The Stormcrow, A Superhero's Tale Options

[SubRosa]

Acadian: January is a Generation Z'er. She has never known life without the internet. So it is always her go-to for learning new things, like makeup and hair and clothes.

Duquesne is strongly inspired by Bill Duke from Black Lightning. More and more when I have a supporting character, I am picking a real person and using them as a base. Both for how the character looks, and often their voice, and how they behave. Duquesne's appearance, his smooth nature, his confidence and self-assurance, all come from his role in Black Lightning. However, he is not also an evil so-and-so in the Crowverse, as he is in Black Lightning.

It took her five chapters, but January is finally making some serious inroads into seriously connecting with the authorities. By chapter 7 she will be personally meeting the state attorney general. Though it won't all be smooth, or necessarily work out in the end. Jan has some serious issues with authority after all.


Renee: Pot is legal here in Michigan. Though only just recently. One of my neighbors smokes right out on the porch.

Jan can be at her most adorable when she is failing to act as cool and composed as she would like. It is one of the things I really enjoy writing about her. Her nature always shines through.

Jan will eventually get hot under the hagfish. But that will not be until about chapter 8, when she meets Hannah (who I wrote about in the Writing Process topic).

Just as Buffy has her Doctrine, Jan has her Mission Statement. It has been a long time coming, and steadily evolving all of this time. Ironically, it will also be her largest stumbling block in creating a lasting relationship with the police. Because she really does not care about arresting people or putting them in prison.

Duquesne is a lawyer, he should make you suspicious!









Book 5.18 - Crystal Death

The cluster of state police and now an ambulance began to attract attention from the neighbors. At January's suggestion they knocked on the door of the Greenwood's, who graciously let them use their home as a headquarters, or at least as a place to cool their heels while they waited for their warrant.

The Greenwoods were unimpressed with January, which was actually something of a relief for the superheroine. For once she did not have any preconceived notions to live up to. Mr. Greenwood even made a remark about Halloween coming early. That brought several chuckles from the Emergency Response Team, and one from January herself. If only they knew that her superhero career had begun cosplay…

The state troopers pulled their armored assault vehicle through the driveway of the Greenwood's house, and into their backyard, in order to be off the street. Their detached garage blocked it from view of the Death Dealer's lair, on the opposite side of the yard. An ambulance pulled up behind it. January hoped the EMTs within would not be needed.

Time dragged by on leaden feet. If no one else had been there, January would have opened up Sága and gone to work on her Artemis Argent story. But she did not want to look like she was taking events lightly. So instead she did her best to meditate, and practice her flow of energy. It turned out that may not have been much better at impressing people with her professional attitude.

Before she knew it, she has slipped into Tadasana, or the Mountain Pose. It was her usual starting position for Yoga. It was a simple standing position with her hands down, palms open and facing forward. She rocked back and forth, then side to side, until she felt limber and loose. Then she moved through more challenging positions, such as the Eight Angle Pose, and of course the Crow Pose, which now felt like something of a signature position.

Finally January opened her eyes feeling calm and refreshed. Everyone was staring at her.

"What, no one does Yoga?" she challenged police and retirees alike.

That brought some chuckles and much shaking of heads. Mr. Greenwood mumbled something about heroes in his day not needing namby-pamby stretches. On the other hand, Mrs. Greenwood brought out coffee, milk, and home-baked cookies for all. January had to admit, the latter two were quite enjoyable. Mrs. Greenwood asked about Yoga, and January spent the next fifteen minutes talking with her about it. She explained how it helped her stay limber and clear her mind, how easy the beginner poses were, and where to find classes. They even did a few of the most basic poses together.

Duquesne's phone rang, and everyone stopped to stare at him. He nodded a few times, said some noncommittal words, and hung up. Then he looked to January and the Emergency Response Team.

"We have the warrant," he declared. "Take them."

With that they all flew out of the house like bees. The state troopers split up. Half of them went around the front of the Greenwood's house, through the adjoining field, and approached the drug lab from the street. The other half went through the backyard of the Greenwoods, and began to scale the wall to the back of the strip mall.

The sniper Nyah slung her massive Hecate II rifle and climbed atop the roof of their MRAP. January saw her contemplating the leap between it and the roof of the detached garage next to the vehicle. It seemed a risky maneuver, given the weight of her body armor and the unwieldiness of the incredibly long gun. Before the other woman could move, January was on top of the armored truck beside her. She put an arm around Nyah's waist, and in another instant both of them were on top of the garage.

January had a nearly overwhelming urge to pull a Princess Leia and lean in to kiss the other woman for luck, nearly. But she contained herself, and instead squatted down behind the crown of the roof, as if she did that kind of thing every day. Which, well, she kind of did now.

"Next time, warn me before you do that," Nyah shook her head.

"Next time?" January said without thinking, "People are going to think we are dating if there's a next time."

"You should be so lucky sister."

'Sister', that sounded good to January. Better than she could ever expect in fact. It was not like she would ever ask the sniper out for real. That would be too complicated, in far too many ways. Still, it was nice to think that the other woman might actually like her. Just like her, and nothing more. That was a victory all on its own.

Nyah unlsung her rifle and went prone on the rooftop. She got set up with the Hecate II, pulling out the legs of its bipod, bracing it on the roof, loading a magazine, and chambering a round with the bolt action. She stared down the telescopic sight, and studied the abandoned business across the empty back parking lot. January glanced over her shoulder, and could see a colorful display of shapes through the thermographic sight.

"So what made you pick me to talk to?" Nyah asked while they waited. "Is it because I'm the only female member of my team?"

"No," January answered honestly. "It's because you're a sniper."

When it was clear that the other woman still did not understand what she meant, January went on.

"I have a friend who plays World of Guncraft." January's thoughts turned to Ryo. "While everyone else runs around like mad, shooting everything that moves, he finds a spot and just chills. He sits there and waits, and watches, and thinks, and measures. He waits until he finally has that one perfect moment. Then he takes one shot, and gets a kill from it. Every shot he takes is a kill. He doesn't miss, he doesn't misjudge, because he takes his time and thinks everything through patiently and dispassionately."

"I was hoping that those same qualities would carry over into real world snipers," January finished, "and that you would also be someone who doesn't prejudge, or let their emotions get the better of them."

Nyah nodded, but before she could say anything, Lieutenant Hunter came on the radio.

"Ready to move in," he said. "Stormcrow, you are up."

January leaped from the roof of the garage, executed a forward roll in mid air, and landed on both feet before the back door of the lab. She fished the lockpick from her utility belt and jabbed it into the lock. It hummed as it did its work. In moments the pins within slid out of the way, allowing the cylinder of the lock to swing open.

"Movement inside," Nyah said calmly. "Could be a suspect is reaching for a gun. Permission to engage?"

"Negative," Hunter's voice came over the link. "Let's see what our new ally can really do."

Then January was through the door. Nyah had been right, one of them had gone for a gun. The dark-haired man with the ponytail - doubtlessly ThunderRhino - pointed a revolver at her. It roared in the enclosed space. She was vaguely aware of the bullet disintegrating on her new cubic boron nitride breastplate. She was on top of him with a single bound, and crushed the weapon under her fingers.

She could hear the state troopers breaking down the front door at the opposite end of the building, and rushing into another room beyond the lab. At the same time more troopers streamed in behind January, and fanned out across the back wall. They leveled their rifles at the other man in the room.

It was the man Gadget had identified as Joshua Bleaker, the pasty one with the mustache and glasses. He lifted a syringe in his hand. January stared at the glowing red liquid that filled it with trepidation. Whatever that was, it could not be good.

"Put the syringe down!" Lieutenant Hunter exclaimed.

Naturally Bleaker did the opposite. He raised the syringe, and plunged the needle into his neck. January involuntarily flinched at the sight. Then she abandoned Rhino, and leapt onto Bleaker. But she was too slow, and his thumb shoved the plunger of the device all the way to its base before she could stop him.

That glowing red liquid vanished into his body. January was able to pull the empty syringe from his neck and toss it aside before he went into convulsions. The next thing she knew, he collapsed into her arms, white froth welling from his mouth. She eased him to the floor as gently as she could, while more of the state troopers rushed forward to help her.

January remembered what Emilia had said, when she had first explained the danger of Crystal Death: "Half the people who have taken it are dead, the lucky ones who survive end up in a persistent vegetative state. Some of them never even get the meta abilities. They just go straight into a coma."

"Put your hand in his mouth," Gadget's voice was calm in her ear, "so he doesn't bite his tongue off."

January did as she was told, and shoved her armored palm between his teeth. As always, Gadget was right. Bleaker bit down hard, but human teeth were no match for her hagfish armor. January was relieved that he would pose no greater danger. Apparently he had lost the roll of the dice with his own super drug. Instead of enjoying only temporary superpowers, he had gone straight to the consolation prize of overdosing.

Lieutenant Hunter called for the EMTs, while January knelt there and watched the man spasm uncontrollably. His eyes rolled back in his head, and his veins stood out like purple cords all across his exposed flesh. It looked like he was dying, in a most spectacular fashion. She tried to conjure up sympathy for him. But when she considered how many people his drug had killed in this same fashion, it just felt like karma.






Author's Note - This is not the end of the chapter. We are only about 2/3rds of the way through. Chekov's Gunmen are still out there...

[Acadian]

You are absolutely right that Jan is at her most adorable when trying be cool and having to settle (in her mind) for awkward instead. That said, I think her yoga was pretty cool – eccentric, mysterious and exotic. Perfect.

I’m also glad to see her getting along with Nyah. Having the sniper call her ‘Sister’ is an encouraging step. Whether anything pans out or not with Nyah, it looks like having somewhat of a reasonable ally is well underway.

A nice takedown, and the Stormcrow is well equipped to take down the door and intercept any initial resistance.

I shared Jan’s trepidation at Bleaker with that syringe. My concern was that she would quickly find herself in a fight with a drug-fueled temporary Super who could pose a serious threat to her and the SWAT team. It certainly appears he is simply going to convulse and die but I’m not ruling out my earlier concern. . . yet. I’m going to guess that is going to die without posing a threat, but also unable to provide info on tracking the source deeper toward the evil behind it. As you imply in your note, looks like it ain't over yet. . . .

[Renee]

Smoking on the front porch sounds nice. Even if it gets legal here I would feel weird about that, but it does sound nice.

The Greenwoods have no idea who they are talking to, which is oddly a relief. Yes, I would think the constant stares and adulation would get distracting after awhile, though for Jan she also relishes this at times, right? Good for her well-being, I'd think. Of course, in Blood Raven's eyes, she doesn't want or need this so much. And Lighthammer starts to deflate if he doesn't get it!

That is a question I had, but forgot earlier. When you game with the different Januaries in Fallout 3, Skyrim, etc., are you able to simulate her ability to draw from various elements like Earth, Water, and so on?

"What, nobody does yoga?"

I know how she feels. Going for a kiss at that moment is something we dream about.

Nice. Hunter says "you're up, Stormcrow." Letting her do the hard part I guess, but still...

Bam in they go. Guess ThunderRhino did not allot any funds toward the purchase of an exterior camera system after all.

Now wait a minute though. That does strike me as odd they would want SC to take on the most dangerous part. Me and my suspicious mind, now I'm wondering if it's because the uppers (Hunter and the lawyer) want to use her, which makes the rest of their team not as liable to injury. Of course, maybe January (nor you) sees it this way. I mean, it's great she's going to get some glory, and all.

Hmm.

He raised the syringe, and plunged the needle into his neck. January involuntarily flinched at the sight

Yeah, me too.

Oh man, I thought he injected some Crystal Death. That's what he should have done. At least he'd be able to Hulk out as he met his demise.

[SubRosa]

Since there was a little confusion, I went back and tweaked the last few paragraphs to make it clear that yes, that was Crystal Death that Bleaker injected himself with. Also that people dying immediately upon taking it is not uncommon.

I have given a lot of thought since posting it, on whether it is too anti-climatic. I think the common route here would have been to have a big, knock-down, drag out boss battle. Instead I went this route for several reasons. Firstly was to show the different sides of Crystal Death. We were first introduced to the drug in the prologue with Chad, whose experience was standard. He takes it, gets powers, gets hella angry and a god-complex, then crashes and burns.

But as Emilia said at the beginning, some people take it and immediately die or fall into a brain-dead coma. I wanted a character to go that route as well, to show it to the readers.

But now I wonder if I ought to go back and add a fight here instead? A good story has a steady pace of action and exposition. I have been looking for other ways to provide conflict and action in this chapter, beyond simple fist-fights. Like January's misgivings about posting her own story on Crow Tales, or the showdown with the police, or the appearance of the Nazis downtown. I would like to think that we could go without an explosion every ten minutes (like in a James Cameron movie). But sometimes a big fight is just what the doctor ordered.

In the very least, fear not, because this chapter will end on the biggest super battle I have yet written.

[Acadian]

The clarification you added was perfect.

Given what you just said, I'd leave things as they are now. I do thank you for the clarification we could indeed consider Bleaker dead. I wasn't looking for a fight here (lol), just didn't want to rule it out in case it was part of your plans.

[SubRosa]

Acadian: January is making inroads, and becoming a lot more at ease with the superhero life. She has come a long way mentally since her first encounters with Lighthammer and the Blood Diamond Trader. Even with all of her awkwardness, she is really growing into her role.


Renee: When I play January in computer games I do my best to work with what the games offer. A lot of them have classes, which can really restrict what she can do. Though sometimes I can use the console to add in lightning spells and the like even when she is a monk or a paladin. I also mod the game to add lightning effects to her weapons whenever I can. I do that in all the Bethesda games. I also eliminate falling damage in them, and when I can mod the jumping so she can make super leaps. Morrowind has the Levitate spell, which was perfect since January can fly.

January does like the fame, to a certain extent. But she has already found it invasive. There will be more on that later this chapter in fact. Blood Raven of course, has no use for it at all. She'd much rather lurk in the shadows of a gothic steeple than be live streamed.

Naturally the cops want January to do the most dangerous part, and act as a bullet sponge. She is the superhero! That is literally her job, because she can take the hits that will kill everyone else. That is one of January's core principles. She is there to save lives, no matter what it costs her.







The situation of an African-American reverend taking over a Nazi Group is real



Book 5.19 - Crystal Death

January remained for enough of the aftermath to confirm that the ponytailed gunman was indeed ThunderRhino666. His real name turned out to be Lonnie Maguire. His history came up very quickly in the police computer, thanks to his long record of drug arrests. He was also the brother-in-law of Joshua Bleaker - the Death Dealer himself - who had been recently fired from a chemical company for the vaguely disturbing reason of conducting 'unethical experiments'.

More warrants were in the works to search both their homes. But Mr. Duquesne assured January that she would not be needed for either. That was something that ordinary troopers - like Emilia Mercado - could handle, rather than her and the Emergency Response Team.

"It appears that after he was fired, our Death Dealer - Mr. Bleaker - decided to go into business for himself." Mr. Duquesne flipped through a stack of print outs that were covered in chemical symbols, and stained with coffee rings. "I will admit, I have no idea what any of this means. But the dates of these batches do match up with the incidents we have on file. He must have been experimenting, tweaking the formula each time."

"And his brother-in-law Lonnie was his man on the street, handing it out to the unwitting test subjects," January frowned.

"All that is left now is to get into his PC." Duquesne walked to Bleaker's desktop computer, and its array of three monitors. A young man in a state police uniform sat there with a frown etched across his features.

"I'm afraid we're going to have to take this back to the lab." The technician turned to the Special Assistant AG. "I can't make any headway against this encryption."

January said nothing. In truth, she was relieved. The last thing the world needed was more Crystal Death. She hoped that its secrets would die with its creator, assuming that the massive overdose he had given himself proved fatal.

The only thing that stopped her from ripping open the sky and calling down lightning on the entire lab was the fact that it would not go over well with the state police. She really did want to get off on a better foot with them. She also did not want to destroy the building and start a fire that would certainly spread to the neighboring print shop.

"That was good work." Duquesne turned back to January as the technician began disconnecting the computer's peripherals and packing it all up. "It was quick, and with no collateral damage."

"I just got lucky," January admitted. "I did not find them because I was smart. I only did because 'ThunderRhino' screwed up."

"Criminals rarely show discipline or good judgment," Duquesne noted. "That tends to be why they are criminals in the first place."

"I take it this means the Mills family's electronics will be returned to them?" January said pointedly.

"As we speak," Duquesne nodded, "along with an apology to the family. That is something that could have gone better. It would do no one any good if say, video of the incident were to leak to the internet."

"It won't come from me," January looked down at her feet. She did not much like the idea. But she had to admit, she was not exactly proud of her role in events either. She knew that it would certainly not endear her toward law enforcement officials. "But I cannot speak for Wayne or his parents."

"I believe the young Mr. Mills will cooperate with us in this matter," Duquesne said smoothly, "as well as his parents. The young squire has desires to become an attorney. I may be able to lend him some guidance in that endeavor."

* * *

"So where do you stand with your mission?" Blood Raven's voice intoned in January's ear, while her face filled Sága's screen.

January was perched on the roof of a black and white office building, across the street from the General Motors Technical Center. The sprawl of office and engineering buildings stretched for an entire square mile. But today only a handful of cars dotted the many parking lots and roads within. It was a Saturday, so only the most die-hard or unlucky of company men were working.

Between her and the massive automotive campus stretched out Van Dyke, a great seven lane thoroughfare that ran from north to south through Metro Detroit's East Side. Thanks to it being a weekend, the traffic below was likewise spotty, rather than its usual weekday roar. Instead it was only a muted hum in the background of their conversation.

"It's all wrapped up," January tried not to preen. She really did. "The Death Dealer is in a coma. The last I heard he was being taken to the Detroit Medical Center. The state police have his lackey, and they're sweating him for a confession."

"We were fortuitous that he did not seek a corporation or wealthy individual for a sponsor," Blood Raven considered, "elsewise he should not have been so easily apprehended."

"Yeah, I'm sure the Department of Defense would have thrown millions at the guy, just to get what had already produced." January noted. "But I guess he did not want to share. After all, if he had succeeded in making a stable drug that makes meta-humans, well, he'd be our next Emperor, wouldn't he? Why give that kind of power away to someone else?"

"Indeed," Blood Raven nodded over their link. "As I said before, ever since Tunguska there have been others who have sought this same grail. Any nation, or organization, or cult, who controlled such a thing, would literally control the world. At least until their own creations spun out of their control. Thankfully, no one has ever drawn even this near to success."

"What about Bleaker's lab notes," a gruff, yet soft voice came to January's ears. "Sorry, this is Cray. I work with Blood Raven."

"Oh, it's nice to finally 'meet' you," January said, unconsciously reverting to her perky phone voice. She winced, then realized that Blood Raven, and probably Cray, could see that. So she carried on as if nothing embarrassing had happened at all. It worked for cats, why not her too?

"There were some hard copies, but nothing really definitive in them," January continued. "The real formula is locked up in his PC. It's got some serious encryption on it. Not even Gadget could crack it. I doubt the state cops ever will."

"It is a shame you were not able to destroy it," Blood Raven sighed. "This knowledge is too dangerous to leave in existence. But I realize the opportunity was not there."

"I dunno, couldn't something like this be used for good someday?" Gadget chimed in. "I mean, if it could be fixed, so it didn't drive people crazy, and kill them. I mean, someone without meta abilities might say that we are just hogging it all to ourselves, like some sort of superpowered elites. Oh, this is Gadget by the way."

"Everyone has that power already," Blood Raven insisted. "All they have to do is believe in themselves, and commit to an ideal. That is what January did. She is not special. Nor am I. The problem with drugs like Crystal Death is that they require no effort on the part of the recipient. They need no disciple, no sacrifice to attain. Because of that those who take it do not respect the power they were given, or take responsibility for the danger they even unwittingly pose to others. Even those born meta-human typically have to invest time and effort learning to master their abilities. That commitment engenders a healthy respect for those powers, at least most of the time."

"I guess you do have a point," Gadget grudgingly admitted. "It took me years to make my first invention actually work."

January smiled in spite of herself. She remembered that. It had been a drone that he had made from three hair-dryers, a toaster, and a skate board. He had indeed spent years fighting to make it work. But in the end his perseverance had won the day. At least until it crashed into a neighbor's swimming pool...

"Well maybe we can still get at the PC?" Gadget forged ahead. "All we need is for someone to walk in and put an electromagnet next to the hard drive."

"That is an excellent idea," Blood Raven agreed. "Yet I fear that task shall not be so easily accomplished. The state police evidence lockup is a highly secure location. It shall take time, a proper reconnaissance, and planning. Most of all it cannot look like we were responsible."

"So, before breakfast tomorrow then?" Gadget laughed. January grinned at the joke, and she even saw Blood Raven crack a smile over the video link.

"I admire your pluck young man!" Cray joined in. "But I am afraid that is a job for another day. Thankfully that encryption should keep them deadlocked until we can find a solution."

"You mean until we can recruit Danny Ocean," January murmured. For an instant her mind jumped to Ryo. He could practically disappear when he wanted to. It was too bad he wasn't a meta-human. He would be their perfect ninja for something like this.

"I believe Frank Sinatra is a trifle long in the tooth for that," Blood Raven actually made a pop culture reference. Albeit one that January did not understand.

"I think she meant Clooney," Cray explained.

"Who?" Blood Raven asked. Then she waved a hand in dismissal. "In any case, good work you two. That relieves us of one threat. Now we may concentrate all of our efforts upon the Conjurer once again."

"I'll be there Downtown tomorrow morning," January insisted, "I took the day off work. So I can be there all day."

"As long as we can avoid any Imperial entanglements," Gadget mused.

"Well that is the real trick, isn't it," Cray instantly responded. January thought it was adorable how they nerded off one another. "I have unearthed some arcana on today's Nazis: the National Socialist League. They have chapters across the country. They have their own social media platform, a podcast, even a record label. But they've been in freefall lately. It seems they're a little too Nazi to be popular. They even took the swastika off their logo a few years ago, and replaced it with that Norse rune, to be a little less overt."

"But they still can't compete with the other Alt-Right groups that pretend to be more mainstream, like the Proud Boys or Patriot Prayer. They show too much of what they really believe, and that scares off the run-of-the-mill racists before they can radicalize them even further. A few months ago their leader - Mikael Scheuer - lost power of attorney over the group to an African-American reverend. The reverend now officially owns all NSL property - their website, their social media, their podcast - everything legally owned by the organization, rather than by the individual people in it."

"What?" January was not the only one to betray shock.

"Way to go Rev!" Gadget was the first to exult.

"Yeah, he sounds like a pretty cool dude," January added.

Even Blood Raven looked impressed.

"I won't even pretend to understand how all of this works," Cray went on, "but it looks like instead of just disbanding the group, the reverend is trying to gradually tone them down. To reverse radicalize them. But they are still around, and Scheuer still has control on the ground, even if not legal power over the organization's assets."

"If he dissolved the group, they would all just move to other organizations, or even restart with the same name," Blood Raven observed. "These fascist gangs fracture, dissolve, poach each other's members, and start anew at a rate only a speedster can keep up with."

"So what were they doing here?" January asked.

"It looks like Scheuer is originally from Detroit," Cray said. "But I am guessing this was some last stab at regaining power in his own organization. Maybe he wants to show his own people that he's still in control? Or maybe he wants to use the publicity to convince other Nazi groups that he is? Or maybe he hopes to use the money he gathers from donations to take legal control back? In any case, he's hemorrhaging members to other groups, like the Church Militia and the Shieldwall Network. If this keeps up, there won't be an NSL for much longer."

"I smell desperation," Blood Raven observed. "Now I see why there were only fifteen demonstrators yesterday, from a group that stretches nationwide. The NSL is a dying beast. We must take care. This will make them reckless, dangerous. They may return to Motor City Pride tomorrow. If so, they will probably go to even greater lengths to provoke violence. Blood in the streets is the only thing that can save them now."

[Acadian]

I’m with January and, as I learned later, Blood Raven in wishing this Crystal Death and its secrets could be simply destroyed instead of being learned –by anyone.

"Oh, it's nice to finally 'meet' you," January said, unconsciously reverting to her perky phone voice. She winced, then realized that Blood Raven, and probably Cray, could see that. So she carried on as if nothing embarrassing had happened at all. It worked for cats, why not her too?’
- - This is an adorable paragraph!

[Renee]

Yes, Morrowind has Levitate, and Fallout 4 has jet packs (or something such). Oblivion has that broom mod which I used in Sarah Phimm's game, just in case January / Cyrodiil wants to try that, I can provide a link. That's not on Nexus.

Oh okay, so that was crystal death the Death Dealer's brother ate. Well goodbye to you, loozer.

Blood Raven of course, has no use for it at all. She'd much rather lurk in the shadows of a gothic steeple than be live streamed.

I also imagine Blood Raven does not need or want that ego boost BUT she wants for the larger picture to be seen. She wants people to appreciate the final effects of her work, right? She herself doesn't need any accolades though. "The peoples of Detroit have been saved," not "The peoples of Detroit have been saved because of Blood Raven."

Naturally the cops want January to do the most dangerous part, and act as a bullet sponge. She is the superhero! That is literally her job, because she can take the hits that will kill everyone else. That is one of January's core principles. She is there to save lives, no matter what it costs her.

Yeah but....

The only thing that stopped her from ripping open the sky and calling down lightning on the entire lab was the fact that it would not go over well with the state police.

That would also destroy a lot of evidence, even though her intentions are thoughtful. The defense would easily jump all over that.

Blood Raven uses the word elsewise. I like that. My computer just underlined it in red ink, but Dictionary.com does have a meaning. My computer's so-called modern software is therefore wrong. Ha ha.

I love her perky phone voice.

Erasing the hard drive would be useless, right? Surely the Death Dealer made some copy. Well, maybe not, if he's not even careful enough to hide his chemical output. There was a scene in Breaking Bad in which they tried to erase someone's computer drive, which was located IN police evidence locker. They had to use a really big electric magnet of course, in the back of a cargo van.

Still, that's Tampering with Evidence. Again, a good defense would jump all over that. "What do you mean his hard drive got erased while in the police evidence locker...?" It's funny to read them all nerding out. Just.. be careful guys & gals.

"I believe Frank Sinatra is a trifle long in the tooth for that," Blood Raven actually made a pop culture reference. Albeit one that January did not understand.

Hey, at least she chose a celebrity from this century! Oh wait. Well, last century.

Yikes, the hate group is not done yet. Yeah, I imagine they're pretty pissed about Branwen ruining their parade. Ha!

This post has been edited by Renee: Sep 21 2020, 08:38 PM

[Renee]

Actually, to revise, I am going to say that Blood Raven does not care if her ego gets stroked, but it seems that ideals are what's important to her. And in some cases these ideals are common, not always specifically hers. She wishes to see historical change, with peoples' rights and so forth. But it's not so important that she get recognized for these instances. Not specifically, anyways. She's more in the shadows. Seeing historical and political changes for the better are what pleases her.

How about that? In the ball park, or did I just get that wrong?

[SubRosa]

Acadian: January is at her best when she is being awkwardly adorable.


Renee: It was the Death Dealer himself - Joshua Bleaker - who took the Crystal Death. His brother-in-law Lonnie is the gamer who shot at January.

You understand Blood Raven very well. In spite wearing a very gray hat, she is entirely driven by her sense of duty and morality. That is why she is so distrustful of Lighthammer. To her, he seems to be driven by passion, rather than principle. It is also why she is so trusting of January. She can see that Jan is motivated by a need to protect others from harm.

Elsewise was a late modification. I always have to work extra hard on Blood Raven's dialogue, to keep that sense of timelessness to her.

There maybe be hard copy backups of the Death Dealer's work, either in the lab, or at his home. Which the cops will find. He would not trust the web. That would be too easy for someone else to steal.

You are right that what they are talking about is destroying evidence. But if the police cannot crack the encryption, then it does not really matter as evidence, since there is nothing to use. Given that the Death Dealer suffered massive brain damage and is in a coma which no other Crystal Death user has ever recovered from, prosecution is kind of moot as well. But if the police can crack the encryption, that would mean the Pentagon would start manufacturing Crystal Death and passing it out to the troops. Or whoever else in the government got their hands on it first.

She did choose a celebrity from last century! She has no idea who George Clooney is.

Those nazis are indeed mighty pissed that Blood Raven made them look bad...










Book 5.20 - Crystal Death

"The deputy attorney general told me that you wanted to be a lawyer," January said. She sat on the back porch of the Mills home with their son, Wayne. Both held tall glasses of ice cold lemonade, which were beaded with condensation in the warm June air.

"Yeah," Wayne declared. "I'm going to be a civil rights attorney, like Thurgood Marshall. Especially after what happened yesterday."

"About that," January frowned. "I'm sorry I lost my temper around those cops. I shouldn't have let that happen."

"Are you shi- um, kidding me?" the fifteen-year old replied. "That was awesome! I wanted to bust those… people up."

"There are a lot of times you want to do that," January said. "But that doesn't mean we should, any of us. Otherwise we're no different. Those cops, they're like the old saying: 'when you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail.' Day in and day out, they see the worst in people, until it's all they can see. We need to remind ourselves to see more than that, and show people more than that in ourselves. I guess I need to at least."

"So you mean like, be Swiss Army Knives instead?" Wayne nodded, and took a sip of his lemonade. "You sound like my mom. She's the Michelle Obama of Sterling Heights: 'when they go low, we go high'."

"That's exactly what my mom said to me a little while ago!" January laughed. She took a sip of her lemonade. It was sweet, really sweet. She knew she would have a headache if she drank too much. Sugar always did that to her. But it was good, and cool, and even though it was still morning, it was shaping up to be a hot day.

"What did your mom say to you?" Mrs. Mills - Tanisha - stepped through the sliding patio door and onto the back porch. Her husband Jefferson followed her.

"That it's important to be a better person, Mrs. Obama," January smiled.

"Oh he's going on about that Michelle Obama business again," Tanisha laughed. "He only does that when he wants to butter me up for something."

"Hey, if I'm married to Michelle Obama, doesn't that make me the president?" Mr. Mills - Jefferson - chortled.

"We should be so lucky," January murmured.

"I have to say," Tanisha smiled and sat down on a chair beside January. "You aren't at all what I expected from a superhero."

"Yeah, you're so chill," Wayne declared. "I mean when you're not being all…" He raised his arms in a pantomime of wings, and set his face into grim line. Then he began cawing like a crow.

"I do try to be chill," January said. "I work hard at it in fact. So I don't go all stormtrooper like those state cops."

"So you really do Yoga then?" Tanisha asked. "Like Gilda said you were doing with those cops, and that old lady?"

"Oh yes," January nodded. "I love Yoga. Well, what we call Yoga in America at least. Let's face it, it's hardly the same here as it is India. But it really helps me de-stress, as well as stay limber. I'm starting to combine it with my meditation and energy exercises. I think everyone else thought it was mildly amusing. I thought it would be good way to pass the time while we waited for the warrant. But you listen to Gilda Gadfly too?"

"Everyone watches Gilda on TV, or listens on the radio, or her podcast," Jefferson mused. "Whether they admit it or not."

"I noticed the cops were a lot nicer to the old white couple than us," Wayne interjected.

"Because all cops are racists?" January said. "I can understand why you would feel that way, for very good reasons. But I don't know that it was that simple yesterday at least. The Emergency Team didn't know what color you were before they came in the door. As far as I can tell they didn't do any research on you are all. If they had gotten a tip saying that the Greenwoods were manufacturing a deadly drug, it probably would have gone badly for them too. The whole reason Swatting works is because cops like them don't care whose door they are busting down. Thankfully I had already found the real dealer by then."

"Wow, you really are as nice as they say," Jefferson shook his head.

"I have to say, you have a lot of patience," Tanisha also said. "Working with those same cops after what happened. I don't think I could have been so beneficent."

"I'm whiter than white bread, so I honestly have no clue what racism is like," January admitted. "But being lesbian, and trans, I have some ideas. That's why I try to be a kinder person. I know what it's like when people aren't nice."

A look passed between all three of the Mills family members. January knew that look well. It was the 'OMG, it's a trans person!' realization.

"Oh, did I say the 'T' word?" January forced a smile. This was always the moment of truth.

Mr. Mills just shook his head.

"Damn woman, you really are a 21st century cape." January noted that he said 'woman', which was always a good sign. He was also smiling, in what she thought was a good way. "Yoga, meditation, 'let's be nice', lesbian, transgender. Are there any boxes you didn't check? I bet you eat kale and avocados too."

"Oh you leave her be Jefferson," Tanisha declared. "I think you are exactly the hero this city needs, this country needs. If we had more lesbian transgender police, then maybe we'd have less people getting their doors busted in."

"Amen to that sister," Jefferson nodded.

"Wow, you're just like that girl in my school then," Wayne whistled. "She transitioned last year. That was wild!"

January was about to ask how his schoolmate was doing. Her own school years had varied from miserable to horrific. But then a crow landed on the little glass table between them. It stared at January, and croaked loudly.

January rose to her feet. Something was wrong. She just knew it. The crow leapt up as well, flew around her in a circle, and landed on her shoulder. It croaked into her ear, as if trying to tell her something.

Sága chimed with an incoming call. This must be it what the crow was warning her about. January looked down at her armored wrist, and saw it was not being forwarded from her regular phone. This had been made directly to her Stormcrow number. Her heart jumped a beat when she saw the name on the caller ID.

"Mr. Duquesne," she answered. "I am here with the Mills family. What can I do for you?"

"It is more a question of what I can do for you Ms. Crow," the deputy attorney general said. "I am afraid this is not a social call, so if we could speak in private, it would be appreciated."

"Sorry," January silently mouthed to the family. She strode across the backyard, to where she would be alone. The crow leaped into the sky, and winged its way southward, croaking all the way. January did not like that. It was warning her about more than just a phone call…

"It's just the two us now," she said.

"I have some information," Duquesne said. "Mr. Maguire - ThunderRhino - finally realized the depth of the trouble he is in. So he has decided to cooperate. We learned that yesterday afternoon he sold fifteen doses of Crystal Death. He does not know who the buyer was. Just that he was a white man with a shaven head, and a tattoo that looked like an awareness ribbon. He was in a van, and had others with him inside."

"It's an Odal rune." January pinched her finger and thumb on the bridge of her nose. Why did Nazi's have to love perverting her Scandinavian heritage so much? It made her regret being born with blond hair and blue eyes. "Blood Raven told me there were fifteen neo-Nazis at Motor City Pride yesterday."

"Are you sure about that?" Duquesne sounded somewhat nonplussed, perhaps due to the source. "There must be thousands of men with shaved heads and tattoos."

"That's it," January declared. She just knew it was the same Nazis who had tried to interrupt the festival day before. "It's the National Socialist League. Get the response team Downtown. Call the Detroit PD. We have to stop them."

"You believe they will attack the festival?"

"I know it. The parade starts in… frell, fifteen minutes." January glanced down at Sága's display to see the time. She had spent too much time with the Mills.

She looked over to the suburbanites and waved. Then she leaped skyward, and poured her mana into the image of her flying. Her arms transformed into wings, and she made that idea a reality. She darted south like an arrow, toward Downtown. She had miles to go, and no time to waste.

"I'm on my way now," she insisted. "I'm going to alert Blood Raven. We'll be ready."

January was thankful for the voice activation that Gadget had worked into Sága. Without it, she never would have been able to hang up on Duquesne and call Gadget.

"Gadget you need to connect us to Blood Raven and Cray, right away," she said as soon as he picked up.

He blearily mumbled an assent, and January imagined that he might have been sleeping. It was Sunday morning after all. She heard his feet thumping on stairs, then fingers clacking on one of his keyboards.

"Cray here," a male voice that was both deep and soft at the same time responded. "I've got Blood Raven on the line as well."

"Is it the Conjurer?" Blood Raven interjected. "I have felt nothing as of yet."

"There were fifteen Nazis yesterday right?" January asked, "exactly fifteen?"

"Yes, I have been working up individual dossiers on each since last night," Cray replied.

"The deputy attorney general just told me that ThunderRhino sold fifteen doses of Crystal Death yesterday afternoon," January said pointedly. "It must have been when I went back to get the glass cutter and camera, or before I got there in the first place."

Both Cray and Gadget swore at the same time. Blood Raven was silent however. January heard a whoosh of flame over the audio link, and then a thunderous crash!

[Renee]

That's a good point, about the nail and the hammer. Never thought of it that way.

I'm with Jan on the lemonade. It has to be "brought down" for me to enjoy. I always cut lemonade with spring water.

Whoa the mother's name is Tanisha? Has this been mentioned before? If so, I may have picked that up subconsciously. I was looking for a name for Vicious a couple weeks ago and was going for Taneequa or something such. But then I put that name into Google and some weird Urban Dictionary stuff came up. Taneequa has a double meaning which I didn't want connotated with my Vicious. But dang, I didn't mean to use the same name!

That is one thing I noticed right away about this story, she was doing yoga in public. I still remember that. One of those things which stands out.

That part with the T word is gripping. Phew. I thought she might be in trouble there. Phew.

Shoot, there's the crow. Always something going on in Detroit. Well, at least now she has an excuse not to finish that too-sweet lemonade.

Uh oh. That lawyer's calling. Well maybe he's got an agenda which is not so underhanded as I'm thinking. Nope, he does not. He seems like one of the Good Guys in fact.

I wonder what that crash is at the end. Goodbye sweet lemonade!

Elsewise was a late modification. I always have to work extra hard on Blood Raven's dialogue, to keep that sense of timelessness to her.

This is fine! Your hard work is appreciated! I love antiquated words like this, they immediately make me think of Raven as somebody from another time.

When I was writing Sarah Phimm's story a few years ago I'd constantly have Thesaurus.com up and ready. Especially any time she'd write one of her journals, I'd be looking for "modern" terminology, and then I'd squash this with terms from the past. Or words which aren't used anymore. Even sentence structure. I was looking to smash my usual sentence structure habits, and turn them into something which seemed more 'old-timey'.

Gah. I'll have to post an example later of what I mean.

I am glad I got Blood Raven's intentions down pat. Have a nice day, Florens!

This post has been edited by Renee: Sep 26 2020, 05:49 PM

[Acadian]

Jan’s magic continues to subtly grow as we see the familiar prescient crow that is acting rather like . . . well, a familiar.

Uh-oh, it’s the CrowPhone ringing with Mr Duquesne calling for Ms Crow.

Jan grows much more confident in smoothly transitioning to fully winged flight. Heh, she really does need hand free talking while flying and kudos to Gadget for crafting that into Saga.

The concept of fifteen drug-induced super-mutants on a binge is frightening indeed. I wonder if they realize that buffing up on crystal death is a one way trip akin to that that of suicide bombers? I suspect not but who knows?

[SubRosa]

Renee: I think it would have been cool if we had both used the same name for different characters! Talk about synergy.

Duquesne is about as a good a guy as a prosecutor can be.

We are going to see what that crash was this episode!

I usually have Thesaurus.com open while I am writing as well.


Acadian: Jan is getting better and better at this magic thing. We will see more evolutions of that later this chapter as well.

15 super mutants is indeed a frightening concept. Though of course as we saw with the Death Dealer himself, not everyone survives the initial use of the drug. So it won't be quite that many in the actual battle. But it will still be an awful lot of bad guys. They probably don't know that Crystal Death is a one way trip. But, it might not make a difference if they did.







A Google Map of all the Stormcrow locations

The Detroit Radiator Building

Capitol Park (The Radiator Building is the red building on the left edge)

Downtown Battleground 1

Downtown Battleground 2

Blood Raven's Theme





Book 5.21 - Crystal Death

Blood Raven stood atop the tallest point of the Detroit Radiator Building. It was not often that she had the opportunity to use her own lair as a vantage point. Given that the parade for Motor City Pride was organizing directly below, it was the obvious choice however. Griswold Street ran from north to south directly west of her building. Beyond it was Capitol Park, which was really nothing but a small, triangular plaza. It was surrounded by tall buildings on every side. From titanic skyscrapers such as her own Radiator Building and the Westin Book Cadillac hotel, to office and apartment buildings which only stood a dozen or so stories tall, but were still nothing to sneeze at.

She allowed her eyes to wander over the crowd of people gathered within the park. Like those who had attended the festival the previous day, they were a cornucopia of every ethnicity, age, and gender expression on the spectrum. Her gaze shifted from them to follow the parade route south down Griswold. It was lined with even more throngs of people. She saw that every street that crossed it was blocked off, all the way to Jefferson Avenue and Hart Plaza in the distance. She could even spy the waters of the Detroit River flowing ever southward beyond that, and the shoreline of Canada farther still.

Blood Raven closed her eyes, and stretched out her magical senses to the utmost. The physical world slipped away entirely. She became a purely magical being, aware of nothing but the brilliant auras that bathed the city below, transforming it into a vibrant sea of light and warmth. She felt along those auras, and searched for any that were brighter, more vivid. This was the sure sign of a magician. She also felt for any disturbances. For the dark clouds of one resolved to do murder, or the first tugs on reality that bespoke of calling Beyond, to the Creatures of the Abyss.

She found nothing. Oh, there were certainly magical auras down there. Some were so slight their owners probably only thought of themselves as lucky, or determined. Others were must have been consciously using magic to improve their daily lives. Such as those who read her books on Wicca and Witchcraft, and whom she met regularly at Neo-Pagan events. But there were none like her, or her great-granddaughter, who blatantly reshaped reality with their Power.

Time went by, and she felt the pent up expectations rising in the crowd of auras in Capitol Park below. The parade would be starting soon. Clearly, they were all looking forward to it. Some of the energy signatures were nervous. Perhaps they were cases of stage fright within those taking part in the parade? But most were expressions of jubilation and revelry, as befitting a festive event.

Something intruded on that purity of spirit, something dark and clouded. Blood Raven involuntarily twitched her head at the foul taste it left in her mouth. It was not a magical working. Rather it was a familiar taste, that of all-too mundane anxiety, revulsion, and bitter hatred.

It was a feeling she was acquainted with all too well. She had felt it since her childhood. Ever since she had first heard people whispering of her father's doings in hushed tones, when they thought she could not hear. The same when they brought up her mother's Irish heritage, and thusly her own as well. At first she could not understand the animosity. But she quickly learned better, both about her father, and about the race prejudice.

It would seem that someone was not pleased about all of the Queer people gathering to celebrate, along with those who supported them.

Blood Raven cast away gravity's embrace, and rose up into the sky above the Detroit Radiator Building. She slowly turned about to face the coming darkness. It was not a single individual. Rather it was a group of at least a dozen, perhaps more. She floated across the width of the skyscraper below her, and faced in the opposite direction from where the parade formed up.

She opened her eyes, and gazed down across Woodward Avenue. Her quarry was there, in the sprawling parking lot behind the broad thoroughfare, just north of the Compuware building. The lot was jammed with vehicles, and people went to and from it in little trickles. But none of them carried that stain upon their auras. The threat was somewhere else, somewhere lower.

Blood Raven locked her eyes upon the concrete ramps in the center of the lot, which led down into the bowels of the earth. Some of the parking was underground, as well as at street level. That was where this darkness festered, hidden from the light of day.

She floated down in that direction. It might be nothing but discontented individuals who would never do any actual harm. Or it might be something more. She had not paid close enough attention to the spirit realm the previous day. She should have felt the neo-Nazis when they had arrived. She had simply been looking for a summoning. Now, however, she was on her guard. She would not be so easily taken at unawares again.

"Cray, I should like you to cast your electronic gaze upon this parking lot," she said into her communications unit.

"Do you have something?" he rumbled in his mellow voice.

"Perhaps," Blood Raven mused, "Perhaps not."

"Wait a minute," Cray's raised voice betrayed momentary surprise. "Gadget is calling, with Stormcrow. I am putting them through."

"Cray here," he said after a fleeting clacking of keys. "I've got Blood Raven on the line as well."

"Is it the Conjurer?" Blood Raven interjected. "I have felt nothing as of yet."

"There were fifteen Nazis yesterday right?" January asked, "exactly fifteen?"

"Yes, I have been working up individual dossiers on each since last night," Cray replied.

"The deputy attorney general just told me that ThunderRhino sold fifteen doses of Crystal Death yesterday afternoon," January said pointedly. "It must have been when I went back to get the glass cutter and camera, or before I got there in the first place."

But Blood Raven was no longer paying attention to the conversation. She was busy dodging the bolt of fire that lanced up into the sky at her. A moment later a blur of motion and force rocketed up from one of the ramps that led down beneath the parking lot. This time she was too slow, and it struck her full in the chest. It slammed into her like a locomotive, and drove her back into the side of the Radiator Building. Black bricks and gold leaf chewed up beneath her shoulders, as she and the mysterious force gouged a trench through the skin of the skyscraper.

It was a living force, Blood Raven realized. It had blood, and a heartbeat. That heart was racing wildly out of control. Too much for even one thrilled and terrified by the threat of sudden death in battle. His blood stank of chemicals, of a perversion of the natural energies of life. She could feel it eating away at him, like termites slowly but surely hollowing out a tree. This could only be the touch of that drug January had spent the last week endeavoring to stop.

Blood Raven was able to grab hold of her attacker. Using his own momentum, she spun him about in a mid-air belly to belly suplex. Now her enemy crunched into the wall of the building instead of her. Blood Raven added more force, and sent them both through the wall, and into a deserted office space inside. Her attacker stumbled and fell to the ground. Now that he was no longer moving at tremendous speed, she could see that he was just a man. He had closely-cropped brown hair, and was built thickly and strongly. She remembered his face from the day before, and he still wore the same black faux Nazi uniform.

He gathered himself up in an instant. Then he sprang back at her. His body became a blur, and he seemed to transform into a rocket of motion and force. He blasted directly at her. This time she was ready however. She side-stepped, and threw out an energy whip from one hand. It wrapped around his midsection. She immediately felt his momentum try to rip her from her feet. But a simple tweak of reality ensured that she did not move an inch. She reeled in her whip, and pulled the rocket of force into a tight turn, like a ball on a string.

That sent him crashing directly into the second figure that Blood Raven had felt rising up into the hole that gaped in the side of the building. The newcomer seemed to be a living being of fire. Yet she felt blood racing through his veins as well, and a heart shuddering in his chest. So clearly he had not transformed his entire body into elemental energy. Rather he must have been using it as a sheath.

Blood Raven released her hold on the first Nazi, and allowed the tendril of force she had created to dissipate into nothingness. Both Nazis went tumbling through the air outside, and plummeted back down toward Woodward. They halted in mid-air however, as if some invisible force held them aloft. Blood Raven would have taken the time to trace that power back to its source, but she had too many other things to worry about.

Now there were more of the Nazis in the street below. One was what could only be described as a werebear. It was a furred humanoid standing at least eight feet tall, bearing clawed hands and feet, and a muzzle filled with slavering fangs. There was also a man made of concrete. He truly was entirely comprised of that material, for Blood Raven smelled no blood within him at all. Another stretched out his hands, and the iron ripped out of the cars nearby and clanged together around his body. It created a jagged suit of armor that completely encased his frame, and formed into a giant, spiked mace in one of his fists A fourth raised his hand in the air, and a sword of brilliant fire sprouted there. An inwardly curved, rectangular shield of sparking flames likewise formed in his other hand.

These four charged across Woodward, and headed for State Street. The latter was really just an alley. A ten story parking structure and the much taller spire of the Radiator Building rose up on its south side. A ten story tall office building rose up on the north side of the street, across from the parking structure. Farther west stood the Art Deco masterpiece of the Albert Building, directly across State from the Radiator Building. Beyond them lay Griwsold Street and Capitol Park, and the crowd gathered there for the parade.

Most of the Nazis shouted a plethora of bigoted obscenities, aimed at everyone who was not white, male, Christian, heterosexual, or cisgendered. It really was a rainbow of hatred, as ironic as that was given the circumstances. Some of them shouted out more specific things, referring to 'Power Levels', 'Normies', and 'Red-Pilling', which Blood Raven did not understand. She had not kept abreast on modern fascist colloquialisms. One even began going on and on about how white people were the true descendants of Israel, while Jews were the literal children of the Devil. Blood Raven blocked out the inane rhetoric. She was here to fight, not trade barbs with worms.

Blood Raven felt Selene's Curse rise up within her. She knew that her eyes glowed with their own red light by now. Her teeth and claws ached to rend flesh, and bathe her in the sanguine fountain of life. For a moment, she was back in France once more, slaughtering the Das Reich division. She was losing herself to the frenzy of murder and feeding. She was becoming the monster that the moon goddess' malediction had passed on to her.

But she was not that monster. She was not a beast. Selene was the light that fell from the moon. She illuminated the darkness, so that all her children could see the way. Blood Raven turned her face to that light, let it fill her spirit, and suppressed the animal that wished for nothing but to rend and murder.

She centered herself. She breathed deeply, and surrounded herself with a circle of glowing symbols from her mother's Celtic heritage. She felt the aion flow cleanly through her, and wash away her bloodlust. She let the magic circle spin about her for a moment, and fall to her feet. Then she was ready to rejoin the fray with a clear head.

[Acadian]

Another episode from the intriguing perspective of Blood Raven. I loved how, after she visually surveyed her city, she did so magically.

’Blood Raven cast away gravity's embrace, and rose up into the sky above the Detroit Radiator Building.’
- - Beautifully worded. You clearly spend much time crafting how to best display the differences and similarities between Blood Raven and her great granddaughter. That contrast the tone of your writing takes for each is skillful indeed.

"Cray, I should like you to cast your electronic gaze upon this parking lot," she said into her communications unit.’
- - And another example of how differently this sentence would have been had you been writing it for Stormcrow and Gadget.

Fight’s on! Wow, these dudes are not just pumped up like on pcp or something; they are truly mutated into evil capes of their own.

A reminder that Blood Raven deals with her own demons bubbling below her surface and that her vast experience has taught her to control. I do note a delightful similarity here between Blood Raven and Stormcrow as each sometimes require a moment to center themselves. I can imagine one really must have their heart and mind properly focused to use potent magicks wisely.

This could be a real challenge with over a dozen supermutants to deal with. Hopefully, Blood Raven will get some help from Stormcrow and even from Crystal Death itself as it begins to eat and kill its own creations.

Edit: Oh, and Blood Raven's theme song is perfect for her! Haunting, with just the right aura of ancient about it.

This post has been edited by Acadian: Oct 3 2020, 07:59 PM

[Renee]

That part is nice, when she senses 'lesser' auras, belonging to people who probably don't even know they're slightly more magically inclined than the rest. I knew this girl in college who proclaimed herself to have some powers. She was scrawny, and she got teased in high school. Anyway, she focused on three of her tormentors, caused all three of them to come down with mono. Maybe that was a one-time thing (we didn't stay in touch... ) but I don't think so. But maybe she is the type of witch Raven can sense with a slightly brighter aura.

Really beautiful .... she defies gravity. I like when she says "Cray, I should like you to cast your electronic gaze..." that is something nobody modern would say. Because the word 'electronic' is assumed by most of us, when it comes to matters of electric-driven technology.

OH no, she got hit by a flying fire elemental! Good gosh... what is going on in Detroit? Each one of these guys is like an evil Transformer. More than meets the eye! Except Transformers are robots in disguise. And these are ordinary humans. Could the Crystal Death be causing all of this? But how?

Cripes.

[SubRosa]

Acadian: I really got to delve into Blood Raven's mystical powers in the beginning of that episode. Even though she is a superhero, she is also a wizard, which makes her a lot of fun to write for me.

I always go back through Blood Raven's scenes with extra care, and specifically look for ways to change not only her dialogue, but also my own prose, to give her that sense of being a person outside of their own time.

As Qui-Gon said: "Your focus determines your reality." One of the limitations I put on both Stormcrow and Blood Raven is that as magicians, they have to focus their will and energy to use their powers. Sometimes that is simple. But other times it can be difficult, if not impossible. In many ways their discipline, or lack thereof, determines their limits.

The truth is that Blood Raven is a monster too. Or she would be, if she let out that side of herself. That is what separates her from the Nazis. The same with all of us. Do we allow our worst instincts and reflexes to rule us, or do we rule them?

The Raven does indeed have a serious fight on her hands. But as you noted, help is on the way, perhaps from some unexpected quarters...


Renee: I like writing Blood Raven's very un-modern way of speech, and viewing the world. It can be a lot of extra work to make it happen, but when it makes her sing as a unique person, it is worth all the effort.

The Nazis bought Crystal Death from ThunderRhino the day before. If you go back a little Dusquesne called January and told her about the sale, and she put it together that the Nazis were the customers by the tattoo one of them had.











As always, the battlefield is in the Google Map of all the Stormcrow locations. Just look for the Detroit Radiator Building.

Downtown Battleground 1

Downtown Battleground 2

State Street looking toward the Radiator Building and Capitol Park


Chobham Armor

Boron Carbide

Dragon Silk


Blood Raven's Fight Music





Book 5.22 - Crystal Death

Blood Raven raced downward. Selene was not the only moon goddess who had bequeathed her with gifts. Hekate was the Queen of Witches, just as Selene was the Mother of Vampires. With Hekate's gift of magic, Blood Raven waved a hand from one side of State Street to the other. Aion rose from her fingers, and took form through her will. A wall of golden energy sprang forth to block the street. That would halt the earthbound Nazis until she could come to grips with them.

But before Blood Raven could even near the ground, a cloud of particles like sand or dust rushed in upon her. She smelled no blood, nor felt a living heartbeat in this one, so she had no advance warning of the attack. But clearly this was an individual, not a projectile of earth. It whirled and hissed and snapped, like a dust devil. It lashed out, and the fine grains of its body scored her armor deeply as they whipped through the air. It was like standing within a hurricane.

But she had defied hurricanes before. She could have contained the Dust Devil within walls of mystic force. But she had already deployed such a field to block off the street leading to the parade-goers. While there was no blood or heart within the fully-transformed body of the Nazi, it still possessed life force. She knew that she could take hold of that pneuma - that life energy - and devour it. But she had sworn that off decades ago. She had not consumed a human since France, not since she had ended the Das Reich... She was not going to start again.

Instead she gathered up a handful of aion and cast it forth in a bolt of searing power. It ripped through the swirling particles of her attacker's body, and incinerated great gobbets of it. Her attacker recoiled, and flew back. Blood Raven pushed forward, so that she hovered over her force field at the edge of Woodward Avenue. The earthbound Nazis were directly beneath her now, battering away at the barrier with no effect.

Blood Raven had no time to follow up with another attack upon the Dust Devil. More Nazis were coming up at her. The Fire Man was now roaring back through the sky, along with the Rocket. A female Nazi was literally running up on the air toward her as well. Her body was transparent, and it looked as if she was climbing an invisible stairway.

"Watch out, that new one looks like she can phase," Cray's mellow voice rumbled in her ear.

The Fire Man hurled balls of flame from his hands, at the same time that the Dust Devil snapped back at her with a long tendril of scouring grit. She dodged each, but that left her open to the attack of the third.

It was nothing but a simple punch. But it was far from ordinary. The transparent woman was indeed a phaser. Her ghostly fist passed effortlessly through the boron carbide Chobham armor of Blood Raven's chest plate, and the flexible dragon silk of her bodysuit underneath. It was as if she wore no armor at all. But the Nazi's fist was absolutely solid when it landed directly against her flesh, bursting blood vessels and snapping a rib. Blood Raven nearly doubled over from the shock.

"We will insure the future of the white race!" this Nazi cried exultantly.

Blood Raven's fingers transformed into long, jagged claws - Selene's Curse, now her Gift. She swiped at the other woman without form or balance. It was a purely reflexive move. Yet her magical talons slashed deep across the female Nazi's chest, sending that sweet, sweet blood splashing everywhere. Some of it dropped onto Blood Raven's lips.

If it had been clean, healthy blood it might have driven her back toward frenzy again. But the drug that polluted that divine flow had turned it to poison. Blood Raven spat it away in disgust. She could never feed upon any of the Nazis, even if she had been willing to do such a thing.

She briefly considered purifying their blood. That would purge the drug from their systems. It would also presumably deprive them of their newfound abilities. But the time and concentration that would require would leave her far too exposed to the attacks of the others. They would kill her before she had cleansed even one.

This would have to be settled through force of arms.

"She might be able to phase through solid matter, but she can't escape magic." Cray spoke in his gruff yet mellow tones. Then his voice rose several octaves, a sure sign of distress. "You've got new incoming from behind you. Looks like… Lighthammer?"

"He's a friendly," January's voice rang out in Blood Raven's ear now. "I asked him to keep an eye out, in case anything weird happened."

"I'm patching him into our comms now," January's friend Gadget said.

"Blood and Soil!" shouted the Nazi floating above the parking lot across the street. A car came flying through the air at Blood Raven. She dared not dodge it. If it missed her, it would sail right over her force field and into State Street. It might even reach the parade-goers, the next block over to the west. She could not allow that. So she met it with hands outstretched, and sunk her claws into its steel hide to get a firm grip on it. She briefly considered hurling it down atop the Nazis clustered at the base of her force field. But then she heard three wildly beating hearts within, and smelled the blood that flowed through their veins.

She pulled back, behind the force field, and prepared to lower the vehicle. But the Fire Man and Rocket were on her again. She spun around, and took a wash of fire down her back that clearly had been meant to set the vehicle alight. Agony seared through her. Fire was every vampire's worst enemy, Selene's one great bane. Yet she endured, and insured that the car, and its occupants, remained untouched. Her flesh however, was not so lucky. She could feel it wither away all along her spine.

She heard gunshots in the street below, and realized that several police officers had their weapons drawn and were firing upon the Nazis overhead. She was impressed. It was certainly more than she had come to expect from the Detroit Police. Yet their sudden zeal gave her cause for even greater concern. Gunfire in the center of a crowded city was a recipe for tragedy. She would have to find a way to dissuade them from more shooting.

But she had little time for ruminating on the issue of further civilian casualties. The Rocket was about to crash into her. Two beams of brilliant white light flashed by her and struck the Nazi full on. He went pin-wheeling away, no longer a blur of force, but now just a man again. His body crashed through one of the windows of the office building on the north side of State.

Lighthammer came roaring past an instant later, resplendent in his shining silver, white, and blue armor. An exultant "Hooah!" ripped from his lips, and he loosed another pair of solid light bolts from his palms. They took the Fire Man in the chest, but did not seem to harm him. A moment later Lighthammer crashed directly into the Nazi, and they both went careening through the air above the parking lot beyond Woodward.

Blood Raven moved down toward the ground, car still grasped in her arms. Something small flashed in her vision. She could not make it out, but she certainly felt it sting. Something hot and sharp lanced through the dragon silk of her mask, and plunged deeply into the flesh of her face. Again, she bit down a cry of anguish. Instead she concentrated on lowering the car to the street. She could not move too fast, or she would risk harming the innocent people within from the force of the impact.

She took another, and another of the stings. Cray's voice was in her ear, advising her that it appeared to be a Nazi shrunk down to the size of an insect, as Stinger from the Sentinels could do. She appeared to have the same armor-piercing quantum sting as well.

The first drops of rain came pattering down from above when the tires of the Impala touched the concrete. Blood Raven looked up for her tiny nemesis, and noted that the sky had turned solid gray with clouds. Somewhere in the distance, thunder rumbled a low warning.

She smiled. January had such prodigious power, and still did not truly grasp its extent. It was power the likes of which Blood Raven had not felt in over half a century. Not since she had last faced her own father. She could only hope that January did not become as drunk upon it, or as corrupted by it, as him.

"You think this is funny libtard?" A female voice rang out from down the street. Cresting over the top of the force field was the transparent form of the Phaser. Coming up behind her was the Dust Devil, while the Shrinker continued to buzz around her.

"A storm is coming." Blood Raven grinned through her own blood.

Farther back in the parking lot, through the shimmering light of her force field, Blood Raven saw a male Nazi in black uniform rising up from the ground. "We are the warriors of the white race!" he cried exultantly, drunk on his newfound abilities. "Cultural Marxism ends here! Globalism ends here!"

The earthbound Nazis had given up on trying to batter through the force field. Instead they ran to the south, toward Campus Martius. They would have to be stopped. Cray's voice came over the comm a moment later, advising Lighthammer and Stormcrow of just that danger.

Blood Raven heard the racing heart of the Rocket above her. A moment later he came blasting out of the office building, and roared down through the air toward her back. She leapt skyward, spinning backward through the air, and he sailed impotently through the spot she had occupied just an instant before. That now put him in front of her, along with the rest of the Nazis.

She loosed her aion into a great wave of power. Not a single bolt of energy this time. Instead it radiated out from her in a massive, expanding cone, and roared down the street in front of her. It swept ahead like a tidal wave, filling the street from one side to the other. It struck the Rocket, Dust Devil, Shrinker, and Phaser, and burned through them even as it flung them back. All four of them were hammered against her force field, which her wave of energy washed up against and finally broke upon.

She allowed the barrier to fall after that, and dropped to the street. She strode forward toward her enemies. But she saw the Nazi floating above the parking lot beyond stretch out his hands. A tree uprooted itself from the sidewalk between the lot and Woodward. A moment later it came hurtling toward her.

[Acadian]

What an intense fight this is as Blood Raven battles a superior number of foes imbued with powers she has not had time to fully assess. Thankfully, her foes have similarly not had the time to fully develop their own abilities.

Welcome help from Lighthammer!

’The first drops of rain came pattering down from above. . .’
With the first words of that sentence, I knew it heralded the coming of Stormcrow!

On the edge of my seat now and can’t wait to learn what happens next! Blood Raven certainly has her hands full at the moment.

I love your use of silk armor! In Buffy’s world, silk from spider daedra is tops for physical protection and the silk of ancestor moths is prized for both repelling magic and how beautifully it accepts color when dyed. The two silks can be interwoven to good effect. Like you, we started with a real concept and adjusted it to our purpose.

[SubRosa]

I love your use of silk armor! In Buffy’s world, silk from spider daedra is tops for physical protection and the silk of ancestor moths is prized for both repelling magic and how beautifully it accepts color when dyed. The two silks can be interwoven to good effect. Like you, we started with a real concept and adjusted it to our purpose.

I want to get this out before I forget. Frostbite Spider silk might also be protective, and confer Frost Resistance. There might be some other creepy spiders in places like Argonia or Valenwood that are both strong, and offer other side effects, like perhaps a poison resistance, or even fire or lightning resistance.

And the giant silkworms from Summerset might have the strongest silk in the world, and confer magic resistance, or absorption.

Wow, you just sent me down a wormhole trap door spider hole full of spider-based armor and item ideas.

[Renee]

Been quiet in the forums this weekend.

OH my gosh, poor Raven. She's getting all beaten during this segment. Why won't she 'consume' the human behind the Dust Devil?

Cray's voice remains mellow during all of this! He really is detached, even more so than the average 911 operator.

Bleagh, yeah, don't feed upon Crystal Death-contaminated Nazi blood. Yicch. I mean, I guess feeding upon any sort of blood is yucky. But from one of those fiends, even Serana or Lestat might take a pass.

Lighthammer says "Hooah!"

She could only hope that January did not become as drunk upon it, or as corrupted by it, as him.

I highly doubt this. Jan's heart is too pure. And she's too .. I don't know. Clueless is a bad word. I can't think of the word I'm thinking of. Innocent? That's closer, but not exact. Anyway, Jan is too *Insert missing Word here* to become 'corrupted' by her power.

Is aion similar to aeon? As in Aeon Flux?

I wonder where Jan is. She's missing all the fun today!

[SubRosa]

Acadian: While Blood Raven does not know what to expect from each individual Nazi, she does have the experience to know what to expect from various kinds of supers. (Not to mention being insanely high level). So she's actually doing pretty well, all things considered.

Blood Raven definitely has her hands full. Even with Lighthammer's timely assist (now that scene where Jan asked him to hang around town in case something weird happened pays off). But you may have noticed that Blood Raven is holding back. She usually does against humans. Look back to the battle with the djieien to see what I mean.

I absolutely love using the rain and thunder as a way of foretelling January's arrival. It is nice and dramatic. Blood Raven already knows what it means.

As with my other armors like hagfish and cubic boron nitride, the Dragon Silk came about because it is a real life form of body armor. The same with the main battle tank Chobham armor that Blood Raven wears. I imagine that she owns the company that produces Dragon Silk.


Renee: January's weekend has not been quiet! Come to think of it, her weekends are usually jam-packed with action.

Blood Raven stopped eating people a long time ago. There will be more about that later in this chapter, and in chapter 6. It is a moral decision that she made, for reasons...

Cray is definitely Mr. cool and collected through all of the chaos. It is one of the things that makes him such a good partner.

The various branches of the Armed Forces all have their own unique war cry. The Marines have Oorah, the Army has Hooah, etc... It probably all goes back to the Union Army in the Civil War, which used a "deep and manly Huzzah!". Everything I have read says that the Air Force uses Hooah, like the Army does. So that is Lighthammer's signature.

I think the word you are looking to use to describe January is idealistic, or perhaps compassionate. But sadly, those things are still not always enough to save one from the corruptive influence of power...

Aion is a Greek word, the Latin version of it is Aeon. It can mean a lot of things, like life, or vital force, or a sense of unbounded time, or ages. That latter is where we get the word Eon from. There is even a god named Aion. I (and Blood Raven) am using it as a term for magical energy, like mana.

Jan is about to join all the excitement. The rest of the chapter is all from her pov.










Where Woodward separates into Campus Martius

The same place looking back north


Gott Mit Uns


Book 5.23 - Crystal Death

January's heart raced in time with her wings. She had found that she did not have to consciously think about the up and down-strokes any longer. It just came naturally now, like walking, or breathing. They beat furiously now as she willed herself to sweep faster and faster through the concrete and steel cliffs of the Downtown core. Her will carried her forward inexorably, and she banked and dove between buildings as she followed the streets to the scene of the battle.

She heard everything that had happened over the comms of course. Not being able to actually do anything drove her crazy. She wanted to reach out through the link and yank the Nazis off of Blood Raven. She could not imagine how Gadget could deal with being on this end of the communications, it felt so frustrating, so paralytic.

She soared over the crowd that had gathered in Capitol Park to form the parade. In spite of the grandiose name, it was just a small triangular plaza between Griswold and Shelby streets, with a few trees and long planters filled with greenery. The Art Deco stonework of the Albert Building rose up on its eastern edge, across Griswold Street. Just south of that, across State Street, rose the black and gold Neo Gothic majesty of Blood Raven's lair, the Detroit Radiator Building.

January banked tightly over the sea of people. She heard cheers and shouts rising from them. But she had no time to look down. It took all of her concentration to thread the narrow gap between the Albert and Radiator Buildings. One mistake would flatten her against the stone facade of either skyscraper.

She willed herself to turn into that narrow gap between the steel and stone titans at full speed. Her magic made it reality, and she banked steeply to make the turn. For a moment she tilted at a right angle to the ground. It felt like her belly was about to scrape against the black marble of the Radiator Building at any second. Then she straightened out, and soared through the artificial canyon with growing ease.

She darted the length of State Street, and saw Blood Raven facing down nearly half-a-dozen Nazis directly ahead of her. Worse yet, in the parking lot beyond where Woodward intersected with State, she could see another Nazi in black floating in the air. He raised his hands as if pantomiming lifting something. Then he thrust them forward.

An uprooted tree floated in the air before him, and shot forth at Blood Raven, and the crowd of Nazis around her. This apparent telekinetic seemed to have little regard for his own fellows. Somehow that did not surprise January. Thunder rumbled, seemingly in time with January's pounding heart, and lightning cracked overhead. She calculated the arc of the tree, and nosed down to meet it. At the last moment she disengaged her wings, and somersaulted forward into an airborne roll.

She felt first her legs, then the rest of her body, crash through leaves and branches of the flying tree. Then her boots hit the trunk hard. All of her forward momentum, all of her power, all of her will, transferred into the tree. It not only stopped dead in the air, but soared back a good ten feet, before crashing beyond the empty intersection.

January dropped to the earth with it, and landed with an ease garnered from years of gymnastics training. The parking lot and the telekinetic were ahead of her across Woodward and slightly to the left. The glass, granite, and limestone Compuware Building rose up high across the street to the right. Behind her right shoulder was the ten story parking structure that flanked the Radiator Building. A bakery and other shops within its lowest story lined the sidewalk. To her other side on State rose an office building, with an Under Armor store at street level.

"Lighthammer, deal with that telekinetic in the lot if you please," Cray rumbled over the comm. In spite of all the chaos, his voice was as calm and even as a sportscaster describing a golf game. "Blood Raven, stick with the ones you have on State. Stormcrow, head down Woodward and stop the foot-soldiers headed for Campus Martius."

"I kind of got my hands full with Burning Man here!" Lighthammer cried.

January saw flashes of white and red light out of the corners of her eyes, somewhere above the parking lot. But she had no time for that. She turned her gaze south, to the backs of the four Nazis running down Woodward. Campus Martius - Detroit's great downtown park - was just ahead of them. She could not let them reach the crowds of people gathered there.

"Lighthammer, I see a fire hydrant up by Woodward and Grand River…" Gadget's voice came over the comm.

"I read you," Lighthammer's voice turned sly. January heard metal tear, and a great roar of rushing water somewhere behind her.

"Hooah!" the vigilante crowed.

January had her mind on her own task however. She did not run down the street, so much as take a series of low, blindingly fast leaps along it. Her final jump arced herself higher into the air, above the four earthbound Nazis. She dipped one hand into her utility belt, and pulled forth a present for them as she sailed past overhead. The grenade dropped down to the street at their feet. An instant later it flared to life, and sent out a faint blue haze along the surface of the road in a roughly ten-foot circle.

The Nazis all came to a sudden halt within the energy field created by the grenade. They did not simply stop running. They stopped completely, feet glued to the ground. They all lurched forward, and would have fallen from the sudden stop, if not for the aforementioned adhesion of their feet. As it was they rocked violently in the air, and raised angry fists in January's direction once they regained their balance.

January performed a half-twist as she soared through the air and added a roll at the end. She dropped to her feet in the little triangular island in the road where Woodward split apart to make room for Campus Martius. Both sides of the road spread out widely behind her, creating a huge space in-between for the park. Within rose an expanse of trees and grass, along with a cafe and grand fountain. Back farther still was the tall Soldier's and Sailor's monument, topped by its sword and shield-armed Amazon statue. She could hear shouts and screams from at least a hundred people within the area, and the clatter of wildly running feet. Most of them, blessedly, moving away.

Before her now were the Nazis, all gathered in the middle of Woodward. The Iron Man: clad in metal that appeared to have been torn from various cars and streetlights. The Werebear: a towering bulk of fur and muscle. The Swordsman, who wielded a blade of blazing fire and carried a curved shield of the same material. Finally the Stone Man: whose body appeared to be literally made of concrete.

They snarled and spat impotently at her. A few strung together some truly florid examples of homophobia, along with accusations of racial treason, and dubious claims about her origins. But it was the Nazi floating above the street farther back, beyond the intersection of Woodward and State that caught January's attention.

This Nazi had noticed the plight of his brothers. He reached out with one hand, and made a motion like he was crushing an object in his fist. January's adhesive wave grenade crumpled into a shapeless mass, briefly sparking with energy before its final collapse. The blue haze that had blanketed the street vanished, and the four earthbound Nazis surged forward once more.

They bore down on her with huge grins on their faces. More slurs dripped from their mouths like poison. None were anything January had not heard a thousand times before of course. Outnumbering her four to one appeared to make them brave. Just as the anonymity of the internet made others of their ilk feel confident to spout their bile online.

January reached out with one hand and contemptuously curled her fingers inward, beckoning them closer.

"Valhalla Awaits," she growled.

She had noted that since no one else was near, that meant there was no one to get in her way.

January raised her other hand to the sky, and split it open with her will. Lightning spilled down in a tremendous gout of white fire and deafening thunder. It was an inferno of heat, and light, and sound. The cataclysm of power rent and blasted all within its blinding reach. Just like in Ferndale, the concrete of the road burst up in great chunks, showering them all with debris. The rain came pelting down afterward, and washed away the dust kicked up by the eruption.

Perhaps best of all, January was now bathed in electricity. It crackled and snapped all about her frame. It danced from the tips of her blonde hairs, ran down her arms, and leaped about her boots. She was wreathed in elemental fury, which hissed and snarled at every rain drop that fell upon it.

The Swordsman staggered away, clearly dazed by the lightning strike. The Iron Man too, had been driven to his knees by the elemental assault. The Werebear shook it off after just a moment however, and continued forward. The Stone Man seemed almost entirely unfazed, and was the first upon January.

"Globalists must die!" he rumbled in a literally gravelly voice.

She slipped aside as he lunged clumsily for her. She refrained from striking back just yet. She did not want to waste her gathered up electricity on someone who appeared to be relatively immune to it. She wanted to save it for when it would do the most good. She did not know if she could hit someone without discharging it all. She would have to practice that in the future.

Instead she reached back into her utility belt, and tossed out another party favor. She screwed her eyes shut, but even still, brilliant flares of light strobed against her eyelids as the flash grenade burst in front of her.

That caused the Stone Man to pause his assault as he rubbed his eyes. The Werebear sniffed the air, and continued on for her. She leapt over his head as his arms swept out to grasp her in a bear hug. The Stone Man leaned in, and swung blindly. He landed a solid hit as January dropped to her feet. His concrete fist struck the cubic boron nitride of her breastplate. His fist lost, and small chunks of his fingers literally shattered and fell away. He staggered back, clutching at his maimed hand.

But January noticed a strange shimmer pass through him, like a wave running through water. The concrete in his body vanished behind it, and instead his frame turned into silvery metal. She noted that it looked identical to the cubic boron nitride of her breastplate, before Gadget had painted it black…

The Iron Man came at her next, charging in with a gigantic, spiked mace that appeared to have once been a light post combined with the axles of several cars. He lumbered in a clumsy gait however, and had to pause several times to look around. Apparently he was still fighting the blinding effect of the flash grenade. January backed away, and he pursued, whooping with glee.

"Run while you can pervert!" he cried. "Gott Mit Uns!"

But January was not running. She was repositioning herself. The Stone Man looked up to see her just inches away. He punched at her with his good hand. She did the splits, and dropped to the earth with legs splayed out to either side along the pavement. His cubic boron fist met nothing but the memory of her. But it did land squarely on the Iron Man, who had been right behind January.

The Iron Man took the blow right in his chest plate, and staggered under the titanic blow. The Stone Man's fist sank deeply into his iron armor, dimpling it around his fist. But it did even more to the Stone Man. A shimmer ran through his body once again. As January had guessed it might, his body changed from cubic boron nitride to iron in its wake.

She had surmised right, he was absorbing the qualities of whatever he touched.

January punched up hard into the Iron Man, shattering the metal that girded his midsection. Her borrowed electricity blasted through his armor, turning him into cavalcade of energy. Better still, the Stone Man's fist was still buried in his chest armor, and that same lightning roared through his now ferrous, iron body. Both were hurled away, and landed at opposite sides of the street in unmoving, smoldering heaps.