The Shadow Clan’s babble grew progressively louder as they neared the one surviving broadcasting studio in the coliseum district. The black hole twins continued their political analysis, Delilah and Mei talked about life in a post-Zudrian universe, and to avoid hearing more mentions of him on a throne, Solares was holding a hard lead. Every few seconds he would lift an arm, extend a finger, and unleash a white heat ray. Anastasia watched as her brother’s lasers melted statues of Zudrian leaders, erased flags off their flagpoles, and blew holes into buildings by “accident”. Needless to say, some buildings caught on fire. They were small fires, not anything more than the buildings’ own fire safety measures could handle. Since the buildings still lived, the King of Demons was clearly nice enough to hold back on behalf of the janitors sure to be still inside.

However, knowing Solares, he likely saw his actions as helping them at their jobs. The Assassin Queen happily agreed, believing that the entire empire needed a deep clean, and anyone working as a janitor in its underbelly would be grateful for the help in cleaning it.

“There’s only a matter of time before the storm comes,” Anastasia said, catching up to Solares and his wonderful light show, “Nova Zudra will sacrifice this entire planet the moment they realize they have lost.”

It was the Zudrian way of life. The mother country divided their imperium into multiple vassal states, each tasked with paying tribute to and serving the Zudrian war machine. If any portion of this unwilling “alliance” were to defect or surrender, then their leaders would be sent to the Cordas Galaxy where the mother country sat, sentenced at a phony court, and never seen again. And that’s if they survived Zudra’s wrath against every government building on their capital planet.

Sagittari snapped her fingers, summoning an event horizon in front of a building that read “GOLDEN SYNDICATE STOCK EXCHANGE”, and leading a swell of combat engineers in front of the building as if from nowhere. The black hole princess waved at them, even trading high fives, before her attention turned to a statue of a Zudrian slave owner holding an Exoignan slave in chains like a pet. She punched it to smithereens.

“Yes queen,” Delilah pumped her fists and clapped, “you show them!”

The black hole princess blew dust off her hands and winked at the clan.

Tonight the Zudrians were doing nothing. One could not expect them to devise a counteroffensive in such a dilapidated condition. At least until they figured out where their enemy even was. So, it would not hurt for the rebels to yell out “lights, cameras, action!” and put on a live broadcast sowing division amongst their enemies’ ranks. It would not be difficult: the Zudrians had already lost their collective minds and they loved division more than one another.

Giggling to herself, Anastasia advanced to her semi-circle of kin, who were watching nanites assemble director’s chairs, tables, and lights and camera equipment from glowing, blue containers. The engineers had set down the containers a few moments ago, wasting no time since entering through Sagittari’s unconventional door. Delilah and Mei were talking to the others, whilst Solares attentively listened. He nodded and found himself seized in a crushing embrace. The mighty one shrunk at being held, but Anastasia thought she almost caught a smile in the chaos.

What a softie, Anastasia chuckled as she approached the clan, Matty will never, ever change.

A round table formed some feet away from the film set. Said table was encircled by swarms of nanites creating basic, smooth metal chairs that provided comfort and practicality all in one. Anastasia nodded her head, but Sagittari dropped her jaw and beamed like salvation itself had arrived.

“Ah yes,” Sagittari flung her hands in the air with praise, “seating, a chair! I can actually rest my bum!”

Fomalhaut sprinted after his twin sister. “Sagittari!” She did not listen and pulled the seat back. “Be careful! You have assimilated too much mass-”

Sagittari sat down. Anastasia suspected that Fomalhaut, and everyone else watching, were expecting the seat to collapse upon contact with Sagittari’s weight. Now, she meant no foul with this thought; her concerns did not come from Sagittari’s appearance, but from recently seeing her comrade absorb entire ten-story buildings. Everything the black hole princess assimilated theoretically ought to have added mass to her own, thus making her heavier than a tank under Corona Eternus’s gravity. However, the seat suffered no harm from the singularity woman, who crossed her legs over the table.

The King of Demons made an exaggerated show of covering his mouth as if in shock as he took a seat next to Sagittari, who was moving her waist on her chair. Meanwhile, Fomalhaut dropped his jaw and sat between Anastasia and Solares, his eyes wide and plaintive. He cringed as his chair’s legs twisted and creaked.

“Fomalhaut,” Sagittari made an “ok” sign with her fingers, “my assimilated mass is less dense than water. The chair is fine.”

“Sagittari...” Fomalhaut pointed at his chair legs while his sister looked with concern. “We are heavy, dense, and massive! What did you do to physics to make your chair fine?”

“A magician never reveals their secret,” Sagittari winked, “it breaks our code.”

“I’ll have to keep you a secret if the Cordiserian witch-hunters ever come by.”

“Okay, the first part was funny, but this just isn’t! Can you not joke about an ongoing genocide?”

Solares grunted and nodded, and various Shadow Clan members followed suit. As such, the comedian was cornered.

“Sorry about that,” Fomalhaut mumbled, “you’re right: that was distasteful.”

The Cordiserian half of the Cruvelian Galaxy was a mess. Whereas Zudra’s parts of the galaxy were headed by an extragalactic mother country encircled by vassals, Cordiseria comprised bunches of principalities, dictatorships, republics, democracies, monarchies, and even nomadic hordes, all of whom bowed to an emperor supreme in name only. They were the rivals to the Zudrians, being the one superpower who could match them. Granted neither country dared fight the other, no matter how tough they talked. Rather, they focused on petty wars amongst themselves, with the occasional targeting of minority groups like Nashiyega, in Zudra’s case, or telepaths, witches, and warlocks in the case of the Cordiserians.

Two tyrannies, several galaxies, and one grand adventure for the Shadow Clan who wanted them gone.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Sagittari called the attention of the round table and pulled a small tablet computer from her pocket, “Fabio Incardriss has arrived at his destination!”

Him again. Anastasia exhaled as the Shadows gathered around the black hole princess. Let’s see what he’s doing this time.

"We come to you from the grand establishment of Beneventus," an enthusiastic voice exclaimed and brought a mock salute from Sagittari, "the home of Nova Zudra, the new bastion of the grand Zudrian nation! Many galaxies! One country!"

The tracker brought footage of Lord Fabio Incardriss, sitting in front of a screen as large as the coliseum, tearfully saluting the center of the display, where a golden-lettered “XII” was plastered over several rotating galaxies.

“Looks like they brought back that show we were watching earlier,” Mei remarked before sinking into herself, “with even worse special effects. At least Incardriss was a perfectly hateable character, this announcer guy is just… oh my galaxies, can he just shut the fuck up?”

On the screen in the auditorium where Fabio watched in rapture, the camera panned over crowds of entirely Zudrian origins. Not a hint of racial or cultural diversity existed, only blue men and their tunics and their wreathed number twelves. Across from them, soldiers were standing at attention, rifles firmly held in their hands, and taking off their hats to salute the leader of half of Cruvelia. Luckily for them, Beneventus was five hundred light years away, or the Shadow Clan would have unceremoniously sponsored an indefinite commercial break.

“Please kill me,” Delilah sighed as the Zudrian men were firing their weapons, “the goose-stepping army boys are dancing for us… badly. I hope they all get carpal tunnel.”

Anastasia smiled at her little sister, “Don’t worry, their legs probably don’t function correctly. All that inbreeding, you know? The best genes? The goose-stepping is probably the only way they can walk.”

“Wait! Anastasia is correct,” Solares snorted, “never in my decades of combat have I ever seen a Zudrian soldier walk normally.”

Almost as if realizing how irritated the Clan would be with any more than twenty seconds of his intro, the announcer decided to turn the show over to the man of the hour.

“Citizens of Nova Zudra,” the same announcer boomed, “introducing your leader, guide to the monarchy, and voice of the Empire! Your Iron Hand!”

“Yay! The show gets even worse,” Mei glanced at Fomalhaut, “got any earplugs?”

On the far front of the broadcast, the Iron Hand—the Zudrian viceroy ruling half of Cruvelia and self-declared “Son of the Heavens”—took to the stage. Normally, Anastasia would have suffered a rage-induced cardiac episode just by seeing him but having her clan around her at least made this bearable. Their humor helped her stomach the atrocity that was Nova Zudra’s dear leader. Without it, the fury and despair that boiled in her breast would choke her.

Clad in a robe, this leader dared to resemble Solares, and the light, thin, and see-through fabric that comprised the garb was a blatant appropriation of Monoceran traditional garments. Their culture, which was composed of bright yellow-skinned humanoids, had a long history of warm climates and light attire. Meanwhile, Nova Zudra’s dear leader used them to make a fashion statement.

“Dear citizens of Nova Zudra, I would not come to speak to you if it were not necessary! If the Amazons and their conspirators did not threaten our peace with their ways of war…”

“Of course,” Sagittari hummed and lidded her eyes, “the Amazons, women, the Iron Hand’s favorite villains.”

“Were we any other nation, their warmongering could have destroyed us. But we are Zudra! We are great! Our nation has gone through trials worse than warring harlots and their weak men!”

A few of the Shadows seemed to stare into the distance as their retinal displays delivered a message from Helene, the reigning Queen of the Amazons and Gargareans herself. Not to mention a member of the Shadow Clan.

The_Mean_Helene: Yes, worse trials, such as the Quatopedipans, who your strong, strong men were able to hide from. Surely you will succeed at hiding from this test as well!

“And I thought my reputation made me feared,” Solares mourned, “and it turns out every woman of war in Helene’s imperium inspires terror just by existing.”

A series of giggles came from the round table, with Sagittari physically fighting herself to not explode with laughter. The Assassin Queen, having better self-control, kept her emotions to a wide smile.

"And I say to you also," the Iron Hand yelled, “the powers that give us our power, told me this message, and it breaks my heart for me to tell you this news! The ones we fight, the evil that lurks and waits to assail, the damned Solares! They have slapped us again! Consistently, they send beasts to assail us, like the Deathless, and the disastrous solar wind that burns the stars!”

The_Mean_Helene: siw39 5hxnaiw

Only moments after joining them, it seemed the Amazon Queen had smashed whichever device she was using to join the broadcast. The queen’s anger management issues were only partially tamed in her meetings with the Amazons' shamans, better known as therapists. For a while she did fantastic, and so many would find this burst out of character for her, especially for someone as insignificant as the Iron Hand insulting her people and family-

Anastasia stopped thinking.

She already found out why, and Krystal would have a hard time cooling down her "Big Sis 'Lele".

The_ Science_Queen: sorry guys, but Helene and I are going to have to sit this one out. Good thing we aren't near any Zudrian cities. Also, the Iron Hand should bathe in chemicals for science!

Good luck, Krystal, Anastasia chuckled, you're going to need it. So will the universe.

“See Solares? He didn’t forget you!” Sagittari mockingly comforted her Shadow brother, “Now not even I have a clue what in the absolute fuck he is talking about. Here we go, everyone: Iron Hand takes our brains to intellectual hell.”

Intellectual hell was a highly dramatic understatement of just where the Iron Hand was going. Dear leader screamed about the military, wars Zudra had supposedly won, and the power of the Zudrian war machine. Alas, the latter part took over the vast majority of the speech, and that was when the screen decided the time had come to display exaggerated reels of tanks moving across a random assortment of conquered cities. The Assassin Queen and her kin were witnessing the most self-important speech of the era, and its incoherence showed no signs of stopping.

"Hold on," Anastasia placed her hand on the table, "we went from oh no, the dreaded Solares to now great leader's great military."

"What else do they have to show for legitimacy?" Sagittari inquired, arms folded over her chest. "It's not like they bother to do anything for their people other than indoctrination. Also, did that tank seriously just try shooting a mountain?"

Anastasia wholeheartedly agreed. Though she was no political savant, her experiences with the empire routinely informed of a wholly indoctrinated citizen populace, and a propaganda machine at its core. Breaking Zudra would entail damaging the political machine; they were not only at war with an empire, but a concept.

Fomalhaut giggled into his hand as the screen switched back to the dictator. "Oh look, the Solares is the center of attention again!"

"Wait just a second!" Mei's sudden interjection brought the clan's attention to her. "Did Fabio pull several members of the great Shadow Clan into watching a satire of his own country?” The Assassin Queen, though repressing her own laughter, knew that the swordswoman had a point. “Is there a reason for doing this? Fabio isn’t going anywhere: this stupid propaganda reel will have him sitting there, watching, for the next century! Come on, Shadow Clan, we are way better than this!" She received no answer, not even one from her lover. "Look, we are a family of powerful, warring, mature adults fighting for a better universe. We could be preparing the end of our enemies, so why choose to sit and kill our valued brain cells?"

An appeal to reason, to maturity, and to good health, and Mei acted like a queen while delivering it. It was moments like these that made Anastasia think of just how imposing the Shadow Clan really was when taken as a sum of its parts: even individually, the Shadows earned the loyalty and admiration of entire planets, attaching titles like “savior”, “queen,” and “destroyer” to their reputations. Sagittari and Fomalhaut were leaders of an entire planet’s resistance movement. Solares was a warrior revered as a savior to those he shielded and a destroyer to the Nova Zudrian hegemony. They really were better than this but look at them snickering like high schoolers behind a teacher’s back.

Alas, great leader cut the moment of reflection short.

“It is them! They! Those damned elites, the cabal of pedophiles and rapists!” Through the explosion of laughter that followed, Anastasia was wondering just what he was trying to say. Some things could never be understood.

“Everyone, we are back to the elites!” Sagittari threw her head up and groaned before shifting to stare at the group. “You hear it, everyone? Them! We are back to them!” Dear leader’s voice grew so powerful that not even his own throat could handle it: his voice cracked and shrieked. “And I think his throat will die before he does, to be frank! Sheesh!”

“Pedophiles and rapists,” Fomalhaut winked, “does anyone think he’s talking about himself here?”

While Sagittari slapped her brother’s shoulder and cackled, some part of Anastasia wanted to apologize for putting the tracker on Fabio. Mei had a deadpan expression on her face, looking like an unamused, stone statue while watching her kin laugh. Accentuating her anger were her fists, clenched and letting off little wisps of fire through the knuckles-and Anastasia did not think the swordswoman could stop herself from doing it.

"Mei-Mei," Delilah folded her hands on the table and batted her eyelashes, "is this the peak of stupidity?"

"No joke you tell will make my brain cells feel better, honey." Mei deadpanned.

“They tell lies about us! All the so-called free people’s radios! I call them the nonsense, the stupidity, the bullshit! The imposter, the cabal they call Solares is responsible for the press papers of lies! Those scum, whoever you are, this is your fault-!”

“I think he needs a cork in his mouth,” Delilah huffed, “and I think he needs it taped.” Her demeanor dropped to that of simmering rage, no doubt a consequence of hearing her lover’s sentiment. “You know what? Let’s not torture that innocent cork, give him the guillotine for being an annoying shit!”

Meanwhile, the King of Demons, trying his best not to explode with laughter, tapped Anastasia’s shoulder, looked her with mischief in his eyes, and said: “Look, baby sister, I am a journalist now. I am all of the journalists! I am the press, the radio, the media! Every entry is a figment of my imagination!”

“Uh-huh, Matty,” Anastasia crossed her arms and hissed, “next thing you know you will be a-”

“They caused a race war all those millennia ago! The Solares only exists to divide!”

“—time traveler.” she finished.

Solares blinked. "I caused a race war before I was born? What madness is this? Has he taken his herbal remedies? I am starting to pity him-”

Oh, Matty, the Assassin Queen shook her head and hummed, you will never understand your biggest fan. He clearly thinks you are powerful enough to control time itself. Though I do worry about sad little men deifying the cloak and mask, you cannot deny he thinks you are influential. In fact, don’t be surprised if he tries to become you someday. Shit, I have to prepare myself for that!

“King piece,” Sagittari interjected, “he’s a brilliant mastermind: of course he remembered to take his herbal remedies. Now, let Dear Leader speak about how the elites are causing supernovae. He is surely educational.”

“Every time I listen to this,” Solares crossed his arms with a smirk and blinking pupils, “I learn to new extents just how much I shatter Zudra’s reality and keep her leaders up at night… without even needing to be born...”

“And to the Monoceran people, where even the royal family has lost their little girl to the plots and schemes of these pedophile-enabling masked men!"

Delilah placed a hand on her heart. "Oh, no, masked men stealing children! Ah, that poor little girl!" Solares turned to her and raised an eyebrow before he snickered into his hand. "Why does the Solares keep doing this? Why? Oh, the horror!”

Mei folded her hands and gave a deceivingly gentle smile, “At least he’s not lecturing mixed-race relationships this time... yet. My patience for Zudrian brainwashing has been thin lately. I may have to ruin your fun if you don’t want me erasing this planet or worse.”

“We tried negotiating with them, with her, but she did not listen! She couldn’t listen! The small girl didn’t know any better and let herself stray lost from her parents and family! Yet one amongst the tragedies caused by this fraud Solares, the kings of liars.”

Of course they didn’t name the princess. If they did, then the entire story “Great Zudra” was telling would have severe plot holes. Princess Vida Corda Ursaris, the last time Anastasia checked, was a member of the Shadow Clan out of her own volition, and an adult the day she joined, but of course a kidnapping at the hands of “pedophilic masked men'' made for wondrous mythology.

“And they insolently spread rumors that they are not Zudrian race-traitors! Well, who can be powerful enough to ruin armies alone without being Zudrian? Without being the greatest race in the greatest nation,” the entire clan were screaming in laughter at this point, including Solares, who almost seemed truly possessed by a demon. “Without the great power of Zudrian blood, without the greatest people of a great empire! Who will be powerful without that? Gentlemen, I tell you, the Solares are a joke! And I say ‘are’ instead of ‘is’ because they are a conspiracy, not an individual! I could vanquish them in a fight! All of them!”

Oh. Galaxies. The Assassin Queen saw her brother rubbing his hands together and nodding to the screen. That was not good news: the Iron Hand issued a challenge, and the actual Solares was taking him seriously?

“Matthias! Calm down now, will you?” Anastasia was pleading at this point, only partly certain he was laughing about the challenge and partly worried he would commandeer a starship to accept it. “You wouldn’t make it through your first punch before turning his spine to dust! He’s outmatched, surely you have better rivals, I mean, I’m your sparring partner! You have Helene and us, just please!”

Solares tilted his head and tutted, “They say death must do his duty,” and she genuinely couldn’t tell if his smile was out of excitement for an impending duel or just messing with her.

“Oh great,” Anastasia slumped in her chair, placing hands over her face while her elder brother giggled, “Solares versus the Iron Hand, battle of the century. Champion of galactic wars against champion of getting his underwear in a bunch. Fair fight, so intense… why do you have to mess with me like this?”

“Perhaps these monsters have bred a Zudrian hybrid, mixed clean blood with that of inferior races, and sent the resulting abomination to fight in their stead? What an ungodly experiment, a mockery of nature and the master nation!”

Mei’s temper worked just like a processor, for there existed things she could handle in small enough quantities. During military campaigns, the woman and her lover kept their emotions very much in check, letting them out only as bursts of anger that could reduce their opponents to ashes — or to makeshift weapons, as Delilah demonstrated earlier in the night. However, heavy enough tasks can overheat any processor, and to Mei and Delilah, attacks on multiracial families were heavy.

Judging by the expression creeping onto Delilah’s features — her eyebrows bent in anger, her lips curled into a bloodthirsty smile — the happy couple were about to derive their happiness from some alarmingly destructive… therapy. Solares gave a glance to them, before returning his attention to Sagittari, giving her a distinct, commanding stare.

“Okay,” Sagittari noticed the glance and the couple’s anger, and fidgeted with the tablet’s buttons with shaking hands, “I’m with Mei. Where the hell is the off button? I think we’ve heard enough!”

No kidding, princess. The Assassin Queen thought as she watched her kin struggle over the tablet computer. If we keep going, then this planet will not survive Mei and Delilah. Not to mention, even if Matty is messing with me, he still might try to take up the Hand on his duel offer, and embarrass everyone involved! Stop this now, for the sake of the entire clan!

“Hmm,” the King of Demons scratched his chin, “I agree, Sagittari, you should swiftly shut off that screen… in the meantime, I should endeavor to find an open world for my upcoming duel with the Iron Hand. I do not know of his abilities… oh well, that is okay, I love a good surprise...”

“Shut up, please…” the Assassin Queen begged.

His egotistical jokes were already unbearable before this speech. Now, thanks to his self-declared archnemesis — who was really a powerless manchild from the Zudrian mother country — he had more. What made it worse was that Solares, one of Cruvelia’s strongest, seemed to be returning the attention of this overcompensating military boy. Anastasia would be satisfied if the Solares never heard another Iron Hand speech again. She hoped he would choke on his dinner before Matthias wound up in the same solar system as him. There were too many genuine enemies in the known galaxies for a member of the Shadow Clan to be distracted by the pathetic, fragile masculinity of the Iron Hand.

The screen finally shut off.

“He calls us, our family, my family, and my child, an ungodly abomination. Ha. Ha. Ha. So funny, so damned funny!” Mei smiled as her pupils were swelling with wildfire, her malicious grin swelling and widening. "The Iron Dunce tries too hard to make up for his small dick. Perhaps he would like it removed.”

“Mei, sister,” Solares looked at her with mock sympathy, “you could not ask for a smaller target. How am I supposed to aim at it?”

“I thought he was your great rival, Matty?” The Assassin Queen sneered.

Solares clicked his tongue and chuckled. “He will be until the end of time, Anastasia.” Now, Anastasia regretted even opening her mouth. “When I meet him, all bets will be off.” Then, he started chuckling, chuckling turned into giggling, and alas his giggles turned into malignant laughter.

The heat from the swordswoman was fading by this point, and her tension seemed to be letting itself out in an exasperated laugh. “Okay dude, we get it, you like castrating Zudrian men. Weird kink, but okay.” Anastasia blinked at the latter comment while her brother winked. Mei went on, “We have bigger bones to pick than with a privileged Zudrian manbaby screeching to his army of coddled idiots! Understood, everyone?”

“Bigger bones.” chortled Fomalhaut.

“Can you boys stop laughing about Zudrian penises?” one of the combat engineers strode up to the group, “we’ve got the equipment set up, and we’d rather not broadcast penis jokes to the entire planet in the sound tests.”

Delilah sat up and smiled at him, “Thank you for the cameras, sweetie. Also, no. This is too artful!” She had a point: Zudrians needed to hear some irreverence targeted at their Dear Leader from time to time. Also, the Assassin Queen could not stop laughing at the idea of the Iron Hand catching part of the broadcast and finding his sworn rivals joking about castrating him.

“Delilah, what the hell am I going to do with you?” Mei shook her head.

“More than you could do with a dickless Zudrian, that’s for sure.”

The combat engineer snorted. Anastasia wondered if he might be warming up to the idea of broadcasting some castration jokes just so the Iron Hand could witness. However, she and the entire clan were too busy laughing at the notion of Dear Leader being castrated.

When Anastasia caught her breath, her sigh was one of relief as much as laughter, both for Mei’s temper and for everyone else’s sanity. The Zudrian leader’s ramblings would have been a crime even without his words on “hybrids” and Zudrian blood.

“Are you two well?” Solares vacated from his morbid humor, staring at the couple with a worried glance.

“Don’t worry about it,” Delilah softly smiled and placed an arm around her wife. “we’re fine-” She directed her voice to the group. “-but is everyone ready to work on our video? I’m positive that it’ll be one hundred percent bearable.”

Anastasia shot up to her feet, letting Sagittari lead the way to the camera set. With a group of technicians flanking each clan member, they walked to the outside of the Golden Syndicate headquarters, continuing their discussion of who would speak and what should happen. Fomalhaut, being ever enthusiastic to pitch in, reiterated his idea regarding Solares.

“We need Solares to talk,” Fomalhaut stressed, “And we need him to talk as our leader. He’s the most notorious of us here, and he is the only Solares in existence.”

Solares was frozen in place, no doubt thinking of his response. And it would need to be good, since he was outnumbered: every present member of the Shadow Clan was already nodding at Fomalhaut’s suggestion. As this occurred, Anastasia was genuinely hoping that her brother would not just grow defiant and shut down the entire notion of him leading. She was lucky to see him take so much time pondering. The fact that he was not only one of the Shadow Clan, but amongst their Royal Seven and apprehensive to leadership was mind-boggling.

“If you desire it so much, brother,” Solares deeply inhaled and looked at everyone else’s encouraging stares, “and if you all desire it so much, then…”

“Then you’ll do it for us, Matty? Come on, we believe in you!” Anastasia was hoping just to give her brother that one nudge he needed.

Silence again, and the Assassin Queen placed her hands on her hips and stared at him. Then again, the stare took too long to work, according to her experience. She threw in a head-tilt: that should speed things up.

“Yes, baby sister,” Solares folded quicker than usual, bringing a beam to Anastasia’s face, “I will do it. I will enter the film as our leader, and tell the Zudrians to stand down-”

He was nearly tackled in an embrace before he could say anything more. The Assassin Queen turned to victoriously wink at the rest of the clan, who gave her thumbs up and various other approving gestures, and then returned to squeezing her elder brother to death.

“Damn it, Anastasia!” Solares cursed as she rested her head on his shoulder. “I am not invulnerable. Your underestimated strength will one day be the death of me. I swear!” She did not say anything, sighing in happiness at the progress the clan may have made. “Also, do not even think that this conversation about King Solares is over, because we are far from finished.”

“You think I don’t know that? Adorable!” The Assassin Queen replied, knowing that her brother was anxious and stubborn at the same time. “I’ll get you later, you’ll understand, and you’ll thank me for it!”

“Stubborn little sisters and their incessant pestering…”

Though the Clan did not get him to accept any permanent title, Anastasia was happy that they at least got him to masquerade as the leader they saw when looking at him. In time, with her nudges, like the old human saying went, she would help him to fake it until he made it. Maybe he already understood that, stubbornly pushing everyone else away so he could wallow in his self-hate for just a little longer, or maybe he did not get it. Regardless, the Assassin Queen and Shadow Clan got nowhere from giving up on each other, so she would not give in.

Putting the Royal in Royal Seven, Anastasia released Solares from her embrace and nudged him toward the film site, starts with putting a crown on the Solares.

In rushed mumbles, the Shadows planned and outlined the upcoming video, ushered the infamous Demon King into center camera, and started the broadcast.

“Greetings, citizens of Corona Eternus…” he said, “this is the Solares, the one you call King of Demons...”

Just you wait, Matty. You’ll be calling yourself a king soon enough. Maybe even king of Cruvelia. Tonight, the Shadow Clan ascends. Tomorrow we shall rule the heavens.