Harvey (Team Crafted)

Of Science and Sorcery

Harvey loved the sound of snow crunching beneath his feet. The sound mystified him; the light and airy flakes covering the ground squished together under his little snow boot and stayed that way, compact, when he moved his foot away. He giggled as he saw his small footprint made - the mark which would stay there until it either melted, or until more snow fell. Knowing how cold the winters in New York could get, the latter seemed much more likely.
     Harvey took some more excited steps around, making more footsteps in the wide plains of Central Park, till he began hopping about, stomping and playing in the crunchy snow. He was so caught up in his playful jumping that he didn't notice thesis in the grass nearby, because the snow on that level was just as high as everywhere else. He tried to stomp on the spot, but instead of making a footprint, he fell in up to his shoulders. His arms held out, he made a little noise of surprise, tensing up from the sudden cold all around.
     Then there was a soft, warm laugh, feminine and kind. The noise eased Harvey's panic, and a moment later, he felt hands under his arms that lifted him up from the snow. He was set back on solid ground, and somebody brushed all the snow off his jacket. "There, there, you're alright... You have to be more careful, little one, or you'll get yourself in some real trouble." Harvey looked up at the woman as she spoke. She was much bigger than him, a grown-up as it were, and she was crouched down so she was closer to his height.
     For the moment, the glare of the sun behind the woman obscured her features so Harvey couldn't see. But he could see her kind, familiar smile, and long, soft hair. "Now go on, go play." She told the child. "But stay close, okay?"
     "Okay, momma!" Harvey smiled before he ran past her to play in the snow some more.

The tall evergreen had been there for years, growing taller and taller. It had seen many winters, had seen all the trees around it lose their leaves each year and come back budding in the spring, and each year snow would come. It liked snow. It was like a blanket, covering it in white for winter, giving something pretty for it to look at during the lonely season.
      In the winter, not many travelers came along the forest road. During the other three seasons, it was a totally different story; traders and travelers and bandits would come up and down the dirt trail as long as the sun was out, but when it was cold, travel was rare. That's why it was surprising to see two travelers venturing down the road the tree's way, side by side.
     "So how does science work here?" Harvey asked, after a prolonged silence, during which he had been staring at his feet, mystified by the crunching of the snow beneath his boots. He had always love that sound; ever since his first snowfall as a child.
     True blinked. "I'm not sure what you mean." He replied.
     "Like - where I'm from, we don't have redstone or anything, so how does your science work?" Harvey asked. "I'm just asking because I'm curious and Deadlox mentioned you're the scientist of the team."
     True hummed thoughtfully as he pondered over an answer. "Well... What is your science like?"
     "We have astronomy, and biology, and physics, and anatomy, and all that." Harvey explained.
     "We have those." True said. "We have those, but they could be different from what it's like in your home, considering the dimensions... This is such a big topic, it's hardly meant for road trip banter..." He thought a moment, before going on. "The science I deal with is usually in engineering and astronomy."
     Harvey smiled. "That makes sense. The True of the world I came from - Jason or, well, Jay - he's really into space and robots."
     True nodded, and the look of thoughtfulness was back again. Harvey had notice that True was in a constant state of looking like he was in deep thought; which he probably was. "So you're from Earth."
     "Yes." Harvey confirmed. "And you're from here."
     "Minecraftia." True smiled. He put his hands in his pockets as he walked along. "...Do you know about my work with the portals?"
     Harvey blinked. "What work?"
     "Well, see, this is one reason why I was so willing to go along with Deadlox when he brought you to my house in those woods, remember? When you first got here?"
     Harvey groaned softly. "Of course I remember, I fell into that stream and almost died for the thirtieth time."
    True snorted slightly. "And it won't be the last." He said, before he continued with his point. "Well, at the time, I was doing research on realms and the portals between them. When you showed up talking about how you were from a different world, I was encouraged to learn more about you to help my studies. I hope you don't mind, I have been doing that - I've been monitoring things about you since you've arrived. Height, weight, eating and speech patterns, spatial particles, etcetera. Do you mind?"
     "Uh... No, not really..."
     "Good. So anyways, I discovered something based on the studies I took off of you. You're from Earth... Once, about a month or so before you showed up, I managed to open a portal between here and that realm. It collapsed because it was unstable, and if anybody had tried to go through they would have surely died so don't get your hopes up, but I managed to pull something out before it closed. I didn't know where it came from until I did my research on you. It has the same spacial particles around it as you." True had begun to sort through his satchel. "I brought it with me because I think it might be a weapon." Then he pulled something silvery and metal out of his bag.
     Harvey blinked in surprise and stopped walking as he saw it. "What the..."
     The device, weapon perhaps, looked like a normal police pistol. However, it had blue, glowing lights around it, dim, but present. Also, if you leaned close enough, you could hear a dull humming coming from it. "This looks like a gun, but... It's not..."
     "A gun?" True asks in confusion.
     "It's a weapon from Earth that people in my home country, region I guess, use to defend themselves or not, but... they look different from this... less advanced..." Harvey hesitated, before he shook his head. "I don't wanna disappoint you, I'm sorry, but this thing can't be from Earth. It's too... alien."
     True sighed. "Maybe you're right... I guess I was too eager to make the connection. Oh well. I think I'll keep it here anyway, keep doing tests. Maybe I can figure out where I did get it from." He hesitated, before he looked at Harvey. "You said you knew my Earth counterpart?"
     Harvey blinked. "Yeah, I knew him." He said. "I knew everybody in this team pretty well, we got along great. Well... we did..." Harvey sighed.
     True stared at him. "...So what happened?"
     Harvey was quiet, before he began walking again. "Your counterpart is named Jay, like I said. He's into science and all that, but he also likes music and he has these weird biker friends he goes drinking with - he's really a very strange person. Sometimes I wonder if he's not all there. Deadlox is there too, we were really close, but he goes by Ty and he has brown eyes and he has a girlfriend.
     True blinked in surprise. "Your Deadlox is straight?"
     Harvey looked at True. "Yours isn't?"
     The two stared at each other for a moment, before they both laughed. "Who else is there?" True asked after they had calmed down. "What about Sky?"
     "Sky?" Harvey smiled. "He's called Adam on Earth, and he's a great guy. He had a girlfriend when I left. He's really easy to talk to, and he and Jay are really close. I think Jay actually moved to Seattle near him - that's a city in my realm. He gets scared easier than Sky, and everyone knows it because he usually screams really loud when he plays horror games. To be honest, it's funny. Oh, and Jerome and Husky - they don't look all animalistic where I'm from. They both look human. Jerome has a weird sense of humor, but honestly, I love it. He always makes me just break I laugh so hard. I'm pretty sure he has a hobby for writing, I hope he still does that. Husky is a big guy, his real name is Quentin, but he's a sweetheart really. He likes blowing stuff up - so does Ty, so they kinda get along pretty well."
     True smiled. "That's just like our Husky and Deadlox. They're our demolitions team. They love blowing shit up."
     Harvey smiled. "Well, what else... Oh, Sundee is cool. Sometimes, he's a little scary. His real name is Ian, and he's in the military. He's a marine, which means he's a badass. None of the other guys can actually fight that I know of, except for him. He goes to a shooting range to practice all the time. It's a little scary." Harvey snorted slightly. "One time, I remember, he brought Jay with him and the poor kid had a panic attack or something, so they had to leave early. Poor Jay."
     "Poor kid..." True said. "Did you use your magic to calm him down? Seto did that for us sometimes, especially when we were younger."
     Harvey blinked, before he smiled. "Well, no, I didn't have any magic before I came here. Besides, I..." Harvey's smile fade a little. "...wasn't... really there..."
     True blinked. "You weren't there?"
     Harvey shook his head. "Well, at that point, the whole team - they all lived in the same house together, except for me. They didn't know what I looked like, and I was scared for them to find out, so I just... I didn't..." Harvey sighed.
    True seemed to sense the smaller male's change in mood. "Hey, it's okay..." He hesitated, before he quickly changed the subject. "You forgot one."
     Harvey blinked, looking up, melancholy successfully cleared from behind his eyes, at least mostly. "I did?"
     "Yeah, don't you have a Bajan in your team?"
     The melancholy flooded back in an instant and all Harvey could do was groan in anguish as he covered his face with his hands. True's eyes widened in alarm. "Whoa, you okay? Did I say something wrong?"
     By some instinct, True glanced ahead. Perhaps it was because of a glint of light, maybe it was to make sure they weren't going to run into something or someone, or maybe it was for some completely different reason; but at any rate, he saw what was ahead and he stopped. Harvey had his face covered, so he didn't stop walking until True softly said his name.
    "Harv..."
     Harvey stopped and looked up, then blinked in confusion and looked back at True. Suddenly, True looked pale and scared as he stared at something on the ground not far away, and the look on his face made Harvey scared already. He followed his gaze, turning back to face forwards, and then he saw it too. On the ground, sitting in the snow not far away from them, were a pair of headphones; green, well used, but now more than that - beat up, like they had fallen to the ground. The headphones were hardly the scary part, however. The thing that scared both of the travelers was the dark red blood staining the snow nearby the headphones.
     "T... Ty..." Harvey breathed.
     At that moment, True ran forward, past Harvey. He picked up the headphones as he reached them, his hands shaking a little. "They're not glowing anymore...!" He looked at Harvey, who was still frozen. "H-He never takes these off, something has to have gone wrong!"
     Harvey swallowed, though his throat was dry. His hand wrapped subconsciously around the handle of his wand in its leather case on his belt - the case Houlden had made him. "Wh... Wh-Where's Sky...?"
    True stared at him, then looked at the blood stain on the snow. His mind seemed to be working again at a rapid pace. "There's no body either, neither of them - but these footprints - look Harvey - there was a struggle!"
     Harvey drew closer almost fearfully in step.
     "See?" True said, truthfully.
     Harvey nodded slowly. "I-I see..." The footprints in the snow were all close together, scrambled, scattered. There had definitely been some kind of fight. He followed a few of them across the path, and realized they had headed into the woods. Alongside the single pair of footprints was something that had been dragged... A body...? Harvey hoped to god it wasn't. There wasn't any blood staining the snow, so that was a good sign. "There's - There's footprints heading that way." Harvey pointed.
     True nodded. "We should follow." He said, and then he slowly slid the green headphones into his satchel with care, like he was afraid the slightest bump would break them.
     Harvey smiled at the scientist sympathetically. "It's okay... I'm such they're okay..." He said, though he couldn't be sure himself.
     True was looking down. He looked understandably much more solemn than before, and scared. He wasn't the courageous, laugh in the face of danger type like Sky or Deadlox. He was more like Harvey that way. He was a scientist, not any kind of fighter. "Th-They're my best friends, Harv..." He said, his voice barely louder than a shaky whisper.
     Harvey stared at him a moment, before he nodded. "I know..." He said softly, and then he didn't know what else to say to comfort him. He couldn't say they would be alright, because he didn't know. So Harvey stayed quiet, gave him a small sympathetic smile, and then turned off the trail to head after the tracks in the snow. True was quick to follow after him, though he was shaky.
     The evergreen tree watched the pair go in curiosity, wondering why they had gone off the path just like those other travelers earlier.
     Harvey and True traveled in silence for awhile, Harvey watching the footprints ahead with a racing heart in fear. Without really making the conscious decision to do so, his wand was now in his hand, ready to protect himself. They had already been walking for several hours that day, so darkness wasn't far off. They set up camp for the night in a clearing as the sun was setting, and ate an apple each as dinner, mostly because both were too scared to eat anything bigger.
     "We should set up a watch." Harvey said as he skimmed his sorcery book by the light of the campfire. "Now that we know something dangerous is going on."
     True nodded. "I-I'll go first. I'll stay up the first half of the night, then I'll wake you and you stay up the rest."
     Harvey nodded. "Sounds good." They were quiet for a few moments until Harvey brought up the matter they had both been avoiding. "...True... Who do you think...?"
     "I don't know." True replied, staring into the fire. "I don't know... Maybe bandits, but... They never had any trouble fighting bandits before..."
     Harvey instantly thought of a certain bandit he was well acquainted with and hoped to god he wasn't involved. He didn't say this out loud, of course. "Maybe they attacked from behind...?"
     True shook his head. "Sky's sense of hearing is too good." He said. "He can almost hear as well as Jerome."
     Harvey sighed (For some inexplicable reason, the idea of Sky having very good hearing seemed strange to him... strange). "I'm sure they'll be okay..." There was another silence, until, when he found himself on a certain page in his book, Harvey suddenly spoke again with a very different demeanor than before. "Aha!"
     At the unexpected outburst, True jumped and looked up. "What?"
     "The enchantments - both of them. I found them."
     True watched in mild bewilderment as Harvey pulled his wand and the wand's holder off of his belt and laid them out on the ground in front of them. "Enchantments?"
     "To keep my wand safe!" Harvey smiled, looking at True. "Ready to see me blow myself up when I attempt this?"
     True couldn't help but smile a little. "S-Sure..." He didn't say anything, but right at that moment, Harvey was reminding him a lot of Seto.
     Harvey looked at the book as he held both his hands over the wand sheath Houlden had made for him. "Ready?" He asked True.
     "Have you ever done this before?" True asked, his tone now more amused than scared like it had been before.
     "Nope." Harvey said. He looked at True. "Just think of it like a magic trick!" Then he directed his attention back to his book. "Here we go..." He said to himself, brows furrowing in concentration. He took a slow deep breath, True watching curiously, before he began to read the words of the enchantment on the page. "Hoc quaero heros cæli benedixerunt virgam tantum possum ut auferam ex ea vaginam."
     As the foreign words came to a halt, his hands glowed a dim gold. True shut his eyes as the light faded, the memories of his friend long ago too strong for him to watch.
      Harvey breathed a huff and watched as the sheath and wand shimmered a gold color together for a moment, till the shimmering disappeared and they looked as ordinary as ever. "There... I think it worked."
     True looked up. "Are you done then?"
     "Not quite, I have one more..." Harvey squinted at the page. "It's weird though, I need some of my own blood for this enchantment..."
     "That sounds sketchy." True said.
     Harvey only shrugged. "Eh, it'll be fine. How do I do it, is the question..." He hesitated, and then he sighed. "Well... It's for my protection, I mean..."
     True watched him curiously. "...Harv?"
     Harvey was quiet, before he shook his head. "I'll just prick my finger. Do you have a pin or anything?"
     "Ah..." True rifled through his bag. "No, no pin, but there's this." He pulled out a small knife, like the size of a miniature pocket knife on earth, and held it out to Harvey.
     Harvey thanked him as he took it, before it held it up to the ring finger of his right hand. "This is gonna suck." He pricked himself quickly and winced while True look on uncertainly. Harvey then held his finger just above his wand so that a couple drops of blood fell onto it, and as he did, he uttered a different enchantment. "Hoc quaero heros cæli benedixerunt virgam tantum, ut cum sanguine qui nolentes sanguinem fuderint: mihi non tangatur."
     His hands glowed again, and the wand alone shimmered this time, and then all the golden light vanished along with the blood. Harvey shook out his hand and sucked on his finger. "I hope that was worth it."
     "What did you do?"
     Harvey dried his finger on the side of his pants. "The first enchantment made it so that it's impossible for anyone to break my wand as long as it's in my sheath. I hope." Harvey said. "The second one means that nobody can take my wand out of my sheath but me."
     "That one we can test!" True seemed excited about conducting even the small experiment.
     Harvey smiled and nodded. He slid his wand back into his sheath and then bald it out to True. True reached out, gripped the handle without hesitation, and instantly gasped in pain and yanked his hand back, shaking it out as a small hissing noise filled the air.
     Harvey's eyes widened in alarm. "True?!"
     "I-It's fine, it's fine!" True laughed. "I guess it worked!"
     Harvey touched the handle of his wand, and it didn't burn him like it had True. He smiled. "Yeah, I guess it did... I did it!"
     True leaned over just enough to ruffle his hair in a brotherly way. "Good job, Harv." Harvey smiled proudly, if shyly, and looked at his feet. True moved his hand away and sat up straight with a deep breath. "Alright, now you should get some sleep. I'm on first watch remember?"
     Harvey smiled and nodded. "Okay..." He laid down on his side, facing the fire for warmth. He was still in his coat since there was snow all over.
     True smiled back at him. "Sweet dreams, kid."
     "Night..." Harvey replied, before he fell quiet.
     True stared at him for a moment, before he looked away. He breathed in a sigh of cold night air, and then he looked up at the clear sky full of stars. He wondered, after a moment, if the stars were different on Earth, or in other realms. He wondered what other galaxies there could be, and he wondered what Harvey's home was like out in the vastness of space time. Nothing fascinated him more than the realms.
     As the scientist gazed up at the big black sky full of stars millions of miles away, he didn't notice much around him. Specifically, he didn't happen to notice the pair of bright red eyes staring at him from the bushes nearby.

Author's Note:
I know Sundee isn't a Marine and he isn't even in the reserves anymore, but just let me live I love Marines and it's Veteran's Day--