Read All of Book 1: Here
A man walked into the old man’s quarters.
“Mphu Lonix,” he said, “I’m terribly sorry, but have you seen the Guardians?”
“Today is my off day, the one day I don’t have to know where they are,” Lonix responded. The man nodded quickly, clearly uncomfortable.
“Well, Mphu, Creator Xinar is starting preparations for the speech, it will not be long before he’s asking for the Guardians, and they aren’t in their rooms,” the man said. Lonix sighed angrily. He put his cup down and slowly stood.
“Thank you, I will go find them.” He said with a sigh. The man bowed and hurried out of the room. Lonix walked out of The Temple and into the fair, looking around for any sign of those children; as he walked towards the fair, he saw a broken dummy lying on the side of the road, looking like it had hit the ground hard.
“Warinot,” Lonix sighed. He walked into the fairgrounds, “where are you, children?”
Fremont stood in the center of the ring, the group of boys cheering and calling for someone to challenge him. He smiled. This was the most fun he had had in a while. He looked around the crowds of people, trying to see if anyone looked interested in challenging him to a fight. He took the time to rest up to fight better whenever the next challenger took the ring. As he looked around the crowded streets, his blood ran cold.
Lonix was marching through the crowd, eyes locked on him. Part of Fremont told him to run, but it wasn’t worth it. He just stood in the ring, waiting for the old man to get to him.
“Esmun, why isn’t your potion working” Fremont muttered as Lonix approached. The teenage boys saw the approaching man, and the Leader walked towards him smirking.
“What do you want?” he asked. Lonix sighed.
“The young man in the ring needs to come with me.” He responded. Fremont nodded and moved to leave the ring, but the other boys blocked him from leaving.
“Our champion? No way, if you want to get our champion, you need to find someone who defeats him. And to face him, you need to face me.” the teen said. Fremont sighed. What an idiot.
“Fine.” Lonix said, “I’ll amuse you.”
He put his hands in a ready position. The teen stared at him then laughed.
“Sir, you can find another person to fight for you. I don’t want to hurt-” he started. Before he could finish, Lonix flipped him onto his back and then swung him into the group of boys, knocking the lot of them over.
“I believe I can handle myself,” he said, approaching the group as they stand, “I don’t want to hurt you. Would you like to let me face your champion now?”
The Leader nodded, and Lonix looked at Fremont, who immediately climbed out of the ring and went to him.
“Mphu Lonix, I apologize for disturbing you,” he started. Lonix waved his hand.
“Call the others, Now.” He commanded. Fremont bowed to his teacher and concentrated.
Across the fairgrounds, the other three Guardians felt a buzz in the back of their skulls. The Cerebell was activated, allowing the Guardians to mentally communicate. All three Guardians looked up from what they were doing and concentrated.
“Green,” Thought Warinot.
“Yellow,” Thought Bao
“Blue,” Thought Esmun
“Red,” Thought Fremont, “We’ve been Busted. Meet Mphu Lonix and me at my location now.”
“What did you do, Fremont?” Bao asked in his head.
“I blame Warinot,” Esmun threw in. The Guardians began walking to Fremont’s location.
“Wait, how would it be my fault?” Warinot Asked. The three saw Fremont and Lonix walking down the path to the Temple. Falling in line next to them, the Three bowed to Lonix.
“I assume the rest of you were also endangering Civilians?” Lonix asked. The Guardians glanced at each other, then all looked at Fremont.
“I wasn’t endangering anyone, Mphu. I practiced what you taught, Battle without harm, I removed all of my opponents without Injuring them,” Fremont said.
“Guardian Fremont, I do not teach you so that you may battle for fun. I teach you so that you may defend Archana,” Lonix said. The Guardians assured him that they knew that.
“Also, one of you was indeed doing their activities at full strength,” Lonix said as they passed the broken Dummy. Warinot chuckled and coughed.
“I told you it was somehow his fault,” Esmun said. Warinot slapped the back of the blue Guardian’s head as the five of them went through the door of the Temple.
“What did I say about sneaking out?” Lonix said.
“Do as I say not as I do?” Bao said the others chuckled. They all knew that Lonix had snuck out on the Ceremony plenty of times during his days as a Guardian so many years ago. Lonix frowned and continued walking.
“How did you know Fremont was, well, Fremont?” Esmun asked. Lonix pulled out a small crystal. Esmun sighed at the Aura Crystal, a device that trembled as it approached whoever it was tracking. It shook in the old teacher’s hand as the people it was set to follow surrounded it.
“The day one of your potions beats an Aura Crystal is the day that I leave the temple and let you all burn the place down,” Lonix said, “Now Creator Xinar will be calling for you soon, go to your chambers and wait, I am going back to my tea, I will see you tomorrow.”
Lonix turned and left the Guardians alone in the hall without another word. The four looked at each other and shrugged.
“Grumpy old man, let’s go back out there.” Esmun said, “We have plenty of time left.”
“Lonix would kill us if he had to get us twice.” Bao said, “Let’s all just go to my room and talk.”
The other Guardians nodded, defeated. They all went down the hallway, heading back to the rooms. Slowly their potions wore off. They went into Bao’s room and sat down on the floor.
Bao’s room was a copy of Esmuns but somehow even messier. His desk and a part of his floor were covered by strange-looking parts and machines. Bao was a tinkerer, inventing random things in his eternal quest to make his life as simple as possible. A set of metal and wooden arms stood by his bed, one of the more successful projects that made his bed for him with limited success. This morning it seemed to have failed him, successfully ripping his sheets clean in half somehow. Bao fiddled around with one of the arms before joining the others on the floor.
“Well, that was successful.” Warinot said, “thanks a lot, Fremont.”
“You smashed a poor training dummy!” Fremon responded, “I just got caught.”
“Still better than last year,” Bao said. Everybody nodded. Esmun reached into his bag and pulled out the things he had bought.
“Check out this cool model of Archana,” he said, holding it up. The Other Guardians looked, then the four began telling each other about what they bought and did in the festival.
Chapter 4: here
Will Fall Writings 