Guardian: Protectors of Light (16 page)

There
had
to be something like a small lake or
stream nearby.

“
I don’t
think it’s really necessary, Antonio,” James said. “I think it’s
more for their own purpose. You know, for their own safety. I
wouldn’t be eager to be under control of that creepy sorcerer that
roams these lands as soon as the shadow falls over my land and he
gets free game to do whatever he wants... It has probably nothing
to do with us.” He finished his statement with a shrug, without
moving his hands out of his pockets.

“
Are you sure
about that, James? I mean, they’re pretty much stalking us,
lighting up any area we are in.” Antonio looked at James,
uncertainty reflecting in his eyes.

“
Curiosity?”
James replied. He pulled an uncomprehending pout with his lips and
shrugged again at the Guardian of Day and Night. “Tonio, to be
honest, I have absolutely no idea. Anyway, whatever it is they’re
trying to do, they’re doing their job very well and that’s all that
matters.”

“
James,
you’re probably right,” Antonio replied, rubbing his chin. “But
still...”

He walked off, towards a
group of fairies. “Hey, little girls! Can you tell me what’s going
on?”

The fairies made exited,
chattering sounds and smiled widely at Antonio. They surrounded him
and started to fly at a fast pace in circles around him.
“Hey- little ones- what are you doing?” Antonio mumbled a little
worried. “Guys? A little help, please?”

“
I think they
like you, Tonio!” Bella replied with a smirk. Even Thomas and
Samira couldn’t refrain from chuckling. 

“
Ah, shoot!”
Antonio shouted. “Just tell me what you want already!”

One of the pixies flew up
to Antonio’s eye-height, and started to talk. Her voice was
actually lower than Antonio actually expected.

“
Please don’t go into the forest,” the pixie exclaimed. Her
long, silver hair danced around her as she floated.
She’s beautiful
, Antonio thought.

“
Um, why not?
We need to visit your Queen and ask her for advice; according to
the information we’ve been given, she lived inside the forest! So
I’m afraid we’ll have to go into the forest.”
  

“
You are The
Five Guardians, the Bond of Light, the Last Generation, the Last
Hope,” the pixie continued.

“
Yes, we were
already aware of that,” Antonio said. “Can we move on? Like, go
into the forest to finish our quest?”

The fairy shook her head.
“No, you cannot enter the forest. It’s too dangerous,” she said
with a rather strict tone in her voice. 

“
Why is it
too dangerous?” Antonio simply continued to ask
questions.

“
If your
ignorant mouth would just let me finish without breaking in all the
time, I could tell you,” the pixie sighed. “Please tell your
friends to get over here, then I can explain. It’s important for
them to hear, too.”

“
Oh, sorry,”
Antonio said. “You’re right.” He turned around and gestured at his
friends that they had to come closer. “She’s got some important
news to tell us, guys!

“
I’m hoping for finally some
good
news for a
change, because I think we’ve been getting enough bad news lately,”
Bella commented, while they walked towards Antonio.

Bella was right. They had
been through a lot since they’d entered Lunaria. Trickery,
dangerous wolves... They’d even been ambushed in the middle of a
dark forest. Twice. 

But of course, they
could’ve known that the pixie had nothing but bad news to bring
them.

And a warning.

“
Please, sit
down, Guardians,” the pixie with the silver hair said and gestured
at the ground.

The grass was soft and
fluffy, so none of the teens protested as they sat down.

“
Oh, miss, I
love the flower crown you’ve got there,” the pixie commented at
Samira’s flower crown.
“Oh, please, call me Samira,” Samira said smiling. “And thank you.”
Bella, James and Samira had spent the day making flower crowns,
despite of the endless teasing from Antonio and Thomas that
repeatedly had come their way.

“
Of course,”
the pixie replied. “Why, how rude of me; I haven’t even properly
introduced myself.” The pixie took a short bow in apology before
telling the teens her name.

“
I am
Violina, Sister of the Queen,” she said. “I protect the Valley
together with the other pixies.

I practically lead them.
We are protecting this Valley like this for over a thousand years.
It’s gone wrong only once; the pixies’ flowers were closed too long
by some kind of spell, causing the Valley to remain dark. The
Guardians of that Generation were then ambushed, and, sadly,
separated. The Warlock Spirits took one of the Guardians with them,
and the other Four were lost without him.”

The pixie paused, waiting
for reactions; she was lucky to get some out of the
teenagers.

Samira raised her voice
and asked, “Violina, this might sound like an odd question, but
which Guardian exactly did the Warlock Spirits capture during that
ambush?”

“
They took
the Guardian of Imagination away back then,” Violina
answered. 

“
And there
was a reason to that?” Samira asked again, with a concerned look at
James.

“
The Guardian
they usually take is one of the Leading Guardians, because without
them, the other Four cannot reach the Castle of the Spirits,”
Violina replied. “So they’d try to take whoever leads your group.
But they could seize anyone of you, since they are trying to do
anything to tear the Bond of Light apart.”

“
How do you
know our names?” Bella asked, fascinated by the fact that the pixie
knew who they were. Violina looked at her and smiled. “Because it’s
been foretold, my dear Bella,” she said. “This had been planned
thousands of years ago, when the Master conquered our world.
“As you might know, the Spirits of Light used six Sources to make
this world. The great amount of darkness and evil that roams these
lands was never a plan of theirs. It was someone else’s.

And as Guardians of the Five Sources of Light, the Sixth
being the Master’s Darkness, of course, it is your job to restore
the balance between the Five Sources and the Sixth. Asura, the man
you know as the Master, or the Demon, was the only one of the
Spirits that had been tasked to create darkness. But he was
different from the other Spirits. The Spirits had made an agreement
with each other to keep the balance between each of their powers
fair. But Asura, as young and hungry for power as he was, wanted
more. He grew hungry for power. He almost succeeded to grow more
powerful than the Spirits themselves. But before he succeeded to do
so, they overpowered him and punished him. But instead of
destroying him, they took away his memory and... well,
most
of his powers. Not the smartest thing to do. He was still
left hungry for power.

When he was casting
spells one night, he retrieved his memory. Ever since he retrieved
them, he tried to become the way he was. But he never succeeded to
become more than half-human half-spirit. But it was enough to lock
the Spirits away and scatter the Light Sources to
pieces.

That led the Spirits to
gather these pieces and send them to Earth. You are, more or less,
the personifications of the Light Sources.”

“
Thank you
for the in-depth background information,” Antonio said. “But why
can’t we go visit the Queen? We need to visit her to gain more
information about the Fantasy Valley.”

“
Antonio! Haven’t you been listening to what I just said?”
Violina replied, sounding incredibly irritated. “In case you
haven’t been paying attention, I said: ’
They’d try to take whoever leads your group, but
they could seize anyone of you, since they are trying to do
anything to tear the Bond of Light apart.’
 Got that, sir?”

Antonio nodded. “But I
just still don’t understand why-” he said, but Violina cut off his
sentence.

“
Before you
spout any more ignorant stupidities,” she said, “The answer to your
question is just that simple. That forest back there is crawling
with Warlock Spirits and Nightmare Fairies. Creatures that want to
find you. Capture you. Bring you to the Master. Bring you to your
imminent death. Or worse.”

She gestured towards the
Fairy Forest that was located somewhere in the dark behind them.
“And trust me; with just the four or maybe even three of you,
you’re lost.”

“
But we really 
need
 to see the
Queen,” Samira complained. “We’ll
have
to take the
risk.”

“
We can’t let
you put your life in danger,” Violina decided, crossing her
arms. 

“
We’re
already doing so just by being here, so who cares,” James said.
“Just let us go into the forest, Violina. We’ll be fine.” He was
lying on his back in the grass, staring at the skies.

“
Are you
sure, James?” James could by the way Violina spoke that she was
truly worried about their safety.

“
Well, yes,
since if it weren’t for the Keepers, we would’ve been dead already,
or worse,” James with a crooked smile. “So... Actually? I
definitely think we should go.” 

Samira smiled at him. He
could do things to people no one could, since he was like a
Magician if it came to words and conversations. As little kid, he
always had been good in talking himself out of trouble.

He never simply blamed
someone else, like his sister always blamed them for everything
that went wrong, but he simply explained the situations.

Both his mother and
father had always found it adorable. So that caused him to assume
it was a good thing to do. 

And it didn’t seem to
work on just his parents.

Whenever he got in
trouble at school (which wasn’t often, but still, sometimes he
would “borrow” something from the supplies closet from their
Chemistry class, and that sometimes seemed to seriously bother the
old man who was their chemistry teacher (and who could blame him,
right?). But he always got away with it by talking some smooth talk
and convincing the teacher it had been for a good cause.

He was rated “Teacher’s
Pet,” but then in a good way. All teachers loved James for his
ingenious ideas and plans. He was always busying around on planning
school activities, but still managed to get great
grades.

Like, the perfect
student. Well, almost perfect, save the “borrowing stuff from
school and teachers without asking” part.

School... Home... Every
time anyone brought up anything home-related, it was painful to
realise how much they missed home.

James felt his eyelids
getting heavy, and Violina’s words faded out. He could hear that
she was talking, but couldn’t hear what she exactly said. It didn’t
take long before his eyelids closed and he drifted off
asleep.

“
So, if
that’s your decision then- 
James? Are you even listening? James!”

“
Jimmy
goody-two-shoes seems to have fallen asleep,” Antonio said
chuckling. “Guess he found your story something really boring,
Lina!” He grinned broadly, but Violina’s eyes said murder. “They at
least could’ve chosen someone more polite...” she sighed. “But if
the boy is really asleep, he must’ve been really tired. Let him
rest.”

Thomas simply shook his
head and smiled when he looked at the redhead lying in the grass
next to him. The kid looked peaceful when he slept. Like a little,
redheaded angel. Thomas hoped that James would finally be able to
sleep the night through.

Thomas hadn’t finished
his thought, or James screamed and shot upright. He jumped to his
feet and pulled out his sword.
There the sixteen-year-old was standing on his feet, breathing
heavily, ready to fight.

“
I felt
something,” he simply said. “I sensed something. Something’s
approaching.”

“
James, I bet
it was just a dream,” Thomas said, in an attempt to calm James
down. 

“
No, it was
real. I’m for one hundred percent sure,” James replied. “Get packed
and get going, guys. We should be getting out of here to a more
lit-up place. We have to find a place to make a fire. And that is
anywhere close to the forest.”

“
James,
entering the forest at night isn’t a good idea. While you were
asleep, Violina explained that the pixies can’t protect the Forest-
it’s crawling with monsters.”

“
We’ve fought
them before, so we know how to defeat them,” James simply replied;
he’d already begun to walk. “You coming or what?”

“
I think we
have no choice, or he takes off on his own,” Samira commented
toward Violina’s concerned looks. “It’s either this or
that.”

“
I’m coming
with you,” Violina said and flew towards Samira. “I’m going to be
your ‘torch’ and guide tonight.”

“
Are you
going to help us get to the Queen before the night ends?” James
asked.