No Such Thing as Good and Evil

The cold floor of what she assumed was a prisoner carriage of some sort was the only sensation she could sense other than the various bumps in what she also assumed was a dirt path she was being taken down. This was because she was blindfolded, tied up, gagged, collared and had plugs in both her nose and ears, making it very difficult to breath, and leaving her without being able to sense much of anything other than the cold floor she had been thrown on. Luckily for her, the gag in her mouth had small holes in it, which were specifically designed to let her breath just the right amount as to not suffocate and die.

Princess Vestelle had been traveling through the country side of Alessandria, on a mission to visit a town on the outskirts of her kingdom. This was usually nothing out of the ordinary for her. This was one of the duties of a princess like her, one with no real path to the crown. Since creatures like Elves, Dragons, Fairies and others could live almost forever in theory, kings and queens could hold their respective positions for hundreds, sometimes thousands of years, only ever changing if they resign, or are killed. While a princess, Vestelle was ‘officially’ 9th in line due to being the 9th child of the current king and queen. This though was ignoring the fact that if the current king and queen died rather than resigning, another family member, like the kings brother or sister, or the queen’s brother or sister could take over as well, as is what happened last time which allowed her to even be 9th in line. Realistically speaking, she had next to no chance at ever becoming queen of Alessandria, but she didn’t care.

She had no interest in the politics of nobility, nor having to deal with all the power-hungry snobs who sought to align themselves with nobility. She felt bad for her older siblings who constantly had to deal with approaches from various people seeking to marry into the family and have a chance at some power and prestige. While they hid it well, she knew that deep down her older siblings were frustrated with not knowing if their friends and lovers really liked them, or were only using them. While she also had to deal with these approaches from time to time, as it turned out, most people had no interest in being 9th in line to the throne. While if she was extremely powerful, some people would still have interest in marrying her and having children that maybe could rise up through the ranks, her pearlescent wings showed that wasn’t an option either. Most royalty had Rainbow wings, signifying how strong they were, but she did not, and just as it would suggest, she was not strong at all. In fact, she was one of the physically weakest amongst the royal family.

Once again though, she didn’t mind. No power meant no expectations, or at least it should have. But while people outside the nobility may not have had any interest in her, the same could not be said amongst people within. While not physically strong, she was physically beautiful. She was considered one of the most attractive women within the castle. Her long legs, golden hair, perfect hour glass body, and chest size that would make women from sexist harem books look petite, left the men in the castle constantly having to stop their eyes from wandering off. Not only that, but while she was still slightly less than 100 years old, she had quickly become one of the most loved and respected members of the royal family amongst everyone within the castle. Known as one of the nicest, smartest and cleverest people the family had ever produced, she had found herself somehow in high demand. Some requested her to join the knights as a strategist, others wanted her to become a professor at the academy, while Normuc was trying to poach her away to assist them in their continued technological research.

She didn’t want any of that though. What she wanted to do was help people. While some of those positions might help people accidentally, the goal of the jobs wasn’t to help people. She knew with how weak she was that if she was born into some random family, no matter how beautiful, clever or smart she was, she would never have any of the opportunities being thrown at her left and right. What she wanted to do was travel her kingdom and help the less fortunate, while also searching for talented people that may not have had the same opportunities she did.

This typically took her through the country side of the kingdom, but not anywhere near where she was prior to finding herself in the current predicament. She had heard of human towns on their border that were being attacked by monsters, and while she wanted to help them, nobody within the castle shared the same sentiments. The human towns were afterthoughts, so much so that if they were ever short on their taxes, the kingdom didn’t even send anyone out to collect the rest, believing the resources to send knights out that far weren’t worth the taxes they would recover.

That’s why when the ‘sensors’ started freaking out about huge amounts of echos being released in or around these towns, she became intrigued. Sensors were people within the knight core whose sole purpose was to sense large amounts of echos being released around the kingdom, allowing the kingdom to properly asses threats in a given area. All of the sensors had said over the past few weeks, dark and light echo surges the likes they hadn’t seen in decades were taking place right by these towns. The prevailing thought was that Merellien was making their move. It was well known within the kingdom that Merellien was almost certainly behind the monster attacks on the human towns. It was quite obvious they planned to use the monsters as cover to move in and take the land over. The king had resigned himself to this outcome, not wanting to lose good men in a fight with monsters to save some worthless humans.

The amount of power the sensors had picked up made them think an entire army had moved in to each and every town to take the monsters out. But when the kingdom sent scouts to the various towns to verify their land had been taken from them, they were stunned by what they found. Almost all the towns had been completely wiped off the map, as they expected. Almost all of them had no survivors, as they expected, and almost all them had no living monsters left, as they expected. But what was unexpected was there was no sign of Merellien, or any army. They could see remnants of battles, corpses of the monsters that once plagued the towns, but no soldiers.

As the scouts continued south down the border, passing through town after torn up town, they eventually got to the town of Fleetwood. A small human settlement that the scouts were shocked to find intact. Not only intact, but thriving. While the scars from battles of the past could be seen if you looked closely at the buildings, roads and people, the town had been completely re-built. Not only that, but the people, almost all humans, were wearing seemingly new and nice clothes, with the buildings being repaired with fancy brick rather than cheap wood. The scouts wondered where the humans could find such coin, which is when they found out the shocking truth of what apparently had been taking place.

The guild master, Alisson, told them of a pair of people, just two people, an unknown rainbow winged fairy and an unknown dark echos user, who had killed the 10 griffons and a monster taming dragon that were attacking the town. Then they left all of the griffons they killed to the town to sell, and simply moved on. The town had sold all the griffons for a huge sum of money, and had spent it to rebuild the town out of materials they could only dream of using before. There were even a few wolf and elf mercenaries in the town now that they had hired with the money to be guards.

When these revelations got to Vestelle, she immediately looked at the map of all the towns that had been taken over by monsters. The scouts had visited 5 out of 7 towns, which would leave 2 left in theory. But the sensors had notified her that they sensed a large amount of power near another town, which she assumed meant a 6th had been freed from the monsters. Leaving just one more town.

She immediately gathered a small group of four knights together and set off to the last town, Clarkson, in the hope of meeting, thanking and recruiting these two heroes who were putting their lives on the line to save and protect people, without taking anything in return. Her father had asked her not to, telling her it was dangerous, and to let the scouts go first. She had refused him though. She needed to find these two people as these were exactly the type of people she had in mind when she first began travelling around trying to find diamonds in the rough.

But while in transit to the last town, they were attacked. A bright and large red beam of light shot through the two knights holding the reigns to the unicorns pulling the carriage, killing them instantly. When the two at the rear of the carriage went to investigate, a large beam of light shot right through them as well, and they collapsed dead, just like their comrades. When she went to get up out of her seat in the carriage to see what was happening, the glass in the window next to her shattered and something was injected into her neck, causing her to fall unconscious. When she awoke, she was in her current situation. It all had happened so fast, she wasn’t even sure who or what had attacked them, but she had an inkling.

It was Merellien. It was all Merellien. How could she have been so foolish? Her father was right, it was all a trap. This was their plan all along, wasn’t it. Have monsters take over the towns, then have some secretive people free them from the strangles of the monsters, causing Alessandria to investigate and then try to recruit those powerful people. Then kidnap whoever was sent and hold them as leverage over the king and queen. It was so obvious, and yet she fell for it, hook, line and sinker. She was furious with herself, with what her capture would cause within her kingdom. She hoped that they would just let her die, but she knew they wouldn’t. Her father had high hopes for what she could accomplish within the academic and strategic worlds and would certainly act when he found out she had been taken.

Her mind raced as she thought of what she could do to escape, but there was nothing. She was weak as it already was, and now she was collared and tied up. Not only that, but she would be facing off against someone strong enough to blow away knights in one shot while also hiding the fact they were even there. She was fucked, and she knew it.

The carriage then came to a stop. She thought she heard the door to the cage she believed she was in open, which was confirmed when someone grabbed her and dragged her out of the carriage. Her blindfold, gag, nose and ear plugs were all removed, leaving her tied up on the ground in the middle of a grass meadow. She looked up at her laughing captors to see two people. A cyclops and a wolf. The cyclops was huge, at least 9 feet tall and 600 pounds. It had the typical one large eye with a red pupil, a bald orc-like head, and a large body that could be mistaken as fat, but she knew was actually all muscle. He wore all dark blue mithril armor with a red cape coming down from around his shoulders. The wolf was wearing the same armor, with the same cape. The wolf was much smaller though, in height and stature. While only somewhere around 5 feet tall, he also looked like he was maybe 100 pounds soaking wet. The wolf had an odd fur color, of orange and white. Between that and his short and sleek body, he looked more like an anthropomorphic fox then a wolf.

None of that though was what caught her eye. “I knew it.” She snarled from the ground as she looked at the badge on the armor both men were wearing. On the left pec of the armor, or right on top of the heart, was a large golden version of the Dragon Hunters badge. “I knew it was Merellien.”

The wolf let out a laugh that sounded like he himself had breathing difficulties before he began talking in a cliché raspy voice. “Not much good figuring that out now.”

The cyclops on the other hand was using his one eye to visually abuse every part of her body. “I know that Faun said she was the most beautiful woman in Alessandria, but he wasn’t kidding. I know we’re supposed to take her right back, but I think we could have some fun with her first, what do you think Arel?”

Arel, the wolf, let out another evil laugh that sounded like he was about to have an asthma attack. “I agree, I agree. How many chances will we have to fuck a young and beautiful princess like this one.” He then took his foot and shoved it into her stomach, which caused her to cough, and convulse like she was going to puke. “Though it seems we can’t be that rough with her, the dumb goat was also right about how weak she seems to be.” The fox-like wolf then turned to the cyclops. “I think if you fuck her, it might actually kill her.”

“I guess there’s only one way to find out.” The cyclops said as he began to take off his armor.

Arel giggled again. “I guess so.” He said, then began to strip down as well. Being smaller and more agile, Arel finished stripping before the cyclops. “Too slow old friend, I guess I get first shot at her.”

“Whatever.” The cyclops said. “Better you go first anyway, after I’m through with her, who knows what she’ll look like afterwards.”

“Literally.” Arel said staring jealously at the huge bulge that could now be seen in the underwear of the almost naked cyclops. He then turned back to Vestelle and knelt down. “Now then, where to start.” He said as he worked his hands up and down her tied-up body. “Why don’t we truly see how beautiful this body of yours is.” He said, before taking a dagger out of a sheathe that was on the ground next to his armor, then slowly working It through the frilly green fancy dress she was wearing, cutting a perfectly straight line through it. He then ripped the dress off so perfectly it suggested he had done this many times before. She lay there now almost completely naked, with only her panties on. “No bra, huh? You like showing off those watermelons of yours to people? What a slut. I bet you’re actually going to enjoy this, aren’t you?” He said working his hands down to her panties, before working them back up her body to her neck. “Hmm, what this?” He said, as he looked at a golden necklace that was around her neck.

While he was assaulting her, Vestelle had shown no emotion or reaction at all. She had resigned herself to what was about to happen, and was steeling herself from what was going to come after the wolf and the cyclops, if she was still alive at that point. But when he touched the necklace, she snapped. “Don’t touch that!” She yelled, which caused Arel to flinch, and the cyclops to look over from where he had just finished stripping.

Once Arel had regained his composure, he smiled a devilish smile. “Oh, is this important to you?” He said, before yanking it off her neck, and standing up.

“No!” She yelled.

Arel held the necklace up to the sun, and turned it over in his hands as he stared at it. It was a seemingly standard golden necklace, except instead of where a jewel would normally be on the front, there was a black and red dodecahedron. “Ever see something like this before.” He said to the cyclops.

The cyclops leaned down to look at it in the much shorter wolfs hand, he squinted his one eye, staring at the oddly shaped stone. “No.” he replied, intrigued by the rock.

Arel then turned back to Vestelle, who was panicked on the ground, but not from being mostly naked, tied up and about to be assaulted, but from them holding the necklace, which Arel picked up on. With that same evil smile, he stared down at her. “What is this necklace? I assume it’s important to you from your reaction. Did mommy give it to you, maybe daddy? Or a lover of some sort?”

“Give it back!” Vestelle snarled up at them while wiggling on the ground trying to break free.

Arel then dropped the necklace on the ground and hovered his foot over it. “If you don’t tell me what and who gave this to you, then I’m going to break it, just like I’m going to break you.”

At him saying that; her eyes went wide as the memory from when she first got the necklace flashed in her mind.

“Where is he!” Gaelin yelled. Gaelin sprinted out of one of the castles stone towers and into the courtyard that the castle surrounded, sword in hand, cape flowing behind him. He ran past Vestelle who had been taking a midnight walk in the courtyard looking at the flowers and trees it housed when all the chaos began. He stopped and turned to her. “Have you seen Shade?” He asked.

“No.” The 12-year-old Vestelle said, holding a brown stuffed teddy bear. “What’s happening?”

“Someone will tell you later.” Gaelin said, kneeling down in front of her. “I need you though to run back into that tower I came from, ok? It’s not safe out here. Can you do that?” She nodded, and he smiled and patted her on the head, before standing back up and running off.

Vestelle looked at the chaos around her. It was like the castle was under attack, but by who, what? She couldn’t see any enemies. The only thing she could see were the knights of the castle, hundreds of them running and flying as if they were being invaded. Jumping over walls, out windows, flying overhead, yelling, screaming. She was scared, and turned to run into the tower Gaelin had told her to, when someone landed in front of her. An all-black Dragon, with red eyes, red horns, and a red and black tail, wearing all black leather armor. “Shade?” She said.

“Hello Vestelle.” Shade said, kneeling down in front of her to be at her eye level.

“Shade, what’s happening?” She asked, staring worriedly right into his bright red eyes. She wasn’t scared of him like most people were, in fact she had a childish crush on him.

When she asked that, he lowered his head toward the ground. “I’m sorry Vestelle, I just…maybe you’ll understand one day.”

“What?” She said, moving closer to him. “Shade, what's happening, if you’re in trouble, I’ll help you!”

He looked back up, with small tears forming in his eyes, he smiled but shook his head. “Sorry, it’s not something you could help me with.”

“I see him, he’s over there!” A voice yelled.

Shade quickly turned his head to see a knight on a wall pointing right at him. He then turned back to Vestelle and wiped the tears from his eyes “I’m sorry Vestelle, there’s no time, I have to go.” He quickly reached his hand into his pocket and took a necklace out of it, before putting it on her. “Take this, if you’re ever in trouble, real trouble, like life or death, break the crystal on the front and I’ll come, I swear it.” Vestelle opened her mouth to say something, but he placed his finger over it to stop her. With the sounds of footsteps and wings coming ever closer, he got up and turned away. “Goodbye Vestelle, you’re one of the good ones, I only hope the snakes in the grass here don’t poison that out of you.” Then spread his black wings and flew off like a rocket, out of the castle, with hundreds of knights in pursuit.

After she was told what he had done, she refused to wear the necklace as she felt it would be disrespectful to the ones who died. She didn’t throw it out or sell it though, instead keeping it displayed prominently on her nightstand. She would talk to it from time to time as if it was actually Shade. She would yell and scream at it when she would get news of terrible things he did. She would get into one sided arguments with it, pleading for him to stop, to talk with her about what he was doing in the world. Then when he disappeared, she would ask it where he was, where he had gone. After it was announced he had died, she cried in front of the necklace for hours, before putting it on as she fell asleep. From that date on, she slowly started wearing it from time to time, before it eventually became a permanent fixture around her neck. People would ask her how she could wear something someone so awful gave to her. She would tell them she wanted to honor his ideals, not Shade himself. Which was pretty much the truth. She had hated what he had become, a vigilante killing his way through the world. But she had no doubts in her mind he was doing what he felt was right. And she loved that part of him. The willingness to do anything and everything it took to bring his own version of good to the world. She had heard the stories of tiny towns he had saved for almost no reward, only doing it because he could. He helped people, no matter how rich or poor they were. Now she wore the necklace daily as a reminder to herself that she wanted to do the same things, even if the approach she took would be drastically different.

As she stared at the wolfs foot above the crystal, she thought of what he had told her when he gave her the necklace. She then thought of Gaelin, who swore up and down, and ranted to anybody who would listen that Shade was still alive, and that there was no way someone like Elluin could have killed him. She didn’t believe he was alive herself, someone like him couldn’t blend in for a decade without anyone noticing. But being in the desperate situation she was in, she decided to bet on Gaelin being right, and looked up at Arel with a stern face, no longer panicked. “I would never tell someone like you.” She snarled.

“Fine then, I was going to break it anyway.” He snarled back, and his foot came down hard on the necklace, shattering the stone into hundreds of pieces.