Chapter 4: three
that pain I knew it. I remembered it.
then for a moment, I was back there. I was back in that moment.
the moment I knew Laurent was Kiara's younger brother. maybe he was not just a guardian. maybe he knew where...
I need an escape.
my stomach ached, as I looked at him. he looked at me and he seemed to have softened up a little. but he wasn't going to be letting his guard down. but going anywhere he was going to be hunted and he wasn't safe. but he was going to be safe. I was going to make sure of it.
I placed my hand on his face and closed my eyes, and broke tore apart his genome and thought of the Korean Gu-mi-ho. He would fare better as that werefox, not a werewolf. But he should still be a werewolf, right?
I took reserved the werewolf genes and his human genes and started building a gumiho out of him. Nine tails, the power to hear nature, I gave it all to him. but the fox genes put them aside and left him a bit wolf. The black melanin that made his wolf fur charcoal black, I broke and left a little on his forehead, a star. By the time I was done, reconstructing him, he was three times as bis as he was. Not as big as a bear, like he once was, but almost the size of an elephant.
I had given him every single thing that made a nine-tail fox special. Except for changing his human shape. he could learn that all by himself.
having fed him fruits, I gave him my beard necklace and showed him the direction to the Keeper of Arcadia's forests and stared at them as they left, a few hours later. knowing he was in trouble hurt. I've promised his sister I would protect them.
I stood there for a minute watching him leave for the Keeper's compound with half of earth cheat codes and closed my eyes. I felt him stop to look at me as I disintegrated into dust.
I opened my eyes and I was back home. back to my feeble eight-year-old human body with my heart so bad I just teared up. blurry images of her popped up in my head and I just cried. I pictured her smiles. the smiles I died every day just to see. damn, my chest felt like it was being torn apart, even my little heart ached so bad I couldn't hold any of my tears in.
it was like all of my ribs were broken, and now being ripped apart every time I tried taking a breath. but no matter how long it has been since I last fought, this pain was insurmountable to any pain I ever felt.
I turned and buried my face on the pillows and bellowed as hard as I could. not that it was helpful. it wasn't. but I just wanted to. I pulled the sheets and tied my chest to stop myself from tearing apart but it was all futile.
"Jamie!" my mom raced into the room and hugged me. "it's okay," she said. but I knew it wasn't. I missed her. I wanted to see her. I was hurt because I didn't save her brother when I promised her I would protect her.
"shh, it's okay," she said, mumming me. I held her tight and cried a little as she rubbed my back. I liked it. but damn, I was going to be laughing stock. the watcher posted three hundred meters away can see what is going on. he was going to talk. he was... yeish! damn me.
I just gave him teasing power. he was going to tease me forever. I felt like I could just pull my hair. but I didn't. I just remained in her arms. damn, I hate and love being a kid.
I drifted off once again as I felt Laurent's fear.
he stood there, his former black coat as white as snow, his tail, bushier than the last I saw it, but instead of only one tail, he had two sticking out, and was silently growling. the girl was still on her back. I closed my eyes and listened to the small pack that was slowly creeping upon him.
"you shouldn't do that, guardian." the keeper's croaking voice spoke into my ear. I closed my eyes and felt for him. he laughed at me. "I thought they were kidding when they said the mighty Dragon was reborn as a human and had to learn how to use his powers anew."
"you know, the day I grow back to my former glory I will kill you." I threatened. he laughed and called me cute. "I really do have to say, Khumat, you really were cute as a kid. and you should remain as cute."
"stop calling me cute, or I will find you and kill you."
"you are on my land remember?" right, I am no longer in Alkebulan. or Africa, as they now call it. I was not in my territory. and I forgot a keeper is the land he keeps. unlike a guardian. he is the forest I now walk on. whereas I am nothing here, he can kill me, if he wants. but is he going to tease me like this, forever? "I like what you did to the Midnight hound, you made him stronger, though I don't really like it when you give a potential threat the potential to be a guardian."
"let's talk face to face if you want. we can come to an agreement. but send them off Laurent. or are you afraid he might be the one to replace you? wait, are you trying to break him as the gods do to the guardians?"
"he is not going to be a guardian if he can't fend off his pursuers, and protect his dying friend. I'm sure you have given him enough powers to make him care for his friend. anyway, I don't break Guardians kid."
"really? forgot what your brothers did to me?" I shrugged at the memory. it wasn't my brightest moment but it was still my memory. thanks to it, I met her.
"well, I won't forget what you did to them. either."
"good, get them off Laurent or I will do them the same as I did your brothers."
"How can you be eight years old and still threaten?"
"I thought you didn't forget who I was."
"I didn't, but you seem to have forgotten the code of the guardians."
right, what was the code again? A guardian swears the life of honesty. a guardian shall walk within the shadows and protect not only those that he loves but all those that live and breathes. a keeper shall keep the guardians in check while a judge shall live, by all means in between the guardians and keepers, keeping the factions of guardians from any war with each other and shall protect all those that are under the guard of the saint. he shall avenge any guardian felled and shall in all manners protect the protectors. or whatever the fuck was it.
"I feel off talking to someone I can't see." I told him. "and this is an abuse of power, I know keepers keep guardians in check but don't you think it's off? he is only being considered. it's not like we are guardian corp where all those considered have to train hard and almost die. we just need to observe him for a while and if he's..."
the keeper formed in front of me, and covered my mouth with leaves. "what?"
"one rule in the code, a guardian walks within the shadows and shall not walk within the light of the people he protects." he said before dragging me off to his compound.
this is why I hate keepers. why I hate being a kid. no matter how hard I fought to be out of his grasp, he didn't let me go. he even carried me over his shoulder. fuck it! this is disrespect. real disrespect.
"let me go!" I punched him on the back but he is a keeper, better off punching a wall. "let me go! I don't wanna go with you. I don't wanna go to your house, you pedophile! let me go."
he put me down at the edge of his land and I quickly stepped away from him. "you pedophile! you should have worn the black clothes that pedophiles wear. before you touch me!"
he looked at me blinking a lot.
"what?"
"I'm trying to figure out how you really think. what makes you think I am a pedophile?"
"Really, didn't you like, marry a woman thousands of years younger than you?"
"like you didn't do better, you fell for a twenty-year-old when you were six thousand years old."
"I was five, and I did look twenty-five, if you didn't know, guardians, grow slow."
"mhh. like I don't know." he turned away from me and walked into his land. the little land at the very edge of Arcadia that all animals came to breed at. or came when hurt.
"what's that supposed to mean?" I asked following him. "oh wait, I forgot, you still look a thousand years and I am only eight!" he looked at me with a frown and I stuck my tongue out at him.
he did the same and I gotta admit, he did look funny with those wrinkles he had on his face that made a scrotum look like baby skin. I laughed and stuck my tongue out again and he smiled. before he started making funny faces at me. I laughed and caught sight of a deer.
"Is that a deer?" I asked running towards them.
"no!" he shouted at me and... he bend the earth to keep me away from his deer. I looked at him as a wall rose right in front of me. I frowned and looked at him.
"I know you like ridding deer, but no!"
"are you playing daddy to me right now?"
"well your father can't do much about you running around can he?"
"no."
"good, get inside and start reading the code."
"why? I don't need..."
"you just made a guardian, now you need to take responsibility for him." I went inside and the old keeper's house still looked like it did before I acted a Judge and wiped all of Kiara's killers away. I went into the kitchen and started reading the huge code of the guardians. I didn't bother to touch his food storage because, let us admit it, if you exist just to make wild herbivores feel safe, you are only going to have grass in your ladder, nothing else.
I spent half of my childhood reading that huge book. I don't know how he became my master but, after I returned to my time, I spent all of my childhood learning that book, again. he taught me about how to be a guardian once again, through watching Laurent, who was clearly older than me. then how to use my powers to the maximum. he even taught me new magic I never learned in the past.
casting spells, flying without wings. how to be discreet and how to hide my secret life. before I was even twelve, I was leading an even-odd double life. by twelve, I knew everything about guardian Corp, he gave me access to Thoth, again. then my ascension came. four years after creating my first guardian, I made two more.
A swan and a human. Park Eun-Tak and a Swan called Justin. yes, the very same swan that was cursed to turn from human to swan once a full moon. just kidding. the swan is basically the last of the human angel breeds the gods made when they walked the earth. we didn't kill them during the war five thousand years ago. Honestly, we had no beef with them.
but when we formed guardian corp as the guardians fell apart, and I ended up destroying half of life in present-day America roughly two thousand years ago, we removed knowledge of the guardians from their history and memory. honestly, Guardian Corp's structure came partly from their hierarchy structure, we just had better things, theirs was still primitive as the gods took their tech when they were expelled.
both the new guardians were almost dying and I have to be honest, I just wanted to heal them, but touching them made them a little bit super. not what I planned. Eun-Tak, I saved her, but I gave her, unfortunately, the eyes of Horus. who knew Koreans had the DNA of Egyptian gods? oh wait, I forgot, humans have half their DNA from the royal household of the gods.
anyway, she was born able to see outside the range of humans. anyway saving them from death, I maybe, earned favor in the eye of the guardian god, or maybe saving an unborn child enabled me to edit my DNA or what, I don't know. but, I'll be short. I woke up in ThemesKyra, surrounded by the amazon. tried flying with wings the keeper had given me at nine, but I somehow burnt half their stadium in a rain of lightning.
I also woke up in different Guardian shrines in all of the twelve continents... no, kingdoms of earth and the moon.
being human was the hard part. I constantly wanted to heal humans. but I couldn't. I could only make guardians, not from my homeland, and they, I could heal. people around me, I couldn't. even after ascending into sainthood, I couldn't heal people around me. which I hated the most when my grandma died and I had to tell my mother that something happened to granny who was more than fifty kilometers away.
for a moment, 2006 repeated itself, again. after Granny's burial, mom took me to a fake traditional doctor who couldn't even read the bones. then to a church that almost burnt because, well, a saint and an opposing god in one room isn't a well-advised action. it's like taking lucifer and locking him with Michael in a little booth. one is going to make it out alive. and I can promise you, it's not going to be Michael.
Growing up, I didn't have a lot of friends but I was okay.
Academically I was okay. That's why I was here in an international school of science and technology almost having a heart attack in the middle of class, just because I saw someone I like for the first time in two thousand years.
She turned one more time and our eyes met, again. "Hey, are you okay?" she asked me with a sweet voice, making butterflies flutter in my stomach and my heart try to leap out and break out of my chest.
"I'm okay.' i said and stumbled out to the back exit of the Auditorium. I bowed there and felt my breaking heart. what's wrong with me? I wondered. But to be safe, I called forth my medicine bag at my room and took two aspirin tables just to be sure. The pain didn't go away instantly but it sure did fade a little.
Then, someone who smelt very nice touched me and I felt an electric charge build up on my shoulder where the hand touched me.
The pain dissipated instantly as I looked into her eyes. Her soft warm eyes.
"you don't look okay, can I help you with something? maybe I can help you to the clinic." she said.
is she.. was she...?
She smiled. I almost died.
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