this wasn't a rookie normal guy. This was a level 13 dude, versus level 7 3 PCs, and a level 7 Celia. The story was that Lemures was actually kidnapped by the agent during the Breach of Heavens and was being tortured for information on where he hid some of the pieces of black metal that Eljared gave him shortly before her disappearance. Eljared also enchanted Lemures making it impossible for the Imperium to just pluck the info out of his head, so they had to get it the old fashioned way.
Well the PCs tracked down Lemures and the Jurgend agent, who was a Tao with Arcane-level martial arts and a defense of 320 (highest PC attack is around the 200s). The agent also open rolled on doubles (11, 22, etc) but the PCs don't. All in all, the plan was to use Dramatic Combat so the fight took several minutes. While the combat was going on, XII (who has been upgraded to level 12 at this point) was supposed to sneak in, and rescue Lemures under everyone's nose, while the players were being beaten up by the Agent. Then after the fight was over, the Agent would realize Lemures is gone and leave the unconscious PCs in the pocket dimension they were hiding in to chase after whoever took Lemures, the PCs would wake up some hours later depending on how well they did on their resistance rolls.
Only none of that happened.
The summoner, of all the crazy things, summons the Wheel of Fortune, and rolls The Devil, and gets 7 rounds worth of The Devil (300 Atk/Def) putting him on a level more or less equal with the Jurgend agent. The Shadow in the group declared he wants to try and hide. I tell him there is a -200 penalty since the agent already knows he is here, but he double open rolls and the agent rolls a 9 so he successfully hides. Then I was like "But wait, you also have to fool his Ki Detection" well the agent fumbles his Ki Detection roll. The Shadow also has Absolute Eye, a magnus which lets him make ranged attacks from a hidden position while remaining hidden due to having complete control over the trajectory of the arrow. He attacks once, misses despite the huge penalty to the Tao's defense for surprise, but thanks to absolute eye, he doesn't lose his hiding position, so he aims instead.
meanwhile, the summoner with the devil double open rolls a 500-something to attack the Tao who rolls like a 20 to defend himself, 3 turns of aiming later, the shadow fires with aim bonus, plus absolute eye bonus, plus 5 points of fatigue in a single shot (use of necessary energy), using his multiple missiles module to fire 4 simultaneous arrows, and open rolls, while attacking from surprise, meanwhile the Tao rolls something like a 40 to defend himself, these two attacks combined reduce the Tao to exactly 1 point over his con x5 in negative health and he dies. (though I've currently ruled that his soul is actually bound via Tie the Vital Essence so unless they can destroy his soul, the agent will never truly be dead). And the PCs end up rescuing Lemures themselves. XII, who was watching the whole thing was rather impressed.
the entire time, I rolled for the Agent under 10 4 times, and never got an open roll despite open rolls on doubles. Talk about worst Imperium luck ever.
I'm not sure how to proceed from here, since I was honestly expecting them to be destroyed.