Nextgen Kids: The Nature Wars

Nextgen Intro: Prelude to Adventure

This group of one-shots will introduce my favorite Nextgen Kid, along with two of her friends.

Prelude to Adventure

A peaceful noon on Azultown's eastern beach. The waves brushed along the shore, but the beach was completely barren, except for one woman. Marine Frantic, the 25-year-old Mobian raccoon, sat on the beach with her right hand leaned against the ground behind her, and her left leg stretched out. She clutched a bottle of rum in her left hand as she drank. Marine was dressed sloppily; in a small, light-green T-shirt that greatly showed her belly, and short black shorts. Her arms went over her shirt, but it was kept up by her cleavage. She had no shoes on her bare feet, and her expression looked drunk.

Her sky-blue eyes focused intently on the sea. A particular spot has been emitting slight bubbles. She's focused on that spot for several minutes. Waiting...

"GAAASP!" Finally, someone emerged from that spot and swam to shore. She was Sheila Frantic, Marine's young 5-year-old daughter, in a green T-shirt, black shorts, and bare feet. She was a tan-skinned Australian human, but had brown raccoon ears and a tail. She hurried up to her mother and dropped a few small shells, two gold coins, and a necklace, still dripping wet.

Marine had another drink and grinned widely. "Well, it looks like ya made it, Sheila!"

"Pleah!" she angrily spat some water out. "Wot was all THAT for, Mum?! I swam all the way down there just for junk! Oi almost drowned!"

"He he he! Well, wasn't it a thrill, Sheila! Divin' ta dark depths, not knowin' what lies?"

"Hmmm... well, maybe a little bit. But Oi wanted ta find a whole CAVERN o' treasuhs!! But I only found a few itty-bits!"

"Heh heh heh." Marine wrapped an arm around her daughter. "Sheila... the whole point to adventurin' is exploring brand new places, learning new things, and using those new things to explore OTHER places! I mean, Ay taught you how ta swim so ya could see what lies under the waves of our own beach! And now that you're a great swimmer, aren'tcha glad ya saw what was under there?"

"But I didn't FIND anything!!" she stomped in anger. "Wot's the point of goin' to all this rubbish if ya don't find anything?!"

"Sheila... have I ever told you about the King of the Pirates?"

"King o' the... Pirates?"

"Yeh... ya see, Sheila, the best people in this entire world are pirates. Pirates sail the briny sea, free from all the troubles o' the world, lookin' fer only adventures. They chase only dreams, and the wind shows them the way. But there was one pirate... who was greater than all the others. 'e was the King. And he sailed this WHOLE world. Legends say that before 'e passed on, he left a GREAT treasure, the most amazin' treasure anyone's evuh seen. 'e told the world, if they wanted 'is treasure, they could have it. But they'd have ta find it. And so... hundreds o' pirates, all over the world, set sail to find it. ...That was a Great Pirate Era."

"But did anyone evuh find it, Mum??"

"Hehe, o' course not, Sheila! Ta this day, no one even knows if the treasure was real. He mighta just been trickin' a bunch of blokes inta goin' out and havin' great adventures. All we know for sure is... it worked."

Marine turned her daughter around to face the endless sea. "Sheila... the sea is endless. The UNIVERSE is endless. There's no limit to how many adventuhs you could have. That's what all them pirates thought. Maybe there was a treasure, maybe there wasn't. But because o' that bloke... so many people got to experience that freedom. Oi want you to have that kind o' freedom, too. There's so much in the world ya wanna look at. So many great things..."