The Protectors: Book 1 in the Protectors Saga (6 page)

“Right,” Avery said, nodding her head up and down
vigorously, “that sounds like a great idea, Gumptin the gnome, but
I think I’m gonna pass on that for now. Nice meeting you,
though.”

Avery wanted to run away as fast as her legs could
take her, but she fought the urge and calmly turned around,
securing her backpack on both shoulders, making it easier to run
that way if needed. She started to slowly walk away from the
Gumptin, heading back towards the school.

“Wait!” Gumptin shouted anxiously, “Wait, you cannot
leave!”

Avery started to slowly pick up her pace as she heard
Gumptin attempt to follow her.

“The insane little man is chasing me! The insane
little man is chasing me!” Avery chanted to herself, trying to
remain calm, “Just keep on running; it’ll be alright; he’s got
little legs; you can outrun him!”

She was right. Gumptin’s little legs could not move
very fast and he quickly gave up the chase.

“You cannot run from who you are, Avery!” Gumptin
shouted after her, in a last attempt before she got away, “It is
your destiny! You are a Protector!”

With those words Avery stopped dead in her tracks.
Besides the fact that she had never told Gumptin her name, there
was something in the way that he said it that made her turn back
around and face him. There was something so familiar about it, as
if she had heard him say it before. Of course, she knew that wasn‘t
possible. Avery was sure she wouldn’t have forgotten meeting a two
and a half foot gnome, but then there was that word…Protector. It
had stirred something deep inside of Avery; something scratching on
the very edges of her mind, begging to be remembered and
released.

Gumptin was still breathing heavy from his very short
run as he approached her, “I am glad you came to your senses.” He
puffed, “Now, are you ready to go?”

“Gumptin,” Avery gaped at him, “I stopped running,
that doesn’t mean I’m going to go anywhere with you.” Avery was
still very cautious. Just because a certain word, and Gumptin
saying her name sounded familiar, didn’t mean she was ready to
listen to anything he said, “You could be a psycho!”

Gumptin either didn’t hear Avery or ignored her,
because he began to walk towards a grove of trees near the center
of the park.

“This way.” He motioned for Avery to follow him.

Reluctantly and against her better judgment she
followed Gumptin. After all, they were still in the open space of a
large park, and she was twice the size of Gumptin; what could
possibly happen?

“Fine,” Avery shouted towards him, “but I’m not
getting into any cars or confined spaces with you!”

Gumptin stopped in between two massive Beech trees
and swung his head around to make sure they were alone. Avery
stopped behind him, wondering what the difference was from this
spot compared to where they had just been standing. Avery sighed
and shifted her weight from one foot to another, thinking maybe
Gumptin was just crazy after all, and she was even crazier for
following him.

Just as Avery was about to speak up and say
something, Gumptin waved his right hand in the air and said the
words, “Ora Gateway.”

Now, Avery was sure he was crazy, but before she
could tell him this she was distracted by a movement from between
the trees. It started out as a slight swirling, which for a moment
Avery thought could be the wind, but then the swirling came in
bigger and faster circles, widening in circumference. Within
seconds, the churning stopped and Avery was staring at what looked
like a circular pool of water standing up-right in mid-air.

Avery didn’t realize she had stopped breathing, until
her body forced her to take a large gulp of air just to stop her
from fainting.

“What…what did you just do?” She stammered, pointing
at the liquid-like circle.

“This,” Gumptin said, pointing towards the floating
pool, “is the Ora Gateway, and I just opened it. It is the gateway
to Orcatia, the planet you come from. Well, the first planet you
come from, anyway.” Gumptin shrugged his shoulders, “After all, you
were born on Earth as well.”

The World started spinning inside Avery’s head; she
stood frozen, just staring at Gumptin. There was no way she should
believe what he was saying, but at the same time there was a magic
gateway floating a foot in front of her.

“Alright,” Gumptin told Avery matter-of-factly, “walk
into it.”

It was those words that knocked Avery out of her
frozen trance. She began laughing, a small giggle that got bigger
the more she thought about what Gumptin had just told her to
do.

“If you think for one second that I’m going to walk
through that enchanted puddle, then you really are nuts.” Avery
told him, her laughter dying down.

Gumptin sighed and Avery could tell he was losing his
patience, “I need to explain something to you, Avery. This is going
to be hard for you to hear, but I need you to understand that you
are a Protector. It is not a choice, it is your destiny.” Gumptin
said seriously, “Protectors were created to fight the evil that not
only threatens to take over Orcatia, but the whole Universe. You
were born on the planet of Orcatia and you lived there and served
as a Protector for sixteen years…until you were killed.”

Avery opened her mouth to tell Gumptin again how
insane he was, but Gumptin held up his hand to silence her. She
obeyed, more because she was entranced by his story than out of
obedience to him.

“You were killed,” Gumptin continued, “and then magic
was used to send you to Earth, so that you could be re-born. Then,
when you reached the age you were when you died, I would come to
bring you back.”

Avery placed her hands over her eyes and shook her
head, trying to wipe away what Gumptin was saying. Avery wasn’t
sure if it was coming from her head, heart, or soul, but a very
small part of her was confirming Gumptin’s words as truth. His
words were sparking something inside of Avery’s brain, like a
memory she knew she should have, but didn’t. It felt like Gumptin
was picking at a giant scab covering her mind. Avery didn’t care
that a part of her felt the truth in Gumptin’s words; right now,
she was just telling that part to shut up and keep quiet.

While Avery had her eyes closed, Gumptin moved around
behind her and began pushing her from behind, towards the
Gateway.

Avery moved forward one step, then another; then she
opened her eyes and realized what Gumptin was doing.

“What the Hell!” Avery yelled, smacking Gumptin’s
hands away from her backside, where he had been pushing her.

“You have to go through the Gateway.” He told her
firmly, moving his hands up to start pushing her again.

She dodged out of his way, putting some distance
between herself and the gateway. Avery had had enough, she didn’t
care that some small part of her knew Gumptin was telling the
truth; she was done with all this insanity; it was time to return
to reality.

“Listen,” she shouted at Gumptin, to make perfectly
clear he understood what she was saying, “there’s no way I’m going
down some freaky white rabbit’s hole just because some gnome tells
me it’s my destiny!”

Avery turned around and began to walk away from
Gumptin and the madness.

She had gone a few steps; then yelled over her
shoulder towards him, “Go and scare somebody else!”

“What about your family and friends?” Gumptin yelled
back to her.

When Avery spun around, she saw Gumptin hadn’t made
any attempt to follow her. He was still standing by the gateway
where she had left him. She strode up to him. Bringing her loved
ones into this was stepping over a line. Every ounce of confusion,
fear, and disbelief Avery had been feeling before was replaced with
a hot anger.

“Are you threatening the people I care about little
man?!” Avery demanded, shoving her finger hard into Gumptin’s
chest.

“Of course not,” Gumptin said softly, soft enough to
calm Avery down slightly, “but the Emperor will.”

There it was again, a tinge of recognition that
played in Avery’s brain. The Emperor, she could sense she knew that
name. She could also sense the chill that name sent throughout her
body.

“He is the one responsible for your deaths.” There
was a sadness to Gumptin’s voice as he spoke, and it caused Avery
to take back her finger with a trace of guilt for having shoved him
so roughly with it. “If the Emperor discovers you and the others
are still alive, he will move the planets to see you destroyed. He
will kill you and everyone close to you. If you come with me, I can
prepare you, give you another fighting chance.”

Avery noticed that Gumptin had said ‘another‘. That’s
because he supposedly killed you the first time, she told herself
sardonically.

“If you do not come with me,” Gumptin continued, “if
you walk away from who you are, you are not just condemning
yourself and the lives of those you love, but also planets full of
people…to a terrible death.”

Avery thought that a bit overdramatic, but his point
had hit home. She still wasn’t sure she believed absolutely
everything Gumptin was saying, but there was no way she could walk
away if it meant there was even the slightest chance she could put
her family and friends in danger. Gumptin had used the one card
that would make Avery go with him. There was a moment when Avery
thought she might either cry or vomit, but she was able to control
both reactions.

She couldn’t believe she was actually about to do
this, “Fine,” she told Gumptin, “let’s go.”

Avery took tentative steps towards the gateway, until
she was just inches away from it. She could feel energy reflecting
off of it, like static electricity. Avery lightly grazed her
fingers over the watery substance. Tiny ripples formed where her
fingers made contact and branched outward. It felt cool to the
touch, but to Avery’s surprise, not wet.

Goosebumps broke out all over her body; it was
telling her how insane she was for doing this. Avery closed her
eyes, took a deep steadying breath, and then walked into the
liquid.

For a moment, Avery felt nothing, as if she had
simply taken another step in the park, but a second later
head-to-toe tingles, similar to tiny little pin pricks, burst
across her flesh. Avery’s eyes shot open as she experienced the
strongest pulling sensation she had ever felt, like someone had
tied a rope around her waist and attached it to a herd of
stampeding elephants.

Whatever was happening was happening too fast for
Avery to focus and see anything. It was mostly blackness, and small
smatterings of light that passed by so quickly, if Avery were to
blink she would miss them.

It felt to Avery like she didn’t even have a body
anymore, just a brain to absorb what was going on. It was like the
craziest roller coaster she had ever been on times a thousand.

In a blink it was over, as quickly as it had began.
The entire trip had only taken seconds, but Avery’s head and
stomach were doing a good job at convincing her it had taken an
eternity.

Avery had been catapulted out of the gateway with too
much force for her to effectively catch her balance and she ended
up falling flat on her face in the grass and dirt.

Avery heard Gumptin come through the gateway behind
her, and from the sound of it, he had no problems staying on his
feet.

“You could’ve given me a little warning about how
much that was gonna suck!” Avery groaned as she lifted herself onto
her hands and knees, wiping at the dirt she was sure was smudging
her face.

“You will get used to it.” Gumptin said dismissively,
walking past Avery.

That gave way to Avery having a horrifying thought;
she was going to have to go through the Gateway again. Now, she was
surer than ever that following Gumptin was a bad idea.

When Avery picked herself up off of the ground, she
looked around and saw that she was in the middle of a tiny clearing
in the woods somewhere. The trees surrounding the clearing were
massive; Avery had to lift her head almost all the way back to see
the tops of them. The thick green carpeting of foliage blocked out
most of the sky, but let in enough rays of sunlight to give the
entire forest a warm glow. Mossy emerald carpeting covered the
forest floor, except for small patches where multi-colored flowers
and odd shaped mushrooms sprouted out from.

Avery saw Gumptin disappear into a small patch of the
forest, and she trotted to keep up with him. As uneasy as Gumptin
made her feel, Avery would still prefer to be with him then on her
own in an otherworldly forest.

As Avery approached the spot Gumptin had vanished
into, she saw that he had actually gone down a small overgrown dirt
path. She spotted movement in the thick undergrowth a few feet
ahead. Determined not to lose Gumptin, Avery walked onto the path,
grumbling as she pushed wispy hanging branches and low-lying
vegetation out of her way. The unruly waves of her hair kept
getting caught on protruding tree stems and, she cursed the fact
she didn’t have anything to tie her hair up with. Of course, she
had no idea when she woke up that morning that she was going to be
following a gnome while he traipsed around Sherwood Forest on
another planet.

Thinking about the forest, Avery was just about to
shout out to Gumptin, asking how much longer she was suppose to
endure the onslaught of nature, when the small path they were on
exited out onto a much larger road. This looked, to Avery, like a
main road of some kind, although she had no idea from where to
where. The road was about ten feet wide and was either maintained
or used frequently enough to keep the underbrush off of it.

Gumptin was waiting for Avery in the center of the
road.

“Where are we going?” Avery asked him, pulling a leaf
out of her hair.

“You will see.” Gumptin told her; then turned to the
left and started walking down the road.