The Elements of Pure Energy

by The Collective

Chapter 1: Entrance

The Elements of Pure Energy

Chapter 1: Entrance

The young man got up from his computer, another glorious day on the wonderful internet! He powered his computer down and checked the clock: “1:00 again?!” Indeed it was 1:00 in the morning, and he had done it again. It just kept happening, and it wasn’t any different than the last time, he already knew that getting up tomorrow was going to be hard, but... "Such is the life of me,” hopping into his bed and pulling the covers over his face, he curled up and began to sleep.

He woke up in the morning...or around noon to be precise, still very much tired and wanting to go to sleep. He knew, however, that today was an important day, he was going to do a job shadow in a local hospital. Getting dressed, he picked out some loose clothing and went to eat breakfast. Nick’s father had already left for work, leaving his mother to cook breakfast. “Good morning mother,” greeted Nick, as he trudged over to his seat at the table.
“You were up late again weren’t you?” She responded.

Damn...how did she know?

She sighed as she handed him an omelette, “Well today is your first day on the shadow. Don’t you think you could have done with a little more sleep?” Nick realized how true this statement was, and ate his omelette sheepishly. Nick checked his watch and realised that he had less time than he bargained for. He hurried out the door and started up his car.

He backed out of his driveway and began down the road; the hospital was on the other side of town, so getting there would take a while. Nick turned on the radio and started to sing along to the songs...quite horribly. It didn’t bother him though, as far as he was concerned, he was a pretty good singer. Suddenly the radio reported a large traffic jam on the road he needed to go. “There is congestion on the 1604 loop westbound, detours are advised, you can divert to highwa-”

Nick turned off the radio and swore under his breath, not only was the fastest route jammed, but now everyone else would divert to that highway and he wouldn’t make it on time that way either. He knew a way that would take him around the outskirts of town though, and that would be his only option if he wanted to make it on time. Exiting the freeway, he saw the empty side road as his only shot.

Nick’s Honda Civic bounced up and down the unmaintained road, sure it was out of the way...but it really was his only shot. It was going to be a long detour, and Nick had calmed down, so he turned on his radio again. “OH THIS IS MY JAM!” he exclaimed happily as his favorite song came on. He began singing and playing the air drums, using his thighs to steer. He had seen his buddy Felix do this tons of times when they drove together, so it seemed fine at the time. The latter proved to be a less thought out decision, as he hit a bump that sent the car veering off the road. “OH SHI-” but he didn’t have time to finish as his car spun out, causing him to hit his head on the window. Nick blacked out.

The dusk began to roll in, and Nick began coming to. “Oww...what the hell...” Then he started remembering what had happened, “Yeah, I’m a genius...so now I’m not only late...” Nick suddenly realised what time it was “AWW DAMMIT,” He yelled, smashing his fist on the dashboard. “I missed the whole thing!” As he groggily opened the car door, he almost fell out of the car; but caught himself on the side of the vehicle before he hit the ground. “Wow, I guess I am kinda beat up...” Supporting himself on the side, Nick finally found his footing and surveyed the area. He was in a wooded area, with many shrubs all around him. He could see tracks in the dirt and dry grass where his vehicle had veered off the road and into the clearing. There was no damage to the car, but dirt was caked on the sides near the wheel. “Well at least this thing is alright...” Getting back into the driver’s seat, Nick contemplated how he would get back onto the road. “I have never taken the Honda off road...or any vehicle off road...” He reached for the seat belt and pulled it into place. As he brought his hands to the wheel, he stopped. Something caught his eye. He looked down and froze: the seatbelt was stained red with blood. “Oh...fuck.” He quickly cupped the side of his head and brought it back in front of him. Flakes of dried blood were in his palms. He checked the mirrors, he had a huge laceration running lateral to his ear. Nick’s pulse started to pick up, how much blood had he lost? Was he in medical danger? Could this get infected?

He brought the car into gear and tried driving. At first he made good progress, rattling over the uneven ground. Getting back onto the road, he headed towards the medical center he originally planned to take his job shadow at. His pulse began rapidly increasing, and so did his stress. Unfortunately this caused his wounds to reopen and he started bleeding again. By now he was driving 60 miles per hour down a rickety old road, the Honda Civic was jumping on the bumps and screeching on the uneven road. Slowly he started noticing that it was getting harder to focus, he was losing too much blood. It became harder to turn, and Nick was getting closer to understeering and going off-road again. The world became dark as tunnel vision gripped his mind. Despite his worsening condition, Nick was able to make out a house on the side of the road. “Oh thank God!” he exclaimed. Perhaps someone could call an ambulance; he was saved!

Nick was seeing double when he finally pulled into the driveway. He was too disoriented and out of his mind to notice that not only was there no car in the driveway, but also that both garage doors were open. If he could have seen the garage, he would have noted that it was empty, but dirty. If his faculties were still operating properly, he would have noticed that all the lights were off. But he couldn’t think straight, he knew one thing and one thing only. Get. Help. It wasn’t strange to him that the door opened on its own with no effort. Nor was it strange to him that the house was the same temperature as the outdoors. “Hell...Hello?” There was an echo, but no response. It began to dawn on him, he was alone. Maybe there was a phone in another room, maybe he could still save himself! Nick tried stumbling into the next room, but finding it impossible to walk, fell to his knees and began to crawl towards the door. Using every ounce of his strength, Nick reached up and turned the door handle. The door creaked loudly in the dark void, revealing a stairway leading into a basement. He saw that it would not lead him to salvation and attempted to turn around. His arms gave way under the ever increasing weight of his body and he fell down the stairs.

I WARNED YOU ABOUT THE STAIRS BRO. I WARNED YOU DOG, Nick’s subconscious screamed at him. His rational thought was draining fast, and he had taken a nasty tumble. Nick felt a burning sensation in his chest and began coughing. He blinked hard and noticed that he coughed up blood; he was hemorrhaging. It began to dawn on Nick that he was going to die here. As the feeling set in, and he began to resign to his fate, Nick heard the sound of water somewhere nearby. The loss of so much blood had depleted Nick’s water supply, and he realized how thirsty he was. He dragged himself on the floor, leaving a trail of blood behind him as he moved forward at a painful pace. It was dark in the basement, but Nick could make out a pool of water. After what felt like hours, he finally reached the edge of the pool and began to drink. The pool was deep and cool, it felt like paradise in Nick’s private hell. The water was so cool and inviting that he lusted for it. He dunked his face in, the coolness sweeping over it, then his shoulders- God it felt so good to cool off! Nick then remembered that he had to breathe, and reluctantly tried to pull his head out of the water. This proved to be more difficult than he had imagined as he tried to pull himself up. The dying young man took deep breaths, inhaling the stagnant air that filled the room. His face hovered inches above the water before the last of his strength finally gave out. He fell into the water. Suddenly, it wasn’t heavenly anymore, it was hell. The water engulfed Nick as he began to sink to the bottom, the weight of his waterlogged clothing dragged him down like an anchor. There was no escaping it now, he was going to die. Nick saw everything go dark, and then he let go.

~~~

The sound of his knuckles repeatedly hitting the unpainted drywall created a beat that was almost tribal. Shocks of pain reverberated up his arm and ended near his elbows. He ignored the pain and kept punching the blank surface with clenched fists. A bead of sweat started forming at the tip of his crow’s nest and made its way down towards his dirty blonde eyebrows. He barely noticed in his hate fueled stupor. The salty mixture slipped down his nose and into his teal- green eye. In a moment of blindness, he flung his arm in a wild haymaker and nicked a protruding corner section of the wall. He grimaced and stuck his hand between his legs, attempting to ease his burning knuckles. I knew punching here would be a problem, he thought to himself. He looked around his room and examined the chest-high dents that roamed from the right side of his door all the way towards his window. I guess there aren’t many places left. He looked down at his hands and examined the damage. More bruised, blackened and bloody fingers to hide. He breathed out a curse and thought about what made him do this. Or who, rather.

His stepfather.

He felt anger brewing up inside of him but quickly bottled it up. He couldn’t afford to go through another episode like that. Next time it might be a broken finger.

He strode over to his laptop with his long legs, covering the entire distance of his room in three steps. The metal legs of the chair scraped along the cement floor of his basement room. When his mother and father separated, he was allowed the entire basement to himself, as a plea from his mother to be nice to his new stepfather, he guessed. He flipped open his laptop and quickly typed in the password. He clicked on the Google Chrome icon and typed in the address to Facebook. Almost instantly bored, he slid the mouse in circles around the page. He let his torso and head fall onto his open laptop and let out an exasperated sigh.

The sound of a new notification went off. He looked up and squinted his eyes to get a better look.

A white square window in the middle of the screen popped up.

“Error 404, The Nexus. Complete Port?”.

He sat up and attempted to exit out; the window refused to close. He rapidly clicked the “X” in the top right hand corner of the window, but it still wouldn’t budge. After attempting “Ctl-Alt-Delete” and “Alt-F4” (to no avail), he sat back and glared at the screen. The window remained open even under the onslaught of daggers shooting from the young man’s eyes.

“Felix! Get up here! Your father just got home!” his mother screeched at him from upstairs.

Felix dragged his hands across his face and started to stand. Making as horrid a face as possible, he flicked off his computer. Instantly his middle finger burst into bright orange and yellow flames. Felix yelped and tripped backwards over his metal chair, which flipped upside down. Unable to get his gangly legs up in time, he twisted and fell face first into his wooden end table, banging his temple just above his left eyebrow. His hand shot up to his forehead, but he could already feel his mind slowing down and his vision blurring. The last thing he saw before he blacked out was his finger slowly extinguish.

~~~

Scipio buckled his chin-strap, checked his mag pouches, and headed onto the field. The sun was beating down and he was already sweating under his chest rig, but he didn’t care. As he walked onto the field, he yelled to his Lieutenant and good friend: “Hey Javi, did you remember to charge the Tornado with propane?”

“Yeah I did, did you remember to get the .25 bbs instead of the .20?”

“Um, yeah, of course...” Scipio cursed under his breath. Wrong bbs again, he thought to himself. As they reached the middle of the airsoft field, Scipio and Javi listened to the briefing.

“To begin today, we will play an infection game. For those of you who don’t know what that is, I’ll explain...”

Scipio zoned out because he DID know how the game worked. He was disappointed that they were starting out with a infection game, but such was life. Airsoft games were usually over in 20-45 minutes anyway, so there was plenty of time to do other game modes. As the briefing came to a close, Scipio fingered his fire selector, changing it from safe to semi auto to full auto.

“Alright human team, make your way to the west city!”

The “city” was a mess of old trailers and rusty sheds. As constructing a real city was quite expensive, airsoft fields often used old scrap trailers and sheds to create a city-like landscape.

Scipio went to the starting point for the humans. The team consisted of 50 players, who would start off facing 10 infected players. The idea was to wipe out the infected, but the infected had an advantage: multiple lives. 5, to be exact. The game was designed to make it almost impossible for the humans to win, and so it was. For most.

Luckily for the human team, and not so luckily for the infected team, 10 of the humans were part of an airsoft group called Task Force 11. Scipio’s friend Javi was the officer in charge of the group, and although Scipio was a new member, he was already accepted as a veteran. TF11 was the only group currently at the field, but even when there were other groups, TF11 always came out on top. The members of TF11 not only trained together, but hung around each other on and off the field. This meant that the members knew what they were going to do without talking, and this made them work very efficiently as a unit.

The buzzer whines. The game has begun!

TF11 immediately whip out their laminated maps of the city and plan a defense structure. They establish fallback points, pair off,and create a loose defense perimeter. As the infected approach, Scipio puts his fire selector back onto semi-auto to save ammo. One kill. Two kills. Three kills. The approaching group of infected retreats to their base to respawn, each having lost a life. Scipio turns to Javi and they share a quick hi-five before returning to their sights.

“Attention players, there are only 10 humans left. The game has 5 minutes left.”

As Scipio settled into his second retreat point, he breathed a sigh of relief. All of TF11 was intact, as confirmed by the tactical radios, and there were only 5 minutes left. We might actually win this, he thought.

Suddenly a horde of 25 infected appears from around the corner of a house. Scipio frantically switches to full auto and starts unloading on the infected, but its too late. He presses the mic key on his radio “This is Skippy! Retreating from fallback point two, horde of infected inbound. Requesting immediate backup.” But even as he finished talking, he hears other pleas for help. Then he hears Javi’s voice drown out all others: “Perimeter is overrun! Head to regroup point Charlie!”

Crap. Not the woods, Scipio thought to himself. The woods next to the city were dense and thorn filled. They were the perfect cover for the enterprising sniper and a good retreat point, but they were such a pain. And Scipio had the longest run to get to them.

He unleashed the last of his mag on the oncoming infected and then started sprinting for the woods.

As he ran through the woods, Scipio caught sight of a small shack in the woods. It looked like a shack from the city, but Scipio had never seen it before. And he had been EVERYWHERE in these woods. Looking over his shoulder, Scipio saw that he had lost the pack of infected. I guess I could check it out...

Walking around the shack, he saw a doorway. When he looked inside, he saw that the cabin was empty and windowless. Well that was exciting... Scipio then started walking away from the shack. He had barely walked 100 feet when a group of infected passed by. Startled, Scipio ran back towards the cabin. He checked over his shoulder and saw that the infected had passed, neither seeing him or giving chase. Starting to slow, Scipio looked forward just in time to see himself trip over the slightly raised threshold of the door. Everything went black as Scipio flew head first into floor.

~~~

“Yea and cut here, too,” the young man pointed at the side of his head. The barber hesitated; he was taking off inches of long blonde hair.

“Come on bro, I’m paying you to do this!” the client sighed deeply.

The hairstylist winced and finished the cut.

“Thanks bro. Looks good!” The 19 year old paid and walked out the door, sporting a new fohawk.

“Now to get this baby coloured! How’s this for stylish, Rebecca?” he muttered to himself. The things women make me do to get in their pants. He sighed. It was all worth it, he thought to himself. Never had he been in a solid relationship. Women were all the same. All that differed was what he had to do to get with them. He smiled. And oh, had he been with them alright.

With hands stuffed in his pockets, Gabriel whistled a tune to himself. He turned down an alleyway and scanned the streets. No one was in sight. Gabe checked behind him.

Completely empty.

Now was his chance.

He inhaled deeply and began to sing.

“No more talk of darkness.. forget these wide eyed dreams! I’m here, with you, beside you, to guard you and to guide you!”

The sound of his smooth tenor voice rang out and reverberated against the cement walls that surrounded him. There was something about the music from Phantom of the Opera, his favorite play, that put him in a great mood. He had an amazing voice too, but nobody knew that except for him. Singing about love? Please, if he told anyone, he’d never hear the end of it!

He slipped from one song to the next, finally coming to his favorite piece, Music of the Night.

“... Let your soul take you where you long to BE!”

With arms outstretched, he belted the last note. In its entirety, it was crystal clear and flawless. He let the pure sound echo and slowly die in the otherwise silent alley. He dropped his arms and let his head hang. Deep down, he wished for this. He wanted life to be a musical, an opera, a tragedy. Just as he took a breath, a stray newspaper attacked his face.

He stood there as the wind kept the paper flapping around his head.

“We all have our masks, don’t we, Phantom?” he sighed to himself as he ripped the paper off his face. He glanced at it. It was an ad for a new play, opening that coming friday. His eyebrows raised as he became more interested. He kept reading.

“Blah blah blah, opening friday, mhmm mhmm, wait... The Nexus? I’ve never heard of that play...” he stood back and pondered. He had done his fair share of research on playwrights and plays, too; probably more than his fair share, to be honest.

All of a sudden a garbage truck began backing into the alley. Startled, Gabe turned around and looked for the exit on the other side of the street. Except it wasn’t there. Starting to sweat, he ran towards the garbage truck to see if he could get around it. Amazingly, the garbage truck was almost snug to the walls of the alley. He started waving his arms frantically and tried yelling to get the attention of the driver. The garbage truck sped up. He ran back towards the wall and attempted scaling it, but there were no handholds. He spun around just in time to see the waste truck slam into his body full speed. Under the force of the truck, Gabe blacked out.

~~~

The auditorium was full again, it always was. Rufus sighed as he continued taking his notes as the professor droned on about invertebrates. “Lacking backbones, these creatures are limited in size, but have adapted well to fit...” Rufus was quite bored, sure he wanted to be a biology major, yes he wanted to go into ophiology, but good Lord this was terrible! “...which brings us to a very prominent kind of invertebrate that has shown the ability to adapt to many conditions,” yes here we go it’s gonna be snakes, it’s gonna be- “Insects.” Rufus groaned in dismay, he didn’t come here to study some bugs! He liked snakes, he wanted to be an ophiologist so he could study them. Snakes had always fascinated him; well most reptiles did, but he had a strange fascination for snakes. Perhaps it was because he used to handle them in High School, he had helped his biology teacher keep the menagerie of animals in his class. Or it was the way that the snakes lived, without legs, but still slithering along, feared, powerful, and very mysterious. So he sat in his seat and continued to take notes on insects, wishing that the professor would get onto snakes.

Then he realized something: snakes had backbones. Snakes are vertebrates, therefore they won’t be covered today. Rufus felt really embarrassed that he had let a simple mistake like that fool him into thinking that snakes would be covered today; he blushed but was thankful that he kept to himself, he couldn’t stand to be mortified like that. He didn’t even notice the other students starting to pack up as the professor dismissed the class, but as the room started to empty and he realized what happened, he became happy. Rufus was about to go to work, and he loved his job.

“Hello Rufus! On time as usual I see,” a zoo keeper addressed the college boy, “I don’t even have to ask if you are ready, you’re already dressed for work!” Rufus nodded. He wasn’t a man of many words, but he did what he had to. “The snake exhibit needs to be cleaned, simple stuff, feed them and change their water, the works.” The zookeeper led Rufus to the reptile house and to the hall of snakes, it was a large exhibit, and Rufus’ favorite part of the complex.

“There she is,” he said pointing to the majestic Burmese Python coiled inside of her enclosure, “She’s your favorite isn’t she?” Rufus nodded again. He had handled many snakes in his day, most of them pythons, their sheer power alone made them respectable, fearsome, and awe inspiring creatures. “Well I’ll leave you to it, do what you do best.” The zoo-keeper began whistling and singing as he walked away, leaving Rufus in the privacy of his lady.

Going into the exhibit, he began cleaning the shallow pool where the snake could bathe and drink, the snake looked on flicking her tongue at him as if having a conversation with the man. “Hello Sabrina, how are you?” The snake flicked her tongue again and began to move around in her cave. “Oh I know it must be boring for you to sit around in there all day but believe me I know how you feel.” The snake began to move around the enclosure, nearing the pool as if intrigued by what Rufus was doing, “I have to sit around in a classroom all day listening to professor talk forever about boring things. Sometimes I’m jealous of you...” The snake submerged itself in the water, which Rufus had begun to supplement with fresh water.

Rufus left that enclosure and proceeded to the many other exhibits, doing likewise. Reaching the end of the hallway, he stopped at the final enclosure, housing a Black Racer. “Coluber Constrictor,” Rufus read aloud, glancing at the placard beneath the glass, he got ready clean the final exhibit when something caught his attention, “...often found to be 3-4 feet in length. Nonvenomous and a native species of the Nexus.” Rufus was confused, but it turned to anger, some kid had scribbled on the sign. “Some men just want to watch the world burn...” Rufus hurried to finish the final exhibit, doing the same procedures as he had done with the previous exhibits. However as he was cleaning the water, he slipped. He had gotten poor footing and reached out to grab something. He grabbed the rock that the snake was coiled on, startling the creature. It did something that was completely out of character, it bit Rufus in the arm.

Rufus grunted out in pain, and panicked for a bit, but calmed down and remembered that Black Racers were non venomous. He was apprehensive as to this strange behavior, but decided to just leave it be. “I’m already done here anyways,” he said and gathered up his supplies and left. As he walked back to the changing room, he noticed that it was getting harder to walk. He got dizzy spells, and his vision began to blur. “Ohhhh what the heeeeeelll?” His speech also started to slur, but the door was in sight. He lost control of his legs in front of the door, and managed to drag himself to the door. Reaching up, Rufus was able to open the door. Maybe there was someone in there, someone who could help. He opened the door to the zoo-keepers’ lounge, but found himself staring into the black abyss of where the lounge should have been. His strength finally left him and he sat immobilized but conscious. Suddenly he could make out a form in the darkness, small and moving towards him. “Sa-Saaabrinnna?” It took serious effort for him to say the python’s name, but she was there. The Burmese python began coiling itself around the young man, he could feel her solid muscles tensing and easing as she worked her way around him. Rufus was mortified, but he was paralyzed, unable to move at all. This is the end, why does it have to be snakes? But rather than giving the grip of death, the snake was dragging him through the door, inching him through it. As his conscious finally started to fade from him he could feel the snake release him, and he was suddenly gripped by the sensation of falling, the door way appearing to move away faster and faster, Sabrina with it.

~~~

Thud!

The student looked up from his book and rolled his eyes. Stupid jocks. This is a library, for crying out loud. Its supposed to be QUIET. Bloody hell. With that small, inward display of emotion out of the way, the young man turned his grey eyes back to the book. It wasn’t a particularly good book. It wasn’t a fun book to read. But it contained knowledge, and knowledge was what he sought. Jonathan smiled to himself. Even though the book was boring him to death, he was learning. And learning brings knowledge. With the aforementioned knowledge, Jonathon could do a whole host of things. He could act strategically, removing obstacles before they posed a major difficulty. He could also act tactically, taking out issues as they presented themselves. Armed with knowledge, Jonathan was becoming a master of both careful planning and “winging it.”

Yes, even though the idiots in the row next to him were annoying as hell, Jonathan was happy. Because even though those guys were the peak of physicality, strong and tall, this average kid actually had the upper hand.

“Look at that dweeb, over there studying. Lets screw with him!”

“Keep your voice down dude, he might hear you!”

“Nah brah, he’s way too interested in that book.”

Jonathan sat, absorbed in the book and his own thoughts. He was oblivious to the assholes the row over planning to screw with him. Continuing his reading, Jonathan noticed a random and inexplicable line of text in his book about Roman battle tactics:

“The Nexus. It is... The bridge. It is the bridge that connects us all.”

Confused, Jonathan read the line again. And again. Going through the it the fourth time, Jonathan simply could not comprehend what it was saying. Here he was, in the middle of a chapter about Caesar's defeat of Vercingetorix in Alesia, and this otherwise boring but informative book was spouting nonsense about something called a Nexus that was a bridge! Preposterous!

Jonathan started to get up. Looking up from his book, he saw impending doom as the two jocks that had been making noise before prepared to throw some books at him through the library bookcase.

“Hey! What are you blokes doing?”

Startled by Jonathan’s question, the two brutes accidentally pushed a little too hard on the bookcase, causing it to fall. Jonathan could only watch in horror as the bookcase fell on top of him, showering volumes of historical books. Then, everything went black.

A/N: Yes, you read it correctly. There are no ponies in this chapter.

Also, we still need beta readers. If you're interested, just pm this account or spu313. We'll send you a link and then you can read the next chapter a couple days early, provided you give us some feedback.

Comments

[dusher4]

MOOOOOOOOORE! SO MUCH MOOOORE!

[The Collective]

1238688 Do you want to beta read our next chapter?

[dusher4]

1241311
Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes!!!!!

[The Collective]

1241509 aight i sent you the link. Feel free to hop on over anytime

[Tardis of Dr Whooves]

"Pure energy? What you mean like lights or something?"

No....(Click for the lolz)

[The Collective]

1246264
Haha I didn't name it, ThePriest did. But i think it has something to do with the fact that these guys are gonna be fighters not friendship spreaders. And yes, you can expect lightning, fire, earthquakes, and other such things as that. We will see some special powers come out in chapter 4. I can't reveal anything else beforehand otherwise ThePriest and koopastomper will bite my head off... Literally. From 1500 miles away. Cause magic.

[Tardis of Dr Whooves]

1247219
Heh, I just couldn't resist, saw the title and was like: "....oh it just HAS to be done!" X3

[ThePriest]

1247295

I giggled. You deserve a thumb good sir. Or a bro hoof.