This one really fought with me but I did my best to make it flow as smoothly and coherently as possible. If you have any critique, if anything sticks out a bit wrong to you, if you spot inconsistencies, or if something confuses you, please let me know. I would really like to know if I could make improvements because I'm not sure I executed this as well as I wanted to. Thank you!
The sound of echoing voices, the clink of an opened lock, and the resounding boom of a metal door being closed disturbs the voluminous silence of the hold in which Velderoth sits, stirring him slightly from his slumped position against the wall where he is chained. It isn't often that door was opened save for the meals he refuses to even touch. What was the point of bringing a dead man food?
There is a long pause and Velderoth was almost inclined to believe that it was a hallucination when the sound of boots on stone resumes from the previous silence, drawing ever closer until it finally stops in front of his cell but he does not look up from his downward stare.
Another stretch of silence ensues and Velderoth is almost ready to snap at the person to do whatever business he needed doing and leave already when his most dreaded voice greets, "Hey… Velderoth."
His head snaps up and he sends a dark scowl at the almighty Kaiser standing in front of his bars wearing nothing but a plain red tunic and pants with his sword strapped to his back.
Velderoth's lips curl into a sneer. "Ah, so the mighty Kaiser deigns it fit to grace me with his presence. I suppose I should be groveling at your feet now right?"
Nothing gives away Kaiser's reaction to the snark except for a faint frown that tugs the corner of his lips and Velderoth is slightly disappointed at the tame response.
"Course not," Kaiser sighs, running a hand through his shock of steel-blue hair. "I'm visiting you as Kyle, your best friend, not Kaiser."
Velderoth snorts. "That's rich. I know no friends of mine named 'Kyle.'"
"Well I know one that's named Velderoth," Kaiser declares stubbornly.
Velderoth growls. This was getting nowhere. "What do you want? Hurry up and state your business so you can leave. Do you want to gloat? Or maybe you wanted to see my broken, pathetic form rotting in a cell before I died."
"You know I'm not like that."
"Well I wouldn't know because I don't know a 'Kyle.'"
Kaiser sighs. "Fine, I'll cut to the chase then. I want to help you out of here by pleading with the council but you need to really show regret for your actions before I can do anything."
Velderoth snorts. "You're as stupidly naïve as I remembered you. It must be nice to live up in the clouds all the time. After what happened with Lord Magnus, I doubt they'd ever give traitors a second chance ever again."
"Would you stop calling him Lord Magnus?" Kaiser asks, annoyed. "The asshat doesn't deserve to be called 'lord.'"
"You'll find that that is a matter of opinion," Velderoth replies coolly. "To you, he is nothing but the dirt under your shoes but to me, he is the epitome of all that I strive to be."
"Why?" Kaiser demands suddenly. "Why did you decide to follow Magnus?"
Ah, finally. The heart of the matter.
"I told you before. It was for power."
"But that can't be all there is," Kaiser presses insistently.
Velderoth frowns in annoyance. "If you're hoping to hear I joined because of some sob story about myself that'll give you a chance to 'save me' then you'll be sorely disappointed. Is it so hard to believe I joined of my own free will?"
"Yes!"
Velderoth sighs in mock pity. "Still clinging to old times? Then you obviously don't know me as well as you thought."
"No, I do," Kaiser refutes confidently. "I have years' worth of history with you to fall back on and they can't all be lies."
"In the face of this reality?" Velderoth asks almost incredulously, lifting his arms slightly and giving his chains a good shake. He sneers. "Wake up, hero. Your 'friend' has betrayed you and now sits before you awaiting his death for the ultimate crime of betrayal towards his own people. Stop denying it and running off to your little fantasy world."
"Well I don't believe it! I know there must be more to this!"
"There isn't!" Velderoth grits out from between clenched teeth, well and truly annoyed at Kaiser's thickheaded stubbornness. "I have nothing more to say to you so accept it and leave!"
"I won't leave until you give me a real answer!" Kaiser declares, obstinately standing his ground.
Velderoth lets out a frustrated sound of aggravation. "That is the real answer! There's nothing more to say now leave!"
"No!"
"LEAVE!"
"NO!"
With an enraged shout, Velderoth hurls himself towards the bars of his prison but his chains pulls him short before he could reach them and he snarls like a frustrated animal.
"Do you not understand that I despise you?" he howls, struggling vigorously against his restraints. "I never would have stuck with your stupidly pathetic self hadn't it felt so good to know that I was the better warrior whenever I stood next to you! That was why I stayed with such a pathetic excuse for a sorry knight in the first place!"
"Then what about the time we built our secret base with Tear and started the Heliseum Force? Or that time you gave me that sword for my birthday? And what about all those times we got in trouble together? Did none of that mean anything to you?" Kaiser cries.
"They meant nothing the moment Lord Magnus blew us apart and I realized that everything is futile before the face of real power!" Velderoth snarls back.
"Why?" Kaiser demands loudly.
"Because you gained power you did nothing to earn while I toiled day and night to be where I was! But then suddenly all that effort turned meaningless! Being the best knight in the army didn't matter anymore because their precious Kaiser was reborn!"
"So what? You were jealous? That's why you ran to Magnus?" Kasier asks incredulously, hardly able to believe his ears.
"Say what you want!" Velderoth growls defensively. "But I don't regret my choice!"
"You killed people! People you used to train beside, people you fought alongside! How could you do that? Don't you feel anything?"
Kaiser was beginning to sound well and truly outraged. His small form trembles in repressed fury and his fists clench painfully in an almost futile attempt to suppress the rage overflowing his veins like hot magma and Velderoth feels smug satisfaction in reducing him to such a state.
"It's not right!"
"What is right anyway?" Velderoth challenges, staring hard at Kaiser. "Was it right for me to fall into obscurity after every service that I've done? Was it right that I was cast aside as though I was nothing?"
"No one was casting you aside!"
"Really? And what do you call being left out during the crucial decision-making that would decide Pantheon's fate? What do you call being ignored and shoved to the background while you ran around like a dithering idiot as the whole town praises you for simply being?"
"NO ONE was casting you aside!" Kaiser repeats forcefully, frustration tingeing his tone. "You'd still be the best knight the army had and you'd still be my best friend! Nothing would've changed that!"
"But something did change!" Velderoth roars. "All those people suddenly looked up to you as though you had the answers to everything! As though you were god on earth! You! Only a mere few decades old! It was only a matter of time before your already over-inflated ego would take over what brains you had left and then where would I be? Left in the dust!"
"You're wrong!" Kaiser objects, voice trembling slightly but whether in anger or because he had hit a truth, he didn't know. "I would have never left you behind! Never! Come on Velderoth! You know me better than this!"
Velderoth growls in aggravation. "This is pointless! You don't understand and you'll never understand!"
"Then explain it to me! Explain it until I can understand!" Kaiser's voice was borderline pleading, something unheard of unless it was used to beg him into participating in whatever crazy stunt he had thought up that time.
"What is there to explain?" Velderoth snaps. "You're the almighty Kaiser! You already have the world at your fingertips! How can you ever understand how I struggled?"
"You can try!"
"I don't need to explain myself to you!"
"What is wrong with you Velderoth? Fine, so you're jealous and you're feeling left out but that doesn't explain why you would decide to try to destroy our home and your own people!" Kaiser shouts.
"They were the ones who betrayed me first!" Velderoth counters.
"How? Because you thought they were throwing you away? Because of that?"
"Don't assume you know everything about me!" Velderoth roars, face twisted in an absolutely livid rage. "You would never know how it feels to have years of your efforts torn apart right before your eyes like that! And then to be defeated as though you were nothing… That's when I realized that power is everything!"
"No it's not!"
"That's rich coming from someone who knows nothing but fighting!"
Kaiser was silent at that and Velderoth allows a victorious little smirk to crawl on his lips.
"Yeah, maybe you're right. I don't really know anything except fighting. I'm not smart like Edea and I can't crunch numbers like Maroon and Harpoon can. I get confused easily if you use big words and I can mess up on simple chores. But that doesn't mean I don't know what's right and what's wrong!"
"So you're implying that what I did was wrong?" Velderoth seethes. "Tell me, what would you have done if the whole town has forgotten your merit, when you realize that up until then, your power was nothing but a mere illusion, and that your own friend has already left you miles behind? The day you became Kaiser, I had already lost my place in Pantheon! I no longer belonged! No longer needed! A waste of years of effort! You will never comprehend the rage and despair of that realization! What is right or wrong when you have already lost what you fought for?"
"So you decide that destroying Pantheon was the way to go?" Kaiser roars thunderously, banging a frustrated fist against the bars with a violent clang.
"At this point, right and wrong no longer matters! There will always be people who will struggle their entire lives and still get nothing in return while others have everything dropped onto their laps! Where is the justice in that? In the end, nothing is left except for who comes out strongest!"
"But being the strongest means nothing if you have nothing to fight for!"
"I have something to fight for! Myself! After spending my whole life fighting for others, at what point do I start to matter? When I'm dead fighting valiantly for everyone else? After they had practically and thanklessly dismissed me for the next big thing that came along, do you still expect that I would continue fighting for them? It might not be 'right' in your eyes but I did what I thought was best for myself!"
"But this is your home! Your friends! What about Fenelle and Cartalion and Tear? Were you going to kill them the same way you killed everyone else? How is that the best?"
"I wouldn't expect you to understand," Velderoth scoffs, retreating back to his wall and sitting down once again on the cold, white stone floor. "But after you lose all that you know, you start to reexamine what's important to you and I've found that Pantheon is not the home it once was for me. Lord Magnus provided me a way to gain what I wanted without questioning my every motive and thought." At this, he gives Kaiser a pointed look. "And that was all I could ask for, a respectful understanding even if he doesn't truly know the full circumstances of my situation so my loyalty stands with him."
Kaiser stares at him, feeling a sharp sting in his chest. Somehow even the barb of betrayal didn't hurt nearly as much as being told that they meant nothing to Velderoth anymore but it is quashed under the familiar feeling of building anger.
"So that's it then? You wanted power to destroy everyone in Pantheon because you thought everyone was turning their backs on you?"
"As I've said, I wouldn't expect you to understand. You're the ever beloved and powerful Kaiser," Velderoth spits out, bitterness coating his every word and expression.
Kaiser frowns heavily. "I never chose to be Kaiser, Velderoth, but Kaiser chose me for a reason! I joined the knights because I wanted to fight for what was right, for everyone in Pantheon; because I wanted them to be happy! Even if I wasn't as good as you were and even if I was the worst knight in the history of Nova, I was more than ready to struggle and fight my way through for everyone's sake! Yeah okay, I might be just another face in the ranks but these are the people I lived with, grew up with. They were important! And I know that we're in this together because I'm important to them too as a fellow Nova and as Kyle! It's the same thing with you too Velderoth! You were important to us too! And it's because I wanted to protect everyone no matter what that Kaiser chose me! Because he trusted that I would do what's right with his power!"
"And I hadn't?" Velderoth bellows. "You thought I joined the knights for fun? I joined with the intention of helping the Nova recapture Heliseum too!"
"But Kaiser never changed me! Your power changed you! That's the difference between us!"
A loud silence suddenly swallows the room as Kaiser pants for breath in the aftermath of his explosion, his eyes widening as his fading anger drains and steady realization of what he had just said dawns on him.
Velderoth chuckles. "Such pretty words. I never thought you would be capable of such thinking but the fact is that ideals alone won't win you wars. What is good and bad if you don't even have the power to back it up? Power is what's important if you truly wish to accomplish anything whether it's protecting or whether it's to mark a trail in history."
"If power is so great, then where are you now?" Kaiser asks, voice tremulous. "You're sitting in a cell with no one to help you about to… about to…" He swallows hard and his voice cracks slightly as he pronounces the next two words, "To die. You're helpless and you're alone. Is that fun? Is this what you wanted from your power?"
"Shut up! You have no right to judge the path that I have chosen to take," Velderoth snaps but his voice holds a tired edge to it as though he is growing wary of the subject.
Kaiser continues. "Magnus isn't going to come back for you. He's not the kind of person to risk his neck for anyone, not even for his own apprentice."
Velderoth lets out a bark of laughter at that, the sound sharp and hollow, echoing and amplifying harshly around his empty cell and grating unpleasantly against Kaiser's ears. "Oh I know that already," he chuckles. "I would have done the same if I were him because we're not foolish enough to throw down our lives just for a bunch of petty ideals."
"Helping a comrade is not petty!"
"Maybe for you but for everyone else, it's not even a decision. The thing is that we can't all be great like you, Kaiser. We can't all have such ideal self-sacrificing morals and legendary power. It's impossible to achieve for us petty mortals. So where does that leave me? A nobody. I'm just an ordinary man with ordinary means chasing an ordinary dream."
Kaiser doesn't answer. He realizes the fruitlessness of the conversation. He is getting nowhere with Velderoth; he is never going to apologize for his actions, he refuses to be redeemed, and he's so far removed that Kaiser simply doesn't know him anymore, a stranger wearing his best friend's skin. But he just wanted to try one last time. He wanted to hope that the playfully laughing Velderoth who started prank wars with him once upon a time was still alive somewhere in this bitter shell and that those happy times will still yet to be in the future.
But they were different now. They have grown, changed. He sees that now. The different paths they took and the different challenges they had to face have shaped them in different ways. He can no longer fall back into that boyish dream of innocent play and childish laughter. He was now a commander of whole armies and the figurehead of the Nova race. The burden of responsibility on his shoulders weighs him down onto the earth but even so, he still wanted to remain the same. He still wanted to continue to believe in a future where everyone could be happy and he still wanted to be the Kyle everyone knew him as before Kaiser, before Velderoth's betrayal, back in the simple days when they were just trainees dreaming of glory for the Heliseum Force.
Kaiser purses his lips and forces himself to turn around, making his slow way towards the exit and leaving the broken form of his best friend sitting in his cell behind him.
"A river cannot flow backwards even if you try, Kaiser. Remember that well," Velderoth whispers after him, just barely audible but the stark silence and the reverberating stone of the hold carries his message to Kaiser loud and clear.
Kaiser pauses and looks questioningly back towards the cell but doesn't ask what he could mean.
The discussion was already over. There was nothing else left to be said.
So Kaiser turns back around and soundlessly leaves the hold and doesn't look back again even as his heart sinks into the deepest abyss of sorrow and regret.
He has failed to save the life of his own best friend.
It isn't until the day of execution arrives and Velderoth is well and truly dead that Kyle finally realizes what his last cryptic remark meant and he curses himself for not seeing it sooner.
Stupid. What do you have to thank me for? That's what best friends do for each other, Kyle thinks brokenly as he makes his slow way back home, chest clenched painfully, his heart unbearably heavy, and the tears from his eyes ever flowing.
Out of all the characters MapleStory has made so far, Kaiser is definitely one of my favorites not only because of his hilarious dialogues and spunky character but because he's one of the few characters where his personality is more solid and one where he grows. He is a young, budding warrior who has his entire life in front of him full of unlimited possibilities suddenly thrust in an adult world upon inheriting Kaiser's power. He is suddenly asked for advice on battle strategies and listened to seriously and he's expected to act as the previous Kaiser might despite his age and inexperience.
All the while, we see that he's very much still a kid with the way he talks and acts but he's also aware of his responsibilities to his people that he honestly wants to fulfill but isn't exactly sure how to achieve. He's not smart in the book sense and all he seems to know is fighting but he can be insightful with the way he's aware that he may not be ready to command other troops and as he starts to learn what it truly means to be a leader through the tests Cartalion puts him through in order to become a commander.
But ultimately, we learn that Kyle still has a long way to go. This conversation with Velderoth is just one of his lessons in life where he learns that people change, not everything could go his way, and that it's not possible to make everyone happy. Velderoth's last parting message implies this along with saying that there is no changing someone already set to walk down their path but thank you for trying to save me anyway.