The Talon Family
Bloody Snow
January
Draft_2
By: Chase L. Currie
“These violent delights have violent ends.”
— William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
(Writer’s Notes: Who are the Talon family and what was my plan with them?
The Talons came about when I found myself reading some very dark and heavy books. I spent a couple of months reading books on the horrors of the Nazis and mass shooters. There were some heavy books to read, and I found myself needing a place I could go to for a while which was a little lighter than things I have been reading. So, the idea of the Talons came to my windows asking me to come out and play. I said yes, and here we are now.
Now, I love superheroes. Superheroes were and have been a big part of my life. Most of the books in my room right now is about superheroes, and I missed some of the lighter heroes in my life. I wanted to mix something like the FF (Fantastic Four) with Johnny Quest and a little bit of some heroes like the Shadow or Dan Dare. Another way of thinking about it is something like a Saturday morning cartoon just a little darker.
I guess, what I’m trying to say is I wanted to have fun with the Talon family and not have a heavy story to write all the time. Many of my other stories have some very deep themes and are very in depth. Right now, I just need a little fun with my writing. I hope that is what I have done with the Talons and I hope you have fun reading them.)
Colorado
Time: 1834
Deep in the countryside of the state near the endless mountains painting the skyline sit the mansion of the Talon family. A mansion made by one of the world’s greatest super geniuses a man named Alexander Talon, the father of three blood children and one adopted child. He built the house and labs to help a clandestine arm of the government called the Paladin Division wage war on the wicked. The Paladin sole duty in the world was to protect it from anyone trying to destroy the world as we know it.
Luckily, for them and Alexander, they were never held to whoever sat in the White House. They operated above the law of the land and held the principle of the Constitution as their guiding force. Presidents come and go with most of them being fools, and the head of the Paladin understood that fact about people in power. General Vernon Cain knew if he bowed down to anyone standing in the White House than his life mission would be pushed to the side. No, he wasn’t going to give up on stopping any enemy from attacking the world he loved, and he pulled to his side the greatest people he could find, just so happens Alexander was one of them.
He gives the super geniuses whatever he needs to carry out any task or mission. Alexander builds his home with state of the art technology, some of the techs would seem to be out of this world to people walking through it, but to his children, it was a part of life.
They didn’t live normal lives like everyone else in the world. Their mother was a super spy or assassin named Adeline, who went missing a few years back. Her jet went down over the Pacific Ocean, and nobody was able recovered her body, and the family has accepted her death.
They did their best to move on or build around the loss of their mother by helping their grieving father with his endless work. One day, his three blood children were in the lab helping analyze a meteorite when the rock exploded changing their bodies forever giving them powers like no human.
Afterward, the only thing they felt they could do was to join up with Paladin and enter the battle against the evils of the world. They never did live a normal life anyways.
Nothing was new to Gabriel the oldest, twenty-one, and the only blood daughter of the family. She quickly took on the role of mother to her sister and brothers. A role they didn’t welcome and a role she didn’t want but had no choice in the matter. Their father laid in a coma unable to wake and had to use the robots he built in the house to live. He could place his mind into the body of the robots to interact with the world and his children. He was the same and yet there was something different about him, outside of the metal bodies. He was distanced to everything and everyone in his life.
Either way, it made the tall blonde with pale blue eyes and athletic figure become the leader of the family and the pseudo-mother. A role she slowly understood all of them needed even if they resented her for it. She always wanted to be a mother and have seven kids. Now, she had children she didn’t have to go through the glory of childbirth to have them. They were given to her when her mother died. A price no twenty-one-year wanted to pay.
She headed down to the kitchen after the long hours of working out and taking a hot shower before dinner. She dressed in a black t-shirt that fell right above her knees with a band name on it and workout shorts. The house floors were heated to fight back the cold snow outside, so there was no need to wear anything on her feet.
For a moment, back in her room after the shower, she thought about hiding her hands. Hands which had the little price of the green meteorites imbed in them, and she hated the scars. They were so easy to see, and so many boys have pointed them out. She would make up some story about an accident when she was a child. She could never tell them the truth.
“Oh, yeah, the cute boy in the club,” she thought out loud, “these things in my hands are from space and give me the power to turn myself and anything I touch invisible. Yup, I’m a rip off of the Fantastic Four, welcome to my life.”
Somehow she felt like telling a man who was buying her a drink all of the truth would make them run away screaming. She learns quickly to lie and also, lying makes any relationship impossible. They never worked, mostly because the men, were boys, and she had a family to watch over while saving the world.
She climbed the steps of the house hoping Raphael, the middle child, eighteen, had made dinner like he was support too. It was his turn after all, but lately, he has been the less pleasant person to be around. Something was going on with him, and it all started when Helbis got back.
Helbis was the adopted child in the family. She was thin and athletic with magical tattoos on her arms and legs. Tattoos which give the abilities of a cat and the lovely power to turn into one as well. None of them thought it was weird even before they got their powers. It was a way of life.
Sure, Helbis stood out when they took family pictures because was Egyptian, but they didn’t see her anything less than a sister. Gabriel along with all them thought she felt the same way until her real family showed up one day. A family of witches and a father who was a witch hunter came rushing into her life pulling her away from her real family. She left not sure if she was ever going to come back, but the Talon’s went after her, saved her from the witches who wanted her blood to kill her father, and she came home. When she got back, her father left again, but they all accepted her back.
All of them expect Raphael. He seems not to want to have anything to do with her or any of them anymore.
She stepped into the kitchen to find her younger brother Michael sitting across the table from Helbis chatting away. He was a giant of a man, even if he was only sixteen. He looked like he had been twenty years old and spent all that time lifting weights. Gabriel guessed it was a good thing the power the rocks gave him was super strength. They had embedded themselves into his arms and chest allowing him to lift as much as a semi-truck, but they haven’t tested too much be on those limits.
“Where is Raphael?” Gabriel asked pouring herself some sweet tea. A recipe she got from her very Southern grandmother.
“I don’t know,” Michael said. “He had dinner ready before I got down here.”
She frowned a little walking over to the table to see the meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and sweet corn. She sat down wishing Raphael would join them, but there was no need to push it. She glanced over at her little brother and asked, “How are the scars?”
“Still there,” Michael said with a grin. It was a nasty scar on his chest where one of the witches’ spell almost killed him. “But fine.”
“Good, “Gabriel said turning to Helbis and asked, “How are you?”
“Happy to be home,” she smiled back, “but would like to get out for a bit. Maybe, we can go to New York this weekend?”
It was the best thing about having a sister the same age as Gabriel they could go to the same clubs together, drink, and dance with all the boys. They could hit the town together.
“I would like that,” Gabriel said.
“Sesily is come this weekend, by the way,” Michael said, and Gabriel rose an unwelcome eyebrow. Sesily, Michael girlfriend who he met online, and Raphael brought here when they thought he was dying, was nice and sweet and unnaturally beautiful girl. “Dad said it was cool.”
“For how long?” Gabriel asked noticing this sweet girl has been showing up more and more lately. She has also been staying the night too in the extra room, one of the many they had, and slowly becoming a part of the family.
“The weekend?” He asked.
“I’ll talk to dad,” she told him. Alexander would never let her bring anyone home or stay the night. It was unfair her brothers got away with it, but she did like Sesily. She trusted her more than she trusted her little sixteen old brothers. There was something about the girl that screamed wisdom be on her age.
“Come on, Gabriel,” Michael cried, “be cool.”
“I have been cool,” She said pointing the fork at him, “I’m just not sure about this girl is all. It is a little odd she been staying here so much lately; doesn’t she go to school or something?”
“You find that odd in our lives?” Michael protested.
“Uh, she is homeschool,” Helbis smiled and told her, “and she really is cool.”
“See, see, Helbis likes her,” Michael said nodding at her.
Gabriel glanced at her sister who winked for her to let it go. “Fine, “she said, “I’ll be cool.”
“Sweet.”
“But,” Gabriel said leaning into him, “I want to have some alone time with her.”
Michael locked his jaw crossing his arm and nodded in agreement.
“Good,” Gabriel said with a big smile on her as Helbis chuckled to herself.
“You are going to be nice, right?” Michael asked not liking any of this at all.
Gabriel said with a grin like a fox, “When haven’t I been nice?”
“I don’t think I like this anymore,” Michael said picking up his empty plate and taking it to the sink. “I’m not going to playing into this game at all.”
Both of his sisters started to laugh hard as he walked out of the room. Gabriel had every intention to be nice to Sesily but messing with her little brother was too much fun to pass up. She wanted to get to know the girl who has captured her younger brother’s heart so much, and all due fairness seem to care deeply for him. She wanted to be friends with this girl but most of all she wanted to protect her little brother.
“She is really nice,” Helbis said drinking a little of her red wine.
“When did you hang out with her?” Gabriel asked.
“A couple of weekends ago,” she said. “The three of us went to the movies in L.A and got dinner, don’t you remember?”
“I remember you did go to L.A with Michael, don’t remember being told Sesily was going to be there,” she growled a little.
“Oh, lighten up,” Helbis said back. “I told you, but you might have been busy helping out with the Twelve.”
“Right,” Gabriel nodded, “I was helping Lucas out that whole time. It’s why I didn’t go. It was one crazy sho ---”
“Gabriel,” Their father’s voice rung from overhead, “I need you to meet me in my study.”
“Right now, dad?” She asked back to the floating voice.
“Yes, please.”
“Be right there,” she told him. “Guess I’ll eat this while getting another mission.” She picked up her plate heading for the door as Helbis called out she didn’t want to go on any missions. Gabriel nodded noticing after crossing paths with the witches all Helbis wanted to do was stay home or stay with the family. She didn’t want to be out in the field anymore, and for now, Gabriel didn’t blame her.
Gabriel sat in the big red chair her father once read in when she was a child in the study with files on the screen. He didn’t have one of his bodies in the room with her but has his mind hacked into the computers of the house. He rarely came into his study anymore mostly because she guessed, he has the biggest library in the world beaming right into his mind, the internet. There wasn’t much of a reason to read books when he couldn’t smell, feel, and hold them. Slowly, this big room full of her childhood memories of coloring at her dad’s feet was becoming her study.
She ate not sure if she was ready to replace those memories with ones of her own, but it was happening one way or another. Her father explained the situation to her. A base in the North Pole doing some weapons research for the military and Paladin had gone dark. It could be the massive snowstorm hanging over the base named Neptune’s Hall, or it could be something else. Paladin didn’t think it was anything outside of a power outage and wanted to know if she would like to check on the base for them.
One of her old friends, which they believe she was close, named Rogan Gardner was station there. He was running the security side of the operation and was a nice enough man. They once kissed, not that her father knew it, and they went on a few dates, but everyone thought they were mostly friends.
Either way, her father, and Paladin wanted to know if she would check on him to make sure everything was good and if it wasn’t good that she could use their relationship as an ace up her selves, if necessary.
“Well?” Norman Cold asked the first Knight of the Paladin Division and right under General Vernon Cain.
“Sure,” Gabriel said, “and if I find Santa’s village I want my name to go down in history for it.”
“I’ll make sure you get the credit.”
“I’ll leave right after dinner,” she told him.
“You're hooked up to the base will be on the aircraft carrier the U.S.S Antenora.”
“That’s an unfortunate name,” Gabriel replied.
(Writer’s Notes: I have written tow manuscripts for the Talons over the last year or so, which means this is your first time being introduced to them, and the novels may one day be released as an actual book, but for now this is all you have to read. I’m sure unseen to me there are missing parts to the story to make the family feel more whole, and I would state those parts may be in the books themselves, even if they are lost here. The good side of the short stories format is I can experiment with the characters, and the downside is I cannot dive too deep into the characters themselves. If I spent as much time as I would wish on this story, then it would turn into a novel and not a blog post for your enjoyment. Also, another hindrance to the story a month for a year experiment I have undertaken is I do not have a lot of time to edit my work, which might be obvious from the text itself.
Anyways, the opening part of the story is a play on what I enjoy most in comic books. I read comic books to find the human moments within them. I love seeing all the X-Men at the dinner table acting like a family or watching the FF spend the day beside the pool. Even seeing the Avenger playing a game of baseball on their day off. I know for me these moments are the one I cherish when reading about the heroes and it makes the fights, battles, and the supervillain far more important to the story.
To cut to the point, it makes the characters feel like us, become relatable to our daily lives. I know this to be a fact because Spiderman is one of the biggest comic book characters in the world right now. Sure, his powers are cool, but the fact Peter Parks can never win in his daily life makes him believable. We think ‘poor guy’ and ’I understand that man, I’m not sure how I’m going to pay rent either.’
So, I try to bring this over to the Talons and is the main point of the opening to the story, outside of setting up the plot. I enjoy writing about the family sitting around the table acting much like my family would in those moments. I hope you find it also relatable or at the very least more human at the moment, that these characters feel real to you like they do to me. I could see myself hanging out with them playing games or eating dinner. I hope you can see yourself doing the same as well.)
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