Five minutes after my exchange with Kaecilius, I was in a loose, form-fitting black cotton shirt. It went well enough with what was left of my reactive armor bottoms and boot and my red trench coat.
Jean chose a very appropriate form-fitting red robe.
The portal opened up in an unfamiliar part of the world. The vegetation was thick and lush, the vines were plentiful, and the sun was intense.
"Central America?" I guessed as we began our jog, keeping a brisk pace. Jean kept up easily.
"Eastern Africa," Mordo supplied. "We are somewhere near the border of Kenya and Wakanda. Our target is about half a mile North."
"Wakanda?" I asked, with some surprise. "Don't tell me the invasion is within their borders."
"You know of Wakanda's intolerance?" Mordo observed. "That information is not so easy for outsiders to come by."
"It's kinda my superpower, knowing things," I said enigmatically, and Kaecilius snorted.
"You're a brawler and a bad one at that if the New York Sanctum is to be believed. You're worse than the rest of your ilk and hardly educated in the ways of magic. Why do you deserve an honor that no one has held for decades?" he demanded with a bitter glare.
Specieism and Jealousy. I couldn't say I didn't see that coming.
I could've handled the situation a number of ways--picking apart his insecurity about never being quite good enough or putting the beat down on him-- but I settled on a demonstration of superiority.
"Devil's eye," I intoned, and my eyes flared red. Kaecilius hopped back with practiced grace.
"He's attacking!" he immediately called as he brought his hands together, eldritch sigils flaring between them before coalescing into a yellow ball covered in runes.
He launched it at me at startling speeds, and I summoned Rebellion, filling it with angel energy as I parried the shot, sending it flying into the forest, where it ate through most of the trunk of a large tree.
I would've been impressed by the obscure attack if I wasn't so fucking angry.
I finally got a chance to scan through his description.
Kaecilius
Master of the mystic art and ardent follower of Yao. He believes she's the foremost master of magic on Earth and is ardently working towards the title of Sorcerer Supreme. He believes he can bring back his lost wife and son with the power of the Time stone.
Mordo and Kaecilius looked at me with equal parts respect and fear, a sentiment mirrored in everyone present except Jean.
"You shouldn't try to bring them back," I told Kaecilius. "The dead are better left dead."
Kaecilius's eldritch mandalas, which he'd held up this entire time, flickered as the man's eyes widened.
"H-how did you," he sputtered, but before he could get another word out, we heard a loud splatter above us. Jean had her hand raised as a shower of gore and viscera rained down.
From what was left of the carcass, I deduced it was a small demon with a very large eye and small, stumpy limbs.
"A Watcher!" Mordo roared, his body shifting into a combat stance. "Kaecilius!" he yelled as he and a few other Sorcerers threw up a complicated shield. Kaecilius, for his part, had already snapped out of his fear-induced stupor and was weaving a complicated spell.
He slapped his hands together, and a wave of silvery light erupted from them. Several spots shimmered in the air, and 20 demons winked into existence. They must've been cloaked by some kind of illusion magic.
They gave an accurate view of what a healthy Watcher looked like-- Deep red, black irises, and stumpy limbs that seemed to exist only for decoration. What I found the most alarming, however, was that they had no wings. They floated in the air, aided by some unseen force.
Upon discovery, their irises lit up as they released a high-pitch keening sound.
"Backline, ready your spells," Mordo roared. "Frontline, brace."
Multiple beams of silvery light punched through the air, slamming into the golden barrier the sorcerers erected. Mordo and his sorcerers groaned as the beams refracted, scattering into the forest around us. Everything they touched instantly turned to stone.
Our backline finally fired a moment later, shooting identical balls of eldritch force at the Watchers. Their attack picked off a few surprised Watchers while others drifted out of the way.
In the far distance, I saw two large mutated Rhinos barreling at our fortification. They were nearly one foot taller than any Rhino I'd ever seen in the picture book. They had patches of skin colored crimson, and most of their faces, shoulders, and necks were covered with black horn tissue.
If they hit our barrier, I knew it'd be game over. So, I pulled out Ebony and used Focused shot.
The difference in energy tier was night and day. What would've taken me 5 seconds to fill was done in 4, and I noticed the cost also dropped from 25 DE to around 20.
My bullet ripped through the Eldritch Magic Shield, traveling faster than the eye could track, and speared through the skull of one of the charging Rhino demons. Its body flipped over, throwing the second Rhino off balance.
Congratulations, you've killed a blood-warped Rhinoceros Demon. 50 Red Orbs.
Jean reached out to the second beast and closed her hand. I was treated to a familiar scene. The monster collapsed in on itself. Limbs snapped, neck twisted, spine shrunk and shattered.
You'd think that after killing for months, I'd be used to the gore, but the sight put the fear of God in me and the rest of the Sorcerers and the Watchers, apparently. Their full attention turned to Jean and me, and their eyes lit up.
Big mistake.
I transformed Rebellion to Ophion, tossing the weapon at the closest offender, and yanked him out of the sky and into our enclosure. Mordo had the sense to let the beast phase through.
It tried to fire its eye ray, but I sucker-punched it, sending it flying back, and yanked it back down to the ground again with a forceful jolt.
I nodded at Jean. "No time like the present."
"You w-want me to try and," she paused, looking around us, "do the thing?"
"You have to start somewhere," I said. "What better place to start than this faceless asshole."
She sighed in defeat and approached the monster with some hesitation. The Watcher, who had some sense of what was about to happen, was trying to backpedal with its tiny arms, but it was getting nowhere fast.
Jean placed her hand on the panicking, struggling monster and scrunched her face in nervous determination while I watched patiently and charged up another Focused shot.
"What are you doing?" Kaecilius demanded.
"Testing a little theory," I answered casually, sniping another floating eye.
Congratulations: You've earned 20 Red Orbs.
"The battlefield is no place for experimen—"
The Watcher Jean had under her telepathic hold suddenly began to shake violently before exploding in a shower of blood and viscera.
Jean looked up at me, a bit dejected.
"It's your first swing at this," I said imploringly, "of course, you're not going to get it straight away." I looked up at the protection barrier, which had grown considerably thinner. Only three watchers were left.
When we approached the Ancient One about our plans to train up Jean's mental invasion skills, she thought we were crazy, but the longer she considered it, the more sense it made.
It was certainly less risky for Jean to explore her powers in the midst of a demon invasion than in a city full of people.
"Why don't we try Telekinesis next?" I asked. "This fight looks about done anyway."
"Alright," she said, raising a hand and gathering herself. All three watchers released a shriek as they were pulled into the barrier. Two of the three popped because Jean had used a little more pressure than she was supposed to. The surviving eye looked like it would've shat itself if it could.
She deflated at the sight.
"Two out of three this time," I grinned. "Those aren't bad odds."
My bad joke got a smile out of Jean.
"It's miles worse than what I could do before. Six years of training gone in an instant."
"True," I agreed, "but you're the strongest telepath on earth now. I'll say it's a worthwhile trade."
Jean blushed slightly, then sighed, placing her hand on the sides of the monster's head. She had a determined air about her. This time, her subject lasted all of 15 seconds before it exploded, bathing her in viscera.
"See, already improving," I said with a thumb up as she used an overenthusiastic telekinetic burst to send the gore flying from her attire.
I took a bold step back, avoiding most of it, but some other sorcerers weren't as lucky.
Jean covered her mouth in embarrassment. "Oh my gosh. I'm so sorry."
I chuckled at the sight and turned around see Mordo and Kaecilius approaching us slowly.
"Is this mission some game to you?" Kaecilius demanded.
"We are here to save the locals and expunge the demon threat," Mordo said. "I implore you to treat this with the gravity it deserves."
"Oh, we are," I said cooly, "the locals are, unfortunately, not our only priority. Jean needs to cram decades of experience into 12 hours or so. So, unless you have a hyperbolic time chamber that I can use, I say let her take some time to figure this out. The fate of the world might very well depend on it."
As for why I wasn't using my own hyperbolic chamber, it hadn't been that long since I left the mansion. Two weeks and some change. I had a week to go before I could create 24 hours of artificial time.
Mordo looked at me in a whole new light, while Kaecilius seemed paralyzed by my sheer audacity.
"So, are we storming the town or what?"
---
We spotted the town after about five minutes of walking, and it looked, unfortunately, familiar.
'Dante,' Jean called mentally.
'Yeah,' I muttered. 'I see the resemblance.'
The town looked like a brutally warped version of my simulacrum.
A mental connection was another thing that had changed between us since we started sharing. I left a small door open in my mind specifically for Jean. It was better to give her a sneak peek inside my head rather than having her storm in.
Jean was no idiot. She knew I was probably keeping things from her, and it was in everybody's best interest that our relationship worked.
Keeping the line open was just another strategy to push back the volatile topic that was my past life. Plus, I couldn't deny the logistical advantages.
The brick-and-mortar houses in the town were fractured and warped by a lingering red energy. The air was thick with it, and the clouds above us had even gained a crimson glow.
Amenities were shrunken and pulsing red, and at the center of the town square was a local two-story church that'd been stretched and lengthened to the size of a mansion.
"Does that happen every time a demon invades?"
"Not every time," Mordo answered, "but they typically prefer establishing a domain before they launch their attacks. It lets them retain about 10-20% of the strength they lost when they cross over. Reality usually restores itself an hour or two after they've been eliminated."
"That's informative," I said. "What kind of demons do you think we're dealing with?"
"A Garok and a Mesmer. Two powerful lesser demons. Mesmers are masters of illusions, and watchers typically do not have petrification magic unless they've been bestowed them by a powerful Garok. They are masters of Geomancy."
"Shouldn't we worry about some kind of Blood demons as well?" Jean asked, voicing my thoughts. "It's just that both Rhinos looked…mutated, for lack of a better word."
She earned strange looks from everybody on the squad. And it was only when Mordo spoke that I understood that they were afraid.
"You would be right," Mordo said slowly, "but blood demons are exceedingly rare and quite potent."
"We'd all be dead if we were indeed dealing with one," Kaecilius said. "They can steal the blood away from your veins with a wave of a hand and use it as weapons to kill the men next to you. The Sorcerer Supreme typically warns us if there's a Blood Demon coming through an incursion."
That was informative…
There was a stretch of silence.
"So," I began, "how do you think we should approach this?"