Techtiggers' Soapbox

Flash Fiction – Hammerfall November 19, 2010

This flashfic is part of an ongoing web serial, updated every week as a part of #fridayflash on twitter.  If you are new to Nox and Grimm, you can Click Here to read from the beginning.

The air smelled of rain.  As the first fat drops of water hit the ground around Grimm’s paws, he cocked his ears forward to listen to the sound. He had to have the proper cadence for warcasting with Air. He tried to focus on the work ahead, but old memories ambushed him.  The last time he had gone into battle of his own free will, he had been chasing down the Shadowkin in a thunder of wind and fury. Memories flickered, as fitful as the rain, of the woman he had gone to save. The one who had betrayed him.

No. Push those thoughts aside, old man. The past is gone.

He reached for his sword – and suffered another moment of disorientation as he lifted up a paw.  He planted the paw firmly on the ground again and shook himself, water flying off of his shaggy fur.

Get it together, you fossil, he thought. You have a tail and four paws now.  Deal with it.

He looked back over his shoulder.  The tail was as a good place to start as any.  He swished it back and forth in a steady rhythm, like a metronome.  Then he imagined the pattern he would have cut through the air with a sword, and paced it out on the ground.  The air started to swirl around him in damp little vortexes.  He was from House Cyclonis. He remembered that now.  The poor bastard on the other end of this storm would not soon forget it. He was fairly certain it was one of the Storm kindred – Queen Rhianna had come to power at the point of a sword, and there were plenty of Dukes still holding a grudge.  It would be just like the Morning Lord to use a patsy to do his dirty work, and take out Rhianna for him.

Grimm finished the casting, and the swirling wind pulled water spouts out of the dark clouds overhead.  They danced and swayed, circling anti-clockwise around him in a graceful, deadly march. Every minute they grew larger, stealing energy from the storm and forcing his enemy to work that much harder.

The first attack came at him in the form of lightning.  Bolts crashed down, but they were gathered up by the water spouts and crackled harmlessly around him.  Even better, they formed a barrier as they jumped from funnel to funnel, and vaporized the fist-sized hail that followed them down.  Some joker had once called the storm kin’s attack combo ‘shock and ow.’   Grimm called it predictable.  Or maybe he was just so old that he really had seen everything.

He cocked his ears, and listened to the sound of the wind whistling through the cracks that riddled the cliff’s edge.  Once he had found what he was looking for, he paced out a new pattern. This time, he lifted his muzzle and gave voice to a deep, eerie howl.  It slowly rose in pitch, and the wind along the cliff grew more turbulent, battering against the stone and shrieking through the cracks.  The howl rose higher, and the ground started to shake.  More lightning struck, but he paid it no heed, and the thunder was dwarfed by the sound of the cliff breaking apart.  Grimm came to a dead stop, and the casting he unleashed pulled an even larger tornado out of the clouds.  It ripped up chunks of rock the size of small houses and flung them miles away at the source of the storm.

—-

Duke Niall’s guards ran for their lives as the rain of stone crashed into their ranks. He fumbled with the small metal box in his hands as a rock the size of a carriage hurtled towards him.  Lightning met it a bare few feet above his head and blasted it out of the sky.

The Morning Lord stood next to him, frowning in distaste as he brushed rubble off of his expensive robes. “I thought you said you could master the Storm key.”

The Duke glared at him. “Do you see those twisters out there? If I don’t fend them off, it’ll be us getting flung for miles instead of rocks.”  He flinched as another boulder slammed into the ground nearby.  “Why didn’t you tell me I’d be facing off against Hel’s own hound?”

The Morning Lord’s frown grew deeper.  “You should have assumed that Lucien would have his pet with him. I am most disappointed in you, Niall.”

“It doesn’t bloody well matter what you think now, does it?  Not while I have this.”  He brandished the box, and thunder rumbled overhead.  “Maybe that creature can eat lightning, but you are flesh and blood, Balor.  Don’t push me.”

“Do you think I had not considered that when I gave you the key?”

A portal opened up behind the Duke, and a red robed cultist grabbed him by the throat and thrust a long, thin dagger into his back.  Niall dropped the box and scrabbled helplessly at the sharp point that stuck out of his chest, until blood frothed at his mouth and his eyes went blank.  The cultist lowered him to the ground, and made way for the Morning Lord’s technomancer.  The man reached down with a plump, pudgy hand and picked up the Storm key, running his fingers over the etchings carved in each side.  Lightning charred the Duke’s corpse, and he handed the key back to Balor.

“I will send out word that Niall tried to steal the key you hold in trust for the Storm kindred. Tragically, he could not control it and perished.  Will that plan do, my lord?”

“Your plans have been failing, Dieter. Make sure this one works.”

“Patience, my Lord. The girl is the key to both the hound, and your nephew. Destroy her and they will fall into our hands. The next attack is already in place. It is only a matter of time.”

<–Previous Back to Start Next->

Flash Fiction – Sirocco November 6, 2010

This flashfic is part of an ongoing web serial, updated every week as a part of #fridayflash on twitter.  If you are new to Nox and Grimm, you can Click Here to read from the beginning.

“You want us to do what?” Grimm said, his furry ears wilting.

Loki crossed his arms. “No way.  I do not want him in my head. Thinking at each other is one thing, but linking up?”

“You? What about me?  I need to bleach my brain just from the random thoughts you project.”

Nox threw up her hands in frustration. “Ohh, you two are such big babies! Would it kill you to work together this once?”

“It might,” Grimm said, exchanging an uncomfortable look with the fire elemental.

Nox glared at the hound. “Ha ha, very funny, furball.  Look, if you do this right, you won’t be in each other’s heads. The elements should combine naturally on their own.”

“Theoretically.”

Loki shook his head. “No offense luv, but you have never channeled energy on this scale.  It is more closely tied to our psyches than you realize.”

She pulled off one of her gauntlets and tapped him on the chest with it. “How much do you want to bet I can prove you wrong?”

Loki raised an eyebrow. “Is that a challenge?”

“If I wasn’t clear enough, I can always slap you with the glove,” she said, smiling sweetly.

—

Lucien shaded his eyes against the blinding scarlet light coming from the cliff top.  If that fool boy summoned too much fire, it would wreck all of the carefully crafted ice castings he and his troops had put in place.   He sent a sharp thought at Grimm. “What in the Hel are they doing?”

The only reply he got was the sound of the wind. It rose up around him, blew past in waves, a deep, sonorous chorus.  Lucien was not as sensitive to Air as his daughter, but even so, the element resonated through him as though he were a tuning fork that had just been struck.

A more delicate note joined in, and the wind turned hot and dry as it gathered up the energy from Loki.  That would be Nox; there was no mistaking her light touch. The wind rose higher, spiraling up into the dark storm clouds and sent them scudding away in tattered streams of grey.

“There will be no need for you to use the weatherscope, Kel. Your sister has handled the problem.”

“You know, I’m still not used to calling her sister,” Kel said, then winced as soon as the words left his mouth.

Adopting him into the House of Ice had not been Lucien’s idea. The deed was done, however, and they would all have to live with it. Lucien kept his expression neutral, and went on as if Kel had not spoken. “Tell Brand to take the third regiment out to the ridge on the left.  The Chimaera will make a straight line for Nox. We must force them to go through us to get to her.  I want you to take a mounted division to the cliff tops.  Some of the creatures may have already gotten behind the lines, and I do not want her fighting them along with the storm.”

“Yes sir.”

“And tell my daughter to quit throwing curve balls at me. I need details of everything she plans on doing.”

Kel laughed. “I will, sir.”

—

Nox called out to Loki, but her mind was so closely linked with Grimm’s that they both spoke at the same time. ::How are you holding up?:: they asked.

“Wow. That is seriously creepy. You two even blink in unison,” Loki said. “You realize though, this means I win the bet.”

They giggled/chuckled. ::Hardly. The bet was whether I/we would have to link minds with you, not ourselves::

“Even so, I was half right, so we should share the win.  I will cook you dinner, but at my place.”

::Deal::

He narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “Wait, which one of you said that?”

They grinned at him and looked back at the skies. ::Time to step it up a notch. Your uncle is fighting back::

“What is the plan?”

::Forget trying to disperse the storm. This time we take it from him::

Loki laughed and said, “You never think small, do you?”

::Go big or go home!::

Nox and Grimm slipped back into the strange double vision that came of sharing their thoughts through the soul-bond.  They followed the flow of air and energy all the way back to where the storm was re-forming.  Nox had noticed before that the keys were made up of patterns, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, and the storm key was no different.  She sent whirls of hot air into the clouds, until the two patterns matched up and locked.  She had gathered up the heat summoned by Loki the same way, but this casting was controlled by an enemy.  And she had just gotten his undivided attention.

The storm convulsed, sending a shockwave through the connection she had forged. Grimm stepped in and guided the energy safely past them. “Either the Morning Lord is learning fast, or someone else just took the reins. Be careful.”

“I’m trying, but they are moving the energy too fast for me to counter it!”  Another attack, this one laced with lightning, hit them hard enough to set Nox’s hair on end.  She shook it off and stubbornly latched onto more of the storm. Loki followed her example and started linking with the built-up energy in the clouds, and bled it off harmlessly as heat lightning. But even with his help, she was barely able to stand her ground.

There was something naggingly familiar about the presence controlling the storm. Grimm watched as the clouds twisted out of Nox’s grasp, and started to turn on her. “Let me take control, little one.”

“I can handle it,” she said, narrowly dodging another attack.

“You are doing well, but this one is out of your league. Watch, and learn.” The hound threw his head back, and bayed a challenge that shook the ground.  “It is time I showed these upstarts how a Master calls the winds…”

<–Previous Back to Start Next->