37 Arc 4.8 Queen Mother

The female lead could no longer stand and watch quietly on the sidelines as her own fiancé was flirting with another woman right in front of her and the other recon team members.

Nile was making her lose so much face! She was the heiress of the Rigel family that was on par with his own Betelgeuse family! Who did he think he was?!

Lily Rigel had a petite figure with a large bust that was, begrudgingly, larger than Alex's. Her long hair that reached down to the middle of her plump thighs was a vibrant blonde that shone like the sun and her irises were a captivating shade of red, framed neatly by her long, curly lashes and between her wide double eyelids. Currently, she could not the animosity that she exuded with her entire body and soul.

Even though she looked very much human with the similarly styled combat suit that was white and lustrous gold as opposed to the black and neon blue adorned by both Nile and Alex, Alex and Nile already knew that the female lead was no longer "Lily," but "the Queen."

Lily glared at Alex before turning to Nile with a smile that didn't reach her eyes, "Who is this?"

It wasn't surprising if Alex was not recognizable by those in Team Protagonist. After all, she was practically disowned the moment she was discovered to be a girl as the Aldebaran prized the boys over the girls no matter how great of an achievement the girls accomplished.

Of course, Lily heard Nile call Alex's name already. Alex Aldebaran. She scoffed inwardly as everyone on Mars was aware of the deep-rooted rivalry and enmity between the Aldebaran and Betelgeuse families. Lily felt that even with their previous display of affection, Alex had no chance of being with Nile. Furthermore, the moment Lil was overtaken by the Queen, she had already decided to take Nile in as her own.

The members in Team Protagonist were also clueless as to the redhead's exact identity. However, they were more conflicted about who to treat more respectfully--Nile's lover or his fiancée? Thus they wisely chose to stay on the sidelines as if watching a good show.

On the other hand, Tyler and Faust had immediately recognized the other Queen in their midst and instinctively held hostile feelings towards her.

Regarding Alex and Nile, they certainly didn't like to see their intimate interaction. But Lexi did not reject Nile's advances so they understood that Lexi may have loved them, but she only had Nile in her heart. Though, this wouldn't stop them from loving her.

In fact, they had silently agreed with each other that the moment such a big shot like Nile got bored of Lexi and ended up breaking her heart, they would carefully mend it back together stitch-by-stitch. Then, they would retaliate against Nile in full.

In Tyler's case, even though Nile was his own little half-brother, he wouldn't hold back if Lexi were to be hurt by him. In truth, it was only because the man in her heart was Nile that he was willing to back down.

The oppressive silence after Lily's question was finally broken by Nile's unquestionable and irrefutable tone while he took Alex's small tender hand into his own lovingly, "My wife."

Faust furrowed his brows, ready to express his disapproval, but he was stopped by Tyler, who raised the back of his hand to Faust's chest, shaking his head wordlessly.

"We are engaged," Lily laughed coldly.

Nile noticed that Alex's patience was wearing thin, and he also wanted to continue where they left off earlier, so he didn't hesitate to make his position clear not only to Lily but to everyone in the area, "I have never considered you as my fiancée. And you seemed to have misunderstood something about me. I took up this mission to rescue my wife, not out of a sense of duty and most certainly not for the sake of glory and camaraderie."

One could hear the fragile hearts of the members of Team Protagonist shattering into little bits and pieces at his cruel words. So he really didn't care about them, ah.

To his remark, Alex raised one of her delicate brows slightly as the many jumbled pieces of the puzzle started to fit together. She wasn't sure of Nile's memories, but she knew from her own that the plot of the world was more or less the perfect example of history being written by the winners, hence the gaping plot holes.

Truthfully, Alex only had one half of the true events that took place figured out when she looked over her memories, while Nile had the other half. This was also why neither 001 nor Zero had chastised them for having seemingly gone off on their own tangents and OOC.

It was truly a tragedy.

While Nile had never met Lily prior to having taken up the mission, that didn't mean he had never met Alex before. Their first encounter was actually years ago when they were younger.

Alex had always tried her best to impress her family but they never even glanced her way, even though she was the legitimate daughter. She was already proficient in medical and research sciences by the time she was 12, which was also the age she was when she first met Nile, who was 14 at the time.

Nile had been kidnapped under the orders of the members of the Aldebaran family and held captive on their property grounds. He managed to escape on his own, but as he was heavily injured he couldn't get far before collapsing in an abandoned building nearby, which happened to be where Alex was tossed away by the Aldebaran family. He passed out and she ended up helping him. By this time, Alex had already developed a close friendship between Tyler and Faust, which was one of the reasons her eyes were not clouded by hate and resentment towards the four families--she didn't hate them, she just didn't trust them.

Her first impression of Nile was that he was different from both Tyler and Faust. But she knew who he was—the heir to Tyler's family and Tyler's half-brother who treated him quite well despite him being an illegitimate child. So, she had some respect for Nile. But she maintained her distance because he was engaged, and it was nigh impossible to nullify the engagement.

And even if he did, it was even more of a pipe dream to marry her, a member of his family's nemeses. His feelings for her were pointless.

Also, she could not bring herself to trust anyone from the main branches of the four great families because they always prioritized "the family," their reputation, and power over anything else. Who was there to say that Nile was different?

The young Nile fell in love with the girl whose fiery hair was akin to an undying flame no matter how harsh the girl's life was. It was one-sided, though, since even though he told her and outwardly displayed his love for her countless of times, Alex could not wholeheartedly bring herself to trust those "in the light." Furthermore and more importantly, he had a fiancée.

But he didn't give up and slowly wormed his way into her heart for over a decade, to the point that she started considering the possibility of a future between them.

In the end and before Alex could figure out her feelings for Nile, she was forced to leave on the starship. Before Alex left, Nile told her to wait for him.

The original Alex remembered clearly that Nile told her to wait for him, but when she woke up after those fifteen days of incubation, she was no longer a human. Their relationship, though based on ten long years, was not very stable. He was still engaged, and throughout those ten years they had only met each other no more than twenty times each year. She didn't believe that Nile would be able to accept her change and despaired over it.

Alex didn't know the depth of his feelings for her, but as she was unfamiliar with love in general she believed it to be something based on the amount of time they spent with each other, which was obviously lacking when compared with the amount of time she spent with Tyler and Faust. She could easily tell those two men of her change, but was scared of telling Nile for reasons she herself didn't know.

Due to the insecurities she held with Nile being the heir of the opposing family, his still-in-effect engagement, as well as the fact that she had become a monster Alex could never resolve her feelings for Nile, afraid that he would leave her hurt. Ultimately, she let herself loose with Tyler and Faust under the Queen's influence that she could have suppressed if her feelings for Nile had been sorted out and accepted.

As for the events that took place after that eight hour long "adventure," when her team met up with Nile's Alex was initially very happy to see him but not only was Nile there with his fiancée, he also tossed the brother that he had always respected to the wolves, not even sparing Alex a glance.

Of course, how could she blame him? She was far from innocent in this matter and she knew that they had no future together from the start. Yet, it hurt so much to actually experience being thrown away. Yes, by this time she had finally acknowledged that she loved Nile all along. She just didn't want to acknowledge it because she inherently knew how it would turn out. Unknowingly, even though she tried her best to defend herself from the pain, Nile had more of an effect on her than she thought.

Alex's mental barriers collapsed more and more, letting the Queen take over. Her health and mental state consequently affected Tyler and Faust, so the trio had fallen to down to hell together.

By the time Team Protagonist finally allowed them into their team, Alex was only a shell of her former self.

In the end, she, as the Queen with no semblance of humanity left inside her aside from her outer appearance, tried to pursue Nile, but Nile offered himself up to Lily instead, losing himself and eventually aiding in the death of his beloved.

Going by the words that Nile had just spoken, Alex was sure the tragedy was not a one-sided implosion. The original Nile had also fallen into despair.

Finding out that his dearest was forced into the mission aboard Starship 549, Nile knew things were not as simple as the higher ups had tried to make them out to be. The mission was dangerous, and Nile was worried about how Alex would fare, so he told her to wait for him.

He finally got the chance to play the hero who saves the beauty when he took on the follow-up mission. Nile had no doubt that Alex would still be alive as she had his reliable older brother by her side as well as the dependable Faust.

Regarding Alex's feelings for him, he felt that it was only a matter of time before she accepted him. But things went terribly wrong. Alex's insecurity was ingrained much deeper than he thought, which wasn't surprising since she had lived in the darkness and shadows since the time of her birth while he was showered in wealth, fame, and never-ending glory. She truly believed that he was out of her league.

Alex only needed one final push before accepting her feelings for him after so many years of wooing her, but she just had to wake up as an alien, throwing her back into the abyss of insecurities and losing herself.

Nile finally reached her as he had promised, only to be confronted by the harsh and obvious reality that his older brother and Faust were officially together with his sweetheart, wondering why she didn't wait for him--not knowing she was no longer human. He could only feel his heart being torn to shreds and thrown off to the side without a care.

In his agony, he didn't want to see their intimacy, so he passively agreed with Lily's suspicions. But when he took the time to think about everything later on, he managed to connect the dots and found out that Alex wasn't human anymore and that he left her to fall when her hopes were at their highest--when she needed his approval the most. He already knew all of her insecurities that were definitely not unfounded. After his realization, Nile decided that even if she was no longer human and she didn't wait for him, he would still accept her which was why the trio was allowed to join Team Protagonist.

Unfortunately, he had realized everything too late. By the time he saw her again, she wasn't herself anymore. Filled to the brim with self-blame and loathing, he felt that he didn't deserve her because he let her down. So, he broke and didn't care about the little war between the two alien queens since the one he was living for wasn't even alive anymore.

The end.

Fortunately for those two star-crossed lovers, the new and improved Alex and Nile had the ability to pave the way to their own happy ending without all that angst and drama. It was only a matter of when they would get started on it, now.