Mustang: The Road to Redemption

Chapter 38: Imminent

Weeks would go by after Alex and Edward had buried the hatchet as the days went by rather peacefully for the boy.

He'd take on whatever merc requests he was given and whenever he wasn't busy, he'd spend time with Akari and Akame as the three would hang out around the city fairly often.

Despite all this, Alex couldn't shake off the feeling that something was amiss.

He wasn't really a superstitious person but he just had a sneaky suspicion that something was bound to happen due to all this peace he's had for a while.

Currently, Alex was just sitting in his living room on the couch as he was flipping through the channels trying to see if anything interesting was on.

While doing so, his phone began to ring.

Alex would take it out from his pocket to see who was calling me.

"Hm? Oh, Uni. Been a while since I last heard from her." Said the boy as he answered her call.

"Well well well. Been a while, hasn't it?" Said the boy in a playful tone.

"Go to the news channel. Now." Said Uni in an urgent tone.

"Uh, okay?" He said.

Alex would quickly swap over to the news station and when he saw the main headline at the bottom of the screen, he had to do a double take to make sure he wasn't seeing things.

"Uni. What the hell is this?"

"Impending War."

"Yeah I obviously know it's war Uni! I mean why the hell is this happening!?"

"Are you surprised or something? Have you not been paying attention to the news recently?"

"Uni you know I'm not a news person. I am aware that there is some bad blood between the two but I'm not caught up on the full story."

"Honestly, calling it some bad blood would be an understatement. Do you even know why this is all happening?"

"Not particularly no."

"To save time, the land that Kamno occupies formerly used to belong to Lastation, however that land up north was never used or developed at all. It lent itself to lots of homeless people living up there, one of them being Jackie herself. One day Jackie stumbled upon an old abandoned base that was left there ages ago and decided to built that base from the ground up to provide a home for the homeless. Fast forward a few years and what she built, now named Kamno, would become the fastest rising nation in all of Gamindustri. It was appealing to any foreigners who wanted to move to Gamindustri but weren't to keen on being governed by a single goddess."

"Alright that makes sense so, where exactly did this animosity come from?"

"Well, once Kamno took over the entirety of the northern forest, they began to expand downward to claim as much unoccupied land as they could without going too far into Lastation territory as it wasn't their intent to take over. Unfortunately you know that my sister tends to treat things a little, extra."

"That's an understatement."

"Anyways, once they got to the plains that separates the north from the south, Noire had put a stop to it and demanded Kamno to turn back around, citing that the plains was her territory with Jackie countering back that since the plains were empty, they had a right to claim them. That's caused a big border dispute at that area. Neither side wanted to back down."

"Yikes. That's pretty bad. So, what led to today?"

"Two things. First, the Diplomats from Kamno whose role it was to maintain peace talks with Lastation had finally given up and left where they were stationed here back to Kamno, meaning that any sort of compromise was fully out the window. Lastly at the border, Kamno was having a patrol on their side when they were suddenly ambushed and attacked. Naturally, the blame was put on us however the Basilicom kept denying involvement in the attack. That least ordeal was the final straw which leads us to today. Jackie has called for an imminent war."

"Geez. Well, you guys have taken down way tougher opponents before right? This should be a cinch."

"Alex. This is something never seen before. The difference between them and people like Arfoire or Rei Ryghts is that they don't care about world domination. They don't care about the other nation. They see Noire as the sole problem of Lastion and wanna get her replaced by someone more fitting."

"Aren't you all immoral though?"

"Immortality won't matter if their forces take over the room our Share Crystal is in and hold it hostage. If that happens, we'd be forced to surrender. Think about how that'd look to the other nations. A goddess, being outsmarted and losing to a group of people. It could cause similar actions to occur in the other three nations. There's no scenario where Lastation wins. The only victory we could possibly have, is if Noire backs down, apologies to them, and promises to leave Kamno alone."

"Your sister apologizing? That's as likely as hell freezing over."

"It's the only way. I tried to soothe things over with Jackie myself, but I failed to change her mind. You're probably gonna have to get your family and move for a while. I know you don't wanna be involved in stuff like this again."

As Uni said that, Alex began to think over on what he could do to help without fighting himself.

That was when he came up with really the only idea he could do.

It was a long shot and he wasn't really sure if he could succeed or not, but he had no choice.

It had to take a chance and hope for the best.

"Don't worry Uni. That won't be necessary. I'm not going anywhere." He said.

"Huh? Alex please don't tell me you're gonna fight? There's no way you'll make it out alive like last time."

"I'm not gonna be fighting Uni."

"Huh?"

"I'm gonna do what you did."

"Which is?"

"I'm gonna talk with Jackie. I feel like I can get through to her somewhat."

As Alex said, he heard Uni have a long sigh on the other side as she really couldn't believe this was his plan to help, however at this point getting her to change her mind was more likely to happen than getting Noire to back down.

"We don't really have another plan so go ahead. Go for it. Call me back once you're done chatting with her."

"Got it. Call you back."

"Good luck."

Alex would hang up on Uni and after scrolling through his contacts list, he'd come across the number Jackie has given him as he began to call it.

As the phone rang and rang, Alex was hoping that she'd pick up, hoping that she wouldn't be too easy at the moment.

Thankfully, his prayers were answered as he heard the call be picked up.

"I has a feeling you'd call, Alex. What can I do for you?"

It was Jackie's voice.

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Chapter 38: Complete