“Ah.” Bedivere’s eyes lit up as though he understood.

  “Where will we find your knights?” asked Alex.

  “Probably in the dungeon.”

  “You guys still use dungeons?”

  Bedivere furrowed his brow. “Is there something wrong with that?”

  “I guess not,” Alex said, though he personally found it weird. What sort of medieval fantasy was this?

  The dungeon was located on the opposite side of the hanger. Alex and the others, using the distraction provided by Gabrielle’s robots, ran through a number of artfully decorated hallways with portraits hanging from the walls and busts spaced in even intervals. Their feet thumped against the purple carpet as they followed Bedivere.

  While the robots provided a great distraction for getting in, and their continued chaos kept most of the soldiers inside of the castle occupied, that did not mean they didn’t have to fight. Six guards appeared from around a corner. They shouted something, but Alex didn’t catch what they said because he and Nyx were already focused on defeating them.

  Nyx slammed her hands into the ground, using alchemy to transmute the floor, which turned into a series of hands that slammed into three of the guards. As the three guards went down, the remaining three were distracted. Alex used that distraction to his advantage. He called upon his Aura of Creation and attacked from range.

  Thanks to what he’d learned from the voices inside of his head, he knew that his method of using the Aura of Creation wasn’t the only way to use it; there were other ways. Thinking on it, when he’d faced off against that simulation of Gabrielle’s father, he’d been killed by a massive beam. Alex felt like kicking himself in the head.

  Alex judged that he was five meters from the soldiers. Coating his hands in Aura of Creation, he threw several punches. Blue light erupted from his fists and slammed into the guards. Armor dented, cracked, and then shattered as the guards sailed backward. That didn’t finish them off. They tracked to get up again, but Alex released several more energy blasts that knocked them upside the head.

  They went down and didn’t get back up.

  “Oh! You’re learning to use your powers like Papa!” Gabrielle exclaimed as they ran.

  “Does your dad use his Aura of Creation like this?” asked Alex.

  “Sometimes.” Gabrielle scratched her chin as they turned a corner. “Papa likes creating big explosions. He’s also really fond of shields and stuff.”

  “Uh huh…”

  Alex wasn’t surprised that Gabrielle didn’t know much about her father’s battle tactics. She might have been a genius inventor, but she cared little for anything outside of inventing and having fun.

  He didn’t blame her for that. Gabrielle had been isolated for a long time as a child, living in the palace on Angelisia with no one but herself, her guards, and her sisters. She hadn’t been allowed outside. What’s more, from what little Alex gathered during their conversations, it seems that several of her father’s retainers had attempted to use Gabrielle to create weapons. With all that, it was no wonder she wanted to live a carefree life.

  The dungeon were down a flight of stairs. Alex didn’t know what to expect, but he supposed a dark and claustrophobic space filled with jail cells wasn’t too far off the mark. It looked nothing like the Mars Penitentiary, which he’d had the misfortune of spending the night in before. There were two guards inside, but Nyx knocked them out before they could even blink.

  Several people were inside of the jails, men and woman who looked bored. That kind of surprised him. They didn’t appear worried. Some were doing pushups, others were meditating, and still others were just sitting on the floor and staring at nothing.

  “You all look like you’re having fun,” Bedivere said.

  Everyone stopped what they were doing. They looked over at him. There was two seconds pause. Then…

  “My Lord!!!”

  The group rushed toward the bars of their respective cells and clamored to get near him. All of them tried talking at once, which of course meant that no one could understand what anyone else was saying. Bedivere, wearing an amused smile, held up his hands and gestured for them to calm down.

  “We’re here to get all of you out of here,” he said. “Camelot is in trouble, and we’re going to need your help in getting to Avalon.”

  “Avalon?” one of them said.

  “Yes. Now stand back. We’re breaking you out of here.”

  The knights stood back Nyx used her transmutation to destroy the bars. Alex watched as she placed her hands on the metal and it simply… melted. It became liquid that flowed down into puddles on the ground.

  Alchemy was composed of two aspects: deconstruction and reconstruction. First, alchemists broke down whatever they were transmuting--deconstruction--and then they rebuilt it into something of equal value--reconstruction. It looked like Nyx had simply stopped transmuting the bars at the deconstruction stage.

  With the knights now free, the group made for the hanger. They didn’t have to fight their way there, fortunately, but that was because Gabrielle’s robots had already stripped every one of the soldiers. They passed by numerous soldiers who were naked and crying, or naked and unconscious. Alex knew well the “WTF?” looks of Bedivere’s knights. He’d had that expression many times since meeting Gabrielle.

  Just as Bedivere had said, there were numerous fighters sitting in the hanger. They were the blade fighters. Each one was smaller than he expected, about two meters in length, half a meter in height, and barely a quarter of one in width. There were a small bulbous cockpit protruding near the fore of the fighters, but the rest looked just like a sword.

  “Come on,” Bedivere said, gesturing for them to follow.

  Alex, Gabrielle, Nimue, and Nyx walked with him to a much larger vessel, one that looked a lot like the ship that Prince Arthur had arrived on Mars in. Bedivere lowered the boarding ramp and had them all climb aboard. Already knowing what was expected of him, Alex went to one of the seats embedded into a wall, sat down, and strapped himself into the crash webbing. Meanwhile, Bedivere and Nimue went into the cockpit as Nyx and Gabrielle followed his example.

  It wasn’t long before the ship started up with a light thrum. Alex felt that unsettling moment where his stomach did flip flops as the ship began hovering in the air, but it soon settled. This vessel only had one viewport, but it gave him a perfect glimpse of the outside as they began moving.

  “Wasn’t that exciting?” Gabrielle asked as the ship began climbing out of Winchester’s atmosphere.

  “I suppose it was at that,” Alex admitted. “It was more of a hassle than I expected as well.”

  “What do you think, Nyx?” asked Gabrielle.

  Nyx turned her head to look at them both, and then went back to staring out of the viewport on the opposite side of the ship.

  “I will be glad when we can go back home.”

  Thinking of homemade Alex remember all the people they had left behind. He wondered if they were okay. Was Alice keeping up with school? How were Ariel and Michelle fitting in? What was Jasmine up to? Was Kazekiri working hard? How was Selene doing? He wished he could see them, talk to them, but he knew that was impossible--at least, it would be until he could fix his Interdimensional Communicator.

  I hope everyone is okay, was Alex’s last thought as the ship entered hyperspace.

  Interlude

  Igraine

  Arthur sat in a single-man shuttle. His honor guard and Merlin had been against him coming on his own, but he knew that Igraine was a skilled sensor. Ten years ago, during the War of Jormungar, in which a neighboring solar system had tried to invade theirs, Igraine had sensed their imminent arrival despite them still being in hyperspace. She would sense if Merlin or someone else was with him and would suspect something.

  With Igraine, it was better to be safe than sorry.

  Glastonbury was a mostly water planet. Composed of about 95% water, there were only a few islands on the surface. The largest of these islands had been made into a castle for Uther and his wives. There they lived in the lap of luxury, traveling out on occasion for business or pleasure, but generally not getting involved with the day to day affairs of governing anymore.

  They left that job to their kids.

  It was all very lazy.

  The descent through the atmosphere was a little bumpy, but the blade fighter he was using was his personal one. It had been upgraded with a number of modifications. The flight was much smoother than it should have been.

  His comlink crackled to life. “Incoming vessel, this is royal capital control. Please state your name and business.”

  Activating his comlink, Arthur said, “This is Arthur, crown prince of Camelot. I’m here to see my family.”

  A moment of silence ensued before the comlink crackled again. “Roger that. We have you on our visuals. I apologize for the suspicion. Please proceed to docking bay eight.”

  “Will do, and don’t worry about it.”

  Arthur piloted his blade fighter into the requested docking bay and set down. From even before he opened the hatch and exited, several workers moved up and began attaching fuel lines and calibration equipment. They worked very efficiently.

  A man walked up to him, an older gentleman with a mustache and beard, who placed a hand over his chest and bowed to him.

  “Sir Kay,” Arthur greeted. “I had not realized you were still acting as captain of the guard for my parents.”

  “Indeed. It has been awhile, has it not?” Moving back up from his bow, Sir Kay offered him an amused smile. “If I am not mistaken, you have not been to Glastonbury in about four years.”

  “Something like that,” Arthur said as he and Sir Kay walked out of the docking bay and into the hall. “How are my mothers?”

  “They are doing quite well, from what I can gather.” Sir Kay stroked his chin. “Though they have been acting a little strange recently. Not that I can blame them. It has been over a year since your father went missing.”

  Arthur smiled weakly. His father, Uther Pendragon, had gone missing over a year ago. King Lucifer, ruler of Angelisia and Emperor of the Galaxy, had requested him for a task. One did not deny a request from the being who controlled the galaxy. His father had left on the quest with Gadreel.

  He had yet to return.

  As he and Sir Kay turned a corner, they came upon a large door easily three times taller than him. Polished to a shine, the door gleamed a bright gold. Two guards stood on either side. Both guards saluted the two before opening the door. Arthur turned to Sir Kay, who gave him a polite bow.

  “My Lord, I shall leave you here.”

  “Thank you for escorting me.”

  As Sir Kay walked off, Arthur squared his shoulders and entered the room.

  Opulent was the first word he would have used to describe the room. While it was supposed to be a bedroom, the only thing about it that was bed-like were the luxurious beds resting underneath the shade of several trees. There was grass and various flowers, a stream that flowed into a crystal-clear pond, and several chairs and tables that rose from the ground as though they were trees shaped into chairs and tables. This entire place had definitely been created using life manipulation.

  Only five women were in the room at the moment. A woman with purple hair lounged near the pond, reading a book. Iseult the wise. Two others, a fiery haired beauty and a femme whose smile reminded him of a devious fox, were having a battle of wits with a game of chess. Those were Morgause and Enide. Meters from them was none other than Igraine, and she was speaking with his mother.

  Igraine’s blonde hair trailed all the way down to her bare feet. Her white dress shimmered as she raised a hand and tucked a stray strand of hair between her ears. The woman sitting beside her looked a lot like him, or rather, he looked like her. She had blonde hair, but it was darker than Igraines. Arthur got his blue eyes from his mother. Unlike Igraine, she wore dark shorts and a sleeveless shirt.

  Looks like mom still likes to pretend she’s not royalty.

  “Mother,” Arthur greeted as he walked up to the woman.

  It wasn’t just his mom who stopped doing what they had been; Igraine stopped chatting as well, and so did the other three women sitting in the room. They all looked at him. While the three far away went back to what they were doing, his mother smiled widely as she stood up.

  “Arthur!!!”

  “Wa--goof!”

  Arthur should have expected it, given his mother’s personality, but he was wholly unprepared for her pounce. The wind was knocked from his lungs in a single whoosh. He blinked several times and stared at sunroof, which granted him a view of the sky.

  “Oh, Arthur! How are you doing?! It’s been so long since you visited me! You should do so more often!”

  “Mom! I can’t answer you if you don’t let me!”

  Arthur had forgotten how excitable his mother could be. She was always the type of woman who leapt first into any conversation, who liked to pounce on people she loved, and who was, well, a lot like Gabrielle in some aspects.

  Perhaps that was the reason he found Gabrielle so suitable to be his wife. Not that it mattered now. Gabrielle was clearly smitten with Alexander, who complimented her better than he did.

  “So, so? How are you? How’s Nimue? Are you both doing well?” asked his mother after getting off him.

  “Nimue and I are doing fine,” Arthur said. “There are some problems with Lancelot and Morrigan, but aside from that, everything seems to be going smoothly.”

  “My son and daughter aren’t causing trouble, are they?” asked Igraine, sounding legitimately worried. Arthur couldn’t tell if she was being genuine or acting.

  “They attacked Camelot.”

  While his mother gasped, Igraine held a hand to her mouth and her eyes widened. She looked visibly sick.

  “I’m sorry.” Igraine apologized. “I’ll have a conversation with Lancelot and Morrigan as soon as I am able. Please forgive them. They are precocious children, but they mean well.”

  Arthur wavered, wondering whether or not she was acting or being honest. It was always hard to tell with Igraine. Even when he was younger, Igraine always seemed to speak with two mouths. It sometimes felt like he was looking at a distorted mirror, or listening to a radio that had overlapping voices.

  He decided to keep things cordial. If he acted out now, then it would look like he was the villain.

  “I would appreciate that.”

  His mother clapped her hands. “Since you’re here, why don’t you eat with us? We were just about to have lunch!”

  Lunch did sound nice, and he still needed to ascertain whether or not Igraine honestly didn’t know what her children were up to, or if this was all an act.

  Everyone joined them for lunch. It was a simple lunch of sandwiches, though the sandwiches tasted like the stuff made from a gourmet. Even though it was merely simple spices with a variety of meats, the food tasted warm on his tongue. It was so good, he thought his tongue might go numb from the flavor.

  Since everyone was eating from the same plate, including Igraine herself, Arthur didn’t think she had poisoned it.

  The conversation was mostly light. His father’s wives got along decently well. If nothing else, they seemed to be close friends. Apparently, the five who were missing--those being Elaine, Gwenhyfach, Yvain, Isotta, and Esyllt--were actually searching for his father. He hadn’t known that, but that wasn’t so surprising. These women often stayed out of contact and did as they pleased.

  “So you went all the way to this Mars in order to convince Gabrielle to be your wife, and then she turned you down?!” His mother laughed.

  “It’s not that funny.” Arthur tried not to blush.

  “It is extremely funny!” she shot back.

  “Who is this Alexander person?” asked Igraine.

  “He’s a young man who ith marrying Gabrielle,” Arthur said, pausing for a moment as his tongue tingled.

  “Something wrong? The meal isn’t too spicy, is it?” asked Igraine.

  “No.” Arthur shook his head and grabbed another sandwich. “Everything is…” he froze. The hand that had been moving fell onto the table with a clatter. He blinked and tried to move it, but he couldn’t.

  Beside him, his mother had already slumped forward into her seat, her head hitting the table with a loud thud. He feared she was dead, but then heard her loud snoring. That would have put him at ease. However, his mind was quickly growing dizzy.

  All around him, the other three women slumped in their seats, shoulders sagging, heads lolling forward, bodies growing still. Poison. The word floated to him on irregular thoughts that flitted through his mind like ephemeral dreams. He couldn’t grasp anything of substance. It felt like his mind was wading through cement.

  He slumped backward.

  “I’m sorry to do this,” he heard a voice say. “However, I’m going to need you to sleep for a while.”

  “Wha…” was about as far as Arthur got before he was claimed by darkness.

  Chapter 5

  Avalon

  The shuttle ferrying him, Bedivere, Gabrielle, Nimue, and Nyx arrived at Glastonbury in record time. According to Nimue, it should have taken six hours to get there. Thanks to Bedivere, it had only taken two. His knowledge of the space lanes was impressive. He directed them through numerous shortcuts that not even Nimue had knowledge of.

  Flight control directed them to a docking bay that was unoccupied. As they emerged from the shuttle, it was to discover several people waiting for them. Four of them were women, but there was also an elderly gentleman with a strong build. He wore silver armor, had two blaster pistols strapped to his thighs, and carried a sword on his back.

  “Princess Nimue,” the gentleman greeted with a bow.

  “Nimmy!!” one of the women rushed past the gentleman, a woman with blonde hair who looked a lot like Prince Arthur.

  Nimue was prepared for the woman and only stumbled backward a few steps as she crashed into her. There was a loud cracking noise, like the sound of bones being broken. Alex winced, but Nimue didn’t seem to mind.