SYNTHETIC: ECLIPSE
CHAPTERS I and II
CHAPTER I: Endurance and Coordinates
I could feel the beads of sweat form at the top of my eyebrow, my hands began to sweat uncontrollably, and my stomach felt uneasy. “Did you do the assignment or not, Mr. Jennings?” My teacher asked again. I swallowed, barely getting the saliva down my throat, “-no,” I managed to say, “no? Drew, are you aware of your grade in my class? Do you even care at this point? You are in the best high school Sactowne has to offer, and you’re going to just piss on this opportunity?” the class’s eyes on me, “you do realize that if you don’t pass my test next week, you will not be going on the tour of Arcadius Labs fieldtrip, understand?” He added, “I understand.” The bell rung just in time, my friends; Edward Pulse and Nena Arreola stood outside the classroom door. As I grabbed my bookbag and headed for the door, Mr. Skinner shut it; I looked at him with confusion, “-look, Drew, you are one of the brightest students I have, and it kills me to fail you, but, if you’re going to get lazy-” I spoke over him, “I’m going to pass your class, I guess my mind has been elsewhere these past couple of weeks.” I was so anxious to leave, I was practically shaking; “if you need to talk, the guidance counselor’s office is open all day,” I nodded my head and made my way to the door. “What was that about?” Edward asked, “I won’t be able to go to Arcadius with you guys if I can’t pass the test next week,” “I’ll swing by tomorrow morning to get you prepared,” Nena added, “-but, right now, we should check on our friend.” We rode our bikes to The Holding Cell (which is an abandoned garage under the Sactowne High-way).
We had a man cuffed to a tool shelf; he was a pale immature man, whom we busted during a weapon deal last night. “Are you going to tell me who your supplier is now? Or, will we have to go straight to the interrogating?” As I spoke to the man, Edward, and, Nena were outside putting on their outfits; “you chased my car down, how? What are you?” He asked, “you don’t ask the questions, if my partners come through those doors, and, I have no new information; your left eye will look a lot like the right,” he chuckled to himself before speaking, “you tell me your secret, and I tell you mine.” I grabbed my pocket knife from my bookbag and cut deeply into the palm of my hand, the black blood dripped onto the floor; the cuffed man cringed, but quickly became astonished once he noticed the cut had completely healed. “I don’t know what I am, but I can heal and endure more than the regular human. Your turn.” M-Pulse (Edward), and Call-Girl (Nena) entered the garage, “my suppliers are a group known as Flash-Mob, but, you’ll never find them, and if you do find them, it’s because they wanted you to,” M-Pulse pressed his taser against the man’s neck, “where are they?” He questioned. A motorcycle was heard outside of the garage; the man’s face lit up, “they’re here.” Three guys dressed in black leather jackets with a lightning bolt symbol on each shoulder, and cargo pants, forced open the garage doors; one of the men tossed a small canister towards my feet, as I looked down the canister emitted a thick cloud of smoke that caused me and my friends to choke for air. I could only hear the shuffling of feet, and then, the sounds of motorcycles driving off; I managed to drag M-Pulse and Call-Girl out of the small building. “What the hell just happened?” Edward asked, as he pulled off his hood, and, untied his facemask, “we just lost our lead, and, gained three new enemies,” Nena reiterated as she punched the door to the garage. “Where’s, Drew?” She asked.
I noticed the three motorcycles a few blocks from me, I peddled as fast as I could; I was inches from the pale man. As I reached out to grab his dirty t-shirt, the driver saw me and quickly grabbed a gun from his jacket. As he began to riddle the space between us with bullets, I threw myself from the bike, rolled in the middle of the busy street, and then, watched as they drove off into the sunset. Damn it.
“Hey, cheer up, at least we’re all alive, right? Plus, they may still be in the city, so, we can easily track that pale bastard’s paper trail from his phone,” Nena explained as the three of us sat in me and Edward’s room (his parents adopted me, long story), “you’re right, but, I think we need some serious training,” Edward got an idea, and jumped down from the bunkbed; “how fast is your healing?” I handed him my knife, “stab me,” Nena’s face was filled with uneasiness, I assured them both that it was “cool.” I took off my shirt, and motioned him to commence. He stabbed me between my abs, their eyes opened wide once they notice the wound instantly heal. The next morning, Nena made sure that I understood The Triangle Trade, for my test on Monday, after we got that out of the way, we rode our bikes to an unkempt baseball field where we waited for Edward to meet us. An hour later he arrived with two wooden staffs, “why,” I asked, “the sticks are for Nena, and I, and since you can heal and endure more pain than us” “-I’ll be the one getting hit, right?” He then smirked, and added, “not if you work on ducking and rolling.” For three hours we trained; for three hours I’ve been holding my punches. Nena swung her stick at my head, but I ducked and pushed Edward into her, knocking the two of them down. Edward was quick with the stick, so, I slid under his legs once I had the opportunity, and took him to the ground from behind; Nena stabbed the stick down, forcing me to do a crabwalk backwards; I kicked the stick away, and took her down as well. “You guys are great with those,” I complimented as I grabbed both of their hands to lift them up, “where did you learn to fight like that?” Edward asked as he dusted himself off, “I don’t know, it’s like I could see where I needed to be before an attack.” An orange Jeep pulled into the empty parking lot of the field, “I really hope you didn’t steal those sticks,” Nena whispered to Edward. We couldn’t make-out who was in the Jeep, so we stood there staring at it; the driver’s and passenger’s door opened. It was Richard Costello (the school’s wrestling captain), and one of his friends, “you guys roleplaying, or something?” I spoke up, “none of your business, what do you want, Ryan?” He glared, then, suddenly smiled, “relax, DJ, I was in the neighborhood and seen your moves, I was impressed; Mark, here, wants you to practice at the gym for a bit, you in?” I looked to my friends for an answer, “-your pets can come too, I guess.” The ride in that awful-smelling car was excruciating, he took us to a gym that was flooded with the most muscular men and women I’ve ever seen, Richard handed me the wrestling attire, I observed the thong-like wear, and then decided to hand it back, he shrugged and stepped on the mat in the center of the gym, before grabbing a microphone. “Ladies, and beasts, today I bring you a very special friend of mine,” I instantly knew what was going on. He brought me here in attempts to embarrass me, and I fell for it. We tried to walk off, that’s when Richard spoke again, “getting cold feet, Drew?” The gym turned their heads in our direction, “I’m not fighting you, give up already,” I spoke again, letting my frustration out, “are you obsessed with me or something?” Everyone began to laugh, Richard walked to me and pushed me against the wall; I didn’t feel it (naturally), “you better rethink this,” I said through my teeth, he smirked and went for a punch, but, as he cocked back, time slowed down just long enough for me to move my head aside, causing Richard to slam his fist into the concrete wall. I could hear every shattered bone. He fell to the ground in tears and agony; his friend, Mark tried coming after me, except, he wasn’t expecting a perfectly synchronized punch from Nena and Edward, blackening the both of his eyes. After leaving the gym, we decided to relax at the mall.
It was getting late, which meant we had to get home and start our patrol, as we got on the escalator, I got this troubling feeling, I glanced at the opposite escalator, my heart may have literally dropped. It was the pale man, the second he made eye-contact with me, I started running up the escalator; Nena and Edward were right behind me, when we made it up, I noticed the man pushing through a crowd of shoppers, we ran in the same direction, which was probably a bad idea. As soon as we turned the corner a vending machine crashed down, missing us by half an inch. The man turned back and laughed hysterically, I took off in a full sprint, his expression changed, and he jumped over the railing, as did I. We landed in the closed-down skating rink; “you played right into their trap. While, you’re stuck here with me, Flash-Mob is making off with maybe 2 million dollars’ worth of jewelry. I doubt your friends can stop them without being killed,” I heard gunshots go off, and a lot of people screaming, “-what cha gonna do, hero?” I swiftly knocked him out with a punch to the face and tied him against a pole with a cord. I tried calling them both, but no one answered, I couldn’t get the door to open. Another round of shots went off. My adrenaline kicked in, I gripped the metal bars as tight as possible and began pulling in opposite directions, after a few more seconds of muscle strain, the bars bent. I reached my hand in, and, unlocked the door, then made my way to the chaos. I saw the four men making their escape, so I chased after them from above; one of them saw me jumping down from the high platform. I landed right on top of him. Two of them left the mall, the other man kicked me off his partner. I threw the only gun between the three of us aside, “-let’s kill this damn kid already.” They both pulled out a pair of knives and dashed towards me; I slid behind the men, they quickly ran closely, stabbing the air rear of me; I managed to run up a wall and flip myself behind the men once more. They swung their blades near my neck, I ducked and swiftly punched them in their stomachs; I grabbed the head of one man, kicked the other aside, then continued to knee the held man in the face until he fell unconscious. I turned to engage the remaining man, but he had the gun pointed to me, “I don’t know what the hell you are, but we’ll see when I blow your brains o”- there was a thud sound, I slowly opened my eyes, to see Call-Girl and M-Pulse holding their combat sticks, “I told you we should’ve went with duo-wields,” Call-Girl said after observing the two unconscious men and their blades, “Drew, you can still stop them, traffic is pretty bad because of the panic,” Edward explained, I nodded and ran after the black van. It didn’t get too far, I ran in front of the van, but, I only seen one guy in the car; I instantly got a bad feeling, I half-way cocked my head, when another black truck came charging at me. It was too close to react in time. They had me pinned between the two SUV’s, they drove me into a dark warehouse, then drove off. “Hello?” I shouted; I heard footsteps becoming increasingly closer, then, I seen an orange light reflecting from the walls, I could smell fire. A trail of flames slithered to me like a snake, I couldn’t run fast enough; the flame wrapped around my leg and began pulling me into the direction it came from, I grabbed my pocket knife and stabbed at it (obviously it didn’t work, its fire). It dragged me into a room filled with wild flames and a man standing in a circle of blue flames. The fiery guy didn’t wear a shirt, nor shoes. Just a pair of blue jeans. His eyes had fire in them as he looked at me, he gave a half smile and opened his mouth. The words he spoke didn’t process in my mind. “Hello, brother.”
CHAPTER II: Synths of the Father
“What do you want? Why did you do all of this?” I asked. he grew wings of fire and glided to me. We were now face to face; even I could see the resemblances between us: our jaws were perfectly rounded, we both had light-brown eyes that looked a lot like contacts, the only difference was his dark brown hair was long and tied in a braid; mine was long enough to tie in a pony-tail. “I’m assuming your mother didn’t survive your birth, sad. Father knew the circumstances that comes within Human and Arcane relations,” “-so, that’s what I am?” he put his hands on my shoulders, “you’re what we call a Synthetic, but the politically ‘correct’ term is Half-blood. I can show you the full extent of your power if you want.” I would’ve quickly took the offer, but my gut told me to question it; “what’s in it for you?” He sneered before speaking, “This planet is going to experience an Eclipse before the end of this year, do you know what that means for our kind?” He glanced at me, “-of course you don’t. It means Abyzu: the demon that hunted down our entire race will begin to be heal again, and that means he’ll come to Earth and fulfill his promise to absorb the life from it.” I could hear the desperation in his voice, “how could the two of us fight this thing, if our whole race couldn’t?” He handed me his phone, on it was a picture and a description. The picture was a Circular device with a triangle shaped spinning console inside of the circle, inside the triangle was a white glowing Orb. The description read: The Beta-Bug. The Beta-Bug was created in the year 2031, 11 years from now; it was designed to attach to the skin of any being with a beating heart, and create a robotic-armor shielding around the host; also giving them an immense amount of power, including; the strength to lift an entire plane, the ability to take on as much damage up to a tank rocket from a mid-ranged blast, also, it gives the host the speed up to 65 MPH. Only one left in stock, location: Arcadius Labs, Sactowne, U.S.A Initial Price: 9,850,000,000
“That’s great, two questions?” I said, tossing the phone back, “-who has that type of money, and, how the hell do you plan on going to the future?” He explained that he would pay Flash-Mob to steal the prototype from Arcadius without them knowing the price it would be worth, and then, once he had it, he would kill them. “I think we need a better plan,” “better plan? Drew, is it? Those men killed our father when you were still in your mother’s womb, I was a 10-year old boy who barely got to see his dad; when I did it was the best time ever. Then, my mother tells me some punk humans, murder him in cold blood, while no one dared to develop some damn courage! I swore revenge, and if you’re going to get in the way, trust me, I won’t care if you are my brother, I will bu,” “-dude, chill-out¬, you’ll get your revenge, once, we have the technology, and, we’re not in the public. That mall scene caused way too much panic,” “-you said you would show me the true extent of my power, how?” He snapped his fingers, and a ball of fire emerged from his hand, and split into a bunch of tiny fireballs; they drifted to their designated candles located near the ceiling and lit them; the warehouse was a great, empty space, “clear space, for a clear mind; a clear mind means you can practice clearly,” he recited, “who used to say that?” He replied, “our dad.”
I wrote in my final answer, took a deep breath, and then walked across the classroom to turn in the test. Mr. Skinner raised his brow at me and spoke, “would you like to take a 6th glance at your answers?” I considered it, but I nodded my and replied “no, sir,” I took my seat, which was next to Richard, whom had to have an administrator fill in his answers for him since his “good” hand lost all nerves. I could feel him giving me the death stare as I cracked my knuckles nervously thinking about the test. “You did fine,” a female voice whispered to me, I turned my head, it was Isabelle Jimenez, her perfectly curled hair fell on her shoulder, as she looked at me alluringly. I thanked her, and awkwardly returned facing forward. The class was silent for an hour, until a group of wrestlers and girls in the corner bursted out in laughter from something on their phones; Mr. Skinner took the phone and replayed the video, we all could hear the audio from the phone: you better think rethink this, and then, a thud sound. Skinner flinched and returned the phone. The tension was thick inside of the small classroom, all eyes were on us; Richard quickly got up from the desk. The room still silent, but some of my classmates began recording, hoping for a speculation. Richard grabbed his bag (with his left hand) and walked out the class. I felt bad, despite 6 years of tormenting me and Edward. He can’t wrestle anymore, and that must eat him alive inside. The bell rung, and just as always, Nena and Edward were there, “I just seen fractured Richard leave the campus, what happened?” Nena questioned, I clarified what just happened, the both made the faces of cringe. “Hopefully he doesn’t come back, and try to murder you in school,” Edward jokingly stated. When they found out about my brother they immediately thought working with him was a bad idea; “you barely know this guy, he had you transported to him via truck-trap, and after a few minutes of a conversation, you’re going to help him?” Edward stated, “would you rather me ignore the fact that there’s a murderous demon floating around in space waiting for the Eclipse to heal him, so he can kill me?” I replied sarcastically; Nena became the mediator and spoke her mind, “-either way, we’re not going to let you do this alone. Last year when we all decided to fight crime in this city, what did we all agree to?” She quizzed Edward and I, “we train together, we fight together, we go to war together, we die together.” We listed, “-exactly, so, let’s go meet him.” We had to take the public bus to the warehouse because it was on the outskirts of the city, which was great for privacy. The three of us stood in front of the shabby exterior building, Edward looked in my direction, “you knock, he’s your brother,” I bravely walked to the door and knocked. As soon as my hand connected with the large metal door, something swooped me up by my leg and I was thrown onto the roof. I glanced up to see my brother winding up the chain he snatched me with. “What the hell are you doing?” I asked, he put his index finger against his lips and pointed down to Edward and Nena; a white minivan aggressively stopped behind them, a band of six people dressed in business attire rolled out from the trunk. Some of them were bare-handed; some had on knuckle dusters. “I want to test their strength,” my brother whispered while opening a bag of chips, I quickly replied; “they’re not like us!” He rolled his eyes and continued to watch. Edward motioned for Nena to run, she rejected and dropped her purse, revealing that she had a pair of extendable aluminum ‘combat sticks.’ She threw one to Edward. They stood side-by-side in a fighting stance and clinked their sticks together before battle. The group of people began to sprint towards the two thrill-seeking teens. I jumped off the roof, but I got stuck in mid-air, “they passed,” I looked up, it was my brother holding me by the shirt, he had his fiery wings out. With ease, he tossed me back onto the roof, then proceeded to soar above the fight, landing between the two oppositions. He held his hands out as if he was frozen in a pushing position; flames began spewing from his palms, once the smoke cleared, the six ambushers, along with their van, was nothing but ash. “I’m, Vendalia, the brother,” he presented his hand, still smoking, “he just killed those people,” Edward mumbled, still in disbelief. Vendalia lead us into the warehouse which now had exercise machines, a weapon’s wall, and life-sized dummies, “I’ve had eyes on the three of you for a year now,” he explained while scrummaging for something in a large chest, “-when I heard talk of a boy chasing down and ripping the tire of a car at full speed, and, two kids in costumes causing gang operations to fail, of course, I had to see for myself. It just so happens I find my estranged half-brother,” he pulled out two metal wrist bangles and handed them to Edward and Nena, “those should come in handy.” They tapped the center of the bangle; suddenly a small lead ball floated out from an opening of the center, it quickly turned into disc-like object that expanded into a shield big enough to protect the head and upper chest, and, floated above their wrists magically. As the shield-wielding duo trained, Vendalia brought me into a room in the back of the warehouse, “this is where we train. I need to see how much pain you can really endure, don’t make it easy for me.” He tried to scorch me, but I slid under the flames and tackled him, he then pressed both his hands against my ears, suddenly the heat on his palms began to rise rapidly like an iron, I kneed him in the groin to free myself. We got back on our feet. Blue flames grew in his eyes, he then punched the ground causing his body to be engulfed in blue fire. I called for a time-out, he shook his head and exposed his wings. Shit. I crashed through the room Edward and Nena were training in. Vendalia flew through the hole and quickly grabbed me by the back of my grey hoodie, and tossed me opposite from my friends, “this this all the power you have?” He insulted. I charged after my winged brother, he waited for me to get closer. His mistake. Edward and Nena flung their shields at Vendalia from each side of him, the shields magnetically returned to the two, and I put all my strength into an upper-cut that lifted Vendalia into the air. He collided onto the hard floor, causing dust to rise around the impact, later revealing that I knocked him unconscious. The three of us crowded around him, hoping he wasn’t seriously injured. “Good hit,” he managed to say, we got him to his feet and awaited more words, “-it’s amazing, isn’t it?” Vendalia asked me as my friends and I prepared to go home, “what is?” I responded, “the amount of strength you hold, in such a frail human exterior,” he then added a whispered remark, “there’s more to your abilities than you know. It just takes the right emotions to bring them out.”
