(sorry sorry sorry the authors don't really show up in the first chapter sorry. Also, this is way unedited. Ye has been warned. And as usual, Word into Wattpad murdered my punctuation )
Like every good adventure, this one started out as a completely normal day for the New Order.
What, you wanted something climactic right off the start? Sorry. Every story has to start somewhere. And besides, this story will be climactic enough as is.
So *ahem*, normal day.
Axel and Olivia were out in Boomtown and Redstonia. The other three members of the Order were at their temple. Jesse was researching new places to go treasure-hunting, while Lukas and Petra were practicing swordfighting in one corner.
"Aaargh, Petra, this isn't helping! I'll never get any better at swordplay!" Lukas complained.
"You're not focusing. It's really not that hard. Thrust, pivot, block, lunge." She explained calmly. "Okay, okay. Can you at least go easy on me this time?" Lukas sighed.
Petra smirked. "I have been."
They were about to start practicing again when four people burst into the temple, two older boys and two teenage girls. They were breathing heavily and had apparently been running for a while. Jesse leapt to her feet. "What-"
One of them, a girl with short brown hair, dropped to the ground, completely exhausted. Petra ran over and knelt beside her, concerned. The girl lifted her head, and the Order quickly recognized her and the others.
"Maya?!" Petra gasped. "It's the Blaze Rods." She drew her sword, staring them down with a hostile glare.
"Yeah...it's us. Plus...one." Aiden panted. They were all still very out of breath. Jesse turned to the unfamiliar girl with them. She had long caramel-brown hair and wore a black jacket like the other three.
"Who're you?" Lukas asked. "And why are you with them?"
"I'm Marilan, and they're my friends, thank you very much. But that...isn't important." The strange girl said, recovering her breath and standing up straight.
"You're not gonna believe what we just escaped from." Gill remarked. Petra crossed her arms. "Oh, we're not, huh? What the hell are you guys doing here? We thought we were done with you back in Sky City!"
"Believe me, we didn't really want to come back here. But I kinda think you're our only option." Aiden said. Jesse raised an eyebrow at him. "What on earth do you mean by that?"
Maya and Marilan exchanged a look, and Maya said "The world is falling apart."
"...what?"
Marilan sighed heavily. "Look, I don't really know how else to explain it. The world is falling apart. Something caused this massive fissure to form, and it keeps getting bigger. It could literally tear the world apart if it continues to grow."
Petra looked at her dubiously. "This sounds like a ridiculous pack of lies to lead us into a trap. What makes you think we'll fall for this?"
"It's not a trap! You think we would come all the way back here just to play a prank on you? We're not lying! We don't even know what's happening, just that it's bad!" Gill pleaded.
Jesse looked between the three Blaze Rods and Marilan. Their desperation seemed genuine. "I'm still not sure what you mean by 'the world splitting apart'."
"Well, what does it sound like? For some unknown reason, there's these huge cracks in the Overworld. We don't know why they showed up or where they started, but every minute they're getting longer and deeper and more numerous." Aiden said, explaining as best he could.
"One of them went straight through Land City. The buildings, the people, everything went crashing to the bottom. There were only a few people who got out in time, us included." Maya told them. "We felt what seemed like an earthquake, but then this massive gaping canyon opened up right in the middle of the town!"
"Maybe we should just show you..." Marilan said hesitantly.
"This still feels like a trap." Petra murmured.
"I don't know...this seems to insane to be fake." Jesse replied. "Well I think it's too insane to be real! That's the logical explanation here, isn't it?" Petra snapped.
Right then, Axel and Olivia walked into the temple. "We're baa-ack!" Olivia called in a singsong voice. Then she caught sight of the Blaze Rods. "Wait. What are you doing here?!"
"Oh great, what grief are you here to give us now?" Axel asked at the same time.
"The world is apparently ending." Lukas deadpanned.
Marilan shook her head. "I don't know if the world is ending, but something bad is definitely happening."
Jesse explained to Axel and Olivia most of what the Blaze Rods had told them, ending with "I think we should go see what they're talking about."
"Me too. This doesn't seem like one of their tricks, and I should know about that." Lukas added. "Uh, we're right here? Don't talk around us." Maya snapped.
"Sorry. But if it makes you feel better, I believe you enough to want to see what you mean." Jesse said, trying to pacify her. She sent a meaningful look in Petra's direction.
Petra threw her hands up. "Fine! Let's go walk into a trap!" She exclaimed, earning a glare from Aiden and Maya.
*le skip of time*
"Now I really think this is a trap. We've been walking for ages and haven't seen anything out of the ordinary." Petra complained.
"Shut up. We're almost there." Aiden told her. Petra rolled her eyes, but he turned out to be right. As soon as they went out of the forest they had been traveling through, and the strange sight was immediately in view.
"Oh my Notch..." Jesse gasped. "Yeah, that about sums it up." Axel replied.
Picture this: a small, quaint town, the beginnings of a new civilization. Mostly just a group of homes and farmland.
Now picture a deep, long crevice running through it, cutting straight through the center. Some of the buildings had crumbled, falling into the gap. Others were teetering on the edge, waiting for the inevitable fall into oblivion.
"It's gotten wider. And longer." Maya said quietly. As if to prove her point, there was a rumbling sound that appeared to come from the crevice. The earth shook beneath their feet, and before the Order's very eyes, the canyon split even more, growing in width, length, and depth. More of the buildings crashed into it.
At the same time, a second crack began, splitting off from the first one and reaching towards the group.
"Gah!" Petra cried, jumping back. Maya gave her a dirty look. "Now do you believe us?" "Yeah, ok, I guess so." The tall girl murmured reluctantly.
"What could've possibly caused this? It doesn't make any sense!" Jesse exclaimed. "I know, right? It's absolutely insane." Marilan commented.
"Well, uh, sorry for doubting you." Olivia muttered. "But even though you were the first to see it, you don't know where it came from?"
"Nope. We already told you what we know. Random 'earthquake', and then this." Aiden said. "And don't say anything stupid about this only being an earthquake. There's something weird going on here."
"I agree. This isn't normal." Lukas added. "But everything we've seen...this is a whole other level of weird."
Gill was standing closer to the gap, peering into the darkness below. "It got way deeper. If this keeps up, it might reach all the way down to the void."
"Not to mention getting longer and splitting off into more of these crazy canyons..." Marilan shuddered. "Let's get out of here. Now you've seen it, and we're not accomplishing anything by sitting here and staring at it."
They began the trek back to the temple, tossing theories and speculations around as they went. They were all curious and confused about the mysterious crevice, but they hadn't quite begun to fathom the potential danger.
Far behind them, the gap widened, lengthened, grew deeper. More cracks spread out from the original like spidery fingers of death. No one knew it yet, but this puzzling fault in the earth would turn out to be a much bigger problem than it appeared...
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This would be such a good place to end this chapterrrrr...
But I'm not that mean.
Wait, yes I am. But there's other things that need to be addressed before this chapter ends :P
Wow, I think this is the first time I've resisted giving you guys a cliffhanger lol. Almost every chapter in my other books has an evil cliffie of an ending.
Okay here we go. Back into the fray! XD
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When they got back to the temple, a book was waiting for them on the threshold.
Well, okay, it's a book, aka an inanimate object, so it wasn't exactly waiting, but whatever. Minor technical point. *ahem*
It wasn't just some random ordinary book, though. It was strangely thick and had an ink-black cover with glimmering silver words. Jesse picked it up. "What in the..."
"'Fiction and Fables of the Order'?" Olivia read off the cover. "What the heck does that mean?"
"It's a collection of stories...or something." Gill guessed.
They went inside the temple, and Jesse opened the book to the table of contents to read a few of the titles. "Fire Is Spreading, Cryptic Twins, Shattered Souls...I don't get it. What is this and why was it here?"
"It looks like each of these stories were written by a different person. Those seem kinda like names." Marilan pointed out, gesturing to a second list across from the story titles. Petra answered with a dubious snort. "'AwesomeYay99' is not a name. Neither is 'FayeofThunder'. That sounds more like some idiot's attempt to sound cool."
(Lol I'm picking on my own username)
"Hold on a second...look at that. The bottom of the list." Lukas said. Jesse ran her finger down the list, then froze when she saw the last name and title.
"The Power of Writing' by...Soren."
"Soren?!" Olivia and Axel gasped. Petra rolled her eyes. "Finally something of his that's not about Endermen."
"Wait wait wait. Soren, the leader of the old Order?" Aiden checked. "Do you know of a different Soren?" Lukas pointed out.
Jesse flipped to the last story, which appeared to be only a few pages long. She began reading it aloud.
"There have been stories of magic powers since the beginning of time. Very few are real, of course, but that doesn't stop people from telling them. I choose not to elaborate on any of these powers but one: writing. It seems like such a simple thing, and yet there are those who can harness that modest ability and turn it into the most powerful weapon of all.
Most authors are powerless, and their words remain on the pages that they write upon. But there are legends that tell of a different kind of authors, the kind that can make the impossible real. I, unfortunately, fall into the first category. I write mostly truth, so in a way, that is still real. The works in this book, however, are all fiction. The people who wrote them are incredibly powerful, but they do not realize it yet. They are an untapped reservoir of raw power, and yet they have no idea.
If ever there was a catastrophe that was so great, so unstoppable, one that threatened the existence of not just this world, but all of them, you would only have to find these people. Their powers would be brought forth in such a time of need. I know of something that could cause such a disaster, but I can only hope that that particular thing will never happen. The calamity that I am speaking of should never come to pass. The contents of this book should never need to be read. But if it does, and if they are, the writers are your best hope of saving the worlds.'"
There was silence for a moment. "Is...is that it?" Lukas asked.
"No, there's some random stuff about the Portal Network and the Atlas, but it's information that we already know." Jesse said. "Por-" Gill started, but Jesse waved it off. "We'll explain after we've got this figured out."
"Aaaargh, this is so annoying! Trust Soren to be the vaguest writer in the world. He mentions a 'catastrophe' about four times, and yet he doesn't explain what he means!" Petra exclaimed.
"Well, I'm pretty sure we can all agree that this crevice thing is going to be a bigger problem than we originally guessed." Maya said. "If this doesn't turn out to be the 'major catastrophe', then I don't know what is."
"The Witherstorm, maybe. But that's already past and Soren didn't even do much about it." Lukas pointed out. "I see how this fits what he wrote about. If this keeps up, it could turn into a serious issue."
"I think...I think we have to find these people. The ones who wrote the stories in this book. If what Soren wrote is true, then these 'special authors' can save us." Jesse said.
"We're heroes! We shouldn't need saving!" Axel blurted. "We don't even know what this is! What's the point in turning to mysterious powers when we don't even know what this means?"
"And how are we going to find these people, anyway? It sounds like they could be anywhere!" Gill said.
Jesse sighed. "We had something that could track them down. But it's gone now."
"That's right!" Petra exclaimed, snapping her fingers. "If we still had the Atlas..."
The temple door slammed open, making them all jump. Two people strode inside.
"Oh, you mean this?" Ivor asked, handing the Atlas to a very astonished Jesse. "This isn't the only world that's falling apart."
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I'm a mean person...
The authors will show up sooooooon
And then the evil chaos can begin
Lol 2361 words. My chapters have been getting longer...
Also, this is literally the only time i'm going to update on a Tuesday. I wanted to give you guys an actual freaking chapter because the previous one was just the prologue lol
EDIT: in the list of stories, 'Shattered Souls' was originally 'Behind The Storm', but since I'm not proud of that second one only more and it's mostly unpublished, I decided to change it to SS