Commander Peter's smug grin was practically glowing as he pushed my wheelchair through the hospital hallway, with Marshal Excav trailing beside us like a thundercloud. Judging by Peter's triumphant posture, it was clear who had won the argument over which doctor would be overseeing my care.
"Uh... how long am I expected to be stuck in this wheelchair?" I asked the spectacled doctor walking to my left as we passed through the bustling corridor.
"Two weeks, minimum—hopefully a full month," he said, adjusting his clipboard. "The spirit depletion you suffered nearly shut down your pulmonary system entirely. You're lucky your organs didn't fail. It'll take time for your body to, well... reboot. Add that to the internal and external trauma, and it's a miracle you're even conscious. For a normal person, this level of injury would require eight months of recovery. But thanks to your accelerated healing, we estimate you'll be fully patched up—surgical stitching and all—in about nine weeks."
"I see. Thank you," I replied with a smile.
The doctor blinked, clearly not expecting me to take the prognosis so well. He opened his mouth to say something, but at the warning glare from Peter, he clammed up and quickly excused himself.
"Most people would be depressed hearing that kind of diagnosis," Marshal Excav remarked, casting a sidelong glance at me, clearly puzzled by my calm demeanour.
"Would it make a difference if I threw a tantrum about it?" I muttered, trying to shift into a more comfortable position. "It's a waste of breath. Better to rest while I can. I'm more worried about Andromeda, to be honest. He must be scared, being that far from me."
Excav studied me for a moment. He could still hardly believe this was the same girl who once snatched a gun out of his hand the day we met. An AKP, engineered to be the perfect soldier, showing concern. Empathy. It unnerved him more than he cared to admit.
As we approached the hospital lobby, Jason appeared, nodding to the commander.
"You bring the car around?" Peter asked.
"Yes, sir. It's waiting by the east lot," Jason replied, taking over wheelchair duty. "But there's a crowd gathering outside. News of Firefly waking up spread faster than expected."
Thinking back to the nurse who greeted me post-coma, I had no doubt she was responsible. The bribes she probably accepted from media outlets were likely enough to retire on.
"We'll have to appease them eventually," Excav grumbled. "Cursed vultures."
As we rolled toward the hospital's opaque front doors, he looked to Peter to open them. Peter did nothing.
With an annoyed sigh, the Marshal pulled them open himself—instantly unleashing a wall of chaos.
Camera flashes erupted like gunfire. Microphones surged forward like bayonets. A wall of voices battered my ears.
"Miss Firefly! Andromeda's pilot! Over here!"
"What were you thinking during the confrontation?"
"How did you uncover the assassination plot?"
"Do you believe Freyt is a better pilot than you?"
"Why haven't you been ranked among the constellation-grade pilots yet?"
Recoiling into the wheelchair like a startled animal, I stammered out the only sound I could manage.
"...Huh?"
My brain blanked out completely. Is this a warzone? No, worse. At least in a warzone, people shoot at you and leave you alone after.
"Back away." Marshal Excav stepped forward, voice booming as he raised a hand to silence the crowd. "Pilot Firefly has just awakened from a three-day coma. She is still in recovery. We will allow three questions, and only from reporters of her choosing. Any forced contact will be answered with force."
Several reporters gulped audibly.
Beside him, Commander Peter cracked his knuckles, smacking one fist into his palm with a grin that promised broken noses if anyone got too close.
Excav gestured toward me.
Trying to sort through the crowd, I settled on the one who stood out the most—a woman in a bright orange jacket. "Ma'am in the orange. You first."
She raised her recorder and shouted, "What are your thoughts on the Empress's response following the attack? Do you believe, with the intel you provided during Freiheit's scouting, that the defence could've been stronger?"
Marshal Excav gave me a sharp glare, the kind that said choose your next words carefully.
I swallowed.
"This invasion was orchestrated long before Empress Lucione even took the throne—twenty years ago, at least. If anything, I believe it's thanks to her quick response that the city wasn't levelled entirely. She rallied an entire defensive force overnight. That's not just strategy—it's leadership."
Satisfied, the woman gave a nod and faded back into the sea of cameras.
For the second question, I pointed to a short, dwarf-like man who happened to be eye-level with me.
"Are you unbothered by the injuries you sustained protecting Trigrata? And how long until you return to active duty?"
"It's not the first time I've been hurt this badly," I replied. "Last time was during my second deployment, covering a mass evacuation during the Dream Swarm outbreak. Ended up hospitalized for a few days after taking down a magnitude-5.0 Knightmare." I paused, then added, "Doctors say I'll be back in two months—fully recovered, stitches sealed and all. That's when I'll redeploy—ouch!"
I bit my tongue mid-word and winced, cheeks puffing out as I tried not to cry from the sting.
A flurry of camera clicks followed, and I could hear them whispering the word "cute."
Why is this more humiliating than getting shot?
I quickly pointed at the final reporter—a wide, heavyset man with an oversized recording tablet.
"It's known that you're an AKP, same as the now-branded traitor, AKP-11,000. What's your stance on this military asset turned traitor?"
Jason stiffened behind me, visibly annoyed. "That's personal, don't you think?"
"The people have a right to know. You're not trying to restrict freedom of speech, are you?" the journalist pressed, voice tinged with smug defiance.
"The Law of Idiocy Management applies just fine here," Jason shot back coldly.
The man went pale, shrinking slightly. Jason leaned down beside me and whispered, "You don't have to answer that, Firefly. Not if you don't want to."
I stared at the blanket draped across my lap, fingers tightening in its folds. But I answered anyway, voice low, almost fragile. I had to say it. If I wanted to move forward, this was the moment.
"My brother... Zero. He probably never really cared for me. Not the way people are supposed to. During pilot training, he kept his distance. Maybe what he felt was guilt—guilt that he didn't step in when I was the runt of the litter. And when I finally showed promise, maybe that guilt turned into resentment. Or obligation." I took a slow breath. "Even so... he was my brother. My only brother who showed any kind of care at all. That's why I couldn't kill him when I had the chance."
A beat of silence. Then, another voice from the crowd: "Do you believe you'll be able to stop him in the future?"
I smiled faintly, almost sadly. "I have no idea. If it comes down to it... could you pull the trigger on one of the few people who ever brought light into your world? I'll only know the answer when we're standing face to face, guns drawn, and no more words left between us."
"That's enough." Commander Peter moved forward, his presence like a wall slamming down between me and the press. Jason wheeled me through the parted crowd as Peter cleared the way, taking us to a dark van parked at the curb.
With practiced strength, Peter lifted me inside, wheelchair and all, before settling beside me. Jason climbed into the driver's seat without a word and peeled away from the curb. The Marshal remained behind, his scowl a warning to the vultures lingering near the hospital steps.
For a while, there was only the hum of the road beneath us—cracked, scorched, still bearing the marks of the invasion.
Then Peter spoke, nudging me gently. "Honestly... I don't know whether to be proud or not." He gave a half-smile. "It was brave of you to answer like that."
I blinked, surprised at the warmth in his voice—then felt something wet trail down my cheek.
Peter wiped the tear from my face before I even realized it was there.
"You already know how this ends, Firefly," he said, his tone cooling again. "There's only one fate for Zero now. The same one given to all traitors, by the Knight King's Eighth Pact." He recited it like a mantra. "'A knight's oath is their life. Betrayal, deception, and falsehood have no place between us. Each knight must embody truth, even in the face of certain death.'"
"All traitors are subject to immediate execution," I finished softly.
Jason glanced at me in the rear-view mirror, concern clear in his eyes. Peter, too, seemed to hesitate for the first time.
I tilted my head to the side, my voice barely above a whisper. "I still don't know if what I felt for Zero was familial loyalty... or something else. But whatever it was, I hope I make the right decision when I meet the person he's become."
Peter had no words for that. He simply nodded, the weight of my statement hanging between us.
After a long pause, he cleared his throat and shifted the subject. "There'll be a funeral procession in a few days. For the fallen. You'll attend, alongside the Empress. After that, we'll return to base—get you the rest you actually need."
The word funeral caught my attention. It wasn't something I'd heard before. But the gravity in Peter's voice told me it wasn't something to be taken lightly.
I didn't ask. Just listened, and waited to understand it when the time came.
Here's your scene, carefully edited to heighten
Dressed in all black, seated quietly in my wheelchair, the meaning of the word funeral struck me harder than I expected.
Under a heavy grey sky, hundreds gathered in hushed reverence. It wasn't silence—but it was close. Sniffles and soft sobs drifted in the still air, a mournful current shared between strangers. Men and women held themselves together with brittle dignity. Only the children wept aloud, their small cries muffled in the folds of their parents' clothes.
A dark, veiled monolith stood at the centre of it all. Raised on a marble platform, it was guarded by a line of uniformed soldiers—rifles held aloft in a motionless salute. They didn't blink. Didn't shift. In this bleak atmosphere, I could've mistaken them for statues of the fallen themselves.
Should I have been standing? The question gnawed at me. Others present had lost their limbs defending the city. And yet, here I was—only able to sit.
A hand settled gently on my shoulder. The Empress. Her touch steadied my fraying nerves.
"We did all we could," she said softly. "Don't dwell on a past that's already behind us. None of these people would still be breathing if you hadn't uncovered the coup when you did."
I nodded, trying to anchor myself in her words, but the sombre weight in the air made it impossible to feel comforted.
With a graceful wave of her hand, she stepped forward along the path leading to the veiled monument. Sam, walking behind me, began to push my wheelchair up the incline in silence.
His expression mirrored mine—quiet grief masked by stillness. As we passed row after row of black dresses and mourning suits, I saw pain carved into the lines of strangers' faces. Some cried openly. Others stared ahead, hollow and unblinking. A few clenched their eyes shut, trying to hold the grief inside.
A small boy clutching a stuffed penguin caught my eye. His voice was tiny, barely audible: "Dad... when's Mom coming back?"
The man beside him collapsed to his knees, unable to answer. He held the child tightly, sobbing into his tiny shoulder.
Tears flooded my eyes before I could stop them. I clamped a hand over my mouth, breathing fast and shallow, spiralling into guilt.
How could I allow this?
Why didn't I try harder?
My job is to protect these people... so why did I fail them?
While I spent the past few days trying to come to terms with Zero's betrayal behind palace walls, these people were grieving the loss of their entire worlds.
"Don't look." Sam gently turned my head away. "You'll only break yourself by trying to carry everyone's pain."
The Empress reached the monument, and the veil was pulled away.
A silver statue stood revealed—a kneeling knight, arms spread wide as he shielded a mother and child beneath his cloak. Around its base, four black walls bore thousands of names carved into stone. Civilians. Victims. The faceless and the beloved. Beneath the statue itself, another set of names: the soldiers who gave their lives to defend them.
Marshal Excav approached from the side, carrying a bouquet of deep red lotuses. He handed them to the Empress, who began her slow circle around the monument, placing the flowers one by one into vases mounted into the stone.
Sam, silent still, lifted a wreath from the back of my wheelchair and set it gently on my lap—white lilies intertwined with purple hyacinths. He held another wreath of pure white lilies in his hands.
He pushed me forward until we reached the monument's edge. He laid his wreath beside the crimson flowers. I followed, placing mine carefully into the final vase.
As Sam wheeled me back down the slope, the Empress remained behind—gazing up at the statue's sculpted family with a look carved from regret. A ruler weighed down by the faces of the dead.
My experience with death was short—but not unfamiliar. I had danced with it. Escaped it. In the Fallen Moon facility, trainees collapsed dead in the corridors from exhaustion. It was normal.
But this was different.
Back then, I could fight. I had the means to survive.
These people didn't. They didn't know how to hold a gun, let alone survive an invasion. They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, caught in Freiheit's storm with nothing but hope that someone—anyone—would come for them.
How could I have saved them? How do you protect beauty from being consumed by darkness?
[Pilot Firefly.]
Andromeda's voice came gently from beneath the blanket, where he lay hidden against my chest.
[You already know the truth. Whether it's today or tomorrow, people fade. What makes it painful today is knowing they died in fear, in agony—because of Freiheit. You can't save everyone. But you can save those within your reach.]
His voice—always calm, always certain—cut through the storm in my mind.
And I hated how much I knew he was right.
[Soldiers are no different. They cling to their instincts, fighting desperately to live through the next moment. We don't always get to choose if we die—but we can choose how. You've already said it—you want to die surrounded by beauty. So don't lose yourself to ugliness. Be strong enough to protect this galaxy's splendour. I'll carry you wherever that path leads.]
Tears stopped. Not because the pain had passed—but because I understood it better now.
Burying my arm beneath the blanket, I held Andromeda tightly to my chest. With my other hand, I tried to cover the ugliness of my crying face.
This wasn't physical pain. This wasn't a broken bone or a deep wound.
This was something worse. A kind of hurt that bled through the soul instead.
Why... why is it that death hurts the living more than the dead?