The Grimoire's Chosen (Worm AU/Celestial Grimoire) (Patreon)

A/N: Well, here we are. This story is officially replacing Chef's Kiss on every other Thursday going forward. Wanted to get the first chapter up and out though to get a bit of a head's start with it. Chapter 2 will come out in the normal time slot on the morning of Thursday the 21st!

For those confused about this, here's a link to each Vibe Check that helped me make this decision to help you catch up. First. Second. Third.

Summary: A young man in an aged-up AU of Worm finds himself with a power that seems to have almost nothing but potential. The Celestial Grimoire. But not all potential is good. Can he navigate the possible pitfalls of the Grimoire while also navigating the life he finds himself leading after gaining more and more strength? Read on and find out!

Be sure to let me know what you think!

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Ding!

Temple & Sanctuary - Domain - 400 Points

In each of the four Realms of New Hyrule lies an ancient temple, built to power the Spirit Tracks and watched over by one of the Lokomo. The Ocean Realm has two, but the fifth temple doesn’t generate power. As I was saying, these temples absorb energy from the land, from what little prayer is still directed to the old gods of Hyrule and the Spirits of Good, and from the simple goodwill of those living nearby.

This energy would normally power the Spirit Tracks, but in the absence of that, it instead channels that energy directly into you. Well, not you specifically. A temple isn’t a very good house, so you’ve also been provided with a small refuge from the prying eyes of the world, a Sanctuary of sorts. The energy is channeled there, in part to maintain its defenses, both physical and mystical. So long as you’re inside the Sanctuary, you have more or less complete control over the energy flowing from the Temple.

You now have 500 points saved up!

Jason lets out a shuddering sigh, not letting on that anything out of the ordinary is happening at the moment. After all, he’s in a public place right now. Specifically, he’s behind the counter of his part-time job, working as a barista in the coffee shop closest to his university.

Besides, by this point the… eccentricities of his power are old hat to him. Five days in and Jason is almost used to being thrown random prompts from his power. Of course, this is the first one that seems to be moderately useful. However, there’s several major issues with this one.

For one, Jason didn’t fucking know what the ‘Realms of New Hyrule’ even were. He lived in America, in Brockton Bay, and while his home was a shithole of epic proportions, that didn’t change the facts. As far as he could tell, there was no such thing as Hyrule. And that meant there probably wouldn’t be much praying directed to the old gods of Hyrule and ‘the Spirits of Good’… to say nothing of there not being much simple good will in most Brocktonites anyways.

On top of that, while the idea of being able to stop paying rent on his apartment and instead move into a hidden ‘Sanctuary’ was appealing to him, it said nothing about the Temple that came along with the Sanctuary being hidden too. Jason could just picture it, him paying four hundred points for this power, only for the Temple to sprout up around him, utterly annihilating the coffee shop and half of the city block. Or even if it wasn’t that unintuitive, it would probably still show up nearby, likely on the city outskirts… and attract the attention of the authorities in a heartbeat.

No. While Jason might have the points for it, he doesn’t actually want to spend practically all of his saved up points on Temple & Sanctuary. Luckily, he doesn’t have to.

Pass.

Just the thought causes the prompt to disappear. From what he understands of his powers, of this ‘Celestial Grimoire’, he might pull it again one day, but for now, he’s passed on the opportunity and will have to wait for another power to come up. It’s funny, he’d been so excited when he first realized he was a parahuman.

Well no, first he’d been freaked out. But once he realized he wasn’t going crazy and he had actual powers, he was definitely a little excited. Especially because his power reminded him a little bit of Eidolon, the most powerful hero in the world. Eidolon’s powers allowed him to have any three powers at any time. In comparison, Jason’s powers apparently allowed him to save up points and then every day or so, offer him something he could buy with those points.

As far as he could tell, those powers, once he bought them, should be permanent… and while he didn’t know if there was an upper limit to how many powers he could buy, it certainly seemed like it had the potential to get out of hand in a good way. Unfortunately, he’d quickly realized that it had the potential to get out of hand in a bad way as well. Not to mention, his powers were a lot more unwieldy then Eidolon’s were, on account of him having to pay for them for some ungodly reason.

His first few offers had either been way too expensive or came with detrimental side effects like Temple & Sanctuary. Seeing how Jason only got a hundred new points with each ‘pull’ of his power, he had to admit that he was playing things safe and being as conservative as possible… but at the same time, he figured he had to get something usable soon enough, right?

“… Hey Taylor.”

“Yeah?”

“What would you do if you had superpowers?”

He doesn’t look up from the drink he’s currently making as he questions his coworker, Taylor Hebert. Technically, she’s both his subordinate and a colleague. Younger than him by a couple years, a brand new Freshman at the University, she doesn’t have quite the seniority he does. But at the same time, it’s not like Jason is a manager or anything in this shithole of a coffee shop. No, he’s just ‘Senior Barista on Duty’, which as can probably be guessed, comes with all of the work of being a manager, but none of the benefits or increased pay. Yay.

Taylor is quiet for a time after his question, but Jason doesn’t worry too much about it. The young woman is quiet by her very nature, and also rather thoughtful from what Jason has observed so far. She’s probably just giving his question its due diligence really. And indeed, after a moment…

“… I’d use them to help people.”

Jason smiles slightly. It sounds like a canned response, but he knows better. Taylor is being sincere right now.

“Oh? What if your powers weren’t very good for helping people? Or what if they were particularly unwieldy?”

Another comfortable silence between them as they continue working. Jason doesn’t get impatient. They’ve both got a few more hours left in their shifts after all, so they have all the time in the world. Finally, Taylor speaks up again.

“Doesn’t matter. I’d find a way. There are too many villains in the world. Too many bad guys. The world… the world needs more heroes. So I’d find a way.”

As she repeats herself, Jason just nods, humming.

“What about being a rogue, maybe? Not committing crimes, not fighting crime… just using your powers for your own ends to make some money? You and I both know you could use it… so could I.”

This time around, Taylor doesn’t hesitate very long at all. Even though Jason knows he’s right, even though he knows she still lives at home with her dad and that the whole reason she’s working this job is to help her old man make ends meet. She doesn’t even need to think about it.

“That would be selfish. Selfishness is what got us to where we are now in the first place.”

Jason just chuckles, lifting his head up at long last as he sets the latest finished drinks in the ‘out window’ with the names scrawled on them facing outward. As a result, he sees their newest customer approaching the front door before Taylor does, his words to his coworker dying on his lips as he instead changes tact immediately.

“Swap.”

Taylor doesn’t question it. He might not be a manager, but as ‘Senior Barista’, he was still in charge of the shop during their shifts. He could have left her to do everything up front while he pretended to work in the back, but Jason liked hanging out with people, and he actually didn’t mind sharing the load with Taylor. She was a good sort. That’s why, when he sees a familiar red head approaching the door, he calls for Taylor and him to switch places.

As Taylor moves over to the workstation, Jason moves to the cash register… just in time for Emma Barnes to finish her approach. She has a sweet smile on her admittedly beautiful face, though the way her eyes dart to Taylor makes it clear she’s upset that she won’t get to address the young woman directly. In fact, Jason’s quick thinking doesn’t stop her from doing so, at least a little bit.

“Hey Taylor! Fancy seeing you here today!”

Emma’s voice is disgustingly sweet, Jason notes. It’s crazy how good the beautiful red head is at sounding both well-intentioned and poisonous at the same time. Truthfully, he doesn’t know everything that there is between Emma and Taylor. All he really knows is that the first girl has it in for the second, and if they were any younger, Emma would be Taylor’s bully through and through. As it is, she’s just Taylor’s chief tormentor, showing up like clockwork on most of the young woman’s shifts in order to be a royal pain in the ass.

Unfortunately, there’s nothing that either he or Taylor can do about it. Neither of them can really afford to lose this job at the end of the day. And he doesn’t have the authority to ban Emma from the shop. Senior Baristas don’t have that right, go figure.

However, there are ways he can alleviate the issue at least a little bit. Before Taylor feels forced to answer Emma, Jason speaks up, a broad smile on his face and his voice as loud and chipper as ever.

“Hi there, welcome to The Bean Shop! May I take your order?”

Emma barely spares him a glance.

“The usual, please.”

Even her ‘please’ manages to sound less polite and more insanely contempt-filled and dismissive. But Jason isn’t going to let her have this one.

“Sorry, my memory is pretty bad. Please remind me what your usual is?”

Now Emma is forced to give him her full attention. From what he knows about her, the red head is a model. Went straight from high school into being on the front covers of magazines. No university for her. Clearly, she’s a bit of a spoiled brat and used to getting her way.

“Oh, sure.”

Then, without hesitation, the red head immediately begins listing out the most ridiculous, overly complicated drink that one could ever imagine. Jason doesn’t hesitate to punch it in though, every single request Emma makes is something that’s allowed in the computer program that the shop runs on, so it’s not even hard. That doesn’t mean the drink itself won’t be stupidly difficult to actually create by hand, however.

Just as Taylor is grabbing a cup and preparing to try to do so though, Jason clears his throat, letting his voice get a little gruff.

“Taylor, I need you in the back to put that latest shipment in the freezer.”

Taylor pauses, but before she can unthinkingly question him, Jason all but barks at her.

“Now, Taylor.”

“U-Uh… y-yes sir.”

With that, the tall, willowy coed hurries into the back of the shop, leaving a flummoxed Emma to stare after her, her mouth slightly ajar in surprise. Until Jason finally speaks up, smiling slightly.

“Sorry, good help is so hard to find these days, you know? You can tap, swipe, or insert your card whenever, ma’am.”

Looking back at him, it’s clear that the red head doesn’t know whether to be angry with him or happy with him. Finally, she smiles sweetly and presses her credit card against the scanner until it beeps, signifying that the payment has gone through.

“Oh, I know exactly what you mean. I actually knew Taylor in high school if you’ll believe it… she was always such a slacker back then. Still incredible to me that she’s going to university! Really, they’ll accept anyone these days! You know-!”

As Jason prepares Emma Barnes’ insanely complex, ridiculously complicated drink, the red head drones on and on about Taylor, badmouthing the other woman now that she’s no longer there. It would seem Emma had decided Jason is an ally in her torment of Taylor at this point, rather than an obstacle. If only she knew.

Regardless, he largely tunes out the young woman, barely listening to the increasingly outlandish things she’s trying to lay at poor Taylor’s feet. Finally though, just as Emma is winding down from one story and trying to gather steam for the next, he places her drink in front of her with a big smile on his face.

“All done, ma’am. Here you go.”

“I- oh! Well… thank you.”

Her hesitation makes it obvious that she was definitely planning to say there was something wrong with the drink originally, back when she thought Taylor would be making it. But now… well, she just takes it from him, gives him a flirtatious wink and grin, and turns to begin heading out. Jason wonders if she really thinks he doesn’t notice her throwing the drink in the trashcan just outside once she leaves, but in the end he supposes it doesn’t matter. Crisis averted for now.

He-

Ding!

Flash Air - Domain - 400 Points

Flash Air is a displacement Magecraft that substitutes one thing for another. It can be used to change the makeup of a building displacing doors and windows to different locations. By displacing a portion of space it can also create portals that lead from one spot to another, this can be used to shift projectiles to a different trajectory or to cause an opponent's attacks to hit themselves for example.

You now have 600 points saved up!

What? That was… way too fast. His power had just gone from once a day to twice in under an hour. What the hell was going on? More than that, Jason reads the description of this ‘Flash Air’… and then reads it again. And again. For a long moment, he just stands there, frozen in place. Fortunately, it’s a slow time of day and nobody else comes up to the counter while he’s having his out of body experience.

Flash Air… seemed ridiculously overpowered. It was expensive too, but his bearish attitude towards his power was apparently paying off, because he had enough to buy it. And better still, it didn’t seem to have any obvious detrimental effects like making a whole-ass temple that would cause the relevant authorities to come down on his head and investigate.

Jason finds himself thinking back to his short conversation with Taylor about powers and what to do with them. And… he smiles as he finally purchases his first power.

Keep.

Flash Air Purchased! 200 Points Remain!

Immediately, knowledge of ‘Flash Air’ enters his mind. He knows what he can do with it on a purely intuitive level… and he also knows what others far better than him were able to do with it in the past. Jason’s eyes widen a little at some of the things they managed to accomplish… as well as the implication that there were other wielders of this power before him to begin with.

As far as he knew, parahuman powers weren’t supposed to work like that. They weren’t supposed to be passed down. But then, at the same time, the Celestial Grimoire was entirely unlike almost any power he’d ever heard of before.

Smiling slightly, Jason looks down at the counter, hidden behind the large industrial coffee machine. He pulls two cups down from the stacks of plastic cups off to the side, each of different sizes. And then… he uses Flash Air to swap their locations. It’s a very minor application of his power. He knows that beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he can do so much more with this. But a small giggle leaves Jason’s throat all the same.

He had power. Real power.

Of course, he also still had a real job to take care of. Someone comes up to the counter and Jason has to focus back on the mundanity of his day to day existence, even as applications for Flash Air fill his every spare thought.

The hours both drag on and fly by from there, with Taylor eventually coming back up front to help him. But they don’t exchange another word with each other, Jason too lost in his own thoughts and Taylor too naturally quiet to engage him herself.

Or at least, that’s what he assumes because after night has fallen and they close up the shop, Taylor does actually speak up while they’re finishing things up in the back.

“… Thanks. For earlier.”

Jason lets out a startled little laugh.

“Oh, don’t mention it. Hate entitled, spoilt bitches like that. Consider it my civic duty, real-mmph!”

Mid-sentence, he finds himself going wide-eyed as Taylor suddenly seizes him by the front of his shirt and pulls him into a kiss. It’s not a very experienced kiss… but it is a kiss, nonetheless. It also lasts for quite a while, a good twenty seconds of awkward lip smacking and tongue entanglement. When Taylor finally pulls back, her face is flushed and her eyes are wide, as if she can hardly believe what she’s just done. Jason, meanwhile, is wondering what HE should do in response…

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A/N: Will try to keep this up to date at the end of every chapter, get on me if I forget please. Though if it gets too out of hand, might have to change it at some point.

Jason's current banked points:

200 Celestial Points

Jason's current powers:

- Flash Air (Gained in Chapter 1)