“Well, aren’t you guys a sorry lot.”

  Commanding Officer Amber studied the wounded knights before her. Surrounding them was a large pile of dead corsairs, though the knights looked to be on their last legs.

  “Please don’t tell me you’re with the pirates,” a female Gold-Core knight groaned. “We already had our fill of Jewelled Ranks for today.”

  Amber raised an eyebrow. “I see you met Admiral Rann, then. Where’s the bastard? I need to put his head on a spike.”

  The office sensed the pirate’s presence mere minutes ago, but it had disappeared suddenly seconds ago. There was nought of his malicious aura on the ship at the moment.

  “He’s engaging with our leader in the decks below,” another knight answered. “We are a combined expedition from House Elathion and House Dervaine. We humbly request assistance from Imperial forces.”

  “Hm. Good to hear some of you nobles are still around, though I don’t recognise you lot at all. Newcomers, then?” Amber mused. “You picked a strange time to throw yourself into this mess.”

  “Ma’am, perhaps we should deal with the admiral before interrogating our wounded allies,” Kain suggested diplomatically.

  “Don’t think Rann’s on this ship anymore. Either he’s dead or he fled. He’s screwed either way, since he’s leaving Drake’s precious frigate behind,” Amber answered offhandedly. “Clear the deck of scum, Lieutenant, and have our medics tend to our friends here. I’m going to check under.”

  No one protested against the Commander going off on her own. The imperial troops knew she needed no aid.

  The Hero of the 24th Crusade would never fall to mere corsairs.

  Or, at least, that’s what they all assumed. Privately, Amber lamented her men's lack of initiative to act as her meatshields. The unearned confidence they had in her abilities was going to get her killed one day.

  Well, maybe not today, Amber thought to herself as she passed by a bloodied and hard-fought fourth deck and descended into a devastated third.

  It was as if a firestorm had swept across it, leaving the walls charred and the floor thick with soot. It was barren of everything save for the creaking support beams and two individuals — a young man leaning against a pillar, barely alive, while a woman was tending to his wounds.

  Amber stepped closer, frowning. It was difficult to make out their features in the darkness. “You with the knights upstairs?”

  “Yep! Just patching up my cute little assistant here. He got himself into a bit of a scuffle.”

  The voice was annoyingly cheerful, but there was also something… strangely familiar about it. “Do you require assistance?” Amber cautiously offered. “I have healers and medical supplies on standby.”

  “That won’t be necessary. I’m almost done here. Oh, you don’t have to worry about that mean admiral anymore, by the way. He’s being taken care of.”

  Amber frowned. So there was someone here capable of taking on even a Chosen of Rann’s calibre. That was a possible problem that might bite her ass soon, but for the moment, something else took precedence.

  That voice… Amber was sure she had heard it before. A chill trickled down her spine.

  “I’m going to shine a light on you, just to check on your condition,” Amber warned as she took out a miniature lanturn.

  “Oh, sure. I don’t mind. Though I must say…”

  Amber turned on the lantern. And froze.

  “I like seeing you in the dark a lot better, Amby,” the grinning face of the Fox greeted her. “How have you been, lover?”

  Commanding Officer Amber, ‘Hero’ of the 24th Crusade, paled rapidly as her heart nearly stopped.

  She didn’t say a word. For five heartbeats, both of them just stared at each other.

  Then, within the blink of an eye, Amber pulled her sidearm and fired.

  The clockwork pistol barked its first round violently — an explosive bolt propelled by detonating a small reservoir of Caustic Oil at the base of the round. The shell missed the Fox completely, even though there was no way Amber could have missed at such close range.

  Undeterred, Amber cycled the next round, the brass-and-steel frame of her custom-made pistol clicking as the complex mechanisms within loaded the bullet. She fired again, and again, and again. Even after all four rounds were expended, Amber kept clicking the empty weapon, eyes wide and panting.

  Impossibly, all four rounds had missed, even at practically point-blank range. The Fox pouted.

  “Now that’s rude,” Kalisa scolded. “Even after all these years since we last parted ways during the 24th Crusade, you still haven’t improved your manners.”

  Amber stared at her for a moment. After a second, the imperial officer calmly holstered her sidearm.

  Then, she turned to the ceiling, hands pressed against her eyes, and screamed. “FUUUUCCCCCKKKK! Not you! Anyone but you!”

  “Hello to you, too, Amby. And stop screaming, you will wake my patient.”

  “What the hell are you doing here?!”

  “Same reason as you, I suppose. I’m here to fight pirates in the name of justice!” Kalisa’s tail wagged happily. “I guess that means we are on the same side again! Is your bed large enough to fit the two of us now, or do we still have to squeeze like we used to? I mean, after I’ve secretly helped so many times, your superiors must have given you a nice promotion. Right, Hero?”

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  “Fuck this! I’m deserting! I’m not doing this again!” Amber screamed. She turned and marched up the stairs.

  “I’ll find you later, lover!” Kalisa shouted after her, ignoring Amber’s screams of ‘Fuck You!’ echoing down the hall.

  From the shadows, Cedric peeked. “Who did you pissed off this time?”

  “An old friend. Someone who wanted to play hero once, so I helped make it happen,” Kalisa smiled, though there was a sinister edge to it. “She didn’t appreciate it very much.”

  ~~~

  Days passed.

  The immediate aftermath of the conflict was not pretty. Victory was achieved, but it was a bittersweet brew for the Imperial forces that Eri’s expedition rescued. Heavy losses were suffered over the course of the pirate bombardment. There was no time to rest or mourn, either. With the pirate fleet destroyed, next came the tiresome tasks of clean-up and recovery of any available assets.

  Imperial corpses were respectfully burned, while the dead corsairs were unceremoniously tossed into the sea. Those few pirates who surrendered were clasped in chains and taken to the cells within the island fortress — their fates to be decided later.

  The surviving pirate ships were scavenged — four damaged schooners and the prized frigate — and taken to the island’s rudimentary shipyard for either repairs or materials. The sunken imperial vessels around the docks — destroyed during the start of the conflict — were broken further apart for any salvageable resources.

  The feared Admiral Rann was nowhere to be found. That left the Imperial Forces uneasy. Any attempts to question their rescuers about his fate proved fruitless. Either the noble expeditioners were deliberately being elusive, or even they didn’t know the answer to that question.

  Tension further rose between them when matters of looting rights — particularly those concerning the frigate — had resulted in heated discussions. Lady Dulcina had argued for the vessel’s ownership, as the crippling of both the ship and its crew was clearly the work of the expedition. Lieutenant Kain calmly asserted that since the damaged frigate would require the use of the imperial shipyard and imperial resources to be repaired to functionality, it was thereby imperial property.

  Then there was the biovore corvette. Its monstrous appearance did not endear the vessel to the horrified soldiers, especially when it started ‘eating’ the bodies of the dead thrown into the ocean. The strange red-headed twins demands to be given the pirate prisoners were also raising tension, especially since Lieutenant Kain adamantly refused after he understood what that unnatural growth on their ship was made of.

  It didn’t help that the commanding leaders of both groups — Young Master Eri and Officer Amber — were nowhere to be found throughout these discussions.

  Overall, while their relationship did not deteriorate to full-on hostilities, both sides agreed that it would be best for them to stay apart until their respective commanders came to their senses.

  Eri had yet to regain consciousness, for his life-threatening wounds were made worse by his overtaxed body’s inability to recover after the fatigue caused by the drugs.

  Meanwhile, Officer Amber refused to leave her room, even at Lieutenant Kain’s urgent insistence. Her constant and incoherent screams regarding a ‘Calamity Fox’ were heard all over the base. It was bad for morale, to say the least.

  It was a stressful week for everyone involved, though at least no one was under siege or in danger. That gave both the Imperial forces and the expeditioners time to lick their wounds.

  Eventually, after a week, Eri woke up, and Officer Amber finally left her room.

  Both were in such sorry states that they probably wished they hadn’t.

  ~~~

  “I still don’t understand how you got here,” Lauren demanded once again. “We left you behind at Castle Elathion! How in the world did you sneak onto our ship without anyone noticing?”

  “Not telling~” Kalisa laughed.

  “Just give it up, captain. It’s been a week,” Bori groaned. “If she’s not giving up her secrets, then leave it be. What else do you want?”

  “Besides, without her, Eri would be dead,” Dulcina added neutrally. “We should be grateful.”

  There was another line before her words, left unspoken.

  Especially since you failed to protect him.

  “I am grateful,” Lauren bowed, ashamed. “I just… I feel we are owed at least an explanation. We can’t plan around our expedition if unexpected factors keep happening! You cannot tell me the Young Master did not know of her presence. Once again, he failed to keep us informed!”

  The group were currently seated in the dining hall of the corvette, dourly eating a meal as the sun outside set. There was little for them to do during the past few days, and after the hectic naval battle to rescue the imperial port and their subsequent cold treatment, the lot of them were feeling restless.

  “Have to admit, I’m getting tired of his secrecy,” Bori grumbled. “This is, like, the third time he has pulled unexpected bullcrap on us.”

  “He’s excluding us from his plans,” Alvine hummed. “That speaks of a lack of trust.”

  “He didn’t do it maliciously,” Joarris tried to placate them. “I’m sure he has his reasons.”

  “Sure. The reason is just as Alvine said. He doesn’t trust us,” Julie said glumly. “And why should he, really? We all suck compared to him. He just took down a Sapphire-Core on his own. Does he actually need us at all?”

  “You aren’t usually this insecure. Don’t doubt yourself. We protected the ship, didn’t we?” Raharim pointed out.

  “I’m not really sure it needed us protecting it, really,” Alvine countered, though her words were more considering than harsh. “The twins could have probably dealt with the boarders by themselves. Pretty sure the only reason Eri needed us to guard the deck was because Deyara was too lazy to do it.”

  “You are making a lot of assumptions about what I can or cannot do,” Deyara shot back from a corner, where she had propped herself on a flesh-couch. “Don’t bring me into this because the lot of you have low self-esteem. Trust me, if Eri thinks the lot of you are useless, he won’t have bothered bringing you. And lest you forget, he wasted a ton of time training you all and gearing you up for this expedition. The least you can do is stop whining.”

  The group had nothing to say to that. The mood remained unimproved.

  “Where is he now, anyway?” Bori asked miserably. “Off to do more secret things without us?”

  “Calm down, he’s still in his room. He asked for Peythra earlier. She’s probably trying to grow back his arm or heal him enough so he can walk,” Joarris sighed. “He may be conscious, but he’s still in really bad shape. There are multiple urgent matters he has to discuss with the Imperial commander, and we wasted enough time already.”

  “I’m still pissed those dickheads won’t let us rest on their fortress island after we saved their sorry asses,” Julie sighed. “It would be nice to sleep on solid land.”

  “I thought you liked the ocean,” Bori muttered half-heartedly.

  “That was before I saw the waters around us turn red from how many bodies we were throwing into the sea during the battles,” Julie grunted back. “Those corsairs are bloody insane… I don’t like fighting people. It’s… It’s not like killing demons at all.”

  “Best get used to it. We will be doing that a lot more in the coming days,” Alvine murmured.

  The group fell silent after that, the uncertainty of the future bringing only unease to their thoughts. One question resounded in all their minds.

  What was Eri planning now?

  ~~~

  “You want me to praise you, stroke your hair, and sing you to sleep while you rest on my lap?”

  Peythra’s voice was amused. Eri nodded, too tired to even be embarrassed.

  “Bori once told me it was supposed to be a therapeutic experience any man would kill for. I’m willing to give it a shot. My everything hurts right now, and I can’t sleep because I swear some of the stimulants from last week are still glued up in my organs. I need some way to relax, and while I have narcotics for that, I don’t think more drugs are the answer.”

  Peythra hummed. “I do not mind, though I thought you would ask for my sister instead. The two of you are closer.”

  “Deyara would just tell me to stop being a baby and spoil her instead. Probably force me to message her feet or cook her ridiculous meals again…”

  The elf minstrel laughed. “Very well. I suppose you deserved to be spoiled for once. Come here, then. I’ll take care of you.”