Chapter 698: Rank Up! (2)

For several seconds, Lyssara-0 didn’t answer. The longer the silence went on, the more the crowd seemed to enjoy it.

Grey could see thousands of eyes darting between their two bubbles. Breejara wisely let the moment sit instead of filling it, experienced enough to know that sometimes saying nothing was better television than anything she could come up with.

When Lyssara finally spoke, her voice carried through the entire auction hall.

"If Grey Temolt is willing to accept a modified challenge, I will accept. Otherwise, we may continue bidding, and now that he has chosen to impugn my dignity in front of this audience, I am prepared to follow the price as far as he wishes to take it."

Grey blinked once.

Then he started laughing. The auction had started projecting both of their voices without bothering to ask.

So once someone issued a direct challenge, privacy stopped being part of the package? Well, Grey couldn’t exactly complain when he was the idiot who had pressed the button in the first place.

"Tell me what the modified challenge is first," Grey said, sinking farther into the couch. "Do remember we’re on TV now, though, so if you want some dick, as much as I’d love to help, I can’t do that."

The boos came almost immediately, rolling through the hall hard enough that Grey could hear them even through the formations around his private room.

Lyssara barely reacted, her expression as cold as ever.

As for Grey? He grinned right into the noise. He was perfectly comfortable being the villain in a room full of people who already liked Breejara and had apparently decided they didn’t much like him.

Breejara raised several hands toward the audience, as though trying to calm a riot she was very obviously enjoying.

"Please, darlings, we do maintain standards here, although Grey Temolt has been working tirelessly all evening to discover exactly how low they go."

That only made the crowd louder. Grey gave Breejara a small wave before turning back to Lyssara.

Axion-9, on the other hand, was having the time of his life. The smaller pieces floating around his frame were spinning faster, and he was leaning toward the display with so much interest that Grey could tell watching Lyssara get publicly annoyed was worth the price of admission all by itself.

Lyssara waited until the audience had settled enough to hear her.

"I propose an Integration Challenge."

Axion-9 immediately let out something halfway between a scoff and a mechanical cough. "Shameless."

Grey looked over at him, even though several million people were apparently waiting on his answer. "What?"

"An Integration Challenge is a Synari test," Axion-9 explained, his rings shifting as Grey raised an eyebrow. "It is one of the first meaningful examinations their young undergo once they become sentient enough to understand what is happening around them."

Grey glanced back at Lyssara’s projection as Axion went on, irritation leaking into his usually measured voice.

"The entire foundation of Synari development is the integration of machinery and living tissue without allowing either component to overwhelm the other, so their children begin learning controlled integration almost immediately.

"The exact test changes according to age and Class. However, both participants are generally given unfamiliar technology and expected to analyze it, adapt it to their Neural Frame, then integrate it directly into the body while preserving the function of both machine and organic host."

Grey slowly looked back at him. "So she wants to challenge me at the thing her Race starts teaching babies?"

"Essentially, although that undersells how specialized the discipline is. Lyssara-0 is also one of the greatest integration talents the Synari have produced in generations. You would be letting her choose a field she has practiced for most of her conscious existence."

Grey started laughing.

Axion-9 didn’t.

Grey glanced at him with a grin. "That’s cute."

Several of Axion’s rings stopped moving.

Grey turned back to the auction display and spoke before Breejara could fill the silence. "I accept."

The hall went so completely quiet that, for a moment, even Grey wondered if the broadcasting formations had stopped working.

Axion-9 stared at him, several of his floating components frozen in place. The people around Grey looked just as unsure whether he’d actually understood what had just been explained to him. They couldn’t hear Axion-9’s voice, but Grey’s voice and the fact he was turned to the side explained what happened well enough. Did he really not get it?

Even Breejara had gone still. Grey suspected this might be the first time all evening that somebody else had stolen the words right out of her mouth.

Lyssara’s eyes narrowed.

Breejara recovered first, though there was enough disbelief under her usual theatrical rhythm that she couldn’t quite hide it.

"Grey Temolt has accepted an Integration Challenge against the very best of the Synari Race! What a spectacle we’ll witness today, what a spectacle indeed. As reckless as I knew him to be, even I did not expect this much."

Conversation exploded through the surrounding bubbles. However, Grey leaned forward and started talking before the noise could build too far.

"A lot of people seem to think humans are easy to bully, and humans from Earth especially seem to get that treatment more than anybody else."

The noise died down bit by bit as his voice carried through the hall.

"Cracked World, no information, no inheritance, no fancy bloodline anybody gives a shit about, so everybody looks at us like we’re moths flying into a fire that just haven’t noticed they’re burning yet. I want to make something pretty clear, though, since apparently Arc I didn’t do a good enough job teaching the lesson."

Grey was still grinning. Though, there was nothing playful left in his eyes.

"I’m not just a little bit better than all of you, I’m better than all of you by every measure, and about as much better as the distance from the base of my balls to the tip of my dick. Translation, huge."

The silence broke into a mix of boos, laughter and outright disbelief, and Breejara slowly covered part of her face with one hand.

Grey didn’t care. His eyes stayed on Lyssara, and the mechanical parts along one side of her face shifted ever so slightly.

"You want to pick the thing you’ve been doing since you learned how to think? Go ahead. Pick your best game, use your best rules, stack the deck however makes you comfortable, and when you’re done making sure every advantage is on your side, I’ll still beat you at it."

Grey slowly stood from his couch, his grin widening as the crowd quieted enough to hear him.

"I accept your challenge."