Ok, it's up!
I'm in the middle of the next chapter and I have a few essays due next week, so it could be another week before the next update, but I'll try my best!
Just thought I'd tell you guys, it's going to be at least two chapters before Izzie and Balthazar actually know they meet (You'll see what I mean when you read this) , so that's basically when the real plot is going to emerge. Hang tight!
Disclaimer: Don't own it! (I'm sure you know what I'm talking about)
The Twin
Of Figurative Urns, Steel Eagles, and Sorcery 101
Fifteen years later... To the day
David Stutler was having a good day.
First of all, his twin sister was coming in town for his birthday, and he hadn't seen her in over a year. When they had both gone off to college, her to Brown and him to NYU, he had felt like something was missing from his life. Plus, he had been wanting to show her his project on Tesla Coils for a while now, and now he finally had the chance to do so.
Second of all, he had run into the girl that he had had a crush on all the way back in fourth grade. She had been in the same class he was giving his physics presentation to, and it felt so weird to see her again after fifteen or so years. He and Isadora had transferred to another elementary school after his 'accident'. He had then walked the very attractive Becky Barnes to her radio station and fixed her satellite, hopefully impressing her. Though Becky seemed like a hard girl to impress, especially by a nerdy, freakish twenty-five year old like him.
Her infatuation with music had made him listen closer to the sounds coming from his coils. He had found something incredibly beautiful tonight, and it was all because of the blonde angel who he had reunited with when presenting to an lower physics class.
Who knew Professor Heiderman would do me so much good one day?
SASASASA
Balthazar POV, more or less
Balthazar was feeling the odd sensation of falling.
As he was getting pulled out of the literal urn he'd been stuck in for the past fifteen years, he realized he was falling.
He barely had enough time to latch his fingers onto a window sill. Only seconds later, the sound of shattering porcelain filled his ears. 'I bet that least favorite wife is smiling down on me now,' he thought wryly.
Unfortunately, his ring-adorned hands weren't exactly strong enough, sorcerer or not, to hold onto window sills for long periods of time.
Luckily he was very close to the street, though it still hurt when he landed on the sidewalk with a loud thump.
He suddenly felt the sensation of pressure on his left side and heard another thump on his right, almost immediately followed by a groan of pain.
"I'm such a klutz!" he heard the lady, at least he thought it was a woman, say. Unless it was a man with a really high-pitched voice.
"Sorry sir! Are you okay?" she asked him.
"Fine," Balthazar replied, still with his face practically in the ground. He was too exhausted to be chivalrous and look the woman who had tripped over him in the eye.
He heard the girl's soft clinking footsteps as she stood and walked away.
'What an odd experience!' Balthazar thought. 'Well, I guess not as strange as being stuck in an urn for the past fifteen years.'
The sorcerer headed for the Chrysler Building, knowing his old pet was still there waiting for him.
Slight POV change
Isadora walked down the streets of New York, pondering over the stranger she had tripped over while texting her brother she had arrived.
She could've sworn she'd saw a giant eagle flying off in the distance.
SASASA
Dave's morning had taken a sudden turn for the worse.
Just as he'd been trying to get some breakfast, one of the two men he had never wanted to see again scared him out of his pants. The man had then began to talk about his fourth grade essay on Napoleon Bonaparte. He commenced in criticizing it; Dave had written it when he was nine, for God's sake! This guy was absolutely insane.
And now he was being chased by a bunch of hungry wolves.
Did he mention this was the bad guy?
"Kill him," Dave heard the evil man say. He really needed to learn this guy's name.
He saw the wolves lunge towards him, and threw his hands up to protect his face. But what landed on him weren't wolves.
"Puppies?" Dave asked himself, confused.
He heard a grunt come from the roach man-hey, the nickname stuck- and looked up to see what caused it.
"Oh my..." Dave trailed off as he looked up at a giant, steel eagle.
It landed in the middle of the subway tracks and a man appeared on its back. "Where's the doll, Dave?" the man asked in a serious tone.
Dave remembered the guy's name to be Balthazar. He had thought a lot about the guy that had supposedly been a figment of his imagination that had also probably ruined his and his sister's lives. Guess he wasn't a hallucination after all.
Dave noticed the bad guy getting up and pointed at him. "Uh.. Him! Him! Him!" he repeated, hoping Balthazar would notice in time.
Balthazar turned and shot something at the roach man. Dave wasn't sure what it was but it made the cane with the blue stone on it unable to do anything; it looked a lot like water, a very gooey type of water.
Suddenly, Balthazar began shouting at him. "Alright, get up here! Now! Now! Hurry!"
Dave looked behind himself and jumped. The subway train was headed straight for them! Dave scrambled up onto the giant bird while Balthazar did something- probably useful; he was most likely trying to prevent the subway conductor to see the very improbable thing that was going on directly in front of him.
The bird took off and Dave looked back, watching the roach man barely have time to pull himself onto the waiting platform.
'I wish he would've gotten hit by that thing.'
SASASASA
The steel eagle landed with a bang.
Balthazar watched Dave hop down and lean on the rail.
"Oh, this is not happening and I taste sour in my mouth," he groaned, looking about ready to throw up.
"Take it easy, Dave, deep breaths," he offered the boy while stroking the head of the eagle. He pushed it softly towards the railing as if to say, 'rest, you deserve it'. The eagle obediently settled back into its prior position.
"What?" Dave exclaimed, watching, like Balthazar, as the light from the originally steel eagle turned back on. "Aw, now that is not happening!"
Balthazar, just to freak Dave out a little more, picked up a pigeon with a hurt wing and began whispering soothingly to it.
"No, no, no, no you are not doing this to me again!"
Balthazar looked up at the boy.
"Do you have any idea what my life has been like for the last fifteen years?" Dave implored him.
"I've been stuck in an urn for the past fifteen years," Balthazar retorted, wrapping the pigeon's ankle up.
"So have I," Dave returned, desperately trying to think of a good comeback. "A figurative urn of... ridicule."
Balthazar could've laughed at that; it was a good thing he was wittier than the boy.
"Did you know that, in certain parts of the tri-state area, they still refer to having a nervous breakdown as pulling a David Stutler? Did you know that my sister had to go to Brown University to get away from the... ridicule!"
This boy needed to get a more extensive vocabulary. Additionally, Balthazar didn't know the kid had a sister. "I didn't know you had a sister," the sorcerer commented, "much less a smart sister. Brown's a good college."
"Why thank yo- wait, you don't need to know I have a sister! What, are you going to go and stalk her too?" Dave accused protectively.
"Try to be a good listener, Dave," Balthazar admonished him.
Dave shrugged his arms and gave the sorcerer a look; at least now he was listening.
"That doll is called the Grimhold. It is a prison for the most dangerous Morganians in history, each one locked up in a layer of the doll. Horvath wants to free his fellow Morganians and destroy the world," Balthazar informed him.
Balthazar looked straight into Dave's eyes. "This... must... not... happen," he spoke very clearly and seriously, enunciating each word with a wave of his hand.
Dave nodded his head slowly, just staring at him. "Yeah," he agreed, "for sure."
The bird that had been resting in Balthazar's hands flew away as he stood up. "The truth is," Balthazar began, looking deep into Dave's eyes, "you have a very special gift. You need to see that."
"I just," Dave started, throwing his hands into the air, "want to be normal. Normal life... I want to forget about that day at Arcana Cabana... I want to forget about"-he paused for a few seconds, as if thinking of the proper word to use -"magic. I want to forget everything," he shouted, angrily turning away from Balthazar.
The sorcerer looked at the boy's back nearly sympathetically. "You should duck," he offered.
Dave looked up and, when he saw his dresser come shooting towards him, he dropped to his knees, putting hands up to cover his head. The dresser landed with a crash approximately five feet away from him.
"You want to forget magic?" Balthazar mocked him, opening the top drawer. He pulled out two heavy tomes.
"Then why do you have two books about it? One called Arthurian Legends and the other Sorcerers 101. And they're very, very worn," Balthazar accused, dropping them into Dave's hands.
"I was going to sell those... on EBay..." Dave lied.
"You're still a bad liar, Dave," Balthazar retorted. "I like that about you," he added. "It's a good sign."
"You have the gift."
"I have a life!" Dave returned.
"You're the last person Horvath saw with the Grimhold. That puts you on his list. So unless you want him to turn you into a pig that just loves physics, then you better help me find that doll before he does!" Balthazar reasoned.
"This is crazy," Dave stuttered, walking over to put the books back in the dresser. "You know how crazy this is, right?"
"Alright," Balthazar started. "Alright... You help me get it back? You're done."
"Really?" Dave asked suspiciously.
"You can walk away," Balthazar answered. "But first, do you happen to have that ring I gave to you fifteen years ago? It's very important."
Dave looked kind of sheepish. "Uh.. You know that sister I mentioned? Yeah, well, I told her she could borrow it. She wanted to research it. She had some sort of feeling, she said, that it had to do with her current study."
"What's her current study?" Balthazar asked.
"King Arthur... the round table... Merlin and all that stuff."
"I wonder if she found what she was looking for?" Balthazar whispered under his breath. Louder, he said, "You need to get that ring back, but for now, I have a spare."
"You have a spare magical ring?" Dave repeated, cracking the first smile that Balthazar had actually seen from him.
"You never know," the sorcerer replied. He began to walk towards the steel eagle.
"One more thing, Balthazar," Dave called to him.
"Yes?"
"Can you please put my dresser back?"
Balthazar ignored him and jumped onto the eagle.
"Oh no... please don't do that!" Dave called, rushing after him. "What are you doing?"
Balthazar stretched out his arms and moved his hands in a 'come hither' motion.
The skies darkened and thunder rumbled over an area not too far from them.
"Whoa, what is that?" Dave asked.
"It's my Grimhold tracking device," Balthazar replied. "Biometric pressure spell displaces the atmosphere above the doll.
"Looks like downtown."
SASASASA
"If we can track the Grimhold, then so can Horvath," Balthazar informed Dave.
They were walking through a tunnel to where Balthazar said his car was parked. Supposedly, Balthazar actually had a working car.
"So why don't we just take the eagle?" Dave wondered.
"Too high profile for a trip downtown," Balthazar explained, handing his license-Dave had no idea how Balthazar got that- to the guy who was watching over the pound.
As the man saw what car Balthazar was headed towards, he observed, "I have to call you a tow."
"Won't be necessary," Balthazar put his hand up.
"Yeah, but, this car has been impounded for, like, fifteen years," the man argued.
Dave was looking at a really, really old car. He wasn't into cars so he didn't know what kind it was, but it looked like those cars you see in those musical 60s movies.
"And this is low profile," Dave could've laughed.
He watched as Balthazar just snapped his fingers and the decrepit car came to life. "She missed me," Balthazar cooed to the car.
'Okay,' Dave thought, a little bit freaked out by Balthazar's display. 'So he really likes cars, like every other guy on this planet except me.'
As they drove out of the impound, Balthazar realized this boy had to be taught at least the fundamentals of sorcery or else he wouldn't be able to do any good at all. Horvath would just utterly take him out.
"I'm going to give you the basics, the real Sorcery 101," he started, referring to Dave's magic books. "Put on the ring," he commanded.
"Uhhh..." Dave began.
"Nothing's going to happen," Balthazar interrupted.
"Yeah?" Dave looked a little worried. He put on the ring.
Just to make fun of him, Balthazar, out of the blue, swerved the car to the right. Dave let out a girlish scream.
"Kidding," Balthazar said when Dave turned to look at him.
"You've heard how people use only ten percent of their brains? Sorcerers can manipulate matter because they are born with the capability to use the entire power of their brains. Which also explains why molecular physics comes so easily to you."
"So wait," Dave interrupted, "is sorcery science or magic?"
"Yes and yes," Balthazar replied. "For now, all you need is a basic combat spell: making fire." He paused for a minute, letting that sink in. "What causes molecules to heat up?"
"They vibrate," Dave answered.
"Everything we see is in a constant state of vibration, thus the illusion of solidity," Balthazar continued. "But how do we take that which appears solid and have it burst into flames? We will the vibrations to go faster."
"Step one," Balthazar made a wiping motion with the hand not on the steering wheel, "clear your mind. Step two: see the molecules. Step three: make them shake."
Dave watched as the parking ticket a policeman was putting on the car next to them burst into flames. The officer desperately attempted to put it out.
"Got it?" Balthazar asked Dave.
"No! I definitely don't 'got it'!" Dave exclaimed.
"Trust the ring, Dave," Balthazar soothed. "And keep it subtle," he added, "civilians must not know magic exists; that would be complicated."
"Says the guy in the three-hundred and fifty year old raw-hide trench coat," Dave retorted.
"Now would be a good time to call your sister," Balthazar said, changing the subject.
SASASASA
Isadora was just about to call her brother about where she'd stay the night, when he called her.
"Hey Izzie?"
"Yeah? Do you need anything?"
"Yeah, do you still have that dragon ring I gave you a while ago?"
"Yes, I was going to give it back to you when I saw you. Hey, did you know that that ring was Merlin's about 1300 years ago? When he was dying, he gave it to his second apprentice, Balthazar, so he could find... someone. That's as far as the records got me."
Balthazar's head snapped towards the phone Dave was holding. The boy wasn't sure if he was meant to hear it, but he heard Balthazar mumble, "I didn't know there were that many records."
Dave placed his hand over the mouthpiece. "There probably weren't; my sister is a very determined person though."
"Dave? Do you know of any place I can spend the night?"
"Yeah, my lab has a extra bed; I've been sleeping there most of the time. Plus, I can't wait to show you my Tesla coils!"
"Definitely. Dave?
"What is it?"
"What's going on, Dave?"
"Really? How did you guess? You're as bad as Balthazar!"
"Who's Balthazar?"
Oops
"Izzie, if I tell you something very important and kind of unbelievable, would you not freak out?"
Balthazar looked at him sharply, eyes wide.
"Depends on how ludicrous it is."
"First, stop using big words you know I don't know; second, I'm a... magical being of some significant importance."
"You mean... a sorcerer?"
"Exactly! Look sis, I know this is hard to believe but-"
"It's okay, Dave, just prove it to me later. I'll be at your lab with the ring around five o'clock."
"Okay, see you then."
Dave snapped the phone shut and looked up at Balthazar.
"You do realize you just told her the most important secret of all time that I just said all civilians must not know, right?" Balthazar informed him.
"But she's my sister, Balthazar," Dave pleaded. "Plus, if I hadn't told her, she would've found out anyways. She's kind of like you in that way."
"She sounds like she messes with you a lot," Balthazar commented.
"Yeah..."
"I like her already."
SASASASA
There's going to be a LOT of magical rings in this, so don't get confused. I had to make sure Isadora had the ring so I could bring her into the story!
Oh, and a I'll give anyone who guesses what part in here is from National Treasure a digital cookie and a line from the last chapter (Don't ask). PM me the answer.
Hint: Abigail meets Ben
Sorry, I had to do it!
Love, lala
