csyphrett

Scouting in the Woods 6 Stella watched as Mrs. Morgan broke limbs into the approximate length to be fishing poles. Seconds of hand waving cleared off any branches. The string came next. One end went around the pole. The other end went around a hook on a bobber. Mister Morgan settled on the ground next to the small lake where he had guided the campers. His hook was on the water. Ruff lay beside him, using him as sort of a pillow. One hand petted the dog as he waited for the fish to bite. “What’s the point of this?,” asked Mark. He stared at the pole in his hand. “It’s to relax,” said Mister Morgan. “It’s to be still and watchful. Fishing is about waiting for things to happen so you can take advantage.” “Sounds boring,” said Mark. He looked at the lake with a frown. “It’s also about being silent so you don’t scare the fish,” said Mister Morgan. He reeled in his line and recast with a flick of his wrist. Mrs. Morgan cast her own line and then settled next to her husband. She carried herself just as alert as she always seemed to Stella. Maybe this was her relaxed state. Stella looked for a spot for herself where the sun didn’t directly shine down. She cast her line out. She didn’t really think any of the fish were going to bite. She liked just sitting and letting her mind wander. She found that fishing didn’t take much effort on her part, just relaxing in the shade was good for her mind, and it was an activity enjoyed with similar mindsets around. Mark and Melinda were trying too hard to catch fish. Their impatience impinged on her ability to relax. Bond almost vanished behind a set of numbers. She glanced over at where he sat by himself. He stared at the water, but he seemed to be seeing invisible factors in the ripples. She wondered about that, but didn’t want to ask. He would know she was peeking into his mind. And she had learned that some people didn’t like that violation of their privacy. She glanced at the Morgan siblings. They were at the other end of the pond from their parents and guests. They seemed to be having a contest to see who could flick the hook on their makeshift poles the fastest. She shook her head. They were supposed to be taking it easy. She supposed the children wanted to be chasing something rather than sitting still. Mark flicked his wrist. The string snapped forward and snapped. His hook and bobber flew along the lake, skimming the surface. It embedded itself in the bank of the pond on the other side. Mister Morgan clapped his hands slowly. Then he went back to taking it easy. Mark made a sound of disgust before stomping around the lake to retrieve the hook. He glared at his family. They mostly stared back, but his sister laughed at him. “We should have left the kids,” said Mister Morgan. “Maybe some hard work will grind down this hatred for taking things easy.” “Barry?,” asked Mrs. Morgan. “He would love some assistants,” said Mister Morgan. “Corralling some weird experiment would let the kids know that just hanging out and smelling the roses is a thing.” “It would cut down on the whining,” said Mrs. Morgan. “I can’t really argue with that,” said Mister Morgan. Stella felt her line pull on her pole. She looked around. She seemed to be the only one with a bite. She hadn’t expected to get something. She started pulling on the pole, trying to lift the fish out of the pond. “Do you need help, Stella?,” asked Mister Morgan. He made no move to join the struggle. “I think I got it,” said Stella. She pulled on the limb until it bent and then released it, and then pulled on it again. She could sense the fish not liking what she was doing. She thought about letting it go. Mark appeared at her side. He tugged on the string and the fish flew out of the water. He caught it before it hit the ground. “What do I do with it?,” asked Mark. The fish flapped in his hands, trying to escape. He exerted a small amount of pressure to shock it into being still. “Put it in the fish bucket,” said Mister Morgan. He indicated an empty cooler beside where he sat. Mark dropped the fish into the bucket. He rubbed his hands against each other. Finally he resorted to washing his hands in the lake. He shook them dry. “Good job, Stella,” said Mister Morgan. “See if you can catch another one.” “I don’t think I like fishing all that much, Mister Morgan,” said Stella. She didn’t want to explain the feelings coming from the fish as she struggled with it. They knew about powers, but she didn’t want to reveal her own until she had no choice. “It’s fine,” said Mister Morgan. “No one has to like everything.” “I got one!,” shouted Melinda. She yanked the pole backward so fast the fish had no choice but to fly to her hand. “I caught one.” “Put it in the bucket,” said Mister Morgan. “A couple more and we’ll have the making of dinner.” Melinda dropped her catch in with the other. The fish flopped around inside the bucket. She stepped back, a sad look on her face. “I don’t think I like fishing either, Dad,” she said. “I can’t explain it.” “That’s fine,” said Mister Morgan. “How would you guys like to go play? I think I can catch dinner by myself.” “No more fishing?,” asked Mark. He looked around at the unexpected freedom of movement he had been given. “No more fishing,” confirmed Mister Morgan. “Don’t wander around and get lost. Stay in sight.” “We can do that,” said Mark. “Come on, guys. No more gross fish for us.” He waved his arm for the kids to follow him away from the water. “That boy,” said Mister Morgan, shaking his head. “Go with them, Ruff. I don’t want to have to search for them for days because they went off the trail.” Ruff grumbled as he got to his feet and fell in behind the children. He walked up beside Stella with a wag of his tail. Maybe she would give him some scratchings. He liked those when he could get them. Stella wondered what they were supposed to play if they couldn’t leave the trail. Mark wasn’t too afraid of being out in the wilderness. Melinda and Bond didn’t like it. She didn’t mind it one way, or the other, but preferred her own room with her books beside her. Ruff settled in so he could watch them. One ear listened for anything bigger than a squirrel that might be coming their way. Experience had taught him that Mark would be the bigger troublemaker if there happened to be a problem. Stella settled in beside Ruff. She rubbed his fur at his shoulders. He wagged his tail to show he liked it. “We’re going to play hide and seek,” said Mark. “Ruff will be home base. Let’s draw to see who’s it.” “Dad said not to leave the trail,” said Melinda. “I don’t think we can play hide and seek and stay on the trail. Maybe we should do something else like Pirates.” “Pirates?,” said Mark. He looked around and picked up a short limb. “I’m Captain Blackbeard.” “I’m Barberrossa,” said Melinda. She grabbed another limb to act as her short sword. “I’m the scourge of the Barbary Coast.” “I’m Captain Decataur,” said Bond. He picked up his own sword. “I killed all the pirates in my day.” “What about you, Stella?,” asked Melinda. She waved her imaginary sword as a rallying gesture. “What kind of pirate do you want to be?” “Sitting here with Ruff is good enough,” said Stella. She moved to sit with her back to a tree. Ruff moved with her, settling at her feet. “We’ll watch out for you until Mister Morgan gets done fishing.” “All right,” said Mark. “How do we do this?” “Hand over your treasure, you cowardly coward that cowers,” said Melinda. She pointed her sword at Mark. “The better captain is here to take it.” “Both of you heave to under the command of the United States Navy,” said Bond. He alternately pointed at the siblings with his sword. “I’ll be putting you both in prison.” “Blackbeard will never see the inside of a prison, you scurvy cur,” said Mark. He waved his sword around. “I would rather go down fighting.” “What he said except for Barberrossa,” said Melinda. She grinned. “I would rather eat grass than give up my ship to a spineless spine such as you.” “Really? A spineless spine?,” said Bond. “Couldn’t you think of something more practical?” “You’re breaking character,” pointed out Mark. “Come on with the comeback so we can have a duel to the death.” “I don’t think I know any comebacks other than die fiendish knaves like the vicious animals you are,” said Bond. His delivery came with a look of puzzlement. He smiled. “Die fiendish knaves like the vicious animals you are!” “That’s what I’m talking about,” said Mark. “On guard, running dog of the oppressor capitalist pigs.” Stella shook her head. She rubbed Ruff’s neck. He barely moved. A faint wagging of his tail told her he liked the attention well enough. The other three kids mock sword fought up and down the trail. It was mainly Mark against Bond. Melinda attacked both sides, usually when one side looked stronger than the other. Stella noted that the Morgans slowed down to let Bond have some moments in the sun. She didn’t know if he knew that. He seemed content enough as he chased after them. And she didn’t want to spoil that feeling. Ruff looked up. The fur on his back stood straight. He vanished into the woods without a sound. Stella stood up. She brushed off her pants as she looked around. She saw something on the edge of her senses. They weren’t alone on the trail. That must have set Ruff off. “Hey guys!,” she called. “Ruff took off.” The fighters froze in mid-motion. Mark looked around. He waved Bond and Melinda over to where Stella stood. He joined them silently. “Ruff doesn’t usually do that,” said Mark. “I think we need to head back to Dad and Mom. They’ll want to know about this.” Stella looked around. She spotted Mister Morgan’s thoughts about fishing in the distance. They were close, but still out of sight. “They’re that way,” said Stella. She pointed at the direction of the thoughts. “All right,” said Mark. “Lead the way, Stella. Keep an eye out, Lin. Ruff might need help if he went after some animal he didn’t like.” Stella set off for the pond. Mark didn’t think Ruff had taken off after any animal. She could see it in his thoughts. Bond followed her. His hands glowed as he walked. She didn’t know what that was about, but felt it had something to do with his mother. Melinda vanished into the brush as they went. Stella wanted to call out, but didn’t in case there was trouble on the way.

7 Logan returned to check on the animation he had commissioned. Teflon Billy had gone through his arraignment calmly. His trial was in a couple of months according to the court calender. His lawyer had filed a motion to keep them from cutting off his mask because it would endanger his face. Logan understood the desire to keep anonymous. Fingerprints had been taken in case he had been arrested earlier so they could identify him from criminal records and to compare to other crimes around the country. If that came out, the paper would cover it. Hillary stood at the front counter and gestured for him to enter the school. The animation teacher smiled. “What does it look like?,” asked Logan. “Let me show you,” said Hillary, gesturing for the publisher to follow him. “It’s all stick figures right now, but I think we have a clear picture of what happened from the reports and things.” Hillary led the way into a classroom set up as a viewing room. He went to the computers set up on one side and called up the animation file. The loading ring started on the big screen. “The first thing we did was assemble a model of the crime scene,” said Hillary. Models of the houses appeared on the screen. “I sent a couple of students down to take measurements and pictures. I put their footage in the computer so I could add in what we needed to do with the physical evidence.” “Then we took the crime scene photos and marked in where the bullets hit,” said Hillary. Red spots assembled on the houses. “We also put in bystander cars with their bullet damage.” Models of the cars in the pictures appeared. Bullet damage marked one side of them from the attack. “I went over the accounts with my students,” said Hillary. “There was a lot of confusion, but the gist is that a lot of the one gang was here in front of the target house. Two cars drive up. Words were exchanged. Then they started shooting at each other.” Two cars rolled to the middle of the street. More stick men appeared. Red lines connected each of the stick men to bullet holes in the environment. “How do you know who shot what?,” asked Logan. He peered at the stick men as if trying to see who they really were. “We don’t know really,” said Hillary. He froze the footage after rewinding it back to where the stick men first started shooting. “We made guesses based on the pictures and the information the police gathered. The boy you’re interested in was shot with a rifle. Most of the aggressive shooting was done with pistols and submachine guns. The only rifle bullets the police found were behind the two cars.” Logan processed the information as he stared at the frozen scene on the screen. He felt that Hillary had a theory. If he was right, it changed everything for the case. He also didn’t know how to use it to his advantage. “What do you think happened, Hillary?,” Logan asked. He already had a fair idea, but he wanted it confirmed beyond a doubt. “I think the rifle started out being pointed at the cars on the street,” said Hillary. He rolled the footage forward slowly. He pointed to one shooter on the defenders’ side that was in front of the murder house. The stick man turned in a circle and shot through the house. “I don’t know why that happened, but I think that’s what happened.” “Do you know which shooter this was?,” asked Logan. “No,” said Hillary. He made a face. “The police didn’t really know who did the shooting. We just put it together from the reports you provided.” “Can you get me a copy of this?,” said Logan. “If we can identify that guy, we can try to get the police to find him. You said he was the only one with a rifle out there?” “According to the police reports, most of the casings recovered were pistol and submachine gun rounds in nearly the same calibers,” said Hillary. He went to the provided information and looked through it. “The round that killed the boy was a rifle round from what they think was an Ay Kay.” Logan nodded. It meant that one of the Razorbacks had done the deed. He already knew how to find that person from the animation. How did he get the gangs to send that person forward? That was his first real hurdle he had to jump. He decided the best thing to do was see if any of the Razorbacks had been hurt during the shooting. That would give him his prime suspect. Then he could think about separating him out from his gang so he could take the consequences of his deed. Maybe he could get the Aardvarks on his side by telling them he knew who had killed the boy. He doubted Clinton would stand knowing that he was being pressured because of another gang’s mistake. On the other hand, Clinton might decide to take things into his own hands. Logan wondered if a misleading story in the paper could put pressure on things for the gangs so they would step back from the violence. He doubted it. If there wasn’t this, there would be something else. He was better off escorting them to rented planes and shipping them to other countries so they couldn’t mix together again. “Thanks for your help, Hillary,” said Logan. He pulled out his phone. “I know this will never stand up in court but it might have given me an idea on how to shut things down.” “What are you going to do?,” asked Hillary. He shut his computer down. “I’m going to find out who the shooter is and then I’m going to try to pressure him to come clean,” said Logan. “If I can do that, I can let the gangs go back to a slow boil where they aren’t hurting anyone. Right now, they are close to open warfare. Log Man has been on the scene, and having a vigilante actively in your business might slow things down, but he can’t watch them forever. And the police aren’t doing that great either. More attention will help hurt their business as far as I can tell.” “And hurting their businesses will make them go elsewhere to earn their money,” said Hillary. “It might drive them out of business if the paper can keep the pressure on,” said Logan. He called Phillips on his phone. “This is Phillips,” said the reporter. “This is Logan Major,” said Logan. “I asked a computer animation teacher to go through the crime reports and put together an animation for me about the shooting. We think one of the Razorbacks shot the Garret boy accidentally. I need to know if any of the Razorbacks were wounded in the shooting.” “Paul Winfrey was shot,” said Phillips. “He claimed to be an innocent bystander. Everyone I know in the neighborhood said he was one of the ‘Backs. The police let him go because they couldn’t find a weapon on him. And everyone on the street was covered with gunpowder residue, so that wasn’t a good reason to hold him at the time.” “Is Winfrey in the hospital?,” Logan asked. “I don’t know, but I can find out,” said Phillips. “Let me know,” said Logan. “I have to do some things, but maybe we can put this story to bed tonight, or tomorrow if we get lucky.” “It shouldn’t be that hard to find out,” said Phillips. “I’ll call you back as soon as I can.” Logan cut the connection and put his phone away. All he needed was a way to force a confession. He wasn’t seeing all of a plan for that yet. “Hillary,” said Logan. “We might have to do this for a bigger crowd. I think you have had the key to this in these reports the whole time. I just need to get some things together.” “Let me know, and I will be ready to roll,” said Hillary. “I’ll put everything in the safe until you need it back.” “Thanks,” said Logan. He headed out of the school. He needed to make another call, but he didn’t want Hillary to hear who he was calling. That would make things complicated for maintaining his secret. He climbed into his Datsun and pulled out on the road. He dialed the number for O’Toole. He needed some official backing for what he wanted to do. “O’Toole here,” said the detective. “Who’s calling?” “This is Log Man,” said Logan. “There was a rifle at the Garret shooting. Did you guys find it?” “No, and we looked everywhere around the scene,” said O’Toole. “What’s this about?” “I think the wounded Razorback shot the boy by accident then got rid of the weapon before he could be taken to the hospital,” said Logan. “I’m going down to look for it.” “Where do you get this?,” said O’Toole. “One of my contacts hired an animator to put the scene back together. He just called me with the news of what it looked like from the reports,” said Logan. “That rifle has to be there at the scene of the shooting.” “All right,” said O’Toole. “It’s possible that it has been retrieved. It’s been a while since the shooting.” “I think it’s still there,” said Logan. “We just have to find it.” “I’ll get a crew to come down, and we’ll help you look for it,” said O’Toole. “Good job on Teflon Billy. The hotel put your fight on Youtube.” “Great,” said Logan. “I’ll see you at the scene of the crime.”

I would like to pick this as my theme music CES

Arlo Spellman took the weapons tech the Sling Shots stole and turned himself into a human rocket. The magnetic drive in his suit can propel him at speeds above the speed of sound while driving away anything that might get in his way. Spellman took on the name Projectile. CES

Someone has broken into labs around the world from Argent, Viper, Harmon Industries, and others. They have stolen technology based around railguns and armored suits. Who are the five villains known as the Slingshots. (any technology that can be built from magnets is acceptable, not just cannons.) CES

Tak Sabata is Kuro Inu, the Black Dog of the Zodiac. Like others bearing that name around the world, he is the master of luck produced dooms and the quick escape. CES

Watched the first episode of Bojuri. Girl gets a vr rig to play an mmo online. Dumps all of her starting points in one attribute to make herself a tank because if your stat is high enough you can't be hurt CES

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I would like to post up Sun Wu Kong as my optional character CES

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Nick Chopin is the Chopper. His axe can cut through anything with one stroke. CES

The Drunken Monkey is a master of both monkey and drunken styles of fighting, and the more alcohol he drinks, the faster, stronger, more enduring, and berserking he does. CES

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I am picking Colin Chau as my villian today CES

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The video game industry has produced dozens of toys of its heroes. Among the most heroic is Monkey Rong , the wooden ape with the power of bananas at his command. CES

Super Fist GunHead Paid is a toy and a robot, or a toy that is a robot. In any case, this villainous mini mech has a changeable arsenal to help his cohort commit crimes. CES

I am down two picks I think. I am going to go with Lucy Lawless as my consort. A land in turmoil cried out for a hero. She was a mighty princess forged in the heat of battle. The power. The passion. The danger. Her courage will change the world." And Mark Williams as the Priest He is not your average priest CES

I would like to pick Adrian Paul as the designated heir CES

I have never had a song to lift me up but I have had some that I have empathized with over the years Something I have to tell myself after work sometimes A song my son loved before he got into meme music CES

I would like to pick Christopher Lambert as the Sovereign Here we are, the princes of the universe CES

I would like to pick Jeffrey Donovan as the hero You do whatever work comes your way. You rely on anyone who's still talking to you: a stab happy ex-girlfriend; an old friend who used to inform on you to the King's guards; family too—if you're desperate. CES

The golem known as Rainbow Sprinkles is a plushie unicorn that can move things around, heal wounds and illnesses, and stab people in the ankles. She hangs around the local hospital when not in action CES