Those eyes, grey as the clouds of a violent storm, bore down into Chris Ddraig and even though he wore his armor, it was like air before his mother's gaze that seemed to pierce past it all and into his very flesh. It made the young warrior squirm in anxiousness.

He tried his best to look at her, but try as he might, he could not maintain eye contact with her, forcing him to move his head away.

He moved his head from side to side, but no one was seated in those three hundred seats. It was only him and his parents here, a blessing in that no would see him squirming in discomfort, and it was also a dreadful curse as he was alone with his mother and father.

"Damn it, say something, " he mentally screamed not just to himself but to the Queen seated upon her throne.

The dread silence that passed amongst them made every passing second feel like great weight was being laid upon his shoulders.

After the morning's meeting, Chris had joyfully rushed into his room, he put on his armor and he called his fellow teammates. He returned to the empty throne room for his parting words with his parents and all that he found was a angry queen glaring down into him.

"If I may be honest dear, I fear that you are making things a little too awkward," his father said finally cutting through the tense air.

"I don't like this," Natalia huffed in irritation.

"Please Natalia, Christian would be of some good in Anabia, we can't just keep him cooped up in the capital doing nothing."

" Thank you! " Chris had to tighten his lips together in order to stop his mental words from physically manifesting.

"He isn't doing nothing, he is part of the Asalon patrol. That is a very important knightly posting and there is nothing to be gained by this pointless adventuring for the sake of a cheap thrill."

"Maybe, but it would do the lad some good to go out into the rest of the realm. Besides, don't you want him to finally see your home city?"

Natalia Ddraig, queen of Avalon twisted her face as if she was smelling some foul substance, until finally she grumbled out, " Fine, but Christian... Please be careful and do not recklessly out there."

"I understand mother, I will follow your instructions." Chris felt his heart soften just as her face and voice did.

"....just go in to see what Night Terrors are running around up there and do not engage them..." she continued and just like that Chris's heart hardened once more.

He had been held back by her ever since they had been reunited two years ago. Chris lowered his face to avoid showing the fire burning within his eyes.

"Maybe it's because I am not the crown princess like Ishtar, but I am a knight too. And yet I am here while my sisters are part of active knight teams on the ground," he thought as he felt his anger tighten its grip of his heart.

Knights were the elite unit of the Avalonian military. They existed to face the type of threats the normal troops couldn't face without large unnecessary casualties.

Chris was a proud Knight after he passed the entrance exam. It was pure torture and he would never be too embarrassed to say that he survived it by the skin of his teeth.

His sisters Ishtar and Joan had entered the Knights Corp years earlier than him and they were out and about, dealing with the remaining Night Terrors and potential trouble by Avalon's new bellicose neighbors.

But all Chris and his team had to do was nothing but patrol the capital of Asalon or the many farmlands around its edges if they were particularly lucky.

Nothing of any real note actually happened in the capital. At best he would deal with a few petty thieves, maybe a unruly Mizihimo and a few rowdy drunks. He hated every single second of this with a burning passion.

When he had tried to sign up for more action heavy missions in places that would see him facing actual Night Terrors, his mother would come out of nowhere and deny him, and when Queen Natalia Ddraig said no, it was final.

Chris felt anger burning within him and with each thought the burning hatred of the woman who had birthed him into this world intensified.

"Of course, your grace," he responded as he arose from where he had been kneeling and though he felt no respect for his mother in particular, the young prince bowed before turning and walking out of the throne room.

XXXXXX

The palace was a great complex with its very own landing strip which played host to a massive aircraft hangar with hundreds of flying crafts of every shape, size, and design ranging from one hundred meter long flying battleships, transport crafts of equal size and even single person fighter jets.

Though Avalon's air forces were not simply crafts of steel, but also beasts of flesh whose wings could match any engine.

The aircraft that Chris was interested in was a great yellow and black vessel that was shaped like a box with the only entrance being its back which opened into a rampart. This great vessel was called a Bee, a craft mainly used for transporting up to one hundred military officials.

A few figures were boarding the craft, their myriad of colourful armor designs identifying them as knights. Though another group stood amongst them, their armor of blue, red and gold was almost uniformly similar with only some changes brought on by their wearers to add their own personalities to it.

These men and women were the Asikari. Those normal troops who had either joined this force or had been relegated to it after failing the frankly insane Knight entrance test.

They were easily distinguishable from Knight's, not just by their more uniform armor, but their primary use of the long barreled B57 firearm or as many had taken to nicknaming it, the Cramer.

A weapon of necessity for any Asikari, for while they were superhuman in their physical capabilities, those of the Knights Corp were enhanced beyond them and could easily use melee weapons as their primary tools on the battlefield.

That didn't mean that the Asikari lacked melee weapons and they were damn good at using them. Chris had personally seen many cocky young knights getting humiliated in sparring matches by Asikari veterans.

Chris would have joined the group entering the Bee but he could not until his two teammates had arrived.

"Where the hell are they?" he thought in frustration as the metaphoric clock in his mind ticked away.

As he looked around he noticed two figures approaching him, jogging as fast as they could without entering a full on sprint.

The first of them was a young man of equal age and height to Chris. His dark brown skin was in contrast with his crimson red eyes and the left side of his hair that was dyed red.

Stolen novel; please report.

He wore a full piece of plate armor that was coloured yellow and black with scarlet engravings. Strapped to his left hip was a basket hilted sword with a twenty four inch red chain connected to the blade's hilt. And Strapped to his left arm was a scarlet cowhide shield.

The second one was the same, with a similar age and skin tone, though she was shorter with skin lighter. Her eyes were a light purple and her afro's tips were dyed a light purple shade.

Upon her green and purple armour, she wore a raven feather cloak. In her left hand was a purple bow with a gold bowstring.

These two were Hamanymu Mulengu and Ursa Tudor, his fellow teammates and truthfully, his only friends.

Unlike him, they had not been born upon the world that was before Jord. In fact not more than two years ago, they had lived their lives in another reality upon a world named earth.

Chris had lived upon the same world for four years after a rather unfortunate accident had trapped him upon said planet.

But that world was no more, the collapse of the multiverse had seen to that. Avalon, along side other reality crossing empires had managed to evacuate as many of its people as they could, before that reality shattered and earth was rendered to cosmic nothingness.

"I told you that we'd be late," the angry Ursa stomped her foot onto the floor while glaring holes at Hamanymu's head.

"I woke up early enough," the yellow and red knight responded.

"And you would have been up earlier if you hadn't spent the whole damn night at a bar watching soccer," Ursa snapped and Hamanymu gasped in an over exaggerated manner.

"Ursa Tudor, I am appalled. How can any self respecting Scot call it that!"

" I am only part Scot."

" It doesn't matter, such words are unbecoming. Why if we were in beloved Zambia, RIP, no one... " Hamanymu began rumbling on and Ursa groaned in irritation.

"As amusing as all this, i feel like i should tell you guys that we should move things forward" Chris said finally ending this all.

"Please let's . The Bee won't stick around forever, " Ursa responded before turning and stomping towards the the Bee.

"She is very excited," Chris said.

He had expected her to be pleased to finally leave the capital after two years, but this was a bit more than normal for Ursa.

"It's because of that magical school, Runith Institute. She won't admit this, but when she found out where we were going, she literally started dancing and singing in her room. Couldn't see it, but by Leza in heaven, I could hear it" Hamanymu responded with an amused chuckle.

"That's cute," Chris said with a smile as Ursa at the ramp turned to face them and shouted.

"Stop wasting time and let's go!"

The two walked forward as Chris asked Hamanymu " Hell of a game last night, sorry about your team"

"Barban Fc are just a bunch of bums since they got that idiot coach... and our striker, a person without bloody legs would do better than that bastard," Hamanymu cursed and Chris instantly regretted having started Hamanymu's football related tirade.

Inside the ship, the three took seats on the right side seats to avoid being seen. The amount of good that did was nothing. Everyone looked at them and the whispers made Chris feel like the large aircraft was somehow shrinking.

"Is that who I think it is?" one voice asked amongst the legion of whispers.

"No way it's him," went another.

"I thought that he would be bigger," came another.

" This is going to be a long trip," he thought in irritation as the whispers continued.

The ramp of the Bee finally closed and a rumbling went through the metal beast as its great engine came to life. Beneath the ship, the hundreds of small crystals that had been embedded into its base, came to life and they wrapped the ship with a gravitational field of its own, sending the multi ton object floating into the air.

These Exuradan crystals were one of the greatest mineral products of the realm. Crystals that were not only great conductors of magical energy, but they could also manipulate gravitational fields. All ships across Avalon, had these crystals to thank for their flight.

The Bee slowly elevated into the air, before it took off with a ear shattering sonic boom.

Chris looked upon his capital city from the heavens and it was a marvel. This city was so large it would take a human being two days of constant walking to get from one end of the oval city to the other side.

Its high rise buildings shimmered as the sun's rays were reflected by the silver and gold which was layered upon them. Many other structures were marble wonders that looked like they were achievements of the past.

Some sections of the city floated within the air on great platforms that kept these thousand ton wonders in complete defiance of gravity.

Trains flew through the very air with all manner of flying beasts like Gryphon's and Pegasai as their companions in the skies. And at the heart of the city, the royal palace stood as the grandest structure in Asalon.

"Goodbye Asalon, see you soon," he thought as they finally left the city behind them.

XXXXXX

Being in the capital for so long made it easy to forget that Avalon was an entire continent sized kingdom. It took them seven hours upon this hypersonic flying vessel, to so much as see the first sign that they had reached the north eastern province of Dunara.

Chris was close to cursing out as his back now ached in a dull irritation from having to sit within the same rough seat for seven hours without any change.

Hamanymu and many others amongst them shared the same irritated faces and constant shifting. The only person who was different was Ursa, her excitement to teach Runith was so palpable, that even after seven hour's, she was too excited to care.

In fact, she had taken to reading a small book that she had pulled out of her cloak and she had began humming the remnants of a sea shanty to herself.

Chris eyed the leather brown book in her hands. Upon its cover was an image of a wizard hat, with big great neon words that spelled out " A History Of Magical Education: Witchen Hall, Thermonia Keep, Runith Institute And Halwraith Academy.

"I should have brought a book," he groaned out.

"You should, its good to apply your mind. The both of you might enjoy it," Ursa responded.

"I don't think that I can read like this, my back and my rear hurt, plus I am hungry," Hamanymu groaned and at the thought of food, Chris felt his stomach rumble like thunder.

"Just hold in there you two, we have arrived in Dunara," Ursa responded and as Chris looked out the window, he saw much of the lush savannah of southern Avalon slowly disappear into a great desert that almost seemed to stretch out into the edge of the world.

The sands almost glistened like gold under the powerful rays of the sun and Chris finally breathed a sigh of relief, it would all be over soon.

It in fact didn't end soon, Chris wept as an extra two hours was spent in that cursed seat. When the pilot announced over the intercoms that they had finally reached Anabia, a collective exhale of relief ran through everyone in the back seat.

When that inevitable thud of the one hundred ton Bee finally landing on solid ground reverberated through the floor and into their legs, every person was on their feet and rushing for the ramp. All discipline lost in their desperation to escape the metal box that had been their prison for far too long.

Chris had shaken off whatever princely dignities he possessed and he was amongst the first to push himself out and into the fresh air of the outside world. While the desert air was slightly hotter than that down south, it was still superior to the steaming mess within the Bee.

After greedily swallowing gulps of fresh air, the young prince looked straight forward to take in the beauty that was the third city of the Province of Dunara.

The city and the great area around it stood as one giant blot of green vegetation upon the sea of sand. The great Nurabi river came from the north and ran through and within the city.

Some areas of the city was divided by the multiple tributaries of the Nurabi, as the main river continued south to Salahunad and the ocean.

The city of Anabi might not have been Asalon's equal in splendor, but it was a wonder to look upon.

Its crowning jewel stood at its heart. The Runith Institute was not built on the ground, but rather on a landmass which floated more than two hundred meters in the air.

"That's Runith, it's..." Hamanymu began to speak but Ursa cut him off.

"So beautiful," the archer said, her eyes wide in awe, like she was looking upon her own personal deity.

"It's something," Chris responded.

"Let's go," Ursa said before trying to run to the Runith Institute, but Chris had to jump forward and grab her to stop Ursa from running off.

"Ursa, we have to report to the Spinxan military base. We are here on business not pleasure," Chris said and Ursa looked almost ready to weep at him stopping her.

Hamanymu didn't help anything by laughing his lungs out like an absolute mad man while Ursa yelled at him.

"This is going to a long trip, " Chris thought as he could almost feel the future headaches that were to come.