Guardians: Legacy (First Five Chapters)

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Percy ran like never before.  He felt swift and unstoppable, behind him he could still hear  Bruce shouting "get back here Nimbus,  before I get you".  He, in return, shouted back "you'll have to catch me first you great lump". He risked a look back and saw the towering bully called Bruce barrelling towards him. 

Then without warning time stopped,  everything had stopped motion except him. Percy tripped over an Alsatian and hit his head falling unconscious to the ground...

When he awoke he was back at home on his bed staring up into the faces of his friends, mum and dad. "Wh-What happened" he mumbled. His best friend Danny stepped forward and said "we found you unconscious, you tripped over a dog and hit your head when Bruce was chasing you. It would have bit you if we weren't there to help ". "So you owe us yet again for saving you. You really should stop getting into situations like this" said Alex in her usual Brainiac way. Lucy, his childhood friend, sarcastically smiled and exclaimed " At least he didn't hit his head". "Well" mom said "back to sleep you have school tomorrow,  and" she indicated to his friends "I've called your parents and they said you can sleep over today ". "Thanks Mrs Nimbus" said Danny.

The next day in school he couldn't get his mind over the sudden stopping  of time itself. Had he hallucinated it, if it was real how did it happen. He wanted to tell his friends but, worried they wouldn't believe him, he kept it to himself. That was until the guilt of keeping secrets, for the first time ever, made him confess. The next time he saw them, at lunch, he exclaimed " when I was running from Bruce, just before I tripped over that dog, time stopped. And before you sa-". "That happened to you too" they all interrupted in unison.
"So I'm not crazy and it happened to you guys" Percy exclaimed confused. "Well it happened to me but I... didn't want to say in case I sounded nuts". "Same" Alex and Lucy said again. "Anyways Percy, you want to play basketball? ". "Seriously we just talked about time itself stopping and you're thinking about sports" Lucy said sternly "of course he doesn't want to play basketball". Percy replied to Danny " yeah I'll play basketball".  "Uuughh boys. 3018 ad and they haven't changed, you could have pulled them straight out of the human history museum" Alex mumbled as the boys left.  "Tell me about it" Lucy snorted in reply.

He tried to shake the thought about their discussion  out his head as walked into, his last lesson of the day, analogy. But even the gruesome task of dissecting pigeons barely took his mind of it. He leaned over to Danny and whispered "tell everyone to meet at the hull after class". "Would you care to tell everyone what you're talking about" exclaimed Mr McGonnell . A tall weedy  man with rich auburn hair brushed to the side, he wore a lab coat with him at all times and spoke just like Alan sugar the  business man he had watched on an antique LCD display TV. "No sir I didn't mean to interrupt" Percy called back. At this the man's eyes softened and he said cheerfully "just don't be a right old numpty next time. Unlike the rest of this class". "Only joking" he said in response to the class' hurt and mutinous expressions.  

The hull was a hidden place on a platform only accessible by a 10ft leap of faith
from the city's aerial tower. They only knew about it after Percy had slipped off the top of the antenna and plunged into the little stream of water . Anyone who looked up would only see one of the many ledges of the tower. The inside was a circular room with bean bags for the makeshift lounge (Danny's idea)  and swivelling office chairs in front of HD holograph projection monitors (Alex's idea). Of course they had to bring all this stuff in, which took them weeks of work. Would have taken months if Lucy and Alex didn't discover the vertical pulley system they found in the hull.

After they  dropped down into the stream they sat down on the bean bags Percy started talking. He explained how it had happened, starting with what he had said to Bruce ,which made the others laugh, and finishing with how time stopped without warning and ending with him  unconscious. They explained how they were just trying to keep up and then they were the only ones who could move. Alex spoke up next and asked "what did you guys feel before time stopped. Like did you have any emotions or goals"
He said "well I wanted to teach Bruce a lesson and show him he doesn't intimidate me". "And I thought Bruce would beat you up and thought I should be there to back you up" Danny said seriously, for once. "same" said the girls in their usual unified tone. "Well I'll just ignore your lack of faith and ask Alex why she asked that question" he said sulkily. She replied with " well I was wondering if we had triggered that stop and if we did why. It could have been how we felt at the time or ,more likely, something happened in the space time continuum". Whatever it was, they all knew they were in no position to figure it out. He took a grappling hook that was attached to a rope, threw it so it latched on to the banister and climbed back up. Taking care to throw it back down, so nobody could get into the hull. 

They spent the next week trying to figure out what had made time stop or whether they were  just crazy. Alex had hacked into the city's space watch program, which was used to observe the quantum space web. After reviewing the data, she could find no traceable change. They left the hull feeling gloomy. "So is that it, were we just hallucinating" Danny said dejectedly. "But why would we all have the same hallucination at the same time though" Lucy replied. "We-" Alex didn't finish that sentence because a man had charged out the alleyway being chased by a squad of police, he lunged at her. And in unison they yelled "NO". They all had the same thought ; save Alex at all cost. Then for the second time everything froze. Alex stepped out of the way of the knife which was almost touching her chest.

They had barely finished placing the man in the midst of the police when a dark mist had started to descend on them they backed away from the pitch black mist, their faces  locked in fear. The mist encircled them and started to contorted into figures, heads at first. Then full bodies, humans and wolves. They looked like solid obsidian. Except for the tendrils of mist that occasionally curled off their body. Then they started to close in. Only this  had got them to run. Danny kicked one of the figures who reeled back and dissolved but by the time it started to reform they ran. The apparitions tailed after them.