Strange Occurrences:

Chapter 1

Note to readers: This story is an idea that my friend Knuckles620 thought up. 90% of the credit for the idea goes to her, with the other 10% being my addition of a few characters and plot points. Oh and, before I get any snide comments about this, it is an OC only story so please keep your comments about there being no canon characters to yourself, and instead criticise any ACTUAL mistakes I made writing this. And I might change the title of the story and re-upload it if I can think of a better title.

'Ah, the beautiful Eastern England countryside; miles and miles of grassy fields as far as the eye can see and a cool breeze that sends chills down your spine. Hanging out in rural areas where everyone knows everyone, being able to just go anywhere and relax without a care in the world. No loud car drivers beeping at one another as they cut each other off at a T-junction, no rushing to work in some boring old office to worry about. Oh yeah, a bloke could get used to this...'

Those were the words of Jake McEllen; a London-born, now currently Sudbourne-based, 17 year old. Jake, the cityboy turned country lad, had been born and raised in London's West-End. He was working class, but had bigger dreams of simply becoming a postman or working at the nearest McDonalds Drive-Thru. He left the horn-blaring and hoody-wearing streets of London at the age of 14 to move to the country-side with his older sister after displaying an aptitude for Archeology and Mobian/Bakarian history and artefacts. Seeking to combine the two Jake used his, as he calls it, 'Archeologist's Sixth Sense' to begin searching underground for said historic artefacts. Lo and behold, he would actually succeed and located a treasure trove of artefacts varying from ancient Roman Britain, Mobius or Bakare. And this is where our story begins, as we now find Jake stood on the top of a grassy hill, gazing peacefully up into the sky.

A field on the outskirts of Sudbourne

11:48am

Jake wasn't really a guy you could call 'out-of-the-ordinary'. He was just a normal British boy of roughly 5 feet 8 inches tall, normal build, a hairstyle that resembled a floor mop and a vocabulary that was comprised only of retorts and sarcastic statements...okay, maybe he was a bit out of the ordinary, but not much. Anyway, today Jake was sporting his usual style of clothing; baggy denim jeans, white trainers, his big black coat with a hood outlined with fur that concealed a T-shirt underneath and a black and white checkered neckerchief that hung loosely out of his jeans back pocket. His thick, but unusually light, brown mop of hair swayed in the cooling breeze, his fringe coming to rest just below his eyes. His fringe was split up into bangs, allowing him to see easier without his hair getting in the way. His eyes were a dark brown, but had something of a shine to them, that went well with his gentle smile that rarely seemed to disappear.

Jake simply stood there, gazing up to the sky, with his hands stuffed inside his big coat pockets, closing his eyes and sighing contently whenever the wind ruffled his hair slightly. It was then that the sounds of heavy panting came to his ears, and he slowly glanced over his shoulder. There, ever so slowly clambering his way to the small flat part of the aforementioned hill, was an out of breath blonde boy, roughly about the same age and height as as Jake, crawling on his hands and knees towards him. His buzz-cut hair was drenched with sweat, and his piercing blue eyes glared at Jake like he was about to brutally murder him.

"I...haa...I swear on...my life that...if you make me climb...whew...one more hill...I will take...jeez...take one of those artefact thingies...and shove it so far up your arse..." the boy said as he managed to will himself up on one knee. Jake simply rolled his eyes, taking his hands out of his pockets, and walked over to the boy. He extened his hand for the boy to take, which he did, and Jake helped him to his feet.

"For the love o' Pete, yer really outta shape Reece. You've got the coun'ryside navigation skills of a spoon, an' the attention span ta match" teased Jake, mimicking Reece's exhaustion by faking to have an asthma attack. He clutched his heart and dramatically fell to both knees, thrusting one arm into the air in a 'Why me!' sort of fashion.

Reece's glare never let up, even at the humorous sight of Jake's melodramatic acting. "You country folk. You're proper weird you are" he scolded, folding his arms. Jake stopped acting and grinned. He loved being annoying, simply because he liked to laugh at his friends' suffering. Sure it sounded horrible and evil on paper, But Jake and his friends all ended up laughing once they realised how childish they'd been. "Aw, c'mon Reece. Us coun'ry folk ain't no wackier than you city-boys. It's them blarin' 'orns on the cars that everyone got. I cannae understand how ya get ta sleep at night" Jake explained, resulting in an agitated grunt from Reece.

"Whatever. Just get to the point already"

"The point?"

"Yeah"

"What point?"

"The point that you dragged me all the way from London to Sudbourne for, you twit. What you said you'd found here"

"Ohh, that" Jake nodded his head in understanding before turning his back to Reece and spreading his arms wide. "This is it!" he exclaimed, grinning. The following ten seconds of silence seemed to go on for an eternity, before Jake finally turned to see Reece's eyes practically burning with rage. Reece stormed upto Jake, getting right in his face, and stood there.

"..."

"..."

"...YOU DRAGGED ME A STUPID NUMBER OF MILES AWAY FROM LONDON TO SOME RANDOM FIELD IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE JUST FOR THE VIEW!" he roared into Jake's face. Jake stumbled backwards, almost knocked over by the sheer force that Reece's gruff voice had. Jake's first reaction was a look of complete and utter bewilderment.

"The vie-" he began, but then slapped his forehead and instead moved closer to Reece. He put his hands either side of Reece's head, turned it to the right and pushed it down so that he was looking down the hill. Reece's eyes widened in amazement at what he saw. "Wha...How..." he stuttered.

"Maybe ya should use yer eyes next time, ya div" he scolded, following Reece's look down. At the bottom of the hill they were on was a massive missing patch of the grassy knoll below, approximately the length and width of two regulation football pitches. The grass had been replaced by just dirt, signifying that the grass had been dug up for this, and the missing patch seemed to be quite deep indeed, stretching down about 25 feet. That didn't really hold reece's attention as much as what he could see in the massive patch of dirt. Around three quarters of the dirt was taken up by gleaming pieces of golden metal poking up through the dirt. Reece could see about 40 people in the patch, all working away at doing something to the...whatever it was. Reece assumed they were excavating it.

"How in the name of Winston Churchill did you find that thing!" Reece questioned, with Jake releasing his grip on Reece's head and allowing him to look at him. Jake grinned smugly, lifting one hand to rub the back of his own head.

"Well", he began, "We archeologolical types have a Sixth Sense for finding these kinds of stuff. It just so happens mine is the best there ever was" he continued, his arrgoance beginning to reveal itself like a sore thumb.

"A Sixth Sense...right...I think this countryside stuff has messed with your brain. You even talk like you're from here, but you're not! Must be this 'fresh' air" Reece explained, using finger quotes around the word fresh.

"Coun'ryside air is as fresh as can be. But look, if ya missin' London tha' badly I'll find ya an exhaust pipe ya can suck the air through, city-boy" Jake mocked, prompting a swipe from Reece at grabbing Jake. Jake stepped to the side and then began to pelt it down the hill towards the excavation site. "I'll race ya down there!" he yelled. Reece quickly regained his composure and took off after Jake.

"Get back here!" he yelled as he nearly tripped up. Their laughter could be heard eachoing through the fields as they continued down towards the bottom of the hill.

Meanwhile...

An apartment block in New York

3:57am

It was hardly ever quiet in New York city. What, with it being one of the busiest tourist and shopping destinations in America, even at night the sounds of cars and what-not would be heard constantly. However, this night was different. This night was unusually quiet in the Big Apple, and it was a rarer sight indeed to see most of the room lights in apartment blocks turned off. One apartment block had nearly every light turned off; except ofr one. This one light was in the apartment of Nikki Rains, a girl of around 18 years of age. Her apartment wasn't that big, with the kitchen, bedroom and living room practically being in the same room, but it was cozy none-the-less. Nikki was sat at her computer, in her purple pajamas and slippers. Nikki was quite a good-looking girl. Flowing brown hair and deep forest green eyes added to her looks. Her hair was mostly straight, with her fringe settling just above her eyes.

Nikki was rolling the scroll button on her mouse as she examined an article on the internet. The title of the article read 'Mysterious Artefacts Donated to Natural History Museum from Britain'. Beside her sat a rather large book, open to about a quarter of the way in.

Nikki had fancied herself quite the historian and treasure hunter, specifically in Mobian treasures and gems. She was quite knowledgable on Mobian history, having taken an interest into it earlier in her life. She was fascinated by it all; the priceless gems found each day, the strange items of Mobian origin that were now being found quite frequently in Britain (that she thought was very odd) and the history of Mobius and the race as a whole. She had spent countless hours burning through different books and articles both in and out of the internet.

Nikki reached the bottom of the article, massive black bags hanging under her eyes. She scrolled back up the page. "Just one more article before bed..." she told herself drearily, but she could feel her eyelids closing against her will. Before the last slithers of light from her computer screen vanished from her sight a blip made her jump and she sat up straight, scanning her eyes across the screen for what could've caused the blip. Her eyes were drawn to a pop-up message in the corner of the screen. She read it aloud to herself. "'xXT3H-M45T3R-J4K3Xx has updated his blog. View now?'" she quoted. A small smile reached her lips as she clicked the 'Yes' button on the pop-up. Nikki was immediately re-directed to a page on a website called '.com'. She examined the picture at the top of the page, which was a bird-eye image of a huge, gleaming, golden metal circle, in a massive patch of dirt, in what she assumed to be a field. Nikki read aloud the brief description under the image.

"'Our latest find near Sudbourne. Pretty big, right? I think we're gonna have packaging issues trying to get this thing to New York. :'('" she quoted. Nikki couldn't but giggle slightly at that bad joke. She scrolled down to the comments section, and began typing away. She read her comment over in her head. 'You're such a nerd Jake. :P'. She clicked the send button and waited for about twenty seconds. A comment appeared above hers from 'xXT3H-M45T3R-J4K3Xx', that stated: 'At least I do my research outside, not staying in my house all the time like a hermit. ;)'. Nikki shook her head at the inside insult and smirked, typing away again.

'Hey, I get outside to do my research. I have to go to the library and bookstores sometimes, so hah. Not a hermit'

'Ooh, sorry. No trouble mate. I didn't know you went to the library. Please don't hurt me. /sarcasm Speaking of research, how're things going on your end? Any luck with those markings we found on that vase-thing?'. Nikki had been afraid he would ask this. She typed her answer, and then clicked send.

'Nothing. No archives, books, articles, no anything on those stupid markings. :('. Another twenty seconds went by.

'Darn it. I thought we were getting somewhere with those. Maybe you're just looking in all the wrong places. Maybe I should come over to America and teach you how to be a proper treasure hunter. Har har. XD'

'Feh. I could out-treasure hunt you any day of the week. XP'. Nikki glanced at her clock and saw the time.

"4:11 in the morning! Jeez, I need to sleep" she muttered to herself, before typing away on her keyboard again.

'Sorry Jake, it's really late now. I need to go to sleep. .' she typed. Jake's response came not long after.

'Alright then. Wouldn't want to keep you out of your beauty sleep. After all, you need it. XD G'night' Nikki read. She smirked and shut down her computer, closing the book next to her and getting up. She flicked off the light switch and walked over to her bed, in a really lazy fashion that resembled a zombie walking. She simply turned around and flopped down onto her bed, closing her eyes. Nikki fell fast asleep almost straight away, sleeping peacefully as she began to dream...

Whew, that's that done. Yeah, that took a bit longer for me to get around to doing than I thought, but it's done and now I can start working on chapter 2, and also my other chapters. Tata for now!

-W1NG3D