Chapter 6

Guardian Year 2 Chapter Six Preface

Ten years passed since the She Ah Vog crashed landed on Ozarrio, and life had changed dramatically for the Trilobite people. The suns continued to beat the men nearly to death in the summer months, but they found comfort in one another. At night, after the men finished with their duties, they'd huddle in the public showers, bathe each other, and engage in sex. Without the comfort of women, the men looked at the other men for pleasure, and it became the norm. In their minds, it didn't matter because the Trilobites wouldn't be able to survive without the females of the species. They considered themselves as doomed people.

Ku—on the other hand—had grown tired and wanted to populate Ozarrio with other Trilobites or at least one hundred Gidisons, and the only way to do that was to get a message to Orion. When the men began engaging in homosexual activities, it caught the older man off guard. He didn't know how to address the issue, and then after a while, he just let it slide.

But at night, when all the other Trilobites slept, Ku interacted with the hologram of Orion inside the broken vessel. Due to her influence on the other crew members, Po had set the ship off limits to all except for the Trilobites in his inner circle. The main Trilobites were Ku, Bri, Vo, and of course Po, the self-appointed leader of them all. He worried because the males lost their way, and became dismayed due to the lack of female interaction. The only woman on the entire planet was Bri'Ogden, and due to her vast powers, the Trilobites feared her.

The She Ah Vog's wreckage set off in the distance, some two miles away from the main village and on a small hill. The portion of the ship with the artificial intelligence in it was sunk deep into the hill, and Ku with the help of a young Trilobite named J'Piana dug out an entrance way to the vessel. On the left side of the entrance way to the ship, Ku placed a statue of Ptah, a warning to any Trilobite who might venture into the old wreckage by accident.

During the early years, when Ku and J'Piana dug out an entrance way to the ship, the older Trilobite broke off a piece of the ship's hull, a piece of metal that contained temporal steel. The back end of the metal object was thick while the front half was thin, and in Ku's mind, it resembled an ax's head. After fastening a wooden handle on the blade, he carried it close to his side and used it to cut down trees for hovels.

When Ku entered into the She Ah Vog, he was usually looking for knowledge on solving a complex problem within the Trilobite community. Needless to say, he wanted some counseling on what to do about homosexual activity in the community. Often, he looked into the memory banks of the ship that had knowledge on most of the Trilobite history, including the Trilobites who lived in the Old Verse. One sect of Trilobites who lived on Tinta Star was called the Moonchickians. In the old verse, they were industrious people who were capable of warp technology. But at the same time, Ptah freed them from all their obligations to the Celestial Kingdom and allowed them to create for themselves instead of adhering to the ancient, Trilobite principles. According to the text of old, the Moonchickians handled their freedom from the Celestial Kingdom with great care, and still honored Ptah in all the things they did. Ku admired them.

When he entered into the old ship, he walked over to the front panel, pushed several buttons, and then the lights flickered for a few seconds. "Come on, old gal," he said under his breath. Orion's image appeared in front of him, a Siren from the old days. Her original form was that of an albino Siren, and she married Ptah when he was a young god. She was in her holographic form, a form pleasing to the eyes.

"In time, other aliens will land on Ozarrio, Ku," she said as she stood in front of him with her arms crossed. "This includes other Trilobites." She walked over to the main panel, raked her right index finger across it, and then looked at the dust on her right index finger. "As technology advances across the verse, beings will break the laws of space and time. When that happens, the Speed Force will imprison them."

"But it's been ten years, and we haven't seen any other creatures on this world except for us," he said with a grimace. "Even I didn't expect this degree of loneliness when you came up with this plan."

She smiled. It looked as if she was in deep thought for a moment, and then she said, "When Ptah built this place, he made it to survive. Others will come. You just need to make sure you have a structure in place for them."

The hologram of Orion glided across the floor, reached underneath the rear counter, and pulled out a box of silver balls. He watched her closely as she pushed the button on top of the ball, twisted it once, and then a red glow encompassed it. "Dear, Orion. Will you send more Trilobites to Ozarrio?" She said. Looking over at Ku, she said, "These balls are designed to traverse time and space." She paused for a moment, and then said, "Orion will send others since the Trilobites have built a community of hovels."

"But without women, we will die out," he said with sadness on his visage, "The men have turned to the other men for comfort."

The hologram of Orion smiled gently. "Ku, take this orb and release it outside. It will find a tear in the verse and then find Orion. If she receives this, she'll send more people. Meanwhile, I expect the men to find comfort in each other. You're of the flesh, and need other fleshy contacts."

He held the orb in his hand for a moment, and then asked, "But who would want to come here? Ozarrio is a prison."

"You turned Ozarrio into your world. Made it beautiful," she said, "Soon beings of all races will live here."

He looked down at the ground for a moment and then thought about some of the things he read about the Moonchickians, an old Trilobite race from the old verse. Due to the fact he had taken a liking to another Trilobite, he felt somewhat worried about what he had read in some of the ancient laws. "As you know, the Moonchickians was another race of Trilobites who lived outside the rules of the Celestial Kingdom."

"That's correct," she said as she looked on with a bit of confusion.

"But in their laws, they prohibited love between two male Moonchickians," he said, "But…"

She sighed, and then said, "They had something you don't, Ku. They had an abundance of women on their world."

Three Years Later:

Ku-now an older man-tilled the land with three other Trilobites while the other people in the community worked on their trades. From the looks of Ku's face, he hadn't aged much at all. He planted corn on the northern area of his property while some of the other men picked Booshi fruit to make alcoholic drinks for the winter months. The fruits on Ozarrio tasted as if they were picked out of the garden on the Celestial Kingdom. The Booshi trees lined the lake and most of the Trilobites spent a full day picking the delicious eats. All the Trilobites including Po's inner circle enjoyed picking the fruits by hand; it was an honor to pick the finest Booshi fruit by hand because it made the tastiest wine.

Ku sat on a rock that set near his cornfield and it was a few minutes right before dark. He had a blood red Booshi fruit in his right hand, and then when he bit into it, the red juice raced down his chin. He had a lot on his mind, but it didn't have anything to do with the fact that the Trilobite people wouldn't grow. He had given up on the orb contacting Orion and found comfort with a Trilobite named J'Piana, a young man who was only ten-years-old when the She Ah Vog crashed on Ozarrio. The young Trilobite helped him build the entrance way for the She Ah Vog, several hovels, and harvest the corn on his farm. In those days, the gods had not set laws on homosexuality because they didn't interfere in the ways of the flesh unless the flesh infringed upon the laws of the gods. However, he had access to ancient, Trilobite text from a race of Trilobites called the Moonchickians; they prohibited homosexual relationships.

When J'Piana walked past Ku, the old Trilobite grabbed the younger one and hugged him deeply. "I've loved women for four lifetimes, and have never felt love like this," he said, "I once prayed for Ptah to send us some female flesh, but now it doesn't matter. The connection I feel for you goes beyond anything I ever felt for anybody."

In the old world, J'Piana's was from the lowest clan on the Celestial Kingdom called the Antipodal Class, a class of dirt eaters. They didn't literally eat dirt, but they worked in the minds of the Celestial Kingdom and did the dirtiest jobs throughout the universe. But at the same time, nobody who wanted to find a companion on Ozarrio could afford to discriminate based on the class system.

"I want you all to myself," Ku said as he whispered into the man's ear.

J'Piana laughed, and then said, "And forsaken Po?"

"How many others are there?" He asked.

"I'm of the Antipodal Class and not privy to the word no," he said with a crooked smile. "I've only known the pain of sex and never the pleasure. But you know this?"

"None of that applies here," he said with a grimace, "You can choose who to please and who not to please."

Suddenly, the sky opened about a mile up in the air and on the other end of it was the blackness of space. It was the first time something like that happened since the She Ah Vog crashed landed on Ozarrio. Quickly, J'Piana held on to Ku's right arm, and then said, "By the gods!"

At first, Ku didn't know what to expect, but out of nowhere, a fiery ship entered through the blackness in the sky and began a dramatic descent to the planet. Out of nowhere, Po and Vo took flight under their own volition and intercepted the ship. They brought it safely to the ground.

"And now you see why I can't say no to Po," he said, "He's of the gods."

Ozzario: Current Time

The sapphire vegetation almost hid the unicorns as they fed on the three-headed beast near the large tarn. The dragon's body was strewn all over the ground, and the unicorns pretty much wallowed in the mess. They were beautiful creatures, the lost beast of Ptah's, standing approximately seven feet in height with elongated faces, and one silver, magical horn atop their heads. Orion protected the unicorns from the plague that wiped out most of the beast during Ptah's rest. It was the best she could do for her eternal lover: protect his favorite source of nutrition.

The unicorns that frolicked in Munchkin Land were almost snow white in color with blue eyes and were referred to as Ptah's Flock in the old days. The two, bright yellow suns and the frequent rainfalls gave a certain beauty to Munchkinland. In the tarn, a few Sirens lived, but they were playmates for the three-headed beast. Most of the sirens resided in the lakes to the east of Munchkinland, and Orion hid them from the Great Father nearly twenty thousand years earlier. Rarely did they come to the surface unless they depleted their food supply.

The Tin Man looked menacing: blood colored eyes, an oil funnel atop his head, tilted to the left side, and muscular appendages made of iron, but it was more than a mere look, it was who he was. Everywhere he traveled the people feared him because he wore the Tins as his armor, a race of metals that stood against him in the Metal Wars. They were a race of metals banished to Ozario nearly one point two million years ago by Ptah in the Great War. He sent them into the Speed Force, and let the prison for the gods decide their destination. Two races of metals ended up on the planet for trying to engage in illegal time travel: the Tins and the Irons.

But when it came to the Tin Man, he wasn't of either race. He was made metal, a cast iron metal that often rusted without the proper oil treatment. His eyes were like two, cherry emeralds and filled the hardest of men's souls with fear. He was heartless and it showed in his visage, and when he looked at the beast feeding on his dragon friend, he clenched his fist. It pained him. The Tin Man stood at the tarn with an angry mug and with his fist clenched up against his metal hips; it was nothing more than a pond on top of a hill, but it was the home of his friend, Randolph. Honestly, it was a little bigger than a pond, but more the size of a lake. His worn countenance saw many wars over the last one hundred years, and since he took over Oz, he constantly had threats from all the kingdoms throughout the valley. But when he saw his precious, three-headed friend that he called Randolph dead on the side of the tarn, it enraged him, and all he could think about was destroying the Munchkins who killed him. He saw it as a direct attack on his empire and he wanted the wrongdoers to pay with their lives.

The unicorns continued to feed on the dead flesh of Randolph, and as they ate, the Tin Man noticed them watching him. They were devouring the dragon's body out of revenge for the way it often attacked them. He could hear the constant masticating, and it was an annoyance, to say the least. The beast came from all over Munchkinland to feed on Randolph; they came from every corner of Munchkinland to take revenge on the dead beast, and as they ate, The Tin Man noticed how they would take a bite of flesh, and then watch him. It was no secret that the unicorns hated Randolph because he often fed on them out of spite. There must have been thirty unicorns tearing at the flesh of the three-headed beast, but when the Tin Man grew enraged, a powerful laser appeared on his right shoulder. It made a clicking noise as it powered up. At first, he had his teeth clenched as he put the laser sight on the first unicorn, and then as he prepared to fire, he relaxed his thin lips. "If Ptah doesn't want me killing his special flock, he shouldn't have made them savages." Suddenly, the laser-set on rapid fire-tore through the unicorns, killing them all, and then he laughed at the carnage he caused. One of the men in the special envoy walked over to him, gave him a glass of a black liquid. He drank it quickly.

"Yes!" The Tin Man exclaimed, "That's some of the best crudes on the planet." Atop his hoverboard, he turned to the rest of his entourage, and said, "I will make the Munchins pay for this." He wiped the black crude from his lips and then held his right hand in the air. Pointing eastward, the group of soldiers began to advance. He once promised to leave the Munchkins alone and not retaliate against them for letting his body rust in the middle of the theme park over a hundred years earlier. They had every opportunity to free him through the years but chose not to do so. He hated them. And due to the death of Randolph, he now had a reason to enter into their kingdom and revenge the death of his old friend.

The Tin Man rolled with the entourage of security on hoverboards made by the Royal Scientist, Theodore Windue, of Oz. He had the biggest hoverboard with two, automatic laser rifles on the front of it. With four, Ironmen in front of him, one on either side and six to the rear, they flew through the sapphire vegetation. He didn't have any Tins on his detail because he didn't think they could be trusted. From the rumors that simmered in his kingdom, the Tins wanted revenge for their comrades that he wore as armor.

Due to the locusts, they didn't fly high into the sky on their hoverboards but levitated approximately four feet off the ground. He had a device that allowed him to control the locust to a certain degree. Without the device, the locust would attack him just as easy as they would anybody who tried to fly in Oz. But due to the threats against his kingdom, he needed the locust; therefore, he always made sure that Theodore Windue had the best women, best food, and best shelter in Oz because only he could replenish their ranks.

He stopped his entourage in front of the deadly poppy field about six miles from the main, Munchkin village. They were beautiful to the eyes as they grew uniformly throughout the area. The poppies were plentiful and had a deadly, spicy scent to them that was pleasant and hypnotic to most creatures except for the unicorns. One of his soldiers placed on a gas mask, picked one of the poppies and returned to the convoy. "Mix my potion," the Tin Man ordered with a grimace on his face. He could smell the sweet scent of the poppies, and he then ordered the soldier to the back of the envoy to mix his potion. Too much of the sweet aroma would debilitate the entire envoy for over eight hours. With a bit of salt and carbon, the gas became extremely potent and turned into a deadly toxin that would kill the Munchkins on wholesale. At one point in his life, he'd have killed himself before he harmed a Munchkin for they were his people. When he was a mortal man of flesh and bone, he had a great passion for his village. He stood tall, proud, and dedicated to his people, and he loved deeply. Back in the day, some one hundred and eighty years earlier, he went by the name of Nick Chopper, a strong, buff woodsman with a passion for romance. He was the son of the King of Oz but decided to abandon his royal blood for the commoners. But upon his departure from the kingdom, his father gave him an ax made with temporal metal from the ship that brought the Munchkin's to Oz over a million years earlier.

He loved a girl named Mary Bloodsworth who worked for the Wicked Witch of the West, Beatrice Soulless and lived in the Munchkin village almost on the dividing line between East and West Oz. Nick stood approximately sixty-three inches, broad shoulders, and strong. Without question, he knew how to wield an ax with the best Munchkin men in all of Oz and often competed in ax competitions where he was always victorious. The temporal steel had the power to cut through anything, including Kryptonian skin under a yellow sun. Unfortunately, he didn't know Beatrice Soulless had an evil eye for him, and one day after he made love to Mary on a warm night before the rainy season started, Beatrice tried to trick him into coitus on the edge of the wood line between East and West Oz. All Nick wanted to do was urinate in the bushes about half a click from his small cottage that he shared with Mary. He had on his overalls and carried his ax as all good woodsmen did. But when he pulled out his phallus to use the bathroom, he felt a rough and scaly hand on it. It jarred him out of whatever daze he was in at the time and he stumbled backward causing urine to splash all over his clothes and the ax to fall to the ground by his right leg.

"What trickery is this?" Nick asked as he tried to find his composure. "Mary is the only gal for me."

"Are you rebuffing my advances?" She asked with a snarl on her face.

"Indeed I am," he said.

He watched the witch pick up the ax and say a few words over it. It glowed bright like the sun for a moment, and then she dropped it to the ground and the effulgence around the ax dissipated. He didn't think anything about it at the time because she merely walked away as nothing happened. He put away his phallus, picked up his wood chopping tool, and headed back to his cottage. It wouldn't be until a few months later during the New Harvest when the little Munchkin kids picked blueberries for pies that would be sold at the fair that the ax attack happened. He had been chopping down a couple of trees so there would be enough wood for the cold, winter months. The kids frolicked about down the hill and had stained hands from picking blueberries for almost the whole day. Nick set his tool against the bundle of chopped wood when he reached in his satchel for a wad of tobacco. He stuck a chew in his mouth and relished the flavor for only a moment when all of a sudden he felt pain in his right shoulder.

"What the hell!?" He screamed. When he looked back, he saw his ax chopping away at his right arm without anybody wielding it. He screamed as loud as he could and the villagers came running for his location, but when they saw what was happening, they all knew it was the work of an evil entity and didn't help him out of fear and selfishness.

"You're cursed, Nick," Leroy Dungcatcher screamed. By the time the ax finished chopping off his limbs, there was only a head and a trunk with no appendages. He lay on the ground in excruciating pain and didn't have the ability to crawl, walk, or run. The ax fell to the ground, and Leroy Dungcatcher screamed, "Get away from him or you'll be cursed too!" For the remainder of the day plus two more days, his fellow Munchkins left him to die in the middle of the field, but he didn't die.

Nick moaned, but nobody came. He begged for help, but none was given. He offered them the money he had saved up for his wedding, but even his fiance abandoned him in his time of need. He grew angry as the sun beat down on his unprotected skin. His face peeled and he felt the agony of his demise taunting him. He cried for a quick death, but it didn't come. Eventually, after he spent two days screaming for help, Ku Klip, a master of metals and electronics picked up his body. He was a short Munchkin, a Munchkin who knew how to make functioning limbs and could make Nick whole.

"What good was a woodsman who can't chop wood?" Asked Ku Klip as he prepared Nick for the operation. He chewed on a piece of black jerky made from the brown unicorns from the north.

As Nick lay in Ku Klip's laboratory, he begged for the master of metals to kill him, for it was the only relief he could understand. "If you could just cut my throat, it would put me out of my misery, Ku. It's the right thing to do."

But the master of metals was a stubborn Munchkin, the kind of Munchkin who never gave up on the limbless man. "And spit in the face of Ptah?" He asked. "I honor my Lord by keeping his child alive and whole. Are you not of the bloodline of our Lord?"

Nick laughed cautiously, and then said in a broken voice, "That I am, but Ptah will never accept me like this. I have metal arms, metal legs, and a heart that pumps crude instead of the royal blood. How will I ever be allowed in the Celestial Kingdom now?"

Ku looked at Nick for a moment, and then said softly, "Because Ptah is a just god, and his heart, Orion, helps him make the wisest decisions."

When he returned to his village, he now stood nearly seven feet in height, but with Ku Klip's wise words, he felt good about his new limbs. His legs were like massive tree trunks and powerful. He came to his fiancee and she hugged him around his waist without having to bend down, but it was the only time she hugged him. It was nearly two weeks later and due to his metal parts, she hadn't held him or made love to him once. He longed for her to cuddle with him, and massage the only fleshy part he had left: his penis.

Nick watched her as she washed some clothes in front of his small cottage. It was a warm summer day and she wore one of her spring dresses. Even though her dress covered her ample bosom, he could see more of her cleavage than usual. He became aroused, almost aggressive in his lust for his fiance. He could hear his metal heart pumping the crude through his body, and he stood in front of her fully erect. Quickly, he took her into his small cottage and tried to have sex with her, but she couldn't see past his metal parts. The way they sounded, looked and felt made her want to cringe.

"The steel is uncomfortable, Nick," she lamented as he gently slid his ice-cold hands across her bosom. It broke his heart the way she flinched when he touched her. "I'm not comfortable with any of this. I'm flesh and you're metal. Don't you belong with the Irons?" Slowly, he lifted off his fiancee and sat on the edge of the bed. He thought about the Irons for only a split second, and the regained his focus. "Maybe Ku Klip can put a heater in your hands and that would make it all the better for me."

He laughed for a moment, and then said, "I'm barely a Munchkin." He brought his hands up to his face, looked at his iron fingers, and lamented. "I'm a disgrace to Ptah. The only appendage I have left is my phallus, but what good is it if you won't touch me? Am I not still Nick Chopper?"

"It's not you," she said with a grimace, "It's this steel. It's so un-Munchkin-like. How can you ask me to see past all this? You left here a small Munchkin and now you're a massive metal machine. Even your beautiful, Munchkin flesh has become steel-like." She touched his face for a moment and began to weep. "I must go, Nick." She stood by the door for a moment, and then looked back at him, and said, "It would be best if we never see each other again."

Mary left, but he sat on the edge of the bed with a fleshy heart turning slowly into steel. It was like the metal was alive and it began to change the color of his skin from a light blue to a shiny silver. He looked into the vanity mirror in his bedroom and the sight of his face pained him. He slammed his steel, right fist into the mirror and it shattered into a thousand pieces. "My Ptah! My Ptah! Why have you forsaken me?" He screamed right before he ran out of his cottage into the torrential rains and made it to the edge of Munchkin Country where he just stood looking into the wilderness. Eventually, he wouldn't be able to move, and he watched the land evolve around him for the next forty years. The Munchkins erected a park around him and he watched as the children played on him, but it wasn't until Dorothy Gal discovered him twenty years later that he had the willpower to leave. She gave him hope after he had lost everything.

The Tin Man hated the Munchkins on a personal level and considered their existence a necessary evil, but he wanted a whole lot of them dead. He remembered their cowardice in the face of evil like it just happened, but he had been the Tin Man nearly one hundred and eighty years now. In the early days, he was made of pure iron, but before he killed Dorothy Gal, he had a tin coating placed over his metal parts, and it made him rust proof. When his entourage entered into his old village, the children frolicked in the sapphire grass. Everything looked peaceful.

When the townspeople saw it was the King of Oz, the Tin Man, they ran to him and tried to show him the respect of his position, but the dictator didn't recognize their homage to him. Clenching his teeth for a moment and then swallowing slowly, he looked at his former people without any remorse or pity. The hate in his visage was palpable. "Randolph is dead," he said loudly. "I want the head of the Munchkin who killed my friend."

Mary, now a much older and wiser woman stepped up to the Tin Man, and said, "Oh wise and sagacious ruler, none of us went near Randolph. He comes to feed on our corn and then leaves. We don't bother him, even though he ate the Miller's child." The Tin Man reached into his satchel, pulled out a wad of tobacco, and chewed it slowly. He looked at Mary in her soft, green Munchkin eyes, and spit on the ground in front of her. His old fiance stepped backward, and then said, "Oh, Nick. I was so wrong how I treated you all those years ago…"

"Shut up!" He exclaimed, "Don't you ever say the name my father gave me. It's forbidden," he said as the tobacco juices dripped off his bottom lip. He hated Mary so badly that the sight of her caused his heart of steel to feel pain. The laser attached to his right shoulder came online and placed a red dot on her chest.

"Am I not worthy of your mercy, Master?" She asked as she fell to her knees, "I have two boys who need their Momma. They lost their father working in the mines to the north. Have mercy on your people, Lord?"