I dove for the spherical object, but my fingers slipped right as I got near the third of the trio holding it. I managed to get it out of his hands just before he was able to respond. He threw a punch aimed down at me, but I was too busy running after the weapon. It was rolling off towards one side of the room, but every time I tried to put my hands around it it would slip. Eventually, it hit the wall and stopped rolling and I was able to pick it up. It was like the whole thing was coated in grease, I had to coddle it like a newborn so it wouldn't fall to the ground again. By the time I had stood up, my back was against the wall and I watched as all three of them had some different colored aura around them. Two of them were different shades of blue, but one was dark purple. They all held out their arms like they were going to chant a spell at me, summon some projectile to throw my way. They couldn't though, for some reason they couldn't. They were willing to level a third of the city but they wouldn't take the shot? It must be the weapon. I have some sort of leverage against them that I'm not aware of.

"This is your prized possession, right? This little ball of destruction?"

"I don't know how you got in here, but if I promise you a lollipop will you give that to us and go back to your bed? You should be asleep right now."

"Don't feign affection. If I wasn't here stopping you right now, I'd be one of the people you'd kill in a month."

"Why would we ever want to kill you?"

"You really think that you can stop us?"

"Mordr!"

"Take the shot then. I assume all three of you have been trained to kill, you all look like you're just itching to get rid of whatever comes between you and total chaos."

"Listen, this is all just a big misunderstanding. What you heard was a single part of a whole deal that would take a while for me to explain. I could help you get it another time, I know a great café near here, I'll give you the address."

"How can you talk about this city like you're not going to blow it up?"

"I didn't know you were stupid and deaf."

"Mordr, it's a kid!"

"What? I assume he was listening to our conversation. If he hears that we're going to blow up the palace and he thinks that we want to blow up the entire city then clearly there's some sort of problem with his head."

"Are you stupid? There is no city without the capital."

My voice was shaky. I couldn't stop myself from hyperventilating. I felt this indescribable anger towards the people in front of me. One of them was trying to act like some sort of hidden saint while the other took pride in their depravity. Neither of them acted in a way that made them more just, that made them seem more reasonable. There was no way to make them seem more reasonable, that is what was so aggravating about them. They were irredeemable. One-dimensional.

"Of course, that's what you'd think. I can't blame you, you're just a normal Melantian kid who's been told the same as everyone else."

"So what, you're right because you're different?"

"I'm right because I'm right. If you'd let me finish I could get it through your thick skull why."

"I don't need to listen to you, I've already listened to you enough. What, you think it's not fair that nobles get more than the rest of us do? Tough luck. Some people are born into families that have power, some people aren't."

"So that's it? We just say "Oh well!" if we're born in the slums and abandoned in a random alley?"

"It's not even like these nobles leave us to die. Sure, they act like assholes towards us but that's because of people like you. The commoners who want to take their frustrations out on the world. We live in a city that is run entirely by them, our safety from the other nations, the walls that protect us from people like you are held by them."

"That's the bare minimum. Don't you get it? All they have to do so that we don't march into the palace and chop their heads off is build walls around us and say that we're safe. Everyone has been so conditioned into believing that their piss is nothing but a pleasant rain."

"Mordr, what the hell are you saying?"

"He gets the point. Don't you?"

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"Everything you say sounds equally crazy."

"What I'm saying is, the royal family could take a shit in your mou-"

"Stop being so damn graphic, he can't be a day over twelve."

The third one decided to finally chime in.

"Listen, I don't expect you to understand either of them, but I do think that you get the situation you're in. What's your dream ending here, we just walk away and leave you be? You heard us talk about how much that weapon you're holding cost."

"Yeah, that's why you're all holding off right now. I assume if you try anything this will go off and 'blow us all to high hell'"

"Don't be silly. You saw it fall out of my hand and it didn't explode then. We're not killing you on the spot because you're a child. I'm sure you have a mother who will wake up wondering where you are."

"I'm sure she'd understand."

"You sound a lot like Mordr right now. Acting like your family doesn't care about you, or that they'll think logically instead of emotionally when they find your corpse. People are complicated, but I can tell you one thing and it's that nobody truly acts that way."

"So what if I die? I'll have to suffer through years of finding even a semblance of a life after you tear this empire to shreds."

"I don't expect you to believe us when we say that there will be peace after the royal family falls, but would you believe that any sort of living is better than dying?"

"So getting tortured around the clock is better than being put out of your misery?"

"Don't be disingenuous. In the worst-case scenario, you have to hunt for your food and build a mud hut. If what we've been told about your ability is even halfway true I don't think you'd have any issue providing for you and that girlfriend of yours."

"So it was you who sent that grunt."

"No, actually. That night you ran into an old business partner of ours who is quite paranoid. He had just killed someone in the ally nearby and thought that when you hesitated, even for a second, it was because you knew."

"So you all talk to each other often? Does he know about your little plan?"

"Let's not get off-topic. Do you really believe that we'd kill the royal family just for a kick? That we'd go to all this trouble because we find this sort of thing fun?"

"I don't care about why you're doing this, there's no reason that you could give that would justify blowing up a third of the city."

"You keep phrasing our plans in the worst way. You want to see what we're doing as this immoral thing to the extent that you're ignoring the actual reasoning presented to you."

"I didn't realize there was a way to sugarcoat blowing up a third of the city."

"Listen, I really don't want to hurt you. Getting the weapon away from you wouldn't be that hard, I could've done it any time after you knocked it out of my hand. I know that you're someone who loves solving mysteries, someone who cares about "justice," or at least your version of it. You seem like a kid who will come to realize that even a fraction of what we're saying is true, and you'll look back at this moment and think about how you made the right choice by giving the weapon back to us."

"Oh please, you're not playing nice, that's something the other one would do. Draeca, was it?"

"Listen, you don't have a past too different from ours. Before Ms. Rayner took you in, you were on the streets too, right? How much do you think your life could have changed if you were never left to die in the first place? All we want to do is prevent anybody else from going through what we did, to make sure that they get the hand reaching out to them that we never got."

"You're right, I was on the streets of Prymdor as a young child, but that doesn't mean I'm right to kill people who had a good early childhood. None of us have the right to-"

"Gods, shut the fuck UP!"

The entire room went silent. Even Draeca didn't scold him this time.

"You sit here and talk to us about morals? You? A twelve-year-old who likes to dress up and role-play as some sort of heroic figure? You think that the world is so simple because you've stopped some kids from throwing pebbles at a window? And the nerve of you to act as though you've experienced anything! As if you're not here quoting a book or reciting some lines that you thought of while taking a bath! Do you think that it's just that easy to choose to stick to your principles every time?"

"No, bu-"

"There are people in this city who are starving in this very second. People who are coming close to tearing into their own skin just so they won't want to lay themselves down on the royal pathway. You get to imagine that you're some star who's destined to save the world while they have to imagine that they're eating a decent meal just to stay sane! Kids, who are half your age, are going through more than you ever will in a lifetime! Do you understand how lucky you were? Do you? To get taken off the street by a lady who had recently lost her own kids? One-in-a-fucking-million!"

He was hyperventilating too. I could hear it in his voice, he felt the same anger as me.

"You stand there and lecture people who have tried every other solution, who have contemplated every other future! You stand there listening to us plead with you for some sort of understanding and yet you stick your fucking chin up and act like we're depraved fools!"

He reached his hand out with an open palm.

"I'm done. I'm done with the pleading, I'm done with the sympathy, and I'm done with asking someone who hasn't even started to grow up to be anything but stubborn. Hand me the bomb right now or I'll come over there and slam your head into the wall so many times that you'll be unrecognizable."

And I did. Except I threw it at him. And it hit him in the face.

"You fucking brat!"

Right before he lept at me, I heard a new sound coming from the weapon. The other two must have realized that it meant something because they immediately dashed back.

"Mordr! The bomb is armed!"

It was too late. He had lept on me and started to strangle me. His hands were placed around my throat, squeezing like he was trying to show off his grip strength. The bomb hit the floor and I saw parts of it immediately fly off in all directions. As he choked whatever life he could out of me before we were all vaporized, I rejoiced in my success. I fought through the lack of air to smile one last time.

That purple flame truly is beautiful.