Hello, hello, hello, people! Here's another chapter for y'all to enjoy, but first let me get back to my new two favorite people on the Net…
chyp: Hopefully I got yo' name right this time 'round! I try to make the chapters at least 1000 words so that they kinda correspond with the chapter number (like 2 chapters should have at 2000 words, 3000 for 3 chapters, and so on)… Also, I'm not an expert writer by any means, but thanx for thinkin' that I am. It's fine; I keep my ego in check, so no harm done. I think your idea is real cool sounding. I especially like the slow motion and the shrinking powers for some reason. Maybe because my characters' mother had the slow motion thing. Anyways, the half-brother thing is interesting; there's a lot you could do as far as different parentage and junk like that. Their different halves can also let you go into a bigger variety of powers that each brother could develop. You can e-mail me if you wanna talk more on it.
Raya: Babe, what can I say? Wesley's the kind of person who does things before thinking. He reminds me a bit of somebody I know… And Jimmy really is based on a guy a roomed with in college. As I get more into the stories I write, I'm finding that witch Jimmy and actual Jimmy are starting to become the same person. Hey, I calls 'em like I sees 'em.
"Wait," Matthew said, preventing a definite argument. "He's just joking. Stephanie did talk to Jimmy, but he didn't tell her to break up with you. She was the one who suggested it in the first place. He tried to defend you."
"What?" Wesley asked.
"You don't know this," James said, "but she told me that you were doing things that were hurtful to others, spreading rumors and stuff about people. She said that she didn't want to be involved with somebody like that. I told her that you weren't that kind of person, but she insisted that you were. She was pretty convincing."
"Not the time for jokes," Wesley said, suddenly serious. "Where would she get an idea like that from? I don't talk bad about anybody behind their backs. That's…shady. Unless I'm being set up by somebody who's also shady…"
"Don't start," Matthew said. "Change of subject. I thought we agreed on no powers in public."
"Well," Wesley said, slightly annoyed, "I had to do something or else that girl would've been hurt. Don't act like you don't have any compassion. What's the big deal? Nobody saw me, so no problem. Now, talk to me some more about what Stephanie said, Jimmy."
Bryan Muetzel, along with his friends, Rich Stone and Mike Corbin, all worked at an old auto garage just down the road from Oxford College as mechanics. They were all in their mid to late twenties and all had the stereotypical "prison" build. Rich was the tallest at six feet five inches, while Mike was the shortest at a mere six feet. They were three men who had been through the gauntlet early in life. They had all dropped out of high school and turned to crime to get them through life. Mike and Rich had been convicted of multiple accounts of armed robbery, while Bryan had been taken in for drug use and drug dealing. Now, they had been given second chances. They hadn't made the most positive choices since leaving prison, but now Bryan had been convinced that a golden opportunity had fallen into his and his friends' hands.
He had arrived back at the garage later that evening, after stopping to get something to eat. Rich was busy under an old Chevrolet Impala and Mike was hauling tires outside. Bryan continued working quietly and patiently until everyone else had left. When he was sure that the three of them were alone, he finally told them what he had seen earlier that day at the college. Of course, they didn't really believe his account, but he insisted that he was not making it up.
"I'm telling you!" he shouted to his two friends. "This guy flicks his hands or whatever and the whole store just stopped. It was like everybody was a statue. And then there were these two other guys. A box was hanging in the air, but nothing was holding it there. They grabbed it from the bottom and then the first guy flicks his hands again and everything goes back to normal."
"What have you been smoking?" Rich asked as he slid back under the Impala.
"Nothing, man!" Bryan insisted. "I know what I saw. I'm not making it up."
"Stuff like that just don't happen," Mike explained. "It's unnatural."
"It's supernatural," Bryan corrected. "And it happened. If you don't believe me, we can go back there again and you can see for yourselves."
"And suppose we do see it?" Rich asked. "So what?"
"'So what?'" Bryan repeated. "We could be rich, Rich! Think about what we could do with his…powers."
"Beats the hell out of working in this garage all day," Mike said. "We'll check it out, then."
"It's everything we've been waiting for," Bryan said.
"Hey," James said, letting himself into Matthew and Wesley's dorm room. "Where's Wes?"
"He went to the bookstore," Matthew answered. "What are you doing?"
"I was gonna make something up about wanting to know if y'all wanted to go jogging or something," James said. "But since he's not around, I have something to tell you."
"What is it?" Matthew asked.
"I really did tell Stephanie that she should break up with him," James admitted.
"What!?" Matthew exclaimed. "Why?"
"I think I was still mad at him for saying that stuff about Lina," James said, not looking at Matthew.
"You got that upset over his opinion?" Matthew asked. "Jimmy, he can think whatever he wants, but you can't do something like that. It's more immature than anything he's done. What are you going to go about this?"
"Well," James hesitantly said, "I wasn't gonna tell him. I had to tell somebody. Okay, I'm-going-jogging-now-I'll-talk-to-you-later!"
"Stop!" Matthew ordered. James did as he was told. "You have to tell him. Or I will."
"You can't do that," James protested. "You can't take his side."
"I'm not taking sides," Matthew said, "and I wish that for once I wasn't put in the middle of this pointless, stupid, never-ending struggle between you two asses."
"I'll tell him," James said, "but not now. I gotta go. Lina and I are going to a movie."
Wesley had been in the bookstore for a while, not working, but just talking. He took full advantage of the fact that he could buy things on discount. It was almost time for him to actually clock in, though, so he left the store for a minute and went to check his mail in the adjoining room of the Student Center. He flipped through all the mail he had received (mostly bills and solicitations) and made his way back to the bookstore. Not watching where he was going, he bumped into a man carrying a large package. It slipped out of his hands and almost crashed to the ground. Wesley, reacting quickly, gestured with his hands and the package froze in motion, hanging inches above the floor, as well as the man who was carrying it. He hurriedly looked around, glad that nobody else was around, and proceeded to catch the package as it was falling as time resumed. What he didn't see, though, were the two other men watching from the second floor, hiding behind a door.
"Sorry about that," the man said. "Nice reflexes."
"My bad," Wesley said. "I wasn't watching where I was going."
Bryan, the man with the package, walked outside the Student Center and waited for Rich and Mike to join him. They had seen the impossible and now believed Bryan's story. They all got into a car and talked about what had just happened.
"Did he do it?" Bryan asked.
"Yeah," Mike said, "but I still don't believe it."
"Me neither," Rich added. "You were right, Bryan. This is unbelievable. Let's go and grab him. We're bigger than he is. We can take him."
"Calm down, man," Bryan interrupted, grabbing Rich's shirt. "We can't mess this up. And I'm thinking that those other two guys I saw yesterday have something to do with him. They didn't stop like everybody else did. They might have some weird powers, too. We need to make sure that they stay out of the picture."
"I bet we could take 'em all," Rich said under his breath.
"Right," Mike said. "We gotta do this right."
"Good," Bryan said. "Rich, you stay with that guy and follow him back to wherever he stays. Get as much info as you can about him and those other guys if you can. We need some insurance so that we can get what we want."
Well that doesn't sound good at all. I'm afraid for Wesley, and admittedly a little pissed as well because…he kinda was responsible for everything, you know? I hope things don't go too far south for him. Coming up: Bryan and his crew takes action, but can these three huge dudes take on the youngest of three of the world's most powerful witches? And, Jimmy's keeps on dishin' out secrets left and right!