Dante turned back to Candace. He didn't want to worry her, but he couldn't lie to her either.
"We're having a little bit of trouble contacting Slate at the moment. It could be that he is simply cloaking himself to do a stealthy move and can't answer us right now."
He rubbed his brows, hoping she would accept that lame explanation.
Candace nodded, seeming to accept what he said at face value. If only she knew that even with a cloaking maneuver, Slate should have still been able to respond to Dante, she would not be sitting there so calmly.
"I need to contact my brothers. Stay here and wait for me."
At her nod, he moved quickly away from Candace, into another part of the palace.
"Hey, Byron." He reached out with a quick urgency.
Byron's face appeared in front of him. This time, Byron was dressed in royal robes and wearing his crown.
"I'm just about ready to start court session. Has something happened to Candace?"
"Not Candace. I can't get in touch with Slate. He's not responding on any frequencies. My men are trying to track him from his last known position but it's almost as if he's completely disappeared."
"Give me a minute to dismiss court." Byron waved a hand and his visual disappeared.
A minute later, Byron, Lucas, Leonardo, Jason, and Jared were all on visuals with Dante.
"Byron told us you can't get in touch with Slate." Leonardo quipped. "When did he leave your Moon?"
"Roughly ten hours ago. I saw him off and then I went to sleep. I only tried to contact him a few minutes ago, after breakfast." Dante pulled a hand through his spiky blue hair.
"Have you tried contacting his military Generals?" Byron asked.
"My men are in direct communication with his men. I'm still waiting on word from them."
"Can we send a small fleet to go find out what happened in that area of space?" Byron asked.
Dante nodded.
"I will send a half dozen first class warships there as soon as my men come back with some solid intel."
"You have, what…one-fourth the armed militia that Erenveil has?" Byron estimated.
Dante shook his head.
"My entire private military is roughly equivalent to 58% of Erenveil's military forces."
"You call 58% 'roughly equivalent'?" Leonardo laughed. "What would be considered exact percentages?"
Dante narrowed his gaze as he did a quick mental calculation.
"Exact percentages would be 58.395%, Leo."
"That's approaching a sizable number of military, Dante. If we didn't know you well, we'd think you were trying to overthrow the current regime." Lucas laughed.
"I am only interested in making as much money as possible. I don't care about running a government." Dante responded.
Lucas nodded. They all knew exactly where Dante stood. He was above board and beyond reproach, the kind of businessman whose word was absolute gold.
"Does it take that much militia to run your businesses?" Leonardo's eyes widened.
"I have to do a lot of intergalactic business," Dante sniffed with disdain. "All my business dealings require protection from all sorts of threats."
He shot a disgusted look.
"Between space pirates, greedy corrupt governments trying to steal my products and profits, and gangs that extort 'protection money' from my various businesses and enterprises, if I didn't have highly armed private troops watching over everything, I would have been robbed blind."
The brothers were still talking when one of Dante's men rushed towards him.
Dante turned to the man.
"Speak."
"Your Royal Highness. We found a dozen warships surrounding the area where the Seventh Prince was right before he disappeared from sensors."
"From what world?"
"Your Highness, the warships are from Emporia."
All six Princes gasped.
"Helene Cordera's world." Byron breathed. "What gripe do they have with Slate?"
"Your Highness, they have a message to the Royal Crown of Erenveil."
"Read the message." Dante commanded.
"Yes, Your Highness." The man waved a finger to access his documents and read with fluent elegance.
"To the Royal Crown of Erenveil. You are hereby given notice that you have twenty-four unit hours to hand over the Avgo female Candace Farrah."
A collective gasp came from all the Princes, as the guard continued to read.
"She is to be extradited to the Moons of Emporia and charged with assault on the body of the Princess of Emporia, Helene Cordera."
"You've got to be shitting me!" Jason snarled. "Everybody and their grandmother saw that fish woman throw a knife at Candi and nearly killing her! That was self-defense!"
"Yes. Thanks to that onerous Lorem Ipsum goat who documented everything, including his eyewitness accounts." Jared added.
Dante and Byron bristled with rage, visibly turning red and then pale as a sheet.
"There's more, Your Highness." The guard cleared his throat.
"Continue." Dante said in his usual brisk manner.
"If the female Candace Farrah is not surrendered into the hands of the Emporium military within the timeframe given, after twenty-four hours, the Seventh Prince, Slate of Erenveil, will lose one finger for each hour that Candace Farrah is not turned over to the Emporium Kingdom."
All the Princes reacted with rage and horror as Dante threw a bolt of energy at a nearby tree, engulfing it in flames.
BOOM!!!
"Dante!" A high female voice screamed out. "Dante, are you alright?"
The five Princes on visuals could see, from a distance, Candace running over to Dante. Her small lithe form was graceful, even as she quickly sprinted to the Second Prince.
Dante took a deep jagged breath as he fought to quell the rage that burned with intensity inside his body.
How dare they threaten his Baby Brother with bodily injury! How dare they demand him to turn over his Soon-to-be Bride for extradition on their trumped up charges!
"Dante!" Candace yelled as she raced up towards him. Reaching out to him with outstretched arms, she searched his face and body for signs of physical injury.
"How close were you to that tree when it exploded? Are you burned anywhere? Are you hurt?" Her eyes were wide with fright.
Dante breathed heavily, trying to contain his emotions. Reaching out, he pulled her into his arms and crushed her within his body.
"I'm okay, Darling." He breathed into her hair. "We're all going to be okay. You will be just fine as well. We're not going to let anything happen to you or any of our family members. Right?" He turned to his brothers.
All were in agreement. They gave nods of affirmative as they too, struggled to contain their rage so as to not scare Candace.
"Absolutely." Byron nodded with a cold hard glint in his deep red eyes. "Dante. I'm going to go find Slate. Your job is to keep Candace safe. She is not to leave your moon for any reason."
"You don't even need to remind me." Dante heaved a sigh. "While I'm here protecting her, if you need my private militia, take command of them as well."
Byron nodded.
Dante's green eyes narrowed.
"Who do they think they're messing with? First Earth and now Emporia? If they want an all-out war, they are going to get all the fury that Erenveil can unleash on them!"
For a moment, there was silence.
"Ahem." Lucas cleared his throat. "Does that mean I don't have to do that...you know....that thing you guys asked me to do?"
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