Will of a Prince

Jacob was crying while Maria held him tighter. However, something strange seemed to happen with his father’s body. It seemed as if it was melting. All of his flesh and bones seemed to seep into his blood and combine itself. Then, it flowed towards the exit of the palace.

Out on the battlefield, the citizens seemed to start panicking. Their armor was slowly melting off, leaving them completely defenseless to the armies of duplicates. Zeke managed to come back and help clear a majority of the forces. However, he was severely exhausted and could hardly fight anymore. The situation seemed completely hopeless. Right when they were finally about to win, destiny seemed to have other plans... until something that shocked the entire population happened.

"The amor. It’s melting off of us?! What do we do?!"

"Everyone, retreat back towards the kingdom for now! We need to regroup!"

"But there’s only a hundred thousand left! Compared to the near millions we’ve fought, this will be nothing!"

"But we are losing our weapons and armor. Not only that, but these guys also seem to be much tougher than the other ones we have faced."

As the blood slowly flowed off their bodies, it never disappeared. Instead, it seemed to start to combine itself into thousands of small balls that scattered across the remaining opponents in front of them. Zeke got a terrible feeling in his stomach and called out to the civilians.

"EVERYONE! BACK TO THE KINGDOM!! AND HURRY IF YOU WANT TO LIVE!!"

Everyone was stunned, but the word quickly spread across the large army. They all listened to his orders and started running back towards the gate of the kingdom. It took a while for everyone to cram through the gate, especially with Katra helping defend the people retreating from the enemy who started to advance on them.

Suddenly, Zeke felt it in his heart.

"Everyone, take cover!"

The thousands of giant crimson balls of blood had finally seemed to start a strange reaction. Theres was a faint glow in the center... then it grew brighter... and brighter... and brighter until...

"...this can’t be really happen-"

A blinding light pierced through the sky. Thousands of small, red mushroom clouds appeared across the army. Then came the shockwave. It was so loud and powerful that even Zeke was thrown off his feet and sent flying backwards. The sound was so loud that it felt like the space around the explosions were torn apart.

The fallout of the explosion continued for dozens of minutes until the wind finally settled down. When Zeke finally tried to reorient himself, he looked out in the meadow to see what had happened.

"...no... way."

The entire army of hundreds of thousands of enhanced soldiers had been instantly wiped out. Not only that, but the aftermath of the explosion left the once beautiful meadow a hellish landscape of blood, guts and body parts. Zeke looked around at the civilians behind him who were equally stunned.

"The king... he saved us."

"The king saved us! Did you guys see that?! He just wiped out an entire army in mere seconds! That’s the king of Iron Kingdom for you!"

"We need to celebrate! I never thought he actually cared about us!"

"Me neither, but this is great news! We showed those people who was boss!"

"All hail King Vice! The Crimson King and the true ruler of Iron Kingdom!"

"All hail King Vice!"

"All hail King Vice!"

Cheers and applause started echoing through the crowd. However, something started to bother Zeke deeply.

’Were we wrong about the king this whole time? Why would he use so much energy to save these civilians?’

A strange thought poked into his head, causing Zeke to run towards the palace. When he arrived, we saw an awful sight. Someone from the rose clan had passed away. Lidia was carrying his dead body while sobbing quietly to herself. The sight of it ripped Zeke’s heart to shreds. He also saw Jacob with Maria. He seemed to be extremely upset as well. However, something seemed wrong with this picture. The two most important people of the battle were missing: The king and his brother. He ran over to Maddy who was sulking against a wall since she was the only other person available.

"Maddy, what the hell happened here? Where’s the king?"

Maddy continued staring at the ground, but responded after three moments.

"Maria and Lidia killed him. But not before he could kill Cane first... He was trying to kill Lidia, but Cane jumped in between them and took the blow."

Zeke looked everywhere around him.

"Where’s his body?"

"We don’t know. It seemed to have just dissolved into a bloody pulp, and it shot off away from the palace towards the battlefield."

"What?! That can’t be!"

Maddy finally looked up. Her eyes were swollen, presumably from crying.

"It’s true. Me and Jacob saw it happen."

This one situation had made Zeke question everything he had every known about the former king. If what Maddy said really was true, he was confident the king had more than enough energy in his being left to easily take down everyone in this room. However, he used every last drop of it to save the hundreds of thousands of citizens instead.

The man who had failed to protect a single thing he cared about all his life made a desperate final act to break his cruel destiny... and he succeeded. Not a single civilian life was lost today, all thanks to him.

’But... why? He killed one of the noble clan members. Nothing is making sense to me. Why save the civilians?’

Suddenly, an answer flashed across his mind.

’He knew... He knew that if he had gone all out against these guys, he would hardly have any energy left to help his people. He had to have determined that after killing Cane and facing Lidia’s wrath. This... can’t be. Did we mess up?!’

"Arthur. Arthur. Arthur!"

A faint, familiar voice called out to Arthur as he awoke in a familiar meadow of flowers. He slowly sat up and rubbed his head. When he looked at who was calling his name, his wife, Rose, was smiling in his face. She was wearing the most beautiful white dress he had ever seen. Her eyes, her voice, and her touch were all just as he remembered.

"Rose... I-"

He looked around more. There was no kingdom anywhere in site. It was only him and Rose in their favorite place.

"Where’s Jacob?"

Rose looked at him confused.

"Jacob? Why would he be here, silly!"

Tears started coming down his face.

"I just had a really bad dream. I... thought I had lost you. I was never the same when you were gone. I did so many evil things."

Rose lifted his face and kissed it gently.

"Hey, do you remember that promise you made me all those years ago?"

Arthurs eyes widened.

"I’ve really missed you."

Grabbing hold of his arms, Rose pulled him up and smiled warmly.

"I never left. Even if I see seemed far away, I was always in your heart."

She hugged him once more.

"Thank you for eating with me for all those years."

"... How did you know that?"

"It’s like I said. I never left you."

She grabbed his hand and started leading him through the meadow. Arthur hesitantly stopped.

"Wait... I don’t know if I’m ready."

"It’s not always about being ready, it’s about accepting that it’s just another part of life. Besides, there’s going to be quite a lot of thankful people you have to wait for with me."

"You mean I finally..."

Rose gently nodded her head.

"Now, let’s go spend that eternity together you promised me."

Arthur brightly smiled, then slowly followed his love through the field of flowers.