Hal gingerly put his foot down onto the hallway. He knew he was lighter, by definitely more than half. He could feel it. He felt like he could beat anyone at jumping right now, he felt so light... though he decided not to try it. And actually, he took Wizard's advice, and went slow, keeping his will and focus gripped tightly around his amulet. He continued walking down the hall, being as careful as he could, and keeping the pace steady. He was a little over one hundred pounds now, he knew. Keeping the concentration to stay there was really difficult. Gravity was not happy about him messing with it. It was fluctuating, sometimes rising. Sometimes his steps ended up fairly uneven, because he wasn't quite used to being so light. After a minute or two, Hal looked up, still desperately forcing his will through the amulet at his own gravity.
He was half way there now. He could see Wizard's door down at the end of the hall. One step after another, after another, in a kind of slow moon-walk. He picked up his foot for another step, and didn't bring it forward far enough, he tripped on a loose floorboard, and he felt his concentration slip. The floorboards around his feet cracked. He was right on the line. Hal suddenly became angry. Damnit, this is stupid! I'm so close! I can't lose it now! Hal grew desperate, feeling his weight hit 112, and the floorboards under him beginning to buckle. He leapt forward, Wizard's door mere feet away now...
And landed on a wood-floor that snapped beneath him like two twigs tied together. The wood splintered, and he fell through it, and landed in something soft and gooey, that splashed dramatically as he landed.
Damnit! Fuck!
After Hal had finished thrashing around and cursing in frustration in outrage, he looked around the area below the floorboards. It looked like it had been all hollowed out, maybe 6 feet underneath the floor above him. That wood floor above him looked like it was only a foot or two thick. Also, something smelled really odd. And it felt...lumpy.
Hal was afraid for a moment. It smelled like, like... Tomato sauce. And the lumpy stuff below it was-
Dough? What? It wasn't like those were the best materials to break his fall with. There was something else too, little pieces of something in the tomato sauce, like... paper? Hal flopped around, trying to find a paper that wasn't thoroughly soaked in tomato sauce. He found one finally, and read it. It said-
PIZZA 2 BOYS 0 Love, Kristyna Erica
Those BITCHES Hal thought, slamming a hand into dough and tomato sauce.
Hal sloshed underneath the floorboards, all the way to the other side. It took a him a few tries, but he finally managed to concentrate on his amulet enough to jump up and punch a big enough hole in the floorboards. After another jump or two, he grabbed the edge of the actual floor at the top of the stairs. He walked down the stairs, dripping tomato sauce and dough. It was disgusting and humiliating, but Hal kept his head high.
Please God, Hal thought, just have one person, just ONE person look at me cross wise, or say one DAMN thing about this. I need to break someone's spine right now, it would make me feel so much better.
Hal couldn't wait to get back, take a shower, and then dream about acing this thing tomorrow, and rubbing it in those bitches' faces.
As Hal trudged miserably down the stairs and across the office room, he got a few looks from people at the desks and walking by. But as soon as they noticed his expression, most people quickly hurried past him. This happened until he was almost to the window that took him to his bedroom.
Two old men with twisting white beards and wearing black robes with gold fringes approached him. They also wore disapproving expressions.
"Young Man, what do you think you are doing? The Order of Hermes is not a, a..." he sputtered, clearly trying to think of something loathsome to say. "...a children's playpen" the man finished dramatically.
"Clearly not" the other intoned, helpfully.
Hal had no patience for this shit.
"Up yours, geezer" he said simply, not even slowing down. The last thing Hal saw in his peripheral vision, was a look of pure shock on the man's face.
Good, Hal thought. At least today wasn't a total loss.
Over the next few days, Hal continued to fail at his test, falling into all sorts of disgusting things. But he also learned a whole lot about Prime. Wizard told him that he could no longer really teach Hal anything more about the force of gravity. At this level, all Hal could do was get his mind to BELIEVE what he already knew. That gravity's strength can be altered, using things like Hal's amulet that had power over it.
So Wizard switched to teaching Hal about Prime, the sphere that governs the structure of reality. How things come to be- their patterns. As a reward for discovering the node all by himself, Wizard gave Hal a new foci. It was a chain, with an eyeglass on the end. Wizard said that if Hal looked through the glass, he could see nodes clearly. Hal knew he could already sense when something like that was in the area, by that thrill felling he got. But he couldn't really find where one of them was, unless he looked through the glass. Then it was easy. They stood out like sore thumbs. It was weird watching people walk by a giant pillar of blue fire in the back of the library, without even noticing anything.
At the moment, Hal was sitting in front of Wizard at a table. The library was empty except for them. Wizard was on the other side of the table, and there were a dozen candles on the table in between them. Wizard had said that two of them were being powered by Wizard's will; the other 10 were just naturally lit candles. His task was to find which candles were powered by magic. Hal concentrated, holding his hand out to each flame. He knew that Wizard was weaving a spell, that much was certain. (In the past, sometimes Wizard would do exercises like this, and then later Hal would learn that Wizard was just sitting there, with his eyes closed, tricking Hal into thinking he was doing something.)
What a conniving old bastard.
No he was definitely weaving, Hal could feel the thrill at the back of his neck.
Hal concentrated, stretching his hand out before each flame. He knew that he should feel a sharp pang in his hand if there was magic being done on it. After patiently doing each of the 12 candles, Hal didn't feel anything. Had he missed it? Hal felt a weird thrill again and this time it came from father away, from behind him. Suddenly a thought occurred to Hal. Wizard could be doing something ELSE. Something that didn't involve making a flame. Something Hal couldn't see outright. Hal turned around, scanning the room. It was so faint, but way, way in the back, he could sense a pattern different from what he was used to. He couldn't really see it, only almost. It was like trying to read a book when it was really dark in the room. Almost, sometimes certain words, but never understanding. Hal couldn't wait until he could actually read patterns like that. But for now, it was obvious what wizard was doing. A book was hovering in the air, on the other side of the room.
"You old, sneaky bastard. "Hal said, turning back to Wizard.
Wizard laughed heartily, the sound deep and rich in his throat.
"That was very good Hal. You are getting better much faster than I thought. I bet you can almost see some patterns now.
Hal nodded. He couldn't wait until he could see them clearly. Think about how useful that would be in a fight! Kristyna wouldn't be able to pull any dumbass tricks on him when he fought her. Or that other chick, Erica. He didn't know what she could do, but Hal didn't like surprises involving knives. And he did want to fight them now. After spending a week falling into pizza sauce, chocolate, tapioca and all sorts of other shit, Hal was beginning to grow a grudge.
He was also starting to have trouble focusing on his hockey. He just didn't have the drive for it anymore. It was weird. The last time they lost, Hal barely cared, he just wanted to get home and talk to Wiz, or check out the Red Sox game.
Oh well, Hal thought, I'm sure I'll get back into it soon.
After Hal returned home, the first thing he saw was something Mirvin-sized, walking down the stairs. Only it was completely covered in gadgets. It had a VR helmet on, a backpack that seemed to be a computer of some kind, and other various blinking trinkets.
"What the hell is that?" Said Hal loudly, and the weird blinking and whirring figure turned around.
"It is I, Mirvin. Micheal has equipped Mirvin with many electronic implements to increase the Mirvin's Elite-level standing."
Hal was getting real tired of rolling his eyes. Instead he just said, "Uh, whatever," and walked past the blinking Mirvin, to the couch beyond where Rich was staring at a blank screen, and Collin was shouting at the TV.
"This isn't funny! Work... NOW!" He shouted, wiggling his fingers magically. Nothing happened.
Collin slumped in his chair. Hal decided to get Collin's mind off his continuing obsession, by asking him what he was learning from Dan.
Collin brightened.
"Fire!" shouted Collin, planeteer style, thrusting a hand with a red-jeweled ring on it.
"Oh. Right. So you mean your doin' crap with the force of heat and fire?"
Collin nodded vigorously. "I use my ring, and stuff goes BOOM" he gestured with his hands, making a mini explosion, which he accompanied with "explosion" sounds, that had Collin spitting more than Hal really liked.
Hal decided to ask Rich what the hell Collin was talking about later.
After an hour of sitting around watching TV (which eventually flickered back on, for no apparent reason at all) Rich stood up, and announced that this was depressing, and they needed to go out again. After some debate, they agreed to be brave, and try going back to Vertigo. Oddly enough, this time Mirvin actually agreed. Apparently he wanted to "try out a few things". Once Hal realized that Mirvin wanted to go looking the way he did, like a walking-talking neon-sign, he tried to convince Mirvin that that was insane. But Mirvin wouldn't hear of it. Hal shrugged. If he was lucky, someone else would kick that kid's ass through a window. That would be fine.
While Hal was driving there, with Mirvin in the back, he asked him what the hell all that blinking crap on his head actually was supposed to DO. Mirvin lifted the weird VR visor he seemed to be wearing and said:
"Mirvin can see things that are far away with his helmet. He also has a constant uplink to the world wide web."
Hal started.
"Dude you can use the internet with that thing, right now?" Mirvin decided to be boring this time, and merely nodded.
"Kick ass! What was the Red Sox scores for today?"
Mirvin put down his VR helmet visor, and made some weird head motions that looked like twitches. After a moment, he put it back up.
"The men with red footwear defeated the carnivorous land-mammals 5-2". Hal paused, confused. Oh that's right. The Sox played the Tigers today. Awesome.
Hal parked, and the group of them began walking towards Vertigo. Abruptly, Hal got an odd feeling. His breath caught, and he felt like cool air had just surrounded his whole body. It was that thrilling feeling, and man it was STRONG. There was a node nearby. He just knew it. And if there was a node, they had to go find it, and then tell The Library about it. Those things were wicked rare. Hal knew how important it was, after working the node for a week.
"Guys, Whoa, wait up a sec, will ya?" They were all a ways ahead of him now. Presently they stopped, and turned around to look at him, questioningly. Hal took out the chain with the spyglass on it, that he had around his neck. He took it off his neck and looked through it, trying to find the node. P "What's up Hal?" asked Rich.
"There's a node around here, I can feel it."
"Are you serious?" said Rich, alarmed. "Wow. Dan told us about those this week. It's basically the only thing that keeps the Library running. It's more important than a mountain of gold."
"Or lemon meringue pies. MMMM, pie..." said Collin. Once again, he was ignored by all.
Hal made his way across the street, checking for cars, and then checked his spyglass again. Suddenly he saw it. It was about a hundred yards away, down an alley. It looked like a fountain of blue fire, coming up out of the ground. It the fire was like liquid, sputtering and gushing out into the air, turning a pale green once it separated from the fountain, before it died.
"There it is!" Hal shouted, before jogging towards it.
After they were within about 10 meters of achieving the alleyway, a voice from behind Hal shouted, "Wait, Halt!". They all stopped and turned.
"There's someone in front of the quintessence nodular point" said Mirvin. "There are three individuals. One has an eye apparatus, that is looking right at me through the walls. He does not appear friendly. And..." Mirvin paused. His visor was down. Hal waited. Mirvin was a freak, but he had a feeling that he actually knew what he was talking about this time. Hal was excited to get a hold of that node, but he should find out who those punks were, and why they were hanging out near his node.
"The man with the eye piece is rather large, and his associates are both armed. One with a bat, and the other with an electric stun device of some sort. They are all whirling their weapons and smiling. The man with the eye device is motioning for me to come closer. He is smiling as well. Mirvin does not think it is a friendly social gesture."
Hal felt a surge of anger. They were staking out HIS node. No way. No freaking way.
Collin frowned. "Is the guy with the eye piece looking this way, right now?" He asked, calmly.
"Affirmative." Mirvin said, still making the weird ticking motions with his VR helmeted-head.
Collin took a step forward on the side walk, to come to the head of the group so now he was the closest to the alleyway. He pulled himself up tall, and then proudly stuck out his arm and held out a middle finger. Rich snickered.
"Oh dear, they didn't like that". Mirvin said, he paused again. "I have checked photographs at the local police station for these individuals. It was a simple hack for an elite such as myself. The one with the eyeglass has no record at all. He appears to not exist. The other two have warrants out for their arrest, for misdemeanor crimes.
Hal grinned. "Well, if he doesn't exist, then he won't mind me kickin his ass. Come on everyone, lets go say hello to our new punk-ass buddies."
Before anyone could say anything, Hal was striding towards the alleyway, slipping the eyeglass back around his neck, and taking the amulet out of his pocket. He wrapped the cord around his right knuckles.
When he turned the corner, the others quickly catching up, there were three men- all gathered around a metal trash barrel with fire in it. Hal heard a "Yesss!" escape in a whisper from Collin. Hal shook it off and addressed the three in front of him.
The man with the eye piece was black, and he was huge. Like Derek-sized. A punk's a punk though. The dressings don't matter. The one on the right had a tazer, which he was activating over and over, and looking at Hal. He was weasely looking, with greasy brown hair. The third was short and bald, with a scar over his eye. He held a bat in his right arm, and rested the other end in his left. He was smirking smugly.
Hal got right to the point. "Sorry boys, but we need this node. More than you. So get your punk asses out."
The man with the metal thing over his right eye took a couple steps forward to stand within a few feet of Hal. He moved slow, and his feet seemed to rest heavily on the ground.
"Our orders are to guard this area for three days. Who are you? On what authority do you come here?"
"Dude we're from Hermes. But that don't matter, just leave and there'll be no problems."
Mirvin's head appeared from behind Hal. "Mirvin will report you to the authorities!"
The man with the eye glared at Mirvin, who quickly retreated behind Hal again. Hal frowned and craned his neck around to shout at Mirvin.
"Dude Mirvin, quit being a pansy, I oughta-"Hal suddenly sensed movement in front of him, and he turned just in time to see a big, black fist swinging straight for his head.
Hal just barely managed to get his head out of the way of most of the blow's force. It still hit him though, grazing his cheek and bouncing off the bone there. It felt like he had been hit with a metal baseball bat. He staggered back, his cheek bleeding and a little bruised. What the crap? Was he a rock or what? Now Hal was pissed. They wanted to play it that way did they? FINE. He'd kick his metal ass from here to Pluto.
Hal charged forward. He concentrated on his amulet ,getting ready to negate as much of the metal dude's gravity as he could and send him flying. He swung his fist forward and the metal man couldn't recover fast enough from his blow to block. The blow hit the man square in the chest, and as it hit Hal flexed his mind, willing the guy to be lighter. He knew that he had done well that time, the guy's gravity had dropped to half.
Still, his hand struck the guy HARD, and it hurt like hell. It was like punching the sidewalk. The guy fell back a few inches, clearly surprised that Hal had managed to unbalance him. But the guy should have gone FLYING under that kind of pressure from his fist with half gravity. What the heck was this freak?
Hal sensed movement all around him now, as Collin and Rich jumped to defend him. They were quickly being approached by the greasy guy with the tazer, and the bald guy with the baseball bat. Rich and Collin immediately intercepted them, and the fight was on. Hal sensed Mirvin cowering right behind him. What a pansy.
But Hal had bigger problems. Much bigger problems. He hesitated, after the last job that brute did on his arm, and this gave the guy time to recover. The brute stood up straight now, and he was probably about six feet tall, and as wide as two Hals. He had a silver contraption in his right eye that looked like a mechanical lens on a camera; it could extend or detract back into his eye socket. He had a shaved head, and wore loose clothing, army boots, and thick black gloves. He took a step forward, and Hal could've sworn that the pavement cracked under the man's step.
Hal took a step back. This wasn't cool. Hal was certain he had halved his weight. How much did he weigh? Even after Hal's magic, the guy still must've weighed like three or four hundred pounds at LEAST. That made him like eight or nine hundred altogether. Hal weighed 215 tops. He was at a serious disadvantage. He was probably quicker though. It couldn't be easy to move all that frame around fast. Hal would just have to do the magic thing again, and then try to check him when he was off balance, Hockey style.
"That's right bitch, Hockey rules!" Hal said, kind of stupidly. He was excited though. It was ass kicking time. He set himself, waiting for the guy to make a move.
The guy stepped forward again, slowly, like the big lumbering giant he was. "I do not understand" he said his voice a deep rumble.
Hal hoped Mirvin wasn't too close behind him, cuz he was gonna have to move here in a minute; and fast. For right now though, his opponent seemed to be just watching him. Hal risked a brief glance around. His buds were holdin their own, sort of.
Behind Metal-Eye, Rich had his wooden half-hockey stick out, and he was swinging it half-hazardly at the weasel guy with the tazer. The man was dancing out of Rich's reach and crouching low, looking for an opening. To Hal's left, Collin was backing up, looking lost and desperately trying to avoid the short bald guy, who was swinging the baseball bat at him in wide circles. Fortunately Collin was good at running away.
"You are doing things which dishonor the earth. Should you continue to cause the Earth harm, as her chosen guardians, we will stop you." The man rumbled to Hal.
What? What was this guy jabbering about? Whatever. He was messing with Hal's node, and plus he had started this fight, so Hal was sure as hell gonna finish it.
He was about to say something witty back, but the guy moved forward, quick as a snake, and threw out a fist to pound Hal's face in. Whoa, he was faking slowness before. That bastard. Hal just barely avoided it, ducking and rolling to the left as the brutish fist just barely grazed his bruin's hat. Hal decided to take advantage of his opponent's unbalance, by pouncing forward, amulet burning with power in his hand. He threw his weight into a shoulder and hit Metal-Eye as hard as he could. Again it didn't matter; Hal bounced off like he had just checked a granite boulder. Two huge hands clamped down on his waist, and lifted him off the ground, as if he were a sack of crap. Hal struggled to free himself, but the hands were like metal vices, and seemed to dig into his hips. He yelled out in fury, as the brute picked him up over his head. While Hal hung there in the air, struggling, he saw a brief blur of the other fights
Collin was still dancing away from the swinging bat, desperately looking for something to defend himself with. Collin shouted at Rich, and Rich tossed him his hunting knife, which Collin caught with one hand. He turned toward the bald guy, grinning. The instant he did so, the bald guy hit his hand with the bat, knocking the knife out of his hand and sending it clattering down the alley. Collin clutched his hand, cursing.
, Rich tossed a knife to the unarmed Collin and then promptly got hit with a tazer in his left arm. He cursed in pain and jumped back, clutching the burnt area on his wrist.
This wasn't looking good, Hal thought. At about that same time, Metal-Eye decided to send Hal flying across the alley into a bunch of trash cans on the other side. He hurtled through the air, crashing into the metal trash cans, and heavily denting one of them. Lids and refuse clattered all over the place, and a banana peel landed on his head. Hal's left ankle send a shock of pain up his leg when he tried to stand on it. That was IT.
"You're a dead man!" Shouted Hal, charging forward, ignoring his ankle that felt like a knife was sticking out of it. He raced towards Metal-Eye, aiming a punch for his non-metal eye. But Metal-Eye leapt forward suddenly as Hal was almost there, sticking out a fist hard as cement to implode Hal's head. "Oh fuck" thought Hal, knowing he couldn't dodge in time. He sensed movement a few feet to his right, and saw a freckly, ghost-thin arm with a watch on it stretched out quickly, and a finger push a button on it.
Just before Metal-Eye's fist connected, he bellowed in pain and rage, a wisp of smoke coming out of his scope-eye, towards the sky. Hal fell on his rump, allieving his screaming ankle. He just sat there, in awe. That was fucking close.
"You're a bad man!" shouted Mirvin, as Metal-Eye writhed around on the ground. Hal looked dazedly at the two other fights in front of him. Rich was dodging more tazer-thrusts from weasel-man, and Collin was cradling his hand and dancing under bat swings. Presently, Collin's face brightened and he ducked under a vicious strike from the bald guy, and ran towards the barrel at the back of the alley. It still burned, with a slowly ebbing little flame. The bald guy chased after him, bat held ready.
Rich muttered something under his breath, and suddenly darted forward low under a tazer thrust, and swung his hockey stick hard between the weasel-guy's legs. The guy groaned and collapsed on the ground, moaning.
Meanwhile the bald guy was running forward, chasing the squealing Collin. As soon as Collin reached the barrel, he skittered around behind it and held up his non-injured hand, with the red ring on it.
"Take this! Go-Fire!" The ring glowed orange, and the tiny flame in the barrel swelled three times its size, and a spark jumped off it, catching on bald-man's shirt. The man yelled, swatting at it, but Collin squinted his eyes, concentrating harder, and the flame swelled to cover the man's entire chest. He screamed and ran around, swatting at his shirt.
Hal felt numb. He saw Rich look up from his kneeling position in front of the Weasel guy, and notice Collin now walking behind the flaming man, gloating.
"Haha! That's right! I'm Collin, FIRE GOD!" He winced after that, cradling his hand. It only looked bruised, not broken.
Rich's mouth dropped. "Collin you imbecile he's a HUMAN BEING, not one of your Gi-Joe toys!"
Collin's mouth formed a little "o". The guy was on the floor now, rolling, so Collin stepped on his back with his feet, stamping out the flames. He lay there, groaning, his skin looking red and black through a hole in his charred shirt.
Collin looked down at him, appalled. "Shit, I didn't even-"
Rich stood up from where he was kneeling, shaking his head. He glanced back at Hal, who was sitting down in front of Metal-Eye, who was now quietly moaning. "We weren't ready for this. We got lucky. And-"He paused, looking at Collin.
"We went too far. There was no reason to fight here. These are PEOPLE. Collin you can't just torch them indiscriminately. That was sloppy. You could have killed him. How would you feel then?"
Collin looked shocked, but didn't say anything. Rich turned, to look at Hal and Mirvin.
"Hey Mirvin, can you contact Michael, and tell him what happened? We're gonna need some help here."
Mirvin nodded. "Are you alright Hal?" Rich asked.
"Yeah man, but look. They jumped us, we had to fight back. There punk losers, they don't understand anything else."
Rich looked skeptical.
"You didn't exactly approach them with diplomatic poise" He quipped.
Hal shook his head. "Dude, whatever. You saw them; they were not going to talk things over."
Rich didn't say anything else, but he still looks troubled. He knelt down over the guy he had whacked in the balls.
"I apologize for less than honorable tactics there, but you left me little choice. Jumping us, and trying to triple team Hal was not exactly honorable towards you either. Don't worry; we'll get you all help in a moment. And I'm sure I didn't cause you permanent damage."
The guy only moaned in response.
Hal got to his feet again, and turned towards Mirvin, who was twitching with his Helmet down. After a moment, he stopped, and put the visor back up.
"Michael gonna send us help?"
"Affirmative" said Mirvin, though a bit weakly. He looked shaken.
Hal hopped over to him. "Hey man, don't worry it's over now, we totally kicked ass. Thanks for your help, I though I was fucked. What was that thing anyway? That watch you got?"
"It is an electronic disabler" Mirvin said, more quiet than normal. "Michael gave it to Mirvin, for completing the first stage of elite hacker training."
"Cool man. And cheer up will ya? These punks were never a problem." Hal ruffled Mirvin's greasy hair, chuckling.
But in his head he felt a little worried. That had been really close. No, no Hal could've gotten out of the way in time. It was no problem. No sweat. He would just train harder. After today, Hal felt sure he could ace that test outside Wizard's office. Even though it didn't work very well, he had definitely halved that guy's weight, under extreme pressure. All Hal needed was to train harder, and this wouldn't happen again. The next time he went up against these weird techno freaks he'd wipe them across the planet. Didn't matter how much mass you had if you had NO gravity affecting you. Hal would learn how to do that, this he vowed.
Hal felt a tingling again, and he turned. A huge blue fountain of flame stood before him, sputtering with greens and magentas. It was awesome. Hal approached it, and clutched the spyglass on his neck, like Wiz had taught him. He fell to his knees, relaxing himself as much as he could.. After a minute, he felt energy flow into him, his ankle hurt less, and he was no longer breathing hard from the fight. He stood up, ready to take on the world.
After a few minutes a line split the air at the end of the alley way, and a circle opened, showing Dan. He stepped out of it, and approached the foursome. Rich explained to him what happened, and Dan quickly healed their injuries. He healed the punks moaning on the ground too. He told Hal and his roomates to go through the portal, and that he had everything under control here.
"Good job guys, this node will really come in handy."
"But next time, not so much frying huh?" Dan said, looking at Collin.
Collin hung his head.
As Hal walked through the library towards the window that would take him home, he thought about today's events. His ankle still hurt a little, and his shirt was torn. He definitely needed to change. He wasn't quite as tired; thanks to the quintessence/blue fire stuff he had absorbed back at his node. Still, he almost got his ass handed to him. That was it; Hal would train like crazy tomorrow. Then he'd pass that test of Wizard's and head off to the house-wide contest. That tournament was as good as won.