Anyone doing Nanowrimo?
- Thread starter Pinkamena Diane Pie
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- Joined
- Mar 25, 2015
Currently 817 words, which is not an impressive outing (but still better than Connor Bible huehuehue easy joke).
When I finish this one scene I'm working on I'll probably post it on the Farms so you guys can all laugh at me.
When I finish this one scene I'm working on I'll probably post it on the Farms so you guys can all laugh at me.
- Joined
- Jun 5, 2015
This is unpleasant. I have made a terrible mistake.
- Joined
- Aug 20, 2015
I tried doing it in 2011 and haven't done it since then. This year, though, I'm definitely going to try again, despite my incredibly busy schedule. So far, I'm up to 2,413 words. Not that impressive, but at least it's something.
- Joined
- Aug 7, 2015
I'm trying my damnedest this year. So far I'm at 11k words. I'm just worried I'm going to burn myself out between this and school
- Joined
- Aug 18, 2015
I split NaNo into two stories. One's original, but
I'm three days behind, however. Mainly laziness.
the other story is fanfiction 
I'm three days behind, however. Mainly laziness.
- Joined
- Nov 2, 2015
I'm trying to do one with what little free time I have lately. It's pretty fun. Currently got about 2K words.
- Joined
- Mar 25, 2015
Alright, because I'm fucking autistic I procrastinated writing this small bit until the 8th. According to NaNoWriMo I'll finish by February. Fantastic. (Still better than Connor though!)
I intend to pick up the pace later this week. ... If I don't get sucked up by Fate/Stay Night (I blame Rin.)
Alene stirred uncomfortably, her ears irritated by a low, quiet buzz. Barely cresting the point of audibility, its distinctively rhythmic, unflinching persistence pressed against her mind like a loaded sandbag pressed against her face. She groaned, her eyelids flickering as she desperately grasped at the sleep that had once graced her, and instinctively pulled the covers over her, blocking away the small rays of sunlight beginning to creeps through her blinds.
“Not yeeeeeeet,” her voice weakly cried in indignation, pulling a pillow over her face.
An apathetic and uncaring alarm clock beside her continued its errant reverie, stirring the young girl out of the last vestiges of her slumber. Her moans escalated into louder, aggravated groans as she resigned herself to the monumental effort of rising for another bloody day. Locks of blue hair, a hue as deep as the Mediterranean she remembered as a child, stuck to her rosy cheeks with saliva in tangled knots, the golden nightgown she wore as wrinkled as it always was, the end pulled up to the very top of her bare knees. She stretched her arm out in a long, exasperated yawn, her hazel eyes batting away the remnants of her fatigue. A murky, inky blackness gave way to vague shapes and bright lights as her vision adjusted, focusing on the bright, neon red 7:42 that emanated from its black screen.
“7:42…” she grumbled under her breath, slamming back down onto her bed. “7:42…”
For a second, she felt her breathing stop as the wires began to connect in her head, one little strand at a time. She shot up as though someone had shoved a needle full of adrenaline straight down her spine, panic surging through her body.
“Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit! I’m fucking late!”
Alene shot through the hallway and into the bathroom in all but a blink of an eye, throwing the nightgown behind her and jumping into the shower. A hasty turn of the valve tore a yelp from her as her naked body was bombarded with a stream of icy water; a similarly instinctive turn broke more screams as the water seared her flesh. Finally, as the torrent became a tolerable lukewarm, she sighed and slumped slightly, cursing her ill-begotten luck.
“Well, shit…” she cursed again, splashing the water beneath her with a kick of her foot. She shook her head and reached her hand out, a surge of magic leaping from her fingertips. A satisfying click resounded from the opposite end of the bathroom, and she turned her attention to the end of the bathtub. The bar of soap slowly lifted from its small perch and gravitated toward her hand, resting snugly in her palm. Beginning to lather herself, a smile crept up the corners of her mouth as the bathroom was filled with the pleasant, smooth hum of a delicious piano and saxophone. A quick spark of magic brought the small container of shampoo into her hand, which she began to liberally apply on her hair, running her fingers from her scalp down to the very end of her hair reaching down just above her waist. With a satisfied huff she shut the water with a turn of the valve and pulled a towel from the nearby rack. She quickly dried herself off and snatched a toothbrush just off to the side of the sink, hastily brushing her teeth. Droplets of water from her still damp hair dripped onto her nose and cheeks, and with an annoyed shake of her head they quickly rolled down her face and to the end of her chin, where a swipe of her hand cast them away. Spitting a wad of toothpaste and saliva out of her mouth, she washed the bit down the drain with a quick turn of the valve and ran back into her room, channeling magic into her fingertips. With a swipe of her hand, the closet door slid open as she ran back into her room, the surge of telekinetic energy pulling out a plain green t-shirt and some shorts. She grabbed a bra and panties from her dresser and threw her clothes on, slinging her half-opened backpack around her shoulder and bolting out of her room.
The upstairs was its usual quiet retreat, her brother already gone off to the Institute with only a half-opened door as the remnant of his departure. Half running, half jumping down the steps, Alene was greeted with the crackle of the frying pan and the alluring scent of fried eggs. To her immediate left, the doorstairs hallway opened to a sparkling kitchen, its aroma that of flowers and cooking oil. Two plates lay unattended on the table, two chairs of the four already haphazardly pulled out and left empty. An assortment of pans clattered noisily above Meridia as she leaned over the oven, the eggs flipping around in the pan like leaves in an autumn breeze. She gave a backwards wave to Alene as she snagged the one plate of eggs from the table, quickly darting toward the door. Slipping on a pair of flip flops, she nearly tore the door off its hinges as she burst through it.
“… Shit,” she muttered halfway down the driveway, looking down at the plate of eggs in her hand. "I forgot a fork, didn’t I?” She shook her head with a self-deprecating laugh and flung the eggs up with a flick of her finger, magic contorting them into a thin disk, and stuffed it all in her mouth. She twisted her body back and flung the plate back at the doorway, not stopping to check whether or not she’d flung it within the reach of her mom or whether the mage had kept the plate from smashing against the wall again. She figured that she’d deal with the chastising when she got home as opposed to being late.
Alene sped down the sidewalk, a quiet street beside her and a mellow suburb accommodating her. Her family wasn’t necessarily rich nor were they scrapped for any cash; a mage could easily afford a small house in this small area just out of the way. Arcadia itself was a bustling trade city but its sprawling cityscape eventually mellowed out into many small suburbs that its denizens resided in. She’d been in the very heart of the city quite a couple of times but the claustrophobic streets and the towering buildings never really suited her. Here, only a couple of cars passed her by, with occasionally the lone mage flying overhead, and the sidewalks were never taken up by a torrent of people that engulfed stragglers in their wake. Even better, the fact that the place was so sparingly populated at this hour meant she could make her mad dashes to the school on the very, very, very rare times that she was late. She’d been scolded for it before, hated it greatly, but if she managed to make it to first period before the bell rang than usually word never traveled up her own family grapevine.
She spun on her heel and turned the next corner, rows of picket fences and cozy, two story abodes giving way to a litany of smaller shops and restaurants. She’d brought Jace through this area before, laughing when he seemed to be baffled by alchemy stores and magical libraries placed right by auto garages and steampunk repair workshops. Arcadia had its slew of dedicated little areas that catered to a specific specialty or eccentricity but the little suburb right off of the intersection of Marigold and Windhelm was just at the overlap of three of these communities. It wasn’t an uncommon sight for a mage and a mech pilot to go out for a smoke around lunchtime in this part, but then again such a sight was starting to become more of a common occurrence in this day and age.
“Hey, Alene!”
And speak of the devil…
“Jace,” she said, brushing her hair over her shoulder as she turned to meet the voice. “You’re running late too?”
The boy gave a curt laugh and smirked, his gaze affixed on Alene’s through the black shades that seemed perpetually glued on his face. A year her senior, the 16-year-old always looked more befitting of a 13-year-old who spent far too much time impressing others on the Internet. An embarrassingly huge leather jacket hung over his shoulders and drooped just above his mid thigh, opening up to a black t-shirt with the golden eagle of the Doogle Armada emblazoned on the front. A pair of ripped jeans ended in a pair of combat boots that seemed less “well-worn” and more “costume shop.” She’d rolled her eyes so much at his choice of apparel so much she was surprised they hadn’t permanently rolled into the back of her skull.
Jace gave a mock salute and ran a hand through the spiky brown hair that had far too much hair gel dumped into it. “I hope you hadn’t forgotten what you agreed to yesterday, Alene!”
“Yester-” Alene groaned impatiently, her palm digging into her face. “Seriously, Jace? Now? Please don’t tell me you’re gonna skip first period to hold me up for this.”
“It’s just one class, Alene!” he jeered, unholstering and twirling a small pistol from his hip. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of getting your ass finally handed to you!”
“Last I checked, I thoroughly kicked your ass two times,” she shot back, crossing her arms and stomping her foot in annoyance.
“And I schooled you twice,” he said with a laugh, shooting an accusatory finger at the girl. “Best of five, Alene!”
“I am seriously going to cave your face in if you’re seriously gonna make me late for the sake of stroking your goddamn eg-“
Too late she noticed in his opposite hand a six-sided device whir to life. She jumped in surprise as an equally obnoxious sound shrieked from her hip. Groaning in resignation, she retrieved a large, pentagonal device, its smooth, metallic surface trimmed with an elegant trim of gold and studded with sapphires and an imprint of a blooming rose engraved in the center. As much as she hated the thought, she had acquiesced to Jace’s annoying whining last week and, whether she liked it or not, he could call a match whenever he pleased.
“Infinity Gear, online.”
She hurled the Infinity Gear into the air, the device hovering above her for a brief moment before resonating with Jace’s own above him. The two surged toward each other in a flurry of sparks and stars, their impact generating a shockwave that briefly made Alene stumble back. The air became noticeably denser as a thick magical field descended on them, the boundaries of the conjured arena starkly defined by a large, translucent barrier of cerulean magic stretching up and into the skies. The Infinity Gear shot back to Alene, who pocketed hers with a sweep of her hand. Her gaze turned to Jace, who smirked as he pushed his shades back up to the bridge of his nose.
“I hate you, Jace,” she said simply.
“Don’t hate the player, Alene dear,” he laughed, clicking a small switch on the pistol back. “Not my fault you’re gonna lose.”
And almost immediately, he pulled the trigger, a large and fiery bolt bursting from the barrel. The first time she had relented to Jace’s constant challenges, Alene was almost paralyzed that such a small gun could fire ammunition that potent. Now, well experienced with Jace’s opening move, she jumped to the side, feeling the skin on the back of her neck tingle as the bolt exploded into a raging inferno, igniting the air around her into a flurry of sparks and embers. Mana filled her right arm, her outstretched fingertips beginning to crackle with electricity, and she slowed her pace to return fire with a bolt of concentrated, arcane lightning. Bolts of pure energy hungrily surged toward Jace, who merely chuckled at the predictability of Alene’s trades. Leisurely sidestepping the lightning bolts, which uprooted a good deal of the sidewalk in its impact, he leveled his pistol at the nimble mage girl and fired round after round.
Alene swore as two fiery blasts closed in on her and channeled magic in her body, clumsily jumping forward and clearing two engulfing whirlwinds of fire before they consumed her. Struggling to regain her footing with her flip flops slipping on the asphalt road, she closed the distance separating her and Jace, her hand hovering over her beloved artifact on her belt. Closing her dash with a tumultuous leap forward, she drew her weapon, a slender wooden peg no longer than the average smart phone. With a burst of magic from her electrified palm, the runic symbols engraved on the ebony wood lit up like fireworks against a night sky, and the peg unfolded and stretched to contain Alene’s magic. From its inconspicuous design, it grew to nearly the full height of the young teenage girl, and at the apex of her leap magic coalesced at the end of the pole, solidifying into a large and jagged sapphire blade, its huge and curved edge much like a cleaver strapped to the end of a broom handle. While still rather inelegant, Alene considered her handcrafted arcane bardiche, L’Arc en Ciel, a beautifully efficient weapon for getting her point across, namely a very huge and heavy blade embedded in her annoying friend.
Hastily jumping to the side to avoid taking the impact of Alene’s treasured weapon directly, Jace quickly took advantage of the opening afforded by the delay of her dramatic miss and pulled two grenades from his belt, tossing them at the winded mage. She yelped in surprise and instinctively braced herself, the twin explosions tossing her back like a flimsy rag doll. She flew ungracefully in the air before hitting the ground with a loud crack and a loud, pained cry. She curled up like a wounded animal and struggled to pull herself to her knees, pain shooting up her arms and legs from where the shrapnel had ripped through her skin, leaving a multitude of bloody cuts. She bit her lip as she felt a poignant spike run through her back, possibly from a fractured vertebrae or two, and her watery eyes locked with the chuckling Jace.
“Got ya, Alene,” he said with a shrug, spinning his pistol around his finger.
“Fuck off.”
“Language, young woman! Do you kiss your mother with that mo—”
“I said fuck off!”
Snarling, Alene bounded forward, a wave of adrenaline and anger banishing the pain that weighed her limbs down. The color drained from the once haughty boy’s face as the mage cleared the gap separating them at a speed rivaling a bullet, the bardiche carving a wide, overhead arc in the air like the axe of a murderous executioner. Jace twisted his body to the side, barely avoiding the sapphire head as it smashed into the sidewalk in a blast of dirt and rubble, but Alene failed to be deterred, riding the momentum of her swing. A ball of blue flame engulfed her left hand and she swung herself around the handle of the bardiche, swinging at him. The distinctive crunching of a ribcage reverberated in the air as her enflamed fist dug into his chest, and much like the mage he had toyed with earlier, he was sent flying, a pebble skipping down the concrete pool before skidding to a painful and unceremonious stop. She wrenched L’Arc en Ciel free from the shattered sidewalk and pursued her prey, a soulless glint in her eye as she drew ever closer to the shivering boy in the middle of the street. The weapon fell low to the ground, the blade drawing a myriad of cerulean sparks as it dragged on the ground behind her. With a low, diagonal swing upward, she would be able to catch him even if he tried to evade the blow, cleanly tearing him from hip to shoulder. In terms of athletic strength she was hardly comparable to her brother or even Jace, but the arcane bardiche clenched tightly in her bloody grasped cared not for her miniscule physique. Where she faltered, the ravenous energies contained at the end of her weapon would gladly pick up the slack, ripping through the bone like it was but paper and string. Jace drew himself up to his knees, his eyes affixed to the speeding blur ready to kill him.
And then she gasped.
Maybe it was because she was late. Perhaps the stress of her missed classes gnawing at the back of her mind finally punched a hole through her mental fortitude and filled her with dread. Perhaps her anger had clouded her better judgment, and she committed into a failure she could never draw back from. Perhaps it was simply due to the fact that flip flops were rather unideal footwear for engaging in the type of combat that she reveled in. Panic pulsed through her as she felt one of her flip flops slip out from underneath her, sending her tumbling forward as the grip beneath her feet was wrenched out. The bardiche slipped from her grasp, reverting to a harmless little stick as it clattered to the ground, and the emotionless eyes of a hardened killer reverted to that of an innocent young girl, staring at the pistol held in Jace’s hand.
Bang.
The first bullet knocked her to the side, Alene still stumbling forward from her dash. The next five quickly sent her to the ground. Her vision blurred as she hit the bloody asphalt beneath her, a constant throbbing and burning pain setting her abdomen alight. She struggled to take in a raspy breath, as though the air refused to nourish the dying whims of a feeble girl. One of her lungs had definitely collapsed as she felt a jagged bullet hole just underneath her left breast. Every movement sent fragments of her shattered ribcage into the rest of her organs, sending waves after waves of unbearable pain into her. Yet she couldn’t even muster the strength to writhe in her unspeakable agony, and the girl stared at the fading buildings before her. She felt a hand grip her shoulder, and she was rolled onto her back. She screamed with the last gasps of air in her remaining lung, Jace’s smile juxtaposed against a cold and uncaring sky.
“I win.”
A light exploded from the corner of her dying vision, filling the murky depths of her eyes with a white, searing light. Where her heartbeat only brought pain as her oxygen deprived blood struggled to keep the rest of her broken body alive, there was suddenly a sense of peaceful normalcy. She coughed and gasped for air like a drowning man, feeling its rush run down her untouched trachea and into her reconstructed lungs. She blinked away the veil of whiteness that obscured her vision, seeing Jace yet again staring back down at her, a sheepish smile and flushed cheeks against a still and azure sky.
How she wished to punch him right now.
She placed her hands against the ground and slowly pushed herself up to a kneeling position, cringing as remnants of a phantom pain still lingered where Jace’s pistol had quite fatally ended their battle. The sidewalk seemed like it was newly paved over, the street beneath the two of them lacking the abstract display of blood painted from their torn bodies. Her hand absentmindedly rubbed the shrapnel cuts that had were no longer there as she rose up to her feet, wincing as her bare foot pressed against the burning asphalt.
“Here,” Jace said, handing her her flip flop and the unpowered L’Arc en Ciel. She nodded gratefully and slipped it back onto her foot, returning the bardiche back to her belt. The whir of the Infinity Gear began to die away, leaving only the wistful morning breezes to punctuate the scene between the two. Jace winced and grabbed his chest and Alene quickly rushed beside him, putting his arm around her shoulder.
“Go-Goddamn, Alene,” he said with a dry cough, glancing sideways at her. “Where the fuck did you learn to punch that hard?”
“It’s nothing too special,” she said with an innocent smile, beginning to walk them both forward. “I just pretended I was socking you in the face.”
Her eyes glanced up to the sun above both of them, slowly beginning to reach its apex in the sky.
“We’re gonna miss second period too,” she noted rather nonchalantly.
“Shit. I have a project due today.”
“You idiot.”
“Not yeeeeeeet,” her voice weakly cried in indignation, pulling a pillow over her face.
An apathetic and uncaring alarm clock beside her continued its errant reverie, stirring the young girl out of the last vestiges of her slumber. Her moans escalated into louder, aggravated groans as she resigned herself to the monumental effort of rising for another bloody day. Locks of blue hair, a hue as deep as the Mediterranean she remembered as a child, stuck to her rosy cheeks with saliva in tangled knots, the golden nightgown she wore as wrinkled as it always was, the end pulled up to the very top of her bare knees. She stretched her arm out in a long, exasperated yawn, her hazel eyes batting away the remnants of her fatigue. A murky, inky blackness gave way to vague shapes and bright lights as her vision adjusted, focusing on the bright, neon red 7:42 that emanated from its black screen.
“7:42…” she grumbled under her breath, slamming back down onto her bed. “7:42…”
For a second, she felt her breathing stop as the wires began to connect in her head, one little strand at a time. She shot up as though someone had shoved a needle full of adrenaline straight down her spine, panic surging through her body.
“Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit! I’m fucking late!”
Alene shot through the hallway and into the bathroom in all but a blink of an eye, throwing the nightgown behind her and jumping into the shower. A hasty turn of the valve tore a yelp from her as her naked body was bombarded with a stream of icy water; a similarly instinctive turn broke more screams as the water seared her flesh. Finally, as the torrent became a tolerable lukewarm, she sighed and slumped slightly, cursing her ill-begotten luck.
“Well, shit…” she cursed again, splashing the water beneath her with a kick of her foot. She shook her head and reached her hand out, a surge of magic leaping from her fingertips. A satisfying click resounded from the opposite end of the bathroom, and she turned her attention to the end of the bathtub. The bar of soap slowly lifted from its small perch and gravitated toward her hand, resting snugly in her palm. Beginning to lather herself, a smile crept up the corners of her mouth as the bathroom was filled with the pleasant, smooth hum of a delicious piano and saxophone. A quick spark of magic brought the small container of shampoo into her hand, which she began to liberally apply on her hair, running her fingers from her scalp down to the very end of her hair reaching down just above her waist. With a satisfied huff she shut the water with a turn of the valve and pulled a towel from the nearby rack. She quickly dried herself off and snatched a toothbrush just off to the side of the sink, hastily brushing her teeth. Droplets of water from her still damp hair dripped onto her nose and cheeks, and with an annoyed shake of her head they quickly rolled down her face and to the end of her chin, where a swipe of her hand cast them away. Spitting a wad of toothpaste and saliva out of her mouth, she washed the bit down the drain with a quick turn of the valve and ran back into her room, channeling magic into her fingertips. With a swipe of her hand, the closet door slid open as she ran back into her room, the surge of telekinetic energy pulling out a plain green t-shirt and some shorts. She grabbed a bra and panties from her dresser and threw her clothes on, slinging her half-opened backpack around her shoulder and bolting out of her room.
The upstairs was its usual quiet retreat, her brother already gone off to the Institute with only a half-opened door as the remnant of his departure. Half running, half jumping down the steps, Alene was greeted with the crackle of the frying pan and the alluring scent of fried eggs. To her immediate left, the doorstairs hallway opened to a sparkling kitchen, its aroma that of flowers and cooking oil. Two plates lay unattended on the table, two chairs of the four already haphazardly pulled out and left empty. An assortment of pans clattered noisily above Meridia as she leaned over the oven, the eggs flipping around in the pan like leaves in an autumn breeze. She gave a backwards wave to Alene as she snagged the one plate of eggs from the table, quickly darting toward the door. Slipping on a pair of flip flops, she nearly tore the door off its hinges as she burst through it.
“… Shit,” she muttered halfway down the driveway, looking down at the plate of eggs in her hand. "I forgot a fork, didn’t I?” She shook her head with a self-deprecating laugh and flung the eggs up with a flick of her finger, magic contorting them into a thin disk, and stuffed it all in her mouth. She twisted her body back and flung the plate back at the doorway, not stopping to check whether or not she’d flung it within the reach of her mom or whether the mage had kept the plate from smashing against the wall again. She figured that she’d deal with the chastising when she got home as opposed to being late.
Alene sped down the sidewalk, a quiet street beside her and a mellow suburb accommodating her. Her family wasn’t necessarily rich nor were they scrapped for any cash; a mage could easily afford a small house in this small area just out of the way. Arcadia itself was a bustling trade city but its sprawling cityscape eventually mellowed out into many small suburbs that its denizens resided in. She’d been in the very heart of the city quite a couple of times but the claustrophobic streets and the towering buildings never really suited her. Here, only a couple of cars passed her by, with occasionally the lone mage flying overhead, and the sidewalks were never taken up by a torrent of people that engulfed stragglers in their wake. Even better, the fact that the place was so sparingly populated at this hour meant she could make her mad dashes to the school on the very, very, very rare times that she was late. She’d been scolded for it before, hated it greatly, but if she managed to make it to first period before the bell rang than usually word never traveled up her own family grapevine.
She spun on her heel and turned the next corner, rows of picket fences and cozy, two story abodes giving way to a litany of smaller shops and restaurants. She’d brought Jace through this area before, laughing when he seemed to be baffled by alchemy stores and magical libraries placed right by auto garages and steampunk repair workshops. Arcadia had its slew of dedicated little areas that catered to a specific specialty or eccentricity but the little suburb right off of the intersection of Marigold and Windhelm was just at the overlap of three of these communities. It wasn’t an uncommon sight for a mage and a mech pilot to go out for a smoke around lunchtime in this part, but then again such a sight was starting to become more of a common occurrence in this day and age.
“Hey, Alene!”
And speak of the devil…
“Jace,” she said, brushing her hair over her shoulder as she turned to meet the voice. “You’re running late too?”
The boy gave a curt laugh and smirked, his gaze affixed on Alene’s through the black shades that seemed perpetually glued on his face. A year her senior, the 16-year-old always looked more befitting of a 13-year-old who spent far too much time impressing others on the Internet. An embarrassingly huge leather jacket hung over his shoulders and drooped just above his mid thigh, opening up to a black t-shirt with the golden eagle of the Doogle Armada emblazoned on the front. A pair of ripped jeans ended in a pair of combat boots that seemed less “well-worn” and more “costume shop.” She’d rolled her eyes so much at his choice of apparel so much she was surprised they hadn’t permanently rolled into the back of her skull.
Jace gave a mock salute and ran a hand through the spiky brown hair that had far too much hair gel dumped into it. “I hope you hadn’t forgotten what you agreed to yesterday, Alene!”
“Yester-” Alene groaned impatiently, her palm digging into her face. “Seriously, Jace? Now? Please don’t tell me you’re gonna skip first period to hold me up for this.”
“It’s just one class, Alene!” he jeered, unholstering and twirling a small pistol from his hip. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of getting your ass finally handed to you!”
“Last I checked, I thoroughly kicked your ass two times,” she shot back, crossing her arms and stomping her foot in annoyance.
“And I schooled you twice,” he said with a laugh, shooting an accusatory finger at the girl. “Best of five, Alene!”
“I am seriously going to cave your face in if you’re seriously gonna make me late for the sake of stroking your goddamn eg-“
Too late she noticed in his opposite hand a six-sided device whir to life. She jumped in surprise as an equally obnoxious sound shrieked from her hip. Groaning in resignation, she retrieved a large, pentagonal device, its smooth, metallic surface trimmed with an elegant trim of gold and studded with sapphires and an imprint of a blooming rose engraved in the center. As much as she hated the thought, she had acquiesced to Jace’s annoying whining last week and, whether she liked it or not, he could call a match whenever he pleased.
“Infinity Gear, online.”
She hurled the Infinity Gear into the air, the device hovering above her for a brief moment before resonating with Jace’s own above him. The two surged toward each other in a flurry of sparks and stars, their impact generating a shockwave that briefly made Alene stumble back. The air became noticeably denser as a thick magical field descended on them, the boundaries of the conjured arena starkly defined by a large, translucent barrier of cerulean magic stretching up and into the skies. The Infinity Gear shot back to Alene, who pocketed hers with a sweep of her hand. Her gaze turned to Jace, who smirked as he pushed his shades back up to the bridge of his nose.
“I hate you, Jace,” she said simply.
“Don’t hate the player, Alene dear,” he laughed, clicking a small switch on the pistol back. “Not my fault you’re gonna lose.”
And almost immediately, he pulled the trigger, a large and fiery bolt bursting from the barrel. The first time she had relented to Jace’s constant challenges, Alene was almost paralyzed that such a small gun could fire ammunition that potent. Now, well experienced with Jace’s opening move, she jumped to the side, feeling the skin on the back of her neck tingle as the bolt exploded into a raging inferno, igniting the air around her into a flurry of sparks and embers. Mana filled her right arm, her outstretched fingertips beginning to crackle with electricity, and she slowed her pace to return fire with a bolt of concentrated, arcane lightning. Bolts of pure energy hungrily surged toward Jace, who merely chuckled at the predictability of Alene’s trades. Leisurely sidestepping the lightning bolts, which uprooted a good deal of the sidewalk in its impact, he leveled his pistol at the nimble mage girl and fired round after round.
Alene swore as two fiery blasts closed in on her and channeled magic in her body, clumsily jumping forward and clearing two engulfing whirlwinds of fire before they consumed her. Struggling to regain her footing with her flip flops slipping on the asphalt road, she closed the distance separating her and Jace, her hand hovering over her beloved artifact on her belt. Closing her dash with a tumultuous leap forward, she drew her weapon, a slender wooden peg no longer than the average smart phone. With a burst of magic from her electrified palm, the runic symbols engraved on the ebony wood lit up like fireworks against a night sky, and the peg unfolded and stretched to contain Alene’s magic. From its inconspicuous design, it grew to nearly the full height of the young teenage girl, and at the apex of her leap magic coalesced at the end of the pole, solidifying into a large and jagged sapphire blade, its huge and curved edge much like a cleaver strapped to the end of a broom handle. While still rather inelegant, Alene considered her handcrafted arcane bardiche, L’Arc en Ciel, a beautifully efficient weapon for getting her point across, namely a very huge and heavy blade embedded in her annoying friend.
Hastily jumping to the side to avoid taking the impact of Alene’s treasured weapon directly, Jace quickly took advantage of the opening afforded by the delay of her dramatic miss and pulled two grenades from his belt, tossing them at the winded mage. She yelped in surprise and instinctively braced herself, the twin explosions tossing her back like a flimsy rag doll. She flew ungracefully in the air before hitting the ground with a loud crack and a loud, pained cry. She curled up like a wounded animal and struggled to pull herself to her knees, pain shooting up her arms and legs from where the shrapnel had ripped through her skin, leaving a multitude of bloody cuts. She bit her lip as she felt a poignant spike run through her back, possibly from a fractured vertebrae or two, and her watery eyes locked with the chuckling Jace.
“Got ya, Alene,” he said with a shrug, spinning his pistol around his finger.
“Fuck off.”
“Language, young woman! Do you kiss your mother with that mo—”
“I said fuck off!”
Snarling, Alene bounded forward, a wave of adrenaline and anger banishing the pain that weighed her limbs down. The color drained from the once haughty boy’s face as the mage cleared the gap separating them at a speed rivaling a bullet, the bardiche carving a wide, overhead arc in the air like the axe of a murderous executioner. Jace twisted his body to the side, barely avoiding the sapphire head as it smashed into the sidewalk in a blast of dirt and rubble, but Alene failed to be deterred, riding the momentum of her swing. A ball of blue flame engulfed her left hand and she swung herself around the handle of the bardiche, swinging at him. The distinctive crunching of a ribcage reverberated in the air as her enflamed fist dug into his chest, and much like the mage he had toyed with earlier, he was sent flying, a pebble skipping down the concrete pool before skidding to a painful and unceremonious stop. She wrenched L’Arc en Ciel free from the shattered sidewalk and pursued her prey, a soulless glint in her eye as she drew ever closer to the shivering boy in the middle of the street. The weapon fell low to the ground, the blade drawing a myriad of cerulean sparks as it dragged on the ground behind her. With a low, diagonal swing upward, she would be able to catch him even if he tried to evade the blow, cleanly tearing him from hip to shoulder. In terms of athletic strength she was hardly comparable to her brother or even Jace, but the arcane bardiche clenched tightly in her bloody grasped cared not for her miniscule physique. Where she faltered, the ravenous energies contained at the end of her weapon would gladly pick up the slack, ripping through the bone like it was but paper and string. Jace drew himself up to his knees, his eyes affixed to the speeding blur ready to kill him.
And then she gasped.
Maybe it was because she was late. Perhaps the stress of her missed classes gnawing at the back of her mind finally punched a hole through her mental fortitude and filled her with dread. Perhaps her anger had clouded her better judgment, and she committed into a failure she could never draw back from. Perhaps it was simply due to the fact that flip flops were rather unideal footwear for engaging in the type of combat that she reveled in. Panic pulsed through her as she felt one of her flip flops slip out from underneath her, sending her tumbling forward as the grip beneath her feet was wrenched out. The bardiche slipped from her grasp, reverting to a harmless little stick as it clattered to the ground, and the emotionless eyes of a hardened killer reverted to that of an innocent young girl, staring at the pistol held in Jace’s hand.
Bang.
The first bullet knocked her to the side, Alene still stumbling forward from her dash. The next five quickly sent her to the ground. Her vision blurred as she hit the bloody asphalt beneath her, a constant throbbing and burning pain setting her abdomen alight. She struggled to take in a raspy breath, as though the air refused to nourish the dying whims of a feeble girl. One of her lungs had definitely collapsed as she felt a jagged bullet hole just underneath her left breast. Every movement sent fragments of her shattered ribcage into the rest of her organs, sending waves after waves of unbearable pain into her. Yet she couldn’t even muster the strength to writhe in her unspeakable agony, and the girl stared at the fading buildings before her. She felt a hand grip her shoulder, and she was rolled onto her back. She screamed with the last gasps of air in her remaining lung, Jace’s smile juxtaposed against a cold and uncaring sky.
“I win.”
A light exploded from the corner of her dying vision, filling the murky depths of her eyes with a white, searing light. Where her heartbeat only brought pain as her oxygen deprived blood struggled to keep the rest of her broken body alive, there was suddenly a sense of peaceful normalcy. She coughed and gasped for air like a drowning man, feeling its rush run down her untouched trachea and into her reconstructed lungs. She blinked away the veil of whiteness that obscured her vision, seeing Jace yet again staring back down at her, a sheepish smile and flushed cheeks against a still and azure sky.
How she wished to punch him right now.
She placed her hands against the ground and slowly pushed herself up to a kneeling position, cringing as remnants of a phantom pain still lingered where Jace’s pistol had quite fatally ended their battle. The sidewalk seemed like it was newly paved over, the street beneath the two of them lacking the abstract display of blood painted from their torn bodies. Her hand absentmindedly rubbed the shrapnel cuts that had were no longer there as she rose up to her feet, wincing as her bare foot pressed against the burning asphalt.
“Here,” Jace said, handing her her flip flop and the unpowered L’Arc en Ciel. She nodded gratefully and slipped it back onto her foot, returning the bardiche back to her belt. The whir of the Infinity Gear began to die away, leaving only the wistful morning breezes to punctuate the scene between the two. Jace winced and grabbed his chest and Alene quickly rushed beside him, putting his arm around her shoulder.
“Go-Goddamn, Alene,” he said with a dry cough, glancing sideways at her. “Where the fuck did you learn to punch that hard?”
“It’s nothing too special,” she said with an innocent smile, beginning to walk them both forward. “I just pretended I was socking you in the face.”
Her eyes glanced up to the sun above both of them, slowly beginning to reach its apex in the sky.
“We’re gonna miss second period too,” she noted rather nonchalantly.
“Shit. I have a project due today.”
“You idiot.”
I intend to pick up the pace later this week. ... If I don't get sucked up by Fate/Stay Night (I blame Rin.)
- Joined
- Sep 10, 2013
I wanted to be at 10,000 words by the end of today, but I'm pretty behind. Have to keep pushing, though! I'm balancing a bunch of other projects at the same time cause that's what I do because I'm nuts, but I'm feeling confident.
Pinkamena Diane Pie
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Aug 15, 2015
I just got to 15,000 words. Ugh, its damning.
- Joined
- Apr 13, 2015
Welp, NaNo's over and I haven't finished a single paragraph. I'm ashamed but unsurprised.
Let me make one thing clear: I abhor violence. I can't abide such wanton savagery. I loathe those who live by the sword like an English teacher loathes thesaurus abuse.
So, when I smash my tiny Bakelite alarm clock as it squawks its wake-up call, I do it out of love. Love for the dream it's interrupted for the last time. Love for the planet some dead guy had others destroy to produce flimsy household appliances like it. Love for...it's too early to be thinking in[what was that term called again].
The wind howls outside, hurling foul drops of rain at my bedroom window. I fumble at the nightstand for my phone and, after locating it on the floor, mutter obscenities when the lock mechanism doesn't immediately recognize my thumbprint. Dad couldn't understand why I insisted on using his old clock instead of an alarm app. Probably didn't want to. I
So, when I smash my tiny Bakelite alarm clock as it squawks its wake-up call, I do it out of love. Love for the dream it's interrupted for the last time. Love for the planet some dead guy had others destroy to produce flimsy household appliances like it. Love for...it's too early to be thinking in
The wind howls outside, hurling foul drops of rain at my bedroom window. I fumble at the nightstand for my phone and, after locating it on the floor, mutter obscenities when the lock mechanism doesn't immediately recognize my thumbprint. Dad couldn't understand why I insisted on using his old clock instead of an alarm app. Probably didn't want to. I
Pinkamena Diane Pie
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Aug 15, 2015
Honestly? I only made it to 30,000 before school decided to screw me over. (Though, it helped gain ideas)
Now my character actually goes to every class...
- Joined
- Oct 29, 2013
Well, I blew it. Can't win them all.
- Joined
- Nov 16, 2014
It seems like you never win any of them, though.
- Joined
- Aug 31, 2015
I run a NaNoWriMo group with my local middle/high school every year. It's amazing how creative kids are, and I've found that it really helps my own writing.