Return of the Hero 3 - Holy Magic?

Turns out, the answer to “what were a few mortals going to do,” was be incredibly annoying. Lucas sat with his back against the window, letting the sun warm his neck and shoulders – he still didn’t have any proper clothes, wearing the medical gown as he was – while he observed and half-listened to the two men who had entered the room.

They were dressed in all black suits with red ties. Their hair were identically styled; slicked to the side and professional looking. Both had an energy signature to them, too. He’d estimate them to be about c rank, kind of middle-of-the-pack based on how their spiritual signatures radiated through the room, but he was still guessing. With the screaming of the city’s natural energy and sickness of the hospital still echoing in his ears, he couldn’t be sure he was accurately measuring them. It would be interesting to see if he was correct. Far more interesting, at least, than the contract they were trying to force him to sign.

“Mr. Ward, we understand this is disorienting, but the world has changed. There are laws around supers that we must maintain,” one, the dark skinned one who had introduced himself as Ashton, said, arms crossed.

“Sure, or you’re trying to bind the brother of two of the most powerful s-ranked ‘superheroes,’ gods above I can’t believe I called them that, to a contract he doesn’t fully understand,” Lucas drawled back, folding his hands in his lap. “I agreed to your silly little measuring test, but asking me to sign a whole bunch of paperwork without letting me read it is ridiculous. I know the world has changed, but that’s violating a lot of rights and laws, I’m pretty sure,” and if the world had changed that much, Lucas would just leave right then and there. Maybe go to Barbados. He didn’t know where that was, but it sounded neat.

Ashton shifted uncomfortably, and Lucas couldn’t even muster up the emotion to grin at the man. He’d already made that point three times, and they were still trying to pressure him with vague threats, hoping to overwhelm him while they figured he was still disoriented. Classic technique; devils and demons used it all the time to force mortals into contracts. Which in turn only begged the question as to why it took so long for the agents to show up in the first place, days after he woke up instead of right after, but he supposed that was bureaucracy at its finest.

Or they were afraid of pissing off the twins. One of the two.

“Mr. Ward, don’t make this more complicated than it needs to be,” the other, a blonde man named Tyler, started. Lucas banged the back of his head against the glass behind him, partly wishing it would shatter and send him plummeting to his death. Really changes your perspective on death when you know what’s waiting for you on the other side. It was a touch more than just ‘dramatic’ for what he was actually facing, but this whole situation was reminding him that he’d have other things to deal with in the mortal realm. Like rent. And taxes.

Gods above, what was he going to do about work? He hadn’t even thought about that yet, but he certainly couldn’t mooch off of his siblings forever. Maybe he’d pursue his teaching license again…

“I will make it as complicated as I want. Look, I get your position. You’ve got a job to do. But I’m still waking up, man. Missed five years of my life, almost six, and the world changed into a superhero film practically overnight for me. To top it off, my brother is in underwear commercials and goes by the superhero name ‘Cyclone.’ Respectfully, drop the contract. I’m not signing anything, not even release forms, until I see my family. I will, however, submit to your magic test or whatever. So let’s focus on the things you can do, and not the things I’m not going to do,” Lucas tried to explain patiently, as if he was talking to a child which, in many ways, he was. Both men looked at each other, back at Lucas, then at the tablet Ashton kept trying to get Lucas to take and squiggle his name on.

Tyler opened his mouth as if to argue, but Ashton put a hand on the man’s shoulder.

“Leave it, Ty,” he said softly. “Please note, Mr. Ward, that if your ranking exceeds a certain level, we will have to take extra precautions. An untrained s-class hero can cause immense amounts of damage if they lose control.” Lucas stilled at that, finally recognizing where their fear was coming from.

He hadn’t even thought of that. Losing control wasn’t something he did. It hadn’t happened since he first got to Heaven.

“Oh. Yeah. I understand. But you don’t even know if I am s-class yet, so let’s establish that first,” Lucas reasoned.

“He has a point,” Doctor Holt finally piped up from where she’d been listening to the entire conversation, ostensibly to make sure her patient, him, wasn’t overwhelmed by the agents. Both the agents grumbled a little, but after a bit more cajoling, they pulled a single, clear crystal ball out of one of their suitcases, and a series of seven crystal rods connected by copper wires from the other.

“These are magic measuring tools. Very basic versions, nothing like the larger more powerful tools we have at our various headquarters, but they should at least let us establish a baseline.” Agent Tyler explained, stepping forward and extending the crystal ball to him. Lucas stared at it blankly, and it took the agent a moment to realize he had no idea what he was supposed to do. Not that he couldn’t figure it out based on deductive reasoning, but that was beside the point. “Ah. Right, sorry. Place your hands on the ball and try to focus, imagine pushing warmth from your chest through your hands. The ball will light up with a color based on what kind of natural magic you possess when you do it successfully.”

Lucas laid one hand on the extended ball, pushing a bit of his power through the palm of his hand and into the ball. Just a drop, he didn’t want to accidentally break the crystal.

Almost immediately it lit up in a brilliant gold color, not overwhelmingly bright like he had feared, but gleaming softly like the first rays of light from a coming dawn. Little shapes darted about inside the crystal, echoes of his deeper abilities, and he yanked his hand back, paling. Was that normal? Did they see?

“Usually it takes a bit of time for people to get it right. Unusually reactive,” Tyler said, raising his eyebrows but otherwise not suspicious in the slightest. Lucas mentally cursed. Right, he shouldn’t know how to use magic; it would’ve made more sense for him to struggle a bit.

“Beginner’s luck. I meditate a lot, maybe that helped? Or, well, I used to,” Lucas told them, only half lying. He does meditate a lot. “What does the gold mean?”

“Holy magic,” Ashford said as Tyler placed the crystal ball back on in his suitcase, making a little note on his tablet. The dark man stepped forward next, laying out the seven crystal rods on the bench beside Lucas. Now that they were closer he could see they were all of various sizes, smallest closest to him, tallest further away. “That’s a very rare affinity. Even if your natural abilities are low, you’ll still be able to find work pretty much anywhere.”

“Holy magic?” Lucas parroted, trying to sound surprised. He was pretty sure he failed, so he pivoted to humor. “Does that make me a holy man, now? If I have to go to the restroom, does that mean I take holy shits?” That actually got a snort from Ashford and Doctor Holt, the doctor hiding her mouth with one hand and shaking her head at him.

“I suppose it would,” Ashford tried to hide his amusement behind professionalism, pointing to the rods. “This test is very similar to the crystal ball, but it doesn’t require any effort on your part. I’m going to attach this to your wrist, and it will read the ambient flow of magic in your body; the more crystals that light up and the brighter they are, the stronger your class-ranking will be.”

“Isn’t that counter-intuitive? Shouldn’t this be the first one, since it doesn’t take any effort from me?” Lucas asked, already pulling his power back the best he could, locking it down stealthily. He would have to feed the crystals a very bare minimum of power, trickle it in as slowly as he could to control the flow. This did tell him why the test was pushed for so soon after figuring out the person had awakened their powers; if the crystals read ambient energy flow, then the only time they could get accurate tests was before anyone learned to control their energy.

“We need to know what kind of magic we’re working with to calibrate the gear,” Ashford explained. “Fire-based powers may twist the copper wiring, for example. Holy magic is one of those ones we, shockingly, don’t have to do anything about. Just place your hand here, and I’ll attach this to your wrist.” He said, pointing to a little pad attached with copper wires to the crystals, and a thing that looked very similar to a blood-pressure monitor. Lucas let him wrap the sensor around his arm, put his fingers on the pad, and carefully watched the crystals for any response.

Everyone watched the crystals with bated breath.

Lucas’ power curled in his chest like a dragon, waiting to be called upon, and slowly, ever so slowly, he let a trickle of power down his arm. No, not a trickle, grains of sand dripping down his veins, droplets from an ocean.

Three crystals immediately lit up, the fourth flickering. Paling, Lucas bit back on the trickling flow, biting his inner cheek while trying to remain neutral in his expression. Trying to manage this small amount of power was like trying to drain an ocean through a sieve; there was just too much. Lucas’ focused on the crystals, collecting a tiny bit of power and holding it under the sensor, stopping the rest of the flow. This would be far easier than trying to stop the tide. That was stupid of me. He chided himself. Solomon would be disappointed.

The lights stabilized. Three crystals remained lit, the third slightly more dim than others, while the rest remained dim.

“D-class holy magic,” Ashford said after a brief moment of watching the crystals, making sure the lights had stabilized, his eyes flicking to Lucas once, almost suspicious, then making a note on his tablet.

“Good. You’re done with your tests. He’s d-class, nothing spectacularly dangerous. Can you leave my patient alone now? He’s got a long day ahead of him – “ Doctor Holt was interrupted by Tyler, who held up his tablet and shot her a dry look.

“What we need is for Mr. Ward to start reviewing documents and contracts. D-class holy power is rare enough, we need him to understand the position he is now in.” he explained as Ashford began packing up his sensors, pulling the band off of Lucas’ arm. He practically sighed in relief as he relaxed his pressure on his power, letting it flow naturally through him once more.

Doctor Holt argued against the agents. The agents argued back and tried to pressure Lucas. Lucas tried to dismiss them. They kept pushing. Eventually, after Doctor Holt directly asked them how they thought the Ward twins would react to two government agents harassing their brother when they arrived in the next hour, Ashford and Tyler scurried off with their tails between their legs.

Lucas watched them go, amused.

“Are Elizabeth and George really that scary?” he asked, snickering.  

“They can, alone, take out an entire city and together are a ranked among the top of the s-class heroes in the northern hemisphere.” Doctor Holt said dryly. “Yes, they are scary. Even the government has to tiptoe around them, which is why you got away with not signing anything today.”

“I see,” he mused, scratching his chin and casting his senses outward, briefly, trying to feel when the twins would arrive. He couldn’t quite sense them yet and, to his shame, he realized he wasn’t certain he’d recognize them even if he did sense them, but Holt had said they’d be arriving in the hour.

It was time to knock their reputations down a peg or nine. He was going to share stories.

“If you want to talk about your holy magic,” Doctor Holt began, but Lucas interrupted her.

“To me, they’re just my little brother and sister.” He deflected with a grin. “I know I’ve told you a few stories, but there was this one time George got lost at the book store when he was five, he was way into dragons, had, like, a dozen books about dragons, and I found him bawling between two bookshelves and clutching this little dragon plushy,” So the stories unfolded. At first Doctor Holt listened with mild amusement, disappearing once or twice to go check on other patients and allowing Lucas to subject other orderlies and nurses to his endless chattering.

By the time the news came his siblings had arrived, he had two or three nurses and Doctor Holt in his room, plus at least five others who would rotate in, pretending to check up on him, ask if he needed a drink, or checking equipment, as they hung on to his every word. Relief flooded through him at the feeling; even this long, even from this much distance, even though he had never truly felt them with these spiritual senses of his before, he recognized his siblings’ auras.

Elizabeth’s was cold, like a frigid, howling blizzard, but unmistakably her. George was a violent tornado, all power and shouting pride, announcing itself to the world in that prideful, need-to-be the center of attention way Lucas remembered. Both were walking up the hallway, moving fast, already so close to the hospital room. Lucas’ grin grew wider, eyes narrowing as he leaned forward, getting to the perfect part of the story for them to enter on.

“…and that’s where I found them, stuck in this tree, hanging upside down from the branches and tied together because of the tire swing,” he explained conspiratorially, taking a sip from his Gatorade, throat a little sore from talking for so long. The nurses were snickering, Holt smiling as she wrote something on the board; and George and Elizabeth rounded the corner.

They were bigger than he remembered, wearing simple street clothes, nothing like the silly costumes and armor they wore for TV.

“Lucas,” they breathed together, expression flickering between hope, surprise, joy, and even maybe a bit of tears. The nurses and Doctor jumped at their sudden appearance, but Lucas was on a roll, meeting their eyes with a trademarked, shit-eating grin as he reached the best part of the story.

“And George literally pees himself, big old crocodile tears rolling down his face, Elizabeth with snot running down her forehead and bawling, calling for me to help them and – I, of course, being the magnanimous big brother I am, died laughing before getting them down. To this day I still don’t know how they managed to get up there,” he cackled, though the punchline wasn’t for the nurses anymore.

Elizabeth’s expression, cold and hard despite the hope in her dark eyes, cracked. She shook her head, tears shining in the corners of her eyes, dirty blonde ponytail waving behind her.

“You swore never to tell that story again, asshole,” she managed, voice cracking. George choked on a laugh as he pushed into the room, so much bigger than Lucas ever remembered. His shoulders had filled out like their father’s; stocky and muscular. His hair was dark like their mother’s, eyes a hazel that locked onto Lucas’ face with unnerving intensity, a little scar marring his chin. His bottom lip trembled, even though he tried to hide it.

“I lied,” Lucas said proudly, pulling himself into a shaky standing position, cocking one hip wiggling his eyebrows. “I have nearly six years of brotherly love to shower upon you two; and that first means undermining the big scary personas you’ve built up amongst the unwitting hospital staff. Alas, they –“

He was cut off by Elizabeth. His sister strode forward in four bounding strides, slamming into him, arms wrapping around him in a bone-crushing hug. He words lodged in his suddenly tight throat, eyes burning.

“You’re awake,” she breathed through desperate hope. Lucas returned the hug gingerly, meeting George’s eyes. George shook his head. Lucas gestured him closer with one hand. He hesitated only a moment longer, stepping closer but maintaining his distance.

“I am.” Lucas whispered back, eyes blurring with unshed tears. He’d missed so much. They were big now. Different. He let out a long, slow breath as Elizabeth pulled away, cold radiating from her in frigid waves as she looked him up and down, as if afraid he was different or injured. He smiled sadly. “We have a lot to catch up on.”