The Mantle of Iron Fold

The Mantle of Iron Fold

By SF Guillermo

The Legacy of Iron Fold

By Maria Leon

After writing this case file, I’ve realized now that Iron Fold is more than a puppet; he is meant to be a protector of the school and has a duty to defeat bullies and protect people there.

The puppet of Iron Fold is passed from grade to grade, so his legacy will never end.

When I got him, I was a little bit surprised because I didn’t know how to use him or anything. However, as time passed, I soon learned that I was supposed to fight injustice using him, not just displaying him around as some trophy.

How I Got Into This

By Maria Leon

One day, during study hall, a Twelfth grader came up to me. His entire appearance, from his shoes to his hair, was dirty. Everything was covered in dirt, mud, and grime. He also reeked of onions.  “Here you go,” he stated in between heavy breathes, “This is Iron Fold, protector of Kirby high school and it’s students.”

I was like, super confused. What was this about? I mean, I’ve read some comic books about Iron Man, but I didn’t really know him.

My silence made him impatient, “So, will you keep him?” He asked.

“I’m not keeping anything until you tell me what this is all about.” I said, pointing at the finger puppet. The design was simple,  looking like the classic designs you’d see in early 1970s comics of Iron Man.

“Well, how do I put this?” He asked aloud, turning the puppet to him, “Okay, you see those kids over there?” He pointed at some kids in the corner of the room, stomping on some poor soul’s project.

“Yes dude, of course I would; everybody knows them! They are Michael Rainey and Alvaro Cruz, and if you mess with them, man… look, I don’t even wanna talk about this OK?” The kid tossed the Iron Man finger puppet towards my direction. The paper moved slower, and I quickly grabbed it before it could fly out a window.

“Please, just keep him. You know, just in case.” The kid turned around, his whole body trembling as he started to leave the class. I was about to tell him to keep this silly puppet. It looked dirty, even though he held it for such a short while.

I held the puppet, looking around for any secret compartments, a switch, or a secret. There was nothing, zilch, nada. However, I did see one little detail on the bottom of the puppet: “Mark 1.”

I smirked at this, I knew I would be something great. “I got this.” I told myself. There was something heavy inside of it, but I couldn’t tell what.

Rise of the Sidekick

By Ricky Leon

So when Maria got home, I noticed her finger puppet, and I was all like: “Wow! Is that Iron Man?” I snatched the puppet out of my sister’s hands, looking it over. It was so neat! The intricate yet simple design. The awesome detail of the Mark 1 at the bottom. It was, to put it in one word: awesome.

“You know who Iron Man is?” She asked.

“Oh, I love him, and I also love his Iron Man suits, how did you fold him?” I asked.

“Oh! I didn’t fold him, a kid dropped it…yeah…he dropped it.” Maria rubbed the back of her head, chuckling.

“Please tell me he will fold me one? I love it!” I exclaimed.

“No! He gave it to me!” Suddenly, she realized what she said, “Uh-uhm- I mean-“

“Hah!” I pointed at her, “You said he dropped it, but now you’re saying he gave it to you! Which is it, Maria?”

“He… He gave it to me.” She sighed in defeat. So, because she was stuck in my trap, Maria explained to me the mission. She told me that she wanted me to fold a “Cardboard Machine” like War Machine! I love that!

You see, my sister is really friendly nowadays, when I get in trouble, she’s with me all the time, and she really understands me.

That’s why I had so much confidence in asking her to fold me an Iron Man suit, I knew she’d understand me.

 

Who is the Twelfth Grader?

By Vance Strausberg

I, Vance Strausberg, was the twelfth grader.

Lots of you guys may have a lot of questions, such as: why is Maria the new wielder of Iron Fold, even though Iron Fold is a guy character?

Well, when I noticed her a couple weeks ago in the hallway defending a guy from Alvaro, the biggest bully in the whole school, I knew that Maria could be the wielder of Iron Fold. It was her destiny!

Since then, I have been looking at Alvaro’s hatred at Maria, and I knew she wouldn’t make it if I didn’t give her the Origami Masterpiece.

The First Fight

By Maria Leon

Today, at the end of second period, I noticed that Alvaro and his henchmen were following me to class.

After ten seconds like this, I stopped and stood my ground, looked at them and exclaimed “What do you want?”

“What I’ve wanted since the sixth grade, Revenge!”

At that moment, he started picking in his pocket, trying to find something. Michael Rainey was getting impatient, so he got out an origami M.O.D.O.C..  The puppet was a bulky looking square, with a yellow outline around the square. His face was drawn really horribly, with yellow teeth and a awful smile. He wasn’t artistically gifted.

“You’ve taken long enough, Alvaro. Let me do this,” He said. He held the puppet up, showing it to me, “This is M.O.D.O.C., meaning Mental Organism Designed Only for Creasing. He is the one who will be in charge of stopping you, and your silly puppet.”

“Wait, wait, slow your roll. How did you know I had an origami puppet?” I asked, reaching to my back pocket.

“I have my ways… Ready,” he reached into his pocket, grabbing glue sticks, “Aim…” He closed his left eye, “Fire!” He started tossing glue sticks at me. Alvaro joined in as well, tossing a few glue sticks and pens at me. The glue sticks hurt me more than the pens.

They were hurting me when I saw a lever behind Iron Fold that said “Pull here.”

Michael and Alvaro suddenly ran out of ammo. Alvaro sighed, and ran away.

“Alvaro? Alvaro!” Michael yelled. Alvaro continued running. I smirked at Michael.

“My turn.” I flipped the lever and a little disk fired out of Iron Fold’s mouth like a Pez dispenser. No wonder it was so heavy! This was inside Iron Fold! The disk hit Michael in the forehead, and he was thrown backwards.

“Well, what are you going to do?” I taunted.

Realizing that he was powerless, he gritted his teeth. “You will pay for this!” Like, yeah right bro. I have to go to third period, not worrying about you “paying me.” Michael ran away, and I headed to third period, smiling at the unexpected win I got.

Cardboard Machine Joins the Fight

By Ricky Leon

I had obviously heard about the fight my sister had with those stupid kids the other day, and Mom somehow found out. She was like “Don’t you dare get involved in another fight like that!” Dad didn’t care that much. But when Mom left I told Maria that if she plans on doing something like that again, she should count me in.

“It wasn’t like that!” Maria exclaimed, “Those guys were throwing me stuff and I just had to defend myself!”

“I know, I know. You know what I think you need?” I asked

“What?” She asked

“An improved Iron Man suit.” I rubbed my hands together, smirking.

“Like in the comics? My Iron Fold is good, he doesn’t need any modifications!”

“Okay, okay, it’s good looking and all, we won’t change it. But I want my Cardboard to shoot disks like yours.”

“All right, all right, and I’ll add some more things to my puppet as well.”

Working like Stark

By Maria Leon

So next week I had to go to Science class. I realized I had to add lots of new things to my origami Iron Fold, so instead of working on the project I had to do with the class, I studied the inside of Iron Fold. There were a few gears to load small disks into it. I just needed to press the back and Iron Fold would open and shoot. However, I couldn’t understand why whoever had this before would fill the paper with all this useless stuff. Mom always told me to work smarter, not harder, so I fixed up the gears to allow for less inside of the puppet. I also figured that rather than loading the buzzers into puppet itself was silly and just added even more weight. I decided my best course of action would be to attached some gears to my arm, with a constant loading of disks. When I would shoot one disk, another would be loaded.

I felt like Stark with his hammer, slaving away to make his new suit.

But, like always, my fun was cut short by the piercing shout of “Miss Leon,What do YOU think YOU are doing?” coming out of Linda Todd. She was such a crazy teacher, with her lazy eye and her constant frown, gosh, she’s the worst. She never teaches either.

“Miss Todd, I was just working on the elevating bridge you told us to work on!” I hid Iron Fold away from her. She looked at my bridge, or lack thereof.

“Indeed you are, but tell me, where IS the bridge?” She asked, pointing at my empty desk.

“Well, you see, I’ve been working on it at home?” I lied.

“We started it today.”

“Well-“

“Get started, Miss Leon.”

Luckily, the bridges were small and easy to build, and I really wanted to test my new invention. I gave it a try, but it totally backfired. I shot aiming for a bridge that another class made, and, indeed, it was a perfect hit, but it shattered the entire bridge. Another disk loaded into Iron Fold. Miss Todd looked at me for a second, and I smiled. If I wasn’t in trouble before, I was now.

“That was yours, right?” She asked.

“Uhm, no…”

So that was it, and I was sent to ISS for the rest of the class.

Unfortunately, Alvaro and Michael Rainey were also there, and they had different ideas of what to do rather than writing “I will not _____” over and over on a paper.

Then the teacher went to the bathroom.

It was just us there.

It was chaos.

 

Final Fight

By Maria Leon

It was just us three in the classroom, and the teacher made a big mistake leaving us alone there. I mean, couldn’t she find another teacher?

Michael ran up to me, cursing me. I’m sure he didn’t plan on hitting me, but he acted like it, and there was no other way… I pressed the button on Iron Fold and it fired a disk at him.

The disk hit Michael on the head, and he fell over. I picked up the disk, and stared at him.

“Sorry.” I said. Michael slowly got back up and moved his shoulders around.

Well, that was the end of a “peaceful fight.” Alvaro stepped in and threw me stuff like pens, backpacks and books. It was two against one, until I looked at Iron Fold, and I knew it was, figuratively speaking, a hundred against two.

After that it was simple, I shot some disks, tied up some things with some string I found. I heard the teacher coming back, so I sat in my chair. They, on the other hand, didn’t stop or didn’t hear him, because they kept on throwing books at me when the teacher came in. And, next thing I knew, they got suspended.

I breathed a sigh of relief. I was saved by the teach.

After the Fight

By  Agent Tom Waterson

It was crazy! Maria defeated the bullies! Man, it was so cool. Everyone was congratulating her and hugging her. Nobody liked Alvaro or Michael, so it was one less pound of weight on our shoulders.

I, rather than partying, took this matter to the F.O.L.D headquarters.

 

New Agent, New Missions

By Agent Maria Leon

So after that, some guys came to me after last period and they said:

“We are the agents of F.O.L.D. We heard about your bravery yesterday in the detention room.” A blonde haired boy said.

“No, I was just forced to defend myself, and, luckily I had Iron Fold!” I held the puppet up, showing it off to them. They stared blankly at it.

“We know.”

“What? How did you know?”

“ That’s exactly why we need you on this team. We are F.O.L.D., we defend Kirby High and bring justice to the students. We defeat the bullies and make this school proud. Are you in?”

“Oh, I’m in, but what does it require?”

“It requires you to be ready. Are you ready?”

I smiled as I answered: “I’m ready.”

 

Epilogue

By Clark Largent

I finished the story and set it down on the kitchen counter. I looked up at Mom, who was laughing. Cal, who had been reading next to me, looked confused.

“So let me get this straight,” I started. “You used Iron Fold like a souped-up PEZ Dispenser to get Mr. Rainey suspended?”

“Can yours do that?” Cal asked me.

“Not exactly,” Mom replied, still giggling. “Me and Ricky wrote this when we were your age, so we embellished quite a bit. It’s a fun story, though. Don’t you agree?”

“I liked it!” Cal agreed.

I didn’t really know what to think. But I knew that I would be trying my hardest to get a disk-shooter inside Iron Fold now.

Story by SF Guillermo, edited by SF OrigamiLuke100. Epilogue by Noah.

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