Disclaimer: I own nothing. If I owned Pokemon, then you would most definitely know about it, for the Pokemon products would become vastly different.

A/N: The PG-13 rating is for blood and some fighting. The rating will be changed if necessary, as I wasn't completely sure what rating to give this when it was posted.

Blade Prince

My father always said that followers were the weak, that they would never get anything from life, would do nothing but follow. He raised me to be a leader, to fly our flock just as his father before him, and just as I would do someday. I was the Prince of Blades, the highest title that a Skarmory in my flock could have. My father was the King.

But through it all, I always wondered what had happened to mother, the Queen of Blades, the one who had given me a part of my life. Father never mentioned her, so one day I questioned, "Father, what of the Queen?" And he had belittled the question, and said that she had become a 'follower', that she had not be right for the queen-ship. I asked if she was alive, and he had nodded.

He never knew it, but that little exchange had changed my outlook on the flock. Every female could have been my mother, every chick that had survived the thorns my sibling. I, the Blade Prince, began to talk to the followers, to question them about Mother. And they had shied away from me, fearfully. As father would say, typical followers.

That was the night that we stopped on the border of the two lands, Kanto and Johto. We would be moving west again the next day, for Kanto was the feared land, the place where the banished Skarmory were forced to live, or die. Father loved to camp here, for it was the place where we sometimes saw a few of these banished still living on the outskirts of their new land. He tried to keep secret why those banished always were found with dents and evil scratches upon their armor, but at least I knew what he did when the flock had their back turned. For only another Skarmory can wound the armor of another.

But tonight Father only flew into a tree, seemingly for rest. At one time, I would have followed him, and rested with him, two leaders occupying a space above the followers. But tonight, some impulse drove me away from him, something that made me want to be alone.

I looked out at the barren stretch just beyond the trees that was the banished land. There was one place I had never been, never really seen for myself. To those still in the flock, Kanto was a place to never go. But one would not be banished for setting foot on the 'forbidden' land.

It was a strange, impulsive decision. I waited for the flock to fall asleep, and then walked right over the border.

Nothing.

The change of smells was apparent, but other then that, it was the same. I could have picked and eaten the berries calling me with their sweet aroma, but didn't dare. This was still not my land to use.

Kanto seemed less forbidding then, and I stepped forward with a more confident air. About four paces in, my claws scraped against something hard and solid that did not give to the steel points. Looking down, I realized it for what the red metal was, a wing blade of another Skarmory. But what made my heart skip a beat was the fresh blood staining it, which was still wet. How could I have not smelled it before? The scent was everywhere, and was on its way to becoming overpowering.

And then, the familiar baritone came with a chilling laugh, "Ah, son, are you here for the fun?" It was Father. He was laughing at me.

The smell of blood grew stronger; it made my stomach want to lurch. Another voice cut the air then, with an intensity laid over by many layers of pain, "He-elp me! M-y Prin-ce…"

'What you don't know won't hurt you' was a golden rule in my flock. I knew only part of the truth, and now the full hurt of the completed puzzle that my father had set for me struck in a wave. I had stepped forward, and saw in a beam of moonlight my father with his beak stained with blood, his claws stained with blood, and held down under one of his mighty talons was another of our kind so wounded that I couldn't tell the extent of the damage.

It was then that my stomach did lurch, and its contents left with a bitter aftertaste. As Father saw this, he laughed even harder. "But… why Father? Why do this?" I stammered out, dizzy and sick, trying to clear the red out of my sight, get it out of my mind.

"My K-King, have mercy…" The bloody Skarmory stammered.

"Mercy is for the weak." Father hissed, raking his talons against the other bird with a metallic screech. "Mercy is for the followers." He continued to me calmly, "Death is for the banished. I am saving him a lot of pain."

"You're killing him!" I didn't realize how loud I was screaming until the words had left my beak. It didn't seem real, not possible… my father, a killer? We banished killers from our flock…

Those of the banished we always saw before with scrapes on their armor, Father did not inflict them?

And the last though: so how many banished are there still alive?

Again, my father's laughter cut through my reverie like a sword of ice. "I am." He confirmed, "Slowly-" Scratch. "-And-" Scratch. "-Painfully." Scratch.

The dying screech of the Skarmory rent the air, and all I could do was stand there, stunned to silence. Only one thought was intelligible: What a horrible way to die.

All at once, I regained control of myself. I knew the emotion that drove me to fly at my father with the shrieking cry of a Skarmory going to battle. Hate. And what was worse was that he was expecting it, that I ended up under him, pinned to the soggy earth under one of his talons, my face buried in the smell of death.

Father's crooked beak loomed over me, the wickedly sharp tip still slowly dripping crimson drops. I went wild, crazed in this position of weakness, trying to hit at my father with my wings, my beak, even my claws. He was no longer laughing, and he ended my struggles all at once with a sharp peck to my breast. The beak went effortlessly through the metal, just piercing tender flesh. Pain roared to life, one of the rarest feelings after developing a coat of metal.

"You're just like your mother." I heard him whisper, "Can't stand it, can you? Can't stand-"

The next second, he was off of me, screeching nonsensical curses. There was no sound coming from the other creature, a Noctowl by its outline against the moonlight. For a second, I didn't understand what was happening, until a second Noctowl-shape soundlessly joined the first, and quiet scraping sounds came from their claws trying to dent Father's armor.

The two of them were hooting at me as they circled the stumbling silver shape that was my father. I leapt to my feet, ignoring another sudden flair of pain, when I saw his face was dripping. The Noctowl had taken out the only vulnerable part of a Skarmory-the eyes. And now they were trying to tell me to do the rest.

The first time my beak punctured his iron shell, the cracking sound made me feel sick again. But there was no time to do anything but keep attacking, as my father blindly tried to attack back. Without his sight, he fought like a Pidgey.

It didn't last long, as my beak slowly cut open his iron shell, lacerating it inside and out. When at last he fell to the ground, I was about to attack again, when I realized that he was dead. Dead… I had just killed another Skarmory…

And with that thought, the world went black.

"Whoooooooo!"

Who?

"Whoooooo!"

Who am I?

"Whooo!"

What have I done?

I woke to the smell of blood and the hooting of Noctowl, and it was not at all pleasant. The first rays of sunshine peeked through the trees, and among the branches were two speckles of light brown. The two Noctowl had their heads tilted to the side in a painful-looking angle, still hooting loudly.

Rising to my feet, I realized that most of the blood that had stained my beak was gone, and the rest would wipe off on the grass. I must have looked perfectly normal; the only problem point was my breastplate, which still had that hole in it. The plate itself was clean as well.

I tried to ignore the two other bodies that littered the ground and left ample stains around them that were not reflected on the unbroken parts of their armor. Instead, I walked to the Noctowl, and bowed my head to them in thanks.

And as I was about to leave for my flock, I looked back at them, to see that they also had their heads bowed. Bowed to the son who had killed the killer, the King whose bloody beak had no stains upon it. Skarmory blood was just too thin.

It wasn't easy telling the flock that Father was dead. I couldn't tell them the truth of the matter, or they would never have trusted me. But once the flock accepted my lie, I was in the green to start things anew in my way. We never visited the border of Kanto and Johto again. I, the Blade King, was a part of the flock, and hunted for my own food, and socialized with the flock so that I knew them.

For a while, every time I ate fresh meat, I thought of Father again. I thought him a killer, but I was one too, in a sense. But I wasn't one who killed for the joy my father seemed to get out of it, and in that frame of mind, Father was slowly washed away from my thoughts.

As Blade King I had demanded of the oldest Skarmory to know one thing. I had asked her if my mother had been banished. When she said yes, I knew then the rest.

Throughout it all, I never thought of the other Skarmory as my 'followers'. Rather, they were a group of my kind, who followed my orders, and strived to make me happy. I was still the King though, and made decisions that were big, only taking advice from some of the other birds.

But if you looked at my flock at a distance, one may come to believe that the leader had become the follower, and the follower the leader.