Skeletor's Arc

Chapter 1 of 4

Skeletor wanted the city, and tonight he meant to take it. He stood on the highest tower of the serpent castle, bone hands gripping cold stone. Below him, the city glittered in the dark. He had gathered monsters no ruler could match. He would send them down and make himself its undisputed master. Behind him, four servants waited in the cold. The sorceress leaned on her glowing staff, her purple crystal lighting the wet stones. "The city sleeps," she said. "Wake it screaming, and it kneels by dawn." She smiled like she already saw it done. The werewolf paced the wall, claws scraping grooves in the rock. His yellow eyes never left the streets below. The vampire crouched near a jagged spire, licking his gray teeth, humming to himself. The zombie stood still, red eyes burning, waiting for one word. Skeletor loved them for their hunger. He needed only to point them at the throat of the city. "Go," Skeletor said. "Take it street by street. Leave the seat of power for me." The werewolf howled and leapt from the wall. The vampire followed, laughing. The zombie shambled after. The sorceress climbed onto a muscular purple panther waiting at the gate, and the great cat carried her down the mountain road. Skeletor watched the city below him. Screams rose from the first block. Lights snapped on. A siren wailed and died. His monsters were working. Fire bloomed in three places at once. He gripped the stone and laughed, sure the throne was already his. Then the screams changed. Not fear now. Fighting. The sorceress galloped back up the road on the panther. She reined the cat hard at the gate and swung down, her staff dark. Her fine robes were torn at the shoulder. "They don't run," she said. Her voice shook. "Skeletor, they don't run." "Who?" "The people. One boy stood in the street with a broken bat. The werewolf charged him. The boy hit him in the teeth and got up when he fell." She wiped blood from her lip. "Others came out of their doors to stand beside him. Dozens of them. They are not afraid of us." Skeletor stared down at his city. The fires still burned. But now he saw shapes in the streets, gathered together, pushing his monsters back block by block. The vampire fled across a rooftop. The zombie stumbled, swarmed by a crowd. The boy stood at the center of it, small and bloody, waving others forward. Skeletor did not know his name. He knew only that this one child had turned his conquest into a war. "They chose a leader," the sorceress said quietly. "That one." Skeletor's grip cracked a chip of stone loose. His monsters could kill a thousand frightened people. They could not rule a city that fought back. To take the throne, he would first have to break the boy who refused to kneel.