A Familiar Face

"Now Now sweethearts, surely a fancy charity ball is not the place for such depressing conversations, lets try and enjoy ourselves."

The person intervening is someone that Magnus had tried to prepare himself in seeing for the first time in so many years.

"Have it your way Ms. Queen." Commissioner Keith smirkly replies as she and Sergeant Carter turn to walk away.

"Ah Ms. Queen, it's so good to have your esteemed acquaintance present." the Lord Mayor proclaims.

Ariel Queen, Brisbane's leading lady in art, design and novel writing. Ariel is Magnus' old high school friend. An eloquently beautiful woman dressed in a gorgeous gold formal gown with roses forming on the shoulder slips. With lush black hair combed so well, with her hair hanging down to her shoulder blades and lightly tanned skin and reddish pink lips, some would say that they were staring at a goddess from the heavens above who had come down to bring joy and love to the masses.

"Ariel..." Magnus replies as if lost in the moment.

"Hi Stephen." Ariel answers back with a massive smile on her face, "It's been a while, hasn't it?"

"You two know each other?" the Lord Mayor asks,

"Yeah..." Magnus answers as if staring into time and space. "We were high school friends."

"Well don't let me get between you and your reunion." says the Lord Mayor. "I'll let you two catch up on old times."

Lord Mayor Charles walks off, with Magnus extending a hand as if expecting someone to stick around to help him keeping the situation becoming even more awkward for himself.

"So how have you been?" Ariel breaks the ice to get the conversation going, smiling and being full of good cheer.

"Not too bad..." Magnus nervously answers as he turns to face Ariel, "How have you been?"

"Well I've been working. Art, design, novels, all that stuff. I see you're going so well in pro wrestling."

"Well, one tries..."

"You're still not very talkative huh? Unless someone brings politics and douchebags up."

"Well I'm not exactly the biggest fan of the Police Commissioner and the Sergeant. And most of everyone here only came for the booze, not like they read what the ball was about to begin with."

"There you go!" Ariel laughs cheerfully, "You can compile a whole sentence!"

Ariel looks at the dance floor and sees the various group of people dancing to a slow ballad. The people perform a typical slow dance to the ballad. Usually it's seen as just swaying, but no one ever complains about the movements associated in the dance.

"Wanna dance?" Ariel extends an invitation to Magnus, "You still remember how to dance right?"

"Yeah I do." Magnus answers, "I haven't forgotten what you taught me. Still don't like it though."

Ariel taught Magnus a lot of things when they were in high school. Dancing, sports and debating among some things. Dancing was the least favorite for Magnus, along with anything that requires a partner or a group of people for that matter.

The two walk to the middle of the dance floor. They form the correct posture and position and begin to perform the slow dance.

"You haven't even changed at all." Ariel says,

"You have." Magnus replies,

"Well I am serious when it comes to work. All the expectations everyone expects from you really drives you up the wall."

"I see."

The two continue to dance in sync with the ballad playing in the background. Even though Magnus never liked dancing, he is a fast learner and is actually good at getting dancing techniques and moves down to the letter.

"So Steven, why brings you here?" Ariel asks,

"Im Mr. Golden Boy Wrestling Extraordinaire." Steven answers, "Though I do believe in the cause."

"So do I." Ariel replies, "You have no idea."

"Aren't you the angel."

"I have a dream myself you know, of a better world, where a perfect balance is maintained where everything is in harmony in all aspects of life, the people and the world. Where life becomes true art where everything just comes together and blossoms as all things should."

"That's a pretty cryptic dream if you ask me."

"What's your dream?"

The question drove a nail hard through Magnus' heart. He'd been through a lot in his 25 years of life. He had been born with super strength, heightened reflexes and a exceptionally high intelligence. The details on how he was born that way was never quite explained. He grew up being raised mainly by his aunt, with his father in and out of his life due to his commitment to work, and his mother supposedly dying not long after he was born. And more recently, the death of Tengge, the only woman he ever loved. There is so much Magnus could wish for. Sadly most of the wishes he had could never come true for him. He never goes into detail about his life, besides the basic fundamentals such as his birth date, where he's from and who raised him. So he bottled most of his life inside, figuring that no one in the world would ever understand him.

"I just want a good life." Magnus finally thinks of an answer, "That's all I want."

"That's a good dream." Ariel cheerfully replies, "We're making good progress here."

The two continued to dance to the beat of the ballad, losing all sense of the world around them as if it was just the two of them in a different world with no one around.

"I missed you Ariel..." Magnus awkwardly replies, "Really..."

Ariel comes forward, gently grabs Magnus by the shoulders and plants a kiss on his left cheek.

"I missed you too" Ariel whispers,

Magnus is dumbfounded at the kiss that Ariel gave him, he doesn't know how to react to what had transpired in front of him.

BANG!

An explosion came from the main doors.

"Sorry to crash the party folks! We are tonight's entertainment!" a voice came from the emitting smoke.