In Memory of Stephen Hillenburg. (1961-2018)
After an hour of sorting through the piles and piles of photos Blacky had brought, Harry looked over the ones he had piled away for later. There were ten photos in total, each one a different character from every district. "So no anime?" "You'll set fire to the world brat, let's wait a bit for that power of yours to mature a bit." Harry pouted, now even more intrigued at the information. "Anyone catch your eye?" Blacky asked as he stuffed the photos back into the folder. Harry shook his head, wanting to think properly before choosing.
"Let's see," A hand waved over everyone before pausing right above a yellow coloured one. "This one!" Harry lifted the photo and gazed at the image with a smile. Blacky looked over his shoulder and winced. "Oh, wait a second brat." The boy froze, hand on pencil. The rabbit rubbed the back of his head, unsure of how to go with this. "You picked SpongeBob right?" A nod. "Well, about a week or so ago his creator died from ALS." At the confused look in his charge's eyes he tired to explain. "Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, it's a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord." The confused look grew as he explained. Blacky sighed, "It's a disease kid, a very fatal one." Harry's eyes widen at that. "So he's not with us anymore?" "Afraid not," He looked down at his shoes, suddenly depressed.
The toon cursed softly before reaching over and ruffling the boy's head. "Don't cry, it's a normal occurrence in life. People live and people die." "But it's not fair!" "Life isn't fair kid, you just gotta go along with it." Harry lifted the picture to his face. "Would he be sad when I summon him?" "Eh, you can't really tell with SpongeBob. Just don't ask any strange questions." The boy nodded before steeling his nerves and putting pencil to paper. The energy from his core leaked out in streams, going out of his chest, down his arm, and to the pencil.
The small wooden item glowed before giving life to the image on the paper. "Don't forget to sign it!" He did so, with a strange cursive touch at the end. "Looks like that power of yours is getting classy." Blacky threw him a smirk as the paper glowed yellow before a medium-sized figure appeared. The toon was square, little holes covering its entire body, and they wore brown trousers with a white collared shirt. Bright blue eyes gazed at the two of them with excitement, thin arms waving and a loud laugh echoing from them. "Hello! Who are you?"
Harry leaned against the couch with a content sigh, tired from the events hours before. Blacky had vanished at some point, saying he needed to do an errand. That left him alone with Merlin, Courage and SpongeBob. Said toon was busy in the kitchen, grilling up some Krabby Patties. "What's got you in the dumps Harry?" He jumped at the voice, opening his eyes to see Merlin peering at him above his glasses. The older mage had just come down to get some tea when he spotted his young student slouched on his couch.
"Is it about what Blacky said?" The boy couldn't find the right words so he nodded. Merlin sighed as he sat beside the younger, "Where you sad when your creator died?" The question caused the mage to pause, lost in thought. "It did, for a while. But I had friends who helped me through the loss and in time I grew numb to it." Harry nodded, face still sad. "You shouldn't dwell to much on it, you're still young." "But death doesn't care about age." "Not unless you've met the Shinigami from Bleach." Seeing that he caught the child's attention he went to work getting his mind off of grim thoughts.
"Why did you tell him about anime?! Now's he's pestering me about it!" Blacky was not amused as he held the grinning toon's collar. The boy had been bugging him for hours for three days, asking when he could begin drawing them. He had bribed the kid that if he could find and bring to life several toons then he would think about it.
Blacky didn't think this through when the kid rummaged around through his folders and already found five different characters. SpongeBob and Courage weren't of any help, they encouraged Harry to find toons that could help/protect him in any shape or form. Now he was backed against a wall, he couldn't go back on his promise or else he'd look like an ass. "You should just face the facts, the boy has talent and if you restrict him he won't be able to grow." Merlin, ever the wise old man, spoke. Blacky heaved a sigh, resigned to his fate. "At least the world won't burn as badly as you thought it will." "That doesn't make me feel any better."