A Royal Child
Chapter Four
"All right, so this is the training room!" Belphegor announced, throwing his arms wide open in a dramatic gesture as they stepped into the room that stored weapons. "Maaaan, it's dusty in here!" the prince proclaimed as he skipped inside. "Last time I was in here, I was playing hide-and-seek with Monta."
"Fascinating," Fran sighed with a roll of his eyes. "What are we going to give Spark that he can't kill us with?"
"Why would I kill you?" Spark questioned, arching an eyebrow.
"Yeah, Froggy. Why would he kill us?" Bel repeated.
"Why? I dunno. But us being assassins, it would be a bit hypocritical of us to trust him completely, don't you think?"
"No," Bel answered with a pout. "C'mon, Froggy, I was psychotic, and I didn't kill anyone in the Varia!"
"Two reasons for that," Fran said, holding up two fingers for emphasis as he explained, "reason one, they were stronger than you, and reason two, they fed you."
"Well, I guess that's true, but those apply to Spark, too!" the prince pointed out. "C'mon, Sparky, let's get you a weapon!"
"Don't call me that," the young male muttered, following Bel further into the room. He looked along the rows on rows of identical boxes. "How on earth do you tell all of these apart?" he asked.
Bel picked up one of the boxes, and turned it over, pointing to the bottom. "Read this," he said.
"... 'Made in China'...," Spark read.
"Not that part, the other part!" Bel said.
"... Rain-class swordfish," the boy finally read. "All right, then. So we need to find something Lightning-class?"
"Exactly!" Bel pronounced, starting to go through boxes.
The three searched for a while, Bel and Fran putting back boxes that they knew would be too strong for the boy, when Fran suddenly spoke up. "This is perfect!" he said. "Salamandra fulmine!"
"A Lightning-class salamander? Thanks, but no thanks," Spark muttered. "Can't I go with the wildebeest?"
"Wildebeest?" Bel repeated. "Ushishishishishi! No way, Sparky, you'll destroy the base!"
Spark rolled his eyes. "I don't want a newt."
"It's not a newt!" Fran protested, grabbing the wildebeest weapon from Spark and placing the salamander in his hand. "C'mon, let's go back to the training hall." Belphegor and Fran pushed Spark back into the training hall, and locked the door behind them. "You can't leave until you give the salamander a chance!" Fran announced.
"Yeah! And you have to name him, too," Bel agreed.
"Name him? Salamander is good enough," Spark muttered.
"No it's not," Fran protested. "Bel can pull that off with Mink, cause Mink is tough. You have a small, lizard-thing. Calling him salamander would be like insulting him further. You don't want him to get depressed."
"Yeah, name him something like... the Magic Salamander!"
"No," Spark immediately said. "That is definitely not happening."
"Man, is this how everyone felt when I was going through my rebellious phase?" Fran asked his lover. Bel giggled.
"You have no idea, Froggy."
Spark stood in silence as the two talked, eventually deciding on his name. "Flash."
Mist and Storm looked at Lightning in confusion. "Flash?" they repeated.
"A spark in a forest could create a flash wildfire," Spark explained. "In other words, you encounter me in battle, and you'll get a flash fire on your face."
"Wow, Froggy, he's a LOT like you," Bel giggled, before pouting. "He must have decent IQ... which means he won't do stupid things with us."
"Senpai, it doesn't matter how smart you are. Everyone does stupid things regardless," Fran replied in a matter-of-fact tone. "Don't judge a person by their smartness! Now, let's get to training. Spark, first light-"
"I don't have a ring," the white-haired male interrupted.
Fran groaned, before leaving the training hall, snatching a Lightning ring from Levi. After washing both his hands and the ring thoroughly - about fifty times - he returned to the room, and placed the ring in Spark's hand. "First, light your flames," the illusionist said.
Spark closed his eyes in concentration, and Lightning-class flames soon sprung up on his ring. He quickly punched the flames into the opening in the box, and from it shot a fire salamander, black-skinned creature with several orange spots, its feet and tail alight with crackling flames. "There is a serious mismatch between this animal and the flame," Spark muttered.
"Ushishi! He's cute!" Bel announced. "The prince approves - this will be your box weapon, Spark!"
The younger male sighed, before leaning over. "Well, I suppose I can't judge entirely until I see what he can do," the young male sighed, reaching a hand out to the salamander. "Hey, Flash. Do something violent."
The weapon simply looked at him in confusion, and Fran chuckled. "Well, I guess he doesn't like you. Wanna try the wildebeest?"
"Jeez, I gotta give him a chance, remember?" Spark protested. Fran winked at Bel, elbowing his arm and mouthing 'reverse psychology,' but Bel didn't really catch the drift, instead just awkwardly winking and returning the nudge.
"Ah-!"
The two Varia glanced at the younger male to see that he had touched Flash's nose and the salamander's flames had suddenly swelled. "There we go," Spark said as the thing slowly crawled into his hand.
"Lightning-class flames have the hard factor," Fran said. "If you could maybe... throw him, then he'd be really useful."
"I'm not gonna throw him!" Spark protested, picking up the salamander. He glanced up at one of the small targets on the near ceiling, and pointed to it. "There. Hit that."
"... Dude, you have no conviction," Belphegor said, "I'm gonna go get Mink. Be right back." As Belphegor left for Mammon's room, Fran heaved a sigh.
"You know, Spark, being as young as you are and knowing about flames... that's kind of a big deal. Who taught you?"
The silver-haired boy seemed to tense, and he glanced back at Fran, his amber gaze glinting beneath his glasses. "... My adopted family...," he said, his voice suddenly edged.
Fran cocked his head. "Adopted family? You mean the people you were with before you got stuck with those jerks? I thought they were killed."
"My biological parents were killed by 'those jerks,' and then my adopted family took me in. That's when I got kidnapped." Fran nodded, before realizing something.
"Don't you want to go back to them?"
"... I don't think they remember me," Spark replied. "I mean... they probably think I'm dead. After all, none of them made an attempt to bring me back..."
Although he strongly disagreed, Fran only gave another silent nod.
"Woohoo!" came a sudden shout from the door as a white and red blur raced into the room and perched on Spark's shoulders.
"Wah! Don't do that!" Spark protested after he'd stumbled rather ungracefully to the ground.
"Grarrrr!" hissed Mink, and Spark tensed when he realized that it was directed at the box weapon in his hands.
"Fight! Fight! Fight!" Fran and Belphegor began to chant.
"What? No!" Spark complained. "Flash wouldn't last fifteen seconds against this thing!"
"Fsss..."
Everything grew quiet as the people within the room listened to the quiet, almost inaudible hiss of the salamander, before Belphegor laughed manically, clutching his stomach. "Looks like you don't have a say in this one, Spark! It's a fight!"
"Wait-"
Suddenly, Mink had attacked the salamander, and the two of them were scuffling about, the Lightning barely avoiding the Storm class flames and never getting in an attack, hard as it tried. Abruptly, something surprising happened. The salamander's tail snapped off, and it scurried away, leaving Mink to play with the discarded appendage. Mink could hardly touch the tail, the hard-factor of Lightning flames making it nearly unbreakable, when suddenly, Flash's tail regrew, and the discarded one turned into a second salamander. Suddenly, Mink was outnumbered, but still not outdone.
"Dude - that thing must have some Sun flames in it, too, or something," Fran said, glancing at Bel.
"I hope so. I mean, would they really make a weapon as useless as a salamander that can't even do anything?" the prince giggled, to which Fran shrugged.
Spark glanced at the now two salamanders, shocked. The second one seemed to be a little weaker, but that hardly mattered to him. What he'd just witnessed reminded him of his adopted family... of his adopted older brother...
Mink backed away from the Lightning class weapons and suddenly sat down, grooming itself as if none of the fight had occured. The salamanders were left surprised, but soon moved back to Spark, the duplicate vanishing to leave the original. Spark took out the box, letting Flash return to it, before standing.
"You know, Spark, your character is really cliche," Fran said. "The delinquent with a soft spot for animals - heck, we even see that here with skylark-san!"
"Ushishi~ But Froggy, the cliches are fun!"
Spark rolled his eyes. "Have any other plans for today?" he asked.
"Uh... not particularly," Fran noted. "You wanna go bug Luss?"
Bel nodded. "Mm hm. It's time for my before-mid-afternoon-but-after-lunch snack... I think."
Spark and Fran both facepalmed, before the three headed back for the kitchen.
-End Chapter
OTL I apologize profusely for all this absence! I'm starting to learn the true horrors of school... Finals are this upcoming week, and I've had huge projects due in the past week... Aside from the homework, I've had other distractions...
Well, I must say, reviewing - and not just in the many, but LONG reviews - make me write much faster. So please take that time, and I'll try to push through finals to give you more content!
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