At the edge of the world, combat is accomplished on the edge of a knife. Death is to your right: six feet, off-center, keep your weak arm towards it. The strong arm, the armed arm, balances to the aft: keep it steady, straight, strong. Strong arm, sword arm. The weapon is an extension of yourself. Shift your weight, stay off-center, lean with the sword and lean away from death and always, always swing the sword away from the cliff. You keep the sword pointing towards safety.
Beak Point juts out into the ocean like its namesake. The waves ride high on the cliffs, and the roar is ferocious, and Miles has been visiting the crucible for six years. Miles rides to Beak Point on bicycle from his house in the Onett hills, every morning, and brings an aluminum bat with him. This is Miles's sword. This place is his training ground. In the early autumn, the sun rises a good deal before the school bell rings and this is when Miles enjoys his ritual most. This is when the impulse to train is strongest.
Miles isn't a big kid. He's a solid five-foot nine, weighs in at a stout one-forty, and is definitely more bone than muscle. Swinging an aluminum bat isn't exercise, it's ritual, and from the look of Miles you'd never knew he could swing anything at all. Miles isn't the kind of kid you'd expect to be so obsessive (he isn't loud, and he isn't quiet, so you can't say "it's always the quiet ones"), and for all intents and purposes his obsession is confined to a half-hour in the morning so it's really never been of any consequence. Miles wakes up, swings a bat around on Beak Point, and then goes to school and is a normal kid. Miles has never been different in anyone's eyes except his own.
"Haven't you ever felt," Miles tells himself soul-deep in the sea breeze, "that you were just meant to be a warrior? That you were supposed to wake up and do this, that you had to train for something?" Ever since he was first discovered and claimed a vandal, Miles has recited and rehearsed his ramifications; "Some of us are just born fighters", "Some of us are just meant to be heroes", "Some of us are just different". Anyone who sees Miles on the cliff in the morning tends to walk away smiling ever since Miles got his lines down pat: "He's just a kid," they tell themselves. "It's good to see kids are still so imaginative."
Miles Gravin is sixteen years-old and is a junior in high school. He has no explanation for his own habit save the explanation he gives others, which he's come to believe is the honest-to-God truth.
This is October 31st, not Halloween, and Miles Gravin is at Beak Point with his sword and dressed for Halloween which comes sometime after the sun rises. Miles counts the minutes, and his sword strikes, and how high the waves crash against the rocks and Miles counts his breaths and his heart beats when he's done and resting before the ride back to school. Miles is walking back to his bike, and Miles is too deep in his own chest listening to his heart to hear the rustling in the bush.
The rabid dog leaps and is on top of Miles before Miles can react. The dog snaps, barks, growls and tears ferociously, sinking its teeth into an escaping Miles's shirt and ripping a gash in the fabric as he grips his sword and wheels around to face the animal. The two square off. Miles is holding his bat, his sword, and the dog is baring his teeth. The two are unmoving. The dog stands, stares, and Miles is the first to strike with a massive swing of his bat that bashes the dog square on the head and pounds it to the ground. The dog howls ineffectually. Miles bashes again, and the dog is again unmoving.
This is the natural state of the dog, before it became rabid and runaway. The dog has returned to normal.
The dog is asleep.
Miles Gravin gets on his bike, and Miles Gravin idly tends to the tear on his shirt while he wants for early-morning traffic to pass. The blue-and-yellow striped shirt, horizontal, not vertical, is torn briefly along the grain of a stripe and Miles shrugs it off. His encounter with the dog is hanging in the back of his mind, and Miles's morning-mantras are knocking on the door of his mind but Miles refuses to give in. This is an obsession confined to thirty-minutes. Miles allows himself to train, but Miles will not allow himself to jump to conclusions. Miles gives up on the traffic, locks his bike to a sign, and begins plodding one-three-four on the sidewalk.
One-three-four is a remnant of Miles's morning mantras. You count one-three-four to keep yourself on your toes; the omission of a number is unnatural. If you're paying attention to the numbers, you're certainly not zoning out and certainly not going to mess up enough to take a misstep that'll place you several-hundred feet down in the ocean. So Miles steps one-three-four down the road, pulling his American Literature essay out of his backpack so he may revel in its glory.
Miles first conceived this essay many years ago, certainly before it was assigned and with some luck before Miles knew how to read or write. Miles conceived this essay when he first laid eyes on Donkey Kong, and a little switch flipped in the back of Miles's mind and he said to himself, "This is a metaphor for life." Miles's American Literature essay is a paralleling of life to the escapades of a broad-shouldered plumber with a penchant for princesses. In Miles's essay, this tedium of going to school is equivalent to climbing a ladder.
You can go up, or you can go down, but there's certainly no place else you can go. Sink or swim. Pass or fail. Ladders may be linear, but ladders are simple, and if you keep your direction in mind ladders are no problem to navigate. Ladders are the easiest way to get ahead in life. School is a ladder.
The morning is wearing on and Miles is closing in on his school. Miles is passing the Onett arcade, and in front of the arcade Miles spots something he never imagined he would see with his own eyes. There are seven kids amassed in front of the arcade, in black leather, bearing the characteristic faux-fins of the Sharks.
The Sharks are a legend in Onett. Onett has a lot of legends, the Sharks probably being the least of them, except for the fact the Sharks have an obscure tie-in to a legend about a boy named Ness that came into being just a few years ago. The Sharks are a figment of the past, just a legend, and here Miles sees seven Sharks assembled and Miles knows full-well the extent of the Sharks' malice.
There are seven Sharks in front of the arcade and there's one Shark in the alleyway lighting up a cigarette. Miles is standing at the only open end of the alleyway, and Miles has already unstrapped his bat from his backpack and a thousand heroic quotes are running through Miles's mind.
This is the sword. This is the bat. This is the spear, the lance, the rifle, the weapon of choice wielded by archetypical hero X.
This is the weapon that doles out justice.
Miles is taking slow steps because the density of thoughts running through Miles's mind have made Miles incredibly heavy. Miles takes crashing boom-bang steps that resonate through the alleyway, and somewhere in the confused face of the Shark Miles is able to pick out the abstract emotion of fear.
Miles raises the bat and Miles brings the bat down on a Shark that is only vaguely aware of the imminent peril she's faced with. She is immediately struck down, bleeding, some crumpled mass, and only after Miles has stripped every inch of leather from her body and removed the faux-fin on her head is Miles content to whisper to himself, "The Shark returned to normal," and walk out of the alleyway.
Flash forward.
There are seven Sharks chasing Miles down the street. There are more Sharks amassed here than Miles knows he can deal with at his level of proficiency, but Miles is still smiling because there's a bus coming and Miles is well-aware of the interconnecting legends of Eagleland and how to deal with this resurgence.
Rabid dogs and Sharks in Onett. Blue-and-yellow stripes, a bat. Miles adjusts his red baseball cap and hurriedly hops on the bus.
Miles can't run from the facts anymore. Miles recites his morning mantras, some very special mantras, and Miles is still counting one-three-four as he recites: "I am the ill omen. My birth is a sign of some ill times, the fact that I, a warrior, have been born is indication. I am indication something bad about to happen." Miles is talking slowly and softly and Miles appends his morning mantra, "I now see the meaning of these signs and the purpose of my birth. It's true, we haven't learned our lessons, and now history is doomed to repeat itself." The bus is headed to Twoson.
NEW CHAPTER
Everything is fuzzy in retrospect.
In Twoson, Marla walks out of the Twoson department store sporting a new pink dress from Paula's spring line. The dress was on clearance. It's not quite fitting, but the idea is solid and it's Halloween and Marla wouldn't go a Halloween without playing dress-up as her favorite character.
Marla's a fairly tall girl, somewhat heavy, and really not at all accomodating of the image of Paula. She is a brunette, and the red ribbons melt into her hair. The teddy bear clutched to her chest stares out with beady eyes nearly popping out of its head as the embrace tightens and a boy approaches. Marla is strangely muscular. Marla was standing dumb-founded in front of the Twoson department store when she met Miles. Miles and Marla are both dreamers and introduce themselves in beatnik fashion.
Marla begins on a tangent about her childhood and Miles relates so much that neither of them is able to get off the matter. Marla was adopted, and Miles lives with parents that he suspects adopted him, and Miles tells Marla he really does think he was adopted because he's just so the opposite of his family. Marla tells Miles that she is the same way, but knows she was adopted, and Marla is sympathetic to Miles's cause because just yesterday Marla was in the same boat.
"But I asked, and believe it or not, they just upped and fessed the whole thing," Marla explains sitting on a ledge dangling her legs with dainty socks and red schoolgirl-styled shoes. "My mother and father said that I just showed up on the doorstep one day, and they decided to take me in," Marla talks staring deep into Miles's eyes with her own eyes burning with imaginative fervor.
Miles nearly pisses himself. This is what I want from life, Miles thinks, this is that adventurous history I crave! Miles cuts himself short, half-thought, takes the train and sends it back: Miles backs up, and rewrites in his mind that this is the adventurous history he's sure he has as well.
Marla goes on, and Miles's eyes are alight with every word that escapes her mouth. Marla's tales of running away and defeating school-yard bullies and her idolizing of the Chosen Four appeal to every aspect of Miles and Miles is in awe of the life Marla has commanded in respect to his own. Marla, Miles imagines, is who he wishes he was.
Marla is a really cool girl, and Marla is totally accomodating of Miles's stories of Giygas's return and Miles and Marla both agree that it's up to them, their destined selves, their Chosen Two, to stave off the assault until the third kid shows up. Miles asks Marla if she's telepathic, and Marla says she could be if she tried. Miles thinks Marla's the coolest girl ever.
The two of them come to an agreement that Miles has loose ends to tie up, and for the time being Marla will commandeer the effort of keeping back the armies of Giygas until the two of them are ready to head to Threed. Miles will go to Onett, and Marla will wait in Twoson for Miles to return at which point they'll both travel to Threed prepared for the worst, (inevitable zombie hordes, the monkey in front of the princess) and the better than the worst (the third of the Chosen Four, their Jeff, their princess at the top of the world.)
Marla sits outside of the Twoson department store clacking the heels of her shoes together and idly stroking the frying pan in her lap. The sun's rising fairly high, noon's coming into full swing, and Halloween is primed to start as soon as the school bells go off. Marla is honing her telepathic powers, staring into the eyes of her Teflon-reflected counterpart and whispering, "You are a friend we've never met before."
The Twoson school district benefits from Halloween half-days. It's twelve-thirty and there are rivulets of children passing an oblivious Marla, and when Marla finally brings herself to raise her head from the frying pan Marla is scared beyond belief. This, Marla sees, is Giygas's invasion force.
The crowd is moving en masse, some walking some running some pushing, and there are children and there are Halloween-celebrating children and there are monsters. Marla can pick a few out of the crowd from her vantage point on the ledge: blue-skinned hippies, renegade cops and vigilantes, giant mushrooms and talking trees and lo and behold there are spinning robots in the crowd. Marla is overwhelmed, and Marla pulls her feet up onto the ledge hoping to let the tide pass but it's unrelenting. Marla does the smart thing and flees down some side street.
Marla is not alone. There is, following some distance behind her with a vaguely random trajectory, a gargantuan red-and-white mushroom that rings very distinct bells in Marla's memory. The mushroom is accompanied by two normals, two children helping the mushroom along and Marla breathes a sigh of relief because this isn't a monster, this is an afflicted person.
But Marla is well-versed in the legends of Ness and his conflict with the earthbound armies of Giygas. Marla has heard of the afflictions of spore-flinging monsters and Marla is well-aware of the symptoms that follow infection. Marla is not sure what this is, so Marla must postulate; it's not hostile, so it can't be a servant of Giygas. This is a person whose infection has grown far, far, out of control.
Marla knows just as well the remedy for the infection.
The children are put off slightly by the approaching Paula, and moreover terrified when the sprinting Paula brings her frying pan through a wide arc and into the head of the costumed mushroom-man.
Oh.
God.
Stoppit, stoppit.
Oh my God.
Marla, murderer-Paula, stands smiling as the kids through their tears open the costume and extract an unconscious friend. Marla digs through her purse, produces fifty-dollars, and throws it on the ground. Marla waves daintily to the children. Marla picks up the mushroom costume and walks away, later depositing it in a dumpster because Marla is not a healer (though you may not have expected it, anyway) and Marla has no use for such things..
You don't hear the voices behind you; don't see the stains on the frying pan. You tune these things out. No one talks to you; you have to initiate the conversations.
Only the protagonists have that right.
News of Marla's, neo-Paula's presence spreads quickly. The mob of monsters from before, accompanied with more renegade cops than ever, begin a forceful attempt at reaching Marla. The timing is perfect. Marla on Main Street gets into an approaching bus, and the unnamed unrecognized assailant is pursued no further. Miles is sitting in the back. Marla walks, sits beside him.
"It's worse than I thought," Marla says. Miles isn't paying attention. Miles is sketching out his next essay, and when Miles proves unresponsive Marla rips the page out of Miles's notebook and reads it herself.
This is to be an essay debunking popular opinion that video games desensitize kids to violence. Marla reads this manifesto and Marla is sent into an uncontrollable fit of laughter and Marla can't quite grasp why. Miles stares on unflinchingly. His brown hair is matted and his eyes just as flat. Marla sighs, shrugs, and sinks into her seat. Miles takes the scrap of paper back with a grunt.
"You're right, this is worse than we thought. Giygas's influence has covered so much so quickly already, this is way worse than even what Ness dealt with." Miles is talking with his eyes fixed intently on the seat in front of him. Marla is staring out the window, no more than part of the passing scenery. Miles doesn't mind, Miles continues with his voice dropped flat of inflection, "Do you ever get the feeling the world revolves around you, Marla?"
Flashbacks. Miles thinks back to a thousand other history excerpts, snatches of World History where he learned how Cecil overcame his leanings to evil, how Frodo saved the world, how heroes X, Y, and Z are of utmost importance and from this point of view the world revolves around them. These, Miles think to himself, are the protagonists. This insurgence of Giygas is just a new plot line; there are sure to be more protagonists in turn.
Miles thinks back to his family, to his father that's never home and his mother that's always home. Miles draws parallels. This is Ness's family, this is Ness's situation, this is Ness's bat he carries and Ness's hat he wears. Miles, Miles concludes, is the name of the new Ness. Marla is the new Paula.
These, we, are the protagonists, Miles thinks. Who is third? The bus is headed to Threed. Marla is idly leaning against Miles, and the two are receiving odd looks in the back of the bus.
"It's Halloween," the passengers remark and turn away. Miles doesn't understand. Neither does Marla.