Alexander looked deeply offended by my lack of faith. She immediately struck an over-the-top, incredibly elegant royal pose, her frilly gown rustling loudly.
“Of course Lily is a real unicorn!” she declared dramatically, pointing a furious finger at the creature. “While I was utilizing my specialized Ultra Light Healing on my populace, the sheer purity of my mana summoned my beloved Lily!”
She then proceeded to launch into a rapid-fire, hyper-detailed explanation of the unicorn's lore, its diet, its spiritual affinity, and every single mechanical detail of its existence. She didn't pause for breath once. By the time she finally finished her grand speech, she was visibly sweating, leaning against the glowing horse, and panting heavily from sheer physical exhaustion.
Before Lucy or I could even process the data dump, a shadow flickered.
Out of absolutely nowhere, a very old, immaculately dressed butler materialized right beside Alexander. Without a single sound, he gracefully held out a silver tray holding a perfectly brewed, steaming cup of royal tea.
“Your tea, Milady,” the butler murmured smoothly.
Even with my high-tech Demand Driver hardware running active spatial scans, and Lucy surrounded by her floating ice mirror matrix, both of our combat instincts completely glitched. We both let out a small jump-scare twitch, flinching backward at the sudden, logic-defying appearance of a super-efficient butler in the middle of a monster-infested forest clearing.
Alexander didn't even flinch. She was completely used to her butler's absurd efficiency, almost as if her own royal imagination had coded him to be this way, or perhaps he was just naturally, terrifyingly flawless.
“Oh, Sebas,” she said, letting out a soft, satisfied sigh. “As always, your timing is absolutely perfect. I could really use a little tea right now.”
“It is my absolute honor, Milady,” Sebas replied. He bowed elegantly, and with a sweeping, perfectly choreographed gesture of his white-gloved hand, he indicated the area right behind him.
Out of absolutely nowhere, a full-scale, incredibly luxurious royal picnic setup had materialized on the forest grass. We were talking velvet-cushioned chairs, a polished mahogany table, fine porcelain plates, and a towering tier of high-class pastries.
Alexander didn't waste a single second. She didn't bother explaining the physics behind her Alfred-looking butler, nor did she care that Lucy and I were staring at her with wide eyes. She just walked happily towards the table, gracefully smoothing out her frilly gown as she sat down to enjoy her tea.
Lucy and I stood frozen in the clearing, completely left in the dust.
I slowly turned my barcode visor toward Lucy, my helmet speaker letting out a low buzz. “Are we... Are we supposed to sit down? Should we continue our battle, or are we genuinely having high tea in a warzone?”
Lucy didn't answer right away. She just stared at the tier of pastries with her signature flat, deadpan expression, though her bangs twitched slightly.
“Truce for now,” Lucy muttered flatly, though she slowly began walking toward the table anyway. “The tea smells expensive. Let's go.”
We sat at the table. It was awkward as hell.
The dynamic was completely unhinged. On one side, Alexander was humming happily, thoroughly enjoying her tea and acting like she was in a palace garden instead of a monster-infested forest clearing. Across from her, Lucy sat perfectly upright, stiffly holding her teacup and drinking with silent, deadpan intensity.
And then there was me. I was still fully locked inside the Demand Driver Century armor.
Every time I moved my arms, my heavy cybernetic gauntlets made a loud, robotic whir-clunk sound that completely shattered the elegant atmosphere. My neon-green visor glared blankly at the tiny, fragile porcelain teacup in front of me. I didn't dare pick it up; my optimized hardware strength package would probably crush the thing into fine dust if I miscalculated my grip.
Sebas stood silently behind Alexander, his face an unreadable mask of professional excellence, though I could swear his eyes lingered on my barcode-etched chest plates for a split second.
Alexander finally set her cup down with a soft clink, breaking the silence. She looked between the two of us, her gaze landing squarely on my glowing visor.
"Well?" she asked, crossing her arms. "Are you going to introduce your territories, or are you going to sit there looking like a glowing blue billboard all day?”
Lucy set her teacup down calmly. “My territory is called Gastria. I named it after my last name,” she said flatly, before slowly turning her head towards me. “What about you, basement dweller?”
Inside my barcode helmet, I instantly started sweating bullets.
System error. Fatal crash. I hadn't actually thought of a name yet. My brain scrambled, frantically running a search algorithm through every cool-sounding fantasy name in my database to try and save face. 'Come on, think! Excalibur? Neo-Domino? Pixel Town? Anything!'
“Ahh, yeah. Umm... the name of my territory, huh?” I stalled, my cybernetic shoulders twitching as my electronic voice modulator buzzed nervously.
Lucy tilted her head, a rare, highly dangerous smirk playing on her lips. “You didn't think about one yet, did you?”
“Noooo… I totally already have one!” I snapped back at her in pure embarrassment, waving my armored gauntlets frantically and narrowingly missing a plate of pastries. “I just didn't tell you yet because I didn't want you to get overwhelmed by my cool names!”
Alexander snorted into her royal tea, looking thoroughly amused. "Oh, please. Don't tell me the giant glowing billboard rules over an unnamed wasteland.”
'Alright, fine, you want a name?!' Backed into a corner by a shoujo princess and an ice queen, my brain grabbed the absolute first stable database entry it could find.
I sat up straight, crossing my arms as my neon-blue armor gave off a defiant hum. “It’s called the Rangoon Kingdom! Yeah. The Rangoon Kingdom. Deal with it.”
'In reality, it's literally just Yangon,' my internal Earth-brain immediately deadpanned. 'But legacy builds sound way more mysterious in a fantasy world anyway.’
Lucy raised her eyebrow but didn't press the issue any further. We had much more important business to deal with than my absolute lack of naming skills.
“So,” Lucy said, her voice dropping back into a calm, serious tone. “You two came back to this clearing to investigate the thousand-year cycle of ongoing war, right?”
I nodded, my barcode helmet letting out a mechanical whir, while Alexander set her teacup down with a subtle nod of agreement. For a brief second, the atmosphere turned heavy, matching the grim reality of a bugged world locked in a loop of endless hatred.
Suddenly, a deep, raspy voice cut through the air right behind us.
“Ah. The three of you are already having a picnic without me.”
We all snapped our heads around simultaneously. Standing at the edge of the clearing was Htet W—I mean, Eclipse.
He looked completely different from the day we arrived, fully decked out in his new and improved hardware package. He was entirely covered in a localized shroud of shifting, pitch-black shadows that seemed to actively swallow the sunlight around him. Wisps of dark mist drifted off his cloak like a living anime aesthetic. It was clear he had completely mastered his dark optimization settings.
I stared at him through my green visor, my electronic modulator buzzing. “Dude. You look like you just got pulled out of a stealth-action game DLC. And what is with that voice modulation? Are you trying to sound like Batman?”
Eclipse didn't break character. He slowly crossed his arms, his glowing eyes peering out from the depths of his smoky hood as he looked down at the mahogany table.
“A shadow does not care about Batman,” Eclipse muttered deeply, though his eyes drifted toward the pastry tier. “A shadow cares about why there are no chocolate scones left.”
We stared at him deadpanly.
Then, suddenly, we heard a loud rustle from the nearby bushes. Our heads snapped towards it in unison.
The branches parted, and out stepped Jane Connie, blinking rapidly and looking completely lost as hell.
Lucy set her teacup down calmly, her eyes scanning the two new arrivals. “Are you two coming to discuss the thousand years of ongoing war as well?” she asked flatly.
“Yes,” Eclipse answered instantly in his deep, brooding, theatrical voice.
“I just got lost,” Jane Connie said at the exact same time, his voice dripping with sheer confusion.
We all just stared at them.
