This site provides writing advice. If you're writing a superhero novel or comic book, please also read our superhero writing articles.

Would you like to subscribe to our RSS feed?

UPDATE: I’m not sure how I’d actually use this chapter now.  I’m cutting Rahul out of the story, so I don’t know how that works.

Backstory

• Jay and Rahul are driving.
• In a bad part of town, a failed carjacking leads to fireballs being thrown around the car.
• Their van gets nailed pretty bad and hits a building

The van was trashed, a burning slag heap. Khalid looked like he might be alive. HIs head was slumped away and wasn’t moving. He smelled bloody.

Jay’s door was smashed in and wasn’t going to let him out willingly. Jay concentrated very intently upon his hand, clouding out whiffs of blood and charred seats. His hand. Its component atoms rearranged themselves into a more familiar and useful pattern. Fingers grew less prominent and nails extended into claws, massive cutters. Jay sliced through his seatbelt and carved through the door.

Jay tripped coming out of the car. The ground was slippery with fuel.

***

The thugs watched as the driver got up and walked around the side of the car. They couldn’t see the passenger’s door get diced but they heard the metal’s awful moans as it was rent. Circling around, they saw the man emerge from the car carrying his passenger.

***
Jay began to walk away from the van. He found that Rahul had a phantom of a pulse, but the concussion caused by an exploding fuel tank might finish him.

The thugs encircled him. He wasn’t particularly worried for himself– the head goon couldn’t even blow up a van right. He estimated that it would take exactly four slashes to execute the four members of the Elemental Gang. Five, he decided. The earth guy might be able to parry once with a boulder or something.

Of course, Khalid’s odds of survival would drop precipitiously if it combat broke out. Jay figured he could buy a shade over three seconds of unrestrained whupass by hurling Khalid straight upwards and catching him after the gang-members were done. Sadly, there was no way to catch him without killing him.

“Where you think you going?” asked the red-haired one. He brandished a fireball at Jay.

Jay trudged along.

“Maybe he didn’t hear you,” goaded the dripping one. Water, Jay decided.

“What’s the matter with you. Too dumb to hand over the car. Too dumb to die easy.” Mr. Fire was definitely going to start something. “You think we done with you?

Jay tried siding past Mr. Wind. He was tall and lanky, a real weakling. He put himself a few feet ahead of Jay. Wind glanced nervously at the others.

Jay’s back was now to Fire, whose voice had grown considerably more shrill and aggressive. Judging from the erratic light and shadows, Fire was waving his flaming hands quite loosely.
Walking away with Khalid was not viable. Killing the four without casualties was not viable. Killing them now, anyway, he thought.
“Where you going? Where you going?”

Jay’s ambling ground to a halt. At least he was beyond the fatality range of the impending explosion. He visualized his entire body giving way to something considerably more menacing.

“First, I’m taking my friend to a hospital. Then, unless you’ve turned yourself in to the cops by the time I come back, I’m going to paint the wall with your intestines.”

Jay’s head began hurting. Even under ideal circumstances, around 60-90 seconds of tranquility, metamorphosis wasn’t pleasant.

“How ya gonna do that? We’re the baddest ballas in East St. Louis. You’re just a sorry-ass body waiting to be buried.”

Jay felt his hold on Rahul slipping. He took a knee to steady himself as his legs buckled. His head was hammering. At least the reconfiguration would be at least as disconcerting to them.

“Well, I’ll fly to the hospital with these wings.”

Green, leathery wings erupted from his back. From the back forward, his clothes had begun to meld into green scales glowing in the car’s fire.

“Depending on how sadistic I’m feeling, I might strangle y’all with this tail.”

The tail waved at them. It wasn’t just for decoration.

Yellow plates replaced his chest. Wind clutched his stomach, but he wasn’t the only one who looked like he was going to throw up.

“Then I’ll bust out the claws. I was thinking maybe I’d rip out your beating heart, but I also see an opportunity to test whether human intestines actually extend for miles. But I’m open to suggestions.”

Jay felt his formerly mammalian neck shrink slightly as his senses of smell and vision sharpened. He was overwhelmed by the foul, acrid gasoline and Rahul’s blood and the thugs’ sweat and the dirt embedded in every decrepit building for miles around.

Jay savored the moment. The thugs were gibbering wrecks, scarcely able to comprehend what they had seen. They probably understood that it involved a dragon and, maybe if they followed the news and had a reasonably good memory, a reputedly sadistic superhero (lies! All lies!). Sigh.

“Any other bright questions?”

He paused for dramatic effect, but he doubt they appreciated the moment. He pinned his enormous mass against his spring-like legs. His wings began rhythmically flapping, whipping the hot and ash-loaded air around. He launched himself upwards by letting his legs loose and flight was elementary from there.

Jay didn’t understand humans well. They were fascinated by flying, by being able to read a license plate from a mile away, by being able to transform (painfully!) from a dragon to a human.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS