Furious Fiction January 2022
FURIOUS FICTION HAS OFFICIALLY BEEN MOVED TO ONCE EVERY QUARTER, HOWEVER BECAUSE I LOVE THE CONCEPT I’VE DECIDED TO CONTINUE IT ON MY OWN. I’VE DECIDED TO CHANCE A FEW THINGS, ONE NO WORD LIMIT AND TWO THE TIME LIMIT IS THE ENTIRE MONTH INSTEAD OF 55 HOURS. SO WITH PROMPTS HANDED TO ME BY A FORMER ENGLISH TEACHER OF 30 YEARS, HERE’S JANUARY’S POST.
Prompts:
Keywords: Leather, Cold, Love, Silence, Distraught, Blue
Phrase: It never ends
AS ALWAYS ALL THE PROMPTS MUST BE USED IN SOME WAY THROUGHOUT THE STORY, THE ONLY THING THAT MAY CHANGE IS THE TENSES. CAN YOU SPOT ALL THE PROMPTS?
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Capture
Dark trudged through the icy cold snow looking for the treasure that had lured him here. He'd honestly thought his leather villain suit would be warmer, even if it was made of a lightweight high tech polycarbonate Kevlar fibre and didn’t weigh anything, some heat should be retained in his suit, but apparently not enough to keep the chill from the Arctic from seeping into his bones. Dark supposed he should be grateful for what little insulation was built into the suit, it was probably the only thing that was keeping him from freezing to death. He supposed that was his fault for visiting the ice covered edge of the world on a whim.
Dark had been flying back from a cash liberation job, he absolutely refused to call it a robbery, he didn’t like the negativity that word evoked when he’d received such an exciting ping on one of his monitors. His ship's long range senses had picked up a hero, crash landing in the middle of the snow, all alone with no one to rescue them. Dark couldn't resist the temptation. Either it was a trap, in which case he’d kick ass, or it was like a golden opportunity falling right into his lap.
Dark landed his ship as close as he could to the fallen hero, but unfortunately due to thin ice, it was a bit of a hike to actually reach them. Even this short walk was making his testicles retreat back into his body. Getting the hero back to the ship was going to be a bastard of a trip. Still it would be worth the effort, to turn up at the villain summit with his very own captured hero, now that would be something.
And there was his prize. Lying face down in the snow. Excitement pulsed through Dark as he bounded forward eagerly plowing forward, kicking snow everywhere in his excitement. He yanked out the cuffs he’d need to restrain the hero from his utility belt as he went, too eager to actually approach the situation with any rationality or caution.
At the last second Dark stopped just short of the body, out of attack range, sense making a comeback at the last moment. He wasn’t a kid and he wasn’t getting his ass kicked by a hero just because he was too eager to notice an obvious trap. He waited to confirm the hero really was defenceless and not faking injury or unconsciousness, before approaching. And even in those few short moments, the silence was deafening.
The first thing that Dark noticed about the hero was that it was a woman, it was kind of hard to miss with her rather spectacular ass being the first thing he saw. The second thing he noticed was that she was almost turning blue from the cold. He wasn’t surprised. Her outfit may have been made of the same material that his was, all superhero outfits were, but her outfit unlike his, was sleeveless and she’d obviously been lying out here a while. When it became apparent that she wasn’t moving, he swiftly bobbed down and yanked her arms behind her back snapping the enchanted chains around her wrists to keep her from being able to use her powers. And just in time it seemed, since she was starting to wake up. Something about this costume was really familiar. Black leather with intricate swirls woven through it, the details in a red so dark that if you weren’t looking up close you wouldn’t be able to see the swirls.
Curious to know exactly who he’d captured, Dark gripped her shoulder and rolled her over on to her stomach. The second he saw her face, a giant smile broke out over his. It wasn't just any hero lying on in the snow, it was his own personal superhero nemesis. For years they’d inevitably end up fighting each other and every time she’d kicked his ass, hell last time they’d fought she’d thrown him at an angry Phoenix as a distraction. Not exactly very superhero like he’d thought, if his suit hadn’t been fire proof he would have been roasted alive on the spot. Now that she was his prisoner, it was going to be time for a little payback. Dark was absolutely loving this turn of events.
“Ow.”
She groaned as she tried to get more comfortable, not that it seemed to do her any good since she looked just as uncomfortable as when she started wriggling around. Her eyes slowly fluttered open and she stared up at the sky, her expression dazed. Dark was so excited to see the look on her face when she realised that she was his prisoner. “Hello hero. It's been a while. Tell me Solstice Witch, how’s your day going?” Dark would love to say that he was mature enough to keep the glee out of his voice, but that would have been a damn lie. This was so much fun for him.
“Oh for fuck's sake.” Witch groaned her head flopping back against the snow. And to think she’d thought her day couldn’t get much worse, giving that it had started out with a Hunter finding her. Now to add to the Hunter stalker, she was apparently prisoner to a supervillain. Wait maybe, she wasn’t a prisoner. Without moving the rest of her body, she tried to move her hands and all she succeed in doing was tugging them in the cuffs that bound her wrists. Then when it was obvious she was bound, she tried to use her powers, any of her powers, but neither her magic, nor her superhero upgrades did anything. Even muttering an old spell she’d learned as a child that had never failed her before, produced absolutely no results. This day absolutely sucked.
And to make matters worse, Witch knew the voice of her captor. It wasn’t just any villain that captured her, that voice belonged to one of the most arrogant villains around. Dark, no second name, no extra syllable, no elaboration, just Dark. He was ostentatious, annoying and so fucking villain positive that every time they met, she wanted to toss herself off a cliff, which was pointless since she could fly, but the impulse was there nonetheless. She kept staring up at the sky as she tried to figure out exactly how fucked she was. Her hands were cuffed behind her back, with metal that seemed thin on her surface, but no amount of super strength was breaking through them. Interesting she’d wager Dark had designed them himself, she had heard from the other hero’s that he was some kind of tech genius. It had almost sounded like they’d all known each other, but she didn’t see how that could be possible.
Having put it off for long enough Witch took a deep forfeiting breath and turned her head towards her captor so she was looking up at Dark. “I don't suppose l could convince you to leave me here in the snow?” Witch asked hopefully. Though she should have known it was in vain, there was no way a supervillain was just going to give up chance to capture a superhero. She just knew getting out of bed today had been a mistake.
“Come on hero, it won't be so bad, we'll get a chance to spend some quality time together.” Dark grinned viciously as he reached out and grabbed a hold of her upper arm so he could yank her up to her feet.
Since she was lying in the cold for an unknown amount of time, she’d obviously had some of her extremities go a little numb, because when Dark pulled her to her feet, she felt her knees threaten to give out. She locked out her knees so she wouldn’t collapse, or stumble into him, she wouldn’t give Dark the satisfaction of seeing her weak, nor would she ask him for help even if she was sure she could feel her nose slowly turning to ice. Without her powers she couldn’t warm herself, and she was just as susceptible to the temperate extremes as any human. If it had been a different villain that had captured her, maybe she could have tried a bit of psychological manipulation to gain her freedom, but Dark was annoyingly smart so she doubted that would work with him. Plus he had such an an arrogant asshole vibe, and he had the most irritating smirk. “Fucking asshole.” Witch grumbled under her breath. Only when she spoke this time did she hear the chattering of her teeth. Great, she thought to herself sarcastically. There was no way he hadn’t heard that. So much for not showing weakness.
Dark bent down in front of her, looking her right in her eyes. He heard the chatter of her teeth. In this silence there was no way not to, every sound was amplified by about a thousand, seeming to echo back at them even though there was nothing around them but flat empty land. He looked her up and down letting the onboard screen in his mask run an assessment of her physical condition. He couldn’t keep her prisoner and torment her if she froze to death. That would suck all the fun out of his spectacularly good morning.
Only when the results of his scan flashed up on his onboard screen a second later, Dark realised something was very wrong. “The fuck?” Dark muttered to himself when the computer determined that she was completely healthy. That wasn’t possible. He could physically see that there was something wrong with her, but nothing was reregistering on his screens. “Maybe the cold is messing with my systems.” Only that shouldn't be possible, he'd designed his suit and tech himself from scratch, it should withstand any temperature and conditions. So why the fuck wasn’t it working now?
“What’s wrong villain, you sound positively distressed.” Witch sassed grinning widely at his discomfort. Dark didn’t say anything, just kept standing there, bent down, his gaze boring into her body, like he was trying to see through her. It was extremely irritating. So she stared right back at him. He looked different than he had the last time she’d seen him, more bulk, like he’d put on muscle. He’d always been tall, at least six four, but his suit was clinging to him more than usual. His biceps alone were at least twice the size, now they resembled small tree trunks. She couldn’t tell a thing about him other than his new muscle mass and shapely defined muscles that seemed to be really working for her, which only pissed her off further. She didn’t care how good his body was, she was not lusting after a villain.
Dark’s black suit covered him from head to toe. With the exception of his mouth and jaw. He had the jawline of a model though, square cut and sharp enough to break glass. Even his eyes were behind a visor. Everything about Dark remained an annoying mystery that she wanted to solve. She’d always been like that ever since she was a child, needing to find the answers to any questions she didn’t understand. How annoying to know that it also extended to villains and what made them tick.
“Seriously, I don’t fucking understand.” Dark stood up and looked down at Solstice Witch. He’d run diagnostics on his computers and they came up fine, and yet when he re-ran an assessment of her physical condition her results came up fine, again. And yet there was no way that was true. Her outfit was sleeveless and even though it was skin tight it didn’t exactly look warm. Even though she was toned and definitely fit, in this weather if she was human she would have already been dead from the hypothermia. But weirdly she seemed to be holding up ok, even if her teeth were chattering. If there was nothing wrong with his equipment, then it had to be something that she was doing. “I was being nice and trying to asses your physical condition, but all my readings are coming back fine? And yet there’s no way for you to be fine in this cold and with how long you were exposed. So why do all my scans come back fine?”
“Faulty equipment.” Witch answered innocently. “It’s quite common, happens to men all the time, especially once they get past a certain age.” She gave him her most innocent smile and looked up at him with an understating gaze. He clearly caught her implied double-entendre if the way he glared at her was any indication.
“You aren't going to tell me the truth? What are you doing to block my scans.” Dark asked with an annoyed growl. He didn't particularly care
If she froze to death, but the fact that there was something he didn't know and that it affected his tech irritated the fuck out of him. And if the smug look on her face was anything to go, she knew that and enjoyed it.
“I’ll tell you if you take these chains off.” Witch grinned turning slightly so she he could see her jiggle her bound wrists. Dark just glared at her, giving her a positively disgusted look. Yeah, she didn’t think that would work, but it had been worth a shot. “Fine, then. If you’re not going to let me go can you officially take me prisoner and drag me to your ship, it’s cold as balls out here.”
“Worst hero ever.” Dark muttered under his breath. He grabbed her by her upper arm and dragged her forward. “You should at least be trying to escape.” He muttered under his breath. This entire capture was anticlimactic and upsetting. None of this was going to make a great story, he was going to have to embellish, how unfortunate. He’d thought Solstice Witch would be more fun.
“Oh I'm sorry.” Witch said in her most sickly sweet voice. “Am I being a disappointing prisoner? Because I can see how that must be frustrating for you. Tell you what why…” Witch trailed off as a fission of energy suddenly exploded through the air. It was a preemptive eagerly explosion that would be followed by a physical representation of whatever magic was responsible, but she felt it, where most people wouldn’t. Her head snapped towards the left, for as far as the eye could see there was only ice, but she could feel that there was more. Even with these cuffs on her preventing her from using her powers, she could still feel it and the energy that was leaking into the air was making her hair stand on end.
“If this is some kind of power play it's pointless.” Dark growled yanking on her arm to get her attention. Her head snapped to his and there was a look in her eyes he couldn't quite place. It wasn't fear exactly but there was something that was unsettling her.
“We need to leave.” Witch said looking back out over the ice. Something was coming, she could feel it.
“The cold getting to you?” Dark asked sarcastically. He'd never admit it out loud, but he was more than ready to be back inside the heated interior of his ship.
Witch opened her mouth intending to tell the stupid villain that it was prudent for them to get out of there, but it was already too late. Energy exploded through the air, crashing into them with the force of a hurricane and throwing them off their feet. Dark lost his tenuous grip on her and Witch lost track of him as she catapulted through the air and slammed into a mini glacier sticking out of the ice. Without her magic to cushion the blow, pain bloomed through her as she slammed into the glacier at full force, the impact knocking the wind right out of her. The glacier cracked under the impact and she felt something in her break, a few ribs if she’d have to guess, possibly one of her wrists, and a dislocated shoulder. With her hands cuffed behind her back, her hands and arms had hit the glacier, followed by the rest of her body. And with these chains on, she wasn't even sure that her injuries would heal themselves, like they normally would.
Witch struggled into a sitting position as waves of energy continued to pulse through the air and that's when she saw it forming. A crack appeared in the air and Witch know exactly what that meant.
“It just never fucking ends with you hero's, does it?” Dark yelled with a disgusted growl. He had no idea what was happening but whatever it was, his scans couldn't make sense of the readings, they couldn't actually register anything. They just seemed to sending his tech into a tailspin. “Seriously you fucking hero's. You attract so much trouble, do you get cursed by vengeful genies or some shit?”
“You're right and we should discuss this at length, much later.” Witch began getting to her feet and ignoring the sharp flares of pain across her body. Yep definitely a few cracked ribs, and more, but her legs were okay, which meant that she could run. And right now, that was exactly what they needed to do. And to get the hell out of here, she’d need the villain. “We need to get out of here as quickly as possible.”
“Why? What has you so freaked out he…” Dark trailed off as out of the corner of his eye a glowing bright white silver light caught his attention. “What the fuck is that?”
“That is the beginnings of a rip in the fabric this of universe, and a possible fracture in the space time continuum. And if we don't get a safe distance away before the rip widens and settles, we'll be lost forever.”
“Lost where?” Dark asked with a scoff.
“Anywhere. Everywhere. For all of time.”
“What does that even mean?” Dark asked turning his attention back to the hero but Witch had already taken the opportunity to start running away from him. Seriously, how fucking lame. Running away, that was the best escape attempt she had in her? This was all so very disappointing. “Fucking seriously.” Dark muttered to himself. “Where exactly do you think you're going to go, hero?” He yelled turning around and watching her run across the ice. There was nothing around them but endless stretches of icy planes.
The second Dark turned his attention away from the rip, a massive explosion next to him tossed him off his feet for the second tine in less than five minutes. Once again Dark’s suit absorbed the impact and he instantly got back up to his feet. A mix curiosity and annoyance had him turning his attention to the rip and that's when he noticed the bolts of lightening like energy, radiating out through the air and slamming into the ice with force enough to leave burning holes behind, followed by cracking ice.
Dark took off at a dead run, no longer as concerned with the capturing Witch as much as he was with saving his own ass. And right now he had to admit, Witch’s running away was making a hell of a lot more sense. As soon as Dark started running his tech registered a massive surge of energy exactly where he’d been standing moments before and as he ran he felt the surrounding ice crack under his feet. He doubled his pace even as curiosity got the better of him and had him glancing behind him. That was a mistake. A massive wave silver white energy was radiating out from the rip like a massive tidal wave, obliterating everything in its path, simply erasing it like it had never been there, from ice, to the water underneath to the animals and bugs in the air. And whatever that energy wave was, it was gaining on them.
*****