Chapter 255: Chapter Two Hundred Fifty Six

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."

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"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.

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