7 A Turn of Events

Pale black, hollow armor -with red essence bleeding out of their interstices like eternal flames dancing around. That is a black knight, Flo thought.

He was surrounded by hundreds of these shadow-like beings, apparently trying to protect him inside this circle made of black knights. They raised their weapons: swords, spears, and bows alike, and pointed them against the people of the throne room.

"What?" Flo stuttered, not able to say anything more other than pure surprise.

The five oligarchs stood on end, literally, as they straightened in shock out of their thrones and stood on guard, watching the event unfolding before their very eyes.

"Kara!" The well-decorated old woman thundered. "What did you do?!"

Kara stumbled, heaving and gasping for air. She was tired, her face dripping with sweat. The disturbing, colossal figure on her back dissipated into thin air. The blood creature behind Flo let go of his arms, then sunk back into the ground, like a ship sinking in a basin of water, never to resurface again.

Kara faced the oligarchs once again, this time having a smug look, like a veil, decorated over her face. "Serves you right, cockers!" She said as she gave a few flaps of her wings, jumped and flew a small distance, landing right next to Flo. "Hey."

Woah, Flo thought. She's crazy. Beautiful, but absolutely broken in the head. Flo didn't understand a thing out of all this, although he can tell that these black knights and Kara were on his side, for now.

Xel dashed back, drawing his two blasters. He was on guard as well, eyes darting to and fro from one black knight to another.

He was being cautious.

The Crusader Xel, the revered human who had this great aura and might contained within him, was being cautious and was on edge as well, something Flo was caught agape with, other than these black soldiers around him. But who can blame him? The combined aura seeping out of these knights was unlike any other. Greater than Xel's even. Their aura burned like dragon flame, covering the entire room with strength so incomprehensible.

The aura was of magnitude so potent that the nobles around the balconies started to drop like flies, coughing and wheezing, like something entered their system, setting their lungs ablaze. They scurried for the exit, gasping for air as they passed through the doors built by the sides of the balconies.

The aura of these knights was similar somehow, Flo thought, however, he could not be certain.

Clockwork soldiers then entered the throne room in a rush from the high doors, circling the black knights with their men, trying to rival that of the knights. Though it may have been apparent, the human soldiers, as they were, we're not near enough the power needed to subdue these dark beings.

Hundreds upon hundreds of soldiers continued to flood in, trying to join in on a piece of the pie, a pie in which is filled to the brim with fatal poison. It was going to be a massacre, Flo thought. He was adept at sensing things such as this.

He smiled, not because of the massacre about to unfold, but because of the chance of escape almost at the tip of his fingers. It was a pure, unadulterated smile. The opportunity given to be free was right there, ever so open. It was like a miracle, Flo's cheeks we're flushed, with tears running down his face. All he had to do was grasp it.

This was it.

Flo turned to Kara, crouching and drawing something with her finger across the metal floor. "What should-"

"Your majesties!" A voice echoed along the walls of the throne room, revibrating in an area of complete silence, breaking the tense air.

Flo's smile then twisted into a dark smirk, hearing the familiar voice of the person shouting from outside the doors. It was his human master, Gandel, wheezing and gasping for air as he entered the throne room. "The vens!" He squealed. "They are here-" He paused as he gaped in a mixed face of awe and terror, his eyes darting from one thing to another.

The look on his face was despondent, to say the least, as Gandel's eyes met with his. Before the noble turned and hurried back to the doors, a voice seemingly left Flo's mouth. "Kill him." He heard, not realizing the ominous sound came from his own tongue.

The black knights dashed to Gandel in a flicker of a second, swords and spears in hand. The black archers readied their bow and arrow, the tip of the latter blazing blood fire, aiming for him. Flo was filled with excitement, grinning as he watched the black knights rushing towards Gandel. He didn't understand how he came to command the black knights, but it felt like an inner instinct, something that was already built within him that only now was he able to understand it.

"What's with that look~" a warm breathe landed on Flo's ears. Flo turned, seeing it was Kara leaning over to him with a dangerously bewitching smile as her golden eyes pierced through him, seemingly glowing in ambiance.

What the hell are you doing?