Four years and ten months ago...
Inside the Simulation Wing of the Regalia Organization, located at Greenland.
June 6th, 2021.
6:36 PM 2° Celcius/35.6° Fahrenheit
The Simulation Wing is a controlled environment designed to replicate real - world scenarios for the Queenswomen's training, mild and extreme, testing, and analysis purposes.
There were no clocks in the Simulation Wing.
Just white lights, cold steel, and monitors humming quietly. And one glass room that could recreate any scenario in the world....perfectly and realistically.
Ray stood alone inside it now.
He wore a black tactical jacket and combat boots, no weapons, no orders, just the sudden buzz of electricity around him.
The environment changed....
The simulation flickered - and suddenly, he wasn't in Regalia anymore.
He was in an alley in East London. Damp, graffiti - sprayed walls. Trash bins reeking of rot. The air was thick with drizzle and desperation.
Ray blinked once.
Something was wrong. He was told the simulation today was in Syria, where he was tasked to simulate an assassination of a high-profiled terrorist leader, a lethal threat to England.
But this didn't look like in Syria...
Still, he walked forward, hands in his pockets, scanning the space like instinct was second nature now. He had been trained to move silently, think faster, hit harder.
But this? This felt....unscripted.
Then he heard it.
Crying
A child's.
Ray turned the corner and found a girl - maybe ten years old - huddled behind a dumpster, bruised, shivering, trying to muffle her sobs.
She was covered in dirt. Her school uniform was torn. Her eyes, huge and terrifed, looked up at him like he was the last angel left in Hell.
"Help." She whispered.
Ray stood still.
No emotion. No shock. But he crouched down to her level.
"What happened?" He asked, voice flat, unreadable.
"They...they took my brother." She whimpered.
"Who?" He asked again.
She pointed with a trembling hand toward a warehouse across the street.
Ray didn't hesitate. He stood, crossed the road, and kicked the door open.
Inside - it was chaos. Four men, large, tattooed, armed. One was smoking. Another was holding a small boy, gagged and terrified. The other two were laughing.
Ray's mind didn't calculate risk, or danger, or odds.
He moved.
Before they could raise their weapons, he was on them. No hesitation. No mercy.
He grabbed the first man's wrist, snapped it with a brutal twist, stole his knife, and plunged it into his throat. Blood sprayed.
The second man opened fire - Ray ducked, rolled, kicked his kneecap backwards with a crunch, slammed his head against the wall until it didn't move.
The third tried to flee - Ray tackled him, shattered his ribs, and crushed his windpipe with a brutal stomp.
The fourth, holding the child, held him like a shield.
Ray didn't blink.
"Put the kid down." He said, his voice deadly.
"You're fucking crazy, mate! You killed them! You-"
"I said put. Him. Down." But Ray cut him off.
The man didn't move fast enough.
Ray closed the gap in a blink, grabbed the child's collar and yanked him free, and jammed a knife directly into the man's femoral artery. The man screamed, bled, and died.
Ray stood over the bodies, breathing slow. Calm and unshaken.
The simulation flickered.
And then, like the curtain falling, everything froze.
The alley, the warehouse, the children, the blood.
Gone.
Now it just the white, clinical chamber again.
Queen Charlotte stood behind the glass, arms crossed, watching everything. She stepped into the chamber, heels clicking softly.
Ray turned slowly. His hands were still stained with red.
"You lied." He said quietly.
She smiled faintly. "No, I tested you."
"You used children." Ray added, his light silver eyes darkened a bit.
"I used an illusion of children." The Queen's excuse.
Ray stared at her.
"The little girl.....she looked real." He said, his voice low.
"She was." The Queen's voice soft.
Ray frowned.
Queen Charlotte walked closer. "You told me you didn't feel anything. You said emotions were a waste."
"They are." Ray muttered.
"Then why did you protect the children?" The Queen softly asked.
He didn't answer.
"Why didn't you hesitate? You could've walked away. You could've waited. But you went it....and you slaughtered them all." She pressed.
Ray stared at the floor. His jaw clenched.
"They were scum." He finally said.
Queen Charlotte tilted her head.
"They were hurting kids. They didn't deserve mercy. They weren't men. They were fucking filthy." He continued, his light silver eyes darkened.
Charlotte studied him.
"I don't care about good or evil. But I hate people like them. Scums, criminals, corrupts who prey on the weak. Kids, women, the helpless. I see them, and something in me burns." Ray kept going, voice low.
"Interesting." Charlotte whispered to herself.
"I don't want justice. I want them gone." Ray strongfully emphasized.
Queen Charlotte softly smiled.
"So...."
"You do feel something." She shared.
He looked up.
"Only hate." Ray shared too.
A beat of silence.
Queen Charlotte smiled again, slowly.
"Ray..." She began.
"That...is your morality. You are not a blank slate. You're not hollow. You're..."
Then, she heaved a sigh. A acceptance and enlightened sigh.
"....like a devil. But a devil with rules. You're a murderer to somebody, but....you could be a hero to the other somebody." She followed it.