The King's Gamma (#Wattys2024)

Thirty

Present day

The ancestral draconian Isle was packed with the heads of the tribes and clans as well as the parents and friends of the still missing Marcenia Celestia King.

But none of them knew exactly how or when they got there or why they were there.

Until he appeared. The strange fox man appeared in the midst of the crown with an alluring smile plastered on his lips as another figure, this one greatly imposing, appeared next to him.

"Do you perhaps recollect seeing me approximately seven years before when your precious Macey disappeared?" asked the fox faced man.

"You took my child." Macey's mother said with animosity clear in her voice.

"No, I allowed you to have her." the darker figure spoke, black as coal eyes warning the draconian to know her place. "Had I not imbued your uterus with some of my power, Marcenia would have been stillborn like her siblings. Marcenia's soul was never supposed to be living."

"What?"

A chair appeared behind the figure and he sat down. "I've come to clarify your situation so that you may understand why you are being invaded by demonic hordes."

"Demonic Hordes?!" the dragon emperor shouted. "Do you mean those things crawling from the earth?"

"Yes. They are looking for their lord's body. They are searching for Marcenia's body, to be more specific."

"But Marcenia is not a demon." her mother stated.

"No. But she has become one of the eight Lords that rule over Daxis in the time she has been away from you. Marcenia's fate was to lead a life down one of two paths. The first would have been to meet her true mate, fall in love and die at the hands of a pursuer who wanted to kill her mate. A dragon male would have been blinded with his desire for her, attacked her mate, and she would have jumped between them to save her mate. Unlike her parents, Marcenia's lifespan would have shortened to that of a normal werewolf's and so her draconian power would have faded in time. Because of this, she would have been killed easily.

"The second fate was for her to never mate at all after her mate refuses her. Insanity would have taken her mind and she would have become the destroyer of the world."

He smirked, twisting his head slightly to the side. "I forced a third fate onto her life because her power is too unique and valuable."

"I could see how being able to manifest her powers in human form can become enticing..." the blue-haired draconian prince said as he listened. "And being able to..."

The figure shook his head. "You misinterpreted her powers, young prince."

"Then pray tell what is her powers then?" asked the Elf King.

"We decided to name it 'Soul capture'." the fox smiled brightly. "Can you guess it yet?"

The room fell silent as they thought to themselves. The name suggested something obvious, but her power was not as simple as the name would suggest.

"How about you just explain it to us." Rhi said as he stepped forward.

"Marcenia was born fragile, with only enough power to shift her eyes. With her eyes she is able to see someone's true soul... and steal a part of it." he paused dramatically, eyeing them to see whether they were taken with his revelation. "Her ability started as a lifeline. Seeing and stealing souls helped her become less fragile until the souls started being less of a lifeline and more of a power booster. By the time she was a year old she was already as strong as a full-grown male dragon and that was when her power truly manifested itself. Macey's draconian power allows her to steal, absorb and manifest other's powers.

"Her eating habits are also because of this. Her body is like an insatiable black hole that needs to be constantly fed with either soul power, food or sex." he cleared his throat. "I mean mating."

"That sounds far fetched."

"Why don't you ask Deimios. He was still quite young when Prometheus brought Macey to the Helder realm. I think you were barely fifty back then." He said as he looked at the tall blonde exiled draconian.

"I was sixty two. And she was already two hundred and eighty and enjoyed dragging me off to go drink with her when she could because of meeting once in this time. She first realized that the problem was not with her hunger, it was what she ate, when she entered the succubus brothel and ate there."

"How are we supposed to believe such nonsense from the mouths of an exiled and two strangers?!"

The sitting man nodded. "I can understand your scepticism. Maybe you will believe this, then?"

A spear appeared in his hand as he stood up. He twisted and threw the spear at the ceiling. It cracked, slowly spreading and covering the roof in it's entirety. And then it gave way. Pieces fell but disappeared mid air. And their surprise grew. Beneath the renovated ceilings, done about a thousand years before, was an exquisite painting depicting various known figures, as they were mentioned in history books, with the red-headed Marcenia clearly depicted in her humanoid form, a few were of a large red wolf near dragons and here and there she was painted with horns and wings.

It was when their eyes landed on a strange dragon that her parents seemed to react. Next to the dragon form of Prometheus stood a dragon with scales in various shades. It was slightly smaller than Prometheus, but the evidence of something they feared was there. The most feared Lord of Daxis, the undefendable, undead draconian named Marcellus.

"But that... That's impossible..."

"Not impossible. Your true history was covered up because of Marcenia. She was a major influence on especially the Imperial bloodline. Before Prometheus, the Leviathans ruled on a Draconian Isle that no longer exists."

The two men looked at one another before the sitting figure motioned for the fox to move.

"Tear down the rest."

The fox moved, tearing plaster from wall to reveal an entire hall of murals that consisted of even more persons of importance. And in most Marcenia was depicted.

"So where I this Isle that no longer exists and the Leviathans that once ruled?" Asked Marcenia's mother.

"Your daughter quite wondrously brought it down in a fit of anger. And the Leviathans... We're still not to sure as to how she did it, but she took their ability to take a humanoid form. This greatly crippled their power. But before all that, she dominated the arena. You see, this Isle consisted of many, many species living there. And many more had Champions who fought in a great arena.

"By this time we had beaten Macey down enough times for her to seek the glory of taking on something she could defeat. We chose to teach her the same way her father had when she had been young, only without her power inside an enclosed space. She was forced to train whilst fully human."

The man pointed to a wall where a figure was painted on top of an ogre, a blue blade of lightning in the figure's hand.

"That was her first battle in the arena. She had disguised herself as a man, using a prostitute's serum to color her hair so that she could not be recognized. She was a sight to behold, and a shock to those who had never witnessed a power like hers. "