“Keep an eye on her,” I hissed at the Familiars, and then I sprung up.I had lost my knife somewhere, but a quick flex of my will formed another. I held it against the back of my wrist as I cracked open the door. Then I relaxed when I saw who it was. I let the knife vanish and opened the door wider.
Quickly, I glanced back at Swan, saw she was still asleep, and stepped out, closing the door behind me. “Mrs. Robinson,” I greeted politely.
You always wanted to be polite to women like her. She was at least eighty years old, with silver curls and a nose that had been broken at least once. Her dark skin might be wrinkled and she might need glasses, but she was as tough as they came.
She was also nearly deaf, and stubbornly refused to acknowledge it.
“BENNY, GLAD TO SEE YOU ARE ALRIGHT!”
I winced slightly and tried to use a slightly more reasonable tone of voice. “I’m glad to see you are fine too. It’s been a very strange day.”
She smiled. “STRANGEST I EVER HAD, CERTAINLY. I DON’T KNOW IF I QUITE BELIEVE IT.”
I nodded. That I certainly understood. I glanced at the door and decided to take a bit of a risk.
“It really is a pleasure to see you, Mrs.Robinson, but there’s someone sleeping in my apartment and I want to be there when she wakes up. What brought you over here?”
She gave me a little smirk. “WELL, AFTER EVERYTHING CALMED DOWN, I THOUGHT I WOULD CHECK UP ON PEOPLE. THERE MIGHT BE DEMONS ATTACKING NOW, AND ANGELS FIGHTING THEM IN OUR STREETS, BUT SOMEONE HAS TO MAKE SURE PEOPLE ARE ALRIGHT AFTERWARD.”
I was pretty sure I was no angel. If I was, Swan wouldn’t be an orphaned child soldier. If I was, the prices paid for all my victories would have been so much lower. And I doubt any of the other Guardians were angels either. But I didn’t know how to explain this to the toughest old lady I ever met, not in a way that kept my and Swan’s identity safe.
So I just smiled and nodded along. And then the door opened and Swan popped her head out. Her hair was messy and her eyes were still red, but she looked surprisingly composed.
“Thanks for waking me up, asshole” she said, trying to sound angry and barely managing annoyed.
Then she closed the door behind her.
Mrs. Robinson raised an eyebrow at me and I hoped she hadn’t quite understood that.
“Her parents died during the attack and I’m a family friend, so I’m looking after her for now. I actually could use some advice...”
She smiled and started talking. I smiled back, pretending she wasn’t being painfully loud and digesting every scrap of wisdom she gave me, even if quite a bit of it I would have to discard. There was no way I was actually washing her mouth out with soap!
Then she invited us to a meal. I told her I would think about it and that I didn’t want to leave the kid alone for too long. She said a thunderous goodbye and I retreated back into the apartment.
“Was she always that loud?” I wondered out loud, not really expecting an answer.
[“It’s likely a side effect of you becoming a Guardian. Your senses are sharpening, and you have not yet learned how to control it.”]
I grunted. It seemed like I would need to have another long conversation with Karl about what he hadn’t told me. But I didn’t have the energy to handle this now, not when there was another, much more important conversation.
One advantage of a small apartment is that it doesn’t take long to find someone in it. The bathroom door was open, and Swan was standing in it, staring at the mirror, her lips moving silently.
I stepped behind her, hesitated, reached out. She stepped away and my hand fell to my side, but she didn’t say anything, so I stayed beside her, silent.
I wished I could think of something to say. And then some utterly idiotic words found there way out of my mouth.
“What’s your name?”
She gave me a look that tried to be withering, and opened her mouth. Then she seemed to collapse like a balloon with its neck cut open. “I’m Ella. Ella Zhang.”
“That’s a pretty name. I’m Benny Orion.”
She turned away from the mirror. “Alright Benny, why am I here?”
I shrugged. “You needed help. And I couldn’t think of anything better. Do you have people who can take you in?”
I tried to hide the way those words made me feel as I lambasted myself, and Swan - Ella, her name is Ella - tried to pretend they didn’t bother her. “I could stay with a friend I guess.”
“Sure. As long as you have somewhere.”
She nodded and took out her phone, and I managed to take the hint. I had people I needed to check on as well.
I took out my phone and started scrolling through unread messages. Perhaps a third were from work, mostly coworkers checking up on me. I sent some reassuring replies and opened the email from the branch manager, a weight sitting in my gut as it slowly loaded.
There was a lot of boilerplate and corporate speak I had to skim through, but the meat of the message was simple. Between damage to the store and the mess in the mall, they didn’t expect to be reopening the location. So I was fired.
I could feel anger surging through me, the same wrath that had propelled me through endless protests and court cases, the boiling fury that had helped me cut down countless Hungry Things. It boiled in my veins, the way I and so many others had been cast aside. I wanted to find the ratfucker who looked at a chart and ripped the rug out from under so many people’s feet and show him what it felt like, and then I wanted to work my way up.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
I bit down on my tongue. Hard.
I had a criminal record and student loans and no safety net. I could not afford this. I had to simply take it and deal with it. No matter how much it hurt. I needed to distract myself.
I turned back to my messages. There were a smattering from people I knew - a couple neighbors, the super, old friends, my ex. They were all the same, more or less. People wishing me well, hoping I was alright, freaking out about what was effectively an invasion of alien monsters.
I did my best to reassure them. It was difficult without resorting to phone calls, which I really wanted to avoid. Maybe tomorrow.
The remaining messages were the interesting ones. As the password was accepted and the various chat threads opened up, I dove into them. Some of the other members had been killed, and while their families took precedence, the chapter would hold a collective memorial for them after. I would be attending. It was the least I could do.
There were people who needed help in the form of money, legal support, or labor. As much as it pained me, I couldn’t offer any, and had to ask for some myself. If I was lucky, I might be able to scrape some severance from my bosses. That could help while I found other jobs.
And of course there was speculation, both about today’s (or maybe yesterday’s, I had lost track of time at some point) events and the impact they would have. These conversations I devoured. No one knew who the Guardians were, where we came from, or what our limits were. We had been seen distributing weapons and medical equipment beyond anything human science had developed, we fought monsters with incredible powers, and then we had effectively vanished.
People were wondering about our internal factions, our politics, what our goals were. Reading the wild and baseless speculation was headache inducing, and this was from people I knew and trusted. I couldn’t even imagine what was being said on the wider internet, in the halls of power, or in the dark corners home to crazy conspiracists. They probably didn’t even believe we were real. In a way, it was depressing to see such skepticism and fear, but thinking about it was a good distraction.
And some of the questions people asked were interesting. I decided I was going to try and answer them.
As Ella talked on the phone with someone, I glanced over to where Karl was lying down, belly up. Normally, I would have responded to such a display by giving that fuzzy tummy a good scritching, but I wouldn’t do that, not with him.
“Hey, Karl, how big can our purchases get?”
He rolled over and looked up at me. [“Well, physically, the largest currently available are in the Tier 4 Megastructure Vault. Some would take up much of the volume of this solar system. The most expensive are in the Tier 5 Grimoire. Could you be more specific?”]
I glanced up at the ceiling and tried to order my thoughts. “Most of the stuff I’ve bought is personal scale. The food comes as a meal, the medical supplies comes as a packet. Can I get larger amounts? Or stuff for growing food? Industry stuff?”
[“The answer is yes, yes, and yes. While producing weaponry for others will be less point-efficient than using it yourself and there are other limitations regarding the amount of magical energy and those capable of wielding it on this planet, I would encourage you to look into such options. They may be expensive for you on your own, but they could also save many lives and earn you points. I assume you are asking because of the programs you and your political allies have engaged in?”]
I glared at him. “How do you know about those? I never told you!”
[“Familiars engage in observation of potential Guardians before we make Contracts. I watched your actions, I investigated your past, I looked through your electronics. In effect, I spied on you. I have not done anything like that since you accepted the Contract. And I am sorry, for whatever it’s worth.”]
There was only a faint trace of regret there, but I suspected Karl could only ever show faint traces. Even so, I still wanted to scream at him. He had come into my life and rummaged through it without even hesitating!
As furious as I was, I was also aware that much of the anger was rightfully directed elsewhere. Karl was just an easier target than a major corporation. So I sat there, fists clenched, silent. My Familiar seemed content to do the same, looking up at me with cool dark eyes, tails slowly swishing back and forth. The only sound was Ella’s ongoing conversation and her increasingly frustrated tones.
[‘You understand why I did it, right, Benny? I know I violated your privacy, and I am sorry. But it was necessary. I had to make sure you would not take advantage of the power of being a Guardian.”]
Just because I understood didn’t mean I had to like it. I might have been more reasonable if things had been different, but Karl had misused my trust quite a bit. Before I could try and find a way to explain that, or muster up the energy for the conversation we needed to have, Ella came over.
She looked angry. “Hey, shithead, so none of my friends can take me, they’re getting out of town or taking in people already. Is it ok if I stay here? If not, it’s fine, I can take care of myself.”
Ella stood stiffly, hands shoved into the pocket of faded jeans, head hunched forward, her cheeks wet, either from crying or from trying to disguise it.
Sometimes you have situations with only one choice. “Of course you can stay here, for as long as you like. Just please...curse a little less. Take it from me, it doesn’t make you sound more grown up.”
“Fuck off,” she said, but there was a faint glimmer of a smile, there for the merest instant then crushed under the weight of grief.
I wanted to give her a hug, to tell her...She was just a kid. She shouldn’t have to end up staying with a stranger because everyone else in her life was dead or gone. There was so much wrong with this, but I couldn’t think of anything better.
She flopped down on the couch. Her face had gone flat and still. “Do you have TV?” she asked.
Before I could answer, a voice spoke in my ear, loud and sharp and coming from nowhere. I jumped up, spinning around, looking for the source. I could feel energy crackling around me as my transformation prepared itself. Swan merely looked up.
“Did you forget about the earbud I gave you?” she asked.
I tried very hard not to blush, but I don’t think I succeeded. Attempting to preserve what remained of my dignity, I ignored the question in favor of paying attention to the voice.
“This is Magical Guardian Serpentine Shield. I’m hoping everyone’s had a chance to rest and recover, and that we would be able to meet somewhere.”
Many more voices came over the earpiece. It was rather difficult to sort through the cacophony of voices. Eventually, an agreement was reached - we would meet by the ruined prison, and it would be in an hour.
I mostly kept quiet, only making one final suggestion towards the end of the conversation. “We should be transformed for this, for the sake of privacy, if nothing else.”
There was a general round of agreements, and then I turned to Ella. She was already on her feet, about to transform.
“Not yet. Wait a few minutes, we need to get outside first.”
But I understood her eagerness, and the two of us practically flew down the stairs, limbs moving effortlessly as we took the stairs four at a time and sprang around corners. The super was gone from the door, and the halls were empty, so there were no witnesses to this headlong rush.
We made it down, I led her into a little back corner alley that mostly got used to smoke weed away from prying parents, and the two of us transformed.
As the coruscating waves of dark red light enveloped me, I smiled.
It felt like coming home.