CHAPTER 1

It was a Sunday morning as Draceus woke up to the sun shining through the curtains of his windows, he soon realized that instead of waking up on his bed usually, he had fallen asleep during signing papers of construction of a major highway through a city, he analyzed his surroundings and sighed in relief as everything was the same as the night before. He lazily stood up and stretched, checking the time on his watch, “7:38AM, I figured,” Draceus said to himself, sighing shortly then taking his watch off then rubbing his wrist. Draceus then left his desk and looked around his wide office room, paintings of himself, his sister Lapis, and many other paintings of significant rulers and then he finally exited his office, which led to a long hallway with many doors leading to other rooms. Two bodyguards were stationed on either side of the door to Draceus’ office, one of the bodyguards turned to Draceus as he made sure he looked neat,

 “Good morning my Lord, it is 7:38AM with sunny weather, the date is January 30 and you have one meeting planned for today.” One of the bodyguards says, Draceus turns to the bodyguard that spoke and nods his head before replying with, 

“Thank you.” He says as he leaves his office and walks into the hallway, before turning right and walking towards two entrance ways that lead to two separate bathrooms and then he enters the mostly made of marble as the faucets and sink would be plated with stainless steel and on the side of the sink would be an electric hair dryer that rested in some cupboards connected to the wall and next to the hairdryer in the cupboard would be a drawer with a small but fancy label saying: ‘Combs & Makeup Items’. 

He would walk to the sinks and turn on one of the faucets by swiping his hand on top of it then he’d start washing his hands, he’d then start combing his hair with his wet hands making his hair wet. He’d then open the ‘Combs & Makeup Items’ drawer which would reveal 2 separate sections between carefully placed stacks of 3 of combs and a neatly organized space of makeup items. Draceus would look carefully and then close the drawer before pressing a button on the side of the cupboard. A hole in the wall, the exact size of the cupboard, opens behind it as it is carried in by two small robotic arms and then the hole closes. Draceus steps aside as another hole opens up on the floor and a comfy-looking massage chair on a platform rises up, he then sits down on it as it moves closer to the mirrors, then it activates. Draceus sighs happily as the machine relaxes his muscles, the top of the chair opens up as two robotic arms come out of the opening, one holds a hairdryer and the other holds a hair comb. 

“System ‘presidential bathroom’, start hair cleaning,” he says. A 3rd robotic arm extends out from behind the chair, its hand is a spray and it starts spraying water at Draceus’ hair making it wet and another arm starts drying his hair as the spray-arm stops spraying and it retracts back in the chair. He relaxes in his chair as the robotic arm dries and blows his hair from different sides which provides a warm feeling around his head like an embrace, the arm holding the comb started to comb his hair as the hairdryer arm stopped and went back into the chair. As the robotic arms cleaned his hair, his mind wandered off as he started to remember something the day before:

‘He wandered, along with a military High-General wearing his black uniform adorned with countless medals on either side of his chest, through an army training camp. Draceus stopped at a particular section of the camp, a small office-like building with only one floor, where the higher officers planned their next activities for the day as he approached it, the High-General took notice as he quickly approached Draceus and asked,

“Do mind if I ask, but what are you doing?” Draceus looked at him and smiled, before responding to the High-General’s question,

“I am simply checking what this camp has in store for the recruits and conscripts, so we cannot have ‘misdemeanors’ caused by them. And, do not question my authority.”

The HIgh-General nervously nods, as Draceus enters the building and closes the door behind him; the High-General stands guard near the door as he walks slightly closer to the building to hear a tiny portion of what Draceus is doing. He is suddenly shook by the sound of six bullets firing inside the office which attracts most of the camp’s attention, the High-General quickly grabs his assault rifle and bursts through the office door and raises his rifle and scans the area until he sees Draceus, holding a Nexcruzi ‘D.F .38 Magnum’ over a corpse wearing a strange, white and grey suit that covered their entire body. He quickly approaches Draceus and looks around at the bloody scene, then back at Draceus,

“My Lord, what happened in here?”

The High-General asks as Draceus catches his breath for a few seconds, before responding,

“A spy using cloak technology broke into our camp, they killed two out of three officers here, one of them is on the table there and needs medical attention.”

The High-General looks at the table at the side of the room and sees a man, wearing a similar uniform as him but with a significant amount of medals less on his uniform, with two bloody holes in his chest with crude cloth covering them then a team of medical soldiers rush in with equipment and begin carrying out the injured officer.

The High-General looks back to Draceus, who put his gun back in it’s holster, then starts walking out of the office then speaks,

“Please get some recruits to carry the bodies, commit the procedure we do whenever someone of our ranks dies at camp, and get some doctors to do an autopsy on the body or whatever you need. Thank you.” The High-General nods in compliance, and takes out his radio and walks away then Draceus adjusts his tie and coughs a bit because of the fight. He returns to his escort helicopter, who was being guarded by two opposing and tall soldiers who were covered head-to-toe in a dark gray and crimson red armor with no visible skin or organic material showing. They looked down at Draceus as he stood in front of them and they both saluted to him and stood aside to allow him to enter the helicopter; Draceus went into the helicopter and sat down as the High-General soon followed with him and sat down too, sitting opposing to where Dracus sat. 

The two bodyguards enter the helicopter and attach themself to the helicopter with a large bundle of wires that connect all their limbs and chest and then the helicopter takes off as the doors shut close. Everyone stays in silence until the High-General spoke,

“My Lord, though it seems you didn’t get hurt, did the spy manage to injure you in some way?” Draceus looked up then unbuttoned his suit, and took out a metal plate from beneath his shirt with a bullet stuck into the plate. The words: ‘SPECIAL-GRADE BULLETPROOF PLATE’ written in Nexcruzian were carved into the metal, as he put the metal plate back in his shirt, Draceus then commented,

“Well, my chest does ache after the velocity of the bullet, but the damage could have been far worse if the spy shot twice,” the High-General sighed as he looked out of the window for a moment.’

Draceus yawns while waiting for someone to arrive then suddenly, his door bursts open and is knocked over by a shrouded figure in the dust cloud, who turns out to be his only sibling and sister, Lapis Zentalivus. Draceus flinches at her sudden arrival as Lapis speaks,

“Dracy, what happened! Did someone break in?” Lapis realizes what she did as she turns to the currently angry and startled Lord, he then facepalms in disappointment. Lapis stutters for a moment, before speaking,

“C’mon Dracy, you can repair it with your magic…science whatever crap,” She then glances at the broken down door. Draceus calms down and starts thinking for a moment, before he looks to a nearby lamp on his desk. He responds to Lapis,

“You mean liquid Corruption, yes?” 

Draceus says as he stands up and presses a button underneath the nearby lamp. The ceiling opens up as a glass jar drops with a strange purple liquid, like tar, drops from the ceiling and breaks onto the floor. The liquid spills out like slime, then absorbs the glass as it latches onto the broken remains of the door and begins reforming it. Lapis looks at the corruption with distrust and honest disgust as she backs away from it until she is standing next to Draceus’ desk. She looks to him and tries to motion at him but only resulting for Draceus to have a confused look, Lapis then sighs and speaks up,

“Isn’t it…unnecessary, to break a glass jar for this thing?” Lapis looks at Draceus with confusion, as he coughs and responds back,

“Cornerinium is a strange element, and still being a recently discovered element of the periodic table here in our lands, and due to resources and trying to convince the global stage that it isn’t some element of the future is currently in our hands, we cannot focus on the ethics of ‘glass jars’.”

Draceus then checks his watch and stands up as he approaches a golden-laced mahogany closet and opens it. He picks a hat and a coat of ‘Brownback Draconlyx fur’ then wears it over his suit with the Nexcruzi flag, Lapis looks at the hovering clock above his desk and sighs as she looks to the fixed office door, the siblings look at each other and nod as they both walk out of the office and go their separate ways. Draceus strides through the Government palace halls with authority, as every person he passes either salutes or bows to him. He walks down a particular hall of paintings, the late dawn sunshine reflecting on the near-perfect walls of marble and then he stops in front of a painting. He stares at it for a moment, a painting of him in his famous clothing with Lapis’ painting, albeit smaller than Draceus’ painting, at the left side of his own. He then turns and walks to the end of the hallway and arrives at his destination. He stands in front of a door, and next to it is a marble that reads:

‘KUNLOHKIAN CONFERENCE ROOM.’

He looks to the soldier that stands on the left side of the door and glances at the soldier who immediately notices Draceus, then speaks with hidden embarrassment,

“Ah, right! Right away, my lord.” The soldier opens the door for Draceus as he walks in. The conference room reveals itself to Draceus, with the back wall of full glass that looks over the Nexcruzian capital of Nexciria. The walls are lined with mostly fancy oak woof and marble, with displays of military-grade combat armor throught out the centuries of Nexcruzmas’ history and the floor has been changed to a glass yet sturdy floor with marble outlining the glass panels. The floor looks into a large and almost abysmal aquarium, with the occasional shark or even the aquarium’s own ‘Mynesian leviathan whale’ swimming by which causes the glass panels to shake in the creature’s wake. Draceus walks to the end of a long and fancy dining-table like conference table, then sits down at a prestigious and almost royal-looking chair at the end of the table.

Draceus sat at the conference table for a few minutes, occasionally checking his watch for the time before he decides to stand up and walk around the conference room. He decides to inspect the armors that are on display that stand behind a glass wall. He starts at the beginning of the armor displays, showing a perfectly preserved Nazanthian battle armor with the words: ‘NIFUGHAN ZAHNLU’ chiseled onto the central chestpiece of the armor and Draceus continues looking at the armor, looking at a sign that has been embedded into the wall next to the display and reads it:

‘Nazanthian battle armor: 36-38 AR.

This armor was discovered in the Iuno Pantheon ruins site of the southern city of Vinomo, researchers and archeologists have been studying the ruins of the ancient empire of Iuno and the wars between the Nazanthian and Iunon armies. About this armor, most archeologists have theorized that this armor piece belonged to an ancient Senator of Nazanthia who fought in the army.

TRANSLATION:

‘NIFUGHAN ZAHNLU’ has been translated to the sentence ‘DIE BY OUR HONOR’.’

Draceus looks to the armor and skips a few eras of Nexcruzmas’ history, before he reaches another set. The armor displays a templar-like headpiece, with a symbol resembling an eagle infront of a pair of spears crudely painted into the chestpiece. The armor is almost head-to-toe with some open spots for the joints, another sign is next to the armor as Draceus reads it,

‘Nazkruma royal Fazhan armor: 967 AR-1096 DR.

This set of knight armor was found in a pawn shop hosted by a man of the name ‘John Fazhan’ who happened to have this armor be passed down from his grandpa through his ancestral lines. He was shortly executed after due to his relations to the Royal Traitors The armor shows what is suspected to be the set for a royal knight that served under the royalty until 1096 when Nazkruma united with the bordering nation of ancient Mynesia.’

Draceus begins to go to the next armor set before he is interrupted by a knock on the conference door. He quickly walks to the door and opens it and is greeted by a soldier clad with futuristic ‘full-body armor’ that towers over Draceus and is almost as tall as the doorway itself. The soldier stands aside as three people in suits and other clothing stand, then all bow at Draceus as bows slightly back. Draceus looks at the three leaders,

“Hetonik Isles, Mylderm and Mynesia…you kept me waiting.” 

All four leaders sit down at the conference table as the soldier guards the doorway, a part of the wall opens up as a robot holding documents and folders walks out; the wall behind the robot closes as it hands each person a folder and documents. The robot then stands to the side of Draceus as each person picks up a document and reads it, one of the people drop the document to the table and sighs before speaking up,

“Lord Draceus, this report you’ve given us does not match the statistics that our own military officials have gathered, perhaps you’ve be-“

The man is quickly interrupted by Draceus, as he looks directly to the person,

“Ah, Szapolski of Mynesia, do not be confused, as we all know…”

Everyone looks out the window viewing Nexciria as they hear and see an aircraft of sorts fly around, they soon all turn to a large skyscraper as Draceus stands up and walks to the window. The plane then turns to the direction towards the Government Office, where the leaders are, and begins firing at the building but then a transparent dome outlined with green hexagons form all around the Office. The bullets fired by the plane bounce off the dome as if it was made of rubber then the planes begin to change direction towards the opposite direction, until it’s right wing is suddenly sliced off by an unseen force in incomprehensible speed. The plane begins falling as the same unseen force cuts through the plane itself, the speed of the force blows the smoke kilometers away as the plane itself explodes into oblivion. The unseen force starts to slow down, revealing itself to be an almost pitch-black plane-like aircraft with scythe-shaped wings, it flips to be vertical revealing multiple missiles and ‘plasmatic cannons’ underneath the wings of the plane, the leaders spot crowds forming down in Nexciria, pointing and cheering at the aircraft as it reveals a huge thruster and many smaller thrusters on either side of it. It then blasts away as it leaves a huge puff of smoke behind where it once was and then the dome surrounding the Government Office soon opens up, resulting in the dome disappearing.

Szapolski looks to Draceus, who is staring out the window. He then continues his sentence,

“We are the ones that the traitors hate the most.” Draceus says, before returning to his seat. After hours of discussion, the president of Mylderm picks up his own document and hands it to Draceus who reads it, the president comments as Draceus reads,

“We will support you in your fight against the global rebels through financial aid, but we expect the money we will fund to be paid back after this war. We also expect to gain money from this situation through sales and other means, so do not be alarmed if you see a military vehicle of ours that isn’t in your registry.” Draceus gets annoyed by Mylderm’s president’s remark, but shakes his hand and takes the deal. The president of Mylderm soon leaves as Draceus is then approached by the leader of the Hetonik Isles, and the two salute to each other; the leader then speaks,

“We will help you in your endeavor as not an ally, but as a close friend.” Draceus bows slightly to the other, as they leave. Draceus then looks to the last person he needs to address in the room, Sir Szapolski. He walks to Szapolski and shakes his hand as he says,

“Well then, we fight like brothers in this war. It will be long and treacherous, but it will secure order in our world.” Szapolski nods at Draceus’ statement, then replies with confidence,

“Along with the GON, we can and will secure victory! So, we shall all the play the part we are a part of, then we can all return to normal. Am I correct?” Draceus thinks for a moment as he stops shaking Szapolski’s hand, then hides a mischievous smile, 

“Yes, yes. We will return to normalcy after we’re done fighting. I do promise that.”

Szapolski nods in approval then walks out of the conference room as Draceus waits for him to leave. Szapolski, along with the rest of the leaders, are escorted out of the building and to individual helicopters before they take off as Draceus returns to the window that looks out to the capital city.

He looks to his watch for a few seconds before continuing to look out the window silently, before speaking to himself,

“Normalcy will be achieved in the world through ‘our’ order.” Draceus looks behind him as a woman wearing formal clothing, such as a suit and tie, peeks from behind the door then enters, she looks around then speaks,

“My Lord, sorry for the intrusion, but the High-Generals wish to invite you to a feast tonight. To, uh, discuss about the potential end of the war,” Draceus stares at the woman for a few seconds before replying,

“Alright then. Tell them I accept the invitation, and that I will be ready by dawn.” The woman nods then bows to Draceus, she then closes the door and walks off.