Forge Another Path

Ale and flame were only mere millimetres away from connection, and not a soul took a breath in those thousands of a second. The moment had passed, no warmth, no pain…

Franz tentatively opened his eyes.

The lighter had been smacked across the bar, smashing into the wall and breaking on impact. The beaten hero lay at his feet, covered in liquor and breathing heavy.

“I… I got it… got it…” Arata gasped.

“Why…” He heard, his head tilted just enough to see Franz above, his eyes shadowed. “Why did you stop it?!” He screamed. Instantly an ember formed on his fingertip, a fire spell that was novice enough to be used without incantation. Instinctively, Arata swept Franz’s leg, and when he dropped to a knee, a punch met the drunkard in the eye.

Leona eventually caught back up and saw the lighter, the fuel, and the realisation hit her. All the while Arata struggled back to his feet, using one of the tables to keep him upright. Franz lay flat, emotions overflowing but hatred being the cardinal.

“You take Plotgerät from me, you won’t let me forget about her, you come here to rub it in my face… and now, you won’t even let me die. What more do you want from me, Reinhardt? What more could you possibly gain from tormenting me like this?” He manages to get his arms under him, enough to lift his torso up and face the two heroes. Reinhardt who was barely standing and one eye was forced closed. The other, Leona, left in tears at the door. “Why…” He growled. “Why won't you let me go?!”

Arata laughed, enraging Franz enough to try and stand again but the damage made him slip back. “Y’know, after all this time, I hadn’t realised what an idiot you were.” His laugh faded, his hands played with a glass on the table that supported him. “This stuff is poisoning your brain, Franz. You’d kill yourself over a misunderstanding? Burn alive because you didn’t realise what the Queen was saying?”

“She chose the hero! You!” Franz roared back, grinding his teeth with his eyes watering just a little more.

“She chose you. Moron.” Leona replied. “She fell for a hero. A hero who would be named as such and celebrated the very next day… you, Franz”

The day Franz overheard the Queen’s words, was the day that the King had told her that a new hero would be presented to Heimstadt. Being a hero wasn’t just a nice name to be called, in this world, it was a title fought for and gifted by royalty. Throughout the history of the starter city, only four great warriors and clerics were given such an honour, and only Reinhardt held it in this time. But, Franz had been recognised.

The night he, Leona and Reinhardt declared their dreams of becoming heroes was the most cherished memory he had. It was something to remember any time he felt as though the world was fighting against him.

“You’re… you’re lying.” He answered back. He couldn’t believe such a thing, after all, it was the dream he never thought he could live. Loved by the Princess he had fallen for as a child, and named hero, deemed worthy by the entire kingdom… it was perfect. “You’re lying!” He repeated, like a petulant child. All he had wanted, there in the palm of his hand, just for him to let it slip between his fingers. He hated the idea of it, to be the reason for his pain, not Reinhardt.

So, another fire spell activated. Leona tried to run over to stop him but she’d started feeling dizzy and tripped onto the wall, the blood was thickening on the back of her head. But she was frantic for a reason, she knew what would happen if the fire kissed the ale.

Franz had managed to aim at Arata, who was much like him after his dive, covered in high proof liquor. But Franz hadn’t noticed that Arata’s pen had been moving, and out of the floor came a punch of pure wood.

After the hit, Franz shook it off, still conscious and ready to set fire to their friendship, but Arata hadn’t only drawn a fist. He had drawn a whole body… Princess Plotgerät.

*-*-*

There she stood, blank eyes that stared into his very soul. It stopped him even from breathing for a moment, as he saw her, the real her. The one he had loved for most his life, the one he believed had chosen another, the one that he was now forsaking.

“I figured you’d want to see her, one last time before she’s married off.” Arata mocked as he got back up with the help of Leona. Franz averted his eyes to the side and clenched his teeth so as to not show the anger. “Then go, get her back from that freak and do it. What’s the point coming here, just to rub it in my face?!”

“Tomorrow, if we don’t stop it, the Princess will be forced into a marriage with The Scourge.” He replied. Franz was taken aback by the news, they had already told him that she had been abducted and the culprit’s name had been spreading even out this far, however he hadn’t cared enough to listen… he thought it would have been some bit part thug or weak servant that even the King’s men could deal with but, Täter was different.

“I don’t know how exactly he’ll do it, but his plans are to force a marriage. Leona and I will go there, and you know as well as we do what our chances are.”

“Two against an entire bandit camp, Franz” Leona commented. “You think Täter will care if you stay out here drinking yourself to death? He’ll control the entire kingdom, all our warriors will be dead before months end and doubly so for any heroes… including you and Reinhardt.” He could feel his heart clench, seeing the disappointment in her eyes. The tavern itself had gone quiet, the patrons all judging him. She crouched down facing him, still looking down upon him. “Regardless of how you feel about her now, she will always, and has always cared about you.”

Flashes of the Princess smiling at him, the two of them playing, teasing and even arguing all appeared before him. Every moment of them sacred and cherished for him.

Arata sat beside him, falling into place. “If you let that freak take her because you think she and I are a thing, even if that were true… then no matter what you did, no matter how many people you saved, no matter how many villains you defeated…”

“You will never be a hero.”

Like an atom bomb exploding in his face, melting away everything of him, those words completed collapsed his very being. Everything gone, everything he dreamed of vanished.

Arata slapped his head on the floor with a loud thud, hard enough to split his skin. It snapped the future hero back to focus. Arata was fully prostrated, to a man that had attacked him without a word.

“Please…” He struggled getting the words out, they had been caught in the back of his throat, burning as they found their freedom. “Come with us… save her. I will give you everything of mine. If you wish for it, even my life.”

“What the hell are you doing?!” Franz cried. “Get up”

“I can’t beat Täter, not without you. So no matter what happens afterwards…”

“Come back to us… Hero Franz!”

The words were powerful enough to move mountains, to bring the strongest of warriors to their knees and to bend the laws of the world to his very ambition. Not a single hint of ulterior motive. For Arata had seen how this series had concluded, Franz was the true villain. The man set to lose his love and to blame the kingdom, and it’s heroes for her death. This was always supposed to be the case, and Reinhardt was to fight the enraged former hero… and kill his friend there and then.

“Such an ending… this is what you want me to change, right? God”

He looked to the heavens, and was blessed with rain. Franz broke completely. Unable to form words. But much to the relief of everyone in the bar that evening… the future hero Franz, cried away his hatred and anger.

*-*-*

As the sun began to shine across the valley, cascading upon the base of The Scourge. And in the cover of the shadows from the hilltop, below the ash trees, three warriors licked their wounds from the night before.

“You done yet, Reinhardt?” Leona complained.

“Gimme a minute will ya?”

A few more seconds of scribbling from the hero and pouting from Leona, and they were ready. “Alrighty then, should we get this started… Franz?”

He appeared behind him, bottle of booze still in hand and reddened eyes from the night before. He stood beside his hero companion, facing the fortress his love was imprisoned in. Arata held out his fist to the drunkard, smiling toothily.

With a smirk, Franz returned the favour. “Let’s get some asses kicked.”