The Origin- Chapter One rewritten- Magic

Author's note: This has changed drastically. For the better, I think. I dunno, though. So tell me what you think, eh? And be brutally honest, I know my writing's shit. Tell me if I can improve in any way possible, basically just HELP IF YOU CAN. Thanks. :)

Chapter One: Magic

The rain poured against the window of the detention hall sadly, sending a vibe of despair and boredom floating throughout the room. The room was bright, but the walls were dreary and painted dark brown. Ben Gunn sighed sadly, his breath hit the window making it fog up. He looked out the window which was pointless, as he couldn't see anything in the dark evening, and the heavy rain didn’t help. He could distantly see a reflection of himself in the window now. His dark brownish-blonde hair sat on his head calmly, moving with him as he moved, his hazel brown eyes gleaming under the light of the florescent light rods hanging from the roof. He placed his soft high-cheek boned face on his hand, resting his elbow on the table. The clock on the wall, high over the teacher's desk ticked every second, reminding Ben of what people outside of school were doing at that very moment. He turned back staring out the window, and the teacher roared at him.

"Turn around Ben", Ms Neuroman's voice was strong, fierce and strict.

Ben swung around in his seat and replied quickly, "Sorry miss."

 A girl named Melissa sniggered from across the room, sitting on her own, legs up on the chair beside her, texting under the table. Ben glared at her. She was the most anti-social person he knew; a Goth and a Sadist. She liked to cause other’s pain and she enjoyed watching them suffer. They were the only too in detention, him being in for messing in class- Melissa for slamming an ex-boyfriends head into the trophy case in the front hall. The Gothic guy had to get twelve stitches in the top of his head. She was dressed in the school’s black jumper and a grey skirt rolled up at the waist, black lipstick lined her plump lips and her nails were heavily coated with black nail polish. He sighed as Melissa gave him the finger while blowing a bubble out of the pink chewing gum in her mouth.  

Ben slumped just in time to see Ms Neuroman glaring at him.

But her face softened as she smiled at him and went back to work.

The clock ticked again, the stupid thing. Ben glanced at it, and saw it was five minutes to four. Five more minutes and he was gone, the summer holidays would then be ahead of him and he had to say: the thought made him smile.

The bell rang and Ben shoved back his chair loudly, it nearly fell over but he caught it before it hit the ground and he nearly ran from the detention hall.

 The black wooden door to the detention hall creaked loudly as Ben opened it. Ms Neuroman looked at him as he was about to leave, she had dark black hair that looked so much like the colour of granite that it glimmered so brightly and he reckoned she must have been about thirty years old. She walked over to him.

          Ben sighed and stopped in his stride, one foot inside the room, the other out. He spun on his heels and looked at the woman warily. "Ben," She said, smiling slightly. "Come here for a minute, would you?"

He nodded and stomped loudly towards her lagging almost, not too quickly, not too slowly. Melissa was delaying leaving by pretending that she was packing her bag, of course she was; she wanted to know what had gained Ben an extra few minutes with the demonic Ms Neuroman. Ben knew her bag didn’t need packing. There probably wasn’t anything in it, anyway.

          “What do you want?” he asked, almost certain he knew what it was.

          He was wrong.                          

          “Ben,” She said to him, “I’m going to miss you during the summer.” She made an attempt to place her hand on his shoulder, but he shrugged it off.  “I really am, and I just wanted you to know that.”

          Ben looked at her, trying to decide whether she was joking or being sarcastic, but neither of the traits lined her face. He nodded funnily.

          “And I want you to know, if you ever need it, I’ll be there to talk about it in the next year.” She smiled kindly, but it didn’t quite work.

          Ben’s eyes widened. “OK…”

          Melissa giggled.

          “Both of you can go now,” Ms Neuroman said, smiling, her arms thrusting into the air, “its summer!”

          Out in the hall, Ben turned to Melissa and glared. “What the hell did you tell her?”

          Mellissa laughed and replied, “Oh nothing really, just that you were having trouble at home.”

          He walked away.

                                                          *

         

  Flair was the same age as Ben- thirteen- but he looked way older. He was tall and broad -already a good build for his age- strong and older looking compared to other teenage boys their age, his jet black, smooth hair made most envious and he was wearing the boy’s school uniform which consisted of a black jumper and grey trousers with black shoes. The look on Flair’s face was priceless as Ben walked into the locker block. “Hell!” he said, “what took you so long?” He exclaimed even louder now as Ben approached, “I was out an hour ago!”  

Flair Sage could never go five seconds without being told off,   well, on the occasion, ten seconds. But that was rare. It was a surprise Flair wasn’t on detention every week, but then again, the teachers did like him way too much. But he had been put on this evening, as they would be on summer holidays and seemingly ‘he just had to be punished’. That was only Miss Revelin speaking so…              

 “We are going through the park?”  He put on an English accent, but it failed as his thick, heavy Irish one broke through. It was a terrible English accent anyway; even if it had been a success it would’ve sounded rubbish.

            Ben nodded in agreement and spun around on his heels just in time to see Ms Neuroman walk out the front door, looking delirious.

           “Let’s go.” He said quickly.

They left through the front doors of William Brook High. There were three fields of grass surrounding the school and a tarmac pathway leading up along the closet field to the black school gates, surrounded by a fairly new brick wall, which then lead to a long road. If you followed the road for about five minutes and crossed through an estate, you would get to the park quicker.  The rain had stopped and it had given way to a weak sun just brightening up the grey sky and wet green grass glistened as far off in the distance, a rainbow suddenly appeared.

                    Ben and Flair stopped at the small black gate which led to the huge park and Ben hopped over it gracefully and landed in a standing position, throwing his arms up like a gymnast just out of a routine, while Flair on the other hand, just opened the gate and walked right through. Ben rolled his eyes playfully and soon it became too much and the giant, very old oak tree in the middle of the park beckoned them towards it.

               The sun broke away higher in the sky, warm beams of sunshine flying high across the sky. Birds flew into the trees and began to chirp songs of happiness and joy and a few metres away from the tree, Ben and Flair tossed their bags off their bags and threw themselves onto the oak tree with thick branches all the way up, and each began to climb. They reached the top and looked around the park, and seeing nothing interesting, so they both lay back onto a branch each, hands resting behind their heads.

          Pop!

The noise sounded as if it had come from beneath the branches of the tress, where Flair and Ben were concealed by a thick layer of green leaves. A man in a dark billowing cloak and what looked like it had veins of dark shadows running through it appeared, walking briskly across the park. Under his cloak, he wore a tight uniform that was black and printed on his chest was a gold pentagram in a circle; his face was concealed by a thick woollen hood. He stopped somewhat near the middle of the vast green area of wet grass and looked around, waiting.

From nowhere, a second man appeared, walking briskly taking long strides. He wore a blue flannel shirt and a pair of faded jeans, tiredness lined his young face, dark shadows cast under his silver eyes and his light silver hair swayed gently in a small breeze that had picked up.

Under the light of the sun it was undeniable that this man looked weird.  

          Ben scrambled up to the end of the branch, crawling swiftly and carefully. He wasn’t really scared of heights, so it was no problem really. “Whoa,” he muttered totally in awe. He looked down upon the man with silver hair, he looked cool.

          Flair crawled towards the end of the thick branch and stopped. Almost as soon as he saw the man, his shoulders straightened and his jaw hardened, his black hair framing his face in maturity. He cursed under his breath.

          “Have you got it, Rook?” asked the man with the silver hair.

          “Yes,” The man in the black cloak replied, sticking his hand into the side of his cloak to retrieve a brown file. “Here.”

          The man silver eyes sparkled, and with a soft sigh, he went to take the file. However, before he did, it burst into flames. The man with silver eyes gaped, his jaw dropped and he just stared, his eyes gleamed cold silver and they widened as the burnt file drifted to the ground, now glowing ember ashes.

          A third man appeared; clad deeply in black much the same as the first man.  

          He crossed the distance to the small meeting, and without warning, he grabbed the first man’s -Rook’s- neck and snapped it savagely, just like it was a twig. Rook’s life was ended almost immediately and aggressively, and his remains were simply tossed aside like garbage.

          The new man grinned savagely. “The Shadow organisation do not receive cowardice or betrayal well, ShadowRook. And they certainly do not pity it; they simply mercy it.”

          Without warning the corpse rose from the ground and shot sideways. It landed with a hard thud beside the tree, bent and broken and impossibly twisted out of place. It combusted into flames and the smell of burning meat drafted up to the tree where Flair and Ben were concealed in the thick branches.

          A blue barrier of light shot upwards from the ground and formed a protective wall between the two men and the man in black raised his right hand where oily black shadows began to spill from his fingers and he splayed his hands outwards and the shadows shattered the wall of light. The man with silver hair disappeared, a ball of blue light engulfing him.

          The man in black spun around, a blue ball of light sped towards him and before he had time to react or defend himself, it collided with his chest. He flew backwards and landed against the tree with a sharp, heavy crack. 

          The man with silver hair began to walk away but stopped again when he heard a dry laughter from behind. He turned again and stared coldly at the man lying against the tree, looking as if was enjoying himself lying amongst the ashes of the dead ShadowRook.

          “Lighten up, old man.” He spat the words.

          “Zuke where did I ever go wrong, I loved you; and this is how you re-pay me?”

          “Do not be a fool,” Zuke said beginning to get up, “you never loved me. That much was always clear.”

          Hurt rose in the man with silver hair’s eyes and he took a step forward, but then stopped. “You’re a fool to think that, Zuke. But then- you always were a fool.”

                “SHUT UP!” Zuke screamed, up on his feet, his right arm thrown into the air. The other man’s left shoulder was pushed backwards, then the other one. Zuke grabbed his left shoulder, which was dislocated from the impact of the fall, and clicked it back into place with a grunt. “You never did love me,” he continued coldly. “…I hate you!”

          Shadows whipped upwards and shot forwards, blocked by a barrier of blue light, then another wave of oily slick shadows shot forward, which again, were blocked by a blue barrier of light.  This continued for a couple of minutes when, Zuke held his palm out flat and a ball of swirling black shadows formed. He grinned demonically, evil gleaming high in eyes dark, red eyes, veins showing in his neck and-

          The shadow ball was released, soaring through the space of the two men and before the man with silver hair could react to defend himself, he was on the ground, blood soaking his blue flannel shirt, a black hole in his chest right above the heart.

          A wave of shadows crashed down upon ShadowZuke and he disappeared, grinning savagely.

          Flair, still in the tree concealed by leaves, paled. He dived forward suddenly and sharply, startling Ben who jumped and nearly fell from the tree. Flair forward rolled on the ground and used the momentum to propel himself into a run towards dying man.

          Ben stared in fear as Flair crashed to his knees beside the man, rasping for breath, unconscious. He went into total shock mode, and didn’t hear anything for a minute, then, he was brought back to earth when Flair shouted:

          “Ben!”

          Ben looked down at him and jumped to the ground quickly, and hastily ran to his friend.

          Out of breath from both fear and shock, he asked, “What the hell was that?” He threw his arms into the air indicating the madness that had just happened.

          Flair turned to him slowly and quietly, he said, “Calm down, Ben.”

          “What the fucking hell was that, Flair?”

          Flair ignored him and turned back to the man on the ground, barely breathing now, and placed his hands on the man’s chest. Red sparks flew from his hands began to slide over the man’s body and then, he disappeared.

          Ben stared at Flair.

          Flair stared back, his jaw hard, eyes cold.

          “Ben, come with me. Please come with me now.”

          Ben shook his head, took a step backwards and went to run. Flair grabbed his arm and sparks began to form a bracelet of cool light over his skin, drew into a huge orb around them both and sucked inwards.

          They disappeared-

          -and reappeared in a huge front circular room of a pristine mansion. A huge chandelier hung from the huge domed ceiling and all bulbs were lit with shining yellow light. Gold wallpaper with diamond designs hung on the walls, and two huge staircases with marble steps and gold banisters led up to a big oak double door. Other doors led out of the circle to other hallways and rooms. Directly under the chandelier in a big circle were the golden letters:

                                                            EA

A woman in a tracksuit came running past with short blonde hair to her shoulders. She had piercing blue eyes that gleamed under the light of the chandelier and she stopped when Flair called to her, urgency in his voice:

          “Nikki, do you know where Lily is?”

          The woman-Nikki- stopped. She threw her arms to her side and sighed dramatically, “That freak? Ugh- in her room probably.” Without another word, she ran away.

          Flair ignored her- he just headed for the stairs and left Ben to follow.