The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Class Act

(mc mf fd)

Today had gone from good to great.

Clement couldn’t stop smiling, staring down at the sheet he’d received earlier. Sure, it wasn’t all that much. It didn’t even tell him anything he didn’t already know! Had his name on it, a little doodle of his face, his occupation... But this wasn’t just some scrap of paper! No, this was his official adventurer’s license!

He folded it up and slipped it into his pack, giddy delight turned to puffed-up pride as he strode from the Temple of Light into the city. Clement could apply to the Guild of Heroes now! He could tell people he met with absolute, utmost certainty that he was a Knight! Officially! He could brag all about his-

Wait, OK, hold on-

Clement fished his license out of his pack and squinted down at it. His 5 Strength! And his 28 HP! Both real respectable numbers, and they were sure to shoot up once he got out of Level 1! No doubt about it, Clement was going to be the best of the best! He sighed wistfully, clutching his license tight and looking skyward. He didn’t want to get ahead of himself, but... Maybe, just maybe... He’d be able to class change to Hero one day!

Hoo, that was a far-off dream if ever there were one, though. Right now, he was just happy to have everything be nice and official! 5 Strength, 4 Agility, 2 Resilience...

“Ohoho! What’s got you smiling so wide, huh?”

Clement blinked, looking back earthbound. Who was- Oh! He glanced to the side and saw a pair of robed figures snickering in an alley, hoods pulled up to hide their faces.

“Looks like someone just finished up at the Temple!” One of them giggled. Seemed as if they were both young women from their voices, but their robes hid their bodies quite effectively. “Just got your license, huh? Congratulations! Always love to see another adventurer get his chance to go out and do some good in the world!”

Clement wasn’t normally much for small talk — with suspicious, cloaked figures, no less — but the high of his success seemed to change that! For the moment, at least. “Why, yes, actually!” He chirped, smiling once more. He stepped over and held out his license, pointing to it excitedly. “I’m Clement! A Level 1 Knight!”

The two figures leaned in, suitably awed by his documentation. “Oooh, lookit that, Mindy! A Knight!” The right figure bumped the left one with her hip. “Not every day you see one of them around!“

“No, they’re quite rare these days, Cindy,” agreed Mindy, bumping Cindy right back. “5 Strength! Why, I think that’s the highest Strength I’ve ever seen on a Level 1 adventurer! Have you seen anything higher?“

“No, certainly not! Not at Level 1, I mean,” Cindy said, shaking her head. “Good Agility, that Resilience is going to grow fast, I’m sure, and...” She trailed off, clicking her tongue and canting her head to the side. “...Hm.”

Mindy seemed to have similar misgivings, because a moment later, she tilted her head just the same. “...Hm.”

Clement looked to the two of them, then to his license. “Hm? Is—” He flipped the license and started scanning it for anything wrong. “Is something wrong? I don’t see any errors with it—”

“No, no!” Cindy shook her head. “It’s just that some information’s missing! Oh!” She seemed to perk up, thrusting a finger into the air and turning to Mindy. “You know what it is, Mindy? I bet he hasn’t done the new Tutorial!”

Mindy perked up in tandem, clapping her hands together. “Ooh, I bet you’re exactly right, Cindy! Clement!” Both of them turned to look up at Clement, pearly white smiles glittering from the hooded shadows.

“Have you done the Charm tutorial yet?“

Clement blinked down at them once more, then at his sheet, then at them again. “Charm... Charm tutorial?”

“Yeah, it’s a real recent addition to the Guild of Heroes’ curriculum!” Cindy reached out and grabbed Clement by the wrist, tugging him forward. “Incredibly recent! They don’t accept members who haven’t done it, actually!”

“Th-They don’t?”

“Nope!” Mindy shook her head, reaching out and grabbing Clement’s other wrist. “See, your license is incomplete! You gotta come with us to get it all filled out! It’s missing some stats, see?“

“It is?”

“Yup!” For two young women barely half his height, Cindy and Mindy sure were strong! Their insistent tugging had already pulled Clement into the alley and around a corner deeper in. Cindy tapped the paper with a single slender fingertip. “It’s got Strength, Resilience, HP...”

“...But it’s missing stuff like Willpower, Wisdom, and WP! Here, lemme just—” Mindy leaned forward and kicked backwards to open a door to reveal a dark room. Leaning forward, though, she accidentally pressed her chest up against Clement’s leg, and- Well, he was now suddenly very interested to see what she was hiding under those robes. Soft and warm...

And now pulling away. “Come in, come in!” Cindy and Mindy were all but dragging him inside now, giggling as they forced Clement into the building. “No need to be shy, Clem! After all, you’re always welcome at—“

With a flourish, the two cast off their robes, candles lighting by magic as they spread their arms wide and posed! “Cindy and Mindy’s Finishing School!”

The exterior had been bare plaster, and the interior wasn’t much better. It was a single room, barely bigger than Clement’s bedroom back home. A wooden table served as the front desk, apparently, with a yellowed ledger on its surface and a little stool behind it. Most of the room was empty, actually, the “centerpiece” being a crude mural of a dungeon hallway painted on the back wall.

But that wasn’t what Clement was looking at. No, his eyes were glued to Cindy and Mindy as they smiled wide, winking. He could see now that they were imps, identical in nearly every way. The only difference actually seemed to be the color of their hair and their eyes. Mindy had red eyes and black hair. Cindy was a green-eyed blonde.

Both of them were completely and utterly stacked.

Imps weren’t known for having balanced figures: they were a race of weak, low-level succubi who specialized in tempting weak-willed adventurers into indulging. To that end, their hips and derrieres weren’t much to speak of...but their breasts were big and bouncy. On their otherwise slender frames, it would normally be absurd, but something about their appearance tended to keep men from complaining.

Fluttering in the air with their tiny wings, Cindy and Mindy just kept their pose up as Clement stared, their chests rising and falling with every breath. Their breasts strained against the strips of fabric wrapped around their chests, and each little shift in their pose, those titanic tits wobbled and jiggled wonderfully. The rest of their ensemble was attractive, sure, but shoulder-length gloves and thigh-highs weren’t quite enough to distract from their titanic tits. Not even their skimpy panties could tear his eyes away!

It was only after a solid minute of staring that Clement realized that he should probably say something instead of just gawking at them. Red-faced and put firmly on the back foot, he looked around the room and gulped. “Well, it’s a very nice academy,” he stammered, finding it so sparsely decorated that he quickly ended up staring right back at Cindy and Mindy themselves. Admittedly, he wasn’t exactly looking them in the eyes.

Cindy lowered to the ground, winking and wagging a fingertip. “Oh, you don’t gotta be polite, Clem! We know that it’s not much to look at right now.” She huffed and brought a hand to her chest, puffing it out with a smirk. “Not compared to us, at least!“

Clement gurgled his agreement, nodding rapidly.

“And besides, you didn’t come to Mindy and Cindy’s Finishing School to learn how to arrange furniture!” Mindy peeped, fluttering up in front of Clement’s face with a smile. “You came here to learn all about finishing and the exciting new ways that adventurers like yourself can enjoy dungeons...and the monsters therein!“

“Thought we agreed it was Cindy and Mindy’s Finishing School.“

Mindy cast a glare over her shoulder. “I was gonna let you take this one, but now I’m not so sure.”

“Like she said, Mindy and Cindy’s Finishing School aims to have the best curriculum in the business!” Cindy zipped up beside Mindy and grinned wide. “And that means having top-notch instructors, not focusing on frills!“

With two top-heavy imps fluttering right in front of his face, breasts mashed up against each other, Clement couldn’t do much more than nod in blind agreement.

Mindy glanced over to Cindy. Cindy glanced over to Mindy. Both of them smirked.

“Now, there are a lot of tutorials you’ll have to go to in order to be Guild-eligible, but we can work a payment plan out later! Right now, we need to get this process started!” Mindy reached down ever-so-gently to snag the license out of Clement’s hand. “Thank you! I’ll just take this over to the Department of Mental Assessment real quick—” She hovered away from the bewildered Knight towards the table, hips wiggling in the air as she leaned down to scribble on the license.

“And while she’s doing that, I’ll go over some of the entry-level lessons we have prepared!” Cindy smiled beatifically, giving her hips a wiggle...and her breasts a jiggle by proxy.

“For a novice such as yourself, I’d personally recommend something nice and low-impact like ‘Charm Spells: Losing is Winning!’ But if you’re as daring as you look, you might want to check out something more like ‘Status Effects and You: Seriously Stacked!’” She pressed her upper arms against either side of her chest, mashing them together and licking her lips. “But I always recommend that beginners choose ‘La Petite Mort: When WP Runs Out’ first.“

“Here y’go!” Mindy was back in a flash, all smiles as she thrust Clement’s license at him. “All edited and ready to go! You’re now officially ready to begin your education at Mindy and Cindy’s Finishing School! So!” The two of them leaned closer still, practically shaking their chests in Clement’s face as he stared helplessly at them, wide-eyed and halfway to mesmerized already.

“Whatcha gonna pick first, Clem?” Cindy bounced.

“Yeah, what’s first?” Mindy wobbled.

Clem swayed on his feet, trying to focus and finding it distressingly easy to do just that! But he needed to look down...at his license... Not at the four bouncing boobies mashed up against each other, sucking his gaze in deeper and deeper...!

No! He shook his head with a groan of exertion and looked down at his modified license. For the most part, it looked the same, only... “WP?” He looked- No! He kept his eyes on the license. “What’s WP stand for? And- Hey!” He pointed to a few lines on the paper, scribbled on with a pencil. “Why’s do I only have 1 Willpower?!“

“That’s totally normal!” Cindy said hurriedly. “It’s the kinda stat that grows really quickly, you just have to level up!”

“Yeah, it gets boosted super fast!” Mindy agreed, nodding quickly. “And WP is, like, uh.” She looked to Cindy helplessly. Cindy just shrugged, grimacing. Mindy elbowed her in the side before continuing. “It’s- It’s, uh—” She chewed her lower lip, beginning to sweat...before she perked up! “It’s your Will Points!“

“Right, your Will Points! Because—” Mindy tapped the license with her fingertip. “You have Hit Points, right? When you get hit, your HP goes down! Your WP goes down when you get hit by a charm attack! If you run out, you lose the fight. Same thing, practically!“

“Charm attack? What’s—”

“What’s a charm attack?” Cindy offered, grinning once more. “Well, then I guess we can make that your first lesson! Mindy, if you could keep track of the numbers for us...?”

“But of course, Cindy!” With that, Mindy plucked the paper from Clement’s fingertips, zipping back to the table and sitting down on the stool. Pencil at the ready, she flashed her partner a thumbs-up!

Clement looked back at Mindy as she set up at the table, and when he looked back to Cindy-

AN IMP draws near!

Command?

Cindy had started hovering in front of the dungeon mural, posed flirtatiously with her chest pushed out. She held one arm under her bust, hefting it up even more, and had the other at her cheek, seemingly frozen in a wink. Hip pushed out, she looked every inch the saucy seductress, bouncing ever-so-slightly as she idled.

Clement just looked back to Mindy, bewildered. “What am I possibly supposed to do?!“

CLEMENT calls for help!

“Just go ahead and fight her like you would normally! I can’t interfere, so don’t keep asking me, or—”

But nobody comes...

Mindy huffed. “That’s gonna happen.” She waved a hand. “Just use your—” Mindy squinted down at the license. “Cypress rod? Man, they don’t exactly roll out the red carpet for new recruits, do they? Just try to bonk her, she’ll be fine!”

“Well, hold on—”

IMP tries to speak!

“Don’t just whack me with it!“

IMP seems scared!

Mindy snickered. Cindy just glared at her, posing all the same.

Clement scratched the back of his head. Sure, if this were a normal battle, he’d pull out his weapon and start attacking, but... This was a tutorial, wasn’t it? And it wasn’t a tutorial about what he could do. It was supposed to be about what she could do. “Uhm.” He glanced back to Mindy, then to Cindy. “I, uh. I guess I’ll pass?“

CLEMENT does nothing!

It seemed as if that was the right answer, because Cindy’s eyes narrowed with a devilish smile as soon as he did. “Good boy!” She purred, suddenly bringing her hand from her cheek to her lips. “Get ready, Clem!” Cindy pressed her palm to her pursed lips...and blew him a kiss, a puffy, pink heart floating through the air towards Clement.

IMP uses BLOW KISS!

For a moment, Clement didn’t quite know what to do. This was an attack, wasn’t it? Like, a real one? Normally tutorials were against humans, not monsters, so the heart drifting closer and closer might actually be an attack, and-

CLEMENT takes 1 WP of damage!

-and as it puffed against his face, clouding his vision with soft pink, Clement felt a little shiver of bliss pass through him. It was as if a cloud of smoke just dissipated against his face, only this left him warm and delighted, not coughing. In fact, as he breathed in that wonderful pink mist, Clement found himself smiling wide.

CLEMENT is now CHARMED!

“Mm...” He sighed, swaying on his feet. Eyes half-lidded, Clement found his eyes drifting towards Cindy’s chest. He licked his lips and started breathing heavier, giggling to himself as Cindy started to wobble her breasts from side to side.

“Aw, see? No need to fight back, Clem!” Cindy winked, bringing her palms up to press her boobs together. “When you’re up against a monster like me, charm attacks are our way of telling you we’re lovers, not fighters! So why don’tcha just drop the weapon and have some fun with me?” She pushed out her lower lip and pouted. “Pretty please?“

Well, that was an easy choice. Clement reached to his belt and clumsily pulled out his cypress rod so he could toss it aside. His staff landed with a clatter, and it was with a wide smile that Clement basked in the knowledge that he’d listened to Cindy.

CLEMENT unequips his CYPRESS ROD!

CLEMENT is still CHARMED...

“Good boy!” Cindy purred, clapping with glee. “Aw, I knew you were a sweetheart! But charm attacks aren’t all puppy love and infatuation, y’know. Sometimes kissing isn’t enough. Imps like me aren’t satisfied...” She straightened up in the air, cocking her index finger and kissing the tip of it. With a wink, she aimed it square at Clement’s lap. “...until we bang!”

IMP uses FULLY COCKED!

Her hand shot back from the recoil, a tiny red heart shooting from her fingertip and dissolving into sparkles on impact with Clement’s crotch. He’d been smiling with lazy delight before, but as soon as that heart connected, his eyes went wide and his jaw dropped. Before it was languid infatuation; this was lust.

CLEMENT takes 3 WP of damage!

CLEMENT is now SEDUCED!

Clement’s vision was tinted pink now, everything seeming softer and sexier to his altered perception. He blinked, looking around the room in a daze before his attention locked on Cindy’s fat, heaving tits. The cocksure imp snickered as Clement leaned forward, gaping at her chest and palming himself through his armor.

He didn’t even react when she clicked her tongue and waggled a finger, too drunk off the sight of her chest to care. “Tsk, tsk!” Cindy chided. “Clem, you ought to know that you’re not going to get anywhere with all that stuffy armor on!” She snapped her fingers and pointed at him imperiously. “Take it off right now!”

Clement could barely take his hand away from his crotch, but Cindy commanded him to do something, and. Well, that meant he had to do it! With a gurgle of lust, he hastily doffed his armor, discarding it without a second thought.

CLEMENT unequips his LEATHER ARMOR!

CLEMENT is still SEDUCED...

Cindy fluttered closer, her breasts bouncing hypnotically with each flap of her wings. The naughty little imp held his attention like a magnet, and it didn’t seem as if she’d let him go anytime soon. Stopping right in front of him, she reached out with one gloved hand and wrapped her fingers around the thick, throbbing shaft of his cock. Her lips curled up in a lopsided smirk, and the pint-sized temptress gave his prick a pump as she spoke.

“See? The general rule is that if a monster tries to deal HP damage, they’re no good. But if we focus on WP damage...” She stroked faster, twisting her hand around Clement’s cock as she stroked and pumped his shaft. “...We just wanna make you feel good.”

“You wanna feel good, don’t you, Clem?” Cindy stared up at him, batting her eyelashes dreamily. She canted her head to the side and fixed him with a dazzling smile, looking absolutely angelic. Then she gave his cock a squeeze, and the illusion was ruined. This naughty imp was far from an angel. She raised a fingertip and started swirling it, looping lazy circles in the air as it began to glow pink. “Just relax and let me help you feel good, baby.“

IMP uses SILK PALM OF BLISS!

IMP is preparing a spell...

Clement had the perfect position to stare right down into the bottomless, mesmerizing valley of Cindy’s cleavage, drooling as he let it dominate his vision. It almost seemed to be getting bigger and bigger the longer he stared. Soon he could only see her soft, warm titties, rising and falling with each breath. He knew she was talking about something, but... It was so hard to pay attention. Way easier to just nod and agree...

CLEMENT takes 5 WP damage!

CLEMENT is still SEDUCED...

Cindy seemed to stall as she prepared her magic, seeming to wait for permission to proceed. Oh, well, they were kind of in a battle, weren’t they...? But Clement really wanted to see what happened next. He raised a hand...and lowered it. He couldn’t quite manage words at this point, so that had to be the signal that he was quite happy to waste his turn doing absolutely nothing.

CLEMENT does nothing!

CLEMENT is still SEDUCED...

“Good boy,” Cindy purred, eyes narrowing to delighted slits as her fingertip flicked a rapid pentagram in the air, the star seeming to linger for a moment before fading away. “But you only have 1 WP left!” She sighed, shaking her head. “Such a shame! But lucky for you, I know just how to fix that!“

IMP uses CUPID’S CURSE!

With a mischievous giggle, Cindy tapped Clement just above the root of his cock with her glowing fingertip. A pleasurable warmth seemed to diffuse from her finger, and soon after that...a dull throb of pleasure. Clement didn’t feel particularly pent-up before, but as Cindy continued to stroke and pump his shaft, her silky palm stroking up and down, his balls began to ache deliciously with a thick, heavy load.

Then she started pumping with both hands, squeezing, milking, wringing his cock for everything she could get out of it. “Go ahead and cum,” she whispered up at him, wiggling her hips. “Just stare at my big, fat titties and spunk for me, baby. Go on, just pop off.”

IMP uses SIREN’S SUGGESTION!

Her seductive commands are too much to resist, and Clement is so far past trying to resist. He bucks his hips forward into her hands, surrendering to her intrinsic talent for milking cocks dry. He doesn’t even care that he isn’t thrusting his cock into her cleavage, her hands are so wonderfully skilled at stroking him off that Clement is more than happy to indulge in pleasure! His eyelids flutter and his balls clench down-

CLEMENT takes 1 WP of damage!

CLEMENT has been reduced to 0 WP...

...but CUPID’S CURSE prevents CLEMENT from being defeated!

CLEMENT regains 1 WP!

-as he doesn’t cum. “Uh—?!” Clement groaned as his cock twitches and throbs in Cindy’s hands. He felt like he should’ve climaxed just then, but for some reason, he hadn’t. He wasn’t able to. He pumped his hips forward again, trying to fuck Cindy’s hands to see if something would be somehow different this time.

CLEMENT indulges in temptation...

CLEMENT takes 1 WP of damage!

CLEMENT has been reduced to 0 WP...

...but CUPID’S CURSE prevents CLEMENT from being defeated!

CLEMENT regains 1 WP!

Eyes rolling back, Clement grunted with animal lust. No, that didn’t work either! But it felt even better this time, his balls getting heavier and heavier with each failed cumshot. Each dammed-up climax seemed to make his balls visibly plump up fatter, and soon his previously modest endowments were nearly the size of Cindy’s fist!

His eyelids drooped, nearly falling shut...

CLEMENT’s mind is going blank from pleasure...

...when Mindy suddenly fluttered over to him, pulling him into a tight, comfortable hug. His face nestled in her cleavage, Clement swooned forward, happily succumbing to the imp’s tender embrace. She hugged him with a smile, cradling his head in her arms and stroking his hair soothingly. It was the complete opposite of Cindy’s relentless stroking, gentle and reassuring, relaxing, even...

“Sweet boy,” she purred, her words vibrating her chest against his face. “Such a sweet, innocent boy...” Mindy gently bounced her chest from side to side, wobbling Clement’s face along with it and sending him further into delighted trance. “You love feeling like this, don’t you...? You love being edged more than almost anything...”

IMP uses ENTRANCING EMBRACE!

CLEMENT is being BRAINWASHED...

Clement mewled into her cleavage, eyes finally sinking shut. He was lost in sensation, his cock twitching and throbbing, long past when he should have orgasmed. But with his mind so dipped in bliss, he doesn’t exactly care, either... And with Mindy here to cradle him and help him focus on the mind-numbing bliss of his unreachable orgasm, Clement was more than happy to just endlessly drift...

“But do you want to know a secret?” Mindy whispered, leaning down to press a kiss to Clement’s forehead. She didn’t wait for his answer, assuming he was capable of giving one at the moment. “I know what can make your cock finally spurt! Do you want to know what it is?”

IMP uses ENTRANCING WHISPER!

CLEMENT is being BRAINWASHED...

“It’s big, bouncy imp titties,” Mindy purred, beginning to slowly massage her breasts against his face. And below, Cindy pulled her hands away and mashed her chest against his cock instead. Clement’s cockhead slipped up into her cleavage from below, snug between her pillowy breasts and held there tightly by the strip of fabric wrapped around them.

IMP uses TITILLATING TEMPTATION!

CLEMENT is now BRAINWASHED!

Clement’s eyes crossed from the sudden surge of pleasure, the sheer carnal bliss of having two soft, warm breasts mashed up against his cock, milking him for his backed-up seed. He couldn’t manage much, but he could at least manage to thrust into Cindy’s cleavage a few inches before the pleasure got to be too much. It was heaven, an inescapable prison of pleasure...

CUPID’S CURSE wears off!

CLEMENT takes 1 WP of damage!

CLEMENT has been reduced to 0 WP...

And just like that, it was all too much. What felt like hours of bliss crashed down on him all at once, overwhelming his scattered thoughts and sweeping him away in a tidal wave of bliss. Clement moaned shamelessly into Mindy’s chest, emptying spurt after spurt of his seed into Cindy’s cleavage. His cock throbbed with every thick rope of jizz he pumped between her tits, but even his absurd, edged orgasm wasn’t enough to do much more than dribble from her cleavage. The tip of his cock couldn’t even poke out from between them. He was completely surrounded, completely overwhelmed...

“An orgasm like that is so overwhelming, so wonderfully overwhelming...” Mindy hissed into his ear, the magic in her words slamming against his fuckdrunk mind and leaving him mindlessly dazed. “You can’t stay awake any longer. You’re too tired. This feels too good. You must sleep.”

IMP uses PILLOW TALK!

CLEMENT falls ASLEEP...

His eyes sank shut, and his breathing slowed. He probably wouldn’t have lasted much longer anyway, but as Mindy’s whispered commands echoed in his mind, Clement has no choice but to rest...

* * *

“Well, I, uh.” Clement blinked down at his license. He wasn’t sure how he felt about the alterations being made so...haphazardly. Or by hand, for that matter. “I suppose this is official. Even if it doesn’t...look like it.“

He pursed his lips and decided a moment later that there was nothing to worry about. Yes, he realized, everything was OK. He tucked his license into his pack, turning to smile at the two imps. “Well, I’m not even a member of the Guild yet. What do I know, right?“

“C’mon, don’t say something like that!” Cindy glared up at him, wagging a finger. “Makes your instructors look bad! We need all the help we can get around here! Gah!”

Cindy yelped as Mindy gave her a thwack! on the back of her head. “Oh, get over yourself!” She grumbled before smiling up at Clement. “I’m sure you can get someone at the Guild to get that prettied up! But!” She winked up at the Knight. “You only managed to finish one tutorial today! We’ll see you back here tomorrow, right?”

“Yeah, there’s tons more to teach you!” Cindy simpered, pushing her chest out and pivoting from side to side coquettishly. “And, if I may be so bold, you’re the best student I’ve ever had! It’d be such a shame to not see you again.“

Clement managed an embarrassed laugh, moving for the door. “Oh, please! I thought my days of falling asleep during class were behind me. If I can’t even manage to shake that bad habit, I think you two will be teaching me for a long while!“

Cindy hopped up and down with glee, clapping excitedly, and while the sight was mesmerizing on its own, Mindy’s voice was just as spellbinding. “That is such a pleasure to hear, Clem,” Mindy purred. “We’ll see you first thing tomorrow, OK? Bright and early.“

Cindy nodded, wide-eyed and flirtatious. She pushed out her chest once more and hefted them up with her hands. “There’s so much more to teach you, after all.“

With a gulp, Clement nodded silently. Truthfully, he knew he might not want to linger in a place like this much longer, but...

CLEMENT is still BRAINWASHED...

...with a smile, he brushed the silly concern aside. One lesson had been perfectly fine. What was the harm of another one the next day?

With a happy sigh and an entirely different sort of satisfaction buoying him up, Clement stepped from the alley and onto the city streets once more, feeling ready to face just about any monster in the world... And looking forward to facing a very specific duo as soon as possible.