Sound came from the ceiling as a screen slowly descended. I didn't even notice the crap. Veronica must have become a snob or something like that. A video started to play, displaying a countdown from three, as a brunette woman, resembling a news anchor, smiled to the camera.
"Welcome, Dear Citizen of Paladin Woods."
A sound that was very familiar to a frog came from the video as it appeared they had taken a break for the next scene.
"What the hell is this, Veronica?"
She looked in a little bit better mood than earlier, but still not the smiley one me and Berk are used to.
"My name is Fittona Funttona, from the Funttona family of Witches...WOHU!" The rumors suggest that the Funttona family is entirely useless in battles. Their women are attractive, though.
"Today, I will present the beautiful world of Paladin Woods, and how we are safe today when a saviour took on a critical mission to save as many civilians as possible from Valiant. To surprise you all, the civilian who did this was half human and half demon. His name was Lark Van Polan." They showed a picture of Dad on the screen, and it pissed me off a little bit that they used a photo of him for a news bullshit video. "Lark was a brave soldier during the war, a good husband, and a great father to his son and daughter. During the war, he got an assignment from the Wizard Dendarven. To take a device and go through the gates back to Earth and activate the device, the assignment got extremely dangerous as the Angels and Demons sent their best warriors to hinder Lark from succeeding." The frog sound came in between again, when suddenly the news bitch slammed her hand on the desk. "You see, Lark managed to kill the strong Angels and Demons when the battle continued through the gates to Earth. In his last breath, he slammed the device right into the Earth. An invisible world, invisible to the human eye, took shape, giving rise to Paladin Woods. A big portal opened up in Valiant, and civilians rushed to the portal for safety. Over 5,000 civilians entered the portal, which was open for only one day, and then it closed. Those who entered the portal were safe, and a Hero was born, the one and only Lark Van Polan, savior of everyone living in Paladin Woods." The frog sound came up again, and I got so pissed that I slammed the screen so hard it broke, causing Victoria and the Pink-haired girl to get startled.
My right knuckle was bleeding. What a great start when arriving home.
"Why?"
"The talk about my father did not exactly make me happy. Why do they use him for commercial crap?"
"Because Lark was a hero. Everyone coming to Paladin should know who it was who saved so many civilians during the war." Veronica scolded me.
It is so easy to say that for someone else. My father disappeared, most probably died when he activated the device, and 24 hours later, my mother and sister disappeared, around the time the big portal closed. There are no clues at all about what happened to my father. The freaking rumor is that he melted away in the air because the device would kill everything within 100 meters. I suppose that is why they never found the Angels and Demons he fought. I lost my whole family in 24 hours, all gone, without a single trace. All my mother left behind before disappearing with my sister was a spellbook for Witches and a damn envelope with a letter inside it. I could not open it until I was 13 years old. Something that people would take as a joke, but it was impossible because my mother had put a spell on it. I could only open the letter when I was 13 and not a day earlier. Veronica tried, but failed miserably; she even put a burning spell on it, but nothing happened to the envelope.
The car stopped, and I looked out of the window, and when I suddenly saw it was pitch black. The pink-haired girl rolled down the window on her side when a flashlight blinded me for a second. I tried to figure out who thought it was funny to flash the light right in my face, but the person was wearing a mask that resembled a hockey mask and a...Cloak?
I looked around all the windows to see if I could get a hint where we were, but only the flashlight was visible.
"Get out of the car!" The one with the flashlight told us.
Veronica took a deep breath when suddenly the one with the flashlight hit the roof and screamed at us.
"GET OUT OF THE CAR NOW!"
I quickly got out when several lights turned on, aiming at me. At a level above the ground, several individuals were visible, wearing cloaks, with red fireballs in their hands, while several soldiers surrounded me on the ground. I put my hands up to surrender when one of the ones with a cloak shot a fireball towards me, so I quickly rolled to the side while the side of the car caught on fire.
"GET AWAY FROM THE CAR, VERONICA! THE RIGHT SIDE IS ON FIRE!"
I took a couple of steps away from the car, noticing that Veronica and the Pink-haired had distanced themselves from the vehicle. What was weird was that all attention in the whole area was on me as I tried to figure out why the cloak idiots above even shot a fireball at me, and why there were weirdly dressed soldiers in red with big hats on their heads surrounding me, looking pissed off.
"My Name Is...!" I got hit on my leg from behind and fell on my knees when I felt a hard kick on my back, and I fell on the ground. I quickly covered my head as the kicks continued with no stop, when a scream from Victoria echoed through the whole area. The kicks switched to some object as I felt more pain, and a couple of hits on my ribs caused so much pain that everything went black.
Damn, so much overuse of violence. I had my hands up, and they attacked anyway. If I meet any of the bastards, I will kick the shit out of them. Thank god my legs and arms had movement, except being chained to a table was not exactly what I had in my mind. It was a camera, again in the upper-right corner. If this continues, I will get used to sitting in obvious interrogation rooms.
The door opened, and two soldiers came in, one of them moved behind me, and my head slammed down on the desk, and blood was dripping from my forehead. The door got kicked in, and Veronica stood there with pink flames gushing out from her hands, making me feel a little embarrassed that someone with pink flames was protecting me.
"If you touch him again, I will torch you both!" She said it in a classic, 'I will protect you' style.
"Enough!"
The queen showed up in the room and gave me a stare that didn't exactly say she loved me. Why the Hell is there so much hatred in this world?
The soldiers unlocked the chain from my hands, and I could lean back comfortably, or... that was a bad idea because it became painful, so I had to adjust myself a bit. The queen sat down on the other side of the table with a stack of papers, while the soldiers left the room, took the door from the floor, and tried to shut it, but failed, damn losers. Veronica stood behind me and leaned against the wall. She was here to ensure I did not humiliate the queen. The queen played with the papers, and it looked like she was about to ask something, but she kept going through them, and I wondered for a second if we were going to wait a decade for the question to come, because I wanted to see my brother. The queen reached for her pocket and gave a handkerchief to me for the bleeding. I took it and gave her a suspicious look; maybe she had poisoned this handkerchief.
"Can you clean your makeup with this, Veronica? I would rather not die first." I asked and held the handkerchief in the air for Veronica to take.
She hit the back of my head and grabbed the handkerchief and pressed it hard on my head in the area that was bleeding.
"You are making jokes even though your brother is rotting in prison and sentenced to death."
I stared at the queen with a serious look.
"If something happens to my brother, you will not be the queen of Valiant anymore, you will be a queen of nothing, because I will kill everyone from Valiant."