The first thing I noticed when I was waking up was the strange sensation that my head had recently gone through a roller coaster and how I could feel the world was spinning around me.
"Damn it, I'm sure I didn't get drunk last night, so why do I feel like this?" I muttered to myself with my eyes closed, completely confused by my current state.
I felt so strange that even my bed didn't seem the same at all. I opened one eye and was alarmed, because what I saw now was not the familiar image of my apartment ceiling, but the unfamiliar sight of a slightly cloudy night sky.
I had read that when you are in danger, or at least your body perceives it to be, it has two basic responses: fight or flight. That my first action upon finding myself in an unfamiliar place was to quickly get up and adopt a boxing stance said a lot about me, but this stance was a waste anyway because there was no one around to hit...
I made a 360-degree turn around myself, still on guard, without finding the slightest sign of life, even so I could confirm that I was definitely no longer in my apartment. What surrounded me now was a pile of large metal containers stacked on top of each other.
"What the hell? Did they kidnap me or something?"
My confusion grew little by little, but a growing concern also took hold of me. I looked at my body, wondering if someone had removed me a kidney or something, only to discover that I was not dressed and, most importantly...
"I'm blue, what the fuck?"
Not only had my abdomen changed color, but so had my arms and legs. I brought my blue hands up to my face to touch it; I couldn't see it, but I was sure it was the same color. It wasn't just the tone, the texture had changed too. It was as if my skin was about to become rubbery or something. Besides being naked, I could see that my breasts seemed to be there, but I had no nipples and my crotch was now completely flat like those Barbie dolls.
Still stunned and a little scared by these new changes, I noticed something else: I could feel my hair—yes, my fucking hair was like an extra limb. I moved it away from my face to take a look. It was pure white, but it seemed to be made of energy with blue flashes around the edges.
"What the fuck?"
I began to seriously wonder if I was high or something. I had never taken anything strong enough to hallucinate something like this, but who knows. I looked around again.
"But if this is a hallucination, it's definitely the most real one I've ever experienced."
I took a few more moments to examine my body, only to find myself quite confused about what to do now.
"Well, whatever it is, I need to know where I am."
I felt the need to set a goal, even if it was short-term, or this whole situation was going to drive me crazy. I needed to get out of there and find someone to ask where I was or some way to locate myself. I started walking, but stopped after twelve meters when I realized something.
"I'm floating."
Not only was I floating, I could fly; I moved from side to side in an upright position, completely defying gravity. I decided to ascend a little and spin around in circles.
"This is cool... and it would be even cooler if I hadn't lost my girl parts and was blue, of course."
Sighing wearily at that, I decided to fly even higher; the view from the sky would help me get a better idea of where I was. So I flew up, and a couple of dozen meters higher, I could see that the place where I had awakened was some kind of port. The coast wasn't far away, and on the other side was a city. I could see tall buildings and the streets surrounding them.
Surely there I would find people to ask where the hell I was, if I could manage to keep them from panicking at the sight of a blue woman flying, but I decided to head for the sea first; there was something I wanted to check. I turnd arround and flew towards the coast. It was fast: I covered at least a couple of kilometers in a couple of seconds; and when I stopped, I was in the middle of the sea. Then I descended low enough to use the water as a mirror.
There was no moon in the sky, but my own hair provided enough light to clearly see my new appearance in its entirety. I focused on my face, now without any distinctive features; my eyes were two pools of white light, and even my teeth seemed to glow.
"This is incredibly familiar to me." My mind raced, thinking about where I might have seen this figure before, quickly coming to a conclusion. "I am an Anodite."
Sure, that alien species from Ben 10 had purple tones in its true forms, but it wasn't as if the Mana had a single color signature; I remember perfectly well from the show that the Mana could have other colors that changed depending on the user. That there were red, green, or blue Anodites out there, like in my case, wasn't entirely unreasonable.
"What's crazy is how the hell I'm one now." I stopped looking at myself in the water and looked at the city, with a growing anxiety invading me. "ROB, please, please, I don't want to be in Brockton Bay."
Was it so stupid to think that I was now in another earth? Fuck no! I had read enough isekai stories; all the points matched my current situation. An unknown place, new powers, and surely some shit would come to screw me over soon.
"Calm down, Erika, don't hyperventilate now."
I wondered distractedly how this could be possible. I was pretty sure I didn't have lungs at that moment. After all, as far as I could remember, the true forms of Anodites were something like their souls made energy.
I searched my memory for other things the Anodites could do, something that would help me in this situation. The first thing that came to mind was that they could create physical bodies to inhabit. That would certainly be useful right now, helping me to go unnoticed and ask someone where I was without scaring them just by looking at me.
But how the hell could I do that? I didn't exactly had a user manual for this body. I had flown instinctively, but how to create a body didn't appear in my mind conveniently at the time.
"Maybe I needed to concentrate."
I cleared my mind as best I could while recalling a mental image of my human body. I struggled to change it... but nothing happened, I just noticed that my body was glowing a little brighter.
"You should have at least given me a tutorial before throwing me in here, you fucking, ROB!"
I said angrily as I pulled at my hair in frustration. But after a few seconds, I calmed down.
"Come on, Erika, focus, a tantrum won't do you any good now. What else could the little Anodites do that would be useful right now?"
I remembered something quite basic that my current species knew how to do: Energy Manipulation. I raised my hand with my palm facing up, concentrated a little, and a blue energy sphere formed. I took the sphere and threw it a couple of meters toward the water, where it exploded on contact. I created other spheres and threw them, generating similar effects around me. Finally, I concentrated energy in my palm and aimed it before releasing it in a beam of energy that created a geyser in the water.
"Now I understand why those DBZ guys liked blowing things up so much."
Remembering another thing I had seen Gwen do. I concentrated energy in my hands again, but this time I solidified it to create an energy shield and moved it around me before fading it away.
I didn't seem to have any problem with this power; in fact, it was even more instinctive than flying and would be a great help if I had to fight or something. There were other powers I could remember, such as absorbing life energy, but I couldn't test that right now, and manipulating reality, although the latter scared me a little. I looked at the city in the distance and began flying toward it; delaying things wasn't going to change them.
"ROB, please. I don't want to be in Brockton Bay," I muttered. I definitely didn't want to deal with all that depressed space whale crap.
Once again, I marveled at my flying speed and covered the distance to the city in a matter of seconds. Even from so high up, I couldn't find anything to help me figure out where I was. The streets were also pretty empty, but I still felt some apprehension about approaching a human in my state.
Just as I was starting to get really frustrated, I noticed something in the distance, a beam of light that began to illuminate the sky, and there I saw a silhouette.
"Don't fuck, don't fuck."
I couldn't believe my eyes; it was the damn Bat-Signal, no less. Should I be happy? Of course, I wasn't in Brockton Bay, or should I cry?
In this universe, there was no space whale threatening Earth, of course not; instead, there were dimension-destroying demons, galaxy-conquering lords, and evil forces of the universe.
"What do I do, what do I do?"
I asked myself without looking away from the beam of light.
A.N: there aren't many anodite fics out there so I decided to write something, anyway don't expect many chapters for the rest of this year, although I will write the first official chapter soon.
if there is any mistake I apologize English is not my first language.
Gotham, NJ.
June 8, 2013.
Erika POV.
I had finally gotten a laptop, a smartphone, and some clothes. People looked at me strangely when I went into stores to buy them, but other than that, they didn't do anything to stop me. After all, being blue wasn't illegal. Something curious I noticed in the electronics store was that many of the products they sold were manufactured by Wayne Enterprises and LexCorp. I had only bought products from the former. Because it would be a cold day in hell when I trusted on something that passed for the company of that baldy.
Now that I had what I need to access to the internet, the next step was to find a place to connect me to the network. My first idea was to do it at the store where I bought my laptop, but I reconsidered when I remembered something.
So I moved to the roof of one of the buildings in the commercial district, because a couple of floors below there was a café that offered free Wi-Fi to its customers. The roof was an enclosed space, away from prying eyes. I was growing fond of places like this.
I decided to take advantage of my laptop's battery and sat down to do some research. In the following hours, I learned a lot.
The Justice League had been around for a long time. They had officially announced themselves as a group in 2006, but it was already known that they had been collaborating regularly for two or three years prior to that. All the big names I know were there: Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, Aquaman, Flash, Martian Manhunter, Green Lantern, as well as other members I knew less about but who were quite familiar to me, such as Black Canary, Doctor Fate, Captain Marvel, and Green Arrow.
But there were also some I barely remembered, like Red Tornado, Plastic Man, and others I didn't know at all, like this guy named Icon. Who the hell was that guy? He seemed to be something like a black version of Superman.
Many members of the League also had sidekicks. Batman, for example, was already on his second Robin, the first one of them, since the beginning of this year, who was undoubtedly Dick, had adopted the name Nightwing. I was almost sure that the Robin I knocked unconscious earlier was Jason. In a way, it was a relief that I hit him; I didn't have much karma kicking the worst Robin's ass.
Besides Superboy also existed here and had already started appearing about three years ago. And other Young Heroes I recognized on the internet were Miss Martian, Kid Flash, Starfire, Red Arrow... there were so many that I wondered if the Teen Titans already existed, but my searches didn't yield much in that area. I couldn't find any T-shaped buildings anywhere. However, there was information here and there about their collaboration.
I also had the foresight to look up information on the villains of this planet; I knew that sooner or later I would have to deal with them; after all, this was DC. I recognized many, such as the Joker, Reverse Flash, and Deathstroke, but there were also a couple here and there that I didn't know, such as the Terror Twins.
After familiarizing myself with the Superhuman community and some important events of the last ten years, such as alien invasions and a time when Earth seemed to split into two dimensions, I focused on finding people who could help me.
I searched my memories for the magicians I knew. There were quite a few on this planet, but of course, I had to find someone with a good chance of helping me and, if possible, who wouldn't ask too many questions.
With this in mind, I first looked for the Zatara family. Giovanni had been a member of the League for a couple of years, but he hadn't been seen since mid-2010. On the internet, people wondered if he had died. He was a lost cause, and it made me wonder what had happened to him. As for his daughter Zatanna, to my surprise, she seemed to be younger than me. It was a bit shocking, as she used to be Batman's age. The problem was finding out where she was. She could be seen around New York, but that was all the information I could find on the internet about her location.
I looked for Constantine, the nicotine-addicted sorcerer. I was able to verify his existence here thanks to some articles on the internet and an important event in New York in 2008 in which he participated. I even found old newspaper articles about a metal band he was part of about ten years ago, but, like Zatanna, he was difficult to locate.
With those three ruled out, I was running out of easy options. I didn't want to go with Doctor Fate; I had no idea how the tin head would react to me. I knew that, unlike the other members of the League in its thousands of years of existence, Fate had done more than just questionable things. His hosts were usually moral anchors, and I had no idea who the real host would be, so I didn't want to go with him unless I had no other choice.
The demonologist Jason Blood was actually quite close, right here in Gotham City, but like Doctor Fate, I had no idea how Etrigan would react to my presence; sure, for a demon, that yellow asshole wasn't so bad, but I didn't want to risk me with him.
"Fuck, who else do I have left?"
I stared at the laptop screen for several minutes, mentally reviewing the list of magic users. My options were dubious: perhaps I would have no choice but to ask Batman for help, or, on second thought, perhaps Superman, the boy scout, wasn't stupid, but rather more naive. The problem was that they might ask me a lot of questions, half of which I wouldn't want to answer, and that would make them a little suspicious of me.
Worse yet, Wonder Woman was there with that shitty lasso, and the Martian Manhunter with his telepathy. If they decided to be rude, they would get their answers; the chances of that happening were low, but still possible. It was a nuisance, but the good guys were preferable to someone undesirable.
But at that moment, I remembered someone else; she was definitely someone willing to help others with their supernatural problems. The question was whether she was out there or not and whether she would be easy to locate. I typed her name into the search bar and, luckily, got results.
Ten minutes later, I was glad to know exactly where I had to go.
I got up from the rooftop and put my laptop in a backpack I had bought. There wasn't much inside, just another change of clothes and a few things I had taken from some idiots the night before, like a couple of watches and rings. They weren't worth much, but they would get me a couple of hundred extra dollars, although for now I still had a little more than half the money I had gotten a few hours ago.
With the laptop stowed away, I adjusted the backpack on my back and took out my phone to check the GPS as I flew to New York.
New York, NY.
June 8, 2013.
Fortunately, New York wasn't too far from Gotham. Flying there had taken me about 15 minutes, and that was far from my maximum flying speed. During the trip, I wondered how fast I could go. Could I reach the planet's escape velocity if I tried hard enough? I suspected I could, but this wasn't the time to experiment with that.
Right now I was in Queens, thanks to my hoodie, cap, and the rest of my clothes, my blue features weren't too visible, so I could go unnoticed and I was standing on a sidewalk in front of my target, a three-floor building with a sign announcing its name to the world.
Hokus & Pokus Occult Curioso.
This store was definitely the right place. Around the building, I could see a faint barrier surrounding it. Although this was my first official interaction with mystical forces, I could feel the magic coming from the barrier and I doubted that other people around here could see it.
I took a deep breath before starting to cross the street. I wasn't sure if the owner of the place would help me, but I figured I didn't have much to lose by asking. I approached the door and reached out to grab the doorknob.
But at that moment, I felt something breaking and tearing around me. I was very confused, but I knew instinctively that it wasn't an attack. So I continued and went inside. On the other side, I found a fairly large room; to my left and right were bookshelves. At the back was a wooden counter, which led to more bookshelves and other items on display, but between these last two, there was a woman standing there.
She had black hair, green eyes, and olive skin; she was dressed in a gypsy outfit. I must say she was very attractive. I also noticed that she was quite alarmed by my presence; her emerald eyes were wide and cautious as she watched me; her body seemed tense.
"Hello," I greeted her, raising both hands slowly to indicate that I was not carrying anything threatening. "I don't want to fight, I'm sorry if I gave you a bad impression when I came in... are you Madame Xanadu?"
"Yes, I am," she replied.
I noticed something around Xanadu's silhouette: a kind of lime green aura that emanated from and surrounded her at the same time. It was familiar, very similar to the feeling I had this morning near Robin, but ten, no, maybe fifteen times more powerful. Was it the magical aura of people? Did that mean Robin had some magical power? Anyway, that would be a question for later. I had more important things to think about right now.
"What brings you here?" Xanadu continued.
"I wanted to ask you for help with something." I pulled down the hood of my sweatshirt so she could see my features better. I let my energetic hair hang down until it almost touched the floor. "I need..."
"Wait." Shee raised her hand to silence me and reached underneath her, pulling out a card. This card was definitely magical, because when she threw it at me, it floated until it stopped right in front of my chest. "Touch it, only then can you tell me why you came here."
I looked at the card again; if I concentrated a little, I could feel a kind of faint aura emanating from it. I shrugged and touched it. Upon touching it, it began to glow brightly for a couple of seconds before fading away between my fingers. Whatever it was, Xanadu visibly relaxed upon seeing it.
"I'm sorry, the last time someone as powerful as you entered my shop, they turned out to be a bad customer." She informed me.
"Did I scare you that much?" I asked.
"You set off all my alarms and destroyed my protections just by opening the door," she replied, seemingly amused that I didn't know.
"Ah, so that's what I felt break." I nodded, understanding. I also shrugged as I closed the distance between her and me. "I'm sorry."
"Don't worry, I'll put them back soon and make some adjustments, so what brings you here? .....You haven't told me your name."
"My name is Erika de Santis." I introduced myself as soon as I reached her, now we where separated only by the counter. "Actually, I'm here because I wanted to ask you... for some advice." "
Advice?" Xanadu asked, raising an eyebrow curiously.
Well, the time had come to reveal a few things. I had to be at least a little honest with this woman if I wanted her help, for practical reasons.
"As you can see, I'm not human... but I was born as one. My species are beings of energy. I knew of their existence, but I never suspected that I was one until recently, when I had some problems and awoke to my true form." I pointed to myself. "This isn't so bad, except for one thing: I can't recreate a physical body, or rather, I don't know how yet. I wanted to ask for your help with that, with a spell or something."
"Create a body," Xanadu asked, intrigued. "Is that something your species can do?"
"Yes, actually it's something most of us learn sooner or later, but let's just say they are not around and I don't have counseling right now, so that's why I'm having trouble doing it." I was being as honest as possible.
"I don't know if I can help you with that. I've never had to create a body for anyone," Xanadu replied honestly.
"It doesn't matter if you can't help me with that directly, but could you at least teach me some basic concepts of magic? It would be a great help, and I'm sure it would speed up the process of figuring out how to solve the problem myself."
"You want me to be your teacher?" The sorceress now sounded hesitant.
"I know it may be a lot to ask, but I would really appreciate your help. I'm not asking you to teach me everything you know, but I would appreciate some instruction."
"Before I answer, I want you to answer something for me. How did you find me?" she asked.
"The internet." I replied honestly.
Xanadu smiled at my response.
"I know you can find me on the internet, but I don't know how you suspected it wasn't a scam. More than half the people who come here already think that way, even if they buy from my store; it's more out of curiosity than anything else."
Well, I had already thought a little about what to say about that.
"Sometimes I have intuitions about things; I don't think it's anything like precognition or anything like that, but it's certainly useful. When I was looking for someone who could help me and I found you on the internet, I knew you were a good choice."
"What about the League?" she asked. "They have the supreme sorcerer in their ranks; he could help you, even teach you more than I can."
"Do you really think the supreme sorcerer has time to teach me anything? Even if he did, there's no guarantee it would help me. But the truth is, I don't want to go to the League; there are certain things about me that I don't want them to know."
Xanadu looked at me cautiously, but I kept talking.
"Isn't a stuff that would endanger Earth or something. Fuck, the only one in danger would be me, but I'm sure they'll ask because it's their duty as heroes, and I don't want to answer that. Although if I don't have any other options in the future, I'll definitely have to go with them."
"Besides them. What are the other options you had in mind?" She replied.
"You were the best in the group and the easiest to find. I had no idea how to find the others, or they were of more dubious reputation, like a certain demonologist who may or may not have had a demon in his body.
Once I finished speaking, there was a momentary, uncomfortable silence in the room. Madame Xanadu watched me intently the whole time until she sighed.
"I'll help you."
"Really?" I asked enthusiastically.
"Yes, I'll help you."
"Thank you, thank you." I took her hands in mine and squeezed them with joy. I had found someone to help me.
"I'll have to ask you some questions later, but you only have to answer them if you feel comfortable."
"Okay." She didn't seem to want to pressure me.
"But there's something I want to know, it's more like your point of view on a subject," said Xanadu. I looked at her. "Do you believe in destiny?"
"No, to fuck that shit, Madame Xanadu, the only destiny I believe in is the one I have created for myself."
I refused to believe that we were all predestined for something, and even if we were, I believe we could escape it if we faced it with determination.
"That's a good answer." Xanadu smiled and looked quite cheerful. "You can call me Nimue."
"Sure." At that moment, I remembered another of my current problems. "Oh, by the way, do you know of a place where I can stay? Preferably one where no one asks me too many questions about why I'm blue."
In the end, Nimue let me stay in an empty room above her shop. I told her I didn't have much money, but she said not to worry, she was a saint. The room had a bed, a wardrobe, and some furniture. I didn't have much more than what I carried in my backpack, so I quickly settled in. Knowing there was Wi-Fi in the shop, I charged my laptop to use later.
Since I didn't have much to do for now, Nimue would be busy in the shop until nightfall. I lay down on the bed in my room; and with much of the urgency I had felt since I arrived disappearing, I began to feel a little melancholy. I missed my family and friends.
I hoped I would be able to see them in the future.
A.N: This madame xanadu is not the same as her Young Justice canon counterpart, besides, as I know you will ask , Yes we will definitely see Starfire and Constantine in the future.
if there is any mistake I apologize English is not my first language.
New York, NY.
June 8, 2013.
Erika POV.
After staring at the ceiling for almost an hour, lost in my thoughts, I got bored. It was still hours before sunset, so I grabbed my laptop, sat on the bed, and used it for what most people use this kind of technology for: watching videos on the internet.
Specifically, I watched videos of superheroes and supervillains. There were tons of them; people always found a way to record a video or two in very serious situations, like giant dragonflies trying to wipe out an entire town or something. The League had a lot of videos like that on the internet. That included Batman, of course; I suspected he didn't like it very much. Watching the Batman videos, I realized something right away:
"This guy isn't human."
There was a video of him deflecting bullets with a fucking Bat-boomerang, Bat-knives... Well, with different types of bladed weapons that start with Bat... it was crazy. How the hell could he do that? The human body is supposed to have limits, but Batman wasn't the only one capable of doing similar things. I also found videos of Robin (now Nightwing), Green Arrow, and Red Arrow.
"Normal humans, my ass!" I snorted.
Maybe it was a little ridiculous to be surprised by this. Sure, there were people out there who could lift a bus, live underwater without any problems, or change their appearance, but there were explanations for these feats: after all, they were aliens or belonged to some kind of superhuman species.
Seeing with my own eyes what people considered "normal," even if it was done by martial arts experts, was a little disturbing. Upon looking deeper, I realized that it wasn't just heroes and villains doing these things.
There were some pretty strange videos of ordinary people surviving things they definitely shouldn't survive and doing things that would leave an Olympic athlete speechless.
Definitely and without a doubt, the humans on this earth were much tougher than those in my home dimension. If an average Joe of this earth and an average Joe of mine got into a fistfight, I would bet all my money on the former.
"Now it makes more sense that Robin didn't get hurt that badly last night."
The teenager had taken a (non-lethal) bolt of mana to the head, fallen three floors, and was still been able to get up. I used to think it was the typical luck and nonsense that accompanies heroes in this world, but now I realized it was just the way his body was built.
If anyone at home ever thought Batman was a normal guy (beyond his intelligence, of course), well, they'd be disappointed. He's not a normal guy, he's the pinnacle of what a human can achieve on this planet. I wondered if there was a rational explanation for this or if it was just more nonsense from this place; maybe I'd find out later.
Time flew by when and I checked the time on my laptop. It was just after 7 p.m.
I decided to go downstairs to wait for Nimue. Sccording to what I remembered, she had told me that her shop would be closing in a few minutes, but at that moment I felt a familiar sensation. I had begun to associate it with the presence of a person with magical powers. I turned toward the door, which rang at that very moment.
I left the laptop on the bed and went to open it. Nimue was waiting for me on the other side. She looked like she had just showered and was no longer wearing her gypsy outfit; she was dressed more casually in a blouse and loose-fitting pants. I took a second to give her an appreciative look; she was undoubtedly attractive.
[No, bad Erika, don't ogle the teacher]. I mentally reprimanded myself and stood there hoping that the rays of light that were now my eyes would reveal nothing.
"Good evening, Erika," Nimue greeted me.
"Good evening."
"I was thinking of ordering some food... and I was a little confused about what to order, I don't know what your kind eats."
"The truth is, we don't need to eat anything." I shrugged, thinking that I hadn't been hungry or thirsty since I woke up in Gotham. "But I think we can do it, so anything will do."
I had something like teeth, so I figured I could eat. What I didn't know was what would happen to that food once it was inside my body, but I was sure it would disappear... At least that's what I wanted to believe.
"I'll order pizza and then see you downstairs; I hope we can talk about your training and other things."
"Sure," I said with a nod.
She nodded and continued down the hallway. I turned around to grab my phone; it was on the nightstand next to the bed. With it in my hand, I left the room. I was on the third floor of this building; there were a couple of rooms upstairs, including Nimue's. She had allowed me into every room in this place except two: hers and a storage room at the end of the hallway.
I looked at the storage room door; it was slightly illuminated to my eyes indicating that it was enchanted or something like that . I can't say I wasn't curious about what was behind that door, but I also knew that risking Nimue's goodwill to satisfy that curiosity was a terrible idea.
I closed the door behind me and continued on my way to find the stairs and go down. On the second floor, there was a fairly large room with an adjoining kitchen. Other hallways led to a small study, a laundry room, and a small library. I thought that perhaps I would have to explore the latter in the future to see if there was anything interesting to read there. Being in the house of a sorceress, I hoped to find a grimoire or something similar.
Nimue was in the kitchen talking on the phone, so I went straight to the couch in the living room and sat down in front of the television, which was on and tuned to a news channel. The anchor was talking about some UN reforms in a place called Bialyan. I had no idea where that was, but it sounded European. I would have to do some research later on the nations of this Earth; not all of them were the same as in my old dimension. Nimue returned at that moment and sat down in a nearby chair.
"The pizza will here in 20 minutes," she informed me. "Now, what do you think you can share with me about your species?"
I thought for a moment about what to say.
"As I told you, we are beings of energy... I believe that much of that energy is of magical origin."
"I imagined that being near you is like being next to a large magical bonfire."
"Do you think someone could track me down like that?" I expressed a new concern: I didn't want anyone following me, and I could imagine many who might.
"Certainly, someone could track you with a spell, although it would have to be a specialized one."
"And besides, is it possible for someone to detect me just by being nearby like you?"
"For that, they would have to be quite close; you exude enough energy for a wizard to notice you, but only if they are a couple of dozen meters away," Nimue paused. "But I can't say the same for creatures of magical origin such as demons and fairies; they are much more sensitive to magical signals; they may be able to sense you from hundreds of meters away."
I grimaced at the thought of such situations.
"Can you teach me how to protect myself from that?"
"Protecting yourself from remote tracking using spells, yes; from proximity detection, no. That's something you'll have to learn on your own; most beings like you had mechanisms for that; you'll have to see what yours are."
"It's possible that mechanism is the bodies we create to inhabit." I said that, if you thought about it, it made sense.
"Yes, it's very possible, although you shouldn't rule out the existence of another method in your current form." She shrugged. "Well, for now you don't have to worry about that. This building has security measures that block signals like that while we're inside."
"Is that the barrier surrounding the entire place?" Nimue raised an eyebrow curiously when she heard what I said. "Yes, I saw it; in fact, I think I can sense when something is magical."
"Definitely, the Anodites seem to be made for magic; that's not a common ability even among magical species," Nimue stated.
"Well, among other things I can do, there's the ability to fly and this." I extended my hand and created a sphere of blue energy in the air in front of me. "I can shoot it in blasts and create shields, and I can also alter my own size to a certain extent."
Nimue leaned forward slightly to observe the sphere more closely.
"Yes, this definitely seems to be made of magical energy." After a few moments of inspection, she leaned back in her chair. I dispelled the sphere of energy. "By the way, how long does an Anodite live?"
"Thousands of years." I shrugged; in fact, I suspected I was immortal. "All I know is that right now I'm the equivalent of a fetus, and that's all I know about Anodites."
There were some things I would keep to myself, but I could tell this to Nimue because they were obvious skills she should know as my teacher. Anyway, I kept some of the other things I suspected I could do to myself.
"Thank you for sharing that with me, Erika," Nimue smiled at me. "As for your training, I think it would be best if we start tomorrow. The shop won't be open, so I'll have the whole day for you; besides, I still have to think about what would be ideal to teach you to solve your current problem."
"Sure." I replied with a shrug; I could wait a couple of hours.
"But I'll tell you a couple of things; I think it's what every magician should know. Magic isn't perfect; there are always loopholes, even if they're small. A spell is not the ultimate solution to everything; if someone has enough talent or pure power, they can counteract it." Nimue looked me in the eye until I nodded. "Had you heard about the principles of magical practices? I mean what is necessary to perform them effectively."
"No." I couldn't remember anything like that at that moment.
"There are three principles for every magician: Capacity, Focus, and Visualization; without one of them, the other two are useless." Nimue paused briefly before continuing. "Capacity is a magician's innate or acquired power, the source of magical energy. Focus is the means or component through which that energy is channeled; this Focus can vary greatly in form, from dead languages to drawing symbols in the air; all magic has a Focus, even if it is not obvious, and finally, Visualization is Intention and Understanding, the way in which Imagination turns desires into reality."
I decided to catalog them as the three great principles from now on in my Mind. I could understand them, but I still had some doubts about one of them.
"The Focus includes things like speaking backwards. The Zatara do that, don't they?"
"Yes, as I told you, a Focus can be many things. Logomancy is a good example; even corrupt magic has focuses, albeit minor ones." Nimue nodded toward me. "And I see you've heard of the Zatara.
"Well, it's not hard, you know one of them was in the League." I saw Nimue narrow her eyes when she heard that, as if she suddenly remembered something. "Do you know them?"
"I know them, in fact, Giovanni is my friend."
I noticed she used the present tense when referring to Father Zatara, which meant he was alive. I felt a slight curiosity about the magician, but decided not to probe further; there were more important things I wanted to know now.
"What else can be used as Focus? You mentioned dead languages, which are the best for that?" I asked.
"Latin, Greek, and Aramaic are the most common; these ancient languages have a certain power. They are very good for magic, but remember that your focus also determines the type of magic you will practice, although generally these three languages are a good foundation to start with."
"Maybe I'll have to learn some of that. If I have to choose one, I'll go for Latin; at least I have a foundation; I already know some Spanish, Portuguese, and French."
Learning Greek now seemed like a headache, and I had never heard a word of Aramaic in my life.
"If that's what you want, there are a couple of dictionaries and several other books in Latin in my library. You can take a look at them." Nimue said.
"Thanks, I'll check them out tonight."
"I would say that getting a good night's rest is important."
"I don't need to sleep." I shrugged; I hadn't felt tired at all in this form.
"That's an benefit, but I advise you not to overdo your studies; too much of anything is bad."
"I understand, but for now I think I'll push myself a little."
After that, the conversation continued on a more casual topics and the pizza arrived soon. It was cheese pizza, and I was able to eat it without any problems, although the taste was a little peculiar; it wasn't what I expected, but it wasn't bad at all; the ingredients tasted slightly different in my real form. After eating, Nimue wished me good night and retired to her room, making it clear once again that we would start studying tomorrow, as for me, I went to the small library nearby and began searching for Latin texts; I had a lot to learn and memorize.
June 9, 2013.
I had spent the night memorizing some Latin words. And the next morning, right after breakfast, Nimue and I sat on the living room floor, facing each other, to begin our lessons. Nimue had brought a large book, which she placed beside her.
"I see you're wearing the same clothes as yesterday; if you don't have enough, I can lend you something."
"Oh... yes." I only had two other outfits besides this one. "The truth is, I get much less dirty than a human, you know? I don't excrete things from my skin."
"Anyway, I'll give you some of my clothes."
"Thank you," I said, a little uncomfortable.
"I know you don't like to ask for help unless you have no other choice, Erika, but there's nothing wrong with accepting it when you can."
"How did you know?"
I was a little surprised because that character assessment matched me quite well. I've never liked asking others for help, unless I try to solve things on my own and fail in some way. I didn't know if it was a positive or negative trait, but that's just how I was.
Of course, this didn't mean I was reluctant to ask for help when I knew I couldn't solve something on my own, and this tendency of mine was more apparent in the presence of strangers than with friends or family. I was grateful to Nimue, but I had only met her yesterday, so she was little more than an acquaintance.
"I'm a good observer," she replied with a smile. "Last night I thought about what to teach you, and I think we should start with projection magic."
"Projection?" The only thing I could associate with that word was the kind of magic practiced by a certain sword-obsessed hero of justice.
"Yes, projection is the ability to create illusions that interact with the world. I'm quite skilled at it. It's not the same as creating a real body, but the principles could help you understand some things." "
"If you think it's the best, let's try it."
I could tell I was excited. Magic certainly sounded fun. I would try my best and achieve my goals.
A.N: I hope you don't beat me up too much for my way of explaining how magic works on this Earth, wanted something more technical than just "I wave a wand and something happens".
I promise that in the next chapters there will be a little more "action", I plan for Erika to interact with new characters and maybe cause some disasters. In other news found out that last week this story was in the top 15 of the most visited and most new SB watchers, thanks to all of you who come here to read my mental ramblings.
Some say to pass the text through AI but I tell you that is a bad idea, I tried the AI makes horrible changes to the text and it sounds like two robots talking. I am writing this story to improve my English, there will be mistakes along the way but at least feel like I am improving
if there is any mistake I apologize English is not my first language.
New York, NY.
June 15, 2013.
Erika POV.
A whole week had passed since my arrival on this Earth, and a little less since I began my apprenticeship with Nimue. Magic was as much fun as I had hoped, but it also had its own difficulties, although being anodite helped me a lot in dealing with them.
The three great principles were undoubtedly the central axis of all magical practice, and while it was true that if you lacked one of them, you couldn't do anything with the other two, it was also true that if you only had a deficiency in one principle, you could compensate for it to a certain extent with another of the two in which you were above average or had talent.
As an Anodite, I had no problems with Capacity. I had plenty of mana, or rather, in Nimue's words, I possessed exorbitant amounts of magical energy. Since these reserves came directly from my own body and my unique composition as a being of pure energy, I had very little to worry about the negative effects of "Reversal" that magic could cause me by misusing a Focus or Visualization in a spell.
It wasn't that I found it difficult to use Focus, it was simply a means to an end. The trick was finding the tool that best aligned with you. I was lucky that Latin had excellent synergy with my mana, so much so that even Nimue, after seeing me work with it, doubted I could find a better one.
My biggest problem was Visualization; not only did it involve imagining how your power affected the world, but it was also a unique state of mind you had to be in when casting a spell. If you weren't in that exact state of mind, depending on what you were originally trying to do, you would either achieve absolutely nothing or, well... things could go very, very wrong.
Nimue told me that Visualization was the most dangerous of the three principles and had killed more magicians around the world over the millennia than anything else. Luckily, even though I had a hard time getting into that special state of mind, I wasn't so bad in do it.
However, thanks to the raw power at my disposal, I could handle a rudimentary use of Visualization. But seeing this, Nimue urged me to focus on mastering it, telling me how dangerous it could be, if not to me, then to those around me.
Following her advice, when I wasn't practicing spells or learning Latin, I had begun meditating several hours a day to reach that state of mind more easily.
As for these spells, I had learned the principles and mastered some advanced aspects of projection. Projection in this universe was a little simpler than in its Nasuverse counterpart; all that was needed was a vague understanding and a precise imagination of what one wanted to generate for the illusion to take root in the world. However, this came with certain disadvantages.
A projection was still an illusion and would never generate the same kind of interaction with the physical world as something real, no matter what it was. It is worth mentioning that projections could not stray too far from the caster, and if they did, they would not last long and would consume enormous amounts of energy. However, these disadvantages could be limited if the projection was anchored to an object or an alternative energy source.
Nimue explained to me that when a projection broke these patterns, it ceased to be a projection and became another branch of magic, such as Transmutation, Transformation, Conjuration, and sometimes even Evocation.
After Nimue taught me the basics and gave me a good understanding during my first two days of learning, I progressed quickly. Although I was still far from mastering this type of magic, I certainly did not regret having started to practice it. It had provided me with many notions and principles that, I was sure, would sooner or later lead me to create a real body. In short, I had devised a spell that I hoped would allow me to go unnoticed in public, using one of Nimue's spells as a basis.
Today, alone, in a meditative position on the floor of my room, with the little notebook I used for taking notes open in front of me, I prepared to cast it. Once I reached the right state of mind, I opened my mana, channeled it through my Focus, and cast it.
"Fiat imago et ligabis me."
I felt a surge of energy rush through my body. And when I was done, I quickly got up and looked at myself in the full-length mirror in my room. I was wearing a short T-shirt and shorts, so I could clearly see how the alien blue of my skin had been replaced by human skin tone and my hair had returned to its black color.
I definitely looked human now. I brought my hands to my face; it was good to look like I used to, although there was a clear difference in my eyes, which were now blue instead of brown. I wondered why. I was sure I had imagined myself correctly when I cast the spell.
But despite my appearance, it wasn't a real body, it was just the magical equivalent of painting myself well. I was glad that at least now I could go out in public without fear of being stared at.
"I'll show it to Nimue."
It was just after 3 p.m. and my teacher would be in her shop, so I decided to go downstairs and surprise her. I quickly left my room and went down to the second floor. Then, down the hallway and I went down the stairs that led to the door behind the counter of the shop below.
"Nimue..." I opened the door and left the sentence unfinished, realizing something.
Nimue turned to look at me, but she wasn't alone. Right in front of her, on the other side of the counter, was a girl a couple of years younger than me, with black hair and blue eyes. Even without her magician's costume, I recognized her from the photos I had seen on the internet: it was Zatanna.
The truth was that I had completely forgotten to ask Nimue about her connection to Zatara. I had spent the whole week immersed in my Latin studies and meditation, so I didn't think about it again. Both women looked at me, the younger one with curiosity and the older one with amusement.
[Quick brain, say something.]
"Sup."
[Brain, you're the best.]
Nimue's smile widened as she pointed at me.
"Zatanna, meet Erika, my apprentice." She recognized me instantly, perhaps because days ago I had shown her an illusion of what I looked like in my human body, or perhaps because of my voice.
"You have an apprentice?" Zatanna asked in surprise.
"Yes, you would know if you called me more often," said Nimue.
"I told you I've been busy," complained Zatanna.
"Erika, this is Zatanna, she's like a niece to me," explained Nimue.
"Niece," I asked as I approached, now knowing that Zatanna and Nimue were apparently close.
"Her mother was like an older sister to me, and I'm friends with her father."
"Yes, even though she doesn't like me calling her aunt, she says it makes her feel old..." Zatanna interrupted herself, her eyes widening in surprise as she looked at me intently while I finished approaching them. "Wow, I understand why you took her on as your apprentice."
[Fuck my magical aura!]
Of course she noticed. I saw that hers was almost as big as Nimue's, but it was tinged with a golden color that shone even brighter. I still didn't fully understand the meaning of the colors with so few examples to compare.
"Erika has great potential, it would be a waste if she didn't learn how to use it." Nimue looked at me. "I see you succeeded."
The way she asked made me realize immediately that she wanted to keep my situation a secret, and I thanked her for that.
"Yes, I did."
"I'm happy for you," Nimue said sincerely.
"It's a pleasure to meet you," Zatanna chimed in.
"Likewise. Nimue had mentioned that she knew your family. Specifically your father, but this is the first time I've heard about your mother."
"My mother died several years ago, and my father..." She paused, as if remembering something painful. "He's not arround... it's complicated."
[Okay, I get it. Don't ask about her father.] That seemed like a hole I didn't want to step into.
"Zatanna is legally emancipated and travels a lot." Nimue looked at her niece. "I hadn't seen her in almost a month."
"I assure you, I've been very busy." Zatanna groaned and looked at me again. "And where are you from?"
"Boston." I grew up there in my old dimension. "But I haven't been back in a long time."
"And you came to New York to learn from Nimue?"
"Yes, I actually moved upstairs," I replied, sure Nimue would tell her that. "Well, I'll leave you two alone to continue catching up. It was a pleasure meeting you, Zatanna."
I said goodbye to Nimue as well and went back upstairs. It was a total surprise to meet Zatanna. I had nothing against her, it's just that she probably had a direct connection to the league. Batman surely hadn't forgotten that I knocked Robin unconscious a week ago. I sighed anyway; it wasn't like I planned on staying anonymous for long. I just did things my way and hoped to be discovered my way.
As night fell, I sat down to dinner with Nimue and we chatted a bit about our day and the use of my new spell.
"You did very well," Nimue said, watching me closely. "So well, in fact, that you even reduced your magical footprint a little."
"I'm using some of my spare mana to maintain the projection," I explained, pointing to my human appearance. "Or rather, redirecting it."
"That was a good idea, but I suppose you'll continue studying to create a body."
"Yes, definitely."
Despite all the advantages I had in my Anodite form, I missed my human body for the simple fact of remembering how it felt. There were many things you couldn't do with an energy body.
At that moment, I remembered my plans for tonight.
"But now that I can camouflage myself much better, I think I'll go out tonight."
"You're going out?" Nimue asked curiously. "Why do I think it's not something social?"
"I need money," I said with a shrug. "I plan to do a couple of things tonight, see if I can get something."
"And what will those things be?" Nimue asked questioningly.
"I can only assure you that I won't hurt anyone innocent." I looked at Nimue to see how she would react.
"It's okay."
"Seriously, you will don't ask me any more questions?" I was quite surprised. I expect more questions from her.
"I think I'm good at judging people, Erika. I know you're not a bad person." She frowned as she looked at me. "Although I do think you're reckless."
"Oh, yes, there's no doubt about that." I laughed. I wasn't blind to my own problems; we all have flaws. The best ones know them and try to fix them, and the smart ones turn them into advantages. I considered myself more of the latter type.
"Just promise me you'll be careful." Nimue placed her hands on the table, raising them slightly to rest her chin on her fingers. "Can you at least tell me where you're going?
"Don't worry, I'll be careful, I promise, and I'm going to Gotham."
Nimue frowned even more at my answer.
"I've heard that Batman doesn't like new metahumans coming to his city. He may not have powers, but you shouldn't underestimate him."
"Me underestimate Batman?" I repeated incredulously, almost laughing again. I'd rather underestimate Superman than that Bat shit. There were very few things Batman couldn't accomplish with information and preparation time. The only reason I wasn't afraid of him was because I knew he was a good man and had never killed anyone. "Believe me, I know how dangerous he is. I'll be careful."
I knew I would piss him off by hanging around Gotham, but I didn't plan on going there very often. As soon as I have some good money, I'll move to another city. But maybe not New York, after all, you don't eat where you shit.
"Okay." Nimue held out a hand to gesture with her fingers. In an instant, a little book appeared. She placed it on the table in front of us and slid it toward me. "I wanted to give this to you once you'd made some progress with the spell you were preparing."
Curious, I picked up the book, opened it, and flipped through the pages; there were notes on spells and things like that.
"Consider it a beginner's edition of magic," Nimue said jokingly. "It only has basic information from other branches, but I think it will be useful to you."
"Thank you." I meant it; I found it very useful. I knew Nimue had a larger grimoire, but I was beginning to realize that these things had a lot of personal value, so I didn't dare ask her for it.
"What I told Zatanna this afternoon was the truth, Erika. It would be a waste if you didn't learn to use your full potential." More seriously, she added, "I must also admit that I don't want you to have to resort to dangerous people to learn."
"I understand." I waved my hand. "Don't worry, I won't make deals with the devil or anything like that, and besides, I like being your apprentice."
That made me wonder if the Devil existed here. Constantine existed, so the probability of Lucifer lurking around wasn't zero. I shuddered inwardly: that guy was incredibly powerful. I hoped I never had to meet him or seek him out.
"Well, I'm glad to hear that," Nimue said.
Gotham, NJ.
June 16, 2013.
As midnight approached, I prepared to leave my room. Although my studies had focused on projection, one of the things I was interested in learning was how to transport objects from one place to another using magic. Nimue taught me a little; this magic was called Conjuration and shared some roots with Projection.
It was difficult to conjure something that had never been touched, and extremely difficult to do so with something that had never even been seen. But if it was something that you had previously impregnated with your energy, had in your possession for a period of time and was not protected by enchantments, it was very easy. With that in mind, I prepared a few things like my clothes, a backpack, and my phone so I could take them with me if I needed them.
I left them in my room and decided to abandon my body illusion spell and undressed to go out the window in my Anodite form.
Fifteen minutes later, now I was flying through the skies of Gotham
Obviously, I would go beat up criminals; it was a quick way to make money. Well, the only one I could think of with my current abilities that didn't involve robbing a bank. The thing is, I was planning to go after a big fish.
But for that I needed information, so I was flying over the eastern part of Gotham, right over Falcone's territory, which was the docks. I had found a lot of information on the internet about the crime family and had filled in the gaps with my meta-knowledge, but I needed to know more.
The infamous crime family no longer had the same power it did 10 years ago, when Batman began his crusade against crime in the city, but that didn't mean they were completely weak now. Carmione had died a couple of years ago, leaving his legacy to his son Mario, who, although not as brutal as his father, was even more intelligent; after all, he had been smart enough to adapt to the Bat and thrive.
After dimming the brightness of my hair and reducing my size to that of a child, I descended a little further and began to explore the city. I wasn't quite sure what I was looking for, perhaps someone suspicious to question if I didn't find anything in an hour or two of flying around here, I would take a look around a local club in my human form to see what else I could find.
At that moment, I heard a couple of gunshots and stopped in midair. This was Gotham, so gunshots were probably not unusual around here, but I was so close to the source of the shots that I couldn't help but fly toward that area out of curiosity. I quickly arrived there. It was a side street that led to one of the ship loading areas in the port.
There were three men, two of them pointing their guns at a girl with her hands up. I noticed they were talking to each other and I flew closer to hear better.
"...You only have to do it once." said one of the men, who was standing between the other two and was not carrying a gun.
"But I don't want to," replied the girl. She had a distinctive accent that I didn't quite identify.
She was wearing a hoodie and had a scarf covering the lower part of her face, leaving only her eyes and forehead visible. My eyes focused on her; she had magical potential equal to what I had seen in Jason. I thought for a moment about what to do until I shrugged and decided to intervene. I reached out my hand to create a shield of energy around the girl, protecting her from any stray bullets.
The four of them looked very surprised, looking around until they spotted me, but it was too late. I descended toward them and began to unleash bolts of mana on their bodies, first on the armed couple. The girl didn't just stand there, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw that she had taken something out of her sweater that began to glow slightly.
At that moment, I froze as watched with horror and fascination as an army of rats began to emerge from a nearby sewer and charged at the trio of men, one of them who was already on the ground from my attack was the first to be bitten.
The rats limited their attacks to their limbs, but it must have been painful and, to some extent, harmful to their health. The men kicked and even shot at them while cursing, but there were so many that they could barely stop them.
I turned my head toward the girl behind the energy shield; it was undoubtedly her who was doing it; a feeling of familiarity settled in my mind as if I remembered this from somewhere else. Anyway, I turned back to the thugs and started firing mana bolts again until I noticed that they were motionless along with some rats that had also been hit.
With the threat neutralized, I turned my attention back to the girl. I removed the energy shield surrounding her and held her steady, still in the air, away from the rats.
"Thank you for helping me," she said, lifting her head toward me, and I saw a rat under her sweater. "Sebastian was scared."
There was no way it was her, how was that possible?
"Cleo?" I asked curiously.
"Ehhhh, how do you know my name?"
A.N: this may be the last chapter of this year I have many family commitments and will not have much time to write. but we'll see if I can find some time to write something after christmas.
if there is any mistake I apologize English is not my first language
Gotham, NJ.
June 16, 2013.
Erika POV.
[Damn my big mouth]
I floated in the air looking at Cleo for almost a minute, thinking about what to say; it was common for me, in moments of panic like this, to resort to humor.
"My name is Lazuli, I'm your fairy godmother."
"I really have a fairy godmother?" Cleo asked excitedly.
"Of course not. How could you believe that, you fool?" Surprised, I scolded the credulous girl with questionable hygiene who surrounded herself with rats.
"Then how do you know my name?" she asked, visibly disappointed that she didn't have a fairy godmother. I looked at 'Sebastian' peeking out from the neck of her sweater. His little mouse eyes sparkled when he saw me.
[Damn my big mouth again] I sighed wearily and decided to be a little honest.
"I'm 'magical,' and that's one of the many mysteries surrounding my awesome existence that mortals like you can't possibly understand."
I was definitely not going to tell her that I knew her from a movie from another world.
"Hey, that sounds too pretentious and it's not a real answer," Cleo complained, crossing her arms and looking at me. I think she was pouting under the scarf she wore as a mask.
"Tough luck for you, then, because it's the only one I have." I decided to change the subject. I turned to look at the trio of unconscious thugs on the ground; most of the street rats had already returned to the sewer. Curious, I asked Cleo. "By the way, what did these assholes want from you? I heard them asking you for something."
"I don't know, if you were my fairy godmother, I'd answer that." Ratgirl replied sarcastically.
"We're feeling belligerent today, aren't we?" I snorted with equal sarcasm. "How ungrateful life is. I saved a young girl, and this is how she repays me."
I wasn't sure if I was older than Cleo, but she certainly wasn't much older than me.
"Who are you calling young? You're smaller than me," said Cleo, pointing to my current figure, which could rival a 5-year-old girl in size.
"Well, excuse me for spending so much time in the dryer and that was clearly an insult to all short people on the planet. You should apologize right now." I replied.
"You're too annoying to be a fairy," she complained.
"Fine, don't say anything to me if you don't want to." Frustrated, I ran over to the trio of unconscious men and began to examine them.
"What are you doing?"
"Stealing... making a small acquisition of assets..." It would have been a waste not to take advantage of this opportunity.
"That's called stealing."
"It's an acquisition of assets!" I found the trio's wallets and began taking out all the money inside.
"Stealing is stealing." There was no criticism in Cleo's voice; she was just stating a fact. She came up to me and looked at the unconscious men. "They tried to recruit me for a job, but I refused."
"Why did you suddenly decide to tell me that?" I asked, confused, as I counted the money.
"Why does a fairy suddenly need money?"
"I'm magical, not rich, and stop calling me a fairy. I thought the fairy thing was settled, I'm not one."
"I'll call you Fairy until you tell me your name, you know mine is fair."
"Call me Lazuli," I said.
"That's not your real name."
"How do you know?"
"I know."
"Sure?"
"Yes."
"Fuck you, Ratgirl, you're annoying." I finished counting the money, a little over $150; it wasn't much, but it would do some good. I looked at Cleo. "What was that job you didn't want to take?"
"It wasn't so much the work, but who I had to do it for. On the streets, I learned that sometimes the money isn't worth it if you have to get involved with certain people."
That seems pretty logical to me, and it was a great display of common sense. This Cleo was perhaps a little less naive than her canonical counterpart.
"The boss of these guys tends to take things too far and hurt innocent people, and I don't want to help him with that," Cleo continued.
But I could see that she still seemed to share some of the morality that made her stand out among quarrelsome murderers. If she were half as moralistic as Cleo in that movie, she wouldn't be a bad person... just a little idiot.
"You shouldn't tell me this, it's definitely illegal. I might have to take you to jail as a law-abiding citizen."
"I don't think you care about bat. You just robbed those guys."
"It was an asset acquisition!" I corrected, frustrated.
Cleo was right, I didn't give a shit if she did illegal things, as long as she wasn't murdering or raping others. Laws were created to define and maintain order in society, not as rules to define people's morals.
"Besides, Sebastian is calm, so I don't think you're dangerous," she said, reaching up to scratch Rat's head.
Well, maybe she was naive.
"Unless that rat has a lie detector, you shouldn't trust it so much."
"Sebastian has good senses."
Since I didn't want to continue arguing about the reliability of rats, I decided to stick with the previous topic.
"And who do these three work for?"
"For me."
An unfamiliar voice made Cleo and me turn to our right, where floating in the sky was a man wearing a yellow suit, an bug mask, a belt with tools, and something like a jetpack on his back that allowed him to defy gravity.
"Okay, Ratgirl, now I understand why you didn't want to work for the boss of these guys if it was this fucking asshole." I instantly recognized this lunatic dressed as an insect: he was a murderous, obsessive-compulsive pyromaniac and a recurring villain in Gotham. I had seen him in my internet searches, and he was none other than Firefly.
"I don't think I like a little girl like you to have such a dirty mouth." Said the pyromancer, looking at Cleo beside me. "And you. I thought we could talk, I have a job for you."
"No, thanks, I'm not interested." she said immediately.
"I don't think I like that answer."
"Well, you should know that we don't give a fuck what you like, flying banana. Listen to me well, I'll only say this once. Get out of here, I don't have time for your shit. Go masturbate with burning toilet paper or whatever."
I wasn't worried about this guy; of all the villains or heroes who could become a threat to me in this city, can be counted on one hand, and this pyromancer wasn't one of them.
"You little bitch!" The villain said to me angrily. I had advocated for peace but it seems that my words had affected him.
Firefly raised his right arm, and from two small holes in the back of his palm, a torrent of fire shot toward me; it was a lot of fire, with the force of a flamethrower. I quickly created a shield to protect myself and those around me.
"Son of a bitch, your men are down here too!" I was surprised; if I hadn't created a shield, that torrent of fire would have burned them. If I had any doubts about defeating Firefly before, I didn't have them now. I gave my money to Cleo and said, "Hold this for me, I'll be right back."
When I was done with this idiot, he would only be able to eat liquids for a long time. I waited for the torrent of fire to dissipate and tried to trap Firefly by creating a sphere of energy around him, but that jetpack was fast, and the villain moved before the sphere closed in on him.
I decided to change tactics and not give him time to think. I flew in his direction firing mana bolts. Firefly dodged a couple of my shots, but one of them hit him in the leg, causing him to spin in the air And Taking advantage of that moment, he took something out of his belt and threw it at me.
It was a small orb that exploded, releasing many flames. But I ignored the heat and flew through the flames in his direction and, in a worthy imitation of what Gohan did to Raditz using the momentum of my trajectory, I hit him with my head right in his chest.
After hearing the squeal that came out of Firefly's mouth and seeing that the impact threw him a couple of meters backward, I closed the distance between us and quickly created a giant hammer of solidified mana, which I used to hit the villain from behind. His jetpack shattered, and Firefly was sent flying into a building, crashing into the roof.
"Now you regret not running away, don't you?" I said to the villain.
I had to give Firefly credit. He was tough; he had started to get on all fours. But I wasn't going to let him do it. I landed on the roof and fired two bolts of mana at his arms. When Firefly's body fell to the ground, I walked over to him.
"And since I want to make sure you don't run away next week..."
Channeling mana through my leg to strengthen it, I raised my foot and slammed it hard into the villain's leg. Instantly, I could feel his bones snap like twigs and hear his scream of pain. I raised my foot again and slammed it into his other leg; another crack of bones and another scream of pain.
Was I being too harsh? Fuck no. Firefly had more than a dozen murders to his name and had caused horrific burns to hundreds of innocent people over the years, as well as being a villain of the worst kind. He was one of those who did these things not for money or work, but because they truly enjoyed seeing people suffer.
I approached his arms and repeated the process of breaking his bones; this time the villain didn't scream; he had lost consciousness.
"Fuck, don't die, it's not worth the trouble you'll cause me if I kill you, you idiot."
I extended my hand toward his neck and checked his vital signs. Firefly was still breathing, which was good. Despite the brutal beating I had given him, I didn't want him to die. I was sincere; killing him would bring me trouble. Batman wouldn't tolerate it and would come after me.
I created an energy dome, grabbed Firefly by one of his broken arms, and threw him inside. I made the energy sphere float with the villain inside and flew to my side where Cleo was waiting for me.
"That... was fast." She looked a little surprised.
Well, what did she expect? This guy was a one-trick pony: he only knew how to burn things and create things that could be used to burn more things. Otherwise, he was an idiot.
"I'm done here, we should call the police."
"The police?"
"Yeah, who else? Call them and let's get out of here."
"Okay, I'll call them." Cleo reached into her pocket and pulled out a disposable phone.
"Well, I..." I stopped talking when I felt a familiar sensation coming from the buildings behind me. "Oh, no, not these guys."
I turned to look at another rooftop and saw three figures there; two of them were starting to descend the facade of the building using grappling hooks.
"Is the whole city going to come to this street?" I complained, looking at the duo approaching Cleo and me.
They were Nightwing and Robin. I looked up at the rooftop, and there, watching us, was an archer dressed in green. I remembered her name was Artemis or something like that. I didn't know much about her, except that she was Green Arrow's sidekick. Only Robin seemed to have any magical potential, but I sensed something strange about the other two.
"Not the whole city, just us." Nightwing had the deep voice I always imagined, although it was nothing like Batman's. I had heard the Bat's voice in interviews, and it sounded more menacing. "I see you crossed paths with Firefly."
"He's all yours, I'm leaving." I moved the energy sphere in his direction, dissipating it, and the villain collapsed to the ground.
The pair of teenage heroes looked at the battered villain.
"You were a little hard on him, weren't you?" Nightwing said.
"No one has ever died from a broken bone."
"Of course someone has died from that," Robin replied.
"...No one I've ever known has died from that." I continued, unperturbed.
"Yes, it was definitely her who attacked me," Robin said to his partner. "Although she's smaller now."
"Another insult to my height. I'm meeting a lot of impertinent people today; if you don't want to get attacked next time, don't surprise a girl in a dark alley."
"It was a rooftop, the alley was where you left me afterwards," Robin complained.
"Okay, on a dark rooftop, and you should thank me, brat, for putting you in that container to keep you safe."
Robin gritted his teeth, and I saw Artemis on the rooftop start to laugh right after I finished my sentence; she must have been listening to us.
"We saw the explosions in the sky and came to take a look, I'm ..." Nightwing began to say.
"Unless I live under a rock, I know who you are." I interrupted him.
"Well, you know us, who are you? You're definitely new faces in town."
"She's Ratgirl," Cleo glared at me. "You can call me Lazuli. It was nice to meet you, but like I said, we're leaving."
"Why are you in such a hurry? Are you scared or something?" Robin asked.
"Of you?" I snorted contemptuously. "Never, brat."
"We're not here to fight," Nightwing interjected giving Robin a hard look. "We know you stopped several robberies and other crimes last week. We appreciate that. We're just here to introduce ourselves and, if you want, we can give you some advice. It's not wrong that you stopped Firefly, but you could have held back a little."
"That's your opinion, and I respect it. I don't want to be rude, but I'm not interested in anything you're selling." I didn't want to stay there; anything I said to them would give Batman more clues about me.
"And the men on the ground, who are they?"
"Some flying banana thugs." I shrugged.
"And your friend?" Nightwing asked, looking at Cleo.
"I'm sorry... I shouldn't even be here." Cleo said timidly.
"She doesn't like strangers. Let's go." I flew toward Cleo, positioning myself behind her and creating a sphere of energy that enveloped us both.
"The offer still stands," Nightwing said. "No pressure."
I just nodded and lifted the sphere; the heroes did nothing to stop us, and we quickly left the place.
"Where are we going?" Cleo asked.
"I don't know."