BATTER (Once a King)

Classification: Pre-Canon-to-RESTART, Canon-Timeline-to-RESTART, Pre-Canon-to-Original-OFF, Non-Canon-to-Original-OFF

Time Frame: ? ? ?

Location: N/A

RATED: G

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions. You're in Hell. What were your intentions?

There was once a King, who ruled a prosperous kingdom of foolish creatures. They were not people, not like the King, nor like the Queen, nor even like the Son, but they had the potential to be. They only needed time and care to become more.

The King was a gentle ruler, lending an ear to his subjects' concerns and supporting their dreams. He was beloved. The Queen was a generous soul, providing for the subjects anything they could desire. She was admired. The Son was magnanimous, granting the subjects opportunities to better themselves, to change. He was treasured.

The King was drowning in his subjects' petty concerns and impossible dreams.

The Queen was desperate for love, taken for granted by her subjects for all she granted them.

The Son was disheartened, none of his subjects desiring to change, to be more.

Each desired only the best for their subjects and realm. The King sought solutions for his subjects, ways to grant them their dreams. He sought knowledge lost, and knowledge yet to be gained. Scouring the kingdom, he found no solution that suited his subjects. Reaching to other kingdoms, he found no solution his subjects accepted. Searching the stars, he found no solution his subjects believed. Ages of his search passed, the weight of his subjects' pressing upon him greater and greater,

The King listened, but did he care?

The Queen gave, but did she receive?

The Son wanted change, but could he?

A whisper reached the King's ears, of an end to his search. At the bottom of the sea was rumored to be an item which would grant an answer to any question. Desperate to end his search, the King scoured the seas himself, a task which took him years.

At the bottom of the sea, the King found it. A cube of red, weightless and bright. Stealing the item from its place in the cold waters, the King hid it away in his palace. In the depths of his domain, the King asked for the solution to his subjects' problems. He received an answer.

::Only something with a _ can have dreams.

::Only something with a _ can have desire.

::Only something with a _ can resist change.

The King could not bear it. It was knowledge, yes, but a burdensome one. He had asked powers greater than himself, and received answers so terrible that he struggled under their magnitude. How could he bring himself to answer their dreams and desires this way?

The King hid what he had learned, tossing the cube back to the seas. For years he sat upon his knowledge, listening to his subjects' as they burdened him with their thoughts and dreams.

The pressure of his subjects' problems and the weight of the solution were too much for the King. He started to crack. If it would answer his subjects' problems, why should he not? If it would stop their foolish desires, why should he falter? If it would change their feeble minds, why would he wait?

The King just wanted it all to stop.

The Queen just wanted to matter.

The Son just wanted to help.

So, the King made a choice.

Slipping into the darkest depths of his kingdom in the night, he steeled himself for what he had decided. One of his subjects stumbled across the King wrapped in a cloak of shadows and lies, and asked as to the King's purpose.

The King used the answer, and took what was not freely given. The King left that morning both more and less than he was. What he left behind was not his subject, but two halves of a whole.

Each night, the King slipped from his palace to perform his duty, and each morning he returned both more and less than he was. Each night, he took more than he was offered, and each morning he drew his cloak of lies tighter around himself. Each night, he grew colder, and each morning he went to listen to his subjects. Each night, something grew on the horizon, and each morning it swallowed more of the world outside the kingdom.

As so it was that one morning, what the light touched was no longer the King, but a monster cloaked in a false skin of lies. The monster listened to his subjects, and every night solved their problems. With each problem he solved, the monster changed in form and the skin of lies stretched further.

The King was lost.

The Queen was empty.

The Son was unknowing.

It was when the world was almost no more to what grew in the night, that the masked man came. He spoke of what he had seen beyond the boundaries of the kingdom. He offered to build barriers between what crept and the kingdom. The monster agreed, and the masked man separated out the world into two parts: the pieces of what remained, and the nothingness. In return for his service, the masked man was offered a place in the monster's kingdom.

However, the masked man felt no satisfaction. There was something about the kingdom that felt wrong, and the masked man wished to know what. The masked man began to observe the kingdom. He observed how the nothingness grew stronger each night. He observed the Queen's struggles to provide for her subjects. He observed the Son's desire to aid his subjects. He observed the monster slip back into the palace come morning, and listen to his subjects speak.

The masked man could see the Queen was faltering, unloved and alone. He could see the Son shed tears, unable to help and alone. He could see the monster sit upon his throne, unmoved by the words of his subjects. The masked man grew suspicious of the monster, seeing the cracks in the lies he wore.

So when night fell and the monster slipped from his palace, the masked man followed. And when he saw the monster's duties, he fled back to the palace. He told the Queen what he had seen, he warned the Son what he had found.

There was no King.

The Queen refused to see.

The Son was unable to understand.

Come morning, the masked man confronted the monster on his throne. He told the monster that he had seen what the monster did at night. The monster's skin of lies snapped, revealing his true form of corruption and despair. The masked man recoiled and drew his sword.

The masked man entreated the monster to stop his actions, to leave the remains of his subjects and realm to peace. "Wretched monarch, leave this land in peace, or perish at the tip of my blade."

The monster sat upon his throne, snarling at the masked man. Terrible fangs gnashed at the man, and leathered skin stretched over giant limbs. The monster stood to tower over the man, his shadow cast as empty as the nothingness outside the barriers the man had built. "I am the King, and you are my subject. You are not to go against my will."

The two fought, a clash of claws and steel. Days passed in conflict, the pair equally matched. Eventually, the masked man stumbled and was struck. He lost his mask, and fled the kingdom, leaving it to the clutches of the monster. However, the lies that the monster had used were broken, leaving him bare to the eyes of those in his kingdom. So taking the mask of the man, the monster wore it to hide from the gazes of his subjects.

The masked man swore to return.

The monster laughed upon his throne.

The Queen was forced to see.

The Son was imprisoned.

And so the kingdom continued for a time, the nothingness growing each night as the monster performed his duties, until he turned his attention to the Queen and the Son.

The rest of the story is missing.

No one starts out evil, not even monsters.

Guys, it's getting really hard to post on FF. Every time I try, the webpage lags or crashes. I literally only have this issue when trying to post on FF, nowhere else. I'll keep posting until RESTART and Corrupted Save are all uploaded, and maybe the rest of Scenario Failure, but then I think (unless the issue stops) I'm jumping ship to AO3.

Also, I tried to get this to format properly and it just wouldn't. Properly formatted chapter on AO3.