Series: On Dragon's Wings||Title: Ring The Dinner Bell||Chapter: Dungeon
Romance: Mizael x Vector
Chapters: 7-10||Words: 1,627||Total: 11,188
Genre: Romance, Fantasy||Rated: PG-13
Challenge: Diversity Challenge, YGO Zexal Aus, section I12, 10 chapters
Notes: This is an AU with princes, magic, knights, dragons, flying horses, and other such things. But no dueling with cards.
Summary: Dragons devour virgins and keep princesses captive. At least, that's what the legends say, and when a dragon arrives in good Prince Vector's kingdom, the prince finds that his father knows a lot about legends. But maybe he can learn a little something about dragons?

Over and over Mizael strained at the chains that held him tight, with the same result every time: no result at all. Nothing he did could even get them to loosen by so much as a whisker's breadth. The one held the end of the chain tugged him alone and Mizael had no choice but to follow. All of his powers and strength remained blocked from him, due to that damnable collar around his neck.

He didn't believe a word the mage had said to Vector about 'distracting the beast'. Vector hadn't had any more idea than he did that they were coming, and the sheltered prince had no more idea of how to bind his powers that he did of how to sprout his own wings and fly.

Vector himself walked along with the mages, but there was a stunned silent quality to him that kept him as bound and helpless as Mizael himself was. The dragon didn't know if it was magic or shock, but regardless, they could not escape at the moment.

At the moment. But Mizael absolutely refused to stay trapped forever and when he found a way to return to his true form, he would wreak his vengeance on all of those who thought they could tame a dragon.

Mages were not known for their physical endurance, but this batch seemed to have put in a few extra hours in working out, as they didn't stop once on the trip back to the city. They cared nothing for how tired their captives might've been, dragging Mizael onward no matter what. Vector said nothing at all the whole time, his mind too distracted and confused to do anything.

Father wants to see me? What does he have to do with any of this? Though this did prove at least part of what he and Mizael speculated on before: the mages were involved. Now he needed to find out just how and why, and how to stop them.

Sounds so easy, doesn't it? Perhaps if I ask nicely, they'll all just disappear. He snarled under his breath. When I'm king, those mages will be banished. He couldn't trust them. At the moment, the only being he knew for a fact that he could trust was Mizael. Having a chained dragon as his only ally didn't put him in the strongest of positions, but he would make do with what he had.

Dawn began to color the horizon with streaks of red and gold before they passed through the palace gates and made their way through the hallways which were as familiar to Vector as the blood in his veins. He couldn't see Mizael from where he walked since the dragon remained in the back of the little party.

He expected they would be brought to the throne room; certainly the mages would wish to make a spectacle of the captured dragon? To his surprise, they headed downward, leaving behind the well-furnished hallways and carpeted floors for cold gray stone above, below, and around. Torches flickered dismally, hung in their places along the hall, giving just enough light for the group to see by and no more.

Now Vector wondered if one or both of them was to be imprisoned down here.

He'd never investigated how strong the locks on the doors were. Now he found himself wondering if they could be broken. Not that long ago he would've hoped not. Anyone imprisoned here surely deserved to remain where they were.

But again he found himself surprised, as they were brought to a large room, with several sets of manacles hanging from the walls. The mages dragged Mizael over to one of those sets, untying him just enough so they could clamp the manacles around his wrists. Whispered words gave these new bonds the same subtle glow that the chains had, keeping him from being able to snap them.

"My son." A voice he knew even better than his own blood spoke and Vector turned to see his father standing in a doorway he hadn't seen before. "I did not expect to see you again. Especially not in such foul company." He turned his gaze onto Mizael, who looked back at him with his head held high. The king stepped closer, wrapping his fingers around the dragon's chin and tilting it upward. "Though I will say that if he were truly human, he would be a very toothsome plaything."

Mizael jerked his head away, bringing his head down at a sharp angle, teeth clamping onto the king's hand and biting down. He might not have had the strength he did in his dragon form, but Vector saw blood flow as the king backhanded him.

"I am a dragon. I am no one's plaything, least of all a human's!" Mizael growled, apparently unaware of the trickle of blood that slid down his chin.

The king's smile wasn't a pleasant thing to see. Vector had seen him smile like that before, usually when he was going to sentence someone to death.

"Father, what is going on?" Vector shouted, half-way because he wanted to know and half-way to distract his father from doing anything permanent to Mizael. "I don't understand any of this, and I want to."

The king turned toward him, though Vector knew far better than to hope that he'd forgotten Mizael. "Isn't it obvious, my dear stupid son? I want to kill you. This beast should've done the deed, but apparently you're not even worth a dragon's appetite."

"Dragons don't eat humans. At least I don't," Mizael snapped. The king glanced toward the mages.

"Silence him. Beasts have no right to speak at all, let alone in my presence."

Vector started to move forward himself, but could get no more than a pace or two along before invisible chains locked all around him. He could only watch as the one he'd mentally dubbed the chief mage moved toward Mizael, chanting over a gemstone he now held between his fingers.

"What do you think you're -" Mizael's words cut off as the mage slammed the gemstone into the collar, and a flash of crystal blue light filled the chamber. His lips continued to move, but no sound at all came from them.

Vector's father nodded in approval. "Well done. He could be useful later, once properly trained." A smile that spoke of shadows and death slashed across his lips. "I think the threat of my pet dragon devouring all of their warriors should bring several of my enemies into line."

Vector shook his head to the point he thought it would fall off. "Father!" A thousand protests choked in his throat. Mizael wasn't the sort of creature that could or should be put to that use. Weren't his father's attempts to conquer other lands with an ordinary army enough? How were the mages involved in all of this? All of that and more he wanted to scream, but none of them could make their way out of his mouth, not with the magic clamping down on him the way that it did.

The king now moved toward Vector, his lip curled in distaste. "And what to do with you. You have been annoying. I gave you the option of dying with some dignity, but you refused to do even that. Even knowing that the people believe you to seek my death before your 'untimely demise' wasn't enough, was it?"

Vector kept on shaking his head. The king didn't notice at all, but kept on. "I don't think the people need to know that you're alive. You won't be for that much longer anyway." He cast a glance toward Mizeal, then back to Vector. "I believe you two were growing quite close to one another. Fitting, then, that one of you should finish the other."

The magic didn't need to hold Vector still then. He couldn't have moved if he'd wanted to.

"Think on this, my dear son. You don't want me to break and train this beast. And I'm quite certain he doesn't want me to kill you." The king looked from one of them to the other. "So here is the arrangement. Kill the beast yourself. If you do that, I will spare your life and send you into exile to last all the days of my life. You will return here only when I am dead. I will even allow you to assume the throne after me in that case." He leaned forward. "But if you choose otherwise, then you will watch me tame the beast and within one moon's time, you will be eaten by him."

Still words failed Vector. The king turned toward the door. "I give you one day and one night to make your decision. If you choose not to kill him, his training will begin at that moment." He gestured toward the mages. "Put him in the cell."

A third door proved to lead deeper into the dungeons. The mages didn't take Vector very far along it before pushing him into one of the cells. The state of the locks didn't matter here; magic kept them sealed far beyond what any metal would have. The cell had very little in it aside from a pile of moldy hay and a bench that looked as if it would fall apart if someone looked at it too hard.

Vector leaned against the wall. He could feel the magic that had held him before fading now, no longer necessary.

My father wants me to either kill the only being who is close to being a friend, or to spare him and see him in a slavery worse than anything anyone in the entire kingdom's ever endured.

Vector ground his teeth together. Mizael...

To Be Continued