[unMOC] Nexo Knights -- King Halbert's Last Stand

Grey Magistrate · December 29, 2018

Both kingdom and kingship in Knighton are in peril after Axl carries out an accidental coup against King Halbert. Princess Macy is leading her crusader army against the vampirates and has no idea that her parents, along with Jestro and Robin, have been separated and placed in "protective custody" in the secure depths of the castle.

Fortunately the cells have no guards at the moment, because Axl is cementing his new authority by giving each guard a choice: accept the spider treatment and join Axl's side, or leave the service of the castle. It is not much of a choice.

No lock can stop an electronics expert like Robin, and he quickly hacks himself and the others free. But the four are still trapped in the basement -- how can they escape the castle and alert Princess Macy?

Robin confesses that he, like Axl, has been secretly experimenting with vampirate technology -- by running tests on the highly unstable Pandora gate that Jestro had seized in a brilliant covert operation. The vampirates had planned to use the Pandora gate to unleash the unholy pile from the buckets beyond...

...but, Robin has reverse-engineered it to transport small objects or people over long distances. Robin argues that if the four of them teleport to four different places, surely one of them will be able to contact Princess Macy and direct her back to the palace to unseat Axl.

The plan is highly risky, but time is short -- Axl could return at any moment. The quartet agree that Queen Halbert will be the first to escape. The royal couple say their goodbyes...

...and then she is through the gate. Robin can't be sure where she has ended up, but hopefully it will be somewhere safe, and she will be able to contact her daughter.

But before anyone else can enter the Pandora gate, Axl arrives! He immediately rushes to Robin to snatch the controller from his hand.

King Halbert yells, Axl lunges, Robin dodges, Jestro pushes -- and in the confined chaos both Axl and Robin are caught up in the pull of the Pandora gate and teleported away.

An enraged guard seizes Robin's controller and starts pounding buttons rapidly, desperate to bring Axl back.

A deathly silence stifles the air. The dread Pandora gate begins to vibrate and choke. Everyone runs. And then:

BOOM.

As prophesied, the dread and terrible brickpile pours forth from the Pandora gate, consuming all before it!

With the sickening crunch of plastic on plastic, the insatiable pile bursts out of the castle basement and shreds to pieces all of Knighton's once-vaunted military hardware.

Even the Fortrex is no match for the horrifying deluge that rushes through the castle grounds, devouring all in its wake.

King Halbert and Jestro watch in horror as the unstoppable flood courses through the castle, realizing that at any moment the brick-soaked terror could consume the residential neighborhoods. At this most terrible moment, Jestro proposes a desperate plan. His research into the vampirates' spider cult revealed that if someone of unusually strong willpower were to enter the pile, then for a short time -- days? hours? -- that mind could exercise some limited control over the churning madness, and redirect the pile away from the populated core of the city. But that mind would soon be subsumed beneath the thousands of other victims imprisoned within the pile.

Jestro volunteers to sacrifice himself. After all, he led the lava monsters and stone army against Knighton, and it was his decision to bring the Pandora gate to Knighton in the first place. But King Halbert refuses. Any king who sends his troops into battle must be willing to face doom himself.

King Halbert makes Jestro swear to find Queen Halbert and deliver her to safety. And then, looking into the swirling abyss, he speaks his final words: "I have always wanted to see the ocean."

And he jumps.

The muddy murmur of hundreds of whispers echo and overlap: "I have always wanted." "I have always wanted to see." "Always wanted to see." "Wanted to see the ocean." "The ocean." "THE OCEAN."

With a groan, the brickpile lurches and seethes and whispers and chokes. "The ocean." "See the ocean." "THE OCEAN." And the unstoppable pile stops and turns away from the city and begins its long, fateful dredge to the sea.

The Fall of Knighton:

#1 -- Ava's Stone Embassy

#2 -- Lance's Lava Mine

#3 -- Macy's Fortified Chapel

#4 -- Jestro's Pandora Gate

#5 -- Axl's Spider Foundry

#6 -- King Halbert's Last Stand

#7 -- Aaron's Club Absinthe

#8 -- Robin's Vampirate Ship

#9 -- Clay's Chapterhouse Vigil

Spellbreaker:

#1 -- Lance's Lava Train