Emperor and Dragon ( A Black Clover Fanfiction)

"When we go inside, I want you on your best behavior. Am I clear?" Lumiette reminded Galileo one last time as they were entering the Heart Kingdom's palace.

"Yes! I already memorized the rules, it'll be fine! Wait where is everyone else?"

"It's only going to be me and you, the others are exploring the kingdom. It's time you proved you know some diplomacy, so you'll be doing all the talking today. I'm only going to listen in."

"What!? I thought you loved me! Why put all the pressure on me?!"

"It's called accountability. You are the main reason we're here, so take care of your business. Besides, I clearly remember a certain someone not needing to be babysat at the strategy meeting."

"I remember…" Galileo sighed.

In the throne room, the young queen Lolopechka sat waiting for Galileo. In her queenly attire, a decadent multilayered white gown and overcoat she looked like an elegant doll. Her sleek, long jet-black hair was tucked away under a veil over which her crown sits. She held a golden staff with a moon shaped figurehead. There was a beauty mark below her lip.

Behind her loomed the water nature spirit, a visage of a woman with flowing hair and gown all made of water. They watched many scenes on magically projected screens that show them anything they wanted to see within the range of the Queen's mana zone, the entire Heart Kingdom. Passed down by the queens before her, she used her vast magic power and knowledge coupled with the magic of Undine to protect her kingdom all the way from her castle. An illusory veil of mist to keep away intruders, controlling the waters to water crops and serve as additional travel routes, or even to attack enemies and defend citizens in case of an emergency.

Currently her attention had been taken by Galileo and Lumiette just outside of the throne room. Even though she would only be meeting the two of them, they were very powerful people who she was warned to be wary of (mainly Galileo). As they were approaching the door Lumiette said something that elicited an irritated sigh from Galileo and a little blue fire slipped out with it. Surprising both spectators she beat him senseless! They couldn't hear through the screen but Galileo's cries off pain rang out from the hallway loud and clear. When Lumiette was done she healed him with a grey flame of her own and straightened his clothes out before she proceeded to open the doors. Stepping through the doorway was a completely different person, Lumiette's demeanor was instantly the brightest in the room. She smiled wide and greeted them both politely. They looked at each other and thought she could be the real scary one here.

"Galileo Vermillion and Lumiette Kira Clover welcome to Heart Kingdom. I thank you for coming all this way to meet with me." The queen started trying to dispel the awkward thoughts.

"The pleasure is ours, your kingdom is simply breathtaking" Lumiette responded.

"Y-yeah nice to meet you, your highness." Galileo added, choosing his words carefully. "…There are several important matters to discuss today."

"Yes, if it's all the same with you I'd like to start with the Heart/ Clover alliance you spoke of in your letter." The queen responded getting up from her seat to approach them. "I understand that several powers have entered the fray upsetting the bal-" Before she could finish her sentence she tripped on her own dress falling flat on her face. "Owwww"

"Bwa-" Galileo almost burst into laughter but quickly he covered his mouth when he noticed Lumiette glaring at him.

"Lolopechka are you alright?!" Undine picked the queen up of the floor and dusted her off.

It seemed like she wanted to cry but she sucked it up and fought back the tears "I-I'm fine, this dress makes it kind of hard to move around." In seconds she was back to normal and picking up where she left off "These new opponents of ours, have upset the balance of power between the four kingdoms. From the information I have some of our new enemies have allied themselves with the spade and diamond kingdoms."

"Correct. There are five names you should familiarize yourself with; Aizen and Gilgamesh took over in diamond, Meliodas a powerful demon allied with the devil users of spade, The seven Warlord's- they're a group, and Zeref the black mage." As Galileo said this he produced several files from his ring on the different enemies and gave them to the queen to look through.

"Oh my, these are some monstrous figures. This is much more information than any of our intelligence could gather…" Undine gasped reading over the queen's shoulder.

The queen herself was looking nervous as she read on silently. "(Immortals, experimental human weapons, a clan of demons? What is all this?)"

"As you can see they've been busy getting their hands dirty. These guys have major influence all across the continent, except for our two kingdoms."

"We can't let them do whatever they want" Lolopechka answered.

"If any of them have their way it could spell the end for both our kingdoms. A lotta people we know and love will suffer pretty gruesome fates…"

"That would indeed be most tragic, so what is your kingdom's proposal in response to this?" The queen continued.

"We want to join forces with you guys to hold back the others. It seems we're the only two who'd rather coexist than see everything destroyed. Also being that our kingdoms are neighbors with our backs to the sea, we'd both be able to rest easier limiting our enemy's vantage points against us. Neither kingdom will take autonomy over the other. We'll operate as usual but promote more business and cultural exchange between us to rapidly build up our firepower. I've drawn up several places where it would be good to put important facilities to assist our aiding one another." He hands over a map with locations marked throughout both kingdoms and the area in between.

"I like your plans but umm…" Lolopechka started.

"Your labeling is crude. It makes it hard to understand." Undine finished. She held the paper up so everyone could see and many of the locations were sloppily marked with names like 'Magnus shit', 'Beds n Booze', 'hotspot', and the most alarming was 'blow that up' in Heart territory. "What are you planning to blow up?"

Lumiette cringed hard reading the map. "Galileo, what is this?"

"(SHIT that's my copy!) My bad, wrong map." Galileo quickly snatched it and replaced it with a more professional looking version.

"Oh, this makes much more sense. Oh, you meant to blow up a warlord's hideout." Undine was more relieved to see that it had good reason to be blown up.

"You found a Warlord's hideout in Heart kingdom? How is this possible?" Lolopechka was surprised she never saw anything in relation to this.

"They tend to move around a lot and have many members secretly working for them, so their hideouts can pop up almost overnight."

"I'll have the spirit guardians deal with this immediately."

"Don't worry about it, call it a present of goodwill." Lumiette spoke up.

"(What do you mean Lumiette?)" Galileo was even unaware of what she was talking about.

"I took the liberty of having them dealt with before we arrived today." On one of the screens Lolopechka viewed the marked location and gasped in astonishment. The hideout was already bathed in dark flames, and the remnants could be seen trying to flee from a little monster. Leopold was quickly destroying them all at Lumiette's request. Unfortunately for him, it was a small sector so there weren't any bigshots to be beaten.

"Amazing! A child was really able to do all that by himself?"

"(Whoa nice! Your always on top of things!)" Galileo spoke to her telepathically via their rings, so it didn't seem like he just found out himself.

"(Thank you, my love.)"

"Bwahaha! You see? We from the Vermillion house, no the Clover kingdom are formidable allies to have! Just look at my younger brother's power! Us working together would make our citizens feel a lot safer. I've heard stories of Heart kingdom's powerful spirit guardians too."

"I agree…Clover has produced some incredible mages. (I can't believe Clover housed monster's like this…they may even be above tier zero mages...)" The queen was amazed watching Leopold in action. "I can tell by looking at him that isn't magic he's using in some of his attacks. Are these the otherworldly energies?"

"Precisely, Clover has spent the last few years doing deep research on them and we've raised numerous specialists up capable of fighting on par with seasoned mages, while bearing no magic power. We'd be happy to share that info. What do you say?"

"(If anything, he's learned to make a pitch. I wonder if he picked that up from Magnus…)" Lumiette thought.

"Well…" the queen stopped to think for a moment.

"Hold on there, Vermillion. While that sounds great, we have not heard the rest of your proposition yet." Undine answered "We would still like to know what the purpose of this star here is" pointing to a location on the map which wasn't very far from the capital marked with a G inside a star.

"That's where I want to build a guild hall."

"Guild hall?"

"You've heard of the adventurer's guild situated in clover?"

"Yes, it employs people of all status to take various jobs requested by civilians and nobles alike, right? I'm familiar with it, isn't it overrun by demons?"

Lolopechka's question startled Lumiette, how would Galileo answer? This could bring a major change to his earlier momentum. What if the Heart Kingdom won't affiliate with demons and monsters? The whole plan could be jeopardized right there. He has to answer carefully.

"Yup! I'm a demon! Well part demon…something like that, I forget how all that goes…Pretty sure I'm more dragon though."

"(He just said it…without a second thought.)"

"You're a demon? And a dragon? What's going on in Clover?!" Lolopechka was shocked.

"It would explain the inhuman auras coming from them." Undine said.

"Is all of clover's nobility demonic?" Now the queen's curiosity had been peaked.

"Nah mainly just my family. There are dragons, she's a phoenix, we got yokai and a whole mess of other stuff too! We try not to discriminate so everyone gets a fair chance. The world has changed a lot recently (I won't add the blame falls on Magnus and I), and a lot of new creatures are coming about. If they are trying to do right, who are we to judge them? They could be a potential friend."

"I actually share your sentiments, but how will my people deal with suddenly living with a swarm of monsters and demons? I can't accept that offer knowing the division it could cause in my kingdom. Clover's current political situation reflects this. However, the overall alliance doesn't sound like a bad plan."

"…" Galileo wore a frustrated expression and fell silent several moments. The women around him were starting to get uncomfortable. A demon dragon had to be a highly volatile creature. They felt like they were sitting next to a large dog even the owner was unsure if he would bite.

"(Say something Gali. You're making them nervous.)"

"…"

"Are you alright?"

"(…9,10)" Galileo took a deep breath "I understand where you're coming from."

"You do?" Lumiette was surprised to see him take such a big 'no' so calmly.

"I'll admit before I became one myself, I was a little wary of those kinds of creatures too. Still, like I said the guys in my guild do their best. They've shown me it's what's on the inside that counts. I can't help other people's misconceptions about them though. They shouldn't be discriminated against because of something like race."

"Sadly it's a harsh truth we have to live with." Undine replied. "The rumors of war perpetuated by monsters from the other regions doesn't help much either."

Lolopechka looked like she was thinking hard about it but ultimately, she had to agree with Undine. "If there was some way we could…" Something on a screen stole her attention as she fell quiet."

"If only there was some way we could what!? What were you saying?" Galileo was game for almost anything if it got him his second guild hall.

"What is that?" Turning their attention to where the queen was looking, they saw a group of people crawling out of the waters. At a closer look one could tell that they had the features of aquatic creatures; gills, fins, webbed feet, some had scaly skin and sharp teeth too. "Are those mermaids?"

"I've never seen mermaids like those" Undine replied.

"Those are fishmen…" Galileo answered. "They're pretty closely related to mermaids, but there's a difference. If you would say Mermaids are half and half, fishmen are like a blend of parts. The real question is what are they doing here? If anything, they'd be at the bottom of the sea. Have you seen merfolk around here before?"

"No this is definitely a first…I'd remember seeing creatures as odd as these. Are they peaceful?"

"They should be. From what I remember of their history they spent a great deal of time trying to gain equality with humans. Then again there were those opposed to coexisting too (Don't see any tats so I can't really tell their affiliations…I could believe they're with Jinbe, but what would he be up to in Heart?)"

"We should send someone to check on them."

"Look there's more of them!" Pointing to another screen Lumiette noticed a similar group emerging from the water. Soon droves of fishmen, some carrying weapons, were seen emerging all over the kingdom. When approached by a patrolling mage the fishmen attacked him on sight as with the other citizens.

Fighting broke out everywhere as Heart kingdom mages gathered to stop the amphibious intruders numbering a few hundred strong.

"Definitely not friendly… We'll help you take care of this Queen. Lumiette! Lets go!" Galileo grabbed Lumiette's hand and they vanished in a flash of purple.

"Gadjah gather the spirit guardians and help stop them!"

"At once your highness." He exited with a flickering of his own lightning.