The grieving King
"Give him back", Ash whispered lifelessly. His voice hoarse from all the screaming. His face still somewhat wet with the tears he spilled for his fallen mentor and his heart broken by the loss. His hands lay lifeless in his lap and his fast was downcast, his eyes closed. He had been seated like this for a few hours now, his mind stuck in the past.
…suddenly the doors where smashed open and Lucario's seemingly lifeless body was thrown outside. Immediately Brock sprang into action and carried the wounded yet alive creature to the hospital wing.
It was there that Ash jumped to conclusions upon seeing the lifeless body of his master. As fast as he could he ran back to the room and began banging on the doors. Lost in his emotions, tears began running over his cheeks, he sank to his knees.
The rest of the crew left, running after Brock who was carrying the body to the hospital wing, except for Pikachu who tried to console his master. The small Pokémon tried it's hardest to get his master's attention, but failed none the less. His master was completely entranced by what the being inside the room had done to Lucario.
Slowly but surely Ash's aura returned to him. There was a misty cloud forming around Ash now. The cloud being Ash's aura and Ash being out of control in his loss, cause the cloud to go haywire. Thunder-like strikes echoing from within the cloud that was steadily growing bigger. Some sort of force field forced Pikachu further away from his crying master.
Ash climbed to his feet and swayed a little once he stood. His arms hung next to his body. Balls of energy forming around the hands. The fog became thicker and soon Pikachu was unable to see her trainer, while he was still being pushed further backwards.
A strong wind picked up around Ash, Aura flared around him, while he took two large steps towards the great door. "Give him back", Ash stated fiercely, but somehow managed to sound just calm and strong. "You can't take him", Ash said, "Give him back or I'll make you". He brought his hands up, looking ready to punch his way through the door," and that is a promise!"
His Aura flared even more and he began punching, hitting, kicking, slamming, beating the door, trying to get it to at least budge under the strain, but the door would give even an inch. After a couple of minutes of beating the door without making any progress whatsoever, he fell to his knees once again. His hope lost again. His head touched the cold door.
Suddenly the doors glowed golden, the same eerie glow that had shown from within the chamber not an hour ago. While the air still vibrated around the broken trainer. Pikachu had long since ran away to get help for his trainer. A strange sound could be heard in the hallway now, it sounded like a violin which hadn't been accorded in a while. It sounded eerie and it made the hairs on Ash's neck stand up. In an instant the sound was gone and Ash's vision went black.
"Give him back", Ash muttered again, still half- unconscious. The first thing he noticed when he woke up was the fact that he was no longer lying on the cold stone floor, or had his head resting against the hard wooden doors. No, now he was lying in a comfortable, though a bit too warm, bed, while his head rested upon a feather pillow. His throat ached from the amount of screaming from before and his hands hurt from the pounding upon the unforgiving wooden doors.
His stomach made the noise, he was quite used to by now, it meant to say, "Ash you had better eat something before you faint!..". He didn't usually argue with his stomach, but now he was more concerned with the fact that there was nobody in the room except for a guy in strange old-fashioned clothing. If the guy hadn't looked so strong and if he hadn't felt so weak, he was sure he would've laughed at the guys clothing style.
The boy wasn't muscular though. No, anything but. He looked strong though. Even though his body looked frail and thin and somewhat feminine The way his eyes seemed to shine with strength, made Ash think twice about mocking him about his clothes.
The brown shoulder length hair framed his face perfectly. His cheekbones were his and accentuated, his eye cases roofed by gorgeously shaped eyebrows and filled with the most stunning brown eyes. It was that Ash didn't swing that way, yet, or he would have been drooling for sure.
The boy, in his mid-twenties, stood up from the chair upon which he was seated. With his delicate hands he straightened his green suit before he walked towards Ash in long elegant strides. To Ash it looked as if the guy had practically walked through a time portal connected to the Victorian age, he was suddenly very scared. 'What if he had ended up in the Victorian age instead?'
"No need to fear, my guardian", the man, said, his voice was deep and warm and sounded as archaic and yet stoic as Lucario's, "you have merely passed into my chamber."
"Your chamber?", Ash replied, while taking in his surroundings. The chamber wasn't huge, but there was enough space to hold both a seating and a dining area. The furniture was made of a dark wood and most decorations were made of gold, or at least something that looked gold. The crownpiece was the giant chandelier that hung from the high ceiling. It had at least fifty lamp buds. They were all blue colored and shone brightly and gave the chamber a blue glow.
"Yes, my chamber", the man confirmed, "I had hoped you would be as informed as the former person that entered, your master, if I am right."
Something inside Ash' head clicked. Was this the person, who caused Lucario to be… gone. Rage welled up inside of Ash, but before he could scream bloody murder, the man held up his hand, signaling for him to keep quiet and let him explain.
"Before we are to discuss business..", Ash snorted at that. Pfff… Business, he would make sure this man meant business when Ash would dish out some punches. The man continued as if he hadn't heard Ash' snort.
"… I want you to know that your master is fine. He is merely unconscious. It would do him no good to be aware of the pain the change brings along." Relief washed over Ash as he heard that, but people had lied to him before so he would believe it when he saw it.
"Now that we have cleaned up the un-pleasantries, let's move on.", the man motioned for Ash to sit down on one of the fauteuil and went to sit on one himself.
"I know your name, I have for some time now, but I have yet to give you mine. My name is Leoice, my guardian. I am the one who will oversee your rite of passage to become a real guardian of Aura. I am also the one you call the King of Aura. I choose the worthy and discard those who are not… and finally I have been blessed once more with the rites of passage of two guardians in one decade no less."
"I'm not your guardian, I'm Aura's guardian", Ash said stubbornly, while cocking his head away from the man. A small smile now graced the man's face. His eyes sparkled with joy and he raised his hand to Ash's face and softly captured his cheek. He coached the head back to face him.
"Yet, still you are my guardian for I was chosen by Aura to be her King, so thus you are obliged to obey me as you would her", Ash slapped the hand on his cheek away as if it stung, but it did nothing to wipe the grin of Leoice face as he did so.
"You are nothing but a narcissist bastard, who's power has risen to his head. You are no king! Look what happened to your people under yourrule!"
"Oh Ash….. Without my guardians to execute my orders, I am nothing", Leoice said while looking offended, "You can hardly blame me for the world's growing greed." Ash was silent for a while and let Leoice words sink in.
"I was once a guardian too you know", Leoice continued , " I saw with my own eyes what greed and jealousy did to my friends and family. As I come from a proud family which has produced many great and loyal guardians, it was sad to see this old line wither and die."
"How old are you exactly? And why haven't I heard of you from the Queen, surely she visits you sometimes?", Ash thought out loud. He was very sure this guy looked no older than thirty and that was if you were being pessimistic.
"I'm older than I look by far, my guardian", the man claimed cryptically, "but it gets lonely in here quick, it is after all only the worthy guardians that are allowed to visit me and there haven't been a lot of those in the last century." Leoice's eyes shone with loneliness and age beyond his looks, but there was something else in there too… hope?
Ash suddenly felt guilty for calling the man a narcissist, while all be did was enjoying human contact whenever he could. Sure it had made Ash feel uncomfortable, but had it really been meant to be that. Was there no possible way to free this man of this chamber, or maybe it was the other way around. To free this poor chamber from the young boy turned King.
" You haven't set foot outside this chamber since you became King?", Ash asked, "How come none of the guardians have taken you outside?" Leoice eyes shone brightly at that statement, surely he had misheard the underlying proposition.
"They never cared to find out", Leoice said , "I am but an icon to them, only there to judge them, but not humanenough for them to befriend. It is not that strange however, for that is what I am portrayed as. Surely you have seen one of my portraits hanging around. I look horrible in each of them. They made me look weak and vulnerable, nothing like the person they wanted me to be. Of course that had its reasons. At first I refused to become King, I played my role while holding a grudge. That is why they portrayed me as weak, they believed I should never have been chosen at all."
Leoice looked away as he thought about the people that had betrayed his trust. He thought he would have been able to build on his family and friends, to trust them with whatever went on in his mind, but he was wrong and he had paid for it.
"You have been locked in here for who knows how long and you have never asked for anyone to take you outside?", Ash asked surprised, "I understand your mistrust of your friends and family, but surely you must have known there would be people who would take you out?"
Anger swelled up inside of Leoice, surely the boy knew what he was offering. "You don't know what you are talking about, boy!", Leoice shouted, but calmed down after seeing the shocked and hurt face that Ash showed him ,"Let it go, Ash. Please just let me do the ritual and go help my kingdom."
I had a genius idea about where I want to take the story from here on, I only hope I will be able to write it. If you want to know what Bella and Leoice look like, soon I'll be putting up some drawings of them on my DeviantArt (hopefully), but for now you should think of Leoice as Lelouch Lamperouge with Kaname Kuran's hair style XD!..
