Tyrranosaurus Max Prologue

[2shadowwriter2]

Prologue There are many stories of heroes, some great, others…not so much. What defines a hero is the road they take, when they get to that cross road known as destiny. Whichever way they chose is how they’re defined as either good, or heroic. This is one of those stories, a story of new beginnings, friendship, love, hate, turmoil, and utter chaos. A story of one hero who may be young, but has done brilliant and heroic things. This is his story… Max Sheppard was laying in his bed one Friday afternoon, “School starts on Monday.” He said to no one in particular. Max will be starting high school soon, as a freshman. Even though he’s against the idea, his parents insist on it. See Max is a genius, both by birth and by choice. He has managed to be homeschooled, self taught of course, but on Monday is his actual first day of school. ‘I can already feel their stares.’ He thought to himself while staring at his now interesting ceiling. He let out a sigh of boredom and sat up in his bed cross legged. He began looking around his room, in hopes of finding something entertaining. To him his room was normal, but others would say it’s HUGE, it really is the latter. Your first impression of his room might have you thinking it was the master bedroom. Although it may be bigger than most master bedrooms, his is just the second biggest room in his parent’s house. The bed, while big, still did not take much space up in the room. Roughly a queen size bed, with dark green sheets and matching pillow cases, his blue comforter took refuge on the floor while he sat lazily looking around the room. His eyes first landed on his TV stand and TV, he mused over obtaining the 42 in. LCD TV last Christmas. His thought quickly turned to his game system and various games, but dismissed the thought. ‘The ones I like I’ve beaten.’ Letting out another sigh he continued his search. His second find was his bookcase. It’s mainly various shelves built into one side of his bedroom wall. Like his room, it’s bigger than most bookcases. He began scanning the top shelf, one of five long shelves, mostly consisting of various research books a couple written by his parents, the rest written by other paleontologists. His thought trailed off to his parents his dad being the field paleontologist of the family, Max and his mom did most if not all the research on the various samples. His dad, Michael Sheppard, always traveled to the North West region of the US, digging for samples of their chosen expertise, Tyrannosaurus Rex. Max would usually join him on some of these trips but with the bane of his existence, high school; starting soon he’s stuck home with his boredom. His mom, Elizabeth Sheppard, stays home while not always home it would seem. When she is home she spends time in the family lab. When she’s not home she’s doing the duties of the chief of medicine at the Dallas hospital in Dallas Texas. Being an only child to parents, who are always busy, can get rather…boring. Shaking his head to get his thoughts back on track, he began scanning the second shelf. Filled mostly with various action figures, some still in the box, others out of the box in ‘heroic’ poses. He began scanning the third shelf, this one was filled with all his movies, collection of anime, hero cartoons, and box sets of movies or television series. Most were still in their original cases others, like his movies, were in sleeves of what he liked to call his ‘movie briefcase’. Not feeling up to watching anything he moved on to the fourth shelf. Taking up the space of this shelf were more books, these were various fictional novels that are of interest to him, mostly consisting of fantasy, super heroes, and, though he may not admit to others, romance novels. He’s a romantic at heart. His favorites to read are the superhero ones, mostly Spider-Man, but reading didn’t seem all that interesting to him. He scanned the last shelf and just decided to dismiss reading all together. On the last shelf were all his Spider-Man comics, he had some others but he preferred spidey. He let out an aggravated sigh, got out of bed, and began pacing around his room, it was big enough. Having one hand on his chin and his free arm wrapped around him as if he was hugging himself. He thought better this way. ‘Let’s see, I don’t want to play video games, I don’t want to read or watch anything, what else is there?’ Letting out another aggravated sigh he rubbed his greasy dark brown hair in frustration. Realizing he needed to take a shower, he looked towards his bathroom, it wasn’t that big, to him. It was a full bathroom with a toilet, sink, and shower; it really is a convenience having it in his room. He doesn’t have to worry about the bathroom being open, due to both having his own room and being an only child. He perked up when he realized that this Friday is one of the Fridays his mom has off from the hospital. ‘She would be in the lab.’ He thought. Finally settling on doing some research with his mom, on whatever she was working on this time around, he went towards the bathroom to freshen up. * * * About thirty minutes later Max stepped out of the shower and wrapped his towel around the lower half of his body. Rather having his hair air dry, he left the now wet messy dark brown hair alone. He wiped the mirror free of the steam that had settled on it, and begun to brush his teeth. While brushing he took the time to look over his body, one of those random times in his life. His eyes were unique they’re a bluish green color with what seemed like starburst in his eyes. He was thin and in shape just not muscular, more like a swimmers body. His body also has a dark tan due to the almost endless hours he spent out in the field with his dad. Finishing with his brushing and ‘body check,’ he went to his closet. Like his room the closet was huge, a large walk in closet with clothing on both sides and various drawers at the end opposite of the door, with a mirror above them. He walked over to the drawers and pulled out a pair of black boxer briefs. After obtaining his underwear he turned his attention to finding a pair of pants. This task was easier said than done, he has more than just a few pair of pants, and he could literally wear a different pair every day for about six months. He had slacks, cargo pants, denim jeans, and dress pants to choose from. Deciding on slacks now all to do was find a color, this wasn’t easy either, he had green, black, blue, purple, and tan, all different shades of the for mention colors. Settling on a dark forest green pair of slacks, he slipped them on and turned his attention on choosing a shirt. This task, however, is easier than finding a pair of pants to wear. While he did have more shirts than pants he knew which one to wear, his ‘lucky’ shirt. First slipping on a thin long sleeve black undershirt, mostly just because it was cool to do, he grabbed his ‘lucky’ shirt. There wasn’t anything special about it just the way it’s designed, it was a rust orange color, not his favorite color but still, it had some black mixed into the shirt color as well, giving it a desert type look. On the chest part of the shirt, which was the first thing that got his attention of the shirt when he found it, there was a T-Rex skull. The same kind of skull design that was on the cover of that one dinosaur movie, that he saw when he was younger, Jurassic something. While looking at the shirt he was hit with the memory of when he had gotten it and why he called it his lucky shirt. It was about two years ago when he was about twelve or so, he was traveling with his dad like he always does, but this time was different. He and his dad were headed to New York for the sole purpose of giving a speech at a paleontologist expo where various doctors of paleontology gather to hear and give speeches of their findings and research. This was around the time when he and his parents were finishing their research on the brain and mind set of the Tyrannosaurus. His dad was giving a speech on their findings and to promote their first book that they did together as a family, yes Max helped them write one book, so far. The book was entitled T-Rex the Untold Story by the Sheppard family, of course. This wasn’t the only reason Max was excited about the trip the expo was around the same time as comic con. Although he loved hearing the speeches his super hero geek side took over, so he decided to go to comic con instead, hey if you get a chance to go to comic con you take it. When he was on his way there he passed by this unique clothing shop, it was unique because it didn’t have a name and it was where you wouldn’t expect it to be, in between a butcher shop and a bakery. Deciding he had time before the convention he went in and browsed around. After about twenty minutes he got bored and decided to leave the shop, until he spotted something out of the corner of his eye he turned and there in front of him was the rust orange and black colored shirt. He was about to ignore it until he notice the skull on the chest part of the shirt. Chuckling slightly and smiling he grabbed the shirt and went to purchase the item. When he got to what he assumed to be the pay counter, he noticed that there wasn’t anyone there. He let out a disappointed sigh and turned around to put the shirt back. “Can I help you?” A voice asked. Max jolted in surprise and turned around to see a woman now standing behind the counter, a little freaked out, he wondered where she came from. She looked really sweet, she appeared old due to some gray that was in her red hair, but she didn’t have any wrinkles to speak of, none that he could see anyway. Then he noticed her name tag ‘Destiny’. ‘That’s a weird name.’ Max thought, he then realized that he has yet to answer her question, “Uh, yeah I wanted to buy this shirt.” He finally answered. “Oh that shirt,” Destiny started, “we’re having a special on that shirt.” “Really?” Max said a little cracking in his voice due to the excitement and surprise. “Yes.” She said nodding happily, “it’s our ‘destiny’ special.” She added giggling happily. He assumed because it was due to the fact that the special was named the same as her name. “So, how much?” He asked holding up the garment. “Free.” “Free?” “Yes, free.” She said giggling like it was normal. Knowing that something was up Max began to look around for any hidden cameras or whatever. “Okay so what gives?” He started, “something has to be up, what’s the catch? Where are the cameras?” he said a little aggravated. “No catch, no cameras, free.” She said with a smile. “Okay.” Max said slowly, while backing out of the store, “I guess I’ll be going then.” “Okay, have a nice day.” She said smiling and waving happily. Realizing that it was all legitimate, he smiled and waved a happy good-bye to Destiny and went on his way to comic con. When he got to the conviction he was now wearing his newly obtained shirt over his plain black one. It’s been about an hour and a half since he has been there, and he already had two bags full of comics and three interesting conversations with both fellow geeks and comic book writers. He was about to leave the convention to see if he could still make it to some speeches at the expo. Suddenly he heard a close and loud creaking sound like something was giving way. He turned towards the sound to see close by a very large and very heavy looking banner, advertising a new upcoming comic book, about to fall. He then took notice to an old looking guy who didn’t seem to notice the danger he was in, standing where the banner was about to fall. Not giving it a second thought Max switched his bags to one hand and ran over to the confused man and pulled him out of the way of the falling banner. The banner did land where the man would have been surely killing the man if Max had not pulled him out of the way to safety. The man, after realizing the danger he was almost in, turned to Max to give his thanks. Max, on the other hand, was at a loss of words, because he just realized who he had saved. There standing in front of Max was not only the man that he saved, but the same man that created his favorite hero, and owner of one of the best comic companies in history, in Max’s opinion, Stan Lee. “Thank you for saving me young man.” Stan Lee said while extending his hand for a hand shake. Max, however, still not has said a word to the man but instead had his mouth opening and close like a fish out of water. ‘It’s Stan Lee.’ Max thought, “You’re Stan Lee.” He said finally while pointing at the man. Stan Lee merely chuckled and grabbed Max’s finger and shook it as if shaking his hand. “Can I have your autograph, Mr. Stan Lee, sir.” Max said almost stammering trying to find any type of writing utensil. “Sure, no Problem young man.” Max’s idol and super hero creator said with a small smile. He pulled out a folded piece of what appeared to be sketch paper, and pen. “What’s your name kid?” He asked the pre-teen. “Uh, Max, Max Sheppard, Mr. Stan Lee, sir.” Max answered bewildered still by the fact that he saved his long time idol. “Just Stan, Max.” Stan said chuckling and writing on the now unfolded piece of paper. Finished with writing he folded the paper back to its original form, handing it to Max, and pocketing his pen. “You take care, Max, and thanks again.” Max’s idol said while turning and walking away, nodding to the various fans. “Oh-okay, uh Stan, see ya around.” Max said waving to his idol. Max unfolded the paper to see what he wrote, he let a shocked breath when he saw what was on the paper. There was what appeared to be a newly sketched drawing of Spider-Man web slinging, and doing his famous two finger salute. Max then took notice to the message that written at the bottom right hand corner of the sketch paper. It read: Max, Thank you for saving my life, you’re a true hero among all these geeks, ha ha. Your pal, Stan Lee Max was taking aback by the message from the man, its not every day you get called a true hero by your idol. He folded and pocketed the paper and left the convention happier than before. ‘Those were good times.’ Max thought after remembering the back ground story of his ‘lucky’ shirt. ‘What was weird was finding out that the clothing store I got it from practically never existed.’ Was his afterthought, while putting on the garment. Shaking his head to rid himself of the thought he went to his mirror to see how he looked. Deciding that he was presentable enough to do some research with his mom, he walked out of the closet, forgetting to put on his house shoes, and walked out of his room to do, what he hoped, some interesting research.