Verona started to walk away when Major Valen suddenly stood up.
Major Valen saluted and then said loudly, "Miss Verona! I am Major Eugene Valen! I am an officer for the Alliance Military. Due to my rank and the project I am part of, I am unable by court order to say more. I am not a player; I am what you call a NPC."
Verona stopped and turned around "NPC? How is that possible? You seem so human!"
"I am real; every single NPC you see is a real person. I apologize but I am unable to elaborate more and may have already crossed a line just telling you this."
Verona walked up to Major Valen and put her hand on his cheek. "You should've said exactly that, Gene. I wouldn't have minded that or even that you were self-conscious about your name. You are so confident that seeing it give a little bit is endearing to me."
Verona paused and thought to herself before continuing, "Give me time to consider things. I have been set in my ways for so long that it's hard to change and while I know you didn't lie for selfish reasons, it was still a lie and am not sure I want to start a relationship with that. Don't wait around for me though because that would be unfair for both of us. If I see you one day happily with another woman, I will congratulate her for finding a good man."
Major Valen looked down and nodded.
"Miss Verona… if you wish, I can have you sent back to your own base so we don't have to trouble Corporal Wilhelm anymore."
"Hmm, that's very kind of you Gene. I'm guessing that being an NPC has some advantages!"
Major Valen smiled slightly and shrugged.
"Can we do that later then? I want to chat with some of the girls on Gray's team."
Major Valen nodded again and Verona leaned in and kissed him gently on the cheek.
"Thank you, I will message you later." Verona said sweetly as she walked towards the door and waved to Gray before leaving.
Gray got up and returned to the bar while Major Valen stood their alone. Eventually Major Valen came to his senses and walked over to Gray. Gray patted the stool next to him, pulled out two glasses, and poured each of them a glass of whiskey.
Gray took a sip first, scrunched his nose a little due to the taste and slid the other glass over to Major Valen. Major Valen took a sip and made a face similar to Gray.
"Corporal… this tastes like shit…" Major Valen said sullenly.
"Yeah, it does taste like shit…" Gray replied.
No more words were said as the two men silently drank their whiskey.
__________
Gray was starting to feel tipsy after just one glass since he normally never drinks, but Major Valen seemed fine even after his fourth.
"I'll go back ahead of you sir… and I'm sorry…"
Major Valen nodded and took the bottle of whiskey from Gray, poured himself another glass, and downed most of it quickly.
"I better get back to work as well…" Major Valen put his glass down after a final gulp and left behind Gray.
__________
Gray looked back at the rec room and felt that it could be used for so much more since only 12 people on the base could use it aside from some of the base staff. He felt it could hold about 50 people in the lounge and bar area. He imagined if he moved some of the seats around and pushed the video arcade systems against the wall they could fit 100 people easily.
"Even if I can get every Diamond-Tier on base to help, we could only bring in 3 people each. Including the 12 Diamond-Tiers, that would make just 48 people." Gray thought to himself.
"I don't think it would be a good idea to bother Major Valen about this now, I'll get everyone else's opinion first."
Gray sent out a quick message to his team, except for Jono since he wasn't a Diamond-Tier, and asked them if they would be free later for a pajama party.
He got a reply fairly quick from the guys.
Caleb said he would be spending the night in the virtual world, Paul said he could come and was just reading in his room, Geoff said he was out with Beth but would make it back in time.
"Huh, I wonder what Caleb is doing in the virtual world… dare I ask?" Gray mused to himself. "Yeah, I think I do!"
Gray sent Caleb a message asking him what he had going on in the virtual world.
Caleb replied after a minute and said, "I fear that my prolonged absence is detrimental to the continuous optimum performance of the various projects I have entrusted to the various AI constructs."
Gray was intelligent enough to understand what he meant and decided to tease Caleb in his reply, "Caleb, just admit that you miss some of them."
Caleb replied, "Fine, I admit I long for some of their company… Tifa, Celeste, Terra, Lulu…"
Gray pictured Caleb surrounding himself with all of these female characters from different F***l F*****y games and had to admit that he would miss them too if they were human. Remembering what Verona told him earlier, Gray thought it would be best to ask Caleb if he could look in to Stephen Seegall while he was over there.
A call finally came in from Caleb. "Gray, messaging is slow, just call next time!"
"Sorry about that, well, can you look in to him for me? Might be more than one of them, but I'm looking for the one that is at the top of Alterra Corporation."
"What for?" Caleb said slightly nervously, he remembered a bit ago when Alterra Corporation gave him a warning not to snoop around things regarding Alterra Online.
"It wouldn't be right for me to tell you why behind her back, but just know that it is very important for myself as well as Yurika and may even affect if she can continue to stay on our team come the start of the war."
"Hmm… works for me, her kill count is higher than any 3 of ours combined so it would be a huge loss to our overall power if we lose her."
"Caleb, are you saying we're useless without her?"
"Not at all, but do you want to be without her?"
Gray didn't need to even think about it before saying "Of course not!"
"Likewise… plus, I think she likes you so you might want to consider advancing down that avenue."
Gray recalled that Caleb saw Yurika in his bed and himself strutting around in nothing but his socks and wondered if Caleb was messing with him or just that dense. "I'll… I'll consider that as encouragement then!"
"Good, I'll let you know what I find out then." Caleb said and then hung up.
Gray saw he received a reply from Yurika when he was talking to Caleb "Hey! Come say goodbye to Verona before she leaves soon! We're in my room!"
Gray didn't hesitate to reply that he was on his way, how could he miss a chance to be in a small room with at least 2 beautiful women by himself. Gray went to the dorms, made his way to Yurika's room, and saw that the door was cracked with laughter coming from the inside.
Gray knocked twice on the door and Yurika said it was open, inside was Yurika, Stacia, Xyra, and Verona.
He had found paradise… at least until Yurika said "Hey! You made it Gray, you sneaky crop duster!"
Gray's mouth hung open and he could only manage to ask "…what?"
The girls burst out into laughter and Verona then added "I'm sorry Gray, sweetie, we were talking about men and I had to bring up the time where you saw me talking to another male coworker and thought you could fart and blame it on him by leaving before we smelled it."
"Seriously Gray… that is gross…" Xyra whispered
"What are you even talking about? The only time I've even came close to doing that was when I had something bad to eat earlier and had to rush to the bathroom while letting a few go to try and keep my stomach from cramping up!"
Gray tried hard to remember the path he had taken that day so long ago. He remembers that he passed very few cubicles since he stuck to the wall. He also remembered that the printing room and mail room were on the way… and two people were in it…
"Oh shoot, was that you and someone else in the mail room area?" Gray asked Verona.
"Yes, with the look you gave the guy I was talking to I thought you were jealous and tried to sabotage him, not that he needed any help…"
"Oh no! I was trying to just give him a friendly nod but was clenching every single muscle in my lower half to try and prevent a natural disaster."
"Whoops… I believe it is my fault then that you earned the nickname crop duster for a short time there!"
"Damn it! So that's what all those replica propeller biplanes were for on my desk throughout that week! I thought someone was maybe making a joke trying to say I was old-fashioned or something!"
The girls laughed again at Gray's misfortune and then Gray scratched his head and said "Well, I'll leave you girls alone then, just wanted to say have a good night before you head back Verona."
"Thank you, you as well! I really enjoyed hanging out with you all again."
Gray turned to leave and remembered what Yurika said last time when he tried to leave her. He turned towards her, kissed her softly on the lips, and then said, "See you later."
Yurika blushed furiously as the 3 girls all went 'Awwww!'
After Gray left, Verona said "You two are cute together, I'm jealous."
Yurika smiled brightly and said proudly "I know we are!" to which she was smacked in the face with a pillow.
"I need to get going though, thank you so much for spending your time with me!" Verona said sadly.
"Don't worry about it! We won't have much time like this when the war starts so we must make use of it!" Stacia said.
Verona hugged all 3 of the girls and then walked out of the dorms. She bit her lip as if considering something and changed her route to where she remembered the officer's quarters were.
Standing in front of Major Valen's office, Verona knocked twice on the door.
"Come in!" Major Valen barked from behind the door.
Verona opened the door, slipped inside, and closed the door behind her.
Major Valen's eyes opened-wide and he stood up suddenly. "Miss Verona! I wasn't expecting to see you… well… possibly even ever again."
"I… I know… I have two questions for you though."
"Of course, ask away!"
"Do you ever just crave the warmth of another person that you are attracted to?"
"Only when I'm truly attracted to someone…"
Verona nodded silently and then asked "Can you forget that what I'm about to do never happened?"
Major Valen looked down and said, "I will never forget, but I will pretend it never happened."
Verona nodded, bit her lip hard, then locked Major Valen's door and walked over to him determinedly. She didn't know what to say and neither did Major Valen, but she grabbed him by the collar and kissed him forcefully. Major Valen took the hint and they both let their instincts take over.
For the first time in years, Major Valen was unreachable for the rest of the night.