LORE OF THE GUARDIANS

"First we begin with the tattoos," he said, pouring out the sand he had gathered in his hand. "There's little knowledge about how you get them, many say only the guardians know how. There's a lot of speculation that they imprint those tattoos themselves."

"How would they do that?" I asked.

"No idea, but the tattoos have significance. They might all look the same but their designs are completely different."

"You mean, it's not just the colours?"

"Exactly, it's not just the colours, although the colours are the most significant," he replied. "According to my observation, the blue dragon tattoos have arrows and swords for scales, and the colours differ according to the standing of the knight."

"What does that mean, the standing of the knight," I asked, baffled.

"I'm not exactly sure, but over the years I've met mostly bright blues like the ones we met on our way here, but as for the dark blues…I've only met one, and he told me that it was because of his standing that his was dark blue."

That sounded strange, but not so important that it would hoard my attention.

"So what's the significance of the colours?"

"Right," he replied. "You saw six different colours, blue, white, green, oxblood, red and black."

I nodded.

"Each of the colours represents a knight's position in the centre solar system, the guardian they assist and are loyal to. The blue repre—"

"Wait, wait," I interrupted. "Back up, what do you mean the centre solar system?"

"Don't worry, I'll get to that part," he replied. "The blues are the minions of the second guardian, which is you. The blacks belong to the fourth guardian, the whites pledge their allegiance to the third guardian, the greens follow the seventh guardian, oxbloods are loyal to the sixth guardian and the reds will do anything for the fifth guardian."

"What about the first guardian?"

He exhaled. "He has no knights, no one knows who the first is or even if he exists in our dimension. They call him the late bloomer, and I know very little of that guardian."

"How do they know who their guardian is?"

"Through their eyes of course," he replied. "See to the eye of a normal person, your hair appears brown but to a knight of the arena, it takes the colour of your guardian position…to them, your hair is blue."

"I see," I replied. "So that's why they stare at me with that look despite never meeting before in their lives."

"Technically, yeah," he said, standing up and stretching. "But that's not the whole reason they look at you with disgust."

I stood up, dusting the sand off my body, then sliding my hands into my pocket.

"So why?"

"Because of the Lore of the Guardians," he replied walking into the stream. Then he turned and said, "Come on, the water is shallow, we'll talk while we walk."

So we walked through the streams still heading east as we discussed. He spoke about something called the Multiversal System, and about a choosing of guardians from the centre planet of this multiversal system.

"According to the legendary book of Artatara, the lore speaks of seven guardians being chosen from the centre planet of the centre solar system of the multiversal system," he said. Before he could

say anything more, a giant salmon-looking fish emerged from the shallow stream we just crossed, coming straight at us.

He pushed me to the left and jumped to the right. The creature landed on the black sand, wriggling violently as it's weird looking eyes stared at me.

"Are you gonna take this one, or should I do the honours?" He asked.

"Nah, I got it."

I pointed my finger gun at it, creating a small energy sphere on the tip, then I fired at the creature, and it blew up into smithereens. Collecting the pixels I saw that I had gained eight power stones, which wasn't bad compared to the hundred and fifty I made along the way.

"It's been less than two days here and you're already getting good at controlling your energy blasts," he looked around and smiled. "Usually you'd cause more damage than this, you really are a quick study."

Of course if it wasn't for the tips one of the blue knights we met along the way gave me, I never would have imagined having so much control over my energy blasts. We continued our journey and he continued his story.

"The book speaks of the Author," he said. "The supposed god of the multiversal System, he is said to be the writer of all the universes in the multiversal system."

"Wait what?" I asked, chuckling. "You can't expect me to believe that, that we're all characters in some guy's storybook."

"The Author transcends beyond time and space," he replied, looking at me with a serious facial expression. "Millions of years ago, he realised there were domains existing that he had nothing to do with, beyond his knowledge. So he planned to set out and explore these domains, but he could not leave his multiversal system unattended to."

"So he created the guardians?" I asked.

"Precisely. In order not to be biassed, he created a scheduled system that would alternate the powers he blessed the guardians with, from one universe to another…there are two thousand and three hundred universes in the multiversal system."

"That's a lot," I replied.

"The Author created a lot of characters," he replied. "A few years ago, that scheduled system chose our solar system as the new centre solar system and Earth as the new centre planet."

"The Yolo incident," I replied.

"Exactly, the Yolo incident," he said in reply. "You were chosen as a guardian and so were the other five, I don't know about the first."

"Cool," I said looking at him. "But none of this tells me why those knights seem to hate me."

"Yes, of course. In the process of blessing the guardians with powers, the Author attached some of his personality traits to the powers given and he also blessed random people as knights to serve the guardians," he smiled looking behind as we finally crossed all one hundred and twenty streams successfully. "The book says, among all the guardians, the second and first guardians received most of the Author's personalities and strength. And based on the history of the activities of every single second guardian, it is assumed that the second guardian was given all the wrath and mercilessness of the Author."

I scoffed. "That can't be right, I'm extremely slow to anger and the kindest person you'd ever meet."

He chuckled looking at me. "Way to toot your own horn kid."

I shrugged. "Can't say anything but the truth."

We were approaching a valley that seemed to have giant rings hovering close to the ground. We had to get closer before I could get a closer look, because we were passing a field of some weird plants that seemed to be the forbidden offspring of the union between sunflowers and maize.

"Bottom line is," my dad said, stopping at the edge of the land prior to going down the valley. "Due to experience and rumours carried from generations to generations, the other knights believe you are wicked and evil, and shall always hurt everyone close to you."

"Sheesh," I replied, looking down at the valley.

It was twelve extremely large rings, grey in colour, hovering ten feet above the ground. Not so far above these rings was a floating land, a land that seemed like it had been carved off from a mountain somewhere. It had a very large building on top of it, resembling a tower with different size design at each storey. There was ample space on the land despite the size of the building.

"We're finally here," Ezekiel said. "Welcome son, to Xaion, the Guild of the Knights."