Next Chapter should be up tonight or tomorrow night (G-daughters graduation is tomorrow). But a little snippet of an alternate future. (in the main story the S9 won't be showing up.)
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"Um...so he walked in and just turned himself in?" Assault asked.
'Yes." Armsmaster said.
"And the rest?"
"Crawler wants to be a PE teacher and the rest have c...
Danny sat in the living room. He was home early and Taylor was out. Maybe as the Investigator, but…
Curt and Lacy gone. Someone like fucking Gray Boy in the Bay. Everyone knew that Orb Weaver was probably an older guy, so he knew who and what Gray Boy had been. To drop that name…
No wonder Kurt and Lacy had taken off.
Orb Wea...
2025-06-04 19:18:40 +0000 UTC View PostEmily Piggot stared at the screens. Victor was being interviewed. Othala and Rune were in the infirmary. Both had been given tranquilizers. She had authorized it when it was plain that any attempts at an interview…
Rune seeing an ant on the ground and trying to use Armsmaster as a tree to climb might be funny, but it pretty much put an end to the interview.
No. It really ...
2025-06-02 20:20:51 +0000 UTC View PostMy first TW for a chapter!
One insect, you could slap. Over one hundred million, not counting the ones around the house and my reserves? Jaws gripped other insects, forming a tight adaptive mesh around the three individuals. You could struggle, but you couldn’t make up any real momentum. Victor fired once, the gunshot muffled by the squirming, chitinous mass. But I wasn’t going...
2025-06-02 06:03:53 +0000 UTC View PostVictor returned to his house at around 4AM. I was risking much, with the timeline shrinking, but…
The hammer blows had to come fast. Victor, Othala, Rune. Not the Empire’s front line fighters, but vital force multipliers. I expected that Victor played a major role in the Empire’s paperwork.
But death… Was not an option here. As much as I wanted to kill Victor,...
2025-05-31 06:56:06 +0000 UTC View PostI'm moving a bit faster, so my question is: would people here be upset if I released the previous chapter to spacebattles, when a new chapter comes up, even if it isn't yet hit it's official release time?
2025-05-30 05:34:35 +0000 UTC View PostTracking Lebensraum was easy. In the aftermath of the botched rally, I waited.
When the clock struck twelve, it was my second day. I would date the six days from the announcement I had just made.
I waited, and followed them. They didn’t notice that in the dark auditorium, in the chaos, that they had crushed insects, leaving a chemical scent. The little band got into cars, and I se...
2025-05-30 03:30:56 +0000 UTC View PostIt’s time. I was nervous. After this, there would be no going back in a number of ways. My bugs were ready. I’d tracked many of the workers of the Medhall buiding to their homes. MS. Blackwell, before she’d left (I’d suggested Boston, she’d chosen Los Angeles), had given me the information about homeschooling and I’d found out that “Sabrina the Teenaged Nazi” as some ca...
2025-05-28 20:27:31 +0000 UTC View PostDay 1
I had to prepare. As much as I wanted to start now, I had to prepare. I was not a spirit of darkness, whatever I led people to believe. I was a very squishy teenager, and the Empire would be in the fight for its life. I couldn’t give them time to think, or plan, or start considering WHY Orb Weaver always arranged the ground before appearing.
I was fairly certain the...
2025-05-25 22:52:44 +0000 UTC View PostI returned home later that afternoon. Armsmaster had warned me about going after the Empire myself. I agreed. “The Investigator is not suited for direct fights,” I had told him. He also mentioned that I should be very careful of who I spoke to and report any odd lapses in memory or skills to the PRT immediately.
“When facing a Master,” he told me. “Retreating is not cowardice....
2025-05-22 19:51:33 +0000 UTC View PostArmsmaster let me ride on the back of his bike, somehow pulling a helmet out of a compartment far too small for it. He didn’t say much, but I noticed how stiff he was.
He is infuriated.
Why not? Armsmaster was an engineer with a half-dozen major non-tinkertech patents to his name. The idea of being… reduced like that must be uniquely horrifying to him.
While we dr...
2025-05-19 20:20:04 +0000 UTC View PostOne does not casually scream "Master!"...
****
When Amy arrived, she was frowning. “I was helping Vicky,” she said. “But what is it?”
“There is a woman in there, suffering from odd symptoms.” Armsmaster gestured. “I would like you to examine her.”
“Nothing else?”
“This is an investigation. I don’t want to risk you prejudging the case. I’l...
2025-05-16 06:06:55 +0000 UTC View PostArmsmaster met me at the hospital. I’d noticed a few PRT vans driving alongside the bus I took and once I detected Velocity, zipping around me. I’d called the PRT and mentioned that Orb Weaver had asked me to check out the case of Sheila Cho.
And the Protectorate was taking this seriously.
But it presented a problem. I couldn’t displace my emotional tells into my swarm, not fu...
2025-05-12 03:33:45 +0000 UTC View PostKeeping my mind on my surroundings was second nature. So one day when I was walking through Arcadia, I heard a girl crying on a phone.
“I—I need another shift! I know that I’m over my hours for today but could you just… I know… No, I understand. Do you know anyone who is willing to take someone part time? This Friday? Thank you!”
I changed my walk, slowing up as I headed...
2025-05-08 06:42:27 +0000 UTC View Postnext chapter coming up this week, but the Gdaughter has a new after school class thing, as well as her surgery coming up this friday and getting the next chapter done to have the impact I want, but not be gratuitous, is difficult. Working on it, I promise!
2025-05-06 05:37:36 +0000 UTC View PostTwo Years Before the Battle of Naboo
Trader’s Misfortune was named aptly. The pirate ship had been the misfortune of many traders, after all.
“What is it, Mios,” Jarrack said as he came onto the bridge. “I was breaking in the new Twi'lek.”
“Ship, boss,” the pirate said. He glanced up at the human. “Cold ship.”
“What?”
Jarrack looked at the rea...
2025-05-06 01:42:49 +0000 UTC View PostA Long, Long, Time Ago…
The bioship was dying. It had drifted for thousands of years, cannibalizing its own bioforms, but now the time had come that the Mind understood that it would not reach a source of biomass in time for survival.
That was unacceptable. It had been cast out, into some strange dimension, only to be flung out into another realm, so far from the hive mi...
2025-05-05 02:13:13 +0000 UTC View PostAs the first chapter, I decided to make this one free, the next chapters will all be released a day or so earlier.
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It started on Monday. That was what I forever remembered most. A normal Monday, Truce ended, the newest West Coast story about a parahuman bank robbery pushing the aftermath of Leviathan’s attack off the front page. Better yet, the Asian kids had stopped bowing...
2025-05-01 20:09:18 +0000 UTC View PostI vanished in 1970. When I came back, it was 1972, and I'd spent two years in the Fairylands. Adventures, scary adventures. Then I ended up betrothed to a prince, at 16. Then I found out that the betrothal involved a human sacrifice. Mine.
Fun times, and when I came back… Half the people were talking to me like I was possessed by the devil. The other half were… different. My old...
I had a rpg bit on spacebattles: And I'm getting tired of leaving half finished crap all over the place. So I'm going to be redoing it, each chapter first available here, then on the forum, and the ultimate desire will be a world book with AI art to break up the pages, and t...
2025-04-30 05:42:16 +0000 UTC View PostWhen Sheila Cho got to her apartment, she had her hands full of papers from the days work.
Big mistake, because just as she got to the door, it shot open and pair of plug-uglies grabbed her and pulled her in.
They slammed her down on her writing chair and a man came out of the shadows from her little kitchen.
Victor.
Fuck.
“So, my office hours are posted...
2025-04-29 02:16:37 +0000 UTC View PostI returned to the PRT HQ with the Wards. We had to wait our turn, as most Protectorate Heroes needed to get back before the Truce ended and most villains, those willing to use Strider, were also eager to get home before the Truce ended, to shore up their territories, or just relax before things went back to normal.
There was a sense of excitement in the air as I returned. I could understa...
2025-04-24 22:06:55 +0000 UTC View PostJason held the gun in his hands. He’d woken up in a hotel, with the gun, and a letter. Normal really, that was how you did things with a customer. You didn’t see them, and so you couldn’t sell them out. Sure they could sell you out, but if the police knew enough to set that trap, they wouldn’t bother.
“Mr. Isaacs, as you know, we have contacted you for the purpose of eliminating...
2025-04-24 01:53:54 +0000 UTC View PostEmily Piggot treasured the times when the Bay didn’t feel like it was about to catch fire. But now wasn’t one of them.
We didn’t lose anyone. That was the good news. The bad news was that Youth Guard was breathing down their neck, wanting an in-depth analysis about how a bunch of Wards ended up fighting Leviathan, and why Alexandria was on record giving orders that delayed ...
2025-04-18 19:24:57 +0000 UTC View PostOphelia was organized. She had to be. She was 34, and Claire at sixteen had been born when she was 18 and just starting college. An accident, though she would never even breathe that word to Claire.
Claire turning into a sorceress, her boyfriend (nice boy but a bit of a flake), into some kind of chosen warrior—and then a half troll…
Had challenged her. But they were both mature,...
2025-04-16 01:29:28 +0000 UTC View PostCoil sat down in his office, watching the video. Not one he’d had to retrieve using his normal methods. No, the—soon to be unemployed—intern had blasted the video to several newsgroups, and such juicy footage was not across the globe. The success of operation had also helped. Instead of a blasted no-go zone, the region looked like it had just survived a major hurricane. Well, les...
2025-04-15 01:51:02 +0000 UTC View PostReina went home early. Supposedly the Truce endured after the Endbringer fled, but there had been incidents in the past. She had helped Clockblocker, putting up structures of paper to let EMS workers move into damaged structures, and Clockblocker had frozen them.
In a crisis, he was not nearly the silly joker PHO said. None of the Wards were.
It is fortunate that they a...
2025-04-12 02:29:31 +0000 UTC View PostGiven the utter SHITshow in the real world, I'm thinking of something a little fluffier and lighter than Worm...
***
Seventeen years old... Clair thought. She leaned against Jim, his trollish skin warm. They were out, in the woods, the moon rising while the hills still retained the heat to the day.
"It's not your fault," she said. "Merlin..."
"Didn't car...
Even as powerful as Leviathan was, once he fled, the weather quickly shifted back to normal, clouds vanishing into a blue sky.
I supposed it was comforting in a way, that even an Endbringer could not shift the weather on a long-term basis.
Strange. If he’d just kept swimming off the coast, sending in waves and rain, we wouldn’t have been able to do anything. I wonder if it...
2025-04-04 02:46:26 +0000 UTC View Post“Tenebrae,” I said. “I need you to cover the building, I don’t want Leviathan to see the people." Or hopefully, decide that there might be a trap behind Brian’s smoke. There was nothing keeping the Endbringer from killing us all but the hope was that we might be able to bluff it.
“Everyone else, retreat behind the cover, of Tenebrae’s cloud.”
“What?” Glory girl s...
2025-03-31 21:09:41 +0000 UTC View Post