Princess Violence

[NOTTHISWAY]

Princess Viola de Lens is the royal family's black sheep, the magicless outcast in the house of the world's greatest magicians. As an outcast, she faces scorn and neglect... until one day, she just snaps, punches her honorable twin brother's lights out, and enrolls herself into the Knight Academy with the sole goal of attaining a noble title on her own merit so she can get out of her annoying family's shadow.

But the shadow of enemies unseen lurks all around her, and some more traditional elements might not look so kindly on such a radical princess...

 

[NOTTHISWAY]

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The Kingdom of Lens was a mostly peaceful one, with peace built on the back of its incredible military might and its strict meritocratic magical tradition, a tradition that had been born from the circumstances of the Kingdom's founding.

Two and a half centuries before the present times, a young boy named Lens was vanished from a now lost and forgotten noble family of the Empire of Armis, for he had been born with a weak and frail constituiton, unfit for his family's martial and military tradition, and even more unfit for the Imperial Doctrine of the time, prioritizing the mastery of the sword over all other things for nobility, and ruling through strength.

Escaping from the grasp and grip of his family, the then young and not yet Archmage, accompanied only by the sole ally he'd had in his father's house, the maid who had cared for him since he was but a child, established their lands in a barren and desolate desert, utilizing his great and powerful magic to control the elements to turn the land lush and fertile and set up the capital, eventually joined by his former bethroted and even joining hands with the displaced locals and refugees of the Empire's wars.

It is said that all the noble families of the Kingdom of Lens trace their line back to the Archmage, and each of them possesses a fragment of his magic, allowing control over the elements and the creation and maintenance of magical tools using the principles left behind by the Founder.

The direct line of Lens and his Bethroted, Queen Emanuelle, lives on, proud of their heritage and the incredibly powerful magic they wield, having inherited the bulk of the Archmage's power, and thus, having the ability and talent required to lead the Kingdom that Lens founded.

All of them...

Except one.

Me.

My name is Viola de Lens, I am a Princess of the Kingdom of Lens, and I alone am the sole child born of the royal family who does not wield the powerful magic inherited from the Archmage. I do not wield the elements, I cannot bring my imagination to life, I cannot manipulate or control magical artifacts and I certainly can neither heal nor use support spells to increase mine or another's abilities.

I cannot use magic, none whatsoever. In two hundred and sixty five years of the Kingdom of Lens' existence, I alone am the magic-less noble.

And it sucks.

It sucks so much that for the longest time, I wanted to be anybody else but me. I hated it. Every second of it. I was the disgrace of the royal family. My father, King Lens VII, refused to even acknowledge me as a member of the royal family, and my mother, well, she thought me worth less than the dirt I walked on.

As if to make matters worse, I didn't come alone. Call it a cosmic joke, but my brother, born twenty minutes after I was, was the Crown Prince Leon, a temporary name of course as he would assume the name of Lens when he was crowned King, and nobody doubted that he would, because he was the prodigy to end all prodigies.

Some even said he was the reincarnation of the Archmage, born two hundred and fifty years after the founding of the country to mark his return.

It clearly went to his head, and he never let me forget it.

I put the book I was reading, one of the few surviving copies of the Diary of the Archmage, down on the table. The royal library was attached to the Palace, but it was one of the few places in the country that was open to all, by order of the Archmage and by will of its caretaker, none were to be denied entry should they seek knowledge, be they king or pauper, affluent merchant or destitute beggar.

Sighing and letting the stress out, I pursed my lips and pushed my chair back. At fifteen years old, one was meant to receive their admission to the magical school that all nobles attended, the Royal Academy of Lens, the man not the country.

But that wasn't happening for me. There was nothing I could do. Even though the Archmage had gone out of his way to note down the dozens of ways in which he had trained and improved his magical powers, hadn't discovered a method to foster magical power in those who had none.

"What're you doing?"

I knew that voice. That was Leon, my brother.

I didn't like him, to say the least. He looked much like the founder Lens, having his straight dark hair cut short and slightly messy, dark eyes and a fair complexion. The Archmage's features being so strong in him contrasted with me, who had the golden blonde hair and emerald green eyes of the Imperial nobility, an anomaly in my typically dark haired family.

Certainly didn't help quell the rumors that I was an illegitimate child, even though I was half of a set of twins and nobody doubted my brother's ancestry.

"What's it matter to you," I muttered.

"What was that?"

I felt him grab my shoulder and turn me around. He was short and thin, his skin was more pale than fair, which made sense as he typically spent all his time just studying magic and practicing with it, no matter how talented and how much magic power, a mage who didn't train would be a crap mage after all.

"Nothing," I replied.

Of course; I didn't have the right to talk smack to my brother. He was father's Heir, and I wasn't even a spare, I wasn't even considered an useful political tool, no noble would want a princess that didn't have magic after all, no matter how royal her stock.

"Huh, are you saying my ears are bad and I didn't catch you mouthing off to me?" he taunted me, turning that face that resembled the first King's so much into a smarmy, smug look that made him look a little constipated, he probably thought it made him intimidating, but-

He looked like I could break him like a toothpick- unbidden thoughts that I suppressed swiftly. Royalty didn't use force, royalty didn't dirty their hands, a thousand lessons smacked into me at ruler point from a governess dedicated to 'turning the shame of the royal family into a proper lady', so that I could be married off to foreign nobility, played off of my memory.

"I would never, honored brother," I said, hurriedly, quickly.

"Good, 'cause I've heard you were rejected from the Academy," he said, pulling back and crossing his arms. He was already wearing the uniform, a dark blue blazer adorned with golden epaulettes and fastened with golden buttons, marking him as royalty. Once upon a time, everyone was to be treated equally. That didn't last long.

"... I didn't apply, honored brother," I tried not to show my irritation in my voice, and I probably failed.

"Ho? Correcting me are you?" his eyes narrowed, then he raised his right hand, extending his fingers up while his palm faced the ceiling. Five orbs appeared on each of his fingers. The swirling green of wind magic, the flowing blue of water magic, the blazing red of fire magic, the rumbling brown of earth magic and the crackling yellow of lightning magic, five orbs, five elements, the five basic principles of nature, but even more importantly, over his palm, a colorless bubble the size of his fist formed, glowing a rainbow hue.

He was showing off the mark of the Royal Family, the one thing that set us apart from the rest of the nobility, for the Royal Family was the only ones to be capable of utilizing the Imagination Magic of the Archmage.

The five elemental orbs then began to swirl around the big imagination magic orb like planets around the sun, and I felt the tension increase.

"You see this? You understand what it means doesn't it? That you can't do it," he said, his smirk growing nastier and more openly hostile. "You're wasting your time, you don't have magic, you're a worthless failure, getting an education here is pointless, don't you understand that?"

I clenched my fist. "That doesn't matter..!" I could feel my fingernails stabbing into my palm, I could feel the hot blood squeezed out through the cuts I just made, I could focus on that, try to ignore the pounding in my head as his taunts got to me.

It was constant.

Throughout our entire lives, ever since my inability to use magic and his prodigious talent were discovered, coincidentally shortly after our birth, he has done nothing but make my life impossible... taunting me, insulting me, telling me how worthless I was...

I already had enough with our parents only paying attention to him, I already had enough with everyone reminding me at every step, in every lesson and at every turn just how much better than me he was because he could use magic...

"But it does though! Because since you can't use magic, that means you're going to be sent away!" he leaned over, grinning at me as I put my head on the table and covered the sides of my face with my arms, crossing my wrists over the top of my head, knowing it was futile, he knew that my face was red, he knew that I bit my lip so hard I drew blood, he knew he was getting to me.

He knew he was driving me crazy.

"But don't worry, sis," he said, laughing in a way that was in no way jovial, "because your honorable elder brother is nothing if not merciful! Why, I will even go and ask dad not to send you off to marry some nasty old pervert outside the kingdom!"

As if he would! He'd be the one choosing the dirtiest, nastiest and most disgusting piece of shit noble he could find!

"After all, the best thing you've ever been," I heard a bubble pop and I knew he'd dispelled the bubbles he had summoned, "is a target dummy for me to practice my magic!"

"Eh-"

I raised my head and then felt it, the sensation of magic crashing into me. Water and dirt that formed thick mud, a shocking sting, a painful burn and an aching cut, I could barely raise my hands fast enough to prevent him from getting that all over my face, but even then, the blade of wind cut just beside my left eye.

It hurt. It hurt so badly. It was painful as hell. Even if it was just minor, even if it was just tiny, even if it was just a throwaway word, a careless remark, even if everyone kept telling me to excuse him, to ignore him, kept telling me that he was under a lot of pressure and that I should support him since that was all I could do-

Everyone... everyone!!

Everyone told me all I was good for was just to be a tool for him! To be stress relief for my talented brother! To be his target dummy! To be the ugly duckling that stands next to the elegant swan to make him look better!! That was the only thing anyone ever wanted of me!!

AND I'VE HAD ENOUGH!!!

Something possessed me, I don't know what it was, but it exploded from within, a raging heat far greater than the little fireball that left a red welt on the back of my left hand.

"H-hey!! Watch it, idiot!"

I kicked off the chair and almost hit my honored, esteemed, respectable and venerable prodigy of a brother! The chair landed on the ground with an incredibly noisy crash of wood on wood.

"Stupid idiot, you could've hit me!!" he screamed, taking a step back, his face turning red, he did so little physical work and relied so much on his magic for everything that just the act of raising his voice was making him lose his breath.

This guy, this pathetic, weak little shit, who's smaller than me despite being my twin and a boy while I'm a girl, this guy who hasn't even attended a single one of his swordplay lessons, who refused to learn how to dance or courtly etiquette, who didn't even learn to swim or do his exercises, who skips meals to read books all day..!

This little toothpick that I could break by glaring at it hard enough!!

I stepped up to him and put my hands on his chest, pushing him back, almost throwing him to the ground, he barely caught himself and managed not to trip. "You put hands on me, you thug! I'll show you!!" he raised both hands this time, and already, I saw the glow of his magic activating. "Salamander, heed-"

Before he could finish whatever incantation he was starting to belt out, I stepped back into his personal space, my left hand raised and in front of my face, my left foot forward, using everything I had learned from the Knight Captain whose lessons this little shit had pawned off on me so he could go read his novels, and then I pulled my fist back, twisting my hips and then whipping them back with full strength, pushing off of my backfoot and putting my weight on my front foot, turning my shoulders and putting all of that momentum into my right shoulder, traveling down my arm, all the way to my fist, until the most satisfying sensation I'd ever felt when everything clicked and connected for me all at once.

That very moment when my fist connected with his nose and I heard that incredibly satisfying crack is the moment I knew.

"Fuck magic!!" I screamed, carrying my momentum and putting it into turning my right foot forward, following my brother even as the punch I gave him made him move back, and then when my right foot was forward I repeated the process from before but inverted, this time throwing a left hook that turned his face to his left, "fuck traditions!" I then stepped forward again and did the same, this time punching him with a right hook.

He was stumbling.

For the very first time in this arrogant turd's life, he was facing backlash for his actions. I know I'm not the only victim of his antics. I know he relentlessly bullies other nobility, relying on his position, his station and his genius level magical talent to get away with it, crying to our parents when something doesn't go his way.

His nose was bleeding. His lips were busted. He was crying. He almost looked pitiable. But I've seen his crying face too many times, I've seen him cry to get others into trouble countless times, I've seen him crying when he spilled wine on a lady's dress and getting her punished instead, I've seen him crying to pass blame of his misdeeds onto me and distract suspicion.

It doesn't work on me.

"And fuck YOU!!"

I punched him with the hardest left straight I could muster, right to the chin, and he went down like a sack of potatoes. Well, a very light sack of potatoes at any rate. He crumpled, out like a light, and instantly, I knew I was screwed.

...

But I could get ahead of it.

The Royal Academy of Magic was obviously not for me, there was not much of anything I could do about that, I simply couldn't use magic, so there was no point in me even trying to attend it. No matter how good I was at every other subject, magic was the most important thing in the magic academy.

But the Knight Academy accepted anyone.

And of course, after that, neither of my parents wanted to see neither hide nor hair from me, which suited me just fine. The only thing they care about is their little prodigy, well, they're welcome to dealing with the ego monster of their own creation! I'm done with them, I'm done with magic, I'm done with this whole putrid royalty bullshit!!!

I'll be a Knight, I'll become a noble by my own merit, find some frontier lord to serve somewhere and spend the rest of my life earning my own living, and I'll never look back!

After having been yelled at, confined to my room and stuck with garbage tier meals, finally, at last, I'm out of that wretched Palace!

The Knight Academy, or rather the Eon Academy, named after the first Knight who pledged herself in service of King Lens, and also one of his brides, and still to this day run by the descendants of King Lens and Dame Eon, was a prestigious academy in its own right. Far less so than the Magic Academy of course, but it was an avenue for freedom.

It was a magnificently large building, significantly more so than the Magic Academy. It had everything a Knight could ever need, a three story main building with two story wings on its east and west side and a giant clocktower on the east wing, an attached indoor gymnasium on the west wing with a pool and sauna, not one, not three but five dorm buildings forming part of its external walls, grounds that could fit an entire town within, and a track for Rappids, the primary warbeast ridden by Lensian cavalry that doubled as a coliseum for fighting competitions with its high stands.

"A perfect place for a growing knight!" I hummed, pulling at the straps of my backpack, containing only the barest essentials, because even though I was a disgrace I was still a princess and my parents arranged for all my stuff to be delivered to my dorms.

"I know right?"

I turned to my left to see the voice speaking to me. A young lady wearing the same uniform as I was, the formal uniform that mimicked formalwear for knights, a white double breasted jacket trimmed in the black of commoners in contrast with the gold of my own. She had brown hair, cut just under her chin, straight, and I could tell there was a noticeable tan starting from just below her nose down to where her jacket collar closed up.

Based on the discoloration of her hair as well from under the crown of her head, I'd guess she spent a lot of time under the sun, and typically wore a hat. A farmer, maybe? Her build was solid under the uniform, she had wider shoulders than most girls.

"I can't believe I finally made it! Everyone at the village did their best to come up with the tuition! I won't disappoint them!" she called.

She was also carrying a cheap looking backpack, a bit frayed from use, but clean and well cared for, and her uniform was impeccably pressed, despite being visibly worn and used quite a bit. A hand me down or secondhand uniform.

"Yes, I'm sure," I agreed, nodding. "But we should go in, the academy is very big, and I wouldn't want to get lost before we even get to the admission ceremony!" I spoke, hurriedly.

"Uhm!"

Both of us turned around. A girl with blue hair all the way down to her waist called our attention. Her uniform was the same as ours, except where we wore pants, she had a dark blue skirt instead. Skirt or pants were purely choice of the wearer, and were typically more popular with swordwielders in general.

The girl before us was petite, but she had a bundle on her back that was longer than she was tall, a sword, and from the shape, I could tell it was meant for two hands. Almost pastel blue hair, short, carrying a weapon bigger than herself, a noble...

My knowledge of the registry went through my mind as the brunette turned to our interloper, took both of the small girl's hands in hers, and shook them animatedly.

"I'm Coria!" she called, "nice to meet you! Man I'm so excited!! This academy's bigger than my village even!!" she was almost jumping.

"A-Ah, y-yes, sorry, uhm, forgive me, my name is Ellen," she said, her voice gentle and soft, but not trembling at all after she caught herself, "I heard that you might need some help? It's my first year, but, I've been here before, if you want, I can guide you to the Grand Hall where the admission ceremony will take place."

"You would? Man, Ellen you're the best!" Coria said, clasping Ellen's hands and pulling them up, "you're a lifesaver!"

"N-No, not at all, I, I'm sure you would've found it quickly!" Ellen said, sounding a little uncomfortable.

"Coria, please, our friend is a little uncomfortable," I interrupted, once my mental search finished, trying to give the excitable brunette a smile.

"Oh- Oh sorry, I'm just so excited I can't hold it in! I've been looking forward to this since I first learned how to hold a spear!" she clenched her fist and then took a few steps.

Before us, the gates that opened up into the massive academy grounds, with its many buildings, a cobblestone path that lead to the main building and branched out into spiraling paths that lead to the dorms, that passed through fountains and gardens and gazebos set up for students to mill about and enjoy.

But most importantly, the almost intimidatingly immense building, three stories of six meters each, giving it an imposingly large stature, in white marble, carved and created by the Archmage himself, enchanted to be a fortress that could resist even dragon attacks.

As Coria was losing herself in admiring the scenery like I had moments before, I turned to Ellen.

"Typically nobles boast their surnames," I smiled, getting closer so I could whisper, "but if you're keeping it quiet, then I'll make sure not to let it slip," I got closer to her ear, "miss Eon."

Of course I remembered where I'd seen her. The palace had a registry with every single noble ever born in the country, and more importantly, we required families to send portraits along with their registries for milestones, and reaching fifteen years old and debuting in high society was such a milestone.

Hence why I recognized Ellen de Eon, descendant of Dame Eon.

She blushed a little as I pulled back.

"Now, if you would please lead the way," I half asked, half ordered, smiling at the future Dame with the big sword and gesturing to the school.

"Oh!! I forgot!!" Coria almost shouted, turning back to us. "Sorry, I was being rude, back at the village they keep telling me I need to slow down a little!" she rapped her knuckles against the top of her head, sticking her tongue out and winking at me. "My name's Coria, I'm from Hesche village, a logging town south of the Ernst county!" she introduced herself. "That's how I'm supposed to do it right?"

Not quite, but for a commoner, it would do. We'd be learning and starting to introduce ourselves as knights soon enough anyway. "Nice to meet you Coria," I responded. "I'm Viola. I was born and raised here in the Capital of Lens City."

"Oh that's nice! That means you probably know all the best places in town," she hummed, "maybe we can grab Ellen and check out the capital together, Vi!"

"Vi?" I asked, a bit surprised.

"Oh, sorry - I thought - do you not like nicknames?" Coria asked, shrinking a little.

Well, she was from a small village, probably everyone knew everyone there. "No, it's fine, I like it, you can call me Vi if you want," I responded, "but I won't be much help with touring the capital, I don't really know it all that well."

"Ehh? But how, don't you live here?" she asked, shocked and appalled that I could somehow not know the place where I ostensibly lived.

"Well, that is- it's a bit embarrassing," I admitted, laughing a little nervously. "I never really left the palace, you know!"

"P-Palace?"

Ellen cleared her throat. "Miss Coria, allow me to introduce you to Her Royal Highness, Viola de Lens, First Princess of Lens."

Coria's eyes went wide. She looked at me. Then at Ellen. A wind blew Ellen's long hair in such a way as to make it look like the trail of a comet. Mine was pulled into a tightly bound braid and swung like a pendulum as the wind rushed behind us.

Trembling, the brunette raised a hand. She pointed at me. Then she pointed in the direction of the distant palace, which dominated the skyline towards our south east, the largest building in the city by a significant margin.

I nodded.

And then Coria fainted.

...

I looked at Ellen and she looked at me, and it immediately became obvious neither of us had any idea on how to proceed beyond that point.

Well, I got here by letting go of thoughts and just doing what I felt, and so far this has been great, so why stop now?

"Onward!" I declared, "to the admission ceremony!"