Kept you waiting, huh? (Sorry!)

Welcome back, fanbase! Some of you guys have been sounding like you want to see what happens next, so here we are again with episode 2 of Shadow Guard!

One thing I'm doing differently this time around is writing from multiple different first person points of view. This should allow the story to get more interesting and create a little more suspense. You guys let me know if it works for you.

Also, this may be obvious, but if you haven't read episode 1 yet, you may want to do that to get a better idea of what's going on here.

...By the way, I did make an Ask the Shadow Guard, but I took it down because too many people were telling me to quit breaking rules. Sorry about that.

Now enjoy!

X

Road trips can be...rather enjoyable, if you're not the one driving.

Take this one: currently I'm sitting next to Azalea in the backseat of Erika's car, with Erika driving. We're on highway right behind Darius's car (also containing Minerva), which is following behind the Shadow Guard's car. What's so great about this trip so far? Well, I'm right next to my girlfriend the whole time and I'm listening to nightcore, plus the scenery isn't half bad. Oh yeah, and you cannot forget our destination: Ebott City in New York, home of all monsters.

"Hey X, what are you listening to?" Azalea asks me.

"Eh, just some nightcore I downloaded from YouTube," I answer.

"Really? Awesome! Can I listen?"

"Yeah, sure. Hey Erika, do you happen to have an auxiliary cord by any chance?"

"I do," Erika replies. "It should be in my bag, in the small front pocket."

I reach forward into the passenger seat, grab Erika's backpack, and search the small front pocket for her auxiliary cord. Once it's plugged into my phone, I hand the other end to Erika, who plugs it into the car radio. Yeah, this is much better.

"Yay! This is one of my favorites!" Azalea says, right before we both start singing along.

After about a minute, we're interrupted by our walkie-talkie. "Guys, Minerva and I are ready for a bathroom stop."

Darius

Darn road trip. Since Erika and I are the only ones who can drive, I'm stuck driving the entire time. And I told X that speeding is totally legal as long as you don't crash and you don't get caught, but he and Erika still won't let me, so now we're not going to make it to our hotel until 10:00 at night. There's no way I'd make it if I didn't have Minerva here next to me.

"Again?" Astigmatism's voice comes through the walkie-talkie.

Minerva grabs the walkie-talkie from my hand. "Hey, it's not my fault that I have to drink a lot of Coke to keep myself from dying of boredom!"

"Fine, but hurry up. We've got a lot of distance to cover today. The next gas station's coming up in about four minutes."

I keep driving behind the Shadow Guard until we get to an exit lane and take it to get off the freeway and to a gas station. Once we're parked, Minerva and I step out of the car and meet X, Azalea and Erika at the door.

This gas station seems kinda quiet, but I guess that doesn't matter. We all head over to the bathroom and do our thing. When we're all done, X goes down one of the aisles.

"Dude, we gotta get going!" I say to him.

"Just a second, I gotta see if there are any good deals on snacks," he replies.

Of course. X is really careful about spending money, though he doesn't hesitate on buying anything priced lower than he thinks it's worth.

"Uh, guys?" Azalea says, looking out the window. "I think we need to leave right now."

Azalea

"What's going on, Zay?" Minerva asks. I point outside to a man who's looking through the windows of Erika's car and holding a crowbar.

"****, I forgot to hide my iPad," Minerva curses. "EVERYONE GET OUTSIDE NOW!"

Minerva grabs my arm and pulls me towards the door, where Darius and Erika are already heading outside, X following close behind us. Once outside, we run up to the man.

"HEY!" Minerva shouts at the man as she lets go of my arm. I step back towards X. He's pretty good at handling evil strangers.

Darius hands his keys to Minerva. "Start the cars," he whispers before turning towards the crowbar guy. "Uh, hey dude, uh...you got a GPS or anything on you? 'Cause I'm totally lost in your eyes right now."

What on Earth is he saying? He's going to get hurt!

X, Erika and I head back to our car, while Minerva sneaks around to Darius's. On our way back, I hear the crowbar guy yell something obscene at Darius. Then, after we get inside the car and Erika starts it, Darius starts to back away from the crowbar guy, until it looks like he's about to swing his crowbar at him! Right at the last second, Darius turns on his magical watch and sprints over to the driver's seat of his car in half a second using the power of his orange soul.

Erika immediately starts moving the car over to the road, while the Shadow guard does the same with their car. Then Darius backs his car right into the crowbar guy, who falls down and starts holding his head in pain. Before he can get up and chase after us, we're already back on the road.

"Wasteeeeed!" Minerva exclaims through the walkie-talkie.

"Can we be careful not to hurt anyone next time?" I say back. "We could have sent that guy to the hospital!"

"Come on! He deserved it, he tried to break into our cars and beat up Darius!"

"Maybe, but I still think it's best if we don't hurt anyone unless we really need to."

"Fine, we'll be careful."

Minerva

That was awesome. I'm almost glad someone tried to break into our cars now.

"Did you seriously just try to flirt with that guy?" I ask Darius.

"Well, I needed to draw his attention for a few seconds, and I thought, what better way to do that than to say the oldest, cheesiest pickup line in the book?" he replies.

"You really are a professional idiot," I tell him, smiling and punching his arm.

"Need an idiot to make you look less stupid? Call Darius Grant at 1-800-DUM-DUMB!" Darius is a pretty funny guy, one of the many reasons I love him.

Someone from the Shadow Guard checks in through the walkie-talkie (look, I can't tell their voices apart through this thing, okay?). "Alright, we called the police, so hopefully that criminal will get apprehended soon."

"Nice!" X responds. "You guys are good!"

"Well, when you do this sort of thing for three years, it almost becomes second nature."

"Okay, how much longer until we get there?" I ask them.

"About four hours, provided we don't make any more stops."

Well crap. Looks like I'm going to be on another YouTube marathon here for the next few hours.

The rest of the drive doesn't really get any more interesting. We end up eating a lot of snacks so we don't have to stop for dinner...and then I fall asleep.

"Die, stormtroopers!" I shout while running through the corridors of a spaceship and shooting at stormtroopers. Suddenly, a shot from one of their blasters trips me and I fall to the floor.

A man in a tuxedo walks up to me. "Congratulations!" he says, holding up a shiny, golden plaque. "You are officially the first person to ever take a direct shot from a stormtrooper!"

Smiling, I take the plaque and walk out the door backstage to my limo.

"Hey babe? We're there."

I sit up slowly and look out the window to see us parked in front of a decent-sized hotel late at night. Finally, we're there.

"Alright, we'll give you guys cash to get a room for the night," says the Shadow Guard.

"What about you guys?" X asks.

"We'll stay out here in the car. Don't worry about us, we've done this several times before."

"That still seems sort of cramped," Erika says. "Would any of you like to stay in my car?"

"Thanks, but we need to stay behind the dark windows."

Now I'm finally ready to get out of the car, grab my suitcase from the trunk, and go inside the hotel.

Erika

I lead my friends into the hotel and pay for a room. Then we quietly ride the elevator up to the third floor to find our room. The second I unlock the door, Minerva barges in, drops her suitcase and flops down on the nearest queen-size bed.

"This feels so good," she comments, face-down in the covers. "I am not moving for the next eight hours."

"Um, okay, but where are the rest of us going to sleep?" Azalea asks.

"Hmm, well..." X starts, "...there are only two beds, and...it's not like this is a school field trip or anything, so..."

Minerva's head spins to the side. "Darius, get over here!"

"I brought a sleeping bag, I'll sleep on the floor," I announce, wanting some space.

"But no doing anything weird!" X calls out. "We're all only dating or single, and there's still five people in this room."

"We won't go too crazy on each other," Darius reassures him. "You and Azalea just enjoy yourselves over there."

I grab my pajamas and lock myself in the bathroom to get ready to go to sleep, while the others continue doing...relationship things, I suppose. While I'm happy that they've already found possible soul mates, I just don't feel like I'm ready to deal with the emotional stress and complications of having a significant other. And really, being around four platonic friends all the time is a little much already.

Once I'm out of the restroom, Azalea takes her turn while I get settled in to sleep by the window, followed by X. But then once X is about to go to bed, he gets down on the ground and does thirty push-ups. He does that sometimes as sort of a confidence booster.

"Wow, that was a lot!" Azalea compliments him.

"Thanks," X replies. "Read on the internet that exercising right before bed helps you sleep, 'cause it makes your muscles relax."

"Are you sure you're not just showing off?"

"Okay, maybe that was part of it, but that's a real life hack!"

"You think you're good?" Minerva challenges. "I'll show you a lot of push-ups!"

Minerva then gets on the floor and does thirty-five push-ups, though I doubt she'd be able to do any more than that.

"Crud," X remarks. "I gotta do more of those, I've been able to do forty before."

"Guys, we've been driving all day," I tell them. "Can we just go to sleep now?"

"Alright," X responds. "Good night."

I shut my eyes and it gets quiet, though I can still hear X and Azalea whispering to each other a little. Right now I just need to forget about the difficult road trip and quartering conditions and remember why we're doing this: to see the hometown of all the world's monsters. I'm sure it'll all be worth it once we finally get there.

And episode 2 is underway! Again, let me know if this multiple perspectives thing is working in the reviews, alright?

...

...Oh yeah, I don't do those chapter teasers anymore. Those don't really work in my opinion now.