Take A Stand, Charlotte

--Chi-Chi's Perspective--

---April 4th, 2441---

"And this is the one, the one who can use both Strands and Essence Strands?" I heard a voice through my closed eyelids.

The light in the room was bright, causing me to flinch while just trying to open my eyes. The voice sounded masculine, and I could make out bars from the shadows of the light on the top of the room shining down on me.

"Come on girl, get up," The door swung open and my arm was grabbed by a bigger man. His entire hand fit around my forearm and I was dragged out to another location.

While my eyes were still adjusting, I opened them to see a man standing in the small hallway next to the jail cell with tears welling up in his eyes. In that same second, I barely saw a glistening knife slide through his throat and blood spurt out from his throat. I wanted to react, but it was like I was drugged beyond belief. I didn't feel anything watching him die...

I was dragged into a room and thrown on the ground with my ankles cuffed together. I tried to push my weakened body up, but I only fell to the carpet again.

"This is the girl? What is your name?" I heard from in front of me. I could barely open my mouth...

"Ch... Ch..." I tried to say, but the girl speaking in front of me became impatient.

"Ch Ch? What, Chi-Chi? I'll take that name. So Chi-Chi, I hear you have quite an interesting ability... in all of my kind and hospitable nature, I took you away from that Desert Shithole up in the atmosphere to bring you to a place you'll be safe. Am I not going to get a 'thank you' from you?" The girl asked me again.

I collected enough strength to put myself on my knees and stare up at the girl on the throne. She was smiling down at me with blood-red eyes and bright red hair. She looked like an anomaly since I'd never seen a person with red hair.

"Where is my Dad?" I asked her, but she shook her head.

"Nope! Not what I wanted to hear!" She yelled out.

One of the girls from the chairs stationed on the left got up and walked over to me. When she got close, she slammed her knee into my face and I fell over, spitting out a few baby teeth still left in me.

"What the hell?! She's just a little girl!" Somebody shouted out from the sidelines. The girl on the throne turned her head to the opposite side of the room where a man was standing up. I could see him, but most of his body was hidden because he was standing up in the back.

"Great! Then come up to the front and do something about it," The girl on the throne said. She stood up and snapped her fingers, to which a staff came out from a retracted form on her hip. She wielded it with a smirk.

The man got up from his chair and stood between me and the girl, and she walked over to him with the staff in her hand.

"Sorry to make this so messy," She mumbled.

She swung the staff widely onto the man and hit him in the center of his head. He dropped like a cold body to the floor and started to hold his hands up... he was seizing.

His fingers were moving involuntarily and he was laying down parallel to me now. His eyes were barely open, moving around like they were swishing in water. And, before I knew it, the staff connected with his head again.

It splattered, caving in a side of his skull, and pouring brains out onto the carpet.

My mouth was stuck open, trying to struggle away from the bloody mess that became of the bravest man in the room.

"I was just LOOKING for an excuse to kill you!" She shouted out again, slamming the staff over and over again.

His body was twitching now as brains poured out onto the floor like a spilled meal. It was absolutely disgusting, and now my face was starting to be covered in blood and brain matter right next to me.

After about ten more hits, the girl retracted her staff and sat back on her throne, allowing everybody to take a look at the man who had his head splattered in the middle of the room.

"We don't become stronger as a nation if we allow people like this to defy authority. I am absolute, and I have your best interests in my sights. If I don't give the people what they want, then I don't have people. Understand our relationship, and leave this Courtroom. I'll take care of the Chi-Chi girl from here on out," The girl said.

Everybody stood up simultaneously and bowed, "Praise Ultima," they said, before all leaving the room.

"Get used to people dying little girl, they won't stop as you get older. That won't be the last time you get blood on your face, but it's up to you to clean it off," Ultima said, passing me a handkerchief out of her pocket.

I slowly rose my hand to take it after looking down at the man one last time, wiping my eyes clean of blood, and leaving the rest of it on my face.

"You... you are a bad person..." I mumbled in front of her.

Ultima lifted me up by my shirt's collar and put me close to her face.

"You are young, you don't get it, but there's no such thing as good people anymore. Part of being an Arkian is accepting that you will never be in your peak form. You will be disappointing to everybody, and people will want you dead because you have things they don't. That's the greed of the species I'm trying to kill. So, do me a solid, and cut the bullshit, and understand that point before you talk to me again. Got it, Chi-Chi?" Ultima asked.

I spit the blood in my mouth into her face and smiled. Dad always said I was a confident kid...

"The name isn't Chi-Chi... it's Charlotte... Charlotte Eternia," I told her with a straight face.