Percival and Darius

Hello my Enclave sweetums,

It’s your favorite benefactor, Queen Mads! There is a tragedy in the making that I am hoping to avert.

My newest subject-husband, King Homer runs a rather profitable operation in the volcano Olympus Mons on Mars. It is unfortunately about to be attacked by a solar-systemic task force of pesky do-gooders. The main issue here is that I left my pet Snoodle, Mr. Possum-Booty, under his care while I attended to things.

I need you to ensure at all cost that not a hair on Mr. Possum-Booty is harmed in any potential attack! Any other collateral is of little concern to me. (But don’t even think about taking him through one of your nasty teleporters or I’ll have you all flayed.)

With the kindest of warm regards,
Queen Madrigal Phobos

The two agents, Belatrix the Raccoon braniac and Janny the fae barkeep (along with their hired Guard Carl), arrived in a dingy bar where many of the clientele were eating chocolate bars and seeming quite agitated. Belatrix went to the bartender-bot and hacked it to give her a free chocolate "Mars Bar," which she did not eat, instead pocketing it for further analysis. Meanwhile, Janny sat down with some gamblers, one of whom was an engineer that seemed very hopped-up on something and bet his ID card against Janny's nostrum. The engineer won the bet, and chugged the nostrum which seemed to interact poorly with whatever else was in his system, resulting in him passing out. Janny looted his ID card while his "friends" looted his money.

The two left the bar and emerged into a large stone corridor, quickly locating a map of the facility. They discovered that this was the "Biggest Rock Candy Mountain," a drug empire built into this volcano that trafficked in these "Mars Bars". Finding the throne room heavily guarded, the agents ventured into the hangar, using the keycard to gain access.

In the hangar, they found an air traffic control station and commandeered it (there was only one totally zonked out controller on duty). As they did, the facility's PA system was hacked, and a message played from Darius, the commander of the Deimos Anti-Reallygoodium Entourage (DARE) informing the inhabitants that his fleet was positioned to attack in an hour, giving them time to evacuate. Belatrix tried to sound the evacuation alarm, but the order was countermanded by King Homer himself, who disabled the whole evacuation mechanism. With that plan failed, Belatrix made the bold decision to craft the weapons system into an EMP launcher and fired upon the fleet. This disabled many of the ships, but provoked the others into immediately pressing their attack, causing mass panic throughout the base.

In the commotion, the agents managed to make their way to the throne room. There, the cruel and arrogant King Homer Phobos was berating his guards and being wholly ineffective. Janny chastized him before seeing the pet Snoodle in a cage at the side of the room. Upon being chastized, he immediately ordered for Janny to be arrested, which the guards halfheartedly complied with (seeing the foolishness of fixating on an insult amidst an attack) When Belatrix tried to approach the Snoodle, the King, as if in a trance, pulled a gun and attacked her. It was clear that Queen Madrigal had put a spell upon the King to protect the Snoodle at all costs. With this deduction, when the King ran out of bullets and single-mindedly charged at Belatrix, Janny simply stood in his way with a knife, and the King ran straight into it, impaling his heart. With his dying breath, he told the agents that his son was locked in the prison. Captain Rogers, the late king's guard captain, took charge as Belatrix undid the King's manual override on the evacuation order.

The attack raged on as the agents left the throne room, carrying the Snoodle, and they saw the bar along with the factory demolished by explosive lasers, falling into the lava below. Returning to the hangar, Belatrix worked alongside Captain Rogers to get the ships operational and outfitted with weapons while Janny ventured down into the prison complex. There she freed all the prisoners, including the Prince Percival Phobos. He revealed to her that he knew Captain Darius Deimos and his fleet, and had been the one to inform him of the base's location. The king had discovered that Percival had been in contact with Darius and locked him in a cell, sending a false letter to Darius from Percival claiming that Percival had left the station to go elsewhere (The king was not aware that Darius was part of his faction, he just didn't want him and Percival fraternizing with each other)

Janny and Percival reunited with Belatrix and the fleeing factory employees. Percival begged them to not fire on Darius and instead arrange a meeting between the two. They fixed the ship's comms and attempted to call Darius but he sent it to voicemail, clearly past the point of negotiation. In a last ditch effort, Janny asked Percival if he had any secrets, and he revealed that he and Darius were in love and had been working together to try and take down this station. Janny took that secret and used it to create a magical label on one of the ships showing that they carried no chocolate contraband. The agents boarded that ship along with Percival and the Snoodle with Belatrix at the helm, Captain Rogers flew the other. The two ships flew out of the hangar with about 80 personnel total as the facility collapsed into the reactor, causing the whole facility to explode.

As they flew, Janny gave Percival a nostrum that would recover his lost memories. This worked, but also brought repressed childhood trauma from abuse at the hands of his father to the forefront of his mind. Janny comforted him. Captain Rogers' ship behind them was shot down as it bore no signs that it had no contraband. The agents' ship was flanked on either side and comms demanded to know this ship's business. Percival managed to compose himself enough to identify himself, and Darius, recognizing Percival's voice, ordered the ship to be brought aboard.

After everything, Darius and Percival reunited in an embrace. Darius cursed the idiocy of the king not only for his cruelty and crime, but also for firing on his fleet and starting violent altercations (side-eye from Belatrix). The Snoodle was unharmed.

Badges Pinged.

• Janny unregistered
• Belatrix unregistered