The More Things Change
September 2006 - Two Months Before the Change
Four cloaked figures parted the darkness, one from each cardinal direction. Spencer was the North, bringing the chills of the Arctic. He was the Warlock. Conrad was the East, bringing Dawn and the beginning of life. He was the Cleric. Benji was the south, bringing the heat and energy of war. He was the Knight. And, finally, came Wilbur, the West. He brought with him the End of all things, the sunset. He was the Necromancer.
In the center was the master. He stood on his natural dais, made from the final remains of a mighty oak. Carl pulled a small pouch from his belt, setting it next to his stack of tomes. The contents of the pouch and the books contained all his power. He had no designation, other than the master, yet the others dared not cross him, as he could easily destroy any or all of them. Yet he did not rule them through fear. His benevolence brought all manners of rewards, just as his wrath brought destruction.
"You have all arrived on time," Carl announced, "we may begin." He lifted the pouch and held it in his open palm. "I now bestow upon our gathering: the Elements of Fate." A handful of objects tumbled out onto the dais, all of similar size and color, but most of differing shapes. The objects had the power to wipe out civilizations and raise new ones from the dust.
"Drama queen," Wilbur said under his breath.
"What was that?" Carl asked, turning his head to the Necromancer.
"They're just dice," Wilbur said. "I have to get home by midnight this time or my dad's gonna kill me, so can we please cut the theatrics and get on with the game?"
Carl sighed and dropped his hood back. "Fine," he said in a pained voice. "Can't we have a game just once that your dad doesn't have to ruin?"
"Midnight?" Benji asked. "If I knew we were only playing for two hours, I would have gone out with Vanessa instead." Spencer chuckled. "Give it up, Spencer," he said. "Vanessa is real. She goes to Saint Mary's."
"Keep trying to convince yourself of that," Conrad added. "And while you're beating off to a poster of a Catholic school girl, I'll be talking to a real girl."
"Chao Lin is on the other side of the world, and is probably a guy," Benji retorted.
"I don't see what the big deal is," Wilbur said, shaking his head. "We're all too young to date anyway."
"We're sixteen!" Carl said, throwing his hands up in the air. "Your dad just doesn't want you to have a life of any sort, and you just let him have his way."
"I don't see you dating any girls," Wilbur retorted.
Carl laughed. "They're a waste of time," he said. "And they're expensive. They always want your time and money, and you have no say in anything you do with them."
Spencer chuckled to himself. All of them were pathetic, himself included, but he was the only one who seemed to get that. "OK, guys, none of us have real girlfriends," he said. Benji took a breath to speak, but Spencer forestalled him. "You're not fooling any of us, Benji. We all know you're making her up. During all of your 'dates' with her, you were at home playing World of Warcraft on your dummy account. I known about it for months. Conrad, you're afraid of girls so much, you won't talk to any in this country. It's much safer for you to fall for someone you have no real chance of meeting, so that's all you'll ever do. Wilbur, you're afraid of what your dad would say, and you have no backbone to stand up to him, so you just write girls off as a loss. And Carl, you're so into controlling every aspect of a situation, you'd never be able to hold onto a girl for more than five minutes before she slapped you. What's worse is that you know it's a problem for you, but you turn it around so it's the fault of all women."
Carl was fuming. Benji looked to the ground in shame, while Conrad looked mortified. Wilbur seemed to be taking the revelation the best, since he seemed to already know it as a problem. "If you're so smart, why don't you have a girlfriend, Spencer?" Wilbur asked.
"Because we also all share a problem with getting girls," he said. "We don't know how to talk to them, so we spend all our time either together or on our computers at home. If any of us actually got out and tried to talk to a girl, we'd fail miserably, and we all know it. It takes practice to keep from looking like a total dork, and none of us are man enough to get to the first rejections so we can learn from them. We're all scared, and at the height of stupidity where dating is concerned. That answer your question?"
Wilbur nodded. The others seemed mollified, now that Spencer had degraded himself as well. "Shall we play now?" Carl asked.
December 2006, a couple weeks after the change.
Spencer and the others sat at their table in the loser's section of the cafeteria on a Friday afternoon. The room was much emptier and quieter without the girls. Some life was just starting to come back, as the boys in the school became social with each other, and more and more of them switched teams.
"So who switched?" Benji asked.
Spencer knew no one would admit to it before the others, so he bit the bullet. "I did, two nights ago," he said. He saw a few of the others visibly relax.
"A week ago," Benji said. "I knew right away that I'd never get laid any other way."
"Yesterday," Carl admitted.
"Monday for me," Conrad said. "Wilbur?"
"My dad won't let me," he said. Spencer hit his head on the table a few times.
February 2007, a few days before Valentine's Day
The four corners faced the stump once more, with Carl already waiting in the middle. They each approached slowly at the same rehearsed pace, and met in the middle.
Wilbur jumped right in with the dad thing. "Midnight again for me, guys. Sorry." The rest of them groaned audibly.
"And I could have made a date with Zac," Benji sighed. He looked at the others. "What?" he asked.
"Zac's not real either," Conrad said. "Spencer confirmed you have a second dummy account on the game. None of your dates have been real this time either."
"And Sven is, once again, overseas," Benji retorted to Conrad. "And let me guess, Wilbur: dad still won't let you go gay?"
"I finally did it, actually. I told him it was my choice to make, not his," Wilbur said.
"But he still won't let you go out on dates," Carl shot back. "So you're still the same place you were before."
"So are you," Wilbur growled. "You've decided boys are too much work as well."
"Let's face it, boys," Carl said. "None of us are ever going to get laid."
Spencer laughed harder than he'd ever laughed before. When the tears stopped streaming down his cheeks, he looked up from where he had fallen at his friends, who were all staring at him.
"God. I thought you were all at the height of stupidity before," he said. "You've just proven me wrong."
-=*=-
Note 1: And so ends the first of many short stories set after the end of Godsend. Sorry it has taken so long to get back on the writing wagon. Perhaps taking a month off was a poor choice, as it kinda stretched to 10 months. I plan to write a bunch of these one shot deals as I work my way up to Victor Marx: God of War. I want to have a substantial chunk done before I begin posting it, so I can back edit chapters as needed. In the mean time, the short stories will hopefully entertain, and some will actually give some back-story into new characters, or might explain facets of this new version of our world that VM:GoW may not touch on. Others will show snippets of life from some of your favorite Godsend characters. Who knows, I might get some guest authors to write stories of their own. I'm really looking forward to this short story series.
Questions and comments can, as always, be directed to me at academygm@hotmail.com - I love to hear from you.
P.S. Tony, you can sit back and let me drive for a while. You've earned it.