The Guardian

Well, this be an idea I've been toying around with for a while. I figured, seeing as it had popped to the top of late, and as I seem to be lacking in... unable to... suffering from writers block where The Accidental Vikingr and Valkyrien are concerned, well, when it basically leapt onto Wordpad, I figured I may as well post it up.
Intellectual Property of myself, Jared G. Juckiewicz. Brief and mild violence.

I hate that feeling. The feeling of a transfer always knocks the wind out of me. It hits everyone differently, and its something a Guardian has to get used to. As it happens, some Guardians actually enjoy it. Although there are a few drawbacks. Nothing that isn't alive can make a transit. Which means that generally following a transit one is naked. And unarmed. And if you be like me, one of those poor sods who take them badly, helpless for a few moments. On the other hand, after a few terms as a Guardian, and I've had more than a few, one picks up a few tricks. So, I dragged myself to my feet, forced down the nausea, and exerted my will. A brief sign sketched the air, a quick chant, and a twist of willpower, and I was no longer skyclad. A long tunic, sleeves to the wrist, hanging to just below my knees. Light and loose as silk, warm as the thickest wool. Unless I wanted it to be cooler, of course.
Such clothing, whilst strange, would not go particularly amiss anywhere. It was a fairly safe bet anywhere. Weapons and other gear on the other hand, those were more awkward. Looking around I seemed to be in a city. Industrialized, at least in part. But it was never good to make assumptions, and until I found out what was permitted to be carried openly, it made no sense to summon blades. Or guns. Anyway, just drawing such things into existence was less than useful anyway. Summoned weapons don't tend to function particularly well. Of course, there are ways around that, and around the impossibility of bringing any bar bioweapons through a transit. And I never could get the hang of them. On the other hand. I know more than a few tricks myself. I'm no rookie on my first term. I can survive just fine without steel. As soon as I figure just what I'm meant to do here. High Warden I wish they'd brief us properly for once.
First to finish getting my bearings. Dragging up the right codons is the work of a moment for one who knows what they're doing. And then it was but a minutes wait, whilst the changes took effect. Sharpened sight, sharpened hearing, sharpened sense of smell. The organs required to taste the air and detect heat signatures were a shade more complicated. So. My initial impressions were correct. I was in a city. Or on the outskirts of one. A residential area, it seemed. A back road, at night. From the smell of the pollutants it was an industrialized society, making heavy use of hydrocarbons. There are a lot of those about. The tastes in the air told me the same. A human society, but again those are common. No ones yet figured why almost every universe has Humans in it, but hey, what can you do. May help to explain my being assigned this term. I was born a son of man, and though it has been a long time since I was truly such, I can still look the part.
And of course, any longtime Guardian has a few other senses at their disposal. Like the ability to pick up any transits in the near vicinity. Like that one, maybe two or three streets across, and a turning or two up. Curious. Legally, only the Guardians are permitted to make transits, and it is damnably rare for more than one Guardian to be assigned to the same place or time for a given term. And if there are more than one assigned, it is ALWAYS mentioned in the briefs. And this wasn't. So. To investigate. Simple enough to clamber up the side of one of the residences. They only seemed to be a single level high, with peaked roofs, and broad gutters. Most of them had pebbled sides that would make for easy climbing to a Guardian. And although they were spaced many yards apart, set in the center of neat spaces of well trimmed grass, even a rookie could vault that by the end of their second term. And by keeping the crests of the roofs between me and the source of the transit, I could be reasonably certain of staying out of sight. Which as I approached began to seem like a better and better idea.
See, I could feel a tingling of power. The sort of tingling that suggests the presence of beings OF power, rather than beings WITH power. I'll tell you this much. I'm glad 'twas decent weather. See, some such folk are decent, but the bulk of them are, at the least, a tad on the shady side. And a good, harsh storm is one of the stronger sources of natural power out there. I could smell the transits now. It was a smell I was familiar with, tainted with the ozone of a recent transit. I had hoped it would have been something else, anything else. Another rooftop, and I could taste them. The harsh, acrid, bitter taste is unmistakeable. Another rooftop and I could see them. There were a dozen of them, circling a small cluster of three or four of the humans, who'd been walking down the street. Now, I don't know what the people of this place call them. I do however know what we Guardians call them. When we're not hunting them that is.
They stand almost 3 foot at the shoulder when on all fours, and almost treble that when they stand straight. They look like a cross between a wolf or a hound and a spiny lizard. Long spines cover their backs, and their sides. Their claws are long, and their fangs sharp. Long tails, ending in ridges of razor sharp bone help them stay balanced. They are vicious things, the Ki'Ar'Lang, one of the few peoples intrinsically capable of making a transit. 'Tis folk like that I was trained to hunt, where necessary. It's why the Guardians were formed, in ages past, to defend those who can't make transit, and whose leaders refuse to believe, from those who can. No one was speaking, but the Ki'Ar'Lang were growling and snarling as they circled. It wouldn't be long before one of them leapt. I marked their leader. He was easy to pick out, the raised crest along his spine marking him as dominant, as surely as the prevalence of the blood red sigils adorning his dark scales. I was also able to mark the one most likely to make the leap, a young buck, his scales dull and matte.
He'd be wanting the dominance of the first kill, and the extra power a first-feeding would grant. I on the other hand, wouldn't be having that. And twouldst be easy enough to prevent. I slid over the peak of the roof careful, slid down its side far enough to not silhouette myself against the skyline, such as it was. And then I went into a tensed crouch, ready to leap. And I watched the Ki'Ar like a hawk. I saw when the young one I'd marked tensed to spring, and actually leapt before he did. It ended with me knocking him out of the air. He hit the ground hard, and I landed little easier. My knees bent to take most of the strain though, and the Ki'Ar youngster gasped to catch his breath. As he did, he realised two things. First that I had one hand pinning his neck to the ground. Second, that my other hand was on his side, pinning his torso as well. His forelimbs were stuck between my legs, his tail wouldn't bend far enough to land a telling blow, and his hind legs could scrabble all they wanted, they were in the same boat as the tail.
I twisted my head about. The poor humans, all of them young, maybe twenty years old, or around there at least if I don't miss my guess, were staring in shock. And none of them were clad as I. I'll need to remember that. I took in the trews, some sort of heavy blueish fabric, and tight to the legs, and the short tunics, coming down not much further than the waist. They were black, those, in the main, with strange sigils, some of them definitely Arcane, and writing on them. I'd decipher that later, more pressing details to attend to for the moment. And head snapping the other way, quicker than a striking serpent. There the Ki'Ar'Lang still circled, all bar their leader. They looked shocked by something. Probably my intervention. The leader though, he just looked angry. In the harsh, snarling tongue of the Ki'Ar'Lang, he spoke. "Out of the way, Stranger. Our Prey." There could be but one response from a Guardian to that. "Not your land. You have no right to be here. Return to your homeland, or suffer the consequences." In the same harsh, snarling tongue, of course. He growled back, no meaning in it, bar simply malice. My lips began to stretch into a grin. "No?" I asked him. He snarled a command. My response was simple. As the warrior he'd ordered lept at me, my grip on the youngster shifted, and I swung him up. I parried with my foe, and then cast him aside. I drew myself up to my full height, all six foot of it.
I may have spoken in the tongue of the Ki'Ar'Lang, but the words were those of the Guardian Corps. "By The Authority Granted Me By The High Warden In My Role As A Guardian Of The Corp And Keeper Of The Peace, I Name You All In Breach Of That Peace. You Have Had The Opportunity To Desist. You Have Declined. The Consequences Are On Your Own Heads."
It was the traditional Guardian statement of intent. What it boiled down to was to formally recognise that they had broken the rules, and that having been given the opportunity to repent, and return whence they came unpenalized, they had refused. So, their fates were dependent entirely on my whim. And we Guardians are trained to show no ruth to those who breach the peace. Now, just because I had no weapons in this place did not mean I couldn't arm myself with ease, but I had to be quick. Every Guardian is given his own created world at the end of his first term. As a retreat, and as a haven, and as a storage cache. And every guardian can access them at will. It takes practice to learn to access specific parts of them, but I've had practice. The air shimmered in front of me, and a window opened. I drew from it a Quarterstave of Rowan, banded in steel and cold iron and silver, carved with arcane sigils and runes.
See, against the Ki'Ar'Lang, any weapon is effective, but they are beings of power, and can occasionally draw upon it to great effect. Rowan stills the power, as does Silver, and Cold Iron. And the sigils and runes can trap it and bind it for my use if need be. As the window snapped shut, they rushed me. I planted the stave to catch the first, flicking it at just the right moment to flip him over the humans. He whimpered as he struck the rock-hard ground. The stave snapped up, and swung, and the second was knocked out of the air midleap. There was an audible crack as the neck snapped. Stave whipped round, batting a swiping claw aside, and then the steel shod foot hopped up and shattered a knee. More whimpering as I spun and twirled, ever moving, the stave describing glowing patterns in the air, as it drew power from the strikes. Every blow struck harder than the last, and every time one land there was a flash. It only took the first few deflections before any strike would fell one of the Ki'Ar'Lang. Within moments, only their leader and I were left, circling carefully. It didn't take long for him to realise how little chance he had, and with a snarl he spun and leapt off into the darkness. Well enough. I could hunt him down later. A quick bow to those I had rescued, and I too vanished off into the night. I would need a base of operations whilst I figured out my true purpose here.