Wish upon the Stars (Original Superhero cultivation sci fi litrpg)

Celine and Martin were both thrilled to see us, though with Celine it was hard to tell. Still, I had enough Perception to pick up the minute signs of her excitement to have her boyfriend back. Not that it was at all obvious from the sedate way she approached him for an admittedly warm but brief hug. Jessie all but tackled her in a hug of her own after that, then hugged Sarah for good measure because she hadn't had a chance to do so earlier, and it was hard not to smile at our shortest team members enthusiasm.

We dropped into chairs around the room after the greetings, none of us in too big of a rush to get to the information hall. The points weren't going anywhere. I never stopped enjoying the moments of relaxation, mostly because I knew how few and far between they were. "So." I said jovially. "What have you all been up to while we were getting involved in political bullshit that was way over our heads? I get the feeling it was way more sensible than what we were doing for the last week or two."

I was curious what a 'normal' few weeks of advancement looked like for an average G-ranker, as much as that term could apply to any hero. Though I supposed some of the only job type cultivators on the planet were a bad example if I was looking for someone typical

Celine, who sat down next to Benny with graceful and remote poise (though not without slipping her hand into his surreptitiously) spoke up with a small smile. "Mostly we just did missions for the crafting hall. They aren't as lucrative as the ones at the information hall, but they're safer on the whole. Still, we haven't been lax. We've been developing quite the reputation among our classmates for efficiency and effectiveness. We've all made some decent gains from some of the feats we've accomplished. Nothing huge like the scavenger hunt, but enough small tasks add up."

"I bet." I said in interest. "I imagine that's a more stable way to progress. Don't you stop gaining points for the small tasks eventually though? Not that I know what kind you were doing, but I know that gains are based on the spread of your legend, and when people expect something from you, your renown doesn't exactly grow. Does doing the same level of task repeatedly really pay out over and over?"

Celine's placid expression broke into a shark like smile. The flash of teeth appeared and vanished too fast for most people to even notice, but none of us had trouble spotting it. "They might, except they seemed to be under the impression that we were suited to much lower level tasks. We may have been the first place team in the scavenger hunt, but people weren't sure how much progress we made. We started missions only slightly above the level of the last one we took, and people were shocked at how quickly we completed them."

Callie's jaw dropped open. "You sneaky bitch!" She said admiringly. "I would have never thought of sandbagging so I could put on a show of rapid growth." She cursed. "Shit. That would have been a great plan. I'm pissed you didn't share, not that I can blame you. Still though, I wouldn't be too smug about it. We might not have been as clever, but we made some damn good progress during our time away. You'd barely even recognize us if you saw us in battle after all we've been through."

It was hard to read her, but I was pretty sure I saw a flash of competitive interest in Celine's normally tranquil eyes. Benny, who probably DIDN'T want to have to deal with his girlfriend being annoyed when we unilaterally curb stomped her team in a friendly sparring match, interrupted before things got too far. "By the way Cel, did you guys hear about this new tournament for this special F-ranked dungeon? Apparently a ton of the strongest fighters from the whole star system are heading here to compete in it."

Whether he actually wanted to share, or had told her last night on the phone and was trying to change the subject I had no idea, but if he had she hadn't mentioned it to the others, because Sarah looked intrigued. Tournament? I knew there was a regular one around here, but it sounds like you're talking about something a bit bigger. What can you tell us about it? Sounds like you guys are signing up, and if you're in we might have a shot too." She gave us a wide grin at that last part, obviously meaning it half in jest, though also being half serious.

I picked it up from there, figuring I'd help my buddy out with his distraction. "It's aimed at peak G-rankers. Apparently the participants will be expected to break through after the winners are decided before being allowed to actually get in. I've been thinking over the reason, and while supposedly it's to prevent the larger forces from using their foundations to bully the smaller ones, I'm pretty sure it's meant to be an equalizer of sorts. Ranks can span a wide range of stat totals. By making sure that only newly Ascended F-rankers enter, they ensure that the fighters all have around a thousand points total."

I didn't mention that this was Callie's theory, though my girlfriend gave me a slight smirk for taking credit. I didn't care though, I would have come up with it eventually. It wasn't my fault she was a sneaky political mastermind. Besides, she got credit for all the stuff-punching I did. We were a team, which meant we should share all of our accomplishments equally. I paused for a second before sighing, even I couldn't think that with a straight face. So I added. "At least that's what Callie thinks. It sounds legit to me though."

She gave me a look of surprise tinged with gratitude, and I was suddenly much less embarrassed to be giving up credit. I'd have given up plenty more of it to see that look on her face. I don't think it really would have bothered her if I took credit, but it definitely meant something to her that I didn't. I kind of felt like I'd just passed some kind of boyfriend test that neither of us realized I was taking. I wasn't going to question it. If I'd made her happy that was good enough, no need to think too much about it.

Celine, coughed politely, drawing my attention to the fact that we'd kind of been having a moment that excluded everyone else in public. I cocked my head inquiringly, not bothering to feel abashed or self-conscious about that. She smiled slightly. "That certainly sounds like an interesting event to participate in. Do you know any of the details of how it's going to work?"

"Sure." I said casually. "We know that much like the majority of Ascendant events it's aimed at groups of ten. The winner gets ten slots to the Moonsong Glade. We have an agreement for slots with another group, so if we win we'll need to give up three. You guys can sign up as well, I'm told that it's an open tournament. There's going to be G-rankers from other planets all over the system though. I think there will be more than just the ten entering, maybe from other systems, but I haven't had a chance to confirm that."

I made sure to point out that they could sign up, because we weren't going to be inviting them to come with us. As much as I'd have loved to bring them, there was no chance they were at a level that they could help us actually win. With possible access to powerhouses like Cark, Abel, and Mel, it would be stupid to team up with relative newbies like Grimmengap. Of course, I didn't say that directly, and Callie could change her mind, but I knew my girlfriend well enough to understand how pragmatic she could be.

They didn't seem to take offense at least, Celine looked intrigued and kind of excited, and the other two just looked interested in the event. I breathed an internal sigh of relief at the fact that I hadn't accidentally started a fight by excluding them. I flicked my eyes to Callie, mentally passing the ball now that the explanation was done, and she stood, clapping her hands once purposefully. "Well! We can look into that more on the way, but I'd love to hit the information hall. We have a mission to turn in, and I'd really love to see how high it pushes our ranking up."

Everyone stood at that, not bothered to be done relaxing. We still weren't in a hurry, and I doubted we would run or anything, but where we all hung out didn't matter, and advancement was always at least partly on all of our minds. Besides, we could still talk on the way, being around others would just limit the topics a bit. We headed for the information hall, and as we went, Sarah dragged Jessie ahead and started asking her all about our adventures, and catching us up on theirs.

Grimmengap had been on several interesting missions while we had been away, I had to admit. Hunting a red cap tribe, a village of goblins out in the wilderness, an actual fucking minotaur, and tracking down and capturing an Ascendant with a specialized racial trait (a lamia) who had been poisoning search parties recently. Sarah's priest abilities left her able to neutralize poisons pretty well ( the church dealt with the black sorrow cult often, and the cultists LOVED poison) which made them an ideal party to track down the G-ranked devil.

The more monstrous bearers of racial traits were often lumped in as devils, while the more abstract ones were often called spirits. Not that devils should be confused with Devils, who, as we had been told, were a subspecies of that overarching group that were a whole other level of scary. The Wendigo had been a devil, and the lamia was the same, making it really impressive Grimmengap had managed to subdue one. I was pretty sure it hadn't been as scary as the one we fought, but even being in the same category made it terrifying.

In turn, Jessie filled our friends in on us joining up with the Beast Lord Garden, and a sanitized version of our adventures in G-district, minus any sensitive information. That left her more room than I'd have suspected. It always amazed me how clever Jessie could be while keeping up that same impression of cheerful obliviousness. She was sharp as a knife when she needed to be.

By the time she finished talking, she'd managed to tell most of the story without giving away any secrets, and had roused Grimmengap's interest in the Starchaser Pavilion as a whole, getting them to promise to come visit after we finished our business on campus. Considering how small the Pavilion currently was it would be amazing to have them come check it out and possibly join up. Especially if word got out about the place and some of the other Academy students got involved as well.

As a guest elder, I was allied with the Beast Lord Garden, but not exactly part of it, which meant the Pavilion had the unique benefit of being a new and completely separate G-ranked force with explicit E-ranked backing. We were too new to matter to the old timers, and too powerful to be messed with by upstarts, and I looked forward to seeing what we could do with a faction like that. Especially after we kicked ass at the tournament, I had a feeling people would be hearing all about the Starchaser Pavilion in the future, and I couldn't wait.

 

The trip to the information hall was a short one, just getting our missions out of the way. We managed to find a second one that we had accomplished by accident, which was nice, and between the points my own ranking jumped up to two hundred forty five thousand eight hundred and six. Ir probably would have been a bigger jump, but a week or two with no progress had caused a serious ranking drop for us, and honestly I was lucky I managed to get higher than I had originally been at all.

Once we got through that we headed for the pavilion as we'd talked about, and once we arrived, Callie, Benny, and Jessie took Grimmengap to be introduced to the others while I got the wishes for Sloane and co. out of the way. I actually managed to get some Fantasy this time, fifteen points bringing me up to a grand total of thirty six. Apparently Croll had a surplus of the stat, which crossed off one thing on my list.

Finally, I joined back up with the others, who were being introduced to Abel, Mel, and Alden. Everyone noticed me when I appeared and I gave a short wave. "Hey all, sorry had to check in with our people from Beast Lord Garden. How goes the introductions? Did you show them the obstacle course yet? Because seriously, that place is pretty fantastic." I had been floored my first time seeing it, and it was amazing for training, even if it made me a bit uncomfortable while it was actually in use.

Sarah was looking around in awe, clearly the most excited of the group. "No, but that sounds interesting. This whole place is amazing. I saw funnel cake on the way in. I love funnel cake. I'm definitely going to get some as we're leaving. I can't believe I missed it when I was here before." She was practically bouncing in excitement, and I had to fight down a smile at the enthusiasm.

"Actually." I said with amusement. "I had wanted to check in with Mel and Abel about a few things." I glanced at the red bearded man whose leg I still had to offer to regrow. "Alden, can you show our friends around?You're the only one Cicero probably isn't too annoyed at right now. I wanted to talk to you as well, but it can wait until later. " I really didn't want to regrow his leg in the middle of the Pavilion while everyone was around. I'd offer him the wish later when we had a chance to talk in private.

He just chuckled. "Aye. The boy may have irritated his brother a bit with his earlier bullying. I can show them around." He turned a welcoming smile on Sarah. "You mentioned funnel cake, little miss? I know the best stall for it, and perhaps a few other delicious treats you might enjoy." He gestured for her to follow, and Sarah trailed after, already excitedly listing some of the things she hadn't gotten to try last time we were down here.

Celine and Martin trailed behind, the elf girl dragging Benny along by the hand stoically enough that if I couldn't see her gripping him I wouldn't have thought she cared one way or the other. Jessie decided to tag along with them, leaving Callie and I alone with Mel and Abel, which had been what I was aiming at. I turned to the rabbit masked man. "Ok, first thing. Did you hear back about the ransom yet? Is the Pavilion allowed to keep that? We did capture them in the first place, and the negotiation is through the Beast Lord Garden."

Abel laughed. "Hello to you too Solomon. But yes to both. We made the exchange. We forced them to cough up a hundred F-ranked chits per person. Sanctuary Hall are stupidly wealthy so I figured I'd really put the screws to them. We have the funds earmarked for faction development, but we didn't want to actually spend them before consulting you." He grimaced. "Damn, I hate being a person who says things like that now. I can't believe I have a...BOSS." He shuddered theatrically.

"You always had a boss." Mel snorted. "I just wasn't paying you for your services." Ignoring her boyfriend's mortified look that she had said that in front of us, she continued. "As for the funds...I can go over options with you if you want, or I can invest it in growth for you. I've been running this place for years. I don't have a problem with you kids taking over if it means I'm finally free of Cicero's nonsense, but that doesn't make me any less experienced at the day to day."

I glanced over to Callie, giving her a nod, and she shot Mel a warm smile. "Hey, we aren't stupid. We don't know anything about this place. We put you both in charge because you knew what to do better than us. Invest the money how you want. Maybe talk to Sloane though. Beast Lord Garden are allies of ours, they might be able to set you up with some tamed beasts or something." She paused. "Actually we might be able to do that. Agria is a hell of a tamer." She waited a bit then shook her head. "Nah, stick with the experts. I think Agria needs to be around consistently to make that arrangement."

Mel looked intrigued. "I'll ask them about it. Even if we don't go that route, I'm sure they're in touch with some useful people. In either case, thank you for trusting us. This whole thing kind of came out of left field, but I appreciate you trying to work with us on this more than you can know." Her voice softened as her eyes turned to Abel. "It's one of the many amazing things that I can hardly believe are happening right now. My life has gone through quite a few changes, and all for the good."

Returning the smile I could hear in her tone, Abel reached out and took her hand. Knowing how long they had been apart neither Callie nor I could bear to cut things off when there wasn't some urgent crisis coming so we gave them their moment, which admittedly dragged on for longer than was really comfortable for us (though taking my own girlfriends hand and squeezing tightly certainly helped, as we stared at what might be future versions of us, hopefully without the long time apart in between).

Finally he let her hand fall. Neither of them cleared their throat uncomfortably or tried to redirect attention, they just moved on from the moment, no indecision or embarrassment like a less stable couple might have had. As they refocused I turned to Abel. "So, with that out of the way, we had something we were hoping to talk to you both about. Something we think will help with the Pavilion's reputation as well as all of our personal power. What do you know about the Moonsong Glade?"

The rabbit masked man shrugged. "Never heard of it. Doesn't exactly sound local, but to be fair, Callus is big, so there's a non zero chance that it could be some small faction or location no one has ever mentioned to me. Still, if it was somewhere important I'd think I would know about it. Am I to take it this is some newly discovered spot that could be a benefit to us?"

"Not exactly." I said uncertainly. "Or maybe? I'm honestly not clear on that. I know it's a dungeon, a very important one. I know that there's a tournament that involves everyone in the system that's coming up. If we win we get ten slots to enter. I doubt we'll be the only ones, but I'm not sure who else might be there? Maybe people from something bigger than the star system? Whatever that is. Point is I don't know if Moonsong Glade is NEW but I know it's new to us."

He waved a hand casually. "Same thing. Dungeons are all old as dirt, but recently rediscovered is the same thing as new for our purposes. It's a star cluster by the way. Star systems are smaller portions of star clusters. There are usually ten of them in each." He paused. "I've never been sure why they divide them like that. Someone out there really is really obsessed with the number ten. Anyway, that means a hundred people will be entering, if it's a cluster event. I take it you want to enter this tournament?"

I nodded. "Exactly. The place is apparently able to spawn resources that let people increase Impact, which is huge. It would give us a massive boost against anyone our own rank, and help bridge the gap fighting up ranks. The only issue is that while the tournament is aimed at G-rankers, the dungeon itself is F-rank exclusive. If you wanted to participate you would need to rank up. I know how long you've been at G-rank, I wasn't sure you would be willing."

"What?" Abel asked, tone confounded as he blinked in confusion. "Why would I not want to rank up?" I blinked back. I'd been expecting to have to convince him, and had about a dozen arguments lined up for reasons that this would be a good thing for the Pavilion and him in particular.

Cocking my head, I cautiously said. "Because you spent years at G-rank, and went out of your way not to gather any extra attention or break through, presumably so you could reinforce your foundation and become stronger at your current level? Asking you to throw all that away for my own plan just seemed kind of shitty, but I'm not sure we can win without you so I decided to give it a shot."

The gale of laughter that came out as a response to that was NOT the reply I had expected. Abel doubled over cackling at something I didn't think was that funny, but I patiently waited for him to get the laugh out of his system. "Oh wow." He said, wiping away a tear of laughter. "I needed that. Thanks. But no, I'm not some kind of eternal G-ranker who wants to become skilled enough to take on the whole universe without ever Ascending. There are limits to even my hubris. I had reasons to stick to this rank, but they're pretty much all gone at this point."

Mel shrugged. "I mostly stuck around at this level because I wanted to take care of the Pavilion while he was gone. If I ranked up I would have been leaving them under Cicero's control when I inevitably ended up heading to F-district. Now that we aren't a member of his faction anymore, and our new one has ties to E-district, we have a lot more leeway to control how things go down here without stepping on toes even if we rank up. I'd be down to fight in a tournament if you guys need me. It would be a nice way to break back onto the scene."

"Hell yes." Abel said excitedly. "So many people have forgotten me. Now that I'm not living in self imposed exile I'm itching for a fight. Plus, if we're talking foundation, early Impact advancement is the best foundation build up you can do. No way I'd miss something like that." He looked us over. "You do realize that in order to do this you're going to need to be at the edge of a breakthrough when we go into the tournament? You're also nowhere near tough enough to manage against most of the Titan Twenty."

Chuckling, I just said. "Yeah, that's kind of the other reason we came here. We'd been training with Alden, but I'd be pretty interested in getting some lessons from you two. Especially on cooperative combat. The two of us work well together, but you guys are like magic. It'll be tough to squeeze in, since the tournament is only two months out, but we have confidence we can manage. So, what do you say, you two up to do some team training?" Somewhere deep down, a part of me that had mostly died out after all the craziness of my life whispered to me that the vicious grin Abel gave at the question probably boded ill for us. That was just paranoia though, right?

 

"Ow!" I yelped as a rock smacked into the back of my skull. The stone turned to powder on impact, having been thrown hard enough to break on my higher ranked head. I reached up to grip my head with a hiss of pain, spinning around to try to spot the person who threw it. Something I had no luck doing while wearing this gods damned blindfold. I heard a chuckle to one side and whirled to face that direction. "How is this a useful training exercise?" I snarled at Abel, who was completely hidden from my sight.

Abel's voice echoed around us. "I already told you this. When you're working with a partner, you need to be able to function as if you're two halves of a whole. It's not enough to just cover their back. You need to abandon your own defense and dedicate yourself solely to theirs. A proper partnership means you can unleash your full attack power at all times with no thought to defending yourself. Protecting your partner can be done offensively, but in order for that to work, you need absolute trust."

I whirled uselessly in circles, listening for the sound of stones flying. Not near me, but off to the side where Callie stood. I couldn't resist pointing out the obvious though. "Yes, but there has to be a better way to do that than...THIS. This is ridiculous-" My eyes widened behind my mask as I heard a sound, shooting out to attack the spot I heard the stone split the air. My fist hit nothing and I heard Callie yelp in pain as the sound of a rock being destroyed against a human skull rang dully in the air.

I winced. "Sorry baby." I got a snarly of annoyance in response, but Callie didn't speak. It was my turn now anyway though, so it wasn't like it would matter. Still, I had to admit, I HAD actually noticed that attack, if belatedly. I groaned. "Ok. I get the basic idea, but can you explain the actual mechanics of this bullshit again? Because if you can't make it make sense, I'm going to assume you just like throwing rocks at us."

That got a snicker from our teacher. "Fine. I'll explain it one more time. When you're operating as part of a team, you are half of a whole. Concentrating one protecting yourself and working with your partner are TWO tasks. Separate tasks that detract from each other. However, when you abandon self defense and dedicate yourself completely to cooperation, you reach a level cohesion impossible when you're just two independent entities supporting one another."

There was another whoosh of air and a crack against my skull as I staggered under another rock blow, yelping in pain. I wasn't allowed to block his attacks on me. Only the ones aimed at Callie. I also wasn't allowed to fucking SEE. Apparently the point of this was to hone our instinctual response to danger aimed at the other to work indistinguishably from our own survival instinct. By making it perfect reflex to defend the other person, we would have deeper integration in combat.

Being able to see the attacks coming would make this a conscious effort rather than a reflexive action. So we both got to wear fucking blindfolds and try to defend the other person in darkness based on intuition and the brief instant of noise when the rock was launched. I sighed, devoting myself to perceiving...everything. I really needed to get this down, since we apparently wouldn't be allowed to stop until we managed it.

I closed my eyes (not that it mattered with the blindfold, but it just felt right) and focused on my senses. Hearing. Smell. Taste. Touch. Literally anything that could function in a helpful way. I could have used a skill obviously. Seek Hidden would be perfect here. But despite my complaining I was mildly interested to see if this would work. I already felt like I was seeing some results, and I didn't want to ruin my possible gains by cheating. It would defeat the whole fucking purpose of asking for their help if we just ignored them.

A sigh of air split the space a few feet to my side, and I lashed out at the spot as quickly as possible. At the last second though, I altered my course, aiming instead right in front of where the thing had been when I heard it. I didn't manage to actually land the hit, but I DID manage to slightly graze it. I heard a grunt from Callie, but it sounded different. "Time out!" Mel called. "That was actually close to a proper hit. Not exactly reflexive, you're thinking too much, but it's progress, so you can have a break."

I took off my blindfold, glancing over to see Callie brushing grey dust off her shoulder. The slight graze had changed the trajectory slightly. That wasn't bad. Still. I had to question the process. "Ok. Being able to properly predict attacks is great and all, but I don't think this is having the effect you think it is. I'm just learning to predict attacks, and there are less stupid ways to do that."

Mel snickered at that. "Do you think so? Quick question then. If you just heard the sound of the air being disturbed and reacted, how did you know what direction it was heading? You didn't just predict where it was going, you managed to perfectly match that prediction to where your partner was standing so you could properly react to it. You showed an innate grasp of exactly where Nightstrike was positioned without needing to call out to her or bother with verbal
communication."

Abel stepped into view, tossing a rock up and down casually. "She's right. You might not think you're learning anything, but your baseline awareness of each other IS improving. It's just a slow and irritating process to go through. Trust me. We did this training too. It's never fun." He paused, catching the rock. "Well, that's not true. It's fun actually DOING it to someone. But experiencing the training is never fun."

"I get it." I said with annoyance. "I just wish I felt like we were managing this effectively instead of stumbling through it. Can we take a minute though? I need some time to kind of mentally reset." Abel looked dubious for a second, but finally nodded, and I exhaled with relief. There was such a thing as too much training. Sometimes your brain needed to shift back to a receptive state before you could learn more.

Producing a small case from his coat, he gestured us over to the edge of the ring to sit down. We were in the Pavilion, using some sort of training setup that he'd had on hand, bracelets that partially suppressed Perception, and probably did other things I didn't notice.

When we all sat down he opened the case and started pulling out what looked a bit like energy bars, passing one to each of us. I took mine, sniffed it experimentally, then took a bit. I was pleasantly surprised by the taste of strawberries and cream, and chewed happily. Eventually though, I swallowed and turned to Abel with a question. "Can I ask you something? It might be a little abrupt, maybe even personal depending how you look at it?"

He just shrugged, seemingly uncaring, and I paused to figure out how to frame my next words. "How do you do it?" I asked. "How do you kill people so casually? We killed a bunch of people in the sige, I killed them. I know it was necessary, that they would have killed or hurt us, but it still makes me sick just thinking about it. How do you learn to ignore the part of you that recoils at that?"

Rather than be offended, Abel just made a noise of understanding and interest, like I'd asked something very interesting. "I suppose to answer that I would need to really know when it happened. My case was a bit different though. Cicero and I lost our parents young, and I think that triggered our abilities sooner than was normal. We were still children when our powers came to the forefront. We ended up down here, where Alden took us in, and we were raised for this kind of life from a very young age."

He looked at Mel wistfully. "Mel was already here when we arrived. She awakened even earlier than we did. I never asked why. Didn't seem right. I suppose none of us ever had the resistance to ending others that normal people develop and Ascendants unlearn. For other Ascendants, I suppose part of it is recursion. Cultivation is brutal, we all know it deep down, we all know that there are only so many stories to tell, and that for ours to continue others must end, even if we fight it."

"But." He said. "If you're asking how to turn that off, how to stop caring when you take a life...don't. It's inconvenient, and messy, but caring like that makes you better. It's a little bit of humanity that other Ascendants mostly don't have. Touchstones like that are, somewhat counterintuitively good for holding off other forms of recursion as you grow. If nurtured properly, you can use that as a foundation to build the person you are in such a way that you'll come out stronger for it." He sighed. "I'm explaining this badly, but it isn't something you can understand without a decade or two of recursion behind you. Just trust me. Don't stop caring. Not until you have to."

It was strange talking to someone at the same rank as me that was already so much further into their life as an Ascendant. Even stranger because he felt so much further along the process of becoming a legend than I was. We had the same Impact, but it felt like he'd left behind so much more of his humanity. Was it the time? Was I somehow avoiding recursion by sprinting through the ranks? But then again had I really? I'd changed so much since becoming an Ascendant.

Maybe it was the fact that I was a superhero. Abel wasn't exactly a villain, the WCP didn't really delineate that kind of thing, but he wasn't considered a hero even back in the day. Abel was closer to a pure cultivator than a heroic cultivator. Hell, I didn't even know if he used the job system. That wasn't the kind of thing you asked someone who was already going out of their way to help you. The subject of recursion never failed to unsettle me when it came up.

I just sighed. This shit was complicated. I finished my power bar and popped to my feet, putting the wrapper in my pocket. "Alright. I think that's enough philosophy. I believe you two still have rocks to throw at our heads. I'd like to get this training out of the way so we can move on. You said this is a necessary first step right?" I was now mostly convinced it wasn't just an excuse to beat on us, but I couldn't help but ask one more time. My questions couldn't possibly be more annoying than the training itself, so I hardly had a reason to feel bad.

Abel stood up, stretching casually despite having been doing nothing but throwing rocks at us for like two hours. "Once your awareness of each other has reached an instinctive level we can begin combat training. I'm not going to start teaching you when you'll just develop bad habits you'll need to unlearn. This is the first step, we need to get it right so the following ones will be built on a stable foundation." He tossed a rock up and caught it, giving me a vicious grin. "Now, blindfolds back on. We have work to do." Joy. My head was aching already.

 

It took us the whole day to manage to properly internalize each other's positions to an instinctual level. I was almost positive we were doing it in a way that shouldn't even be possible, though I suspected the senses we got from the Fantasy stat were playing a part. Once we managed that, we were allowed to go home, with instructions to come back the next day bright and early.

When we did return, I got my wishes out of the way first thing, another fifteen points in Fantasy to shore up my biggest weakness, and because I was starting to see how valuable that stat actually was. I'd been using all five on the crew from the Beast Lord Garden, despite being able to spare two a day, because I really needed the points for the moment. I had to do three minimum, but I wasn't limited to three wishes for them. I'd be free to use those spare two wishes a day for Callie soon enough, just as long as I didn't push her past G-rank.

Today, the exercise had changed. The blindfolds were gone, in exchange we were expected to fight against ten Pavilion fighters without using any active Skills. Balam Mastery for example was fine, as was Gymnastics, but DS Mastery was out. I'd expected the training from the day before to be immensely useful for our battle, and it definitely was, but not quite as much as I had hoped. I was able to intuit and intercept blows aimed at Callie, but only when I could reach them, which with so many different points of attack wasn't all the time.

Abel, to my surprise, didn't seem even remotely disturbed by this. During one of our breaks, I asked him about it, and his response shed some light on things. "Of course you aren't keeping up." He said with exasperation. "I told you that the rock exercise was only step one. I also told you step two would involve combat. This would be that. Learning to integrate your combat style into a whole is about more than keeping in mind where your other half is and reacting when they're attacked."

"How to explain this?" He asked rhetorically, stopping to gather his thoughts. "What you have right now, is the beginnings of an instinct. You react when your partner is attacked, by that isn't true cohesion, it's just a learned reflex. You've spent years training yourself and being trained by experience to protect your own body first. Your instinct is to survive, and then to react after that. You still need to unlearn that. The reflex you gained yesterday is the beginning of that process, but not even remotely close to the end."

He didn't bother allowing me any more questions, just sent me back out to fight, but as I experienced things, I understood. Deflecting an attack against Callie was beginning to be instinct, but that was still limited. I was reacting, but it was because I was prepared to react. I was waiting for it. This was all still a conscious effort on my part, even if that was fading. It would take more than a few hours of training to completely abandon all of my survival instincts in battle and learn to rely entirely on a partner.

Even thinking about it like that felt...dangerous. So much could go wrong. That was the point though. Trust. Absolute knowledge of and faith in your partner. I'd seen what it led to during the siege, seen what that kind of combat style could become. Mel and Abel were monsters alone, but they were a force of nature together. Granted, the instincts couldn't be completely abandoned. I knew that. Abel fought alone at times, as did Mel, and if they had just thrown away all survival instinct at those times they would probably be dead.

I assumed that would be covered later in the lessons though. For now, we just had to focus on being part of the whole, on knowing each other better than we knew ourselves. As we fought though, that seemed to become easier and easier. The training we'd done together over the months and the awareness we had developed blended together into one cohesive whole, letting us operate on a level that was already far beyond what we'd been able to do before.

It wasn't enough. Not yet. These were Pavilion warriors, powerful and skilled combatants who focused on martial prowess above all else, and they were a unified fighting force. Not like we were trying to become, but they knew each other, and they weren't liabilities to each other. Our biggest advantage was in the Balam Mastery Skill actually. Callie and I both used Balam for our combat style, and the circular nature made a shifting front much easier to manage. Circling each other and taking advantage of this new defensive sense we had.

The longer it went on, the more sense I made of what Abel had said. I was waiting for Callie to be attacked even now, but it was an action I was taking. The downsides to that became apparent under the barrage of attacks. After I intercepted one, my body began to relax because I'd accomplished my goal. I wasn't in danger, and I'd defended Callie like I planned, so my task was done. It left me vulnerable for the followups and to attacks from other angles.

I had to continue to polish this instinct like he'd said, to become more in tune with danger to my partner and less in tune with danger to myself. It didn't help that my normal survival instincts were screaming at me to react to attacks on my person. Trusting Callie to protect me mentally was great, but it was harder to force my body to ignore danger, which slowed me down and interrupted my flow of battle as my muscles tensed. That might not be much normally, but against attackers this good, it was a big problem.

Which was the point. Making sure we had to perfect the skills they had started us learning to advance. I desperately wanted to use my overlay for this training, but I knew that having an instruction manual would actually be a liability here. I was supposed to be training my reactions, and being able to see attacks coming would make me dependent on that skill. So I just kind of...unfocused. Let myself completely relax and just take in information.

I winced as a hammer slammed into my ribs. "Sorry!" Shouted Callie, even as I reacted to an attack aimed at her back without even seeing it. My cane whirled up to smack into a metal ball at the end of a long chain before it could hit her skull, my instincts adding up all the little signs of the attack and reacting to them flawlessly. I shot my girlfriend a thumbs up, which she returned with a happy smile...at least until the end of a staff slammed into her eye, sending her stumbling back, cursing in pain.

I cursed alongside her, and followed after, knowing they would attack while she was distracted. "My bad honey. I'm having trouble sticking with this whole thing. After blocking the first attack my instincts are just turning off." I scowled over at Abel, shouting to my mentor. "How long is it going to take before we completely convert our instincts in to protective instead of survival?"

That got a laugh from the rabbit masked man. "What? No, that isn't what we're doing. You're learning to stay in that state for the duration of the fight. Completely abandoning your survival instincts would be crazy, and it would also take literally years to learn. That shit is hard coded into your body, it would take more than a few training session to get you to abandon that. Think of this more as a state of meditation you're learning to enter."

Blinking slowly, I nodded. That made much more sense. Thinking back, none of his speeches had mentioned abandoning that intuition completely. Just changing it. I probably should have figured that I'd be learning to do this for short periods of time. It made so much more sense, and it was much less daunting to think about too. I'd been worried deep down about the viability of doing something so drastic in such a short time. This seemed like a more feasible goal.

That was all the distraction I could manage before I took a blow to the side of the head. Abel laughed, calling over. "Do you really think holding a conversation right now is a good plan? You're having enough trouble with this as it is. Adding another person to take up your attention is bound to ruin the flow of battle. Not that you won't need to learn that eventually, but ignoring distractions is the next lesson. You have to walk before you can run kid."

Letting out a growl of annoyance I stepped closer to Callie. I couldn't defend myself, and if she didn't do it I'd be screwed, which meant I had to defend her and stop getting distracted by Abel's nonsense. I was distracting her too, which was just making all of this worse. My cane flashed out, knocking a pair of blows away from her and then whirled the other way, intercepting another blow from that damn chain ball.

I had to stop myself from freezing at that. I'd done it. Only for a second, but I'd been so distracted I hadn't had to focus at all on ignoring my survival instinct, just losing myself in the task of protection with no interruption. Callie's fist smashed into the hammer I'd been hit by earlier, defending me before I even noticed the attack, and I gave her a nod of thanks. That had been exactly what was supposed to happen here.

Which was frustrating because now I couldn't tell if Abel was fucking with me to see me get my ass kicked or if he was actively doing his job. I was beginning to regret this decision. Abel was an effective fighter, but as a teacher he was kind of an asshole. Alden was nowhere near this sadistic. Probably. Ok I still didn't know how many of those training techniques were real and how many were just him messing with us. But if he was as sadistic he was at least better at hiding it.

I lost myself in battle after that. The feel of the occasional painful strike enough to sometimes bring me back to myself enough to note when an hour passed here or there. I managed to fall into that meditative state he mentioned a few times, but every time it happened I noticed it and got excited, knocking me back out of it and usually causing me to freeze up and get hit. I really needed Jessie to patch me up, but Abel had forbidden us to use her ability, saying that the euphoria from the supercharge would unbalance us and skew the results of the training.

Finally he called a halt to the session. "Alright that's enough." His voice rang out over the Pavilion ring with authority. Mel wasn't here for this part, saying she had paperwork to do and that it wasn't necessary here anyway. As everyone filed away, Abel jumped down and strolled over to look down at where Callie and I were slumped, panting, on the ground. "Decent effort you two. I'd say at this rate you'll need three more days of this before we move onto the next phase. You have the rest of the day off, but be back here at dawn tomorrow."

He turned and walked away, missing my middle finger being aimed at his back. I probably could have told him what an asshole he was, but I was too tired to muster up a sentence, so I just let it go. I slumped against Callie, who groaned lightly but didn't push me away. Then I just lay there, sore and exhausted as my girlfriend reached up to play with my hair. I smiled slightly. I had to admit, this part was kind of nice. Still wasn't worth it though.

 

A week. A week of constant ass kicking, three days of the group fights alone, then four more days of group fights while Abel did his best to actively distract us. That week got me seventy points, as well as seven attacks to stockpile. Thirty five wishes. The seventy points were distributed to my stats mostly evenly. Fifty to Fantasy, bringing it up to a hundred and one, and then ten each to Perception and Creation bringing them to one hundred even and one hundred and two respectively.

Knowing I could get to that point without dedicating every wish to stats, we started letting Callie make the two remaining wishes after the contractually obligated three for the Beast Lord Garden for the last two days, as well as giving her one for the third to last. The seven shadow attacks brought me to an even ten, and Callie dumped all thirty five points into Fantasy as she'd been considering bringing her to an even hundred and twenty.

It was a truly staggering windfall for us, rounding us out in multiple important ways, and we saw the benefit of almost none of it during our training. Abel refused to let us use Skills, and had made sure to engage suppression to prevent us from abusing our stats to compensate for the numbers, so while we were growing more powerful, it didn't have a pronounced effect on our combat abilities as it happened.

That wasn't to say our combat abilities didn't improve. They definitely did. Even with the suppression, our cooperation for smoother and more intuitive as we went on. As we progressed, Abel started throwing us curve balls to distract us. Making us switch to fighting alone against half the attackers, then staggering the numbers, and at one point throwing ACTUAL curveballs at us from behind when we were mid battle to try to ruin our focus.

We reacted to all of them as seamlessly as possible, making some mistakes at the beginning, but slowly growing more comfortable slipping into our 'teamwork trance' and then back out of it. Even the curveballs weren't landing by the end of the week, Callie and I able to defend each other even from Abel's absolutely monstrous sense of spatial awareness and eye for weaknesses. He wasn't using his power to attack us or anything, but we had definitely come a long way and I was proud of our progress.

Which is why I was deeply concerned when we showed up to the Pavilion and I found not ten people, but two, standing in the circle of dirt waiting for us. Mel and Abel were standing relaxed, seemingly unconcerned with our arrival as they waved us over without looking up from a game of chess they were playing at a small table. Abel held up a finger to ask us to hold, and then continued the game, effectively ignoring us for about twenty minutes as the two of them finished up their game, not appearing to hurry at all.

When they finished, I expected them to stop, but again, I was thrown for a loop as they reset the pieces. This time though, Abel began to speak. "We've been working with you for a bit over a week now, and you've gotten much better about your awareness. Your instinctive grasp over each other's position is passing now, at least when you try. In the process of that, however, your combat styles have both changed from what they were. The version of you that fights next to your partner, and the version of you who fights BESIDE them, react to things in different ways."

He made a move, and Mel clucked her tongue in annoyance before picking up the thread of the conversation. "What my cryptic ass of a boyfriend is trying to say, in the most pretentious way possible, is that you need to relearn each others habits. You know how your partner fights, but that's changed. Proper cooperation is built with trust, and trust is built with knowledge and communication. The better you know someone, the more at ease you can feel when putting yourself in their hands."

I raised a skeptical eyebrow behind my mask. "So...you want us to play chess? I assume that's where this is going and that we aren't just here to spectate your own games? Because I don't think even you two can convince me that watching you play a board game is a viable training method for team combat." Mel glanced over at me with a chuckle, which faded into a curse as Abel made another move.

"No." She said. "You will be playing. As for the reason...well, chess has lots of correlation with real battle. It's limited and constrained enough not to be a great representation of combat, but that serves our purposes perfectly here. We WANT limited and constrained for this part. You need to build your understanding of each other back up slowly. Of course, you aren't going to be playing to a win. Beating another person is easy. Fuck, who uses an en passant anymore?" She cleared her throat as she realized she'd trailed off. "Sorry, as I was saying, easy. What we want you to do is play to a stalemate. Well, one of you. The other one will be trying for a win. That'll alternate."

That was...harder. I knew the rules for chess, my dad had taught me as a kid. He hadn't exactly been around, but he sent tasks for me to do and contacted me remotely often enough as a child. Chess was easy to play over long distances, and it fit well with his mindset. Still, she was right. Winning a chess game was MUCH easier than trying to force a draw. At least against an opponent trying to beat you. I could already see how annoying this was going to be. Still, I saw the logic at least, and I was pretty sure Callie did too.

It took about a half hour for the game to finish and when it did they stood up and gestured to us to sit down. "Ok." Said Abrl. "Solomon is up first, you're going to be the one trying for a draw. Let's see how well you know Nightstrike. Pay close attention to her play style and how it compares to the way she acts in combat. Learning the way that kind of thing translates is the key to being able to predict her moves. If you can't learn to do it with something as structured as chess you have no shot in a real fight."

I sat down and started to play, going slowly and taking my time. Unsurprisingly, Abel didn't stop talking as we had our game,continuing to wax philosophical. "If it helps, this isn't just a benefit to combat. It's really good for your relationship to learn how the other person thinks. Being able to intuit your partners emotions is the key to a successful courtship." His tone was distant in a way that implied he was trying for wisdom, but it was cut off by his ear being grabbed roughly. "Ow, ow, ow Mel that hurts!"

The red masked woman was glaring down at her boyfriend. "Are you really in a position to be giving these kids relationship advice after running off on me for years? If so, maybe you can educate me too. Tell me, what kind of emotions are your intuition picking up from me right now?" The half of Abel's face exposed by the mask paled as his eyes widened like a deer in headlights. Seeing a guy that powerful cowering like that was pretty sad. I would have laughed at him for it, but I felt like Callie might get upset at me for being petty.

I very deliberately ignored the irony as I chose to focus on helping Abel out. "So, is this the last step in this hare brained training you have us doing? Because I'm anxious to get to the point where we can train with actual Skills." I was lucky I had so many points to give to Callie actually, because I would need a LOT of shadow attacks for all the training we were planning on doing. Just a shame she needed them more than the others, I really could have used some more fire attacks. I would be sure to get some from Cark before the tournament.

Abel's eyes snapped from fearful to suspicious so fast it became clear he had mostly been playing up the patheticness for Mel's amusement as he glared at me. "First of all. No rabbit jokes. You're better than that, and if your aren't, I have MUCH more intense training I can subject you to until you are." He pulled away from Mel. "Second of all. No. There's another step after this before we allow Skill use. But it's combat oriented so I'm sure you'll enjoy it quite a bit." The way he was grinning at the thought made me pretty suspicious of that prediction, but I couldn't spend too much time watching because I was busy.

The game itself ran for about an hour. Playing for a stalemate was weird. I'd learned chess with the express purpose of victory, and playing against someone to essentially make sure no one won, was a radically different mindset. Rather than playing for position, I was aiming to exchange as many pieces as possible just to free up the space to box her in. Lots of amateurs played that way even in serious games, but rapid trading was actually an incredibly stupid way to play in the early game, at least if you wanted to win.

I'd also never played chess with Callie before. Abel's nonsense turned out to be accurate again though, because when I paid attention, I COULD see similarities between Callie's play style and her fighting style, and I could somewhat reverse engineer those similarities to predict her moves. Despite how weird and absurd that had sounded, I'd neglected to remember that I was now at over a hundred Focus, meaning my brain was processing approximately a hundred times faster than even a genius mortal.

Focus was...a weird stat. It came across in the day to day as improved memory. Most of the rest of the time it wasn't really obvious how it effected you save for offsetting Perception overload. It was just a ton of raw processing power, but in the same way a scan box would have a massive processor. I didn't USE that much processing power most of the time, so it didn't have a marked impact on my daily life.

At times like this though, when I was cranking my deductive skills as hard as I could, I really drew on those reserves. It showed me more than anything how deeply stats could effect you without you noticing. There were so many aspects of stat gain that I never bothered to try to tap into, still constrained by my mortal mindset. I suspected people like Abel had a much more holistic grasp on their stats and how to make the most of every point at all times. I made a mental note to try to put some effort into that when I finally got the chance, but I knew for the moment it was just another thing on the pile.

I lost the game, and Abel made us reset. This time I was trying to win, which I did. We played back and forth for hours, constantly switching which of us would try to stall the other. By the end of the day we'd each managed at least one win, with me managing a second. Once the training was done, Abel called a stop to it and began to put away the board. As he did, he gave us both an approving nod. "Good. You learned what you needed to. I want you to keep doing that exercise nightly, one game for each of you. As for here though...well, like I said, the next step is a bit more physical. Make sure you wear your armor tomorrow." He gave us a wide grin. "It's time for me to take a...personal hand in your sparring matches."

 

We got in early the next day, as requested. Well, day was a strong word. We arrived in what was technically the morning, despite the lack of sun and any waking people to interact with. We caught the Beast Lord Garden initiates going HOME for the night when we got in, and I used all five wishes for them to bump up my Perception, since it was my lowest stat. Fifteen points onto an even hundred was simple enough that I didn't have to actually think about it, which was good because thinking wasn't really my strong suit right now.

Callie was NOT pleased with this turn of events, and was not a morning person when someone woke her up instead of letting her wake naturally. So, when we arrived to find Abel waiting for us alone, she had no patience whatsoever with the nonsense games he liked to play, and just flat out asked. "Where is Mel? I thought we were supposed to be sparring with you two together?"

Abel chuckled at her waspish tone. "No. I said that I would be taking a personal hand in your training. Which I will. You're going to be getting that personal hand upside your heads for the rest of the day. Just me for now though. Get out here and get in position to attack. No Skills or abilities." We both groaned, shuffling out into the dirt ring to take up our place together across from our teacher. Once we were standing adjacent he nodded. "Good. Now fight me."

Then he just stood there. I blinked. "Ok. But...what do you want us to learn from this? We won't know what to take away from this fight if we don't know what aspect of teamwork we're supposed to be training. You can't just tell us to fight you and then not tell us why."

"Really?" He asked archly. "Why not?" I opened my mouth to respond and then trailed off, earning a smirk from Abel. "Exactly. This is training. It's my job to teach, and your job to learn. I don't need to spoon feed you every lesson. This particular training has two purposes actually, but I'm not telling you either of them. You need to figure it out yourself. Now hurry the fuck up. I want to go and get some pancakes on our first break, and I won't be stopping until neither of you can stand."

That was annoying. Hell, much of what Abel did and said was annoying. Now we had a way to respond to that. He literally told us to beat his ass. So I shrugged and lashed out with a whirl of my cane. He stepped away, towards Callie, but came up short of entering her space. I started to react to his attack, but when he didn't actually make one I kind of...froze up. Abel just stood there, looking bored. "You figure some of it out yet?" His tone was dry and somewhat mocking.

I grimaced. "Well fuck." Callie looked over at me, quizzically. I'd taken priority though, so she hadn't really noticed it. I turned to my girlfriend and sighed. "Reaction. He's trying to point out that as a team, our combat style is currently entirely reactive. It's instinctual, but instincts are responses. We don't know how to integrate in joint attacks except in response to openings we see during battle."

"See." Abel said. "I told Mel you weren't stupid. She gets caught up in that brains vs. brawn thing. Thought you wouldn't get it just because you let your girl do all the planning. I think you're a bit like me though. Combat intelligence and day to day intelligence aren't the same thing. Essentially correct, at least for the first part. You don't act, you react. Defense is great, but you need to be able to take the initiative. That SHOULD show you the second reason for this training, but somehow I doubt it will. Try again."

I looked over to Callie, gesturing subtly with a hand, and we started to circle. We might not have a way to integrate both of us into an attack directly, but some training with my wolf method could polish that weakness out. That was the reason he had banned Skills, I suspect. All of our combination attacks were Skill based. He was right that we hadn't integrated physical combat initiative into our style. Luckily for us, if we both attacked together, anything he did in response would trigger our defensive instincts.

I lashed out at the back of his head with my cane, Callie whirling out one leg to sweep his feet out from under him at nearly the same instant. Abel ducked my blow without even looking, stepped over hers, and reached up to grab my cane, pulling it slightly forward and unbalancing me as he did. I started to fall, and scrambled to catch myself by putting a foot forward, only to step into the way of Callie's foot and get my load bearing leg taken out from under me, sending me spilling to the ground.

Instead of backing off this time, Abel stepped in and aimed a stomping kick at the back of my neck. Callie tried to intercept it with a kick of her own, but Abel shifted the position of his back foot slightly,turning the stomping blow into a snap kick from the side and smashing it into Callie's head while I was on the ground, staggering her. He reached down and grabbed me by the jacket, picked me up, and physically fucking hurled me at my currently off balance girlfriend without a second of hesitation.

He stared down at us dispassionately. "You figure it out yet? Because I just gave you like four hints." It was infuriating how casual he sounded, like he'd just come back from a nap rather than kicking the living shit out of us. I groaned as I got to my feet, holding out a hand to help Callie to her feet.

She answered this time. "I got it." She was wincing and rubbing her head. Apparently Abel could hit like a truck even without his ability. Not exactly a shock. "It's cohesion. We know how the other person thinks, how to be aware of them, but now we need to put those things together. Uneven training in the two areas is making it impossible for us to operate smoothly, and you're exploiting the gaps." She sounded frustrated, but honestly I was just impressed she got it so easily. I would have needed much longer to understand that lesson.

Abel had no problem confirming the lesson once we'd gotten the second one. "Exactly. The single biggest flaw in any team combat is lack of cohesion. The gaps between where your styles overlap. I'll even give you a freebie. The point of this training isn't just to make you aware of your limitations so you can fix them, it's also to teach you to spot that same kind of gap in other teams cooperation. In this tournament, we'll be fighting plenty of other teams from what you said. Being able to break formations and cooperation is going to be a vital skill."

We'd seen that before, when dealing with some of the enemies during the scavenger hunt, so I could definitely follow his train of though, but it left one glaring flaw in this whole training regimen. "What about you guys? How are we supposed to work with you when all our training is going to be on working with each other? Can't they exploit those same weaknesses in our cooperation?"

Abel smiled at that. "Now you're thinking. And the answer is no. Or at least, not easily. For a few reasons. First of all, we're training you on how to work with each other, but you can apply these lessons to others, since we've already learned all this, learning to cooperate with us will be simpler by far than learning to fight beside someone who wasn't your teacher in the first place."

"Secondly." He said with a grin. "You're neglecting to remember that we're going to be actively watching you train and learning your combat styles. We have much more experience with this style of fighting, and after training you we'll be able to integrate ourselves into your teamwork pretty easily. All you have to do is work with each other and trust us to handle the rest. Now, enough talking. Back to work. The lesson is far from over just because you figured out how it works."

He stepped back, leaving himself open again, and I grimaced. This really was a pain in the ass. I met Callie's eyes over his shoulder and made a circle with my hand. She cocked her head for a second, and then her eyes widened as I made a biting gesture with my hand. Wolves. She got it. With a solemn nod, the two of us began to circle. Abel didn't even react, seeming to be staring casually off into the distance, not even paying attention to our obvious attack preparations.

We rotated for a while, gauging his reactions and waiting to see what he would do in response to the few feints we tried. Nothing, he was just relaxing and staring off into the distance. Finally, after three consecutive times ignoring my feint, I drove my cane at the back of his knee in a stabbing blow meant to buckle his leg and dump him on his ass. As I did, Callie launched herself at his chest with a punishing strike aimed to plow her fist right into his sternum.

I was sure it was punishing, because it caught me right in the solar plexus as he nearly shifted his body on one foot, leaning back a bit so her punch grazed past him even as my cane sailed through the spot his leg had been. I saw his hand snake out like a viper and clamp around Callie's wrist, and barely had time to register it before he yanked her up and over his head, bringing her full weight down in an arc right on my back where I was bent forward from the low blow with the cane.

I fell to my knees at the impact, and Callie barely managed to yank me out of the way of the kick aimed up at my chin from the ground like he was kicking a ball. We both stumbled back, and I shot her a nod of gratitude. I'd gotten so lost in the danger I'd let my instinctual defense of her slip. I should have deflected that grab. Abel watched us scramble away without any special interest.

Which is when it clicked. "Oh you asshole!" I turned to Callie. "He isn't ignoring us, he unfocused his fucking eyes to take in more of the battlefield, he's probably hyperfocusing on Perception right now, processing every tiny indication of what we do to predict our attacks. How did you see me coming from behind? Or did I make too much noise?"

That drew a snicker from our teacher as his eyes finally focused on us. "Reflection in the pupils. It's why we spent so much time teaching you to operate without looking at each other. When partners constantly track each other's movements it makes it too easy to predict what they're going to do. You should really watch that."

I growled as I took up position next to Callie. Abel simply let his eyes unfocus and waited. Ready for anything and nothing all at the same time, body relaxed and hands hanging loosely at his sides. He looked like he was wide open, but having seen the bastard move I knew that couldn't be further from the truth. Forget landing a hit, we would need perfect teamwork to avoid getting brutalized. I sighed before gesturing for Callie to circle around the other side. If at first you don't succeed I supposed. Still, I had a feeling this was going to be a long fucking day.

 

I was in pain. So very, very much pain. I was considering inventing a new word to describe this sensation actually, because pain seemed like it was underselling exactly how much this sucked. Not even agony was enough. I raised my head from the dirt to glare at my tormentor, seeing his ever present grin shining down at me as if in mockery of the state he'd left me in. I peeled my lip back in a snarl. "Die."

Well, I tried to say die. It come out more like "duuuuuh". I like to think my eyes made the message clear though. My hatred was clearly visible. It had to be. I rolled over as best I could to check on Callie, who was lying on the ground staring up at the ceiling. "Ugh." I moaned, finally managing to speak language again, even if the attempt was hoarse and barely understandable. "How are we in this much pain? And why can't I heal us?"

The snicker Abel had been holding back finally burst forth, the rabbit masked man howling with laughter at our pain. "Impact. Vitality has less effect against higher ranked opponents. We're the same rank, so it's not so exaggerated, but there IS a wait, and that shit adds up. I've just hit you so many times today that your bodies literally can't keep up with the repairs. I didn't use any Skills or anything, so it'll fade. As for healing, because it disrupts the learning process. No pain no gain and all that."

"Listen." I said seriously. "I hate you." He glanced down at me quizzically, clearly expecting my declaration to have more to it. I just stared at him for a second. "That's it. I hate you. Message over. Die." That one got enough howling attack of laughter as he turned to walk over to a small table off to one side, picking up a bottle of water. My sore throat convulsed looking at it. "That look's...good. Can I have some?"

"What?" He said in confusion. "But you hate me? I can't share water with you since I'm supposed to be dead." I just glared at him so viciously it probably would have killed him if it had been an attack. He rolled his eyes. "Oh fine, you huge baby. Here. Drink up." He walked over and stood above me, I opened my mouth to ask what he was doing and he poured the water right down my damn throat.

I hacked and coughed and gagged, rolling over and pounding the ground as my soaked face dripped into the dirt. He sucked his teeth in sympathy. "Pretty sure you're supposed to swallow that stuff. Doesn't do much if you spit out. It's your show though. You do you." I turned to fix my furious gaze on him, only to see him walking away. I caught a slight smirk on his lips as he turned, but I knew that it didn't matter.

He came back a second later with a towel he tossed me, and I groaned hard as I sat up. Then I mopped my face clean as Callie sat up with a loud groan. Abel chuckled at the performance, but eventually trailed off. "Alright you two. It's just after noon. I want you to go and have some fun. Enjoy your day. No training. As important as working is, you also need time to adapt to the changes. Especially for your awareness of each other, spending time together casually will be a huge help as you learn. You earned some downtime anyway. Go enjoy yourselves."

That hadn't been what I was expecting him to say. "Oh. Um...ok? Sure. We can do that." I turned to look at Callie. "What do you say babe? want to go on a date today?" Callie let out a wheezing puff of air that couldn't be described as a word or grunt of affirmation even by the most generous of people, but I decided to assume it had been a yes. I rolled over a few times, back and forth, to build up the momentum to get up on my hands and knees so I could crawl over to her. Slowly. I moaned. "Oh gods, please let me use some healing."

"Nope." Said Abel callously. "Enjoy your downtime. I suggest going to get food. It should help. Trust me, you should be glad I didn't let you eat when I had breakfast. You'd have puked it all up ten times over by now. Never do really hardcore exercise on a full stomach. Anyway, I'll leave you to it. Meet me back here tomorrow. You should be healed up by then, and we can move on to fighting team vs. team."

I refused to think about that as he left. The idea of Mel joining that beating was too awful. I dragged myself over to Callie and pulled her head into my lap, stroking her hair. "Hey love. How are you feeling." She wheezed out another small sound, that may have been the word 'bad'. I winced. "Yeah, I think he went harder on you to compensate for your higher Vitality. Never been so glad I don't focus on that stat enough." She glared at me. "Sorry. Here, lets sit you up, maybe that'll help."

I pulled on her, ignoring my body's groans of protest. Luckily lifting something human sized was literal childs play, even when I was this sore. It was such an infinitesimal effort that my condition literally didn't matter. Huh, I guessed the suppression was gone. Which made sense since we were allowed to leave. Guess he wanted our Vitality patching us up so we didn't die.

"Ow." Callie said as I get her vertical. "Ow. Ow." She paused. "Ow, wait, no. I meant bastard. I need to relearn the words for things. Ow is for how I'm feeling, bastard is for Abel. How about you sweetie? How are you feeling? You don't look much better than me."

I grinned at her. "Well you look like a goddess, so that leaves me in great shape. But to answer your question ow works for me too." I forced myself to my feet with a wince, helping pull Callie up by the hand and letting her fall against me. "I decided if we were going on a date, I didn't need my mask, and she didn't either if she didn't want to wear it. "So, before we leave, I figure we split up and change into our civvie clothes. The pavilion keeps work out gear around, we can change into that and take a walk around the circus. What do you think?"

Callie was thrilled at the idea, even if the execution was tough, and we both hobbled off to the locker rooms to get showered off and changed. Being a giant clubhouse for battle maniacs, an area to change and clean up was essential. It was one of the many spots we'd discovered when looking around when we first toured the Pavilion after we got control of it. The place was much bigger than it looked at first glance, with large sections underground (well all of it was technically underground, but large chunks were under THIS ground).

So I knew where to go to find the shower and rinse off. It only took me fifteen or twenty minutes to get ready, stash my gear in a gym bag, and bring everything back up to the ring to meet up with Callie who looked...amazing. Granted, Callie always looked amazing, whether it was an Ascendant thing or she was just naturally beautiful, my girlfriend was kind of a shock every time I looked at her. Something about her now though, in workout clothes with her wet hair up in a ponytail, just made me stop and stare.

She noticed me there and raised an eyebrow. "Come on, I don't look that gross do I? I cleaned up at least, so I know I don't smell." She gave a sniff. "Neither do you, which is impressive. They must have good soap here. You usually smell like guy." At my offended gasp she just gave me a warm smile. "Downsides of high Perception. It's not noticeable unless you look for it. But we should find out what kind of soap they use. Most of the ones that are thorough enough to counter high Perception are overwhelming. This is kind of neutral, I like it."

"Okay." I said helplessly. "I'll see if I can get a few bars. For the record though, YOU don't smell, and you look gorgeous, that's why I was staring." I frowned down at myself. "You could really smell me all this time? I don't see how that could not be in a bad way. Nobody wants to smell."

She limped over, wincing at the motion, before standing on her tip toes to give me a quick kiss. "Stop that. It's not some sort of weird character defect. Everyone smells like something, unless they use special soap like I mentioned. Your scent isn't bad or anything. Kind of...papery. With some ink maybe? And leather from the armor. It's hard to explain if you aren't at the point where you pick it up. Scents are kind of unique. I don't focus on it much. I know people who literally track using scent, but I'm definitely not one of them."

I waved her off. "Ok, this is getting off track. We can do the smell lesson later if you want. For now, I'm clean and showered and ready for a day out at the circus with my girlfriend." I put an arm around her, starting us toward the entrance. "You got the worst of it today, so why don't you pick what we do? Anything you want, as long as I'm spending time with you I don't care one bit." I paused. "Well, nothing physical obviously. But other than that."

She let her head slump against my shoulder softly as we walked. "I don't care much either. It'll just be nice to be together. But I am pretty hungry. How about we hit the corn dog stand. They have those pancake and sausage ones. I know it isn't exactly breakfast time, but who cares?"

"Seriously." I said with derision. "I'll eat breakfast whenever I want. Anyone who has something to say about that can suck it. I'm a grown ass man, no one but me decides the timing with which I consume whatever food I see fit at the moment." I stared off into the distance stoically for a second before winking at her to show the pompous declaration was just a joke for her benefit.

She rolled her eyes, but her lips were quirked in a smile. "You aren't nearly as funny as you think you are. But despite what a huge nerd you are, I still love you." She poked my side. "Being a giant wall of muscle DOES help kind of offset the terrible sense of humor though. Just don't start making bad puns and we should be fine."

I gave her a scandalized look. "There are no such thing as BAD puns, you philistine. But fine, I see how it is. I can lower myself to your level for the sake of my affection for you." She giggled at that and I pulled her close, reveling at the sense of serenity in my heart. Something about being here with her, especially when I was so fresh from training, just felt...right. This was where I was supposed to be.

I'd expected to be nervous or anxious about the coming tournament, but oddly, I wasn't. I'd been training my ass off non stop, and I hadn't even realized how exhausting it was because it had been so engaging. This though...this was relaxing in a way I hadn't know I needed until now. I smiled down at Callie and then around the busy circus as a whole. The tournament was months away, for now, time with my girlfriend was the order of the day, and I had absolutely no problem with that at all. My stomach grumbled a bit. Those corn dogs were definitely the first thing on my list though. I wondered if they had syrup for dipping?

 

"Ow. ow. ow." I punctuated each step with the word as we limped away from the corndog stand, laden down with pancake and sausage stick treats, as well as large cups of syrup. We staggered over to a picnic table nearby, slumping down onto the peeling and cracking wood with a groan as we let our food drop onto the table. We had paper plates, so I wasn't worried too much about it being dirty, and I was able to leave it there as I let my head slam into the wood, no longer strong enough to stay upright. "Ow."

Callie giggled, a sound which cut off with a whimper as the motion jostled her sore ribs. "Ow." She echoed. "Don't make me laugh. Or cry." she paused. "Wait, am I already crying? I can't tell." I cracked open an eye and looked up at her questioningly. But confirmed she wasn't and shook my head. I didn't raise it before shaking, so my face scraped across the surface of the table. I didn't care. She sighed in relief. "Oh, good. That would have been humiliating. Crying from just a little workout."

I snorted at that. "A little workout. I've been hit full force by a dullahan that was trying to kill me, and this was so much worse than that. Abel is a sadist." I forced myself to sit upright, since I had to eat anyway. "Still. I feel like it's getting results, don't you? Like, there's no way we would have lasted that long if we fought him a week ago. He would have crushed us. I never realized how lucky we were that the vision of him down in the labyrinth was so bored. Or maybe the years made him tougher? I have no idea."

Callie gave a vague nod as she dipped a corndog in syrup and took a hearty bite, moaning in joy at the taste. I decided that seemed like a good idea, and picked up one of mine, biting into it with gusto. I groaned in ecstasy as the sweet syrupy flavor melted into the fluffy pancakes and the steaming sausage. "Oh gods." I said through a mouthful of food. "How is this so good? What rank is this food?"

Having better manners than me despite eating much more voraciously, Callie finished chewing and swallowed with a groan. "G-rank of course. It just tastes better because we're both starving. Still, that is delicious." She continued eating, finishing the first corndog and starting on the second. Between bites, she resumed talking. "So, aside from insane hardcore training, what do you think we should do with our time until the tournament. Abel was right, downtime is a necessity."

I nodded, choosing to swallow before responding this time like she had. "Well." I said after a mouthful. "I was thinking we could do some bonding with the wolves. They've been kind of backburnered since we got back. We can go camping and take them with us, just enjoy the outdoors with puppies. Benny and I used to go camping in Valen, or at least nearby. It was always a lot of fun."

Callie bit her lip. "I mean...we could try it I guess. Especially if we invite Grimmengap. Their wolves would probably enjoy it, and having an elf along in the woods is bound to make things easier." I nodded enthusiastically at that. She seemed uncertain though. I didn't feel the need to push, just waited. Eventually she flushed and admitted in a low voice. "I've never really been camping. I don't count the hunt, because we had a building. Real camping though? Like with tents and stuff? I never had anyone to take me."

Her eyes were distant as she stared off into the crowd. She clearly had something she wanted to talk about, so I didn't interrupt. "My dad was never really around." She said without missing a beat. "You know about that. Spent all his time at the office or out on patrol. It was just me and mom, and she never had any abilities. The wilderness isn't ALL too dangerous for mortals, I think you and Benny were mortals when you went, but mom...my dad did a number on her."

"Not physically." She hurried to say. She sounded like that mattered to her. I was starting to get really pissed off, but obviously not at her, so I kept quiet as she continued. "It was more like...dismissal. He acted like she was less than he was. He was mostly patronizing about it, making comments about how mortals never understood us, or how her ideas were bad but it wasn't her fault, but looking back I see how completely toxic he was to her all the time."

I reached out and put my hand over hers. Her eyes snapped to mine and she coughed. "Oh. Sorry. Camping. Sounds fun. We should go. I was just thinking about that offer you made. About my mom. I just...gods Shane, I can't tell you what that would mean. How important it would be." I leaned over the table to give her a quick kiss and pulled back with a wide smile.

"It makes you happy." I said firmly. "It's worth it. Besides, it's not like I'm giving her something for free. My power doesn't work like that. She'll need to come up with some kind of payment. I can't really be involved, but I'm sure you can help her think of something that would work." I didn't want to make too big a deal about the gratitude. It was nice she was happy, but I didn't do things for her because I wanted her to be grateful.

She seemed to sense that, because she shifted to the subject I brought up. "Payment will be tricky for sure. I'm positive we can figure something out though. And it's a mortal wish, maybe she can pay in credits or something? Never mind, not involved. Point is, it's something I'm excited about. Maybe we can make our visit back before the tournament, provided we manage to get all our training done early."

She sounded excited about that, and I didn't mind. "If we get our goals met no reason not to take a break. Hell we can ask Abel to arrange it for us ahead of time if you want. I'm sure he could squeeze in some time between our training without messing up our schedule too much. He seems like he would be good at finding time to be lazy when he wants it." I said that last bit with a snicker.

When we finished eating, we decided to go for a walk. It wasn't as crazy as it sounded. The pain was worse when we were sitting still, and we figured a nice leisurely stroll would get the blood pumping. Well, leisurely in this case being an arctic crawl as we dragged our dead limbs across the grounds, but to be fair, we were both tough enough to hide the signs and make it at least look like we were walking casually.

As we strolled arm in arm around the circus, I took a long, deep breath. The smell of the food and the rides and sounds of excitement were everywhere, and I loved it. The lights burned in the darkness, creating a tapestry of emotion and sensation I had never seen anywhere else. I was just as poleaxed by this place as I had been the very first time I'd come here. Maybe more. "You know." I said. "I really love this place. Just being here makes me happy. Doesn't it just make you feel so...alive?"

Callie said her head on my shoulder. "Yeah. I've always felt comfortable in WCP honestly, but more than that this place is ours. At least part of it. I've never had anything like that before. Something permanent and mine. Like I know we won't be staying forever, but still, it's like we own our own house." She flushed a bit. "Or whatever. That sounds weird. But you know what I mean."

And I did. I'd lived with Zeke in our apartment in Valen for ages, and now we had the house in Rajak, but neither of those were mine. There was something really amazing about having a home that belonged only to you, about being able to do whatever you wanted to a place because you felt like it. Growing up I'd been able to decorate my room however I wanted, but it wasn't really mine completely. It was an apartment, and it was Zeke's. I could paint my walls, but I couldn't rip them out or install a nice shower in the bathroom.

Not that I wanted to do either of those things at the Pavilion. But I COULD do them. It was a heady feeling. Having a place that I controlled completely and that no one could take away from me. Once again Callie and I were on the same page here. I pulled her closer to me. I loved the atmosphere of our talk right now, but I'd been wondering about something and I thought talking about it would be good. "So, have you talked to your uncle lately? You never mentioned how things went there."

The two of us spent a ton of time together, but we weren't around each other twenty four hours a day. Well, not usually, the training had us bonding me. Still, she had tons of time to herself and I wasn't sure if she'd ever called her father's twin. She stiffened a bit before relaxing, letting out a long sigh. "I haven't been in touch. I've considered it a few times, but it's...hard. He looks like my dad, obviously, and there are so many issues there. I know that's not really fair to him, but I can't help it."

I blew out a breath. "I can't really claim to get how that feels. I'm not sure how I'd react if I met my dad's twin. Granted, the situation isn't the same anyway. Still, if you don't mind me giving my two cents I do have an opinion." I shot her a searching look, and she gave a solemn nod. "I think you should reach out. If it's too much you can always just cut contact, I'm sure he would understand, but if you don't at least try I think you'll regret it for a long time."

Looking down, I saw here glaring at me. There wasn't much heat in it, but she looked annoyed. "You know, you aren't always supposed to give me good advice. Sometimes you're just supposed to say 'yes dear, I think you have the right idea'. Just because I'm doing something dumb doesn't mean I want you to correct me." Her tone wasn't harsh or anything, just a little sulky, and I could tell she was half joking, though not completely.

"Yes dear." I said woodenly, my voice deadpan. "I think you have the right idea." I looked her right in the eyes as I said it, making sure to keep my voice as devoid of inflection as possible. Her glare intensified for a second, but I saw her lips twitching a bit at the edges for a second until she finally broke down and lost it, bursting out laughing so hard I had to actually hold her up.

She finally got control over herself with a marked effort, and still took a second of gasping to regain her ability to speak. "You're such an asshole sometimes. Fine, I'm being stupid, I'll call him and at least say hi, happy?" I grinned at hear and leaned down for a kiss, which she accepted with an eye roll. "I have to admit, you're weirdly good at cheering me up. I'm already feeling better." Then she paused. "Although, not that much better." She stopped and looked up at me ponderingly before walking around behind me, and without any warning, jumping on my back. I caught her, hands under her knees as she forced me to carry her. "Ok NOW I feel all the way better."

 

Abel had been right. The next morning we both felt so much better. Eight hours of healing was enough to fix us up and I was good as new when I got out of bed. I got up and headed to the kitchen to cook breakfast for everyone while I considered exactly what we would be doing today. More fighting with Abel if I had to guess. We usually didn't move on until we'd learned our lesson at each step, and we were nowhere close to keeping up with that monster as a duo. Even without his skills or abilities, his raw stats and sheer combat prowess let him pick us apart.

Still, it wasn't hopeless. Abel had been teaching us for over a week now, and we'd gotten markedly better. At this rate, we might be up to snuff in this tournament. I'd made the mistake of thinking it would be easy at the start, but Abel had quickly disabused me of that notion. Even if he and Mel were the two strongest of their generation, number three hadn't been that far behind, and their teamwork, while impressive, had never been the best among the Titan Twenty. Not that we would be fighting their peers for the most part, it had been years, but still. This would be far from easy, and that was without acknowledging that the people we were up against were from all over the Gloryfire System.

Which meant we really needed to know as much as possible about this whole thing. As I started cooking, I spun up my scan ring and placed a call to a number I'd never used before. My cousin packed up. "Hey little cousin, to what do I owe this pleasant surprise? I figured you would be too busy with training for the tourney to call upon little old me? Hoping for some words of wisdom to help you get closer to that smokeshow you're dating?"

I rolled my eyes, having to fight back a smile at how...normal, this felt. "No Nat. I don't need your advice on my dating life. Callie and I are doing great. Sadly I'm calling about business. Though we could catch up first if you want? Our teacher is letting us come in late today because he kicked the shit out of us so hard yesterday." That actually wasn't the real reason. It was more that Abel had overestimated the amount of time we could last in one on one training with him, and adjusted the time we needed to arrive to compensate. He didn't like getting up at dawn either, and since we'd ended up with half a day leftover anyway he just figured he'd let us sleep. We'd gotten the text about it on the way home.

The image of my cousin pouted. "Lame. I totally have sage wisdom to share. But oh well, we can talk about boring stuff I guess. I assume you're calling about the tournament?" I nodded. "Well, I'm not sure how much I can help. I don't have the sources to suss out all the players showing up, though I suspect I do know enough to tell you who everyone is once we meet them. The layout itself is pretty simple. Team elimination matches until there are only a hundred and twenty eight fighters left, and then it's a single elimination bracket. Winner gets all ten slots to distribute themselves."

I whistled at that. "Holy shit, final one twenty eight? How many contestants are there going to be in this thing? Also, wait, single elimination? Does that mean I'm going to have to fight my teammates?" Because there was no way in hell I was going to be able to beat Abel. I MIGHT be able to pull off something against Mel, if I managed to pick up an appropriate set of attacks before the tournament. But I had no clue what ability I could stockpile to help me counter whatever spatial nonsense my rabbit masked teacher used.

"Yup." She popped the P as she said that. "Which is why I made my alliance with you. My chances were originally three in one twenty eight, now they're seven in one twenty eight. Well...probably a a lot higher actually. Between my guards, your girl, and that monster in the rabbit mask and his partner, I don't hate our chances of scraping out a win no matter who shows up. Hell, even you'll probably put up a good showing. Though I admit, you took a different route than most of do."

That was intriguing to hear. "I figured I wasn't the first to stockpile attacks, but why isn't it more common? It's damn effective, and I figure it would be a pretty common method of combat." It had seemed like such a perfect idea for me, it was hard to understand why any of my relatives wouldn't use the same strategy.

She chuckled. "Because it requires an absurd amount of soul strength, and training that hurts like a bitch. The attacks are all pretty static, and using them strains your soul, which most of us don't bother to improve. It's much easier and less painful to just contract a bunch of minions you can boost, or to get paid in cash or artifacts and show up ass deep in firepower. Most of us aren't the hands on type. Don't get me wrong, we're all dangerous as hell, and most of us have trump cards you won't find anywhere else, but still, we aren't the punch it till it dies type."

I blinked. That...made sense. My soul strength was high because of my DS Mastery Skill. It DID suck to train it, and if I wasn't so pumped about the Skill itself I might not have gotten into the habit. I remembered how muddled and in pain I felt after my fight with Beat. I could definitely see the advantage of just buffing a bunch of guards. Still, it wasn't my style. I liked being in battle, micromanaging everything from the back would drive me nuts. Plus it was one of the factors in punching up ranks.

More than that though, it felt...important. The strength of our souls grew when we ranked up, sure, but I couldn't help but think that more of it would be better. I was pretty sure having a strong soul would be useful later on, even if I didn't know why. Maybe it was Fantasy pushing my instincts, or maybe if was wishful thinking. I grimaced at the unintentional mental pun and Natalie raised an eyebrow at me. "I mean, it seems to work for you." She said. "But not all of us like getting up close and personal."

Realizing she thought I was grimacing at the fact that more of us didn't use my style I chuckled and shook my head. "Not that, sorry. Got lost in my own thoughts. I do that. I was pretty sure it was a factor of my Perception being much higher than my Focus, but apparently it's also just part of my personality. Remind me to make sure word of that doesn't get out. I'll end up having some nonsense 'wisdom' aspect added to my legend and spend all my time daydreaming. It would be thematic at least, if nothing else."

She snickered at that. The Focus will probably help, but yeah, I'd keep a lid on that around enemies. I think you should be fine though, unless you go into a daze mid fight, in which case we might need to have a discussion about our alliance." She winked to let me know she was kidding. "Anyway, don't worry too much about the tournament. Not that it isn't a big deal, but I can tell you're working your ass off, and you can't do more than your best. We'll win or we won't. That's the best part of living in this crazy universe of ours. Even if we miss out, there's always another big event somewhere else if you're willing to look for it."

That actually made me curious about something else. "Do many of us travel like you do? Not the usual upward trajectory but moving around on D-ranked planets like this one looking for interesting things and people? I never really considered leaving Callus just to go to another planet the same level. It just seems like a waste not to get as much as I can from here and then head up to the next level."

She shrugged. "You aren't the first to think so. And no, it's not common. But I'm in no real hurry. We grow the fastest out of all the divine clans, it's what we're know for. The Wyndham clan has the most S-rankers, though ours don't tend to be as powerful in a straight fight. I can always catch up later, but making sure to get as much as I can out of this System, hell this Star Cluster, is bound to pay off down the line. People forget that this competition is aimed at building connections. People tend to be easier to befriend when they're in the early stages of growth."

There was so much information in that statement I didn't know where the hell to start. I could guess at some of it. I knew clans were a thing, divine clans obviously being the clans founded by the six gods. I hadn't known we had the most S-rankers, though it made sense given my own growth. I was pretty sure I was growing faster than most because of my starting point having all my stats unlocked, but still, I had no illusions about the usefulness of my power in encouraging growth. But there were so many smaller, less obvious questions I had. "Ok. That's...wow. How many clans are there exactly?"

She shrugged. "Who knows. A few dozen. The universe is a big place, and anyone who makes it to S-rank can found a clan. Though if it's an inherited power like ours they have to make do with a branch clan or oust the original founder. The branch founders are all on a clan council that makes decisions absent the founder's decree in our clan. Our grandfather is on the council actually. Not that we ever see him. Grandpa Malachai rarely interacts with anyone below S-rank himself. Once you hit that point you don't need renown to grow anymore."

I wondered what that meant exactly, but it didn't seem like the time to get into it. She'd already given me a ton to think about. I resolved to talk to her later about possibly learning about the divine clans and any others she knew about, but I had a feeling it would be a long conversation, and we DID still have training today. It would need to wait. I had the information I wanted about the tournament, and I'd finished cooking as I talked (cooking one handed was remarkably easy with stats like mine) so I went ahead and said goodbye.

I called everyone else in to come eat, and sat down to enjoy the cheese blintzes I made. I sat next to Callie as I ate, but didn't talk much. I was thinking over my conversation and how much information I still didn't have. I could always find out that stuff later, and I likely wouldn't come into contact with it until later, but still. There was so much in this world that I hadn't even scratched the surface of.

Oddly that didn't upset me at all. It excited me. So much to do, so much to see. I had so many things to learn and experience. I put an arm around Callie who leaned into me a bit while still shoveling food into her mouth. I gave her a kiss on the top of the head, chuckling at the fervor with which she was eating. Yeah, the world was big, but if you had the right people to see it with you, the journey was probably the best part.

 

Between the date and the conversation with my cousin, I was feeling recharged enough after breakfast to get back to training. I decided to forego doing all five wishes for the Beast Lord Garden folks, and knocked out one of them with Cark before we left so I could top up my fire attacks at least a bit. The great thing about that was that Cark exclusively cared about Might, and that increased his firepower, so the attacks got stronger with every wish, and since it was entirely to his benefit it was totally valid.

I saved one wish and did the three contractually obligated ones for Sloane, topping up my Fantasy to an even one hundred and ten before going to find Alden. Our mentor was sitting in the stands in the Pavilion, relaxing as he waited for your training to start. He'd apparently decided to watch this one. I waved to him as we approached. "Hey old man, haven't seen you around here for a week or so, why didn't you sit in earlier?" I dropped onto the seat next to him, reclining to watch the mostly empty ring.

"Watch?" He snorted. "Watch what? The two of you getting your fool arses kicked in creative ways by the boy? This training course was my creation lad, I know what the first week or so is like. Today is the sweet spot. First time against your real instructor after you've had the humility beaten into you. Mel and the boy couldn't even walk by the time the gave in on that first day. The next day though...that's when you see something. Had all the stupid smacked out of you enough to be halfway competent."

I was beginning to see how Abel had ended up the charming and compassionate person that he was. The poisoned apple didn't fall far from the man eating tree. Rolling my eyes at the bearded man, I continued with my point, though I stopped to have Callie put up one of her stealthed shadow domes. Most people here knew, but no point in advertising. He arched an eyebrow in concern when the dome went up, but didn't complain, just waited for us to explain.

Mulling over how best to phrase this, I decided to just come out and say it. "I can offer you a WCP wish. I have access to a source." I very carefully did NOT mention or look at his leg. It was obvious what he would wish for, and I didn't want to invalidate the wish by tampering with the compensation. "So..." I said lamely. "Do you want a wish?"

Alden burst out laughing. "Lad, that was the worst sales pitch I've ever heard, but I suppose when you're selling gold you ain't gotta hype the merchandise. Am I to assume this source is the reasoning behind all the support from the Beast Lord Garden? E-rankers don't much go in for lavishing gifts and aid on little do-nothing outfits like this. I was wondering how you got them to commit so many resources."

He looked down at his leg. "Now forgive me, but wishes take payment right? What might this old man have that would be worth a new limb? I already work for you lad, and I don't have much money to offer. The boy is already training you, and I trust him to do that much properly."

Callie, knowing I was reticent to comment on wishes because I was worried about skewing the results by biasing the recipient, cut in from where she had been quietly holding the shield. "Well you could pay with some of your attacks. Regrowing a limb for someone at our rank isn't just about normal stats though. It would require Impact. The payment for something like that would probably be more than just one attack."

That was true, I'd used Impact in most of my wishes as a stand in for other stats I was lacking, but I'd only ever granted an Impact related wish once. When I gave Benny his powers. I was pretty sure I had the stats to do it, but even I was under the impression that it would take more than one attack, even one as impressive as Alden's, to offset that cost. It was just a matter of how I perceived things. A few points were fine for an attack because attacks were made up of hundreds of points, the raw value was there and then modified by my need for combat ability.

Alden didn't seem worried though. "Alright then. If I do this the way I think, then I wish for my leg to regrow. I'm willing to pay with ten attacks, paid our over ten days. Does that work? I figure the delay means I should pay more of them, and it'll be a hefty price for a leg in any case." He raised an eyebrow at me questioningly.

Wish detected. Grant wish? I confirmed. I was interested to see if this worked. It would be less of a priority day to day since points only took one attack to pay off, but it gave options for things like Skills if my friends needed them. Stat points sufficient. Requirements. 36 Impact, 330 Vitality, 350 Might, 306 Creation. Damn. That was a hefty chunk. I'd seen more expensive wishes, and granted this was essentially a Beginner rank limb. I wondered if souls strength played a role in determining the value or even effected it at all.

Wish the dome still up I decided to just get on with it. I reached out and put a hand on Alden's shoulder as I accepted. "I have a sneaking suspicion this is going to hurt really badly." I said apologetically. Big changes made to others usually hurt, and a physical one like this was bound to be even worse. Alden just nodded as the purple electricity began to build along my skin, until finally it hit a breaking point and rolled out of me, into the other man with the force of a tidal wave.

His body locked up, and I saw his jaw clamp shut tightly to prevent a scream as all his muscles tightened. The electricity seemed to gather in the stump of his leg, funneling down to where it was needed. As we watched, the bone speared out of the flesh, extending out to grow into the smaller bones of a foot, held together by tendons, with muscles knitting themselves together down the length as skin split and then grew down over the appendage. Finally, nails popped out of the toes and Alden was sitting there, a fully grown, if completely hairless leg.

The electricity faded, and Alden slumped back against the seating behind him, panting in exhaustion and pain. Before he could really relax though, the still fading electricity gather in his hand and Gravity started to warp into a sphere of disrupted space. The power condensed for a minute, electric arcs of purple dancing over the outside, before it popped like a soap bubble, and the electricity arced to me. It ran through my body, though not nearly as painfully.

I was kind of shocked. That was a pretty unique way of transferring an attack. It was different than Benny's physical attack, or Callie's semicorporeal shadows, or even Jessie's life energy. Regardless though, it was done, and Alden groaned slightly as he lay there, still panting. "Ok. Ow. You mightve undersold it a bit with 'hurt really badly' lad." He grinned tiredly. "Pain isn't much though. Thank you for this. It means a lot that you would trust me with this, and I know you did it because I was injured and needed it, which means even more."

We helped him sit up. "No problem." I said cheerfully. "Also, that was fucking gross. I've regrown limbs before, but it's usually faster than that. Watching it in slow motion was weird. Not sure why it was like that. Maybe because the limb was higher Impact so it needed more time to form. Still, glad I could fix it."

He snickered a bit at that. "Yeah, well I didn't have much time for admirin' what with being paralyzed with mindsearing agony, but I don't doubt you." He looked at Callie. "You can let down the shield now lass. If anyone asks about the leg I'll just tell them you got some kind of medicine from the Beast Lord Garden for me. Don't you worry. I won't let on you have connections to the WCP."

Callie let the shadows drop, and I was pleased to see she hardly seemed effected by the effort. She must have been working on her soul strength. We both stood up, stretching. I wasn't tired from the wishes, I rarely got exhausted from the easy ones, and it took more than one huge wish to wear me out with my current Vitality. With Callie still feeling fine the two of us were more than ready to get back to our training with Abel. Well...physically. Mentally we weren't ever going to be prepared for that sadism, but oh well.

When we reached the ring, Abel was waiting for us. He'd seen us come in and watched the dome go up, but hadn't seen the need to bother us. "You fixed his leg." His voice was quiet. "I...appreciate that. We were already planning to arrange it, but it would have taken time. Regrowing Ascendant limbs isn't a common ability, and tech that can do it is expensive, especially for someone as high up in the G-ranks as the old man."

"Of course." I said stoically. "He's done a lot for us, even before he really had a reason to. I'm glad we could help." I grinned unapologetically behind my mask, humor leaking into my voice. "Don't suppose this means that you're going to go easy on us today? Give us a break on the asskicking as a thank you for helping him out?" My tone was wry, because I had no illusions of the likelihood of that happening. Still phrasing it as a joke made asking pretty much nothing but potential gain.

Abel just chuckled warmly. "Oh, buddy. No. We're training. Taking it easy on you isn't a favor, it's a disservice. The less I push you the less you grow. You don't want me to hold back. We're already on a tight schedule. " His grin became sharper. "In fact, I think that this favor is going to earn you a more...thorough training session. I'll be sure to put my all into making you the best fighters you can possibly be. Doesn't that sound nice?"

It did not, as a matter of fact, sound nice. It sounded terrifying. But under the sadism I could tell he really was trying to help, even if I wished he didn't enjoy it so much. Besides, I was pretty sure trying to talk him out of it would only make things worse. I gave him a weak thumbs up as I sighed tiredly. "Oh sure. Sounds like a party." I chuckled uneasily to match his own enthusiasm, shooting a sidelong glance at Callie, who met my eyes worriedly.

Abel rolled his eyes a bit. "Oh don't be such babies. I'll even let Agria heal you up after. The point of the first day's training was to leave an impression. Now that you've had you ineptness drilled into you, just the pain of actually fighting me should be enough for you to learn from. Normally I would have waited another two days to allow healing, but since I'm doubling down today, I'll be nice and allow it early." We both relaxed a bit at that.

We got into position across from Abel, ready to try our hardest not to get demolished. I adjusted my stance to complement Callie's, ready to intercept any attacks that came her way as we both lapsed into that special state where we fought as one. As Abel blurred toward us my last coherent thought before violence overtook us was 'gods, this fucking dungeon better be amazing'.

 

It took several hours before we were beaten enough to be considered finished. Abel apparently didn't subscribe to Alden's theory that giving up was enough, and forced us to keep going. Luckily we had Jessie to heal us up after he crushed us. Speaking of being crushed though, we were substantially better prepared than last time, and did pretty well for the first hour or so. We barely got destroyed at all for a while, but eventually the damage started to add up, and slowing down produced a vicious cycle.

Once we finished our day off, we headed home, and I proposed probably the weirdest possible date. "Hey, I was thinking of logging in to Doom Sovereign." I said in a faux casual tone. "I'm hoping that playing a bit will help me get some ideas for alterations to my sub skills to help me rank it up. Do you want to try it out?" Callie had never played to my knowledge, which made sense. I'd mostly played as an escape. Callie had reasons to dislike her life when she was younger, but she'd just LITERALLY escaped from them rather than playing video games. I kind of thought her way was better.

She chewed her lip. "Oh yeah, I've heard Benny and you talking about playing that a few times. I haven't heard you mention it lately though, so I kind of assumed you quit. You were pretty into the game before Ascending right? Why hasn't it come up before?" Her tone was curious, but also kind of flippant, like she was trying to let me know I could blow it off or change the subject if I wanted to.

I smiled at her softly. "Mostly a mix of not having time and not really having a reason. I can use most of those abilities in real life now. I played it for adventure and fun, but my life is plenty adventurous now, and I have fun with you. I've also been like...on the edge of death for a large portion of the last few months, so there wasn't a ton of spare time. I still won't get much from it granted, given my Beginner Skill makes me the best player who has ever lived, but I want to see if I can get ideas on how to guide my subskills as I upgrade them."

"Huh." She said in interest. "Virtual reality date. I can dig it. Sure. I'm in." She shot me a wide grin. "But you can't peak when I design my character. I want to have fun with it." I agreed and she hopped up from the couch and ran off to find one of the scan boxes around the house. I considered inviting Benny, but he was at the Academy with Celine, and I doubted he wanted me interrupting girlfriend time any more than I wanted to give up time with Callie. I promised myself we would do something just the two of us soon though.

I waited about ten minutes before I got a text with a screen name for the game and headed to my room to boot up my own scan box. I booted up the game and waited, logging in to my old character for the first time. The world of Doom Sovereign faded in around me, and I found myself standing in a familiar house. I pulled out a magic mirror and contacted Callie at the address she gave me, giving her directions to get here. It didn't take too long, she skipped the tutorial under my instructions. I could give her lessons better than the game itself at this point.

When she finally knocked on the door I let her in with a smile that froze on my face when I opened the door. I tried my hardest to suppress a grin, but failed as I took in her avatar. "You're playing a giantess? Really?" Callie looked...well, like Callie, only about twice her size. She had to stoop to come into the house. I rolled my eyes. "Did you specifically agree to this so you could be taller than me? I thought you liked the height difference."

She snickered. "I do, but this is fun. I wanted to be the one towering over you for a change." She grunted. "Callie want manling. Callie drag manling back to cave." Her gruff, faux cavewoman voice was ridiculous and I rolled my eyes so hard I briefly worried they would get stuck that way.

I turned to head back into the house. "Ok, first of all, I think that's speciesist. Not that I know if giants are real. But if they are, not cool. Second of all, I was planning to give you rogue lessons, but it doesn't work so well if your physical dimensions are dramatically altered. Your legs go up to my collar bone. Anything I show you is going to be completely useless."

She snorted. "Um, no? This is my actual dimensions, just doubled. The giant race on here has like, a thousand different physical modification options. Seriously, if I didn't have the Focus I do, I'd have spent about an hour going through the options. Regardless, I'm the same size I am normally, just...like, bigger. Anything I learn will still be applicable. But why teach me rogue skills? Do you think I can get the DS Mastery Skill?"

I shrugged. "The Minor Skill maybe. It's kind of personalized past that. Might not even work, I've never asked anyone if you can teach Unique Skills. I feel like you have to be able to, but most of my knowledge won't translate up to Lesser for you. It's all pretty personalized. Still, I mostly just want to have some fun, and teaching can be a great way to understand the finer points of your abilities, right?"

"Well." She said contemplatively. "I guess that's true. Learning seems like it might be neat, and even if I don't get the Skill, it'll help me understand your abilities better, which should help with team combat." She shrugged. "I'm in. Show me what I'm doing, little guy." I glared up at her. Oh I was not enjoying this at all. I made a note to never grant her any height wishes. I ALSO liked the height difference.

So we spent the next hour or two working on Rogue skills. I tried to teach her some of my basics. Touch of Tears, Double Trouble, just whatever came to mind, and as I went I started to pay more attention to how all of my skills built on each other. How they interacted and how that interaction played into my fighting style. I started to alter my skills slowly like I'd been planning, letting Callie practice on her own as I worked on them. First up was Mercy Kill. As a finisher it was strong, but it was also limited. It was useful as an add on, but it wasn't the final blow it used to be.

I considered how to make it more useful, and decided to extend the time. I started warping the skill, the soul weight difficult to manage, but not impossible. I had plenty of charges, forty eight of them at the moment, and I took my time, trying different configurations. I tried making it a persistent effect, but it almost crippled the boost. I tried increasing the boost. I tried doing both, but the soul weight was too much for both me and the skill, and I got the feeling if I kept pushing I might break one of us.

I cast the skill again and again and again, I let myself get lost in the pain and the concentration, until finally, I found a configuration that worked. Once I'd done that I started casting it over and over again. Each time was painful and difficult but each one got easier and easier until finally, I could cast it easily with no weight on my soul and I felt that click of recognition from the skill. Mercy Kill had changed. Instead of one bulk attack I'd managed to split it into three separate fifty percent boosted attacks.

As soon as I finished it I dropped to the ground, exhausted, head swimming with pain. I might have rushed it a bit. Callie said my name a few times and then cut the game off to run across the house to check on me. I closed my own game down and lay there on my hands and knees eyes closed as I tried to make the pain go away. Callie arrived and held me as I shook on the ground. I needed to be careful. Having more charges meant more chances to strain my soul, but it didn't mean my soul was up to that strain in the first place.

Eventually, the pain receded, and I was lying there in Callie's lap as she shushed me and stroked my hair, telling me things would be ok. I opened my eyes with a groan. "I resent past me for agreeing to wake up today. Existing hurts. I think my hair aches." My voice was rough and even my own words sent spikes of agony through my head, but they were lessing in severity as I went/ I hadn't pushed TOO far past my limits. Just a bit. It was a relief feeling myself recover.

Callie chuckled softly, which felt like knives in my brain, and helped me sit up. She kept her voice quiet as she responded. "Alright you giant baby. You're ok. You had me worried there you know. I've never seen it that bad before. What the hell happened? Your head gets a bit sensitive when you work on your soul strength, but you don't black out from the pain." Her blue eyes bored into mine intensely, as if trying to scan my brain for damage, and I felt like shit for making her worry.

I leaned down to kiss her gently for a minute, pulling back with a tender smile. "I just misjudged something after a rank up. It was my bad and it won't happen again. I'm sorry to worry you, but I'm glad to know how much you care." I pulled her against me and she rested her head on my shoulder, closing her eyes as she sat there and drank in my presence. I'd really scared her this time.

She'd seen me hurt before, but we had a healer for that. Soul damage wasn't something you could heal. If I accidentally shattered my soul I'd be fucked, and there was nothing Jessie could do. Seeing me black out like that must have been terrifying. She took a deep breath and opened her eyes, apparently ready to resume talking. Her eyes pinned me in a harsh stare. "Be more careful in the future. Ass. I love you, and..." She looked away shyly. "I don't know what I'd do without you." She cleared her throat. "But, so I can keep an eye on you I think you should sleep in my room tonight."

I gave her a lopsided grin. "Hey, don't worry so much I'll be fine. I'm right down the hall and...oh." I froze as the meaningful look she was giving me sank in. She meant sleep in her room. Or like. Not sleep. That was...well my headache was suddenly much less of a priority. I swallowed hard. "I...um, are you sure? Or like...not that there's anything you need to be sure about if you don't want to be sure or anything because we're just going to be sleeping unless sleeping isn't what you mean-"

She reached up and put a finger to my lips, trying not to snicker as she stood up and strolled over to the door after cutting me off, she opened the door. "Well? Are you coming or not? As for sleeping..." She shrugged, giving me a wicked grin. "We don't have training until later tomorrow. We can afford to sleep in." I blame the pain for tripping as I scrambled to my feet and bolted after her. That was definitely the reason.

 

I stepped out of Callie's room the next day around eleven in the morning and was immediately assailed by the sound of clapping. I rolled my eyes as I turned to glare at Benny. "Can you keep it down please? It's early." I was blushing a bit, which he knew, because he was my best friend and he knew how to get a rise out of me. Making a big show of my first time was one such way, and I absolutely did NOT want to give him the satisfaction of letting him know it was working.
He leered at me anyway. "What's wrong. The blushing virgin can't bear to face the consequences of his carnal shame?" I grimaced. Benny always got extra wordy when he was smug. Which he wasn't for much longer because Jessie reached out and smacked him upside the head.

He yelped and shot her a betrayed look, only to get an eye roll. "My gods, are you five? 'oooh, Shane likes a giiiiirl, girls are gross'. Stop being a dick or I'm going to tell Celine about your apparent distaste for people hooking up out of wedlock." Benny's face drained of blood and his mouth snapped shut, which was a hilarious sight. I shot Jessie a thumbs up and she returned it with a wink.

The door behind me opened and my previously sleeping girlfriend came our wearing one of my shirts, which kind of looked like a dress on her four foot ten frame. "What's going on here?" She demanded imperiously. She put an arm around my waist, pulling me against her. "You giving my man a hard time Benicio?" Jessie made an 'ooooh' sound as Benny recoiled from someone using his full name.

I rolled my eyes at my friends' antics. And Cark just sat to one side and snickered. Right up until cas looked at Callie and cocked her head. "How come Callie is wearing your clothes? Did you guys have a sleepover? That's her room though? Shouldn't she have clothes in there?" We all froze like statues, looking down at the small girl who gazed up at us with innocent confusion.

Zeke, who was seated off to one side eating cereal, snorted the milk out of his nose as he tried to choke down his snickers. Cark glared at my uncle, who didn't seem to actually care but at least had the good grace to pretend to be cowed. He raked us all with his glare and we just kind of stood there, waiting to see what he did. He shot Cass a wide, strained smile. "Well I think today is Callie's laundry day. She must have spilled something on her last outfit so Shane lent her his shirt. That's why he was in her room."

I shot him a thumbs up for quick thinking as Callie started nodding frantically. "Yeah, that's right! I'm super lazy about doing my laundry. I'm just lucky Shane has such big shirts, or I'd have to hide in my room all day while I washed my clothes." She gave me a squeeze. "He's such a good friend." I was having trouble not bursting out laughing, but Cark's face promised murder if we didn't stick the landing on this so I just nodded along amiably.

Cass gave an 'oooh' of understanding, and the realization dawning on her face was so perfect that I would have assumed she was fucking with us if she hadn't been mortal and in a room full of people with Perception in the hundreds. If Cass was trolling us, she was so good at it that the rest of the universe should be quaking in fear because this girl was going to be the most terrifying spy who ever lived.

I cleared my throat. "Anyway, I feel like making breakfast. How does everyone feel about french toast? If enough people want some I'll even throw in some bacon." Cass was distracted from her line of questioning by the promise of sweet breakfast foods, as I've found most people to be, and cheered in excitement, requesting powdered sugar on her toast, a request I obviously already planned to fulfill.

I headed for the stove as Callie dipped back into her room to put on pants and conveniently avoid the death glares from the only person in the house who could literally light us both on fire with his mind. When she came back though, she grabbed Jessie and dragged her off for a conversation I very deliberately avoided listening in on. Benny came over to lean against the counter next to me. "You know, as much as I like to give you shit, I just wanted you to know. I'm happy for you. Not just last night, but just...in general. She's good for you. I've never seen you as alive as you are around her."

"Well....thanks." I said awkwardly. "I mean, yeah. She makes me happy. Just being around her is like being on an adventure. Even when we're just sitting around and doing nothing. We're just so in sync with each other, and it's...nice. Having someone who understands me and who makes me so excited to start my day." I cut my eyes at him, narrowing them in annoyance. "And what the fuck do you mean alive? You saying I was dead before?"

He snorted. "Only socially, you shut in. I just mean that you seem to have an excitement you didn't before. A sense of anticipation. It's nice to see you getting so worked up over things. I love you like family man, but you were so damn passive before you got your powers. Things happened TO you. She's made you more assertive. Bolder. You happen to things. It's cool. I always knew you had that in you. Seeing it is nice."

I gave him a smile, but inside my heart clenched. I knew what he meant, and I wasn't totally sure it had much to do with Callie. I had a feeling it was more recursion than relationship, but I didn't want to say that out loud. I was pretty sure I had a handle on it, and I didn't want to ruin a nice moment with my best friend over nothing. "So, how have things been with Celine? Are you two actually officially dating yet?"

Despite my tone being neutral and interested he scowled at me. "Don't you dare become one of those guys who gets all preachy about relationships because yours is going well. Yes, we're dating. Sort of. Elves are weirdly formal about this stuff. She's accepted my intentions, but I'm supposed to write to her mom and make an official request to court her. I did, and I haven't heard back, but Cel says that elves don't tend to rush in matters of politics. Which this apparently is despite me not being politically motivated in the least. Fucking nobles man."

Wincing, I clapped on the shoulder in commiseration. In a way I was lucky Callie and I bonded over having shitty absentee dads. Meant I had one less parent to meet. Her mom also sounded really sweet, so I wasn't as worried about that as I could be, and that was without the whole "giving her superpowers" thing. I gave his shoulder a squeeze and got back to cooking. "So have you talked to Maria lately? I haven't heard from her, but I've been busy as hell. I really need to make time."

He sighed, letting his head drop back against the wall. "Yeah, she's been chafing at being stuck back home. She and Zach broke up, so that's good. Apparently she's been carrying a torch for Jessie, and they talk when possible, though that hasn't been as much as either of them likes. She did mention you not calling, and says if you don't get around to it soon she's going to come down here and break the water heater. See how you like taking your showers cold."

I flinched back in disgust at the heresy he'd just spouted. "Cold? She...she would make shower in the cold? That's sick. Your sister needs help Benny. What kind of deviant would interfere with a mans shower time? I've never had anyone threaten to do anything as heinous as that to me. If she gets abilities she'd better be watched. She clearly has a twisted and ruthless mind that the rest of us can only dread."

Benny rolled his eyes. Hard. "Shane, a group of fanatical sleeper assassins literally threatened to murder you. I can't describe to you how stupid it is that the idea of cold showers scares you so much. Hell, knowing you, cold isn't even the worst. Lukewarm is probably your nightmare." I nodded, shuddering. He was right. Showers should be so hot they almost hurt, lukewarm showers were even worse than cold ones. At least with cold there was health benefits. A lukewarm shower was just a heartless taunt to the person taking it.

"You know, It's nice to see." Said Benny. "As much as you've changed since meeting Callie and getting your ability, plenty of parts of you are still the same old weirdo I made friends with when we were kids. I'm glad you've grown into yourself a bit, but I'm also glad you're still you. Oh speaking of growing, any chance I can come watch your training today? Jessie said you guys are basically just being beaten mercilessly for hours and that makes me smile."

I groaned. "You were doing so well there for a second. But fine, I guess you can tag along. It's not like we'll be any more injured with you watching, plus I can be happy knowing you couldn't possibly do any better. Maybe I can even talk Abel into giving you some...'lessons' of your own." I gave him a vicious grin and it was his turn to shudder.

"No thanks." He said forcefully. "I might do some work with Alden today, but I've seen Abel fight. Some things just aren't worth the price of admission. I'd love to be an invincible badass, but there are limits to what I'll do to get there." He smirked at me. "Besides, you nerds might need your big muscles and combat ability, but brilliant Inventing geniuses like myself know that knowledge is power. Also trial and error. Trial and error is power too." Hearing my childhood friend sound like a proper mad scientist made me want to laugh, and I turned to focus on the french toast so he wouldn't see that his stupid humor was getting a rise out of me.

I settled back into cooking. Last night had been...crazy. I felt so damn serene it was absurd, and I was honestly a little worried I'd lose my edge against Abel, or I would be if I didn't feel like Callie and I were more in sync than ever. Still, it was like this constant knot of fear and worry had just...melted away. It would be back I was sure, but for now it was just nice not to feel like I had literal months of stress piling onto me, and I hadn't even really noticed it was happening until it was gone.

I whisked some cinnamon and sugar into the eggs that I dipped the toast in, along with a bit of cream, and pulled the bacon from the pan, using the leftover grease to keep it from sticking. For the moment, I was happy, relaxed, and looking forward to the future in a way that was altogether different from how I had been for a while. Callie came back in with Jessie, both of them chuckling about something I had no desire to learn about, and shot me a soft smile when she saw me.

Once I finished cooking we all sat down and ate together, and Cass told us about the most recent episode of one of her cartoons as we all made fascinated noises and smiled at each other about how cute the kid was. Finally though, our family breakfast was over, and it was time to get back to work. I donned my costume and we headed down to G-district to meet up with Abel at the Pavilion. Unlike yesterday though, I was looking forward to my training. It was going to be a good day.

 

The next three weeks were more of the same. One hundred and five wishes, sixty three of them being given over to the Beast Lord Garden and forty two of them for personal use, all of which I traded for attacks. I'd started pacing myself on stats given the cap coming up. I was already starting to get close to it. For the stats I got a hundred and eighty nine points out of those sixty three wishes, twenty to Vitality, forty to Focus, forty to Creation, forty nine to Fantasy, twenty to Might, and twenty to Perception.

A total of eight hundred fifty nine points for me across all my stats wasn't bad. We rotated through all twelve of the Beast Lord Garden elites that had been send out, since Sloane, Beric, and Croll only had so many points to give, but that had always been the plan. The forty two other wishes I'd traded for attacks. Ten healing bursts (I'd used up the two I had), nine fire attacks, five more triple strength tranq blows from Benny, eight more triple strength density shifted attacks, nine more spider leg attacks, and Callie had even given me access to one of her shadow clones made to look like me.

I'd also collected all ten of Alden's gravity attacks, so I was pretty much completely stocked up in the direct stuff, though the shadow clone thing had opened up the possibility of Jessie giving me taming or animation abilities, something I was eager to look into in the coming days. Still, all the attacks had helped my friends out a ton too. Benny had put thirty of his sixty six points into Might, thirty into Focus, and six in Fantasy just because it was so damn low bringing them up to one hundred fourteen, one hundred five, and sixteen respectively.

All twenty seven of Jessie's points went in Vitality of course. Callie put her three into creation, bringing it up to one hundred thirty five, and Cark put all his into Might, though I still hadn't really asked what his stats were. I'd even gotten three of my subskills modified over time. Touch of Tears and Consecration of flames had both been boosted to ten minute durations instead of five, and Double Trouble let me teleport behind someone and leave an illusion without needing to be restrained any more.

I'd been insanely busy the whole three weeks, not even mentioning the whole Abel thing. We'd spent that first week getting our ass kicked by just Abel, and when we were finally able to start actually taking some of the punishment and even landing glancing blows back, he brought Mel in to 'really start our training, and we officially began the process of getting truly brutalized. They didn't use Skills, which was the only reason we were probably still alive, but they put us through the ringer.

Shockingly though, Abel had informed us that we actually had this week off from training. There were three weeks left in our two month deadline, (there had been a few days before and after that one week of training, which was a week in itself, and then three we'd just done) and when I brought this up, my teacher just shrugged. "You can't train nonstop, I told you that. Everyone burns out, even Ascendants. Plus you don't want to get a rep for being a grinder. That shit follows you for life. But you also don't want your edge to be dull when you get to the actual tournament. Take the week off now, and the last two weeks before showtime we'll drill you into the ground."

Despite his wolfish grin, which normally would have terrified me, I actually smiled back. I turned to Callie. "So, I'm thinking we might be able to take that trip back home we've been talking about, if you think it's a good time." I'd actually considered that this might come up and talked to Melinda about it, we'd agreed that any wishes I'd done for them past my contractually obligated three would roll over, with about ten days of those and one spare I was at twenty one extra, which would give me a week off from that too, so it worked out.

Callie hadn't been granting wishes, but she'd been constantly training with her shadow manipulation, and had actually reached out to her uncle a few times. She was running on fumes too, and it occurred to me that Abel had a pretty decent grasp on what we were up to doing. Her shoulders seemed to sag in a relief I hadn't even known she needed to feel. "Oh gods, yes. That sounds amazing. I'm so damn tired. Not physically obviously but...mentally I'm just friend. Healing just doesn't do anything for mental fatigue."

It didn't. My own stomach was unclenching at the sudden lack of the stress that had been plaguing me for weeks. Sometimes you couldn't even feel the weight crushing down on you until it was gone. I honestly think if it wasn't for my time with Callie after training (I'd taken to sleeping in her room pretty much every night now, though most nights it really was just sleeping given the exhaustion) I'd probably have snapped. The more I thought about this the better it sounded for everyone, we could all use some down time.

Callie stepped up and pulled me against her, seeming happier than I had seen her in a while, at least at the Pavilion. "I'm sure mom would be so excited to have us. She's been talking about you visiting for ages. She really wants to meet my first serious boyfriend. It's honestly been getting kind of annoying lately, so this will really help me out." She shot me a wink as she looked up at me, her beaming smile more than enough to make the whole idea worth it. I loved seeing her smile like, and loved being the cause even more.

I paused as I had another thought. "Wait...why the hell did you make us come all the way down here to tell us we didn't have to come in? You could have just texted us this?" I was wearing my mask, but my annoyance must have been audible, because Abel's smug grin made it clear he knew he'd gotten to me. This asshole. Even Callie turned and glared at him a little as Mel lounged at the table they'd been playing chess at, trying not to snicker at us too obviously and failing even while wearing a mask of her own.

Abel just shrugged. "Because it was funny? Honestly how was I supposed to know you were going to take a vacation? Still, if you're leaving there are a few things you should iron out here anyway, so it's not too bad you ended up here." He looked over at Mel. "You had paperwork for them to sign right? Might be your last to chance to get anything done if they're going out of town." I grimaced as he clearly just came up with a reason off the top of his head, and even more as he tried to make work for me.

I reached up and placed a finger to the middle of my mask. "Not it." I said seriously. Callie's eyes widened with shock which quickly turned to annoyance. She glared at me but I just waved it off. "Don't be a spoil sport. Nose goes is a sacred code of honor. It's not my fault that you weren't fast enough to notice what I was doing. Aren't you supposed to be trained to be attuned to every movement I make?"

She growled at me, which was more cute than scary since I knew she wouldn't hurt me. "Only during combat. You're a bastard. But fine, you called it so I suppose I have no choice. I'll have my revenge someday though. Be on your guard." I snickered as Mel led her away. Abel was just looking at me quizzically. I shrugged. "What? Nose goes is sacred. It's like dibs, or shotgun. They're the basis of the modern concept of honor."

Chuffing out a laugh, my teacher shook his head. "You kids are all crazy. But whatever. Since I don't have to train you today I'm going to go take a nap on top of one of the tents. No one ever finds me up there." He shot me a grin and a cheery wave and headed off to find some building sized circus tent to climb. I assumed he was using his ability to get up there, but still, it was an impressive amount of effort to go to to avoid being woken up.

I stopped to let Alden know we would be gone for a while, and he waved me off with a congratulations on my vacation. Once that was done and I let the Sloane and the others know I'd be gone a week and to tell Melinda when I'd be back. Then I went to go track down the others to let them know what was going on. Jessie was excited to go home and visit, happy for the opportunity to see Maria and to check in with her brother's old teammate Lindsey, with whom she was extremely close.

Benny was the last person I went to talk to, and I found my best friend relaxing on the benches. He hadn't gone to visit Celine today luckily, and I sat down next to him, staring out at the pavilion. "Hey man, you look bored. You didn't have to come with today. Could have gone to hang out with your girl." I poked him in the ribs, earning a light grunt and an annoyed glare before he rolled his eyes with a chuckle.

"I could have." He said easily. "But absence makes the heart grow fonder. Not all of us are part of a co-dependent battle couple who spend all their time together. It works for you and Callie and that's great, but Cel likes her privacy too. Being underfoot all the time would only bug her. Not that she would ever actually SAY anything about it, but still. Taking some time to hang with you guys lets her decompress, and makes our next time hanging out more fun. Don't want her to get sick of me."

I shrugged. "We're not codependent, we just love each other's company. I spent years alone. It was fine I guess, but Callie...being with her doesn't feel like being in a crowd. We're both happy to be alone sometimes, but we can be alone together if we want to." Benny just rolled his eyes good naturedly. "Anyway, I didn't come over here for your opinion on my relationship. I wanted to let you know that we're planning a trip back to Valen. I wasn't sure if you were in. You can bring Celine if you want."

He jerked upright. "Wait. Really? Fuck yes I want to go home! I've been missing my family like crazy, and I want to introduce them to Cel. When did you want to leave?" He stood up and started to pace. "Shit, I have to get presents for mom and dad, and something for Maria to shut her up so she doesn't bitch I skipped her. Plus I need to buy something nice to wear, I've been in my costume for ages and mom will expect me to be dressed to impress when I introduce my girlfriend."

It was hard not to chuckle at his frantic muttering given his lackadaisical attitude just a minute ago. I didn't think he had much to worry about. Amber was a social butterfly and a big fan of high society. Bringing home a pretty, noble, elf girl would thrill her. If anything Benny would have trouble getting her to leave them alone. Still, I let him ramble, enjoying the comfort of the familiar voice of my best friend. Pretty soon I would be home again. I wondered how everyone was doing. It would be nice to see them all.

 

Getting back to Valen was shockingly easy. We had the money to just hire an air shuttle back at this point, not to mention our positions as the winners of the freshman treasure hunt had everyone hoping to get in good with us. We avoided using the Unity's in house shuttles, and as such avoided Midknight and Annie. There were a lot of options, but in the end we got a ride from Callie's uncle, who decided to come back for a visit once he heard we were going and offered us use of his personal air shuttle for the trip.

I expected Callie to shut that down fast, but apparently their calls had been going well, because she seemed fine with it, and was even excited to have him along. And she was in a good mood for the whole day until we finally met up with Alexander at his air shuttle. As we arrived at the landing site, I was forced to stop and stare at the conveyance we were going to be using to get back home. "Okay." I said, pointing at the thing. "Why the hell is that thing so...that." Words failed me as I gestured at the air shuttle dismissively.

Alexander, who was out of costume like the rest of us, just snickered. "Well, I have something of a reputation to maintain after all. Besides, it's not THAT bad." He cast a contemplative gaze to the air shuttle, which in defense wasn't BAD, so much as just...a lot. The whole thing was made of pitch black metal, and despite being a similar shape to the last one that was where the similarities ended.

The black metal was jagged and dramatic looking, and scrolled through with traceries of gold the made the dramatic design choices all the more striking. The inside was plush and lined with red velvet and it had dark, thick, red curtains blocking off the empty spaces on the sides, also velvet, with gold pull ropes that made it obvious how those would be opened and closed. It was basically the most over the top thing I'd ever seen in my life, and that was a pretty big list considering all the places I'd been as an Ascendant.

Callie snickered. "Sorry Uncle Alex. It's just kind of much. But it's fine, we know that your people are more likely to get something like this for you to use. We just appreciate not having to spend chits to get back. We have cash on hand, but trips like this are damn expensive and it's better to save the money when we can." She looked him over with amusement. "So, you seem a bit dressed up for a trip back home. Looking forward to seeing anyone special?"

Alexander cleared his throat. "Not at all, it's just been years since I've seen Amelia. I don't want her to think I've become some kind of layabout." Callie and I did our best not to snicker at the obvious crush he had on her mother. I wasn't sure exactly how that would work out given his identical features to her cheating ex-husband, but she'd known them both for years so maybe it wouldn't be a problem for her.

We turned to see the others approaching to climb inside. Benny, Jessie, Zeke, Cark, Cass, and Celine, and six wolves. We'd brought Cark and his sister along because Callie had mentioned the little girl to her mother who apparently insisted. I'd have been down to invite them either way. Cark was a great guy and Cass was a blast to have around. Plus having the kid around was a breath of fresh air. Kept us all a little more human.

Celine waved slightly, seemingly shy about riding home with all of us, or just being her normal taciturn self. Benny looked over the moon she'd agreed to come with. He put an arm over her shoulder. "Hey guys, hope we aren't late. Had to grab some things. So what kind of time are we looking at for travel here? I remember it was crazy fast last time. Like two hours or so. Will this one be as fast?" He sounded excited for the trip, which I got. It had been pretty intense last time. I wondered if the drapes would make it better or worse?

We all climbed in, and as usual the space inside wasn't cramped at all. This thing was swanky, it had all the same spatial expansions as the elevator compartments in the WCP, even better ones than most of the cars we'd been in. We all took seats on the plush black sofas. Alexander gave an expansive gesture. "Sit wherever you like. Anyone who wants to can open the curtains, there are barriers to prevent windburn and stop falling, but honestly past the first ride watching countryside blur past too quickly to see gets pretty old."

I slumped into the comfortable couch and smiled at Alexander, who'd chosen to sit nearby. Callie had gone to talk with Jessie, so it was just us. He cleared his throat again, lowering his voice before speaking. "Shane. I'd like to thank you. Calliope mentioned you were the one who suggested she give me a call. Getting to know her has been...nice. I never got to spend time with her as a girl, my relationship with my brother being what it was. I never thought I would have the chance to spend time with her like this." We both knew that lowering his voice did nothing, but all of our Focus was decent enough that we could avoid just constantly hearing everything with supernatural levels of fidelity.

"It's fine." I assured him, my smile turning wry. "If it makes you feel better, you don't owe me anything for it. I did it for Callie. I was pretty sure she would regret not getting to know you just because of her dad. She hates letting him control her, and that's what it would have been. She deserved to make her own choice, and you deserved a chance to prove your intentions. Seems like it worked out well for everyone. I should be thanking you for training her. She's mentioned you've been giving her some exercises to do and they've been helping her polish her shadow combat skills."

He just shook his head. "That isn't training. Just offering advice. It's quite literally the least I could do. She's been improving rapidly from what I saw when I arrived though. You both have. I'd heard some rumors floating around E-district about you, but I hadn't believed them. It seems they were accurate after all. Still, it's not just stat gain. You both walk like completely different people. You must be working hard."

Gesturing over at Callie, who saw me and raised an eyebrow, I smiled. "She's the one whose been working the hardest. I've just been trying to keep up. She's absolutely brilliant in battle. Her instincts are fantastic, and she seems to be able to pick up when I'm in trouble like a sixth sense." We'd been doing so much work, it was nice to finally have a chance to brag a bit, even if I wasn't bragging about me. Callie and her uncle were still getting acquainted, it would nice for me to talk her up a bit, and I really was insanely proud of her.

She, as it turned out, felt the same way. "Oh none of that." I heard her say as she stepped up behind me. She fell sideways over the couch arm, flopping over into my lap without any sort of warning or hesitation. I grinned at her and kissed the top of her head as she told her uncle. "He's being modest. Like...to a stupid degree. We've both improved a ton, but he started literal years after I did. Stat wise we're about even, and in terms of combat skill I'm probably a bit ahead because of my Skills and build, but that is pretty fucking amazing on its own."

I just shrugged. "It's not the same." I was kind of cheating. Sure, Callie was getting her stats boosted, but she had made as much progress as I did, and I'd been using the overlay during training for the last few weeks. She hadn't managed to get DS Mastery past Minor. That wasn't a shock really, it was a unique Skill no one else had ever managed to get that I knew of. She could have wished for it, but decided against it, saying she already had too much to work on, and had another Skill to synergize next rank already anyway.

She just rolled her eyes. "I appreciate the hype, but I'm not going to let you pretend you're not turning into a total beast yourself." She paused, shouting over to Rellia. "No offense Rel." The wolf just ignored her, which I took to be a dismissal. "Anyway, your combat senses have been growing dramatically. I almost never worried about getting hit anymore." I tried to protest but she leaned up to kiss me to shut me up. "Ok, that's enough, my uncle doesn't need to hear us argue about which one of us is a better fighter." She cut her eyes at him mischievously. "He needs to tell me more about that bottle of wine I noticed stashed in one of the cupboards with a bow on it."

That drew a loud sigh from Alexander. "Damn. I thought it was hidden well enough not to draw attention. It's nothing. Just a hostess gift. It's good manners to bring a bottle of wine when someone allows you into their home." He showed absolutely no sign of distress or discomfort when saying that, which would have been much more impressive if I didn't know how absolutely monstrous his Perception had to be. He could have been openly weeping on the inside and not shown even a hint of it as far as we could tell.

Callie looked dubious, but let it go in the end. She didn't want to make him uncomfortable, even if I imagined she was kind of protective about her mother. Alexander seemed to have made a good impression on his niece. The guy was just so damned polite and formal though. Callie and I weren't formal people, so we tried our hardest to get him to loosen up as we talked, to little success. Still, it was a nice way to kill the time, enjoying the conversation as we sped through the air. Occasionally one of the others would come over to chat, but they mostly kept to themselves, with Cass excitedly watching the passing countryside as we flew once Cark was reassured about the barriers being secure.

In what felt like no time at all we began our final approach. Everyone stood up to watch the descent, pushing aside the curtains as we slowed down to land on the roof of the guild building. I felt lighter than I had in months as we landed, and I saw Stella, Ian, Lindsey, and to my surprise, Maria, all waiting for us on the rooftop. Once we had stopped and the barriers dropped I grinned and bolted out of the shuttle. I headed for Maria first, scooping up my annoying surrogate sister in a huge hug and spinning her in a circle.

She squeaked in outrage. "Shane, you beast! Put me down! Did you get taller somehow? This is ridiculous, why are you and Benny so damn big. I demand you stop growing and possibly drop an inch or two." Her voice was rough with happiness as I put her down, only for her to get snatched up and put through the same thing by Benny as she groaned in annoyance and gave him a similar speech. In the old days I might have been annoyed, but this time I wasn't upset at all. I was finally home, and that was all that mattered. It was good to be back.

 

Benny headed home to see his parents, taking Celine with him, and made plans to meet up with the rest of us later while we all headed into Valen proper. We were all staying with Callie's mom during thew visit, and I was a bit worried she wouldn't have the space for us until Callie reassured me that her mom had gotten the house in the divorce when her dad left town, and the place was absurdly big compared to most single family homes. Amelia apparently lived alone at the moment, though she had several dogs.

Arriving at the house, I had to admit that I saw what Callie meant about the absurdity. Callie's mom didn't live in a mansion, she lived in a fucking compound. It was extremely pretty, but also very defensible. Despite being huge in terms of surface area, all the buildings were single story. The house was laid out in an interesting style I hadn't seen before. Short, reddish brown walls made of sandy stone were topped with sloped rooftops of terracotta tiles and lined with pretty stained glass windows that were tall and thin enough that they wouldn't provide an entrance even if broken.

Ivy grew along the walls, especially near the tops, and I could see roses blooming within the climbing vines, so subtly entwined they looked like they were the same plant unless you paid attention. The mosaic tiled courtyard at the entrance had a single large clay fountain inset with opals that shimmered in the sunlight, the light playing over the clear water as it poured forth from the spouts. It was pretty much the homiest and most welcoming fortress I had ever seen in my life.

I turned to Callie, my jaw dropping. "You grew up HERE?" Despite being a potential heir to a universal syndicate I hadn't really had access to much more than a comfortable level of wealth as a kid. Benny's family was incredibly well off however, and even he would have been a bit blown away by this place. I suppose it shouldn't surprise me after all I had seen, but Callie's mom was a mortal. Her scale for wealth should be closer to Benny's than ours. I mean, we could have a house like this built with our current funds, but we were REALLY rich for G-rankers after the ransoms.

She shrugged. "My father had it built for her when they got married. I think he wanted to make sure she stayed out of his hair. She adores this place. Spends almost all her time cleaning and maintaining it. There's a built in greenhouse in the center that acts as a sort of courtyard where she keeps her garden. It's a pretty place, I admit, but I have mixed feelings about it. I'd be fine if she just moved, but she has a lot of good memories of me growing up here and she's attached." Her voice lowered as she looked away. "She got a bit clingy with my childhood stuff when I ran away. That's on me so I can't really complain about it."

I could hear the shame and discomfort in her voice when she said that, but it was subtle enough that even with my Perception I wouldn't have noticed it if I hadn't known her so well. Her expression melted into one of joy however, as she glanced over at the gate, which I saw was now opening to reveal a gorgeous dark haired woman with bright blue eyes that were same shade as Callie's. The woman, presumably Amelia, looked about thirty as opposed to the early forties I expected from someone with a daughter who was nearly twenty.

"Baby girl!" She squealed happily, her arms flung wide for her daughter, who bolted across the courtyard and threw herself at Amelia, wrapping her up in a tight hug. Amelia was taller than Callie, which wasn't hard, especially since Cal had traded me an inch of height and gone down to four foot ten. "Look at you. You look wonderful." She pushed her back, gripping her shoulders as she raked her eyes over her daughter critically. "A bit smaller though. Did you lose weight..." She paused. "Or height somehow?" She shook off the thought after a moment. "Not important, how was the trip?"

Callie smiled at her mother, and the expression was beautiful for how relaxed and joyful it was. "It was fine mom. Uncle Alex gave us a lift. He came with us for the visit actually." She raised an eyebrow. "Speaking of Uncle Alex, we should have a talk later about keeping important information from your daughter. I can't believe you never told me I had an Uncle on dad's side of the family. Any other secrets you're keeping?"

Most people would have wilted under Callie's glare, my girlfriend had a formidable presence, but Amelia just raised a nearly identical eyebrow at her daughter. "Darling, I was married to a Unity Guild Master for over a decade. I know more secrets than you can imagine. As for Alexander...we hadn't spoken to him in a long time. I suspected he wanted to distance himself from Paul and I, and I respected that." She shifted her gaze over to where the man himself stood. "Though it appears his desire for distance has eroded with time. How have you been Alex?"

Alexander looked...flustered. Which was fucking weird to think about an E-ranker. "I've been well Amy. You look good. Haven't aged a day since I last saw you." There was some weird subtext in that statement that I couldn't and didn't really want to parse, but Amelia blushed slightly when he said it. Callie gave the two of them a suspicious look, and Alexander changed the subject quickly, striding across the courtyard to present the wine. "I brought this by the way. Claren Fal 4683. I know it's your favorite. A gift for my generous hostess." He smiled warmly, offering her the bottle with both hands, one around the base and one cradling the neck.

She gave him a wry smile, along with that same raised eyebrow that looked so much like Callie it was almost eerie. "Yes." She said dryly as she took the gift. "This one bottle of wine is definitely enough to make up for your nearly two decades of avoiding me. I'm glad you're treating your actions with the gravity that they deserve." Her voice was as icy and poisonous as a cyanide popsicle, and just as sweet. Alexander paled slightly under her glare.

For a second it looked like she would glare him into a puddle, but then, as suddenly as it came, the icy rage melted into a sunny smile as she turned to me. "Now then, this must be the boy my daughter can't stop gushing about." She completely ignored Callie's mortified 'Mom!' in the background as she took my arm and dragged me toward the entrance to the house. "I want to hear all about your relationship. Dates, social outings, embarrassing stories I may have missed while she was away, spare no details. I assure you, I have plenty of stories to trade."

Callie's expression was no longer a raised eyebrow, her face had taken on the same petrified expression Alexander was wearing as I looked back at her, shrugging as her mother dragged me away. Amelia was pretty scary for a mortal, I was lucky she seemed to like me. As she dragged me inside I did my due diligence as a guest. "You have a lovely home by the way ma'am."

She patted me on the arm with amusement. "Yes dear, I know, I designed it. But thank you for the kind words. And please, call me Amy, I insist. My daughter has mentioned how close you two are, and how far out of your way you go to take care of her." She smirked at me. "She's also mentioned that you're a better cook than I am, which I hope I'll get to see for myself while you're here. Not tonight of course, you've only just arrived so I'll be preparing dinner this evening."

I chuckled at that. Something about Amy put me at ease. Probably the similarity to my girlfriend. Her mannerisms were all extremely close to her daughter's, and I could see how big of an impact she had on raising Callie. It shouldn't have been a surprise. I somehow doubted Midknight had been a hands on parent even before he left, so she must have been basically raising Callie on her own.

Smiling down at her, I gave a nod. "I'd be happy to cook for you sometime. As for taking care of her...well, I'd be dead a hundred times over without Callie. It would be more accurate to say I returned the favor. She means the world to me. She also THINKS the world of you. She was really nervous about us meeting, though also really excited. I can see why. She's a lot like you, you two must be close for her to have picked up so many of your mannerisms."

That got a smile. "Good catch. Yes, we have a close relationship. We've always had a very special bond. Well except..." She trailed off, her smile growing brittle for a moment. "Anyway, yes, we're very close. I'm glad to see you're so invested in her feelings on the matter. Most boys your age would have just assumed this was a meet the parents thing and put in a token effort. Or been too nervous to talk properly. It's good to see you're made of sterner stuff than that." She gave me a smirk and poked my side. "Quite a bit of it by the looks of things. What do they feed you kids these days?"

There was no logical reason for me to blush, but I did anyway, which got a giggle from Amelia. She dragged me through the house, showing me various rooms and hallways, commenting on the places Callie had liked to spend time as a kid, and the others caught up with us, following along. She showed me the greenhouse, which was gorgeous, and Jessie excitedly began asking her questions about nitrate levels in her fertilizers or some other gardening shit (no pun intended) that I zoned out.

Jessie loved plants and gardening, but she spent all her time with Ascendants now, and they tended to go more for the super than the natural aspect of supernatural plant growth. It was easy to forget my blonde teammate had grown up working with flowers before she ever got her ability. As soon as Amelia got distracted with Jessie, Callie swooped in and dragged me away, effectively putting herself between her mother and I to prevent any embarrassing stories from being told. Like she could physically stop me from hearing her dirty laundry by standing in front of me. It was unspeakably cute.

After a few hours, in which we were shown our rooms (mine was the guest room right next to Callie's childhood bedroom where she was staying, and Amelia's wink when she mentioned that made my girlfriend turn a shade of red I suspected to be unhealthy) we all headed into the kitchen, and Amelia made us all dinner. She had one of those flat grill surfaces you see in some restaurants, and she cooked us meat and vegetables and fried rice as we watched. Her knife work was actually pretty impressive for a mortal.

All in all, it was a fantastic day, and exactly what we needed. The feeling of relaxing without needing to worry about anything was just amazing. After dinner we arranged to meet up with Benny, Celine, and Maria the next day, which Jessie seemed excited about, and explore the city. Our elf friend and the Cark siblings had never been to Valen, and we wanted to show them all the sights, as well as possibly throw our weight around a bit since G-rankers were rare here, and there were only a few people higher than that in the whole city. I feel asleep smiling. This vacation had been a great idea.

 

Waking up the next morning was so relaxing. We slept in, which should have been routine since we'd been doing it for a while, but there was something different about a day when you had training later and a day when you were just doing whatever you wanted. I rolled over, and was greeted with a grunt of annoyance and a hand shoving my face away sleepily. I sputtered a bit, and then started laughing, sitting up to look down at my girlfriend, who was never in a good mood when someone woke her up.

She opened one eye, glaring at me balefully. "S'bright. N' Cold. Lay down." She'd somehow managed to slip in here after I went to bed and burrow under me like I was a giant blanket. The sleepy, squinting annoyance of someone who wished they were still sleeping was adorable on her.

I raised an eyebrow. "I'm pretty sure we need to go down for breakfast. I smell bacon. I bet your mom made us some food. We can't just stay up here forever. Also how did you even get in here without waking me up. My Perception is pretty high. Did you use stealth or something?" I didn't try to hide the humor in my voice that she wasn't comfortable staying in separate rooms for even a day. Or the happiness. It made me smile.

The other eye creaked open as she glared hared. "Ugh." She said, clearly forcing her vocal chords to warm up and actually function. "My bed is too big. And cold. It was annoying. I WAS perfectly warm here until you got up like a jerk. But fine. If bacon is more important to you than your beloved girlfriend I see how it is." She turned her head away, too lazy to get up and roll over to shun me. "You can just leave me here to freeze."

I grinned and hopped out of bed pulling on a shirt to go with the sweats I'd been sleeping in. "Oh, ok. Glad you understand. Can't expect a man not to prioritize his bacon. Well...if there's any left once I'm finished with it. I love me some bacon." I turned to leave with a snicker, planning to wait outside for her since I knew that we would definitely be out in a second.

I apparently underestimated her as I felt a slipper smack into the back of my head. I turned in shock to glare at her, but barely managed to catch sight of her as she pushed her ridiculously high Might to blitz past me and make it to the door before I could. "You asshole!" I yelped, turning to bolt after her. She wasn't going all out since she didn't want to shatter the floors or anything. Fantasy could warp the world a bit to allow us to use our power without some of the inconveniences, but hers wasn't as high as her Might.

Little things like that were part of the training we'd gotten over the last few weeks. Learning to harness our abilities better and use our stats to the fullest. At the beginning of the last month I wouldn't have been able to bolt down the hall after her at top speed without breaking anything. I'd have shattered the floor or run into a wall, but both of us were so much more than we had been.

She got to the kitchen a second before me, and I scooped her up by the waist and spun her around, dropping her outside the doorway as I bolted for the plate with the bacon on it. She gave an offended squawk and made to follow but we both stopped when we heard a loud throat clearing noise from one side. Frozen at being caught, I slowly turned to regard an amused looking Alexander, sitting next to an annoyed seeming Amelia. Our hostess smiled archly. "You two seem spirited."

Turning to Callie, I was shocked to see my usually unflappable girlfriend looking like she was caught with her hand in the cookie jar. We were so used to our mornings together we'd gotten a bit lost on what would happen if I chased her down the stairs and into the kitchen. She cleared her throat, looking just like Alexander for a second. "Ah. Hello. Fancy seeing you all here. Lovely morning isn't it?"

It was probably the most blatant attempt to ignore reality I'd ever seen, and Callie could literally make fake copies of herself from pure darkness. Amelia smirked. "Yes, fancy seeing me in my own kitchen." She stared for a minute, before sighing and rolling her eyes, breaking eye contact before she looked back to her plate. "And yes Calliope, it is a lovely morning. Or what's left of it. It's almost noon." Her smirk became sly. "The two of you must have been comfortable."

Callie's expression became semi-panicked. She stalked over and grabbed a plate from the cabinet, slammed it down on the counter and started shoveling food onto it. Proclaiming loudly. "SO, what are everyone's plans for today!? Are you all coming with us to show the Cark siblings around town and meet up with Benny?" Her obvious change of subject wasn't commented on, though there were more than a few muffled snickers from around the table. Mostly Cark and Jessie.

Zeke shook his head. "Nah, I've seen the whole town. Amy said I could relax in the garden, and I'm getting some of my favorite lager delivered. It's a local microbrew you can't get in Rajak. Damn brewer won't export it. Says it's meant to bolster the local economy or some nonsense. A beer maker who won't sell beer. What is the world coming to I ask you?" He looked to the other two older members of the breakfast group. "Amy, Alex, are you two going to tag along with the kids? I imagine it'll be nice spending time with Callie at the very least."

I was pretty sure he just wanted the house to himself to get drunk. Though I had become less sure he could actually GET drunk from anything he could find here, as much as he liked to act sloppy and ridiculous when drinking. I was pretty sure his Vitality had to be high enough to make that nearly impossible. Amelia smiled at him. "I might just do that Ezekial, thank you. Alex, do you want to join me?" She gave him an oddly bashful smile, like she was talking about a date, and Alexander swallowed hard before replying with a smile that he would love to.

My uncle clicked his tongue, surprising me by saying. "In that case, it might be bad form to get the beer delivered. I can just go pick it up myself. I can stock up. I didn't bother last time I was in town because we left in a hurry and I didn't know they wouldn't ship." He smiled nostalgically. "Maybe I'll bring someone to Stella as a peace offering. She might be willing to actually speak to me since I've been gone for a while. Maybe she's finally figured out that she misses me."

Jessie shrugged. "I'll tag along. I want to visit with Maria. She broke up with her boyfriend and I think she's feeling down about it, but she doesn't feel comfortable sharing that with Shane or Benny because she knows they both hated him." I shrugged at that. It was true. Her smile became softer. "Plus we haven't had time to talk as much since we've all been busy." She raised an eyebrow at me. "Speaking of that. I don't suppose you're planning to offer her the same choice you're giving Amelia?"

That...hadn't really occurred to me. Maria was like a little sister to me, but she was still sixteen. Only two years younger than us, sure, but I'd seen what that kind of attention had to Callie so early. It was a ton of pressure. On the other hand the earlier she got her ability the more sought after she would be when she managed to get to higher ranks. G-rankers under twenty got poached for the Academy for a reason. Younger people who reached higher ranks experienced a much faster swell in reputation. Everyone loved hearing about prodigies, after all.

She'd ALSO see a massive bump in lifespan. Impact reduced aging to one physical year for however many chronological years you had of Impact. That meant if you had another eighty physical years to age, you would enjoy potentially hundreds of extra years of living. There were good and bad aspects of it, and in the end Jessie was right. Maria was the only one who could make that call for herself.

I nodded. "I'll make the offer. You aren't wrong, I probably should have considered that, it's just not something that popped into my head until you mentioned it." I gave her a grateful smile, before turning to Amelia. "Speaking of that. Is there a specific time you'd like to talk that over? I'm sure Callie mentioned it to you, and I'm happy to make the time whenever."

For the first time since I'd met her, Amelia looked...uncertain. I knew from talking to Callie that this was a tougher decision for her than it seemed. 'Do you want superpowers?' might seem like a no brainer at first glance, but Amelia had been married to an Ascendant for years, and had serious and justified issues with the culture. She wouldn't dismiss it out of hand, if only because her daughter was the one pushing for it and the lifespan it promised would let her stay with her child for much longer, but still it wasn't a simple question.

I'd known that when I asked it of course, but just because someone doesn't know the answer doesn't mean you don't still have to ask. She needed to think this through, and her indecision just made it clear she'd been putting it off. Still, I held up my hands placatingly. "No rush or anything. It's something you need to think about and I get that, but I wanted to at least put the thought in your head, just let me know when you're ready to at least discuss it."

Callie didn't look happy at that, but she was more upset at the situation than anything. She wasn't angry at me for giving her mom time, or her mom for taking it, she just didn't want to wait. It was understandable. Amelia noticed and reached out to take her daughters hand. "No." She said after some hesitation. "No I don't need time. I'll take you up on that. We can do it later tonight if you like." She offered Callie a strained smile.

My girlfriend bolted out of her seat and threw her arms around her mother, smiling brightly. "Oh, thank you mom! I promise you're going to love it. You don't need to rush or anything. We can push you up to G-rank before we leave and you can take your time from there. No need to go to Rajak or involve yourself in politics. I just...I want you around for as long as possible? We could have so many more years together this way!" She completely ignored Alexander, who didn't seem surprised anyway. I wasn't sure if that was stoicism or really good information gathering but either way he knew the truth now. With Zeke here he wasn't a threat, and I doubted he would screw up Amelia's chances of living longer.

After Callie released her mother and sat back down, she turned to address the table. "Well, seems like we all have our plans for the day lined up. Let's enjoy this delicious breakfast mom made and we can all head out. I'm sure Benny is excited to show Celine around town. There's definitely plenty to see." She flashed us all a wild grin. "I personally want to drop in on some old friends if we have time. It'll be so good to see them." From her smile, I was guessing friend was a strong word, and I wasn't sure they were going to feel the same about seeing her.

 

It felt weird to be walking around out of costume for extended periods of time. It felt even weirder knowing that we didn't need to WORRY about walking around in costume for extended periods of time. With three F-rankers and probably less than a dozen or two G-rankers around here, there weren't many things that could threaten us. We weren't equipped to punch up ranks, but we were probably just barely Titan Twenty level on our own now. Which meant basically no G-ranker in the city should be a real threat, even if we didn't have Alexander with us.

We had our costumes with us of course, since Callie was planning some kind of vengeance spree later after we all hung out, but honestly I wasn't too worried about that. I was interested to see some more of the local criminal element from this side of things, and I knew Callie well enough to trust she wasn't planning something too over the top. She wasn't the 'kill em' all and let the gods sort them out' type. For now though, we were sticking with the civilian side of things since we had her mom and uncle with us, not to mention Cass.

By the time we met up with Benny, Celine, and Maria it was about two PM. My best friend looked more relaxed and at peace than I had seen him in a long time. I hardly recognized him when I spotted him sitting on a bench next to Celine, and it took me a minute to figure out why. He didn't look visibly different that I could see, but something about him had changed. It took me a minute to figure out that my Perception was picking up things like body language and microexpressions subconsciously and my Focus was processing them.

I waved when he looked up, and he grinned at us, popping to his feet. "Hey guys, you made it. And you brought Callie's uncle and...her sister?" He looked semi-confused, and I realized that we hadn't mentioned Amelia would be coming. The older woman looked good for her age, probably early to mid twenties. She didn't look out of place next to Alexander, who only looked a bit older than the rest of us.

Amelia giggled a bit, brushing a lock of hair behind her ear. "Calliope, your friends are so sweet. I like this one." She held out a hand to shake Benny's with a smile. "Amelia Reynolds, I'm Callie's mother. It's nice to meet another of her team members. You must be Benicio. She didn't mention how tall you were. What DO they feed you boys? You're all practically giants." Her eyes shone with good humor as she made the comment, so not one had the heart to point out that she and Callie were mostly just really short.

I was surprised at the introduction though. Amelia hadn't given her last name in the time we had been staying with her, and I hadn't expected her to keep her married name. I supposed she wanted to keep it for Callie's sake. Benny's eyes had gone wide when she spoke, and he held out his hand on reflex, looking shocked. "You're...her mother? I thought her mother was mortal? You look so young."

Amelia laughed at that, and Benny grunted as Maria elbowed him in the ribs as she went past. Not hard thankfully, though I saw her rubbing her elbow a bit as she smiled welcomingly at Amelia. "Sorry about my brother." She said sincerely. "He can be a bit prone to foot in mouth. It's really nice to meet you. I'm Maria Cortez. This is my brother's girlfriend, who is way out of his league, Celine."

The elf girl gave a graceful wave I was sure she had practiced in the mirror. Maria turned to the rest of us. "Most of you I know since I saw you in passing when everyone arrived, it's nice to see you all." Her eyes locked on Cass as they went by and she strolled over to offer a hands. "Hi there, I'm Maria. Sorry to say you're the youngest now. It can be a pain dealing with all these older types, but I'm glad it's not me anymore." She winked at the younger girl.

Cass, for her part, just giggled in amusement and took her hand. "Cassidy. You're still pretty old, but I guess you're not as bad as the rest of them. I can put up with the adults for you if you need me too. I'm used to dealing with it from my big brother." She shot Cark an annoyed glance that was softened with a fond smile. "He's always trying to act like he knows better than me and I should just shut and listen."

That got a surprised laugh from Maria. "Trust me I know." She shot her own annoyed glance at Benny and I. "I have my own big brothers, and they always think they know better. It's not all bad though, it helps me keep them in line. They can be kind of dumb sometimes, so they really need it." The two of them shared a commiserating nod that should probably have worried me somewhat before Benny cut in.

"As much fun as this little pow-wow ISN'T." He said with exasperation. "I was pretty sure we were going to show everyone around the city? Any of you guys have any ideas for a first stop? The Night Market is a no go for a family trip, not that it's even open this early, and WCP doesn't exactly seem like the best place to take them. Vengiollo's might work, but I don't really think Cass would enjoy it."

Callie bit her lip. "We could go to the Druid's Grove? Mom loves that place, and it's gorgeous. Have you guys ever been?" Benny and I shook our heads, but Jessie looked excited. Callie just chuckled. "Yeah, I figured it would be your scene Jess. The Druid's Grove is the local Ascendant Farmer's Market. It's mostly H-rankers there, though the owner is a Unity executive. They sell mortal fruit too, but they grow most of it there and it's absolutely beautiful."

I'd never heard of it, but then, I hadn't really interacted much with Ascendant culture here when I'd lived in town, and it was a big city. I was only eighteen, so there was no reason to expect I'd seen it all here. It sounded like fun to me, and I was looking forward to picking up some ingredients, so there was no reason to refuse. "Well, I'm in." I said with a shrug. "I don't know about everyone else, but weird fruit and veggies sounds entertaining to me."

Jessie snickered. "It's not just fruit and veggies. They have flowers there too, and other interesting plants. Nothing as impressive or powerful as Melinda's garden, but plenty of things that are pretty to look at, plus I know the owner. I used to work there sometimes before I got my ability. My mom was friendly with Harvest, the executive Callie mentioned, and she was kind of my mentor in flower arranging when I was a kid." She smiled sadly. "I haven't seen her in years though. Once mom and dad died we stopped going. Reminded us of them too much."

Maria put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. I was honestly just surprised. Jessie never talked about her parents, I knew they'd died when she was young, and Alan had basically raised her. Other than that I realized I'd never heard her say much of anything about them. This was the first time I heard her imply that they might have been Ascendants, even indirectly, but it would explain how her brother and she both got powers. I knew because of my own parents that Ascendant traits could carry over slightly, though not much until you hit the higher ranks.

Seeing our friend lost in her own thoughts Callie cleared her throat. "Anyway, Druid's Grove it is. I haven't been in a while either. I really love the apples there. " She nodded to Amelia. "Mom used to take me all the time as a kid, she and Harvest are friends." She got an odd look on her face, glancing to Jessie and then her mother. "Actually, I don't think it's ever come up, but did you know Jessie's mom? I didn't realize you guys were both friends of Aunt Alyssa until just now."

Amelia smiled softly. "Not really. I think I knew her in passing though. If she's who I'm thinking of she was always a kind woman. I hadn't realized Jessica was her daughter until you mentioned it, but I see the resemblance. Piper had black hair, but there's a lot of similarity in the eyes." She gave Jessie a warm smile. "I didn't know her well, but Alyssa and she were very close and I heard nothing but wonderful things. She spoke about you and your brother often on the few occasions I did meet her. She was very proud of your talent for flower arranging."

My teammate swallowed hard, her emerald eyes swimming for a second with emotion, before she pushed it all down. Jessie was much better at controlling her emotions than her generally happy demeanor would let on. With everything decided though, we headed out, deciding to take the bus to our destination. There was a stop near where we met up (it was the same park Benny and I had met at back when I first found out about my power) and Benny and I knew the schedule by heart.

Being back on a Valen bus with my best friend was a bit surreal. It felt like it had been so long since we'd done thing, and being with so many new faces made it all the stranger. We all chatted back and forth, Amelia asking about the Academy, Rajak in general, and our adventures in the capital. Maria caught us up on how things had been back home, her break up with Zack, and how things had been around here since M-Jack left. It had been both more and less peaceful, with no lunatic shenanigans, but plenty of turf wars, even if the Unity mostly kept it from affecting the mortals.

Finally, we arrived at the Druid's Grove. We climbed out of the bus at the stop Callie indicated and walked for about two miles before we came to the right place. Jessie stopped first, having run ahead a bit, and took a deep, happy breath. "Oh wow, I forgot how much I love the smell of this place. Like earth and fresh fruit and growing things." She spun around a few times, eyes closed, and just luxuriated in the atmosphere. Then she stopped and gave us an embarrassed grin. "Sorry, bit distracted. Welcome to the Druid's Grove."

She gestured around us, and I could see why they wanted to come here. The place was a park in its own right, but where the rest of them were green and lush, this one was shades of red, orange, and yellow. It was Autumn here somehow, and the ground was thick with leaves that crunched underfoot. Among the trees were wooden tables that had an almost box like top, each holding different fruits, vegetables, and some even being packed with dirt which grew beautiful plants.

I chuckled a bit as Callie grabbed my hand, dragging me along with her as she set off toward the tables. She seemed so excited to be here, and Amelia's smile told me that she loved seeing her daughter so happy just as much as I did. As Callie began to drag me toward a table packed with dark red juicy looking apples, I began to understand where my girlfriend's appetite came from. If I'd grown up coming here I'd be hungry all the time too. I was definitely going to try one of those apples. They looked delicious.

 

I never got to grab an apple. I tried to head in that direction but was tugged insistently away by my girlfriend. We walked past most of the tables, ignoring them, as Callie lead us into the deeper portions park, where the yellow and orange trees were crowded closer together. We walked around several copses of trees before finally coming to a small wood cabin tucked back out of sight. It was a homey looking place made of lightly colored wooden beams that had seasoned to a golden color that reminded me of sunlight in the last minutes of the day.

On the porch of the cabin sat a woman elbow deep in mud, seated in front of a pottery wheel as she worked on what looked like a huge vase. Her hands pressed forcefully into the clay as she worked it, and I watched the porch buckle slightly under the wheel before she eased up. Whatever that clay was, it was clearly much harder to work than one would
expect. It was G-ranked material at least, and the woman working it was the same.

She had a wide smile on her red lips as she molded the clay, obviously lost in her joy in creating something, and she didn't seem to hear us at all, implying she was throwing all her Focus into whatever crafting she was doing. We stood to the side and waited as she worked, no one daring to interrupt, and I got my first look at the woman I could only assume was Harvest, the executive who owned the Grove.

Her hair was green. Not emerald, but more of a seaweed. A darker green that somehow seemed more natural, and it fell in wild curls down her shoulders. Her face was delicate, almost fragile looking, with high cheek bones, and bright golden eyes that set off her dark mocha skin almost as much as her brilliant smile. She was tall for a woman, six feet if I had to guess, I couldn't tell perfectly with her sitting, but she had long graceful limbs and thin artistic fingers that she was using to shape the clay.

We watched for about thirty minutes as she molded the clay, pushing and pulling and slapping the material, tracing fingers over it in runes I recognized as Enchantments, though I didn't recognize what kind. She was using another Skill alongside Enchanting, probably some kind of pottery Skill, and I wasn't familiar enough with the technique to figure out how one affected the other.

Eventually though, she finished the last of the work, and lowered her hands with a happy sigh. Her golden eyes rose from the pot and she jumped slightly in surprise, hand going to her chest in a gesture of shock. "Oh! Guests. Sorry about that. I was a bit focused." Her eyes fell on Callie, standing next to me, and her smile widened into an affectionate grin. "Calliope!" She was up in a flash, blurring over to sweep my girlfriend up into a crushing hug. "Darling girl. It's so good to see you back." She put Callie down, hands clasping her shoulders before she looked conspiratorially around, leaning in to stage whisper. "You poor mother has been going spare worrying about you up in the big city."

Amelia cleared her throat, glaring at her friend. "Oh, are we telling secrets Aly? Is that what we're doing? Because I seem to remember a certain someone having a rather strong reaction to a batch of hard cider she made a few years ago. If we're sharing maybe I should tell everyone what happened. It's such an entertaining story." Her eyebrow was arched in threatening annoyance, but the small smirk pulling at her lips gave lie to the threat.

Harvest, or Alyssa, from what was said earlier. Raised her hands in surrender. "Don't shoot. Down girl. No need to get nasty. Your daughter knows you missed her. She's hardl-" She stopped talking, and her eyes froze where they had been raking over the group. Locked onto the pale face of my teammate, who looked almost afraid of how her childhood mentor was going to react to seeing her.

If Alyssa's hug rush toward Callie had been a blur, she practically teleported to Jessie. My blonde teammate started to flinch back, but barely had time before she was captured in a hug so tight it looked like she might snap in half. Alyssa buried her head in the green cloak of our healer, squeezing for all she was worth. "Jessica." She murmured, voice muffled against Jessie's shoulder. "Sweetie I am so glad to see you? Are you alright? I tried to come see you when I heard what happened, but you weren't taking visitors except for Lindsey and then you were gone."

Her voice was thick with unshed tears, raw and painful and vulnerable in a way that made me deeply uncomfortable to hear from a complete stranger. Finally she put Jessie down, and I only noticed then that my friend's feet had left the ground when she was pulled against the much taller woman. Jessie's eyes looked about to overflow with tears, shimmering green like the sun through a glass bottle in the ocean's depths.

She took a long, slow breath, calming down as she forced a smile onto her face. "I'm fine, Aunt Alyssa. Really. I've..." She looked over at us. "I've made good friends. They've been helping me a lot. It's been hard sometimes, a lot of times even, but I'm getting through it. I don't feel like I can't get out of bed in the morning's anymore. Some days are worse than others, but my friends are there with me, and it's good for me. I've met so many interesting people and seen so many amazing things. I...I don't think I would be anywhere near this stable if I'd stayed. Coming back has felt strange, but it's let me see how much good my time away did, if that makes sense."

Jessie was talking fast and without breath as she filled her mother's friend in on how things had been, but she didn't seem to have any trouble getting through it. Alyssa looked at her with a conflicted expression on her face and stepped back, offering a caring smile. "That...that sounds nice. Gods you look so much like Piper now. I haven't seen you since you were a gap toothed little pipsqueak. Those eyes though. Look at you." She shook off her daze. "Sorry, sorry, all of you come inside, please."

Walking over to the door, she kicked it twice at the base and then bumped the middle with her elbow. It popped open, and when she saw some of us looking confused she grinned, holding up her hands. "I got sick of cleaning my door knob, so I set up a catch plate in the door I could hit to open it. The lock shifts it out of place, so it only works when the door is already open, but it's been a massive times saver for me." She nodded us in. "Here, let me clean up first, and then I'll get everyone some drinks. I have a new honey apple cider if you'd like?" She smirked at Amelia. "No booze in this one."

She headed over to a small sink to wash up as we looked around the inside of the cabin, taking in the small but homey space. The whole living room area was full of furniture, two couches, three chairs, all squeezed into a small space and showing that Alyssa loved having guests even if she didn't have much room for them. The kitchen had a small round wooden table with four chairs around it by comparison, a much less open place where we wouldn't be able to crowd in, and somewhere I pegged as being for close friends.

The floor was a much darker wood, but there were brightly colored yellow, orange, and red throw rugs at various spots that reminded me of the leaves outside, almost creating a canopy effect on the floor of the house. The windows let golden light spill in from multiple spots, giving a nice cross illumination effect, even if I could see drapes held back from the all and knew it could be blocked off without much effort. The house smelled like mulled cider too, and I smiled and closed my eyes, taking a deep whiff.

Alyssa headed for the kitchen, where a small sink sat unobtrusively to one side of a wood burning stove. "Let me wash my hands and I'll get anyone who wants one a mug. Amy? Jessie? Callie? Anything for you all? How about-" She stopped, frozen again, and turned to narrow her eyes at Alexander. "See,,,I got so distracted by Jessica I didn't even notice someone else was here. I'm assuming that's you Alex, because Paul isn't stupid enough to walk into my house after that stunt he pulled."

With a grimace, Alexander waved. "Hello Aly. Been a few years." She glared at him. "I...like what you've done with the place?" More glaring. Son of glaring. Glaring returns. "You look fantastic by the way." He offered weekly. She just turned and stalked into the kitchen, summarily ignoring the now cringing E-ranker.

That was a surprise, but it also kind of made sense. Amelia seemed to be an old friend of Alyssa, and the G-ranker would naturally have known Midknight, so it made sense she'd grown up with the twins too, at at least been aware of them. I hadn't really taken that far enough to figure out they might have grown up together. Amelia didn't LOOK like she was in her forties, even for a mortal, and naturally the rest of them all looked early to mid twenties, given their Impact. They'd aged four or five years max.

She took her time cleaning her hands, seeming very focused on getting all the clay off, making sure to get it out from under her nail beds especially, and she didn't acknowledge anyone as she did it. Once she was done, she started taking incredibly delicate pottery mugs with very smooth glazes from the cabinet above the stove and set them all in the table, before pulling a clay jug from the same cabinet (which shouldn't have had the room, I was guessing spatial expansion) and pouring a health dose into each glass.

When she finished that, she picked one up, walked over to Alexander, and held out the cup. When he reached for it, she then proceeded to throw the whole mug full of apple cider right into his face. Then she placed the empty cup in his hand and turned to go back to the table, picking up a few more and giving them to each of us in turn. Amelia was trying her hardest not to smirk.

Once she passed out all the cups, she walked back to the cabinet, pulled out a towel, and threw it to Alexander, who began to clean himself and then the floor. Then she sat down on one of the couches, took a long sip of cider, and smiled dazzlingly. "Well. I feel better." Callie looked like she was having almost as hard a time not laughing as Amelia. Alyssa gestured us all over to sit on the couch. "Please, have a seat." Her eyes locked on Alexander. "Not you, Alex. I don't want my couches to get wet."

Then she turned back to Jessie. "Now, Jessica. I insist you tell me all about your adventures. I knew you had gone to Rajak, but I never realized you were part of Callie's party. I should have introduced you two years ago, but I just never thought of it. I'm glad you became friends though, you're both such special girls." Her golden eyes shifted to me. "Oh, and speaking of how special Callie is, this must be the boyfriend." She patted the couch right next to her, smile turning wolfish. "How about you come sit over here. I have so many questions." I looked over at the soaking wet E-ranker mopping up spilled cider on the floor as it dripped off his face. Gulp.

 

The rest of the day passed in a blur. We spent the time talking to Alyssa, who told us stories about her time growing up with Amelia, Alexander, and (though she rarely mentioned him at length) Paul, Callie's dad. She avoided mentioning Midknight as much as possible, though she talked enough about his twin that he came up incidentally a few times.

She also talked at length about Piper, Jessie's mom, and how they knew each other. It turned out that Alyssa's family were old Valen money, as were Piper's. The two of them grew up going to the same social functions and had become fast friends. She'd met Amelia and the twins fairly young as well, but she'd gotten to know them through the Unity, rather than the older families I hadn't even known existed in Valen.

Piper hadn't really been interested in joining the Unity as a hero, and had gone through intake and gone into the private sector, and option that had been mentioned when I'd tested my own powers so long ago, but one I'd never considered. Despite their different paths the two had remained friends for most of their lives, even if Alyssa kept her two social circles mostly separate.

By the time night fell Jessie was enjoying talking to her old mentor so much that she'd decided to stick around, and most of the others did the same, wanting to see the Druid's Grove at night, but Callie and I decided to go our own way, since my girlfriend had somewhere she was planning to be tonight. We said our goodbye's to the others and then suited up, taking the bus downtown.

"So." I said as we lounged on the bus bench. "Where is this mysterious destination, and exactly why are we heading there? Are you going to let me in on the plan? Or am I just following along? Not that I mind in either case. I did tell you that you should do more selfish stuff that you wanted to do, and this feels like it might qualify." I kept my tone teasing so she didn't take my probing as some kind of complaint, I was sure I'd be amused by whatever she had planned, based on the grin from the day before.

Luckily, she didn't take it that way at all, simply grinning at me. "Oh, definitely selfish. We're heading to the Shuffle Masquerade. I don't think you'd ever been. It's the Queen of Hearts' biggest earner. A dance club run by her most influential lieutenants. A couple of triplets named Calamity, Disaster, and Despair. They're all G-rankers, and they've been a constant annoyance for pretty much the entire time I've been an Ascendant."

I chuckled darkly. "So we're going to start some trouble then? I'm figuring attacking without provocation is a no-go, but it should be easy enough to act up a bit and bait them into a fight. Assuming the Queen isn't going to get involved? We have literally no shot at beating an F-ranker, especially not one with probably decades of experience under her belt." I was down for a little mayhem, assuming we didn't take it too far, that was the nature of the relationship between heroes and villains, but I wasn't going to get my ass kicked just to amuse Callie.

The shake of her head was a relief. "We won't need to.. As long as we don't take it too far she won't get involved. The Queen is tough, but she doesn't cross Stella lightly, not to mention we're members of the main branch. The mortals may be cut off, but you can bet your ass that the bigger gangs here have connections in the capital, and there's no way they didn't clock us showing up. It's going to be just us and them, especially since it'll be two on three. If mommy has to save their bony asses it'll ruin their rep, and you know how much that means to an Ascendant."

I had to concede that. Strength was a big deal for people like us. Losing was fine, but getting humiliated could seriously fuck up your future. Things like the tournament were opportunities, but also dangers, and picking the fight in their center of power would make that even more effective. I shrugged, as long as we had a legit reason I didn't mind starting a bar fight. From the sound of it these girls hated Callie, so I wasn't too worried that they wouldn't be willing to oblige our need for them to mess with us.

"Alright." I said. "I'm down for a night out with a few punches thrown. I could use some more info though. What exactly did these three do to you, and what are their powers. You said they're the Queen's daughters? They don't have her ability do they?" The Queen might not be at Stella's level, but she was a genuinely terrifying person for anyone below F-rank. Her ability leaned more toward quantity than quality in that way, but from the research I'd done, she was the kind of person who would have conquered this whole fucking city if this wasn't a Unity planet.

Callie just laughed. "Gods no. They wish. They have can imbue other people with powerful energy. Calamity can imbue strength, Disaster grace, and Despair induces a sort of crazy battle confidence that increases the efficiency of Skills. They wouldn't be quite so dangerous, but they're glued to each other almost all the time, and when they get into fights they all stack their powers across all three of them. It's an annoying combination, especially since as triplets they're freakishly good at communicating in combat."

That I wasn't worried about. However good their natural rapport was, I was sure that we were better after our training. I had to ask the obvious though. "Are they heart touched? I know she only gets a certain amount, but they're her daughters, so I figure there's a solid chance they were selected." The Queen's ability was terrifying, known and feared throughout the whole damn city. We'd avoided her when I was here last. We didn't need to be scared of the heart touched now, even if they were, but still, it would be nice to know. The chosen of the Queen of Hearts were known and feared for a reason.

The Queen's ability wasn't a secret, though most people who were lower ranked didn't know it for the simple reason that the Unity didn't want to cause a panic. Her power was called Touch of the Heart. The Queen could literally reach into a willing target's chest and touch their heart. When the Queen touched a person's heart, they became stronger, slightly upgrading their ability at the cost of allowing the Queen influence over them. She left a mark on them that allowed her access at any time.

Heart touched were the eyes and ears of the Queen of Hearts, as well as being her hands in the world. She could alter their thoughts and goals and sense them at all times, some people even claimed she could draw power from them. Last I'd heard she could make a hundred of them at F-rank, so the spots were exclusive, but I had no doubt that her daughters would be on the list if there were any available slots.

Callie grimaced. "Yeah. All three of them. The upgrade makes their abilities much more effective, and since each of them gets it the stacking effect amplifies the difference. They aren't at a level we'll have trouble with though. They have a lot of raw power, and I've never been able to take them head on, but that was back when I lived here. Some of the people we've seen in Rajak could turn them inside out, and we can beat most of those by now. This shouldn't be a problem."

She bit her lip, seeming to be talking herself out of the plan more than me into it. Her eyes swam with indecision. "I...I guess it is a bit reckless. If you don't want to do this that's fine. We can do a patrol or something. The more I think about it the less of a good idea this sounds like." She nodded after a second. "Yeah, let's ju-" I cut her off with a kiss, the bottom of my mask opening the same way it did when I needed to eat. I made a not of that trick for later.

When I pulled back, I left the mask open so she could see me grinning. "Nope." I said firmly. She raised an eyebrow in confusion. "No dice. This sounds like fun, and I insist we go. If things go wrong we can figure it out. The Queen won't kill us anyway, so the stakes aren't that high. We can escape a few suped up G-rankers if needed. You want to do this, I can tell, and if you want it I'm going to make it happen. If it's stupid all the better. You're making me look bad with all your maturity and forward thinking." I put on a faux reprimanding tone. "I'm sick of it."

She giggled at my absurdity, narrowing her eyes a bit in contemplation as she decided whether or not to fight me on this. Finally she just sighed and leaned against me. "Ok, you're right. There isn't too much room for real trouble. And I really hate those three. Especially Disaster. She's been a pain in my ass for literal years. The triplets got their ability around the same time I did, and Disaster decided she was going to be my nemesis. She's sent more than a few of her goon squads after me."

I just shrugged. "Just tell me what to do. Like I said, I'm not really down to attack someone for no reason or anything, but since you said they're bound to start shit if piss them off I have no problem running my mouth a bit." She smiled up at me softly, and we both jumped a bit as the bus pulled to a stop, too distracted by each other to notice we were coming to our destination.

As we climbed off the bus, I looked around at the neighborhood we were in, trying to get a feel for the place. It was nice. Upscale in a downtown hotspot kind of way. The Shuffle Masquerade was a gorgeous black paneled building that looked more like an opera house than a nightclub. There was a line outside, a bouncer, and I could hear music thumping from inside though. Not to mention the lights strobing through the cracks and crevices. Between panels and through thin slits of unobscured windows I saw multicolored neon strobing piercing out into the evening air.

Callie saw me staring and smiled. "Ah, wow I guess this is your first nightclub huh? I didn't even consider that. You going to be ok?" I nodded decisively and she pulled me into a hug. "Now how did I know you would say that? Just stick close, I'll help you navigate, and if you start to get overwhelmed tell me. We can always leave if you're uncomfortable." She winked up at me. "I want my guy to be happy, call me selfish."

I squeezed her back with a chuckle. "I'm fine. This isn't my scene, but being basically invincible in Valen helps. At least aside from a few threats. Whatever you need, I'm down for." I stepped away from her, formally offering my elbow. "Now, if you might accompany me inside milady. I believe we have some trouble to start. We should scope out the club to see how we can get some attention without being dicks about it."

That got a laugh from Callie. "Fair enough. We aren't just going to punch a civvie or something, we'll need to come up with a place." She took my arm, and we headed for the door. As we got in line, I took a deep breath. Going in here was going to be more stressful than I was letting on, but I was happy to do it. This was Callie's night, and I'd make sure she had fun. Besides, this sounded like it might be a good fight, so I was probably going to enjoy myself too.

 

I expected to be stopped at the door of the Shuffle Masquerade, given Callie was with me and apparently the triplets hated her, but to my surprise the bouncer just waved us both through. Once we got inside, I stuck close to her so we didn't get separated. It was...a lot. I wasn't overly fond of places like this. It wasn't just the crowds, I'd dealt with those before, it was more that the sensation of churning bodies packed into a small building like this made me feel like I was in a pressure cooker.

Callie knew me well enough to know I'd be uncomfortable here, hence her offer to back out, but I was able to ignore the feeling by leaning a bit harder on my Focus than was normal. In the state of logic processing that was Focus, it was easy to hyperconcentrate on just one thing and let the rest of it fall away. I focused on Callie, making sure she was safe and nearby, and it wasn't as hard to block everything out.

It certainly helped that it was so much fun to watch her like this. She was practically buzzing with excitement, and constantly looking around like she expected to get caught with her hand in the cookie jar any moment now. She didn't seem anxious though. Just energized. This was a bad idea. She knew it, I knew it, but neither of us cared. She wanted to do it, and I wanted her to make a couple mistakes. She spent so much time focused on others, on being the perfect leader. She deserved to do something dumb just because she felt like it.

Despite watching her with all my Focus, I wasn't able to completely block out everything else. My Perception still mapped the room around us, even as a second thought, so I was able to both avoid tripping over my own feet and get an idea of what this place was like. The masquerade was, in a word, strange. The theme here seemed to be black and white marble with splashes of red. The tiles were all different sizes, the furniture of different designs, and even the layout looked chaotic and haphazard in a way that somehow gave the impression of being intentional.

While the Masquerade was a gestalt of chaos and variety, it was clear each aspect had been carefully placed, and that the sheer chaos of the nature of this place created an almost homogenous impression. The people certainly seemed to enjoy it, and I could see dozens of dozens of people in a combination of cape outfits and formal party clothes dancing and writhing around us all, with a few small areas of calm amidst the tumult. A table with ropes around it, a bar, a door seeming to lead up to a second level of the club that overlooked the entire dance floor.

We, of course, were heading for the latter. The door leading up to the second level seemed to be where the triplets were most likely to be spending time, and Callie wanted to bait the three of them. I probably should have been nervous about that part, but between the churning cauldron of discomfort I was avoiding with my Focus and the excitement of a fight, not to mention happiness that Callie was doing something for herself, I almost didn't have room to think or worry about the possible negative ramifications of my actions.

Plus, and I couldn't stress this enough. I was NOT scared of these people. If spending three weeks in daily sparring with Abel did one thing, it was normalize power. I was so used to brawling with someone who might as well be an F-ranker, that nothing short of that was going to actually scare me anymore. It was like spending almost a month being chased around by a terrifying monsters. Jump scares kind of lose their effect in comparison to the real deal. That might be presumptuous and a bit cocky, and it might be proven wrong soon enough, but somehow I doubted the triplets would be the ones to do it, they were basically our age from what I could tell.

It took less time than I'd expected to make it through the crowd. The man standing guard at the door was colossal, even by my standards, probably a full seven feet tall. He was only H-rank, which muted most of the impression that would have made, but still, big guy. When he saw us, he crossed his arms over his chest and glared down at us menacingly. Or rather, at Callie. "Nightstrike." He said, in a voice that was much higher pitched than expected from such a huge man. "Do you have an invitation?"

Callie just gave him a wide smile. "Nope. I've been out of town so I didn't have a chance to set up this little visit. Tell Disaster I'm here to see her." Once she was finished talking she just turned back to me, effectively ignoring the big man. He looked annoyed, but also wary, and turned around to stalk upstairs, presumably to inform his boss of who was asking for her.

I cocked my head at Callie and she grinned, twining her arms around me as we waited. "The triplets outnumber me three to one. If I show up and ask to come in and they say no, I can just leave, but it tells everyone else that they're too scared to face me, even with a numbers advantage. Granted, he'll have noticed you too. But even two on three, not letting us in sends the message that they're worried about us, which they really can't afford." She smirked at me. "You didn't think I'd come here just to get chased off did you?"

"I have no clue." I said with a small shrug. "I'm just following your lead. The details are all you, just tell me where to stand." The mouth of my mask opened, large enough for me to press a kiss to her forehead. "This is your show." I pulled back out of her embrace regretfully. "And speaking of shows, seems this one is set to continue. That guy is coming back, we'd better get ready for the big rvent."

Sure enough, less than a minute later the towering form of the bouncer returned, glowering down at us. "Disaster says I should let you in." He grimaced. "Your...friend, can come too." The glower seemed even more extreme when aimed at me, presumably because Callie was perceived as a legitimate threat after her years in the spotlight and I was just a big dude in a mask. Still, I WAS G-rank, so the guy didn't actually say anything to me. The chances of this random bounced being able to punch up ranks were minimal. Hell, I doubted anyone in the city could manage it, and even if they could, they wouldn't be able to do it with Callie and I. We weren't your average G-rankers.

Turning and gesturing for us to follow, the large man led us up the steps and into the second floor of the club. To my complete lack of surprise, the second floor, which looked like a small balcony from downstairs, was much bigger on the inside. Entering the top level, we emerged out onto a huge dance floor, easily equal in size to the bottom layer of the building, albeit much less fancy and refined.

The top floor was much more stereotypical night club in terms of design, at least from what I'd come to expect from movies and books. The dance floor in the middle was a series of glowing blue cubes pressed together to create a square grid. Around the edges were railings and decks made from some sort of opaque dark blue gemstone, with strange zaps of electricity arcing through the material at irregular intervals that seemed to somehow line up with the music.

Much like the lower floor this place had plenty of people, though it wasn't quite as packed. I noticed several suited forms wearing the masks that denoted the Queen's people, though not the usual ones I saw in the streets. Most of the hearts masks I saw on random thugs were ten masks, with the number signifying their place in the organization. The people here, however, were mostly sixes and sevens from what I could see, with the sole exception of the three women sitting at the large table in the back corner.

The three of them, all wearing what looked like corseted dresses with wavy skirts, each a different color, all had heart masks with the letter A on them, something I'd never seen before. Aces, I supposed, which made sense since the Ace was simultaneously the highest and lowest value card in the deck. If these were the Queen's daughters the Ace designation was probably how she marked them as second in command and also reminded everyone they were actually fairly low on the chain of command.

As I drew closer, I was able to see them more clearly. A brunette, a blonde, and a redhead, all with long, nearly identical haircuts. We made our way straight for the table, Callie dragging me by the hand to approach the three women. I didn't think we were going to fight so soon, they wouldn't be stupid enough to get baited into attacking within seconds of our arrival, right? As we got closer, I could see the identical green eyes behind the masks fixed on us. "Nightstrike." They said in unison as we got closer. "To what do we owe the pleasure."

I winced. That was really creepy. They almost had to practice that. Callie's grimace showed she didn't like it either, but she wasn't going to give them the satisfaction of admitting it. She just raised en eyebrow, her eyes fixed on the redhead. "Disaster. Thanks for the invite. Always nice to see you. Hope your mother is well, I haven't seen her is quite a while."

Politics made my head hurt. Everything Callie had just said was pleasant and polite, but I could tell from her tone she'd been taking some sort of potshot at the trio and the Queen herself. I personally preferred the direct approach. What ever happened to just calling someone an asshole to their face? On the upside, it seemed to break them out of their weird unison talking thing, because the redhead, Disaster, looked over to me in interest. "And who is your friend? I didn't realize we were in such esteemed company? A G-ranker from the capital I take it?"

I was kind of bummed she didn't recognize, me if only because I'd thought my reputation in Valen had been pretty good since beating Stricture. Still, it was kind of cool to be taken seriously. Callie didn't seem to share that impression, and I winced a bit as her hand tightened around mine in annoyance. Not hard enough to crush my fingers or anything, but tight enough to be momentarily uncomfortable. "You know very well who he is." She said, in a calm, measured voice. "This is my boyfriend Solomon."

Ah, it had just been more political bullshit. Fair enough. I raised my none crushed hand and waved. "Hi." All three of them looked at me intently, and Callie glared. I slowly put my hand down. Right, I was clearly missing some of the not so subtle undertones here. "Hey, Nightstrike, why don't we go get something to drink." I said as cheerfully as possible. Fighting I was fine with, but this was just uncomfortable, I wanted to leave.

That seemed to be the right thing to say, because Callie smiled brightly. "That's a great idea!" She turned to the other girls with an extremely fake grin on her face. "We're going to go enjoy the festivities, thanks again for the invite. We'll see you all later." Then she dragged me away, off toward the small bar that the second floor had available. I breathed a sigh of relief as soon as we were clear. That had been so awkward. I hoped the rest of the night would be much more non-confrontational. I was just here to support my girlfriend and punch things. Why did people have to be so aggressive?

 

Callie was still fuming when we made to the bar. I, as an experienced boyfriend, did NOT bug her about what was making her angry until she decided to talk about it herself. We just ordered out drinks (I got a smoothie with blueberries and banana) and found a table to sit down at. Once we made it to the table I took my seat and waited patiently for her to process, letting the bottom my mask open into a mouth so I could take a long pull of my delicious drink.

Taking a sip of her own drink (some kind of weird oversized blue concoction with an umbrella that based on the small taste I'd stolen had surprisingly little alcohol by volume) she finally sighed and let her head slam down on the table in annoyance. "Ugh! I hate her so much." She looked up at me sadly. "I'm sorry. That was shitty. Putting you in the middle of that. I should have figured she would try to get a rise out of me by drooling over you. I swear I'm not all insecure about that kind of thing, she just brings out that side of me."

I just shrugged. "It's fine Cal, I didn't even notice really. Besides, I know you aren't all crazy jealous. Saffron was way more in your face about flirting and you only reacted a little bit." I paused in contemplation. "I'm still missing the actual flirting though. Are you sure she wasn't just making small talk? I wasn't picking up any kind of a vibe. With my Perception I'd have expected to at least notice."

"No sweetie." She said with a smile. "She was NOT just making small talk. I've known her for years. She was trying to piss me off by leering. As for Perception, aside from the Focus you've been employing to block out everything except for me, all the Perception in the world can't let you pick up something you don't know to look for. I love you to pieces Shane, but you aren't exactly a people person. Not that I dislike that, it's sweet how straightforward you are, but you tend to miss out on some subtler undertones."

That was fair. "I've never really been too social." I said with a shrug. "I spent most of my time with Benny and Maria growing up. Aside from video games like DS, I didn't interact with a lot of strangers. Especially not women, so it makes sense I'd miss out on certain signals. I'm not a moron, so overt flirting like Saffron was doing is obvious enough, but it's easy not to get the context behind certain looks or tones, especially from people I don't know."

She held up both hands. "Whoa there. I wasn't saying you're dense or anything. Just that you tend to leave more nuanced communication to me. Outside of a weirdly sneaky streak when it comes to contracts I mean. Still, that's hardly a bad thing. It's why we make such a great team. You tend to just come out and say what needs saying, leaving me to wade around in the murky waters of interpersonal politics."

I chuckled, sipping my smoothie. I didn't hate that idea. It wasn't like I couldn't have tried harder to understand people or work on my political savvy. I just had no real interest in it. It was much simpler and more relaxing to just say what I meant all the time. Not that I used it as an excuse to be an asshole, but subtext and double speak sounded exhausting. I'd leave that shit to Callie.

That thought gave me the sudden insight that I had based a large portion of my world view off of Zeke, who seemed to follow the same train of thought, and I tried not to have a negative kneejerk reaction to that. I loved my Uncle, and I was glad to have him, but having grown up with him I was more than aware of his many flaws as a person. Once I got past the initial resistance though, I kind of liked the concept.

Zeke was a badass, and clearly his personality was conducive to being a powerful Ascendant since he was a fucking B-ranker. I wasn't going to turn into him anytime soon, but picking up a few of his habits wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. I must have trailed off for a bit because I felt a plink on my forehead, and looked up to see my girlfriend smirking at me. "A credit for your thoughts? I'd love to know where your head goes when you do that."

With an embarrassed chuckle, I shrugged again. "I just drift off sometimes. I thought it was a Perception overload thing, but I think it's partly just how my brain works. I like to think I'm getting better at least. I think having so much more Focus makes my tangents shorter because I can run through them more quickly. As for this one, I was just thinking about how much like Zeke I'm becoming, and how that's not exactly a bad thing."

Grimacing, Callie recoiled a bit. "Ew! No thank you. If you start coming home smelling like a brewery I'm making you sleep on the couch. Zeke's drinking isn't too inconvenient since we don't need him to do much, but I don't want my boyfriend constantly guzzling liquor."

I snickered at that. "Oh, I see how it is, it's only a problem if it impacts you? Don't worry though, I don't have any interest in drinking. The idea of being drunk is weird to me. I don't like the lack of control. Then again, Zeke is too high ranked to really get buzzed off the stuff he drinks I think. Maybe he just enjoys the taste." I cocked my head in faux thought. "Maybe I should start drinking after all."

"On. The. Couch." Callie poked her finger into my chest with each word. "I don't mean your bed either. The couch. In the living room." Her eyes were narrowed in an imitation of annoyance, but I could see the twitch of her lips making it clear she was kind of amused. I held both hands up in surrender and she gave a pleased nod that was way too stuck up to be anything but a joke before we both burst out laughing.

"Alright." I said as we stopped laughing. "As much fun as this is, I think we need to figure out how to start that fight you were itching for. I don't know enough about this place or how they work to have a decent idea how to piss people off. So what are we supposed to do to get them riled?" This had been Callie's idea, so I was sure she had some kind of plan in mind. I didn't know anything much about the Queen's organization. We'd mostly avoided it when I'd been here, focusing on the Jerks, who were the far more outspoken and attention grabbing target.

Callie just shrugged. "Easiest way I can think of is to just start bad mouthing them. Disaster in particular has a nasty temper. I'll just start telling stories, maybe exaggerate a few of her more embarrassing moments, and I doubt it'll take her more than a few minutes to start something. In case you missed it she knows how to push my buttons, and I'm just as good at making her angry. It comes from being someone's archenemy for years." She shot me a wink when she said archenemy, clearly knowing how silly and dramatic it sounded, even if it was also a weirdly appropriate term from what I could see.

Picking up her drink, she gestured for me to follow, and the two of use made our way to one of the bigger tables off to one side of the dance floor. The big tables seemed to be a place for groups to mingle and socialize outside of the small collections of people who had come here together, and we slid into the booth easily, dropping in to listen to a pair of bickering Ascendants, who were apparently just back from a trip into the deeper parts of the wilderness.

The big man with bright yellow hair and dark skin, was glaring accusingly at his smaller female companion, whose freckled face was beat red. "And all I'm saying is that you clearly knew that I misheard you Candle! I was under the impression that you said those goats SPAT fire. You had to have figured that out when I announced that plan was to sneak up behind them!"

Candle, whose red hair was every bit as bright as her name suggested, just shrugged helplessly. "Well I'm sorry you don't listen when I talk Volt. I assumed that sneaking up behind them was only PART of the plan. Besides, it's not like anyone was hurt. They were only H-rank goats, and our armor wasn't too badly burned. The smell will probably even wash out after a few years."

Callie and I gave each other wide eyed looks and slightly scooted down the bench away from the pair, and we definitely weren't the only ones to do so. The red haired girl seemed to notice that and snapped her mouth closed, her face flushing as the yellow haired guy pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation. Callie, half to save them the embarrassment and half to get the attention on us. Cleared her throat. "Well, that sounds dramatic. Glad you're both safe though." It was impressive how she managed to say that while sounding sympathetic but avoiding coming across as condescending. I was pretty sure I couldn't have managed it.

Everyone turned to her and she smiled disarmingly. "Hi there, I'm Nightstrike, and this is my boyfriend Solomon." No one looked surprised, which wasn't a shock. Callie was one of the most famous members of the younger generation in Valen. "It's nice to meet everyone. I've heard of most of you of course." I wasn't sure that was true. There were a few G-rankers mixed in here and every G-ranker in Valen was well known enough to be recognized on sight. There weren't that many of them around. But there were H-rankers among them too, and it would be odd for her to know them all.

Still, nobody called her on it as she continued in a friendly tone. "Are we telling stories? Because I have a few good ones."
She then proceeded to launch into a series of carefully chosen anecdotes. The early ones were about her adventures when she first got her abilities, some embarrassing moments, but mostly cute embarrassing rather than genuinely reputation damaging. As she went on she started to transition into subtle bragging, and then slowly started to work Disaster into her stories. Just a mention here or there, until she was finally telling stories exclusively about the two of them.

I was blown away. Callie was shifting the topic of conversation so subtly I'd barely noticed and I was actively looking for it. Her stories were just the right mix of funny, sympathetic, and mildly embarrassing to suck people in as quickly as possible. By the time she got to the Disaster stories everyone was completely hooked, laughing along with her narrative and hanging on her every word. She was an absolute genius at controlling the crowd, and I finally started to get an idea about how Callie had become one of the youngest G-rankers in the whole city.

Finally, when Callie was halfway through a story where Disaster had accidentally ended up in the sewer after a particularly long chase, I heard glass shatter on the other side of the room. Everyone looked over at the same time, to see the redhead in the Ace of Hearts mask holding a shattered champagne flute and stalking over to where we were sitting. "Bullshit!" She screamed at Callie. "You tricked me into taking that turn! You think you can tell lies about me in my own club?" Huh. Callie had been right. That actually was pretty easy. Now for the fun part.

 

Disaster, unsurprisingly, was quickly followed by her sisters, and the rest of the people at our table were clear within seconds. From what Callie told me, Ascendant clubs tended to be incredibly dramatic by nature. Random brawls weren't unusual at places like this, and everyone knew exactly what to do in the event of a fight. They couldn't have been gone faster if they had teleported. The triplets stalked across the intervening space, eyes glued to Callie, who was smiling quizzically at them, head cocked in a textbook expression of puzzled confusion.

We got out of the table, since having it in the way wasn't likely to help much, and stepped out to face them in the empty space between the table and the dance floor. I didn't really feel like bickering, so I just stood behind Callie and crossed my arms, trying to look menacing, which was admittedly not hard when you're six foot four and made of solid muscle covered in expensive powerful armor.

Stopping a few feet short of us, Disaster glared at Callie. "I am so fucking glad you took your boy toy and fucked off to the capital you holier than thou bitch. Do you know how nice it's been not having to deal with your constant show boating and cries for attention?" She put on a high pitched voice. " 'Oh, I'm Nightstrike and people fear me because I'm such a badass, they definitely don't pay attention to me because of my ridiculous oversized ass and skimpy leotard. I'm the strongest heroine in the city.' Fucking gag me, Calliope! We were all so relieved you were gone and you had to ruin it by showing your snooty face again."

Callie's puzzled frown melted into an angry sneer. Using real names was considered terrible form. Callie's identity wasn't really a secret considering her parentage, but it was still an asshole thing to do. "Oh, how shocking, the perpetual second place doesn't like how much attention I get. Grow up Ashley. We're Ascendants. We're all trying to get attention. And I'm not even going to dignify that costume remark with a response. Maybe if you spent half the time you waste throwing tantrums about how people should care more about you actually trying to improve you wouldn't be so far behind."

I was starting to really dislike this girl. The insistence that Callie was coasting on her looks was insulting as hell, especially to someone like me who trained with her constantly. No one put in as much effort as my girlfriend, she was the most driven person I knew. The two sisters stood back, watching carefully but not actually moving. The redhead jerked her eyes to me. "Oh, and how about the arm candy. You do know she's only with you for the glory right? How convenient that you got together right after you got famous and got a ride out of this dump. Or did you think she actually liked you?"

My mask was convenient in this case because it hid the barely contained laughter on my face, which probably would have made things worse. Callie could have gone to Rajak any time she wanted. She was furious about needing to give in to her dads pressure, and had only gone because she cared about the team. If Disaster wanted to sew dissent, she had picked the exact wrong string to pull on. It was actually kind of funny seeing her misread the situation so badly.

Despite the wild inaccuracy though, Callie seemed to be furious at the accusation, and I saw the shadows around us start
to literally bubble as her ability reached out to take hold of them. My eyes widened and I put a warning hand on her shoulder. "Honey. I think maybe using our abilities on them directly is a bit overkill. We're not here to hurt anyone, and that seems like it might be a step too far."

It was the subtlest way I could say 'what are you doing, we don't want to kill them'. After weeks of training against Abel, we could take the three of them with barely any Skill use and a bit of elbow grease. Using Callie's shadows directly was like swatting a fly by collapsing a building on it. These were incredibly low tier G-rankers who couldn't have been in that level more than a year at most. Without our advantages in training and stats I doubted any of them even had a specialized stat that equaled one of my evenly distributed ones.

Releasing a deep breath, Callie relaxed, and the shadows pacified. She'd definitely done that on purpose, but I wasn't sure if she was showing off to make a point or was genuinely so angry she'd been about to hurt them. Disaster, for her part, didn't seem to care. She snarled at the pretension of my comment and Callie's concession and blurred forward toward us without a second of warning.

Unfortunately for her, 'without a second of warning' from someone at her level, might as well have come with an engraved invitation to a fight with a time and datestamp attached. Disaster was glowing with green energy, shot through with the blue glow surrounding the dark haired one, and the red glow surrounding the blonde. Calamity and Despair, though I didn't know which was which.

Whatever the order was, they had clearly juiced her up already, and while it didn't bridge the gap between us stat wise, it gave her enough of a bump that I could see her doing alright against some of the lower level Pavilion members. Unfortunately, it was ONLY the lower level members, and I groaned in annoyance as I stepped back. Callie didn't need help with this. As much as I'd been itching for a fight I'd just be stepping on her moment.

I wasn't really sure what the beef between these two was, but Callie clearly hated Disaster enough to fight all three of them alone. She wanted to work out some aggression, and the point of this whole thing was for her to have fun and do something stupid and selfish for a change. I knew she would be aware of me backing up given our combat awareness of each other, and she was more than willing to step up based on the lunge she made at the other woman in response. I just shrugged and walked over to sit down at the table again, picking up my blueberry smoothie and taking a long sip as I watched the show. Seeing Callie fight was always amazing.

Disaster, for her part, was pretty impressive. Her hands came up and she lashed out with a pair of punches crackling with green flame, which made my eyebrows shoot up. Since I knew her ability, that was either a trick she managed through synergizing or she had an actual fucking fire fist Skill. I knew Skills like that existed, but they were insanely rare on Callus, Unique Skills like my DS mastery notwithstanding.

Callie was surprised too, but to her credit , she also had much higher Might and Perception than I did. Picking up and processing, then reacting, to that attack was childs play for her and she barely hesitated for an instant as Disaster came in at her dropping to a one legged crouch, Callie planted a hand flat on the floor and spun herself in a circle, using the circular momentum and her Balam skills to take Disaster's feet right out from under her.

She rolled to the side just fast enough to avoid Calamity's stomping attempt to smash her face in, went up onto her hands and arched into a graceful backbend to get back to her feet. I had to stifle a laugh because it was such a showy and obviously frivolous move that literally no one could mistake it for anything but blatant mockery. She was playing with them, and she wanted them all to know it.

With Disaster getting back to her feet, I saw them all take a moment to stop and re orient themselves before spreading out around her in a loose triangle formation. The next attack, when it came, was a perfectly synchronized assault from three angles that was much more difficult to dodge than any of the singular attacks would have been. I could see what Callie meant, the three of them had good synergy. If we hadn't been undergoing the training we had I'd probably have needed to help her out of this.

We had, however. These three rookies couldn't hold a candle to the coordination we saw sparring with Mel and Abel. They were probably about as good as we were after the first week of Abel beating our mistakes into us. Still, that wasn't good enough. Callie was easily able to identify the small gaps in their cooperative assault and slip through them. Even if she hadn't been more skilled she had a stat advantage they just weren't good enough to compensate for.

Disaster came at her from the front, aiming to lock her up, the one I suspected was Calamity(red) from behind on the left, aiming low, and Despair(blue) from behind on the right, driving a blazing kick at the back of her head. I watched with interest to see if the hits would land, with Callie's armor it wasn't like the attacks could do any real damage. Might hurt a bit, but she wasn't going to get injured.

It never even got that far. As Despair's foot swung at her head, my girlfriend spun in place. One hand lashed out, using the momentum of a full rotation to life the blue glowing Ascendant off her feet, as the other clamped down on her thigh, lifting her bodily off the ground and swinging her along the trajectory of the kick. Calamity, noticed the move too late and tried to pull out of her attack, but had already committed too much, and her low blow slammed into her sister as she was swung around along the ground, tangling the two of them up and sending her sprawling.

Callie, no longer in the same spot after the movement, avoided the direct assault by Disaster by putting the tangled forms of her sisters in her way with a quick yank, and the three of them ended up in a head on the floor, groaning at the impact. Callie casually strolled over to where I was sitting, plopping down in my lap and snatching up my smoothing to take a long sip as I yelped in protest.

Oh course, they weren't down and out or anything. She hadn't seriously hurt them, even if I doubted that had been much fun. She was just giving them time to sort themselves out and make a plan, or decide not to engage again. Her display just now had effectively proved that she was WAY out of their league. If they were smart they would back off. This had been their own idea anyway, at least from an outside perspective.

Disaster looked just about ready to explode, but her sisters were whispering to her hurriedly, clearly trying to avoid letting the whole mess escalate. She forced herself to take a breath, but once she did, she started to calm down a bit. She'd been outmaneuvered here, and so she needed something to help her save face, but she knew she couldn't win a direct fight. I couldn't hear what they were saying, so they must have been using some kind of Stealth Skill.

She strode forward, shoulders back, head high, and stalked up to point at Callie. "Ok, that was kind of impressive, but really, this isn't the place for combat anyway. We wouldn't be able to let loose for fear of damaging our business, you understand." That was a decent excuse, but they weren't going to leave it at that. I was sure of it. They needed a way to change the narrative. I considered dozens of scenarios, but in the end, I was absolutely floored when Disaster pointed directly at us and shouted. "We challenge you to a dance off!" Wait...what?

 

Apparently there were preparations necessary for the 'dance off' so I was able to steal Callie away before the competition actually started. I dragged her over to the table again, and she covered us with a film of shadow that cut off our words due to some stealth infusion. As soon as the bubble went up, she started cursing. "That bitch! She completely outmaneuvered me. How did I not see that coming?"

I just kind of...stared. Finally my brain started working enough for me to ask. "Ok, what the actual fuck? How was that even a viable challenge, much less a masterstroke that destroyed all your plans? She challenged you to a dance off. That's like...Jerk level stupid."

Callie growled in annoyance. "If you recall, the Jerks partially ran this town for years. But the stupidity is WHY it's genius. Ascendant interactions, politics specifically, are all about perception. Lower case P perception, as in the way people see you. The reason this whole plan was viable was because baiting them into attacking and kicking their asses in their own club made them look like incompetent morons. Being seen as a hero, or even as an evil bastard, these things all have value, being seen as a useless moron, less so."

I opened my mouth to mention the jerks again, and she held up a finger to cut me off. "The Jerks were morons, but they weren't useless. They got things done, so the stupidity got them more buzz, not less. Which is why THIS." She gestured over her shoulder with a thumb. "Is such a good move. Challenging me to a dance off effectively neutralizes any weight this had. It's turned the whole thing into a game. Win or lose, nothing we do now matters. We come out looking like squabbling kids either way."

"Ah." I said in realization. "If we try to fight them anyway we look like aggro assholes, which runs counter to our image and would hurt us more than help. We have to be careful about our reputation so we don't pile negative recursion on ourselves. Whereas if we accept this is just silly nonsense. They put us in a box." I groaned. "This kind of shit makes my head hurt. I just wanted to fight somebody. This is why I prefer the WCP. At least down there people just straight up try to murder you. Dealing with Unity bullshit is so complicated."

Callie just waved me off. "It's fine. You won't be participating. The initial challenge was a big sweeping declaration because it grabbed attention. She's going to realize it would be two to three, and needing an extra person to beat me makes her look bad, even if it is a joke. She'll tell her sisters to back off and the two of us will take each other on head to head. It's not like I don't know how to dance. I took like...four years of ballet when I was younger. It's not exactly the right style for this, but I have a few other moves."

I reached out to take her hand, giving it a squeeze. "Really? Yet another thing I didn't know about you. Will you ever stop surprising me?" I paused after I said that. "Although thinking back, the leotard probably would have been a decent clue if I'd thought about it. I admit, I mostly just got distracted by your legs though." She rolled her eyes at that, and I plopped back down on the booth. "Alright. Well go kick her ass...through dance. Nope, that just isn't getting less stupid. Weird, I thought I'd get used to it."

She just laughed as she got up and dismissed the bubble. Sure enough, Disaster was standing alone in the middle of the floor, and as Callie walked out to face her, she loudly announced that it would be one on one to make things fair. To my surprise though, Despair and Calamity plopped down on the other side of the booth, giving me a friendly nod. I cocked my head, the universal symbol for confused masked guy. "Um...hello? It's nice to meet you?"

The blonde one, Despair, I think, just chuckled. "You too. You and Callie seem close. I think it's nice she found someone. She always had trouble meeting guys, they were almost all asshole Ascendants who wanted to ride the fame train up to the next rank. You seem really sweet though. It's nice." At my stunned silence, she just laughed again. "Sorry. You must be confused. I'm Lauren. This is Amber. We've known Callie for years."

"Um...ok?" I said, completely thrown. "But doesn't she like...hate you guys? No offense, you seem nice enough so far, but you seem more at ease with this situation than I expected. I figured you would be shit talking her or trying to sew seeds of doubt or something..."

"Villainous?" Chimed in Amber, amused. "Not really. Most villains and heroes get along fine outside actual combat. Unless there's a personal grudge. We grew up in the same social circles as Callie. You have to remember that abilities don't manifest until usually late puberty. Sometimes a few years earlier like with Callie, but that means that Ascendant kids tend to mix and match before they figure out if they'll get abilities. Hell, half of us change sides when we do, because we'd rather not work for our parents."

That made a lot of sense actually. Except one thing. "So why didn't you do that then? Switch sides I mean. The three of you work for your mom right? Also if you grew up together why does Callie hate Disaster so much, and vice versa. There seems to be a lot of animosity for childhood friends." At least I assumed so. I didn't really have any childhood friends but Benny, but their dynamic seemed odd.

Lauren giggled. "Making a LOT of assumptions there. But mostly it's jealousy. Callie developed her powers early, and we got ours just slightly later. Unfortunately, augmentation is pretty shit at low ranks. The boost from our abilities scales with stats, like pretty much all abilities. So while Callie got to be the superstar with her dramatic shadow powers, we all had to grind our way up slow. We were still able to take her as a group of course, but we never had the same buzz as she did. The two of us didn't care too much, but Ash was mom's golden girl. It drove her nuts."

As I took in all the information, the music finally started. The whole dance off thing was silly, but I wasn't about to let Callie down by not showing support. When she started, I whooped and cheered, clapping in the loudest and most obnoxious way possible. I saw her stiffen up as she tried desperately not to burst into giggles. But when the song started to play in earnest, she began to move.

I'd expected something...flowery. Based on her ballet training. But I should have known better. My Callie wasn't one to lean on style over substance, outside the odd illusion. When she started moving, it took me a second to place what she was doing, and when I did, I had to hold back a booming laugh of my own. As she began to wind and twirl in complex rhythms, slowly shifting in circular movements, it was easy to recognize the forms of Balam, as they were executed in time to the music.

Callie had been training her ass off for months now to grasp her Beginner Skill in Balam, learning the moves, learning to integrate them into her combat style and her motions. She'd spent night after night training with me, with Abel, with Mel, and sometimes on her own when she had the free time. Callie's grasp on the Balam forms was absolutely flawless, and at Beginner level she was able to apply them in any way she saw fit. Even artistically.

I'd noted before how beautiful she looked doing the forms, how graceful and ethereal and deadly. Seeing them to music just amped that up to eleven. There's an effect of some songs, that you can do any repetitive motion to them and it looks like a dance. The forms were concise, fluid, and repetitive in the perfect way to fit to music, and between that and Callie's mastery over them it's staggering how amazing she looks performing them to the beat.

It isn't a club dance, or ballet, but it's thrilling and dangerous and powerful, and I can see everyone in the club as entranced as I am. I can see her plan here too. Demonstrating her combat ability withing the meta of the dance battle. She's going to come out of this looking badass even if she barely got to show off her fighting, and I couldn't have been prouder.

Amber whistled. "Well shit. That's definitely not a Minor Skill. I didn't know Callie was that into martial arts. Hell of an ace up her sleeve." She shot me a wink. "No pun intended." I had to roll my eyes at that, considering her mask. As I watched, the song ended and there was a thundering round of applause as every single person in the club let her know how impressive that had been

Disaster, for her part, didn't give up or anything. She started a new song and did her best to dance back. It looked pretty sad in comparison though, and I think even she knew that, because I got the impression she just wanted to get through it. When they finished, Disaster announced Callie was the winner through gritted teeth, and Amber got up to inform everyone that Callie's drinks would be on the house tonight, further decreasing the stakes of this and making sure anyone who heard this story would definitely forget it in minutes.

Callie walked over and plopped down in my lap as Disaster, or rather Ashley, slid in next to her sisters. A server came over and Callie ordered another fish bowl drink before turning to grin at Disaster. "Nice move there with the dance battle, but you ended up losing anyway. Ass." Her tone was malicious as she needled her rival, who literally growled in annoyance.

"I hate you so fucking much." Ashley hissed. "I hope you know that. If you weren't some kind of freak who obviously cheated to get stronger I would have kicked your ass. You're way too powerful compared to when you left." She didn't ask how that happened though. It was poor form to question how another Ascendant got their stats unless you were close. She probably just wrote it off as being in the capital though, which I doubt helped.

Amber just snickered. "Oh stop it you two. You take yourselves far too seriously when it comes to this little rivalry. This is officially over. So stop being assholes and let your boyfriend enjoy his night out Callie." Being alone in a group of people who knew the truth meant there was no problem with the whole secret identity thing. Still, I didnt know what to make of them so I didn't give out my own name. No need to expose myself to risk for no reason. They didn't seem to mind me keeping it to myself though.

I ordered another smoothie and we got to talking about Callie. Her childhood before her powers and shortly after, how they all knew each other (in a more specific sense than they'd mentioned so far) and just generally whatever we could think of. The triplets were actually pretty chill people.

The only real downside of the night was Ashley and Callie taking potshots at each other, but we eventually separated them and forbid them from speaking to each other directly, and after ten minutes of trying to get us to pass insulting messages we all knew they could both hear fine, the started ignoring each other. By the time we got up to leave, I was more grateful than ever that I'd convinced Callie to come out tonight like she'd planned, even if the way things had gone down was a huge shock. This had been really good for both of us. I couldn't wait to see what this vacation had in store next.

 

We headed home a few hours later, both in a surprisingly good mood. Lauren and Amber had actually gotten Callie to be pretty friendly once she and Ashley were banned from speaking and by the end of the night I think everyone had fun. I'd have expected the attempted ass kicking and reputation bomb to have stepped on toes, but everyone just kind of blew it off as the cost of doing business. Heroes vs villains. I really didn't get the way the Unity worked. But if it was good for them they were welcome to the weirdness.

When we got back to the house, Amelia was waiting up for us, though just her, and for a second I thought this might be a parent thing. I read moms did that after a long night sometime? I wasn't sure, I'd never really had a long night, and the very few things that might count Zeke hadn't cared much about. He wasn't the helicopter type. I quickly realized though, that this wasn't some curfew policing weirdness, she was waiting up to talk to me about her wish. She was finally ready to get powers.

She gestured for both of us to sit. "Hey you two. Good to see you. I wanted to talk to Shane, Cal, you're free to stay, but try not to weigh in too much. This is between me and him, ok?" Her tone was gentle, but very firm, and Callie nodded solemnly at the statement, just excited to have her mom step on the path. Amelia turned back to me. "So, how much control do I get here. Can I wish for a specific power?"

I gave a shrug. "All wishes depend on what you can pay. I can't really give much advice without compromising the process. I can say that I can do give you most Abilities at this point, I expect. Probably nothing like...clan specific, because of the perception of exclusivity, but if you want a specific power, as long as it's minor it should be fine. I can give you a shadow power, if that's what you mean."

"Oh, gods no!" Amelia said, with a loud snort. At Callie's hurt look, she winced at her own outburst. "Sweetie. I love you, you know that. But I'm perfectly aware of why your father left. Don't get me wrong, the man was miserable to live with, and I'm well past being bitter about it, but I have no desire to invite him back into my life by becoming a part of his twisted dynastic fantasies. I can't think of a faster way to make Paul show up at my door than to awaken a shadow ability. I literally want to get as far away from that as I possibly can."

Callie's hurt faded a bit into resignation. "That's...fair. He really has zero concern for other people, I could see him showing up to try to get you back if you got shadow abilities. I'm already getting stronger, in his mind, you developing abilities would make you even more suited to be the mother of his child. I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy. So, the opposite then? Maybe some kind of light based power?"

She seemed to be warming to the idea now that she knew it was about hating on her dad. I had to fight down a snicker as I saw them bonding over mutual dislike. I'd never met Midknight, and honestly at this point I hoped that streak continued. I didn't like him, but it seemed like everyone was just better off when he was avoided. It was pretty much a moot point right now anyway with him in Rajak. I was just glad we moved out of the Unity building. I didn't think Callie could have opened up like she had under her dad's thumb (or that's how she'd seen it).

Amelia was looking intrigued by her suggestion though. "Light based might be nice. I was kind of thinking about healing? I've always like caring for things, and I bet it would work on my garden. I'm guessing whatever power Jessie has is out. Even if I got her same starting ability and synergized the same Skills with it, if I didn't have the same stat distribution and knowledge base I'd end up with something else. Better to just aim for my own thing. What do you think?"

They were talking like I wasn't there, which was good, because for the purposes of this conversation I kind of wasn't. I just let Callie advise her. She knew more about my power than almost anyone except for me and like...Zeke. PLus like I'd said, I could grant basically any Minor ability they could think of. How useful any given ability was at Minor was a different story. Plus she had to be able to pay for it.

Callie had considered that too, because she bit her lip worriedly as she thought out loud. "Healing would be nice, healers are hard to come by, and I doubt even if you ever headed to the capital Uncle Alex would let the Peace Lord anywhere near you. It would probably be expensive to pay for though. What are you planning to offer for your power. A Minor ability has little value to Shane, so that'll bring down the cost, but Impact is a valuable commodity to anyone even if he can only do the partial point."

I'd expected worry, but Amelia didn't look bothered. "I considered that. I talked to Ezekial a bit about it, he's something of an expert, and I thought over what you told me about the ability. I think some kind of contract would be the best bet. Something like a promise of a safe haven here if it's ever needed for a certain number of years maybe? As long as I make sure Shane is always welcome in our home I feel like that's something of significant value given his feelings for you."

That...certainly had value to me. I was pretty sure it might work. Wishes on mortals tended to be cheaper since they were easier to effect in any case, and I'd been paid in credits for mortal wishes before which set a standard of value. Plus it really was important to me that Callie's mom liked me and was ok having me here. I couldn't comment of course, so I just waited as she formulated her wish.

She gave it substantial thought before finally putting it into words. "I wish that I had the best possible light based power for me that you have the power to grant at this moment." I grinned. She really had been listening to Callie. That was an excellent wish. "In return you will be welcome in my home at any time for the rest of my life, even if things don't work out between you and my daughter."

Wish detected. Grant wish? I didn't love the caveat but I saw the need for it. There was a possibility Callie and I would break up. It was nice of her to offer to shelter me even if that happened as much as I hoped it wouldn't come up. I confirmed. Stat points sufficient. Requirements: 10 Impact, 100 Creation, 100 Vitality, 100 Might. I felt the familiar static begin to build in my body, though it was MUCH weaker than usual.

For a mortal wish this was actually pretty pricy, but the low Impact cost was what really told me how low level it was. When I was running up against the edge of my ability it used all my potential Impact to patch up any shorts I had in the required points. This one, despite costing a pretty large amount in terms of individual stats, only cost ten. I reached out my hand for Amelia to take, and she did. As per usual the electricity arced into her, and Callie appeared behind her mother to hold her up as the power coursed through her.

This was a much bigger change than Benny had, because I let his ability come to the surface on its own. This time I was literally molding a power, which had to be more invasive. Luckily I was also much higher ranked, and rank differences seemed to make everything easier. Kind of explained some of the things the current Wishmaster could do. It took about five minutes, which was a while for something like this, before Amelia was finished with her ascension. When it was done, she fell back onto the couch and groaned.

She looked...different. Younger. Not too much younger, since she had already looked pretty young for her age, but she definitely seemed more youthful. I remembered the original description I'd had of Vitality, that it kept you in increasingly good health for your age, while Impact was the deciding factor of how long you live. I was pretty sure Amelia was starting the clock on her Impact based aging late, but I was also sure that just becoming an Ascendant had made her much more youthful for the spot she was at.

Her eyes snapped open, taking a second to focus. "Oh...ok wow. That was pretty crazy. Oh! And I have three stats active. Might, Vitality, and Creation. Vitality is even at 2!" She sounded giddy. Almost childlike in a way, and I totally got it. I'd been just as excited about my abilities when I got them. For someone who spent her life seeing her loved ones use powers she thought she'd never have, this must be absolutely enthralling.

Callie laughed and pulled her mother into a tight hug, eyes swimming with unshed tears. "Gods mom, I'm so happy you're an Ascendant now! We'll get you up a few ranks and make sure you can live a nice long life. I don't want to turn around one day and find you gone. I couldn't stand it. What ability did you get anyway. You didn't say?"

"First of all." Said Amelia wheezily. "Ribs, dear." Callie blushed and let her go, getting a wide grin in return. Amelia might be Ascendant now, but she was also only I-rank, which barely counted. I was pretty sure that was why I was able to even do this. I wasn't giving a point of Impact (which I had tried with Benny and the others and couldn't do) I was pushing someone's natural partial point of Impact to a whole one.

Amelia stretched a bit to work out the soreness. "Secondly. I got a power called Minor Lay on Hands. It scans any living thing I touch and lets me mend small injuries. I suspect higher levels will let me do more, but for now it's mostly cuts and scrapes. Not a surprise, Minor abilities are pretty weak most of the time. Still, a combination scanning and healing ability is very useful. It also works on plants and animals which is pretty versatile." She stood up and walked over, pulling me into a tight hug. "I love it. Thank you so much Shane. As I said, you're always welcome here."

Callie crashed into her from the other side, her arms wrapping around us both and squeezing us in a bear hug as she buried her face in her mother's shoulder. Her voice came out muffled as she added. "Seriously Shane, you have no idea what this means to me. I can never thank you enough."

I just shook my head with a laugh. "Please. I love you. We don't need to keep score. If we did, you'd be way ahead just because of how grateful I am to have you in my life." She rolled her eyes at my sappiness, but I saw a big smile on her face as she pulled back. "Now. I still have four wishes today, so once you're feeling up to it, maybe we can get you up to H-rank. I could definitely use the scanning aspect of that ability. I have my own healing, but I can't really see what I'm doing." It was a good thing Amelia slipped out of the hold before I said that. I was pretty sure Callie cracked MY ribs that time.

 

I could not, as it turned out, trade three points for an all out attack from an I-ranker, regardless of the utility or how much I valued it's usefulness. I managed to barely squeak by at one point per wish for the attacks, and she had to promise me ten attacks per wish to even justify that. It was annoying that this was when I found out the limits of how far I could push things, but I knew there had to be one. No matter how much I valued something, base value DID come into effect, and Minor attacks just couldn't make the jump as they were.

Still, with a contract to give me forty of her 'attacks' (read, healing scans) I managed to give her four points, one for each remaining wish today. She put two in Vitality and two in Perception, which she assumed would effect the scanning abilities of her power. With her original four points from her breakthrough, that put her at nine counting Impact. That was...frustrating. Still, it wasn't the end of the world, she would probably earn a point from the rep of ascending so late in life anyway, so she would be at H-rank soon enough.

Callie seemed completely unbothered, peppering my face with kisses as she told me how amazing I was, and I couldn't stop smiling all the way to bed as we headed to sleep. Amelia told us to be ready for a delicious breakfast, since it was the least she could do. I tried to tell her it wasn't necessary but she insisted, planning to make biscuits and gravy, which I couldn't have brought myself to turn down even if Callie wouldn't have shivved me in my sleep for denying her a delicious meal.

We both headed to our own rooms and passed out after a long night and I slept like a rock knowing that things were so good. Once again, I woke up with a face full of long black hair, and had to fight back a laugh as I realized Callie had snuck back into my room. I shifted slightly, apparently letting the light hit her face, which drew a groan from her as she grabbed a pillow and shoved it over her head. I pulled it away. "Nope. I'm awake now, and I refuse to allow you peace while I must suffer. Wake up."

She pawed at my hand a few times weakly trying to grab the pillow and then flopped back to throw her arm over her eyes. "Stop. It's too bright." Her voice was hoarse but the complete sentences were a good sign. I debated tickling her or something, but this early she was liable to throw me out of bed at the attempt. Size difference or not she was much stronger than me. Finally she groaned again and sat up. "Fine, I'm up. What time is it even? If you woke me up too long before breakfast I'm going to be pissed."

I looked at her flatly. "Yes, how dare I move in my own bed that I went to sleep in alone. What's next? Wearing my own clothes to bed instead of letting you use them?" I looked down meaningfully at the oversized t-shirt she'd stolen from me and worn to sleep. "I'm a lunatic. Who will end my reign of terror?"

She pouted up at me. "In case you're wondering, you're not cute when I'm tired. Also you didn't answer my question about what time it was? Avoidance is the first sign of a guilty conscience." She sighed theatrically and waved off the thought. "Oh well, you can make it up to me. You mentioned cooking for my mom while we were here. As restitution for disturbing my slumber, you can let me pick the meal. We can stop at the market today and pick up the stuff. I figure we can get some cheese, and bread and butter, maybe some tomato soup. I want you to make-"

"Grilled cheese." I cut in dryly. "Yeah, I cracked that code. But sure. I can make grilled cheese for dinner for my night cooking. We can do all your favorite cheeses. Some smoked gouda and maybe a little monterey jack." I leaned down to kiss her. "And we can pretend you didn't ask that to make the dinner thing easier on me because you know how simple grilled cheese is, if you want."

She snorted and looked away to hide her smirk. "Whatever, egomaniac. I just like friend cheese." She leaned over me to see the clock and then squealed in excitement. "Oh! Also breakfast should be ready soon. I'm going to go shower before we eat. Mom's biscuits and gravy are amazing. They might be almost as good as your food." With that she hopped out of bed and bolted for the bathroom. I just smiled, rolled my eyes and got up to get dressed. I preferred to shower at the end of the day rather than the beginning.

The food actually did smell amazing. I wondered if now that she had Impact, Amelia qualified for the Minor Cooking Mastery Skill. I'd never been sure how that worked. Most people broke through in their teens when they didn't have developed Skills yet, so it would be interesting to see how things worked out.

Knowing I might not get much to eat if Callie made it downstairs first, I decided to leave her to her shower and try to get my food before her. She might sulk, but she wouldn't be too mad as long as I didn't eat it all, and considering how much Amelia cooked last time I doubted it. As we headed downstairs, I tried to think through everything we needed to do while we were here.

We had the guild to visit, Maria and Benny to spend time with (as well as Maria to offer a wish to), and only four days or so left here to do all that in. It seemed like both plenty of time and not enough. At least Maria would have Amelia entering the world up capes at the same time, who already knew all about Ascendant life. Having a friend who could guide her would be a huge help to my surrogate little sister.

When I got to the kitchen, breakfast was just about ready, and Amelia was putting out plates. She was talking to Alexander, who was actually smiling noticeably. The normally taciturn and formal man looked absolutely ecstatic at the change in lifespan, and grinned brightly when he saw me. "Shane! Good morning. Amy was just catching me up on her evening. I can't thank you enough for everything you've done. I sent for a few of my F-rankers to come and help her with things around the house and ranking up. She doesn't want to relocate to Rajak for several reasons."

"I can speak for myself, thank you." Said Amelia with good humor. "But yes. I'd rather avoid my ex-husband's city. I'm more suited to the Unity, and if I went to the capital I'd be forced to interact with him quite a bit. Stella has a large amount of control over this branch, and I've known her for quite some time. I'm not entirely sold on the idea of a bunch of F-rankers coming to babysit me, but Alex is insistent, and I figure I can have them run errands if nothing else."

It made me smile to think of dangerous WCP assassins, and F-rankers at that, being forced to go buy groceries and water plants by an I-ranker. I knew from seeing them together that Alexander cared a lot about Amelia though, and I had no doubt he'd make sure his people were on their best behavior. "In that case, you might be able to help me out with something actually. If you wouldn't mind."

Amelia raised an eyebrow good naturedly. "I'm happy to hear you out. I won't promise you my firstborn or anything. Oh, no, wait, you've already got her." I stifled a groan at the terrible mom joke, but couldn't fight down a smile. "Jokes aside I'm sure I can help. What did you need?"

I composed myself before responding. "Maria, that's Benny's sister who I grew up with, is probably going to be getting an ability. If you're going to have F-rankers in town to power level you or even just keep an eye out, could you include her in your plans? Nothing crazy, just let her tag along when possible. It would be a huge leg up for her I think. Plus you know a ton about Ascendant life and she's a complete rookie. I trust Stella to help her out if not, I just figured I'd ask.

To my surprise, Amelia looked thrilled. "That sounds lovely! It's been too quiet since Calliope moved away. Having a new face around will really brighten my day. I'd love to show her the ropes, it'll make my own journey starting out so much less monotonous. Early Ascendant grinding can be fairly tedious even to watch after seeing it often enough."

That worked out really well for me. I gave her a grateful smile. "That would be awesome thank you. I'm not positive she's going to decide to unlock an ability, but if she does I feel a lot better knowing she has you looking out for her. Stella and Ian would help her for sure, but they have work and Unity business. Another rookie would be ideal. I owe you one."
Before she could protest I changed the subject. "Now I'd love to try some of these biscuits and gravy before your daughter shows up and devours most of them. Though I dont think she'd finish all of it before everyone else eats. Where is everyone else actually?"

Amelia smiled ruefully. "We stayed late at the Druid's Grove. Ezekial actually ended up staying after we left. He and Alyssa hit it off, shes an old friend of Stella, and she'd heard of him even though they officially met. Alyssa never really bothered with the WCP. Anyway, short answer is they're all asleep still. It's not actually that late. Still nine or so. I was planning to let the biscuits and gravy warm in the oven while I waited for everyone to wake up." She chuckled. "I should have figured Callie's boyfriend would have some sort of psychic food sense."

I laughed off the joke and sat down, eager to try the food. Thick, buttery biscuits with heavy sausage gravy were heaped onto the plate, as well as a side of homemade hashbrown casserole with cheese and bacon that I hadn't even noticed, but that smelled absolutely amazing. I shoveled a huge fork full of each into my mouth and almost groaned with appreciation. The biscuits were soft and springy and the casserole was perfectly cooked to bring out the underlying crispiness of the hash browns, which I was pretty sure she had fried first before making the dish.

"Hashbrowns, score!" Came Callie's shout of delight as she practically dove into the seat next to me, heaping a few biscuits and a generous spoon full of hashbrown casserole onto her plate. Without looking, she also stabbed her fork onto my plate to steel a bit of own hashbrowns, shooting me a grin as she stuffed them in her mouth. Her vengeance at me for coming down early satisfied she started digging in.

I snickered at that but got back to eating myself. I finished up in not too much time and learned back, satisfied. Amelia handed me a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice that smelled so good I physically couldn't turn it down so I sipped on that as I relaxed while Callie finished eating. As she are, I pieced out my vote for where we spent our day. She'd picked yesterday so I didnt think she'd mind a suggestion. Besides, I think she was as excited as I was to see what ability Maria ended up with.

 

We talked over meeting with Maria about the wish, but I realized no one had explained to her about how it worked it, and if I offered her one I couldn't tell her to wish for an ability without compromising it we decided to make that a tomorrow plan. Today we were going in to see Stella and Cap at the guild. Amelia was coming with us to do her Intake, but other than that it was just Jessie, Callie, Benny, Celine, and I. Cass and Cark decided to sit things out with Zeke and Alexander at home, since they weren't Unity.

Celine, as a member of the Academy, was welcome of course, and Benny seemed excited to see the Valen branch of the Unity as much as to show it to her. "This is going to be amazing!" He said as we all sat together on the bus. "I've never really spent time at the guild, except for that time you got kidnapped by a psychopath and we were waiting for you to wake up." He said to me cheerfully. "Understandably I didn't do much sightseeing there at the time."

I rolled my eyes. "Sorry my near death experience ruined your day trip. I'm sure this one will be better." I briefly worried Jessie might be upset at the flippant joke about Stricture, given what he'd done, but apparently a combination of the fact that he was dead now and the fact that we were planning to bring back her brother made it much less stressful to think about. Speaking of Jessie. "Oh hey, Agria, are we meeting Sparkdove here? I figured she'd want to spend time with you while we're in town."

Sparkdove was Jessie's brother's friend Lindsey, who had been on a team with him before his death. They'd been close, and after he'd died, Lindsey had taken it upon herself to look after Jessie as best she could. They'd kept in touch via scan ring after we headed to Rajak, as far as I knew, though Jessie didn't talk about their conversations much. I got the feeling she confided a lot of the things she liked to push down in her childhood friend. She'd been a lot better since we'd talked about bringing Alan back, but everyone had bad days.

Our blonde teammate lit up at the question. "She is! She's been taking a more active role in the guild since we left. I was so happy to see her when we touched down, but we didn't get to spend much time together, so this will be awesome. Cap is going to be meeting us there too, right?"

Callie answered this one with a grin. "Yup, and not just him. He's been spending all his time with Blue Fox since we left. I think those two are FINALLY dating. Honestly watching them dance around each other for years was getting frustrating for pretty much everyone. I was beginning to think Stella was going to have to assign him a mission to finally ask her out before he would get around to it."

Amelia just laughed. "Oh gods, I remember those two coming over to the house. It's nice to know they ended up together. Ian was always a good boy. I liked his mother quite a bit. I always thought picking her as successor was the only thing your father did right when he was in charge here. Paul was hopeless at paperwork. Stella did all of that for him anyway. She deserved to be recognized for her contributions to the guild."

It was weird to hear about Stella when she was younger, but thinking about it, despite her youthful appearance (especially now) Amelia was in her forties. She was part of the generation before Stella took over. Though that brought up another question I'd had. "Why didn't Harvest take over? She's G-rank, but I'm pretty sure she's at the higher end. I bet if she became Guild Master she could have broken through, and since she grew up with you she'd have had seniority right? Why did Stella get tapped?"

"Oh that." Amelia said dismissively. "Paul didn't ask because he knew Alyssa would say no. Hell, if she wanted, she could have taken over before he did. Alyssa has always been good with people, but she's also not an ambitious person. She likes her woods and interacting with people at the grove. She doesn't want to be in charge of anything. She just wants to enjoy her life."

Jessie nodded. "That's true. Alan mentioned a few times that he wished she'd be more active in the field. It just isn't her scene though. I think she partly bowed out because she didn't want to rank up. F-rank comes with a lot of attention in Valen. If she got there she would be forced to interact with the higher level factions whether she liked it or not. I got the impression catching up with her that she's more than happy to stay where she is."

That almost reminded me of Abel in some ways. It was interesting how many reasons some people seemed to find not to rank up. It was a good reminder that not everything in life was about progression. Finally, the bus made it to the guild hall, and we climbed out. I stopped outside, staring up at the building with a smile. It had only been a few months since I first stood here for my intake, and so many things had changed. I had new friends, a girlfriend, power, and I knew things about myself and my family I never could have imagined.

It looked so different now, having seen what I'd seen. Smaller and less impressive in some ways, but more special in others because this was where I came from. It still looked like a courthouse, with columns and a marble facade, but it didn't look nearly as large or imposing as it had the first time. Not with buildings like the Unity headquarters in Rajak to compare it to. We headed inside, Callie pointing things out to Benny and Celine since this was their first visit aside from the wait to find out if I was alive for Benny. She seemed just as excited to be back as I was.

Ian met us downstairs in costume, alongside Blue Fox, who I didn't know very wall. A tall, friendly girl with bright blue streaks in her blonde hair that matched her cerulean eyes, along with a wide infectious smile. She cheered in excitement as she saw us, or rather one of us in particular, as she slammed into Callie, sweeping my girlfriend up in a crushing hug. "Nightstrike! It's so good to have you back, we really missed you." While Blue Fox was pretty tall for a woman at five foot ten, Callie was on the short side for anyone, a full foot shorter than the energetic blonde.

It was amusing to see my kickass girlfriend who was on the high end of G-rank manhandled by an H-ranker, but Callie just smiled fondly and squeezed her back. "Nice to see you too, Fox." She nodded over to Ian. "Cap, I see the two of you are as close as ever. Did you actually bite the bullet and finally ask her out? I was almost positive, but it's hard to tell with you to so I figured I'd ask."

Ian just rolled his eyes, giving me a hand shake before getting an enthusiastic hug from Jessie, and then a more measured one from Amelia. "Yes. We're dating. We started going out last month, and not that it's any of your business, but SHE asked me."

Callie spat a curse. "Shit. I owe Stella five chits. I had you being the one to finally get up the guts to ask. Why must you always find new ways to hurt me." She shot Blue Fox a wide smile. "Not that I'm not happy for you guys, I'm glad one of you has a spine at least. I'm just annoyed at losing the money. So, why, don't we show Celine and Clockwork around. Actually..." She paused, turning to Celine. "Do you not have a codename? I just realized that."

Celine chuckled. "No. I don't use the heroic cultivation system. Where I'm from we don't really use them. I just go by my regular name, same as I don't use a mask. Still, I'm on good terms with the Unity branches on this planet, so a tour should be fine. I'm interested to see how things work here."

"Wait." Ian said, eyes widening. "Are you an elf? Like a real one? I saw the ears but I figured it was some kind of Skill or ability based change. Like some people have oddly colored hair. That's so cool!" We all looked at him in amusement and he flushed. "I've never met an elf before ok? Only low level fae like Suki. Elves are cool." He stood there awkwardly for a minute as we stared at him before huffing. "Oh shut up, let's just go."

Blue Fox, or rather, Clarissa, snickered and put an arm over his shoulder. "It's ok sweetie. I'm sure you aren't the first nerd Celine has met." She kissed him on the cheek, smiling sweetly at Ian as he gaped in betrayal, and then grabbed Callie and dragged her ahead of us into the building.

I stepped up next to my former team leader. "Oh, I like her. Just sorry I didn't get to meet her when I was in town the first time. How've you been boss man? You seem happy, mortification at being a 'nerd' notwithstanding. Things been going ok here? With the Jerks gone I bet the city has been quieter."

We started walking, Celine and Benny catching up with Callie, with Jessie trailing behind. Ian grimaced. "Less than you would think. Mr. Jack-tastic was a lunatic, but his whole brand was being MOSTLY nonthreatening. There were a few psychos like Ronnie mixed in there, but for the most part the jerks were more zany than actually threatening. With him gone, some of the other gangs in the city have been moving to hold some of that territory."

I hadn't been expecting that. "Can they even manage that? Without an F-ranker how would they be able to keep up with the Queen of Hearts or The Nobody Man. I'd have figured the bigger factions would be snatching up the free territory to split between them."

"Some of it." He admitted with a sigh. "But there are limits to what they can comfortably hold. They're fighting over the prime real estate, but that leaves turf wars popping up in the smaller and less important parts of open territory. Granted, the bigger gangs will probably just annex anything that gets taken later, but that's its own kind of benefit." He shook his head absently. "Not your problem, kid. You have stuff to worry about already. Leave that to us. Mom is excited to see you. Her little investment. She was over the moon when you won the freshman scavenger hunt at the Academy. Hasn't stopped bragging about it since."

With the F-rankers from the capital coming to support Amelia I doubted the political situation would stay too unsteady. I flushed a bit at the other comment though. "Wait, bragging? About me? I mean, that's really nice, but I didn't know she cared that much."

He just laughed and clapped me on the back. "Of course. You and Callie represent Valen on the world stage. Now she gets to tell everyone how she has such a good eye for talent because she got you into that contract early. Plus a not insubstantial amount of gratitude mixed in for catching Stricture, and a bit of guilt. She's definitely team Solomon though. She'll be glad to see you home." I smiled a bit under my mask at the words. Not just because Stella was proud of me, which felt...weird, but good. But also because he was right. I did feel like I was home.

 

Stella didn't come down to meet us, because she was busy and also in charge. She DID call us up to say hello, which was nice, and if was fun to see Celine and Benny awed by SOMETHING. Stella's office was impressive in it's own right. It occurred to me that as a Guild Master of one of the branches, she would have access to resources that an F-ranker in Valen might not. I'd only ever met with E-rankers in official faction headquarters, it was probable people like Alexander had crazy rooms like this squirreled away somewhere to meet with other big names.

The Guild Master looked the same as I remembered, no nonsense bun, well tailored suit, sitting at a huge wooden desk. Unlike the first time I'd seen her though she was smiling warmly when she saw us. "Hail the conquering heroes." She said with a chuckle. "My budget has nearly tripled because of you two, you know? Between your win and the nonsense Mr. Jack-tastic has been getting up to Velan's star is on the rise, so to speak." She gave a wink so subtle that I almost missed it when she dropped the pun.

"That was bad." Said Callie in a deadpan tone. "And you should feel bad for saying it. Is this what you do when I'm not here? Spend your time coming up with bad celestial puns? I need to visit more often I guess. I should have known nothing gets done around here without me."

Snorting, Stella looked over her glasses at my girlfriend. "Little girl, you've bulked up a decent amount in Rajak, but the day I need a G-ranked baby telling me my business is the day I retire. Especially a G-ranked baby who needed her Auntie to cover for her when she slept through a patrol rotation eight times in the first year she was on the job." The two of them had teasing smiles tugging at their lips as they bantered.

I gave a wave. "Nice to see you boss. Hope things have been quiet. Glad we could drop in and say hi." I leaned forward, lowering my voice. "Now that the pleasantries are out of the way, maybe you can tell me more about these missed rotations. I'm always looking for good material to keep her humble." Callie glared at me and elbowed me in the ribs pointedly, which didn't do much given she wasn't trying to hurt me and I was in F-ranked armor.

"I think." Said Stella with a smirk. "You are pretty much the worst possible influence on her humility. Or did someone forget asking me to partner him with Nightstrike when we were working up his contract?" My eyes widened because I HAD forgotten that. My Focus had been ridiculously low when that happened. I very carefully kept my eyes on Stella as I felt my cheeks burn.

Callie, smiled broadly like a shark scenting blood as she cooed. "Oh, sweetie. That's so cute. I was like your mortal crush. Did you collect my merchandise? I still have a full set of those Nightstrike novelty mugs lying around somewhere. Do you need any of the holiday run? Those can be hard to find." I could hear suppressed laughter in her voice as I did my best to completely ignore her comments.

"I was hardly the only person to have a crush on you." I said with faux dignity. "And no. I have them all." I mumbled. "But my two hundredth anniversary Unity mug is cracked. I wouldn't say no to swapping it out with one in mint condition." They both just stared at me, and I felt everyone who wasn't Benny swing around to look at me in disbelief. "They're a good investment!" I defended myself fervently. "Those mugs are worth forty six percent more than they were when I bought them! Plus Callie has been crushing it in Rajak. Jokes on you, when we hit S-rank I'll auction the damn things at the WCP headquarters."

Giggling musically, Callie buried her face in my shoulder as she pulled me into a hug. "It's ok sweetie. I know you're a huge nerd. I love you anyway. She's right though. You are the worst possible thing for my humility. Teasing not withstanding, you're the most supportive boyfriend I can imagine."

"Ok." I said, irrationally offended that I was being told I was a good boyfriend. "Can we get back to the meeting please? This is about catching up with Stella, not putting my collecting habits under a microscope. Amelia! Aren't you and Stella old friends? Don't you have things to tell her? It's been a pretty big week for you right? So much to fill her in on, don't you think?" I said almost desperately. Literally anything to change the damn subject.

Amelia just clucked her tongue. "Honestly Shane. Even I didn't buy the novelty mugs." She said judgmentally, ignoring my glare. "But yes, hello Stacy. wonderful to see you again. You look like you've fit into your role here wonderfully. I've had a certain former paramour of yours staying at my home recently. He talks about you when he isn't paying attention to guarding his tongue. We all do so love our masks don't we?" She gave a subtle wink of her own.

Unlike Stella's joke, Amelia's produced visible results as the Guild Master's face lit up tomato red as she squeaked. "Amy! Don't talk about my romantic history in front of the kids!" She averted her eyes and sniffed. "And I know he's here. If he wants to see me he can get off his lazy ass and come visit. I'm not his nanny. I don't need to go running every time he shows up in town."

"Well, if you're going to tease my daughter and my poor little future son-in-law." Amelia said, ignoring the wide eyed squawks of shock and yelps of mortification from Callie and I because that was moving WAY too fast. "I'm going to poke fun." She arched an eyebrow in challenge. "Now, why don't you climb out from behind that absurd desk and come with us to meet with Benjamin. I haven't seen the boy in years and I want to make sure he hasn't blown himself up in any permanent fashion."

Seeing the normally implacable Guild Master look like a chastised teenager made this entire thing worth it. As she climbed down, Amelia shot me a conspiratorial wink and I had to fight a smile. It was nice to know she liked me at least. As we met Stella at the other side of the desk (which had an entire set of stairs for descending) she smiled at the younger woman. "Jokes aside though, I'm here to register for intake. I've recently developed an ability of my own, much to everyone's surprise."

Stella actually tripped when she heard that, turning to stare in shock at Amelia. "I...what? At forty? That is...so rare. I mean, dear gods, I can count the number of times I've heard of that happening on one hand with fingers left over." She paused, looking suspicious. "Wait, you said Zeke was staying with you?"

She came to pretty much the exact wrong conclusion, but I decided to play into it. The WCP knew about my ability, and that would eventually spread to the Unity, but for now having an alibi might keep the information away from people like Midknight for just a bit longer. I raised my hand. "I asked Zeke to get a wish for her. He had some favors to call in, and he was drunk for my last like...eleven birthdays, so I figured he owed me one."

I felt a bit bad lying to Stella about this when she'd been so nice, but worst case I could apologize and offer her a wish or something later to make up for it. At the mention of Zeke's drinking she just rolled her eyes with a huff, clearly distracted by my uncle's alcohol intake and not thinking past the easy answer I'd given her. Callie twined her hand in mine and squeezed, which I knew was a thank you, but which fit with the story well enough anyway. I still felt a warmth in the pit of my stomach at the gesture.

We headed down the steps to Beaker's lab, Amelia telling Stella all about her new abilities as best she knew them. She didn't bother filling her in on stats since she had to do the intake anyway and we would all just see them. I snickered internally when I remembered how impressed Stella had been that I'd managed to hit H-rank before coming in. Amelia wasn't quite there, but she was damn close. I foresaw a pretty lucrative contract in her future.

We remounted the spiraling crystalline stairs, and when we got a certain part of the way down, Stella stopped and fished a key from her suit pocket. I recognized it as the one Stricture had used all those months ago. She slipped it into a spot mid air, that with my current Perception I could BARELY see shimmering, and turned it with a click, letting the same door we'd seen at my own intake swing open. She gestured us all in, and Amelia took the lead.

Entering with a sniff of disapproval, Amelia looked around and shook her head. "That boy. Functionally incapable of not making a mess." She looked around before calling out impatiently. "Benjamin! You have guests, dear. Be polite and come say hello." It occurred to me that Beaker, being F-rank himself, was probably older than he looked, and much closer to Stella's age than the twenty he looked. He'd probably just ranked up early.

Beaker came stumbling out of a side room, carrying a glass tube full of bubbling neon pink liquid, eyes bleary behind his glasses. He froze when he saw Amelia, and I saw the carefree attitude melt from him as he stood up straight, looking like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. "Miss. Amy! It's...so good to see you. What brings you to my study? I haven't seen you in quite some time."

Out of all the reactions I'd seen from other people, this was the first one that seemed more afraid than fond. Not in a genuine way you might see from someone who had been bullied, but in the sheepish way you'd see from someone talking to a strict mother. Stella's generation had been kids when Paul was active, so I guessed that made sense, but it was a weird thing to see from Beaker of all people. Especially knowing how things ended up. I remembered Callie saying that her mother spent most of her time at the house when she was growing up. I supposed Amelia had stopped coming around after Stella and Beaker's time, maybe when Callie was born.

Amelia gave him a fond smile. "It's nice to see you too Benjamin. I see, you've managed to confine your messes to an appropriate work area. That's excellent to see." She gestured down at herself. "As for why I'm here, well...I'll be needing one of your intake devices. I've recently developed an Ascendant ability of my own. I'm here to register my stats for the first time."

Rather than being shocked, Beaker looked excited. "Oh, really? That is FASCINATING. You hardly ever see older people awakening an Ability. I've never gotten to process one before." He turned to bustle off to one side of the room to look for the device, breaking off conversation without any acknowledgement as the same old manic energy reignited in the spectacled man. He paused after he got about five feet, looking over his shoulder. "Well...are you coming or not? I believe we have a test to run." We all followed him with a chuckle. It was nice to see Beaker had stayed the same. Visiting him was never boring, at least.