"So you're back, are you, 'guardian'?"
"Thought a new hairstyle would throw us off?"
"It suits you. In that it looks like complete trash."
Laughter.
The guardian pretended to ignore the approaching fireteam. But some unconscious part of him was calculating how long it would take to draw the Allegro and fire three quick shots. But no. He couldn't do that. People accepted him here, or at least they took his money. He couldn't ruin that by fighting in village limits.
And besides, they'd just get back up, anyway.
And so would he, again, and again, and again.
Pork flitted out, nervously. "Guardian, be careful."
"Pork, stay inside."
The ghost obeyed.
He looked to them, expression blank. Then he looked away, purposely avoiding looking at his new Athena sparrow. People were already looking at the disturbance.
"Hey! Pay attention when someone's talking to you," the Titan shouted.
"Unless you think you're too good to talk to us, princeling." The Warlock stepped up and shoved him backwards.
The guardian took it in stride, recovering smoothly. He'd seen the woman's move coming a mile away. But it was the Hunter he needed to worry about. The last guardian watching him was silent behind his mask, hand on the fat hunting knife on his waist. The guardian had died to knives before.
"I don't know who you're talking to," the guardian replied evenly. "I'm not a prince."
The Titan called out, "Is this your new ride?"
The guardian's gut clenched.
The Titan stepped closer to the Athena, eying it closely. It was not a new sparrow, but it was clean and well-maintained. "Where you planning on going? Finding more people to kill?" His helmet dematerialized and his broad face furrowed in a scowl. "Can't have that."
"Don't touch my sparrow."
"Oh?" The Titan puffed up a little. "What are you gonna do? Stop me?" He drew back a leg and kicked the sparrow in the side, denting the metal and making the vehicle rock. "We both you won't do anything, Sov. You wouldn't fight unless it was a six versus one."
The beginnings of a curious crowd was milling at the edges of the sparrow lot. The guardian hated to admit it, but the Titan was right. If he attacked them now, not only would he die quickly, it would also alienate the entire village. Just grin and bear it, his entire life for months now. He only prayed that Kipo wouldn't return and see him like this.
"See? You're just a sister-" The Titan punctuated the word with a kick at the machine, deepening the dent. "-loving-" Another kick. "-coward."
The guardian held back a wince at the damage on the poor Athena's flank. They thought their insults meant something special to the guardian. They didn't for the most part, and sometimes that angered them when it was noticed
But the sparrow, that would take a lot to fix. Maybe they'd go away, now that they'd done some damage.
"Don't forget murderer, there's that as well," the Warlock added, moving behind the guardian. His head twitched to the side, and then the Hunter moved, shoving his hand cannon into the guardian's temple.
"Don't move another muscle," the Hunter snarled. "You make one move to hurt my fireteam, I'll END you."
The guardian felt the hard knock of metal against his skull, and narrowed his eyes. He hadn't planned on dying today. With a twist of his head and a quick motion towards the Hunter, his hand rose and took the hand cannon barrel. With a simultaneous shove against the Hunter's chest armor and a pull on the weapon, the guardian disarmed the surprised Hunter without a word.
The guardian spun the hand cannon around his finger, pretending again to ignore the other two guardians drawing weapons on him. Trying to hide the fear and despair rising in him, the guardian tossed the hand cannon back at the Hunter's feet. He put his hands up. "You've had your fun. Please leave. I have somewhere to be."
The fireteam looked at him for a moment of stunned silence. Then the Hunter shouted, "Like HELL we have!" He reached for his hand cannon but the guardian was faster, his Allegro whipped from his holster in a breath. The sorrow in him rose, telling him to end the pain, to kill the threat, to end once and for all. And he almost listened.
"STOP!" Then Kipo was there, hands outstretched to both sides, between the Hunter and the guardian, two hand cannons pointed at her head. "Put those guns away, both of you! You're supposed to be adults, last I checked!?"
The Hunter had frozen again, but the guardian flushed with shame, quickly holstering his cannon before looking anxiously around at the gathering crowd.
"Guns away, that means all of you!" Kipo shouted again, her pink eyes narrowed and full of righteous fury, this time directed at the Warlock and Titan. They hadn't yet moved from their action stances, auto rifle and submachine gun raised, and they gave each other a puzzled look. Then her narrowed eyes found the Athena and the damage on it. She looked at it, mouth wide, then pointed at it, then the guardian. "Is that our sparrow?"
The guardian nodded, unsure of where this was going but fully glad that he was no longer the center of it.
The teenager took one more look at the damage, then back at the Titan, who was standing closest to it. She swelled for a brief moment, then unleashed her fury. "How dare you!? My guardian spent months of savings on that sparrow! Do you have any idea how much it meant to him!?" She looked him up and down, then at the other members of the fireteam. "You're supposed to be guardians? I've literally never been more unimpressed in my life!" She took a step towards the Titan, and the huge man backed up before her ferocity. She pointed a gloved finger at him. "I've met talking frogs cooler than you!"
The Titan finally realized he was being backed on by a teenage girl, and tried to re-establish control of the situation. "Who the hell are you? What are you doing defending him?" The disgust in the word turned the guardian's stomach, but Kipo's next words erased the sickly feeling.
"Him!? You mean my friend? The one you're so casually bullying like you're children on a middle school playground? NO!" She stuck out her thumb and jabbed it at herself, baring teeth that the guardian could swear were sharper than before. "I'm Kipo, and I'm his friend!"
The Titan, deflated, was now more confused than angry at the small spitfire standing in front of him. "Wait, do you not know who he is?"
"Why the freak does that matter at all!?" Kipo snarled, completely unaware of the crowd that was gathering. "Yeah, you're right, it DOESN'T!"
"Are you traveling with him?" Then, inexplicably, worry morphed on the Titan's face. "You don't know who he is. Listen, girl, you're in danger. He's-"
And then the guardian stepped in, unwilling to let the Titan say anything more. He took Kipo's shoulder. "Kipo, c'mon, let's go."
"No!" She jerked free. "Someone's gotta teach these guys a lesson!"
He grabbed her again, this time by her arm. "Listen, Kipo, I'm grateful for what you've done, but we have to leave before-"
The Warlock stepped in front of the Titan, squared her narrow shoulders and stated deliberately, "The man you're traveling with is the murderer known as Uldren Sov. He killed one of one of our best friends and is responsible for the deaths of thousands of the Awoken people. If you have any sense, you'd stay as far away from him as possible."
Kipo's angered scowl transformed into an expression of shock, and the guardian's heart sank into his stomach. There. She knew. It was only a matter of time, now. He'd lose her, his only friend, to his past that wouldn't stop haunting him. Even if she defended him further, those words would always be in her mind, stopping her from trusting him again. She'd leave, and he'd be alone.
"Are you stupid?"
The words echoed around the lot, and the guardian looked up. Kipo stood there, arms crossed and eyes narrowed. "You expect me to believe a story like that, when I don't even know you?"
"But it's true," the Hunter proclaimed, finally recovered from being stood up to by a child. "I was there, fought the Scorn in the Reef!"
"I don't give an rusting flycar what you fought where!" Kipo retorted. "Stop bothering someone that you think hurt you, because it isn't my guardian."
"Don't lie to yourself, kid," the Titan protested, "you can't trust him."
She spun around, putting her hands on her hips, facing the guardian. She pointed back at the fireteam. "Do these guys ever shut up?"
The guardian shook his head, mind spinning with awe and confusion.
Kipo threw her hands up in the air, exasperated. "Fine then!" She faced the trio of guardians. "You want to convince me so badly?"
Alarm bells rang in the guardian's mind. What was she thinking!?
"Yes, actually," the warlock said. "We're guardians, we want you to be safe, which means away from him."
"All right. How about this;" Kipo pointed at the Titan. "You look strong!" An understatement, the guardian thought confusedly, the man was at least six foot four and looked like he lifted weights in his sleep. Kipo bared her teeth in a grin. "I challenge you to an arm wrestling contest!"
The guardian's mind stopped working altogether as the gathering crowd -about thirty or forty people already- erupted into a cacophony of confusion and laughter. Had he heard correctly? Did his ears even work? Had she, a thirteen-year-old, just challenged a TITAN to an arm wrestling contest?!
"If you win, I'll listen to what you have to say, all of it! Storytime for Kipo, but I won't promise to leave my guardian. Is that fair?"
The fireteam looked among each other, dumbfounded, then the Warlock shrugged. "I mean… sure."
The Titan looked skeptical. "I don't want to hurt you, kid…"
"And if I WIN!" Kipo shouted, grabbing the attention of anyone who wasn't already. "I get your sparrow!"
More laughter, and the guardian couldn't take it anymore. He moved beside Kipo. "Kipo, I'm begging you, please don't do this."
She looked back at him, beaming. "Guardian?"
He sighed, exasperated. "What?"
"Do you trust me?"
"Kipo, I-"
"Do you trust me, guardian?" She met his eyes, and there was such determination there it almost made him rock backward with how his mind was spinning. She really thought she could do this.
"You really think you can do this," he muttered in shock.
"I've fought fifty-foot mega monkeys before," she told him, in all seriousness. "I can do this."
He took a deep breath, then backed up. "All right. Just don't… get hurt, ok?"
She smiled, and her teeth were definitely longer. She held her arms up and cracked her knuckles. "Oh, I'm not the one you should be worried about, guardian." Then she looked back and stage-whispered, "Oh! You should try to make some money! People love an underdog!"
"But not betting on one," he muttered, but that was a valid idea.
Kipo strode up to the Titan. "Those terms acceptable?"
The Titan shook his head in wonderment. "Yeah, kid, I guess."
Kipo shifted her feet, bent her back, and curved her fingers like claws. Then she shouted at the mountain of muscle and metal in front of her. "Do, you, ACCEPT!?"
"Yes!" the Titan roared in reply, answering her stance with his own.
The crowd cheered with him, pumping the guardian's blood faster than it should have. Why did the crowd affect him like this?
"Somebody get us a really really strong table!" Kipo called.