I shifted around on my seat, making sure most of my body was hidden by the bus stop's protective wall. I knew the bus didn't come by here for at least another fifteen minutes, and by then, I would hopefully be long gone. Or I would be, as long as the young girl I was keeping an eye on left her house when she usually did.
I paused, letting my previous thoughts run through my head, rolling my eyes when I realized how strange it sounded. It was thoughts like that, as well as a few other equally surreal moments, that made me stop and question my sanity. It had been nearly a week since I found myself here, in a world that, on the surface, seemed so familiar but, on closer inspection, was so radically different. I was currently sitting on a street that looked no different from any suburban street from my world. And yet, this morning, I saw a teenage girl flying through the air, dressed in a tiara and a golden outfit.
Hello, my name is William Kalus. I'm 28 years old, technically currently homeless, and stranded on a version of Earth that makes my Earth's 2020 look like a paradise of calm, certainty, and bountiful prosperity.
Oh, and I'm a mage. In a world where there was no magic.
That was a relatively recent development, actually. In fact, it was one of the several things about this new… life was the right word, I supposed, that made me question if I had lost my marbles.
You see, I died. I kicked the bucket, bought the farm, bit the dust, gave up the ghost, and cashed in my chips.
I died surrounded by people looking down at me, their phones out, recording as I gurgled and gagged on my own blood and shards of my ribcage. A car, some dinged-up old shitbox, had slammed into me going way too fast for the road they were on, flung me across the street, where I skidded to a stop along the sidewalk.
I remember my thoughts being remarkably clear at that moment. I knew instantly I was dying. No amount of doctors or medicine would be able to separate the shredded remains of my internals from what was supposed to be my skeleton. I could feel myself dying, slowly losing strength, my heart slowly stopping. Then, as the light faded, I slipped away. The last thing I managed to do in my old world was to lose control over what little of my bowels were still intact.
"Is everything alright?" A familiar voice whispered into my ear, coming from just over my shoulder, despite the fact that I knew no one was there.
"I'm fine, just thinking," I answered quietly, taking solace in the familiar presence that surrounded me.
I felt a comforting, slightly worried sensation wrap around me before it reluctantly pulled away. After a moment alone, my thoughts sunk back into my first steps into my current situation, this time slightly buoyed.
I had died, and a second later, I woke up, standing in some sort of ethereal dimension. It was beautiful, but it made me feel incredibly small, standing amid planets and galaxies like someone had taken all the best images of space and photoshopped them together.
Then, the entities came. There weren't any faces or anything I could even identify as a body, but I could still feel their presence, like a weight on my soul. I was told in no uncertain terms that I had been chosen, that I was being taken and sent somewhere to participate in a forced after-death adventure. I was then informed that there were no alternatives and that I had no choice in the matter.
I had the oddest sensation that someone had pissed them off.
Thankfully, they did give me two separate boons, a sort of reluctant apology since they weren't even pretending to care about what I wanted. The first was called Blank Spot, with a pinch of Someone Else's Problem added in, to keep me from being attacked immediately for not belonging or standing out. At the time, having no idea where I was going, I had only been mildly thankful. Being a Blank Spot would undoubtedly come in handy, after all, but most settings didn't really require that level of protection, right?
Turns out that was a stupid assumption. There was a lot I didn't know about this world, but even some short time at the Brockton Bay Public Library told me that any protection against what this world called Thinkers was a massive advantage. There were people in this world who could see the future, and the past, and could divine all sorts of information from seemingly nowhere. It was like Marvel and DC decided to have a kid, and it was born fully formed with a grudge against its own well-being and sanity. I didn't recognize it in the slightest, and that was perhaps the scariest thing of all.
Well, it would have been until I read about the Endbringers.
I suppressed a shiver, though my frown shifted to a smile as a warm breeze blew over me, washing away the encroaching panic.
"Thank you," I muttered, feeling the wind russle my hair slightly.
After spending a minute or so just sitting at the bus stop, stewing in my bad luck, I shook it off. I knew, eventually, I would most likely be able to handle the Endbringers, whatever the fuck they actually were, but reading about what they were capable of was still harrowing. It made me want to run away and hide myself in the middle of nowhere, where they would never go. It made me want to invest all my next recharge into something that would let me leave this world and escape to one not currently circling the drain.
But no, I couldn't do that. As horrifying as the realization had been, I now knew I was too good of a person to run from something like this. As much as I hated the entities for snagging me away from whatever afterlife I was heading towards, they had given me power and a mission to help this world survive its encroaching apocalypse.
Thank god I got something powerful enough to make that possible.
It was interesting because I recognized my power. Or, rather, I recognized what it was based on. Inspired Inventor, the ability to spend an allowance of recharging points to purchase knowledge of topics. I knew a few different versions existed, all from fanfiction, but I wasn't sure of its exact origins. Depending on just what version you were talking about, the user was restricted by how many points they received, as well as how expensive buying each stacking level was.
My version was different at its very foundation. Rather than tech or scientific knowledge, my version was focused on magic. I got six charges every two weeks to spend on the knowledge of spells, rituals, potions, and everything in between, with each level of knowledge costing its number in charges. So my two charges in healing spells cast three points, as did my two in lightning spells. My two in geomancy were free, but I'll get back to that.
I also got the opportunity to earn a few more charges in the form of quests. I wasn't exactly sure what activated the quests, I just knew that I would occasionally get new ones. My first and current quest was to prevent a young girl from triggering. Since the quest activated, we had been keeping a close eye on her, which was why I was creepily waiting outside their home at a nearby bus station.
"She is on the move," The whispering voice said into my ear. "Coming out of the front entrance, just like usual."
I nodded and focused on the moment. According to my task, sometime between two days ago and tomorrow, a young girl would live through something so terrible that she would undergo a trigger event, the process that was this world's power genesis.
According to what I read online, it was considered the person's worst day ever, something so terrible and horrifying that it would forever mark them psychologically, while also giving them superpowers. Interestingly enough, the theory seemed to be generally discounted and hardly talked about, despite my power clearly believing it was correct. It also seemed to think this particular young girl's life would be much better off without one.
Another breeze, this one a bit rougher, pushed at my back, and I stood up, accepting the nudge for what it was, a reminder to move. Just down the street, I could see the young girl step out onto her front porch, waiting impatiently for someone else. A woman, not old enough to be her mom, stepped out soon after.
Immediately, the young girl started to walk down the front steps, forcing the woman to hurry and catch up. When they got to the edge of the front walk, the younger girl clearly wanted to go left, while the older woman wanted to go right. For a moment, they debated before the woman sagged, and the young girl cheered, leading the way in the direction she had wanted.
Despite the woman losing whatever debate they were having, both of them were smiling and chatting as they walked, making their way down their street and towards the city. I was pretty sure they were on their way to visit one of the young girl's parents at work, but I wasn't sure.
I didn't want to invade their privacy too much, just enough to stop whatever catastrophe was supposed to happen from happening.
I followed after them from a distance, relying on the breezes and nudges to keep me on track whenever I lost sight of them. I didn't know when it would happen, I just knew that it would happen eventually. The pair continued to walk toward the city, the buildings getting more and more dense as they went. They were cutting through an area that didn't have a very good reputation, which was probably what the debate had been about.
I watched as, further down the street, the pair turned around the corner, disappearing from view. Suddenly, gunshots echoed through the streets. They were depressingly common in this city, but these came from the street my current target had just headed down, and I couldn't help but curse. Defying all personal expectations, I rushed forward, crossing the street and stepping around the corner.
There, only a dozen or so feet past where I had lost sight of them was the woman and the girl. The girl was partially cowering beside the woman, who was now lying on the ground, clutching her stomach. Beyond them was some sort of ongoing gang activity, the Azn Bad Boys, or ABB, if I remember their colors correctly.
Even as more bullets flew, shattering a nearby car window, I pushed and ran around the corner, ducking low. I approached the pair, finally in range to hear what they were saying.
"Dinah, go hide behind a car, it's okay, I'll be okay," She said, sounding weak already, even as Dinah was trying to drag her into cover with her. "Just go, sweetie, it's okay-"
"I got her girl, just go," I said, reaching down to grab the woman's arms and pulling her behind a car.
I wasn't sure, but I might have seen a few bullets slap and skip off the asphalt just about where the woman had been lying. Once we were behind cover, I started examining the woman's wounds. If the growing blood stains in her clothes were any indication, she had been shot three or four times.
"Is she going to be alright?" The girl, Dinah asked, ducking down as another bullet whizzed over us. "This is all my fault, I should have known the area-"
Before I could do anything, the woman passed out, her face pale from blood loss. Dinah screamed, reaching out for her in panic.
"It's okay girl, she is just unconscious," I explained, but I knew that it was a bad sign.
She was losing too much blood way too quickly. If I didn't do something now, she would be long dead before help got here.
"Alya, is anyone looking?" I asked, not looking away from the woman, waiting a few seconds for a warm, encouraging breeze to flutter around me.
"Alright then, leap of faith," I muttered, before reaching deep and pulling on my mana, guiding it into my hands as I placed them over the woman's stomach. "Sagitta de mea carne ventilabis."
My hands glowed for a moment, two small circles appearing around my hands. The circles glowed gold, as four arcane symbols appeared inside each one. The sigils pulsed, and my magic released into the woman, reaching inside her and pulling out four bullets. The small but lethal chunks of metal slid out through the holes in the woman's clothes, rolling off to the ground. Dinah gasped, her eyes wide as she watched me perform my magic.
"Reficere carnem, musculus et os," I intoned next, my magic flaring again in the same gold color. "Altiorem intensionem salutis! Imple corpus sanguine eget!"
This time, a pair of gold bands, made from my mana, expanded from my hands, wrapping around the woman's torso. More arcane symbols traced around the band, spinning around it as I added an extra boost with the additive second spell. I was using a good chunk of my mana to make sure this woman would be completely healed.
With a final pulse, the energy of the magic poured into the woman, heading right for her wounds. The blood and holes remained in her clothes, but I could feel the magic working, repairing almost all of the damage the bullets had done. When the glow subsided, the woman was looking significantly less pale, and her breathing had returned to normal. The young girl, Dinah, looked like she was struggling to figure out who she should stare at, me or the newly healed woman.
"You saved her!" She said excitedly. "Are you a cape? You can heal people!"
"Yeah, I did, but… Dinah, listen, I need you to keep this a secret for me," I asked, trying to impress just how serious the situation was to the young girl.
"The gangers are running, and the police are on the way," Alya whispered in my ear. "I'm keeping your conversation quiet, but you don't have long.
Trusting Alya to have my back, I focused on Dinah, who was looking at me while desperately clinging to the woman's hand.
"I'm not ready to debut yet, and I don't have my mask…" I pointed out.
Technically, that wasn't a hundred percent true, I just didn't have it with me. I had made one as a precaution, only to realize there was no way I would be able to follow after the two of them with a mask on. Of course, if I tried to put it on before coming to help, chances are I would show up too late.
"Oh my gosh…" The young girl said, "You're right! I won't tell anyone! I'll take your secret to my grave!"
"You don't have to go that far," I assured her. "Just tell anyone who asks you aren't sure what happened."
"Oh! I'll tell everyone I fainted after pulling Aunt Claire out of the street," She said, surprising me with the decent idea. "Does that work?"
"I think that works perfectly. Thank you."
"No, thank you!" She said, leaning over her aunt to give me a hug, surprising me yet again. "Thank you so much!"
"It's time to go," Alya whispered before I could say anything else, and I slowly pulled away from Dinah.
"You're welcome. I'm just glad I could help," I said with a smile as I stood, looking around and seeing that no one was really looking our way.
"Good luck!" Dinah called after me as I stepped away and jogged around the corner, out of sight.
Slipping away was easy to do with all the chaos, even as the police started to arrive on the scene. Alya guided me along through alleys and across parking lots until I finally recognized where we were and could make the rest of the way from memory.
After about fifteen minutes of walking, I reached the abandoned shop where I had been living. Its windows were all solidly boarded up, and its interior was pretty wrecked and covered in graffiti, but after some time spent cleaning it up, it was passable. Most importantly, it was dry. It was raining when I first arrived, and while it was surprisingly warm for December, the rain would have absolutely killed me if I had tried to sleep in it.
I pull off a loose plywood board from one of the back windows, jiggling it free of the board holding it in place. I then carefully crawled inside, disappearing into the abandoned shop's interior. Once inside, I reached out and lifted the board, sliding it back into place and hiding the entrance completely.Last edited: May 28, 2024620MetaBettaOmegaLettaMay 23, 2024View discussionThreadmarks Chapter Two View contentMetaBettaOmegaLettaMay 23, 2024#2With the window now sealed, my eyes quickly adjusted to the dark interior. It wasn't completely dark, as there were too many gaps in the boards for that. I had also bought a battery pack that was currently running some lights, just enough to make the place livable. I charged them with a rather handy lightning spell.
I looked around, making sure that I was alone. Call me paranoid, but with thousands of parahumans, or capes as they were frequently called by the public, I was a bit slow to trust my surroundings.
The front of the shop had been a mess of broken shelving, cabinets, and other junk, which I had thankfully been able to sort through and break down. There was still a pile of trash tucked into one of the closets, but with the place at least partially cleaned up, I could almost pretend I wasn't squatting.
As I looked around the area, a breeze blew in, picking up as it passed me. Dust started to swirl a bit as, before my eyes, Alya took her physical form in front of me. Her hair, which was cobalt blue around her head, fading into white and dark gray at the ends, flowed over her shoulder, never quite going completely still. She could almost pass for a pale, rather tall human woman if not for her long ears, angular features, and swirling blue eyes. Also, her body had a tendency to flicker and fade, only to reform seconds later. I knew she could stop that if she focused, but why would she when we were alone?
"Well done, William," She said with a warm smile. "You did a fantastic job helping that woman and the poor girl."
"Yeah… Mission accomplished," I said, returning her smile. "Got a single point for it, just waiting to be spent."
"We both know that was just a bonus," She responded with a knowing grin. "You would have happily helped for absolutely nothing."
Rather than answering her directly, I shrugged, stepping by her to sit down at the old, ratty, but relatively clean couch I had grabbed from off the street one night. I could feel her clearly when she was this close, the connection between our souls making talking technically unnecessary.
Alya was my familiar of sorts, a soul-bound Air and Wind elemental, and my second boon for being stranded here in this world without my consent. She was carrying a small sliver of my soul, which bound her to me at a level that was far beyond anything I was capable of. I was unlikely to reach the level of magic to understand it for a very long time.
As an air elemental, she was capable of becoming invisible as she blended with her element, spreading her senses and consciousness around a vast area. She could whisper into my ear from long distances, muffle sounds around herself and move around incredibly fast. The downside to that was her durability or lack thereof. Anything more than ten or fifteen pounds of weight or force caused her physical form to almost pop, reducing her to rapidly dispersing clouds. Still, she had been an incredible asset and part of the reason I was still sane, keeping me grounded as I came to terms with my new situation.
Hell, she was the only reason I had money to eat and buy the few things I could, having spent quite a few nights spread out around the city, finding lost and abandoned things worth selling and even a few forgotten caches of cash, probably dead drops for the gangs. We stopped once we realized that showing up at the pawn shops with new stuff to sell every day was going to draw more attention than it was worth. Still, we had a couple thousand dollars tucked into the ceiling tiles above the back room.
"Have you decided what you will do with your reward?" She asked, floating down beside me on the couch.
I frowned and chewed the inside of my lip, shaking my head.
"It's a toss-up between saving it and what we discussed before," I responded, leaning back on the couch.
I closed my eyes and dove back into my mind, viewing the purely mental layout of my powers. It wasn't anything cut and dry, like a menu or a readout, but I could still sense it like I had somehow gained an extrasensory ability.
At first, my ability might seem complicated, but thankful the entities that stranded me here included a pretty comprehensive understanding alongside the power itself. I got six charges every other week, and at the very moment, Sunday night became Monday morning. I could spend that charge on any subject of magic that I could think of. If the subject was broad, the charge was more spread out, and while I was getting more knowledge, the potency was lower.
For example, if I spent a charge on healing magic, I would receive a spread of all healing magic, from enchantments and potions to rituals and spells. However, all of this knowledge would be incredibly low potency, with most of it being useless. On the other hand, when I spent a charge in healing spells, the information I gained was restricted to actively cast healing spells, but the potency of those spells was high enough to actually be useful. Even better, when I invested two more points to raise the topic to its second level, my repertoire and understanding expanded even more. As far as I could tell, I was the equivalent of a competent first-year college student, focusing on healing spells for his education.
I even got a decent download of basic first aid since several healing spells required some action before they were cast, like setting a bone before casting a bone healing spell.
On top of my purchases, I also had two extra additions. The first was a seemingly random gift that I had no control over. Shortly after arriving, but after Alya had found the shop, I randomly gained two levels of a topic called "Geomancy." It was honestly perfect and exactly what I needed, which made me think that whatever the source was, they were on our side.
Geomancy was a ritual adjacent form of magic that used something called a geomantic partional, basically, a unique ritual circle carved into stone, or in my case concrete, that allowed a mage to transfer certain properties of stone and metal to their own bodies. With two charges, I was capable of taking eight pounds of steel and transferring a significant portion of strength and durability to myself.
As a squishy, vulnerable standard human, it was extremely comforting and useful.
With my current setup and materials, it was far from perfect, but I still rarely left the shop without absorbing something, even if it was usually the subpar steel scrap from all of the shop's shelving.
Eventually, I would switch to something like tungsten or titanium, but that was once I had more money to burn and wasn't worried about attracting attention.
For a while, I briefly considered putting three of my future points in geomancy but ultimately dismissed the idea. While it would be interesting to see what a level three topic would look like, and I was sure there would be plenty of useful knowledge to gain, I was happy with the level I had now. Yes, geomancy very neatly filled a void in my magic, namely my strength and defenses, but I was satisfied with its capabilities for now.
I was also curious if its purchase had just been random and if I would get another random topic, which was actually kind of exciting. Honestly, I wouldn't be too upset if I got another level of geomancy, but the thought of another random magical topic at the same level of geomancy? That was exciting. Who knows what I would get, and who knows what sort of synergies I would be able to get out of whatever I got?
So that was my power. So far, I had two levels in geomancy, two levels in healing spells, and two levels in lightning spells. Alya and I had discussed my offensive options for a while, eventually settling on elemental spells, specifically lightning. We had chosen that because not only was it flexible for power output, in case I needed to take down a brute or unpowered civilian, but it also worked well with Alya.
Alya and my connection was soul-deep, as her consciousness was literally made around a tiny sliver of my soul and my magic. This meant that she was always going to grow with me, rising in power as I did. She couldn't perform magic per se, but since I now had some decent skill with lightning spells, she had gained a small sliver of storm aspect. It wasn't much, and using it really tired her out, but if I continued to grow in power, learning more and more lighting spells and further attuning myself to that element, so would her capabilities.
Besides, in a world where a bit of static shock could ruin a computer worth thousands of dollars, being able to generate something akin to a very low-level stun baton for a few seconds was more than enough to be useful.
"I think testing the waters is a good idea, but having a charge on hand for emergencies is more important," Alya said, repeating her earlier opinion. "Getting a preview of what you might need might be more efficient, but keeping it in reserve is safer."
"I know, you're right," I said, nodding in agreement as I opened my eyes. "Alright, I'll keep it for now. Can always just spend it later if I change my mind."
"Of course," Alya said, rolling her eyes at me. "I'm going to continue searching, William."
I nodded, giving her a wave before she disappeared, her physical form swirling away into the air. I could feel her close by, but diffusing herself like that meant the connection was a bit less direct. She was around, not standing next to me. That feeling shifted as she moved away, her invisible, intangible form no doubt floating above and through the building. Currently, she was looking for a large amount of slate, so I could remake my geomantic partional, the ritual circle I used for geomancy. My current one was currently carved into the concrete floor of the shop, which I had exposed by prying up the linoleum tiles.
Concrete, though, was heavily influenced by its man-made nature, meaning that it made filtering out unwanted aspects of the metal I was using extremely difficult. Even now, I could feel the extra thirty pounds weighing down on me. My enhanced strength stopped it from being detrimental to my movement, but I could feel it in my own momentum. I could also feel a slight decrease in flexibility.
I would be able to get rid of those unwanted aspects, as well as prolong the duration and increase the potency with a better setup, but that required materials. Most of them I could buy easily, but the slate wasn't exactly something I could buy cheap at CVS.
Alya was searching through abandoned buildings for slate countertops or slate tiling. It was unlikely we would find anything, but she disliked sitting still, and I wasn't about to stop her from helping out. She had made it perfectly clear that she was not human, so things like overworking her or me basically having complete control over her was not an issue. It still felt weird, but apparently, she was more than happy about the situation.
According to her, natural, unbound elementals were thoughtless aspects of nature that had no intelligence or emotions. They just simply existed, like a naturally occurring computer, in worlds and realities where magic steeped more deeply into the fabric of the material plane. Binding an elemental to yourself was incredibly potent magic, but in the process, she gained active thought, a sense of will and desire, and emotions. She insisted it was a more than fair deal, and she was happy to work for me until the day that I died, which she fully expected to be a very, very long time.
For obvious reasons, I was very interested in learning the magic required to replicate the binding process since she insisted it was beneficial to both parties, but she assured me it was likely to take several levels to fully understand the process, which I just couldn't spare at the moment. Even worse, I wouldn't be able to bond with another elemental until my soul had a chance to heal fully, or I risk damaging it.
Not exactly something I liked the sound of, so I reluctantly put the plans of an elementary strike force to the back of my mind.
Not long after Alya left, I started cleaning out the geomantic partional. The unique ritual consisted of seven circles that surrounded and connected to a larger central circle. Dozens of arcane symbols and lines were carved around each of these circles. At the moment, each of those symbols was caked in soot, but while performing the absorption they would contain my blood. It wasn't much, just a drop per symbol, but the whole thing was still a grisly process, only made palatable by a numbing and cutting spell from the healing spells topic.
I was really looking forward to when I didn't do that anymore, but at least there were only three or four dozen symbols. Generally speaking, the more symbols, the more complicated the spell or action you were attempting to perform with magic. That's what separated rituals from spells. Even the most skilled archmage could only control his mana through a dozen, maybe two dozen free-floating symbols. But rituals could contain hundreds, even thousands of those symbols, the mana guided through them through the caster's blood or other medium.
I was just finishing up the final circle of symbols when I felt Alya's familiar presence return.
"Welcome back," I said, sitting back and wiping my brow. "Find anything?"
"I have searched all surrounding abandoned buildings in this part of town and beyond," She responded, her form swirling into shape as she talked. "I'm afraid I have yet to find any slate."
"Yeah… I can't say I'm very surprised," I responded with a frown. "It's fine, I'll just have to buy some."
"A task for tomorrow," She said, not so subtly pointing out it was time for some rest.
"I doubt anything is open now anyway," I responded with a chuckle. "But it is time for some sleep."
I quickly washed my hands and cleaned up my work, before setting up my bed, which was just the couch with the back cushions removed to give myself a little room. I said goodnight to Alya, who responded in kind before she vanished. I could still feel her, but now she was all around the shop, keeping watch while I slept.