I sighed dramatically at the sight of the other man. Hard to forget someone who threw a rope of sausage at your face during your first patrol. "Carl." I said, not even bothering to feign enthusiasm. "So good to...no, wait that isn't true. I see you you're here. Where's your buddy Stephen?"

Carl sneered. "They wouldn't let him in because he wasn't wearing shoes." I hadn't considered that. He glared back at the door. "They even tried to say I couldn't come in because I'm not wearing a shirt! Stupid. I obviously have this jacket on. That totally counts."

Callie actually snickered a bit at that, and I rolled my eyes because she really shouldn't encourage him. "I take it your old man is around here somewhere?" I ran my eyes over the room, because even in this crazy bedlam there was no possible way I could miss someone with a brightly colored spiked mohawk.

"Nah, pops doesn't have time for parties like this. All these boring people doing boring stuff. He sent me to chat up some of these randoms before the tournament. Get the low down on what they can do." I assumed he was also supposed to be making connections for if he managed to get off world, though having seen how strong some of the forces in the tournament were I judged the likelihood of that to infinitely approaching zero.

Everyone around us was looking at Carl with an unhappy expression, presumably because he'd said that last thing pretty loud and people don't like being referred to as boring randoms. A long sigh came from off to the side as a girl stepped out of the crowd. A girl with brown hair and peaceful golden eyes, flanked by a pair of twins in suits each wearing a half mask. Joy. Serenity and her cronies. "Carl. I could swear that I told you not to openly insult anyone here."

To my surprise, rather than sneering and gloating, she mostly just seemed exhausted. I almost felt bad for her, I wouldn't want to deal with Carl all day. She gave the two of us a soft smile. "My apologies for the crude manner of my companion's speech. It's wonderful to see you both again. You've certainly gotten much stronger." I expected some kind of animosity or anger, we'd killed a bunch of their people after all, but she seemed genuinely affable.

Even Callie, who was used to hero and villain bullshit from her time in the Unity growing up, looked kind of off balance. "You don't...hate us? We kicked your asses and then ransomed you back to your faction." That wasn't a really political way to phrase that, but it was weird enough to see her being so friendly that it didn't seem too our of line.

Serenity just shrugged. "That's life. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. We knew the risks of trying something like that. We took a shot and failed. We're members of the Wish Curse Palace. Not to say we don't hold grudges, but you could have killed us or been quite a bit rougher than you were. We no longer have any need to be hostile, so why waste the energy?"

That...staggered me. We'd killed their people, beaten them mercilessly (although, in retrospect, there been a BIT of mercy) and sold them back to their bosses like used books, and they just...didn't care? Beat (at least I think it was Beat given the gloves) snickered at us. "You have a lot to learn about how things work downtown. Today's enemies are tomorrows allies. We don't have defined sides like the Unity does. Not to say I won't enjoy kicking your asses in the tournament if we run into you. You're not the only ones who have been getting stronger."

Carl groaned. "This is so boring! Can we go? I wanna go punch some stuff." He looked at Serenity. "Also I didn't insult anybody. These people are all randoms to me, and someone has to be boring or how can anybody be awesome? Also, Solomon, I'm totally gonna punch you in the tournament. I'm way stronger than last time. You won't even know what hit you." He brought his fists together near his stomach in a flexing motion, and the jacket he wore ripped loudly across the shoulders.

Serenity closed her eyes, from all appearances counting to ten, and exhaled slowly. "Carl...Fine. We can go." She fixed her gaze on us, her previously serene smile becoming sharp. "Just wanted to let you know there's no hard feelings, so when our team crushes you in the tournament you'll know it's nothing personal."

She gestured for Beat and Sever to follow and grabbed Carl's arm, dragging him away into the crowd. I blinked. "Wait, CARL is their fourth team member? That's...how is he even strong enough?" I knew that Natalie had been working with the Jerks and Sanctuary Hall for a while, but helping Carl grind up that high since I'd last seen him was still impressive. I guess they'd probably maxed his elixir cap in each rank too though. Still, I'd crushed him the first time we fought.

Clearly able to sense my disbelief, Callie chuckled. "You and Carl were H-rank the first time you fought. Or you were at least. Abilities at that rank are so low level they barely work. Almost no stats to fuel them. a high G-ranker isn't anything like they were at early H or I-rank. He might actually be pretty tough. Plus who knows what Skills he picked up on top of whatever his ability is."

I knew M-jack's ability was some kind of animated animal tattoo conjuration. I wasn't sure if Carl inherited the same one, made his own ability similar through synergy, or just had some of those tattoos placed on him by his dad, but I'd heard that M-jack made sure his son was protected. If he was at our level maybe he could be a real threat, especially with back up like Beat, Sever, and Serenity.

Callie sighed. "Their group will be tough for us. Serenity isn't quite a hard counter to Abel, but she's the closest I've seen. He can dominate one or two of the others in a fight against most groups, but against them...well we've already seen that she can keep him busy." Which I hadn't even considered. Abel was a monster, we'd seen him crush everyone he came up against like bugs. Serenity had managed to keep him busy solo, which hadn't seemed too scary at the time, but having experienced how strong he was firsthand, made her fucking terrifying.

Seeing how troubled I was, Callie just smiled and reached down to squeeze my hand. "Hey, no worries. She's a bad match-up for Abel, but that doesn't make her invincible. We'll come up with some countermeasures for her ability. No power is impossible to beat. For now, let's hit the dance floor for a bit before we try to meet up with any more of the attendees. Won't do us any good to try to make connections all keyed up like this."

I laughed and stepped back sweeping into a bow and holding out a hand for her. "Fair enough, then may I have this dance milady?"

"Of course, kind sir." She said with an exaggerated curtsy, then took my hand, only to squeak when I spun her around and then caught her, the two of us stepped onto the dance floor, and as we did, for the first time I started paying attention to the music. There was a graceful serenity to the tune that I hadn't even noticed, in fact, it wasn't just an emotional reaction, I could feel a familiar sensation as I immersed myself in the sound of the instruments.

"Is this?" I said, stopping. "Does this music replenish soul strength?" It took me a second to put my finger on it, but I finally realized what I was picking up.

Callie paused too, her eyes widening. "It is. This is the same kind of sensation as Benny's spiritual calming belt. You can do that with music? That's amazing." It had to be an ability, but an ability like that must be insanely hard to come by. It might even be necessary to be born with it directly, but even if it wasn't the stat requirements and the skills needed to synergize it were definitely crazy.

We danced for a while, and because I could, I decided to take advantage of the time to train a bit. The replenishment was a good opportunity, it would be a shame to miss it. With a pretty decent amount of effort, I triggered Cloud Step, but I used my soul strength to alter the skill, creating a single huge platform for Callie and I to step onto. Then, with a serious effort, I MOVED the platform, lifting us both up into the air so we were dancing above the crowd.

This was an Ascendant party, so flying wasn't anything huge, it mostly just got a few laughs, but one or two of the other couples used their own abilities to join us in the air. I saw a few fire users flying above the crowd, and one or two people using wind and even a gravity ability or two. One pair of ladies were dancing above the crowd on what looked like a cloud of purple starlight, and I even saw Abel and Mel join the party, with my mentor using his spatial ability to eliminate the distance between his feet and the ground while still standing mid air.

Dancing up here, we could see the riot of forces and stars right above us, and it was staggering to be up among the illusion the Mindbender had set up for this party. "Flashy entrance kid." Called my uncle's voice from behind us. I turned to see him and Stella, standing on a miniature galaxy courtesy of her cosmic witchcraft. I was pretty sure Zeke was powerful enough to just forcibly defy gravity with raw stats, I knew that really high ranking Ascendents (D-rankers and above) could fly regardless of ability, but he was keeping a low profile so he seemed content to let Stella do it.

I shrugged. "Anything worth doing is worth doing big." I doubted this counted as a great deed or anything, but I was sure it would at least generate a bit of buzz for me in terms of making connections. Callie could definitely use it as an icebreaker.

Zeke cracked up at that. "Well said kid, couldn't have phrased it better myself. Anyway, don't spend the whole night up here. With this Soul Soothing Song, you probably could, but you'd miss the food and the company." Zeke's way of telling me to start our mingling soon. I desperately wanted to stay up here, since the 'soul soothing song' was good training for me, but I knew as a candidate making connections was integral and it was something I needed to learn eventually.

With a sigh I waved to the others as I let the Cloud Step platform lower to the ground. I wanted to ask Zeke about the music, but he was clearly busy so I just filed it away for later. As we touched down, Callie went up on her toes and planted a kiss on my mask, smiling up at me happily. "Thanks for the dance handsome." Then she dragged me over to one of the floating cloaks to get some food.

We filled a few more shadow plates with hors d'oeuvres before looking around for the next target we needed to schmooze. We settled on Burning Fist, or Edgar as he preferred to be called informally, off in the distance, talking to Cark and Sage, with Saffron nearby. I should have guessed the relation from the names honestly, but I figured they might be cape monikers. With an internal shrug, I followed Callie over to talk to them. I had to admit, this really was turning out to be a hell of a party.