Roxi Blaze had many deadly skills under her belt. All these came from her choice in career after Baron’s death on Earth. She did anything she could to get money by using her military training. From contract killing to weapons smuggling, to acting as a personal bodyguard to some rich clients. She first started in China, then moved on to international operations. Eventually, she got fed up with doing this kind of business and diverted her time to the creation of weapons. Shortly after, an unknown organization got in contact with her to fund all of her little projects.

Towards the end of her life, she began to amass a huge arsenal of never before seen weapons that any military would pay top-dollar for. However, only a few were ever sold and only sold to the mysterious backer that had gotten to her first all those years ago. At first, she thought nothing of it, merely a coincidence. However, what kind of business gambles billions of dollars on an unknown girl that just started in the business? Not any normal company.

Only one face-to-face interaction had ever occurred between Roxi and the company she worked for but knew nothing about. All was revealed to her on her deathbed, right before she arrived on Planet 4. The entity that had been sponsoring all of her works for decades was none other than the Blaze Conglomerate. Something she tried to run away from all of her life, the family business.

There were two big reasons that she had run away from it all to join the army in her teens. One was the fact that she did not fit in with the filthy rich lifestyle. The other was the fact that everyone had an unhealthy obsession with the founder of the family business, Roxi’s great-grandfather, Cornelius Victor Blaze. From the moment that she could understand language to the day she left, all she ever heard about from her family was her great-grandfather.

She had never even met him before, but she had seen portraits of a very stern figure plastered all over her house. Roxi didn’t realize it at the time, but her family exhibited behaviors like that of a cult. They would sometimes even pray under his painting. That’s how obsessed they were with the man. Every 20 years there was a family reunion, a gathering of over 1,000 individuals who carried the last name Blaze.

However, that was the year that Roxi ran away, never even able to meet any of her relatives other than her immediate family. This included her father who married into the family and subsequently changed his last name to Blaze, her mother who was as distant as she was wicked and calculating, and finally her two elder brothers that did not care for her whatsoever and kept to themselves often shutting her out.

Just before passing, Roxi was visited by none other than her great-grandfather. At least, that was who he claimed to be, but that made no sense since Roxi herself was already 80. Despite the insane logic, the unmistakable face of the man whom her family had decorated all around their house was as fresh in her mind as her latest project. A very dark-skinned man that did not seem to share many traits with any race that Roxi was aware of, a piece of mystery, just like everything else about the man. Everything was explained to her.

Cornelius spoke of how death worked in this world, what exactly the family business was about, and how he was still alive. It was because he died and managed to come back from it. All of this confused Roxi’s old brain at the time, but as Roxi came to live on Planet 4, she had begun to comprehend a bit of what was said to her. Imagine her surprise when she was sneaking around the different camps of the American on the outskirts of the Saipan island and accidentally stumbled upon her great-grandfather just sitting there in a command tent. By this point, she had only taken care of 2 men on her list, one being Guy Gabaldon.

Though she only took a quick peek, it was evident that Cornelius had seen her in that split second. Roxi was so shocked that she could not even move from her position from just outside the door flaps of the tent in the middle of the night. He came out with a surprised look on his face to find Roxi just standing there not knowing what to do. Which was a first for her.

“Ah, you’re one of mine aren’t you, my children I mean.” He looked expectantly at Roxi, but all she could manage to do was look away trying to sort all of her twisted feelings about the man that stood before her. “Well, sweetheart, there is no point in denying it, I can tell that you are one of my children.”

“Umm…” Roxi tried to say something back.

“Would you care to come to talk with me in my private chambers? Standing out here in the cold is not the best place to talk about serious matters,” Cornelius offered. To which Roxi accepted and followed him to a smaller tent a couple of minutes walk from where they were.

“Can you tell me exactly who you are?” Roxi managed.

“What do you mean?”

“How much do you know about death? Because you seemed to know a lot when you lectured me when I was literally dying in front of you.”

“How much do you know about the family business?”

“Enough to know that you are plotting world domination.”

“Heh, that’s my girl. So, I take it we are in a simulation right now?”

“Yes, are you an NPC?”

“Hah! I’m certainly not one of the strategists by John Paul Jones’ side if that is what you are referring to. No, I did my time long ago. Let me guess, simulation on Planet 4?”

“Yea, are you familiar with it?”

“Sort of, I’ve visited Planet 4 once. But, I originally come from Planet 2. I spent some time on Planet 3, 6, and 7 before I finally made it back to Earth. Oh!” Cornelius seemed to just remember something. “That is the planet of politics, businessmen, and kingdom building, in case you didn’t know.”

“Huh?” Roxi was confused about what her great grandfather was talking about.

“No matter. Why don’t I help you in this simulation? You are on the Japanese side, correct?”

“Yes, we are.”

“Hmm, well, I have a document outlining our plan to invade the island of Saipan for the next few days. Why don’t you take it and build a counterattack to it, hmm? They say information is valuable, do they not?” Cornelius walked over to the small table that he had in his room and flipped it over. Underneath was a file taped to the table. He ripped it off and handed it to Roxi.

“How do I know I can trust you?” Roxi questioned.

“Take it, then you can decide that on your own. Besides, I knew this was a simulation the moment I woke up a few weeks ago. Chalk it up to my thousands of years in simulations. Go on, and you better head back to your camp soon.”

“Um, thank you.”

“One last question before you leave, are you the main strategist in your group?”

“No, it’s someone else.”

“Is that so? I’d like to meet this person next time. It's not every day someone can outshine one of my children. How about you bring him next time we meet? Tell you what, you must have a list of names to take care of since you came personally, didn’t you? Give that list to me and I will do it in your stead.”

Roxi complied and handed it over. Then she promptly got up to leave the tent. Absolutely shocked at the kind of revelations that she had heard of today. It would take a little while for her to swallow everything, but for now, she needed to focus on the simulation. Thus, she pushed all this information to the back of her mind temporarily. With her skill, she did not have much trouble getting back to her camp without being spotted.

She brought the document to Baron for inspection, omitting the source of the information. For now, she did not know if she should consult Baron about this, it was a family matter, after all. The two bounced ideas off of each other all night, and by morning a soundproof plan was devised to repel the coming days’ attacks. Since Roxi trusted this information, Baron had no reason to doubt it. In the morning, the orders were given to go on the offensive rather than defending, as they had done the past few days.

To put a long story short, everything that was in the document that Roxi retrieved was accurate. By having this information and being able to plan for such an offensive was an instrumental reason for their victory. On this one day alone, over 15,000 American soldiers were either killed or wounded. That was the power of accurate intelligence. Such an enormous victory for the Japanese would certainly make the American command chain suspicious.

In addition to the heavy casualties on their side, the American forces under John Paul Jones had also ceded quite a bit of territory back to Baron’s forces. A complete and utter disaster in their books. Especially since they planned on doing an all-out assault the following day with everything they had. Following this incident, they decided to proceed with caution, there was no telling who the mole among them was.

This was exactly what Baron had predicted when he saw the devastating losses his enemies faced the previous day. Bringing them into Baron’s playground was exactly what he was after. However, to truly defeat them would require another push that Baron’s troops were just not able to accomplish. He estimated that even with his full force, he would not be able to end the battle in a decisive victory just yet.

Small battles happened all over the place for the next few days, but it was more a war of attrition than anything. That was when Baron received the message from Jaxon regarding the naval situation. Jaxon felt that something was off. The force that sailed to challenge him was small, but quite a formidable opponent. However, they were eventually defeated by Jaxon.

What didn’t escape Baron’s keen eyes was the fact that the number of ships that he had witnessed the past couple of days did not add up to the total number that the enemy was supposed to have. Even combined with the fleet that was locked in combat with Jaxon in the last few days. So, where had they gone?

There were three possibilities in this scenario. One was setting up an ambush to catch Jaxon’s forces off guard while making their way to Saipan island. Which Jaxon was currently en route to. Or, they had set sail to another part of the island in hopes of flanking Jaxon in an ambush. It was also possible that they had sent the remaining ships and soldiers to conquer the other Mariana islands before they came back to team up against Baron’s forces on Saipan once again.

Later that day, Baron had his answer. A decent force of tanks, infantrymen, and others were charging them right from their rear. Right where the civilian snipers were located. It was an indiscriminate slaughter. The Americans continued straight to attack more of the Japanese corps. At this time, Jaxon arrived and started engaging in naval combat with the rest of the American naval ships and aircraft.

Baron began mounting a resistance against the forces that were nipping at his behind, but he knew that it would be an exercise in futility. The most he could hold out was for another few hours. His men were no match against fresh troops. However, if Jaxon could break through the American naval forces, then they would be able to win it all. This would be a close match no matter how you look at it. This was the final stretch of the simulation that would determine the victor.