IdeasGuy

Risk It All: Stacking the Deck (ch. 40)

Finding John Constantine was a lot easier said than done, I discovered, because after two weeks, there was nothing from Zatanna about him. We didn't even know if he was still alive or not, and if he was, then the impression that I got was that he didn't want to be found. Still, Zatanna seemed determined to find him. One way or the other.

I did my own digging on the guy, careful to avoid using the Justice League database because that would tip off the League that we aren't letting sleepi...

Castoff: Foolish Endeavors (ch. 2)

He was simply unreal, Ciri thought to herself, and not for the first time either. It wasn't the first time she thought it through a very long night, as every monster in a ten league radius was drawn right to them -- drowners, ghouls, a water bag, and even a werewolf seemed paltry compared to the fiend that came charging through the hamlet. His sword was too rough and big to be called a sword. It had to be at least a hundredweight of raw iron, but the man wielded it all the same and with deft ...

Castoff: Casting off Destiny (ch. 1)

“Pweh?!” Puck sputtered, feeling...something wash over him. It was like the ocean waves, it started off gently, then, before he knew it, the top of a wave came crashing down and dragged him underneath the surface. His skin felt all tingly and sensitive, Guts’ rough leather pouch grating on him -- usually it was the perfect place for a nap, but now it felt cramped and suffocating.

Reaching out with an arm, he struggled to feed a bone button through the hole, but once he did Puck da...

Legends Never Die: Farmstead (ch. 6)

“What happened to the last owner of the farm?” Havi asked as we entered the border of my farmstead. It was a bit of a mixed bunch, I found. There was some flatland near the river that flowed east towards Alabu, my farmstead located further west than my parent’s. There were also rolling hills that were covered in a dense forest along the border of the fifty acres I was allotted.

“Executed. Tax evasion,” I answered with knowledge gained from when I had done a little asking aroun...

Legends Never Die: Spoils (ch. 5)

There's a certain kind of indescribable terror that comes with watching a son charge the enemy with nothing even resembling fear. Eivor charged alone, driven forward by only the gods knew what while the rest of the men formed a shield wall with him at the head of it. Archers stood behind them, taking aim as they were lifted up by men who were left over. It was a strong position. A defensive position. Yet, Eivor charged forward towards the enemy as they rushed to them.

Like a wave crashi...

Legends Never Die: First Raid (ch. 4)

“Shit,” I cursed, falling to the ground and landing on the soft grass and dirt, my legs giving out from underneath me. There were more than a few laughs at my expense, Father's loudest among them all. Using my axe and shield, I pushed myself up and used them to steady myself. Without them, I would have fallen over again immediately, because I began to list to the side, my body moving to account for waves that weren’t there anymore.

“You’ll get your land legs back soon enough, ...

Legends Never Die: Hard Living (ch. 3)

The pace of change was a fickle thing, I learned. It can crash over you like a tidal wave, sweeping you out to sea. Yet, other times, it was slow. Gradual. Glacial. Change was something that you couldn't run from. You couldn't hide from it either. Change was a fundamental aspect of the world -- something easy to achieve, yet so impossible to control.

Because, once things changed, 'normal' was forever lost. Forcing people to adapt to a new 'normal'.

It was two more weeks before my ...

Legends Never Die: Spoils (ch. 5)

There's a certain kind of indescribable terror that comes with watching a son charge the enemy with nothing even resembling fear. Eivor charged alone, driven forward by only the gods knew what while the rest of the men formed a shield wall with him at the head of it. Archers stood behind them, taking aim as they were lifted up by men who were left over. It was a strong position. A defensive position. Yet, Eivor charged forward towards the enemy as they rushed to them.

Like a wave crashi...

Legends Never Die: First Raid (ch. 5)

“Shit,” I cursed, falling to the ground and landing on the soft grass and dirt, my legs giving out from underneath me. There were more than a few laughs at my expense, Father's loudest among them all. Using my axe and shield, I pushed myself up and used them to steady myself. Without them, I would have fallen over again immediately, because I began to list to the side, my body moving to account for waves that weren’t there anymore.

“You’ll get your land legs back soon enough, ...

Legends Never Die: Hard Living (ch. 3)

The pace of change was a fickle thing, I learned. It can crash over you like a tidal wave, sweeping you out to sea. Yet, other times, it was slow. Gradual. Glacial. Like the slow encroaching of a glacier. Change was something that you couldn't run from. You couldn't hide from it either. Change was a fundamental aspect of the world -- something so easy to achieve, yet so impossible to control.

Because, once things changed, 'normal' was forever lost. Forcing people to adapt to a new 'norm...

Legends Never Die: Forewarned (ch. 2)

Another two years passed without incident, making me twelve years old. Everything returned back to normal after my visit to the Wise Woman. Mother had just embraced me when I returned, and Father had told her what had been said. She had said that he wasn’t telling her anything she didn’t know. I got some teasing from my brothers for being cursed by the gods, but they got bored of it soon enough.

Nothing really changed in my little slice of the world. Brandr, my eldest brother… wel...

Gone Native: New Coat of Paint (ch. 48)

There was no way that Ada'la could get mad at me for this fight. I didn't start it. Well, I suppose that wasn't true -- I did show up at his completely ineffective prison unannounced, but he was the one that threw the first punch and blatantly ignored the people I was traveling with. If he hadn't, then maybe there wouldn't have been a need to fight at all. About my arrival. I knew Hal well enough by this point to know that we'd fight about something or another.

There was just too much b...

Gone Native: Fool's Errand (ch. 47)

"We're not teleporting in?" Kara asked, using her X-Ray vision to sweep through the interior of the ship to see that it was well put together, if very different from the ships she knew on Krypton. Like all members of the house of El, she was raised to be a Scientist, though she had a special fondness for engineering. A fondness and upbringing that didn't see much use. She was sent to Earth to be Kal-El's protector, only to wake up and discover that her newborn cousin was a grown man.

"N...

Gone Native: Old enemies (ch. 46)

I breathed in deeply, holding the air in my lungs, before letting it out slowly after a long minute. Only once my lungs were empty to the point it felt like they were going to collapse did I repeat the process -- taking in a long slow breath, holding it, then letting it out. Even the small action of breathing was difficult for me, sweat dripping up my brow, then down it as I hovered in the air despite the two hundred times the galactic standard gravity that tried to crush me, spinning at a st...

Gone Native: Big Leagues (ch. 45)

The power that surged through me wasn’t an explosion of strength like what I associated with the Wrath State or Super Saiyan transformations. My ki didn’t multiply several fold, granting me impossible strength and speed. It didn’t feel like raw electricity flowing through my veins, sharpening my senses to a razor's edge while I felt like a too-small vessel for the pure raw power that I contained. It was the opposite, really. A completely new sensation.

It was like my entire body h...

Fool's World: Enemy Action (ch. 33)

There was a pirate fleet brewing in the oceans. Admiral Zhao heard about it in low rumblings and rumors to start with. A prison barge had been intercepted by the Fire Nation defense fleet and while he hadn’t seen it for himself, what he heard was chilling. The hold was filled with corpses and madmen. Fine Fire Nation soldiers were reduced to gibbering lunatics that couldn’t hold a simple conversation to explain what had happened to them. From everything Zhao had heard, those that died in ...

Fool's World: Old Fools (ch. 32)

Nobara was really getting worried about Majima and she wasn't really sure what to do about it. Rin gave her the lowdown – Majima had spoken to King Bumi and Iroh and while Majima got what he wanted, in the days since, a foul mood had taken hold of him. They were back at sea in the small ship and traveling with the Kyoshi Warriors and a good fifty earthbenders. Everyone tried to give their leader space, but it was a little difficult when there were nearly two hundred people on a ship meant t...

Fool's World: Sliver of Hope (ch. 31)

"Your first deadly challenge shall be… to beat me in a game of Pai Sho," The King of Omashu declared after a dramatic pause that made everyone else in the room tense. I waited a moment, vaguely familiar with the game on account that Iroh had also requested a game with me if we ever got the chance.

"... Over a bed of lava?" I questioned, wondering exactly where the deadly part of the challenge entered the equation. King Bumi seemed surprised before his face lit up in a wide smile, clea...

Fool's World: The Start (ch. 30)

In a perfect world, we would have a grand fleet of nine ships and freed a total of a thousand prisoners. We wouldn't have taken any losses either. But, my entire existence was a testament that we didn't live in a perfect world. Freeing a thousand earthbenders assumed that each ship had been loaded up to capacity and they weren't. It also assumed that the Fire Nation would just roll over and let us take their ships. They didn't. The opposite, really.

Of the right ships we attacked, two h...

Legends Never Die: First Raid (ch. 4)

“Shit,” I cursed, falling to the ground and landing on the soft grass and dirt, my legs giving out from underneath me. There were more than a few laughs at my expense, Father's loudest among them all. Using my axe and shield, I pushed myself up and used them to steady myself. Without them, I would have fallen over again immediately, because I began to list to the side, my body moving to account for waves that weren’t there anymore.

“You’ll get your land legs back soon enough, ...

Legends Never Die: Hard Living (ch. 3)

The pace of change was a fickle thing, I learned. It can crash over you like a tidal wave, sweeping you out to sea. Yet, other times, it was slow. Gradual. Glacial. Like the slow encroaching of a glacier. Change was something that you couldn't run from. You couldn't hide from it either. Change was a fundamental aspect of the world -- something so easy to achieve, yet so impossible to control.

Because, once things changed, 'normal' was forever lost. Forcing people to adapt to a new 'norm...

Legends Never Die: Forewarned (ch. 2)

Another two years passed without incident, making me twelve years old. Everything returned back to normal after my visit to the Wise Woman. Mother had just embraced me when I returned, and Father had told her what had been said. She had said that he wasn’t telling her anything she didn’t know. I got some teasing from my brothers for being cursed by the gods, but they got bored of it soon enough.

Nothing really changed in my little slice of the world. Brandr, my eldest brother… wel...

See No Evil: Do No Evil (ch. 90)

Jason Todd looked at me like he barely recognized me, his gaze sweeping over my attire. I cocked an eyebrow right back at him, taking in his ratty red hoodie and cargo shorts. "What are you wearing?" He asked me bluntly, sounding actually disquieted at seeing me anything other than a three piece suit.

"I'm retired. I don't need to be wearing suits all hours of the day," I returned, my tone flippant as I gave him a shrug. "I'm free to return to my own sense of style."

"I didn't thi...

Risk It All: All In (ch. 39)

We had to get the helmet off of Zatanna. Whether he intended it or not, Dr. Fate took Zatanna, my girlfriend, hostage. He was using her as a goddamn meat puppet that he was going to make us fight so he couldn’t enslave a child for the rest of his natural life all because he was born powerful. God fucking damn it. I’m so sick of being disappointed in my heroes. Regardless, I could lambast how the man that saved the world was a total prick later. Right now, I only had one goal in mind.

Gone Native: Fool's Errand (ch. 47)

"We're not teleporting in?" Kara asked, using her X-Ray vision to sweep through the interior of the ship to see that it was well put together, if very different from the ships she knew on Krypton. Like all members of the house of El, she was raised to be a Scientist, though she had a special fondness for engineering. A fondness and upbringing that didn't see much use. She was sent to Earth to be Kal-El's protector, only to wake up and discover that her newborn cousin was a grown man.

"N...

Gone Native: Old Enemies (ch. 46)

I breathed in deeply, holding the air in my lungs, before letting it out slowly after a long minute. Only once my lungs were empty to the point it felt like they were going to collapse did I repeat the process -- taking in a long slow breath, holding it, then letting it out. Even the small action of breathing was difficult for me, sweat dripping up my brow, then down it as I hovered in the air despite the two hundred times the galactic standard gravity that tried to crush me, spinning at a st...

Gone Native: Big Leagues (ch. 45)

The power that surged through me wasn’t an explosion of strength like what I associated with the Wrath State or Super Saiyan transformations. My ki didn’t multiply several fold, granting me impossible strength and speed. It didn’t feel like raw electricity flowing through my veins, sharpening my senses to a razor's edge while I felt like a too-small vessel for the pure raw power that I contained. It was the opposite, really. A completely new sensation.

It was like my entire body h...

Gone Native: Killing Because I'm Hungry (ch. 44)

Even as I absorbed the power into myself, I could already feel it fading. Much like a flickering candle in the wind that slowly ran out of wick to burn, but it remained lit with stubborn defiance. With my expanded senses and the ability to feel the cosmos brushing against my skin, I could feel the power vanishing. It was so alarming that it took me a second to register everything else about the power.

My spirit, my soul, suddenly felt so much vaster. The only thing I could compare it to...

Fool's World: Old Fools (ch. 32)

Nobara was really getting worried about Majima and she wasn't really sure what to do about it. Rin gave her the lowdown – Majima had spoken to King Bumi and Iroh and while Majima got what he wanted, in the days since, a foul mood had taken hold of him. They were back at sea in the small ship and traveling with the Kyoshi Warriors and a good fifty earthbenders. Everyone tried to give their leader space, but it was a little difficult when there were nearly two hundred people on a ship meant t...

Fool's World: Sliver of Hope (ch. 31)

"Your first deadly challenge shall be… to beat me in a game of Pai Sho," The King of Omashu declared after a dramatic pause that made everyone else in the room tense. I waited a moment, vaguely familiar with the game on account that Iroh had also requested a game with me if we ever got the chance.

"... Over a bed of lava?" I questioned, wondering exactly where the deadly part of the challenge entered the equation. King Bumi seemed surprised before his face lit up in a wide smile, clea...