The Skeleton Princess

Chapter 2 - My moon

Luna and her two friends run to the gate of the palace, which is a black obsidian color with red veins running through the dark metal.

The guards look at the trio, the skeleton guards notice the cloak on Luna's back.

This makes them realize that she was going outside and not trying to annoy them like she regularly does.

They quickly open the gate and tell Luna, Max, and Lucy "Have a good trip, and be safe."

Luna smiles at them making the skeleton knights eyes change from the normal blue color to a pink, then she and her friends skip away to the city's marketplace.

The market area is a busy place where there are a diverse amount of races from lizardmen to harpy-girls, all with there own unique styles of clothing and items for sale.

Luna looks through all the weird and unique items that are on sale, meanwhile, Max and Lucy were catching up with each other since they hadn't seen each other for a while.

While Luna was looking through all the items, she comes across a little red stone with a hint of black swirling around inside it.

She asks the shopkeeper, who is a big humanoid dog creature with dark brown fur "What's this?"

The dogman replies with a scruffy but boasted tone "This is a fire gem, all of the ladies wear one because it symbolizes beauty."

Luna looks at the gem but decides not to take it since she has no money, instead she waves goodbye to the shopkeeper and meets up with her friends.

The sky was starting to become a darker purple which meant that the evening was approaching, Luna didn't like the evening because of what comes after, and that is SLEEP.

Luna asks Max "Should we go back home?" When Max is about to nod in agreement, there is a sudden explosion and smoke coming from the direction of the palace.

Luna and Lucy have a look of shock on their faces but Max's eyes just change to purple, Luna runs toward the now smoking palace at full speed with Max and Lucy in tow.

The black gate where the skeletal knights were is now completely broken as if the gate was just paper, Luna jumps over the broken fragments of the gate and skeleton bones with tears filling up her eyes as she sees her now dead friends.

Max and Lucy just stand there looking at the gate in horror, Luna runs through the hallway which is now painted red.

She finds the giant doors completely broken down, Luna then climbs over the giant broken doors to find a dozen of human corpses, all with a slash mark on their bodies by her father's scythe.

The scared princess then sees her father fighting a human, the human is a male equipped with dual blades.

The human is fighting death with fast speed but Death is blocking every hit as if they were both evenly matched, that is until the human notices Luna and jumps towards her for a deadly swing.

Luna puts her hands up in front of her head to block the attack, but a tall black figure blocks it for her with its body.

Luna opens her eyes to see her father in front of her shielding her, black dust bursts from his back where the strike had landed.

Death turns looking at the human and then charges towards the human, Death does a single slash with his crimson black scythe that releases a line of purple and black energy that completely destroys the human into nothing but ash.

Death collapses onto the stone cold floor of the throne room it was as cold as ice but Death was colder, Luna runs to her father.
With tears building in her eyes, and voice cracking she says "You're going to be okay, Aren't you!?"

Death whose body is slowly disappearing answers in his usual deep tone but weaker "Luna you can already tell what's happening to me...don't you?"

Death picks up his scythe and places it next to Luna, Luna begins to cry while shouting "Please don't go! I'm not ready to become the next leader!"

Deaths eyes still the same shade of yellow, says in an even weaker tone "Do you know why I called you Luna?"

Luna doesn't answer with words only a head shake, Death continues "It's because before I found you the moons were my only comfort, but then you came along in a wooden cradle and became my comfort and daughter. Luna, you made the lonely skeleton king of Lovic no longer lonely, Luna... you are my bright moon and real daughter."

Death's eyes lose all color and become empty black holes with no life, then he disappears into black dust which floats away, carried by a gust of wind.

Luna with tears streaming down her eyes like a never-ending waterfall screams as loud as she possibly can, then her red eye begins to glow and reality begins to warp around the now broken princess.

The rooms colors begin to mix together and so do the objects, the only sound being produced is a loud scream of sadness.
Max and Lucy run into the room.

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Max and Lucy can't move due to being shocked because of how easily the gate had broken, Luna kept going through leaving the two behind.

Max finally breaks out of the trance and realize that the princess is gone, he taps Lucy who was still in awe breaking her out of the trance.

Max asks "Where did Luna go?"

Lucy looks at her and notices something then runs towards it, Max follows asking "Have you found someth-?"

Lucy suddenly takes hold of Max's jaw and points toward the pile of human and skeleton bodies, Ragel and two humans was dragging more bodies onto the pile.

Max gets up and decides to confront Ragel but when he does the humans draw their swords and begin to fight him, but Max overpowers them easily since he is the strongest knight in the whole skeletal knight army.

Lucy just watches being completely useless except for the occasional "Wow!" or "Awesome!" praise.

Ragel summons his familiar, which is a wolf with blue fur that matches his masters' tuxedo very nicely.

The wolf charges towards the overpowered knight and starts biting his armor causing the cloth parts to rip only leaving the metal protection, Max strikes the wolf with a full force slice instantly killing it but Ragel only summons another.

Max kills the wolf again and again but Ragel keeps summoning them, Max then decides to run up to Lucy and detach her arm.
The knight throws the arm into the air behind him causing the wolf's natural instinct to 'go fetch' kick in, the wolf runs past Max without any second thought.

Max charges towards Ragel plunging his sword into his heart (if he had one), Max then says to Ragel before he draws his last breath "This is what you get for betraying our kingdom."
Ragel bursts into flames.

Max turns around to see Lucy trying to find her arm which was actually on the ground behind her, Max picks up the arm and HANDS it to Lucy.

They then decide to head to the throne room to see Death, as Max and Lucy approach the throne room they hear a scream of intense sadness and the hallway they are in begins to distort.

They reach the broken doors of the throne room and they see Luna on the floor in tears with one of her eyes glowing.

Max and Lucy run into the room, Max runs up to her and notices the scythe on the floor and he knows instantly what this means.

Death can never leave his scythe unless he died because it was bound to him, Max hugs the crying Luna as hard as his bone would let him.

Luna begins to calm down, reality starts reverting back and her cries become softer and more childlike.

Max stays like this till she finally closes her eyes and sleeps, meanwhile Lucy mourns the death of her fellow maids that she got to know so well.