After Lola got assassinated…

  Lola blinked at the floating words.

  She turned the interface off and just sat there, like a cheap joke without a punchline. Her reflection warped faintly in the glass of the VR capsule lid… pale, sweaty, eyes too wide.

  She unlatched it, hands trembling more than she wanted to admit. The hiss of air as the pod opened sounded wrongly final, like the sound a door makes when you’re the last one left to close it.

  She sat up slowly.

  The tower’s VIP room was silent, soft gold light spilling from the ceiling. Usually, that calm meant safety. Now it felt like mockery.

  She hadn’t even been killed in a glorious duel. No cinematic death. No rallying speech cut short by fate.

  The realization hit her in disjointed waves, each one colder.

  I didn’t check them. I didn’t check anyone. I thought— we were united. That after everything, they’d trust me like I trusted them.

  She’d been so focused on the strategy, the supply lines, the impossible logistics of war. Counting numbers, not knives.

  Lola let out a hollow laugh. It sounded like it belonged to someone else.

  Poundcake warned her. “Too many gaps in the chain,” he’d said. “Someone will slip a blade through it.” She’d smiled, made a joke about paranoia. Because surely, surely, no one would actually—

  Her hands curled on her knees. She couldn’t even remember who had landed the killing blow. A face? A name? Nothing. Just the sound of a cut and the taste of iron and her hand reaching for Charlie.

  I didn’t die fighting an army. I died trusting one.

  The room was still. The faint hum of the AC behind the wall was the only sound. For a long while, Lola just sat there, staring at the floor. Her pulse slowed, but the hollowness stayed.

  Next time, she thought numbly, I won’t assume anyone’s a friend. Lola pressed her palms together, elbows on her knees, and closed her eyes.

  In… two… three… four. Out… two… three… four.

  The rhythm was mechanical at first, shallow and uneven. Her heart didn’t want to listen. But she kept at it, stubbornly following the pattern Charlie had shown her a few weeks ago… when Charlie had decided meditation was going to “fix her stress issues” because apparently queens could just breathe away trauma.

  The memory made the corner of her mouth lift, faint but real. Charlie had sat cross-legged on the carpet in a hoodie two sizes too big, eyes screwed shut, mumbling, “I am calm. I am majestic. I am not thinking about burning Altandai alive.”

  She’d looked ridiculous. And endearing and super cute. Lola exhaled again, slower this time. The knot in her chest eased… not gone, but quieted.

  When she opened her eyes, the room felt less like a tomb. She reached for the low coffee table beside the capsule and flicked her wrist. A holo-tablet slid up, its faint hum filling the silence. The translucent light of the interface bathed her fingers in blue.

  She lifted it, hesitated… then pressed it gently to her chest. The device was smooth and warm from her touch, and the subtle vibration of its core thrummed against her heartbeat. Something about that steady, synthetic pulse grounded her more than the breathing ever could. A tiny, artificial heartbeat she could rely on.

  “Alright,” she murmured, mostly to herself. “Let’s see the damage.”

  She stood, straightened her wrinkled blazer, because she would never go to the public capsule naked, and stepped into the elevator. The mirrored walls caught her reflection… hair slightly mussed, eyes shadowed but steady again.

  When the doors slid open, the world exploded with noise.

  The command floor was chaos incarnate. A sprawling open-space shaped like a half-moon, with rows of desks descending toward a massive central display wall. Over twenty holo-screens flickered there, each streaming a different feed: battlefield streams, scout reports, live chats, system dashboards. Color and static washed across the room like a digital storm.

  PR staff darted between stations, their voices overlapping in sharp bursts.

  Someone yelled about damage control; another cursed at a crash in the Katherine stream. The air buzzed with panic and caffeine… that distinct too many deadlines, not enough sleep aroma.

  Holographic overlays floated midair… charts, viewer counts, strategy maps; all fighting for space. The glow of the screens turned every frantic face into a mosaic of blue and red light.

  Lola stepped forward, shoulders squared, still clutching the holo-tablet close to her chest. For a moment, no one noticed her arrival… too busy firefighting.

  Then someone did.

  “Seneschal’s up!” a voice called.

  Heads turned. The storm wavered.

  Lola exhaled once more, steady and calm this time. “Alright,” she breathed. “Show me everything.”

  The noise hit her like shrapnel.

  “Charlie is waiting for something!”

  “Dmitry’s taking command!”

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  “Frozna’s attacking—Tramar’s hindering her!”

  “North barrack army’s late!”

  “Poundmaker is alone—”

  “Uhm, Portside is—”

  Ten voices clashing, overlapping, feeding each other’s panic until it sounded less like a briefing and more like a market riot. Papers scattered. Someone dropped a stylus that clattered far too loudly for the distance it fell.

  Lola didn’t raise her voice. She didn’t need to.

  “Enough.”

  The word cut through the air like a red pen through the report.

  The room froze. The background hum of screens suddenly felt deafening in comparison. She walked toward the central command hub, a circular space surrounded by tiered consoles, and every step she took seemed to pull the chaos back into orbit around her. The projector lights traced over her shoulders, glinting off her ID badge, the subtle gold trim of her jacket, and the holo-tablet still clutched to her chest like a tether.

  She stopped at the center of the circle.

  “Hugo?”

  The man on her left straightened reflexively, brushing imaginary dust from his immaculate suit. Hugo looked like the walking embodiment of “damage control”: perfectly gelled hair, too-white smile, tailored navy jacket with a pocket square. His tablet was already open, full of scrolling comment feeds and sentiment charts that blinked red like open wounds.

  “After you left,” he began—after you died, but no one said it—“the central square is in disarray. Llama assumed command of the Southeast army and sent Poundmaker there alone.”

  Lola gave a nod, the kind that meant she was already processing six implications behind the statement.

  “Olivia?” she turned to her right.

  The older woman adjusted her glasses, silver hair tied back with military precision. Her expression was calm in that academic, I-haven’t-slept-in-two-days way. “Chief, Dmitry reacted fast to the traitors. His army is holding… organized, stable. Unlike Portside, which lacks a leader. Lucas tried, but… he’s not up to the task.”

  One of the twenty holo-screens flared brighter in response to her command gesture, sliding to the forefront and enlarging until it dominated the air above them.

  A city-side square appeared. Pearl’s stream showed the Rimebreak banners pressed between imperial formations and traitor ranks. Smoke, shouting, magic flares painting the cobblestones.

  “Fty has only the loyalist army,” Olivia continued, tapping her console. “But they’re still late to challenge the barracks.”

  Another screen floated forward, flickering to clarity… Fty sprinting down a wide Altandai avenue, wind whipping his cloak, a vanguard of troops following behind him. “Also, Chief,” Hugo said quickly, swiping open another feed. “Tramar’s stream.”

  The image flickered up… chaos and laughter all at once. Tramar and his squad were mid-contest, launching fireballs the size of siege carts down an Altandai street while chat emotes screamed across the overlay.

  “He was running a contest for the largest fireball with his friends,” Hugo continued, grimacing. “Good for engagement; viewers love the chaos. We even enabled betting. But…”

  The feed zoomed out. Frozna was already on the field, her weird druid magic flaring as if she’d been dragged in to parent the pyromaniacs. Around them, hundreds of animals—big cats, mud wolves, bears—charged the frontline, summoned or otherwise.

  “It’s a mess, as you can see,” Hugo finished, voice tight. “Numbers are on their side, but Tramar’s cursing about low mana.”

  Before Lola could answer, Olivia’s voice slid through like the crack of cold glass.

  “We got a report that Lunaris’…” she hesitated, as if saying it might summon the problem itself, “wealth liberation team entered their first target. Guns blazing, to speak politely. No active streams.”

  Hugo cut in again, already flipping his holo-display toward Lola. “And the Queen herself,” he said with a grin that was half nerves, half opportunistic showmanship.

  Olivia groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Don’t encourage that tone.”

  “She’s… talking with the Grandmasters,” Hugo continued, his voice softening when he saw Lola’s expression. “And Damon’s just entered the field as we speak.”

  The central screen brightened and grew… and there she was.

  Charlie.

  Lola’s heart skipped, just for a beat. Charlie’s figure stood against the eerie, golden haze of the dome projection, her aura visible even through the distortion; that fierce, impossible determination that made everyone around her forget how mortal she actually was.

  A part of Lola’s chest ached… pride, love, fear, guilt all tangled together. She’d left her there, surrounded by grandmasters and traitors.

  You were supposed to protect her, remember? SWOT and all that!

  Her throat felt dry. She forced a steady breath out through her nose, smoothing the emotion back into composure. Her gaze tracked the screens, each glowing with chaos, death, miscommunication, and slowly, she saw patterns instead of panic.

  Threads she could pull, gaps she could close. “Alright,” she said finally. Calm. Controlled. Dangerous in its precision. “We fix this before Charlie notices how bad it is.”

  The team straightened instinctively. The noise dimmed. Orders were about to flow, not shouted, but executed.

  A few minutes it was working, but then…“Chief, before we start…” Olivia asked. “Your assassin?”

  Every sound in the room stopped. Fingers froze over holo-keyboards. Lola looked up slowly, letting the silence hang just long enough to sting. Then she smiled; small, controlled, too calm for comfort.

  “Can you put my assassin on the screen?”

  Hugo’s hands were already moving, half because he was efficient, half because he lived for dramatic reveals. The central holo shifted, a dozen smaller screens collapsing inward until one massive image filled the space above the table.

  The assassin’s face flickered into view. Catlike ears, dark hood, eyes bright on her stormy and focused expression. She looked as if she were enjoying herself.

  “Who’s she?” Lola asked, voice light but cold underneath.

  Hugo’s lips curled into a smug half-smile. “Name’s Maria.” He flicked his wrist, and a translucent feed appeared beside her image… a Riker’s player profile, chat logs, archived threads.

  “She advertised herself as an assassin for hire,” Hugo continued, scrolling. “Freelance player. You can see in this thread—” he zoomed in, lines of text popping up, “—discussion about her previous kills in other titles. A bit of a celebrity in niche PvP circles.”

  He flicked further down, eyes gleaming as he found what he wanted. “And here anonymous post under her thread. ‘Looking for top-tier killer, 10k gold, target provided privately.’ Dated a week ago.”

  Olivia adjusted her glasses, frowning. “Coincides with her joining the assault.”

  Lola opened her mouth… and didn’t get the chance to respond. “DEMON!” someone screamed. Every screen in the room flickered. The central display surged with new footage; the runes, the light bending like molten glass. And then it emerged: massive, clawed, wrong in all the ways that made skin crawl.

  A Demon Prince.

  Lola’s jaw tightened, her mind snapping gears mid-thought. “File that information for later,” she said, her voice steady as the room panicked around her. “We’ll handle Maria once we survive the war.”

  Then, louder, a command that carved through the rising shouts: “For now, we focus on the battles. Move, people!” She snapped her fingers.

  Instant motion.

  The holo-screens blazed back to life, flooding the room with light and motion. Voices rose again; but this time with direction.

  “Linking Llama’s command feed!”

  “Minute-scouts reporting— patching visuals to sectors three through six!”

  “Updating barrack maps! Sending informer to the capsule!”

  “South flank has new demons, tagging now!”

  The air buzzed with kinetic purpose. Runners darted between desks, tossing data slates; holographic streams shifted in a dizzying rhythm as scouts’ short bursts of footage came in; flashes of battlefields, spellfire, and banners fluttering in light.

  Lola watched it all with quiet satisfaction, her posture easy, composed; the calm that pulled people in and made chaos look manageable.

  “Ask Llama for army orders,” she said, voice carrying over the hum. “Use the minute-intervals of reports. Top priority. We need to relay information fast back to Rimelion, people. Lives depend on it.”

  “On it!” someone called. Fingers danced over controls, lines of data linking across displays like veins filling with light.

  A low tremor rippled through the holograms. The feeds darkened and then burst open again, now showing more.

  Demons.

  They were pouring through on every screen… the front lines, the city squares, even the northern streets. Every battlefield turned balder and darker in the span of seconds.

  Even so, Lola smiled.

  “See?” she whispered, almost to herself. “We are the intel office. Commanders rely on us.”

  Her gaze swept over the room, meeting eyes that were wide but burning with focus. “So let’s give them info before I go back to Rimelion.”

  Several heads snapped toward her.

  “Back?” one technician blurted, disbelief going through his voice. “What about the respawn timer?” Lola’s smile turned faintly amused; the smile that said she already knew the answer and wasn’t going to share it.

  “Silly things like that can’t stop me.”