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At about mid-morning the next day Ryan had started to prepare the trip to take his friends on the long trip to meet Joel’s younger brother. That day he came wearing blue leather armor with a giant blue mantle over his shoulders, a guard over his neck and lower face, and a long cape down his back. He was like a big blue man ready to stalk in the dark.

Ryan leaned over and poked the side of Joel’s tent. There was a rustling sound from within for a few moments, then Joel popped his head out at Ryan from the opening.

"Hey man, ready to get going?" Ryan asked.

"Just a sec. Celia’s not here." Joel said, "Have you seen her around?"

Ryan looked around for a moment, then said, "Nah. Come to think of it Koichi’s missing, too."

"Whaa…?" Joel cried, beginning to thrash about inside his tent, "Does he think he can get even with me with his personal problems by taking away my girl?"

"Don’t worry Mr. Red-in-the-Face." Ryan said, widening his grin, "Let’s just go aireal and look for them."

Ryan turned around and leaped up into the air with what seemed to be a never-ending ascension upwards. He was flying! With the wind flowing through his hair and cape waving smoothly about behind him, Ryan made his way out with his hawk eye view of the area. At this time as Joel was back left on the ground, his eyes were wide open and feeling shocked all over. He looked around frantically for a moment, then sat still thinking.

"I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to all this stuff." Joel thought, looking back up into the sky, "Next think I know he’ll be creating warp gates to weird dimensions."

He stood up and turned to his bags to dress up, but found only unbearably dirty and cut up clothes. Joel fell back and lay on the ground and sighed.

"Great, now what am I going to travel in?" he moaned.

At about that time Ryan had found Celia and Koichi together on a road a few miles away. He began to circle around above them like a vulture as he thought how he would approach them and ask them where they were going. Koichi stopped and smelled the air for a moment, looked up, and sighed at the sight of Ryan over him and his traveling partner.

"Oh god…" Koichi said, "Don’t look now, but blue boy’s here."

As soon as Koichi pointed up towards Ryan and Celia looked back, Ryan disappeared and reappeared on top of Koichi’s finger with great speed, appearing as if he was balancing on top of Koichi’s hand.

"My you’re a strong kid, balancing big ol me on that one finger of yours." Ryan said with a chuckle.

Koichi then dropped his hand to the ground, seeing Ryan up above him, and Ryan lost his balance in the air and fell back down to the ground.

"You’re an annoying bastard." Koichi told Ryan, "What do you want from us?"

Ryan stood up and dusted himself off with his gloves.

"I’m not going back with you or Joel." Koichi told Ryan.

Ryan looked from Koichi to Celia and then back to Koichi again.

"Joel wants to know why you kidnapped his woman." Ryan told Koichi.

"I didn’t kidnap the princess, that’d be the last thing I’d do." Koichi said.

"I came of my own free will." Celia said, "Koichi wants to go into private training with his head master again to try matching Joel some day." Koichi grumbled, crossed his arms, and looked away as Celia spoke to Ryan, "I’m going to help him with my healing abilities in case he gets hurt."

"Ah, I get it now. You can’t find the powers of the healing goddess in a drug store." Ryan said, nodding his head, "That doesn’t explain the standing with your relationship with Zareon, though."

Celia sighed and looked away, then stood up to Ryan and said, "I guess I’m still a little unsure about things. He’s a nice guy, but I’ve been rushed into a lot of these things lately." She turned and stepped away, "Please give Joel my regards. I hope this doesn’t hurt him."

"Nah, if I know him, he’s a pretty tough guy." Ryan told her. He tilted his head down and widened his grin again and said, "Just don’t get into any strange involvement with this human. We don’t want any half breeds running around!"

He raised his chest up high and began a series of loud laughs like a joker. As Celia gasped in astonishment, Koichi clenched his fist, gritted his teeth, growled like a wild hound, and made a quick dash up to Ryan and pounded his face with all his might. But Ryan’s head was not beaten far, nor was he pushed back or down to the ground. Koichi’s arm was bumped backwards as Ryan turned his face to the front again and eyed down Koichi like a superior master.

"That one, "Ryan said, crossing his arms, "was free. It takes a lot more than that to rip the smile off my face."

Koichi began taking steps back and made moves towards Celia.

"Stop calling just a human! I have a name, and I live by it!" Koichi hissed.

"Fine." Ryan said, turning away and shrugging, "Mm… someday… maybe."

Ryan leaped back up into the air and began making his way back to Joel at the campsite. Filled with rage, Koichi drew his sword and flung it towards Ryan’s back, but before his sword had a chance to strike Ryan through his body it seemed to hit some field and caused the weapon to repel back towards Koichi’s head. It spun rapidly and Koichi couldn’t seem to muster up the running away power in his legs to get out of there, but it stopped in mid-air a foot in front of his face, the area around him was surrounded with an odd gray aura - a stop spell.

"Get real." A voice streamed through Koichi’s head, "Think twice before challenging one of us to a fight. We have powers beyond any imagination and limitation. Go back to training and if you’re lucky you may scar me next time we meet."

Koichi grabbed his sword and put it back in its sheath as the stop spell faded. He blinked and breathed in deeply, then turned back to the road and began walking away with Celia. As Ryan reached Joel again and landed he lifted his hand up into the air, causing Joel’s tent, which was still up at the time, to raise and begin to package up. Joel was still inside the tent and was gripping tight inside it, wrapping his body inside and hiding from the outside.

"Hey, let go!" Joel cried.

"You let go!" Ryan said.

"But I have no clothes to wear!" Joel told Ryan.

Joel lost hold of the closing tent and fell down with a crash on the ground in his underwear. Ryan stepped up and inspected Joel as the tent disappeared into his bag of travelling supplies behind him.

"What’re you staring at?" Joel muttered on his head.

"Nothing." Ryan said, rolling his eyes away, "Your clothes seen too much action?"

"Yeah." Joel said as he rolled forward to a proper sitting position, "Do you have a barrel I can wear, or should I travel to the next town bare-naked?"

Ryan thought for a moment, then put his right hand up to his forehead and pointed his left-hand palm down towards Joel. In an instant Joel felt the phase of reality around him change and create clothing over his body. He then found himself wearing a red shirt and gray pants from out of no where, and stood up tucking his shirt into his pants and looking around briefly.

"Sorry they didn’t have exactly your style. It was the best I could find at the market." Ryan told Joel.

Joel nodded at Ryan, then turned to the side and threw a few punches and kicks into the air to check how flexible the new suit would be for him.

"So what did Koichi and Celia say they were doing?" Joel asked, "I take it you found them, right? And how did you fly, anyway?"

"Wha-you don’t know how to fly yet either?" Ryan said. He sighed briefly, then looked at Joel and said, "We guardians have the ability to do many things greater than humans can. You might say that humans restrict themselves to some weird law of gravity and fears floating away into space, thus their minds pull them back to the ground. We can see through that fear and restriction, though, and can move about freely upon a, shall we say, x-y-z axis as long as we can concentrate on staying up."

"Ooooooaaaooooh…" Joel said, nodding off slowly in a semi-spaced out way, "So what about Celia and Koichi?"

"Ah, right, right. "Ryan said, turning around to think for a moment. A moment later he turned back around and said, "Celia said she really had a thing for this Koichi human guy and really didn’t give a damn about you in the first place. Sorry man."

Joel slumped down a bit for a moment and said, "Really? Aww man… so would you at least teach me how to fly, too?"

Ryan stopped, shoulders perked up like he was stunned, and thought, "Was he serious about this love relation either? Geez." Then he looked up and said, "No, I can’t teach you that. Something as simple as flying should be easy enough to get." Ryan looked up at the sun, then at his shadow, then said, "Now we should get moving, it’s about time."

"Huh?" Joel mumbled looking up, "Oh alright. Let’s get going."

Joel flipped up his sword and sheath over his shoulder and under his opposite arm and moved out with Ryan and their belongings. Ryan picked up a notebook from his bag and began writing in it.

"So you want to learn what you are and who we all are." Ryan began, "I should write a novel on this just in case we have to go over this for anyone else in the future."

"Yeah, so… what about us?" Joel asked.

Ryan took a deep breath, then said, "So I told you about how you were created and about our cores giving us our dynamic powers and what happens if a guardian dies." Joel nodded to him as Ryan explained their situation, "Well long ago before this planet was created the gods up in the heavens had a struggle with a creature they called Hades. Hades was a master of the dark properties, see, and he’d go around the universe destroying those that the heavens created." Ryan looked up at the sky, "If you’ve ever wondered what it’d be like up in the sky, passed this planet where all the stars are, well… a lot of those speckles you see up there in the night sky aren’t stars. They’re bits of crushed galaxies caused by Hades." He crossed his arms and thought for a moment, then looked back at Joel, "The gods weakened Hades and created this third rock from the sun to imprison the sleeping demon, and they separated his powers into five pieces of armor. Hades can’t awaken as long as these pieces of armor aren’t brought together, but I wouldn’t imagine what would happen to the person who did get hold of them. The gods created us, the guardians, with their remaining powers, and they created one of us for every force of life - Fire, Ice, Water, Earth, Wind, Lightning, Mind, Order, Disorder, Battle, Dragon, Dark, Light, Space, Hell, the list could go on. Our mission is to get as strong as we can to match his powers before the time comes."

"Oh, I understand." Joel said, nodding more, "So from how you sounded I was pretty strong before this Zareon guy died last time. How strong should I be compared to everyone else?"

"You compared to all of us guardians that I know of are number three in the list of power." Ryan said, "The two ahead of you are Euzhacho, the Ice Guardian, and Lyz, the Guardian over Order and Discord."

"Ice guardian, huh." Joel said, "Well ice is weak against fire, right? So if I powered up some I could probably beat this Euzhacho character without a problem and become number two. I’m not too sure what’s about this order and discord stuff, though."

"You don’t want to deal with Lyz, trust me." Ryan told Joel, "Powers from order and discord grant the ability to control virtually anything of the raw forces of the world, which include inflicting people with devils and curses, turning good friends into blood thirsty enemies, play with matter the way they’re not supposed to… Well, really, all of us have only caught glimpse of her powers controlling order and discord, so I can’t say for sure if all that’s true."

"Eww…" Joel shuddered, "I don’t want someone turning my body against me… So she’s really just a big effects artist, I take it?"

"Kind of like that. Though she has enough power in her body to do regular physical attacks." Ryan explained, "She’s the top fighter in the world at this point, and has reached a permanent Slayer state and can’t revert."

Joel gave Ryan a confused look for a moment.

"Er, a Slayer is a form that a Guardian can take that doubles his fighting abilities." Ryan told Joel, "You gain that ability when you’ve reached a certain understanding and your body reaches a withstanding condition to change. Your ears will become long and pointy, and your fangs grow to show. Also, strange black markings cover your face in different forms, depending on the person, kind of like war paint. That’s where a lot of people call us demon from."

"Oh now that’d be a great experience to try out." Joel said. He thought for a moment, then asked, "Hey Ryan, there’s been some times where I was in a battle and seemed to lose control of myself. Is this like becoming a Slayer?"

"Well Zareon was pretty close to becoming one, if I remember." Ryan said, "That must have been your core taking over, though. You were feeling the real Zareon spirit filling in. I remember one day a long time ago when Zareon and Euzhacho came together in a public fight to see who was stronger. It was a really close match, but with Euzhacho’s remarkable resistance to elemental attacks and turning into a Slayer in the end he beat Zareon. If you try looking for Euzhacho, he’s not hard to miss. Blonde hair parted down the middle that spikes up at the end on his sides, and he goes around wearing his black trench coat most of the time. And its hard to miss his sword, too, the Murasame - counter weapon of the Masamune. It’s a long double-edged gleaming red blade with a shiny yellow hilt. The weapon’s too big to hold in a sheath, so he carries it around where ever he goes by hand." He thought for a moment, then continued, "Hmm, what else is there to say… your resistance to elemental and magic attacks will become better as you endure them. So if I zap you with a ton of mind crash attacks and you survive them then you’ll have a pretty high defensive versus hypnotists. Uh, and yeah, your weapon will gain weight and become heavier as you become stronger. It’s kind of like having your own weight lifting set to take with you where ever you want, and it always presents you with a challenge and extra force when you fight. But it won’t be so heavy that you won’t be able to swing it around with control."

"They never said it would be easy being me!" Joel said, scratching his head.

"Life's pretty simple once you get the hang of it. We're nomadic by nature, so we grow stronger. But just because we have the power of long life and immortality doesn't mean its okay to be reckless. If we happen to die it will take a few hundred years before our bodies are finished successfully reprogrammed with another soul." Ryan explained further, "But then again, you're another case."

Ryan snickered a bit at Joel. Joel crossed his arms and thought a moment, then he looked up to the sky and back down.

"I'm going to figure out this flying thing if you're going to help me or not." Joel told Ryan, as he knelled down to stretch.

Ryan nodded, then lifted up into the air and elevated himself, and replied, "If you say so. I'll see you at the top, rocketeer."

As Ryan reached around one hundred feet into the air, Joel began hopping around on the ground as he tried catching a foot into the air. After five or six small leaps he put some real muscle into his attempt and made a graceful jump high into the air. Joel gained altitude soaring up into and above the clouds, passing Ryan, but then he stopped climbing and came to his peak lift. He looked around, flapping his arms hopelessly, then began his descent falling down at rapid speeds to the ground again. Ryan gave him a grin and waved as Joel passed again.

The ground made close advanced faster and faster. Joel feared crushing his body on impact and drew both his arms back. Sparks flew from the palms of his hands, and he yelled in a panic, "Fire Bolt!!", flinging his arms forward towards the ground. The beams from both his hands combined into a huge thruster shot that slowed his landing down. Joel fell the last few feet as if he were falling from a regular jump into the crater he created from his fire wave.

"Geez! And you say there's no such thing as gravity?" Joel asked, catching his breath. He turned around and watched Ryan come back down to the ground, "I sure felt something."

"Well who can blame you? Your mind is nothing compared to mine!" Ryan laughed, "But I never knew the Fire Bolt had so much power packed in it."

Joel stood up and dusted himself off, and then said, "Yeah, but I can only do it twice a day. I can't do it anymore today after that last blast until I get some rest!"

"Oh..." Ryan's grin dropped a moment, "Hmm... you must not know how to control your power yet either. Watch this."

He waved his left hand back and shot a semi-transparent orb blast backward into a tree, which imploded down in the base and fell over. He looked to his other side and pointed towards a near by stream and shot a white laser across it, causing the river to temporarily split and crash. He flew up into the air again and began tossing random energy waves around the area, crushing rocks, grass lands, trees, crops, and other parts of nature.

"See, we can use our energy for whatever we want as long as we'd like as long as we know how to control it." Ryan said as he came back to the ground.

"That's... nice to know." Joel replied, eyes popping, "But you're more experienced at this than me, what can I do?"

"I'll tell you what. I'll teach... or reteach... you how to use the Charge ability." Ryan told him, "We all use it to recover what energy we've lost as we use it up. Now, do as I do." He stood firm on the ground, "Put your mind at rest."

"Mind, umm, right." Joel grunted.

"But at the same time you want to tense your body, your muscles." Ryan said, eyes rested, "Now, you want to suddenly switch both, so your mind is tense and your body is at ease. This will cause a reaction that restores your strength, as strange as it may sound." He put crossed his arms in front of him in an X fashion, "Now, charge."

Joel nodded, releasing his tensed muscles and stressing his calmed mind. A wave of power raged through his body and he felt restored. His clothing and hair jumped up a moment as if a current of wind had passed through but fell back down soon after. Ryan had done the same. The two of them were back up to par, and ready to teach each other tricks.

"Okay! Perfect." Ryan exclaimed, "Now then, the first thing that you should note about using this power is that you'll use less energy when you fire off with one hand, more when you use both." Joel nodded, "Though some energy wielding techniques can only be preformed with both arms in play. You may have gotten used to going on an all out assault on your opponent when you used the Fire Bolt before, but you need to think differently if you want to save your energy to use through out the fight. To shoot smaller blasts you'll need to do something like flicker your firing hand every time you shoot. That is, open it and close it real fast as you go to shoot." Ryan looked to the side and extended his right arm out to his side, "There's a big difference between this..." he flashed his hand open a moment and shot a small blast out into the open, "And this..." he opened his hand all the way and released a giant beam from his arm.

"Oh, right, I understand." Joel nodded. He stepped back and pointed his hands up into the sky, "At least I think I do. But I'd rather not blow up our surroundings any more."

He channeled focus through his left arm and fired into the sky, a long and thick beam which faded into space. Joel looked at Ryan a moment, who was shaking his head "No" at him, and then looked back up and motioned his right hand in a waving motion and fired a rapid line of smaller blasts. Ryan grinned and nodded to him "Yes", and Joel gave it another shot. So he snapped his left hand back up into the air, quickly drawing it back afterwards, and shot a single fire ball from his energy pool.

"Yeah!" Joel roared, "I got this down now!"

Ryan watched the fire ball fly upward into the air and waved his right hand to the side, and then down, in which he told Joel, "Heads up!"

He had used his own powers to deflect Joel's fire ball back down at him. Ryan waved at Joel and jumped into the air and watched as Joel spent no time watching the ball fall back down at him. As it collided with the ground the fireball created a small explosion, but nothing resulted in nothing more than a bon fire. Ryan floated back down to the ground, and Joel stepped up to the fire and glanced at Ryan in slight disbelief.

"What was that for?" Joel yelled.

"Well you didn't have to run, sheesh." Ryan said looking away and scratching his head, "Fire is your strong point after all. You could have deflected it back or absorbed it back into your system completely."

"Give me a break." Joel said.

"I only hope for some old Zareon to come out." Ryan told him, "Just go up to the fire and touch it."

Joel looked at Ryan again, then at the fire. He walked up to the blaze slowly and reached out with a shuddering hand, but he quickly jumped back with grief. Ryan sighed and shook his head, and waved for Joel to go towards the burning embers again. So Joel did move up again, inching slowly, but could not seem to feel anything that would resemble pain. He poked his finger at the fire, and it seemed to suck into his arm and through his body.

"Finally." Ryan said, "That didn't feel so bad, did it?" He stepped up to Joel and gave him a big pat slam on the back, and when he made contact he could only snap his arm back and cry, "Aaaa! It burns!" from the energy Joel had absorbed. He blew on his hands a few times and rubbed them together and said, "See, you're the Fire Guardian, you can't be hurt by it like I can."

Joel looked up at the sun, it was right above them.

"Thanks for the lessons, Ryan. But we should get going if we want to get anywhere today." Joel said, "It's noon already!"

"Is it?" Ryan asked, peering up at the sky, "Oh yeah, it is. I knew that!" He motioned his hand up and towards him, which brought their supplies and equipment to them, "Here we go! Let's move on then, shall we? If we move to the south west we should be able to make it to the next town before sun down."

Joel nodded, and the two moved on through the day across the fields, crossing roads, and passing forms of water.

"If we want to get Niltron we'll have to cross through the Shroud Forest, then around the city Traquo, and over the mountains to the desert region." Ryan said.

"Traquo? Aah, I don't think I'm very welcome there anymore." Joel told Ryan.

"I know you started out there and made some mistakes, man." Ryan said, "If we have any problems going around there I'll handle it." He took out a scroll map from one of his belt containers and showed Joel, "When we pass Traquo and over the mountains we'll cross a world border and into the old world area. It won't be very far after that."

Ryan looked up and thought, "I just hope the Water Guardian will join us and help out. The more pressure we put on Zareon the stronger he will become. He'll reach the supreme level and beat the top ranks, I'm sure."

The duo made their way onto a road that would lead them straight for the next town, and found someone driving by who would be able to lend them a hand. They had travelled on foot all day after their training lessons and were racing the sun to dusk.

"There's people out there who actually welcome us warmly, believe it or not." Ryan told Joel, "No matter how demonic we seem physically, there are many guardians out there who have upheld an honorable life of peace and defending the good. That's what we do when we can, help if we see a situation fit. Even though we are a superior race, they uphold the world and civilization for the most part, not to mention they out number us by a bundle to a hundred billion or so." He grinned, "Some human women get all over us, too. Not even I can understand that."

"I couldn't begin to imagine." Joel replied, "Or maybe I could." He slumped back with his arms behind his head, "We look like humans, so maybe we share some human charms."

"I wouldn't want to associate myself with humans, really." Ryan said, "But I guess you're right. We do blend in."

"Hey." Joel said, squinting his eyes as he thought, "Has there ever been a mixed blood before?"

"Wha, eww, Guardian and human?" Ryan asked, cringing, "Not a chance in hell. That's sick!"

The day began to grow dark, and they entered lands of dry rivers and dead plants. The city lay ahead of them known as Choajoi. It had fallen victim to several yearly droughts that killed the crops that people would grow to sell for money. Most people wore dirty clothes, rags of once fashionable items. Many thieves roamed this place willing to steal anything through the ways of a cutthroat to keep their own lives going.

"I'd like to call this place 'Bumsville' myself." Ryan told Joel.

"I see what you mean. We burst with color compared to the others in this place." Joel said.

"We'll get something to eat for dinner at the tavern, and then find an inn with a couple rooms for the night." Ryan said as the two walked through the gates and passed poor people with gloomy faces set down among corners and sides of buildings, "After some sight seeing we'll get on moving to the forest here tomorrow."

Joel nodded, and the two disappeared into the darkness of the town of Choajoi. They were unsure of what dangers might wait for them there, though Ryan did not seem to think the guardians were placed without safety.

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