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Zeleos
I witnessed Kallei latch onto the crown.
The bloodstone ready in my right palm pulled towards it, before I caught the gem, preparing myself.
And the brother I once knew wore power on his head. Flames danced around his fingers, but couldn't burn through his thick scaly skin. The overused Crown of Infinity would've killed anyone who wasn't his kind. That is, if someone else were to remove the piece from its host, because of its increasing power when worn for over a century.
Father Aeleric was pushed forwards by the Drownei's strength, taken aback but caught by the elite guards behind him. Troops rushed towards the center where the Black Knight stood. With a wave of harsh gust he swatted away the first line of blade-wielding soldiers.
His eyes transformed into the same fiery glow the overlord would have, but steadily growing. There was only a limited amount of time until he was fully used to the gemstones. For now, the body didn't allow much.
The palace shook as the earth below rumbled from his control. The green gem, Emerl of Earth, shone brightly. Our ranged attackers shot out arrays of projectiles in response.
Meanwhile, while staying behind a pillar with men of my own, I looked upon one of them bleeding and fallen on the floor. I bowed and graciously borrowed the scepter from their loosened hand. It's surely what they would've desired after death.
As the Black Knight summoned hurricanes of water to kill the fire, and the blue Siphre of Sea gemstone illuminated, I forced my body to turn invisible with ease.
I've trained with magic on my own more than Kallei did with teachers. It's no wonder I can handle the bloodstone so well.
With the flick of a finger, my lost brother's palms and eyes radiated green, and piercing pillars of rock shot out from the cracking grounds. For a second I dodged the attacks against us, until Kallei stared directly at me with no soul. And I realized his gained powers allowed him to see the unseen.
But the distracting moment was just enough for Overlord Aeleric to rush towards, like myself, and strike a fist into his son's skull. The crown almost toppled off, as I watched the supernatural light around Kallei disperse for only a second. My father's remained lit, like the power still surged after all that time of wielding the headpiece, and the Black Knight reacted in close combat with a steel longsword from a bleeding soldier on the floor.
The overlord escaped his swing by moving to the side. As another pillar of harsh winds whistled out from the knight's fingertips, he simply countered it with his own hurricane beam. The gemstone power would take a while, to leave its prior, longtime host.
Meanwhile, the troop from whom he stole the blade forced himself upwards, scared for his life, running away from the terrorizer's vicinity. His leg underneath the armor was ripped with blood. He tried to escape the inevitable.
So the knight impaled him in the chest, with the young man's own sword.
Black Knight fended off our remaining soldiers with ease, yet couldn't get the Dark Lord away from proximity. They laid attack after attack on one another, as if one never knew the other, and as if even father was quickly forgetting their past. It was merciless. Which was expected. But I never expected for Kallei to be so controlled and rage-bent by the Crown of Infinity.
Just as my hidden self approached closer, a gigantic looming presence flapped past me after entering the gates. With its goat horns built to impale, its misty aura trailing behind, and darkened wings of a certain dragon.
It was the guardian beast; the Skollur. The creature found on this once inhabited island, protecting the bloodstone, and forced by its nature to follow the wielder's commands. The only one left of its species.
And it roared with a ringing wail as it flew towards the intruder, Black Knight.
The Drownei turned from father, redirecting within a beam of light pulsating in his palms closed together.
I charged right near his line of firing. But I couldn't reach him just yet, before it was too late.
From out his opened hand, a flash from a cloud of pure lightning struck the dragon's open mouth, as it protruded its fangs. The monster revealed its only weak point among the tough exterior of their body.
And the headless guardian beast of Kyronia fell limp to the marble floors, now truly lifeless along with most of our fallen soldiers.
I stood still in hesitation. But I forced myself to move forward while staying invisible. Just like that, the almighty dragon had died without a second to spare, against the inevitable strength of the crown.
That distraction gave Overlord Aeleric enough time. The king bashed another magically-infused fist into Black Knight's head. His son had locked onto the target he killed, as if recounting his own memories of training the beast, and lost sight of those surrounding him. Yet he'd barely struggled to use the ultimate power until it slipped away.
The Crown of Infinity was finally knocked off as the Dark Lord caught it beneath his feet. The knight stood up once more, and repositioned himself with his fists up.
However, as I hid behind another pillar quietly closing in, the overlord firmly put the crown above himself again, as his body bursted multiple colors outwards from the energy surge. With a rage in his illuminated and reckless vision, he floated above my brother.
"You DARE oppose us! Me? Your father? After everything done for you! I pity. . ." His head dangerously tilted while his voice cracked in a booming voice.
"They've transformed you into nothing but a tool for destiny. Kallei is dead now."
He kept his eyes earnestly towards him, pausing with the first visible sadness I've seen from the changed king in decades. Black Knight raised another stolen sword from the cracked marble floors, where the dead laid, to point at our only surviving parent.
"You are not my son."
Aura of the gemstones' light reverberated around his being. Father's palms tightened as he charged up a spell that flickered throughout the entire throne room. And he was becoming no longer like our past father anymore.
Beyond any form of second thoughts, I ran out from behind the pillar. There wasn't enough logic right then to justify what he was about to do. Or furthermore, what I specifically was about to do.
The Dark Lord was about to kill the chosen hero, before I, the Right Hand, stepped in between both sides.
I dropped the scepter that kept me invisible, revealing my presence which faded in.
Standing, facing the king, directly staring into his consumed illuminating eyeballs. Staying still, speaking a million sharp daggers without uttering a single word.
But as his expression of fury slowly softened, and the powerful radiation around his form steadily dissipated, I understood that he knew my way of thinking.
Our palace was already beginning to ruin, as some of the pillars and floor tiles were blasted open. The Skollur was no more. The Crown of Infinity had already returned to father's head.
Less fighting. More analyzing.
And if nothing else for emotional sensitivity, we can still use him.
"You trust me, do you not?" I spoke to the overlord and his people like I read their mind. The remaining wounded guards watched me in obedient quietness. "Allow me to speak to him instead."
I turned to look at Black Knight. He was kneeling on the ground with his head downwards. Exhausted after all of that raw magic.
I snapped my fingers and gestured to the surviving soldiers, pointing at the knight as they went over to hold him down.
"Then I'll have completed my quest." I finalized.
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There I and my brother sat, within a grey windowless room, positioned at the opposite ends of a table bolted down.
Only a small chandlier of light hung down from the ceiling's center. We had both removed all our armours and weapons. Our guards were positioned outside the metallic locked door. I'd just taken my seat in the interrogation room we trapped him in, to which his reaction of defending oneself was nothing short of uncertainty.
All Black Knight could see from the one-sided mirror behind me was himself, tied with magic-resistant chains to a steel chair. With his hair as dark as mine. A sharper nose. Scars of war carved within his more rigid jawline. And in the deafening silence, I studied his demeanor next.
His stare into the void of confusion turned into one of less; more clarity and calm, as he met my gaze.
I recognized the expression immediately. The collected but glaring look he'd give his younger sibling growing up, whenever he doubted myself, or a fact, or if something was truly what is showed to be. Or, in other cases, whenever he would doubt himself.
Only now since he left did I see that certain spark again.
He took a breath as I finally heard my old, playful, stupid nickname in a serious tone.
"Zel'."
I decided to start first. "I'll ask the questions here, Ka-"
"Do you really suppose I'm on the wrong side?"
I chose to process the sudden question, and refused to lean forwards or backwards. Keeping my position locked. Maintaining eye contact with the subject.
"You know the obvious answer, Kal'." As I copied my elder siblings past and forgotten smirk, he stared back without the typical rage and confusion. "Don't you?"
His face had no blankness within it anymore. There was a decisiveness to how he leaned backwards with confidence. Realization has built up and hit him all at once, from what I gathered.
The mental mist obscuring Kallei and seperating the Black Knight began to fade.
And the stranger spoke.
"I'm beginning to understand."
But we couldn't hear the war begin outside.