The Stormcrow, A Superhero's Tale Options

[SubRosa]

Acadian: I picked a battle in a supermarket for exactly the ignobility of it all, especially the fall through the cans of peas. Every action scene in a supermarket has an obligatory crash through a display of some kind of canned goods. That they were peas - perhaps the most downtrodden of all vegetables - just rubs it in even more.

Isaac finally got to play with his mech. When I wrote the chapter introducing him and his unfinished Numidium, this was always on my mind. He was always going to get to this point.

This is going to get much, much bigger. The battle is still only in the very beginning. The real heavy-hitters (aside from Blood Raven and her Natthrafn) have yet to show up, nor the dozens of other heroes and monsters.

As ever, thanks for finding those nits so that I can fix them.


Renee: If you look back a few posts you will see pictures of the entire island, and where it lays within the rest of the landscape of Detroit and Windsor. It is also on the Stormcrow Map of course, as are all the locations in the story.

Isaac is the guy who built all the junk bots, and Archimedes. He is also the one whom January and Blood Raven got the parts they used to create their Abyssal Summoning early warning poppets.

Isaac built the mech for the best reason. Because he can! Who wouldn't? There are people who have done this IRL. Like this guy. He's not the only one either. I think someone else in Japan is building them for sale.


RaderOfTheLostArk: Needless to say, Isaac was scared to death as he was checking, and rechecking, and re-rechecking everything. That was him trying to find anything to do, in order not to think about how he was probably going to get himself killed.

I love that ad! I would totally vote for that guy, even knowing nothing else about him. Democracy in action!

I don't know how I forgot about Liberty Prime. Probably because my neighbor and I watched the Transformers movies in order last summer, so Optimus Prime is still in my mind. "Autobots, Roll Out!"

The production values are going to get a lot higher soon. Much bigger players than Isaac and his 50-foot mech are going to appear soon.

There are going to be a lot of POV shifts. This is the crowning point for the last 10 books. Everything leads to this. So I decided to lean into this and make it truly ginormous. I broke it up into about a dozen or so key points, where something major happens, or simply where I can show what is taking place on each front of the battle. So we can see it from every angle. There was no way to adequately show all that from January's POV. So I switch from character to character for each part of the fight. We will getting future chapters from people like Blackhawk, Lighthammer, Silverlight (whom we have yet to meet), and Blood Raven again.

The Sea Lamprey is one of the things I had in mind when I was describing that monster. Those things are just squicky! The other thing was a giant Decepticon in one of the transformers films (I think the second?), that had a similar giant spinning maw of doom, which almost devoured the Great Pyramids of Egypt.

A conjure woman who doubts, is a conjure woman who fails. So Riven is absolute in her certainty.


WellTemperedClavier: Isaac is a cool character to write, especially in a story with all these youngins. He's a regular guy, mech and robots notwithstanding. I wish there were more places I could fit him into events. So I really wanted to make the most of his appearance here, and make sure he is proper awesome.

The Detroit River is really not much to look at. It is a really narrow strait, only about a half mile or so wide in average I think. But it has 3 Great (and one not so Great) Lakes above it draining their water into it. When it gets compressed into that narrow space it picks up speed and force, and creates unpredictable undertows. Because of all that drainage from the lakes, tons of silt are swept down into the river, making the visibility in the water terrible. It is like thick soup. Because of the silt the bottom is not very deep, only about 40 feet or so at the most. But it is a mire of all that mud, and anything that gets dragged into it is not coming out again, at least not without a crane.

I think the Army Corps of Engineers dredges it on the regular to keep the shipping channel open. Even still, the space navigable by freighters is really narrow. A few years back one lost engine power and drifted sideways. It ran aground, and blocked off the entire shipping channel. No big ships could go up or down the river for days. They were all stacked up in Lake St. Clair until they could get the grounded ship free and going again. (I might use this as a story hook. It sounds like something a team of supers might be able to help with).

Once and awhile crazy people try to swim across it. It is not very wide after all. Sometimes they make it. Sometimes they get caught by Border Patrol. And every so often they drown and get sucked into the mud at the bottom. Ironically there is a beach on Belle Isle. It is shielded from the main force of the river flow by a piece of land that juts out from the island to the north. Which might be why it is safe to swim there.

Vortex has more to do in events to come. In fact, she has a big role to play at the very end. That was always my intent from when I created her. I was always looking forward to her moment in this battle. It is why she has the powers that she does. The same is true to a lesser extent with Lighthammer, Isaac, Gola, Calypso, Viuda, and all the others. Especially Blood Raven. From the very first book I knew they would all be here for this moment.










The James Scott Memorial Fountain

The James Scott Memorial Fountain is huge

Belle Isle and Downtown Detroit (the main divided highway just left of the Ren Cen is Jefferson Avenue, the main battleground in this episode)

January's Downtown Battleground 01

January's billboard (moved to a new location from RL so it could be featured here)

January's Downtown Battleground 02 - Looking down at the tunnel entrance

January's Downtown Battleground 03 - The Armenian Genocide Memorial (Hart Plaza is across the street behind it)

Cartier Buffs


Book 10.14 - Alliance

"We need people on the bridge," Cray's gruff voice rumbled in January's ear. "The Abyssals are making a push there."

"Is there anywhere they're not making a push?" Lighthammer murmured. The former bomber pilot skimmed in the air over January's head, blasting monsters below with his lasers. Then a tentacle swept up from out of nowhere and wrapped around his waist. It lifted him higher for a moment, then dashed him down to the parking log. Concrete shattered under his armored frame.

January leaped over the heads of a dozen goblins in an attempt to reach him. But another tentacle slammed into her while she was in mid air, and sent her careening backwards. She tumbled head over heels, and only stopped when she hit something hard. Cool water coursed over her back, and she felt stone beneath her.

She looked around, and found herself plastered against the James Scott Memorial Fountain. Near the south-western end of the island, it bordered a huge three-sided pond that sat within the triangular outline of the isle's tip. It was simply gigantic. It was not a single fountain, but rather a vast sea of interconnected basins and water spouts. Made of white stone, the lowest basin spread out over five hundred feet. Within that rose up a wide, two-tiered pedestal. Staring in each of the cardinal directions from this level was the statute of a lion, each spouting water from its mouth. Above that rose up a short, wide tower with a basin of its own, and an even taller spire and bowl rose up from that. From this ultimate height water sprayed over a hundred feet skyward, only to rain back down into the multiple basins below.

January shook her head, and tried to get back to help Lighthammer. But a trio what looked like four-armed trolls were on top of her in no time at all. Samhain gloried in her hand with each limb she hacked away. The raven sword may not have been made for slaying Abyssals in particular - as Blood Raven's other sword Y Ddraig Aur had been - but it certainly stepped up when it was time for creating mayhem.

So too did her wings, which hacked through stony flesh just as easily as they did cinderblocks. Likewise with her fists and feet, which she had long since honed into magical weapons. As Blood Raven had noted before, she had made herself a magical armament since junior high school. She was not really sure that she needed the sword. But it certainly helped.

By the time she had dealt with the Goro impersonators, a new wave of Abyssals was coming in. A glance back to the north showed that Lighthammer had extricated himself with the aid of Gola. Even now the pair winged back and forth across the big parking lot north of the fountain. But it was mostly back. As much as all of them tried to push north, they were fighting against a tidal wave of Abyssal flesh.

Then before her eyes the northern horizon lit up with blue-white fire. Plasma just like that from Gadget's new suit of powered armor streaked across the island there. Everywhere those glowing fingers lanced, Abyssals vaporized. But a glance sideways showed that Gadget stood nearby, fighting a mob of buggane on the ground.

That made her smile. She had been waiting for this for months. She had known that eventually her best friend would be suiting up himself. Now it was finally a reality. He had always been her hero, her rock. He was the one thing in life that she could always count on, no matter what. The rest of the world would finally see that as well.

Lighthammer had been right however. The Abyssals were pushing everywhere, pushing them back. She, Gadget, Lighthammer, Ôkami, and Gola represented nearly the entirely of the Alliance. But they still could not hold them back just here in the south. They tore the monsters to shreds one on one. But they were facing far more than one to one odds. It was more like a hundred to one, or a thousand to one.

Everywhere she looked, the tides of the Abyssals were advancing through sheer weight of numbers. At least that was everywhere but the south-east. The interdimensional monsters did not seem to be too interested in that direction. There was only a thin strip of land between the portal and the river there, and all of it had long since been overrun. But the Abyssals did not appear to be interested in trying to swim the Detroit River to the Canadian shore beyond. They looked to be far more intent upon the nearer American side. That was no surprise. The bridge there was the only way on or off the isle without gills and fins.

Or without wings, January mused as a flock of what looked like two-headed and twin-tailed pterodactyls gouted from the bubbling surface of the portal. If that were not strange enough, they had four wings, like a dragonfly. When one pair of wings rose up, the other swept down, in a constant opposite motion. If she remembered the Bestiary correctly, those were Dídymo Ptérygas, or "Twin Wings" in Greek. She also recalled something about them having penetrating tail stings.

They were followed by a halo of flaming skulls. Yes, there was no other way of describing them. January definitely knew these. They were kanontsistonties, Blood Raven had fought one recently at the Cinco De Mayo parade. That had been before January had joined the team, at the second Abyssal summoning that they knew of. The flaming heads lanced overhead, and headed out over the river. January's eyes followed their course, and saw that it led directly to the heart of Detroit, two miles down the river.

"We've got airborne heading Downtown," January leaped skyward and gave chase. Her wings snapped out and caught the air.

"I'm with you Crowgirl," Gadget's voice was in her ear. His powered armor was a blue light beside her, and left a glowing trail of ions behind him. January raised her sword hand skyward, and swept it down. The sky tore open at her command, and long chain of lightning ripped down among the Abyssals. Two of the pterodactyls were incinerated in mid air, their bodies fading from existence before they could plummet to the river below.

The Abyssals split apart then, looping around to the left and right, while a third group continued straight ahead. January stayed with those going straight. She had to stop them before they reached land. Gadget peeled away to follow those who went to the left, toward Canada. She knew that the final group would thusly be free to do as they willed. But she suspected that they would simply come around to attack her from behind. It was basic air combat after all. She knew, a literal bomber pilot had taught her.

"Stormcrow, you've got bogeys on your six," Cray's voice warned her a moment later. "Lighthammer, Gola, you two fly high cover around the portal. Slow down any more flyers coming out. If they slip though don't pursue them. Gadget and Stormcrow will pick them up. Ôkami, you head to the bridge. Keep your head low, it looks like our junkyard friend is there and he's putting out a lot of fire."

"Got it," Lighthammer's voice came over the comm. "Its zone defense. Me and the raven lady are linebackers, Gadget and the Crow are the safeties."

January didn't know anything about football, but she got the gist of what Lighthammer was saying nonetheless. Then twin bolts of flame gouted past her, closely followed by another pair, and she had other things to think about. A third set of fiery bolts engulfed her legs. But if she could stand up to the salamander at Montserrat, she could take this. She glanced back a moment to see that it was the flying heads. They were literally shooting fire from their empty eye sockets.

It felt so much like a video game that she had the urge to laugh. But this was deadly serious. She ignored her pursuers, and instead poured on the speed to catch her prey.

She did just that over a white band shell that sat next to a small park that lined the shore. She found Samhain a true blessing here. Punching and kicking were not ideal while airborne. But the leaf-shaped Celtic blade hacked Abyssals asunder just as effectively in the air as it did on the ground. She finished off one there, and followed the pack as they dove into a massive red brick parking structure that rose up nine stories in the sky.

They swooped through one of the many horizontal openings that stretched across each floor of the structure. January had to concentrate to follow. Unless she was perfect, her wings would catch either the top or bottom of the brick wall. She darted between with at least a foot to spare in each direction. One of the pterodactyls was not so deft, and its wings caught the top of the window. It spun in mid air, bounced off the ceiling, and then careened across the concrete floor below. Thankfully it was late at night, so the structure was empty. January caught up with it a moment later, and hacked it in two with Samhain before it could regain its bearings.

Then they were through the other side of the parking structure, and out into the open sky once more. The back of a giant billboard came right up in front of January. It towered as tall at the parking structure, and higher than most of the buildings immediately around it. She banked hard to one side to avoid it. But two of the flying heads crashed into her from behind, and pushed her right into the sign.

The next thing she knew, she crashed through the rear of the billboard. Iron shattered and dimpled out underneath her. Then she and the Abyssals tore right through the sign, and debris rained down into the empty side street at its feet. January twisted in mid air, and off-handedly noted that the billboard was painted in white, blue, and pink, and declared that trans people were sacred. That brought a smile to her face. She lashed out with Samhain, and one of the kanontsistonties evaporated under the Damascus steel of the blade.

But the other Abyssal was still with her as she winged out over Jefferson Avenue. She was at the point where the divided highway turned north to become I-375. But they were going in the opposite direction, parallel to the river off to her left. That sent them directly into the heart of the city. Detroit Mercy Law School rose up on one side of her, and another giant parking structure to the other. Dead ahead was the elevated platform of the People Mover. Beyond rose up the forest of skyscrapers, monuments, and arenas that made up Downtown Detroit.

She swatted at the flying head, but it dodged underneath her and sprayed her belly with flames. But the heat did not bother her. She rolled up into a ball around it, bringing her wings in close to encase them both. It slammed against her makeshift cocoon, but to no avail. There was nowhere it could go now.

January now began to fall, rather than fly. But her momentum still carried her forward. She spun end over end as she tumbled through the air. Each time she turned, she saw the upraised track of the People Mover loom nearer. Worse, a pair of conjoined train cars was coming down the elevated rail line from Greektown to the north, and looked to run right into her and the Abyssal when it made the turn over Jefferson.

But for once gravity was on her side. Thanks to her steady fall, she was too low to hit the track now, or the cars. She abruptly let go of the flaming skull, and snapped out her wings to slow her descent. That was like putting on the brakes, and she nearly stopped in mid-air. The skull continued forward however, still spinning end over end. An instant later it slammed into the concrete support pillar of the elevated railway.

The impact did not harm the creature. January knew from the Bestiary that only magic could do that. But it did bounce straight back at her. She lanced out with Samhain and met it point-first. The monster shattered into a haze of dust. A moment later even that was gone, as its remains winked from existence. January was thankful to see that the People Mover structure itself was merely scratched by the impact.

She beat her wings furiously to gain momentum once more, and found herself landing atop the roof of one of the train cars as it made the turn to come into the Renaissance Center station. She used it as a springboard, and leaped skyward. That sent her rocketing up the face of one of the Ren Cen's side towers.

One of the Dídymo Ptérygas sideswiped her, and the two of them went pitching off to the side. They slammed against the glass tube of an external elevator shaft, and slid along its surface. January noted an elevator coming down just as they scraped past, and gave a little wave to the security guard inside.

Then she had air beneath her wings again, and found herself chasing the same Abyssal through the Renaissance Center complex. The compound's heart consisted of five glass towers that rose up high into the Detroit skyline. Of these a single round tower in the center rose up over seventy stories into the air. This was surrounded by four smaller, octagonal skyscrapers at the cardinal points. Finally a pair of even lower towers rose up like an afterthought, back the way January had come from alongside Jefferson Avenue.

They darted around the first corner tower that January and the pterodactyl had slid off of, and banked inward toward the central spire. The Abyssal turned straight up along the skyscraper's side, and January raced it to the top. Then it dodged to one side in an effort to lose her. But January was able to react quick enough to head it off, and slammed into it.

They tumbled between another two of the corner towers, and fell toward the entrance to the Detroit-Windsor tunnel. It had an irregular shaped administrative building, with a single low tower that rose up from a wide base that was just a few stories tall. The road to the tunnel itself snaked around behind it and passed through a wide row of toll booths. Then the road curved around and down out of sight beneath Jefferson Avenue, and vanished into the earth below.

The border crossing was open 24 hours. But it was late, so there was only a single car pulled up at a booth. January and the Abyssal crashed to earth beside the car, and dug up a long trench in the concrete. Its twin tails snapped at her, and she noted that each ended with a barbed tip. She brought up both of her wings to push them aside, and lunged in close. Samhain led the way, and skewered the beast.

Its body fell to the broken driveway below and vanished a moment later. January flashed a smile at the car, and the customs agents beyond. Then she leaped into the air once more. A pack of the flying heads came in after her, and she led them to Hart Plaza, which was right next door. Thankfully that was completely deserted at this time of night.

She came down with her feet atop the twisted pylon that rose up from the plaza's north-eastern corner. Over a hundred feet in the air, that left plenty of space between her and the cars on Jefferson Avenue below. She noted that some of those began to stop, as people got out to not only stare at her, but also at the brilliant lights that bathed Belle Isle, miles upriver.

She twisted and twirled as the kanontsistonties swirled around her. Once again, her wings became weapons when the monsters came too near, and she sliced several in two that way. Finally she leaped straight up to skewer one that had made the mistake of flying directly over her head.

The last one turned to flee, but she caught up to it down in the narrow strip of land between the two divided roadways of Jefferson Avenue. To one side of the major thoroughfare lay Hart Plaza, the tunnel entrance, and the Ren Cen. On the other was the plethora of skyscrapers of Detroit's Financial District. Finally, off to January's left rose the squat enclosed arena of Cobo Hall.

That put her at the Armenian Genocide Memorial. A dark bronze statue of a slender man with a balding head rose up on a granite pedestal. His name - "Gomidas" - was spelled out below in gold letters. Underneath was a plaque explaining that the monument was dedicated to the million and a half Armenians who had been murdered by the Turks in 1915.

It was here that she finished the last of the flying heads with a roundhouse kick. She took a moment to regard the statue of the long dead martyr.

"Rest in peace..." she breathed somberly.

That was when she was blindsided by a final Abyssal. It was one of the Twin Wings. Even as one of its heads clamped down on her throat, the other snapped at her face. Its body pressed against her torso, and its momentum sent them both tumbling into the street. January felt the dual spikes of its tail slice through the armor on her shins. But the titanium of her new armor was just for show. The otherworldly stingers just skittered off her flesh underneath, which was far stronger than any earthly metal could hope to be.

Thanks to years of gymnastics, she easily rolled back to her feet. With her left hand she reached up over her shoulder and clawed at the long, sinuous frame of the Abyssal. Her fingers found purchase around the base of its leading wing, and she whipped her arm forward. The creature came with it, and she smacked its back down upon the concrete of the street below.

She followed with Samhain, and brought the longsword down in a great, overhand blow. The Twin Wing rolled aside however, and the Damascus steel of the Celtic sword vainly hacked a long gash through the cement below. The monster replied with another stab from its twin tails. January saw it coming and slipped to one side. She responded with a thrust from Samhain, aimed at skewering the Abyssal.

The Dídymo Ptérygas bounded out of the way however. But it had not been paying attention to the cars and trucks that it shared the road with. A car that had stopped just up Jefferson suddenly squealed its tires in fury, and barreled back in reverse. It was just in time for its wide bumper to crash directly into the two headed monster.

The Abyssal was flung back and down by the force of the blow. But the car did not stop. It kept right on going, and ran straight over the pterodactyl-like creature. First its rear tires - then its front tires - crunched over the beast. But when the car finally came to a halt, the monster still rose up in the wash of its headlights.

The doors flung open and young men spilled forth. They wore an assortment of hoodies, baseball hats, and black knit caps. One sported a Pistons shirt, another was decked out in Adidas gear, and more wore simple tees. Tattoos, shining chains, and glittering rings girded their bodies. One even wore a pair of Cartier Buffs sunglasses, even though it was dark out. Out came pistols, a sawed off shotgun, and even an AK-47. The gang leveled their weapons on the Abyssal, and opened fire.

It rose into the hail of gunfire. Then it staggered, and fell back to the pavement. The monster jerked and spasmed with each bullet that slammed home into its hide, and there were a lot of them. The gang members continued to fire until their guns ran out, except for the man with the AK. He had a much larger magazine than the others. January was obliged to step up and lay one hand on the assault rifle to get him to finally let up.

The Abyssal was literally shredded into paste. Then as with all the others, it faded away into nothingness right before everyone's eyes. All that remained in its wake were flattened bullets and spent shell casings.

"Thanks guys," January said quite honestly to the young men. "If you want keep helping, head to the Belle Isle bridge. Just be careful who you are shooting at, my friends are out there."

January did not stick around. There was no time. She launched herself skyward and headed back toward the embattled island.

[Renee]

WOW look at that giant robot! 🤖 I wonder what the laws are for that sort of thing. Like, are those giants considered to be vehicles? Can they even move? *watches video* Yup, sure can. What would happen if one of those walked out into a street, and then accidentally crushed somebody's car somehow, I wonder. How would the insurance work? It's not like a car hitting a truck. Would it even be possible to walk that monster into a street where traffic (light traffic, of course) runs? This is one of those things which will happen eventually.

Funny thing is, that bot in the video is sort of what I was picturing as Isaac moves it around. Except I'm imagining Isaac's bot isn't as colorful. It's more industrial-looking, more old-school Detroit.

There are going to be a lot of POV shifts. This is the crowning point for the last 10 books. Everything leads to this

Sweet. You've been working on this since 2019 too, maybe even 2018 or 17.

Question: Would any of this huge battle been happening if the Hierophant hadn't tried to summon? Was the Hierophant somehow influenced by Natthrafn from beyond the grave? Well, that's two questions.

Yeesh, tentacles. What the heck could this be? Methinks the heroes are losing this battle, hate to say.

Aw, it's a trans billboard! That's gotta be a sign (har har). A sign that things will turn around for the better.

Sounds like aren't any people on the People Mover. Phew. I like how even at this chaotic moment, she's able to consult the Bestiary in her mind about whatever malice she's attacking.

Here's a pic of the People Mover. Got curious what it looks like, I was picturing one of those giant people-moving walkways we see in airports. I like how the art on the side of that trolley looks like well-done graffiti.

These flying head thingies sound awful. Seems also like Jan has been pushed away from the main battling area, right?

NIIIIIICCEE!!!!!!! Wow, so some gangbangas just showed up! Word, yo! This is awesome. Finally, these guys are making a difference in our world for the better, instead of merely doing drive-bys at rival gangs! Peace!

This post has been edited by Renee: Dec 3 2022, 05:33 PM

[Acadian]

Your warnings about the growing scale of this battle were not overstated! Superheroes or not, they face what seems an endless tidal wave of magic beasties apparently intent on eating Detroit.

"Maverick Stormcrow, you've got bogeys on your six,"
- - I can imagine you grinning as you wrote this.

’… the billboard was painted in white, blue, and pink, and declared that trans people were sacred.’
- - As are we all. You, me, Boo. . . hamsters and rangers everywhere!

More help is definitely in order. Bless that gang with poor ammo discipline’s heart but I’m thinking we need more supers.

[WellTemperedClavier]

And it keeps getting bigger!

First, thanks for the explanation of the Detroit River. One of the things I'm enjoying about these books is that they kind of double as a travelogue for a city you clearly love. While there are tons of media based in NYC and LA, there's not that much in Detroit, so it's good to see the place get some attention.

So far the heroes are holding their own. But the sheer quantity of Abyssals is still a problem, and I don't see any way out. The arrival of the gang certainly helps though. Reminds me a bit of the line Rick told the Nazi officer in Casablanca, something about there being neighborhoods in New York you wouldn't want to try and occupy.

I liked how Lighthammer used football terminology to describe the situation. And how January thinks in terms of video games. Years and years ago, I read an account of an aid worker who survived the Haitian earthquake. They said that they ran from one location to another to try and get to safety, and they thought of the stops on the way as save points. Just shows how our minds draw from our interests and put them in other contexts.

Some interesting new monsters as well. Looks like they're drawing from all across the Abyss. The good news is, the Alliance is drawing from all over Detroit... and beyond.

[SubRosa]

Renee: I am not sure if there are any laws or regulations around mecha. They might be like flamethrowers, which are completely legal, because no one ever thought to make laws restricting them. I know people IRL own tanks. I don't think they have to get license plates for them. OTOH, they don't drive them down the street every day either. Usually those people have land out in the country and they drive them around the fields.

A Gundum, or Voltron, or a battlemech from Battletech is what I based the Fred Hampton on. It's a classic. It never goes out of style.

None of this would be happening if not for the Hierophant and Julian. Julian found the Rauðskinna because his blood brought it to him, like Blood Raven and January he is a descendant of Nátthrafn after all. The Hierophant knew how to put it to use. Without them it would have been impossible for Nátthrafn to return to the world and open this gateway. So the Hierophant's pursuit of power and immortality, and Julian's grievance over, well everything, made all this happen.

I had originally considered that Nátthrafn might be influencing things from within the Abyss. That was the case in the story that inspired this plot line: The Case of Charles Dexter Ward by HP Lovecraft. But the more I build my world, the less I think that is possible. I don't think that Nátthrafn can reach across from the Abyss to do that directly. Instead he relies on the unique enchantment in this world that he created which puts the Rauðskinna into the hands of his descendants.

I was surprised to find that the trans billboard was real. When I first wrote that, I thought it would be a fun irony if she went crashing through a sign that said something positive about Trans people. I googled it without really expecting to find anything, and there it was. The real one was just in a different location in the city.

The People Mover is sort of a joke in Detroit. It is not a real subway or elevated rail system like New York or Chicago has. The People Mover does not go anywhere! It just runs through Downtown Detroit in a circle.

January has been pushed two miles away from the main battle zone on Belle Isle. I wrote that to show that the entire fight was not concentrated just there. There are flying Abyssals, and they can range far beyond the front line on the bridge to the mainland. I also just wanted to get some variety in scenery, and a fight through Downtown gave me plenty of local landmarks to show off in the process.

This being Detroit, I felt that I had to get some gang-bangers in the mix somewhere. They spend a lot of time shooting at one another. Now they have the chance to step up for their city.


Acadian: We are close to half way through the battle now. But we are still on just the first wave of Abyssals. There are several more coming. The battle will have an ebb and flow to it, as each side pushes back and forth in major reversals. One of those will teased at the end of today's post.

It was good to get some air to air combat with January. She mostly uses her flight simply for transport, to get to where the fight is. Given that she is an avian, it was nice to actually put the fight into the sky itself.

Lots more supers on the way. But we will be seeing more mundanes first, and they will make a huge impact on the battle.


WellTemperedClavier: One reason I set this in in Detroit is that you almost never see the city in movies or books. Even Robocop, which was set in Detroit, was filmed in Dallas-Fort Worth. So it looks nothing like Detroit. The other reason is that I could never lavish such attention on LA or NYC, since I just don't know those places.

Lighthammer probably played football in high school. Does the air force have a football team like the army and navy do? Maybe there too. He definitely watches it. Though living in Cleveland, being a football fan must be more an exercise in masochism than of actual fun. Like in Detroit. Likewise, I am sure Gadget is thinking of racing from one save point to another. He is the OG after all, the Original Gamer. That is why when he puts a marker in his electronic map, he thinks of it as a quest marker.









Portuguese Man O' War

Clocking Roulette Wheels

Bartolomeu Português was real, and he created the Pirate Code

Michio Kaku - Physics of the Impossible

Gandalf's Lightning Sword Power Stunt

For the Honor of Grayskull



Book 10.15 - Alliance

"This is Stormcrow checking in," she said to Cray. "Downtown is cle- what the frell is that?"

Words failed her when she saw the newest abomination. It floated high in the sky, as tall as any building in the combined Detroit and Windsor skylines. Its body was a large, transparent blob. It looked for all the world like a giant plastic bag filled with water. A ridge or sail rose up from its back like a crest. Again, this was as crystal-clear as the rest of creature's body. Dangling down from its underside however, was a forest of long, curling tendrils. These were dark purple in color, and dripped with an ominous looking goo.

"Oh snap, that's an aerzoan," January finally regained her speech. She remembered it from the Bestiary, probably because it looked so much like a flying Portuguese man-o'-war.

"Yeah, sorry about that," Lighthammer's voice came over the comm. "That one sort of got away from us. Watch it! Those tentacles paralyze you, even through armor. Blood Raven had to come over and fix me up after that..."

January pushed herself higher into the sky. Soon she soared up to the central spire of the Renaissance Center. At roughly seven hundred feet it was the tallest point in the Detroit skyline. The circular roof was a veritable forest of antenna and satellite dishes. She had to weave her way through them to find a spot near the edge, where she set down upon the top of a boxy air-conditioning unit.

From here she could look directly across at the monster's body. The Abyssal was coming right for her. Even now it slowly drifted across the sprawling parking lot that lay east of the skyscraper complex. She saw it catch hold of one of the few cars in the lot, and effortlessly pull it upward.

January took a moment to stretch out with her astral sight to search within the car. Thankfully it was empty. But using her spiritual awareness so near to an Abyssal made her cringe. The wrongness that it brought with it was so much more palpable - and repugnant - in the astral. There was no mistaking the malignancy of the thing. It made her skin crawl, as if it was a floating conglomeration of cancer cells.

She allowed Samhain to hang low in her right hand. She held her free hand up to the stars, and entreated the sky. It answered her with a rippling sheet of lightning that cracked down and hammered into the aerzoan. The sail-like structure along its back snapped and glittered with electricity. Yet in moments the energy dimmed, and the Abyssal continued on its course as if nothing untoward had occurred.

A pair of glowing blue energy bolts sizzled out from the south. But the twin beams of plasma likewise splashed ineffectually against the side of the creature's bag-like body. As with January's attack, it just continued on, as if nothing had happened. A longer stream of the same plasma bolts followed, stitching a glowing line across the monster's frame. Yet still, to no effect.

January followed the energy beams back to their source, and saw Gadget in his new powered armor flying in from the Canadian side of the river. Once again, her heart soared at the sight. That was her oldest friend in the world, and he was standing tall as ever. As silly as it was, his simple presence lent her a feeling of safety that no suit of armor ever could.

"Did you win any money?" January nodded to the white and blue towers of the Windsor Casino. The massive hotel and gambling complex rose up behind her friend, on the far side of the Detroit River.

"I put it all on black, and the Abyssals went bust!" January could imagine the young man's grin underneath the full-faced helmet that he wore. Then he nodded toward the massive creature that floated toward January and the Ren Cen, and his voice turned more serious.

"I think we might need to clock the wheel for this one though."

January watched as the aerzoan pulled the car up to the underside of its body. Now she could make out movement, some sort of mouth at the base of the tentacles. The tendrils fed the vehicle into this maw, and the car's steel body disintegrated with each bite. Metal and plastic rained down across the parking lot below in tiny, shredded pieces.

Something about that tickled a memory in the back of her mind, one that she could not quite put her finger on. There was something about that particular creature that she should be recalling. But try as she might to summon the knowledge, she could not quite dredge it up from the depths of her brain.

She brought up Sága, and punched up the Bestiary on the miniature computer's screen. The electronic tome was a treasure trove of information on magical creatures - both Abyssal and otherwise. Blood Raven and Cray had assembled it from not only the elder heroine's personal experiences, but also from such sources as the notorious Scripta Mortis. It was the be all and end all of information on their foes.

January had spent long hours perusing its contents. During the week that she had been sidelined due to her brother's death the Bestiary had been her constant companion. There had not been much else to do after all, at least aside from hovering empathetically over her mother. She practically knew the book by heart. Not that she needed much impetus to read. Books were her life after all.

"I knew it!" she proclaimed triumphantly after she scanned the entry on the monster.

Gadget zoomed up beside her, his body wrapped in a halo of glowing ionization. He clomped down to a landing on another air conditioning unit and looked to January. She met this gaze and pointed to the Abyssal's maw with a finger.

"The mouth is its Achilles Heel," she insisted. "Every other part of this critter is armored, but not that. The Bestiary has a record of a Portuguese pirate named Bartolomeu Português killing one with a barrel of gunpowder. He and his crew set the barrel out as bait. The aerzoan pulled it up into its mouth and Boom! No more Abyssal."

"Where is a van full of ammonium nitrate when you need it?" Gadget mused. He raised one hand, and took long moments to line up a shot at the Abyssal's maw. Then he cut loose from the plasma emitter in his palm, only for the energy bolt to ineffectually strike one of the creature's numerous tentacles. He tried again, and again, but he just could not get a shot through the curtain of tendrils.

"No joy," he shook his armored head, "there's no getting through those tentacles."

"I can't get my lightning in there either," January murmured. "It's on the bottom of its body. But even if I could, those tentacles would still be in the way."

"We'd have to come straight up from below, and fire at point blank range," Gadget observed.

"Which sounds like a great way to get paralyzed," January bit her lip. There had to be some solution to this. Nothing was truly, completely, invulnerable. Even Blood Raven had her weaknesses, as did January herself.

"Pretty clever to put your only weak spot in the one place no one can reach, at least no one alive," Gadget mused. Then he snapped his fingers with delight.

"Eureka!" the meta-inventor crowed. "I read a book by Michio Kaku about impossible physics. He said we ought be able to create force fields in a plasma window. I just have to trap it within an electromagnetic field. I'm already using the same idea in other ways. I just have to use it to create a barrier, rather than to fly, or fry things."

"You think that will keep the poison out?" January made a face.

"I don't know, I guess we'll find out," Gadget rubbed the back of his neck with one armored hand. "Just, you know, blow on the dice for luck before you try."

"Me?" January's eyes goggled. "I'm the one who doesn't do so well with poisons, remember?"

"Yeah, but here's the thing, I've never done this before," he admitted. "I've only thought about it. I'd have to fly, shoot, and do a power stunt to create this force field for the first time ever. To be honest, I'm still getting used to doing just the first two of those."

January sighed. He was right. He had always been the voice in her ear on every one of her missions, quests, or whatever they were. But he had done it behind a keyboard, not right beside her. It was easy to forget that. I had always felt like her friend had been right beside her. She thought back to her first time actually wearing the suit, and wanted to cringe once more. Her first attempt at flight had ended with her falling through a skylight. He was already way ahead of her on that score.

"You're right," she nodded. "Besides, we are always stronger together."

"Teamwork makes the dream work," Gadget replied smoothly.

January gripped Samhain tightly in her fist. If this worked, it would mean one more Abyssal was scratched off the board. If it failed, she was going to get eaten. Time to blow on those dice for luck...

But maybe she could weigh them in her favor. She looked up with a smile, and remembered something from a movie she had first seen as a child. She raised the raven sword high into the sky, and brought forth another bolt of lightning. But this time it was not directed at the monster. No, this was directed at herself, at her sword to be precise.

The world flashed white and blinded her for a moment, as the lightning slammed into her sword. She felt heat, and power, bathe her. When her vision did come back she saw that Samhain glowed with brilliant white energy. Sparks cracked and sizzled across its surface, waiting to be unleashed. January smiled. She would smite her enemy's ruin upon the mountainside.

"For the honor of Grayskull!" Gadget laughed, invoking a different source, but still a prescient one. January leaped off into space, wishing she had a winged horse like She-Ra did. But no one was perfect after all.

It was only when she winged her way down beneath the Abyssal that she stopped to wonder if Gadget was ready. She prayed that he was, for she was just seconds from running into one of those tentacles. Before she did however, she felt a warm hum around her. Then she noted that she was glowing. No, the field of energy that now surrounded her was glowing. It was a transparent sheet of soft blue illumination. It was a light that came from everywhere and nowhere in particular.

Then one of the tentacles of the monster slithered across the face of this force field. It reacted instantly, and brought up more of the limbs to gain further purchase. It coiled around her in moments, straining and constricting to encase her in its grasp. Yet the tentacles could not reach her through the energy field.

Thanks to the transparency of the force field, she could see that the inside of those tentacles were lined with upward-tilted spines. From the tip of each dripped ominous slime. This venom quickly became smeared across the surface of Gadget's force field. Up close, she could see that it was slightly luminescent, with a violet tinge. Thankfully the force field held for now. But the tentacles and their poison were still just inches from her body. She hoped that Gadget could hold them off long enough for her to do what she needed to.

Sure enough, the tentacles lifted her up and up. She had to hold her hand that clutched Samhain as far away from her body as she could. She did not want to waste her borrowed lightning on the tendrils. She needed to land it in the creature's softest spot, the mouth.

She saw that maw a moment later. It was a beak, with two massive mandibles that worked like a pair of scissors, one sliding in beneath the other. They chomped together as the tentacles drew her close, and she could literally hear the bone of the mandibles scrape against one another. It reminded her of a chef sharpening his knives.

Then she was right up to it. The next chomp would be against Gadget's force field. January did not want to test just how strong it really was. Now she was close enough for Samhain.

"The ravens come for you," she breathed.

With that she thrust Samhain deep into the creature's mouth. She rammed it straight into the larger of the two mandibles. The instant the Damascus steel touched Abyssal flesh, it unleashed January's borrowed lightning. Electricity stormed through its body from the inside out, tracing out fractal patterns everywhere it went.

In an instant the monster glowed bright white. Then it exploded in a shower of charred flesh. The entire sack of its body just rent apart and went flying in all directions. Tentacles, now cut loose from their moorings, plummeted down toward the street below. In the middle of it all January hung in mid air, Gadget's force field holding her untouched and inviolable.

As with all the other Abyssals, the monster vanished from reality moments after its death. January began to fall, and the force field winked out of existence. She snapped her wings out to hold herself aloft, and turned to see Gadget standing with one arm still out. He slid the other across his forehead in a gesture of relief.

January now noticed that while most of the surrounding spires of the Renaissance Center complex were empty and dark, the windows of central tower were bright and filled with people. That was the hotel, while the others were the offices of General Motors. Even now hotel guests stared in wonder, clapped, cheered, and above all, held their cameras up to record. January gave them a quick wave with her sword arm.

Then she pushed up with her wings to get above the skyscrapers. Gadget rose into the air beside her. Both trained their eyes upon Belle Isle, and the battle that still raged there. The point where the MacArthur Bridge met the island was brightly lit by plasma and other forms of energy. It was clearly where most of the Abyssals were now concentrated, the focus of their push.

Even though it was two miles distant, January could pick out Blood Raven dueling with her father Nátthrafn above the bubbling mass of the Abyssal portal. Beyond them she saw lights in the sky, a lot of lights. They came from over Lake St. Clair, north-east of the island, and a low roar filled the air.

"We've got incoming A-10s from out of Selfridge people," Cray's mellow tones said in her ears. "Everyone get down and under cover, now!"

* * *

[Acadian]

A giant car eating jellyfish – and lightning doesn’t hurt it. Ahah, but it has an Achilles mouth if the heroes can figure out how to get something up there without getting paralyzed or eaten.

Between Stormcrow and IronManGadget, the pair figure out a risky plan – and it works! Whew! Very creative of Stromcrow to make her ‘storm’ work for her by channeling it through the family sword.

It’ll be interesting to see how effective conventional air power from the Air Force at Selfridge will be in this fight.


Nit: ’It floated high in the sky, as tall as any building the combined Detroit and Windsor skylines.’
- - This seems to be missing something. Perhaps changing it to something like '...any building found across the combined...' or '...any building featured in the combined...'.

[Renee]

Lol about People Mover. It's nice when regions have their own inside jokes. Like, nobody in New York City goes to the Statue of Liberty. If someone says they've been there, guaranteed he/she's a tourist.

That's a good point about the giant robots. There's no laws yet revolving around potential accidents and such. Laws will get written when mishaps occur. 🤖

And yes, that's what I'm getting at. The fact that Natthran is out and about, it almost seemed like it was destined to happen, or was it? There's a bit of a question there. I mean, you just explained you don't think Branwen's father was able to influence from his other plain of existence.

Actually, direct quote is "But the more I build my world, the less I think that is possible. I don't think that Nátthrafn can reach across from the Abyss to do that directly." But Natthrafn also placed some magical objects into our world, which I would consider as "influencing", though not as directly as doing so from beyond our plane. It's just a longer-drawn-out version of what I was thinking of. Without those magical objects, Nátthrafn would not be able to cross over.

Aerzon??? Yikes! How are they going to defeat that??? Pretty sure there was something similar in our DnD Manual. 🕸

. But using her spiritual awareness so near to an Abyssal made her cringe. The wrongness that it brought with it was so much more palpable - and repugnant - in the astral. There was no mistaking the malignancy of the thing. It made her skin crawl,

Wicked awesome, the way that's written. The part when she sees Avery (and he doesn't see her yet) also is touching.

Ah-ha. So the giant jellyfish has just one weakness. It's like the Death Star. Eventually they figured out there's that one portal they can fire some beams into, to blow up the entire sphere.

I remember when she fell through that skylight! That was in that mall, I think. "Teamwork makes the dream work!"

Yeesh, she's being sucked into this damn thing. Wow, she really did it. The Abyssal is toast! .... Man, Natthrafn's gonna be pissed about that. Oh well. Be pissed, you freakish 16-century douchebag.

This post has been edited by Renee: Dec 12 2022, 02:00 PM

[Acadian]

Can't resist a couple additional comments based, in part, on Renee's. I'm glad she mentioned the teamwork / dreamwork bit from Gadget since I didn't really catch that it rhymed until she reposted it - very clever.

Also, the bit she quoted when Jan could feel the wrongness of the abyssal reminds me of a line by the almost paladin adventuress Mazzy Fenton in BGII that goes close to, "Evil has seeped into the rocks and trees. You can feel the wrongness here."

[WellTemperedClavier]

I looked it up, and it seems that the Air Force Academy, at least, has a football team: the Falcons.

That's a weird abomination. You did a great job with the description, too. I was thinking: "That sounds like a giant Portuguese man o' war," before you even described it as such.

Okay, glad Lighthammer got patched up.

"...floating conglomeration of cancer cells..." Great description!

And I liked January's reaction to seeing Gadget. She's in a scary situation, and it's always good to see an old friend when you're in one of those.

Okay, sounds like they have a good plan here. Nice to see they're utilizing popular physics as a weapon.

Also good how you're bringing up January and Gadget's past history in gaming. Fighting evil (even fictional evil) side by side with a friend does create a unique bonding experience, of sorts, and I can see how it'd translate well to this kind of situation.

Oof, this is a noxious approach that January has to take. Good (if revolting) sensory details.

And a triumph! But I don't know if bombers would be good right now. They're usually none too specific in the damage they inflict, and this is still a crowded metropolis...

[SubRosa]

Acadian: It was nice writing that little piece, because it gave me the chance to showcase January and the new and improved Gadget in action, side by side. A taste of things to come. I also just wanted to show that some of these Abyssals - being bosses - cannot be killed through the normal means of just doing a lot of damage. You have to figure out a puzzle to defeat them.

From the very first Abyssal, I have always striven to get across the deep wrongness of these things. In part it is because this is superhero fiction. The capes don't go around killing things as a matter of course. The stakes need to be really high for that. OTOH, I suppose I just cannot resist a good Cosmic Horror in the Lovecraftian vein. This whole Summoner/Hierophant/Natthrafn storyline was inspired by a Lovecraft story after all: The Case of Charles Dexter Ward.

Mazzy's quote is exactly the feel I go for with the Abyssals. They are not just greedy, or amoral, or hateful. Evil might be seen as a virus that infects humans, and leads them to commit the most horrific acts. But the Abyssals go beyond that. They are the virus of evil itself, with no cloak of humanity around them at all.

As ever thanks for finding that nit. It was from a last minute edit. I always worry about those.


Renee: I got the Aerzoan from Real Life. I saw an ocean documentary a few years back that had a Portuguese Man O War in it. I took one look at it and did the Pointing Leo Decaprio meme. I rushed to my computer and wrote down the idea for the Aerzoan. I even got the name from RL animal, which is a marine hydrozoan.


WellTemperedClavier: I might go back and edit the Hammer Down book a little to add in some football-based touches to his house now. Right now I am thinking he might have been a cornerback, or even a linebacker. Someone swift, but not a big star who could have a career in professional football (otherwise he would not have gone into the Air Force to begin with).

I just checked my notes, and Lighthammer did not go to the Air Force Academy however. He went to Bowling Green and got a degree in Aeronautical Engineering, before joining the Air Force, and then going to Officer Training School. Granted, he could have played college ball at Bowling Green as well.

From the very first Stormcrow fic, I have known Gadget was going to be suited up. So it feels really good to finally get here, and write him and Jan smiting evil side by side. They are boon companions.

I know what you are saying about bombers. Back in WWII they were lucky if they even hit the ground! Granted, they have gotten better. I went back and changed the word "bomber' to "A-10s" to be a little more specific. These are not big buffs just dumping bombs across the landscape. They are close air support craft with a lot more precision.






The High Yo-Yo Maneuver

A-10 Warthog/Thunderbolt

Maverick Missiles

Mark 77 Incendiary Bomb

The 107th Fighter Squadron really is based out of Selfridge


Book 10.16 - Alliance

Lighthammer stared in amazement as Blood Raven rose from his formerly paralyzed frame. Just a moment ago he had been unable to move, thanks to the venom of that giant, floating Portuguese man-o'-war. But just by passing a glowing red hand across his body, the elder heroine had purged the toxin from his body.

Golden energy lanced out from somewhere on the island north of them. Before it could strike, Blood Raven raised a bubble of what appeared to be similar yellow energy. The bolt fizzed out ineffectually against her shield. She dropped it a moment later, and sprang away after the source of the attack.

Lighthammer used to think that his life had gotten weird after he had met Stormcrow. No, that was normal. It had not really gotten weird until he had met Blood Raven. Here he was, an ordinary guy - meta-human powers notwithstanding - fighting an army of extra-dimensional demons led by a thousand year old lich who just happened to be the father of their witch queen leader. Could this get any weirder?

But he did not have time to muse. Blood Raven's exit left him alone at the south-western tip of the island, where both sides of the landmass narrowed to the point of a "V". A large pond lay to the north-east, leaving only a pair of narrow causeways of land to either side between it and the Detroit River. That causeway was wider where Lighthammer sat. He imagined that it might have been a public restroom, given the rows of broken pipes that jutted from the concrete foundation below, and the shattered porcelain all about.

A crowd of Abyssals was closing in on him even now, coming down either shore of the island. Only the water around the isle, and within the large pond that sat within the island's tip stopped them. Apparently these particular creatures could not swim, unlike that oniare Stormcrow had fought at Jobbie Nooner.

He took a moment to send a volley of hard light down each of the causeways. That sent the monsters flying like bowling pins. But then he caught sight of a flight of those two-headed dinosaur things overhead. He rocketed up to intercept them. His job was air superiority after all, not ground attack.

He followed the winged beasts toward the Canadian shore, and was able to pick off two of them with his lasers before the rest turned and came around to meet him. Both of their heads breathed fire as they came near. That was a new one. But he was able to create a screen of hard light with one forearm to deflect the flames. At the same time he finished off a third monster as they passed head to head.

He banked sharply and looped around to go back after the remaining fliers. That briefly brought that flying Portuguese man-o'-war in his view. It was farther downriver, drifting toward the heart of Detroit. He sent a few lasers its way. But as before the energy beams had no effect at all upon the polyp of its body.

Gadget and Stormcrow would have to deal with it. They were the safeties after all. He was a linebacker. He had to stay in his zone and deal with the Abyssals there. Otherwise the entire defense would break down.

The flying dinosaurs had a tighter turn radius than he did. That was a new feeling for him. Back when he drove an A-10 he could fly literal circles around any fast mover. Now that he no longer needed a plane to fly, he was even more acrobatic than ever in the sky. But these Abyssals were something else. They were fast, nimble, and obviously lived in the air in a way even he never could.

Soon they were closing in on his tail, rather than the other way around. Then he remembered something he had learned at Officer Training School. In Vietnam the F4s could not turn with the Migs. But they had a solution to that, which took advantage of the extraordinary engine power that their interceptors possessed.

He took a page from the history books, and shot skyward. That bled off his speed, and nearly took him into a stall. Then he rolled over in a turn that was much tighter than he could have managed at full speed. He let gravity pull him back down, and hit his metaphorical afterburners. That put him above and behind the twin tails of the Abyssals. First one, then the last of the monsters vanished under the flashes of his lasers.

"Downtown is cle- what the frell is that?" He heard Stormcrow exclaim in horror over the team-wide comms. His eyes searched the skies for her, but the crow-themed heroine was nowhere to be found. "Oh snap, that's an aerzoan."

"Yeah, sorry about that," Lighthammer's said sheepishly. Clearly she had just met the same bizarre flying Portuguese man o' war that had so recently laid him low. "That one sort of got away from us. Watch it! Those tentacles paralyze you, even through armor. Blood Raven had to come over and fix me up after that..."

"Lighthammer," Cray's voice came over the comm on a private channel. What he said next instantly distracted him from whatever reply Stormcrow might have made. "We've got A-10s inbound. But they don't have a target. Can you help them out?"

"Roger that," Lighthammer nodded. "Patch me into their frequency."

With that the tone in his ear changed, and gained a slight undertone of static.

"Do we have a spotter yet?" A new voice came over the link. It bore the familiar electronic alteration of someone speaking over a radio, rather than a phone.

"I'm Lighthammer," he spoke up. "I'm not tied into your system, so I can't feed you the targeting data directly. But I can light it up old school style."

He zoomed down around the portal, and banked around the island north-east of it. He came to a stop there, and thrust out both of his hands. It took a moment to modulate the light they emitted so that they were not hard light, nor a standard fighting laser. He had to dial the intensity way down so that it was not damaging. At the same time he widened out the coverage, so that in the end he emitted a long cone of brilliant green light from each of his palms. He set these up so that they covered the ground between the bridge and the portal, where the majority of the Abyssals were now piling up.

"Where is- I got it! I see green light." The fellow pilot's voice came over the radio.

"Roger green light," Lighthammer echoed back to him. "Expend all your ordinance on target. You might not get a second chance. There are friendlies on the bridge. I say again; friendlies on the bridge. All other ground targets are hostile."

"Tell your people to keep their heads down, this is going to get hot," the pilot warned.

Cray echoed the warning over their regular, team-wide frequency, his voice crisp and clear as if the elder hacker was standing right next to him.

But Lighthammer could not move. He had to hover in place and continue painting a target for the bombers. A spear - of all things - came hurtling up from the ground. But his Armex steel breastplate turned it aside. Still, that caused him to lurch slightly, and with him, his laser designators. He rushed to get them back on target, and keep them there, as more missile weapons pelted him from the ground.

Next came something much larger. It was a giant of knobby gray flesh and equally iron-gray hair. It raised the biggest axe Lighthammer had ever seen, and it was coming right for him. Given the creature's height, he was staring at it eye to eye, which was an uncomfortable sensation for a pilot.

Then a bubble of shimmering energy popped into existence around him. A moment later the giant's axe struck it. Multicolored streams of light sprang up and ran the length of the shield in response to the blow. It reminded him of an aurora, with the way the colorful energy flowed across the sky. The axe bounced away harmlessly, and Lighthammer noted that he had a companion.

It was Blackhawk. She wore her banded steel armor and seemed to simply stand on the air with no visible means of support or propulsion. She gestured with one hand, and the metal head of the Abyssal's axe flowed like water. It ran down the haft of the weapon, up the monster's arm, and then neatly decapitated it.

Lighthammer heard the roar of jet engines behind him, and the hiss of missiles. He did not turn back to look however. He remained fixed on painting the target. Then a combination of Maverick missiles and Mark 77 incendiary bombs came streaking past. One, two three... he soon lost count of their number. The missiles were a storm of angry darts, tails lit with fire. The bombs on the other hand, were ghostly streaks of silver in the night sky.

Then a chain reaction of explosions lit up the darkness. One after another, the missiles struck their targets, and went up in great gouts of fire and force. This just served to spread out the modern day successor to napalm that the Mk 77s carried. This witches' brew of kerosene, phosphorus, and God knew what other chemicals incinerated all that it touched. The ground between him and the pond near the south-western tip of the island vanished under a blanket of fire and explosive force. It had become an absolute inferno of destruction in which nothing could exist, whether from this world or another.

Then the A-10s went roaring past, already banking into a hard turn that took them toward the Detroit shoreline. Most people would call them fat, ugly planes. But to Lighthammer's eyes, there were no more beautiful aircraft in the world. He noted from the markings on the engines - which hung out from the sides of the fuselage rather than being built into it - that they were the 107th "Red Devils".

"Hooah!" he cried in a combination of amazement and relief as the planes streaked past. That was what ordinary people could do, even in the face of extraordinary circumstances.

But his elation was dashed nearly as quickly as it had risen. A human form leapt up into the sky, clad in what looked like armor of black metal and white bones. He literally hacked through one of the bombers with a giant battle axe. He seemed to hang there in mid air as the plane disintegrated in a storm of fire around him.

That could only be Nátthrafn. Blood Raven's father, and leader of the Abyssal hordes. There had been no pictures or drawings of him in the Bestiary. But who else could that be? Lighthammer still remembered the history lesson that Blood Raven had given them all, along with the warning that he was not one to face alone.

Then it really got weird. What looked like a torrent of bats literally sprang out of his body. These creatures were featureless. They were pure black voids, as if they were made up entirely of darkness or shadow, and nothing else. They scattered across the sky, each homing in on one of the bombers.

One after another, these shadow bats sliced through the wings and fuselages of the aircraft as if they were made of butter. The planes could not outrun the monsters. That came as no surprise to Lighthammer. The A-10 Warthog did not have much in the way of engine power. It could not even break the sound barrier. That was not a drawback for what the plane normally did: rain missiles and 30mm cannon rounds down on a ground target. In fact it was a bonus. Their lower speed gave their pilots more time to assess the situation on the ground and react to it.

Usually the Warthog could out maneuver anything it came up against however. Lighthammer had never encountered a jet that could out turn him. Though granted, with no afterburners he always had to be a lot more careful with his energy management than they did. But even still, he had flown rings around everything else in the sky back when he was in the cockpit of an A-10.

But these shadow creatures were on an entirely different level than any mechanical craft. They turned like bats or birds. Nothing man-made could compete with that. As Lighthammer had already discovered with the twin winged Abyssals, these shadow creatures were not only insanely fast, but even more maneuverable. There was just no contest when it came to air superiority.

Parachutes began to blossom in the night sky, as one plane after another plummeted into the river. The shadow creatures did not spare the pilots any more than they had their aircraft. As Lighthammer looked on, one swooped in on a pilot who now wafted helplessly down toward the river below. In moments it would slice him in two.

Well not on his watch. His lasers streaked across the night sky, and punched through the body of the creature. The light seemed to not just cut through the material of the bat. It vaporized it, cancelled it out of existence. It was like when one wave of energy met its opposite. They both nullified each other.

With that he hit his own afterburners. He soared across the night sky to gather up the pilot in his arms, before another of the shadow bats could come swooping in. He saw Blackhawk doing the same, along with that weird raven woman Gola. Even Gadget and Stormcrow had come back from downriver to join in on the rescue mission.

He sliced through the pilot's parachute wires with a low power laser, and dropped him off on the roof of a high rise apartment building on American side of the river, below Belle Isle. Then he jetted back skyward to deal with more of the shadow bats, and save whoever he could.

He saw a curious thing then. One of the shadow creatures was about to cut through an A-10, when a black disc appeared in front of it. The bat could not change course fast enough to avoid the barrier, and the shadow monster flew right into it. The monster did not bounce off of it, nor crash through it however. Instead it just disappeared into the darkness.

Out of the corner of his eye, Lighthammer saw that another disc had formed in the air right down on the concrete river walk below him. What he imagined was the same shadow monster shot out of that and crashed head-first into the sidewalk, shattering the concrete under the impact.

Clearly, the two discs had been opposite ends of a gateway!

That did not kill the monster. But the man who appeared to be made of living fire did. A single blow from his incandescent fist obliterated the thing. Lighthammer blinked. Where had he come from? An instant later, this new man stepped through another of those black portals, and disappeared from view. But he turned up a second later. It was hard to miss him after all. He was a seven foot tall inferno. Only now he stood on the end of the bridge to Belle Isle.

"That was Helios!" he crowed over the comlink. "Folks, looks like the Sentinels are here!"

With that he was back in the sky and soaring toward the bridge. Now he saw the rest of Chicago's super team down there. In addition to Helios, there was Zero Point in his glowing white powered armor. His eyes next picked out the werewolf White Fell, and of course the leader of the team, the Veil. He knew that she controlled elemental darkness, which covered her from head to toe in what looked like a set of black cloth robes. She must have been the creator of those gateways he had just seen. Finally he imagined that Stinger must have been in there somewhere as well. But being that shrinking was one of her powers, Lighthammer did not expect to see her.

[Acadian]

You did a good job of painting this episode from Lighthammer’s perspective – complete with pilot talk and think.

"Where is- I got it! I see green light." The fellow pilot's voice came over the radio.”
- - Nice touch here too, having the pilot call the color of the light. Grunts used to mark targets or their own position using smoke or smoke rounds. The pilot would respond by stating the color of the smoke to make sure that if bad guys were listening and also popping smoke to sabotage the mission, it would (mostly) foil such efforts. Just kind of second nature for close air support pilots to call a color like that to confirm.

The A-10’s acquitted themselves well with their initial strike but, damn, their foes sure exacted a surprisingly high cost.

And the Chicago coven of supers joins the fray. Surely an all star cast here.


Nit: ’Clearly she had just me {met} the same bizarre flying Portuguese man o' war that had so recently laid him low.’

[Renee]

The way Lighthammer sums up his relationship with Jan and Raven in one paragraph, now that's something. He thought his life was weird. No, that was nothing.

Hey, he's back in action. Ooorah! -- Wait, that's wrong. Oofah! Nope. I can't remember his battle cry. 🦸

Yeesh. Poor guy's getting pelted. There's so much going on in this scene. Cool, Blackhawk is here. Whoa. So are some armed forces. Hey, it's about time.

That's a good question, actually: how much time has passed since the onset of Natthrafn breaking through? I'm guessing not much more than a hour, huh? If that. It's like when someone has an accident, time speeds up but also slows down in a way.

A10s are here. I looked at the wiki article above, and here are some more pics. I agree. I know nothing about fighter jets, but those don't look so sleek, or pretty!

The armed forces are losing. This ain't going so well. What is Helios? Hopefully there will be some sort of breakthrough!

[WellTemperedClavier]

A-10s make more sense for this (from what I know).

Lighthammer's back in action! And his thoughts reveal something interesting: January's helped bring Detroit's disparate meta-community together. It's because of her that all of their contributions and powers are being so focused.

This man o' war has a pretty thick skin...

I like how Lighthammer's bringing in his knowledge of aerial combat. Does a good job of showcasing his personality and intelligence.

I love it! Using the old school ways to call in an airstrike. Fits so well with Lighthammer, too.

And now, Lighthammer has to hold his position as the forces of Hell attack. He's in a pretty vulnerable state, being up in the air. While the armor protects him from harm, it wouldn't take much to move him since he's not grounded.

Given the creature's height, he was staring at it eye to eye, which was an uncomfortable sensation for a pilot.

Oof, no kidding!

Blackhawk to the rescue! And the A-10s right after that. Good descriptions on the fireworks. But the Abyssals have powers of their own, as that bone-armored guy shows.

What's this? Seems like someone's thinking with portals...

All right, the reinforcements are going to change the tide. Right?

[SubRosa]

Acadian: I originally pulled up a manual on radio operation, and inserted all the "Over", and "Copy", etcs... But in the end it read out as being clunky. So I took almost all of that out, and wrote the pilot speak in a more normal conversational tone. I am glad it still kept enough of the "piloty" feel to be recognizable as such.

I remember that old fashioned way of throwing smoke and the pilots calling the color from a zillion war movies and TV shows. I actually tried to look up the official procedure, but the best I could come up with was an Army manual for smoke battalions, detailing how to do things like create smoke screens on the battlefield. So I am thankful that my memory of those movies proved their worth.

Natthrafn and the Abyssals have never seen airplanes before. So were completely unprepared for the A-10s attack. However, dear old dad is a quick learner. So he won't take the vertical element for granted again.

At this point I counted 18 supers at Belle Isle. So it is the equivalent of the Avengers, X-Men, and Fantastic Four all joined up. And the Justice League and Teen Titans are still on the way...


Renee: The thing I like about Lighthammer is that - super powers notwithstanding - he is a regular guy. That gives him a perspective very grounded in "normal" reality. Magic and liches, and witches, and cosmic horror monsters are not part of his normal day to day, as they are with people like Blood Raven and January. January spends her off hours reading up on magical theory. Lighthammer has a six pack and watches football.

Each of the US service branches have their own war cry. The Marines have "Oorah". The Army has "Hooah", the Navy and Coast Guard have "Hooyah". The Air Force has "This is hard..." Well, that is how the joke I most often hear is told. Seriously though, the Air Force just uses the Hooah of the Army. So that is Lighthammer's war cry too. I think they all go back to the Civil War, when the Union Army's battle cry was a deep and manly "Huzzah!"

I am not sure of the exact amount of time that has passed. It is not very long though. Probably less than an hour for sure. This all happened very quickly, with no time for anyone to prepare.

I think the official designation for the A-10 is the Thunderbolt. But its other name is Warthog, and I think that is just what everyone calls it, because that is what it looks like. OTOH, it makes up for its looks with its performance. It is a really good ground attack aircraft.

Helios is one of the Sentinels, a super with fire abilities (that is actually about all I have on him myself!)

As we shall see, the Air Force took heavy losses in that one attack. But they gave much, much better than they got.


WellTemperedClavier: A-10s are dedicated close support, ground attack planes. I think it is the only plane made just for that one purpose. So they don't just dump bombs out from thousands of feet up and hope they hit the ground. They are made to fly low and slow, and pick out specific targets like individual vehicles or hard points. So they can do this sort of job without blowing up the rest of Detroit and Windsor at the same time. However, the planes that do that are on the way as well...

You called it exactly on how January is the reason that all these people came together. Blood Raven is definitely the leader. She is the shot caller on the field. But January is the heart of the team. She is why they are there to begin with. Lighthammer is there because she looked past their initial fight, and chose to cultivate a relationship with him. The same with Isaac, and Gola, and Hungry Ghost. The Great Lakes Alliance exists because of January.

I enjoyed showcasing Lighthammer's profession as a military pilot. That is a foundation of who he is, even though he's not in the military any more. I liked how it gave me the opportunity to show that supers don't have to rely on their powers all the time. They can use skill and training and experience as well to solve their problems.

The bone armored guy is Nátthrafn. I am going to go back to make that more clear, since it has been a while since he was introduced and described.

The A-10s have already turned the tide, as we will see once today's post begins. With the Sentinels, it is time to attack.





The Siege of Petersburg

Voltron

Kaelin's goth 'super suit'

Cops Got Better Things To Do Than Get Killed

Two Steps From Hell - Myth


Book 10.17 - Alliance

"The Air Force is bugging out," Cray's voice sounded dejected in Blood Raven's ear. "They lost nearly an entire squadron in that one pass over the island."

"They have done their part," the elder heroine said over the team-wide frequency. "They have gained us valuable breathing space on the bridge, and opened the way to the portal. Now that we have reinforcements, we shall counter attack."

Blood Raven cast her gaze out over the bombers' handiwork. The south-western tip of the island had been wiped clean of Abyssals. It had likewise been swept bare of everything else. Not a single tree remained, nor blade of grass, nor buzzing mosquito. It had been reduced to an empty moonscape of mud, ash, and dust in which nothing lived or moved. Her aetherial senses confirmed what her eyes beheld. The aircraft had utterly annihilated everything beneath their wings.

At first it reminded her of the Siege of Petersburg, where she had served in the Iron Brigade during the Civil War. That had been her first real war; the first that she had seen up close, and taken part in. But there had been some trees and brush at Petersburg. No, she had not seen anything such as this since the First World War.

That brought back memories that she would rather not revisit. Her mind reverberated with the screams of the wounded that had clogged her aid station, between the hammering thunder of the artillery. Just like that the smell of the blood came back to her, along with the sights of young men torn into shreds. She remembered their hands, pressed into hers as they bled to death. She remembered those who lives she had wrested from oblivion's dark embrace, by commanding their blood to march back into their bodies. But so too did she recall those whose eyes had turned to cold glass after passing death's door, those she could not save. The living and the dead, all passed before her mind's eye as she involuntarily turned her gaze to the past.

Blood Raven pushed those thoughts down with effort. This was not the time to take strolls down memory lane. She had to keep her focus within the here and now. She had much to do, and could not spare herself the luxury of sentiment.

She looked back to the team. It had grown tremendously since she, Stormcrow, and Gola had faced the first of the Abyssals on their own. Now Isaac, Archimedes, and Ôkami stood with her on the bridge, while Gadget, Blackhawk, and Lighthammer patrolled the skies overhead. Also on the bridge was her old student Riven and her husband Thunderbolt. With them was another protégé of hers, the wayward Vortex, along with that young woman's father: Hungry Ghost. Finally the entire team of the Sentinels had just joined them as well: The Veil, Zero Point, Stinger, White Fell, and Helios.

It had to be one of the most powerful groups of meta-humans and magicians ever assembled. Three entire teams all joined in common purpose. Surely such a thing had not happened since the Second World War. Blood Raven hoped it would prove to be enough.

"Tell me you have a plan." The Veil approached her while the rest of the Sentinels stood watch over the blasted no-man's-land that had once been Belle Isle. The leader of the Chicago team was a woman seemingly clad in a series of robes. The multiple layers of cloth covered every inch of her body, and left her face hidden in a veil of shadow. It was all elemental darkness of course, and constantly shifted and flowed around her, as if blown by a non-existent wind.

She drew the darkness back from her features, though still leaving the rest of her head shrouded in a hood of the elemental material. Now her brown eyes stared out from a mask of Blackwood's meta-material, and the tan skin of her lower face lay bare. This softened her appearance, and made it clear that she was indeed a living, breathing human, rather than the wraith-like impression that her fully armored form presented.

"I do," Blood Raven looked from her to the portal. The magical gateway to the Abyss had grown since she had last set eyes upon it. That it continued to do so did not bode well. They could conceivably defeat every army that issued forth, only for the gateway itself to still engulf the world in the end. That must not happen.

"That portal is the key, we must destroy it."

"Well then, what are we waiting for?" Helios swelled to a towering ten feet in height. A giant ball of fire formed from between his hands, and he spent a long moment winding up to throw it. He hurled this blazing sphere much like a baseball pitcher. It hurtled across the island, and struck home against the face of the portal. But the flames merely sank into the bubbling shell of the gateway, and vanished without effect.

"No mortal weapon can touch it," Blood Raven explained. "It was made by magic. It can only be unmade with the same. We must undo the weave of its design, one thread at a time if need be."

"But you can do that, right?" Stinger spoke up next. She was a tiny dot standing on the armored shoulder of Zero Point. But the scientist's voice was loud and clear. "I mean, you're a magician, right?"

"I am, but I cannot do this alone," Blood Raven turned her eyes from the other heroes and back to the portal. "This was created by a sorcerer far more powerful than I. All of our magicians must work together in a ritual team. Only then may we yet prevail."

"And let me guess, while you do that, you will be unable to defend yourselves?" the Veil chimed in once more.

"Exactly." Blood Raven pointed to the gateway. "We must advance to the foot of the portal. There we mages shall join in power - much like Voltron - to contend with it. While we do so the rest of you must protect us from the next wave of Abyssals, which is sure to sally forth at any moment."

"Right," Blood Raven heard Cray's voice over the comm even as a few of the team members vocally marveled over her knowledge of anime. "That means Blood Raven, Riven, Stormcrow, Ôkami, and Gola are team wizard. Did I miss anyone?"

"Yeah us!"

Blood Raven spun her head at the sound of a familiar voice. Coming up the bridge behind them was none other than her protégé Kaelin, and her lover Harper. Kaelin was clad in a black goth outfit that glittered with silver rings, buckles, and chains. A black cloth stretched across her nose and lower features at an angle, leaving only her eyes to stare forth from beneath a waterfall of blue hair. A small black purse or bag was slung across her torso, to rest at her opposite hip. Emblazoned on its wide flap in silver was the alchemical symbol for Mercury.

Harper was clad in a black tuxedo with tails, complete with a top hat and a cane. A black domino mask outlined their eyes, and white paint decorated their features in a phantasmagoria of Vodun veves. Blood Raven sensed power in those painted symbols, just as she did within the blue dye that colored Kaelin's hair. Clearly the pair were making the most of Kaelin's alchemical abilities.

Both of them were perched atop rental scooters, which might have looked humorous under other circumstances. But at the moment, they appeared as nothing less than a godsend to Blood Raven. She needed every mage she could get. She did not know if seven magicians would be enough. But she would learn.

"Well met my friends," she greeted both with open arms and a smile. Kaelin did not hesitate to leap into her arms and give her a short, but sweet hug. Harper was more reserved and merely nodded in return.

The deep thumping of rotors filled the air, and their authors appeared a moment later. They were military helicopters painted with green camouflage. The Black Hawks began to land in the park that stretched out on the Detroit River's west bank, to either side of the bridge's terminus. Uniformed soldiers boiled from their interiors, only for the helicopters to immediately lift off once more and zoom away.

The soldiers appeared to be armed with rifles and other light armaments. They rallied together and sprinted up the far end of the bridge. Blood Raven noted that ordinary people joined them from the nearby streets. These were armed with a hodge-podge of firearms: pistols, shotguns, and rifles, of all manufacture. Just like their weapons, they were a rainbow of ages, genders, and sizes. Men and women, young and old, rail-thin to rotund, they all stepped up to the line.

She even recognized some as local criminals, from gangs such as the Black Mafia and Latino Counts. They were among the better armed, though certainly not the best. She even noted a one-eyed doomsayer, still clutching a sign in one hand which proclaimed that the end of the world was nigh. In his other hand he gripped a makeshift spear that looked like nothing more than a broom stick whose brush had been snapped off, and the end beneath whittled to a jagged point.

Waiting at the western end of the bridge were several police cars that had blocked it off to traffic, red and blue lights spinning in the night. Blood Raven noted that while the military and civilians streamed past the barricade and onto the bridge, none of the police followed suit.

"I guess cops got better things to do than get killed," Gadget noted sourly as he landed beside her.

Harper's phone rang, which made everyone jump, including Blood Raven herself. Someone laughed at the sudden relief of tension, once they all realized what it was. Harper fumbled for the device, even as Lighthammer made a dry remark about saving money on their car insurance.

Harper murmured something into their phone, then put it away. A moment later they created a gateway of their own. As before in the Aura, they did so by executing an intricate dance, and drawing out a veve with magical energy. Blood Raven's heart soared once more when she saw who stepped through. First came her old student Calypso. She had transformed into her aquatic form, and carried her staff of elemental water Bagua with her. Next came her friend Viuda, clad in her arachnid-themed suit of powered armor. Unfortunately Harper's portal was too small to bring Viuda's flying spidercraft Charlotte with her.

Harper closed the portal after that. They were only two, but a welcome two. Blood Raven made sure Calypso knew it when she greeted her former student with a relieved hug. So many of her students were here today... Nearly all of the magicians in fact, were Daughters of the Raven. It made her heart soar with pride.

"Blackhawk," Blood Raven turned to Toronto's resident superhero. She pointed to the non-super reinforcements that now streamed up from the far side of the bridge. "Take command of them and hold the bridge. Venture no farther onto the island. We are likely to be surrounded in no time, and will be unable to protect them. That shall be your mission. With luck, we shall be able to draw most of the Abyssals to us. Especially once we begin the ritual. You must prevent any from slipping through to the mainland."

The First Nations heroine frowned. "You expect me to babysit a bunch of civilians while you-"

"I expect you to lead," Blood Raven cut her off in a low voice. She clapped a friendly hand onto the other woman's shoulder, and once more gestured to the mundane reinforcements now coming forward in dribs and drabs. "You have experience, and you have a reputation - one I cannot match. People respect you on both sides of the border. They will follow you."

She leaned in closer, and lowered her voice to a whisper. "And should we fall here, then it shall be upon you to find victory this night. I trust you to do this, and to keep them safe while you do it."

The Canadian said nothing. She still frowned, but she did finally nod in agreement.

"I have a gift before you go," Blood Raven breathed. She gathered up her aion, and sang in Gaelic to center herself. A circle of magical energy appeared around her feet, and began to slowly turn around her and the First Nations heroine.

Blood Raven clapped her hands down upon the other woman's armored shoulders. She felt the Armex steel under her fingers, cold and unyielding. She sent her magic through it, deep down between every atom, until it filled the armor to the brim. With her power, she burned away every impurity within the metal, even of the tiniest in nature. Then she rearranged the molecular latticework of the steel that remained, leaving it far stronger, and more flexible, than any mortal metal could hope to be.

"With this steel, I give you the blessing of Earth," she intoned gravely.

Then Blood Raven now craned her neck over her shoulder to behold one of her many apprentices.

"Stormcrow, lend me your lightning!" she cried.

The young woman appeared surprised for a moment. But to her credit, she understood soon enough. The sky tore itself open, and a great, jagged bolt of lightning ripped down through the air. It slammed into Blood Raven's hands in an inferno of heat, and light, and force, threatening to throw not only her, but also Blackhawk, from their feet.

But Blood Raven was ready for it. She reined in this wild elemental power, and channeled it into her spell. The electricity ground down into Blackhawk's armor, side by side with the rivers of aion that flowed through it. It became a part of the enchantment she was weaving.

"I grant you the power of Air," Blood Raven solemnly intoned in English.

"Calypso!" she cried next.

Her Haitian/Bahamian protégé followed without hesitation. She held out her staff Bagua, and the river below answered its call. A great column of water rose up and formed into a loop that peaked over the bridge, then came crashing back down. Like the lightning, it slammed directly into Blood Raven and Blackhawk.

Again, they held on during the deluge, and Blood Raven continued her work. As before, she channeled the elemental power directly into her enchantment. She made it part of the magic, and part of Blackhawk's armor itself. After several moments, the water did not flow away, so much as vanish into the lacquered metal.

"I grant you the boon of Water." Blood Raven intoned once more.

"Heli-!" Blood Raven began. She turned to one of the Sentinels, whose tall frame was wreathed in fire. But he cut off her words before she could finish.

"Yeah yeah, I get the point," Helios nodded. He gathered up a brilliant globe of fire in his hands, and then hurled it like a baseball. It slammed home an instant later against Blood Raven and her charge. Again, they weathered the elemental assault. Again, she absorbed it into the fabric of her magic.

"I grant you the gift of Fire." Blood Raven once again intoned.

Finally she allowed a claw to spring from one of her fingers, and thrust it deeply into the palm of her other hand. Blood flowed hot and potent from the wound. It filled Blood Raven's nostrils with that sweet, sweet scent of life and power. Her stomach almost growled with anticipation of a feast.

But she was not here to feed, certainly not upon her own blood. She was here to give of herself. So she clapped her bloody palm down upon the breast of Blackhawk's armor, above the medicine wheel that emblazoned its center. She sent her blood into the metal, and with it, a piece of her life force. As with the other elements, she wove this into the makeup of her spell, and stitched it through the deepest layers of its fabric.

"I grant you the benevolence of Spirit." Blood Raven finally intoned.

With that she stepped back, and let go of her magic. She felt tired, for she truly was drained. It was not just from effort, or of aion, but from the store of life energy that gave every vampire not only their power, but their very existence. She would have to feed again, and soon.

She suspected that there would be numerous opportunities for that soon enough...

"What was that," Blackhawk held up her hands, and stared at the soft illumination now clung to armor plates that girded them.

"I think she just gave you +5 banded mail armor," Gadget noted dryly.

"With a +5 to hit," January added. "You can definitely harm magical creatures with that steel now."

Blood Raven tried not to laugh at the gamer speak. Trite as it may seem, they were entirely correct. She was not sure how long the enchantment would hold. She was working much faster than usual. Her work had not been as complex or careful as she would have liked. Yet the elemental energies bound up within it were powerful. For all she knew, the enchantment might just outlast them all.

Then Kaelin was there, holding up a vial of liquid before her eyes. It glowed soft gold in the night air, and Blood Raven could feel the power held within. Without a word she took it, pulled the stopper, and upended its contents into her belly. She instantly felt aion suffuse her body with its warm embrace, filling her to the brim with energy.

"I brought plenty more magicka potions," the alchemist declared loudly. "So don't any of you hold back. I can top you off again."

"You are a blessing my childe," Blood Raven smiled at Kaelin, yet another of her protégés. It seemed that all of her ravens were coming home to roost this day, so to speak.

[Acadian]

Some old news. We were talking about sensing the wrongness of the Abyssals an episode or two ago. Since I’m currently playing BGII and just joined Mazzy, I pulled the little knight’s exact quote -
”You can. . . feel the wrongness in such a place. It has seeped into the very rocks themselves.”
- - Mazzy Fentan

*

Very cool returning to Blood Raven’s perspective for this episode.

The old heroine’s poignant and haunting memories of the horrors of war were spot on – you nailed it. It is one of life’s cruelest ironies that the only real way to stop war is with. . . war.

"And let me guess, while you do that, you will be unable to defend yourselves?" the Veil chimed in once more.’
- - Such is the basis for many rpg quests!

"I think she just gave you +5 banded mail armor," Gadget noted dryly.
"With a +5 to hit," January added. "You can definitely harm magical creatures with that steel now."
- - AD&D Rules! Neat series of spells Blood Raven used to buff up her ally.

What really pulls this episode together is the reinforcement of the team that the Blood Raven / Stormcrow coven has built. And that it will take all of them to defeat Nasty Nate.

[Renee]

Yeah, the heroes are all gathered here but it still isn't enough. Military's down. Where are all the gangbangers? C'mon yos, it's time to represent!

Wow, Chicago's team is here. Maybe some others from cities which aren't too far. I'd ask where Baltimore's heroes are, but I get the feeling we haven't had the fortune to breed our own!

Is Raven the oldest of all present here (besides her father)?

Wow, that part when Helios has that growth spurt and throws fire. Seriously, why would any violent type of criminal even bother? You'd think that Chicago would have lower crime than Japan.

Stinger reminds me of one of the little insect-sized people in His Dark Materials, which my brother got me hooked on this past holiday. What role could this little bug-person play here in the midst of the Abyssals? Yet there must be something Stinger can do. As Raven says, they all need to work together somehow.

Harper and Kaelin, not sure if we've heard of these two yet in the story. My gosh they sound all decked out and stylish! - That's one thing: if you want to be a superhero, you'd better be good at what your forte is, but you'd also better have your own identity. It's like the opposite of a police force or the military, where the idea is everyone's dressed up the same.

Why are they on scooters, though? Guess they can't fly. Ah, here come the citizens. Not gangbangas; actual, ordinary Belle Harbor urbanites. It's like the modern version of a country village whose residents all grab torches and pitchforks. 🫓

Whoa, Calypso and the spider woman are here. 🕷 They've come up from way down south.

"I think she just gave you +5 banded mail armor," Gadget noted dryly.

"With a +5 to hit," January added.

Ha ha!

I have a prediction about what's to come toward the end of this giant battle. Something really sad, actually. Probably I won't say what it is though, unless it comes true. I have a feeling.

[WellTemperedClavier]

I like that the A-10s turned the tide. Shows that the normal humans can still play an important part. Though that's been the case in your story thus far, one of the elements I like most about it.

So the Air Force is on its way out, but you said in your comment that they played a decisive role. Hopefully the GLA can finish up the rest.

The bit about the island is a good reminder of how much damage this battle is causing. Definitely not a good day for the city of Detroit. Also makes an effective segue into Blood Raven's thoughts. This is an ugly thing she's seen many times before, and probably many times again.

Okay, so it looks like we have a defense mission here. The rest of the team has to make sure Abyssals don't break the magic users' ritual.

Heh, I like how Kaelin and Harper show up on rental scooters. Sometimes you have to improvise.

I guess it's nice that the doomsayer's finally been validated.

And some Caribbean reinforcements! Should definitely help with the ritual.

Okay, it looks like the pieces are in place for the final confrontation (or the final part of the final confrontation). Let's see what happens next...

[SubRosa]

Acadian: Mazzy always was one of my favorites from BG2. She is a cheerful, boon companion.

Blood Raven will get a couple more episodes from her POV, as her experience and knowledge of the battle is central to it all.

I wanted to describe the devastation caused by the battle, and since Blood Raven is 250 years old, I realized that I could equate it with some of her own personal memories. I know she was a member of the Iron Brigade, so that put her at the Siege of Petersburg, along with Gettysburg, and several other major battles. But mainly Petersburg, since it was a long siege, and is often considered the beginning of modern warfare. Looking at the pictures from it, it is barely distinguishable from WW1. I did not have her movements mapped out for the First World War. I know she was in Egypt shortly before it to fight the original wearer of the Nitokris armor. So I decided that she went back to one of her other professions during the war, as a nurse for the French Army.

Blood Raven was in a bit of a pickle when it came to leaving someone behind to defend the bridge and lead the mundane troops there. On one hand, she needed all the mages with her to take down the gateway. But on the other, there are some Abyssals that can only be harmed by magic. So she came up with the compromise of enchanting Blackhawk's armor on the fly. I was not really sure how to do that. So I fell back to the tried and true 5 elements, and had Blood Raven infuse the armor with the essences of them all.

It was originally going to be Lighthammer on the bridge, due to his military experience. But I decided to change it to Blackhawk. For one to add another person's point of view to the battle. Also because it provided an opportunity to reveal more about who Blackhawk is through her thoughts. Finally she is a lot more versatile than the Hammer, and she can do more to set up a defense and protect the mundanes thanks to her magnetism. Also Blood Raven was right, in that she has a sterling reputation on both sides of the border. People will follow her.

All of the ravens are indeed coming home to roost for this. It is one of the things I enjoyed most about writing this piece.


Renee: There already are gangsters on the bridge. Blood Raven noted the Latino Counts and Black Mafia (who are both real street gangs here). But the ones you are thinking of - who helped January on Jefferson Avenue - they will show up again too. Keep your eyes peeled for the AK-47 and Cartier sunglasses.

A lot of the world's heroes are sitting around watching this on TV, wishing they had an invisible jet to fly them to Detroit in time to get into the action. But because this was a surprise attack, only those nearby are able to respond in time.

Stinger is a shrinking hero, like the Wasp or Ant-Man. She is mostly inspired by Bumblebee from DC Comics and DC Super Hero Girls. She is a scientist who built a suit of powered armor that shrinks, gives her flight, and quantum stings, etc... (Yes, I just put the word 'quantum' in front of that to make it sound cooler).

Harper and Kaelin were in Book 9: Ashes. They are the ones who run Detroit's magic club, and Harper is the one who created the gateway to send January to the Caribbean and back. Neither one is a superhero, so they don't have actual super suits. They are just magic users who live their lives running a nightclub. They are stylish, because they just are IRL. This is just how they dress normally, sans the mask and facepaint.

They are on scooters because Detroit has rental scooters throughout the city. They don't have special travel powers, aside from Harper's gateways. So they took the scooters.

I don't really plan on killing Blood Raven or January, if that is what you are thinking. So don't worry.


WellTemperedClavier: Just as it is important to me to show that January is not a one-woman army, dealing with everything on her own, I wanted to make it clear that the same was true with supers overall. They are not the be all and end all. They cannot save the world from Climate Change, or nuclear war, on their own. As much as they might try. Nor can they save the world from the Abyssal invasion on their own. It is always about people from all walks of life working together for common purpose. Showing that is one of the things I always make an effort to do.

So the regular people in the Air Force did what the supers could not. They cleared the way to the gateway, and gave the supers the chance to win the battle. Granted things won't be that easy. Because they never are.

If you go back to where Harper and Kaelin were introduced in the last Book, January and Blood Raven had to walk past several rental scooters to get into their magic nightclub. I originally put them in the description just because those rental scooters are a regular facet of the Downtown landscape these days. When it came time to get Harper and Kaelin to the battle, it just seemed perfect for them to use the same scooters.

I put the one-eyed doomsayer back in as a way to remind everyone that yes, he was there predicting this all along. I was originally going go with a Black Dog. In English and American folklore there are a lot of Black Dog myths. In some the dog is an oracle of doom. You see it when you are out traveling. The third time you see it, you die. In others it is a guardian spirit that protects innocent travelers. They see it and it just hovers in the distance. But when robbers or the like attack the travelers, the Black Dog comes and defends them. In the second case it is a lot like the sending wolves that Okami is named after.

I was thinking of putting the Black Dog in January's life because I knew her final encounter with the Hierophant was coming up. One of them was going to die, no matter what. The Dog was going to be there to prophecy that with its presence. But I changed it because the Black Dog is a little obscure to most people. So I changed it to something more closely tied to January and her beliefs: a bearded old man with one eye, with two ravens, and two wolves for companions. With this final appearance he gets his spear. There was no way to work in an eight-legged horse however.









Laminar Armor

Walking the Belle Isle Bridge video (this is going from Belle Isle to the mainland)

Apache Gunship

Two Steps From Hell - Riders of the Apocalypse


Book 10.18 - Alliance

Blackhawk wrapped herself up with the thrumming stream of power that was the Earth's magnetic field. She bent it and wrapped it up around her body, and used it to lift her skyward. She turned away from the ruined landscape of Belle Isle, which was now blessedly free of monsters thanks to the American air strike. But the First Nations heroine knew that would not last. Soon enough new tides of Abyssals were certain to spew from the great gateway. Even now the portal glowed and hissed like a cankerous sore upon the skin of the world.

Blood Raven - did that woman ever make her wish she was not an atheist, if only so that she could curse in the names of all the gods and spirits and powers both high and low - led everyone else forward onto the island. At the same time Blackhawk made her way in the opposite direction. For her Detroit counterpart had been right about one thing. Someone had to lead the wave of regular people - soldiers and civilians alike - who now swelled to defend their city and homes.

She had no idea what to make of the other woman. Throughout the years Blood Raven had rebuffed every attempt Blackhawk had made at alliance, let alone friendship. The only times the other woman had ever worked with her came from begrudging necessity, rather than amity.

Blackhawk remembered that time a villain team themed on natural disasters had fled from Detroit to Windsor in an attempt to escape Blood Raven. The other heroine had been forced to accept her help then. But the scarlet-haired woman gave nothing but a curt acknowledgement of Blackhawk's efforts after the villains were defeated, and then she simply turned and left without even a word of goodbye.

How Stormcrow, Lighthammer, and the rest could put up with it, Blackhawk had no idea. Granted, she seemed much more amenable of late. Was that a thaw in her behavior? Or was it simply a bow to the reality that she could not deal with this threat on her own?

Granted, by Blood Raven's own admission, she was two hundred and fifty years old. What did that manner of longevity do to a person? How did it affect your relationships, when everyone you had ever known and loved was dead and dust? How did it change you when you knew that every person you met in the future was destined to end as nothing but a broken tombstone in a forgotten graveyard, while you went on without them?

And now, Blood Raven had enchanted her suit of armor for her? Damn, could she at least pick a lane and decide to be friendly or not? That was the most exasperating thing about it all.

The others had called it a +5 weapon, whatever that meant. It sounded like Dungeons and Dragons to her. Blackhawk knew that banded mail was certainly not a real thing, though laminar armor such as she wore was. In any case, she still was not sure what to make of magic. Plenty of supers claimed to be magicians. But were they really? Or were they just meta-humans like herself and all the others, who merely called themselves wizards and witches because that fit their cultural or personal narratives better?

Blackhawk shook her head. She should not be letting that woman invade her thoughts, especially not at a time like this. She had her own work to do. She needed to focus on that. Lives were in her hands, a lot of lives. As she had once said herself, she was here to save lives, not take them, easy peasy lemon squeezy.

She brought herself down upon the concrete surface of the MacArthur Bridge right in front of the first trickle of mundane reinforcements. It was a small knot of military men and women. They looked young, as young as those in all the pictures in the history books she had written of people who had gone to war. Like so many of those men had been at the start of their careers in the past, these new warriors were clad in uniforms that were clean and crisp, their faces were freshly shaved, and their skin clear and unblemished by dirt, scars, or powder burns.

Also like so many of those men in the past, their uniforms fit a little poorly, with a sea of names stenciled over their chests, alongside the denotation that they were with the U.S. Air Force. Their weapons were held awkwardly, as if it was not something they did every day. Their eyes darted here and there with ill-concealed apprehension, as if they were unsure of what they were supposed to be doing, let alone how they were going to do it.

Blackhawk could relate. She felt the same way. She just knew better than to show it.

The newcomers came to a ragged halt when she touched down in front of them. Their leader was a sergeant, given the chevrons on his shoulder. He was older than the others, at least in his thirties. His waist was wider too, and the skin of his face sagged. He was no Wolfstone the Barbarian, or Jet Gladiator the space hero. Those were fictional ideals of heroism. This sergeant was an ordinary man, like every one of the veterans she had interviewed in her own career as a historian.

"Sergeant Newman," Blackhawk extended her hand. "I'm here to take charge."

She made sure to put on a look of calm certainty upon her face and frame. She had learned long ago to always convey a sense of confidence whenever she was suited up as Blackhawk. People wanted to see someone who was not afraid, who met danger without flinching. On the other hand, she had also learned that showing that you were just as scared and confused as everyone else was contagious. It led to panic. Then everything always got so much worse. She could not allow that to happen, especially not here.

She breathed an inward sigh of relief when the airman took her hand and shook it. "Boy am I glad you're here!" he declared loudly. The rest of his unit nodded their heads in agreement, and Blackhawk saw smiles and looks of relief wash across young faces.

The sergeant leaned in closer, and next spoke in a whisper that only Blackhawk could hear.

"Please tell me you know what to do," he confided in her. "We're not infantry. We're loadmasters. We put cargo on airplanes. All the others coming in behind us, they're just clerks, and cooks, and mechanics, and security guards; whoever they could scrape up from Selfridge."

"Just follow me, and everything will be ok. I know exactly what to do." Blackhawk confided in an equally low tone. Granted, it was all lies. She had no idea what to do either. But she was not going to let any of them know that.

"Ok people, form up on me!" She waved her hands in the air and shouted to get the attention of the next wave of soldiers that was coming up. No, not soldiers, these were Marines. She had learned the hard way not to call them the "S" word. The only thing that could appease a US Marine after addressing them as a soldier was to feed them a box of crayons...

"We are going to hold the end of the bridge, where it meets Belle Isle." She explained. "That is all we have to do. We will fortify the position, and drive off all comers."

"Are we really fighting monsters?" A young woman asked.

"Yes," Blackhawk did not sugar-coat it. They would see the reality soon enough, when the next wave issued from the gateway. "They are called Abyssals. They come in all shapes and sizes, but all of them are absolutely lethal. They do not take prisoners, and will never surrender. So when you shoot, shoot to kill, and hold nothing back."

Blackhawk could not believe that she had said that. She remembered how she had balked herself when Blood Raven and Stormcrow and first explained what Abyssals were. But she had seen it all herself by now, up close and personal. This was not simply people from another nation being pressed into fighting a war they might not even believe in. Those might be people who under other circumstances would be the first to share a beer with you at the pub. This was completely different. It really was a matter of the survival of the planet.

"You will know they are dead, because their bodies will disappear." Blackhawk went on. "Don't be alarmed at that. They aren't turning invisible. They aren't from our world, or from our universe. So they cannot exist here without help. Once they are dead, their bodies fade back to where they came from."

Or something like that. Blackhawk was not really sure if they went back, or simply disintegrated. She did not claim to be a master of arcane lore, like Blood Raven. Not that it mattered. Dead was dead, and that was all there was to it.

"Some of them can only be harmed by magic. Don't worry about them. I'll deal with those." Blackhawk continued. She stared down at her armor, which still glowed softly in the moonlight. Being Glow Girl would take some getting used to. "Most of them die just fine by bullets, or fire, or lightning."

By now a large crowd of military and civilians alike had gathered. With this little army of her own in tow, Blackhawk turned back to Belle Isle, and led them down the bridge toward the island. The span was long, longer than it looked from the air. She guessed it was half a mile from end to end. That was quick enough to travel driving or flying, but walking was a slower business.

She led the men and women across the bridge and toward the enemy that she knew was waiting somewhere ahead. She could not help but remember all of those veterans she had interviewed for her books. Some talked about how they were utterly terrified. How their mouths were dry, their palms wet, and their guts tied in knots. Others said they had no time for fear. That came later. They just focused on doing their jobs, and did not think of anything else. Death was something that would happen to the other guy. Not to them.

Blackhawk did her best to quash that empty, falling feeling that resided in her own stomach, and that desert dryness in her throat. She had to focus on her own job. She had a duty here, to these people, and to the world. There was no time for being afraid. That could come later.

With her job in mind, she looked from side to side at the span they crossed. Five lanes of concrete stretched from the American shore to Belle Isle. Two led to the island, and the other three provided an exit back to land. A low wall of concrete dividers separated the roadway from the wide pedestrian pathways on either side of the bridge. Finally a thick steel railing girded the very edge of the span, preventing anyone from falling into the river below. Wrought iron lampposts cast into the likeness of fluted Greco-Roman columns sprang up at regular intervals along the railed edge, providing soft electric light to the scene.

She reached out with her power, and felt the steel reinforcements that wound their way through the concrete below her feet. She ignored that, and felt her way up to those concrete dividers that separated the road from the walkway. The metal was putty in her fingers, and with merely a thought, it sprang up from the surface of the bridge, and dragged the concrete that encased it along for the ride.

She gathered up one divider after another as they marched forward, and held them floating in the air in front of them. Finally they came to the end of the bridge. From side to side, one entire section of its span had been shattered here. She could see the ruined pieces of it down in the river below, right against the shore of Belle Isle. Other wreckage had been thrown in atop the rubble. Broken bricks, splintered panels of wood, even wrecked boats and smashed cars made up a makeshift ramp that the Abyssals had built up there to try to bridge the gap. Thankfully they had not finished their task, and there was still a drop of at least a dozen feet beneath them.

Blackhawk brought her load of concrete and steel down at the broken end of the bridge. She arrayed the dividers into a wall that faced the island, and curved backward in a "U" shape along each edge of the bridge. She had leftovers, so she set them up in successive lines behind the first, leaving gaps for people to move through.

Then she remembered something else a Canadian veteran had told her recently. "The Germans liked to set up a defense in depth," the old man had explained. "So you would not just be fighting the trench right in front of you. You'd be fighting the machine gun nest a hundred yards behind it, and the anti-tank gun a half mile back, and the artillery position a mile away, and so on. These lines all supported one another. So when you attacked one, you took fire from all of them in return. That really made it a bear to crack them all."

"Okay, we're going to set up several lines of defense." Blackhawk declared. She waved her followers forward into the new positions she had created. "We will man them all, and support each other from each line. If it comes to it, I will give the word, and we will stagger back from one line to the next. That won't mean we are losing! It will just mean we are trading space for time. Because help is coming! We are not alone out here."

As if to underscore her words, the low thumping of helicopter blades came to her ears. She turned to the north-east, and saw a line of Apache gunships roll into a long a line that ran parallel to Belle Isle. A cheer rose up from the ranks of people around her. But Blackhawk frowned. She could not help but notice where their guns and missiles were pointed.

Without a word to her ground command, she rose up into the air and flew over to the helicopters. She hovered in place in front of the nearest, and tried not to react when the crew within almost jumped out of their seats in surprise. Instead she once more called up her power and reached into the electromagnetic spectrum. She moved below visible light, through the infrared and microwaves, and stopped in the longest wavelengths, those of radio waves.

With just a thought she transmitted a signal directly to the radio set in the cockpit of the helicopter in front of her. She turned her head, and extended that signal to each of the aircraft in turn. Finally she was patched in to all of them.

"This is Blackhawk," she introduced herself through the radios. "I am taking command here. I'd like you to look at where you are set up to fire."

She turned around, and faced back toward Belle Isle. Before her was the now blasted, blackened, and tortured moonscape that had once been a vast park. Beyond it lay the skyline of Windsor. Tall apartment buildings and low houses lined the far green shore directly opposite the island, along with a few glass and steel office towers.

"Every shot you miss, is going to kill dozens of people, maybe hundreds." she declared.

"We're here to fight a war, not..." One of the pilots retorted, but was cut short when Blackhawk literally seized control of the airwaves.

"Instead I want you to come around with me," she declared. With that she rose up above the helicopters. She reached down and took hold of the aircraft. The metal in their frames was like soft butter in her metaphorical hands. She was careful not to break or distort them. Instead she simply lifted them up, and brought them all with her as she flew south-west, over the bridge, and only came to a halt near the south-western tip of the island.

"I want you to post up here." She insisted. She turned to look back. The island was a narrow, irregular rectangle that ran from south-west to north-east. From this point, she stared down its length from end to end. Beyond lay the empty expanse of Lake St. Clair. She waved one arm down the length of the island for effect.

"Now you'll have enfilading fire when the Abyssals attack the bridge," she explained. "You also won't have civilians in your sights."

"I, uh... roger that Blackhawk," came a reply over the radio.

"Good," Blackhawk said. "Now watch for friendlies on the island. Look there, near the gateway. That is them. The Alliance, the Sentinels, Thunderbolt and Riven, and more. They are all there. Keep your fire clear of them. Instead I want you to support the bridge. Keep your fire on the Abyssals as they stack up against the shore of the island and funnel into the head of the bridge. They should be like fish in a barrel."

"Oh," she added as an afterthought. "Don't get too close to the island. They have their own air assets. If you get their attention, they will destroy you. You cannot go toe to toe with them."

She did not wait for a reply. She dropped the radio link, and sped back to the bridge. She found the defenders setting up there, and joined in as best she could. She noted several civilian paramedics, and called them over to her.

"Let's set up an aid station for you." She reached out and pulled up more of the concrete dividers and metal side rails that ran the length of the bridge. She formed these into a makeshift bunker that would shield the occupants from attacks coming from the direction of Belle Isle.

"I want you to stay here under cover," she explained. "I don't want you running around and getting killed. You're too important. I'm going to set up a system of stretcher bearers to bring the wounded back to you."

"That's not going to work," one of them - a middle-aged woman with brown hair - complained. "At least one of us needs to be out there for emergencies that can't wait even that long, like a femoral bleed, or for spinal injuries that can't be moved."

"Very well," Blackhawk sighed. "You work it out. Just remember, if you get yourself killed trying to be a hero, that's dozens or more lives lost because no one was there to care for them."

"You!" Blackhawk's eyes set up on a new group of people coming up. It was a pack of young men dressed in a variety of clothing such as Adidas gear, Pistons shirts, and plain tees. Tattoos decorated their bare skin, bright gold chains hung from their necks, rings glittered from their fingers, and one wore a pair of Cartier sunglasses. They looked suspiciously like a street gang. Especially given the plethora of guns they sported. One was even carrying an AK-47.

"You are all hospital security. I want you set up here. Your job is to protect the medics and the wounded, nothing else."

"The fight's up there!" the man with the AK cried, waving his weapon toward the island for effect.

"The fight is going to come to you," Blackhawk explained. "I guarantee you will get your taste of it. Now I want most of you set up around the aid station. Ignore the rest of the battle, only shoot at Abyssals who come for the wounded, and they will come."

"I have a special job just for you." Blackhawk laid an arm around the broad shoulders of the AK-toting gang member. She turned back to the medical staff and asked if they had decided who would take that job of traveling medic. A slender man wearing round glasses raised a hand, and Blackhawk led the gang-banger over to him.

"You are going to be the personal bodyguard of our roving paramedic. You stick to him like glue, you understand?" Blackhawk insisted. "Protect him with your life."

"This is Priya O'Neill, reporting live from the MacArthur Bridge to Belle Isle," a woman's voice now came to Blackhawk's ears. Blackhawk turned to see the very same reporter who had been at Gull Island walking up to her. She was the one with the great waterfall of indigo hair. The young woman was dressed in a sport coat hastily thrown over a T-shirt and tights. Following her was a towering cameraman with a flowing red beard.

"Blackhawk!" she heard the reporter cry. Then the other woman turned back to the camera to narrate. "Toronto's preeminent superheroine is here on the bridge with me. She seems to be in command. The situation is tense, as everyone is waiting for the next-"

The reporter was cut off by the popping sound of gunfire. Blackhawk snapped her head around toward Belle Isle. She rose skyward to get a better view, even as she zoomed out to the broken edge of the bridge. She could see that a new wave of monsters now issued from the gateway, and drove directly to the little fortress that Blood Raven and the others had set up in its shadow.

She lowered herself down, and admonished her troops to hold their fire. Like the Americans at Bunker Hill, they did not have an endless well of ammunition. She knew that soon enough, the fight would come to them, and they would need every round.

* * *

[Acadian]

So Blackhawk is thrust into trying to take command of and deploy a diverse hodgepodge of forces.

First up is an Air Force platoon of loadmasters, cooks, bakers and candlestickmakers – oh my, this could be tough. . . . Ah, followed by some Marines – whew, much more promising. Then some Apaches that needed a little orientation to the task. Finally some EMTs and gangbangers. In each case, she managed to gain their followership – a challenging task in its own right that she handled well.

As she crosses the bridge, I see she is beginning to form a concrete plan. Sorry, couldn’t resist.

One thinks of supers as tending to be loners but Blackhawk certainly proved up to the task Blood Raven asked of her at least as far as organizing the most effective defense she could given the assets she had to work with. Well done, Blackhawk!

And kudos for acknowledging that the forces she commands each depend on an ammo supply limited to what they are carrying with no known plan for resupply.


Nit: ’This was not simply people from other nation being pressed into fighting a war they might not even believe in.’ - - I suspect you wanted ‘other nations’ or ‘another nation’.

[Renee]

Raven leaving just after that scenario without saying goodbye is actually what I'd expect! She's not personable. Sounds like Blackhawk did not expect that coldness at the time.

Anyway it sounds like Blackhawk is a little .. hm... what's the word? Insecure??? Naw. Jealous? Hmm... She is having some trouble with her thoughts about the elder heroine though. And at a time like this. I mean, Blackhawk herself is quite capable on her own most of the time I'm sure. All of them are getting right into it.

Whoa, she's a historian? (oops) An historian?

I'd imagine a lot of these military kids might be thinking they'd never see combat in their young lives. Certainly not on their home turf. Oh wow. Helicoptors.

Ha here comes the street thugs. Word. I bet they fire their guns sideways too, one-handed instead of using a proper stance. Are there Bloods and Crips (or some equivalent) in Michigan? If so, I wonder if this would be one of those rare instances during which they come together. Because in real-life they sometimes do put aside their rivalries. Same thing with Hell's Angels and Mongols (I think Mongols are the rival to Hell's Angels). There are times they put aside their hatred here and there.

Okay, so in this case it's the Latino Counts and Black Mafia. Are they rivals IRL?

Ha heh, Bumblebee. Awesome! Okay, that's right. Harper and Kaelin were in that special room. I just forgot their names over time.

I don't really plan on killing Blood Raven or January, if that is what you are thinking. So don't worry

Nope, that's not my prediction. Let's see what happens next.