Jungle man's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Jungle Man wanted the throne of the lost warrior-kings. To reach it, he had to find the sacred paths their champions guarded. For three days he had hunted those paths through the bush and found nothing. Vines. Mud. His own old boot prints, crossing back on themselves. The hidden trail did not want to be found. He is a tracker. He reads prints no one else can see. He wears a leopard suit and a golden mantle so poachers remember his face. A small skull sits on his chest, taken from the first poacher he ever stopped. It reminds him what his work costs. But the bush showed him no trail, and the skull could not point the way. Then the ground shook. Jungle Man crouched and pressed his palm to the dirt. The tremor had a rhythm. Impacts. Something huge struck something harder. He followed the shaking through the trees and broke out at the edge of a clearing. A pale mosque rose there, all white stone and slender towers. Red light cracked across its walls. Two crimson monsters battered the carved doors. They were twice a man's size, muscles bulging, eyes glowing red. Energy crackled off their fists. Each punch split the stone. The towers leaned. A grinning berserker tore a chunk from the wall and hurled it. Jungle Man had never seen the mosque before. But he saw the fresh ground churned around it. Wide tracks led straight to the broken doors. These were the first clear prints he had found in three days. He did not think about the throne then. He thought about the stone cracking. Inside, people would be crushed. He cupped his hands and shouted across the clearing, loud enough to carry. "Guardians! The sanctum is falling!" For a moment nothing answered. The berserkers turned their glowing eyes toward him. Then white light flared from inside the mosque. Figures poured out of the shattered doors. One wore a white cowl and a trailing scarf, light blazing from his gauntlets. That was the Photon Guardian King. Beside him came a smaller light-warrior and a spiked figure in a gas mask, Sanctus Prime. Their glow pushed back the red. The Photon Guardian King struck first. A beam of white slammed a berserker off its feet. The second monster charged Jungle Man. He rolled under its swing and drove his elbow into its knee. Light from the guardians pinned it to the dirt. The berserkers howled and fled into the trees. The mosque stood, cracked but standing. The Photon Guardian King walked over, light still humming in his fists. He studied the skull on Jungle Man's chest. "You warned us. You bought us the seconds we needed." "I was lost," Jungle Man said. "I'm hunting the sacred paths of the warrior-kings." The guardian went still. "Then you came to the right ruin. This sanctum sits at the first gate. I will show you where the path begins. But first you will answer for why those monsters came."