Guardian(Part IV): Revelation

Chapter 10: John

Ever since Fireteam Pegasus split up, I spent most of my time alone, since I couldn't have been more terrible when it came to interacting with other people. That was how I was when I first met Morgan, Zephyr, and Penny. After spending five years fighting with them, they became the best friends I'd ever had. It had been a year since we split up, and I didn't know what to do. I had run into monsters, which I killed using my abilities as a Sorcerer class Guardian Knight, but other than that, I was doing nothing more than wandering around Camnora aimlessly. There was nothing I wanted more than to see my friends again, but if things would be better if we didn't see each other until it was safe for the Guardians again, then I wouldn't risk putting their lives in danger. Still, I wondered what they were up to, now. What I was doing at the moment was sitting at a table outside of a tavern with breakfast in front of me. I had a small flame hovering over me to keep me and my food warm instead of eating inside, since it meant I would have to sit with strangers. I couldn't have been more nervous with the idea of even talking to someone I didn't know, let alone sitting across from them. Along with that, I was concerned with wearing Guardian colors in Camnora, even though it was where I was born. I didn't know how a squad of patrolling soldiers would react to that since the Guardians helped defend against their attacks three years ago. My heart began to race with dread when I saw a patrolling squad of blue-armored soldiers with assault rifles and schiavonas walk inside the tavern I was sitting just outside of. They didn't seem to notice me as they walked through the door, but I still looked away. I didn't know what I would do if I was noticed by them. I couldn't kill them. They were people. I kept my focus on my own food as much as I could, and I eventually finished it so I could move on. I extinguished the flame keeping me warm, then stood up to walk off. I went to a trash can to throw my foil wrapping away, but as soon as I did, the Camnorish soldiers came out of the door to the tavern.

"Oh, no," I whispered. I quickly turned away, but I still heard one of the soldiers shout at me.

"Hey, kid!" he barked.

"Shit," I whispered. I knew he was talking to me, but for all he knew, I thought he was talking to someone else. I began to walk away, to my snowmobile, when I felt a hand on my shoulder, forcibly turning me around. The entire squad of five soldiers surrounded me, but didn't draw their swords or rifles.

"You have a lot of nerve, Guardian," the same soldier, who must have been their Sergeant, growled.

"Uh, just let me go," I begged.

"Or what?" the Sergeant wondered.

"I don't want to fight," I warned.

"I thought Guardians weren't afraid to fight," the Sergeant taunted, then he raised his fist. I frantically warped away before he could throw a punch. I didn't have an exact nearby location to warp to, though, so I ended up only ten feet away from the soldiers. As soon as they turned towards me, I picked up two handfuls of snow, then threw all of it at the soldiers with an aura blast. All of them were staggered by the snow I threw, so I warped to my snowmobile and sped off with it as fast as I could. I drove for an hour, not looking back. I only looked back after another few minutes, and couldn't see that village behind me. I stopped to rest, and breathe. That could have been really bad if I had decided to fight back instead of backing off. I began to think about what happened to Finn in that village in Chardan. I heard all about how he supposedly cut down seven men in cold blood, but anyone who knew him knew that he would never do such a thing. I almost did the same thing he did, and would have ended up like him if I killed all of those soldiers. I wouldn't have been able to live with myself if I killed people instead of monsters. I was sure that I would have killed myself sooner or later. My train of thought was broken by a sudden screech piercing the air, and an aura of darkness rushing towards me. I looked around, seeing nothing, even as I felt this aura pass me. It must have been above me, so I looked up and saw a flock of gryffons flying through the air. They were thirty-foot monsters with the bodies of black eagles and lions. The tail and hind legs were that of a lion's, while the long neck, head and forelegs were that of an eagle's. They looked like gryffons, anyway. They weren't flock animals, but this group must have had five or six of them flying in the same group. There were only two reasons as to why there would be so many grouped up like that. They were either hatchlings, which the ones I was looking at weren't, or they were going to a place to attack. I had to intercept them before they could reach their destination, so I turned my snowmobile in the direction they were flying and twisted the acceleration as hard as I could. The small vehicle sped across the snow as fast as anything could in order to keep up with the gryffons. I managed to keep the monsters in my sight, even as they began to gain more speed than me. I revved my snowmobile again, but its speed didn't increase.

"Come on," I urged. I slowly felt the gryffons' aura weakening as they gained distance on me, and I lost sight of them. I drove in the direction they were flying, still following their aura of darkness, but I even lost that. I kept driving in the direction they disappeared from, anyway, hoping that they would keep going that way. When the sun came up, I began to sense another aura of darkness, just on the other side of a hill of snow. There was smoke rising from the distance on the other side of the hill, which wasn't a good sign. When I arrived at the top of the hill, I could clearly see a city on fire. Auldrin, Camnora's capital city. The walls were crumbled to the point where there were almost no walls, the Blue Palace was engulfed in flames, and there wasn't a single building I saw that wasn't on fire. An immense aura of darkness was hanging over Auldrin that rivaled anything I had ever felt before. The number of monsters rampaging through it must have been huge, and the monsters themselves must have been powerful. I was a single Guardian, but the people in Auldrin were dying by the thousands, and I needed to stop it, even if I died trying.