The pair continued in silence for quite a while. The tunnel gradually became lighter and the air more tolerable as they went, until finally they made it to the mouth of the tunnel, which opened out over a grassy hill overlooking a babbling brook that carried away the runoff from the tunnel. Deejay gingerly set Elizabeth down on the grass. The two of them walked forward a few paces and looked around. To their left, a large rock wall marked the edge of the capitol city. In front of them was a rural pasture stretching off into the horizon. Elizabeth smiled and breathed deeply. Deejay stretched and groaned.

“Damn, this day's been one hell of a workout. That's some beautiful countryside, though.”

Elizabeth nodded. “We seem to be a long way from the castle. But at least we escaped from those men. We should be able to make it back safely now.” She gave a relieved sigh. “It’s finally over...”

Deejay winced. Before he could respond, a horse whinnied behind them, and they turned to look. The revolutionaries were standing at the top of the hill waiting for them. The three rode quickly down the hill and stopped in front of the tunnel, blocking their escape. Exasperated, Deejay put a hand over his face.

“You just had to say it, didn’t you? Never say ‘it’s finally over’! It’s never over if you jinx it like that.”

“You have nowhere left to run, Your Highness.”

The revolutionary leader brandished his crossbow, as did the others. Elizabeth hid behind Deejay and whispered to him.

“I don't suppose you have any weapons concealed on your person that you neglected to mention earlier?”

“Honestly, I didn't think I'd need any today,” he whispered back. “I'm not usually armed when taking surveys.”

The leader marched his horse a few paces closer, glaring down at them. “The time has come. Your deaths shall signal the beginning of a glorious revolution.”

Deejay still held his ground, grinning defiantly. “Man, you really have a flair for the dramatic, don’t you?”

“He’s not the only one,” a familiar voice added.

Everyone looked around in surprise and confusion, searching for the source of the new voice. Everyone except Deejay, who winced and looked down at his feet.

“Oh no...”

“Who is it?” Elizabeth asked. “More Revolutionaries?”

“Worse.”

“Up there!” one of the men shouted, pointing up.

Everyone turned to look. Atop the rock wall, Ty stood looking down on the group, his arms folded judgmentally in front of his chest. He stood in contrast against the sky, dressed in an all black three-piece suit, his dark glasses reflecting the glare from the afternoon sun. He strode to the lowest section of the wall where the hill rose up to its highest point, and prepared to jump down, but hesitated as he realized the ground was a bit further down than he'd first thought. Carefully, he crouched and attempted to climb down from the wall, steadying himself on the ledge. As he hung down from the ledge, almost immediately, he lost his grip, slid and tumbled down into the grass, skidding a few feet down the hill, cursing under his breath the whole way. He stumbled back to his feet and approached Deejay and Elizabeth, shaking his head irritably and brushing his clothes off with his hands.

“Perfect,” he said sarcastically. “Just perfect. On top of everything else, I really needed grass stains right about now.”

Deejay laughed uncomfortably. “Uh, heya Ty.”

“You know, I thought I could trust you enough to handle a few simple little surveys by yourself. I haven't heard from you all afternoon, and you were due back home hours ago. Naturally, being the caring, sympathetic soul that I am, I was really starting to worry about you, so I decided to come looking for you. And what do I find when I get here? You’re over 5 miles from where you left the ship, you've apparently managed to piss off the locals enough to have weapons drawn on you, and of course, you're running around with some girl too-”

“Some girl?” Elizabeth interrupted. “I take offense at that, sir. I will have you know I am a princess: daughter of Fredrick, King of-.”

Deejay counter-interrupted. “H-hey, now! There’s no need to get into all that…”

“She’s a princess?” Ty asked incredulously. “Are you kidding me? Are you just trying to piss everyone off today? You know what kind of impact something like this could have.”

“Aw Ty, come on! I saw her getting kidnapped right in front of me.”

“Of course you did. What is it with you and damsels in distress anyway? Is there supposed to be something attractive about a girl being in peril?”

“Dude, she was in danger. What would you have done?”

The revolutionaries stared with a mixture of confusion and disbelief. The leader cleared his throat.

“In this world?” Ty replied. “I would have stayed out of it. Alert the proper authorities and then stand back out of the way.”

“Come on, that's a load of crap,” Deejay fired back, getting slightly irked himself. “Look, I had an opportunity to help someone when nobody else could have reacted fast enough, so I took it. You can't try and guilt trip me for that. I was doing the right thing.”

“Sure you were. Never mind it was for the wrong reasons.”

“Oh, go to hell.”

“Excuse me!” The revolutionary leader held up his weapon in disbelief. “We're still here, you know.”

“She was in danger,” Deejay continued, “and I sprang into action to help her because I’m a stand-up kind of guy. I saved her life.”

“Is that a fact?” Ty turned to Elizabeth.

“Sir Deejay acted very bravely,” she said with a proud nod. “He couldn't have known the person kidnapping me wasn't actually a threat-”

Deejay waved his hands like an amateur magician desperately trying to recover from a fumbled card trick. “A-again, I'm not sure he needs all the details-”

“Alright, hold on. Was she in danger or wasn't she?”

“Well...” Deejay anxiously flicked at the zipper on his hoodie. “Okay, keep in mind, this definitely wasn’t my fault. As it turns out, the kidnappers were really the royal guards. They were trying to protect her so the real bad guys here wouldn’t find her.”

“You don’t say? So in reality, she probably would have been much safer if you hadn’t interfered at all?”

“Hey, how was I supposed to know they weren’t the bad guys?”

“That’s my point, you dunce. You couldn't have known, but you chose to get involved anyway. You can’t just jump into a hostile situation and pick a side based on a hunch. It's dangerous to make assumptions about who the 'good guys' and 'bad guys' are. The real world isn't as black and white as that. How can you expect to help anyone by rushing around recklessly like some wannabe action hero?”

“Stop this bickering, you fools!” The revolutionary leader shouted, red-faced. “Enough of your stalling. It's time to finish what we started.”

The leader pointed and fired his crossbow straight at Elizabeth. Reacting just in time, Deejay moved into the bolt's path and pushed her away. He yelped in pain as the bolt struck him in the upper arm.

“Sir Deejay!” Elizabeth gasped. “Are you hurt badly?”

“I'm alright.” Deejay held a hand over the wound, pressing firmly to slow the bleeding. Wincing through the pain, he managed a forced smile, and an even more forced joke. “Heh. 'Tis but a flesh wound.”

Ty moved to check on Deejay, then turned to face the revolutionaries, positioning himself between them and the princess.

“What the hell was that? You’d fire on an unarmed woman?”

“Woman or man, armed or not; it makes no difference.” The leader steeled his gaze and gritted his teeth, staring down at Ty as he reloaded the crossbow once again. “She is of royal blood, a cornerstone of the Zalarian Empire. She must be dealt with like all the rest, and if you attempt to stop us, you will be dealt with as well.”

Ty stared coldly back at him. Deejay stepped up next to Ty, clutching his injured arm.

“I'm sorry,” Ty whispered, holding his gaze on the Revolutionaries. “I should have been ready for that.”

“You armed?”

“Always.”

Ty's hand moved subtly toward his hip. The Revolutionary leader steadied his crossbow.

“The Revolution will not be silenced! We will topple the Zalarian throne and free this nation’s people from its corruption. That despicable despot Fredrick and his entire family will fall before the-”

A deafening gunshot cut through the air. The crossbow flipped backward out of the leader's hand, the wooden frame split down the middle. He cried out in pain and surprise, and his horse reared back nearly throwing him off. The second revolutionary began to raise his own crossbow, only to be met with a second gunshot, and his weapon flew suddenly and violently from his grip as well. The third man turned ghostly pale and obligingly dropped his weapon on the ground.

The leader clutched his hand, his face twisted in a mixture of rage and confusion, and the three of them stared at Ty, who had them held at gunpoint with an almost comically large revolver. The collective group fell silent, until...

“Oh, I’m sorry. Did he break your concentration?”

Ty rolled his eyes, still holding his aim. “Dammit Deejay, give it a rest. Nobody gets your stupid pop culture references.”

“What makes you think I do them for anyone else?”

Kudos for trying, Ty.

“What sort of weapon is that?” one of the men sputtered.

“It sounds like a cannon,” the other replied.

“Close enough.” Ty cleared his throat and lowered the gun slightly. “Now the way I see it, if Deejay hadn’t interfered, this pseudo-kidnapping by the king’s guards would have been successful. At the end of the day, the princess would be safe and sound back in the castle, and you’d all leave here without completing your goal. Now I like to leave a place the way I found it, so that’s just how things are going to go today. The princess is going back to the castle, and you’re all going home empty-handed.”

The revolutionary leader gritted his teeth, seething. “You... arrogant little-”

“If that plan doesn't work for you, you can go home with a ball of lead in your shoulder. I'm fine either way.”

One of the men urged his horse closer to the leader and leaned over to whisper to him:

“Let's be smart about this. Whatever country those two come from, if they have weapons like that, we'd best not start a war with them.”

The leader glared hard at Ty, who did the same back at him, then reluctantly hung his head.

“...Very well then. We retreat for now.” The men turned and began to ride away. The leader called out over his shoulder. “Mark my words, you will pay for this. You haven't seen the last of us.”

“For your sake,” Ty called back, “I hope we have.”

The leader scoffed, and the three Revolutionaries rode off into the distance. Once they were well out of sight, Ty slipped the gun back into its holster on his belt, then turned back to the others. Deejay let out an exaggerated sigh.

“Well, that was exciting. Are you alright, Highness?”

“Yes, thank you, I’m fine.” She looked with suppressed horror at the bolt still sticking out of his arm. “But more importantly, are you alright?”

“Aw, that’s sweet, but you don’t have to worry about me.” He examined the wound more closely. “Bleeding's almost stopped. Better get back to the ship soon to be on the safe side. I've got the first aid kit in there. But yeah, I can patch this up in no time once we get home.”

“Aren't you in pain?”

“Hah! My system's so flooded with endorphins and adrenaline right now, I can barely feel my face.”

“If you hadn't noticed yet,” Ty added, “Deejay's a bit... special? Sure, let's go with that.”

“Point is, I'll be fine once I get home and take care of this. Heck, I've survived worse than having a crossbow bolt stuck in me before.” He gave Elizabeth a sly grin. “Anyway, speaking of things getting stuck in places they don’t belong-”

Ty shook his head. “Deejay...”

“Oh lay off, will you? Look, I get you're mad at me, but everything turned out fine in the end, didn't it?”

“I don't care. You're not going to start a damn political incident right now just because you want another notch in your bedpost.”

Elizabeth looked back and forth at the two of them, more than a little confused. “What are the two of you talking about?”

“Never mind, Your Highness.” Ty adjusted his glasses. “I think we'd better get you back to the castle as soon as possible. Your father's bound to be worried about you. And then Deejay and I are going home, and I don’t want to hear another word about it.”

Deejay made a pouting face. “…Spoilsport.”