The Book of Fate Part 1: The Map

In a dark room only lit up by a slew of computer monitors, many people are typing. Above them, beyond a small staircase, somebody sat in a grand chair, staring at the flowing data in front of him. The door leading to the hallway abruptly opens. More light shines into the dark room as a male employee with dark hair in a business suit enters the room. He walks up to the individual seated in the grand chair.

“Sir, we have finally found it,” reports the man who just walked in.

“The map or the book?” asks an ominous deep voice.

“The map, sir. We tracked it down to a small family in Greensburrow. It seems just last year most of the family in possession of the map died off due to some unknown illness. The lone survivor, Jekyll Hashima, has inherited the map along with his family’s pawn shop,” continues the employee.

“Good work. What are the boy’s powers?” questions the deep voice.

“There are no known reports of him manifesting any abilities.”

The voice stumbles, “How…odd. Everyone has one nowadays. Even toddlers have shown signs of their abilities.”

The man replies, “We believe he is a rare case of people who don’t get powers. A Null if you will.”

Upon hearing the word Null, the man in the chair flashbacks to a traumatic scene in his life where a voice echoes, “You Supers think you’re all that. You have the nerve to call us Nulls? Well, a lot of good it does you when guns are still as effective as they ever were.” His young eyes drift down to a pool of blood occupied by two corpses. When he snaps back to reality, he replies holding his head gasping for breath, “One of those, huh. Well, that’ll make our job easier.” He gets up, but the stress of the flashback causes him to struggle to keep himself balanced.

“Sir?” begins the employee before the voice interrupts, “Prep a helicopter to Greensburrow immediately.”

“Are you sure sir?” questions his concerned employee.

“Yes, I’m sure. Don’t worry about me. I just dug into the wrong past, again.”

“Yes, sir,” acknowledges the employee. He walks out of the room in order to fulfill his orders as the source of the voice sits back down and mumbles, “Hmm, the past huh. How ironic that I made my career on digging up old wounds.”

As the helicopter blades fly off into the distance, we now set our sights on the lush, quaint little town of Greensburrow. A guy wearing a purple hoodie with blue jeans, jet black hair, and amber eyes with ear buds in his ear listening to “Life is a Highway” (Made by Rascal Flatts) is walking on the sidewalk in Greensburrow. His destination: home to a quaint little pawn shop in the town. With backpack in tow, he passes a myriad of different buildings, mostly residential houses. Trees are growing out of various spots made for them on the sidewalk. Jekyll turns his head and gazes towards a park with an odd scythe stuck in the ground; the cracks around it glowing ominously; with no life around it. Many people wave to Jekyll as he walks. He spots his neighbor Frederick Jabberjaw and waves to him. Mr. Jabberjaw stops him for a brief conversation.

“Jekyll, nice to see you. How’s college treating you?”

“Could be better. Those generals are killer,” responds Jekyll taking out his ear buds out for a short bit.

“I bet. Aren’t you studying to go over to Oxford for a history major?” asks Jabberjaw.

“Yep. I always felt connected to the past living in the pawn shop, so it seemed like a good major to go for,” answers Jekyll.

“I see. Well, I’m sure you must be busy, and I got some errands to run, so I’ll let you go,” says Jabberjaw.

Jabberjaw starts walking away as Jekyll calls, “Have a good day, old man!”

Jabberjaw yells back, “You too and remember, you’ll be as old as me one day.”

Jekyll laughs and puts his ear buds back in. He gets to the bottom of the hill and goes across a bridge over a flowing river. The sun’s rays ever shining down. Today is a pleasant afternoon full of wonder and intrigue. He passes by a nice wooden house with a porch swing creaking as the wind blows it ever so slightly. The house right next to it is Jekyll’s home/pawn shop.

He grabs his mail from the purple mailbox and walks into his home, a tiny bell signaling his entrance. He walks over to the counter and places the mail on it. Afterwards, he walks behind it and takes off his backpack before grabbing his mail one final time. He takes a good look at it with one particular item catching his eye.

“Hmm…this one is from the Law Office. It’s probably another bill.” He opens it up and it’s exactly what he thought it was. “Dang it,” Jekyll groans as the sound of helicopter blades draws near. He takes out his ear buds as a helicopter flies in front of the shop and lands on the street, probably illegally. The door on the copter opens and a guy with shabby red hair, purple eyes, dressed in business attire, with a fanglike tooth prominent in his mouth, around 5’7” with a lean build hops out of the helicopter and walks into the shop causing the little bell to ring. The man walks up to the counter and greets, “Hello I’m Pyro Kinesis, founder and CEO of Ancient Technology Logistics Incorporated. (He hands Jekyll a business card.) It has recently come to my understanding that you have come into possession of a rare ancient map dating back thousands of years. I would like to see it for myself.”

Jekyll is stunned for a brief moment and after that involuntary pause he clears his throat and asks, “Are you really THE Pyro Kinesis? The multi-billionaire who studies archaeology while simultaneously making several scientific advancements?”

Pyro answers unfazed, “That is correct. I get that a lot. Now, may I see this map of yours?”

He answers quickly, “Of course.” He opens a panel in the back of the counter and retrieves a small, wooden locked box, which he then places on the counter, its lock facing Pyro. Then, he opens up a drawer near the top of the counter and grabs a key. Jekyll turns the box around so the keyhole is facing towards him and he inserts the key into it. He turns it in the lock creating a clicking sound. Afterwards, he takes the key out of the lock and places it on the counter. Jekyll turns the box back around and states with his hand on the box, “I must warn you right now, this map is not for sale. It’s been in my family for generations. That being said, I don’t mind you taking a look at it.” He opens the box revealing an old glowing parchment inside. Pyro picks up the parchment and unfurls it. Words begin to write themselves on the parchment, “Ye who seekth the power of fate, does thou wisheth to find the book?”

Pyro speaks to the map, “Yes, reveal to me the location of the book.”

The words disappear and a map draws itself on the parchment starting from the town of Greensburrow going through forests, past a river, and ending behind some mountains. Pyro got out his phone and snapped a picture of it. Unfortunately, his phone exploded upon snapping the picture.

“What the gas? Is it one of those artifacts? Either way, it’ll be one heck of a time explaining this to insurance,” thinks Pyro aloud.

He puts the remnants of his phone in his pocket.

“I know you said you had no interest in selling the map but how about I offer you a thousand dollars for it?” offers Pyro.

“Thanks for your kind offer, really. But this map has been in my family for generations. It wouldn’t be right to sell it,” answers Jekyll sentimentally.

Pyro offers bluntly, “Ten thousand, final offer.”

Jekyll declines firmly, “No.”

Pyro dictates with a more menacing tone of voice, “You should have accepted the offer.” He snapped his fingers, and the sound of glass shattering could be heard. Jekyll looks towards his windows and sees ninjas hopping into the store gathering around behind Pyro who starts walking backwards into the crowd, map in hand. “You could have easily avoided this had you only accepted my offer. Ninjas annihilate! And burn everything down to the ground.”

Pyro snaps his fingers again. One ninja pulls out a sword, jumps, and slashes the counter in half as Pyro starts walking towards the door. Jekyll frantically starts running as two of them throw shurikens* at him. He tackles Pyro to the ground narrowly avoiding the shurikens. He wrestles the map out of Pyro’s hands, gets back up, and runs back out the door. A ninja runs out the door at super speed appearing in front of Jekyll in two seconds. “Filthy Null,” says the ninja as he grabs the map and attempts to yank it out of Jekyll’s hands. The ninja kicks him in the balls causing him to let go in pain. He stumbles backwards as the other ninjas surround him. They each start charging an attack consisting of an element such as lightning, ice, water, etc. As he recovers from the shock of the low blow, they all fired. Jekyll’s body is now charred and fried, his heartbeat irregular and faint. He limps towards the ninja, towards the map as if possessed by a madman reaching out for the map. His legs are barely holding on. “I won’t…let you…” His legs give out right in front of the ninja, but he still reaches for the map. The ninja backs away slowly and Jekyll plops to the ground and finishes his thought, “get…the map.” The map starts glowing even brighter than earlier and a voice booms out of it, “Do you wish to stop the one who seekth the power of fate?” The ninja exclaims in shock, “It talks?” Jekyll mumbles, “Yes.”

The map replies, “So be it.” The map glows brighter as a strange octagonal symbol with yin and yang in the center appears under Jekyll and in a flash of light, he vanishes. Pyro walks over to the ninja and yanks the map out of his hand. He looks at it and yells, “What was that!?”

It responds nonverbally, “If thou wisheth to seek the power of fate, a counterbalance must be instilled lest human life be squandered.”

“Squandered!?” he yells in frustration before he sighs and takes a deep breath. “Since you can apparently teleport people, why not teleport me to the temple?”

The map replies, “No, that is insufficient for passage.”

Pyro states confused, “I have no clue what you’re talking about, but whatever. Come on guys, pack it up.” He gestures for them to board the helicopter. One of the ninjas ask, “Sir, do you still want us to burn the house down?”

Pyro takes a deep breath and answers, “No, it’s pointless now. Greg, stay behind in case he comes back. This whole ‘counterbalance’ thing might be an issue. If you see him, capture him alive. He might be important later.”

The lightning ninja who goes by the name of Greg replies, “Yes sir.” He runs into the house. “Everyone else come with me to the temple, and call George telling him I need him to come in to work. Mention he will be paid overtime.” He starts walking to the helicopter and realizes something, “Oh, one more thing. Greg, fix that window. It’ll look suspicious if we don’t.”

Another ninja retorts, “You mean a helicopter parked on the street isn’t suspicious?”

“No, that’s business,” snarks Pyro before boarding the copter.

The rest of the ninjas board and the helicopter blades whirl creating liftoff. The copter leaves and Greg looks at the broken glass. “First of all, I need to change into casual clothes. I’ll raid this guy’s closet.”