Like it or not, image matters. And that's especially true for superheroes. You have to have a distinct look that tells people what you are (or at least what you want them to see you as) and which stands out. Just glancing at Batman or Superman tells you a bit about how they operate.

And the Alliance is making good use of that here. They have some of the best designers working on their uniforms. Like any good super-team, there's a lot of individuality.

All in all, there's a very pleasant vibe here. A bunch of heroes with nerdy tendencies chilling paradise. Though if there's one thing I've learned it's that relaxation usually means trouble in the near-ish future.

Renee: Blood Raven would be the most elusive one to see, but she is not exactly who most people would want to see most. Unlike January and her pals, she does not go out of way to be friendly and open, quite the opposite. She uses her charisma and presentation to deliberately create a brooding aura of mystery and danger around her. She wants to scare, because then they leave her alone. Granted, she did open up some after meeting January, to the point of even sometimes taking selfies with fans. But she is never going to share a hot dog or a slice of pizza with people on the street, not like Jan and company will.

Blood Raven was never a team player to begin with. She preferred to be a loner. So she would never be in the position to wear a team logo. That is all January. She is the one who brings people together.

Brie Larson could indeed be an older version of January, for when she is in her 30s.


Acadian: The Great Lakes Alliance does need a team sticker, so this trip down to Blackwoodville was in order. It is part of the whole theme of this book being about the aftermath of the Battle of Belle Isle. The entire team really coalesced there, with Gadget finally joining in his powered armor. Now it is time for them to make it official, with their own version of the X-Men's "X" logo, or the Avenger's "A". The dragon was just perfect.

It also gave me an ideal place to include Xochitl in the story as more than just a student. Even though she is a long way from putting on a suit and fighting evil-doers, she still has contributions to make.

It would be awesome if the Good Witch Azura could join the club, even if just for a crossover episode. But Disney would sue me.


WellTemperedClavier: January worries that her mostly black outfit projects too daunting an image, and often things of doing things to lighten it up with other colors. But she is a crow, so that makes it tough. There are some black and white crows in Europe however, so she might actually be adding more white to her outfit as well.

This was one of those situations where I just wanted to show the team having fun and enjoying the super life. Unlike some writers, I don't want my characters to be grim and dark and depressed all the time (looking at you Zack Snyder). Super hero stories are wish fulfillment at their heart. I never want to lose sight of that. It is supposed to be fun and filled with the Rule of Cool.

Though as you noted, danger will rear its head soon enough. The Dogman is still out there after all.











Lake Saint Clair underwater

Manta Rays Swimming


Book 11.21 - Raven Sisters

July 14th, morning

Lake Saint Clair stretched out around January. As the Great Lakes went, it was definitely the red-haired stepchild. So much so that it usually did not even make the official list. Compared to the other lakes, like Huron, Michigan, or Superior, it was tiny. From where she soared high in the sky, she could see its entire outline spread out below her. She imagined it could only be a little over twenty miles across at most. That was a long way to walk or swim, but nothing for one in the air such as herself. It was certainly nothing compared to those other, much larger lakes.

She aimed for the center of the blue mass, and nosed down. She picked up speed in trade for sacrificing altitude. In no time at all she was moving at a good clip, faster than any propeller plane could manage at least. But she was still nowhere near breaking the sound barrier, as Lighthammer could do without even working up a sweat.

Even so she had to feather back her wings to slow her descent as she neared the center of the lake. She saw small boats here and there within the waters below, filled with people casting fishing poles to and fro. Off to the west she noted a massive lake freighter slowly making its way through the shipping channel, easily dwarfing every other vessel on the lake.

To her north she noted a lone buoy floating in the waters. She lifted her eyes from its blinking lights. Miles away she noted the estuary of the Saint Clair River, whose many fingers groped out across the surface of the lake. There at their south-western tip lay Gull Island, and the site of Jobbie Nooner.

It had been what, two and half weeks since they had fought the Summoner and his small army of minions there? Only two and a half weeks since she had learned that her brother had been her nemesis. Something she had only learned upon seeing his bloody corpse. It felt like years had passed since then. She had to forcefully remind herself that barely any time had gone by at all.

The water was coming up fast now. That pulled her from her ruminations, and back into the here and now. She was going to crash if she was not careful. Granted, she came out here intending to get wet. But she wanted to do it on purpose, not because she was not paying attention.

She beat down hard with her wings, and arrested her descent. She took a moment to concentrate, and separated them from her arms. That meant less power and fine control, but she would need her hands soon enough.

She noted a boat a short distance away. It was small, perhaps fifteen or twenty feet long at most. A single outboard motor hung from its rear. One man sat behind the steering wheel at the center of the boat, and appeared to be drinking from a beer can. The only other occupant was a man who stood upon the flat deck at the bow, holding a fishing rod over the water. Both men were large, round, bearded, and clad in baseball hats and camo. Pretty much what January would expect from a fisherman. The only surprise was the maple leaf flag painted on the side of the boat. That reminded January that technically she was in Canada, rather than the US.

Well, so long as they did not ask to see her passport, she imagined everything would be ok.

January turned from the fishermen, and closed her eyes to better concentrate. She shifted her senses to the astral. Immediately the world around her leaped into a brilliant display of light. The lake water was glowing with life beneath her, from individual fish, to plants along the bottom, and even the algae that bloomed within its flowing waters. The two men nearby were large spots of light amidst this seascape, but clearly mundane given their lack of color and incandescence in the astral.

She did not simply see the world around her however. She smelled it too, heard it, and felt it. The magical reality filtered itself into her awareness through all of her senses. She could feel the life below her. She could taste it on her lips, and hear it reverberate through her ears. It was a kaleidoscope of awareness, that she had to pick her way through to find what she was looking for.

Thankfully she now had experience at doing just that. She willed away the layers of information that she did not wish to experience. Like filtering out different hues in a picture, she was able to sweep away the things unimportant to her. First she swept aside the small background life such as the algae and other tiny organisms in the water. Then she deleted the larger animals such as fish and humans, and finally the blanket of plant life that lined the bottom.

She was left with a bare minimum of intrusions upon her awareness. One of them smelled familiar, like ravens. It tasted coppery, like blood, but felt as soft as a crow's feathers to her magical touch. To her astral eyes it was a beacon of colorful light, shining with brilliant energy. She turned toward it, and pulled up her power.

It was easier than ever to gather and weave her magic while her senses were here in the astral. She could do more than just feel it in general. She could see the strands of energy, touch them, and smell them. They were putty in her fingers, allowing her to stretch and shape them with her will. She now wove that power around her face, and created a bubble of breathable air.

Her oxygen supply ensured, she ceased the unconscious beating of her wings. That caused her to drop like a stone. Her feet knifed into the water below seconds later, with the rest of her body close behind. Her wings caught at the waves like a parachute, and she was obliged to pull them in so that she could continue her descent.

Only when she was halfway to the bottom did she deploy her wings again. Granted, that was not far. Lake Saint Clair was shallow. Even here in its deepest area, it was not even twenty feet to the bottom. But that gave her plenty of space to spread her wings and fly. Not as a bird did, but as a manta ray would.

She had done this before of course. At Jobbie Nooner she had to face off against the Abyssal oniare on and under the water. That had obliged her to learn to use her wings underwater. She had spent time watching videos of mantas and other rays since then. They did not swim beneath the waves, so much as fly. Now she emulated their graceful sweeps and undulations, and found herself propelled through the water just as smoothly as them.

She was pleased to note that her water breathing spell worked. She had plenty of time to perfect it after Julian's death. That had sidelined her from the pursuit of the Hierophant, while she instead stayed with her mother and grandmother. There was only so much time one could spend sitting on the couch being morose however. It had not taken long for her to start experimenting with her power. The fight at Gull Island had shown her the value of learning to become more at home under the waves. There had not been a lake handy to experiment within. But her Grandmother Sarah's bathroom sink and tub had more than enough for her to perfect the art of breathing underwater.

Thanks to bringing her own air with her, she was able to just breathe normally. She was not sure how people with gills did it, like Calpyso. They would have to literally breathe in the water. Which was obviously something a land-dweller's body like her own really, really did not want to do. In spite of how much her brain might tell her body that it was ok. Perhaps those like Calypso were just more disposed to it, precisely because of their innate connection to the water? Maybe the next time she saw the Bahamian superheroine, January would ask her about it.

In any case, January gave no more thought to her breathing, and flew through the water toward her destination. It really did feel similar to flying through the air. In some ways it was easier. Here gravity was not a constant weight trying to drag her down. The liquid all around countered that, and made her feel practically weightless.

On the other hand that liquid could act as a drag, and push against her as she tried to move forward. At times it could feel like flying against the wind. She had to practice at sliding through it, rather than against it. When she did, she found that it was not so much a hindrance, as it was a hand holding her aloft.

She took a moment to show off, and arced her head and neck back. The rest of her body bent with the motion. She instantly went into an underwater Immelmann turn. Lighthammer had taught her how to perform the aerobatic tactic in the air. Now she did it beneath the water, essentially looping backward, until she had turned in a complete circle.

After all, what was the point in having these abilities, if you did not have at least a little fun with them once and a while?

Once January was back to the same orientation that she had started upon, she went off in a straight line toward her destination. It was a section of the bottom that appeared no different from any other. With her awareness still firmly in the astral, and everything living pushed from her awareness, it had become a bland, empty spot.

Except for the enchanted item that lay buried within the bottom under her feet. That was a bright light in her awareness. She flew down to it and knelt upon the lake floor. Her fingers dug through the clay. She knew that in the mundane world this would be kicking up clouds of mud and debris into the water around her. But she sensed none of this with her deliberately limited astral awareness. There was nothing to distract her from her goal.

She had the artifact in her hands in no time at all. Blood Raven had buried this one herself, as that had been before January had learned to breathe water. But January remembered it. It was Thetis. She and Blood Raven had named it. They had made it together. Their magic and blood had forged its enchantments, even as their mundane fingers had wrapped its wires and screwed its pieces together.

Thetis was a bizarre doll. She was made of an old Fae Cola can. A camcorder's lens sat atop it like a head, and a pair of headset microphones were lashed to either side of that in the place of ears. A pair of plastic hands from a children's toy were screwed to the trunk of the can, along with two bent spoons for feet.

Blood Raven had related that in the old days she simply would have hand woven a doll from cloth and stuffed it with hay. But this was a new age, and it was time to evolve with it. So they had turned to Isaac and his junk heap to provide them with the raw materials. With this flotsam and jetsam of modern industrial society, they had forged their Abyssal summoning detectors.

These poppets had served them well, forming an early warning system of impending Abyssal summonings. They had enabled the team to instantly respond to the summonings at Jobbie Nooner and later at Belle Isle. In the latter case, one had even enabled January to sync her aura with that of Blood Raven's during the summoning. That had allowed the elder heroine to purge the poison from her blood, and at least give her a fighting chance against Nátthrafn and the hordes that followed him.

But the very thing that empowered these enchantments to warn them of the summonings also posed a hidden danger. Each was connected to January and Blood Raven's auras. Through them, one could cast magic directly into either woman. Not an ideal situation for a superhero. Even now as she handled the poppet, January could feel the thread of power that directly linked her to it.

She reached out to that thread and took hold of it. Just as it posed a possible threat to her, it would also be the key to her work today. Her connection to the enchantment would be the very secret to her unraveling it. Without it, she would have to either use brute force to destroy the magic, or employ a very a careful form of surgery.

She did not believe that she possessed the raw power to do the first. Nor did she suspect that she had the skill and experience to do the second, at least from the outside. But this, this she could do. She had no doubts. She had made Thetis herself, she could unmake it the same way.

Besides, a conjure woman who doubted was a conjure woman who failed. She was not going to do that.

So January crossed her legs and settled down to the bottom of the shallow lake. She held the poppet in her hands, and turned all of her attention to it. The rest of the astral world vanished from her awareness, even as the physical world had already done so. All that remained were the brilliant colors and scents of the magic item, and her own power.

She sent that power surging down the link between her and Thetis, like electricity through a wire. Once there she did not simply smash or burn with her energy. Instead she thought back to the end of the Battle of Belle Isle, and to how Blood Raven and sliced apart her father's gateway spell one piece at a time. She had surgically cut out key vertices in the web of the enchantment, so that eventually the entire thing collapsed. January had been given a perfect view of it all, having been linked to the elder magician's aura in order to provide her with more power. Now that memory served as a lesson to guide her in the present.

Her link to the poppet gave her this chance. It put her directly inside the weave of its creation right from the beginning. So she would not have to crack her way in from the outside, as Blood Raven had been obliged to do to the gateway at Belle Isle. Instead this was like having someone leaving the door wide open for her to simply walk inside.

January studied the web of the enchantment that she and Blood Raven had themselves laid upon the poppet to create it. She felt down those lines of power, and those wells of emotion, that were bound up within the artifact. Her magical fingers went to one nexus of energy after another. Like a candle flame pinched between her fingers, she snuffed them out one at a time.

One after another they evaporated, and sent the mana that had created them into astral space. Soon a cloud of released energy surrounded January, haloing her with color and sound in the magical realm. The freed mana was bright and glowing with power, lending illumination to all of astral space around it. Anyone else within the astral realm would likely be able to sense her with ease now, as she was doing the equivalent of starting a campfire in the middle of the night with the energy that she was turning loose.

She ignored this and pressed on. It had seemed a daunting task at first. But now that she set herself to it, it really was as easy as snipping away at a skirt with a pair of scissors. A little here, a little there, and soon enough she had shredded the entire thing. It just took some time and effort. But the result was never in question. She had forged this enchantment, she could undo it as well.

Finally she was finished. The last of the mana that had been bound up within the poppet floated off into astral space. The lines of power that had inscribed its use likewise had been rubbed out of existence in the higher realm. In the end she was left with the weird hodge-podge of modern objects. It was undoubtedly strange, but now just a mundane piece of artwork nonetheless.

With that she allowed her senses to fade from the astral and back to the physical. She took in the world around her. The cloud of mud and loose particles kicked up by her digging had thinned out by now, and the water had returned to normal. Fish of varying types swam about her. She could not tell if they were bass or muskies or trout. Calypso would probably know, or those fishermen somewhere above the glassy surface of the water.

The bottom where she sat was a carpet of greenery. Short stalks of what seemed like grass, or maybe even algae, carpeted the bottom in irregular patches. Tall weeds rose up here and there like trees. In some places the vegetation completely shrouded the bottom. In others it thinned out, revealing bare clay and sand, which was dotted with shells and small stones.

The water around her had a green color, that faded to a mouthwatering teal as her eyes rose toward the surface. As she was less than twenty feet down, sunlight bathed the entire expanse of water. She found herself wishing Xochitl was here. The young artist would probably appreciate the play of light and color across the scene. As it was January brought up Sága to engage her helmet camera, and took a few pictures to show her apprentice later.

With that out of the way, she pushed up from the bottom and sped toward the surface. She deployed her wings once more, and snapped out with them to gain more speed. In moments she darted out of the water like a missile fired from a submarine.

Once back in the comforting embrace of the open sky, January took a moment to flick some of the water off of her. Then she reached into her utility belt and withdrew her bag of holding. The plain, burlap sack was folded down into a flat square of material. She unwrapped it, again and again, so many times that it opened up into a vessel far larger than one could have imagined at first sight of it. Once finally expanded to full size, she opened its lip and stuffed Thetis inside. Then she folded it back down, and tucked it back into her belt.

Maybe she could place it and the other poppets in a display case, back at the Raven's Nest? That might be a good way to start filling up the empty space left behind from Blood Raven's passing. Freyja knew that the place needed something to make it their own.

She paused for a moment to look around. The lake freighter that she had seen before was now miles away, about to vanish into the entrance of the Detroit River. The Canadian fisherman she had seen earlier were still in the same place as before however, and they waved to her with wordless shouts of welcome. She returned the wave. Then she turned her head skyward, and turned on the speed. She had many other poppets to gather up, and places to be in the afternoon.

* * *

Manta rays are fun to watch. Just don't be like Steve Irwin. Truthfully, I don't think mantas can pwn us like stingrays can. And yeah, that is true rays and skates and other prehistoric animals from their family. They don't swim really, they fly. OR float or propel or hover.

Ah, so Lighthammer is way faster than the others, neat.

Whoa! They put one of those poppets underwater. Not just underwater, but in the muck, underwater. Just imagine if Jan had gone all the way back to find this particular one, only to discover it's been removed.



So does this mean Branwen is still "online"? In the sense that if one of these poppets pings with danger, the elder witch can still pick up this signal in Boston? Or wherever she's gone to retire? - Ah, I see. She's dismantling the thing. Pretty neat that all of this is happening underwater. Yah Alteration spells!

Yeah, she should put these poppets (or this one) in some sort of storage. Later on maybe all of these formerly magical items can be on display in that same museum or whatever, along with her first Stormcrow suit.

She paused for a moment to look around. The lake freighter that she had seen before was now miles away, about to vanish into the entrance of the Detroit River.

I love that. Something about really large vessels moving along.

Prudent to undo those poppets, lest they endanger Stormcrow or Blood Raven. Neat that she takes on the Jan Cousteau poppet first. A wonderfully detailed description of her magic at work as she undoes the arcane doll. Flying through the water with the grace of a manta and bursting the surface like a missile into the air must have been a blast! I hope Jan finds dismantling the other poppets as enjoyable and trouble-free.

Definitely hear you on avoiding too much grimdark. At a certain point, too much darkness just becomes unintentionally funny.

Huh, I've never even heard of Lake St. Clair, so yeah.

Wow, only two and a half weeks. A lot's changed... though I suppose the change was building up even before the fight with the Summoner. The fight just made it official.

Really cool the way she's scanning the lake. And it's a useful talent. There are so many times I've been stymied by not being able to find something just because it was beneath some loose paper or behind a desk or whatever. Having all senses engaged would be helpful, too.

Dang, I want this power.

"After all, what was the point in having these abilities, if you did not have at least a little fun with them once and a while?"

Really can't argue with that.

The poppet network does feel a bit like the Internet. Gives you a way to keep an eye on things, but also means everything else can keep an eye on you. Though does she really want to get rid of them just yet? Or would they not be able to detect the Dogman?

Nice finish with the Canadian fishermen.

Renee: From what I remember, Mantas do not have stingers, and are filter feeders only. They are basically giant sea cows.

Lighthammer is way faster than anyone else in the air, including Blood Raven. He can do over Mach 2 at this point, and that is only going to increase as he gains more practice. I can foresee him eventually learning how to transform his body into light. At that point he will also be able to travel at the speed of light. Which will have complications, since that causes time to dilate.

If someone had taken that poppet, Jan would be very concerned. But given that she is magically connected to it, it would be easy enough for her to trace her way back through that link to where it was. Then someone would have some explaining to do.

I am glad you mentioned that first Stormcrow suit. I put that on the list of items that will be on display in the new Raven's Nest.

Back when I was working downtown, I'd often see those lakes freighters going down the Detroit River. They are something to see, given how huge they are. The biggest ones are about a thousand feet long.


Acadian: I mainly did the underwater poppet in that scene because I wanted to show off January's water breathing magic. Plus I wanted to show that she had ranked up her Enchantment skill, so that she can now disenchant items she has made. So it was a two for one situation.

Plus the lake was an interesting place. It has history for Jan thanks to Jobbie Nooner. Plus this is Michigan, we are the Great Lakes State after all. So it was nice to use a place that reflects Michigan, rather than just the top of some generic telephone pole in the suburbs.


WellTemperedClavier: I was surprised when I looked back through the timeline and saw it was only 2.5 weeks since Jobbie Nooner. A very lot happened in a short amount of time. But that is why I have the timeline, so I can keep that sort of thing straight.

Her Astral Sight was definitely worth the experience points she spent to buy it. Given how magic works in her world, being able to see and act in the astral means being aware of all things magical, and many things not. She can essentially see through walls, tell if a person is meta, magician, or mundane, and more, identify spells and enchantments, etc... It's a huge power.

The Dogman is an entirely earthly creature. So the Poppet Network is useless to detect him.

I included the fishermen because when I was doing my research on the Lake Saint Clair, a lot of it came from fishermen. Almost all the underwater videos I found were from bass fishermen. Apparently small mouth bass is a big thing in that lake. So it felt right to give them some representation in return.






Dragon Ball - Turtle School

The Old Master trope

Kaci (RL Kaci Walfall)

Ryo's finishing move



Book 11.22 - Raven Sisters

July 14th, afternoon.

Adin's House of Pain was a simple affair. Located in a strip mall along John R Road, it was just a few blocks from there January had captured the Death Dealer and shut down his Crystal Death operation. Well, except for those neo-Nazis he had sold a batch to beforehand. January was growing accustomed to these little landmarks now: places all over the city where she had fought villains, or otherwise gone into action.

In spite of the melodramatic nickname that January had given it, the Madison Heights Academy of Martial Arts was just a simple suburban dojo. It was one of many humble businesses located in a shopping strip just south of 11 Mile Road. A security guard company sat to one side of it, and a tiny event space lay on the other.

The interior of the martial arts studio was as ordinary as the outside. There was one giant open space just inside the door, filled with padded mats. Numerous heavy and small punching bags lined the back wall, along with a few wooden dummies. Doors to changing rooms and showers lay among them, and finally a short hallway led farther back into the building, with bathrooms on one side, and Adin's office on the other.

Being Sunday, it was open mat day. That meant that the studio was open to anyone to come and spar, whether or not they had a membership there. Adin's was one of the few dojos in the area that had them on a Sunday. Most studios closed altogether. So they usually brought in a good crowd of people there to compete, or just to watch.

"Remember, the honor of our school is at stake," Adin murmured into January's ear. "Use your Turtle Style, and you will defeat our rivals from the evil Crane Hermit dojo this day."

"Is that like, Dragon Ball Z?" January wondered. Avery would know for sure. He was practically a scholar of anime.

"Dragon Ball," her old instructor explained. "Dragon Ball Z came after. Well, it's complicated."

Adin Bernstein - no relation to the attorney's, or the bears - was a man with tan skin and tightly curled black hair. He had grown his facial hair out into a neatly trimmed beard since January had last seen him. That gave him an older, wiser appearance. Though he was still a long way from the classic white-haired martial arts master, who automatically received a x3 damage modifier due to his age and wisdom.

January was about to shake her head, but Adin was fitting the padded helmet around her skull, and she had to keep still. Her long hair was tied back into a braid to keep it out of the way, and her hands were already safely ensconced in a pair of gloves. Like many of the others in the studio, she wore her karategi. The smooth cotton uniform had once been something of a super outfit for her. At least it was before she had gotten her real one.

January nodded that she was ready, and Adin clapped his hands to begin. Everyone else in the room had moved back to the walls, to leave the main floor open. Most sat cross-legged on the floor, but some stood behind them. Only one man remained in the fighting space: her opponent. Even now he and January bowed to one another. Then they each dropped into fighting crouches and moved in toward one another.

Her adversary this day was none other than Ryo himself. The Japanese-American wore a white judogi, as befitted his judo training. He began to circle January, looking for her to make a mistake that he might pounce upon. She on the other hand, immediately moved to cut off the ring, and pushed right up into him. It was something she had learned from watching George Foreman fight Ken Norton.

Like Foreman, January led with her right to parry, and kept her left hand back for counters. Whichever way Ryo moved, January stepped in to intercept him. She used her hands as well as her feet, sending probing jabs to cut him off, and pin him in place. The first time she caught him that way, she was able to press in close, and unleash a flurry of punches into his midsection.

Naturally, she was holding back. She would never dream of hitting someone full-force in a dojo. Nor use her elemental foci to perform inhuman feats of endurance or agility. That would give away her secret identity in no time at all. Of course this also meant no wings or lightning. It was just pure fighting skill.

It was kind of refreshing. She could not rely upon becoming Earth here, and simply shrug off any attack that came her way. Nor could she become Water, and bend or stretch in otherwise impossible arcs. She only had her training to help her now.

Ryo was of course in the same boat. He could not fade and allow January's attacks to pass right through him. Nor could he draw his katana and do what samurai did best. Like January, he had to make the most of his hands and feet and brain.

He had a lot to make the most of. As January already knew from previous sparring sessions, Ryo was fast, lightning fast. He was faster than she was. She had to anticipate his moves, and start her counters before he made his attacks. Otherwise she could never hope to keep up. So she studied not his face, but his waist, and shoulders, searching for any clues that he was shifting his weight in preparation to strike. Sometimes she succeeded, and blocked or slipped aside from his attacks. Other times she found herself laying on her back, and staring up at the ceiling.

January noted that among the audience was a certain young woman, the same age as her and Ryo. Her brown skin was soft as silk, and her eyes were ensconced with a pair of large, pantoscopic glasses. Her dark hair was done up in micro braids, one of which had fallen errantly across the side of her heart-shaped features.

Like the others strictly there as onlookers, she was dressed in normal street clothes. In this case a blue crop top that left her midriff bare, but with a sleeveless striped shirt over that. A striped miniskirt left her legs bare, but for the strappy sandals she wore underneath. Gold hoop earrings hung from her ears, and either a single necklace looped its way around her neck three times, or she wore multiple smaller, yet otherwise identical slender gold chains.

Another goddess, where did they all come from?

She spent too much time looking at the other woman. She paid for it when a power punch graced her chin. Her head rocked back, and instantly moved her eyes away, and back to her opponent. Ryo was closing in. This was the moment she had been waiting for.

He followed up his punch with a high kick aimed at the left side of her head. She saw it coming, and slipped to the right. That sent his foot over her shoulder, just inches from her ear. She instantly charged forward, and pressed her left forearm against the back of Ryo's exposed knee. That sent him off balance, and toppled him over onto his hands and knees.

She moved to try to wrap her arms around his waist as he rose to his feet. That would allow her to perform a suplex. But he was too quick. He wormed his way up to his feet, and pulled her hands up to his shoulders.

That was it. January felt his weight shift under her. He had one of her arms in a lock, and in a seemingly effortless motion, he bent forward from the waist. The judo throw sent her flying over him, to land flat on her back on the mats below. She stared up at the ceiling tiles overhead, and fought to regain her breath. Before Ryo could move in, she tapped out and ended the match.

She hoped that it had all looked good.

January rose to her feet slowly, and found Ryo waiting for her, standing at attention. She bowed to him, and he did likewise. Only then did they move out of the fighting circle, and allow another pair of fighters to take their places.

"Really?" Adin clucked as he helped unlace the gloves from her hands. "I saw that coming from Toledo. Your mind must be a thousand miles away. Or..."

He followed her gaze to where Ryo sat down beside the young woman in micro braids. She looked ecstatic, and alternated between clapping him triumphantly upon the shoulders, and moving in for a short hug.

January had to fight the urge to raise an eyebrow in Spockian incredulity. Then she reminded herself that it was mainly skin to skin contact with others that Ryo was adverse to. Touching him through clothing usually did not stress him out, usually. Right now he was wearing his judogi, which covered him from neck to toe. So it was probably tolerable for him.

But still it was notable, unusual even.

"You did not throw a match just to make him look good in front of his girlfriend." Adin sighed.

"Of course not," January said with as much sincerity as she could muster. "That would be disingenuous, and foster bad habits, and be unethical, and... Ryo's a damn good fighter. He was just better than me today."

"Riiight," the way her sensei shook his head showed that he clearly did not believe any of that. "So what is name of this girl who had absolutely nothing to do with the fight?"

"Kaci," January said. "Ryo really likes her."

* * *

That'd be awesomesauce, Lighthammer actually becoming light as he becomes more adept at his particular powers. WOOSH!!!

"Causes time to dilate..." I had this weird moment some time in my youth when I completely understood what this means. Hard to explain. It was like my brain was able to comprehend what the Fourth Dimension is all about (which from our perspective seems like a measure of time). It was just for that one moment, like a super +INT moment. Probably was reading one of those New Age books when it happened: Time is an Illusion, perhaps.

Right, the Titanic was 882 feet and some change; learned this recently after watching all those Ocean Gate videos. And so modern freighters are going to be even larger at times!

Jan's back in her martial arts class. That must be surreal. Like a world famous rock star who's played stadiums and concert halls returns to the club where it all began. And nobody who knows her here knows she's also Stormcrow, right?

Well, Ryo is here. Ha, this is interesting. See, now that they're sparring in front of others who are ordinary students, they can't use any of their superpowers. They have to go back to fists & feet! They have to "pretend" they're not the same figures who just saved the world.

Hee hee, yup. This gets mentioned in the story. Hmm, who is this aluring young woman?



Indeed. I'm getting ... a bit excited just reading about her. WHOA.... she's



Hmm, maybe I'd better put that last bit in spoiler tags. Don't wanna ruin the surprise if someone inadvertently reads that last part.

This post has been edited by Renee: Aug 12 2023, 02:03 PM

Interesting observation regarding Lighthammer's growing hyperspeed. Might time travel be in his future?

*

Back to the old training ground for h2h sans superness. Wow, a match against Ryo! That he is faster than Jan has to be a huge advantage. Turns out though that clever Ryo didn’t really need his speed. It was his attractive distraction that undid Jan.

Given Ryo’s social awkwardness and introversion, it is great that he has been able to find himself a girlfriend. I can hear Jan now, “Hey Ryo, does Kaci have a sister?”


Nits?
-’In spite of the melodramatic nickname that January had given it, the Madison Heights Academy of Martial Arts {was?} just a simple suburban dojo.’
-’She had to anticipate his moves, and start her counters before her {he?} made his attacks.’

This kind of thing is actually excellent training. Since a superhero relying too heavily on their powers has a pretty massive weakness (and if there's one thing comics writers love doing, it's depriving supers of their powers). Thus, a no-magic duel in a dojo is a smart thing for January to try.

Good to see Ryo's got a girlfriend.

Renee: Time dilation is a weird thing. Basically time does not move at the same speed throughout the universe. In areas with higher gravity, time slows down. In areas with less gravity, time speeds up. On top of that if you move really, really fast, as you approach the speed of light time also slows down. For example, the satellites in orbit that make up the GPS system have algorithms that constantly update their internal clocks and reset them to ground time, because they are moving through time at a different rate than we are down on Earth.

Most lake freighters clock in around 700 - 800 feet long, so a little smaller than the Titanic. But there are about a dozen that are over 1,000 feet long. They are just giant. From a distance they look sleek and needle-like. But up close, they are incredibly wide. They look like giant sea tubs. Ocean going container ships are even larger I think.

You called it. No one at the dojo knows that January and Ryo are supers. So they have to fight the old fashioned way, with wits and muscle.

And you also called it on Kaci. Ryo does not like to be touched in general, though mostly that is on his bare skin. Through clothing is easier for him to tolerate. It is a common experience with many neurodiverse people. Their sense of touch can be very sensitive, to the point where they often cannot wear a lot of clothes, because it overstimulates them and just makes them feel weird. All of Ryo's behaviors like this go back to things that were told to me by a person with Asperger's Syndrome.

And yes, that is a big deal for Ryo. I went back and added some text to make that more clear in case other readers do not pick up on it. He is serious about Kaci.


Acadian: Lightguy might get some sort of time travel in the future, but only in the form of him getting to the future faster than everyone else. The first time he tries out going lightspeed he might take a trip around the moon and back. For him it might only take seconds, but minutes or hours may have passed for everyone else on Earth when he gets back. I don't really know how to do the math calculations.

Speaking of time dilation, while only a few weeks have gone by in story time, several years ago in our time since Ryo asked January for advice on dating, because he had met a girl he really liked. That is back in Book 7: Hammer Down. It is when January realized that Ryo was a magic-user. Well, this is that girl. And January's advice was to just be himself. Among her suggestions was to bring her to Adin's dojo on open mat day so that she could see him spar. Now here they finally are, and January is making her Homie look based.


WellTemperedClavier: One of the big parts of all the characters is that they are not just a bunch of powers. They all have skills that round them out. January and Ryo are fighters. January is also a gymnast. Ryo can code. Gadget is a science nerd who builds things. Lighthammer is a pilot and combat veteran. Cray is a hacker, etc... January herself started down the magic route while building her fighting skills. I always try to show in her fights that she is thinking, and using the tactics of real fighters like Roberto Duran or George Foreman to draw inspiration from. Or like how Lighthammer used his flying skills to outmaneuver some of the flying Abyssals during the Battle of Belle Isle, and used gravity to put himself into a near stall, before rolling over directly on their tails.

And January will get that obligatory "no powers" moment herself in the distant future. I have a multiverse story arc planned for probably season three or four. Early on she will get sent back in time about a thousand years, when magic still worked, but was at a really low level. So she will not be able to fly, or call lightning, or see in astral space, or any of that cool stuff. She will have to rely on her skills more than ever, even as she has to figure out how to travel through the multiverse to get back home. I see her learning to fight with a sword at that time, and forging her own magic sword in the process.






Book 11.23 - Raven Sisters

July 15th (Monday)

January stared at the comic book in her hands. Its cover depicted an African-American woman with a silver arm. She wore a blue and gold uniform cut like something from the Napoleonic Era. One side of its double-breasted tunic was left unbuttoned, revealing a white shirt beneath. She swung from a rope like a pirate, saber clutched in her free hand, while a devil-may-care smile lit her features.

Artemis Argent and the Secret of Mystery Hill #1 was the title above her head. It was a mouthful, and it filled the entire top of the cover. But it was hers, and it worked. January flipped the comic open to the first page. She smiled once more to see her name listed there as the writer, right above where Rus was listed as the artist.

They had done it. They had made their comic book. Well, at least the first issue of the six that their Jumpstarter campaign covered.

"Woot! Woot!" January crowed like a Mad Fae Corps fan. Now all she needed were a pair fake elf ears, face paint, and a bottle of Fae Cola to be a true Faegallo.

Her phone dinged with the arrival of a new text message. She fumbled with the cheap Hamsung, and waited patiently for its screen to unlock. Then she waited even longer for it to respond to her tapping on the new message icon. She continued to wait while the device thought about whether or not it felt like doing anything, until finally it relented and displayed the text.

The first episode of the podcast is up on the host, it will propagate across all platforms shortly.

It was from Ryo. Where Blackjack was their sound engineer, in charge of the actual recordings, the Japanese-American was their editor. So not only did he splice in things like the opening and closing music, he also handled the technical side of publishing. Usually one person did both. But since they had an embarrassment in riches in this case, the two had decided to split the tasks between them. In any event, having someone else handle the technical details meant that January and her mother Barbara had the time to read books and articles, and write the scripts for the actual content.

She had always thought podcasting was just a couple of bros yammering aimlessly into a microphone. Well, some of them were that. But the ones with actual content turned out to be a lot more complicated than that. Thankfully she had a network of friends to help out, as always.

A knock at the door brought January down to earth. In this case it was literal, as she had been jumping about the rotunda of the Witch House. She set the comic book down on the lower steps that curled up the central space to the upper story. Then she walked to the nearby foyer. She was surprised to find her mother standing on the porch when she opened the door.

She had not been expecting to see her today. It was a Monday, which normally meant a work day for her mother, especially in the afternoon. Worse, she had her serious face on. January knew that one from more than one talk during her childhood. The last time her mother had worn it, was when she had announced that she was moving out of the Witch House.

January's heart instantly lurched, and a chasm threatened to open up in her stomach. Something was wrong. Was it her grandmother Sarah? She was about a thousand years old. Had she died? Had her mother lost her job? Had her father done something disgusting again? Or had something new and unsavory about her brother had been brought to light by reporters?

Or worse, did her mother know about Stormcrow? Had she figured out that her daughter January was indeed Detroit's crow champion? As much as January had already considered telling her about that, she really did not think she was ready to spill those beans.

"Honey, we need to talk about something." Barbara spoke in her serious tone. It was the one that went with that face. There was no mistaking it now. Something bad had happened.

January let her in, and led her through the house to the kitchen. It was still one of the only furnished rooms. The Witch House was practically a mansion. In the very least it was big, really big. There was no way that January could afford to buy furniture for it. She still did not even own a TV.

They sat on the stools that lined one side of the kitchen island. That is when January realized that the grown up thing to do was to offer her mother a drink. She knew that her mother liked coffee. But January did not have any, much less a machine to make it. She never liked the smell of the stuff. So instead she pulled out a carton of almond milk from the fridge, and poured glasses for both of them.

"You are still the same girl as ever January." Her mother smiled down at the liquid that filled the Nightgirl commemorative glass January had put in front of her. Burger Baron had put out an entire line of glasses over a decade before, as part of a tie-in with Marvelous Comics. Naturally January had gotten one for every character. It had been a moral imperative. She took the Ms. Miracle glass herself, as she was her second favorite fictional heroine, after Nightgirl of course.

"Who else would I be?" January wondered. As much as she dreaded what it might be, she wished that her mother would get it over and drop the other shoe already.

"You know honey, that is something I admire about you," Barbara turned to face her. "You know who you are, what you are meant to do, and you don't flinch or compromise when it comes to that. You're like Stormcrow that way. It's like your Aunt Branwen says. You don't try. You just do. You are both so certain that way."

"Mom, is something wrong?" January worried. "What happened?"

"Remember when I said that I was feeling lost, and I wasn't sure what I should be doing with my life?" Barbara said. "How it was like I had been sleepwalking for decades, not really seeing what was happening in the world around me? Well I have been thinking a lot about that since Julian's death. And with the Battle of Belle Isle, that is just in so much sharper focus. What has happened to this world, while my entire generation has been asleep at the wheel? What are we going to do about it?"

"Isn't that what our podcast is about?" January probed. "I mean, we are talking about how the world got this way, with garbage patches in the ocean bigger than Texas, fascism on the rise, an internet filled with hate..."

"I think it's time to do more than talk," Barbara took a deep breath. She put her hands on her hips, and stared deeply into January's eyes. "I am going to ask you something that isn't fair. But I have to ask, and you have to decide. I can't do it, because this is going to change your world as much as it will mine."

"Mom, what is going on?" January did not like the sound of any of this. Of all the places she could imagine it going, well, some were pretty grim.

"You know about how Senator Harding went to prison, and how there's going to be a special election to fill his seat?" Barbara said. "Well, I want to run. I want to take that spot, and go to Washington, and change this world for the better. If Stormcrow can fight for this state, then I can do it too."

"But I can't do it unless you are ok with it," Barbara slowed down and eased her voice. "If I do this, it's going to mean a lot more media attention. More than we have had already with your brother's death. They're going to be bringing that up over and over again. And they're going to be digging through both my past, and yours, looking for anything they can find to make me look bad. So they're going to be talking about my abortion back when I was in college, being busted for pot, about your suicide attempt, and being trans, and everything."

"Wait, you were busted for pot?" January held up her hands in a gesture to halt. Her mind boggled at the words her mother had just spoken. "You mean like, the devil's lettuce? Mary Jane? Like that kind of pot?"

"Well, we called it weed too - and the wacky tobaccy - back when we rode on the stagecoach to work," Barbara laughed. "Yes, you may find this hard to believe, but I was your age once upon a time. I had fun. I went to parties. I went to concerts. I even had S-E-X once or twice!"

January tried not to wince openly. The thought of her parents doing that was just too horrific to contemplate.

"Anyway, it was just a misdemeanor offence, no big deal," her mother shrugged. "I paid a fine and went home. Now if my skin had been a different color that might have gone a lot worse, a whole lot worse. That's one of the reasons I am running."

It suddenly struck January that her mother - the person who had always been warning her not to drink, or do drugs, and go to wild parties - was the one actually doing those things. Or at least she had done them in the past. January's idea of the hard stuff was Fae Cola. Her only drug so far had been a restore fatigue potion of Kaelin's after the Battle of Belle Isle. Well, a few of the alchemist's healing potions too. But those did not count. That was healing after all, not a drug. January's idea of a party was a gaming all-nighter. Compared to her mother, she was a nun!

Then January considered the other things her mother had just said. This would mean more media attention. It would not just be reporters dragging through her past and throwing it all over the internet. It would mean them following her in the present, shadowing her, watching her. People looking for her to make some mistake or miscue, or just misunderstanding that they could twist into political or economic capital.

That was not a good position for someone wearing a cape to be in. Sure, there were laws in place that made it a crime to out a superhero. That did not mean that someone would not do it anyway, especially if they were from the conservative end of the spectrum. Those people were already calling for Stormcrow's murder. They had been for some time, and the Battle of Belle Isle had not made a dent in that attitude.

January knew from experience that nothing ever would.

Even worse, if she was revealed to be Stormcrow, how far behind might Avery and Ryo's own identities be? All it had taken for Blood Raven to learn the identity of the Hierophant was the name of January's own brother: Julian Ward. After investigating everyone who had ever been connected to Julian, she had eventually ended up within the Hierophant's very sanctum. It would not take a reporter nearly that much work to link January's friends to her, and then to the Great Lakes Alliance.

This was bad, really, really bad. She had to talk her mother out of it. There was no other option.

"Of course I am good with this." January declared confidently. "If this is what you feel is right for you to do, then I am with you all the way. Whatever it takes Mom, I have your back."

"Are you sure about this?" Barbara said. "I mean, you barely thought about it. Maybe you should take the night to consider how it will affect you, affect both of us."

"No," January shook her head. "I understand. But it's like you said. Stormcrow doesn't waver or waffle in the face of a threat. She fights for all of us. We can't do any less ourselves."

"Ok then." Barbara let out a long exhalation of breath, as if a great weight had been taken from her shoulders. Or maybe as if one had been added there? "I've filled out all the registration forms, but there is one more thing. I need a petition with ten thousand signatures to run for the office. Normally it's a lot more. But they've truncated some of the rules since this is a snap election, and there isn't the amount of time there normally is."

"Oh boy, I don't think we can get all those in one day," January frowned.

A part of her was secretly happy. If they could not get the signatures, then her mother could not run for office, and none of this would be a problem. That would fix things, and keep her secret identity a secret.

She also hated herself for thinking that. That was taking the easy route. Worse, this was something what her mother clearly wanted. January could not hold her back. She could not crush her dreams. She had to be better than that.

January still remembered when she had finally worked up the nerve to tell her parents that she was trans. Her mother had not believed her. She said that she was just going through a phase, and would grow out of it. Her father had not even done that. He had not said a word. He just left the table and disappeared into his study.

January had slit her wrists later that same night.

She was not going to turn around and do the same thing back to her mother.

"Maybe we can reach out to some other people to help get the word out?" January mused. "Maybe some people with a little more notoriety?"

"What do you mean?" Barbara scrunched her eyebrows in bewilderment. "What other people?"

January fished out her aging, discount smartphone once more and waited patiently for the screen to unlock. Then she waited longer for the phone app to start up. Then she waited even longer for it to dial and connect.

"Hey January, what's up?" Avery's voice came over the other end of the line. Thankfully the speaker phone was off, so her mother could not hear him.

"Hi, umm Stormcrow?" January only had to half pretended to be flustered. She could only pray that she succeeded in her Deception roll, and her mother believed that she really was talking to the superheroine in question. "Ms. Crow? This is January Ryan. Well, January Ward. You said that if I ever needed anything I could call on you and the Alliance. Well, I do have a favor to ask..."

* * *

Yeah, that is pretty surprising Okami would allow himself to be not just touched, but fullblown hugged, and iN public. Hmm, is Kaci the gal from Baltimore? Let's find out. Today it's July 15. Hot town, summer in the city...

Jan's on her Hamsung. I love that she's "still" got a cheap phone. You don't know how many times in the past decade I've heard "Wow, you still got one of those?" ... or .... "T-mobile's got this excellent new family plan...just in case you ever want to upgrade." Yeah.... 'upgrade'. Like clamshells are so horrible. Can Jan type a text message without needing to look at the buttons? I can! Can she accidentally drop her cell out of her purse without worrying if a crack's now running across the screen? -- Or how about this... can she fit her phone conveniently into any pocket without needing to stuff it in (so that there's this huge rectangle bulging its way through her clothes)? Pff. Upgrade my 4$$.

Sounds like their podcast is about to be up and running. That is true about podcasts. Some of them are just somebody just sitting there yammering into the auditory version of a shoebox, others are quite professional; made in an actual studio, and so on. It's like zines in the '90s. Most of them were folks using scissors and gluestick, cutting/pasting pictures & words late at night in Kinko's, but there were others which were made on actual computers programs and such.

Uh oh. Yeah, why does Barbara have the "mom/concerned" look? Look at all those thoughts of worry cascading through Jan's head, just from that one look.

Jan hasn't got TV or even a percolater, because she's too busy flying literally around the world. She really is like a rock star.

DAmn. Barbara's doing the woolgathering thing. Combined with the Look of Death upon her countenance. This is suspenseful.





Whoa. She's going to run for office. Phew. Hey, at least she's not about to blow Stormcrow's cover.

..." And they're going to be digging through both my past,..."

Yup. They'll be all over that, especially if she skips the grassroots local campaign stuff and just aims straight toward Washington. I mean, the scrutiny wouldn't be as intense as it is for Hillary or George Santos; Jan's mom is a politcal nobody at this point. But there would be some scrutiny for sure.

In any event, it's pretty obvious Barb is subconsciously cluing in to her daughter's true identity, right? She keeps dancing arond Stormie's name. Jan's worried about this. But truthfully, there's a pretty good chance it'll never even get that far. Because her mom is a politcal nobody. She'd likely barely register at the polls, which is a GOOD thing so far as January Ward's concerned.

Then again, this is the Stormcrow story. Mom's sudden desire to shift into politics wouldn't get written up unless something intense was eventually coming.

This post has been edited by Renee: Aug 19 2023, 02:58 PM

Oh wow, what a position Jan finds herself in! I can’t think of a good resolution here. If her mom goes into national politics it will be every so risky for Jan to try and maintain her secret identity. And if she is outed via either media attention or political opposition research, that would be painting a target on her mom’s back. So. . . telling her mom that she is Stromcrow? I’d suspect that both she and her mom would agree that a US senator and a superhero in the same family are very incompatible and prudence would dictate they choose one or the other. And who has better potential to help improve the world: a white hat superhero or one of a hundred US senators in a political body that moves slower than grass grows and can’t agree on anything? I’d argue the former.

Definitely hear you on the importance of heroes having personality. I'm no comics expert, but my understanding is that Marvel was the first to really run with this, and was a big reason they became so successful in the '60s. Is that more or less correct?

Wait... is Fae Cola this world's version of Faygo? Feel like I should've figured that out earlier.

Okay, so I love where this chapter went. It's such a great way of exploring January's own superhero identity. Mom doesn't have the option of going into costume and fighting evil, so she's going to try politics. Which matters! You can have all the grassroots activism you want, but at some point, someone has to step up and take things to city hall/state capital/D.C.

But as January realizes, this is a huge risk, and not just for her, either. Still, it's not so simple as just dissuading her mom (assuming her mom can even be dissuaded). January empathizes with her mother's situation.

I almost wonder if it'd be better for January to tell her mother about the Stormcrow identity ahead of time. At least that gives her mom some forewarning in case that gets uncovered later on. But telling mom also presents huge risks of its own. I'm not sure what the best path forward is, since they all have pitfalls.

That maybe but I went for the artwork.

Renee: Kaci is not the gal from Baltimore I had been working on. Instead she turned out to be a he. But a he who wears makeup, because he's a hwarang. He won't appear until about midway through the next Book.

January will have that cheap Hamsung until it literally breaks, and can't be fixed. Then she will buy the cheapest thing she can find to replace it. Jan is not rich.

You are right that at this point Barbara is a political nobody. So the scrutiny is going to be low, so far. But things are going to heat up. This is something I have been teasing for much of Season One. Season Two is going to revolve around Barbara's run for office, and the Christo-Fascists who want to stop her, and kill the Alliance.

It's not so much that Barbara is cluing into January being Stormcrow. She is inspired by Stormcrow. Villains like Darth Vader intimidate and frighten people. Heroes like Captain America inspire them. They encourage them to make themselves, and their world, a better place. Inspiring others is probably the most important thing that January will ever do as Stormcrow.


Acadian: It is a mess of spaghetti, with no clean way out of. Season Two will be filled with more of these messy, imperfect situations, with characters not taking what is necessarily the smart or at even carefully plotted out paths. It's more people flying by the seats of their pants, being driven by what they feel is right, and what they know they can live with, vs what they know they cannot.

January's world is in many ways a mirror of our own. So it has the same problems ours does: climate change, extinction, the destruction of the middle class and growing disparity in wealth between billionaires and everyone else, the rise of fascism, and so on. Writing this story has shown me that superheros are incapable of dealing with such slow, creeping threats. They can't give people healthcare, or housing, or a livable wage, or make education affordable, etc... Just like all humans in general, they are good for facing immediate and highly visible threats, like monsters. Terrible when it comes to creeping corruption.

This is something that will come up more and more in the Crow-verse, though I have been touching on it already. Just as January does not win her battles alone, superheros cannot solve the world's problems by themselves. It will take people like Barbara to really change the world for the better, through the glacially slow and excruciatingly boring process of legislating and policy making. I understand your cynicism when it comes to the latter. Given my age, I share much of it. I have seen how much damage both bad and just indifferent actors in government can do. OTOH, my state just go un-gerrymandered for the first time in decades, and it has made a startling difference.

So none of this is going to be easy for Barbara. She has a long and circuitous road ahead of her, with a lot of setbacks and changes of direction. However, I do see a long term political career as her future (not necessarily in the US Senate mind you, she is not going to win every political battle), along with being a podcaster. I always wanted to do a lot more with her character. Mothers are usually background characters at best. I want to buck that trend, and make sure she always has an active role in events.


WellTemperedClavier: Marvel in the 60s was really good at making their characters relatable, and taking on issues that meant something to the readers. Where DC was filled with characters like Batman and Superman, who were millionaires, or literal aliens, Marvel came out with Spider-Man. An ordinary high school kid, that readers could all relate with. Since then they have had several everyman style characters in the same cloth, who have been as popular: like Shadowcat of the X-Men, and most recently the newest incarnation of Ms. Marvel (Kamala Khan). They also used supers to tell stories that resounded with people, such as how the X-Men are an allegory for civil rights, and remain so to this day. Professor X and Magneto are often compared to Martin Luther King jr. and Malcom X for example.

Fae Cola, or FaeCo, is absolutely the Crow-verse's version of Faygo. It is a Michigan made brand, like Better Made potato chips, and Koegels hot dogs. I only just had the opportunity to work in the Insane Clown Posse Mad Fae Corps tie in. I do have a vague idea of having a story take place at the Gathering of Faegallos sometime in the future. Woot! Woot!

As I said above, Barbara is inspired by Stormcrow to change the world. As you noted, Mother Crow cannot don a cape and fight Abyssals. But she can fight in other ways, perhaps in the most important way of all. She really can change the world as a civilian leader, in a way that January could never hope to do wearing a cape. Her run for office is partly inspired by Stacey Abrams in Georgia, and partly by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the Bronx.

It will be very risky. But January is already thinking about that. We will see her machinations come to fruition in the next Book, as Barbara's political campaign really starts to get moving. Someone will be telling Barbara about their super identity by then as well, just not January. She wants to do so, but also doesn't want to, at the same time. It is messy.


macole: The old Jack Kirby style!








Ingalls Mall and the rest of the University of Michigan can be found on the Stormcrow Map


Book 11.24 - Raven Sisters

In less than an hour, January was standing within the University of Michigan campus in Ann Arbor. The tall sandstone edifice of Burton Memorial Tower rose nearly two hundred feet into the sky behind her. It was flanked by the red walls of Hill Auditorium on one side. To the other lay the lower, but wider, Modern Languages Building, with its alternating rows of red brick and eggshell colored concrete.

Before them was the long, open plaza of Ingall's Mall. It was flanked by lines of trees to either side, and wide sidewalks led from one end of the space to the other. The walkways surrounded manicured lawns that filled the rectangular area, while a fountain lay near its center. The latter was a strange affair, and January had to study it for some time to discern that it was a sea god blowing water from his trumpet, while his merfolk children clung to him.

The Michigan League Building rose up on the opposite side of the mall. It was a sprawling brick structure that could have fit into any Ivy League school. A stone facade decorated its main entrance, and tall, slender windows ran its length. Its roofline was dotted with dormers, but only on one side, giving the structure an uneven look.

Thankfully January had been able to convince her mother that by splitting up, they could gather more signatures. That allowed her to change into her Stormcrow armor once she was out of her mother's sight. That armor now popped with a bright golden dragon emblazoned upon her left shoulder plate, thanks to Xochitl and Mr. Blackwood.

People flocked to her now, and she paused to take selfies with them as they passed around her mother's petition to run for office. It did not take long for her to run out of paper. But thankfully some students arrived with a ream of printing paper, and they began to use that instead.

January knew that she was going to have to take proactive measures to protect her identity. Her mind still reeled with her mother's latest bombshell. This could go so wrong, in so many ways. But her mother was right. January did not doubt that she needed to do this. So January had to back her, and find some way to keep it from blowing up in their faces.

She considered the Nightman comics. The fictional superhero was a billionaire playboy by day, and dark crusader for justice by night. He always garnered a lot of attention in his civilian identity as Brice Vayn. He even did so purposely, and used it to cultivate an image of Brice that contrasted sharply to that of Nightman. In the comics, it insured that no one would even consider that one could be the other. Could January do something like that?

But somehow January suspected that pretending to be a vapid dilettante was not going to work for her, much less a party girl. The whole womanizing part was right out. January's only real relationship had lasted shorter than a head of lettuce. Even that had been a shot in the dark to begin with. Hannah had been a real unicorn. January was never going to find anyone like that again.

Hannah. How long had it been since she had thought about her? Hours at least. She was so over her.

So what else could she do to keep Stormcrow and January Ryan apart, even as she was doing reckless things like she was right now, and only drawing them closer together?

January snapped her fingers. Maybe that was it! Maybe she did not need to add distance. What if instead she put Stormcrow right next to January Ryan, and in pictures no less? Nightman had done the same trick several times in his eighty odd years in comics. She recalled that once he had used holograms to make Nightman appear beside his alter-ego Brice Vayn in public. Other times he had his sidekicks like Darkwing or Blue Jay impersonate his super self, while he appeared beside them in his civilian ID.

Maybe Gola could help? The raven mocker had a way of making people see things. But then again, that had not worked on camera. Gadget had seen right through the undead medicine worker's illusions via her suit cams, even when January had been totally dumbfounded herself. No, she would need something more physical.

But at least now she had an idea to start with. The next time she did something like this, she would have something in place to protect all their identities. There had to be some kind of magic that could do it. She just had to find it. But that was a tomorrow problem. Today she had her mother's senatorial campaign to think about.

The crowds parted as a newcomer arrived. January recognized her as Priya O'Neill, the same local news reporter who had been there in the aftermaths of both the Gull Island and Belle Isle battles. As ever, her towering, red-haired camera operator was with her as well, filming every step of the way.

January took a deep breath, and steeled herself for what was to come. Meeting with the public had become almost easy, nearly second nature by now. She just had to be herself really. But where the Fourth Estate was involved, things always got trickier. Now the whole world might be watching. She had to be on her toes.

"Stormcrow!" the television reporter smiled. "Would you like to talk about this petition you are gathering signatures for?"

"I would," January nodded. So far so good. "It is always good to see you again Ms. O'Neill. As you know the special election to fill the seat of former Senator Harding is coming up soon. Barbara Ryan has decided to enter the race, and I am out here collecting signatures to put her on the ballot."

"Barbara Ryan?" January could see the mental gears turning behind the other woman's eyes as she ruminated upon the name. "Wait, do you mean Barbara Ward, the mother of the Summoner?"

"Yes, they are the same person," January tried not to frown. "She changed her name when she divorced her husband. Well, her former husband. That was before the Summoner was killed by the Hierophant, and his identity was revealed."

"You clearly know a lot about her," Priya noted.

"Of course," January nodded. "We investigated her entire family during our search for the Hierophant. That research is how we eventually found his sanctum, here in Ann Arbor in fact."

"So, isn't this a stretch? You went from fighting her son, to now supporting her?" Priya asked.

"I don't see it that way at all," January insisted. "Her son acted of his own accord, without the knowledge of the rest of his family, and certainly without their consent. None of them are responsible for the heinous acts which he perpetrated."

"But still..." Priya said.

"The Great Lakes Alliance is here for everyone," January insisted. "That means everyone. We are not anyone's enemy unless they make us so. I threw down alongside gangbangers and supervillains to hold back the Abyss. I'll fight for anyone who is committed to making the world a better place."

"And do you believe that is Barbara Ryan?" Priya asked. "Isn't she a... librarian, is that it?"

"I do believe that is Barbara Ryan," January nodded. "I think that she at least deserves a chance to make her case to the people. In the end, Michigan will decide. Do we want the same venal politicians from aristocratic families that consider themselves to be above the law? Or do we want someone who is not a millionaire; someone who has actually had to live in the world, rather than above it all?"

"Those are some pretty strong words," Priya said.

"How many years is the former senator serving in prison again?" January shot back.

"And how does the rest of the Alliance feel about this?" the reporter asked.

"Ôkami and Gadget are out gathering signatures as well," January declared. "We didn't reach out to Lighthammer and Blackhawk, since they are not Michiganders like we are."

"Should superheroes be campaigning for politicians?" Priya pressed. "Some people would say that it's not their place to tell others how they should vote."

"Because I wear a cape that means I don't have a right to have a voice? I disagree." January shot back. "It never stopped Riven and Thunderbolt from making their politics clear in California. It didn't stop Arizona from campaigning for FDR during World War Two, or for Truman afterward. Nor has it stopped countless others from doing the same."

January took a moment to flex the wings from her back, and leaned back to run her fingers through their feathers.

"I can use these wings to hit monsters like the Abyssals," she said. "But a cape's job is not simply to punch people. If that is all we do, then we are just thugs. It's on us to do what we can to make the world better, to help people, not just hurt the bad guys. The same is on every one of us, meta-human or not."

"Superheroes cannot save the world from climate change. We cannot stop the pollution of our planet, or reverse the extinction event that is going on right now, which is being caused solely by humans. We cannot guarantee everyone a living wage, or health care, or a roof over their heads. It will take everyone for the human race to have a future. Not just people with capes."

"To be honest, sometimes I think people like us distract from the deep-seated issues that our world faces," January went on. "I mean, we are great for dealing with sudden and immediate threats, like monsters on Belle Isle. But it's harder to engage with the slow erosion of our world, and the disenfranchisement of the working class. It all seems so big, and overwhelming. It's easy to punch things, it's hard to tackle social and economic disparities and the entrenched power structures that reinforce those disparities."

"I know some of us are trying to do something. Calypso and Janos Heisen are working on clearing garbage patches in the ocean. Stinger and Zero Point are building a fusion reactor in Chicago. But these are just pieces of a much larger puzzle. For example, even if they clean all the plastics out of the oceans, that will not stop corporations and countries from continuing to hurl even more garbage and raw sewage right back into them. That's how it all got there in the first place! So these actions alone aren't going to save the world. As Viuda said to me recently, it will take legislation, and policy, and regulations to do that. For that, we need political representation. Only everyone - together - can make all that happen."

"That starts here, by voting," January insisted. "The Constitution begins with the words: 'We the People.' We need candidates who are of the People, who will support us, rather than billionaires and corporations. Only all of us - again together - can save this world from ourselves."

* * *

"Looking good Cray." January nodded with satisfaction as she walked through the Raven's Nest. The quadrant that had once been Blood Raven's modern occult studies area had been entirely empty since her mentor's departure. But now she saw that the hacker had been doing some decorating. Several old arcade games now stood along the walls, such as Pac Man and Space Invaders. The bright colors of their tall cabinets livened up the area, which was now dominated by a pool table that took up the center of the space.

"It's a start," the hacker leaned back from the pool table with a cue in hand. She saw a smattering of balls across the table, and surmised that he had been practicing. "If you've got any ideas for filling this place us, bring 'em."

January took a deep breath. "I know what you're going to say. I know it's a bad idea, getting involved with my mother's senate campaign. Believe me, I know everything you're going to say."

"I believe you," Cray smiled. "And it is a bad idea. It's a really, really bad idea. You are playing with fire here. This is going to place a great deal of scrutiny on her - and by extension - on you. You are going to have to be a lot more careful about suiting up from here on out."

"I know." January pulled her helmet off so she could run her fingers back through her hair. "But I've been thinking about that. I can use the waypoint network when I go out. January Ryan can walk into the Witch House, and Stormcrow can appear Downtown a second later. It's essentially what my brother did during the Abyssal summonings."

"It did throw us off his trail," Cray cradled his jaw thoughtfully in one hand. "That's good thinking. Keep working on creating alibis like that. Make it plain to people that Stormcrow and January Ryan are two different people, so the thought never enters their minds. Other public figures have done this successfully."

"I can use my video camo more as well, especially whenever I suit up." January said. "That way no one can ever get that on film."

"That's good too," Cray said. "It's good advice for everyone. It's too bad the teleportation network is keyed to your blood. If the others could use it, it would help immensely."

"I mean, I could try to add their DNA to the authentication protocol," January mused. "But I think they'd still have to be mages to activate it. So really only Ryo would be able to use it."

"You can do that?" Cray looked surprised.

"I mean, I think so?" January shrugged. Then she thought about, and set her mind to it. "A conjure woman who doubts, is a conjure woman who fails. So I know so. I just don't know exactly how, yet..."

"Your great-grandma was good at this sort of thing, keeping secrets that is," Cray said. "But she was never good at playing with others. If only she was, she'd have set things up to be more inclusive for others."

"Speaking of playing well with others..." Now it was the hacker's turn to visibly take a deep breath. "The whole security issue was not the only reason I asked you to come here. There's something I wanted to talk to you about, concerning your mother's political aspirations."

"You think I should talk her out of it altogether, don't you?" January sighed.

"No," the hacker held up his hands in surrender. "That's not it all. I think it's a great idea. To be honest, I think she could do a lot of good. My generation thinks of politicians as all a bunch of cynical, self-interested snobs playing legal and procedural games, and getting rich while accomplishing nothing. All with no idea what it is like to actually live in the real world, because they move in such rarified circles that they have never had to even once go grocery shopping for themselves."

"Yeah well, one of our political party's sole goal is to obstruct, oppose, and undermine everything the other one does," January murmured sourly. "Their only message is that government is broken, and they do everything in their power to make that reality. Then they blame the other side for not stopping them."

"Yeah, exactly," Cray agreed. "The senate has been a deadlock for a decade now because of that. It's split dead even. Just one or two seats will flip it in either direction. I think your mom's what we need. She can break the stalemate, and tip the scales. That's why I'd like to help."

"I'd like to ask her to be her campaign manager."

"You... what?" January blinked her eyes several times in a row, as she tried to process that information. Her brain had heard it. But it did not seem to want to make those words make sense.

"I think I can help her election," Cray said. "You know I'm good with information management. It's true I've never ran a campaign before. But I've seen it done. Blood Raven and I were hip deep in Granholm's second run for governor, back in 2006. She had a meta-human stalker who was trying to kidnap her. She gave us complete access to her campaign and personal life. In the end it was one of her staffers, and he tried to kill her when he realized he could not have her."

"Blood Raven actually worked with a governor?" January raised her eyebrows in Spockian incredulity. "Now that is something I'd have liked to have seen."

"Well, it wasn't about her being governor," Cray explained. "As I'm sure you picked up on, Blood Raven's always been an Anarchist at heart. Granholm was just someone in trouble, and Blood Raven did what she always does. She fought for her."

"But it did give me a good look into how the election worked," Cray said. "I had to go through her campaign from top to bottom to find our perp. As you kids might say today, I was all up in their business. Every in and out, I saw it. So I think I really can help."

"Besides, I've been cooped up in this tower for too long," the hacker admitted. "Blood Raven could live like that. Not me. I need to get out, and make friends, and actually do something besides this cape thing. I need a life."

January had been thinking for some time that she had not really known much at all about the elder hacker. He had been the calm, cool voice in her ear through so many battles and emergencies now, that she felt like she could rely on him at all times. Blood Raven had been right when she had told her that! But he was still a stranger in so many ways.

Well, this certainly seemed like a good way to change that.

"I think you're right," January nodded. "I think it's a great idea. Especially since I don't think my mom will be able to pay anyone to do it..."

"I'm like the fish who was an actor," Cray smiled. "I work for scale."

* * *

So Jan is all in for her mom, despite the risks. No surprise since she embraces the same philosophy as Buffy in this regard: ‘When it comes to those I love, I don’t count the cost.’

Yet, Jan is not dumb and her wheels are busily turning to try and minimize the risk. She is right though that trying to have Jan and Stormcrow seem opposites will not work for her; they both have that perky phone voice.

Blood Raven is right in that it is good – very good – to have Cray on her side to help with this project.


Nit: "As you kids might say to today, I was all up in their business." - - Superfluous ‘to’ before 'today'?

That article on the Hwarang is really interesting. Goes far in-depth into yet another cultural phenomenon a silly Westerner such as myself has never heard of! Well, looking forward to hear more about Kaci.

Absolutely, the Stormcrow inspires and unites, rather than frightens and divides. But good gosh. She's changed from Jan to SC right in the same building! -- Wait, is she collecting signatures while dressed in her superhero getup? Goddess, that girl's bold. Well if anything, the fact that Barb's being supported by a superheroine is going to put this "politcal nobody" mom to the forefront.





Oh my gosh, she's talking to a reporter. Seriously. What about her Perky Phone Voice? One of these days, somebody's gonna run some voice recognition software and then...

...But then, maybe it will never go anywhere even if somebody (some CIA tech, perhaps) ever does run Stormcrow's voice. After all, January Ward is not on anybody's radar. Nobody's captured her voice algorhythm in some database for any sort of reasons, I assume.

Sorry. Overthinking, as usual. Or, maybe not. Seems she's slipped up a bit, when she reveals that Barbara Ward = Barbara Ryan. Not that this would ruin her hidden identity, but why would the world-famous Stormcrow know such a detail?

Good gosh, STOP TALKING, Jan1!!! Argh, this is nerve-racking! ... SC knows all these personal details!! How would she know all these things?? That's what I'd be wondering if I were the reporter.

Cray is talking. I can't help hearing the voice of Mister Rogers as he calmly explains why involving herself in her mother's campaign is not ideal. So gentle, so affirming. If the Crow Show ever gets onto the CW this particular scene's going to be surreal.

Hmm. Well, I think Cray could do it. Be a campaign manager, that is. Yeah, sure, why not? He'd probably be good at it. Maybe it'd be a bit awkward since Jan would now have Mister Rogers in her life for two reasons. 💡 The conspiracy theorists are going to have a field day if anyone gets wind of this, that's for sure.

Who is Granholm? I assume somebody real, or based on somebody real. Hmm... Jennifer Granholm?

This post has been edited by Renee: Aug 31 2023, 07:03 PM

Neat, Ann Arbor. I've actually been there (albeit, only for a few days)!

The campaign seems off to a good start, and I really loved January's monologue on what supers can and can't do. Yes, they absolutely are part of the solution--but it'll take everyone pitching in to solve the kinds of problems that the world is facing. And that's why it's so important to have good people taking charge of politics.

Interesting offer from Cray, as well. It does sound like he'd be a good choice for this kind of thing, though that potentially presents more operational security problems for the GLA. Then again, maybe having Cray in that position is the best kind of protection they can get.

Acadian: Jan is always all in. Ironically, that is one of the things that her mother admires about Stormcrow.

Jan will have some plans in place by the end of this Book, which she will implement in the next one.


Renee: I am not sure where I first came across the Hwarang. It might have been in the early 2000s when I was doing research on Queer people around the world. Or it might have been later in the 2010s when I came across K-Dramas like The Great Queen Seondeok. The hwarang are a neat phenomena that was very specific to Silla during this one period. But I understand that recently Koreans have been embracing them as a symbol of cultural heritage. They certainly are in TV shows at least.

January is definitely bold! That is one of the ways she inspires people like her mother to act.

Having people like Stormcrow, Gadget, and Ôkami getting signatures is definitely going to put Barbara on the radar. I have been reading stories recently of would be candidates literally buying petition signatures to get themselves put on the ballots. Not votes mind you, just the initial petitions you need a certain amount of signatures for to even get in the race to start with. They are all rich ghouls (seriously, some of them look like Liches) giving away gift cards to everyone that signs their petition. And they still cannot get on the ballots.

Having genuine supers in her corner is going to be a huge initial boost to Barbara's campaign. Especially hot on the heels of the Battle of Belle Isle as this is. Still, that's not enough to get elected. Every candidate has celebrities endorsing them after all. In a world of supers, I don't see how they would not be in the same mix of people boosting the people they like.

The good thing about voice recognition software is that it is all BS. To be honest, most modern forensics is just nonsense, made by people who are just guessing, and have 8 hours or less 'training' from a seminar they took in their respective fields. Lie detectors are well known as being useless, enough that they are not even allowed in courts. Voice print analysis is no better. Blood splatter analysis is just plain guessing. Even finger prints are not all they are cracked up to be.

Jan is not worried about someone getting suspicious about why she knows so much about Barbara Ryan, because she and the others literally investigated her and her entire family in the hunt for the Summoner. Of course she knows these things. That is her job. That much is part of public record now, since the press conference that Blood Raven, Jan, and the governor gave after Belle Isle. I am glad you brought it up though. I went back and added in a few lines of January explaining exactly that.

Cray being in the mix in her private life now is going to make things a more complicated, and a little weirder. I was originally going to create a new character to be Barbara's campaign manager. But then I realized that Cray was right there, and I was not really using him for anything other than the computer guy doing exposition dumps every adventure. This way I can hopefully flesh him out more as a person, and bring him more fully into January's orbit.

And it just so happens that Cray and Barbara are about the same age, and have a lot in common outside of the supers they both associate with. So they are a natural fit together. Especially given that they are both divorced, have kids from previous relationships, and are now single...

That was Jennifer Granholm that Cray was speaking about. She was Michigan's governor for two terms back in the late 2000s. I did not realize that she was still in politics. Good for her.


WellTemperedClavier: I have been to Ann Arbor (or A² - now that I figured out how to type the superscript) as we sometimes call it. I went to the Ann Arbor Art Fair a few years back. Which was a lot of fun.

I actually went back and added a little more to Jan's monologue, to help underscore why supers cannot save the world on the own. Its why Viuda brought it up on the ride to Blackwood's place. What is the point in cleaning all the garbage out of the oceans if people just continue dumping more into them? It needs to be stopped from happening to begin with, which can only be done by civil servants.

One advantage Cray has is that while he's a member of the team, the public never sees him. He's always the invisible man behind the keyboard, at most a voice over a speakerphone. He's kind of like Charlie from Charlie's Angels that way. So he's not recognizable as a super. Which of course he really is not. He's a hacker, he has no super powers. But being embedded right in the middle of Barbara's campaign, he will be at ground zero if anything happens, like neo-Nazis trying to murder her...




The Ann Arbor Art Fair

The Coney Island is a fictional place where the Panera Bread is located in Real Life.

Drawing dicks on walls is an ancient military tradition (probably NSFW)

It is just as popular today

The Michigan Dogman

The Legend


Book 11.25 - Raven Sisters

July 18th (Thursday)

"This is bad. This is really bad. How did we miss this?"

Gadget rubbed the back of his armored head, a sure sign of distress. January felt like smacking the palm her hand against her forehead when she looked out at the crowds that packed the streets below. The roads nearby had been shut down to vehicular traffic in order to allow people to mill across them. Mill they did. They were often jammed in like sardines, from one side to another.

"With the Hierophant and Summoner defeated, I stopped tracking major events," Cray explained through the team-wide comms. "I had no idea this was the first day of the Ann Arbor Art Fair."

Ôkami said nothing. He just stared stonily down from the rooftop which the three of them had taken up a position upon. They stood upon the School of Kinesiology building. It was a brick and glass structure that rose four stories into the Ann Arbor sky. It was not the highest building in the city. But it did sit at the north rim of the Diag, one of the major plazas within the University of Michigan campus. That position gave them an excellent vantage point over the art fair below.

The divided thoroughfare of North University Avenue lay right at their feet, directly north of them. On its far side a wide set of steps colored with brilliant red and white geometric designs rose up to Hill Auditorium. The building itself was fronted with a Classical facade of white columns, but was surrounded by fiery red brick on all sides.

To the right lay Ingalls Mall, which so far as January could see was really just an extension of the Diag, only on the other side of the North University Avenue. It was the same place where she had collected signatures just three days before for her mother's senate campaign. But it was amazing how much it had changed since then.

Now the street below was filled with a double line of white kiosks that ran down along the red brick island that normally separated the two directions of traffic. The open-faced tents were arranged back to back, so each row of them faced one half of the divided road. Even from her high perch, January could see that the kiosks were filled with paintings, hand-crafted jewelry, glazed pottery, elegantly carved wooden clocks, and every other sort of hand-crafted knick knacks.

The streets in front of them now teemed with people. Young and old, rich and poor, every spectrum of the rainbow, everyone was represented. There were people dressed up, and people dressed down. There were families, and coteries of friends, and people just hanging out. It was a melting pot of humanity.

All of this spilled out beyond University Avenue and spread up Ingalls Mall to the north as well. It ran down the plaza's entire length, and ended with a stage for musical acts. Within was a veritable sea of both humanity and artwork, hundreds of thousands strong.

Even more kiosks lined the cross street beyond Ingalls Mall. But thankfully that was the end of them, at least in that direction. But to the west, the art fair also stretched farther along University Avenue, and branched off to the north and south as it met more cross streets farther away. It just went on and on throughout the city, like a bowl of spaghetti that had been up thrown down upon the map.

Even the roads that were not directly taken over by the fair were filled with travelers on wheels and feet, going from one place to the other. The restaurants and bars and other businesses were likewise packed. January imagined that this must have been one of their biggest weekends of the year, given the throngs of humanity that were known to descend upon Ann Arbor for this famous festival. It was the largest of its kind of all of Michigan, if not the entire United States. She could see with her own eyes that everyone wanted to be here.

One of those restaurants was their target of course. Laham's Coney Island sat across the intersection of University Avenue and a cross street that stretched away to the north. That put it directly north and west of the Kinesiology building upon which January and the others stood. That also placed it right alongside the fair below. That meant there was a constant stream of people moving past its front doors at all times, not to mention going in and out of the restaurant.

"Do we even know if this intel is good?" Blackhawk's voice came over the comm. January had only recently learned that she did not use a radio or phone. Given her power to control not only magnetism, but the wider electromagnetic spectrum, Toronto's resident superheroine was a living communication device herself. "No offense Cray, but how solid is this really?"

"Well, there are rarely any guarantees, but I have a good feeling about this one," the elder hacker explained. "Bill Nadeem is part owner of the Coney Island below. It's a family-run business, and has been for seventy years, when it was founded by the eponymous Laham. The important thing is that Bill is also a member of the National Guard. He was called up for the Battle of Belle Isle. As near as I can tell he was not involved in any fighting. But his unit was stationed on the island itself after fact."

"He was listed as missing the next day, on the 9th," Cray went on. "His commanding officer assumed he had gone AWOL. But he turned up again on the afternoon of July 10th, just in time for his unit to be deactivated and sent back home."

"And the morning after was the attack on the Big Tire," January nodded along to herself. "So maybe?"

"That's a big maybe." Now Lighthammer's voice came over the comlink. "He might have just gotten hammered, slept it off, and then staggered back to his unit. Trust me, I know enlisted men, it's what they do when they aren't drawing dicks on the walls."

"Hey, some of us resemble that remark!" Cray laughed. Then his voice grew serious once more. "But he is the best lead we have so far."

"So what did you dig up in the arcane department Crowgirl?" Gadget asked. Even as he spoke, Lighthammer came down beside him for a landing in a blur of blue, white, and silver armor.

"No joy with the Scripta Mortis, or John Dee, Eliphas Levi, or any of the other books I have in English," January frowned. "But I did learn that we Michiganders have our very own cryptid, and he's the Michigan Dogman. The first sighting was in Wexford County in 1887. Two lumberjacks saw a creature with a man's body and a dog's head. From there he appears off and on up until today."

"Where is Wexford?" Gadget wondered.

January did the most Michigan thing ever. She held up one hand in imitation of the mitten shape of her state's lower peninsula. Then with her other hand, she pointed to a spot a little below the tip of her pinky finger, and slightly inland.

"About here, south of Traverse City." January declared.

"In 1937 the Dogman was in Paris, Michigan not France. He's was in Allegan County in the 1950s, and Manistee and Cross Village in '67. In '77 he was in Oscoda. Supposedly he appears once every decade, on the year ending in the number seven. But I've found stories outside of that, like one from the summer of '73, when a deliveryman saw a large, dog-like animal pawing at something on the side of the road. Then it stood upright like a man."

"There is even a song," January explained. "A radio DJ made it back in 1987, and released it on April Fool's Day. I think that's where the idea of the ten year cycle comes from. The song is all BS of course. He even admitted that it was a joke, which of course doesn't stop people from taking it seriously. It's a good song too. But it makes it really hard to tell what he made up for the song, and what was folklore from before it. So it's hard to make any sense of it."

"So we have stories, and songs, and maybes," Blackhawk's voice did not come over the comm link anymore. She was speaking in person now, as she came down to land beside the rest of them atop the university building.

"Honestly, that's more than we usually have," Lighthammer admitted. "At least we know what you learned from your first encounter with him."

"Yeah he's big, hairy, and very angry," Gadget mused. "If he was a little shorter, and had adamantium claws, he could be-"

"Hey, let's not get sued here," January laughed. "Besides, this fella is not the best there is at what he does. Seriously though, we might be able to reason with him, especially if we can catch him during a dormant stage. We just have to keep him from going berserk."

"Yeah, a berserk Dogman with a magic flail in the middle of this is a bad, bad idea." Blackhawk waved one arm toward the thousands of people who thronged the street below.

"I feel that proceeding now would be a mistake," Ôkami finally spoke. "It would place far too many innocent lives at risk. We should wait until after the fair is over tonight. We can follow him home and face him there, or perhaps stop him on the way."

"Are we sure he's even in there?" Lighthammer wondered.

"He's one of the people who owns and runs the place, and these have got to be their biggest days of the year," January pointed out. "He must be down there."

"I've got eyes on him right now," Gadget said. They all turned to face the powered armor hero. He now stood on the edge of the rooftop, and stared to the north and west. "He just walked out the front door."

"Spleck!" Gadget swore a moment later. "He's got eyes on me too. He just ran back inside!"

Some very rich scene setting here. I was impressed by the hand/map gesture that Jan did. It simply screams of her local ties to Michigan.

When you described Blackhawk’s command of the electromagnetic spectrum as her power, it reminded me of the X-men. I hadn’t thought of that before – where superheroes are considered mutants. Though the common thread among them in Stormland seems to be more of a natural affinity for magic instead of some sort of ‘X gene’.

Ah, so we learn they are there in pursuit of a dogman lead – only to discover it is fair time and the city is swarmed with people. Okami is right to urge not barging in now.

Uh oh, not sure how much of a problem the mutual sighting between Gadget and their target will be. . . .