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Ballister sees the laser. His training takes over, and he redirects the laser. The problem is, he over-corrects because some part of him knows that a laser should not shoot out of the other end of a sword. He shouts, "Look out!" but can barely hear it in his ears as he spins the blade.
So the laser hits him square in the shoulder. He screams as he is falling, feeling it go through his flesh. The armor takes most of the blow, but it is clear that he is injured.
People scream as well. The knights pull the Queen out of the firing range as the laser rings out, hitting willy-nilly. Ambrosius slices the sword in half to kill the laser. He then cradles Ballister, telling him not to move, that he will be okay. A spark of vengeance lies within him; someone tried to kill his boyfriend, and in public no less.
No one suspects that the queen was the actual target. She got a mild graze from the blade, but was otherwise unharmed. Not a drop of blood on her outfit.
The Director is shocked that Ballister managed to avoid gaining the reputation that he manufactured. Instead of being a queen-killer, there is a manhunt for whoever tried to kill the "knight who was not quite right" in this realm. Far from turning him into a villain, she has turned him into a hero. No one knows if he can pick up a weapon again or even if he will survive the attempt.
Ambrosius alternates spending days between being at Ballister's bedside, as the latter is semiconscious. He talks to his boyfriend, promising that they'll find the bastard that gave him a rigged sword. The queen also visits, making sure that the guards are sent away while she strokes his hair. They had to shave his face to apply medical attention, and the queen is sorry about that. She promises that she will find a place for this commoner who rose all above the rest.
A girl appears at Ballister's bedside. He wonders if she is a hallucination brought on by the pain meds and the occasional alcohol. Ballister wonders how close he is to dying. That's why he accepts the booze that she sneaks into him; doctors can't tell him to not drink if it's only a hallucination. Yet the burn feels real.
Her name is Nimona. She doesn't explain how she got past the guards. Ballister, thinking she is some sort of angel of death, mutters that he needs to talk to the squire. The squire gave him the sword. But why would the squire want him dead? Nimona promises to get the answers, and blood on his behalf.
Turns out that she didn't need to do much; she brings the squire, all terrified, to Ballister's bedside. He had been meaning to come, but had been too scared. Not of Ballister, or of what he calls the "monster" with pink hair. But of someone else.
Ballister is confused. Who would threaten the squire? And who would scare him? Was it Todd?
The squire scoffs; no one is scared of Todd. But they need privacy. Nimona turns off the cameras at his request. The security feeds that are meant to keep this not-all-right knight alive. He brings out his cellphone. They watch as the Director switches the swords.
Ballister wants to show the footage to Ambrosius, begs Nimona to get it to him. Nimona promises. This time, however, Ballister doesn't think that Nimona would leak the footage. She is an angel of death, a hallucination. Sure, the squire can see her, but the Squire's life is also on the line. First rule of knighthood is that no one hurts the squires. You do, and you will get shunned for life by the other knights. They will know that you picked on one of their own who had yet to earn his sword. Even Todd, for all his bravado, would never hurt a squire.
When the footage appears on the nightly news, Ballister realizes two things:
1) He's not dying
2) He has exposed the kingdom to anarchy by showing that the Director tried to kill him.
and most importantly:
3) The girl was real. So was the meeting with the squire.
Ballister wants to get out of bed and demand explanations, and to explain that it wasn't him. He still isn't recovered, though, and his muscles are weak. The nurse that's on-call with him turns on the television, and they watch as the Queen has to address the fear, the horror. She says that she is arresting the Director and putting her on trial. The Queen still does not know that Ballister was a misfire, and it could have been her on the news when the Director made that confession. It's a kingdom that fights monsters, but they also know what to do with criminals. So they will demand an explanation, why the Director went against the Queen's wishes.
Ambrosius, for his part, cannot believe it. He has to put the Director in shackles and lead her to a cell. It is one of the nicer ones, meant for political prisoners or for naughty royal children that commit casual vandalism.
"Why?" he asked as he unlocks her shackles and allows her to sit in a comfortable arm-chair. She doesn't even deserve that much, with how much pain and suffering that she caused.
"It was for the good of the realm," she responded, looking him straight in the eye. "A commoner would cause a crack in the wall that protects us. You should know that as a descendant of Gloreth."
When he comes to visit Ballister the next day, the first thing he does is apologize. He can't believe that the Director would hurt one of their knights, and she didn't even give a good reason.
Ballister can barely hear the apology. His shoulder is throbbing; pain is good, and he can move it a little. He wonders if he can even move his toes. But he can start therapy soon, the nurses reassure him. Luckily, the laser missed his spine. He can go out there and try to figure out how to go in and make justice happen. More importantly, he can figure out who that girl was, and why she decided to help him, while sabotaging the realm. Generally, strange teenagers do not just wander into hospital rooms and leak information online.
He asks for Ambrosius to find the girl. To tell her to hide, and to hide the Squire. The Director may be in jail, but she may go after the Squire in some twisted form of revenge. They don't know what she's capable of if she had been able to switch the weapons. If she could sabotage a sword that would go for a knight, the sky is the limit regarding what else that she can do. There is too much at stake, too many people that could or couldn't get hurt. Prison can only hold a traitor for so long.
To humor his boyfriend, who has probably had a rough night dealing with betrayal and having some bad night terrors, Ambrosius agrees. He is certain that a little girl could not get in and out of the hospital while avoiding detection. The queen has ordered Ballister under protection.
Trial dates are set, and people are waiting. People have sent flowers to Ballister. All sweets are inspected. The Queen assigns the Squire a retinue of bodyguards. Some of the knights, like Todd, mock him for needing protection, but still others are impressed that the Squire had the balls to leak the footage. He tells them that he didn't, that a girl took his phone. No one believes him. The news asks who is loyal to the Director, after she tried to kill a commoner. People have questions.
Sometimes Ambrosius, when he visits, sees a cat snuggled up with Ballister. Unusual color, but resting on his heart. Ballister breathes more easily on those nights. Yet the cat never appears on camera. Those are the nights that the camera goes out, and the flowers are eaten. Ambrosius wonders why the hospital would have a therapy cat that isn't well-behaved. He has had no luck in finding the girl from Ballister's nightmares. That is until he hears the Squire with exasperation telling his story again. That he was talking to a girl with pink hair. The same one that Ballister mentioned.
The cat has to be the clue. It only appeared after the video leaked.
So Ambrosius comes one night after hours. He doesn't go to Ballister's room where his boyfriend is sleeping. Instead, he watches the cameras. The guards doze at the monitors. He stays awake. When the cameras flicker, he goes to inspect. The cat slips out of Ballister's hotel room, and Ambrosius follows.
She changes into a girl in a storage space. Hospital mattresses are here. Ambrosius's jaw drops. No one has seen monsters since Gloreth's time. But it's clear what she is. Only a monster could change like that.
But she exposed Ballister's would-be killer. That had to mean something. So he sheathes his sword, and knocks. She turns, hair whipping. Ambrosius says he doesn't want to harm her. He wants to talk. And thank her.
He and the girl talk; she demands pizza first, with no anchovies. Yes, he's scared of a monster, but this monster is helping his boyfriend recover. Plus, he wants answers. Who is she? Why did she leak the video? Why is she staying with Bal?
They talk through the night. Nimona is suspicious, but she realizes that he's the real deal. There are things she doesn't say, like what she is, or how far her powers stretch. She doesn't explain her backstory. But she says that she saw Ballister was like her.
He asks how; she says that Ballister wasn't supposed to die. He was supposed to kill the queen. And he would have become the villain of the kingdom.
Ambrosius needs to sit on hearing this. He asks how is Nimona sure. How could she be sure? Nimona says that she saw the footage. If Ballister had stood still, the laser would have hit the queen. As it was, he turned it in record time. Any sooner, and the queen would have died.
He can't believe it. The Director wouldn't do such a thing; Ballister was her pet, her favorite student. How can Nimona make those accusations?
Nimona tells him how they can prove it. They just need a cellphone.
In the Director's cell, the Queen enters. She dismisses the guards and asks to talk to the Director alone. She is reading. The Queen asks her why she switched Ballister's sword, presenting the blade. The truth this time, no more lies. Maybe she will get clemency during her trial. The Director was a loyal employee for years. And the Queen believes in mercy, in second chances.
The Director's eyes flash. She considers the sword and answers. That blade was meant for the queen's stomach and not a knight's shoulder. Just as it was meant for now.
She impales the queen, who keels over. The Director calls her a weak ruler, one that went against Gloreth's original intentions. She bribed the guards so they would look the other way. With the laser in the sword, there is no blood or fingerprints. They'd deposit the queen and make it look like she was murdered in bed. Chaos and bedlam, and they would need a strong ruler. Ambrosius can never be king due to being a knight, and they'd need a ruler. The guards loyal to her would help the Director secure a pardon and direct the city. She would keep everyone safe.
It all seems so final. Then the Queen stands and pulls out the blade. She tells her thank you for her honesty. Then she changes into a girl with pink hair and gives a thumbs-up.
Ambrosius got it all on camera. He's sweating, shaking. The Director would have killed the queen and nearly got his boyfriend murdered. This monster was right. And there are corrupt guards on staff. He and Nimona leave, seeking an audience with the real queen. Nimona uploads the footage, of course. She believes in chaos.
No friendship born from hiding in the shadows, no pizza parties with sharks or otters. Instead, a trio working with a ruler that truly wants change and will listen to the truth. Ambrosius sneaks into pizza, and properly gets to know Nimona over drinks.
The doctors don't think that Ballister can do combat work; they tell him he's lucky they didn't need to amputate his arm at the shoulder. He wants to prove them wrong.
Consider what would have happened if Ballister's reflexes had been faster.