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Kill

I remember my first night in Wingate Citadel. 

Kill.

I was a scared 4-years-old boy and a fairly recent orphan. 

The night before I was eating a supper in Vauxhall Gardens with my mother and grandfather  when they were suddenly swept away in a cloud of acrid smoke and debris.

The next morning the Commander and  two members of the Royal Legion found me tear-stained and asleep under the picnic table.

Kill

I thought I was being punished when the Commander ordered the Royal Legion to bring me to the Wingate Citadel. I thought I was in a prison. My room in the Citadel was small then; it had only a bed and lavatory. A warm plate of food seemed to come out of nowhere while I slept.

Kill

I cried for my mother to come and get me, not understanding she was gone forever. Eventually a nursemaid in a white came to visit me. The Wingate Family seal in gold foil accented the corner of her cape--not that I noticed this then. She told me my family was with the stars looking down at me and that I was to be  apart of something special now. That I have a new duty that would save the entire city.

She and other nameless, nearly identical  nursemaids came just enough for me to have human connection but not enough to form a bond.

Kill

My first few years in the Citadel are a blur of sedative induced sleeps as they initiated Coherence.  Between installation and  tests I would lay in bed, my little body aching and the hour long cartoon animations on the projector as my only company. The pastel colored animated drawings  appeared on the walls and  told me stories and parables. They entertained and taught me what to do and how to behave. They taught me how to be good. They made me laugh. They told me I would be okay.

Kill

Then I was shown animations of the six Wingate Princesses. Hours and hours of  fictionalized versions of the royal sisters and their  adventures together. I was immediately drawn to my princess and Orion, the small white newborn kitten she’d grown attached to as a baby. My princess was the youngest. She would never rule but she was kindhearted, loving and brave.

I loved her. 

Then came the images of the monsters.

The monsters weren’t animated or fictional stories. It was educational archival footage  that showed the beasts in deep detail; monstrous grotesques made of smoke and earth. They ripped the sky  as they came down on the Citadel and the Metropolis beneath it. The strange monsters had an unyielding desire for the  blood of our royals, but on the way to their targets they  blazed a path of destruction in their wake. The monsters made no matter of collateral damage to the citizens and delighted in the destruction--like they had with my mother and grandfather.

 

Kill

As I grew older I would wake to shifting walls as my room, my world, became larger. The next time my door opened the nursemaids were long gone and I formerly met The Commander, my recruiter and trainer. By then I knew what my true purpose was.

I just knew.

He taught me how to work my Coherence, how to harness the elements of Caleus and  control the volatile energy now seeping through my body. He trained me hard until I was ready to meet the other Sentinels. The others were older, they were brilliant and ruthless but tethered to the outside world.

I was going to be the best because this was all I was made to do.

Kill

I practice the word until it sounds sure and true as an arrow on my lips.

I am still in the room I was brought to 15 years ago but now it is large enough for me to train daily. I can choose to watch anything I want on the projector but  I always choose the old rolls of  the princess and her sisters on their fictionalized adventures. Two sisters are dead now, one is with child but there is still my princess.

And I will protect her at all cost.

I’ve know that in all of the best stories, in every world, the damsel in distress must be saved by a knight in shining armor.

And that is my duty as a Sentinel. To serve. To always save the princess.

So she can save the world

Three warning tones sound  and I sit up in bed, alert.

I have 45 seconds before the door opens.

I wash my face and comb my hair and then stand directly in front of thr door.

The familiar 1-2-1-2 tone plays before my door folds upward to reveal the  concrete low ceiling of the sub-basement hallway. I walk down the hall at a quick, but respectful pace. I hear someone pacing behind me and I look to  see which Sentinel I am being summoned with tonight.

My practiced steps almost falter.

Sattarius Longshire.

Sattarius  is tall and pale, her fine white hair in an intricate braid pinned around her narrow head. Sattarius is a fierce soldier, almost legendary, and has been at the Queen’s right hand for over two decades. If she was on duty tonight it meant I was going to be fighting alongside the Queen.

Sattarius and I reach the end of the antechamber hall together and stand on the elevation pad as we are cleared and lifted up through the octagonal opening  and into the Royal Armory. We don’t speak; sometimes me and the other Sentinels would exchange nods or tight smiles but tonight I follow Sattarius’s lead and choose reverent silence.

My mind focuses once  the elevation pad stops and we are in the Royal Armory. I  change into the black and gold Sentinel  uniform, clap the silver bracer that bears my princess’s seal on my wrist and strap the quiver on my back. I choose the katana blade for my chest and  finally  the golden and onyx cudgel for hand to...hand, as it were. The beasts we were up against rarely had human hands, usually pincers or hoofs.

The doors at the far end of the hall opens and my adrenaline rushes at the delicate click, click, click  sounds of my princess’s boots and the heavier thuds following behind them

Princess Xael  appears as a vision in the gold and white battle uniform of the royal family. The colors complement her deep complexion and mark her as a higher rank than the captain of the guard, higher than a general even.  Her rose colored hair is tied back in a braid crown and her face is set in a determined smirk.

Behind her, the Queen is a severe sight and I am humbled by her presence. I have never seen the Queen fight in person.

The royals take their jewel embedded scythes from the cases and approach Sattarius and I.

I  drop to a knee and lower my gaze in front of  my princess as she approaches me. Sattarius, so much more familiar with the Queen, merely bows at the waist as Caleus' sovereign approaches her.

Princess Xael, leans haughtily against her scythe, the specialized weapon  almost a foot taller than her, and touches her delicate hand to my bowed chin, lifting it.

“What will you do ?,” My princess  asks, as she always does before we go into battle together.

I meet her dark eyes and the Coherence buzzes between us. 

“Kill,” I say, it comes off strong and sure, just as I’ve practiced.

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A/N

I feel like with me constantly mentioning this serial and then putting it off for years it got over hyped but this is just a taste of this weird idea that has been going on in my head. It's kind of experimental. It's going to have some themes I've played around with in the Vice novellas because I basically wrote them all as I wrote this. This story started because I wanted to dabble in the Human Weapon trope.

You: Okay but what is the name of the narrator ?

SHV: It didn't actually fit into the prologue but it will show up in the next chapter.

You: Okay, but what's the name of this serial ?