PRL Serials

The Daemon, the ones that survived their encounter with the Guardians of Bludon, were returned to Endla, which was shocking news to Maxx who didn’t know that the Daemon were Aerphim.

“How did they end up on Bludon?” Maxx asked the Aboatia Pultine.

The Mmoatia ship was large enough to contain the entirety of the Daemon asteroid, and Maxx stood with Pultine in a large, grassy field that now contained the asteroid. It was like a small mountain in the picaresque prairie and crew members of Top swarmed around it.

“Metatron’s an idiot,” Pultine said dismissively. “But that asteroid contains every Daemon that had been unaccounted for from Endla. The ones you left alive, of course.”

“I thought it was the land of angels,” Maxx said and he shook his head slowly. “The Queen Rowen had me thinking that maybe we Bludonians created the Daemon by accident. I didn’t really believe that, but in the absence of an explanation, it was hard not to fill in blanks.”

“If I were in your position, I would have acted the same in response to these strange Aerphim,” Pultine said, “but they are not the villain that the worst of them are. I hear that Minyak is a pesky weed, very difficult to root out, but his plans for domination of Bludon was mostly his. Shoun…”

“The big red thing?” Maxx asked and the skin of his brow crumpled with anger. “I owe him a fist through the face.”

“There is a version of me that emerged from cocoon long ago that would be very excited by talk like that, but this is not the enemy we will rage against, Superguardian. Shoun has revealed the ultimate plan of the Daemon Head, and in truth, there has not been a Head since the death of the Eyes. Apparently it was something Minyak forced on them, most of them only ever wanted a comfortable life on Endla, but Minyak promised them Paradise. The others of the Daemon Head are content in that strange veil realm with the ridiculous name…”

“Outer Spacetime?” Maxx asked and the skin of his brow shifted up quizzically. “That’s some Wazad stuff. I don’t know anything about that.”

“Good that it isn’t your concern,” Pultine smiled at Maxx. “Only Minyak. He is sliming the population. Spreading something foul.”

“Himself? He always does that, reanimating bodies to make monstrosities that we Guardians must make oily heaps of.”

Pultine shook her head slowly. “Do Guardians get upgrades?”

“At specific points in our lives, when we reach predetermined heights and weights, mechanics trigger and connections are made in our pre-installed hardware, so yes, you can say we get upgrades.”

“Minyak recently came into one. That black swarm, the absence of the Daemon while the swarm attacked, it all seems to account for his upgrade. Shoun says Minyak learned of a dark power while in Outer Spacetime and he became obsessed, convinced that he could finally access a power that could help him defeat you Guardians. He did a spell, disappeared from Outer Spacetime, and reappeared in Prime 5 just after the swarm disappeared. Shoun says that he came back very different.”

“He wasn’t different,” Maxx said angrily. “I saw him. Zacchaeus and the Needy faced him.”

“You can see how that turned out for yourself,” Pultine said evenly. “But he was very different. He is Pito now. And he has infected Bludon with the worst enemy known to existence.”

“Pito? What has he infected Bludon with?”

“We don’t quite know. Ahdis pulled Pito from Minyak’s mind, but she is having trouble reading and understanding him. She is the strongest telepath among us. Tracia is assisting Ahdis now, hopefully they can learn more. You don’t have to worry about large-scale Daemon attacks anymore, but there is another threat that you must assess. I am happy to return to Bludon with you and the Queen Rowen to figure out what is happening.”

“I want to see how Zacchaeus is doing,” Maxx said. His face was hard as he contemplated the news that Pultine had given him.

Coxx and the leadership of the faction of free Guardians are inside of the Gymnasium on Fumarole that Issac Washington had largely converted into a staging area where the Guardians tracked the Minyak infection that was spreading Bludon and its effects on the infected population. Over the course of the decade that the infection had spread among the Bludonians, the civilization had fractured and for the first time in their history, the Bludonians didn’t view themselves as a single civilization spread out across a planet. The Minyak infection changed Bludonians, but not in the ways that the faction of free Guardians had experienced in their long battle against the Daemon, and it was for this reason that they refrained from physically attacking them. The infection was fungal and permanently nestled in the brains of Bludonians. After the infection was identified, the infected were quarantined on specific islands around the world, but it soon became clear that the infected suffered no adverse physical symptoms of the infection. The Queen Rowen and the Ointites developed a cure for the infection, but many of the infected refused the treatment and there was a legal proceeding before the Ministers to decide if they could be forced to rid themselves of the Minyak infection. Of course the Guardians who had battled Minyak for many years, even those still aligned with the Ministers, believed that Minyak was a corrupting force and that no Blu infected by him could make decisions for themselves that would be harmful to the corrupting influence. The Ministers chosen to present the argument for forcing treatment on the infected echoed the Guardians’ sentiment in their presentation before the jury chosen for the trial at the Hall of Ministers. The Ministers defending the infected who refused treatment pointed to the thousands of blues who had chosen to accept the treatment and were cured of the infection, and it was hard for the jury to be convinced that the infected blues couldn’t make the decision to be cured of the infection for themselves. Soon after the resolution of the trial, islands on Bludon were segregated to protect the uninfected and there was a significant enough population of blues who wanted to be infected that the Ministers created an agency to coordinate the safe relocation to islands of the infected. 

“It doesn’t even feel like we’re on Bludon anymore,” Maxx says to Coxx as they stare at the large monitor that has a map of all islands on the planet with black dots that indicate the infected. 

“I’m sorry that I failed you,” Coxx says. “I thought that I was doing a good job managing things while you were away, but I was naive to think that I could fill the void left by the Superguardian.”

“Your apologies are not necessary,” Maxx says. He sounds very tired. “No one expected this. Minyak outsmarted all of us, even the Outsiders. Even the Needy, who proved his physical dominance over the Daemon.”

“What about the Arcana master? I’ve seen him do incredible things and he has led us all well in this difficult time.”

“Issac has done everything he can to combat Minyak,” Maxx says. “Even he is unable to grapple with the magic Minyak now employs. We are just lucky that this struggle doesn’t involve combat and the casualties have been kept to a minimum.”

“The loss of the Ointite Queen was devastating,” Coxx says mournfully.

Maxx takes a deep breath. It is hard to think about Rowen and not blame himself for her death, even if no one else, including the Ointites who had served as her security on Bludon and all of the Ointite royals who knew her, would blame him. Rowen had always made decisions for herself and she had defied the frantic calls from her advisors who told her to leave Bludon as soon as they received word of the Minyak infection. She refused to leave Maxx and the Guardians to the crisis that was only made worse by the reality that a significant number of Ministers had been infected and that only made it easier for people to trust something that was so suspicious. Maxx hadn’t thought Rowen was at any particular risk of contracting the infection, or dying from it if she did, so when she literally fell ill, he was shocked. The gray pigmentation of her skin stopped moving and she became very pale, which was odd for an Ointite; Ointites express emotion with the movement of the gray pigmentation of their skin and there was a time when the civilization communicated nonverbally with the changes in their pigmentation. 

Rowen was evacuated from Bludon and Maxx later learned that she had tried to use her healing ability to cure a blu of Minyak’s infection, but when she touched the infected blue, she collapsed almost instantly. He wasn’t able to see her before she was gone, after she’d spent more than twenty years with Maxx and his Guardians, solving complex problems that the Ministers had only exacerbated. The Queen Rowen was a hero of Bludon and Maxx thought it was a shame that she was forced to leave so hastily. She deserved to be acknowledged for her sacrifice.

“I still have not gotten word about her condition,” Maxx says to Coxx after a long silence. “I choose to remain hopeful that she will be ok.”

Coxx briefs Maxx about the state of the Chain Islands that had been designated an infection free archipelago and was still largely controlled by the Ur Gang and their allies. Even though Beku was old and retired, and had largely stayed out of the public eye since the stabbing attack that she survived, Flow Records still thrives and Two Rivers has retained its splendor. Coxx and his group of Guardians still work for Flow Records, but they also defend the island against attacks from infected groups and individuals who try to spread the infection in free cities.   

“Keep up your good work, Guardian,” Maxx says to Coxx as he leaves Fumarole to return to the Chain Islands. Maxx sits alone among the buzz in the Gymnasium. So much has happened, so much has changed and it is surreal to think about.

“Are you ready?” He hears Issac’s voice approaching from behind him and eventually Issac stands in front of him. 

Maxx nods. As crazy as everything is, Bludonians are free from immediate harm at least. There is no point in blaming himself for anything. The planet may have been obliterated long ago if he had not joined the Outsiders and their new coalition to protect the universe. He never wants to leave Bludon again, but if he doesn’t, the threats will just keep making landfall on Bludon’s islands.

“Let’s go end these Pito,” Maxx says angrily. He stands and follows Issac through a portal that he creates and the Guardians who see try to get a glimpse at the glory of the Fonlands.