• A very powerful artefact

    Warning: contains the odd curse word. If this will offend you please do not read this Story.



    The universe in its entirety is so big that not one single being in existence knows its full size, but what’s even more complex is that along with reality exist many alternative versions. For instance, the Z-universe, on a planet almost exactly like earth, in a solar system almost exactly like the Milky Way, a war was being fought between humans and X-humans. X-humans were once human themselves but had been mutated after a worldwide outbreak of a virus that almost wiped out life on the planet entirely.
    Now, 150 years after the outbreak the virus has been destroyed and only 13 X-humans survive, each with their own individual elemental power and lead by the most darkest of all X-humans; Ramandion. At the same time the planet Earth, in our universe, had only recently entered its 21st century and life for the human race was doing better than its Z-universe counterpart. Technology had advanced significantly and a majority of the world weren’t fighting each other.

    The United Kingdom.

    Evan Chesterton pulled his jacket tighter around himself in a bid to fight off the bitter British winds that pounded against him forcefully. Evan, a 15 year old secondary school student was small and skinny, his long, messy hair moved all over the place and often his fringe would poke him in the eyes, but that’s just what he was used to.
    He crossed the road and froze, staring up at the house in front of him but then decided to continue walking. This pause wasn’t random and in the moment he had stared at the house a question ran through his mind.
    ‘Why?’
    Evan had asked himself this question many times over the school holidays, ‘Why? Why had Joe, his oldest friend, abandoned him for the cool kids? Since the age of five it had been the two of them, watching each other’s backs, sticking together when the rest of the world looked down on them, but no. Joe had run off and started hanging around with Sam Wise, the kid who had bullied them since year three. And now it was just Evan, alone.



    His feet hurt but he knew they had to keep running. If Ramandion caught them he and his sister would be executed on the spot, not that they didn’t know how to defend themselves... but even they couldn’t handle Ramandion, so, the siblings took refuge in a small cupboard under the grand staircase of Ramandion’s castle.
    “Hurry up and get the spell ready, we need to send these things where he can’t get them” Said the brother, anxiously holding out 9 small pearl shaped crystals, “then maybe this war will finally end”
    “I hope so,” she said simply, opening her bag and taking out an old leather book.
    Though it seemed ordinary, this book held more power than anything else in their universe, its cover was old and wearing away but its logo, the letter Z written in a strange magical font stood out as the only part of the book that had never aged. The sister flicked through the pages stopping on the final one and reading text.
    “FUMANU-CEE-SUIE-UTET!”
    Suddenly the book sprung from her hands, glowing bright emerald and floating in mid-air. The 9 crystals also began to float, only this time towards the book, slowly being pulled into the page…


    Evan turned the corner into a back road, rarely used by cars or pedestrians; this shortcut shed 10 minutes of his journey to school. 10 meters in however he stopped and listened, From behind him came the sound of plastic rolling on concrete and he looked back to try and acknowledge the source of the noise. Speeding up the pavement was a boy on a skateboard; he was about Evans age and was wearing a black hooded jumper and a black winter hat that covered his dark, shoulder length hair. Evan stepped out of his way and let the boy hurry past him.
    He continued on and found himself lost in thought, hoping that this year would run smoother than the last. In fact he was so deep in thought it came as a double surprise to him when suddenly something jumped out from a bush, landing neatly in front of him.
    “Snoochie boochies!” it shouted as it did.
    Evan fell backwards hitting the floor painfully and it took him a moment to gather his bearings. He looked up and stood in front of him was the same skater from moments ago.
    “Oh, s**t... sorry” apologised the boy, holding out his hand and helping Evan to his feet. “I wasn’t meant to be that surprising...”
    “It’s ok... nothings broken, just a bit of a shock, that’s all” Evan replied as nicely as he could. There was an awkward pause between the pair when finally the skater broke the silence.
    “You don’t know the way to Cefret Secondary School do you? Only I’m new and kind of lost... it’s a bit of a bugger really, we only moved in yesterday and mums already making me go to school... one of the drawbacks of moving the day before term starts”
    Evan froze and tried to take it all in, a few seconds passed and he realised the boy was waiting for an answer.
    “Um... yeah, I go to Cefret, it’s just a few minutes away” he finally managed.
    “Great! You don’t mind if I tag along do you?” and with that the boy gave him a huge grin.
    Over the five minute walk the boy explained to Evan his situation. His name was Jack Ipkiss, 16 years old and from Burnham-on-sea. Days after his 16th birthday his mother announced that she had gotten a new job in Bristol and that they were leaving a few weeks later.
    They reached the school gate and Jack stopped at a sign, showing the direction to the astro-turf, the sports hall and the reception.
    “Well, looks like this is where I leave you...” he told Evan “the letter said that I have to sign in at reception so they can put me in a group or something...”
    “Yeah, a tutor group” corrected Evan and Jack smiled giving him the peace sign and a “Later's dude”. With that Jack was on his skateboard and away in seconds.



    Once the 9 crystals had been completely dissolved into the book it too, to the shock and horror of the siblings, began to disintegrate, stopping at nothingness.
    “What the hell just happen?” asked the brother, a slight tone of anger in his voice.
    “I don’t know!” she replied “I did what the page said; say the incantation whilst moving your hands in the shape of the letter W”
    “That what the most powerful book in this universe and you’ve just disintegrated it!



    Evan took his usual seat in classroom B24, aka, his tutor room and sat silently watching as all the students piled in. His tutor group was divided into two years, being shared by 15 year elevens and 20 year tens, as were most of the lessons at this School. Suddenly Joe walked in and Evan quickly looked out the window, hoping he hadn’t made eye contact; Joe walked over and leaned on the desk casually.
    “Alright” he asked, acting as if nothing had happened, Evan didn’t remove his eyes from the window but still made the effort to answer.
    “I was...,” he muttered but it was still loud enough for Joe to hear.
    “Don’t be like that Ev’”
    “You were my only friend Joe... my best friend, and then you stabbed me in the back and went off with the enemy!”
    “You make it sound as if we’re in some war”
    “We were! That retard has made our lives hell for six and a half years”
    “He’s not that bad if you get to know him and he said he was sorry”
    “To you yeah! He still bullies me... “
    “He doesn’t bully you, he’s just playing” Joe pulled the chair out and tried to sit next to him but Evan slid his bag it.
    “Evan, please, now you’re just acting childish”
    Suddenly a third voice entered the conversation, making both the boys jump.
    “You know, you two sound like a married couple,” it said heedlessly and the two looked at who stood between them, Jack Ipkiss.
    Joe looked him up and down cautiously “who the hell are you then?” he said darkly.
    “My name is not important,” answered jack in a mockingly sci-fi fashion, then he turned to Evan “this seat taken?”
    Evan gave a quick glance at Joe and his spite built up. “No” he said, not taking his eyes away from Joes glare, and neither did Joe to his, the two locked in a glare-off knowing eventually one of them would give up. Evan held his ground and Joe finally turned, walking across the room and sitting next to Sam wise.
    “Who was that?” said Jack, taking a seat
    “Just... someone I knew...”
    “Knew?” Jack inquired, raising an eyebrow
    “It doesn’t matter” Evan said, trying to avoid the subject “what are you doing here anyway?”
    “Turns out this is my tutor, so I was wondering if I could hang out with you for a bit, get use to the place”
    Evan hesitated, from what he knew of the ridiculous unwritten student law was that skateboarders were quite high in the ‘seniority’ and that loners, like him, were quite low.
    “Um... why do you want to hang around with me, I'm not exactly popular...?”
    Jack stood suddenly. “You’re not?” he then turned and began walking off; Evan looked at the table, taking a rather large hit to his confidence.
    “Because, you stupid twonk, you seem like an alright dude” Evan looked up and Jack was now sat on the table. “So what do you say?”
    All Evan could do was grin...”


    The siblings were now in a calm panic, trying their hardest to think of something.
    “We need to get that book back!” the brother ordered pacing the small cupboard, his sister just looked at him.
    “And how do you s’pose we do that?”
    “Try using the Fumanu see thing you just did”
    “Fumanu-cee-suie-utet” she corrected him “and even if I did use it the probability of the book returning is 0… that was the warp spell, it only works one way”
    “Then use another spell!” His voice was on the verge of yelling and his sister had to give him a kick in the shins to keep him quiet.
    “Don’t shout! Besides, it’s not as if I can memorise every spell in the flipping book”
    “You’re the witch in-training, it’s your job to memorise them”
    “Sorceress in-training! And there’s over 1000 spells in that old thing…”
    “Then what spells do you know?”
    “Defence; level 1, Fire; level 2 and I know the basics of teleportation…”
    The brother’s face lit up, the two still had an escape plan, “we use teleportation to get the hell out of here!” she looked at him softly and he could see it in his sister’s eyes there was something wrong, “what?”
    “I only know the incantation... i haven’t mastered the hand movement... without the book...” she trailed off, his face had all but given up and she couldn’t bring herself to finish
    “So...” he said softly, sitting on a mop bucket, “that’s us screwed...”


    English was one of Evans easiest lessons, or at least it had been in the past. His teacher, Mr Troughton, was a kind middle aged man who was easy going and ran under the rule “if you don’t want to learn then that’s you’re decision, just don’t distract the people who are learning” meaning he and Joe, before he had stabbed Evan in the back, would usually chat quietly thorough the lesson and luckily a skill of his was multitasking, which meant he could still get his work done.
    Suddenly he felt a tap on his shoulder and turned, expecting to see one of the class retards, commonly known as chavs (an unfortunate race of beings that hadn’t seemed to have evolved since their primate days) but there was no one there, Evan gave a sigh of relief and turned back.
    “So, what’s this class like?”
    Evan turned to the seat next to him and once again, to his surprise, Jack had somehow appeared out of nowhere.
    “Stop doing that!” moaned Evan, irritated at being surprised for the 3rd time in the same day by the same person.
    “Doing what?” Jack asked casually, it was like he didn’t know what he was doing
    “Sneaking up on me”
    “I didn’t sneak up on you” Jacks face was in protest and Evan knew he was getting nowhere.
    “What are you doing here anyway? You’re not in this class”
    “I am now, snuck into admin at break and changed teachers, from what i hear the other teacher is meaner than a bull on steroids”
    “How’d you do that?”
    “Im a god with electronics, i once made a radio out of an old computer mouse and my mum’s speakers... she wasn’t exactly happy but...” He broke off as Mr. Troughton entered.
    seven minutes from the end of the lesson Mr Troughton piped up, “Ok kids, next is lunch but im not going to force you to miss you’re break, instead we would have had another lesson after lunch but i want you to come register in then you can go out and research for our next project, the author Erik Zaffito”, The class gave a simultaneous groan and piled out.
    After lunch Evan and jack headed off to the local library, much to the disappointment of Jack.
    “Why we going to the library?” he moaned, “we’ve got an hour before PE, this is the perfect time for you to show me around this place”
    “We’ll have time, im a fast reader. It should only take 20 minutes to get down enough info; you can just copy my work”
    “Now you’re speaking my language!” He threw his board down and jumped on it, moving slowly alongside Evan.
    The library was much larger than the schools on-site one, with rows of books surrounding the main desk in the centre of the room, their contents spreading from fiction to fact and all organised alphabetically. Evan led Jack to the far right side of the room, the X-Y-Z fiction section. As jack started reading the graphic novels Evan kneeled at the bottom shelve and scanned the rows, looking for the name Zaffito, but there weren’t any books by that name, there wasn’t any books in the whole Z section... except one. A large leather book with a golden Z design on its cover. The rest of the shelve was empty, excluding the piles of ash, jack walked over, leaning on the shelves.
    “That the one were looking for? Looks old”
    “It’s the only one that begins with a Z...”
    Evan opened the book randomly at a page and put on his reading glasses; Jack kneeled next to him and tried to make out the odd text.
    “It’s all gibberish!” he realised.
    “It’s not gibberish... their instructions...” Corrected Eva n, who could somehow understand it. He put the book on the floor and held both hands out in front of him, moving them slowly in the shape of an hourglass.
    “What you doing?” Jack asked but Evan was concentrating too hard to relies, leaving Jack looking in stunned silence as the book began to glow emerald, this seemed to put Evan of slightly but he continued anyway.
    “Zemar-set-Retet” he read and suddenly both boys were flung into the shelves behind them as the book exploded in an bright light, they squinted to try and make out what was happening.
    Slowly a mutated hand reached out of the book, grabbing the floor and pulling itself up. The creature stood, It was humanoid, the size of an adult with its body covered in a long black gown, reminding the boys of a vampire cape. It stood, staring through a wooden mask that hid his face, saying nothing and standing almost completely still. Another Shockwave left the book and it turned to face it as slowly a human boy grew from the pages. Slightly older than Evan and Jack he had sandy blond hair and was wearing a strange brown uniform with leather shoulder pads and a badge on its left chest. In his hand was a long Katana sword that seemed to be, like the book, glowing a bright emerald.
    “Ramandion!” He shouted, addressing the masked being, “I order you to Let Tegan go!
    He lunged at the man, katana stretched ahead of him but it simply grabbed the blade and threw the boy across the room, then it turned to the book.
    “I have a feeling that something bad will happen if he gets that book...Evan whispered cautiously, hoping whatever it was hadn’t heard, if it had then it didn’t react.
    A dark grin grew on Jacks face, “then we can’t let him get it, I’ll distract him you grab the book”
    Before Evan could protest Jack was on his feet, holding his skateboard high above his head by its tip. Fast and swift he swung it down, forcefully hitting the side of its head and knocking it to the floor. It seemed to forget about the book and was now after Jack who had already jumped on his board and was taking off down the rows of books. Evan grabbed the book and ran in the opposite direction stopping at the corner of the room and hiding behind the chairs. He had no idea what to do, this all seemed like the sort of thing you’d get in a TV program and generally the hero’s in TV programs like this were brave and courageous, knowing exactly what to do. Evan on the other hand was the complete opposite of this; though he was smart he lacked in confidence and was terrible under pressure. He looked at the book, it had now stopped doing whatever it was that happened and gone dormant again. He sighed, it’s his fault this was happening, if he hadn’t tried to look smart in front of his new friend then...
    He was distracted in mid thought when suddenly Jack came crashing through the shelves meters away, still conscious but badly hurt. Evan looked back at the book, wondering what else it could do, it had brought that thing here, and perhaps it could send it away. Looking through the pages as quick as possible the only thing he could find, considering the time he had, was something called ‘enchantment’, it was to be used on an item that could be considered a weapon. He looked over the chair but the creature was already over Jack, who had the deck of his skateboard above his head like a shield, “yes!” Evan exclaimed quietly to himself, facing the book and reading the instructions. Slowly he moved his hand in the shape if the number 5, “Encha-ramatu-flare”.
    The book glowed once again and an orb of emerald energy slowly floated up, consuming Evans hand and making it feel weird, like pins and needles. He turned to the fight, the boy who had followed this thing out of the book was now aiding Jack against the creature but still to effect. Evan gently blew the energy in the direction of Jacks skateboard and it floated quietly across the room, hitting its target. Like the boys sword, the skateboard was engulfed in bright light and Noticing this jack looked up at him and gave his usual grin, “Hell yeah!” He shouted turning to the creature, “Oi! b***h face!”
    He swung the board again and this time hit the creature in the chest, sending him into the wall. Now both fighters were standing over it, their weapons illuminating the room and both ready to attack if it got up but instead it began to sink into the floor, disappearing into nothingness.
    “Did we kill it?” asked Jack, cautiously walking to where it had once been.
    “No, he ran, has the ability to teleport using shadows” said the boy turning away and walking up to Evan, “how did you do that?”
    “I...i don’t know, i just... read the words”
    “But only a sorcerer has the ability to cast spells” Said the boy accusingly, he then dived at Evan, picking him up by the scruff of the neck, “what have you done with Tegan!? And where am i?”
    Jack swung his board before anyone could answer, hitting the boys arms and making him drop Evan, “we don’t know who the hell you, Tegan or that thing are but Evan and i have done sod all to you, in fact we’ve helped you as much as possible, so don’t come here accusing us of anything! Ok?”
    The boy looked away, “im sorry, it’s just, Tegan's my younger sister and if anything has happened to her I’d never forgive myself”
    Jack lowered his board and smiled softly, “apology accepted... My names Jack Ipkiss, this is my mate Evan”
    “Zack Tracks and, where am i?”
    “Bristol...” said jack walking over to Evan and helping him up “i think we’d better get out of her before someone sees this mess and us...”
    Jack had managed to convince Evan to let them go back to his house and now the two boys were in Evans bedroom, sat looking at the strange kid in front of them, he seemed slightly more primitive than them as almost every piece of technology in the room amazed him like a young child at Christmas. After a few minutes he explained everything.
    He and his sister was from a universe known as the Z-universe, they were part of a team dedicated to stopping Ramandion and his mutant generals. They had infiltrated Ramandion’s castle and succeeded in getting 9 of the 12 crystals that trapped the power of the generals inside of them but when they attempted to teleport the crystals the book also disappeared. This book was the one Evan had found, it was called the Z-book; a powerful artefact said to have created the Z-universe.
    Evan looked down at it, “the book and the crystals must have teleported to this universe and when i read the spell it brought you and Ramandion here”
    “As it seems...” Zack said pacing the room, “and if he finds those crystals before we do he’ll be able to summon his mutant generals and plunge your world into darkness...”
    Evan felt a lump grow in his throat, “we?... hold on a second, i can’t do anything! Im just a 15 year old kid!”
    “You found the book and were able to use it, im sorry kid, but you’re involved”
    “And how the hell are we supposed to find these crystals?” Jack told him, trying to save evan. Zack pointed to the book that was resting neatly on Evans table, “when that thing glows without you saying a spell it means it’s located a crystal, according to Tegan...” he hesitated at the mention of her name “...if a teleportation spell is used on multiple items they will arrive at their destination not long after each other”
    “We found the book at the library, so that’s where they should appear...” Explained Evan hopefully
    “Perhaps” Zack said “Tegan... Tegan was only a Beginner, there could be a small distance between the destinations but nothing too far”
    Evan stood up and walked over to the desk, looking at the book with a hint of fear, “so, until this glows, we just... wait?”
    Zack nodded and Evan swallowed, what had he gotten himself into...

    To be continued...