TG

He was small right now, employing the control of size inherent to being a creature of energy.

The Guardian floated in his comet form through real space. Golden light streaked behind him as he moved in the only real way to travel.

He watched the world turn into smears of pigment and oil pastels. Streaks of blue, white, green, red, purple filled the canvas painted by his speed. Lots of white. Too much white.

His golden bridge was accentuated with the flecks of rainbow and the smear of stars. They took the abyss, greedily snatching the all too familiar bright black of space.

That is what surprised him when he first came here.

How bright space was. You would assume that it would’ve been completely dark. The dark body loomed over and around any sapient creature, and any imagination of it that any would have would be drifting in the void. His bright body in the above.

Just floating through.

Just feeling the lack of air and gulping down the harsh radiation that would kill most. Happily feeling his body swelling.

At least that part was accurate.

At least he felt okay today.

He kept his point of view outside of himself, refusing to be snuck up on. He wished he could truly relax, but by now it was an instinct to be tense.

There was always something to do.

Always someone around the corner.

And, he sighed, there was always someone to hunt.

This next assignment was to hunt down a newly risen celestial. He was told it was a rooted one in origin. The being rose from around the spot from where he left Rhodney…

He shook his head.

He’d know if the kid was in any real danger. He was a tough cookie that had been through the ringer before he’d even showed up… and plus,

He’s got someone looking out for him. The guardian zoomed through the rainbow bridge, and suddenly felt her presence start to press on his right side. Feeling his nucleus grow hot, as she pressed down on his blessing.

Calm down, I'm going as fast as I can, he thought to the blessing.

She wasn’t truly here, he knew that, but he could almost feel her burning breath stinging the side of his consciousness.

She was either getting impatient or was bored. Because she had no reason to believe he could get there faster than he was. The world of the abyss’s time moved a lot differently to the lands of mortals, so while he may have been flying for a solid five hours, he also could’ve been flying for three days. It was not a big deal. She would either have to wait or—

(Or what~?) oozed the thoughts into his nucleus.

[...]

(Ohhh, cat got your tongue?) She hummed.

What in the stars is a cat?? It was hypocritical, but he really hated when she did that.

Digging in the light child’s mind was something that felt odd and unnatural. The guardian lacked any type of brain or apparatus for thought. He was… an energy being.

Like a large cell, he had a nucleus that stored his information within the center of his evershifting form. The fact that she was able to read that…

[At least knock next time.] He said stiffly. It was unnatural, odd, wrong.

(Oh, don’t be mean to your mother.) She said, but the light being just internally scoffed, not caring if she could hear him.

He kept all his snide thoughts about her not being his damn mother out of his head. Willing his mind to stay quiet as he drifted to the location.

Creepy–

(What was that?) She snapped.

[I’m moving as fast as I can, get your hands off of me.] The guardian didn’t want to share any banter with her.

His animated speech was wasted on her. He hit a robot's timbre and pitch, only giving her the words necessary. In his own small way, it was the little defiances like this that pushed him to continue each day.

She probably wouldn’t ever let him go, but hopefully she would stop goading him if he just became too boring to talk to.

Each beep and click of his language became fully androgynous, not even attempting to reach the feminine or the masculine. When he went for one, she took advantage, when he went for another, he was punished.

So their conversation– talks, he corrected himself-had been relegated to this. Even calling it just work was pushing it. His patron sighed, and he felt the mark burn hotter, the black symbol stinging beneath his skin. Spines grew and sunk into the bubbling, fiery sigil.

(And what makes you think you can order me around?) His form started to bubble. The sheer weight and power behind her pressing from the beyond burned. He knew how this always went. He knew how this always goes.

Every rational part of him wanted to stop and apologize for his insolence. Daring to say to “Get your hands off,” when he was clearly outmatched.

It wanted to go back and tell her that, that cowardly part of himself wanted to sit down, and present himself.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

And, worse, with each passing month he felt that cowardly bile of his personality start to grow, infecting him. It disgusted The Guardian. His sphere exterior bubbled with pain and a suppressed rage.

And he heard it, the sounds of her twisted giggle as she held down onto her own curse like a child crushing a bug. Feeling the way it was twisting The Guardian's own irregular soul.

Lights and bright oil pastels in his sight started to smear as the world seemed to spin. Her irregular energy clashing with his own. He heard her laughter grow, louder, and louder, more manic in this space.

Emasculating the light kin.

Making him feel smaller.

And as his body bubbled to a boiling point, against his own judgment, He slightly pushed back against her blessing.

He felt his patron’s body lurch as she was slightly pushed back in her own location.

The heat suddenly stopped as he continued to fly. A silence hit the inside of his head. He sat in the agonizing quiet for a long time. Time passed, and he sat for a good five minutes, in a mix of anger, fear and pride.

Why did he do that? Good. You know what happens, we… You stood up for yourself, you got your pride back, No, No, No, she always does that, damn my pride! It doesn't mean anything if I'm dead. I’m a warrior, I'd rather be dead than still with her. What about our followers? What about us?

Conflicting thoughts swarmed and attacked his mind. His own parallel wills crashed and moved without his supervision. Arguing like two petulant children, leaving him alone to think of a solution, not even attempting to think of a way out of this situation.

Cause there wasn’t one.

Phantom pain and pink lightning surged around his body. His round yellow body broke into a scream as the world lurched. His body was shot down like a spectral hand had smacked him out the sky.

The spell [Rainbow Bridge,] is a light kin invention. With mastered cultivating prowess they were able to create a physical rainbow space gate.

The colors were borne, half from the participation of the light of stars and celestial bodies being turned smudges as they moved FTL and half from the light kin’s imbuing, and spun into a prism to fly under.

Normally, what would happen is a gaggle of light kin would fly together. They would keep the light contained and protect the children who were too young to use magic.

If someone was knocked off course by some space trash ‘or lord forbid unconscious,’ they would grab them and hold on until they could protect themselves. Using their flagella like a cowboy’s rope.

The alternative was crashing into the sides.

You never crashed into the sides. His parent had told him. Back in the day he would always discredit their words because he was always better.

Always stronger.

Always bigger.

But now he realized why you never did Rainbow Bridge alone.

He began to panic as his body skated the edge of the bridge. The vibrations of breaking glass rattled his body in lieu of actual sound since he was in space. Excruciatingly, thousands of shards began to stab into his body.

It burned his amorphous form. His spherical shape quickly rearranged into a hardened cube. He willed his molecules to remain hardy, and was… mildly successful but lords, did it hurt.

And he still felt the burning.

Giant yellow hands quickly globbed out of his body and waved desperately in an attempt to throw himself back onto the course. While he haphazardly tried to swim in the space he heard her voice so close to his consciousness.

Like on the edge of his head, he heard each word of her’s drip with hate. Like a fly in an earlobe, she whispered.

(You do not, fight me, child. I own you, do you understand, I own you,) He skated through the giant space. His giant yellow hands melted against the prism glass as half of his square body came in and out.

He heard the silence of space, then pulled himself to hear the most ear-rendering, shattering sound tear through his senses despite the lack of air.

“ARGHHH!” He screamed as he willed his body to push past his design.

Long cuts were starting to form, and he desperately tried to stretch his Nucleus away, but growled as his body kept spinning.

Protecting it felt impossible. outside of it, the long cut slowly coming onto his middle. His hand slid against the prism glass, orange blood floated and zoomed with him in this zero space, and a long orange line stretched backward at mach six.

A streak of yellow, orange and rainbow would show to any passerby who could perceive him moving.

The Guardian saw his hand be sawed down to a point. Angry and quick on his feet, or really the lack thereof, The Guardian grew larger and larger until he had stretched to his gargantuan, true size; a better form.

The Guardian now had far better control. He sacrificed his square’s durability for his original form. The cube crackled and zapped as the energy waves that made up his body smashed and combined. They formed an elongated head attached to a torso that stretched into the impression of a rib cage with no legs. Wicked, enormous claws, unconnected to his body, plodded through the air.

His sawed off arm grew back ten, twenty, thirty of giant flagella that sprayed, burned, and gushed viscous alien blood.

Too fast!

Nothing was working, the inside was too hot and burned, there was no way of coming back in, and his body dangled dangerously outside the bridge.

His body glowed a brilliant orange. He wasn’t good at much in this new environment, a big fish in a small pond.

His spells were odd, his powers didn’t have a good capacity for growth, and he didn’t have a good mastery of magic.

But in this form, his regeneration skyrocketed. And, with all of his flagella grown at a rate that even the rainbow couldn’t stop, he gained just enough leverage.

Under him. Not above.

He growled, and with all his might, hefted his body through the giant hole he inadvertently carved out, breaking through the hull of the rainbow bridge.

The guardian spun in real space. His body spinning terribly and erratically. He prayed through held breaths that he wouldn’t hit anything: space trash, moons, stars, planets, animals.

There was too much that could hurt him out here.

Space was far less empty than some sapients thought.

His head hurt.

His improvised chest burned from the effort, his construct of a heart fired at a rapid cylinder, not even slowing like he wanted. His parallel wills argued, and he wanted to desperately take a breath or tell them to shut up.

(Never, and I mean never disobey me, do you understand?) She said, her voice firm, no love in the voice that had lovingly called him to the stars.

[...]

(Do you understand?) She reiterated, holding down his blessing. At the back of tongue, and in another world, he would’ve died right here. So many options of what he could’ve said and what he could’ve done flashed in his mind.

None of them good. The two wolves in his mind, argued and fed him options after options, teetering on self preservation vs his personhood.

And he couldn’t say one was wrong.

He could practically feel her long nails about to press down onto his body.

He couldn’t.

This situation was one where he had every right to be prideful. His chest was bleeding. Flesh of light hung from his body in ribbons, and a bleeding orange ichor dripped into dots that floated in tiny orbs around his body. His soul burned with irregular energy.

As a creature on its second time, he didn't have the luxury of a large capacity.

And he especially didn’t have the luxury of a third time.

[...Yes ma’am.] He said feeding his self preservation.

A need to punch something arose as he felt her smile, but the laboring celestial was too tired.

His consciousness started to wane as he drifted toward Dulmpa.

He wanted to sleep…