Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Shattered Illusions ❯ A Prince So Fair ( Chapter 11 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

By: MellyN

XxXxXx

Shattered Illusions

By: Melissa Norvell

Chapter 11: A Prince So Fair

XxXxXx

She lay on the ground with her purse at her side. For how long, she didn't recall. Millie slowly cracked her eyes open and sat up. She was in a brown, dingy room. Rubbing her sleepy eyes the school girl slowly studied her surroundings and then she noticed something out of the ordinary.

Sitting up against the wall was a slim figure. She couldn't tell who it was, because they wore a pointed hood, which had x symbols for the eye holes and a straight line for a mouth. The drab hood was tied with rope around its neck and the figure's hands were shackled behind their back, making it impossible to rid themselves of the garment. The figure was dressed in straight-legged, black slacks and a dark blue coat with two rows of buttons going up the front on either side. Its knees were pulled up and it sat there, listless and unresponsive.

Blinking, the girl simply thought that she was seeing things, but as the haze of her vision wore off, the reality of the situation struck her. Millie threw her hands back as she screamed and scooted back until her back hit the opposite wall. The girl then clamped a hand over her mouth to keep herself silent. She didn't want Estella Nu to come down there and question her outburst.

She panted to herself, as she tried to keep her shaky breath steady. Calm, she must remain calm. Maybe the figure would talk to her if she attempted to communicate with it.

"Hello?" She greeted it unsurely as she leaned slightly forward and placed a hand on the ground to steady herself.

No answer.

"Who are you?"

Still, no answer was produced.

So, she tried again.

"Hello? Um…Are you going to answer?" Millie asked, but she still received nothing in return. Was this figure hard of hearing? Maybe the hood didn't let him answer her. She rose up and took a couple of cautious steps towards the hooded being, peering at him as if she were studying a subject in school. 'What's up with this guy? Is he even alive? Oh God, don't tell me that they locked me in here with a dead body!' Her thoughts didn't reassure her too much as she neared the figure and knelt before it, waving a hand in front of those x eyes in order to get its attention, but to no avail.

Her magenta eyes scanned down as she noted the presence of the rope and thought about untying the binding piece of material. 'Should I untie him and take the bag off of his head? I'm kind of scared to. Who knows what I'll find. If he's dead, I'm going to scream.' The girl thought to herself, assuming that the figure was male. Millie reached up and untied the rope as she grabbed the hood by its point and yanked it from his head.

An abundance of long, caramel hair cascaded down as a beautiful man's face was uncovered. He was young and had stunning blue eyes with long lashes and an ivory, flawless complexion. Even though he looked sickly, he glowed with radiance. Turning back towards him, Millie's face transformed from one of fear to one of sympathy. 'He's so skinny, but he's really pretty. He could match Tsubomi-kun,' Millie kneeled in front of the man and gazed into his miserable eyes. 'He's so sad and he looks like he's been down here for a while.'

"Um…Hey there. Why didn't you respond to me earlier?" She questioned the man on his silent nature, but again, received no response. "Is something wrong? Are you afraid to talk to me?"

He simply shook his head no.

"Can you not speak? Are you mute?" She felt a little stupid. Millie hadn't thought of that option.

The man nodded in response.

"Hold on!" Thinking quickly, Millie ran over to her purse and dug around, searching for something. The school girl pulled out a bobby pin and unfolded it. She then got behind the beautiful man to see that his hands were fastened with shackled and a large, wooden rack of sorts.

"Oh my God. This thing is like ancient execution times. That must mean that it has a simple lock," she went on a hunch and hoped that she was right as she picked it with ease. The wooden fixture popped open and was easily removed. "Now, let's see if I can get this baby…" She smiled in triumph as the shackles popped off as well, but it took her a little more time than the other troublesome item.

As she lifted the shackles, she saw that there were rings of blood around his wrists. It looked painful enough to make her cringe. 'Oh my God! What have they done to this guy?' She wondered in horror as the girl gently took the shackles and placed them on the ground, examining his wrists. 'Poor guy…So many cuts.'

As magenta hues met blue, the caramel-haired man couldn't stare at her very long before he turned away; his gaze hit the floor in shame.

"It's okay. I know you mean to say thanks," Millie tried to chide any fears that he might have had about not being able to communicate with her. The girl continued to dig through her purse, after producing a quizzical expression. After a few moments, her digging became more frantic. Then she paused and sighed. 'It figures, they took the Red Rose Thirteen.' She thought about the gun in question. 'They took the ammo too.' Another sigh was produced before she found what she had been looking for. "Ah hah!" Millie called out with a smile as she held up a large role of medical bandages, as well as some medicated spray she had always kept with herself, in case something went wrong with her gun.

At times like this, she was happy that her father always stressed on gun safety.

"Here, let me help you," Millie sat down and reached for his bloodied wrists, taking his hand gently as she held the spray bottle above his wounds. She thought about how ice cold his hands were before she warned him. "This might sting a little."

She then sprayed the substance onto the cuts and something just plain scary happened to her. He hissed in pain and drew back, clutching his hand. It freaked her out so much that she fell backwards on to her butt, flashing the man as she gasped. 'I did not expect that!' She thought in shock before she spoke. "Sorry, I told you that it would sting."

The man frowned, with his long, chin, length bangs shading his eyes as he held his hand protectively to his chest.

"You're a vampire…aren't you?" Millie inquired. If he wasn't then he was some type of demon or something, because she clearly saw fangs in his mouth.

He nodded, confirming her suspicions.

"Do you want me to finish trying to help you?" The girl questioned, a little unsure of what to do, now that he had reacted in such a defensive way.

The man nodded and glanced down in shame.

"It's okay," Millie chided. "Now…I just have to find that bottle of antiseptic spray. It kind of flew across the room when you freaked me out." The girl rose and began to search for the bottle in question. She was thankful that it had not gone far from where she fell. Millie bent over and picked it up as she cast a concerned gaze towards the man again. The hell he must have gone through was surely immense. "Got it."

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Tsubomi checked her watch and turned to Copernicus. "Okay, it's been an hour." She informed her master.

"I wonder what happened," Copernicus placed a finger to his chin in question and concern for the girl. "I thought she'd be safe with only a block to walk." His navy sights shifted to see the long-haired tomboy take one of the machine guns from his wall.

"Do you have any ammunition for this thing?" She leveled him with a serious gaze. Tsubomi may not have been as smart as Millie when it came to guns, but she was diverse with the different kind of guns that she used.

"You can shoot a machine gun?" Copernicus looked amused for a moment.

"Sure thing."

"You're amazing."

"Not really, my friend's father in high school tested out machine guns for the military and asked me to give one a whirl." It really was just something that happened, which gained her a little knowledge in the subject. Tsubomi didn't think too much of it. "Nothing special, I just shot it off a couple of times. I get the basic principal, so I should be fine."

"A laser gun might be better," the vampire suggested. It was a more controlled weapon and less damaging than something as wide-ranged as a machine gun. Not to mention, one strike from a laser did more damage than one with sheer bullets.

Blinking, Tsubomi glanced up at him in question. "So you have one? What do you think?"

"Well, whoever gets shot is dying, but I think a laser would be more useful," Copernicus noted. After all, the gun could be used for more than just simply shooting.

Tsubomi nodded. "Right, and what kind of weapon are you using?" A laser gun was pretty high tech, so she was interested in what his weapon of choice was.

The Inheritor gestured for her to follow him. The two walked into an underground room. It was white, just as the rest of his house, but dimly lit and vacant of furniture, aside from a lone case in the middle of the room which contained an elaborate sword.

It was silent, and the only sound that could be heard was the clacking of their shoes on the white tile. Stopping at the sword, the two gazed down as Copernicus gestured to the elaborate weapon in question.

The sword was large and had a broad blade that flared out at the end. The hilt was amazing and had beautiful detail of a great phoenix with its wings spread out and a tail that acted as a grip. A weapon like that would be worth an immense amount of money to anyone who specialized in those types of weapons and it was kept in excellent condition.

"A sword? What? Do you think this is medieval times?" Tsubomi joked. Surely such a weapon wasn't going to be used to kill someone. It looked to be more ornamental than anything, and no doubt it was heavy. It didn't seem practical to carry such a thing around.

Copernicus slid back the glass lid on the display case, and held the sword up; the large blade reflected the dim lighting of the room and shimmered in brilliance.

"So, it's an abnormally long sword," she stated as she was tossed a small laser gun, which she caught with great accuracy.

"When we actually fight them, I'll show you the true capabilities of the Rigatama. It's no ordinary sword," his words held great promise, which confused the stripper. It was almost as if he was hell bent on proving her wrong about such a thing.

Copernicus was so strange. What use could a sword like that do for either of them?

XxXxXxXx

The weak man sat with his wrists and neck wrapped in medical bandages as Millie sat beside of him, leaning against the wall. The two sat in silence for a while before Millie spoke to him.

"I wish I could talk to you…" She trailed, before she caught sight of a small notebook in her purse. Grabbing it, she opened it to a blank page and her face lit up with a smile. The girl then dug through her purse for a pen. After she found the pen, she held it up triumphantly. "Maybe we can."

The prince glanced at her in slight question as she handed him the pen and notebook. "You can write in this. That way you can at least tell me things."

He nodded.

"Yay! I'm glad that we can finally talk…sort of. Oh! I'm Millie Ashford, what's your name?" The girl could hardly contain herself. Finally, she would get to at least know his attitude or opinion on something.

He took a while to write his name on the page of the book and then he handed it back to her and her eyes widened upon reading across the letters.

"No way! You can't be!"

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"How did you manage to get her that quickly?” Hizaki questioned with a sharp sense of anger towards the situation. Estella Nu managed to make him look like a fool for capturing Millie so easily when it took him ages to even get close to such a goal.

"I yanked her off of the school grounds when she didn't expect it," Estella would hardly give away the full extent of her plan to the cross dressing vampire. Her elaborate plans were something that she kept to herself. It prevented her enemies from knowing her too well. Secrecy was in her blood.

Very few people knew many things about her and she liked to keep it that way.

"Good job, Estella. I knew that I could count on you," Hide smiled slightly at the woman, pleased with the job that she had done. If this kept up, then she would become his right hand woman quickly.

'If this keeps up, I'll have to put her assassination into affect. No one makes me look like a fool in front of Hide. I'll have to top her or come up with a good plan of action. I'll have to formulate something that strikes the very heart of their plans,' Hizaki thought as his eyes narrowed, glaring at the woman from his position across the room. "I'll show them that I'm no novice. Next time we meet, there will be hell to pay."

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Millie cautiously read the letter, revealing the name of the person that had shared a cell with her. "I…am Prince…Y-Yale A-Axis Greenchapel…You're alive?" Slowly, she turned her head and looked to him with widened eyes. She could barely believe that that tattered being before her with the prince that Copernicus told her about.

Yale scribbled something down on the notebook and held it up for her to read.

Yes, but how do you know who I am? Better yet, how do you know that I was supposed to be dead?

"Long story, actually but I'll tell you, you see, it's like this…" Millie began to explain everything that had happened to her. How she met Copernicus and what he had told her about him. The prince listened intently to the girl's story, trying to absorb all the information that he was given regarding the subject.

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Tsubomi darted out of the alleyway, holding her gun close to her chest ready to take out whoever decided to spring up on her out of nowhere. Ever since Hizaki had attacked her, she was never too sure what could come jumping out at her.

As she glanced down the alley that Millie usually traveled through, disappointment clung to her features. "Damn, she's not here."

"Something happened to her. This is no ordinary mishap," Copernicus wore a dire look on his face as he turned to Tsubomi with a deep-set frown on his face.

"Well, what do we do now? We've checked the whole city and she's not there. I'm getting tired of running the streets," the brunette sighed to herself as her gun fell to her side.

"Then we'll have to go to Hide's location." There was no other way, regardless of whether they were ready to go or not.

"I'm not ready for this," Tsubomi whined under her breath.

"It's my fault that this happened," the Inheritor hated himself for thinking that Millie would be alright with such a short distance to walk. It didn't matter if the school was right across the street; she could have still been kidnapped just as easily.

"Do you think Hizaki took her?" The stripper asked in a low tone as she wore a look of concern on her face.

"It could have been any number of vampires." There was no telling who actually could have taken her, but the only ones with motives to do such a thing were Hizaki and Hide.

"Just how many vampires are after you?" Tsubomi asked with a suspicious look on her face. Was there something that he was hiding from her?

"My head is greatly desired." His answer was simple for the huge problems he had. Just what did he do to piss so many people off?

"No shit? I know you're not telling me the whole story," she narrowed her eyes. He kept things simple…too simple for the situation.

"It's confidential, for now."

"I guess I deserved that," she got the hint.

"I would tell you first, Tsubomi, but I can't reveal myself to anyone at this moment in time," he informed. It would be far too dangerous to tell anyone his true identity and importance in the whole scheme of things.

"You're someone really important, aren't you?" Tsubomi asked as her blue eyes trailed to his strong, silent form. If he wasn't important, then he wouldn't be wanted by so many different people and vampires.

He said nothing and chose not to answer her question.

The Japanese woman smiled a little. "I understand, sir. We all have our secrets," she replied to his silence in a cryptic manner. 'Is it sad to say that I don't feel as bad about hiding my gender now? I'm so horrible for this…I just hope you'll understand, master…'

"Let's look for Hizaki. We have little time," Copernicus informed, "most of the prisoners taken in by Hide and Hizaki are either turned into pawns or killed on the spot."

"What?"

"It's imperative that we recover Millie before sundown."

"We've only got six hours," Tsubomi glanced at her watch and calculated the time in her head. "How can we do that when we don't know where to look?"

"I've been doing some investigating," Copernicus told her. He was always doing some investigating of some kind. It was the only efficient way of keeping track of Hide's plans and analyzing how he ran his operations.

"Really? When have you had time for that?" Tsubomi asked. She wondered if he stayed up at night, researching things. After all, he was a nocturnal creature by nature.

"While you were sleeping," her suspicions were correct, "as a vampire, I function better at night."

"Guess I'm missing work again," the stripper noted as she pointed her gun up, "damn, this is going to be a short paycheck." Sighing at her own misfortune, she decided that she would worry about paying bills later.

"Come in late. If you get fired, I'll pay you for working with me," Copernicus offered. He was filthy rich, so her bills were nothing but chump change to someone like him.

"That scares me," Tsubomi smiled slightly.

"Why?" Her master seemed a little confused at the subject.

"I can't pay the bills with your kind of paycheck," she joked.

"You're silly, and you call me a tease," Copernicus replied with a slight smile. The comment nearly made him chuckle, if he hadn't have reminded himself of such inappropriate timing.

"I was being honest," Tsubomi replied as the two of them took off running down the streets in pursuit of Hide and Hizaki's headquarters. They had to hurry, if they wanted to find the school girl before they regretted her fate.

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"See? That's what's been going on. I kind of got sucked in to this," Millie glanced down with a look of sorrow on her face. If there was ever a time that she regretted being in such a situation - it was now. If this had never happened to her, then she would be at home with her parents, living a normal life, free of abnormal fears.

She felt a cold touch on her shoulder, glancing up; she saw a piece of paper in front of her face that read:

I can't talk because my vocal chords have been severed by Estella Nu, so I cannot express how sorry I am that you have to be put into this situation. I know it's too late for me, I am completely useless but I will try my best to protect you from them. I know that Copernicus will come to save you. He doesn't even know I'm alive…

The prince was hugged by the school girl in a comforting manner. He nearly flinched at the touch. He didn't remember the last time he was touched in such a kind way. Usually, when he was touched, it was never a good thing. It was wonderful to have a kind embrace for once. "Please hold on. I know we can get out of here together. I want you to come with me. No one needs to live like this. I bet they torture you, don't they?"

She didn't even know why she asked that question. Even if Yale said no, it was a lie with what she had seen.

Prince Yale frowned bitterly.

"It's not right. They took everything from you," she couldn't help it. Her emotions ran at high and tears began to flow from her round eyes. "You must be so scared…Or maybe, you're just waiting to die…"

The very thought depressed her as she saw him scrawl something on the paper.

Do you think that a vampire can go to heaven?

Her hug tightened on his as she wept, not because of her own misfortunes, but because the prince had suffered such unspeakable torture. Millie had never met someone like him. Crying for him would be an understatement of the pain that she felt.

Don't cry.

She read the words through the fogginess of the tears in her eyes. "When I heard about what happened to you…I kept thinking about how you must have felt. I really worry about my parents too. I don't think you were weak at all. I think you were very strong and it's not your fault! Their deaths were not your fault." Above everything else, she wanted him to understand that fact.

Yale's eyes widened in realization. The entire time, no one had uttered such a thing, and he would not deny the fact that he blamed himself for the incident for many years.

"You're so cold…Vampires need blood to function. I bet you haven't had it in a long time." No wonder he looked as if he was malnourished. He was probably on the verge of death as it was.

It's alright. Please don't.

"Okay…" She felt a hand lightly pat her head. Millie glanced up to see a letter being held up to her face.

It's nice to have some company.

"You're so dismal," she smiled a little. "But I guess that's a good thing, huh?"

Prince Yale nodded.

"Can you tell me who Estella Nu is?" Millie questioned. She didn't know anything about the strange woman, and if she happened to get out alive, she could tell Copernicus about her.

I think so. I have several hexes on me, so if my text is strange, it's because I'm prohibited from telling you.

Millie agreed as Prince Yale began to write on the paper. Watching him intently, she pondered to herself over everything that had been happening to her so far. She could hardly believe that she was in the same cell with the prince that everyone had thought was dead. Copernicus was going to flip when he found out Prince Yale was still alive.

'This is so strange. I'm writing letters to a prince. Oh my God! I never even dreamed that I'd meet a prince! He's so beautiful, even if he is sickly looking. I hope we can get out of here. I'd like him to come with me. The guy's been through hell and maybe I can be his personal knight and shoot Hizaki between his eyes for him,' she sighed dejectedly. 'That is, if I can get back Red Rose Thirteen….Prince Yale seems so nice. Copernicus is right…He is a timid guy but he's really sensitive. I like him…but I wonder if he'll live much longer. He looks pretty bad. Maybe I should offer him blood or become a temporary donor? I wonder if you can do that. I mean, getting him back alive would be great. Then Copernicus and Tsubomi-kun can take care of him and one of the royal families' members would be safe. He told me no though…Maybe he's being suicidal or something…That's just what I need, a vampire suicidal prince guy.'

Prince Yale stuck the paper in front of her face, pulling the girl out of her thoughts enough to read it. As her eyes scanned through the words, a look of horror crossed her face. "What? Estella Nu is some twisted person isn't she? What exactly has she done to you?" The flabbergasted and appalled girl asked and she stared the weakened prince dead in his beautiful blue eyes that shimmered with such misery.

The prince simply cast his sights down.

"I hope Copernicus comes soon," Millie said as a concerned expression crossed her face. What happened to Prince Yale could happen to her soon. 'If he doesn't, we're both dead. It's really hard to tell someone not to worry when you're worried. Actually, I don't think he's afraid at all…That look in his eyes…It's almost as if nothing would be a more peaceful experience to him than dying. Is this what it feels like to be on the brink? To be so close that you can stare the grim reaper in the eyes? Is this the true extent of misery?'

To Be Continued…