"Dear, please have a look at this" Queen Cecil calls his husband.
"What is it, my love? Is something wrong?" King Blythe approached her
"No, no, no, look at those, do they look good together?" she showed him two different colors of roses among her garden of red ones - it was an elegant color of black and white.
"How unusual but yes, they do look good together"
---
The fight between the King and the bandits was still ongoing, just a moment ago the bandits had the upper hand but they were put to silence by Tayne who runs around the area easily knocking her opponents with the massive sword she carries.
"No, no, no, no! Stop that woman!" The big man waves his hand to his men.
The remaining bandits regroup themselves once more and attack her simultaneously but she was faster than them that they had difficulty catching up to her.
"Let's end this shall we?" lifting her sword she challenges their boss. When the enemy's leader saw her walking towards him, he moves one step backward "Y-you think you can beat me with that weapon of yours? Don't make me laugh" he pulls his bolter gun and wildly starts a shootout targeting Tayne.
"Your Majesty, let us move to the side, we might get involved in that" Tseng suggested
Claude whose still processing the situation gave him a single nod.
"I now understand why your father hired her. She's good" compliment Tseng " But, that sword she's carrying I never saw anything like it, it's massive, considering her petite size, it's hard to believe she's been holding it single-handedly.
Claude manages to finally calm himself "That woman brought nothing but pain in my ass lately" he looks at her taking cover of the big man's series of gunshots using her sword. "But your right, it would have been dangerous if it was only the two of us" Tseng nods in agreement.
The shooting finally stops when the other side of the party began to tire. "Huh!? How?"
"I guess you run out energy huh? That gun must have been run by Etheria"
With one swing of her sword the smoke around her disappear. "My Turn" she suddenly vanished in front of the big man and reappears behind him with her weapon slightly touching his throat.
"No! I surrender! I surrender! " the man yelp and throws away his weapon "I can't fight you no more"
His men followed him, doing the same thing.
"Wow, where did all your strength run to now?" she asked
The big man did not bother to answer her and only looks down.
"Hmmm..." She lets down her sword, Tseng and Claude run back to her.
"What's wrong, Tayne?" Tseng asked
Tayne closes her eyes and shrugs her shoulders "I was hyped about fighting my ass off but these people here aren't even real bandits"
Claude, "What?"
"They are not bandits, they are just your ordinary regular people"
The Big Guy looks at the ground disappointed, so was his men.
"Then who are you?" Claude asked him "Why kill them and raise that stupid flag? Do you know what that means?" he pointed at the dead bodies hanging in front of them
"They were not the ones who killed them as well" Tayne butts in
"What?"
"Oy, big guy" she goes to them and places her hands on Claude's shoulder "This person here can help yah!"
Claude shoves her "What are you talking about? I don't want ----" Tayne covers his mouth that made him even pissed.
"Our boss here is very powerful you see, so if all of you are afraid of something" she looks around "or someone...."
Everyone's reaction suddenly turned sour "Our boss here can help!"
"What are you trying to imply? Are you planning to reveal my identity here now?" Claude grabs her arm
"Relax, I won't do that.. but don't you think this method is much easier so we can find the whereabouts of the real bandits rather than walking around getting more attention?"
"Right, Tseng?"
Tseng nods "I agree, you'll be much safer this way, your majesty"
Although he wants to scold Tayne in front of everyone, Claude can't help but agree "Do as you please"
"Okay! Hear that? C'mon, it's okay " Tayne reach out her hands to the fake bandits
"You can't stop them, they're strong" The big guy finally speaks
"Don't worry, I'm sure we can manage, right? " Tayne places her hands again on Claude's shoulder, the latter can be seen holding his anger in that she can't help but chuckle about it.
When their eyes met, the big guy suddenly realized who he was talking to and goes into deep thinking.
"Okay, I'll tell you. My name is Gus and you are right miss, we're not bandits, just normal people, we were born and raised in this small town, it's not that much and earning a living is hard but this is the only place we can come back to every single day, a place we can call home that is until they came"
"They arrived in the middle of the night waving that black flag announcing to everyone that he has finally risen, the true King of Saveria. Everybody knows about that famous tale so we just brushed it off as a joke, just when we thought they were about to leave, they start pulling out their guns and firing bullets to the townspeople" Gus closes his eyes "Those three men hanging were the only ones who tried to protect us but they failed, they left their bodies hanging as a warning to never oppose them"
"Then how come you have these weapons? These guns were even run by Etheria" Claude asked him pointing at the weapons on the ground.
"This morning, we were all gathered here and they told us they will leave our town if we bring him to them" he looks at Claude
"How did you know they were referring to him?" Tseng asked while wiping his gun, listening to their conversation
"They just described him as someone whose very much protected and seeing the three of you walking around our town it was clear enough the two of you are his bodyguards" Gus answered
"Hahaha, it must be our matching uniforms Tseng" Tayne breaks the serious atmosphere, everybody stares at her "What?"
Claude strokes his forehead again and gives out a sigh *Dear God* he mumbles
"There was another factor as well, that we know he was the one " Gus continued
"What?"
He points at Claude's necklace "The one who wears a necklace as clear as the cerulean sky"
Tseng stops what he was doing including Tayne.
"I see, now Gus, tell us where exactly are they now?"
The Big guy looks at the tallest building in town.
Without any hesitation, Tseng readied his gun on both hands and Tayne lifted her massive sword, place it on her shoulders. "Thanks, Gus! Leave them to us!"
The three started moving when Gus called Claude.
"Pretty boy..."
"Don't call me that name, I had enough humiliation today, don't add up"
"Hahahaha, I wanted to apologize for what I said a while back, I must have sounded evil for you to yell those words back at me...but I was happy that you care unlike the current King we have"
Claude stop on his tracks "What's wrong about the current King? He has served the Kingdom for ten years now and Saveria is famously known across the world because of him"
"So you are friends with him?" Gus give him another disappointed look "Tell the King if you meet him to wake up and come face this reality" he steps backward revealing some of the people living in the area, they were dirty and sick, kids who look thin as a stick were being carried by their parents "Saveria, is not only for Saveria but for the people of Saveria"
"What are you talking about? That does--"
Claude was grabbed by Tayne "Boss, I'm sorry but we must make haste or these people will never see tomorrow if we don't defeat those bandits" her eyes were sincere so he followed her not looking back at the people behind them.
"Why did you stop me?" he asked her
"Nothing special really, I just thought you were about to scold him"
"Of course I will! For years I've ruled I always thought what's best for my people and always for my people"
"Are they not your people?"
"No. They are not, we cannot change the fact that most of them are criminals and they don't believe in the Kingdom"
"Maybe you're right, but didn't you ever thought about the reason why they did those things?" Tayne made him look at their surroundings once more.
"And just because they turned their back on you doesn't mean you should turn your back against them as well"
Claude was silent for a moment. "You-"
"Were here your Majesty" Tseng interrupted them.
In front of them was a huge unfinished building, it was an old abandoned church.
"Tseng, let's ambush them while they don't know we're here yet, let us go!" as soon as they step foot on the stairs they were bombarded with gunshots, luckily Tayne arrived just in time to make her sword a shield.
"How did they find out?" Tseng asked her
"You might be forgetting were in a small town, I'll deal with these guys please go on"
The King and Tseng with weapons at their hands barged in the front door. Inside the building, a group of bandits greeted them with a shootout but Tseng easily disabled them.
"Your Majesty, stay behind me!"
Claude was shooting at the enemies on the side and successfully hitting them without a miss.
"I told you not to baby me just because I'm the King"
"My what do we have here?" A voice from the Altar can be heard.
"I was a bit worried those townsfolk didn't have the guts to approach you but I did say to bring you dead or alive and here you are alive means they were successful, am I right your majesty?" A tall brown-haired man appears.
"So you knew who I was?"
"Of course, we don't just go rampaging inside your Kingdom without knowing its King!" The man waves to his men and they continue firing at them that's when Tayne rushes inside and swings her sword, eliminating the enemies one by one.
The brown-haired man got serious suddenly "Oh? That's a massive sword you got there, miss"
"Thanks, wait till you have a taste of it" Tayne taunted and swiftly runs to him where the man immediately pulls out his weapon, a long sword, and greeted her.
"Don't think you're the only one who fights like old times missy" he swings his sword and as Tayne evades his first attack he fires his gun at her at the same time.
"Miss Tayne!" Tseng shouts
Claude didn't even bother to show worry..
'"I'm good!" She stands up without a scratch on her
"Why are you doing this? At whose command?" Claude asked him despite the commotion happening around them.
"Hahahahaha, it's none of your business, your majesty, we just wanted to bring a little bit of chaos down here that is until you arrived, our plan suddenly changed that's all"
"What do you need from him?" Tayne asked
The man laughs "Hahahaha, as if you don't know as well, it's clear why we need him and why HE wanted him"
"He?"
"Etheria --"
"What about Etheria?" Tayne asked
"You--you don't?" the man stop and laughed even harder "Now I get it! This is just too fun! I should thank him for this! Hahahaha!" He sheath his sword back and also his gun.
"I finally understand why I'm back here" and he starts walking away
Tayne charges forward "Whoa, who said you can leave?"
The brown-haired man wasn't laughing anymore "Get out of my way"
"Try me" Tayne swings her sword forward but the man easily defended himself, just when she's about to attack him again he whispered something to her that she stop immediately.
"Don't worry, this is just our way of saying hello, we'll soon see each other" then he jumps high on the roof and vanished.
"Tayne!" Claude yells to her as she saw the remaining men suddenly fall dead.
"Huh? What happened?" Tseng asked surprised
Tayne goes to examine one of the bodies and sees his mouth was filled with an unusual liquid
"They killed themselves" She explained
"Why would they do that?"
"Whoever they were serving to doesn't want them revealing their identities, we can't interrogate them this way"
"So we came here for naught?" The King angrily asked as he put down his weapon.
"What do you mean for naught? We just save this town"
"This town is not even worth saving for" he walks passed her " C'mon Tseng we are done here"
Tayne who was left inside the church together with the dead bodies close her eyes and offers them a little prayer of peace.
---End Of The Chapter.