Short story: Max's seventeenth birthday

Prolouge
Max saw it. The thing, whatever it was, was coming at him. Ten minutes until it's too late, Max thought. He could not imagine just how wrong he was. The thing rushed foward, engulfing him... And then he was floating away through eternal dark...

17 hours and 50 minutes earlier...
Max felt happy. Seventeen. Big day. That was the day most Tumbletops got their "Free magic license." That meant they could use their magic freely, without an adult. Of course, he wasn't a tumbletop, but still. Also, seventeen was the age of the Ember. Ember was like a second warping. It sparked only if you were worthy of it on your seventeenth birthday. After that, you would have to literally rid the world of all evil to get it. Max felt the Ember, too. It was like a ball of magic inside him. Ready to burst. He knew if you got the Ember on your seventeenth birthday, you would be able to control Void, the magical web of all living things. He had used void to an extent when he quanti-teleported. But even then he had to work hard to keep it from destroying him. 3 years had passed since he had hit the Sparking. Seventeen was also seven years before coming of age in Maquintiporia(since maquintiporians had an average lifespan of a couple hundred years) and seven years after the suppression. Plus, seven times seven is forty-nine, which is the Wizard number for life. He sat up from his bed, and looked around. I wish I had some cookies and a drink, he thought. Immeadiatly he knew something was wrong. A cup of water and cookies suddenly shimmered into view, as though a heat haze had erupted in the room, morphed into cup and cookies shape, the soldified. Wishing, he realized. Only an accomplished Maquintiporian could wish. I guess the Ember is granting me this power, he guessed. After he enjoyed his cookies, He wanted to try out this new ability. "I wish I was at Tilghman's Tavern!" Max said to thin air. Nothing happened. "Maybe It was a one time-" Max could not finish his sentence because of the sudden dissolving of the room around him, the feeling of being sucked through a tube, and the sudden appearence of Tilghman's Tavern around him. Some spartans and bison were drinking mua. To stop pandemonium from ensuing, he had to mesmerize the crowd. "You have no memory of of me appearing, nor will you notice me," he told them. Alost immeadiatly their eyes fuzzed and the buffalo and spartans returned to their drinks. Max started to leave...then a spear shot him in the back. The searing pain lasted a moment, before the healing kicked in. It closed the gash quickly. "Sorcerer!" yelled a spartan behind him."He used the accursed power of magic!" It took a moment for Max's brain to process the fact that buffalo, as well as spartans, hated magic. This fact quickly spread around the room, suddenly undoing the effects of the mesmer. The crowd herded around him, yelling "Witch!" and "Sorcery will bring the end of us all!" Max realized something: there was no way out. Just then something heavy fell into hs pocket. He took it out. It was a Sonix grenade. "What is that contraption, witch!?" yelled a spartan. "Something you could use if you had the brains," replied Max. Then he spoke the dreaded vocal detonation words: "Sonix Boom." Max quickly covered his ears in Maquintiporian energy just in time. The grenade detonated, blasting a solid wall of sound all around him. It shattered all the windows. Some of the wooden planks fell apart. Max was thrown backward, and hit a breaking brick wall. Everyone within a fifteen meter radius was either deaf, in severe pain, or unconcious. No flames, smoke, or poisonous gas. Not as humanized as another bomb, but way more effective. The seal of energy around his ears dissapated, replaced by healing energy. Sonix, though sometimes a practical joke when used in a simple, small, ballon-shaped-popper, was in any Tumbletop arsenal. Suddenly the room turned blue. I'm going to pass out, he realized. Healing will do that if it's extreme. Darkness clawed at the edges of his vision, then engulfed him...

The Sonix grenade has not been a wish. After all, why would it appear if Max did not want it? If Max had not been distracted by the mob, he would have noticed where it came from. It sailed in though a window, and by chance had landed in Max's pocket. Where it came from, And why did it have Valley tech, Max did not know. But Aether the Demon did.

Aether was turning 515 in Hybras time, or 15 in real time. Same birthday as Max. He was at Tilghman's Tavern, thinking of how to celebrate his own birthday, due to the fact his family had been destroyed by Molly. That was when Max himself seemed to suddenly shimmer into view, like a heat haze. That also was when Max used the mesmer on him. That voice telling him to stop and forget about Max and concentrate on something else... It was so beutiful! Who could resist a voice like that? And those eyes... Wait, his subconcious thought. It's Max's birthday, why forget about him? He looked away to get him a present... And suddenly Aether was not mesmerized anymore. Aether was going to tell Max he was there... When suddenly Aether tensed, then, literally paralyzed, fell over. His mind raced to find out what was happening. Lying on the floor was not helping. Then he saw a glitter... and a shoe seemed to appear for a moment before dissapearing again. A closer look yielded a slight shimmer in the air. The shimmers seemed to be shaped like leaves. Thats it, he thought. Tumbletop Camoflauge foil. Tumbletop technologies lab always printed leaves on their products. Also, with invisible stuff, there's always a word that causes it to become visible to the sayer. That perticular word was always somewhere on the product. So Aether concentrated on one leaf. There it was! In Tumbletop, it said uhayahedo. Reveal. So Aether tried to say 'reveal'. "Yerrvual," is what came out of his mouth. His mouth was paralyzed. He had to say the Tumbletop version. "Uhayahedo!" thankfully uhayahedo can be said with a slack jaw. The foil revealed itself, taking form of an orangish gel with green leaves printed on it. But this 'foil' was different. It was throughly mutilated. Where it had dried up and fallen off there literally were parts of an old Invisibility cloak. They have those in museums. Invisibility cloaks, if could not be seen by the human eye, brings up high readings in thermal, spectral, un-effect, techno, regular camera, and could be seen by all animals minus the elephant. This made them extremly unreliable. Cam gel refracted all light, ion beams, and any tech anyone may have. Cam gel was made of partial invisilble stealth ore, Magic-infused gel, as well as techno-chips that reflect any technology. The only thing was that Cam foil could dry up if left in the sun for too long, leaving parts of a person visible. Aether used his levitation to summon his PC, which was really a tiny sphere covered in tecno-gel, which could morph into a phone, a computer, and a TV. He used magic to push every button, until he researched a way to strip Cam gel of it's powers. He had just found it when he saw a Sonix grenade being thrown from the foil. And just before he was about to use it, Max uttered the deadly exploding words: "Sonix Boom. 'Aether yanked the tech-gel away from the computer sphere and put it on his ears just in time. The Sonix sound waves richoched around the room, blowing Aether out of a window. The techno-gel around his ears solidified into spiky tech-crystals. The Sonix shattered them. For a second, deafining sound struck him...until it passed. The paralysis spell had been incapacitated by the sound, and Aether got up. "So much for my revoulutionary computer," He said to himself. His computer sphere was useless unless it had the tech-gel, which now layed shattered on the ground. The Cam gel had dissapeared. Half of the tavern was broken, and the other half was extremly unstable. At least it wasn't a Sonix warhead. Aether went to find Max when, again, he fell incapacitated to the ground. The Cam gel grabbed him, and threw him around until he was unconcious.

Max awoke to find a literally shattered Tilghman's Tavern. The debris were everywhere. He grimaced. Someone would have too pay for this. Luckily Buffilion hadn't developed sateillites yet, let alone a drone spy. Electric sparks ran across him as his body finished up the healing. The bison and spartans were mostly knocked out. The entire tavern had been demolished because of a sound wave. Max then decided to alert the Buffilion Police. They would not capture HIM, of course, they would simply find a lightning-struck tavern. He created a wave of flames onto the dry grass. They burned instantly