Inside the entrance of the Palace seemed eerily quiet, the loud sounds of any kind of conflict was dampened by the thick walls of said palace. Amon and yumi exchanged a quick glance to each other, they made their way through the palace's main corridor, on one side stood a glass windows running the length of the hallway, on the outside they could see the sparks flaring off of Bard and Kosh's swords as they fought a heated battle, on the other, above the myriad of doorways were the royal portraits of all previous kings of the dracht kingdom, Each one had fiery red hair and matching eyes, their names etched in the gold plaques beneath them. Upon making it to the end of the hallway stood a large white wooden door, Amon stood still before it,
"I'm pretty sure from beyond here we'll be in for one hell of a fight", yumi said, pressing her hand lightly against the door,
"I'm sure, I can feel all of the divine energy on the other side of the door", Amon said, gripping his sword, a bead of sweat trickled down his face dropping off of his chin.
"don't tell me your, actually nervous Amon", Yumi said chuckling a bit, "after we've come so far now you get nervous",
"a little bit, from here on out we'll be fighting until we get to the internal throne room, that's two whole floors until, not to mention we should probably keep the killing to a minimum", amon said, looking over at yumi giving her a look, as if to say he meant her when he said no killing. .
"hey, I'm not the one with a sword, I just have my hands", she said a smile broadening across her face.
"I think that might be even worse for them", Amon said,
"well enough with the small talk, it's time to finish what we started", she said,
"wait yumi I'm…", amon began to say, but it was to late, yumi had pushed the door wide open, revealing a corridor filled with Soldiers, the sheer amount of soldiers, led to yumi and Amon's shared expression of utter shock, by Yumi's estimate from the size of the corridor she figured that there were around eighty soldiers or so in this corridor alone.
The first soldier to step forward struck his hand outward, soon after a bolt of lightning shot out, Yumi and Amon parted to each side of the corridor, stepping out of the way of the blast.
"I'll take this side", Amon said locking swords with one of the soldiers,
"like we have a choice on sides in this situation", Yumi said, taking the soldier who shot the lightning by his head cracking it into the wall.
Underneath The Palace
"is the Old bastard finally dead", the bandaged up young man said, standing by the door
"yes, Albion, dad is dead, I made sure of it myself", Ea answered putting his hand on his younger brother's shoulders, he and Ea walked to the exit for the underground tunnels accompanied by twelve soldiers,
"luckily barely anyone knows about this tunnel, now I'm sending you to Blackspine, when you get there", Ea began to say, he was interrupted by the loud grumble of discontent by his brother,
"I'd prefer to stay here and fight with you", Albion said crossing his arms, Ea took his hand from his brother's shoulder, and began to fix the collar of Albion's jacket,
"you're young, and you make a better politician than warrior, so leave the fighting to me, now", Ea continued," When you get there, head straight to Duke Alamar's, your guards have their orders, by the end of it you'll be in charge of BlackSpine, when everything is done, send word, I'll tell you what to do from there on, Okay", Ea said, looking into his brother's eyes for an answer, Albion let out a disappointed sight.
"okay", Albion said, ", by the way were is our sister, I would've like to gut her along with our father for what she did to my face", he said, holding the bandage that wrapped around his eye
"don't worry about Hallie, she's run off somewhere, I'm sure she'll be back when everything calms down, only then will you get your due", Ea said, his eyes subtly shifting over to the tree line.
From behind one of the tree, the princess of the dracht kingdom stood, her eyes red from tears, her dress torn to shreds from escaping the guards, she looked on at her two brothers, overhearing each word of the conversation they had, with a baited breath she held onto the bloodied knife in her hand, and a seething rage in her chest,
"now Albion run along, I have 'guests' to entertain", Ea said, turning back into he tunnel.
Back with Amon & Yumi
"yeah he isn't going to feel his nose in the morning", Amon said running pass Yumi and the soldier she had just knocked out by jumping on his face,
"it's not like I meant to brake his nose", Yumi said jumping off of the guard and catching back up to Amon who was now heading up to the third floor of the Palace. A loud cry came from behind them, one of the soldiers had gotten up and was trying to stop them again. Amon whipped his hand around, striking the guard with the butt of his sword breaking his nose, the soldier screamed in pain but was quickly silenced by a well placed strike to his throat by yumi,
"what", she said looking around at Amons shocked expression, "you said keep the killing to a minimum", Yumi said, walking up the stairs,
"yeah I know, but I never said cripple them, I doubt he'll be able to eat properly for at least a week", Amon said, walking behind yumi.
"I'm surprised though, I thought by now we'd have run into the elite guard, we're basically at the internal throne room", yumi said, rounding the corner onto the third floor,
"you had to say something", Amon said, standing directly behind yumi, looking over her head at Eight knights clad in red armor with the black D sigil of the Drachian royal family on their chest plate.
"Spoke too soon didn't I", Yumi said, an awkward smile, cracking it's way onto her face,
"not the first time You've done it", Amon said,
"hey I apologized for that time at the bar, multiple times", Yumi shouted,
The eight guards stood aside, four on each side of the corridor, As the large, white wooden door, slowly creaked open, inot the middle of the door way at the end of the throne room sat, Ea the prince of Dracht on the throne,
" Only Amon Varchen shall enter", One of the red clad guards said,
Yumi and Amon looked to each other,
"well I guess I'm not invited", Yumi said,
"I guess so, so when you're done kicking their asses I'll see you inside", Amon said,
"oh you know me so well", yumi said, raising both of her hands over her head stretching, weaving her head slowly from one side to the next, as she felt the bones in her neck crack,
"time to get back to work", Yumi said,
As Amon stepped through the doorway and into the Throne room, the Large wooden doors slammed thunderously behind him,
The throne room was vast but empty, it's walls, ran up to a massive ceiling that had a mural of two dragons painted on it, one white, and one red, and on the side of the red dragon stood an army carrying the sigil of the Dracht empire, and the final piece was a black smoke enveloping the two dragons, the only thing in this throne room, was a red carpet that ran from the door to the base of the steps that the throne sat atop, the red carpet was in pristine condition and was lined with two gold lines on each side, the outside line thicker than the inside, the floor beneath it was made of the same white stone, that the outside was made of, with massive white pillars, running all the way up to the ceiling,
As Amon approached the throne, sat on it was none other than the first prince of dracht, prince Ea, his feet lapped, and his blood red trench coat flowing open running off of the throne, he wore no shirt, his red hair, shined brightly, from the light coming through the glass windows situated behind the throne, that overlooked the entire capital of dracht, his sword stuck into the ground next to the throne, the sword glistened a bright red, just as the princes hair did, from the handle of the sword, it had a dark grey pummel, with a dark red handle, running up to a dark red hilt with a horizontal guard with two end pointed in the direction of the blade, with a large circle attached to it covering the base of the blade, this design seemed to make a pseudo omega symbol, the blade itself was red in the middle with a dark silverish grey edge, as it stood there stuck in the floor of the throne room it seemed to give off a blood lusted aura,
"I've been expecting you, oh fearless leader of the rebellion", Ea said, resting his head on his hand,
"oh it seems that the royal family thinks of me in high regards", Amon said,
"no not really, it's just that insects have a way of being particularly resilient at times", Ea said,
"though I must say, for a bumbling pervert, I did expect you to make it this far, seeing as who your parents were, and who you younger brother is", he said,
"cut the idle chit chat Ea, I'm here to see someone with some real power around here, so bring out your father, I came to talk to him not you", Amon said,
"seems like you have a fire lit inside of you", Ea said, sitting up from his relaxed position,
"that fire burns just like how it burned within your mother, speaking of which, did you know, that she was of royal blood", Ea said, a sly grin came across his face, as the sight of interest in his eyes deepened,
"what of it, you're telling me something that both of my parents told me long ago", Amon said,
"well if you already know, why don't you join your brother and I's cause, lets take over this continent, cousin", Amon said, stretching out his hand towards Amon,
"not interested, and I'll ask once more, bring me the king", Amon said,
"how about I sweeten the deal then, I will personally order all troops to retreat from Bolterra and Argon once you join me and the respective royal families bend the knee to me, their rightful ruler", Ea said, "a quick and easy way to stop all the violence and all you have to do is join me",
"that isn't much of a deal if you ask me, why would they give up their power to answer to you", Amon said, scoffing at the suggestion of the prince
"they would give it up for their lives, because if they don't bend the knee, well then the alternative is much, much worse and I'll start with the royal pretty boy out there fighting on the battlefield, Zach was it", Ea said,
Amon took a step back, looking on at Ea with a look of disgust, "and what's to stop you from going back on your word, your as treacherous and duplicitous as they come", Amon said,
"you seem to forget, cousin, my natural blessing, is to make binding contracts, and the more personal the thing that binds the contract the stronger it is, and what is more personal, than blood shared between relatives", Ea said, Taking a small knife from his belt and rolling up one of his sleeves, he cut two X's overlapping each other onto his forearm, with the symbol glowing bright red, Ea extended his hand out towards Amon
"look, Atros' symbol of agreement, we both know the terrible things that happen if someone breaks an agreement made upon her name, now take the knife, carve the symbol and lets end this fighting we have much bigger things to worry about", Prince Ea said.
"all of this Senseless bloodshed, and never ending violence, and for what", Amon said, his breathing becoming more erratic with each passing moment, "SO YOU CAN GET RICHER, you greedy power hungry little imbecile", Amon said.
The prince let out a hearty laugh reeling back his head, "is that any way to talk to your superior", Ea said, "you know nothing", he continued, "no, no, no, no, there is a bigger picture here amon, a much larger war is brewing, a war that will engulf this entire world, and at the end only eight kings will be left standing", Ea said,
"you sound even crazier than your father, where did you hear such nonsense", amon said,
"right here", Ea said, as he reached, down onto the seat of the throne, he pulled out, what seemed like a scroll, it's brown parchment was worn and torn, dried dark brown spots riddled the scroll, the two wooden knots holding it together, were scratched and rugged, Ea pulled it out slowly, the length of the scroll spanning his arms length, with one end seemingly torn off,
"hmph, a worn, torn up scroll, you really have lost your mind", amon said,
"believe what you want but it was all written right here, and this scroll was found, within a dungeon in a Kainon village within dracht", Ea said,
"So what if the kingdoms refuse the controlling whims of a mad man, then what", Amon asked.
"it's simple, as I just said, I will threaten them with total annihilation through restarting the war, and this time there will be no stopping, no truces to be had, no treaties to be signed, just death upon the ground on which they stand", Amon said.
"to be honest, the offer is tempting, and I'm one to go with my temptations and desires, but I refuse to accept anything until I talk with the king", Amon said,
Ea slowly withdrew his outstretched hand, taking his time, he stood up from the throne, reaching down next to the it and picking something up off of the ground, as he let out a sigh of disappointment,
"well since you won't keep quiet, and you keep asking for him, here you go", Ea said, launching the unknown object through the air, as it landed in front of Amon's feet,
"there you go, the former, and now currently dead, king Alexander Dracht", Ea said,
Amon looked down and saw the severed head of the king of Dracht, his eyes white and glazed over, they looked widened with surprise, his mouth open, as if he were in shock up until his soul departed from his body, the blood running out from the neck of the once alive king, pooling at Amon's feet,
He looked up at the prince, now king, Amon's face in complete shock, his eyes shifted about nervously, he was at a complete loss for words