I wrote a review, but I'm not sure you'll like it.
EDIT: I'll just post it here too (it's been edited slightly).
Alright, looking pretty good so far! I must say I'm glad you rewrote this story, since it was a good concept even when it was first posted, and the only things that really brought it down were the bad spelling and grammar, it's incredible shortness, and the fact that the dialog was basically stolen word for word from my story. So yeah, I'd say this is a serious improvement.
I pretty much agree with Enigma criticism-wise, but I'd like to add that the first sentence he (or she, I do not know) brought up also could've used some fragmenting, like this:
“Ethan, its 7:00 o'clock! Hurry up! You're gonna be late for school! You still have to eat breakfast!”
So yeah, just work on the punctuation a bit. Use some more commas, and make sure you're using the right punctuation mark at the right time.
Story-wise, you're doing pretty well, too. Once again I find that Enigma has already identified most of the problems I would have pointed out. Still, I have come up with a few things:
1. The first paragraph. It's just not doing it for me. I mean, if this universe's history had been integrated in LBT I would understand why you would want to keep the historical descriptions to a minimum, but when you're trying to create an original storyline you want to maximize the amount of detail, so that the audience might better understand your vision of the fictional world. I mean, the Sword of Time still isn't really explained at all, you never really explained why the name was changed to the rift sword, and it's history is vague at best. How can you just leave it at "There was a cruel empire in 4000 B.C. that was opposed by another nation with a time-controlling sword used by a greedy dude who sent it into the future before he died"? I can easily see a huge plothole right there actually: why didn't the oppressed nation just use the sword to go back in time and kill the warlord when he was a child or something? And, if the empire was so evil, why was the oppressed nation's hero obsessed with greed? There just not much there, and I feel that you could do a lot better. Continuing on, we find that the sword appeared in front of a teen on a street in California in 1997 (chalk one up to destiny). So he trains with the sword (no detail there, either), until a "time rift" (detail?) took him suddenly (that's two for destiny). Before he dies, he apparently gives the sword to a kid named Ethan.
Uh, am I the only one who'd love more detail? I mean, there's no way that's an adequate explanation for people, right? Yeah, so you really need to work on the whole backstory thing. Actually, this line of thought brings me to my second point. (By the way, you refer to 4000 B.C. as "the dark ages". The dark ages were actually between 800 and 1300 A.D.)
2. Detail. Seriously man, detail. I mean, it's okay if you wanna leave stuff vague, like the intro paragraph, but you can't just give us enough info to make us wonder "Wait, how'd that happen?" and then just leave us hanging. It's just not cool. Same goes for the wording of the story. Give us more adjectives, similes, metaphors, allusions, something more. This story deserves that much.
3. Dialog and Vocabulary. I'll start with the dialog. Yeah, I know I've hammered this to death, but it still needs work. I mean, it's not necessarily bad when you view the lines by themselves, although "That's how we ganstas have it out on our turf!" was ridiculously cliched. It really doesn't get more bland than that. It's the way you string it together. Here's an example:
“Ethan Howard Sullivan I got a call from the principle saying you started two fights today!” she yelled
“No reason to be so ticked off Mom. Besides they started it I was simply defending myself!”
“That's fine with me!”
That was a conversation between Ethan and his mom. It just feels so ridiculously bland. Try spicing up your dialog with more colorful language or a catchphrase or two.
As for the vocabulary, which kind of goes along with detail, I can only advise you to make use of synonyms and use words that sort of paint a mental picture, instead of just giving a bare-bones description.
4. The storytelling. This is perhaps the biggest point you must focus on. My biggest issue with all of your stories is a very simple fact: very little of it makes any sense. I've already mentioned the first paragraph, and Enigma's mentioned a couple more, but there are still many other instances scattered throughout this chapter. Why does Xander act like a huge d*ck without any prompting at all? And why does Ethan immediately retort with a threat of his own without thinking/saying "What the hell?". Yeah, it's implied that Xander at least has passing knowledge of Ethan, but that doesn't really explain much. Also, the passage in question makes Ethan seem like a saint or something, which really makes no sense when you consider his earlier aggressive retort and his actions later on.
Another example would be Andrew, the main villain. There is, and has been, zero explanation for this character. All you say is that he has a vendetta against Ethan. Uh, why? I mean, if you're gonna just say, "Oh, yeah, and this dude's a villain." (which is a pretty poor way to reveal a major character, I might add), you might as well just say why. '
There are countless other examples of this problem in this chapter (including pretty much all of the LBT stuff), but I've already said this a hundred times in my other reviews, so I won't bother explaining them all.
Here's the bottom line: clean it up, or it won't be a good story, and certainly not the frickin' cool story this idea deserves. I know you can do better, and this is stuff from Creative Writing 101. It's not like it's hard, and if you do these things I've pointed out I guarantee you'll be much happier with your end result.
Despite all the problems with this story, I look forward to the next chapter.
