Allen’s Office

Allen continues squinting at the changeling sitting with his arms, legs, and tail all bound on the sofa in his office. But neither he nor the changeling, who is now awake, say a word.

Seconds tick by before the seconds turn to minutes, and then to hours. And at some point during it, Allen simply resumes his paperwork as he coordinates things for the war. All with the changeling still tied up in his office.

Eventually though, Allen finishes his paperwork and leans back in his office chair with a sigh, only to remember the changeling’s existence at the sight of it staring up at a sword on the wall. One of Allen’s father’s first creations.

So Allen brings his arm up and opens his terminal before typing away in it and eventually calling Sage, at which point he asks, “Sage, is Scarlet done dealing with the changelings issue?”

The changeling in his office immediately turns to look at him, the creature’s eyes widening at the mention of his Princess’s name. But Allen just ignores him as he listens to Sage’s voice coming from the terminal.

“Yes, the Young Miss has finished clearing out all of the changelings from the supply hubs and is now on her way back to the frontlines.”

Allen’s eyebrow twitches with irritation before he says, “Understood,” and hangs up the call. Then he begins glaring at the changeling.

She dumped this changeling on me and forgot about him, didn’t she?!

A snort echoes through Allen’s mind coming from his fae, but Allen ignores them as he finally addresses the changeling, saying, “How many changelings were infiltrating the supply hubs?”

Just as expected, the changeling simply ignores him. He even throws a disdainful look at Allen.

Allen sighs once more while glancing around his office for a bottle of wine, only to remember that he decided to hold back on drinking. Because it was quickly becoming a bad habit.

Not to mention that his wife could smell it on his breath and wasn’t very pleased about it.

Why do I feel like my workload always increases when Scarlet’s around…?

Scarlet

I stand at the top of a mountain looking out over the main battlefield of the frontlines with my hands on my hips and a wide smile on my face.

“Feeling proud of yourself, are we?” Tar comments, sounding amused. But I just nod my head.

I did manage to clear out a rather large amount of changelings today, and word has gotten out about it as well. So not only is public opinion about me rising, but some of it about Amelia is going up as well. Something about her raising me is benefiting Humanity, fulfilling her role as the Knight of Humanity despite the actions it took to get here.

Not very many people are saying this, mind you, but some are. And that’s what matters.

“It really bothered you that she took the fall after all, didn’t it?” Tar mutters, making me purse my lips for a moment.

I still don’t think of her as my mother, nor do I care much about her beyond an associate. But I don’t like the idea of someone taking blame and scorn for something like that.

Whether I like it or not, her actions were logical. It was to abandon me when I was young to save me as an adult and free me from my curse of Pride, or to let the universe die with me along with it as I continued to suffer through the curse.

And while I still don’t like the whole abandoning thing, it was, as I said, logical. In a way.

“Yeah,” Tar mutters again, sounding like he understands my thinking. Probably.

I continue looking out over the ongoing battle for several seconds before crossing my arms and tilting my head slightly as a thought comes to mind.

“Hey, Tar?” I ask out loud, a faint grin replacing my smile.

“Seriously?” he asks in return, likely already knowing what I have in mind.

“Seriously,” I retort, my grin growing wider.

He lets out a long and overly drawn out sigh.

Dramatic much?

“When it comes to you I have to be,” he mutters, making me raise a brow.

Well, if you’re gonna be like that…

I turn my head to look at the tanuki before quickly grabbing him with one hand and bringing him to my grinning face as I say out loud, “So what about that tail? I think now’s a good time to fulfil your promise, don’t you?”

Panic instantly crosses the tanuki’s face as he tries and fails to get out of my grip. And he continues struggling for several seconds before exclaiming, “I give! I give! I’m sorry!”

My grin grows wider, and I let go of the tanuki, returning to crossing my arms again.

Tar floats back to my shoulder with a tanuki pout on his face as he says, “You’re in a surprisingly good mood today.”

Well, yeah. Guess I am.

Anyways, onto that idea. Do you think it’ll work?

He sighs again, not overly dramatic this time, and answers, “Probably. There is no way the Noble demons would expect you to strike directly at Demon Isle, far away from the frontlines. You’d have to sneak your way past the frontlines and through all of the demon territory between here and there to do that. And that’s no easy feat.”

Right, right. But going through Tartarus…

“Is a ridiculous idea, but certainly not without merit,” Tar says, his voice sounding slightly exasperated this time. “If you enter a Class IV Gate beyond the frontlines to Tartarus and travel through Tartarus until you reach the Class V Gate in Demon Isle, assuming you manage to make it through the Gate undetected by the demons, you could very well deal a lot of damage to them.” He frowns slightly. “And we both know your Grandfather isn’t going to stop you whether he finds you or not.”

Yeah. Not to mention that I’d be using up some of the Gate’s energy. Although probably not much of it.

Now I just have to convince everyone of this plan.

“That might be the hard part,” Tar comments, making me nod my head.

That it might be.