Lucina’s blade pierced through the cockpit of her final victim, showering her with blood once more. Lucina looked down at herself, noticing that it wasn’t for the first time that day, but it was the last.
Her sword shattered into thousands of pieces, with each nanomachine controlled piece following its programming to fly back into the hilt. Reequipping the handle to her armor, she let her face mask go up, letting in a cool stream of natural air onto her face.
“Longest kill-streak, Lucina Metron! One-hundred and twenty! Please collect your winning bets online.” Judgment’s monotone voice spoke in Lucina’s ear, and she smirked.
Betting on herself had been a good idea. Of course, Lucina had dominated the competition early, but a late surge from Raiden had made the contest a lot closer than she would have liked.
“Good work out there.” Solze, Reya’s attendant, walked up behind her. She handed Lucina another electrolyte replenishing drink, which she graciously accepted.
“Thanks. I can see why Reya keeps you around. It pays off to have someone capable looking after your well-being.” Solze’s eyebrows raised, and she opened her mouth to speak, when a shrill voice cut her off.
“Shut up you murderous monster! Do you think you can get away with all this slaughter!?” A Primal Kingdom pilot climbed out from the wreckage of his machine, clutching his abdomen.
He leaned back against the foot of his fallen mech, causing Lucina to sigh. “This is why we don’t leave things to Raiden. He’s such a sloppy bastard, too preoccupied with getting things done fast that he doesn’t stop to make sure he’s done them properly.”
Seeing the princess approaching, the soldier let loose a small shriek. “Y-you! The crown will make you pay! You’ll never get out of this country alive!”
Lucina’s derisive laughter caught the man off guard, and his eyes widened, his vision filled with nothing but the princess’ cruel face.
“What do you mean? Even now, my parents and your leaders are sitting down somewhere nice right now, watching this entertainment and talking about adult politics.” She ignored her blade in favor of a pistol, one that she lined up with the man’s forehead.
“Someone like you who doesn’t even know how the world works… I can’t imagine how rough life has been for you. Let me do you an act of kindness before you depart.”
She cocked back the weapon (a custom model she had made, since they had long fallen out of technical use), and leveled it at his head once more.
“First, you are just a cog. No one gives a shit about cogs besides other cogs. The real players care about the whole picture.” The man closed his eyes, and began praying in his native tongue.
“Second, you have offended us with this paltry display of machinery. Did you really think we wouldn’t learn and evolve from last time? We need to make an example out of you, to show the world that the Metronian Kingdom is still a powerhouse, and will be that way for a long time.”
The man placed his head on the ground before Lucina, curled up into a fetal position. However, she wasn’t yet done. “Lastly-” Lucina stopped speaking mid-sentence as Winter’s blade fell from the heavens, piercing the man in the skull and killing him instantly.
She took it out, and began to clean it off with the man’s own pilot uniform. Lucina just stared at the Strafe assassin, nonplussed. “What was that for? I wasn’t done.”
Winter sighed. “I can sympathize with his feeling of being manipulated is all. You should still show your enemy respect.”
Lucina raised an exasperated eyebrow and said, “That speech wasn’t for him, it was for the people watching. Of course I-”
“The cameras stopped broadcasting you to the general public when you started criticizing Raiden. Your parents probably knew what direction you were headed in.” Lucina looked behind her, and sure enough, there was no drone even remotely close to her, and instead focused on Reya, who had begun to pack up her long-range weaponry.
Turning back to Winter, the Strafe woman spoke, “I’ve only known you for a month, but the difference between your normal personality and your violence-induced one is startling. You change when you get violent, Lucina. Try to calm down and look at things rationally again.”
“Thanks. I really think I need a Solze in my life.” She looked up at the sky, and asked, “Winter, what do you-”
“No thanks. I’m plenty happy working under Paladin Cole, thank you.” Lucina smiled dryly at the mercenary’s instant response. ‘But I suppose that I knew the answer already.’
A rotten, garbage-like smell hit Lucina, shocking her back to reality. Lucina’s gaze fell on the desert, and the heap of steel, blood, and bodies laying at the princess’ feet.
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Viina Secela closed her eyes in thought. They had severely underestimated the might of the Primal Kingdom’s elites. She supposed she would have known they were going all out given the number of royalty they sent over, only…
She glared down from her throne at Hector Vergard, one of the two Civil Union House representatives she was stuck with.
They were currently occupying a deserted palace, whose outer walls had long since deteriorated, but whose foundations were still structurally sound.
However, Hector’s gaze was glued to his screen, his mouth agape as Lucina Metron continued again and again to cut down their numbers, the near one-woman army obliterating any chance they had of recouping their losses from this game.
If only someone hadn’t decided to make mental suggestions to her using the power of his previously unknown Judgment, then maybe they’d be in a better position.
She fought off the urge to sigh, and glanced at her brother, Barett. She was convinced that he was involved in this somehow, but couldn’t quite put her finger on how.
Noticing his face, which had full-on fear carved into it, she followed his gaze to see a figure approaching from the desert in front of them.
“Nice place you have here.” Even though Joshua Cole was still more than 50 meters away, his voice rang out clear as day inside the ears of the four present.
“Did you rig the selection to give you this side of the desert?” The accusation was awful publicity for the Primal Kingdom. It would cast a doubt on the legitimacy of this contest, a sad prospect given how they had actually fared, even with the help.
Instead of being silent like she messaged all of them to be, Hector opened his mouth and said, “Hah! Of course not. We just happened to get the luck of the draw!”
“The draw that your country performed?” Hector opened his mouth, and raised a finger, but seemingly couldn’t think of a counterpoint.
“You know,” Joshua continued, “It wouldn’t have been so hard for your country to set up even playing fields for the both of our squads. That’s clear favoritism, isn’t it?” Viina wanted to kill Hector for opening his incompetent mouth, but settled for the next best thing.
“Hector-”
“Viina, kill him! Make sure he never dares to look down on the Primal Kingdom again!” Hector screeched, cutting off the princess. She stared daggers at his back, and stood from her throne, allowing the spirit of the Prime, the first monarch of the Kingdom, to coalesce behind her.
He was depicted as his avenger incarnation, the very same one from Viina’s old picture books. His red skin and human skull mask were the very picture of unrestrained fury, much like what Viina was feeling towards her present company right now.
She stopped to stand next to Hector, and she saw the blue man standing behind him again. His image was eerily similar to the Prime’s only the blue being had a ram’s skull for a head instead. Null: the mortal enemy of the Prime, and a contender to his throne long ago.
‘Suggestion, huh? Such a power suits the coward.’ “Now, Viina. Go!” Hector roared, but Viina just stood in place. The smile slipped from Hector’s lips as he turned to the princess.
“I’ll give you two options.” Joshua spoke, causing the room’s attention to turn back to him. “One, lose via surrender and forfeit, but keep your lives. Two, lose by way of death.”
Hector opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted by Viina’s powerful voice. “As your commander, I order you: do battle with the paladin.” Hector’s gaze fell on the Prime and his jaw opened to speak.
‘Do you think I’ll allow your backtalk?’ Viina thought as she held out a hand in Hector’s direction and willed the Prime to rattle his intestines a bit.
The C.U.H. member started leaking blood from his mouth, and both Barett and Lena looked on in confusion and horror. “Don’t think I forgot what you did to me.”
Hector sneered and yelled, “How the hell did you break free!? It was perfect! All we needed was to get through this together, and the kingdom would have been ours!”
“Like I would ever have anything to do with you after the stunt you pulled.” Viina met his expression with her own look of disdain. “He freed me, if you must know.”
Pointing to Joshua, she switched the target of Hector’s ire. “You… you will pay.” Hector’s voice was somber as he stood, with Null roaring behind him.
“Is the soap opera done yet?” Joshua said, a cocky playfulness in his tone. His face was obscured by the visor, but even Viina could tell the kind of expression he had on: glee.
“Shut up! At least we can still come out on top by taking your worthless life!” Hector stood and aimed his finger like a gun at Paladin Cole. Null began to writhe and twist behind him, with lights flashing at seemingly sporadic times. The Prime had to shield her vision to keep her from being affected by it again.
“Now kneel before me, Paladin Cole! Show the world who is your true master!” Hector was clearly not all there by this point, and the paladin seemed to recognize that as well.
“Are you ready to eat?” Joshua said to seemingly no one in particular. Suddenly Viina felt a chill on her spine, and the Prime stood up straighter, looking around for something.
Null behaved in much the same manner, pausing it’s hypnotic movements in favor of trying to figure out what had caused that reaction.
Hector was not nearly as observant and merely cursed his soulbound spirit for being worthless. “Two of them? Oh, you shouldn’t have.”
A female voice came from Viina’s immediate right, and she turned her head to find herself staring face-to-face with a beautiful woman wearing a white satin dress. Her silver hair shone in the afternoon light, and made her seem ethereal.
“Really, they get distracted so easily.” The spirit from before, the tall, bald man with midnight skin appeared behind Joshua as well, flexing his muscles at both Null and the Prime.
“Too easily.” A quiet feminine voice replied. Viina turned to look at her lithe appearance and baggy clothing, just in time to catch her stabbing a hand through null.
Null threw back his head in a pained roar, but no sound came out. Instead, the spirit became a small, blue orb of light and flew over to the woman in the dress, who crushed it in her hand.
Needless to say, silence dominated the room.