ROLL 60 - Prince of Heroes

            “Rockshann!  Anri!” Heter yelled running through the doors into the main hall.  His excited voice instantly attracted the attention of everyone in the room.  Rockshann, Anri, Gilford, and Luna were looking at the battle maps with a group of champions.  “All of you spread out and defend this room.” Heter commanded Kaitlynn’s spearmen.  “What’s wrong Heter?” Rockshann asked.  “Markevv has successfully infiltrated Zalera, Mia and Maze’s plan worked.” Heter happily said.  All of the Acriale knights and champions started cheering.  Heter looked at the map and removed some tokens, one a big blue token and the other a half black and half white one.  “Avner and Booker are dead.  Dart killed them.” Anri gasped and covered her mouth.  “Did Dart get away?” Gilford asked.  “He didn’t, Rief made sure he suffered.  But we do have another problem.” Heter was panting and had to catch his breath.  “Percivale, Mazar, and Clara are at the gate, Rief is fighting them now I believe.” Heter said moving their tokens forward.  Luna and Anri looked at each other.  “So Clara did escape the Kingdom Underneath.” Luna angrily said.  “I’m afraid so.” Heter said.  “Rief won’t last very long against all of them, we need to do something about the front gate immediately.” Rockshann ordered pushing all remaining blue tokens to the gate.  “Rief didn’t last long, the arm of Zaidoulu threw him down your stairs.” Mazar announced his voice booming through out the main hall.  All the Acriale knights looked up to see where Mazar’s voice was coming from.  Mazar, Cuchulainn and a few dozen Zaidoulu champions were standing on the balconies above everyone.  “You may have a strong gate, but you don’t have many guards patrolling your palace.” Mazar insulted as he threw the corpse of a dead guardsmen off the balcony.  The mans mutilated body landed on top of the war table scattering the tokens all over the stone floor.  The Zaidoulu champions vaulted over the railing of the balcony and descended onto the confused Acriale soldiers below, a chaotic close range battle ensued.  “I refuse to get your filthy blood on my sword.” Heter removed his sword from his belt keeping the scabbard fastened around its blade and began fighting alongside Kaitlynn’s spearmen and the Acriale champions using his sheathed sword as a crushing club rather than a blade.  “Anri, Luna, Rockshann!  We need to get you out of this room, they’re no doubt here to kill you three!” Gilford demanded as he skewered a charging Zaidoulu champion.  “Clearly!  Where should we all go?” Luna asked as she clutched a mans neck with her scorpion claw.  “We can’t stay together, we’ll need to separate.” Gilford stated.  “I’m not doing that!  That’s a bad idea!” Anri complained.  “Listen to him milady, it’ll be harder for the force to get you if they need to split up.” Heter said.  “I’ll stay here and keep this group occupied with Kaitlynn’s spearmen.” Heter added.  Before any more words could be said Mazar and Cuchulainn jumped off of the balcony.  They landed in between Anri, Luna, Gilford, and Rockshann.  “Anri and Luna, go to the east side of the palace work your way up, Gilford and I will stay on the west side.” Rockshann ordered, the two groups broke off and ran away leaving Mazar and Cuchulainn standing confused in the center.  “A small game of cat and mouse lets go after the princess first, younger screams of pain are always more fulfilling.” Mazar said following Anri and Luna to the east side of the palace.  “Whatever you say father.” Cuchulainn monotonously said.  “Very well my son.  Zaidoulu champions, once you’ve finished here go find Heather Rockshann and her bodyguard, I want them both dead.” Mazar ordered before he turned into the east hall.

            “I think we out ran them.” Luna panted closing the door and locking it behind them.  “Good, we should hide in here for now.  There should be a few patrols coming to this area soon.” Anri said sitting on the bed in the room.  “What room is this, and why is there a hole in the wall?” Luna asked pointing to the hole leading outside.  “This is my old room, your sister made that hole in the wall when you two first tried to steal from me.” Anri said annoyed.  “Oh yeah, sorry about that by the way.  I can get you everything we took after this battle is over.” Luna regretfully said.  “Don’t worry about it Luna, I have plenty more possessions to make me happy.” Anri laughed.  Their smiles disappeared when the tip of a spear smashed through the door to the room.  “Come on out Princess, we have to settle an issue.” Mazar laughed.  He burst down the door to see that Anri and Luna had already drawn their weapons and were running at him.  “Dart of Acriale!” Anri yelled firing a blue bolt at Mazar’s head.  He slapped it away with his gauntlet and blocked a flurry of knife slashes from Luna with his spear.  “You two will need to try much harder.” Mazar said imposingly.  “Very well, you deserve a brutal death.  Second Blue Bullet!” Anri shouted punching the air with the arm of Acriale.  There was another blue flash similar to the one used to defeat Gaj, but the blue light faded just as fast as it illuminated.  Mazar laughed as he absorbed the blast into his gauntlet.  Using the blinding blue light as a distraction Luna sprinted at Mazar and dove at him.  He anticipated Luna’s action and ducked, she flew over Mazar and instead tackled Cuchulainn who was in the doorway behind Mazar.  “Cuchulainn take care of that one, that Acriale Princess is mine.” Mazar instructed as he slowly approached Anri.

            “So you must be Cuchulainn Mazar, the Prince of Heroes, am I correct?” Luna asked juggling her two knives between her hands.  “I am Prince Cuchulainn, and you must be Princess Luna of Hazol, Princess of thieves?” Cuchulainn asked.  The two circled each other in the hall with their weapons at the ready.  “You know it, now are we going to continue walking circles or are we going to kill each other?” Luna asked.  Cuchulainn suddenly lowed his guard and stood up straight.  “We will not kill each other.” He said as he dropped his spear on the ground and took a knee.  “I do not wish to be at war, my father has foolishly led me here.  I have not killed any men on the field of battle.  I wish to seek a diplomatic resolve to this without any more violence.” Luna was confused by what Cuchulainn was saying, but she two lowered her guard and scratched her head as he spoke.  “If you doubt the validity of what I’m saying you may kill me while I kneel here, but I would rather the two of us became friends and could rule our kingdoms peacefully side by side.” Cuchulainn looked up to Luna who was quietly staring back down at him thinking about her options.

            “Third Blue Bullet!” Anri screamed trying her most powerful attack a second time on Mazar.  She screamed even louder when the third peg on the arm of Acriale dug into her arm.  She fell to her knees as Mazar absorbed the energy again.  “I’ll spare your life if you surrender your kingdom to me.” Mazar mercifully said.  “I’ll never surrender my kingdom to you, Acriale has never surrendered in its long history.” Anri stood up and stabbed at Mazar.  He easily blocked and then deflected her attack.  “You aren’t very smart little girl.” Mazar sighed.  He jabbed his spear forward and implanted the ruby spear tip deep into Anri’s arm.  She yelled and tried to pull the spear out but after a stab so vicious she could no longer move that arm.  “I’ve only got one left…  I have to.” She whispered.  “Final Blue Bullet!” Anri screamed trying for the third and final time to destroy Mazar.  He chuckled as he absorbed the blast of energy just as easily as he had the others.  “You think you can lead an entire kingdom when you can’t even protect yourself.” Mazar pulled his spear out of Anri’s arm and stabbed at her again.  A meaty crunch sounded as Cuchulainn drove his spear through his fathers back.  Mazar groaned and dropped his spear as Cuchulainn’s spearhead sprung out of his stomach.  “Cuchulainn…?” Mazar said falling to his knees dropping his ruby-headed spear.  Cuchulainn pulled walked by his father and picked up his spear as Luna helped Anri off the ground and tied off the wound on her arm.  “What happen to the arm of Acriale?” Luna asked.  Anri looked down at her arm and saw that the arm of Acriale had disappeared, but there were still four brown rings where the pegs had driven themselves into her arm.  “I used all the bullets.” Anri explained. 

            “My son…  Cuchulainn…  What are you doing…  I did all of this for you.” Mazar gurgled.  “You didn’t do any of this for me father, you did this for yourself.” Cuchulainn angrily said.  “I did what you wanted…” Mazar said.  “I didn’t want any of this!” Cuchulainn angrily shouted.  “If you wanted to do something for me you should have asked me what I wanted, not made a decision for me.  I don’t want a world where Zaidoulu is the only kingdom, I want a world where Zaidoulu lives happily alongside them.” Cuchulainn said.  “I wanted you to be without enemies…” Mazar quietly said.  “You’re my enemy father.  I’ll be forever grateful to you for raising me to be the man I am.  If you want to rid me of my enemies…  Then you can die!” Cuchulainn kneed Mazar in the face as hard as he could.  Mazar raised his head in a bloody squirt.  He gasped and then his head bobbed lifelessly.  “You killed your own father…  Does that run in your family or something.” Luna rudely asked.  “I guess it does now…” Cuchulainn angrily said looking down at Mazar’s body.  “Cuchulainn…” Anri said walking up to him.  “Is there any way you can end this war now that Mazar is dead?” She asked.  “I can, but I’ll need your help.”  What do you need us to do?” Luna asked.  “This spear, my father said he would raise it from the tallest tower of Acriale once he had taken over, then destroy the tower after.” Anri and Luna looked at each other.  “However, I planned on ending this war with you two on good terms.  Behind my fathers back I told all of the knights and soldiers to stop fighting immediately if they saw a spear with an emerald spearhead raised from the same tower.”  Cuchulainn pulled an emerald out of a pouch on his belt that perfectly replaced the ruby spearhead.  “Once they see this they will lower their weapons and surrender themselves to any nearby Acriale or Markevv soldiers.” Cuchulainn explained.  “We have a force attacking Zalera right now, I’ll alert them to stop.” Anri said.  “That’s fine, one of my knights Siegfried is taking care of that situation, and one of my spies saw the Markevv army coming.” Cuchulainn reassured.  “You’ve planned this out quite well.” Anri complimented.  “I’ve been planning on spiting my father for quite some time, he was a terrible man.” He said.  Luna laughed.  “Okay then, so what do you need us to do?” Luna asked.  “Get me to the top of that tower.” Cuchulainn ordered.  “Follow me then.” Anri said.

            As the three royals ran out of the room Clara teleported in front of Mazar.  “You silly little King.” She kicked him onto his side.  “Just so you know Mazar, I planned on killing you and your knights all along.  I just needed you to get me this far.  And lets face it; you helped me destroy a kingdom.  But it’s not like your listening, you’re dead.”  Clara licked her fangs.  “I just needed some idiot to get this far so I can kill every member of Anri’s Brigade and Luna’s Squad.” Clara chuckled.  “And now all I need to do is follow those three to the top of Britannica’s tower.  Good day Bilgames Mazar Vi Zaidoulu, The King of Heroes.”