Cronus is King

by fanficlover 1

The King Fights, The Servant Arrives

Ch8

The walk back to the courtrooms, was in complete and utter silence. Feathers was too busy looking at all the different energy items and trying to figure out what they did, while I was trying to figure out how to stay alive. Without my bugvisor I wouldn’t be able to use much of my arsenal nor would I have any range option. My only choice was to somehow keep the Griffin I would be fighting grounded somehow. If I used a stretchy energy item before the fight started and gain some reach, I could possibly play it off as my natural ability but if the fight took over five minutes then I would be screwed or if I fight someone who’s good they could my stretched limbs against me.

That same bit of logic seemed to apply with almost every other item I had as well that could help me which meant I need to learn how to control one of my other natural abilities somehow. If the same logic of need still applied though, I could hopefully cause some harsh enough weather with my weather manipulation.

‘You know, I’ve never really understood that about Cronus. His ability is supposed to be based on the stage select but he doesn’t have the side holster for a gashat with the button on it. So is it really an ability of his or just some trick of the bugvisor?’

Shaking the unneeded thoughts away, I focused on my battle strategy. It’s obvious based on their abilities that they would either fight like cats and try to pin their prey and maul them or going for strafe like attacks to wear me down. Either way, they would have to get close enough to teach and all I would need to do is catch them at just the right moment.

Finally reaching the courtroom doors, I could see inside that it was a mess of paper flying everywhere and older looking Griffins trying to catch them. If I wasn’t slated for death row, it would be extremely comical to me. Asking one of the guards what happened, he explained that a couple of pegasi were in the group of dignitaries and one of them decided to fly out of the room as fast as the could when all the papers had been signed.

That was all I would be able to ask though as a slight cough came from behind. Both I and Feathers turned to see who had done so and became surprised to see a brown earth pony with a slick backed mane.

“Hello Court Order.” The venom in Feathers’ voice was as clear as I was green but the pony didn’t seem to care as instead he kept his face blank and his voice even.

“Good afternoon to you as well Feathers Worth. I take it you are working for the defendant?”

“Yes, that would be correct.” The blank faced pony smiled at that.

“Try not to make it to easy then would you.” And with those as his parting words, the pony walked into the still chaotic mess of a courtroom before taking his seat by himself. Looking back to Feathers Worth, I could see him gritting his teeth in anger. Not one to butt in on something like that, I ignored it and followed after him when he began to make his way to our table. Once seated, Feathers Worth went through the process of unloading every document he had from his case then after organizing it he began returning most of the documents he had unloaded from it. With nothing else on the table, he started going over the papers, with me looking over his shoulders.

Each page seemed, for the most part, almost completely blank save for the sketch of either myself or my bugvisor here and there. Reading and re-reading each page along with him, I soon missed the settling of the courtroom and its occupants until the the sound of a gavel came banging from the front of the room, breaking my concentration.

“We will now begin the initial hearing of Cronus the Human. The accused is here under observation of climbing the kings mountain without a permit as well as baseless slandering political trade partners. How do you plead?” The Random griffin waited for my response but I was unable to stand and answer as Feathers had put his talons on my shoulder to keep me sitting while he stood himself.

“Innocent, within reason your honor.” At that, both I and apparently everyone in the room became confused creating a cacophony of hushed whispers. The whispers were silenced by a loud bang from the judge’s gavel, letting the the same griffin speak.

“Please explain Feathers Worth.”

“Gladly your honor. Your charges, as you stated, are the climbing of the king’s mountain without a permit and the slandering of political trade partners. Both of which are acts that my client committed by the combined testimony of over 30 guards and assorted civilians. But, what this court is seeming to forget, is that all who come here are innocent until proven guilty. This can not be done so as the ponies in question are not here to refute or concur with said slander. Because of this I wish to move with a mistrial.”

“Objection your honor,” It was the pony spoke. “While the defendant is correct, we must not also forget that the king is not here either. The griffin in question who has sentenced Cronus here in the first place. We can not just take away royalty from their positions for every single crime they punish as it would cause unrest among the populace and chaos among the nobility.”

The Judge said nothing as he seemed to be contemplating our both Feathers’ and the pony’s words. While he did so, I whispered to Feathers.

“Way to go, I just might not have to go to prison after all.”

“I wouldn’t count on it. This is just to give me a little more time to convince you not to take the duel.” I rolled my eyes under my mask.

“I keep telling you, I’m going to take a duel and not spend my life in jail.” that was the last I got to say as the judge looked ready to speak.

“Taking into consideration of both arguments, I cannot help but side with the defendant. However, as it stands, we currently have six dignitaries, here by the order of the princesses themselves, residing in a home for us to call upon. As for the king, we simply need one of his advisors to take his steed in this matter. Until both parties can be assembled, we will take a short recess.” The gavel clacked as it hit the wooden podium and the judge left (most likely to collect the needed people). When everyone began to move around and talk, I noticed that the pony had gotten to his hooves and was now making his way over.

“I thought I asked you not to make this to easy. We both know you’re just doing this to stall for time.”

Feathers said nothing, noticing the lack of a reaction, Court Order gave a small huff before walking away. Seeing this, I quickly got to my feet.

“Hey Court Order!” The Pony turned. “How about you back off. If you haven’t noticed, my life happens to be on the line here, so you could at least give a little respect to the guy who is actually trying to save someone’s life.” The pony didn’t look perturbed.

“Oh please, I’m not going to work that hard. In fact, I might help you more than he does.” the pony left this time without looking back while all the while not losing his strange blank look.

“You didn’t have to do that Cronus.”

“Yeah I didn’t but I still did. Besides, that guy really needs to get a life if this is all he seems to find fun.”

“You think he finds this fun?” Feathers’ voice indicated that he was bewildered.

“Of course I do, the strange blank face and then getting all happy when the court is about to start is classic trope of him just loving his job. A little to much if I might add.”

That was the last thing I said as the judge had made it back onto the podium and banged his gavel.

“With the the placeholders for the required royalty now gathered, I may now present Captain Aires acting in our beloved king's steed, and for the place holders of the princesses will be held by the bearers of the elements of Magic and Honesty, Twilight Sparkle and Applejack.” The doors to the courtroom banged open to show the three different individuals I was familiar with. With them seeing, they had a variety of reactions. Aires was completely stoic and uncaring, Twilight was surprised to see me, and Applejack looked torn between glad and worried. None of them said anything as the all took seats next to Court Order on his side of the room. With all of us now gathered, the same griffin from earlier who had read my charges stood from his seat.

“With the initial hearing now over we may now move on to the next section of the trial.” the griffin turned to face me. “Do you, Cronus, wish to continue with this trial by jury, or do you wish to have a trial by duel?” Before Feathers could react, I was at my feet.

“Trail by Duel.” The entire room became filled with noise as griffins began moving in their seat. The judge made no move to silence them though and instead motioned for the nearby guards to move forward and take me by the arms. Not being able to control where I went for now. The guards, and audience, began to file out of the courtroom and deeper into parthenon until we reached a large arena like structure on a raised platform that was over ten feet in the air (Not enough to kill but definitely enough to hurt if I wasn’t careful) with no form of net or ropes to stop the fighters from falling off. With one short lift, I was soon standing by myself in the ring (for a lack of a better name) with Aires on the other side begining to remove parts of his armor and only stopping when he only had a breastplate and helmet.

“I take it you know what this duel entails?”

“Basics yes, details no.”

“Very well then. Before we begin, I shall tell you the most needed details. Both combatants will fight each other until either one is knocked out of the arena or unable to fight. As well as this, both combatants must fight on even footing. This means that I will not fight you in the air since you are unable to fly and you may not use the magic items in your pocket.”

“Magic items? But I don’t- wait do you mean the energy items? They’re not magic though.”

“You may think you can fool me but your trick will not work. I have honed my senses to notice when magic is being used and the items in your pocket are leaking enough to deaden me from everything else. How else do you think I found you so fast on the side of the mountain.” Seeing that he was not going to give up on this, I unwillingly parted with my energy items by throwing them down to Feathers worth below, who was standing right next to Twilight and Applejack.

“The magic items are still deadening my sense even at this distance but at least I know you no longer have them.” With that said, he took what looked to be a boxing stance on his hind legs. Surprised by how serious he was about it being a somewhat fair fight, I put up my fists as well in what could only be called a brawler stance (something you would only get after fighting on the street for a while). In no time, Aires was on the attack as he rushed forward at a decent pace but I was able to dodge pretty well thanks to my enhanced reflexes and natural ability of being born to stand on two legs.

As he kept attacking with his jabs, I had to fall back to stay out of his reach. Thanks to the large arena that was no problem as it was at least double the size of a regular boxing one. Continuing to dodge, I accidently miss timed a jab letting Aires nail me across the helmet with a straight. Backing up once more but much more quickly due to the sudden hit, I failed to notice that my body had been working its way to the edge. Turning back, I closed the distance and began throwing my own punches into the mix while also trying to dodge. It was an intense back in forth with me dodging anything I could but still getting hit time and again while on the other hand, I could only seem to land glancing blows on Aires. With no end in sight, I quickly backpedaled to gain some breathing room and saw that Aires was breathing hard.

‘He must not be used to fighting like this for long periods of time? If that’s the case then that means I can wear him down and finish him off with a roundhouse finisher. No what, the guy said no magic and my finishers are made of the same energy as the energy items. He might call foul on me and I have no idea what’ll happen then.’

With no other choice, I stepped back into the fray but instead of going for the head, I focused on the body. It seemed to be working but I was taking more hits for it, hits that were landing squarely on my face which was beginning to give me a bad headache. Back and forth it went, I would get a hit on his armor and seemingly dent it each time, while Aires kept the one-two combos coming. Eventually the headache got to bad to continue and I tried to back up once again but Aires just followed after. Not expecting this, I was unprepared for his foot to somehow get behind me causing me to lose balance. Scared, I threw my hands up in desperation and instinct to catching anything and stop my fall but nothing came. Nothing except some very familiar weapons.

Gashacon Sword

Gashacon Sparrow

Having landed on the ground now, both I and Aires were shocked but his was much more noticeable even with his helmet.

“You would dare cheat in a trial by duel?”

I quickly dropped the weapons but it was too late and the guards had already pounced on me putting me under a dog pile of at least ten griffins and leaving only my head out to see. Coming around to the side where I could see hi, Aires now had a sword in hand.

“I should kill you where you stand for breaking such honored traditions that were made for beings like you , to give you a sense of fairness when it seemed like there was none. But instead of respecting it, you show nothing but weapons and dishonor. I should kill you where you lay but your executioner will deal with that.” That was the last thing I saw and heard as Aire slammed the pommel of his sword into my facemask and finally knocked me out.

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(Applejack POV)

“What’s happenin’ up there Twi, I can’t see a darn thing with all these guards floating around.”

“I don’t know Aj and I can’t hear anything either. We’re just going to have to wait until the commotion is over. Until then, we need to get the others so I can send a letter to Celestia that we’ve found Cronus.”

“Sure, anything to get out of this mess.” We both quickly made our way out of the crowd, with me leading to push any lingering griffins out of the way. Once out, we quickly ran as fast as we could back to the hotel room the griffins gave us.

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(3rd POV)

While Cronus was being carried away by heavily armed guards, and Twilight and Applejack made their way back to their friends. A train in the outer village of Griffinstone slowly stopped before allowing those on board to disembark. Among the many myriad of creatures, there was one that stood among them on two legs and covered in a long red coat with a caduceus staff on its back. As well as this, the unknown individual wore two white gloves with one on both hand. When the station finally cleared the red wearing individual had not moved from his spot.

Now alone, he removed his to let his braided blonde hair go behind his back and his golden eyes to be seen. As well as seeing his face, a collar could be seen as well but it was mostly hidden by his black clothing which he adjusted to make sure the collar was fully hidden. When satisfied, he let out a small huff.

“Man am I glad that’s over, I was worried I was gonna puke before I got here. Why do these people even still use trains like these? Don’t they have better ones by now? Geez it’s hot, maybe I shouldn’t have worn my coat.” The blonde boy continued to talk, uncaring of who looked at him, as he started to make his way through the village and to the path needed to reach his target.

Author's Note:

Like the chapter, Like the fight?

leave me a comment about what you hated and what you liked.

challenge: In the past seven chapters, how many times did I use the word griffon ( a type of dog) and not griffin ( the magical beast). leave a comment and I'll tell you if you're right or not.

Comments

[3rror404]

"In the king's stead" rather than "in the kings steed"
That and feather cant grind his teeth because he has none