"So any idea as to how to kill these guys?" Amber asked before stabbing a guy in the spleen.

"AMBER I SWEAR IF YOU JUST ASKED ABOUT KILLING THESE GUYS I'M GONNA-!" and the duo tuned out Sungjong's screaming.

"Well the most that I can suggest is that you take out the guy to the right, seeing how he's an axe user," L said.

"Stab him in the legs or go for the gut?"

"Either works."

The tomboy soon charges off as L dealt with attacking the masked cavaliers from afar but stop as soon as he saw one of them get clawed down by a giant wyvern... and immediately went WTF.

Soon afterwards, he sees a shuriken fly and hit a masked mercenary in the arm. L cannot help but blink before realizing that someone has appeared in front of him, almost jumping back at the sight of a brunette girl with chin-length hair.

"Found the guy, Jin?" a boy with messy brown hair hops off of his wyvern and runs over to him.

"Seems like it," assumingly Jin scans his body, making him feel rather uncomfortable with thee girl's gaze on him.

"A-And you guys are...?" L awkwardly asks.

"We were heading back after finishing our mission when we heard a giant crash," the boy said, "Oh, I'm Dongwoo and a wyvern rider, by the way."

"Myungeun, a ninja, but I like to be called Jin," Jin bows, "I also heard from Jiae-unnie that we got a new tactician."

"Uh- yeah, that's me- er- L... Jiae told you?"

"She was complaining through carrier pidgeon about Chunji-sunbaenim wrecking her barrack."

That was the only thing that made the most sense out of everything that happened during this meeting.

Dongwoo looks over his shoulder, before smiling and waving at Sungjong, who was still struggling with trying to push himself away from whoever was holding onto him like a sack of potatoes, "Hi Sungjongie!"

"OH SHUT IT YOU DINO-HYUNG!"

He sighs satisfyingly, "Ahh yeah, this is why I nag him about eating more."

"Listen, that's- um- great and all that, but I would really appreciate it if you could maybe help with all of this," L emphasizes the mess in front of them with his arms.

"Understood," Jin bows, running over to probably help Amber before tripping on her feet and face-planting into the floor. L stares at her before turning to Dongwoo, "Is she oka-"

"I'M FINE! I'm fine!" she pushes herself up, blushing a bright red out of embarrassment before continuing to run over to Amber.

"She's clumsy," Dongwoo pats him on the shoulder before jumping onto his wyvern's back and flying off to deal with incoming flying enemies.

Next thing L knows he's picked up and is now sitting on someone's horse. He looks back to where he was standing, seeing arrows planted in where he use to stand at. The tactician was barely able to recognize that he was sitting behind Onew, who just stabbed an invader with a lance as they rode on his horse.

"Are you okay? That was really a close call," Onew stops his horse once they're in a safe area.

"Y-Yeah. I was just dealing with incoming allies," L murmured.

Onew sighs in relief, "That's good. For now, I'm going to head over to Sungjong-ah, so can you deal with anyone who tries to attack us?"

L simply nods, making sure to keep watch and attack anyone who tried to chase after them.

"LET GO OF ME YOU FREAKING-"

"You know, I don't remember him being this loud," Onew murmurs in an absent-minded way, not noticing how L looks over to him weirdly.

"Wait, you've met Sungjong before?" L asked and before Onew could even begin his sentence they were interrupted with Sungjong yelling even louder. They look ahead, wondering how the boss was dealing with the sassy pegasus knight when he did something totally unexpected.

The boss pulls his mask up slightly to show his mouth, and you would expect him to say something to Sungjong but he insteads puts Sungjong down onto the ground

and ends up kissing him on the lips.

Everyone who saw (basically the allies) stops moving due to choking on their own spit at such as sight.

Sungjong ends up blushing bright red and covers his face out of pure embarrassment, shutting up and not even caring that the boss had pulled his mask back down and throwing him back over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

"YAH! What the hell do you think you're doing?!" Amber yells as she stabs a random invader in the stomach, ignoring that L.Joe was coughing after choking behind her.

"What... What did  just see?" L blinks.

"Something I think none of us were suppose to see," Onew blinks too.

"We're outnumbered boss! We need to retreat!"

And at the sound of the unfamiliar voice, all of the enemies suddenly left battle. L was able to see the boss whisper something into Sungjong's ear that seemed to have shocked the pegasus knight, seeing how he uncovered his face and his eyes were wide.

The pegasus knight was soon thrown in a careless fashion over to L.Joe, who managed to catch Sungjong but soon fell down obviously due to gravity. The boss left soon afterwards.

"WE'VE COME TO HELP- where are the enemies?" the door had burst open and revealed six women.

"A bit late, Tiffany," Taeyeon sighed as she helped Kris stand up, due to the latter having trouble after being shot in the left heel with an arrow.

"Hey, looks like they found your achilles's heel," a girl with long, stawberry blonde hair joked but immediatley closes when Kris glares at her.

"Hyoyeon-noona, that is really not funny right now," Kris glares at the girl, paying no attention to Kei, who runs over to him to take out the arrow and heal his wound.

"The rebellion in Sonyeoshidae has been suppressed, however, there is a high possibility of a new one starting again," a girl with long, brown hair reports.

Jessica simply sighs, seeming very tired as she clutches the arcthunder tome in her arms, "Thank you for the report, Yuri. I should've figured that though... for now, continue to keep patroling Sonyeoshidae... and please prepare a carriage for us before you head back there."

After a few words were exchanged between all of the leaders, they all start heading back to where they were originally at. In the carriage, the silence was awkward, even though Dongwoo and Jin followed along too.

"Er- so what happened with the boss?" L.Joe begun asking.

"... I don't wanna talk about it..." Sungjong murmured, turning his head to the window beside his head and simply staring at Eun and Dongwoo's wyvern flying alongside the carriage.

Silence once again fills the carriage, everyone knowing very well not to bother him.

---

Once L returns to Sector D where his barrack, he never realized how intact this sector of barracks were compared to all of the other sectors that were totally wrecked until he saw different faces moving into the empty barracks that were abandoned a long time ago by previous soldiers.

He sees a familiar mage cursing under her breath as she carried her tomes and books into her new barrack beside his.

"Do you need help, Jiae-yah?" L asked, walking up to the cart outside that still had books left.

"What does it look like to you?" Jiae asks rhetorically, rolling her eyes in an oh-so familiar fashion.

Maybe this is why she gets along with Sungjong so well... L awkwardly picks up a pile of books and heads into her barrack, heading straight to a bookshelf once he sees two in a corner of the barrack.

"... Sorry, didn't mean to sass you there."

L looks below him and sees Jiae placing books on the bottom of the shelf, looking somewhat uninterested..

"It's okay, I get sass from Sungjong all of the time," L smiles reassuringly.

"Lemme guess, you thought that he was a girl when you first met him?" and he swore Jiae snickered.

"Y-Yeah..." L forced a laugh before noticing that the last book in his arm has a silver pendant dangling out of it, "Um- Jiae-yah, is this your's?" He slowly slides the pendant out and holds it out.

Jiae's eyes widen at the sight of the pendant and grabs it immediately, clutching it tight to her chest and sighs in relief, "Thank gawd that idiot of a cavalier didn't destroy this in the process...!"

"Is that something precious?" L carefully asked, not wanting to be sassed again.

"Yes it's precious, it's made of silver," Jiae scoffs.

Nope, still sassed.

"Er- right..."

She sighs but looks more insecure than annoyed, "An old friend of mine gave it to me... before she was banished from Lovelyz."

"'Banished'...?"

"There was a misunderstanding of some sort... people accusing her of something she never did."

At those wordings, L couldn't help but question a bit more, "How do you know that she didn't do it?"

He was taken back when Jiae suddenly glares at him, no longer an excusable sarcastic, sassy attitude but one filled with anger, "Because the moment she heard of those rumors she turned pale and fainted and wouldn't eat for two weeks. I hid her away before the rumors reached the officials. As punishment she was banished to some random town that I don't care about and I was sent to work for this army for six years."

"Oh... I'm... I'm sorry..." he genuinely apologized, feeling guilty for probably sounding like he was accusing her.

"Listen, just...! Just leave my barrack... thanks for you help..." Jiae murmurs, turning her back to L.

L's feels all the more guilty for saddening her, "I'm sorry, Jiae-yah..." he says softly before slowly leaving her barrack.

---