To be named

Chapter One

It was still there. Jake wasn't sure what "it" was, but it was there. He could just feel it, and he occassionally caught a glimpse of something big, white, and stealthy. He whirled around, catching anothe glimpse. Why, he to himself, didn't I listen to them? Jake was referring to his friends, all of whom thought the path through the forest was creepy, even thoughit cut 10 minutes off of the walk fome from school. They had warned him about these woods, stories of witches and werewolves, but he never really believed any of that... until now.

Jake felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up as he heard low, shallow breathing from behind him: he turned around and saw... the grinning face of his best friend, ALyssa.

"Oh, oh it's just you," Jake said nervously.

"Of course it's just me, what did you expect, a werewolf?" Alyssa asked, smiling wildly.

"Now that you mention i-" Jake stopped as he saw Alyssa's eyes grow wide with fear.

"Alyssa, nice try, but it's not going to work." Alyssa said nothing, just lifted a trembling finger and pointed to a spot just above Jake's shoulder.

Slowly and apprehensively, he turned, and stared straight into the giant mouth of a huge white tiger. Acting instinctively, Jake covered his face with his arms. The next thing he knew, he was lying flat on his back in a dark room. Was it just a dream? he wondered to himself. He reached out hia hand to touch the wall. It was rough and misshapen, nothing like the clean-shaven walls of his own room. Jake then noticed a faint, green light that seemed to be emenating from the walls. As he stood up, he saw Alyssa looking around nervously.


"Where are we?" Jake asked Alyssa.

"I'm not really sure," she began, "I saw the tiger, and then you covered your face, and then we were here. The strange thing is a second before we were in here, I could've sworn I saw, well, the branches seemed to move out from the trees."

Jake was scratching his head, wondering how to get out, when Alyssa suddenly cried out, "Jake, do that again!"

"Do what?"

"Raise your hand."

"Ok, but why-"

"JUST DO IT!" Alyssa just screeched at his.

"Ok, ok!"

As he raised his hand, Alyssa, staring at the bottom of the wall, suddenly cried out, "I knew it! I wasn't imagining it!"

"Imagining what?" Jake cried desperately, thoroughly confused by now.

"Oh, just look for yourself," Alyssa said, pointing near the bottom of the wall.

"Oh... that," Jake said, finally realizing that the wall was being lifted off of the ground. After a few more tests, Jake found that by moving his hands he could do almost anything to the wall.

Jake was enjoying playing with the wall until Alyssa said, "Quit messing around and make a window."

"What?" Jake inquired, not comprehending.

"A window, you know, hole in the wall, usually has a pane of glass, used to look through?"

"Yes, yes, I know, but why?"

"To see what's out there! Sometimes I wonder why I stick around with you, you are just so stupid sometimes!"
Alyssa kept going on and on, getting more and more agitated until JAke looked up above her head.

"Uh, Allysa?" Jake said nervously.

"WHAT COULD YOU POSSIBLY WANT!?!?!??!?!?!?!" she screamed back at him.

All Jake did was meekl point up.

"Oh..." Alyssa said, seeing the flame semmingly suspended in mid-air above her head.

"That's um... odd."

"You think?" Jake replied sarcastically.

You can lift walls jakey, not to normal yourself xD

"Ok... this is the wierdest day ever!" Alyssa said, "First that white thing."

"Tiger," Jake interjected.

"Whatever. And then he get stuck in here, you have some magical plant control thing-"

"Vivamancy,"Jake interjected, again, not knowing how he knew the word.

"ANYWAY, and then I can control fire, or so it would seem. Pyromancy, I believe it is called."

"Maybe... maybe the tiger won't kill us though."

"What are you talking about?"

"Well, just think about it. This is made of pretty much twigs, right?"

"Well, yea, but..."

"But what? Tigers can snap an adult's backbone with one paw. If it was going to eat us, it could have gotten in here by now. I'm going to go out there."

"Jake, are you INSANE!?!?!?! It'll eat you!"

"No, it won't. I don't know why, but i have a feeling that it needs us and we need it!"

With that, Jake opened a door in the wall and walked out of the frying pan, literally, with Alyssa's new powers, and into the fire.


Chapter Two

Jake's first thought as he stepped out was "I wonder how it'll kill me." After a few seconds he though, "Is this what being dead feels like? Jake tentatively patted himself, and he seemed to be all there, no bite barks, and, he was able to thing, so that was something. Jake opened his eyes, suddenly realizing they had been closed, and saw the tiger standing in front of him, staring into Jake's eyes curiously.

It seemed to sense something in him, and walked up to him, Jake didn't even attempt to run away, as he could feel only benevolence coming from the creature. As it got to him, it opened its mouth and Alyssa, convinced it was trying to eat him, shouted "JAKE!" and somehow managed to conjure a sort of whip thing made of fire to appear. Jake just lifted his hand to get her to stop, and the tiger suddenly exhaled slowly on him.
Jake sort of blacked out then, but a second later he was in what appeared to be some sort of Greek building, it was empty, except for a man and a woman who looking remarkably like eachother, and like Jake. Turning, they saw him, and smiled.

"Hello," the woman said joyfully, in a high, lilting voice that made it seem that she was eternally singing, "my name is Nerfen and he is my brother, Ferkan. We can only keep this portal to the Material World open for a limited time, so I'll try to make this blunt. We were the last Nature and Animal mages. But now we must pass it down to you." At that, she and her brother pulled out two amulets, Ferkan's green and Nerfen's purple. As they handed them to Jake, there was a bright flash, and they were melded into a single, greyish silver medallion. They also handed Jake some yellowed pieces of parchment, on which was information about the mages in general, and detailed information on the Nature and Animal magic, including a Tree-raising spell and a Shape-shifting one.

"These will help you and you friend on your quest. You MUST gather all the mages, and discover the one hidden in Shadows. You will venture to deepest ocean, highest mountain, hottest land, most fiery island, and mountain of lakes in your quest. Now, good luck..." with the last word, the twins and the building faded out and Jake awoke in the middle of the woods, with the pages and the amulet in his hands.

Alyssa was crouched above Jake, looking at him with a look of deep concern. As she saw him waking up, she pulled him up into a tight hug, squeezing the air out of him, and somehow managing to say, "Oh, Jake, thank God you are alright! If you EVER, EVER scare me like that again I will kill you!" and glarind at him, all at the same time. Alyssa then added, "By the way, what were you mumbling about in your sleep? Something about mountains and deep oceans."

His reply was just, "The twins."

"The twins?"

"Yea, they were in the building."

"Building? What building? You've been lying on the ground for the past ten minutes muttering about oceans and mountains. Now tell me everything!"

Jake started with himself blacking out and ended with, "and so we need to figure out what those clues mean, and somehow go there."

"Let's start with deepest oceans," Alyssa replied. "The Pacific is the deepest, but that's too large... What's the deepest part of the Pacific? C'mon, Jake, think back to Mrs. Jaffey's geography class."

"Trench... the Mariana Trench! That's it!" Jake cried triumphantly. "It's near the Philippines."

"Philippines? How are we supposed to get there?"

"I don't know, lets just figure out where we need to go. Next is... highest mountain... that one's easy, Mt. Everest. Next is hottest land,,, well, deserts are hot lands... but hottest..."

"The Sahara! I don't think it really means temperature wise, i think it's just implying the greatest. This is good, we're on a roll! What's next? Most fiery island? That makes me think volcano."

"Hawaii, I bet it's Hawaii," Jake said. "Just one more to go. Mountain of lakes... can you think of any mountains that are near a bunch of lakes? Not McKinley, not too many lakes... nor Everest, they wouldn't hide two there... wait... my cousin, the one from Japan, he keeps talking about a bunch of lakes and a mountain... oh, what's that one? Fuji! That's it!"

"So what do we have?" Alyssa asked. "Mt. Fuji, Mt. Everest, Hawaii, Mariana Trench, and and the Sahara Desert?"

"Right. But what i don't understand, is how Fuji fits into this. I mean we can assume they all have elements, or semi-elements, Everest is so high, it has to be air. Hawaii is full of volcanoes, so it's fire."

Catching on, Alyssa added, "The Sahara is just sand, so it'd be earth, and then the Mariana Trench has so much water, what else could it be? But assuming the elements are Fire, Water, Earth, Air-"

"Nature, Animal, and Light." Jake finished.

"Light? How do you get light?"

"I don't know, it just came to me. Anyway, Fuji wouldn't be light, so what is it?"

"I have no idea..."

"But even if you know where to go, how are we supposed to get there? We need to go all over the world, and we dont have enough money to fly..."

"Fly! That's it!"

"Jake, did you not hear me?" Alyssa asked. "We don't have enough money. Now what are you looking for?"

Jake was digging through the sheaf of papers, looking for a page. "Just trying to find- Ah ha! Here it is! The Shape-shifting spell!"

"What?"

"Don't you get it? I can turn us into birds, or fish, or whatever we need! It's perfect!" At that, Jake began saying the spell, "Shamaoel theraond hergonaed felika itheria! Here, lemme try it out."

Suddenly, Jake disappeared, and some sort of hawk appeared. "This is great!" Jake cried, not quite out loud, but in a weird sort of inexistent voice that echoed through Alyssa's head. The hawk then took off, flying all around the clearing. "You want to join me?"

"No."

"Aw, c'mon, please, it's fun!"

"Later, right now we need to come up with some way to convince our parents to let us go around the world."

"That's easy," Jake said, morphing back into a human. "There's a temporary memory erasal spell in here. We just say it, say who or what we want them to forgot, and presto!"

"Fine, let's do this," Alyssa said, as she walked off into the woods back to their houses, "Time to erase our parents minds, go around the world, learn how to control the very elements themselves, and save the world... great!"