The Guardians - The Collapsing of the Wall (Book 3)

A smell of smoke, dust carried by the wind, screams, blood, and also a lot of tears. The sound made by the slaughtered monsters, crying and mourning of the Guardians, all of these lost in the thin air. They all form a somber view, but also real, of what’s in front of Brook’s eyes now. The pain is growing, and it’s too much for her to have hopes, but she crawls slowly to the other ruins, among the dead bodies of the Guardians, dragons, and demons, between the legs of soldiers who are trying to stay alive.

She’s already thinking of a huge area with water, just as Lily told her it was back in the Human’s World, at Leo’s warm arms, at the times when she felt so much joy on the roof of Base Redfeed for the very first time in her life. Who would have thought it would come down to this? She didn’t. She didn’t dream of some life, but only of a constant survival and a longer one. But her friend and Leo had changed so much for her, and she was now looking around her desperately, searching for Lily. She had lost her from her sight too many times before, and she couldn’t feel her for a while, but the reason was the explosion of energy she was using in her struggle to get to the place where the pearl was kept.

She sees her now, fighting that energy field, pushing it, trying so bad to arrive in the arms of death. It was like her last wish was to stick her sword in there, to destroy everything, and her along with that spot. But the road seemed so long that Lily felt she was moving in slow motion, through an eternity, carrying all the worlds on her shoulders, and their burdens and shortcomings.

Brook gets closer and closer to the spot where the pears were, but the energy lives her soon, and she falls covered in blood on a rock. She’s still struggling to keep her eyes open, but the tears cover her sight when she sees Lily close to the pearl’s spot. She is fighting so hard to keep herself straight and to hit it with the sword, but the energy pushes her back every single time, and she keeps screaming angrily, for the powers are leaving even the Carrier of the Dragon’s Sign in the end.

Seeing her struggling, and knowing she won’t give up until she accomplishes her mission, Brook makes a fatal decision, just like Lily did some time ago when she put both of their lives at risk to save Dean. She puts her bloody hand on the mark of the sisters of energy, and she activates the last trace of energy from her body, sending it to Lily, who feels the vibrations soon, and she knows that Brook’s helping her to do this. She looks around her and notices her near that rock, leaning on it, she looks into her eyes, and Brook can read on her lips a: Thank you. It’s all that she needs to smile, and she sees Lily throwing herself in the shiny spot where the pearl was created.

The time suddenly flies, the night falls upon them, and now it’s total darkness, but all of these take place in a couple of seconds, because the sunrise appears in the other side of the sky, and the spot where Lily is holding her sword straight explodes into a dust of purple energy, cracking the ground, electrocuting her and throwing her dozens of meters height.

The Wall’s Portal regains its purple and blue colors, the broken pieces seem to gather altogether from where they are scattered, giving it the initial form. Not one single creature passes now in the Guardian’s World, and the ones from here are lacked powers soon, giving the Soldiers the opportunity to kill them easily now.

During these events, Matt, who kept trying to get inside the button’s room using different excuses, gets bored of being polite, and he prepares to hit Jake, who is a step ahead of him though, starting a real fight with him inside the Base.

Matt had two options: to make Jake join him in his betrayal or to kill him and make that protection barrier from the door go away. From what he knew, only the hand of the Magician who did the spell could open the door, so he needed him or his hand to get in there. What he doesn’t seem to take into consideration was that Jake was instructed to kill him at the smallest suspicion, and he gets terribly angry when he is hit with his head by the though glass, so he grabs him by his waist, throwing him into the office next to them, right through the window.

“Are you with or against me? I need to get in there!” shouts Matt exasperated to his colleague.

“I am on Leonor and Ray’s side! I will not be a traitor!”

“Then you will be dead!” says Matt and shots him without remorse right in the head.

The fight was a short one, for Matt wasn’t the kind to sit and chat too long or to negotiate. He considers it too uncomfortable to carry his body to the door, so he cuts his hand and puts it on the sensor.

When the door opens, he sees a lot of colored buttons, and he rushes to deactivate the Guardian’s chips. He is pressed by the time though, for it took too long for him to create a strategy to get inside that room, almost letting himself killed, taken by surprise, and he was feeling now that the time wasn’t exactly on the side of his camp.

He starts pressing on all the buttons, but the codes are too complicated and some of the unknown by him, so he decides to hit the panels with his sword, one panel at a time, until the room remains in total darkness, without a single light on.

He gets out on the corridor then, running to the lower floors, where he finds the Guardians dizzy, with their hands on the heads. He had received now the sign that they were capable of making their own decisions, so he smiles pleased and walks ahead, proud of his actions.

When the last demons and dragons are put down, Leonor gets out from behind the ruins and shouts at her remained Guardians.

“Attack the enemies!”

But she remains astonished when she sees that no one is acting, so she takes a good look at them just to check if they are on her side. The shock appears when Dean approaches her, and no one else interferes when he hits her in the face. She loses her balance and falls on the ruins, shouting desperately:

“Get him off me! Kill him! He betrayed me! Why are you not doing as you’re told?!”

That’s the moment when Dean realizes that Matt had successfully deactivated the chips, and he shows her a malefic smile, making her feel the terror on her own skin when the Guardians that once were under her control come at her slowly, surrounding her.

Dean takes a step back and gives them the opportunity to pass to her, while they’re mumbling so many reproaches. One hits her with his fist, another grabs her neck, and soon they all throw on her, and she starts screaming out of terror and pain, for help, but she finds her ending under the hits of those who she had controlled for so long.

When her screams stop, Dean is still looking for Lily among the dead bodies on the sand. Without any success though. He sees Isaac doing the same thing, with Addison behind him, when the sand starts getting deeper in one particular place, like it was falling into a deep hole, one that scares the others and makes them head back, but he feels fascinated by it without any reason, and he goes further, slowly but straight to it.

Covered in dust, Lily makes her way out, she leans on her elbows and, full of scratches and blood, she stands up looking confused around her.

“What am I doing here? Haven’t I closed the Portal?”

But she hears steps running at her, and she sees Dean coming, for he had known it was her since the moment she put her arm out of that hole. He lifts her up from the sand and takes her into his arms, and he squeezes her like he never did before. He body trembles in his, and only now she starts feeling the pain from the battle. There are a lot of scars on her body, but also some fresh wounds, and her skin stings her, and so do the eyes, because of the sun that was already up on the sky.

“You did it! And you survived! I knew you can do it!” says Dean overwhelmed by emotions.

“Why am I not dead?” she asks confused.

“We don’t know, but it’s over now. Leonor is dead. The Portal is closed. It’s over!” he says enthusiastically.

She puts her small palms on his face, and she touches his nose with hers, right under the eyes of the remaining Guardians. She sees Isaac and Addison a few steps away from them, and when her eyes meet Addison’s, the last one makes a gesture that makes Lily cry. She puts her palms together and starts applauding, making the others start a thunder of applause as well, that resounds like an echo through the dust around them.

“All of these are for you, Lily, because you saved us and you saved the worlds!” shouts Addison squeezing Isaac’s hand.

She thanks her with a head gesture, and Isaac kisses Addison on the cheek, whispering her:

“I think now I know why I fell in love with you.”

When the applauses stop, Lily searches for Brook in the crowd, because she knew she was the one who helped her close that portal with her energy.

“Not only for me but also for Brook, because without her help I couldn’t have closed that Portal”, she says walking to the place where she had last seen her.

But as she gets closer she realizes that behind that rock lies her friend, and she finds herself running terrified until she sees her wounded and hurt, but with her eyes still open.

“Brook!” she says covering her with her arms.

“You did it”, she says huskily.

“We did it!”

But her facial expressions change as soon as she realizes that her injuries are too bad for them to do something to save her.

“No…”

“It’s fine.”

“No, it’s not! Why did you send me your energy if you were injured?”

“Because there wasn’t any hope left for me. I just wanted to do one good thing before I died.”

“Brook, no!” cries Lily holding her neck.

“Hey. I killed Mark. I did that!”

“But you will die now!”

There are sparks in Brook’s eyes, but those are not tears, but relief and happiness. Lily feels so desperate when she sees that she is about to lose her only sister she had ever had, and she bursts into tears.

“If the legends are true… I will meet Leo.”

“But it’s not fair…”

“You did it, so don’t screw it up now. Just remember: choose with the heart, for it always takes you on the right path.”

“I promise you, Brook. I wouldn’t have done this without you.”

“This is what sisters are for”, she smiles.

Their hands are holding now, and Lily can feel the warm blood flowing through their fingers.

“I love you, sister”, Brook whispers looking into her eyes.

“I love you too”, Lily answers more like a groan full of pain.

The sun lights Brook’s pale face, and she closes her eyes, leaving behind a warm and peaceful smile. The red reflexes from her hair start glowing, and the Guardians see now the last view of the girl with the hair on fire, who is so beautiful and calm, under the heat of the sun brought back into the Guardian’s world.

Lily’s crying is like an echo among the soldiers when Dean falls to his knees next to her and puts his arms around her.

In the shadow of what was left behind the battle, they can see other bodies lying dead on the ground. One of those belongs to Earl Hunt, who had decided at the last minute to join his fellow men in the war. So, Lily had remained without a father too, and now she only had her brother to remind her that she once had a family. There were a lot of regrets, from Earl as well, who had tried to clear his sins by coming into the battle, but also from Lily who hadn’t forgiven him at the right time. She did that after a while, just in the moments when she was running to what she thought it was going to be the end of her, and then she forgave all of them so she could have been at peace in what could have been next. She wished to have told her father those things at the right time, but she had a hunch that he already knew that deep down in his heart, that he forgave her too and he knew her as she really was in the end.

The war had left too many victims behind, pain and tears, and the victory had had a huge price. Even so, other’s sacrifices, and especially Brook’s, made Lily, the Great Guardian, the Marked One, to stand here now, under the light of victory, which she wasn’t sure that she deserved.