Once Brian and Alexander calmed down, everyone was able to introduce himself or herself properly.
"Pardon my manners Princess, I am Brian Lewinski." Brian saluted politely with a fist across his chest.
"Indeed, we're sorry you had to see us act like that right away, I am Alexander Johanson"
Both men looked eerily similar and even had similar speech and mannerisms that it was kind of creepy to think they were unrelated. They were both just a little taller than the Princess is, had short buzzed hair, and hard blue eyes. Their faces were a little round giving one the impression that they used to be a bit heavier.
"I just ignore them. I'm Sabrina Katava. Everyone calls me Sabrina or Kat; I'm probably the only girl that actually likes to talk to these 3 guys!"
Sabrina could easily be called a tom boy, she had short brown hair, bright brown eyes, and she wore her jumpsuit a little bigger than most girls did to hide her figure. With her posture and relaxed attitude around the guys, you could tell she was extremely comfortable around them.
"Hey, it's not like we're all virgins!" Brian said defensively
"Yeah? Then who was it? If it was someone from our town, we should all know them." Sabrina said to tease Brian.
"You guys can't tell anyone because it would be rude… but remember the girl I took to the October Festival last year?"
"Natalie, right?" Alexander asked Brian.
"Yes! It was her!"
Alexander suddenly became extremely surprised and said "Me too!"
Sabrina yelled out "Me too!"
Sabrina felt everyone stare at her in shock, but she sat back as if it was perfectly normal and said, "What? Why else do you think I hang out with you guys?"
Sabrina watched Brian and Alexander start to day dream of her and slugged both of them in the arm. "I'm kidding! I like you guys because you're fun and don't hit on me!"
Brian was about to say, "Who'd want to?" when Alexander pulled his sleeve and shook his head when Brian looked at him. Wisely, Brian kept his mouth shut.
Vincent said proudly "I am a virgin, but only because I don't have time for women."
Chuhan Jwi nodded and said to herself, "Someone else who understands my plight."
Brian and Alexander looked blankly at Vincent thinking "That's not something you should be proud of."
The Princess slapped Vincent on the arm and said, "We can be virgins together!"
Xiǎng Pigu seemed antsy and was looking around anxiously, the Princess was good at mingling with people she didn't know, but Xiǎng Pigu was extremely shy around strangers.
The Princess finally noticed Xiǎng Pigu's uncomfortableness and said, "All of that aside, it is nice to meet all of you! I'm Princess Bang-gwi of the Kwin family, but please just call me Ban!" (Pronounced Bahn) The Princess said energetically.
Xiǎng Pigu fidgeted slightly then said, "My name is Xiǎng Pigu… but everyone just calls me Pi, pleased to meet you all."
Chuhan Jwi was just watching these young adults exchange pleasantries and was going to be just a spectator, but when everyone turned to look at her, she couldn't help it and said, "I am Chuhan Jwi; I have served the Princess since… well since I was your age!"
"You turn 19 soon Ban, right?" Xiǎng Pigu said.
"Yep! Jwi has served me since I was born and she was–"
A roll suddenly found itself shoved in the Princess's mouth interrupting her sentence.
"Princess, no need to add unnecessary details" Chuhan Jwi said softly.
Vincent and Xiǎng Pigu had seen this before, but to Alexander, Brian, and Sabrina, they were amazed at how fast Jwi managed to stuff that roll in her mouth.
Sabrina had stars in her eyes and said "Lady Chuhan, I've never seen someone move that fast!"
"I've been training in martial arts since I was a child. That was merely a reflexive response to a spoiled girl that talks too much." Jwi smiled warmly at the Princess.
The Princess glared at Chuhan Jwi, swallowed the roll finally, and then said, "Yeah, she is like, a master of masters, a grandmaster! Ninth Dan, right? She has more dans on her belt than she's had dates!"
Chuhan Jwi's eyebrow twitched and everybody near their table got silent as they felt an icy chill coming from Chuhan Jwi as she started giving off immense killing intent.
"Princess Bang-gwi Kwin, I KNOW you are aware of who is to blame for that… you know what, I don't think the Military is pushing you hard enough." Chuhan Jwi said icily as she grabbed the Princess by the sleeves of her jumpsuit that were tied around her waist.
"I'm sorry! No! I promise I'll–"
Princess Bang-gwi was interrupted again by another roll shoved in her mouth. Muffled cries could be heard from the Princess as Chuhan Jwi carried her out of the mess hall.
"No need to thank me Princess, hard work is thanks enough!"
Nobody dared to move to help the Princess, instead Xiǎng Pigu, Vincent, Brian, Alexander, and Sabrina watched the proud lioness (Chuhan Jwi) carry her feisty cub (Princess Bang-gwi) out of the mess hall.
__________
Gray and the others had settled into a routine where they would meet up early, grind out as many matches as they could, then go to sleep and repeat the next day with very little variation. For a gamer, this was normal, but Gray started to feel like every team they faced was the same teams over and over again. He could remember each team name and which ones they would frequently lose to and which ones they had never lost against.
3 days later, Gray woke up in his bed alone this time, it was now Saturday, August 9th.
Gray remembered that he used to sleep in on weekends, eat a microwavable lunch, then prepare for an all day gaming session. Part of him missed those days, but being with everyone, Gray started to realize that he enjoyed being with actual people more than the virtual characters from his games. He had made a lot of 'online' friends, but he never really felt close to any of them, at least not like he had until now.
His family aside, Gray had never really made actual friends with anyone except for Jono, Spoon, and Carly.
"I wonder how my family is doing, I haven't seen or even talked to them in a few weeks!"
Gray remembered he hadn't checked his messages in a few days so he started to scroll through his inbox and realized he had missed A LOT of messages.
"Tiara... are you able to access my messages?" Gray asked of his training AI that was provided to him.
"I'm sorry Gray, the only systems I can interface with are neural link helmets found in Alliance mechs."
"Damn, was hoping you could be used as a secretary."
"..." Tiara didn't reply, but Gray could somehow get the feeling that even though she was AI, she felt insulted that Gray had wanted to use her as a secretary.
"Well, let's sort by sender first and get rid of the obvious garbage... 301 messages containing match results, probably should just have those go to a separate folder... 29 messages from Spoon... delete all but the latest one, 10 messages from Jono... delete all... wow... that was a good chunk of my messages!"
Gray now only had 30 unread messages so he was able to go through them one at a time finally.
"First I'll get Spoon's message out of the way."
Gray deleted all of Spoon's messages except for the latest one because Spoon would always add the previous message to the current one making it look like one giant conversation with himself.
After going over the message from Spoon, Gray summarized it as 'Spoon wants to go on a date with Carly.'
"That... that would be a disaster... I want to see it!" Gray thought to himself as he added that to his 'To Do' list.
Gray saw two messages from Carly first one was from when she first joined Alterra Online. Gray opened up the old one that had a sentence in it and a link. "Just joined you in game, how do you like my character I made to look like me?"
Gray clicked the link without thinking and saw a picture of Carly posing provocatively with only her arms covering her private areas. Gray probably would've saved it if it was the him from before, but he knew better and instead deleted the message and link right away. He did find that his finger trembled slightly and he to put a lot of effort into selecting the 'Delete' option, but he still managed to do it.
Gray opened the second message from Carly that came yesterday, this time the message contained no link or picture which left Gray disappointed relieved. Instead it was a fairly short message that after Gray read it, he felt it was the first time Carly was sad that he had ever seen or heard of.
"Gray, please disregard that previous message, I'm tired of chasing you, I would've ended up falling for you just like she did. Take care of her or else I will grind your remains into a fine powder after she finishes tearing you to pieces!"
Gray saw a few messages from Yurika even, two from this morning even and Gray opened up the earlier one. Just a short message "I miss waking up with you, I hate you for making me feel this way!" with a picture of Yurika laying in her bed snuggling a pillow. Gray smiled warmly at the picture, although he felt the message was a little lacking, he opened up the second message and felt better about the message in the first. "Ok, I don't hate you, but I demand snuggles later or I'm sneaking in to Stacia or Xyra's bed for cuddling!"
Life was indeed better with others...