He swallowed nervously. “My Queen, I…”
“Face the wall.”
“I…yes, my Queen.” He turned.
“Here are your instructions: Do not take a step. Do not fall. Do not cry out. Do you understand your instructions?”
“Yes, my Queen.”
“You have already failed me once. A second failure now would be most unwise.”
“Y-Yes, my Qu-”
The barbs tore into his back as the whip struck. He clamped his jaw shut and held it tight. Gwendolyn swung her arm again and again, the whip striking and spatters of blood decorating the wall, her guards, herself. Her lips parted wide, her eyes sparkling with the thrill.
When she was finished, she crossed in front of the man. He was trembling, eyes closed, teeth gritted shut. Tears streamed down his face. Gwendolyn threw the whip to the ground and clutched his head in her hands, taking a good long lick at the tears, getting every salty drop on her tongue.
She released him, and just stood for a moment, savoring the taste. Then she turned and strode for the doors. “Return to your post,” she instructed without so much as a backward glance.
“Yes, my Qu...my Queen…”
Perhaps a long, hot bath would be just the thing she needed. Gwendolyn threw off her dress and thrilled to the feeling of air cooling and drying the blood on her face and hands. The salty tears were still hot on her tongue, and she opened her mouth, allowing the cool air to dry them so she could taste them again when her mouth closed and the salt crystals moistened.
She never tired of the physical sensations that came with form.
Never.
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EXCERPT FROM “IDIOT SYNCRATIC”
You guys seem to think that this is some kind of fictional story. What I keep trying to tell you is that this is REAL. It's really what happened, no matter how crazy it sounds. No, I wasn't there to see the world Gwendolyn ruled before the universe and space and time locked her out, but I know about it, okay? I know a lot about what happened there and what she did. Who she was.
More importantly, I SAW Gwendolyn. Stood right next to her. I nearly peed in my pants. Okay, maybe a little. Let me tell you something, you've never seen anything like her. And YOU DON'T WANT TO. The world around her doesn't feel right. Just being...in her presence...made my stomach do flip-flops and my hands shake.
Gwendolyn is not her real name. I don't know her real name, and I thank God or the universe or whatever every day that I don't. But she said to call her Gwendolyn, and we did. We did.
My name is Brandon Holt. I used to be able to fly, and it was the most badass thing ever. But that was before Gwendolyn came. Before the end of the world, space, time and everything. The moment she appeared and I stood there looking at her, I knew this wasn't my story anymore.
It was hers, and it had been all along.
GWENDOLYN
“Bad as hell.”
"You're under arrest!" General Stearnes raised a pistol. It was not immediately clear from where he had gotten it. "This is a United States military base! You have just committed an act of war!"
"General, stop!" General Higgins was still on the ground, having been knocked there upon her arrival. "She's too..."
Gwendolyn flicked out a hand and Stearnes detonated like a bomb had gone off inside him. His body was vaporized, the blood and fine spray of liquefied remains mixing with the gentle rain that had begun to fall from the broken sky. Higgins fell to the ground and cowered with his hands over his head. Gwendolyn lifted her face into the patter of raindrops and blood. She closed her eyes and felt the drops strike and slide down her face.
"Mmm...it's so refreshing isn't it?"
She opened her eyes and looked around at the others, who stood silently watching her, waiting to see what would happen next.
"Can you smell it?" she asked Kevin.
Kevin sniffed the air. "Smells like a storm."
"Fear," Becca said. "She means fear."
Gwendolyn beamed. "That's my little Princess. You know how intoxicating fear can be, don't you? You know how good it feels to be so powerful that the insignificant ones around you soil themselves with fear and can do nothing about it."
Becca remembered the sound of the people she had controlled ringing in her head. Please please help me oh god please. "Yeah, I guess I do."
"I see much of myself in you." Gwendolyn ran a hand through Becca's long blonde hair. "You will be a queen one day, as I once was. You were born to rule."
"If something doesn't happen to her first," Kevin said with a snicker.
"Don't be impolite, my dear," Gwendolyn chided him. "We are among friends, now. At least, I would very much like to be friends."
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EXCERPT FROM "IDIOT SYNCRATIC"
The big bad ubergoddess from Hell just wants to be friends. Yeah, RIGHT. About this time I had had enough of letting Gwendolyn vamp it up. I was afraid, hell I was terrified, but I was still a superhero, and superheroes don't back down, no matter how big the bad is.
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"You want to be friends?" Brandon stepped forward. "Why don't you tell us who this monster is, and what you did with the real Kevin?"
"Monster?" Kevin snorted. "You hurt my feelings, Nerdboy." He vanished, reappearing directly in front of Brandon, almost nose to nose. "You don't want to go doin' that."
Gwendolyn raised a hand. "STOP."
Kevin backed down, lowering his head. "Yes, my Queen."
She gave him a peck on the cheek. "Relax, baby. Let me handle this."
______________________
"IDIOT SYNCRATIC"
BABY?? Ew! Just...EW...
______________________
"The Hero," Gwendolyn said, looking Brandon up and down. "I did nothing to Kevin. This is he, I assure you. The true Kevin stands directly before you."
"I don't believe you."
Her eyes flared. "How exciting. It has been a very long time since I was called a liar."
Brandon took a long breath. "What do you want? If you're here to destroy the world why not just do it? Why stop to talk?"
"Hey dork, maybe we don't egg the god on to destroy the world?" Becca said.
"I've told you exactly what I want, Brandon." She smiled. "I want us to be friends."
"And how exactly do we become friends?"
She laid a finger aside her nose. "I'm so glad you asked. Isn't the Hero a perceptive one, my dear?"
Kevin scowled. "For a nerd."
______________________
"IDIOT SYNCRATIC"
Can I just say it really ticks me off that I waited all this time for a superhero name, and now not only does the big bad just ASSIGN me one, but the superhero name she gives me is THE HERO? So full of fail...
______________________
Gwendolyn allowed a bit of her true form to manifest again. Her hair lifted from her back as if it were unchained by gravity. She glowed red, and her eyes were like twin red suns.
"I ruled a world much like this one once, as did all of my kind, each holding dominion over a world of our own. A being we know as the Tyrant came and expelled us from our worlds, imprisoning us behind the barrier of time. I have broken the barrier, setting us free, but time and space are one. As the cracks of time widen and the barrier falls apart, so too will all realities collapse, 'ending the world' as you say."
"What does that have to do with us being friends?"
Gwendolyn flicked out a hand, and Brandon's body seized, locking in a bizarre rictus, his arms and legs splayed out and his head thrown back, jaw clenched. After a few moments, she snapped her hand shut and Brandon was released. He doubled over, clutching his throat and gasping for air.
"It's so rude to interrupt. I expect better of you, Brandon." She examined the dark sky. "Where was I? Oh yes, freedom. It may seem strange, but though locked out of your multiverse by the barrier of time, the void was not itself timeless. The Lost have spent untold eons in the void
through which you only briefly crossed. Where you have absorbed tiny shreds of energy stolen from certain worlds, we have absorbed the entire spectrum. But over time you will become as we, mastering the energies of the void. More important still, I have seen through the cracks of time upon your lives, and I know the pain and loss you have experienced. On a deeper, more primal level than that of power, each of you has earned a place among the Lost."
______________________
A short time after Brandon had left her, after it had gone dark, a light appeared above Beth.
"Brandon?" Beth tried to look up, but her vision was blurry. There was a red light somewhere above, and it appeared someone was making her way down the ravine.
"That was fast," she said. "That was too fast. Did you get help?"
A woman's face loomed over her, circled with red hair.
"I'm afraid no help is coming for you, my dear."
"Wha-"
A hand clamped over her nose and mouth, impossibly strong. Beth tried to breath but couldn't. She struggled, bucking up and down, but couldn't move.
"That's it. Shhhh." Gwendolyn held Beth until her noises and struggles ceased.
______________________
The rift contracted against her will! Gwendolyn could scarcely believe what was happening. It had been billions of years since her will was last defied.
She gazed upon the tiny insect that dared oppose her: Kevin Lloyd, a mortal being from a backward world of primitive cave dwellers. The Tyrant's precious time had fractured around him, the cracks so deep time and space would fall apart with only the slightest tap of her might. Yet he had no inkling of this. His senses were so unrefined that he knew nothing of the fractures in time moving around him.
Gwendolyn scoffed at his ignorance. "ITS WORLD BREAKS AROUND IT, YET THE INSECT SEES NOTHING, IT KNOWS NOTHING. THE CRACKS IN TIME ARE ITS UNDOING."
"What the fuck ever." The insect clapped its appendages and tapped into some reserve of power, causing the rift to contract faster and faster.
______________________
The music blasted, the bass thumped, the crowd gyrated. Beautiful women moved their bodies to the sound, letting the drink and pills take them away.
Ryan watched them all.
He was in the center of the floor, walking among them, letting his hand stray for the occasional brush against a girl's ass or even her boob. If she got mad, he'd flash his most innocent look and say, "Oh, my bad! Sorry!" Even the ones who didn't buy it usually just scowled. Dumb sluts. Ryan laughed to himself.
As if on cue, his hand crossed fingers with another hand in the shadows. The other hand was a woman's, he could tell by the fingernails. She locked her fingers in his and spun him around.
Holy shit, look at this chick. She was clad head to toe in a skintight red leather body suit. Lustrous, curly red hair spilled halfway down her back. She grabbed his other hand, pulling his body into hers, lifting one leg and rubbing it up and down against him.
"Hey there sexy," she said. "Come over here for a minute."
Ryan was gobsmacked. He followed her silently, like a puppy on a leash, over to the wall. She yanked on his arm, twirling him and pushing him up against the wall. She stood next to him, one leg pinning him, and whispered in his ear.
"Call me Gwendolyn," she said.
God damn, this bitch is fine. "I'm Ryan," he said.
"I know who you are. I know a lot of things." She giggled in his ear.
"Hey," Ryan said, formulating a plan. "You want to get a drink?"
"Why, so you can put a pill in it?" She laughed.
"Wha- What? Fuck no!"
She threw her head back and emitted a full-throated laugh. Her arms and leg held him tightly to the wall. Ryan tried but couldn't pull away. "Calm down, Ryan. I don't care what you do. Get whatever you want, make all your perverted fucking fantasies come true. Do it all, baby."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"But I do, Ryan. I know exactly what I'm talking about. I told you, I know a lot of things." She brushed her fingers through the dark brown hair that hung low over his forehead and ears and twirled a finger in it. "I know what you do, I know what you like to do, and I know...I know...you'd love to do it all to her."
She pointed into the crowd. Ryan followed the gesture, and spotted a girl in the middle of the crowd. She had long dirty blonde hair, all the way down to her ass. She was dancing in the middle of a group of guys and girls, her tight body undulating in a little gray dress. Ryan swallowed.
"Yeah, that's it," Gwendolyn said, running her hand over his chest. "Get good and hard for her. Fucking go for it, punish that ass."
Ryan looked down on her. Was this chick serious? "You're bad as hell, you know that?"
She chuckled. "Yes. I do know that. I know so many things, Ryan." She looked very seriously at him. "I know things you wouldn't believe...I know how you like your coffee, I know what deodorant you use, I know when you turn the shower head on your cock you like to crank it up so it hurts just a little." She giggled. "I know when you were born, and I know when you're going to die."
He blinked. "What?" Oh shit, crazy bitch alert.
"Oh yeah. Some bad shit's going to happen to you, Ryan. Really bad shit. You don't have to believe me now. You go ahead, have your fun, but when it's over, when you need me, just say my name. Gwendolyn. You say my name, that means you want my help. And I'll help you." She grinned.
"You'll help me."
She nodded.
He raised an eyebrow. "You'll keep me from dying." Definitely crazy.
"Yes I will. Of course, I'll want you to help me in exchange. But you'll like it, Ryan, I promise." She licked his ear. "You'll LOVE helping me."
Ryan looked at the blonde girl. "You're one crazy ass bitch." He looked back, but Gwendolyn was gone.
He looked around for a moment, puzzled. When he didn't find her, he shrugged, and went back to looking at the blonde girl. The bass was pounding loud enough to shake his head apart, but Ryan's eyes stayed fixed on her.
______________________
"What if we don't want a place with you?"
Gwendolyn turned. Mia stepped forward, her hands crackling with energy.
Gwendolyn flicked out a hand, but Mia raised hers first, the yellow energy booming out, meeting Gwendolyn's red energy between them and battering it back.
Gwendolyn smiled. "Mmm...Such delicious rage burns within the Fury."
"You don't belong here! Go back where you came from!" Mia brought up a hand and threw it forward, casting a ball of yellow energy toward her.
Gwendolyn caught the ball before it struck, turning it this way and that, examining it. "Very impressive, child. In time, you will be quite a destructive force. I like that about you. Sadly, that day has not yet come."
She cast the ball back at Mia and it exploded, throwing Mia twenty feet in the air. Simon reached out and caught her with his invisible hands, righting her and setting her on her feet.
"Are you okay," Simon asked.
"I'm fine!" Yellow energy crackled from her eyes. "Get away from me!"
"Of course she is unharmed." Gwendolyn sighed. "I had no intention of harming your friend. I admire the Unbridled Fury within her."
______________________
Sister Sophia had prepared chairs in her office, but the number of parents who filed in was far greater than she had anticipated. They filled the chairs quickly and then lined the walls, all the way around the door and behind her desk.
"Thank you for coming," she said. "My understanding is you wished to meet with me regarding Mia Lozano. I've asked her parents to be here as well." She gestured to Dan and Kim Lozano, seated at the end of the front row." She cleared her throat. "Have you selected someone to speak for the group?"
One woman stood. She wore a business suit and had long red hair, clipped back in a ponytail. "I will speak for the group."
"Your name, please?"
"Call me Gwendolyn." She adjusted the oval frame gla
sses on her face. "I've organized this meeting because we wish St. Anthony's to understand how serious we are about this." She faced Dan Lozano. "We all know what Mia did, and we all agree: she is DANGEROUS. We don't want our kids attending this school as long as she is allowed on the grounds."
After the meeting, Gwendolyn came upon the Lozanos arguing just outside the school doors. She paused a moment to listen to their words.
"You're always defending her!" Kim rubbed her temples. "Always sticking up for her, no matter what. She's in jail and you're still defending her!"
"Juvenile detention," Dan said. "Kids make mistakes...they all do."
"Mistakes?" Her voice rose. "Mistakes? Is that what you're calling it?"
"Lower your voice."
"I will not. I will not lower my voice while you make excuses for her!"
"I'm not doing this anymore. I'll be in the car. When you're ready to stop you can join me." He walked away, without a look back.
Kim Lozano stood leaning against the wall, rubbing her temples and forehead with her hands. Gwendolyn approached.
"It's none of my business," she said, "but it's obvious which parent is the problem here." "Who do you think you are?" Kim sputtered through tears. "You get the hell away from me!"
Gwendolyn raised her hands. "I'm sorry. I just mean it's clear your husband is going to keep making the same mistakes. You have a good head on your shoulders. If I were you, I'd get my other kids out of the house before they end up just like Mia."
______________________
Simon turned from Mia to Gwendolyn and roared, beating his chest.
"So delightfully primitive," Gwendolyn said.
"What do you want from us?"
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