The Guardians - Between the Worlds (Book 2)
Chapter 11: Dragon’s blood

Mark and Sam train in the training room after a long break, while Addison, Alice, and Gloria encourage them from aside. When Isaac steps in there, Alice’s eyes turn instantly to him. She had always been attracted to her since she has met him at the training, but only when he got close to Lily she started having feelings, which she had kept hidden though. She didn’t have reasons to do that anymore and, encouraged by Addison, she was getting closer to him every day, making a bond which she wished to be a strong one.

“Let’s train with the swords”, she says.

He doesn’t think too much about it, and he releases his energy through the fight, under Mark and Sam’s eyes. Mark had red eyes because of his lack of sleep because he has been on a long walk that night. Not the feet took him away that night, but the electric car he has taken from the ground floor.

“Where were you last night?” Sam asks him curiously.

“Oh, here, there”, Mark answers evasively.

“Do you have secrets?” laughs Sam, without knowing that behind his question was something true.

Mark answers making a sound on his nose and stares alerted around him. He is changed, and that had happened last night. He looks insecure, but at the same time at peace with himself.

“Do you think that we can try as well?” Addison asks Sam, surprising him.

“I say that I’m going to put you down on the first attempt. Do you still want in?”

“Oh, let’s see!”

The two of them start as well a fight, and Addison doesn’t let defeated by Sam, who struggles to keep up with her. Gloria and mark are laughing from aside, but they don’t get into the fight. Mark keeps his thoughts clear because he knows well that Gloria had the bad habit to scatter people’s minds.

Brook and Leo sit next to them, watching the other’s fighting technique carefully.

“We haven’t talked in a while”, Gloria starts speaking out of the blue.

“Well, we didn’t have any topics. You decided to join Addison’s group, just like Alice.”

“Honestly, Addison is not my favorite person. I went after Alice. But I believe that she’s a little too much influenced by her lately.”

“You tell me about it?”

“I didn’t have where to go and whom to stay with because you were busy with Leo, then with Lily…who, by the way, seems pretty changed to me.”

“I know.”

“Alice is the same. What happens to the world?”

Brook doesn’t know how to answer that, and everything becomes stranger when Artemis and Tamara meet up and start talking about life in front of the training room. The language of their bodies shows that they got closer, which didn’t seem to be created only by the alcohol from last night. It had created some kind of friendship between them, and the Guardians see them laughing, sharing touches and feelings and then leaving together heading to Tamara’s office.

“What’s wrong in here?” asks Gloria seriously.

She was the one who used to think less in their group but, since her friendship with the other three girls has become weak, she could see how things really were around her, she analyzed them carefully and realized that she has to change something.

“I don’t know, but I want to tell you something. If you don’t want to be a part of Addison’s group, you should get away from them before it’s too late. Alice looks like she’s brainwashed.”

“I think that Alice’s in love with Isaac”, Gloria says more like a mumble.

Brook takes some time to think what has come out of Gloria’s mouth, and when she sees their fighting style and the gentle touches that Alice was giving Isaac, she realizes that her friend was right. Alice was showing a huge interest in Isaac, and it was something Brook started thinking of.

“I won’t ever understand why feelings do this to people.”

“What?”

“They change them, make them push each other away, to forget, to make crazy things.”

“I think that you’re talking about Lily right now, aren’t you, Gloria?”

“Not only. Well, about her as well, for I have seen her change, Dean’s change, but I see Alice now. And Isaac, who has loved Lily unconditionally, and ended up by replaceing out he was his brother. What a mess. It’s all so unfair like the Universe is mocking them.”

“You said them.”

“Yes. Them.”

“I would say us because we have broken apart on the way too.”

There a moment of silence, because Mark and Leo were listening to their honest and true conversation.

“Don’t let yourself caught up in simple words and appearances, and don’t become like Alice”, Brook tells Gloria taking her hand. “Let’s save what’s left of our group, for I see I haven’t lost you yet.”

“Agreed”, says Gloria.

The alarm that starts all over the Base alerts the Guardians, who grab quickly the weapons and head to the exit. Lily gets out among the first ones, ready to fight Dean because the alarm was associated with him inside her mind. But she has a surprise when the guards announce strange presence above the Base, and black traces in the sand that they had seen from above. Tamara sustains their theory, for she had seen something black flying in front of her window. Now everything seems peaceful, and the sky is clear and blue. The wind doesn’t blow, but there’s a strong sound that’s almost like it coming from far away. The Guardians get out in a huge number and surround the Base, searching for what may have caused the sound.

Lily gets away from the group, and she feels her body vibrating. She hears the rumble louder, and she sees the sand arising on the horizon, even though she can’t feel any wind.

Artemis realizes that’s something evil there, and that her son couldn’t possibly have something to do with that. She sees black shadows, wings, coming from all the places, and a sharp yowl makes the ground shake.

“Demons! Dragons!” she shouts taking her attack position.

“Protect the Base! We need electronic equipment!” yells Tamara, taking her leader position seriously.

“It’s time to do the thing we were born for! Guardians, fight!” shouts Artemis.

A sound of swords taken out from the waists hears all over, the energy guns load, the Magicians occupy their positions, and the creatures that look like black shadows attack the group of Guardians.

The Soldiers, the Magicians, the Readers, they were all using their experience and powers to kill the creatures that had come into their world. Sam and Leo cut the demons when they fall over them fast, with their claws out. The sounds that came out from them, when the swords cut them, sound like an echo in the wildness. Addison’s using an electric gun in her fight, while Isaac chooses a crossbow, searching for Lily in the crowd. Tamara gives indications and fights at the same time, but when a dragon falls over her she comes back to reality and tries harder to focus. Artemis had saved her in time, and Tamara realizes that she can’t do both things at the same time.

“Go back to the entrance!” Artemis screams at her.

Tamara listens to her and rushed to get in front of the door, but the creatures are too many to be stopped from entering the Base.

“Magicians, we need to protect the Base! Create a bond, an energy wall which they won’t pass through!” she yells.

Alice runs to coordinate the rest of the Magicians, so they grab their hands and start creating together an energy wall against the creatures that were attacking them. The demons and dragons hit strongly that wall, and so they see that what they were doing was right. Seeing they didn’t have any chances of attacking the Base, the monsters turn again their interest to the Guardians.

A strange energy attracts them to a specific area, making them crazy and starting flying in a messy way, hitting the Guardians who couldn’t keep up with them anymore. Lily is at the edge of the crowd, killing monsters with her sword, focusing on cutting in pieces every single creature that passed in front of her.

She feels her heart racing, and she is caught up in a weird energy that she hadn’t felt before. She competes all the Guardians around her, killing dozens of dragons through her jumps, and turning from time to time other’s eyes on her. Addison notices too her fighting skills, and she realizes that she did a very good thing when she backed down.

The moment when Isaac is grabbed with the claws by a demon makes Alice scream loud. She breaks the lines, the energy wall falls, and the Magicians are trying now to rebuild it without her. Alice runs to the demon which is pulling Isaac, but she is hit by a dragon’s wing and thrown far away from them.

The created chaos makes Lily come back from the trance she was in and, when she sees her brother pulled and almost lifted up in the air by some demon, she jumps and cuts in pieces three demons on her way. She feels her chest burning, but also the mark on her arm. The necklace had lightened up brightly, and so did the Dragon’s Sign, and she feels a huge rage inside, something that she hadn’t felt before. She sticks the sword in the neck of the demon which was holding Isaac, and it falls with them on the hot sand.

She forgets about her designation in that fight, and she rushes to help Isaac, whose shoulder has been pierced by the demon’s claws. She catches and lifts him on her arms, but he answers with a nod, which isn’t enough for Lily, and she wants to take him to shelter, next to the Magicians who are holding the wall.

“I’m fine, just put me down!” says Isaac grinding his teeth.

“Sure you are”, says Lily ironically, and doesn’t listen to him.

She holds him among the Guardians, and she sees Alice coming through the crowd, but a familiar voice’s shout makes her turn around.

“Lily! Watch out!” Brook shouts.

There were two dragons and a demon attacking Lily, and they seemed to have fixed her as a target, so she pushes Isaac in Alice’s arms, and she prepares to fight them. Her reflexes aren’t so good this time, for the dragon grabs her with the claws and lifts her up. She manages though to kill a dragon with her sword, and it falls at Brook’s feet, on the ground. She had remained there, powerless, feeling her friend’s pain. The demon hits Lily with its tail, cutting her clothes and leaving behind a trace of blood. Lily hitches and Brook uses their energy bond to help her fight, under the terrified eyes of the ones around them.

Soon, Brook feels that Lily can’t continue the fight, but she sees Leo using his crossbow on the creatures that were holding Lily captive. Sam joins him, Artemis too, even Addison grabs an arrow and a bow and starts doing the same. Finally, Leo hits and kills a demon, when all the monsters from the ground that were fighting with the Guardians rise up, surround the dragon which is holding Lily, and the last thing the Guardians are able to see is when the dragon lets go of Lily’s body from a huge height.

Isaac screams out of fear, Brook of pain, and she runs to her friend. But when Lily’s body hits the ground, the monsters start attacking the Guardians like arrows, forcing them to continue fighting.

“Lily!” shouts Isaac trying to get to her, but he falls after two steps.

Alice pulls him back next to the Magicians.

“Stay here! Don’t make things worse!”

“If she didn’t come to my help, she wouldn’t be there now! Do you really expect me to sit here and not help her?!”

“Isaac, have you seen what they did to her? Did you see that fall? No Guardian would have survived that fall, not even the Great Guardian! She has fallen from dozens of meters!”

Isaac sees black before his eyes, and he tries again to get up, but he can’t move. He is about to faint, and the healers are beyond the wall of energy the Magicians have created.

Brook tries to reach Lily, trembling, and she can’t feel her friend through their bond. She sees her body dozens of meters away, lying down, and she fights forcefully the demons which kept attacking her from above, hoping that she would get to her soon.

Lily is covered in wounds and blood, made by the claws of the monsters, and by the fall that would have broken any Guardian’s body. But still, the Dragon’s Sign still shines on her arm, and the necklace is orange and bright, and it heats, and it finally melts, being absorbed by her skin and becoming one with her. The orange color of the necklace spreads in her body, and now Brook’s close enough to see the strangest thing ever. Her wounds close up in front of Brook’s eyes, who jumps with the hands on her chest when she reaches her.

Lily opens her eyes instantly, breaths in with a whistling, and makes Brook jump aside when she opens her eyes. Lily’s eyes are shining and yellow now. She looks at Brook, who had absolutely no idea what to say to her now. All that she knows is that she feels a weird adrenaline through their bond. Lily pulls Brook’s sword in a second, she leans back making a loud scream, and she jumps high from the ground, killing all the dragons from the air in a couple of seconds, with an extreme speed. Their blood falls on the Guardians from down there, who remain without moves or words in front of what they’re seeing.

The slaughter makes the rest of the dragons turn their heads at her, but also the demons and the Guardians take advantage on that and start killing them in a considerable number, while they try to attack Lily. But what the Guardians see leaves them speechless one more time, for not Lily’s body falls on the ground from this crowd, but the creature’s bodies, one at a time at first, and then all in the row.

Lily was kept in the air by something purple, which looked like the energy from the Wall’s Portal. It disappears now from around her, and she lands on her feet. It’s silence between them soon, and it’s no other creature left alive. The Guardians had won with Lily’s help, who was now heading to the shocked crowd.

When she stops in front of them, she sees their terrified eyes. The Guardians in front of her fall on their knees, and then the ones in the back, and so on, even Artemis and Tamara, and Addison with Brook. Lily stares insecure around, to the mass that was obeying her, without knowing what she had done and why she was alive.

“You are our leader now”, says Tamara.

Lily waves at the Guardians to get up, for she didn’t want to be a tyrant who spread fear around through her powers.

“Don’t bend in front of me. I don’t need robots next to me, I need faithful Guardians.”

“They have chosen you when they bend in front of you. We all chose you to be our leader.”

“Yes, leader. But for me, it means to lead with all of you by my side, not to lead you by myself.”

Tamara smiles.

“You died”, she whispers. “How is this possible?”

“We will speak about the details inside”, says Lily heading to the entrance.

Artemis gathers some Soldiers and they start putting aside the bodies of the Guardians killed in the battle, and the ones of the monsters as well. Alice rushes to get a healer, which she uses on Isaac soon. Lily approaches her brother, and he hugs her tight.

“I don’t know what happened out there, but you died.”

“Isaac, I’m here, and you are okay. We didn’t lose so many Guardians, and we won the battle. This is all that matters.”

But Isaac sees beyond her words, and he realizes there’s a change in her voice. Something had happened there, and he starts asking himself if the one who was hugging him was really Lily. He gulps while he stands up, and he is helped by Alice and Lily to get inside the Base.

It’s agitation around, and the Guardians are trying to recover from the first real battle of their lives. After all, they were made to kill dragons and demons. When Lily disappears from the view, Brook watches her with the corner of her eye, and she follows her to the bathroom. There, Lily’s staring in the mirror. She’s lost. She pulls out the sword and cuts her skin into her palm. The first seconds, there’s no blood coming out of there, but something yellow like her eyes. She winces and closes her eyes, and after that, it appears the red blood.

“What the hell is that?” asks Brook slamming the door. “What happened to you? Don’t get me wrong… I’m so glad that you are alive, but I felt you dying. I saw you. Something is messed up here.”

“Dragon’s blood”, Lily whispers.

“What?”

“The necklace, my powers… they’re all connected. I promised you some time ago that I will tell you something. It seems that it’s been a while since that moment.”

“Lily, what are you talking about?”

Lily looks into Brook’s eyes, and at that moment she sees her yellow and shining look. She grabs her hand, and Brook sees for the first time the mark from her arm. The reaction is like any other’s Guardian, that to put the hands in her mouth to cover the shock.

“You are… Oh my God!”

“Dragon’s blood. This is what’s in my veins”, says Lily looking down.