Scratch

Wow! This is literally like, three times as good as I can write! 

Could you post the first part of the story? Maybe put a chapter a post and link to them from the OP?

Here is chapter 1:



William, in his combat armour, ducked behind a crate as a laser shot past his head. The crate was actually an armoured computer, with information stored on it. There was a small screen on the front. He opened up a flap on the armour on his wrist, and he held it next to the screen on the crate. After a few seconds, the information was downloaded onto the mini computer in the armour.

Suddenly, a small, round object landed on the ground in front of him. It was an EMP grenade! William dived backwards over the crate, landing on his back on the smooth, crystalline, pentagonal tiled floor. He shuffled backwards a few meters, to make sure he was out of range of the grenade.

Out in the open, William quickly looked around him. He couldn’t see anyone, but he could hear someone running towards him. He looked in the direction of the noise, pointing his wrist-mounted LPE gun in front of him. The noise was coming from a platform above his head.

Suddenly, the person jumped down from the platform and landed next to William. They both swivelled round and pointed their LPE guns at each other. William was going to shoot, but then he realised who it was. It was Jacob, who was on the same team as William; the blue team.

“Oh, it’s you,” William said, and breathed a sigh of relief.
“We have to run,” Jacob replied, out of breath. “There’s a whole gang of the green team coming this way.”

They both jumped down to a lower set of corridors, with William still looking behind them, checking if anyone was following them. Jacob continued running forward, but William stopped and rested his back against the wall of the corridor.

“He’s over here!” he heard Alex, someone from the green team, shout, talking about Jacob.

Alex ran towards the corridors and jumped down into them, not realising that William was waiting at the base of the wall, ready to fire. As Alex landed, William shot him.

“You have been shot by William Page,” said a computerized voice from inside his helmet. “You are out of the game.”

The floor directly beneath his feet rapidly lowered to an enormous room below the battle ground. Alex stepped off the panels which made up the floor, which then rose back up again.

Henry, another member of the green team, was about to follow Alex and jump down into the corridors, but then he saw Alex descending into the floor. Realising that he must have been shot by someone, he skidded to a halt just before the edge. He peered over the edge, and saw William waiting there.

Unfortunately for Henry, William had noticed that he’d stopped. He was already looking up by the time Henry peered over the edge, with his LPE gun ready. Before Henry could dodge, William shot, hitting Henry’s armoured helmet. The armour was covered in sensors, ready to detect when the player was hit by a laser or EMP blast or anything else that would send them out of the game.

Once again, the floor lowered, taking Henry down to the room below. Several others on the green team saw this happen. One of them, Ryan, grabbed one of the EMP grenades attached to his arm and tossed it down to William. All the devices were thought controlled, so the grenade could go off as soon as he wanted it to.

William saw the grenade fall through the air right in front of him. Before it landed, he quickly swung his arm up, knocking the grenade high up into the air. During the brief moment when the grenade was activated, after William had hit it up into the air, it flew up past two other members of the green team who were standing on a platform.

The EMP grenades didn’t really send out an electro magnetic pulse, nor were the lasers actually dangerous. The grenades sent out their own unique signal, which the sensors on the suits detected, just as they did with the lasers.

The sensors on the suits of the two members of the green detected the signal coming from the EMP grenade, and shut down their suits. The two players collapsed, before each being lifted into the air by a mechanical arm coming from the ceiling. Part of the ceiling opened up, the players were lifted through, and it closed again.

Ryan signalled to his team mates behind him to get back, but one of them decided to attack anyway. The student’s name was Adam. He was a spiky haired, arrogant person, usually very reluctant to follow orders. He’d only recently moved into the academy. Ignoring Ryan’s signal, he sprinted towards the edge of the floor and jumped into the set of corridors.

As he jumped, he spun around, ready to shoot William. But by this time, William had already gone. He landed on the ground, confused. Suddenly, William peered round from behind the wall of a corridor and shot Adam in the back. Again, a small section of the floor opened and Adam was lowered into the room below.

While William was already pointing his LPE gun in the direction of some other players from the green team, he thought he might as well take a shot at them. He just managed to shoot one of them, Collin, before Ryan shot back. He missed by a few inches, as William darted back into the corridor.

Ryan, along with two others, jumped up and grabbed onto the edge of the platform above them. They quickly pulled themselves up, ran to the edge of it and jumped onto another one a few feet away. The platforms were suspended in the air by hover plates on the underneath. As the platforms weren’t fixed in place by anything other then the hover plates, they had a tendency to wobble about in the air.

Ryan and the two others jumped from one platform to another, looking down on the set of corridors, scouring the place for William. By this time, William had found another of the computer crates. He once again opened the flap on the armour on his wrist, and transferred the information from the crate onto his mini computer.

After only a few seconds, Ryan spotted William in the corridors below. He took aim, and fired. But somehow, William just carried on with what he was doing. Ryan realised that he must be out of range, so he jumped down to the floor below the platform and then jumped down to the corridors.

Moving as silently as he could, Ryan reached a corner and peered round the wall. He could see William crouching next to one of the crates, with his back facing Ryan. He probably wasn’t going to get a better chance than this, so he pointed his arm at William and fired! The shot hit William in the back, and he heard the devastating words from inside his helmet.

“You have been shot by Ryan Hadley. You are out of the game.”

As the floor beneath him lowered, he turned round to see Ryan, waving at him teasingly. Suddenly, Ryan was shot in the back by Jacob! He could hear Jacob chuckling to himself as he watched Ryan being lowered into the room below. Jacob then ran over to the crate near where William was standing, and downloaded the rest of the information.

In the room below, William was talking to some of the other players.

“I have to say,” commented someone from the green team, “that was an amazing move you did earlier, hitting that grenade back up at us.”
“I’m glad you liked it,” William laughed, as he walked over to one of the exits.
“How on earth do you have such amazing reactions?” the one standing next to him said.

William shrugged, and took his helmet off.

“A whole lot of practice, I suppose.”
“You know,” began Ryan, who had just jogged over to them, “I don’t think Adam likes you. In fact, I’d say he despises you.”
“Why’s that?” asked William, concerned.
“I think it’s probably because he’s jealous of you. He once told me that he thinks you’re an annoying, arrogant, rich kid.”
“I’m rich? Well that’s news to me.”

All four of them laughed at this, as they walked through the exit and into the changing room. There were TV screens on the walls, showing what was happening in the training room, with all the students sitting on the benches, eagerly watching to see who would win.

“What are you laughing at, you overrated loser?” demanded Adam, aggressively.

William couldn’t help but laugh even more at that.

“You,” Ryan replied, unclipping his armour.

The armour the students wore for training was made up of five separate sections: the head, the arms, the torso and the legs, all held together by clips on the suit. When they were unclipped, the separate sections folded away, similar to how a cardboard box folds. Ryan placed his index finger on the fingerprint scanner next to his locker, opening it, and stuffed his armour inside. He then sat down on one of the benches, and joined the rest of the students in watching the training mission.

Jacob, having not been shot or otherwise sent out of the game yet, was hiding round a corner, in the set of corridors. He could hear someone running down the corridor, so he held his arm out, pointing at the corner. The person who Jacob could hear, Sam, a member of the green team, skidded round the corner and straight into Jacob’s arm. Before Sam could do anything, Jacob shot.

He then stepped back as the floor beneath Sam’s feat lowered. Someone else from the blue team, Tom, came running round the corner a moment later, almost falling into the hole in the floor.

“Don’t worry,” Jacob said to him. “I got him.”
“Good,” replied Tom, out of breath. “Where’s William?”
“Ryan shot him.”
“What?!” Tom gasped.
“Keep your voice down,” Jacob whispered, looking around nervously.

Suddenly, two players from the green team jumped down into the corridor, one either side of Tom and Jacob. Jacob jumped at one of them, tackling him to the ground, while Tom dropped to the floor as the other one tried to shoot him. As he dropped to the floor, Tom shot the person in the leg.

When one of the players is shot in a non-lethal place, like a leg or arm, the motors in the armour on that limb jams, preventing the player from moving that limb.

So Tom shot the player from the green team in the leg, preventing him from moving that leg. Tom jumped to his feet, and was about to shoot the person in the chest, before they hoped up on their still functioning leg and kicked Tom in the stomach.

Meanwhile, Jacob had the other player pinned down to the floor, grabbing hold of both of his arms. Struggling to overpower Jacob, the other person slowly managed to push his arm up towards him, but Jacob was still holding the person’s arm horizontally, preventing him from shooting at Jacob.

After being kicked by the player from the green team, Tom stumbled backwards and fell over. He fell onto Jacob, knocking him off the other person from the green team. A second later, the person who’d kicked Tom pointed his arm at him and Jacob, and shot them both.

As it happened, Tom and Jacob and the two players from the green team were the only players left in the training mission. This meant that since Tom and Jacob were shot, the green team won. As Tom and Jacob were lowered down into the room below, there was an automated voice coming from speakers in the ceiling.

“The green team has won. Players: Peter and Adric left remaining.”

Both Peter and Adric breathed a sigh of relief, and were then lowered down to the exit, along with Tom and Jacob.

“That was a really good move,” Tom called over to Peter.
“Thanks,” Peter replied, taking off his helmet.

As they entered the changing room, several of the students, including William, walked over to them and congratulated Peter and Adric for their victory.

“That was a fantastic kick you did at the end,” William said to Peter.
“Yeah,” Tom laughed. “I really wasn’t expecting that.”
“I could have done that easily,” Adam smirked.
“I’d like to see you try,” replied Peter.

Of course, Peter didn’t actually mean that as a real challenge, but Adam accepted it anyway. Even though they were only a few meters away from each other, in a relatively small room, Adam sprinted towards Peter and jumped at him, with his leg out stretched. Peter managed to block his foot, but he was still slammed against the lockers behind him.

Adam then swung his fist at Peter’s head, but Peter again blocked the attack and shoved Adam in the chest, knocking him back. After regaining balance, he lunged at Peter with his fist, but he grabbed it a few inches away from hitting his face. Before Adam could do anything else, Peter punched the underneath of his arm.

William rushed over to the two of them and yanked Adam away by his collar, throwing him on the floor.

“Stop it, you two!” he yelled.
“He started it!” Adam shouted back, furiously.
“No I didn’t,” stated Peter. “You said that you could have done what I did easily, so I just said that I’d like to see you try. I wasn’t even being serious!”
“I’m still better than you!”
“Says the one on the floor,” remarked Jacob, unable to help himself.

The room erupted with laughter, and then Adam picked himself up off the floor and walked out the door, angrily.

Andres-Vander wrote:

I don't think I was the only one who wanted all of these topics to stop coming, please don't single me out

lol, I was just jesting (well, not really). 

Cool 

In this chapter (chapter 5), the main characters finally go into space!    Right now, I'm writing the part when they are boarding the space ship.

WAHOOO!!!!!!!!!!!! I've finished chapter 5!!!!    Here it is:



The next day, a selection of teachers were in the conference room, watching the security tape of the attack, and it was very clear that it was William who had attacked the robot. Despite being as angry about it as he was, the Headmaster couldn’t help but be very impressed. But when it got to the part where William took out his laser, he became a little infuriated. After seeing what is did to the robot he was horrified that a student had brought something that powerful and dangerous to the school.

“See that?” the Headmaster said, turning to the other teachers. “That boy should be expelled!”
“For saving someone’s life?” Mr Bradley replied, with a slight hint of sarcasm.
“No,” the Headmaster sternly answered, glaring at Mr Bradley. “For bringing a weapon to school.”
“But he did save someone’s life,” Mr Bradley argued. “That’s got to count for something.”
“True, but this school is looking for more than just bravery.”
“And what William did was more than just brave. He risked his life to save someone. That’s an incredibly selfless, noble thing to do.”

The Headmaster still wasn’t convinced. All the other teachers were staying quiet, not wanting to anger him. Suddenly, Mrs Finley received a phone call. She looked to the Headmaster for conformation that she could answer it, to which the Headmaster nodded.

“This is Mrs Finley speaking, how may I help you?” she greeted in her usual manner, after answering the call. “Oh, that’s… a shame,” she said with a slight smile on her face, after being given some news about something so far unknown to the other teachers in the room. “I’ll see if I can sort it out. Goodbye.”
“What was that all about?” the Headmaster asked.
“I’m afraid one of the graduates in Section 1 has had second thoughts about joining the Space Defence Operations. Apparently it because of the attack yesterday; it scared him too much. So now there is an open spot that needs to be filled.”

Mr Bradley turned to the Headmaster.

“Listen, William, is one of my top students. I have no idea why he didn’t graduate. Someone must have messed with the results. But whatever happened, that kid deserves to graduate and join the Space Defence Operations.”

After a few moments of silence, the Headmaster finally admitted defeat.

“Fine,” he snarled. “But confiscate that weapon of his!”


Meanwhile, William had invited several of his friends round for the day, as a much smaller scale graduation party than Peter’s one. He’d invited Jacob of course, as he was his best friend, as well as Peter and Ryan. Just for the fun of it, he’d even invited Adam, knowing full well that he wouldn’t come.

Peter was the first to arrive. He, as had pretty much all the students in Section 1, had been very concerned about William after the attack. Peter had of course been one of the students on the stage, but he hadn’t actually seen William jump onto the stage, as he had been taken down in one of the escape pods before then. Mrs Finley had told the students about it afterwards, though.

“William, how are you?!” Peter said in a very concerned manner, as he walked through the door. “I heard you took on a massive killer robot and won!” he continued, half joking.
“Err… yeah, I suppose I did,” William replied, grinning. “And I’m fine, thanks. Just a few bruises.”
“That’s good; I was worried.”
“So how are you?” William asked, changing the subject.
“I’m fine thanks. So how did you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Defeat the robot. I mean, how could you possibly have done that?”
“Oh, I haven’t told you about my laser, have I?”
“You have a laser?!”
“Yep,” answered William, grinning again. “I built it myself.”
“And what makes it so special? How was it able to defeat that robot?”
“Let me show you,” replied William, heading towards his room.

Peter followed him into his room, and was amazed at how tidy it was, considering all the things William made in there. William took the laser off the wall where he had hung it, and showed it to Peter.

“Now explain,” Peter said, looking at the laser.
“Well, you see this button?” William replied, showing Peter the button on the hilt. “This fires an ion gun, which ionises the air from the gun to whatever you’re shooting at. So the longer you leave that going before you fire, the more powerful the actual shot will be, as the ionised air makes it much easier for the plasma to shoot through… which is actually rather clever,” he added, noticing how blank Peter looked.
“Interesting.”

A second later, there was a knock at the door. William walked out of his room, after placing the laser on a table, and went over to the door. Looking at the screen on the door, he saw that it was Jacob, this time without his robot dog.

“Hello,” William greeted, after opening the door.
“William, how are you?!” he asked, in an even more concerned manner than Peter.
“You mean because of the attack on the school?”
“Yeah, I heard that a robot attacked the graduation ceremony, and you fought it off.”
“Err… kind of, yeah,” William replied, as they both walked into his room.
“Hello Peter,” said Jacob, seeing him sitting on a chair, examining William’s laser.
“Jacob! How are you doing, mate?”
“I’m fine, thanks. You?”
“I’m good, thanks.”

Then Jacob turned to William, with plenty of questions he was dying to ask him.

“So how did you beat it?” he inquired.
“My laser I built, remember?”
“Oh yeah, that. But how on earth was that powerful enough to beat a massive robot?”
“I told you how it works, remember? With the ion gun and everything?”
“Yeah, you did, didn’t you? And that was powerful enough, was it?”
“Evidently,” William shrugged.
“Could you show us?” Peter asked.
“You mean you want me to fire the laser?”
“Yeah!” Jacob answered, grinning. “Show us, please! Fire it at a wall or something.

After a while, William reluctantly agreed.

“Fine, fine,” he mumbled, picking up the laser.

Just as they were all about to head outside, through the other door in William’s room, they heard a knock on the front door. William sighed, and then turned around.

“Mum!” he yelled at the top of his voice. “Could you get that please?!”
“Hang on a minute,” she called back from upstairs.
“We’ll be outside,” William informed her, walking out the door.

All three of them walked out the door and into the fairly large garden, with William’s mum left to attend to the person at the door. As she approached the door, she recognised William’s friend, Ryan, on the screen on the door. She opened it, with a warm, friendly smile.

“Hello… Ryan, isn’t it?”
“Yes, that’s right,” he replied, smiling back. “How are you, Mrs Page?”
“I’m fine, thank you. How are you?”
“I’m fine too, thanks.”
“The others are outside in the garden,” she said, gesturing in the direction of William’s room.
“Thanks,” Ryan replied, before walking into William’s room.

Outside, William had positioned one of the several tables on its side at one end of the garden, while he, Jacob and Peter were standing at the opposite end. William had his laser ready, and was about to fire, when they heard someone behind them. It was Ryan, coming out of the door from William’s room.

“Oh, hello Ryan,” began William. “I was wondering when you were going to show up.”
“Sorry, I had a late lunch,” Ryan shrugged. “Don’t shoot me,” he added, jokingly, noticing the laser in William’s hand.
“I was just about to demonstrate my laser… that I build myself, by the way.”
“Oh yes, that reminds me!” exclaimed Ryan, almost kicking himself for forgetting. “How are you? I mean, after the attack on the school by that robot thing. We were later told that after we all went down in the escape pods, with Emily trapped up there with the robot, might I add, that you jumped down onto the stage and fought it off. How on earth did you do it?”

Not wanting to explain again for a 3rd time, William decided to just show him.

“Just watch,” he said, pointing his laser at the table.

Without pressing the button on the hilt, William simply pulled back on the trigger, firing a small bolt of plasma into the table. The table was only lightly damaged. William then held down the button on the hilt, and kept it held down for about ten seconds before firing. A small bolt of plasma once again blasted into the table, but this time, the table exploded into shards of half melted metal.

Jacob, Ryan and Peter almost leapt back in shock. In fact, William himself was almost as surprised as they were. It was Peter who finally broke the stunned silence.

“That is one powerful laser you have there.”
“Yes it is,” Ryan quietly said to himself. “So what was different that time?” he asked William.

Again, William explained to him about the ion gun, and how that helps the plasma keep its power.

“And also,” he continued, “it charges up the actual blast for longer, meaning that that itself is more powerful.”
“That is very cool,” Peter remarked.

Ryan and Jacob agreed, as did the admittedly biased William.


A month later, all the graduates, and now William included, were walking towards the queue to get into the space ship. It wasn’t like the original space ships of old; this one was more like a plane. It fact, it pretty much was a plane, except it was able to go into space. It looked quite similar to an old fighter jet, but it was vastly bigger. It was able to seat about 350 people; a very comfortable amount for the number of students that graduated per section of the school.

William, in amongst the several hundred other students, had made his way towards the back of the queue. Much to his pleasant surprise, he found that the student waiting in line in front of him was Emily. He tapped her on the shoulder. She turned around, and after seeing who it was, was also pleasantly surprised.

“Hello William,” she said, smiling warmly.
“Hi,” he replied, smiling back. “How are you?”

They hadn’t seen each other since the incident with the robot, neither had any of the other students; apart from outside of school, of course, as the graduates were allowed time off school for a month before they went into space.

“I’m feeling ok, thanks,” Emily answered. “I suppose you’re the one who we should all be worried about, though. That was amazingly brave of you to do what you did. So how are you?”
“I’m fine now. I wasn’t too badly hurt in the first place, actually.”
“Good,” she quietly said, almost to herself.


They were standing on a runway just outside the school, with the space ship a few hundred feet away from them, at the end of the queue. It was a surprisingly orderly queue, considering how many graduates were there. The space ship had steps leading from the ground up to the entrance, which was where the queue started from.

After a while of waiting for all the graduates to join the queue, and for the crew on the ship to get everything prepared, the graduates began boarding it. William, next to Emily, walked up the fairly shallow, black steps and entered the ship. The immediate impression that William got was that it wasn’t particularly spacious. He had only been into space once before, a few years ago on holiday. He had been in First Class, which was considerably more impressive than this.

William followed the flow of teenagers, before spotting his chair. He just about managed to shuffle out of the crowd and landed in his seat. It was surprisingly comfy. There were two other seats in the row, so William moved into the middle one, giving him plenty of room to himself. He looked over at the bevy of teenagers, hoping that none of them would come and sit down in that row. Unfortunately, though, someone did. And of all the people it could have been, it was Adam.

After seeing William sitting there, a strong look of disgust and surprise formed on his face. He knew that William hadn’t graduated. He was there when he opened the results. He had made sure of it. How could William possibly be on this space ship right now? He was perplexed, to say the least.

William moved over to the inner chair, nearest the window, so that Adam could sit on the end of the row, with a chair in between them. Adam could hardly stand the thought of sitting next to him for 5 minutes, let alone the entire journey to a space station the other side of the moon. William, however, was rather amused of Adam’s dislike of him.

“You didn’t come to my party,” he remarked, in an annoyingly innocent tone.

Adam, who was at this point facing away from William, slowly turned to face him, glaring.

“Why did you even invite me? Do you have some stupid idea that we’re friends?”

William just shrugged, with a cheeky smile on his face, and turned round to face the window. He stared out across the field, where he could see the school in the not so far off distance. He zoned out of the chaotic noise of teenagers shuffling down the corridor, conversing amongst themselves. He was so zoned out, that he hadn’t even heard the announcement that they were about to take off. It was the sensation of being pushed back into his seat, and the sight of everything outside the window moving, that alerted him to the fact that they were taking off.

He watched as the ground seemed to rush past, getting further and further away as the ship ascended. It was flying much steeper than a normal plane would, which William quite enjoyed, as it reminded him of a rollercoaster. Before long, he could make out the curvature of the Earth. It was stunning.

Bump

Must... finish... next... chapter... before... Friday!

Oh dear; that's tomorrow!