Urban Plundering: I Corrupted The System!

[Until she got upset,] Levi continued. [Picture this: cosmic entity with the emotional stability of a teenager and the power to create hurricanes. What could go wrong?]

"She wasn't that unstable," Parker protested quietly.

"Really?" Ere's voice dripped with skepticism. "Because I'm sensing there's a very good story here about why that relationship ended."

Parker was quiet for a moment, then started laughing softly. "Okay, fine. She was... intense. The first time she got really upset, she accidentally created a storm system that lasted three weeks."

[And the time you forgot your anniversary?] Levi prompted.

"That was not my fault," Parker said. "I was dealing with a cosmic crisis involving the collapse of seventeen realities. I had bigger things to worry about than dinner reservations."

"Let me guess," Ere said dryly. "She didn't see it that way."

"She created a tornado that wiped out two cities and a large town," Parker admitted. "The cleanup took weeks."

[Tell her about the breakup,] Levi urged.

"The breakup was..." Parker paused. "Actually, the breakup was where I learned an important lesson about managing powerful women."

Ere's golden eyes sharpened with interest. "Now this sounds more promising. You managed the situation?"

"I had to," Parker said. "Because if I'd just broken up with her normally, she would have created weather disasters for the next century. So I had to be... strategic."

[Strategic is a nice way of putting it,] Levi observed. [You manipulated her into thinking the breakup was her idea.]

"I guided the conversation," Parker corrected. "I made her realize that our relationship was limiting her potential. That she could find someone who appreciated her power more fully, someone who wouldn't be distracted by cosmic crises during important moments."

"Clever," Ere said approvingly. "Make her feel like she was choosing to leave rather than being abandoned."

"Exactly. By the end of the conversation, she was convinced that breaking up was the best thing for both of us. She even thanked me for helping her see it clearly."

[And then she moved but never found someone else to become their problem,.no one can replace the Prince, right?] Levi added. [Good point was... no weather disasters, no angry lightning mail, just a clean break.]

"That's... actually impressive," Ere said. "Most cosmic beings would have just endured the hurricanes or fought back with equal force."

"I learned early that raw power isn't always the best solution," Parker said. "Sometimes you need to be smarter than the problem."

[Which brings us to Dr. Evelyn Thorne,] Levi said, steering the conversation back. [The woman who thought she could psychoanalyze the Prince of Existence.]

"Ah," Ere's voice carried dark amusement. "This should be good. Someone tried to play mind games with you?"

Parker's smile grew sharp. "Someone who tried to study me like a lab specimen. She thought she was so clever, taking notes, analyzing my psychological patterns, building profiles on my relationship history."

"And you let her?" Ere asked.

"I encouraged her," Parker said. "I fed her exactly the information I wanted her to have. Made her think she was uncovering deep psychological truths when really, I was just giving her a very carefully curated version of my emotional landscape."

[The fake vulnerability act,] Levi said with approval. [You let her think she was getting inside your head while you were actually getting inside hers.]

"She spent months thinking she was conducting groundbreaking research on cosmic psychology," Parker continued. "Building charts, creating predictive models, writing detailed analyses of my supposed emotional patterns."

"All based on false data," Ere said with obvious satisfaction.

"All based on exactly what I wanted her to believe," Parker confirmed. "By the time I was done with her, she had a completely fabricated psychological profile that painted me as vulnerable, predictable, and easily manipulated through specific emotional triggers."

[And then you used her own research against her,] Levi added gleefully.

"When she finally revealed her true purpose—wanting to turn our relationship into a case study—I acted exactly according to the psychological profile she'd built." Parker's voice carried quiet satisfaction. "I played the wounded, betrayed partner perfectly. Made her think she'd broken me psychologically."

"But really, you were just giving her what she expected to see," Ere said.

"She was so proud of her work, so convinced she'd solved the puzzle of the Prince of Existence," Parker said. "She never realized that the entire time, she was the one being studied."

[She thought she was playing chess while you were playing 4D cosmic manipulation,] Levi observed.

"The beautiful part," Parker continued, "is that she built her entire subsequent career on faulty data. Every therapy session she's conducted, every analysis she's made of my other exes, all of it based on a fundamental misunderstanding of who I really am."

Ere was purring with dark satisfaction. "So if she's behind tonight's trap..."

"She's operating from a playbook that was designed to fail," Parker finished. "She thinks she knows my psychological weak spots, my emotional triggers, how I react under pressure. But everything she knows is wrong."

[That's... actually brilliant,] Levi said with genuine admiration. [You turned yourself into a psychological weapon.]

"Long-term strategic thinking," Parker said simply. "I knew someone like her would eventually cause problems. So I made sure that when she did, she'd be working with bad intelligence."

"And your other exes?" Ere asked. "Did you play similar games with them?"

Parker's smile was sharp as broken reality. "Not all of them. Some were genuine relationships that just didn't work out. But the dangerous ones, the ones who might cause problems later..." He shrugged. "Let's just say I've learned to think several moves ahead."

[So tonight,] Levi said, [if Dr. Thorne is really orchestrating this whole situation...]

"She's about to discover that her most comprehensive case study was completely wrong," Parker said. "And that the Prince of Existence she thinks she understands is nothing like the man she's actually dealing with."

Ere's golden eyes gleamed with anticipation. "This is going to be fun to watch."

"Oh, it's going to be spectacular," Parker agreed quietly. "She's spent years building a career on the assumption that she broke me psychologically. Tonight, she's going to learn that the only person who got broken in that relationship was her understanding of reality."

[Plus,] Levi added with characteristic sarcasm, [if she's recruited other exes based on her analysis, they're all operating from the same bad playbook.]

"Multiple enemies using the same flawed strategy," Ere observed. "It's like they're coordinating their own defeat."

"That's the hope," Parker said. "Of course, there's always the possibility I'm completely wrong about all this, and we're walking into a trap designed by someone else entirely."

[In which case?] Levi prompted.

"In which case, we fall back on the traditional approach."

"Which is?" Ere asked.

Parker's grin was sharp as cosmic law. "Break everything and sort out the pieces later."

[Now that's the kind of plan I can get behind,] Levi said approvingly.

"Simple, direct, and almost certainly effective," Ere agreed. "I like it."

The three of them settled into comfortable silence, watching the world pass below them as the jet carried them toward their destination. Whatever waited for them at the engagement party, they were as ready as they could be.

After all, the best way to handle psychological warfare was to make sure your enemies were fighting the wrong war entirely.