Chapter One

New problems arise in a calm setting...

 

Uggghhhhhhhh……school………

           

Yep, today is the first day of school in Sorim. Which everybody hates.

 

I woke up groggily and rubbed my eyes. Okay, because I don’t have much time to talk to you, I’ll start right now:

 

Sorim Republic, a kingdom surrounded by waters; it has a peaceful past, except for one thing—

 

It’s a dictatorship government—kinda weird, huh, since the kingdom’s name is Sorim Republic. It’s not like we hate it though, it’s just that the king; King Felix the IV, is a total jerk. He manages the economy and all, but not the education—and he still forces us to go to this school: The School That is Definitely Not Dessau Middle School, even though we learn nothing! (Jeez, whatta stupid guy.) So over the summer the old timers that have lived long before King Felix the IV came into power has helped us learn to read and write.

 

King Felix the IV has a bit of a rivalry with one of the neighboring kingdom, Etern, even though they both lived on the same land peacefully, the Irious Plains, they always got a cautious eye on each other.

 

Probably because the people there are different, they’re humans.

 

I bet you’re confused, yes, I said humans.

 

That means I’m not.

 

We have animal ears that are furry and flare out, most likely because our ancestors were infused with beasts. We’re Sorimians. But we aren’t aliens! We’re humans with cat ears (and cute tails)!!

 

I would flash my thumb up right now but considering this is not literally a ‘visual’ story like cartoons I guess that’s not possible.

 

But I digress, many people will say that ‘cute’ is a compliment but for the boys at my school it’s like cutting their heads off with a bloody guillotine. I’m serious.

 

“Hurry up ya’ idiot!” my very rude sister called from downstairs.

 

“WAIT, YA’ IDIOT!” I screamed back, combing my dark brown ears. I put on my uniform—a black shirt with a collar, a tie, and dark pants—thank goodness we don’t need to tuck it in. I’m also wearing the boy’s uniform—who wants to wear a skirt in the winter?

 

I rushed out with my bag, but then stopped. The steel bridges were slippery, and I wasn’t ready to break my skull and die from concussion. There weren’t any handles on the sides of the bridges so I walked dexterously (and you thought I didn’t know that word, right? RIGHT?) I would nimbly tiptoe on the ice instead, but looking at the delicate thin sheet of ice made me over-the-top nervous.

 

I passed through the forest and took a glance at the tall, steel, borders. No one from the outside was allowed to get in…or get out. But there is one exception.

 

            Taking my time to get to the school, I thought about some stuff: I’ve heard that they had a renovation and I was slightly energized to see what they did to the crummy old building. Walking forward, I looked up.

 

I tightened my dark blue scarf and breathed. The school looked…awesome.

 

It was tall…almost tall as the castle! It looked majestic with the flag that had Sorim’s insignia: a pigeon holding a hammer in its claws. The hammer represented how famous we were for the inventors that swarm this area, and the (carrier) pigeon represented how it was our idea about inventors that spread across the world. But the main workshop resides the east of us in the town that separates Etern from Sorim.

 

But since most of the kingdom’s money was to build the borders, the economy was low, but even with the little bit money the school had been a big improvement.

 

I breathed again (and dreamily, I might add), and then suddenly the bell rang.  Quickly, I gathered my belongings and entered the school.

 

<><><><><><>

 

Poke.

Poke. Poke, poke, poke, poke—

 

“Stop it, Chris!” Dasha laughed manically (and rather high too). She scrunched up her shoulders and made a sour face. “That tickles!”

 

Tuyen did an evil grin as she found out what poking did to Dasha. She rolled up her sleeves very slyly and crept behind the sandy-haired human, it was probably her malevolence aura that gave her away.

 

“Oh, no you don’t!”

 

As the un-squeamish Dasha chased the two around the campsite, Allison sighed as if she’d forgotten why she was here. She pulled back her red hair into a ponytail and made herself comfortable under a tree. She pulled out a book and read.

 

“What ’cha reading?” Chekwube sat down by her in the soft grass (ahh…soft grass…). Allison looked nervously at the pirate—it had only been two weeks since Tuyen persuaded her into her group. Her eyes wavered over Chekwube’s mythril sword.

 

Instead of waiting for her reply, the air pirate bended down and stared at the book cover. “The History of the Republic of Sorim, er…..cool!” she said very intelligently.

 

“Uh….kind of,” Allison put down the book fretfully, “it’s…a simple book, and also a bit sad. The people in there are so cut from the outside world, minus the King of course.”

 

“Oh! I’ve heard of that book, they don’t have much money because of the weak trades, right?” Sagar came from behind. “Hey Chek, hey Allis.”

 

“Hello Sagar,” Chekwube waved. Sagar looked at her, “Wow, that’s a huge hand you got there.” He smirked and crossed his arms. Allison gulped as Chekwube’s hand twitched over her sword, but instead she clenched it and threw a brutal punch. Sagar narrowly dodged the fatal attack and started to jog around the tree. “Catch me if you can!” he said playfully, almost goading her. She sneered as if he never realized he was in mortal danger. The air pirate sprinted and took a grab for Sagar’s shirt, her fingers clenched around the fabric and pulled.

 

Sagar tripped and they both tumbled down hill. Allison sighed again, and went back to reading.

 

She didn’t know how much time passed until Chris made an announcement: “Hey everybody! It’s evening; we should go to a kingdom or village.”

 

The others nodded their heads in agreement; apparently Dasha still hasn’t got her revenge so she inched closer…and pulled on his tail!

 

“Ow!” Chris jumped 10 feet in the air; he turned around with an accusing look on his face. “A Sorimian…? I thought Sorim had boundaries…” Allison put her book in her bag.

 

Tuyen grinned, “Got that far in the book, huh? Well, let’s just say that Chris is a bad, bad, Anicoorian. But there are more dangerous ones too, keep your watch.”

 

“Hey!” Chris narrowed his eyes, almost laughing. “I did say there are more dangerous ones!” the violet-haired gun-handler defended herself.

 

“That wasn’t a compliment at all!”

 

Chekwube chuckled and packed her possessions. “According to my compass, if we move about one mile north right now, then we’ll get there by nightfall, but we have to move fast—or who knows what we’ll bump into.”

 

Everyone nodded again and they readied themselves.

 

<><><><><><>

 

“Where are the enemies?! I want to fight!” A beautiful girl stuck out her bottom lip as she whined. Her hands were just itching to grab her katanas and slice and dice some bad guys. “Calm down,” a soft whisper came from a woman’s lips as she scanned the area. “We’re bounty hunters, we capture them, not kill them.” A hooded figure did a grunt. “We won’t do either of those until we start looking for them.” The faint mystique of the priestess invaded the area and she shrugged, “I don’t really care. My sacred gem only works on demons.”

 

“I’m hungry,” the samurai whined the second time, “how much myu do we have?”

 

The shadowed form checked in her shuriken bag, “30,000 myu, which equals to 5,000 muls. We can buy lunch, dinner, and a room at an inn everyday of a week at the most, but each meal won’t be a feast—that’s for sure.”

 

The Priestess scrunched her thin eyebrows with worry. “There haven’t been any bounty posts since last month. Do you think we should save our money till we get more?”

 

Another groan came out. “That’s like saying— ‘Oh! Let’s starve ourselves to death!’”

 

“She’s right, we should skip going to the inn and just camp out to save money on beneficial needs,” the hooded figure said in a low voice.

 

“Ugh!” The inpatient girl rolled her eyes.

 

“Honestly, where are those monsters??”

 

<><><><><><>

 

“Oi! Danika! Erica! Christina!” I yelled out in the distance. My familiar friends from last year approached me. “This new place looks cool, huh?” I asked with a chipper smile printed on my face like I was some insane murderer.

 

“Yeah,” Danh agreed.

 

“It’s okay,” Chris replied numbly, rubbing his jacket in the freezing weather and teeth clacking like laughing skulls in a nightmare.

 

“It sucks!” Eric said modestly.

 

Okay, that last part was strange. “Why?” I looked at him curiously.

 

He moved his arms vigorously, “Because…! It’s so spacious! And my name is ‘Mary Sue’, not ‘Erica’! Okay ‘EDgar’?”

 

“Er…okay…” I slightly smiled. Well, at least he remembered his nickname; I hope Danh remembered too. I headed towards class, “Hey ‘Mary Sue’. My nickname isn’t ‘EDgar’; you put the emphasis on the ‘gar’. EdGAR.”

 

“Jeez,” Eric huffed as he followed me.

 

“What the heck are you guys talking about?” Chris asked after he ran away from a few classmates (Jasmine and Cayla), who were suspiciously snickering at him.

 

The bell rang just after we stepped in.

           

“Phew!” we all said in unison. “Alright, alright!” Ms. Koehler quieted us. “Start on your Warm-Up.”

           
            We were working independently until a tiny meow came from someone’s backpack. “Crap,” that person flinched. He had to give over to Ms. Koehler and opened his bag. Just as we thought. A cat. It leaped onto the ground causing a black and silver blur. “A stray cat...!” everybody whispered as the boy looked around bashfully.

 

“Eric and Danh, go set the cat free!” They did obediently and as the cat slyly walked past—I noticed the markings around it eyes. The cat gave a crazed smile.

 

……I must be crazy myself, is my vision getting worse? I did started getting glasses since 3^rd grade… While rubbing my eyes I caught a flash of gold and turned around in my seat. Well, well, a new girl.

 

A pretty one, in fact—like one of those fairy tale princesses with golden hair and pale skin, except she wasn’t very girly— a Gothic Lolita maybe. But then again, I can’t even tell the difference of a geek and a nerd. I finished admiring the new student and went back to my own work: The History of the Republic of Sorim.

 

“In the year Xx107, Sorim was very poor. Its crops were failing and its defenses were low. To fight for land, a war arose between Sorim and Etern for the Irious Plains. So begins the War of Xx107.

 

“The Sorimians grew tired and sick with all the fighting, and some revolted. In order to calm them down the village, King Felix III created the Act of Xx108, which halted the war by creating steel walls along the borders: 525 feet high. It blocked almost all sunlight and the Sorimians were angry because they couldn’t grow crops.

 

“Then King Felix III built the Bridge of Eden across the lake and into a greenhouse where all the crops were stored. It also has 2 gates that lead outside the walls for trading, but only the King’s loyal men and himself were allowed to cross the bridge to gather the crops and trade. It is heavily guarded.”

 

Yes, everyone knows the war of Xx107 and the Bridge of Eden. This is how they don’t teach us anything, we already know these stuff. In fact, it wasn’t too long ago, this is the year Xx140. And heavily guarded? Please, from the rumors I heard, there were two villagers that ran across the bridge and some normal soldiers in Xx138. That caused a huge uproar. Hey, I wonder what happened to those soldiers that let them go?

 

I closed my text book an unexpected screeching noise shot through my ear. Everyone jumped with confusion on their faces as I kneeled down with my hands over my eardrums.

 

“What the heck is that?!!” I screamed over the noise, flinching as the horrible shriek continued its song.

 

“The alarm!” Ms. Koehler shouted, “Everyone get outside!”

 

The whole room started to shake and I felt my blood vibrating, Sorim-quake? No, too clichéd, it wasn’t a quake! The tectonic plates weren’t shaking, the whole [insert pleasant swear word] school was the only thing that was trembling! Outside through the window I could see tiny flowers undisturbed and flowing by neatly. Do you think flowers do that during a quake?! Do they?! Something seriously WRONG was happening!

 

Trying to lower my paranoia and the panic scale, I took three deep, shaky breaths and focused my surroundings. Eric screaming. Normal. Danh looking nervous, but mostly calm. Normal. Chris yelling everyone to get the heck out of here. Normal.

 

So maybe there wasn’t a giant beam from the heavens trying to abduct us like I imagined in my panic/paranoia attack. It was probably just those regular Sorim-quakes that happen once or twice every biological year. Probably.

 

Then I noticed something out of the picture. Where was that new girl?

 

            Instantly, I seized Eric’s, Danh’s, and Chris’s tie at the same time and heaved them into the main hallway. “New girl. Gone. Find her!” I said in short sentences, which was kinda stupid ‘cause I already did find her by locking on the dark yellow light that dashed into a corner.

 

I motioned for the others to follow me and a blinding glow illuminated the hall. There stood the girl with an ashen colored robe and her golden hair tied up neatly in a bun. Pale blue feathers fluttered around her. Her eyes, however, completely ruined the peaceful image: it was a solid indigo color and she had a mysterious ‘X’ on her forehead.

 

“What’s this? Snow White plotting a Sorim-quake?” Chris smirked, his hair messed up and his glasses a bit askew. “Well whatever you’re doing. Stop.”

 

She pointed a super-duper long lance made out of pure titanium and gold at us. Chris, shut up or we’ll be a shish-kabob! Eric seemed to be saying.

 

The ground quivered and she evaporated away. I looked up at the cracked roof.

 

Well, Eric, looks like you don’t need to worry that we’ll be a shish-kabob because we’ll be a pancake. Topped and topped with concrete.

 

<><><><><><>

 

“RUN, FOOLS, RUN!!” Eric screamed out loud.

           

“WE’RE RUNNING ERIC SHUT UP!” Chris yelled.

 

“FUNNY HUH? I WAS THINKING ABOUT THAT TO YOU JUST A WHILE AGO!!” Eric shouted in his normally high soprano voice.

 

“Yeah Eric, shut up…” Danh murmured. We nearly broke the double doors in the front and pushed though into freedom! “Ode to joy!” I yelled, but then my last word was droned out by an ear-splitting rumble and boom.

 

I fell forward by the tremendous unknown force and scrunched my face. It strangely sounded like the game I was playing yesterday, where your ship gets blown into bloody bits by some Cheeto puff looking ammo.

 

It ended with some few scratches from the debris and one messed-up-afro hairdo on me. Awesome. We were safe.

 

But then immense footsteps thumped on the pelted grass. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw a buffed up version of Tin Man: complete with a sword—Sephiroth (© by Square Enix)-version! He looked at us with a red blotch under a mask. Uh oh.

 

“Bagels,” I semi-cursed, and droplets of sweat beaded my skin. “Don’t look now, but there’s a giant metal soldier ready to kill us.”

  

“Pleasant,” Chris muttered— everybody was already worn down! “It never ends, does it?”

 

I stumbled and stood up, ogling at the Tin Man as it took another heavy step. Thump. Thump. Thump.

 

“TERMINATE ALL BEINGS. QUEEN ‘Q-L-I-W-Z-M’ WILL RULE ALL.”

 

“Oh my gawd it talks,” Eric gasped, everyone changed their direction and ran like –pardon my language- Hell.

 

“We can’t beat this thing! We need reinforcements!” I shouted with trembling fear, not looking back as I zipped though running people and setting myself on a single path. “Kimmy! Girls can kick painfully, right? So do that!” Eric huffed; a strand of his short, stubby hair was cut of by the Tin Man’s Sephiroth sword and he froze with terror.

 

I looked at him wildly. “’Girls can kick painfully?’ Since when did you become a sexist?” I was about to decrease his brain cells by whacking him in the head until I stopped and said: “Whoa.”

 

The Bridge of Eden was right before us, with pink, neon green, and yellow painted across the field with an unnatural, distant, and frozen blue lake lay before them.

 

“Crap! What do we do now?!” Chris almost attempted to throw his glasses across the lake with anger. He sighed and sat down on the cold snow. “Oh well, it was nice meeting you guys.” Danh mimicked the same thing while Eric started roll around in the dirt.

 

“Are you idiots??” I threw a look at them. “Even if the Bridge of Eden is forbidden, this is an emergency! An emer—!” “Ooh! A pretty flower!”

 

You guessed it; I was bottled with unknown anger ready to explode my wrath upon my cowardly friends. But most of that turned straight into stone fear as when Eric picked up the ‘pretty flower’ he had mentioned, tops of indistinct people came running from the other side of Eden.

 

Ohmygoshbalogna!

 

“YOU! THAT IS THE VIOLATION OF THE LAW!” A tall, skinny man with old Sorim armor and a sleek, thin mustache waved his spear dangerously. Eric immediately dropped the flower. By now the Tin Man had caught up to us and raised its Godly sword…

 

Danh reacted quickly and smoothly by grabbing cold dirt from the ground and flinging it—bulls’ eye! It hit right at the red blotch in the slit of the Tin Man’s mask. However, he dropped his blade and a ringing thang vibrated through the air. I clapped my hands over my ears for moment and resumed Danh’s brilliant scheme. I picked up a new batch of dirt right near Eric but halted my decision as the Tin Man recovered. This time the Tin Man’s eyes flickered with the intent of murder.

 

“He’s pissed off, go through Eden!!” Chris pointed at the other side of the brilliant azure lake. I stuffed the dirt in my pockets and readied myself for a full-blast sprint, even though I wasn’t very athletic (I was really a geek. Glasses, video-game freak and such), at times like these, I can run like the wind!

 

Well, enough about my abilities. I was indeed running as fast as I thought, but my pace was getting slower and slower. The tall borders seemed to never get closer in the vast fields of pink, green, yellow, and light blue. The Tin Man was knocking the guards off its path in the speed of light; walking calmly at us, as if he was generous to give us time to pray.

 

“There!” one of my friends shouted. Glass double-doors came into view and freedom was—once again—in our grasp!

 

A silver spark flashed from the left of me, I panicked and yelled everyone to get to the right. The Tin Man grabbed Danh by the arm and my friend struggled to get out of his metallic grasp. Chris ran and gave a punch in its metal thigh, only to yelp and back up with his raw hand. Eric stood there screaming; his feet lodged in the ground.

 

A thunk gave me a surprise; bronze arrows discharged and went in the Tin Man chest. Danh jumped off and let the horrifying robot fall to the ground. “Who did that?” Chris said with numb disbelief, and I was dazed too. Eric bellowed as more arrows flew by his head.

 

Alerted and filled with more adrenaline, I straightened up and hollered: “Whoever they are, they’re not our friend!” The mist cleared and we were all scared to take another step.

 

Because it was the Frozen Elite, the most advanced Anicoorian soldiers of all time.

 

<><><><><><>

 

“Well, well.” A petite young girl entered, no older than us; she had short black hair and slanted eyes. “Intruders of the Bridge of Eden, I am the Captain of the Frozen Elite. It’s been a long time that anyone had tried going though.” Her silken ears perked up; as if she was ready to catch any word we try to mumble. “What should we do, Lieutenant Sabrina? Shall we murder them? Or shall we take them to Lord Felix the IV?” A tall Anicoorian appeared, holding a bow and a bundle of arrows. “Take them captive, we cannot make a mistake again.” Black trench coats covered their entire bodies and sunken masks hid their faces with only the eyes peering out. And those eyes told us that they would show us no mercy.

 

“Look! We were only running because a robot chased us!” Danh finally said. The short girl laughed and peered at us. “How do we know that the robot wasn’t yours? When I saw it, it seemed like a perfect tool to knock off normal soldiers for you to get past.”

 

“That’s not true!” Eric said.

 

“We’ll let Lord Felix the IV decide that.” She whipped out two razor-sharp daggers and the tall lady pointed her arrow at us. I knew instantly in my gut that there were more Tin Mans in Sorim Republic. If we went back; our chances of having to fight an army of them were high, even with the Frozen Elite protecting us!

 

Our bodies were heated up even though the temperature were probably below zero. The Bridge of Eden’s flowers were tipped with light navy ice and our feet were crunching in the dirt contaminated snow. One of the Frozen Elite snapped his fingers and the gate closed, smashing our chances.

 

“Wait, doesn’t Sorim have 2 gates?” I suddenly remembered: there was a gate directly to the west of Sorim; they just closed the one on the north.

 

Apparently, the Captain and the Lieutenant noticed. “Where is the switch to the West Gate?” One of them shouted: “Near the gate itself!” She cursed loudly and looked at us while I directed my attention at the West Gate across the lake, there was no bridge to it. “Follow me!” I gulped and jumped off the bridge. Air whooshed through my hair and my clothes billowed.

 

The Captain bended over as my friends and I hit solid ice, the force almost toppled me. We sprinted across the lake with our eyes focused on the West Gate. Chris, who was more athletic and had been ahead of us in every running scene, zoomed left and guided us the way there.

 

“Sabrina,” the Captain swerved her gaze sideways. “Get ready to trap them.” The elegant Lieutenant smiled. “Affirmative.”

 

We almost collapsed with exhaustion from running so much; we were probably missing in our parents’ eyes. Everything seemed hopeless in this pathetic position. “Hey guys…” I started. “We’re…almost there…”

 

Eric, Danh, and Chris noticed the powerless situation. “Once we’re out, we’re free!” Chris said. “The Frozen Elite itself can’t take one step past the gates, don’t worry about it!” “Yeah!” Eric joined in. “Run as fast as you can,” Danh said. I did nothing but nod hastily and felt once more the active adrenaline.

 

I started first and rushed past my friends, knowing they would be right behind me, flushed with confidence. The gate was left open and I was inches away…

 

“Aah!!” Eric screamed. I could not resist but turn around and see the Lieutenant shooting arrows right at us, no. Not at us, but around my friends, trying to lure them to—

 

“Move away!” I shouted at my loudest pitch, my voice cracking…

 

The Captain finished by cuffing them in an instant. Eric raised his voice as if it would set him free, Danh was looking at me for help, and Chris struggled in the chains and yelling out; “GO!” The Lieutenant flicked the switch and I heard the gates closing and my chances decreasing. In an instant I felt claws pushing against my skin and I tumbled backwards through the gate and out of the Sorim Republic.

 

            All I heard was a “No!” from the Captain during the shocking moment as I saw my friends in the frosty air before the entire West Gate came to a close.

Author's Note

Remember, tell me which parts you like and which parts you don't like.

Reviews

[The Hatter Girl]

I liked almost all of it, and great action scenes. ((This is only because I know the Author)) Eric is so....likeable when you write about him...can't say the same thing about him inperson >.> I didn't like the part where you introduced a BUNCH of people all at once...it kind of confused me and made me wonder where did all of them go afterwards.