Act 1

The first guardian has arrived.

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“For real?” I said, incredulous. The hangar didn’t seem special enough to hold anything very important. It didn’t even look like it held anything for at least thirty years.

Jackson showed me an instrument on a dashboard, which seemed like a dome filled with water. A glowing, bright blue line was pointed in the direction of the run-down hangar.

“The compass has never been wrong”, Jackson said

I shrugged, and went to wake Marci up.

In the back of the bus, Marci was sleeping fitfully. Her dreams had been very bad. She didn’t remember the dreams, but certain objects stuck out above others. A map, An empty box, mud, A moustache, and a desk. She was just about to wake when I touched her shoulder, and explained the situation. Her eyes got wide when I told her about the monster

“Do you have to fight it?” She asked, with a pleading look, “You could die!”

“I can’t let the old man go alone, or he will die” I reasoned.

She clung on to me, and became weepy. I let her cry it out, and when she stopped, she said, “I’m going too” in a defiant voice.

“Ho no!” I said, startled, “What if you die! I couldn’t live with myself if I lived and you died.”

“I’m coming anyway!” Marci huffed, and started to walk toward the front of the bus, and before I could stop her, asked Jackson, “May I go?”

Jackson looked at her and smiled, and said, “My dear, you are meant to go”

Rain pounded around us, and struck our shoulders with more force than necessary.

Marci, Jackson, and I walked over to the smaller door next to the larger door used to bring planes in and out, and were surprised to find it open. This fact seemed to trouble Jackson, who mumbled under his breath about something. We then entered the door.

Standing in the hangar itself, nothing seemed remotely of value. A layer of dust covered everything, which made us cough. Several small propellers were laid against a back wall. The rusty remnants of a fuselage were in a corner. Various instruments of flight were in a small, cluttered desk, with an old desk lamp whose bulb burned out long ago.

But none of these seemed a proper powerful object. Nothing glowed with mystical light, nothing was on a pedestal in the center of the room, and nothing was covered in gold. Yet, Jackson had eyes for only one thing.

Previously unnoticed was a door, which led off to some unknown place, perhaps a closet or the backyard. There was nothing special about it. The glass was crisscrossed with wires, and was faded red.

Jackson forgot that there was supposed to be a monster around here, and we didn’t stop him in time. He grabbed the single most useless object, one that I failed to even pay attention too, and ripped off the doorknob with a groan of metal. He pocketed the doorknob.

Then, with the rusty screech of metal on metal, something moved.

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All along the wall, the propellers began to vibrate rapidly. The instruments on the table quavered, the fuselage shook. The ground beneath our feet quaked. Then, the monster appeared.

Clutter, or what was ten minutes ago, was sent scattering across the room, gravitating to a central point. The fuselage formed the torso of the great beast, and began to fold on itself to create a curved shape. Propellers whirled through the air around us, and we ducked as they came close to cutting our heads off, and they strung themselves into a thick trunk, and became the tail of the creature. Panels for repairing broken fuselage wrapped around themselves to form a great, triangular head, with jagged metal teeth snarling at us. The desk lamp created the illusion of a single, glowing eye, which pierced us with anger. The metal monstrosity was a great serpent, but much larger, and covered with scales no weapon could penetrate.

Marci screamed, and tried to run to the door. The snake moved swiftly, and opened its metal jaws to engulf the screaming girl. I managed to grab her hand and yank her out of the beast’s way. The snake smashed into the wall, and created a great dent the size of a small car. It turned its great head, with a look of loathing, but without a single wound. It hissed, which sounded like metal grating on itself.

“You have to get back to the bus!” Jackson shouted.

“We all do!” I shouted back, clutching a sobbing Marci, and avoiding another strike of the snake.

“Never mind about me!” shouted the driver, and began to run away from the door.

The snake chased its prey, and opened its jaws to receive the meal, and the doorknob. Jackson turned around, and shouted again, “Run!”

“No!” Shouted I, and looked around frantically for something to use at a weapon, but everything was used in the creation of the monster. Desperately, I looked in my pockets, but could only find a bookmark, and my cell phone. I threw the latter at the serpent, but the phone was only absorbed by the monster, and used to create more armor. I cursed, and began to rip out my hair in frustration, but was brought out of my reverie when something very large crashed through the rolling door

The bus didn’t stop, but continued to drive toward us at high speed. I grabbed Marci in a brace position, and ducked, but we passed through the bus like smoke, or rather the bus passed through us like smoke. When we looked around, we were inside the bus.

Jackson was being pursued by the metal creature still, and the bus drove all the faster to save the driver in peril.

The bus crushed the metal snake in its haste to get to the driver. The bus stopped as it drew level with Jackson, and the latter opened the door and got behind the wheel.

“In the name of all things holy, why didn’t you go to the bus when you had your chance?” Jackson tiredly snapped, “It would have saved a lot of energy”.

“I couldn’t let you die!” I said, proudly. Marci was next to me, still trembling, head buried in my shoulder

“I probably would have died if you didn’t get on the bus!” Jackson snapped, “I knew I could get back to the bus, but I had to use the Versimile’s energy to drive the bus!” He pointed angrily at the wheel, which continued to drive itself.

“Um…” I began to ask.

“My inner soul, dammit!” Jackson answered, and pushed the gas down with enough force to tear through the metal shell of the hangar, which he did.

The impact was jarring, but the bus was still travelling. A second burst of metal on metal followed us, and we knew the snake was back, and had somehow reformed itself.

Of all the places they could’ve landed, they had to land in a junkyard.

The snake, when it landed in the metal wasteland, had the equivalent of a mechanical love affair. An irresistible attraction between televisions, cars, radios, scrap metal, and all manner of mechanisms drew everything to the snake, which began to get larger, and evolve legs and stronger armor.

Jackson cursed, and began to drive faster. He flicked a switch, and turned to us.

“Inside of all monsters, there is a weak point, right?” Jackson reasoned.

“I don’t know if that holds true for real life” I pointed out.

“It always applies. That’s why it’s in so many books” Jackson pointed out.

                “But what is the weak point?” Marci asked, finding her voice despite the circumstances.

                “I’ve been thinking about that, and I have a theory. Technology is what feeds the monster, so to destroy it…”

                “We need to not use technology?” Marci and I guessed at the same time.

                “But we don’t have anything anti-technological.” I continued, and began to rack my brains for an answer.

                Marci stood up.

                “Open the door, and stop the car” She commanded.

                “Are you mad, woman?” Jackson asked, surprised.

                “Do it!” Marci yelled.

                Jackson seemed to think it over, and the bus stopped of its own accord.

                “Be safe” Jackson advised, and Marci ran out. I followed.

                The bus had been driving of its own accord, and had stopped in the middle of a forest, not unlike the forest in my backyard. Marci began to look around on the ground, and picked something up off the ground.

                “What’s that?” I asked, because the darkness hid the mass from view.

                “A rock, the oldest weapon around.” Was all she said, and was interrupted by the hiss of metal grating on itself.

                Marci stood with the stone in hand, and stared at the creature with a scorn even I felt. The serpent stood towering, a good twenty feet up, and about 15 feet away. It’s body was covered in scratches that came from thorns, rocks, even leaves, which it could not protect itself from.

                None too soon, Marci hurled the stone

                Crack!

                The single light coming from the beast’s eye went out with a flash of blue-white light, and the clanks and thuds of metal striking rock and dirt afterwards told me the beast was as dead as such a creature could be.

                Marci stood, shaking with fright and triumph. I couldn’t help it, and I gave her the most passionate kiss I’d ever given her.

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