Malik

“Kaz, a bustling city full of crime, misfits, clubs, and criminals. A technological dump of a home for anyone trying to make a living here. Honestly, I don’t get why I bother trying to get a normal job.” I say pondering out to the city from the rooftops. “Hey c’mon it isn’t that awful, we managed to survive as long as we did, anyways I don't think you could survive a normal job anyways.” My friend Amara mentioned. “How come? I have the patience and mental fortitude to survive in a normal job” I snapped back. “That's cool and all but you need to actually chip in to a company to show those skills, for the 3 years we’ve known each other, I can only recall you helping out once, and that was you buying a video game for us.” My other friend Jaden says as he grabs my shoulder from behind. “Yeah that's true, it's just normal jobs are so lame anyways as they don't have any excitement, I want a job where I can fight bad guys and swing from buildings holding chicks and have them swoon.” I responded. I get back on my feet and proceed to head down from the building to go get food. “He sure has an interesting dream in his mind, right Amara?” “Yeah, but he’s always been like that hasn’t he, ever since we met him, he’s had these crazy dreams of going on these big wild adventures and reality ends up hitting him in the face, Malik”

I reach the entrance of the abandoned office building. As I walk down the street I think to myself, “Man, this whole continent of magic and yet I’m still stuck having to fight to try and get a normal nine to five job, when is it my turn to have fun.”

“Hey” A mysterious voice calls out to me as I pass by a dark alleyway. A person in a cloth cover speaks out to me, “You just mentioned you needed a job, an adventure right? I might be your guy, I need some bounty hunters to run some jobs for me, the risk is high, but it pays well, you interest?” This female voice speaking from the cloth robe intrigued me, bounty hunters huh. “I’d be lying if I said I never thought of this as a possible job line for me, but I’ll think about it, do you have someway I can contact you if I change my mind” As the last words come out of my mouth, this hooded figure turns away and leaves, “Listen, I respect your decision to wanna think about it, but I’m looking for people that are dedicated, and honestly, you just look like some guy that dreams of some adventure like this. But I don't see the sincere dedication, you can say words to convince yourself but actions convince others, sorry and good luck with your dull life.”

I stood there, distraught by what she said. As she leaves I realize, she's right, Jaden and Amara mentioned it earlier, I hardly contribute to all of us, how can I contribute to saving lives if I can't contribute even to myself and my friends. I guess this dream of mine is all it will ever be, a dream. “Malik! Hurry! Someones terrorizing the town, we gotta hide!” Jaden yelled to me as he ran down from the office building. “We spotted him at the town center, there is some guy up there as well who seems to be controlling the monster, we gotta hurry and hide fast!” Just then and there we approach an intersection and the giant monster walking down the road to our right, Jaden and Amara frozen with fear and I notice people running in fear as well. What am I doing? Everyone on this planet is born with different magic types, some have little to none where they can do simple things to ease their day, and some are born with loads of magic power. I gotta use the power I was given to save them. I dash forward towards the monster, the monster scaling over 60 meters tall, “Jaden, Amara, I’m sorry, but someone’s gotta do something, and I’d be damned if I’m going to watch all these civilians die when I could save them!”

As I run towards it, I tap into my magic, I shoot a giant rope of condensed sand, Grappling Sand, using my sand magic in a way where I can condense it into clumps where I can use them to grapple buildings, I launch from the streets, swinging up into the air, Jaden was right, there is someone on top of that monster, I got to stop him. The monster swings it's arm at me, I use my grappling sand to avoid it and close the distance, I evade the monster’s attacks for a good while, until it grabs a clump of concrete and graphite and chucks it at me, I dodged as much I could but I got hit by a small bit of the boulder clump and crashed right into a building. On the verge of blacking out, battered and bruised, I stood back up, and summoned my sword, Silica Slicer, I grabbed it just in case and leapt back out. I swing out across again and yell out, “You think that's enough to kill me, I’m gonna make sure you are destroyed and make sure everyone is safe!”

“Wow, I didn’t think he had it in him to jump into the battle like that.” Jaden said in shock. “Yeah, it's shocking, but look, he's badly injured and if he gets hit again, he's done for, we gotta go and help somehow, because I can tell he's holding back because if he gets reckless, then casualties can occur. Jaden, let's get the civilians to safety.” Amara told Jaden and they ran into the crossfire as well. Amara runs to the nearest crowds and uses her Illusion magic to create a cloud of invisibility, Hidden Cloak, everyone enveloped in this cloud is invisible to everyone on the outside. Amara and Jaden rush all the civilians in the clouds out of the danger. Jaden rushes closer to the monster and screams out to Malik, “Malik! We evacuated all civilians, let loose and don't get killed, we’ll watch out for any other people to make sure they don't get hurt”

As I hear Jaden reassure that everyone is evacuated, I use my sand magic again, Sand Clones, I create 10 clones of me to simulate them swinging around the monster as well to try and distract it. As I begin to keep swinging I see its attacks are hitting the fakes and I begin to close the distance with the mysterious man on top of the monster. I summon more clones to distract the monster and as I get closer to the top, I see someone on top of a building nearby. Are they a watcher, another villain, his teammate? I don't know for sure, but what I do know is I gotta stop this bitch. I swing up behind him and as I’m about to strike him down with the katana, I get hit with a lightning bolt from the same direction as that mysterious figure on top of the building. What? So they are working with this guy, I’m not unconscious yet but any more hits and I’m dead. “Jaden, on the roof of the office building, there's another guy, get him!”

Jaden dashes into the office building climbing up the stairs, and for now I'm holding off from going back up to the top of the monster again until I know the other guy is down so I have to make more clones to hide, my magic is getting weak so I need to hope he hurries.

Jaden reaches the top of the building and sees the mysterious figure. “Well, looky here, desert boy has 2 friends with him, you’re no match to us so you might as well give u-” His speech interrupted with Jaden’s fist hitting him right in the face, “Jeez you really are a tradition villain with the unoriginal villain talk, so just shut up.” Jaden uses his steel magic to strengthen his hands, Steel Gauntlets. He enters a fighting stance and as the villain regains his composure, he dashes right at him dodging the lightning attacks thrown at him. “You’re gonna have to be faster than that to stop me” Jaden socks him right in the stomach, hitting him with a barrage of punches. “Oh I can go faster, but do you wanna risk the lives of hundreds of civilians on the ground just to prove a point?” Jaden continues punching and dodging, “I would love to, but right now I’m playing the distraction in this scene” The villain confused stares towards his comrade and the monster.

I begin accelerating and dash back up behind the guy controlling the monster. I fly right into him, knocking him off the monster, his feet ripping off some of the monster’s skin, almost as if he was controlling the monster by connecting to it. His face looks like he’s waking up from a dream. “What!? How did you do? Damn it, where is that useless jerk when you need him.” He looks enraged whilst staring at me. “Your friend currently has his hands full of steel.

Amara thinks to herself as she watches this whole thing take place, “Wow, Malik, you weren't lying back then, you really are powerful”

3 Years ago, I first moved to Kaz after finishing high school and looking for work, I tried everywhere that was willing to hire people fresh outta school but to no avail. In a last ditch effort I tried to go to a gas station and begged for work since they could always use new hires. That's where I met Amara, my employer at the time.

“Sorry but we have our shifts full for now here, no matter how much you beg we can't fit you in, sorry” As I finally accepted this outcome, I stood back up, bid good day and left. However, some thug walked past me, a man in a blood stained hoodie, I had a feeling he was up to no good so I hid behind the shelves.”Hey bitch! Open up the fucking register or else this bullet is about to be your new brain, and don't even think about using magic, my buddies are out there in case anything goes wrong, so why don't you just comply and we’ll be out” Amara looks petrified, as she begins taking money out the register, she throws the money at his face and uses her Invisible cloud to mask her body. “You bitch! You think I'm an idiot huh? I know illusion magic when I see it!” He shoots bullets around the shelves and register, all missing except for the last which hits Amara right in her side and she collapses. “Well now we gotta kill someone again, say goodbye bitch!”

As he is about to pull the trigger, I leap towards him with a sword made of sand magic, Silica Slicer. I hit the gun out of his hand and hit him in the chest with the blunt side to make sure the hit wasn't fatal. His friends hear the commotion and rush in and begin to shoot, but Amara clouds us in invisibility, I begin to make sand clones to distract them as I go in and knock them out. The clones rush out into the line of fire as I rush in behind them, use the handle of the katana to hit them in their heads to knock them unconscious, and as they land, the first guy with the gun gets back up and shoots right through what he thought was me. As I use sand to fabricate my body again right behind him and I knock him out for good.

As he falls I help Amara up and she asks me a question “How did you survive the bullet? It went right through you, I saw blood!” I explained to her that I can put more magic power into making a more realistic sand copy that copies the colors of my body and clothing to make it look like me entirely so I could sneak up behind him and knock him out.

“Your so lucky to have been gifted so much magic power, I have so little that I can only conjure one type of spell and it's just to make me invisible and that's it's, you have all these crazy spells that you can be titled a hero by the people while I’ll be stuck working in this hell hole my whole life.” She begins tearing up while staring at me. “That's not entirely true, magic is based on your strive, if you have a dream to go forward, you can get stronger, just because the gods choose not to bless doesn't mean you have to let that define you. Prove the gods wrong by showing you can be something from nothing. With an ever growing strive you can gain more magic power, that's how I grew so strong, I want to go on an adventure of a lifetime and live a life that I can say I lived to the fullest.” At that moment, Amara got back on her feet and shook my hand. “Then in that case, let me come with you, to be a comrade in your adventure, a friend to talk to, an apprentice.”

Back to present day, Jaden begins to charge up and turn his whole body to steel, Juggernaut, he runs at full force to the villain on the roof as both free fall off the edge, I swing below them and nab the villain as Jaden hits the ground fine as his Juggernaut form makes his very resistant. As I keep swinging, I see the monster look dead in his eyes as he collapses to the ground, thank goodness Amana got the civilians out of the way. I land on the ground with the two villains tied up to the ground with my sand rope.

“You won’t see the end of us! You haven’t heard the end of Zapper and Beast!” “Jeez, even your names are cringy traditional super villain names” Jaden laughs as he sends the bad guys into the hands of local authorities. I look around me as hundreds of civilians praise us in an uproar thanking us for saving the town. I'm overwhelmed at first but I begin to just go with it. “Yeah that's right! I just saved you all!” I look up at the buildings to see two shadowy figures on top of a skyscraper, I freeze up for a second and as soon as I blink, they disappear.

As the day turns to night, Jaden, and Amara are at a club celebrating with the town partying after this victory. Amara, the liner, introverted type, sitting in the corner of the club keeping to herself. And Jaden, trying to hit on as many ladies as possible. “Hey Malik! Didn’t ya say you wanted to swing across the town with some chicks, I met some that are interested!” His slurred speech showed me he was drinking a lot, although I did say that, I don’t think I’d have the balls to do something like that in reality. I walk up to Jaden and he introduces me to two girls, “I’m gonna go chat it up with this one, you go talky with that one” His drunken state is something but I digress.

I sit at a booth with this girl, who at first glance looks like they would be exactly like Amara, but as I begin to look at her, she looks really shy and probably nervous. I break the silence with a simple introduction, “Hey, I’m Malik, nice to meet you. What brings you here?” “I- I’m Aria, I came here with my f-friend because she wanted to drink booze and didn’t want to go alone.” “Well that doesn’t seem like a lot of fun for you does it? Why don’t we go dance, it’ll be fun and it’ll help you be a little less nervous.” I reach out my hand to her as she turns bright red and grabs my, as we get up to dance. “I’m sorry in advance, I’m not too good at dancing. Sorry.” “That's fine, I guess I can help you” She stares at me in shock, her face even brighter, ear to ear. We begin to start dancing and making chit chat as we dance, starting slowly so she can get the hang of it as we discuss our favorite shows.”You like romantic comedies too?” Aria says enthusiastically as begin to start jamming out, we share laughs as we tell stories to each other. Everything goes great, until Aria trips on her foot and falls, I leapt towards her and grabbed her. “You okay Aria?” “Y-yeah I’m f-fine. Just a bit shook is a-all. I never h-had anyone sweep me off my feet like that.” I was confused at first but noticed I was holding her like one of those romance movies where the guy and the girl are dancing together and the guy dips the girl and holds her. I realize and begin blushing hard just like her.

Later in the night we sat back down, both feeling embarrassed, “I know it's not over yet, but I had a great night tonight Malik, thank you, I needed this” She smiled softly, a rosy hue blush on her cheeks as she stared at me, I couldn’t help but smile after that, “I’m glad you had fun, and I’m glad to have met you Aria” We both continued talking to each other about our dreams and ambitions. As the night raced on, we were still talking to each other, Amara was playing video games on her phone in the back of the club, and Jaden was nearing going black out drunk with Aria’s friend. This night was perfect and wouldn’t change it for the world

As the night ended, we bid farewell, hand in hand, “Thank you Malik for the amazing night, may our souls reconnect one day” As we left and went our separate ways for the night, Me and Amara carrying a very drunk Jaden home, I brought up the idea of bounty hunting, mentioning how the fight today was so much fun and that we should pursue a career for a living instead. “Honestly, if you told me this yesterday I would’ve said you were crazy, but after seeing how we took down those two bad guys earlier, I see it as a more viable option for us. Maybe.”