The Next Erased Title for Security Reasons

Part 1- Prologue: The War

Once upon the old kingdom of Meltinzer, there lived a king. He was just, kind, and righteous. His rule stretched far and wide, and the people rejoiced. Well....most of the people did.

In the farthest Eastern corner of his kingdom developed a resistance. Led by a most mysterious person. His followers called him the 'Prince'. Now, there followed a heinous war, and naturally, bloodshed. Within a year, half the countrymen had turned against the king. It was most bizarre, how the people who had loved him so, now rebelled against him. The 'Prince' had an unnatural effect on people: he could enter their hearts and minds, and sway their thoughts. He could make them doubt the basic foundation of their characters.

The battle was fiercely fought, and fiercely defended by each side. The rebels were ready to die for their 'Prince'. Even after a decade of war, nothing eventful occurred. Neither side had a definite victory, and the stalemate stretched on. So the King of Meltinzer thought, and finally gave in. He saw no choice to avoid the bloodbath, than to call a truce. He divided the kingdom, drawing a treaty that redefined the boundaries and topography of the old kingdom. Meltinzer was halved, and the forests were occupied by the rebels. The old king allowed the rebels to return whenever they wished, but no one did. The king died very soon, under mysterious circumstances that were never properly defined. The doctor announced it as a murder, and the enmity between the two side strengthened.

The crown prince, Naffsetar, was crowned in indecent haste. He was vindictive, and hell-bent on reuniting the two countries, and tried to suppress the rebellion. Tensions grew, and there started a second, bloody, war. This war was fought for twenty five years. The king's superior army, and abundance of ammunition threatened to wipe out the rebel force. All they had were a few archers, and villagers with sickles and knifes. The royal army had so much more....catapults, cannons, battering rams, squadrons of trained skilled archers, ranks of soldiers, and a huge, efficient cavalry.

Legions of knights were seen galloping through the forests, sent to find, capture, and bring the 'Prince', the one who commanded all these rebels and guerrillas, to justice.

But very few returned. They all vanished without a trace.

In this while, the king married, and had a child. The queen died giving birth. King Naffsetar kept the news of his child a secret, lest the rebels find out and take her hostage. The young princess, Pappillia, was brought up in a most secluded tower, guarded day and night by guards. Even her maids were trained guards. She was visited weekly, by the king and his secretary.

In the twenty fourth year of the war, and the thirteenth autumn of Pappillia's life, a group of astronomers found a set of floating islands. They saw only the bottom of most islands, and hence did not know what was above, but observing the atmosphere, and the hint of vegetation on the exposed soil, predicted life possible on them.

The rebels were the first to hit the skies. The very next week, the 'Prince' had the rebel army shift to the heavens. There was no opposition by the king, or the other countries that fought with Meltinzer. How could they, when they had absolutely no means to reach the islands! And so, the entire celestial archipelago came under the control of the rebels.

King Naffsetar waged another war, to take over the archipelagos. But this time, the other countries backed off, being wise enough to avoid a losing battle. They knew they didn't stand a chance, especially when they did not have weapons useful for battling from the ground against the rebels in the sky. On the ground, the battle had been almost even, with immense skill from the rebels, and the royal army compensating with numbers; in both arms and men. But when the half of the war shifted to air to ground combat, it turned out too one-sided to be considered a proper war.

The Meltinzer army completely lost every tiny bit of hope they had, when they saw the new face of the rebel army, who had their title changed to "The Federation of Anarchy". Till then, the battle had been limited to the rebels shooting arrows from the islands at the army below. It all changed when the islands began to move, one by one, two months after their mass ascension. The bottom of the island above Azari, the old Capital opened, and huge.......THINGS........came out and hovered over the city. The attack began. Gigantic cannons and automatic crossbows fired down on the city. Heavy tonne-sized rocks fell, bursting into flames midway, and arrows rained down on Azari. The central.....'thing'.....had a big flag hanging down the hull. This mammoth was the flagship of the federation's Fifth Fleet. The rest of the giant ships were part of the same fleet.

The new face of the rebel army.

'The Federation of Anarchy'.

Meltinzer would never forget that flag, a black crescent moon, with a silver edge on the inside, and the words "Novas veniat" etched unto the blood-red silk. The fleet left as quietly as it had come, and only a ravaged, ruin of a city remained.
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The rebels had floating cities, forts and garrison towns to supply ammunition. They had fleets in tens, an information department that made it possible or them to intercept any communication taking place in the islands, or outside, and to place spies anywhere in the world. Also, this made it impossible for the outer world to place spies inside or to access information on the federation. They had special aerial units for reconnaissance, and attack. They had such state-of-the-art technology that made Naffsetar's analysts ponder on how long back the 'Prince' had the rebels develop these machines.

And they came to a very troubling conclusion: The rebels had been developing their war machines long, long back, since the start of the rebellion, and this alone was what helped them reach the sky as soon as the floating archipelago was discovered. This meant one thing, that the rebels had predicted the existence of the islands when they developed the concept of flying warships. Or, God forbid, known everything about them. If they had, then it meant there was someone or something that informed them, and mapped it all out. Traces of an advanced race.

All that Naffsetar's kingdom possessed were an army, and a rather sorry excuse for a navy. The rebel technology was special and eons before it's time. Even if Naffsetar's men managed to shoot down a rebel wingboat, it would self destruct before it hit the ground. They could never capture or even analyse any rebel war machines. And the occupants of the shot-down boat could never be captured either; they would use propellers to return to the mother-ship. Certainly, this 'Prince' was a shrewd fellow.

And the Meltinzer army's team of researchers could never discover, or replicate rebel war technology, and thus turned to focus on ground-to-air combat tactics.

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