Jack Clonan

Just an aspiring writer who is working on something really fun!

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[jclonanwrites]

Chapter 12

Asher tried to force himself back to his feet and run to Luke, but a sharp wave of pain tore through his chest the moment he moved. It felt like the robot had broken at least one of his ribs. Grimacing on the pavement, the only thing he could do was watch in stunned disbelief as the mysterious golden entity spoke to his cousin.

He could not make out most of what they were saying. The pain pulsing through his body drowned much of it out, leaving him to catch only scattered fragments of the conversation like that his cousin had named the black dog Cheerio.

Then an impossible event happened, one that Asher would never forget for as long as he lived.

The figure suddenly cracked apart, fractures of blinding golden energy tearing across its darkened form. Motes of concentrated light burst outward through the openings like sunlight breaking through shattered stone before beginning to drift into Luke's body one by one. Violent strands of golden energy lashed and spiraled around him as the transfer intensified, power flowing between the two beings without either of them moving from where they stood.

Asher could only stare.

Every instinct screamed that what he was witnessing should have been impossible. Yet it was unfolding right in front of him.

After barely thirty seconds, it ended. The violent strands of energy vanished, and the last traces of golden light faded from the air. Somehow, the mysterious entity was simply gone, as though it had never existed at all.

A second later, Luke collapsed onto the pavement with a hard thud.

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Chapter 12: Power became entrusted, not taken

[jclonanwrites]

Chapter 11

“Ever since I first saw you at the bus stop this morning, I have felt an unshakable certainty that our paths were meant to be intertwined,” the entity said weakly, as though whatever had just occurred had drained a tremendous amount of strength from him.

“I could not leave the creature you named Cheerio while he remained in danger, despite feeling so compelled to merge with you,” the entity continued.

“What do you mean?” Luke said, confused by what was happening around him. His encounter with Cheerio had taken a very strange turn.

“My creators, though I do not know who or what they truly are, somehow give us this knowledge at birth. I am a silhouette. Me and my kind possess the ability to bestow extraordinary abilities upon objects, creatures, and humans by doing what we call, merging, with them.”

“You mean you give superpowers?” Luke asked, trying to force the impossible pieces together inside his head.

“Yes. Mine are rooted in force and power. They manifest as golden energy, and those I merge with are able to wield them in many different ways.  That was included in the information that silhouettes know upon entering this world, The Directive, too.”

As the words settled in, Luke finally understood how Cheerio had been able to defend them from the masked men until he had been stunned.

“Forces beyond my comprehension have drawn me to you, Luke. From your clothing and what I have observed inside the dog, you have always wanted to be a hero.”

The words coming from the entity struck a deep chord within Luke. He had always been happy with who he was, but more than anything, he had dreamed of being like the heroes who inspired him every single day.

“Super Luke,” he whispered under his breath, voicing the lifelong dream he had carried in his heart for as long as he could remember.

The silhouette weakly lifted its head and looked directly into Luke’s eyes.

“The time is now. The blast that weakened me while I resided within your furry friend has made it so that I will cease to exist if I do not merge soon. What is your decision, little one?”

“But... but why me?” Luke stammered, happy tears beginning to well in his eyes at the fantastical opportunity standing before him.

The silhouette visibly grunted in pain, the golden outline of his body flickering violently for a moment before stabilizing again.

“Because, dear boy, you possess a worthy heart. No ordinary soul would throw himself in front of another to protect them when the outcome seemed certain to end in pain or death. Beyond that, you embody my forceful nature through the way you move through life so unapologetically as yourself.”

With resolve radiating from every part of himself, Luke smiled wider than he ever had before.

“I’ll do it.”

[jclonanwrites]

Chapter 11: Every hero's story begins with a single choice

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[jclonanwrites]

Chapter 10

Asher had always been drawn to stories about fiercely loyal family bonds. He'd watched enough Supernatural to admire the way the brothers, Sam and Dean Winchester, would throw themselves into impossible situations for each other. The world could be ending, monsters could be closing in from every direction, and somehow family always came first.

Somewhere along the way, he'd started seeing a little of that in his relationship with Luke.

Not because they fought monsters or saved the world.

Luke was just his cousin.

But he was also the kid Asher would do anything for.

The kid he'd protect without hesitation, no matter the cost.

Asher barreled out of the car and sprinted toward Luke and Cheerio as the robot steadily advanced on them. He did not fully understand what was happening, but one thing was certain. He had to save his cousin, even if it meant getting himself hurt in the process.

With a yell, Asher launched himself at the machine before it could reach Luke. The impact struck harder than he expected. The automaton actually staggered a half-step as Asher wrapped both arms around its torso and drove forward with every ounce of strength he possessed. For the briefest moment, it looked as though he might succeed.

Then one massive metal arm shot outward and grabbed Asher by the shoulder.

“Crap,” Asher muttered.

The robot drove a brutal punch directly into his ribs and pain exploded through his chest. The blow lifted him off his feet and hurled him across the street. He crashed onto the pavement and skidded several feet before finally coming to a stop.

The automaton continued forward a few more steps before suddenly halting. A cold mechanized voice echoed from somewhere within its frame.

“Soulhook sequences initiated.”

The robot pressed a button on the strange device it carried, and a red beam erupted from the harpoon-like tip. Despite Luke’s desperate attempts to shield Cheerio with his own body, the attack still passed directly through him and struck the dog, as though the energy composing it had no regard for humans at all.

The moment the beam struck Cheerio, the dog let out a pained whimper unlike anything Luke had ever heard from an animal. Golden light began arcing between the labrador’s body and the tube attached to the weapon in flickering strands, as though something buried deep inside the animal was being forcibly transferred. The clear globe mounted near the back of the device slowly began filling with golden light.

As more of it was pulled free, a shape within the glow became clearer. It was not random light at all, but something vaguely human in form. It kept its arms clenched tightly against its chest, as though it were resisting the pull with every ounce of strength it possessed.

“Extraction at fifty percent,” the robot announced.

Something changed in that moment.

The agonized golden entity suddenly spread its arms outward, and a violent burst of force erupted from its body, hurling the masked men and the robot backward as though they weighed nothing at all. The glowing figure crashed onto the pavement and landed on its knees while Luke could only stare in amazement, still clutching the trembling labrador against his chest.

Despite the figure lacking any visible mouth, both Asher and Luke heard the words that came next as clearly as if they had been spoken aloud inside their heads.

“Hello, Luke. Thank you for trying to protect me.” 

[jclonanwrites]

Chapter 10: When you tamper with forces beyond your understanding, nothing goes according to plan

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Chapter 9

Aunt Sheila was never going to let him hear the end of this.

Asher was late picking Luke up from school. Again.

It was one of his fatal flaws. Whenever he became absorbed in something that stimulated his brain, like the cipher, time seemed to completely slip away from him.

He was driving his battered white 1997 Toyota Camry, affectionately nicknamed Steve, down Bleecker Street when the sight ahead made him question whether he was still living in reality or had somehow wandered into a video game.

On a side street ahead, a white van lay on its side with smoke billowing from the wreckage. The vehicle was crumpled and dented as though some gargantuan creature had tossed it aside after losing interest.

As if the scene could not get any stranger, four masked men stood shoulder to shoulder beside the wreck with their backs turned toward Asher. Behind them, a metal capsule sat embedded deep in the pavement, as though it had fallen directly from the sky.

Asher pulled the Camry onto the shoulder of the road and let the engine idle. Continuing toward the school did not seem like a particularly good idea considering whatever insanity was unfolding in front of him. Luke would just have to wait, as much as it pained Asher to make that decision.

Suddenly, the top of the capsule burst open, and what appeared to be some kind of mechanical soldier emerged before jumping down onto the pavement below. The robot was constructed from dull gray metal and bore the same black flame insignia painted across its frame that the masked men wore. 

In its hand, it carried what looked at first glance to be a harpoon, though the weapon's design was far more peculiar than anything Asher recognized. The point at the end glowed red, and attached to its body was a tube that fed into a strange glass chamber resembling a fishbowl, empty except for a network of thin metallic components lining the interior.

The automaton moved forward with heavy steps toward the line of men, who silently parted to allow it through.

It was only then that Asher finally saw what they had been concealing.

His younger cousin Luke was shielding what appeared to be a wounded dog with his own body.

Luke! What have you gotten yourself into?

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Chapter 9: Some secrets are protected by force

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Chapter 8

Luke could not stop thinking that his dream was coming true. The realization that superpowers had just revealed themselves in the real world plastered a wide grin across his face.

For all intents and purposes, he had just met a realistic version of Krypto the Superdog.

The two sprinted down the sidewalk and back toward the school. Surely the masked men would have to be completely insane to bring violence onto high school grounds, Luke thought.

As they raced along, another white van suddenly pulled into the road ahead of them, blocking the intersection they were about to cross.

“Cheerio!” Luke screamed, his voice filled with equal parts excitement and terror over whatever was about to happen next.

Just as another masked man stepped out of the vehicle, Cheerio tapped a paw against the pavement. A streak of golden light shot forward beneath the asphalt.

The street cracked apart as the energy surged ahead in a violent zigzag until it reached the van. Then a plume of golden force erupted upward, launching the vehicle into the air.

Metal groaned and shattered as the van flipped sideways above the street before crashing back down onto the pavement with a deafening impact.

Neither Luke nor Cheerio noticed the four masked men sprinting up behind them while they dealt with the roadblock. They only became aware of the danger when one of them spoke into a communications device.

“Target has used sufficient power,” the masked man said. “Switching to rapture rounds.”

The pair spun around just in time to see all four assailants press buttons on their weapons and unleash blasts of aqua-blue energy.

The same golden shield instantly formed around Luke and Cheerio, but something was different this time. Instead of effortlessly deflecting the attack, the barrier violently flickered on impact.

Cheerio suddenly yelped and collapsed onto his side. Aqua-blue electricity briefly crackled through the dog's body as he twitched against the pavement, stunned.

“Target is down! I repeat, the target is down and destabilized. Ready for Soulhook deployment now!” Luke heard someone shout from up ahead.

Luke immediately dropped to his knees beside Cheerio and pressed a hand against the dog's fur.

Tears began to well in his eyes at the thought of the animal being injured while protecting someone he had only just met.

Luke wasn't strong or a fighter, however much he wished that were the case. He was just a scrawny boy with Down Syndrome and a big heart, but he knew he still had to try to protect his friend regardless. So he threw himself over Cheerio, wrapping his arms around the dog as he desperately tried to shield him from whatever these men planned to do next.

As he did, a deep impact thundered from somewhere nearby, shaking the pavement beneath them as though a rocket had just slammed into the ground.

[jclonanwrites]

Chapter 8: When a friend is in danger, your true character is revealed

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Chapter 7

The day hadn’t improved much. After the fraction incident earlier, Mr. Gardnell had remained in a foul mood for the rest of the afternoon. During the class’s end-of-day pizza activity, he visibly grimaced when Luke began eating the pepperonis before they made it into the oven.

“Early pepperoni,” an inside joke his older cousin Asher had come up with years earlier, was one of Luke’s favorite things to do, and the slightly mischievous grin that spread across his face at the sight of Mr. Gardnell’s reaction nearly sent the paraprofessional into hysterics.

Luke stayed after school for Unified Basketball, which meant he had to walk home instead of taking the bus. By the time he left the building, the sun had already begun to set, leaving the world suspended in a soft twilight while a cool breeze whispered through the air.

As Luke trudged along the sidewalk with his head down, he looked up to find the black dog blocking his path. This time, the animal held direct eye contact with him.

At that moment, Luke realized there was something unusual about the canine that seemed to be following him. It did not come across as wild, stray, or even domesticated. If anything, it seemed aware, as though some deeper intelligence was quietly observing him from behind its eyes.

I think I’m going to call you Cheerio.

He began closing the distance between them to properly meet his new furry friend when, without warning, the back doors of a white van parked along the side of the road burst open.

Two figures clad in black body armor and tactical masks jumped from the vehicle. A symbol resembling a black flame was emblazoned across the center of each of their chests. They each carried a weapon, though Luke was certain he had never seen anything quite like them while hunting with his father in the Adirondack Mountains.

“We have found the target. I repeat, we have found the target on Bleecker Street. Reinforcements necessary!” one of them barked into a device attached to his lapel.

The look in their eyes behind the masks and the way they carried themselves immediately told Luke they were not afraid to hurt someone here, and the realization sent his heart racing.

As though sensing the boy’s growing fear, Cheerio stepped closer before turning around and planting his feet firmly on the pavement. The dog positioned himself directly between Luke and the strangers, almost as if he were protecting his new friend.

“Engaging with regular rounds now,” the other added into his communications device.

Luke felt as though time itself had slowed, even though he knew it really hadn’t. He had experienced the sensation once before earlier that year during the final seconds of a basketball game when he made the winning shot. In moments that somehow felt important in the grand scheme of things, the world always seemed to stretch itself thinner around him.

He knew he had to protect Cheerio from the evil men, but the moment he tried to move, something stopped him. It was as though the creature standing in front of him was somehow placing a feeling directly into his mind, a reassurance that everything was going to be okay.

With time still seeming to crawl around him, red blasts erupted from both weapons and rocketed toward Luke and Cheerio. Just before impact, what appeared to be hardened golden light suddenly materialized in front of them, emanating from the dog and intercepting the rounds in a burst of sparks.

Time abruptly snapped back to its normal rhythm, and Luke’s eyes widened in amazement at what he had just witnessed.

“Awesome doggy!” Luke exclaimed.

Luke noticed that Cheerio’s collar had mysteriously vanished while the shield was active, but he barely had time to process the detail before the dog barked.

Golden sound waves exploded forward from Cheerio’s mouth in visible rings, striking with impossible force as they violently hurled the masked men backward through the air.

In the stunned silence that followed, both Luke and Cheerio seemed to understand the same thing.

This was their chance to run.

[jclonanwrites]

Chapter 7: Luke meets a dog with a bark powerful enough to bend the world around it

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[jclonanwrites]

Chapter 6

Five years had passed, but Asher finally understood the meaning behind the colors that had emanated from the skeleton during the social media video. If the clue had always been meant to lead to Yu-Gi-Oh!, then together the red, yellow, and blue represented the Egyptian God Cards.

He’d had to brush up on certain plotlines over the past few hours, but he was certain now that Battle City was the answer. In the second major arc of the series, Yugi Muto and his more confident alter ego, Yami Yugi, used the three Egyptian God Cards to battle powerful enemies. 

A blue one called Obelisk the Tormentor, a red one called Slifer the Sky Dragon, and a yellow one known as The Winged Dragon of Ra. According to the show’s lore, the cards contained the spirits of ancient gods trapped within them and were considered unbeatable.

When he reached Episode 130 of Yu-Gi-Oh! in his research, something impossible happened. 

At the exact moment Yugi Muto successfully obtained all three legendary cards  and held them together for the first time, the screen suddenly glitched. 

Golden text flashed into existence across the display. 

The symbols spread beyond the video window, superimposed across the entire laptop screen as though something had momentarily taken control of the machine.

Somehow sensing that the moment would not last long, Asher quickly reached for his phone and snapped a picture of the next puzzle in the mystery, various strings of letters.

FPPJ WRME FAJP NSZM AAPA

Immediately after the camera snapped, his laptop abruptly shut down. The sharp smell of smoke filled the room, and Asher realized with disbelief that the computer had just been fried. 

For his own amusement, he’d tried to recreate the phenomenon later that day on his phone, but nothing unusual happened. He’d come to believe that whatever had happened would never occur again, and that somehow it had been deliberately caused. Probably by whoever had sent him down this rabbit hole in the first place.