01-05-2011, 06:24 PM
“Our worlds are in grave danger from an unknown assailant. These enemies are powerful and ambitious; they will not stop there. To all who can fight, now is the time. Answer the dire call and register with your local Militia representative. They will not be hard to find.”
Three young boys pressed themselves against the storefront’s glass bay window, trying to catch a glimpse at one of the many television sets that occupied the local shop’s display. Larger adults bore down on them from behind, hardly noticing the pre-teenagers before them. The youngest of them all, Sid, hardly noticed as his brash friends hurled curse words at their aggressive elders, and as they delivered stern kicks to their shins. The set that Sid was watching was repeating the same message over and over again.
“Come on, let’s get out of here,” Billy shouted, and then grabbed Sid by the strap on his backpack and pulled him from the crowd.
The three boys wormed their way through the crowd, going out of their way to step on people’s shoes and knock into their stomachs as they carved their own path. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, they burst forth from the rear of the gathering. William, as his mother endearingly referred to him as, which was something that he was also very embarrassed of, as she had a habit of calling him by his full name in front of his friends, turned around and kicked out at the crowd one last time, before gripping the straps on his backpack and darting forth into the street, leaving Sid and their other friend, Richie, to catch up.
Sid’s old, faded converses slapped against the sidewalk’s concrete as they leapt up from the street and darted down the crowded walkway, weaving in and out of traffic and giggling all the while.
“Hey,” Richie, the largest of the three boys, shouted out as Sid began to put distance between the two, “Wait up!”
“No way, hurry the hell up!” Billy shouted as he darted forward.
Sid laughed as he continued to gain distance on their de facto leader, but the message from the television set kept poking at the back of his mind, and he could not shake it. He was only in the seventh grade, but he could understand the situation that was at hand. All three of them could, they just chose not to talk about it. One could feel it in the air, a palpable tension that stank of both fear and courage. His older brother had left the other morning to join the local militia, and he had sensed the same cocktail on Steve, that was his elder sibling’s name. He told him before he left that “of course he was scared, but he was honored to serve and eager to defend his family.” And Sid couldn’t explain the tension he felt any better than that, his brother had always been better with words than him. Well, Steve had been better at pretty much everything, but school especially.
“Hey, dummy, slow up!”
Sid snapped back to reality, he hadn’t realized that he had spaced out for nearly an entire block! In front of him Billy was facing the local milkshake and ice cream parlor, aptly named ‘Mr. McGoo’s.’ It was apparently named after its owner, but Sid had never met anybody by that name.
“What’re you an idiot?! I’m standing right here!” Billy shouted and jokingly jabbed Sid in the shoulder as he slowed. Richie nearly collapsed behind them, doubled over and wheezing as he came to a halt next to the two.
“Sorry,” Sid stated simply, he was always the quiet one. “What’s up?”
“Dude, Jessica Hawthorne is in there!” Billy whispered excitedly as he pointed towards the parlor’s innards.
“What? Where? Let me see!” Richie pushed past Sid and pressed himself against the glass window, ogling at the young girl.
“You know I heard she’s dating the captain of the football team,” Billy stated in his snide tone. He was leaning against the shop’s window now, with his arms crossed and a smirk plastered across his tanned complexion. It was only early June, but his family took a trip south earlier last month and he showed off his bronzed skin as if it were a trophy.
“Yeah right,” Sid countered. One of Steve’s best friends was the captain of the football team, and Sid had met his girlfriend more than once. She was definitely not Jessica Hawthorne.
“I’m serious! It’s true!” Billy shouted defensively, pushing himself up from his post.
“Guys, shut up! She’s looking right at us!” Richie had turned his head back and squealed at the other two boys. Sure enough, Jessica Hawthorne was sitting at on the stool closest to the door, flanked by a gang of giggling girls. It was common knowledge to all the boys at Roosevelt Memorial School that Jessica Hawthorne was the most beautiful girl in all of West City. The heartthrob of every boy in the seventh grade, she held a very privileged position on the hierarchy of popularity. All the boys wanted to be with her, and all the girls wanted to be her. It was even rumored a teacher or two lusted for her. That was probably why Billy hated dusty geezers so much. He wouldn’t admit it outright, but he had a bigger crush on Jessica Hawthorn than any other boy in the school. Except for maybe Richie, that is.
“I’m going to go talk to her,” Richie stated, stiffening up boldly.
“What?” Billy retorted, taken aback by his companion’s brash decision.
“You heard me; I’m going to go talk to her.” This time he sucked in his stomach and puffed out his chest in a feeble attempt to look ‘buff.’ Sid and Billy exchanged glances, and then burst out in laughter.
“Oh man, I’ve got to see this!” Billy exclaimed as he doubled over in fits of laughter. “Go on, lover boy!”
Without a word, Richie pushed open the door and walked inside. He was covered in sweat from their little run, and was still wheezing in a manner that was similar to his grandmother, but he had always been the one to make bold and brash moves such as this. Billy quickly recovered and, with disbelief flashing across his eyes, grabbed Sid and darted in the store. The boy in the baseball cap brushed off his advance, however.
“I’m gonna head home, I’ll just catch you guys later.”
“You’re what?! Come on man, this is going to be hilarious!” Billy shouted. He was standing motionless in the door frame, half inside and half outside the shop. His left hand was propping open the glass entranceway.
“I’m not feeling good; I’ll catch you guys later.”
“Suit yourself man.” Billy chuckled as he let the door close behind him. He darted inside excitedly and raced up behind Richie, grabbing him by the shoulders and massaging him as if he were the trainer to a boxer who was heading towards the ring.
Sid stood for a second and stared through the glass window panes. Inside Richie and Billy were approaching the gaggle of young women, who were all propped up on barstools and were sipping away at their respective milkshakes. Next to them, he noticed, was the fading reflection of himself. He adjusted his baseball cap, shook off the emotions that were rising within him, and turned back t the street. He knew there was a chance he would never see them again.
This unknown threat, he thought, it was just like when his dog Susie died, except everyone he knew was at risk. He had to find out who the guilty party was, and bring them to justice. He just had to. The only problem was, he noted to himself as he descended into the crowded sidewalks once more, how does an unassuming twelve year old get involved in an intergalactic war?
After darting back to his house, which was on the way to the local community center, a surefire spot for militia sign-ups, and writing a note to his parents informing them that he would be staying at Billy’s for a few nights and that he had his cell phone on him if they needed anything, Sid snatched up everything that he thought he might need and headed down the street.
There was no way that they were going to allow him to join the militia, not at his age at least. But he had to join, he just had to. That seemed to be a recurring mantra of his today. He considered his options as he crouched behind a few cars and examined the line of volunteers streaming from the center’s front entranceway. His mother had always said that he had “some sense of justice and of right and wrong for someone his age.” If only she could see him now.
“There, that’s my chance,” Sid whispered and noted a large transport vehicle on the far side of the community center’s large, outdoors recreational area. Men and women adorned in fancy uniforms slowly boarded the oversized airplane. That had to be it, he thought to himself, that’s where the militia was heading.
As he started to rise, however, he stuttered and then quickly came to a halt, before returning to his crouched position.
“How’s a kid like me going to sneak on to that plane? Never mind actually help in this war!”
Sid sulked, and then thought for a moment before cringing. He slid the straps of his backpack from his shoulders and unzipped the enclosure on the blue sack, revealing the colorful mask within. He stared at it for a few moments. He’d only worn the mask once, but it wasn’t hard to deduce that it was an object of darkness and mystery. When it transformed him, he felt ancient and knowledgeable and clever and, above all else, he felt dangerous. And behind everything else he could sense that small tingling in the back of your brain that you get when something is amiss; it felt exactly the same as when his older brother had jokingly manipulated and influenced him when he was younger.
He continued to stare at the mask. It was his only way to actually help people; it was his only way to enact justice on those who perpetuated evil. But at what cost would that justice come? This mask had an agenda of its own, and even tough Sid did not know what that agenda was, he had a feeling that it could not be good.
“I’ll only wear it for as long as I can control it, and then I’ll just take it off,” Sid reassured himself and ducked out from the parking lot and into the nearby darkness of an adjacent alleyway. “How hard can it be?”
As he pulled the mask from his blue backpack he stopped to stare at it once more. Almost in response to his hesitation, a peculiar glimmer drifted across the costume piece’s face, as if a ray of sunlight had caught it at just the right angle. Sid lifted his head and looked around, there was no sun, and there was no source of light to be found.
“Weird,” he stated nonchalantly. Lifting the mask to his face, he gently pressed the cold wood against his skin and held it there until he felt it grab hold of his pale flesh. Dropping his hands, Sid stood up, the mask still stuck against his facial features. He could feel a soft wind picking up around him, just as it had last time, and he let his body relax. White noise drowned out everything and the scene before his eyes was cast into darkness. From nowhere a rush erupted in his chest and darted towards all his extremities, filling him with the sensation of power and energy. His knees buckled as a second wave came, and he dropped onto all fours as the excellence of some ancient deity coursed through his veins. It was originating from the area where the mask contacted his face.
As the sensation began its crescendo, he could feel the immense power within his body, having been transferred from the mask into himself, double back into his center. He prepared himself for what he referred to as the ‘knock.’ And, as if waiting for him to brace himself, it came on cue. As the power raced back to his center, he felt a strong force drive against the center of his chest and shoot him backwards onto his back. He cringed in momentary pain, and then it was over.
“I wonder if this is every going to get any easier,” he whispered as he stood up and examined himself. Just as it had happened last time, his entire appearance had been altered. His clothes had transformed into that of a vagrant forest fairy, or at least what he imagined one would look like. His skin had become brown and thick once again. And, most noticeably, the lens through which he viewed the world had changed. His eyes felt much larger, almost as though he had those that belonged to an insect. His peripheral vision was much extended, almost as if he were an owl, although he did not need to aerobically twist his neck in order to utilize this enhanced vision. Colors were more vibrant, light was brighter and darkness was more easily navigated. In many ways, the world that he viewed through the mask was much more beautiful than the one that he knew otherwise.
Sid Luck snapped his fingers once without giving his actions much thought and, as he had expected, the world around him came to an immediate halt.
“This is never going to get old,” he whispered as he stepped out from the alley and into the world that he had froze. Having control of time was definitely beneficial in these sorts of situations, as one might imagine.
As he walked towards the transport vehicle, with an exaggerated skip in his step so that it appeared to anyone who was watching, and of course no one was since they were frozen in time, that he was literally dancing across the recreational area, he remembered that he no longer had to talk. The life of the ancient forest fairy miscreant must have been a lot of fun, Sid remembered thinking.
His body evaporated into nothingness and reappeared a hundred yards away, materializing in the same instant that it had disappeared. Again he performed this stunt, and his thin, dancing body warped to the transport plane’s open bay door. From there, he simply walked forward into the cargo bay and chose what appeared to be the most comfortable area. It was sure to be a long flight, and as much as he wanted to remain hidden he also wanted to remain cozy.
“Perfect.” The transformed seventh grader dropped to the floor and reclined against a bunch of inflatable mattresses, which he fully planned on deploying once they were in flight. With a snap of his finger, he allowed time to once again carry out its own agenda.
“Just like I said, easy enough,” Sid snidely remarked to himself as he pulled the mask away from his face and reverted back into his normal, unassuming twelve year old self.
As he adjusted his body in his little nook a stream of letters that were imprinted on a nearby crate caught his attention. He craned his neck and examined the wood, which read: “High Priority Delivery to Planet Namek.”
“Well, I guess we’re visiting the little greenies,” Sid whispered as he tucked the mask into his backpack and awaited the takeoff of his flight across the galaxy.
Three young boys pressed themselves against the storefront’s glass bay window, trying to catch a glimpse at one of the many television sets that occupied the local shop’s display. Larger adults bore down on them from behind, hardly noticing the pre-teenagers before them. The youngest of them all, Sid, hardly noticed as his brash friends hurled curse words at their aggressive elders, and as they delivered stern kicks to their shins. The set that Sid was watching was repeating the same message over and over again.
“Come on, let’s get out of here,” Billy shouted, and then grabbed Sid by the strap on his backpack and pulled him from the crowd.
The three boys wormed their way through the crowd, going out of their way to step on people’s shoes and knock into their stomachs as they carved their own path. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, they burst forth from the rear of the gathering. William, as his mother endearingly referred to him as, which was something that he was also very embarrassed of, as she had a habit of calling him by his full name in front of his friends, turned around and kicked out at the crowd one last time, before gripping the straps on his backpack and darting forth into the street, leaving Sid and their other friend, Richie, to catch up.
Sid’s old, faded converses slapped against the sidewalk’s concrete as they leapt up from the street and darted down the crowded walkway, weaving in and out of traffic and giggling all the while.
“Hey,” Richie, the largest of the three boys, shouted out as Sid began to put distance between the two, “Wait up!”
“No way, hurry the hell up!” Billy shouted as he darted forward.
Sid laughed as he continued to gain distance on their de facto leader, but the message from the television set kept poking at the back of his mind, and he could not shake it. He was only in the seventh grade, but he could understand the situation that was at hand. All three of them could, they just chose not to talk about it. One could feel it in the air, a palpable tension that stank of both fear and courage. His older brother had left the other morning to join the local militia, and he had sensed the same cocktail on Steve, that was his elder sibling’s name. He told him before he left that “of course he was scared, but he was honored to serve and eager to defend his family.” And Sid couldn’t explain the tension he felt any better than that, his brother had always been better with words than him. Well, Steve had been better at pretty much everything, but school especially.
“Hey, dummy, slow up!”
Sid snapped back to reality, he hadn’t realized that he had spaced out for nearly an entire block! In front of him Billy was facing the local milkshake and ice cream parlor, aptly named ‘Mr. McGoo’s.’ It was apparently named after its owner, but Sid had never met anybody by that name.
“What’re you an idiot?! I’m standing right here!” Billy shouted and jokingly jabbed Sid in the shoulder as he slowed. Richie nearly collapsed behind them, doubled over and wheezing as he came to a halt next to the two.
“Sorry,” Sid stated simply, he was always the quiet one. “What’s up?”
“Dude, Jessica Hawthorne is in there!” Billy whispered excitedly as he pointed towards the parlor’s innards.
“What? Where? Let me see!” Richie pushed past Sid and pressed himself against the glass window, ogling at the young girl.
“You know I heard she’s dating the captain of the football team,” Billy stated in his snide tone. He was leaning against the shop’s window now, with his arms crossed and a smirk plastered across his tanned complexion. It was only early June, but his family took a trip south earlier last month and he showed off his bronzed skin as if it were a trophy.
“Yeah right,” Sid countered. One of Steve’s best friends was the captain of the football team, and Sid had met his girlfriend more than once. She was definitely not Jessica Hawthorne.
“I’m serious! It’s true!” Billy shouted defensively, pushing himself up from his post.
“Guys, shut up! She’s looking right at us!” Richie had turned his head back and squealed at the other two boys. Sure enough, Jessica Hawthorne was sitting at on the stool closest to the door, flanked by a gang of giggling girls. It was common knowledge to all the boys at Roosevelt Memorial School that Jessica Hawthorne was the most beautiful girl in all of West City. The heartthrob of every boy in the seventh grade, she held a very privileged position on the hierarchy of popularity. All the boys wanted to be with her, and all the girls wanted to be her. It was even rumored a teacher or two lusted for her. That was probably why Billy hated dusty geezers so much. He wouldn’t admit it outright, but he had a bigger crush on Jessica Hawthorn than any other boy in the school. Except for maybe Richie, that is.
“I’m going to go talk to her,” Richie stated, stiffening up boldly.
“What?” Billy retorted, taken aback by his companion’s brash decision.
“You heard me; I’m going to go talk to her.” This time he sucked in his stomach and puffed out his chest in a feeble attempt to look ‘buff.’ Sid and Billy exchanged glances, and then burst out in laughter.
“Oh man, I’ve got to see this!” Billy exclaimed as he doubled over in fits of laughter. “Go on, lover boy!”
Without a word, Richie pushed open the door and walked inside. He was covered in sweat from their little run, and was still wheezing in a manner that was similar to his grandmother, but he had always been the one to make bold and brash moves such as this. Billy quickly recovered and, with disbelief flashing across his eyes, grabbed Sid and darted in the store. The boy in the baseball cap brushed off his advance, however.
“I’m gonna head home, I’ll just catch you guys later.”
“You’re what?! Come on man, this is going to be hilarious!” Billy shouted. He was standing motionless in the door frame, half inside and half outside the shop. His left hand was propping open the glass entranceway.
“I’m not feeling good; I’ll catch you guys later.”
“Suit yourself man.” Billy chuckled as he let the door close behind him. He darted inside excitedly and raced up behind Richie, grabbing him by the shoulders and massaging him as if he were the trainer to a boxer who was heading towards the ring.
Sid stood for a second and stared through the glass window panes. Inside Richie and Billy were approaching the gaggle of young women, who were all propped up on barstools and were sipping away at their respective milkshakes. Next to them, he noticed, was the fading reflection of himself. He adjusted his baseball cap, shook off the emotions that were rising within him, and turned back t the street. He knew there was a chance he would never see them again.
This unknown threat, he thought, it was just like when his dog Susie died, except everyone he knew was at risk. He had to find out who the guilty party was, and bring them to justice. He just had to. The only problem was, he noted to himself as he descended into the crowded sidewalks once more, how does an unassuming twelve year old get involved in an intergalactic war?
After darting back to his house, which was on the way to the local community center, a surefire spot for militia sign-ups, and writing a note to his parents informing them that he would be staying at Billy’s for a few nights and that he had his cell phone on him if they needed anything, Sid snatched up everything that he thought he might need and headed down the street.
~~~***~~~
There was no way that they were going to allow him to join the militia, not at his age at least. But he had to join, he just had to. That seemed to be a recurring mantra of his today. He considered his options as he crouched behind a few cars and examined the line of volunteers streaming from the center’s front entranceway. His mother had always said that he had “some sense of justice and of right and wrong for someone his age.” If only she could see him now.
“There, that’s my chance,” Sid whispered and noted a large transport vehicle on the far side of the community center’s large, outdoors recreational area. Men and women adorned in fancy uniforms slowly boarded the oversized airplane. That had to be it, he thought to himself, that’s where the militia was heading.
As he started to rise, however, he stuttered and then quickly came to a halt, before returning to his crouched position.
“How’s a kid like me going to sneak on to that plane? Never mind actually help in this war!”
Sid sulked, and then thought for a moment before cringing. He slid the straps of his backpack from his shoulders and unzipped the enclosure on the blue sack, revealing the colorful mask within. He stared at it for a few moments. He’d only worn the mask once, but it wasn’t hard to deduce that it was an object of darkness and mystery. When it transformed him, he felt ancient and knowledgeable and clever and, above all else, he felt dangerous. And behind everything else he could sense that small tingling in the back of your brain that you get when something is amiss; it felt exactly the same as when his older brother had jokingly manipulated and influenced him when he was younger.
He continued to stare at the mask. It was his only way to actually help people; it was his only way to enact justice on those who perpetuated evil. But at what cost would that justice come? This mask had an agenda of its own, and even tough Sid did not know what that agenda was, he had a feeling that it could not be good.
“I’ll only wear it for as long as I can control it, and then I’ll just take it off,” Sid reassured himself and ducked out from the parking lot and into the nearby darkness of an adjacent alleyway. “How hard can it be?”
As he pulled the mask from his blue backpack he stopped to stare at it once more. Almost in response to his hesitation, a peculiar glimmer drifted across the costume piece’s face, as if a ray of sunlight had caught it at just the right angle. Sid lifted his head and looked around, there was no sun, and there was no source of light to be found.
“Weird,” he stated nonchalantly. Lifting the mask to his face, he gently pressed the cold wood against his skin and held it there until he felt it grab hold of his pale flesh. Dropping his hands, Sid stood up, the mask still stuck against his facial features. He could feel a soft wind picking up around him, just as it had last time, and he let his body relax. White noise drowned out everything and the scene before his eyes was cast into darkness. From nowhere a rush erupted in his chest and darted towards all his extremities, filling him with the sensation of power and energy. His knees buckled as a second wave came, and he dropped onto all fours as the excellence of some ancient deity coursed through his veins. It was originating from the area where the mask contacted his face.
As the sensation began its crescendo, he could feel the immense power within his body, having been transferred from the mask into himself, double back into his center. He prepared himself for what he referred to as the ‘knock.’ And, as if waiting for him to brace himself, it came on cue. As the power raced back to his center, he felt a strong force drive against the center of his chest and shoot him backwards onto his back. He cringed in momentary pain, and then it was over.
“I wonder if this is every going to get any easier,” he whispered as he stood up and examined himself. Just as it had happened last time, his entire appearance had been altered. His clothes had transformed into that of a vagrant forest fairy, or at least what he imagined one would look like. His skin had become brown and thick once again. And, most noticeably, the lens through which he viewed the world had changed. His eyes felt much larger, almost as though he had those that belonged to an insect. His peripheral vision was much extended, almost as if he were an owl, although he did not need to aerobically twist his neck in order to utilize this enhanced vision. Colors were more vibrant, light was brighter and darkness was more easily navigated. In many ways, the world that he viewed through the mask was much more beautiful than the one that he knew otherwise.
Sid Luck snapped his fingers once without giving his actions much thought and, as he had expected, the world around him came to an immediate halt.
“This is never going to get old,” he whispered as he stepped out from the alley and into the world that he had froze. Having control of time was definitely beneficial in these sorts of situations, as one might imagine.
As he walked towards the transport vehicle, with an exaggerated skip in his step so that it appeared to anyone who was watching, and of course no one was since they were frozen in time, that he was literally dancing across the recreational area, he remembered that he no longer had to talk. The life of the ancient forest fairy miscreant must have been a lot of fun, Sid remembered thinking.
His body evaporated into nothingness and reappeared a hundred yards away, materializing in the same instant that it had disappeared. Again he performed this stunt, and his thin, dancing body warped to the transport plane’s open bay door. From there, he simply walked forward into the cargo bay and chose what appeared to be the most comfortable area. It was sure to be a long flight, and as much as he wanted to remain hidden he also wanted to remain cozy.
“Perfect.” The transformed seventh grader dropped to the floor and reclined against a bunch of inflatable mattresses, which he fully planned on deploying once they were in flight. With a snap of his finger, he allowed time to once again carry out its own agenda.
“Just like I said, easy enough,” Sid snidely remarked to himself as he pulled the mask away from his face and reverted back into his normal, unassuming twelve year old self.
As he adjusted his body in his little nook a stream of letters that were imprinted on a nearby crate caught his attention. He craned his neck and examined the wood, which read: “High Priority Delivery to Planet Namek.”
“Well, I guess we’re visiting the little greenies,” Sid whispered as he tucked the mask into his backpack and awaited the takeoff of his flight across the galaxy.