~ Episode Seventeen ~

Fight For Those You Love:

Evan, and the Guardian Beast of Air

“Eddi-chan!!”

Shinji and Evan shot a look to see Mackenzie sweep forward through the hurricane. Eri had collapsed face-first into the soil like a discarded ragdoll.

“Seruma!” Shinji motioned to run for her—but Evan beat him to the punch and busted dirt over to Eri’s aid.

Mackenzie returned her weapon into pendant form. Doing so drained the night sky of her illumination magic. The Star Warriors were left in darkness against the winds brought forth by the oak tree’s magic portal.

“Is she hurt?!” Evan scooped Eri into his arms and started to carry her to safety outside of the clearing.

“I—I don’t know!” said Mackenzie, racing at his heels. “She just—she just fainted!”

Shinji watched their retreat through the threshold of trees back towards the stream.

“Not again…”

He threw a grimace at the four-legged outline that bounded towards him within the Void. The Monster forced itself partway through the portal with screeches that split time and space to ribbons. It stood about the size of a garbage truck on all-fours and carried an uncanny resemblance to that of a fuzzy raccoon-dog. It found Shinji with twitching silver eyes against yellow-white fur.

The Monster let out another high-pitched shriek that sent hot gusts across Shinji’s face. It took two large steps forward and wrenched the rest of its body free from the Void. The portal closed behind it, leaving the oak tree unscathed.

The wind stopped. The stretched-out branches released from their magnetic grip and eased with grace to their more natural positions.

A semi-opaque gem stone dangled from the tip of the Monster’s scorpion-like tail. What Shinji could only describe as a miniature tornado was encased within.

“…It can’t be.” The Earth Sword’s readiness slackened in his grip. He recognized the Monster in an instant. “Another G—”

The Monster swung its tail into Shinji’s flank and sent him sidelong through the air.

“SHINJI!!!” Evan darted back towards him.

Mackenzie called out after him, “Wait, Evan! What are you doing, ba—”

“Stay with her! Shinji needs me!” He plucked the Water Trident out of the earth where he had left it and dove for the nearest underbrush just as the Monster’s tail swung to meet him at mach speed. The breeze against Evan’s legs was a sore indicator of how narrow his escape was from harm.

Directly beyond the brush, Shinji lay unconscious within the high-up branches of a cedar tree. His face and arms were dark with bruises. A shoulder sagged lower than natural. The Earth Sword swayed on its tassels, snagged around two fingers.

Evan sucked back dread between his teeth. He rummaged through his backpack, desperate fingers in search for the clink of bumping Mon-Orbs. He dared another peek at the Monster he faced and recognized it from Shinji’s Book of Lodoss.

This Kenah’dai was Eldrom, the Guardian Beast of Air.

And unlike its counterpart, Shiara, it didn’t come to Shorebrooke in search of peace.

Evan shivered at the reality before him: he’d never fought a Monster entirely on his own—let alone a Guardian Beast. Shinji had always been there to throw micro-managed instruction at him. Even during the time when a Monster of Influence worked Shinji’s muscles like a puppet to pit the boys against each other.

“Evan! You have to do it! There’s no other choice!”

“No way, man! You’re my bestie! I’m not gonna—”

“You have to! Or else there’ll be no one to protect her!”

Evan scratched an itch on his scarred face. Kuurb, the Monster of Influence—the whole thing felt so ironic, considering how the Kenah’dai were possessed by an even stronger mind-control magic.

Evan shook his head of the memory. This Eldrom, no doubt, was also a victim to powerful magic. Its snout ground about in the grass, snorting up clouds of dirt as it took in great whiffs of whom it was in search of, just another victim to the intoxication of that so-distinct strawberry perfume.

The fragrance of a petite girl about five-one. Jaw-length carrot-orange hair. Doe-like eyes as red as a pool of blood and pale skin like a Dairy Queen ice-cream. Not to mention naïve as a newborn kitten and just as adorable. And, apparently, loved video games.

The Child of Destiny—nearby and out of sight in Mackenzie Thompson’s arms. If Eldrom managed to break through their ravine-side refuge, Mackenzie was basically defenseless. She didn’t have first-hand experience Sealing Monsters, like Evan, or Shinji, or Eri did.

She’d run from Zorfus, terrified of her newfound duties as a Star Warrior—a Monster Sealer. Doing so nearly got her killed. Mackenzie wouldn’t stand a chance against a Guardian Beast.

Evan realized his single most fear in the world come to life: it was up to him now, and only him, to keep Eri safe and end this fight.

The Eldrom continued its nasal-based quest for the Child of Destiny through the arching maple trees out towards the ravine where the girls were hiding.

Evan pulled a Mon-Orb at random: a green one engraved with the image of a satyr-like archer—Sebastia, the Monster of Expulsion. He sent a breathless glance past the Eldrom, worried for Shinji’s undetermined fate. He gave the Mon-Orb a firm squeeze and shot to a stand.

“Heya, man! Where ya think you’re going?!”

This caught the Guardian Beast’s attention. It threw a nasty glare Evan’s way and sauntered around to face him with its gem-tipped tail ready to strike.

Evan nodded. “Let’s rumble. Sebastia! Please lend me your power! Nobody messes with my bestie and gets away with it.”

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

The Mon-Orb glowed to life. Wisps of its essence wavered off its greenish surface, in and around Evan’s fingers. It started to melt into a semi-liquid state in the palm of his hand.

“…I hate this part.” Evan braced for what was to happen next. What happened every time he and Shinji petitioned a Sealed Kenah’dai’s influence. He wondered briefly if the same happened for Eri, in the fight against Kyupo, when she summoned Nagamani’s help.

How much it hurt, doing so.

The tendrils of Kenah’dai essence whipped to life and darted straight into his chest to make a direct connection with him and the Monster Orb. A sharp flood of painful warmth flourished from Evan’s heart. It spread to the rest of his body—filling him with Sebastia’s divine power.

With a grunt, he kept a firm gaze on Eldrom drawing near and gripped the melting Mon-Orb into both hands. He ushered it against his chest to encourage faster symbiosis. Doing so nearly brought Evan to his knees.

He ignored the sweat in his eyes and pressed palms flat against his chest to push the Mon-Orb the rest of the way into his body. Evan clenched his eyes shut against the anguish and let out a sharp gasp.

The pain faded with immediacy, replaced with a rush of endorphins. He took a moment to observe a green glow that now radiated around his outstretched arm—the aura of the Monster within him. He shuddered – and when he took up the Water Trident, it began to glow, too.

“You got this, man … you got this.” Evan twirled the weapon into both hands and aimed its tines at Eldrom. “All right, it’s time to say goodnight!—Arrow Score!!”

A cluster of arrows made from pure energy took shape before the Trident’s prongs and multiplied into an army’s worth of an assault upon the Guardian Beast of Air. The attack exploded upon impact across the Monster’s face and flank. It attempted a fruitless retreat, roaring blasts of hurricane gusts at Evan.

He dodged the attack, landing with a hard roll as the trees behind him simply ceased to exist, blown away.

But then a crackle on the air stole Evan’s attention from the fight at hand. Dead twigs rained from the tree that held Shinji in place. His body gave a sharp jolt downwards on the sound of snapping branches.

“Shinji!” Evan darted towards him, but fell short when Eldrom’s tail thrust down onto the snowy foliage in his path. The impact of the attack sent a residual quake through the clearing that tossed Evan amidst a tornado of dirt, pine needles, and shattered trees.

He clamored to a stand in time to see his friend’s unconscious body break through the branches. If the earlier blow from Eldrom’s tail didn’t kill Shinji, the snow-covered rocks below the cedar tree surely would.

Evan leapt onto an upturned boulder and launched through the air as Eldrom turned, ready to let loose another Hurricane Roar.

“Eat this!” Charging the Water Trident with Sebastia’s essence, he plunged the weapon into Eldrom’s exposed flank. Using the momentum from his jump, Evan let go the Trident and flung himself away, just as a fireworks of energy arrows tore through Eldrom’s body from the inside, out. “Eldrom, Guardian Beast of Air! Surrender your power to me!”

Evan stumbled into an uneven landing behind the Monster and almost rolled his ankle in the process. He had only enough time to catch his best friend in mid-fall and curl into a protective shell before they both ate dirt.

Eldrom’s howls of agony ceased. The forest began to repair itself like a rewound VHS tape. A sharp pain escaped Evan’s chest with a flood of overwhelming emotion as Sebastia’s Monster Orb drained from his body and re-solidified. It hit the ground and rolled into some underbrush nearby.

The encounter with Eldrom drew to a close: another Kenah’dai was Sealed. The Child of Destiny was safe again for another day—and so, too, was the world.

But, in this moment, none of that mattered.

“Shinji. Shinji, wake up, man! Shinji!”

The rush of emotion that released from the use of Sebastia’s power exacerbated Evan’s fear for Shinji's life. This was all too real. In a secret world of prophecy-chasing and Saturday Morning “Monster-of-the-week” adventures, the fact that Shinji might be dead was all too real.

“Come on, man—don’t do this to me. Come on—”

Evan didn’t know CPR. Shinji had been the self-trained medic between the both of them. He was the one who popped limbs back into place. He was the one who cleaned and sutured wounds in methodical silence. He was the one who mended broken bones, broken noses.

“…Shinji, please—I need you...”

For Evan, no amount of logic screamed check his pulse, check his breathing. In such a frantic state, all he could do was shake Shinji’s limp body and beg him not to die.

Crunching leaves brought the sight of Mackenzie within the maple threshold between both clearings. Eri wasn’t with her. “Izuma-san? Izuma-san!!”

“He needs help! Please! We—we have to get to a...”

She rushed to Evan’s side. “Here, let me try something.”

“What—?”

“Let me try something. Trust me, I searched online about elemental properties and Air—”

“ ‘Kenzie, we need to get him to a hospital!”

“And how are we going to get there?!” Mackenzie snapped. “On a giant flying ice-dog? How do we even get him up onto Shiara’s back? I saw what happened, how do you know Shinji’s spine isn’t broken?! We can’t mess around with that!”

Evan sat up on his knees over his best friend, shuddering through a sigh. He mashed a fist up under his foggy frames. “…And what if it is broken?”

Mackenzie inhaled sharply. “Even if we can get Shinji to a hospital, people are going remember seeing Shiara and freak out. Tonight’s Monster has already been Sealed, so that means the memory charm’s already done its thing, too! Eri’s totally out of it and her stupid brother’s probably already back at the park laying on the horn like the world’s ending. Evan – we have to act now. Please. Let me try this. If it doesn’t work, then I’m the asshole. This is on me.”

Evan looked up at her, lips pursed and trembling, chin puckered like a peach pit. His eyelids clenched against fresh tears. He shuddered through a wail and gave a single nod.

Mackenzie caressed his shoulder and rose to a stand, snapping free the necklace around her throat. “Element, Air!”

The Air Pendant glowed to life, pushing her hands away on an invisible force amidst a gust of wind that kicked up around her. Evan watched helplessly as the pendant transformed into a vertical rod double Macks’ small height with flowing angelic wings that flexed into place on either end. A ruby crystal churned into existence between them.

Mackenzie held her Air Staff out with its crystal pointed over Shinji’s unconscious body. She dropped her eyelids and let out a deep exhale. “You are Air—You are Air. Project the image in your mind … project the … Okay--Cherub's Kiss!”

The Staff’s wings stretched out over Shinji. The crystal nestled between the wings glimmered to life. A stream of light gushed forth from the Air Staff and formed a dome of radiance over both boys.

“Wh-what’s happening?! Yo! ‘Kenzie!”

“Shut up, baka! You’ll break my concentration!”

But Evan's question was quickly answered as he watched what turned out to be a second Sub Elemental Crash from Mackenzie wash over his bestie's body in a faint glow.

Shinji's dislocated shoulder jerked a bit, snapped up to meet his collar at a more natural position. The slashes and bruises, the rips and tears in his clothes, the broken nose received in the fight against Kyupo—all of it vanished like a bad dream. A sigh of life renewed escaped his lungs.

“Shinji!” Evan pulled him into a bear hug, sobbing. “Are you okay, man? Speak up!”

The dome of light around the boys faded away.

A low groan sounded in Evan’s ear. A weak clutch found the back of his winter coat.

“Holy crap, it worked!” Mackenzie exhaled a sharp breath.

“…Evan?” Shinji looked up from Evan’s chest with dreamy confusion.

“You’re okay, brother.” Evan said.

Stubby labor fingers found his face. The feel of Shinji’s graze against his scarred cheek incited a strange flowery warmth within Evan’s heart.

He trembled through fresh tears, nestling into Shinji’s palm. “Shin--You’re okay…”

And for a long time, the boys remained in each other’s arms, holding each other tight beneath that cedar tree, without any intention of ever letting go.