In a dark and shadowy room sat a rather large, round table with a sphere perched upon it. The sphere levitated a few inches off the table and began to rotate very quickly. As if from nowhere, a gnarled finger shot out of the darkness and stopped the rotating sphere, landing on a small black dot labeled Little Aresfield. Meanwhile, more than anyone could calculate the distance, sat a rather scrawny man eating lunch at one of the fast food joints in town. This man was known as Shadow. No one else knew where he lived, his age, or at the very least, his real name. All anyone knew that this man was Shadow, and he worked at a computer parts warehouse on the edge of town. Shadow drank the rest of his soda and left for his little green car, intent on finishing his workday.
Shadow arrived back at work only to be bullied by some of the tech support members.
“If they only knew,” Shadow thought to himself, casting an ominous look to Eric, one of the night tech support guys.
“See you tomorrow, Demon-of-the-Dark,” called Eric, as Shadow made his way to clock-out.
“Asshole,” thought Shadow, “They’ll soon get theirs.”
Shadow also knew something about himself that he didn’t want anyone else to know. He could control and manipulate energy, not that silly magic mumbo-jumbo they tell you about in faerie-tales, buy energy as seen in all living things, and the earth, moon, sun and stars. His energy color was blue, one of the strongest and most pure forms. He could literally form something out of nothing if he really wanted to. Every other human that could potentially control energy had yellow, one of the weakest forms, and even with proper training, could never control it.
Shadow also kept all his personal information hidden from everyone because he didn’t want anyone to know about his troubled past. He was brought up in a broken home. His father was an abusive alcoholic, and killed his mother in a drunken rage after work one day. The memory of this always pained Shadow until he almost wanted to kill himself. The reason he changed his name from Ryan Scott, was that was his father’s name, and as far as he was concerned, he didn’t want anything to do with his father.
Chase was Shadow’s best and only friend. He was one of the last dragons to roam the earth, and knew that Shadow could control energy. Shadow gave Chase his human disguise and, in return, became Shadow’s friend, instead of burning him to a crisp and eating him whole.
Shadow called Chase at 10 o’clock that night, asking if he had seen anything in the stars.
“Nope, nuthin’. Why, Shadow?”
“Just wondering, thought I felt an energy disturbance.”
Putting his cell phone away, he made his way to his car parked in the company parking lot. Getting into the front seat and putting his keys in the ignition, Shadow noticed a pair of tall hooded figures staring at him from the sidewalk no more than thirty feet away. Shadow’s mind took a second to register the cloaks and asked himself why anyone would need such thick outer wear on a perfect autumn day. He took a little longer to notice that no one else driving on the main street took notice of the fifteen foot tall figures draped in the heavy winter cloaks. He drove the two thoughts and the figures out of his mind and continued on his way home.
Shadow walked into his small apartment an hour later. Setting his keys on a desk by the door with his shoes, he made his way to the refrigerator to grab himself a beer. Shadow was, in fact, twenty-five years old, but on first appearance, he seemed no older than nineteen. Shadow opened his beer, took a sip then scratched his five o’clock shadow. He finished the beer and let out a gut-wrenching belch, when at this time of night was not good, cause the neighbors to phone in complaints, and that’s the last thing he needed. He was already three months behind on his rent, but managed to strike a deal with the landlord. He was also the apartment’s maintenance guy. If something broke, he was there to fix it, but if he took too long, he was sure to be evicted.
Shadow threw his empty beer can in a box in the corner of the kitchen and made his way to the bedroom, turning off lights as he went. Shadow sat on the edge of his futon mattress in the corner as he took off his shirt. He had just barely covered himself and gotten comfortable when he heard a single, soft knock at the door. Shadow peered around to his alarm clock. It read three in the morning.
“Who in the hell could that be?” Shadow thought to himself, thinking Chase needed something from him.
He reached the door and pulled it open, expecting to see Chase standing there. What he saw instead surprised him; there was nothing at the door. He stuck his head out to look both left and right for the person knocking on his door. Seeing nothing, he shut the door, deciding that his mind was playing tricks on him and needed to get some sleep.
Shadow barely made it to his hallway when he heard two knocks at the door, slightly louder than last time. He made his way back to the door to peer through the peephole. He saw nothing. Shadow walked back to his bedroom telling himself that he really needed to get some sleep. He stepped on the threshold of his bedroom door and heard it again. Three knocks this time, loud enough to almost wake the neighbors.
“Oh shit! Leave me alone,” Shadow called to the door.
Crossing the living room for the third time, Shadow opened the door wide intent on telling the strangers at the front door off when what he saw surprised him so much, he jumped back two feet. The two heavily cloaked figures he saw from his company’s parking lot stood in the doorway.
“Hullo,” called the figure on the left, threatening to bang their heads on the door frame if they tried to enter Shadow’s dimly-lit apartment.
“Uh... hi.”
“Hullo,” came the response of the figure on the right, followed by the stretching of his arm towards Shadow. Shadow did not flinch as what he made as the figure’s hand came unnecessarily close to Shadow’s face. He was used to this because he hung out with Chase, since, when you hung out with dragons, this was pretty normal.
The figure on the right stretched out three long green fingers. Balling up to, he made a motion that Shadow should follow them. Shadow slipped on his shoes and grabbed the keys from the desk. Locking the doors behind him, he followed the two hooded figures down the street, shivering from the absence of a shirt and a slight breeze.
The two hooded figures led Shadow all the way to a dead-end alley in the slums of town. “Hullo,” was heard again as the figure on the left pointed at the brick wall. “S-sorry guys, as m-much as it would h-help m-me, I can’t w-walk through b-brick walls,” Shadow’s response came, shivering from the cold.
The two figures stood five feet apart from each other, holding their hands up, apparently trying to summon energy.
A dim green light roughly the size of a tennis ball grew to the size and shape of a door at the apex of the four hands. They backed away to admire their work.
“There are more like me?” Shadow asked himself, marveling at the fact that these two figures could control energy as well.
The two figures stepped into the light, disappearing. Shadow was uncertain whether or not he should follow. His query was immediately answered as he heard the familiar “Hullo,” and saw a long, green finger beckoning him onward.
Shadow stepped through the light and instantly transported to a place he didn’t know of. He landed spread-eagle on the floor, wind knocked out of him from a three foot drop. Shadow regained his bearings a few moments later and noticed a rather large circular table laying about twenty feet from his current location. Around the table he noticed twelve of the same heavily cloaked, fifteen foot tall figures sitting around the table.
“What’s this? Knights of the round table?” Shadow thought to himself.
“Very good analogy,” came a voice in Shadow’s left ear.
Shadow peered around to his left. He saw a gaunt old man leaning heavily on a six foot staff. The man was no taller than Shadow’s waist line, about three feet tall.
Shadow’s voice caught in his voice, “W-who are you?”
“Excellent question. Please join us at the table and all questions will be answered,” The old man pointed a gnarled finger in the direction of the table.
Shadow raided to his feet and shuffled towards the table, rubbing his eyes from the lack of sleep. He reached the table a noticed that there was no chair present for his to sit on. The old man noticed this as well and responded to Shadow before he could pose his findings.
“Just visualize a chair there in your mind’s eye, and then sit normally as if a chair was there,” the man said simply.
Shadow closed his eyes a saw a chair in his mind’s eye. He opened his eyes and saw a chair surrounded by fast fading light, as if it had just materialized there.
“That is one of the reasons why I have brought you to this place, Ryan-,”
A pained expression covered Shadow’s face and reprimanded the old man almost at once, “Call me Shadow.”
“Very well then, Shadow,” continued the old man, “the reasons why I have brought you here...” he drew a very long sigh, and then continued on.
“I cannot tell you everything here. You shall find complete instructions about your training at Chase’s house. Time is of the essence.
“First things first; I am Oranus. You are sitting upon the planet Trinity III of the Lystra System. We are currently three hundred four-point-six billion light years from your planet Earth. The reason I have called you here is to tell you that you must train. You must hone all your Energy skills so that you may protect earth and all of its inhabitants.”
“Why would I want to do a thing like that?” Shadow remembered the memories of himself being abused by his father, bullied around in school, and the rest of the assholes that made Shadow’s life a living hell.
“The earth has a valuable chemical in it and a band of Space Pirates need this chemical to overthrow the balance of the universe.”
These last few words caught Shadow off guard.
“Complete destruction?”
“That is correct. The reason I have brought you here first of all places is that Trinity III will be the first planet the band of Space Pirates reach.” Oranus pointed a gnarled finger at one of the invisible walls at the edge of the room. Upon it appeared creatures Shadow had only ever seen on television on those Area 51 documentaries.
They appeared as tall, ghastly green creatures, remarkably similar to the fifteen foot tall figures sitting around the table. They had slender bodies, long, two jointed arms, legs seemingly bent backwards like an animal’s legs and huge yellow, lamp like eyes on an egg-shaped head. Oranus responded to Shadow’s question before he could finish.
“Are those-?”
“Related to the ones sitting around the table?” Oranus finished for him, “Yes. In fact, they are one in the same.”
“Wha-a!?” This last comment caught shadow totally off guard.
“That is correct,” Oranus nodded to Shadow.
Oranus turned to the Pirates sitting around the table and uttered a screeching noise to them. Each in turn, they slowly lifted from their seats.
“But, Aren’t-”
“They dangerous? No, they are here under their own power. They have come to me, the wisest of all, to work as spies for me. They wish not to destroy anymore.”
The familiar “Hullo,” was heard around the tale as a few of them raised a noticeable “peace” sign flashing to Shadow.
Shadow quietly sniggered to himself.
The space pirates took that as an insult and pressed a button the the round table. The universe instantly collasped upon itself and everyone was vaporised.