Forgotten Legends of Jamaa: Volume 1

Hello. I am… not telling yet. You might be able to figure it out yourself though. This is a document I am writing. It is about the truth. What truth, you may ask? Well, do you really believe a group of 6 animals managed to force the mightiest empire in existence into submission? Do you? You do, don’t you. Well, just read it. Please do. I was raised in a large village on the outskirts of the Phantom Kingdom. All sorts of animals lived there, from rabbits to wolves to penguins to giraffes. I was in the Skulk of Foxes. I was the child of the Master Fox, and he taught me some of the greatest things I know, such as Knowledge is Power, Don’t Fight When You Don’t Have To, and Authority Can Rarely Be Trusted. Great lessons, they have always helped me. Anyways, being his child bought me great prestige, although you had to be on alert at all times to make sure nobody tried to cheat you, steal you, or worst of all, kill you. You’d be surprised how many foxes would kill for even a bit of recognition or backstory. I don’t believe any other animals had this infighting problem we had, although I didn’t socialize much at school. School was taught by a foolish, easily susceptible heron named Mira and a really uppity, high-and-mighty god named Zios. I disliked both of them, as Zios was hard to converse with, snide, rude, and generally obnoxious with everyone but Mira. And Mira was nice enough, but I could convince her a mouse was a lion, how trusting she was. I used this to do many things in her classes, such as raising my grades, extending due dates, and evading punishment on the few occasions she saw me doing something. They were both nice enough, for now at least. The eldest child of each leader of a group of animals went to school. All sorts of animals went, but the only ones I cared about much were the ‘Greatness Group’. I didn’t really have any friends at school. I was more of a loner type and socialized with my sisters and brothers at home. The ‘Greatness Group’, however, didn’t much like me. It consisted of the school rabbit, panda, koala, monkey, wolf, and tiger. I don’t even know why they considered themselves superior. Probably because they were the stupidest kids at school. The only one who got good grades at all was probably the koala. They did have a big social influence though, and almost all the other students bowed to them and let them do whatever they wanted. I did not let them do that. I always challenged them, pointed them out, and talking about them whenever I felt it was right. The rabbit, monkey, koala, and panda were next to useless in a fight, and although the rabbit was hotheaded, she really didn’t do a whole lot. The koala and the monkey made some cool-looking inventions, but they were easy to dismantle, dodge, destroy, and decapitate. They always tried to use them on me, but you could knock away an exploding spike seed, dodge/pour sludge I got from the village outskirts on the carnivorous plants, and tunnel or climb my way out of cages and traps and pits and all manner of things like that. The wolf and tiger were good at fighting, but the wolf was lazy and just skipped school a lot and dyed his fur to make him look ‘Mysterious’, and the tiger was more of a commander, which meant he didn’t want to do anything someone else could do for him. Overall, I could outsmart and beat all of them.Anyways, at school, we studied Surviving, Fighting, Caring for Life, and Peacemaking. I bet you can guess who taught what. Surviving was about, well, surviving in any sort of situation, whether you be in the Phantom Kingdom, in the woods, or in a desert. I was quite good at this one. When we tested in all three of the available biomes, I naturally came out on top, and the people I copied, watched, and borrowed some items from did not. Survival is about surviving. No rules, I liked that about it. Fighting was just fighting each other. I was also good at this, especially in the non-arena fighting. I had some skill at pure fighting, but most matches were won through use of strategy. I did a lot of circling, jumping over, sliding under, and riding my opponent. I could even beat the school elephant. Sometimes we had Wars, in which the class would divide in half, go to the forest, and try to steal the other team’s Ring. After my 100th victory, I was told I could ‘rest’ while the class did a War because I kept stealing the Ring 5 minutes in, leading to 10 or more wars a day, all victories. At Caring for Life, Mira taught us how to take care of plants and bugs. I found it intriguing, although occasionally I did slip some growth hormone or spiders into class. Peacemaking was easily our most boring class. It consisted of receiving worksheets with a bunch of different argument scenarios and how to peacefully solve each one. I got rather poor grades in this one, as most of my answers involved destroying something, cheating someone, or me walking by or fueling the fire. Mira clearly liked teaching it, but it was quite boring. One day, we were about to go from Fighting to Caring class, when Zios said, “We would like to talk about something, stay here.” Mira came flying over, and they stood next to each other with looks of faked innocence on them. I wondered what was up. They then proceeded to say, “As the leaders of the village, we have noticed a rapidly expanding population.” This is where all my problems began. They started talking about the BRILLIANT idea called ‘Lets expand into already inhabited places!’ I said, “But the forest and the badlands are already inhabited, and we dump all our toxic waste in the desert.” “Oh, really?” Mira said, looking at me with a devious glint in her eyes. “Well, who cares? We could just overpower them. Bringing me to my next point,” she said, turning to the class, “Zios and I have made some things for you.” She pulled out a quiver of sticks with gems on the ends. “Magic Staffs!” Mira exclaimed. “One for each of you. You can do all sorts of things with them, such as protection, attack, and condensation.” Mira and Zios handed out the staffs, twisted sticks with gems on the end, and soon I got mine. Mira did a sort of funny glance at me when I got mine, and she set it down carefully. I fingered it. It looked interesting. “Let’s show you how to use them now!” The class oohed. I looked around, and was immediately drawn to the Greatness Group’s staffs. They somehow seemed bigger, and the crystals larger. “Hmm,” I thought. “Have to keep an eye on them.” We went over to the flat, plant-less and clean part of the desert to take a spin at the wands. “Alright, class,” Mira said. I also thought Mira was acting odd, since she was usually SO against fighting and harm of any kind. “Today we will run over the basic commands of the staff: Bubble, Beam, Boom, and Bay.” Bubble made a protective bubble around yourself that was unbreakable, and could move with the staff or yourself. Beam sent a powerful beam of light that could stun any living thing, and break through anything but a Bubble. Boom was an explosion, could be directed anywhere, and Bay was a force field. Mira gave us a ‘list of commands’ (That turned out to be made-up nonsense) to use all the different things, and nobody could do anything (For the aforementioned reason). She just told us that it “Takes a while to master, don’t worry.” She then dismissed us from school early, I didn’t know why, neither did anyone else, and then said the Greatness Group would be staying after. I got suspicious, so instead of going off to my family burrow, I doubled back and hid in an abandoned burrow with a nice view of the clearing. “Alright, I think everyone is gone. I hope that fox isn’t here still.” Zios said, looking around as I hid in the burrow. “Oh, that fox would rather skip out early than stay late, we can start, dear,” Mira replied. “Alright, then,” Zios said. “I have a plan for you six. You know how I mentioned expanding? Well, actually, I would rather just stay here. We have enough land. But some animals will have to go.” The Greatness Group watched, clearly interested. “You know how I said there are 4 basic commands? There are actually 5. The fifth,” he said, making his voiced soft, “Is the ability to make heartstones.” “What are those?” the monkey asked. “They take all the animals of a certain species and put them in a single rock. They can never break free without outside help.” “Wooaahhh,” the Group breathed. “What the plan is, next class, we will tell everyone in the class to shut their eyes and not open them until I say so. Meanwhile, you will tap everyone on the head, say the incantation required, and all of that species will disappear and turn into a rock that will land where they once were.” The Group looked excited. I was horrified. “The reason we can’t just do it to any random animal is that it only works on the eldest child of the leader. We can’t get it to work any other way.” I was slightly relieved at this, as I could happily just run away now. Still, I was nervous, and, alright, scared. They could DO that!?!?!? That didn’t seem quite fair, but I guess life isn’t fair. “Now,” Mira said, “I will run over the basic commands.” She taught us (Well, ok, the Group) how to: Make a bubble over yourself, Make a bubble over anyone you would please (The fact that you can do that for a big group with one spell suited me fine), Send a beam of light, Make explosion, Control size of explosion, Force-Field, and Bend Force-Field. “You may go, now,” Mira said in a sly tone. “Tomorrow the fun begins.” My first thought was “Protect myself.” The second was “Protect the Foxes.” The third was “I should have done everyone else…”, although I thought that one weeks after. I waited until the Group left the area, then bolted out of the burrow towards the Phantoms. Perfect place to practice magic, as nobody ever visited there. First I tried a bubble around myself. I did it perfectly (As doing it with the right commands worked quite well). The bubble was nearly invisible, and I would not have noticed if I hadn’t known it was there. I then tried a bubble around all foxes, and that turned out to work, although I didn’t know it then as I was the only one around. I did all the others as well, and they all worked. Mastering it was easy. I slept in that abandoned burrow I hid in and waited until tomorrow. I walked to school the day after. I went in and went to my place in the room, waiting. Mira and Zios didn’t even notice the bubble around me. Everyone arrived, and, just as I knew, Mira said, “Class, a few students have a surprise for you! Close your eyes until I say you can open them!” Everyone closed their eyes. A few whispered excitedly. I knew my bubble would protect me, but I was still nervous, as I hadn’t done the proper amount of tests I wanted to in order to make sure the bubble was REALLY impenetrable. I opened my eyes a bit to see what was going on. The panda walked over to the Toucan, tapped him on the head with her staff, whispered “Stoneholden,” and the Toucan noiselessly exploded into a burst of light (That nobody but me could see) and turned into a rock with a toucan carved onto it. They went around and proceeded to do that to the whole class. The koala got to me, and tried to tap me on the head in vain. “What?” he said, confused. I sat up, opened my eyes, looked directly at him, and said, “Never underestimate a fox. You know that training session you held yesterday? I attended, unnoticed, and you never saw me. I know everything you know, plus everything I learned on my own. I am invincible.” The koala looked at my in fright. “W-w-w-what? I th-thought…” “I know EVERYTHING that goes on around here.” I got up, and by now everyone had been heartstoned but me. Everyone still up (Mira, Zios, and the Group) looked at me. Zios said, in a nervous voice, “I should have made it so that I can pop those bubbles.” “Well, you didn’t,” I said. “And now…” I held my wand, pointed straight at Zios, and said, “A beam of light, a beam of ray, a ray of beam, I command you to stay.” A burst of light shot out of my wand and into a frozen Zios. He instantly disappeared into a few grains of dust. Mira looked at me in anger and shouted, “UNDO THAT BUBBLE RIGHT NOW!” “Now why would I do that?” I said. “You’d just turn me and my family into a rock.” Mira suddenly flew up and out of the room, busting the roof. I tried to get her to come back, but she must have taken my advice, as I never saw her again. I was angry right now, but the type that is all bottled-up and your voice comes out as soft and dangerous. “I ought to just kill you all right now…” Instantly the Group made themselves bubbles. “Ay, good idea, I must say,” I said, “But I…” I never got to finish my sentence, because they all teamed up and shot Beams right at the same point in my bubble. And while it didn’t hurt at all, I was sent rocketing through the sky, and I burst through the hole Mira made and landed at least a few miles away. I can just imagine the looks on their faces as they watched the only one smart enough to stop them fly away. I landed deep in Phantom Territory. When I recovered from the shock of the crash, I found a bunch of phantoms surrounding me, looking at me. “I won’t harm you,” I said. “If I did, any allies I might have would be gone.” The biggest phantom, obviously the leader of the group, said, “Tell what happen.” I told them my story, and by the end they were nodding their heads in agreement. I told them I would help them in any way they wished in exchange for protection and non-hostility. They thought it was a good idea, and when I visited the King shortly after, he agreed. The phantoms were outraged that you would turn on your own allies and those you were supposedly ‘protecting.’ They vowed to destroy the Group and Mira, and ever since then I have helped them fight against the ones who took over everything they claimed to be for. The Greatness Group now call themselves the ‘Alphas’, and they have released a few heartstones by now, although they release them one at a time, and they have TONS left to go. The foxes were all protected, but they fled into the forest for years, but as generations passed, they decided to come back, and there was nothing the Alphas could do to stop them. Have you guessed who I am by now? I am Amelia, at your service.