“Though we might not necessarily all see eye to eye, I am glad to see you all made it here today. There is a need for basic accord and cooperation between our disapparate factions. That accord... The basic rules that guide our conduct as costumed heroes and villains, are what keep our galaxy from descending into anarchy…” said the speaker on the stage. A tall dark-haired fellow in a black suit, tie, and domino mask.

I sat in an audience of tens of thousands. Aware of the audience of trillions that would be, watching the stage and those of us who’d come in person, in their living rooms and bedrooms. I sat at an event. Kian sat to my left. Hong Mirae sat to my right. Yoshino Yuki, Hong Soomin, and the other juniors were seated elsewhere, but were in the same VIP section we were sitting in.

Pretty much the entirety of the Empty-Society’s personnel was present, which was pretty. We were all gathered here alongside some of the leading devils, gods, and spirits for this universe. All of us sitting in seats that both were and weren’t part of the universe. The outside world witnessed us only as a gathering of humanoid lights.

As to what all of us immortals were doing there, the answer is that this event we were at was the “Gathering of Masks”. The Gathering of Masks was a ten-year event that basically amounted to the entire world of capes, both the heroes and villains, gathering together to break bread, make treaties, brag, and hand out awards. The Gather of Masks generally wasn’t that big a deal, but every 3rd and 10th one tended to be accompanied with such massive swings of fate for the mortal world, that the immortal world in this universe, had ended up using those particular days as a festival day.

Thus after the awards were given out, when the mortals got up to go and schmooze and enjoy high-tier snacks and liquor, we immortals got up to do the same, plus hash out some business while we were at it. The vibe at the Gathering of the Masks was surprisingly chill despite the kind of heavy wheeling and dealing that was going on.

That chill atmosphere was probably because, for both mortals and immortals, fucking around here…outside of the literal carnal sense which was also likely to happen in events like these…would usually be harshly punished. The karmic fluctuations going on in the background were so turbulent, that even if the numerous super-powered mortals, and nigh-omnipotent immortals didn’t do anything, one’s plans were liable to blow off one’s own face. As if you’d tried wishing on a monkey’s paw made of dynamite.

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“Mhm…*yawn* I can’t wait till this is over so we can check out the hotel rooms that they set us up with,” said Hong Mirae.

I blushed and loosened my suddenly too tight tie.

“Er…Right…”

I think I might have made a mistake by sleeping with Ellison. That’s not to say I regretted sleeping with the angelic scholar. On the contrary, it seemed we were the 0.0000001 percent of people where sex before emotional intimacy actually worked, versus having things get muddled because you’ve opened your body to someone you’re still hesitant to let see the inside of bathroom cabinet. We’d both seemed to relax around each other by several notches after the first time. This wasn’t just lust talking either, because we actually hadn’t slept with each other since then.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

I think if we were mortals, we’d have probably been one of those arranged couples that not only did just fine despite not knowing that the other person was alive, up until a day ago when our parents told us we’d be marrying. We actually did better that way because apparently, we were both just terrible at ordinary courtship. I was stone dense, and I got stiffer, in the non-fun sense, the more I tried to relax and be myself. And Ms.Scholar came across, as a cross between a sexy spam message that absolutely would brick your pc once you clicked the link, and an in-uniform police officer, who still showed up on the block to try and get the local ne’er-do-wells to sell her drug anyway.

I wasn’t so besotted that I didn’t do a butt-load of research, and have a whole bunch of discussions with Jack and Kal, just to confirm that this new development wasn’t a very big mistake. Jack and Kal had already sort of given Ellison the okay, but I still held some doubts. Thus once it seemed like we were about to seriously become a thing, I started to discuss exactly what she was after, and what the Angelic Host was after in sending her. And well, trust an Angel to be painfully honest. She re-confirmed what she’d already said, and I and my wives had already pre-supposed. The angels wanted her to influence us, expecting that we in turn would influence her as well. Which again, was ultimately no better, or worse, a deal than what we’d get from most of the other candidates for joining our Calloway clan.

However, I digress. I wasn’t talking about how well things were going with Ms. Scholar/Moody and myself, I was talking about the tight spot it had put me in with Yuval, Kian, and Hong Mirae. The other three women weren’t upset…At least, they hadn’t seemed upset, and dense or not, I “did” try to pay enough attention to keep from upsetting someone. After all, we had all been friends before we started this prolonged dating game we were all playing and I’d like to keep things that way, even if our attempts at romance didn’t work out.

In any case, while I can say with 80 to 90-percent certainty the ladies hadn’t been upset about what happened between Ms. Scholar and myself, they had, however, become much more aggressive in their pursuit. I didn’t mind the increased attention, but I’m afraid that I probably wasn’t really doing a great job of handling the attention. I flustered easily, shied away quickly, and I’m apparently just trash at flirting. Which once again, made me wonder exactly why all these beautiful, powerful, women were pursuing me so ardently for. Oh, well…

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Turning to subjects other than my overly complicated love life, it might surprise you to know that the mortal and immortal areas of the Gathering of the Mask’s main hall weren’t particularly segregated. I mean we old undying did sort of stay in our own area, but physically speaking the mortals were standing in the same event hall. However, if you know anything about myths and legends, then that really isn’t a surprise. In events like these, where we immortals gathered in the presence of mortals, those mortals who managed to make it to our end of the pool despite the pressure we gave off, were usually thought of as “fated”, or simply outstanding in other ways.

“Excuse me…” said a voice at my side.

I turned and was a little surprised to find “her” standing behind me. My favorite hero to watch when I had downtime. Sunset. Speaking of, after nearly three centuries, I actually hadn’t had too many opportunities to watch her “hero”-ing. Part of it was the fact that I’d been busy cleaning up the garbage that had accumulated within the Empty-Bell Complex despite our group’s best intentions. Part of it was due to the fact that after all this time, the woman before me had climbed the ranks of the Sigfrid Radiance. Becoming a senior executive of the Sigfrid Hero-League, and eventually becoming one of the deans of the Sigfrid Galactic College of Heroes.

“Uh, hi…” I said.

“Yes, hello…I’m…Sunset. Er, well, my real name is…” said the heroine. Seeming to quickly throw away any hesitation she might have had as she looked up to meet my gaze.

“I know what your real name is…” I said.

“Ah…I guess that’d make sense. Well, I don’t suppose you’d mind explaining to me why I feel like I’ve been waiting all my life for this particular moment?” said Sunset, the young heroine named Richarda “Ricky” Fitzgerald.