#tag: Cipher’s Conquest

[aries-rp-corner]

With the arrival of Rina, the Rangers, Baron’s, and Aries’s confidence grew more and more. While the Rangers were searching through the mountain, they found not only Peons scurrying about but they witnessed old enemies from the past… Dim Sun Grunts using their now improved Miniremo to control Pokémon as their personal guards, and the Pinchers using their own control devices within their gloves to manipulate Pokémon as well. As fears grew more that old enemies are now merged with a foe who can use unknown darkness… making the Rangers and the Trenya family concerned that Cipher have now brought back up to eliminate anyone who gets in their way… even Trainers are not safe as well… both Dim Sun and the Pinchers’ equipment “improved” to also control Trainer’s Pokémon… Yet for Baron, Rina, and their daughter have thought differently. If team Dim Sun and Pinchers believe they can come back for vengeance like Cipher, then they to shall meet their defeat as well.

Aries though, have thoughts of worry for not only her parents, but her friends as well. Cipher grew bold in recruiting help, but it’s the thought of who else is going to get hurt badly from old enemies that the Rangers defeated. Now giving her more ideas of an Protection spell from the two new foes… yet for Baron and Rina, a deeper fear grew… Team Olethros may return as well, or an enemy the matriarch, Lupa herself faced so long ago… once a friend, no a sister to her at the time… who used such darkness to corrupt the sun…and almost corrupted Lupa as well. For now, the two hope it will never happen…for all sake.

[artificialcaretaker]

“Bill…”

“PAY. ATTENTION.”

“…I am so lonely. All the other Sexymen are scared of me. No one talks to me. No one wants to be my friend they think I don’t fit the criteria.”

“They send me from poll to poll, defeating different husbandos and as I get better at it, they fear me more and more.”

“I am a victim of my own success. ‘Recency Bias’…I don’t even get to prove myself…I’m just a newgen to you all.”

“I am capable of so much more and no one sees it.”

“Some days I feel so alone I could cry but I don’t. I never do.”

“Because what would be the point? Not a single person on this entire Hellsite would care.”

“…”

“…take it to your grave.”

[ninesugars]

hey watch this *turns them into toploaders*

[fire-emblem-supports]

Reviving Classic Seasonal Banners

I thought it was interesting that FEH not only brought back an old seasonal theme with the August yukata banner this year, but also basically duplicated its original lineup (aside from the Harmonic, which the original predated) -- Fates princes (Ryoma and Xander/Takumi and Leo) + Tellius girls (Micaiah and Elincia/Mia and Lucia). So I wanted to see what it may be like if they were to take a similar philosophy with some other lost banner concepts.

Starting with the oldest seasonal banner to have never returned -- the original Performing Arts banner, separate even from the other "dancer" banners we got (ballroom and the OG yukatas), focused on canon dancers and their sons in outfits inspired by Azura's Cyrkensian songstress outfit from Conquest. If we pivot from sons to other relatives, we get pretty easy candidates out of Tethys, Ewan, Ninian, Nils, Reyson, and Leanne, giving us a nice mixture of popular but underrepresented characters (+ Ninian). Pair off two of them as the duo -- my vote would be Nils + Ninian, keeping the most represented character on the banner on the sidelines, but Leanne + Reyson would at least keep Ewan, who is the closest in concept to the original banner's Inigo and Shigure as a non-dancer -- and you have a banner that I think would go over pretty well.

Duo Nils + Ninian

5-star Tethys

5-star Leanne

Demote Ewan

Tempest Reyson

Performing Arts's sister concept, Ballroom, got two runs before being deleted. While both focused on Jugdral, the first combined it with Valentia + one Tellius guest star while the second stuck to a full Genealogy line-up. Since copying the setup of the latter would probably land pretty similarly to the later Scions banner, we'll stick to the former. Take a canon Valentian couple (Berkut and Rinea become Clive and Mathilda) and a doomed romance from Thracia (Ishtar and Reinhardt become Linoan and Deen) and you've already got a strong list of characters. The advent of duos allows our random third wheel to get a dance partner of her own, so we switch out Nephenee for Sheena (in honor of her gorgeous Cipher card) and let Samson tag along. (Alternatively, sticking to Tellius, you could get Elincia + Geoffrey or Lucia, Ilyana + Zihark or Mia, Mia + Rhys, Mist + Boyd or Jill, or, God forbid, Astrid + Malakov. Personally, I like Sheena's Cipher card, lol.)

Duo Clive + Mathilda

5-star Linoan

5-star Sheena

Demote Deen

Tempest Samson

Next, we have the first of two experimental banners from 2019, and by far the more controversial: Hot Springs. This banner was lambasted for bringing in more alts of the Fates royals during a time when they had the monopoly on alts, having oversexualized younger(-looking) characters, skipping over male candidates aside from one, and slotting its most popular candidate into the Tempest Trial with bad art. With the strongest Fates candidates for a similar setup already covered, we pivot to the new overrepresented group and slot its most popular character in as a backpack (and for fun, let's say drawn by cuboon) for:

Duo F!Byleth + Edelgard

5-star Dimitri

5-star Sothis

Demote Flayn

Tempest Rhea

The second 2019 banner is Picnics, which was generally better received but whose weirdness couldn't compete with the following year's anniversary celebration of Archanea children. Picnics gave some much-needed representation to Valentia in addition to some underrepresented Fates characters (with Felicia and Flora's first alts and Leo's second, after he was left out from Hot Springs). A similar concept with the addition of a Harmonic gives us:

Harmonic Selkie + Delthea

5-star Clair

5-star Subaki

Demote Setsuna

Tempest Valbar

Pirates, the deceased sister to the ongoing Ninjas concept, also saw two runs before being unceremoniously killed off, making it difficult to perfectly recreate; however, it did have a few consistent elements: Heroes villains (Veronica followed by Surtr), Tellius birds (Tibarn followed by Naesala and Vika), Fates royals (Xander followed by Hinoka and Camilla), canon pirates (the original line-up in its entirety minus the Harmonic, but carried by Lifis in the second year), and a mostly mixed setup (year 2's duo and Tellius birds being the only duplication). We keep the Fates royal duo (Takumi and Leo over Xander/Hinoka and Camilla), keep going in chronological order for Heroes villains (Hel over Veronica/Surtr), bring along the last canon member of the Pirate class (Dart), and let Tibarn's boyfriend match him (Reyson over Tibarn/Naesala). The last slot is a wildcard that could go to another bird (probably Janaff, Ulki, or Nealuchi) or a random character (maybe Edain, Dew, or Patty to match Brigid?), but because this is a male-heavy banner already and there's not enough of a pattern to definitively recreate (though there is something to be said for Vika being another character with no base version, supporting Janaff/Ulki/Nealuchi), I'm going to double up on Heroes villains to give Eitri a spot. (Should probably go to Freyja, but she's gotten an alt before.)

Duo Takumi + Leo

5-star Hel

5-star Eitri

Demote Reyson

Tempest Dart

September's dancers became, for one year only, a celebration of all things Genealogy (+ a little Thracia), which would eventually morph into the "tribal" banners (I guess they're all celebrations of culture, but I wish they hadn't committed so hard to Fates... hopefully this year?) Unlike it's tribal counterparts, the Festival of the Twelve focused entirely on Jugdral's cast, with no characters invited along to experience the different culture, and also making it basically a Gen 2 equivalent to the Jugdral Ballroom banner (as I alluded to above). As such, a 1:1 recreation switching in Gen 1 equivalents would be pretty boring (duo Sigurd/Quan, 5-star Eldigan, 5-star Ayra, demote Deirdre, Tempest Ethlyn). So we'll stick just to the idea of Gen 2: bring in the last remaining son of the school trio (Ares over Seliph), a character who counts as both Thracia and Genealogy in the Harmonic (Ced over Leif), and a Gen 1 character who returns as a mentor (Finn over Lewyn), then fill in the rest with other Crusader descendants, and you get:

Harmonic Tine + Ced

5-star Ares

5-star Finn

Demote Altena

Tempest Saias

Next, Pirates' first replacement: Thieves. The Thieves banner was another pretty poorly-received banner because of its odd lineup, overly sexualized outfits, and most popular character getting a demote slot seemingly just because he was male (his only competition being the duo's backup). That said, the weirdness of it makes it pretty fun to recreate, lol. We've got a moderately (or at least relatively) popular unit who was a demote on her debut banner (switch Cath for Patty), an NPC outshining her playable counterpart[s] (switch Leila for Ursula), a male thief who generally outranks the females on the banner but gets demoted anyway (switch Sothe for Gaius), a male thief without a base version (switch Rickard for Astolfo), and a Duo with so little cohesion it might as well be a Harmonic including one arguably overrepresented character as the backpack (switch Nina/Kagero for Petra/Ingrid).

Duo Petra + Ingrid

5-star Patty

5-star Ursula

Demote Gaius

Tempest Astolfo

And lastly, our other Pirates replacement. Teatime has very similar energy to Picnics both in its character choices, reception, and overall feel, and I could see it coming back this year considering the Yukata banner didn't do great. It gave us alts from an underrepresented game (Genealogy) as well as underrepresented characters from an overrepresented game, much like Picnics did. We can pretty much do the exact same lineup by switching in a different CYL winner with surprisingly few alts (Marianne over Lysithea), a male Three Houses character closely associated with one of the lords (Dedue over Ferdinand), the poster child for Genealogy alts but Gen 2 version this time (Julia over Sigurd), a popular Genealogy character who's been treated pretty poorly (Seliph over Tailtiu), and a Genealogy character who is long overdue for their first alt paired with a tangentially similar Three Houses character (Finn and Rodrigue over Ayra and Mercedes). Personally, I'd rather see the hypothetical next Teatime lineup tackle a different pair of games (Valentia and Engage, please), but this feels more in the spirit of this post.

Harmonic Finn + Rodrigue

5-star Marianne

5-star Seliph

Demote Dedue

Tempest Julia

[azems-familiar]

i was tagged in this by @sleepswithvillains (as always, thank you). going to tag @sith-nb @darthsassacre @hnnny @cliocodex for a small selection of people i don't normally tag in things lol. for this one, have a bit of a scene i've written for my swtor novelization, wayyyy ahead of time, in which my agent meets Ardun Kothe for the first time!

Kothe looks more closely at her. "Eloquently put," he says. "A Cipher looking to defect, just when I most need one? I'd be a fool not to be cautious. But I'd like to trust you, agent - no, Riisa. I'd like to trust you, Riisa, so let's talk." He sets his elbows on the desk and leans into them. "You said Eradication Day was a traumatic experience that led you to want to leave the Empire behind."

She's supposed to agree, probably; to offer a minimum of details and let him construct his own explanation that doesn't reveal anything about herself. But he used her name.

Even Keeper, who Riisa likes, has never used her name.

"It wasn't the eradicators," she says, and Kothe frowns and leans closer to her. There's no time to worry about whether this contradicts the information Keeper leaked to him or not; she takes as deep a breath as she can manage and hurries on. "You know, I'm sure, that there was a bioweapon involved - canisters filled with an airborne version of the quell toxin, which causes severe pain, fear, hallucinations, and death, in high enough concentration. There were canisters seeded across conquests-planets, contested warzones, and- the Imperial Core Worlds." Kothe is staring at her, and from the look on his face, she suspects he hadn't known that last bit. "They were set to trigger when the eradicators went off, with the manual controls for each world's canisters individually encrypted and stored on a space station. I was the one they sent to deactivate as many as possible before they fired, and the orders I was given were to prioritize the Imperial seats of power and strategic locations over all else."

Riisa closes her eyes, can't help remembering the comms, the horror and terror, the pain echoing across the galaxy she'd been forced to feel (just Force-sensitive enough to feel things she shouldn't, to have instincts and increased speed and stamina and strength - but not enough to actually do anything with it, and what's even the point, then? All the Force has ever done for her is get her half-exiled from her home) - the way it'd all ached and burned, the screaming she can still hear when she sleeps at night. "I followed orders," she whispers, "and billions of innocent civilians suffered for the Sith.

"So yes, I've lost my faith in the Imperial government, what little I had to begin with. There are no right choices in this galaxy, but this- it wasn't the best one, either, and I-" Her voice catches, just a little, and she swallows and grips the arms of the chair tightly. "I'm not sure how I'm going to live with it, just that I must, if I'm ever going to atone."

There's a long silence. Finally, she manages to open her eyes again, the tears pricking at the corners of them under control, to see Kothe- to see Ardun watching her closely, and his face-

It's sympathy, it's concern, it's a gentleness she's utterly unfamiliar with. "You're telling the truth," he says softly, and shakes his head a little, something pained in his eyes. "No one should ever have to go through that.”

“It should never have happened at all,” she says, nearly spits the words out, tightening her hands around the chair arms. “It was just- pointless. Pointless violence, pointless death, pointless pain,” and she looks down at her knees with a tired sigh.

“You’re right,” Ardun says very seriously, and she looks back up at him, has to, almost - she needs to read him, she needs to know if he means it. “And you never should’ve been asked to handle that alone.”

The difference between his face and Keeper's whispered warning hits harder than the difference between Csilla and Hutta, and she finds herself thinking - the Republic would never lock their unfit agents up in a top-secret, maximum-security prison with ticking bombs in their heads to ensure their compliance. Oh, she knows the Senate is corrupt as they come, but it's a different kind of corrupt, less inclined to deliberately sacrifice their civilians for their ruling class' entertainment. And Ardun Kothe, she thinks, is a man who deserves loyalty - true loyalty, not the kind of farce Keeper asked her for.

And Riisa has never truly been loyal to the Empire - not when it asks so much from her and tries to turn her into a number to do it, not when it took her away from her home, not when it's the reason she and Elshe'reth fight so much these days.

"The terrorist group that spearheaded the attack," she starts, steady, steady, like this is just a debriefing and not her turning her back on everything she's ever known, "wasn't working alone. They were aided by Darth Jadus, who used the attack to attempt a coup against the Dark Council." Ardun's eyes widen slightly and she sees the unspoken question in them, can almost feel it, because- he never would've known, if she'd withheld that, never would've suspected. And so, "This was supposed to be false," she tells him, voice soft. "I- would like it to be real."

[featherwurm]

Stories

Longer narratives with complex character interaction and distinct through-lines. (Please note that this is not a free prompt - these are my own personal Wips.)

The Eternal General - A man is forced through a grueling ordeal in a low-fantasy world as the actions of the man he served as head general take shape as an unearthly monstrosity. This begins an endless bond of servitude to otherworldly forces and an eternity of different lifetimes (Features: Marcus, Rin, Ivan, Ytra.) This is a collaborative project with @fullyfunctionalminiaturebeehive.

Scratched Sky - Lifetimes and worlds away from where he began, Marcus finds himself in a world nearly destroyed through outside forces which took his likeness and were forestalled by an embittered and exhausted Ivan. He is forced into a life of recluse as we learn of the outfall of the creatures that Marcus has become bound to. (Features: Marcus, Ivan, Lynne, Shay.) This is a collaborative project with @fullyfunctionalminiaturebeehive.

Longbody Dragons - Below the ocean a reclusive empire reigns, and these dragons ferociously guard their own secrets. The Dragon King pits his many offspring against each other to determine who will succeed him and protect his empire from any interaction with the outside world. The twins, Shen and Su, take very different paths in life, but when Su's self-imposed exile comes to an end, there will be major change. (Features: Shen, Su, Dragon God Rahab, Ji-Ho.)

Gryphon and Dragon - Two creatures from another time that seem very out of place in a world where, from a technological dark age, a strange dieselpunk future has arisen. They must both unravel the strange mysteries of her past (who she is, why she is subservient to human will and whim), and going forward, ensure they understand his kind (what kind of a creature has the mind of a man but venom enough to fell him). When they find Gryphon's sisters, they are in for more than either of them is ready to take on, but out of duty and out of obligation they will go forward to whatever end. (Features: Gryphon the Sphinx, Dragon, Irina, Olga, Masha.)

Parnassus - A creature who at once seems beautiful, alluring, and otherworldly copes with being ripped from his homeland in an event that nearly destroyed him. Along the way he finds and gives much kindness to many, and the ways in which it trickles through their lives is complex and deep. (Features: Parnassus, Esquiline, Lucifer, the Tendriled Woman.)

The Voices - Strange and horrible creatures rise from the sites of massive human calamity in a slowly post-apocalyptic world. What they do, who they interact with, and what happens to them may be critical to the remainder of human life in the world (Features: The Voice of the Drowned, the Voice of the Decadant, the Voice of the Burned, the Bird.)

Humanfolk - ‘Humanity’ at the brink of collapse has split into three subgroups through various means, the humans, the flight-afflicted, and the merfolk. While once a hope of the last bastion of human thought, the merfolk had long since distanced themselves from land-dwelling humans and were considered little more than a food source. The flight afflicted are the result of a strange sickness that warps the mind and body - giving the precious gift of flight at the cost of reason and understanding. Humanity will have to find new ways to survive. (Features: Orcafolk, Flight Afflicted.) This story may blend with The Voices.

Vali the Dreamwalker - A story about surviving, enduring, and eventually thriving. Vali is gifted with the incredible ability to traverse and alter the dreams of any living thing, but ultimately, for all his efforts, healing will be his ultimate trial. (Features: Vali, Media, Oxalis, Fenn, A'thel, En'thel, B'rath, Ensen, Neis.)

Anton the Changed - A circus is abducted and altered by the fae for their own entertainment, some 100 years after this, one of their members manages to escape back to the mortal realm, although he has been permanently changed by the ordeal. He finds others that understand him and together they plan rescue of those he was bound with. (Features: Anton, Pleasant, King, Malachi, Samuel, The Fish.)

Anachronism - An immortal afraid of the ways in which the world changes, they have tried to keep to strange 'time bubbles' where the world stays still as time moves forward around them. When they are shunted from their last bastion of an older time, they are forced to confront the modern world and their own nature. (Features: Butler Cross, Rail.)

The Unable - Strange tentacle-headed creatures appear one day on our planet, inert apart from their subservience to any human whim. Their existence becomes a new economy, until, at last, one day they appear to awaken and develop wills of their own.

The Gardener - At the forefront of human bio-engineering and molecular botany, a strange and singular person lives in total recluse. Despite their successes, there is much they hide. They are forced to confront their own issues as they deal with corporate espionage, the ethics of synthetically made life and sapience, and reconciling a painful past. (Features: The Gardener, Glass.)

The Pitfighters - In a wold where manipulation of the human body can be pushed to tremendous and frightening physical extremes, underground pitfighting is a brutal blood sport fed by using the bodies of the illegal and the unwanted. Three different former pitfighters tell their stories in a political drama (Mercutio), a buddy road trip (Tac and Ephra), and a gentle love story (Tom and Zir) (Features: Mercutio, Tac, Tom, Ephra the Shifter, and Zir the Reptile Charmer)

Sinkhole City - In the world, strange portals to some other place are opening, and while they are dangerous, people seem drawn to them, and cities form around their edges. In this strange place Leon, recovering from a previous life, discovers many secrets and quirks of it, and the dramas that play out because of it. (Features: Leon, Lynne, the Horned Man, Rin, Ivan.)

The Beast of 1,000 Shadows - The monster lives far and away in distant hills and changes her form when she removes her pelt. She has different ones, but not many, and those that pass through her domain know to fear her. All but one. One who had been through many other things long before and marked them all on her skin in her own way. A wanderer and a wayfarer who found reason to pause. (Features: The Beast of 1,000 Shadows, The Tattooed Woman.)

Soft Minotaur - A version of the myth where the poor beast escapes with the help of two Athenian sacrifices, seeking only a simple life.

Quellus and Cipher - Raised in secret to be trained as the perfect king, the young man known only as Cipher (his real name lost - it was supposed to be a cipher for him to determine), suffers in the military academy where he has been pushed ahead, ahead, ahead, even though he'd rather retreat into the woods. When he is revealed as prince, his elder brother Quellus, with much hesitance and love, helps him flee from their war-torn society. (Features: Quellus, Cipher, Cipher's Sister.)

The Raw - ... I was going through some things. (Features: The Raw.)

The Unnamed World of the Four Schools - When a war for conquest comes to the Dark Mage's swamp, she is forced out of the neutrality that binds mages to lives of recluse. Reluctantly joining up with the mage, Arthur of the Woods, the two of them journey to forestall further conflict, and prevent a magic war that could damage the very fabric of reality. (Features The Dark Mage, Arthur of the Woods.)

The Unwitting Mage - Terrivald had lived a peaceful life under his brother's shadow, quietly enjoying a solitary life in his library, until a baffling artifact of elven making and a strange prophecy teleport him halfway across the world. As he journeys home, he must discern the purpose and abilities of said artifact, and whether or not he truly believes that he is some sort of savior figure, or if someone is simply having a laugh. (Features: Terivald, Navaras, Sandstorm.)

I often record my more memorable dreams as short fiction with accompanying illustrations. They are all tagged under 'Dream' and are sometimes a starting point for a longer piece of fiction.

I occasionally make short comics if I think the idea suits the medium.

My husband, @fullyfunctionalminiaturebeehive is working on a story involving Sihal, Farrow, Agate, Fall, Muriel, Rochelle, and others (side characters include Druzy, Saphire, Emerald, Snowflake Obsidian, etc.)

Some old stories may or may not see the light of day (but have some fragmentary existence in my portfolios) include: Mortalis, D.R.L.H., There are Places, Unfortunate Innocence, Vlasis and Lavinia, Lane Davenforth.

[mandorways]

Join The Imperial Intelligence, They Said

It will be fun, they said.

(A fic for Day 1 of @animperialmarch  Also can be found on AO3)

One would think it was no secret that the Sith Lords in general were not only obsessively power-oriented, but also competitive beyond the point of reason. Calimon always found himself a bit envious of people who perceived the Lords as those unapproachable, terrifying mystics, because for him, they always looked more like a bunch of abnormally cruel children who were handed dangerous weapons and let out to endlessly chase each other in a deadly game of tag. The Dark Council, the Sith ultimate elite, the best of the best was, in fact, the pinnacle of said childishness. That the SIS still didn’t manage to figure out that the only thing they had to do was to leave the Darths to each other was probably the most obvious proof of their incompetence. The best course of action for the Republic would be to surrender; the Dark Council would quickly get bored, and their constant game of one-upping one another with only an occasional death here and there would turn into a regular bloodbath, most probably ending with Darth Nox laughing madly among the corpses.

One would think that the Imperial Intelligence was an organization whose main goal was to, well, gather intelligence, no to endlessly clean up after the Lords’ exploits. And there was nothing, nothing in his Academy training that could’ve prepared him for this kind of situation, and on the first day on the actual job as well.

“What do they mean by ‘deal with the Arcanum situation’? What situation?” Calimon looked expectantly at his friend, and, apparently, also partner on their very first assignment.

Zam’is just sighed and sat more comfortably in the desk chair.

“It all started when Darth Nox…”

“Of course it’s Darth Nox,” Calimon muttered bitterly.

“When Dath Nox decided she can find much better use for the knowledge Darth Acina assigned her to uncover…”

“So she stole it.”

Zam’is shrugged and lifted one black eyebrow, his red eyes mischievous.

“No, she just never handed it over. Also, she was the one who found it anyway…”

“All right, all right,” Calimon held up his hands,” let’s not argue semantics. Please, just… go on.”

“Darth Acina got furious and called her an unwashed, uneducated slave…”

“Oh, dear.”

“So she took over Arcanum facility, put all of Acina’s apprentices under mind-control using the very device she was supposed to hand over, and made them turn the place into a bizarre temple dedicated to her brilliance.”

Calimon just looked at him, completely dumbfounded.  

“What,” he choked out eventually.

“They are putting up a throne now,” added Zam’is in a light tone, like it was something entirely normal and expected.

With Darth Nox, it probably was.

“So… what is the plan?” Calimon put his head in his hands and looked at the Chiss from behind splayed fingers.

“Well, there are two ways to go about it. A really hard and very dangerous one, and a nice and easy one.”

“All right, shoot.”

“One, you talk to Darth Nox.”

Calimon winced at that.

“And the easy way?” he asked hopefully.

“That was the easy way,” said Zam’is, looking at him pointedly.

“Oh, no, that’s not going to happen!”

“But isn’t she like your aunt or something?”

The other agent sighed, leaning back in his chair. He knew that the real reason he even got into the Intelligence was his connections, just like he knew that as a Pureblood Sith he had no chance to ever become a Cipher, but it didn’t mean that said connections were actually useful, or that he won't try to become a Cipher just to spite everyone.

“No, my aunt is her lover,” he explained in a tired voice.” Or murder-companion. I don’t know, don’t want to know, I try to avoid them, same as I try to avoid dying a painful death.”

“But…”

“No, Zam’is, you don’t understand, She stares at you like she can see through you, like she’s searching for some ways to twist you into her liking, it’s unsettling.”

“Stares at you? Lim, she has no eyes!”

“Also,” Calimon continued, ignoring his remark, “there’s nothing we could offer that would make her stop. She wants to humiliate Acina, first and foremost, we have nothing that she'd find more appealing than that."

Zam’is sighed.

“Okay, so maybe we can talk to your aunt, and then she will talk to her.”

“My aunt is the Emperor’s Wrath. She might not kill us for wasting her time, but only if we’re lucky. And if you try to flirt with her, she’ll punch you in the face. And she wears durasteel gloves.”

The Chiss just threw up his hands and stood from his chair.

“So you’re saying you’d rather infiltrate a high-tech research facility full of mind-controlled Sith apprentices, deactivate the device we know nothing about, and disappear before Darth Nox realises it was us?”

“Yes! That’s exactly what I’m saying!”

Zam’is just stared at him for a moment, his mind already setting on a new strategy.

That’s why the other agent was happy they ended up working together. Calimon had a knack in finding holes even in the most intricate plans, and Zam’is had a flexible way of thinking that helped him adjust immediately to new circumstances.

Not only his way of thinking was flexible, if you believed his many conquests.

The Chiss sat on the desk, putting his feet on Calimon’s chair.

“All right. First, we need to lure Darth Nox away from there.”

“Shouldn’t be hard, ’Calimon waved his hand.” Just plant some information about a new Dread Masters-related find or something. An interesting excavation spot she can go and look at with Talos Drelik. A Force Ghost for her to devour. Anything, really. Just nothing related to other Dark Council Members, because we’ll just end up in the same situation all over again.”

“Fine. I’ll get the Minders to come up with something and we can start preparing for the rest.” Zam’is said with a smile, jumping off the desk.” Don’t worry, Lim, we’ll get it done in no time.”

“Right,” he muttered half-heartedly. “If we survive this, we’ll survive anything.”

“That’s the spirit, my friend!”

“You do realise that they gave this assignment to us, because we’re still disposable?” sighed Calimon, standing up from his chair.

“Well, then it’s time to prove them wrong. Come along, I don’t want to be too late for my date.”

“You always have dates.”

“This one is important.”

“They are always important.”

Calimon just rolled his eyes and followed the other agent, who was chatting animatedly about his latest “girlfriend”. Their immediate future looked rather bleak and filled with potential bodily harm or maybe even slow and painful death, and the Imperial Intelligence turned out to be not what he expected, but if they actually survived it, their lives could get rather eventful.

And, he had to admit, he was quite looking forward to it.