Author's Notice: Today is the one-year anniversary of the first day I started to write this story one year ago. I actually finished it, but then my entire hard drive froze and everything had to be reset. As a result, I lost everything in this story. And thus, my rewrite. It's better, anyway.

Disclaimer: I don't own MapleStory or Wizet. If I did, would this be on FANfiction?!

Disclaimer 2: Some of the charaters portrayed are based on people in real life. In particular, the characters of Werty, Thiefofdarc, AgentMJ, Charyos, and EnGarde are people of their own right and have all given me permission to use them in this story.

Mapler

This is a story of ignorance. Of hate. Deception and violence. Greed and misery.

Friendship and love.

All caused by an online game known as MapleStory.

September 2004.

Marco Andolini was always fascinated with the trees and the sky. They were both works of nature; both beautfiul, untouched by mankind, which he considered to be unnatural. What is funny, he always thought, was how humans were once nature although they have dug their own grave into the corporate world. Humans are constantly evolving - but to where?

The sunrise was exceptionally dazzling this morning. Looking out from the car, Marco could see the great ball appear like a spinning bright wheel reaching its way up the hill, becoming bigger and higher. The clouds around the sun were manipulated into being different colors such of that of purple and pink and orange. The sun continued to rise above. Rays shone through the brown Autumn leaves and into the relection of the car window.

Down and hill and back up again, the car peacefulley drove to Marco's school, which for no apparent reason was called Connerson Junior High School. Today was to be Marco's first day in 6th grade. As the car drove up to the school, and Marco's dad wished him a day of good luck. He smiled and his son smiled back at him. As the boy made his way to the double doors were which the entrance to the school, he turned his back to the building and studied that sunrise one last time. Bright and dazzling.

Passing through the spiraling glass door, Marco instantly saw the artifical light of electricity and light bulbs attempt to shine through the hallway. Quite pathetic, he thought. He trudged his heavy bookbag on his back and carried all of that weight to where he knew his locker was. Before school had started, he toured the school and memorize the layout of the place.

When Marco was finished depositing his materials in his locker, he made his way back to the main lobby of the school where more students had arrived and sat themselves down, waiting for the first haunting bell of several hundred days' worth of curriculeum to ring.

Suddenly, there was a loud noise from up the hall. It was a like slamming sound, as if something heavy had been violently thrown onto the floor. Footsteps of an angry 6th grader stormed the hall and and a figure came into the distance and Marco could see a rather tall person, who didn't look too happy, barge his way into Marco's direction, carrying a black knapsack around his shoulder. He was wearing all black and a stylish vest. He continued to walk until he stopped at Marco's presence. He looked down at Marco's attire, blue jeans and blue shirt, and looked back up at his face. Marco looked at the boy and gave him a face, as if to say, "What are you doing?" But instead he said:

"Hello, Marco." The thin face of the person said. his eyes were a quarter closed; he looked tired and his back slouched against him.

"Hi. Your name would be?" inquired Marco. He wasn't very fond of people who introduced themselves without introducing their name first.

"Does it really matter? We knew each other in third grade anyway." His voice was low and disturbed.

"Heh, did we? I don't, erm, remember things too well." Marco smiled and this time welcomed the stranger. "So your name?"

"James Sharr. I prefer to be called by last name, though, I think it sounds cooler and more emo."

"Nice." Marco gave Sharr a friendly smile. Sharr gave him a look and his mere face translated to, "What the hell is this kid doing?"

A loud high-pitched beeping sound erupted from the speakers and it was finally time to get the school day started. In what would be the pattern of every school day, Marco turned down to the hallway to his left and went to his first period class. As he was walking down he turned around and waved Sharr goodbye, Sharr, now very small and distant in Marco's eyes, gave him another look and barely lifted up his hand.

Several more ringings of that bell and it was recess time. Marco's least favorite time of the day. It was the time when "kids could be kids" and let outside to run freely for a limited set of time. As Marco walked along the grass, he saw the opening to the forest and a large row of maple trees lined up and streched out, leaning their heads high as if they were kings of the forest. Marco smiled.

The brown leaves of the tree kept being relieved from the branches of the tree and several at a time fell off with the wind's path. It was almost as if the ground itself a sea of brown and red, and Marco was like a boat traversing it. Marco bent down and picked up one of the red leaves. It had a perfect symatrical shape, as bright red color, it didn't look decayed at all - the perfect leaf.

He stared at it and was mesmerized by it.

And then it was gone. Torn, ripped to shreads by the one who called himself Sharr. Marco wasn't quite sure how it happened, it was almost as if Sharr had appeared out of nowhere and snatched the leaf from him. Almost. Looking back on it, Marco could guess that Sharr probably ran up behind him while Marco was admiring the leaf, and thus Marco was able to notice Sharr.

In any case, Marco was not pleased at all. "Hey, what was that for?!" Marco stared at Sharr, extremely annoyed.

"Ha, it was almost like you were hailing it as a deity. Looked like you thought it had special powers. Just thought I'd show you who has the real powers here." Sharr was in a surpsingly good mood all of a sudden.

"That wasn't nice, please don't do it again, okay?"

"What you were doing was idiotic."

The bell rang, its screeching barely audbile from Connerson Field. Sharr was one of the first in the race back to school that most of the more active sutdents participated in. Marco only walked back, looking at the torned pieces of the leaf sitting there on the floor.

That year was a great school year for Marco. He met many types of new friends, met some great teachers, and, typical for him, recieved very high grades and thus, next year he would most likely be placed in very advanced classes. Throughout 2004 and into 2005, Sharr and Marco became close friends, but it was an unusual relationship. They considered each other to be friends, but they quickly found out they had nothing in common. As Sharr put it, "That's what makes the friendship interesting - we have nothing in common so we each find out about new things."

Author's Notice: Hoped you liked it. The story starts off a little slow...