Regius (8 page)

"I'm sorry to remind you
that my relationship with Isa is not a stable one." Iso cursed
then. "I can try." Kicking the sand beneath his foot, he turned and
started walking away. "But you fucking owe me, Galaxi!" Everyone
cringed when he slammed the door to his quarters loudly.

"Thank you for pissing off
my students." Iris handed Anemone over to Caltha, who seemed to
relax instantly when he held the child. "With current
circumstances, that is
exactly
what I needed." Sarcasm was an interesting color
on Iris.

"Forgive me for lacking
tact." Galaxi responded. "But of all people, I thought you'd
understand what it feels like when you lose someone but know they
aren't yet forsaken."

My mouth parted and my eyes
widened comically in shock when suddenly Ilex was forced to jump
forward and hold Iris back from punching Galaxi.

"You did not just go there,
Pallium." Ilex gritted out, mutely gesturing for Caltha to take
Iris and Anemone elsewhere. He waited for them to be out of sight
to continue. "You'll get our help because we are as concerned as
you are, but hold your emotions in check, Galaxi, or you'll lose
friends in the process."

I saw her jaw tighten
before she nodded reluctantly. "Very well. Tell Iris to move
Anemone to Iron Island. It's the only region that isn't labeled a
hot zone." Galaxi walked away, Ivy and Vervaine following her and
my eyes trailed after them. I saw that Dandelion and Jatrop had
decided to pretend none of this was happening and continued on
peacefully with their breakfast.

"I will tell her you care."
Ilex rolled his eyes after Galaxi before turning and followed his
partner. "Don't you think you're going to get away with this. The
moment Vervaine comes back from her mission, we are going to
dissect the problem that is-" He grimaced, waving a flippant hand
at me entirely. "You." He walked off this time and Datura and I
allowed some silence to drag out before we looked around us.
Everyone with the exception of the Jansen's had gone to handle the
issue of the missing Prince.

"What happened?" I asked,
feeling utterly dumbfounded.

Datura shrugged. "Another
boring day at the Coliseum." Reaching over, he took my hand in his.
"Come on, let’s hide in a room until everyone that has to go, has
gone."

* * * *

Raising an eyebrow, Galax
gazed over at the domineering presence of the Coliseum in the
moonlit meadows, the stone building so tall, its shadows covered
him and Isa even at the distance they were located. Altors always
had this annoying need to overcompensate. They were like arrogant
children that took on more responsibility than they could handle.
Everything they did was supposedly for the greater good and nobody
could argue because the only people who dared were the Regius, and
the Regius, in the Altors eyes, suffered from a God complex. When
would either race see that neither of them are what Zinc
needs?

The Regius would rob this
land of its riches in a matter of years, killing it without
flourish, offering up the people before they were affected by their
own wrong doings. It was as though their DNA didn't allow them to
make good decisions. But the Altors... They were engineered lap
dogs and instead of admitting this and acting like the guards they
were meant to be, they thought themselves to be wiser than the
Civilians and thus allowed to make decisions in their stead. If
only the Civilians knew their fate lay in the hands of those that
were
supposed
to
protect and serve them! But those who angered Galax most were the
Palliums. They were about as delusional as the Regius and Altors,
but were too scared to use their superiority to take their land
back. How contradicting.

Believing they are smarter,
better, wiser and more apt to take care of a country because their
deity told them they were. Yet that same deity made sure the
Palliums wouldn’t step out of their comfort zone and allowed the
arrogant lap dogs to do all the heavy lifting.

There was progress believed
to have been made over the last years: the Palliums no longer
neutral, the Regius without a King, the Civilians seemingly less
and less aware of what was going on right in front of their eyes,
the Altors demanding change but never a change within their own
hierarchy. And then the Seers! Cowering away even though they held
the greatest power available in this land. They could force the
Altors to change their ways, show the Palliums that they weren't
doing enough, and manipulate the Regius to move into the opposite
direction. But no!

"Dude." Galax blinked when
Isa's voice pierced his dark thoughts, forcing him to tear his gaze
off the Coliseum so he could look back at the pirate. "Easy there.
Gotta be careful with that. You've been zoning out and allowing the
pessimism to wash over you a lot these last couple of days." When
Galax could only stare at the Ranger and remain stuck in a loop,
Isa stepped closer and snapped his fingers before the Prince's
face.

"In." Galax breathed in as
the pirate instructed. "And out..." He did so, taking his time and
repeating this, allowing Isa to guide him through it. It had been
happening more often and it was becoming harder for him to break
out of it and find his way back to who he truly was. "If you think
you can't make it, say so, and I'll swallow my pride and face my
bastard twin and his whore of a girlfriend just so I can make sure
you don't go on a killing spree." The pirate's eye twitched. "You
look really out of it, man."

Galax shook his head,
finally able to grasp himself. "No, I'm fine. You've done more than
enough."

Isa smiled uncertainly.
"It's probably for the best. What if you entered that doom mood and
the only people around were Iso and Ivy." He pulled a large saber
out of his belt loop. "I would probably take advantage and let you
butcher them. I'd enjoy it too." The Prince gingerly took the
weapon out of his hands.

"I think you may want to
consider working out those feelings you're harboring towards your
family." Galax suggested, sliding the blade into the belt strapped
over his back.

"Says the guy whose weapon
I had to confiscate before he would have killed me and the crew
that was keeping us up
in the
sky
, in a blinding rage." Isa
deadpanned.

"Mine are caused because
I'm a pure Blue Blood that has been forced to repress his natural
instincts for years and my girlfriend was kidnapped by my blood
family whose mission in life is to conquer Zinc and destroy every
living soul that won't let them." Galax raised an eyebrow. "The day
you can top that is when I'll understand your
frustration."

"You're no fun." Isa waved
his hand flippantly at Galax before turning and walking back to the
spot Apnea had landed carefully, deep in the Meadows of Serenium.
Galax hadn't asked the pirate to walk all the way to the Coliseum
with him, but where he'd believed Isa to be careless and more
selfish than he, apparently it wasn't so. If his history with
certain Altors in that building looming before him hadn't been so
heavy and great, Galax was quite sure Isa would have snuck inside
with him to seek out Vervaine.

The Rangers had done more
than enough for him. Juglan had gone as far as ignoring his
father's summons and thus tainting the truce they'd made many years
ago. Flux would not even consider hearing the captain out until
Galax returned to Pallium territory, or was dragged back. Had it
not been for Lalani, Columbine's captain, Apnea would have been
spotted days ago. There was a medallion created by the Seers that
held the power to create an invisibility cloak. The item that had
been hunted by those who knew of it for centuries. Even Galax
himself had once thought about finding it so he could hide away
from all and everything. Turned out the medallion had been found by
Lalani's ancestor and passed down through the generations that
followed. It had entered his mind to simply steal it from the
Ranger before she handed it over to Juglan, but the pessimism, as
Isa called his dark nature, hadn't gotten the best of him at that
moment. These people had gone out of their way to help him get
where he needed to be, and betraying them was not the way he wanted
to thank them for putting themselves at risk. Were Flux and the
Altors to find out that Columbine and Apnea had worked against them
and helped the heir get away, surely those Ranger crews would be
moved up to the top of the list that dictated they were a danger
and had to be killed on sight.

Galax was aware both Lalani
and Juglan had an angle and saw something in him that would be
beneficial for them sometime in the future. Rangers never did
anything without a price. But while they would one day ask him to
return the favor, Galax knew he would because without their aid, he
wouldn't be here right now, able to figure out a way to have
Solenum return to his side.

Sighing, Galax waited
patiently for the next step in his plan to happen so he could enter
the Coliseum without being cut down by one of the soldiers.
Although a pure Blue Blood, he wasn't stupid enough to believe he
could take on all three Trainers and their students. Even if most
of them were not fully trained, they'd be too many for Galax to
take on by himself. He needed to empty the Coliseum of at least
half of the soldiers before attempting to breach security and enter
Vervaine's room. Even if she was on guard duty tonight, he'd simply
wait in her quarters until her return.

When he heard the skyship's
motors come to life, Galax smirked and quickly dropped to the
ground, laying flat on his belly and using the green flap of fabric
given to him by the Rangers to hide beneath, blending in with the
hills. They would still see his heart if they looked in this
direction, but having trained with Solenum he knew the Altor vision
wasn't as perfect as it had been made out to be. All their focus
would be on Apnea as it flew on the opposite side of the Coliseum
from where he was and if they couldn't detect the semblance of a
figure that stood out in the fields, their eyes would never be
drawn to this side and so they wouldn't see his blue heart. He felt
an ache and hint of happiness all at once as he thought back on
that day where he'd figured out Solis' blind spot. She'd been
cutely upset with him and had nearly run him down to the ground to
take out her frustration. He'd never met anyone as determined or
brave as she was.

He was glad when the shouts
from within the Coliseum distracted his thoughts away from her and
back to the present; he couldn't afford to lose control
now.

He counted four soldiers
running out of the large stone building, weapons in hand as they
rushed in direction of the ship that was flying tauntingly low and
making its way straight for them. Galax smiled slowly when Apnea
tricked them into running after it and away from the
Coliseum.

Standing up, he took off in
a sprint, checking the top of the walls to make sure there weren’t
any soldiers still standing guard there. When he saw none, he made
his way straight for the Coliseum entrance, momentarily
appreciative of Flux's teachings as he was faced with the large
control panel that kept everything securely locked. He could
escalate the walls, which he assumed the Regius did when they
raided this place, but it would take too long and the soldiers
would return before he'd be able to make his way within.

He could rip the panel out,
which he knew the Regius must have tried on numerous occasions as
well, but unlike them, Galax knew it would only send the security
system into a frenzy and set off the back-up lock-down. Destroying
the electrical source wasn't an option either; he himself was the
one that suggested they install two backup generators to feed the
security system in case of a black out or multiple
breach.

Tapping in the code that
triggered the eye scanner, Galax tried to be patient as it slowly
appeared from the wall beside the control panel, occasionally
looking over his shoulder to make sure the soldiers were still busy
chasing Apnea. Once the device was ready to be used, Galax moved
closer and allowed it to scan his eye. Before the robotic voice
could ask him to state his name, he tapped in another code and
grabbed the device to turn it over and reveal the
microphone.

"Override all systems." He
whispered into it, watching the small screen on the panel come to
life and start deleting all settings installed by whichever Pallium
had been in charge to set up the security system. Now he had five
minutes to get to the tech room and stop the computers from sending
a signal to the Pallium base.

Leaving the control panel
to do its job, Galax moved over to the large double doors and
smiled when security had indeed been breached, allowing him to open
them. Stepping inside, he quickly scanned the large circular
opening that held the Altors training ground, making sure there
were no soldiers before he sprinted as silently as possible over to
the tech room located on the right side. He was again glad to find
out all locks had sprung, allowing him to make his way inside with
no problem.

"Oh, no you don't." He
murmured at the computer system that was coming to life. He stepped
over to the master tower, reaching behind it and pressing the
hidden button so the side of it would pop open. He crouched before
it and reached within to pull free one small wire that would shut
everything down.