The first thing Krel registers as he wakes is pain. He feels weak and hot and burning, except for a few spots that are numb, which he doesn't take as a good sign. He's disoriented enough that nothing else registers for several sectons – seconds – whatever – until he realises he's moving. Well. He's not moving. Someone is moving him. A few more seconds, and he finally realises his hands are roughly tied, and the person carrying him is dressed in red armour. Krel doesn't know anyone with red armour, except–
The Knight. The Knight from Mort's shop.
Everything rushes back to him. Hearing the explosion from Nimue's gym. Running back to check on Toby and Seamus and Douxie. Fighting off the Knights in the burning shop. Ikram, injured, thrown out the window. Getting himself thrown into the smouldering shelf, barely holding to consciousness when it collapsed in a heap of flame and charred wood and molten glass figurines, the way the flames and burnt rubble bit at his skin as the armour vanished with his fleeing awareness. The Red Knight, hoisting him up.
Darkness.
He doesn't even know if his friends are okay. He knows Toby and Seamus are hurt. He remembers Douxie with the wood sticking out of his shoulder. He saw Ikram get thrown out the window. He knows they all got out, but if the Knight went after them after Krel passed out, then – well – anything could have happened. He can't dwell on it. He needs to escape. He can't let the Red Knight bring him to the evil wizard – Mordred, if Seamus is right, but whoever it is Krel knows he's trouble. He starts twisting in the Knight's grasp, struggling to break free. The Knight's grip tightens but his pace continues the same.
"In the–" Krel breaks off to cough, his throat hoarse. It's the smoke, he knows it's the smoke. He's glad he's been in Akiridion form, because he also knows humans can't handle smoke. He takes a deep breath. "In the name of Gaylen!"
He's thrown out of the Knight's grip as the armour flies on. The combination of whatever powers the armour and the sharp movements breaks Krel free from ties around his wrists, leaving him free from the Knight as he drops to the ground. Krel's glad that worked. He hadn't even been sure if he still had the device on him. He pushes himself to his feet and wobbles, but manages to stay standing and materialise blasters on his top two arms. He aims them forward, limbs trembling from injuries hidden by armour. The Red Knight regains his balance and stares at him disinterestedly; he doesn't even bother to draw a weapon. The Black Knight – oh, great, the Black Knight is here too – brandishes his axe threateningly.
"You've already proven you can't take us both, boy," says the Red Knight. His dark eyes dart over Krel's weak stance. "And now you're injured. You don't stand a chance. Just surrender and come peacefully, and no further harm has to come to you."
"I'll never surrender," Krel forces out. He can hear the rasp in this voice from the smoke. The armour rubs up against what he's sure are bad burns underneath. Krel tries to look intimidating, or at least not like he might collapse. They're not wrong. He can't take both of them. But he also won't give in without a fight. "Even if it means I have to spend the rest of my life fighting you, I'll never come quietly. And I'll never help your master."
The Red Knight shifts impatiently, resting a hand on the hilt of his still-sheathed sword. "You're in no shape to escape. Give in."
"My friends will rescue me." Krel knows they will. They're probably already looking for him, and Krel's sure Mort can track him, especially after integrating with Gaylen's core. Didn't Mort say Akiridion cores were easy to track? Surely his core now will be even easier. They'll find him.
"Your friends?" The Red Knight bites out a laugh. Krel falters. It's never a good sign when the bad guy starts laughing like that. "Your friends won't be rescuing you anytime soon."
"What did you do to them?" Krel demands, fear tightening around his core like a serpent. Not his friends. He can't lose his friends. They have to be okay. "If you hurt my friends, I'll–"
"I did nothing to your friends," he says. Krel doesn't let his relief last long; the Knight is happy about something and that's a bad sign. "But they won't come for you. Why come looking for someone they know is dead?"
That – doesn't make any sense. Krel takes a step back. "It takes more than a little fire to kill me. My friends will be looking for me."
"They already have you," says the Red Knight, a wicked smile curling his lips upward. Krel's brow furrows and his arms lower. "Or what's left of you, I suppose. They must have found your broken core already."
"No," Krel mumbles. He shakes his head, ignoring the way that stings at the burns on the side of his face. "No, you're lying."
"With enough observation, it's not very hard to fake a burnt, shattered Akiridion core," the Red Knight says, conversationally, as if he's trying to teach Krel something. "The hardest part is the material, but a little bit of magic goes a long way. They'll have found it in what's left of that pitiful shop you were hiding in."
Krel swallows. The motion hurts, but not more than the idea that his friends think – his friends think–
"Now come quietly or things will get very, very unpleasant," the Red Knight cuts into his thoughts. Krel's hands tighten into fists and he raises the blasters again. Fine. No help will be coming, but he's Gaylen's heir, and he won't back down that easily.
"Never," he growls. He shoots several rapid blasts at the Knights, then, without waiting for the dust and smoke to clear, he launches himself into the air the way Nimue had tried to instruct him, which is basically jumping and refusing to land. It works long enough to get him off the ground, but an armoured hand grabs his ankle and then slams him into the ground back-first. Krel can't stop the cry that rips from his throat as pain shoots from his burns. He blinks stars out of his vision and forces himself to his feet.
He manages to summon blasters again. The Black Knight blocks the first shot with the side of his axe. He dodges the next and runs forward. Krel leaps out of the way, then, since he knows he can't fight one of them let alone both, he takes off running in the other direction. He doesn't make it very far, not with his injuries. The Black Knight tackles him from behind, hands wrapping around Krel's throat.
"Lights out," says the Black Knight menacingly. Krel struggles in his grasp. He finally musters up enough strength and tries to use his powers to force the Knight off of him. It works, luckily, throwing the Knight backwards. Krel gasps in much-needed air and turns around just in time to see the Red Knight's sword careening towards him. He panics and raises his arms to block it, even though that's definitely going to hurt and might result in a lost limb or something, but it's still better than dying.
The expected pain doesn't come. He opens his eyes to find a white barrier, not unlike something formed by a serrator, surrounding him and blocking the Knight's attack. He deflates with a sigh of relief, careful to maintain the barrier. For once, his powers are working with him instead of against him.
"So he was right," murmurs the Red Knight. He sheathes his sword and observes Krel with an unidentifiable expression. Krel tries to pull himself as small as he can. The Black Knight snarls and lifts his axe. He stalks forward to attack. Krel has no idea if his barrier will hold up to another blow, but the Red Knight holds out a hand. "No, no. Not yet. Go back to Arcadia. Catch them while they're mourning. Kill Arthur's heir and do whatever you want with the others. They don't concern me."
The Black Knight glares at Krel but nods and turns away. Krel focuses his eyes on the Red Knight as he begins slowly circling Krel's barrier, like a predator playing with his ensnared prey. Krel is trapped. If he lets the barrier down, the Knight will get him.
"You'll tire yourself out eventually, little alien," he says. Krel shudders when he lays a hand on the barrier and raps his fingers across it, that same sinister smile still marring his features. "I can wait."
It's starting to get dark. The sun has descended in the sky, leaving the clouds painted purple and pink. In any other situation, Krel would have found the sight kind of beautiful, but right now, he doesn't like what it could mean.
He doesn't know how long he's been under the barrier – an hour, at least, but maybe more. He doesn't know how long he was out. It was either not long at all or – more than a day, which scares him more than he wants to admit. His barrier is still holding. Barely. The Knight is sitting across from him now, but Krel has no doubt that even if he tried to run he wouldn't get far. There's no way. He's too tired to fly, and he's too injured to run. He's losing energy. He's hungry. He's dehydrated. He hurts all over, but he doesn't dare remove his armour to examine his injuries. The minute his barrier falls, he's – how does Toby say it? He's screwed.
The Red Knight, mockingly, takes a bite of a sandwich. He's already bragged about having enough food and water for two weeks, which is far longer than Krel can hold out. Even if, by some miracle, his barrier could hold that long, even an Akiridion can't go two whole weeks without any water and survive. Maybe Krel can, with Gaylen's core, but he doesn't want to test it.
So. He doesn't have any way to escape. He's not going to be able to last incredibly long. Instead, he turns to the only defence he has, something he learned from a few superhero comics that Eli showed him briefly before he left: annoy the bad guy by talking too much.
"Who are you, anyway?" Krel demands. The Red Knight's eyebrows shoot up. Apparently he hadn't expected Krel to talk to him. Krel almost regrets it with the way the words scratch his throat, but he keeps at it. "Are you – the one in charge? The wizard? Mordred?"
"Mordred?" repeats the Knight. Amusement laces his tone. "No, little alien, I am not Mordred, nor am I in charge."
Wait. Does that mean Seamus is right? It is Mordred? Mort seemed so sure it wasn't, and usually Mort is right. He mentally shakes the thought away.
"What do you want from me?" he asks. "Are you trying to find the formstone? Is that why your master wants me?"
The Knight chuckles. "Clever boy."
"I'll never tell you where it is," Krel bluffs. He doesn't know where it is, but the Red Knight doesn't need to know that. Actually, is bluffing such a good idea? Krel immediately second-guesses it. He doesn't want to be tortured for information that doesn't even exist. Well. Too late now.
"You don't have to tell me," says the Red Knight.
"I'll never tell your master, either." Krel juts out his chin defiantly and glares at the Red Knight and his stupid sandwich. "Do whatever you want to me. I'll never say a word."
"We'll see."
Krel huffs. He really won't say a word. He doesn't have a word to say about the formstone, besides that it's in Arcadia. He suspects the wizard already knows that much. But even if he did know where the formstone was, he wouldn't tell. Earth is his home. He's not about to let it get destroyed.
"Are you and BK mind-controlled, too?" he asks.
There's a long pause. The Red Knight lowers his sandwich. "BK?"
"It's easier to say," Krel defends his friend's nickname. It also makes the Black Knight sound less intimidating. Not that the Knights can really get less intimidating. "Can I call you Red?"
"No," says the Red Knight.
"RK?" Krel suggests. He crinkles his nose, but that pulls at the burns on his cheek. He resists the urge to reach up and prod at them to see exactly how far they extend. At least it only seems to be the left side. "I can't call you RK, that's too much like Ricky. I'll just call you Red."
The Red Knight takes a large bite of his sandwich. It feels a lot more aggressive this time. Krel takes it as a win. He's annoying him. Good. The more annoyed he gets, the more likely he'll give up or something. Krel hopes.
The sundown behind him still looks lovely. For a moment, Krel is distracted by the pinks and purples and oranges of the sky. They don't have anything like this on Akiridion-5. Earth has a type of beauty he never got to see before. He doesn't particularly love the outdoors here, but he can admit that it's amazing in a way Akiridion-5 can't compare to.
"What makes you so sure I need to eat, anyway?" Krel asks. "Or drink? Or do anything you humans do? I'm not from this planet. For all you know, eating is not something they have where I'm from."
He doesn't get a response to this.
"Maybe I photosynthesise," he adds for good measure.
"You don't photosynthesise," the Red Knight says flatly.
Krel crosses his arms and pretends like the movement doesn't hurt. These injuries have gotten old fast. "How do you know that?"
The Knight lets out an aggravated sigh. Krel counts that as yet another win. He's kind of good at this annoying people thing when he tries. It's almost fun, if the situation were different. When he was younger, he and Aja used to take turns bothering whoever was watching them so the other could sneak off. Mama and Varvatos always fell for it. Papa and Zadra almost never did. It was easier to trick Papa into thinking they were hurt instead. Zadra didn't fall for anything. Krel kind of wishes he had his sister now. Really, he wishes he had anyone right now. He pushes the thought out of his mind before he can focus on it.
"So, are you mind-controlled too?" he asks.
"No," says the Red Knight.
"So you follow this – this wizard by choice," says Krel. "Why? He can't be a very good guy if he's asking you to kill kids. In my experience, only really bad people do that."
No response. Krel should have expected that. The Knight has finished his sandwich. He takes a slow, mocking drink of water. Krel pulls his knees up and forces himself not to wince.
"Why does your master hate Arthur's heirs, anyway?" asks Krel. "Hasn't it been hundreds of years? I bet Steve is nothing like this Arthur was. He may be a – a buttsnack sometimes, but he's not a bad guy."
No response, again. The Knight's not even looking at him, instead running some sort of stone down the edge of his blade. Krel waves the arm that hurts the least. "Hey. Hey. Red. Red Knight. I asked you a question. You know, it's very rude to ignore people."
The Knight continues ignoring him. This isn't going very well, but Krel's determined to make it work. He launches into an Akiridion tongue-twister, the type that always annoyed him as a child when Aja and her friends would giggle and yell them when he just wanted to tinker with something. He doesn't quite remember the words right, but the Red Knight won't know them anyway. The Knight's jaw twitches and his brow lowers, but he continues not looking at him. Krel, in turn, starts another tongue-twister, one of the really annoying ones with a really annoying tune to it. Maybe he could do a sung folk tale, the closest thing to Earth music Akiridion-5 really has. Those are usually more boring than annoying, though–
Finally, the Red Knight stands and walks closer to Krel's barrier. Krel edges backwards despite himself, falling silent. The Knight taps on the barrier, then throws an arm out to his side. With a metallic shifting sound, a large shield forms on his arm. He rears back and rams it into the barrier. Krel almost physically feels the blow as sparks fly and the barrier wavers. The Red Knight meets his eyes and smirks. Perhaps Krel didn't think his plan through very well. It seems annoying the Red Knight has had the exact opposite effect from what Krel wanted.
The Knight picks up his helmet from the ground and puts it on, then fishes a small crystal from his back. He shakes it and places it on the ground against the barrier, then walks away. Krel stares at the rapidly blinking stone in confusion.
Then it explodes. Krel scrambles backwards. As before, he feels the damage to the barrier. It doesn't hurt, but he struggles to hold himself upright after it. The barrier holds, but barely. Krel hadn't had any energy before, but now he feels a lot like the time he didn't sleep for two days straight. His vision blurs. The barrier starts flickering. He forces himself to focus through the blooming headache. If the barrier falls, that's it. Game over. The Red Knight will take Krel to the wizard and there will be nothing Krel can do about it.
He's caught off guard when the Knight's shield hits the barrier again. This time, he actually gasps. Another hit. Krel closes his eyes and mentally says prayers to Seklos to protect him, to his parents to give him strength.
It's not enough. Krel feels the shield hit again. He feels the barrier shatter like glass. He tries to stand, but he can't gather enough energy. He can barely gather the energy to open his eyes. The Red Knight's blurry figure looms over him. Krel lets out a breath, then takes in another that takes far too much effort. The world spins and blurs and finally fades into darkness.
Krel's head pounds. He opens his eyes, weakly, to see the ground moving far beneath him. He watches the dirt and leaves disinterestedly for a few moments. Everything's kind of spinning. Maybe if he blinks enough times things will stop spinning. A few blinks later and the world is still spinning and blurry so maybe that won't work.
It takes several minutes longer than it should to remember what's going on. He's been kidnapped. His friends – his friends think he's dead, assuming his friends are actually okay and the Black Knight hasn't gotten to them. It's light outside again, so he's been unconscious at least overnight. Maybe longer. He hopes it hasn't been longer. He tries to open his mouth, maybe to say something, but – something's preventing him. He's – gagged or something. He doesn't know. He tries to struggle. He barely has enough energy to twist a little.
"You're awake, then," notes the Red Knight. "Try something like that again, and I'll take one of your arms. We need you alive, not in one piece."
Tears burn in Krel's eyes. He can't try anything like that again. He's exhausted. Everything hurts. As the tears slip down his cheeks, the liquid stings the burns on his left side. His armour's gone, and he can't get it back without being able to speak. He's defenceless in the hands of a crazy, evil Knight taking him to his crazy, evil master, and his friends think he's dead, and his friends could be dead for all he knows, and he's alone.
Before he knows it, his body is shaking with sobs. He's alone. For the first time in his life, he's completely, utterly alone. He's weak and helpless and he barely has enough energy to cry. What good was integrating with Gaylen's core if it can't get him out of this situation? He's supposed to have the power to create world and destroy universes, but instead here he is. Maybe – maybe Gaylen made the wrong choice. He doesn't know enough about his powers to get himself out of this and he's probably going to be tortured for information he doesn't even have. He's exhausted. He's injured. He's terrified. He's alone. He's never going to see his friends or family ever again.
Something sparks inside him. His core surges with energy, not unlike the integration process had felt. No. Krel refuses to let this be it. He'd rather die trying to escape than let the Red Knight bring him to his wizard master. He won't let them win.
He screams the words on his device in his head, and to his shock and relief, he soars out of the Red Knight's grasp as the armour flies onto him. Krel reaches to his face and finds the edge of – is that tape? – well, whatever is blocking his mouth. He rips it off and it doesn't even hurt, or if it does, he doesn't notice it. He can feel Gaylen's power – his power coursing through him in electric bursts, flooding him with the energy he didn't have before.
"I am the son of King Fialkov and Queen Coranda of Akiridion-5!" Krel exclaims. He's hovering in mid-air without even meaning to, his powers acting without orders and glinting off his skin like sparks from a wildfire. "I am Gaylen's chosen heir! And I will not give in so easily!"
The Red Knight laughs and gets to his feet, eyes wide and deranged. "Incredible. The sheer power."
"Tell your master that we are not afraid of him," Krel snarls. "He's not the first to come after Arcadia, and he may not be the last, but we will not let him win."
"You're a collection of children," scoffs the Red Knight. "You don't stand a chance."
Krel attacks. He's not entirely sure what he's doing or how he's doing it, but it doesn't matter. He summons bursts of energy and shoots them towards the Knight. He's forced to raise his shield to block several when he can't dodge. Krel determinedly keeps at it. Blast after blast. Desperate to get back home, to help his friends, to prove that Gaylen made the right choice. Angry that he got himself captured, that the Red Knight tricked his friends, that any of this is happening. When he's gotten closer to the Knight, he lets the blasters disappear and brings two swords in their place. Before he knows it, he's knocked the Red Knight's sword and shield out of his grasp. For once, Krel is on the other side of the chokehold.
There's a level of satisfaction in watching the Knight's consciousness flee under his grasp, instead of the other way around for once. Krel is more powerful than the Knight could ever dream of becoming. He could kill the Knight with less than a thought, a twist of his hands–
He turns and flees.
Krel's burst of energy doesn't last much longer. By the time he's run far enough he's fairly sure the Knight won't find him easily, he's weak and trembling. He doesn't even know if he's been running in the right direction. It's the opposite direction that they'd been going, as far as Krel can tell, but he doesn't know how long he'd been unconscious and where the Knight had taken him during that time. He's lost and tired and everything hurts.
He finally finds a tree he can sit under in the shade. The outside heat hasn't been helping him at all. He leans against it and rests his eyes for a moment before deciding he should take inventory of his injuries. It's… not good. His left side is the worst, which – the memory is blurry, but if he remembers correctly, it makes sense with where the bookshelf fell. The burns stretch across his torso and arm that he can see, and when he braves the pain and traces them upwards with his fingers, they snake up his neck and curl onto the left side of his face. Which, yes, he knew that. He can definitely feel them. There's a few more burns on his right side, but far less. Krel's had burns before, small ones from tinkering with things and messing something up, but nothing like this.
He'll need to find water at some point, as well as something to eat if he can. Akiridions, he knows, can last a lot longer than humans can without both of these, but it's uncomfortable at best and eventually he's going to be in trouble. He's pretty much out of energy already. If the Red Knight finds him again, he'll be utterly defenceless.
He wants to nap. If he closes his eyes again, he probably will fall asleep. He needs to get back to Arcadia and his friends. He wishes he could call them – let them know he's alive, make sure they're alive – but he doesn't have his phone. It's likely been destroyed, which is annoying because now Krel will have to rig up a new one. He just hopes they're all okay. Half of his friends were already injured before he'd been taken. Steve, from the Black Knight. Toby, Seamus, and Douxie from the attack on the shop. Ikram, fighting the Knights with him. Seklos, almost none of them are in good shape. In the back of his mind, Krel hopes he's in the worst shape. He doesn't want to imagine one of his friends hurt worse than this.
"Okay, Krel," he mumbles to himself. "Have to keep going."
He pushed himself to his feet. His vision goes black for a second, but he stubbornly stares forward until it returns. He starts walking, slowly, because if he goes too fast he knows he'll pass out. Wherever he is, it's hot and sunny and kind of miserable. Krel wishes it would rain. He imagines the cool water would feel good on his burns. They don't have rain on Akiridion-5. He kind of likes it, usually from a distance, but right now he thinks he'd like it even up close. Toby has told him about some of the cooler Earth weather phenomenon. Krel thinks they all sound exciting. Akiridion weather is bland. It doesn't rain. It doesn't storm. It never gets this hot, but it never gets very cold either. It's boring. Krel likes how non-boring Earth is.
He still doesn't know where he's walking. He never travelled much back on Akiridion-5, and he's certainly never travelled much here. He knows how to navigate with his phone, which he doesn't have, and he knows vaguely that people can orient themselves based on Earth's sun, but he doesn't know how. He hates this. He hates being lost and alone and he hates the large part of him that wishes he could lay down and sleep and hope his friends come to rescue him.
His feet are dragging and his vision is blurring. Dizziness has already begun to set in, but he pushes determinedly onward. One step at a time. He can manage that. Surely he can manage that. It's absurd to think Gaylen's heir can't handle walking.
The thought sticks in an uncomfortable way. He wasn't thrilled with the idea of integrating with Gaylen's core in the first place – seeing Morando had left him sour towards the whole thing, and there's always been an ultimately bitter connotation to the idea of Gaylen. He created Akiridion-5. He destroyed dozens of other worlds. And now Krel has that power.
Nausea curls in his stomach at the thought of his fight with the Red Knight. He's never killed anyone before, unless he counts Morando, which he feels like doesn't count. The fact that he'd come so close to killing the Red Knight – that he'd almost enjoyed it – it scares him. For the first time since he got them, his powers genuinely scare him. He doesn't understand them which is worse, because he's used to being able to understand things, and he suddenly has the ability to do all sorts of terrible things he never could have before. And, yeah, he remembers what Toby said about having the ability to do bad things but it being worth it, or something, but Krel wishes he'd never found Gaylen's core in the first place. Not only did he play right into the wizard's plans, he wound up with abilities he never wanted or needed.
He realises a second too late that he should have been paying attention when his foot hits a rock and he lands face-first in the dirt. He painfully rolls over onto his back and stares up at the blue sky. He needs to get up. He needs to keep going.
He tries to push himself into a sitting position, but his arms won't hold his weight. He tries again and fails again, agony flaring from his injuries. Maybe a short nap won't hurt. He's far enough that the Knight won't find him, right? He needs to get home, but he won't get home without any rest. He could regain some energy… or something…
He's out before he can even form an argument against it.