User blog:Arelinna/Off We Go to Quadrant 5

There once was a dude named John Thero. He had swag. Just kidding, he didn't.

The year is 2013. John, dressed in casual wear, scurried down the street, hopping over puddles of water that accumulated over the rainstorm the previous day. The sky was blanked in clouds that resembled gray wool, emptying a light drizzle over the horizon. John Thero was rushing to get home, before his younger brother ate all of the cookies he wanted that his mom always baked, fresh and warm. He was desperate enough to take a shortcut, cutting through the abandoned suburban areas of his town, on gang lands. If he was seen by any of the members, he would miss the chance to stuff his face with warm chocolate goodness. Permanently.

To choose between the risk of having his body dumped in a nearby creek or to be the first to get home and eat cookies? That was hard. Who doesn’t love cookies? There have been wars fought over them.

Boom!

A plume of fire erupted from John’s right hand. Shocked, John stopped in his tracks and examined the sparks floating around him. ''What the… My hand isn’t burnt, and I swear on the cookies I’m getting that that explosion came outta my hand. What is this madness? ''He thought.

“A high concentration of Ignis seems to be in that area above that pothole. Heh, interesting. There shouldn’t be any leaks before that starts,” a voice behind a blue telephone booth laughed.

“Woah, dude, you really shouldn’t be here. Rambling idiots aren’t safe, what if ‘The Gang’ finds you? Get back to your mental asylum, please,” John attempted to warn this person behind the TARDIS-lookalike phone booth. After all, what person babbles about Ignis, whatever that was, and then laughs like one of those villain masterminds in popular movies?

It didn’t have the effect John wanted to on that person. There were days when he now wished he didn’t say that, but the past cannot be changed.

“Rambling idiot? Rambling idiot? The greatest phenomenon on Earth is going to happen in… say… 34 seconds. I have orchestrated it singlehandedly, so that therefore makes me a stupid, rambling hobo who needs to get back to an asylum because they drank too much booze. Haha, I love the logic you commoners come up with these days,” the person behind the phone booth chuckled. His, presumably a male because of the deepness of his voice, laugh grew louder, echoing across the whole abandoned road, “Oh, I see what I should do now. Do you hate your world’s logic? Perhaps loathing the limitations the laws of physics and other forms of science?”

“Well, uh, I sort of got an X in my Bio, so, I can’t really say anything, if that’s even possible,” John shakily replied. He was ready, oh yes he was, on fleeing this mysterious man. Then he would send in a complaint to the nearby asylum about not checking up on their patients often enough and letting them escape.

“Consider this as a gift for you, then,” the mysterious man’s voice turned deadly serious, as steely as a reinforced steel support pole.

“Oh snap! Bye, nice meeting you! I have… science… I mean, cookies I have to get back to! They must be burning by now, and nobody likes burnt chocolate chip delights!” John fled. Like what the Gingerbread Man said, ‘Run, run, as fast as you can, you can’t catch me, I’m the Gingerbread Man!’ And John, at this moment, was imagining chasing the Gingerbread Man, but as a Cookie Man. Cookies were tastier.

Then the ton of rocks fell on John. Well, not really rocks, it was actually that male talking about whatever the heck Ignis was. He pursued John, easily able to outrun him and tackled John to the road.

“Oh, it’s starting. Well, then, have a fun time here. Portal, get over here!” the figure demanded. He smirked at the effort John was using to get home, possibly to escape from a mentally insane prisoner.

“Yes, sir, I’m coming. Now what do you need?” a, just what the name explained, somehow sentient talking purple appeared face-to-face with the man restraining John.

“Replace that Miley… Cyrus… yes, I think that’s it. Replace her with this guy I picked up on the road. He seems to hate logic as much as her.”

“Yes, sir.”

<p class="MsoNormal">Portal’s ‘body’ grew wider, previously the size of a basketball now to the area of a small boat. Purple wind howled inside of the ‘body’, along with strange violet lightning flashes within. It engulfed John. He panicked and screamed for help, but the Portal the supernatural hole winked out of existence, following its master’s orders. John never made it home that day, and he was never seen again.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">That day, April 4th, was known to be the “Great Phenomenon”, where 100,000 people without any connection whatsoever just vanished. Nobody knew of a network of strange portals that appeared and abducted the missing. Scientists would forever debate and argue over the causes of this mysterious event. There was still one question – What happened to the missing people? Some believed they died, others concluded that aliens have finally took action of such a mass kidnapping. Yet some were very close to the true truth – the missing people were taken to another dimension.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">John Thero screamed as he fell and tumbled across space-time. Which way was up? Why am I seeing a random dancing pickle? Am I going to die? Were the thoughts flowing through his head as adrenaline pumped through his bloodstream. It didn’t seem like this horror-fest was going to end. Arcs of purple lightning flashed across the darkness that engulfed John as he was inexorably pulled by a force in whatever direction. Images flashed by, fast enough so John couldn’t focus on one. The thing that remained the same, though, was the giant, 5 and a half foot pickle with cartoon-like appendages and large, innocent looking eyes.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Hey, John, what up, my bro?” The pickle greeted. It waved an arm.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Why is there a pickle in the middle of a – dare I say it – magical esophagus thing of some Portal dude that ate me, just casually asking what’s happening with my life?” John sighed. He didn’t get some things sometimes, John blamed it on not listening in his psychology class whenever his teacher would lecture his boring lectures that somehow get derailed to Craftstar or something.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Well,” the pickled cucumber smiled and boomed jovially, “I’m glad you asked, bro! You’ll be meeting Celia Preferred, you two will be known as the best people ever in your chosen profession, and then you’ll die because some woman hated you and forced you to – oops, I said too much.”

<p class="MsoNormal">John was immediately alert. After all, hearing about predictions to when and how you will die not only gives said person their undivided attention, but also gets their jimmies rustled.

<p class="MsoNormal">“What?” he gasped in shock, “I’m gonna die? When!”

<p class="MsoNormal">The pickle shook its head, or whatever its head would look like since pickles weren’t supposed to have heads.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Calm down, homie. You shouldn’t tamper with Fate, she gets real mad. Seriously, I swear, last week she Hypersonic Slapped me to kingdom come, my face was so red everyone thought I was a rhubarb for a day. And don’t even get me started on that time when I told that other guy, what was his name, John F. Kennedy, about his assassination. Hah! Fate made sure he stayed dead, then proceeded to put me in a hamburger…” the pickle trailed off.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Uhm, ok, so why did you come here in this random portal to talk with me? And who are you, anyways?” John made an attempt to get back on topic.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Well, John, I am the Magical Pickle of Time and Space!” The magical pickle of time and space put his hands high up into the air, “I have many other names, too, such as Gangsta V, O-bobby Rockets, Flesh Ripper, Doctor Wh… nevermind on the last one. You can call me Tiffany instead. Though, mind you, I’m a guy! Mother just mistaked me as a girl, yeah?”

<p class="MsoNormal">“Ok, why not? A dancing magical pickle of time and space named Tiffany who’s a guy. Sure, things can’t get any weirder, can they?” snorted John. Wow, this day was wacky. Maybe he should’ve taken the more legitimate way back to home instead of walking on gang turf.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Glad you got that right,” Tiffany nodded in approval, “Now here here, I’m gonna tell you the very secrets of this place this wormhole’s gonna drop you, even teach you. Since I can manipulate time, we could spend as long as we want. Oh, and, don’t jinx it.”

<p class="MsoNormal">And so, Tiffany, the dancing magical pickle of time and space, created a blackboard, teacher’s desk, and student chair and started teaching.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">It felt like hours… days… weeks… to John until he managed to comprehend Tiffany’s teachings and ‘graduate’ Tiffany’s “Crash Course for Average Boys like You That’ll Whip You Into Shape”. By then, he had already learned everything he needed to know, knowing to meet that girl Celia Preferred, leading a large town, and, apparently, learning the secret art to making a specialty of One-Ton Wontons.

<p class="MsoNormal">“It’ll help you in life, it’ll really do, the One-Ton Wontons,” the pickle mentor had said, wiping tears of joy coming out of his eyes, “Oh, John, you’re graduating. It’s so sad, I’ll miss the one guy who could tolerate my racial differences. Don’t forget to team up with Celia Preferred, I don’t care if you two hate each other’s guts, that’s what Fate told me to do.”

<p class="MsoNormal">“Uh, ok,” John had replied.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">And now John fell, face first, into a field of grass. Interesting, he mused, ''This grass tastes delicious. So crunchy, so pure, savory. Yum….''

<p class="MsoNormal">A foot, or what felt like a foot, stomped on his head. John saw stars until he looked up.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Hey, you there. Why the heck are you doing, eating grass, it’s probably been pooped on by who knows what, and are you, by any chance, John Thero?” a teenaged girl demanded. She wore a classical private school uniform, complete with a mini blackish-brown blazer, plaid reddish-pink miniskirt, and as an odd twist, pitch black combat boots with many buckles and straps. Her golden brown hair was tied in a tight chignon bun.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Are you this Celia Preferred that Tiffany kept on mentioning?” John replied, staring into the girl’s chocolate brown eyes.

<p class="MsoNormal">“The one and only,” Celia offered her hand to the John that was on the ground. John grabbed it, but not before she pulled her hand back.

<p class="MsoNormal">“What was that for?” John exclaimed.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Tiffany taught you to be a man, right? Now act like one,” Celia laughed.

<p class="MsoNormal">John pulled himself up from the grass. “Well, not really… He just told me about what was in the air. Ignis, was that it, and us two being leaders of this ‘Oitemn’ place.”

<p class="MsoNormal">“Well, well, then. Follow me, John, I think I found this Oitemn place us two know,” Celia pointed to an area to the left of a vibrant sunset, which left a blend of bright orange hues mixing in with the darkening sky.

<p class="MsoNormal">   “Oh my Llamas….” John trailed off at those words.

<p class="MsoNormal">The girl snickered at the Llama part, but that didn’t distract John from noticing the great detail of this huge city.

<p class="MsoNormal">From the view, this city was surrounded by circular, dull gray walls with glowing sky-blue lines in straight and orderly designs that somehow seemed to have no pattern. Above the wall, John could gaze at the roofs of multiple buildings, all traced with the same lines on the walls. Some of these tops seemed to also have windows tinted the same blue as the mysterious lines around this fortified place.

<p class="MsoNormal">Celia put a hand on her hip and turned to John, with her tounge sticking out. “Hey, I’ll race you to the city. Last one doesn’t get any cookies.”

<p class="MsoNormal">John laughed quietly to himself before thinking about the cookies he missed at home, shortly following his new acquaintance Celia toward this ‘Oitemn’ place.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Over the course of 129 years, the 100,000 people there had families and the small portion of the human race stranded in this new place had mostly managed to survive together in a town called Oitemn, the only town that was there when the original people first appeared. Several scientists who managed to be in the group of 100,000 people took investigations centered on this new world and figured out it was quite different yet similar to Earth. The air had contents similar to their home world, but it had a special element which humans absorbed. It was entitled as Ignis. Luckily, it was not lethal and actually gave the inhabitants of everyone on this place some sort of control over a type of element. Based on one’s personality, there was an element that would be right for them to manipulate and use. For example, a kind and compassionate person could heal others with a simple touch, depending on the wound. This art was called Ignis Manipulation, though normal Oitemn inhabitants referred to it as ‘Magic’.

<p class="MsoNormal">This Ignis found in the air could then be harvested by machines to make magic stones for imbuing into weapons to defeat monsters that were mostly aggressive and thirsting for human flesh and blood. Luckily, these beasts, however strong they were, could not enter the town for some reason.

<p class="MsoNormal">Schools were established, teaching basic combat, spells, and other subjects including the history of Earth.

<p class="MsoNormal">Some thrillseekers got bored of Oitemn, trekking through the seemingly endless plains until they reached a door that lead to another land altogether. These lands were eventually called Quadrants. Quadrant 1 housed Oitemn, not much is known about Quadrants 2 to 4. Rumors started to circulate around town about a fifth Quadrant, but there was no confirmation.

<p class="MsoNormal">John Thero and Celia Preferred used their knowledge Tiffany the Magical Dancing Pickle of Time and Space had taught them, leading Oitemn and others with their Ignis experiences

<p class="MsoNormal">Earth was forgotten as time passed to where only mentions of it were in old family stories passed down from generation to generation.

<p class="MsoNormal">But this new world, dubbed Dimension H, was still a prison no matter how grand it was. Whoever was behind the mass transportation of 100,000 people managed his or her goal – to make their victims trapped forever… but could that really be it?

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">And here the story moves on to a beautiful red-haired tomboy girl with a fiery spirit – Elena.