The Stormcrow, A Superhero's Tale Options

[Renee]

Ha! I've done that a few times--"made up" a word, that is. My computer's screaming at me NO, that word is NOT spelled correctly, by putting red ink underneath it. But hey, if "Youtuber" and "influencer" can become words ...

Wow wow WOW wow thanks for the timeline! It doesn't go all the way back to the first chapter when she's in school, doing yoga in public. I love it! I'm going to copy-paste the timeline to my Documents folder!

When do you reckon the story starts from day one? Edit: I just visited the OP, and it looks like May of 2019 is Stormcrow Rising.

But if a con artist is going to fleece someone, I prefer it to be a bunch of snobs.

True. Also, the whole fact that they told Billy not to use Pablo Escobar's name for the original island (but Billy did it anyway) Is kind of funny. The dude is so arrogant! -- Otoh, I mostly feel bad for the workers, the poor folks who live on and around that island who built all that from scratch, and barely got paid.

"Lava Elemental". I can totally see that listed in the DnD manuals.

Charlotte sounds neat. It's even got a microwave. It's even got 'eyes'. How many wings does it have? That'd be wicked if the answer is 8.

Yes Jan is tired! She's been going going going, and this last battle was particularly tough, since she handled most of it by herself. It is rather ironic that she's flying in a plane today. Must be strange, being able to fly, and then getting into a vehicle which does all the flying for her.

The lava elemental looks like a wet cat!

Whoa, so they've already seen all these videos of Jan and Hannah!! What'd they do, put some vids up on MeTube?

Yes, Viuda's got a pet spider in her spidercraft. I bet she has a bunch of them wherever she lives. Just ... no centipedes, okay girl?

No one was ever going to love her

Somebody will.

This post has been edited by Renee: Aug 1 2022, 08:23 PM

[WellTemperedClavier]

Nice to see January channeling some Robert Frost there!

The general impression I've had of Book 9 is that it's a bit of an emotional (not necessarily physical) respite for January, while also showing that she's by no means over what happened. As she's still in an insecure place, the burns from the salamander immediately remind her of concerns regarding desirability. It's hard to never have something you wanted, and in some ways harder to get it and then lose it.

Her reaction to the spider is also an example. All these things do add up. Is there meta-focused therapy in this setting? Or maybe metas who focus on offering therapy (since a non-meta might have difficulty understanding some of the stresses)? On the other hand, a meta therapist would be a major target due to having privileged info so...

Yeah, this is tricky.

Still, she has another win under her belt and seems to have made a few friends along the way.

[SubRosa]

Acadian: Thanks to the confidence that she has been gaining from superdom, Jan has been getting over the scars on her wrists, not allowing herself to feel ashamed of them anymore. That confidence is translating over to other scars as well. She is getting more used to seeing them as simply rites of passage, rather than beauty marred.

Your 3 Amigas comment made me think of a trio of old Commodore computers.

Pirates, Robots, and Ninjas is apparently an old improv comic shorthand for different types of comics. But I am used to seeing it mostly on RPG forums with people taking it more literally as who would win in a fight: Pirates, robots, or ninjas. In any case, I could not resist interjecting it into the story, just with wizards added for obvious reasons.


Renee: The timeline goes back to before the beginning of the story. Every book/chapter is listed there by title.

Charlotte has 8 engine nacelles, 4 per side. She is a spidercraft after all...

It is quite a change for her to be flying inside a vehicle for a change. Come to think of it, I am not sure if she has ever ridden on an actual airplane.

There have been videos of Stormcrow in action being posted on MeTube, Instantgram, etc... since her very first fight. People are always holding up their phones to record everything.


WellTemperedClavier: I have always been a fan of Robert Frost, so I cannot resist throwing Frostisms in from time to time.

Book 9 is very much a matter of cleaning up after the mess left behind by the previous one. In the literal sense the mess of a leftover elemental being awakened by accident by the Summoner. In the emotional sense that of January dealing with the mental whiplash of becoming suddenly single again. It is one of the reasons I titled it Ashes. It is about being left behind in the ashes. That and of course... fire elemental.

Her reaction to Toby was very much a case of PTSD just rearing the tip of its ugly head. January has been the recipient of a great deal of trauma in a very short time. Not to mention other emotional extremes. It is going to have an effect. I am not sure how far I am going to take it. But I wanted to show that she is human, and is affected by the things in her life. It is not all just fun and games for her. That is also why I try to at least make subtle notes of the fear she feels every battle. The tightness in her chest, the dryness in her throat, etc...

There actually was a storyline in the DC comics based on a therapist for supers. I never read it, but as I understand it, it ended with someone being murdered.







Lava Vent (RL Kilauea)


Book 9.17 - Ashes

January looked out the window, away from the spider. She concentrated on her breathing, and her heartbeat. She moved the energy through her body, just as Blood Raven's books as Branwen Renner had taught her to. As she calmed down and relaxed, so too did the weather. By the time they arrived over the Soufrière Hills, the sky was a clear blue expanse once again.

Among the multiple domes of the volcano lay a fresh fumarole. It was an orange-red wound suppurating within the slope of the mountain. Magma bubbled there, giving off a steady stream of gas and smoke. A trail of lava led away from this rent in the Earth's crust. It meandered both down and up the hills to the north and west, and only ended where the salamander was finally defeated.

"So how do we perform this magic?" Calypso asked. "I have never done such a thing before."

"Well my first time was just last week. But I think the two of us can manage, just follow my lead once we get down there, and add your power to mine." January turned from one Caribbean heroine to the next. "Set Maggie down beside the fumarole. Calypso and I'll take care of the rest."

"Sí señorita," Viuda nodded. January climbed to her feet as the spidercraft lowered itself to the earth below. She followed Calypso back through the cargo bay, and waited while she opened the rear hatch. By the time the ramp settled into its down position, they were just above the ground. Calypso hopped out cautiously, as a normal person might when dropping several feet through the air. January leaped without a second thought. The impact on her ankles and knees from this height was not even worth noticing.

The salamander was bundled up beside them. As they watched, the cables that wrapped it up in a fine net slithered away, and snaked up into the hull of the spidercraft over head. January noted that the eight engine nacelles that straddled the Charlotte's hull changed their angle and glowed somewhat brighter. The spidercraft eased sideways an instant later, following the new direction of the engines. So clearly they provided not only propulsion, but directional control as well.

She was going to have to tell Gadget all about this. He was going to love it.

It was hot, this close to the bubbling lava. So much so that January found she could not sweat. The moisture just instantly evaporated from her skin. It was like standing inside an oven. Worse, the fumes in the air bit at her lungs, and the next thing she knew, she was coughing. She raised Sága and tapped its screen. An instant later her self contained breathing unit snapped down around her lower face. After taking a few deep breaths, she felt her lungs return to normal once more.

"Chica, you might want this!"

January and Calypso turned to see Viuda standing on the cargo ramp. Her helmet once again encased her features. She held a respirator in one hand, and tossed it to Calypso. The Caribbean heroine plucked it from the air. But she did not put it on right away.

Instead she paused a moment, and seemed to concentrate. January felt mana flow through her body, and wrap her in a cocoon. No, it was a chrysalis. It shrouded her in bright power, momentarily obscuring her from physical view. When it faded, the other woman's Deep One form had vanished. Instead she stood before the pair as an ordinary woman.

She still wore the same coral armor. But the faceplate had lengthened to cover her eyes and upper nose. Now rather than spiny-rays, a nimbus of curly black hair crowned her head. Her skin was dark onyx, and her eyes soft brown. The hands that reached up to fix the breathing apparatus around her mouth were quite human, with nails polished gleaming purple.

"It is a bit too dry here for my sea-form." Her voice was still exactly the same when she turned back to January. "It grants me many boons. But in this case, you might say that I am out of my element."

"I can imagine," January murmured. Just as she had recently learned that poison was more effective against her than most others. She expected that a water-based meta would have vulnerabilities to elements such as heat and flame as well. The universe gave with one hand, and it took with the other.

She stepped to the edge of the fumarole. It was a literal hole poked into the side of mountain. The rim that encircled it was stained yellow with sulfur, and a gray plume of gas steadily issued from its depths. A pool of magma lay right there, just inches below the edge of the hole. Its dark red surface was split with bright yellow cracks, reminding January of mud that had dried and fractured in the sun.

"The last time I did this, we got to go down into a vent," January mused. She stared at the surface of the molten rock. For a moment she forgot about the salamander. Instead she simply reveled in the majesty of unbridled nature. "It was beautiful. Not what I expected at all."

"Could we hurry up the wizard stuff," Viuda's voice broke her from her brief reverie. "I'm double-parked here..."

January smiled at the crack, then turned to Calypso.

"If you have a centering skill, this would be the time to use it."

January closed her eyes, and knelt in the volcanic ash. She stretched out her senses into the astral. Calypso was a rainbow of energy beside her. The salamander was of course, a literal bonfire in the magical realm. Viuda was a bright, but monotone flame compared to them in the aether, and her spidercraft a barely sensed outline. She did feel Toby within the craft, a pale shadow compared to the rest of them. Other than him and the other two women, there were no signs of life in the astral nearby.

"One for sorrow,
Two for joy,
Three for a girl,
Four for a boy,
Five for silver,
Six for gold,
Seven for a secret never to be told.
Eight for a wish,
Nine for a kiss,
Ten for a bird,
You must not miss."

January sang in English, then in Old Norse, then back again. It was not her elemental mantra. Instead it was a song her mother had taught her when she had been little. It was a simple song about counting crows. But the memories it held for her were strong. In a moment she was there again, sitting on her mother's lap on the front step of the house. Her mother pointed out birds in the trees overhead. Some were crows, some were not. But it did not matter to January, they counted them all just the same. All of them were magical in her young eyes.

January drew her power up from deep inside of her, and allowed it to wash out through the words. She knew that her runic circle would have sprung up around her now, glowing the same words in Elder Futhark. She concentrated on those words, on translating them, on what they symbolized.

The act calmed her. It drove all other thought from her head. There were only the memories, the words, the sounds, and the meanings. The rest of the world ceased to exist. The rest of her life ceased to exist. All of her problems, all of her fears, all of her regrets, simply vanished in the flow of power.

She felt Calypso's hands rest upon her shoulders. A moment later, the Caribbean woman's energy flowed into her own like a cool river. They intertwined like two seas meeting and becoming one, the waters mixing and intermingled with one another, until there was no difference between the two.

January directed that flow, just as Blood Raven had done back at Mount St. Helens. She sent its current to wrap around the salamander. The mana enveloped the creature, and encased it in a cocoon of power. As then, she was reminded of swaddling a sleeping baby in a blanket of down. She kept that image locked in her head, of peace, and serenity, and compassion. She made sure those feelings poured out with the magic, became a part of it, and defined it. It would be the anchor that her spell was built around.

One by one, the threads of her power wound their way deep into the aura of the elemental. Each brought light, and warmth, and peace, and healing rest. The creature would not awaken for centuries, perhaps millennia. When it did, she knew that it would be reinvigorated, stronger than before, and hopefully gentler. For compassion was a much an ingredient in this magic as pure power.

Their combined magic lifted the elemental up into their air now. January's eyes were still closed, so she could not see it in the real world. But she felt it in the astral. She directed the salamander to float over the fumarole, which was a warm island in the flow of energy around them. She sent the elemental down into the magma. She felt it part under its aura, and bubble up around it. She sensed a momentary cloud of gas escape from the molten rock. Then all became still once more, as the elemental passed deeper into the earth below.

She gently disentangled the threads of her magical power, and allowed them to gradually shrink back into herself. She was in no hurry. In fact, she allowed herself to once again simply enjoy the moment, and savor being a part of the natural world. A world that was both beautiful and terrible. But one that she was undeniably an integral part of.

She felt Calypso's power wash away. She allowed her own to fade with it, and finally opened her eyes once more. She still felt thirsty, and hot, and dry. In fact, she felt more tired than ever when she finally did clamber back inside the Charlotte. Calypso took her time as well, her motions leaden and slow. Once within, and the door shut behind them to keep out the toxic fumes, the other heroine took a bottle of water and literally dumped its contents over her head.

"That was not good for my skin care routine," she said in her melodious voice.

"Your skin is lovely," January said without thinking. The moment the words had left her mouth, she regretted them. Hannah instantly sprang to her mind, and she felt guilty for finding another woman attractive. Then she felt guilty for caring. Hannah had left her after all! At least she thought so. Or had she dumped Hannah? Even now, she really did not know.

Then she thought of how else that could be taken.

"Sorry, I didn't mean that to sound creepy." January hastily added. "I just mean you look fine, a lot better than I probably do."

[Renee]

Yes, that is what I was thinking... a spidercraft should have eight ... nacelles (new word for me there) since it's based on an arachnid. It's like the original Batman show. Everybody had their own custom-made gear and vehicles.

Nice to see that Jan knows how to do something (combining magic) which a fellow heroine does not. See, she's learning much. I mean, yeah, think about that a moment. Jan seems fully able to switch from one elemental type to the next: fire, earth, air, etc. But Calypso is a lot more specialized, focusing on water.

I love when she goes into other planes. The poetry's awesome, too.

Aha, I see what they're doing here.

Yikes. She really's got Hannah on her brain. 💔 Can't even compliment somebody without feeling guilty about it.

But anyway, what is Calypso's answer to her compliment? Guess we'll find out (or not), next week! Next episode!

[Acadian]

I see Charlotte uses vectored thrust to blend propulsion and maneuver. Probably even more so than the AV-8 Harrier does.

Jan’s centering song and the memories it holds is a neat way to show how far back her fascination with crows, birds and flight goes.

Loved your beautiful description of putting Maggie to bed. The blending of Stormcrow’s magic with Calypso’s with the resultant power and calmness. Mission complete!

I had the same thoughts at the end as Renee that poor Jan is still stuck on Hannah.

[WellTemperedClavier]

"Ashes" has a negative connotation. But ashes also make the bed from which the phoenix rises, anew, and we may be seeing a bit of that here. Not only is January healing (slowly, one step back for every two steps forward) but so was the salamander. The heroes put it back into its element, safe and sound.

Of course, trauma doesn't just disappear. It's not healed, so much as our psyches heal over it, the wound still there beneath the scar tissue. But that's something, at least.

[RaderOfTheLostArk]

Can't help but think of this song when I hear the word "ashes."

Whenever you read SubRosa's writing, you get a story AND education! Now I can add "suppurating" and "nacelles" to my vocabulary.

If only the salamander was named after a certain boxer, January could've yelled "Down goes Frazier!" I imagine that's not what her character would say, though.

Always wanted some sort of helmet where I could tap a button or screen, and then BOOM, a helmet snaps quickly in place.

Coral armor sounds dope. Down the road in the Fallout: Florida storyline, I hope to implement Coquina Power Armor/Warsuits in some way.

Hopefully, when that salamander wakes up in the far future, it doesn't start causing trouble again. But I suppose we'll never know.

Can you blame anyone for finding an attractive woman pouring water on herself even more attractive?

[SubRosa]

Renee: When it comes to superheros, everyone has to have their own shtick. Otherwise there is no telling one from another.

My take is that there is more to magic than any one person can know. Even someone as old as Blood Raven. Because whatever you think you can do, you can. And everything you don't think you can do, you cannot. Though that is not to say that it is easy to do things. It has to be something that is natural and right for you, and you have to exercise and practice and work at it. The same as any other skill. So there are indeed things January can do that Calypso cannot. Or Blood Raven cannot, and vice versa. Everyone is unique.

She only broke up with Hannah something like a week before. So she will have Hannah on her mind for some time.


Acadian: Charlotte does indeed use vectored thrust. Each of her engines can be independently directed and controlled, giving Viuda a sort of all wheel drive in the air. It makes her not only fast, but extremely nimble in the air. We will get more specifics on how Charlotte works next week, in the final episode of this book.

I wrote down January's counting crows song a long time ago with the intent of using it sometime. I have sneaked it in at least once already. But I wanted to use it more. I first heard part of it from a Counting Crows (the band) song. That is what prompted me to go look it up, and I found it was a nursery rhyme called One For Sorrow about counting magpies.

I really wanted to convey January's feelings of empathy when I wrote that part. January is as much about compassion as she of punching nazis in the face. It is why she is a hero, and not a thug.


WellTemperedClavier: January is definitely doing better by the end of this book than she was at the start. She is going to sort of acknowledge that either in today's episode, or the next. She has been making new friends, seeing more of the world, and reaffirming who she is and why she does the things she does.


RaderOfTheLostArk: Ashes makes me think of the band Ashes of Soma...

I think I learned suppurating from HP Lovecraft. Now that is a guy you have to read with his book in one hand, and the dictionary in the other... Nacelles is something I learned from Star Trek. Those long "wings" that stick out in the back of the Enterprise are its engine nacelles.

That is not what January would say. But she does know the "Fraiser's Down!" reference. She has studied that boxing match, and a lot of other ones, on MeTube.

When I was working on a Calypso's motif, I wanted to keep it as ocean-related as possible. So at first I was looking at shells similar to Morrowind's chitin armor. Then I thought of coral, and that just clicked as being perfect.

Ok, now it was my turn to learn. I had to look up Coquina. That is a neat idea to make armor out of that, especially since it already used as a building material.







Book 9.18 - Ashes

January disengaged her breathing array, and then slid the helmet from her head once more. Once again, the air on her skin felt good. She was quick to find another bottle of water, and took a long series of gulps from it.

"You are right, you do not look very well." Calypso laid her hand against January's forehead. "You are hot, and dry. Let me guess, you are thirsty, but cannot seem to drink enough? Do you feel tired, sapped of energy as well?"

"Yeah, you could say that," January nodded. She plopped down into one of the jump seats in the cargo bay, and sighed deeply.

"I think you have heatstroke my friend," Calypso declared. "It is a common enough affliction in these climes, even to those not engaged in mortal combat with fire elementals."

"Frell, I think you're right," January closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the hull of the aircraft. "The last time I felt like this was when I went on that Boy Scout camping trip when I was ten."

"You don't look like a Boy Scout..." Viuda murmured from the cockpit. January could feel the spidercraft lift into the air, and begin to fly away.

"Obviously it didn't agree with me," January chuckled.

"It looks like we have a companion," Calypso looked out one of the side window bubbles. "That's news helicopter is following us. I suspect they would like a story."

"Don't worry, they can't keep up with Charlotte," Viuda declared.

"No, we need to stop to talk to them," January insisted, "or at least with the police, or the governor, or whoever is in charge here."

"Those parasites?" Viuda scowled from the cockpit. "You know they just use people like us for ratings. We are a product to be exploited."

"I don't care about the reporters," January waved off the spider woman's dismissal. "I care about the people they will reach. They need to know what happened here, and that it won't happen again. We can't just punch bad guys in the face and slink off into the night, leaving everyone to wonder WTF? We need to be a part of our communities."

"She is right," Calypso nodded. "Put us down by the beach. At least I can get some water there. Then Stormcrow may speak to these reporters."

"I was thinking you two should," January shook her head. "This is your town. I'm just a tourist."

"Hey, I just drive the taxi boss," Viuda called out from the cockpit. "They don't pay me to talk to the press."

"Not a big fan of the Fourth Estate, is she?" January said quietly to Calypso.

"Not since a reporter deliberately misquoted her to create click bait," the aquanaut replied. "Always be on your guard with members of the press. Ancient and wicked they are. We must be cautious in our dealings with them."

"Yeah, I get that," January nodded. "It always makes me nervous talking to them too. Honestly, it's easier just punching things."

January felt a slight shudder run through the spidercraft as it came to a landing. The cargo ramp began its steady drop downward. January smelled the ocean as the air rushed in, and heard seagulls in the distance.

"Very well, I shall speak with them," Calypso stepped up to the rear of the cargo bay, and waited for the ramp to finish opening. "But I do not really know what happened here."

"It's all our fault really," January shook her head. "That firewing we fought at Gull Island must have come from here. The Summoner called it from deep within the earth, and he took it back to Michigan to fight us. Since the end of the battle we have been so intent on hunting down his partner - the Hierophant - that we never thought to find where the firewing had originated. I believe this salamander was nearby, and was awakened by the same call. It must have come up in its own time. Once on the surface, it simply did... what it does."

"Burn things," Viuda observed. She opened up a metal cabinet built into one wall that was marked with a red cross. She pulled out a jar of cream and knelt down by January's side.

"Transform them," Calypso explained. "That is what fire does. It is the element of change, and change is not always pleasant."

"More wizard talk," January could imagine Viuda's eyes rolling behind her helmet. "You aren't like that, are you Stormcrow?"

"I am worse!" she laughed. "Maybe it comes from our teacher. Blood Raven has a flair for the cryptic."

"It is a trope with us magicians." Calypso smiled. She closed her eyes, and her body transformed back into its aquatic form. Away went that glorious halo of black curls, and back came the spiny frills that created an ichthyian mane about her features. For a moment, it took January's breath away. She was amazing! In another time, Calypso would have been worshipped as a goddess. Or burned at the stake. They all probably would have been.

"The two of you go on without me," Calypso went on. The rear hatch was down now, its lip buried slightly within the ashy brown sand of the beach. January heard helicopter blades thrum louder and louder, and saw a storm of sand blow up nearby. "I will take care of this, and then I must return to the Sargasso Sea. Our work there must continue. But it was good to make your acquaintance Stormcrow. I look forward to our next meeting."

"Not yet, I'm in this until the end." January waved off Viuda before the other woman could begin slathering burn cream across her face. She pulled her helmet down over her features once more, and strode down the ramp to stand beside the aquatic superheroine. She glanced back to see Viuda lean back against the bulkhead and cross her arms across her chest. She was clearly not interested in joining them to talk to the press.

So she and Calypso walked down the beach to where the Worldwide Network News helicopter had settled down upon the sand. The Charlotte's cargo ramp clanged shut behind them. Then multiple cameras were trained upon the pair, and a man with a microphone began asking questions. January recognized them all. They were the same crew from the helicopter she had so recently saved from being set ablaze by the salamander's lava breath weapon.

January was a little surprised that the reporter addressed her in English. She had expected them to speak Spanish or French. But Cray whispered in her ear that Montserrat was still a British territory. So English was the official language. She went on to repeat to the reporter what she had just related inside the Charlotte about the origins of the elemental and its motivations. Her head felt light, and she had to stifle the urge to yawn. She just had no energy for any of this, and kept wishing for a drink of water.

She envied Calypso. The other heroine was calm and poised in front of the cameras, as if being on television was something one did every day. January wished for her confidence. She never liked people looking at her. Her life only got worse when others started to pay attention to her. That was when someone inevitably read her as trans, and the snide insults began.

Calypso showed her media savvy when January fumbled over the explanation of how the salamander had been called up the week before, without the awareness of her and her allies.

"So would you say that you and your team are responsible for this attack?" the reporter pressed. He seemed eager to find something sensational about the story. As if a fire elemental on the rampage was not interesting enough.

"No, she is not." Calypso was absolute in her insistence. "This salamander was inadvertently brought up by the Summoner. This is what happens when fools who chase power meddle with forces they cannot control, much less comprehend. The Summoner and the Hierophant are responsible for this. Stormcrow is responsible for stopping it. I cannot say that more plainly."

January let Calypso take the rest of the interview from there. Her head felt light, and she was so very tired. She was thankful when it was over, and the Charlotte's cargo ramp tilted down once more to let them back inside. January clambered within and plopped down into one of the folding seats. Then she set to guzzling another bottle of water while Viuda caked burn cream upon her skin.

She set the water down for a moment, and loosed the armor plate from her left forearm. It was the one that held Sága, and January breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that the computer's screen was not cracked, or even scratched. This had been where the salamander had bit her earlier, in the old swimming pool. She rolled back the sleeve of her suit underneath. The meta-fibers had long since regenerated from the bite. But her flesh had not.

A long line of teeth marks punctured her skin, which was red and blistered around the injuries. Blood still flowed from the wounds however, and in a moment Viuda leaped to wrap them up with a trauma bandage from her medical kit. The other heroine paused a moment to look at the old scars that crossed her left wrist. There were a few shallow cuts, then one thick wound, which was still an angry white ridge across her flesh.

Viuda said nothing about the suicide scars. For her part, neither did January. But she did not shy away from the other woman's gaze either, nor allow her face to redden with shame. She was done with that. Her scars were part of her story - and a part of her - and she was not going to whitewash any of it.

When the powered armor heroine was finished, she folded down the sleeve of January's armor back over the now-dressed wound. Then she wiped her fingers and put away the medical supplies.

"Once the bleeding has stopped, you will need to disinfect that," Viuda warned. "Don't worry, the bandage itself is sterile. But you could still get an infection if you are not careful. There is no telling where Maggie's mouth has been."

January nodded. Bumps and bruises had been an ordinary part of her life for well... as long as she could remember. Gymnastics had gifted her with many a skinned knee and bruised elbow while growing up. Kickboxing, muay thai, and krav maga had only graced her with a plethora of new bumps and lumps. Not to mention the bullies of public school.

Granted, this was a bit more than just a scrape or black eye. But just as she had gotten used to those, she found that she was getting used to this as well. It was simply her new normal.

"It's not bad," January mused. She rotated her arm around to look at the dressing. "The quantum stings from that shrinking Nazi at Motor City Pride were a lot worse."

Calpyso shook her head.

"You are just like Blood Raven," the aquanaut intoned. "She too, was always cavalier when it came to pain and privation, as if they were mere inconveniences to her."

January smiled at the comparison. Whether or not it had been meant as a compliment, she certainly took it that way.

"Valhalla waits for us all..." she murmured softly.

"So where to next?" Viuda asked. "Are you staying anywhere? I can drop you off at your hotel. Or you can come crash at my place. I have a couch that more than one cape has surfed upon over the years."

"No, I have to get back home," January shook her head. Then she stopped herself. "I'm sorry. I'm tripping up on my words today. I appreciate the offer. I really do. In spite of all the fighting and heatstroke, it really has been a grand time, just meeting you all. I think Blood Raven was right. I did need to meet new friends."

"In fact, I wanted to thank you both," January continued. "Without the two of you, that thing would have never been stopped. Both of you saved the day. You're the heroes here."

"Hey, we're all the heroes here chica," Viuda disagreed vehemently. "We all did this together. No one of us could have done it alone. Granted, I did look better swinging on a cable than anyone else... But that is neither here nor there. Besides, this is our home turf. We are the ones who should be thanking you for coming down to lend a hand."

"You're right," January nodded. "That sounds like the kind of thing I usually find myself saying to Blood Raven."

"You and her really are a strange pair," Viuda observed. "She's so... 'grrr, dark avenger from the shadows'. And you're so... kind."

"She is kind as well," January insisted. "She is passionate. She is stubborn. She is opinionated. She is patient. She is the best teacher a person could ever hope for, and she is a good friend."

January laughed, when she realized that she had just repeated what Blood Raven had so recently told her about her own mentor: Keziah Talmadge. Now January wondered if years from now, one or her own apprentices might say the same about her.

"And she is fierce, and generous, and wise," Calypso added. "She always seemed to know when to push me, and when to give me space. She taught me that I had power, real power. She showed it to me, and helped me create it within myself."

"You wizards are a weird bunch." Viuda climbed up into the cockpit and settled herself into the pilot's seat.

"We are," January followed her up and strapped herself into the co-pilot's chair. This time when Toby loomed up over a control panel, she impulsively reached out with an open hand. The tarantula took a tentative step with one leg, then another, upon her palm. Even as light as they were, January could feel every tiny bit of pressure from the footsteps.

In spite of her best efforts, her skin crawled at the feeling. Try as she might, the face of the djieien stared back at her through her memory. Those eight eyes burned with green malevolence. They were eyes that had never witnessed the light of our sun. Eyes from a place of darkness and horror...

With an effort of will, she shoved those thoughts from her mind. She had defeated that Abyssal, and the one at Jobbie Nooner. If need be, she would do the same again if there was another time. She would not let it get to her.

Still, she gently set the large arachnid back down upon the central control console.

"Not ready for spiders then eh?" Viuda observed. "That's better than a lot of people though. I don't know why you all get so freaked out over them. They're just animals, like any other."

"One the size of an SUV tried to eat me a couple of months ago," January noted. "I guess it bothered me more than I realized."

[Acadian]

Heat stroke. That makes sense given what Jan has just been through. She is a superheroine but she is also mortal after all.

"Always be on your guard with members of the press. Ancient and wicked they are.”
- - Quoted for truth.

Calypso is indeed smooth with the press but Jan needs to give herself more credit. Suffering from heat stroke while being asked to explain something complex to idiots would be a big challenge for anyone.

Jan is getting quite comfortable talking about her place as a wizard and that is good to hear.

She even takes a good step toward tolerating Toby. Ever striving to move forward, she is.

“Hamsters, Rangers, we’re all heroes today! Right, Boo?”

This whole storyline, sans Gadget and Blood Raven, has enriched our Stormcrow and was nicely done as she meets new friends, stretches her comfort zone, learns some new things and continues to network with other supers.

[Renee]

Uh oh, followed by a copter. Jan's got a good point about using the news to speak to local people. See, this is her own set of ideas here. It's more important for the people to know what happened. But damn, they might get misquoted. Gotta try at least, I'd say.

Alright, so yeah, first question. "Are YOU responsible for this attack?" Geez, really? That's the thanks they get?

"You and her really are a strange pair," Viuda observed. "She's so... 'grrr, dark avenger from the shadows'. And you're so... kind."

That's lovely. I can almost hear her accent as she speaks, too.

[WellTemperedClavier]

The heat stroke's a good reminder that, amazing as she is, January's still mortal.

Good recuperation here. Though January's (and Viuda's) caution about the press is well-warranted, she handled herself well. Still, it's probably for the best that Calypso stepped in when some of the reporter's questions got too aggressive.

It also brings up the point that the Hierophant is a global threat. Part of me would like to see January take on more of a globe-trotting persona. Another part of me likes how grounded the story is in Detroit. Either way it goes, I'll be keen to see more.

[SubRosa]

Acadian: The heat stroke was absolutely intentional to help keep January grounded as a character. As you said, she is still human after all.

I adapted the ancient and wicked from another source that some people may be familiar with.

Put a pin in that quote from Minsc. You will note something related this episode.

January does not want to live in fear. She is ferocious about that. So she of course met her growing arachnophobia head on (even not the PTSD that is really the cause). Its not the spider of course. It's the nearly dying that is really bothering her.

One of the things I was going for with this Chapter/Book was to get January out of her familiar grounds, and out meeting new people. That meant no Gadget, and for the most part no Blood Raven. This was all about January stretching and doing things without them. As we near the end of Season One, roles will be changing, and January is going to have to do some growing.


Renee: You are right on the nose that this is January following her own code with speaking to the press. It is not what Blood Raven would do! But reaching out to the public is what January does. She has her own style now.


WellTemperedClavier: The media is always a tricky beast to deal with. Some of its members have ethics and come from a place of good faith. Others are utterly bankrupt when it comes to both. Jan had the misfortune to come across someone who was quite willing to stir a controversy where none existed, all in the name of ratings. Thankfully for Jan, Calypso was there to shut it down.

You are right that the Hierophant is a global threat. That will be made clear in the next Book, when I finally wrap up Season One. The story will mostly remain in Metro-Detroit, and the Great Lakes region in general. But January will at least occasionally stretch her legs and get out to other places. For example, I know that in Season Two one Book will be set in Washington DC and a nearby part of the Atlantic Ocean.








Spiders balloon using electrostatic forces

Jinn

La Sirene


Book 9.19 - Ashes

She stared out the window as the spidercraft rose up into the sky, and then zoomed out over the vast expanse of the Caribbean Sea. The island of Montserrat quickly faded away in the distance to her right, and soon they were surrounded by nothing but the deep blue of the ocean's never-ending waves.

"So where are we going?" Viuda asked.

"Oh, I'm sorry, my mind is wandering," January replied. "Do you know where Blackbeard's Castle is? I have another new friend who can make a gateway there for me to go back home."

"In Charlotte Amalie East, on St. Thomas?" Viuda nodded. "I know the place. Carnival is awesome there every year. Too bad you missed it this time around."

"That's what Harper said," January smiled.

"You know Harper, and Kaelin too?" Calypso asked. She stood behind January, one hand braced upon one of the bare metal ribs that ran down the inner hull of the craft.

Viuda changed course somewhat, and banked the craft to the left. "Of course she does, she's a wizard. Calypso here's good friends with them both. We all hung out together last Carnival. It was a lot of fun."

"I guess the world's a smaller place than we realize," January took another long swig from her water bottle.

The spidercraft zoomed across the sea with a barely audible hum. That prompted January to crane her head back, to get a look at the engines that straddled the sides of the fuselage behind her.

"How does Charlotte fly?" January asked. "Is it some kind of anti-gravity device?"

"In a way," Viuda preened. "It's an electrostatic repulsor system which I created. You know Coulomb's law right? The magnitude of the electrostatic force of attraction or repulsion between two point charges is directly proportional to the product of the magnitudes of charges and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. Well, I use the force of repulsion to create lift and velocity. I am also working on the inverse, using electrostatic attraction to pull me. If I create a combined repulsor/attractor, I could magnify my speed and lift capabilities by, well, I don't really know how much. But it sure is fun finding out!"

"And this one claims that wizards are a weird bunch..." Calypso breathed.

Viuda laughed at her own words coming back to her.

"It works the same way that spiders balloon," the Puerto Rican heroine explained."They don't create parachutes with their silk to catch the wind, like people used to think. Instead they can sense electrostatic energy through their hairs. When it's favorable, they climb to a high spot, spin a silken line, then hop off. The silken thread is charged by the static energy, and the repulsion gives them lift. Charlotte does the same thing. It's really very elementary."

"If you say so," January murmured. Still, she tried to hold as much of that in her head as she could. Gadget was going to want to hear all about it when she returned home.

"It's not a quantum foam-powered gravity drive like the Technocrat has in his space ship, but Charlotte has her charms," Viuda patted a control console appreciatively.

"So you know him? The Technocrat I mean?" January craned her head to look at the mer-woman behind her.

"Are you kidding, she went to school in the Technocracy," Viuda practically bragged before Calypso could reply. "Not many people earn a spot in their universities."

"It was just a scholarship program," the Bahamian superheroine pointed out. "Many others from around the world took advantage of it as well."

"Don't let her kid you Crowgirl, she's absolutely brilliant." Viuda insisted. The Puerto Rican inventor looked down to the tarantula that now crawled across her lap, and gently petted the bristly hairs upon its back. "She's almost as smart as Toby here, almost."

"An honor indeed, to be held among such august company," Calypso smiled.

"Hey, Toby is one of a kind you know," Viuda insisted. "He's a giant miniature space tarantula. He's smarter than he lets on."

"I've seen the documentaries you've done," January still looked back to Calypso. "Like the one where you filmed great white sharks giving birth for the first time ever. Or how you discovered the wreck of the Indianapolis, and used it to talk about how sharks really behave, as opposed to how they are so often negatively portrayed in the media for shock value. They're really inspiring. It is true that you're working with the Technocrat on cleaning up the ocean garbage patches?"

"I am, along with many others," Calypso nodded. "Unlike Viuda's rampant imaginations, it is a not a romantic getaway in the middle of the Atlantic. It has been a tremendous challenge, and a dangerous one. We first attempted to engineer a bacteria to eat the plastic. Then we tried nanites to break it down into elementary particles. Yet so far every solution has turned into a jinn we barely thrust back into its bottle."

"That sounds, bad..." January murmured.

"Yeah, apocalyptic movie stuff," Viuda murmured. "But Calypso has a simpler idea. Tell her about your idea."

"I shall, should you allow me to," the Bahamian heroine smiled. Then she turned from one woman to the other. "I have been working with fishermen to create a system to safely scoop up the plastic without harming marine life. Then it can be transported to a place where it can be disposed of, with whatever means Janos can come up with that won't destroy the world."

"Janos?" January wondered.

"Janos Heisen," Calypso said. "He prefers not to be called the Technocrat. It makes him sound like an autocratic ruler, which he is not. He does not even have an official position in the government of the Technocracy anymore."

Viuda gave January a knowing look across the control consoles, but said nothing.

"So, Janos hasn't been able to save the world, but the fishermen might?" January had to stifle the urge to chuckle.

"And the engineers," Viuda added. "You get the theorists like Werner who figure the big things out in the lab. You get the people like me who build it. Then you get the people like those fishermen who actually work with it every day of their lives. Sometimes they know more about how it really works than the rest of us. Put us all in the same room and we can do anything."

Of course, that was exactly how they had defeated the salamander: together.

"If it works, it shall give us a safe and reliable means of cleaning most of the world's oceans of garbage," Calypso said. "Yet the danger of microplastics will still remain."

"Why not use water elementals?" January wondered. "I mean they are water personified. If anyone can clean it out, it should be them."

"Sweet La Sirene, why did I not consider that?" Calypso planted an open palm against her forehead.

"You probably don't have heatstroke," January smiled. "Besides, Maggie today got me thinking about it. Twice now I've had to fight against elementals. Why not put them to use doing something positive instead? They are part of our world after all. Maybe they can help save it."

"Thank you Stormcrow, I must think on this," Calypso laid a warm hand upon January's shoulder. "So long as it could be done safely, and not like fools chasing power..."

January nodded at Calypso's reiteration of the same words she had used to describe the Summoner and Hierophant. They had seen elementals as nothing more than tools to be used and then discarded. She had just seen how that worked out in the end.

But then the difference between people like them and those like Calypso, was that while the Summoner and Hierophant did not take responsibility for their actions, Calpyso and company did. They did not just abandon their mistakes for others to deal with. They acted to prevent them from causing harm. Perhaps that was one of the only real differences between superheroes and villains?

"The Virgin Islands coming up," Viuda noted. January looked up to see a line of islands dead ahead. At first they were just darker stains upon the deep blue horizon. But soon they resolved themselves into individual land masses dotted with green hills. Turquoise waters hugged sandy white beaches, and small pleasure boats drifted to and fro.

At her direction, Viuda took January directly over Charlotte Amalie East. She did not see any need to be subtle. On the way, January had texted Harper to bring her back home. Sure enough, by the time that Viuda brought the spidercraft to a halt above Blackbeard's Castle, January could sense the warp in space above its tall, round tower.

After making her last goodbyes, January stepped out of the rear hatch and dropped to the roof of the tower below. She fell directly into the gateway. When her feet struck the ground she was no longer in the Caribbean. Instead she looked around to find herself standing in the middle of the Aura. A golden Veve shone around her feet, all stars, leaves, and solar crosses. But a moment later it vanished, along with the portal.

As before, the bar was empty. January wondered when they opened. It was not like she had a lot of experience with going to clubs. She was still too young to get into most of them after all. Harper greeted her with a smile, and a look of concern. A glance at the TV screen in one corner of the room revealed why. Worldwide Network News was showing the footage of her most recent encounter with the salamander at Montserrat.

"Are you ok?" the publican rushed up to January with arms held out. They looked like they were ready to catch January in case she fell.

"I am fine," January waved off her concern. "It's just a little heatstroke. Once I get home I'll enter a healing trance. I'll be good as new in no time at all."

"Just a little heatstroke," Harper shook their head. "This is why I'll never be cut out to do the things you and Blood Raven do. How you can take getting beaten to a pulp for granted is beyond me."

"Believe me, we don't take it for granted," January insisted. She looked back up, and saw an image of herself standing in front of that car at the science station. Her wings were spread out to create a wall between it and the fire elemental. A moment later it spat lava all over her, dousing her with liquid fire.

"Are you going to be ok to make it home?" Kaelin's voice came from the far end of the room. She emerged from the kitchen with a goblet in hand. Yes, it was an actual goblet, not a simple glass or cup. It was golden, and studded with precious gems. It looked like something you might find upon an emperor's table, or in a dragon's horde.

"It's ok, I'm just a little tired is all," January insisted. "It's not like I've been drinking."

"Well maybe you should," Kaelin said. She stepped up to January, and held out the potion in her hand. "Here, drink this. It will make you feel better."

"It's ok, real-," January began. Then she stopped herself. People kept offering to help her today. Why was she turning them all down? Without saying another word, she reached out and took the goblet from the other woman's hand. It held a glowing blue liquid within, and steam wafted from its surface.

Without a thought, she lifted it to her lips and knocked the entire thing back.

The liquid within was warm, and vaguely sweet. It kind of tasted like warm apple cider, but without the bite. Its heat spread out through her throat and torso, and suffused her body in a pleasant, cozy feeling. It reminded her of sitting in front of a roaring fireplace on a cold winter's night, wrapped up in a thick fleece blanket.

Just like that, the feeling of exhaustion that had been weighing upon her head and shoulders disappeared. That thirst that could not be quenched, was likewise nothing but a memory. She lifted a finger to her face, and her skin felt soft and smooth to the touch. It was a far cry from the dry and cracked sunburn she had been afflicted with just moments before.

"Wow, a healing potion." January stared down at the cup. "Where have you been all my life?"

"Detroit!" Kaelin giggled. She pressed several sealed vials into her hand. "Since you are determined to get yourself into trouble, here are some more."

"Thank you," January turned from one to the other. "Thank you both. This means a lot to me."

She heard her own voice, and turned her head back to the nearest television. Now she saw the tail end of her interview with Gilda Gadfly from the day before. January had to remind herself that it was really her voice that she heard. As always when listening to a recording, it sounded almost like someone else. January briefly wondered why our voices did that: sounded one way to us when we spoke, but another when we listened to it later?

"I have not been around as much as normal lately because of our investigation into the Hierophant." she heard herself say on the TV. "The deaths that he and the Summoner have caused weigh heavily upon me. My heart goes out to the people who are suffering. Blood Raven and our other allies feel the same way. I wish there was some way to make it better, but we just can't."

"Is there anything you would like to say to the Hierophant?" Gilda asked in a deadly serious tone.

"Yes, there is," January saw her own helmeted face stare back at her through the TV screen. "Stop. Just stop. In no universe does this work out the way you think it will. He will kill you. You know who I mean. That is what he does. It is all he ever does. I know you think you can trick him. But it won't work. You will end up the same as all those who have come before you."


The End of Book 9

[Renee]

I remember that spider "blooming" article a few years back. If you think about it, spiders have that weird ability to remain absolutely still for hours (sometimes days & weeks) as they chill on their webs. 🕸 So as they float high in the atmosphere, all they're doing is staying still, waiting like they usually do.

La Sirene? Is there a mermaid in today's story?

"How does Charlotte fly?" January asked. "Is it some kind of anti-gravity device?"

Cool, I'm glad she asked this. This is one of those questions which I actually wanted to ask.... but feared doing so. Viuda's quite knowledgeable. Viuda the Science Gal.

I know you are reluctant about spiders, Rosa. Does the tarantula crawling all over Jan make you queasy?

Wouldn't that be rad, to have water elementals clean up our mess! Sometimes I wish I lived in the Stormcrowverse. Or some aspects of her world bled into ours.

Gosh, she's back in the bar, just like that. That's almost ... almost like the trip down to the islands never happened. Except it did. Jan's still all burnt up, I assume.

Hee hee, sounds like Restore Fatigue combined with Restore Health. Somehow, I don't think the Hierophant is going to listen to her interview. Or if it does listen, will not obey.

[Acadian]

Like Renee, I’m glad the spent the time to tell us something about how Charlotte flies.

"She's almost as smart as Toby here, almost."
"He's a giant miniature space tarantula.”
- - Thanks for the Minsc warning in advance – I could almost hear both these lines through his accented voice.

"Since you are determined to get yourself into trouble, here are some more."
- - Though Kaelin hasn’t known January long, she’s insightful enough to realize her new friend fights a lot like Rocky Balboa. . . .

I’m pretty sure that the Hierophant is not going to heed Stormcrow’s sage advice.

[WellTemperedClavier]

Heh, nice Baldur's Gate reference!

So is the Technocracy a sovereign state? Or some kind of international organization? Regardless, it sounds like Heisenberg has considerable sway, even if he's not entirely comfortable with how he's perceived.

At any rate, January's shown that wherever the Hierophant goes to cause trouble, she'll be close behind. Puts the pressure on him, and gives her more visibility.

[RaderOfTheLostArk]

A bit late on my part, but I wanted to add an addendum to the topic of media lack of ethics. As much as flack as the media gets (and the vast majority of it is deserved), the people who consume it often absolve themselves of the blame. The media does what it does in large part because, despite what many people in the general public claim, it's what sells. We supposedly hate conflict, but we also love reading/listening/watching about it. I don't want to go into too much of a spiel, but just thought I would add my 2 cents. Though yes, the vast majority of the media is not worth giving attention to.

Anyway, kind of funny still talking about January's heatstroke, as our AC crapped out over the weekend. It was fixed a couple hours ago, though.

I'll pretend I completely understood that part about Coulomb's Law.

Creepy crawlies.

Regarding hearing yourself differently on a recording, I once watched a TED talk about why that is. I forget most of the details as I haven't watched that video in years, but IIRC, there is a part of your ear that "turns off" when you are speaking because you don't need to use that part then. But when you hear yourself as you would anyone else, that part of your ear "turns on" again. That's probably an atrocious explanation, but that's what I seem to remember.

As this is the end of Book 9, I'm curious, SubRosa: Do you have an "end" to the entire Stormcrow saga in your head, or is it more of a "when the time is right" kind of thing?

[SubRosa]

Renee: I wanted to keep with the whole spider theme regarding Viuda's aircraft. So I looked up how spiders balloon, and found that their electrostatic repulsion was just perfect.

La Sirene is the Haitian loa (goddess) of the sea.

Viuda is definitely the science gal, while Calypso is the magic chick. Together they make a great duo.

I wouldn't want to have a tarantula walking over me. But I am a lot less bothered by one crawling over January. As Viuda said, they are just animals after all.

Well, it is still just an idea to use water elementals for that. It might not work, just like all the other ideas Viuda mentioned that they tried. Things are often easier said than done.



Acadian: It was nice to come across a new form of flight like the electrical repulsion, aside from the basic ideas of: "go really fast", or "ignore the law of gravity, because physics is just a suggestion" routes.

I could not help but throw in a Minsc and Boo reference as I was writing that part.

If the Hierophant was smart, he would not be doing any of this. As January pointed out, everyone who tries is, ends up dead. That is not even taking into account the utter foolishness of picking a fight with Blood Raven. I mean, she killed an entire panzer division once.


WellTemperedClavier: One of the reasons I made January a nerd was so that I could consistently use all these nerd culture references, like Minsc and Boo.

The Technocracy is a sovereign state. I spent a lot of time working, and reworking it. I still only have a general idea of what it is. At first it was going to be a republic in Central Asia, centered around RL Kazahkstan, Tajikistan, etc... But I did not like how that was working out with Heisenberg as its ruler. It felt too much like the White Savior trope, with this European scientist leading an Asian nation. So I moved it west to Central Europe. Right now I am working on the idea that it is Austria. But that could change if I have a better idea.

The Technocrat is RL Werner Heisenberg. I originally created him as a sort of Doctor Doom like character. A genius scientist in power armor who was the ruler of a country. Working up his background I realized that he had not been a villain for a long time however. Not since WW2. He fought for Germany of course, and at the end of the war he was captured by the Russians, in their own version of Operation Paperclip. When Stalin died he escaped, and I picture him being part of a complicated series of diplomatic moves that ended up in Austria gaining its freedom from both Soviet and Western control (which actually happened IRL). The Technocracy was created out of this as a socially progressive, pacifist society dedicated to education, science, and the arts. It is definitely the most advanced nation on the Earth.

I picture Heisenberg being the head of state at the beginning. But I know he stepped down from that a long time ago. He cycled through some other positions, like minister for education. Now he is completely out of the government. But he still has a lot of soft power, because his name carries a tremendous amount of weight. These days he follows his own passion projects. Such as a recent mission that he took to Jupiter and its moons. I am thinking he brought back some ultra-dense hydrogen from Jupiter, and he would have explored its inner planets. Now he is working on the project to clean up the ocean garbage patches with folks like Calypso, between other things.

Occasionally he also fights supervillains along the way. Because, this is superhero fiction after all. Being over a century old, and a meta-human inventor, he is one of the most powerful metas in the world. He is up there at the level of controlling spacetime, gravity, quantum energy, and the like. He will also be making a personal appearance near the end of this book. Along with every other active superhero and villain I have ever name-checked in all these stories so far.

Put a pin in what you said about putting the fire under the Hierophant's feet. Because that will be directly addressed this coming post.



RaderOfTheLostArk: Yellow Journalism is very much subject to the Law of Supply and Demand. If there is a demand for something, someone will provide it. As you said, the only reason it is profitable is because so many people eagerly slop it all up.

I am pretending I understand that part about Coulomb's Law too...

It is amazing how much of what we perceive as reality, is actually just our brain filling in gaps for us like that. Whether it is vision, memory, etc... It really is rather disturbing when you think about it.

I don't see a specific end in sight for the Stormcrow fic. I am kind of looking at it like a TV show, with distinct "Seasons". Each Season having its own theme and single overarching story. Books 1 - 10 is Season One. It introduces all the main characters and the world, sets them in motion, and gives them something gigantic to do.

I have a general outline for Season Two and its themes and plot written down. It will be a lot more down to earth, focused on fascism, a political race, and police brutality. January's mother will play a much larger role here.

Season Three is a very vague idea of January going on an accidental adventure across both time and the multiverse, where she is mainly just trying to get home, but learning more about magic and fighting along the way. I see her meeting Blood Raven's mentor Keziah Talmadge in the process. I see her in Viking Age Scandinavia, and learning that the Norse were not everything she had hoped for (she really does not fit in there). I also see her meeting her own fictional characters (in what is at least to them) a very real world. I see her reappearing back on her own Earth at the same moment she left, wondering if it was all real or just her imagination. Except that she will come back retaining all the knowledge she had gained along the way, like how to fight with a sword.



Since this is the final Book in Season One, I am going to repost the entire timeline again. All of Book 10 takes place in one day - July 8th (which is just one day after the end of the previous book).

2019

March 24 = The Summoner summons an Abyssal (a goblin) during the Nain Rouge Parade. It is not anchored, and easily banished
May 4 and 5 (Saturday and Sunday) = Stormcrow 1 Rising
May 4 = January's first battle as Stormcrow against Lighthammer at ConFabulation in Southfield.
May 5 = January teams up with Lighthammer to capture conflict diamond smuggler Bhavin Subramanian at the Flint airport.
May 5 = The Summoner summons an Abyssal (flying head) during Cinco De Mayo, using elemental symbols to anchor it, making it immune from banishment
May 14 and 15 (Tuesday and Wednesday) = Stormcrow 2 Recycled
May 14 = January's first battle against Archie at Source One Metals
May 14 = January overhears her parents argument about her being trans.
May 15 = January's second battle against Archie, then meeting with Isaac.
May 24 = January's Mom files for divorce
May 25 and 26 (Saturday and Sunday) = Stormcrow 3 Burning
May 25 = The Summoner summons an Abyssal (buggane) during the Technofest, anchoring it with an animal sacrifice
May 25 = The Flying Dutchman fire.
May 26 = Blood Raven reveals her identity as 'Aunt Branwen' to January
May 27 = Memorial Day. January and her mom move into the Witch House.
May 27 - June 1 (Monday -Saturday) = Stormcrow 4 Pride [Ferndale Pride on Saturday]
June 1 = The Summoner summons an Abyssal (djieien) during Ferndale Pride, anchoring it with a human sacrifice
June 1 - 9 = Stormcrow 5 Crystal Death [Motor City Pride]
June 1 = Chad overdoses on Crystal Death at Leland City Club.
June 3 = first Crow Tales, featuring Frankenstein
June 8 = second Crow Tales, featuring This Spell For Hire. January stops the Death Dealer. Blood Raven humiliates Nazis at Motor City Pride
June 9 = Nazis on Crystal Death attack Motor City Pride
June 10 - 14 = Stormcrow 6 Eloise
June 11 = January records interview with WNN.
June 13 = January quits working at the dojo, starts working on Artemis Argent with Rus
June 14 = January's interview is aired in its entirety, as well as in print and on WNN's website. It generates massive waves of both support and backlash against her. The same night she faces off against Gola at Eloise.
June 16 - 24 = Stormcrow 7 Hammer Down
June 16 = January does first aborted taping of Crow Tales Podcast
June 17 = January does second attempt at Crow Tales Podcast
June 17 = Lighthammer ambushed at Cedar Point
June 18 = January's mom moves out.
June 20 = January meets Michigan AG.
June 21 = January meets with Ohio state AG, DEA, and Lighthammer to make a deal.
June 22 = Fourth Crow Tales, featuring Winter Tide, by Ruthanna Emrys.
June 22-23 = January and Blood Raven patrol downtown, while the Detroit River Days festival takes place. They are joined by Ôkami, and all 3 intervene in a truck accident on the Ambassador Bridge.
June 24 = January does her first book signing at the library.
June 25 = (afternoon) January joins Lighthammer in a joint police raid on a ship in the Cleveland port.
June 25 - July 5 = Stormcrow 8 Blood
June 25 = (evening) Ryo gets his armor and sword at the Witch House
June 26 = January encounters Hannah and her father at Lakeside Mall
June 28 = The Summoner ambushes January and Blood Raven at Gull Island during Jobbie Nooner, summoning another Abyssal (oniare).
June 29 = fifth Crow Tales, featuring Nemesis, by April Daniels
July 3 = Funeral of the Summoner.
July 5 = Entire team trains on Green Island. Hannah melts down.
July 6-7 = Stormcrow 9 Ashes
July 6 = January captures tiger, does brief interview with Gilda Gadfly
July 6 = January's parent's divorce is finalized.
July 7 = Battle of Montserrat, January meets Kaelin, Harper, Viuda, and Calypso
July 8 = Stormcrow 10 Alliance





Blood Raven's Main Theme - Two Steps From Hell - Blackheart

Blood Raven and Stormcrow can be found on the Stormcrow Map

Memories Change Every Time You Access Them

The Iron Brigade


Book 10.1 - Alliance

July 8th, afternoon

"I met your old friend Calypso when I was in the Caribbean yesterday," January said. "She told me that you trained her."

"That privilege was indeed mine." The other superheroine's name brought a genuine smile to Blood Raven's crimson lips. "How does she fare? Long indeed has it been since we last met."

"She's good," January replied. "She and a bunch of other people are working with the Technocrat - umm... Janos Heisen - on removing plastics from the world's oceans."

"Glad tidings indeed," Blood Raven nodded. "She was always passionate about the sea, even as a child. It does an old woman's heart well to see that dedication invested within such a worthy endeavor."

The pair of superheroines stood atop one of a row of red-brick residence halls in the heart of the University of Michigan's main campus. Their feet balanced upon the knife edge of the roof's sharp peak. In January's case she literally rested her weight upon the dark shingles. Her mentor simply hovered in space as if gravity was merely a suggestion, rather than a law of nature.

Around them stretched out both the university and the city of Ann Arbor. Directly in front of them was a row of tennis and basketball courts, flanked by a large athletics field. Even now various groups of young people availed themselves of both to exercise and compete. Beyond stretched more of the university buildings, along with the twin smokestacks of a power plant. Farther away still rose the brick and stone forest of downtown Ann Arbor, interspersed in a few places with more modern-looking glass and steel edifices.

The narrow belt of the Huron River looped back and forth to their right, only to disappear behind them. Tall hospital and medical school buildings stretched skyward behind their backs, rising between them and the river's undulating course. Finally to their left stretched out a carpet of trees that covered the Forest Hill cemetery in a blanket of greenery. This continued on to form a nature area and arboretum that hugged the river as it meandered to the east.

In all directions beyond this stretched the long rows of neighborhoods of Ann Arbor and nearby Ypsilanti. A few lonely sentinel peaks rose from this expanse of suburbia, such as Michigan Stadium. But from up here, it was mostly green trees, homes, and fields that spread out to the horizon.

"So how many of us are there?" January asked.

"Us?" her mentor cocked an eyebrow whose incredulity even a Vulcan science officer would have been proud of.

"Daughters of the Raven," January replied. "People like me that you have trained."

Blood Raven leaned back her head and laughed.

"Daughters of the Raven?" she shook her head. "You are spending too much time around Cray. That young man loves his melodrama. But to answer your question, well, we should be here the entirety of this afternoon should I recount all of my apprentices throughout the centuries."

"In the last few decades then," January pressed. She was genuinely interested.

"Well, speaking purely of magicians, rather than meta-humans such as Vortex, there is yourself of course, and your friend Ôkami."

January tried not to react to the sound of Vortex's name. She really did. But that did not prevent an empty feeling from spreading through the pit of her stomach. She banished that feeling through sheer force of her will. She was so over her, completely over her. Whatever she had with the other woman - and January was still not sure what it even was - was done.

Sure.

"I met Kaelin here in Detroit when she was little. She had crafted a potion that allowed her to fly. But unbeknownst to her, its efficacy was of a very limited duration. She found herself marooned atop a church steeple. I had sensed her flight, and was there before anyone else noticed."

"I first met Calpyso whilst upon a quest in the Bahamas. Her parents were of great assistance to me, as they possessed a local knowledge which I sorely lacked. There was no mistaking their young daughter's growing power. She was practically a mermaid! So when the affair was concluded, I availed her of my own knowledge."

"There is Silverlight in Washington DC," Blood Raven continued. "I tutored her oh, some two decades ago. She is not one of Selene's Heirs, like myself. Yet she draws her inspiration from the moon goddess Selene. She takes after me in many ways."

"Then there is Riven. I met her in the 90s, in a small town near Mount Shasta. Like the others, she was young, much younger than you are now. She is now wed to Thunderbolt of course, and currently makes her abode in San Francisco."

"Wait, Riven is a magician?" January asked. "I thought she was a regular meta?"

"Nay," Blood Raven shook her head. "Like you, she has focused her magic upon the physical, even more so than in your case. It is how she creates her weapons and armor. It is also why she can alter their sizes and shapes."

"That seems to be a thing with us." January noted. "We all seem to have a shtick don't we?"

"A shtick?" Blood Raven seemed to fumble with that word for a moment, before she finally nodded. "Yes, I suppose so. There are magicians who are jacks of all trades, skilled in all manner of spellcraft. But I suppose the greatest of us focus ourselves upon an ideal, and we make that our reality. You have done this to become an elemental valkyrja, and Kaelin an alchemist. Riven is a master of weapons. Calpyso has her connection to the sea, and Silverlight the moon goddess whom she personifies."

"And you?" January spared a sidelong glance at her mentor.

"I am the raven ravenous," the elder heroine murmured, "The phantom queen."

January nodded. She had seen her mentor in action. With sword in her hand and fury in her eyes, she was indeed the Morrigan on Earth, the Irish goddess of magic, war, and death. Even her sword - Samhain - whispered in the Morrigan's voice, as if it was the goddess itself. Perhaps a better way of looking at it was that the raven sword embodied the ideal of the goddess. It was an idea given form and matter, and breathed into life through magic.

Or it was given a shtick, if one chose to look at it that way.

"But we have other things to discuss, and errands to run this day," Blood Raven went on. "We must return to the hunt. And it is time that you learned the secrets of the Hypnotic Voice."

Blood Raven took off into the sky. January unfurled the great crow's wings from her back and followed. Soon they were back to questioning all of those who had come into contact with her brother. They spent as much time in the air as possible to avoid complications with civilians. People always stared and flocked around someone wearing a cape after all.

They would not have worn their armor at all, save for the fact that driving back and forth in a car and constantly finding parking would have taken forever. Walking would have burned even more time. So the sky was still their best option for transport. Besides, as Blood Raven had already noted, the Hierophant knew they were hunting him.

"Let him hear the ravens shriek of his coming demise," her mentor had said.

Almost as if summoned by those words, January noted a curious man who strode the sidewalk beneath them. He was somewhere between fifty and fifty thousand years old. It was really hard to tell given his unruly mop of gray hair, and equally sloppy beard. She could see that he wore an old leather patch over one eye, as threadbare as the rest of his clothing, which appeared to be mostly old Army surplus.

He carried a hand painted sign high over his head which proclaimed that the end of the world was here. This was in sharp contrast to the two dogs that crowded his feet, whose tongues lolled happily in the summer sun. January guessed they might have been huskies, but really big ones. They were practically wolves, with their great statures and gray-white fur.

He was shouting something about the end coming for everyone. January could not make out the exact words. All she could hear was the screeching of ravens in her ears. She stared for long moments as they flew past this strange man.

Then she shook her head and continued on. They had things to do, and gawking over crazy people in the street was not one of them.

They made their way into one of the many university buildings. There Blood Raven questioned one teacher and student after another, January turned her senses to the astral. Her mentor had already explained the theory of how the spell functioned. It sank into one's brain and took hold of the mind. It could work in multiple fashions, from creating strong suggestions to guide behavior, to recalling memories, and of course to forcing the truth from subjects.

Now she watched as the tendrils of power quietly sank into the minds of one person after another. She watched how they activated various areas of the brain. But there was more to it than that. When Blood Raven encouraged them to remember past events, the spell was not simply working on their minds. It was doing something to reality itself, folding it somehow, warping it.

It took some time for January to put her finger on just what she was witnessing. Then she understood why it felt so familiar. It was similar to how Vortex warped space, connecting one place to another for just an instant, and stepping across the gap between them. Only Blood Raven was not linking places in the world with one another, she was linking two separate times in the world, the past with the present. Because of that, her subjects recalled events with the same clarity as when they happened. Because for all intents, it was happening even as they spoke.

"Memory is not a fixed thing, as many would like to believe," Blood Raven explained to her in private. "It is not a record chiseled in stone, which never changes. Rather every time we remember an event, we are in truth recalling the last time we remembered it. Not the original event. Because of this memories change over time, sometimes in drastic ways, like the wandering course of a riverbed."

"So it's like a playing a game of telephone with yourself, but across years," January observed.

"We called it pass along when I was your age, but yes, that is exactly the case." Blood Raven said as they flew to their next stop. "Because of this, simply prompting one to recall an event is not enough to summon a truly accurate depiction of events. One must step back through time, to the event itself. Otherwise you can never do more than witness the past as if through a mirror darkly."

"Now, it is time for you to try." Blood Raven said at their next stop. They touched down in front of a two-story home near the university campus. They still wore their armor of course, but she knocked on the door as an ordinary person would. Here in the suburbs there were at least fewer people around, meaning no crowds to mob them seeking selfies and autographs. Those few who were outdoors simply stopped from their gardening or walking their pets and stared. Some fumbled for phones to take pictures. But all were too far away to hamper their mission.

Also as January had already noted, they were not trying to be subtle anymore. The Hierophant knew they were coming for him. There was no point trying to hide it.

January called up her magic when the door opened to reveal a man within. He was middle-aged, with hair retreating back from his scalp. He was clad in the classic tweeds and stereotypical bifocals of everyone's idea of a professor. If she had written him as a character in a book, people would decry her from being unoriginal and uninspired. But it turned out that sometimes real life was common and ordinary, and exactly as you expected.

She looked into his eyes and reached out with her power. It sank into his brain with tendrils unseen to mundane eyes. Yet they were brilliant strands of energy within the astral realm. That glowing power subsumed his will, replaced it with her own, and turned him to nothing but a puppet on her strings.

January's stomach felt... wrong. It sank, like it had when Vortex had vanished from the beach on Green Island after their argument. She felt queasy. His mind was under her control, but she pulled back, as if she had burned a finger upon a hot stove.

She turned away, and pulled her magic in tightly to herself. She heard Blood Raven speak behind her, and felt the elder heroine's own magic complete the interrogation. They left without a word, and did not speak until they were both alone atop the roof of a nearby apartment building.

"Tell me," Blood Raven said gently.

"It felt... wrong," January scowled. "I don't think I can do that."

"That is a healthy attitude to take where these matters are concerned," Blood Raven replied. As ever, she had a habit of saying the last thing January expected. "This is very dangerous magic. The opportunities for its abuse are as plentiful as they can be catastrophic. Even with the best of intentions, one can inadvertently seed false memories within a person. Worse, it can turn another into a slave to your will."

"So why do you use it?" January asked.

"Because all power poses a similar danger," Blood Raven replied. "Take your strength. You can use it to save someone by lifting a burning motor car from their body. Or you can use it to rip them limb from limb. The Hypnotic Voice is no different. It can ease misery, or cause it. It is our ethics that determine how we employ all of these tools."

"I hear you," January still frowned. "But it still feels wrong."

"Then it is not for you," Blood Raven insisted. "Never use your power in a pursuit that unsettles you. It will likely go awry in your hands, for you are sure to unconsciously sabotage the endeavor. Worse, it will chip away at your ethical beliefs, until all feels permissible in the quest to fulfill your goals."

"Is that why you didn't use it on people like those Nazis at Motor City Pride?" January wondered.

"Yes," Blood Raven agreed. "This is a power I rarely employ. Usually only to gather knowledge, or to ease another's suffering. I remember slavery. The woman who suckled me as a babe was owned by my father, which is another way of saying she was owned by me. Never again. I did not serve in the Iron Brigade for that."

[WellTemperedClavier]

Thanks for the background info! I agree you made the right call in moving the Technocracy out of Central Asia. If you're still thinking about how to settled it, what about a Latveria-esque state?

Sorry, I'll stop backseat-writing!

For all of Blood Raven's eloquence, January does have a point about heroes having shticks. Maybe it's unavoidable. Anyone who's publicly known will be known for particular traits and styles, and that becomes their identity to some extent.

Interesting bit on the unreliability of human memory. I know that a lot of research has been done, and what I've read matches with what Blood Raven says. We recollect our recollections, and it gets a little fuzzier each time. Kind of scary to think about, when you realize that a lot of important testimonials in history are almost certainly inaccurate.

Good showcase of the difference between January and Blood Raven, with drawing out the memories. Blood Raven's a hero, but she is also a bit removed, able to take the long view (a function of her age). While she follows the "do no harm" dictate, she's basically okay with this power so long as it's used responsibly. But for January, the power seems intrinsically wrong. It's not something she'd ever feel comfortable using. Blood Raven handled it well, though. If it feels wrong to you, you probably shouldn't do it.

This post has been edited by WellTemperedClavier: Mar 31 2024, 12:37 AM

[Renee]

Thanks for including the revamped timeline. I think maybe I might do something like this for Vicious's tale.

That article is a good read. Makes sense. A good example is when we read the same book, especially years or decades later. That second time we read we'll get some things out of it different, even from things we remember the first time.

Elementally, since memories are a combination of thoughts and often emotion, this is why they are represented by air and water in occult studies. So yes, if we think of air and water, here we have two elements which are often changing moment-to-moment.

"How does she fare." Yes that would be quite a feat, if Raven is able to recover all of the apprentices she's had over the years. Centuries, actually.

Blea. Vortex. 🤬 Apparently, as much magical training and learning as January can engage, there is no magic which cures the broken heart.

Selene sounds interesting.

That dude with the beard and the End of World sign is significant. Foreshadowing right there, I'm thinking. Whoa. This whole scene When she does this mind-meld thing is trippy. Dangerous, too. And the final words of the story are surprising as well.

Sorry, I'll stop backseat-writing!

Ha ha a lot of us are guilty! ... I know I am.

This post has been edited by Renee: Aug 31 2022, 01:39 PM

[SubRosa]

WellTemperedClavier: I have already had all those thoughts you spitballed about the Technocracy. It is what the MCU did with Sokovia. It is where modern day Slovenia is. But I just never really liked the idea much. I prefer to be as real as possible. That is why I made the character Heisenberg, rather than just creating a fictional scientist. So for now the Technocracy is just going to be a fancy new name for Austria.

At the most I might add on a piece of southern Germany to it. That could have been part of the negotiations that created the Technocracy (and the same ones that made RL Austria a neutral party between the Western powers and the Soviet Union). I remember back in the Cold War everyone was expecting WW3 to start with the Russians sending a massive armored attack through the Fulda Gap. If that region was part of a neutral Austria, that might have been seen as a good thing by both the Soviets and Americans, as it might have prevented war, or at least made it less attractive.

Every superhero has to have their shtick! Otherwise you cannot tell one from the other. I find it works well in fiction where you have a lot of characters. Giving each some sort of motif or theme of their own helps make them memorable, and stand out as individuals.

The stuff about memory being so unreliable is something that I learned from my interest in skepticism and the paranormal (what some might call Wierdshitology). The unreliability of human memory is one of the things that drives stories of alien abductions and bigfoot sightings. Especially once you get into recovered memory therapy, where the therapy itself literally creates new, false memories that are indistinguishable from real ones. The MonsterTalk podcast and In Research Of both get into it a lot.

One thing I like about writing Blood Raven and January together is that they are so very different. Who and what January is often defined by how she diametrically opposes to Blood Raven. Yet in other ways, they are two peas in a pod. That is what makes them a great partnership.


Renee: A long time ago I realized that I needed to keep that timeline in order to keep events straight, especially when referring to earlier events in the later stories.

That is a very solid observation on how memory is represented by Air and Water. Maybe I will be able to do something with that some time in the future...

We are going to meet all of those recent Daughters of the Raven in the near future. Including a brand new one today.

Vortex is not so easily forgotten. She will be haunting January's heart for a while. First loves always do.

Silverlight is a fun character. She was very challenging to create. I even created a thread on Reddit to ask for help with naming her. I went through a lot of versions with who she is, what her powers are, and even where she lives. But she has turned out really neat. She would be fun to play in an RPG. But she is really overpowered in many ways.

Keep a pin in that one-eyed bearded dude. We will be seeing him again, more than once. And yes, January should listen to what he has to say.














January's Fight Theme - Two Steps From Hell - Never Back Down


Xochitl's home is on the Stormcrow Map

The Nahua

Inspiration for the Bone Wight

A Wight

Belly to Back (German) Suplex



Book 10.2 - Alliance

January did not reply. Something else had just taken her complete attention, with the suddenness of a rifle shot. Her head snapped to one side, along with that of her mentor. Both of them stared at the same spot near the horizon. It looked like a perfectly ordinary suburb. But a power rose there in the astral. It rose, and it called. It rolled through her like a sound wave, and continued on through astral space. Its cry was unfocused however, just gibberish, meaning nothing that January could discern.

It was not an Abyssal summoning. Of that January was certain. For one the poppet they had placed within Ann Arbor had not awakened to the call. For another this magic lacked the distinctive wrongness of calling to the Abyss. It did not have the stink of death and horror that was so deeply entwined with Abyssal magic.

Instead this power was clean, and pure, like that of a crisp wind blowing off an alpine lake. In some ways January found it to be a refreshing change from things of late. Between Abyssals and rampant elementals, it was nice to encounter something in the astral that was not trying to kill her, at least not yet.

Without a word between them she and Blood Raven were airborne an instant later. They shot through the sky and followed the magic back toward its source. Streets and homes swept by underneath them in a blur as they pressed to the east. In moments they passed beyond the border of Ann Arbor proper, and flew into the suburbs of nearby Ypsilanti as they homed in on the source of the magical signal.

They came to a halt over a neighborhood of small, wood framed homes. The area was laid out in neat, straight lines. The only rebellion against the rigid geometry was a single major cross-street that ran through the space at an angle, then bent back against itself in an opposite slant. To the north lay the campus of a high school, and farther east rose up the thick trees of a park, bordered by the open sports fields of yet more schools.

Their destination sat upon an intersection between this larger diagonal road and one of the smaller residential lanes that crossed it. Like the other homes nearby, it was a plain affair faced with white aluminum siding. Dark gray shingles covered its sharply peaked roof, from which jutted a red brick chimney. A detached garage of the same white wood and aluminum stood in the back yard.

That wide yard was bordered by a low chain link fence faced with a hedge. A pair of garden plots took up one corner, one of which sprouted tall ears of corn, and another sported green cucumbers and fat tomatoes. The long driveway that led from the street back to the garage was empty of vehicles.

January took a moment to partly shift her senses into the astral. She immediately felt Blood Raven doing the same beside her. Her mentor's aura was a burning star of power, glowing even brighter now that she had consciously bent her will to scanning the area. But January deliberately shaded that from her awareness, like an astronomer blocking out a star in order to view the worlds that might orbit it.

The neighborhood instantly sprang into her magical awareness. She felt the life tingling in each blade of grass, the bough of every tree, and the ear of every corncob. Larger forms of life puttered through the homes all around, and buzzed past on the streets between them. All were soft shades of grays, whether on four legs or two.

She focused her awareness on just the house. Its timbers were dull and faded in the astral realm. The aluminum that clad the exterior, and ran through the duct work within was even fainter, the cold metal barely casting a shadow at all in the magical realm. In contrast, brilliant lines of power coursed through the electrical wiring, and burned like molten silver through the dull gray features of the home.

January felt no auras within the house, save for a fly that buzzed through the kitchen. But she did sense magical power down there. That rose from the second floor attic and radiated out into the astral, like the waves created by a stone dropped into a pond. January felt that power roll through her once more. It was a call, but to nothing in particular. There was no intent driving it. It was simply a cry in the dark.

"They are masking their aura," Blood Raven noted, "just like the Summoner."

January nodded. She followed her mentor down to the ground. Blood Raven waved one hand, and the back door unlocked itself and swung open of its own accord. She strode into the kitchen, January in tow. The fly January had sensed fled the building for the open sky outside. That left the entire home now empty in her awareness, at least of life, but certainly not of magic.

She was on her guard. An aura-cloaked magician might lurk behind any corner. She followed Blood Raven through one room after another and watched her back, lest anyone try to sneak up on them. Neither woman made a sound. They stalked from dining room to living room. Everything looked entirely ordinary. There was a slightly frayed couch, worn chairs, and a large, flatscreen TV on the wall. An unmistakable Latin American accent ran through it all, including stucco walls, a fleece blanket in the colors of the Mexican flag thrown over one side of the couch, and a giant Aztec calendar carved in wood over the fireplace.

Blood Raven glanced through a pair of doors off the living room, and turned back to shake her head. January checked two more doors. She found that one led to an empty bathroom. The other led up a narrow flight of stairs. She immediately rose up the steps, and winced when one creaked loudly under her foot. She went on however, knowing that her approach had probably been noticed by whoever was creating the flow of power above.

She stood atop the stairs a moment later. That placed her against one wall of the attic. An open window beside her allowed sunlight to stream in and bathe the area in light. A narrow passage ran back from where she stood, lined by a wooden rail to prevent one from toppling over onto the stairs alongside it. This little mezzanine doubled back deeper into the house, and opened up into the main space of the attic.

More sunlight streamed in through a window at the far end of the room, and suffused the space with light. The walls sloped up steeply from either side, joining in a sharp peak overhead. A bed nestled beneath one side of the slanted roof, and a dresser lay across from it, while a desk sat under the window between the two. January noted that a box of professional drawing pencils at open upon the desk, just behind a drawing tablet that was connected to the laptop that also resided there.

The walls were draped in both colored and black and white drawings on loose sheets of paper. Some were clearly done by hand. But most were obviously printed out. A glance to the printer that sat on the floor beside the desk implied the source of the latter. Clearly, whoever lived here had both a talent and zest for creating art.

Most of the drawings were of nature scenes, especially the colored ones, which radiated vibrant green forests and burning red-gold sunsets. The black and white work was primarily of people. But not just any people. January saw herself depicted there, as well as Blood Raven. They competed for space with mythical beings such as feathered serpents, and numerous pentagrams, pentacles, triquetras, and other Wiccan symbols.

A round throw rug stitched in geometric Aztec designs had been tossed aside, revealing the bare wooden floor boards below. A simple magic circle was drawn out here in table salt. Set at its cardinal points were a small bowl of water, a feather, a burning candle, and an irregular chunk of rose quartz. At the center sat a cup filled with water, and two small resin statuettes that looked like Aztec or Maya deities.

Standing within this sacred space was a girl, January guessed perhaps of fourteen or fifteen years of age. Her hair was a raven black waterfall, and her eyes were soft brown. She was dressed in a Ms. Miracle tee and a pair of tights that matched that fictional heroine's blue and red attire. In one hand she held an athame that looked suspiciously like a miniature version of the elven sword Sting from the Lord of the Rings movies. In the other hand she clutched several loose leaf pages covered in hand writing.

None of this looked particularly unusual to January. It was clearly a standard ritual from Wicca or any of the other zillion branches of modern Witchcraft. Indeed, at first the sight came as a comfort. For this looked like nothing so much as a young Witch finding her power. Hardly a supervillain bent upon summoning monsters from beyond reality.

But what sent a shiver of dread down January's spine was the amulet openly displayed upon the young woman's chest. It was a large medallion of brass, carved with a giant scarab beetle in its center. It was exactly like the one her brother - the Summoner - had worn when he died. Its presence in the astral pulled at her awareness. Not because it radiated power, but rather for the opposite reason. It was a void in magical space, an empty spot that her awareness skittered off of entirely.

The teen looked up at January, and her eyes widened in amazement. January forced a smile to her lips. But she could not take her eyes from that amulet. She walked forward into the main room, and reached out for the medallion with one hand. She felt Blood Raven rise above the stairs behind her, and float through the air over the railing a moment later.

"Remove that amulet now child." Blood Raven's voice was soft, but commanding.

Instead the young Witch clutched at the brass medallion, and shrank away. Fear now competed with surprise for space in her eyes. With an effort January opened her hands to show her empty palms, in the universal gesture of peace. She continued to slowly step forward. She tried to look as non-threatening as possible.

"It's okay," January assured. "We aren't here to hurt you. We're here to save you."

"S...s...save me?" she stammered. "From what?"

"From that medallion," Blood Raven's feet came down upon the bare wooden planks of the floor. Still, her head brushed against the sloped ceiling above. "It is very dangerous. You must take it off, now."

"I'm Stormcrow, and this is Blood Raven." January took another step forward. She nodded to the drawings on the walls. "I can see you know us. You know we are here to help. Now what is your name?"

"Xochitl," the teen said.

"Sochi?" January repeated. "Like the city in Russia where they had the Winter Olympics a few years ago?"

"No." The young woman rolled her eyes, and January sensed that she had stepped into a well-traveled minefield. "Like the flower."

"I believe it is one of the Mayan languages, or is it Nahuatl?" Blood Raven murmured.

"Nahuatl," the young woman insisted.

Now January noted a book on her desk about Mesoamerican art. Well that was a big Duh! She could not help but bury a palm against her forehead. Could her foot get any deeper in her mouth?

"The world is a wider, and stranger place than any of us imagine," Blood Raven intoned. "None of us can know all of its secrets. Not even superheroes like Stormcrow and I. Perhaps you might tell us more, my young apprentice. But first, that amulet, I once more bid you remove it please."

"What is going on?" Xochitl frowned and stared from one woman to the other. "What are you doing here? How did you find me?"

"You called," Blood Raven said plainly. With an open hand she gestured to the ritual space that the young woman stood within. "Your spell, it is a siren cry in the aether. Yet it has no form, no substance. It calls to nothing and no one in particular. We followed. You are fortunate that we are all that did so. There are things in this world and beyond that are not as beneficent as we."

"It's supposed to call an air elemental," Xochitl shook the papers in her hand. "The pages said that is what they summoned. I just wanted to try it out, to you know, see if it really worked."

"I think that was a trap," January continued to inch closer. She was now at the very edge of the magic circle. She could feel energy rising from it, marking out the sacred space. But it was weak, fleeting. She knew she could easily breach the barrier it created if she wanted to.

"How, how is this a trap?" the young Witch questioned. "I mean, it's just a spell, and an old necklace. It's probably not even magical at all, like I hoped it was."

January made her move. She was Air. One of her wings snapped out and punctured the barrier of the magic circle as if it was made of tissue paper. Her feathers sliced through the brass chain of the amulet an instant later. Then one of her hands pierced the ward of the magic circle yet again, and caught up the amulet as it fell. A moment later she had snatched it back out of the circle entirely, and held it up to study.

The brass felt warm under her hand. Then it glowed like a white hot iron, and the heat burned her fingers. Rather than let it go, she gripped it even tighter. Agony seared through her hand. But she was not a stranger to pain. It was just an ordinary part of life after all.

She felt the amulet squirm in her grip. It did not want her to hold it. It did not like her. In fact, even though it was a void in the astral, she could sense that it hated her, hated her with a white hot killing rage.

Just like that the scarab depicted in the center of the medallion erupted, as if an explosive had been set off within it. A creature of bone and nightmare came rushing out. January did not wonder at how it could have been contained within the tiny piece of jewelry. Clearly this was magic, and the monster had somehow been bound within the amulet, like a Jinn within a bottle. Only now it had been set free.

It was a bleached white skeleton, the size and shape of a person. But in addition to human bones, it also possessed a long, serpentine tail of vertebrae that trailed out from the base of its spine. Its eyes were fiery pits, and its fangs lunged for January's throat.

January reacted by reflex, and knocked the creature's head aside with her right elbow. She followed through by pivoting her frame around her hips in the opposite direction. She used this new counter motion to launch a power punch with her left fist, putting all the mass of her body behind it. The monster's skull rocked back under the impact, and it slammed against the barrier of the magic circle, which rose up behind it. The invisible screen of power disintegrated beneath the impact, and the salt that had marked it out scattered across the floor.

The monster stared at January, but did not strike again, at least not physically. Now that it was free of the amulet's cloak, January could sense it just fine in the astral. It was a dark, cold corruption of death and magic. It reeked of hunger, and resentment, and plain old hatred.

It reached out to her across astral space, and January felt her blood boil. She felt it drawn to the monster, like iron to a magnet. The life-giving fluid leeched from her nose and mouth, and flew in mid air toward the creature. Out of reflex she reached a hand up over her mouth and nose, which blood now streamed freely from. None of it fell to puddle on the floor however. Not a single drop. Instead it all flew through the air toward the skeletal creature.

But it stopped as quickly as it had begun. January felt power rise between her and the creature. It not only shielded her from the magical attack, but it also reversed its effects. Her blood flew back into her body, and its flow returned to normal. She did not have to guess who was responsible for her salvation, nor turn to look in her direction. Blood Raven was a master of blood magic after all, and January had been the benefactor of that power more than once.

Then January felt Samhain enter the physical world behind her, and heard its voice call out across the astral.

The raven ravenous,
Among corpses of men.
Affliction and outcry,
And war everlasting.

Then Blood Raven advanced past her, and was upon the bone wight. The dark steel of her Damascus blade was a blur in the room. But it was turned aside by a shield of arcane energy that emanated from one of the creature's hands. Brilliant sparks shot forth at the contact of the two magical forces, filling both the astral and physical realms with momentary light.

The monster replied with a slash of its claws that dug furrows down the flesh of Blood Raven's face. The elder heroine did not react to this in the slightest. January knew that her mentor lacked the invulnerability that she possessed herself. That was why her armor was real, rather than just for show. But even more so than January, pain did not seem to exist for the other woman. So far as January could tell, it was an idea that the elder heroine had forgotten. So she simply carried on as if nothing had happened at all.

The tail which hung down behind the skeleton's frame lashed out like a whip. January saw this was directed not at Blood Raven or herself, but at Xochitl. January became Water. She somersaulted off the side wall and ricocheted around the corner of the room behind the wight. She bounded off the back wall an instant later, like ball in one of those old pinball machines. She finally came down to the floor and spread her wings out around the young woman.

Even as she did, the sharp, gleaming bone of the skeleton's tail sliced an angry path through her feathers. Agony lanced through her wings. But they did not break, and neither did she. As ever, she endured.

January pushed Xochitl down to the floor, where she would be out of the way. Then she wrapped both of her arms around the bony ribs of the bone wight from behind. She arched her body backward, and pulled the monster up with her in a belly to back suplex. The skeletal creature soared through the air above her. Then they both crashed into the window behind them.

Glass shattered, and the wooden frame splintered around it. January and her enemy both went tumbling into space beyond, outside of the house. While still in midair she let go, even as her wings caught the sky. The wight dropped to the grass below, a flailing mess of white bone, while January hovered in the air.

She glanced up, and tore the sky asunder with a giant crack of lightning. A jagged bolt of electricity lanced down in an instant, bringing light, and heat, and deafening sound. It followed her will, and roared into the monster. Ribs shattered and vertebrae turned to ash under the elemental assault.

January saw Blood Raven through the window, standing protectively between Xochitl and the creature. Her mentor threw Samhain out toward her. She easily caught the leaf-shaped Celtic blade as it pin-wheeled through the air. Its grip fit in her hand like she was born to it, like it was part of her. She heard the voice of the Morrigan whisper in her ear in a silky smooth voice. The goddess told her tales of prophecy and slaughter, of Magh Tuireadh, and the end of the world.

January dropped to earth as the wounded bone wight struggled to rise. She swept aside the monster's claws, and brought the Celtic sword down upon its head. Its skull shattered under the impact. January felt the blade shiver as it continued down, and stuck hard into the monster's backbone.

"Valhalla calls," she growled to the undead monster.

Once more she entreated the sky, and tore loose another great bolt of lightning. It struck Samhain by the blade, and the tremendous force of the blast drove the sword all the way down to the ground. Electricity roared all about January, the monster, and the raven sword. The wight was literally cut in two, and what remained of its bones shattered into blackened fragments.

January heard a scream in the astral, a banshee wail that turned her blood to ice. Out of the corner of her eyes she saw people on the sidewalk stop and clutch at their ears. Cars frantically braked, and dogs howled. She swept the sword from side to side, and hacked what little remained of the bone wight to literal pieces. That scream faded into astral space, taking with it what remained of the undead creature's power.

She stared down. It was nothing but a pile of charred and broken bones now. No energy remained to animate its body. No spirit yet dwelled behind those shattered eye sockets. All that was left in its wake was a dark stain in the realm of magic. But January knew that this too would pass, and eventually vanish into the astral like chaff on the wind.

January turned her gaze from the creature's remains, to the sword in her hand. Sparks danced across the wavy Damascus steel of its blade. The same electricity bathed her in flickering light. As usual, it tingled, but in a good way. For long moments she simply enjoyed the feeling of the power that thrummed through her. She felt like a walking thunderstorm, primal and alive. She closed her eyes and breathed deep and slow, and allowed her body to relax. Then she thrust the blade point first into the blackened soil at her feet, and allowed the electricity to ground harmlessly into the earth below.

Then she lifted Samhain and wiped its point free against one leg. Once it was clean, she reversed her grip to an under-handed one. She now held the sword so that its blade thrust up alongside her arm, and its point jutted up from behind her shoulder. A single leap took her back up to the broken window above. She balanced there upon the tortured sill for a moment, then hopped lightly back into the bedroom.

"Gracias," January fell back to her high school Spanish as she proffered Samhain's leather-wrapped hilt to Blood Raven. Her mentor laid a hand upon the grip beneath January's, and for a moment she heard ravens screech, and the soft flutter of feathered wings. Then she let go of the Celtic sword, leaving it entirely to her teacher. A moment later it faded from reality, as Blood Raven sent it back to where ever it was the raven blade normally rested.

"Samhain is fond of you," Blood Raven murmured. "She knows your blood, and approves. Unlike others she has encountered of late."

January nodded. Blood Raven had once told her that she had forged the steel with carbon taken from her own bone, and quenched it in her own blood. Samhain knew her, and her descendants, intimately. It was a part of their family, not just figuratively, but literally.