Episode-899
Chapter : 1797
Lloyd blinked. He looked at Isabella. He looked at his three wives standing a few feet away. Faria looked like she was about to explode. Amina looked like she was calculating the tax implications. Mina just looked tired.
"Princess," Lloyd said, his voice flat. "Please stand up. You're getting glass in your knees, and I am really, really not in the market for another wife. I have a full set. It’s a collector’s edition. No more slots available."
"I am not asking for a slot," Isabella said, standing up but not backing down. "I am offering an alliance of blood. The people saw what you did today. They need a hero. They need you. And my lineage... it can anchor you. It can give you legitimacy that no foreign alliance can provide."
"I have legitimacy," Lloyd argued. "I have a giant robot and a bank account that scares god. That’s plenty of legitimacy."
"It is not enough," Isabella insisted. "The Firefly... these metal demons... they will come back. We need to be united. Completely."
Lloyd groaned. He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Isabella, listen to me. I appreciate the offer. Really. It’s very flattering. But my life is a logistical nightmare. I have to schedule appointments just to eat a sandwich. Adding a fourth wife? That’s not a marriage; that’s an administrative crisis."
"I can handle the administration," Isabella said earnestly.
"No," Lloyd said firmly. "The answer is no. I’m tired. I’m covered in robot dust. And I really just want to go home and stare at a wall for six hours."
He turned to walk away, desperate to escape the suffocating weight of expectation. But a hand landed on his shoulder. It was heavy, firm, and familiar.
"Lloyd," King Liam said.
Lloyd stopped. He looked at the King. Liam Bethelham looked older tonight. The lines on his face were deeper, etched by the stress of a war that had just arrived on his doorstep. But his eyes were clear. Sharp.
"Your Majesty," Lloyd said. "Please tell your daughter that I am not a collectible item."
"Walk with me, Lloyd," the King said quietly. "We need to talk. Alone."
Lloyd looked at the King, then back at the chaos of the ballroom. "Can it wait? I have a mess to clean up."
"No," Liam said. "It cannot wait. The game has changed, Lloyd. And you need to know the rules before you make your next move."
There was something in the King's voice. A tone Lloyd hadn't heard before. It wasn't the tone of a monarch speaking to a subject. It was the tone of a soldier speaking to a comrade in the trenches.
"Fine," Lloyd sighed. "Lead the way."
King Liam led Lloyd away from the noise and the light of the shattered ballroom. They walked through corridors lined with tapestries depicting ancient battles—knights fighting dragons, mages holding back tides of darkness. It all seemed so quaint now. So primitive.
They reached the King’s private study. It was a small room, cluttered with books and maps. No servants. No guards. Just two men and a bottle of very expensive brandy that the King poured into two glasses.
"Sit," Liam said, pointing to a leather armchair.
Lloyd sat. He took the glass but didn't drink. "So. The wedding proposal. You're going to tell me to take it, aren't you?"
"I am," Liam said, sitting opposite him. "Isabella is right, Lloyd. You are powerful, yes. But you are new money. New power. The ancient laws of this land... they are stubborn things. They bind the land to the blood of the founders. If you want to lead this continent against what is coming, you need that anchor. Isabella gives you that."
"I don't want to lead the continent," Lloyd said, swirling the amber liquid in his glass. "I want to kill the bad guys and go to sleep. Why does everyone keep trying to give me a crown? They’re heavy and they mess up my hair."
"Because you are the only one who can," Liam said. "But that is not why I brought you here."
The King leaned forward. The jovial, slightly bumbling demeanor he usually wore in public evaporated. His posture changed. He didn't sit like a medieval king anymore. He sat like a man who was used to sitting in a command chair.
"Lloyd," the King said. "That weapon you used. The arm cannon. Nova."
"It's a spirit," Lloyd said cautiously. "A very expensive, very weird spirit."
"It's a plasma discharge weapon," Liam corrected. "Variable frequency. High-yield output. Designed to overload shielding matrices. Specifically, the Type-4 Anti-Magic barriers used by the Firefly Corporation."
Chapter : 1798
Lloyd froze. The glass in his hand stopped swirling.
"That's... very specific terminology, Your Majesty," Lloyd said slowly. "For a King who grew up riding horses and swinging swords."
"I didn't grow up riding horses," Liam said. A small, sad smile touched his lips. "I grew up riding hover-bikes in one of the poor countries of South Asia."
The air in the room seemed to drop ten degrees. Lloyd stared at the man he thought he knew.
"What did you say?" Lloyd whispered.
"Liam Bethelham is a title," the King said. He reached up and loosened his cravat, as if the fabric was choking him. "It’s a role I’ve played for hundred years. My name... my real name... is James Khan."
Lloyd’s blood ran cold. The glass slipped from his fingers and shattered on the floor, spilling brandy onto the rug. He didn't even notice.
James Khan.
The name hit him like a physical blow. It wasn't just a name. It was a legend. A ghost story from the archives of Earth’s colonial wars.
"The Devil's Hand," Lloyd breathed.
"I see you didn’t forget about me," Liam—James—said dryly.
Lloyd laughed, a harsh, incredulous sound. "You were a myth. Once I search for you, I reach your friends, but they said you vanished during the Siege of Centauri."
"I didn't die," James said, pouring a second drink with steady hands, a dark amusement dancing in his eyes. "I didn't die on Earth. One moment I was breaching the Central Command of the Firefly fleet, and the next... I was gone. Pulled across the void. I woke up in the body of a screaming infant, the son of a Viscount in the Austin Nation... one hundred and twenty years ago."
Lloyd stared at him, the glass trembling in his hand as the pieces of a century-old puzzle slammed together. The tactical genius. The smirk. The specific way he held himself. It wasn't just a legend from a history book.
"A grin tugging at the corner of Lloyd mouth, disbelief warring with recognition. "The Devil Hand. The Joker Card of Humanity. You crazy son of a bitch."
"It's been a long time, Major General," James said, raising his glass in a mock salute.
"We held the line at the Lunar perimeter together," Lloyd said, the memory vivid and raw. "We fought back-to-back in the trenches of Sector 4. I thought you were MIA. I thought they finally got you."
"They couldn't kill me there, and they can't kill me here," James replied. "I utilized the Austin family's connections, infiltrated the Bethelham royal line, and took the throne. I needed a position of absolute authority to prepare for them."
"You knew it was me," Lloyd stated, not asking. "You knew the moment I started making moves. Why the hell didn't you say something? We fought together! I would have trusted you instantly!"
"Because I had to be sure you were still the man I fought beside," James said, his voice dropping to that familiar, cold steel whisper Lloyd remembered from the battlefield. "Transmigration changes people, Lloyd. It breaks minds. I saw the soap, the assembly lines... that told me KM Evan the scientist was here. But I didn't need the scientist. I needed the Devil. I needed the man who held the breach when everyone else ran."
James leaned forward, his eyes burning with intensity.
"I’ve been waiting a hundred years for my worthy collegue, Lloyd. But I couldn't risk revealing myself to a man who had gone soft. I needed to see you fight. I needed to see you bleed. And tonight... tonight I saw you jam a plasma cannon into the brain of a Command Unit and pull the trigger without blinking. That is the soldier I remember."
Lloyd leaned back in his chair, a laugh escaping his lips. It wasn't a laugh of humor, but of sheer, overwhelming relief. He wasn't alone. He wasn't just fighting with medieval knights and magic. He was sitting across from the Joker Card.
"So," Lloyd said, the tension leaving his shoulders. "You've been preparing the board."
"For a hundred years," James nodded. "I built the kingdom. I fortified the logistics. I prepared the 'stage.' But a stage is useless without a lead actor. I'm the strategist, Lloyd. I'm the Joker. I create chaos. I set traps. But I'm not the front-line breaker. I can build the gun, but I can't pull the trigger."
James looked at Lloyd with a gaze that was terrifyingly intense.