Jake and Carmen sat on the balcony and looked out over the city. Jake saw the mansion in question as Carmen also stared intently. Due to the enchantments placed on the construction, everything was vague, and he could only barely see some people moving within. When he didn’t focus, that is. A bit of squinting, and he saw around the formation and could see the large lawn and even in the windows clear as day.

Peter and Sylphie were still out, with Sylphie being on a super-secret special assignment as she wasn’t interested in gambling, drugs, or sex. She was too young for all those too, and Jake was glad to keep her away from the degeneracy. If he didn’t, he was sure Hawkie and Mystie would somehow find a way to kill him.

“I saw most of them,” Carmen muttered as she also looked down at the mansion, even if it was still blurry to her. “They looked so… carefree. Like everything was fine.”

Jake just kept silent as she talked.

“My grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, parents… everyone was there. Just one big happy family,” she said again. “And… my cousin… the one I told you about… she was just so fucking perfect. Again. Not a single mark, like nothing I did ever mattered. To any of them.”

When she returned that day, Carmen had been a mess. Jake had done nothing more than just allow her to vent as Jake learned everything that had happened. How Carmen grew up in a toxic family that cared more about reputation than not being shit people, how her cousin had always been perfect and pretty much bullied Carmen, and how no one had ever done anything to address this.

How Carmen had finally found a calling only to get that dream shattered when her cousin decided to just straight-up assault her. How the legal system had failed. Jake had to admit he was unable to hold back a small smile when Carmen told him about the day she had smashed in her cousin’s face so hard the other woman had nearly died – and on her wedding day, no less.

Then came the fucked up prison where Carmen had managed to make it by fighting even more. Even guards. They all left her alone as her hand only got worse from her using it to hand out beatdowns. She even confessed she had just considered ending it all at times. Her future was one where parole was something that would likely never happen with her family’s influence, and if she did make it out, she was effectively disowned.

She had been saved by the system like so many others. Finally, she could confront her family. She talked about how she had been looking forward to seeing them all struggling. None of them were fighters, but all were just socialite assholes. They had to have suffered, right?

But no, they were thriving.

“The one thing that kept me going every day was that at least that bitch Beatrice was also suffering. But now… now she is just healed. No, better than healed. You saw her, right?” Carmen turned to Jake

“I did,” he admitted. In fact… Carmen didn’t even have to point her out.

“And?” Carmen asked with a fiery glare.

“She looks like the kind of person an army of rich middle-aged men would pay top dollar to make their sugar baby,” Jake answered. He wouldn’t lie… she was one of the most attractive humans Jake had seen. However…

“But… meh, I doubt looks will get her that far in a few years,” Jake added on. While she was hot, Jake had seen more than what Earth had to offer. Irin and Meira both had her beat handily if Jake went by pure looks. Personality, too, if even a fraction of the things Carmen said were true. This was, of course, disregarding people of higher grades.

Carmen nodded but still looked down with an empty gaze.

“What is the plan?” Jake finally asked. It was the part she had never addressed. He could not figure out what she actually wanted. Revenge? Justice? Just to mess them up a bit or the full nuclear option? Maybe even some kind of reconciliation. No matter what, Jake could see she was conflicted.

“I don’t fucking know,” Carmen sneered. “Why does everything just work out for them every fucking time?”

“You know, we could just leave. Within a few minutes, we could be through a teleporter and in another city, never to return. You could forget all about them forever,” Jake proposed. It was only a half-honest proposition as Jake, more than anything, just wanted Carmen to think about what she wanted. He had no real advice to give because what the hell did he know? This sounded like something a therapist was needed for – something Carmen had never attended as her family “didn’t believe in therapy,” whatever the hell that means.

“And just let them get away with everything?” Carmen asked, staring daggers at Jake.

”Get away with what?” he asked.

“Fucking… everything. Being the scum of the Earth who can just go about their day unbothered. How the hell do they still do so well even now? How the fuck is my aunt D-grade when her only talent is to be a stuck-up bitch and a terrible person?”

“She must be supremely talented at being a stuck-up bitch I guess,” Jake shrugged. Okay, he was legitimately unsure if the system recognized that as a Path. Being a manipulative person who used others for her own gain… now that was probably something you could gain plenty of progress with.

Carmen just fell silent again as she kept looking down at the mansion. One moment she looked like she wanted to go pummel the place into dust, and the next, like she just wanted to leave. She clearly didn’t know what she wanted. Carmen’s planning and strategy had ended upon seeing them… and Jake had a theory.

She had wanted to see them be utterly fucked. She had wanted to see them living a terrible life while she had managed to rise up again and gain power and status. To experience their situations being reversed. But what she had instead gotten was them still being wealthy, privileged, and everything just being fine and dandy. However…

“Must be pretty miserable being them, huh,” Jake mumbled.

“What?” Carmen asked, confused.

“They have nothing worth anything,” Jake just shrugged. “All they have is their social clout. Take that away, and what are they?”

“A bunch of rich bastards who are nearly all still D-grade?” Carmen shot back.

“To be more accurate, they would be a bunch of weak D-grades with just wealth, which will do them no good when faced with a superior force. Have you seen a single fighter among them worth anything? I haven’t during all this time sitting here looking at them come and go. So how do they survive? By them being viewed as valuable enough to be kept around by the City Lord or other backers,” Jake answered.

“Right, but why the fuck does that matter? Do you think the City Lord will just throw them to the wolves for no reason? They may be fucking assholes, but they also know what they’re doing when making connections,” Carmen rebuffed him.

“Funny,” Jake said. Due to how this entire flow of conversation had gone, Jake had no time to tell what he had been doing. Including his meetings with Renato. “The City Lord seems to not care about them at all.”

“Explain,” Carmen just said.

Jake smiled as he told her about his talks with Renato. Carmen seemed to have a hard time believing it, as she looked at him skeptically.

“So you are saying I can just do whatever I want?” she asked skeptically.

“Essentially, yeah. Renato clearly doesn’t want to go against the Runemaiden of Valhal,” Jake said, a bit teasingly.

“Or the Chosen of the Malefic Viper,” she shot back.

“Well, of course not. I got a big angry snake with really nasty poison backing me, but you also got an angry guy with a really big axe as well as all his drunken god friends behind you, so I think we are both pretty damn scary,” Jake joked.

“None of which are in this universe at all and won’t be for a long-ass time,” Carmen argued.

“True, true. But they will be one day, and people like Renato are in this for the long game and have godly backers themselves. If he pisses us off, it reflects badly on his backer,” Jake said. “So do not question the fact that when it comes to status, you have them thoroughly beat.”

She still looked skeptical as Jake kept piling on.

“Also, in personal power, you are far beyond them. They can’t touch you in any way. They are forced to comply with what you want or face the consequences. They have no one to complain to or seek justice from. Not now or ever, as you will keep getting stronger.

“Think about it like this. Positive thoughts. You will reach C-grade and beyond, and in the meanwhile, they will all grow old and rot away while you live on and gain more and more power. By then, they will be nothing but an annoying memory of your younger days,” Jake finished.

A few moments of silence followed as the warrior from Valhal just took in the words. She had a personal struggle to overcome. Minutes more went by before she finally seemed to have made up her mind.

Carmen took a deep breath as she looked down. “I will meet them and confront them. If I just leave and act like nothing, I will beat myself up over it forever. I… I want to hear them out… or at least hear something from them. Closure, maybe… before they die of old age, you know.”

Jake smiled as he asked: “Want me to come with you?”

She looked at him and slowly nodded. “Yeah… just promise me one thing.”

“What?” he asked.

“Let me do the talking, and if things get weird, give me a reality check, okay?”

Jake nodded once more. “Sure thing. Want Sylphie around too?”

“No,” Carmen shook her head. “Let her continue doing whatever she is doing… wait, what is she doing anyway?”

“Oh, I asked – or well, bribed - her to keep an eye on Peter as the guy was acting shady, and so far, it seems like he is indeed up to some shady stuff. Went all stealth mode and began running around with a crystal. Probably recording or scouting for the United Cities Alliance or something. I will probably talk with the guy later and figure out what he is up to,” Jake shrugged.

“Wait, he was shady?” Carmen exclaimed, surprised.

“Oh yeah, for sure. Not sure exactly what the deal is with Peter, but he did seem genuine in most things, and honestly, what he is doing doesn’t seem like my problem. Renato can figure that one out, and even if he arrived in the city with us, it isn’t our fault if everyone decides he is somehow the fourth guy among the three musketeers,” he joked.

“We are the three musketeers now?”

“Look, it was the fastest analogy I could get on with three people,” Jake laughed. The mood was instantly lightened as they sat there just a bit.

“We should go now before I chicken out,” Carmen finally said.

“Let’s get a move on then. I’ll send a quick message to Renato and update him on the way, so no worries if you see some shady cloaked figures around,” Jake said with a smile as he practically dragged Carmen out of the hotel before she had time to change her mind.

Jake knew whatever Carmen was dealing with could be bad in the long run. The Viper had told him that being hung up on things could lead to stagnation and issues. His fellow Primordial, known as the Daofather, dubbed this kind of thing a heart demon or something like that, which just sounded like a metaphor for having doubt or insecurities by someone trying to sound more profound than they actually were.

Either way, Carmen would do best by confronting it. No matter how things turned out. All he could hope for was that things didn’t end too badly.

Who knows, maybe they had turned into at least marginally less shitty people than Carmen described them to be? He knew she was a biased source, and they couldn’t be that bad, right?

--

“The Salvento family… why?” Renato asked himself in a confused tone once he got word from the Chosen who they were going to visit. His chief of security was also there with a slightly worried look.

“I am uncertain, but it was clear that was their target. No other place fits the description,” the man answered. He wore a worn-out police uniform a looked a bit sloppy, but he was nevertheless one of the strongest people in the city.

“But out of everyone, why them?” Renato asked, a bit worried. The reason was simple… out of every faction, they were one of the ones Renato preferred not to make an enemy. Not because of the family itself, but who they had managed to bring into their fold through the age-old strategy of deploying a honeytrap.

That woman Beatrice had him wrapped around her finger, making him little more than a loyal dog even if he was incredibly powerful and used a tricky kind of magic Renato would prefer not to get involved in.

“Maybe it is some moral mission? It seems like this is for the Runemaiden, not the Chosen,” the chief of security chimed in.

“Perhaps, but it is still odd they chose them out of everyone. It also feels personal. The Runemaiden sat outside the mansion for nearly an entire day just scouting it out with a frown on her face, and now they decide to go. Who are these people to her?” Renato wondered out loud.

“People who wronged her? Wouldn’t be a first; the Salvento’s aren’t the most popular,” the other man shrugged.

“No… no, if it was that simple, she would have just attacked.”

Renato kept pondering the issue a bit more. He did have some theories, but none that could be confirmed, and it was possible they had simply wronged her. The Salvento family had done everything under the sun, including slavery, before they entered Paradise. They currently ran several brothels and high-level escort services, not just in Paradise, as well as produced nearly a third of the entire drug supply of the city, and that was the part that wasn’t exported. They had a major influence but also a horrible reputation for one simple reason…

They treated everyone they viewed as below them like absolute shit and had a triple-digit body count of people who “offended them.”

Carmen stood around the corner and stared at the imposing gates of the mansion. They felt so much larger than the last time she had come there and looked utterly indestructible. She felt nervous and had second thoughts, but when she looked around, she saw Jake who was judgingly staring at her behind his creepy mask. Well, she also wore a mask while in Paradise, so it was fair.

She felt a bit more assured seeing him there, so unbothered and relaxed. She quickly composed herself, and with Jake in tow, they silently walked towards the gates.

Carmen didn’t truly know what she wanted. She had fantasized and dreamed for years about what she would do. While in prison, she dreamed about getting out and somehow making it big to then return home in an expensive car to make her parents and family look at her with recognition and pride. To view her as good enough.

It was stupid. No matter how many times they put her down and ridiculed her, she still wanted to get their approval. She only had a handful of memories where she thought her family actually felt proud of her. All of them in her youngest years. After she entered her early teenage years, it was all downhill from there.

They had wronged her so many times. They made her life hell. Made her want to kill herself several times, took away any little joy she found, and never acted like she was worth anything more than dirt. Dirt to be pushed into a corner when guests came over. When she went to prison, it was like she was dead to them. No visits or calls, with the only thing she ever got being a card from her father saying he was disappointed while also outlining how she had been taken out of all wills and barred from any inheritances.

And now, even with the system, it seemed like they had just written her off. If they let it slip that she existed, they could just lie. Clinton seemed to believe she had been off to college, and it was implied she had probably just died due to that. That part was likely true… they did just assume she was dead. How could they possibly think the useless Carmen could survive?

So… what did she want? Did she want them to see how far she had come? To be impressed that she was now a Runemaiden of Valhal, a high-ranked warrior? Did she want them to praise her and welcome her back with open arms and apologize for their past actions? Say she truly was family after all? For her father to say that he was proud of her?

Did she just want to brag? Show them how wrong they had been and then make them know she was so above them that they weren’t worth her time? To look Beatrice in the eyes and say she would enjoy watching her die of old age as she would forever stay young? Call them all out for the shitty people they were before walking off, now their superior?

Or… did she just want to kill every single last fucking one of them?