The original Astral Warden of the Academy was not a native of Prodigy Island like the others seen in the modern Prodigy games. Instead, he was of the real world under a similar name. Despite his assumed death in 1727, he did not die--he was given the option to visit other realities throughout his eternal life. His strengths in lightweaving and Astral magic were, however, not as magnificent as the mathematics he taught to the disciples that were students and graduates of the school.
With the discovery of other elements, other familiar mathematicians, inventors, and physicists from the real world had been summoned out of oblivion to assume their posts as the original Wardens of other respective elements. Together, they founded the Academy in hopes of teaching real wizards and helping them grow up into successful people. However, their plans were cut short with internal group conflict over whether or not their students had the awareness to understand even the most basic concepts of science, energetic mana, and elemental magic.
Prologue[]
Without the influence of a greedy Puppet Master or an overbearing group of oligarch Wardens when the Great War of Prodigy came to a close, a democracy not unlike the United States of America was founded. While eras of enlightenment had flourished under the administrations of presidents Samantha Currentine and Aria Stormchaser, the new nation was in a crippling state of debt not long after the two had stepped down. The government owed trillions in gold and copper to other nations for supplying Prodigy with food, modern weaponry, and wizard military. Jobs flowed out of the county to the nearby islands, and criminals had taken over, creating anarchy on the Western Island National Park (previously the Treacherous Taiga). New presidents could not keep power unless they asked for help from nearby island monarchs like Empress Stormchaser, who barely tried to provide them any further benefits.
A line of communist rulers, then fascist autocrats, came to restore an authoritarian iron fist over the main island. It had conquered the "criminals" (the people) of the Western Island NP and thrown Empress Stormchaser out of her power. The control within the autocrats had ceased when anarchy re-emerged, while barely any wizards were left to survive except for those smart enough to defend themselves. The rest of the real world, blind to the island chain's existence, could not help. The wizards who had evacuated had to leave their pets and belongings behind and would not be allowed to even hold asylum in any nation. The rest of the world, anyway, was in ruin. It was 2060 CE, then.
The anarchy was maintained solely through the strong will to dominate the island chain with a certain righteous species and elemental wolves had fought each other to usurp their reign. Since none of them possessed unusual elemental magic or caused elemental imbalance, the situation could not be solved by the Ancient. They hid away again and withdrew from society, protecting only themselves from those they let trample over them. By that time, the original Wardens had already forfeited their covenant with the Ancient and had all died for the last time...except for one.
In the 17th century, Europe was in ruin by a pestilence. It plagued wizard- and humankind like nothing before. Devout religious people pleaded for their god(s) to intervene, while one man took a more practical approach. He hid away from the Cambridge University he studied and taught in, and worked with some outside communication to define the laws of the universe, whether it be physics, mathematics, biology, or chemistry. He basically rewritten and reimagined the Universe with help from dozens of previous luminaries and his contemporaries. Some say he had a bit of enchantment to help him. He was the first person to master Astral magic within the world, the very first professor of magic when he left the world his papers explaining it after his "death." These papers did not survive and were unfortunately dragged with him into Prodigy, leaving his original world with a substitute body and a lack of understanding on lightweaving.
The lightweaver was Newton.
Bad Morning[]
It had just turned spring and winter showed no signs of stopping. The wrath of the cold made a bedridden Newton especially cold, lying prone on whatever bedding he had in that shabby Kensington edifice. He cursed at the Universe as a knocker-up bashed a pole against the shutters within his chamber, careless as to how it could scuff the well-refined wood. He had been lying awake for hours, thinking about trying to walk again: his waif-like build did nothing good for him. He was so active in his younger years! Oh how he visibly missed hunting for counterfeiters just a year before, living on his own without needing help.
A caretaker knocked, then entered. Newton would instinctively dismiss people with a harsh "go away" or "leave me alone" that turned from cute and agitated to harsh and scary to sharp and crow-like over time; however, he was now silent, unable to make his own decisions. "Good morning, sir. I brought you clothes," the youthful guy chimed loudly, which was unpleasant for the quiet-loving codger.
"And I brought you food!" an even younger caretaker piped up, following the first one in. This one looked to have just turned twelve, which was slightly late for a kid to begin working in hospitality even though he was only hired a month ago. Newton hated this youngster more than the other one, but made sure to show an ample amount of irritability to both.
"Morning. Leave the clothes and tray on my desk," he pointed an index finger to a wooden table closer to the end of the room than to him and the door, just to spite them. They reluctantly did as he said, even though it wasn't in their job description to let him clothe and feed himself on his own. Due to their fear and reverence of the man, they did so promptly and left as soon as they came in, forgetting to close the door behind them.
Before they had a chance to leave out of his line of sight, he snapped. "Hey! Can you shut the door?" One of them came back around, clasped the spherical metal knob, and gave him a smug little smirk, then closed it softly to avoid getting in trouble with anyone else. Newton was finally alone, still in the dark, just how he liked it. For an ancient person, it was unusual for him to have sensitivity to everything. At least I still have my vision, he frequently thought in an attempt to praise a nonexistent god for sparing him blindness.
He meditated for a few minutes in his fluffy covers, trying to pull the sheets off gradually, one at a time, to acclimate to the chilly room. Since he only then realized that he was alone, he began to rub his hands together, summoning a small fire in between them when they separated. He diverted all of the energy to his right hand, which extinguished the small kindling happening over his left one. He was careful to hold it away from anything flammable because he remembered what he did during September 1666, and he was grateful that he was able to quietly extinguish it with water magic while everyone else hid away. The glory days.
As he tried to use his hands to shove up the glass of the window nearest him, which was only an arm's length from the other side of the twin bed that he slept on, he felt the need to extinguish the fire because he no longer had strength to raise the dynamic window with one limb. He struggled with it for a few seconds, but eventually succeeded and pushed open the shutters with a single tap, avoiding any excess movement that would make him fall off the edge of the bed from a sitting position. He was already in a linen shirt, pants, and socks because of his tendency to be cold, so he was not at risk of being exposed to the people on the streets of Kensington that could possibly bother to look a story upwards.
Newton dared himself to stand up, attempting tricking his mind into being more confident that he can even walk if he tried. However, he resorted to a modest army crawl after getting on all-fours, moving slowly to the clothes on his desk. He didn't plan his revenge against the children well--he himself would have to make the trek, even if it thrice as difficult; he silently cursed his aging brain for not thinking things through all the way to the single chair before the desk. It was stable and had a back, perfect for a person that could die from one more fall. He climbed up to the seat, resting in a frog position as he took out a pair of stockings and leg warmers he requested to have a new change of at least once a day, and changed into them as well as the rest of the outfit. He turned to eye his breakfast, which was nothing more than milk, a scone, and a plate of cress. It was oddly enough for him because he didn't care for the bitterness...he was glad that at least his sense taste was fading away.
As he munched on the mere rabbit food on the hardwood floor, he thought of what he could do next after regaining some strength for the day. Tell his Mint wardens he was going to pick up the next coin-clipping case? Write another letter defaming Robert Hooke to the Royal Society? Find some part of a bible to make awkward religious fanfiction? No, because there was a sharp bang on the nearby window. He turned. Before him was a jackdaw, resting on his exterior sill; it held a battered and perforated scrap of paper in its ice pick of a beak.
Newton sighed, setting the plate down and using telekinesis to open the window, hoping that nobody was looking. The corvid hopped in gracefully, landed on the bed, then came over and dropped the paper before him like a fawning dog. It immediately left, dropping a black down feather on his sheets. I'll get that later, he thought. On the paper was a single phrase: "You are needed in another world." Oh foxfrot.
An Old Friend[]
"What does this mean! What does this mean?" His day was going upside down. It may be his last. He felt queasy and returned to his bed, shaking like a newborn Charfoal trying to make its first steps. He looked once again outside, peering out from the bottom, childishly wanting nobody to see him in his sickly state. Below him was an unusual figure with the same bird on their shoulder. It looked up at him with its white irises drilling into him as though the animal was for some reason scrutinizing him.
In an infamiliar accent its owner cooed, "Don't look at the poor man. He's going to go soon." It crowed back in protest. "I know, I know. It's all part of life. Why don't we visit him?"
"Oi! What's with you and the bird there? Tame that thing!" Newton projected, then coughed several times due to how much energy it took him. The figure met his gaze having caught the geezer's attention. The streets died down in activity, which made it easy for the two to listen.
"Hello, Mister Newton. I come as a messenger."
Skeptical of the stranger's request, Newton responded. "From which person? And what is your name?"
The man came closer to the base of the building from where Newton stood, taking off their beanie hat to reveal their bald head. She was familiar to him; he blushed. She took no words to identify herself. "My my, you're back! You want to go on another adventure, my love?" His heart soared.
"Absolutely!" She and the jackdaw teleported into his room.
"So, what does this entail? It sounds like you have something 'extra' for me," he actually smiled, and even the mild upturn of his lips was enough to excite the rogue bird owner. "This is going to be a long one, right?"
"No, I could only plan something small in the time I had," she pouted, then made eye contact. "Kidding, kidding! This one is my biggest adventure yet."
Although he wasn't much for physical contact, he held her outstretched, gloved hand, knowing that this would probably mean he could be together with her for a longer time. They always traveled to different universes together, booking them up all for themselves like most wizards would with extravagant honeymoons to Harmony Island. Each vacation for them, however, was one carefully planned and well discussed.
"I'm bringing you to the original Prodigy world...all the way back to the beginning of history. Not all the way back. Remember what I told you about the game?"
He thought back to the last time they spoke with each other, that one wonderful night. She explained that it was her favorite childhood game, played on a computer. The player is a protagonist wizard not unlike Harry Potter, saving a school from total shutdown by a power-hungry lich whose favorite color was elderberry. "That sounds interesting. How did you make it?"
She cackled in response. "I bought the world! We can change its history by uploading ourselves as characters. We can instigate chaos, or we can make the world look up at us like the grateful little dummies the other characters are."
"More glorious conquest?" The light in Newton's eyes flared bright for a second. "Sure...as long as it will be comfortable for most of the time."
The jackdaw's owner winced. "I knew you were going to say that. Well...I can make it comfortable for most of the time, but not always. I can also allow you return back here at any time, in the age that you are now. I haven't quite worked out the settings where you can be resurrected here if you die in Prodigy, though. There is a lethal risk."
He coughed in shock. "Can you change that?" He went blank after she was silent for a time. "Love, are you sure you're ready to show me this? Not that I do not like how much effort you put into these beautiful escapades. I just...I want to live. I want to live for you."
Her face turned as scarlet as the flag of the Soviet Union. It wasn't the first time Newton got her straight in the feels, and it would undoubtedly not be her last. "I'll be right back with the fixes. Just you wait!" The universe strider opened a vertical, human-sized, rectangular portal in his room; it was pure teal, producing small cyan shocks along the edges so as to maintain the openness of the wormhole. She and the jackdaw flew through, engulfing themselves in light blue as their bodies melted through the intertemporal door. And then Newton was alone again.
Return to Adventure[]
Just seconds later, one of the caretakers came up to the door, knocked, and entered without Newton's permission. "Ello, Newt. Who were you talking to?"
Newton grumbled. "Do not call me that!"
"I'm sorry," the youngster smirked. "I didn't realize you dislike being referred to as an amphibian...that you are!"
"Get out. Now."
The boy snickered; he enjoyed the power he had. "You are funny, you know that? You can't do anything to me. An 84-year-old virgin flat on the floor, talking to himself like a person in the bedlam. What a--"
Newton, pained, managed to get himself upright. He didn't dare use his telekinetic powers to force-shove the bully away, instead just using his hands to shut it in the young man's face, locking it. He promptly slumped to the floor, exhausted already; his body could no longer handle fistfights and physical sparring. I hope I get to be spry in Prodigy.
He wallowed on the ground for a bit, finishing his water and lusting over the long trip he was preparing for. However, languishing on a hardwood floor would do nothing but give him bed sores. He finished the remaining water before crawling back up to the bed and, leaving one leg out because he could not lift it, fluffing up the sheets around him to get more comfortable. He wasn’t going to let his desires to move stop him from mentally preparing for potentially unsafe travel in something 21st century folks call a “game.”
He closed his eyes, then opened them, feeling more dry than ever before. He needed to relax and stop paying attention to his body slowly shutting down. After all, each time he went with his friend, he became invigorated enough to last a few hours standing up. It will be fun, he promised himself. His eyelids began to flutter, so he fell into a stupor; this late into the morning, it should be difficult, but it was not hard for him.
A few minutes later, he grew restless and woke up from a dreamless state. A familiar voice startled him even further awake. “Wakey wakey, I came back...and I came back with the fixes you’ve requested!” This is exactly what he needed to hear…besides the vile, excited cawing in the background.
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