Sparks Highwind: The Path of the Guardian

An “Other” category By Mr. Highwind

This series is based on a teen named Sparks Highwind who always wants to travel the world, or at least farther than his

Hometown that he feels is too boring. When something happened to his hometown, his journey starts harsh, plus he really wants to know what his true calling is. The series splits up by different future novels and go by chapters: Enjoy the first one…

Chapter One: The Burning, Corrupted Oil- town

At the old school in the old and famous oil town of Texas, where he first gained the intuition to survive, defend himself, become stronger & faster, the sky was dark, lit only by stars and an extraordinarily bright moon. A song could be heard over the still, noiseless atmosphere, coming from the playground that helped him grow up to what he was now:

All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places, Worn out faces
Bright and early for the daily races
Going no where ,Going no where
Their tears are filling up their glasses
No expression ,No expression
Hide my head I wanna drown my sorrow

No tomorrow ,No tomorrow
Children waiting for the day they feel good
Happy birthday ,Happy birthday
And I feel the way that every child should
Sit and listen ,Sit and listen
Went to school and I was very nervous
No one knew me ,No one knew me
Hello teacher tell me what's my lesson
Look right through me ,Look right through me
And I find it kind of funny ,I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you ,I find it hard to take
When people run in circles it's a very very…
…Mad world…Mad world…
…Enlarging your world…Mad world…

The song could be heard from a green set of monkey bars that curve around, and top of it was a thin, athletic boy. He was roughly around 14, wore a set of jeans with a green pigment wash to them. His shirt was a grey color, and the jacket he wore a navy blue with black shoulders. He had a straight nose with sharp, brown eyes, and medium-long, straight, brownish hair. This is Sparks.

“Man, its sucks that Lorenzo didn’t get to spend the night over.” said Sparks. Lorenzo is Sparks’ best friend since year one. Lorenzo is sort of a Native American with a face that looks like Jim Carrey’s. He likes to hunt, sword-fight with Sparks, and battle everything else. Be careful around him when he gates serious. “We wouldv’e had a lot of fun practicing our new sword techniques, or learning how to back flip. I could try Josh, but he’s not usually the kind of guy that “spends the night” anymore.” Josh is an American with black hair w/ blond strips in the front, soft eyes, and is a bit quiet. He likes to skate, hang out, and occasionally fire some bullets from his gun. “God, he’s like a mystery friend. O well, I think I better head home and finish the dream catcher I was working on this afternoon.” Then Sparks jumped from his place on the playground and headed for his short walk home.

“Alright, it’s almost done!” Sparks was working on his dream catcher for the entire weekend, and now he just needed to find a chain…“There should be one around here…..here one is!” He went back to his work desk and quickly added the chain to his finished project, and then he placed it around his neck and admired it. It was a nice, wooden circle painted a blue color, with white string for the net. In the middle, there was a cross made of beads: the cross he made a long time ago that his family cherished. “Alright, looking goo-.” All of a sudden he had a severe headache. The flashes he’s been having came back. Sparks opened his eyes and he was surrounded by fire and evil-looking shadows. There was a huge explosion half a mile from him. He looked up in the sky and saw a dragon shadow, glaring down at him with those fiery, violet eyes… He blinked, and he was back in his room.

“Not again...”said Sparks. “This started as a nightmare. Why does it keep bothering me? And why is this happening more & more often? Maybe I should get to bed.” Then he headed toward the kitchen to get a last glass of milk. Taking the jug from the fridge, he slowly filled his glass, thinking about how to convince Lorenzo’s mom to letting him hang out tomorrow. Sparks took a nice, slow sip from the mug, and exhaling with content. He sat there, drinking for five minutes. Before putting up his empty glass, he felt a strong tremor. Sparks felt this before when the train wreck happened, and when the gas station exploded. Whatever it was, it didn’t feel good. Placing his mug in the sink, Sparks jogged toward his room to grab his swords. “Better to be safe than sorry!”

Pulling up the blinds of his window to reach his sword and favorite wooden Indian knife (even though it’s wood, it’s still very sharp), he saw some fire about half a mile from his home. “That’s in the direction of the Middle School! Looks like some punks got a’ hold of some explosives… Well then, time to teach them a-.” Suddenly there were three giant, violet meteors from the sky, causing three more explosions, each one getting closer to his house. Getting up from the ground, he kicked through his shattered window. Running to the middle of the street, there was pandemonium everywhere! The elderly were hurrying to their cars; teens running with whatever household items that could be used as a weapon! There were other shadows too that looked familiar to Sparks. One of them turned around and all that could be seen were bright, white eyes that seemed to be ghost-like. Sparks gasped: these are his nightmare creatures! One flew at him with scythe-like arms! Sparks blocked the attack with one of his swords, and then counter-attacked with his other sword. When he cut through, the shadow burst in darkness, like a ghost would.

Twenty other ghostly eyes peered at Sparks as if he committed a crime. All of them jumped for him! Sparks shut his eyes, put up his swords and hoped that he could block them. He opened his again after hearing a car horn & gunfire. A red pick-up truck was running the sword-armed creatures, while someone armed in the back bed was firing upon them. Shadows were disappearing simultaneously. Sparks looked up at the driver and shooter and smiled. It was Lorenzo at the wheel (Illegally driving) and Joshua had an M16A2. “It looks like we showed up on time!” screamed Lorenzo. “You’re damn right, you did!” replied Sparks. Josh looked down at him and said, “I don’t think those knives won’t work too well, here’s an extra gun back here...” Joshua handed Sparks a standard handgun. Sparks thanked him and was about to climb up on the back when another explosion knocked him off his feet. This one was a couple yards away, and he looked up and saw fire about a couple yards away and- to his greatest fear- a large shadow moving in the fire. Then he saw it.

The dragon shadow that has haunted his nights, glaring down with the violet eyes filled with so much hatred that Sparks does not know why this is so. “Guys, take off! Quickly!” yelled Sparks as he jumped into the back bed of the pickup. But before they could, the dragon flew down closer to stop them. Now Sparks got a good glance at this creature, and what he saw surprised him. “Shadow Lugia!? But Pokemon aren’t real!” Shadow Lugia swooped down into the side of the truck causing all three to fly out onto the front yard. “It looks and feels real to me!” yelled Joshua.

“We need to find a better car! Mine’s totaled now!” exclaimed Lorenzo. Sparks looked toward the family Tahoe and told Lorenzo and Josh to find the keys inside his house. It’s obvious that his parents were dead, otherwise, they’d be right here now yelling at him, saying he’s crazy to go fight the Shadow Lugia. Sparks pulled out the handgun Josh gave him and fired upon Shadow Lugia, but there was some sort of barrier around him, preventing him from getting shot. “Damnit, the Safeguard technique!” thought Sparks. Shadow Lugia was charging an Aeroblast when the Tahoe drove next to Sparks with Lorenzo and Josh inside. “C’mon, quickly!” yelled Josh.

Opening the back window, Sparks climbed in and they all drove off before Shadow Lugia finished charging. Shadow Lugia fired his blast don at the house, causing wood and brick to splinter and fly. Sparks’ parents were dead for sure now. Shadow Lugia saw them driving away and pursued them from the sky. Lorenzo was running down any shadow creatures he could find while Josh shot any that survived. Sparks grabbed an extra grenade launcher and fired at Shadow Lugia, but it failed, seeing as though Shadow Lugia still had his Safeguard on.

Shadow Lugia charged another Aeroblast and fired at the car. Thankfully it missed, but the shockwave caused the car to flip over & over. Sparks flew out the window and rolled on the grass, temporarily knocked out. Lorenzo and Josh climbed out with their own swords an attacked Shadow Lugia, now on the ground. Josh tried to go for Lugia’s legs, but Lugia kept swiping at him with his wings. Lorenzo jumped for the neck, but was knocked in the air by Lugia’s tail.

Sparks was coming to and squinted his eyes to find a shadow creature over him, preparing to stab him. Sparks rolled out of the way and slashed at it, causing it to disappear. He looked over to where the car was and saw his friends fighting Shadow Lugia. Drawing his own swords, he charged after them, slashing at any shadow creature that got in his way. Launching himself from the van, he turned in the air and stabbed into Shadow Lugia’s right shoulder. He stabbed again after pulling out his favorite knife. When he pulled to get his other sword out, it broke in Lugia’s shoulder, and Sparks fell down to the ground.

“Alright, Sparks!” cheered his friends. “Move in for the kill, now,” said Lorenzo. Shadow Lugia, unable to fly with the metal stuck in his shoulder, staggered, injured on the ground. Sparks got up off the ground, placed some of Shadow Lugia’s feathers in his pocket, and cautiously moved closer. When Shadow Lugia saw him move closer to him, he head butted after him. Sparks was hit hard and flew into the van that his friends flipped back over. “Yikes! He’s still kicking, we should get out of here,” exclaimed Josh. Picking up his knocked out friend, Josh dragged him into the car and quickly closed the door as Shadow Lugia made another head but into the side of the Tahoe.

The three friends made a quick getaway, but Shadow Lugia wasn’t going to let them go far. Digging into his shoulder with his mouth, he pulled the sword out of his shoulder and flung it at the car. It cracked through the back window and got stuck there, three inches from Josh’s face. Sparks opened his eyes by a little bit to see Shadow Lugia fly back to the town, charging one more Aeroblast to finish off anything surviving. After the intense and quick moment, Sparks fainted, leaving him with numerous thoughts: “What grudge does his have against me?”

End of Chapter One…

What do you think so far?

My e-mail’s spat1@sbcglobal.net if ya want to make a comment.