I seriously underestimated how popular Reid was going to be.
Reid Fischer is 6′3. He’s incredibly muscular, but in a lean kind of way–I believe I compared him to a runner or swimmer once. He has light blond hair, gray eyes, and fair skin. One of his most noticeable features is a pronounced jaw, a trait he shares with Reuben and Raphael. They inherited it from their mother.
Reid’s skin is faintly weathered and scarred. He grew up in the Idaho panhandle, exposed to searing cold. The scars are more from being struck by flying rocks all the time than actual combat, though he has plenty of combat scars, too. He’s 23, so he’s grown himself a fine covering of body hair; when he doesn’t shave his face, he can grow a decent beard in a week. It’s dark blond. However, he prefers to be clean-shaven.
He’s a conservative dresser, preferring khaki cargo pants, flannels, Henleys, field jackets, combat boots, and sturdy work gloves. Everything about Reid’s style says “quietly masculine.” A funny little quirk of his is that he goes barefoot whenever he can; it better allows him to be psychokinetically connected to the earth.
Not extraordinarily so. The unreliable narrator is used to hide information from the reader, and it’s not one of my favorite narrative tools.
However, that doesn’t mean that Jill is always correct. I suppose it’s neither here nor there at this point, but (for example) in Sentinel she told Reid to not kill Matthew because “they’d figure out it was [him.]”
Actually, the elders wouldn’t have figured it out. They’d suspect, but as you saw soon after, Reid is quite an efficient killer. He would’ve done the job quickly and cleanly. Afterwards, all Jill and Reid would’ve had to do when questioned was:
On one hand, that would’ve spared Jillian a lot of angst. On the other, who knows what the trajectory of the story would’ve been?
Brother against brother. Superhero against superhero. His wife has been kidnapped, and now he must decide how far down the road of vengeance he can go.
Benjamin, codename Mercury, is a member of an elite superhero team. Jillian, his wife, has been kidnapped by his soulless brother, Beau. With her life hanging in the balance, now it’s fight or die. Beau believes Jillian knows the whereabouts of JM-104, a compound that renders superpowers worthless, and to weaken his enemies he’s determined to make her talk by any means necessary. Benjamin must risk his life to save her, and then he must destroy what’s left of the JM-104.
But it won’t be so easy. When Benjamin’s team heads after the JM-104 with a ticking clock hanging over their heads, a team of superheroes who specialize in killing other superheroes will be right there waiting for them, just as brother goes against brother with Jillian caught in the middle. In the face of overwhelming odds, will they save Jillian and destroy the biggest threat to their existence? Or will the long arm of hate reach into Benjamin’s heart and destroy everything he holds dear?
Fans of Jessica Jones and Arrow will love Emerald Dodge’s Mercury, a fast-paced thrill ride across the world of superheroes and supervillains.
Pick up your copy today and enjoy the shocking finale of the Battlecry series!
Alright, here’s Benjamin Dances, Ben’s POV of the romantic park scene in early Battlecry. The standard boiler plate applies: Benjamin swears here more than in the book, it’s not been proofread, and it contains spoilers for Sentinel. Also, I think there’s a line or two different from the final version.
This is the theme song of the huge showdown fight in Mercury. I was pleasantly surprised that not only is it thematically appropriate to where Benjamin is by chapter twenty-six, but it even references the little motto Benjamin adopted: “keep moving forward.”
Oh, my eyes are seein’ red
Double vision from the blood we’ve shed
The only way I’m leavin’ is dead
That’s the state of my (state of my) state of my head
Benjamin was a surprise, but welcomed, baby, and Janice insisted on naming him after her favorite grandfather. She was rather open about her preference for Benjamin over Beau, and she coddled him a lot.
Benjamin’s unique involvement in the family business (as described in the end of Sentinel) caused him a great amount of anguish, confusion, and general distress as a young child. Janice threw all of her energy into distracting him, and he received almost every material item he ever wanted, within reason, and it’s why she lobbied so hard for him to be allowed to joint JROTC. She saw Benjamin’s self-confidence and happiness soar, and knew that he needed a place to shine outside of Chez Trent.
Had Benjamin never met Jillian, he would’ve eventually worked up the nerve to tell his parents about nursing school–and Janice would’ve made sure that he got in. She pinned him for a dreamer and tender heart early on; she always felt that Benjamin would probably move on from the nitty-gritty of their activities and probably develop more businesses to enrich the family.
Janice’s downfall is that she can’t see her son for who he truly is. Even at the end of Sentinel, she believes that superheroes are somehow controlling him. If not controlling him, then he’s been utterly seduced by either Jillian or her promises. She can’t admit that for all her hard work and love, Benjamin has rejected her.
Wide Spread Interests 