Urban Plundering: I Corrupted The System!

Because the three of them? They'd danced this dance before. The question had always been the same: who was the real woman of Parker Black?

Not just beef—a celestial-grade flame-grilled rivalry at school, so potent it could've fed the entire Trojan War again.

Tessa, Maya, and Cleopatra. Three titans. Three archetypes. All once locked in an ancient, beautifully toxic contest over who was the true woman of Parker Black. Not Parker the Prince of Existence. No. They fought for the man who once used his voice to order six bubble teas with extra tapioca, wen he just got to know he had infinity money, because he liked the texture. That Parker.

And out of that holy war? Tessa won. With style, fangs, and a $50,000 tip to the universe.

Even now, as he watched the tension resurrect itself like an unkillable soap opera subplot, Parker felt a rare curl at the corner of his mouth.

In Aphrodite's name, he missed that version of himself sometimes.

The pre-awakened Parker. The shameless, reckless, beautifully unaware sex-on-sneakers disaster who strolled through life like the gods were on payroll and reality was a casual suggestion. Chaotic? Yes. Corrupted by wealth, lust, and potential a body count that would Mount Olympus blush? Absolutely. But… he was fun.

And honestly? Less tired and bored. Immortality and omnipotence are a bitch!

[You know,] Levi's voice slinked into his mind, velvet and smug, [I could wipe your memories. Send you back to that version. Before you Awakened. Before the chaos. Before the crown.

Parker didn't even blink. He raised a brow. Dry. Cold. Weaponized sarcasm loaded and ready.

"Can you now?" he muttered. "God bless you. I would deeply appreciate that," Parker muttered, sarcastic enough to cut glass.

[Yeah? Then you'd go back to being that rich idiot looking forward to banging every lifeform with a pulse.]

"I agree," Ere announced, her voice sliding in like a mocking shadow behind his mind. "The guy was this close to full golden retriever energy."

Levi snorted. [He was about to become the poster boy for horniness in a three-piece suit. In the name of the Whole mother, my eyes would've hurt watching that in yet another lifetime.]

Parker ignored their nonsense, stepping out of the car with cool detachment. The palace doors parted like they recognized a legend returning, and Atalanta greeted Cassandra and Cleopatra with a regal nod.

Flanking them were two figures whose very aura screamed mythic royalty—a woman and a man, whom was both the literal definition of a prince clad in shining armor that caught the light like forged starlight. The man's demeanor, build, and poise screamed warrior prince.

Parker's infinity mind clicked, filling in missing data.

He knew them—they were Isis and Hector, the same Isis he'd encountered in the most mundane yet surreal place imaginable: an Apple store, shopping for phones with Tessa.

As Cassandra approached him, her movement was poetry—effortless and charged. Behind him, Tessa and Maya stepped out of the limo, a queen and an empress, the twin pillars of his world. Cassandra's soft voice floated to him.

"Parker~"

He turned, and that smile—oh, that smile—lit his entire face. It wasn't just a polite gesture; it was genuine, the kind of radiant warmth that made Isis and Cleopatra flush, their cheeks burning with envy and something like awe.

Maya and Tessa exchanged looks—this wasn't a side of Parker they saw often. This was the raw, unfiltered man.

Tessa, never one to miss a chance for sass, called out with a laugh, "Oi, Oracle, did you bewitch our man in one of your dreams?"

Cassandra bowed low, a mischievous grin curling her lips. "My lady, if I could trap such a prize, believe me—I'd make sure he was all mine."

The group chuckled, the tension easing for a moment.

"I agree," Cleopatra added smoothly, "such a fine man would be..."

But Maya wasn't having it. Her voice cut through the air like a sharpened blade.

"I don't remember asking you anything, Cleo."

"And on what grounds do I need permission from a spoiled princess to speak?" Cleopatra shot back, unflinching.

Maya stepped forward, voice cold and commanding, words sharp as daggers.

"On the grounds that I am the empress of this palace—the very gates you stand outside. On the grounds that I can summon an army of supernaturals to kick your ass back to wherever you crawled from. On the grounds that one snap from me, and your soul ceases to exist."

She delivered all that in one breath—icy, absolute. Tessa, watching the verbal duel with a gleam in her eye, took a step back, arms crossed, clearly enjoying the show. The three women were always queens in combat, and whoever came out on top would be the next worthy match for her own wit and fire.

"Now. Now. Not now, guys. Alright?" Cassandra's voice was gentle—but it cut through the tension like a harp string drawn tight. She hadn't raised her tone. She didn't need to. Something about her presence just… recalibrated the battlefield.

Maya—the Empress of All Emotional Detonations—blinked once, considered the request, and with the elegance of a goddess who could destroy a planet for looking at her sideways, stepped back. Just like that. No threat, no glare, no soul-ripping aura.

She let Cleopatra live another day.

Tessa groaned like someone had snatched away her popcorn. "It was getting good…" she muttered, arms folded.

Parker, meanwhile, had exited the limo like a man walking into legend, adjusted the cuffs of his black coat, sleek and tailored like midnight, and walked up to Cassandra with that regal calm that made lesser beings feel like background characters in his novel.

"My lady," he said with a gallant bow that somehow made the air glitter. "It's a pleasure to finally meet you, I have—"

"Waited so long, heard so much about me from Atalanta, imagined this moment down to the breeze in your hair," Cassandra finished smoothly, her voice silk dipped in foresight.

He smiled. Genuinely. Devastatingly.

"Exactly my words, my lady," he murmured with reverent charm. "Such grace and knowing. You're exactly as the legends say… and then some."

He took her hand with gentle precision and kissed the back of her palm, slow and respectful. Cassandra didn't feel drowned by his presence. She felt—seen. Wrapped in the kind of aura that didn't burn but warmed.

Behind him, Cleopatra squinted like she'd just bitten into a lemon, and Isis tilted her head like she was watching a god try to flirt. Again.

Tessa leaned in toward Maya. "Why doesn't he greet us like that anymore?"

"Because we already own him," Maya said, flipping her hair. "Now shut up. I'm studying her composure. I want to see where I need to stab."

Meanwhile, Parker let go of Cassandra's hand with the grace of a man who could choreograph time. But then his smile vanished. His eyes snapped to the guards at the side of the palace—three towering Draven vampires and a Voidhowl in armors—and his glare hit them like a collapsing star.

They didn't just freeze. They wilted. Fell to their knees. Air clawed out of their lungs as their bodies buckled under his suffocating presence.

How dare they make her wait outside?

Sharp, panicked inhales echoed across the marble floor.

"Gentle there, Prince," Cassandra said, her fingers lightly closing around his hand, grounding him. "I asked them not to let me in. I wanted to welcome you home, face to face. The weaver returns from the loom of fate to hold the next age together."

She gestured toward Atalanta with a soft smile. "Besides, if I wanted to enter, I had her. And you know she opens any door."

Parker exhaled, and with it, the guards were released. They dropped like marionettes with cut strings, gasping for air. Then, trembling, they looked to Cassandra with raw gratitude in their eyes.

Who was this woman?

Even Parker's own creations hadn't been punished that way ever no matter what mistake they did, even when one Deamon sat on Nyxara's statue. Yet...

"I overreacted," Parker said, glancing down at her. "Not the best first impression, huh? I'm usually—"

"Fret not, Your Highness," she said, her tone warm enough to melt a glacier. "It warms my heart that you hold me in such regard."

Around them, various witnesses groaned, rolled their eyes, or whispered behind hands.

But far louder were the two absolute menaces in Parker's head.

"Really?" Ere snorted. "I didn't know he had that in him. What happened to our horny little capitalism gremlin?"

[I told you,] Levi replied with smug authority. [It was a novel. That one old romance he read when he was still mortal. Cassandra of Troy. Tragic, brilliant, cursed. He imprinted like a duckling on page thirty.]

"This is just a crush carried across divine reincarnations? Bro. He's never punished a single soul in this palace—not even when one of the demons sat on the statue of Nyxara with a cigar in its mouth. But this woman waits five minutes and it's death-by-aura?"

Parker closed his eyes.

And mentally shoved them both off a cliff.