The infamous Evil Prince!
Elly couldn't help but gasp in awe, her mouth hanging wide.
As she looked towards the door and her eyes made contact with his, she felt a sudden cold sweat travel down the back of her neck. In that same moment her head began to ring and she felt an overwhelming sense of suffocation, as if something were pressing down on her throat.
Just as Elly felt like she was going to pass out, the feeling disappeared and she found herself coughing and grasping for air. It wasn't only Elly, the others also experienced the same sensation.
"Sorry for the intrusion." Cahir apologised in a soothing almost melodic voice whilst he walked through the door, pushing past Silver who had practically turned blue and was retching on the floor.
Cahir was covered in mud from head to toe, so much so that his hair was dyed brown and the mud or perhaps faecal matter covered his face. A nauseating sewage smell came off of him.
"I apologise further in advance, as I will be borrowing your shower and toiletries." Cahir paused and looked at Olivia, whose eyes and mouth were wide open as if she'd swallowed a Sickle poison, "May I?"
Olivia instantly sprang out of her shock, nodding like a fool, she shrieked, "You may! It's the door at the end."
Cahir nodded back at her.
Without another word he walked down the corridor. They all watched as he entered the bathroom, closing the door behind him with a soft thud.
"Holy dung." whispered Silver, "When you speak of the devil he does cometh."
"Ahhh!" Olivia shrieked, then grabbed Elly by the wrist, "How do I look? Do I look good?"
"You look fine geez….but I don't think you should be worrying about your looks right now."
"Huh why?"
"Well…" Elly's voice trailed off as she pointed at Baron who was glaring at his sister.
"You Idiot!" Baron hissed, "Didn't you see the state he was in when he walked through the door just now. Him coming here spells big trouble for us."
"I agree with Baron" Silver whispered whilst warily looking at the Bathroom. "There's no reason for him to come here. I'll go heat up the car, it's probably better for us to leave this place fast, I've got a bad feeling in my gut."
Silver ran outside.
"What! And leave him here?!" Olivia gestured wildly to the bathroom.
"It's been 3 years since we last saw the Prince and that was only for some dumb royal charity event. He has no reason to visit commoners like us, heck I don't even know how he knows where we live. And didn't you just feel that, he nearly killed us when he walked through the door! Whatever he's here for spells trouble!" Baron yelled.
"We should get going…" Baron turned only to see a dripping wet Prince Cahir in nothing more than a towel. Baron felt chills as he looked at the piercing icy blue orbs that were Cahir's eyes, glaring at him.
"You don't mind if I borrow this towel, right?" Even though he asked, it didn't seem to be a question. He turned to Olivia and Elly whose faces had turned a bright red, looking at the dashingly handsome Prince.
His skin looked like fresh cream; the strands of his wet hair had the outstanding colours of white, gold, silver and blue, almost as if his hair were rays of lightning in all it's observed shades. Olivia couldn't help but pay attention to his ripped physique and his exposed lean, very well toned, chest.
"Baron, if I remember correctly you work at an aircraft company. Well thanks to that you now have the honour of helping me."
Baron felt increasingly uneasy, "I'm already honoured that you remembered my name your highness. What is it that you need… hopefully it's within our means?"
Baron took a few steps back as he saw the Prince's face light up with a smirk.
"Oh...This is well within your means. I need you to get me a spaceship, one that is unregistered. I need to get off planet."
Baron's teeth gritted, he didn't like this, "Your Highness, you think just because we're poor and weak you can barge into our home and make demands. If you want to get off planet using an unregistered spaceship than that means you're running from some sort of trouble. I'm not going to commit some type of treason by helping you. I'm not dragging my sister and my friends into trouble to help you. Take your royal ass elsewhere and get some other charity cases to help you out."
Baron's hands shook as he said all this, he was terrified out of his mind, but he wasn't about to let this Prince look down on him and treat them all like disposable tools.
Cahir smirked, "When I met you at that charity event you weren't nearly this rude. Interesting, I like people that have some backbone. But Baron you don't have a choice in this matter." He walked up to Baron slowly, electricity sparked across his skin and the candles in the room began to flicker. "Either help me or die."
.....
5 MINUTES LATER
Their car was getting blasted with honks and yells across the sky streets as they weaved through the air traffic.
Silver was certain he'd broken the speed limit as he made a beeline for the nearest STAR aircraft warehouse. Despite driving very quickly his attention wasn't on the sky, he couldn't help but look in his rear-view mirror at the Prince who was sitting calmly in the back seat, now clothed in a lithe black space suit.
His eyes were closed like he was having a peaceful dream.
The entire journey the car remained eerily silent.
Baron had wanted to do this alone but his sister, Olivia, had insisted on coming. And Silver didn't want to leave them alone with the Prince, so he had ended up coming along too.
Elly was the only one that had stayed behind.
Olivia stared at Prince Cahir with love struck eyes, Silver continued to drive furiously across the skies, and Baron was sitting anxiously in the passenger seat, thinking about the consequences they'd face for helping the Prince.
By the time they arrived at the warehouse the sun had begun to rise from the west.
As they got out of the car rain began to fall.
Cahir couldn't help but look around the empty-concrete-warehouse parking area with suspicion.
"This place is oddly quiet, is no one working today?" He asked Baron.
"The workers at this warehouse are on strike, there will be no one here for weeks." Baron answered.
Cahir raised a blonde eyebrow, "Strike, how come?"
Baron stared at the Prince in surprise, "Surely you would know why. Companies are slashing wages so they can break even in the face of rising corporation tax, but because of the rise in income tax as well employees can barely feed themselves. It's not just STAR aircrafts who are suffering, a lot of other businesses are going down the same hole. Workers across the Planet have gone on strike, surely you'd know about that."
Cahir shrugged, "I've been dealing with some things lately, I haven't had the time to care about these things or pay attention to the news."
Baron felt angry, "You should care, you're responsible for this, you and your people are the ones raising all the taxes in the first place!"
"Hah" Cahir laughed, "I'm only the 4th Prince, I'm not even twenty and you think I have that much power in government. Sure the people who support me...or supported me are probably behind it, but that doesn't mean I'm involved. For a long time the monarchy and the greedy nobles that run the government have been quite detached." Cahir grinned, "I'm glad there's such a strike, if the commoners make a larger revolt than I'm sure those damn ministers will have one hell of a headache."
Baron didn't know how to respond to that comment. Instead he remained silent.
The group quietly made their way through storage compartments in the large warehouse before Silver stopped at one that had blue shutters and the code 'VACH-15' painted on its side.
"This is the one that wasn't registered." Silver muttered to Baron.
Baron took out a round tablet and typed in the code. "Yep this is the one, it's unregistered and a brand new product that came in a few weeks ago. It doesn't have a trackable license number either."
Cahir smiled, "That sounds perfect, open it up." he commanded.
Silver and Baron obediently began to raise the shutters. As they did this Olivia slowly approached Cahir shyly, and asked him, "Where will you be heading?"
Cahir glanced at her and vaguely waved his hand " A direction." he stated.
Olivia's eyes went moist and she moved closer to him."I hope you have a safe journey! You may not realise this, but I ... everyone here cares about you, if it weren't for your charity my brother and I would still be slum kids with no education, we want you to be safe and definitely support you, if we ca-"
"Really, I think you're the only one that feels that way." Cahir rudely cut her off and shoved her away from him.
The shutters were lifted. The Prince looked around the small compartment and stared at the even smaller spaceship sitting inside it. The ship had a spherical shape, its surface was sleek, black and reflective like marble. It appeared brand new. Cahir whistled. "It's quite small but it will do."
Cahir turned to Baron.
"The keys."
"What?"
"The keys for the ship," he demanded, he glared at him whilst holding out his open palm.
Baron went to the wall of the compartment and found the box containing the key. He hurriedly brought it to the Prince and placed it in his hand.
Without a word of thanks or a single goodbye, Prince Cahir approached the spaceship.
He placed the circular, marble shaped, key onto the ships surface causing the pod to open up. Cahir expertly climbed inside and as he sat down the pod closed around him.
A virtual control panel and interface appeared, he pressed a button on the panel and the sound of escaping gas could be heard as the hydraulics compressed. The ship became warmer.
An electronic female voice said, "Hello, my name is Karin and I am the Intelligence system of this VA version five model spacecraft. Pleasure to meet you. May you tell me your name?"
A virtual box popped up in front of him with the words [INSERT NAME HERE]. He typed in 'Cahir' on the keyboard below.
"Pleasure to meet you Cahir." Said Karin, "I will make sure your journey is as smooth as possible. To begin our travels across the Endless plains you need to take me to your nearest space station."
"Don't worry Karin, I will." Cahir responded as he activated the ships engine. It began to judder as Nverium fuel churned inside it, soon the ship became weightless and lifted into the air of the Warehouse.
Quickly Silver and Baron pressed the shutters to the Warehouse doors, the moment they opened Cahir propelled the ship into the early morning sky.
Baron sighed in relief as he watched him leave. "Let's erase the security footage and cover our tracks, as long as we're careful no one will know we helped the Prince and we can stay out of any trouble he's in."
Silver nodded in agreement but Olivia only stared at the sky with a love struck expression, "I hope he has a safe journey" she muttered.
Baron glared at her, "Honestly you're a lost cause, how delusional can you get."