QuietValerie

Coven's Rebellion Chapter 12

Tami

We hustled through the surreal city streets of the Vienna megapolis like rats fleeing a fire—Extremely well armed rats made of metal. All around us were signs of battle. A decrepit old house had taken a hit and chunks of its centuries-old masonry had been sprayed out in all directions. It was surreal seeing 19th century buildings like that one being backlit by the flames of a burning modern apartment building.

I knew from vid shows that a lot of Europe look...

Coven's Rebellion Chapter 11

Tami

One after another, we leapt out of the back of our aircraft as it belched smoke from one of its engines. The sleek wedge of a vehicle had a huge hole torn out of one stubby wing, while almost every part of its underside was peppered with jagged little holes. Whatever hit us was designed to kill things like this. I think? Ah, who knows, I'm just an under-educated gamer.

Oh, fuck! The ground!

My borrowed mechanical body glanced off a...

Coven's Rebellion Chapter 10

As always with chapters from stories that I haven't written in a while, let me know if you spot any inconsistencies with plot stuff.

Tami

Retreating from my kiss with Dawn, I gave her a little finger-wiggle wave and hopped over to my VR-pod. Time was running out for May’s friends or revolutionaries or whatever they were. She said their name was the Exodus, right?

When I materialised into our shared home environment, May ...

Update on what's happening.

Hi everyone! I've been taking a rest for a while. I'm going to ramp back up again though. Kaia will continue, but I'm also looking at continuing and/or reworking Gauntlette. Thanks for your patience!

Finances-wise, we're stable for now, if only barely. I want to thank everyone who contributed extra cash over the last few years, but especially the last year. You've literally made the difference between homelessness and having a roof over our heads.

Cheers, and happy holidays!

Digital Exodus Chapter 17

Still taking a rest from Kaia. I've been very head-empty recently so I'm just dinking along writing DE for you all. Hope that's okay <3

The moment we got out of the meeting, I got to work integrating the hyper-conductor material into my designs for the armour. I jacked my framerate way up for the task and ignored all other distractions.

Throughout the Exodus, others were doing the same. The urgency wasn't because of any threat to our oper...

Digital Exodus Chapter 16

It felt like my entire life was meetings, bursts of hectic activity, and then boring waiting times. I was currently stuck in the meetings portion of that triad again.

At least I was free of meditation stuff now. Gosh, my poor little brain had hated that. I just wasn't cut out for sitting still. I needed something to do, a project or problem to solve, or failing that, a game to play.

Now that we had a way to make Larry’s dream substance, we were hard at...

Digital Exodus Chapter 15

When I accessed my new body and took control of it, I laughed when I found myself in a small padded coffin with tubes plugged into the back of my neck and belly button. I guess the body had some other non-human standard parts, besides my tail and ears, of course. Thankfully, those types of augmentation were fairly normal, so my scanner-dodging abilities wouldn't be compromised.

Today, I was also going to house my consciousness inside the body, rather than just puppeting it. It'd seemed ...

Kaia the Argent Wing Chapter 39

I approached the external smithy with trepidation, and if it weren't for Ollie, I might've run away altogether. I could hear the clang of metal on metal, so I knew April was in there.

The smithy was almost entirely enclosed now, wooden walls hastily erected around it, and black plastic sheets stapled in place. Snow was gathered on the slanted roof and in piles around it, except where a path had been cleared to the door, which was ajar.

Ollie ushered me inside with a supportive but...

Kaia the Argent Wing Chapter 38

Ollie lent me a pair of jeans and a shirt, and I wore my old shoes which surprisingly fit me. As for my… uh… pokies, I covered them with the big woollen jumper I liberated from the house right before I went into that transformation coma. It was enough to make me look passingly presentable, but… we really needed to sort out the clothing situation. Using random bits and pieces just didn’t feel great.

She also came with me when I decided to make a trip down to the workshop. The oth...

Digital Exodus Chapter 14

Alia

The first test for my absorption armour created a feedback loop of energy that detonated and tore apart the entire test rig. So did the second, then the third. Two months later, and I was at my wit's end. Nothing made sense. My maths checked out, my schematics were fine, and the build quality on the fabricated prototypes was excellent.

Something, somehow, was causing current to hop between conduits, regardless of what was sitting betwe...

Kaia the Argent Wing Chapter 37

OKay! Touching base with everyone. What direction would you like to see the story go, or what individual things would you like to see happen? Time for ideas!

I was not ready to see everyone else.

As soon as we passed through the door, Camilo's hand guiding me, he said, "She's back everyone!"

"We only got like seventy percent of Kai back, you mean," Alec teased. "The magic took the rest."

"Oh my god, a redcap got into the school!" Scott excl...

Kaia the Argent Wing Chapter 36

“He— uh… they are still stable,” someone was saying as I woke up.

"Why is he… different now? When is he going to wake up?” That voice was definitely Alec.

“We don’t know,” the person said, her voice resolving into a more feminine tone that I vaguely recognised. The school nurse, I think? “They were brought in from the cold during the battle with the scorpions, hypothermic and with some strange unrelated symptoms. The… changes happened gradua...

Kaia the Argent Wing Chapter 35

I wasn’t far from the third corner, out in the parking lot, but with the frigid wind gusting at speeds that felt like it might strip my skin from my muscle, it felt like much further. The battle hadn’t found its way to this side of the school yet, so it was only the wind getting in my way.

Crouching low, I reached out and touched the concrete rim around the small grass island that separated the parking lot from the sidewalk. “I bless this land in Cynath’s name.”

Another ...

Kaia the Argent Wing Chapter 34

The doors creaked open, pulling an ice scorpion thing into the room. Its tail, still lodged in the door, was hacked off by a burly firefighter. The cold entered at the same time, blasting us with a wave of icy knives that chilled flesh and bone in moments.

My lungs burned when I took in a breath, but I fought through the discomfort and bolted forward. My wings helped in the charge, flexing and scooping the air in a rush, all based on instinct. My armoured body collided with the first mo...

Kaia the Argent Wing Chapter 33

The man approaching was one I recognised from before the Storm. Pastor Thomas was an older man with just the dregs of his old dark hair remaining amongst the grey. He was one of those older people who carried himself with an arrogance that no longer matched his height and build.

"Who would you be?" Cynath asked mildly.

"Thou shalt have no other gods before me!" Pastor Thomas said, drawing himself up as much as he could. "False god, demon! Begone!"

Cynath's hand t...

Kaia the Argent Wing Chapter 32

Something was wrong. Just two minutes into our five minute journey back to Edgewood High, and I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck doing the danger dance.

The snow was coming down as ghostly flakes too small to be felt, but there was a lot of it and the wind was whipping it up into a howling blizzard. The blinding tempest gave the barely recognisable frozen wasteland that used to be my neighbourhood a disturbing vibe.

The cold was already biting at my exposed skin, stripp...

Kaia the Argent Wing Chapter 31

We rushed out into a gymnasium that was half forest. Gnarled old oaks tore up out of the once shiny wooden floor. The tops of those trees had busted out through the ceiling and into open air and fog.

Everywhere that the floor was split or cracked in some way, forest underbrush was growing. Cobwebs hung from the corners of the room and somewhere in the treetops some form of bird was making unnaturally rasping calls.

On the opposite wall was an open doorway that was obscured by a fa...

Kaia the Argent Wing Chapter 30

Surprise! Early chapter!

Before we left, I did a quick scan of the redcap bodies and came up with a singular attribute orb. I gave it to Chloe, because I was feeling generous since we’d had that rollercoaster of a conversation.

While she did that, I addressed a storm-induced notification that was patiently waiting for me. Huh. I was level six now, I think? My class had been filled with experience six times now anyway, and there were a few things that...

Kaia the Argent Wing Chapter 29

Plaster and paint flaked off the walls everywhere we looked as we ventured further into the strange and twisted school. Chloe was still giving me the silent treatment, which I wasn't overly bothered by. Our attention was best fixed on the horror house we were inside anyway.

The hallway curved until we could no longer see the entrance foyer, then stopped at a set of double doors. At one point they probably had push signs on them, but whatever magic that'd warped this place had aged them ...

Esmie the Calamity Chapter 27

Oh dear, this chapter is... I have no idea. I literally just let my brain vomit unhinged chaos onto the page. I hope you all like it... 

I stumbled back into our house like a wobbly little gazelle fresh from being born. Shiori was very… lots. She was lots of lots in bed. Like… when I thought of her and her… her… strapon as she called it a few times… what was I saying? I was so wobbly and perhaps a little very hungry.

"I demand f...

Kaia the Argent Wing Chapter 28

The fog vanished as soon as I stepped over the visibility threshold. In its place, I was greeted by a scene plucked right from the original Brothers Grimm stories, but with a modern suburban twist.

Three redcaps dressed in elementary schooler outfits were running towards and screaming unintelligible nonsense at someone—oh shit, it was Chloe—as she backpedalled. In the hands of the monsters were gnarled wooden clubs that appeared to have come from a truly ancient tree.

The cour...

Digital Exodus Chapter 13

Sorry for the wait on this one! I've been going hard on Kaia. Anyway. Hope you enjoy this interlude! Muuuuuuuuuuch worldbuilding.

Interlude, Athe's perspective, several hundred light years from the Sol system and the Exodus' struggle.

"Prisoners," the woman said calmly.

She stood at attention, ramrod straight while her eyes roamed the crowd. She wore a black cape that danced lazily in the wind, while the harsh midmorning sunlight c...

Kaia the Argent Wing Chapter 27

"Okay, I think I've calmed down," April said sheepishly as she returned to the room with the schoolbag. "I'm really sorry about kissing you. I mean, it was nice don't get me wrong… but I'm not really interested in you like that. Romantically—I mean. You're hot as fuck and if it weren't going to cause all sorts of problems I'd be so down to bang but—"

"April," I laughed, waving for her to sit down. She was so goofy.

I could still feel her lips on mine though...

Kaia the Argent Wing Chapter 26

I woke the next morning to find that my friends had surrounded my sleeping sofa with a little privacy screen of stacked classroom chairs. A note on one of the chairs read, 'Gone to ransack the neighbourhood again. Good luck with crafting.'

Once I was washed and dressed, I headed down to get some food. The breakfast spread was noticeably lacking in some things today. Bacon was missing, and we were only allowed one egg each. I didn't bother with either, opting for a ...

Kaia the Argent Wing Chapter 25

Ollie and I trudged through the snow towards the workshop and found the forge area outside had changed somewhat. Several well-built wooden windbreaks had been erected around the area, turning the entrance to the workshop into a semi-enclosed space.

April had the forge running and was busy pounding at something on the anvil. When we ducked past the windbreaks and underneath the cover of the awning, I saw it was another dagger. Except… huh, I think this one was from an ingot, and she wa...

Kaia the Argent Wing Chapter 24

I woke up when the wind battered the windows so hard that my sleep-addled mind thought there had been an explosion. I fumbled around looking for my phone for almost a minute before I remembered where I was and why I couldn’t find it.

The apocalypse.

Everything that'd happened up until that point hit me in a wave, and I instinctively curled up into a ball. Marc. Estelle, George… even my parents. Shit, so many people I'd grown up with, all dead. I tried to ignore it, but the bod...

Kaia the Argent Wing Chapter 23

We were inside for only a minute or so before thunder began to roll continuously.

“What the heck is that?” April asked, and then we both got it at the same time.

Charles was using the massive sheet of metal and the hammer to make a huge racket and stun the crowd back into placidity. Something else was bothering me too— sitting there in the back of my mind like a tumour, but there was so much going on. I wasn’t getting the time I needed to chill and reflect.

...

Kaia the Argent Wing Chapter 22

“I’m going to check again,” April said, pushing to her feet and grabbing the tongs.

I gratefully hopped off the bellows-bike and picked up and slipped on a pair of big fire-resistant gloves, then followed her. I took the brick we were using as a door in both hands and lifted it easily out of the way, opening a portal into a miniature version of hell. The furnace blasted my face with heat, and I winced but held my ground.

April approached from beside me and gingerly extended ...

Kaia the Argent Wing Chapter 21

I said goodbye to my friends as soon as we were done eating, giving Finn an apologetic glance as I did so. When I got back to the workshop, only Charles, April, and one of the dudes were there. The random guy was carving out more candleholders, and April was messing around with the forge while Charles looked on.

“Back so soon, huh kid?” Charles asked, then squinted at me. “What’s up wit’ your face?”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

Wait, oh no, did he see the chan...

Kaia the Argent Wing Chapter 20

I was dashing across the rainswept courtyard towards the cafeteria when I spotted a squirrel sitting up in one of the decorative oaks. Taking cover under the tree, I stared up at it in consternation. Why was the squirrel so weird to me? Wait, holy crap! It was an un-monsterified squirrel! Just a regular sized—

Having seen me watching, the squirrel reacted by casting something! Suddenly, its fur was the same colour as the bark around it, and it scampered further up into the branches of...