The Wonderful World of WIPpeteering

Welcome again fellow WIPpeteers and blog followers!  No one has yet told me that posting in the late pm on Tuesday evening disqualifies me from participating on the Wednesday WIPpet, to which I thank you kindly.  I tried that 'schedule your blog to post at a certain time' function and it still alludes me.  Then there's the matter of linking up, which doesn't have a timed schedule that I can fail at mastering to use, so Tuesday evenings are a better time frame for me to manage my posting.  I must thank K.L. Schwengal for hosting this event.  It has been a motivating force that helps kick my butt into writing something every week.  I have a goal of finishing Spellbound by the end of September.  I can do this!!

Let me just say that Wednesdays are about the coolest day of the week for my inbox.  I can't wait to get home from work and respond to your comments.  It takes me a bit to make the rounds myself, and this week will be no different.  Today, the 24th of July, is a holiday in Utah, so straight after work me and the hubby will be heading over to spend time with his family, who I absolutely adore (sorry, but I really don't like the word whom. SO not using it).  Diving straight into it.  I am finishing off the first chapter, which comprises of thirteen paragraphs.  07+2+4=13, and that's how you are getting thirteen paragraphs from me today.

"Spellbound", Book One in the "How You Found Me" series 

***

Akira had been true to her word.  Harper’s Grove had been besieged with several attacks in the span of a year.  She herself had never shown back up, but Goldore had.  The Minions had.  Other monsters, creations that seemed bred from a science fiction horror show, showed up in the name of Akira, touting the flame of domination and submission.

Yet each time a new threat surfaced into Harper’s Grove, the Defenders met them on the battle field.  They fought, they defended, and they protected.

The first major attack had come from red-fleshed creatures with rough patches of sewn up skin, thick-muscled torsos adorned with large bottomed feet and an astonishingly small head that held no proportion to the rest of their body.  People quickly realized why the heads were so tiny, though; these things were dumb.  They looked like the Hulk met up with Frankenstein and fell into a pool of red dye that threw them into a washing machine and spat out multitudes of replicated violently mean, snarling creatures that enjoyed destroying everything in their path, their intellect showing nothing better than to smash, smash, smash.

They were incredibly stupid creations, fondly termed as a Golem monster by geeks and nerds of the Dungeons and Dragons culture only too happy to find a real live hoard of creatures that were once only considered to exist in video games and human imagination.

The Defenders met face to face with these dim-witted creatures and effectively eliminated their threatening presence.  It wasn’t without risk of safety to the citizens, however. Damage to buildings and personal property of those in Harper’s Grove amassed, and construction quickly became a very wealthy profession that was always high in demand. 

So had television.  News casters had managed to make an entertainment spectacle of Akira’s presence.  The attacks never happened outside of the city, and no one thought to ask why, only the desire to capture history in the making.  As annoying as those locusts of media were, they thankfully had enough sense not to send reporters flocking in.  The horrific events of the Annual Fair remained in everyone’s mind that an out-of-this-world phenomenon, Akira, had shown herself to be a dangerous enemy to contend with.  Which was why, of course, that didn’t stop the number of camera poles that went up throughout the city so that future attacks could always have an audience on standby to watch and speculate from afar. 

It was why Terry knew so much about this town and its history, the dangers of Akira and the heroics of the Defenders.   He’d studied the footage, studied how the Defenders fought, studied their skill and combative methods and team work. 

The Red Defender fought with a distinct martial arts style, showing extraordinary skill with or without a weapon.  The Blue Defender mirrored some of those skills but was also blunt and direct when riled enough with anger.  The Purple, Yellow and Orange Defenders were cunning.  Often times they played the frail warrior, feigning inability to fight as efficiently.  It was a clever ruse, for the enemy always fell into single-minded arrogance to take out the weakest link, when in fact they had walked into a trap that sprung fierce warriors into gutting their opponent with efficiency.  The Gray Defender, Terry noticed, seemed to engage himself the least in hand-to-hand combat.  His lasso and long-handed flail were weapons of distance that required calculation and strategic planning, which were utilized to acute advantage.  Though the others were no doubt fierce protectors and defenders, Terry suspected the Gray Defender was the key player in strategizing how to end a battle and truly wound the enemy.

Terry continued staring up at the monument, lost in the thoughts and memories swimming around in his head.  These were a group of highly skilled fighters, known for their magical abilities, but mostly for their message to defend, protect, serve, and not let the enemy win.   Six people – it seemed a little crazy that six people, extraordinary or magical, could fight the way they did against the alien forces of Akira.  It was true she hadn’t picked forces that had keen intellect, but strength was still strength, and her side had lots of it. 

It had been a year already.  Last week held the anniversary of the slaughter at Harper’s Grove Annual Fair.  It had been a dismal news day for the television stations to broadcast as there was no fair.  The Defenders were seen patrolling and alert, but nothing unusual happened.  So instead the news hammed it up with memorial segments and interviewing—yet again—the few survivors from that day who were forced to rehash painful memories so that their tears could be captured on film.

Still though, six people could only continue to do so much.   Yes, the police force around town helped out with the normal day-to-day nuances of law enforcement, but still, Terry couldn’t shake that feeling inside that it was time for the Defenders to expand.  Something else was on the horizon.  He could feel it.  Why and how he could, he had absolutely no idea, and he shared these feelings of foreboding with no one.  He realized the mockery he would suffer if he were to start a raining platform of impending doom.  He was the first one to throw the stone at himself for the absurdity that a nobody like him, an outsider who was very much ordinary, would have a hunch that the mysterious Akira had something up her sleeve. 

Still, though, he hadn’t been able to shake the feeling.  So here he was in Harper’s Grove, having moved here under the simple belief that he was somehow meant to join the Defenders and help put a stop to whatever it was that was coming.

He would have never guessed that the unseen threat was he, himself.