Jake in the Huntsclan

A/N: Damn. I hate school. Okay, no, I don’t, but it’s restricting my time on this story, which happens to be my first fanfic, so don’t judge me. Hopefully I can update once a month (at least), and finish by the end of December. In the meantime, review! It keeps me going to know that people care enough to comment. Don’t you think it sucks that AD:JL only has two seasons and 52 episodes? And I mean with those fifteen- minute double episodes counting as two.

A/N (2): Whoops. I just realized that I spelled ‘residence’ as ‘resistance’ for the past seven chapters and prologue. Meh. I’ll keep it that way. Deal with it. I forget what the Seven Natural Wonders of the World are (I can remember the wonders of the Ancient, Medieval, and Modern World), but I do know that Niagara Falls is one of them. The Grand Canyon is supposed to be the eighth wonder (even though Hell’s Canyon is deeper). Great Barrier Reef, I’m not so sure.

A/N (3): A while back, a guy named Thomas asked me to incorporate him in my story as Jake’s cousin. I told him that I wasn’t planning on having any OC’s in the story. Apparently, I lied. Because the new Huntsmaster, in a sense, is my OC. And there’s three other OC in the story as well. THEY’RE NOT MARY SUE’S OR GARY STU’S, I PROMISE! They’re news reporters, working for Hong Kong News, a television news broadcasting station. And, as an apology to Thomas, I’ll name one of the characters after him. Let’s just say that Thomas is an immigrant from Greenland, Billy Yan (whose name is a pun on the word ‘billion’) is a native Chinese who knows minimal English, and Li Yu is a native Chinese who happens to be fluent in many languages other than Cantonese. The part is at the end, which I added a while after publishing the original Chapter 8.

A/N (4): This chapter will contain kind of a recap, and is kinda another filler. The action (and somewhat philosophic angst) comes in the next chapter, then in the epilogue. I just realized that I wrote Jake OOC, but I’ll keep it as a sign of his maturity. And there’s too much dialogue. And 89 is somewhat OOC too… As well as the Huntsmaster (even though he is kinda my OC, remember the Huntsman died?).

Chapter 8- Australia

The Great Barrier Reef, Australia- 07:15 p.m.

Fred Nerk flew along the shorelines of Australia until he reached the Great Barrier Reef. Four people in maroon Huntsclan uniforms were already there waiting for them. One of them was holding the ice rune of the Ankh.

“Hey, Nerk,” called Jake as he climbed on a Huntsboard to fly up and greet him.

“What’s up, Long?”

Another person wearing a cloak- Nerk guessed it was a wizard- floated up next to them. “Hey, I’M the only one who calls him Long,” he said, gesturing to Jake.

“Nigel, meet Fred Nerk. Nerk, this is Nigel Thrall. He’s a British sorcerer,” Jake introduced the two of them, “He used to go to Fillmore with me when we were in eighth grade.”

Okay, so I was off a little bit about the wizard thing, thought Nerk.

Jake, however, wasn’t finished talking. He turned to Nigel, “Nerk is the Australian Dragon. That is, until the Dragon Council stripped him of that title. Now he just protects the island without other magical help.”

“Good to meet you, mate,” said Nerk.

“Likewise, Nerk,” Nigel stuck out his hand, which Nerk took. The three of them went back on solid ground.

“What, too lazy to use your wings, Long?”

The girl in the maroon Huntsclan uniform held a checklist as she checked off the last name on the list, “They’re all here, Jake!” she called.

Everyone was gathered in a circle. Jake didn’t bother with introductions as he started explaining the plan. Nerk knew some of the story already, but decided to hear it again.

“A while ago, I was taken by the Huntsclan because my fuzzy blurry birthmark had cleared. You guys know how the ‘mark of the Huntsclan’ is a dragon, right? Well, it cleared out into a dragon shape. So the Huntsclan took me when I was swimming and made me one of them. After I officially became one of the slayers, I found out that Rose was there, in the same facility. We found a plan by the Huntsmaster to eliminate all magical creatures.

“The Huntsmaster wants to gain access to all seven of the runes of the Ankh. 88 and 89, who recently joined our side, have comfirmed their plan, as did Rotwood.”

At this Nigel gasped, “Rotwood? Hans Rotwood? As our old mythobiology teacher?”

“Oh, right, I forgot to mention that Hans Rotwood is teaching at the Huntsclan Academy, on my recommendation,” Jake smirked, “He’s a real loon, but at least the Huntsclan won’t find out anything new from him.

“Um, what are the runes of the Ankh?” asked a girl that looked about twenty, “I was confined from a lot of things, being a nyx and all.”

“Uh, sorry, Jasmine,” Jake apologized. Nerk saw Rose’s eyes flash with jealousy for a few seconds as Jake continued, “There are seven runes of the Ankh. The Ankh is a powerful magical item used by the Egyptian gods, and it’s hidden in another dimension. There is only one Ankh left in all the dimensions, the others were all destroyed. The runes can gain access to anything less powerful than it, in any dimension, which is basically everything. They can also transport things, or people, to any place, any dimension.

“Anyway, we found out that the Huntclan is going the get the seven runes. This is one of them,” Jake held up the ice rune, “no doubt he’s going to get the other four- he already has the first three, this included- by next week.

“The Huntsmaster is going to use the seven runes to gain access to the Ankh. He’s going to use the Ankh to try to make the Huntsclan immortal. That’s impossible, though, since using the Ankh on mortals only makes them less vulnerable. But we still need to be careful of their near invulnerability.

“After he’s used the Ankh, he’ll use the runes to transport the Huntsclan to The Isle of Draco in a few days from now, when the thousand year toast is happening. Every dragon in the world is going to be there at the eclipse, and that’s when the Huntsmen strike. The temple in Draco Island is going to be in Hong Kong this year. They have to use the runes to transport themselves there; the regular teleporters will be blocked by the natural magical shield.

“If they win the battle, there will be no dragons left to protect the magical universe. Then, the Huntsclan can pluck the rest of the magical creatures off the face of the earth.”

“Is that supposed to be an insult?” demanded a person in the circle Nerk didn’t recognize.

“I meant that one magical creature against a large group of Huntsmen has no chance,” replied Jake.

“So what’s the plan?” Nerk asked.

“I was getting to that,” Jake was becoming irritated, “you guys, along with some other people that Fu knows, are going to crash the toast, right after the Huntsclan crashes it. We,” he gestured to Huntress, 88, and 89, “are going to be with the Huntsclan. All of us, together, are going to keep the battle going as long as possible, until the eclipse ends. When it does, the good guys fly, or walk, out, and the Huntsclangetstuck in the vortex! It’s take them through the fabric of space and time, and they’ll deteriorate in the middle of the trip, even with the Ankh’s near invulnerability. The Ankh and temple will survive the trip, and they’ll end up in the Isle of Draco again.

“We’ve informed everyone else who’s on our side about the plan. Clear?”

Everyone nodded. They all left the place except for the Nerk, Nigel, Jake, 88, 89, and Rose.

“Why are you guys still here?” Nerk asked them.

“Dunno,” answered 89. Suddenly, a beep was sounded from his belt. “Oh! It’s time for my date with 89?”

“Saywhatnow?” blurted 88.

“What?” said Jake.

“You two are gay?” Rose was just as surprised.’

“I don’t like the word gay,” Nigel commented with a dignified air, “Bi and homosexual are much more preferable.”

“Dude, since when are we- I mean- but” 88 was at a loss for words

89 burst out laughing, “We’re not! Hahahaha! Gotcha all!”

“Dude, it was so not funny!” 88 hit him on the arm.

“Was so doofus!”

“I know you are, but what am I?”

“88!” 89 said in reply as he rolled his eyes and jumped on his Huntsboard. 88 flew off, with 89 not far behind, chasing him.

“When you guys get tired, teleport or fly to the Huntslair!” Jake called after them.

“Should I be surprised?” Nigel asked.

“Nope,” Jake and Rose chanted in unison.

“They trade off banter all the time,” Rose added.

“Yo, are we just having a get-together or something?” asked Nerk.

“Maybe…”

“Well, if we are, then I’m sorry to interrupt it,” said Nigel seriously. “You realize that there’s more to the Huntsclan than the American division, right?”

Jake gasped, “You’re right! The Huntsclan is a world organization, and that means… that means that we’ll have fifty times as many slayers to fight as we foresaw from other countries.”

“Actually, more. There are more than fifty countries.”

“True, but the really small countries, in size, have mixed groups so they won’t have to travel as far in their countries,” replied Jake. “What? I looked it up in the Huntsclan Library.”

“So what are we going to do about it?” Nerk asked. The group puzzled over it before Jake said,

“We have to go with the flow, no matter what happens. It’s our own fault that we forgot to acknowledge it.” Under his breath, he added, “And we’re going to have to take some desperate measures.”

New York, Spudinski Resistance- 08:00 p.m.

Spud felt good. He finally felt free from Stacey. He had taken Trixie’s advice gone to dump Stacey, but she beat him to it. She broke up with him in her uncaring manner for Brad, the rich jock, without knowing that Spud had the same intentions. And, well, being without Stacey made him feel like a burden had been lifted off his shoulders. No more hiding out in trash cans, no more dancing in janitors’ closets. Contrary to other people, Arthur P. Spudinski did not care about having the last say in things. The only thing he regretted was not doing leaving her sooner.

But despite Spud’s freedom, he he couldn’t stop wondering, what was Brad going to do with Stacey? The two of them, though perfect for each other, were both airheads. They were both shallow and stuck up, it was just that they showed their arrogance differently. Spud grinned thinking of what they would do on their dates. Brad would probably try one of his pickup lines on her, and Stacey would giggle. Pickup lines only worked on Stacey when certain people said them. Spud felt certain that they would have a few good dates without much meaning, then suddenly, feelings would blossom. Even though they had huge heads full of air, they did have feelings. Spud was surprising happy for them.

Spud still had the feelings of satisfaction of being away from Stacey. Sooner or later, though, that feeling would be pushed aside. What was he going to do then? Before, all his free time was spent hiding out with Stacey. Now, he was bored. Earlier than when he even met Stacey, he spent all his time, free or not, with Jake and Trixie helping Jake with his ‘dragon business’. Even earlier than that, before he and Trixie found out Jake’s secret, he spent his time playing video games and at the skate park with Trixie, and occasionally Jake, who was always ‘working’ at Lao Shi’s shop.

Jake. He was still at the Huntslair. Who knows what he was doing in Huntsclan HQ. He knew about Jake’s plan to take down the Huntsclan, but he was still worried. He felt as if he was missing something…

Lair of the Huntsclan, Huntsmaster’s office- 10:30 p.m.

Huntress, 88, 89, and Hunter stood in Huntsmaster’s office. They had just presented him with the ice rune of the Ankh. Nevertheless, he was still unhappy.

“Why did it take you so long to get back here?” he roared.

Thinking quickly, Jake replied, “Well, it only took us thirty minutes to find and retrieve the rune, Master. But we decided to fly back rather than using the teleporters.” In truth, Jake and Rose had been talking with Nerk and Nigel for quite some time about current events when 88 and 89, back from their banter trade-off, joined them. A while later, they noticed the time and quickly transported back to the Huntslair.

“The Huntsclan teleportation log shows that teleporters number 980, 990, 1023, and 1024 were just used. Those four Huntstaffs are yours!

”Um, we decided to use the teleporters when we saw it was getting late?” It was half of the truth, decided 88.

“Time is important,” chastised the Master, “You must never do something as foolish again. Your punishment will be one hundred eighty lashes, I don’t care how you divide them.”

The four infiltrators were led into the torture chamber. They huddled, and quickly decided they would receive forty-five lashes each; it was only fair. When they came out, they were red in many places. The four of them went to their respective rooms to get some peace and quiet after the night.

Lair of the Huntsclan, Hunter’s chambers- 12:00 a.m.

The lashes hurt! It was bad that the Huntsclan believed in corporal punishment, he would have to be more careful. He was lucky he didn’t have to do patrol afterwards.

Jake was on the magical internet, the Ethernet. He found some wires and a motherboard in the Huntslair, and he built himself a computer, even though he already had one in his room. It worked off the Huntsclan frequencies so they couldn’t detect him when he was on the Ethernet.

In fact, he wasn’t just anywhere on the Ethernet, he was on the villains’ speciality site- the magical evildoers’ deepweb. The Dragon Council didn’t know about it, neither did the regular magical council. It was a deep secret. Jake was on by fluke, he misspelled the MRL (magical resource locater) and it took him to the villain deepweb blog. The security was surprisingly loose. No passwords, riddles, puzzles, anything.

Jake signed in under the surname, AmDragSux, with the password POIUYT. It was a trick Spud had learned, and taught him, when the human was online. If you signed in anywhere with that username and password, a glitch would happen and you would be allowed in. How Spud found out, Jake never knew.

Jake remembered his own words in Australia. We’re going to have to take some desperate measures, he had said. What he wanted to do was alert the entire magical community, but Jake didn’t want to involve magical civilians, so he settled for the magical delinquents and criminals. Jake was originally going to spread the word to Bananas B, the little traitor monkey via human e-mail. However, a villains only blog would spread the message faster. After all, there’s no better way to travel than by word of mouth, right?

Jake finished anonymously posting the current situation on the blog. It told them everything about the runes to the eclipse. Now he just had to wait and hope they would fall for it.

Lair of the Huntsclan, Huntress’ quarters- 01:00 a.m.

Rose contemplated the situation. Jake was the Tie between the magical and human worlds. Did that mean that the human world would find out about magical creatures at the end of all this? What would happen if they did? And, even though this didn’t have to do with anything, why do magical creatures know about humans, but most humans didn’t know about magical creatures?

The ex- huntsgirl flopped down in her bed and tore her mask off. She heard someone knock the door.

“Who is it?” she called.

“It’s Jake. Can I come in?”

“Sure.” The door opened up to reveal Jake in full uniform. Jake entered and sat down beside her. The two of them remained in their positions for a while before Rose muttered, “Awkward…”

“I’ll bet.”

“Rose, look. I came here… to ask you something.”

“Go ahead.” Rose bit her lip.

Jake peeled his mask off slowly. “I know we’ve only been on, what, two dream dates? So I just came to ask you, do you want to go out if we survive this? And not in another dream- in real life. I know this really cool Indian restaurant—”

Rose was expecting something along the lines of this. “I’d love to. We’ll work out the details when all this is over.” She sat up and hugged him.

“Good,” said Jake, returning the hug. “Hey, do you want to visit Rotwood in his office today and interrogate the hell out of him?”

“It would be cool to see his reaction when I remind him of being knocked over by one of his old students.”

“HEY!”

The Next Day

Hong Kong, Hong Kong News - 09:00 a.m.

“BRIINNG!” The phone rang in the small office of a reporter working for the Hong Kong News Station. Billy Yan picked it up.

“Ni hao,” Billy said hello in Mandarin.

“Yes, I would like to give an anonymous tip on the existence of magical creatures,” came a voice with a German accent.

“Sorry, me no speak Eng-lish. YU!” Billy called the interpreter.

Click. Li Yu activated another phone line, “Hello?’

“Yes, I would like to give an anonymous tip on the existence of magical creatures,” repeated the obviously German man.

“Continue,” said Yu after translating what he said to Billy Yan.

“There will be a battle between magical creatures and the Huntsclan.”

“Excuse me, but what is the Huntsclan?”

“The Huntsclan is a group of slayers that want to hunt down and kill all magical creatures,” said the man with a superior air. “They will be fighting at the highest peak of Hong Kong tomorrow night. You must see it.”

“Sir, we’ve had a number of conspiracies involving killers lately,” Yu made this part up as the man was most likely delusional. “As well as being the interpreter for this news station, I am also the conspiracy theorist. And your story, well, sounds a lot like a conspiracy.”

“I assure you, this is one hundred percent accurate,” insisted the man.

Yu translated what the man had said to Billy. They conversed for a while before finally deciding to take the tip. As incredible as Billy thought this was, they hadn’t had an extraordinary report in ages, and if they could get this story, if found true, onto the air, they could make big bucks.

“We will look into your theory.”

“Thank you.” With that, the person on the phone hung up.

Billy Yan and Yu Li discussed for several minutes how they were going to reach the peak of GaoShan, the the highest mountain in all of Hong Kong.

“Well, my family is visiting from Canton this week and they always wanted to go hiking. I could take them there, and take my equipment, too,” suggested Yu.

“But you’re not even supposed to go on air,” argued Billy.

“So I’ll take, I don’t know, Thomas with me. His family is also visiting from Greenland, we could go together.”

Billy finally relented, and they went to talk to their boss and Thomas. The boss and Thomas agreed due to the lack of views their station was receiving lately, and they now had a story on their hands.

A/N (5): Well, that’s that. Again, I don't know what the thing about Spud was. A filler within a half filler? Anyway, Spud’s my favourite character, not enough people spend tome in his brain. In fact, there aren’t that many stories that focus solely on Spud. I’ve seen, like, one. And I’m not going to say which one, for fear of advertising. This story is NOT a walking billboard, people!

A/N (6): In the show, they called the magical Internet the Magical Internet. I’m calling it the Ethernet. It’s what the DC Comics calls it, even though it is a totally different universe than this. The pop culture multiverse is weird, huh?

A/N (7): Oooh… foreshadowing… if you guys don’t know, or forget, where, I’m not going to tell, or remind you.

A/N (8): I'm just saying this for the sake of saying this- Gao Shan means 'Tall Mountain' in Mandarin Chinese. So, GaoShan is Hong Kong's tallest mountain. And yes, I know that Cantonese is mainly spoken in Hong Kong, but I'm not from there or Canton, I don't know Cantonese. Only barely enough Mandarin to get me by in China.

A/N (9): Yes, I understand that this is shorter than some of the other chapters. There’s only a little over 3000 words. Why? Because of the lack of reviews. Reviews tell me that people actually read my story and that they care enough to say they like or hate it. It’s like the fuel for me to keep me going. So now that you’ve read it, now hit the button!