EMPIRES SMP Fanfic - The Heavy Crown [Lost Empire]

[Eleven] Our Emperor Is Found

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Our Emperor Is Found

Point-Of-View: Tiger Blood Prince

XORNOTH WAS ATOP the exit portal, still smiling, but Tiger Blood Prince could feel a pulsing aura of rage strangling him.

His voice carried some of the treacherous vile. "You are so... weak..."

Joey woke up, and tried to feel his Crown. Fear woke in his eyes as he gasped. "M-Master! My... my crown!"

"I don't have the strength nor capability to waste another damn Crown on you," Xornoth said, so soft and so amiable.

"I... No! I-I'm so sorry!" Joey went down on his knees. "Xorny! No!"

"I shall do this myself, then. First, Sausage. And now... you... you proclaim your love to me? Bugger your love! I need service and strength, you dim-witted little fool! I've had enough!"

Xornoth's horn conjured a red sphere and levelled itself onto the kneeling servant and the worshipper who failed. The demon leaned over and a piercing beam shot out of it.

"NO!" With a flourish of Aeor's Antler, Lord Scott shoved Joey aside and paired the red ray with a white one. The two kissed one another, battling for dominance and anticipating any misstep. "Hagan! Sausage! Take Joey out of here!"

Joey was passing out by the time Tiger Blood Prince tried to help him up - the Prince tossing the crossbow aside. "Tiger Blood Prince..." the crownless Emperor murmured hoarsely, eyes dropping and grip on Hagan's forearm weak. "You should not have done this. Just..." Even without the Crown, he still looked lost. A sheen of sweat cloaked his forehead. His eyes still bore red but it looked lighter, less evil. "Just leave me to him."

"On my honor as the Prince of the Lost Empire, I will not let you!" Prince Hagan declared. With a command and a nod, Sausage led the way close to the exit portal.

Xornoth's red ray seemed to be weakening... then a familiar roar came bellowing nearby. Something swift came charging near the Prince but before he oculd act, it sent him hurtling and flying away. "Tiger Prince!" came the shout of Sausage nearby. Tiger blood Prince hastily went up, clutching the Totem, and almost soiled his woolen pants.

The void was near him. Chills in his body made his mind a blank space for a moment.

Then the distant thumping came near him. "Clay! Are you here?"

"Lord Scott is right, I'm no number counter," said the golem's voice. He was invisible. "But no matter, I'm here to save you!"

"OH NO!"

The ravager had further flung the Tiger Blood Prince into a landless spot. Everything seemed to be going rather terribly low, like he was levitating in the night sky, until he felt an iron-hard yank on his trousers and he was flying and hurtling again, and he landed hard on a bed of end stones. Green particles once again shimmered around him and he held nothing.

He looked where he was originally about to fall, and there he saw the falling figure...

"CLAY!" He shouted at the top of his lungs as he sped past through to try and catch his friend. His Invisibility Potion had worn off.

"For the Lost Empire, Hagan!" Clay shouted back, as the void came up to meet him, shrugging into him like a darkened dress, and soon, he was nowhere to be seen.

"NO!" Tiger Blood Prince slammed his paws hard on the edge of the end stone.

He felt something charging against him again, and this time, he swiftly turned... The ravager was pushed into the void too, with the help of the one he tried to save, in his parrot wings.

"Emperor Joey!" Prince Hagan wailed. His Ruler seemed ragged and exerted all the energy he could into hurtling the ravager out.

"I know..." The Ruler of the Lost Empire said.

Prince Hagan looked back at the void and felt like jumping into it too, to find wherever Clay was, to meet him and tell that their Emperor was finally found. But wisely, Prince Hagan leaned into the warm hug of Ruler Joey and started to sob.

Point-Of-View: Lord Scott, Champion of Light

His brother in a past life was now unsmiling, towering over him, reddish and pink eyes appearing like angry, bitter wounds.

Lord Scott's eyes went over the unexpected blade in Xornoth's hands. It was also carved like an antler, ripples of red ornately embroidered in the sea of black from point to crossguard. "Your last resort? Rays don't work anymore?"

"Don't taunt me, you silly lightheaded fool." Xornoth spat. "I saw you made your blade, and so I made mine."

"A copycat," Lord Scott laughed. "Shall this be our last clash, brother? No magic tricks. Just us two, with our blades." Then steel met steel and the End was alive with the sound of the clashing of the two brothers. Swift and robust the slashes and cuts came. The two fought like they've held and mastered the art of swordfighting before... before in their past lives...

Lord Scott drove the demon back on his heels. Their antlers clashed and broke apart and clashed again. Trailing on their swords were thickened mists of red and white, forming in long streams at every swipe and strike and parry. The antler seemed lightweight in Scott's arms, married to his hand. His head was armed with zen and his only focus was to tire the demon out until he gave up. Lord Scott readied the shield in his other hand to block any blow.

Xornoth seemed to be hacking and slashing malevolently at Scott, who was blocking with a pool of calmness in his mind, bringing him about here and there, shifting his feet like he was being carried by the wind. Ravenous, the demon was, in spilling his kin's blood. Do demons get tired too? He wanted to know the answer.

The two stags danced on and on, whipping their antlers to dodge any clash. Lord Scott sensed the tiredness in the demon's movements, like he was yielding into the light's monumental, undying power. The Ruler of Rivendell slightly parried the brother's blade with soft clashing, then he slipped in a swiping hack with a crush that sent the antler away, with a clang that fell quite away from both of them.

"How did you get so weak too easily?" Lord Scott said, astonished, still brandishing his blade as easily like a whip.

Xornoth growled, but it was like a cat's mewling to Scott's ears. "This won't be the end, dear brother." He raised his arms and Scott received blindness again. I knew it would end this way.

When the shroud of blindness was relieved, the devil wasn't there anymore. Yet his blade remained, weak and discolored.

Lord Scott turned his back and saw Sausage, the Tiger Blood Prince, and the Ruler of the Lost Empire underneath the tallest obsidian pillar of the End island, broken and resting. Even Lord Scott felt a little bit of drainness now that the battle was done. The war wasn't over, Scott knew that wholeheartedly. This clash would be the second one, and Scott doesn't know what Xornoth's next move would be. I'll need Shubble to stay close to us, he decided. With me, especially.