“So you just told him?” Jaclyn didn’t seem to be able to contain her disbelief.
“It’s not like I invited him to train with us,” I said. “I just told him the same thing I’ve always told anyone curious about who I’m taking martial arts from.”
“It’s not that bad,” Haley said. “Of all Sean’s friends, Dayton’s the only one who’s actually nice.”
Continue reading Uncontrolled Substances: Part 2
Sean looked over the oncoming crowd a little nervously, and asked me, “What are we supposed to do now?”
“No idea,” I said.
Then I turned on the loudspeaker.
They were halfway across the lawn, and the growing darkness gave the group a “Night of the Living Dead” feel. Not that they were really zombies, but a crowd of people walking toward you isn’t a normal situation.
Continue reading Hysteria: Part 9
Payback screamed and fell over, his body outlined in electricity.
The air smelled of ozone, and smoke.
When the lightning stopped, I could see Payback more clearly. His chest still moved, but he wasn’t doing much more than that. His right arm looked uncomfortably red and blistered.
From behind me Vaughn shouted, “I got him, right?”
Continue reading Hysteria: Part 8
I raised my left arm, fist pointed upward, shielding my chest. My right arm hung near my waist, ready to punch.
I didn’t punch Skewer.
Pushing down on two buttons on my right palm, I blasted him with the sonics.
Continue reading Hysteria: Part 7
Punching yourself in the face isn’t a great tactic in most fights, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.
The ice fell off my helmet and hit the floor. I swung back out onto the bumper behind the only remaining door, and tried to get a second to think.
I could blast away with the sonics, distract everybody, fly into the middle of them and start punching, but I didn’t like my odds. Besides Keith’s uncle didn’t deserve to have his ears bleed from the noise.
Then the solution struck me. I’d lean out, blast one of the rear tires with the sonics, and they’d have to stop. If they didn’t, I’d blast the other tire.
Continue reading Hysteria: Part 6
Vaughn never got hit by the lightning.
When the strikes stopped, he stood there unharmed, smiling nervously, glass shards and glass craters surrounding him.
“He’s cheating! You can’t do that.” The King of Storms shouted at Lee.
“He’s controlling weather.” Lee said. “Get on with it or yield.”
Continue reading King of Storms: Part 12
“Let’s get on with it then,” Lee said.
Both Vaughn and the King of Storms turned to look at him.
“Neither of you is going to change their name so now it’s time to come up with another way to handle it. You’ll want to choose seconds and Vaughn, you get to choose the weapon if it’s a duel.”
“Duel?” Vaughn sounded incredulous.
Continue reading King of Storms: Part 11
Above us, the cloud became darker, extending across the dune toward Grand Lake.
“Relax,” Lee said. “We both know that if I were coming to kill you, I’d have already tried by now.”
“Why are you here?”
“I’m training them.” He waved vaguely in our direction.
Continue reading King of Storms: Part 10
The thing faded into the storm and disappeared. Between the darkness and the possibility that its body might have been nothing more than falling rain, I didn’t know whether it had teleported away or simply ceased to be.
Either way, the rain changed from a downpour to nothing in the space of ten seconds.
As the rain ended, the clouds thinned, letting the sun illuminate the puddles in the road and the mud across the street in the parking lot.
Continue reading King of Storms: Part 9
Russ brought his hands up to his eyes while Cassie dropped the cleaning liquid and mop, grabbing the sword’s hilt with both her hands and yanking it away.
Russ made grab for it as she stepped back, but stopped when she pointed the blade at him.
Eyes watering, he jumped sideways out of the building and into the parking lot, colliding with an old Chrysler Caravan that had been parked in a handicapped spot. He left a human sized dent behind and a shattered passenger side window.
Continue reading King of Storms: Part 5