Recently
on Fires of the sky, the main group who had participated in the Elemental
Challenges has finally returned to Arkon’s Magic! But… to the rest of the
students’ surprise, several students have not appeared in the group, and they
knew that something tragic must have happened to them all. As a vow, Matt
decides it is best for them to do their own thing, because messing around all
throughout the first two years did nothing but cause them to lose more friends
in a very traumatic way. One thing to note now is that… after 365 days, things
have changed. Almost every student had to separate and disconnect with each
other due to self-anger and terrible memories of the first two years. We will
have to see what is up by reading onward to Fires of the Sky – Junior Year!
Episode 264 – A Rally Filled with Predetermined Calamity
The school cheered. Students were
seated from bleachers upon bleachers where banners were posted in the back,
calling out to each school class: freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors.
The freshman banners were usually torn to pieces, but no admin took charge of
this as they knew the custom was to pick on the youngest class the most. About
a thousand of them were facing the football field where the activities members
were catering the events. Shirley had Alex and Omar forced to stand on the
field even if they were not members. Sharon was also nearby but she was already
a member, so Shirley did not need to ask her to follow along.
Some students couldn’t even stay
still. They always stood up and yelled pointless chants to up their game
against other classes.
“Like a 13oss!” the youngest
teenagers said on the field, representing their 2013 class.
Van said to Maggie, “Is that
supposed to say ‘Like a Boss’??”
“Today’s slogans are the worst. What
the hell does ‘like a boss’ mean? Usually, your boss in your workplace is
always a douc-…”
“Class of 2012 isn’t any better…”
Maggie shrugged. “I’m also ashamed
of our own class – 2011. Our slogan is-…”
“You know how cool we are?” a typical football jock said,
standing up in front of everybody to cheer him on. “We are number 1, twice! Double-1!! 2011!!!”
Maggie covered her head in shame.
“That is the saddest slogan EVER.”
Everybody but all the students in
honors and accelerated classes cheered. The honors students looked down in
shame, thinking that the other students followed along with the football player
like animals.
Matt sat alone at a further distance
to the right. He placed a strange novel next to him so that nobody would take a
seat. He did not bother to cheer as he stared stupidly and angrily at the
rally. To him, he felt as if this rally was biased, and you would figure out
the reason as the rally kept going.
“What the hell is that kid still
doing down here? Get him to the bleachers!” the activities director yelled
blatantly again, this time with a megaphone.
Shirley rolled her eyes, having to
signal to Alex that he had to go on the bleachers.
“Stay alert,” she whispered.
“Anything can happen at any time.”
Alex only grumbled as he looked for
a seat, one empty spot next to Matt.
The president of the activities
meeting said on a microphone, “And now…” she said lazily. “Although I’m in the
awesome softball team, we move away from recognizing the softball team and move
on to the top 10 GPA students…” She rolled her eyes. The cheerleaders began
doing their original cheer, and the band from the bleachers began playing
music.
“Tch,” Matt growled.
The president spoke with a less
enchanting voice. “For class of 2010 first…” students cheered, but not for the
Top 10 GPA, but only to bump up their charisma and school spirit. Some had no
idea what ‘GPA’ meant, even if the most important ‘Grade Point Average’ term
was labeled all over their school resumes.
The moment Alex had arrived, Matt
stopped paying attention to the list of GPA students.
“Hi Matt, long time no talk,” Alex
gave a nervous smile, already knowing that Matt could barely smile on his own.
“Yeah,” he said.
“H-How are you?”
“I’m good.”
“The rally is stupid, huh,” Alex
added. He knew Matt disliked rallies but every student was forced to attend in
order to show school spirit at the start of the year.
“Definitely,” Matt barely said.
Alex asked him, “So uh, how’s um…
Nix doing?”
Matt said nothing this time.
From further to the right, Jen
watched Alex trying to speak with Matt. She had hoped that Alex would help snap
Matt back to normal, but at this point, nothing could.
“You’re still worrying about him?”
Stan asked Jen. Jen made a slight jump in surprise. With the ‘school spirit’
going on, she didn’t really expect anybody to notice her.
Lisa was to the left of Jen while
Stan was to the right. She listened in on them.
“I’m worried. He’s spending his time
in misery when he should be having fun.”
“Well you’re in misery too, because
you’re worrying a lot,” Lisa joked.
“Maybe I should try to talk to him
again,” she said as she stood up.
Stan grabbed her dress sleeve,
“Wait. We don’t want him to get angry in public. Let’s talk to him after.”
Jen stood up. “I can’t wait that
long!”
The activities director from way
down below called out to her, “Hey, girl with the dress, SIT YOUR ASS DOWN.”
Jen said down, wailing with a
waterfall of tears running down her eyes.
Van panicked. “I-Is she crying?!”
Maggie shivered. “That new
activities director though…”
~~~
“And here is to our lovely Track
& Field team!” the president called out. The cheerleaders and band members
continued with their new themes.
Omar said to Shirley, “Can’t they do
like, Top 11 GPA students?”
Shirley began laughing barbarically.
“Let me guess, you’re ranked 11.”
“You decide to skip a homework
assignment and it changes everything,” he began searching around, “so what are
we looking for anyway?”
“Alex and I have been protecting
this city, hoping nobody would know it’s us. Natural disasters keep coming up
more often.”
“Isn’t it just global warming?”
“You can’t blame everything on
global warming! There are forest fires every so often – nearby. That never
happens.”
Omar patted her bare shoulder as
Shirley only wore a tank top. “You’re just overreacting. Maybe Matt started
those fires by accident while training. And besides, you can’t call them
natural disasters if-…”
Shirley interrupted him, “Don’t
touch me,” as she went on with the topic, “It can still be a natural disaster
because of elemental inconsistency in the weather. Someone is doing this to the
weather which is screwing up the natural balance in forests and mountains.
Trust me, Matt is not doing anything. He barely even talks!”
Omar began to laugh. “Let’s say
someone is messing up the weather, do you have any clues?”
Shirley explained to him, “The
disasters keep getting closer to the El Monte district. If you’ve read the
news, it went from the east coast and then it slowly got closer to our high
school at least once a week. Alex did the math of each distance.”
“Since you can’t.”
“Let me finish explaining, you piece
of crap,” she began feeling frustrated by Omar’s jokes. “Alex measured that the
distance is equal to about 56 miles each week. Sometimes two disasters would
happen and the distance for each would be 28 miles apart. Only three days ago,
there was a forest fire at some hill near our district and we had to set it
off. The last day is today – which should be here exactly.”
Winny’s eyes belched. She suddenly
walked off the field to go to the restroom while the activities director was
not looking.
“Okay, for class of 2011’s Top 10
GPA…” the president said unenthusiastically, “Number 10, Kalpesh.”
Omar began kneeling down in tears.
“This is not fair!” he said dramatically.
The cheering became louder as the
number count went closer to one. “Nine, Yessenia!” Then, the list went down to
Huy, then to Lisa and Jen.
Jen and Lisa stood up together.
Lisa panicked. “Why didn’t we get
the early notice?!”
You see, every student in a sports
team or in the Top GPA were supposed to be notified earlier in Period 1 class.
The reason for this is because they must sit down on fancier chairs on the
football field in order to save time. It would be difficult and time consuming
to wait for honored students to walk off the bleachers with that many students
in the way.
Jen shook her head. “I-I don’t know.
We should go down fast before the new activities director yells at us.”
“You, girl with the dress, hurry
your ass down here!! I didn’t ask you to sit and relax like a little girl you
are!” he yelled, making Jen cry in waterfall tears again. The students nearby
were soaked.
“Next, Top 5: Tony!” the president
continued.
“Get your ass over here!” The
activities director threatened. The students on the bleachers began to laugh at
Jen.
Matt clenched his teeth. Irritation
began to rise on the activities director, Jen, Lisa, Matt, and a few other
students who didn’t bother to listen to the rally.
“Four: Amy!”
Omar yawned, “I don’t care anymore.
This countdown lame now.”
“Wait- countdown?!” Shirley yelped.
She suddenly hurried to Sharon.
Alex got up in an instant like a dog
that became alert of predetermined nature. Matt watched him slowly, but he
still did not care.
“Three: Julie.”
So far, these eight students stood
in a straight, horizontal line to be recognized. Shirley had whispered
something into Sharon’s ear, and Sharon looked petrified. Alex pleaded Matt to
follow, but he did not move from his seat. Alex sneered as he continued down
the bleachers on his own. Stan watched him from afar.
“Two: Shirl!”
Alex stood by the fence that
separated the bleachers and the track field that was ringed around the football
field like the planet Saturn. Cheerleaders began climbing onto each other, a
few even spinning in the air while the band members played their music faster.
Alex began to panic.
“And our top student for class of
2011 is… Cyn-…”
Suddenly, the only place where
cameras were running had exploded: the red crane that was placed on the track.
The camera man luckily was not at the crane. He needed to recharge batteries,
so he had to go to the activities office. The moment he came back, everyone
began to scream.
“Now!” Shirley commanded as Sharon
began to work her magic.
The crowd began to slow down. Their
eyes turned purple, just the same way when Sharon used her powers against
Shirley at the Sunlit Mayhem. This sent a chill down Shirley’s spine, but at
least she was not the target this time.
Alex and Omar headed for the crane
which was the very reason why Shirley had them stand on the field beforehand.
Matt was the only student who
continued to move on his own, guarding himself against Sharon’s daydream powers
by casting a flame shield in front of him.
“I missed someone?” Sharon gasped.
“No, that’s good! He can help us!”
Shirley called Matt’s name from afar.
“Three days late, aren’t you?” Matt
said by himself, holding the novel in his hands. Who was he talking to?
Sharon then aimed at the
cheerleaders, and then the activities director. There were a few more students
that still had their senses and Sharon had to aim at specific ones who didn’t
have powers.
The Top 10 GPA students were left
intact. Well, there were only nine. One of them didn’t show up yet – Number 1.
Lisa looked around, confused.
“What’s going on? What is
happening?”
Jen grabbed Lisa’s arms. “I’ll
explain later. We have to hide, now!”
“W-What?”
Matt walked down the bleachers and
then towards the gate. Jen passed him and said quickly, “I’m counting on you.
Please, Matt,” she said kindly as she dragged Lisa into the girls’ lockers to
wait.
“Matt,” Shirley said, “you’re here
to help too, right?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Matt only shrugged.
As the crane had completely fallen,
a beam of light flew to the west, out to the school’s boundaries.
Yessenia took a step forward. “Let
us hope Jen is correct on this one!” She then pointed towards the exit to the
school, “Omar, Huy, follow after that beam of light. Someone is there and is
trying to escape.”
“And the rest of us?” Tony
questioned.
Another beam of light appeared on
the fallen crane and out came a student no one has ever seen before, except for
Matt and Yessenia.
“Eeeh! There is more than I
expected!” he gulped.
Yessenia smiled. “You must be one of
them, Kelvin.”
“Who’s Kelvin?” Julie wondered.
Matt threw the book up into the air
in an arch-direction towards Julie. “A student from this book’s prophecy. Found
it in one of the worlds I’ve gone.”
Julie opened the book and then she
skimmed through the pages. “The last few are empty though.”
“This prophecy is about El Monte,”
Yessenia answered. “The strange thing is that only Jen is able to see those
last pages. This same goes for every book.”
“So every novel has a story we can jump
into?” Shirley asked.
“No. There are some books that do
not belong on Earth and it is because somebody must have brought them here to
Earth. The specific books that need fixing are those that none can see but
Jen.”
Kalpesh frowned. “Bummer. So we can’t
go into books like Frankenstein or Huckleberry Finn.”
“Exactly. But, as long as we
overestimate the prophecy and prepare ourselves,” she pointed her long sword at
Kelvin, “we can protect our school from any invasion.”
“We are being targeted,” Matt concluded.
~~~
- Preview to the next episode! -
Matt:
On the next episode of Fires of the Sky…
Winny:
Why have I seen this Kelvin before?
Amy:
Hm… same here. That was kind of strange.
Alex: Geh!
The more important thing is, why was he sent to spy on us?!
Matt:
We tracked him down to Mountain View. I’m going to take a look.
Shirley:
Uhhhh, hello?! You can’t just barge into their school and ask about these
so-called ‘East Coasters’.
Alex:
Y-Yeah, Shirley’s right! Don’t you know how dangerous it could be? The East
Coasters were sent from the Elemental government to check up on us.
Matt:
I don’t care. They’re not messing with our school.
Jaime:
If that’s what he believes, then we should let him go.
Jen:
I’m a little worried…
Matt:
Alright, Kelvin, we’re going to Mountain View. Next time on episode 265, Mountain
View and the East Coasters!
Kelvin:
A-Are you sure you want to go?!
Matt:
Certain.
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