Marked Ones: Advent of the Demon Prince

Dozens of young men and women grunted in rhythmic patterns together as they practiced swings and martial techniques in unison. They were a part of the current round of knights being trained in Eroa's capital. Almost all of them were fresh-faced graduates from their national school, but a small number were guards and soldiers who wanted to try their hands at moving up in the world.

Kalivas toured the grounds as repayment to his friend, King Verdayl, for allowing Lucius free reign in the tournament. Originally, Verdayl was only going to allow Lucius to announce his title while crashing the banquet as a guest of Eroa. Things changed when Kalivas realized that there was going to be a prize for first place as well as representatives from a majority of the nations on the continent.

He argued that if they sent Lucius in as their representative, then they would guarantee the prestige of winning the competition on top of showing off that they have the strongest warrior of the generation.

Unfortunately for Kalivas, Lucius went a little further than necessary which created the need for King Verdayl to apologize to the other nations' leaders for the day's events. Neither the king nor Kalivas were aware of what Lucius's plans were, save winning the tournament.

In fact, neither even knew what 'wish' the boy was going to request be granted. It could have been almost anything, but they were pleasantly surprised at the actual request itself.

Kalivas knew a little about Rena, mostly from listening in to conversations between Lucius and Kalliope while they were training together. His son was not one to divulge information freely with anyone really, so there was no way that he was going to have a heart-to-heart about his crush with him.

Though, through the snippets he heard, it was easy to glean just how much the boy felt for this girl. Seeing her fight was rather pleasant too. Though she was eliminated by the spear fighter, Desmond, she showed a remarkable talent for someone who only fought with magic.

Truly, she performed much better than anyone expected without being able to utilize any Arts at all. She had a lot of potential and that made Kalivas proud of his son for choosing a strong partner.

"Widen your feet. Square them up with your shoulders or you will lose your balance." He barked at a trainee that stumbled after making one of the wider swings. "Alright, enough. Five minutes of rest, then pair up for non-contact sparring."

All the recruits quickly put down their weapons and collapsed to the ground where they were. Kalivas was a devil of a trainer, but he was going easy on these knights. Of course, his methods were many times more intense than the ones normally used by the regular trainers, but he was also being many times less aggressive than with Lucius and Kalliope.

"How goes the training, Kalivas?" King Verdayl's voice called out from behind him. The man was in a disguise so the knights-in-training would not jump to attention and be distracted from their studies.

"It's alright. They are performing as well as could be expected." He answered.

"Is that all? You are not impressed?"

Kalivas eyed the king like he was insane. "You know who my son is, right?"

Verdayl grimaced, "Painfully slow… I had to monetarily appease King Aleksander for the situation. Though we did not violate the rules, he claimed we violated the 'spirit of the competition' so he made me reimburse them for a quarter of the cost in setting up the tournament."

"You know, I could just pay you back myself so I don't have to waste my time training newbies. In fact, I would gladly reimburse the entire amount if I could just leave." Kalivas was almost begging with his tone.

Verdayl laughed and denied the request. To him, having their country's King Ranker train a group of their knights, even if only for a short time, was many times more valuable than the preparation costs for an international event.

There was no way he was going to pass up on the opportunity. Verdayl admitted that he would gladly experience many more far more embarrassing moments than what Lucius put him through to achieve this outcome.

"Have you heard anything from the boy? From what I hear he has left the capital on a 'work-study' with some other students. I don't know if you have heard anything else about that or not." Verdayl asked.

The trainees all stood now that their break was over and began to pair up for no-contact sparring. Their goal was simply to hone the feeling and movements of their maneuvers in both the attacking and defending formations.

Satisfied everyone was paired up and there were no glaring corrections needed made, Kalivas finally answered. "No, I have yet to hear anything from him. I know that Kalliope was left behind to take care of things in Arcadios's capital in his stead. They might be having some run-ins with the Church of Celestia."

"That does not bode well. Such an institution has little reach here, but in the heart of the human nations… that is a different story."

He nodded along with the king's words. "That's true. However, I don't know how that will play out. The human nations seem very interested in the House of Kane for reasons we haven't really figured out. Something about a prophecy was whispered in some circles, but the context is unknown."

"I see… So you don't think the church will make a move while the human leaders have an interest in him?"

"Yes, but I also believe they will make moves to try and pin the boy for something. Launch an inquiry into him and have him either expelled from the country or worse." Kalivas sighed heavily.

"You know…" Verdayl said with a smirk. "If you want, I can pull some strings if it comes to that. All we need to do is extend your little substitute instructor job. Say the word and it'll be done."

Verdayl laughed as his friend's face visibly paled at the prospect of training these whelps any longer than he had to. Though he wanted to be a good father and help his son where he could, Kalivas also understood that Lucius needed to stand on his own and figure these things out for himself.

With that in mind he declined the offer and stepped through the lines of trainees to examine their movements a little more closely. He would be kinder with mistakes with them than he was with Lucius, but he still needed to correct them on occasion to prevent any bad habits.