Location: Prince’s Fancy Hotel Room

Time: Valentine’s Day

It’s unfair! An unprecedented insult, right to Sara’s face! Sara won’t stand for this!

Sara won’t even sit for it!

Love. Sara’s theme is straightforward and simple. Sara’s callback chapter should be one full of romantic forays.

Yet Sara was stuck in a boring meeting. A scary meeting. Why?

Not only was it Valentine’s Day, but even Sara’s wife’s chapter was about a date! How is it then possible that Sara didn’t get a date chapter as well? Sara even made sure that her chapter was originally released on Valentine’s Day. Do you understand how difficult that was? Sara had to delay the whole production, just for this!

Ridiculous. More ridiculous than not eating the crust on your pie. Right? Right.

Somehow, it gets worse! Worse than not finding the crème filling after three bites. That little sparky one gets another chapter with Sara’s wife! What? That hasn’t happened yet? Doesn’t matter. Release order is nothing before Sara’s passion. Right? Right.

It was his fault. There was only one person who could inconvenience Sara in such a detrimental way.

Sparky.

He was too strong. Sara couldn’t win against him. Not ever. Zero percent chance.

Why was Sparky visiting the prince? Sara doesn’t know. He just showed up. The prince seemed surprised, but he made sure to act natural. Sara and Hatta were already there, so we had to stick around as bodyguards.

Well, Sara had to stay as his bodyguard. Hatta was sent to patrol the perimeter. The prince didn’t want anyone else showing up without notice.

“We hope you’ll forgive us, but the study in this hotel room isn’t up to our usual standards. It’s not suited to entertain a guest of your caliber.”

The prince sat down at his desk and motioned for Sparky to sit across from him.

“Oh? I’m surprised royalty would bother treating me with any respect. I expected you to be more stuck up than that.”

Sparky was speaking casually. I could recognize what that meant. He was properly connected to the information dimension, ready to strike at any moment.

“Of course we would. We’re familiar with the status you’ve been given within this city, but that does not matter to a person such as myself. In the Empire we respect strength. And our time here has taught us that none here are your equal. We imagine you’re even on par with the Emperor’s own Royal Select.”

“Then if you understand that much it makes things simple. I’ve got a lot to do today, so I’d rather not have to mess around with you.” Sparky pulled an envelope from his pocket and tossed it across the desk. “I was supposed to deliver that to you.”

The prince took a brief look over the envelope.

“From our elder sister? What did she think so important to send us a letter?”

“No idea. I’ll tell you now, I already tried to read it, but it was in a code I didn't recognize.”

“So you did try to read it?”

The prince looked confused by how readily Sparky revealed that information.

“Of course. I was curious, besides, it’s not like I actually work for her.”

“Yet you deliver her mail.”

“I’m one of the few people strong enough to send to a meeting with you. Besides, this was the only time. See, your sister thinks by sending me on this errand she’s keeping me too occupied to pay attention to Ren, but she’s way off. I just decided to take her message on a whim because I had business here anyway.”

The prince tried to feign composure as he put the envelope down. A stranger might not have noticed, but Sara spent enough time with him to know. The prince was trying not to panic.

Smart idea. Sparky made Sara want to panic as well.

“You had. . . Other business with us?”

“Not with you, with her.”

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“Ahh!”

Sara screamed as Sparky pointed at her.

“With her? I hope it isn’t related to any kind of legal matter. We understand that there were some crimes committed last month by a woman that looked similar to her, but we believe that there are multiple senators that will testify she was uninvolved.”

“No, don’t worry about that. Whatever deal you struck is still holding strong. Only the ones that actually got caught or killed are facing any charges. Although by the looks of things you’ve only got her and Top Hat left. Anyway, I’m taking her with me.”

“Taking her? You just said she’s not facing any charges.”

“This doesn’t have anything to do with MID. I’m taking her because someone wants to talk with her. Oh, and I won’t bring her back. She can come back to you if she wants, but that’s not my problem.”

Sara must have stopped listening and missed most of the words. Sparky was really saying some funny things.

“Listen, we’re trying to be civil here. We’ve even made sure to give you the respect your strength deserves.”

The prince was speaking the truth. He was never that nice to anyone.

“But even we have our limits. You show up here and ask us to just give you one of our most talented agents? She’s a project over a decade in the making.”

“Now that I’m about to say it this sounds really cliché, but I wasn’t asking. She’s coming with me. I don’t have any reason to kill you, but if you give me a reason I won’t hesitate. I think you’ve already played your part in this, after today your death won’t change anything at this point.”

“Excuse us?”

A mirror on the far side of the room cracked.

There it was. He snapped. The prince isn’t as mature as Sara is, so it was only a matter of time before he lost his cool.

“Don’t try it. I won’t expect you to understand, but you’ve actually been pretty useful for us. Without your involvement things would have never worked out so well. So I don’t have any desire to kill you. Honestly, between you and Vampy, I prefer you. So just let it go. Don’t try to fight this one, alright?”

“We were willing to respect your strength, but aren't you using that to overestimate yourself in our presence? We will recognize your power, but that means nothing in the face of our royal authority.”

Really? The prince was good at running away, but Sara wasn’t convinced he could escape Sparky.

“You think you’d be able to run away, like you did with my daughter? Sorry, but no. I’d destroy the reflection you transfer into at a subatomic level. You wouldn’t even have a moment to run anywhere else.”

Is that how the prince's augmentation worked? Sara didn’t really understand.

“How did you, no, never mind. Even if you know that much, you’d never be able to predict exactly where I’d go.”

“No, I would. I could guess randomly and I’d be right.” Sparky pointed his finger at Sara. “Hey, you, nameless, if he doesn’t stop talking in the next 60 seconds I’m going to kill him. And if my attack misses then I’ll kill you.”

“That’s your plan? Our agent wouldn’t-”

The prince stopped talking once he looked at Sara’s face. Sara is usually impossibly complex and impossible to read, but in this one very rare instance Sara’s feelings were probably clear as the filling in a turnover.

Sparky was strong. Too strong.

Sara wasn’t sure what would happen to her if she didn’t keep getting her medicine from the prince, but Sara knew what would happen if she crossed Sparky.

“Should Sara just kill him now?”

Sara decided to make an immediate appeal.

“No, like I said, I don’t really want to kill him.”

The prince was making an interesting face. He probably felt pretty safe when Sara was on his side, but now things were different. Right? Right.

Sara’s good luck just became his bad luck. Sara’s life depended on him dying. So if Sparky needed to hit the right reflection, he definitely would.

“But, even so, we still have our other tool.”

The prince was grasping at straws, trying to think of a way out.

“Top Hat? It’s not like he could stop me. The best he could do is activate that nuclear device he threatened my daughter with.”

“Exactly, you can’t act so brazenly toward me with the threat of assured destruction hanging over both of our heads. The explosion has already started, it’s only frozen in time. There’s no way to stop it should it resume.”

“Maybe, I’m not sure if I could stop the explosion or not. But I can tell you that one or two nuclear explosions of that caliber wouldn’t be enough to stop me. All you’d accomplish is leveling this district. And I’m not sure what kind of person you think I am, but I wouldn't lose any sleep over something like that. By the way, your minute is up.”

The prince started to open his mouth, but quickly closed it. He looked at Sara, with an expression Sara didn’t recognize on his face.

“Good choice. Alright, come on, let’s go.”

Sparky nodded in Sara’s direction.

“Aye sir!”

Sara straightened her back and saluted.

Sara would go with Sparky.

She didn’t want to, but what choice did Sara have? Sparky was the one person Sara would never cross.

Sara’s own augmentation made it impossible for Sara to disagree with Sparky. Sara would always make the correct choice, that was guaranteed. And standing against Sparky would always be the wrong choice.

How did those other people not understand that?

Actually, isn’t working with Sparky the absolute best outcome?

But that didn’t make the prospect of going with him any less scary. Sara would never like him.

“Oh, by the way, Lex told me to give you a message. She said that we’ll be picking up your wife later.”

Of course things would go that way for Sara.

Sara hopped over and patted Sparky on the back.

“Sara knew you were a good guy. Come on, let’s go capture Sara’s wife.” Sara reached into her pocket and pulled out a croissant before ripping it in half. Sparky was a true friend. “Here, take this as a sign of Sara’s respect.”

“Yeah, sure, why not.” Sparky grabbed the croissant and ate it. “Then we need to go pick up a normal girl and a vampire, but first, Alexis needs a favor.”

Sara wasn’t sure about that other stuff, but all that mattered was Sara’s wife. And here Sara thought her chapter was all messed up, focusing on the wrong thing. Turns out, Sara was just setting the stage for future developments. Even during the callback, Sara is an innocent maiden surrounded by love.