Erin and I just finished watching Casino Royale, which she’d never seen before. Tonight I believe we’re going to take in Quantum of Solace. In the meantime, I’m less than 5,000 words away from the NaNoWriMo finish line. The actual story will probably go past that 5,000 words, but not much. I’m estimating the novel, as a whole, will be somewhere between 55,000 and 60,000 when I’m finished. And trust me, I’ll keep you abreast of when I finish.
Here’s another excerpt for you. Incidentally, all the excerpts I’ve been giving you so far have come in order, with nothing taken out, and totally raw and unedited. Take that information as you will.
SPEEDBURN
Sure enough, Chris was on the ground now. No matter how many times she tried warning him off, tried reminding him that he had no super-strength, no super-speed, and that even with his reinforced costume his exposed head still had the same allergy to bullets as anybody else’s, he still insisted on trying to jump into the thick of battles like this one. Chris was a good partner, and a great friend, but at times like this one, she remembered how stupid he could be.
Speedburn had to slow herself down again when the laundry collapsed behind her. Her natural state was one of incredible speed. She moved so fast the entire world seemed to stand still around her. While that could come in handy sometimes, at other times it could be incredibly tedious, even in the thick of battle. With all her speed, no matter how many times she pounded on this creature she couldn’t make a dent in his hide. She might have been able to take him out during those few seconds he’d switched back to his human form, but she had been distracted at that point by Chris shouting in her ear that he’d spotted two kids trapped in the laundromat, and that it wouldn’t be standing much longer. Now, as the building fell apart, chunks of brick and machine parts were flying through the air. She went a bit slower, getting the kids to safety, then snapped back to full speed.
The pieces of the dying building filled the air around her. They looked like they were suspended, frozen in mid-flight, but Speedburn knew better. She was moving at such an accelerated rate that it merely appeared like things were frozen. She started to walk around, deflecting chunks of flying debris away from people they were about to hit, aiming them at Doomsayre when practical. She could turn the chunks away, she could point them in another direction, but there was nothing she could do about the momentum they would regain when she slowed herself back down again.
There was a big chunk floating through the air – a piece of what looked like a washing machine motor – drifting leisurely towards Chris. She shook her head. That Sleuth costume of his snappy, all right, but it wasn’t going to provide the slightest bit of protection. She considered for a moment, as she often did, simply allowing the debris to strike him. Maybe that would be enough, maybe that would teach him a lesson. Then she shook her head. If there was one thing she knew about her partner, it was that he was too damn stubborn to learn anything from something so pedestrian as a brain injury. The chunk was too large to deflect effectively, so she instead grabbed Chris and pulled him to the side. When she slowed down and caught up to the world, he would feel something yanking him hard to the right, followed by the whizzing sound and burst of wind that would tell him she’d saved him yet again from something that could have taken his head off. It was just her lot in life, she supposed.
Turning her attention back to the battle in front of them, to the monster attacking her friends, to the thing that had brought Catalyst down – by her reckoning – several hours ago, she jumped back into the battle, and started to slow down.
STAT
The torrent of energy flowing from the battle was taking its toll on more than just Catalyst. STAT, the medical marvel, watched from afar when the bolts of eye-fire tore through Pendragon’s armor, nearly incinerating his arm. Before the monster could open fire again, Speedburn rejoined the battle, distracting him (if not really hurting him) with a torrent of flailing fists, hundreds of thousands every second. STAT jumped to his feet, red cape flapping behind him, and controlled his flight into the battle with steady bursts of bioelectric energy. STAT’s powers were the result of a long-ago experiment that was intended to control the growth of cells in an effort to thwart cancerous growths. Unfortunately for the world, the experiment was a failure. Fortunately for Pendragon, when Dr. Mike Edison fell into the machine, he not only survived, but gained the ability to greatly accelerate the healing process.
With insulated gloves, he pulled aside the slagged remains of Pendragon’s gauntlet. The would-be king was still conscious, and somehow, still cognizant. As STAT grabbed his arm, Pendragon cheerfully said, “Well done, lad. I knew I could count on you.”
“Of course, your highness,” STAT said, and if Pendragon noticed the trace of sarcasm in his voice, he didn’t notice it. STAT’s power flowed down into the blackened arm, and before his eyes, it began to fill out. Charred, burnt chunks of flesh fell away, revealing healthy new growth underneath. Within seconds, Pendragon practically had a brand-new arm, strong and smooth, without any hair upon it. That’s how the power worked – STAT could regrow tissue, but things like hair and nails would have to grow back on their own. A small price to pay, he thought, considering that if he weren’t there Pendragon would be known as the one-armed monarch.
“What about the others?” Pengradon asked, flexing his new arm. “Helen? Catalyst?”
“I’ll see what I can do for Helen of Troy,” STAT agreed. “I’m afraid to touch Catalyst. His body chemistry is so bizarre there’s no telling what will happen if I use my powers on him. The last time he temporarily grew a second head.”
Pendragon nodded. “I understand, son. Well, do what you can for the rest of us, and leave the task of taking down this beast to us.” He saluted the medic and rushed back into battle, even with his right arm exposed and unarmed. STAT wondered how many times he would be called upon to re-grow that arm before the day was out.
“Sure, sure, I’ll do what I can,” he muttered. “I always do what I can.”
Helen of Troy was lying in the rubble of the appliance store, her body conforming perfectly to the dent in the side of the washing machine she lay against. STAT walked through the remains of several refrigerators to get to her, then looked her over. She was a beautiful woman, there was no way to deny that, but STAT barely noticed. He hadn’t had a date in three years, hadn’t had many friends in almost two. With a power like his, he was the most in-demand superhero in the city.
He was lucky he had time to put his cape on in the morning.
Helen was barely scraped, and her head was lolling against the machine. Probably a concussion, STAT decided. She was a pretty resilient woman, she’d probably be fine in a little while without his help. The explosion of a pickup truck being hurled at Pendragon, then destroyed in midair, reminded STAT that he didn’t really have time to let Helen heal on her own. These super-resilient heroes were always tough on him. It was hard to hurt them, but healing them was no neat trick either, their tissues were naturally resistant to outside energies. STAT touched Helen’s forehead and began to work. It was almost like he had to convince her body to accept his energy, to allow him to do his work. STAT healed dozens of people every day, and healing one Helen of Troy was almost enough to take him out of it.
He fell back, breaking the connection and settling down on his haunches. Her eyes were opening and she was sitting up. Blinking, she looked at her rescuer. “STAT?” she said. “Was that you?”
He nodded, gasping for breath. “Yeah… it was me, Helen.”
“I love how you’re always here for us,” she said, pulling herself to her feet. “You’re our own little guardian angel. Really, what would we do without you?”
She kissed him on the forehead, her bottom lip instead leaving a thin layer of lipstick on his white mask, and rushed out of the broken remains of the store to rejoin the fray.
STAT stayed where he was for a moment, breathing deeply, trying to catch his breath. Yeah, what would you do? he thought to himself. How did he wind up on the sidelines, patching up these careless a-list heroes, running himself ragged for no more reward that a forehead kiss? It’s not like he didn’t have offensive powers too. Okay, so his bioelectric shocks weren’t really strong enough to stop Doomsayre. They seemed to do the trick against your basic purse-snatcher, but these monsters were out of his league and he knew it.
Still… you’d think he could do something else…
“STAT!”
Sleuth was in the doorway to the store, banging on the wall, snapping him out of his reverie. “STAT, come quick, we need you! Speedburn is hurt!”
STAT couldn’t help but release a low, deep sigh. “Oh my way,” he said.
Well, friends, it’s been a solid month now that I’ve been working on Cross-Purposes, my 2008 National Novel Writing Month project. And did I finish the book?
After spending most of the day on assorted airplanes, I got home this afternoon a little after six o’clock. I miss Erin terribly already.
Hey, everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving, ate entirely too much food, and had a lot of fun. Today, in my mind, is the first full day of the Christmas season, my absolute favorite time of the year. And because of that, I thought I’d kick off my Christmas Party by sharing with you something a lot of you may have missed last year.
Evertime Realms 
People are saying…