A/N: Back from my break! Was a bit longer than my previous arc breaks, but I got caught up in binging Better Call Saul and had to deal with assorted personal life things. Anyways, everyone buckle up.
"
START OF ARC FOUR
Chapter 37: The Rooster Prince
Kunzite sat in silence out in the hallway, studying his surroundings. In truth, there wasn't much to study, with the Earth Palace being kept in such impeccable symmetry that everything flowed together in a way that made it feel like you had seen the whole palace, even if you had only seen part of it. Someone with more of an eye and appreciation for art might have found the designs around him more interesting, but Kunzite was not one to dwell on things of little meaning like that. Especially not in moments like this.
The door to his immediate right opened, and a tall man with black hair and a scarred face leaned out towards him. "He's ready."
Kunzite stood up and quickly entered the room, stepping past the beckoner and looking inside. A massive, opulent bedroom, though the details were quickly passed over by the young man as irrelevant as he focused his attention on the man sitting in an ornately-carved wooden chair just half-a-dozen paces into the room. King Kasios, wearing a casual tunic, had his left leg resting on his right knee, looking Kunzite over.
"You seem taller than the last time I saw you," Kasios said. Kunzite bowed deeply towards the Earth King. "Good to have you back, Kunzite."
Kunzite stood at attention in front of Kasios, waiting to be prompted to say something.
"Relax," the King ordered, Kunzite quickly obeying. "I'm glad we were able to get you back. I was worried that after two years on Venus, you might decide you were having too much fun and not want to leave."
"Fun with what?" Kunzite asked blankly. "Of course I was always going to come back. I was there for training. My loyalty lies with you and the Earth Kingdom, Your Highness."
Kasios laughed, pointing over at Kunzite and looking up at the scarred man looming behind him. "Fun with what. You hear that?" He swallowed. "Well, my understanding is that things went extremely well while you were over there, so I'll cut straight to the point. The only thing that's really left is for you to decide is what you want to do with your life. Understand that your commitment to serving an Earth Royal as a general and guardian is not something you can just break later, so the time for thinking things over is now. Do you still want to become Prince Endymion's general?"
Without hesitation, Kunzite answered. "I would like nothing more, Your Majesty. I have worked tirelessly to become one over the last several years, and I would be honored to be named an official general to the Prince."
"It won't be easy," Kasios said, pointing over at the man behind Kunzite. "Just ask Achilles about the things he's had to do in service to me over the last two plus decades."
"I didn't choose to pursue this job expecting to handle things that were easy," Kunzite said. "I am prepared for any challenge that being in the service of Prince Endymion might bring."
"Then we will make it official tomorrow," Kasios stated. "I've seen and heard all I needed to see from you."
"Thank you, Your Highness," Kunzite said.
"You won't be his only general, we're planning on bringing on a few more. You'll figure out how to work with them to best serve the Prince." Kasios stirred a bit in his seat. "But I anticipate that you'll be taking a senior role over the candidates we have targeted, so prepare for that."
"Of course, Your Highness," Kunzite answered.
"And there's one other thing." Kasios grimaced. "Um, something I couldn't divulge until you were sure you wanted to do this, confidentiality reasons. So, there's one consideration that I need to instill into you as you go forward. What I'm about to tell you, you must keep secret."
Kunzite nodded.
"We can't have this getting out, but...there's one thing with Prince Endymion. Maybe. I don't know yet. Nobody knows yet, but it has to be considered a possibility." He cleared his throat. "Of course, you know what happened to his mother."
"Certainly, Your Majesty," Kunzite answered promptly.
"Right, well...her condition. Obviously, quite rare, and not entirely understood by the medical community. No cure. And, also...possibly, hereditary." He put his hands out towards Kunzite. "Possibly! It's...it's not conclusive or anything."
Kunzite let his stony mask slip, expression reflecting a bit of shock. "P-Prince Endymion has...has he…"
"No, no! Not at all, nothing...no signs. Yet. And we've had him tested, he's come up clean, but that doesn't mean...well, it doesn't mean it can't develop later. So, since you'll be spending a lot of time with him going forward, nobody's in a better position to determine that than you."
Kunzite nodded, firming his face back up, not wanting to let emotion slip in front of the King.
"Now, your directive as Endymion's general will be to serve him above all else, that's how it works. Your number one priority is to work in his interests, for now and forever. However, as King, I'm going to implement one exception. One case in which your orders from me supersede whatever orders you might receive from him."
"I'm listening, Your Highness," Kunzite said.
"I'm hoping this never comes up, and there's a good chance it never will. However, if during your service to Prince Endymion, you notice any indication of degrading mental faculties, mental illness, erratic behavior, or...anything that might be a precursor to dementia. Any sign that he's inherited what his mother suffered from. You bring it to me. That's regardless of whatever he wants you to do. Even if he orders you to not, you tell me. It's possible that we could take steps to mitigate his condition if we catch it early, or if push comes to shove, perhaps even cryogenic storage until a cure can be developed."
"I understand," Kunzite said. "I'll observe him carefully and bring any troubling signs to you immediately."
"I have no intention of stepping down from the throne anytime soon," Kasios continued. "But eventually, I will pass it along to Endymion. And if he were to...begin to succumb to dementia after becoming King, then the damage to the Kingdom could be irreversible. So if this is a problem, we need to catch it before then. Catch it while I'm still able to take measures to protect the Kingdom." He leaned back. "So, let's call this...Order One. An order that supersedes whatever orders might come from your charge. No exceptions."
"Sounds good to me, Your Majesty," Kunzite said, bowing. "Order One. I'll remember it."
"I doubt it'll amount to anything," Kasios said assuredly. "I'm sure you'll start to notice signs before he turns twenty, in almost all cases it manifests by then. I certainly won't give up the throne until after that either way." He waved his arm towards the door. "You may go."
Kunzite nodded, turning away and marching from the room.
"Thrilled to have you aboard," Kasios added.
"
Kunzite let out a mighty sigh, adjusting the collar of his uniform as he prepared to open the side hatch to The Falconeri. He stared at the inside of the hull where the hatch would fall open, trying and failing to not think about what he was doing. If he spent more than a few beats doing that, he'd surely stop everything immediately, realizing it was all completely insane. And at this point, it was a little late for that.
As much as the plan made sense when Endymion described it, to the point where Kunzite was actually quite impressed by it, there were still countless points in it where the Prince could easily be killed, on purpose or accidentally, and Kunzite was signing off on putting him in those situations. It was antithetical to his job to allow him to be put in so much as one dangerous situation. Truth be told, he didn't even know if Endymion was alive right at this moment.
He reached forward and pressed a red button in the wall, getting the hatch to quickly pop open and descend down to the ground. The ship opened up onto a view of the eastern side of the Earth installation of Galen Laboratories. Briskly, Kunzite stepped down onto the concrete floor that made up the tarmac. Moving purposefully, again steeling his brain against actually thinking about his actions as he undertook them. Right now, nothing good could come of thinking about things.
"
Ptilol and Cyprine both jumped and nearly shrieked at the sound of the door creaking open up above, quickly scrambling to peer up the iron staircase. When they found Kunzite standing at the top of the steps, it took some time for them to change their reactions from ones of terror to utter confusion.
With a spread out, powerful gait, Kunzite took the steps down to the two twins, who didn't even reach for their holstered weapons until he had nearly cleared all of the fourteen steps down to them.
"H-hey!" Cyprine yelled, frantically backing away as she brought her plasma pistol to bear. "Hold up!"
Kunzite slowed to a halt at the bottom of the steps, slowly glancing back and forth between the two women, offering a quizzical shrug as they pointed their guns at his chest.
"W-what are you doing here?!" Ptilol demanded, her shock giving way to her rage rather quickly.
"To work," Kunzite replied flatly. "We're due for another batch." He pointed towards the door on the opposite side of the small antechamber, which lead down to the laboratory.
"...you...you can't…" Ptilol stammered, shaking back and forth, fighting to keep steady enough to keep the weapon on the Prince's guard. "You...you killed…"
"My understanding is that Cronus still expects the synthesized imperium on schedule. Has that changed?"
Cyprine struggled to find the words, fighting with a series of syllables that formed no words in any known language. Finally, she stepped to the side as far as she could. "A-alright! Get down there! G-go!" She jerked her head back over her shoulder. Ptilol moved to the wall opposite her sister. Kunzite took a couple steps forward before being halted.
"W-wait!" Cyprine suddenly interjected, shuffling back to the door and fighting with the lock while trying to keep her eyes and weapon on Kunzite. After several tries, the steel bolt mechanism slid open and Cyprine was able to take a few steps out onto the catwalk. "Come here!"
The white-haired general complied, slowly pacing out into the laboratory's walkway. As soon as he cleared the threshold, he looked down to his right. It took considerable restraint for him to not express relief at what he saw.
Endymion looked quite alive and well, seated on a small metallic chair in the middle of the lab, leaning back and crossing his right leg over his left. He gave a brief look up at his guardian before resuming his blank stare at the wall, giving Kunzite just enough time to notice his black eye. Kunzite had to work to not overreact to the wound, fighting a natural instinct to spring into action at the first sight of his charge being in danger. All in all, given the stunt they had just pulled, a black eye was pretty tame.
Right in front of the Prince was Tellu, leaning up against a counter, a pistol in her hand. She was just now realizing that Kunzite was present, and was surprised enough to take her focus off Endymion for a moment.
"Where'd you find him?" Tellu asked, cocking her head towards the general.
"He just showed up!" Cyprine shouted. "Just...walked in. Can you keep an eye on him?"
Tellu nodded, her face wrinkling suddenly. "Is...that's a gun on his hip?!"
"Huh?!" Cyprine said, frantically looking down at Kunzite's waist. "O-oh!"
"Search him!" Tellu ordered.
Casually, Kunzite reached down to his waist and gripped the butt end of his weapon between his thumb and forefinger, slowly removing the weapon from his belt and dropping it to the ground. As Cyprine quickly approached him to pat him down, he caught Endymion looking up to shoot a smile at him.
"
Cyprine and Ptilol could barely suppress a shudder as Cronus slowly came down the steps towards the antechamber, his light footsteps and small stature still conveying tremendous menace.
The two twins stood there, waiting for their boss to offer his input on recent events. He was not quick to do so, satisfying himself with glowering at his two underlings for quite some time. Neither was sure of how long this went on. But both were smart enough to not say anything.
"Where is he?" he asked, his voice low and lethal.
"I-in the lab," Cyprine answered. "Tellu's keeping an eye on him and...Kunzite."
"Kunzite's here?" he continued, tugging on his sleeves.
"Y-yes, sir, he...he just walked in," Ptilol chimed in. "Maybe a minuta ago."
Cronus looked up at the door out to the catwalk, locked tightly shut, then back to Cyprine. "Why?"
"I...he just keeps saying that he showed up to...to work, to synthesize," she answered. "The...the Prince, too, a broken record, he keeps saying they need to...they need to keep the current batch going." She shrugged. "Almost as if they have...it's like they have no understanding of what's just happened."
"I'm sure they do," Cronus replied. "Cyprine, describe to me exactly how things happened from your perspective. Please."
Cyprine blinked a few times in rapid succession. "Um...everything was going according to plan, except...well. Kunzite didn't show up when we expected. Endymion just said he was...running behind, he didn't know why."
"You didn't find his absence suspicious?" Cronus inquired, narrowing his gaze at Cyprine.
"Um...more and more as time went on," Cyprine said nervously. "But we were already checking the ship, the...the freighter, we found the imperium! We...we thought we had the imperium."
"Thought?" Cronus repeated.
"Um...Kunzite...they lead us to a decoy freighter, it...it had some raw product in there, but...it was just enough to trick us. But we didn't know that until Viluy got onto the ship." Cyprine wiped at her forehead.
"It didn't occur to you that something might be wrong when Kunzite didn't show up?" Cronus asked. "That maybe it would be a good idea to remove Viluy from a potentially dangerous situation?"
"We didn't think it was dangerous!" Cyprine said, a hint of panic in her voice. "We had...had every reason to believe that freighter had the imperium supply! And...I mean, if they had some idea of what was going on, then it was even more urgent for us to locate and take the supply!"
"If they had some idea of what was going on, do you think they'd ever consider doing anything that might lead us to their supply?" Cronus said accusingly.
"If they knew we were going to try to kill them, t-then...I mean, why would the Prince come here to work at all?!" Cyprine asked. "And...and we couldn't have...we had an opportunity to secure their supply! We thought! And that was the most important thing, way...way more important than...than Kunzite!"
"Everything was important," Cronus said, a hissing lethality in his words. "None of this would work unless we got everything. What good would the imperium have been with a loose end who could expose us flying around the galaxy?"
"I...well, surely it's better than not having it," Cyprine protested.
"And now, nothing matters, since we've lost our chemist," Cronus hissed. "You see how that works? You should have aborted the mission as soon as Kunzite didn't arrive as expected."
Cyprine grimaced, leaning forward towards her boss. "C-Cronus, listen, I...I thought about that. W-well, first, I'm...obviously, I feel awful about Viluy. It's really sad, if...I mean, I'm assuming that she...you know…"
Cronus's steely gaze said it all.
"Right, but...hey, we have his formula, right? The...the recipe, we have that, we've got it on tape, days and days worth of footage of their process, so...I can follow a recipe! Just...let's torture them until they tell us where the actual imperium is, dispose of them, and I'll just...I'll take over! Just copy what they've been doing all this time, I...me and Ptilol!" She emphatically gestured over towards her sister. "It's just like a recipe, we can...follow a recipe."
Cronus said nothing in reply to her panicked diatribe, although his firm and angered expression seemed to indicate he didn't think much of her proposal.
"Just...just let us try a few times!" she continued. "We'll do a few test runs, see if it's viable, and...and go from there—"
"They're both in the lab?" Cronus asked, turning his focus over to the door across the room from him. Cyprine nodded, Cronus then raising his hand up towards his blue-haired underling, palm open expectantly. Reading between the lines, Cyprine deposited her plasma pistol into Cronus's hand. Now armed, the pharmaceutical tycoon marched forward, shoving the gun into the waistband of his pants. The two sisters let him pass through the door before following.
The moment Cronus entered the large, underground laboratory, his eyes were glued to Endymion. The young adult Prince defiantly looked up towards Cronus for a few moments, then turned his focus back to Tellu, as if he didn't consider the older man worth more than a cursory acknowledgement. Kunzite, on the other hand, tracked Cronus as he moved across the catwalk.
"Over a decade, I've been working with Viluy," he began, words being punctuated by the dull clink of his footsteps as he came down the stairs to the main floor. "Found her, groomed her, saw to her education. Slowly cultivated her into one of the finest scientific minds in the galaxy."
"I tried to tell her that you'd be upset if the batch fell behind schedule," Endymion called out loudly, ignoring Cronus's burgeoning rant. "They wouldn't listen."
"The finest, perhaps. She surpassed all of her instructors and educators. Surpassed me. The things she would have accomplished in her life, I can't even begin to imagine." Cronus got down to the concrete floor, gradually rounding on the Prince and his bodyguard.
"A tragedy," Endymion said, slowly rising to his feet.
"Sit down!" Tellu ordered, shaking her pistol in Endymion's direction.
"A shame about what you did to her," Endymion added, glaring over at Cronus.
"What I did?" Cronus hissed, flinching a bit as he was taken aback by the combative statement.
"Yes. You did this, Cronus," Endymion stated.
"Sit. Down!" Tellu snapped, rough scratchy voice projecting powerfully and echoing around the large room. Kunzite had to fight the urge to reach over and give Endymion's tunic a tug back down towards the chair underneath him. Nevertheless, despite the ignored order, Tellu's pistol remained benign.
"You did this when you forced me to choose," Endymion growled. "You forced me to choose between my life and hers. That's on you. You killed her. You made it clear that one of us had to go. All I did was defend myself. So yes, what you did."
"Prince, you had better—" Tellu roared, halting mid-yell by Cronus putting a hand out towards her.
"I made the only decision I could make," Endymion continued. "If the choice is between me and her, then I'll kill her again every day for the rest of my life. What did you expect me to do?"
"This isn't the first time you've put my operation at risk by arranging for the death of one of my employees," Cronus said, contrasting Kunzite's nervous, stiff, rigid posture with Endymion's large, commanding stance. "Mimete was mine. And I know you were behind her death. I let that one go. Clearly, I made a mistake."
"Oh, you let it go?" Endymion said animatedly. "You let it go? Are you...trying to make me feel sorry for you? Do you want me to admit I should have just rolled over and let you kill me?" He cleared his throat. "Tell me, Cronus, who was it who arranged for my dealers to get ripped off? Who was it who informed the agency about one of my distribution handoffs? Who was it who arranged for three of my dealers to be executed in a back alley?!" He powerfully marched over towards Cronus. In a flash, Tellu was up, dashing over to grab Endymion around the shoulders and pull him back to the ground. He went down in a heap, Kunzite blinking rapidly and beginning to visibly sweat down his face.
Endymion rolled over and got back to his feet, Tellu looming right next to him in the event that he made another threatening action towards her boss.
"And who was it who sold me out to the agency to save their own skin?" he asked. "And you'd try to tell me about what you've let go?"
"What are you talking about?" Cronus asked.
"Oh, please!" Endymion snapped. "As if it wasn't obvious! You did everything you could think of to disrupt my operation so I'd have to come work for you! Don't even try to say otherwise!"
Cronus was perhaps about to reply, but the tense conversation was interrupted by the groan of the lid atop one of the large silver vats being pushed open. Endymion quickly squared up on Cyprine, who had used a stepladder and was now peering down into the large circular container.
"H-hey, what do you think you're doing?!" Endymion said, pointing an accusing finger over towards Cyprine. "That's meant to be sealed until—"
"We need these vats flushed," Cyprine said, pointing down at the contents. "Now."
"Cyprine, are you insane?!" Ptilol yelped, jumping up and grabbing the edge of the lid, yanking it down hard so it was again covering the top, and then frantically re-latching it. "The fumes are toxic!"
"Not that toxic!" Cyprine argued after a short pause.
"You think they've been wearing respirator masks every time the vats are unsealed for the sake of fashion?!" Ptilol pointed over at Endymion and Kunzite. "Come on, use your head!"
"W-whatever, whatever, I…" Cyprine looked down at the Prince. "Dump this vat."
"Well, we certainly have to now," Endymion growled. "You've contaminated it." He pointed at Cronus. "I'm sure he'll just be thrilled about you wasting over a thousand libras."
Cronus certainly didn't look thrilled, eyes darting back and forth between Cyprine and Endymion. Though he seemed quite happy to allow things to play out without his direct intervention.
"It's not going to matter by the end of the day," Cyprine insisted. "We're going to make a batch and prove just how disposable you are, regardless of your little stunt tonight."
Endymion stared at the thin blue-haired woman, and then started derisively laughing. "You're making a batch? Did I hear that right?"
"You're not special," Cyprine said, jumping down from the stepladder. "You're just a guy with a recipe. Anyone can follow a recipe. And I can prove it."
"Oh, a recipe?" Endymion repeated, spittle flying from his mouth and spewing onto the ground as he began to heat up. "You can follow a recipe?! Is that what you think this is?! A recipe?! You think I'm serving up meat wraps for six creds a piece?!"
"The steps never change," Cyprine insisted. "And we've got every step recorded on video." She turned over to look at Cronus. "You watch. You won't be able to tell the difference with the product. I'm capable of doing everything he does."
"Oh, really?" Endymion hissed. "Well, tell me, then, since you seem to have all the answers." He pointed across the lab at the trough. "When the catalyst bed interacts with the imperium in a liquid state, is the resulting reaction protic or aprotic?" He waved his hand up above his head. "Because it's slipped my mind! Oh, and while we're at it, please, enlighten us, which chiral center is eliminated by the reduction performed inside the tube furnaces?"
Cyprine rolled her eyes. "Blah blah, nerd crap, none of that shit matters, no matter how much you want it to!" She advanced on Endymion slowly, trying and failing to intimidate him.
"What enantiomeric reaction is used to determine if the boron crystal fluid possesses the expected acidity ratio in order to spark the reaction?" Endymion continued. "Suppose you get a bad batch of fluid, how would you even know if you don't know that?! And how would humidity affect the final product? How would you adjust the 'recipe' to account for it?" He turned towards Cronus, pointing emphatically at Cyprine. "Is this your plan, now? Replace me with this...this short-order cook? Come on, you're a scientist, you can't honestly believe you'll make it more than a cycle selling the dreck this woman will produce!"
Cronus's mouth curved down into a snarl, his frustration and anger becoming more evident with each passing moment.
"But, if you insist on finding out the hard way, by all means." He marched over towards Cronus, starting to smirk. In short order, Tellu moved to plant herself between the Prince and her boss, but Cronus was quick to rip the plasma pistol in his waistband out and point it directly at Endymion.
"Enough!" Cronus spat.
Kunzite was on the verge of drawing blood with his nails digging into his thigh, his heart churning as fast as he could remember. He was vaguely aware of his face being covered in sweat, and it took all of his willpower to not jump up and try to protect Endymion. He was now just a couple uncias worth of pressure away from having a plasma bolt burn a hole through his head, and here he was sitting there, doing nothing to stop it, condoning it. He had actually helped things get to this point, in fact.
"Go ahead, then," Endymion dared. "Kill me, get the raw product from Kunzite, and then kill him. I've made it very easy for you, and you seem to have plenty of confidence in your ability to somehow get away with it, I'd be fascinated to hear how you plan on pulling that off, actually. Kill us, and leave yourself with a hole in the ground worth tens of millions of creds. Your dealers will have nothing to distribute, your entire distribution chain collapses without us. And if you're fine with that, then you go right ahead."
Cronus, with nothing but a twitch of his finger between him and killing Endymion, continued to just hold in that pose, the barrel of the weapon starting to shake slightly.
"Do it," Endymion taunted. "Throw away a revenue stream worth hundreds of billions of creds, destroy the infrastructure you've spent the last decade building, surely that's how a successful businessman does things. Do it. Do it!" He took a few more steps towards Cronus. "DO IT!"
Finally, Cronus slowly lowered the barrel of the gun down towards his side, an action that seemed to take no small amount of effort. Kunzite released a breath that he didn't realize he had been holding in. Though the thick tension in the room remained for several beats, eventually, the weapon was pointed down at the floor, no longer an imminent threat to Endymion.
"Yeah," Endymion growled.
Suddenly, Cronus whipped the weapon back up, pointing it up over Endymion's right shoulder. He fired off a blast, the energy projectile just barely missing the Prince, instead burrowing into the skull of Cyprine.
Kunzite gripped down on the fabric of his pants so tightly he ripped a small hole in them, so shocking was the sudden turn of events. Tellu flinched, gun arm falling limply to her side as her jaw dropped, instinctively jumping back a bit. As Cyprine's body slumped to the floor in a heap, Ptilol was too shocked to even muster any kind of reaction, just watching the disturbing sight blankly.
Endymion barely even glanced over his shoulder to acknowledge who the projectile had hit, then continued to stare Cronus down. The pharmaceutical tycoon walked right up to Endymion, cheeks practically pulsing with anger.
"Your life will last only as long as I find you useful," he warned through gritted teeth. "Realize that."
Endymion didn't reply, just defiantly smirking back. Kunzite gulped down hard, using almost every muscle in his body to swallow.
And then, Cronus reared back with his right arm and punched Endymion in the face, spinning the Prince back around and sending him to the concrete floor. Endymion grunted, taken by surprise. Kunzite instinctively got to his feet, which got Tellu to again start paying attention. She raised her gun towards the Earth general, which was enough to get him to stop whatever he was about to do.
Cronus's shoulders heaved as he stared down at Endymion, and then slowly he turned around. With a measured, calculated pace, he headed over towards the spiral stairs.
Ptilol was staring at Cyprine's corpse, still battling the initial stages of shock. She couldn't take her eyes off the gruesome sight of her mutilated face. Tellu, slightly further along in processing things, carefully sidestepped over towards the body.
"H-hey," she said throatily, snapping Ptilol out of her daze. "Let's...come on," she whispered, kneeling down and grabbing Cyprine's ankles. Ptilol gave her head a shake, then bent over to grab her shoulders.
"Leave her," Cronus instructed, standing on the first step of the stairs and looking over his shoulders. "She'll be disposed of by them."
Ptilol, looking highly distressed, stared at Cronus, then turned over her shoulder to look at Endymion and Kunzite. However, after a few moments of looking down at Cyprine's lifeless body, she stood up, falling in line behind Tellu as both trailed their boss back out of the laboratory.
"I figured out that riddle," Endymion said, breaking the relative quiet. Cronus, now at the top of the stairs, turned to look down at the Prince. "I figured it out."
Cronus simply walked off down the catwalk, unaffected by the statement. A few beats later, he was out of the room, Tellu and Ptilol close behind, the implied threats and a dead body left in his wake.
Kunzite heaved a mighty sigh, slumping over and pressing his face into the countertop surface. He closed his eyes, body practically shivering as the tension slowly began to leave him.
"You alright?" Endymion asked. Kunzite looked up, seeing that his left eye was now matching his right, both of them blackened by punches.
Kunzite didn't even want to dignify that question with an answer. He instead blinked down hard. "I can't believe I agreed to this," he mumbled under his breath.
"He was never going to do it," Endymion said, sounding almost calm and indifferent. "He can't afford it."
Kunzite grimaced. "What riddle? What...what was that about?"
"Oh, um...awhile ago." Endymion went over to the vat that Cyprine had been poking around in a moment before, pressing a few buttons on a pad on the side of the container. "I asked...I asked Cronus how he was able to lie so much. How he was able to live this double life, constantly lying to everyone around him, how he was able to manage it. And he gave me a riddle. He said I'd know the answer if I could solve the riddle, it was...why does the human eye see more shades of green than any other color?"
"Oh, well...predators," Kunzite said quickly.
Endymion nodded. "Right."
"In...in the ancient times, before we were humans, before they evolved, when they were...what you'd loosely refer to as monkeys, they'd live in the jungle, and there'd be bears and panthers who wanted to eat them. So they had to be able to see them, and in the jungle, everything's green. Grass, trees. So they evolved the ability to see more shades of green, so they could have a better chance of being able to see them coming and not be eaten."
"Yeah," Endymion said with a smile. "Predators." The vat begin to churn. "Alright, I'm dumping this, it's worthless now. We'll have to start over."
Slowly, Kunzite looked over at Cyprine's body. "And we need to...take care of that."
"
The Falconeri laid dormant up in orbit around the Earth, Kunzite having quickly directed it to zoom up high into the sky as soon as the batch had finished so that he and the Prince could have some time to discuss things in guaranteed private. He was leaning up close to his charge, slowly running a tiny black brush along the skin around his eyes, painting over the darkened, bruised areas with a tan-colored makeup to disguise his wounds.
"Don't rub at them, whatever you do," Kunzite instructed firmly. "It'll rub right off. No scratching, wiping, nothing."
"So you propose you come to my room every morning to do this after my bath?" Endymion asked, eyes closed to allow Kunzite to work with maximum room for error.
"Well, we have to do something. There's going to be no good explanation for you having a couple black eyes, so nobody can see this," Kunzite said. He lowered the brush. "Alright, I suppose that'll do."
Endymion opened his eyes, blinking rapidly. "Given that they were planning to kill us, I'd say getting off with a couple bruises is pretty good on our part. And hey, he had every opportunity to get rid of us, but he couldn't do it. So I was right. Get rid of Viluy, and he's got no leverage."
Kunzite sighed. "For the moment. We've...bought ourselves some time, but don't think this is resolved by any means, Your Highness."
"He had a gun pointed at both of us, in his lab. He'll never have a better opportunity to kill us, and he didn't," Endymion said, standing up and going up to the front of the cockpit, looking out the front window. "I'd say that's pretty definitive on how much he needs us."
"Eventually, he'll decide that he doesn't," Kunzite warned. "Cronus is a phenomenally wealthy man, and one day he'll decide he has enough money and enough revenue from his pharmaceutical work that he doesn't need us anymore. You need to understand that. We need to start figuring out our next move."
Endymion nodded. "Well. If you're saying what I think you're saying, I suppose we'll just have to kill him first."
"I'm sure he'll make that very difficult," Kunzite muttered. "Nigh-impossible, even."
"Well, you weren't given this job to handle things that were easy," Endymion said. Kunzite couldn't help but grin a bit. "And I didn't involve myself in this business assuming it would be easy either. We'll find a way."
"Alright, let's get back to the palace, I...I need to sleep." Kunzite slid into the pilot seat of the ship. "Perhaps more than I ever have in my life."
"This should go without saying, but...Serenity doesn't need to know about any of this," Endymion threw in.
"Of course," Kunzite agreed, engaging the thrusters on the ship and moving to break out of orbit.
"
Six man-sized spacesuits, each one with a small square jetpack strapped onto the back, were zipping around through open space, maneuvering around a collection of barrels floating aimlessly. A short distance away, a massive freighter laid dormant, aimlessly floating through space, a sizable hole in the side of the hull. It was slowly spinning around on a horizontal axis because of the momentum imparted onto it by the initial suction of the hole, and the contents of the room were floating about, having been spewed in all directions. Much of it was no doubt a great distance away, as any velocity that it gained on being ejected out of the ship would never be interfered with unless it directly crashed into something, but a good amount of it remained hanging about.
"That hull breach doesn't look like an explosion," one of the salvage workers said, his voice being sent to every other spacesuit in the area, as well as the Class C ship that the crew had used to get to the sight of the mysterious accident. "Honestly, it looks like it's been bored through from the outside.
"By a laser? A missile?" another asked. One of the salvagers was closing in on the hull breach, preparing to study it and check the interior. "You think this was some sort of space battle?"
"Maybe. We've also got that abandoned ship over there, that didn't look damaged at all."
"It's a mystery."
"Holy shit, guys! I've got a body! Corpse! We've got a corpse in here!" The salvage worker who had just entered the ship called out. "Female, looks like."
"Damn, Leander, you find a corpse and the first thing you do is check under the skirt?"
"Funny," Leander said dryly. "White hair. Head wound, but mostly...pretty intact and undamaged. Frozen, obviously."
"Well, bring it in."
"Will do."