I felt like all I was missing was a cigar to smoke while sitting up in bed. With Clawdia cuddling up against my right, thoroughly exhausted, and Cami in a similar state cuddling up against my left, the three of us were still naked and only covered up by blankets.

Life was good.

Then Window appeared.

Oi.

Don’t be all “life was good… and then Window appeared.”

That makes it sound like I’m causing life to no longer be good.

“That’s the point,” I teased.

Uh-huh.

Anyways, are you done now so that we can progress things that matter more than sex?

“I think so. Just give these two a few more minutes to rest and then we’ll come down and—”

Hey, I just noticed something.

“What?”

A hand stuck out from Window’s rectangular body to point right at my abdomen where I had a scar.

I’ve got glimpses of this before, but… that’s a big scar, and you’ve had it ever since coming here. What’s—what’s it from?

“Oh, that. There’s no dramatic story behind it or anything if you’re curious. All I did was have a surgery.”

Oh, that’s disappoint—

“Just kidding. I got stabbed.”

WHICH IS IT?!

“The latter. Some guy screwed up on drugs in public tried attacking some kids because they looked at him funny, so I dealt with him until the cops arrived. Ended up getting a knife in my abdomen during it. Didn’t even realize until I got off of him and somebody pointed it out to me. But yeah, that’s it.”

…

what the hecc

“What?”

That’s… you actually did something cool and heroic?

“All I did was beat up a drug addict.”

FOR THE SAKE OF PROTECTING RANDOM KIDS YOU DIDN’T EVEN KNOW. AND YOU GOT STABBED AND DIDN’T EVEN REACT UNTIL AFTER IT WAS OVER.

“Well, that’s just because of adrenaline. Anybody can act like that when their body is being pumped full of adrenaline.”

THAT MIGHT EXPLAIN THE STABBY PART B UT YOU WERE STILL HEROIC FOR THE SAVING KIDS PART

“I guess I can see your point, but don’t forget that I’m supposed to be a villain these days. That means I have to ruin my image. Therefore, instead of doing it to protect the kids, I did it just so I had an excuse to beat up some homeless drug addict.”

…

You really are the worst.

You’re a scourge to humanity.

But seriously… I thought you didn’t even like people? Why would you risk yourself like that for some kids you didn’t even know?

“Really, Window?”

WHAT?

WHY DO YOU SOUND IN DISBELIEF OF WHAT I SAID?

I’M NOT WRONG, RIGHT? YOU DON’T EVEN LIKE PEOPLE UNLESS THEY EXIST HERE.

“You don’t have to like people to know and do the right thing. I want to punch almost any kid I see, ours excluded, in the face for no reason other than thinking that kids, ours excluded, are annoying. But I know that’s obviously the wrong thing, so I don’t do it. I also know that trying to help kids in a shitty situation is the right thing to do even if I don’t like them, so I did what the right thing was. Kids are annoying, not evil. People trying to attack kids—I don’t care about their reason for it, they’re evil.”

Ugh.

You’re supposed to be a bad guy villain these days. It’s hard to view you as one when you say things like that.

“Honestly, if I had even a tiny sliver of the power that Vala has, I would probably just snap my fingers and end practically every single issue that the world faces. But I guess it’s more complicated than that for somebody who actually has that amount of power.”

Yeah… it’s not that easy. It might be that easy in this pocket universe, but not outside of it.

Anyways, what happened next? After you noticed the knife in you?

“Oh. The kids tried thanking me for helping them, so I told them to go away since they were annoying and I didn’t want to have to listen to a bunch of crying kids while I had a knife stuck in me.”

Of course.

How old were you even?

“Fifteen.”

AND YOU WERE ONLY FIFTEEN WHEN YOU DID THAT?

Ugh.

Why can’t you still be that heroic and cool—

Oh, that was while you were friends with Vala still, right?

“Before she got banned, yeah. First thing I did when I was out of the hospital was get online and tell her about it. I wanted to brag about how I got a ‘cool scar that would help me build a harem because girls love guys with scars.’ Or something like that.”

Sigh.

I guess that’s why she’s never really brought it up before. She already knew about it.

“I’ve also got this scar.” I turned my body a little and lifted my right arm to show the circular scar on my right side. “Got this one when I was shot.”

WHEN WERE YOU SHOT?!

“I was at the bank when some robbers broke in. They told me to get down on the ground. I told them to fuck off because I wanted to finish what I was there for so I could go home and garden. They refused, so I fought them. Then one of them shot me and as soon as that happened, they all ran away since I guess they never planned on actually resorting to violence and had no idea what to do. Got the bastard who shot me, though. Jumped on him while he was trying to run, accidentally pulled his pants down which made him trip, and then pinned him down until the cops arrived. Now that I think about it… I remember one of the cops who arrived was actually one of the same who showed up for the stabbing incident.” I laughed a bit when remembering that. “She tried recruiting me telling me I would make a great cop with how many ‘bad guys’ I ended up stopping for them. Guess I had a bit of a reputation.”

Wait, just because of two cases, or are you implying there were more?

“Probably at least a dozen more, but those were the only two that left me with scars.”

HTREWSHTWER

AT LEAST A DOZEN MORE?

WHERE IS THIS SUDDEN VIGILANTE CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT COMING FROM?

“I’ve been in the right place at the right time a bunch, I guess. And if there are two types of people who I hate more than anybody else, then they’re people who make others suffer and people who inconvenience me.”

Crap.

My love points are going up way too fast right now.

Anyways… if you have so much experience with fighting, how come you were such a noob at it during the first battles here?

“Those weren’t really fights. They were just one-sided brawls using my fists, and I wasn’t going up against cute, fluffy cats with a weapon I never wielded before.”

Look at this dude, “they were just one-sided brawls,” making himself sound like even more of a badass while talking so casually about it.

“They should have put up better fights then. It’s not my fault if they were so pathetic that they couldn’t even beat some younger guy with no training or experience outside of video games.”

Ugh. I hate how cool you are right now.

“Master is always cool,” Cami said, having finally recovered. Both her and Clawdia were awake and conscious for my entire conversation with Window, but they were too tired to actually say anything. “But I do like Master even more now. Both because of the sex and the cool stories.”

Then there was Clawdia who slipped out from under the sheets to lean her bare chest up against my own before placing a kiss right on my lips. That sort of thing was surprising from her, but not unwelcome.

“What’s that for?” I asked her, looking right into her eyes that were directly in front of my own.

“For being who you are,” Clawdia answered. “Obligatory nya.”

“Then let me return the favor.” I kissed her again. “That’s for being who you are.”

“Don’t… don’t think I won’t still get all lovey-dovey just because the catnip has worn off. You’re still not safe from my cuddles, nya, and nothing is going to get done if you trigger them.”

“I like it when you’re like this. So, by all means, go ahead and—”

Me, Clawdia, and Cami found ourselves teleported outside with all of our clothes on like normal.

Standing in front of us was a humanoid Window saying, “Nope. Stuff has to happen. Not spending the rest of the volume on cuddling in bed.”

Me, Cami, and Clawdia all sighed in unison before I noticed that we were with everybody else, too. Not only was everybody gathered together outside, but there were rows of seats set up all in front of a massive movie theater screen.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“We’re gonna watch the movie that was made about Val and her tank crew,” Vala answered. “Also, you have to cuddle me for one hour per second you spent cuddling with them later.”

“Deal. Wait. What if I cuddle with you and them at the same time? Would that mean an infinite amount of cuddling because, for as long as I’m still cuddling with them, I’m also building up how long I have to cuddle with you for?”

Vala looked shocked and impressed. “That’s—that’s the perfect plan to trap you into infinite cuddling! How could I have not thought about that sooner…”

Vala’s dorkiness aside, I looked over at Valkyria who was already sitting down in a seat being introduced to the joys of modern, excessively buttery movie popcorn by Delphi… who was in the process of pouring more and more butter into Valkyria’s popcorn holder.

“You have to add so much butter that it becomes popcorn soup,” Delphia explained as her tail swished around behind her. “It’s like chicken soup, but the chicken is the popcorn and the broth is the butter.”

“This—this seems like a large amount of butter,” Valkyria said, clearly concerned.

“Don’t worry, I have more, so I won’t run out.”

“Window,” I said, “please replace Valkyria’s popcorn with normal popcorn once Delphi is done turning it into soup.”

Window nodded as Delphi continued pouring melted butter over the popcorn to soupify it. Delphi even sang a little jingle while doing so that consisted of only two words being repeated in a singsong voice over and over again, “Popcorn soup, popcorn soup!”

That aside, there was something else I was worried about. “Hey, Valkyria,” I called out.

Valkyria lit up with a smile when she heard my voice and turned to look at me. “Welcome back, Drake!”

“Thanks. Also, are you sure you’re alright with something like this movie?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Well, don’t you think it might… bring back some memories or something?”

“Ah… I believe I will be fine. And you mentioned before that the end shows modern footage of my crew, yes? I would love to see them.”

“We could always just skip to the end.”

Valkyria shook her head. “I know everybody is curious, so I have no issues with watching the movie. Besides, I am curious about how I was portrayed in it! And I doubt that they would ever show just how brutal the war truly was.”

“Well, alright. Just, if you get even slightly uncomfortable, let me know, alright?”

A soft smile curled Valkyria’s lips. “Thank you, Drake. I will make sure to do so.”

Meanwhile, Chloe who was working with the movie projector held a thumbs-up high above her head and said, “Alright! I got it working!”

Thinking back… she was always good with technology even as a kid.

It made no sense for there to be any issues of any kind in a world where anything could just… happen, but maybe Vala or Window purposely let there be a technical issue just to show off a bit of Chloe’s ability to fix things.

“Just had to smack it a few times!” Chloe continued.

Yep. It sounded like she still fixed things in the same old way she always used to use, too.

Still, I couldn’t help but to feel a bit worried about Valkyria. We were about to watch a dramatized war movie about what she and her crew went through in humanity’s deadliest war, and I doubted that it would be possible for any participant of it to watch that sort of thing without having at least some negative memories rise up to the surface.

But if she consented to watching it with everybody, there was nothing I could do about that aside from sit down at her side to make sure that I was there in case she got uncomfortable.

“Thanks again for dinner, by the way,” I said, wrapping an arm around her shoulders to try and preemptively comfort her a bit. The more comfortable I could make her feel, maybe the less likely she would be bothered by any scenes in the movie.

As for Valkyria, she pressed herself against my arm and sighed. “You just made one of my dreams come true, I’ll have you know.”

“Did I?”

Valkyria nodded. “My gunner used to talk about how she missed going places and having a man wrap his arm around her like this. I always wanted to know what it was like, and now I know just how wonderful it is. Feeling this… I would fight against the world alone if it meant protecting this feeling.”

I gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze and shake. “As if I’d let you fight alone. Don’t forget, you’re mine now. If you ever get into a fight, I’ll be right there with you.”

Valkyria held a hand over her mouth as she chuckled. “Of course. After all, what is a tank without her crew?”

“A wonderful and beautiful person is what.”

It took Valkyria a couple of moments to see what I did there. When it finally got through to her, though, a light blush colored her cheeks and she said, “I will have to study flirting so that I am able to fluster you in kind.”

“I’ll look forward to that.”

And with that, the sky itself darkened as if the entire world was the inside of a movie theater with the main attraction about to begin.