Chapter Text
There are some legends that start off with the hero as a great leader commanding thousands, or as a prince destined for greatness, or as a lone child outcasted from those around them only to find their destiny in a perilous quest. Some heroes are engraved into the halls of history never to be forgotten, while others aren’t so lucky. Some heroes never wanted to be one in the first place, nor do they consider themselves to be one.
This legend doesn’t start with any hero nor does it end with one. Instead, it starts with a group of young thieves just trying to get by in the vicious world they call life.
“Hurry up, Mumbo!” yelled out Grian the wind whipping in his dusty hair as he jumped from roof top to rooftop. A backpack full of jewels rattled against his back as his mind kept screaming at him to keep going.
“I’m coming! Just....jeez...just wait...!” responded the out-of-breath Mumbo wearing black slacks and a white shirt that always seemed to be dusted by the red stone he always worked with. A satchel with its own heavy jewels strapped across his back. When he tried to jump across to the same roof that Grian was waiting for him, he felt his foot slip on one of the tiles and he screamed out in surprise.
“Mumbo!” yelled Grian as he rushed towards his brother and grabbed one of his arms before it could fall off the edge, his shoes digging into the gutters barely keeping him from falling off as well. “I got you!” assured Grian despite the strain in his lanky arms and his face twisted in pain.
“Grian, the guards are coming! And....is that Scar?!” cried out Mumbo still clinging to the arm. Grain looked over to see Scar in his tan-colored tunic running into the alley that Mumbo was currently dangling over with a multitude of green and red uniformed guards following him.
“Shit” grumbled Grian as Scar looked up and noticed his friend’s predicament; “Hey! Help me, I couldn’t shake them!”
“Mumbo throw down your satchel! It should at least knock one of them out!” said Grian “Plus it’ll hurt less when I drop you”
“Wait what?!”
“Just do it!”
Mumbo quickly unclasped his satchel and managed to throw it above Scar and right into one of the guards square in the head setting off a chain reaction of guards being knocked over or pausing to check up on their fallen comrades. Scar stopped just below Mumbo, as Grain let go of his hand, and caught the black-haired boy with a loud ‘oof!’ as they crumpled to the ground. Grain slid down one of the pipes and rushed over to his friends grabbing them by the arms to help them get up, “Come on! We gotta go!”
“Sorry that I led them here” mumbled Scar as he got up.
“Don’t worry about it” answered Grian as he led them to the other side of the alleyway where it opened back out into the street. Grian felt an arm grab the handle of his backpack and pull him away from Mumbo and Scar.
“Grian!”
The red shirt boy yelled out as he turned around, pushed a small button in the palm of his hand, and grinned when he felt the switchblade shoot up into his hand, and slashed at the guard's face whose hands then flew up to protect from any other attacks and screamed in pain.
“Damn it! Get the fucking brat!” screamed out the bleeding man.
Before they could make any moves a lit stick of TNT landed on the ground making the guards scramble for cover as Grain just laughed and turned around to see a small wagon, with a black-haired woman poking out from the wagon bed’s cover, and ran towards it as fast as he could.
Mumbo and Scar had already made it inside the wagon completely out of breath, the woman called out to “ride onwards!” once Grian jumped into the wagon. The guards left in the alley quickly realized that the TNT had been a smoke bomb filling the alley with an ash-colored cloud, one of them ran out in time to see the red shirt boy laughing and giving them a mock salute.
“Maybe next time boys!”
The guard let out a frustraed sigh as another walked out with an annoyed expression, “They got away again”
“No shit, King Eret won’t be happy to realize some of his jewels were stolen”
“Those damn Boatem kids, someone’s gonna get them. It sure as shit won’t end well for them when it happens”
.
.
“Man...that was close” breathed out Grian catching his breath, “Thanks for the save, Kristan”
The black-haired woman, who was wearing a long black dress much like the witches of folktales, looked down at him with a warm smile, “Don’t thank me yet, you’re bleeding”
“I am?” asked Grian absentmindedly as he looked down at his right hand noticing the long bleeding cut on one of his fingers. Kristan chuckled and went to grab one of the healing potions from the various chests stacked around the wagon bed.
“Sorry” said Mumbo with a downcast expression on his face. His dark grey eyes looked all gloomy and his black messy hair was damp from all the running around.
“About what?” asked Grain while Kristan applied the liquid potion and some bandages to his wound making him pull down his sleeve to reveal a small metal-like device strapped to his arm. The trigger, in the form of a small button on his palm, led down into a small bar that slide up when activated the thin lines of redstone glowing whenever it did.
“About nearly getting caught and your hand...I knew that making that knife contraption would end up hurting you” answered Mumbo.
“I’m sorry about leading them straight to you” added Scar.
“Hey, guys. You didn’t do anything wrong, okay? This wasn’t even the worse pickle we’ve in, don’t you remember the first job we ever did?” smiled Grian.
“I do, it took me nearly two hours to convince those guards to let me and Pearl into the prison to let you guys out” laughed Kristian.
“And that whole mess back in the Badlands?” added Grian.
Mumbo and Scar shuddered at the remembrance as Grian continued to speak, “Plus we got all sorts of gems and gold! I bet we can make a pretty penny off of this!”
“Did we get a good score?” asked the voice of Pearl from upfront.
“Was wondering when you were gonna talk!” said Grian.
“Hey! I’ve been a bit busy getting us as far away from the Greater SMP as possible” shot back Pearl.
“And we thank you for it” added Grian as Pearl mumbled back, “You better”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right” said Mumbo still looking a bit dejected.
“Hey, how about we cash in our loot and treat ourselves to some decent food?” suggested Kristan, “I dunno about you guys but I’m getting really tired of mushroom stew and stale bread”
Grian and Scar loudly agreed and the group soon fell into a comfortable banter as they rode on the backroads towards an unknown destination.
Thus, that was how the legend of Boatem started, not as a unit of destruction experienced in guerilla warfare, but as a simple group of friends just trying to survive. That was all it was supposed to be, however, it seemed the gods had a much different fate for us during those bright and warm spring months.
I won’t bore you with any more trivial details. I know that’s not why you’re sitting there; you want to know the truth. The truth of your parents, of your home, of yourself.
When I was a boy, the Empire was a much more...open place, and in many ways, it still is as far as I know. Its territory was massive, much larger than the Greater SMP and the Badlands combined, with its lands stretching from the SMP in the West to the Hermit Kingdom in the East, down to the coastal cities of Miletus and Ostia in the South, then to the frigid mountains of the North that gave the Empire’s its namesake where its capital of Olympus is completely encased in ice even during the summer months. However, unlike its neighbors the Empire was well known for its open borders to anyone that felt like they needed a safe haven, it became a popular place for desterters and hybrids trying to escape slavery or execution. Most of these people would join the military as a means of extra protection or thank the Emperor for giving them a safe place to stay.
The Empire has always been notorious for keeping its governmental or royal affairs under tight lock and key to the point that its citizens don’t even know who the heir is until the day of the new leader’s coronation. However, it doesn’t seem to bother the people who remain fiercely loyal to the Emperor and their patron; Lady Death. To the point that most would lay down their lives if it meant protecting the Empire, it wasn’t uncommon to see small straight-line scars on arms.
While the Empire tried its best to keep as much as it could under wraps, there was a clear shift in attitude in Empire in the months that we arrived there. There had been rumors that the Emperor before your father had died suddenly leaving the much too young Phil in charge of land that he barely knew, so instead of putting him in charge, the generals decided to let his uncle lead the nation until your father could.
But I think I’m getting ahead of myself once again. I only knew this because your father told me and I suppose I should tell you how that even occurred.
The springs in the Empire were beyond gorgeous with never-ending fields of flowers going on as far as the eye could see. You could almost forget that you were in a land called the ‘Antarctic Empire’ infamous for its freezing nights and icy mountains. That’s where we here when fate came walking up on us, in a field of flowers from lavender to lilies of the valley, all spread out encasing our senses in its calm embrace.
It had only been a few weeks since our little stint in the Greater SMP and we weren’t familiar with the Empire at that point. I remember Pearl and Kristian were making beef stew, while Mumbo was hunched over his redstone contraptions, and me and Scar were practicing our hand-to-hand combat.
Then a blonde-haired stranger stumbled upon us, he was about my age at that time. Much shorter hair with it being in crew cut but the same icy blue eyes that were full of curiosity and a glint of calculating intrigue, he was wearing navy blue slacks and a plain white t-shirt.
“Oh shit...are you guys travelers?” asked the stranger.
The group gave each other questioning glances until Grian looked back at the blonde and stood up as he walked towards them with arms crossed, “Who wants to know?”
“Oh! Sorry, um...I don’t get out much and you’re the first people I came across out here so I’d thought I’d come to say hi” answered the boy awkwardly.
“Uh huh, look we’re not-” started Grian.
“But I noticed your wagon and I’d thought it’d be cool to hear about some of your travels” interrupted the blonde, “If...If that’s okay”
Grian looked like he was at a loss for words until Kristan spoke up, “Well, if we knew who you were then we’d be willing to chat”
“We would?” asked both Pearl and Mumbo.
“We don’t get many visitors” laughed Scar as he walked over to Grian.
The blonde blue eyes lit up as he started to wildly grin, “You’re a hybrid, aren’t you?”
Scar’s eyes immediately narrowed and a low growl rumbled from his throat, Grian stepped into the front of his friend protectively as did Kristan. While Pearl and Mumbo stood up now on alert, the blonde immediately threw up his hands in surrender and stumbled with his words.
“W-Wait! I-I don’t mean that in a bad way! I-I swear!”
“Who are you? Why do you care if he’s a hybrid?!” asked Grian with furrowed brows.
“Umm, w-well because I’m also a hybrid. I can show you if you want proof” said the blonde.
“I didn’t think hybrids could just turn off their traits” said Pearl with disbelief in her tone.
“Well, hold on. That is true, some can while others can’t” jumped in Scar, “But it’s a rare ability to be able to hide said traits”
The stranger nodded in agreement, “I’m pretty sure only avians can do that, like me”
“That’s impossible, avians were wiped out years ago. Every anti-hybrid group loves to tout that fact around like it’s gospel” muttered Scar.
The blonde shrugged and gave a lopsided smile, “Not all of them are gone”
With his words, a pair of large black as night wings erupted from his back with bits of blood and skin hitting the grassy dirt, there was a slight discomfort on his face as he let out his wings but he quickly plastered on a smile, “See?”
The group looked on in astonishment as no one had a word to say in response, while Scar’s frown quickly turned into a wide smile as his lower body wiggled in excitement.
“Your Highness! Your Highness!” called out a gruff voice, a brown-haired boy with a similar crew cut to the blonde and white ram horns curled out from his head appeared up from the small hill they were on, clearly out of breath once he reached the top. “Gods...you’re....fast as shit....wait...why are your wings out?!”
“Wait, Your Highness?” asked Grian.
“Did you find him?!” called out yet another voice, this a woman with curly brown and white hair and her own horns sticking out from her hair, followed by another woman with dirty blonde hair. They looked almost just as young as the two men in front of them. All of the newcomers were wearing much nicer clothing than the blonde with the same navy-blue slacks and a white shirt but now with lighter blue coat jackets buttoned up with a white stash across the chest.
“Yup” grumbled the brown-haired boy.
“What the heck is happening...” whispered Grian.
“Oh, right! As I was trying to get to, my name is Philza Alexander Soot and I’m the Crown Prince of the Antarctic Empire” smiled Philza, “But you can just call me Phil”
“Just blurt out who you are to every stranger, I’m sure that’ll go over well...” grumbled the other boy.
“The grumpy pants over there is my br....advisor, JSchlatt Eleutherios” explained Phil.
“More like babysitter” corrected Schlatt with a scowl. Phil just shrugged and then pointed to the two women, “And these are my...um...guards, Puffy Eleutherios is the one with curls while Niki is the one with blonde hair”
The two women nodded their heads at the group then Puffy spoke, “Your Highness, we really must get you back to the palace”
The group stared at the group with a mixture of shock and awe until Kristan finally broke the silence, “I’m sorry...but you’re royalty?”
“Yes? I guess you haven’t met much royalty” laughed Phil in a good-natured way.
“It’s not exactly a common occurrence” said Grian.
“And it should remain that way” said Schlatt with narrowed eyes, “Come on, you’ve bothered them enough”
“But these are the first people I’ve gotten a chance to talk to! It’s boring just talking to you...no offense...but this could be an opportunity to form an actual relationship with my people!” exclaimed Phil. “Isn’t that what Uncle says I should do?”
“Your Uncle also says that you should stay inside in the palace, plus you’re the Crown Prince you can’t just run around like this! It’s dangerous!” argued Schlatt.
“Uncle lets you and Puffy outside the palace, excuse me for wanting the same” grumbled Phil with his arms crossed.
Schaltt opened his mouth to say something until Puffy put a hand on his shoulder and slowly shook her head. Grian leaned over to Mumbo, “Why do I feel like I’m watching two siblings squabble?”
“This does feel very awkward to be watching” agreed Mumbo.
Schlatt looked over at the group with a scowl that seemed to be permanently etched into his features, “Where are you even from?”
“Oh, you know just one of the local villages” answered Scar.
“Really? Which one? The ones on the coast? Or more near the mountains?” asked Schlatt clearly not believing them.
Scar struggled to come up with an answer until Kristan spoke up, “We’re not from around here, we’re not really from anywhere”
“Kristain! What are you doing?!” harshly whispered Grian.
“Being honest!” responded Kristian, “Do you really expect them to believe that we’re from the area?”
“They could’ve” grumbled Scar.
Kristian raised an eyebrow while Scar just scratched his cheek sheepishly.
“Thank you” said Phil taking a step forward his cheeks dusted with red embarrassment, “For being honest that is...I-I think it’s cool that you guys travel around...but I already said that, didn’t I?
Kristian laughed a bit, “You’re welcome, and thank you for the kind words”
“Alright, you’ve said your words to your new friends or whatever. But now we have to go or your Uncle will have my head” said Schlatt.
“Fine...” mumbled Phil, “Umm, the capital isn’t too far from here if you take the road up to that really tall mountain you’ll see it. Maybe...maybe I’ll see you around again?”
“Maybe” answered Kristian ignoring Schlatt’s hushed, “Hopefully not”
Phil elbowed his advisor in the ribs earning a sharp glare from the latter, however, the group of royals left the group the thieves to their own devices once again.
“What...what was that?” asked Mumbo still in disbelief.
“An opportunity” said Grian.
“What do you mean?” asked Scar.
“Think about it, no one was ever seen a royal member of the Empire much less stolen from them. We could become famous! Then maybe we could get even more jobs and never have to spend a day in a shitty tavern again!” smiled Grian a mischievous glint in his eyes.
“Hold on, when did we say that we were going to steal from them?” asked Pearl.
“Just now” answered Grian, “Come on, I know you want to”
“I dunno, I heard the justice system is pretty brutal over here. Plus, if we get caught then there’s nowhere to hide as the Hermit Kingdom has super close relations with the Empire and would turn us over the second, they saw us. Nor can we go back to the SMP since King Eret’s probably got a major bounty on our heads” added Kristian.
“Then we just won’t get caught” said Grian.
“But how would we even steal from them?” asked Scar.
“With our new friend's help” answered Grian, “If we can get close to him then maybe we can convince him to give us some details about the palace. He seemed pretty eager to talk us”
“More like he was eager to talk to Kristian” chuckled Pearl.
The raven-haired woman blushed deeply as she sputtered, “W-What’s that supposed to mean?!”
The group laughed as they continued to talk about their plan and made their way down the dirt road towards the snow-capped mountain that Phil had pointed to. It didn’t take them long to reach the top with the sun just beginning to go under the tree line painting the sky in orange and blues. Once they reached the top, they realized that the entire inside of the mountain looked like it had been scooped out by the gods themselves allowing the city of Olympus to be built inside it, the cobblestone streets and buildings looked to be permentaly encased in ice and snow as long icicles hung off the edges of roofs and bridges and snow covering the tiled houses and taverns. The imposing white-colored castle towered over the rest of the city sitting on a small hill on the farthest side of the mountain.
“Woah...” gasped Grian, “This is gorgeous”
“Yeah...” agreed the rest of the group.
Thus, we entered the belly of the beast. Not what you were expecting as the first meeting between your father and me, huh? Those were certainly strange times.
We spent many weeks there before we saw your father again, mostly just scoping the city out trying to find escape routes and such. Not that it would do us any good in the end, I remember one of the conversations that meand Mumbo had before we saw Phil again. I apologize if it feels like I’m jumping around, but...I want you to understand why I made certain decisions or at least try to understand.
Grian was sipping on some steaming coffee as he sat at the table littered with maps of the city, official and unofficial, studying every alley and street. He barely noticed Mumbo walking in and sitting across from him, yawning a bit as he did so.
“I paid the weekly dues to the tavern owner, he still seems a bit disgruntled that we’ve been staying here for so long” said Mumbo breaking the silence.
“Dunno why he is, we’re giving him a good amount of money and even a few jewels” grumbled Grian. Mumbo just shrugged his shoulders and asked, “Where is everyone?”
“Scouting, I think. You know them they tend to get off track pretty quickly” laughed Grian, while Mumbo put on a grim smile.
“What’s wrong?” asked the former.
“Do you really think this is a good idea?”
“What? Breaking into the palace? I mean it’s probably not the best idea but when has that ever stopped us?”
“I know...I just...this feels a lot more intense. I mean no one knows anything about the Empire, much less us. I just feel like we’re going into this really underprepared”
“That’s why we’re going to get close to Phil and gather more information” responded Grian.
“Do you really think we can trust him?” asked Mumbo.
“I don’t know, he seems a bit naïve, and getting him away from his advisor and guards might be a bit tricky. Plus there is the implication that he doesn’t get out of the palace very much”
“Which kinds makes our plan pretty hard, huh?”
“Which is why we’re scouting so much so we can find hidden routes into the palace so we can just sneak in there!”
“I suppose, I just...I just a bad feeling about all this and you know I don’t like manipulating people even if they are native and corrupt aristocrats”
“I know, but you don’t want to be a traveling thief forever, right?”
“No”
“Then just trust me on this one, I really feel like this can be our last big risky job”
“I guess”
“Remember what I said to you? In the orphanage?”
Mumbo nodded, “You said that you’d get us out of that hellhole and that we would travel the world doing whatever we wanted with all the money we could get”
“And I’ve been true to my word, haven’t I? Beside the money stuff”
“Yeah”
“And with this job, we can finally get that money that we need to be able to do what we want. You don’t want to keep making machines with just scraps right?”
“It would be nice to get my hands on some cooler stuff and better materials”
“Exactly, so just trust me on this one, okay?” smiled Grian.
“Okay, I trust you. I’m sure we can pull this off” said Mumbo.
“I swear that I would never mislead you or put us in a dangerous situation that we couldn't get out of, and that goes for our friends as well. I have a really good feeling about this, it can only go uphill from here” said Grian with a wide grin.