Chapter 1
5/25/12
Jay sits under the tree with Jean, watching the sunset. Usually he doesn't have time for her, not with fixing Matt's suit every time he fights his nemesis Metallica, but today he's got some time. Jean puts her head on his shoulder, her blue streaked blonde hair completely covers half his purple shirt, and her oversized glasses dig into his shoulder. But he doesn't care, she's an amazing girl; smart, funny, beautiful. A perfect date, too bad it'd have to end soon.
Just as he was starting to think this date wouldn't be interrupted, his jean pocket buzzes and glows red.
Crud, he thinks to himself. He reaches into his pocket slowly, to not clue Jean in to the phone. He pulls it out and her head lifts. A glare filling her blue eyes. 'Sorry.' he mouthes as he stands up.
He opens the phone and holds it up to his ear. "Matt, not really a great time." he says softly so Jean can't hear. Behind him a rose appears in Jean's hand.
"You with Jean now?" Matt asks, "Man she is HOT...for a nerd." Jay looks back at Jean, who holds the rose up with a smile.
"Yeah she is." Jay snaps, "And you're calling me why?"
"The suit it's acting up again."
"Can this wait?"
Meanwhile at Matt and Jay's mansion, Matt hides beneath a table as a green lazar shoots just over his head. In any other battle he could just walk up to his attacker and punch him, but this was different.
"No it can't wait Jay. The suits gone crazy, by the way do you know where we hid the off button on the suit?" a steel hand punches through the table next to Matt's head. He grabs the arm and twists it. That of course has no effect on the metal arm which punches him in the face. A stream of blood coats his mouth.
"There isn't one, can you hold on a few minutes?" the other hand reaches out and grabs Matt's muscular arm and pulls him out from beneath the table, ruffling his black hair.
"Not really." the metal man's eyes aren't real, but to Matt they seemed to be filled with anger.
Jay turns around to Jean. She has one of those 'I'm going to kill you' looks. It's one of the things he admires about Jean: she's not one of those girl that depends on her boyfriend. Though in this case it's not working to his advantage.
"Jean," he starts.
"I don't want to hear your excuses." Jean says, "If you didn't want to go out with me you shouldn't have asked me." She stands up and starts walking away from the old willow tree.
"Jean if I would stay if I could, but right now I have to go."
"Go where?" she asks, not really expecting an answer.
"I can't... I can't tell you." And with that Jean stomps away. "Jean wait!" Jay yells.
"You know what, I have somewhere to be too. So have fun with what ever it is your blowing me off for!"
Jay sighs and grabs his bike from behind the tree, a silver twelve speed he got for his birthday last year. Why, he thinks, why did he have to call now?
Jean summons a bike this time it's blue like she wanted. About a year ago she learned that she had the ability to make things appear out of air, and like most people she decided to keep it a secret. She'd seen what happens when someone finds out about your power.
First one person knows, then either the heroes or the villains find you. Next thing you know they're telling you who to save and what to steal. She'd decided a long time ago that it was better that no one knew.
Jean starts pedaling toward the town. She sighs as she takes her last breath of fresh air. The town isn't anything special, just like any other town in the world. Filled with little shops ,houses with perfect lawns ,and people that all look like Barbie dolls. It sickened Jean, the sheer fake-ness of the town.
"Hey look it's the geek." mocks a guy at one of the many many many hair product shops in town. He's about a foot taller than Jean and is much more muscular. His blonde hair spiked up with enough hair gel to kill a rainforest. This is Dan. "What's the nerd doing outside on a Saturday?"
"I'm impressed, Dan," she yells back, "I didn't know you could use words with more than one syllable." Dan looks at her confused, obviously baffled by her use of the word 'syllable'.
What Jean would do to let him know who she is. He'd probably be on the ground begging for mercy. Jean gives a small laugh at the thought of Dan begging for mercy. She pedals through the rest of town and into the woods- the last real thing left in the town- her bike slows down as she enters the shade of the trees, then suddenly disappears.
She hikes through the forest for a few minutes before she reaches the tree. A dead old oak tree with a big hole in it from some bird. She reaches in, her arm completely engulfed in the wood.
"Come on." she mutters, "There it is." she says as she pulls her backpack out. "Let's see where Titanium is." she says with an evil smile. Over the last six months she'd gotten good at that, it was her life now.
She sits down next to the tree and unzips the bag. In the bag is filled with a mess of wires and scrap metal. She makes a mental note to finish those projects after her big plan works. She sticks her hand in cautiously and pulls out a small tablet. She presses the small button on the top and a picture fills the screen. She covers her mouth in shock.
Matt's battle isn't going well, in Jay's opinion. Half of the mansion was either filled with lazar holes or smashed into rubble. Matt, who's usually the center of the fight, is sitting under a table. He makes a mental note to give the suit infrared vision, so that it can find people hiding. As soon as he entered the room the sliver suit aims right for him.
"Jay! Duck!" Matt yells from underneath the table.
"Shut down, shut down, shut down!" Jean says frantically pushing buttons on her tablet. The picture on the screen changed to the words: ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO SHUT DOWN?
"Why else would I tell you to shut off?" she yells. She pushes the last button and the screen turns black.
"Holy Yetis that was close."
Jay has his eyes closed, waiting for a lazar in his head. The suit goes dark and Matt gets up from beneath the table.
"Jay you can open your eyes." Matt says moving the metal arm up and down. Jay opens his eyes cautiously.
"What'd you do?" he asks already scanning the suit for evidence of hacking.
"Nothing it just stopped."
"Well thanks for trying to stop a lazar from going through my skull." he opens the panel in the back of the suit.
"I didn't really get a chance to help." Jay starts fiddling with the wires.
"Well next time could you at least try- hey what's this?" he pulls a beetle shaped device off the wires.
"Must be the cause of the malfunction. What does it do?"
"Hacks the programming, probably built by Metallica."
"What makes you say that?"
"Well, he's your mortal enemy and the inscription that reads: PROPERTY OF METALLICA." Jay holds the bug out for Matt to see.
"He dots his eyes with hearts?" Matt says with a laugh.
"Weird dude." Jay agrees, his mind not really into the conversation. "Matt you can't underestimate him any longer this bug has a connection to the suit's surveillance system." Jay points to one of the claws on the beetle like Matt to know that that connects to the surveillance system.
"You think he knows who I am now?"
"If he hasn't he's getting pretty darn close." Jay slips the beetle into his back pocket. "Maybe we should take this to G.G.G., Metallica's getting smarter."
"No the G.G.G. doesn't want us, remember we're not real heroes. We're just dressing up heroes."
A year ago Matt had applied for a spot on the G.G.G. that denied him entrance. For weeks he flew into evil lairs just to destroy stuff, but Jay eventually calmed him down.
"Matt I know you think that this is your chance to prove them wrong, but you can't prove them wrong if you're dead."
"Then to the death it is." Jay knows there's no way to talk him out of this idea that no one can help him, but he knows he has to try.
"Well than I'll need some help to get this suit upgraded, maybe-"
"No." Matt says sternly, "The G.G.G. refuses to help us, so we won't ask. We wouldn't want to bother them."
"I was talking about Jean," Matt looks at him skeptically "she's great with technology and it would be easier to defeat Metallica if I didn't have to spend all night fixing the suit."
Matt looks him over while he thinks about the idea, but finally he agrees. "Okay, tell Jean, but the G.G.G. remains in the dark about this."
"Fine, but how do we clean this up before mom and dad get home?" Matt looks at the rubble around him.
"We blame it on Metallica and say we weren't here when it happened." Matt suggests. Then suddenly a hunk of cement falls from the ceiling. "Maybe we should hide the suit and go out for pizza."
"Agreed."
Editation DONE!
Hee-hee, I made a word up!
Hey there WIllow, Stella here!
Completely? That's a lot of oddly moving hair to cover his WHOLE shirt!
too bad
So he's thinking about how the date's going to have to end before he even gets the call?
suit's
too. And how can she complain if she's blowing him off too?
But she's doing it openly in front of Jay?
First things first, I love the banter between Matt and Jay! I like seeing characters interacting in a totally normal way. So good job on that.
My main issue with this piece is point of view. Point of view is telling the story from how a character sees it- their point of view. Obviously. What I don't like here is your jumping from viewpoint to viewpoint. When you only have one point of view during a scene, it's like your readers are living that person's life, right? So in the first scene, we are experiencing the story as Jay is experiencing it. But Jay can't immediately jump into Matt's body and experience the suit's fit. He can hear the panic in his voice, he might be able to hear the lasers in the background. But he's not able to just become Matt.
Of course, you can change perspective, but in my opinion- and most people's opinion- it's a bad idea to do it halfway through a scene. Take a look at some of your favourite novels- do they jump from character to character? Or do they stick with one for one scene then move to another? This is how we build a relationship with the protagonist and how we become emotionally involved in the story.
So try, even just as a writing exercise, writing a scene from only Jay's point of view, or only Jean's, or only Matt's. You'll be amazed the difference it makes.
Remember to proofread, there are quite a few punctuation mistakes in here that, once fixed, will make your writing seem so much more polished and impressive
Overall though, nice job, great premise and wonderful dialogue!
Hope I helped, drop me a note if you need anything!
-Stella x
Well first of all: it's in the third person, so I actually can jump from place to place to experience different settings.
Secondly and Two: yes he's been on dates with her before (or at least i hinted at that) so he knows Matt's gonna call
Third: he's not watching when she uses her power so he probably figures she had it
Lastly: She wasn't going to blow him off first, she just happened to have to go and blow up his brother.
Point of veiw is who's telling the story (i.e. not nessisarily the character's point of veiw) I mean just look at Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling is telling the story!
In my Opinion it's best to tell the story from point of veiw of the person who the scene means the most to. That's why I switch from me telling Jay's thoughts, to Matt's, to Jay's, to Jean's.