Chapter Twenty-Five: Nemesis

A few days after the talk between Ren and Ivy, Ren had started to fully recover from the poison thanks to Dr. Anessa, who had prescribed him medicine that he had never seen before. Unlike on Earth, the medicine wasn't in a pill or a liquid; instead, it was edible and had a minty taste to it, so Ren enjoyed it, even though Lucilia was basically shoveling it down his throat when it was time to take it.

Ren was helping some of the maids clean up the kitchen until Lucilia walked in with a giant smile on her face.

"Good morning, Princess." The maids said in unison.

"Good morning to all of you too." Lucilia replied.

Lucilia walked through the crowd of maids until she was right next to Ren. The maids had gotten used to her attaching herself to Ren, so this sight wasn't anything out of the ordinary.

"Rumia, how is he doing?" Lucilia asked the blonde-haired maid next to Ren.

"He's doing fine, princess; it's honestly strange; after all, not many males clean up after themselves with maids around to do it for him." Rumia replied.

Ren laughed and said "Look, back on my planet, I was mainly on my own. Besides, when I stayed at a friend's house, I learned how to clean up after myself, and besides, I'm living here as a guest, and I don't even pay rent; this is the least I could do to help out."

Lucilia smiled upon hearing that. She liked the fact that Ren wasn't one to lean on the help of others and was willing to even help the maids without being asked to.

"Ren, you couldn't get more amazing in my eyes, and yet here you are impressing me even further." Lucilia thought to herself.

"So what's up, Lucilia? Need something?" Ren asked Lucilia, who was staring at Ren with a sparkle in her eyes.

This made Lucilia snap out of her daze and realize she almost forgot to tell him. "Oh right, Ren, I need you for something."

"What for?" Ren asked.

"Just follow me." Lucilia said, leading Ren out of the kitchen.

Rumia watched the two leave and thought to herself "Ren, you have no idea what you're getting yourself into."

The two walked out of the house and got into one of the flying vehicles Ren took to get to the house when he first arrived.

"So where are we going?" Ren asked Lucilia, who seemed to be looking at some details on a tablet.

"We're going on my new ship." Lucilia said with a smile.

"New ship?" Ren asked.

"Yes, the one you were on when I brought you here wasn't mine personally; honestly, I was borrowing it from my older sister; however, now that we will be going on what's supposed to be a peaceful mission to another planet, I thought we needed a different way of traveling." Lucilia explained before showing Ren a picture of a smaller ship than the one he was on.

"It's a lot smaller than the one you took me on." Ren said.

"Well yes, the one you arrived on was a warship, built for combat. This one, however, is a diplomatic ship; while it is armed in case of attack, it's on a smaller scale than our warships, but still very capable." Lucilia explained.

"You talked about this trip to Titania, was it? Know anything about it?" Ren asked.

"Similar atmosphere to our planet; actually, from what we observed, it's similar to yours as well, so the air is breathable and water is present, so it is habitable. Over the twenty years of long-distance observation, we can't find any evidence of an advanced species, but that doesn't rule out the possibility of a species living there." Lucilia explained.

"So we would be the alien people to step onto that planet. I gotta ask, what's your first contact protocol? Ren asked, thinking about the situation.

"Well, first we'll try to establish communications; if we fail, then we'll go from there." Lucilia said to Ren as the flying vehicle began to land.

After they landed, they were escorted by guards to the spaceport, where they were taken to a dock with a smaller ship in it. If he had to guess, it was about a third of the size the UNS ships were.

As Ren looked at the ship, Lucilia grabbed onto his sleeve and said "Come on, we have to go meet my friend."

"Friend?" Ren asked. For the entire time he's been staying with her, he's rarely seen her speaking to anyone else but the maids around and sometimes military generals.

"Yeah, my friend Mae. She's an inventor and the daughter of the creator of the knights we pilot." Lucilia explained this to Ren. "Now where is she?"

Lucilia looked around until she saw someone and started waving "Mae over here!"

The person she saw was a beautiful girl with long silver hair that reached to her lower back, a hairband at the top with a flower on it, and bright amber-colored eyes. Even as she was wearing a lab coat, Ren could tell how curvaceous her body was as well as how she wasn't lacking in the chest department; she could even be bigger than Lucilia.

Lucilia grabbed Ren's hand, and the two ran in the direction of Mae.

"Mae!" Lucilia said once they got to her.

"I heard you the first time, Lucilia; it's good to see you in person again." Mae said, smiling at seeing Lucilia.

"Sorry! I've been busy for the past few weeks." Lucilia apologized to Mae.

Mae looked over at Ren and said "I can see that, so you must be the Ren that Lucilia can't stop talking about."

"Yeah, it's nice to meet you. It's my first time meeting anyone really outside of Lucilia's household." Ren explained.

"I see, well, my name is Maecilia Lupis, but I would prefer you call me Mae, and let's just say if Lucilia cares about you as much as I think she does, then we should get along great." Mae said, introducing herself.

"So, Mae, is it ready?" Lucilia asked.

"Just about at this point, according to the engineers, it just needs a paint job." Mae answered.

"Is what ready?" Ren asked.

"My gift to you." Lucilia said with a big smile.

"Well, you two, follow me aboard the ship." Mae said as the two followed her.

As the three walked together, Mae led and Lucilia basically glued herself to Ren's arm. Ren couldn't help but wonder what kind of gift Lucilia could've gotten him, although it was tough to think about anything with his arm in between Lucilia's chest.

"So soft..." Ren thought to himself as his face started to blush.

The three walked inside of the ship and headed to the small hanger, where Ren could see about a dozen of the knights they piloted all in the small hanger.

However, they were two knights that looked quite differently from the others, one of which was Lucilia's personal knight and the other being a silver knight.

Mae walked in front of the silver knight and asked Lucilia "Looks good, doesn't it?"

Lucilia looked at it; it was almost a copy of hers in all but color "It's perfect."

Lucilia turned around to look at Ren.

"This is your gift!" she said with the biggest smile on her face.

"You got me one of the knights you use?" Ren asked.

Ren asking this made Lucilia smile even more as she said "No, Ren, I had one made for you. This knight is custom-made to have everything that the knights of the royal family use, making them the most powerful knights in our armies, and they are only given to those of the royal family. However, I had this one secretly made thanks to Mae's help."

"It wasn't an easy ask, but we got it done, and only a select few people know about it, and they are all on this ship." Mae explained.

This surprised Ren; she had a custom-made knight made just for him, something he never expected being a prisoner of war, but he did have some doubts in his mind.

"Lucilia, Mae I really appreciate this gift. The knight looks beautiful in design, but you two did all of this for me, someone who fought against your kind barely even a month ago, so I have to ask. What's the catch?"

Lucilia got serious after hearing him ask that "There isn't a catch, Ren; this is a gift." Lucilia walked closer, and she held his hand. "This is my gift to you. No catch at all."

"But what if your father finds out? Isn't that a major concern of yours and Ivy's?" Ren asked.

"He'll more than likely kill you, but Mae, mom, and myself would more than likely just get a slap on the wrist; after all, Mae's too valuable, and me and mom are royalty.

"I'm just...worried about you three. I don't want anyone putting themselves at risk for my sake." Ren said, sighing.

Hearing this made Lucilia pull Ren in for a hug as she buried herself in his chest.

"There's no need to worry, Ren, but it really means a lot to hear you say that." Lucilia said.

Ren returned her hug, as he could feel both of their hearts beating loudly.

"Dammit...Ivy was right." Ren thought to himself while embracing Lucilia.

He truly didn't want to see anyone hurt, but most of all, he didn't want to see her hurt. He cared for her more than he realized, but the past few days of being with her made him accept one fact.

"I love her..."

"Uhm, excuse me for interrupting your ever-loving embrace, but Ren, me and you have some important things to go over." Mae said, interrupting the two.

"Well, she's definitely in love with the guy...but why do I get the feeling he feels the same way? Well, they'll work it out eventually." Mae thought to herself, continuing her speech.

"Ren, as you may or may not know, most of the royal families knights are named after gods and goddesses from our beliefs; however, because as of right now you are not royalty, you get to choose the name for your knight, and afterwards we can talk about your personal settings." Mae explained.

Ren thought about the name, but an idea entered his head.

"You know, although you're different, most of the people on this planet consider me an enemy of theirs, so why not play into that? I'll call it 'Nemesis'."

"Nemesis, not a bad name, definitely plays into the whole enemy thing; it works. Are there any specific colors you want to  use?"Mae asked.

"Make most of it silver with black and gold designs." Ren said.

"Alright, I'll put the paint order in now. Ren, could you get into the knight real quick?" Mae said.

"Sure." Ren got up and entered the knight's cockpit from the knight's back. It looked similar to the cockpits of sentinels, but with some minor changes to the control layout.

"This is going to take some getting used to." Ren thought to himself.

"Alright, Ren, do you see that yellow button on your right side, right near the screen?" Mae yelled out.

"Yeah, I do!" Ren replied.

"Press it, and you should start to sync up to the machine through your translation device. We programmed this for pilots so other races can pilot our knights." Mae said.

"Alright..." Ren did as he was told and pressed the button. Suddenly, the screens lit up with English text scrolling down them.

"That's honestly really useful..." Ren said out loud.

"Alright, time to go over the settings; are you ready?" Mae asked.

"Quick question." Ren asked.

"Shoot." Mae replied.

"Are there any limiters?"

---------------------------------------------------------

If you guys want to to support me check out my patreon, it's as cheap as a dollar!

Patreon:

https://patreon.com/Alex_Blackwood628

Discord:

https://discord.gg/97ejzvAGKb