might be fun, though. I put my answers next to my answers, in parenthesis. But my daughter took the quiz too. Some of our answers are the same, but some way different. For instance, she reaches for her phone, first thing!

1). What is the very first thing that you do, every morning?

-- Reach for my phone.
-- Stretch, make some coffee have a smoke.. Then probably turn on the tv and answer all my texts from the night.
-- I go to work. (my answer, closest thing, anyway. I don't eat breakfast, for instance)

2). What type of phone do you have?
-- The latest iPhone...
-- Its definitely a smart phone...
-- One of the old style flip phones.. The new ones break too easy. (my answer)

3). What do you want to do with your life?

-- Something amazing!
-- I really don't know... (my answer. well, the closest I can come to my true answer)
-- I am grateful to just be living, that is more than enough.

4). What type car do you drive?

-- Drive? I use Uber cars! As you should know, they differ by the trip.
-- Oh i have a 2018 SUV freshly polished and delivered! Yay.
-- I am driving the same car I have drove for the last 10 years, my vintage 70's machine. (my answer, although I drive something from the '90s, not the '70s)

5). What's the wildest thing you ever did?

-- Got drunk, and have NO idea what I did that night... (my answer... closest thing, anyway)
-- I almost lit myself on fire!
-- We egged this house one time. So awesome.

6). Your view on marriage?

-- I would NEVER get married again.
-- If I ever love & trust someone that much, yes. If not, its always gonna be no. (my answer)
-- Marriage is outdated, I rather date around with no strings.

7). What's your top priority?

-- My family? (my answer)
-- God, get it right, kids.
-- My following and my image on my social networks!

8). And when were you actually born? (don't worry i am not asking a specific age!)

-- 1990's, of course.
-- The wee early 2000 crowd.
-- 80's or earlier. (my answer)

9). What is this? (Pic here)

-- Cannabis. (my answer)
-- Herbs?
-- That's definitely homegrown!

10). Which color makes you feel something?

-- Blue or green, the color of my love
-- Red & pink... Like love! Which makes me think of romance and peace.
-- Red.. Like blood. Black. Like my soul.

Hmm, I can't answer the final one. I'm really bad with choosing favorites. I tend to dress in demure colors as I get older. Closest thing is the Blue or Green answer, I guess. Dark blue or green, though. Too bad they don't include mahogany or darker beiges.

11). What or who, is God?

-- God is a mysterious and powerful being who controls everything with his infinite energy.
-- There is no God! Stop believing fairytales. (my answer!)
-- God is the big man upstairs!

And the final result? No matter if you're actually 90s kid, or not, you don't have a Millennial mindset or life style, you're way above your time!... A true old soul, never stop being you, even you feel pressured to connect, or fit in.

Cool, I can dig it!

My daughter took this too, and she got 50% Millennial: You're a little bit modern, a little bit old school. But that's okay! So many Millenials have their heads in the clouds (or electronics), it's totally awesome to find a grounded one!

Yeah I know this is kinda stupid, but how would Jan and/or Avery answer?

Wow, I am going to answer those right now.

January is a 50% Millennial as well.

Avery is 100% Millenial = You're a totally tech pro, flash-mobbing, highly advanced Millennial, on fleek!

Although technically, neither is a Millenial. They are both Gen Z.

Acadian: I worked a lot on that fight. How to use the location. And how to use wings in combat. The latter is going to become a staple for January moving forward.


Renee: Decrepit would appreciate the decrepitude.

The Raven Mocker is something out of the real world monster manual. It is a creature of Cherokee folklore. I have been trying to use monsters from real mythology and folklore whenever I can, to give the story some grounding in the real world.

I cheated a little. The You Won't Make It Out Of Here Alive pic was from Northville, another closed and abandoned asylum here in the Detroit. So was that pic of the nurse's station. But they both added some nice flavor.








Raven Mockers in Cherokee lore

Cherokee Traditional Dress

Andrew Jackson & the Trail of Tears

Goddesses: Mysteries of the Feminine Divine


Book 6.14 - Eloise

The mocker reeled back, gushing energy into the astral like a sieve. It collapsed to the floor, and tried to crawl away. But it did not get far. January moved in for the kill, prepared to send her wings into a rending fury. She allowed one to hack through the x-ray viewer as she passed by it, and it disintegrated into a cloud of steel and glass.

"Cruel, cruel white woman." The raven mocker's voice was a dry rattle. "Evil woman hurts me, evil woman kills me."

"I am not the monster here," January stood over the raven mocker now, wings ready to tear it asunder.

"Are you not, white woman?" the monster coughed. "Always whites kill those that are different. Always you say you are not the monster."

January heard a different cough and wheeze come from across the building. She stared up through the floor and across the abandoned structure. With her astral senses, she could see old Mr. Henry crawling to his overturned wheelchair, and struggle to right it onto its wheels. Then she stared back down at the raven mocker, who now lay prostrate before her.

Exactly how she had found the raven mocker looming over the old man, just minutes before.

"Blood Raven's on the way," Gadget's voice came in her ear. "I'm looking in the Bestiary, and it says raven mockers are invisible, except to people with the special sight. I guess that's your astral senses. It says they eat the hearts of people who are near death, and they devour the years they had remaining. That sounds backward to me. If you needed to steal the years off someone else's life to add to your own, wouldn't you want to go after someone with a lot of time left, like a kid?"

"Anyway, it says that just being seen by a medicine worker will cause a raven mocker to die in seven days. But Blood Raven's got a little note here, that says take that with a gigantic grain of salt. She says these old legends are just that: legends and folklore. Reality can be very different."

January looked back and forth between the raven mocker and Mr. Henry. The old man was still struggling with righting his wheelchair. Clearly, he did not have many years left. If the folklore was correct, he was definitely the preferred target of the mocker. He had to be her first priority.

She moved to the hole in the ceiling, and kept a careful eye on the raven mocker as she did. But the creature was quiet. It lay there in the astral, aura fading noticeably. It was as if the battle had taken all of its remaining energy, and now it had none remaining.

"I will come back for you," January said to it, "and we will talk, just talk."

January took a chance, and turned her back on the monster. She allowed her wings to fade back into her cape. Then she leaped up into the floor above, and walked through shattered walls. The muscles in her back tensed up, just waiting for the raven mocker's claws to come lancing in at any moment. But the creature did not attack. January could still smell it below, lurking in the darkness. Finally she was back in the room with Mr. Henry.

"Stormcrow, I don't want to be Johnny Killjoy here, but shouldn't you just kill it now, the old-fashioned way?" Gadget ventured. "Everything I see on these creatures says that they're evil, pure and simple."

"That's what everything says about you and me too," January reminded him. "That's why you wanted me to come out in the first place. To show it's not true."

"Yeah, I get where you are going. Just because people say we are evil, doesn't mean we are. Ergo, just because people say someone else is, it doesn't mean they are either." Gadget walked through the line of reasoning that had already taken root in January's mind. "But sometimes they really are evil, like Nazis. That thing was trying to kill that guy and eat his heart after all."

"I know what you are saying," January replied. "And I know I'm going to have this same conversation with Blood Raven in a few minutes. So let's save it for then."

"Not in a few minutes," Blood Raven's voice came over the communications link. "Destroy that creature now. It is altogether evil."

January shut down her comm link rather than reply. She was not going to get into an argument in front of an injured old man. Instead she reached down to help him into the wheelchair. He dusted himself off, then stared up at her with a regarding eye.

"So you're the one making all the stir then?" his voice wavered like a feather in the wind. "The boy who wants to be a girl? Well you tell 'em what for sonny, or girlie, or whatever. Like we told Chairman Mao back in '51!"

"I will sir," January said respectfully.

"You got balls son, I'll say that," he went on. "Well, I guess maybe not. Do you know what's going on here? 'Cause I sure and shite think there was a ghost back there that was trying eat me."

"It wasn't a ghost," January insisted. She knelt down before him, and made sure his legs were tucked firmly away on their footrests, and his arms on the chair's handles. Then she lifted him up, wheelchair and all, and looked down the hole she had punched through half the floors of the building. "It was the undead spirit of a Native American medicine worker..."

"Which I guess is a ghost," she admitted with a shrug of her shoulders.

Mr. Henry's eyes started when January lifted him in the air. But she put on what she hoped was a reassuring smile and a wink in return.

"Don't worry, I do this sort of thing all the time," she said. "We're taking the express elevator down."

"Don't let my wife see," he groused. "She'll never let me hear the end of it, getting picked up by another lady..."

"I can keep a secret," January smiled.

January leaped off into space. The wind caressed her as she dropped through floor after floor. Then she hit bottom, and absorbed the shock of the fall with her knees. She made sure they bent to absorb the impact, and that none of it was transferred into the old man. Once down, she briefly considered setting down the wheelchair. Then she thought better of it, and simply bounded down the hall and around the corner with the old man still firmly ensconced in her arms. She did not set him down until they were at the exit, and rolled him out into the welcoming arms of the police and paramedics.

A cheer rose up from the paranormal tourists, who were gathered around a police car sipping coffee and battling with their phones. January allowed herself a genuine smile. But she did not wait around for more. Instead she leaped back into the building. She raced back up to where she had left the raven mocker. She did not create any new holes in the building, but she did make liberal use of those already there.

"Come to finish it then?" the raven mocker said in a creaking, feminine voice. She almost sounded like Katherine Herpburn. "Just like Andrew Jackson?"

"Andrew who?" January wondered aloud? There were a lot of Jacksons, like Janet, but that was not one she could recall.

"He was the great champion of your people," the raven mocker said. "He drove us from our lands, onto the Trail of Tears. In spite of how even your own Supreme Court said that it was wrong. He made me, after a fashion, on that trail. He murdered us all..."

"So you were a person once?" January turned her comm link back on with a tap of a finger upon Sága's screen. "A Native American?"

"A native what?" the raven mocker crackled. "What nonsense is that? I am Gola. I am a medicine worker of the Keetoowah People. Or at least I was, before I died."

"How did you die Gola?" January probed.

"Slowly," the raven mocker murmured. "One breath at a time, one step at a time, one hunger pang at a time. Until finally I could walk no more, breathe no more, feel no more. Then the ravens came for me..."

"And you became... this?" January asked. Gola's voice felt realer now, like a solid thing that existed in the mundane world, rather than simply a conveyance of thoughts and ideas across the astral. January allowed her awareness to slip from the magical world entirely, and back to the physical. She saw before her an old woman with long gray hair and dark eyes. She wore a wraparound skirt of what looked like deerskin, with an under-fringe of beads and feathers. Moccasins of soft leather were laced up to her knees, and decorated with seed-beads. Her torso was covered by a short-sleeved calico blouse of bright colors, held close by a woven belt and pinned with a carved broach. Multiple layers of necklaces of bone, horn, and shells hung from her neck, and here earlobes were adorned with shell earrings.

"I am me," Gola responded. "When did you become, asegi udanto?"

The old woman, for she looked like nothing more than that now, gestured with a hand at January.

"I always have been," January did not understand the term, but got the distinct impression that Gola was not referring to her armor and cape, but rather to her gender and sexuality. Or maybe she meant both the combination of her womanhood, and the armor and cape. Things that January imagined a woman of the 19th Century would not associate with one another.

"For me it is the same," Gola proclaimed. "I have always been me. When I died, I became more, and less. Like you, I am asegi, just in another way."

"Asegi?" January asked.

"Not like others..." Gola seemed to hunt for words. "Not one or the other... in between... queer."

January stared at the raven mocker. She wondered if the creature could sense that she was transgender or a lesbian. Granted, all she had to do was turn on a phone or TV to know that. Was creature even the right way for her to think of Gola? Wasn't that exactly what so many people were referring to her as right now?

"I can see her on the video now," Gadget voice was back in her ear. "So she can be visible, when she wants to be."

"You kill people," January stated plainly. "You were about to kill that man."

"Everything I read about raven mockers is bad," Gadget noted. "Not just what Blood Raven wrote in the Bestiary. Every mythology and folklore site says the same thing. At best, they kill people to extend their existence. At worst... well it gets a lot worse."

"I do what I must," Gola said. It was almost as if she had heard Gadget's words. "Do you not kill? What did you eat for dinner today? Deer? Cow? Even bread was once a living stalk of wheat, and maize a living being. How much life have you devoured to survive?"

"That's different," January insisted.

"No!" Gola cried, "No different! Only different because you do not wish to admit we are the same!"

"I don't kill people," January declared. "That's a whole lot different from killing an ear of corn."

"Have you asked the maize that?" Gola said. "All life is imbued with sacred energy. All life is divine. But in order for life to continue, it must feed on other life. This is the natural order of things. There is always the sacrifice. It must be made, or nothing can survive."

January of course recognized the words of Joseph Campbell, even if heavily paraphrased. She had read Goddesses: Mysteries of the Feminine Divine after all. She remembered what Campbell had said. "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. Your own body will be food for something else. Anyone who denies this, anyone who holds back, is out of order. Death is an act of giving."

"That's an awfully convenient ideology for someone who commits murder," Gadget noted dryly.

"Why is it whenever people start talking about 'the natural order of things', it is usually an excuse for their terrible behavior?" January frowned.

"Go ahead, kill me then..." Gola - the old woman - tottered to her feet and stepped forward. She held her chin up, exposing her throat to January. "Sacrifice me for your natural order, just like Jackson."

"I am not just like him," January insisted. "I don't want any of this. But I can't let you just roam around killing people."

"Does she really have to kill people?" Gadget asked. "I mean, in lots of books vampires will feed off animals instead of people."

January noted that Blood Raven was saying nothing over the comm link now. Gadget did not know about her being a vampire of course. That was not a bombshell that January would just casually drop on anyone. Besides, as she had told Mr. Henry, she could keep a secret.

"You mentioned cows and deer before," January said to Gola, "can you take their years instead?

The old woman stared at January, and cocked her head sideways.

"Cows? Deer?" her voice creaked. "What is this nonsense?"

"It's not nonsense," January insisted. "Have you ever tried?"

"Of course not!" Gola argued. "The raven folk must feed on human years."

"Says who?" January retorted. "I have spent my entire life doing what people say I must not. I'd have killed myself otherwise. Have you tried?"

"Nay," Gola said. "All know this is not done. We do not eat rocks, we do not eat wood, we do not eat deer! We take the old, the sick, the dying, those who have lived their lives. We are no different from the wolf or coyote."

"Wolves eat deer," January noted, "and ravens will too. They'll eat pretty much anything."

"Especially eyeballs," Gadget noted.

"Gola, it is time for you to define what you are," January said. "Not what the old legends say you are. Not what your people said you are. Only you can say what you are, because only you can determine your identity. I know that personally. I am a Two-Spirit medicine worker myself."

The old woman looked uncertain. January took a step forward, and extended her hand, palm upward.

"If you will promise not to harm people, then I will help you," January declared. "I will find you something to feed on - deer, or a cow, or a chicken, anything other than a human. Will you come with me?"

"You are a crow," the raven mocker sighed. She reached out and took January's hand in a trembling grip. "I will come with you."

What a fascinating and unexpected twist!

There is much more to this raven mocker than we might have imagined. Very lucky for Gola to run into Gadget and Stormcrow. Gadget for his insightful comparison that there are vampires who do not murder to survive. And Stormcrow for her readiness to embrace paths less traveled. And her compassion.

That's true about my girl as well. I had her in 2003 which is technically Gen Z I think.

I like the fact that Avery is 100% !!!! I suppose January has just enough older habits in life (or her answers could not be compartmentalized into any of those pre-made responses) that she only scores 50%. How did she answer the car one, for instance? There is no answer for somebody who has a nuclear fusion-powered motorbike.



Come and think of it, I've probably seen this creature before. Not in Monster Manual but maybe it's in Legends and Lore. I like that you are using pulling from real-life epics & tales. That link is a a good read, too.

Oh no. The Raven is using the race card to try to throw Jan off as she goes in for the pwnage.

Uh oh. She's turning her back on the thing. I bet it'll come back at her. DON'T leave the Raven behind! (yelling at my laptop here)

The raven sounds like Katherine Hepburn. I was thinking Joan Rivers, myself.

Lol .... she's confusing Andrew Jackson with Janet and Michael and LaToya!

Cripes. Don't listen to Gola, Jan. It's a trap. Whatever she was in real-life, now she's a monster who sucks the life from mortals.

And the funny thing is, I agree with Gola. She can't just take the lives of animals. Because I am thinking animals don't have the same life-force more intelligent beings do. Damn. I'm falling into her trap now.

Sigh.

Edit: It's because Gola is preying on some of the weaker members of society! I can't wrap my head around on seeing things her way because of this. Why can't she prey on somebody who does wicked things. Like a child molester?

Acadian: I am trying to keep January on her mission statement. She is here to help people, not beat them up. Certainly not to kill people. I have been watching Supergirl again. She was a major influence in my creation of January. She is the kind of person you hope possesses that great power. Someone kind and compassionate. She often tries to talk villains down, and offers to help them. Usually they violently turn her down. I wanted to take that a step further, and actually de-escalate a situation. Show a villain who is willing to take someone else's help instead of continuing on their reign of terror.

It has been a continuing thread throughout the Crow-verse. Lighthammer, Isaac, and now Gola. All are antagonists, whom January has made an effort to turn into allies, if not friends. All of them will play a direct role in the finale of Season One.


Renee: Your daughter is definitely Gen Z, like January is. Jan falls into the 50% category because of her athletics and writing. She actually does spend a lot of time unplugged from the internet because she is doing other things. She is going to lose her TV set soon, and really, she won't even miss it. Avery OTOH, is a pure tech junkie. He lives and breathes technology, the internet, and all things gadgetry.

I see you have the same opinion about Gola as a certain flame-haired and red-eyed superheroine we will hear from soon. There is good reason to feel that way. But January will always try to act out of compassion, for better or worse.

January probably does not even realize that Andrew Jackson's picture is on the $20 bill. 200 year old presidents are not really her forte. 200 year old myths and legends, sure.

Gola preys upon the old and the sickly for the same reason that real world predators like lions or wolves do. That is their role in the ecosystem. It is also what she was told all of her life what raven-mockers were supposed to do. Like so many people, she's so caught up with tradition and what she has always been told she is supposed to be, that she never stopped to think of what she could be. Of course January is not one to stand on tradition at all. She's more prone to smash it with a hammer.









Deer Overpopulation

The Island Lake Recreational Area is on the Stormcrow Map

Island Lake Pic 01

Island Lake Pic 02

Island Lake Pic 03



Book 6.15 - Eloise

That did not relieve the tension building up within January however. For now she had to find the raven mocker something to eat, and hope it would work. Otherwise she would have to... Well, she did not want to think about what she would have to do. It was easy to incinerate giant spiders with lightning. It was not so easy to look into an old woman's eyes and snuff them out.

"Okay, deer," Gadget said in her ear. She heard plastic keys furiously clacking from his end of the link. "I saw a documentary a few years ago that said that since we killed all the wolves, the deer population has exploded. It's gone from something like 1 million to 30 million. It's out of control. So yeah, deer hunting is not such a bad thing. Sorry Bambi."

While Gadget talked, January led Gola up to the roof. The old woman leaned on her. She felt surprising light, almost like a feather. Or like a bird - hollow bones and all. Still, January was wary of an illusion clouding her senses. She was just as wary of those claws coming out, and darting for her heart.

But they did not come, at least not yet. By the time they stood beneath the open sky, Gadget was back on the link.

"Ok, there are some state parks that allow deer hunting. Presumably there must be deer there," Gadget reasoned. "Brighton and Island Lake are nearby. Looks like about 25 miles northwest, as the crow flies."

"Good," January noted aloud. That came as a relief. She knew that there were deer in the nature trail behind her house. But she did not want to lead Gola to feed there. The thought of her being responsible for one of those deer being butchered... Well, she knew it would forever poison how she looked at the park, and her home.

Hypocrisy, thy name is Stormcrow, she silently breathed.

"Can you fly?" January asked. "We need to go some distance."

"I will fly," the woman croaked. She transformed before January's eyes. One moment she was an old woman in Native dress. Then her form flowed like water, and took another shape. She took upon that monstrous, winged form January had first witnessed. What the smartphones of the paranormal tour had recorded. With raven wings and skull, the rest of her leathery body was humanoid, though with the double-jointed legs of a beast.

January fought down the feeling of revulsion that rose in her gorge. She was not going to allow herself to feel about Gola the way other people viewed her: as a monster. She was better than that. Or at least she wanted to be.

January concentrated on her wings instead, and her arms transformed into the limbs of a mighty crow. Hagfish feathers caught the air, and lifted her skyward. It was fully dark by now, and the sky overhead was an indigo bowl dotted with stars. She glimpsed the moon rising in the east, along with a sliver of blood. She knew what the latter was, for she tasted copper on her tongue now.

January ignored Blood Raven's approach however, and instead winged her way north and west. She made sure that Gola was tucked in beside her, and the pair of corvid hybrids soared their way over the darkened landscape. Rivers of light carved through the blackness under her tummy, revealing streets and homes. January tried to use them to guide herself along. But Gadget's voice in her ear was a far better navigator. Thanks to the GPS built into Sága, he knew exactly where she was at all times.

The miles vanished in no time at all. January was still amazed at how quickly she could travel by air. Not having to stop for traffic lights, or sluggish drivers, was a pure joy. So was being able to ignore the speed limit. Here the only thing slowing her down was the air itself. But it was not her enemy. It was the literal wind beneath her wings.

"Ok, you are on it," Gadget's voice came in her ear quickly enough. "That is the Island Lake Recreational Area below. You're over an old gravel quarry at the south end. It should be safe to land there."

It was all blank darkness below. Which January took as a good sign. It meant no civilization, or park-goers. With a word to Sága, she engaged her night vision once more. Now she could see that there was indeed an expanse of gently rolling hills below her. Small lakes dotted the fields to the left, and a subdivision of industrial buildings glowed beyond a road to the right. Dead ahead was a thick line of trees.

She motioned for Gola to land, and made for the earth. She tilted backward as she neared the ground. She raised the front of her wings, which increased their angle to the ground, and beat them forward strongly. This cancelled out her momentum, and brought her to a stall. She hung there in midair for just a moment. Then her feet touched the grass, and gravity once more enfolded her in its embrace.

All that time she had spent reading and watching videos of birds landing was really paying off.

Gola came down beside her with much more grace and precision. She clearly did not have to concentrate on what she was doing. It appeared to come as natural to her as walking. So plainly, January had a lot more work to do before she was truly at one with the sky.

"There should be deer in here." January faced the tree line to the north, and began slowly walking in that direction. The ground beneath her feet was a mixture of loose sand and stones, interspersed with stubborn patches of grass. "This time of night, no one should see us either."

Just to be sure, she tapped on Sága's screen, and engaged her video camouflage. That would insure that she was not recorded by trail cameras.

They moved through the field and crossed into the forest without saying another word. The trees quickly closed in, and blotted the stars from the sky overhead. Even with her night vision on, it was an effort for January to navigate the wilderness. It was not that she was walking into things, she took her time to make sure that did not happen. Yet there always seemed to be a branch or dried leaf that crackled under her feet. She was painfully aware of how out of her element she was here.

Gola, on the other hand, moved through the brush like the wind, leaving no sound or sign of her passing. January tried to emulate the medicine woman. She called upon the air to inspire her, to make her steps lighter, and her body a ghost between the grasping branches. She let her mana flow into that image, and willed it into reality.

It helped. But again, she clearly had a lot of work to do. She wished Ryo was here doing this. He could make himself a literal ghost in the darkness when he wanted to.

Gola took the lead. She seemed to have a sense for what was around them. January thought of shifting her senses back to the astral. She could probably detect other living things much more easily that way. But she did not want to split her attention from her efforts to remain quiet. She was having a difficult enough time of that already.

They came upon a male whitetail deer. Even January could tell its sex from its relatively small set of antlers, which were still covered in fuzzy velvet. She wondered if he was really young, or if his antlers had not yet grown in for the year. She seemed to recall something about deer's antlers falling off every year, and growing back again. But she had no idea when that happened, or how long it took for them to mature. This one had two wide beams of antlers growing nearly horizontally from its skull, with four evenly-spaced points - really just bulbous knobs - rising straight up from each.

January went completely still. She did not want to spook the deer. To be honest, she did not know what to do at all. She knew that she could not help to kill it. She just could not. In fact, it took every ounce of her willpower to force herself to do nothing while Gola silently glided forward through the leaves and branches toward the defenseless animal.

It picked up its head as the raven mocker drew near, and turned to gaze this way and that. January was sure it looked straight at her. She wanted to scream at it to run away, or to dive forward and stop Gola. But she did nothing. This was all her idea after all. This was the sacrifice she had chosen to make.

Then the raven mocker was upon the deer. January saw those claws gleam in the darkness. They were not so much physical, as ethereal. Even without deliberately sensing in the astral, January could feel the energy they were formed of. Or perhaps it was a lack of energy, for they seemed like vortexes that devoured whatever they came into contact with.

Those terrible claws struck deep into the animal's chest. It struggled briefly, and tried to leap away. But Gola held it down with her other arm. It was a remarkable feat of strength, considering how big and strong the beast was. Then her arm drew forth the whitetail's heart, and the deer collapsed to the earth with a crash of leaves and brush.

January looked away as Gola fed from the heart. She could still hear it however, that terrible slurping and gulping. It froze Januarys' chest, and made her stomach turn. More than that, she could feel the power of the deer being drawn into Gola's being, like a black hole absorbing the energy and matter around it. Even without deliberately sensing in the astral, she felt the raven mocker grow in strength and power.

She looked back when Gola was finished. Her monstrous form was gone now, and she was a woman again. But she no longer seemed a frail wisp, easily blown away by the wind. No, she was more substantial now, filled with the weight of power and life. The essence she had eaten from the deer was now plainly imbued within her, so much that her face was no longer lined and creased with age. Instead she looked like a woman in the prime of her life.

"I can feel the years coming back to me now, all those years that had slowly slipped away as I slept." Gola croaked. Her eyes shone brightly in the darkened wood. "You were right, white woman, you were right. Gola can take the years from an animal. Even now, I feel it within me. The energy is simple, not sweet, or refined like a man's. But it is primal, and powerful, so much closer to the natural world. Men are so... anemic in this age, so divorced from the struggle of life and death. While their years can taste rich, in the end they are hollow and empty, like candy. They do not fill one. But this, this makes Gola want to run, and leap, and feel again."

"Umm, good," January forced herself to reply. "That means you don't have to hunt people anymore."

"I do not," Gola declared. "You have given me a gift Crow Woman. Gola does not forget."

"So now what will you do?" January asked. "You cannot go back to the asylum."

"I will never go back," Gola spat. "It is a dark place, of silence, and misery, and despair. I nearly let it devour me, as it has so many others."

"This is where Gola belongs now, among the life of the world." She turned to gaze deeper into the forest. "Perhaps here, I can find my own life again."

"You can find more forest if you go north," January said. "Up North is where most people go to hunt, especially past the bridge. There's a lot of state land up there, and no people to bother you."

"Then that is where Gola shall go, north, as the raven's fly." She turned back to January. "Then perhaps later, she will return to the land of her birth, in the mountains far away."

"That sounds like a great idea." January said. "I've never been Up North. I'd like to see it myself."

"Then come, we go!" Gola leaped into the air, a cross of a raven and human once more. This time her beastly form looked robust and alive. Her head was no longer a skull denuded of flesh. Rather it was a jet black raven's head, layered with thick feathers. Her skin was no longer dried out and withered, but deeply tanned and healthy. The life had clearly returned to her.

She looked down to the dead whitetail, and the wound that gaped in its chest. January told herself that it was no different from her eating a coney dog, or mac and cheese. But it did not feel that way.

I really like the Island Lake Pic 3. Looks so calm and peaceful. A walk in the woods would do me a world of good at this time.

Though I remain nervously aware of the concerns of both Renee and Blood Raven, it seems that January’s gamble on Gola has gone as she had hoped. I was fascinated by Gola’s assessment of the meal as she compared the deer to modern humans – and how the meal ‘rejuvenated’ her.

Jan has never had to hunt prey animals to sustain herself but I imagine this incident may have given her some insight into the cycle of life. That she is not comfortable killing Bambi is totally consistent with both her nature and the age in which she lives. She should not feel badly though. As you know, even Buffy says a prayer for the spirit of a deer (or any prey animal) when she needs to take one.

’January concentrated on her wings instead, and her arms transformed into the limbs of a mighty crow.’
- - I am very possibly mistaken/confused (and please forgive me if that is the case) but I seem to recall Jan has evolved that her wings actually sprout from her back now rather than her arms changing into wings. What sticks in my head is the time she got some carry out chow and held it in her arms as she flew. Did I miss something?

Awesome. Good for her.



Yeah I know. I'd have more compassion for her plight (maybe plight is the wrong word...) if she went after some guy who r4pes his kid(s) every night, or something just as awful. Especially since Gola seems invulnerable to physical attacks from most of us on Earth, it shouldn't matter who she drains life from right? Lions and wolves prey on other animals, but they can take damage themselves while attempting to do so. A stag can kick a lion in the mouth for instance, dislocating the lion's jaw forever. It seems Gola doesn't have to worry about such a defensive attack, until somebody like Jan comes along? Or did I get that wrong?

I am not arguing or anything like that, by the way, just thinking out loud. It is what we'd call a Philosophical Discussion back in our table-gaming days. We'd debate about some monster or situation or whatever. I'm sure you had your own discussions.

Interesting how Jan avoids the coming of Blood Raven. Slowly, the protege is taking flight from the mentor. I like how Gadget must guide her via GPS in the dark.

Finally, I would say feeding off a deer is not the same as eating a Coney Dog. That deer at least got to live in its natural environment, not kept in some cage or pen or whatever. So Jan's intuition is right on, I'd say.

I've been lurking in this forum topic off and on for a little while even though I haven't commented yet, and while I'm still a bit lost as to the overall story (since I am still relatively late to the party) I think I am piecing some of it together. I'm also trying to be wary of asking dumb questions that I should know the answer to.

It's pretty neat getting a feel for a state that I have never been to but would like to visit. I've been to about 40 of the states (though some have really just been passing through, not really visiting much), but Michigan is not one of them.

Also, it's pretty rad that Stormcrow has lightning-based powers. Whenever I hear the question "What superpower would you want to have?" it is always going to be the ability to manipulate electricity for me. There is so much utility and variety, both mundane and extraordinary, that you could do with it. And I used to watch the cartoon Static Shock when I was a kid, which is part of the inspiration.

Yicch, that description of this Gola massacring the deer.



Sounds a bit...Kevorkian-esque? That's not exactly the word I'm looking for (not that that's a real one anyway). And not trying to imply anything about what I think of Kevorkian, but to Renee's point, it does kind of lead to a philosophical discussion. If somebody is in immense physical suffering, would it be better to "put them out of their misery"? Though, taking them off life support or administering medication with a patient's consent is a lot different than consuming their essence. Sounds more like an excuse for her actions. Not to mention that she could be full of it.

macole: That deep and lush forest pic is one I found only recently. So I guess it was a good thing I went looking for more


Acadian: I had to spend some time figuring out what the difference would be between adding human years to adding those of an animal. Eventually I settled on the idea that the latter would more more primal, physical, and inextricably linked the world of nature and action.

Jan is like so many of us now, myself included, who are completely cut off from the production of food. We go to the grocery store and buy chicken nuggets, and that is the nearest we get. But when I was a child I remember my grandmother telling us how when they wanted chicken, her mother would go in the backyard and cut one's head off. So naturally Jan is squeamish about seeing the reality of death like that, even though she understands it intellectually. It is not something that is part of her life at all.

Jan can create both forms of wings. Either as part of her arms, or sprouting separately from her back. She does whichever one suits her at the time. Creating them directly from her arms probably gives her more power and control. While from her back leaves her hands free of course. This was something I spent a lot of time agonizing over - which form would they take. Most superheros do the second method, with them being independent of the arms. But a few have them built in. Then I realized that I did not have to accept the false dichotomy of the proposition. She can have both.


Renee: I know what you are saying. It is a common trope, especially with vampires, to prey upon the "bad" people. Because they deserve it (which gets into a whole other discussion about retributive justice). But Gola has never seen those movies or TV shows. She died in 1830-ish, and it never really entered her mind that she should punish the guilty, or anything of the like. To her, suffering is just suffering, no matter who endures it.

For Gola and her motivations, I started with the actual Native American lore. Which is that Raven Mockers prey upon the old and the sickly. People with little time left. When I think about that, it seems kind of backwards. Logically, if you needed to steal the years off someone else's life to extend your own, it would make more sense to prey upon children. That way you get 70+ years a pop. Which is why I put those words in Avery's mouth.

I personally suspect that these myths were simply created to help people rationalize the painful loss of their loved ones, who were old or sick and naturally, died. But I need Raven Mockers to be a real thing in the Stormcrow world, and I did not want to compromise the real world myths about them if I could avoid doing so. So I looked for a way to rationalize the Raven Mocker's targeting of the old and the sick. That is when it occurred to me that it is the same thing all predators do. So that is why I went that route.

However, I also tried to emphasize that all of her life, this is what Gola had been told that Raven Mockers are supposed to do. You will see it in every Google search you do on Raven Mockers. It is just as much a matter of tradition and enforced social values as it is a matter of magical biology. In fact, it is more tradition and societal pressure than anything else, as Gola's ability to feed off a deer showed. Gola was doing what she had been told she was supposed to do, what she never once questioned. If this fiction is about anything, it is about finding your own truth, even when the rest of the world tries to stop you. So I leaned into this being a personal journey of her own, as Gola finally realizes that she is the only one who can define who and what she is.

Jan is putting off Blood Raven because she has other things to do right now. And she knows that Blood Raven is going to say her piece eventually anyhow. This coming episode in fact.

The deer did at least get to live a normal life. As opposed to the existence of animals in factory-farms, ugh.


RaderOfTheLostArk: You should really go back and start from the start. It is a lot of ground, but everything in the story is built upon what came before.

40 states is a lot to visit. I have only been to a few. The biggest reason I chose to set the story in Metro Detroit is that I know this place. If I tried to set it somewhere else, I know I would invariably run into pitfalls created by my own ignorance. You can look at a map of a place, even look at pictures, but they don't tell you the soul of the place. How people act. Where the rich and poor neighborhoods are. What they eat. How they talk. There is so much about living in a place that you just cannot get from reading books and articles. Honestly, I think I would be better off writing in a completely fictional setting than anywhere other than Detroit because of that.

Stormcrow's lightning abilities are basically just a subset of her elementalism. That is her real focus. She manipulates the elements, often in a metaphorical way rather than an actual direct, physical one. I can see her eventually learning to do more with lightning and electricity in the future. But she will never be as good at it as someone who specializes in just electricity. There is a neat DC supervillain called Livewire who can turn herself into electricity, and travel though electrical wiring to get to pretty much anywhere in the blink of an eye. That would be really cool. So too would being able to control electrical devices, computers, phones, cars, anything with a power source.

Gola's motivations are explained above.






Tulle

Oradour sur Glane

Francs-Tireurs





Book 6.16 - Eloise

"You know you are placing a great wager upon her." Blood Raven's voice pierced the darkness.

January closed her eyes for a moment, then turned to face the other heroine. She had been waiting for her to make an appearance, and say her piece. Scarlet eyes shone in the darkness, and Blood Raven stepped forward, fully into view.

"When she kills again, you shall bear a portion of the responsibility," she insisted.

"If she kills again," January noted. "And yes, I know that. But I have to give her a chance."

"Raven mockers are altogether evil." Blood Raven declared.

"Really," January gestured to the other woman, then up into the black sky into which Gola had vanished. "Pot... kettle."

"Do not compare us," Blood Raven growled. "We are nothing alike."

"How many people have you killed?" January probed. "Tell me, who was Der Teufel von Bellac, and what was the Death of the 2nd SS Panzer?"

"Do not dare to sit in judgment of me!" Blood Raven's voice was a threatening rumble of thunder. She absentmindedly lashed out with a fist, and an oak tree cracked in two. It collapsed with a groan of tortured wood and a whoosh of whirling leaves, only to crash to the earth a moment later.

"You were not there. You did not see what they had done in Tulle, or Oradour, or a thousand other places. I lived it, I buried every one of my friends there!"

"I am not judging you," January said coolly. She would not be intimidated by bullies. She would not be intimidated by Blood Raven. "That is the whole point. I am not judging you. I am not judging her. Why does everything with you have to be such a struggle?"

Blood Raven sighed, and sat down upon the trunk of the tree she had just knocked down. January stepped forward, and joined her on the ersatz bench. She said nothing, and for a long while neither did Blood Raven.

"The 2nd SS Panzer had been in the south of France when the landings took place in Normandy," she began. "We all knew that they would be immediately sent north to counter attack. That single division possessed one tenth of all the German armor west of the Rhine. We were bidden to slow their march in any manner possible, to purchase time for the men on the beaches."

"All of the resistance fighters - the Communists, the DeGaullists, we SOE agents, even the SAS, everyone - moved to block them. I was carrying dispatches to groups in the Plateau de Millevaches to the east. By the time I returned the Nazis had already murdered hundreds of innocent civilians in Tulle, and slaughtered far more in Oradour. The latter was too much, even for me. It was not war. It was not even reprisals. It was pure murder. It was the last time I allowed the beast in me free reign."

"I caught up with them outside of Bellac," Blood Raven explained. "They were strung out for miles across different roads. It was their reconnaissance battalion that I encountered first. When they realized what was happening, they began to send their panzer grenadiers after me, and their meta-humans."

"They had metas?" January wondered aloud.

"Of course," Blood Raven said. "Since Grognard and the Red Baron in the Great War, every army has. The Das Reich division was special, so they possessed three. I ripped the blood from their bodies and used it as missiles to pierce the half tracks."

"Their panzers did not join the fight until the third day. They had been on trains to the west. But the flatcars had been sabotaged by the cheminots - the rail workers - who had destroyed the axle bearings of the cars. So they detrained and came east for me. I wrought their ruin before night fell. After that, there was nothing but a few stragglers left to hunt down. By then the Francs-Tireurs who had previously taken Tulle and abandoned it had returned. Between us, only a handful of the fascists managed to escape."

"When I was finally myself again - when my fury had abated - I was horrified," Blood Raven stared down at her hands, as if they were still covered in blood. "I left the SOE, simply disappeared, and allowed them to think I was dead with all the others. In the years that followed I became a nurse - a profession I had much previous experience in - and tried to ease suffering rather than be its author. As if that could wipe the stain from my soul. I was still in Belgium when I learned of the Abyssal summonings in Los Angeles, and returned to America to witness the end of your great-grandfather Jack."

"We are all monsters here. We all have things in our past we regret," January said honestly. Though granted, killing fifteen thousand people was a doozy. But it was war, and she just as honestly knew that someone as privileged as she was, had no right to cast aspersions on anyone who had experienced that. Would she do better, were she forced into the same circumstances? January did not know.

"Seeing those neo-Nazis last week must have been a trigger for all that," January noted. "But you never lost control of yourself then, either Saturday or Sunday. That must have taken an effort of will."

"You have no idea," Blood Raven breathed. "Seeing those swastikas... it still makes my blood boil."

"Anger can be a good thing," January said. "When we don't let it control us, it drives us to make real, positive change in the world. It is what shakes us out of our complacency. It's the reason we are not all British citizens right now. Granted, I don't know if we are better or worse off for that..."

"But when we do not control it, when it controls us instead, then it makes us no different from Nazis," Blood Raven frowned. "I was no different from them on the road to Bellac. I was worse. I was the devil. Selene's Heirs must always guard against the beast within us, just as ordinary humans."

"You controlled it last week," January insisted. "You were a better person. I have to believe that we all have the power in us to change, to make ourselves the people we want to be in our hearts. Transitioning taught me that."

"January, once I would have described you as benevolent," Blood Raven turned to look her in the eyes. "But now I see you are ambitious. You are determined to remake the world, one person at a time."

"But even your will cannot change people," Blood Raven's gaze turned to the sky. There above, Gola wheeled among the stars. Red sparks trailed behind her wings, making her easy to pick out within the firmament. "They shall not be what you want them to, no matter how much you wish it."

"I don't want to change people," January insisted. "I only believe that everyone deserves a second chance. I know we all make mistakes. I think we all deserve to make them right again, and remake ourselves into someone better, like I have been trying to do since I transitioned."

"I fear your heart shall be broken, if you continue to fill it with such ideals," Blood Raven said.

"I'm a trans person living in America," January noted. "My heart was broken a long time ago."

"I often think you deserve to wear this cape far more than I do," Blood Raven mused. "Perhaps when all of this business with the Summoner is put to rest, it shall be time for me to move on. I should very much like to go back to nursing once more, or teaching. Both are noble callings."

"What?" January realized that her jaw was dropping to the earth. "You can't give up. You're... you're, you're Blood Raven! You've been our city's only hope for fifty years. You were my inspiration as a child."

"You are the inspiration our city needs," Blood Raven said. "I suspected as much the first time I set eyes upon you. I know it now."

She rose to her feet, prompting January to follow. "Now go, and shepherd Gola to a new life. Give her the opportunity to change who she is. We may speak more of this later, should you so desire."

With that, Blood Raven was a red scar, fading into the night sky.

Thanks for the clarification on the flexible deployment of Stormcrow’s wings – very handy when she wants to fly out for some take out.

I learned a new word: ‘ersatz’.

A wonderful episode that accomplished many things. Even with Blood Raven’s opening comment, I once again admired your consistent discipline in crafting her speech to suit her perfectly. I’m sure Blood Raven must be great fun and a great challenge as well to write.

January continues to grow – here she stands up to the tree-snapping older heroine to hold her ground without hesitation.

"Raven mockers are altogether evil." Blood Raven declared.
"Really," January gestured to the other woman, then up into the black sky into which Gola had vanished. "Pot... kettle."
- -

"January, once I would have described you as benevolent," Blood Raven turned to look her in the eyes. "But now I see you are ambitious. You are determined to remake the world, one person at a time."
- - Quoted for truth.

As Blood Raven recounted the results of her anger unleashed during WWII, I am reminded of Buffy’s meeting with Azura where the Daedric Lord confesses to wiping out the entire Dwemer Race and to, much later, dropping most of Winterhold into the freezing Sea of Ghosts. As Jan would say, ‘doozies’! And like Azura, thanks to the influence of a young protégé, Blood Raven has grown from her past displays of temper. I quite loved this whole interchange between the two heroines.

And like the first sentence of this episode, the last was crafted with equal care and effect to display the power and mystery that is Blood Raven as she makes a dramatic departure.

Acadian-- I knew the word ersatz, somehow, but I always come across new words in these stories y'all write, too.

Rosa-- See, that's what I mean about philosophical discussion. We're getting deeper into Gola and her motivations, that's for sure.

I apologize if I sound like I am suggesting what Gola "should" be doing, that is not my intention. I would love it if (for once) there is a monster who actually preys upon somebody who really inflicts pain upon innocents. If this is a common trope, I am afraid I've missed those movies, or stories.

Nice. Blood Raven going for some disagreement about the Gola situation as well. And that's almost somebody calling the kettle black (whatever the saying is) since Branwen herself often borders upon what a lot of folks would define as Evil.



I love that part. Raven has actual experience here, while Jan is almost cutesy with her response ... "but she promised not to cause harm to people!" (paraphrased)

Whoa. "Pot ... kettle". I swear I did not read that just til now. As always, I'm commenting as I'm reading (my short-term memory is bad). Jan and I have the same mind, here.

I am not agreeing that what Blood Raven did to those troops is Evil. Or if it is, it's the lesser of two evils, for sure. It was a necessary evil. So in this way, that is an example of somebody punishing somebody else who inflicts pain upon innocents. There we go.

The ending of this sub-chapter does give an odd hint which foreshadows what sounds to be Branwen's departure from the forefront, so I am equally in shock as Jan, here. But I also understand. Blood Raven is not as in-touch with the pulse of Detroit. She does things partially for HER motivations first, whereas I think Jan is definitely more selfless.

Acadian: Your question about the wings gave me an opportunity to flesh out the situation directly in today's episode. So I am glad you brought it up.

I think I learned about ersatz from reading the autobiography of a guy (well, a 'chap' since he was English) in WW2, when he talked about making ersatz coffee in his tank in North Africa.

Blood Raven is both great fun, and a huge challenge to write.

I am glad the Pot - Kettle comment is playing. I worked a while before I found that.

Blood Raven's revelation that January is not merely benevolent, but ambitious has been a long time coming. A while ago I was thinking how I might describe her with one word. Benevolence or Compassion were ones that immediately sprang to my mind. But the more I thought about it, the more and more Ambitious rose to the fore. January is not content to simply live in the world, she is committed to making it better.

One thing I like about writing Blood Raven is that she is not morally pure. She's pretty problematic. He mother and father literally owned people, and she grew up thinking that was just normal. She has spent a long time evolving over her unlife, and that gives me a lot of opportunities to sow in hard lessons she has learned. Not to say that she is lacking in compassion or empathy. She holds both in great store. But she has had a long journey of self-realization to get there.



Renee: No worries. The whole tropes of the Vegetarian Vampire and the Vampire Detective are usually founded on the idea of vampires who only prey upon criminals. The movie Innocent Blood uses this. The vampire in it only kills mobsters. Another is Monster Adventurers, and Predator Turned Protector

Blood Raven is always disagreeable! Well, not always. But she is good for interjecting conflict into January's often morally direct compass. Blood Raven herself does indeed fit the tropes above of the monsters who preys upon "evil". Of course the men in the SS whom she killed believed they were doing exactly the same thing when they killed nearly a thousand civilians.

Blood Raven has been doing this for 50 years. That is a very long time for anyone. Now that someone like January has finally risen, the thought that she could be her successor must come as a great relief to Blood Raven.











White Phosphor Night Vision

Retributive Justice

As always Charleviox and Garden Island are on the Stormcrow Map

Yoopers and Pasties

Garden Island

Spirit House pic



Book 6.17 - Eloise

The flight north was a long one. Hundreds of miles swept past under January's wings. If nothing else, it was great practice. She had literally never flown so long or so far before. Even all of her practice sessions put together could not add up to the length of this one flight. January tried to make the most of it. She concentrated on her form. Years of gymnastics helped. It was like performing an iron cross without needing the rings to hold herself up. She fell back on all those years of work to keep her body a slender, aerodynamic missile that darted through the sky.

Then there were her wings, those glorious, glorious crow's wings. They beat up and down, without her needing to consciously direct each sweep. Thanks to Lighthammer, she had built good habits. She understood how to create negative pressure under her wings. She knew how to use air currents, and updrafts, and gravity to her advantage.

January even found that when she created the wings directly from her arms, her speed and agility increased. She imagined that she was more aerodynamic for one thing. But she also suspected that fusing them with her original limbs simply gave them more raw power. On the other hand, it was nice to be able to make them sprout independently from her back when she needed to. Sometimes a girl wanted her hands free for carry-out after all.

So her wings became her passport as she soared through the black Michigan skies. The stars glowed high above, and there was not a cloud in sight. Below her the land stretched out in rolling hills, dense carpets of forest, and wide patches of open farmland. Without the night vision from her winged helmet it all would have been nothing but an inky stain, like black paint tossed across a canvas. She never would have been able to tell where the horizon began, or the earth ended. Once again, she was thankful for Gadget's gadgeteering. She did not know what she would do without him.

The landscape was tinted blue-white by the night vision, lending it an almost surreal look. Islands of light blossomed here and there, revealing cities and towns. Glowing serpents of roadways wound between them. Most notable was Interstate 75, which made its way ever northward, just as they did. Soon other highways passed by underneath as well, but they were smaller, narrower, less illuminated or populated.

The farther north they went, the more and more rare the lights of towns and streets became. The land up here was older, rougher, and wilder. The footprints of humanity's passage were far lighter. Soon January began to feel as if she had passed into another world, far removed from the concrete and steel of Metro-Detroit.

Through it all January was keenly aware of her companion on this night flight. Gola said little on their sojourn, and January did not pry. She literally could not imagine what this might feel like for the raven mocker. January had no idea what being her was like. She was a Cherokee woman from a different era, who had literally died and transformed into... something else.

But January reminded herself that she had also literally transformed into something else as well, even if not in so dramatic a fashion. Likewise, Blood Raven was a person from a different age, who had also gone beyond death and life, into a new realm of being. Being different was not something that bothered January.

But it had not escaped her attention that Gola had literally been about to murder that man in the wheelchair, in order to steal the life he had remaining to him. The medicine-woman turned raven had certainly succeeded in doing so in the past. How many deaths lay at her feet? How many more? January had shown her that she need not prey upon people. But would Gola ever be tempted to go back?

January knew that she would be responsible if Gola did. Yet at the same time, she knew that everyone was capable of killing. She could not arrest everyone just because they could commit evil acts.

But not everyone had tried to rip out a man's heart and eat it either.

January did not need Gadget or Blood Raven to argue with. Clearly, she could do that with herself just as easily. In the end she was faced with the two poles of retribution or forgiveness. She was certainly no fan of retributive justice. Ultimately that was geared toward putting people into prison for any excuses. In the end it created a nation of incarceration. Not to mention that it was rooted in anger and hate. It was about deciding that certain people deserved to suffer. As someone who had faced her own share of suffering, at the hands of those who felt morally justified in meting it out, January was none too keen on passing that along to another.

For that matter, could Gola even be put into a prison? There was the Super Max of course. But could she survive there? It was not like she could eat beans and toast. If she did, would not incarceration simply turn her bachelor's degree in occasional murder into a doctoral in monstrosity? That was the syllabus of prisons, meta-human or not.

January had already said more than once that she was not about putting people into prison. Now her words came back to her. Gola would have a second chance, even though her victims had never gotten the same. January could not go back in time to save them, any more than she could save the countless millions who died in wars and famines over the last century alone. She just had to accept that, and hope that what she was doing now was for the better rather than the worse.

Nearly two hours had passed when the land beneath them abruptly vanished. The bright lights of a city faded away behind her and to the right. Ahead were the dark waters of Lake Michigan. The horizon was a black line from which stars crawled into the sky. She could feel the humidity from the water in the air, and hear the waves gently lapping below.

"That was Charleviox you just passed," Gadget's voice leaped into her ear. "You're over the lake now. Da UP is just ahead, eh?" Like every Michigander, he pronounced it "You-P" of course. January laughed every time someone from out of state called it the "up".

"I'll say hi to da Yoopers eh," January breathed. "Maybe I'll stop off and get some pasties while I am at it."

"Mmmm, hot off the miner's shovel, just the way we like it," Gadget murmured.

"What are these islands up ahead?" January wondered aloud. They were lighter stains against the black sheet of Lake Michigan. A few glowed with tiny spots of illumination. But most were splotches of trees rising above the dark waters.

"That big one ahead with all the lights is Beaver Island," Gadget said. January heard his keyboard clacking away in the background. "Has an airstrip, and even a town in the north-east corner."

"What about the other ones, like those two north of it?" January wondered. While the signs of civilization on Beaver Island were plain to see from above, she saw no lights from the others nearby.

"That is Hog Island and Garden Island to the north," Gadget noted. "Both are abandoned. Same with the little postage stamp islands around them. You thinking this would be a good crib for your new friend?"

"Not many people are likely to bother her here," January said. Or tempt her. But she kept the latter thought to herself.

She turned to Gola and whistled. The raven woman turned to face her. Her head was a raven's, girded in a halo of indigo feathers, with eyes that glowed from an inner fire. January nodded toward the islands, and nosed down toward them. The raven mocker nodded in reply, and followed her down.

January came down upon what Gadget told her was Garden Island. It lay directly north of the populated Beaver Island. Its coast was an irregular patchwork of bays and peninsulas. Trees covered nearly everything, save for a few small lakes that dotted its interior. January found the irony of that amusing. It was an island, in a lake, with smaller lakes nestled within it in turn.

"Looks like there were some Native Americans living here, but they all moved away." Gadget noted. "There was a sawmill, but it closed down about a hundred years ago. It's been abandoned ever since, and is all state land now. It says there is a Native American cemetery that is still in use however."

"I think we found it," January said as she came down to land beside Gola. The other woman had taken the lead, and brought them to earth near the largest lake in the island. Evergreens rose all around. It took all of January's skill and concentration to navigate her way through the trees and safely to the ground. Gola, however, slipped through the trees as if it were literal child's play. January had to remind herself that the raven woman had literally been flying for centuries.

The ground below the trees was sparsely furnished with undergrowth. In some cases leafy bushes sprouted in miniature forests. But most of the floor was simply dirt and pine needles, only occasionally dotted with underbrush.

Scattered all over were tiny buildings, like log cabins built by pixies. Most could not have been much more than a foot tall. But other than that, they looked no different from any wooden home. All had an open doorway at the end, and some even bore shingled roofs. All were weathered with age, and many were overgrown with moss.

"Spirit houses," Gola breathed. "The dead sleep all about us."

January felt an icy shiver run up her spine. She might have been a big, bad superhero. But it was still eerie to stand in a burial ground in the middle of the night, especially one as unusual as this. She could not shake the feeling that she did not belong here. That it was not right for her to stand in this place.

The raven mocker did not seem to be bothered by any of this in the slightest. Instead, she walked among the houses of the dead, and began to sing in a tongue that January could not understand. January followed her, and tried to be respectful of the departed. Finally Gola turned to her with a smile.

"I should like this place very much," Gola declared. "I will abide here."

"Ok, that's good, I guess," January said. She had the urge to rub the back of her neck, the way Gadget did when he was nervous. "Just remember that people still do come here sometimes. You have to watch out for them."

"They will never see me," Gola insisted. "They never saw me at the other place, the dark place. Here the world is alive again. The trees grow, the sky glows, the waters lap and flow. I will sing to the dead, and tell them stories of my people. Perhaps they will tell me stories of their own?"

"Ok, then I suppose my work here is done," January said. "I'll be back to check on you, to make sure you are ok."

January reached into one of her pockets of her utility belt, and fished out a burner phone. She handed it to the raven mocker, who stared at it as if January had plucked it from the moon. January forgot that she probably had no idea what wireless phones were. So she was obliged to show her how to flip it open and use the speed dial. Yes, it was so cheap it was a flip-phone. The only thing it was good for was making calls and sending texts. There was only one number stored on it, her Stormcrow line. So there was little to go wrong with it. At least January hoped.

"If you are ever in any trouble, especially with people, call me," January insisted. "If you ever get the urge to... eat people... call me. I'll come, and we'll sort it out, and no one will get hurt. That includes you Gola. I am here for you now too."

Gola looked down. January could swear that she looked guilty. The raven mocker slid the dirt around under her feet, before she finally spoke again.

"You should know, that you are not the only medicine worker Gola has seen today," she began haltingly. "The one who woke me from my slumber, he worked magic as well. A powerful worker he was, a powerful worker."

"Who," January felt her hackles rise. She had a bad feeling that she knew exactly who it was. "Who woke you? What was his name?"

"He gave no name," Gola explained. "He wanted me to go with him, and serve him. He promised me many hearts, lifetimes of hearts, years without end. All I need do was bend my knee to him, and fight for him. He said he was gathering many slayers to his cause, and that I would enjoy a favored place at his side."

"What did he look like?" January pressed. "What was he wearing?"

"He was a white man, like you," Gola said. "His head was bald, and his girth was wide. But his heart was dark, terrible, filled with poison. It was as if your President Jackson walked the earth again."

"What did you do?" By now January was not surprised at the reference to Andrew Jackson. Gadget had filled her in on the flight north. President Jackson had driven her people out of their lands and out west onto the Trail of Tears. That was something that she did remember. She had even learned it in school, of all places. January imagined that he was the most terrible figure a Cherokee could imagine, a true Dark Lord.

"I would not go with him," Gola shook her head for emphasis. "I knew he was lying to me. I knew he would use me to kill, and then kill me in turn. I will never take lives for a white man's ambition. I only do what I must to survive."

"What did he do then?" January asked.

"He was angry," Gola said, "terribly angry. I think he would have tried to kill me. But we heard noises. Others had ventured within the building. They filled the darkness with their lights and voices. He did not wish to be seen. So he went."

"How did he go?" January asked. "Did he walk? Did he fly?"

"Nay," Gola shook her head again. "He just... vanished. He did something to the world around him. He pulled it close, and wrapped it about him like a blanket. He rode the folds in the cloth, and went from here, to somewhere else."

"He can teleport," Gadget said in her ear. "That is why we can't spot him on any traffic cams or ride share databases. The Summoner is a teleporter."

"Thank you Gola," January reached out and took the raven mocker's bony hands within her own. "This helps us immensely. If there is anything else you can think of, call me. Any time, call me. I will be here."

* * *

Well you heard it here first folks, Michigan's most famous cape is in the news again. This is Gilda Gadfly of Worldwide Network News, with all the super stories fit to print, gab, and gossip about. No, I am not referring to her gigantic splash into politics with the mind-numbing reveal that she is transgender. You can refer to my previous cast that goes in depth into all the fallout from that: the good, the bad, and the ugly.

The world was still reeling from that particular shockwave when a group of paranormal investigators went exploring an old, abandoned asylum in Westland, Michigan. Now what could go wrong with that idea? Well a ghost did. Yes, you heard it, the people on the scene not only said they were attacked by a ghost, two Wayne County Deputy Sheriffs also corroborate it. One even claims that the pugnacious poltergeist cast a sleep spell on him!

Who are you going to call? Well you know who they did call, our favorite corvid from Detroit, that's who. She went into the haunted sanitarium as darkness fell, and did battle with the scary spookster. Korean War veteran James Henry says the ghost was about to eat him, when Stormcrow swept in and went hand to hand with the foul fiend. As you can see from these pics of the aftermath, it was quite a tussle! Mr. Henry sends his thanks to the Crow, and to his wife for making him wear his brown pants that day... The owner of the property and leader of the paranormal tour - Diego Islas - says this has not deterred him from redeveloping the old house of horror. Quite the opposite he says, and he cannot wait to transform it into a new hotel and start booking stays and parties for paranormal adventurers.

Stormcrow appears to have exorcised the angry spirit, for all was quiet afterward. Her fellow Blackbird Blood Raven appeared at the scene later to say that all was well, and that the ghost had been settled. When asked what she felt about Stormcrow's dramatic coming out, well, listen to her own words: "Stormcrow's courage, and her compassion, are an inspiration for me, as they should be for all of us. I am proud to stand with her." There you have it folks, an unequivocal vote of support from Detroit's oldest superhero. It is also an equally eloquent admission that these two Blackbirds are indeed an official team.

As for the elusive Crow herself, well she vanished into the night without a word after the spiritual smackdown was over. So it appears she is picking up a few habits from her corvid ally and possible mentor... However, she was spotted hours later in Charlevoix. For those who don't know Michigan, that is on the other side of the state. She kicked back at a local pizzeria and enjoyed a slice on the sidewalk patio. As ever, the kindly Crow took selfies with fans before flying off into the night. She may be a bird of a different feather, but this reporter is glad she is out there fighting for us.

Great description of Andrew Jackson. the history book in grade school clean him up more than just a little, IMO.

Depends on where it is being taught, but I agree that his history is sanitized somewhat in some cases. And while I generally avoid publicly saying anything that can be misconstrued as partisan, ideological, controversial, etc., I don't think it's controversial to say that Andrew Jackson was a terrible person. He's undeniably one of the more impactful presidents we have ever had, and sometimes the whole dueling thing can make for funny jokes, but his bad qualities far outweigh his good.

Historians sometimes say that Jackson was the first president to truly "establish the power of the executive," in what sounds like they generally think is somewhat in a good way, but I don't exactly agree. He went way over the top in that regard, though he's far from the only president to do that. Jackson clearly had no respect for separation of powers, a key foundation to our system of government, when he defied the Supreme Court and ushered in the Trail of Tears. Even racial issues aside, that's a particularly excessive abuse of power.

Jackson was also a raging nepotist in how he awarded government positions. He was one in an infinitely long list of politicians who called themselves outsiders and common people--and he had the credibility to claim that before becoming president--yet became the very thing they claimed to fight against. This is one of my biggest pet peeves in politics, and there are A LOT of those.

My memory is a bit hazy since I haven't studied Andrew Jackson in a long time, and it's not like he didn't have any positive contributions that he made. But I digress.

’January even found that when she created the wings directly from her arms, her speed and agility increased. She imagined that she was more aerodynamic for one thing. But she also suspected that fusing them with her original limbs simply gave them more raw power. On the other hand, it was nice to be able to make them sprout independently from her back when she needed to. Sometimes a girl wanted her hands free for carry-out after all.’
- - Great explanation and observations.

Yup, Gadget’s gadgeteering comes in darn handy! Nice to include a vid that shows blue-white NVG lighting instead of the green that I am used to.

’The land up here was older, rougher, and wilder. The footprints of humanity's passage were far lighter.’
- - Very nicely phrased.

As Stormcrow and her wingwoman approached their landing zone we are reminded that, despite the Stormcrow’s still growing skill as an aviatrix, there are still those out there who outclass her in the air. The observation is encouraging since it is clear that Gola could have given her escort the slip anytime she desired. But chose to stay with her new feathered friend.

A valuable revelation from Gola that helps refocus us back to Jan’s search for that elusive summoner.

How appropriate to finish with another broadcast from our gabby gossipcaster – including a most welcome public endorsement of the Stormcrow by Blood Raven.

Thanks for the links. In my roleplay with Lord Haaf-Mersey years ago, Serana (whom LHM traveled with, even though he's supposed to be Lawful Good) was acting sort of like a vegetarian vampire, then.

I'd imagine flying for hours would be tiring, since we as humans aren't made to have our arms splayed out for all that time, keeping us from falling. Actually, it's probably similar to swimming. Constantly using her arms.

And that does happen when we fly at night (in a plane). In rural areas there will be these little orange or blueish-white dots (sulfur or halide lights), especially as we go further west. Those are entire towns!

How high do you estimate she's flying?
I like the way Jan feels awkward about being in that burial ground. I get that.

That's funny. Jan hands the raven mocker a cell phone, but no charger! Doesn't sound like there is any electrical outlets nearby either, not that Gola would know how to use one without shocking herself.

I like the end. So Gola actually sees this Summoner dude. Hmm, blonde hair. I'm wondering now if this is somebody who has already appeared in the story.

Gadfly cracks me up.

macole: Shockingly enough my Junior High School history teacher actually taught us about the Trail of Tears. But I do not remember if he went into detail about how the Supreme Court said it was illegal, and Jackson just ignored them.


RaderOfTheLostArk: The American History Tellers podcast had a series on what they called the Age of Jackson, that was about not only him, but his contemporaries. He was a great example of a Dark Lord.


Acadian: I am used to the fuzzy green night vision as well. So I was pleasantly surprised to find we have this turquoise colored option now, which seems to be much higher in resolution.

I had not really thought that Gola could have easily outflew January if she wanted to and just escaped. But it is a good observation, because it is true. I did absolutely mean to show that Gola was the better aviator. One thing I want to avoid is January seeming to be omnipotent, which is so easy in this genre. So I always try to look for comparisons to other characters who are superior to her at one thing or another.

I often times picture Gilda Gadfly with a stereotypical 20's broadcaster voice.


Renee: I noted a long while back that Serana is only a vampire because the game tells us so. She never has to drink blood, or otherwise do anything vampire-like in the game. She is just a magician with glowing eyes.

It probably would be extremely tiring to fly like that. But January's Endurance score is massive. She is tougher than rawhide.

I have not really thought about how high she flies. Not being a pilot, I do not have any real way to gauge what might be appropriate. Sometimes I wish I had a drone, just so I could see what things around here look like from high up. We do not have mountains in Michigan, or really many tall buildings other than those in a few places like Downtown Detroit, so she would not really need to go very far up. I don't see her as going thousands of feet up like jet airplanes. She probably would not go much higher than the Ren Cen, if even that much. The wiki says it is 750 feet including the antenna. So I imagine around there.

You are right, no charger! Maybe I can address that in a future episode, and have January make a trip up there to give her a Gadgeteered solar-powered phone charger.

The Summoner might be someone we have already seen in the story...








Ravi Prasad is played by Rahul Kohli

Amy Nixon is played by Cynthia Nixon

Detroitium tee

Three Wil Wheaton tee


Book 7.1 - Hammer Down

June 16-25, 2019

"What's pinning the tales on my crows!" a man belted out in a decidedly English accent. January looked at him through their shared ZAAM video-conferencing software. His high cheekbones and soft brown eyes were definitely what Avery would describe as handsome. So too the thick shock of hair that rose atop his head in an inky black wave. His neatly-trimmed beard added a dash of maturity to his otherwise youthful features. But not so much that it made him look truly old.

"Welcome to the Crow Tales Podcast," he continued. "The podcast that picks up the literary feathers left behind by none other than Stormcrow herself, and tries to assemble them all into a fully flying... feathered... thing... I kind of lost the thread there at the end. But that's because I'm Ravi Prasad, programmer by day, and also host of PodGeek by night. Now I'm butchering the introduction to the Crow Tales Cast here in my secret lair, located somewhere in the depths of the London Underground."

"And I am Amy Nixon, arts and culture host and correspondent for NPR in Chicago," came a woman with a husky voice. Her fiery orange locks were barely contained in a ruffled crop that was parted on one side. It reminded January of David Bowie. As did the way she seemed to glow with a roseate light.

"And I am Patricia Fine, feminist writer for Vanity Bazaar here in the Big Apple." Another female voice came out, this one somewhat bland and ordinary compared to the others. It belonged to a woman with long, straight blond hair parted down the center of her scalp, and a somewhat severe look.

"Today we have a special surprise," Ravi said. "Not only is this our first video edition of the podcast, but we also have our very first special guest star making an appearance on the cast. Welcome to none other than the author whose work we are reviewing today - January Ward!"

Ravi then proceeded to make a really bad impression of an air horn sound. That left Amy fighting, and failing, to contain a chuckle. Patricia merely rolled her eyes, and looked like she would rather be somewhere else.

January felt her heart pounding in her chest, like a dinosaur locked in far-too small of a cage. It took a conscious effort not to lick her lips, or run her hand through her hair, or fall into any other nervous tics. Her mouth felt dry as Arrakis, while her palms were so damp that she rubbed them against the sides of her yoga pants. Thankfully that was off the screen.

She stared into the webcam perched atop her computer's screen. She knew that this was no different from standing up in front of a class of martial arts students. Nor was it any different from speaking to a bunch of comic book enthusiasts at the library. In fact, it was probably closer to the latter. She had done those things and survived. She could guest on a podcast.

Besides, didn't everyone want to be on a podcast these days?

January had to admit that part of her was excited. The very fact that this podcast existed, and followed the Crow Tales blog that she put out as Stormcrow was incredibly flattering. When she had put her own novelette - This Spell for Hire - on Crow Tales she had merely hoped for some publicity. She had never expected to be interviewed by anyone. Let along a famous podcaster like Ravi (well famous among gamers, techies, and other nerds at least), and serious journalists such as Amy and Patricia.

The whole thing was a heady experience. She had to force herself to relax, and let part of her elemental mantra flow through her head.

Air give me quickness in body and wit. Let the weights of the world fall from me.

"Hi!" she bubbled in her perky phone voice. She wanted to kick herself. She was supposed to sound serious, reserved, or at least like a grown-up.

"I'm January, which I guess everyone already knows," January babbled. She tried to save herself by throwing the attention elsewhere, and glanced down at the divided screen on her monitor. "What is that you're wearing Ravi?"

"Well I am glad you asked that brilliant and incisive question," the young man practically preened. He stood up, and pulled at the sides of his shirt so the image emblazoned across its surface could be clearly seen. It was a picture of Stormcrow leaping into the sky, with a bolt of lightning cracking down behind her. Just so there was no doubt who it depicted, the name "Stormcrow" was written in huge letters across the top.

"This is my new Stormcrow tee," Ravi beamed.

"Cool!" January stared in amazement. "I didn't know there was such a thing?"

"Couple of blokes I know down the block cracked them out," he explained. "They are the bee's knees."

"I'm surprised that anyone in the UK would even know who Stormcrow is," January mused. "I really thought she was just a Michigan thing."

"Everyone knows who Stormcrow is," Amy interjected. "Seriously, I live here in Chicago, the literal headquarters of the Sentinels. But I see more cosplay, shirts, and art of Stormcrow than of anyone else. She's almost as popular as pizza, almost."

"Well, pizza is pretty popular," January admitted. Before she knew it, the Detroiter in her got the better of her. "Even that stuff you people in Chicago call pizza..."

"Whoa, did I just hear the gauntlet being thrown!" Ravi boomed with delight. "Here it is people, Pizza Deathmatch, Chicago vs. Detroit: Fight!"

"I didn't mean it like that," January begged off. "I really didn't. We have some Chicago-style pizza places here in the D. It's good, even if it's not real pizza."

"Oh, it is so on girl," Amy declared, her head did that sideways shimmy that January had never been able to master. "You come out to Chicago, and we'll go to Labrolla's on Michigan Ave for deep dish, or to the Bungalow for the best thin crust in the world. I guarantee you will eat your words."

"I would love to eat those words," January smiled, "quite literally in fact." She thanked all the goddesses that were holy that Amy had appeared to be taking her words in good cheer, rather than as an insult. "But you have to come out here and try some deep dish from Festival Pizza. It's a little mom and pop place just across the street from me. They have a deep dish round that is just incredible. The crust is just, mmm, magnificent."

"Ahh, pizza battles, the only wars where the only way to lose, is not to play," Ravi mused. "Oh, and I did not get to ask yet, but what is that you are wearing?"

"Oh, this is my Detroitium tee." Now it was January's turn to stand up to show off her attire. It was just a plain white women's tee, that hugged her frame snugly. A square was drawn out in black across the chest, as for an element on the periodic table. The number 313 was written in one corner, and the letters "Dt" displayed prominently in the center. Finally the word "Detroitium" was written in much smaller letters underneath, along with the date 7.24.1701 in decimal format.

"That is brilliant!" Ravi crowed. "What are those numbers for?"

"Well, 313 is the area code of Detroit proper," January explained. "Out here in the 'burbs it is 248 or 516, and a few others. The date is when the city was founded by Antoine Cadillac."

"So you don't actually live in Detroit," Patricia interjected.

"Not technically," January fought back a frown. "I am in Sterling Heights at the moment, though I lived in Warren most of my life."

"So you're not really a Detroiter than are you?" Patricia continued.

Now January did frown, and could not stop from bunching up her eyebrows in consternation.

"How can I explain this to you?" she searched for the words. "If I tell people from out of state that I am from Warren, they look at me and say WTF? If I tell them I am from Detroit, they say 'Oh!' And the fact is that while I may sleep in a suburb, I spend a lot of time in the city. I'll probably be going to school there soon. My fate, economically, socially, politically, is tied to that of the D. There is no escaping it."

"Well yes," Amy agreed. "I live in Stickney, but I am a Chicagoan the same as any other."

"Aye," Ravi chimed in. "My secret lair is in Greater London, but not the City of London proper. Nobody has ever heard of Harrow..."

Patricia said nothing in return, and Amy spoke up to fill the growing silence.

"Getting to your story, and the whole reason you are on the podcast, I would like to say that first off, I was really impressed with the world-building you undertook. The city of Veia really comes alive in your descriptions, as does its multi-cultural inhabitants. At first blush it might seem like your ordinary 'Merry Olde England' Fantasy setting. But as we dig deeper, it is far more Mediterranean in feel, with interjections of African, Native American, Scandinavian, and even Asian cultures, all intermixed in this sprawling cross-roads city."

Now this was an easy question to answer, and January soon lost herself in talking about how she looked for inspiration from many different real world cultures such as the Etruscans, Numidians, Koreans, and many, many others to build her world.

Soon the conversation moved to the story itself, and the characters.

"I really liked that your two main characters are motivated by having to pay off their college loans," Ravi noted. "That was a something that is so easy to relate to."

"While I am not trans, as a lesbian I found myself quite readily relating to Aela, and her BEF - 'Best Elf Friend' - Loria," Amy added. "I think the strongest part of the story was these two characters, the issues they struggle against, their friendship, and the humor and just positive reinforcement they interject into each other's lives. They are two halves of the same person. They really sang from the page to me."

"I had some... thoughts on that," Patricia noted. "I found Aela be a bit too Mary Sue'ish. He seems to be really powerful compared to other characters, even to Loria. He also handles himself all too confidentially and easily. It is like he knows he has plot armor, so is never truly worried anything can hurt him."

"First of all, it's 'she'," January forced herself to speak through gritted teeth. "Second of all, I thought I made it quite plain that one reason Aela and Loria complemented one another so well, was because neither was adept in the other's spheres of magic. Loria could no more heal someone or create a magical shield, any more than she could throw a fireball or enchant a ring. Aela is very good at what she does, but that is only a few things really. It is what happens when you don't have a social life, and spend all of your time practicing your craft instead. Aela's life, and making it truly her own, very much depends on her magic. She knew that from childhood, and so she made that her one focus in everything she ever did."

"If Aela is a Mary Sue, then so am I!" Amy declared. "I would like to think I am a decent writer and talk show host, thanks to making those things my life. But just like Aela, there are an awful lot of things I could never do."

"To be honest, I see the term 'Mary Sue' thrown around a lot," Ravi chimed in. "Usually by males who are terrified by any female character who is not a damsel in distress or a trophy to be won. Yet you never see it applied to much more dramatically overpowered characters who just happen to be male. To be honest, when I hear it now it just tells me that this must be an interesting character, one with a personality and driving force of her own, rather than someone who is defined by her relation to the male characters around her."

"I really liked how Aela is driven by her desire to physically change her body," Amy added. "It gives her a very grounded, intimately personal reason for becoming the best magician she can be. It is so she can be herself. She is not driven by power, or greed, or nationalism, or even just plain old self-aggrandizement. She just wants to be the person on the outside, that she sees on the inside. I cannot think of a more humanist approach to writing a magic-wielding character."

"I found that was a bit too much wish fulfillment," Patricia argued. "A man using magic to change himself into a woman is still a man. Honestly, I found it particularly disturbing."

"Aela is not a man," January practically growled. "She is a trans person yes. She simply did not have the privilege of being born perfect, as you apparently were."

"Men cannot change into women," Patricia stated bluntly. "Worse, encouraging them to think they can is dangerous, even in fiction. Not to mention it is unfair and unsafe to real women to allow men into their spaces."

"What the..." Ravi murmured. January could see he looked genuinely stunned in the little box he resided within in the video conferencing software. Amy looked just as flustered beside him. The red-head's mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water, but she did not seem capable of forming actual words.

"So you're a TERF then right?" January sighed. She was not surprised. There was at least one in every bunch.

"How dare you call me that!" Patricia barked. "I am having a conversation, and you immediately start with misogynist slurs."

"It isn't an attack," January insisted, "It is a descriptive, and a very accurate one at that. Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist - which of those does not apply to you, Radical or Feminist?"

"Let me set you straight on something sister." January plunged on. "No man wants anything to do with women's spaces, or womanhood in general. The worst way to insult a man is to compare him to a woman, or anything feminine. That is what you do to provoke a man into violence. A man would sooner die than change into a woman. The thing the Patriarchy fears most is transpeople. Because we are living proof that a person's worth, their identity, and the things they are capable of, are not determined by the genitals they are born with. We are proof that Patriarchy is a lie. We don't just oppose it, we invalidate its existence. That is why they are so terrified of us. If you really were the feminist you pretend to be, you would be standing beside us. Feminism is not about exclusion, it is about equality, and lifting everyone up together, everyone, including men."

"Sex is real." Patricia insisted. "No matter how much men in dresses try to pretend it's not."

"Because of course biological determinism is only a fallacy when it's used against you." January responded. She had been down this road so many, many times. She knew all the punches and counters by heart.

"This is typical Patriarchal propaganda," Patricia waved a dismissive hand in response. "It is all just a transparent ploy to erase us women."

"My being a woman does not erase you or any other woman from existence." January insisted. She clamped her hands on her hips and thrust her head forward toward the screen. "That is just mind-bogglingly-"

January stopped herself in mid-sentence. What was she doing? She knew full well what a waste of time this was.

"I am not going to debate this," she said. "Debating is pointless. It only proves who can use the most clever rhetorical tricks, or shout the loudest. It is nothing but demagoguery, not rational discourse. Worse, it only creates a sense of false equivalency. The illusion that there are two sides here with equal merit that people should choose from. There is not. There is reality, and there is bigotry. They are not equal, and should never be options to be weighed."

"And as my mother once told me, never wrestle with a pig. I just get dirty, and the pig likes it."

January clicked on the ZAAM screen to close it. Fingers shaking with barely contained rage, she pushed down hard on the power button of her computer. Her knuckles had turned white by the time its lights finally went dark, and fans turned silent. She stood up, literally shaking with rage.

She had been planning on going to the dojo. Even though she no longer worked there, she still went there to keep her skills up. Sundays were open mat day, and that often gave her the chance to spar with fighters from other gyms. But she knew that if she went there now, she would kill someone.

Her fists ached to break something. Her eyes roved across the walls of the house. She would literally knock them down if she let herself go. So she stomped from her room, down the stairs, to what had once been a sitting room on the ground floor. Now it was an ersatz gym that she shared with her mother. A full length mirror stood in one wall, alongside racks of free weights. A bench press was nearby, and half the floor was covered with mats.

Hanging from an Armex steel mount was a long punching bag made of dragon silk. It had been a house-warming gift from her Aunt Branwen. So far as her mother knew it was merely ordinary iron and leather, rather than the super metal and ultra-tech, woven -fiber armor. January slid one hand along the surface of the dragon silk. Blood Raven had told her that it was the same material her base level of armor was made of. Apparently she owned the company that made it, which made it easy for her to come by.

The bottom line was that the bag could take a hit. Not just a hit from Barbara or January Ward, but one from Stormcrow as well.

January put it to the test, snapping out a stiff arm and palm strike to the center of the bag. It rolled back with the blow, but its woven surface merely dimpled under the impact, rather than cracked open. She followed with a front kick as it swung back in her direction, then a power punch, and series of elbows. She let herself go. Something she never did, even in a fight. It was something she only allowed herself to do in a meta-human battle. She hit with everything she had. Again and again, fists, feet, elbows, and head. Her entire body was a weapon, and she put it to use against the punching bag.

Hours slipped by, and she only came to a stop when she was dripping with sweat. She knew that she could go longer. Endurance had always been something she had worked on, along with taking a hit. Public school had certainly taught her the latter. Even now she could still hear the bullies taunting her across the classroom.

"Pretty little thing isn't he!"

"Pervert pretending to be a girl!"

She tried to push the memories from her mind. But they were as persistent as a djieien. She went to the kitchen, and distracted herself by pouring a glass of almond milk. That is when she realized that not only was she covered in sweat, but her clothes were soaked through.

With a sigh she stripped out of her top, and climbed the stairs wearing nothing but her bra and yoga pants. Thankfully her mother was not home from work yet, even though the library closed early on Sunday. So she had the house to herself. She pulled down her yoga pants once she was atop the stairs, and tossed both it and her tee into the hamper once she was in her room. She would have to wash those later.

A blue light blinked on her phone. Someone had left her a message. She did not turn it over to see who it was. She did not want to talk to anyone right now. She was halfway to the shower when she stopped herself. It might not be for her. It might be for Stormcrow. January Ward had the luxury of ignoring a call. Stormcrow did not.

So she went back to her room and flipped over her phone. She clicked a button on its side and waited for its small screen to eventually light up. That was the downside to a $50 phone. Sure it was affordable, but it was affordable because it was slower than molasses on an iceberg. A bar at the top of the screen glowed to life, warning her that she had messages, both voice and text. She swept a finger across the screen and waited. After what felt like an eternity she saw that it was voice mails from both Ravi and Amy, along with texts from the same.

She stopped herself from crushing the phone in her grip. Instead she dropped it on her bed. They were the last people she wanted to talk to. She had not expected to be ambushed on the podcast. She had done her homework on them before appearing. She had never heard a single bigoted word from any of them.

But maybe that was because the subject of trans people had never come up on their show before. After all, that had all been before Stormcrow had come out on Worldwide Network News. She was now living with the aftermath of that revelation. Just as so many people in the world felt the need to insult Stormcrow for being trans, they felt the same need to demean January Ward - the trans author featured on Crow Tales. After all, who could pass up the opportunity to feel better about themselves by bashing someone who was different from them?

January stomped off to the shower. She still wanted to break something. She would prefer something with blond hair that masqueraded as a feminist. But she would be willing to accept a proxy. Yet while her fingers trembled somewhat with pent up adrenaline and rage, she did no lasting harm to any of the bathroom accoutrements.

When she was cleaned up she changed into a pair of leggings and her Three Wil Wheaton tee shirt. The latter was a riff on the famous Three Wolf Moon shirt. Only it depicted three pictures of the science fiction star at varying stages of his life, with a 20-sided die rather than the moon overhead. It always cheered her up.

She went back downstairs to the gym. Now she tried yoga, starting with simple poses, and gradually working her way through to the more difficult ones, like the Eight Angle Pose. She ran her elemental mantra through her head as she worked out, and slowly eased her mana through her body, like a cleansing river.

Finally she bounced back to her feet, feeling a little better. A glance at the clock revealed that she would need to start cooking dinner soon. Her mother would be home in an hour. Since school was out, and she was no longer working at the dojo, January had been making an effort to be more useful around the house. That meant cooking dinner almost every night, as well as doing all of the laundry, cleaning, garbage duties, and cutting the lawn.

January had to admit, she had never felt so independent. For once in her life, no one was doing things for her. She was doing it all for herself now. It was nice. Maybe this was what being an adult felt like?

Given that she was being so mature, she walked back up the stairs and checked her phone again. Fixing her resolve, she turned its screen back on and looked through the text messages from Amy and Ravi. Both were very clear.

We had no idea she was a TERF.

We kicked her off the show. Transphobia is not something we tolerate.

Obviously we won't be posting this. If you are willing to come back, we would like to try again. Please, we did not know that was going to happen.

The voice messages each had left said the same things. Neither had realized that Patricia was a TERF, or that she was going to go off like that. January was not surprised. She had learned long ago that no one knew how ugly their friends could be, until she was around them. Then they revealed their true colors.

January texted Ravi back.

Ok, let's try again tomorrow.

She did not say anything more. She did not want to type anything she would regret. Instead she went back downstairs and concentrated on making chicken parmesan for herself and her mother.

Nice, she's on a podcast with NPR. I bet she'll get a lot of listens from that, as her Fame continues to rise.

I imagine Ravi sounds just like Michael Caine. Combined with the husky-voiced Amy Nixon, and the blonde with the severe hair, this group definitely sound like NPR hosts.

Ha, I was guessing 313 is an area code. I like the way there's now a story within a story, as Jan is now a writer within a story.





Oh my gosh that one NPR host is rather harsh, isn't she? Um... Patricia. Good goddess take a chill, lady.

Oh *snap* yes, she is a TERF. Mmm hmm, you go hon. Never heard that term before, but it's definitely true.

....... Whoa she hangs up on them! Goodness, what an episode.



Ha, very true. What a riveting episode. Even though I disagree with Patricia it made for a polarizing read for sure. That is real. That could actually happen to somebody who is trans, even if she's appearing on a live interview before the masses.




I meant in roleplay terms. Indeed, vampires never actually feed in Skyrim, not that I've ever seen, but I like to imagine they can.

Wow, Jan is really branching out. I hope associating herself with Stormcrow does not begin to undermine her secret identity.

I loved hearing about the familiar Aela and her BEF Loria in this very different venue. While the discussion was still civil, that must have been both interesting and challenging to write.

Once things started to go south, Jan really displayed how well she knew the arguments that could be made against her and how to defend herself. At a certain point though, ‘debating’ things does become pointless. Rather than continue, Jan knows when to simply walk away – or power down.

I’m glad she was able to get some of her anger out on her superhero punching bag (in her ersatz gym) before doing or communicating something she might regret.

During the podcast, I got the impression that Ravi and Amy were basically on her side but, unlike Jan, were probably ill-equipped argue the issue. I’m glad they apologized and want to try again.


Nit: "It gives her a very grounded, intimately personal reason for becoming a {‘a’ not needed here} the best magician she can be.”

HAAAA!!! Ha ha ha ha!

Okay, I think I see what's going on here. Very clever, Miss Florens. I won't spoil for the others, just in case they haven't noticed it yet. Looking forward to next chapter, or sub-chapter.

Renee: It is not an NPR podcast. One of the hosts simply has a day job at NPR is all. Just like Patricia is also a writer for a magazine. And Ravi does other tech and nerd-based podcasts.

Ravi sounds like the actor he is based on - Rahul Kohli. He is a regular on iZombie, and guest starred in a Supergirl episode. Here is an example.

I love the idea of January being a fictional character who is a writer of other fictional characters. It is sort of my example of literary Inception.

January's experience with Patricia is simply an example of ordinary life for someone like Jan. You never know exactly when or where it will happen, but it always does. That is why I include these episodes of January facing bigotry in these stories. I do not want to hide the ugliness that she faces. What I do want to show is her carrying on in spite of it all, and living her life.

I am honestly not sure what you think I am up to. I hope you won't be too disappointed when it turns out I am not. Unless you have an intuition about the chapter title. There is nothing accidental about that.



Acadian: January hopes the association does not draw too many parallels between herself and the courageous crow of Michigan either.

It is always very difficult to write scenes of Jan bearing the brunt of bigotry. Not just because they are uncomfortable. But also because I do not want to misrepresent people, even if they are bigots. I did research, and everything Patricia said is a direct, or nearly direct, quote of real people, such as JK Rowling. It was the same with the Nazis in Crystal Death. Some of their dialogue was word for word copies of RL statements.

Ravi and Amy were indeed totally blindsided by their cohort's behavior. That is something I took from my own life. More than once I tried to make friends with a group of people, only for someone like Patricia to rear their heads and make everyone choose between me and them. Afterwards more than one person has told me that they had no idea their friends were like that.

Quite right about the nit, thanks for helping me fix that.








Cthulhu Skater Dress


Women in Refrigerators Trope


Damsel in Distress Trope


Lack of female representation in fiction

Infographics of lack of female representation in fiction


Book 7.2 - Hammer Down
June 17

"Who puts the tales in my crows... podcast?" Ravi belted out once more in his English accent. "Ok the intro still needs some work. But as all true radio professionals know an intro is not something you can write beforehand. And you can't edit audio, so there is no going back and changing it."

"Of course there is no going back," Amy picked up. "But we can go forward, with this special edition of the Crow Tales Podcast. I am Amy Nixon."

"And I am Ravi Prasad."

"And together we are bringing you the best in Stormcrow approved fiction," Amy went on. "As we all know Detroit's newest heroine Stormcrow creates the Crow Tales blog, where she recommends novels and short stories every week. Her reviews are spoiler free. So we have taken it as our duty to go ahead and spoil it all, just for you, our dear listeners."

"So if you want to go into these stories cold, turn off this podcast, and come back when you have finished reading," Ravi said. "Done reading? Good, because we are going to break down each tale, and give you the straight dope on what happens, why it happens, and who it happens to."

"As you all have probably noticed, you can see us! That is because today we are having a special video episode, along with a special guest," Amy said. "So without further ado, welcome to January Ward, the author of the story we are covering today: This Spell for Hire."

"Hi," January said. She was not as bubbly or spontaneous as the first time. But she forced herself to be cheerful. She was going to make this work, no matter how much her stomach churned, or her heart raced. The first time she had done this it had been simple stage jitters that had made her nervous. This time around, her unease came from a much different source. The sour memories conjured up from her original appearance the previous day.

Never give up, she told herself. That was one of her Viking Virtues after all. She was not going to let negativity bring her down. Ravi and Amy at least seemed like decent people. She would not take her ire out on them. Nor would she allow it to fester within herself. Then the people like Patricia would truly win. She would not give them the satisfaction.

So she plunged on with the interview. This time Amy asked what she was wearing, and she had the opportunity to display her own nerd chops by standing and giving all a good look at her Cthulhu skater dress. Her mother had given it to her last Christmas, and she had to admit, it was one of her favorite presents ever. It was green and black, and filled with the looming head and maze of tentacles of its eponymous Great Old One. Plus it was tight in all the right places, showing off her waist, tummy, and even what little chest she possessed.

January had to admit, she loved it.

As before, they talked about her two main characters: Aela and Loria, and the numerous supporting cast whom they encountered through their adventure. They spent some time on how she had built the world, and of course the plot. January felt more than a little self-conscious about the latter. There was nothing special about it after all. Her two main characters had been hired to foil an assassin. There were a few simple twists and turns, a bit of mystery and detective work, a bit of action, and a wrap up. Nothing about it was truly original.

"But that is not a problem," Amy declared. "Humans have been telling stories since we could talk. All the stories have been told already. They were a long time ago. What matters is not how unique your plot is, but how well you can execute it. How engaging your characters are. How strong their motivations run."

"I give this story high marks," Amy declared. "Yes, the plot is derivative. But as I said, so what? The protagonist truly engaged me, especially since she is trans. That is something you rarely see in fiction these days, and never would have seen in the past. I really enjoyed the blending of distinct cultures you presented, and how each character's culture informed their outlooks and goals."

"Plus, it was just plain fun," Ravi declared. "You have action, you have exposition, you have world-building, you even have flashbacks that hint at deeper motivations behind your character's actions, and you juggle it all without getting too bogged down in any one part of it."

January tried not to smile too broadly at the praise. A nagging voice in the back of her head wondered if they were being so nice because they felt guilty about how Patricia had treated her the day before? January hated that voice. She hated always being distrustful of other people's motivations. But there was no silencing it entirely. It was a survival trait after all.

They moved on, and toward the end of the hour they had blocked out Ravi asked her one of the most common questions writers ever received.

"Where do you get your inspiration from?" he asked.

"I suppose the same as anyone else," January thought aloud. "I live my life, and see things going on around me. I watch movies, read books, and I think how could I do this without killing the only gay character? Or could this be done without putting a woman in a refrigerator, or making her a damsel in distress? I see a lot of good stories, that are brought down by writers using these bad tropes. So I imagine what they would be like without the homophobia, or without the misogyny, or without the racism."

"Take the lack of female characters in fiction. In most stories there seems to be one woman per every three men. Sometimes it is a lot less than that. Yes, looking at you 'The Hobbit', not one female character in the entire book. If the real world were like that, it would be a really different place. Imagine a world where most men would never have a girlfriend in their life, because women literally did not exist, except for those chosen few protagonists who needed them as trophies to win at the end, and of course to prove their heterosexuality."

January stopped talking, and started thinking about that. What would that world look like? What would it be like to be a woman living in that world?

"That sounds like it might be an intriguing idea to explore in a novel," Amy mused aloud.

"Um, yes, it would," January agreed. Her head was spinning with ideas already. Could she write this? Could she make a real story out of this? She probably could. Maybe it was time to put her next Spell for Hire novel on hold, and develop this instead?

"So our hour is up, and that about wraps up our episode," Ravi filled in the empty silence that had started to drag out. "Before we go however, it's time to pay our tithe to the sweet goddess of Capitalism. January, do you have anything you would like to plug?"

"Oh plugs," January murmured. Her head was still swirling with ideas for A Woman's World. She had already fixed upon a title. She was definitely going to write this.

"Well This Spell for Hire can of course be found in all online book outlets. There are no hard copies yet. But that might be changing in the future. I also have a comic book I am developing right now with a friend of mine that is called Artemis Argent and the Secret of Mystery Hill. The crowd-funding is still open to help us produce it. Check out Artemis Argent at Jumpstarter.com for all the deets, and see sample pages that we have already finished."

"Artemis Argent and the Temple of Doom?" Ravi laughed. "That sounds proper awesome!"

"That might be the sequel, if things go well," January mused.

"Maybe we can have you on again once it is finished," Amy noted.

"Or just as a bonus episode," Ravi offered. "No one says we cannot further explore the works of authors that Stormcrow has cited."

"That's true," the red-haired woman noted. "We could do an episode on some of Mary Shelley's lesser-known works as well."

"And with that, see you later aggregators," Ravi boldly declared, then he began to mumble more quietly. "Now how do I turn this thing-"

With that January's ZAAM screen with blank. She took a moment to turn off the video conferencing software, and leaned back in her computer chair. She closed her eyes and sighed with relief. She had completed her second podcast appearance. That had gone well. Much better than she could have hoped for after yesterday's attempt. She wondered when they would post it? From what Ravi had said, it usually took him a few days to get their episodes online.

Thankfully the first attempt would not be going online. That would be the last thing January needed. Still, she was tempted to ask Ravi for a copy of it. Somehow she had a feeling that Patricia Fine was not going to disappear quietly. She might try to invent accusations about her. January would like the evidence if she did.

She pulled out her phone, and waited for its texting app to come up. After what seemed a thousand years later it finally did, and she tapped out a message to the British podcaster asking for a copy of yesterday's show, and explained why. After several minutes he replied with an affirmative, and January put down her phone.

Sorry, yeah, I got that confused about the podcast versus radio show.

I'm not saying what my intuition is yet, and maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm right. We'll see.

I like that part "As you probably noticed, you can see us!" ... it just sounds exactly like something a host would say on NPR, and in that hushed-ecstatic, yet welcoming tone of voice. I can't imagine Rush Limbaugh saying this, for instance, in that sort of way. You definitely got the feel of public radio with the way they say things.

Yes, I imagine Jan's 'perky phone voice' is gone this episode, especially after what happened last time. Maybe over time, over many years of living her life, that phone voice will show up less and less, though it won't go away entirely. She'll still have that side of her, although maybe it'll be reserved for safer appearances, like in front of children, perhaps. Or somebody who Jan is interested in.

I really like that Cthulhu dress.



Yes. Agreed.

Can January provide a sample of her work, by the way? I'm curious what her style of writing looks like.

Ahah, the wheels are starting to turn now since you mentioned that the chapter's title is not by accident. Methinks we will soon see our sometimes friend Lighthammer again. . . .

I quite like that dress as well, though I admit more for the cut and style rather than the color and design on the fabric.

"But that is not a problem," Amy declared. "Humans have been telling stories since we could talk. All the stories have been told already. They were a long time ago. What matters is not how unique your plot is, but how well you can execute it. How engaging your characters are. How strong their motivations run."
- - Well put, Amy!

As Jan was trying to do an objective assessment of her writing without squirming too much, I could almost see SubRosa squirming (or chuckling) since I know who really created Aela & Loria, and I know your writing so well as to completely agree.

Nicely done, and I’m so glad the second time was the charm for a pleasant and insightful interview.

Renee: Podcasts are technically internet radio, so there is a fine line.

One nice thing about podcasting is that you don't have to be as formal as radio hosts tend to be. A lot, if not most, people who do create them are not broadcasting professionals, but rather people with some other day job. The podcast is usually a labor of love, something they do about a subject they are passionate about, and hopefully have some knowledge in. The Dirt is one podcast I listen to, and it is created by two archaeologists, talking about archaeology. In reSearch Of is another one about the old TV show In Search Of. One of the hosts is an IT guy, the other an archaeology professor. Both are interested in the paranormal: cryptids, ghosts, UFOs, etc... They wanted to do a show about the origins of Paranormal TV, and settled on In Search Of because it seems to have been the very first of that genre.

Jan's perky phone voice is indeed a good marker for her happiness and hope. Her losing it would indeed be a sign of her slipping into cynicism.

You have read samples of January's work. Go to the Aela fic and there you have it.


Acadian: Lighthammer might indeed light up the skies soon.

Even for a geek like me, the tentacles are a bit much. But it is perfect to establish January's nerdcore cred.

Jan at least had one good interview so far.





Ryo (RL Alex Mallari)

Three Okami Tee



Book 7.3 - Hammer Down
June 17

"Are you done then?"

January nearly leaped out of her skin at the sound of the male voice behind her. As it was she did jump from her chair and spin around. Standing in front of her closed door was Ryo. As ever, his hair was cropped short against his skull, and a sparse mustache and goatee sprouted from his lip and chin. The young Japanese man was dressed in his Three Okami tee shirt, depicting a trio of white wolves emblazoned with red markings. All three had their heads turned up to howl at a blazing sun.

Now January wished she had waited for today to wear her Three Wil Wheaton tee shirt, which likewise showed three images of the eponymous actor beneath a twenty-sided die instead of the moon. Still, she did adore her skater dress just the same.

"Ryo!" January gasped. "You nearly gave me a heart attack. How long have you been there?"

"Since when you were talking about your inspirations for creating the setting of This Spell for Hire," he said plainly.

"That was a half hour ago!" January stared in shock. "How come you didn't say anything? And how did you get in? Aren't the doors locked?"

"I did not want to bother you," Ryo said. "So I just let myself in and waited for you to finish."

"How very thoughtful of you," January murmured. She looked at the door to her room. Still shut. She should have heard it open when he came in. And how did he get into the house? It was summer, so the windows were open. Had he simply popped out a screen and climbed in a window? He must have, because she and her mother always kept the doors locked.

"I need your advice." Ryo said bluntly, as was his wont. He never made small talk. He was always straight and to the point.

He walked past her and spun around her computer chair. He leaped up and crossed his legs in mid air, and fell onto the seat as lightly as a feather. He did it all with a grace and ease that an Olympic athlete would envy. January knew, she had once hoped to compete in the Games herself after all. She sat opposite him on her bed, and curled up her legs underneath her.

"My advice?" January could not help but cock an eyebrow with Spockian incredulity. She could not imagine anything Ryo would ever need her advice on.

"I met a girl at Jacob's last show," he said. "Her name is Kaci. I really like her."

"And..." January let her sentence trail off, hoping Ryo would fill in the blanks. Jacob was of course Blackjack. The Knights of Nerddom loved their nicknames after all. But only Ryo ever called him by his real name. That was his style, as direct and to the point as a sword.

"And I do not know what to do," Ryo said. "How do I get her attention? And if I do, what do I say to her? I do not know how this dating thing works."

"Oh my," January tried not to roll her eyes. She really, really tried. She took a deep breath, and stared down at the floor.

"I am not the person to come to for dating advice," she admitted. "You need to talk to Rus, or Blackjack. They know way more about dealing with women than I do."

"But you are a woman," Ryo stated. "Besides, I already know what their responses will be. Rus will say to be confident, and act like you are the coolest man in the world, and that nothing fazes you. Jacob will say to make them laugh, to be a good talker, and show them you are not an idiot or a bro."

"Women do like confidence, so much so that many of them can't seem to tell the difference between it and arrogance." January mused. "And they do like a guy who can make them laugh. But you have to be careful not to get friend-zoned doing that."

"Like you friend-zoned Jacob," Ryo nodded.

"I didn't friend-zone Blackjack," January stared back at him blankly. "I'm a lesbian. You guys all know that."

"I was not supposed to say that." Ryo shook his head. "Pretend I did not."

"Wait, what about Blackjack?" January felt a weird sensation pooling in her stomach. "Are you saying that Jacob, I mean Blackjack, has... I mean that he..."

"He has been thirsty for you since you transitioned," Ryo declared. "He just never said so, because, you know, the whole lesbian thing. He said it would make things weird."

"Well he was right," January frowned. "Thank you so much for sharing that Ryo."

"I said the wrong thing again," Ryo laid a palm over his forehead. "I always do that. Usually Jacob stops me."

January felt power stir within the young Japanese-American. Not metaphorical strength, but real power, the kind that flowed through her and Blood Raven. As she stared at him, the shadows literally folded themselves around him, shrouding him in darkness. January glanced out the window. It was just a little past noon, and sunlight bathed in the room in illumination. But Ryo had almost literally faded into the woodwork.

January blinked. There Ryo was, sitting on her computer chair, sunlight streaming around him like a halo. She clearly was imagining things. The stress from the podcast, and now this news of Blackjack's feelings, it must have been too much to process at once.

"Just... don't tell Blackjack you said anything about it to me," January implored, "it will not make things better."

What on earth was she going to do about it? Ignore it, and pretend it didn't exist? Would she ever be able to look at Blackjack the same? Somehow she doubted that. Should she talk to him about it? That would be slightly less awkward than say, talking to her grandmother about sex. January wished there was a giant spider around to punch. At least that was simple.

"This really will not help, but he has a new crush," Ryo said.

January was afraid of what the young man's next revelation might bring, so she braced herself. She was thankful that she had.

"Stormcrow," Ryo said plainly. "He has been hot for her for weeks. He even wrote a song about her. We are making a video for it right now. All we have left is to finish editing the shots together."

Now it was January's turn to make a facepalm.

"I should not have said that either," Ryo lamented. "I hate all these secrets, all these games. We are all supposed to be friends. Why cannot we just be honest with each other?"

"Because sometimes honesty is just not the best policy," January lamented. "Sometimes we lie to the people we love to protect them. Because the truth would hurt them even more, and we want to spare them that."

"This is why I need advice. I never know what to say, or do," Ryo went on, as if he had not completely turned one of her oldest relationships upside down. "I do not know how to pretend to be cool and confident, and I cannot make anyone laugh."

"Don't kid yourself Ryo," January said without thinking. "You would make a great straight man."

Still, at least concentrating on Ryo's love life gave her an excuse not to think about Blackjack's.

"You just have to be Ryo," she said. "Don't try to be cool, don't try to be funny. I met this girl on Ok Eros. We talked for weeks, I thought we were really making a connection. We were finally going to meet up, and I told her I was trans. She immediately ghosted me, literally stopped talking that instant, and never replied to me again."

"You need to be straight up about who you are, and what you are," January insisted. "Don't put weeks or months into someone only to find out that they don't want any part of you because of something that is an integral part of your being. Like you being on the spectrum, or being a nerd. Or is it a geek? I forget which one of those is good now and which is still bad."

"Yes, that usually does not impress women," Ryo lamented.

"You're preaching to the choir friend," January agreed. "But it is reality. You can't pretend to be someone you're not. Trust me, I went down that road."

"So how do I be me, and still make this work?" Ryo said. "I really like this girl."

"Well, show her your best self," January said. "I mean, don't quote C++ to her. But let her see how smart you are. How you notice things other people don't. Let it drop that you do kenjutsu, and longswording, and judo. Adin has open mat on Sundays at his dojo. Invite her out and we can spar together. If seeing you in action doesn't make her wet, nothing will."

"Make her wet," Ryo mused quite seriously, "yes, we could go swimming, at the beach."

"Umm, yeah, that's exactly what I meant," January went on as if that were true. "Let her see your abs. If that does not do it, nothing will."

"Girls like abs?" Ryo looked down to his stomach.

"A lot of them seem to," January nodded. "You are one swol dude, go with it. You will probably be the only buff guy she ever meets who isn't a total bro."

"And that will make her wet?" Ryo still seemed uncertain.

"Maybe?" January shrugged. Remembering how literally he tended to take things, she added, "just don't say 'wet' to her!"

Once again Ryo seemed to fade from existence. The shadows grew around him, and this time January could swear that his body literally began to go transparent. She felt it once more, the power singing within him. This time there was no doubt about it.

"Ryo, how long have you been using magic?" January asked. If Ryo preferred honesty, well she would oblige him.

"What?" His form snapped back into full view, and the shadows dropped away from his body like a discarded cloak. Genuine surprise crossed his features. "What do you mean?"

"I mean magic," January insisted. "Right now, you were using magic to hide in the shadows. Come to think of it, you have always done that haven't you? Whenever you get uncomfortable, you disappear. Have you been using magic to do it all along?"

"I do not know what you mean," Ryo protested. "I just... do what I do."

Once more, he faded away, like a ghost. January was tempted to try to see if her hand could pass through his body. But it was growing hard to see just where he was. The room was filled with sunlight. But he was a shadow, blending into the background.

January shifted her senses into the astral. Ryo's form practically leaped out before her eyes in a kaleidoscope of brilliant colors. His aura glowed with power, in a way no ordinary person's ever did. By now January had some practice with viewing others in astral space. Most people's auras were faded, like old black and white TV shows. But a magician's, like Blood Raven's or her own, were illustrated in bright 4K color by comparison.

More than that, she could feel his power in the astral, humming like electricity through a high voltage line. She could smell it, warm and wholesome, like freshly baked bread. She could hear it, singing like a choir.

If she had known more about using magic, she would have surely noticed this much earlier. But the fact was, it had still been just a few short months since she had become a superhero. She had spent even less time with the knowledge that her powers were something that she had created within herself with magic. Sensing that magic elsewhere was still something she was growing accustomed to. She knew that she still had much to learn. It was a humbling thought.

"You are a magician Ryo," she stated plainly. "You have been using it, probably for years I imagine. You may not have been doing so consciously, directly. But you have been channeling your power into an ideal. Because magic is not just about conscious designs, it is also about unconscious desires. It is about your Will, and how you use it to shape your reality. You have literally been enchanting yourself."

Ryo snapped back into bright solidity once more. He casually stroked his fingers through the sparse hairs on his chin.

"I have been exploring more of the Zen side of my kenjutsu training," he admitted. "I have been meditating more, using that in judo, and Western longswording. But I never really noticed anything different."

"You wouldn't have," January insisted. "You never had to push yourself beyond the limits of what we think is normal. You were never in that kind of danger."

’January could not help but cock an eyebrow with Spockian incredulity.’
- - This is a magnificent line that fits the story, situation and Jan to a tee!

"This really will not help, but he has a new crush," Ryo said.’
- - Whew, that should let Jan off the hook of awkwardness. . . .
"Stormcrow," Ryo said plainly. "He has been hot for her for weeks.’
- - Yikes! Out of the frying pan into the fire! At least Blackjack has consistent taste. Exquisitely woven and totally unexpected twist there.

"Make her wet," Ryo mused quite seriously, "yes, we could go swimming, at the beach."
- - I sputtered my coffee over this! Goodness, Jan really has her work cut out with Ryo! Excellent advice she was giving him though.

"You are a magician Ryo," she stated plainly. "You have been using it, probably for years I imagine.’
- - Yet another unexpected twist, but with more serious implications – particularly for protecting the ‘wall’ between Jan and Stormcrow.

Oooh, The Dirt podcast sounds neat. I remember In Search Of as well (betraying our age, here). I loved that show while it was on. I also didn't know all that about podcasts, especially being on a more amateur level, so thanks for that info. Last podcast I listed to had something to do with some sort of bitcoin scam.

Sorry, I guess I forgot about Jan's work. My memory .... I'll have to go back and read it.

Good to see Ryo is back. He's the one who's sort of sneaky, I think he disappears from the company of his friends occasionally.

Jacob's advice is "don't act like a bro." Wow, so Blackjack wants some January.



Whoa, this is interesting. I had a feeling about Ryo. The way he sort of appears and disappears. And also when he did that funny way of sitting down without just sitting down.

A-ha. Blackjack does not know Jan = Stormcrow. Again, sorry. My memory... this has probably already been mentioned. I forget stuff though.

Acadian: I have been watching In Search Of, so the Spock reference was instantly transported into my brain.

Blackjack is indeed consistent. He knows exactly what he likes.

About that "wall" you were talking about between January and Stormcrow...



Renee: There are some podcasts coming out in the last few years that are pure corporate-made things driven by ad revenue. And some of the amateur ones also have ads to help pay the bills. Or they have a Patreon to ask for donations. But the best ones IMHO, are all done by people who are nerds in some sphere or another, yakking about the thing they love. Be it history, bigfoot, or the worst people ever.

Ryo is definitely the sneaky one. We have not seen him directly since Chapter 2, when Jan and the whole gang went to the Techno Fest downtown. We will be seeing a lot more of him in the future.







Tardis


Book 7.4 - Hammer Down
June 17

"Like when you fought Lighthammer at ConFabulation," Ryo mused. "Now I understand. That is how you do it. The leaping, the strength, the wings... it is magic."

"Me?" January was flabbergasted. "I wasn't talking about me."

"I know you are Stormcrow," Ryo said plainly. "I knew it the moment I saw the video from the convention."

"That's not..." January held up her hands in mock defense. "You've got it all wrong."

"Do not try to deny it," Ryo sighed. "We have sparred together for years. I know how you move. Just like I know every line of code I write. You are Stormcrow."

She could hear the distress edging into his voice. Again, he started to fade. January knew it well. Sometimes it was easy to forget that he had Asperger's Syndrome, especially now that he was grown up. But other times his issues came to the fore. Like that time in third grade when someone had touched him, and he began screaming. The teacher had to take him to the nurse's office then. It was a long way from elementary school. But just like January herself, Ryo still had his own unique concerns in life.

"Why cannot we all just be honest with each other?" Ryo lamented.

"You are right Ryo," January sighed. "I am Stormcrow. But you can't tell anyone. Only Avery knows. No one else can. It puts everyone in too much danger if it ever gets out."

"Like Hailstorm," Ryo nodded.

"Yes, like Hailstorm," January agreed. He was the specter that hovered in the background of every discussion of superhero's identities. The death of not only his family, but of his friends, and coworkers, was a shroud that still hung over the entire caped community. Even Congress had passed laws banning revealing secret identities. But that was too late for Hailstorm. He had died in an asylum, long after the reporter who had outed him had shot himself in the head.

"That is what I mean about how sometimes we have to conceal things to protect the ones we love," she continued.

A long silence filled the room. Before it could drag into something unbearably uncomfortable, January spoke again.

"If you want to, I can try to teach you how to use magic. How to consciously direct it, and strengthen it, make it do what you want," she offered.

Ryo stood for long moments, and stared at his feet. He tended to do that. He did not like looking in people's faces, and especially not into their eyes.

"Yes, I think I would like that," Ryo finally said. "How can I not? If this is part of who I am, I have to embrace it. I cannot pretend it does not exist."

"Preaching to the choir my friend," January smiled in spite of herself. In some ways, they were so alike that it was eerie. But in other ways, she could not ignore the vast differences between them.

She quashed her grin a moment later because of that. Smiles were stressful for Ryo.

"It is hard when people laugh or smile," January remembered a text that Ryo had sent her years ago by way of explanation. "It is difficult for me to understand why people are doing that. Body language makes no sense to me. So eventually I wonder if they are laughing at me. Eventually I have to get away to decompress. Interacting with people is so much easier through computers and phones."

January had no trouble empathizing. She had similar problems with people, even if for very different reasons.

"Ok, to start with magic is a part of everyone, not just us. We can all use it. Most people just do not believe they can, or that it even exists in the first place." January thought back to everything Blood Raven had taught her, and all the things she had read in her books as Branwen Renner. "Magic is... You know what, I am still learning myself. But there is someone I know who can help."

She needed Sága so that she could speak over an encrypted line. But her digital assistant was built into her armor, which was locked away in her motorcycle down in the garage. January closed her eyes, and called up her mana. She ran her elemental mantra through her head, and used it to shape her energy into an instrument of her will.

Fire give me passion and energy. Transform me in the night sky.

Just like that, she was wearing her Stormcrow armor. She knew from experience that her clothes had taken its place in the fake gas tank bump in her Victory. She slid aside the metal plate that protected Sága's screen, and spoke clearly.

"Sága, call Blood Raven."

A window popped up on her forearm-mounted computer's screen, displaying the new phone call being made. An icon denoting that the transmission was encrypted appeared in one corner of the window. But January still chose her words carefully when Blood Raven answered. You never knew who might be listening, or what sort of meta-tech descrambling gear they might possess.

"Yes?" Blood Raven said simply.

"I have someone here I would like you to meet," January said. "He knows who I am. He is a friend of mine, and he is a magic user. He could use someone to help him, like you've helped me."

"You are at your abode?" Blood Raven responded.

"Yes," January replied. "But we can come down to the Raven's Nest any time."

"Convey him upstairs to the sanctum," the older heroine replied.

"We don't have to do this right no-," January let her words trail off. She glanced up. Her mentor had probably already used the gateway that she had long ago forged between her downtown lair and the Witch House's inner sanctum.

"Okay," January turned back to Ryo, and made an effort to not look him in the eyes, "time to meet Blood Raven. Don't worry, she's not as fearsome as she might first seem. She's really a very nice person."

"You mean the Blood Raven?" Ryo looked startled. "I did not mean for you to... I mean she is..."

January was not used to seeing Ryo flustered, certainly not at something as mundane as meeting an icon. People looking at him or touching him, absolutely - meeting a famous person, no. In fact, he was usually as unflappable as the Zen warrior he appeared to be, which of course, he was. It was oddly reassuring to see that he was still human after all.

"The Blood Raven," January said. "She is the one who taught me. Who's still teaching me. She knows even more about magic than you do about writing code, which is saying something. So come on."

Before Ryo could reply, she opened her bedroom door and stepped into the hallway outside. She only paused a moment to glance back to make sure he was indeed following. Then she led him to the front corner of the house, on the side that bordered the driveway. She waved a hand across a blank wall, and golden light spilled from her fingers. As it faded, a narrow stairway was revealed behind it. She took the steps up to the entirely ordinary-looking door at its top.

January extended her hand to the door knob. Mana dripped from her fingertips as she took hold of it. Once again she concentrated upon the spell that Blood Raven had taught her to unlock the sanctum. Golden light spilled from her hand, and sank into the metal of the knob. A moment later came the click of a lock turning, and the door swung open on its own.

She led Ryo within. It had been weeks since she had first experienced the sanctum sanctorum that Keziah Talmadge has crafted so many centuries ago. But it still took her breath away.

The ceiling rose high overhead, and the walls spread out far around them. The room was clearly larger than the entire house. As ever, January could not be sure what the shape of the chamber even was. It shifted to and fro, as she followed the designs that curled their ways through the pebble mosaic that decorated the floor, or the metal strips laid into the walls, or the beads that hung from the ceiling. It was a labyrinth of colors and materials, ever reshaping itself to conform to her will.

"Is this a Tardis?" Ryo actually stared, with his mouth agape in wonder. January did not blame him. She had the same reaction the first time she had seen it herself. It was still the most amazing thing she had ever witnessed.

"Another science fiction fan I see."

January turned at the voice, and saw Blood Raven striding across the room to meet them. She was clad in her red and black armor. Even though there was no breeze within the room, her crimson hair flowed out behind her in a halo. Her eyes glowed a similar shade of red, and January felt, rather than saw, the raw power that crackled and flowed about her being.

That power reined itself in after a just a moment, like water draining down a spout. Her hair fell down to her shoulders, and her eyes dimmed to a shade of rust. Still, her gaze was only slightly less imposing as it cast across Ryo's frame. Her eyes met his for just a moment. Then she looked away, even as he did himself.

"You must be Ryo then," she murmured.

January looked at the other woman sharply. She had not used any names over the comm link.

"Yes, I know who you are," Blood Raven explained. "I have made it a point to learn something of January's friends, should an emergency ever arise."

"Blood Raven," Ryo finally said. "You are the real Blood Raven. I did not expect to meet you today."

"We are all filled with surprises," Blood Raven murmured. Her eyes moved to January, then back Ryo. She did not look into his eyes, which was unusual for her. That made January wonder if she knew that he was on the spectrum, and doing so made him uncomfortable.

"I can feel the power in your aura," Blood Raven went on. "January was wise to bring you to me. I can sense that like her, you have been using magic to enhance yourself physically. I should imagine for years. These slow, but steady enchantments are the most powerful, much like granite raised up over millennia."

"Tell me, where were you during Ferndale Pride?" she asked bluntly.

January balled her fingers into fists. She knew exactly where that question was leading. Goddess, the nerve that Blood Raven had, to imply that Ryo could be the Summoner!

"I was at work," Ryo replied just as plainly. "It was crunch time for a software firm in San Jose, and they needed help troubleshooting their new code. I work as a consultant. I went through 1,763 lines of their code that night, to discover the errors they had committed."

"How many were there?" Blood Raven actually cocked an eyebrow. January could see that she was taken aback by the response, just as direct and specific as her own question.

"Three," Ryo said. "I signed a non-disclosure agreement, so I cannot be more specific."

"I like this one," Blood Raven breathed. She laid a conciliatory hand on January's shoulder as she walked by behind her. "I suspect Cray shall as well."

"Cray, the old school hacker?" Ryo wondered. He looked from Blood Raven to January. His eyes settled on January's forearm, and the computer hidden within the armor plate there. "He works with you, just like Avery works with January. Now I understand. That was Sága I was writing the code for weeks ago."

"You wrote Sága's code?" January stared down at her wrist with shock.

"77.38% of it," Ryo said. "Avery did not tell me what it was for. He wrote most of the original code himself, and asked me to verify it. I took it back to the baseline and wrote most of it over from scratch. I did not leave my room for three days. I do not know why that worried my parents."

"Surprises indeed," Blood Raven murmured. "You know a great deal about January and Avery. I pray you understand just how dangerous that knowledge is to you."

"I know what happened to Hailstorm, and all of his friends and family," Ryo said. "We all learned about it in school."

"Then you know the danger of even a single slip of the tongue," Blood Raven said. "I say this not as a threat, but as a warning. You are not placing January in danger. She is placing you in danger. That is the price we all pay, when we don these capes."

January looked down at her feet. More than once, she had thought about the danger that she placed her mother in, and the Knights of Nerddom. She had weighed the good she could do wearing a cape, versus the harm that she might cause them. It was still not an easy calculation to make.

"I understand," Ryo insisted. "That is why I have not said anything before."

"Then the next question is, do you wish to learn magic?" Blood Raven asked. "You need not do so. You can live a full and virtuous life just as you are. There is no requirement for you to do more."

"You mean do I wish to be a superhero?" Ryo said. "That is the real question you are asking, is it not?"

"One step at a time," Blood Raven cast a sideways glance at January. "Even Rome was not sacked in a day."

"It took the Visigoths three days," Ryo noted dryly.

January fought a smile. She had said exactly the same thing when Blood Raven had made that quip to her.

"Yes, I want to learn magic," Ryo said. "I know that I would always regret it if I did not. When it comes to being a superhero... I will have to think about that."

"Good," Blood Raven. "I advise you to weigh your decision carefully. As I said, you may still be a virtuous person without doing so. You can still make a positive impression on the world."

"Are you this dissuasive with January?" Ryo looked between the two women.

"Yes, she is," January admitted, "and for good reason. I went into all this too fast. I didn't think about what I was doing. I just did it. I almost got a lot of people killed in the process, myself included. Don't be as stupid as me."

"If people were not stupid, then there would be no heroes," Ryo said plainly.

That brought a laugh from both January and Blood Raven.

"I do like this one," the older superheroine breathed. Then she took on a more serious disposition. "Very well then. As I have told January, it has never been my intention to train a generation of magical warriors. It still is not. But I can help you find your magic. All I can do is show you the way. What you accomplish is entirely up to you. As I have also told January, the most difficult part of teaching someone magic, is the fact that no one can teach you magic. You must find your own power."

It makes perfect sense that Ryo would have pieced everything together, given how well he knows Jan as a friend and that well he knows her what her fighting style looks like in action well enough to see through her armor and mask.

Giant step, introducing him to Blood Raven but I agree with the older superheroine that Jan was wise to do so. Honestly, I don’t think there was any other choice than to bring him into the Corvine Coven.

"If people were not stupid, then there would be no heroes," Ryo said plainly.’
- - As we have both written in our stories from time to time, ‘Good judgment comes from experience; experience comes from bad judgment.’

Ryo knows Jan is Stormcrow. That's so wicked awesome. I like how she tries to play it off too, but she also knows she's busted. And she also knows Ryo will never tell (I assume).

Ryo also knows the way she moves. There was a recent arsonist here in Maryland who got caught. He had been setting fires for years, and getting away with it. Well, he got caught because of a security cam. One of the detectives who saw the arsonist on this cam knew the way the guy walked. Turns out, this arsonist was a former cop (I think he may have been Chief somewhere) and the detective who caught him noticed the way he moved & walked as he went by a home security camera.

Ryo is very astute, is what I'm meaning to say.

Ha, that would be fun, to change clothes (or armor) just by willing it. Sounds sort of like Sims 3, actually.

"You are not at your abode?"... Goddamn I love the way Raven speaks.

Ha! He already knows her special room is a Tardis!

"77.38% of it" he says. Goh, this episode is full of little surprises.



snap!

Have a good weekend, Florens.

Acadian: Being on the Autism spectrum, one of Ryo's gifts (and curses) is that he sees everything, and notices every tiny little thing that is out of place. That is what makes him such a good coder. It is also why he knows that both Stormcrow and January fight, and simply move, in exactly the same way.

I was originally going to have some scenes of January trying to teach Ryo, and failing spectacularly. But then I realized that Jan is smart enough to know that she would fail spectacularly if she tried. Hence she turned to Blood Raven. That is the kind of moment that mentors are for after all.

Jan definitely has some good experience by now. It took a while though.


Renee: Ryo is a very smart guy, and as I noted above, he takes everything in. That was a great example you made of the detective realizing who that arsonist was by how he walked. It is like when you live with someone for years, you can tell it is them just by the sound their footsteps make when they are walking.

In the old Champions RPG there was a power called Quick Change (or something like that). It was cheap in cost, and allowed you to instantly change from your regular clothing and into your costume, or vice versa. The book suggests you take it, and I agree. Every hero should invest a point in it at character creation.

Ryo can be a fun character to write. Though like Blood Raven, he is a challenge to, since I have to change how I think in many ways to get in his head. In other ways though, his nerdiness fits like a comfy pair of tights.






Mōnandæg

As always, you can follow January's flight on the Stormcrow Map



Book 7.5 - Hammer Down
June 17

Blood Raven's introductory magic lesson took several hours. January had been through it all before of course. So she quietly made an exit and left them to it. She changed back into her skater dress, and went to work on her burgeoning idea for A Woman's World. The hours rolled by, and soon she was obliged to start dinner.

She took a moment to warn her guests that her mother would be home soon. She invited both to stay. Not surprisingly, Ryo elected to leave. But Blood Raven did transform into her current alter-ego as Aunt Branwen. She remained to participate in January's taco and Spanish rice feast.

"I thought tacos were for Tuesdays?" January's mother noted.

"That is what everyone else does," January replied. "I have Taco Mondays, because Mōnandæg likes tacos."

That brought incredulous looks from the other women.

"What?" January said. "Monday is named after Mōnandæg, or the 'Moon's day'. Máni is the Old Norse moon god. I read in the Edda that he loves eating tacos and posting on Instantgram. I think Abe Lincoln gave him the recipe."

"Was that the Elder or Younger Edda?" her mother asked.

"I suspect it was the Zoomer Edda," Branwen observed.

"That was definitely it," January said. "I saw it on the internet, so it must be true."

Dinner went well. Everyone seemed to like the meal. Or at least concealed their distaste well enough that January did not notice. Conversation bounded from January's Cthulhu dress to her podcast appearance. That led Branwen to suggest that January's mother Barbara start a literary podcast of her own.

"You could call it Taken From the Stacks, January interjected, "or Stack Exchange."

"I don't see myself as an internet radio personality," her mother actually blushed.

"There is nothing you cannot do Barbara," Branwen insisted. A look seemed to pass between the two women. It felt like part of a conversation that January was not privy to. She wondered what that might be. Was there something her mother thought she could not do? Then inspiration struck from the blue.

"You have not read comics in a long time," January thought aloud. "Maybe we could do Barbara Reads Comics, where we review comic books together, with you coming in cold and me already knowing them. Other people have done it with Star Trek already."

"I don't know..." January's mother pushed her Spanish rice around her plate.

"It sounds like it might be fun," Branwen said. "I have been reminded lately that I should have more fun in my life. You should do it. The worst that could happen is no one will listen."

"I can reach out to Ravi, from PodGeek and the Crow Tales Podcast, and find out how he does the technical side. If we can't figure it out then we can get Blackjack to be our engineer. He's the producer for all of his band's music."

January almost regretted saying Blackjack's name. He was both a musician and comic, and certainly knew his way around recording equipment. But after Ryo's revelation that Blackjack had feelings for her... well that was still unsettling. They had been friends since they were little kids after all! How in the world was she supposed to reconcile that?

Sometimes being an adult really sucked.

Branwen left after dinner, and January got back to her writing. The hours flew past as she brainstormed ideas and put them all down in her notes. The next thing she knew it had grown dark, and her mother was wishing her a good night.

January's phone warbled. It was not her normal ringtone, or the chirp from a text message. It was the tone that denoted a call forwarded from her Stormcrow number. January was across the room in an instant, and swiped the screen to take the call.

"It's Lighthammer," a male voice gasped. She heard the staccato racket of gunfire in the background. "I'm hurt bad, I need back-"

The line went dead after that. January stared down at her phone in horror. Lighthammer's vigilante life had finally caught up with him. There was no question of what she was going to do. She was clad in her armor in an instant, and out her bedroom window the next. Then she was cutting her way across the night sky and headed south. He had mentioned Cleveland once before. She imagined that might be a good place to start.

She was about to have Sága call Gadget, when the meta-inventor's voice came over her comlink.

"I take it you got that?" he asked.

"Affirmative," January answered. "I'm in the sky right now. Can you give me his GPS?"

"Tracking it from his phone right now," Gadget said. The sound of plastic keys clacking rose up beneath his voice. "My best guess right now is somewhere in Ohio, so head that way until I can nail it down."

"Already on it," January murmured. She focused her will upon her flight. Her trip across Michigan with Gola had given her a great deal of practical experience. She had even improved her time on the way back. Now she would have to push her speed even more. There was not a second to waste. Lighthammer could be dying even as she winged her way south under the stars.

January focused on speed, more and more speed, and nothing else. She poured her mana into the razor edge of that idea. Her wings moved from independent limbs sprouting from her back, to fuse with her arms. As ever, that gave her more power in the air, and she pierced the sky like an arrow shot from a bow.

Before she knew it she was passing over the Downtown skyscrapers, and the narrow band of the Detroit River beyond. She did not turn to follow the course of the water. Instead she continued on over Windsor. Detroit was one of the few places in America where you went south to get to Canada, rather than north. She hoped that she would not get in trouble with the Canadian border patrol, since she did not exactly have a passport.

She cut her way across lower Ontario. Once past the city of Windsor, the lights beneath her thinned out dramatically. She imagined that she must be over farms or forests, like most of Up North had been. Without the sun to judge her direction, the best she could do was dead-reckon her way south and east.

January resisted the urge to turn on her night vision. It would light up the night realm and made every home and tree stand out clearly in its blue-white phosphorescence. But she remembered what she had told Lighthammer at the Flint airport. Using things like diamonds to amplify his powers was a crutch, and would ultimately hold him back from reaching his full potential.

She should be taking her own advice. She should be reaching her full potential, rather than relying upon Gadget's gadgets. So instead she went low-tech, and relied upon her instincts and meat eyeballs. She briefly considered reaching out in the astral, or trying to create her own magical night vision, perhaps using the power of Air.

But she did not want to distract herself from her present task: reaching Lighthammer as quickly as possible. This was not the time for experimenting. This was the time for speed. That remained her focus. Her focus became her reality. The miles melted away under her wings.

Things lit up once more as she passed over what must have been a large town or small city. Then things went completely black underneath her. The sound of gently lapping waves came to her ears, and she could smell the dampness of fresh water. January imagined that was Lake Erie beneath her. She was getting closer.

She could barely make out the horizon between the inky black waters of the lake below, and the starry sky above. If not for those stars, she would have been completely lost, and probably would have wound up in the drink. As it was she had to concentrate on keeping her flight level, always fixing upon the lowest stars ahead of her and using them to steer her course.

"Ok, I got his position," Gadget said. "He's a long ways west of Cleveland. Damn, he's in Sandusky, no Cedar Point!"

"He decided to go on a rollercoaster ride?" January wondered.

"Maybe he's checking out the Valravn?" Gadget murmured.

"That would have been a good name..." January mused.

"Feeling a little Stormcrow regret?" Gadget asked.

"No," January answered honestly. "Gilda gave me the right name. She's good at that, crazy good in fact. Maybe that's her superpower."

She saw lights ahead, and banked in that direction. Soon she found herself flying over a large island, lit by a few scattered buildings below.

"I have no idea where I am," January said. "You are going to have to guide me."

"That's Pelee Island beneath you," Gadget said. "Bear a little to your right, and Kelleys Island will be right ahead."

January adjusted her flight as he instructed. Soon the second island he mentioned slid by under her belly. It was much smaller, but seemed to have more civilization, given the greater amount of lights glowing from the darkness below.

"Maybe you could add a quest marker to my helmet" she murmured.

"Already working on it," Gadget replied. "Just give me a few more days."

"No, don't," January reflexively shook her head. "I need to learn to do these things on my own. Besides, I think you've got more important things to do."

"Hey, I thought we were a team?" Gadget argued. "You can rely on me too you know."

"I know," January agreed, "and we are, and I do. I don't know what I'd do without you. But I also need to find my own power. And you have other things on your plate."

"You know, if there are as many little abandoned islands in Lake Erie as there are in Lake Michigan, one might make for a good training ground." January turned the conversation onto a different subject.

"Since the Packard Plant is now practically a movie theater, with all the spectators watching for you in the sky overhead?" Gadget noted. "Yeah, you should come back in the daytime and look around."

A delightful Taco Morndas ‘cuz Mani loves tacos! I enjoyed the fun banter among the three ladies; it really highlighted the distinctive nature of each.

Uh-oh! Hammer down indeed! And the need for speed as Stormcrow races through the night sky, finally getting some GCI (ground controlled intercept) assist from the reliable Gadget.

Yes, we do this all the time, for sure, change the way we think as we write! ... That's one of the best parts of writing. At first sometimes it might seem like 'how am I going to crank out some material with Slick Rick' or Ryo or whomever. Next thing, there's half-a-page of delivered lines & words and in my case, I actually have to trim them back sometimes.

Aunt Branwen is back. Love Spanish rice, myself. Dang, now I'm hungry.

I think over time, Jan will get used to the idea of Blackjack wanting to be her beau. It can be odd though, right? On the one hand, Jan might feel flattered, on the other, she feels downright awkward. Wishes she won't have to ever confront the situation, and so on. Welcome to being a full-fledged lady, hon.

Oh crap, Lighthammer's down? ... Whoa, Lighthammer has a phone which can be tracked? Well duh, he just called her. ... Still. I shouldn't be surprised, yet I kinda am! I wonder how Lighthammer would go about getting a phone? Would he walk up to a T-Mobile kiosk and get connected? Would he buy a cheap throwaway from Walmart? I can't picture him doing either. Maybe he orders a prepaid online.





The description of her flying through the dark trying to figure her way is riveting. Hope she makes it there okay.

Acadian: It was originally going to be Taco Thursdays, because Thor loves tacos. But I had to move some dates back to line up events in the next chapter.

Speaking of which, I think I should not be calling them chapters. Each is a standalone story. So I am tempted to go with Books. Even though they are a little short for an actual book.

Jan is definitely getting a lot of air-ground support on this quest mission. It was another good example I could give of how she and Gadget are a team.


Renee: It is going to be weird for Blackjack having the hots for Jan, either as herself or at Stormcrow. It is always weird when it is not reciprocated. Like you said, welcome to being a lady Jan.

I have not really gone into any details on how super communicators (phones, radios, whatever) work. In reality, things are so easy to trace these days because of GPS systems built into everything, IPs that can be tracked, etc... People can circumvent that with burner phones, or by simply never engaging through technology. But I do want my 21st century capes to be living 21st century lives. That means tweeting and being on the 'Gram. So instead I am saying it all works on that most dearest of writing substances - Handwavium.

I am not even sure how supers across borders works. It is not like anyone is going to ask for their passport. Though I am sure January is too small to show up on radar.

The flying through the dark was something I did want to highlight as being a challenge. It is Jan's second time doing that over a lake now, so it is beginning to be normal. But it is not there yet. She really could end up in the drink if she is not careful.





Cedar Point

Valravn



Book 7.6 - Hammer Down
June 17

More lights grew ahead of January. She knew she had to be getting close now. At Gadget's direction, she let the signs of civilization slide by her right shoulder, and plunged on over the onyx waters of Lake Erie. Soon new lights blossomed ahead of her, and she could make out the towering spires of roller coasters cutting into the night sky. They were lit up like titanic glow sticks, filling the darkness with brilliant illumination.

"Cedar Point is dead ahead," Gadget said.

"I can't imagine what their electric bill must be," January murmured. She winged over the northern tip of the peninsula upon which the amusement park was situated. A campground lined with bungalows rimmed the shores of the lake at this point, and she could see people rushing to and fro beneath her. Something had clearly stirred them up, and most appeared to be headed farther inland, toward the park itself.

A moment later January was over the park grounds proper, and a massive roller coaster slid by under her. Its steel structure was lit up, but no cars raced along its rails. It was clearly shut down. Indeed, all of the park below her appeared to be deserted.

"They close at 8pm, so you should have the place to yourself," Gadget said, as if had been listening to her thoughts. "But watch out, there might still be civvies around, if there's anything for them to see."

January heard the crack of gunfire, and bright flashes of light ahead of her.

"There's definitely something to see," she murmured.

As ever, her chest tightened up at the sound of the guns, and her mouth felt suddenly dry. She wondered if Blood Raven felt this way when going into a fight. Or was she so above it, that she felt nothing at all? Superheroes were supposed to be paragons of courage. But she had never been anything but afraid in every battle she had ever been in.

The stars vanished as clouds filled the sky overhead. Rain began to patter down upon her back. A moment later lightning cracked a brilliant fork across the sky, and thunder rumbled in a low warning all around her.

She swooped lower, and directed her wings to split away from her arms. Now separate entities, they sprouted from her shoulder blades. That would leave her hands free, for whatever might come next. The amusement park was a literal forest of steel, and there was no telling where danger might leap from.

She passed over the Millennium Force coaster and Adventure Island. Ahead she saw a marina nestled against the southern coastline of the peninsula. It was mostly deserted now that the park was closed. January was thankful for that. The fewer people around, the less likely anyone was to get caught in the crossfire.

The blue and orange rails of another roller coaster rose up just inland from the docks. It looked like a twisted mess of steel spaghetti thrown into the air. January knew this one. It was brand new, the tallest dive coaster in the world in fact. It was the Valravn, naturally.

Atop its highest peak she could see figures. Two dark forms held a third between them. That one was clad in a shining silver, blue, and gray armor. A fourth person in black took his time and wound up. Then he delivered a massive power punch. January could swear she felt it break the sound barrier when it connected with the chest of the man in silver. He went tumbling backward across the rails, thrown from the grips of the other two men.

"I see him," January had just a moment to consider her options before she would be in the thick of things. A lightning bolt could incapacitate all three of the villains. But on a steel coaster, she would fry Lighthammer as well. She could go into hand to hand. But there were three of them, and only one of her. Lighthammer did not look like he would be much help in a fight at the moment.

Lighthammer, he was her top priority. That made things clear to her. She reached down into her utility belt to pull out a grenade. She glanced down to make sure it was the one she wanted. After all, it would be really embarrassing to merely douse them with fire suppressing foam.

The trio of villains advanced across the coaster's rails. In the lead was the man who had punched Lighthammer with such dramatic force. He was clad entirely in black, including a mask that covered his face. His bared arms were a shade of obsidian that glistened under the lights of the coaster, and his fingers were splashed with blood.

The second man had long, dark hair, and had a rifle of some kind slung across his back. He appeared to be wearing some manner of ersatz power suit. It was not a sleek, form-fitting affair like the ones she always saw in video games. Rather it was a very rough and uneven conglomeration of parts. It was as if someone had crammed together hundreds of bits and bobs of mechanical devices in no particular order.

The last of the trio did not walk, so much as ooze along the surface of the roller coaster. His legs seemed to flow along the tracks, without lifting his feet. He did not appear to be wearing armor or clothing. Rather his skin looked like a tawny beige plastic or viscous goop. He did not seem to have any defining features. In fact, he looked less like an actual human, and more like an approximation of one. He reminded January of a child's action figure grown to human size, but partly melted over the stove.

Lighthammer climbed to his feet as the trio of villains approached him. He looked around, and his eyes locked on January's. She saw him flash a smile. He turned to say something to his enemies. She was still too far to hear exactly what. Then he leaped off the side of the rollercoaster.

As soon as his feet left the steel bars, January threw her grenade. It clanged onto the metal an instant later, but it did not bounce off. Instead it stuck there, and flared to life. A faint blue haze spread from the device, and suffused the steel of the roller coaster with its light. The feet of the three villains were caught in this glow, and instantly ceased their motion, glued to the spot.

January paid them no more attention however. Lighthammer was all she could think about. Normally he would spout his signature hard light from his body in order to fly. But nothing came forth now. Instead he simply plummeted, barely moving at all. As she came closer and closer, she could see that his armor was dented and broken, while bright bruises and blood stained his exposed flesh.

January willed more speed into her frame, and nosed over into a perpendicular dive. The ground swelled up before her with terrifying speed. But with every second that it grew nearer, so too did Lighthammer's battered form. She poured more and more of her mana into her flight, and faster and faster she rocketed downward.

Finally she was able to wrap her arms around the wounded vigilante. As it turned out, she was not a moment too soon. For an instant later what felt like a tentacle snapped around her waist, and jerked her violently upward. She nearly lost her grip on Lighthammer. It took all of her concentration to keep hold of him.

The next thing she knew, she was back up above the top of the coaster. Now she could see that the tentacle which had ensnared her was actually one of the arms of the Glob, elongated all out of proportion. Thunder born not of nature, boomed out, and a bright flash of light sprouted from the long-haired man's rifle, which was now pointed at January.

January's head rocked back, and stars filled her vision. Not even the Nazi Werebear had hit like that. It felt like she had been struck by a freight train. But she could not cover up with her hands, or otherwise defend herself. It was all that she could do to keep from dropping Lighthammer.

She was vaguely aware of being pulled closer in, so that she was directly in front of the man wearing all black. He was the one who had pummeled Lighthammer just a moment before and sent him sprawling. Now he took his time and wound up another blow. A moment later it hit home on January's chin.

Again, her head snapped back. It was even harder than the rifle shot had been, if that was even possible. She tasted blood in her mouth, and felt her teeth loosen. But if there was anything she knew how to do, it was to take a hit. She had been beaten up by the best her junior high school had to offer. This was no different, except that now she was older, and so were the bullies.

It took a few moments for the world to come back into focus. When it did, she saw that the long-haired man had twisted his body around backwards. He thrust out his rifle behind him with one hand. Its muzzle flashed brightly, and thunder roared from the barrel. January's adhesive grenade shattered into pieces under the shot, and the blue haze binding the villain's feet to the rollercoaster vanished.

The Man in Black wound up again. This time January was able to pull her wings close around her and Lighthammer. When the punch landed, it struck the hagfish feathers. January and Lighthammer swung like a punching bag. But it did not feel nearly as bad as his initial blow. Her wings, it seemed, could take a hit even better than her body.

Now that she had her wits back, it was her turn to strike back. The sky above was a solid sheet of clouds, from which rain already pelted. She tore open the firmament, and brought down her own hammer of light. A silver-white lance of electricity blasted down all around them, and sent every one of them airborne.

January was now wreathed in lightning. The Glob still held on to her however. She swept out with a wing, and neatly sliced his arm in two. The villain's disembodied hand seemed to turn fully liquid, and dripped from her body. In the meantime the electricity wrapped up in January's form discharged into him. That sent him collapsing onto the surface of the rollercoaster in a literal puddle.

She and Lighthammer were falling fast. With every second, the concrete below loomed nearer She snapped out her wings and pulled back with all her might. At the same time she pitched up and out of her sheer vertical drop, and turned that downward momentum into lateral speed. Gravity jealously pulled at her, making her limbs feel like they were made of lead. But she resisted its tug, and willed herself away from the earth.

Their fall had taken them down to the lowest track of the roller coaster, where the cars returned to their embarkation point. The blue steel of a safety walkway that girded the track filled January's vision. She pulled away from it, but not quick enough to avoid it scraping along the back of Lighthammer's already damaged armor. January cringed inwardly, but forced herself onward.

Now the concrete of a road that trailed along the edge of the peninsula rose up in her face. January continued to pitch back and up, to pull herself out of her dive. She was just about to finally successfully do so, when a gun barked in the night air. The force of a hurricane struck her in the back, sending both her and Lighthammer sprawling down to the concrete below. January reacted by reflex, and wrapped her wings around them in a protective shell.

They hit the street an instant later. Chunks of pavement sprayed up around them, like the wake of a ship cutting through the sea. Only it was January's hagfish-enhanced wings that were doing the cutting, even as they absorbed most of the shock of the collision with the earth. Still, they careened down the road between the roller coaster and the marina.

They did not come to a halt until they were beside the first, big hill of the Blue Streak. The wooden roller coaster rose high into the sky, but was still dwarfed by the soaring height of the Valravn behind them.

January turned back to see that the trio of villains atop the rollercoaster. The Man in Black hung from the edge by his hands, and was slowly pulling himself back up. The Glob was still a puddle. Though January did see his severed limb flowed back into the rest of his body. But aside from that, he did not look to be getting up anytime soon. Finally the Rifleman had gone down to one knee, and was taking careful aim at her though his gun sight.

Before he could fire again, January raised a free hand of her own, and gestured to the rain clouds overhead. She tore the sky open once more, and ripped silver-white fire from it. A bolt of lightning lanced down, and blasted directly into the form of the gunman. The night lit up white for an instant, as the electricity hammered down.

Afterimages danced in front of January's eyes, and she tried to blink them away. Lighthammer shifted underneath her free hand, reminding her of what her primary mission was. She turned away from the roller coaster and the villains perched atop it. It was time to leave.

She gathered up the vigilante with both hands once more, and leapt back into the sky. She swerved between two smaller hills of the Blue Streak, and winged out over the long roof of a white building further inland. Then she was over the main midway of the park, and soared past the front gates. She tried to keep as low to the ground as she could, so that she did not silhouette herself against the horizon. She did not turn back to see what the villains were doing. But the entire time she was certain that another blast from that gunner would come lancing out to knock her from the sky once more.

A wide open parking lot now slipped past beneath her belly. That only exacerbated January's feeling of being exposed. She winged to the left, where she saw a chain of trees sprouting near the shoreline. She dove behind their concealing branches as fast as she could, and winged her way along the beach that rimmed the lake.

"I can get you to the Raven's Nest," January said to the vigilante wrapped up in her arms. "Blood Raven might be able to absorb your wounds."

"No, just take me home," Lighthammer croaked in reply. "I know someone who can help."

"Ok, where to?"

"Cleveland," the vigilante rumbled. "Just follow the lake."

January did as he asked, and darted through the skies along the shoreline.

’Superheroes were supposed to be paragons of courage. But she had never been anything but afraid in every battle she had ever been in.’
- - That Jan is apprehensive, even fearful, before a battle is a good thing and much more favorable to her survival than overconfidence.

What a motley – and dangerous - crew whooping up on Lighthammer!

A masterfully written battle that had me on the edge of my seat.

’Before he could fire again, January raised a free hand of her own, and gestured to the rain clouds overhead. She tore the sky open once more, and ripped silver-white fire from it. A bolt of lightning lanced down, and blasted directly into the form of the gunman. The night lit up white for an instant, as the electricity hammered down.’
- - You’ve done a great job of gradually turning our martial arts superhero into one who has truly earned her name. Able to coax lightning from the sky! The Sky Goddess must truly favor this one!

Wow, Jan really took a beating before she got herself sorted out – hampered doubtless by the requirement to protect Lighthammer. I chuckled as I was reminded of a typical Rocky Balboa fight where Rocky uses his face to wear down his foe before really getting down to business.

Lighthammer is luckier than he realizes to have the Stormcrow as an ally.

Uch, roller coasters & rides. They freak me out, but my daughter loves them. I'm too afraid of heights. I gotta admit that one ride (the really tall one) is pretty impressive. I can't help but imagine the entire thing falling into that beautiful water though, in my fears! Are you good with those sort of rides, Rosa?

She's flying over Lake Erie, shesus. Rumor is there are catfish as large as cars in there, at least that's we heard in Maryland when we were kids.

Uh oh. So that's Lighthammer getting his ass kicked. What the heck.

Those villains are odd. Oh, I see. So one of them is some sort of monster. It throws a tentacle out, like some sort of Transformer or something. Yuck.

Cool, glad she defeated those idiots. I mean, what were they thinking? Not with their right minds, that's for srue. I mean sure.





It is un-chartered territory, so far as whatever laws go, right? I imagine if congress or the aviation administration or whomever was going to write laws for this sort of stuff they'd have to treat flying heroes similar to planes crossing borders.

Acadian: I want to make sure that January comes across as human. She feels fear and doubt as much as anyone else. Sometimes I forget to convey that, so I look for opportunities to reinforce it.

The original battle was a lot shorter, and very tightly focused on January rescuing Lighthammer and escaping. But after looking back on it, it felt unsatisfying. So I padded it out, and gave the trio of assassins more time to hammer away at both January, and show what each of them could do. This is not the last time we will see them!

I never really imagined January as being such a Sky-aligned character. But it really has worked out that way as she embraces her wings more and more. I am glad about that, she is evolving into a direction that is natural for her. Plus there are not too many Bird/Winged type supers. That alone really makes me want to lean into her bird-nature to make her more distinctive.

She used her nose to break his fist, in true Rocky Balboa style! Thanks to a truly pathetic boxing match that my neighbors roped me into seeing, I went back and YouTubed Ali vs Foreman in the Rumble in the Jungle. Now that was a fight! It is stunning just how fast Ali was. I could not even see some of his punches in normal speed.

The Hammer does realize how lucky he is. As we will learn later this Chapter/Book. She is just as lucky to have him as a friend as well. This Book is her paying him back for his help against the Nazis during Crystal Death. He will be there for her again in the future, more than once.



Renee: I do not like heights either, so I am not a big fan of rollercoasters. I have ridden them, and they are ok. But I have not done so in a long time. When I was younger I used to go to Cedar Point every few years with various friends. It is close enough to the D for folks from here to make the trip on the regular. The Valravn coaster is new. They built it just a few years ago. Its the tallest dive coaster in the world. For the moment at least.

I don't think the catfish are that big in Lake Erie! I did do a lot of reading up on the islands in Lake Erie for this chapter though. Some have some neat history. One is called Vomit Island. I almost used it in the story. But went with another one.

Those three supervillains definitely had Lighthammer in a bad place. The rest of the Book will revolve around them, and why they are after him.

The weird thing about supers crossing borders is the whole secret identity thing. In the Crowverse, there are laws protecting supers' secret IDs. So they would not have to produce a passport. But at the same time, they might be crossing a border, which could be illegal. So it is tricky. The thing I always remember is that a world with superheros would have to adapt to their existence, not the other way around. It would be like the old days, the really old days of myth rather than history, when demigods walked the land. People like January and Blood Raven are equivalent to modern day Hercules and Perseus.





Cleveland 01 - Cuyahoga River

Cleveland 01 (January's Route)

Cleveland 02 - Close up on the mouth of the Cuyahoga

Cleveland 03 - The Irishtown Bend of the Cuyahoga

The Detroit Superior Bridge




Book 7.7 - Hammer Down
June 17

The miles stretched by underneath as January followed the shoreline. She stayed out over the water however. Almost all of the earth below seemed to be filled with homes or businesses, especially in those places where a river emptied its contents into Lake Erie. She would rather not be seen just now. Not with enemies somewhere behind her, and an injured compatriot nestled in her arms.

Is that what Lighthammer was now, a compatriot? January still was not sure. She did know what he was not, and that was the enemy. That was enough.

He groaned under her, and she thought she saw him cough up something dark. She could feel numerous dents in his armor. She did not know what kind of metal it was made of, but clearly, it had not been up to the task of defending against his three opponents. After having just a small taste of what they could do herself, January was not surprised.

She glanced back over her shoulder, but saw no sign of pursuit. She hoped they were not tracking her, or him, somehow. Otherwise they could follow at their leisure, and pounce once she finally let her guard down.

"Almost there Lightguy," January murmured. "I see a lot of lights up ahead. I think that is the Land of Cleve."

"Look for a big blue bridge over the river," Lighthammer rasped. "It'll be just in from the lake, behind the port."

Some of the lights ahead resolved themselves into skyscrapers, reaching up for the stars that glimmered high above. A sprawl of subdivisions radiated out from them, like a bed of shining diamonds that spread out ever southward into the night.

A marina passed by on January's right shoulder. Then a breakwater slid by under her stomach, creating a small harbor along the relatively straight coastline. A ship was docked next to the shore. It was a thousand feet long, and bore the characteristic high port and stern castles of a lake freighter, while its long midsection sat low to the water. As January soared past, a giant conveyor built into the ship slowly poured out black pellets. She imagined that was iron ore, and it piled up in a huge mound on the dock.

After the iron boat they passed a marina filled with pleasure boats. She saw another set of breakers jutting into the harbor here, bracketing the point where a wide river emptied out into the lake. An old style drawbridge rose up just inland to span the watercourse.

Farther back ashore, January saw the blue bridge that Lighthammer had mentioned. It rose up high into the air above the Cuyahoga, and extended a good distance over the ground in either direction as well. Its understructure was all graceful curves painted bright azure, and glowed against the skyline under a sea of florescent lights. The top was completely flat, without any of the superstructure January was used to seeing on big bridges.

January banked hard over the river, and dipped down to pass beneath the drawbridge. The waters of the river skipped by just underneath them, and January could feel the dampness against the exposed skin of her chin. To their left rose the forest of skyscrapers of downtown Cleveland. The land to the right was low and flat, with large empty parking lots, and a handful of buildings. Behind them were more docks that lined a canal that jutted out to the side of the main river. She even saw another freighter tied up behind a massive iron crane.

January flew under that big blue bridge next. The sound of cars that drove across it was a low roar above her. Once beyond it, she flew past what looked like an old factory, but the signs in front of it said it was an aquarium. Right next to it was a giant pavilion of white tents. January had to bank hard to the right once she passed it, as the river looped into a sharp bend.

Suddenly a pair of bridges loomed up in front of her. One crossed the river low down to the water at a right angle. Its steel frame was either rusted, or painted red. January could not tell in the gloom. Towering above it was a much grander structure that crossed the water at a slant. This bridge was supported by massive concrete supports underneath, complemented by gently curving arches between each pylon. The center of the structure was steel, with an arch that rose up from below the roadway, and gently curved overhead.

"It's right past here," Lighthammer said. "Watch the bridges."

January put all of her attention into flying. It always looked so easy when people did it in movies. But the real thing was something else. While she might wish to do one thing, the forces of gravity and velocity had minds of their own. She imposed her will upon her flight, knowing that if she failed, she would splatter the both of them against a mountain of steel and concrete.

But Lighthammer's lessons had born fruit, and January was able to dart through the gap between the two metal structures. Suddenly the land to her right was densely populated with trees. It was a veritable wall of green. To her left the land was all concrete and industrial buildings, bisected by another great raised roadway that ran from north to south.

"Set us down in those woods," Lighthammer insisted. "The entrance to the Light Cave is hidden in there."

January banked hard once more, and feathered out her wings to bleed off speed. She passed over a small road that ran alongside the river. Then she was in the trees beyond, and it took every ounce of her concentration to avoid spearing them on the numerous branches and boughs that jutted out all around them. She consciously poured her mana into her wings, and ducked, dove, and rolled her way to the ground. In spite of her efforts leaves slapped her face, and small branches skittered across both her armor and Lighthammer's already damaged gear.

Then they were on solid ground once more. For a moment it felt strange to feel the earth under her feet. It had been a long flight from Detroit. She was tempted to make a joke about her wings being tired. But in fact, they were not. After all, it had been nothing compared to her flight with Gola to Lake Michigan and back.

January set Lighthammer down. He seemed fine for a moment. But then his left leg buckled under him, and she was forced to reach out to steady him with a hand. He winced, but otherwise said nothing. He reached into a pocket and withdrew what looked like a key fob for a car. He waved it this way and that, and finally seemed satisfied a moment later.

"That way," he nodded. Then he limped into the trees.

They looked no different from the other trees that towered all around them. But January did not question the vigilante. Instead she matched her stride to his, and slowly they made their way into the deeper underbrush. January felt her wings catch on the branches more than once, and did her best to flatten them against her back and shoulders. Real birds never seemed to have that problem. They could fly into and out of trees and bushes with ease. She was going to have to work on that.

Soon they came to a rotted out tree stump. It was covered in moss, and surrounded by smaller, leafy bushes. Lighthammer took a moment to look around, and January did the same. But she saw no observers.

We should be ok," January breathed. "My video camouflage has been on this whole time, so no one can record us."

"You got that too," Lighthammer grunted. "I just bought a jammer a few days ago. Knocks out all video signals though, so it's kind of obvious something is going on."

"Fred Sanford, at it again," January smiled.

Lighthammer pushed a button on his remote, and a definite click sounded beneath the tree stump. Lighthammer stepped forward and reached a hand down into the rotted wood. His flesh literally vanished into the remains of the tree, making January wonder if it was an illusion of some kind. She had some recent experience with that, thanks to Gola. A moment later Lighthammer lifted the entire stump up, revealing it to be the camouflaged cover of a massive steel hatch.

"You know the Junkman?" Lighthammer turned back a moment, still holding the hatch up with one hand.

"I am the one who suggested that he sell his inventions online," January replied.

"What a small world after all," Lighthammer murmured. He led the way down through the hatch. January found there was a stone stairway beneath it, leading into the darkness. Once it was dogged shut behind them, Lighthammer touched another button on his remote, and a string of light bulbs glowed to life overhead. They stretched down a narrow tunnel that was lined with bricks, and gently curved into an arch overhead. It smelled musty and damp, and the brick and stonework was clearly chipped and crumbling in places.

"This is an old Underground Railroad station," Lighthammer explained as he led the way. He walked on his own now, but clearly favored one leg, and kept a hand braced against the wall at all times. "That is why I bought it."

"You bought the tunnel?" January wondered.

"No," Lighthammer chuckled, "the place it goes to. You'll see."

January did see. After traveling several hundred feet underneath Cleveland, they came to a small chamber, with another stone stairway rising into the ceiling. Another steel trapdoor sat above, which Lighthammer again unlocked with his remote.

"You're lucky that thing didn't get destroyed in the fight," January noted. "Otherwise you'd be locked out."

"No, there's a manual override." Lighthammer pushed the door upward, and it made a resounding clang as it swung back down and hit the concrete floor beside the opening. January rose up after him, and saw that they were in a basement lined with cinderblock walls. It had been turned into a workshop, with numerous power tools, workbenches, and like scattered around. In spite of the massive exhaust fans set into the ceiling, it smelled of oil and metallic fumes. A welding torch and face shield revealed the source of the latter. This was evidently the place where Lighthammer worked on his armor.

"Looks like you have your Armorer skill up to 100..." January mused.

"Something like that," Lighthammer laughed. "I was always good in shop class. There's an art to molding metal, creating new shapes from it. It helps me relax."

"Gymnastics is like that for me," January nodded, "and writing."

"You write?" Lighthammer said. His voice took on a distinctive Western twang. "Letters and such?"

January laughed at that.

"I reckon so pardner," she replied. "I've even been known to use the telegraph a time 'er two."

Then he was falling, and January snapped out her arms to catch him. He coughed hard, and blood splattered across the two of them. January eased him down onto a bench, and gently laid him back across its wooden surface. Now that she could see him in the light, it was clear that he was injured much worse than she had originally guessed. His torso armor was a ruin. It looked like he had been eaten by a dragon and spat out. His legs were no better. In fact, one of them looked completely crushed.

"That's it," she declared, "I'm calling Blood Raven."

She was reaching for Sága when he raised an arm to stop her.

"No," he coughed. "Just let me call a friend of mine. He can patch me up."

His other hand fumbled for his utility belt. January reached down to guide his fingers, and brought forth a smashed ruin of plastic and glass.

"Snap, you'll have to dial." He let the ruined phone clatter in pieces to the concrete floor below. January brought up Sága's phone interface, and dialed in the numbers he specified. It was ringing a moment later, and she held her arm-mounted digital assistant up to Lighthammer's mouth so that he could speak.

"Rev, it's me," he said. "I have a real need to get right with the Lord, and I mean right now."

"I don't know this number," a gravelly voice emanated from Sága's screen.

Lighthammer did not respond. January looked from her mini-computer screen to the wounded man. His head lay back on the bench, and his eyes were closed. Her heart stopped for a moment. Then she realized he was still breathing.

"Hi, um, this is a finely, feathered friend of your friend," January finally said in reply. She was keenly aware that anyone could be listening to their conversation. Wireless phone calls could be intercepted by anyone with the right equipment after all. So she did not want to use any names that might give any of them away. "I'm using my own link, that's why the number is different. Our mutual friend is here, and he needs your help, bad. He said you could do that."

"Lord save us," the other voice sighed. "What's that damned fool... Never mind, just tell me where you are."

"At his place," January said, "in the basement."

"Ok," the man said. "Take him upstairs if you can. I'll meet you there. I've got a key."

When they fly it must be so peaceful, assuming they're not on a mission or dealing with enemies. Like flying a glider. There's no noise, right? I'm just imagining how quiet it must be, except for some wind noise perhaps.

I think Lighthammer could be a compatriot. Simply because superheroes are so rare. Jan and Hammer also do get along okay. I can see them becoming friends / working together more. Sort of like if some punk rock girl goes off to college, and suddenly finds she's the only punk rock girl with pink & green hair on the entire campus. And then one day a second student shows up, and he's into Christian Death and old Dead Kennedys and so on. Just the fact they share those facets is enough to make them at least notice one another. Only question is, do they get along enough to be friends? And I think with Hammer and Jan, they kinda do.

Although Hammer going around saying "Ooo-rah" might be weird.




Oops. Scratch that text above about flying being peaceful.



Yeah, you know? Birds also have their eyes on the sides of their head. How is it they aren't constantly flying into stuff which is straight in front of them?

Oh my gosh, he's got a secret lair beneath a tree stump????

Let me finish this later....

’The thing I always remember is that a world with superheros would have to adapt to their existence, not the other way around.’
- - I really think this is the best answer. The only way to control or police a superhero is with another superhero. Perhaps an ‘International Federation of Whitehats’ might arise and deign to be of assistance.


"Almost there Lightguy," January murmured. "I see a lot of lights up ahead. I think that is the Land of Cleve."
- - Wonderful touch of humor in a tense situation.

Jan is right to admire birds in some ways. But I’m sure the little winged critters probably admire Jan for her ability not to accidently fly into glass windows.

So the Lightcave seems more like a Darkcave so far. Gosh, I hope Gravel Voice lives up to Lightguy’s expectations when it comes to healing!

I remember in the aftermath of that burning building long ago when Blood Raven held back Jan’s hair for her when she vomited. I knew then that Blood Raven was a friend. So it is now with Lighthammer spewing blood upon both of them and Jan steadfastly tending to his needs. Again, I hope Lighthammer remains worthy of Jan’s friendship.

Renee: I think that most times flying is very peaceful. Except those occasions when you have to do something really tricky. Then it is exciting! It is definitely one of the things Jan loves best about being a superhero.

Put a pin in what you are saying about Jan and Lighthammer kind of being two peas in a pod because of their circumstances. That will be addressed directly next week.

Lighthammer will be saying Ooorah!

As Acadian noted, birds do fly into glass windows. I think that is because they are not wired up to understand glass however.


Acadian: There are superteams out there, like the Sentinels in Chicago. Plus there would be meta-humans working for the military and govt. agencies. That goes back to the Red Baron in WWI. So there are supers around with varying levels of governmental authority/limitations.

More of the Lightcave this episode, along with Gravel-Voice.

Jan is definitely a good friend to have.












Lighthammer (Lance Gross)


Inspiration for the work out room

Inspiration for the church house, looking toward the front door (the Light Cave is not this opulent however)

The Light Cave, looking toward the back of the house


The picture of the plane




Chapter 7.8 - Hammer Down
June 17

January leaned down to pick Lighthammer up once more. Her eyes slid over his battered - and in some places bloody - armor. Then she glanced over to the metal-working tools, and noticed a person-shaped rack next to them. Clearly, that was where he stored his armor when it was not in use.

If his friend was some kind of doctor or nurse, then he would have to take off that armor to see to his wounds. This was obviously the place to do it, so January decided that she might as well get that done ahead of time.

She fumbled with the metal plate on one arm, then the other. She continued on with his shoulder and chest pieces, and found that he wore an under suit of some kind of fabric armor beneath. It felt squishy to her touch, which made her wonder if some form of gelatin was encased within the woven material.

"Those metal plates look like Armex Steel," Gadget noted in her ear, "and I'd bet Septims to sausages that the base layer is ballistic goo suspended in Kevlar."

"All that sounds impressive," January said as she moved to the plates over his legs.

"It's pretty good," the high-tech genius observed. "The under suit alone is enough to stop a bullet. The juiced up steel will at least slow down anything more powerful."

"Apparently it didn't slow down enough," January noted.

"Those three can really hit," Gadget said. "I'm working on getting an ID on them, but nothing so far. I am guessing they are not from around here."

"Well, I think you can call it a day," January breathed. "This will probably take a while. I might stay here for the night, just to be sure. If my mom asks, tell her I am spending the night at your place."

"Roger that," Gadget said. "One gaming all-nighter coming up. Thank goodness we are nerds. Otherwise making excuses would be a lot harder."

"Yeah, we'd have to pretend that we were straight," January mused as she finished with one leg.

"Oh behave!" Gadget laughed.

January heard the soft click of him severing his end of the communications. That left her alone with Lighthammer. She pondered the metal armor over his final leg. This was the one that looked completely crushed. She looked this way and that, to see if there was a way she might take it off without further injuring him. The last thing she wanted to do was pull out the only thing that was preventing him from bleeding to death.

She noticed something odd about the area just below his knee. This part was not damaged. But there was something wrong nonetheless. There appeared to be a locking mechanism, that somehow snapped the lower half of the armor to the upper. She fiddled with it, and after a moment his entire lower leg popped off with a sucking noise of released pressure.

January stared in horror. What had she done! Her eyes went from his lower leg, which she now held aloft in one hand, to his upper leg, which still lay there with the rest of him on the bench. She wondered if she could put it back before it was too late. Maybe the doctor could restore it? Sew it back on?

Then she saw that there was no blood seeping from the end of his severed leg. Nor was there any from the end of his still-attached limb. Instead, she saw that there was a piece of padded cloth there. But that made no sense to her. How could someone have put that there, inside his leg?

"I see you found Peggy Mark II then..."

January almost jumped through the ceiling at the sound of Lighthammer's voice. She looked up to his helmeted face, then stared guiltily at the severed limb in her hand. She wanted to drop it. But that would be rude. It was his leg after all. Instead she set it down gently on the concrete floor.

"Peggy... what?" she sputtered.

"Peggy," he said, "Mark II. I only wear it in the armor. My regular leg is in there."

January followed his nod to a locker behind the bench. She leaned over him, and it opened with a squawk of angry hinges. An ordinary set of clothing hung within. At the bottom lay a single shoe, along with a prosthetic leg. It even had the mate of that one shoe already slung over the foot.

She leaned back with a sigh of relief. She had not maimed him. Apparently that had happened some time ago. Her relief vanished under a wave of guilt. Just because she was not responsible, that hardly made it better.

"I had no idea," she breathed. "You get around so well without it. I mean with it. I mean..."

"Yeah, I know. I'm pretty light on my feet." Lighthammer forced a wink. "It took a long time, and a lot of hard work. I was lucky though. It was below the knee. It would have been a lot worse if it had been higher."

"Right, so your doc is on the way," January tried to shift back to business. "I'm thinking I'd better get you out of the rest of your armor before he gets here."

"Yeah, it's got to come off sooner or later," the vigilante said. He lifted a shaky hand to his head, and tugged at his helmet. "You're gonna have to help me with this."

"Are you sure," January looked on in shock. Revealing your face was secret identity territory. "You don't have to do that."

"You know where I live already," he said. "And if I can't trust you by now, when am I ever going to?"

"I guess so." January reached out, and gently slid the helmet from his features. The latter turned out to be a sight Avery would have definitely appreciated. His eyes were the same deep brown shade as his skin. An upturn at the outer edges of his brows made him look perpetually incredulous. His heart-shaped face ended in a strong chin, which was decorated with a short, neatly-trimmed beard.

He coughed blood, which kind of ruined the moment, as did the massive bruise over one eye, and another that marred his cheek.

January glanced at Sága's display on her wrist to make sure that her video camo was still on. Then she reached up and pulled back cubic boron plates and hagfish under armor that encased her skull. She pulled her ponytail out of the hole in the back, and let it swing free down her neck. She looked back at him, only to find that he had passed out once more.

She resisted the urge to laugh. Instead she pulled her winged helmet back up over her features, and set to work sliding him out of the inner suit of armor. It was softer, and more flexible, but that only made it more difficult to shimmy him out of than the metal plates, which simply snapped on over it.

When she was finally done he was clad in just his underwear. She lifted him back up into her arms, and turned to the stairway up. Then she glanced back, and leaned down with one hand to pick up his ordinary, unarmored prosthetic leg. She laid that over his supine form, and carried him upstairs.

She found that the basement let out into a short hallway. Right beside her in the corridor was a laundry room. Across from it was the open door to a work-out room. It was filled with exercise gear, such as a weight machine, stationary bicycle, free weights, and the like. A giant flatscreen television took up one corner of the room, and the walls were decorated with posters of the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Wu-Tang Clan.

The hall came to an end just a few feet away, at a pair of thick, black double doors. January imagined that they led to the street outside the building. She turned in the opposite direction, and followed the hall out into a wide open space. The vaulted ceiling was rich brown cedar, and the walls were creamy white. The hard wood floor beneath her was a reddish hue.

To her right were some small couches and a TV set. Set into the corner of the wall were a pair of bookcases, jammed with novels, hardcovers, and a stack of magazines. Farther back in the room stood a marble fireplace, with several more chairs and a thick fur carpet spread out before it.

Set incongruously above the mantel was a picture of an airplane. January did not know what kind it was, except that it had two jet engines mounted onto its hull, just behind its weapon-laden wings. A wide mouth packed with sharp teeth was painted upon its nose, below a pair of angry eyes. Jutting from beneath the nose cone, as if emerging from the shark-like jaws painted there, was a big rotary cannon.

The walls to her left and right were cut with tall, vertical windows topped with gentle arcs. They were filled with engraved glass, and were dotted with numerous tiny lights from the cityscape outside. The high ceiling came down to an alcove farther back, with a pointed arch overhead. Within that space was a dining area, and then finally a kitchen. January glanced up to her left, and saw a stairway that wound up to a second story, set above the narrow hall she had just stepped out of.

The entire place was one of arches, and lofty space. After a moment January realized that was a church, which had been converted to a home.

With that in mind, she went to the stair and followed it up. She came to a set of bedrooms and a bathroom. She briefly considered putting him in the tub to wash him off. Then she thought better of it. Now was a time for gentleness, not hard, cold surfaces and blasting water. So she led him into a room whose door was already open, and laid him on the bed.

The sheets on his king-sized bed were deep blue, and the furniture scattered around the room was of chipped and faded wood. A framed degree in Aeronautical Engineering hung from one wall. Beside it was a picture of him wearing a flight suit and standing next to the nose of a jet. January saw the name "Yard Sale" written under the cockpit in flowing script.

Another picture on the dresser showed Lighthammer (in civilian attire) with an older man and woman, plus a man younger than him. Another framed picture on the night stand showed a younger version of him in an air force uniform. His arm was wrapped around the neck of a teenage boy in a basketball jersey. Both were beaming from ear to ear.

That had to be his mother, father, and brother, January imagined. She lay him down on top of the sheets. Then she stood there with Peggy Mark I in her hand. She was not sure what to do with it. It was not like she had much experience with men's legs, real or artificial. In the end she set it gently down on the floor beside the night stand, where it would be in easy reach from the bed.

Lighthammer looked like twenty miles of bad road. His nearly naked frame was covered in massive bruises, especially on his forearms and torso. The first were clearly defensive wounds. The latter were evidence that the trio of villains had preferred to work over his body. Not that his legs were free of harm either, nor his face. But in comparison to the red and purple landscape of his chest and stomach, they looked good.

January winced at the sight. She could identify all too well. But even the bullies in school had never tortured her this badly. This trio had clearly been intent upon beating him to death. Given the armor he had been wearing, they obviously had some serious power as well. It looked like he had been stomped on by a dinosaur.

January heard the rattle of metal against metal from somewhere down below, and then the creaking of hinges. Her hands rose to her head, to make sure her winged helmet and its face-covering cowl were still in place. Then she glanced at herself in the mirror across from the bed, to be sure she had herself in order.

Then she strode from the room and down the short hallway. She stopped at the small balcony that overlooked the main chamber, and waited for the visitor to show himself. She hoped it was the person that Lighthammer had called. If it was a family member, or ordinary friend, then she was going to have to do some quick explaining.

She rehearsed in her head what she would say if that was the case. That he was just an ordinary person she had found injured and taken home. There would definitely be no mention of Lighthammering. The more vague her story, the better it would be. One thing she had learned as a writer was that sometimes it was best to let the reader fill in the blanks themselves.

"Lucas?" a voice rang out below. A moment later its author stepped into view. January could see that his head was shaved down to a shine. But the short curly beard that clung to his features was completely gray. He wore a suit that looked more expensive than January's annual income. Granted, that was not saying much.

"Hi!" January said in her perky phone voice. The one she was trying so hard not to make while suited up. At least she resisted the urge to wave. "He's up here, in the bedroom."

He spun about and caught January's gaze. For a moment he looked surprised. January tried not to frown. She wanted to be as non-threatening as possible. But given that she was a superhero dramatically appearing in someone else's house, well, she understood.

"I'm Stormcrow," January said as the man made his way up the stairs. She noted that he was not carrying any medical supplies, or anything else really. "I hope you are the Rev."

"Oh, I know who you are." The way the older man said it did not sound at all inviting. "Everyone does."

January resisted the urge to frown once more. She had gotten the cold shoulder enough times in her life to know how to gauge the temperature in the room. So she said nothing, and simply waited for him to reach the top of the steps. Then she led the way into the bedroom. Once within she stood aside, and gave him space to do, well, whatever he was there to do.

He looked down at the younger man's tortured frame and shook his head. He reached into the breast pocket of his suit jacket, and withdrew a small, dog-eared bible. He laid the worn book down upon Lighthammer's chest, and creaked down to his knees. The Reverend put his hands together in prayer and lowered his head. His lips moved, but January did not hear any words issue from his mouth.

Long minutes dragged by, and January wondered if he was some sort of faith healer. He was clearly not an ordinary doctor. She closed her eyes, and reached out into the astral. The walls and furniture of the room faded to near obscurity. But the forms of Lighthammer and the Reverend sprang to bright life. Neither bore the vivid colors of a magic user. Yet they were not the faded coals of a mundane person either. Instead they were somewhere between, with enough light and warmth to set them aside from regular people, but still dim candles compared to the brilliant torch of a magician.

She saw that light intensify within the Reverend. Slowly, a little at a time, he shone with brighter and brighter power. Then he reached out to lay his hand over the bible on Ligthhammer's chest. January felt that power flow into the injured man. She saw it wash through his broken form, and knit bones and flesh back together.

In some ways it reminded her of the healing trance that Blood Raven had recently taught her to enter. Like it, this power seemed to supercharge the natural healing process. But it clearly had its limits, as it did not restore Lighthammer's missing leg. Still, watching the more recent injuries he possessed wash away was nothing short of amazing.

January wondered if given enough practice, someday she could induce her healing trance within another. It was certainly something to think about. Given how much there was for her to learn however, she imagined it might take quite some time to get to.

When he was finally done, the Reverend leaned back with a weary sigh. He drew his hand back, and tucked the bible back into his pocket. Leaning heavily upon the bed, he struggled to his feet. January was at his side in an instant, and reached out to steady him. But the Reverend shook her off violently.

"Don't touch me!" he hissed.

January was taken aback. This was in spite of her guard already being up, given his earlier frostiness. She said nothing. There was no point arguing with a bigot. He either hated her because she was a lesbian, or because she was trans. Or maybe it was from a host of other possible reasons. None of them were really any different from the others when it came down to it.

It was nothing new to January.

He leaned over Lighthammer's form, and laid a comforting hand on his forehead. He did not even look at January as he turned to walk out. Nor did he say a word to her. January looked from him to Lighthammer. He was clearly much better now. His bruises were gone, and so far as she could tell, everything under the skin was back in all the original pieces as well. His eyes remained closed however, but at least he did not look like he was unconscious. Instead he appeared to simply be sleeping normally.

January took a few moments to lift him up from the bed, and pulled back the covers with one hand. She set him down once more, and pulled the sheets up to his neck. She briefly considered washing him off now with a cloth, but decided against it. That might be a bit too personal. She would not want a practical stranger doing that to her. She did not even want Blood Raven doing that to her.

She walked from the room, and found that the Reverend had made it down the stairs already. He passed from view beneath the second floor balcony as he headed down the short hall to the front door. January vaulted over the rail with ease, and put on a half-twist before dropping lightly on her feet.

"Maybe I should drive you home," January offered at his back. "It looks like that took a lot of effort."

"You've done enough already." The Reverend did not even bother to turn around to look at her as he grumbled. He just continued on to the door on shaky feet. January tried not to hope he didn't get into a car accident on the way home. Well, she tried at least.

She locked the front door behind him after he left, being cautious to avoid being seen from the street. Then she headed back up the stairs, and looked back in on Lighthammer. He seemed to be sleeping gently now. She sank into the only chair in the room, and brought up Sága's writing interface. At least she could do something productive as she whiled away the hours.

"Those metal plates look like Armex Steel," Gadget noted in her ear, "and I'd bet Septims to sausages that the base layer is ballistic goo suspended in Kevlar."
- - Wonderful use of gamer lingo and a fascinating description. It sounds effective but very different from what Jan is using.

You did a great job of describing Jan’s understandable confusion and incredulity as she removed Lighthammer’s leg! A serious surprise.

I like how you remind us of Jan’s endearing shortcomings that make her real and human. Like not recognizing the aircraft type in that picture of the A-10 (why would she?) and still struggling with her ‘perky voice’.

That ‘reverend’ packs some serious laying on of hands. I question his credentials otherwise though due to his dismissive attitude regarding Jan. His reasoning might be interesting to learn but, as Jan says to herself (more or less) he has displayed enough of his character for her to probably discount him/write him off.