The Queen Is The Most Powerful Piece

"Where are you going? Aren't you going to stay with me?" Iris asked her brothers. They had finished eating and chatted a little before they stood up and began walking to where the entrance was.

"Unfortunately, no. We have plans to meet with a friend we made a while ago." Rin stopped and answered his sister's question. She looked a little surprised that not only they weren't staying with her, but this friend was able to take away both her dearest brothers. How dare he?

"Who is that?" She asked again.

"Do you remember about the boy we met in the forest on the way here for the first time? Yep. We are going to meet him." Rin answered.

"I will take a quick shower and be back soon. You guys can go without me. I know the way." Alek whispered to her other cousin, who was not facing his sister and, rushed out of the room.

Apparently, Alek and Bia were sharing rooms as always. And during the two weeks after Alek's you-know-what, Panacea, her sister, Astraea and Jin, went back to the house to get their necessities after how Alek turned out. They couldn't leave the territory of Nagatsuki and go to where Mikoto was as they were not willing the risk being attacked by Alek's beast. When they went back to the house, Bia had kindly brought her sister's clothes for when she comes back.

"Okay." Jin nodded.

"You can stay with Kai, Iris. You were staying with him this morning so, why don't you stay with him now?" Rin and Iris were carrying on with the conversation while Alek disappeared.

"But I want to go with you. I played cards with him all morning and I only won once. I don't want to play cards anymore." Iris pouted and looked at her brother with her puppy dog eyes. Her strategy didn't work on Kai anymore and, she didn't feel good losing in a row. It was only then when he let her take advantage of her and, she won.

"Iris, I can't." Rin kneeled in front of his sister. She looked like a wet puppy. He could even see the tail not wagging and the ears bending down. He felt bad, but he didn't want to tell his sister about the whole fairy thing even though she looked like one. He would tell her when he had figured things out.

"Please?" Iris looked at him with tears in her eyes that were about to fall. The look on her face was simply illegal. It hurt Rin's heart to reject it.

When he couldn't take on the torture of seeing his sister like this and was about to say yes, His twin came next to him and kneeled.

"You have always wanted to learn how to play chess, right jelly bean? Well, Kai knows how to play and, he is quite skilled." Jin looked at his brother then. Iris liked the way her brothers called her name but, she loved it when she was referred to as anything sweet or just random nicknames given by them. And her favourite was being called jelly bean next to button.

"Yes. We played, and I won, but he is a great player. He is a strategist. He calculates every move and very skilled." Rin continued. Kai was indeed a good chess player and, so is him. Rin has been playing chess for a long time and, he even beat His grandfather in it, who was very smart, but that only happened once. Rin has been looking for a rival for a long time since his brother sucked in it and, his parents didn't have any interest in chess. Then he met his cousin. Kai wasn't as good as him but, he knew if he learned and played more, he could easily reach his level. "And I think he would be a great teacher than me since I am not great in teaching."

"But... I want to spend some time with you." Their sister complained.

"You can spend time with us when we come back, sissy. We are leaving tomorrow, and we don't know when we can meet him again. So will let us spend some time with him for his once and you can spend all the time you want when we are back. Meanwhile, you can learn your chess skill and maybe when I come back, we can play. How does that sound, tweety?" Pollux put his hand on her head and, Castor did the same thing.

"Okay..." Iris agreed. Even though she knew they were calling her with what she wanted to hear, she still fell for the trap and allowed them. To be honest, she did want to learn how to play chess because she wanted to become like her brother. Her brother was smart and awesome, especially when it came to chess. He had explained the basic rules and, she learned a few things online but, that was nothing when she saw him playing with Johan, the grandfather.

"That's my girl." Rin muffled her hair and stood up. He then kissed her forehead where his brother did not kiss and began walking towards the entrance. "Oh yeah, I almost forgot. That boy, Lee, has a friend and she invited us to her family but, we don't know when it would be since she doesn't know when they would be back from... traveling. But they are coming back today, and we hope to meet them before we go. Could you tell others that?" Iris nodded and, her brothers went out of the room.

She turned quickly to take the plates they used to the kitchen and put them in the dishwasher. She left it to be done while she looked for a chessboard. She passed by the current head and, he showed her where it was. She thanked him and went back into the kitchen with it so that she could prepare juices for her and her cousin. She served two berry juices and put them on a tray. She then put the chess equipment in her arms and walked to Kai's room.

Iris asked him if he could teach her chess via mind link since her hands were full. He agreed to it and cut off the mind link. Within a second, he open the real-life door and let his cousin in. He helped her carry the set of chess and placed it on his bed.

"Thank you." She told him when she placed the try on the bedside table so that it would not get in his way. "I didn't interrupt you, right?"

"I was planning to sleep and you came. So you definitely didn't interrupt me." Kai told her sarcastically. He wasn't serious and, his cousin knew that.

"You are not a cat, Kairos. You don't need to sleep that much." Iris replied and helped him set up the pieces. Pawn... Bishop... Knight... Rook... Queen... King.

"I wish I was." Kai answered her. He cringed at how Iris called him by his full name but he didn't have any energy to get mad at her.

Iris's pieces were transparent but, his pieces were not. His was frosted glass and could not be seen through, hence making it look cold and strong. "The queen and the king is the opposite." He exchanged the two pieces of Iris's.

"Really? I thought the queen came to the left of the king."

"Nope. A good way to remember is that the queen always start with her own colour, unlike the king, who begins on the opposite-coloured square." Kai told her lazily as he lay comfortably on the bed.

"Ahh, noted." Iris also sat comfortably as this was just a fun lecture and not a test.

"Should I start from mentioning the names of the pieces or you name then since you look like you know?" He asked as he saw her eyes sparkle.

"I will! These are pawns." Iris smiled before she started naming them. "These are bi-"

"Do you know what they can do?" Kai raised his eyebrow.

"Kinda. I know some of them." Her smile turned into a nervous one. "Pawns can move directly forward and never back. They move one square at a time but when they are taking the first move, they can take two. It can eat the pieces that are diagonally forward." She looked at him nervously. His stance was very lazy but, she could see he was listening to her.

"That's correct. Can you go onto bishops?" He asked.

"Yeah! Bishops can move diagonally on their coloured-tiles..." She continued to explain what the chess pieces were correctly until she reached the Queen. "And this is the queen. She can do pretty much what she wants to do?" She was not sure. In her mind, there was an image of the queen hopping onto pieces and going wherever she wanted to like the famous animation industry's theme.

"Wrong. The queen can not do whatever she wants to. She can move like a bishop or a rook but never a knight." He propped himself on his elbow and pointed at the queen.

"Why?" Iris asked.

"I don't know and, I don't really care. And you also left the one most common description of the queen."

"What's that?"

"The queen is the most powerful piece in the game of chess. On the other hand, the king is the weakest, in my opinion. He needs someone to protect him. And the worst thing is that he can't be eaten and just gets into everyone's way. In short, the king is useless than any pawn. I don't even know why the queen needs a king at this point." He lazily explained it. He never liked the king. Why was he there if he calls himself a king but can't protect himself like his queen? The queen could protect herself and attack others mercilessly at the same time. Why can't he do that?