Garden Knight

Part 29

Tarot looked up slowly before nodding. "I've been in quite a few wars in my 400 years of my life," He said. "But I got a feeling this will be my last," He said. "A feeling in my chest, like my body, is being sawed in two, but-" He looked to Caro. "I gotta make a way for you guys, My era is over," He touched his horns and his fading muscles and smiled. "But you guys have just begun, I trust and believe in all of you, from Samantha to Caro. I know you'll all do great," He said before hearing the muddy water splash behind him. Something was rising out of the water.

Two thin eyes view their surroundings from their scaly sockets. A barely existing nose rests below, but it's the narrow mouth below that takes all the attention. A lazy smile reveals curved fangs and a flat tongue.

Huge warped ears sit on each side of its massive, bony head, which itself is covered in web-like fans and has two bony spikes protruding from the sides.

Its tall lean body is hunched over. Two lean stone-like arms hang at its sides and end in bony hands with long fingers, of which it has 8 in total.

Its legs are tall and are slightly bent, each ending in small feet.

Its body is covered in coarse skin and its shoulders are about the same width as its pelvis, from which a bony tail sways back and forth.

"Higher God, Clara." He took a step back before seeing black slime grab onto it and latch on. Tarot balled up his fists before staring up at the god. "Clara being controlled by Athos," he growled. "Guys! Wake up!" He shouted. "We got an issue,"

The creature swirled in the water as it slowly got out of the water. It was hunched over with a large grin. A sudden needle split the monsters head, then another as two beetles flew threw the air stabbing into a monster. They both kicked the needles into the monsters head as Tarot and Caro stood on the grounds lifting their hands. "15!" "25!" The two fired a large blast, ripping through the monsters chest and side of his head. The monster hit the ground suddenly before slinking back into the water.

The swamp-like waters they were in. Caro looked at the two beetles on the trees. Both with leaf masks on and a menacing faces were drawn on them. "Thanks, you guys," Caro said as one of the beetles took the mask off, a freckled face with some scars on it was standing there as a more stern beetle pulled his mask off.

"We are the god hunters," The stern one began. "Least I am," He continued. "He's the god tamer, Believing those things can be saved,"

"They can be! They can be great additions to bugs army!"

"Quiet Caso, Your annoyance is showing," He said. "Either way," He turned to the group and smiled. "Our family tradition is taking the names of monsters and sending them straight to hell. We walk in, all smiles, and leave with evil in chains. We are experts at extraction. We take hold of the beast by the jaw and remove his tongue. After that, it's easy to subdue and defeat the scaled ones. Then we go for ice-cream and jump on trampolines. Who said defeating evil wasn't going to be fun?"

Caso shivered and looked at him. "Cato, that's disgusting!" he shivered again. "They're gods, not monsters!"

"If you two hate eachother and disagree on these types of things why are you two helping eachother," Samantha asked.

"Caso here is looking for a princess, a butterfly princess, we came from the pavilion but something is wrong with the gardens," Cato said. "Black nightmare like beings coming from the ground and trees. It's all stemming from that garden there," Caso and Cato pointed to the Attuned Garden. Everyone stared as a pillar of black poured from the garden. It poured into the air as a butterfly flew out of a tree. She held a makeshift shield up as two hornets chased her. Caso and Caro stood.

"Is that her!?" Caro asked as he saw Samantha threw her spear impaling a hornet to a tree. The hornet bled black, not red. Samantha went to retrieve her spear as The hornet swapped to focus on her. It swung it's sword down only for the hornet to be met with a claw carving it in two. Standing tall was Willy, just cleaved a hornet in two. Samantha looked at the hornet pinned to a tree.

"It's weird," She said. "It's not feeling any pain," She poked it as the hornet bit down. "It's a weird creature," She said. "It's unsettling, I don't quite like it," She took a step back.

Caso was with the butterfly, a tall, blue-winged butterfly was hugging the beetle. Tarot looked around before seeing the sky, dragons landed and flew from the garden. "This place isn't safe," He said. "Not for us at least," He walked through the forest. "We'll keep marching forward, we gotta find out how he got out,"

Caso stood. "I'm coming with you guys, Gods could use saving!"

"Caso! No!" The butterfly said. "You can-"

"She can stay with my snails and bees at the snail garden," Caro said. "Same with you, Willy," He said. "I can't have you getting hurt," Willy nodded picking up the butterfly and walking to the snail garden.

The group watched and continue walking through the forest.