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    Sitting in a chair that stared out into the seemingly endless forest sorrounding Celestial City, Princess Vicky tried to subtlely get someone to notice her predicament. She was in traditional trinity robes that betrayed her loyalties to her country, but they were the only clothes provided. As the days had passed, she felt that her chances of being rescued were getting closer. Her sister was in on it, there was no doubt about that, but it would take only until her mother returned to the castle for her missing presence to be acted on.

  Someone entered the princess's room, no less a prison than if she had been thrown into the dungeon. It was a young man with a frowning cross displayed proudly on a laurel that had been placed on his head. His trinity robes were almost identical to the one's Vicky wore, only they didn't revolt him as they did the princess. He walked lightly, as if every step was a courtesy he extended.

  "Exalted Princess," said the young man, "the cardinal wishes to have dinner with you."

  "Tell him to use his invitation as a suppository," responded the princess.

  "Princess, if you wish to return home then a certain amount of manners are required," the young man stated as though scolding a child. "The cardinal has not asked you to remain for your health. If he cannot at least attempt to speak with you, then your stay here will be prolonged indefinitely."

  "You will not keep me prisoner here forever," Vicky threatened. "When my mother learns of my disappearance, she will bring the armies of Lorain upon your throats!"

  "Princess, your mother would never do something so foolish. To defy the church would bring a kingdom to it's knees long before the soldiers begin to march."

  "Then you do not know my mother," Vicky huffed as the final word.

  "You will be taken to dinner when it is time," the man said, then he left Vickey to her own devices. The young princess returned her gaze to the foilage beyond, imagining a sailing ship riding across the leaves as though they were the waves of the sea. She sighed, wondering if anyone would be able to notice her in the window of this infernal building.

  When lunch came, the meal was given to her by a nun who set the food on a table before leaving. Vicky ate graciously, never once losing her manners of finesse despite the situation. By the time she was retrieved for dinner, Vicky had managed to dirty her robes sufficiently to not be worth replacing, but enough to notice and annoy.  

  Vicky followed the nuns who retrieved her, and in turn she was followed by two knights in the order of the church. She was guided to a large table where a man wearing an appalling wig sat at the head of the table. He wore heavy, red robes and had already begun to eat the food that had been set at the table. He regarded Princess Vicky with a tempermental nod, to which Vicky responded in kind. Sitting to the cardinal's right, Vicky sat in sullen defiance without taking any of the food offered.

  "Child, you are skinny enough as it is, now eat," commanded the cardinal.

  "I will not," Vicky stated with absolute certainty.

  "Very well," the cardinal responded without much concern, "then your portion shall go to our other guest. The matter that we have attempted to discus at length continues to remain sealed within your lips, and I would like to hear it."

  "I've told you repeatedly that any opinion of mine will be said when I'm able to return to my castle without church supervision."

  "You know very well that situations do not arise that are always beneficial to travelers," the cardinal claimed as a threat. The doors on the far end of the dining hall opened, then a woman who was also dressed in trinity garb entered with a full gaurd surrounding her. Vicky's eyes went wide, her heart stopped as she drew breath in sharply.

  "Mother!" she shouted at the other end of the table, but the two knights to either side roughly held the young princess down. "Let me go you horrid beasts! Mother it's me!"

  "That won't do much good," said the cardinal maliciously. "Your mother is much more reasonable than yourself. She's been slowly learning our doctirine of her own accord."

  "You bastard," Vicky cried helplessly, tears flowing to her eyes. "YOU DEMENTED BASTARD, LET GO OF MY MOTHER!"

  "Hush, child," the cardinal said confidently. "You will be joining your mother soon. Once you two have the proper education, we'll release you to your kingdom." Vicky tried to struggle uselessly, a feeling of helplessness driving further and further into her mind. The guards took the princess back to her chambers, locking the doors behind her.

  Vicky couldn't think properly, she couldn't even comprehend how her mother had sat there while she was taken away. There wasn't even a spark of recognition that her child had been kidnapped. Her tears didn't stop until they hurt as much as the pain in her heart. This was all too much, there was nothing she could do that wouldn't cause more harm. She needed help, she needed an army to march in and take the cathedral.

  She needed a hero.

  Eric stood at the entrance to the Holy Cathedral, the home of the pope and every high-ranking member of the Church of the Holy Trinity. He was sorrounded by tourists, nuns, and monks who all wanted to witness the epitome of their faith. Eric stood there in the open, gazing up at the vast cathedral that would have taken up seven office buildings in his home world. He needed to think, to gather information covertly from the shadows until he was ready to strike like a dagger in the night.

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  As if.

  Vicky felt the shaking from her room, the way vibrations would pass through her feet and into her hair. The glass of water that was always full had waves in it every few seconds as the vibrations became stronger and stronger. Vicky could hear shouting in the distance, so she went to her window and looked out to see that there was a cloud of dust settling over the front court yard.

  'Is someone attacking?' Vicky thought as she felt more tremors and heard the sounds of crashing. 'Who in their right mind would attack the church? Maybe I could ask them to help me and my mother?' It was an incomplete idea, but Vicky went to her door and started pounding it as hard as she could.

  "LET ME OUT! LET ME OUT!" she chanted as she tried to make all the noise she could. After a few minutes, Vicky doubted that her noise could be heard over the sound of marching and fighting that would be happening.

  Then, something strange happened. Vicky could hear loud footsteps in the hallway, but her attempts at escaping she assumed had already failed. The footsteps stopped in front of her door, then there was a light knock.

  "Is anybody there?" came a familiar voice.

  "Eric?" Vicky guessed, though him being here was far fetched.

  "Oh good, I found you," came the voice from the other side of the door. There was a loud thump as the door was removed from it's hinges, tearing at the stone they had been attached to. The door swung to the side, and there stood Eric carrying it as he looked around the room. Vicky was in pure shock while Eric gently set the door on the side of the room.

  "Eric, what are you doing here?" Vicky had to ask.

  "I'm saving you," Eric replied, frowning at the expensive furnishings inside of Vicky's room. "I wish my prison cell was this nice."

  "How did you know?"

  "I'm not an idiot, like the rest of the country. Have they marked you yet?"

  "No," Vicky stated, not entirely sure what Eric meant.

  "Good, that makes this easier," said Eric, just as the sound of crackling armor could be heard running through the halls. The big man rolled his eyes, but meekly returned to the hall to deal with the onrushing people. Eric disappeared from sight, but Vicky clearly heard the snaps, cracks, and thooms that he caused. He returned to Vicky's room with no sign of damage or effort. He also happened to be holding a particular man dressed in trinity clothes with a laurel on his head.

  "Do you know your way around?" Eric asked the princess.

  "I've been in this cage since I arrived," Vicky told her savior.

  "Do you have a bathroom?"

  Vicky pointed to a connecting door, which Eric approached with the unconcious man in hand. A brief splash of water and some sputtering later, the man was awake and confused.

  "Welcome to the 'Ruin Corrupt Religious Cults Funtime Hour'," Eric cheerfully told Vicky's caretaker. "As our special contestant, you get to be the little fairy who gets me where I want to go."

  "What... what are you talking about?" the man stuttered, puzzled by Eric's phrasing.

  "Let me simplify this for you," Eric said, then he punched the mirror that hung over the sink. Not only did the mirror shatter, but the mirror's frame bent at the force of the blow. The hulking hero raised his fist to the priest and threatened, "Give me directions, or I do that to your face. Clear?"

  "Crystal," the priest swallowed nervously.

  Princess Vicky was not one to act her age. Being the heir to the throne, she had needed to steel herself on more than one occasion in order to act appropriately. She was practiced on etiquette, diplomacy, and authority, each one more important than the last. Living a somewhat sheltered life, Vicky had only witnessed violence when the knights sparred or when an assassin tried to attack her. She had no illusions about death or war, and had even attended a few funerals of famous people.

  However, the unbridaled, unyielding efficiency Eric showed when decimating another horde of twenty heavily armed guards was almost too much. The crunch of bone and snap of necks made the princess's stomach churn, and her head swam whenever blood started leaking too readily. She knew that these people weren't going to die, but piles of limp bodies didn't help the nauseous feeling that accrued in the pit of her stomach.

  The sensation peaked when Eric and Vicky entered a massive courtyard where more than a hundred sentinels were rushing through at that very moment. They had mainly been in hallways where the cieling limited how far attackers could be thrown, but Vicky finally got to witness Eric 'in-his-element'. The Hero of the Chains was very much a one man war machine, almost balletic in his movements as he cleared dozens of 300 pound soldiers over a fence 100 feet away.

  After he was finished, Eric shook his bare knuckles that were starting to bleed from punching such heavy armor repeatedly. He looked around to get a sense of direction, then turned to see Vicky leaning against a wall in the garden. She was holding her mouth closed, but couldn't hold the bile that she eventually ejected from her stomach.

  "Woah, are you okay?" Eric asked, returning to Vicky's side as the young girl wiped her mouth.

  "Yeah, just... I'd like a minute," she reasoned. Despite her obvious incapability, she didn't want to seem weak in front of Eric. The mountain of a man patiently waited for the princess to recover, looking around as she breathed in steadily.

  "Hey, I know we're looking for your mother," said Eric nervously, "but can we do some sightseeing? I heard about this great hotsprings in the area, and the architecture of this cathedral is really amazing."

  "No, I don't think that's going to happen," Vicky told Eric.

  "I think we've got a few days while they," Eric looked around at the stacks of bodies, "gather their forces."

  "So," said a voice that reverberated throughout the air, "you're the heathen who has decided to attack the church."

  Standing at one of the several entrances to the courtyard, a man dressed even more regally than a king glowered at the two escapees. He was fairly old as was evident by the wrinkles all around his face, but carried a staff that was twice his size. He also had a hat that made up the difference between the man's head and staff. His clothes were so pure white they almost appeared to glow, and when he sneered at Eric, his teeth were prefectly white as well.

  "Who's he?" Eric asked Vicky.

  "That's the Pope!" Vicky shouted in fear. She grabbed Eric's arm and started to pull on it, trying to get him away from this old man.

  "What's the rush?" the pope asked in a classical old man's voice. "You've made such a mess, you should at least clean it up."

  "You're right," Eric agreed, looking at the pope with a grin.

  "Don't!" Vicky urged, still trying to pull Eric away. "He's not someone you can win against!"

  "Oh, don't be silly, child," the pope laughed. "A strapping young man like him can certainly defeat an older gentleman such as myself."

  "Where is the queen of Lorain?" Eric demanded, approaching the pope against Vicky's wishes.

  "She's just this way," the pope pointed in the direction he had come from. He turned around with a soft grin, walking back into the cathedral. Eric and Vicky exchanged a glance, then watched after the pope.

  "Aren't you coming?" the pope called from a distance away.

  "What do you think?" Eric asked.

  "It's definitely a trap," replied Vicky, looking up at Eric uncertainly.

  "Perfect," Eric said with a cruel grin.

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