I'm glad it's not stuff. I hate stuff.
So for a change of pace, have some original writing! I've been using my runes as a prompt table, which is lots of fun so far. These are little drabble-y things, set in the comic-book-continuity badplanmobile and I have been inventing. (And I'd love any comments or concrit or whatever. Love and cherish and knit fuzzy scarves for. Mmyes.)
01 - Self
Nobody really does the alter-ego thing anymore. Between the internet, social networking, mass media, paperwork hassles, and all that stuff, it’s mostly not worth it.
It means the name you choose is a pretty big deal, though. Because it’s going to be your name all the time.
I picked Duplicity back when I thought I was going to be a villain. Or maybe I decided to be a villain because the name suited it, I don’t actually remember. I do remember there was already a hero with the same power as me, Miss Multiple or something like that. The niche was full.
The whole city was full, really. New York’s a terrible place for a super just starting out. Yeah, it’s a big market, but everybody with enhanced strength and a homemade costume turns up there sooner or later.
I was halfway through college when I heard about Cosmopolis. Smallish for a city, purpose-built for supers, pretty awesome hero, decent openings for villains- and all the way across the country from New York and my embarrassing lack of backstory. I could start fresh, figure out who I really was. I dropped out of school, sold most of my stuff, and bought a bus ticket.
It was going to be perfect.
02 - Partnership
There are supers on the Cosmopolis police force, registered and listed and trained, people who wanted to fight crime without the costume. There have to be, in a city with superpowered villains. Someone has to arrest them after the hero’s defeated them.
It’s a strange, tenuous partnership all the same. For the most part, the supers and the police leave each other alone.
On the other hand, sometimes there are cases like this. It’s a smuggling ring, mostly black-market magical items, and they’ve got rich backers who are going to run for the lawyers when Amphion busts the headquarters. He’s called in police backup mostly to verify that everything’s legal.
George isn’t expecting to be assigned. Supers cases are usually Costas, with her force fields, or Schumacher and his telekinesis. He’s a rookie with a purely internal power, but Deputy Chief Hu calls him in.
“You’re going to be right in the middle of it,” she says, “but you’ll just be there for observation. We’re going to need a full eyewitness account, and you’re the only one who stands a chance of catching everything.”
He tries to keep his face impassive. “Yes ma’am,” he says.
“Don’t screw it up, Dulane,” she replies. But she’s sort-of-smiling when she says it, so it’s probably all right.
Amphion’s an inch or two shorter than he is, which he wasn’t expecting, and even faster in action than he was expecting. He has to stretch his time perception out almost to the limit to keep up with him.
But it means, proportionally, he’s thinking faster than anybody else when one of the smugglers pulls a fire wand. It’s like being in a dream, when he gets time stretched out this far. He gets the wand out of the guy’s hand with one eye still on the bust. Logically, he knows the adrenaline's coursing, but he barely feels it.
It looks like half an hour, to him, but in real-time it’s something like a minute. Afterwards, when the smugglers are all safely stowed in the squad van, the hero of Cosmopolis comes over to shake his hand.
“Good work in there,” Amphion says, with that broad infectious grin. “Stay on the force, I like you.”
George can’t think of anything to do but grin back.
03 - Signals
The city talks.
Not so anyone on its streets could hear it, but it talks to the subconscious. It’s built across the intersection of magical force lines, and the resonance, well, it sings.
The city sings in the magical network, broadcasting across the subconscious frequencies, day and night, constantly. It’s a simple message, half-formed, more a thought than a word.
Come.
And they do. The sorcerers, the apprentice heroes, the constructs, the creatures, the half-sentient localized magical phenomena, they come to the city not even knowing why. They drift toward it like the accretion disc around a star, they spiral toward it, sometimes they pass through, but sometimes they stay.
And the city talks, waiting for someone to talk back.
01 - Self
Nobody really does the alter-ego thing anymore. Between the internet, social networking, mass media, paperwork hassles, and all that stuff, it’s mostly not worth it.
It means the name you choose is a pretty big deal, though. Because it’s going to be your name all the time.
I picked Duplicity back when I thought I was going to be a villain. Or maybe I decided to be a villain because the name suited it, I don’t actually remember. I do remember there was already a hero with the same power as me, Miss Multiple or something like that. The niche was full.
The whole city was full, really. New York’s a terrible place for a super just starting out. Yeah, it’s a big market, but everybody with enhanced strength and a homemade costume turns up there sooner or later.
I was halfway through college when I heard about Cosmopolis. Smallish for a city, purpose-built for supers, pretty awesome hero, decent openings for villains- and all the way across the country from New York and my embarrassing lack of backstory. I could start fresh, figure out who I really was. I dropped out of school, sold most of my stuff, and bought a bus ticket.
It was going to be perfect.
02 - Partnership
There are supers on the Cosmopolis police force, registered and listed and trained, people who wanted to fight crime without the costume. There have to be, in a city with superpowered villains. Someone has to arrest them after the hero’s defeated them.
It’s a strange, tenuous partnership all the same. For the most part, the supers and the police leave each other alone.
On the other hand, sometimes there are cases like this. It’s a smuggling ring, mostly black-market magical items, and they’ve got rich backers who are going to run for the lawyers when Amphion busts the headquarters. He’s called in police backup mostly to verify that everything’s legal.
George isn’t expecting to be assigned. Supers cases are usually Costas, with her force fields, or Schumacher and his telekinesis. He’s a rookie with a purely internal power, but Deputy Chief Hu calls him in.
“You’re going to be right in the middle of it,” she says, “but you’ll just be there for observation. We’re going to need a full eyewitness account, and you’re the only one who stands a chance of catching everything.”
He tries to keep his face impassive. “Yes ma’am,” he says.
“Don’t screw it up, Dulane,” she replies. But she’s sort-of-smiling when she says it, so it’s probably all right.
Amphion’s an inch or two shorter than he is, which he wasn’t expecting, and even faster in action than he was expecting. He has to stretch his time perception out almost to the limit to keep up with him.
But it means, proportionally, he’s thinking faster than anybody else when one of the smugglers pulls a fire wand. It’s like being in a dream, when he gets time stretched out this far. He gets the wand out of the guy’s hand with one eye still on the bust. Logically, he knows the adrenaline's coursing, but he barely feels it.
It looks like half an hour, to him, but in real-time it’s something like a minute. Afterwards, when the smugglers are all safely stowed in the squad van, the hero of Cosmopolis comes over to shake his hand.
“Good work in there,” Amphion says, with that broad infectious grin. “Stay on the force, I like you.”
George can’t think of anything to do but grin back.
03 - Signals
The city talks.
Not so anyone on its streets could hear it, but it talks to the subconscious. It’s built across the intersection of magical force lines, and the resonance, well, it sings.
The city sings in the magical network, broadcasting across the subconscious frequencies, day and night, constantly. It’s a simple message, half-formed, more a thought than a word.
Come.
And they do. The sorcerers, the apprentice heroes, the constructs, the creatures, the half-sentient localized magical phenomena, they come to the city not even knowing why. They drift toward it like the accretion disc around a star, they spiral toward it, sometimes they pass through, but sometimes they stay.
And the city talks, waiting for someone to talk back.