Prince and the Truth

BOOM!!!

Kaito was interrupted by an explosion, his stammering words halting at the sight. The flames rose high in the sky and quickly extinguished themselves, leaving an invincible cloud of smoke littering the dark night sky. He’d seen the shots fly by, three strangely shaped bullets flying by as if they were jets under siege. They crashed into the large building, its white outer walls illuminating with the flames.

Looking over at the damage, Kaito kept thinking about his need to live, his need for all of them to live.

We need to get out.

“Kaito maybe you should-” Ansel commented, seeing his friend in excruciating pain.

All four of us.

“I-”

Ansel, Eira, and…

“We need… huff huff”

Talos

“Kaito you should really…”

He struggled to his feet, his arms and legs painfully supporting him and his burnt face bleeding slowly. Ansel and Eira were wide eyed, seeing how Kaito could still manage to get up. He huffed and huffed, clenching his teeth and slowly looking up at them.

“We need to get Talos! This… is our chance.”

Eira got closer, holding the struggling Kaito’s shoulder gently.

“Kaito you're in no shape. We need to get out.”

In a heartbeat, Kaito’s seared arm grabbed Eira’s wrist tightly. So tightly that it began to hurt her, just slightly. She was surprised and even a little fearful. His eyes were pointed at the ground, but both Ansel and Eira could see the determination in them. The strength he’d just mustered up was beyond him, his body releasing a second wave of adrenaline despite there being no immediate danger. He straightened his body, puffing out his chest slightly, looking at them with lips pressed into a hard line. His pupils were as still as a steel door—a blaze of will being held behind them.

“I’m not leaving without Talos.” He assured them.

They both looked at him in awe. Soon growing bitter with themselves, and anger rising as they’d almost resorted to leaving without the sole person they spent a year looking for, the family they’d had stolen from them.

““Let’s go.””

—--

“S-sire please.”

Zehra, a girl with wavy brown hair and small hands that couldn’t so much as hold a sword held a gentle flame in the shape of an arrow. She had been the third shield to be found, the Blaze Shield, as well as the one who Derco had spoken to when yelling “Hold Fire” when first meeting the Spineful Party. This time the one in charge of controlling her flame was the prince, the highest commander programmed in the oversized headband she wore, the arrows now pointing at the knights a step below them in front of the throne.

“I gave you an order.”

“Your Highness, we need to ensure y-your safety.”

“What is the crux of this glorified race?”

“Pardon?” replied one of the commanders.

“What is the crux of the human race?”

“To…support the strong, and for the-”

“Strong to protect the WEAK!” Interrupted the prince.

His face contorted into a wicked smile and his leg lifted swiftly and nestled itself atop the other as he leaned onto his palm supported by the thrones arm rest.

“I am the strong!” He declared, “And I WILL protect you!”

Zehra’s flame grew, beginning to charge her round into an explosively destructive bullet.

“NOW MY KNIGHTS WILL SUPPORT ME! GO FORTH AND SLAY THE DEMONS THAT DARE INTRUDE UPON MY HOME!”

His words echoed on the walls and the presence of Zehra inclined them to remain silent. Her powerful blaze pushed them out the door with fleet footed steps, the Wind Shield and Force Shield following behind them.

Yells and cries of war soon seeped through the throne rooms’ door, the room now filled with only the prince and three children. The knights had been released to defend the castle, a small dispute having occurred between them and the prince. However, the royal was a cunning individual, demonstrating his reason for sending them away and coercing them to stay in line.

The prince was of royal blood, and thus his talent was all but assured whether it be in magic or in combat, and even without such things he held the most powerful tools in the room, the Shields of Ydiria.

“Now then.”

His arms pressed against the throne and pushed his body off, standing with a slight slouch, there was now no one present for him to keep up face.

“Move this” he ordered, pointing his index finger at the throne he’d been using.

The three children began to place their hands on the seat, each of them intending to move it in contradicting directions.

“Stop” sighed the prince.

“You,” his finger landed on the Sun Shield, “move this quickly.”

The two young girls had the jewels on their headbands glow, stepping back as the blonde boy’s own headband began to flicker. The Sun Shield placed his palm on the side of the throne.

A sudden light blinded the prince, the other two remaining unaffected because of their headbands. He heard a loud thud as the cold chair became implanted into the brick wall. The prince slowly regained his vision and a trapdoor unveiled itself before him, a secret exit to the castle yard having been built upon the Great King’s request 500 years ago. The prince had no intention of “protecting the weak.” His own father had proved to be of such class; a class that had no idea of a fatal flaw in the words that they lived by.

The royal family is a bloodline that spans centuries further than the beginning of the War of Kings. Its longevity has allowed them to alter and change history as they saw fit over the years, a change that only the most sinister of kings ruled into being—the Great King.

The day the prince was declared acting king and his father left was meant to leave the prince with a newfound power within him, a knowledge that later allowed him to forego his sister's tragic death in the demon army’s attack, pushing him to rule the kingdom successfully. The truth was that the world before the war was one of constant battle. However, it was not a battle between different races, rather an internal conflict between humans alone. There existed multiple nations spread all around Messiarrah, and even more nations past the sea of other races who, unlike the humans, lived in harmony with one another.

The “Great King” was an ingenious magician, a magic researcher that lived for power and control. The prince’s father told him of his ancestor, and how the war of today was nothing but a retaliation against the evil of humanity. The king killed his wife and two daughters. He blamed a demon envoy completing a routine diplomatic meeting between his nation and the rest of the humans. The king had the demon killed without mercy, a show of “revenge” against his family. He soon began to send assassins into other human nations, having family members killed one by one and raising propaganda against demon kind. Over decades, the king began to consolidate his power and the capital Ydiria was born as the proxy state of Falmah, a military alliance between human nations to defend against demons.

Generations began to follow his lead and the royals of Falmah, began to twist and turn the history of the people. The once proxy state became a nation, the families of other nations slowly fusing as the War of Kings against the demons raged on. The prince’s eyes opened wide at the information he was given, the hidden truth of the nation, a cacophony of his ancestors' devious actions. His father had begun a gathering of talents, pushing an agenda of his own as he left the castle for two years. When the demons reached Ydiria for the first time, he soon realized that the era of Falmah had run its course, the city only narrowly surviving as his father’s talents arrived to prevent its fall. He decreed a rebuilding of the city, the quests’ in the guilds to encourage adventurers to remain in the city, and the recruitment of more soldiers, all to at least provide a buffer of human lives to give him more time to escape. The day his father had left something in the prince changed, a sense of power began, selfishness slowly bubbled over the years and soon burst at the sight of his fathers chambers. The prince had been enlightened, now opening the trapdoor he climbed down into the floor, leaving his men to die defending an empty room against their will.

He climbed down a spiral staircase, soon reaching a door that led out to the yard. A small palace graciously blessed his view as he looked over at the other end of his royal land. Walking over grinning the prince had the three shields follow him, their sole order being to protect him. The capital of Ydiria was falling yet he smiled wickedly at the thought of his life as he entered the royal sanctuary. The breeze gently caressed his face as he stepped in and his eyes laid upon a statue of his ancestor.

He remembered the words that came out of his father’s mouth, the way he spoke with disgust at the stone man in front of him. The prince couldn’t understand why his father spoke about him like that, as if he wasn’t the “Great King” everyone thought he was. To him, his ancestor only became greater. Just then, a soldier ran into the building, her armor torn and blood slowly dripping down her legs.

“Your…majesty”

The knight collapsed, looking at him in need.

“Help,” she whispered.

The prince only looked at her in silence. The knight stared back.

“S-sire-”

Shick

Blood splattered in the ground.

A blade was now passing through the knight's chestplate, a golden handle reflecting the moonlight outside the palace.

The truth was…the reason why the prince changed was a simple one. He learned of a justification for a feeling of superiority he’d felt throughout his whole life. The night the King of Falmah left on his excursion, he learned of a truth that he liked much more than the one that had succeeded it. A sentence that embodied his being, and the rest of his race.

The crux of human kind had been altered over the years, the phrase The strong protect the weak, the weak support the strong, being all but another of the royal family’s tampering. It was a lie created by past generations to improve their standing as the monarchs of humanity.

The knight's eyes went blank. Her soulless pupils looking at the prince as she fell over with a thud. Her hair became stained with blood as a pool began to form beneath her.

The truth was… the essence of the human race had been summed up in the crux “The weak struggle in vain and the strong rise from their pain.”

“HAhahahahah!” a female voice echoed through the palace walls.

The prince flinched and looked at the intruder scurrying inward toward the stone statue.

“I see you really are part of that cursed bloodline.”

A tall demoness stood in front of the entrance. Her red-orange eyes shone almost magically as her back became outlined by the moonlight.

“Who are you!!?” the prince demanded, his shields trotting over to him hurriedly.

The demoness scoffed, now only getting the satisfaction of killing a near adolescent adult instead of the real king she’d found in the castle. She smirked eagerly and her eyes began to shine brighter at the sight of finally putting an end to the War of Kings. She gave a proper bow pretending to have some sort of dress, a motion she’d pulled from Shuna’s memories.

“The King of Demons,” her foot pulled back and tapped the ground behind her other foot as she bowed courteously, “Milandra.”

Her head slowly lifted from her bold show of couth and suddenly Milandra’s eyes met a fast moving flame, just millimeters away from her eyeball. The arrow-shaped flame was shot silently, not even a whisper coming from the caster. Time seemed to slow and steps began to shuffle in the grass just outside the palace.

KABOOM!!