Magic: The Gathering and its colors are property and copyrighted by Wizards of the Coast.
Notes: Every so often I'll put these in to reply to reviews. For one, I do apologize for what seems to be a lot of periods. They are actually supposed to be pauses in what the characters thinking, narrating, or saying. But when I send the document to ff.net, it removes the other periods, which are supposed to make it look like a pause, so you'll have to excuse me for that. That is all.
**************
Colors: A Prelude to Death-Green
**************
Hey, my name is Tay, and that's all you really need to know. I don't like to get into much detail, but the others insist I do this, even though it would be easier to say it outright and leave it at that, they're sort of making me do this.
For what seemed like the longest time, nothing extraordinary had ever come up. Those weird human-birds were the last exciting thing to happen, and our so-called "powers" were to be used. Actually, it had only been a couple months, but just from those instances, everything else was becoming dull, and long. But in actuality, we were just anxious, like we were waiting for something to happen. And you know what they say, be careful of what you wish for.
Lessee, it was about, November that something happened to Jack, and the next one was in March, so about four or five months. By that time, we had near but forgotten about our little events. Jesse wasn't much of a talker, Sarah liked for someone else to start a conversation, and I just didn't want to plainly talk about. Jack, however….
"It was so awesome! I mean, making little balls of fire is one thing, but now…."
"You have great balls of fire?" I interrupted, taking a bite of my disgusting cafeteria lunch.
"Goodness gracious." I heard Jesse added monotone. Then Sarah snorted, and even I couldn't help but crack a smile. Even though I was too busy concentrating on ignoring the food, I still knew Jack was passing the entire table glares. But he continued.
"Well, anyway, I was just screwin' around yesterday, you know? Like I always do. And I was just trying out my powers, and tried to create another one of those ball fire thing. But when I was starting to get pissed because nothing was happening, I tried concentrating a little more and…." He looked over to the table were Milfred and his gang sat. He motioned for all of us to come and look. Sitting next to him, I glanced downwards to see him put his hand against the ground. Nothing was happening, so I looked over at Milfred. Then the oddest thing happened, the ground underneath his chair rose up into a very small hill, tipping his chair backwards before smacking his head off the ground. The entire cafeteria burst out laughing as the hill melted back into the ground, unnoticed. When I turned back around, I heard Sarah say.
"That wasn't nice Jack."
"Yeah I know, but the ass deserved it."
I took a drink of my milk and said, "So you can create bumps huh? Must come in handy with your future job selection."
I heard him growl, "What's that supposed to mean?"
I just ignored him this time, but then, what I saw just then, and what I was going to see, was more odd and scarier than anything else that I have ever witnessed.
Across the room, I saw Drake Marshall begin walking around to our side of the room, with a lunch tray in his hands. First of all, Drake NEVER eats lunch. In fact, the only time he did, was when this whole mess with us started. Secondly, he was moving into the crowded section of the cafeteria, and as far as we knew, Drake didn't associate himself with anybody. In fact, second day he was here, some girl asked him out on a date, and he said something like, "Go away woman. I have no time for you." But, after seeing what he did to Milf, I wasn't going to do anything so I continued eating. But when I heard that chair next to me slide out, and that tray hitting the table, and that I was begging to GOD to not be him, I knew it was. My head turned completely around to stare into the side of his face, which was eating at the moment. I then looked over to the others, who had an even more dumbfounded and stupefied look on their face than I did. I then listened that the noises the other kids were making, and there were none. Not only had Drake's quick attitude change shock the hell out of us, it shocked the hell out of the entire classroom too. Even the teacher who's there to watch us was stunned silent. But still, even through all the silence, he continued to eat like normal. I looked over to Sarah and Jesse, mouths still open, and eyeballs still huge. I sorta motioned to them to keep eating, and they reluctantly did. Nobody, and I mean nobody, said nothing the rest of lunch period.
Quick jump to the end of the day, when school was about to close, me and Sarah, who share last period together, were discussing about future plans.
"You wanna do something tonight?" I said, as I usually do. My parents work late almost, every night, so I try and find something interesting to do while their gone, and, besides for Dopey and Grumpy, Sarah was my only good friend, and her parents work a lot too, so it was convenient for both of us.
"Um, okay. Do you think that Jack and Jesse could come along?" She said. I was going to agree, reluctantly, but then the bell rang, so we headed out of our Calculus class, which, I don't mean to brag, is one of my easier subjects. I can tell by your silence that nobody told you that I AM the smartest among the four of us.
We began to walk to our locker near the end of the hall. Sarah divided from me in the middle, as always, and I continue on. As I bent down to pick up some of my bookbag, I felt a cold chill run down my spine. I shot up and came face-to-face with Jack.
"What are you doing?" I hissed at him. He was looking kind of nervous.
"Tay…." He whispered, his eyes darting to his side and me, he then opened up the locker next to me, as if it was his and leaned into me. "The freak's been following me."
"Wha-?" I turned around and looked up. Sure enough, Drake Marshall was near the hall intersection, just standing, and watching us. I turned back to Jack. "Since when have you been so scared of him?"
"I'm not!" He looked around to make sure no one was listening. "He's just weirding me out a little."
"Aw, does the poor wittle baby need big ol' Tay to take cawe of the mean man?" I couldn't resist.
"Does the big whore need wittle Jack to shove her in the locker?" And neither could he. I sighed, and continued our talk.
"Look, he has a locker down here doesn't he? He's probably just being himself and avoiding the crowd."
"He's been following me and Jesse since lunch."
"All in your head. Now Sarah wants you and Jesse to come…."
"What's taking so long Tay?" I heard her gentle voice from behind me. Of course, not expecting it, startled me a little so I whirled around that nearly threw me over. "Sorry," she said, "Jack, are you coming?"
"Yup. Sure am. Long as I'm not here or home, I'll go anywhere."
I finished getting my stuff, and with the others, began walking back down the hall. All the way, that cold chill followed me, because we were being followed.
"Is he still behind us?" I heard Jesse whisper to Jack.
"Yup. Been following me since study hall."
"Who?" Sarah asked.
Jesse did a half-nod behind us, "Drake Marshall. After lunch, he hasn't left a thirty yard radius from us."
"Pheh," I scoffed, "He's not even in any classes with you…."
"That's just it," Jesse interrupted, "We're not supposed to have any classes with him. But every period he's been in the same classes as we have. Mr. Kalina asked him why he was in his class, and Drake just glared at him."
Now I was starting to get worried. I took a quick glance behind us, and sure enough, he was at about thirty yards away from us.
"Okay, so maybe he is following us." I looked down the hall and noticed that it split apart three ways. "There's an intersection up there. Jesse, you go right, Jack, you go left, me and Sarah will keep going straight. We'll meet up at the parking lot" Everyone nodded, and when we reached our destination, we split up. I was walking a little faster, as was Sarah. For a while, I thought he had followed the other two. But when I glanced back…there he was. At that point, anything rational was gone, I grabbed Sarah's hand and we began to run down the hallway. We ran for what seemed like a minute, until we crashed into what I thought was a brick wall. Too bad it wasn't.
"What the fuck?" I heard a heavily-steroid voice say. I looked up and Milfred was just looking down at us. He smiled wickedly and called out to his friends, "Hey look guys. The freaks wandered from their herd!" The sound of laughter filled the hall. I just picked myself up, ignored them, and tried to get out of their quickly. But some people just don't like to give up.
He was quick for a big guy, and he got in front of me in no time. "What's the matter? Getting scared that I might do something to you…little bitch?" I noticed his eyes wander downwards, straight down my shirt. What's there to do? As quick and as hard as I could, I brought my hand around and smacked him right across the face. The mock "oooo's" of his friends made me sick to my stomach. He just wiped his mouth, and glared right at me. I was beginning to get scared. Not because of him, but because if he tried anything I wouldn't have enough control to stop myself from killing him. Luckily, somebody else showed up.
"Leave them alone." I heard a voice from behind me say. I turned around, and both Jack and Jesse were standing their, their brow's furrowed. Milfred chuckled and stood up.
"Or else what?" He said mockingly. Jesse looked over to Jack, who looked back. He then relaxed his arms, smiled and began walking towards us.
"Or else I just may have to hurt you." He said cockily. As he walked past me, I whispered to him.
"Don't kill him."
"Yeah yeah."
I stood by Jesse and Sarah, Sarah being a little more worried about the fight. Milfred cracked his knuckles, and wound up to punch Jack. As he swung, I barely managed to see Jack grab his arm, duck under it, and elbow Milfred right in the stomach, all in a split second. He wound back, choking, gasping for air, as his friends began to circle around him. The commotion quieted down for a while, Milfred glaring at Jack through the arms of the other jocks. He then yelled and charged straight at him. Jack ducked out of the way, and Milfred fell right onto the ground next to me. I took the opportunity to have a little fun of my own.
"My my my…how the mighty have fallen." I said as I placed my foot on his throat. Another chill ran down my spine, you could say I have spider-sense. As he grabbed my arm, I grabbed it back, and flung him over my shoulder. I turned around to see Jack surrounded…almost. Whenever they got within arms length of him, they were sent flying backwards. Finally two scrawnier guys got in close enough to grab his arms and hold him tight. But Jack wasn't worried, no, he actually looked pleased. I saw that he gripped both guys right below their shoulders. They stood for a minute, Jack not even struggling. When smoke began to billow off of their shirts, I just froze for a while. Finally they screamed in pain and let go of Jack, who took the opportunity to give them each a shot. Someone grabbed my arm again, and I flipped him as well. Same guy. I looked over to Jesse, to see him barely holding his own with two of the jocks. Usually, he doesn't fight, but these guys must have apparently went after Sarah, then he'll fight. As the guy who tried to grab me rose again, I punched him without even looking, and was going to go help Jesse, but Milfred got there before I did. He never saw it coming, and Jesse went flying. As he lay on the ground stunned, Milfred and his goons just laughed, and began to move in for the kill. That's when he showed up.
"Leave them alone." He hissed at Milfred. He whipped around, and Drake was staring him straight in the face. Everything stopped for a while, and Milfred smiled again.
"So, the freak's leader finally comes around. I was wondering who was leading this little group of yours." He turned to his other flunkies, and nodded off, "See you round…freaks." And they left, laughing to themselves all the way.
"Pretty limited vocabulary he has." Drake said.
"What can you expect? All that muscle squishes his brain." I snapped into reality when I realized who I was talking to. I quickly jumped away from him and stared nervously. He didn't seem to mind, as he looked over all of us. Jack, who was also staring at him nervously, Jesse, who was recovering from the punch, and Sarah, who was kneeling next to him.
"You okay Jesse?" She asked.
"Yeah, I'm fine." He replied, wiping some drool from his mouth, "He was holding back for some reason, it didn't hurt nearly as much as I thought it would." He stood up, and joined in the group stare. Drake looked between all of us, and just started walking away. We looked at each other, and followed him.
When we were outside, the first thing I noticed was that there was nobody there. Not a car, not even mine, nothing was there except for the parking lot, the telephone poles, trees and such. I looked around, it was NEVER, this desolate. And there was supposed to be weightlifting for the track team, so that weirded me out.
"Something's wrong." I said. I continued to look around, and noticed there was a figure in a black cloak in the middle of the parking lot. Everyone else saw it as well, Jack being the only one to head out to him.
"Hey buddy!" He yelled, "Where is everybody?" The figure turned around, his face shrouded in the hood. Jack stood for a minute, staring into his face. Then he yelled out in a panic, "IT'S YOU!"
The figure screeched and lunged at Jack. Jack, a lot quicker than before, dodged the punch, stumbled back, and ran back to us. The figure threw off it's cloak. There it was, that same bird-man creature. This one however, was different from the two we fought a while ago. Its feathers were a mix of light blue and brown. As Jack got to us, I heard Drake shout out. "What the hell is that thing?!"
Before anyone could answer, the air began to fill with the hideous yells and screeches of multiple creatures. Our heads bolted behind us to see that our side of the roof was covered by them. There were at least over a dozen from what I could tell. They all lept down to ground level, as we backed away from the school. The other one stopped us from going any farther, and before we knew it, they surrounded us. Everyone except Sarah got in a fighting stance, who took a position behind Jesse.
"What're we gonna do?" I heard her cry.
"What can we do?" Drake said, "We fight."
"Oh man, I can't do any of those nifty moves if there isn't any fire around." Jack whined.
"Sounds like a useless ability." Drake said.
"Shut up, both of you!" I yelled. "Okay, we'll do this strategically, there's about fourteen of them, so we each take…." I heard a screech, then Sarah yelled.
"JESSE!"
One of the creatures had swept in and snatched him away, throwing him onto the ground, where several of them got on him like a pack of dogs to a cat. I tried to stop Sarah, but she bolted out of our huddle, where one of them snatched her up, and sliced her face. There was a muffled yell, as she fell to the ground, quivering. At that time, strategy was over, as Jack and Drake charged out at the remaining creatures. I cursed, and went charging to Jesse, who was now completely surrounded. Two of them jumped in front of me, and I had to fend them off with a series of blows plus knocking them away with my shield. When my vision was cleared, I was about to get Jesse, when Sarah screamed out in fear. I whipped around and one of the creatures was actually trying to bite her face, while its claws dug into her side. She was kicking and screaming, gripping its face and struggling so as not to let it get her. I turned to Jack, who was tied up with three birds of his own. Then to Drake, who actually seemed to be winning against five of the things. I was ambushed again by two of the creatures, but before they could get any more shots in on me, I was able to blow them away with my shield again. At this point, I only had two options, Jesse or Sarah. I was so confused I swear I was going to cry. But when she yelled, it happened again.
"HELP ME!"
"SARAH!" I heard Jesse's voice echo in the air. All of a sudden, the four birds surrounding him were catapulted out of his area, as he began storming over to Sarah, a look of hatred in his eyes. One of the birds tried attacking him, but he quickly snatched it by its neck and hurled it over at the other one.
"GET AWAY FROM HER!" He yelled as they collided, sending them away from her. I wanted to pass it off as adrenaline, but nobody throws a two-hundred pound bird twenty yards with one hand.
Things were beginning to settle down, and we were winning. Jack had offed two of his attackers, and Drake was already on another batch of them. When only three were left, I thought we were going to win. Then things took a turn for the worse. The ground began to shake violently, and everyone stopped, even the birds. We stood, dumbfounded for a while, then the ground shook again. I slowly straightened up, until a shadow began to loom over our heads. I was afraid to look back, but I thought, that maybe, if I bend backwards, it might not come to much of a shock to me. It didn't work.
The thing was big. No, it was bigger than big. It stood several hundred feet tall. Its body, besides for looking really decayed, reminded me of dirt almost. This dirt however, was quite solidified. I did, however, notice several large chunks of it crumbling off his body. That didn't keep me from screaming.
Everyone, except the birds, who had bolted before I even righted myself, froze in their tracks. This wasn't an every day sight. I turned around and backed to Drake and Jack.
"I think the words best described for this situation, was quoted by Monty Python…RUN AWAY!" Jack yelled. We all turned and headed for the hills. Most of us. Sarah was still laying on the ground, badly hurt. I tried yelling for her, but the droning of the monsters low, echoy roar, and its thundering-footsteps, blocked out my voice to all except one.
I don't know exactly how, or for that matter when. But as the creature lifted its foot to crush Sarah, all I recall was a strong gust of wind rushing from behind me, and there was Drake kneeling next to Sarah and hoisting her onto his shoulders. I saw him hesitate as the creatures foot was right at its peak, then he sprinted off towards us. In an earth-shattering blow, the foot came down, and the pavement split apart. Although far away enough to miss the foot, the force of the impact and the large pieces of concrete that shot from the ground, flung Drake forward. He did a semi flip, but managed to land on his feet, as he skid about four feet in front of me. It took him a while to maintain his balance, before joining us. I was going to run, but I noticed that our delay caused us to come just within reach of the monsters reach.
"WE'RE NOT GOING TO MAKE IT!" I yelled. I looked up at noticed the other foot was just hovering above us. I bent down and was about to kiss my ass goodbye. I heard the crunching sound of the foot hitting the pavement, as the ground shrunk beneath me and I swallowed a whole mouth-full of dirt. Then everything was quiet. First thought to enter my mind was, 'Am I dead?' But who wouldn't think that? I peeked one of my eyes open, and noticed light. Although three feet in the ground, we somehow weren't crushed underneath this monsters weight. My eyes slowly scoured the ground, I noticed the epicenter where the ground sunk. In the middle of that, were feet. Jesse's.
My eyes slowly moved up his body, and I realized that he was actually holding up the foot of the monster, although barely. His muscles looked like they were about to burst, and his teeth were going to break if he grit any harder. What seemed to be his remaining ounce of strength at the time, he almost threw the monsters foot right back in its face. It reeled backwards a step, and then it came crashing to the ground, dirt and dust covering the entire area. I thought I was going to suffocate with all the crap that was in my lungs. When it finally cleared, I noticed it wasn't dead yet, but more or less hurt, and kneeling on the bad leg, Jesse staring it right in the black-sooted face. It looked back at him, and growled in a threatening tone. Slowly, it raised its fist, and aimed it at Jesse. Jesse got in a defensive stance and waited for it to come. Both fists collided head on. Jesse won.
Unbelievable as it was, the monsters arm shattered on impact, sending more shit into the air. 'If he survives this,' I thought to myself, 'I'm going to kill him.' More time went by as the dust began to clear away. And when it did….
I've been surprised before, basically whenever something weird happened to us. But this…. Jesse was huge, at least twenty feet tall. His muscles, scrawny as they were before hand, were gigantic now. He was like the Hulk, except white. He walked over to the creature, who seemed to be in a lot more suffering than what Jesse dealt it. When it noticed him, it tried to swipe him with the other arm, but he merely blocked it, causing it to break away at the elbow. It was now using all its strength just to support itself. With both hands, Jesse grabbed its head, and with one quick, forceful blow, shattered it. Unfortunately for us, it's entire body exploded in a downfall of dust. I must have been in it for ten minutes gasping for any sign of oxygen. Enough of it cleared, where my upper half of my body could poke out from the fog. I looked around for anyone else, but I only saw Jesse, normal size, also coughing for air.
"Hey Jesse!" I coughed, "What the hell man?! I would rather it had squished us!"
He coughed several times, "Sorry!"
I coughed some more, and noticed Jack's head was the next to pop up. He looked around, noticed Jesse, and stormed over there. He placed both hands on his bare shoulders, looked him right in the eye, and said, "Don't ever let me get on your bad side!"
Jesse coughed some more, "Jack, you might want to stand away."
Before either of us could ask, we noticed Drake kneeling on the ground, cradling Sarah in his arms. She was half crying, half whimpering, half gasping for air, and gripping onto Drake's pant leg. He looked up at us, with those cold, piercing eyes.
"She's badly hurt," he said, "When it was thrown off of her, its claws caught in her side and made a clean cut across her abdomen." He blew some of the dust away, and we saw that it had indeed, sliced straight across her shirt and stomach. My heart sank into mine by the way, and with the way Jesse gasped, I think his stopped for a moment. He took several steps backwards, one of his hands holding his stomach, the other one smacked across his forehead.
"Wh-what ha…have I done?" Tears began to swell in his eyes, "I-I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry!"
Before he could break down crying, a sudden rush overcame all of us. It wasn't adrenaline, or fear or anything like that. It was like…we had just come in the presence of a powerful being. We all turned our heads, and there was a man. He wasn't all that tall, maybe just below six foot. There was a thin white beard that ran from his sideburn to his chin. He was an old man, in his late fifties, early sixties from what I could tell. He wore a blue, silk robe, but half of it was covered by what could only be gold armor. In his left hand, was an odd, golden staff. He slowly walked over to Drake and Sarah, reached into his robe, and pulled out a small, marble white flask. He bent down, held it to her lips, and said, "Here. Drink this."
Sarah's hands weakly let go of Drake, and slowly grasped the flask. She drank slowly as well, a little bit of it running down the side of her mouth. When it was all gone, she slowly let go, and her hands came to a rest on her lap, and she passed out. Right before our eyes, the gashes closed up, the scars on her face and hands healed, and the only thing remaining was the blood on her shirt and pants. I looked back to Jesse when I heard him mumbling.
"She's..okay…she's going to be…okay…." A great smile drew upon his face, as he quickly hugged Jack tightly screaming, "SHE'S OKAY! SHE'S GOING TO BE ALRIGHT!"
Jack was yelling with him too…that is, until the dust cleared. There those two were…Jesse butt naked. His sudden growth tore his clothes to shreds, and Jack found this out the hard way. He quickly let go and was on the ground retching. I sighed, and shook my head ruefully. The man then was at my side,as he reached into his robe again.
"Here," he told Jesse, "Put this on." And with that he threw a large, dark green cloth over to Jesse, who barely caught it. He stared at it for a while, a long while at that. When he finally looked up, he noticed the man staring REAL nervously at his, eh-hem. Jesse jumped, and quickly robed. Now, with everything settled down, I looked straight over to this mystery man.
"Alright ya old geezer. Who are you?"
"Do you address me in that fashion and expect a reply little girl?"
Already I didn't like this guy. NOBODY calls me a little girl, "Pardon me." I said sarcastically, "By what do you call yourself sir?"
"By what you say, I do not call myself anything. I am man, just like any of you are. Of course, when you mean by what do I wish for you to call me, then you must mean my name?" He was getting a mix of glares, and nervous stares, "In that case…yes…yes, I do have a name."
"And…what would, that happen to be?" Jack asked reluctantly. The man looked over at him, smacked his stick on the ground and stood upright.
"My name…is Urza."
**********************
End Chapter 4