The Storm: A Beyond Zenith Gamma Squad Adventure (Edit)

Chapter 1: We Tango with Doom

Why was he doing this? Why? Eric thought.

Sometimes, being attacked by mad, powerful supervillains made Eric, or rather Carbon, want to go mad. Sometimes, knowing that he had to lie to protect his family made him want to become someone else, someone non-mutant. Sometimes he wished that he had never been born, other times he was glad he had. The times when his body erupted into flames to rescue people in a burning building, the times when he could breathe underwater and save a reckless diver, those were the times he was glad he was born.

Here he was now, dodging blows from Mayhem, who was clad in his hi-tech battle armor, and Eric knew it was one of those times where he wished he wasn't a mutant.

Eric's powers allow him to change the elements in compounds. He can change one material, rock, metal or whatever, into any substance that existed. He didn't struggle remembering reactions or elements, it seemed to just flow into his mind. Yes, he could simply turn people into sludge even Mayhem, the most powerful super-villain on Earth. However, Eric had standards, morals and then of course there was the law. He had done that once long ago... the memories still haunt him today.

I wish I could just- Eric thought. He was about to think Turn him to dust but he faltered. Come on Eric, just focus on the battle.

He was hiding behind car, back to the wall of Jo's Pizza. Eric watched the battle intensely, every movement his teammates made caused Carbon to feel as if he was executing them himself. Mayhem was above their league, he could kill them now if he wanted to. They were just children, measly thirteen year old superheroes and he was one of the smartest men alive, a time traveling Nazi scientist and, of course, the most powerful super-villain alive. The question that struck Eric was why- why hadn't Mayhem killed them yet?

It was nearly time for him to act, it was a plan their confident and brave leader Jack Gareth, or Ravager, had made on the spur of the moment. Ravager's powers functioned like this: He was able to draw amounts of energy from a second reality called the Grid. The Grid is free energy and/or matter, superheroes use it as a medium to affect the real world. Anyway, when Jack activates his powers, he changes. Changes into something, stronger, something different and powerful- Ravager. Ravager uses the energy to advance his physical attributes, starting at five times of speed, strength and constitution. He can adjust the percentages to make his power buffing go in different portions. Less speed more strength? No problem. He was like the best ballerina in the world mixed with a tank.

He watched as Ravager swung madly at Mayhem, who had landed on the ground. Mayhem's armour was black and gray, not one amount of skin showed. To describe all the gadgets and weapons amassed on it would fill two volumes of the Britannica Encyclopedia. One thing was for sure, he was dangerous.

Okay, Ravager's distracting him. Now Grid and Lightbeam act Eric thought.

On cue, the two young heroes appeared from nowhere. Lightbeam is able to bend light and manipulate it. He can create illusions, turn invisible, create darkness and, thanks to a handy little visor, pump light to create laser blasts. His powers are not only linked to visible light, but the invisible frequencies as well. Lightbeam has mastered one other frequency from visible light- infra-red. His real name is Lucas, his quiet, not shy, just quiet. That is not something most people expect when they hear the name Lightbeam.

Grid is a humorous boy. He was kidnapped when he was five by his father's super-villain rival. He and his sister had their mutant genes prematurely activated. They were given years of counseling because of that. His sister Jessica, developed an insecurity, which grew into temperament. Considering that she controls the weather, that is very dangerous. Grid never quite recovered until he learned what his powers allowed him to do- teleport. He became free and reckless and soon grew past insecurity. He would jump off high buildings and escape death, he felt untouchable because he was. Grid also had a keen mind for mechanics and Greek and Roman history. He combines these to become an effective fighter by building modern weapons based on ancient weapons. He has many in stock but his favorite set is his force shield plus an energy blade and a helmet that could amplify his passive power of confusion to a point where combatants drop their guard, forget to block, swing wrongly etc.

According to the plan, Lightbeam and Grid would trick Mayhem into a position where he became overwhelmed then Eric would act, along with Tempest and Lifeguard. The three of them would pour the damage.

Over the car he could see Grid teleporting back and forth and using his blade in fencing fashion. Mayhem seemed amused, Grid was so hopeless in defeating him that Mayhem, against his better judgment, neglected Lightbeam.

A burst of flames shot out from Mayhem's boots and propelled him toward Grid, who seemed to think that his shield would hold off Mayhem's attack. Wait until he finds out that's a hologram Eric thought. Okay, focus now.

Mayhem flew straight through the holographic Grid. He was now headed for Eric, for the car. Inside it, Eric had willed the air and all the materials to change into thermite, all that the concoction needed now was a spark. Thermite is capable of being dumped into liquid nitrogen and not being cooled off, this was surely going to get through to Mayhem.

Mayhem couldn't stop now, he was rocketing towards the seemingly empty car and then he crashed into it. Suddenly a force field shot up into the sky, forming a barrier around the car. Lifeguard, Andrea, is capable of creating fields of force, she and Ravager are the leaders of the team. They share many of the same qualities and used to be on a team together. Lifeguard's powers allow her to be fierce and yet protective. She can create any shape so long as she can imagine it.

Carbon leaped out of the way quickly. The reaction had ignited and now Mayhem was feeling the heat of 2000 degrees Celsius. Soon the eruption of the red lava-like substance calmed down. It was time for the final stage, cooling.

If the science fit, Carbon and Tempest would soon see to it that Mayhem's metallic armour would become immobile.

Tempest, with her power of manipulating the weather, or atmokinesis, saw to it that the temperature around Mayhem dropped incredibly low- sub zero. Carbon created an endothermic reaction within Mayhem's vicinity. It would absorb all the heat and freeze over Mayhem. For a second Carbon actually believed the plan would work, for a second.

Tempest and Carbon strained themselves as much as possible, it was extremely important that Mayhem not escape. “Enough! He's done,” Ravager said softly. He had demorphed and now stood at one and a quarter of a meter in a plain black Beyond Zenith Gamma Squad uniform. That was their team- Beyond Zenith Gamma Squad. In 2002 a man named Johannes became a superhero, Synchrotron. He created a team known as Beyond Zenith. It expanded until it divided into two teams, Alpha Squad and Beta Squad. Just last year they had started a training program: Gamma Squad. It was just meant to be a training program, but as the days went by the dangers only increased.

Carbon and Tempest released their attacks until eventually they stopped. Mayhem stood, gray and black as ever in one position. They had done it!

“It's not over yet,” Jack warned. A crack came down from Mayhem's wrist. Then with a deafening noise, he became free. He let out a roar. Before the team could react he shot down Lifeguard. He clenched his fist then released and Eric felt a wave of force wash over him. It hurled him backwards and his skin turned instinctively into diamond.

He smashed into the Peak, a monument made of an indestructible glass. The force was still holding him from falling and he saw that his whole team except for Tempest and Ravager had been taken down. Ravager was now exchanging rapid blows with Mayhem, fully morphed. He mas no match for him however. The force allowed Mayhem to swing easier and pushed Ravager back. Then a strike and he was down.

Finally Carbon fell to the floor in pain. A second after he hit, he demorphed into his normal, organic form. Carbon's brown eyes look one last time at the sight in front of him: chaos, then he saw the gleaming, metallic boots of their mentors, land on the ground. They had arrived -Alpha Squad had arrived.

So, NewHero, let's give you a bit of a review.

I'm in an orderly mood, so let's start at the beginning.
Hooks:

Hi there, my name is Eric. I've been asked to share one of my adventures with you so I chose this one:

Hi Eric, but currently I'm not interested in you enough to want to read one of your adventures. You need to hook me a little better. Start your story off with a bang. Something that makes us curious. Make us want to read further. In fact drop us right into the story.

Context:
As much as we all love action, we like to know that people are fighting for a worthy cause. We also like to know what that cause is. When you throw us into a fight scene so dramatically, you don't get as much reaction or suspense as you would by first letting us know the characters etc. Building a relationship with your reader is something that you need if you want your reader to truly care about your story and characters.

Start off with some background, explaining all of your new terminology and characters, and build us up to the fight scenes so that when we are anticipating them we are torn with tension. Then drop the hammer.

Showing vs. Telling: Usually you will find that people tell you to show rather than to tell. This means that they want you to paint the picture of what happens exactly how it is. But I'm going to tell you to tell in this instance, for the simple reason that you are writing an action piece, and you want the action to go as swiftly as it possibly can.

In movies we love to see complicated fight sequences all nicely choreographed, but in a book, we can picture it far better if you let our imaginations paint most of the fight scene. Instead of focusing on your different moves, you want to focus on the main thrusts. Try not to elaborate on these either. You should use short sentences to compound blow after blow and move us through them fast.

When telling a story, ultimately we remember the story itself. Not the awesome special effects etc. Each sentence should move you closer to your end goal of progressing the story.

First person narration:
For now, let's just say that I'm wondering why your character is so vain that he'll write his own story. I'd try switching to the third person.

Tense:

came Ravager's coarse shout. Now when Jack morphs into Ravager he changes: his sky blue eyes become stormy gray, he becomes very buff and muscular, his physical attributes increase over time, starting at about five times of speed, strength, constitution etc., and his voice becomes rough and deep, with a voice like that he doesn't talk unless he has to. Now with that in mind you can understand why I high tailed it out of the area faster than the hero Road-Rage.

In this above section, you switch tense. This is technically correct in your context, but I do wonder why you felt the need to do it. It would have read much smoother if you'd kept to the past tense.

The End of the Chapter: It's here that I can say: "awesome!" You have successfully captured my attention to some extent with that last puzzle that you left us. Who are these mentor people and what do they want with the scene? Yes, this is truly awesomeness!

Overall: So, I don't know how harsh I sounded, but you certainly have marvelous potential with this story. Take what I've said into account, you need to work on a little drive and story development.

That's about it!
Have a great one!

Thank you Master Yoda for my first review.

I see what you mean about the Hi I'm Eric thing. Also I intended to explain the reason in the next chapter but I see what you're saying and yes, there is definitely a reason for his attack, it's basically what throws the story into motion.

Thanks for the review. I knew there were tons of things that felt right but were wrong.

I'll try to improve if I have much time left over. Thanks,

Hey, I'm Mo!
Here's my review.

Hi there, my name is Eric. I've been asked to share one of my adventures with you so I chose this one:

I don't believe this is necessary, (is it just me?). I think you you should slot this in later into the story (maybe some-one shouts his name)?

I hit the floor hard and was suddenly moving back at an incredible speed when Mayhem kicked into me.

Kicked into me? Maybe this should just be kicked me.

I cursed then stood up dusting myself off. We were standing in the middle of the road, no cars around us because the police had diverted all traffic... heck, they stopped it all.

I don't really think the 'heck, they stopped it all' needs to be there. (Also to me it doesn't make much sense) Is it just me???
It could be; We were standing in the middle of the road, no cars around us because the police have closed the roadway(s)? Is it one or two roads? Anyway, something like that or similar would make more sense

Ravager, our leader, was occupying Mayhem with his lightning quick reflexes and tank-like strength.

Occupying? I don't think that's the best word to put there, maybe distracting?

I knew that we wouldn't hold out for long, after all: Mayhem is the most powerful super-villain alive today.

You have changed tense here. (Easily fixed).

(I should mention at this point that my powers allow me to change the elements in a compound into anything else. I can change myself or anything else into a different substance but not other people, I have morals and standards)

I know he has morals and standards, but why doesn't he just turn Mayhem into a big pile of goo. After all, Mayhem is the most powerful super-villain alive today.

Mayhem aimed his gauntlet at me. It began to glow. “Hit the deck!” I heard Grid shout. I did. My skin turned to diamond instinctively, encompassing my suit as well just as Mayhem unleashed a beam of energy that ripped through several wall in the building behind me. I looked up to see Mayhem was preparing to charge me. “Flip!” I shouted.

He rushed at me but from nowhere, Grid teleported onto Mayhem's back and stabbed his right gauntlet with his 'energy spatha'. It had no effect. Mayhem turned over and threw Grid onto the ground. Lightbeam appeared in front of him and created a flash of light to throw him off course. Mayhem ignored it and grabbed him. He stopped in mid air and threw Lightbeam down onto Grid. He reached me, lifted me into the air then threw me into a pile of rubble.

"Come on Tempest, barrage!" Lifeguard shouted. She unleashed tons of pressure and force on Mayhem, if that force went anywhere else, a city could be leveled within a matter of hours. Tempest, from above, tormented Mayhem with megawatts of lightning. They were both struggling intensely. Mayhem wasn't moving they were holding him down. It was time for the big one: I formed thermite on the ground.

"Lifeguard, cage! Tempest: Spark it!" I ordered. They looked at the pile of chemicals and nodded at me. Lifeguard formed a cylindrical force field which stretched up high into the sky. A small hole opened in the force field through which Tempest unleashed a bolt of lightning. It closed quickly and the thermite ignited. This wasn't just the stuff you made at home, it was as much as 500kg of thermite, exploding violently and making everything glow red. The force field was very narrow so the blast was concentrated. It looked like lava was jumping out of the ground. We heard a huge shout and Mayhem burst through the shield, the flames disappeared seemingly into his suit. Lifeguard had been badly hurt mentally from him breaking her shield: she was mentally connected to her field but it took massive power to break one so that also came down on her and she dropped to the ground.

Only Tempest and I remained standing, Jack was probably inside one of the buildings, willing himself to morph into Ravager. Mayhem flew forward with a burst of concentrated thermite explosives. Tempest ordered winds to push him back but he only turned up the power. I got behind her, knowing she was going to unleash a hurricane force wind, to bad Mayhem has flown through hurricanes and tornadoes before. Still it held him back. Ravager burst out of the top story of a building and Tempest killed the winds. He landed right on Mayhem's back and held onto his shoulders. Once again I dove out the way and Tempest flew upwards as Ravager and Mayhem shot forward at about 300 km/h. I heard a huge crash behind me and turned to see that Ravager had leapt off of Mayhem and let him fly into the ground.

In these blocks of text you introduce us to a lot of new characters, but we know nothing about their physical appearance, or Eric for that matter. (Although Eric can turn anything into anything, so I guess he would make himself the best looking guy that ever walked the Earth, wait, is it set on Earth?)

he becomes very buff and muscular, his physical attributes increase over time, starting at about five times of speed, strength, constitution etc.,

I don't think you should put etc. here. I think you should either list all the things that change or just say; starting at about five times of speed, strength and constitution.

The Peak, a glass building made of indestructible glass,

You repeat glass, and it makes the line a bit boring, instead you could write something like; a glass building made to be indestructible.

and fell down to the ground knowing had it not been for my diamond skin I surely would've died from the impact of hitting the ground.

Again there's a bit of repetition here. The first or second one could be changed to floor, or something else.

The last site I saw

Should be sight.


Overall; I liked the story. Apart from a bit of a lack of description, I liked it a lot.

By the way, How old are Eric and his 'team'? What are they training to become (power-rangers? hee hee )

PM me if you write more!

~Mo.

P.S I like smilies

Edited now, Please review.

Hey, Hero - here as you requested.

So, among the first things that floated into my mind when I was reading this was the massive amount of names/characters you throw in. This is the first chapter, and you need to build a solid base for the reader so that they can continue reading the story without being too confused. So what I would suggest doing is that you'd limit the new characters to a minimum in this first part, when people are supposed to learn to know the MC. If there's lots of folk around, it's difficult to focus on the most important character. Give him more screen time and move the others aside for a while. You know, you have time. This is only the first chapter so you don't need to rush things

Another thing you should pay attention to: the tense. In this chapter the tense kept changing, which was disturbing. Pick one and stick to it, to keep things simple.

In the beginning you mentioned quite a few times how Mayhem is "the most powerful super-villain in the world." I think you only need to let the readers know this once, and then you can focus on showing them what makes him particularly dangerous. You know, like "yeah, we know he's a powerful super-villain, but why? What does he do?"

So, the flood of names made me a bit confused at first, but it seems interesting and I wish you luck with writing this story. Contact me if you have any questions!


Demeter
x

Thanks loads Dems, yes I will edit as much as I can. I really only did this part to try a different approach to my previous one. See from different angles and choose the best one.

Yo Hero!

Here's my promised review of the revised piece.

Info-dump: So the first thing that I think when reading this piece is "Information Dump". You come in to the story intending to drop all the information that you feel we might need on up at once. One of the keys to good writing is being able to expose things at the perfect pace to capture our intrigue. This means that you can't leave us without any background information, but it also means that you can't flood us with too much information to handle at once. As the narrator it's your job to give us the information that you think is vital to understanding each piece of the story at once.

A good way to do this is to introduce us to each character by narrating his deeds rather than the POV character's opinions and summary of his character. Your writing should flow progressing further with each sentence, and we should be allowed to build our own opinion of your characters. You might want to try by introducing characters to us slowly and making us acquainted with all of them before you throw us so viciously into the story.

You also want to avoid breaking up your action scenes with description. You want to keep your action scenes flowing as much as possible in fact. Here's a link to an article I wrote recently about writing a good action scene that I think would help you: topic53411.html If you get a chance you can tell me what you think the article failed to address properly in a note afterward.

Now, moving along, I found your frequent switch in tense rather off-putting. Stick to writing things in the past tense so that you don't throw your readers for a complete loop. You'll find that this does wonders for your writing.

Let's move to the final section of this review: Mary Sues and Plot Holes. I must admit that I found your characters to be rather flat and perfect. The fact that your MC could turn that dude to sludge would make him turn him to sludge. No law is going to stop him hurting your villain. You've created major plot holes by making your character so perfect. Give him flaws.

Okay, I think those are the main things for now!

Have a great one!

Hey, I'm blackpencil and I'll review your work today.
First of all, sorry to say it, but this story made me feel as if it was written by a kid. There isn't much creativity involved.

Sometimes, being attacked by mad, powerful supervillains made Eric, or rather Carbon, want to go mad.

I don't think anyone would want to go mad. It just sounds a bit strange. Also, you repeat mad. Repeating the same words a lot is not good.

Sometimes, knowing that he had to lie to protect his family made him want to become someone else, someone non-mutant.

How about "normal" instead od "non-mutant",

Eric's powers allow him to change the elements in compounds. He can change one material, rock, metal or whatever, into any substance that existed. He didn't struggle remembering reactions or elements, it seemed to just flow into his mind. Yes, he could simply turn people into sludge even Mayhem, the most powerful super-villain on Earth. However, Eric had standards, morals and then of course there was the law. He had done that once long ago... the memories still haunt him today.

I know it's hard to avoid, but this is an infodump. Try breaking up the information a little.

I wish I could just- Eric thought. He was about to think Turn him to dust but he faltered. Come on Eric, just focus on the battle.

I don't think it's possible to be about to think something.

He was hiding behind a[/b ]car, [b]his back to the wall of Jo's Pizza. Eric watched the battle intensely, every movement his teammates made caused Carbon to feel as if he was executing them himself. Mayhem was above their league, he could kill them now if he wanted to. They were just children, measly thirteen year old superheroes and he was one of the smartest men alive, a time traveling Nazi scientist and, of course, the most powerful super-villain alive. The question that struck Eric was why- why hadn't Mayhem killed them yet?

You repeat alive.

Mayhem's armour was black and gray, not one amount of skin showed. To describe all the gadgets and weapons amassed on it would fill two volumes of the Britannica Encyclopedia. One thing was for sure, he was dangerous.

How could he move with all that stuff on his armour? And we already know he's dangerous, byt the way. You told us that already. A few times.

thanks to a handy little visor, pump light to create laser blasts.

Lasers aren't made by "pumping" light. And did you get the idea from Cyclops? Not bad to get ideas, just hold back from plagerising, okay?

is Lucas, his quiet, not shy, just quiet. That is not something most people expect when they hear the name Lightbeam.

This is a bit confusing.

Grid is a humorous boy.

You should have named this guy something else, since you already have an alternate reality called the Grid.

Now just some grammer issues:

His sister, Jessica, developed an insecurity, which grew into temperament. Considering that she controls the weather, that is very dangerous.

He has many in stock but his favorite set is his force shield plus an energy blade and a helmet that could amplify his passive power of confusion to a point where combatants drop their guard, forget to block, swing wrongly etc.

Wow! Long sentence! You need some breaks in there.


That's all I'm going to do for now, just brush up on grammer and think more creatively!