The Talon Family
Bloody Snow
January
Draft_2
By: Chase L. Currie
“Your sister is taking her time,” Rogan said to the tied-up Raphael hanging over an open pit to the waters below. His body was wrapped in an unbreakable dull silver armor with green bots scattered thought out it. The green dots pieces of the meteorite giving him the power to summon the armor beneath his skin. The metal, if you could call it metal, took on a bone-like shape to it and his face was flat and smooth with wicked devil green eyes. The ends of his eyes faded into thin lines around his head as he fought to break free.
“Does she always take this long?” Rogan asked walking around Raphael and the hole.
“I’m going to kill you!” Raphael yelled like a mad dog.
Rogan grinned and said, “Ah, you feel the war blood in you.”
Raphael fought to break free, but the chains around him stopped any hope of getting free.
Rogan walked over to the red rune near them putting his arm around it. “The war blood of Aires,” he said. “This magical boy causes everyone around it to lust for blood and combat until you learn how to control it.”
There another rune beside them, a blue one, and he told Raphael, “And this one allows me to control the power of the weather. The runes, I bought from the dig site have so many different powers; powers which will make me a god.” He smiled big.
“The fools who dug them up didn’t understand the power they held,” he said, “but I did. The armor spoke to me, showing me how the world will bow to my will and I will be a god among the people.” He stopped in front of the fighting Raphael. “I can make you one of my children,” he said. “We could rule the world together, righting all the wrongs, and showing the weak why the mighty show tower over them.”
“Guess we know why the Nazis wanted these things,” Raphael growled.
“Well, yes,” Rogan nodded. “What we have gathered is these runes help the Nazis in their war effect, but we do not know why they abandon them in the end, but it doesn’t matter, not now.”
“Sir,” one of the soldier said eying over to the wall where nothing stood but a few other soldiers. The room had half dozen well-armed men in it waiting for the order to kill anyone.
“All I want,” he said tossing his arms in the air, “is to save the world, to have a real family, and to have you Gabriel by my side.” He lowered his arms turning to where the soldier had pointed at and smiled. “Show yourself, love.”
Gabriel blinked into sight like someone had cut off her power. She had gun handing by her side, and her right arm seems useless at the moment. She didn’t remove her helmet but spoke, “Never in a thousand years.”
All the soldiers aimed at the woman as if she was a ghost who walked through a wall.
“That is a shame,” he said. “You’ll have to die like all the fools who didn’t bow down to me before.”
“Rogan, what happen to you?” She asked.
He smirked and said, “I found what I was meant for in life, is all.”
“Stop all this madness,” she begged him.
He shook his head. “Never. Why would I give up being a god?”
“Very well,” she sighed and held up a small detonator.
Rogan started to laugh. “You are a foolish child,” he said once catching his breath. “I have been playing the game of war far longer than you know and I knew; you would plant bombs on the fuel tanks near the bay, that is why I had them empty.” He lowered his eyes. “And had a team come in behind you, child.”
“Does that mean all my bombs are diffuse?” She asked sounding defeated.
“All of them,” he hissed. “I have bested you.”
She held out the detonator and shrugged, “I’m sure you forgot one, but we’ll find out.”
Rogan turns to face Raphael with wide eyes feeling the smile coming from under his mask. He dashed at him, but the fireball around him tossed him at Rogan like a missile. The fireball hit Rogan with such force it threw him back breaking bones and taking out a few of his men.
Raphael hit the wall planting himself into it but luckily for him the armor around him absorbed the kinetic energy of the blast. The wall hurt only a little and the power of the armor to absorb the force of the blast saved his life. Gabriel thanked the Lord; she had seen him get hit by a round from a tank and survive. He pulled himself out the wall dropping down to the floor hearing the rain of bullets pinging off him. He turns looking for sister, but she was gone in the smoke and fire back to her state of being unseen.
The poor soldiers had no idea what was coming for them.
“Keep your heat vision on,” A soldier yelled to his comrades.
“Won’t help,” Gabriel said from behind him shooting him the back and dropping him to the floor. They had learned long ago her body made be invisible but the heat radiating off wasn’t, that is why her father made the suits able to hide her heat when need be.
Raphael raced around taking out as many of the people shooting at him as he could while his sister shot them from somewhere in the room. She was shooting faster than he could hurt them and the more he fought, the more he loved it. He was hitting the men with all his might breaking bones or almost killing them. He was locked in a rage Gabriel had never seen him in before and was shock about it all.
She glanced at the rune and told herself that had to be destroyed. She raced for them sliding into them placing the last two bombs she had on the bottom of them and made a mad dash to get away. She stopped readying herself to blow them to the high heavens when a scream of angry pulled her from her plan. The voice of behind the rage was booming like thunder rolling over hills and most of all full of unending bloodlust. The man who was locked in the screen back on the ship stepped out from where Rogan had landed cased in dull red and black armor. The demonic samurai mask stopped dead on Raphael as it growled, “I am Aries the god of war and my blade will taste your blood.”
No, Gabriel thought, you are Rogan Gardner, a foolish man.
(Writer’s Notes: The point of the Talon family and their stories are for me to have fun writing them and this part most of all was fun for me to craft. The main reason I enjoyed writing this part of the story was that, in my mind, as I wrote, I could see it being a cartoon. I grew up loving Saturday morning cartoons, and I still enjoy them to this day, but I don’t think many of the superheroes cartoons are what they once were. I grew watching Batman, Batman Beyond, Spiderman, and X-Men which each in their own right were great, but they deal with some more adult themes in their stories. These theme in the stories weren’t so heavy in the forefront of the telling like many superheroes stories are now, but they were there hanging out in the background. They were there just enough for my dad to enjoy the same cartoons as he watched them with me and for me to enjoy them years later. I think that is one big problem I have with most stories today, they all want to be dark and heavy on the heart. If I wanted those things in my stories, I would read about real horrors and not made up ones.
Now, I’m not saying there isn’t a place for that kind of stories. In fact, I write some very difficult stories myself, but I think there needs to a balance in our zeitgeist of fiction. Maybe, what I’m really getting at here is there needs to be a balance for me. I read about too many real horrors that I need to take a break within my fiction from the blood on the pages.)
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