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The Crystal Ring.
Chapter 1: Watch out for that tree.

Chapter 1: Watch out for that tree.

  Clothes strewn across the room next to a completely empty laundry basket; Ramen cups fill the overflowing rubbish bin to the top. If one were to say Eric had given up on his life from an outside perspective they'd be mostly right. "BAH...BAAH...BAAAAH!" The alarm clock tries to serenade Eric from his slumber. "Ugh just five more minutes you stupid alarm clock." As if to instigate the alarm clocks point the phone app on his O.P.R. starts to ring.

  Picking up his Opr's wrist attachment he attempts to hit the answer call button through a groggy mental haze, and eyes still closed. Thumb barely touching the right button, he immediately regretted his decision, when the loud screeching voice of his land lady comes through the speaker. "You lazy piece of shit, I told you to have your rent for me yesterday, and I just got off the phone with your boss! He told me you were fired for incompetence !" Her voice wailed through several different decible records.

  "Mrs Wong I did nothing wrong; Theres a guy at work named Jeremy, and hes the bosses pet. To make a long story short he threw a party at the restaurant last week while Craig was out of town, and blamed it on me. I wasn't even at work that day!" Eric sighs to even out his blood pressure, and keep his anger from spiking at his nasty Land lady. There is an ominous silence from the other end of the line before Mrs Wong goes on another tirade of injustice.

  "Damn...he thought to himself, such a brief moment of respite, this tyrannical witch has never let me forget a single months rent. Even a day late and she'd be on my ass like wool on a sheep." He finishes his own mental retort as she began to scream again. "This is the last straw Mr Kenwood! I not accept you any longer, you have two weeks to get out!!" She screamed into my ear. She hung up not even giving hm a chance to defend himself or even a chance to get her money!

  "Now what am I supposed to do?" Bitter about current circumstances in the last few days it was time to do something I knew I'd regret immediately after I tried. Picking up his old cellphone that was 10 years out of date, he only kept the damn thing in the off chance that he'd have to contact his mother, even though he still has not forgiven her. Only the elderly, and poor used cellphones anymore, it was all about O.P.R'S now or Optic Hollographic Receivers. Scrolling through the short list of old contacts of people who no longer deemed in necessary to stay in touch, he reaches the one number that had not been dialed in so long it was retaining cobwebs, and poor decisions.

  He called his mother, it pained him to be the first one to break since he had never truly forgiven her for remarrying so soon after the accident. Ten years prior Eric's father had died in a lab accident involving the fallout of Radioactive Isotopes. Not long after that, six months to be precise his mother started talking to a man who used to be his fathers boss, a man Eric disliked more than anything else in the Universe. In the mind of 15 year old Eric he was a piece of shit that took advantage of a grieving widows emotions. One and a half years later he was forced to attend his mothers wedding with a man he had openly despised.

  This hate wasn't a one way street Eric found out only too late. (10 years previously)

Elaborately chiseled Gargoyles line the decidant, yet spartan interior of the hallway, ephemeral guardians of eternity, sometimes I amuse myself with my thoughts. I chuckled to myself. What was I doing in this hallway you ask? You see I was asked by the priest to find my step-father to be. Much to my chagrin I reached the end of the hallway, after climbing three flights of stairs to get to said hallway. A lone Oak door stood, the lone sentinal between me and the Balrog known as Blake Carter.

  As I went to reach from the Brass knocker on the door I could hear a muffled voice talking on a phone, or at least I assumed that was the case since I could only hear one voice in the room. Inching nearer to the door I slowly positioned my ear to the door, but I still couldn't make out the words being said. Lowering myself to the floor I inch my ear closer to the 2 inch crevice where the door meets the floor, and the words become instantly clearer. "I still don't understand why I'm being shackled to his whore, and brat."

  My mind instantly became intent on one thing, not letting this happen at all. I went to push myself up to go and alert my mother to this mans ill intentions when the door creaked open to reveal the incarnation of malevolence himself. A crooked smile crept upon his face showing off his shark like pearly whites, and then he begain to speak. "Well what do we have here....a little most spying on it's betters." His words dripped with venom, but before i could even make a move a swiftly, and deftly aimed Armani loafer collided with my stomach.

  He then lifted me by the collar of my shirt, and pulled me closer to his face. "It does not matter what you think you heard boy, noone will ever believe you over me. The poor loving man who came to a grieving widows aide at the death of her husband, taking in a child that was not his and helping to raise it to be something in society. You see boy they praise me, even your mother!" He spat on me as he spoke leaving me even more disgusting, and disoriented. Eyes filled with contempt, and resignation, I spit into his face with as big of a bogie that my lungs could muster. A quick slap to the side of my head made the room start to spin.

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  Blake smirked and dropped the brat onto the ground. "Know your betters boy, once your mother gives me what I want I will no longer have to keep you around. Once I have what I need the whole world will change, and none of this farce we call a world will matter. I have been in contact with some very influential people, but they need me to accomplish their goals, you see they lack a certain ingredient needed to change this world for the better. Let's call this ingredient a catalyst if you will, that will alter this world to the core, and it just so happens that your father, and his research team stumbled upon this item in suspect without even realising it's full potential."

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

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  I could only see in vague shapes, and colors he must have slapped me with the big ring he keeps on his right hand. He always wore that damn thing, and sometimes I could have swore that I had seen that thing glow. I then was ripped from my thoughts as I felt a tug on my collar, and could hear him mumble something into my ear, but my brain was too shaken to make what he was saying into a coherant thought. Disdain filled Blakes voice once again. "I guess it's time to rectify the situation, after all who is going to believe the boy who tried to kill himself after his mother moved on while he was still mourning the loss of his father."

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  He opened the third stoy window in the church to relieve himself of his burden. "We are going to have a nice happy life together son. Let me give you some life advice before we part today, watch out for the tree on your way down, afterall it'd be a shame if you wound up dead so soon." He hefted the young boy face blank as a starless sky, and threw him out the window right towards the Maple tree that stood tall and strong behind the church.

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  Eric felt the sensation of falling, and then nothing as he collided with a three inch thick branch on the ancient tree. Blake watched as the nuisance hit every branch on the way down. Time to finish this he thought to himself, amost too giddy to keep a straight face. After all he had to get this wedding over with before someone happened upon the boy and his unfortunate attempt at suicide. The very thought made Blake shiver in anxiety, it could cause the wedding to be canceled or post poned until the boy wakes up. That could be very bad for him.

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8,000 years earlier.... The minor pantheons plan was coming along quite nicely, until the other pantheons found out. Once word got out, an Inter Pantheon Congress was held between the leaders of the two highest pantheons, and the three minor houses. Merelia the Goddess of Love and Reincarnation was the shortest member in any of the pantheons at 6'1" was however not detracted by her height difference. The statuesque Turqoise haired goddess wore a knee length black dress, with elegantly placed Runes of Gold dotting the dress like the stars in the night sky. The dress hugged her curves in all the right places, as it caressed her Caramel toned body in a warm embrace.

  Amethyst colored eyes sparkled as she postured herself for a long debate she hoped to win, though she knew how stubborn, and power hungry present company could be. A determined smile plastered her face as she moved to speak her peace. "Brothers it really has been too long, Zeres and I called you here for more formal reasons unfortunately." Her smile began to waiver as she could feel the anger radiating from the others.

  "Called us! Don't make me laugh, you forced us to attend this joke of a congressional meeting to tell us you are going to try and steal our project for yourselves!" Zorith'Khar seethed in rage. Zeres the God of Space and Time rose to defend the decision of the upper pantheons. Standing to his full height of fourteen and a half feet tall head bald as a newborns arse, two golden pools of Magma for irises in his eye sockets. Naked as the day of birth he relied on well toned muscles, and his rockhard....distended gut as a natural defense.

  Eyes positively glowing as he gloated his authority over all present we he saw as his lessers. " My dear siblings you act as if you a choice to begin with. We left you to your own devices to see if your ideas had any merit." He smiled as his voice boom through out the small enlcosure. "I just thought it pertinent for you to know we've already began seeding the world, and have sent seed catalysts out to other planets to join in on your parade."

  It was Impieres turn to speak standing 10'11" tall always wearing an Oni mask. The rest of him constantly cloaked in a robe of living shadows that writhed in anxiousness as he stood. "Think many truths, speak may lies, but soon Zeres it will be you who dies." Imediately enraged Zeres swings a right hook at the insubstantial being as he fades away. "Is that a threat you Impish bastard?! You're the most cowardly of us all, all you do is play tricks and fight from the shadows." Zeres fumed his indignation for the whole congregation for not stepping in on the affair to defend his honor.

  Zeres turned to leave as he had no reason to believe they could really challenge his right to what he pleased. They were after all of a lower class, but a small spark of fear ignited like a torch in a dark and very rarely felt part of his mind. Once the new system was fully in place even they as gods would be forced to participate in some capacity. It was time to start searching future timelines for champions in his name, and they will tear the rest asunder.

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  Andria Blake was lounging in her den when her son contacted her out of the blue. Her heart started to flutter since she hadn't talked to him in 7 years. He had never really forgiven her for remarrying so soon after his fathers death. She mentally prepared herself, and steeled her jittery nerves for what was to come. She accepted the call on her O.P.R, but before she could say anything he started to speak.