Sera was scribbling with the intensity of someone trying to outrun fate. Her quill scratched across the enchanted parchment in elegant, looping script that seemed to shimmer with authority. Some divine nonsense, probably.

  The resulting document was ridiculous in how official it looked. Two copies, both brimming with gilded borders and arcane flourishes, floated in the air like summoned relics.

  One hovered toward me, and with a soft chime, slipped into my inventory with the reverence of a holy artifact.

  I could already picture Lola’s face when I showed it to her, eyes wide, lips pressed into a line, hands twitching toward her filing system like she’d just been presented with the crown jewels. I’d probably have to pry it out of her hands later.

  Irwen, meanwhile, stood a few paces away, her eyes drifting lazily over our defenses. That same inscrutable smile tugged at her lips—graceful, unreadable, equal parts confirmation and amusement. “It’s a war,” she said simply, like she was announcing tea time. Then, without another word, she turned and began walking back toward her army, her clothes trailing behind her like falling dusk.

  “Uhm—” My brain scrambled like a panicked Italian. “Meet you on the battlefield?” I called after her, a little too loudly.

  My voice flapped uselessly through the air. She didn’t respond. Just kept walking, smooth and terrifying. Well. That was fine. Totally normal interaction with my mythic-level mom.

  I turned back and immediately spotted the chaos.

  “Seen that?” Katherine was mid-rant, gesturing wildly with both hands as she animatedly recounted some past battle to Sera. “Then just blew! Ya know? Both, but me won!” Sera looked like someone had just aged over a decade. Her eyes were slightly glazed. The aura of divine professionalism was cracking under the sheer force of Kit’s unrelenting charisma.

  Kit’s laugh, loud and unapologetic, rang out in the field like it belonged to a festival, not the aftermath of a war declaration. And somehow… it settled me. It was the same cackle she had on her stream. Familiar. Comforting.

  I edged closer. “Sera, thank you for your… help,” I said, trying not to look at Gatei, who was now fully horizontal in the grass, arms spread like a collapsed scarecrow. And definitely snoring. Loudly. In a rhythm.

  “I hope I didn’t, um, complicate things too much for you.”

  Sera gave a small shake of her head, then turned and offered Kit a nod that was polite on the surface and weary at the edges. Her smile to me was courteous, restrained, bittersweet. “It ended well,” she said. “You called, I served. That is the deal.” Her voice held the kind of tired grace you’d expect from someone used to carrying a flaming torch through a wind tunnel.

  Then she glanced at Katherine again, lips twitching. “It was… an honor to witness this historic moment.”

  And just like that, with a flutter of wind and light, she vanished. Gone. Probably into a quiet room with soundproof walls and no mortal noise pollution.

  I let out a slow breath and turned toward Lisa, who’d somehow been calm through all this, and threw my arms around her without hesitation. She hugged back instantly, warm and solid, her chin resting lightly on my head.

  “Moral support,” I mumbled into her hair.

  “Always,” she whispered back.

  When I pulled away, I looked at my girls, Katherine still glowing with post-chaos joy, Lisa’s complicated look, and smiled, heart thudding but focused. “Alright,” I said, planting my feet, squaring my shoulders. “Let’s go, team. We’ve got a war to win.”

  And for the first time today, that didn’t feel like a joke; it felt like truth.

  Irwen had given us one hour. Should’ve been plenty of time. Enough to breathe, prep, maybe scream into a pillow. But no, give players more than sixty minutes with nothing actively trying to kill them, and you don’t get efficiency. You get chaos.

  Idiotic, flame-on-the-curtains chaos.

  I was deep in the trenches, organizing defense lines, drilling through formations with team leads, assigning towers by competence level and not by who had the flashiest title in the duty calls?. When I was finally done grumbling orders, I sent the squads scattering to their positions like anxious little stormclouds.

  That’s when I heard it.

  “Please, that is not the plan!”

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  Lola’s voice rang out from the upper wall like a distress beacon wrapped in academic despair. I bolted toward the sound, feet hitting the stone stairs two at a time, brain already bracing for another fire.

  When I reached the top, I blinked.

  Gatei was sitting upside-down on a merlon, yes, on the outer edge of the fortress wal, like he was gravity’s personal nemesis. One leg hooked over the stone, the other swinging lazily in open air, arms folded behind his head like this was a hammock in the Bahamas and not a thirty-meter drop.

  “Gatei,” I said, trying not to shriek, “sit. Normally. And explain why my Lola looks like she’s about to have an existential aneurysm.”

  “I’m not on the verge,” Lola whispered, voice brittle. But I pulled her into a hug anyway, calming myself just as much as her.

  Because truth was? I was on the verge. Nerves buzzing. Stomach fluttering. Every inhale felt too shallow. Every second dragged too loud. And yet, there were still problems to solve. “What’s going on?” I asked, my words muffled in her shoulder, masking the edge in my voice.

  Lola exhaled slowly, then stepped back, straightened her papers like they were moral support, and yanked my sleeve.

  She pointed, accusingly, at Gatei, who had now sunk halfway into the wall like it was memory foam. His legs dangled, swinging gently over the side. “This man,” she said, tone grim enough to declare the end of civilization, “wants to create an elite squadron unit and recklessly yeet himself into the demon horde.”

  Gatei gave an enthusiastic thumbs-up, upside-down and grinning like a toddler who just discovered fire.

  “That is not the plan,” Lola deadpanned, as if trying to manifest sanity back into the world through sheer willpower.

  “But it’s fun!” Gatei said, springing upright without touching anything. Just, boop, airborne. Again, the gravity was a suggestion he’d politely declined. No magic involved.

  I hate gods. Damn, no. First not-a-dragon and now not-a-god.

  “They can’t die anyway,” he added, spinning mid-air before landing with a smug little heel-click. “They’ll just respawn! And I’m great at demolition. You want damage? Boom. Done.”

  He turned to face the horizon, eyes glowing faintly as he drank in the distant, twitching line of the demon horde. That hungry gleam returned. The kind that said he wasn’t just here to fight, he was here to enjoy it.

  “Besides,” he breathed, almost to himself, “I’m the best use of me.”

  A new voice sliced through the growing absurdity like a whiskey slamming on a bar. “Are you immortal?”

  Mila appeared with the kind of commanding presence that made people straighten their backs before they realized it.

  Gatei turned toward him with a delighted gasp. “Oh, you must be the logistics gremlin! Or the stick up ass?”

  Mila didn’t even blink. “I am Imperial Doan-Commander Mila. You do not get to ignore protocol.”

  “The stick up then.” Gatei tilted his head like a curious crow. “Ah, yes. That word again. Protocol. Your people really love putting rules on everything.”

  Mila’s gaze sharpened to frost. “This is not a theater. Your power is not an excuse to break structure. If you want to fight under this banner, you do so under my command. No exceptions.”

  Gatei clapped like he’d just been served dessert. “Oh, I like you.” Then he leaned forward, lowering his voice in a whisper. “You remind me of an old friend. Tried to chain me to a comet once to stop me interfering in a friendly quarrel. Didn’t work. Still send her snacks.”

  Mila didn’t respond. Just stared, eyes narrowing. The aura around him thickened like storm-clouds forming.

  Gatei gave a breezy shrug. “I’m not in your army, dear. I’m a variable.”

  “I don’t allow variables,” Mila replied, his tone honed to a blade’s edge.

  Gatei’s smile sharpened into something both bright and ancient. “And yet…” He stretched his arms wide. “Here. I. Am.”

  I had to resist the urge to facepalm. “Stop. Both of you. We’re wasting time, arguing is useless. Gatei will charge into the enemies when we tell him, leading the elite squadron.”

  Mila’s eyes widened. “But Lady—”

  “No buts,” I said, sharp as glass. “It is your army, but my war.”

  That shut him up. Not from offense, Mila didn’t offend easy, but from understanding. He straightened, his nod crisp and clean. “Understood.”

  Gatei made an exaggerated “oooh” sound, then pointed between the two of us. “That was spicy. Do it again.”

  I gave him a flat look. “Save it for the demons.”

  He winked.

  Word spread like wildfire, no, like someone had lit a flammable idea on fire and tossed it into a haystack. The moment players heard there was a shift in plans and that someone might do a full-frontal suicide charge with Gatei, every berserker in the army practically trampled over each other to sign up.

  Including, of course, Katherine. “Me joinin’ the Left Sock Division!” she announced with the giddy triumph of someone winning a pie-eating contest, one arm raised like a sword, the other already halfway to the gate.

  “The... what?” I blinked.

  “Left sock division,” she repeated, grinning from ear to ear. “Chargin’, glory? Tat’s me!”

  Her eyes were practically shimmering with joy. I think she’d been waiting her whole life for us to finally, officially, allow her to recklessly hurl herself into danger for fun and prestige.

  I let out a sigh that carried the weight of someone used to being surrounded by lovable idiots. “I was counting on you to help hold the flank with Lisa, you know… actual strategy. But if you’re that excited, fine.” I tapped open my interface and started shuffling names. “I’ll reassign Frozna and Scamantha to cover the flank instead. They’ll love that.”

  “Yay!” Kit immediately launched herself into a hug like a heat-seeking missile made of limbs and chaotic glee.

  I caught her with a soft oof, trying not to smile. “But I still don’t understand the name. Left sock?”

  “Left Sock Division,” Katherine repeated, puffing out her chest with pride. “Sounds cool, right?”

  I blinked at her, then looked away before she caught the faint blush threatening to rise in my cheeks. “Yeah,” I muttered. “Definitely sounds like something Gatei would come up with while high on entropy.”

  “Exactly!” she beamed, then turned on her heel and strutted off like a general headed to battle, with glitter and unearned confidence. I watched her join the gathering crowd near the main gate, where Gatei stood at the center of the madness like a prophet recruiting zealots for a beautifully doomed crusade.

  I exhaled and tried to activate the ring to contact the prince, but, no surprise, silence. Sleeping, or just ghosting me for the vibes.

  Fine. I switched gears, fingers dancing across the interface to issue the new orders to the squads, watching names and unit tags flicker and reassign themselves in bursts of light. Then, with another deep sigh, I climbed the stone stairs toward the central tower.

  Because, apparently, my job for the first phase wasn’t to fight.

  It was to command.

  Yay.

  The tower was already buzzing with quiet focus. Mila stood at the center, posture perfect, eyes scanning the shifting battle map as if daring it to deviate from his plan.

  Lola was there too, sleeves rolled up, clipboard in one hand and ink-stained fingers flying across the interface like she was transcribing the history of the realm in real time. Around them, a handful of imperial clerks murmured updates and adjusted formations on enchanted scrolls that glowed with troop movements across the terrain.

  The battle hadn’t begun yet, but the pulse of tension in the room was thick enough to bottle. I leaned against the doorframe for a second, soaking in the organized chaos, and muttered under my breath “Gods help me, I miss the Left Sock Division already.”