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 267 – Jen Learns How to Play with Steel
“Hehehe…” a little girl giggled. A
golden bell was heard from a nearby distance. “Jeanette…”
“Who’s there?”
“Who else?”
“Um… I don’t know, to be honest.”
“How can you not know?” the voice
was getting louder and the sound of footsteps were bouncing off walls that
shined like transparent glass.
“I can’t see you.”
“Do you want to see?”
“I guess I have to.”
The voice giggled again and the
golden bell rang. “Okay then. I’m… you.”
Jen became confused. “Huh? But how?”
“Look at me closely, Jen. You’ve
done this to me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You’ve…” the golden bell shattered
and a demonic face erupted from the little girl’s head with a satanic howl that
had awakened Jen from a nightmare.
Jen was sweating. “What was that…?!”
She began to yawn. “Ergh… I guess it was just a stupid nightmare from a scary
movie that I recently watched.” She got off her bed to go to the restroom but
she accidentally tripped on a cardboard box that had the label “To: Jeanette
Phung”.
“Did this come in the mail? Mom must
have forgotten to show it to me sooner.”
She slowly opened the box and then
she removed the foam covers. In between the foam was an extremely new and shiny
book that reflected against the moonlight.
“A book…? ‘The Temple in the City’…”
she read. “Strange… I never ordered this book.” She suddenly had the urge to
read it in the next morning, or at least the first page before she fell asleep.
She skimmed through the pages and she noticed that some of the empty pages were
slowly showing words for her just like all of the other books that did not
belong on Earth. “It’s another one of those worlds that we can go to. Those kind of novels,” she told herself.
She slowly opened the first page and
read three random words near the bottom, “missing gir-… No. I shouldn’t read
this without my friends’ permission. I promised Stan that I would stop together
with him.” She decided to stuff the novel into her backpack so she could tell
her friends the next morning. She easily went back to sleep after going to the
restroom, and there were no more nightmares following that.
~~~
In the next morning, Jen was about to sit
under the blue canopy near the cafeteria until Kalpesh decided to stop her on
her way.
“Hey, wait!” he said, trying to skid
away from regular students who were in his way. He had a giant present box in
his hands. “I got you something! It’s a little something that Joey and I put
together.”
“How did you make it all within one
night?”
“Well, I talked to Joey over the
internet about your problem and he decided to make a weapon in about less than
two hours. It’s amazing how he didn’t even hesitate when it came to helping
you. I guess he does have a sweet spot. But anyway, it was just any ordinary
pole weapon and he had to give it to me earlier in the morning since he had
Journalism for Zero Period.”
Maybe
you’re wondering what ‘Zero Period’ is. This class period is an extra hour
earlier compared to the regular school time. This was for those who wanted an
extra class and Joey was still dedicated to taking pictures for his Journalism
course.
“Anyway, I took that extra hour to
split it apart and add some chains to it, and with my technological powers, I
made it move at your own will. I was going to make it talk, but that would be
kind of creepy.”
Jen opened the present box and she
could see two sticks tied together by a steel chain. “Um… what is it…?”
“You don’t know?!” Kalpesh gasped.
“They’re nunchuks!”
“Are you calling me a nun?”
“No… that’s the name of the weapon.”
“Because you think I’m a nun.”
“No! I think they’re perfect for
you!”
“Because
you think I’m a n-…”
“Okay let’s stop that. Seriously, I
think it fits you. Try it out!”
Jen took the nunchucks out of the
box but Kalpesh suddenly pushed it back in. “Hey! I don’t mean right now. It’s
a weapon, something you can’t bring
into school. Here, let’s try it in our old English class from freshman year.
She’s probably not in class yet.”
~~~
As the two of them went into the
classroom, Jen grabbed one end of the nunchuck. The outside was gripped in nice
leather but it was steel on the inside, the edges, and the chains. She let the
other side of her weapon dangle.
“Now, I’m not familiar with this
kind of weapon myself, but from what I’ve seen in the Bruce Lee movies, you
have to hold-…”
Jen whacked the air without
Kalpesh’s direction and the other side of the nunchuck hit her head.
“Eeyah! Why?!”
“You’re not using it properly. It
probably hit you for that.”
“I wish you didn’t give it a mind on
its own.”
“Well you did use it wrong. Luckily, you can command it to have leather, or
without it by just asking. This is because if you mess up, you won’t hurt
yourself too much but when you’re in danger, it can be fully strong like steel!
Now, try using both hands this time.”
Jen grabbed one end of the nunchucks
with both hands as she swung. Again, the other end hit her head.
Kalpesh sighed. “That’s not what I
meant… Hold both sides of the nunchuck.”
“But then how am I supposed to hit
the enemy if I hold both ends?”
“You’re only gonna hold both sides
in the very beginning so that you can start off with a good balance. When you
get better though, I’m sure you’ll be able to scrap that part. For now, just do
it.”
As Jen held both sides, Kalpesh
ordered her to let go of her secondary hand and swing with the primary. She
then hit the desk below her by accident and the nunchuck ricochet back to her
face.
Kalpesh grinned. “Maybe that was a
bad idea. Don’t hurt it. The nunchucks have feelings too.”
“Why did you give it a
personality?!”
“Because when you grow a close bond
with it, maybe it will help fight with you, not just sit around and wait for
you to do things properly.”
Jen frowned. “This is going to take
a while…”
~~~
It was lunch time and Matt was
sitting at the bleachers, alone. He knew that he was not allowed to sit that
far away from campus because the bleachers and the football field were on the
opposite end of the cafeteria. There are not enough supervisors to be hired in
order to keep track of anybody who tries to ditch school through the back gate
near the field. Still, regulation was not as important for this school.
Policemen worried more about indoor classrooms as well. As weeks slowly gone
by, they would slowly disperse and move on to other school regulations.
However, due to the strange short explosion on the rally’s crane, a few
returned and even detectives were hired to examine the school’s policies.
“Why did you come back?” Matt asked
without looking back. He knew that Phoenix was sneaking up on him.
“Drats! I should have been Nix, the
bird, before it was too late,” Phoenix said to himself after tripping on his
shoe laces. He stood up and acted cool as if nothing happened. “Just because I
went to explore the world for a whole year doesn’t mean I can’t feel our
connection. I’m your spirit, Matt. I knew exactly what you did at Mountain
View.”
“So what?”
“That wasn’t smart of you! I came
back to protect you because I know they’re not going to let this go. They’ll
come back some day and cause a bigger commotion to our school.”
Matt said nothing this time.
“You should really keep your ‘spirit’
up,” Phoenix said, giggling to the side from his terrible pun. “By the way, do
you know what I really am? Maybe that
should help you.”
“I already know. It doesn’t matter
to me.”
“Are you sure you know the whole
story?” Still, silence. “Augh, you know what? I’ll keep it short and cut to the
chase. Winny’s leaving El Monte High School.”
Matt’s ears suddenly propped.
“I saw her the other day at night
walking away with some guy. She said something about how things have changed
from ‘o-kay’ to ‘worse’. This makes me think she was never happy to begin with,
and now it’s getting worse.”
“Not happy with what?”
“I don’t know! It’s just an
assumption. Human emotions are sooo confusing.”
“Matt!” Jen called from the
basketball fields. These fields were behind the bleachers of about fifty feet
away.
Matt took his time walking down the
bleachers. “What is it now?”
“I’m sorry for bothering you again…”
Jen said in a panic. Phoenix could notice her expression. She was worried about
something, but at the same time, he knew she was intimidated to even talk to
him this time.
Phoenix said to them, “Now I know I
said human emotions are confusing, but…”
“What is that book?” Matt
interrupted him.
Jen had the book in her hands while
carrying her backpack which was larger than usual. Of course, she had her new
weapon in there anyway. Matt snatched the book out of her left hand and he read
the title: ‘The Temple in the City’.
“What is this?”
“Isn’t that a book?” Phoenix said
stupidly.
Jen grabbed Matt’s arms in fear.
“Something tells me that I need to read this book. Please, Matt. Something is
going on.”
Matt hid the book behind himself.
“We should stop going to other worlds. It’s getting dangerous and we need to
protect our own school.”
“Stan told me you asked him the
question: ‘what are we protecting ourselves from?’ Now you’re telling me we
have to protect ourselves?”
“If we start practicing more, no one
will be able to protect this place as best as we want to. Practice sessions are
over and we need to take things seriously. We can’t read another book.”
“But it’s important! I had a dream…
no, a nightmare. It was about this girl who looked like me, and then she turned
into some freakish monster. When I woke up, this book appeared in a cardboard
box. Matt, this is no ordinary book. Maybe it will answer what I’ve dreamt
about.”
“It was probably just a
coincidence,” Matt became frustrated with her.
Jen began to cry. “I’ve… wanted to
prove to everyone that I could become stronger. If I could just read that book
on my own, then maybe I could show you! I could show you that I’m strong and
independent on my own!”
Phoenix said to Matt, “Hey, maybe
she should read the book. What if it’s a prophecy for El Monte?”
Matt looked away. “We’ll deal with
this later. First, we have to find Winny. Where did she go?”
“Oh, she’s moving schools
completely,” Phoenix corrected. “She’s not coming back.”
“What? Where is she going now?”
“Um… I don’t remember… English words
kind of confuse me. First, I learned that ‘city’ meant a large main area in
several states. But now, she told me that she’s going to a city school. Can you
believe that? A school but, of a city?”
Matt clenched his teeth. “What the
heck are you talking about?”
“D-Don’t get mad at me! I couldn’t
even understand. She said something about City school… in a temple maybe? OH
YEAH! Temple City! That’s the weirdest name for a high school ever. Right?”
Something sparked Matt’s mind this
time. The school’s name was ‘Temple City’ and Jen’s novel is called ‘The Temple
in the City’. Matt took a look at the book cover.
“Jen, I’ll let you read this, but
I’m coming with you if it involves going anywhere.”
Jen wiped her tears away.
“R-Really?” She began to smile.
~~~
The three students waited until
afterschool to discuss this issue. By the time all of the students were leaving
the campus except for those dedicated to school clubs and sports, Matt, Jen,
and Phoenix were sitting together under the canopy near the cafeteria.
Matt looked around the blacktop. “You’ve
only read one page and you assume that we need a few friends to help?”
Jen agreed with him. “Yeah. The
first page mentioned an existence of the seven deadly sins.”
“But what made you assume that there
would be seven enemies that we would have to deal with?”
“Well in a novel this big, you’re
not going to have one person take all the sins.”
Phoenix shivered. “A religious book?
It kind of scares me.”
“Why would it scare you?” Jen
giggled at his cuteness even as a human.
“I-I mean, I’m supposed to be some
kind of baby phoenix, but that’s also a part of a belief that isn’t confirmed
real. I’m just a mythological concept.”
“Aw, don’t think of religion that
way. Hmmm… you can think of religion as… a real aspect as long as you believe.
That’s how people have hope for their future and I think it’s nice. Hehe.” She
turned to Matt, “So who did you bring along?”
“Just enough. They’re people who are
closer to Winny: Shirley, Alex, Yessenia, and Jaime. With them four along with
the three of us, that makes seven.”
“Shouldn’t we overestimate and add
more?”
“Too much could probably risk our
identity.”
“I guess,” Jen was uncertain, “we’ll
start when they arrive then.”
~~~
- Preview to the next episode! -
Matt:
On the next episode of Fires of the Sky…
Shirley:
We’re back and relevant as ever!
Alex:
It sickens me that we’re doing something so dangerous again.
Jen: I
guess it’s fine as long as it’s for Winny. I’m finally in the main group!
Shirley:
It doesn’t matter if this is dangerous. We’re back together as a reunion.
Jaime:
It has only been a year.
Phoenix:
These markets are extremely cheap!
Shirley:
Oh my gosh!! Let’s go shopping! Jaime, come here. You need a hat.
Van:
William? Can I dress you up too?
William:
Um…
Matt:
Do we really have time for some stupid shopping? Next time on episode 268, The
Temple in the City!
Yessenia: Maybe a quick detour will not hurt us. This seems
interesting.
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