Seventh Ocean Media

Meeting his True love(s)

When both of them were 13, Bella and Sophie attended an interfaith dance that was held at their temple. The church from across town was one of the participants in the affair, and that was where a lot of the other kids were from. Bella went for a can of Sprite when she accidentally bumped into a slightly taller boy from the church. After some small talk, Bella seemed to be quite charmed with him, so she introduced herself to him and asked him if he wanted to dance. Derrick was mesmerized by the sapphire stare of her eyes and the gentle aura she exuded; he was unable to say no. Using her latent Pan powers, Bella scanned his short term memories for a song that he liked, and asked the deejay to spin a BeeGees record. With that, they both began to dance. After the song was over, Bella signaled Sophie to come say hi to her new friend. Sophie’s heart began to race and she began to sweat; she barely formed a complete sentence when she introduced herself. The next song came up, and the two teens resumed their dancing. Sophie spent the rest of the dance at the wall, drinking Sprite and nibbling on a couple of brownies. She was sad, but she was not jealous of Bella; it was far worse than that, she was in love with both of them.

A few weeks following the dance, school started again and Sophie and Bella learned that Derrick was in their class. Derrick got to know Sophie a little better after they began to spend their lunch periods at O’Hanlon’s diner down the street. A few of their mutual friends would join them on occasion, but the core trio was always together. When Bella and Derrick went steady, Sophie tried her hardest to keep her feelings hidden, and it appeared that it worked (only from her own perspective). Sophie began dating a friend of theirs who crushed on Sophie for years, Chazz. Between him and Mike and a girl named Lizzie, none of Sophie’s flings ever took off; deep down, she didn’t want them to.

Derrick’s best two years

In high school, Derrick was an ace student and basketball player, and Bella was on the second-string cheer squad, their relationship was now public. By the time their sophomore prom came around, Bella and Derrick were elected as Prom King and Queen, and Sophie was their greatest supporter. The three besties had no intention of going to the prom, however. Bella did not want to take part in the shallow ritual of high school popularity contests, and neither did Derrick. Sophie had gotten back together with Lizzie for a time, but she was too closeted to go with Sophie to the prom, so Sophie parted ways with her. Prom night was spent with Bella and Derrick consummating their love at Cullen Lake while Sophie spent quality time with her brothers. This was the last time that they would share a happy moment like this, because dark forces had arranged for a shooter to attack RHS. According to ZSF sources, Bella and Sophie were listed as the shooter’s main targets after authorities raided his apartment; but Derrick stood in defense of the other students, screaming for them to scatter and evacuate.

By the time Rick DuBrau and his ATTF unit arrived at the school, the shooter was unconscious next to the deceased Derrick. Robert Jones, Bella’s dad, found Bella hiding in the supply closet in the north math wing. Bella saw the look that Rob’s sunglasses were trying to hide; Derrick was gone. At Welkerblanc Interfaith Cemetery, the Mayor of Remington, Missouri Governor Mel Carnahan, and Police Commissioner Jack Blazer each were in attendance at his memorial service, with Carnahan posthumously granting highest honors to Derrick. A few months later, Bella learned that she was pregnant with Derrick’s child, and she was scared of what her family — or the Greens — would think. The night before Nicole’s 8th birthday, Rebecca took Bella for a drive, revealing that she knew that Bella was pregnant. Rebecca swore that she was proud that Bella wanted Derrick’s child, and that she and Robert would help them; that Bella’s child would want for nothing. Sadly, in an instant, lightning struck twice as an oil tanker sideswiped Rebecca’s car, instantly killing the drivers and launching Bella through the windshield.

Aftermath of Collision, and a New beginning

The day that Derrick was killed, his spirit awoke on a flying crystal fortress citadel in a magical dimension that was connected to the Star Polaris, At Derrick’s side was a man with a flat head, glasses and goatee. The man in question was a figure that Derrick had seen in old pictures in Bella’s photo albums; her grandfather Samuel “Sharptop” Jones. The other benefactor was a young-looking Native American man who was dressed in traditional attire. When asked where he was, Sharptop answered, “The place where dreams are really born. You are in the nexus of where life both ends and begins, Dominick Green III” The other man was Sharptop’s mentor/uncle-in-law, Lord Silvadarten Sol of the Prime Neverzone’s Nevertribe. Derrick was almost afraid to ask why he was still alive even though he was dead, that’s when two women came in: Queen Auroralania Faye and her daughter Maddie, Sharptop’s combinoft wife.

Derrick was granted sanctuary from a horrible death because of his selfless act of heroism, and that his actions saved their granddaughter, Bella and her unborn child. Naturally, Derrick’s reaction was of 50 shades of shock. Months later, on the night that the oil tanker collided with Rebecca’s car, Derrick worked with Professor Jones and Lord Sol in order to keep the girls safe, but their timing was clouded by the Neskomf barrier of the pirate who was committing the kamikaze attack. The shielding that Silver Dart helped generate was only at half power, and so he went with the backup plan Aurora tasked him with. Using Aurora’s magic, Rebecca’s soul was extracted from the car, and Bella was supposed to have been amply shielded, but it was a micro-second too late. The shielding was enough to keep her alive through the windshield impact, but the incendiary damage left her with massive third-degree burns on most of her body, and her left eye was destroyed. The part of the spell that worked was the part that kept her child alive.

As Bella was being attended to by the paramedics, Derrick requested an audience with Aurora and the Councils of Pan. With a Nulltime barrier up, Aurora Fayported the entirety of the active rosters of the Sorority of Bells and the Brotherhood of Pan to the Star Polaris. Derrick had been a quick study of Neverscapian magic and meta ethereal science and found a way to protect both Bella and their son. Knowing what it would cost him, Derrick pleaded with the councils to strip Bella of all memory of being with him and of being pregnant. The cavaet to the request was that he would watch over their unborn child in a stasis chamber in Sharptop’s lab. He would see to the child’s development and keep him as an infant until Bella was ready to be a mother. Sharptop and Silver Dart confirmed that the logic and science were sound, but the dilemma of erasing a mother’s memory of her child was the key issue. The TinkerBell of the Cathy Rigby Neverzone began to sob tearfully into her microphone and was the first to vote “aye”. It was a unanimous decision, so the child Declan, as he would be named, was granted safe haven in an artificial womb that began to create his own magical gear cells.

Derrick was appointed as Declan’s guardian on Polaris, and was given a special helper who volunteered on her own; his adoptslv daughter — and Declan’s elder sister — Morning Mist Jones, who had looked upon Derrick from afar as her daddy.

More to come…