Consequences

Having left under the cover of magic smoke from the ungrateful police, who, as usual, arrived at the very denouement to reward the innocent and punish the guilty, Harley and I changed into casual clothes and went for a stroll around Vegas. And when else will we have a chance to walk in a pleasant company in the most gambling city of the world?

Naturally, one stroll through the night Las Vegas was foolishly limited, so, after passing a couple of blocks, our gorgeous couple attended a night performance of some Mexican comedian, and afterwards lounged in a large casino, deciding to try their luck, so to speak, outside of saving people or themselves.

After all, another powerful archdemon had been defeated today, which meant that Earth's help should be more active... I guess. I wasn't entirely sure that Fortuna would keep a better eye on us because of the underworld lord's strange behavior.

Mammon, judging by the recent battle, didn't see us as opponents at all, and he didn't want to create a breach on Earth to take it over, like Melholm. There was a strong feeling that he was quite comfortable in his homeland, and here he had something like a trough, which he could visit from time to time, collecting a rich harvest of idiots who had sold their souls for green papers.

Even the System agreed that the feat was not worthy of much reward, giving out a measly sixty-seven points as a reward for saving Zi, which was roughly the number of mortals incapacitated.

But why should I complain? Not only did I get a lecture from the dodgiest sorcerer (without bailing my soul), a true sight initiation, a battle with an archdemon, and a friend, but I also got a nice bonus to spend on my own enhancement! Huh, or on Abby if she gets too carried away.

Deciding that, with my indiscretion and weird luck, I could really drain my entire supply of bahioni on stuff like blowjobs from Green's avatar or rescuing left characters, I immediately spent four free points, raising my fourth start by one point.

An unpleasant burning sensation arose in his stomach, forcing him to lean on the slot machine.

Hmmm... I guess the "pie" wasn't fully digested, or I have some soul issues...

I began to slowly improve the seventh beginning, listening attentively to my senses. I could see that the magic sheath had been upgraded by ten points, and then the burning sensation reappeared, but it was slightly different in nature.

If before it was like a red-hot ball in your stomach, which, slowly expanding, tries to tear you from the inside, then, in the case of improved magic, it was as if you were dipped in very hot water. Tolerable, of course, but not much pleasant.

Two free points are sent to intelligence, and the ball in my stomach reminds me of itself again. Well, that's right. The beginnings are interconnected, so if you improve one thing, they all improve at the same time, just not so obviously.

From this we can conclude that the problem is really in my soul. I should definitely see what it looks like. That it's fundamentally possible, I'm pretty sure. Otherwise, how can demons interact with it? And strong mages, as it turned out, can also do something like that, judging by Zee's confident actions. So, at the very least, there must be an evaluation system, maybe even a visual one.

It's a pity, of course, that I didn't pay much attention to this section before, limiting myself to defense. Maybe even earlier I would have realized that something was going wrong. But now I have not only a strong incentive to expand my knowledge, but also an opportunity to do it through access to the magic library.

"Everything all right, Mr. J.? - The faithful assistant took her eyes off the beeping box, which for the fifth time in half an hour had produced a winning combination, making up for all the tokens she'd spent on it and adding some on top.

"Yeah, everything's fine. Don't worry, Sunny," I kissed the beauty sitting next to me and pulled the handle of the "one-armed bandit" once again, suddenly earning twenty thousand dollars.

Curious. Our luck is obviously better than most casino patrons. Although statistics is a stubborn lady, and, purely technically, it is possible to win five times in a row and then lose a hundred times with the same success.

Continuing the experiment, we moved to a roulette table. Eighteen black sectors, eighteen red, and zero: the chance of winning is one in thirty-seven if you bet on the number, which I did. I need to test my luck, not to twist it by betting on color.

What can I say? Fortune was clearly on our side. A whole plus seven million in just two hours of leisurely play, with a limit of ten thousand per bet. Not only that, but we managed to walk away with all the money. However, we were accompanied by local guards and the manager, who insistently asked us to leave the place and gave us a certificate to a nice restaurant.

Actually, the casino didn't lose much. When we left, seven people rushed to the table at once, wanting to bet their money. I think that by tomorrow evening the establishment will be in a big plus, because such events have a very positive effect on the excitement of people around.

Hell, I used to be so worried about money that I even considered patenting the game and releasing it for cell phones, but all I had to do was destroy the demon worshipers' altar and go to Las Vegas! Heh, you don't want to do that in Gotham, because they can really nail a player who's too lucky.

Anyway, having finished robbing the honest gambling business owners, I went to the Bellagio Hotel with my favorite blonde. Unfortunately, Zee wasn't there yet, so I had to use my brain to get into the enchantress's room.

Well, you gotta do something to keep yourself busy, don't you? How is breaking into a locked room in one of the coolest hotels in Vegas not fun?

My lovely companion was of the same opinion, happily joining the game and taking over video surveillance. I was breaking the electronic lock, having previously fenced off one of the sofas in the hallway with an eye-distraction charm.

Thanks to Babs' programs, the key was soon obtained and we were able to unlock the door.

Oh, this is interesting. I activated my true sight at the entrance, trying to detect the signaling spells that must be present here. They were indeed there, but I was able to detect them after they were triggered. It looked like a gray spider web, though I couldn't see it until it was activated, which made sense.

After passing the entrance hall, our couple found themselves in a natural royal palace: five huge rooms with everything you need, beautiful decoration in white and gold style, a large Jacuzzi, as well as a magnificent view of the city.

As I settled on the comfortable couch with Harley at my side, I listened to myself, trying to gauge how I felt. The burning in my chest and skin was gone, but I was in no hurry to add new glasses, so I decided to take a three-day break. It was enough time to recover from the more unfortunate consequences of a less-than-smart move last time.

After making sure that everything was fine and magic could be used without any problems, I continued playing with my new vision, drawing various structures in the air, while my faithful companion turned on the plasma hanging on the wall, turning on some unstressful serial.

An hour later, the electronic lock quietly beeped, letting the tired sorceress in.

Given her faded hair and general dishevelment (she hadn't even had the energy to change her torn wedding dress), Zee had to work hard again, so neither Harley nor I bothered her with unnecessary questions. Instead, we helped her take a bath, groping her in the process, of course, and then laid her on a fancy bed that could fit all seven dwarves and half of Snow White.

"Thank you, for everything," the sorceress murmured, snuggling into my neck, only to snore sweetly a few moments later.

Harley was on the other side of me, throwing her leg over my shoulder. After that, I had no choice but to hug both beauties gently and fall asleep.

***

The morning traditionally came in the morning, and that was fine. Or else, there are personalities in DC's universe who can turn back time, if the comics are to be believed.

Luckily, Sun Boy is not yet aware of this facet of his power, and there is great doubt that it is possible in his case, and Flash, who should be able to travel through time by tapping into the Speed dimension, has yet to show up. At least in the latter's case it could actually work, since the Speed dimension, aka Speedforce, is a force of the same order as Green, Black, and Red. That is, it permeates the entire universe and has no will of its own. And because of its unusual nature, it has never had a normal avatar before, so mages could only guess about the existence of this dimension, adapting some spells to its energy.

Although there is a big question as to how exactly time travel happens. Maybe Barry Allen simply destroys one universe and creates a new one from the released energy? Or maybe he simply shifts to a parallel dimension where time is a couple years behind? Purely theoretically, the multiverse is infinite, which means that any scenario is possible, up to a version of DC-11, where there are fifty women for every man, or a world with a complete copy of me, but with pink hair and a love for the color red instead of purple.

But back to more down-to-earth stuff.

Thanks to the fact that I hadn't gone overboard with the reinforcement of the fourth beginning, my body felt just fine now, and my body was clearly in need of a workout. But before I could do anything useful, I had an incredibly difficult quest to accomplish: to get out of the tight embrace of the two cuties without waking anyone.

So, this hand here, take the slender leg aside, and mentally cringe when the blond beauty returned her hand to its place, frowning unhappily and muttering in her sleep: "I won't give it to you. I tried again, but this time I decided to use magic.

It was a pleasure to create weavings using the true gaze. My brain was capable of accurately reproducing all the necessary lines and runes, but when you can literally see the glowing designs appearing in the air, it's a different story. I could immediately correct some of the flaws, making the structure of the shield more orderly, and even make minor changes along the way, which I did, placing the future enchantments as close to the body as possible, so that the end result would be a kind of sarcophagus.

"Scutum," the quiet words escaped his lips, activating the finished weave.

Obviously, I decided to follow John's path, using Latin or sign spells if the situation called for it. It may be a dead language, but a lot of the books in the magic library are written in it, and it's a hassle to say the words backwards every time. I have my doubts that Zee uses such strange verbal magic only as a tribute to Zatar's family.

During the battle with Mammon, I tried to keep my true sight active and in the moments of cast, I could clearly see that the beauty on my hands almost always created only the framework of the spell, which included the vector of influence, energy storage and elemental converter, but after saying the words in reverse order, the structure of the spell was repeatedly complicated to accurately perform the requested action.

Konstantin was an experienced magician, but he still had to draw runes that looked like miniature pentagrams, and by their appearance one could guess what was going to happen in the near future. But in the case of the sorceress, until the last moment (if you didn't listen to the words), you could only guess whether she was going to attack or defend.

The shield that unfolded around my body expanded slightly, allowing me to escape the unusual trap, and then silently disappeared as if it had never been there.

Feeling that something was missing, Harley grumbled unhappily on the bed. Luckily, she quickly found the sorceress, pulled her to her, and immediately calmed down. Zee was so sound asleep after last night's expenditure of energy that she didn't even notice the change of disposition.

After admiring for a bit the beautiful picture of two girls sleeping in each other's arms, I went to the far room.

While doing the standard warm-up, I listen to the morning news with the edge of my ear, trying to pick out anything interesting.

It didn't take long for things to get interesting. As the saying goes, "Remember the Sun, here comes the ray". The news was broadcasting from Central City, where a new hero in a red suit had appeared, already dubbed Flash because of his amazing speed. The screen even showed a short clip of the red Flash taking down armed bank robbers in two seconds.

Back to my morning musings, the Flash is one of the most controversial heroes because of his ability to rewind time. And if he can actually create a new reality while destroying the old one, then the problem becomes much more serious. I might not get to meet Harley! Or I could be fucking annihilated because my soul came from another world!

I stopped when I realized that I was seriously considering how to quietly bury the speedy guy. I had my doubts that I could just make him promise not to rewind time... I could try something else, but I'd have to catch him first, and I suspected that with his reaction speed, only a good bait and a couple of suppression circles with a ton of debuffs would do the trick.

The announcer read out other news that didn't deserve close attention, after which I stared at the plasma with indignation.

I specifically watched the entire newscast, but I never heard about the demon attack in the company of the reanimated dead, nor about the Joker's appearance. That's ridiculous!

I took my smartphone and typed a query into the search box, wanting to make sure I wasn't dreaming about yesterday. The first link contained the information I needed, including the attached video.

Against the backdrop of closed casino doors, with several police cars and a trio of ambulances parked nearby, the journalist interviewed one of the eyewitnesses.

"So you're really claiming that the Joker and Harley Quinn, in the company of a bride in a white dress, saved you from a demon?

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah," said a guy in a white panama hat, a black yellow flowered shirt, and huge yellow glasses halfway down his face, staring at the camera lens with a slightly creepy look. – Они такие: бах-бах-бах из пистолетов по зомби, а демон такой: ВЫ ВСЕ УМЕРЕТЕ! And then, whoosh, his carcass gets blown away by a car! It just naturally levitated! - He emotionally shared the details of the fight, waving his arms.

From the look on the reporter's face, he wasn't particularly happy about starting to interview this particular person.

"Ahem, thank you. You don't think it could be some kind of gas poisoning? Still, other than the oral testimony, there's no other evidence.

"It's magic. I recorded the whole thing on my smartphone, but instead of video, it's fucking static. Besides, how do you explain this?! - he pointed at the police officers standing at the door, who were also pestered by the pen sharks.

The reporter obviously glanced over to the cameraman, smiling crookedly.

"Maybe a robbery? This casino has recently tried to steal poker tournament prize money from this casino.

"Oh, fuck you ~peep~," the mate was kindly mouthed, whereupon the bystander waved his hand and deftly hopped into a red convertible parked nearby, where his bearded comrade sat, staring up at the night sky with his head tilted back.

"As you may have heard, the demon version is told by most eyewitnesses, but so far our team has not been able to find any evidence. We can only wait for an official statement.

Of course, this video was not the only one, it was just the one that whirled because of the unusual character in the frame. After a short search was found the answer of the authorities, which all really wrote off on a new robbery attempt, because the owner of the casino installed a huge gold obelisk in the central hall. And it turned out that in the attempt to expropriate the treasure indirectly accused the Joker, like he was really there and could organize everything by letting some gas.

Hmm, I should have known this would be the end of it. There's no need for ordinary people to know that demons exist. Most would be wary, but there would be idiots who would try to summon the infernal creatures, and it was unlikely to end well for Earth.