Live With It

She glides over the city like an angel, looking benevolently down on her flock. Nothing seems to be going wrong today, so she’s just doing a few lazy circles overhead, reassuring people with her presence. Despite all the warnings, despite what’s happened to so many other costumed heroes lately, she insists on making herself seen.

I would go on a little inner rant about what a stupid, narcissistic bitch she must be, but I know it isn’t true. She thinks she’s helping. She thinks she’s inspiring hope. She saw some show on television, or read a comic book, or one of those insipid hero vlogs, or god forbid, watched one of the old Team’s press releases, and got inspired. She woke up with powers one day, and because she was already a fan girl for the lifestyle, knew how to get one of those crazy outfits, and that put it in her head that this was meant to be.

I did the research. Flight, laser-beams, x-ray vision, can create force fields, but has to concentrate on it. When she puts up the shield, it creates opaque fields of hard light. That’s how I know she has her guard down right now.

Stupid kid.

Graven: A Web Serial

I'm pleased to announce my first web serial project: GRAVEN! Despite my many ideas, I have struggled for many years with writing long form heroic fiction stories, be they continuous sagas or episodic adventures. This project is largely an experiment for me to learn how to write a longer story, as well as an exercise in self-discipline. It may be a bit of a rough ride, but I intend to stick it through to the end. If you decide to give it a read, let me know your thoughts, and I hope you'll find something to enjoy along the way.

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In 2029, mysterious structures called Doorways appeared across the world. Any human that entered immediately disappeared. Thousands were never seen again, but every once in a while, someone would come back out after a few days, garbed in strange clothing and possessing superhuman powers. Despite the odds, many of the desperate, ambitious, and hopeful surged through the Doorways in search of personal power.

Eleven years have passed, and the world has undergone catastrophic changes as the result of superhuman conflict. Entire continents and civilizations have been lost, a supervillain epidimic threatens those societies that remain, and the world's greatest superhero team has just been destroyed. In the wake of this latest tragedy, the world's first superhuman returns to America, seeking to gather a band of powerful bounty hunters. Together they hope to track down the source of these disasters, and perhaps save what remains of the falling world.

Click here to begin the story!

Natural Forces #0

“Cripes are they here yet?”

Jin looked to his impatient partner and put a finger to his lips. Jin was himself a patient man by nature, but Raul’s mood could be infectious. Raul just sighed with exasperation, rather loudly at that, and tried his best to sit still. Jin peeked through the hole in the wall and resumed watching the darkened parking lot almost a block away. This area of town was pretty well abandoned this time of night, many of the old warehouses and shops condemned after a monster rampage a few months back nearly leveled the whole area. It had taken this long just to clear the rubble, and the city had simply condemned the area and not gotten around to fixing it up. Such was unfortunate, but what could one do with resources spread so thin? The city had other areas that needed fixing, after all.

Five minutes later, Jin was almost relieved to see the cargo truck pulling into the darkened lot. Raul’s sniffing about had apparently been accurate. Some sort of deal was going down tonight.

“This is it,” said Jin.

Raul grinned and said, “Finally!” His fist was already flaring up with flames.

“Not yet!” said Jin. Raul, however, was already gone. Jin turned. He saw the men in the truck step out just before a streak of fire tore out the entire engine block. The now half-slagged piece of metal smashed to the ground a few dozen feet away, and the streak of fire had halted, now standing menacingly in front of the men. The flames writhed around the form of Raul, burning a bright orange.

Jin joined him in a flash, covering the five hundred feet between their hiding place and the parking lot in two seconds. “Why are you so damned reckless?” said Jin, as he appeared next to Raul.

Intrepid #01

ONE
As Jason entered the pool hall, the noise got noticeably quieter. There was a palpable dampening wave as the two dozen or so patrons gradually became aware of his presence. Jason managed not to show a frown this time. He went up to the small bar in the back, and tried not to watch in the mirror as a good third of the clientele decided to call it an early night. The bartender, for his part, managed to not break out in a cold sweat as he forced a smile.

“Hey, Jason,” he said. “The usual?”

“Sure,” Jason replied, not bothering to sit. The conversations that seemed so lively as he came through the door had dropped to a nervous silence and quick glances in his direction. He didn’t bother to meet them, just stood and patiently waited for his drink. The bartender just gave him a bottle, not bothering to pop the cap.

Jason went for his wallet, but before he could pull it out, the bartender waved him off. “Don’t worry about it, man. Same as before. On the house.”

Jason didn’t argue this time, knowing it’d be futile. He just nodded his thanks, and went over to an empty pool table on the end of the row. The three men at the table next to his decided their particular table was not up to standard all of a sudden, and shuffled over to the other end of the bar to play some cards. Jason frowned, but at least comforted himself with the fact that they hadn’t opted to leave the building.

Jason set the bottle to the side, took a moment to tie back his long blond hair, then set up the balls on the table and grabbed a cue. He felt a little silly playing the game by himself, but by now he knew better than to ask if anyone wanted a game. Ergo, he was a bit surprised when somebody presented himself at the end of the table just as he was lining up the first shot.

Jason looked up and saw an average sized man dressed in jeans and a black jacket, a casual get up that contrasted to the stiffly professional bearing the man stood with. “Solitaire is usually played with cards, as I understand it,” said the man.

Elemental Keys, Series Overview

The Elemental Keys was one of the first major post-Old Multiverse series I did, the concept starting back when I first got into college. Along with series ideas like the Intrepid, the Dream Wars, and Galea, this was one of many attempts to “start fresh”, and build up series set in self-contained worlds, independent of what had come before. Ironically, this was also one of the earlier examples of the cascade effect of characters and concepts from previous stories being brought in and retooled. Initially, I had the idea for the E-Keys as just the artifacts, but lacking series to use them in, I combined some characters and concepts from earlier works to flesh the concept out as a series unto itself.

Elemental Keys Redux #04 opening scenes

Episode Four: “Metallic Vibe”

1.

Gene Ferris yawned as the day dawned once more.  He looked over to the other side of his bed and blanched.  That blasted witch was walking through his house again.  The hag waved pleasantly as she picked her teeth with a long thumbnail.  “Mornin’ boya,” she said, rummaging through his underwear drawer.

“Would you go away?!” said Gene, pointing at the door and giving the witch a stern look.  “For the last time, I do not possess ‘items of empowerment’ in my frieakin’ boxers!”  The witch blinked, looked at the door, then at Gene, then gave a grunt of a laugh.  Gene sighed and got dressed, snatching his clothes off the floor.  Ever since the witch hag had moved into the apartment next door, there was no getting rid of her.  She could just walk through any door she chose and for whatever reason seemed intent on finding something of important value in Gene’s dresser drawers.

“Just make sure you lock the front door this time,” shouted Gene as he grabbed a banana before heading off the work.

“Yeah, yeah,” said the witch.  Gene shook his head and strode out of the apartment complex.  No one believed him when he said a witch lived next door.  For some reason, no one else seemed to see her as she was.  Everyone else just thought she was a slightly eccentric old lady.  That she had glowing blue eyes, a silver claw on each thumb and hair that waved around like albino snakes didn’t seem to register.  She had perhaps cast a spell to hide herself from everyone else.  Gene wondered why he was the only one who could see past it.

Elemental Keys Redux #03

Episode Three: “Electric Slide”

1.

“So I found out something pretty interesting,” said Sarah.  She and Mandi were at Mandi’s place again.  Two weeks of dating and they were already crashing at one another’s places regularly.

“What’s that?” asked Mandi.

“Some of my friends on the CCPD have been talking about one of their own suddenly becoming some kind of super-cop,” said Sarah.  She sipped from her coffee and gave Mandi an inquisitive look.

“Super-cop, huh?” said Mandi.  “Like how?”

“They say he can practically dodge bullets, run faster than a car… they say he can fire lightning bolts,” Sarha said.  “Sounds like we’ve got another Key-Bearer popping up.”

“Think we should check up on him?” said Mandi.  “Do you know who it is?”

“Well, no one’s named names, everyone’s actually supposed to keep it a secret,” said Sarah.  “But the friends of mine like to gossip a bit.”

“I see,” said Mandi.  She thought for a moment.  “Should we look into this?  At least get to know this guy… see if he’s the real deal.”

“What else could he be?” said Sarah.

Mandi shrugged.  “Its possible he’s a demon in disguise.  You have nearly the same powers as that fire beast we fought when we met, you know.”

Elemental Keys Redux #02

Episode Two: “Fire Salsa”

1.

Mandi wondered how long she could keep this up.  She also wondered if it mattered; if the blaze surrounding her has already destroyed too much of the building she was in, it wouldn’t matter how quickly she beat down her enemy.  Her incredible strength would not protect her from open flame, even if she could smash her fist straight through a person’s chest… or a demons.

Such a demon, the souce of this fire in fact, was circling her warily.  The creature was tall and lithe, with blacked skin.  Glowing orange viens crawled across its apparently nude form, giving it the impression of living black rock, etched with lines of lava.  The creature’s blazing orange eyes narrowed and Mandi and she circled in return.  Her aura and dust and sand whirled around her, but it wasn’t as strong as when she had started the fight.

Fifteen minutes ago, Mandi had just happened to see the creature break its way into the back door of this old apartment building.  What it was after was a mystery; it seemed to be searching for something, but after a few moments, it began to wildly claw at the surrounding walls, setting fire to whatever it touched.  As soon as people began to poor out into the hall to escape the blaze, it began to chase them, burning them with its fingers.  The people it chased didn’t seem to see it, or if they did, all they saw was a swell of flame.  Only Mandi seemed to notice that the true form of the demon; she still couldn’t get over the fact that she was only one of a handful that could actually see them as they were.  She was, in fact, the only person she knew who could.  And while this made it easier to keep people from panicking about monsters living in their midst, it made it harder to protect them from dangers they couldn’t recognize.

Elemental Keys Redux #01

Episode One: “Earth Blues”

1.

Spring was a time of summer bloom and the start of romance.  New sports seasons, outdoors activities, the shedding of coats and the melting of snow.  It was a rejuvinating season for many, especially if one was young.  Mandi wasn’t much in the mood for excitement these days, though.

As the tall, fair skinned woman walked home, her long blond hair waving in the breeze, she sighed wistfully.  Time was, not even five years ago, she’d be like those kids in the park she was passing; hanging out with friends, throwing frisbees, waklign a dog, doing something to enjoy the weather.  It didn’t matter these days, though.  She was a working girl now, having graduated last Spring with an Geology major.  What did she have to show for it?  She was a librarian.  Whoopity-hoo.  Despite applying for multiple lab assistant positions and even some museum posts, she had nothing.  There just weren’t enough jobs that had anything to do with her field, and the positions that had been open had been filled up by more qualified people.  Or at least people that seemed more qaulified.

Mandi shook her head, dispensing any negative thoughts.  She was sure the people who got the jobs deserved it.  It was just aggrivating that she had gotten beat out so quickly.  At that point, the only options in her area of specialty were to move out of town and try and get into a university, or become a teacher at the local college.  She didn’t particularly relish either idea.  Still, the librarian gig wasn’t doing anything to fullfill her either.  She’d probably end up being a teacher soon anyway.  Its not that the idea seemed all that bad, its just that she had already been through five years of college to get her degree.  She wasn’t eager to return to the school life.

She stopped her walk to watch some children playing catch with a few of their dogs.  She envied their carefree nature a bit.  She was glad she was an adult; unlike most of her friends in college, she made the transition from childhood angst to adult responsibilty pretty quickly; she had hated being a kid, with all its restrictions.  She had been very eager to grow up, and to that end, had matured quickly, taking on responsibility with astonishing success, and being determined to be an independant woman by the time she was out of college.

Looking back on it now though… she sometimes wondered how much of her youth she might have wasted being a little too uptight.  Now, she was out of college, she had a job that paid well enough, and living on her own.  But now that she had achieved that, there wasn’t much else in her life now.  All her friends had jobs of their own; several already had families.  No one seemed to have time to go out and have fun.  Half of them had to work overtime just to provide for their new families, or were too caught up in the promise of quick promotion and threw themselves into their work.