You are not looking forward to telling Crystal you have powers. It's probably for the best—honestly you're surprised your notice-me-not on your wand holster has held up the few times you've been shirtless or naked, with a girlfriend you'd have your arms around on a regular basis you have no idea how long it'd work. Still, you're a bit apprehensive.
What you did look forward to was seeing Crystal walk into class with a Ravenclaw-blue hoodie and tuck her hair behind one ear while shooting you a little smile. When she sits next to you she leans over. "I hope you know you're never getting this back, it's too comfortable."
"I find the sacrifice acceptable," you intone gravely, then smile at her soft snort. "Are you up for dinner tonight?"
"Actually I have a team meeting/dinner thing on Mondays, most of the time at least. How about after Sociology? I'd have like an hour, hour and half to hang out."
You shoot her a look out of the corner of your eye. "Is Vicky going to release you from her clutches with me around?"
Crystal's smile dims a bit, then further when she thinks about it. "Ugh. She would, but we should probably leave separately and meet up afterwards unless you feel like dealing with her making a scene about it. I'll have to deal with her so it doesn't come up…" she trails off muttering imprecations about her cousin as class starts.
Your girlfriend does sit next to you in Cape 101, which leads to a grumbly Glory Girl sitting on her other side and shooting you occasional childish glowers. Once again as class ends Crystal is drug off and you apparate back to your apartment to wait for a text that comes a bit later.
C: God, I finally told her to go away, where are you?
I'm at my apartment. :J
C:…is this a joke? How?
Just come, door's open. :J
Even though she's in your hoodie and jeans, it's Laserdream who opens your door minutes later. A crimson bubble snaps over you as she kicks the door closed and keeps her back against the wall. "James…"
You hold up empty hands, still sitting at the kitchen table. "Y'know how you said you were done with heavy stuff 'for the day' yesterday? Well…." You manage a connection even through the shield. She's apprehensive, but it's tightly controlled.
"James."
"Crystal. Look, you're hardly an idiot, and I didn't want to hide it from you—I have powers as well."
The forcefield disappears and she walks over and pulls out a chair. "A mover then?"
"Well, yes. More of a grab-bag, I suppose."
After sitting your girlfriend keeps one hand pointed in your general direction while the other taps on the wood. "I'm going to associate bad news with this table, you know." She sighs, "Is this why Vicky's aura doesn't bother you?" She's hopeful, a burst of memories of guys breaking up with her after dealing with Vicky flashes through her head.
You nod. "I can tell she's using it, but… D'you remember when you and her were in the library a couple of weeks ago?" At her nod you continue, "It's the first time I was around her after I really developed the shield. I went from feeling it pretty normally to feeling like a small child was demanding my attention. Even now I can tell she's using her aura, but it's like getting a text that tells me 'Vicky is angry and would like you to be afraid.' I note it but don't feel it."
The two of you just look at each other for almost a minute before she finally points her hand away and shuts her eyes tight. "Please tell me you're not a villain."
"I am not a villain."
"And you're immune to Vicky?"
"I'm not immune to her fists, but I've been immune to her aura so far." That gets a little smile from her at last.
Her phone dings and she spends a moment responding before looking back up. "There's a posting of me flying off all fast and now Vicky's concerned. I should probably go to my team meeting early to calm her down, but we will be talking about this later. I won't pry too much, but is there anything you want to tell me?"
You can read in her thoughts that she also sent a text about possibly meeting a cape, so she's going to get grilled pretty hard and get a full check-over by Amy. It's their version of M/S protocols, you suppose.
You shrug. "I don't want to take up too much time and have Glory Girl start smashing up the joint, but my powers seem to be magic-themed. Like from fantasy novels, bippity-boppity-boo kind of stuff."
Crystal blinks slowly a couple of times and then pinches her nose. "Are you swishing around saying abracadabra?" She wiggles her fingers at you and you manage not to flinch. There's a fair amount of imported Potterverse memory in your head that makes that kinda cringy.
"Have you or Eric ever played any video games with wizards? Dungeons and Dragons? It's kinda like that. My powers are a theme, like flying Brutes are 'Alexandria Packages'. I just call myself a wizard rather than a cape," You shrug.
"Mmm… I'd like to see what you can do at some point, because now you have me curious. Anyhow, I hope you have a decent mask, because a long wizard beard would be really obvious and not actually hide the way you look." She reaches across the table and rubs at your chin. "Don't do the beard, you look good with just stubble."
You manage to channel your slight embarrassment into a cough before you speak. The twinkle in Crystal's eye at your reaction is nice to see. "Anyway, I've found what I think is Squealer's workshop, or one of them at least. Lots of vehicles with bits bolted on, one of them was broken and kind of going part-invisible. She wasn't there but plenty of guards were so I just bugged out."
Crystal looks interested, but then checks her phone and sighs. "I gotta go, but are you sure you weren't seen?"
"I'm sure, I was like a ninja—in and out."
"You can't be both a ninja and a wizard James, you need to pick one or the other." She gets up and gives you a hug before stopping at the door. "Do you already have a name picked out?"
You nod, "Warlock. Didn't seem to be taken."
She points a finger at you, "You just picked it because it has 'war' in it, didn't you? You picked it because it sounds cool."
You point a finger right back. "Don't you be putting that crap on me, Laserdreamy." You finish off by clasping your hands under your chin and fluttering your eyelashes.
Crystal shakes a fist at you comically and opens the door. "I'll text you later."
Later is apparently five minutes after she leaves.
C: I thought of calling you 'winja' as a wizard-ninja,
C: but that sounds way too cool for you
C: so you are hereby named
C: ninzard :)
:/ :J
I think I want my hoodie back. :J
Also don't text and fly :J
It's illegal, and I'm calling the cops:J
After Crystal leaves you really just want to work the residual stress of your reveal out. Rather than do research you just pop over to your lair and mask up, then head to that Trainyard warehouse you looked at a couple of weeks ago to blast some things. You're not so stressed as to not check the joint over for humans and throw up some basic wards before you start, though.
Unsurprisingly, blowing things the fuck up is really, really satisfying. While you probably wouldn't be able to write an essay on the differences between confringo and expluso you find you can at least aim both of them while on the move fairly well. They're probably not a great idea to use on people, at least not if you want them alive. What might work is the Reductor Curse. You'll need to do some testing with a live subject—perhaps a transfigured animal with something attached to it?—but from your initial attempts it seems to just destroy things without an explosion. That could work pretty well to target things like cars or guns. Maybe even Kaiser's armor, see if he wears a mask inside that tin can of his.
You also finally try out the orbis jinx, albeit on a dummy human figure you manage to transfigure from scrap. It doesn't matter where the dummy is, the jinx seems to bury the figure in anything—dirt, concrete, rock, random rubble—with the depth varying between hip and shoulder height. Pretty useful to keep people from getting away, possibly more useful if you bury them deep enough they can't use their arms.
Without someone to practice against you really have no way of gauging how you would be doing against a human enemy. You do consider pulling out one of the guns you took from the Merchant raid and testing your shield against it, but it's late enough you don't want to try and get that set up tonight.
Back at the apartment you're getting ready to do your Occlumency when your phone dings.
C: So I've been told that you're not Mastering me.
Well, yeah. :J
C: However, I need another of your hoodies for testing.
C: To make sure it isn't tinker-derived mastering cloth
C: You won't get it back
And what color does Amy want? :J
C: lol, and she thought you'd believe me.
C: do you have hot pink?
[X][Hoodie] Sacrifice another hoodie to Amy
Tuesday brings history class, and you find yourself somewhat nonplussed that Sarah seems to treat you pretty much the same as before you tumbled into bed with her. Still, it's better than having a discussion about how you're now dating a local celebrity. Knowing Sarah, the discussion would be at volume in a public area, and you'd prefer easing in to the whole public figure thing.
Crystal had shot you a text about dinner and a movie at your place tomorrow, so you run out to grab some stuff to make, as well as a TV, since you don't have one. Supposedly you get free cable and internet as part of your rent so you may as well take advantage of it.
Wednesday after cape class Crystal is not dragged off by Vicky for once. Unfortunately, that's because GG sticks around and drags both of you to an empty classroom and proceeds to turn the full fury of her aura on you. Well, you guess it's not the full fury, but nevertheless you immediately throw up your strongest shields and the 'small child demanding attention' feeling is more like 'full-blown toddler tantrum'. Looking over at your girlfriend her face is pained and angry as she steps in front of you and pokes Vicky in the chest repeatedly until the younger girl pulls her bitch field back in.
"What in the fuck do you think you're doing, Vicky? We just told you two days ago that you need to stop using your aura except on patrol, and the next time I see you you're trying to intimidate my boyfriend? Go home Victoria."
Glory Girl looks startled to be spoken to like that, but frowns and almost rips the door off its hinges as she leaves. Crystal slumps and relaxes against you when you take a step forward to hug her.
"I'm sorry about her. Did her aura actually bother you at all?" Your girlfriend turns and floats up enough to rest her head on your shoulder.
You mention your personal mental classification of Vicky's aura and she laughs at the tantrum thing. After a moment she breaks the embrace and walks over to the corner of the room, pulling her phone out and dialing.
"Mom? Yeah, I win the bet, less than two days."
"I have no idea, she just pulled us into a room and started blasting pretty strongly, didn't say anything."
"I'm sure she will claim something dumb but neither of us even had a chance to say anything."
"James and I are having dinner, actually. Mom… Mom, honestly! And no, we haven't even been dating a week, you and Dad are just too much. Although… he and Dad might want to talk recipes…. Yeah, okay, love you too."
Turning back to where you were pointedly not paying attention your girlfriend walks back over. "I'm sure you heard, but my mom wants to meet you. If Vicky happens to remember your last name expect a very polite email from her inviting you over to 'meet the family' and 'use our washing machine' or 'enjoy a home-cooked meal' because she's sneaky like that."
"How insidious."
The eyeroll you get is expected. "I'll head back to my dorm to drop stuff off and meet you at your apartment in a bit?"
[X][Crystal] Apparate out in front of Crystal
Dinner goes well, you used a cooking charm to approximate a sous vide machine and made a lovely flank steak with hasselback potatoes.
[X][Magic] Use household magic around Crystal
You couldn't even begin to remember what the movie you're watching is, because Crystal is laying in between your legs and you're trading kisses while she explains the Unwritten Rules and a bit about…
[X][Info] The PRT/Protectorate
"Sure, you can show up whenever. And by the way, I have no problem with meeting your parents. We can do it this weekend if you want to get it over with."
You'd think you just told her you just stepped in dog shit. The look on her face is almost comically disgusted. "Really?"
"Better to get it over with now and maybe offset whatever Vicky says about me." You shrug, "Maybe your dad and I can bond over checking your car? Do you get regular oil changes?" The blank look she gives you answers your question better than anything she could say. "Anyhow, I'll head out now so I can get dinner prepped."
Crystal raises one eyebrow and tilts her head up ever-so-slightly. "Why do I get the feeling you're about to show off?"
"Cuz I'm totally about to show off."
Clapping her hands, your girlfriend hops up on a desk and leans forward, kicking her legs. "Alright, lemme see!"
You step forward and take her hand to kiss it. "I shall see you shortly," you declare grandly, then step back and apparate home. You're still in the process of putting your backpack down and taking your jacket off when your phone apparently reconnects to the network and rings. It's Crystal, so you pick it up. "Yeah?"
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA—" she cuts off into a cough, "James? What the fuck was that?"
Well, this wasn't the response you expected. "Teleportation?"
"Do you have any idea what it looks like?" Wow, she sounds freaked out. "No, I'm sure you don't. Urgh. I'll be there in a bit."
When Crystal shows up about twenty minutes later she barely gets through the door before turning around and grabbing both of your hands and staring at them. "Crys—"
Suddenly she's floating up in your face with her hands squishing your cheeks. "It looked like you got sucked into a blender inside a black hole. Tell me it doesn't feel bad."
You shake your head. "It was pretty stomach-turning the first couple of times, but it's not so bad. It always feels like getting sucked through a straw, though."
Crystal's complexion goes green just listening to you. "Oh god…"
You don't feel like being puked on today. "Can I cast an anti-nausea spell on you?"
"You can do that?"
You nod and Crystal looks almost pathetically grateful. "Yes, please." A dramatic wave of your hand and a boop on the nose later you cast the spell. A second later she sags against you and sighs happily. "That's sooo much better. I wonder if it'd keep me from getting motion sick when I fly?"
You give a chuckle, say, "Guess we'll give it a try sometime," and summon a chair over before putting her on it and levitating her back towards the table. Now that she's not feeling sick, her bright blue eyes are watching as you use spells to clean and ready the potatoes, float the pan down to start it heating, and funnel all the smoke from searing the steak out the window. The dishes cleaning themselves is a big hit too, and there are some very unsubtle hints that you should visit her dorm soon and 'practice using your powers'. From the peek you saw the other week you might need two wands and a patronus to clean that hellhole up.
"Oh, yeah, before I forget, are you gonna give Amy a hoodie?"
Heading back towards your armoire you nod. "Unfortunately I don't have hot pink, but maybe she'd like dark green?" You pull out a Slytherin-colored one and hold it up.
"Yeah, it's dark enough she'll be okay with it."
You drape it over a chair and start walking back to the kitchen. "After dealing with Vicky that first week I started trying to come up with ways to block her aura for other people. I can't really recreate the same thing—it's powers related—but I think I have something that will mute the effects a bit. I can cast it on there if you'd like."
That gets Crystal's attention immediately. "You can empower stuff like Dauntless?"
"Psh, nah. I can put a little effect on things like the shield. It doesn't get any stronger, but it'd last a while." You pick the hoodie back up and shake it out while changing the color to eye-searingly pink. "Like so. I can do it so it lasts a week, or just enough that it might stay that color for a day-ish?"
"Have you done anything to my hoodie?"
It was obviously enchanted for comfort at some point during its creation, but that would probably lead to questions about where it came from. "Nah, but I could if you want?"
Crystal nods. "Yeah, do the shield thing and let me test it first. Will it just work when I wear it and not when I take it off? Do I need to say some magic words?"
You sigh. "No need for any bippity-boppity-bullshit," and enchant her Ravenclaw hoodie with the emotion resistance spell. She seems confused when nothing obviously changes.
"Don't look like that, it only effects external sources trying to change your feelings, it doesn't go in and scrub your brain of previous uses. I don't have a fear aura to test it against, so you'll have to go provoke your cousin somehow."
Rolling her eyes, you think you head Crystal mutter "That isn't hard."
Later, you're both ignoring the movie and you've been lectured on the Unwritten Rules by Laserdream. Her spin on them is similar to what you remember from canon, although she admits the whole 'respect civilian identities' thing is fairly wonky when it comes to New Wave.
Talk turns to the PRT and Protectorate after a while, and you have to admit that the kissing is much more interesting than hearing about the PRT, even if all of your clothes are staying on.
"Alright, the PRT is headed by Director Piggot, and she looks like a pigg-o too. Supposedly she needs something—chemo, dialysis?—and won't let Amy anywhere near her. She's apparently a total bitch, and it takes a lot for my mom to say that about someone." She turns in your arms to look you in the eye, "Most of the PRT teams have absolutely no chill even with established independents like New Wave. Don't get me wrong, they respond if you call in a captured cape or whatever, but they'll show up and have their fingers on their triggers and eye you up even after they've foamed and bagged whoever you've caught.
"They almost never share useful information like new villains showing up or gun shipments coming in or anything. And the times we've been called in to assist because Lung and Kaiser have gotten into it again? Never so much as a thank you, plenty of cold shoulders."
It's obvious from what Crystal's saying that the PRT doesn't seem to be part of the lighter-and-fluffier world that the less-frequent Endbringer attacks led to you believe. She goes on to name a few squad leaders who are pretty decent people, as well as a number that are more dickish than the norm.
As for the Protectorate, her opinion of Assault is pretty low—'if I was Battery I would have punched him a million times before now because he cannot stop joking', and while she likes Armsmaster, 'most of the time it seems like three-quarters of his attention is on something other than you, maybe thinking of Tinkering or chatting with his Canadian girlfriend, and the other times he's nice, but almost seems like he's reading from a script.'
Miss Militia is apparently cool and fairly laid back, is probably the default cape who will show up at anything occurring overnight, but happens to be very twitchy when bombs or tripwires are involved.
Velocity almost never interacts with anyone, Dauntless is apparently a decent guy but somewhat subdued. Armsmaster is always sticking him with the police coordination stuff, so the cops tend to dislike him because he's he guy that pulls rank on them and gives them junkies to book and crime scenes to work on.
At that point making out becomes a lot more interesting than talking. Crystal's hands have ventured down to caress you over your jeans and it wouldn't take a mind-reader (even though you totally are one) to realize that every time she traces it she gets nervous. In return you find that she's very receptive to your magic touch. Even without direct access to more sensitive erogenous zones you have her pretty close to orgasm. Unfortunately her need to go pick Amy up from the hospital keeps things from getting good, but you're pretty sure that you know exactly what your girlfriend will be doing in her bed later.
…before she has to go pick Amy up and escort her from the hospital.
Thursday you're able to multi-task and start on getting a decent supply of various healing potions while doing some research into uses for Divination. A bit of looking nets you the Homonculous Charm, which can be cast on a map and allows Marauder's Map-like tracking. Maybe. There seems to be a requirement that the place in question is under wards of some kind in order to bounce signals off of or something. You don't quite understand it, and you'll need to figure out where to get a map of your lair or some similar location to test.
What does work better is some research into tracking charms. There's two major types—tracking a marked person, which is pretty easy and has a marking charms listed, and finding someone based on an item belonging to them, which didn't seem particularly useful until you also find information that discusses what 'belonging' means. It seems somewhat of a low bar, with any luck a moderately well-used wrench in Squealer's lab will be enough to lead you right to her.
Amazingly, Victoria manages to behave herself in class on Friday. Well, 'behave'. She's pouty and sulky and doesn't so much as look at you, but she's not shedding aura all over the place, so it's something. Crystal has a patrol with her mother until late that she mentions is probably a subtle way of Photon Mom needling her for not introducing you immediately. The girls are fairly quiet, apparently doing some in-dorm movie night or something, so you play around with sketching out maps of your lair until you finally manage a working one. It's crude as hell, with you being a shapeless ink blot, but hey, it's a start.
A message from Crystal asking if you robbed the E88 sends you up to the roof to see smoke from a building downtown. Someone—or ones—hit something Empire-related and a chase ended up starting a fire.
While you told your girlfriend you didn't do it, you think you see the ones that did. With your good friend the supersensory charm you notice three monster dogs making good time about a mile and a half away. That…presents an opportunity, albeit a dangerous one.
[X][Undersiders] Try to mark them so they can be tracked later
You text back and ask if she knows of anyone who can grow monsters big enough to ride while trailing them from a fair distance. The answer is a 'no', so apparently the Undersiders aren't well-known quite yet.
Throwing on disillusionment and silencing spells as you apparate you also switch over to non-existence for your Occlumentic defense. By that time the group has ducked into one of the many abandoned buildings and you follow by popping to the second floor and watch Bitch pry her dogs out of their meat suits. Tattletale looks twitchy, so you assume there's something her power is picking up on, but you don't have eye contact to find out.
"Guys, something's…"
Rather than let her continue, you summon bats with the avis spell—or at least you summon birds that look like some biotinker's second grade science project that blended birds and bats. They manage to fly, at least, which is all you need for them to swirl around the heads of the capes below you. You manage to tag Regent and Tattletale before Grue's darkness blots out line-of-sight, so a quick apparition back a couple of blocks and you head off to create a false trail for a bit.
You text Laserdream back with what you found and get a worrying response:
L: Lady Photon wants to meet and discuss what you found.
Agreed :W
Giving Laserdream a general heading to fly, you find a building far away from both the Undersiders and your lair and hold up a lit hand. Shortly after two white-clad figures descend, both wrapped in bubble shields. Crystal's in the lead, and her eyes are wide-fucking-open as she stares at you. You give her a quick nod of acknowledgement and she manages to control herself after a moment.
"Laserdream, Lady Photon, a pleasure," you intone gravely.
Photon Mom gives you a look-over and checks the rest of the roof before setting down. "And you are Warlock?" At your nod she continues, "Laserdream said you saw figures riding on animals?"
"While 'animals' was what I called them, a closer look showed them to be the size of cars, with bone plates. There were three, each had a rider and one was doubled up. They had packs on their backs that looked filled, but I was not close enough to see what. They retreated inside a building labelled 'Wilson's Cannery' roughly a mile away when I decided to back off."
Looking over in the direction you pointed, Lady Photon's lips twist. "I suppose getting the PRT to admit that Hellhound is in the city will be like pulling teeth." She turns back to you, tiara catching what little light is around. "It's good that you decided not to confront them; the warnings about her says she's responsible at least one death."
Lifting off she looks over to Laserdream and back to you. "I cannot at this time promise assistance if you continue to pursue the Merchants, but if you find yourself in a self-defense situation, please feel free to call on us."
You incline your head, "Thank you and good evening, Lady Photon."
[X][Exit] Try to sink into the shadows and apparate away
You had chosen to stand near the roof access hut to shield the light you held up from being obvious from every direction. Now it came in handy as you 'throw' the light into the air (really, you shoot white-colored wand sparks), tilt your head down a bit to hide the silver of your mask and slip into the deeper shadows next to it (and perhaps break line-of-sight). Popping to a roof a few blocks away you can just make out the two women's figures as they fly higher and head back towards Downtown.
Laserdream messages you shortly; seems like she can't help but text and fly.
L: Okay, that was fancy.
L: LP said you're 'one to watch carefully'.
L: and I didn't see any blending, so thanks for not making me puke.
When you make it back to your civilian phone there's an ominous text from Crystal.
C: When I come over tomorrow to pick you up, you'd better have your Halloween costume ready to show me.