yoshi-chan448

Joe Scuderi                                                                                                                                    12/17/12
Book Report                                                                                                                                   Wehrli


For this book report I read Raven's Gate. It was published by Walker Books and is the first installment of the Power of 5 series. The author Anthony Horowitz is very popular and each of his novels including this one has won an award. Raven's Gate is a horror/ fantasy novel.
The protagonist of Raven's Gate is young Matt, a.k.a. Matthew Freeman. Matt is a 14 year old boy who lost his parents when he was eight. Since then he has been living with his aunt Gwenda who takes little to no care of him and her alcoholic boyfriend Bryan. The story starts off when Matt is seen standing on a bridge waiting for his friend Kelvin's arrival. They soon meet up and break into an electronics warehouse. Things go wrong and Matt and his friend Kelvin are caught and sent to trial. Matt ultimately doing nothing other than breaking and entering into the facility is given a choice. Either go to a Juvenile Delinquent facility or be sent to Hive Hall, a small town on the outskirts of London to get away from city temptations. Matt's foster parent is an old woman named Jayne Deverill who is initially the antagonist and who of which lives on a dinky farm with a strange farmhand Noah, who doesn't talk much. Ms. Deverill forces Matt to do hardworking and painful chores around the farm that are a harm to his health.
One day Matt is sent down to Lesser Malling, a small town a few miles away by Ms. Deverill to pick something up for her from the chemist. He noticed instantly that the people in town were all strange. All of the people stared at him and the kids were sitting near a fountain torturing the ducks. A man there warns Matt to leave Hive Hall and when he tries to he finds it impossible, no matter how much he tries he kept going in circles. Ms. Deverill scolds him more and one night when she went out Matt goes snooping through her stuff searching for money. In her room Matt finds a box with a picture of him at his parents funeral. Finally Matt decided he had enough. He tries to escape one more time through the woods. He soon finds himself lost and confused. Every tree looked the same and it seemed never-ending. Finally mat stumbled upon an old abandoned nuclear power station. There he meets the man from Lesser Malling again. The man introduces himself as Tom Burgess. He gives Matt a charm that prevents him from going in circles like before and tells Matt to meet him at his house.
I believe the climax of this story is when Matt visits the house and finds Tom Burgess murdered with the words "Raven's Gate" painted on the wall in blood. Matt runs away and informs the police. When they arrive back there is a woman named Miss Creevy who says that Tom is not dead, he had just gone to attend to his sheep. Matt fights with her saying he knows what he saw and insisted the police go inside the house. He shows the police officers the scene where he saw Tom Burgess' bod, but finds nothing. The words painted on the wall had been painted over and all evidence of there being a murder disappeared. The police warn Matt that lying to them is a serious crime and if he does it again they will send him to a rehab for juvenile delinquents.
Before going back home Matt decides to go to the library and do a little research on Raven's Gate. He finds no luck in doing so instead of a book he found written by Elizabeth Ashwood yet the chapter she had written about Raven's Gate were torn out. When he searches on the Internet, an e-mail box appears and a man called Professor Sanjay Dravid talks to him asking Matt who he is. Matt tells him his name, then the pop-up window disappears. Frustrated Matt asks where he can find articles and the librarian tells Matt to go to the Greater Malling Gazette to find articles on Raven's Gate There he meets Richard Cole a journalist. Matt tells his story to him, but Cole doesn't believe him. And oddly, when he leaves he finds Mrs. Deverill waiting for him with Noah. They forcefully take Matt back to Hive Hall.
Later that night, Matt wakes up to see another light coming from the nuclear plant, even though he found out from the gazette that it hadn't been used in 20 years. Matt knows something is going on and explores the woods. Near the power station he finds an old witchcraft ceremony going on with all the inhabitants of Lesser Malling involved. The power station lights are coming on and men are carrying materials into the building. Matt is noticed and Ms. Deverill summons hell hounds from a fire to kill Matt. While Matt is being chased, he accidentally falls into a bog and begins to sink. Richard Cole arrives and rescues him, as Matt had used his power to call for help. The dogs arrive and Richard kills them by getting a can of gasoline stuffed with a handkerchief, lights it on fire, then throws it at the dogs setting them on fire. They then go back to Richard's house.
Richard now believes Matt's story because he remembers Omega One and says there were sections of the story he "couldn't get out of his head". Since Matt suspects that there is something odd about Omega One, they meet with the engineer who designed and built it, Sir Michael Marsh, but find out nothing except for how a nuclear power plant works. Matt and Richard then go to visit Elizabeth Ashwood, the author of the book in the library. Elizabeth Ashwood is revealed to have died, but her daughter Susan is there. She advises them to go meet Professor Sanjay Dravid in London after Matt demands to know about Raven's Gate. She also tells them that she and Dravid are part of an organization known as the Nexus.                                                                                                                 Richard and Matt travel to the Natural History Museum where Dravid tells Matt about the Old Ones, dark creatures who survived on human misery many years ago, and once wanted to rule the world, but were transported to another dimension by five children with supernatural powers. The Gatekeepers then built Raven's Gate to hold the evil creatures away. According to Dravid, Mrs Deverill and the villagers of Lesser Malling are part of a group of witches who seek the return of the Old Ones by opening Raven's Gate. Dravid tells Matt that he is a part of one of the five children who defeated the Old Ones, and has inherited their powers while Mrs Deverill and the citizens of Lesser Malling, who are all descendants of witches and warlocks, want to sacrifice him. Richard doesn't believe Dravid and begins to leave with Matt. But as Professor Dravid returns to his office to contact the Nexus and get his keys, he is attacked and walks out of his office with a cut in his neck and dies. Richard quickly takes his keys, but then is also attacked by dinosaur skeletons in the museum. Richard is trapped by a dinosaurs rib cage and then crushed by a girder. Matt is recaptured by Mrs Deverill, who brought the dinosaurs back to life to kill them.                                                                                                                       Matt wakes in the barn at Hive Hall, and fails to escape. When Noah enters the room to take Matt to Mrs. Deverill, he falls through a hole made by Matt, which was covered by a rug, and dies because he fell on his sickle. Matt runs away to the road, and a car comes towards him. It is Sir Michael Marsh but then Matt realizes that Sir Michael is a traitor, working with the inhabitants of Lesser Malling, and Sir Michael explains that he was the one who bought the power station's uranium in the first place. Matt is taken inside the power plant, and realizes that it was built where Raven's Gate once stood. Richard Cole survived the ordeal at the museum and has been recaptured by the witches. They are taken to the inner sanctum, where Matt and the villagers are held in a magical protective circle, but Richard is left outside it to die in the heat.                                                                                                         Sir Michael Marsh reveals that he needs Matt's blood to complete the black magic ritual that will open Raven's Gate. Marsh is about to stab the knife into Matt when Matt focuses on his powers and surprisingly stops the knife. He defeats Marsh and frees himself and Richard. They escape to the lower levels of the power station but are followed by Mrs Deverill. She knocks out Richard and is about to kill Matt when Richard recovers and shoves Deverill into a pool of radioactive acid. Then they escape by jumping into an underground river under the building. Back in the inner sanctum, the station's levels are at critical mass. The villagers panic and run out of the protective circle, killing them all and leaving Sir Michael Marsh alone. Marsh then realizes there is a tiny drop of Matt's blood on the knife and stabs down with the knife, causing Raven's Gate to break and explode open. The King of the Old Ones climbs out of the portal and crushes Sir Michael to death. The power station then overloads and explodes, but all the heat and radiation is sucked into the gate, taking the Old Ones with it. The portal and the Gate are sealed and the Old Ones are once again trapped in their separate dimension.
Matt ends up living with Richard and they get a visit from a man named Fabian, a member of The Nexus, who has come to talk to him about a second gate in Peru. Richard doesn't want to go through all this again, but Matt explains he has no choice because he is a Gatekeeper and when the Old Ones break out again, it is his destiny to stop them.

Prologue

In the year 2025 a new planet entered our solar system. The man who first located it was George H. Thellion and so he named the unknown plant Thellion. It created it's own orbit around the sun and was located in between Earth and Mars. Thellion was no bigger than Earth in size and it took many years before man first set foot on it. People soon noticed that the planet had it's own oceans and one incredibly large continent. The planet also had it's own Atmosphere and was noticed to be inhabitable by human life. But there were still many unanswered questions about the mysterious planet. People wondered how the planet even entered our solar system and how long it would be until if and when the planet would soon leave our solar system just as randomly as it appeared. There was also one strange feature about the planet. It might have had features similar to earths that would allow human life to inhabit the planet but nobody would ever live there for it was far too destructive and unknown. Unfortunately in the year 2599 the human race was forced to move there because of alien invaders called Promethians. The Promethians easily outmatched the humans and wished for Earth to be destroyed just to satisfy their blood lust. Humans feared extinction and collected just 13 million humans of mixed races. They set out to the strange planet but only terror awaited them.
Darkness shrouded the planet and waves faded out onto the dry land where Chaos was born. It wasn't easy to look for any signs of life on the huge continent. Humans struggled to survive against the darkness but that wasn't all that the humans had to fear on the planet. There were new strange animals that ate humans to survive and then demons thought to be created by pure evil itself attacked and killed them as well. There were also strange human like creatures on the planet with pointed ears who we gave the name, elves, that fought with the humans. The humans battle to survive on the planet was easily lost but soon it would shift in their favor. The once proud race of humans thought all life was lost until one day a huge gem struck the heart of the continent like lightning. After the incident, the continent was never the same. Plants of all kinds even new kinds that were once dead became alive again, and abundant green life started to flourish in the bare, dry land. The ocean became alive and soon an beautiful river flowed into the newly sprouted forests. The peaceful wind brought life back onto the land. The land had changed into a blessed place where a prosperous life began to grow. Just as people and animals began to appear happy and joyfully a breath of life seemed to emanate from the gem. The gem would shine and glisten on it's own and spread the aura of life all around. The aura scared the demons and created a pocket dimension where they would live away from human and elven society. The gem also emitted an aura that was toxic to the previous alien invaders therefore insuring their new planet's safety.
The gem was admired and people started to call it "El" and soon the continent was named Perrenis meaning eternal after the greatly admired gem. Over many years humans and elves strengthened there bonds and civilization spread over Perrenis, and many people started to plant bright new flowers of all kinds.
Everything was made of a natural power so that more humans could live an affluent life. Their technology started to advance and so came the creation of "Mavericks" which were a special type of human like android. The man-made Mavericks could not tell from the proper order of things. For the sake of convenience and the greed of humans, the El power was gravely misused. Eventually, as more Mavericks were created, the power of El deteriorated and the continent became dark again. The Mavericks stopped their production and the sea spilled over to the land, dividing Perrenis up into four smaller continents and small Islands. The continents were now known as North, South, East, and West Perrenis based on the directions they were in compared to the medium sized island in the center of the planet. The whole world began to shake and crumble until a woman revived the power of El. It is unknown how the power of El was recovered, but what is certain is that the spirit of the woman was present. Those who survived the rough environment started to rebuild the continent with the highly powered Mavericks. Although the power of El is not as strong as before, the continent is slowly returning to the Crystal of Life. Ever since the revival of the continent, the people greatly venerated the El Woman. Everyone rejoiced in the blessed life again and people started to preserve the power of El that was left behind from the El Woman. One day six shards of El, the Crystal of Life, shot out and embedded themselves within the bodies of six men. These men would soon be known as the masters.
These masters who governed the El found a new El Woman to watch over it. The first master, Master of Fire was 'Rosso'- The power of fire is the power of passion, and there is joy to prevent the strength of the fire from overflowing.
The second master, Master of Earth was 'Gaia'- He possesses the warmth and riches of the land and protects the continent of Perrenis.
The third master, Master of Water was 'Denif'- A combination of coolness and intelligence controls the sea so that it does not overflow onto the land.
The fourth master, Master of Wind was 'Ventus'- the power of the wind energy keeps the universe in motion.
The fifth master, Master of the Sun was 'Solace'- Perrenis became alive again from the power of life and the birth of the suns power.
The sixth master, Master of the Moon was 'Ebalon'- The power of the moon gives the people of Perrenis comfort and security.
Each master was endowed with different skills in order to use the El's power to govern Perrenis and circulate the El's energy to fertilize the land while calming the storm, thus giving rise to the Mavericks again. In Perrenis, there is a special event that takes place once every 3 years. When the sun and Moon become one, the sky will become dark and all of the masters and the living creatures will have the time to unwind and enjoy each others company. The purpose of this event is to let the El's natural energy prosper and unite all; it was called the
"Harmony Festival." This day was indeed the most peaceful and tranquil in Perrenis. The El looks natural and full of spirit but in reality, it is actually at the most unstable state. If the El facilitates the circulation of energy on it's own, then it will become defenseless. In the year 2985, seventeen years prior to our story during the Harmony Festival, Solace, the Master of Sun, conjugated a plan.
The masters knew while even though had been given great powers by the El shards they were not given eternal life. Bored of their duties they decided to create a world-wide competition to find out who the greatest fighters were. Those who proved themselves "worthy" would succeed one of the masters and so on. The masters came up with a ranking system to keep the fighters skill recorded.
It was simple, a person would be ranked on their fighting and capabilities based on a letter. The ranking classes went from A to F.  The weakest of fighters were put into class F and so the strongest fighters in the world were put in class A, and  then theirs everybody in between.
People wanting to become even more stronger created teams of powerful fighters and set off to become the strongest. Before the Harmony Festival ended the masters proclaimed that any six beings powerful enough to be ranked in A class could succeed them.  
Our story starts with a boy named Jason. Fun, free going and oblivious, Jaden sets out to become the number one fighter in the world. Will his dream be achieved or will he come falling down like the rest.























Episode 1

It's a white and misty place. I cant see very well. Where am I?
"Jason!" Someone called me, who was it?  I looked around as the mist started to fade away and I noticed a younger version of myself leaning up against the jungle gym at the school with my old friend.
I could see the younger me cup his hands around his mouth and yell out, "What, Lisanna, Lisanna did you call my name?"  It was close to dusk and the sun was setting. My old friend Lisanna ran up to me.
"Jason I've been looking for you all day, where have you been," She complained. The younger me replied to her.
"What are you talking about dummy I was here all day." We laughed, and continued laughing.
We open up to a big cargo boat sailing the strong waves in the ocean trying to get to the next continent. A giant wave pushed the boat, nearly flipping it over. Inside of the boat there's an entire room filled with barrels. As another giant wave splashed against the boat a barrel fell of the stack of barrels it was previously perched on and broke on the floor. Out of the barrel toppled a boy. He was seventeen years old with long spiky black hair and some hair covering his forehead. He had a small scar under both of his eyes connecting across his nose. It almost was shaped like a skinny oval. He had a black on one side and white on the opposite colored hoodie with the number 17 in the middle. The numbers were  colored oppositely the color of the hoodie side it was on. The hoodie was normal sized around the waist and chest but was longer on the arms. The sleeves went out well over his hands. He suffered from Heterochromia iridium, his left eye was orange and his right eye was green. The boy was about 5'9 and 140 lbs. He boy stood up drowsily. Another wave smacked upside the boat and the boy fell to the ground. He stood back up, this time fully awake.
"Sheesh, why is it every time I try to hitchhike something bad happens." The boy wiped his hand down his face then started walking. "Alright then Jason what to do now." The boy said to himself. Jason exited the barrel room and walked through some hallways. He ended up on the sky deck in no time but when he got up there the rain was coming down hard and the waves were getting more ferocious. The sailors on the boat were all running around rampantly doing their respective jobs trying to keep the ship safe. One sailor wasn't paying attention to what he was doing  and ran into Jason. Jason stayed unharmed but the sailor fell to the ground p  a bag filled with money. The sailor stood up angrily and had plenty feet over Jason. He stared down at him with a beat red face.
"Who the hell are you and why are you on this cargo ship!" The sailor bellowed while staring down at Jason. Jason meagerly flipped his hood up over his head and walked along past him with his hands in his pockets and the excess sleeves dragging across the wet ground. The waves got bigger smashing the boat.
The sailor with an enraged face got thought of an idea with a stupid smile. As Jason walked along the sailor stomped down on his sleeves causing him to stop. The sailor laughed, "So are you still going to ignore me runt or are you going to come with me quietly." Jason turned his head to the side so his ear was facing the sailor.

"I'll tell you this only once," Jason said quietly "get off my sleeves or you'll regret it." The sailor only smirked jerkishly. "Fine then, if that's how you want it then.." Jason stopped and turned towards the sailor. Behind the sailor a humongous wave able to engulf the ship was arising and coming closer at a fast rate. The sailor turned around and saw the wave coming. He ran away frantically. Jason was the only one left on the sky deck staring at the wave with cheerful eyes.
"This looks like it'll be fun." Jason smiled then cracked his knuckles. Five minutes later the sailors came out of the ship and stood there dumbstruck at what they were seeing. The humongous wave had been frozen to ice and the heavy rain had changed to gentle snow fall. One sailor looked to the side of the boat and saw a long walkway made out of ice heading far out in the east direction.
The next morning
"Hey wake up... Damn it I said wake up! Jason fell to the ground surprised. Standing next to him was a short, stubby, hairy guy wearing a blood stained kitchen apron. Jason quickly noticed the man was elven, distinguished by his long pointed ears jetting outwards. Jason sat on the floor with a blanket under him.
"Oh sorry, I didn't hear you." Jason said "Wait a second, where am I?" He looked up at the man then back down at himself. His clothes were gone and he was wearing a new blew t-shirt with red and dark blue pajama pants. "And what happened to my clothes!?" He stood up and held the man's shoulders. The man shrugged Jason off.
"Alright then I'll answer you in order. First your in Newbark town in East Perrenis. Right off the coast, you came stumbling into my hotel last night half asleep. Out of my wife's kind heart I decided to give you a room in my inn free for one night and you wanted to know where your clothes were? Follow me." The man exited the room with Jason behind him. They walked down a flight of stairs then down a few hallways where they entered a laundry room. "Help me fold some of these clothes and id we're lucky we'll find yours." There was a mountain of clothes, probably belonging to the other people staying in the hotel but Jason was determined to find his hoodie. Hey started folding on two separate tables there backs facing each other. "You know son your lucky my daughter was awake when you came in or you would be out on the streets right now."
"Oh is that so, well then I'll have to thank her properly." Jason smiled, "Umm she wasn't the one who..."
"If your wondering if she was the one who changed your clothes then the answer is no. It's not hard to tell that your a handsome young male and there's no way I would have let my innocent daughter see you naked. That just spells bad on so many levels." The old many laughed in a funny way and Jason partook in the laughter. "Oh here it is I found it." Jason turned to the man and snatched his clothes. The man walked out of the room while Jason changed. It was quiet for some time. After Jason had his pants and shoes on and as he was putting his black t-shirt on the man standing on the outside of the door asked something that surprised Jason. He said "What are you son?" Jason paused and opened the door after putting his hoodie on letting the sleeves hang to the floor.
"What do you mean, what am I?" Jason questioned. The man combed his scraggly beard with his fingers.
"I was the one who changed you last night when you came by. When I took off your hoodie I was curious to why it was so cold. Then I realized while touching your shirt that all of your clothes were ice cold. But that's not even the strangest part." The man looked at Jason with serious eyes and Jason stared back curiously. "I was forced to touch your skin last night when I was taking your shirt and pants off. Your skin itself was at least negative thirty degrees. I don't even understand how that's humanly possibly but somehow it is." Jason held onto his arm.
"Even though your skin has a light tan and you appear warm your skin was so cold it actually gave me frostbite as I was changing you." Jason got more curious and stepped back a few steps. The man pushed forward slowly.
"Yeah I have a strange condition where my skin is always cold so what." Jason said firmly.
"That's what I thought at first too. That maybe you just had some type of skin disease. But then I noticed something, your eyes." The man pointed at Jason's face.
"What about my eyes?" Jason responded playing with the skin under his eye.
"You have Heterochromia Iridium. A type of ocular disease where the color of your eyes are two different colors."
"I already knew that, where are you getting with this old man?"
"Then there's also that birthmark on your face. It got me thinking, there's no way that's a tattoo or a scar and yet it is so oddly shaped and colored and then there's that one thing that really surprised me I jumped back when I saw it. Your chest," Jason placed his hand in the middle of his chest. "You have some type of strange