“So what’s pretty much what happened…” Ren and Oscar met up with Jun that evening, with Ren’s hair still wet from the swim at the River while Oscar was having a concussion after crashing the Sedan while under fire from higher-ranked ALC Soldiers who did not take it well after realizing that they snuck under their noses.

After their close encounter with the ALC Troops, they met up with Jun, who wore a form-fitting, slightly provocative dark green turtleneck sweater and pants, at an abandoned farmhouse with fresh clothes for Ren and Oscar. The Former choosing to wear a blue and white shirt and dark pants accompanied by a blue scarf while Oscar wore a purple sweatshirt and grey pants.

“Before we talk about that can we address the elephant in the room?” Jun pointed out looking at Oscar with a concerned look.

“I’m fine, as soon as…” Oscar trailed off.

“As soon as what?” Jun and Ren asked at the same time, initially they both shrugged off the fact that Oscar could have been severely injured following the Car Crash due to his driving skills but given how he’s been staggering and having a difficult time making their way to the meetup point where Jun was it was no surprise that he was very much suffering from a concussion.

“What?” Oscar gave them a confused look. “We need to talk about uh, wait what were we talking about earlier?”

“Hospital?” Ren turned to Jun with a nod. “Hospital,” Jun said with a nod as she grabbed the keys to the Van that she brought along while Ren helped a reluctant Oscar up.

“Where’re we going?” He asked in a low voice. “Happy Hornets.” Ren lied, causing Oscar’s face to light up like a little kid as they made their way into the van. The following day, Ren lied to Professor Price with a cover story on why Oscar had suddenly gained a concussion. Much to the class’s confusion and Thomas’ confusion.

Speaking of the latter.

“Hey Thomas,” Ren approached him that afternoon. “Can we talk?”

“Okay fine you got me,” Thomas said raising both of his hands in the air. “I was the one who shook that can of Soda you had the other day.”

“Wait that was you?” Ren asked in sudden disbelief recalling the aforementioned incident causing him to aim his Shotgun at Oscar using him for Target Practice that day. “In my defense Ester dared me to do it,” Thomas said with a nervous laugh.

“Wait she’s in this? Never mind that’s not why I’m about to talk to you.” Ren shook his head, making a mental note to shoot both him and Ester later on. “Oh okay, what is it?” Thomas asked as Ren nodded at him to follow him at a more secluded area near the stairs that lead up to the upper floors.

“What’s wrong?” Thomas asked as he crossed his armed with a tense look. He knew that Ren wasn’t the confrontational type, that was Oscar’s job. And for him to call him out and move somewhere for them to talk only is raises some questions.

“There’s something that you need to know,” Ren said handing him a Flash Drive and walking away. “Just give that a look and you’ll understand what I’m referring to.”

Thomas just lay there in his bed that evening and all the while looking at the Flash Drive in his hands. What the hell did he give me? Homework? Notes? His P*** Stash?

Thomas let out a sigh as he got out of the bed and opened his Terminal and looked at the contents of the Flash Drive. Upon opening the Flash Drive he was immediately found himself reading through files behind it, all of which are detailed documents that state that the family of Desmond Arhys and several other families that have close family ties with them have had key connections with the Axis Liberation Coalition. How his family has long been providing weapons and financial support to them for years. While all of this is perhaps a shocking revelation to Thomas, what shocked him further was in one of the newest Documents that he read.

[Redacted]

I am aware of your need for munitions, manpower, and funding but you need to consider this full well. My Family, as well as several other families that have aligned under your Movement, have been slowly bleeding our funds dry. For us to not only maintain the image of an Upper-Class family we must make sure that we have a steady amount of money and funding as a result we are forced to initiate a Marriage Arrangement in hopes that we can still gain a decent amount of money until we can recover it until the next wave of income from the mines has arrived.

And to do that we have no other choice but to choose a family outside of those that have secretly aligned with your movement. Hence, we will not be choosing any of the provided matches, however we have already chosen one particular family.

The [Redacted] Family which is the stewards of the Province under us, has a former illegitimate daughter. While she has already been legalized as an heir, her image as an illegitimate daughter renders her chances of a political marriage difficult. Should her family be aligned under us, not only will we be able to gain a sufficient amount of funding, for the time being, we may also be able to gain a stable footing within the Firrus Province.

Until then, I request that you must make do with what we have for the time being.

[Redacted]

“So that’s why she’s getting married to him,” Thomas muttered in a low voice and felt his blood boil for a moment. He had always hated those kinds of marriages, the type that causes is mostly for the sake of political or financial gain. But then his anger immediately subsided.

After all, why did Ren give this to him? What does the real identity of Desmond Arhys have to do with him? But then he remembered something.

“But this is Lissa’s problem, not mine,” Thomas commented as he took the Flash Drive and left to visit Ren. It was a noisy evening in the Dorms since it was Leoron, the last day of classes for the week and as a result, many students were drinking or having fun in the Commons Room. He spotted Ren playing Pool alongside Flavio Poe, Brock, and Ein Ironside. Three of which were part of his actual team.

“Looks like I won!” Flavio shouted as he raised his Pool Cue with Ren frowning while the Ironside Brothers groaning.

“Ren!” Thomas made his way through the crowd and approached him, Ren turned around and then gave him a surprised look and then walked towards him. “Can we talk?”

“Yeah sure.” Ren put his Pool Cue down and the two of them made their way out of the Commons Room and outside of the Dorms.

“Did you read it?” Ren asked him as they were finally out of earshot. “Why did you give it to me?” Thomas asked in a low voice.

“We thought you have the right to know about it.” Ren frowned but both of them knew that it wasn’t the case which was since it might at the very least make Thomas try and intervene.

“I appreciate that you want me to at least intervene but there isn’t much between me and Lissa, after all, she only sees me as a Rival and she’s just being polite.” Thomas frowned as he handed him the Flash Drive. “Therefore, what she does is not my concern, however, if you want to crash a wedding be my guest. But I won’t be joining in.”

And with that Thomas walked away leaving Ren with the Flash Drive in his hands, Ren wanted to run up to him and punch him for saying that. How on Elphimin was this man be able to be that dense? It was obvious that Lissa loves him and he loves her vice versa.

But as much as he and Oscar were very much eager to intervene and tell Thomas the truth, while Oscar hitting him in the face with the stock of a rifle, but the others told them to let them get there naturally.

And look at what it’s doing to them.

[Axis:Legacy]

Lissa looked at the Wedding Invitation with a frown in her room that night. One the date was on the 70th of Jesten, a week from now. And by then the news of their engagement had spread and has been a topic of gossip by many, in fact, she recalled a discussion between a trio of girls one time.

“Did you hear about Ikross getting married?” The first one said.

“Yeah, man she’s lucky!” The Second One continued. “To think she already has Orphen courting her and now she has the handsome transfer student Arhys as her fiancé.”

“Must be rough though,” The Third One Commented. “For her to decide which one she needs to settle with.”

“Oh very! But since she chose Arhys does that mean Orphen is single.” The First Girl pointed out.

“Oh shit! You’re right!” The two girls said.

“Idiots, I never agreed with this arrangement and…” She stopped herself, she was about to add that she never intended to choose him over Thomas but then she remembered Thomas’ words to her from the disastrous Date the two had. She wanted to answer him that he’s wrong, she sees him more than just a rival when they first met. But what was their relationship with one another in general?

She heard a knock on her door, she placed the invitation on the table and walked over the door and opened it. Revealing it to be Petra, her usual braids were down and had an awkward look on her face.

“Hey…” She said awkwardly. “You don’t mind if I enter?”

“Ah sorry,” Lissa said letting her as Petra took a seat on Lissa’s study table while she sat on her bed while hugging her knees.

“Yeah as you can imagine, things between me and Thomas went well.” Lissa tried to explain. “Yeah, we know…we were kind of spying on you back then,” Petra commented with a giggle. Lissa smiled while giving her an eye roll.

“That explained the weird bushes we saw, the suspicious worker at the Cinema, and the strange couple at the Restaurant.” Lissa pointed out as it was Petra’s turn to give her a laugh.

“Yeah, they’re still rookies in the art of subterfuge. But I want to ask you something.” Petra said giving her a serious look on the eye, it didn’t take a genius to know what she was about to bring up about.

“To be honest, I don’t even know how I feel about him.” Lissa pointed out picking up her family’s Axian Cord. The last time she wore it was during the date, and even if Thomas’ own words of encouragement she couldn’t bring herself to wear it.

Though it was for a petty reason, mostly because she can’t bring herself to wear it without remembering that date.

“Seriously?” Petra narrowed her eyes on her, and then took off her eyeglasses and rubbed her eyelids with a very loud sigh that if Oscar was listening through the bugs his eardrums would have rung.

“Alright here’s a little test to find out the truth then,” Petra said putting her glasses back on. “What do you feel knowing that your ‘relationship’—” Petra made an air quote gesture around the word ‘relationship’ due to their ambiguous state. “—is in ruins after the realization that both of you don’t even know how to address it?”

“Like shit. I wanted to tell him that he means more to me than just a Rival but I didn’t know what to call our ‘relationship’ is that’s the problem.” She answered with a frown while making the same air quote gesture when on the word relationship.

“Okay you’re in the right direction,” Petra pointed out as she relaxed a bit. “Next is what do you feel when around him before it fell apart?”

“What I feel about him?” Lissa said as she played the cord in her fingers, quietly recalling the moments she spent with him when not beating one another. When around him, she feels at ease especially when Thomas not once viewed her as A.) being too uptight and strict, B.) an illegitimate child that uses this to cover the fact that she is still illegitimate or C.) a target for Political Marriage as revealed to what Desmond was truly aiming for when she had gotten into an engagement with him.

The more she thought about it. It was obvious that Thomas did like her from the start from the way he goes out of his way to reach out to her, always making her smile and letting him be a punching bag when she gets exasperated at times from Jun’s teasing to Nina just being too blunt or just someone that she can simply rant her problems about when they aren’t sparring.

“He’s someone that means a lot to me,” Lissa said with a frown. “And yet here I am unable to help him when he needed someone to rely on.”

“To be fair, Thomas seemed to prefer to deal with his problems alone.” Petra pointed out, she too wanted to help him but neither of them is socially adept enough to help him. Petra purposely isolating herself to avoid people from finding out that she is a defective clone, while Lissa on the other hand isolated herself knowing that everyone before this viewed her because of her background.

“Final question? If Thomas married someone else, what would you feel?” Petra continued. Lissa fell silent, but she felt a small amount of pain in her chest as she looked down. To see him marry someone perhaps even be happy with it, she wanted to say she’d be happy to know that Thomas had found someone to share his pain and problems.

And yet…she can’t.

All she can do was simply give a sour look that already showed her response to Petra, instead she moved and sat next to her with a gentle hand on her shoulder.

"It's alright, you don't have to answer," Petra answered with a small smile. "I...I already know the answer."

"I think I am in love Thomas," Lissa said in a low voice. While she was very much interested in that topic, Lissa preferred to avoid getting involved in it. She didn't want to mistake a faint infatuation over someone as genuine feelings of love.

"You think?" Petra asked in a mildly confused manner.

"I don't know if what I feel for him is love or something less than that," Lissa responded. "I've never fallen in love with someone before and I've heard of incidents where people mistake feelings of infatuation as Love and ended up being heartbroken down the line."

"Sometimes you just gotta do a leap of faith then, to be honest, I went through something similar in the past like you." Petra shrugged and gave her a sad smile.

"What happened?" Lissa asked curiously.

"I thought I was in love with her," Petra explained with a wistful smile. "But when she found out the truth about me she called me a freak and has been a target of her bullying since.

"Eventually I learned from the past and I think I've started to figure out which is which these days." Petra gave her a reassuring smile as she noticed the sad look Lissa was giving her. "Going back on topic, here's something that might make things clearer then. Are you ready?"

Lissa nodded.

"If you do Love Thomas Orphen, then what and why do you love him?" Petra asked Lissa remained silent for a moment. Thinking about the question, remembering the time she spent with him. From those tense early moments, they've spent in training down to the quiet study sessions that they've been doing in the library especially from the way that Thomas would be focused on his work seen in this spark in his eyes.

And then there was his teasing, normally when a boy teased her she would quickly give them a cold glare and they would back away. Earlier in life, she was best described as an Ice Quen for that stare adding more into the distance between her and everyone around them but instead, Thomas would just laugh it off with either a light pinch on the cheek or a poke at the nose while commenting adorable she looked.

God, the more I think about it I'm that dense around him huh. Lissa thought, especially from the way he looked and smiled around her in contrast to the other girls like Petra, Nina, Ester, Jun, and even Yvonne. It was clear that Thomas Orphen was in love with her, which left one important question.

Is she in love with him, and the Answer was pretty much clear as day.