This One Thing

“Well?” Tobias asked.

“Well, everything’s gone to hell as much as it can, given that we have a telepath, a telekinetic, a pyrokinetic, an astral projectionist, a shapeshifter, and someone who can see the future on the team,” Keith said, his voice heavy with sarcasm.

“So I take it nothing we can do will get past the guards,” Gabriel said in a mock-reasonable tone.

“Yes,” Keith said.

Christian sighed. “There is this one thing.”

“What thing?” DJ asked.

Christian peered up over the edge of the barrier, cupped his hands, and blew.

Quislai diamond dust exploded across the gate.

Every Inch

"Would you like a copy watch?" Angel held open his coat. The irony was that all the Rolexes in his coat were real. There were never any takers, though, not when he greased his hair back and mocked up a thick Bengali accent and smelled faintly of curry. The man grimaced and waved a dismissive hand, turned away.

"Really, a new watch would help you attract the ladies, yeah?" Angel slung an arm around the man's shoulders, every inch the pushy salesman. The man turned, ready to protest, and Angel reached up with his other hand, snapped the man's neck.

Recipe for Death

Mark carefully combined his ingredients, scrupulously making sure that all of his skin was covered and his face mask and eye protection were in place.

Various vials of chemicals and other toxins were neatly arranged on his work surface. Mark worked precisely, adding a few drops of Potassium Cyanide to Japanese puffer fish venom, forming a clear toxic fluid.

Mark added exactly five drops of the poison to a bottle of fine cologne and packaged it neatly in a gift box.

Three days later the death was reported in the news as a heart attack.

Dance of Death

Bryan beckoned the pretty lady towards him, his smile seductive and full of the promise of adventure. His eyes glittered with something mysterious and his hips moved sinuously in time to the music.

Bryan pulled her close as she stepped towards him, their bodies moving in synchronization, his lips brushing her neck as they twined together.

"Let's get out of here," Bryan whispered in her ear, his voice low and husky.

The woman smiled and took his hand to lead him outside.

She was smiling up to the point when he neatly slid a knife between her ribs.

Mission accomplished.

Precision Strike

Joe crouched back into a fighters stance, one that bespoke of quick reflexes and powerful strikes. His eyes took in his challenger; a hulk of a man, heavily muscled with a cocky smile dancing about his mouth. Joe's mind ran through instinctive calculations of weight, mass, and inertia, profiling his opponent. Joe let fear show in his eyes, the perfect lure.

Joe took a step back as the man advanced.

One quick pivot of the hips and Joe flung his fist forward with devastating power and precision, connecting solidly with his opponents sternum with a sickening crack.

Another victory gained.

Only Keith

“What’s the stealth rating on this mission again?” Keith asked.

Christian ducked down behind the wall and checked the clip on his gun, sighed. “Zero, obviously. Else we wouldn’t be having an action-movie shoot-out with the facility security.”

“Why are we sitting here shooting, then?” Keith asked.

“Got a better idea?”

Keith curled his hands into fists, and his grin turned decidedly wicked. “Got a better weapon.” He stood up, and flames flared to life on his palms. He began to hurl them across the room.

Christian cringed at the scent of burning flesh, the screams. Only Keith.

So Surprised

They thought he was insane; there was no reason to attempt to decipher his unintelligible mutterings as he sat in the corner, rocking back and forth and talking at nothing, grimy fingers drawing obscure symbols on the linoleum. If Cody kept his head down, they barely noticed him.

It was precisely the way he wanted it. It took days, weeks, almost a full-on month to secure the spell, and he’d had to restart several components because he was working from memory. What they took to be insane mutterings were incantations, and they looked so surprised when the walls fell.

All of Those Things

It was the smile, the slow, gentle curve of his lips, the coy tilt of his head, the glimmer of blue as he peered up from beneath his lashes; it was the slender lines of his body and the smooth ripple of muscle under skin as he moved; it was the fine lines of his cheekbones and jaw, the silky-smooth paleness of his hair. It was the song festooning the air as his long-fingered hands drew music from the strings of a guitar. It was all of those things that made people miss the first punch every time.

Sneak Attack

"You're never going to get any better if you don't practice," David said, leaning against his foam sword.

"What's the point, I'll never beat you," Ariana pouted.

"Yes you will, but you must practice. Now, try again," David commanded.

Ariana narrowed her eyes at him as he began to stalk towards her. As he approached she rushed past his defenses and pressed her lips to his in a long kiss.

David was taken by surprise and his brain seemed to fizzle out. He was brought back to the present when he felt a blow to his back.

"Dead." Ariana said.

Seriously

It was the wide eyes, the trembling lower lip, the suspicious glimmer of tears on eyelashes, tears that would drop like crystals and draw shining silver lines down smooth cheeks, it was the hitch of breath in the throat and the beginnings of a sob –

It worked every time. Gabriel sighed and surrendered the sword. Instantly the tearful expression vanished, and Kyle leapt to his feet, brandishing his weapon like a miniature knight in shining armor.

Gabriel sat back and shook his head. A child that young shouldn’t have been able to defeat the general of armies of Heaven. Seriously.

Project #65: Armed and Dangerous

This week you have 100 words (set limit, to more no less) to describe your character's favorite weapon. Is it a gun? Is it a knife? Is it his smooth-as-butter English accent? Is it is disarming smile and cute southern drawl? How does he or she use it? When does he or she use it - is it for special occasions, or is it for an instant kill every time? Tell us how your characters fight and fight dirty, and show us the best - or most unusual - weapons in their arsenals.

Overview #64: Challenges

As usual, I responded better to someone else's challenge than my own, so let's see how well I do with my own challenge in the coming week, aye? Once again this was a pretty good week of characterization for me. As a general rule, the boys in Sector Five follow a pretty similar mold - they all have tragic pasts, and they're all inhuman killers now with a soft spot for their commander. It can run a little boring, right? I remembered that the best characters have flaws, and real ones. So this week I decided to explore what makes each of the boys more human than he'd like, and I did my best to tie it into their existing characters.

For example, Tobias can look like anyone he wants with the nature of his gift, but he's still scarred from the horror of both of his lives, being the quintessential high school loser on acid, and despite being a trained killer he still hates himself. Both of Gabriel's lives were rife with the horrors of racism, and it's difficult for him to pretend to be racist to get the job done. Keith's second life was set during The Troubles in Ireland, so he hates the British, and as far as he's concerned Angel, the James Bond figure, stands for all the worst of Britain, and Keith struggles with that. Angel is womanizer and has some very deeply entrenched notions of his own sexuality, and he can't let those go. Christian struggles with class issues, having swung from one end of the spectrum to the other between lives. What I liked about Christian was that I could develop his coming to grips with his sense of self by the time the rest of the boys show up. Christian has several decades' seniority over the others, and I don't know that I really ever explored that properly before.

Knowing what a character struggles with and showing a character facing a struggle - one that's deep-set in a personality or history - makes a character interesting, and I'm glad I'm learning more and more about what makes my boys tick.

Rules 3.2

3.2(a) - since almost everything we post is "prose", almost everything was tagged prose, and the tag had lost its usefulness, so from now on don't use it as a tag (I've removed it). If we do write poetry, however, do mark a poem as poetry so it'll be easier to find. The prose tag wouldn't help anyone find anything.

3.2(b) - prizes! We have not been picking winners and issuing prizes as of late, which is pretty sad. It'd be a bit insane to go back and attempt to issue awards and prizes, but from now on we would definitely like to get prizes and the like written again. Also, if there is anyone out there who would like to join the game and would contribute regularly, let me (Nagi) know and we'll see about getting you listed in the ranks.

Question: on tags, do we want contributor tags, so one writer can find everything he or she has written? It could be done. I could do it. Let me know.