Prince of Darkness: A Let's Fight a Boss Fanfiction
Written by Marco Cian [With help from Paprika-Papa]
Chapter 1 - Fall from Grace
John awoke with a start, pain flooding his body as consciousness slowly reasserted itself. Instinctively he clutched his head and felt the blood on his scalp, still not quite fully clotted, and with a flinch, his mind furiously began to race. How had he awoken in such a state? He remembered the letter and royal ring, the announcement that he was now the Crown Prince of Graustark and the request for him to come claim his throne. He remembered the carriage, the word of warning Master Chen had spoken to him before he had set off to the capital of Edelweiss. And he remembered the banquet that had been held in honor of his arrival, all the lords and ladies who had pranced and preened in his presence. But after that… John could only recall faint haziness and brief images.
There had been a flash, an explosion as a pirate ship had boarded the castle. A strange captain with a strange laughter, declaring that the Dark Throne of Graustark was now his and no longer John's. And then, in the confusion, as John had been rushed away by the royal guard, a sudden wave of darkness, as the guards had fallen one by one, and John had turned to see a woman, her chin dribbling with fresh blood, rushing towards him. John had raised his hands in defense, when suddenly the royal ring he'd been gifted had flared, and the woman had recoiled in its presence. She had called a name then, the name of the pirate captain, and then before John had been able to react he had felt a hammer blow to his skull, and then… darkness.
Those two, the pirate captain and the woman, they were responsible. Wherever he was now, they had put him there. But why? And where was wherever he was now?
"Ahem," a voice in the darkened room where John lay brought the prince back to reality, and he turned to see a man standing there, wearing a deerstalker cap and Inverness cape, illuminated only by the match he used to light his pipe.
"Who are you?" John demanded. "And where am I?"
At that the man sighed, before replying "My name is Sherlock Holmes. And this, I'm afraid, is the Pit."
"Nay-nay-nay-nayyyy!" Nayrbeard bellowed triumphantly as he plopped his feet on the banquet table. "No more scrounging on scraps in the Adriatic Isles, lads. Now we get a cushy retirement with all the perks of royalty!"
After the guests of the inauguration ceremony had been made aware of the coup d'etat, Nayrbeard and his crew of little lads had escorted any unaccepting rabble-rousers out of the castle, while the captain had so eloquently explained his entitlement to the imperial throne. Some people said that when all you had was a hammer, you tended to treat every problem like a nail. But Nayrbeard had always been a firm believer in the idea that there was no problem a little common courtesy and calming conversation couldn't solve. And if the wheels of diplomacy proved uncooperative, the simple display of his Megaton Mallet was often enough grease to aid the ailing machinery.
The various lords and ladies of the Graustark Empire had, in good time, soon seen the legitimacy of Nayrbeard's claim to the throne, and had been more than happy to continue the banquet with a different guest of honor. Nayrbeard though had never been one for palatial parties and high society hob-nobbing, and so he had sent the guests away after a while, leaving the feasting of the banquet to himself and his little lads, who cheered uproariously at his announcement of their glorious retirement.
"A toast!" Nayrbeard grinned as he held up a frothing mug of rum. "To a new age!"
"To a new age!" the little lads cheered and swigged their rum in a single gulp.
"Ah!" Nayrbeard belched as he downed the last of the rum. "Now, where is our mysterious benefactor? She should be here with us now."
"Cap'n!" First Mate Poco exclaimed, his pink, rosy-cheeked face simply radiating admiration. "Milady said that she would be around shortly, having business in need of taking care of, first."
"Yes," Pilot Maco added, his face shrouded by the black veil he always wore. "She told us not to wait up for her."
"Ah, shame," Nayrbeard shrugged his massive shoulders and poured another helping of rum. "I'd have liked to have thanked her. Ah well. To her!"
"To her!" the little lads downed another mug of rum in an eager and familiar fashion.
"Now then," Nayrbeard turned his gaze towards the Dark Throne that rested at the end of the hall. "I suppose we'd better check out what it is we fought for."
"Th-the Pit?" John grew pale as he repeated the words. Surely not there! What crime had he possibly committed to be sent to such a place as that? Only the most dangerous and infamous of criminals were ever sent to the Pit; only those who could not be contained by mortal prisons or those whose crimes warranted fates far worse than death. But John was no-one! It was true, he was a ritter, a member of the House of Schenmü and Council of Free Cities. But the Council of Free Cities was the lowest Council in all the Imperial Diet! And the House of Schenmü was far too weak and unimportant to warrant the wrath of a scheming nobleman. How could he have ended up in the Pit of all places? It made no sense!
Unless… John's mind suddenly flashed back and remembered the pirate captain and mysterious woman. Of course! They had not wanted him to ascend the Dark Throne. And his ring, it had protected him when the woman had tried to kill him. Quickly John checked the royal ring to see if it was still on him, and to his relief found the heliotrope gem still wrapped around his finger. So it was not a mere gewgaw after all. It had protected him from death. What other course of action was left then, to one who wanted him dead? Slowly it was beginning to make sense, and John felt an aching pit form deep in his stomach.
"I take it you ran afoul of an arrogant nobleman," Holmes sighed as he waved out his match. "In that case we seem to be in the same boat."
"I… I want to go home," John muttered. Already the thought of his familiar life, managing the small fiefdom inherited from his family, learning and practicing under Master Chen, growing into the role of ritter, it filled him with desperate longing. He wished that letter had never come, that he had remained his whole life ignorant of his true heritage. He wanted his old life back.
"As do we all," Holmes placed a soothing hand on John's shaking shoulder. "You, me, even John."
"What?" John stared blankly up at the man, confused.
"Now John over there," Holmes pointed to a sleeping figure huddled in a corner. "He's been wanting to get home for quite some time now."
"But… I'm John!" John exclaimed, and the name was enough to wake the figure from his slumber.
"Oh dear," Holmes sighed as John stiffened at the sight before him. It couldn't be! And yet, there, sitting groggily upright and gazing sleepily at John and Holmes, the visage was unmistakable. The mustache, the slick-backed hair, the swastika label on his arm, John could see before him the evilest man that had ever lived!
"Adolf Hitler!" he cried.
"Hmmm," Nayrbeard peered studiously at the contraption before him. It certainly lived up to its name of "Dark Throne". Comprised entirely of ebony metal, the stile resembled a massive ribcage, with a pelvic-shaped girdle crowning the top, upon which three black skulls rested, supported by a pair of horns. The manchettes were similarly macabre, with a series of wires connecting them to the mysterious apparatus at the back. And the leg, singular, was a thick trunk of melted metal, as though the chair was spurting tar upon the ground.
But the most frightening quality of all was the tapestry that the back apparatus bled into. Nayrbeard was not quite sure where the apparatus ended and the tapestry began, or even if the apparatus was simply an extension of the tapestry into the back of the throne. Whatever the case though, the images displayed on the tapestry were a sight to behold. Black flames danced as gruesome devils swayed, and whatever people were presented in the painting were all meeting with grisly fates indeed. The image was enough to make most mortal men tremble and recoil in terror.
"Say Poco," Nayrbeard grunted. "How much d'you suppose we could get for a tapestry like this?"
"Like this, Cap'n?" Poco considered the question. "Hard to say. I think the main issue would be finding an appropriate fence."
"Nuts, you're right," Nayrbeard groaned. That was the trouble with royal paraphernalia. Unlike jewels or gold, which could have come from just about any place and thus provided the people who stored pirate treasure with plausible deniability, things that came from specific royal vaults and throne rooms tended to be more difficult to sell after the initial looting. Oh, this? Why, I just got it from some old fort, really. That wasn't as easy to pull off with things like crowns or royal tapestries.
"Well, Captain," Maco pointed out. "If it please you, as the new Emperor, you could simply sell the tapestry through legitimate means. It is your legal property now, after all."
"Say, you're right!" Nayrbeard lit up at the realization. Heavens, why hadn't he thought of that before? Pirates spent all their time trying to either steal things from people or invent new confectionary sweets. But now, after stealing the title of Emperor, Nayrbeard didn't have to steal any of the royal paraphernalia, because it was legally and rightfully his! And as for confectionary treats, why, he had enough servants and hired help to do that for him. Man, Nayrbeard chuckled under his breath, why hadn't he thought of becoming an emperor before? It was like stealing all the treasure in the world at once, and all he'd really had to do was steal an abstract title.
"Alright lads!" Nayrbeard laughed. "Let's rest off the feasting now. But come morning light, our first task as royal folks is to catalogue everything that hasn't been nailed down! Nay-nay-nay-nayyyy!"
"Yes, Captain!" the little lads all cheered, before setting up their cots and sleeping bags and tucking in for the night.
"Ah, this is the life," Nayrbeard prepared to plop down onto the throne, before a calming hand stayed his descent.
"Ah-ah-ah," Niamh gently pushed him back to a standing position. "Don't do that."
"My lady!" Nayrbeard bowed. "I thought you'd left."
"I had some business that needed to be taken care of first," Niamh examined the hand she had used to grab John, still shriveled and twitching after the effects of that damn ring.
"Shiver me timbers!" Nayrbeard exclaimed. "That doesn't look very good. You want some soothing lotion? Some of my little lads've got the eczema, I could hook you up with some hearty ointment."
"Thank you," Niamh smiled, "But I can manage. I'm more worried about our target escaping."
"Escaping?" Nayrbeard's eyes lit up. "But you tossed him into the Pit, didn't you? I conked him on the noggin, just like you asked, and with my powers his little charm thingy didn't do squat."
"Yes, but, as you can see," Niamh again held up her charred hand. "That little charm thingy was still more than enough to make transporting him there difficult. I'm afraid he really is a Dark Prince."
"Ah, so that's why you didn't want me sitting on the throne," Nayrbeard grinned.
"Yes," Niamh stroked her chin. "So long as a rightful heir of the Wolfsburg bloodline exists, the Dark Throne will link themselves to him. If anyone else tries sitting on that throne…"
"Yeeg," Nayrbeard shuddered slightly, and it was the first time Niamh had ever seen him look anything like afraid.
"Ach, vhere are my glasses?" the Nazi fumbled around in the darkness until at last he had located his massive, opaque spectacles. But while they definitely clashed with the figure in all the paintings and portraits John had seen, he was still certain.
"What is Adolf Hitler doing here!?" John screeched. "Actually wait, no, it makes perfect sense that he's here, but I thought he-"
"You know ze fuhrer?" the glasses gleamed as the Nazi dashed up to John, his hands covering his beaming lips like a coquettish schoolgirl.
"Wh-what? Oh Christ, you're not a Hitler impersonator, are you? John Hitler?" John gagged. If there was one thing all sensible people could agree on, it was that Nazis were the lowest form of sentient life on earth.
"Vhat? Nein, nein, nein, my name is John Rabe. Rabe! You hear me?"
"Rob?" John furrowed his brow.
"No, no, Rabe," Holmes corrected him. "R-A-B-E."
"Ja, John Rabe, zat is me," Rabe said. "Unt I must get vord back to mein fuhrer lickety-split! It is a matter of life unt dess!"
John gazed dumbstruck at Holmes, before the man explained calmly.
"Our friend here was working in the Tienking concession," he said. "When the Japanese invaded."
John gasped starkly. He was by no means an expert of history, but he knew enough to know what had happened in China during the Japanese invasion.
"Jawohl!" Rabe exclaimed. "I did my best to protect all I could, but I knew it vas not enough! So I scraped togezer all ze evidence I could, unt I vent back to Graustark to show ze fuhrer all I'd seen. But… but zen…"
Rabe began to sob, and John noticed then that the man's skin was an unusual pallor.
"Someone intercepted him, and killed him," Holmes continued.
"Ja!" Rabe howled. "It must have been zose dastardly Yapanese! Vhy, if ze fuhrer only knew ze vanton destruction of life zey are unleashing in zat city, he vould surely intervene! Ze fuhrer is a man of honor, I know it! Unt are ve not National Socialists? Our duty is to ze protection of all ze vorkers unt downtrodden of ze vorld!"
John stared sickeningly at the sobbing creature before him. Did he actually believe the words he spoke? It seemed he did! But then…
"Wait, you were killed?" John blinked in surprise. "How are you walking and talking now then?"
"Ach, you sink somesink as trivial as dying vill deter me from my duty?" Rabe scoffed. "I dug my vay out of my grave, until I vound up here, unt now, I must get out!"
Just then, there was a rumbling, and John shielded his eyes as a wall began to roll up, and light began to flood in. As John's eyes slowly started to readjust, he saw the doorway leading out to an arena, and heard the crowd of chanting, cheering spectators.
"Well," Holmes puffed out the last of his pipe. "It seems all of us are about to get the chance at exactly that."
"So who are these fellas on the tapestry here?" Nayrbeard scratched his hairy chest. "I'm no expert, but I always thought royal tapestries were about glory and royal victories and stuff."
"They are," Niamh said. "And what you see before you is the great victory of the Wolfsburg clan."
"What, this?" Nayrbeard chortled. "But where's the hero? I don't see anybody on this tapestry coming in on a white charger and saving the day."
"Because the weaver didn't want anyone to forget what the throne was keeping sealed," Niamh gazed fixedly at the dark and wicked figures on the tapestry. "If the focus is on the dragon-slayer, people start to forget how monstrous the dragon was in the first place."
"Ah, hum," Nayrbeard shrugged. "I suppose that makes sense."
"It's the same old story," Niamh whispered. "Bigotry and superstition."
"Well," Nayrbeard yawned. "I guess I'll pull up a chair from my quarters on the Halberd. That'll make a nice substitute throne. You got any chairs you like?"
"Me?" Niamh blinked in surprise.
"Sure," Nayrbeard said. "I mean, you helped us get this throne. I figure you ought to get a piece of the pie."
"Thank you, but no," Niamh bowed politely. "And none of the other nobles must know of my part in this."
"Ah, still got some schemes planned?" Nayrbeard grinned.
"Yes," Niamh made her way to the window. "Something like that."
The standard image of a gladiatorial arena is one of sand. If the builders can afford a floor plan in the budget, they might put in some mats or astro-turf, but traditionally, simple dirt more than suffices for the floor of a battle arena. To John's surprise though, as he walked out into the packed stadium, he found the floor there was comprised entirely of ice. And at the center of the arena, a massive anchor lay buried deep within that ice, from which a chain floated high into the air.
"Ladieees annnnd Gentlemeeeeeeen!"
John gazed up to see a human-sized figure dangling from the other end of the anchor's chain. A winged creature of some sort, the "man" was impeccably dressed, and made sure to deliver a dashing smile every time he addressed his audience through the microphone in his hand.
"Welcome! To! The Kokytos Battle Arena! The world's… STRONGEST… Battle Arena!" the creature cackled, and the audience erupted with applause. For some reason, John felt a strange sense of unease at the utterance of that sentence, but for the life of him, he couldn't understand why.
"As always, I am your host, Mephistopheles McMahon!" the announcer continued. "And tonight! In! This! Very! Ring! We've got ourselves three very special guests!
"On the left, we have the World's Greatest Detective, the Napoleon of Criminology, give it up for Sherlock Holmes!"
"Hello," Holmes said as the audience cheered.
"And on the right," Mephistopheles continued, "the Living Buddha, the Rabe Zombie, none other than John Rabe!"
"Ah, ja, zat is me," Rabe nodded stiffly as the audience whooped.
"And finally," Mephistopheles grinned wickedly. "The Prince of Darkness, the Ritter of Rowdiness, ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for John von und zu Schenmü!"
"Uh… hi?" John gulped and was met by a round of uproarious applause.
"Ah, you know," Mephistopheles sighed wistfully as he pirouetted through the air. "We are sold out here with this capacity crowd tonight! So! I think this match calls for something special. And that's why, for three contestants, I am going to give you all… not one, not two, but three! Three Cisorian Crustaceans!"
At that the audience went wild. As John was drowned in the crowd of rowdy howling, three other massive doors were opened, and as John's heart slowly sank, he saw to his horror three massive crabs with metallic scissor claws barging into the arena.
"Ladies! And! Gentlemen!" Mephostopheles cackled. "Let the gaaaames... BEGIN!"
"Oh geez," John groaned.
Let's Fight a Boss, the world's STRONGEST video game podcast, can be found on Soundcloud and Youtube. To see more of Marco Cian's writing, check out his profile.