Chase found himself sitting at a large circular table within a small cafe, seated right next to the biggest window in Seh Jenah. The cafe stood on the corner of Freznov's biggest commercial blocks, and it was named Sabretooth tavern, or at least something along those lines.
At his large table, sat Neo to his left. Who was very obviously stuffing his face with some sort of grilled chicken sandwich, while Poppy sat at his right, gracefully taking a sip of her tea.
On the other side of the table, sat a couple mainline members of the group, such as Luke who sat directly across from Chase, and read from some sort of teaching manual, gently flipping the pages with the occasional sip of his own tea.
As Chase studied the book in his hand, he glanced back at Poppy and noticed that she had hidden her gruesome scar quite well. The skin of cheek, barely showing a faded gash that had probably been covered quite well by some sort of makeup, or could have even been healed by a high quality potion, considering that Poppy always had a few of those in stock.
To Luke's left and Poppy's right sat Equan, who would occasionally throw fantastical glances at Poppy's chest, which gave Chase an excuse to ignite the candle closest to Equan every time that he was caught, which turned out to be every time with the help of Soul Sense.
To Neo's left, sat Luna who had her face scrunched into the palm of her gently closed hand. Every now and then, Chase could notice Luna zoning out or completely dozing off, while ignoring the large plate of food before her.
The cafe wasn't extraordinarily busy or anything when taking into account the size of the place, as well as the several stories above them built like a mighty spiral; however, even then, the place was loud enough to where the group could have a conversation at any volume they wanted without getting kicked out or warned by the workers.
Even then, not many of them would find themselves starting a conversation.
Normally that job would have fallen to Neo or Equan, which both of them must have had a lot on their minds in the recent days considering Chase could see a strange and similar look from the both of them every now and then.
Neo especially, looked as if he was dreading something quite serious.
"So, what's the reason for heading off in such a hurry?" Luna asked Neo, which left Chase completely dumbfounded for a moment, before naturally zoning in on Neo in hopes of a decent answer.
'Thanks...' Chase said internally while nodding towards Luna and returning his gaze.
Neo grimaced, seeming to clench his teeth for a second or two before sighing.
Chase glanced to the right, noticing that Poppy wore a quite obvious look of dissatisfaction as she herself also glared at Neo from across the wooden table.
"I am heading to the Grand Capital..." He eventually stated, leaving everyone except for Poppy twice as confused as before.
Then it clicked...
Chase's eyes slowly lowered towards the table as a natural fear and worry for his friend suddenly kicked in quite hard.
"How come?" Equan asked, taking quite a large bite of some sort of biscuit that had been brought in a large bowl filled to the brim with different varieties of the same biscuit.
Neo began to speak, but was immediately cut off by Poppy.
"He thinks he can kill his brother..." Luke spat out his tea and frantically fiddled with his cup in the attempt of not dropping, let alone spilling it all over himself.
Chase had already come to this conclusion, and slowly raised his gaze back to the youngest cobra.
"Why now?" He found himself asking, noticing that his hand was instinctively rubbing against the shoulder where Sparky's mark had once been.
Neo struggled at first, before shaking his head, showing that the cobra was able to drown himself in determination with just a simple shift.
His face turned to steel and his eyes began to ignite a bright blue.
"Well... Ya see, I've been struggling with my past quite a bit... I don't know if any of you have felt similar, or like you need to make amends with your past self, or at least get revenge against someone who had once wronged you... But I just can't take it anymore..." He paused, taking a deep breath and leaning back in his seat as a subtle grin swept over his snake-like face.
"Either way... I wish to become the youngest Paladin in Vallmora, and slaying my brother is the first stepping stone on that path... So... The job has to be finished at some point... Might as well strike while the iron is hot..." He chuckled, pulling something from his pocket and placing it on the table with a scrunching noise.
It was a parchment, a heavily shriveled and even wet parchment at that.
Luke stood up slowly, glaring down at the paper that Neo had just placed on the wooden surface.
"Bishop was executed...?" Luke asked in disbelief...
"Indeed..." Poppy continued, with even more annoyance creeping onto her face.
"Who is Bishop?" Equan asked, which Chase and Luna had similar questions of their own.
Chase more so, wanted to know the connection between Bishop and Poppy and why she was wearing such an angry expression at the mention of it.
"Slain by yours truly..." Neo chuckled, with a pestering grin aimed directly at Poppy.
"You killed this guy?" Equan asked her, swallowing a biscuit in one bite.
"No numbskull, it was my father..." She responded, twice as pissed off as before.
Neo nodded, pointing at the parchment and sighing.
"The Paladins are weak, and have begun to bicker amongst themselves, resulting in direct executions... Meaning that my chance for revenge has finally come." Neo continued, leaning back in his chair again and rolling up the parchment lazily.
Chase zoned out for the rest of lunch, hoping that Luke would eventually talk to Neo before the departure, considering that deep down, Luke had a soft spot for Neo, and probably was more worried than either Chase or Poppy.
But the lunch passed by without much tension after that, allowing Equan to tell a much exaggerated tale of their first coliseum battle.