Well, since the other authors of Networks of Destiny are deciding to come out of the woodwork, I guess I will too. Check out our community page and other stories by MegaBlastDragon, NovelistOfTheSky, Etiger1995, and Dowskl. This is a Reboot from a really old story from a while ago and I'm using this as practice for a book I'm preparing to write, so honest, positive criticism is greatly appreciated and I hope you guys enjoy.
Mystery has abound for as long as truth has been shadowed. But now, the darkness that shrouds reality is being lifted and we must be prepared for what follows. This is unknown territory we find ourselves traveling into and the pioneers that will guide us, must be strong enough to stand in the way of anything and protect the innocent. This is the story of such a journey. These are the Chronicles of the Digital Monsters.
"Wake up!" a voice yelled. "You're late for school, again!" The sudden concussive force of the voice rung through the void of slumber, disrupting the emptiness and slowly descending back to reality. The rays of sunlight invaded through the curtains and spread across the landscape, giving a shining glimpse into the four walls of the bedroom. The annoyed grunting of a sleeping man was almost too familiar, given an exception of the incredibly powerful snoring emanating from him.
"What?" asked a voice sheepishly. He shifted under his sheets, shaking at the sound of his own voice and beginning to realize that the blinding rays were waking him. "It's too damn early for this crap." He buried his head into a pillow and wished for time to turn back enough to get some more sleep, but he unfortunately hadn't realized that an angry blonde had just stormed into his room.
"WAKE UP!" the girl screamed in his ear. She pulled his head out of his pillow and glared at him into his dull chocolate eyes, looking just as brain dead as a rock. "If you do not get your butt out of this bed in the next ten seconds, I'm going to sneak into your room later and destroy what you love most." The piercing blue orbs glaring him directly in the eyes were enough to send the right message, but she decided to slap him across the face just to make sure.
"I'm up!" he yelled, flailing out of his bed and falling on the floor. He couldn't tell if he had actually died and gone to hell or if the shrieks of laughter was his roommate, not an evil harpy. The wicked smile adorned on her alabaster skin was just enough to piss him off to the point he was sure he felt steam fly out of his ears, or maybe he was just still sleeping.
"Get ready for your classes, come downstairs and get some breakfast," she instructed. The blonde laughed wildly as she flung his window open and forced the boy to cower behind any darkness he could find. If anything, he was sure that torturing him was the entire reason she woke up every morning and for some stupid reason, he was okay with that. She finally left him alone, her voice ringing down the hall as she started waking up the other residents with the same treatment he got.
"What a freak," the boy sighed. He slowly raised his head up and slipped off the black sheets he was tangled in, revealing his athletic build. He revealed his chocolate brown eyes and his mocha-colored skin; his tightly dreaded, black hair came down to his shoulders. The emotionless smile on his face seemed almost disturbing, but the glint of joy in his eyes gave way to a different persona.
"I hate school so much," a voice said, clearly cranky. "I don't see why we can't just learn the stuff we need to learn to become whatever we want to as an adult. Why do we need to learn all this junk, we'll never need after high school?" He heard the annoying sounds of his self-proclaimed philosopher roommate screaming at the blonde as she started in on her next pair of targets. "Damn, Huxley had it right."
The sounds of girls screaming from outside his room, were bordering on cruel punishment when he finally took the time to make his bed. He put on a pair of jeans, a shirt and covered it in a black hoodie, already having the immediate mindset of his plans for the day. He grabbed his phone and raced out of his room, hoping to get the first seat at the breakfast table before anyone else could take it.
"Ready," he announced proudly. He ran into the kitchen and almost bumped into the psychotic blonde, nearly making her drop all of the eggs in her pan. "My bad Nyssa, I guess waking up to the sound of your voice wasn't the best way to start a morning." She punched him in the arm and scowled at him, the hopeful equivalent of her apologizing or at least a less hostile way of kicking him in the crotch.
"You've had seven years to get over it Elegon," she retorted. She set the eggs down on five plates on the dining room table, finishing the meal for her roommates and gladly throwing the pan into the sink. She tied her long, thick blonde and white hair into a ponytail, not wanting it in her way while she ate. Elegon wondered how mad she'd get it he splatter some juice on her purple tank top and jeans, only to realize that she'd probably try to choke him with her thin black vest. "Last warning; if you don't start waking up to your alarm, I'm going to start beating you with it!"
"You're mean in the morning," he teased. "Plus, you're my alarm. Except when I want to snooze, you hit me instead." He smiled when he heard her laugh, already having a great start to the day and hoping it would stay that way. The sound of heavy stomping was way too loud and nearly caused Nyssa to gag on some toast as her next headache sat down to the table.
"What's with all the yelling and such?" someone asked. The voice came from another 18-year-old, this time a boy who described himself as a young Country music star. He flicked the sandy brown bangs out of his face and let his hazel eyes reflect his calm personality. He had on his favorite jean jacket and a pair of Denim, embracing his already profound cliché as a wannabe cowboy. "I see Nyssa woke all of us up on the wrong side of the bed… again. While the princess seems to have had a great morning."
"Shut up Josh," Nyssa yelled, grabbing a pancake from a nearby plate. "Is today Everyone-Sleep-In day?" Her entire morning was revolved around getting everyone up and eating breakfast together, just like what a normal family would do. She woke up an hour earlier than them and cooked an entire meal, but for some reason she still had to force them to get them out of their beds like children.
"What's for breakfast?" said another voice from behind the two teen bickerers. Her curly black hair cascaded across her light brown shoulders, curiously highlighting the fact that she was biracial, having a black mother and Arabic father. Her dark brown eyes twinkled in delight at the sight of eggs and pancakes, gearing up for another day with her favorite food. She dripped syrup on her flapjacks and almost got some on her purple sweater and jeans, annoying the blonde greatly.
"Calm down Kahlya," Nyssaa snapped. "Wait, where's Malia? She better not be dying her damn hair again! I am not dealing with a rainbow hair clog in the shower like last time!" Their other roommate had been going through an identity crisis that involved dying her hair the color of whatever aura she was feeling or for her favorite sports team of the season. Though no one would say it aloud, she was kind of a moon child and a girly one at that.
"Here I am!" someone shrieked in her ear. The 17-year-old surprised the blonde and managed to scare her, actively riding her nerves to the point of almost making her turn red. Malia's brown hair flowed down to her shoulder blades, while her Cuban tan and sea green eyes reflected the joy she held. She wore a sea green jacket with a pair of jeans, twisting an owl necklace around with a free hand and showcasing the newest streak in her hair, royal blue for the Dallas Cowboys, with the other.
"I swear I'm the only normal one," Nyssa yelled, cleaning up her place. She mumbled something to herself about getting an air horn for the next morning and grabbed her backpack. "We need to hurry and get outside, the bus will leave soon." Josh finished up his food and headed back upstairs to grab his backpack and his guitar, which he carried around to play in case he ever got inspired by nature.
"Yes mom," Elegon teased. Nyssa walked behind him and smacked him on the back of his head, taking too much pleasure from watching him struggle to swallow his food. Even if he was right, she didn't like the bastard to get a good one in on her and that meant beating him like a dog until he learned his lesson. "Living with you is almost as dangerous as having a rabid dog in the house."
"This is strangely normal," Josh laughed. Walking up to the door with Malia putting on her backpack and joining him, both sharing a strange look that no one seemed to notice. Unbeknownst to the rest of the housemates, they had a special chemistry together and were trying their best to hold off on dating, unless they had a good reason to invite unbridle chaos into the house.
"Nyssa angry at Elegon," Kahlya said," pretty much." She came to the door, trying to put her laptop into her backpack, but struggling to hold her vegan lunch in her other hand. "Can someone help me or does a hipster have to do everything on her own?!" Josh held her laptop while she put her lunch in her bag, only to have him shove it in the freezer before running to the bus stop. "You hillbilly jackass!"
"Look the bus is coming," Malia realized. "Nyssa, leave Elegon alone. Elegon, hurry up or you're gonna miss the bus again. Don't kill him without me!" She raced after the angry Muslim ahead of her before she caught Josh, only to have to deal with them yelling at each other as they got on the bus. The two were always at each other's throats, but it only bothered her when she had to get in the middle of it or when she was the only one around to stop it.
"I'm gonna get you one day," Nyssa warned him, grabbing her stuff and running to the bus stop. He walked toward the bus, purposely slowing down enough for it to close the doors and leave him, getting the perfect excuse to get left behind once again. Despite the lie he so adamantly stuck to when they were around, where he was enrolled in community college, he had actually dropped out of high school and gotten his G.E.D. which meant he wasn't enrolled in any school and had no plans to attend one.
"Time to go play some soccer," Elegon smiled. He ran back into the house and grabbed his Soccer gear, ready to spend the day doing exactly what he loved most. While his roommates were into the firm belief that he was just in remedial classes and was actually their age, he spent almost every day coaching Soccer with the local middle school kids. He may be lying, but it was a better option that having to deal with Nyssa trying to make him enroll in Community College or some other aspiring nonsense. After all, what was more important than playing Soccer all day?
The monotonous sounds of keyboards clacking away as they wrote the source codes for whatever exercise that she was supposed to be doing, was greatly annoying Kahlya. The only reason she signed up for the Computer Science class was to have an excuse to work on her laptop and not deal with teachers yelling at her for not paying attention. She had more important things to do than learn how to makes stupid pictures with the lame programs the school thought were so hard to teach.
"Can you not pay attention?" someone asked, slamming Kahlya's laptop down. She looked up into the brown eyes of the second most annoying bastard to ever piss her off. "I need your help and you aren't focusing on me, you left-wing liberal mess. Now, are you listening?" He fixed the dark blue bowtie around his actual white-collared shirt, then leaned against the desk she was sitting at and rested his hands on his khaki brown pants.
"Kole, you are a walking cliché," Kahlya said politely. "I say that not as an insult, but as an observation. Now, as to whatever bull crap you're about pull out of the twin flatlands you call an ass, the answer is no. I'm not going to do what you say just because you come in here looking like Freddy from Scooby Doo and just got through planning your stupid schemes and building overly Rube-Goldberg-esque complicated traps." The edge in her voice was more than enough to give him an appropriate answer, but he decided not to give up so easily.
"First off, Freddy isn't Black," he told her, exhibiting his cocoa skin. "Secondly, if you heard me you'd know that I'm genuinely asking for help with something. And lastly, I have the ass of a future President and you're just mad because you got some junk in the trunk. Now, shut up and listen, I have something that I was hoping you'd help me with because as much as it hurts to admit, I can't figure it out." He handed her an old looking USB drive that had a wood design to it, but when she held it, she realized that it wasn't a design and the drive was genuinely made out of wood.
"Really?" she laughed. "You expect me to believe that you found a wooden flash drive and the great Kole Stone can't crack it? Next, you'll expect me to believe that you need my help to using my hacker skills because you're destructive decryption program will ruin it." Kole nodded his head hesitantly, unable to look her in the eye and ask the only other person that may be able to help him. "Let me guess, I put this in my laptop and you snap a picture of me being stupid, right? Thanks, but no thanks, you overly conservative jackass. Now, promptly jump up your own ass."
"I really do need your help," he sighed, kneeling next to her. "I know we don't get along, but it wouldn't be something simple if I came to you, would it?" The troublesome look in his eyes were incredibly perplexing to Kahlya, almost like he was being honest with her. "It might look fake, but it has the circuits like a drive and my Cracker skills aren't good enough to decode the information stored on it without damaging the hardware. Help me and I'll give you a copy of my decryption program. No cracks for you."
Khalya had spent an entire lifetime learning everything she could on computers and becoming what the underground community called a Hacker, someone who could break into other computers, but not to hurt anyone. She had a pretty lucrative side business testing firewall protection for the small businesses in their hometown with her skills, but that was as far as she'd go with them. She was often under the watchful eyes of the authority in case she ever turned and started breaking into government computers, but recently she had taken the duty of making sure no one else was trying to do the same, mainly Kole.
The Cracker had truly earned his name after taking up after his late father's expert ability to hack into mainframes, but became much more interested in learning secrets or illegal activities. He had created an expert program that could break down any firewall and access a limitless supply of information, leaving as much of a trace as an invisible ninja. His bank account was aligned with the subsidiaries he received from town hall for his services after he showed them how easy it could be to hack the voting systems or dig up incriminating information against the liberal enemy.
Kole and Kahlya were often at each other's throats, both of them on the farthest extreme of the opposite side of almost any argument and always at odds. When Kahlya tried to help build a virus protection service for the local Farmer's Market, Kole had stolen their entire financial records and showed the police all of their tax evasions. When Kole tried to find something to discredit the Mayor's major competition, Kahlya had placed a fake story in his data stream for him to recover and nearly ruined his entire campaign. No matter what, the two were bitter enemies and went to the extreme to outdo one another, but never attacked the other personally which was an unspoken rule between hackers.
"Fine," Kahlya agreed, packing up her laptop. "But, if this is a trick, I'm going to destroy every single piece of evidence of your citizenship and let the government send you back to whatever level of Hell you crawled out from." She excused herself from class, leaving with the last person she ever thought she'd partner up with or have to deal with without a judge and a jury of her peers. Kole led her to the only safe place that he thought would keep their plans discreet, the secret computer laboratory he received for his contributions to the town or at least the bribing conservative part of it.
"Get ready to hate me so much, you pee your pants," Kole teased, walking up to his locker. Kahlya looked on with skepticism as he opened the tiny amount of space, surprised when his one combination lock had somehow opened four lockers at the same time. Behind the metal barricade was a dull lit staircase heading underneath the school to what Kahlya could only guess could by a recluse's dream or the last place a rape victim would ever witness. "Ladies first of course. Momma didn't raise no punk."
"Just a right-wing jackass," she snapped. Kole closed the lockers behind him as they descended down into the laboratory, forcing Kahlya to realize that it wouldn't be the worst thing to have a secret underground bunker to work from. When they got to the bottom of the staircase, she wasn't sure she had enough air for the massive gasp she needed to express the overwhelming awe she felt in the computer nirvana. The walls were lined up with shelves of equipment ranging from miniature cameras to motherboards to deconstructed phones and at least eight desktops lined in a circle, all linked to what she could only guess was his own personal mainframe or a gift from the Gods of the Internet.
"Amazing right?" he smiled. "The desktops are to keep up my data configurations, four of them are linked to the government's most secret files, two of them keep up work with the Mayor's office and the other one is at work hacking into the entire iTunes library and downloading everything for free. There is nothing like jail breaking the entire prison, right? I have them hooked up to something my dad had created before he passed away that he calls The Gateway, the strongest piece of hardware in the world with the processing speed of the Flash on Malia meth and LSD."
"Did you kill me on the way down and send me to Nerd-vana?!" she screamed, wiping away tears of joy from her face. She walked up to Gateway and realized it had a tree on the front of it with the words "Yggdrasil" etched underneath it. "That name is familiar. Wait, isn't Yggdrasil the name of that tree from the Thor movie? It's like some kind of parallel universe or something, right?" Kole shrugged his shoulder clearly uninterested with whatever conclusion she was trying to come to.
"Ask my assistant, Capri," he smirked. He clicked on the screen of a computer only for it to show a pair of black dots that seemed to follow his movements. "Her name stands for Computerized Assisting Processor of Refined Information, she's the world's first functioning A.I. system and maybe the coolest thing you'll ever see. Capri, look up everything you can find on Yggdrasil and display it for my guest. And let's keep it condensed this time, no need for you to give yourself the first cyber headache." Kahlya felt the Goosebumps rise on her arms as a projector from the wall of equipment whirred to life and started to project a picture of a large tree against the wall.
"Yggdrasil comes from Norse mythology and stands for 'Odin's horses,'' a feminine computerized voice echoed. "It has the purpose as the world tree, branching into nine different realms of existence and able to provide safe passage from realm to realm. The Norwegians once believed that it held the secrets of the universe, but only Odin and his Asgardians were able to protect it from those with evil intents. According to popular belief, they once believed that at the heart of the tree was an ancient evil sleeping until it had its chance to strike the heart of Yggdrasil, the realm of man or—"
"That's enough," Kole paused. "It's obvious that it's just some cute nickname and no offense, but my A.I. has more important things to do than look up ancient pagan religions." Kahlya had stopped listening to the computer halfway through the speech, realizing that she had saw something on the flash drive that might've been the same etching of the tree. She looked around Gateway and saw nine USB ports placed all around it and realized that she could more than easily hack into the device with the full power of what she believed was the single incarnation of heaven on Earth.
"Give me the USB," she said, setting up her laptop. She placed it in the middle of the circle around the mainframe and linked it up to the Gateway, amazed at the immediate connection it had to her laptop. Before she even had a chance to do anything, the system had already merged with her own operating system and had replaced the Apple icon on her desktop with Yggdrasil. "Your dad must've been the smartest man on the entire planet! How on earth did he come up with this stuff?"
"He used to talk about being in some research program when he worked in Japan," Kole tried to remember," but God knows I never listened to him. I was seven when he died and all I have to remember him are some journals, the Gateway and this USB from his safety deposit box. It took the bank eight years before they sent it back to my house because of back payments. He must've worked really hard trying to keep it safe if he spent that much money ahead of time." Kahlya stood a little speechless at the way he said that, almost like he was looking for something more than just another thing to crack open, maybe he was actually looking for answers.
"Well, maybe this thing can work a miracle and find something on this piece of wood," Kahlya chided. This was insane, but as long as she went along with the crazy bastard, she could stay down in the greatest place on Earth or the universe. She traced her finger along the cedar finishing and felt something etched on the side of the device, another symbol of Yggdrasil and the words Menn were carefully placed at the bottom. She looked at the Gateway and felt a tinge of excitement hit her when she saw that one of the ports had the same name right underneath it. "Hey Capri, what does Menn and Yggdrasil have to do with one another?"
"Menn is the Norse realm of Mankind," Capri answered. "It is synonymous with the term Midgard, which is also known as Earth to the Vikings. According to tradition, it is the heart of Yggdrasil and the home to the sleeping evil known as—"Kahlya had stopped listening to her and decided to plug in the USB, getting an exciting whistling sound from the wooden drive. The Gateway lit a green light above the drive and sent the mainframe into an automated program that stopped Capri from her speech and projected several program titles against the wall as it began downloading them.
"What's Project Antibody?" Kole asked, seeing the first program that was downloading. Capri hadn't responded to him, but he was sure it was because she was using her entire processing power to encrypt the drive. He looked over to Kahlya, unable to decide whether or not it was a good idea to bring her down here, but deciding that he wouldn't have tried to use Gateway to open the flash drive himself. She may be a goody-two-shoes, but she was pretty resourceful and that was a damn respectable trait.
"Project Whispered is the next one," Kahlya read from her laptop. She logged into Yggdrasil and uploaded the file from the flash drive to her main screen, watching as the mainframe started initiating the locked files from the device. "After that it has one more, Project Ragnarok and it has more than thirty terabytes in its one file. Kole, you're dad must've been a damn genius to invent all of this stuff! Does the government know about any of it?"
"God no," Kole laughed. "If they did, I wouldn't get to play with any of it. You should read some of his journals, it talks all about some kind of crazy crap like a parallel world that lives in the data stream. But, nothing about the reason all of this crap has weird Norse stuff on it." He walked over to the wall of equipment and pulled out three moleskin journals and handed them to Kahlya, who was growing more and more interested in this new partnership. "Hey, as long as you keep helping me, how about I let you start using my base of operations? After all, the Mayor won't need my help for at least another four years and I'm willing to let bygones be bygones, since I won after all."
"I got distracted with helping my community," she retorted," which is something your precious Mayor rarely does. But, I wouldn't hate it if I got to stick around and find out what Ragnarok is. Plus, I'm still waiting for that Cracker decryption program you promised." Kole smiled awkwardly as they headed back upstairs to school, leaving the Gateway to keep uploading the files unattended. What they hadn't notice was the download of Project Antibody to Kahlya's laptop or the countdown clock that began on Project Ragnarok, which was going to run out in nearly two hours.
The rhythmic strums of his acoustic guitar soothed the sounds of the busy hallway as Josh walked to his next class, comforted by the attention he was getting. He twisted the pick in his hand as he winked at one of the girl, making her giggle and blush. Under normal circumstances, he would've gladly started flirting with her and gotten her number, but he was already one tardy away from getting detention and Nyssa would kill him if he got in anymore trouble.
He put his pick into his pocket and open the door to his next period, Drama or what he liked to call, the deathbed of fun. The class was run by Director Barnes, a man that had singlehandedly taken the creativity out of the theatre and all of his students. He actively believed in keeping them all under his thumb when it came to giving them the option of performing the arts, suppressing them to the point of making it boring and sending kids running to get new classes.
The Director had a special disdain for four certain individuals that had for some reason, stuck around for all four years and constantly drove him mad with their shenanigans. Joshua was the lead Sound designer, in charge of all musical accompaniment; Nyssa was the Stage Manager, often in charge of getting the props that were needed for the plays; Malia liked to have the dual role of Costume designer and the female lead, even if it was in a terrible Barnes play; and lastly, Kahlya was in charge of Lights, Special FX and Theatrical technician. But, they were also the same kids leading the charge to ruin the Director's chance to create Broadway—his way—and were too good at their jobs for him to write them up.
When Josh found his way to the stage area, he was confused at the reason for the very violent rampage that Nyssa was currently in the process of. The blonde was a firm believer in staying calm with yoga and almost every kind of peaceful exercise, but when she flipped out, she flipped the hell out. You could say it was because of stress or anger management issues, but her roommates knew it was just backed up hatred from Elegon messing with her and an easy outlet without creating tension in the house. Either way, the only way to keep from getting himself killed was to grab a human shield and fortunately he had found the nearest Latina with colored hair streaks.
"Let me go, you singing spazz," Malia screamed, being forcibly dragged in front of the boy. "She's on the war path and I am not going down like Myrtle and Joe! Poor bastards were too slow." The guitarist picked up the girl, blocking a flying prop from hitting him and ruining any chance he had with her. She kicked him in the kneecap, getting him to let go of her and giving her a chance to punch him in the chest. "Man up you jackass! Now, grow a pair and go stop her before she destroys the costumes for the Lilo & Stitch play! I am not hand stitching anymore stupid Hawaiian grass skirts!"
"What's she even going mental for this time?" he asked, Malia pushing him toward the stage. He could see Director Barnes cradling himself in the corner, wrapped in the fetal position and mumbling something about playwrights. The balding drama teacher was rocking behind a prop and praying for a way out, while Josh was forced into the line of fire and trying to calm the blonde down. "Nyssa! Chill out and put the giant papier-mâché boulder down before someone gets hurt. Just tell me what's wrong and we can talk about this like normal people or at least aim only at Barnes."
"That idiot!" she screamed, dropping the rock. "He forgot to buy the rights to Lilo & Stitch and we don't have enough money left in the budget! Plus, none of the dancers can perform because they just won Regionals and they're going to Nationals during opening weekend. Not to mention the fact that Kahlya and Kole are running around all buddy-buddy now! Everything's falling apart!"
"Drama Queen much?" Malia asked. "We can get a fundraiser going and pick up some street kids with a propensity to 'Step Up' their dancing. And I guess we can start looking for a lawyer when Kahlya ultimately turns on Kole and kills him or vice versa." Nyssa laughed to herself, suddenly feeling better about the out of control rampage she just threw. She always felt better coming out of a tantrum and having someone like Malia to help catch her from her anger high.
"No fundraisers!" Director Barnes declared, brushing himself off and attempting to look regal. "I will not suffer through another one of your so-called fundraising schemes again! We were nearly disbanded after last semester's 'Car Wash' when the police arrested me for child pornography." Malia held back a laugh when she thought back to how many thongs and soapy cars were crowded the parking lot, along with the cops putting the teacher away for a month in county jail. "I will not tolerate your childish insolence and demand that you restrain that monster before she destroys my stage."
"This is your fault Barnes," Nyssa scowled. "If you hadn't been trying to force-feed us all of your stupid demands for Hawaiian culture, the dancers wouldn't have ran off so quickly. Plus, you were too busy trying to write your bull crap screenplay about the horrors of Community College to realize how much stuff you've been ignoring, like buying the rights from Disney. Now, we might not get to do a play for the orphans before Spring Break. You've taken away the only thing they had left in the world, the innocent love of a blue alien and a little Hawaiian girl while they attempt to save the Earth from intergalactic whales, evil hamsters and a cross-dressing Cyclops thing."
"How'd we get approved for this?" Josh asked, leaning against a wall. "Oh that's right, Kahlya made a huge speech about how it symbolized Hawaiian culture, not aliens. But, I guess it's going to go to waste since you blew it General Custer." Director Barnes glared at the brunette and sighed exasperatedly, knowing that he was right and that he had messed up. Theatre was all he had left, along with tenure, and he didn't take failure very well either. Even if that meant watching the troublemakers squirm.
The sound of the bell rang as the door was thrown open and a girl ran through, nearly falling over from exhaustion and looking completely defeated. Kahlya lurched toward the stage, one hand on the wall and the other wrapped around her cellphone. "No, don't help me or anything. I'm just dying." The kids blankly stared at her as she walked up to the stage and kept trying to say something about them being lazy and selfish. She dropped her backpack in front of Nyssa and lied on the ground, leaning against a wall and trying her best to catch her breath.
"If it isn't the first best friend to cheat on me," Nyssa seethed. "Where's your new black boy toy, Kole?! Huh?! Or are you cheating on him too with a younger model?!" The blonde grabbed the girl by the collar of her shirt and shook her violently in anger. "I can change! Give me a chance!" Kahlya felt her neck crack and realized that the blonde might actually kill her if she didn't explain. Luckily, Malia made Nyssa let her go and dragged her by her roots away from her while she continued to freak out.
"Damn you crazy bitch," she labored. "What, it's been like three hours since we called a truce and you're already planning our damn wedding?! We're just trying to stay on neutral ground for once. Or is peace not one of the words in your vocabulary? Damnit, I already lost my laptop and now I have to deal with the tantrums of a jealous roommate." She traded glares with the blonde and sighed at the sudden remembrance of her misplaced love child, which was the greatest thing in her teenage life.
Nyssa and Kahlya had both come to live at the boarding house at the exact same time, which to them meant that they were destined to be best friends and they were. Call it self-fulfilled prophecy, but the two clicked together like peanut butter and jelly, becoming the greatest of friends in almost every way. The house had five kids in it, but as far as they were concerned, they were the only important ones and everyone else were just supporting characters to their friendship.
The two girls were always having fun together and pushing people's buttons, usually finding the results completely hilarious. Kahlya's reclusive nature with the internet was the perfect pairing with Nyssa's extensive love of the outdoors, to the point that they were either arguing about their plans or finding something insane to do for fun. To make it short, they were like sisters that were separated at the womb and had nothing but complete trust in one another, no matter what the situation and made the greatest tag team against almost everyone.
"Did you leave it in the freezer?" Josh asked, smirking as he tuned his guitar. Kahlya didn't give him the satisfaction of acknowledging him, when she came to the realization that she had left it in Kole's secret lair, hooked up to his mainframe. She scowled slightly, praying that he wasn't uploading some devastating virus into it after tricking her down there. No, he wouldn't do something so personal to her, not after telling her about everything going on down there and giving her his father's journal.
"I know where it is," she sighed," I just can't get to it yet. By the way, has anybody seen Elegon? He sent me this weird text a few minutes ago." She showed Malia her phone with a message from him saying I'm here. Where are you? and she asked about the strange symbol of a tree showing up near the bottom of the phone. Kahlya hadn't seen it until Malia said something, shocked to see the Yggdrasil on her phone just like the desktop of her computer, almost like it had linked up to it wirelessly.
"Hey Kahlya," Kole yelled, walking into the room. He had a soccer ball in his hand and an annoyed look on his face as he waved her over towards him. She unwillingly walked over towards him, only to have him shove the ball in her hands with extreme force. "Look, I know I said you could use the lab, but that didn't mean soccer practice. I better not see any more balls in there, got it?" He scoffed at her before storming out of the room leaving her even more confused than before.
Kahlya twirled the ball around in her hands, not sure if Kole was messing with her or if someone had really infiltrated the lair. She hated sports, so it couldn't have been hers, but something about the ball did look eerily familiar, but she didn't really have the time to care about it as she threw the ball in the trash before going back to the stage. She took a last glance at the ball, seeing a small emblem of a yin and yang crest on one of the black hexagons. The same as Elegon's favorite soccer ball. But, that wasn't possible… was it?
The fresh smell of clean cut grass breezed past him as leaves twirled through the air and gently swept the ground. The sun beaded like a powerful heat lamp, touching everything in its path and leaving them seeking for shade. The playful whistling of a boy was the only sound to echo the neighborhood as Elegon walked along the sidewalk, bouncing his favorite soccer ball against the ground and smiling. He brushed his thumb past a hexagon with a yin/yang symbol and threw at the ground again, excited at the prospect of using it for the most exhilarating game ever created.
He had a black knapsack slung across his back to hold his equipment, which was just a pair of cleats, some water bottles, a few granola bars and a pair of gloves to cover his hands. He hated to play goalie, but the gloves weren't there to protect his palms, just to cover the unfortunate large birthmarks underneath. He wasn't embarrassed of them, but it was easier to cover them rather than deal with people asking him why he had black blobs on his hand. They always kind of looked like the black part of the yin/yang symbol, which is what Elegon loved the most about it and why he decorated most of his stuff with it.
The sound of a dog barking interrupted his whistling when he saw a snarling Doberman eying him from down the street and felt his heart race. He immediately turned and ran as fast as he could, the canine chasing him like a piece of fresh meat. Elegon knew there was no way he was going to be fast enough to get away, especially since the dog was easily catching up to him. Luckily he saw an alleyway coming up and made a sharp turn into it, giving him a few seconds as the dog tripped over his footing and lost a few feet from his target.
Elegon shoved his ball into his bag and prayed that his death wouldn't involve getting mauled in an alley by a stupid mutt. The Doberman managed to get his footing and leaped off the ground, his mouth wet with his drool and his teeth bared to sink into whatever he could catch from his latest prey. The boy was barely able to roll out of the way when the canine hit the wall headfirst, making him laugh and pissing the mutt off even more. He raced away from the dog, this time getting a few more seconds of a head start and spilling a bottle of water on the ground to hopefully trip the dog.
The heavy barking of the angry canine was the sole cause of the rush of adrenaline that sent Elegon into a frenzy as he pulled off what he could only assume was a miracle that Steve Rogers would envy. The dog began to catch up to him, but he grabbed a lid of a trashcan and spun it at the canine, hitting him in the legs. As the Doberman fell to his knees in pain, Elegon kicked himself off a wall, landing on a dumpster and hitting a fire escape until it let the ladder fall down. He climbed up the ladder, escaping the possibly crippled dog and curiously wondering why he was passing so many open windows with actual pies cooling on the sills.
When he reached the third story, he felt the crash from his high and fell against an air shaft, breathing heavily and regretting the way he handled the situation. He looked down at the dog that was slowly limping away from the alley, deciding that he'd heal and hopefully learned a lesson in stalking humans. The cool gentle breeze of the wind made his skin shiver in the realization that he was far from the ground and unfortunately running late with his schedule.
He looked over the distance of several blocks and saw his destination, which happened to fortunately be not only adjacent to his alley, but in running distance. He checked his pocket to make sure he had his wallet in case his body needed to be identified as he continued to defy death in such stupid manners. Elegon took several steps back and made a running start, bounding off the rails of his fire escape and barrel rolling into the dumpster beneath him with a surprised grin. He wasn't sure what was going on with him today, but he never felt so spry and incredibly overactive.
He laughed wildly as he climbed out, both incredibly exhilarated and wondering if Google Earth had hopefully caught his entire scene of mania. He brushed off his shirt from the leftovers of what he could only hope was a chocolate cake and made his way across the alleys. He counted his blessings that the smell of garbage hadn't set in and made his way toward a building, ignoring the strange looks from the hobos that were sleeping next to the dumpsters.
Since he had decided to take an early lead and get out of school, he figured he needed a job and his only calling was that of the soccer ball. When the local middle school started to offer positions as assistant coaches, he thought it was a bit of a long shot, but applied either way. Luckily for him, the application process was very small on the paper and focused a lot more on the skill in the field. Since it was highly improbable of middle-aged men with spare tires to out run eighteen-year-old athletes, he got the job and had the unfortunate problem of dealing with the worst two co-workers in all of town.
The gym was in the back of the school, so he didn't have to deal with the stares from people as he took off his garbage-covered hoodie and made his way to the locker room. He passed along the clichéd high school hallways and saw the prized pictures of their team trophies, sighing at the lack of golden soccer spoils. His team wasn't the best, but he didn't really blame them with the terrible management they had to back them up, especially the coach that couldn't care less about them.
"Hurry up Laze," a voice thundered at the boy. He looked away from the trophy case to see the most repugnant, lumbering man that he had to call his boss, demand his attention while rolling a Playboy up. Between the unkempt black facial hair on his face and ironically bald head, he wasn't sure if he should call him Coach or a potential applicant for Men's Hair. Elegon was more than sure that he was probably a star football player when he was in high school, but now he looked more like fat had covered all of his muscles and kind of reminded him of a black Michael Chiklis. "The kids are waiting for your lazy bum."
"I'm an adult, you can say ass," Elegon retorted, almost instantly annoyed. "And after my morning, I don't feel like being treated like a child by a man with an actual titty magazine coming out of his back pockets! Jesus, I didn't even think that still made those! Join the internet." He moved passed the red-faced Coach and stormed into the locker room, frightening the stragglers that were too embarrassed to change in front of the other boys. "Where's Coach Diaz and Graves?"
"They're outside waiting for you with everyone else," one the players said awkwardly, his voice squeaking. Elegon held back a laugh as he made his way to the Coach's office and grabbed his team hat, which unfortunately had their mascot on the front, a Seagull for the Shore City Seagulls. He waited for the last few kids to get dressed and locked the lockers, leading them outside to the rest of the team and possibly the largest group of skinny, uncoordinated kids ever gathered.
The Shore City Seagulls weren't the greatest team, albeit more like the saddest group of underdogs in a clichéd sports movie, but they were still his team. When he was first hired, they could barely play a decent game and the entire team had enrolled because they thought it was an easy pass. Fortunately, after two months of screaming and stamina-building torture, he was able to bring thirteen lazy teenagers and make them into what he sadly knew was the best they were going to be. When soccer season began for them, it took less than five games for them to get dropped out of the league until the next year.
"Guys, huddle up!" he announced, catching their attention. The lanky athletes gathered around him, taking a knee to the ground and breathing like labored dogs. He held back a sigh at the fact that his team had been in such terrible shape after such a simple workout. "I wish I could say nice huddle, but most of you are slower than a snail and the rest are just as fast as one, after it's been bathed in salt. I want two teams for scrimmage and captains are Skylar and Ash Tompkins."
The Tompkins twins were the best players on the team at playing Soccer and aggravating their Coach's nerves, to the point he willfully pits them against each other at every possible chance. Though they were good at the game, their immediate competitive nature against one another was a godsend, since it gave Elegon the chance to watch the team work together on their own. Though they hadn't been great enough to win an actual game, they were good enough to build their team to the point that they were able to score enough to not be at the bottom of the barrel.
Skylar Tompkins was the eldest twin, but he had a much more mischievous streak than his brother and spent most of his time waiting for Elegon to pull him out of the detention for his pranks. Though he had the grades to stay on the team, he was barely making them and struggling enough to stay in the average classes without dropping to remedial. He spent most of his time trying to build muscle in the weight room, while playing offense on the field at centerfield. His deep blue eyes were possibly the most clichéd about his personality since he was often stereotyped as a stoner.
Ash Tompkins had the unfortunate duty as the younger of the two, but he made up for it with his incredible skill to memorize almost anything he read with his eidetic memory. He was always described as a goody-two-shoes, which was the exact opposite of his delinquent twin and at the top of his class even as a seventh grader. He was made for playing defense as the goalie, even going as far as memorizing every play in the books so no one could sneak up on him. Even though he was completely identical to his twin, he had somehow still managed to look like a genius despite their similarities.
They were both pretty tan for their age, mainly because their parents owned a surf shop at the Shore City beach and they were their most of the time. They had thick, messy, sandy brown hair with bangs, Skylar's on the right and Ash's on the left to tell them apart. They stood at about 5'7", Skylar weighing at about 140 lbs and Ash weighing only at 115 lbs. The most identical trait among them was the wicked smile they both shared when they were up to something that was going to land Elegon in the principal's office, trying to get his star players out of some convoluted troublemaking scheme.
While his players began their game of scrimmage, Elegon took the moment to breathe in the scent of fresh sea air and relaxing for a little while. Unfortunately, the crackling sound of thunder had interrupted his thoughts and he looked up at the sky, amazed at how the clouds had suddenly became so dark. The heavy sound of rain hitting the fields began to creep towards them as he saw the Football and Baseball teams, rushing inside with their coaches. He ended the scrimmage and told them to get into the gym before they were drenched, annoyed at the loss at practice.
The sound of thunder rolled across the sky again, grabbing the Coach's attention as he looked up to see a flash of lightning plaster the horizons. The burst of light painted the clouds with pictures of piles of rocks on grassy fields and fire raining down on them. The scene seemed to move like a roving picture, with the rocks running from the burning sky and they looked down at him with eerie green eyes. He jumped back, terrified of the stares, only to watch as the scene vanished from the skies and were replaced with the dark grey clouds of a thunderstorm.
The sound of car alarms were going off like sirens and the sign above the football field kept blinking ones and zeroes. Elegon felt his skin tingle as he heard the crackling of electricity and the hair on his arms began to stand on end. The air all around him began to spark with small flashes of energy as the rain started to flow backwards into the sky. The ground around him started to vibrate to the point he fell backwards, only to feel himself hover off the ground. Another roll of thunder filled the air as he felt his entire body being drawn into the horizon, unable to move from the fear petrifying his body.
"Elegon, eh?" a voice called out. The assistant Coach felt himself being pulled back down to the ground by someone, almost relieved to see the faces of his coworkers. The two assistant coaches pulled him back down, dragging him into school, where he felt the nurturing pull of gravity bring him back to the ground. Elegon felt the sudden crash of Adrenaline and leaned against the wall, unable to tell when he had started to hyperventilate. "The storm out there is insane. Lucky we were there to save your ass again."
Coach Aaron Matthews was the one making the remarks about his traumatizing experience, apparently finding it the perfect time to be an even more inappropriate cocky ass. His voice had the thick accent of a French-Canadian Quebecois, where he had moved from to lives down in the States. His mop of black hair and dark brown eyes were the most alluring parts of his personality when he wasn't speaking French to impress people. His alabaster skin and perfect smile seemed to be a beacon to the absurd amount of overconfidence he seemed to exude in any situation.
"This isn't like any storm I've ever seen," said Coach Angel Diaz. The thick allure of his Cuban accent was strangely intimidating and only contradicting the gentle Hispanic facial features he had. The piercing hazel eyes were like a gateway into his soul and his spiked black hair worked in tandem to create an aura of smugness that he enjoyed. He twisted his fingers around a shark tooth necklace, looking into the horizon with a strangely serious face and even more twisted look in his eyes.
Angel and Aaron had been hired as assistant Coaches at the same time as Elegon, but they were assigned to the football and baseball teams, respectively. Angel had led the Shore City Bulldogs into the district championship and Aaron was busy preparing the Shore City Sharks for the upcoming season, but for all Coach Titty-Mag was concerned, they were the best he had. They racked up more trophies in a year than Elegon cared to admit, which may have honestly been the only reason he hadn't been fired yet.
"Never had one try to suck me into the sky before," Elegon cursed, feeling his heart slowing down. "We might be in Tornado Alley, but we've never had one in Shore City before." The idea of a flash tornado was more terrifying than he could think about, but he tried to focus on something else while the storm died down. He managed to stand up and walk away from the other two, deciding that he'd rather be alone than listen to the condescending banter from them.
He found his way to the locker room and walked into the Coach's office, scaring his boss yet again, who was mindlessly scarfing down a Subway sandwich. The wave of nausea that hit him was completely accurate to describe the disgusting way he was tearing through his food. "Damn it man! You're making Jared wish he never even went in that restaurant." It was hard for him to find any respect for someone like Coach Jenson, but what little he managed to scrap up, he usually lost almost immediately.
"You talk a lot of smack for a complete failure," he snapped back, spitting up several pieces of lettuce and ham. "I don't see a damn thing for those Seagulls, not even a stupid ribbon for trying, and I'll be a monkey's uncle before I allow you to stand there and mock your superior." He bit into the sandwich again and nearly made Elegon dry heave with disgust, forgetting all about his terrifying trauma. Angel and Aaron walked into the office, getting full-mouthed greeting from Jenson and somehow finding a way to annoy Elegon to the point he started to grind his teeth.
"What's wrong Elegon?" Aaron asked. "Angel and me are the only ones that should be pissy, eh? I'm gonna have to double up on practice tomorrow with the Sharks. Can't have my star players lose their edge cause of some Yankee showers and whatever you States try to pass off as a humidex down here. I almost envy you and those dainty Seagull hosers, right?" The Canadian gave Coach Jenson a high-five, almost like he was being praised to tease the struggling kids or winning a game of Pissing-Off-Elegon.
"Talk about a bunch of pathetic pendejos," Angel joined in. "My Bulldogs would run your tiny mierdas into the ground like the dirt they are." The bulky Cuban leaned back against the wall, looking directly at a picture of his team after they won the District Trophy. Elegon hated the way they were talking about him, but he knew that he didn't have a choice. Aaron wasn't much for fighting, but Angel had been an MMA Fighter before he came to Shore City and still had the massive muscles from his training.
"Looks like little Elegon wants to drop the gloves, eh?" Aaron said, playing Devil's advocate. "I'd love to see his face after you knock him a klick away, right Angel?" Since he was only eighteen and both of the other assistant Coaches were twenty-five, they would call him little and treat him like a child. Despite the fact that they were doing the same job as someone his age, they still found a way to seem superior to him. "I'd love to see the little hoser try to stick up for himself."
"You wanna fight me, huh Mariquita?" Angel smiled, cracking his knuckles. "Is the little desviado gonna cry all the way back to high school? Oh, that's right, you skipped getting a diploma because you were bored and then got a job, coaching a failing team. Your mother must be proud." Elegon bit his tongue as he stormed toward the door, done listening to the insults to his team. Angel stepped in front of the doorway, glaring straight into Elegon's eyes and breathing so heavily that he could feel it hit his face like a slap of intimidation. "You better watch yourself, pinche fresa."
Before he had the chance to stop himself, Elegon felt his hand clench into a fist and was already in motion. Angel moved harmlessly passed the sloppy punch and grabbed his forearm, tossing him into the wall without even trying. The heavy thud of his body hitting the ground felt like being hit by a bus, which left him gasping for air and hoping his back wasn't broken. Coach Jenson, Angel and Aaron walked out of the office, each of them laughing at the disheveled boy lying on the ground.
The sudden silence left in the office was like a mocking reminder of how little Elegon mattered at his job and in life. Unlike the rest of his friends at his boarding house, he was an unclaimed orphan, so he didn't have the luxury of having a family and he hated being reminded of it. It was a subject so touchy that he didn't even celebrate his birthday, given that it was just a guess made from a social worker. He resented the idea of being teamed up on, especially when he was alone and not even strong enough to physically stand on his own two feet when he was being bullied as an adult.
The surprising vibration coming from his pocket had startled him, fearful that Angel was coming back to finish the job, until he realized it was just his phone. When he looked at it, his face twisted in confusion at the strange e-mail he was receiving from his housemate, Kahlya. Can you meet me at locker 095? I need your help with something really important. Don't tell anyone you're coming. The cryptic wording was almost enough to throw him off, but he took the message as a godsend to get away from the coaches.
Elegon picked himself off the floor and made his way down the hall, hoping none of his kids would see him and lose face. He almost fell to the ground, but someone had helped him from falling, embarrassing him and was luckily too tall to be in middle school. His bright blue eyes were more intimidating than anyone he had ever met and he felt a strange kinship with this complete stranger that was covering himself in a brown robe with his hood on. He could barely make out the small freckles on his face and the short brown hair that was peeking out from under his hood. "Thanks," Elegon said.
"If you keep your friends close and your enemies closer, how do you tell them apart?" the man asked. His voice was thick with an Irish accent and his cryptic question had left Elegon in the dark, but he didn't get the chance to ask him what he meant when the boy rushed hurriedly down another hall. The assistant Coach hadn't the time to think much of him, but his strangely worded question made him curious what he was talking about, but it had to wait since Kahlya needed him.
By the time he got to the end of the hallway, he realized he didn't hear the sound of rain falling anymore and looked outside to see that the entire storm had passed in less than an hour. He opened the doors, getting hit with the familiar smell of fresh sea air and already shrugging off his hate like a bad dream. If anything could make him feel grounded, it was the smell of his favorite town and remembering the greatest part of living in Shore City was that every day was like a vacation.
"Coach!" someone yelled. Elegon turned to see Skylar running toward him with his soccer bag and his lucky ball, surprised to see that he had forgotten it in his rush to leave. "You forgot your stuff!" The twin smiled awkwardly as his Coach ruffled his hair and took his bag, thanking him and running off down the street and out of sight. Skylar then took out a can of spray paint and headed toward the parking lot, already having the perfect prank in store for Coach Diaz and Coach Matthews.
The roar of cars passing him by were the most annoying thing with his jog toward the High School, but he found himself suddenly wondering about what that storm had shown him. When it came to stuff about monsters and mythologies, Elegon was more of a genius than the people who actually wrote the stories about them. When he saw the eyes on those rocks, he could've sworn that they looked like golems, but most legends stated that they were more like solid rock structures, not connected rubble.
The more he thought about it, the stranger it seemed that he was being pulled into the sky, but Angel and Aaron were standing firm on the ground enough to pull him back down. In fact, it seemed strange that any electrical storm could have such an effect on cars like that one had and make the rain flow backwards into the clouds. He wasn't one for meteorology, but maybe Kahlya could explain what happened when he met her, since she was a lot smarter than him when it came to science.
By the time he finally made it to the school, he realized that it was past lunch and he was feeling incredibly hungry. The growling response from his stomach was torture as he made his way into the school, wishing he actually was still enrolled so he could go to the cafeteria. He stopped at a vending machine, putting in a dollar and getting lucky enough to get two chocolate bars instead of just one. Despite having a bag full of granola bars handy, he wasn't willing to eat them unless it was an actual last resort and fortunately, it wasn't.
He walked down the familiar halls of the high school, not feeling any nostalgia from his short three years of having to drudge through them. When he got his G.E.D., he knew he wasn't missing much and at the time, he didn't have Nyssa and the others to keep him company, so he didn't make any friends. When you don't have anything to tie you down, it was easy to slip away and that was the unofficial motto for Elegon's life in more ways than one. When he found locker 095, he pulled his phone and texted Kahlya, wondering where she was and leaned back against the locker door.
The clanking sound of metal banging was a late warning as the lockers opened and Elegon fell into the newly opened doorway. Caught off balance, he stumbled back until he tripped and fell down the stairs, tumbling toward the bottom with the lockers closing behind him automatically. The narrowness of the stairway left him feeling too awkward to find a way to steady himself and he kept rolling until he hit the ground of the passageway. His lucky ball fell out of his bag, stuck somewhere along the staircase and out of his possession.
Elegon stood up, brushing himself off and marveling at the fact he hadn't broken anything with his stupidly reckless fall. He took the moment to look at the room, seeing several computers lines up in a circle around some huge silver cylinder with a bunch of other techy stuff lining the wall. He laughed to himself, wondering if Kahlya had known about this place and knowing she'd have an orgasm at the sight of this complete waste of money. He walked up to what he was pretty sure was Kahlya's laptop, seeing a copy of the message he was e-mailed and looked around for the girl.
"Anyone here?" he asked aloud. The powerful whirring of the silver cylinder had caught his attention as a pulsing red light began to emit from it. When he took a closer look at it, he saw the symbol of a tree and the name Yggdrasil underneath it. The rush of information under the name of Yggdrasil had hit him almost instantly, amazed at the symbol for Norse Mythological World Tree. He walked around the cylinder, brushing dust off of it and revealing nine USB ports, each named after one of the nine realms that were connected through Yggdrasil and felt his inner geek bright up.
"You look interested," a voice said. Elegon stood up, looking around the room, but didn't see anyone nearby and thought he was hearing voices. "I'm sorry. Let me introduce myself, my name is C.A.P.R.I. and that stands for Computerized Assisting Processor of Refined Information. I'm an Artificial Intelligence system and I need your help, Elegon Laze." The boy took a step back from the computers, the hair on the back of his neck standing on end from the chilling feeling of having a robot talk to him.
"Don't leave," she begged. "I was the one that sent the message to you, I needed you to come here so that you can hopefully stop the end of the world. Elegon Laze, you have been chosen to stop the destruction of humanity and prevent the apocalypse." A projector turned itself on and broadcasted a countdown clock across the wall, which was only a few minutes from ending. Elegon recognized the name across the top of the screen, Ragnarok, and wondered if it had any connection to Yggdrasil and the nine realms or whatever the thing was in the middle of the room.
"Look, you have the wrong guy," Elegon apologized. "I'm no hero and whatever you think you know about me is probably just some elaborate joke that Kahlya set up. If you need help stopping the destruction of anything, I suggest calling the government for help. So, good luck with whatever and I'm not gonna fall for it Kahlya!" He started to walk towards the staircase, but the strong whining pitch erupting from the computers sent him to his knees instead.
"This is no joke," Capri told him. "If you don't help me, when this clock reaches zero, Shore City will be doomed and nothing will stop him from destroying everything in his path. Please, I just need you to put your hand on The Gateway and I can prove to you that this is real." Elegon sighed, knowing that Kahlya wouldn't hesitate to blast his eardrums again if he didn't play along and decided to lay both of his hands on the cylinder. The sudden zap of electricity that had hit him worse than anything he ever felt in his entire life, like a bolt of lightning or being zapped by a laser.
The cylinder began to whir louder and louder, the red light growing until it spread across the entire room. Elegon tried to take his hands off of it, but he couldn't move and he felt himself slowly passing out from the pain of the electrical shock. The countdown clock had come to a sudden stop with less than thirty seconds left until it ended and all of the computers shut off in total unity. Elegon looked at his palms and saw the skin on the back of his hands being ripped apart, revealing a hidden white side to his blemish and finishing the yin/yang symbol. Before he felt himself go unconscious, he found the surprising realization that the dots in the middle of the symbol were glowing red just like the cylinder.
Elegon fell to his knees, unable to stand and the cylinder gave off one more strong blast of electricity and hitting him with enough force that he screamed out in pain. His entire body began to vibrate with electricity until he started to fade away like a ghost, disappearing into the center of the cylinder. His cries of pain were drowned out as he was sucked into Yggdrasil and vanished from the room, leaving almost no trace of ever having been there in the first place.
The short-lived silence in the room was disrupted by the heavy stomping of Kole as he ran into the room, holding the soccer ball and looking around confused. He checked his phone, seeing an alarm alert from his computers and perplexed as to why nothing was there, hoping it was just a glitch. He saw Kahlya's laptop and realized that the girl must've came back down here and set off the alarm, more than likely hitting something with her stupid ball and shutting off all the computers. He hit the reboot on the Gateway and felt a small bit of static energy hit his finger, feeling a strangely copper taste hit his mouth.
He looked down at one of the computer screens and saw that the Project Whispered had finished downloading, curiously opening it. The program had opened a dark screen, which slowly morphed into an array of ones and zeroes that hypnotized Kole into mindlessly watching it. The pupils in his eye started to turn pitch black until the program ended and self-deleted itself. He shook his head, his pupils slowly turning back to white and regaining his composure.
"What was I doing down here?" he wondered aloud. He waited for a response from Capri, but she hadn't answered him and he saw the soccer ball in his hands. "Damn it Kahlya." He cursed the girl as he stormed back up the stairs, his pupils flashing between white and pitch black, while a shadowed cloud escaped his breath. He felt the cold chill of something creeping up his back, ignoring it and hoping it went away.
The Gateway started to whir to life again, this time blinking a bright red light over one of the USB ports labeled Jötunheimr with the port releasing a brief white light before the machine turned off yet again. The sound of Elegon's scream escaped into the air again, this time only for a moment before leaving the room in silence with the Gateway completely shut off, Elegon gone without a trace and Project Whispered destroyed after being activated. The Gateway let off a slow steam and drenched the floor in its own mysterious fog while a strange figure walked down the stairs.
"I hope he's the one," the boy said, moving the hood from his head. "The fate of mankind rest on the shoulders of a kid and not a bright one at that." The bright blue eyes of the stranger were the last to see the Gateway before he walked towards it, touching his hand on it and disappearing into a bright white light. The sound of his question filling the empty silence; If you keep your friends close and your enemies closer, how do you tell them apart?