CHAPTER 4: Result of corruption

Several and several months later after choosing the area for his regime to emerge, Charming had it all; a perimeter consisting of wooden borders, and a building of stone that the talented builders amongst his supporters had created. Inside the camp, there were pockets of furnaces and tiny huts, all consisting of knights slamming their hammers against the swords on the cold metal of the anvils, and some brief fences containing horses that Charming had eventually captured from the wild. All in all, Charming was precisely where he wanted to be. It was this night, though, that he was about to commence his first true act as the so-called 'leader' of the nearby lands.

This night was also amongst the many where Charming had sent out patrol knights. In case it wasn't obvious, these patrol knights would go on horses across the woods, fields, in the hopes of tracking down anybody. Whoever was captured was considered a 'trespasser', and this was also why Charming had a hidden, yet rather big, dungeon created underneath his stone building; trespassers were taken in as prisoners, so Charming could cement his authority over them. His main hope was to come across any fairy-tale creatures who happened to abandon him back at Far-Far-away when Arthur convinced them, so he can strike them with the ultimate revenge. Nobody was safe with Charming's regime firmly in place anymore, and the village that's going to be struck by an invasion tonight was no exception.

And again, this was down to Charming's power. Feeling more empowered than ever had provided him with a new focus; with his motivations of avenging himself, his mother, and getting revenge, he wanted to do these in 'pockets', in the form of capturing 'trespassers' and invading villages as he's about to do. He also wanted his people to invade the village to dig out even more resources to keep his regime-like movement going. Charming, ultimately, had never forgot what he did to get to this point, which provided him with an ego, furthering his corruption.

Wearing full knight armour, Prince Charming had began walking up what felt like a brief-hill, where upon getting to the top, he stumbled across a village that was well lit up and stretched outwards for a decent length. It had a bar, and numerous huts containing various forks and torches, alongside other things. Charming moved his hands onto the top of his helmet and unveiled his posh looking self with a swift swing of his hair once his face was unveiled from the metal helmet. He held the helmet in his pit, looking across to his other knights in their large numbers on their horses all behind and besides him. He was going to watch over this invasion. The base was under protection, and was heavily occupied, by his other set of followers.

"Today...we show off our true strength...and perhaps it'll give you some as well..." Charming said, looking towards his two knight companions besides him as they got off their horses.

They gave Charming a slight nudge to inform him that the invasion was about to start.

"Is everything ready?" Charming asked, with the knights leaning in towards Charming to give him an answer.

"Do it..." Charming said, holding his arms behind his back.

The second their 'dear leader' in Charming had given the green light to invade, a huge, thick-sounding collection of hooves colliding with the grass emerged behind him, with the numerous horses with knights charging right towards the village, in their over 30+ numbers together. A group of villagers could be seen standing near the outside of the village, and as Charming watched his forces charge down right to it to invade, he couldn't help but smirk whilst standing as still as a statue. The night time was strong, but his knights were stronger in this invasion, and specifically, his own will. One of his top knights had stood with him, with him too watching the invasion begin. Charming looked towards the knight as he once again returned to a straight face.

"Understand, knight, this...is only the beginning..." Charming declared, turning back to the direction of the lit-up village as he could hear screams of panic emerge from there.

The knight nodded, feeling confident about his position within his Supreme Leader's ranks. Charming was typically given that name amongst his knights, and he loved being called it simply for the fact that it made him sound all the more important.

Fire was emerging amongst the wooden buildings, and as the Charming knights cleared out the vicinity, whilst also capturing the villagers they could get, they completely failed in capturing two specific people; notably, Twart and Blay. Twart had just saved Blay from being captured, and because Twart was tall at an unusual level, he was able to use that to knock out the knights and grab Blay to take him to safety. What was disturbing about all of this, is that all of this time, Charming was watching on from the distance, as it was revealed above.

When this invasion was over and done with, Charming had instructed his knights to capture all the villagers and take them to the base. Their fates would remain concealed, but just because the village was now 'empty' and destroyed, it didn't mean that Charming wanted people to live in it and take advantage of it to hide out. He, as a result, had instructed one of the invading knights to stick up a letter on one of the wooden posts, reminding whoever tries to use the village as a free hideout that being found in it would seal their doom. Below is what it read:

Dear any villagers that were lucky enough to have survived us,

The future is coming. It is within our intentions to serve our master. This village opposes everything that we want, and it opposes our desire to create the future kingdom. The viable route we have taken to resolve this matter, much like numerous other places of a similar status, is to invade and utilise every single resource your obnoxious set of buildings have. Failing to comply in line with us, we have had no choice but to totally act upon the good deeds of our master for the sake of his survival; do NOT expect any resurrection upon this place, for if anybody is found residing in it after the time this letter was hammered upon the very wood it is currently dangling off of, you will be mercilessly handled and taken back to the great regime, where you will be imprisoned on behalf of the great master himself. This is indeed personal, and, much like our policy surrounding land trespassers at night, we will stop at nothing to have you arrested. We are one, we are the strongest movement growing, and no disgusting traitors will step in our path, like those trespassers, or any freeloaders who happen to be having a nice warmth inside this village. Be warned and be scared, we're scanning every night the land that is surrounded upon our vicinity.

The Charming Empire is one that will strive to becoming the governing group of every land surrounding this worthless village, and any person or thing that deems the act of trying to stop our emergence appropriate will simply be crucified without any sort of indication as you're dragged mercilessly back to our base.

On behalf of his great leadership of Prince Charming.

And thus, Charming's authority began its own reputation.

Twart and Blay had began a close friendship after their experience, but seeing their village in flames, some of it anyways, and the vacancy of it due to their other friends being kidnapped by Charming's forces, had made them feel weak inside and apprehensive; what if Charming returns? what if they'll suffer the same fate? for now at least, they seem to have avoided being seen. Blay, though, had noticed that letter on the wooden pole. The vicinity of the village was clear of any of Charming's knights, so the two were free to roam the now abandoned place.

"P-Prince Charming?" Blay said, shivering, after reading the letter.

"Is this some kind of uprising?" Twart asked.

"I dunno man, but...how did we not see this coming? where did they even come from? and what have they done to our-"

"I...I don't know...we need to get to the bottom of this.."

"No, no, we do not, this 'Charming' chap that we've just been introduced to on that letter is behind all of this; it's inked right onto the paper, so why would we do that? oh, you know what? it's hopeless...it's just...my life feels like its taken ten steps back man.."

"We're gonna get through this, okay? we just have to warn other people nearby about what's going on..."

"Hey...I forgot to tell you something.." Blay said.

"What is it?"

"Thanks for saving me...I don't know why you chose me, but man, I couldn't be more grateful...n-now about the others..."

"You've helped me out numerous times, and honestly, if I could've gotten everyone at once I would've...we need to work out our future, though..."

"Ah, of course. I guess if we're wanting to avoid any attention, we should leave this letter on here, so if one of those knights come back and check this place out, he'll think there's nobody living here because everything's in place...does that sound alright?"

"Yeah, seems workable. It'll be hard, though..."

"I know it'll be..."

"YOU THINK YOU CAN TOSS US ABOUT LIKE WE'RE PUPPETS, BUT WHATEVER YOU'RE UP TO, YOU WON'T GET AWAY WITH IT!" a male citizen of the village yelled, as he was being held firmly by Charming's knights whilst talking to Charming himself.

"Under which army, now?" Charming asked, smiling. "Yeah, didn't think so, haha..." he added.

"YOU CAN'T JUST ATTACK A CIVIL VILLAGE AND THEN TAKE ALL ITS CITIZENS...WHAT ARE YOU, SOME SORT OF MANIAC?!"

"Call me whatever you want, I really couldn't care, my honourable man. What matters is that I'm now delivering pockets of my revenge..."

"Revenge?! oh please, that'll be the ball that hits you in the head imminently!" the male citizen argued back.

"Knights, this gentleman is boring me...perhaps you can show him what I do to those who talk back too often?" Charming said, looking at the two knights holding the man.

From the pocket of one of the saddles of the horses, a knight had pulled out a long piece of rope, throwing it out infront of the male citizen that had spoken back at Charming. It caught onto his mouth like a trap, where it rendered him unable to talk, and, due to the thickness and the pressure of the rope from it being pulled backwards, pain-delivering.

"So again, when we arrive, you can be the first to experience what you'll get, how about that?" Charming asked the citizen who now had a rope over his mouth.

He was unable to respond.

"I'm glad you're excited to experience it, I am, as well..." Charming said.

All of these citizens, after returning to Charming's regime base, were given merciless treatment in the form of being thrown into imprisonment, or either worked to death. It was like one big camp structured with the intent of keeping its prisoners in a state where they couldn't access the outside world. This was all apart of Charming's scheme of building up his reputation, in order to prepare for his eventual culmination in his task of getting revenge against Shrek. It was also generally because of him wanting to avenge Fairy Godmother, also.