39 Coronation!?

I look like a penguin in this!" This isn't right! I am about to fight for my life and I look like some opera singer from Italy! 

"This is the traditional garb for the coronation. No chance to get around it." My mother explains. 

"Wonderful. At least we can please the audience." I stretch a little. "This will rip during the fight! I will be butt naked on the throne." 

"That would be bad. I will go and get you my old robe! I should fit you just fine." Nicosar offers and runs off. 

I let out a heavy sigh. "You are king of the fucking world and you can't get a suit that fits." 

"You remember the right words to take the crown from the priest?" Ireth interrogates me again. She asked for the fourth time now. 

"Yes. Hereby I take the throne and swear to protect the country and it's people. Not that hard to remember. Much more important, anything new about our brethren?" I ask with a displeased tone. 

"No. But I am sure they will come. Though I didn't officially invite them." Ireth smiles at me. 

The door flies open and Nicosar storms in. "Here try this. I wore it just once, so it should be fine." 

I get dressed and surprisingly, it fits! "Hoh, not bad, at least this proofs that you are my grandson. You have the same build as me, when I took the throne." 

"Hmpf. Yeah, I suppose this will work." I nod while looking at myself in the mirror. At least this suit isn't so close to the opera style. "I will be off then, I'll be back in a few minutes." 

"What? No, the coronation is in half an hour!" Ireth wants to stop me, but I already teleported. 

The world around me distorts and reforms again. I am in my facility and in front of me is the cold fusion reactor, which supplies the city with energy. 

Three workers are repairing something. They are very concentrated and have their backs to me. "Hrm. Hrm!" They turn around. "Prince! Shouldn't you be at the coronation!?" 

"I need something, and that's the access cover for the main power supply line, am I right?" I ask them. 

"Yes?" One of them answers with an enquiring voice. 

"Step back, I just need a second." All three step back and I take a look at a knot of cables. Some of them are a little burned. The distribution device, which I am looking at is under high strain and has to be maintained very often. 

But it's no problem, the workers were just replacing the old parts. Everything in my facility is redundant. There are at least two replacement systems for everything. 

I am only interested in the heavy red plate behind all the other cables. It gives access to the big cables, which transport the electrical energy to the city. I grab the plate, which protects against accidents and pull it off. 

"!!That's dangerous! You need the right protection prince!" 

"I know." I feel the energy, which is running through the cables and grab them. Even before I touch them a spark of energy reaches for my hand, but I just absorb the power and convert it to mana. A little bit of smoke rises from my fingers and I cut my nerves with telekinesis. Sparks of electrical energy wander around my body without harming me. The lights start to flicker. 

Humans may be the best containers for magical power, but it's way more convenient to convert mana from another source of power like I am doing now. 

I waited with this until the last moment to be sure to walk into the fight with every ounce of power I can hold. Unfortunately Markorn is a real talent and will still have much more mana at his disposal. 

This will somehow even the odds. 

After a minute I pull my hands back, which are a little charred at the fingertips. It's hard to control the conversion process. A little healing spell fixes the problem. 

The lights come back online, seems like I drained a little more than the systems could handle. I turn around and look at the three pale faced workers. 

"Ar.. Are … you okay?" Seems like they already saw their heads being lopped off for letting the prince commit suicide. 

"No problem, I just needed a little more power than the system could handle." I look at the now completely charred electronics. "You will have to do a little more work than you anticipated." 

"N.. no problem, we will work overtime." Another one of them offers. I smile and wave my goodbyes, while I teleport back to my room. 

"Where have you been! We had a short power outage here." Nicosar asks. 

"I just paid a short visit to my lab." I walk to the door and leave for the throne room. Nicosar and Ireth follow me with grim determination. 

When I arrive at the entrance I can see Celes with Katrine and Arthur. I wave at them and walk into the throne room. There are just nobles from Tirna. No wonder, why should a Stricc noble visit the coronation of the king of Tirna. 

I make my way to the throne, where a priest of the church is waiting for me. Everyone's eyes are on me. The hall is completely silent.

While I am on my way, I identify some familiar faces. I identify Sandra, Gabriel and the Cygnus siblings in the first row of spectators. I smile, while I walk by. 

I couldn't find Markorn or Seredorn. Though I know Seredorn just from bad pictures. It is unlikely that I would recognize him. 

Arriving at the priest beside the throne, I nod to him and he starts to speak to the audience. 

"Nobles of Tirna! We are all here today to...." I stop to listen to boring speech and scan the people for the problematic individuals. But it's hard to find a special person inside that crowd. Mother and grandfather took place in the first row of the audience. 

A few minutes later the priest arrives at the important part of his speech. ".... and if there is someone, who believes himself a better king. He may speak now or remain silent forever!" 

The priest looks over the crowd and just as he wants to speak again. "I will be a stronger king! I challenge Angrod of Tirna!" 

Murmurs start to spread inside the big hall and everyone tries to find the rude person, who disturbed the coronation. 

The crowd parts and two people are standing there. It's Markorn and a guy which couldn't be anyone else than Seredorn. Seredorn is strongly resembling my father. He holds himself upright with a walking stick and his left leg is missing from the knee downwards. 

The priest is shocked. "And with which right are you challenging Angrod?" 

Markorn steps forward. "I am Markorn of Tirna, son of Seredorn of Tirna. The previous kings brother!" 

The priest grinds his teeth. Obviously he wasn't informed about this breach of protocol. "Then the challenge is legal! You are the challenged party, you have the choice of weapons and location." The priest turns to me and looks at me. 

"Right here, right now! No weapons." This will be over fast. At least I hope so. If this becomes a long fight it could go badly for me. 

The people try to enlarge their distance from us and I approach Markorn. Seredorn limps to the side with a sly smile on his face.

A few feet before Markorn I stop and take a look back at the priest. "You give the sign." The priest nods and I turn back and look at Markorn. 

The stupid idiot is grinning at me like he already won. He has no clue what I am capable of. I don't like dying. It hurts. And you lose memories. I don't like to lose memories. 

"START!" 

Markorn explodes with mana and disappears. I teleport. Reappearing directly before Seredorn, who is standing in the first row of onlookers with other nobels. His eyes go wide, as he looks at me. 

"Hi, uncle!" Focusing mana into my left hand, I stab it directly into his chest. He opens his mouth with a surprised look on his face, but no scream comes out. 

I feel a mighty power inside Seredorn. Obviously he underwent the same treatment as Markorn. Right decision! 

Retracting my hand, I turn around. Everything took less than five seconds. Markorn is standing at the point, where I was before. He looks at me with an open mouth, not really understanding the situation. 

Seredorn crumbles behind me and I start to walk towards Markorn. 

The mana inside him wavers, swirling and twisting, obviously his soul is in great turmoil. I grin at him and throw the beating heart of his father directly into his face. 

It lands on his cheek and drops to the ground. Still not realizing the situation he stares at the beating heart to his feet. 

I charge forward and strike at his face. *Krack!* A tooth flies out of his mouth and I feel his fighting aura waver. An opening! 

Feeling my way, I get a hold on some muscles in his right arm. Taking what I can get, I slice at them with telekinesis. 

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!" 

Suddenly Markorns body blurs and something hits me right into the chest! Driving the air out of my lungs, I am thrown upwards and impact the ceiling, penetrating it. 

Impacting the ceiling of the next floor, I fall down again, together with tons of debris. Markorn is already waiting and thrusts a hand towards me, but I teleport behind him.

Another part of the ceiling dents in. It seems like he released some kind of shock-wave. I grab his shoulder and convert the mana, I stored within myself, back to electrical energy. 

While the surge of power shakes us both he grabs my hand and tries to throw me over his shoulder, but I stick to him with all my might and we roll over the floor. 

Fighting this fight in a normal way would be my end. I stay as close as possible, while he grabs and breaks my hand. But I feel nothing. I cut my nerves, when I started this.

I tear and rip at his mana with my will alone. Pouring energy into healing myself, while ripping parts of his aura away and converting it into my own mana. 

This is no stupid duel with rules. I will show you bastard a real fight with life and death on the line. No nice fighting rules. No forbidden use of lethal attacks. 

Sparks of pure energy fly back and forth between us. He stabs a hand through my ribs and destroys something important. 

I don't care. All my concentration is focused at tuning myself to his energy. With a hand I claw my fingers into his face and eyes. With an animalistic scream he rolls on top of me and tries to snap my neck with his good hand. 

He almost managed it, but I reinforce my body further by using the same fighting aura as him. It's a rough method, that's why I hate to use it. It's nowhere as good as his version and worlds apart from Celes. I just waste mana, but it keeps him from killing me outright. 

Suddenly something within him loosens and I slip past his defence. I rip and tear! Throwing him to the side and rolling above him. He goes limp and his hands fall to the ground. 

With a savage grin I get to my knees and pull something out of him. Kukuku! You are mine now! I promised I wouldn't make this fast. 

Somehow I get to my feet. I am a bloody mess and I don't have an ounce of mana left. A ghostly green figure is struggling in my hand. It's a splitting image of Markorn. Just that his broken body is lying to my feet. 

I hold the ghost at it's head, while it is obviously screaming in horrible pain. But no sound is heard within the whole hall. Everything is silent now. 

Slowly limping towards the shocked priest, I grab the crown out of his hands and press the thumb sized crystal, which is framed into it, against Markorn. He is still wriggling, trying to free himself, while he is sucked into the crystal. 

Finishing it's business, the crystal starts to emit a green glow. Mwahaha! I will take my time with you. I had two months to think up some things for you! Realizing that i have probably a problematic expression on my face again, i try to straighten up. 

I put the crown on. Limping towards the throne, I drop myself into it. I cough up blood. Fuck, I don't want to know how this hurts. Thank the multiverse for well used telekinesis. 

Letting my gaze slide across the hall with nobles I ask: 

"Anyone else who has complaints?" 

All spectators shake their heads in unison. 

"Th... Then I declare prince Angrod of Tirna as the new King of Tirna!" The priest stutters. 

"Hereby I take the throne and swear to protect the country and it's people." I answer the ritualistic words. 

"And since I am feeling a little tired, my first order is to clear the throne room. I will hold a speech, when this mess is cleared up!" I wave at Markorn's and Seredorn's bodies. 

Everyone starts to file out of the room. Mother and Grandfather run up to me. Mother is crying and immediately kneels down to stop the blood flowing out of the wound in my side. 

"It's okay... It doesn't hurt." I gurgle and blood is coming out of my mouth. Fuck, seems like my body is seriously messed up. 

Arthur, Katrine and Celes also come up to me. Katrine joins Ireth in her efforts to heal me. "This looks bad." Arthur looks at me like I was already a goner. 

Celes clenches her fists. "I told you! We should have taken him together and beaten down all the bastards afterwards." She has tears in her eyes. Do I really look that bad? 

"I have already called for the best healers, they were waiting close by. They should be here any second." Arthur informs us. 

The guards close the doors and we are alone. At that Celes turns around and runs back to Markorn's dead body. She grabs his head and lifts it a little. 

Searching around inside his hair, she suddenly pulls a hairpin out of his head and lets go. *Thud* 

Walking back to us, Arthur gives her an inquisitive look. 

"No proof, no accusation, no deed!" She explains. 

I grin while everything goes dark.........