Author's Note

Another chapter about Brutus' flashback. I took a very big fatigue in doing so. And guess what? Is still about him during his time in the Undead Knight's word. Hopefully this is the penultimate one before going to the pony part.

Also, be patient about the unusual, bizarre pacing of the start of this chapter. Is justified, so let me tell you why. The first fifteen paragraphs of the chapter are a pseudo-recap of what happened in the Undead Knights PSP game, with the exception of Walken being there.

I hope you enjoy this. Also if you find some difficulty to read, you can send a feedback to me. If you want to comment, you are welcome

Justified Betrayal (GRAMMAR FIXED)

After his encounter with Johanna and Kardus, Walken leaved Tombstone Hill and followed the Undead Knights, being none other than Romulus, Remus and Sylvia. Resurrected by their bargain with the Beast, they marched toward Grosstin Castle, armed with the power that their benefactor bestowed to them and their ever growing own legion of zombies. Their vengeance their only motivation, but unbeknownst to them it was also part of the plan of the Beast to kill Fatima.

But Walken didn't cared about his supposed master's schemes. He merely followed them in order to stay in the act, searching for clues regarding this medieval world and the Beast, waiting for the opportunity to put his own agenda to motion.

The Undead Knights' vengeance started at Fort Alessa, a fortress in the borderland, where many had fallen in the past. Beyond that frontier, there was Grosstin Castle, presided by Duke Gloucester: a former war hero, who had become a corrupt glutton. He had assisted Queen Fatima and King Gladys in the massacre of the House of Blood. The fear caused by the rumors of the ghosts of the Bloods returning from the dead was instantly spread as the lookouts spotted them and screamed in horror.

"It's Hell! Hell itself has come!"

In their way, stood a visibly intimidated army of soldiers, this time backed up by well trained knights and huge, misshapen executioners. But that wasn't enough to halt their invasion as the bloody fury of the Undead Knights and the hordes of their voracious minions butchered their efforts and their bodies. The valiant soldiers ended up being killed in a horrible way or worse, being turned into a zombie and condemned to follow their cause.

Walken followed the events from the shadows as the Romulus, Remus, Sylvia and their undead forces managed to penetrate the castle and advanced toward the court. They were met by Duke Gloucester who called forth a Bug Bear, a twisted, bestial monstrosity that wiped out dozens of zombies in its way. Unfortunately for the duke, the beast was eventually defeated and turned into a feast for the remaining zombies in front of his eyes. Terrorized, Gloucester tried to escape, only for Romulus to decapitate him with his huge, demonic sword. With his death, the Gloucester Duchy was fallen.

The day after that, Walken followed the Bloods in the Realm of the Knights. They had arrived in Wall Citadel, where they were fought by the Knights of the Holy Trees, leaded by Gerald, a former friend of their who had betrayed them as well. On the road for Woodedge Castle, the three champions of the Beast seized the citadel and massacred the Holy Knights and their three Elite Commanders, being Skarsgard, Bloody Haggarty, and Francesca, Gerald's daughter.

They eventually reached Gerald, who was visibly shaken for both his treachery toward the three and Francesca's demise. Being unable to reason with them, he resorted to the Fruit of the Holy Tree, a red fruit with orange veins resembling a heart that exuded the same power as the beast. Gerald's act resulted him to turn himself into a pale white, hulking abomination named Nephilim. He was indeed stronger, but the three undeads demonstrated to have become powerful enough to overwhelm him. However, that was a very chilling victory for them.

"What have you done to yourself?" Romulus asked.

"To think that you would had fallen from grace in a horrible way like this." Sylvia commented disgusted.

"Now you've seen the true horror of Fatima," Gerald said with a weak half-human voice. "Behind her lies a power not of this world. I betrayed you, not because of any blind faith in the Queen... But because I was afraid... Afraid of the power she wields."

Before dying, Gerald revealed to them that, not only Fatima was their real enemy, but that she possessed a tremendous power that doesn't belong in that world and that her vanguard was coming for them. True to his words, the Bloods were then met by hordes of marked zombies similar to their own, with their chests having gruesome blue scars instead of the red ones. These ones proven to be more stronger than their own zombies; strong enough to rip their ranks apart. Romulus and the other two were forced to retreat. They managed escaped but ended up losing most of their own zombies.

Once out of the castle, Romulus, Remus, Sylvia and their now diminished undead army continued their march in the Land of Dracoon, a mysterious and violent realm, which past and forbidden lore were shrouded in the mystery. Such territory was ruled by Lord Folis and the Order of Ouroborous, a cult compose by half-reptilian knights who claimed to have received powers from Folis himself.

They arrived in Wilhelm Citadel, were the knights of the cult were waiting for them. The Undead Knights wiped out every opposition that the leaders of Dracoon's forces were throwing at them and gathered new fresh zombies under to add in their hordes. The three undeads stormed inside Rondegarde Castle, certain to find the truth behind Fatima's power and the Marriage of Blood.

And was in that castle that Walken will put his plan into motion.

In the middle of the chaos that was tearing the land of Dracoon apart, Walken wandered undisturbed in the halls of the castle. He saw the Undead Knights cutting their way toward Lord Folis' court room. However, he wasn't interested to see the incoming fall of the lord and took a different path, headed to the western halls of the castle. Guided by a hunch, Walken proceeded through the hallways in search for something. And he know what it is.

"According to what I heard from Johanna, the former inhabitants of Dracoon had a deep knowledge of the Void but weren't so fond of the Beast, nor even Lord Folis' ideas. They had built a secret archive that was then sealed inside the walls of the castle. The problem now is... What walls?"

After a handful of minutes, Walken stepped into an apparently long corridor. There are multiple doors on the sides of the corridor and a doorway at the very end of it. Walking forward, he inspected every room, but couldn't find anything relevant to his search. Then, as if he was being called by something, Walken looked at the wall at his left. He felt some arcane aura flowing from inside it. He approached the wall and put his hand on it. The feeling was getting stronger as he got closer to it.

"I think I had found you." Walken said.

Walken took a moment to gather his own focus and smashed through the wall with his own incremented strength. Ignoring the falling bricks and debris, he shrugged off the dust and looked around. He became instantly impressed by the room in which he was in, being a huge library sorely composed by granite bookshelves and a table at the very end of it. As he walked toward it, he felt the aura getting stronger as he got closer to it.

Examining the table, Walken found a oddly iron covered tome on it with a bloody bookmark on it and a expired bottle of ink with a withered feather inside. But the energy didn't came from the book, but rather in the wall in front of him. Due to not knowing the nature of the aura, he abstained from destroying it. He glanced at the tome and opened it, getting to the bookmarked page. Walken was struck by surprise upon see what the page was all about.

"Are you serious?"

The page described the aforementioned a object it while the next one depicted the image of a deformed crystal with some mineral-like veins on it.

There was, once upon a eternity, there was Scourge of Emptiness. It has the power to weaken every demonic entity from the Void. We had tested that when were attacked by a human who made use of the Fruit of the Void and turned into a monster. The result was may be what we had hoped for. If is used correctly, maybe we have a possibility against the Beast.

At the gates of incoming, orchestrated tragedy, we had found the legacy and the blood of ancient, nameless entities who had valiantly opposed the Beast. They failed in their quest, and yet their powers almost managed to diminish him. We found their bodies, still exuding their own lingering residue of their powers and fused them with the holy artifacts of our families to create this thing. Our world suffered the machinations of the Beast for a long time ago.

Unfortunately, we had run out of time. The Order of Ouroborous and Lord Folis are not interested in our crusade. But to be more accurate, he didn't know nothing about us or this artifact. He doesn't even know what to do with it. The only things that I know for sure is that Folis seemed to had fell in love with the Void's powers and has no intention to it. I had hidden this weapon and this very library from his twisted eyes. I hope that someone worth enough of this item will take our task.

"Whoever wrote this must have huge guts to create a kryptonite like this," Walken said impressed and looked at the wall in front of him. "Can that be-"

Walken interrupted his phrase upon perceiving something from behind him and instinctively ducked. Something whizzed above him and stabbed the left side of the wall. Startled, he slowly rose up, keeping his eyes on the object, being bone pruning scythe. Before he can even do anything, a coarse, metallic voice roared in rage from behind him.

"YOU TRAITOR!!"

The brunette boy quickly turned his head toward the source of the scream,found Dagon, being in his creepy, demonic form. The demon didn't express any emotion due to his head being a plague doctor mask, but Walken can feel his demonic energy going almost out of control showing his anger. He, however, wasn't so startled to see him. Walken expected that to come.

"I guess you are not here for a mentor talk." Walken said with annoyance.

"Is this your way to show gratitude to our master, Brutus?" Dagon asked inquisitively.

"Personally, I don't own nothing to someone who was going to screw me over in the future." Walken retorted.

"Insolent fiend, " Dagon replied with calm fury. "No wonder you had suddenly disappeared from our watch. This disgusting power ,that is permeating this room , is hiding it's presence and your own from our masters' eyes."

Walken went wide-eyed upon hearing that. The book mentioned the Scourge of Emptiness being a bane for the Beast but he didn't actually thought that it's influence allowed it to hide its existence and anyone in its radius from the Beast for this whole time. Walken found a very sinister delight upon seeing the vantage behind this object.

"Judging by what he said, this thing can also hide the existence of the bearer from the eyes of the being that comes from the Void."

"So it was really that dangerous for him," Walken said as he materialized his long cleaver in his hand. "I guess that gives you a reason to take me down."

"That's right," Dagon replied impassively. "Contrary to the Bloods who were keeping their pact with our master intact for the sake of vengeance, you are a oath breaker who was just acting exactly like Fatima would."

"Don't even lump me with that abusive megalomaniac."

"Enough with your sarcasm. Time to harvest you soul, Brutus!"

To reinforce his proclamation, a grim, gray aura engulfed both his nine digits claws, a few moments before dissipating as a pale white bone scythe, which blade was a mixture of fangs, tusks and claws.

Without any warning, Dagon hovered above the floor and furiously flew toward the brunette boy. Once he got close to him, the demon swung his scythe to decapitated him. Walken instantly moved away from him with a startling speed, dodging the blow and reappearing behind him. Walken attacked Dagon from behind him, only for the latter to block his attack.

Walken jumped backwards, distancing himself away from Dagon, who swung his scythe in his direction, causing some of the fangs, tusks and claws that were composing the scythe to whizzing toward the boy. Walken grinned as he landed on the floor and quickly raised his hand toward the bone rain and opened a portal in front of him. The pointy projectiles were sucked inside and redirected against him from behind, stabbing him multiple time, but Dagon didn't flinched at all. Walken became a little nervous, although he didn't expected that to work anyway.

"Pain means nothing to me," Dagon said irritated. "If that supposed to infuriate me even further, you had succeed!"

"Does that even matter?" Walken asked arrogantly.

"You better don't tempt my anger any further!" Dagon shouted as he rushed furiously toward him, already going to slash him with a horizontal swing.

Walken jumped toward him at a very high height, avoiding the attack and virtually flying above him. He was about to land behind the demon when suddenly a burst of black energy struck from behind him, and sent him flying toward the wall above the stone table. Walken yelled in pain, a moment before he was slammed against the wall. He collapsed to the floor, with his cleaver falling from his hand. The wall cracked for a bit.

The boy found himself convulsing and moaning for the pain. He felt weakened by the blow that he felt on his back. That made him notice in confusion this detail. His black armor protected him from the impact against the wall, yet it didn't had protected him by being hit by that burst.

"Only in moments like this you regain your own reason, Brutus." Dagon said crudely as he approached Walken. "That dark blast has the capability to get through your armor and served to weakening you for handful of seconds... Which are enough for me to finish you."

"What the... Hell was that?" Walken asked in confusion with a weak tone as he forcefully lifted his head toward Dagon.

He became shocked upon seeing him being accompanied by six shadows resembling Dagon and the weapon he was wielding. One of them has his own scythe being previously charged with a black aura, that dissolved afterwards. Dagon and his shadow duplicates made a chilling chorus of metallic laughter, which almost resembled the shrill sound of the nails grating a chuckle board

The boy assumed a almost terrified face, as the auditive torture that predicted his demise wasn't enough. He was scared, until the memories of his death flashed in front of his eyes. With that, his fears were melted away, replaced by anger. He refused to die another horrible death like the previous one.

"I am seriously going to die again, aren't I?" Walken asked irritated.

"You arrogant fool," Dagon said as he and his shadow duplicates raised his scythes and charged them with a ominous red aura. "You should know when you had to remain silent as judgement was about to fall upon you!"

Walken smirked has he charged his hand with a violet energy and materialized a warp in front of it. "Who the fuck said that I will die again?"

Walken shot a projectile of dark-violet energy on the warp in the same moment Dagon and his clones swung their blood colored scythes toward him, being about slice him into pieces.

But before the coup the grace was delivered, the world around Walken became too bright as a marine-blue light exploded from the wall, illuminating the room. He shut his own eyes to protect his sight. Then, Dagon and his duplicates let out brief chilling screams of pain. For Walken, it was more unbearable than his laughs. He was about to tap his ears when the voices started to disappear, one by one until only that of the original Dagon remains.

Feeling the weakening caused by the dark blast wearing off, Walken slowly opened his eyes. He became surprised to see Dagon being alone and partially illuminated by the marine-blue lights coming from the wall. The shadows had disappeared and the demon looked seemingly weakened and distressed, alone without his clones and kneeling while barely trying to keep get up.

"You weren't expecting to redirect my bullet on the wall and not against you, huh?" Walken asked mockingly.

Walken grabbed his cleaver and rose up. He then approached the weakened Dagon, not bothering to check up the source of the light. He had to deal with that demon first. However, Walken was sure of one thing. Whatever was irradiating this overwhelming was the thing he was looking for. That made him notice that it was weakening Dagon, being a herald of the beast, but not him.

"How.. How could you... Not being affected by that light!?" Dagon questioned bewildered. "You were-"

Walken didn't respond. He gave him a cold stare at the demon, who seemed to had realized something.

"Yet... I had suspected that your power wasn't akin with our master," Dagon said. "But I never thought that possibility may be really founded... The powers that had bestowed to you wasn't that of your master!"

"You had realized that just now?" Walken said with a crude smile.

"That doesn't make any sense!" Dagon shouted in denial. "How is that possible!? HOW!!?"

"Who knows?" Walken paused. "Oh, by the way. Is not like I had even liked your boss to begin with. I just keep stuck with a rule from demonology one on one: Never trust a devil."

After that, Walken dashed toward Dagon and immediately split him in two pieces with his cleaver, not giving him the opportunity to recover and killing him for real. The two body parts were slowly blackened and were turned into dust. The brunette boy turned toward the wall to see the source of that light, which has now died off after a few seconds.

The source was a marine-blue deformed crystal with some azure mineral-like pulsing veins on it, being hidden behind that wall. no doubt about that. It was indeed the Scourge of the Emptiness that he was looking for. Seeing the object in live was a strange experience for him. Without even wasting any more time, he took the still irradiating crystal and looked around for something that he can use to hide it and carry it with him. To his luck, Walken spotted a big sack on one of the stone bookshelves. He emptied the sack of it's content, being just superfluous jewelry and put the crystal inside of it.

Walken walked out of the room and headed toward the doorway where he came from. What remained to do for him was waiting for the opportunity to strike. He saw in first person what the Beast was capable of but he has not cower in fear of him and take it.

During the time he had observed the Undead Knight's action at both Gloucester Duchy and the Realm of the Knights, they questioned about their own humanity and the link in between Queen Fatima and their powers, only for the Beast to mislead them from that reasoning and motivated them to focus on their vengeance, manipulating them from the scenes.

For Walken, that was another reason to turn his back on him. Knowing that the Beast would never grant his wish to have a new tranquil life, he would had took it in his own way.

"You are not the only chess master around."

Having found what he was looking for, Walken backtracked toward entrance of the castle with the intention to leave. As he stepped in the main hall, he was met by Johanna, who was tranquilly looking around despite the corpses filling the place and the chaos that had occurred in that moment. The blond pale girl noticed him and was slightly surprised to see him, not expecting him to be there.

"I can't believe. You had actually bothered to search for that mythical artifact?" Johanna asked calmly and yet visibly incredulous.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Walken demanded.

"Don't get me wrong. Dracoon was the last place I ever wanted to be." Johanna replied bluntly. "I was just looking for a place to hide from my mother's forces... You also told that Romulus, Remus and Sylvia returned as the undead champions of the Beast."

"You weren't expecting them and they army of zombies to invade this very land, right?" Walken asked.

"And turning their enemies into their voracious, undead slaves?" Johanna added and then shook her head. "No..."

"What do you think about them? They wanted-"

"I know what you are going with that reasoning and let me be honest with you," Johanna interrupted him. "I hate my mother as much as the Bloods do but... I... I completely refuse to dignify this kind of vengeance... Is too inhuman..."

"Were his that guy... Kardus?"

"He was killed by the Jester."

Upon hearing that, Walken couldn't help but raise a eyebrow while looking at her with perplexity.

"Jester?" Walken demanded confused.

"King Gladys' Jester and Queen Fatima's brother," Johanna said bluntly. "He was also victim of her experiment. But contrary to me, he didn't seemed to mind that. Oh no, instead he became grateful to her to the point to support the travesty that is my mother's ambition to control both this world and the Void."

"Whoa." Walken replied, disturbed by her words. "That was... A really awkward implication."

"Speaking of awkward, I saw a creepy bone demon who was looking for you," Johanna affirmed. "Was that your partner?"

"That guy is dead." Walken responded crudely before. "All thanks to the Scourge of Emptiness."

Johanna went-eyed in disbelieve upon hearing that. "I don't bel-"

That conversation was abruptly interrupted as Lord Folis' scream echoed through every room of the castle. Johanna was startled by that while Walken remained almost calm.

"Look, I had to check the courtroom of the fallen idiot of this realm," Walken said as he turned toward the doorway at the end of the hall.

"I though you don't like working for the Beast," Johanna pointed out. "Why looking for the Bloods anyway?"

"I wanted to confirm my supposed savior's intentions." Walken replied as he walked toward the entrance to the next room.

Ignoring the corpses and any other gruesome details that had been scattered in the wake of the Undead Knights' carnage, he navigated the bloodstained halls of the castle. It took him several minutes of wandering in between following their own trails and avoiding some death trap, but he then managed to arrive nearby the courtroom.

Walken hidden himself from behind the doorway and observed the scene, involving Romulus, Remus and Sylvia and a pale blue, plump creature, being dressed as a jester, who fled by jumping out of the window.

"So that bastard is the Jester that Johanna talked about."

Walken turned his head toward the Romulus, who seemed both crestfallen and frustrated. He was curious to know what put the currently demonic creature into that state until he had realized the obvious. The same thing in which Dagon was responsible for, in which Romulus didn't know the truth yet.

"I know where this scene is going," Walken commented quietly.

Romulus looked at both at Remus and Sylvia, who looked at him with a very dismayed visage.

"Sylvia... It's true. At the Marriage of Blood... I killed you," Romulus admitted with a bit of guilt before looking away from her.

"But... Why?" Sylvia replied angrily.

"There, in the chaos," Romulus explained. "I searched for the two of you. But when I finally found you..." He paused for the hesitation. "It's too horrible for words. The soldiers, they had you Sylvia... They were..." He let out a sigh of rage toward himself. "With the last of my strength, I hacked them all to pieces. But in my exhaustion and rage, my final blow went wild, and cut you down."

"Then... Why bring us back?" Remus inquired. "For revenge? Or out of guilt?"

"I expect justice from those who wronged you." Romulus responded, not expecting forgiveness from them. "All those who wronged you... Deserve death."

Remus shook his head as he had already grasped the implication behind his brother's words.

"...Are you asking us to kill you?" Remus demanded incredulous. "After all of this...? The slaughter? Everything?! Besides, you looked in a mirror lately? You're already dead!"

Romulus looked down and remained silent. He remained immobile, internally cursing himself for his own selfishness. Sylvia, like Remus, was upset from what she had discovered, but understood what he was feeling in that moment. She approached the armored demon and put her hand on his arm. Remus was confused by that.

"It wasn't your actions that led us here now, Romulus," Sylvia assured. "It was fate. And now it's the fate of the kingdom that hangs in the balance. This is just our personal vengeance anymore."

In that moment, they had regained that bit of humanity that they had lost during their rebirth and the slaughter that they had committed. They know what they had done and decided to think about that once their mission was over. But that moment was short lived as the Beast's voice talked inside their minds.

"My children," The Beast's voice said. "Why do you wallow in the past... Forget your human troubles, and seek your revenge.. Your salvation..."

Having heard what the devil said to them, Walken walked away from the scene with a fed-up expression. The Beast's words managed to keep the three in partial control. But the boy never bought any of them to begin with.

Once out of Rondengarde Castle, Walken pointed his hand forward and opened a portal in front of him. He started to feel a little bit of fear for what he was about to face, until a thought reminded that of a grim certainty. There's not turning back.

"Speak for yourself, son of bitch. When I will be face to face with you, you won't have even the time to pull the trick on me."

Without any hesitation, he stepped into the portal and disappeared into the darkness, one second before the portal shrunk and disappeared as well.