 The Stormcrow, A Superhero's Tale |
  |
Replies
| SubRosa |
 Aug 24 2019, 04:32 PM
Post
#2
|
 Ancient  Joined: 14-March 10 From: Between The Worlds  |
Acadian: I had not really thought of doing more beyond a license plate changer for January's motorcycle. I think because I am looking ahead at things you cannot see yet. Her motorcycle will not fit into the Crow life in a meaningful way. It will be part of her Jan life. She will be working on a travel power for getting around.
That is one of the side effects of having played some superhero RPGs. You start to lump powers into categories based on their purpose. Heroes often have a travel power, who purpose is to get them to where the story is taking place. Flight, teleportation, a quinjet, a skycycle, web-slinging, a Batwing, and so forth. The transporters in Star Trek is another example. I am sure it was originally thought up simply to move the characters to where the story is. The same with the Enterprise itself as well. January is quickly realizing that even being just a city level hero means that she needs a way to get around town quickly and reliably. She has had a taste of that with her gliding, but it is not enough for long distances. But she has something to work on there. Renee: I enjoyed writing January's boredom on the stakeout, and her quickness to jump at finding anything to do. I would never be able to do a stakeout. I get bored too quickly, and have too many options to find a way to take up my time, like reading books on my phone. treydog: Its even more fun writing Jan and Avery than Aela and Loria. With J&A I can draw upon real world culture to make it all feel so much more accessible to the reader. Darkness Eternal: Eventually we will be meeting some of those superheros who have been name dropped. Blood Raven will play a major role in future events, and January's life. I have always loved that Bruce Lee quote about water. As odd as it sounds, I found it to be the key to understanding how to use horse archers in the Total War games. You cannot use them like other units, who either want to rush into melee, or always keep away from it. Horse Archers want to get close, but not too close. When the enemy retreats, they advance. When the enemy advances, they retreat. They flow, and they crash, just like water. Social media is filled with all sorts of fights and disasters on film. Because pics or it didn't happen after all. I am not the only one to note that whoever that is recording it on their phone is also just standing there not doing anything to help. Which is pretty parasitic really. These days everyone is so obsessed with getting their 15 minutes of internet fame, they don't think about the danger other people are in, or themselves. Aerial View of Source One Metals (it is the big white building at the very bottom center) Source One Metals (from the turnaround in Mound Road) Source One Metals (from the parking lot) Source One Metals (from the back) The Face Bot The Face Bot again The Face Bot rear view Book 2.6 - Stormcrow Recycled She returned to her stakeout post and went back to her English assignment. Only now she had a cool drink to wet her dry throat. She did not know how much time passed while she waited. She had become engrossed in the story of isolation and creeping madness when the sound of an engine below pulled her back to reality. She put down her pop and tucked the tablet away into her motorcycle's panniers. Then she looked over the edge of the roof, and saw a garbage truck pulling into the front lot. The cab was green and yellow, and seemed proportionally larger than the trailer section of the vehicle. It was not a normal green and yellow paint scheme either. Rather it seemed that part of a green cab and part of a yellow cab were simply thrown together. The rest of the truck was the same. January even noticed thick weld marks running down one side of the rear bay, as if the pieces of two vehicles had been melded together into one. Floating in the air above was a large drone of some kind. It reminded her of an eyebot from the Fallout games. It had a smooth front end, that almost looked like a face, especially given the two large glowing circles that looked like eyes mounted within it. The bottom was separated from the rest of the face in what looked like a mouth. What seemed almost like a cap or visor of metal was attached over the top, further adding to the human look it bore. Its body stretched out behind it, and angled up from the bottom, to give it a triangular shape, with the point trailing away behind it. What almost appeared to be two stubby arms or legs also stretched out directly behind it from two round shoulder sockets. Or maybe they were exhaust pipes, or rocket nozzles? The upper side of the body was a relatively smooth combination of plates scalloped over top of one another. But the bottom - the hypotenuse of the triangular frame - was all spiky knobs, antenna, and protruding cylinders. January could not see how it flew. There were no rotors like a mundane drone required. Nor were there any obvious metatech options like jets. It just floated through the air like a jellyfish in water. January was struck by the incongruity of the two machines. The truck was a Frankensteinish collection of old vehicles welded together into a single whole. But otherwise it still looked like an ordinary garbage truck. The drone was a Rembrandt of mechanical artistry, though obviously constructed from diverse parts as well. That is when she noticed that no one was driving the garbage truck. The cab was entirely empty. "I think our friend has arrived," January said into her suit's comm system. "Or at least his robo-minions have." Well that was it, she was officially calling it the comm now. She guessed that made her Captain Pretentious Tacticool. She turned on the video system built into her cowl so Gadget could get a better look. She heard him whistle a moment later. "That flying drone is a real work of art," his disembodied voice floated in her ears. "I can see its kitbashed, like most of my own stuff, but someone put a lot of TLC into that. The truck, less so. It looks like someone just took spare parts from four or five junks and made one good truck out them. There's no style to it at all. Maybe it was just a rush job." "So how do we know they're really the bad guys, and not just some mecha-hipsters out for a drive late one Tuesday night?" The garbage truck rolled around to the back of the building. It turned and backed up to the rollup doors. Then its whole tail end garbage smashing assembly swung up, revealing the empty box of the truck's body behind it. Well, it was almost empty. A trio of metal men leaped out. January could see they were made from car axles, leaf springs, shock absorbers, shopping carts, office chairs, plumbing, and a multitude of other junk parts. One of these anthropomorphic robots pointed a hand toward the building. A cherry red laser sprang out from its wrist, and sliced through one of the rollup doors like it was warm butter. It took only a moment for a huge piece of the door to be sliced out, and clang loudly as it crashed to the cement. "They're bad guys," Gadget said dryly. January sized up the ground bots and prepared to leap down upon them. That is when she realized that the Face-Bot was missing. She heard a slight hum in the air behind her, and wheeled around to see it staring at her from just a few feet away. Now that she was closer to it, she noted an odd distortion in the air beneath it. It reminded her of a heat haze on a road, or how water warped light. "Well hello there." January did not really know what to say. She practiced things like flying, gymnastics, and fighting. But she never had looked into raising her Speech skill. Just what did you say to a supervillain when you first met? The Face-Bot took over the burden of conversation. Its eyes filled with an ominous blue glow. An instant later a bolt of lightning exploded out of each. The twin arcs of electricity slammed into January like a truck. Her eyes danced with bright spots, and she was vaguely aware of tumbling through the air. She tried to right herself, but really had no idea how to orient herself. All she could do was pull her arms and legs in and hope for the best. She hit something hard a moment later. She shook her head in an effort to clear the lights that danced before her eyes, and realized that she was on the ground now, in the alley behind the metal shop. She sat on the blacktop, with her back against one of the dumpsters. No, not simply against it, but into it. For her body had dimpled a Stormcrow-shaped silhouette into the steel. Thunder rolled overhead, and the stars vanished behind a sheet of gray cloud. "Yow." January shook her head. It took a few moments for the world to stop spinning. Then she peeled herself out of the depression her body had bent into the dumpster. The harsh smell of ozone stung her nose. When she turned her head, she noticed tiny wisps of smoke curling up from her helmet. She glanced down at herself, but did not see anything on fire. She reached back to grab her hair with one hand, and it seemed fine too. "Looks like I got a little cooked, but I'm okay," she said into her comm. "Gadget, did you see that?" There was nothing but silence in reply. "Gadget, Gadget, you there?" She tapped at the earpiece in her helmet. But there was nothing from the comm. January imagined that either being launched into the dumpster had broken it, or the twin lightning bolts had shorted it out. The Face-Bot loomed over the edge of the roof and looked down at January. In the meantime, the three humanoid robots on the ground had clanked into the building, and were just now emerging with sheets and bars of silvery metal. January had never seen titanium before. At least not that she was aware of. But it did not take a genius to figure out what that pilfered metal was. She leapt at the nearest man-bot, covering the thirty or so feet between them in a single bound. At the same time the eyes of the Face-Bot glowed blue once more. Twin bolts of electricity sprang from them. They lanced through the spot where January had been standing an instant before, and blasted a short trench through the asphalt underfoot. But by now January was upon the ground-bots. They were clearly not living people, not even ones in armor. So she saw no need to hold back. She gave the first a power-punch. Standing at an oblique angle to the robot, she started with her left hand forward and her right back at her chest. She brought her right fist forward with blinding speed. She used her body as a fulcrum by twisting her hips and shoulders, putting all of her mass behind the blow. Her fingers sank into steel flesh. The face exploded under her fist, and the rest of the head snapped clean off the body. It went sailing into the depths of the metal shop. The robot's headless body continued on however. That obliged January to follow up with a side kick to its midsection, folding it over in two as its metallic spine cracked in half. With that it finally collapsed to the cement in a resounding clatter. The Face-Bot circled around, and took another shot at January. This time its eyes glowed crimson, and bright fingers of laser light stabbed out for her. She ducked, and the ruby red energy sliced effortlessly through the second ground-bot. That cut it neatly in half. The legs still walked toward the garbage truck. But the torso fell to the pavement, spilling stolen titanium from its arms onto the concrete. The metal men did not seem to be very impressive at fighting. In fact, January noted that they had not tried to dodge once. Their only show of offensive inclination had been to burn down the shop's door. That led January to conclude that they were basically just worker bees, while the Face-Bot was the warrior. Normally she would have simply ignored the workers. But this was a robbery, and they were clearly the means for said robbing. Unless the Face-Bot had some sort hidden arms or force fields that could lift the titanium and load it onto the garbage truck. So she sprang at the final man-bot, and did something she knew that she never should. She executed a flying kick. Sure, it looked great in the movies. But in reality your opponent could see it coming from a mile away, and only had to step aside to avoid it. Worse, once you were in the air you were committed. There was nothing you could do until you landed, leaving you wide open to a devastating counter. But she gambled that the ground-bots were not savvy enough to either dodge or counter-attack. She was right. She crashed foot-first into the final robot. Steel exploded beneath her, and the entire torso of the mechanical man disintegrated as she flew through it. She landed inside the metal shop, tucked into a roll, and bounced back to her feet. January heard the air brakes of the garbage truck hiss, and its engine rumble to life. She reacted without thought, and leaped after it. A single jump put her on the tail section, which was still raised up over the back of the truck. She grabbed hold of its edge, and effortlessly swung herself back up and over, so that she was standing on her hands above the truck. For a moment she was back in gym class, and doing what she loved best, flying through the uneven bars. January could not help but show off, and performed a back flip through the air. She landed with both feet on the roof of the truck's body, and raced to the cab. The Face-Bot swung around after her however. January saw it out of the corner of her eye. It glowed red with energy in preparation for another shot. She knew that she would not be able to reach the cab without taking a hit. So instead she leapt up and out of the way. Brilliant twin lances of crimson flashed through the air behind her. They sliced through the cab of the garbage truck, turning half of it into slag. January performed a back flip with a twist in mid-air, and came down on the pavement facing the Face-Bot. She even stuck the landing. It was just like being back in gym class. Except for the lasers of course. January wished for some way to strike back. She really needed some kind of ranged weapon. Now she wished she had taken one at character creation. She would have to talk to Avery about making some kind of crowarangs, or maybe just buy a few baseballs. As it was the drone could shoot at her all night, and all she could use against it in return was harsh language. She saw the eyes on the Face-Bot light up red again, and knew another laser attack was coming. The twin red beams reached out for her, but she was ready, and easily slipped to one side. The lasers gouged up a line of turf in the small field between the industrial subdivision and the gas station. With that the Face-Bot spun about and whizzed out of sight around the corner of the building. January leaped up after it. She caught sight of it when she was on the high arc of her leap. But she could do nothing until she came down upon the rooftop. Once she landed, she sped after the robot along the edge of the roof. She quickly ran out of real estate, and leaped out once more when the roof ended. Her fingers stretched out for the drone, but it jinked to one side, and she could not correct her flight to follow it. Thinking of flight gave her another idea. She flung out her arms to either side, and straightened out her torso and legs, as if she were performing a Maltese Cross on the rings. She pushed both buttons in her gauntlets, and her cape instantly cracked out into a pair of wings. Thankfully they had not been shorted out with her comms. She remembered Lighthammer's instructions about gravity, lift, drag, thrust, negative pressure, and so on. She also remembered her Elemental Mantra. Be like Air. Be light, and quick, and fly. She felt the wind lifting her wings, and soared through the night sky. Cars sped by underneath her as she winged out over Mound road. Given the blaring horns, they must have seen her. But January was more interested in the Face-Bot. She banked, and circled back to where she had last seen it. Something moved in the trees below, between the parking lot and the road. She went into a dive, and her eyes searched the darkened foliage. The Face-Bot darted from the trees, headed away from January. It spun around, all the while continuing its forward motion. January saw those large eyes turn red, and knew what was coming. She hit the triggers for her wings, and instantly dropped like a rock. Twin lasers lit up the sky above her, but clawed ineffectually at the clouds overhead. She tucked into a forward roll in mid-air, so that she could come down feet-first. She barely even flexed her knees on the landing, in spite of the twenty foot drop. She must be getting better at this super business. But she was still not good enough. For she could do nothing but watch the Face-Bot vanish into the darkness. -------------------- |
   |
 
|
Posts in this topic
SubRosa The Stormcrow Apr 19 2019, 11:34 PM
SubRosa [b]Chapter 1 - Stormcrow Rising
[center]Early May... Apr 20 2019, 12:04 AM Renee Hee hee, this is awesome! She's doing medi... Apr 20 2019, 02:21 PM
SubRosa
Hee hee, this is awesome! She's doing med... Apr 20 2019, 03:27 PM Acadian Oh this was a hoot! January, her crow fan cl... Apr 20 2019, 06:32 PM Grits I’m very excited to see Stormcrow so soon! (... Apr 22 2019, 06:17 PM SubRosa Renee: I went to MCC for a while, so it was my go-... Apr 26 2019, 04:32 PM Acadian ’Naturally she did what they said to never do.... Apr 26 2019, 06:33 PM Grits Awesome, a fight and flying sequence! I though... Apr 28 2019, 11:29 PM SubRosa Acadian: Courage + questionable judgement sounds l... May 3 2019, 09:35 PM Acadian I’ll take your wonderful Two Steps from Hell mus... May 8 2019, 07:31 PM Renee Whoa, she's wearing her superhero outfit in pu... May 9 2019, 03:55 PM SubRosa All: I created a Google Map of all the Stormcrow l... May 10 2019, 10:05 PM Acadian Neat Gadget Cave! Replete with ingenious tech... May 11 2019, 09:10 PM SubRosa Acadian: The Gadget Cave is a fun setting. I have ... May 17 2019, 04:41 PM Acadian What a fun episode, as the plot thickens with more... May 17 2019, 09:54 PM Renee There's a Beverly Hills in Michigan!
I u... May 24 2019, 07:07 PM SubRosa Acadian: Now we know that things were not quite as... May 24 2019, 10:18 PM Acadian This was a wonderful episode that sleuthed the sto... May 25 2019, 06:41 PM SubRosa Acadian: Working in the pop culture references is ... Jun 1 2019, 05:09 PM Acadian "I think I forgot to pick that at character ... Jun 1 2019, 07:17 PM SubRosa Acadian: One fun thing about writing January and A... Jun 8 2019, 04:52 PM Acadian Clever how she got her Crowsuit into the house.
... Jun 8 2019, 10:38 PM Uleni Athram A superheroine who actually knows her Marty Arties... Jun 11 2019, 03:27 PM Renee Ah, typical Renee has fallen behind. :blink: Life... Jun 11 2019, 04:30 PM SubRosa Acadian: I used the old window trick to sneak thin... Jun 15 2019, 04:58 PM Acadian January shows us plenty of raw emotion in this pow... Jun 15 2019, 07:13 PM SubRosa Acadian: That was a very intense episode, that giv... Jun 22 2019, 04:28 PM Acadian Nice job here, setting the scene and stakes for wh... Jun 22 2019, 07:18 PM treydog The way you weave “existing” tech in with poss... Jun 24 2019, 05:46 PM Renee
Nice.
Also, the whole time her family's ha... Jun 24 2019, 06:52 PM SubRosa Acadian: This will be the crescendo of the chapter... Jun 29 2019, 04:15 PM Acadian Despite the superhero tech, you rendered everythin... Jun 29 2019, 06:21 PM treydog Most excellent fight scene! And again, very h... Jun 30 2019, 12:34 AM SubRosa Ooops, I forgot to add some links. I went back and... Jun 30 2019, 06:48 PM Acadian Thanks for the additional links and update.
I ... Jun 30 2019, 07:36 PM treydog I tend to agree. While on the one hand, it is fun... Jun 30 2019, 08:33 PM SubRosa Acadian: That Carotid Slap was something I filed a... Jul 6 2019, 03:49 PM Acadian Another intense fight! It was very neat how ... Jul 6 2019, 06:38 PM treydog A most enthralling fight! Then there is the d... Jul 8 2019, 04:36 PM Grits Catching up with January and Avery has been quite ... Jul 12 2019, 12:28 PM SubRosa Acadian: This two part fight forced me to think cr... Jul 13 2019, 05:08 PM Renee Lighthammer has force fields! That's cheat... Jul 13 2019, 06:34 PM Acadian It just struck when you referred to January as Jan... Jul 13 2019, 07:46 PM SubRosa As an editorial note, given that I have decided to... Jul 13 2019, 11:56 PM treydog A nice bit of calm after the Stormcrow (sorry). B... Jul 15 2019, 12:19 AM SubRosa
Side note- still looking at early Boston. Did fi... Jul 15 2019, 02:50 AM SubRosa I bought Boston in the American Revolution: A Town... Jul 17 2019, 02:03 AM Grits Excellent shirt! I’m a fan, even if Freya do... Jul 17 2019, 03:28 AM Renee
“fine-toothed search bot” :lol:
Ha ha I li... Jul 17 2019, 03:40 PM SubRosa Renee: Lighthammer's not a cheater! :lol:... Jul 20 2019, 05:06 PM treydog The thing (okay ONE thing) I like about this story... Jul 20 2019, 07:15 PM Acadian The bus ride and encounter did a couple of things ... Jul 20 2019, 09:35 PM Renee I think I want an African Goddess next to me, if I... Jul 21 2019, 02:12 AM Grits Not Cthululemon? :P Good idea to stash the backpac... Jul 23 2019, 01:10 AM SubRosa treydog: Inserting the human element into these st... Jul 27 2019, 04:35 PM Renee
:lol:
Yes, how apt a description, the handing ... Jul 27 2019, 04:51 PM Acadian A superbike for a superhero - hopefully. Unfortun... Jul 27 2019, 11:00 PM treydog Quotes first and then observations.
Have known... Jul 28 2019, 03:06 PM SubRosa Renee: I had no idea the 'Gucci Biker' lin... Aug 3 2019, 04:35 PM Acadian A nuclear powered Stormcycle emerges from the Gadg... Aug 3 2019, 07:47 PM Renee
He put a nuclear reactor in her motorcycle? :O
... Aug 4 2019, 12:30 AM treydog :lol:
Loved all the dialogue- this is the way... Aug 4 2019, 01:05 AM Darkness Eternal Chapter 1 - Stormcrow Rising
What a great way to... Aug 6 2019, 02:30 AM SubRosa Acadian: I did a lot of work on developing power s... Aug 10 2019, 04:13 PM Renee
Yes, I was thinking of buses. :) Fusion-powered ... Aug 10 2019, 05:43 PM Acadian This episode drew me in immediately and was a joy ... Aug 10 2019, 07:53 PM Darkness Eternal Chapter 1.2:
I get what you mean. The crows did i... Aug 10 2019, 09:41 PM treydog :blink:
Jan is certainly in a position to und... Aug 10 2019, 10:43 PM SubRosa Renee: This chapter is set about a week after the ... Aug 17 2019, 05:07 PM Acadian The beginning of another Crowventure assigned to h... Aug 17 2019, 09:03 PM Renee
Yeah, totally. He's like that voice over the... Aug 18 2019, 03:05 PM treydog
"
The interactions between Gadget and Cro... Aug 18 2019, 03:47 PM Darkness Eternal Chapter 1.3:
I like how you mentioned how deep-ro... Aug 19 2019, 02:17 AM Acadian Thanks for your peek/insight into the future of th... Aug 24 2019, 06:44 PM treydog More excellent Crow-Girl action! The fight wa... Aug 25 2019, 10:11 PM Renee Nice. She plays Fallout (or at least knows of this... Aug 27 2019, 08:16 PM SubRosa Acadian: I enjoyed writing the fight between Janua... Aug 31 2019, 04:23 PM Renee Yes there is some reason why our armed forces ofte... Aug 31 2019, 07:01 PM Acadian Another wonderful episode!
I liked how her ... Sep 1 2019, 07:29 PM Darkness Eternal Chapter 1.4: There was plenty in this chapter that... Sep 2 2019, 03:06 AM SubRosa Renee: Gasoline is much quicker to burn and explod... Sep 7 2019, 04:15 PM Acadian Gosh, I'm learning a lot about Michigan and De... Sep 7 2019, 07:17 PM Renee We recycle. At least I do. Where I live it seems l... Sep 9 2019, 12:16 AM treydog
A lesson my A and A team are learning (slowly). ... Sep 9 2019, 01:13 AM Darkness Eternal Chapter 1.7: Heh. Good question honestly. What is ... Sep 14 2019, 01:55 AM SubRosa Acadian: I know you were joking, but the reason I ... Sep 14 2019, 05:30 PM Acadian With a name like Wilhelm Wundt, it is indeed hard ... Sep 14 2019, 08:31 PM treydog Way back when we were reading Gawain and the Green... Sep 15 2019, 09:15 PM SubRosa Acadian: I still remember my Into to Psychology cl... Sep 21 2019, 03:33 PM Renee Yeah, I don't think she'd be able to conce... Sep 21 2019, 04:34 PM Acadian Another fun episode as you ever so smoothly show u... Sep 22 2019, 12:09 AM Darkness Eternal Chapter 1.10: Great thing you provided us with th... Sep 24 2019, 02:51 AM SubRosa Renee: You are right, even if she tried to ignore ... Sep 28 2019, 04:58 PM Acadian Looks like the stealth approach was a good call as... Sep 28 2019, 07:45 PM Renee See, where is Lighthammer during all of this? It m... Sep 29 2019, 03:27 AM treydog Caught up again- yay! And also phooey, becaus... Sep 30 2019, 11:30 AM SubRosa A minor note. Thanks to tredyog correctly identify... Oct 2 2019, 10:02 PM Darkness Eternal Chapter 2.1:Ah, Jan has been meeting some ladies a... Oct 4 2019, 03:33 AM |
2 User(s) are reading this topic (2 Guests and 0 Anonymous Users)
0 Members:
|
Lo-Fi Version | Time is now: 25th April 2024 - 08:02 AM |
Invision Power Board
v2.1.7 © 2024 IPS, Inc.
Licensed to: Chorrol.com
