Eli Bounced up and Down in the Passenger Seat While Cory Navigated the Dirt Road As Quickly

Eli bounced up and down in the passenger seat while Cory navigated the dirt road as quickly as he could with his car lights off. "You sure you can drive safely on this dirt road in the dark?"

Cory responded with a tone far more confident than his words. "Almost sure. I mean, I’ve seen it before."

Eli groaned and steadied Cory’s laptop as he swayed side-to-side. "I really don’t know if I would have committed to this part of the plan if I had known that.'

"Hey," Cory said defensively, "I didn’t exactly have the easiest time articulating any part of the plan with Robert being super-paranoid and demanding any part of the plan we use be submitted on paper only."

Eli sighed. It had been very annoying. Halfway through their planning last night, Robert had gotten worried the Spirit Guard might be listening in. "Yeah. I mean, I get not using electronics to plan because of the Spirit Guard already displaying that they could hack his phone, but, I don’t know. Felt a bit extreme."

"And slow! It takes so long to write an actual note! I mean, the last time I hand wrote that much was--" Cory's thought was interrupted by the sound of his car bottoming out on the dirt road. "I think this road was meant more for trucks than my car."

Eli laughed. "You think? Maybe we should just foot it the rest of the way. We can’t be too far away from that shed you were talking about."

"Yeah." Cory brought the car to a stop. "I'm just surprised I even remembered this road for the plan. And that we're doing this."

Eli tucked Cory's laptop into his backpack, stepped out of the car, and slung the backpack over his shoulder, with Cory’s laptop over his shoulder. "Yeah, how did you know about this road? Typically all the weird stuff that you know I know as well. How did you discover this?"

"Remember the Summer of Abandonment?"

Eli groaned as the duo marched down the hill. "That wasn't my fault. What was I supposed to do? Tell my parents to take you on the summer cruise and the tour of Europe?"

"You could have tried."

"You're nuts. Not to mention dramatic. I can't believe you still refer to that as the Summer of Abandonment. We were still in middle school."

"Regardless," Cory said with a grin, "I spent a lot of time with James Renson that summer."

Eli raised an eyebrow. "James 'The Hoodie' Renson? The creepy kid who wore the same grody, white hoodie every single day?"

"Hence why I call it the Summer of Abandonment."

Eli rolled his eyes, though he knew his compatriot wouldn't be able to see it. "How does this relate to the dirt road?"

"Oh yeah! Anyway, his dad worked for the grounds crew for the Standridge Circle park. He was taking us to a movie and left his wallet at work so we went to this shack at the back of the park where they keep all the lawn maintenance stuff. I just thought it was so cool there was a sort of back entrance into the park so it always stuck with me."

Eli smiled, deciding to rib at Cory a bit. "How is my backup the Hoodie? I feel I should have had a higher quality backup."

"Hey, it was slim pickings that summer. All our other buddies were either too far away to be within walking distance or were too busy trying to be cool and pretend they were above playing video games and watching cartoons."

Eli sighed. "I guess it's always been you and me."

The sound of crickets filled the air for a moment as neither of them spoke. "And now Robert, maybe?" If Eli hadn't known Cory for so long, he would have thought Cory's sentence was a statement, but he could hear just the right tone where he knew he was being asked a question.

"Maybe. It is rather weird how quickly he's fit in with us. No one else has ever just accepted our antics like this." Eli sighed. "I worry people find it intimidating or something."

Cory chuckled. "I just can't believe we're disobeying the Spirit Guard for a guy we've only known for little over two weeks."

Eli nodded. Why were they doing this? Rob had just so naturally fit in with them that he didn't really question what they were doing. "This kind of is the opposite of what my sister told us to do."

"Told us what to do?"

"To avoid these dangerous situations for our idiot friend's sake."

Cory scoffed. "First off, since when have we listened to your sister? Secondly, Rob, my good man, is no idiot. He's taking classes I wouldn't dare take. And thirdly, if I recall correctly, her instructions were more specific towards monsters and letting the Spirit Guard take care of those. Rob is no monster, therefore, this doesn't apply to her advice."

"Yeah," Eli snorted, "I'm sure that explanation would go over great with her." They approached the grounds crew's supply building. The moonlight glinted off the two windows the building had. In the dead of the night, Eli thought about all the horror he had seen that were set in the woods. While it certainly wasn’t likely there was an ax murderer in the woods, he didn’t mind knowing that there would be superheroines in the park tonight. Just in case.

As they approached the building, Cory lowered his tone. While they were now a good four-hundred to four-hundred-fifty feet away from the Stoneridge Circle, they didn’t want to risk being loud and getting caught. "Please! What are the odds she'll ever know about this? Let's fire up that laptop."

Eli plopped onto the ground and leaned against the building. He pulled Cory’s laptop out of his backpack and turned it on. "You sure we'll have a good enough signal to get video?"

"Yeah, the video signal will be fine." Cory handed the connection cable from his phone to Eli. "I'm more worried about the Spirit Guard seeing us. We're well hidden behind the shack but they might have heard us drive up."

With a few clicks the screen came on, and after fiddling with the settings for a little bit, Eli was able to get the video feed from the fiber-optic camera lining the inside of Robert's headphones. The picture was a dark gray that probably was Robert's jacket. "Well he hasn't seen the Spirit Guard yet, I guess."

"Here goes nothing." Cory dialed Robert's phone to get their audio feed. Eli held his breath as Robert answered and the sound of clothes ruffling emanated from the laptop speakers. The camera flipped from a close up view of Robert's shoulder to the sight of four very attractive cheerleaders approaching Robert from the outside of the Standridge Circle.

"Looks like we're in the clear. I count four Spirit Guard."

Eli let out a drawn out sigh of relief. "That's a load off."

Spirit Guard Valor's lips voice exited the speakers before her lips even moved.. Eli guessed the video was lagging about a second behind the audio. "Who was that you were talking to?"

Eli sat straight up in a panic. Did she know? "My uncle called me."

"You didn't tell him about our meeting did you?"

"Naw, he's not from around here."

Eli relaxed and noticed Cory do the same. "Nearly gave me a heart attack."

Cory half laughed, half exhaled. "I'll be a lot calmer when this is over."

* - * - *

Robert stared, despite his uncle's lessons on what was and wasn't polite. Some sort of kangaroo rat thing was standing on an ancient monolith and, apparently, talking. Robert was sure an exception was allowed in this situation.

He glanced back at Valor and the other Spirit Guard before he pointed to the kangaroo rat with his thumb. "So is this a thing? Like, this is really happening? I'm not taking crazy pills here?"

Valor shrugged her shoulders; she was obviously trying to hide her amusement. "You'll get used to it pretty quick."

Robert remained dubious. "You sure? Because this meeting got a lot weirder than I expected it to be, and that's saying something since I'm talking to super-hero cheerleaders."

Spirit Guard Felicity giggled, "We bring in our expert on the matter and now you're complaining?"

Robert rubbed his eyes in frustration. "I guess I didn't expect your expert to be a talking marsupial."

"As I said before, my name is Kunapipi," the marsupial groused. "And I'm not a kangaroo rat. I'm a wallaby."

Robert turned around and faced the talking animal. "Right. A wallaby." Robert snorted, "That makes much more sense than a kangaroo rat."

Kunapipi responded with a mixture of annoyance and amusement. "Sarcasm is unbecoming of you, Mr. Dreese."

Robert chuckled. "Get to know me and I think you'll see it becomes me just fine."

Kunapipi laughed and Robert winced a little. There was something disturbing about seeing a live animal laugh like a human. It didn't escape Kunapipi's notice. "I'm sorry, Mr. Dreese. Maybe my real form was inappropriate for this meeting. I'm sorry if the sight of myself talking disturbs you somewhat."

Robert held his hands up. "I wouldn't say disturbing but, well, I don't know. It's definitely surreal."

Kunapipi jumped off the Standridge Stone and, as she fell, her body morphed into a human shape. With a brief flash, the shape took the form of a woman with hair the color of rust that hung past her shoulders. She was tall enough to look Robert right in his eyes. If he would only judge her by appearance, Robert would have guessed her to be in her late twenties or early thirties. She wore a business suit and had a thin pair of glasses framing her eyes. She was quite pretty. "Perhaps you will find this form a little less surreal."

Robert took a step back. "A little." He swallowed down a huge lump in his throat. "Neat trick."

Kunapipi took a cloth out of her suit pocket and began cleaning her glasses. "I had hoped this wouldn't be our first meeting today, but it seems you didn't feel the need for any counseling."

Robert squinted his eyes. "Excuse me?"

"We've spoken on the phone before. I am the one who called yesterday offering you counseling on behalf of the University."

It clicked. That's why her voice was familiar. But why was a college counselor a transforming animal? "You're Ms. Kala?" How were the Spirit Guard not the strangest thing here?

She smiled. "Ms. Kuna, but, please, call me by my actual name, Kunapipi. I get called Ms. Kuna all day while I'm counseling students."

Robert nodded and feigned that any of this made sense. "Which begs the question of why a transforming wallaby has bills to pay, needs a job as a student councilor, and what the blazes it has to do with me glowing at a monster attack."

"Direct and to the point. Just like you." Robert narrowed his eyes. What was this woman talking about? "But let me actually just answer your original question."

"That would be appreciated."

"Are you familiar with Fate?"

"Fate?" The meeting had again taken a turn he had not imagined. "Like the concept, the mythological creatures, or is this a person we're talking about who is named 'Fate'? Because my answers in order are: I don't believe in it, yes, and I haven't had the pleasure."

Ms. Kuna put her glasses back on. She pushed her chin out, thinking. "It's actually a little bit of all three. Fate is a..." Ms. Kuna shifted her hands up and down as if weighing her words as she spoke, "...being. She is an answer to the Chaos of the void. She brings order to the multiverse in her own way."

That answer raised so many questions in Robert's mind he didn't know where to begin. A lifetime of reading comic books made him want to ask about the multiverse thing first, but he knew that wasn't the most important thing. He needed to figure out his connection between himself and this Fate being Ms. Kuna spoke of. "So Fate is is like a god or something?"

"No. Not a god. Think of her more as a force, though she is a being with a personality. More importantly, it's how she acts that matters to your situation."

Robert folded his arms. What was all this meta-physical mumbo-jumbo leading to? "Uh huh."

"She acts through others. She does not intervene herself as that would rob the mortal beings of their will, their freedom to act. She instead sends Guides to find her Champions. Her Champions help bring the order she seeks."

"Neat." Robert leaned back against the Stone. "So, what are you?"

Ms. Kuna smiled warmly and held her hand to her chest. "I am a Guide. Fate created me to be her agent here on Earth. I have lived for thousands of years by your reckoning, seeking out her Champions. In times past my natural form of a talking animal was more accepted by the Champions of humanity. But as time has gone on, I've had to often take the form of a human to be accepted."

Robert wondered why on earth this alleged Fate would make her Guide a wallaby, but that wasn't what most interested him. "So you seek out Champions." He pointed to the Spirit Guard. "Are they the Champions you've been seeking out?"

Valor nodded. "We are among the Champions that Kunapipi has been seeking. But we aren't the only ones."

Four cheerleaders and one human-shaped wallaby stared at Robert. Their eyes were filled with expectation. It took him a moment to decipher it, but Robert soon thought he knew what they were trying to communicate. "Wait." Robert stood up straighter and scanned all the women in front of him like a gazelle looking for predators. "Are you implying I'm some sort of Champion?"

Charity beamed. "Yes, indeed we are."

Ms. Kuna cleared her throat. "Each Champion has been selected for some reason. Your soul is brimming with serene investiture.."

"Say what?" Robert could feel his heart pump faster, but he forced himself to breathe slower. His pulse slowed. He would not let his emotions take over, though he prayed Cory and Eli were getting all this. Robert idly shifted his phone in his pocket to make sure the phone's receiver was pointing the right direction and getting all the noise it could.

"Essentially Robert, you have been marked for the tasks ahead of you. Much like you can tattoo the skin with ink, there are ways to sort of 'tag' someone's soul."