Gunslinger's End

Duncan Dakota felt his horse shiver, and dismounted just before the beast keeled over and died. He wasn't entirely surprised; the horse was stolen, and he'd been driving the beast hard into the canyons, trying to shake the posse off his back. Maybe he shouldn't have gunned down that sheriff, but if the man didn't want a bullet in his pate he shouldn't have asked for Duncan's gun. Who'd've known a sheriff would have friends?

He took a few minutes to check the saddle, and came up with a half-full waterskin, a blanket, and not much else. Cursing the dead beast's owner under his breath, he rose...

A stone clicked against another stone, and Duncan spun. His pistol cleared leather, and he was ready to go down shooting, but...

He froze. 

The thing in front of him was near to his own size, shorter but wider, hairless and pale. Its features were half-formed, almost melted, and it blinked strange, orange eyes at him. This it flowed forward. Duncan squeezed off a single shot, but by then it was too late. He fell back, screaming, as it surrounded him and overwhelmed his flesh, pouring in through mouth and nose and ears. 

Duncan Dakota stirred on the sands of the canyon floor, then sat up slowly. He climbed clumsily to his feet, then looked himself over. "Oh yes," he said, tasting his new language, his new understanding. "You'll do nicely." 

Dreams: The Empty Archipelago

Slept hard the night after we got back, and had one of those bizarrely lucid dreams that I sometimes do. I'm probably the better for it; these sorts of dreams tend to come along when I'm shaking something off. 

I'd been in an airplane, and we'd made an emergency landing on a stretch of road on an island. No idea where; the dream started after we'd landed, so we didn't get any dramatic speeches from the pilot or anything. I just came into the dream knowing that the plane was down, that it had landed safely but we didn't have any way to get it back up. Most of the passengers decided to stay put and wait for help, but I went exploring instead. 

So: island, tropical, built out but strangely empty. There were roads, sidewalks, buildings, a lighthouse off in the distance. No people, though. There was another island nearby, that looked close enough to swim to; I headed down a wooden walkway that went off in that direction. A few of the other passengers filtered out after me. 

The boardwalk ended in small, avant-guard museum, which was unlocked but uninhabited. I had a flashlight on me, so we made our way through to the back rooms, which had table holding massive vegetables -- like, a squash the size of my chest. Reassured that we wouldn't starve if things like this grew around here, I found the back door, and... 

Came out into a room with people in it. They didn't seem surprised by our appearance, or even very interested in it, but they answered questions. No, they didn't really know how they got here. No, they didn't know any way back. Yes, there was food and water -- I wasn't sure if they grew it, or if it just somehow appeared from time to time. As far as I could tell, they'd established routines and were content where they were. 

I meant to move further in, to see if I could figure out what was going on here, but I woke up before I could get any further. 

 

Burials, Grief, and Relief

We had a second service for my father's actual burial this past weekend. Lot of family who hadn't made it to the memorial service, a lot going on, a lot old ghosts -- good and bad. My wife keeps asking me how I'm feeling about this, and in the moment I'd have to say that I wasn't feeling much about it at all. I was just busy trying to make sure everything worked. 

Which it did. No major mishaps, no family drama -- that side of the family isn't much for drama anyway -- and even a little time the day before to roam around the mountaintop and do a bit of exploring. (Well, for the kids it was exploring. For us, it was revisiting.) I hadn't expected to put my legs through quite that much exercise, but apparently I'm still up to it. And after things were finished, we were able to go down to our little rental cabin where nobody would bother us, so it was even fairly restful. Secondborn would have liked to do a lot more roaming around with a sword, but the schedule simply didn't allow it. 

I am frankly amazed that it went as smoothly as it did, and as we were heading down the mountain on the way back what I felt most was a profound sense of relief. It's done now. It went well. It's over.

Student: Domain

Name: Arthur Slater
Nickname: Domain
Age: 13
Appearance: 5' tall with platinum-blond hair and square features, well-kept and neatly dressed. 
Quirks: Hates water pistols and sprayers, loves swimming, distrusts authority figures, huge Pokemon fan, terrified of hurting people.

Arthur Slater was taken from his parents at a young age and barely remembers them. He passed through a series of county homes and foster homes, and eventually wound up with the Folsoms -- a couple in their thirties who had very strict ideas about discipline and training. His powers first manifested themselves when his foster mother was spraying him in the eyes with a water pistol as punishment for not listening when she spoke (he'd been reading). He dissolved her arm, and then -- in horror -- sealed over the stump. He then fled the house, and wound up in the local nature preserve. 

Arthur is an extremely powerful psychic, but his power is limited to range of thirty two feet and four inches. Within that sphere, he can do virtually anything -- including teleport. He closed most of his power off after injuring his foster mother, then began exploring it more carefully so that he wouldn't starve in the woods. 

He was found in the Preserve by the Alpha Hound Lynx, and her acting hunter, Hunter Dee -- Harbinger, from Saint Vincent's School for Exceptional Youth. They managed to convince the boy to return to the police with them and testify against his foster parents. Given a choice between remaining in the foster system, coming to Saint Vincent's, or joining the Hounds, Arthur chose to come to Saint Vincent's. 

StV: Blackhand vs. Jade, part five

"Keep your armor up," Blackhand warned, and Jade nodded behind her green-and-white helm. She raised sword and shield, and he stepped in, bracing his right wrist with his left hand and then shoving a lance of his power out and down to pin her foot to the ground. 

It was a new move; he'd never tried anything like it before, and he didn't know whether Jade could match his reach or not. If she could, she didn't manage it fast enough. Her armor held, but her foot was still pinned and she stumbled, stamping with her right foot to catch her balance. It was exactly what Blackhand had hoped for. 

He withdrew the lance and formed armor as he sprang, pushing her sword and shield aside so he could catch her torso, sweep her right leg, and drop her onto her back. She grunted as she landed -- surprise or pain, he couldn't tell -- and let both sword and shield withdraw as she converted her armor to be covered in spikes. 

It wasn't enough to get through his black skin, and with his power active he was stronger than she was. He slid around, less smoothly than he was used to, and managed to position himself for an arm lock. Her armor might absorb the impact of hitting the floor, but he was betting it wouldn't prevent him from dislocating her arm.  

Still, he was absolutely shocked when she reached up and tapped out, fingers impacting firmly on his thigh.

"There you go," she said, sounding pleased. "That would have taken me out, or at least reduced my effectiveness."

Blackhand let go of her arm, scooted back, and sat up. "Could I actually have dislocated your arm?"

"I think so. I haven't had to work on preventing that sort of thing, and you caught me off-guard, so yeah: if it had come down to it, that would've worked."

"Holy shit," he said. 

"Yeah," said Jade. "I didn't expect that at all. I should have known better than to underestimate anybody who could survive Harbinger." She hesitated. "If you're looking for work, I could use you on Team Phoenix."

"...You're serious."

"As a heart attack, as my gram used to say." Jade was sitting up as well. 

"You don't think our powers are too similar?"

Jade shook her head. "You can spot other Anomalies. I don't think anybody else on the team can except maybe Shunt, and he won't always think to look. And Team Phoenix is... I mean, we train for combat, obviously, but we're we're much more of an investigative, exploratory team. So yeah, I think we could use you. Plus, I like the way you think."

"That's... You know I'm part of DAAT, right?"

Jade nodded. "I know. And if that's a problem for you, you can always say No and I won't push it. Wouldn't want you on the team if you didn't want to be there."

Blackhand fought down a moment of panic. Mongrel would rip his heart out of his chest if he defected... but Mongrel was dead, along with his mother and a lot more of the upper leadership that had shaped DAAT into what it was. The old guard just didn't have the grip it once did on the Program.  "That's... I've got to think about that."

Jade nodded. "Just let me know." 

StV: Blackhand vs. Jade, part four

Fuck me, Blackhand thought, after their third pass. Jade was holding back, being careful, letting him experiment. She had her armor up, and his power couldn't get through it. If he kept himself fully armored, he had no reach and couldn't get past her sword and shield -- but at least she couldn't really hurt him either. If he shifted his power to form a blade, he could at least attack her effectively -- but if she connected with him, she'd cut him in half.

By the time their fourth pass started, he found himself drenched in sweat and switching back and forth as quickly as he could: blade-strike-parry-slide-shield-blade-armor-claws-grasp-miss-blade, until all his focus was on coordinating his power with the movements he needed. Jade's training wasn't flawless, but it was every bit as good as his. 

He fell back, panting, and Jade raised a hand. "Catch your breath," she said. 

"This is... I can't..." 

Jade shrugged. "We're not all evenly matched, but that isn't the point of this. You're already doing things I bet you never tried before."

Blackhand sagged, let himself relax and breathe. She was right, he realized. It didn't make him feel particularly better, but she was right. He'd trained to fight with claws, or with his power concentrated to form a blade. Switching back and forth between them was new; switching between either of those and his full armor was newer still. "Yeah. Okay. Good point." He took a minute or so to get his breathing under control. Jade, to his irritation, didn't even look winded -- though he suspected that she was at least sweating under her armor. "If I could make contact, I could weaken you and strengthen myself, but..." He shook his head. "That armor of yours is something else."

"Do you want to stop here, or keep going?" Jade's voice was gentle; she wouldn't judge him either way. 

"One more," he said after a moment. "Maybe two. I've got a couple of things I'd like to try if I can manage them."

"All right," Jade drawled. "As soon as you're ready. 

StV: Blackhand vs. Jade, part three

"I can spot Anomalies," Blackhand said quietly. "That's the big thing. That's why they recruited me. But the reason I'm an Alpha Hound..." he shook his hand out, then encased it in that strange black tissue that turned everything from his wrists to his fingers into oversized claws.

Jade studied him for a long moment, then nodded. "That, and you're trained to do violence with those."

He nodded. "I really only had to once. Domestic violence situation, and the wife turned her husband in as a... an Anomaly. He freaked out when we showed up at the door, tried to kill his wife. I had to cut him up pretty badly to get him to stop, and by then he'd broken a bunch of her ribs and both her arms. Fucking wonder her spine was intact."

"She lived, though?" Jade asked quietly. 

Blackhand sighed. "I don't know. They don't tell me anything. Official word was yes, job well done, dangerous deviant now in captivity, but..."

Jade nodded. "You don't know."

"I don't know," he repeated. "Anyway, when Harbinger tried to kill me I probably protected myself like this." He called the black growth out, covered himself in it, and stood there, faceless, for a long moment. Then he let it pull back in. 

"Lucky," said Jade. "I'm glad you made it. Okay, so now you know you can use it for armor, not just to make claws or blades."

Blackhand nodded. "But I'm pushing my limits, and if I cover myself with it I don't have enough left to make proper claws, let alone blades."

Jade considered that. "Well, we're all working with our own limitations," she said. "Here." She covered himself in a milky green armor, equipped with sword and shield, and stood facing him, shield first. "Can you form it into a sword?"

StV: Blackhand vs. Jade, part two

Blackhand looked around curiously. Despite the plaque above the door, this was very definitely not a pickleball court. He hadn't expected it to be, not after what Jade had told him outside the door, but...

"Wait a minute. Jade? Like, the one we captured -- or kidnapped?"

She turned back, smiled, and nodded. "The very same. I was still inside the medical wing, waiting to keep you from coming in and killing everyone, or else we'd have met earlier."

Did Harbinger just send me to the captain of Team Phoenix for training??? Apparently he had. "Um," he said, suddenly uncomfortable. "Is that going to be a problem?"

"Was it your idea to kidnap us?" she asked. 

Blackhand shook his head. "None of us even knew you were there. It was just a breakout, all hands on deck to suppress it, go here and assist."

Jade studied him for a long moment. "And then your hunter died."

Blackhand squeezed his eyes closed, resisted the urge to step back. "Let's not talk about that."

"Harbinger told me," Jade said quietly. "He feels bad about it. I think that's part of why he's trying to help you. I'm... sorry for your loss." 

Blackhand hesitated, then reached past his pain. "Whatever we were about to do to you was probably worse," he said. "Let's just... let's just leave that part behind, if we can. If you don't mind."

Jade nodded. "Sure." She glanced up at an armored window. "Ms. Brigham, are you ready?"

There was a soft click, and a voice said, "Ready."

"Okay," said Jade. "Harbinger didn't give me a lot of detail. Can you show me what you do normally, and then whatever else you discovered?" 

StV: Blackhand vs. Jade, part one

"Hey there," said the tall, athletic girl with the short brown hair as she joined him beside the door. He'd had no idea that this basement under the gymnasium even existed until he'd been invited to come down for a practice. "You ready to do this?"

Blackhand eyed her warily. She was an Anomaly, of course; he felt the shiver of recognition that filled him every time he checked anyone at Saint Vincent's School for Exceptional Youth. Well, anyone except the music teacher, which had startled him so much that he'd checked four times before giving up. "Do what, exactly?" 

"They didn't explain?" asked the girl, stopping far enough back that she didn't loom over him, then shaking her head with a sigh. "Possibly I wasn't clear enough. All right, well... you recently got a better handle on your power, right?"

"How did you know that?" Blackhand blurted. "Sorry. I just... didn't expect..."

"Harbinger told me about it, when he was asking me to help you explore it further."

"Ah," said Blackhand. "Okay, that makes more sense." Seeing as Harbinger had been the one who'd helped him figure it out, at least... And Harbinger really did seem to want to prove that he was a friend, or at least not an enemy.

"...Annnd, he didn't mention this to you either. Okay, then." She shook her head again. "Anyway, I talked to Ms. Brigham, and she set up a training time and sent the invitations. She'll be overseeing us. So if you don't want to do this, it's okay. Nobody's forcing you."

"Saint Vincent's is offering to help me improve my power, and you think nobody's forcing me?" He chuckled. "Hearne would never forgive me if I passed this up. Hell, I'd never forgive myself."

"All right," Jade said, and smiled. The expression was relaxed and easy on her face, and she tapped a code into the pad beside the door. "Come on inside, and let's take a look. I'm Jade."

"Blackhand," he said automatically, and followed her through the door. 

Music: Alibi

Dessa:

Week of Mondays...

So, somewhere in here -- hopefully today -- we're supposed to be getting some replacement equipment which I'll need to provision and get into place as quickly as possible. It should have come in yesterday -- Tuesday would have been better in some ways, worse in others -- but it didn't. So I'm kind of on hold, working on other things while waiting for this massive pile of work to drop on my desk. I'm also trying to catch up on some non-work things from back before Christmas, but progress has been... erratic. 

Current events are making me crazy; I need to stop looking at the news for a bit.  

Writing is keeping me sane.  

That's all for now. 

Music: Rockin' The Bronx

Black 47:

Music: Burning Man

Dierks Bentley:

Frazzled

I didn't take any vacation time off around Christmas or New Year's Day, which means that I had three days of mid-week vacation and my sense of time is absolutely scrambled; I spent half the Friday after New Year's think it was Monday, then went to Dad's Wife's house to celebrate my nephew's birthday. It went well, I think, but we're due to go inter my dad's ashes in two weeks and so that just hit me. Plus, a friend -- the father of Secondborn's closest friend -- is back in the hospital, so there's that. (He's been dying by inches for about three years now, but it looks like we're down to the final month or two; or maybe that's weeks.) Oh, and add to that the moral injury of "We're invading Venezuela under the transparent pretext of overthrowing a dictator so that we can grab their oil" along with, well, everything else the Republicans are doing and the Democrats are too busy being helpless to effectively oppose, and I'm just... tired, even after a solid night's sleep. 

Planning would be a whole lot easier if I weren't busy disassociating, basically. 

I have two writing projects that are... both coming along at their own speed, I think. One of them might be publishable when it's finished; the other one... I guess technically I could publish it, but I feel like I'd owe an apology to anyone who actually bought it. (Not because it's self-indulgent and the main character is a huge Mary Sue -- though both those things are true -- but because it's sloppy and I lack the dedication to go back and clean it up.) I'm okay with that; I'm writing them more for my own sanity than for any sort of readership or income stream. I've been replaying The Outer Worlds, which is... a good game, if not a great one, and fits neatly with the mood of the primary (publishable) writing project. 

The cat spent a portion of Friday night climbing around on top of the shelves in our bedroom, and didn't even have the grace to look guilty when I located him. Which was actually pretty cute; kitten is going to kitten, after all. The dog is keeping me company on the back couch while I'm writing this, and  I've still got most of Saturday and Sunday to recuperate -- even if this post won't go up until Monday. 

I am not looking forward to Monday. I expect work is going to be crazy-busy, and I've got to put a request for vacation time in for Dad's interment, and after all the work on the upgrades and whatnot I've just kind of bottomed out. Still love the new job, and I really like the people I'm working with, though. Even with the commute, it's a huge improvement. But yeah, I should have taken Friday off and just let myself crash out to get ready for this. 

It's a rough time for everybody right now, I think. Take care of yourselves, Gentle Readers, and do whatever you can to take care of each other.  

Azzazizz: An Ill-Considered Attack

Azzazizz -- Aziz for short -- looked down at the corpse of the infected succubus, and then at his hands and feet, which were tingling with something that felt like poison -- the same poison he'd felt when the rats in the sewers had bitten him. Possum, the druid, was already on her way over to him; she had a cure spell left. 

Okay, so that was a lesson learned, he decided. His contribution to the group would be skills -- stealth, lockpicking, negotiation, and like that -- plus his senses. His physical attacks weren't that strong -- not compared to some of the others -- and he had one good ranged attack and one weak one. Against these fungus-infected creatures, he didn't dare use the physical attacks anymore. Their infectious nature made that sort of attack as dangerous to him as he might possibly be to them. Were he just a little bit older... 

...But he was wasn't, and he wasn't trained to use the kind of mortal weapons that could hold creatures like these at bay. If the druid hadn't managed to paralyze the fungus-demon with magic, he would have been in serious danger. Like, getting himself killed kinds of danger. 

He thought about that a bit longer, then nodded to himself. That wasn't really a problem. He'd just have to consider carefully before he attacked anything with his claws and fangs... let alone his wings. He wasn't the strongest member of the party, but that was fine; he still had things to contribute. So... no jumping in, but no backing away, either. 

There were things he was better at than anyone else here, they just weren't quite what he'd expected. And, he reminded himself, that was exactly the sort of thing he'd come here to learn. I asked for this. He'd very likely saved Mac's life from the rats. He could do this.