Not forgetting to get my wishes in, I dropped seventy more points into Fantasy with the help of one of the wedding guests and then Callie and I went to sleep. I didn’t mention my worries to her about Cicero right away. Something about that whole encounter bothered me, so I decided to check in with my uncle.

Given his Path, hiding a disguise from someone like him would be near impossible. So when I woke up the next morning I went to his room and pounded on the door. No one answered, so I just kept pounding, Zekie and I didn’t have much in the way of boundaries when it came to things like this.

After a few minutes, the door flew open. “What?” Snapped an enraged Stella as she glared at me…until she realized who she was talking to and her eyes widened in horror. Looking down at herself in a misbuttoned collared shirt and no pants, with her hair mussed all over the place.

“Hey Stella.” I said, trying to suppress a grin. “Nice outfit. Very avante garde.”

Blushing furiously, she looked down the hall to either side of us. “Shane. How…unexpected. I didn’t know you’d be visiting. I just…lost my pants. Ezekiel was helping me…oh hells. You’re getting married, you know why I’m here. Just don’t tell Ian please?”

“Not my business.” I said, holding up my hands in surrender. “Though I don’t think he’d begrudge you a chance at happiness.”

She glared at me. “ Zeke and I are just old friends who enjoy each other's company. Things are casual. It’s not like we’re seeing each other. I don’t want Ian to get confused. There’s definitely no happiness!”

“Ouch.” I said with a laugh. “I’ll be sure to mention that to Zeke. He in there? I was hoping to talk to him.”

Her scowl deepened. “That’s not what I…oh forget it. Yes.” She looked over her shoulder. “Ezekial, your menace of a nephew is at the door.” She stalked off, slamming the door, still muttering about nosy kids with big mouths.

A minute later, Zeke appeared. “What do you want, kid? It’s six in the morning. I knew it was a bad idea to let you join the army.”

“Oh wah.” I mocked him mercilessly. “You’re an A-ranker. You don’t even need sleep. I, however, need your help with something. Last night, there was a weird incident with Abel’s brother. Did you get a chance to get a look at him?”

“Cicero?” He asked lazily. “Yeah, I checked him out. Better safe than sorry.”

I waved my hand impatiently. “And? Was there something wrong with him? That whole thing was really suspicious.”

“I mean, he was wearing a bright red jacket with gold buttons and a top hat.” He shrugged. “So probably a bunch of things. Nothing ability based though. First thing I thought of was that he might have been possessed or controlled.”

Frowning, I went back over the events of the previous night. Had I been imagining things? If Zeke couldn’t find anything wrong there wasn’t anything to find. Maybe he’d just sewn on a new button. Still, between Bethy’s weird feeling and mine, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was going on.

“Just…keep an eye out?” I asked slowly. “Something is off. I can feel it. Gotta trust my instincts, right?”

He nodded. “Sure…except when you don’t, and you’re just being paranoid. Being an Ascendant will do that. But it’s your party. I’ll keep my eyes peeled.” If there was an incident, it was unlikely to be related to the candidacy. With the god war ongoing, factional disputes were on hold, and even interfaction issues were mostly being backburnered. There was even talk of the big succession battle being moved up to get it out of the way, though nothing was set in stone.

Thanking my uncle, I headed back to my room, to find Callie sitting up in bed, chin on her palm as she waited for me.

“Hey, you’re up early.” I said with a smile as I hung my mask, cape, and crown near the door.

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She growled lightly, as happy to be up in the morning as ever. “Where’d you go?” She grumbled, trying to fix her messy hair.

“Zeke’s room.” I told her. Then I filled her in on my suspicions from the previous night. She’d been tired and frazzled the night before, so I avoided mentioning it, but only until I could talk to my uncle. Callie was going to be my wife, and I wasn’t going to keep anything important from her if I had a choice.

By the time I finished she was frowning. “He said he didn’t notice anything?” She asked suspiciously.

“Not a thing.” I said with a shrug. “Probably just me being paranoid. We have a cake tasting today though, so I think you have bigger fish to fry. Speaking of which, I think one of the flavors they’re pitching us might BE fried fish. That list was…extensive.”

She scoffed. “Savory cakes are all the rage now. Obviously our wedding has to have the most cutting edge style. It’s the social event of the century.”

If I hadn’t had the bond, I might not have known she was messing with me, but I could feel the mischief behind her words. “I’ll be stylish as hell when I eat the strawberry cake with cream cheese frosting I’m going to request from the baker.”

Climbing out of bed, she stretched and then strolled up, pecking me on the lips before heading to take a shower. “You’re still not getting out of tasting. We’ll pick together.”

Laughing, I walked over to change. I switched into a nice pair of slacks, a button up, and a coat, slipping my mask back on, and when Callie came out she threw on a pair of leggings, a t-shirt, and a black denim half jacket along with her own mask.

Given our relative power (about three Impact points past every other E-ranker on this planet), walking around fully armed was likely overkill, and it would probably start unnecessary trouble. Since we were home, and pretty much at the peak of this planet, we’d decided to wear our civvies, with only the masks as a nod to our cape identities.

To my surprise, when we arrived in the lobby, my sister was waiting for us. “Hey!” She said excitedly when she saw us. “You guys look so cute in normal clothes.”

“I feel so weird without my cape.” I said, shifting my shoulders. “And these clothes are too light.”

Callie grinned at me. “Big baby. You’ll get used to it. And if not it’ll be over soon.” She winked at my sister. “You can see why I brought you along. He’s such a whiner when it’s just the two of us. Hopefully with you here he’ll calm down.”

“Not just her.” Cut in another familiar voice. We turned to see Felicity, dressed in a hoodie and a summer dress, smiling dimly at us. “I heard there was free cake.”

Callie beamed at her. “Of course. The more the merrier. How have you been feeling?”

Felicity gave a tired chuckle. “Better. Worse. I don’t know. Less numb, but that’s not exactly fun. Mostly I’m just…tired. There’s so much bad that reliving it wears me out. I’m almost glad that my recovery is taking so long. I’d say I’m at…five percent. But five percent of an ocean of suck is plenty.”

I grimaced. I’d been using my Genesis Burst on Felicity every day to undo the damage her dad had done. It was working very, very slowly, and I was pretty sure she was developing a resistance, but she’d made enough progress that she could slowly start coming to terms with her past, as much as anyone could come to terms with what she’d been through.”

“Well today isn’t about pain.” Chelsea said, face full of forced cheer. “It’s about family. And cake. So much cake.”

I smirked at her. “You get one slice of each cake, so calm down. I’m not paying for a hundred wedding cakes if you decide to go on a binge.” My sister, much like my fiancee, had a penchant for sweets. So did Benny, which was why my best friend had been relegated to flower duty.

Speaking of which. “You bastard.” He groaned as Celine and Jessie dragged him over, Callen following behind them. “I thought you were joking about the cake tasting. How could you leave me out of this?”

“Flowers are a dirty job.” I said mercilessly. “But someone has to do it. Heh, see what I did there? Because flowers grow in dirt, and also you aren’t getting any cake and are therefore a joke to me.”

“I will fight you.” he said murderously. And received simultaneous elbows from both Jessie and Celine. “That is to say.” He said, his voice becoming a monotone. “I am overjoyed to participate in any way you choose in your special day.”

Callie shot Celine an impressed look. “That’s amazing, how did you get him to do that?”

“I agreed to go to watch the Doom Sovereign PVP league finals with him later this week.” She admitted with a sigh.

My eyes widened, and I swung to stare at my best friend. “What? But the finals aren’t for another two months!” I didn’t keep track of the DS Leagues anymore, but I knew what time of the year they happened.

“Nope.” He said smugly. “They got moved up. Some sort of dispute with the fruit vendors union over the snacks at the venue. They had to switch suppliers and the new fruits aren’t in season during the original timeframe.”

I nodded. “Damn, I’ll have to check it out, do you know wh-”

“So sorry.” Said Callie as she grabbed my arm, my sister snagging the other as they dragged me away. “We’re going to be late. No time to talk about Doom Sovereign or fruit. Enjoy the flower shop!”

Behind us, Felicity laughed quietly, which I took to be a good sign.

It didn’t escape my notice that we had the only C-ranker in our group along for the ride, or that Jessie and the others had Callen with them. Someone must be taking my worries seriously, because they made sure we were suitably protected.

Felicity, despite the limits placed on her by the WCP, was still a C-ranker, and while she couldn’t intervene directly in my favor against D-rank or lower opponents, she could protect Callie and Chelsea if need be. Despite knowing we were among the top one percent of powers on this planet, knowing that my worries weren’t being discarded still made me feel better.

We headed for the cake vendor. Callie had hired an E-rank chef, a former heroine who went by Bakery, to cater the wedding, and she was especially excited about the cake. I had to admit, I was excited to taste some high end E-rank cooking myself.

When we arrived at Bakery’s…bakery, she let us inside, and escorted us to the back where the tasting room was set up.

Arrayed in front of us was a huge room filled with tables piled high with hundreds of varieties of cakes, each one missing a slice. In the center of the room was a round dining table covered with a white tablecloth and set with a hundred plates, each one with a slice of cake with a tiny numbered flag stabbed into it.

I could feel Callie’s excitement as she took in the spread, and I laughed as I saw it mirrored in my sister’s avaricious gaze. I’d been kind of worried after last night, but it was hard to keep my suspicions up under the onslaught of such pure joy. I let myself relax as I was dragged along to the table, picking up the first slice and taking a big bite…only to grimace as the taste of okra and fried eggplant filled my mouth. Actually…this day might be longer than I had expected.