The Hartwood was in the category of restaurants I would have normally walked past without bothering to check the menu posted outside, one where the prices were set by its inordinate rent and not the quality of the food. It looked like a good gig for a waitress though; the cheapest appetizer was $22, and the menu had a line at the bottom about how gratuity was added automatically – a necessity in a touristy neighborhood like North River. Annie must have really liked me or really hated the management considering how laissez-faire she was about losing her job here.

I used to dream of living in North River. It was, with its gorgeous Italian-style architecture, narrow cobblestone roads, and endless series of small, mom-and-pop shops, perhaps the only good thing the 'Ndrangheta had ever done for this city. But the new money that had come in since Mayor McFadden's crackdown on the Italians had sucked the soul from this place. The Hartwood was a symptom of that rot; it was too big, too expensive, and too American to fit in with the old-school aesthetics. Without the 'Ndrangheta elites and their relentless xenophobia keeping the neighborhood tidy and to their sensibilities, it was a matter of time before the steakhouse became the standard and not the exception – a small price to pay to be rid of those ghouls of course, but still, I'd miss the ambiance.

The door was locked when I arrived – the restaurant closed for two hours between lunch and dinner – but that was no impediment to me. I turned the bolt over with a flick of my mind and let myself in, locking it again behind me in the same way. My hands were full with the large bouquet I'd been using to obscure my face from cameras on the way here. Was that necessary? Probably not, but I wasn't taking any chances after the day I'd had.

The hostess looked up from her phone at the sound, but her mind rejected the idea that I was worth paying attention to and she returned to her screen with a bored sigh. I swiped a mint out from in front of her as I passed with my Sash for no reason in particular. I didn't even like the things to tell the truth, but I was trying to get into the pointlessly chaotic headspace I wanted to carry into my meeting with the Cranes.

Annie was at the bar eating a salad with her headphones in, looking mildly annoyed to be working a tip-based job that kept her there during its down hours. I tapped her on the shoulder and dropped out of Stealth, though not the Happy Idiot; it was too soon after the Peach Incident to be flashing my Aura around town.

"Hey there, gorgeous. Whatcha listening to?"

"Ah!" Annie nearly fumbled her fork in her surprise before whirling around on me with it in her hand like a knife, palming her headphones in a panic. "James? Is that you?" she asked, blinking at me in confusion.

I raised an eyebrow and glanced at the fork pointedly. She blushed and dropped it in her bowl. "The one and only. Who else would it be?"

"You look…different?" she quirked her head skeptically. Pursing her lips, she added, "What's our plan for the next week again, remind me."

"Nice, operational security, I love it. We're training and then going off to beautiful Crucifixion, Missouri to investigate the strange circumstances of your conception."

Annie visibly relaxed. "Sorry, all the talk about ghosts and things has made me jumpy. What are you doing here? Not that I'm not glad to see you. You should have texted me. I would have had Raul make you a salad."

I paused to think about that – why hadn't I texted Annie? I hadn't meant to surprise her, there had just been a lot on my mind. The Happy Idiot did require a sort of laidback 'take it as it comes' attitude. Perhaps it was interfering with my ability to be forward-thinking.

"I wanted to surprise you with flowers," I lied, passing them over.

"Aww!" She hugged them to her chest. "This is so sweet! No one's ever brought me flowers at work."

I smiled, nodded, and decided not to mention that I'd primarily been using them to obscure my face. "Only the best for my senior student!"

Annie wrapped me in a hug. Over her shoulder, I saw that we'd attracted the attention of a few of her fellow employees and a woman who had the frantic air of a manager.

"Thanks, James! But I thought you had that," she eyed her incoming manager, "meeting tonight."

"I do, but there's no way I'm inviting them to my place. Friends or not, they're still triads. I told them to pick me up at Octavio Square; Cory wants to take me to a tailor around there anyway. Plus, I was hoping to strategize with you before the—"

Annie's boss interrupted us with a loud "Hello!" and extended her hand out to me. I took note of her diamond tennis bracelet and gaudy rings, mentally elevating her from 'manager' to owner. "You must be James! I'm Augusta Hart, so nice to meet you. I've heard so much about you, but seeing you in person – well, I can certainly see why Annie's been coming in late in the mornings now." She said, laughing at her own joke.

"Nice to meet you. And sorry about that, I lose track of time when I'm training."

"Training, huh?" she said, eyeing the flowers. "That's what they're calling it these days?" Turning to Annie, whose smile had become frigid and eyes piercing, she added with an appeasing hand on her shoulder, "I'm just joking, darling, relax. How about I make you and your training partner a kalimotxo? Ever had a kalimotxo, James? It's so refreshing, you'll love it."

I took one look at my student's barely reserved anger and decided to crank up the stupid. "Hell yeah, we used to half fill up a two-liter of cherry coke with box wine and take it down to the skate park all the time as kids. One time my buddy O'Reilly chugged the whole thing and threw up on a bike cop - shit was hilarious," I said with a distant, idiotic expression on my face.

Augusta nodded slowly and shot Annie a half-admonishing look. It said, at least he's cute, hm? "Uh huh. Well, I think I can definitely treat you to something nicer than cherry coke and boxed wine. We use a hand-made traditional soda from the Amish and, of course, the wine comes from a bottle – With a cork, if you can believe it!"

"Does that make a difference? I like the twist-offs cause they're easier. And sometimes you gotta push the cork inside when it breaks and it's, like, a little nasty, no?"

She winced at that and started moving a little bit quicker. "Aha. Yes, it sure is. You know, some people wouldn't consider it wine at all if it doesn't come from a corked bottle—"

"How come, get's you drunk, don't it?"

"Hm, youth! Ahhhhh…oh, you're being serious. You see, honey – well, have you noticed that when wine gets aerated it tastes a little fuller? The cork-"

I put my hand up. "Wine with air in it is champ-pain."

Augusta stared at me, clearly trying to tell if I was being serious. Too bad for her that I was the Empty-Headed God. "Yyyes," she said slowly. "That's right, dear."

For whatever reason, she didn't stick around after pouring us our cocktails, making an excuse about doing paperwork before quickly retreating into the back. I raised my glass to Annie for a cheers but she was busy being flabbergasted, mouth open at the audacity.

"Too much?" I asked.

"What the hell was that?"

I gave her a little bow. "Our school's first Stance, I call it the Happy Idiot. Pretty neat, right?"

She clinked her glass to mine. "It was incredible! Aggie normally sucks up all the air in the room; I was saying goodbye to the rest of my break when she walked over. But I still don't get what you did, other than play dumb obviously. It's like you've become a black box – if I didn't know you personally, I would have totally believed you were that stupid."

"I was just vibing." I shrugged and took a sip of the wine cocktail. "Damn, this is way better than cherry coke and box wine. Who would have guessed."

"It's the only drink she can actually make. Also, don't compliment her. We're like ninety percent certain that she and her husband are skimming tips."

"Sorry, must have misspoke. I meant to say this shit is dog water. Ima chug it real quick so I don't have to have it on my tongue for too long." I slurped down the rest of the objectively delicious kalimotxo. "Peh. Nasty. Needs more slightly warm cherry coke."

Annie hid a giggle behind her hand. "Seriously, how are you doing that? Even with the context, my brain was still like, 'Wait, does he actually hate it?' It's not natural – oh, it's a Qi technique, isn't it?" She looked amused and jokingly chided, "No, you invented a Qi technique to get better at playing dumb? Really, James? Maki is going to hate that."

"Yeah, it's going to drive her nuts; I can't wait. And don't sound so disappointed – it was the only way I could think of to still film all of our training while remaining unpredictable."

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

"True." She frowned. "Wait a minute. How often do you play dumb anyway? Because the first time we trained…"

"What about it? Oh hey, did you tell these guys you were taking next week off?"

"Fuck no. I hate this job. I'm kind of hoping that if I do a no-call no-show then Aggie will have to serve tables during lunch rush. Might do her some good. If I have to hear that woman say she works in the service industry one more time – ugh."

"Sick, so this is cool then." I vaulted the bar and started making myself another kalimotxo.

"James!" hissed Annie.

"What? She already opened the bottle, and you know she would have offered me another if she'd stayed out here with us."

"I'm trying to make it through the weekend!"

"I thought you were editing our MeTV stuff this weekend."

"That's not the point! And I'll find the time to do both, don't worry. But unless they go viral, we're only going to make like two hundred bucks this month off the videos. I need to get all my ducks in a row before our training montage, and the van needs new tires and brakes if we're taking it to Missouri. Not to harp on it, but you really have to start sending me daily vlog clips by the way. With your looks and talent, and my established audience, we'll be doing numbers once we get properly going."

I made a face at that. Annie had made a compelling argument before for why we needed to engage in some more casual regular content for our JinJin, but I wasn't feeling it. My Alan half had more attention than he wanted just from being on Love Fight. He was barely tolerating what Annie and I were already doing for the sake of my James half's lifelong ambitions.

"Here. How about instead of forcing yourself to edit, train, and work a job you hate, you take this and focus on the first two for me?"

I pulled ten thousand dollars from the Black Card in my pocket and discreetly put them into Annie's hand, making sure to keep my palm over the money for the sake of the overhead cameras. She had enough sense to lower her hand beneath the bar before checking what I'd given her.

"Holy shit. I can't take this. Where did you even get this from?"

I shrugged. "It fell off the back of a truck."

Annie narrowed her eyes. "And do I have to feel bad for this truck in question?"

"No way. Believe it or not, that truck scammed me, and when I confronted it, it flashed a gun at me! Then it called me the dumbass – outrageous!"

She nodded slowly in understanding. "Ahhh, the new Stance has some downsides. I guess you do look weirdly normal; can't imagine anyone would scam you otherwise. I thought it was strange the way you weren't radiating power. Anyway, it does sound like that truck had it coming, but still..."

"You got to be careful who you fuck with in this city, Annie. For example," I said, gesturing with the bottle of wine in my hand, "skimming tips from my senior student – that's a big no-no. The Hartwood is getting off easy with only losing a bottle of wine and you pulling a no-show a few days earlier than you were planning to."

She grimaced, looking down at her lap. "I get it, I'm not judging you. It's just…I don't know, James."

I said something that even without a Social roll, knew she wouldn't be able to ignore. "Annie, don't think of it like an illicit gift. Think of it as an investment in our future."

"Oof, low blow, shifu." She sighed. "Fine, make me another too then." I saw her surreptitiously slide the sheath of bills into her shoe. With a grin, she added, "You know, I once stole a girl's makeup bag and threw it into a bush because she was making fun of my hair, so I'm kind of also a badass bitch if you think about it."

"Sheesh, remind me not to cross you."

"I did feel really bad about it after though."

"Same, honestly."

Her entire expression changed to one of sympathy and concern. "Hey, come on, you shouldn't feel bad. That guy threatened you with a gun, he absolutely got – wait, you didn't, you know, ki—"

I waved my hand. "Nah, nothing like that. Didn't touch the, uh, truck. Scared it shitless maybe, but didn't do any harm."

Annie pouted. "You went too easy then. A thug flashing a gun at a martial artist is like, how ten percent of 80's Hong Kong thrillers start. I would have – well, next time someone, I mean, a truck flashes a gun at you, let me know." She pounded her fist into her palm. "I'll freaking get its ass."

"That's what's up." We high-fived, like the very serious badasses we were. "So, last day of work, anything else you wanted to sample?" I pointed my thumb back at the shelves of high-end alcohol behind me. Their wine rack alone stretched an unwieldy fifteen-plus feet to the ceiling.

Her eyes widened in panic – still the good girl at heart. "James, do you only have one speed? Stop. You're going to give me a heart attack. Didn't you come here to strategize or something?"

I laughed and hopped back over the bar. Over Annie's shoulder, I could see more of her fellow servers working up the courage to come over. They were whispering to each other and occasionally hiding their smiles behind their hands as they glanced at us. I rolled an Acting check to exude the air of an intimate scene and prevent another unwanted interruption. We were two lovers enjoying a quiet moment alone together, emphasis on alone. Annie reddened, as sold by the four Successes as her peers.

"Your friends looked like they were about to come over. Play along."

"Right, of course," she said a little too quickly and leaned in closer.

After my admittedly impulsive decision to rob the phone store, I thought it might be nice to have a sounding board to bounce ideas off of before meeting with the Cranes. Any question to Maki was an invitation for her to lose herself in research, asked for or not, and Ma was busy dealing with the fallout of our fight and was a homicidal maniac to boot, so I'd come to Annie. The former cheerleader may not have had any experience in the Underworld, but she was a fundamentally decent person and more importantly, was one-half of Black City Kung Fu; she deserved a say in its future.

I gave her an abbreviated rundown on the Triads including what I'd learned from Ami. The Triangle Truce between the Cranes, Dragons, and Tigers was effectively over, if not officially so as of yet. War was coming to Chinatown, and thus the rest of the city, as a result of the Tiger's newest boss and his prideful desire to lay claim to the entire neighborhood.

"You have to stop it!" exclaimed Annie, which was a fair reaction to learning about a city-sized ticking time bomb. "Or, sorry, that's probably too much to put on one man. Could you, though, as in, like, is it…possible for you to stop them?"

I groaned and hung my head. "Unfortunately, Annie, now that a beautiful woman has asked me to, I'm obligated as a youxia to try. That's just how that works."

"Ha, sorry."

"Don't be, I needed the push. As for whether or not I can do it, anything's possible. If the Truce happened once, there's no reason it can't happen again. These people are all self-serving at the end of the day; it was obviously what was best for their pocketbooks at the time, but that was after years of horrifying bloodshed. I'd like to avoid that this time around."

"Can you go…beat up this Junior guy? Tell him to knock it off?"

"Beat him up?" I said incredulously. "He's a psychopathic, power-hungry mob boss. I could kill him, but who knows how that would play out. Even just weakening his operations might lead to the Cranes and Dragons swooping in to consolidate power. No, I just don't have enough information right now, which leads me to why I'm here. The Cranes are either going to give me info that furthers their own goals, or are going to gatekeep a more honest picture of what's happening behind some favors or having me outright join. We need to figure out how comfortable we are with a working relationship with them and how far we want to take it."

The redhead looked at a loss for words. "Gosh, James, I don't know the first thing about all this. I'll follow your lead though."

I nodded, figuring as much. "Well, I'm not joining a gang, that's out right away."

"Of course."

"And I'll crush them if they try to play with us."

"Naturally."

"And I definitely don't want to teach them Black City Kung Fu—"

"Woah, why not?"

"Come on, we can't have the first ambassadors of our style be organized criminals. It's a terrible look. Black City is for the people so that they can break their chains and take their lives back from their oppressors, not for the ones holding the keys."

She gave me the polite smile one normally reserves for young children when they've said something completely ridiculous in total earnest. "James, we've literally put out all of our forms on the internet for free. The cat is out of the bag." I opened my mouth to respond, but she cut me off. "Think about it this way. You might be the best coach in the country. Any athlete who is serious about their stuff would do just about anything to train under you again once they've experienced what you can offer them. If they know you won't train them if they're running around doing violent crimes, then they'll definitely think twice before doing them." Annie started to get more animated. "And, if you take students from opposing factions, you can make them train with each other if they want to study under you. Then they might become friends, or at least be less willing to kill each other on the streets! You can Romeo and Juliet them!"

That was absurd, but quaint and charming in a way. "You have a very idealized worldview, Annie."

She pouted. "Am I wrong?"

"Probably. But," I added quickly at her disappointment, "I like the way you think. I should prioritize the non-violent solution. In that, you're right. Doing it with the plot of a 90's teen sports movie, I'm less sure of."

"Romeo and Juliet them, James!"

"Annie, that play ends in a double suicide."

"We'll make sure to teach everyone basic first aid. All Romeo had to do was check Juliet's pulse! I've been saying that for years!"

I laughed and pulled her in for a side hug. "Okay, I'll give it a shot, but no promises. Got any other distinctly Annie Shine-esque takes for me?"

"Hmm," she scratched her chin. "If you do have to start flipping out and beating up bad guys, you should film some of it. That would go crazy on JinJin."

"You want me to post the gang war?"

"I want you to avoid the gang war with the power of friendship, but if you've got to do it, we might as well get some content out of the mess."

"Huh." It was usually easy to forget that Annie had been an influencer since she was eighteen, and then there were moments like these. She wasn't narcissistic or superficial like the rest of her ilk, but that didn't mean she hadn't been brain-broken by internet poisoning just the same. "That sounds insanely dangerous and is exactly what got me into this situation in the first place."

"It sounds iconic, James. How else are you going to show the world you're a real-life action hero?"

I pinched the bridge of my nose. Damn it, she'd nailed me; that argument was buttoned up tight. It was completely insane, but it was insane in a James Li sort of way, perfectly so. Now I had to do it. "Oh, Annie, what are you doing to me today?"

She elbowed me in the ribs. "Ha! That's what you get for using that 'investment in our future' line on me with your 'truck' money. Turnabout is fair play, shifu. I mean," she said with faux innocence, "you could just send me consistent clips of your day-to-day life so we could build a parasocial relationship with the audience, but that would require way more filming on your end."

I groaned. "I get it, jeez. You win."

"Woo!" She pumped her fist. "And you're going to be more conscientious about sending me the clips to get edited too, right?"

"Yeah, yeah, of course."

"Aww," she cooed and wrapped her arms around my neck. "You big baby, you look like my little brother when we had to force him to eat his vegetables. Tell you what, let's celebrate with a little of that champ-pain. It's wine with air in it, you know."

I perked up. "Really? Got your permission then, do I?"

"Yeah, screw this place. They can take it out of the tips they owe me. Now, do whatever you did to sneak up on me, climb your cute butt up to the top shelf, and grab one of the bottles with the gold wire around the cork. I've always wondered what those taste like. I'll meet you on the roof."