BMy Guardian Angel/B
There should be greying clouds looming over the forest by now, but that's the weather for you. It seems to be accepted how that whenever something undesirable should happen, an omen would appear to tell us of our inevitable fate.
Destiny, however, thought otherwise. You're still going to be the collision dummy for a rampant meteorite, or the next unsuspecting target of a mugger. He'd hand out omens for kicks, not warning. It was a pretty old joke now, anyway.
So today, a clear sky of slightly-deep blue hugged the sky, without a single cloud to harass it.
Chapter 1:
QUOTEBIn which we cover/B
-A walk in the forest
-The dangers of pulling orange tufts of hair
-Guardian angels
-Angels
-Not guardians
-The linkages of acolytes and maces
-The general acceptance of random occurrences/QUOTE
The unmistakeable stench of green filled the nostrils of a young acolyte. It was funny, how colour would have smell. Green was green, though it might have had a tinge of manure seasoning the jolly moistness it flaunted. (usually in forests) Especially in Payon's forests. But that was beside the point.
Vermin (yes, IVermin/I), a shabby black-haired acolyte, trudged through the sea of shrubs, following the wake of Alex Watcher, with his thick mass of blonde hair, a proud member of the swordsman guild, though disqualified from knighthood for insulting the generic knight's acceptable height standards. (5'1 tall, as compared to 5'9, respectively)
They were hunting, of course, as exhibited by Alex's ready drawn sword (bloody, too), and Vermin's tight but nervous grip on a rather disturbing mace (not bloody).
"I think I see another one," said Alex.
"Another what?" Vermin squealed. His face was in the sort of contorted expression you would expect to see when a man sees death in the eye. How the wrinkles start bunching up on the forehead, how cold sweat skis down your Alpine face. We call it fear.
"Mushroom," said Alex responsively.
"One of the purple ones?" Vermin squealed, still in pandemonium.
"Yes," Alex said with great consideration.
The Poison Spore, as Alex so accurately pointed out, glanced in their general direction. It bounded about happily for a moment, before hopping over to Alex, who was closer.
It took about five seconds for it to leap to Alex. Even then, it was only halfway up Alex's own height.
It made a pitiful lash out towards Alex with its mushroom cap. Alex took the hit unmoved emotionally and physically. It was then Alex decided it was a good time to bring his blade down on the thing.
With a squeal, the spore obliged to lay dead on the floor, in two pieces, and opted to drop a bunch of green herbs for Alex from seemingly out of nowhere.
"…is it over?" Vermin asked in his shaky voice, eyes shielded by his hands.
"Yes," Alex said with all his quick wits would allow.
Vermin peeped from between his fingers, only to find the mangled and very much dead body of the poison spore. A greyish grey substance was oozing from its freshly opened innards, as you would expect any non-human monster to do.
"Oh," Vermin mumbled, surveying the corpse, "I thought it hit you really bad…"
"…"
"Are you bleeding?" Vermin asked anxiously.
Alex surveyed his thigh. It wasn't armoured by a steel plate, like his shin was, and it was covered only by the cotton fabric of his pants. Blood failed to ooze out from his veins.
"No," Alex said, putting care into every word he articulated.
Vermin scrutinized Alex critically with unbelieving eyes, then accepted fate and moved on.
"Say, what's that rectangular thing on the mushroom?" Vermin pointed out.
It was a small brownish rectangle of some sort, bordered in silver and the very finely drawn portrayal of an eye firmly embedded in the centre of it. It was a card; a genuine card. From a Imushroom/I.
"How did Ithis/I come about?" Vermin thought aloud, twirling the card between his fingers. He sighted the picture of a mushroom; a poison spore similar to Alex's last kill, on the back of the card, and frowned at it suspiciously.
Alex, on the other hand, paid no heed to Vermin, bending down instead to take a few spores from the Spore's spore sac. He lumped them in a small leather bag, which he tied up carefully with its lace, and promptly snatched the card out of Vermin's grip.
"Hey!" Vermin exclaimed, "I wanted that!"
Alex brushed past another set of bushes, oblivious to Vermin's words.
Vermin had his hands to his hips, pouting. Alex had these little moments of silence whenever he was concentrating very hard on something. It was as if he had just leapt into the action, even if he wasn't actually jumping, much less moving, his every action controlled and voluntary, from the every precise step of his boots, to his very own heartbeat. Conversation had come to a subconscious level. He was fully aware of his surroundings, and yet, he could only see his prey. A friend of Vermin said it was an unnurtured assassin trait.
Not that it mattered. It made hunting a lot easier for Vermin. All he had to do was point and wait. Vermin could take care of himself; all he needed was for you to stand perhaps five feet away from him, and he wouldn't have to worry about you getting caught mid-swing.
Not that he actually worried; you weren't his prey, so you were blotted out of his senses too.
Vermin prodded the corpse of the late poison spore. How the heck did a card jump out of it, suddenly? What cosmic power in the universe declared that cards now sprouted spontaneously from hopping, aggressive, Ipurple/I fungi mutants? The lord above had a sense of humour, it seemed.
Suddenly, Vermin was alone.
The sounds of Alex's wake changed from the usually shuffling of his boots, to the squealing, screams and groans of various monsters.
It was very easy to spot Alex too, it seemed. No wonder why he isn't a thief or an assassin.
Then again, you could hear any swordsman tip-toeing from a mile away.
Vermin scurried after his companion, eager to pick after the leftovers of the hunt.
"I had no idea killing hundreds of raccoons could increase your intellectual capacity," stated Vermin.
"Yes," said Alex, with great dignity.
"And it was nice of that angel to announce 'level up!' to me…" Vermin continued, "I mean, spontaneously appearing and vanishing before us and all. But I don't get the drift. What does level up mean, anyway? I mean, I don't need an extra level in my house; my family's small enough as it was, and I'm sure as hell's sure that I won't want my house to be levelled from the ground either…" (Vermin lives with his pet cat. None else)
"…" Alex didn't say much. Probably considering the optimum strategy to approach the situation.
In actual fact, Alex didn't think much. He was a simple person, and a quiet one to boot. He would silently observe his surroundings, speaking only when he had to, but mostly, he was just silent.
Most people mistook him for all his worth, however. Many instantly assumed that simple was stupid. This was not the case. Alex didn't so much as whisper a word, nor would he do much when he was left to his own devices, but he was intelligent. Quick witted. For all it seemed, Alex could tell you what one thousand and seventy-three times sixteen over ninety seven point three eight four one zero two was in five seconds flat.
But he didn't.
And that was why he was simple.
"Say," Vermin began, striking the wet match of conversation, "Why do you use that sword of yours? I mean…it looks kind of short…you know, swordsmen and knights usually go for the big bad broadsword. Makes them look tougher, you know."
"Why do you use a mace," Alex stated. It didn't sound like an actual question.
Vermin paused at that. That was a pretty perplexing question, whenever somebody asked. Maces generally had spikes, or are very heavy; especially morning stars, which qualified for both qualities, and anybody who had the fortune to ever meet with such steelwork face to face (literally) would truly understand the definition of eternal pain.
Acolytes were forbidden to wield sharp bladed weapons…so they looped around the 'bladed' part of the rule, and discovered the secret of the mace. It was perfect. You could beat the laughing guy pointing at your dress-like uniform at your pleasure, without violating any of the acolyte's armaments rule. (though most acolytes went all out sissy and held staves and rods instead. Pity) Plus, you were technically supposed to heal the wounded. Well, there's your wounded for you.
Vermin, knowing the answer, yet being the compulsive liar he was, replied with his hand scratching the back of his head falsely, "No idea."
There was a scream of silence.
"How's your family?" Vermin desperately continued.
"Dead," Alex stated.
"Really?" Vermin replied, finally finding something he could relate to, "Mine too."
"…"
"You know," said Vermin on the roll, "It's funny, how the main characters of all those stories we read seem to have dead families, and it's always him or her living under his or her evil generic step-mum's roof, tormented by her obnoxious daughters, running away and finding their perfect love who dies anyway. I don't get it. What is it with writing about characters with dead families?"
"…"
"And there's always that guardian, interfering in the love affairs of the soapier stories. 'No, you can't be near the mistress! No, I don't trust you! No, you cannot be in love with the mistress!' It really cracks me up, reading that junk over and over again. I mean, every time it's the same thing. You could even recite what that character's lines without reading the book before! I mean, can't they write a single story with the guardian actually caring for the main character for once…"
"He's not a guardian," said Alex suddenly.
"Wha…?"
"A guardian is a protector. You protect someone if they are in danger. You are in danger if your mental or physical stability is jeopardised. You are not in danger if you let someone confess to you."
It was Vermin's turn to be silent now. He enjoyed these little moments, when Alex spoke. It was strange, really. Speaking was a very natural thing to do, yet when a usual very quiet person spoke; it was as if a man stood up from his wheelchair; nothing short of miraculous.
Ruining it with more questions wouldn't bring much good, so Vermin was silent.
"And that angel…" continued Vermin later on, but he was cut short the moment the '-gel' bit of angel spilled from his mouth.
"An angel is a messenger of god, a judge for those worthy of given a second chance at life. They honour you with their presence when fate declares you unready to embrace death. Angels are rare, by nature. They are not for the mortal eyes to hunger upon."
"So, if they're so rare, why did I just see one…and about fifteen more before that last one this week?" Asked Vermin.
"That wasn't an angel," Alex stated, "That was a guardian angel."
"Is there a difference?"
"…"
It was a small, narrow clearing in the woods. A big improvement as compared to the countless undergrowth of bushes and overgrown weeds the duo had to waddle through for the past seventeen minutes. It might seem like a short while to you, but if you've been pampered by the city life for the past fourteen years, you do Inot/I want your shoes to be covered in half an inch of muck, and your skin bleeding from grass cuts.
Alex, on the other hand, had half an inch of Iarmour/I clad to his skin. Leather and steel plating had their ups. You wouldn't feel a porcupine under your sole, much less mud.
A few crickets chirped their little wings' songs, inviting mate and birds of prey alike to relish it. A falcon obliged gleefully and swooped down on the cricket, taking it airborne in its taloned grip.
"Say," Vermin mentioned to Alex, "did I just see a Ipurple/I falcon?"
"Yes."
"With a scarf."
"Yes."
"And a Ihelmet/I."
"Yes."
"And you don't find that strange?" exclaimed Vermin, exasperated.
"No," replied a stony Alex.
It was just unnerving, when you're around a simple person. It's as if they took in everything and readily accepted it as they were, no matter how illogically impossible it seemed. Vermin had seen people spinning on their buttocks at impossible speeds (Iwithout moving their legs/I), getting struck by a wizard's meteor without any apparent harm, die from a very light prod (1hp), and even saw another fellow acolyte using a Isword/Imace. (By acolyte standards, defying their code of conduct was the highest level of heresy any acolyte could achieve)
And yet, Alex could look on impassively. He just watched, took it all in, and moved on. It wasn't a bad thing; dwelling on everything didn't do much good to anyone before. (Must be that knight endurance training) But it was just…unnatural. It wasn't supposed to be that way. You're supposed to be shocked, stunned, baffled, even if it were just mild surprise. Showing no emotions at all was just…
Alex was simple. He didn't put too much thought into everything.
And truly he didn't, because there was a large tuft of orange hair in the bushes, in front of him. Without a second thought, it was Alex's hand reaching out for it to give it a pull and see what happened…
What happened was the orange tuft moved. It moved so that what you were seeing was no longer orange hair. It sprouted legs, arms, but more accurately, it sprouted Iclaws/I. A large shaggy head materialised from the bushes, beady black eyes staring down at the now dwarfed figure of Alex. A pipe was in its hands, and if you looked really closely (you won't), you could probably see little motes of fire inside the Eddga's eye.
"Oh dear," muttered Vermin.
The Eddga let loose a bestial roar, flinging unwanted bits of spittle onto Alex.
"Shouldn't we be running by now?" Vermin suggested quietly.
In most fairy tale scenarios, any unorthodox creature of immense size should be allowed a battle cry, a moment to pound on its chest or stomp the ground with it's paw/hoof (delete where appropriate) and would give the main characters of the story a five second head start, before unleashing an immense rampage of unstoppable force coming at you at approximately twenty-five to thirty miles per hour.
Thankfully, the trends of reality followed this, or Alex would have been flailing about helplessly as the Eddga devours him with unrestricted glee. (But more likely, he would just lie there, accepting that he was being eaten)
Vermin should be twenty yards from the Eddga by now. He should have been outpaced by the Eddga, and turned into a delicious morsel for the biped tiger. He should be filling the forest with his agonising screams and many disturbing noises normally inherent to the tearing of flesh. He should be, but he isn't.
Alex had pulled him away from his current and doomed-to-be course. They made a quick dive behind some narrowly spaced trees, slithering left and right, dancing through the weave of nature. It wasn't as fast as running; by right, any sane person should be running like there was no tomorrow. Not that there'd be a tomorrow anyway, even if you did run. But Alex was simple. So simple that ideas came to him a lot quicker than an average person would ever achieve. (these people were usually preoccupied with thoughts of "OH MY GOD I'M GOING TO DIE I'M GOING TO DIE")
This route was a lot slower, yes. But for all the body mass the Eddga had in muscle, it didn't quite fit through the trees' trunks.
And as we all know, trees are naturally indestructible. Why do you think we harvest tree trunks and branches from Willows?
They were a good distance from the Eddga by now, and were greeted by the cheery dead-end of the grey stone of a mountain.
Luckily for them, the Eddga wasn't catching up to them, as the script would usually state.
"Oh…we're safe!" Exploded Vermin in a sigh, leaning against the stony wall.
He changed his mind when a ball of fire consumed the upper half of his biretta.
"On second thought…any other bright ideas?"
"No," replied Alex with all confidence.
"Great…" Vermin mumbled, "So, what next?"
Alex sidestepped, let another fire ball pass harmlessly beside him, and felt some rock splinters shower his back.
"We wait."
"What?"
"We wait."
"I mean," Vermin uttered desperately, "Wait? Here? Are you crazy!" Vermin leapt away just in time to dodge another fire ball, which should have blown his chest into itty bitty little pigeon food.
Crazy? Yes, Alex was mad, in the general view of the public. He was calm wherever he was, no matter how deathly the situation was, and being calm was madness. He should be running around in little circles now, whelping and crying out for his mommy. But he wasn't. He was as calm as a brick.
And that was why he was mad.
Of course, Alex wasn't really mad. He was just too unmoved to be any good in the sanity department of Prontera. He was just waiting. Not for an opportunity, not for some opening to dash out and present themselves voluntarily to the Eddga and let it gleefully shred the both of them into some very red coleslaw. (as any average person would do)
He was waiting. For her.
"Mmffkl," said Vermin, shielding his head from…dirt? "Is that a landslide?"
Great, more problems, thought Vermin.
Of course, it wasn't a real landslide. You get dirt falling off the edge of a mountain when something, or say, Isomebody/I, was sliding down the edge, disrupting the restful state of earth particles. And every once in a while, that something or somebody would squash an unsuspecting hiker, sending both down into a fatality, where the mystery of death would finally be unveiled to them.
Vermin should pray well to his deity, for this was not the case.
That 'something' turned out to be a 'somebody'. There was a blur of motion and a shade of darkness (commonly seen when a new character has not been introduced in proper) as the figure darted up and above Vermin and Alex, and onto the ground ahead of them.
She (it was definitely a she; males don't (usually) have two huge masses of rounds or have smooth silky hair which flowed like the wind. They don't fit) landed on the ground, crouched low with a red recurve bow in hand, five crystalline arrows glistening blue in the dim of the forest. She had her back to them, but it was evident, with her yellow fur-lined tank, red scarf and a leather-brown miniskirt, that she was a sniper.
The Eddga had launched another fire ball at the trio, though it still hadn't noticed the sniper's presence.
The sniper nocked an arrow and pulled the cord of her bow so quickly, so swiftly, that by the time you've completed one cycle of a blink, there were three arrows impaled into the Eddga.
It was incredible. The first arrow was deep within the skull of the Eddga. The second one pierced Ithrough/I the first arrow, sending the arrow deeper into the skull, and the third one pierced through Iboth/I those arrows, and it was evident the blade-tipped stem sticking out from the opposite side of the Eddga was not in any way natural.
By the time Vermin managed to meagrely comprehend these thoughts, fifty more arrows were embedded in the Eddga. Permanently.
With a disgruntled moan, the Eddga fell to the ground, giving in to fate. Death gladly took over.
Vermin, still reviewing with all the wisdom of kelp, tried to remember if he saw the sniper's arm move. He couldn't. His limited brain power prohibited him from seeing the perfect agility the sniper had demonstrated. It was like an astronomer Ijust/I missing a scheduled supernova.
"How did she do that?" Vermin whispered to himself.
There was a short moment of stillness, where only the swaying of leaves budged.
Then, Alex moved. He stepped up, just beside the sniper, who turned out to be about a foot taller than Alex.
The sniper spun around slowly, panting steadily from the strenuous exertion of body, and regarded Alex.
She had eyes; with eyes so blue the sky would look green. Hair so long and blonde a single gust of wind would burst it into glorious dance. She was beautiful, no doubt. All mysterious female characters that intervene with the main characters are pretty. There was something about her that made you believe that she would be willing to reach down and bite off Alex's head off. It wasn't that she looked mean; she had a very soft look. It was that face you make after you had a very hearty bar fight with your mates, which could cause everybody in a radius of ten feet to shun you.
Alex reached out for her hand, took it gracefully in his own, and pecked it lightly, as would a knight to his princess, and turned back to Vermin.
"You asked what a Guardian Angel is," Alex said, still holding onto the sniper's hand, "This is your answer."