The Ancient Guardians

The First Ancient Guardians (Part 1)

THE FIRST ANCIENT GUARDIANS

Darkness was coming  

A long time ago  

Death was hunting  

Preparing his show

Humans would try  

But would not withstand  

Torn by his scythe  

They fell to his hand

Darkness was spreading  

Like a plague of madness  

The world was a mess  

The end was nearing

Then the saviors came  

To drive back the scum  

All screamed their name:  

The Guardians have come!

Part 1 - 23 B.C.

"Eureka! Eureka! I finally did it, Marina!" I screamed from the end of the hallway.  

Marina came to see what I was screaming about. "What a surprise, Acacius, you're not naked this time." She was wearing priestess' clothing with her hood down. Her radiant blue hair was flowing down and her pointed ears were poking out of it.  

"Of course not, I've been stuck naked in that room for the last week but I finally managed to create clothing that doesn't turn to ashes." I turned around to show her the result. "Not too bad either, they're stylish." I hadn't bothered with sandals though, it was too complicated.  

"It's a relief, really." Marina said. "Ever since we became one with the elements I'm the one who had to take care of your poor, naked self. I was getting tired of it."  

I was offended. "Hey, a woman shouldn't talk so bluntly, only a woman was suited for this kind of duty. We both know you liked looking at my body anyway." I would definitely have gone raving mad without her company.  

"So...how DID you manage it?" She asked in a weird tone.  

"It's astonishingly simple actually..." I thought for a moment. "You don't really care. You're just being polite, right?"  

She looked at me with those sparkling blue eyes and smiled. "Yes. I. Am." And she walked away, pulling up her hood.  

I followed her dumbfounded, saying: "Come on, aren't you even a little curious? It's a very interesting process." We both walked outside, me trying to get her curious and her not listening, where our two other companions were waiting for us.  

"What kind of weird clothing did you make for yourself?" Chrysanthos asked. He was wearing his mercenary cloak and hiding his ears with his hair like I was.  

"Took you long enough." Winoc added. His wings made him look like a hunchback from under his tunic and he was wearing a hood to hide his green hair like Marina.  

"Well of course it took long," I answered, "do you know how many tunics I burned to have this one?"  

"I don't WANT to know." Winoc told me.  

"Frankly," Chrysanthos said, "I thought you would be spending at least a fortnight in there."  

"I still missed the political assembly." I was really looking forward to it. The political discussions had become part of my life ever since I had joined it. "At least there's another one today."  

Marina sighed. "Acacius..."  

"That's not good." Winoc commented.  

"You know you have to let go of those assemblies," Marina continued, "we will have to leave Athena at some point."  

"Actually," Chrysanthos interrupted, "we will have to leave it now."  

"You found something?" she asked him.  

"It's Winoc who picked it up in the air." He said. "He heard the King of Bones was heading east."  

"You'll definitely have to forget about the assembly." Winoc told me.  

"Just let me go to this one at least, I can't just leave without saying anything."  

"You can't, Acacius, we're heading out east NOW." Chrysanthos added.  

"Stop saying I can't, I'm going and that's final! I'll at least tell them I'm retiring to travel." I started walking towards the assembly hall. "I even prepared a farewell speech just for this."  

Marina gave Chrysanthos an exasperated look. "Can you do the honor of testing the toughness of his new fabric?"  

"It will be my pleasure, milady." He answered. He quickly caught up to me, grabbed the back of my tunic and lifted me off the ground.  

"Hey, let me go, Chrysanthos! Let me go right now!"  

He walked back to Marina and Winoc while keeping me in the air. "Well," he said, "shall we head off?"  

The two others nodded and we started walking east, except for me who was still being kept off the ground and kept protesting against it. "You have to let me go back at the assembly. Think about the politicians, the politics, the philosophyyyyyyyyy!" I was desperately trying to break free. "They were going to have a discussion about Plato's imperial system! An open discussion about the genius' finest work! It is not fair that I am forced to miss this for the good of humanity! Please! I have to go back!" The event was bringing a tear to my eye. "Hey...how can tears be on my face? Even though my body is so hot I can still cry, how fascinating."  

Marina smiled. "You can put him down now, Chrysanthos. He's distracted."  

As Chrysanthos put me down I wiped the tear with my hand and it vanished. I looked at my hand astonished. "Amazing...Chrysanthos, make me cry again."  

"I don't know how I could make you cry Acacius." He said to me with his deep voice as he kept walking.  

I started walking to follow him. "But you just made me cry. Just do the same thing you did."  

"I can't, you don't want to go to the assembly anymore."  

And so it went on as we all headed east, starting out our journey.