Chasing New Dawn (Part 1)
I’ve been following me on Twitter or Facebook, you’d know that there is a story I’ve been working on since October of last year. It’s coming slowly, in fits in starts - though I have to say that I made more progress on it in the past two months then in the eight months that preceded it.
It’s completely separate from the Urbis Arcana stories. I’m going to write a separate post going into more detail about what inspired it, but the big part of it is that that I’ve been thinking that there are plenty of novels and short stories based around American ideas of what superheroes are. I thought that it would be interesting to look at the world that developed more along the lines of Japanese superhero tropes, with giant monsters, magical girls and power rangers/kamen rider type heroes - and apply them to an American setting. What would it be like to have a superhero universe where most of the big things happen not in New York (or its thinly veiled fictional equivalent), but in Tokyo? What if most of the heroes’ powers weren’t innate, but tied to transformation trinkets? And what if, instead of going on forever, most heroes get come and go within a few years?
I originally meant for it to be a short story, but by around December, it was clear to me that it was going to be anything but short. At this point, I am 21 pages in, and I’m only about 1/4 of the way through plot-wise. Originally, I wanted to wait until I actually finish the whole thing and run it past my betas, but… Well, it’s been over a year in a half since I posted any of my writing on Livejournal, and I didn’t want people to think I stopped.
I’ve actually already been getting some feedback from my local writing group, out of all places. At first, I hesitated to share it there, but one of its long-time members has been sharing a Doctor Who fanfic she wrote…. quite a while a go, and I figured that if a fanfic was okay, so would this. I haven’t gotten as much feedback as I would have liked, but I did get some valuable advice. Which may well be another reason why I’m posting this - I would like to get more feedback.
So the plan right now is to post the story in parts at least once a week. Then, once I’m done, I’ll go back to give the whole thing one more look, then send it to betas for final edits, and then… Well, randirogue has been bugging me about getting into digital indie publishing, and, unlike Urbis Arcana, this would be relatively self-contained and maybe long enough to qualify as a Kindle novella.
We’ll see.
For now, I would like to thank the Chicago Writing Alliance for some useful advice as far as exposition, and I would like to again thank alliancesjr for some background on Old Orchard Mall.
As always, comments and criticims are very much encouraged. Especially since this hasn’t been betaed yet.
Chasing New Dawn
(Part 1)
I made my way through the weekend crowds at the Old Orchard Mall, clinching a pair of shopping bags - the teas from Adagio for me, a robotics kit for Brooke. The last royalty check from the New Dawn Foundation was almost five digits, and I figured I'd put most of it Brooke's college fund and splurge with the rest. In a few months, all of the Battle of New York hype will die down and checks will go back to hundreds - if I'm lucky.
It wasn't as big of a deal as the 60th anniversary of K-Day - the first time the strange creatures we now call Kaiju appeared on Earth. And it wasn't as a big of a deal as the 50th anniversary of the first appearance of henishinjin - the “change persons” who could morph into forms powerful enough to go toe-to-toe with the kaiju. Some became heroes, some became villains, and some were somewhere in between - and the world was never the same again.
Like I said - compared to all that, the Battle of New York wasn't a big deal. But it was the last big alien invasion on the American soil, and 10th anniversary makes for a nice round date.
Whenever people find out that I lived in New York back then, they always ask me - what was it like? What was it like to see the NY6 fight Vorta Empire's kaiju and kaijin? And I told them that I didn't see a whole lot of that. The Thuy Trang Memorial Academy was in Queens, and most of the battles happen in Manhattan, Brooklyn and other places further south. When you attend a super-exclusive boarding school, it's easy to feel like the rest of the world didn't exist. I would tell people that I just studied, hung out with my friends and tried to figure out who I liked more - he kind, funny Corey or the brash, brooding Daisuke. And yes, I know the whole “one girl tries to choose between a nice guy and a bad boy” is so freaking played out - thanks a lot, Stephanie Meyer - but back then, it was exciting. And frustrating. And kind of flattering.
Anyway...
I tell people I missed the Battle itself completely. That, when the Vorta opened a huge jumpgate over Central Park, I ran to the kaiju-proof shelter, just like everybody else. I certainly didn't see any of the NY6 join forces with every senshi in flight range. I wasn't there when the Dashing Abraxas stopped the tsunami caused by a down Vorta ship. I wasn't there when Recompense saved the mayor's kids. I wasn't there when Skyknight and Varisha Everstorm destroyed the gate, while Technitrix shut down their attempts to open any others. And, much as I wish I could see Baelpeor gave Prince of Tears a well-deserved beatdown, I wasn't there, either.
Here's the thing about lies. If you want to tell something believable, you need to get as many grains of truth in there as you can.
Even when they ask about Helia, the white-armored senshi, the closest thing NY6 had to a leader, I can honestly tell them that I didn't see her. I could honestly say that I didn't see her fight Prince Rezok and his Dai-Kaiju near the Liberty Island. Now, if you asked me if I saw the ferries full of terrified civilians as the kaiju rushed toward them.... That would be a different story. But nobody would ever ask me that.
The 10-year anniversary of the invasion was only two weeks away, and Helia was the only member of NY6 who was still unaccounted for. Nobody knew what happened to her, but it seemed like everyone had a theory. The Order of Silence turned her into an a mindless kaijin. She was imprisoned on an Abendreach slave ship. She was trapped on some distant planet. She's traveling with Tempest. Vorta assassins got her. She and Prince of Tears ran off together. She and [fill in whatever senshi is popular right now] ran off together. She is living in luxury in some Middle Eastern kingdom. Oh, and my favorite one - Helia ran into Transgressant Killreign just outside the solar system and died fighting, but not before taking down every single ship.
I guess it's nice that people thought I had enough power to seriously hurt creatures that gave Tempest himself trouble. Or that I would be brave enough to face them.
But then... That's what people expect, isn't it? Senshi are supposed to be strong. They might face temptation, they might have a moment of weakness, but they always, always come through.
In the end, senshi always do the right thing.
Senshi aren't supposed to get pregnant at 16. And when the New Dawn Foundation offers to do an abortion, quickly, safely and discreetly, senshi aren't supposed to tell them to go to hell.
So Helia simply disappeared. And, seven months later, I gave birth to a tiny, precious baby girl, with the man who I thought was a love of my life holding my hand.
Honestly... I was okay with that. We saved the city. We saved the world. There were plenty of other senshi out there, and they could handle whatever came next. Corey and I could live together, raise our daughter together. Sure, we were young, sure, we still had to finish high school, but we would work it out. Somehow. We had each other. That was all that mattered.
Oh, how I wish it was true.
I sighed. My mom told me not to dwell on it, to focus on the positive, but how could I? For the first time ever, Brooke was spending her spring break without me. I know it's the right thing to do - she's Cory's daughter, too, and Brooke deserved to spend time with her dad. It's just...
It's been three days, and the condo my mom bought for us never felt so large, or so empty. I keep expecting to see the lights on in her room, keep expecting to find her asleep with a book in the living room couch, keep expecting her to hear her playing Kaiju Alert Network news full-blast when I wake up. And every time, I have to remind myself that she's not home.
Because of me.
And every time I think about it, part of me wonders - maybe I shouldn't have ended it. Maybe it would've been fine. Corey would always love me. He wouldn't care if I didn't. And it's not like I didn't like him. Maybe I could just... coast. Anything would be better than what we put Brooke through. And every time I think that, I have to remind myself why it had to end, why it probably never should have God damn started to begin with...
I took a deep breath.
Get a grip, Maddie. You are here to shop. Leave the moping at home. You're going to get some candles, some nice body oils, update your wardrobe a bit, and get something nice for Brooke. Maybe stop by Barnes & Noble and get her that Kaiju and Senshi encyclopedia she's been begging for. Broke had her heart set on the actual hard copy, even though the thing weighed more than a brick.
I bet you could knock out a Kaiju with that thing.
I chuckled. Riley would give me a bit lecture about mass and velocity, but Connie would get it. She might even try it.
I adjusted my purse, rearranged the shopping bags and walked underneath the office tower, toward the open area up ahead.
Old Orchard was your typical open-air mall, with mostly one-story buildings lining narrow streets. The plaza had a mini-park that used to have these neat dragon sculptures, but by the time Brooke was old enough to appreciate it, they were gone.
A few years ago, the entire mall got a face lift. The buildings look more modern, with lots of glass and odd shapes, and benches are now oval. As I walked along the side of the plaza, I could see hints of the old blocky buildings underneath the remodeling. And the old Marshal Fields building up ahead was still as blocky as ever.
The building that's now Macy's. I still wasn't sure how to feel about that. I mean, it's not like the old downtown store, where people would riot if you tried to remove the Marshal Field signs... But it was still a bit of my childhood.
Before the Academy. Before the Foundation.
At least the fountains were still there. I could see one of them in front of Macy's, at the spot where three “streets' converged A column with small statues on the side rose from the octagon-shaped base. The water sprayed from the statues and the edges of the base like a two-layer watery umbrella into a pool below. My mom told me I used to try to put my hands under one of the streams, and she'd always have to pull me back before I fell in.
At least I got to show that to Brooke..
The mall may change, I might get older, but at least the fountains were still the same.
There were a lot of people walking back and forth, heading into Macy's, into the smaller shops around us. Two parents with a girl not that much older than Brooke headed toward the movie theater. An Asian couple with two kids went into Macy's. Two teenagers holding hands went right, toward the buses and the huge parking garage. . A mother with a teenage daughter carrying an entire store worth of shopping bags headed toward one of the clothing stores on my left.
And that's when everything went to hell.
First, the ground shook. Just for a few seconds. All around me, people were glancing around, asking if it was an earthquake, but I knew better.
That was a kaiju landing. Something human-sized, so it was either a kaijin, a kaizo ningen or a Changer. If this was New York or Los Angeles,everyone would already be running, but people around here never seen anything like this, not in person...
As if on cue, a familiar low-pitched wail filled the air. A Kaiju alarm. Everybody did the drills in schools, even here in Chicago suburbia. Everybody knew what they were supposed to do. Run. Run the hell away and get to the nearest kaiju-proof shelter.
Did Old Orchard even have a Kaiju-proof shelter?
“Swyft Stryka!” a male voice bellowed. “I know you are here! Come out!”
He jumped off the roof of the retail spaces on my left, landing right next to the fountain. He was tall and long-limbed, with a slim but muscular runner's build. He wore tight leather pants, boots with spiked tips, a leather coat with stylishly ripped edges and several pointless belts around the sleeves. It was hard to tell where the sleeves ended and the black gloves with long, sharp talons began. He left his chest bare, perfectly sculpted and nipple-less, because of course a male Changer would forget that part. He wore an ebony mask with a beak-like nose piece over the top half of his face, with snake-like eyes peering behind the slits. He had a pointed chin and a thin mouth.
He had a too-large katana strapped to the back of his coat, because of course he did. This is the part where Connie would joke about the Sword of Overcompensation, but his pants left nothing to the imagination, and boy oh boy was it not subtle. His coat flapped in barely there breeze, because of course it did. Oh, and he had long, flowing white hair, because God knows he wasn't enough of a walking cliché.
I had no idea who he was, There are hundreds of Changers on both sides of the Pacific, and I stopped trying to keep track a long time ago. But I watch TV and read blogs, so I knew exactly who he was after.
It seems like once every couple of years, a sweet, nice Senshi gets tired of being an image and decided to do something different. Sometimes, it gets bad enough that they defect to Haven, or join the Order of Silence, or go off on their own, the way Elion or Regas did. But most of the time..you get Swyft Stryka.
She used to go by Sunny Brightpath, and she had the cute costume and powers to match. But last year... Well, nobody is really sure what happened. All we know is that, during the 2014 Tempest Achievement Awards, she said she was going to live her life to the fullest, cut her hair, tore off all her clothes and flew off.
Ever since then, she's been all over gossip sites, drinking, getting high...
“So, you're going to hide?” the Changer's scream interrupted my thoughts. “You fucking bitch! You think you can just use me and ditch me? Fuck you!”
...And sleeping with people she probably shouldn't be sleeping with. There was definitely that. Though, really, if she wanted a bad boy, why did she go with...that?
I guess I shouldn't judge. A 15-year-old me would've probably been all over it. She who had an Elion scrapbook shouldn't throw stones and all that... But at least back then, Elion was doing his own thing. That look was new. Edgy.
This guy wore his influences on his sleeve.
I glanced around. Some people were off and running, but most of them just backed away. Several of them took out their phones. I guess I couldn't blame them. Most of them probably never saw a Changer up close before. And getting to see one of Swyft Stryka's spurned hook-ups up-close and personal - that's some juicy gossip fodder right there.
“Who the heck is he?” one of the girls in the crowd whispered.
“I think that's Balpeor,” someone else replied
I choked down the urge to shout 'are you kidding me, Balpeor looks nothing like that.' Though, come to think of it, parts of him kind of did. The talons. The mask. The eyes - not crow eyes, but still not-human eyes...
For his sake, I hope Daisuke doesn't find out about this, because... actually, I think he'd probably just point and laugh.
“Some guy on Twitter says that's Sharpcrow,” another girl whispered.
“Who the heck is Sharpcrow?”
“I think he's with the Order of Silence.”
“Says here he, like, works for the Elion's Children,” a younger male voice chimed in. “But he's not, like, one of them.”
So he was probably just a hired muscle. Great. He's not even a proper villain.
“You're not going to answer?” the Changer they were discussing shouted. “Alright. If that's the way you want to play, I'll play. If you don't come out right now, I'm going to start killing people.”
That's when the entire Old Orchard Mall went dead quiet.
“You think I'm bluffing?” shouted Sharpcrow. “You think I don't have it in me? You don't know who you are dealing with, you bitch. I'll show you!”
He scanned the crowd, and I had to remind myself that I was a civilian now, and I should probably duck behind the pillar. I backed away, slowly, carefully, but most people were still standing exactly where they were.
I've been in this situation before. A hostile Changer in a public place, threatening murder, and you need a place to morph, and quickly, without attracting attention. I searched the crowd - who looks more angry than scared.? Who keeps reaching for their pocket, or their purse, or for some piece of jewelry they're wearing? I could distract Sharpcrow, give her a chance to morph...
“You!”
My head jerked in the voice's direction, but Sharpcrow wasn't looking at me. He was looking at the teenage girl and her mother I saw earlier. He pulled out his sword in one swift motion and walked toward them. Faster than I could blink, the tip of the blade was at the girl's throat.
“You see this, Stryka?” Sharpcrow said a little more calmly.“It would be so easy. I just move the blade one inch and the girl bleeds all over this pretty little plaza in this pretty little piece of suburban bullshit. Do you want this on your conscience? Do you!”
The mother tried to get closer, but Sharpcrow raised his free hand.
“Oh my God, oh my God oh my God please let her go please, I beg you,” was all she could manage.
“See what you're making me do, Stryka?” Sharpcrow sneered. “Because of you, this woman is going to lose her daughter. I don't want to do it...”
“Oh God please don't...”
“..But I will, if I have to. What's it going to be be, Stryka?”
He might not go through with it - but that's not the kind of chance you take. Every senshi knows that you, never, ever assume that a villain is bluffing. And when a civilian life is threatened, all the secret identity stuff goes out the window.
I glanced around. Come on. You are a goddamn protector, Stryka! Morph!
And that's when I realized something. What if Swyft Stryka wasn't even here? What if Sharpcrow just thought she was? A kaijin hit squad once nearly destroyed the Mall of America looking for Princess Zodiac, but she wasn't even on Earth.
And I knew what I had to do.
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