The air in the virtual tavern smells of pixelated pine and fried data. You’re nursing a digital drink, the weight of your mission heavy even here. Hermit is out there, somewhere, and Jamilov is carving a bloody path north. Your friends are counting on you.

Then she walks in.

It’s Homura. At least, it looks like her—the same lavender hair, the determined glint in her eyes. Your heart does a stupid, hopeful little flip before your brain screeches to a halt. The walk is wrong. Too fluid, too calculated. Homura’s strides are powerful and direct; this is a glide.

“I’ve been looking for you,” Not-Homura says, voice a perfect mimic. She leans in, a hand on your arm. “I was so worried. When we’re apart… I realize things.”

You stare. The programming of Digitalis is incredible, but it can’t replicate the subtle blush that should be on Homura’s cheeks, the genuine fluster she tries so hard to hide. This is just… performance.

“Things?” you echo, playing along out of morbid curiosity.

“How I feel,” she purrs, moving closer. Her eyes flutter shut. “Let me show you.”

She goes in for the kiss. You, however, have spent enough time around Weisz’s failed romantic advances to have developed the reflexes of a startled cat. You don’t just step back; you execute a full, awkward lean to the left, nearly upending a nearby NPC’s tray of virtual stew.

Her lips meet empty air. The illusion flickers—just for a nanosecond—and you see her. Blonde pigtails, brown eyes sharp with annoyance.

“Really?” Amira’s own voice cuts through the fading Homura-filter. The avatar shimmers and reforms into her standard Digitalis disguise: the bespectacled dark-haired prince. She straightens her coat with a huff. “A dodge? That’s cold.”

“You’re wearing the face of the girl I like to trick me into a kiss,” you deadpan. “I think my reaction was pretty temperate.”

She sighs, the princely avatar running a hand through its curly hair. “Old habits. And I thought a grand romantic gesture might… rekindle things.”

“There was never anything to rekindle, Amira,” you say, the familiar frustration bubbling up. “You ‘dated’ me to extract intel on the Edens Zero for the GIA. I was a mark. A source. That’s not a relationship; that’s espionage with dinner.”

Her prince-avatar has the decency to look abashed. “It started that way. But the intel was secondary to stopping Drakken Joe. Our goals aligned.”

“And now?” you ask, crossing your arms.

“Now Jamilov is slaughtering players and NPCs alike on a planet I’m tasked with observing,” she says, all business, the spy surfacing instantly. “He’s a destabilizing variable. A mass murderer. He needs to be stopped.”

You nod slowly. “And I’m here to find Hermit and save my friends. He’s in the way.”

For a moment, you just look at each other—the ex-fake-girlfriend and the guy she once pretended to love. The tavern’s ambient noise fills the space: NPC laughter, the clink of glasses, a bard murdering a MIDI file.

“So,” you say finally.

“So,” she echoes.

“We both want Jamilov gone. My crew is heading north to Crysta.”

A slow, knowing smile spreads across the prince-avatar’s face. It’s utterly Amira. “And a skilled GIA operative with intimate knowledge of Digitalis’s systems and combat protocols would be a considerable asset on such a mission.”

“She would,” you concede. “As would the muscle and Ether Gear of the Edens Zero for her objective.”

“A temporary alliance, then,” she says, extending a hand. It’s a formal, princely gesture. “Purely professional. No kissing. No fake-dating. We stop the murderer, you find your friend, I file my report.”

You look at her hand, then back at her disguised face. She’s manipulative, perverse, and once broke your heart for a government paycheck. She’s also one of the most capable people you know.

You take her hand. The shake is firm, digital, and loaded with every complicated memory you share.