Our story begins in a place many are familiar with; Los Angelos, In the far, far away year of…
2001!
It was a normal Saturday for Anne Boonchuy and Marcy Wu, along with their new friend Sasha Waybright. They'd watched their morning cartoons over sugary cereal, had lunch with their parents and were now playing at the nearest park until dinner time. This time, it would be at Thai Go, which was celebrating its five-year anniversary.
That was the anniversary of being in a building and not a stand, just to clarify any confusion.
With no bullies today, the girls had been enjoying the swings without abandon, Anne jumping off to give Sasha a turn, much to the blonde girl's delight.
"Look, Marcy! I'm like a superhero!" Sasha beamed, imgainging herself as Supergirl.
"Cool!" Marcy beamed. "Well, I'm a twin engigned amphious mark 6 aircraft!"
"…whuh?" Sasha slowly asked.
"Underwater super plane." Anne explained as she gave Sasha push. "And yeah, those are real."
"Cool!" Sasha beamed, now envisioning herself driving such a plane as she took after pirates.
Anne admired the scene; the swings had been fun but for starting to get boring. Plus, poor Sasha really didn't seem to have much fun at home, so Anne figured she could skip one day of swings. She lived close anyways.
The little Thai girl was distracted when she heard something: It sounded like…sniffling? No, not full sniffling, more like…trying not to cry when you were scared or hurt. And it was close. Spying that Marcy and Sasha were swingingly high and without much care, Anne snuck away to investigate the noise.
She didn't have to go far; right behind the bushes behind the swings, there was the source:
A boy her age, one she hadn't seen before. He had dark, red hair in a mullet and a cute button nose while wearing a white t-shirt with an owl on it and overalls. But what most stood out about him were his eyes: One was gold as Sasha's locks, the other blue as the sky.
The boy looked worried and anxious, but also like he was thinking really, really hard.
"Hey, are….are you okay?" Anne asked, trying not to startle the boy, who turned to see her. And like Anne, he found himself surprised by her; mostly her bushy hair and eyes, along with the flower on the shirt she wore. Sniffing away some tears, he then began to speak.
"I think I'm lost." He admitted, instantly making Anne worry. "My mom and I just moved here and well, she was talking to someone important and I got bored. I saw the park on the drive in and figured I could come here, play for a bit and then sneak back before she noticed…But when I tried to retrace my steps there were so many people and nothing looked familiar anymore and…and…!"
He didn't want to cry. He WOULDN'T cry! He was a Clawthorne, Titan Dammit! Clawthornes only cry when happy or when laughing at some schmuck!
A grumble then filled the air.
The boy sheepishly laughed, embarrassed. He hadn't eaten since breakfast, could you blame his tummy?
Anne offered the boy a hand.
"I have a little bit of a snack left over and I live pretty close; we can call your mom and have her pikc you up?"
The boy, still embarrassed, was happy to hear that offer.
"Olivier." He said. "Olivier Clawthorne."
Anne smiled.
"That's a cool name; kind of like Oliver from that one movie…and Clawthorne, are you a knight?"
Olivier let out a good, hartly laugh at that.
"Hardly! If anything, aside from maybe my mom, my family's closer to…"
"LEAVE MARCY ALONE!"
The sudden roar of Sasha's voice dropped the conversation, the two children racing to find Marcy on the ground with a bruise on her forehead and Sasha in the grasp of a bigger boy, kicking and punching to no avial.
"Listen you annoying brats; this my park!" One of the three boys smirked, motioning the one holding Sasha to let her go. He tossed her into Marcy, making Anne gasp…and Olivier frown with a growl… "So scram!"
"Oh yeah?" Anne said, marching to help her friends. "Where's your name? No name? Not yours."
The three boys' brows furrowed.
"You think your somebody?" The leader frowned. "Coming over from wherever you come from? You three need to be reminded that WE were here first, so…"
"Wait" Olivier called out, jumping in front of the three and then looking puzzled. "What's that in your nose?"
He then began to pull a long, long, long stretch of colored scarfs out of the boy's nose, a calm and almost bored smirk on his face.
That look was contrasted by Anne, Marcy and Sasha who were a mix of surprised, confused and amazed until he pulled the last one.
The bully looked at his nose in confusion and concern, sniffling to see if there was anything else. His friends laughed at the cross-eyed look on his face, which snapped him out of his concern and to grab the smaller boy.
"Oh, you think you're a real Chris Angel, do ya?!"
"Who? Also, your shoes are tied." Olivier said, pointing to the bully's shoes.
"I'm not falling for that again!"
"Yeah, you're right." Olivier sighed, seeming to accept his upcoming beating. "Its just your pants about to fall."
"Wait, what?" The bully looked down, to see his shoelaces were indeed tied together. Olivier then poked him in the eyes and he fell backwards while the boy landed perfectly on his feet, fists to the ready.
Anne and Marcy looked on at the boy in awe, Sasha saw a strong and smart fighter….IE, the perfect partner.
"Oh, you're dead!" The other two boys said as they raced to Olivier…only for one to crash to the floor when he was greeted by a punch in his…well…Let's just say Olivier sympathized with that bully for a wee millisecond and leave it at that, shall we?
'But hey. If it works? It works.'
"You didn't play fair with me and Marcy? We don't play fair with you." Sasha said with a grin as she entered a boxing stance, then remembered something and offered the boy a hand. "Oh, sorry. Sasha Waybright."
"Olivier Clawthorne." The boy said as he returned the handshake.
The last remaining bully angered at being ignored, raced at the two kids, who jumped out of his way and let him hit the swing railing. Screaming and cursing up a storm, he leapt at Olivier, who narrowed his eyes and spun one of his hands, bow behind his back, into a circle.
Once this motion was done, one of the trees seemingly bent downwards, striking the bully with its branches, knocking him out cold.
"…I take the linguini with clams!"
…After whatever that was about.
Sadly, the four children had no time to celebrate, as Olivier suddenly started to get dizzy and walk like Sasha sometimes found her mom walking after er 'parent soda.'
"Oh, man…Not here…!" Olivier grumbled, looking like he was going to throw up. Anne, the caring girl that she was, quickly moved to catch Olivier, Sasha going to his other side.
"Easy Ollie. Easy…" Anne said.
"Put him against the tree for now." Sasha suggested. "I think I still have some water in my water bottle."
As her friends tried to help the new boy, Marcy spied the little backpack Olivier had kept with him and despite feeling bad, raced to and opened it up, finding several aged books, what looked like a carving being started and…
"Potions?" The little girl asked in confusion. Then she realized this might be Olivier's medicine and raced back with his bag. "Here, I think this might be his medicine!"
Anne took the vial and uncorked it, reeling at the bad smell along with Sasha. Olivier however, snatched and downed the vial's contents, gagging and gasping before he felt better.
"Sorry about going through your backpack…" Marcy whimpered.
"Why? You saved me." Olivier smiled. "…Marcy, right?"
Marcy beamed at that, and was surprised when Oliver bonked his head and turned to Anne.
"I'm sorry! You go helping me and I didn't get your name!"
"Oh, its cool!" Anne assured him. "My name is Anne. Anne Boonchuy. So…should we head to my house?"
"Yeah, probably a good call." Olivier noted. "With the knocked out big kids and all. I do NOT want to get in trouble."
And with that, the three boys and four girls grabbed their things and made their way to the Boonchuy house.
OWLPHIBIA
Meanwhile, in a motel not too far away….
"YOU LET HIM GO OUT ON HIS OWN?!"
Said entire motel shook with Eda Clawthorne's roar, which did not help keep King calm.
"H-he just went to the playground down the road!" King managed,
Seeing how enraged Eda was, King looked to Hooty to say anything. The former House demon, in a seemingly rare instance of intelligence and self preservation, said and did nothing.
"YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE WATCHING HIM!"
"I was!" King whined. "But you were on that snoke-horn-scroll thing for so long and TV got boring, especially after he pointed out how cruel they are to those…'Poke-mon' things? I dunno, I zoned out and took a nap, sue me!"
The former Owl lady then forced herself to calm down and made her way to the door, desperate to find her baby boy….right after a quick check in with that sleezy moron behind the desk.
Now, don't get Eda wrong; it was nice to see that even humans could appreciate how gorgeous she was, but jeez could some of these guys be sleezy! And apparently, WITCHES were supposed to be the creepy ones!
Anyways, she walked into the main room and rang the bell.
"hello, gorge…" He started flirtatiously, only for Eda to BREAK his bell and then point downwards.
"Did my kid come down here?"
"….Maybe?"
"Maybe? What do you mean 'maybe!?'" Eda said, grabbing the man and snarling at him. "WHY DIDN'T YOU STOP HIM?!"
"Look, babe, this is a motel. Not a daycare." The guy managed…
"HE'S BARELY FIVE YEARS OLD!" Eda roared, shaking the motel again and scaring the moron into his chair…and possibly turning him off women forever as she snarled at him. "Did you at least ASK your HEAR where he was going?"
"…T-t-the park down the street?" The manager managed.
Eda was already zipping outside.
"OLLIE?! OLLIE?!" She called out, not caring how she looked as she darted down the street, looking for a familiar flop of red hair and those perfect contrasting eyes of his. "OLIVIER CLAWTHORNE?! YOU ANSWER ME RIGHT NOW! BABY, WHERE ARE YOU!?"
It was too busy for her to use a tracking spell and she'd left Owlbert back in her room (he was exhausted from the flight from Gravesfield…But NOTHING was going to keep her from her son!