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 within 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.