Tag Archives: Rachel

Arc 8: Faerieland

Faerieland: Part 43

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I wondered how she intended to distract him. I had ideas, but I couldn’t know for sure till she tried something. We’d have to watch outside for a chance to escape–preferably without looking Artaxus in the eye. Amy had agreed that that was a bad idea back in the hallway behind the store–and we were already under her protection spell then.

Standing next to the hatch that was normally on the mech’s roof, and currently on its side, Haley rested the particle accelerator rifle on her shoulder. “What did Rachel say?”

“That she’s going to try something, and we should run if we get the chance. Do you think you’ll be able to tell without–” Continue reading Faerieland: Part 43 →

Arc 8: Faerieland

Faerieland: Part 42

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A tap with my tongue accepted the private connection. I replied, “Artaxus grabbed us.”

“I’m coming.” Rachel didn’t give me a chance to respond.

I didn’t have time for that anyway. The mech had begun to make the kind of low pitched squeaks that made me think of houses settling or boats on the water, but with more strain as the body shuddered. Somewhere, something cracked.

I hoped it wasn’t important, and it must not have been. The mech didn’t fire off a major alert-just a few minor ones. Of course, that didn’t mean that I was going to stick around and find out if Artaxus could actually crush the mech. Continue reading Faerieland: Part 42 →

Arc 8: Faerieland

Faerieland: Part 41

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Artaxus pulled himself entirely on to the ledge before I’d worked out a plan for our dive. I knew I didn’t want to get in reach of the dragon’s claws or in range of his breath.

“Laser?” I asked Haley.

She muttered the word, “Aiming,” only barely loud enough for me to hear, followed by the crackle and hum of the laser firing.

It hit the dragon’s back like her other shots had, destroying the creature’s scales, and cutting into its hide, cauterizing the wound even as it made it.

Artaxus’ head whipped around and he blew flame at us, but we were too  far away and moving too quickly for the fire to do any real damage. Continue reading Faerieland: Part 41 →

Arc 8: Faerieland

Faerieland: Part 36

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Touching my palms with the fingers of my gloves, I typed back, “Named Artaxus. He’s a dragon. Don’t look in eyes. Mind control.”

Rachel texted back, “Fuck.”

Amy and the dragon were still talking. I typed, “Need to get outside. Bad to fight here. Because fire.”

Kind of have a plan, Daniel thought to me. Amy’s about to suggest we talk outside. If he doesn’t buy it, we run.

That’s a bad plan, I thought back. Continue reading Faerieland: Part 36 →

Arc 8: Faerieland

Faerieland: Part 35

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Amy lowered her chin, looking at him as much as she could without meeting his eyes. “I don’t want the throne, and even if I did, I don’t want to kill my sister and plunge the kingdom into war.”

The man shrugged. “Give yourself time. You might find that you feel differently in another hundred years.”

A hundred years? I thought.

To judge from Amy’s thoughts, Daniel replied, the nobility, and particularly the Bloodmaidens, are long-lived—assuming they don’t die in combat—and they do that a lot. Continue reading Faerieland: Part 35 →

Arc 8: Faerieland

Faerieland: Part 3

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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 →

Arc 8: Faerieland

Faerieland: Part 2

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Jaclyn shook her head, and pulled her phone out of her pocket. “That’s not what interests me. What I want to know is why he’s even bothering? What do we know about him?”

“Well,” I paused, mouth partway open, wondering if I should even say it. “I’m pretty sure he’s a client of my dad’s. My dad had a client who was a superhero, and who needed therapy after quitting. Adam’s girlfriend got killed by the mob, and he went on some kind of rampage, killing anyone remotely associated, I guess. Agent Lim got him into therapy. I don’t know why he actually stopped killing and went through with it, but he did say nice things about my dad when I talked to him once.”

Fingers already tapping out something on the screen of her phone, Jaclyn said, “His codename?”

“Dark Cloak.”

She stopped and looked up at me. “That guy? I heard about him.” Then she started tapping away again. Continue reading Faerieland: Part 2 →

Arc 8: Faerieland

Faerieland: Part 1

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My lab felt cramped, the air warm from body heat, and my sister’s voice cut through the low murmur of people talking.

“Remember when I joked about needing an auditorium? Next time I won’t be joking.”

We’d moved my lab tables to the walls, folded them, put everything I’d been working on into boxes, and it still felt like we had no room. All the chairs had been taken, and people sat on the floor or stood next to the wall.

By people, I meant everyone in the Heroes’ League who’d come to Stapledon, plus Courtney, plus Tara, Rod, Samita, and Amy.

The monitor of my computer showed burning buildings from a distance. Continue reading Faerieland: Part 1 →

Arc 7.9: Demo

Demo: Part 16

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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 →

Arc 7.9: Demo

Demo: Part 15

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In my peripheral vision—which included almost everything behind me—Samita opened up a box and threw the dirt inside it into the air. It hung in the air like a cloud, and then in one burst dispersed, spreading across the entire field.

That’s when things got weird.

All the grass on our side of the field drooped, and spread across the ground, covering the dirt in green. As it did, the green became darker, and shinier—like glass, or ice.

Jaclyn and Meteor both fell. For the little that it’s worth, Jaclyn did better, turning her initial stumble into a jump that threw her into the air. She landed only ten feet past our flag, but it didn’t matter. She was still traveling at two hundred miles per hour. Along with Meteor, she slid past our flag pole and toward the obstacle course—depending on the angle. The ground wasn’t level. It wasn’t impossible that they’d slide into the parked cars off to the side of the course. Continue reading Demo: Part 15 →