Reya Metron walked hastily towards Joshua’s room. Lucina had said not to disturb them, but Reya was nearly at her wit’s end. After their supposed “Paladin,” had left them high and dry in the restaurant, he had the gall to go home with another woman, and drink with her on top of that!?

“Joshua, you have some ex-!” The words caught in her throat as she took in the scene of the room.

Contrary to her expectations, which was to find Lucina and Joshua going at it on the bed, the mood in the room was somber as Joshua was slumped over on the bed, vomiting something red into a bucket on the floor.

She immediately turned away without confirming what exactly that was, and pinned her gaze to the floor.

“Reya.” Lucina’s voice sounded from the bathroom. Reya looked over to her left to see the woman holding another freshly washed bucket. “I thought I told you not to come in here.”

Her tone was tired, as if she had been doing nothing but assisting Joshua since they came home four hours ago.

“What happened?” Reya finally managed to ask. She made a conscious decision to bring her eyes to the floor once more as Luicna brought the new bucket to Joshua, and picked up his used one.

“That bitch happened.” Joshua said between retches. When no more information seemed to be forthcoming from him, she turned to Lucina for answers.

When the older princess noticed Reya’s gaze, she sighed. “Princess Viina Secela set off a sonic bomb after she left the restaurant that both her and Joshua had a business meeting at.”

Reya’s jaw dropped, and she rushed over to Joshua’s side. “Are you ok now!? What happened to you exactly?”

The man in question just responded by heaving up more blood, but Reya found that she didn’t care if she got dirty. Her focus was entirely on Joshua.

Lucina stepped in once more to fill in the blanks, putting her hand on Reya’s shoulder and saying, “He wasn’t damaged externally in the blast because of his armor, but his organs have some light hemorrhaging on their surfaces. Unfortunately it will take an hour for his nanites to be up and running again from the effects of the blast, but he is in no real danger of dying now.”

“No, no real danger of dying.” Joshua added, spitting out another mouthful of blood. “Just some real pain to bear in the meantime. The normal shit.”

Joshua grunted in pain, causing Lucina to sigh as she sat next to him, and began stroking his back in a loving gesture.

Reya was incensed, and quickly left the room. Joshua would be fine if Lucina was overseeing him. She had probably studied enough about emergency treatment during her time in the military anyway.

No, Reya was pissed, and she needed to let off some steam. “Solze!” Reya shouted down the hall. Several members of their warband poked their heads out of their rooms to see what the commotion was about.

Not thirty seconds later, Solze Morind, Reya’s right hand woman and vice-commander of their platoon, was kneeling in front of her, fully decked out in her ceremonial armor.

“How may I assist you, Crown Princess?” The formal address took almost all of Reya’s patience to withstand.

The Crown Princess took a deep breath as she spoke through gritted teeth, “I want you to take forty of our soldiers, and bring them topside with their weapons and armor. That includes you as well. I’ll be waiting up there when you emerge.”

Solze was clearly confused, but heeded the order anyway, and got up to collect all the willing soldiers she could find.

Meanwhile, Reya climbed the ladder up to the top, making sure to turn on her military protocol radar function as she exited the small shack that the base used as a cover.

She was still fuming. How dare Viina be so two-faced about their agreement? Joshua had even extended a business deal to them for after the War Game, and the Metron Kingdom’s win, and what did she do in turn?

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She spat in his face, refused his good will, and blew up a bar full of people just to give internal bleeding to their Paladin. Reya reached out to several local authorities, personal contacts, and even some of the more dubious characters that she knew in the region, but her frown increased after each call.

“I’m going to kick her ass.” Reya muttered under her breath, much to her own surprise. She was usually never so straightforward with her criticisms, be it-

Her train of thought was interrupted when the ground opened up to the side of her, revealing just Solze, and a gyroscopic tanker.

“What the hell!? Where are the rest of you?” Reya walked up to her subordinate as she pulled her helmet’s visor over her face.

“Sorry, Crown Princess Reya, but Paladin Cole ordered the rest of the unit to rest tonight. He said that we should be resting ahead of our fight, not showing off for the enemy to analyze.”

“Fuck!” Reya threw herself into the seat beside Solze, and strapped herself into the vehicle angrily. “Drive us to the town!”

“What?” Solze interrupted, and turned to look at Reya. That idea was quickly put on hold, as the loyal knight came face-to-face with the barrel of Reya’s personal laser rifle.

“I said to drive, Solze.” Reya said cooly, and the gun drew closer to the woman’s face. “Alright, alright! Put that away! Starlord’s rotten taint! Don’t point that at me ever again!”

Solze peeled away from the base, driving towards the bar that Joshua had been assaulted in. Reya noticed the glances thrown her way, but her focus was solely on getting to the bottom of things before Viina threw more shit at them.

Solze hit the brakes without warning, causing Reya to hit the dashboard breasts first and momentarily stun her. Solze grabbed the gun and wrenched it from Reya’s hands, throwing it out the window.

It took a moment for Reya to come to grips with what had just happened, but when she did, it was with fury.

“Solze, if you can’t give me a decent explanation for why you did that, I’ll tie you up and ship you back to the Metron Kingdom myself.” Reya said in a barely measured tone.

“Crown Pri-,” Solze started, but apparently thought better about it, and sighed. “Reya, you aren’t acting normal. Please calm down and tell me what happened.”

Reya’s first instinct was to take Solze by the collar and beat her for all she was worth, but she refrained. She flipped the visor back up, leaned back in her seat, and sighed.

“Joshua was hurt. Badly. If Lucina didn’t leave before us, who knows if he would even be alive and safe in our base right now. And can you guess who his attacker was?”

Solze shook her head, and Reya breathed again. In… out… in… “It was Viina Secela, one of the people that is leading the Primal Kingdom’s forces for the War Game. On top of scorning an opportunity handed to her by our Paladin, she dared to attack him!”

Reya could sense herself getting worked up again, and a sickening smile etched itself on her face. “And the worst part? It was inside Primal Kingdom territory, so no arrests will be made, and the police have made it clear that they won’t move.”

“Reya, breathe.” Solze said, her cool voice cutting through the heat inside Reya’s mind. Reya did as instructed and shivered.

What was wrong with her? She had never felt so… so… “Fuck.” Reya sighed out, and put her head in her hands, causing Solze to raise her eyebrows. “I guess this is the result of years spent repressing my emotions. It just took one bad experience for them all to come crashing out.”

Solze gave Reya a nervous smile, and rubbed her back. “The side-effects of growing up in a stifling family, and parents who are sticklers for cultural importance. I know the feeling.”

Reya looked up and gave Solze a slight smile. “Honestly… growing up in our country is the worst. They expect so much of young people, when all we want is to live our own lives.”

Solze snorted, “I’m sure that’s just nobles. Commoners must have it so easy.” Reya smiled, until she remembered Joshua’s humble origins, and what it had taken for him to get to where he was.

“Uhh… maybe some of them.” Reya said, looking up at the stars. “I know some pretty hard workers.” She sighed for the umpteenth time that night, unable to block her exasperation from leaking out.

“Honestly, any time Joshua is involved, I lose my head over it.” Solze gave her a knowing smile and nudged Reya with her shoulder.

“Of course. He was probably the first person to treat you as your own person, and not as an extension of your family, right?”

Reya couldn’t help but laugh, thinking about how far from the truth that was. In actuality, Joshua had milked her connection to the Metrons for all she was worth, and she didn’t regret a second of it.

“There’s one thing I don’t get though.” Solze said, causing Reya to face her. “Why would Princess Viina make the attack so obvious? Surely Joshua wouldn’t have gone with her if he thought she was that hostile. On top of that, Princess Viina’s standing within the Primal Kingdom is particularly weak at the moment, and wouldn’t increase drastically even if they won the entire War Game.”

“Well that’s obvious.” Reya started. “It’s because…” Her voice petered out as she put more thought into it.

If I was Viina, why would I attack Joshua so close to his base? Of course, it must be… because…

Reya tilted her head, and put a finger on her lips. What was going on here?