Now that the stage was on fire, another crowd of people ran in fear and Flama decided to use his gun. The princess was pushed to the ground by her body guard and Max took another chance to escape. He ran down the exit of the stairs, but when he came out on the other side, one of the kidnappers was there to greet him.

"I really want to bring you back in one piece," he begged Max. "Just surrender already, jeez."

"Never!"

Max changed his mind about running. He charged at the kidnapper and swung the sword toward him from the top down. To his surprise he didn't miss this time, and the sword became stuck in his skull. The man was still alive, and screamed at the top of his lungs while blood dripped down his face. His screams caused Max to scream and it wasn't very hard for the princess' bodyguards and the other kidnapper to find him.

Max pulled with all his might the sword out of his skull, and the kidnapper collapsed to the ground. Max tried copying the moves he had seen him do earlier, so he held out his hand, and pushed the wind toward the bodyguards. He didn't want to hurt them because he knew they were doing their jobs, but he didn't want to get to killed due to a misunderstanding. The bodyguards flew out and were pushed back into the chain link fence, a few them knocked unconscious on impact.

Max turned around to deal with the other kidnapper, but he was too late.

She punched him in the face, and blood splurted out of his nose. With a swift kick to the abdomen he fell to the ground, and with another kick she pushed the sword away from him.

"You killed him," she cried. "How could you!?"

"I'm sorry, I didn't want to," Max shouted.

"Liar!"

She tried to kick him again, but he rolled away, and got up. He put his fists up to fight and she made the first move. She tried kicking him again, and he knew she would. He caught her by the leg, and she fell to the ground, screaming. He gripped her left hand with all his might, and a surge of electricity went through her entire body.

Her screams sounded like that of a person, but the longer he shocked her the more computer generated they started to sound. He let go of her leg and then ran to his sword. Max took a look at the scene of violence, and the bodyguards had left. He saw a trail of blood from where the other kidnapper was, and he followed it.

The man had crawled up the stage in an effort to get away, but Max had found him. The stage was empty except for the both of them, and everyone had evacuated.

"Stay away," the kidnapper cried.

Max didn't know what to do. He was taught he should neutralize any threat in the combat field or leave if he couldn't win. Killing the man felt cruel as he crawled a bloody mess across the stage. Leaving him to shout for help was immoral as well. Max decided to do the right thing, and to try and help him.

He walked over to him and the man cried for help, but Max sat down next to him. He held him up, and tried to stop the bleeding, but didn't know what to do about a damaged skull. He got out his phone and was about to call emergency services, but the sound of scraping metal came from behind.

He turned to see the other kidnapper. Her cyborg body was fried, but a part of her still persisted.

"I didn't kill him," Max said. "I can help. Just stop."

"Shut up," she said.

Max picked up the man, and flew off into the sky, trying to get him help. His partner still followed them, running across the field like a jaguar, on all fours. When Max looked down to the ground, he saw a group of police officers near a food stall and landed next to them. They were all caught off guard and drew their guns.

Max looked around and saw that he was standing right next to the Princess of Regno, Martia. She was frozen in place out of fear and started to cry.

"Please help us," Max begged.

"Don't move."

Flama stuck out his finger and shaped his hand to look like a fake gun. The police were furious at his inappropriate joke in a very serious situation, and tried to get rid of him.

"My Lord, this is a hostage situation," an officer said. "We need to get you to safety."

"No. You need to call the coroner's office."

The tip of Flama's pointer finger turned bright purple and he took a shot.

Max moved out of the way, and Flama took another shot. He missed Max again but he had hit someone.

Princess Martia was shot in the head and died before her body hit the ground.

Everyone put down their guns and Flama was silent.

"It was an accident," he said. "I didn't want to hurt her. You all know I didn't mean it, right?"

If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

He cried, and covered his face, and one of the officers rubbed his back. Max looked away in horror and tried to help the man in his arms, but it was too late. He had died while Max was in the air, and he didn't notice that he was trying to rescue a corpse.

"I'm sorry," Max said. "I'm so sorry."

"Are you!?"

The cyborg kidnapper had found Max and was going to kill him, but all the officers turned and riddled her body with bullets. There were now three dead people a sobbing monarch, and a young man covered in blood. The officers didn't know what to do with Max because it was clear he wasn't a threat. Max had forgotten his sword, so now he was unarmed with his hands in the air.

"Let's just say he killed the princess," one of the officers said. "Look at that black bracelet on his wrist. His type would do something like that."

"We can't have any witnesses," another officer replied. "If people were to find out that Our Lord shot her, even on accident, Aria would be in an interplanetary incident."

Max kept his hands up in the air, and kneeled on ground, trying to prove he was a threat but it didn't matter. The officers had already made up their mind, and Flama wasn't stopping them. Max closed his eyes and thought of what his parents would do when he was gone, and how he regretted coming to the fair.

He just wanted to have fun.

"I saw everything," a voice said from behind the stall.

Eric hid behind one of the food stalls when he saw all the police draw their guns. He had followed the cyborg when he saw her blazing through the festival grounds, hoping that it would lead him to Max. Eric saw what the police were doing, and the entire time he was recording the incident with his left eye.

He looked a bit silly, with his nose bright red, indicating that the video was still recording, but to the officers, Eric was the most dangerous person there.

"You recording us boy," one of the officers asked.

"Yes and no," Eric replied.

"What are you doing? Speak up!"

"I'm livestreaming. I think almost everyone at my school is watching by now. Amazing how fast stuff spreads online."

The officers withdrew their guns because it didn't matter who they shot now, there were too many witnesses. Max got up from the ground and slowly backed away, toward Eric.

"Are you arresting us," Eric asked. "Because you better arrest him first."

Eric pointed at Flama, and Flama shook his head rapidly no.

"No, I didn't do anything. You all saw it was an accident," he pleaded.

"You shot in the direction of her. You're an ass," Eric said. "Arrest him."

"We can't," an officer said.

"And why the fuck not," Eric shouted.

"We are the Fadeno Imperial Police," he said. "Our Lord is the one who issues the certificates to the territory's local militia and officers."

"That doesn't matter!"

"Yes, it does. We can arrest him and he would revoke the city's license, making us no longer officers."

"I can do that," Flama mumbled. "It's true."

The thought had never occurred to him, and if the officer said nothing, then Flama would have gone quietly. Now with this information, he was emboldened to try and make the situation in his favor. The live stream was still going, and he thought that by now everyone all over Centrum was possibly watching.

"That young man over there was trying to help that poor soul on the ground," Flama said, pointing at the dead kidnapper. "We can't arrest him for a simple misunderstanding."

The officers nodded along, saying that we can forget this all happened, everything would be fine, and we can all move on.

They would not.