Adam
The party dragged on until late into the night, I had the chance to try all sorts of booze from this world and even took out a few bottles of the demonic stuff that I was saving for myself claiming that it was my homebrew. The looks on the faces of the most seasoned partiers with livers of steel after tasting the good stuff were quite amusing. It wasn't surprising, since the demonic booze is usually 180 proof or higher, so drinking it is a challenge for frail and insignificant humans.
After tasting the demonic booze, some brave, drunken souls decided that it would be a good idea to play a few drinking games with it and, of course, I, as the provider, was dragged into it.
The first game was shot pong - rules were simple - beer pong with 'my special homebrew' as the punishment. At first, I, with the coordination of a drunk and blind hippo, was losing hard, but after the other party took a few hits and got unreasonably drunk, I still took the win.
Playing against mortals was a bit boring, the real excitement started when Pain challenged me to a duel. Since we both had high poison resistance, we changed shot pong into full cup pong. The crowd went wild, the suspense was thick enough to cut with a knife. The battle was close, but I still lost.
We played some truth or dare with drinks and a few more party games. The other participants, after gauging the strength of mine and Pain's livers, decided that the amount the two of us would drink would be five times higher than the others just to keep it fair. That ratio soon turned from 5:1 to 10:1 and after that we were told to just drink until we pass out just to see how much the two of us could take. I can confidently say that the two of us drank everyone else together under the table and didn't even get buzzed.
I'm pretty sure that Alpha spent the whole time playing with the dog of the house straight up ignoring anyone that tried to start a conversation with her.
Luna was brutal - shattering the confidence of anyone bold enough to approach her. The biggest alpha chads were left crying after mere minutes in her presence. She had this unique ability to read people - exposing their biggest insecurities and vocalizing everything that she saw within them with this innocent smile. Some were furious, but they understood the consequences of raising a hand against anyone from my group, so they had to retreat.
After what happened with the unfortunate guy that tried to pull something with Liz, she was avoided like the plague for a while, but fortunately Nicole stepped in and started chatting with Elizabeth about something and soon other girls joined in. Liz seemed really happy talking with them and I had to suppress the urge to listen in. I was simply happy that she was getting out of her shell.
The party ended late, so I decided to spend the night with the girls in the penthouse instead of going to the Long estate.
"Hey, Adam, why did you show everyone at the party your wealth and power like that?" Elizabeth asked while we were lying in bed together. "Won't it ruin your plans of judging the Long family, if they figure out just how powerful you are and suddenly start treating you favorably?"
"I thought about that for some time." I answered. "When judging someone, you must judge them in all sorts of conditions and environments to see how they'll react. I've already witnessed how they treat me when they think that I'm a useless leach, now let's see what they do when they understand my true standing."
Liz paused for a minute. "Will you forgive them, if they begin treating you well now?"
"That depends on the treatment. You know that my eyes can see many things, right? Well, I haven't mastered this ability that I inherited from that dragon since it's not as straight forward as the other two, but one of the things I can see is the intention and deceit in someone's words. If I find out that they only treat me well because they want something from me - I'll punish them, but if my new standing is something that they respect and, if they truly bring me into the family, I might just forgive them."
"So, how's your impression of them so far?" Liz asked intrigued.
"Calvin is an arrogant jerk that thinks that he's above everyone else, but he's hard working and disciplined, not once did I see him drink or smoke, not once did he miss his bedtime or got up late. His dedication to martial arts is truly something and by showing just how much better than him I am in the one thing that he's good at, I curried a lot of hatred, but I can see that somewhere deep inside that hatred there is something else - a deep respect towards me."
"Maria seems like a snobby, entitled jerk, but I believe that her views of those around her aren't actually her own."
"What do you mean by that?" Elizabeth asked.
"I've heard about her mother from the real Alex and I've seen her paternal grandmother, Maria is either being taught to act this way by them, or is simply copying them of her own free will. Either way, she's just a child, so I don't plan on judging her." I answered.
"What about the grandmother?"
"She's something alright… Do you know how this Chinese family came to the US?"
"No, I just assumed that they always lived here."
"Well, they didn't." I said, hugging Liz tighter. "Around 70 years or so ago, a huge and bloody revolution happened in their homeland - China. The new rule advocated for real equality - everyone would own everything collectively, everyone would work equally and everyone would be rewarded equally, sounds good, Yeah?"
"It's like a dream… I never thought that something like that could ever be possible."
"It's possible on paper. In fact in my opinion that would be the ideal world. If it was possible in real life, that is." I said.
"So it failed? Why?"
"Come on, don't be sad." I said, patting her head softly. "It was destined to fail from the very beginning because of one single factor - humans. Humans, by nature, are greedy, so they don't want to share with the rest, they're lazy, so they'd rather not work and, worst of all - they're smart - enabling them to do less, take more and still act like they're the victims or the righteous ones."
"This is the main reason that this system doesn't work. Bad management and other unfortunate circumstances have turned this land of equality into one of the most unequal countries in the world in today's times. It's a good thing for the Long family, that they got the hell out of there, before shit hit the fan."
"So why is the grandmother so vile?" Liz asked.
"It's nationalism - the worst kind of pride, if I had to guess. She and her family came here - into the land of the white people, not knowing the language or the customs. Humans tend to look down on anyone that is even slightly different then them, as I'm sure you can attest to, so her life here wasn't easy."
"Because of this rift between them - this animosity for anyone that's different, the hag began to develop her own animosity towards the westerners as a self protection mechanism. That's why she simply can't bear the fact that her son has played around with an American and even brought a few mixed kids into the fold."
"I see… The last one would be the father, what about him?" Elizabeth asked.
"I haven't even seen him once. That's one of the reasons that I decided to show off a bit. If just having your son return isn't enough, having him return with such wealth must pique the man's curiosity."
Liz stayed quiet for a moment. "Overall, what do you think about them now? Are you still intent on destroying them?"
"Destroying them would be the easy thing to do and the path that I'd choose, if I could, but this isn't my family and not my revenge either. I promised that bastard to evaluate them and only then make my decision. Right now, I don't plan to destroy them. They might be entitled, and snobbish, but I think that I can simply correct them."
Elizabeth smiled. "Good, that makes me happy. You really did mellow out over the time I've known you."
"Don't celebrate yet, the night is young, there are factors at play that I haven't considered yet, so my decision might change in the future." I said. "Besides, let me show you just how mellow I am." I took Liz's hands into mine, paced them above her head and kissed her.
"Again? We did it just a few minutes ago…" Liz said, trying to get free.
"There's no escape for you now." I said with a smile. "I'll show you what happens when you insult me like that."
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