Tag Archives: Red Lightning

Arc 5.5: Rachel in Infinity City, Area 551

Rachel in Infinity City: Part 22

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“Hey,” I said.

She held up her left arm, looking down at the League communicator on her wrist. It looked just like the ones Nick made for us when we were in costume.

She tapped on the screen, waited, and then said, “It’s her. Thank God.”

Then she pulled a roll of duct tape out of her utility belt, floated down, and taped Julie’s mouth shut.

I laughed. “Duct tape? Did Nick put that in there?”

She froze. “No. I… Wait a second.”

She pulled up the communicator again, and this time she pointed it at me. After tapping the screen she said, “OK, this is going to be weird, but we split off early last summer—your time.”

“My time?” Continue reading Rachel in Infinity City: Part 22 →

Arc 5.5: Rachel in Infinity City, Area 551

Rachel in Infinity City: Part 21

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Not that we had time, and to judge from how they handled the True, if they were anything but decent, we were so screwed.

I’d never seen Vaughn target more than one person at a time with lightning. He’d told me that he didn’t think he had enough control to do it without straight out killing people. Whoever the person behind the lightning I’d just seen was, he’d taken out everybody near the entrance to the alley all at once.

Glancing upward identified him instantly—the red costume with a lightning bolt under an arch with Egyptian hieroglyphics on the chest? That was Red Lightning’s costume. I’d always thought the lightning, plus the arch, plus the hieroglyphics was a little busy, but I’d never gotten to complain to Red Lightning himself about the questionable logo design due to him being dead.

It appeared that I might get the chance now. This wasn’t Vaughn. This wasn’t Vaughn’s cousin Lucas, or his Uncle Russ, Lucas’s father. It was Giles Hardwick, the original Red Lightning.

Continue reading Rachel in Infinity City: Part 21 →

Arc 5.5: Rachel in Infinity City, Area 551

Rachel in Infinity City: Part 20

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I had to shut her up long enough for us to escape even if it meant shutting her up permanently. As much as I hated everything she wanted to do to us, I still didn’t want to kill her.

I flew across the street, passing the True, sometimes flying through them. They weren’t moving.

I looked back—no one was moving. Looking forward I found one exception—Julie. Even the True running with her had stopped.

I thought about that. She’d been hired to catch Tara, but maybe she didn’t get paid if the Blues caught her themselves?

Julie ran across the laundromat’s parking lot, still shouting. I couldn’t hear her, but from her lips, it looked like, “Don’t move! Don’t move! No one move!”

Then she smiled.

Continue reading Rachel in Infinity City: Part 20 →

Arc 3.9: 1943

1943: Part 6

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Arik gave a grunt, and his body fell forward as Gunther stepped to the side, and out of his way.

A great gout of flame erupted from his back where Gunther’s blade slipped through.

The flames around Arik’s body grew higher, and pine needles on the ground around the castle caught fire. Continue reading 1943: Part 6 →

Arc 1.4: In the Public Eye

In the Public Eye: Part 33

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“Looks pretty bad, doesn’t it?” Vaughn said. “You’d never believe it, but my grandfather’s personal stuff never burned.”

“It must be the only thing that didn’t,” I said.

A layer of dark soot seemed to be everywhere, mixed with bits that crunched when I stepped on them.

“Nah,” Vaughn said, “The side tunnels didn’t burn. That’s where I found the stuff that I handed over. Let’s go.”

Continue reading In the Public Eye: Part 33 →

Arc 1.4: In the Public Eye

In the Public Eye: Part 32

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“Why are we going this way then?”

“The tunnel I used to go through collapsed during the rainstorms we got near the end of August. This is the only other one I know about,” Vaughn said.

I couldn’t see anything. Was I supposed to go down there and locate the gun by the flash from its muzzle? If I was lucky, the gun was fixed and capable of firing in only one direction. If I was unlucky, it had the ability to track targets. My armor did well against bullets, but I didn’t feel much of an urge to test its limits.
Continue reading In the Public Eye: Part 32 →

Arc 1.4: In the Public Eye

In the Public Eye: Part 31

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Hardwick House sat on a hill near the middle of downtown. It began, not especially humbly, as an enormous mansion back when Percival Hardwick made his fortune as a lumber baron. His heirs added on to it in a peculiar mixture of styles. The first section used the thin spires and intricate woodwork of the Gothic style. A later addition to the house had added an eight story tower and the extensive stonework of the Medieval Revival style. The final section of the house had been added in the late 1920’s — six, flat roofed stories, each story less wide than the story below. The final story ended in the shape of an Egyptian pyramid.

Impressively hideous, it absorbed almost half a city block when you included the grounds.
Continue reading In the Public Eye: Part 31 →

Arc 1.4: In the Public Eye

In the Public Eye: Part 29

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I caught Vaughn on the way out of the lunchroom. We didn’t have any classes together and we hadn’t eaten together lately because Cassie had been spending a lot of time with Kayla. Repairing relations, I guessed.

Vaughn had been talking with a couple other guys. Neil leaned against the wall next to the door, tracing the tattooed dragon on his forearm while Dave talked. “… someone called the cops and we ended up climbing the fence while holding our skateboards. They caught Mike, but Neil and I got away.”

Continue reading In the Public Eye: Part 29 →

Arc 1.4: In the Public Eye

In the Public Eye: Part 17

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Okay. It’s up.

And just for what it’s worth, I thought I’d point out that I’m using Twitter to let people know about update progress. That way I don’t have to continually write something like “not yet ready to post… Wait… It’s almost ready… Well it could be ready in minute… But it’s actually going to be ready tomorrow,” into posts that I then delete the next day anyway.

I can do that in Twitter instead and evidence of my inconsistency can be kept for the ages.

Continue reading In the Public Eye: Part 17 →