The Commandment of Hero host as a whole held a different view. Three Beryllias were bad enough, but three Inorreas? Could such a thing be borne? Sure, but they still hoped for different results.

“The important thing is not to have a fourth Beryllia,” Aerywe Beruvo asserted to her table neighbor. “Nothing could be better calculated than that to reduce the morale of the playerbase and incite accusations of favoritism. No doubt there would soon be memes about some imagined 'Beryl dev.' Consequently, she would lose popularity through no fault of her own.”

“I was all the way behind the idea of number four until you said that,” replied her neighbor, True Beryllia. She sat as still as her wild, space piratical heart allowed, which was middling as far as sitting still went. Fellow extraterrestrial Mentor Tendradius Pux was as immovable as Freegate itself, as expected of a non-candidate, while the hope-tortured Tinni Ilx teetered in her chair like a cake carried by four Rares. The truth was that she was sitting on only one.

“Stop squirming up there!” Tramda Olex had been chosen for the job of supporting her fellow lumans when they came up a little short on chairs.

“I never will. Gaelvry Beruvo told me you broke three of those chairs yourself.”

“Yeah, and Dennet only managed to break two. Punish him instead.”

“That does make some sense, but . . .”

“Shut up! It's starting!”

The lights dimmed in response to that very code phrase, which Gaelvry Bride had chosen knowing some loudmouth or other would say it. In an extreme situation, such as a last-minute vow of silence taken by all officers uninvolved in decorating, she had rigged a fail-safe procedure wherein she would kick Reginald, who would in turn bleat the phrase out. “As much as he deserves that treatment, why not say it yourself?” Hyune Giling, ever a studier of the most innovative tactics, had questioned the plan in that fashion earlier.

“Because it's a rude thing to say, but if I kick him first, everybody knows he's doing it under duress.” Awed by her consideration, the Rares worked ten times harder for Gaelvry Bride so that some of the upper rarities began to consider giving UTASes a break since the old workers did so much better. The moral is, never work hard.

The monitor switched on. The stream began! Naturally the good stuff would be at the end. After all, did Serdon Miloz perform his biggest single hit to start the set, freeing the audience to wander off, or did he hold it while the anticipation swelled up fatter than one of Hot Air Hank's balloons so that when he finally played it all the ticket-buyers begged, tears in their eyes, for an encore the hardest-working luman in show business was glad to provide in the sweatiest manner possible? It was the second one. The developers loosed some patch notes to warm up the crowd. Anticipation built.

The hardcores in the PvP arenas could screenshot all those facts and figures to put in their spreadsheets, but while they did that, the presentation moved on to what the common man liked, which was watching other people prepare to get married. Television executives learned that long ago. The romance, the glamour, the exorbitant expense! Humanity invented fire so we could burn money in the flames, and the tradition persists.

And who appeared first? A big surprise? No. At the first flash of purple, over a hundred hands reached for bingo cards to mark off one of the top predictions, and only the solemnity of the occasion and Zimley Boe's firm hand kept Quircy Rau from celebrating with the least considerate dance moves possible. Purple gloves and a black leather purse meant Newlywed Quircy, and also one fewer chance for the remaining hopefuls. Never give up, young brides! Always remember that there were two grooms the year before, so two chances left puts you in the same spot as the fellas. Have a little pity for Dosellian Urapta, who had nothing left to call a niche as soon as the word “Warper” and the little yellow Storm icon showed up right next to the latest, greatest, and downright quirciest new officer. If all that fails to cheer, listen to Inorrea Vacationer regarding the relative strengths and weakness of brides versus summer alts.

Speaking of summer, summer means beaches, which mean water, which means ships, one of which showed up next. Who was that brand-new bride wearing a white kerchief with a blue stripe over a dress appropriate for high water and wielding a life preserver tied with a rope like a yo-yo? Some of the spectators had trouble figuring it out, whether officers, streamers, or the folks at home. They were primed to see Minsies and Beryllias everywhere, which just goes to show how predicting makes a ting out of pre and dic. The open-minded understood that Nautical Wedding Manyana at last hove in to Commandment of Hero's welcoming harbor as an Ultra Rare Quake Strategist. Years later, when the surprise abated, people began to wonder about that Quake thing. She looked pretty Floody. By then, who could remember the bride event had her pretending to be unsteady at sea as an excuse to lurch against Cadmos? Bored players arguing on imageboards. But who else?

One alt remained, unless the developers decided their publisher deserved a little less money than it had been making off CoH to date. But no, there was a third who walked beside them. Not in a literary sort of way. More Super Rarishly. Tall as a stuman, and in fact a stuman! Georgia Anne Cooper? Wilma Greenhill? Predictors revved up their bragging engines, engines that sputtered and died when it turned out to be Leslie Harthorpe. Take that, officers not released earlier that same year!

They took it badly, judging by the video footage Society Page Lasva collected for her hard-hitting exposé that later won an award for best comedy short of the week. Lasva refused the trophy of a bowler done in bronze and repurposed by having a big smile painted on him. She asserted that her work constituted socially significant journalism. “Beautiful. Playful. Elegant. Glamour shots show what these officers want you to see, but the truth may be shocking . . . and criminal. That's what I wanted to show with this segment.” They gave her another award for best deadpan comedic performance right then and there.

Nevertheless, the customary respectful silence during officer reveals held aside from a few sobs that exploded out of Manyana and some tinkles as shards of bloody glass fell to the ground from hands that had gripped their drinks a bit too hard. The losers only needed to sit quietly through the event trailer before they could turn Freegate's dining hall into a crime scene, or so they thought. That stream, though, broke away from convention when the bride promotional picture faded out to show the game's director, who had something to say.

“TrupinL here on the internet night shift, and I'm about to watch this trailer that some people whose opinion I respect told me I 100% needed to watch. Now I can see that it's about Command, which I've played a bunch of, though I don't usually put non-fighting game content on this channel, and as I press play here I can't come up with a guess as to what's the big aaaaaaah! Hooooooooooly!”

“Hey hey. Inthecorner here. Sorry if this video is a little rushed, a little rambly, but there was a big announcement I just had to get out to you guys right away. If you like what you see, Like and subscribe so we can make this channel even bigger and better. I'm counting on everyone in the community to help me out and to be as welcoming to all the new people coming in as I know you can be.

“Some will be coming, I hope, as a result of ISOT Insoft's newly announced game, Commandment of Hero: Ersatz Struggle. Commandment of Hero is a game I frankly know nothing about besides that it's on mobile. Sorry about that, and I'll definitely, definitely put in some research to make the coverage here the best it can be. What I do know about is ISOT. They've always been one of my favorite fighting game developers. In fact, I started this channel just to have a place to put up some Trouble Earth combo videos I was really proud of. We've really grown since then, and once again I just have to thank everybody.

“Now they didn't really show any gameplay at all, which is a shame. All we know is the name, that it's coming this year, and that the MC of Commandment of Hero is in it, which, why wouldn't he be? The biggest thing here is the release date. This year probably means the holiday reason, you'd think, but my guess is that it's coming way sooner than that just based on what ISOT's been working on. I have to think this project has been underway for a good while now. A lot of us thought maybe there would be a season 2 of DLC for Single Soul: Eternity Shift, but now it looks like it's just one and done for that and on to another license. I don't mind that part. It seems to me they make those games just the same way as their own IP, with as much care. I don't think there's any slacking at all. Now I'm really looking forward to a trailer with some gameplay in it, screenshots too, and of course I'll put up another video at that time.”

“Bippety bopcha . . .”

“Hey all you addicts . . .”

“Hey guys, Fomalhaut here with . . .”