Well, this is my first fan fiction. I am completely open to constructive criticism and will make edits accordingly. Also, 4 parts of this series are already out, but I won't release them in case I must make changes according to the feedback I get here. So, without further ado, part one of The Last Word and the Thorn: The ritual was a success, if this could be called that. Dredgen Yor had made a pact with one of the dark Hive gods. He would soon face one of its shadows, so he flew back to Earth to enjoy his final moments as a guardian. He arrived at Old Russia at dusk. From the Skywatch, he watched as the sun set between the frame of rusty helicopters. He enjoyed his final thoughts as a spark of light, pure of mind yet not of intent. No one witnessed his transformation. After twilight had arrived, he felt a dark presence come over him. What remained of his light itched, but his mind was calm. He would be allowed to live the rest of this life as a being of the light’s blessing, yet he would no longer be considered a guardian. From that night on, he was changed. His arm, one he had used and trusted for many years, he forged himself as a young guardian. It was a beautiful scarlet hand cannon capable of ending the life of a vandal with a single bullet to the head. He called it The Rose. After his transformation, it also changed. For it was no longer his jewel of righteousness, his blooming rose, but a dark, twisted sidearm that pierced through light and stole the life from his foes. He named it the Thorn, a monument to the irony of its transformation and a metaphor of his own. Dredgen Yor was destined to steal the light until from guardians until his death, when he would be reborn as an instrument of the darkness, a hive being created solely to tear the light from future guardians. But here he stood in the twilight, still a man with a newly acquired tool of destruction. “Oh, what I will do with you,” he muttered eagerly to himself.