Sell you a Bridge chapter 87 (Patreon)

Tower of Fate August 19th 2010 8:30 PM EDT

Despite  my initial hesitation Zee assured me that a magical oath was plenty  safe for us. Kent didn't really care us much about the whole hero vs.  thief thing either. When your main job is defeating eldritch entities  and stopping hordes of monsters, petty larceny just isn't a priority. In  the end it was my aura sense that sealed it. I could tell they both  genuinely believed this oath would make us revealing ourselves safe, and  I knew enough about magic fro my research to believe it myself.

We  still wouldn't be telling him any of my secrets mind you, but taking  our masks off would be necessary to put Artemis at ease to take off  hers, especially with her current emotional state after that mess with  Wally. My best friend needed me to do this, and so I did, removing my  mask after the oath along with Reggie and Kit. With the three of us  acting already Artemis couldn't exactly back out, so she grudgingly  nodded and pulled her own mask up, nodding to Kent as she revealed her  face to the old man.

Honestly  I think it was his retirement from mainstream heroing that made her  comfortable enough to do it, even with the oath and us around. Kent gave  a warm smile. "Very well then, now if you ladies can come over here, I  can scan you with a few spells to see what the origin of your current  state might be." This part was...mildly worrying. Zee hadn't expected  him to want to cure her, which in hindsight had been dumb of both of us.  Since he would think this was an accident there was obviously no way he  would leave her transformed if he had a choice.

That  said, I was slightly worried about what he would find in terms of  power. It was my points that created the foundation of the change inside  them, at least if my instincts were right. But by that same token my  points changed reality. So unless he could sense the difference he  shouldn't be able to change or effect them, and i got the impression  that he wouldn't be able to sense it. My powers weren't infallible I  didn't think, but they were good at what they did. Kent muttered a few  words, making swift sharp gestures and tossing out spell after spell.

Luckily  as I expected her got nothing. The old man frowned "That's odd. I can't  detect any changes. Hold on, let me try something else." He said all  this without actually looking up or addressing anyone, and then  immediately went back to his spell work, determined to figure out what  was going on. Golden Ankhs were the main order of the day, though hardly  the only visual effect of his spells, but regardless of what he tried  or how he did it, his face continued to get more and more unhappy. He  couldn't find anything, which was good, because it meant he couldn't  undo the transformation.

He  glared at the girls while the rest of us watched, but not like he was  angry at them, rather it was a glare of frustration because he couldn't  understand what was going on. I admit to a slight internal smirk, though  it might not have been as internal as I's thought because Zee glared at  me as soon as I did it and I had to turn my back to keep from  snickering at the sight of the greatest mortal magic user in the world  nearly pulling out his hair in annoyance at being stumped by my  superpower. Mald harder bro.

Finally  he stalked back over to the best to flip open the book he'd been  reading while the others were here. It only now occurred to me that  asking us to take the masks off hadn't been a comfort thing. Those  things had enchantments on them and were right in front of our brains,  so obviously they might have interfered with the scans. He'd wanted to  get the best possible information. Unfortunately scans or no he was  stumped. He snarled and hurled the book across the room, the massive  tome thunking off one of the shelves and flopping to the floor with a  low boom of impact.

I  almost rolled my eyes at the drama, but I reminded myself that he was  worried about permanent spell work being used on his niece. He didn't  know it was safe, and though he'd said he wasn't worried about her  personality anymore, accidental permanent changes with magic are  literally never a good thing. If not for the fact that I knew it wasn't  an accident at all I would have been worried too, but I trusted my  power. It hadn't steered me wrong so far (temporary screaming agony not  withstanding). I felt for the guy honestly, but I also couldn't feel too  bad, I was still passed at him for what he'd said to Zee, even id she  wasn't. Scared or not he was this old mentor type figure and should have  known better.

Kent  slumped back into the chair behind his desk with a long sigh. "I'm  guessing you won't allow me to tell your father or any of my contacts  about your new...condition?" Zee just raised and eyebrow, and Kent  chuckled. "Damn it girl, you knew I would overcompensate and make that  oath because I felt bad for yelling at you. You worded it broadly so I  couldn't discuss any of this. I'm guessing you're counting on the kids  who left not understanding what was going on? We were talking a bit  vaguely when we discussed your transformation but don't you think  they'll notice that you looked different after the lightning?"

I  grinned, realizing my girlfriend had used the old mans guilt to wrangle  him into accidentally swearing not to reveal ANY of our secrets. He  couldn't talk about her new powers or how she got them without her  permission now. Rather than seeming angry he had a wry smile on his  face, and he rolled his eyes at her shrug. I knew she wouldn't reallty  have ignored something like that, and suspected she'd thrown some sort  of illusion or concealment in front of them we hadn't noticed. I had to  admit I was damn impressed. Zee could be downright devious when she  wanted to be, and I suspect that would worry me if I didn't find it so  damned hot. I frowned mentally, did I have a type?

Kent's  chuckle died down and he sighed. "Well I suppose I can still help you  as best I can. I don't recognize what you've turned into and I have no  clue how to reverse it. I can't find any trace of you being altered at  all in fact, and honestly it just looks like you've always  been...whatever that is. I did manage to detect a few things about your  condition if you'd like to hear them?" Zee's eyes lit up and I knew she  was as excited as I was. Our shared magic nerdiness mad the prospect of  having the sorcerer supreme give us feedback on a race we'd created  ourselves clearly showing on our faces.

Luckily  Kent probably just assumed it was Zee being her normal magically  enthusiastic self, so just smiled dotingly at my girl. Clearly her love  for magic came from him as well as from her parents and he treasured  that quality. Zee stood there for a few seconds waiting before coughign  loudly and gesturing for him to hurry up, clearly not even feeling the  need to bother with a response. Ask a stupid question after all. Asking  Zatanna Zatara if she wanted to hear the details about powerful magic  was like asking a fish if they liked the water.

Kent  conjured up a pipe and lit it with magic, but a harsh glare from Zee  had him dismissing it with a flash of light and a sulk. He cleared his  throat in a disgruntled fashion, clearly trying to steer the  conversation back to the subject at hand before he got yelled at for  smoking in front of a bunch of teenagers. "Well, I was able to identify  several areas of interest. First there appears to be a spark of divinity  in your new form. Not sure how it got there, but it doesn't appear to  belong to any deity I'm familiar with. Which on one hand is concerning  because it means you're tied to an unknown god, but on the other is  slightly comforting because you aren't tied to one of the ones I DO know  about."

We'd  known about that one of course, including the unknown god thing. But he  wasn't done. "Secondly the lightning you used, that unusual attack  magic. I've never seen anything similar before, but even more strange is  that based on my scans, the electrons in your body seem to be made of  it now. It's...refining you, making you more. Though it's doing it  slowly and based on my observations not at a consistent rate. It seems  like it's slowly dropping in activity over time. I suspect when you used  it earlier you charged up your electrons, implying that the more you  use the stuff the more it changes you. I would suggest utilizing the  power sparingly."

I  winced. We'd known about that, Artemis and Zee had both mentioned  feeling like their bloodlines could be taken to a higher level, but  knowing the mechanism was both better and worse. One the one hand it was  soothing because it was clinical. It was just a scientific process that  would lead to them being stronger. But I also knew there was more to  it. That lightning was magic and had powerful concepts embedded in it.  Artemis's description of it still made me uneasy even if I had to trust  that they knew what they were doing.

Kent  went on to tell us more details but I sort of zoned out, they were  mostly things we already new repackaged as new information and i just  didn't care enough to listen. Zee was eating it up, but then she had  always been much more of a nerd than I was. I personally was trying to  come up with ways to circumvent her wards and sneak in to see her if her  dad tried to ground her. I knew she loved her dad and didn't want him  hurt, but I briefly wondered if it would be feasible to Jim drop him in  the ghost roads again, Zee said he seemed fine after coming back, albeit  he was prone to jump scares at weird times now.

Finally  the research part had calmed down and everyone but Zee was looking  bored, so I slipped my mask back on and stepped up next to my  girlfriend. "Baby it's getting late. We kind of have to go. Got to get  you home before your dad is back from his League meeting." We actually  had some time but I was sick of being here and the orb was beginning to  look a bit fuzzy around the edges. She pouted a bit and I resisted the  urge to take my mask back of and kiss her, she'd worn her blueberry  cheesecake lip gloss today and I could smell it from how close we were.  Finally she rolled her eyes and said goodbye.

We  walked out onto the roof for the teleport, still inside the shield but  an easier place to move from and I unpacked the shadow energy in the orb  and threw it down, using it to create a massive long distance portal  and dump all of us just a block from the clock tower. I figured directly  portaling in from Dr. Fate's tower was a bad idea, and even if not  better safe than sorry. Zee waved to her uncle and promised to visit as  we faded away and I wrapped an arm around her waist. I was annoyed I'd  have to deal with her dad but consoled myself that it would probably be  at least a few days and maybe a few weeks before the justice bros got a  sit down with busy sorcerer since even Zee could barely meet with him. I  decided to let it be a problem for future Morgan. Fuck that guy.