Sooner

Posted part 3 of Rose Black in RP section.

Part 3

Heroes save people. That’s what they do. They rescue people who are in trouble. They do not leave them in horrible dark places with bad people who will hurt them....or so I believed. Once. Now, lying in the darkness in the depths of another night in which my sleeplessness is broken only by dreams which give me no rest at all, I know better. Heroes just wear their shiny clothes, and wave at the crowds, and rescue the occasional cat in a tree. And they leave people like me behind.



<It’s the warehouse again. Bonnie huddles, terrified, in a corner. The soldiers ignore her, except for demanding her silence when she dared to ask what was happening. She still doesn’t know her life is over. She still believes there are heroes.>

The room was large, but filled with a dark wooden conference table and swivel chairs upholstered in pale, industrial grey. A large window looked out into the open space of a warehouse. Bonnie could see a metal flight of stairs, leading up to the level she was on, and large stacks of crates on the lower level. Several of the Nemesis soldiers and the small crab-like robots were scattered over what she could see of the lower level, and two of the giant robots, the man-shaped one called a fake Nemesis, and another she’d always thought looked like a macabre snowglobe on legs stood just outside the room. She nervously took another step towards the window, and that’s when she saw her friend Tuvar, being menaced by three of the soldiers.

“Tuvar!” she yelled, “Help! Help, Tuvar!” even as she yelled, she knew he was in no better position to help her than she was to help him, but she couldn’t help herself.

<I cry out in my dark room as Bonnie falls. One of the soldiers hit her in the back with his rifle butt. Not enough to do damage, but enough to knock her down and intimidate her into silence again. She’s so frightened, and yet she still doesn’t really understand what has happened to her. She stays there, cowed, until the so-called heroes arrive. She can’t resist returning to the window. >

Bonnie filled with hope when she saw the heroes. She recognized Sooner Spirit in her red leather and cape, she could tell there was a peacebringer there too, and... yes, Broken Shadow was always with Sooner, there he was. And Zemuron and Princess Ginsu as well. They would save her! She didn’t understand what was happening, but it was as good as over.

Bonnie was smiling as she watched the heroes free Tuvar. She could already see them, in her mind, running up the steps, battling the two giant robots guarding the door, and freeing her. She might even get to finish her lecture!

But then the heroes stopped and turned away. Bonnie felt the color drain from her face. They were leaving. They didn’t save her. She stared, horrified and stunned, at their backs.

Sooner Spirit turned and looked back. Their eyes met, and Bonnie saw the recognition in Sooner’s face. Bonnie opened her mouth to scream, to plead for Sooner to help her, and Sooner turned away once more.

“No!” Bonnie screamed, just as the butt of a rifle struck her again. “No! Come back!” She fell, and was hit again. “Don’t leave me here!” And again. “Please, come back!” And again.


I choke back the scream. Twice in one night is too many times to wake screaming. I throw back my blankets and sit up. The sun is not yet up over the sea, but I’m done trying to sleep. This is my life, it’s never going to change. There’s no point in reliving what was.

---


Sooner was surprised to find she’d dozed off in her chair. She’d been dreaming of that night in the warehouse, only instead of Nemesis robots, it had been an endless battle against Ebony Rose’s battle robots. Ahren had collapsed and was crushed under their metal feet. He was just the first in a parade of Ghosts who had fallen to the Shades who found their way into her dream. She had watched a dozen of her close friends burned, crushed, or ripped apart.

She sat forward and rubbed her face with her hands, and stayed that way, staring through her hands at the open file. Finally, she resolutely planted her palms on the table, stood, and strode to the phone. She had some calls to make.

---


Nothing moves at the pace we would like, not in Paragon City, not in the Rogue Isles. Phone calls were made. Meetings were held. Arguments were fought. A deal was reached. And then came the tough part. A purse snatcher in Atlas Park called his brother who was minor muscle for the Family. The message traveled from Family bosses in Independence Port to a well respected consigliere in Striga to a Marcone boss in Port Oakes. That particular Marcone boss remembered an especially unpleasant encounter with Ebony Rose, and the message was nearly lost there. In the end, he decided not to risk her anger, and he passed the word on to a broker there in Port Oakes. The message was passed up and down the network of brokers until Wiggy the Brit in Grandville contacted Rose with the message. It was a name, three words that hit Rose much like the butt of a rifle landing squarely over a kidney. “Subaltern Tuvar Varan”

---


“You’ve done what?!” The tone was deceptively mild, indistinguishable from a polite inquiry about her health. UPS 2.2 sat staring at Sooner, and if his voice was mild, his expression was not. In fact, all around the table sat Sooner’s friends, and their expressions ranged from incredulity to fury. And, as if UPS’s question opened a floodgate, they all burst into arguments at the same time.

“She’s one of their LEADERS!”

“She’d kill you in a second!”

“No, she’d take about a month or so to kill Sooner. The rest of us she’d kill in a second.”

“Are you out of your god damned mind?!?”

“Sooner, you can’t be serious!”

She raised her hands and waited for the noise to subside. “She won’t talk to me. I need one of you to meet her.”

“You know you can’t trust her,” Zemuron said, a statement and not any kind of question.

Sooner stood abruptly, slapping her palms on the table. “She. Was. Innocent.”

UPS leaned back in chair, his voice still soft, “She's been running with and living with evil for a long time now. People do change, ya know? And not always for the better.”

Sooner looked back at him, struggling with her answer, before settling on, “Zem, UPS, I have to try.”

“Ok,” Zemuron said with a nod, “I’ll do it.”

---


Ebony Rose sat at a corner booth in Pocket D. A glass of ice water with lemon was at the elbow of her prosthetic arm. She stared, speechless, at the masked red-skinned man sitting across from her.

Zemuron shifted in his seat “What? You wanted more?” There was humor in his voice, but this deal was deadly serious.

Rose lifted her water glass, grateful that her metal hand wouldn’t shake the way her right hand would’ve, and sipped at her water. She still thumped the glass back on the table in a rare loss of control. She leaned forward, reading over the documents again.

“A full pardon. Immunity from prosecution. A job in Longbow’s R&D division.” She looked up at him.

“And you take out Varan’s base. You share with us everything you know about Nemesis and the automaton project.”

“And I betray my friends.”

“You give us the leaders of the Shades.”

She took another sip of her water. Her whole body was shaking. She tried to speak, but couldn’t. She looked down at the photographs of Shattered Ice9, Cowboy Nightmare, and Death Shrowd. She looked across the length of Pocket D to the elevator that led to Paragon City. “When do you need my answer?”

“The offer expires in 72 hours.”

Rose nodded and stood slowly. “I’ll be in touch” She activated her flight field and hovered for just a moment while her equipment came up to speed.

Zemuron stood and held out an envelope. “Here... call this a freebie.”

---

...to be continued...

I have added part 2 of the re-posted Rose Black in the RP section.

Part 2

The quiet humming sounds of the Ghosts Reborn’s base machinery were the only noises keeping Sooner Spirit company as she shifted in her chair and sipped her coffee. The enormous table before her was empty except for a thick file folder, open to the picture of a young woman with black hair and a shy smile. Sooner moved the picture aside and revealed a surveillance photo of that same woman wearing a skin tight black leather jumpsuit covering her entire body except for the shiny metal of a prosthetic left arm. The woman in the picture, a villain known as Ebony Rose, was pointing at something out of frame, and the half dozen huge, well-armed robots behind her were firing lasers, rockets, and some sort of flash grenade in that direction.

Sooner rifled slowly through the file, stopping to read a passage here and there. “Co-leader of group: Shades of Vengeance,” “expert in traps,” “believed aligned with Black Scorpion,” “identified as a potential Destined One.” The case haunted her and she found herself going back to it again and again, trying to make it all fit together. She hardly needed the file anymore, she knew it nearly by heart. She had been there nearly from the beginning of Ebony Rose’s story. She and several of her friends had gone in to rescue the students that Rose had helped kidnap.

None of those students had been willing to believe that Rose had orchestrated the attack and kidnaping, but the evidence was so solid. Payoffs, secret accounts, information Nemesis shouldn’t have been able to get, unless someone, like Bonnie Rose, had been handing it out to them.

Sooner lifted the mug shot from Bonnie’s arrest. She’d been arrested as she tried to attack Paragon City with a battle robot. A pale, tired, thin woman looked out with dead eyes. Her face was utterly without expression. Corrections officers had taken her prosthetic arm at that point and the stump of her left arm, ending just past the shoulder, looked horribly naked and pathetic. Even at the time, Sooner had thought the attack a particularly foolish plan for a woman of Rose’s intelligence.

Rose had told a story of kidnaping, torture, and coercion, and claimed that her attempted attack was actually her escape from Nemesis, not an attack at all. But the evidence was solid, concrete solid, and Rose had been sentenced to life in the Zig for an impressive list of crimes including conspiracy, treason, kidnaping, violations of the super powered crime fighting act, and perjury. And there she had stayed until she escaped and fled to the Rogue Isles. She had allied herself with some of the most powerful enemies of the Ghost’s Reborn and they had formed themselves into The Shades of Vengeance. The Shades were responsible for the death, disappearance, or maiming of many of Sooner’s closest friends. The enmity between the two groups was intense.

Sooner laid the mug shot aside and picked up a half-sized manila envelope. It was the latest addition to the thick file, and it contained new evidence about the guilt of Bonnie Rose. In brief, it strongly suggested that Rose had been telling the truth all along. She was the victim, not the perpetrator. She had been the victim of a Nemesis plot. The kidnaping of the other students was merely a distraction from the fact that Nemesis had abducted one of the brightest minds in modern robotics, and held her for years, forcing her to work on their automaton project. Which carried with it the strong suggestion that Sooner herself had created one of their most powerful enemies.

She sighed, rested her hand on the file, and closed her eyes, remembering...


The destruction of the lecture hall was hard-hitting emotional blow. The civilian casualties had already been removed from the hall, but the destruction to property still told a powerful story about the attack. Sooner bounced a small musket ball in her hand as she picked her way through the rubble. There had been no real resistance at all. She looked down at a remarkably lifelike robotic dog, with soft black fur. Lifelike, except for having been ripped nearly in half, and still trying to walk. It emitted a pitiful, electronic barking sound before finally collapsing in a shower of sparks and ozone smell of burning wires.

“Sooner Spirit!” a man called. Sooner turned. A middle-aged man who had undoubtedly started the day in a suit and tie approached, waving a sheet of paper. His shirt and pants were torn and stained, the jacket and tie nowhere to be seen. His fingernails were dirty and broken. He was sweaty and dusty, and his eyes didn’t yet believe what they’d seen that day. “Here’s the list. Six students in all. All invited as speakers from the department of experimental robotics from MIT.” He pointed to a name in the middle of the list, “They attacked while this one, Bonnie Rose, was speaking.”

Sooner took the list and scanned it. Six hostages, taken by Nemesis. She nodded, “Ok, Mr. Harrison, I’m on it.”

“Please get them back, Sooner Spirit,” he begged softly.



The phone call came about an hour later. “I’ve found the warehouse,” he said. “They were seen carrying the hostages into a warehouse in Peregrine Island. You’ll want friends.”

“Ok, I can call some people. Six hostages, warehouse, Nemies.” She opened her closet and pulled out a new cape, checked the drape, and shrugged into it. “I’m on it.”

“Five hostages, Sooner,” he said. “Rose is on the Nemesis payroll. She set the whole thing up.”

She glanced down at the list, “Bonnie Rose is a target, and not a hostage?”

“She’s a secondary priority. Get the hostages out. If you can take down Rose without endangering the hostages, do so.”





It was a chaos of explosions, choking gas, snipers, and fire. The first four hostages were safe, and Sooner and her team were trying to find the last one, a young man named Tuvar Varun. It was tougher than even her contact had warned, but the Ghosts Reborn were winning. Slowly and painfully, but winning nonetheless.

Ahren scouted ahead. The peacebringer was one of the first people Sooner had called for this mission, he was one of the heroes she trusted most. He flew back to the team, a tall, powerfully built man surrounded by shining white light. She always remembered him like that.

“He’s just ahead, around the corner,” Ahren said. “There’s a stack of crates we can use for cover. Three of them.” Sooner’s team gathered up, rested just long enough to catch their breath, and then broke around the large crate and took the small group holding Tuvar by surprise. Sooner’s fist’s flashed. She lost herself in the fever of super-powered battle, the lights, the colors, the sounds. The blinding white energy of the peacebringer’s attacks flared around her. The glow from Zemuron’s powers, green, blue, red surrounded them and kept the whole team moving forward. The dark energies of Broken Shadows powers, as well as her own creating shadows where none should be. The satisfying smack of her fists on flesh, and the equally satisfying crunch of Princess Ginsu’s kicks making hard contact as well. And then the last of the group of soldiers was down, and the last of the hostages was freed.

With the grateful student still gushing his gratitude, Sooner started to lead the way deeper into the warehouse. A strong hand grabbed her elbow. She turned, and met the glowing white eyes of a man she respected and trusted. He hovered there, between her and the rest of her team, the energy that made up his power flaring around his body.“Let’s go,” Ahren said. “We got what we came for.”

“But Rose is still here. If we don’t take her now, we may never get another chance,” Sooner argued. But then she looked, really looked at her team. They were battered and bruised; expensive costumes torn and stained. Blood dripped from minor cuts and scrapes. She knew if she insisted they proceed, they’d follow. She also knew it would not be what any of them would prefer. The students were safe. Rose was a secondary priority. She took one deep breath and let it out slowly. “Ok. Ok, let’s go.”

Sooner turned to look back into the warehouse. And that’s when she saw, for the first time, the woman who would become Ebony Rose. A small upstairs office with a window looking over the large open area. Rose’s pale face looking down, her black hair mussed into a dark halo around her head, her eyes wide as she met Sooner’s. It was just a split second before Rose opened her mouth and then vanished. Certain that Rose was calling for reinforcements, Sooner turned back to her team. “Ok! Out of here! Go, go, go!”


It was late. The base lights were dimmed. Those of the Ghosts who made their home in the base were all long asleep. It was late, but Sooner still sat, rifling through the file. She could still see Ahren, in her mind, it was how she always saw him. A tall, good-looking man, hovering in his own pure white energy. She’d never say it to him, but it might have been better if the Shades had killed him. Instead, they’d ripped the light out of him. Ahren seemed smaller somehow since he came back, scarred and robbed of half his very life. Had Rose participated in that atrocity? Ahren either didn’t remember, or didn’t care to say. He didn’t talk much since he came back, either.

She lifted her coffee cup, but it was empty. With a sigh, Sooner slid the picture of Bonnie Rose from the program, the mug shot of Bonnie Rose when she was finally arrested, and the picture of Ebony Rose, one of the most powerful villains in the Rogue Isles. She laid the three photos side by side and stared into the face of that woman. She studied the photos, and wondered just how much of the villainous life of Ebony Rose was due to the actions of Sooner Spirit.


...to be continued...

Ok.. with some trepidation... I've started posting my stories in the Role Play section.

If you are interested at all in my first story, it's goin up over there now.

Part 1

In the light of day, the line between the reality of my life and the nightmare is unclear. At night, it vanishes entirely. Things I wish forgotten are remembered, experiences relived, feelings endured over and over. I turn off the light, and it begins.


The girl that was Bonnie lay in the dim light of what could charitably be called a hospital. The door to her room was locked, of course, but on that day, Bonnie was too hurt to even try leaving. On this day, all she could do was stare at the swollen, suppurative mass that was her left arm. This Bonnie couldn’t even remember the life that had been stolen from her. She could only feel her own flesh dying, and could only remember what they had done.


The girl that was Bonnie, the girl that still had her life, waited offstage, while the Dean of the College of Engineering of Paragon City University introduced her. She nervously clutched her papers, and determinedly did not look at the audience. Who would have dreamed that so many people would be interested in the theory of robotics engineering?

That girl, that Bonnie, had no plans for her life beyond living forever in her academic ivory tower and playing with robotic design. She had hopes of creating new and sophisticated prosthetics that would help people live better lives. She even dreamed, quietly, of creating prosthetic organs. There would be no need for organ donation, she thought, if she could build a robot heart that would never fail, and never be rejected.

<In my dreams, I hover over Bonnie-that-was and scream at her to run back to her ivory tower. Her life is nearly over, and she stands there dreaming of prosthetic hearts. But Bonnie-that-was never hears me. She only hears the Dean, “And now, please welcome Bonnie Rose.”>

Bonnie smiled shyly and stepped onto the stage. She reminded herself, again, not to crumple the papers clutched in her hands. She glanced at the power point slide on the screen behind her. It displayed the title of her presentation, and her name, with an impressive string of letters following it, impressive indeed for a girl just now 20 years old.

<I can hear the clanking, whirring sound that will steal Bonnie’s life approaching. She doesn’t hear it. She hears the polite, restrained applause of her audience, and the roar of her nervousness in her own ears. She approaches the podium, sets her papers on it, and clutches at it. She clears her throat noisily, and jumps as the noise reverberates through the hall. “Hello,” she says into the microphone. “I’m Bonnie Rose, and I’ve been studying robotics at MIT for four years.”>


The girl that barely remembered being Bonnie sat staring at everything she needed to make a state of the art prosthetic arm. Her right hand rubbed unconsciously at the nub that had been her left arm. It was healed now, just a little itching from the scar tissue. All she had to do was agree to help them, and it could be hers. The arm she had lost because she refused them could be replaced, if she finally gave in. The Bonnie that had dreamed of making prosthetic hearts was lost in pain and fear and hopelessness. She protested, once, then subsided, as the woman that was soon to be Ebony began constructing a new arm.


<I want to turn away, I don’t want to see the end of my life, but I can’t stop. It’s not real, and I can’t stop watching. Bonnie stands at the podium, slim and pale. The clanking is louder, it is growing closer, but she still doesn’t hear. She clicks the pointer, going through her presentation, not knowing that each click brings them closer and closer.>

Bonnie was finally getting past her nervousness. She always had loved teaching. She even managed to step out from behind the podium and walk around a little. She began to discuss the importance humans place on lifelike qualities in robotics, and activated the small robotic dog waiting just offstage. It ran on stage, spun around in circles, and then obediently sat and waited for a command. Bonnie smiled at her audience. She picked up a tennis ball from the podium, tossed it toward the back of the stage and then... The world exploded.


<I scream, even though no one can hear, I scream for Bonnie. The entire back wall of the hall explodes inward, and the whirring clanking robots invade the hall, followed by men in hateful archaic uniforms. I try to flee, but I’m doomed, she’s doomed. >


Bonnie stared in shock. She recognized the machines of Nemesis instantly, of course. She had studied them, even written papers about them. She had never seen an actual working model before, though. She was too fascinated to realize her danger. She was so caught up in analyzing the problems with balance associated with the shifting of weight while trying to approximate a normal human step that she didn’t realize right away that it was taking steps directly towards her!

She turned and ran, stumbling in her unfamiliar high heels. Her papers flew around her like leaves in a wind storm. The metallic sounds grew louder and louder. She turned back, and saw a single gigantic claw reaching for her. She threw her hands up, fell, and


I awake, screaming. If the people who now make up my family hear me scream myself awake, they never tell me. Of course, they have their own demons. Perhaps they can’t hear me over their own screams. I turn onto my right side, and my hand reaches up to caress the cool metal of my prosthetic left arm. And I stare into night, remembering.

...to be continued...

Introduction:

Hi. I'm Sooner. I've been writing fan fiction for some time now and posting it in Protector forums.

This is my first story and - after some encouragement from friends - I am posting it here for the first time.

I hope you like it, and I welcome comments. This story is complete, but since it's pretty long, I'll actually post a section every day or two.

Part 10 of Homecoming is posted.

Part 9 is up.

Part 8 of Homecoming is posted.

Part 7 of Homecoming is posted.

Thanks to MI for.. well.. you'll see.

Part 6 is up

Part 5 of Homecoming is posted.

Homecoming part 4 is up.

Part 3 of Homecoming posted.

Part 2 of Homecoming is posted

I have a new story: Homecoming.

I have not abandoned the Sooner Sisters. I promise I will return to their story.

Name: Sooner Spirit
Global Contact: @Sooner
Level of Classification: 50
Origin: Magic
Super Rank & Super Group: Rank V, The Ghosts Reborn

As long as I can buy this stuff for my account down the road... I'm all kinds of cool with it.

It's old news, it's from a really unfortunate time.

It does not need to be stickied.. it needs to vanish.

<QR>

So far my very very favorite thing I noticed on Dungeon Runners site was NO FRIGGIN STARS!

Part IX is up

The next part of Sooner nation is posted.

Part VIII of Sooner Nation is posted.

Part VII of Sooner Nation is posted.