The Guardians of Gaia

Chapter Twenty

    The group woke up in the halls of the Guardians of Gaia headquarters off in Titan, hundreds of thousands of kilometres away from Earth with no way of getting back. Of course, they had no access to anything that could get them back to Earth quickly enough and Otto had just lost his powers.

Pyro, Faust and Marshall had landed next to each other. But Pyro had come to first and was sobbing into Marshall's white cloth. Faust noticed this immediately and scrambled to his feet to run off but Pyro didn't even move. Pyro clutched at the white cloth thrown haphazardly over Marshall, like a child clinging to his blanket. His sobs were the only sounds in the halls of the headquarters.

"Otto, remember you gave me some of the cosmic essence? Let's get it back out!" Faust said.

"What the f*ck is two drops of the cosmic essence supposed to do!?" Otto screamed, throwing his arms up. "We're done! We're finished! Beaster reached his goal and we can't even get off of this stupid moon and back to Earth-"

"W-wait . . . we're on the M-m-moon?" Pyro choked out between sobs.

"Not on our Moon. You know Saturn, the planet with the rings? We're its biggest Moon, Titan," Ophelia explained coolly. Pyro scrambled to his feet and ran to the nearest door, which slid open and allowed him access to the kitchen / living room. On the far side of the room, there was a square window looking out onto the planes of Titan. Though cloudy, Saturn and its rings was clear in the sky. Pyro gave a choked whimper and fell to his knees. He began crying in earnest and that prompted Ophelia to scream; "ENOUGH!! I know it's been a really bad day for everyone, but we've got to pull it together and we've got to do something. Pyro, let's put Marshall in a safe place or something until we can have him . . . well . . . buried. After that, we need to jog Pyro's memory and get him to recreate the ceremony where we extract the Cosmic Essence Faust has so that we can put it back into Otto. Once that's done we'll teleport back to Earth and kick Beaster's ass!"

"No, you idiot!" Otto screamed. Ophelia who had never been called an idiot stood there with a stunned expression on her face. Her almond shaped eyes went wide. "I'm not Astroman anymore. Beaster's Astroman and that's that. We're done for."

"We need to try something! We can't just sit here and do nothing!" Ophelia cried. Otto and Ophelia argued with each other while Faust stared at his monstrous claws in silence, listening to the sound of his friends arguing, listening as the doomed moniker of the Guardians of Gaia came down onto them.

Pyro rested his face on Marshall's cold chest and cried. His tears were so hot they evaporated on his cheeks. "Marshall, please, come back," he said through gritted teeth. "You're the only family I've got, I'm not letting you go. Wake up, Marshall, please. You never give up, so don't give up now." Pyro pressed his head closer to Marshall's cold chest, trying to listen for a heartbeat. He laid his hand on top of Marshall's chest.

Marshall coughed, black fluid coming out of his mouth. Marshall sat up and more liquid came out of him. When it seemed as though his lap was entirely covered with fluid he stopped coughing and collapsed back down on the floor. He forced his eyes open. The entire group had gone silent when he finally came around, they looked at him in awe.

Pyro wiped his tears from his eyes and punched Marshall hard in the shoulder. "You idiot!" Pyro screamed. "Marshall!" Faust cried. He wanted to draw Marshall into his arms and shower him with kisses but he knew now wasn't the time or the place.

"Theo, what's going on, where are we?" Marshall asked. "Why are we hanging out with them? Where's Beaster?"

"Were on Titus or some shit like that," Pyro started.
"Titan," Otto corrected.
"It's one of Jupiter's moons-"
"Saturn's."
Pyro gave Otto a scathing look and Otto smirked. "Beaster took the elixir from Astroman and gave the entire thing to himself. He's gone. It's not the plan we talked about before, he didn't save any for you and I. He . . . he was glad when he thought you were dead. He said you were the weakest link."