Chapter 88. Masquerade

It took the charmer a couple of hours before she could tear herself away from her smartphone and thank Harley and I very fervently for the Waynestagram idea. A dark-haired, sexy hottie in stockings and a magician's cylinder who's willing to fulfil all her most perverted fantasies is just perfect. Although our requests with my beloved can not be called quite perversion. So, light bondage, group sex, lesbian 69 and anal beads to prepare the magician's ass for rough penetration. However, even such a set gave us a lot of pleasant experiences. The only downside to all of this was that Mousey was very delayed as she was catching another gang of wrestlers. They'd been acting more brazen lately, as their leader had finally come out into the open. I guess he'd only recently been approved for a Green Card, and until then his minions had been quietly preparing a beachhead. It was surprising to me to learn that this supervillain's name is Bane.

Based on past world flashbacks, he was some kind of badass terrorist who booby-trapped Gotham (though show me a supervillain who didn't) and sort of broke Bats spine. I'm not sure about the latter, because I remember him as a normal man, while Grim Mouse is still a master of martial arts and is able to control prana. Although in this universe Bane has a good chance to defeat Gotham's protector in a direct confrontation, because he is a real giant under twenty in height and with great strength, because his veins are constantly circulating supersteroid "Venom", getting into the body from a special satchel on his back. It's not clear about his fighting skills, but he wears a black wrestler's suit with a traditional mask with stylish red lenses for a reason and clearly knows how to fight. Although it's unlikely that Bats will go head-on at this jock, instead of disarming him with gadgets, and maybe even slip him some laxatives instead of a supersteroid. That's a cool idea, by the way, and definitely worth using if our paths cross.

In fact, if it weren't for Bane's sixes, I'm sure the sorceress wouldn't have refused another girl today. But come on, it'll probably work out next time, and if not, given Zee's sweet reaction, we can always try to get her to perform naked in front of the Amazons and then have sex on stage, which is a good idea.

Eh, I'm clearly getting more lustful because of my rapidly growing prana reserve (thanks to the island training, during which you might as well have a limb chopped off), but at the same time I realise that more girls won't do a damn thing to save the situation. If it wasn't for Harley and her numerous toys, I'd be doing so poorly with the current harem, because every pretty girl needs attention. In short, in the near future I need to seriously focus on metamorphism and grow a second cock, and maybe try to find some anomaly, where time flows faster relative to the rest of the world. The main thing is not to get caught in some kind of time loop. But I'll do all this later, and now the sorceress sent me, Harley and Babs to Valencia, and she went to further communicate with my father, wanting to make up for the years of separation.

In Valencia, our friendly trio rented a car on a fake passport and in an hour, we made it safely to the Grao de Castellon, where the criminals were gathering. And I was really glad I'd guessed about the possibility of travelling by portal, because despite the delay we had another ten hours or so to scout the situation and prepare thoroughly. What if Selina had chosen some other target for the robbery? But after watching the local news, the last doubts disappeared, because the gathering of criminals, first of all, was disguised as a masquerade ball, where Harvey and I decided to go anyway, substituting ourselves for some losers with criminal past, present and future, and secondly, the owner of the mansion, a certain Lady Barbara Minerva, had recently purchased a huge emerald for her collection for an astronomical amount of evergreens. However, the emerald was not bad, but among the gems brought by Superman there were more interesting specimens.

The only strange thing is that Minerva's personality is completely unknown to me, neither from this world nor from the past, so it is unlikely that she has any special powers. Otherwise, either myself or Harley have definitely heard something about her. Though from what I've been able to glean from a brief reconnaissance and a few queries to Oracle, she appears to be the head of the Leviathan crime cartel, meaning she can speak for several major criminal groups. The personality, of course, is quite cool, but it's very inconspicuous, and without a supercomputer at hand we wouldn't know about Leviathan, because officially the woman was crystal clear before the law, which is even suspicious, considering how much capital her small company manages.

Since there was still plenty of time left before the ball, and it would be useless to look for Gloomy Mouse's girlfriend in a city of many millions, when it would be much easier to catch her while she was stealing the emerald, the three of us took a well-deserved rest. We walked around the city, admired the local sights, visited a Michelin-starred café, then stopped by the hotel, where we checked the bed, and afterwards Mousey was offered to work for Interpol for a while... All she had to do was stop a robbery at a café during the first item on the list. It was even more satisfying than when she was first approached by the Gotham Police Commissioner, asking her to investigate the disappearance of several people. Yeah, this time I was deaf in both ears, and even the prana boost didn't help.

However, the most interesting thing is that the young superheroine was asked not just to help apprehend someone or investigate a complicated case, because that's what she specialises in, but to follow the Cat. More specifically, to help recruit a thief who would have to provoke Leviathan so that the police would have a "legal" opportunity to arrest members of the criminal organisation. The motivation was to drop all charges and be removed from the Interpol database, which made one wonder if a superhero in a latex bat suit had a hand in it. It was a lucky coincidence, because with this gift Selina could start her life with a clean slate. But Babs didn't offer anything sensible, except for the words of sincere gratitude, although here we can emphasise on reputation, because the young heroine has recently started her career.

While Mousey was learning to communicate with serious people, I was busy working on my new spells. While Zee was still texting her father, I stopped by the library of Shadow Peak, where I found speed spells, once again amazed at their complexity, as they had a complex effect on the entire body, as well as sorcerer's bands and a few simpler spells for fixing the enemy. Of the latter, I particularly liked Earth Subjugation. It resembled Sculptor's spell in some ways, and even some of the modules were similar, except that it affected a larger area and allowed me to control the resulting amorphous mass mentally. And the word "Earth" in this case means literally any surface, which is touched by the caster. Still, mages have not yet learnt to bypass distance limitations, so no one in the world, not even the strongest archmages, can create a spell far from their aura. Costs grow exponentially for every millimetre of distance, so you can't, for example, take and create an icicle right inside the opponent's head, although it's difficult to do so even at close contact, because of the presence of an aura capable of resisting thin weaves. Returning to the spell, it was aimed at holding material objects, so it was not so demanding on mana reserves, and its structure was relatively simple, so in the remaining time before the masquerade, I just managed to translate it into runic form and began to slowly change the tattoo, deciding to place it on the left shin.

Unfortunately, I had to go to work without the right spell, because I was still having trouble modifying the tattoos. And no, the control over them did improve with time. The only problem was that I'd stuffed myself with several more tattoos, thus increasing the available volume of magic ink threefold and at the same time making any manipulation of them so much more difficult. It came to the point that any changes from now on it is better to carry out during a full meditation, otherwise, you can just die of boredom, because the speed of movement of the ink does not exceed even a centimetre per minute.

However, despite the fact that any intervention now required much more effort, I was not going to give up magic tattoos, because they still passively increased mana density. In addition, I managed to partially implement the idea of a couple of quick-change templates, so at any moment I could both increase my defence and unleash a cascade of not-so-simple attack spells. At such moments, faintly visible blue chains of runes would appear on my hands, whereas in the passive state the tattoos remained colourless and hidden deeper in the epidermis.

A little more and I could actually cosplay an avatar. Blue tattoos while actively using powers: check. Wind blades and air shield: check. Fireballs with a wave of flame: check. Ice icicles: check. The rest of the Hydromancy, that is, the school of Water, unfortunately, is still poorly applicable in both attack and defence. And with earth, things are getting rather curious. After visiting the Shadow Peak, a decent amount of spells from the Geomancy school have appeared in stock, and the Earth Chakra that has begun to form makes it a bit easier to control the spells from this school, which became noticeable by the Stone Skin, which began to consume even less mana. I still don't have any affinity as such, though, and the scan gives the same standard set: nature, illusions, space, and the affinity with the latter two is barely gaining a couple of per cent. Curiously enough, but I would not be able to study this phenomenon properly until I returned home.

Actually, even with such a set, not counting gadgets and combat skills, I already felt more or less confident, the more a short surveillance of the mansion showed that among the invitees there were no particularly outstanding personalities. Well, except for the fact that in the arsenal of the guards I saw a rocket launcher and a sniper rifle of fifty calibre, the shot of which would make me feel bad even under all the protections. But that wasn't much of an obstacle, for Harley and I weren't going to stick our necks out, we were just going to follow Mouse, who was going after Cat.

In general, I'm amazed at the flight of fancy of Interpol analysts. Instead of just asking Batgirl to dig up dirt on Minerva and her gang, they decided to specifically provoke the woman to active actions. After all, she is the head of the Leviathan criminal association and should not let the attempted robbery go to waste, so Cat will be the perfect bait. Besides, there is a very high probability that Minerva will want to involve the other members of the criminal group in the case, which means that it will be possible to cover all of them at once... In short, after such revelations, I am almost sure that someone with pointy ears on the top of his head and a heavy, flashy black cape is involved here. Well, my involvement becomes clearer, since I'm really one of the few people who can save the Cat if something goes wrong.

As the last ray of sunlight disappeared over the horizon, it was time for the Masquerade. Babs, according to plan, headed straight for the secure vault under a stealth spell, while Harley and I snuck into the park adjacent to the mansion and set up an ambush to get inside under someone else's disguise.

***After thirty minutes in which no bastard had come out for a smoke***

"Sunshine, don't you think we're doing some bullshit?" asked I my lovely companion.

The camera installed near the entrance showed the guests arriving, but they were not in a hurry to leave the building to enjoy a walk in the night park. But someone tried very hard and turned the surrounding landscape into a real work of art. And there's no telling where it was better: here or at Wayne's party, although in the latter case the real lord of nature had a hand in it, and in the former case it was just an army of professional gardeners. In principle, I was not bored, reading the theory of creating runic spells, but I couldn't get completely engrossed in the interesting book because of the upcoming case. And in practice I wanted to try out some of the combinations that came to mind, thanks to which the original spell should become more stable and at the same time less demanding of energy to try to place it in the aura. Tattoos are cool, but sometimes it's necessary to cast other spells quickly, for the sake of which it doesn't make sense to rebuild the whole system. And so, I'll have a couple of necessary weaves in my aura, in addition to illusion, shield and telekinesis.

"I think it's great," replied the blonde, snuggling into my arms and looking up at the sky, which was dotted with a sea of stars. Though the weather outside was a little chilly, the warming charms had no problem levelling out the lack of warmth.

"I'm just saying, what's the point of filling in for someone when I've already seen three Jokers and four Harley Quinns? Why don't we just walk in quietly and blend in?"

The girl mumbled unhappily in response, snuggling closer to me so I couldn't leave the plaid if I wanted to.

"Minerva's cooks must have gone to a lot of trouble to prepare a lot of delicacies."

"Hmm?" a hint of interest slipped into the blonde cutie's voice.

"And we can dance."

"Oh, then what are we waiting for?!"

She was quickly on her feet and dragged me towards the mansion while I frantically cast stealth charms.

After we passed a couple of guards at the entrance and slipped under the cameras that littered the building, we found ourselves in a magnificent ballroom full of superheroes and supervillains. There was even a femversion of Superman, who looked a lot like Supergirl because of her platinum hair, even though the character hadn't appeared in this universe yet. By the way, I was not exaggerating when I called the ballroom magnificent, although it was more about the overall impression of the party, for it managed to overwhelm everything I've seen before. Colourful tones, great snacks, elite expensive alcohol, great music with incendiary dances and interior design, which with all its brightness managed to look stylish, all this created an inexpressible party atmosphere. After all, the masquerade format itself looked intriguing, as you never know who exactly you're interacting with. All in all, supervillains sure know how to have fun, unlike the government and latex-clad superheroes.

The only dark spot was the look-alike contest, where Harley and I managed to come in second place, losing to some weirdos. And if I had no complaints about the costume of the Joker's companion, because it was almost an exact copy of one of the images of my favourite, consisting of blue shorts and a white short T-shirt with a sloppy red and blue pattern, the man looked like some drug addict, who escaped from the asylum and took clothes from the pimp who caught his eye. Too thin, too pale, as if he'd used bleach instead of shower gel, metal dentures instead of teeth, strange tattoos all over his body, including a laughing mouth on the back of his hand and a wide grin on his stomach. There was even some kind of writing on his forehead. And completing the strange image was a purple cloak with large sequins on her naked body. It was a good thing the green-haired jerk had thought to wear normal jeans, or I would have nailed him so I wouldn't have to see this tastelessness.