A Day in The Life: Part 21

Something hit me from behind. I didn’t feel it, but I heard it sizzle as it hit my shield. It didn’t matter. I let the energy flow through me and build in my shield.

When I was in the military, scientists attempted to figure out where the energy that I use came from. They took genetic samples, poked and prodded me, fired different forms of radiation at my shield, and all they knew in the end was that I had the greatest capacity to draw power and hold it without using it that they’d ever seen.

By the time they got to that point, I could have told them the same thing.

Wherever the power comes from, it’s bottomless. I’ve always got more, but when I get tired, I get worse at controlling it.

I looked around. The dinos had cleared away from me, backing away as the air heated up. The concrete around me was turning black and cracking. A few of the dinos lifted laser rifles and fired. As focused as I was on absorbing energy into my shield, I barely noticed that they fired. Their beams’ energy went into the shield with the rest, adding some small amount to the total.

The dinos looked at each other, and turned to look and at a green feathered dino that stood behind them. After a few words, the dinos lowered their rifles and stepped to the side. The rest of the crowd moved with them opening a path in the middle of the crowd. A truck rolled forward, stopping with the rest of the dinos. The truck reminded me almost as much of a Hummer as it did a truck. It had large wheels while the body hung high off the ground. Unlike a Hummer, it had a metal circle in the last quarter of the top. The trailer attached there.

The trailer doubled as a platform for a gun. A red and black feathered dino sat behind the gun in a seat that moved as it aimed the barrel. Something deep in inside it glowed.

The gun rose above the truck, aiming downward at me.

It couldn’t have more power behind it than a nuclear blast. I knew that, but I couldn’t be sure. It might punch through my shield or even force me to lose focus enough that I’d let the power go in a way that didn’t cause much damage.

No, I decided, I’d gathered enough power. If anyone was going to let go of it, it would be me.

So, I did.

You may have watched old black and white movies the U.S. Government made to prepare citizens for nuclear war. There would be an explosion and the screen would turn white as the blast expanded outward, molten fire expanding to cover everything. Further out, the winds would destroy anything in their path until nothing stood, leaving only charred and sandy remains.

Eventually, a mushroom cloud would rise above the ground.

It was exactly like that.

I let the energy go and the world turned white. By the time it cleared, there were no feathered dinosaurs, truck/hummers, whole starplates, or even the dome they’d been inside.

I stood in the middle of an empty, ashen landscape. Melted metal with no obvious purpose was all that was left of the nearest starplates. The more distant starplates had been only partially melted, but pieces of them had been scattered around where they’d stood, many sticking partially out of the ground.

Sections of the dome lay across the area, looking like pieces of the same shattered hard boiled egg.

Dino bones had been scattered across the wreckage, bits of bones nearest me. Recognizable skeletons appeared further away. There were no surviving dinos.

I forced myself to look past the target. Who else had I hit?

The dome had been in the middle of a field, surrounded by dinos and vehicles that been lining up to enter, invade and eat their fill. The nearest dino to the dome had been turned into skeletons by the blast. In the distance, the dead bodies were recognizable dinos. A few might even have been alive.

Past the torn chain link fence, however, stood houses and not whatever kind of strange parallel universe houses that millions of years of dinosaur culture might create. Recognizable ranch style houses stood next to each other in the kind of suburb I’d seen all over the United States. There weren’t many trees and mountains stood in the distance, so if I had to guess, I’d have placed myself in the west, possibly in Colorado.

It was hard to see from where I stood, but it was humans not dinosaurs stepping out of the houses to stare at the devastation. I could only wonder what they saw. Was this a moment of liberation, or a moment of disaster? Could they possibly have supported the dinos, or even made a deal with them?

I wanted to interview them and find out what sense they made of it all, but C spoke over the comm, “Are you ready?”

I did the same thing two more times.

I’m good enough as a reporter. I believe I make difference in helping people understand the world supers inhabit and the decisions they have to make. As a weapon of mass destruction, though, I’m the best there is at what I do, but what I do is kill cities at the request of authority figures.

It’s a strong argument in favor of being good enough. I sleep better as a reporter than I ever did as a soldier.

15 thoughts on “A Day in The Life: Part 21”

  1. In news for the week, I sent an email to my editor saying that book 3 is ready to be edited (finally). With any luck, I’ll find out all the things I did wrong in the near future.

    In other news, the Pen & Cape Society podcast has come back from a five month hiatus. With Cheyanne sick, Chris (Curveball), Drew (Superpowereds) and I discuss crossovers among other things.
    http://penandcapesociety.com/podcast/episode-12-crossovers-scott-story-interview-captain-ersatz/

    And beyond that, well, please do vote for Legion at Top Web Fiction:
    http://topwebfiction.com/vote.php?for=the-legion-of-nothing

    1. (Oh my! The devastation!)

      Yum book 3 is coming!

      There will be a podcast’s text transcription?
      I’m interested in the crossover affair but will be more at ease to read the to listen to the discussion.

      Also vote for LoN!!!

      1. There won’t be a podcast transcription (unless there’s some easy way to do it), but all we’re doing is talking about crossovers that we’ve thought worked well vs. ones that we’ve thought worked badly. It’s fun, but we’re not planning to do one (though that would be fun).

        1. Nooooooooooo!!!!!
          Crossover! Crossover! Crossover!
          /Me grab pitchfork and torch 😛

          A crossover could be a side story like the current one.
          Like … … ? Pretty please with sugar on it?

  2. Caught up yet again and the story is still great as always, eh it is nice to see Ms Stone in action, damn she is scary a true living WMD and I am sure we haven’t seen her at her peak yet.

    Man this makes me wonder what her unit was like and what the others were capable of, Were they people with support powers to help her getting deployed and keep her alive if needed(people to make her invisible or not noticed, telepaths to make peolpe forget about her, possibly healers and people with ESP to detect possible unfriendlies…)or were they other people like her or perhaps even a mix of both.

    Also I find it interesting that there are still humans who appear to be living relatively normally on an Dino conquered earth wonder how that works…Eh if they encoutered other human populated earths they miust have been quite surprised when they stumbled on the Legionverse and it’s supers, heh wonder how they would react if they happened on a Bloodworld variant on the other hand one thing’s for sure if they happened on an earth occupied by alternate Abominators they would get creamed and their empires would have ben repossed by said Abominators before the dinos even realised it.

    Anyway can’t wait for more!!

    1. It would depend on the mission. Her best use would be as a WMD, but she’d be useful as artillery too. As a WMD, she’d mostly need support staff. When used as a regular fighter, I’d imagine she’d be part of a group with similar powers. That would end the fight pretty quickly (but with considerable collateral damage).

      In some ways, she’d almost be more useful as a threat that the enemy knows you have in reserve, but not where or who.

  3. Why didn’t she inform C about the human suburbs? That seems like a pretty important bit of info to pass along.

    How could she see them anyway, what with all the smoke and debris in the air. And how far away were they, to be uninjured but curious. She apparently remained at ground zero…or is that part of her PTSD, like “I see suburbs every time, just like the awful blast the first time I went all out. I’ll never forget that day”

    1. I skip things. If you’ll remember the bit about her doing this two more times, it was important to know that she did that, but not important enough to write out.

      Similarly, it’s important to know that this was a human Earth, but not important to have a conversation about it.

      As for the quality of the air… I don’t know how long it takes for something like that to settle. It was equivalent to a small nuke though–not a large one. I’m hoping 10-20 minutes is enough. That said, when she’s flying and fighting her shields glow to a degree that makes it impossible to look at her. If she can see through that, there’s no way she’s got normal, human vision.

  4. the political and legal BS wrapped up in her ability….

    1) has she actually killed any cities? Where?
    2) who knew about her (Before the article)?
    3) Is she classed as a WMD under treaty or regulation? What do other countries (try to) consider her under treaty?
    4) Who wrote her ROEs, and what oversight is on them?
    5) which service was she in, and would they be cleared to have conventional firepower on her scale?
    6) And just for fun;

    How would the US react if her hypothetical twin joined the Canadian military? She’d probably be within a couple hundred KM (or less) of the border most of the time, remember

    She isn’t the only citykiller we’ve seen (Earthmover, probably) but policy people have to hate them.

  5. As much as I want to know more. I love where this chapter stopped and how it stopped.

    I really hope this is the last chapter of the arc. It’s such a satisfying ending I could almost stop reading LoN altogether (I mean, I won’t, but it was good).

  6. Slight edit for extra word:
    The dinos looked at each other, and turned to look and at a green feathered dino that stood behind them.

    Should be:
    The dinos looked at each other, and turned to look at a green feathered dino that stood behind them.

  7. Another edit for a missing word:
    I believe I make difference in helping people understand the world

    Should be:
    I believe I make a difference in helping people understand the world

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