Posted 5:22 PM by Tim Rafuse
::Reader's Note
In an effort to not let this section wither and die I present the following:
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The trio stood in the distance. All of them had guns drawn. "We won't let you get away with this!" they shouted. Fools, all of them. I stopped and turned towards them. "You won't? How do you plan to stop me?" I asked them. Shots rang out, I raised my hand and deflected the bullets with a mere fraction of my powers. "As I was saying, how..." more shots interrupted me. Again I deflected them, sending enough back at the trio to knock the guns from their hands.

I flexed my fingers, the earth trembled, rippling and bucking around me. A crack formed at my feet, following my outstretched hand towards the trio, they started to run, but great shafts of earth reeled up blocking their escape, the crack widened and moved towards them faster. The walls of earth pushed them forwards, into the open rift in the earth. Screaming they fell in. I closed the hole over them, the screaming stopped, or was perhaps only muffled by the weight of earth.

I returned to my journey.

::Reader's Note
Totally unrelated to anything, but more or less the thing on my mind lately.
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Posted 2:50 PM by Tim Rafuse
::Reader's Note
I've been experiencing some writer's block. I'm not sure what to post today. Which sucks, because it means that I'm really not getting the "content every day" thing going here.
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Posted 9:52 AM by Tim Rafuse
::Reader's Note
Yet another storyline. This is a little less defined, but still fun.
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The armies were lined up on either side of the valley. I was against this war, but I was here to try to reach an agreement of peace. I knew that I could stop the war from happening, prevent this battle from ever occuring, but I had taken a vow to not interefere directly with this world. I would have to let it learn on it's own.

I scanned the battle lines across the field. Row after row of armoured and armed men. Mostly footmen with swords still. Neither side had discovered how to make an effective combat bow, and no one had thought to use horses in battle. The general and his entourage were clearly visible amongst the other soldiers. Something about one of his entourage caught my eye. With the general was a man who was unarmored, like me.

The locals still regarded me as a wizard of some kind. Some going so far as to suggest that I was the avatar of some god. I tried to dissuade them, but it hasn't been easy. My apparent longevity, and other abilities have made me into something of a legend.

The man with the general looked at me. We stared at each other across the valley. Could he be like me? There had been rumours that General Thron's army had a wizard as well, but I had dismissed them. Now, it looked like there might be another like me after all. I turned to Lonfar, "Hold back the troops, Lonfar. I must meet their wizard." Lonfar nodded as I sprinted down the valley. Their wizard began running towards me as well. I altered my time matrix, making me even faster, he seemed to do the same.

We met in the center of the valley, drawing swords at the last minute and clashing them together loudly. We traded blows, our swords ringing. I knew that we were fighting at about twice the speed of normal men. Our battle would look like a high speed fight movie. I increased my speed and he matched it again. I increased it more and again he matched me. Our swords rung off of each other in our ears. To outside observers, it would sound like a rumbling crescendo of metal on metal. Our speed added force to everything we did. Our swords created gales of wind in their wake, our footsteps caused the ground beneath our feet to buckle, the grass tearing up behind us.

"STOP!" I yelled, and quickly retreated a few paces. My opponent did the same. I dropped my speed down to normal. "Who are you?"

::Reader's Note
Don't I have a habit of doing that? Just stopping the story as I get to a good part? Well, here it is again.

To fill people in, the narrator (and main character) has the ability to adjust time. Going faster means moving time around him slower. His opponent seems to be able to do the same thing. There's more to it than that, but maybe I'll write that out later.
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Posted 4:07 PM by Tim Rafuse
::Reader's Note
I'm making a bit of a digression here. The current storyline is great, and there's a lot of places I can take it, but I'm just not sure what should happen next. I know where it is going, but not how it got there.

I've been meaning to write something on the story all day, but it's just not coming together. As I've said here before, this format is a little different, because I really only get one shot at putting something up, without having to go and write something revisionist. We'll just see if I can think about where things are going well enough to pull it off.
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Posted 6:39 PM by Tim Rafuse
::Reader's Note
I hope this makes some sense.
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That Friday, Scott and I were headed towards The Club again. I had promised to take him again, and I was acting as his watcher. I needed to talk to Trent and Brent and see what was going on this weekend. I knew they'd be at The Club, since they spent almost every evening there. Scott and I had been talking on the way there, and I learned that he had met with David at his school. Daniel and David were two of the younger kids at The Club, about the same age as Scott. The three of them all had some telekinetic ability, so it was good that they were together.

"So, are David and Daniel going to teach you mind chess?" Mind chess was just like regular chess, but the players weren't allowed to use their hands to move the pieces.

"Yeah, I've been trying to practice some at home, but it's hard. My mom keeps checking in on me and distracting me. I told her that I had joined the chess club at school."

"You might want to," I said, "David and Daniel are pretty good players."

"Do you play?" David asked.

"Just regular chess. TK isn't my specialty."

"TK?"

"Telekinesis, " I explained, "the whole 'moving things with your mind' deal that you and David and Daniel have. I don't do that - can't, I should say."

"Well... what do you do then?"

"I really don't like to talk about my abilities." I said.

"Why not? Everybody seems to have something really cool. Like Trent and Brent." Trent and Brent had entertained Scott by having Trent flick and ice cube into the air and having Brent incinerate it before it hit the table. This was there usual party trick that they showed the new kids. They had done it only a couple of times before Lawless had remined them of the table incident.

I stopped. "Um. It's a bit hard to explain." Scott looked at me expectantly. I knew he was looking for me to give him an answer. "Ok, let me see if I can explain it. Most of my power seems to be focused on just the sight, really. I can see magical, or psychic things."

"Like B can?" interrupted Scott. "Yes," I answered, "like B can. But he's better at it than I am."

I started walking again, continuing to explain as I went. "I've got a little bit of ability with visions. I have them sometimes, but not a lot. And I have some ability with healing, and un-healing." Scott had been listening intently, and now looked confused. "Un-healing?" he asked, "What's that?"

"Well, hurting people mostly." I looked at my shoes. "Why would you do that?" Scott asked me, this time he stopped. I turned to him. "Look, I don't like doing it, but it's something like how things have to be balanced. Its like this. I can't heal if I don't hurt someone else. Usually, I'll just hurt myself, but, sometimes..." I trailed off. There was a long pause. "Look," I said, "I don't expect you to understand yet. Let's just get to The Club, and maybe I'll think of a better way to explain it there."

The rest of the walk was silent.

---

::Reader's Note
Hmm. I do like this storyline. I'm going to have to think about what happens in it. Good thing I've got a few days off coming up.
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Posted 9:49 AM by Tim Rafuse
::Reader's Note
Staying focused on the one storyline has been a little difficult for me. I'm gonna stick with it for a bit, and see where it goes.
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Scott walked up behind me. "How did it go?" I asked him. I pointed to a chair at another table, he got it, dragged it over and sat. "I'm not sure, really." He fidgeted with his hands. "B seems like a nice guy, and all," he trailed off. "What did he say?" asked Trent. "He said I'm on probation." I looked at Trent, then Brent. They shook their heads.

"Probation? The only other person to get a probation was Trish." Lawless had snuck up behind us, and had obviously heard our conversation. "B must be concerned about your brother influencing you somehow. It's just a precaution, probably."

"He said that I needed to find someone to act as a watcher. But, I don't know anyone but you, Trey."

"That's ok, Scott, I'd be happy to be your watcher." I turned to Lawless. "Who was Trish's watcher?"

"Gizz." I nodded, "That makes sense."

Scott and I left The Club about 9:30 that night, to make sure we were home before curfew. I arranged to take him to The Club later that week.

---

::Reader's Note
I'll need to figure out what happens next.
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Posted 12:11 AM by Tim Rafuse
::Reader's Note
In the interests of keeping people's interests, we'll go on with the most recent storyline. Why? I like it, and it's going well so far.
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"Now remember Scott," I said, mimicing an old vid I'd seen, "I can only show you the door, you have to go through it." I laughed. I don't think Scott got it. Scott entered the office to talk to B. I knew that B liked to keep these talks closed-session, so I went to see what had been going on since I was here last.

I walked over to the table where Trent and Brent were sitting. "Hey," I said. They both nodded in greeting.

"Where ya been?" asked Trent. "We haven't seen you around lately," finished Brent.

"I was out of the city for a bit. My parents were worried about me, and sent me off to live with my Aunt. It sucked."

"Where?" they both asked at once.

"East coast."

"Woah. Were you near the riots?" asked Brett, leaning in closer.

"Yeah. There were some the next county over. A few too many AOGers in the area where I was, so my Aunt sent me home again." I was glad to be back. I was hoping that we could avoid some of the same problems here that they had had along the east coast. "How's it been here?" I asked them. I knew that if anything had gone down recently, they'd know.

"It's been pretty quiet here, but AOG attendance is up," said Brent. "It looks like they're recruiting again," added Trent.

"Scott, the guy I brought in tonight," I pointed towards B's office, "says that his brother just joined." We all frowned. The AOG membership was growing, and we knew that would only lead to trouble for people like us.

"We were worried when you disappeared without warning. We thought someone might have gotten you."

"My parents were all freaked about me staying out late and sometimes coming back looking like I'd been in a fight." We laughed, most of those evenings I had been in a fight. My parents thought I had joined the AOG, when actually I was working against them.

::Reader's Note
All for now. Too tired to go on thinking in storyline. There will be more though.
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