Dark Side Of The Moon

Operation Crystal: Meeting 103

The room was oddly empty.

The lack of Napoleon's obnoxious fawning, Specter's blustering incompetence and even Ebony's weird presence was.....strange.

Nereza kept her eyes fixed on the slightly darker spot on the table, dragging a sharp nail up and down. She grew impatient. More and more impatient as time dragged itself through the muck.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. She could practically feel the minutes go by, each one agonizingly longer than the last. Had all of them forgotten about the meeting? Had Elvira been killed in the disputed territory between them and the Nightshades? Had she been blown up by a Netherbaneian land mine? Nereza would never know.

At the last possible minute, her mother decided to burst in, flaunting all her medals and dressed in full military attire, throwing knives at the wall as she did so. Obnoxious much?

"Mom? Where are Specter and Napoleon?" Nereza asked.

Elvira slid into a chair, flinging a knife an inch above Nereza's head lazily."Hanging out in the square. You have a perfect view of them from the balcony. Say hello to their corpses for me!"

"You did not-" Nereza started, not believing her mother would actually kill her half brothers. Yes, she joked about it all the time, but she couldn't be serious. Could she?

Elvira burst into a fit of laughter, clutching her sides. "Just kidding! You are so fun to manipulate!"

Nereza burned a bright red. Now her mother was playing some cruel joke on her? She grumbled and proceeded to storm out of the room, her chair crashing to the floor.

Shk! Shk! Shk!

One knife caught her cape. The other two snagged each of her sleeves. All three of which pinned her to the wall by lethal blades.

"Don't give me attitude," Elvira spat, licking the tip of a knife. "That's my job." She leaned against the wall, playing with a knife by throwing it in front of Nereza's face, and catching it just before it hit her.

"Now I know what you're thinking. What happened to Mr. Suck-Up and Mr. Incompotent. I didn't kill them. Yet. Truth is, you're the only one I can look at without being absolutely mortified. So, they're not here. Can you believe how embarrassing they are?" Elvira scoffed, as if she was a gossiping school girl rather than a ruthless world leader.

"No!" Nereza exclaimed. "Specter gets his ass kicked not once, not twice, but three times!"

"At this rate, I'll have to make Ebony the heir to the throne! And she's not even part of our family," Elvira groaned and sat back down.

"Actually, Empress...there's a problem with that," Nereza admitted. "Ebony failed with the assassination attempt on Sombra."

"Very funny, Nereza," Elvira half-snorted sarcastically. "Work on your jokes, they suck."

"No! Mom I'm serious! Ebony failed the attempt!" Nereza slammed her fist down on the table. "So, Sombra's corpse won't be arriving in the gift box with the little ribbon!"

"WHAT?!" Elvira jumped up. "But it was free shipping!"

Before her mother got too mad, Nereza continued speaking. If she made Ebony look bad, then she'd be the most likely heir! "Yeah, Ebony couldn't even kill him. She had to escape through a window. A freaking window, goddammit. Sombra's still alive."

"I did not go through 27 months of pregnancy and 100,000 jewels for this," Elvira said, rolling her eyes. "Paying the Song family for an alliance was supposed to be positive, not detrimental. And why do you guys always fail your missions!" Elvira demanded, plunging her knife into the table.