Along Came a Gildarts - Ambrosia Awaits

[Guu]

Continued from "City of Ambrosia"

Deep within the bowels of the mansion, Guu stood in the middle of a green screen room, blankly eyeing a part of the wall that didn’t seem to hold any significance whatsoever. The ever red headed, ever nerdy Dan the Cameraman kept peering from behind his camera, looking increasingly agitated. Finally, he shot up and gave her the most menacing of looks.

“Goddamnit!” He roared, but he quickly corrected himself. “I mean, excuse me your highness. I believe I asked you to do some poses, not stand there as you always do.”

“I’m sorry.” She responded. “But the wall holds precedence.”

“How are we supposed to sell t-shirts with you just standing there?” He yelled, his face growing increasingly red.

“Advertising!” She said sarcastically, wiggling her arms in the air.

She froze when she heard the snap of the camera. She recoiled in horror. Dan cackled evilly as the special effects crew made fairly cheap lightning effects on the fly behind him.

“Mwahahaha, I got one!” He said jovially. “Nineteen more to go!”

But Guu had already gone back to looking intently at that spot on the wall. Dan sighed heavily. As he got back behind the camera and waited.


Minutes went by but she refused to budge. Slowly, Dan’s twisted further into one of despair and disgust. The special effects crew have long given up and buried their noses into their dataverse devices. Eventually, he shot up to look her directly once again, his hands clasped together in a pleading gesture.

“Please milady Guu, I beg of you.” He said, his voice sounding weak and broken. “Please work with me! I don’t know how much more of this I could take!”

She veeredd up in what vaguely looked like sympathy. In a sign of mocking obedience, she lay stomach down on the ground, her body contorted in ways that stuck her butt in the air and gave the camera a sultry look while leaning on one elbow.

“Hello, boys.” She said, her voice deep and voluptuous.

Dan is both blushing and furious at the sight of a flirtatious ten-year-old.

“WHO DO YOU THINK I AM?” He yelled, so loud that evens the special effects crew looked up from their screens.

It was at this point Sylvia poked her head from behind the room’s only door.

“Guu, there’s someone that would like to meet with you.” She said, more uneasy than usual. Guu turned to look at her.

“Ah. Of course Sylvia, I’m on my way.” She said plainly as she moved towards the exit.

“No she is not! I’m refuse to let her leave until we-” He began before he got cut off by Guu’s fist in his face, knocking him immediately unconscious. Sylvia could only slap a palm against her face, as the spectacle she just had witnessed only justified her fears. ‘Please don’t start anything...’ she wished to herself.


Gently, she pulled her aside.

“So yeah, we have a visitor. Some old guy.”

“What’s his name?” Guu asked.

“He says his name is Gildarts. He just wants to ask a few questions. I don’t know why he needs you specifically for that, but it was you he asked for. Not sure how trustworthy he is, but Trisha seems to vouch for him”

“I’ll be the judge of that I guess.” She responded incredibly nonchalantly. “Anything else I should know?”

“Apparently, he knocked all the fruit in the north field with a single sneeze.”

Guu had a moment to think about this. ‘He sounded like someone with at least some level of power. If he was here to cause trouble for the general populace, he would have already done so. It would be unusual for an assassin on her head to walk up and introduce himself... then again, that’s unconventional enough to work at least once. Either this guy is very creative when it comes to assassination plots or a complete idiot.’ She nodded to Sylvia.

“Okay, take me to him.”


Gildarts towered over the 3-foot Guu. She was kind of expected a reaction to her height, and was kind of surprised and disappointed to be greeted with a respectful bow instead of a shocked reaction. She sighed heavily at the missed opportunity and decided to get straight to the point.

“So what did you want to ask?” She said with a mild hint of annoyance.

“I’m looking for the Black Gate.” He asked sternly.

“Never heard of it.”

There was a long pause between the two.

“Oh...” He said rather blankly. “I best be on my way then.”

“You sure it exists in the Omniverse?” Guu said, stopping him as he’s about to turn around.

“Pardon?”

“Well, this is a completely different universe from wherever you came from. If it’s something you were looking for in your own world, then this ‘Black Gate’ probably doesn’t exist here.”

He had to take a moment to think. Before he could respond with anything, she stepped in.

“Don’t feel too bad. I’ve seen people fight over crap because they thought the rules of their universe functions the same here. So looking for a place that doesn’t exist here... well... that is kind of sad still. Eh.” She said, all exposition-y and bored. Suddenly, she grabs Gil by the wrist. “Tell you what. Let’s both get a drink. It’s been a long day.”

He tugs him along towards the mansion’s bar.


The two drink non-alcoholic cranberry juice as Guu yaks on about everything that’s happened that day while Gil listens as intently as he can.

“...then a girl drove a moped through my window. Had to make sure she was properly punished for it, that took hours. Then I had another photoshoot to do.” She growled, then downing a shot of cranberry juice. She accidentally sent it to the wrong stomach and got it all over her favorite dress, but she was numb to it by now.

“Guild leader is a tough job.” He sigh calmly.

“I know right?” She said with a grunt. Hoping to get her mind off of it, she repositioned herself and turned her attention to him. “I’m curious, why were you not surprised by my size?”

“You remind me a lot of my old master. He as around your height.”

“Hmmm... I see.” She figured it must have been normal for his universe. Not much would outright shock her at this point.

“So what’s with this guild? Why are there so many young people here?”

“Oh. You haven’t heard? It was all over the dataverse a while back. Let me explain.”


Guu summarized the history of Ambrosia; about the attack of Gilgamesh and how the adults all left out of fear and how the teens couldn’t leave because they’d already adapted to this new way of life.

“Yeah, they have tenacity, but they won’t last the month the way things are. Even I can’t do everything for them.”

There was silence between the two as a pokute poured more cranberry juice into their cups. After a bit of deliberation, Gildarts spoke up.

“I’d like to join Ambrosia.” He said intently.

Guu looked up, somewhat aghast, before turning back to look into her drink.

“Yeah, kind of expected as much.” She responded. “Sure, you can join. You don’t seem like an assassin.”

He had a laugh at this comment. However, his attention was diverted as she hopped off your bar stool.

“You can take one of the empty houses as one of your own.” She stated as she makes her way for the door. “Take your time figuring out what you’d like to do for the to-”

“I want a mission.”

She stopped in her tracks and turned to look at him. She was going to point out how they just started out and don’t really have missions to go on just yet. However, she had a thought.

She remembered something she read on the internet a while back. Something she kept to herself because she didn’t want to make a scene, but it boiled her up a little inside. She realized this dolt may come in use to riding it from her life, but she wasn’t sure if he could be trusted with it. ‘What if he’s no discreet enough?’ She thought. ‘Can I trust him?’
She scanned him once again.
‘What choice do I have? Not like I have too many people I could feel comfortable to send on this one.’

“Follow me.” She said, beckoning him with a fingerless arm.


She lead him to one of the rooms and shut the door behind her as soon as they were both in. When he was distracted by the unusual wall art, she pulled out her Dataverse Device and started pulling out information. The printer in the room whirs into life, attracting Gil’s attention as it vomits out paper after paper. She signaled him over to look at her.

“We have a problem here in the Tangled.” She began, thinking carefully on her words. “There’s people here... Shapeshifters they... um... they imitate...”

Guu, in an odd sign of emotion is red scarlet.

“They take the forms of other people and they they... do sex stuff with other people and they film it... They even take the form of children and stuff. They even took the form of me, so yeah... because of that they’re kind of a threat to the younger people of my guild... yeah...”

She heads of the printer and yanks it out. She hands it to Gil. It’s a very vague and kind of empty map of the Tangled, but the image magically moves like something out of Harry Potter. Gil is displayed in the direct center with his pixelated mug and the destination is marked with a big red “x.”

“Yeah... just go there.” She said, shuffling her feet, face still red. She suddenly jolted as she remembered something. “One condition of the mission, and this is very important. You must be discreet. Ambrosia can’t be pinned on this, we’ll be faced with endless trouble. Other than that, I don’t care how you do it, just shut them down. Do that and Ambrosia will be protected from their harm... and you’ll have my gratitude.”

To be continued in "City of Ambrosia"