Blue

12 4 0
                                    

Kiki and Dill made it about 5 feet from the Antique Shop entrance when Dill said he couldn't do it.
"What?" Said Kiki.
"I umm... Have school... I should go."
"No way? The school is probably closed right now. Do you not see the shadowmen pouring from the sky?"
"Uh..."
"Are you seriously scared?"
"No, of course not... I'm just allergic to major boredom. I mean, what if I fall asleep and the bad guys get to me?"
Kiki gave herself a facepalm, "Just, comeon scaredy cat, I'll try and keep you as entertained as possible."
Dill realized he couldn't find any other excuses, so he sighed and found himself agreeing. Kiki opened the glass double doors and walked inside the empty store.
"Why keep the blue gem in a store open to public?" Kiki questioned.
"This store's too boring for anyone to actually come he- ooooo!" Said Dill as he saw a small, white, bedazzled glass elephant on one of the old wooden shelves. Kiki skimmed her hand along one of the dust covered shelves.
"Don't touch anything!" Said a voice in the way back of the room, concealed by a red curtain behind a desk.
"You touch, you pay." Said the old looking duck that walked behind the counter.
The Duck looked real old with his wooden cane and white beard. His feathers were tan and he had his white hair combed back into spikes sticking up at the end. He had the ordinary orange beak and skinny orange legs.
"Stay here Dill, I'm gonna see if he knows anything. But no touching!" Kiki said walking to the counter.
The old ducks arrival had scared Dill and left his arm retracted back, frozen in place. Dill was tempted to touch a lot of cool looking things but managed to refrain himself. He was walking through the old rows of shelves with amazing but dusty sculptures and one caught his eye. It was a shiny, new looking glass white box with it's glass, glossy white cover. The handle looked so realistic, a blue beetle with blue eyes, wings on the back of it's oval shaped body, and sharp, long pinchers as a mouth. It was attached to the box on it's eight legs. Dill looked closer and pulled back his head when he thought the beetles pincher twitched.
"No, that can't be a real beetle." Said Dill aloud. He hovered his hand over the box about to open it and the beetle hopped off the box.
"Wha?" Dill exclaimed pulling back his hand. He watched it scuttle across the ground.
Kiki was having almost no luck at all.
"The gems, Mare is here and is looking for one. You HAVE to know something." Said Kiki.
"I'm sorry but I have no idea what your talking about." The duck responded.
He seemed to literally have no idea what she was talking about so she was just about to call out to Dill that they were leaving and the gem wasn't here.
Dill had been chasing the beetle and followed it into another room. Not looking at where he was going, the beetle crawled into a hole in the wall. Dill looked up as his beak met the wall. His beak ripped right through it like it was paper.
"AH!" Said Dill as he hit the wall, Then he looked up, examining the wall.
"Woah!" He said, "This wall... It's fake!"
Kiki heard a bang in one of the rooms and knew it was Dill.
"AH!" She heard him cry out.
"Ugh, I'm sorry, I'll try and pay for whatever my friend broke, then we'll be going." Kiki said to the duck.
The duck watched her run off into another room in the back left and slowly trailed after. Kiki skidded to a stop at the doorway and saw a hole ripped in the wall. Dill was staring down at something and didn't even turn to face Kiki or the other duck that had peered in behind her.
"Ugh... What? How do you even manage... to rip a hole that big in a wall?" Said an annoyed Kiki.
She walked towards Dill and stopped when she saw what he was staring at. He held the shiny, blue gem that he had found from inside the wall. The old duck walked in and stood behind of both Kiki and Dill. The blue beetle crawled out from inside the hole and climbed to the old duck's shoulder.
"How'd, you find that?" Asked the duck.
"I... Uh, followed that." Said Dill hesitantly, pointing at the beetle. His and Kiki's attention had been focused back on the old duck behind them. The beetle chirped, moving it's pinchers in excitement.
"The beetle," The duck was saying, "Hm. This beetle, his names Blue. He was the previous guardian of the blue gem, and the first guardians that formed. He goes way back."
The old duck looked down at the ground in thought for a while as Kiki and Dill stared. They were waiting for either him to start talking again, or to cry. The duck seemed on the verge of crying. But he looked back up with a same expression less face and spoke again.
"And who are you, exactly?" He asked.
"Oh, I'm Kiki and th-" Kiki started.
"No," interrupted the duck turning his eyes to Dill, "I'm asking him, the gem chose him, not you."
Dill just looked cluelessly at Kiki. She glanced back, but gave no instruction.
"I'm Dill... Dilly Piller." Dill answered.
"I see," said the duck, "The blue gem chooses to be passed down by family, eh? Well in that case, you might as well give up and get as far away from that thing as possible."
"Passed by family?" Kiki questioned.
"Sadly, yes. The Pillers used to keep the blue gem under their protection."
"You're not talking about my mom and dad, are you?" Asked Dill.
"Why yes, I believe that's who I'm referring too. They, however, became selfish of they're own lives. They chose themselves over the protection of many others and turned the gem away. They found that being a guardian was too dangerous of a lifestyle. People coming after them, attacks." The old duck explained.
"So they left a life full of action and awesomeness because it was dangerous? Seems lyke something they'd do to be honest." Dill said with a shrug.
"Blue saw the book being made, with the four gems inside and about to be used. This was way back. Him and three others figured out what the book was capable of, so they stole the gems. Word spread about the book and it attracted Mare's attention. It was then Mare went in pursuit of the book, however Blue took action. I guess he knew if the guardians sat around, Mare would eventually go through each and every one of them. So he gathered the guardians and gems, obtained the book, and used it's power to trap Mare in some type of empty prison in another reality. There was still people after the gems, so blue passed the gems to new, loyal guardians. Blue may seem young, but his extinct, smart species live for about... Forever. He's old now, his kind seems to immature the older they get, so we need a new guardian. Especially now that Mare's back."
Dill almost fell asleep listening, but Kiki seemed to be very attentive to what he was saying.
"How did Mare get out?" Asked Kiki.
"Not sure," said the duck, "But if Mare got out, someone from the outside brought him back. Be careful, I have a feeling it means something big is being planned here."
"Can't promise being careful, but I do believe there's a bigger picture. But before we can figure that out, we got-"
Kiki was interrupted by a crashing noise from the front of the building. They ran out to the front to see that Kip had been knocked back through the entrance with a shadowman floating at his feet.
"My bad for the interruption, but a lil help?" Asked Kip.

The JemaverseWhere stories live. Discover now