McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
Writers round table
Kristine:
(if I'm wrong on car type--let me know!) - Frances did have a Camaro when he first got the Wildfire but he wrecked it and the magic saved his life - Nothing says he couldn't have a sentimental attachment to that year of car and bought another one though ;D
--- Quote from: meg_evonne on April 18, 2008, 12:56:19 AM ---Trouble was--it wasn't quite fast enough.
--- End quote ---
The first bullet smashed through the back windshield and imbedded itself in the dashboard inbetween the radio and the air vents. As if that would not have been bad enough a blue spark flashed from the hole it made as if it had struck something electrical but, through the wildflower, I felt the conection to the magic of my native homeworld. Who ever had made the bullets must have been fairly powerful because I could sense the difficulty of pulling the magic from this very non-magic world. The magic reacted sluggishly at first like something pulling against suction but once it came loose some very large nasty looking hairy legged bugs poured from the where the slug was spinning some kind of magic.
Frances wretched the car to one side of the street slamming on the breaks as we heard 3 more bullets pierce the metal of the car's body. I was trying to become one with my seat back through sheer osmosis, pushing with my legs, away from the insects. As disoriented, disturbed and reactionary as I was, the wildflower threw information up to my reeling brain.
The insects were normal, earth bugs, but the slugs were creating some kind of spacial anomoly that punched a hole into thier nest far away. I was no entomologist but i was willing to bet that they were not harmless or friendly (not that I would know a freindly bug from an angry bug). I also could feel that the magic the wildflower would have to draw from, was slow and difficult to manipulate so we would have half the nest in the car before I could pull any new magic into the situation.
Frances yelped and slapped at the couple of insects that had made it over onto his leg. definitely not friendly. I acted on instinct the same way I had pushed myself back into the seat, and reached out to the only magic I could get to - the bullet iteself. I thought about plugging the hole with something but that would require me to pull energy to- that wasn't going to be possible in a pinch.
I had always gotten the creeps from bugs. I wanted them gone so I moved the hole's other end to the only place I could think of that would take them back, away from me. It wasn't exactly a well thought out manuver.
The bullet sized hole into the vacuum of deep space almost immediately sucked out all the bugs, then it drew in a stray gum wraper from off the floor and created a brisk breeze within the car as nature tried to fill the vacuum of deep space with the air inside the Camero.
meg_evonne:
The Camaro had ended up on the curbing, near a light pole and a bunch of empty garbage cans. Frances was swearing up a storm and bullets were still raining into the car. Suddenly we heard gunshots from in front of us, only they sounded more like a cannon. Instead of fum, fum, fums, they were whoom, whoom, whooms. From behind the garbage cans came a slender, small figure with one hell of a handgun held police style--straight out with both arms locked against what had to be a monstrous kickback. She blasted non-stop rounds and calmly walked up to my side of the car, ignoring the intial shooter who shifted aim from our car to her, inadvertently punching holes in the garbage cans.
An SUV's brakes squelled and stopped next to us. Frances and I both ducked, thinking the bad guys had backup, but it proved to be the sex goddess Sarah Carrolton. She visually confirmed we were not injured, pulled a lever on her dashboard and holy hell fired out the back of her car towards the shooters. It sounded like a nuclear blast when it hit. "Eat that James Bond," we heard her yell.
The car door opened on my side and the fearless gunwoman slipped in beside me, pushing me over, with a "Hi ya, Joey Gardner. How ya doing?" She turned around and fired a couple more rounds at the smoke pile of a vehicle behind us that must have housed the shooters.
Frances gave a thumbs up to Carrolton, backed his car with blinding speed, shifted gears and tore off heading away from the nuk cloud. Carrolton taking point.
I had turned around in my seat to check out the nuclear cloud. As it got smaller in the rear view window, I twisted back around. I grabbed the woman beside me in a bear hug. "It's good to see you, Debbie. They call me Joey Capp now. I have a Interpol ID card and everything."
She smiled back. "That's cool."
Qualapec:
--- Quote ---"It's good to see you, Debbie. They call me Joey Capp now. I have a Interpol ID card and everything."
She smiled back. "That's cool."
--- End quote ---
I was both happy and grateful to see her. Grateful, obviously, because she'd just saved my very pasty ass, and happy because...well...
Seeing her made me realize how alone I'd felt kind since I'd returned to my world. Frances had a connection to the Wildflower, true, so there was a bit of kinship there. But I hadn't been in as many terrifying situations with him as I had with Debbie. Nor were we friends beforehand. And she wasn't like Carrolton, who gave me looks like I belonged in the loony bin. Debbie knew all about it, she knew the ins and outs of the worlds surrounding us.
More importantly, I knew for an absolute fact I could trust her. There was always that doubt with other people, but Debbie had proven to me that for a thief she was rather honest.
"What are you doing here?" He asked, with a little more adrenaline driven anger than he'd intended to. "I mean," He added quickly, "Not that I'm complaining, we would have been bug food if you hadn't showed up..."
She shrugged, "I was in the neighborhood..." She cast a suspicious look to Frances.
"You can talk in front of him, he's cued in," I felt so cool for saying it, I don't know why. Something about it gave me a sense that I knew what I was doing (which I'll remind you, I never do, it's my natural state). "He was the wild-bound before me."
An inexplicable emotion crossed Debbie's face as she looked from me, to Frances, back to me again.
At the moment, I wrote it off as suprise.
I was in the process of formulating an explaination of the last 24 hours, when suddenly something slammed into the side of the car hard enough to send us into the opposing lane. The suddenness and loudness of the impact shocked me first. They're always louder than you expect them to be. The second thing that shocked me was the fact that a semi-truck was barreling towards us.
"Shit!" Frances yelled before quickly swerving again into the lane we'd originated in, barely avoiding a collision that would have squished our car like a can crusher. I gathered my wits and struggled to see the thing that had hit us.
When I finally did catch a glimpse of it, I wished I hadn't.
It was almost cartoonish in shape. With humorously large appendages and paws. It's face was that of a fearsome, yet humorous gargoyle, the spiraling rams horns coming off of the top of it's head also seemed over dramatized, and the dramatic wings looked heavier than the body itself. Its skin seemed to be made of molten rock. It was amazing that it managed to maintain flight. It had to be using magic, which was impressive seeing as how difficult it was to call magic on this plane of existence. Which meant that it was either very enterprising and clever or...
...or it had a surplus of spiritual energy that could be used to keep it aflight.
Oh crap...
It flew above the car, and landed on the top, crasping at the insides of the windows with it's massive claws. "Frances!" I yelled, I needed him to park the car so I could fight this thing. I didn't trust my skills to fight something of that kind of power in such cramped quarters, with two other people there. I grabbed the Wildflower, expecting it to lend us just a teency bit help, even if this world wasn't its natural state.
Still, it needed to detach itself from the car before we could park. I frantically grabbed at the lightsabre in the shoulder holster, in a brilliant flare of light and power it became the sword it had been in Wildfire. It was still glowing with transformation as I thrust it through the roof of the car up to the hilt, as quickly as I could.
It couldn't have been a worse plan, the thing must have dodged, twisting it's body in another direction to avoid the blade. The center of gravity in the moving car shifted and to keep from tipping over we jerked to the left. Right into a telephone pole. The sudden stopping sensation sent me flying forewards into the car seat in front of me. I banged my head hard enough for a sharp snap to come from my nose, followed by pain and a gush of blood. Frances' airbag kicked in when we impacted, so I didn't know how hurt he was. Debbie had used some of her magic at the last second, and had somehow slowed or prevented her impact into the drivers seat.
Worse than the telephone pole. The Thing was now on all fours, and paused at the back of our car. In it's hand a ball of firey energy was developing.
I sensed the power gathering, and found myself cursing loudly. There was enough energy in that little ball of fire to blow us halfway over the goddamn moon.
It released the ball of fire before there was anything I could do to stop it. I braced myself for the impact, flowing energy into the Wildflower in the hope that it would help us survive.
The explosion came in a rush of scarlet and fire, and dust, lots of dust. All around us the cars windows burned with crimson energy, while fire gushed behind them. Maintaining the momentum of an incredibly violent explosion.
Very interesting, I'd never been on the inside of an explosion before. More importantly it was very interesting how, while all of this was happening, we were not being blown halfway over the goddamn moon. The momentum from the explosion died down, but enough dust had been kicked up that the crimson still surrounding us was coated with it, obscuring us from the world beyond.
I smiled, a shield. A shield had come up at the last moment and saved us. The shield dropped seconds after I realized it for what it was. The dust that settled on it was tossed up again, and I barely registered a figure leaping down from the roof of the Camero to the ground. But after a few seconds I could see him clearly through the broken rear window.
He looked only a couple years older than me, with feathery blond hair and a fedora. A young, shaven John Schneider cosplaying as Indiana Jones, with a beautiful Chinese sword in one hand, reworked since I'd last seen him.
"Great balls of fire," He said with a Cheshire cat smile I knew all to well. "Sorry I'm late, Mr. Gardner."
meg_evonne:
I kicked open the Camero's door that had crumpled in the accident and leaped out, Wildfire flaming lights outwards. Debbie instantly was beside me, her cannon handgun reloaded and ready.
"Good to see you, friend. I see Humbert got your hand back on again. As good as new I hope?" I asked and took three long steps and I was on his right, the Wildflower free in my right hand. Debbie closed in on his left, her cannon once more extended and ready. "
Andre snarked back, "You cut my fucking hand off, Joey. Don't think I've forgiven you."
Molten Rock Beast was on its four legs, wings furled tight to its body,in some sort of ground attack mode. It's upper body tipped upwards from it's broad base and two arms flickered weak green energy. Somehow Andre had interferred with the beast's ability to form fireballs. On the other hand, the flickering seemed to be lengthening, strengthening. I figured it would be back up to maximum power soon enough to do us damage.
Carrolton and Frances joined the party. Carrolton was sporting a similar cannon gun to Debbie's. Frances had pulled out a sword from somewhere, maybe from under the dashboard of his Camero. The airbag and the seatbelts must have caused some damage and had to hurt like hell, given his fierce expression of concentration and his difficulty breathing. 'Wait airbags in a old, but restorable Camero?' Obviously Frances' restoration job must have begun with some practical features before he moved to the outside. Then again---if he fixed the outside up, it would probably just get 'beercanned'* by some supernatural power again Frances grimaced as he raised his sword. 'Damn, he's probably broken a rib or two.' I'm going to have to remember that he's only a knowledgable human and no real magic.'
We fanned out, Andre at point, Debbie and I next. Frances slippped into place behind Debbie and Carrolton stepped behind me. Carrolton's attitude towards me was night and day from the crime scene. She eyed me and the lighted Wildflower as if we were starter plates. 'God, the woman was a sexual barracuda.' I'd deal with that later. Right now, I had a Molten Rock Beast to handle.
We stepped out as one.
(click to show/hide)*beercanned--obviously borrowed. Thanks JB.
Edited: Yeah, my system has developed it's own shortcut and keeps posting for me with a click before I'm ready. Frustrating....
If this isn't Andre, let me know so I can make adjustments...
Anduriel:
--- Quote --- We stepped out as one.
--- End quote ---
Joey
This would have looked much cooler if Rocky Bal-lava hadn’t flown back into the air, leaving us stranded. Hitting a moving target is hard. Trying to hit a moving target that can fly, whilst you have no projectiles, is just a joke.
“Uh, anybody know what that is?”
“Garathmor.” Was Andre’s reply; as if that should explain everything.
It didn’t.
“A freaking lava demon!?!” Debbie exclaimed as she explained “But only He has access to those…”
“Oh.” Master of linguistics; that’s me.
By this time, the demon was high in the air, and it looked as though another fireball was in the making. Andre cursed loudly.
“I can’t sling spells and protect us at the same time, not enough magic here. Debyone, are you strong?”
“I’ve got enough energy, but… you know I suck at target practice. Plus it’s a demon, aren’t they impervious to magics?”
At that moment Carrolton broke formation and went to the trunk of her SUV.
“I think I may be able to help there.”
When she returned, she was packing an honest to god rocket launcher. I swear.
***
Meanwhile
Reza
Somewhere on Wildfire
Explanations.
There comes a time in every person’s life, when an explanation is demanded of them; a detailed reasoning as to the results of a certain set of events. It was my turn to make such an explanation. Which is why after Debyone and Andreska departed, I was summoned here; to mount T’orth Kuru.
T’orth Kuru is a grand mountain set deep in the valleys of Londorn. Deep set into this mountain is a maze of catacombs and at the end of one tunnel is a chamber. Now this chamber has seen many a purpose over the eons, first and foremost a door to an inter-dimensional gateway.
There also comes a time in one’s life when you must choose a side, choose your allegiance in the battles to come. There are more forces vying for the worlds than just the emperor. I have chosen my side. And now I must pay my dues.
She was already here before I arrived at the mountain. She had been waiting for me, though I could not see Her.
A chilling voice rang throughout the cavern. Feminine, a voice one could feel as much as hear, it was as sweet as it was foreboding.
“You know why you have been summoned here, child of Wildfire?”
“I do.”
“Then let us begin.”
I had told Mr Gardner that either way, whatever the outcome; I would win.
I had lied.
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