“One! Two! Three! Four!” Akahime shouted at her soldiers, then repeated, at a faster pace, “One, Two, Three, Four!” The fifty infantry men and women finished their final rep in the set, and many cheered since sword training had finally finished for the day.

“Good job everyone! Way to show progress!” Akahime shouted, garnering smiles from the soldiers. “Take an hour and cool down, we’ll begin combat training at five, in the virtual chambers. Don’t be late!”

“Yes ma’am!” The soldiers saluted, and then scattered their separate ways. Meanwhile, Akahime walked herself over to the VR chambers inside the tower to set it up for everyone.

The past few weeks since the meeting with Joshua and his staff were challenging, to say the least. She had been impressed from the get-go with “Margas’ Tower,” as Lucina had called it. The structure was allegedly built by one of the founding members of the Metron Kingdom for the sole purpose of being a safe haven for military experiments and general activities.

On top of that, she even met Reich Gannon, a famous war hero who had then taught her how to lead soldiers, and train them herself.

I really do have to thank him for allowing me to download a portion of his memory bank. Akahime idly thought to herself as she rode the elevator up to the sixtieth floor of the tower, the Virtual Chamber Room.

The entire floor was dominated by hundreds of thousands of pods made for the virtual simulation of an actual war. It, among other things in the tower, was built by the current Metronian regime, by King Claude and Queen Cindy.

The Luong Empire’s scion took an escalator up to another level, and stepped into the commander’s pod, which overlooked the thousands of others in the room.

Akahime lay down inside, and forced herself to steady her breathing. There were only three ways to exit the chamber. The first was through your own death inside the virtual space. The second, was accomplished after completing your set mission objective. Thirdly, was the emergency failsafe switch just inside the lab.

That switch was why there were always at least two non-combatants allowed inside the chamber room, for emergencies outside of the army’s control.

She booted up the machine, and soon her consciousness was taken to a black space, with only a single floor that stretched on to eternity.

The room itself was alight with overhanging starlight, which reflected off the almost mirror-like floor. This was her own personal training room.

“Welcome back, Scarlet Princess.” A mechanical voice resounded throughout the hall, aimed at Akahime.

“Thank you, E.V.O.N.” She replied. The, ‘EVolution Of Non-combatants,’ machine, lovingly referred to as Evon by the soldiers, was the AI managing the whole operation.

“Shall I boot up the regular program, Miss Princess?” Akahime sighed and rolled her eyes at the way it called her. She had been confident in her Metronian enough to not toggle the language to her native tongue, but that had been a mistake.

Instead of inputting her real name, like the program had wanted, she wrote down a username that she used to use with video games when she was younger. It was a choice she regretted now, and one that Marla, her second in command, constantly teased her about.

“Yes, please do.”

“Understood. Commencing Personal Mission.” Evon stated, and a white oval descended from the sky. It stopped an inch above the ground, and then grew in size to a bit bigger in size than Akahime currently was.

She stared at the cocoon-like structure, and started doing some breathing exercises out of habit. It was the first fight, after all. The first was always the most stressful.

“Take your position.” Akahime did as she was told, and drew an Asahi Present Standard, pointing it at the portal. Her blade shone from the starlight.

“Three, two, one, commencing.” The countdown was met with no fanfare, and Akahime just stared at the milky portal as a woman stepped through.

“Round one. Versus Reya Rust Metron. Begin.” The computer generated Reya dashed forward, her smaller stature and shapely body betraying her incredible speed. Akahime barely reacted in time to stop a blade from going through her neck, and took a deep breath.

Calm down, you’ve figured this out before. She started inching closer and closer to the Princess, who kept an eye on Akahime and started circling around her.

Despite her speed, her swings lack real power. The only option I need to be really careful of is the possibility that she’ll thrust, and skewer me.

The Reya program looked Akahime in the eyes, but she didn’t return the favor. Instead, Akahime watched the blade itself, and looked at the rest of Reya’s body out of her peripheral vision.

It might have been amateur eye placement, but your opponent's eyes could deceive. Their piece of cold, hard metal couldn’t.

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Countering the expected thrust with a downwards parry, Akahime sunk her blade deep into Reya’s arm, nearly cutting it off at the elbow. “Winner, Scarlet Princess!”

Reya dematerialized and a timer showing two minutes displayed itself above the portal. Akahime breathed out deeply following her victory, and sat down on the ground.

In her own personal gauntlet decided on by Evon, Reya was always the gatekeeper. If she couldn’t consistently beat Reya’s speed with her own precision and timing, then she didn’t deserve to move on to the more complicated levels of training.

Reya was at the bottom rung according to the A.I., having neglected her combat training in the pursuit of more politically focused affairs. The next fight, however, wouldn’t be so simple.

“Ten seconds remaining.” Akahime stood up, her eyes falling on the taught muscles on her right arm. This next fight had been a problem for her since she started the system, and she couldn’t calm her nerves completely.

“Begin.” Evon said, and the portal flashed before going dim. Lucina Metron stepped through, wearing a full suit of Hypra Armor, and a helmet that covered her entire face. There was a red light pulsing where her eyes would be, and was actually the thermal vision on her visor activating.

There was a slight pause and uncomfortable silence in the air as Lucina’s Getsu Blade began gathering light. Akahime took a deep breath and got into a defensive stance, as Lucina shot forward, leaving a trail of purple electricity behind her.

Akahime took the blow head on, and was blown back a fair distance, leaving her feet to skid on the floor. Her heart rate started to pick up as she looked directly into the red visor.

Thankfully, she drew her eyes away long enough to notice the shurikens that were thrown at her, and approaching fast.

A new attack pattern? Akahime threw her body to one side, and didn't even bother to watch the projectiles pass her by, or look at the purple afterimages in their wake.

Instead, her attention was totally absorbed by the knight-like figure in front of her, who was beginning to bear down on her with undeniable pressure. She blocked blow after blow, but knew her body couldn’t hold on for much longer.

Finally, she saw her opening. The virtual Lucina created space between them, and prepared to launch projectiles again.

The moment she stepped away, Akahime stepped forward, thrusting her blade at the figure. It barely made it an inch into the armor before stopping, but that was enough for Evon.

“Winner, Scarlet Princess!” Even though she had won, and Lucina had dematerialized, Akahime slammed her fist on the ground.

“As if it’ll be that easy in real life!” She screamed, and began repeatedly pounding the floor. After venting her frustrations, and collecting her breath, she stood up, where there was only a minute on display.

To be honest, she wished she had the combat data of Lilian or Winter Strafe to compete with, but since they hadn’t taken part in any duels in Redleaf Palace’s colosseum, their data hadn’t been captured.

Akahime stood up and cracked her fingers, a nervous habit in preparation for Raiden. Then, she set to work placing mines around the portal. All pressure plates, just in case.

Sure enough, he stepped out of the portal, wearing ArcLite armor, and carrying a massive sword in one hand, with a pistol occupying the other. He had no helmet, but a face guard covered everything from the nose down.

“Motherfucker.” Akahime grumbled. Of course she had to low roll and Raiden spawned in as his most difficult virtual incarnation.

As soon as he stepped onto the floor, Akahime’s own sword short circuited and folded up into itself.

And this is why I set the mines. In case he comes out with EMP armor. Sure enough, all it took was one step for a mine to explode, and then several others followed in quick succession, breaking the reflective floor and exposing a bottomless pit below.

When the smoke cleared, Raiden was gone, and she assumed that he had fallen into the hole.

“Winner, Scarlet Princess!” Akahime slumped to the ground again, and sighed. I hate having to rely on cheese to get past a fight, but there is no way I can take Raiden out in my current form, especially in that armor.

Generally, the Luong Empire scion could beat the easiest incarnation of the Metronian prince, but she had no such luck today.

Finally, was Joshua. Akahime began some simple breathing exercises, and switched weapons and armor. For the previous three, she had gone with an agility type build, but now she was going full defense. If it was the usual then-

Her thoughts were cut short as the countdown timer stopped, and the portal flashed red. Just like it did every time. A hand, one she was now intimately familiar with, shot out from the red portal, and everything went black.

When the light finally returned, she was back in the Virtual Chamber Room. Akahime cursed and pounded her fist on the pod’s arm rest. “Fuck! Every time! Why does it always end after a second!?”

“Maybe you should ask the man responsible?” Akahime jumped in her seat as Lucina, her childhood friend, responded to her.

“Starlords, damn you, Lucina! Stop sneaking in here!” The Metronian princess smiled at her outburst, and sat down on a spectator chair next to the pod.

“I wouldn’t call it sneaking. You don’t have a monopoly over this tower’s resources, unless you have forgotten.” Akahime blushed, and averted her gaze from the princess.

“They were interesting fights, though. Although I don’t know if you’ll learn Joshua’s secret until he actually trusts you, and even then, he’ll most likely also have you under a contract as insurance.”

Akahime sighed, and put her head in her hands. “It’s been difficult. I just want to take a break from the constant grind.”

“Then, here’s an open invitation to my room, tonight. We can switch for each other, although that’s not really up my alley.”

She looked Lucina in the eyes and asked, “What about Paladin Cole? I thought he’d be jealous if someone else used his favorite toy?”

“Aw, you really think I’m his favorite?” Lucina gave a wry smile, and continued, “He’s been busy himself, you know. I’m just looking forward to what he’ll do to me after a full month. I’m sure he won’t mind me relieving myself on the side.”

The former empress-to-be locked eyes with the princess, and sighed. “Fine. Your room, nine o clock.”

Lucina smiled and responded, “Sure. I’ll be looking forward to it.” She began walking out of the room, just as Akahime’s troops began to enter.

Akahime groaned and leaned farther back into her pod’s recliner. This is going to be a long day, isn’t it.