The Book of Rahn
Yay! Here we go with my all-new fic. Unlike Sweet Sixteen, this isn't an S&S romance. Has anyone noticed the lack of fan fiction about Zachary? Yeah that's right, the one that never opens his eyes. This one's about his adventures in high school, and it involves a new breed of card, so here it is and it'll keep coming…
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Zachary rolled out of bed and hit the floor with a thud.
"Zachary! You're going to be late for school!" his mother shouted up the stairs.
"I'm sick! I'm not going today!"
"Nice try! You can't pull that on me mister so get down here!"
Zachary groaned and rolled his eyes. He got dressed quickly and ran down stairs, grabbing a burnt piece of toast and running out the door with his backpack over one shoulder.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"We will now hear your report on GMOs, Zachary."
"No you won't." he said simply as the rest of the class settled down.
"We will if you don't want to fail this project. I already gave you an extension when your poor mother got hit by a bus and you had to stay with her in the hospital, so where is it?"
"My dog ate it."
"Oh really? Is that the same dog that died last Tuesday?" The class snickered.
"No," he began without a care, "This is a different one. His name is Sparky and he has floppy ears."
"Zachary I've had enough of this. You're just wasting the class' time now. Get out."
He shrugged as he gathered his books. "Where do you want me to go?" he asked.
"I don't care. Just go."
"I'm going to have a long talk with that dog when I get home!" he said angrily, then slammed the door. A grin spread across his face as he paused outside the door and heard the laughter of his classmates following his exit.
He loved being the resident class clown. The job had its perks. For example, he just got out of class and now he had a spare period to do whatever he wanted. He decided to go visit Sakura Avalon, one of his closest friends at school, who was home sick for the day. He laughed to himself wondering why that excuse never worked for him.
He rang the doorbell and a minute later a very disheveled Sakura appeared at the doorway with a box of Kleenex under one arm and a glass of orange juice in her hand.
"Good morning sunshine." He said as she squinted at him.
"Come in." she pulled him inside quickly.
"Uh oh, someone's playing hooky!" he teased.
"Oh give me a break. It's not like I do it often!" she chugged the O.J. and tossed the Kleenex onto the couch. "What do you want?"
"Just came by to cheer you up. I got kicked out of English."
"Oh. Well you can't watch TV, the cable's disconnected."
"You feel like having some pizza? My treat."
"Absolutely. You have no idea how draining it is to pretend you're sick."
"Yes I do. I just never get away with it. See, you would 'never' do something like fake a disease, so that's why you get away with it."
"Don't blow my cover and you'll stay alive. You can use the phone in my dad's study. Just don't touch anything."
"Yes ma'am." He did some kind of salute and headed off to Aden Avalon's study.
He flipped through the phone book for a while till he found the number and then picked up the receiver and dialed.
"Busy," he said to himself, "How many people can possibly be ordering pizza at ten thirty AM?" he hung up the phone, planning to call back in a minute. But then he noticed something out of the corner of his eye on the bookshelf to his left. It was a blue book with gold trim around it. He walked over and picked it up, feeling drawn to it for some reason. He picked it up and examined the cover. On the front cover was a picture of a mask smiling, and on the back was one frowning. They looked just like those you would see at a theatre or a play. He heard the door creak open and looked up to see Sakura in her pajamas with fuzzy pink bunny slippers, tapping her foot on the floor in an annoyed fashion.
"I thought I said not to touch anything."
"Sorry Sakura. I just…had to."
"Did you order the pizza?"
"No. The line was buy."
Sakura walked over to Zachary and stood across from him.
"What's this book about?" He asked her.
Actually, that's what she'd been trying to figure out for the past two months with the help of a certain yellow beast and her partner in crime, Li Syaoran. They all agreed that it looked a lot like the Clow book.
"I don't know, but it's my fathers, so leave it alone."
"I won't hurt it. I just want to look, that's all." Before she could stop him, Zachary had somehow broken the seal. A flash of white light came from the open book, and with the sound of a sneeze (?), a bunch of cards swirled out of it and into the early afternoon breeze that was coming through the open window.
Zachary dropped the book in surprise as all this was happening.
"Next time you tell me not to do something I'll take your word for it!" he yelled over the sound of gusting wind.
"Too late now!" she yelled back.
Within a minute it was all over, or so Zachary thought. Sakura had already caught on. After all, it happened to her once already. Just as Zachary was about to go to the window to see if he could see any of the cards floating around out there, she put an arm out to hold him back.
"Wait." She said, closing her eyes, counting to ten, hoping the anger would subside.
Right on cue, a winged creature began to emerge from the book. Zachary stared in shock. Once the little beast stopped glowing, Sakura had to choke back the waves of laughter that were threatening to overtake her. It was a winged monkey.
It yawned and blinked at Sakura a couple times, who pointed to Zachary as if to say 'Don't look at me. He did it.'
By now Zachary had already began humming the theme music of the Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz with a very puzzled expression on his face. That expression became even more puzzled when it flew up in his face and began to speak in a British accent.
"You're the one are you?" he seemed to be examining Zachary. Sakura finally let the laughter come. The monkey sighed. "I knew this would happen sooner or later. Right then, I'd better explain all this, hadn't I? God knows I've rehearsed this speech enough; I've only been in there the past two hundred years. Now then, my name is Quan, and…what seems to be the problem miss?" He put his paws on his hips, looking very insulted, and turned to Sakura, who was snorting back giggles.
"It's just…HA! Sorry…never mind. I'll stop."
"Thank you. Now as I was saying, my name is Quan. I am the Guardian Beast of the Book of Rhan, which you have just opened, releasing the Rhan cards on the world. Now you must capture them before they cause mass destruction, and so on, etcetera. I will be your guide, and you are my master until the end of days. Do you have any questions?"
"Yeah," Zachary said. "Is this a joke?"
Quan, looking very dapper, blinked at him again. "Why, my good boy, would I kid you about this?"
At this point Sakura snuck out to the living room to get Kero-Chan to come and see what was happening.
"What?!" he screamed. "The book of Rhan?! No Way! This I HAVE to see." He flew off to the study ahead of Sakura.