Guardian: Protectors of Light (49 page)

Thomas’s attack seemed to
have triggered the other Reversed Guardians to fight too; they
attacked all four at once.

“
Great
thinking, Thomas!” James threw the Brit a sarcastic yell as his
doppelganger threw him to the ground. “Really!”

“
It’s not
like you would were about to come up with something!” Thomas
remarked.

“
I NEEDED
MORE TIME!” James yelled, this time truly angry, as he threw
Reverse James off him, trying to stab him with his sword.”But no,
the “knight in shining armour” had to run off on his own
again!”

“
Let me tell
you something-” Thomas said, but was interrupted before he could
continue.

“
Boys, stop
it!” Samira shouted. “This is no time for arguing! That’s exactly
what they want you to do!”

“
No, Samira!”
James snapped, still fighting his Reverse. “I am sick and tired of
being treated like a child! He’s got to cut it out!”

He pushed his Reverse
aside, letting his attention drive off, allowing his Reverse to
dissolve and reform... to be able to attack Samira.

She quickly loaded her
bow to fire arrows at the Reverse, who barely managed to dodge
Samira’s perfect aim.

He extended his arm to
form a foggy shape resembling an arm and a hand, and used it to
pull on one of Samira’s ankles, causing her to lose balance and
fall.

In a flash, Samira was
lying on the ground and Reverse James was standing in front of
her.

Meanwhile, James had
focused on nagging Thomas by reminding that attacking the Reverses
had been a bad idea, until Antonio reminded both the boys they were
in battle.

While they were listening
to Antonio, Thomas was knocked to the ground with high speed, and
landed with his head on a hard rock. His sword ended up several
meters away from him.

“
Thomas! Are you all right!?” James yelled. He saw Reverse
Thomas aiming for the unconscious real Thomas and wanted to defend
James, but as soon as he got between the Reverse and James, the
Reverse used the same fog arm move as Reverse James had used on
Samira to knock James’ sword out of his hands.

With a single kick, the
Reverse managed to get James on the ground. Apparently, the Reverse
had now set his mind on taking James out first.

It seemed as if there was
no way out at first; but then, James noticed Thomas’s sword, lying
less than a meter away from him.

He rolled aside, just in
time to dodge the Reverse’s sword which ended up drilling deep into
the ground.

This came in handy; it
gave James plenty of time to get the sword and stand up while the
Reverse was still busy trying to get his sword out of the
ground.

James however didn’t wait
for the Reverse to get his sword out of the ground; he closed his
eyes to make the blade glow with his magical abilities, and sliced
Reverse Thomas in half. The Evil Spirit then dissolved and
disappeared, leaving the sword behind for James to pull it out of
the ground.

He quickly ran over to
Thomas, who had just regained consciousness, and looked at his
older step-brother with a concerned look. “When this is over, need
to talk,” he said, before running off to help the others, leaving
Thomas behind with the sword and a confused look on his
face.

Samira looked into
Reversed James’ eyes. It scared her to see James this way, even
though she knew it wasn’t really him. But still... It felt as if
this figure standing in front of her had her fretting for the
future. James’s future.

“
SAMIRA!
WATCH OUT!” a voice shouted, just at the moment Reverse James
lashed out at her.

But instead of hitting
Samira, he hit hard metal. James had stopped his Reverse’s attack
with Thomas’s sword. He had picked up his own sword along the way,
which he held in the other hand. If Timothy was able to fight with
two swords, then why wasn’t he?

James looked down at
Samira and winked at her. “I’ve got it under control,” he said. “Go
help the others. There’s still three of them left!”

He didn’t have to tell
her twice. Samira got on all fours, grabbed her bow and ran off to
help Antonio, Timothy, Bella and now also Thomas, who’d rejoined
them, in battle.

The remaining battle was
rough, yet they managed to make it through somehow. Timothy was
extremely clever with his katanas and had been able to take Reverse
Samira out on his own, while Antonio and Bella were fighting their
Reverses together.

The only one who seemed
to be having trouble was James.

It wasn’t that he wasn’t
able to fight or couldn’t handle two swords; he was fairly good
with both of them. It was the fact that he was getting magical
corruption attacks again.

The earth started to
dance in front of his face, leaving him unable to determine what
was real or not. It also didn’t help that his Reverse kept taunting
him; it kept dissolving and reforming in different places and
multiplying itself, as if it was amused by the fact that James was
weakening.

James felt his energy
draining by the second; as he tried his best to see and dodge his
enemy, he scanned the background for his friends. They were rushing
toward him; the battle had been ended. All there was left to do was
to defeat Reverse James.

And James wasn’t able to
do it himself.

He let unconsciousness
get the best of him; he dropped his sword, allowed his knees to
buckle and fell forward in the dead remains of grass.

Although he hadn’t gone
completely unconscious; he could clearly feel two pairs of hands
lifting him up by his shoulders and feet to drag him somewhere
safe. A little further away, he could hear sounds of a fight, but
those went as quickly as they’d come.

They’d won. They’d done
it.

James tried to open his
eyes and look at his friends. The first face he saw was of a
worried Thomas, lit by the pale green and blue glow of the stones
on the brooches that held both the boys’ capes together.

“
Are you all
right?” Thomas asked. James gave him a small nod.

“
I- I’m sorry
about what I said earlier, Thomas,” he said, as he sat
up.

Thomas smiled at him, and
helped him to sit up when he saw that James was struggling to do
so. “Hey, it’s okay,” he said. “You were the hero today. You saved
my life.”

James smirked. “Yes, yes
I did. That’s where friends are for, right?”

Thomas nodded. “Indeed,
they are,” he said. “Plus, we are almost brothers. And we fight.
Because... That’s what brothers do,” he said. “So no worries. We’ll
make it through, I promise.”

Thomas looked Thomas in
the eye. Indeed; they were as close as brothers. “I promise I won’t
give up on you.”

“
Pinkie
promise,” James said, sticking up his left hand.

“
Pinkie
promise,” Thomas smiled, as he and James linked pinkies
together.

Indeed. They would make
it through together; giving up on each other didn’t sound like
something they’d ever do.

Never.

*

“
Thomas, I
believe we need to talk.”

Thomas turned around,
seeing Timothy stand behind him. He held his hands to his hips and
wore a serious, frown-ish glare.

“
Uh- sure,”
Thomas said. “We can talk while walking, right?”

“
Sure,”
Timothy said. “Walking. We’ve been doing that for hours now.
Without a break.”

Thomas shrugged. “What
are you going to do about it?” he said. “If we don’t we’ll never
make it to the Castle. We need to keep moving in order to stay out
of the Master’s clutches.”

“
That’s
exactly the point I was getting to.”

“
What’s it,
then?”

Timothy’s voice got a
stern tone. “Thomas, you and your friends are in great
danger.”

Thomas turned his head
toward Timothy. “Breaking news; we’re in danger. Come up with
something new.”

Timothy shook his head;
his sandy blond hair swayed along with the movements. “I didn’t
mean it that way,” he said. “There’s a new threat.”

Thomas threw him the
sceptical look. “Gosh, more people to join the party,” he said.
“The new threat is...?”

“
Yourselves,”
Timothy said. “It might sound weird, but the dark energy in this
world is messing with James in different ways than I’d expected. We
need to be careful.”

Thomas plucked his lips.
“As in? You mean how he keeps getting annoyed by the tiniest
things?”

Timothy nodded. “Exactly.
The Master is trying to drive a wedge between you two. And you need
to make sure that that does not happen.”

Thomas raised his palms.
“But how!?” he shouted, but quickly lowered his volume as he
noticed Antonio and James turning their heads toward hem. “It’s
happening anyway; this place is Asura’s domain! Nothing can stop
his power here.”

Timothy looked at him.
“Don’t worry. Nothing more than this should be able to happen
unless Asura gets his hands on James.”

“
Don’t
worry,” Thomas said. “James is not stupid enough to get captured.
I’ll make sure the Master stays a thousand miles away from
him.”

“
You will
try,” Timothy said.

Thomas lowered an
eyebrow. “You’re saying I’m incapable of protecting
him?”

“
I don’t
think you’re incapable of just protecting him, but of protecting
yourself,” Timothy shrugged. “Haven’t you thought of the fact that
the Master just might think of using you or Samira to get to
James?”

Thomas didn’t reply, but
simply raised his eyebrows. Yeah. He had to be honest, he hadn’t
thought of that yet. He was already aware that the Master wanted to
get rid of all of them, but the fact that he’d use either one of
them to get rid of the other... and probably their friends along
with them, hadn’t crossed his mind yet.

But why hadn’t it? Thomas
smacked his palm against his forehead.. “Right. That does sound
bad. Sorry for being a sceptical jerk.”

“
It’s okay,”
Timothy said. He smiled at Thomas. “You have a very determined
mindset, and I admire that. It’s your greatest strength, but might
also be your downfall. You need to remember that you don’t need to
just look out for your friends, but make sure you stay safe as
well.”

Thomas scratched his neck
and looked up. “Eh. Don’t worry, I do look after myself. But...
just not as much as I look after them. They’re my friends, you
know. I don’t know what I’d do without them.”

“
You remind
me of someone,” Timothy said. “Myself.”

“
How?”

Thomas turned his head
toward Timothy, clearly uncomprehending about how he could possibly
have reminded Timothy of himself.

“
Well... To
be honest, Madeleine and Sabrina were the only ones who knew each
other aside from Gabriel and Rikki,” Timothy said. “We... lied to
you. The five of us were complete strangers to each other, didn’t
even like each other for the first few weeks. Madeleine missed her
crush home, but... things changed. I changed them... and then other
things started happening.

That very moment was the
moment when I realized I had to save her. And that’s why I gave up
my own life to rescue her.”

He paused for a short
moment. “I don’t want you to do that, because they need
you.”

Thomas swallowed. “I
wasn’t planning to do that.”

Timothy raised an
eyebrow. “Don’t lie. This is the reason the Spirits had decided to,
after us, choose non-related people who could still form a strong
bond. Losing family is losing an eternal bond.”

“
So is losing
a friendship-wise bond.”

“
Point
taken.”

Timothy looked at Thomas.
“But be careful. Remember that it’s required for you and James to
perform the Ritual if you want it to succeed. Without you, your
friends are lost.”

“
Hey,
Timothy, I’m just curious: why did you decide to sacrifice yourself
for Madeleine? I mean – didn’t she need you to survive?”

Timothy looked away from
Thomas, at the ground, as if he was ashamed of something. “She
didn’t,” he said. “She could’ve gone back home to her crush, even
without me. The Almighty Spirit could’ve helped her get home. But
she chose not to. Because of me.”

“
But doesn’t
that mean that she wanted to be with you more than with him?”
Thomas said. “Isn’t that a good thing?”

“
Maybe. But I
feel like it was my fault she died.” Timothy sighed.

“
You died for
her, Timothy. Then she died for you. There’s nothing about that
where you could possibly be to blame for,” Thomas said. “It was her
choice. And...” He paused, his eyes shifting from Timothy toward
Samira, who was talking to Bella. “There’s a girl who’d I’d die for
too... She came here with me.”

Timothy’s face lit up.
“Then make sure you go back home. Together with her.”

Thomas nodded. “I will.
And I’m taking my friends with me.”