73 6.1 School Time

Time: Late June, 1989.

Location: A large building in the suburbs, my office.

I leaned back into my new ergonomic chair and sighed with pleasure. This is the life.

I mean sure, France has fallen in love with me all over again… which is dreadful. The girls who used to scream when I passed on the street now faint for some unknown reason. I'm actually scared for my own chastity when some of the older ones are around. Or I would be if I didn't have barriers and a watchful Valkyrie ready to appear at a moment's notice.

The Skalds (a group of Neo-Vikings) are making waves and treating me as their hero as well. Which doesn't make any sense when they have a perfectly good Valkyrie right here next to me. At least their activities mostly boil down to brawls, feasting and heavy drinking.

Demands for a public statement about the alien vessel parked nearby Earth are tiresome. I mean how do you explain that you didn't actually stop the runaway vessel on its collision course with Earth? No, despite Superman pushing against it and J'onn, Batman and I trying everything to stop our vessel's inertia which would cause the end of the Earth it wasn't any of us who actually did the deed. Dr Fate randomly popping up with his catch phrase to save the day, before literally towing the ship to a safe place with a gesture.

No wonder magic practitioners get freaked out by the Lords of Chaos and Order, they aren't remotely human. They are eldritch abominations that are intruding into our world and there isn't a damn thing we can do to stop them.

I've become the French President's lucky charm after rescuing him, he's tied his future reelection onto keeping me happy. For my aid in the recent Alien Invasion, I have been given the deed to this building which is to be used as a magic research and training centre with a secondary focus as an academy for Metahuman scholarships.

I ripped off Xavier's school system basically. Although I don't want to have a group of M-men. Too campy. None of that soft racial discrimination Xavier liked so much, either.

Magic is the harder of the units to cover, aside from a dozen graduates of the current program under Louise there are no other teachers. So we are going to be giving a heck of a lot of private study and research to graduates. Anyone enrolled will either be someone with an outrageous talent for magic, such that it manifests without training or as a metahuman ability. May who has some extreme ties to the Green and natural powers is a good example of the latter. Everyone else on the magic program are carefully vetted French agents, some of their top agents are scheduled to come through the program over the next few months.

Our success stories are already turning heads, with the Major 'Pyro' Hart being our best example. She has already learned how to fly using her newly acquired abilities, a bit like Iron Man on jets of fire. Seeing as she was already part of the Airforce they were delighted and she has become their new poster child.

The other agent 'Skulker' (no known name!) has already been instrumental in taking down the remnant alien forces around France. His abilities are considered classified, so I suspect he's gained some lethal new tricks.

I'm scheduled to go through the program next, along with May who has only been observing so far.

Louise finally got to see my salvaged writings from the past and identify my ring and the amulet I took from Vandal Savage's neck before I buried him alive. The scrolls were simply magic spells, from an unknown cult devoted to the Celtic faith. It was varied, from elemental magic to defensive. Most were completely new to Louise and others were variations on spells she already knew about.

The scroll in Egyptian hieroglyphs (actual Egyptian not Kahndaqi after all) was a scroll that had escaped the burning of the Library of Alexandria. It was dedicated to understanding Order magic and probably originated from Dr Fate's cult in an earlier period.

Likewise the bronze plate covered in latin script was a Chaos magic primer. Origins unknown.

The major find was however, the book of clay tablets also in latin. It was a tome lost during the eruption of Mt Vesuvius, when the city of Herculaneum was destroyed (at the same time as Pompeii). This was more than merely an introduction to magic, it was an advanced tome dedicated to Vulcan and his craft. Magic for producing treasures. Enchanting for permanent effects.

Louise was an emotional wreck after having identified them all. I didn't see her again for a week, she was too busy digging into their secrets.

When she finally came out of her fugue state she continued, by viewing the amulet I stole off Savage. It was interestingly a charm to nullify pain. Which brings up why would he need it when he's immortal? I suppose he might have immortal cancer too.

The ring was the real surprise, Louise was flat out unable to identify the enchantment. It was an order of magnitude more complex than anything she had even read about in Vulcan's Tome. If this were Diablo it would be a Unique item.

In fact it actually struck her when she tried to look closer. Just a spike of pain with a few sparks of light that faded quickly, but it was also very clearly a warning. Very interesting and more proof the ring is sapient at the very least. It seems to have been feeding on ambient magic as well, which begs the question, what exactly does it do that requires so much magic?

On my new desk, a solid slab of polished steel I forged personally I had my first look at the people who were about to enter my academy. My smile as I flicked through the list became frozen into a rictus grin.

Who did this?!

Why is John Constantine on my list?!