My Home, My Family, My Duty, My Doom (Spy X Family) (MATURE!!)

It's Not the End

After Donovan Desmond's downfall, the relationship between East and West improved by leaps and bounds. Fears of the old backstabbing, underhanded tactics where one thing was promised up front and the opposite was done in the shadows subsided after a new, moderate functionary succeeded him as Chairman of the ruling party. The portly gentleman with the rosy cheeks, an injured war veteran with a pronounced limp, soon got to show his talent for fair and level-headed politics that resonated very well with the majority in parliament. Even the most radical forces in Ostania decided it was best to wait and see where this was going: Desmond's scandal had damaged their reputation to such a degree it was much better for them to lick their wounds and keep quiet.

During the first Peace Conference held in a smallish border town, both countries agreed to reopen their embassies, sending a special envoy for peace to reside alongside the ambassadors. During the second Peace Conference, the two countries signed a memorandum of understanding. It was only a short document - but given the historically deep distrust between the two nations, it was celebrated as a huge diplomatic success, nonetheless. The aim for the upcoming third Conference was a formal peace treaty. Mutual disarmament, the cessation of certain types of military research, and substantial curbing of foreign intelligence activities were the most contentious items on the agenda, but the envoys were optimistic an agreement was possible with equal concessions from both sides.

Almost immediately, companies grasped the opportunity awarded by this détente for establishing new selling markets across the border. Ostania's affordable peanut brand "Super Oishii" became an instant hit in Westalis - previously, peanuts were a rare commodity that had cost more than red meat. In turn, Ostania went crazy over Westalis' chocolate - consequently, several farmers stopped growing crops and began raising cows because the demand for milk surged to crazy heights. Also, the railway line began operating more frequently after a rich anonymous benefactor invested heavily into improving the infrastructure that had suffered from underuse. He even promised to build a faster connection between Berlint and Westalis' capital and was currently raising money.

It really was an extraordinarily great time to be alive.

Well. Except for the man once known as Twilight. Because he was on the run.

Given his fundamental contribution to the new peace, one could have expected his agency to be lenient towards his defection from service. Quite the opposite happened, however: Never had there been a more vicious manhunt in the history of the intelligence organization.

If anybody at WISE asked questions about it - only very few like Frankie Franklin did, but he was just a lowly informant and was quickly silenced by the threat of being cut from the payroll - they never got any answers. It was what it was, done away with a shrug: Secret organizations had their own rationale, everybody knew that. Furthermore, given that the new political circumstances made budget cuts more than likely and, worse, questioned the very purpose of an agency built on keeping a dangerous enemy-other in check, being given a clear, achievable goal like hunting down a rogue agent "dead or alive" was enthusiastically endorsed by hundreds of operatives who faced severe job uncertainties and felt this was an opportunity to prove their usefulness.

Officially, Agent Moonshine had died in the line of duty while collecting the evidence that made it possible to send Donovan Desmond to prison and usher in a period of peace. Agent Twilight on the other hand was a traitor, a persona non grata, the fiend who had tried to prevent Agent Moonshine from obtaining said evidence by killing him.

This story made no sense if you knew Twilight, but doubt was like poison: What if he was this good and had fooled everyone about his true character for years? Besides, the ones who had recovered Agent Moonshine's body and had seen how he had been killed were few in numbers and were soon moved out of the country after the memorandum of understanding between Ostania and Westalis was signed.