Tag Archives: Amy

Faerieland: Part 12

Having already reformed the suit’s helmet, I watched as the suit attempted to connect to several different networks, finally only connecting to one–the Castle Rock Compound’s network.

Once connected, notifications began pouring in to my phone, lighting up in the corner of my HUD. I caught a few names as the numbers climbed–all of them students, most of them League members or friends. They were probably trying to contact me after I had sunk into the floor.

I considered opening up my queue and reading them. One of them might have been Haley. Continue reading Faerieland: Part 12

Faerieland: Part 11

The glow of the blood red gem on Amy’s armor’s breastplate was the only remnant of the transformation as Amy took step toward me. “Do you want me to carry you, or do you want Vaughn to float you upstairs?”

Samita cleared her throat. “Maybe you could carry me?”

“Why?” Vaughn asked. “Did I do something wrong? I tried not to flip you over or anything.”

“No. It’s just that you and the Rocket have been on the same team for years now, so I thought he’d probably be more comfortable than–” Her voice trailed off. “I’m sorry. I’m lying. It’s because it’s terrifying. I’m sure it’s fine for you because you’re controlling it, but I was falling in the dark. I couldn’t see anything but wall, and the only thing stopping me from hitting the ground was air.” Continue reading Faerieland: Part 11

Faerieland: Part 10

Standing together in the dark, I looked each of them over, all of them grey in my HUD.

“But really, how bad? Is this ‘fairy pranks and vomiting slugs’ bad, or are we talking ‘slaves to the fairy queens’ bad?”

Vaughn put a grey hand up to a grey chin. “That’s a toughie.”

Samita frowned. “It’s somewhere in between. The little people have infiltrated the entire compound, keeping anyone who isn’t magically protected from noticing anything troubling. Practically the entire world is watching what’s happening in Turkmenistan because it’s everyone’s nightmare. ‘What if the supers take over and rule the country?’ Well, no one in the compound cares now. When shows are interrupted with news, no one pays any attention.”

I thought about it. “You know, that’s actually better than I expected.” Continue reading Faerieland: Part 10

Faerieland: Part 9

It took longer than it should have. I wasn’t checking my phone when I was in the cell, but now I was encased in my suit. The time was in the upper right corner: 7:04 pm. Haley had started climbing around 6:30 pm.

Even assuming it would take thirty minutes to scale the wall, she would have finished by now.

I was fairly confident that it wouldn’t take anywhere near that long. I’d watched her start her climb, calculated her speed based on how far she moved, taking into account the possibility of slowing down, and come to the conclusion that if it were 1000 feet, she shouldn’t take more than ten minutes to scale the entire thing. Continue reading Faerieland: Part 9

Faerieland: Part 3

Travis’ mouth twitched. “I’m pleading the fifth on that, but yeah, I like the idea. That might get us what we need. Do we have any other way we can find out more? Like his ex-girlfriend… Jaclyn, do you know where she is? Or what about Samita and Rod? Can’t you, I don’t know, summon up something?”

Samita’s mouth turned into a flat line. “Summoning is very dangerous. One wrong move and you could release whatever you summon into the world. Worse, depending on what you summon, you could put your life or even your soul in danger.”

Jaclyn started tapping furiously into her phone.

Vaughn looked up from whatever he’d been checking on his phone. “Hey, it doesn’t have to be something dangerous does it? I read one of those Dresden Files books, and in there the guy summons up fairies and feeds them pizza. Can’t you do something easy like that?” Continue reading Faerieland: Part 3

Demo: Part 21

I had a bad feeling the creature wouldn’t be on my side, and the fact that it was outside the wards made me suspect it was magic.

I desperately needed to tell people that it was there as soon as the fight was over.

Well, assuming it was real, and not the result of staring at a HUD filled with shades of grey (but not the sexy kind). I zoomed in, and saw nothing in that space.

I checked on Stephanie, finding her still covered with goo. She’d pulled out a knife, and was trying to cut the strands connecting her to the ground. Continue reading Demo: Part 21

Demo: Part 18

I glanced over toward the side of the arena, seeing healers I knew (Alex in his longcoat and “chainmail”), costumed healers I didn’t know, and paramedics.

They all watched from behind the force shield–which was sensible.

Out of the corner of my  eye, I checked the stands where the politicians were and noticed that more of them were on their phones than I would have expected, and the rest were talking about something.

I had a feeling I knew what, and wondered exactly what they were hearing. The heroes in attendance appeared to be distracted too.  Continue reading Demo: Part 18

Demo: Part 17

Next to me, Amy muttered, “I didn’t prepare any spells to handle that. Red Hex?” Her voice raised as she said Samita’s codename.

Samita shook her head. “Not directly. Troll and I both wear rings that I bound to spirits of probability. They protect us from getting hurt, and of course I enchanted our costumes. I might be able to repurpose something…”

She frowned, and opened one of the leather pouches on her belt, sticking her arm inside, and pulling things out to examine. This wouldn’t have been anything to remark about except that she’d stick her arm in all the way to the elbow while the pouch was at most four inches deep.

Weirder, she’d take objects out of the pouch that were wider than the pouch—a white, porcelain basin, for example.

After examining it, she put it back in. Continue reading Demo: Part 17

Demo: Part 16

Rachel raised an eyebrow. “What’s going on now?”

Tara crossed her arms. “I noticed you weren’t listening earlier. Is it the same thing we talked about before?”

Rachel took a breath and sighed. Jaclyn pulled her feet out of the holes she’d created when she landed, and shook her head. “I knew that was going to come back to haunt us.”

Remembering how little I could hear during the fight, I said, “I told Hal to update you if he had something that needed action on our part. So far it hasn’t, but I could tell him to update you anyway?”

“Rocket,” Rachel said, looking me directly in the eyes, “this is something that we all need to be kept updated on.” Continue reading Demo: Part 16

Demo: Part 14

I couldn’t argue with her there. Jaclyn alone had a chance of taking out our entire team in a straight fight. Add in another speedster plus Travis, Rachel, and Mist for good measure…

We were toast.

That sounds defeatist, but it wasn’t. The funny thing is that what gave us a chance of winning was the fact that we were playing a game. Jaclyn might be able to kill any of us with a blow in real life, but here she had to decide how much she was willing to hurt us to win.

In front of me, Tara met each of our eyes in turn. “I think I know what they’re going to to do. Rocket, you’ve got a way to stop Ghost, right?” Continue reading Demo: Part 14