Chapter 5 Part 3

Magus in Marvel

Chapter 5 Part 3

By: Pineappl3

I allowed Howlett to fetch the unconscious Summers and I gave my farewells to them. Before they had all left, however, Munroe stopped to ask me a question, "You will let him live won't you?"

I reluctantly gave her a smile, "Although it would be easier to kill him, I decided it would be best for him to serve his time for his crimes." 'That and I can use him for experiments. It is so hard to get a source for livestock in this world. How do they expect me to create new potions and test new spells?'

She seemed satisfied and finally left through my portal. Once I was sure she was gone, I slumped back, and I found myself seated in a chair. "I know what you're thinking, Nixie." I looked over my shoulder at the form of my familiar who had entered the second my 'guests' had left.

"She was blessed by one of this world's gods. It would not be good for me to start anything before regaining my strength. Speaking of, have we found any trace of dragons on this planet?"

Nixie moved closer, and began to rub the knots from my shoulders, "We have managed to obtain a single bone fragment said to be from a dragon but although it seems to belong to a real mythical creature, it doesn't match your own description."

My eyebrows rose at that, "Oh? Well, now I'm curious. Prep my lab, we can use your major to good use and study its origins. I've brought dragons back from the dead before, maybe it's time to do it again. I wonder what added abilities it would hold if I added this new dragon to it."

"I anticipated this and already prepared your lab. We can go after I relieve you of your stress; I could feel how they annoyed you to no end." Nixie's hands traveled to another part of my body and began to work on the knot there.

"You make a convincing argument, and I will listen to your suggestion to be a little more selfish. I've come to speculate after some observation of Aldebaran and Balrog that my memories of Azum are just that. I'm someone new, someone. . . better."

I grabbed Nixie's hands and returned them to my shoulders, where I felt the most tension. "New body, new me. Let's try to do things differently, and no." -I looked towards Nixie's pleading face- "I won't apologize to the Sorcerers. It may be a different word than '$%#!@#@$,' but my mind directly translates it to 'Sorcerer."

Nixie simply smiled knowing that I could hear her thoughts and continued my massage.

"Alright, fine. I'll give them a chance. I think I'm already starting to regret talking to you about this thing."

={db}=

Aldebaran POV

I was walking alongside my companion, Balrog, as we exited Baldur's Magus Tower. It truly did feel good to walk alongside my long-time friend again, though it was a pain to keep up with his massive strides.

We had decided to ignore the very-close Grand Central Station in favor of walking through the streets of Manhattan. It was both a good way of avoiding the subway, which I despised, and looking for Hakon, Celia, Galrum, and Thora. My dislike for the subway was entirely irrational, but when someone's memories of the underground only consist of death it made sense for someone like me.

"I feel like my penchant for causing mischief has been stifled recently. Want to go pick a fight with someone or something?" I asked my companion through bated breaths.

"Please don't go causing trouble. It's far too early in the morning to be dealing with you."

"Oh, come on. You're a hulking beast of a man here, though it was the same back on Azum. Nobody would dare actually start a fight with me while you're around."

"So you say, but I do remember a few times back home where people would still start a fight with us nonetheless."

"I suppose, I suppose. But here we don't have to deal with the stupid random bullshit magic of Azum. For example, if I were to go digging into the depths of villainy I don't expect to find much more than a thug with a knife or a gun here. However, the random passerby in Azum could have turned you into a chicken with a simple Polymorph spell. Mental defenses were always a weakness of yours, after all."

"Aye, though I don't want to talk about it now. Cause Fear, Hold Person—what annoying spells. Spellcasters like you were always annoying to fight." He shuddered as he spat out the words.

"Don't give me that. Whenever we sparred you were always able to drop me like a sack of rocks before I was even able to cast a spell. It's unfair how strong you are, really. I'm actually pretty excited to see how strong you are here, at your peak. We need to get you an artifact-tier greatsword to use. Oh, how much fun that would be." I smiled as I spoke the words.

I had spoken entirely candidly. Balrog was easily the strongest in our party of 4 back on Azum. He had monstrous stamina, durability, and offensive power. Even when he realized that range was his 2nd greatest weakness—behind mental spells—he had picked up a longbow and became extremely proficient in it. Though his powers hadn't been properly tested yet, I was very curious how much of his raw killing prowess he had retained in this life.

"Speaking of which," he said, interrupting my thoughts, "how goes your progress remembering how to cast spells again?"

"Bah. You had to go and ruin the mood. I was having a great time and everything." I laughed to assure him that I was joking. "But no, I've had zero progress. I remember most of the spells I had and what they did, but I can't quite remember how to cast any of them. For example, my favorite spell: Animate Objects. It is a high-level transmutation spell that allows me to give temporary life to objects, which then obey me for 1 minute. But I can't remember how to cast it for the life of me, which is just a shame. The same goes for every single spell I had learned."

"Don't worry, brother," Balrog said with a confident smile strewn across his face. "I am sure that you'll regain your magic eventually."

"Thanks, buddy. Here's hoping that I'm not useless in a fight forever." I patted my oversized companion on the back.

"Oh, would you look at that." Balrog spoke somewhat excitedly. "Look over there." He pointed at a sign that read that a Renaissance fair was being held in an exhibition center all day today.

"Ah, it's on 53rd. That's pretty close. Do you want to go?"

"Yes, I feel like it could be fun and possibly could lead to clues about Azum."

We walked for another handful of minutes before finding the fair. They wanted to charge us an extortionate entry fee of 30 dollars, but with some of the money that Baldur gave us, we decided that it didn't matter too much. After all, the man owned an entire building in Midtown. The Helmsley Building, I believe it was called.

As we were paying for our tickets, the men at the entrance gave me very strange glances, though I couldn't say why.

Upon entering we were greeted by a colorful crowd and the obscene amount of ambient noise that makes itself home in these sorts of events. People talking, music playing, food being eaten, and the occasional scream for some reason—it was quite the lively fair.

"Anything you want to look for?" I spoke loudly to Balrog while trying to read an event map.

"Well, you mentioned earlier that I could use a weapon. Let's see if anything interesting has popped up here, why don't we?" His innate booming voice easily suppressed the background noise.

"Sure, sure." I quickly browsed the list of exhibits and eyed a supposed blacksmith stand with a live show and metalworks for sale. Before I could announce my discovery to Balrog, a woman suddenly called out to me.

"Hey, bud. Don't you think that wearing a military uniform to a Renaissance fair is a bit audacious?"

I swiveled around on the spot to inspect my assailant. She was a woman of Asian descent, as it was called in this world. She had a stern look on her face, as though I was personally degrading her character or something. Though, to be fair, she was dressed in the proper attire for such an event with a billowy dress that would have made her look right at home on Azum.

"Aldebaran, don't." I heard Balrog call out to me. But, it was far too late. I would have my fun with this woman.

"My name is Aldebaran, as perhaps you heard from my companion here. How are you on this fine day?" I greeted her with a brilliant smile.

"Shove off, weirdo. Like I said, what are you even wearing?" She looked at me with perhaps genuine scorn.

While it was probably considered cheating, I took off my glasses. I didn't like how they looked on my face anyway, ruining my look and all of that. Of course, there was nothing at first. My divinations were too sporadic to be that helpful, sadly.

"This is an authentic World War 2 military service uniform worn by the American Army," I declared confidently. After all, it made me look quite cool and mysterious.

"Ew, gross. Are you some sort of military LARPer coming to ruin the fair?"

"No, I am merely looking for an old friend of mine. On the topic, how is yours? Short, blonde hair?" I abused my foreknowledge to make a probable guess. I had seen through a vision that this woman would meet up with a group of her friends in a few minutes in most realities. I assume that judging by the way she would usually speak to this girl in particular, they were probably close friends.

"What do you mean? Why do you know Emily?" Instantly, her demeanor turned from brass and confident to afraid. Truly, it was glorious.

"You see, Emily came to me earlier saying that she didn't want to be friends with you anymore. I'm pretty 'intimate' with her, you could say. There was something about you being a horrid bitch that is too self-absorbed in her own issues to ever be a good friend? It's funny, I was going to seek you out to let you know she wasn't coming today but here you are coming to me. Strange how the world works sometimes." As I said the words, I wondered if I had gone too far. Usually egging someone on was a bit different than trying to actively crush their self-confidence.

'Well, it can't be helped if she doesn't recover from this. Here's hoping.'

As I finished the thought, I felt a sudden impact strike me on the back of the head.