Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Page 938

A glowing cage materialized around Zeff in midair. He immediately felt the radiation degrading his body, slowing his movement, and he knew that it would spell the end for him if he stayed inside it for more than a few seconds. His water drill punched through, and Zeff fell toward the ground again.

Jaws of radium leapt up to meet him, and Zeff responded by filling the open maw with a sudden geyser. The water shot up with enough force to carry Zeff with it, removing him from danger. He caught himself with a twisting slope of ice, allowing him to create a path that brought him right back down to both feet again.

But Lawrence was there now--a figure of blue heat, looming directly in front of Zeff--and the radiation was at its most potent, destroying the Rainlord’s muscles and numbing each of his physical senses.

A platinum wrecking ball slammed into the General, but not before he grabbed Zeff’s arm. Rather than be taken along with Lawrence, however, the limb tore free, spewing blood and melted flesh from the gaping wound.

Even with pan-forma, Zeff needed a few extra moments to recover. The effects of soul-empowered radiation lingered still, and he could see his own skin forming a puddle of slop around his hands and knees. Lawrence, on the other hand, would be requiring no such time.

The Lady Socorro Garza picked up the slack. She hadn’t stopped attacking once, materializing boulder after boulder, pinballing the Vanguardian General around in an effort to keep him off balance. He seemed to have had enough of that, however, and punted the next boulder right back at her. It dematerialized before reaching her, and she started creating multiple boulders at once, all gunning for Lawrence from different directions. Lawrence met each of them with soaring blue lances, sparing one for Socorro as well. She barely managed to sidestep it, but a horizontal blade jumped out of its shaft at the last moment and slashed her neck and arm, very nearly decapitating her.

Then an earthquake interrupted, halting both attackers as they had to stop and steady themselves.

To Zeff’s amazement, the Madame Redwater had not yet fallen. She’d been holding off the Gargoyle for a solid minute without assistance, keeping the endless streams of rock at bay before they could smother and crush her.

17 comments:

  1. "Rather [than] be taken along with Lawrence, however"

    Damn, I thought for sure Zeff and Socorro could handle Lawrence but I was dead wrong it seems. Abd Octavia is doing remarkably. She still hasn't used her ability, I'm actually getting excited to see it

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  2. "Madame Redwater had yet fallen."



    seems to be missing a 'not'.

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  3. I don't think that's a mistake. I took it as she had yet to fall

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  4. Could be. English always was one of my weaker subjects but 'yet fallen' makes less sense to me then either 'yet to fall' or 'not yet fallen'. Also the way you are taking it is exactly what both those mean so I am not taking it differently.

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  5. Yeah, you're right. I waned a "not" there. Thanks for the catch.

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  6. Is George M. Frost a Nom de/du? Plume? We just got a dump of snow where I live and I was just thinking Frost comes across as being so cold.


    *hangs head in shame and stands in a corner for going there.

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  7. I thought about going by George M. Goodsexington, but that seemed too hot.

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  8. His water drill punched through, and Zeff fell 'toward' 'to' the ground again.<-- remove to or toward.

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  9. Mr Frost, you know I love and appreciate you and everything, but I do have some criticism for you right now.

    I really hope that after this battle, the story's done with battles for a while. The last (two?) hundred pages or so where mostly battles, preparations for battles, aftermaths of battles -- it's starting to get exhausting. It just feels unbalanced by now.

    I just miss the feeling of... regrouping, you know? Hector's group just finished battling, but instead of giving us some scenes of introductions and actually solving some issues, you throw in another battle. Don't get me wrong, your battle scenes are great, it's just that there are so many of them recently.

    Add to that the fact that we (the readers) have basically no idea what the hell is actually going on there. You have constantly been dropping hints about bigger things going on, but right now, all bets are off as to what anyones game really is. Yes, that's probably fully intentional, but we (the readers) won't get any closer to any kind of solution through yet another battle. I really want to see more people talking right now instead of battling.

    Another result of this is that personally, I don't care about most of the people in this battle right now because I hardly know them at all. Zeff's not the problem, he's fleshed out and everything; Octavia has also received enough screen time; Parson is the most interesting "villain" running around right now; and I'm willing to tolerate Lawrence -- but apart from them, I don't really care about the others.

    Sanko is just an overpowered overreacting über-bitch (if you were going for this, well done). She's escalating without reason. And the other rainlords are just that -- other rainlords with little to no characterization of their own. Am I supposed to care about them just because they're on Zeff's side? Off the top of my head, I couldn't even name all of them.

    Right now, I'm just waiting for this battle to be over so we can get back to the plot.

    Again, I love the story and I really hope you're not offended by this or anything -- I'm probably the only one who's having problems with the amount of battles right now, so it really doesn't mean anything.

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  10. Middlesex has you covered. For next time. ;)

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  11. You're not the only one. I am hoping that after this battle wraps up we will start to see some resolutions.
    I do think it makes more sense to have Hector's battle end, then jump to this battle before giving us resolutions though. That way we can get all the resolutions and such that are available at this juncture rather than only half of them which would probably be more frustrating than anything.


    Mr. Frost: I know I am agreeing I am ready for some resolutions but I don't want you to feel you need to rush the battle or cut short any plans you have for the story. I would rather wait and have a quality story than have you rush and get a so-so one.

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  12. Ah I have to agree with you. We haven't had much downtime in this arc due to all the battles, and it *can* get kinda exhausting. However, I do think that that is part of the reason for this arc. I believe we're supposed to get a feeling of how large the world is and how weak Hector/Garovel is compared with some of the monsters out there. Also, this is practically war between the Rainlords and the Vanguard. Downtime in war is a very rare thing indeed.

    Comparing this major arc with the last one, there is only a few periods of rest in between the fights leading up to the good guys kicking Abolish out of Atreya. With that in mind, and especially Harper's light show, I'm getting a sense of power-scaling. That being said, I actually highly doubt this is the last fight. I somehow think we're gonna see something like Gargoyle vs. Iceheart before the end.

    This arc, to me, feels like the Soul Society Arc in Bleach. A lot of battles with barely any rest in between, hints and clues sprinkled throughtout, all leading to a massive shocking conclusion that'll leave everyone speechless. I willing to bet that Frost has a huge payoff in store for us, and I certainly can't wait for it.

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  13. Sounds like you can choose which toilets to enter.

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  14. Yeah, I know what you mean. I actually considered skipping this battle for that very reason and just filling in the details of it via dialogue later, but I figured that would probably bother people even more. Considering it involves Octavia, Parson, Zeff, and the first real look at one of the top tiers--I'm sure folks would've been unhappy with me if I just glossed over it, haha.

    And I'm sure you understand that I'm not just throwing these battles in just to have more battles. They have important results that will come into play later. But yes, after this fight, things will change gears.

    I MEAN, WAIT, NO. GET READY FOR SIX HUNDRED MORE PAGES OF FIGHTING WITH ZERO CHARACTER INTERACTION.

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  15. (Sorry for the late reply.)


    I agree, skipping this battle wouldn't have done any good. And I also agree with Sal above -- please don't feel like you have to rush this battle. I guess what bothers me most is that this battle seems so unnecessary, in-universe. It could have been resolved by a little bit of diplomatic sense, which everyone involved should have plenty of considering their positions and "wisdom by age".


    I'll give Zeff a pass, he's pretty upset and I wouldn't really expect him to be the most reasonable person right now, but all the others are just behaving like morons. I understand the Gargoyle, in a way -- it seems like the Rainlords really can't bring her down, so she has nothing to lose in a battle. The Rainlords, however... Did they really start this battle expecting to win? I haven't read the following pages yet so don't know, but I fully expect something to happen so the Rainlords (or some of them) survive. However, they don't know that they're characters in a story and that they might have plot insurance.

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