The Weight of The Raid Name
Rowan was doing some stretches when he heard loud voices outside of the door. He moved to the door and opened it in nothing but his pants. He had no shirt to wear. Camille smiled at his presence. She was talking to a rather slimy looking man in oval spectacles. The glint of the lights in the hallway hid what his eyes looked like, but he wore a tailored blue suit, and had had his shoulder-length blonde hair gelled back.
"Camille, is everything good out here?" She nodded her head to him. "Yes, Peter here was insisting that now that you are awake that you be brought to see the mayor post haste." Rowan nodded as he gently took Camille's wrist and guided her past him into the room, much to the exclamation of a waking Emily. You can tell the mayor that I will come to see him shortly. I assume he's in that big room I can see across from here."
The man grimaced at that. "The mayor does not like to be kept waiting. You should just come now." Rowan went to turn around and back into the room when a hand clamped down on his shoulder, He spun faster than he should have causing a slight ache to where he had been cut and while the man removed his hand, he could not hope to match the speed Rowan was capable of as one hand garbed in cyan mana closed around his throat and slammed him into the wall causing cracks to spread through the wall and dust to fall from the ceiling.
"Touching me is a rather unwise act. My face is known well enough that while you may not know who I was before this moment, you certainly do now. Go tell the mayor I will be there shortly, but touching me again without permission will earn you more than this reprimand. He's waited for me before he will get it."
Rowan released him and walked back into the room. Peter fixed his suit and tapped a microphone by the lapel of his blazer. "Sir, he will be coming shortly, but we have a problem. We weren't able to identify who it was through the blood when he was brought in, but it appears that the person is Rowan Raid." The mayor on the other side of the line tapped his finger against his desk and muttered a single word. "Shit, tell Neal he needs to be back here before Rowan comes to the office. In fact, tell the entire cabinet to gather and make sure Fiona is here. I need a seer here." Peter nodded to no one in particular and smiled at the closed door.
Rowan walked back into the room, to Em eating at the table and Camille waiting for him. She walked closer and inspected his body, going as far as tickling his ribs with her flames and alleviating the slight ache from moving too quickly. "You know, I was studying to be a surgeon. I think I can inspect my own body." She raised an eyebrow and got into his face with a smile. "Is the great Rowan Raid embarrassed by the touch of a woman? Rowan snatched her hand in his and was about to say something when he noticed the young Emily staring at them with a mouth full of food and decided flirting wasn't the most optimal choice in the moment.
She took her hand back and smiled at him, turning around while her butt lightly brushed across his waist. Rowan froze for a moment and realized that her hair and even the proportions of her body had changed as well. Her bust size had increased, while her bottom had gotten rounder, while the ends of her hair had turned white. Rowan was about to ask, but just like previously, when she had seemingly guessed his thoughts. "You're not the only one who received quests, Rowan Raid. I got two quests the moment we got here. One quest to save the Rowan Raid, and another to heal the wounds of 100 survivors. The quest for you awarded me a skill called mana body while helping people had a special reward that upgraded my soul from tier five to tier four.
I accomplished both things while you slept. The system did inform me that while I can further upgrade my soul, tier one is the limit. You are still just as special. One has to be born a tier zero existence." Rowan nodded as it made sense. "My awakened bloodline is called the Flaming Pixie." Rowan nodded his head. That explained the changes in her. Em finally finished eating while they talked "Mr.Rowan!" Rowan cut her off before she could continue.
"Em, you know that you can just call me Rowan like Camille does." She cocked her head to the side. "Mommy said I'm supposed to call adults respectfully at all times." Rowan scratched his head and tousled her hair. "How about big brother, then?" Her eyes lit up with excitement and she dove into his lap. "Really! You'll be my big brother!" He nodded his head and rubbed her back. "Of course, Em." She smiled. "Good. I've never had a big brother, so I can call you bro, though I may have to change that when you and sister Cammy start to, ya know."
Rowan's jaw dropped at her implication and Camille went red in the face. "Em, aren't you like ten? How do you even know about that?" She giggled like a child as Rowan assaulted her with tickles. "Stop! Stop! Mommy told me about all that stuff. She said she told me early so that I won't let some old pervert take advantage of me when she wasn't around. It was just me and Mommy. My dad left when I was born and it was always just the two of us. Rowan nodded at this. "Alright fine, but leave the grown up stuff to me and Cammy, then you just be a child." She nodded happily and got off of his lap. She made a shirt appear out of nowhere and handed it to Rowan.
"I heard the greasy man at the door, you have to go meet the mayor. I have to open up my workshop and look at some stuff so you can take sister Camy with you. Rowan's jaw dropped once again. How did she suddenly become an old man who needed his space to work? She pushed them both out the door and closed it behind them. Camille had been holding back laughter the entire time, but finally it burst from her.
She took about three minutes to recover as she wiped tears from her eyes and started walking. Rowan slipped the shirt over his head without ever looking at it or that it was bright pink and depicted a stuffed bear, but it fit, so he never even bothered to look at it twice. Rowan followed Camille after she looked back at him, who was staring at her ass instead of following. They walked through the hallway side by side. "It's a big loop, so we will make it to the mayor's office just by walking straight. There are plenty of suites up here, but I imagine they are saving them for people that are strong, while the more average people are down in the stadium. I hear they also reclaimed a hotel nearby and people have begun to move in there as well." Rowan nodded.
"I guess they all saw the strike I made to wound Garda. Are you sure you want to join me on this one? It will probably be tense. The government is going to make demands that I'm not sure I am willing to meet." She shook her head. "I've helped a lot of the police and other combatants. Some of them even call me the fire angel because of my healing flame. It will help to have me there, but either way, don't you own a building not far from here? Me and Em will go wherever you go. We don't need to stay here. You never planned on coming here to begin with, did you?" Rowan shook his head, "About four blocks away I own an entire complex and stay in the penthouse at the top, it's where I was going to head next but then the Garda chase happened, and who knows what we may run into in between here and there. I needed to get you two somewhere safe, and this was closer, but we can prepare to head there later. It can operate as a base for us and I would like to see if any of my tenants survived this.
We can turn the building into a base for us." She nodded at him and her green eyes seemed to stare right through him. "Thank you Rowan." He scratched at his own head. "No need to thank me. I did not do much and I should be thanking you instead. You saved my life." She gently bumped into him as they rounded a corner and Rowan could see the guards posted out front. "Not for just that, but for opening up. You could have stayed cold and left me and Em here and delved into this world as much as you want, but you chose not to and you chose to open up to me and Em and that means a lot to me and her. I did not plan on adopting a twelve-year-old girl at the start of the apocalypse." Rowan stopped his steps and smiled. "You planned on an apocalypse?" The joke earned him a punch to the ribs as they reached in front of the guards, and the smile faded from his face. "I'm here to see the mayor."