The Five Clans
an excerpt

Chapter 1: The Man in the Park
It was an unusually calm night in the city of Greenstone. It was the type of calm that would make people antsy or nervous, but tonight no one was antsy. They were all sleeping peacefully in their beds because of how late it was. There was not a single person outside. No one was walking the streets of downtown, no cars on the streets, nobody, except for an old man in the park. He was sitting on a bench directly under a lonely lamp post on the edge of a path. His face was hidden behind his newspaper, only to be seen when he lowered his paper to turn the page. All was quiet until he turned the page. That turn, the rustle it made, was the only sound to be heard throughout the entire city. Then once his page was turned, the paper went straight back up, hiding his face again. He sat there reading for a long time, oblivious of the time. A noise could then be heard, even though the man didn’t notice. It wasn’t a very big noise, in fact it was miniscule. It sounded as if a small wind blowing through the bushes. There was no wind, not even the slightest breeze, but despite the fact, a bush not too far from the man was moving. It wasn’t moving much, hardly at all, but it was moving. Soon after, that bush was joined by another bush diagonally across the path. Every once and a while one of the bushes would take turns slightly shaking and then it would stop, followed by the other bush shaking. These two bushes were the only ones moving. None of the other bushes in the park did anything, just these. The bush by the old man then made a new noise, a pop. It popped two, three, even four times, but that’s all that happened. On the fifth pop, a blue spark shot out of the bush. That spark headed straight toward the other bush which stopped shaking. The spark entered the bush, but then nothing happened. No fires sprang up, no other noises were made, nothing. A few more sparks then jolted out, all shooting towards that same bush. The old man turned another page and as he did, the sparks stopped. He put his paper back up and continued reading. This time, the other bush shot out sparks. But these sparks were different; they weren’t blue, but yellow. These yellow sparks went right to the bush by the man that had shot out the blue ones. Both bushes shot out sparks towards each other at different times, without the old man even noticing. Then they both shot a spark at the exact same time. These two sparks collided midway in the air, forming a bigger, brighter, red spark. As the red spark started to dissipate, black figures jumped out, one from each bush, and jolted towards each other. They both stopped when they were about eight feet apart. The two figures just stood there doing nothing, fixed to their spots for a few seconds. One of the figures raised its hand to the other and held its hand at eye level for a moment, and snapped. Instead of a usual snapping noise, out came a pop, followed by a blue spark. The figure ran back into the bush as the spark flew towards the other figure splitting into many other sparks. Each little spark wrapped itself around the figure in many directions. Then all at once, all of the sparks turned into a thick, dark smoke engulfing the figure. A yellow spark shot straight up, out of the smoke into the air. Winds started to pick up rapidly, blowing the smoke away. Clouds started rolling in and in the distance, thunder could be heard. As the smoke cleared, it revealed that the figure had vanished while in the smoke. The other figure jumped out of the bush, clapped its hands together, producing a fierce pop and a shower of blue sparks completely surrounding it. It too, then vanished. The winds continued to rage adding strength every minute, as they swept the old man’s newspaper straight out of his hands. It flew into the air twirling around and around until it was no longer in sight. Without even realizing his paper was gone, or that he even had it to begin with, the man stood up from the bench. He walked straight out of the park with vicious winds, rain, and thunder pounding at his back.