Disc 2: Corrupting Innocence

King Zacchias and Saint Makael hunched over the blueprints for the new museum: there was to be an exhibit for a nearly extinct variety of palm tree, an exhibit featuring the primordial structures built atop where Castlo Rivalo now stood, an exhibit where visitors could interact with holograms of now-extinct animal life and in the center of it all, a cylindrical hall featuring the castle's greatest kings. Saint Makael walked over with a pencil niftily stuck between his plushy gold ears, tapping Zacchias' shoulder and laying the blueprints into his orange paws, a modified copy of the blueprints with suggestions for transformations and additional structures tangenting off the main building.

King Zacchias nodded at the tall, burly archangel, who stoically nodded back before wandering away. He looked over the blueprints, his feather pen moving to sign the bottom of the paper and officially approve its construction. He was hesitant to approve expensive construction projects like these.

Frustrated, King Zacchias crumpled up both copies and chucked them at a recycling bin. That's the only moment where the king–usually quickly drawing up contracts and buried in a panoply of paperwork–arose from his busy shuffling and noticed everything around him. There were rough sketches of masquerades and cross-sections of houses pinned to cork boards, different watercolor designs and inspirations drifting across the walls, scribbles literally written onto the concrete in rough graphite pencil and other things. Everything was so messy and beautiful.

Catching a noise unfamiliar to his fuzzy ears and a whiff of a scent foreign to his nostrils, The swift-legged king drew his eskrima batons and pointed them at the first thing he saw: a shrewd attorney in a black suit, carrying a black briefcase and staring him dead in the eyes. The police filed in and stood closely behind the attorney. Saint Makael shuffled in after the police, secretly prepared to draw his rapier if the police officers acted too hastily.

Turmoil shattered Rivalo in recent days, and nobody trusted anybody.

"We have an arrest warrant for your brother," explained the attorney. "He's wanted for five counts of breaking and entering and five counts of grand theft auto."

"You're not taking him," the king retorted. He backflipped and landed on his feet, throwing the baton in his left hand forward and catching it. He bounced the right baton off the heel of one of the officers. The swift king caught it in his right hand and assumed a fighting stance.

As it turns out, the officer the eskrima stick grazed was none other than the deputy himself: Deputy Badrick. He ripped off his bulletproof vest, revealing a belt brimming with arms and explosives and mumbling with a blood-gargling voice, "You hurt the wrong officer, boy." The bruised deputy flourished his own pair of eskrima sticks and smited the king with a look that killed the devil, putting his left foot back and challenging the young ruler to a gauntlet.

"And you're messing with the wrong king," King Zacchias spat back, propelling his left eskrima stick into the deputy's chest with an upper hand swing and matching the king's lower hand attack at his shoulder. Weaving lightning into a thunderstorm's opera, his movements drummed with the momentum of a crow's murderous descent. His visage slimmed with focus. King Zacchias swung at the deputy with his right hand, Deputy Badrick's eskrima sticks splintering as for a slow, painful moment, their blades met and the gutsy king levitated off the ground.

The archangel darted into the air, his wings graciously spreading out from his fur coat and casting a broad shadow onto the humans below.

The deputy struggled to compete against the king's practiced, elegant strokes, yet fierce and bubbling like a stovetop whirring to life. Protrusions goffered his elbows and disappeared into his sleeves, his mouth trickled splatters of blood and his feet paved the carpeted floors with bloody footprints as the gauntlet ensued. Swift as the charging pace of our story, Deputy Badrick's baton descended upon King Zacchias with a loud whoosh.

The king sidestepped Deputy Badrick's attack, stepping left and backwards. He spotted his chance in a split second, slamming his right eskrima stick into the deputy's thigh and making a hasty exit for the door.

The archangel descended like a mighty falcon, his fuzzy snout and resplendent lips pursed like a beak.

Deputy Badrick silently yelped as the archangel's swaggering saber pierced his thigh, a brittle leg bone discharging salmon-pink muscle and runny, blackened blood protruding from his knee. He wriggled in pain against the ground, curling into a fetal position. He cursed all royalty under his breath. But he didn't have the guts to curse the king or the archangel. Even with his braveness, the deputy wasn't messing with the king or the archangel–he motioned the officers under his watch and stormed off, the bitter taste of defeat resting on his tongue.

-

The grungy streets slowly narrowed in as Elias Anti approached the dock. The sidewalk slowly filled with litter and homeless people and criminals shuffling off to who-knows-where to make who-knows-what kind of deals. Silent and brewing with a different sort of sinisterness, the air was too quiet for his tastes. Anyway, he walked down the dark streets with his hands in the pockets of his cyan sweater and his gaze nonchalantly restrained to his shoes.

These streets were no longer safe for him.

With every step, he got closer to the dock. He walked past flickering neon signage, barber shops with striped columns and gigantic scissors hanging over his head, lamp posts with advertisements and missing posters stapled onto them, and finally the Somma Arts Museum. Arriving at the dock, he proceeded to the location described to him: by the Orison 22 vessel, in between the searchlight and the mounted pay-per-use binoculars. When he got there, there was a group of shady men waiting for him–all dressed in sleeveless black shirts and wearing denim overalls.

One of them carried a wig. His name was Jet, and he was the leader of the gang. He had negotiated Elias' departure from Somma and bribed the captain of Orison 22 with a shipment of gold bars. Most of them were faked–but whatever got the job done, got the job done.

One of them carried a briefcase stuffed with Rivalo's paper currency. His name was Slickboy, and he was a slick boy. He was young–maybe 17–and he was too nervous to look the former king of Rivalo in the eye. He got this money by scamming a senile old lady out of it, and he was proud of himself for that.

Another one of them was this man named Coulson. Coulson was the man carrying a belt of guns and swords and daggers, a small portion of his arms collection that he was more than happy to give to Elias–for a price. In return, Elias would have to bribe Coulson's way into university.

Then there was Jamie, the guy loading Elias' suitcases onto Orison 22. He was the vice leader of the gang, the man who'd step up if Jet hit the dust. He hauled two suitcases packed with tightly folded garments, mumbling something to himself about the last captain to man the ship. When he was finished packing Elias' things, he aired his hairy armpits and picked his nose.

"So here's the plan, friend," said Jet. "You're going to board Orison 22, and the captain's going to take you to the Backanaray Isles, a tourist destination that is completely abandoned–at least the public thinks. Underground our gang runs a massive shelter for criminals-on-the-run like yourself."

"You'll stay there for 30 days, eat our food, borrow our resources–as many as you wish, cuz why not–and then you'll be kicked out," Jamie added. "You'll be on your own then, capisce?"

"What if the hideout gets raided?" Elias asked, walking with the gang members onto Orison 22.

"Free food, free resources, free security," Jet responded concisely. "Don't worry: you'll have everything you need if our hideout gets raided, and we'll burn your IDs when we get there. Now, board."

"You're not getting away that easily," King Zacchias cried, pouncing through the air from nowhere and tackling Elias. "Stand down, broskis!"

"You're the new king we've been hearing about," Coulson shot, producing a pair of daggers from his belt and slicing their blades against each other. A screechy whoosh filled the boat. "I've been practicing my escrima as well."

"Let's test that assertion!" King Zacchias drew his eskrima sticks and jumped at Coulson. Coulson slammed the flat edge of his daggers against the swift-heeled king's batons, but his attacks were too slow. The king quickly outmatched Coulson–countering every swipe of the blade, reciprocating every attack with a fluster of parries–and slammed the heel of his eskrima stick into the gangster's left shin and pinning him to the ground.

The king addressed Elias in a matter-of-factly manner, speaking to him like a disappointed parent, "Elias Magaspang Anti I am at a loss of words. How dare you?!"

Elias roared like a hound. Tears formed in his polo. His skin produced a thick, furry cyan coat. He barked, his true furry self coming out, "You won't catch me any time soon!" His voice echoed itself–his eyes gleamed.

King Zacchias transformed too. Orange fuzz puffed from his flesh, cultivating like flowers blooming out of a garden. His wings spread as he darted through the skies–chasing after Elias.

They swooped in and out of the ocean below, catching glimpses of peacefully drifting whales and schools of anchovies moving like whirlwinds. King Zacchias barrel-rolled through the sky, Elias sneezed salt water from his snout and King Zacchias dove down after his own brother, his titanic left wing swinging down and slapping Elias in his plush face. Elias wrapped his face in his own wings, dovetailing into the ocean and struggling back to the surface.

His vision blurred.

Through a broken visage, he watched King Zacchias snatch up the rest of the gangsters, the blurry visage of overly muscular men falling off Orison 22 and into the cold ocean below. Visage flickering, Elias stumbled into the front of the ship, suddenly falling backwards as a golden winged blur pushed him out of the way, sweeping his wings through the air and cleanly body-slamming into Jamie and Coulson. Jet drew a gun from his belt and shot at the archangel, and the orange cluster of fur–radiating as brightly and warmly as a crackling fireplace on late, snowy nights in December–pushed Coulson into the wall and slammed Slickboy into the side of the ship.

The king sheathed his eskrima sticks, grabbed Elias–human, now–by the collar and lifted him into the air, growling, "You're causing a lot of problems." The king thrashed Elias into the hull, pummeled him into the floorboards and observed the plum bruises on his cheeks, the violet blush in his face and the plum mascara under his eyes as the king–his own brother–spat, "Working with gangs? Abhorrent stuff, this is!"

Elias spattered out, "Y–you wouldn't get it! The gangs are working together! Stepping down as king… these shady alliances… I did what I had to!"

The CEO of the barber shop franchise, an old woman with pale skin that lived in small quarters behind the dainty place at the edge of town that was secretly a gang hideout. The young, freckled museum employee that was covering for his corrupt boss. Across from the museum, the owner of the quiet pastry shop that was smuggling illegal goods into Rivalo whose house he paid the young man to let him break into. Earlier in the evening, Elias finalized his departure with these shifty individuals.

Money satchels were tossed over cash registers. Hands were shaken. Oaths were sworn. Elias hesitated telling his brother this part of the story.

"You need to understand," Elias coughed up, "that if I didn't retire, if I didn't pay these people, I'd be toast. I voluntarily stepped down because the gangs are slowly falling; and being an old gang member myself, I'm not going to make myself an easy target."

King Zacchias stared at Elias in disbelief.

That meek farmer that lived in a quaint barn amidst a sea of tangled clotheslines. That quaint businessman who nervously stuttered and adjusted his collar whose finances were falling apart. Everyone had problems, and the king saw his brother as a slippery con artist who was trying to cheat his way out of his.

"You know," the king murmured, slowly wading into the sky, "we have quite the security. Certainly more security than these folks. I don't know why you felt like this was necessary–it ain't, bro–but I guess since we're stuck in this situation…" The king looked warmly upon his brother, offering a warm, helping paw. "How can I help?"

Like two stray lightning bolts, the two brothers shot into the cold, distant horizon.