“Jelly?”
The Anima Sola hovered before them, his golden-Gloria infused frame dripping starlight, bobbing up and down slowly as he gazed at the trio with his blank eyes.
“James! Why am I not surprised! And holy shit, you killed a Seraph?”
James took a step forward. “Jel...
2023-01-13 13:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostJames fought for calm. The sudden silence, the horrific stillness, only made it seem as if the world were spinning out from under him all the more.
He wanted movement. Noise. Life.
This stillness..
Serenity dropped to her knees beside Kimmie and touched the side of her neck only...
2023-01-12 13:57:15 +0000 UTC View PostJames hadn’t known what to expect. The very term ‘facility’ had evoked vague notions of a factory, perhaps a metal futuristic building with gleaming windows, an alien building with security doors and featureless parking lots around it. An installation they’d have to charge and break into,...
2023-01-11 13:53:36 +0000 UTC View PostEveryone settled down to wait.
The whole situation was so surreal - the empty and endless expanse of the demiplane, the fact that they were accelerating into a black hole, and that they’d been sent on this missions by bona fide aliens - that James found it hard to feel immersed in the mom...
2023-01-10 14:06:03 +0000 UTC View PostJames paced as the Zorathian guided his crew through their paces. Their voices were a background murmur as he watched the entrance tunnel. The remaining six aliens in their alcoves worked diligently, appearing unworried, but then again what the fuck did he know about Zorathian nerves? Their crims...
2023-01-09 13:56:50 +0000 UTC View Post“Before we begin,” said Mavthua, “I must caveat: all our redesign choices/strategies made for our clutch leaders/heroes hitherto for had demons/the Pit in mind. I believe that the same principles will hold true for our raid of the ever-collapse, but remain alert for discrepancies.”
...
2023-01-06 21:34:21 +0000 UTC View PostJames reclined in the armchair and settled in. He summoned his statistics. His familiar overlay appeared in the air before him, listing his every ability, power, and summons. In the beginning this had all been so exciting, so infused with hope. Magical talents that allowed him to fight the demons...
2023-01-05 14:52:51 +0000 UTC View PostEverybody stilled.
“Wait,” said Denzel, pushing to the fore. “What do you mean, ‘hack’? As in, hack hack?”
Yadriel rolled his eyes. “We got ourselves a genius here.”
Mavthua shivered again. The dude was incredibly excitable, James thought. Maybe because ...
2023-01-04 14:07:31 +0000 UTC View PostJames followed their guide out of the audience chamber. The Zorathians in the stands had stood and begun to file out in their customary silence. Crimson Hydra was silent as well. Gvathua’s words still rung loud in James’s mind, and, no doubt, that of his friends.
James barely tracked wh...
2023-01-03 13:44:32 +0000 UTC View PostThere were no doors or windows in the Iron Wave fortress. The six Zorathians simply strode toward one of the massive panes of opaque glass that met with the ground and passed through it as if it were as insubstantial as mist.
James led Crimson Hydra up to the structure but couldn’t resist...
2023-01-02 17:08:04 +0000 UTC View PostJames emerged into a discordant and overwhelming world. His mouth and sinuses immediately began to burn, and he squinted against the sulfurous light that suffused the air. At first he didn’t know what to look at, what to take in, but burying his face in the crook of his elbow he blinked against...
2022-12-30 13:01:00 +0000 UTC View PostSerenity took hold of James’s arm and pulled him aside, leaving Olaf and Star Boy to catch up Kimmie on all she had missed.
“So, what are you doing up here?” She elbowed him in the side. “I thought I gave you a mission. Did you flub it?”
“Hmm? Oh. Jessica. Yeah.” James s...
2022-12-29 17:34:21 +0000 UTC View PostJames left Jessica to the Bifrost and made his way upstairs. The Marriott was wrecked. Too many attacks, too many deaths, no power, shattered glass underfoot, overturned potted plants, the air freezing, dried blood stains on the carpeting.
The place felt empty. James walked past empty rooms...
2022-12-28 18:28:08 +0000 UTC View PostJames stepped out before the dead elevator banks that let out into the underground parking structure. They now merely opened to a railing-enclosed balcony that looked out over the tech wonderland that Jessica had created; the air before him thrummed with flying droids and was suffused with variou...
2022-12-28 00:38:37 +0000 UTC View PostJames rose cautiously to his feet, gaze darting about the large cavern in search of potential danger.
Other than Crimson Hydra, however, all was still.
The cavern was a series of subtly compartmentalized segments, each distinguished from the rest by columns or curtains of stone that i...
2022-12-27 05:43:09 +0000 UTC View PostThe demon youth’s body had swelled up to five times his normal size, so that he looked like a seal that had swallowed a half dozen deck chairs. When his skin ruptured Infernum energy blasted out everywhere, souring the air, and six new demon youths appeared in his place, naked and slicked with ...
2022-12-23 13:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostThey emerged into the bailey.
Jelly immediately flew down, sword-arms whirling. And? We got a plan? What’s next?
You’re going to like it, Jelly,said James, but refused to elaborate.
They all mounted up. Jessica re-inserted her Omni into her Somnia, whose ga...
2022-12-22 13:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostJames didn’t hesitate. He braided ten Heavenly Assaults together and dropped them on the child-like demon.
But in the flicker-flash second before the hugely twined lightning bolt fell, he saw the demon grin, its face suddenly becoming horribly animated, and it disappeared.
The Heave...
2022-12-21 13:01:00 +0000 UTC View PostJames was rivetted.
Even Yadriel had ceased to crack puns.
Only Olaf still let out the occasional cry of excitement or groan of dismay, pointed out smart tactical moves or where the enemy was going to break through.
Two hours had passed.
A certain rhythm had made itself ob...
2022-12-20 15:00:31 +0000 UTC View PostThey sped out over the desert, Jason flying alongside and easily keeping pace with his ongoing Flight. Jelly and the Castrum had remained behind to guard the castle in case of a rear attack; if so, Jelly would fly close enough to communicate telepathically with James who’d teleport everyone bac...
2022-12-19 15:05:42 +0000 UTC View PostTime ticked down and no more demonic waves appeared. The Castrum Mortis moved back outside the gatehouse and there continued scanning the horizon. It seemed restless. A few gears within its hips made a worrying grinding sound as it moved, and Jessica ejected her Omni from the Somnia so that she c...
2022-12-16 13:01:00 +0000 UTC View PostA klaxon began to sound.
Strident, penetrating, it rang through the entire castle, over and over, jumping James’s adrenaline up to 11.
“You fucking kidding me?” asked Yadriel, rising up into his classic Nem2 demon form. “What the fuck they got a siren for?”
“Someone ...
2022-12-15 13:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post“Wait, wait, wait,” said Denzel, closing his eyes as he raised his hand. “Hold up. They were doing what?”
James sat heavily on the bar stool and pointed at a whiskey bottle. Yadriel fetched it with neat alacrity and set to pouring him a glass. “They were having drinks, far as I co...
2022-12-14 13:01:00 +0000 UTC View PostWith a grunt James slipped through the seam and out into… he couldn’t make sense of what he was looking at.
The golden seam hung behind him, fading away for good now, Jelly’s last cries going with it.
Instead of black rock walls and the dour reality of the Hopeless Tower, James ...
2022-12-13 13:00:11 +0000 UTC View PostThey entered the ninth layer of the Pit by means of a swirling portal hidden beyond the Sinister Blockade.
You have entered Layer 9, The Hopeless Tower
Together they passed through, the eight members of Crimson Hydra and Jessica in the Finem Somnia, the Castrum Mortis...
2022-12-12 14:56:08 +0000 UTC View PostBecca was faster, stronger, could transform into a more powerful demon, and possessed Miracles that allowed her to overwhelm and destroy Olaf, who was a Lord of the Increate.
James tore himself free of the ruined building and flew up into the air, his mind processing this information even a...
2022-12-09 14:24:04 +0000 UTC View PostThey flew the Wing back to the Marriott in silence. The warmth of the whiskey faded quickly; the alcohol simply couldn’t get a grip on James’s enhanced system. The afternoon was darkening. Storm clouds were rolling in, and a fitful wind tugged at them.
The bodies lay as before, strewn a...
2022-12-08 13:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostJames activated the Miracle with a single Aeviternum.
Serenity, the Brooklyn street, all of it fell away as his vision shifted and became blank. No; he could still see - but now he gazed out over an endless white plane of pearlescent material covered by white skies.
A blank slate.
... 2022-12-07 13:48:12 +0000 UTC View PostThey rode the elevator to the penthouse in silence. Jelly hovered in the upper corner. James studied the Anima.
“Hey Jelly.”
Que pasa USA?
James paused. For a second he considered asking where that had come from, but then he discarded the notion. “Wanted ...
2022-12-06 15:04:31 +0000 UTC View PostThe XO’s black-burning bullet hit the Aureate Buckler which flickered into existence as soon as the man raised his gun. The buckler flared bright gold but James had no time to appreciate the save; he saw a second officer point a gun at him and fire. Only his insane Agility and Speed stats allow...
2022-12-05 13:00:12 +0000 UTC View Post