Alright. Demand number three: I want my daughter and I to be treated as official guests in your country for a period of time.>

“Jeez, how ridiculous can she be?” he said after getting over a fit of laughter.

“I don’t know Blanche, is it really that laughable? It doesn’t seem too unreasonable…”

“C’mon, a highly ranked demon wanting to enter a country and play tourist? How dumb does that sound to you?”

“She’s been around for what? Like a thousand years? Maybe she just wants to do something different,” the other said while shrugging.

“This is a demon we’re talking about. You can negotiate with them but their end goal is always to kill and cause chaos. There’s no changing their nature.

Your last demand...would be doable. It's just both you and I would just run into a lot of various problems.>

“Seriously, they’re gonna go for it?” Blanche muttered.

Such as?>

Since the Veplar Kingdom in the present day is a constitutional monarchy…>

Blanche wondered how this would further complicate their plans. After all, that overpowered bitch had come in out of nowhere and wrecked their perfectly laid out plans. Plus it looked like she was gonna be hanging around for a while longer so they were gonna have to do their best to plan around her.

He and his partner had been perched in a tree ever since the company of soldiers had arrived to deal with the demon that had originally taken over Plailon. Their job was to back up the rest of Alpha team if something were to go awry and at one point in the middle of the night, a lot of stuff did get messed up thanks to the demon known as Amethyst. To Blanche’s extreme displeasure, she had set up a protective barrier around the village, preventing him and his partner from doing their job. All they could do was let the rest of the team know that trouble had shown up and that they would have to adapt to however the situation unfolded.

And right now the situation would have been pretty freakin entertaining if it hadn't involved interfering with what they were doing.

Dance, Blanche’s partner, had one eye focused down the scope of her sniper rifle as she kept her other eye on the situation. If a common race person were watching her, she would have closed her other eye like a regular sniper would have done, but since it was only Blanche, she maintained both eyes open to better maintain a read on what was going on.

And I can see clearly in front of me the consequences of making you mad.>

“Pffffft. That's an understatement.”

“Must you comment on everything?”

“How is it that we’re twins and yet we’re so different?”

“I don’t know but I’ll make sure to ask Ryker when we get back.”

Unlike the rest of their team, who each bore a unique appearance, Blanche and Dance looked exactly the same. From their frosty blue hair and their heart shaped faces, to their heterochromatic dark blue and silver eyes, the only physical difference between the two was that Dance had female body parts whereas Blanche had male ones. Even their natural voices sounded the same; except most of the time, Dance attempted to talk in a higher pitch just to differentiate herself from her twin.

Switching her full attention back to what was going on, she could clearly see the perspiration on the Veplar commander’s body despite being over a few hundred meters away. Out of curiosity, Dance ran a bioscan on the man. She had no idea how it worked exactly but clearly in her head, an image showed up letting her know that it was a human male with a heart rate of 83 beats per minute, blood pressure of 125/70, and no diseases or injuries. Elevated heart rate and blood pressure clearly meant the guy was nervous but she didn’t need the bioscan to figure that out.

For fun, she did the same thing on Amethyst. Female demon. Heart rate of 35 beats per minute. Blood pressure of 50/30. Nothing wrong with her body.

Dance was taken aback by those numbers, not having done a bioscan on a demon before. For a human, those numbers would have been scary but other than clearly needing new clothes and a shower, the demon looked perfectly fine. Dance mentally noted to run a bioscan on the next demon she met just to compare the numbers.

You do have a point. However...>

The conversation continued on and Blanche was starting to shake the tree branch they were sitting on. Dance was sufficiently annoyed enough to consider throwing him out of the tree. Unlike Dance who could sit still for hours or even for days, Blanche became bored rather fast if things didn’t go quickly.

the black haired teammate asked.

Blaze chastised.

replied Blanche while the other two apologized.

Raven liked pissing Blanche off; it was very easy getting a reaction out of him. Plus she knew how Dance felt about him so at every reasonable opportunity she got, she made sure to irritate Dance’s twin. Ironically, they weren’t even real twins even though they looked pretty much the same. Raven looked towards Blaze, the brown haired one with purple eyes, wishing they hadn’t interrupted her fun. As interesting as this situation was, it was disappointing that all they were going to do was sit tight and see what happened.

“Plus if I don’t come back with what you want...”

“...Wouldn’t want anyone to have enough time to organize an ambush....”

This back and forth was definitely a lot more civil than the one they had arranged with their now dead asset. Raven had gone in herself to make a deal with the witch from hell. It had been rather entertaining for Raven, dodging her attacks until finally exasperated, she had asked what she had wanted. And the deal had been relatively simple. If only she had listened from the very beginning, they could have avoided a lot of wasted time, but sadly dealing with demons wasn’t like dealing with any other being in that aspect.

Which is why this interaction simultaneously bored and intrigued Raven at the same time.

Meanwhile, for the de facto leader of Alpha team, Blaze contemplated what their next move would be, while keeping track of the conversation that was playing in front of them.

The overall mission objectives were relatively simple but the best way of getting it done was completely up to the team. They had offshore support in the form of a submarine off the coast of Chamont; perhaps it would be best to communicate with them first before going forward.

Prior to entering the Veplar Kingdom, Alpha team had been thoroughly briefed on the purpose of their mission, the environment, and the variable factors that may force changes to their plans. One of them had been Amethyst but the risk matrix that intelligence had shown them had placed her as a high impact low likelihood risk as she had been dormant for more than a century. Times were changing apparently.

“I’m feeling rather magnanimous today... feel free to sit.”

A normal human being would have gotten really tired of kneeling for that long so Blaze made sure everyone on their team switched to a sitting position. They glanced to the right briefly and saw that it didn’t look like the other demon had had enough time to work her abilities on the man known as Prince Tiarnán. It was a shame but plans only took one so far.

Amethyst’s daughter would be coming out soon so one option would be to kill Commander Roche and his aide; that would probably lead to the battalion of troops engaging the demons in combat. The problem with that is if they chose not to fight and simply ran. Which meant the only real option was to shoot either Amethyst or her daughter, causing them to attack the contingent of soldiers. While not as clean cut as their original plan, doing that should still yield similar results.

The issue with that was how Alpha team was going to get away but as long as they waited for the right moment, they would be able to figure something out. They were confident of that.

Blanche said.

asked the Alpha with blue streaks in their hair.

Blanche reported.

another member of their team named Celiste interjected.

Blanche was a little afraid to tap on Dance’s shoulder as she was completely engrossed in her thoughts. As much as he liked getting reactions out of her, when things got serious, he knew where to draw the line. Its just...things got rarely this serious.

Ummmm Mom what’s going on?>

Surprise was a term Dance wasn’t very familiar with but for kicks and giggles, she ran a bioscan on the golden horned black haired demon, and realized that she wasn’t actually a demon.

Female elf and devil. Blood pressure of 110/76 with a heart rate of 57 beats per minute. No illness or injuries.

Female elf and devil…

Half elf and half devil…

Dance could feel someone tapping her shoulder with some amount of urgency but she paid it no attention until it finally hit her.

“Blanche, when we investigated the wreckage of that convoy some time ago, weren’t we ordered to search for the remains of a half elf half devil infant?”

“Oi, I’ve been trying to get you to reply to me for a whole 4 minutes and you’re asking me this random question?”

“Sorry but this is important. Run a bioscan on the daughter and tell me what it tells you.”

“Fine,” Blanche grumbled. It sounded stupid to him but if it got Dance thinking like this then why not.

At this point, Amethyst’s daughter or supposed daughter, had started to use restorative magic on the captives and Blaze turned ever so briefly to study her. She had black feathered wings similar to Amethyst’s white ones and fangs that could tear the toughest flesh around. Paying closer attention to her other features, she noticed that her ears were pointed like an elf while her golden horns weren’t quite as long as the demon that was watching her work.

Blanche accused.

said Celiste. He was currently right next to Arinna in the line up and despite his curiosity, he avoided looking towards the “daughter.” She would come up to him soon enough after all.

Just like the others, his appearance often confused which gender he was but that didn’t affect him in the slightest. His smooth tanned skin and silky golden bronze hair made both women and men alike often ask him what he/she did to keep it that way but all he did was smile and say that he ate right and used the right products. Most of the time his smile would charm the other person, allowing him to just shrug and walk away. In reality, he didn’t have to do anything to keep things that way but lying was a whole lot easier than telling the truth.

Raven asked.

Dance said.

Blanche pointed out.

Arinna questioned.

Blaze stated.

Amethyst’s “daughter” finished her work on the prince, hesitating slightly before starting her thing on Blaze. She emitted a small gasp which made Blaze tilt their head but they didn’t say anything. Wondering what that was about, Blaze figured there was nothing to lose by asking if something was the matter.

“No. I just randomly started to feel tired is all. But I can keep going.”

Raven doubted.

Dance finished.

Blanche announced.

Arinna and Celiste both said.

The person to make a decision for them was one that had said nothing this entire time. Well there were two of them but the other didn’t have anything constructive to say so they remained silent. The Alpha that decided it for them had their silver hair in a long pixie cut with sideburns. To anyone that looked in their orange tinted eyes, most would agree that they looked dead and apathetic...which wasn’t that far from how they were emotionally. Except just like the other members of their team, they were gonna do what they were created to do.

Not even Blanche nor Raven could argue with the soundness of that logic.

So Alpha team headed back to Chamont with the rest of the Veplar troops that they were supposed to be serving with, believing that their cover was still perfectly maintained as they plotted how to best proceed with the mission their creators had instilled in them.