Standing of that cliff, I wondered how exactly we would get to the place he had pointed out. According to Ezekiel, as much as all other abilities are free to our disposal in the arena, flight and teleportation is the one thing that is not. Whoever flies or teleports in arena risk losing their pixels gradually in the process.
We were going to have to walk, trekking all the way east until we get to Xaion. Dad said it wasn't as far as I imagined, but I wasn't buying it, it seemed like miles from the map itself. Whatever the case, we really didn't have any choice, we had to walk. Bruh, I had really hoped all we had to do was jump into the map and appear in Xaion.
"We need to get off this cliff," he said, looking down the cliff. "And start our journey South."
I slid my hands in my pockets, looking down as well. "How do you reckon we do that, do we need a grappling hook or some—"
He jumped. He jumped before I could finish my sentence screaming jeronemo, then he landed on his feet like freaking cat!
"Jump down, we don't have all the time in the world," he yelled.
That was four thousand feet down, who the hell makes that jump?
"You're gonna catch me right?" I asked.
"No!"
"Are you insane?!"
"Nothing's gonna happen to you!" He screamed. "For the last time, nobody actually dies in the arena!"
I exhaled, taking a last scan of the area. There had to be another way off that plateau, but the more my head turned round the more I realised I had no other choice but to jump.
"I've got a lot of things going for me back in Yolo!" I exclaimed. "I can't afford to die."
"Yeah, like the six kids, two dogs and the wifey you left back home?" He replied sarcastically.
I hissed, holding my waist. Then I caressed my hair and mumbled a chant of encouragement to myself, breathing in and out as I prepared to take a leap.
"One," I said, rocking forward and then backwards with my feet. "Two. Three…four…five—"
"The more time you waste, the farther it feels from our destination!"
"Oh shut up!" I replied.
"You know for a supposedly dangerous guy, you sure are scared of a lot of things."
"And for a guy who calls himself my dad, you sure are in a hurry to watch me die."
"Just jump for Pete's sake!" He exclaimed.
So I jumped, tumbling thrice in the air as I fell towards the field below. The wind pushed my clothes up and I could hear trinkling sounds as the air gust past my ears. Then finally I landed on the ground with my feet.
"There you go, easy as pie," he said, tapping my shoulder and walking passed me.
"Pie's not easy to make or calculate," I replied, following him eastward.
He chuckled, complimenting my joke as one he hadn't heard in a while, then he went on to stay quiet as we walked the plains of the Arena. It looked like a waste land, as if a rainforest and a desert got together and had a baby. There were waterfalls pouring out of thin air at a distance well above the ground, the water wasn't clear like the ones on earth, rather they had the colours of a clear rainbows whose dominant colours were grey, white and black. Also the 'water' never touched the ground, it was like it was pouring out of the air and into the air back. I saw seven of these things.
We encountered monsters and aliens along the way. Some turned out to be knights, while others were not, rather they were vicious and ready to take your life if you weren't ready to defend it. There was something strange about each of the knights we encountered, they appeared to have a colour coded tattoo, a tattoo of a serpent dragon on their right arm. Some tattoos were black, some were white, while others were blue, in total I counted six different colours from those we crossed path with.
When those with the blue tattoo see me, they would freak out. Bowing their heads low and requesting I give them a blessing before we part ways, it was absolutely…different from the way the outside world treated me. Meanwhile, those with a different colour had a completely different reaction when they saw me. Some stuttered out of fear, and I could tell it was fear because the look they gave me was the same as the ones I received from some Troopers after my partner Silas died.
Others looked at me with disdain. I could see the hate in their eyes oozing as they walked past Ezekiel and I. The crazy part was that most of these guys were twice my size, incredibly huge and muscular. There were also Drainiacs, Zoarites, a lot of Zendars and Ekos people and Granules.
A Granule was a tiny rodent alien specie that loved hoarding weapons. They were the size of a beaver and had the tail of a honey badger and the colour of a Siberian tiger. They were basically weapons specialists, and very good at bomb deactivation. The Trooper's precinct in the eastern side of the world had a bunch of them in the force.
There was this particular Knight, she was a Buserite. She had a black dragon tattoo on her arm, and I only noticed that after she helped us defeat this giant boulder monster, sharing the pixels between ourselves. She was huge, buffed and beautiful, and her fighting skills were incredible, so I offered her an invitation to be the first member of our party.
Stretching out my hand, I said; "we'd love to use someone like you on our quest."
In response, she spat on the ground and cursed me at the top of her lungs. Then she growled and walked away, leaving my hand hanging. Ezekiel stood next to me as we watched her walk way, checking her Arena screen as she did.
"What the hell was that about?" I asked.
"Pay no attention to her, let's keep moving," he replied.
Ever since the Hexagon encounter, I've had this feeling that Ezekiel was hiding something from me. At first I dismissed it as an imaginative thought, even thinking that he was just a pigment of my imagination, but after he appeared again and a third time, still acting all mysterious, the feeling came back. I could not dismiss it anymore, this man was as real as the moon.
"You're hiding something from me, aren't you?" I asked.
He kept quiet, still walking ahead. We were approaching a spiral stream surrounded by black sand. I asked the question again, assuming he didn't hear me the first time.
"I heard you the first time kid," he replied, stopping before the beach of the stream.
"Then answer me," I replied. "Ever since our encounter you've been acting strange. And then you bring me here, a broken world where it appears I'm hated even more and I don't even know why! WHY DO THEY HATE ME EZEKIEL?! Why did that Buserite treat me like that? What the hell is up with their tattoos?... I have so many questions, and you seem to be intentionally avoiding them."
He exhaled, turning towards me. "I'm sorry kid, I thought hiding the truth from you would be beneficial to your mental health, but coming here, and seeing those eyes, I guess I was wrong."
"What's going on dad?" I asked. "What truth are you talking about?"
He sighed sitting on the sand next to the stream. "It's called the Lore Of The Guardians. You might want to sit down for this story."
I looked beyond the stream, looking around. Then I looked up, wondering what time it was, and how long it had been since we've been in the arena.
"Don't worry Ezra, we have time," he said, as if he was reading my mind. "Time runs differently in the Arena, three days here is twenty-four hours outside. Please, sit, you're gonna need to know this before we get to Xaion."
I exhaled, sitting next to him.
"What is, the Lore Of The Guardians?" I asked.
So he began.