To Overthrow the Guardians

Chapter 32: The Younger

Mallory sat in the cave, turning the time travel device over and over in his hands and trying not to show his irritation to Beatrice. The voices had notified him earlier that one of their main sources of information had been knocked unconscious.

He could save Sophie's eye, but there was something he had to do first: kill the Guardians, some of the members of the L.E.R., and Pitch. Then, he could focus on something other than his children's safety.

"So, are you going to use it?" Beatrice asked. Her mother was out shopping and her father at a doctor's appointment, so she had been able to sneak away for a little while.

"Yes, but not yet."

"I think now would be a good time to take down the Guardians," she said. "I can sense it. Let's head over to the headquarters."

Mallory wasn't going to be one to doubt her "sensing" when he was directed by "instincts" and voices in his head. He got up, and both of them walked through the forest to the headquarters. Already, he could tell that something was off. He couldn't hear the soft footsteps of the North Hall's E.A.D. It was too quiet; even the wind barely blew.

"I'll wait out here," Beatrice said. "They're in the very back room. They're frozen in time."

"The training room?" Mallory asked.

"I don't know what all of the rooms are. I've never been in there."

"Right." He pushed one of the front doors open with a crack and peered inside. The E.A.D. of the North Hall wasn't patrolling but instead was standing in its box, its eyes closed like the whole system had been reset, the whole building trapped in time. He was safe to enter.

His footsteps echoed a little as he walked down the white-tiled floor to the containment area. The garage doors surrounding it were down, so he couldn't get in. In order to get to the training room at the end of the South Hall, he would either have to go through or around them via the passages. The passages were also shut tight, however, so he decided that through would be the fastest and safest option. If the E.A.D.s came back on, he wouldn't be in a hall for them to get him unless they opened the containment area.

He transformed into a rhinoceros and rammed into the panel, but it shocked him with a horrible pain that froze him for a second before he was able to move again. Yeah, there had to be a better way to do that. He called for his Fearlings and Nightmares, but he could tell that they were too far away, probably heading toward the Guardians' places now that they were gone. He shifted back into his normal human form, took out his scythe cylinder, pressed the button, and began using it to continue the dent he had left in the door. It might take a little bit, but he was going to get in there. He was determined to protect his children.

A minute later, though, the sound of something powering up put his senses on high alert. He didn't know what it was, but he was sure that it couldn't be good. At least he was glad his unnaturally strong scythe was able to start to pierce through the panel. And he didn't run, for he didn't know when he would get another chance to protect his children.

The light blue color of the hallway walls seemed to mock him and his fear and frustration. Its decoration of sizable yellow outlines of suns appeared to stare him down, judging him. Challenging him.

But the object of his attention shifted as the E.A.D. opened its pale gray eyes, and the door to its box-like holder sprang open.

The robotic woman picked up its silver-colored battle axes in all four of its spidery arms and towered over Mallory, then attempted to slice his arm off. He dodged it and shifted into a fly, flying toward the exit, but the sentinel leaped in his way and swatted him against the wall. He involuntarily shapeshifted back into a human, but he turned into a lion next and lunged at the E.A.D. While he managed to get ahold of one of its legs, it peeled him off and threw him against one of the back corners of the hallway.

He was trapped. The E.A.D. ran closer to him. Wait, there was still something he could do.

Mallory pulled out the time travel device and pressed the button on it, thinking about where he wanted to go but not being sure how exactly it worked. Time seemed to slow down as a strange, dizzying sensation came over him.

But the feeling soon went away, and he found himself at the end of an earlier hall at an earlier time, the E.A.D. vanished from his sight. He had thought about going back to a year without an E.A.D. If the Guardians were frozen in time, then that would mean they were trapped in all times, not just the present, right? So that they were still in the training room in this time as well?

But his smile dropped from his face when he saw Howard and two other people in front of him. He stashed the time travel device in his pants pocket, retracted his scythe, and put that away as well.

"Who are you?" Howard asked, narrowing her eyes. Mallory was flooded with relief. Howard didn't know him yet; she was still a teenager. He should have noticed that the second he had come through.

He held his hand out to shake. "I'm Mallory Bennett, but please call me Mallory." The other two teens with her's eyes grew large, and their faces bore wide smiles.

"Are you Jamie and Sophie Bennett's dad?" one of them asked.

"Yes," Mallory answered, then raised his eyebrows. "How did you know?"

"We have our ways," one of them said, and laughed. Well, that wasn't creepy at all.

"They're in a movie," the other red-haired teen said, although there was still mirth in her eyes.

"What- oh, nevermind," Mallory said. That wasn't what was important right now. He could see an E.A.D. box out of the corner of his eye, unfortunately. The time travel device hadn't quite worked. The E.A.D. was sure to power up soon. "Beth, could you please open this for me?" He gestured to the garage door-like door at the end of the hall. Beth took a step back.

"H-how do you know my name?" she asked. "And...I can't open that."

"There's no reason to be afraid. I know your name because I know you a few years in the future. That's where I'm from. And, yes, you can open that panel over there. You can open almost everything in here because the scanners will accept your fingerprint. In the future, you work here."

Beth didn't respond, just stared straight ahead of her with glazed-over eyes.

"Are you okay?" one of her friends asked her, and the speaker put her hand on Beth's shoulder.

"Why...?" Beth said, apparently ignoring the question. "Why do I work here? What happened? What is this?" She gestured to everything around her.

"I know this might be a lot to take in right now, but you need to open this door," Mallory said. "I can explain everything later, but if I don't get out of here soon, the security will come after me." The sound of an electric current sent his adrenaline levels pulsing back to high. "Quick! Before it turns on and attacks!"

"The security never came on when only we were in here," one of Beth's friends said, and the three teens backed away from Mallory. He tried to ignore the panic bubbling up in him. He still had time to get these teens to trust him.

"There's a reason for that. I can explain it to you," he said. "You see, the L.E.R..."

Wait, he could do this later. Right now, he had to escape. He sprinted for the front doors as fast as he could. Just as he was about to reach them, the front of the E.A.D.'s box popped open, and it threw a couple of its battleaxes at him. He ducked and made it, turning into a tan bird once he got outside and flying up on top of a tree. The E.A.D. came out and looked around for him, but it couldn't spot him, and it went back inside. Mallory then flew back down to the ground.

So, was this where Beth's dreams and episodes had come from? He hadn't even known about the dreams until now, but somehow he had knowledge of them, as if someone had just whispered it into his ear. He didn't know them in detail but in generalities like someone had told him a vague story. Perhaps the voices knew somehow.

He sat as quietly as he could, trying to listen to the conversation on the other side of the door. He would kill the Guardians yet, and now, there were few people to stop him.