Chapter 40

Hero To Zero Part 3

“Drop your weapons, or the child dies!” The Duke threatened, his flabby face perspiring from the increased temperature my plasma sword proliferated inside the confined room.

During the battle, a niggling thought of this scenario had crossed my tactical mindset. It was a possible risk that the child would be held hostage. But, I did not want to consider assessing quandary due to fact I had no avenue of approach to maneuver out of that dilemma except accept defeat, and do what the Duke says. There was an opportunity to avoid such risk, by saving the child whilst in the battle against the humans. But, there was a likely chance Art’s well-being would have been more threatened due to the fact I’d be fighting while holding the child.

“Drop your weapon!”

“He is part of your family, why would you murder him?” I muttered in disgust through the voice amplifier.

“Ha! You don’t know the nobility, boy! I’m no fool. It’s clear to me, you’re much more than we bargained for.” He laughed, his hands trembling the point of the stiletto over the child’s head.

“Legendary Title Bearers are always a hassle to deal with,” Osferth added.

“You’re a coward!”

“Coward!? You, say? That’s laudable, for someone who won’t even reveal their face. Now drop your weapons, or the child dies.”

Cursing, I held onto my analog twigs, both swords steadily still, one shimmering past the magnetic field; the other, vibrating off the drips of crimson blood that was sliding past the edges. Glaring past all the greedy faces of armored men, and the triumphant expression of both the Duke and Osferth, I glimpse Art’s face. He had halted crying after the echoing clangs of steel had audibly ended. When I saw his sleepy features, I had simmered down the panic and rage that was culminating inside of me from the onset. He was innocent, not even a child, to comprehend the chaos of this world. An unbeknownst victim to the cruel realities of fate, my charge, and my promise.

Shoulders slacking, I called down Sera who had situated herself in the secondary cockpit within the breastplate. Sera popped her head into the helm platform.

“What do we do?” Sera asked, her spoken words accentuating the loss and defeated expression on her pale face.

I swiveled my head and smiled down at her---already with an answer in my mind. So I told her. Her face widened in disbelief than in horror. “Wait, what! No!”

I shrugged and gave her another of my melancholy smiles. “It’s the only way…”

“Drop your weapon! Or the child dies!” The Duke's voice was hoarse, repeating the same commands again. Nervously this time. It seemed he was questioning my care for my charge. He needn’t worry, I will drop my weapons in due time.

“Sera, go, tell Wink and bring it. And the longest grass leaf you can find.”

Sera gazed at me for a sparse moment, her eyes tearing up as she engraved the information of me in her memory. The etching of me was probably a weird-looking grass folk, who wears no grass hat, builds eccentric contraptions, and sings horribly; whilst trying to make a better place for all things small.

“Go now.” I murmured, giving her the inscrutable look of a man, resolved to do this.

She nodded once then headed down to the compartments to gather Wink and a single grass leaf.

“Well!?” The Duke screeched, his double chin stretching when he roared his question. Before my plan can be fully launched, I needed time for Sera and Wink to do their thing.

“You wouldn’t dare!” I snarled, my teeth gritting.

“Oh, you are wrong. I would! ” The Duke barked back.

“Why, Art is your kin and will be your king?”

“You ask me why? Power! That’s why! Power is all there is to this world. And you have given me the opportunity to gain more of it!”

My clamoring heart began to beat faster, as I spoke my thoughts of outrage.

“You would sacrifice your great-nephew, your king, for power?” My voice prominent with disbelief and indignation, accused.

“I don’t even need the child anymore. All I needed was the proper pretext for civil war, and my nobles will come flocking to my banner.” The man laughed, the avarice in his pupils clinging to the intoxicating dream he had conjured in his mind’s eye.

The Duke eyed his lackey Osferth with a smirk.

“And with the help of my other---a far stronger backer, I will rule supreme over humankind.” The Duke’s gleaming expression along with the words he had spoken, showed the veracity of his ambition.

“Now drop your weapon, or the child dies.” He commanded once more, finality in his tone.

Deeply sighing with the cumbersome movements of a man weighted by the pains of existence, I toggled both pebble buttons that would release the two pommels of my weapons onto the stony floor. The vibro-sword had halted from vibrating, unlinked by the tempo of my mecha; at the same time, the plasma sword fizzled out when it clattered against the stone.

A victorious expression surfaced past the nervous jostling face of the Duke. “Ha, good, good!” He eyed me speculatively then peered down at the baby with antipathy. He then stepped back, then forward to the side, away from the child, to stand victoriously beside his lackey with the stiletto still on his hand.

The soldiers in front of me all had salivated when they saw my disarmament. Judging it was prudent, I posed Amelia into a brawling stance, which made them more eager soldiers before her; hesitant to act on their desires. Sera had returned with Wink and contraption that had started this all. They had expertly tied and rolled the longest grass leaf atop the item, adding a feature that was not meant for the original design. The contraption was a tool of freedom and flight, twisted now into something more insidious.

Jumping off my grass seat, I reached them. Sera hugged me. “You better come back, don’t be Teka, please.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not too keen on being a plant for my afterlife.” I comforted her.

“Look after yourself, Sink.” Wink said.

Over the shoulder of Sera, I gave him a wink. Sera left my embrace to seat herself onto the cockpit whilst Wink feigned aghast at my wink, then wink back to maintain his quirk. With a melancholy smile, I climbed down from the head compartment, rushing my pace to get into my position before the humans outside did something rash. For it would be rash, to fight against Sera. Who doesn’t have any qualms of killing humans, unlike me... I still feel something for every life I take, guilt maybe? Regret most likely. Hunching my shoulders, I jumped to where Peb was situated at the left shoulder compartment. He was caressing headbanging pax, who was quivering in soothing affection at the stone man’s touch.

Waving to him, I went by one of the slide holes, that Pax and Wink would usually load a combusting rocket or pebble inside. Before placing myself inside, I gave Peb a few more instructions. “Peb, oh pebbly Peb, I need you to do one more thing.”

His face had paled at the summary of my plan. “No, no, not again.” He moaned, his eyes tearing up as I went inside the slide. Before I released my hands, I said to him “I got this really tasty binding, you definitely want to try.”

“Really?” His face altered from devastated horror into a dehydrated man famished for his craving.

‘A dehydrated stone man, that’s rich.’

I nodded to him with a smarmy smile, then released my hands to drop down the tubes to the socket of the left gauntlet’s knuckles. They were wide enough to fit my unextended apparatus and myself to slide through the grass weavings. It was a tight fit when I had reached the socket, where the projectile would usually load onto. I placed my contraption down, then myself atop it, facing forward. The combusting stone at the bottom of the invention was undamaged, ready to be cracked to release the compressed gas inside.

“---You are a trifling fool, a weakling. You’d disarm yourself for a child that isn’t yours. Ha, so predictable. Now on your knees, and beg me, for mercy.” The Duke jeered, his voice apparent within the confines of the sockets of the gauntlet.

Waiting for the signal, for it wasn’t long, Sera had toggled two analog twigs to direct both Amelia’s gauntlets up into a 160-degree angle, aiming overhead, over the spectators and above the Duke. Sera fired the right gauntlet’s barrage---first. When the four rockets flew out, they left yellow powder residue from their launched exits. The four flare rockets exploded with yellow powder to the consternation of the crowd below. Then I heard it, the hammer that was behind the combusting stone below my glider, triggering then slamming---cracking the stone into propulsion.

The glider, that began my journey here, will now end it. ‘Oddly fitting, wouldn’t you say?’

I skyrocket out into yellow sooted smog that was covering the air around the secluded room. Everyone stepped back, coughing and tripping out from the powdery explosions. Hidden, camouflaged in the air---too small to be noticed, I activated my glider to extend it’s leaf wings out.

“What are you doing!” The Duke shriek with a confounded tone. “Don't let him escape!”

“Your grace he isn’t doing anything.”

“What?”

Gliding through yellow granite and haze, I titled my weight forward after finding my center equilibrium. I direct my weight thus my glider to the direction where Duke had spoken, within the haze of powdery clouds above. Soaring out from the powdery smokescreen, I was above the Duke, unnoticed by the giants below. Tilting, I circled down, to slow my approach. I was covered in yellow soot, but I was grinning my toothy smile. With a thud, I landed my grassy soles atop the man’s crimson silk shoulder. Feeling the small collision atop his shoulder, the Duke reacted by swiveling his head towards me. With a hum, I prompted the Craft Song skill that was enchanted on the coiled grass leaf above the glider’s tip. The Grass leaf rolled out to instantly extend it’s 30 cm length height, and then it vibrated. The tempo of the song, that Sera had skilled into the grass, was moving at the speed and sound of my vibro-blade. It was a small vibro-sword, just long enough to get the job done.

I shifted the edge of the vibrating blade against the man’s flabby neck. Beyond the yellow powder covering my whole exterior---beyond the grass clothing and my grass pallor, my grass gums were out to show my white clenched teeth in a horrid and toothy smile.

“Hello giant.”