Chapter 49 (Patreon)

“Honey, I’m home! Bearin’ gifts, too! Pull up.”

My voice filled the Sanctum, magnified ever so perfectly by Force of Spirit, and I could hear bare feet slapping against polished wood as the very real light of my life immediately made her presence, and jubilation, known.

“JAAAY!”

Was it complete foolishness or just plain ol’ blind trust that Cassie decided jumping off the second floor was the safest, and easiest, way into my arms?

“Woah,” I yelped, dropping the multitude of plastic bags I’d grabbed on my way back home - purchases from swindler Joe’s twenty-four hour pawn shop. Gems and stones of all kind clattered onto the floor, accompanied by a belt of second hand jewel-crafting tools that I scarcely even knew the names of, creating a dissonance of racket that echoed through the living room. 

Not that I cared. I’d almost forgotten how amazing my girl smelled.

The sweet, tingling scent of strawberry lemonade enveloped my senses as I caught the petite bullet in my arms, twirling her around in order to bleed away the considerable momentum of that twenty foot drop. 

“Hehe - you’re gonna make me puke, asshole!” Cassie giggled breathlessly, face flushed with a mixture of what I could only assume was happiness at my homecoming and adrenaline at dolphin diving off of the top of a fucking staircase. With her damp black hair pinned back by baby blue hairpins and the oversized black t-shirt that I was pretty damn sure belonged to me, she looked like she was a few minutes away from crawling into bed for the night.

More importantly, there were no injuries.

Holding her up to the dimmed light of the living room with my hands beneath her armpits, I narrowed my silver gaze and gave a proper scan of her body. She shifted beneath the intensity of my stare, legs kicking lightly in the air before a sigh expelled itself from her chest and she simply crossed her arms. “Jay, I’m not a frickin’ cat-”

“The Empire,” I cut her off, staring dead into her eyes. “You said that you guys were gonna handle the others, right? Purity, Night, and Fog. Those aren’t easy licks, Cassie - what’s the damage?”

Realization dawning on her face, the spunky hacker’s soft pink lips split into an arrogant grin. With arms crossed and body language practically screaming ‘I know something you don’t’, you could almost forget that she was currently dangling in the air like a fish caught on a fishing hook. “Hehehe. Don’t worry, rookie, Invictus was on the case. H-Honestly, I’m more offended that you had any doubts about me in the first place! 9-0, low diff, easy dub.”

Cassie is nervous. Cassie is overcompensating. Cassie is-

“Bullshit,” I smirked, plopping the girl back on her feet. “I know you, babe. You ain’t built like that.”

Cassie’s grin disappeared instantly, replaced by a puckered-lip pout. “Hey! I’m most def built like that, the heck?! A-ask Sherrel. And Trainwreck! We-”

My hand fell heavily on her head, displacing one of the berets folded in her short hair. “I don’t doubt you did great, Cass. And I’m proud of you for taking initiative with the way you did - but you don’t gotta front with me. We’re past that.”

“I-... haa, okay. I’m sorry.”

“It’s cool.”

There was a moment of silence, sudden but comfortable. Cassie exhaled gently, just a soft puff of air that dissipated coolly against my wrist, and nuzzled her head harder against the calloused palm of my hand. I allowed her the brief respite, recognizing it for what it was - a girl simply absorbing comfort and strength from the presence of her lover. Even though it wasn’t something I often required, I could still acknowledge the fact that most people needed little recharging moments like these.

And I had a lot of love and energy to give. Quite literally.

It was barely thirty seconds later when Cassie spoke again, her sweet voice slightly wistful and shaky in its tone. “None of us ended up getting very hurt. Trainwreck got a few scratches and a shit ton of bruises, but he’s pretty frickin’ tough. Met some really awesome people, too… Imp, this cool, like, ninja chick that can make you forget she’s even there, and these hardcore mercs with assault rifles and bal- balca-”

“Balaclavas,” I supplied quietly, my brow furrowing at the mention of ‘hardcore mercs’.

“Tā mā de,” Cassie huffed beneath her breath, tossing me a small, appreciative little smile. “Yes, that. They were ‘ImpishDelight’ and ‘Deadman’ on PHO, and they were really helpful in the fight. They were the ones who ended up killing Night and Fog, actually! Which was really fucked up to see on live feed, not gonna lie, but- um, can we sit on the couch for the rest of this? It’s kind of… a lot.”

My gaze shifted towards the large black couch, cushiony and soft, and my sore and exhausted body took that time to remind me that it was, in fact, sore and exhausted. Idly rubbing my aching neck, I gave Cassie a quick jerk of the head. “Don’t gotta ask me twice. I’ll grab us some soda - go ‘head and get comfy, yeah?”

Gratitude and love - a combination of two deeply entrenched emotions that shook me to the core to this day - lit up the small girl’s somewhat sobered expression. Leaning forward and gripping the lapels of my leather jacket, Cassie wrenched herself upwards to plant a soft, peach-flavored kiss against the corner of my mouth. 

“Orange Crush, please~...” she whispered ‘seductively’, soft lips flush against the lobe of my ear.

I snorted, doing my utmost to ignore the slumbering heat that stirred in my belly. How the Hell did she make me horny by being a fucking cringe-lord?

“Go sit, dumbass.” I grinned, brushing my own lips against her forehead before lightly pushing her towards the couch. A flare of Azyr followed my nudging, and Cassie whooped in surprise as she went soaring through the air by an invisible wind, alighting over and then onto the couch with a gentle squeak. 

“Hey-”

Conveyance brought me into and out of the kitchen with our preferred sodas in the same time it took Cassie to finish her sentence, the refrigerator door rattling as it shut firmly in the wake of my teleportation.

“-watch it, Potter. No freaky magic in this house!”

“Heh. My bad, Auntie.” 

I dropped the ice cold can of Orange Crush on Cassie’s bare lap as I rolled over the back of the couch, sinking into the comfortably velvet softness of its cushions with a low, prolonged sigh. Behind me, as I pressed upon the denseness of the Aethyr and willed it into motion, all of my little jewel-crafting knick-knacks floated up and over to fall into my lap. Pliers, tweezers, a miniature saw, a nail file…

And then came the jewels. Rubies, sapphires, emeralds, topaz, pearls - some were already embedded in shit like wedding bands and earrings, while others were already cut out, spilling out onto the couch and getting stuck between the cushions. 

Cassie gawked, open can of soda gripped firmly in her hands, at the miniature wave of precious and semi-precious gems. “... Jay, what the fuck?! How much did you spend on these? I thought you said one-”

“Shhh,” I pressed a finger to her lips, sending her an overly-saucy wink. “Just let Sugar Daddy Jason take care of you, baby girl. I’m good for it.”

The speed in which her face turned crimson would leave the most hard-boiled lobsters green with envy. “I- wuh- huuuh?”

What an adorable squeak.

“Kidding. Kinda. Look; tell me ‘bout what’s been going on first, alright? Money is…” A crooked grin formed on my lips, and I shook my head softly. “Not important right now. Your mental health is, though, so…”

A small wave of Aqshy - warm and cinnamony sweet - filled the air like an explosion of powdered sugar. Cassie took a second to get in a nice, long sip of orange soda before speaking, half-hiding her face behind the can. “Hmph. Stop being so friggin’ sweet and caring all the time, and maybe I won’t always end up confused and flustered. Dickhead.”

“You want me to be an asshole? ‘Cuz I can, but-”

“No! Heck no. Just- ugh, nevermind. Move over!”

I only had a fraction of a second of warning - Cassie is about to glomp you - before my lap was swept clean of jewelry and replaced by a warm, soft, supple body. Distracted by the smell of strawberries and the tantalizing sensation of flesh that I’d been missing throughout my day of murder and violence, I only barely managed to drop the majority of the displaced pawn shop loot into my Inventory.

Cassie jolted at the appearance of the blue dimensional rift, reclining back in my arms in order to fix me with a silent, expectant stare.

“Dimensional Inventory,” I explained simply, reaching my arm out towards her face. That same rift opened up right in front of her wide eyes, my hand reaching into the void-like space and withdrawing a small, chipped-looking garnet.

“Oooh…” Cassie breathed, staring at the gem, and my hand, like they were pieces of space-age technology. “Sick. Does that mean you don’t need that super heccin’ awesome Bag of Holding anymore…?”

“Nah. You can have it-”

“Yes!”

“If you stop procrastinating and tell me what’s going on.”

“No!”

I smiled in spite of myself. “Cass…”

“I know, I knowww,” she sighed, turning away from the gemstone and nestling herself deeper into my warm embrace. I dropped the garnet back down on the couch, letting it roll over and join some of its other imperfect brethren in the creases, and wrapped my arms around her comparatively tiny body. “I’m sorry. I know you’re busy, and just got back from fighting God knows how many people. Especially that stuff with Lung. I really shouldn’t be bullshitting like this…”

“It’s alright,” I murmured, right hand rubbing warm, gentle circles on the small of her back. There wasn’t much else I could think to say at the moment, so I didn’t say anything else.

That seemed to be the correct answer, judging by the small smile on Cassie’s face.

“Thank you. We- uh, I guess, they got ambushed by Purity, Night, Fog, and a bunch of nazis in white robes en route to Downtown. Purity started off by shooting Sherrel’s truck with lasers, and apparently Sherrel’s a big fan of your lasers because she shot her lasers and… there were a lot of lasers. Everywhere. I think she called it her ‘laser piss’.” Cassie enunciated her words with small, sweeping gestures of her hands, ‘laser piss’ being pantomimed with the wiggling of all ten fingers.

I simply nodded my head encouragingly. “Uh-huh.”

“Imp had gone to Medhall using her super ninja powers to sneak in, so it was just Trainwreck, Sherrel, and Deadman’s squad against all these racist assholes. And Jay, it was fucking chaos. Beautiful chaos. Sherrel was playing laser tag with Purity while screaming at the top of her lungs, Trainwreck had a frickin’ rocket hammer that he was using to beat down like a dozen men at once, and gunshots were happening, and I-... I was here. On comms. Eating doritos and drinking soda. Being fucking useless again.”

Cassie is despondent. Cassie is ashamed. Cassie is-

Ohhh.

My hand found the sullen girl’s chin, thumb and forefinger pinching the pale flesh slightly before I tilted her head up to meet my gaze. More than what Hidden Intuition could whisper into my ear with it being on its lowest setting, my eyes could read Cassie like an open book - weeks of doing just that amplifying my insightfulness. There was an almost non-existent wetness there; frustration tears more than sadness, and she was struggling not to break eye contact. 

However, there was also a fire. 

Nearly snuffed out by self-pity and disappointment, but I could see it. Feel it. 

She wanted to grow.

“If you’re dissatisfied with being the overwatch,” I murmured, arching an eyebrow. “What do you want to be, Cassie? Before, closer to when we first met-”

Her face became stormy, but the anger wasn’t directed at me - it was directed at herself. “I said that I wanted to stay away! I know. But this isn’t, like… gah! It’s not logical. It’s embarrassing. But I- I want to be up there. With you. Even if I can’t match everything you do, I don’t want to always be the girl behind the computer screen. I… want to stand proud beside you, and Amy. I want to be your sorceress. I…” 

Cassie doesn’t want to be left behind.

The raw earnestesness in her voice was moving. Even I, a man who’d long accepted the fact that apathy was a major staple in his existence, felt shivers roll down my spine at the passionate, if clumsy speech. 

Empowering Cassie to the point where she could fight alongside me… it had never been something I’d necessarily care to explore, since she seemed content and fine staying behind the computer and playing Oracle, but I couldn’t lie - the thought appealed to me on multiple levels. At some point I’d simply accepted the fact that I would have to walk the bloody path of a spellblade on my own, and the women I’d come to love would simply support and be there for me after I’d run the gauntlet of pain for the evening. Amy wasn’t a fan of ‘heroing’, and Cassie herself had already said that she’d prefer staying away from the violence, even with Weapon Magic.

But how could I, as a bonafide magic geek and power hoarder, refuse my girlfriend when she so desperately wanted an avenue to ascend? 

I just couldn’t. And, with the perks in my possession, I wouldn’t have to.

“Fine,” I smirked, tilting my head.

Cassie blinked. “Fine?”

“Fine. We’ll upgrade you from ‘Support’ to ‘Mid-Lane’. How ‘bout that?”

“... Wait. Is this a reference to-”

Power-Granting Deal knew what I was going to do before I even did it.

Silver and gold magicka bled from my body in a sudden burst, filling the room with a sensation that could only be described as overwhelming. Human instincts that I was no longer privy to took hold of Cassie, her eyes going wide and her body attempting to scramble away from me and my shroud of mana, but I held her in place and willed a nicely sized chunk of my magic into her. It lurched forward immediately, surrounding her small form like a particularly dense mist, and she let out a loud, startled groan as it began absorbing into every pore of her body.

For me, it was akin to losing maybe ten percent of my maximum mana. Not the worst deal to make, considering I could recover and grow past that expenditure with a few days of training and experimentation, but for Cassie…

It had to have felt like being dipped into the fucking Pool of Rebirth.

I held her for a few more seconds as the shroud of magic slowly, but surely, disappeared into her shivering body. When it was over, Cassie started wriggling like a caterpillar to slip out of my grasp - so I let her go.

She stumbled onto her feet.

“Jason.” The newly christened sorceress pointed an accusatory finger at me, still shivering from the after-effects of being pumped full with dense magical energy.

“Yo.”

“Jay!”

“Wassup?”

“Ooh, you fucking- what the heck was that light show?!” Cassie glowered at me, drawing her finger back and placing both of her hands on her hips. “My stomach feels… full, in this super weird, super unnatural way. And my skin - it feels all tingly and goosebumpy, but it doesn’t feel bad? I swear if you just gave me Parahuman Syphilis or something, I’m gonna-”

What.

“Woaaah!” I coughed, my nonchalant mask breaking away into incredulity. “Where the fuck did that even come from?”

Cassie pouted. “I don’t know! I’m sleepy, okay? And today has been very, very hectic. I saw people die! I’ll cry if you question me, mister.”

“You-”

Her lip quivered, black eyes growing wide and soulful as she stared down at me.

“... Fine,” I breathed, running a hand through my dreads. “No, it’s not- heh, Parahuman Syphilis. It’s magic.”

Please no Scion. Please no Scion. Please no-

… I think we’re good.

“... Riiight, and I’m the Queen of England.” Cassie deadpanned, a faux disgusted sneer curling at her pink lips. “Jeez, Jay, I didn’t think you’d take the roleplay out of the bedroom. Fucking nerd."

“Do me a favor,” I replied calmly, ignoring the snarkiness with the patience of a Saint.

“Huh?”

“Hold out your hand.”

I could tell that the utter confidence and seriousness in my voice, combined with the fact that I didn’t take her bait, unsettled Cassie. Still jittery from the mana transference, she inched closer and did as asked, holding her small hand out towards me with the palm facing upwards. I stood as well, a rose gold ring falling off of my lap and clattering onto the floor, and held her wrist in a loose, gentle grip. 

It was time to bullshit until I won.

“You can feel the mana, right? There should be something like a ‘core’ - I feel it on my chest, in the same spot my new tattoo encircles. Yours should be in a similar spot.”

Cassie squinted at me with uncertainty. “Jay…”

“Trust me, woman. You know you can.”

She made a quiet whimpering noise beneath her breath, biting her bottom lip and staring back down at her palm.  “Okay. Right. Just a ‘mana core’. Channel your inner Morrigan, girl…”

Moments passed - seconds at first, and then minutes. Slowly yet surely, her eyes fluttered close.

I stayed silent, taking the brief lull to go over my plans for the night- or, rather, the morning.

Fenja and Menja were both dead - Menja having broken her spine and neck on impact with the ground after my spear launch, and Fenja bested in melee combat after I had canceled my Time Stop. There were no regrets there; they were both fully grown adults, comfortably past the age where ‘I didn’t know any better!’ worked as an excuse. 

Othala, however… she was currently time-locked in my Sapphire Arch.

I could’ve executed her on the spot. After slaying Fenja, I’d gone back to the wreckage of the Rolls-Royce. Othala had been hanging halfway out the front windshield, broken and splattered with blood, glass shards embedded in folds of frayed and torn skin. At some point after Kaiser’s death, whatever drive she had in her to keep his Invincibility going had completely dried up, and she’d fallen unconscious. If I hadn’t killed her, then it was inevitable that she’d either die from blood loss or wake up to her entrails being chewed on by a fox or something. Things hadn’t been looking good for her.

It was only due to my crystal clear memory of her being a fucking pushover, lovesick pansy that stopped me from removing her from her mortal coil.

Othala was only a little bit older than Rune, born and raised by the KKK and married off to a powerful man several years her elder in an alley-oop bid to connect a bunch of redneck white supremacists through blood relations. I didn’t hold much empathy for her or her weak-willed spirit, but if Rune’s spitfire ass hadn’t killed or tortured anyone… I knew full well that Othala didn’t.

She was a neo-nazi. She was fucking despicable. But she was also a fucking kid, and while I was all for murderizing the adults… I could freely admit that I didn’t want to have to do the same to a couple of teenagers who still had the capacity to change and do better in life.

So I had stabilized her with a glance, and took her. Not to try and play ‘neo-nazi therapist’ like I’d done with Rune, but to drop her ass off at the PRT Headquarters first thing in the morning - after I got a few hours of shut-eye and maybe a breakfast burrito. Hell, she was apparently best friends with Rune. Maybe I could throw in a two-for-one deal, get them both out of my hair all in one visit. 

I knew what I said before, about wanting to use Fuck the Darkness in order to magically purge the racism out of her, but honestly… I was about over the white supremacy bullshit. Maybe I was a fickle ass motherfucker, but I’d leave the rehabilitation to the professionals. I’d already made it abundantly clear to the both of them that I, a single black man, was superior to them and their entire fucking organization. If they still found some way to shit on my race after that, well… lobotomy was probably the only fix for that amount of sheer idiocy.

‘Alright, boom - so the move is: Try to make some Infused jewelry, pass the fuck out, wake up, grab Tammi, get a burrito, dump neo-nazi children off to the PRT Daycare Center, and then-’

“I got it…”

I flinched, knocked out of my inner thoughts by Cassie’s low, shaky whisper.

“What’s up, cutie?”

“The magic,” she responded louder, excitedly. “Holy shit! I- I don’t know if it’s actually magic or if you’re just being cringe to fuck with me, but it’s there, like you said. In my chest! It’s kinda hard to explain, but I sorta… grabbed it with my mind, and made it move around my body? This is so frickin’ cool!”

Her excitement was palpable. 

I grinned, sliding my finger down from her wrist to her palm. Her skin was clammy, beaded with a thin layer of sweat that explained the flushed redness of her cheeks, but I didn’t mind the sensation. “Good, good. Let the magicka flow through you…”

“Boooo, low hanging fruit.” Cassie snickered, her face bright with energy.

“Fair enough. Seriously though, getting familiarized with how your mana flows is important. I envision mine as a waterfall crashing into an ocean - helps me visualize what I’m workin’ with a bit more, but I’m pretty sure it’s gonna be different for you.”

“A ‘waterfall crashing into an ocean of stars’... yeah, sounds about right,” she snorted, closing her eyes again. “This doesn’t feel very… watery, though. Or, I guess, spacey. It kinda feels like… candy?”

“Candy?” I parroted, my eyes roaming back down to her palm.

Cassie snickered again, shaking her head helplessly. There was something almost nostalgic in the way that she smiled. “That was a bad analogy. Maybe more like a candy dispenser? Like- one of those old school gumball machines they keep at the front of hair salons to distract the little kiddies.”

“But how does that equate to channeling your mana?” I asked, half out of genuine curiosity and half just to keep her attention focused on the topic at hand.

Her eyes snapped open to narrow at me. “I don’t know! It’s hard to explain, but that’s my story and I’m sticking to it! Plus, it’s a lot cuter than a freaking waterfall.”

“Uh-huh. ‘Kay then, Willy Wonka, how about we try out your first spel-”

The sound of a distant door slamming, and the humming of servos, yanked the both of us out of our own little worlds. 

Pod 084 hovered into the living room at an impressive speed, seemingly coming from the Training Hall’s attached corridor. I straightened up, both Cassie and I turning towards the small AI as he swung his little mechanical body in front of us and blinked his head-bulb yellow.

“This Pod apologizes for interrupting Master and Mistress, but Overdrive and Trainwreck requests Master’s presence in the Training Hall.” His ‘head’ turned from Cass to me as he hovered there, as stoic and calm as a featureless robot could be.

I, however, was a tad confused.

“Trainwreck’s here?” I blinked, turning my gaze to a puzzled looking Cassie. “Since when?”

“We-”

“Overdrive and Trainwreck returned to the Sanctum approximately three hours, seventeen minutes, and forty six seconds ago, alongside Empire Eighty-Eight cape ‘Purity’.” 84 intoned before Cassie could get a full word in. The bulb on his head flickered green as he clenched and unclenched his mechanical grippers. “Invictus now has two neo-nazi prisoners. Proposal: Erschießen.”

I had no idea what ‘Erschießen’ meant, but something told me that it probably wasn’t anything good. Either that, or German was just a scary sounding language by default.

Probably both.

Regardless…

“Purity’s not dead?”

“Well!” Cassie lurched forward before 84 could interrupt, pressing a hand against his blocky metal ‘face’ and pushing him away. “... No, she’s not. But! You should’ve seen her, Jay - she was sobbing facedown in the street, and Sherrel was yanking her by her hair and… I didn’t want her to just execute the woman! Th-that’s not cool.”

… 

I sighed. 

“No, it isn’t. You made the right call,” I grumbled, rubbing the bridge of my nose. “Screw it. Magic lessons will have to resume later - lead the way, 84. Let’s see what’s goin’ on.”

“Affirmative.”

“Ugh…” Cassie scowled as she followed behind, annoyance clear in her voice. “This had better be good. I was literally five minutes away from learning Meteor Shower!”

“This Pod is unfamiliar with the spell, ‘Meteor Shower’. Congratulations on being such a well-learned magic user, Mistress. Respect has increased.”

“Wait- you know about this ‘magic’ business too?!”

“Affirmative. This Pod is equipped with the technology and magical capacity to emulate any spells programmed into its coding.”

“...”

Ignoring the two holes being burned into the side of my skull by an envious midget in the oversized shirt, I focused my attention on the large gilded door looming ahead. The Training Hall was the only soundproof room in the Sanctum - a necessity considering why it was named what it was named - so if there were problems occurring inside, we wouldn’t have been able to tell from the living room

Then again, I felt like 84 would’ve been a bit more harried in his delivery of the news if Purity was tossing building-destroying laser beams around.

‘Guess there’s only one way to find out.’

Cracking my neck, I stepped forward…

And kicked the door wide open.

______________________________________

Perks Accepted:

N/A.

600 CP remaining!

A/N:

A bit of a filler chapter to tie things together, but don't worry - next chapter we'll be moving onto actual business! A few important things happened, though:

1. Cassie has been given an actual decent magic core!

2. Jason has decided to cleanse his hands of all the crazy white girls at once.

3. Trainwreck and Sherrel wants something??

Cassie gaining actual magic was a long time coming, so that shouldn't be too surprising to any of you, but the idea to hand Tammi over to the PRT hit me just the other day. Back when I first wrote her into the story I had a decent outline of how I wanted her rehabilitation to go, but that has changed since I've decided on the next world and mapped out how the rest of the Worm arc's gonna go. Jason won't really have the time or energy to devote to trying to 'fix' a racist, so... he's just giving her to the PRT.

As simple as that. Sorry if that disappoints some of you, but it is what it is.

A little preview of next chapter's happenings:

Avalon visits the PRT and meets someone rather unexpected!

Invictus has its first official meeting!

Amy makes a stand!