Authors Note: let me apologize for this fic not being updated in the last few days, it will be on a daily update schedule once I finish the a brothers debt epilogue. Hope you enjoy this chapter.
"I am displeased… immensely!" the majesty growled while resting on his throne. Another guardian stood before him in a dark blue suit that looked very light and thin, with white gloves and boots, a white stripe going over the shoulder around her body, and the black helmet visor looking more rectangular.
"But your majesty! I, the greatest swordsman in the world, have brought us great aid! I thought you would be pleased," Teronzata argued. The dark blue guardian had a weird holster on her side that had a rectangular object showing from it, not a gun but a melee weapon.
"So to fight guardians… You made a guardian?" Mirayu tilted her head. Her mask displayed confusion at this time around.
"On top of that, you made a human that guardian as well… this can only backfire on us," the fourth general's slightly deep voice sighed while cleaning a golden object in shape of a harmonica, while they remained off to the side.
"They're right. Get that thing out of that guardian suit and give it to a monster immediately!" Zeggfor ordered. The sword wielding plant monster was twirling his top hat on his blade, a habit he did when he was worried.
"Erm… about that… as the greatest swordsman ever, I presumed that a human would be the best apprentice ever… I managed to make her absorb a lot of my dark essence, as well as the majesty's that was within the heart, and… well… we only had enough Gruynithil to make one this size," Teronzata explained, feeling all eyes in the room on him. The guardian stood before the majesty, not moving or reacting.
"…It has always fascinated me… those two guardians are using my own hearts against us… Yet they don't have my essence within them anymore…It's as though they corrupted my hearts," the majesty had deeply pondered this for a long time. Essence was a great alternative source for internal energy, but it took a lot more of one type of essence to overwhelm and remove another kind of essence. Something which humans obliviously balanced daily.
"And this one human was too weak to fight it all?"
"Yes! She succumbed to it with such ease…" his swordsman nodded while plunking his hat back onto his head, tapping his sword on the dark blue guardian's helmet, receiving no reaction. Teronzata had used all the Gruynithil because the textoth failed at recreating the guardian suit multiple times until this one, otherwise they could happily make a guardian suit for a monster.
"Judging by her gaze, her mind may be in our control, but there's a part of it that is full of nothing but hatred. As the greatest swordsman ever, I've seen this type of gaze many a time on the battlefield! It's the look of spite and determination, to…"
"Enough!" the majesty zapped Teronzata with a blast of thunder, sending him flying across the room and crashing into several textoth. The majesty then averted his attention to the dark blue guardian. "…Guardian… present your face."
The generals in the room watched as the dark blue guardian reached up and removed her helmet. She looked to the majesty, her expression flat but her eyes like daggers.
"If I could move, I would attack you right now!" Lori thought. Unfortunately, her body was not in her control. She felt horrible for what she had done to Lincoln earlier, but she could do nothing now beyond mentally scream at herself.
"Xeran Guardian, most of my loyal generals are monsters… outcasts from their dimensions, or humans that gave up their worthless bodies for our superiority. Prove to me you are worthy of my essence being in your body, and I shall grant you the same transcendent gift!" the majesty declared while standing up, his royal cape slightly shaking around at his sudden movement.
"I serve the Xeran. Our goal is to bring our majesty into this dimension," Lori spoke. She went down on one knee, placing the palm of her hand on the ground while her helmet was under her other arm. She bowed her blonde head to the majesty, hearing the three of the four generals gather.
"No I don't! Stop saying that you… me… us!" Lori cried from her mind to no avail.
"I have the perfect test for you… Teronzata taught you swordplay. Therefore, practice to test your skills with the blade will occur in the dimension's morning," the majesty ordered. Teronzata groaned while lying on a pile of bones, pleased to hear this news.
"Thank you, yo-your majesty! As the world's greatest swordsman, I won't let you down!" Teronzata exclaimed with a bright tone. Lori put her helmet back on her head, hearing it clunk into a secure position before she closed the visor.
"Come, my apprentice! Let us play with our long metal objects," the sword wielding plant led the way through the castle in the eldritch dimension to train their swordplay. Lori hoped Lincoln was okay, whatever he was doing and she wondered if he would forgive her for what she was forced to do to him.
Friday had hit Royal Woods. Today was a teacher holiday for many schools, so most students were out for today. In a more industrial part of the town, there was a traffic jam, one that oddly had been going on for three hours.
"I'd say the boss is going to be mad that we're late, but I'm pretty sure that's HIS car in the other lane," one irritated driver spoke while carpooling with his coworkers. They felt the ground rumble slightly.
"Are we actually moving?" Another worker yawned, noticing several lines of cars beginning to vanish on the horizon. Their car suddenly began to tilt. They screamed in terror as they fell into a large hole that came through the road nearly all over the place.
"Gahaha! Give me your essence! Fear is so easy to gather," Xerill spoke while drilling through the road back to the surface. Waves of dark essence emerged from the pits. The people were now trapped inside, scared for their lives.
"Ahh… perfect… the majesty will be happy to see all I have gathered," the drill monster laughed, its arms spinning and collecting the essence in the air. Soon enough, Xerill suddenly received a strong kick to the back that knocked him into one of his own pits, falling onto the roof of a car, much to his painful displeasure.
"Nice kick," Lincoln complimented Lynn. They had gotten the surprise on the monster after hunting for him most of the day. Now they could thwart him like they did the other Xeran forces so far.
"Thanks," Lynn smiled. Her boyfriend had not been acting the same though. She couldn't talk to him at all this morning and Luna had spent part of last night attempting to console him for something that neither knew about, Luna wound up failing and being more frustrated with herself in the end.
"I should have expected you…" Xerill dug his drill arms into the ground, beginning to quickly tunnel through back to the upper ground behind them, letting his arms spin against one another and sharpening them, sparks flying out with each graze, "You'd best flee if you don't want holes all over your body!"
"Sorry, but we're not going anywhere," Lynn retorted while they unveiled, their stars both of them putting them into place and securing them shut.
"Guardian mode! Engage!" they both struck their pose as their guardian suits appeared on them and their weapons readied, the two reaching up when their helmets appeared onto their heads.
"Lock in!" their helmets both secured with a clunk, and they both tapped the sides of their helmets making the visors close.
"Guardian Black guardian of-" Lynn stopped when she heard a loud battle cry, as Guardian Red charged straight for the monster without any hesitation, clashing weapons with the Xeran elite monster catching it by surprise.
"What?! No role call?!" the monster gasped in shock. Lynn wondered if Lisa could offer some advice here.
"It appears Lincoln has some personal disposition for this monster," Lisa commented while viewing the battle from their perspectives, over her laptop.
"I don't think that's the problem here, Lisa. He's been upset since last night. He won't tell me why either," Lynn stated worriedly, seeing sparks and attacks exchanging from the two battlers.
Guardian Red growled while pulling at one of the drill arms of the monster. He slashed the joint that was connecting it to the robots shoulder. Xerill screamed as his left arm was cut off, wires and bolts going everywhere.
"Yes, he is definitely upset," Lisa stated. Their only brother was fighting like this monster was going to kill everybody in the pit if he was not beaten soon, even though all Xerill had done is just dug traps and wandered, abandoned by Teronzata since he had served his purpose.
"Get off me!" Xerill stabbed Lincoln in the chest, sending him flying into Lynn, who then caught him.
"Lincoln! Are you okay?"
"I'm fine! Just let me up!" Lincoln replied, smoke coming from his cut chest. He quickly aimed his guardian gauntlet for the drill monster, and it began to light ablaze while he deposited a large amount of his red essence into his weapon.
"Lincoln! You didn't even attempt to pin the monster! Your claws should be sharp enough to pierce its material!" Lisa tried to make him stop the finisher to do it properly, but he ignored her instructions.
"Guardian finisher! Flare burst! Engage!" Lincoln fired, watching the flaming star go spinning toward the monster at high speed. Xerill tried to put up his guard, only for the curved red star to pierce his arm and body with a bright blaze of fire.
"Ough… It appears I… dug my own grave," with his last words, Xerill fell onto the road before exploding. When Lynn and Lincoln bore witness, the shock hit them that Lincoln's star was caught in the blast, and in reaction, it flew high up into the air, away to a far off location. The essence sphere the monster had rolling on the ground.
"Lincoln!" Lynn saw him morph back to normal before collapsing onto both knees, his palms on the ground while he was sweating and panting. That was a bad sign alone. She returned to normal as well, pocketing her black star.
"I got him… hahah… why should I be proud when I'm some worthless parasite…?" Lincoln coughed, ready to faint. Lisa was going to be furious by the time she was informed that Guardian Red had lost his star, one of two things he needed to become a guardian in the first place.
"If you think I'm going to let you go to that party tonight when you're like this, you're in for a surprise!" Lynn insisted, knowing there was something on his mind right now, "Come on, let's get home. We killed the monster, so we can relax."
Lincoln was too exhausted to move. He had gone overboard in this fight that he had burnt far too much essence into that one attack. He didn't even allow Lynn to help. "Sorry…"
After Lynn got the empty essence sphere that Xerill had dropped, she went over and picked Lincoln up in her arms and began to walk away. They could hear the sound of various sirens in the air coming to help those trapped in the pits, the guardians could not do much to aid those that were stuck there.
"Lisa's definitely going to kill me…"