Hello again! And thank you, dear readers and fellow writers, for taking a look at my second oneshot.

This one doesn't have a whole lot of action in it, but the idea's been stuck inside my head for some time now and I thought it was good writing practise.

I hope you enjoy it!

Oh, and I'm still poor; don't own Wakfu.

A Young King's Promise

„It is time for you to free Grougaloragran..."

Balthazar's voice echoed in Yugo's ears as he opened his eyes. He found himself in a very large room on top of a circular platform. The mild, blue glow of the portal Balthazar opened behind him just barely illuminated the walls. Stone steps lead around the platform to the floor.

This was where Qilby imprisioned the small black dragon. The Zinit. The vessel the Eliatrope people used to travel through the crosmos. Most people only knew the Zinit as a mountain. And only a hand full of humans knew of the fact that Eliatropes came from a different planet.

But back on topic: Yugo was currently inside said vessel/mountain in search of Grougaloragran. And so he slowly made his way down the stairs. While walking down in circles, our hero's mind began to wander.

He had just beaten Qilby, traitor to his poeple and sole reason for the Eliatropes to search for a new home planet. Qilby had lied to Yugo and Adamai after they accidentally freed him with the Eliacube and told them he was the Eliatrope king. (Which later turned out to be Yugo, not Qilby.)Then he sent Yugo on a search for his dofus, knowing that it was guarded by the dragon Phaeris the Powerful. After that he stole the Eliacube and hoping to kill two birds with one stone – literally – he invited Rushu and his Shushu army into the World of Twelve in order to get rid of Phaeris, who knew of Qilby's traitorous nature, and everybody else who would stand in the way of his plans. He even ambushed Adamai and Grougal here in the Zinit, imprisioned the younger dragon here and had given Adamai to Rushu and his general Anathar as a gift. But as Yugo met with Phaeris he found out the truth. And after a long and difficult battle against Qilby, which led the young Eliatrope to the dimension Emrub where all Eliatrope children were kept, Yugo finally confined the traitor back to his solitary prison in the blank dimension.

Yugo reached the bottom of the stairs and the events of the last few hours finally caught up to him. He didn't really have a lot of time to ponder the things he found out during the fight. But now...

He had imprisioned one of his own in a different dimension. Granted, that person was a traitor, but in Yugo's opinion nobody deserved such a punishment. Nobody should be locked up all alone in a completely white dimension for all eternity. But Qilby was just too dangerous. If death were to free him from the torture of remembering all of his past lives, Yugo would have put his morals aside – as difficultas that may seem - and killed Qilby. But killing him would have just returned his wakfu to his dofus and they would have had the whole problem all over again.

Yugo sat down on the steps. He needed to rest for a minute. Hundreds of thoughts were swirling around in his head.

I locked him up.

Tears started to form in his eyes.

Imprisioned him.

He tried to hold them back because he knew Balthazar was watching him.

For all eternity.

He was the Eliatrope king. His people counted on him. He couldn't appear weak to them!

Alone. For ever.

The tears spilled. Yugo couldn't help himself. He was only thirteen. He shouldn't have had to make such a difficult decision! He was only a child! And like anybody would have, he broke down crying. Everything just spilled out of him. He cried for himself, for what his friends had to go through, for what Adamai had to endure, for what happened to Grougal and he cried for what he had to do to Qilby. He couldn't help it, he pitied him.

But still, never forgetting your past lives and as a consequence simply becoming bored is not a reason to destroy countless lives.

Slowly Yugo's tears stopped. He looked down at himself. His shirt was completely torn, his pants tattered, his shoes long gone. His precious hat was ripped to shreds, it barely covered his head and only reached to his shoulders. His body was bruised and battered. Scraps and dirt made the markings on his torso barely visible.

Oh, how he longed for some rest now! A good night's sleep and some of Papa Alibert's stew! But he couldn't rest just yet. He had to free Grougal first.

With newfound determination Yugo got up and wiped off the tear tracks. He followed a long corridor out of the hall. Yugo opened a small portal in his palm, the gentle blue light illuminating the murals and pictures of dragons and Eliatropes lining the walls.

He had no idea where he was going, everything seemed so foreign to him. But at the same time he was overcome by a feeling of such nostalgia that he knew he was going the right way. It was really weird. He felt like he had spent millennia wandering these halls – which probably was true – but he remembered nothing.

After walking down the hallways for what seemed like hours, but was only a few minutes, he came to a crossing. He now had to choose between straight, left and right. He couldn't see where the left and right path led, but he could see the straight one leading to large double doors. He knew those doors. Yugo didn't know how he knew them, he just did. Intrigued he stepped closer towards the doors. They were completely made from a silvery white stone with intricate engravings depicting dragons and Eliatropes alike. Beautiful ornaments that looked like dragonic runes and portals lined the edges of the doors. Pictures of Eliatropes happilly running in and out of the room beyond flashed through his head. Those doors usually stood open. Seeing them closed made Yugo curious. He slowly reached out to the door. Just as he was about to touch it another picture flashed through his mind. He himself stood waiting in these doors.

These were the doors to the king's chambers, he realised. His chambers.

His hand was still hovering over the door, but he hesitated. Yugo started to doubt his decision to open the doors. He was equally scared and curious about what he would find on the other side. But...

No! He didn't have time for this! He had to find Grougaloragran.

He cast one more look at the doors and then turned away. He would have another chance to explore his chambers.

After taking the left corridor and following it deep into the Zinit, Yugo came to another set of large doors. But these were broken and only hung by their hinges. He instantly knew that this was Qilby's personal study. Adamai and Grougal must have done quite a number on it, he thought to himself. No way would they have gone down without a fight. Yugo took a deep breath and ventured into the darkness behind the broken entrance.

The blue of the portal in his hand immersed everything in a surreal light. And what Yugo saw in this surreal light terrified him. Sharred, broken and rotting corpses of strange animals lay all around him.

The room was very big, he could see that now. And from the ceiling hung orange glass cocoons. Row after row of cocoon hung there, so far to each side that Yugo couldn't see the end of them. Most of the weird containers were cracked or otherwise broken and leaking a yellow tinged fluid.

Yugo stepped over one of the many puddles on the floor. Some of the cocoons had fallen down and shattered and glass was littering the ground so Yugo had to watch his step.

And in every more or less intact container he saw a dead animal. On the ground to his sides lay even more bodies. But these were burned. The stench was aweful and Yugo had to cover his nose.

Slowly he made his way down the alley of broken glass and dead animals. Two legs, four legs, six legs, wings, claws, pinchers, fangs, fins, fur, scales, skin and even slime. Yugo saw so many different species, they couldn't all be from the same planet! In fact, they probably weren't. Qilby must have taken one or a few species from every planet they visited on their long journey through space.

Yugo felt his stomach drop. Qilby had hunted, captured and, from the looks of some of the scars the animals had, disected them before he put together his own macabre zoo.

All pity Yugo previously held for the man vanished. Some of these animals might even have been intelligent! And to think that Qilby did this over and over again!

A terrifying thought came to Yugo. Could this have been the fate of his friends if he hadn't beaten Qilby and locked him back up? He started shaking. He didn't put it past the man to capture Yugo's friends just for the heck of it.

And then something else hit Yugo: What about Grougal? What did that crazy lunatic do to his little dragon brother?

Yugo started to run. He didn't care if he stepped in glass shards. He had to find Grougal! The little dragon just had to be safe! He wouldn't be able to take it if Qilby had done the same thing to him like he did to all the countless animals around this room.

„Grougal!"

Yugo was panicking. He had to find him.

„Grougal!"

He kept yelling, louder and louder, hoping for an answer. He ran past broken beakers, rubble started to litter the floor and he saw a clearing up ahead.

„Grougal!"

He heard a pitiful yelp and then some thumping on glass. Grougaloragran, that was him! Yugo burst into the clearing, cracks and craters were all over the floor and it looked like this was where the two dragons and the crazy Eliatrope had wrecked the most havoc. And just in front of Yugo, inside a large metal machine, which looked similar to an insect's mouth, sat the little black dragon. He leaned against the glass bull's eye, screaming and growling and crying for Yugo.

The young Eliatrope ran forward and pounded against the glass trying to break it. But it wouldn't budge. „Don't worry Grougal, I'll get you out of there." Frantically he looked around the machine for something like an open- button or a lever of some sort, but there was nothing.

„Oh, whatever!", Yugo said stepping back and readying himself. „Stand back Grougal! I'm gonna bust you out of there!"

Grougal scurried back, away from the glass. Yugo opened a portal in front of him with his left hand, opened another with his right hand and merged them. A strong wakfu beam shot forward and hit the machine holding Grougal. With a resonating BOOM the bull's eye shattered and the small black dragon shot out of the smoke and into Yugo's open arms.

„Grougal! I'm so glad!", Yugo hugged the dragon. Relief flooded him. The normally proud and temperamental dragon seemed to be equally happy to see his big Eliatrope brother. Grougaloragran was openly crying and buried his head in Yugo's chest.

„It's okay. Everything's alright now." Soothingly he rubbed the dragon's back. „You don't have to worry. Qilby won't harm you anymore." Grougal gradually calmed down, only sobs racked the little body.

„You were very brave, Grougal. You're gonna be fine now. Let's get out of here."

Grougal nodded but he didn't let go of Yugo. He held on for dear life.

Yugo carried the dragon back to the big hall. He had never seen the little dragon so scared. And as he stepped in front of the portal, he promised himself something. He promised himself he would never let anything happen to Grougal, Chibi or any of his people ever again. He would protect them the best he could. Because that's what a king does. He protects his people, his family.

And with that thought in mind he looked down to the smiling dragon in his arms and stepped through the portal onto the beach of the Crimson Claws.