8FOLD/TEB: Darkhorse: Mighty Melodies TEB

[Drew Perron]

On 4/17/2016 10:02 PM, Tom Russell wrote:
<snip>
>  ~ CONTENTS ~
>
> 0. "Praying Angry" (Mighty Medley # 23)
> 1. Plot Synopsis: Journey Into # 15
> 2. "Thorns of a Dilemma" (Mighty Medley # 2)
> 3. "Terror of the Tribots!" (Mighty Medley # 1)
> 4. "Four Minutes" (Mighty Medley # 4)
> 5. "Last January" (Mighty Medley # 13)
> 6. "The Bergeron Run" (Mighty Medley # 5)
> 7. "Breathing Underwater" (Mighty Medley # 6)
> 8. "Wetwork" (Mighty Medley #9-10)
> 9. "The Last Story" [selections] (Mighty Medley # 16)

Ahhhhhh, so this is in chronological order. :o I see.

>    This one, calls herself Heartbreaker? She's psychotic-psychotic.
> Probably Darkhorse shouldn't have actually said that to her, though.
> "If you hadn't made me angry, maybe you wouldn't be tied to a bed by
> poisoned rose thorns, suspended over a vat of ever-nearer molten
> chocolate!"

And you're *sure* that Doctor Developer wasn't involved with this?

> Then she plunges her vibrating hand
> knifely into each hull, frying the circuits.

"plunges knifely", that's great.

> He then asks her (not for the first time) to become his
> queen consort.
>    She rolls her eyes. "Maybe some other time. I got ten more places
> to hit. Take it easy, Gills," she teases.
>    "Be swift as the current, black pearl of the surface."

Cute shit. <3

> Last time she was
> in Lemuria, Terry taught her a subsonic anesthetic his veterinarians
> used on pet sharks. She wiggles her fingers at super-speed to
> replicate the frequency. She must be slightly off, because instead of
> putting the shark asleep, it makes it queasy. It convulses, thrashing
> wildly, and then vomits fish guts and bomb.

That's so great. :D

> At midnight, Melody presses her lips against Ben's, and she thinks,
> yes, this is how I want twenty-fourteen to start. It's not Ben. She
> doesn't even like Ben. Doesn't not like him, either. Just met him,
> really. It's just that she wanted to be kissed at midnight, and he did
> nicely.

I just really like the attitude behind this paragraph.

>    But she never turned down a team-up. (Well, almost never; Blue
> Boxer got a little pervy, though Bethany said he's a lot better than
> he used to be.) Every team-up, someone good got saved and someone bad
> got put away. Bethany, Jules, Brian, Kate, even Docrates-- she had
> learned from every one of them, every time. Each team-up made her
> better at the work, and it's the work that matters. In
> twenty-thirteen, she was the best she'd ever been.

The one here, too. :D She's so rad. (Also DEREK >:I)

> I'm going to make it good. I'm not worried about the twenty-seventh.
 > Brian and Dani will be there with me."
>    Those words sting a bit now. Because the back end of
> twenty-thirteen was when Brian went to prison for a crime he didn't
> commit and the cancer took her Aunt Dani. Because of twenty-thirteen,
> Melody is going to die alone, and she can never forgive it for that.

God, just, yeah. :<

> Melody decides that twenty-fourteen is going to be better, and
> that it's going to start with a kiss. She scoops up a bystander in her
> arms and speeds him outside. She decides that he's cute enough to do
> in a pinch, and that his name should be Ben.

Heeheehee. <3 And I might be slightly annoyed at the non-consensuality of this if...

> He smiles at
> her, still cradled in her surprisingly powerful arms, blinking and
> bewildered, and also more than a little pleased with himself. She
> smiles back, raising her eyebrows over wide green eyes as if to say,
> yep, that just happened.

...let's face it, this wasn't a very nice fantasy >#> LOOK FICTION IS ALLOWED TO 
BE INDULGENT OKAY

> No, best arrow in our quiver
> is our popularity. Speedsters have always been loved, and we can do
> more with that than all the rest."
>    Melody didn't really grok it until she found a hundred thousand
> international sponsors for Atlanta's Breast Cancer Marathon. Like most
> things in Melody's life, she pushed hard for the first few steps, then
> it picked up speed. Coverage lead to more coverage, donors to more
> donors, snowballing.

Awwwww. <3

>    "You'll lose two days. Maybe two and a half."
>    One-eighty-four, eighty-three. It's not much time, but really, it's
> never been much time. From the start, she's dedicated herself to
> making that time count. Towards making it matter. That doesn't change
> now that she's approaching the home stretch. The money she's going to
> raise, the good it might do? If it helps get us one second closer to
> the day where no one has to die the way Aunt Dani died?
>    It's worth her two days.

FUCK YEAH MELODY.

>    "Again, just call me Melody; black pearl of the sea is a little racist."
>    "But you're okay with Darkhorse."
>    "It's an idiom. Now, what's the trouble, Gills?"

Heeheehee

>    "Now maybe I can catch my breath," wheezes Melody.
>    CHAKATHOOM!

Heeheehee :D

>     The fish-ninja reaches into his belt for his fishurikens.

This is a great sentence.

> "Afraid I was a little clumsy, though.
> Sliced your bag of knockout dust."
>    The fish-ninja holds up the bag to investigate it. "No you didn't!"
>    "Knew I forgot something. Easily remedied." The fishuriken rips
> through the bag; a cloud of knockout dust billows forth; the
> fish-ninja collapses.

Heeheeheeheehee

>    Terry trusts her, trusts her with his life, and so he doesn't do
> that annoying thing where he asks questions or tries to help. He
> listens to her immediately, especially when she calls him an idiot.
> (Might make good husband material after all, if she was going to live
> long enough.)

D'awwwww.

> Because really, everyone's part of the field; most people just don't
> notice it.

I love this concept very much.

>    "No," says Blue Boxer. "We do that, we get another earthquake, or
> worse. We're not going to get into a big stupid fight. We're the
> Daylighters; we don't do big and stupid." (Kate stares at Rainshade
> and mutters something Blue Boxer pretends he doesn't hear.)

Heeheehee.

>    "Let's just say she is less expendable," says Blue Boxer. "But
> we're also going to need some... cannon fodder is such an unfortunate
> term.

Derek you're not great at this. XD

> Stop trying to protect
> me, Derek. I don't have a long life ahead of me. I have a hundred and
> twenty-two days left. Let me use them."

YEAH!!

> One of the recurring arguments between the two of them had to do with
> Brian's wasted potential. A speedster can master any discipline,
> cramming years of research and practice into days. Whaley did it. Even
> the new girl does it. But Brian never could spend two minutes on
> anything he didn't want to do.

I'm okay with that.

> Whaley has, for the sixteenth time, isolated a susceptible version of
> the Gorgon, cutting it off from the others before they can update or
> delete it. If it evolves in isolation, wonderful things might happen.
>    "Sweet sixteen," says Whaley. He presses the button, and sends the
> artificial intelligence called Kid Enthusiastic once more unto the
> breach.

:D :D :D

>    "Then I need your help," says Melody. "I need you to remember
> everything you can about those two seconds, and I need you to remember
> everything you don't. Because if she's still alive, then I'm going to
> find her, and I'm going to bring her back.
>    "Even if it's the last thing I do."
>
>      TO BE CONTINUED IN...
>              ...DARKHORSE # 1!

DUN DUN DUN DA!

Drew "woo" Perron