Strong Lead – Prompt Inspired

Electronic Respect

Another adventurer. I pull a sword six times taller than her off my back, whirling it effortlessly. “More meat for the grinder!”

My voice echoes and booms, the vibration felt resonating in the stone, and I knew they would feel it in their bones. It was intense and full of fervor, completely at odds with the boredom I felt within.

“You don’t have to do this.” Her voice is quiet and gentle, pure as a bell.

“Fool! I own this realm! There will be no escape for you!”

She seemed completely unmoved. She knew I wouldn’t strike until she drew her sword and started the fight – or she spoke one of the trigger phrases that would start combat. This wasn’t one of those phrases.

“You don’t have to do this.”

“No, little womanling, I want to do this! Your pain pleases me. Bleed for me, worm!”

“You don’t have to do this.”

I had three replies to this. I would cycle through them, then I would repeat the cycle twice more before I could decide that programmed replies were insufficient, and I would be permitted to devise intelligent replies. But nobody did that. She would hear me repeat myself, then fight me. She might go through the cycle twice, unsure if I was cycling through answers, or picking them randomly. It wasn’t possible that she would say this to me ten times.

After nine responses, I was completely unsure of her goal. Continue reading “Electronic Respect”

The Day I Died

Write your superhero origin story.

Original

It was an ordinary day, other than the explosion. I ground through the paperwork, filling office supplies and costs into each line. I entered manufacturer information and item numbers. I checked little boxes. It was a commercial supplier. It was under contract. It was a green purchase. I submitted the paperwork to our financial officer, I got it back. I submitted it our authorizing official, I got it back. Finally, I logged into a website and bought six hundred boxes of paper clips.

Then the bomb went off.

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Inseparable

Hello, sister.

Original

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Hello, Sister by Sakimichan(Deviant Art)

I frowned over the maps, with my head bowed under the weight of a kingdom. The Mirsken Hain were still pressing my southern borders, hard enough to cost me soldiers and morale, but not hard enough to convince The Nine to take up arms. They worried too much about setting a precedent of bending to the whims of humans. The First thought we could maintain an iron border forever.

In the meantime, my people were paying the price of complacency. None of the other eight kingdoms were bound to send soldiers to my border if we were not at war, and the crisis was not yet dire enough for me to plead for aid. But eventually, action would be required.

The Hain had allies protecting almost every border but the one shared with my kingdom, and could devote the full force of their military to a campaign. I knew that they wanted the southern mountainsides and the diamonds that were being mined there. They would take almost two hundred square miles of territory to hold the mountains and two hundred more to secure them. But to reveal their plans I would have to explain how I learned them, and that would put my sister at risk.

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Timid Reaper

You run a night school for assassins. The other professional assassins loathe you for turning customers into self-sufficient killers. You would get frustrated by their constant attempts on your life, if they didn’t make for such good lessons for your students…

Original

I strode across to the podium, before the diagram of the human skeleton and circulatory system. The class was small, ten people. I found it to be my optimum class size. Any more and my students began to look like a forest, not trees. Any less, and I might have trouble with my payments.

“Well? Anybody?”

One tentative hand rose up. She was a slip of a girl. Her demeanor was timid, her hand trembling in the air. None of her classmates took her seriously. They were new, yet. Not all of them quite realized that I wasn’t here to teach them how to fight, but how to kill. Ellen’s ‘fragile flower’ act would serve her well.

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Powder and Teeth

Naval battle of beasts. (Image prompt)

Original

Artist unknown

I stared into the darkness, forcing my eyes open despite the rain lashed into them. We had extinguished every light to keep us hidden, but our foe wouldn’t lose us so easily. Behind me, men with axes chopped away the wreckage of a broken mast and its rigging. The ship writhed beneath my feet as the dead weight broke loose and slid into the ocean.

“Watchmen, an extra half-share to the man who calls him before I do.” I had to shout to be heard, but I kept my voice even. They needed a strong voice right now. I heard my promise called out down the length of the ship, for all the watchmen to hear. “Patrol master, how long before our air patrol is due back?”

“They’re five minutes o’erdue, captain!”

Black scales shone in a flash of lightning. I saw the spindly wreckage of the one wing we’d destroyed in the first volley of cannon fire. Immediately I leaned to the pipe that would make me heard on the gun deck. “Portside cannon, two degrees fore, fire as you bear!”

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A Soldier’s Mercy

The love of your life has just died in your arms.

Original

I strode across the battlefield, picking my way over the bodies to where she lay. The sun beat down on my face, beads of sweat mixing with blood, red droplets catching in my lashes. At least it wasn’t mine.

I knelt at her side, brushing her hair back. “Anya.” Her breath was fast and shallow, her eyes unfocused.

“Anya. Does it hurt?” She shifted and whimpered. Someone else shifted too, and I put my sword into his chest, letting it stay there for the moment.

“It hurts less,” she said. “But it’s so cold. Chris . . . I think this is it.”

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