The Guardians Of Zion

CHAPTER 10 - THE ILL-SWORN

***Paleya's Point of View***

Paleya - "RUN GIRLS!!! COME ON! RUN!!!"

Girls (all at once) - "WE'RE TRYING! AHHH! NOOO! WAIT FOR US!!! PLEASE HELP!!!

Paleya - "COME ON!!! WE HAVE TO GET TO THE POD!!! IF WE DON'T WERE DOOMED!!!

Flaming hot blaster beams of red and green were flashing overhead. Little small shock bombs were being thrown and rolled right underfoot. I tried to get my girls to run faster, but they were dragging behind. The only way of survival was for us to get to the pod. Unfortunately, I was the only one capable of flying it.

It all started with a routine material hunt for extra merits with another Guardian and her group of female Disciples as well...

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[[[Moments earlier]]]

Shayla - "Paleya, it's so good to have another female Guardian with her girls helping us and being alongside us. So many men and boys out here that are so full of themselves. They all want to feel superior. It's so annoying."

Paleya - "I mean Yea, it can be, but I honestly don't think about it much. I feel that if you work hard enough and try hard enough people will notice you faster than they will notice your gender. I don't know. I just pushed myself to be able to handle whats out here so that I could one day be a Disciple and now a Guardian."

Shayla - "I mean I get it. Just isn't fair how easy it is for men and boys. They don't have to try as hard you know?"

Paleya - "Yea. But aye, were Guardians now. No need to dwell on it."

Shayla - "That's true. So Paleya, what brought you to planet Euphoria? You're original from National correct?"

Paleya - "Yea. I am. I was looking at material that was needed on my planet and Euphoria carried tons of it on an orbiting mountain near Great Crescent city. It's called Veravilant. They use it in other medicines to help treat and cure poisons, burns, and small skin diseases. And the amount of merits for travel, excavation, and volume of materials collected was too good to be true."

Shayla - "Oh wow. Ok. Makes sense. So why are you in this area now? Away from the orbiting mountain?"

Paleya - "A local in the city told me there was even more near the orange weed fields. He said they could be found under the blue rocks scattered all over the endless fields of weeds. So I'm going to try it out."

Shayla - "Well ok. If you help me out with a bit of your share in merits I'll be more than happy to assist even further. Me and my girls."

Paleya - "Sounds great to me, Shayla!"

But once we got there, not even a few minutes of being there, everything we had planned collapsed. A ship from the sky came down at horrible speeds. We thought it would crash but it stopped in place right at the last minute and hovered over us.

Shayla - "What is the ship doing?"

Paleya - "I don't know."

The ship door opened up from the bottom and multiple tiny devastating creatures started falling out. We didn't know what to do So, we ran!

Paleya - "Run, run, run, run, RUN!!!!!!"

I screamed and shouted. I didn't know what those things were. Never seen them in my life. They were a blueish green, murky like creature . And they had sharp teeth, big black eyes, long mane around their heads and muscles...tons of muscles in their arms and chest and legs. They kept coming out the ship.

By this time we were all escaping. But they were throwing weapons and bombs at us. Some caught a few of us off guard.

Paleya - "Shanora, come on! Quickly!"

Shanora - "I'm trying. I can't make it up the hill."

Paleya - "You have to. Come on! Let's GO!"

Then at that very moment, she got shot in the back. Completely undefended. They kept shooting her. Multiple beam shots. Lasers filling her body up.

Shanora - "Ur. Ugh. Save. Eh. My. Urn. Oh. Girls..."

Paleya - "NOOOOOOO! SHANORA!!!!"

She died right there in front of me by those ugly nasty creatures. I had to keep running. And so did they. We had to survive somehow though. For her sake. We had to find out what they were and what they wanted, because right now we had no clue.

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[[[Present time]]]

Paleya - "COME ON!!! WE HAVE TO GET TO THE POD!!! IF WE DON'T WERE DOOMED!!!

We all ran as fast as we could to the pod. I auto started the pod a few hundred yards away. We were finally closing in on it. We were getting closer. With a small grin, I looked behind me to see who was close to me...nobody was.

Everyone was laid out on the ground, bloody and shot up. Shanora, herself, and our Disciples were gone. 5 Disciples and a Guardian.

I now knew I had to survive to figure out who killed everyone and why. So I jumped into the pod as fast as I could, and then I exanined my surroundings. Thousands upon thousands of creatures were flooding off the ship looking up, shooting, yelling curses at me as I began to lift off.

They seemed angry and feisty; almost humanly hurt. I knew it had to be something deeper. Something more was taking place. They didn't just show up out of nowhere. The look on their faces was obviously hurt and possibly revenge. Huge tears and ugly cries of agony poured from their mouths as I drifted up slowly retreating.

I, too, began to cry in the pod. I began to feel a soreness in my chest. My stomach began to turn. I could barely see the bodies of my Disciples and my colleague and hers. Guilt took over my pod as it shot up at lightening speeds. And then I started to remember what those creatures reminded me of and looked like...the Ill-Sworn.

They were just like in our Zion history books. But if so, why would they return if they lost the war hundreds of years ago? I had to go home to speak to someone who possibly knew more. I wish I had someone to talk to now. As much as I tried to tell myself I had to get to the pod for everyone's sake, I couldn't help but feel like I failed them all.

Now, I'm a Disciple-less Guardian. What will I tell the council and the Original Families? Will they even believe me? I have one person who I could possibly reach out to before making any official statement who will know what I should do...

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