Snippet #2762895

Guardian: Before the Oblivion War, the title had meant nothing to the natives and assorted colonists of the Rock. But Mohan's death had changed all that. For better or worse, near everyone had heard the tale of how local hero Mohan had been slaughtered in cold blood by the Guardian's leader, Tera Roth.

No one had expected the Guardians to return. No one had believed they would dare, after what they had done. But after Oblivion's defeat, a small contingent of the hated organization had been dispatched to the Rock. The Rockians were at first shocked, then furious. They had protested the murderous group's arrival and presence, even formed mobs to drive them from their world.

Yet despite the overwhelming opposition, the Guardians had remained, quietly working out of the spotlight to make the Rock a better place.

***

Otis' adventure began with an escape and a tragedy.

"Ain't no rest for the wicked," Otis sang to himself, low under his breath as he entered the organized decay that was the local market of the gathering of huts known as Muddstix. "Ain't no sleep for the damned..."

Bobbing his head in time to the music that was playing through his Pocketman spinoff product, the Musicman, Otis snapped his fingers and picked up a particularly plump fruit known as a capritot, a yellow and hard root that grew in surprisingly perfect spheres. He grinned. Fruit & vegetables were hard to come by on the Rock, and though expensive, he was happy to pay for anything that even resembled the lost food group of the desert world.

"I'll take a dozen of these," he said to the shop owner, who glared at him angrily and charged him double. Otis courteously pretended not to notice the obvious artifice, and handed over the money in exchange for a small bag of the vegetables. Otis waved to the man, who simply raised his middle finger in return, and Otis cheerfully moved on to the next stand.

"Oh, are these fresh?" Otis asked, pointing at a group of Great Gorga lizard eggs, which were roughly the size of a softball and a pale brown in coloration.

"Screw you," the shopkeeper spat, hitting Otis in the chest. Otis absent-mindedly wiped the spittle away and grinned again.

"I'll take three," Otis said, flashing his hard-earned cash in the shop owner's face, who angrily grabbed the money and threw the eggs at his unfortunate customer. Thankfully, Otis was used to this preferential treatment and caught the eggs skillfully, juggling them into the bags with a gentle flourish. Waving again, Otis skipped forward, snapping his fingers in time to the beat of the song.

"Friends of the desert, friends of mine, tell me why you cannot sleep," Otis sang again, sliding around a group of market scavengers shouting at the store owner for more lice mice meat. "Something something girls never come cheap, wait, no that's not right." Otis paused, trying to listen to the song as the shouting increased in volume. Shrugging, Otis continued on, wondering if there would be any terror bird jerky to be found here.

"Hey you!" an ugly cry came from behind, and Otis turned to find the group he had just passed facing him, murder in their faces. "You're one of those Guardians, ain't ya?"

"I mean, yes," Otis said, politely. "Just... trying to buy some groceries."

"He's stealing our food! You know what that means boys?" the leader of the group shouted, followed by various suggestions on what exactly that meant, none of which were very nice and only one of which involved Otis keeping his food.

Otis sighed. It was, with some concern on the frequency, time to run for his life again.

Luckily, Otis was quite used to this, so as he sprinted from the furious mob, he felt good about his chances of escape. Firstly, he was quite fast, and running in sand was no problem for him. There was often not much to do on the Rock, and Girthfield, his superior, had often had Otis out on the sands, doing sprints or long distance runs across the dunes, rocks, and sand patches that made up the desert around Schittle, their main base of operations.

Schittle hadn't been their first choice as a main base, but it was the calmest that they had found, at least according to Galneryus, the third and final Guardian stationed on the Rock. Galneryus had been here the longest, sent with the first wave of Guardians, and here he had remained, much to his distaste as Otis had discovered.

Otis quickly got ahead of the group, sliding around a corner and kicking off one of the mud huts to launch himself up to the rooftops. His second advantage was his acrobatic abilities, something which had often earned him the title of "monkey" or "spider" or "spider monkey" (the last of which he had always imagined as a monkey with eight limbs, which he was sure would be equally terrifying and disturbing). Otis excelled at rock climbing and parkour, a talent which only perhaps the desert nomads could match. Surely, the Skylanders who inhabited this town couldn't.

Finally, Otis thought with a smile as he reached the outskirts of Muddstix after only a few moments of rooftop running, was his dirtbike, which he'd nicknamed Shyla. His dirtbike was his most prized possession, even more so than his Pocketman collection. There was just something so very freeing about getting out on the sands with something that felt like it belonged there, and Shyla, a creation he had built himself for this very assignment, definitely belonged on the sands.

Otis landed near the disguised bike, which he had rode to Muddstix from Schittle, and banished the illusion he had created from the air with his Phoenix magic. Shyla wasn't something he believed anyone would really steal, just... tear apart and use the bits for scraps. His wind magic allowed him to disguise objects that were standing still however, and silence anything he was nearby, which luckily included the powerful engine inside Shyla.

Slipping a pair of goggles over his face, Otis carefully stashed the fruit and eggs inside a compartment under the seat, then settled in and kicked the engine to life. With a satisfied smile, Otis drove off over the sands, back to the Guardian base. Shyla hugged the sands like a champion, and Otis let out a carefree laugh as he launched over a small rock outcrop.

That's when the ship descended above his head with a massive wave of heat and sound, sending him careening out of control. With a huge boom, the ship rammed itself into the ground, and Otis picked himself up, staring in consternation at the resulting fires that lit the horizon past Schittle.

"That's... not good," Otis muttered to himself, brushing himself off and looking at Shyla, which now lay in a twisted pile. "That's... also not good."

"There he is men, get that guy!" the gang shouted from behind him, and Otis blanched, having hoped the angry mob would have lost interest by now. Apparently, he had been wrong.

"This isn't great!" Otis yelled, taking off at top speed towards Schittle. "Shyla, I'm sorry! I'll never forget you!"

"Shyla?" the gang leader shouted. "Did you hear that? There's a female nearby! Spread out men, find her! Forget the Guardian!"

"Well, that's actually... better," Otis mused to himself as he ran. "That actually worked out okay." Chuckling to himself, Otis kept running, wondering what Girthfield would say about the crash landing he had just witnessed.