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canon:ace27:chapter2 [14/03/2026 16:22] – luotu kkurzexcanon:ace27:chapter2 [15/03/2026 08:29] (current) – kkurzex
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 +Ace liked cities at night.
  
 +Not the sanitized versions with postcard skylines and tourist-safe glow. Not the quiet residential blocks where people locked doors and pretended everything balanced.
 +
 +The real ones. The ones that still bled a little.
 +
 +Streets where bass leaked from cracked doorways, where arguments spilled onto sidewalks like spilled drinks, where nobody asked your name unless they already knew the answer and didn’t like it.
 +
 +Tonight felt generous.
 +
 +She pushed out of the narrow bar whose sign had probably started life as electric blue before decades of rain and cigarette smoke had worn it down to a bruised violet pulse. The door settled shut behind her with a soft hydraulic sigh, muting the low-end thump that had been vibrating the glass for the last hour.
 +
 +Ace rolled her shoulders once. Stretched her arms overhead until vertebrae popped in quiet protest.
 +
 +“Well,” she muttered, mostly to the wet air, “that escalated.”
 +
 +A couple brushed past on the sidewalk, laughing too loud about something small and private. A taxi driver leaned on his horn two blocks down—impatient, habitual. The night smelled like damp asphalt, motor oil, charred meat drifting from a grill cart around the corner, and the faint metallic promise of rain that hadn’t committed yet.
 +
 +Ace glanced at the sky—cloud ceiling low and bruise-colored—then at her wrist. No watch. Just habit.
 +
 +“Still early.”
 +
 +Which meant the night still had teeth and room to bite.
 +
 +Inside the bar someone bellowed her name through the half-open door.
 +
 +Ace turned halfway, one eyebrow already lifting.
 +
 +“Already?” she called back. “You people get attached fast.”
 +
 +The bartender leaned out just far enough to be seen, shaking his head with the weary affection reserved for regulars who broke things without meaning to.
 +
 +“Don’t start another one in here.”
 +
 +Ace pressed a hand to her chest in mock offense.
 +
 +“Me?”
 +
 +He gave her the look. The one that said he’d cleaned up after her kind of interesting before.
 +
 +Ace’s grin tilted sharper.
 +
 +“Unfair reputation.”
 +
 +He snorted once and vanished back inside.
 +
 +She laughed under her breath—short, private—and started walking.
 +
 +The street ahead shimmered under sodium halos, pavement slick enough to catch faint orange ghosts. Music drifted from an upstairs window somewhere: slower tempo, brushed drums, voice like smoke. Different animal from the bar she’d just left.
 +
 +Ace tilted her head, listening for half a stride.
 +
 +“Tempting.”
 +
 +She kept moving.
 +
 +Then stopped.
 +
 +Footsteps had synced to hers.
 +
 +Not aggressive. Not stealthy either. Just… present. Close enough to matter, far enough to pretend otherwise.
 +
 +Ace didn’t turn right away.
 +
 +She let the rhythm settle—stride length, weight distribution, slight hesitation on the left foot like an old knee complaint. Ten more meters. Twenty.
 +
 +Finally she glanced back over her shoulder.
 +
 +Guy. Mid-twenties maybe. Tall enough to notice. Posture loose, hands in pockets, smile already halfway formed like he’d rehearsed it.
 +
 +He lifted both palms immediately.
 +
 +“Okay,” he said. “That was subtle for almost thirty seconds.”
 +
 +Ace planted her feet.
 +
 +“Forty.”
 +
 +He blinked.
 +
 +“…was it?”
 +
 +“Yes.”
 +
 +He looked genuinely impressed for half a second.
 +
 +“Good start then.”
 +
 +Ace studied him without hurry. Relaxed shoulders. Eyes bright but not manic. The kind of late-night confidence that could tip into charm or disaster depending on the next sentence.
 +
 +“Are you following me,” she asked, calm, “or just very bad at pretending you’re not?”
 +
 +He spread his hands wider.
 +
 +“Option three.”
 +
 +“There’s an option three?”
 +
 +“I was hoping to ask if you were heading somewhere interesting.”
 +
 +Ace let the silence sit between them a beat longer than polite.
 +
 +Then the corner of her mouth curved.
 +
 +“Bold strategy.”
 +
 +“Sometimes it works.”
 +
 +“And when it doesn’t?”
 +
 +He shrugged, easy.
 +
 +“Then I learn something.”
 +
 +Ace leaned in just enough to read his face under the streetlight—pupils normal, no tremor, scent of clean sweat and faint cologne instead of panic or booze.
 +
 +“You know,” she said, voice low, “that answer just improved your odds dramatically.”
 +
 +“Glad to hear it.”
 +
 +She stepped past him, already moving again.
 +
 +“Well,” she tossed over her shoulder, “keep up then.”
 +
 +He blinked twice.
 +
 +“Wait—seriously?”
 +
 +Ace glanced back, crooked grin flashing.
 +
 +“You said you wanted interesting.”
 +
 +He hurried after her, half-laughing.
 +
 +“Okay now I’m definitely following you.”
 +
 +“That part was always true.”
 +
 +They turned the corner together. Streetlights brighter here. Music louder. Crowd thicker. The night folding them in without asking permission.
 +
 +—
 +
 +Up above the grid, where rooftops blurred into sky and rain refused to fall, Mephisto watched with clear, quiet delight.
 +
 +“Well,” he murmured, “that was quicker than expected.”
 +
 +Konrad stayed silent a moment longer than necessary.
 +
 +He tracked Ace and the stranger until the flow of bodies swallowed them—dark jacket, violet sheen in her hair catching light for one last second before the crowd closed.
 +
 +Mephisto slid a glance sideways.
 +
 +“You already know how this ends, don’t you.”
 +
 +Konrad’s voice came flat, certain.
 +
 +“I know how you think it ends.”
 +
 +Mephisto’s smile curved.
 +
 +“Oh?”
 +
 +Konrad kept his eyes on the street.
 +
 +“Yes.”
 +
 +Mephisto clasped hands behind his back, coat shifting like liquid shadow.
 +
 +“In that case,” he said pleasantly, “let us begin.”
 +
 +One lazy gesture toward the sprawl below.
 +
 +“How long before she returns to the safehouse?”
 +
 +Konrad didn’t pause.
 +
 +“Not tonight.”
 +
 +Mephisto’s smile stretched wider, satisfied.
 +
 +“Interesting.”
 +
 +“And when she does?” he pressed.
 +
 +Konrad considered the question like he was tasting it.
 +
 +Then answered simply:
 +
 +“She will say less than you expect.”
 +
 +Mephisto chuckled—soft, intimate.
 +
 +“Oh, I disagree.”
 +
 +Konrad finally met his gaze.
 +
 +“Of course you do.”
 +
 +Mephisto tilted his head, amused.
 +
 +“And what, precisely, do you think she will say?”
 +
 +Konrad’s expression stayed level.
 +
 +“Very little.”
 +
 +Mephisto looked down at the city again, eyes gleaming with something older than amusement.
 +
 +“We shall see.”
 +
 +Below, the streets kept breathing—laughter, horns, basslines bleeding into each other. Somewhere in the current Ace was already carving a new path, stranger in tow, night stretching ahead like wet black ribbon.
 +
 +The wager hung between them, quiet and sharp.
 +
 +Rain still hadn’t fallen.
 +
 +But it would.