Chapter 62: 58. Early Morning Noir (I)

“Whoa, you dressed up nice,” Jay said. He slipped below the police tape to reach Emily.

She glanced away and readjusted her minimalist wire-framed glasses.

“Thanks to the assassins, I made it to Rank 2,” she said. “I want my looks to match how I feel now.” She waved down at herself, inviting him to take a gander. “Got an opinion?”

Two sets of opinions, actually.

Jay saw the transformative nature of the new appearance in the physical sense.

Before Friday’s party, Emily was the bookish, more distant, and slightly overlooked member of the Divine Four. Her style didn’t pop out much. Some guys would say she was the least attractive among the four even though she was naturally above most girls. She had seemed uncertain of herself in comparison to the other three mean hotties standing more in the limelight. Emily had hung like a shadow behind Event Planner Hailey the most, even.

Now she owned the shadows with a dash of red to break up the femme fatale appearance. Midnight-colored hair coiled lushly around her sharp and angular face and pale neck. She wore a tightly fitted mini skirt that was barely visible underneath a slim trenchcoat of the same color. Elevating her were a pair of open-toed high-heeled boots that followed her motif. 

Most of the red came in small accents on her nails, ear studs, or as a pinned skull serving as a brooch. Add in the barely visible ghosts swimming like a school of fish around her frame, and Jay could see how Emily fully invested in owning her death-like edge.

Even though she waited nervously for his opinion for some reason.

Jay would give it after he got another peek. This one was deeper than skin–her profile via the [Eye of Venerated Madness] Talent.

 

Name: Emily Donaldson, Rank 2 Class: [Junior Medium, Level 11]  Health: 400/400 Stamina: 240/240 Mana: 540/540 Chance: x7/x8 Noteworthy Info: This human shares an allegiance with you under the same Godling and Pantheon. Her Affinity is Death. Highest Attribute is 63 Conviction. Most Signature Item is Single Shot Raider Pistol, Good. Most Pivotal Skill is [Echo of Karma]. Most Particular Talent is [Bat Boon]. Most Unique Title is [Seeker of Dead Secrets].

 

The Death Affinity was edgy but fitting for Emily.

The [Bat Boon] Talent enhanced Conviction immensely when seeking something hidden and added more to Perception. Jay imagined this Talent synergized very well with the Title [Seeker of Dead Secrets], something Emily must’ve gotten from her Rank evolution. He didn’t know what the Title could do, but Jay figured Call of the [Freak] had reached out to Emily because of these abilities.

“Are you doing something to me with that new left eye?” Emily asked. “I can feel it, and that’s creepy.”

“You invited me to take a look,” Jay said. “And in my opinion, you are definitely the bombshell I need for the job.”

Emily nodded stiffly. “Thanks.”

Jay cracked a smile. “I didn’t take you for being shy.”

“I’d never paid my looks too much attention like the others,” Emily said with a shrug. “It was mostly a bore for me. But I’m different now, right? I should try to put in more effort, too.”

Jay glanced down at his gas station hoodie, shorts, and slippers. Yeah, he was low-effort here. If he hadn’t been the Rooftop Weirdo, he’d disappeared into the background at their high school.

He had other things keeping him at the forefront now.

With perfect synchrony that seemed scripted, both the [Freak] and the [Medium] turned to the big reason that brought them together.

The street was littered with chalk marks, numbered signs for forensics, police tape barring the area, and clusters of police officers and agents from inside and outside the CWG. News reporters were nearby, too. The media actively recorded Jay and Emily from outside the set perimeter.

Most of that was background noise compared to the center of destruction–Jay’s burnt and half-buried home.

“Can I hold you while I practice my walk?” Emily asked. “Macy keeps insisting I walk a certain way.”

Jay glanced at the cameras as CWG agents tried and failed to get the reporters out of the area. He looked over at the police officers and local law enforcement. They hadn’t gotten much of a memo as to what was going on. But they were keeping their distance per the orders of people above their pay grade.

For now, at least.

Jay offered his arm. “Make me look cool, would ya?”

Emily rested her hand on him, adapting to their height difference. “You’re living every boy’s dream, Jay. How does it feel?”

“Ask me again when I’m not staring at my destroyed house and sunken memories,” Jay said softly.

“Sorry,” Emily apologized stiffly.

They crossed the short distance, Emily sauntering at Jay’s side. The passive form of her [Spooky Friends] Skill stirred the air around them, making the end of Emily’s trench coat flutter and show off her legs.

She walked with a sway in her step, but it was clear she still needed practice and didn’t have very high Agility. She nearly fell off balance and had to put her other hand on Jay’s arm, holding him close.

Jay’s Perception didn’t let that go unnoticed. Her body felt nice against his.

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Emily was no YoAnna. But she had a point when she asked Jay about living every boy’s dream. A femme fatale was a dark and badass hottie, and it was nice to have one on your arm.

But the distraction didn’t last.

Jay sighed as they stopped on the sidewalk in front of his home. The front lawn managed to survive the sinkhole, but the overgrown grass had been burnt to a crisp. A dozen feet past the front gate where the porch should be, the earth dropped.

Jay stared at the black and crumpled remains of his rooftop that was now at ground level. He could see across where the yard gaped at the sky thanks to the big wound in the earth.

“Mom should’ve gotten an inspector sooner,” Jay said.

“You were living on this death pit this whole time?” Emily asked, barely holding her shock.

“Mom really liked the place,” Jay said. “And I did, too. I still do.”

He glanced at the section where his room would be. His chest started to ache. Images of his toy collection, video games, and wall posters flashed through his mind. Then the memories of random Luckrun celebrations, anime marathons, and just overall love filled his head next.

Jay tried to smile. Like his mom had taught him. No matter what, a Luckrun would smile in the face of adversity.

But for this occasion, Jay couldn’t muster the strength or the bravado.

“Emily,” Jay said shakily.

“Yes?”

“Don’t think less of me than you already do,” Jay said as he cried.

It wasn’t a huge hullabaloo. No runny nose or big sobs. These were quiet and private tears. It hurt his throat and seized his chest up. But Jay refused to let himself go too much. He merely bowed his head and let his eyes get hot, wet, and drippy.

 He still felt like a baby, especially when he had one of the Divine Four on his arm. But she didn’t bully him over it. She held on tighter to him, even. In her silence, Jay could feel her support for him.

She was a mean girl, but she wasn’t totally black in her heart.

Through his gravity sense, Jay became aware of different people trying to approach them. Police detectives with little clue behind the teenagers’ importance slipped past the CWG agents. The detectives tried to creep in like buddy cop heroes chomping at the bit for a juicy case. They looked eager to go after Jay especially while he was tearing up. These adults were well practiced at manipulation to get what they wanted, no doubt.

Emily turned her head around menacingly–like she was possessed with something terrible and monstrous. Jay could feel her Conviction swell up like an angry storm. She let her [Spooky Friends] go after the men without exposing their true forms.

Systemless Perception was too low to see or feel the ghosts directly. But what the ghosts affected was a different story–such as the air, temperature, or clothing. The Starsky and Hutch jerks backed off and hollered at seemingly invisible air. The noise they made drew news cameras that the CWG agents had failed to force out of the area completely.

The CWG tore into the two police detectives loudly. Which sparked a heated spat between local law enforcement and out-of-town agents. Everyone was at each other’s throats because of secrets, misinformation, and two very out-there and aloof teenagers.

After a while, Jay got a better hold of himself. Crying over the tragedy that had befallen his home was not the main reason he was here. Maybe it was part of the reason, but his left eye kept trembling, which led to his head quaking.

Jay wiped away his tears.

“Okay, let’s get down to business.” He extracted himself from Emily’s grasp gently.

The Death [Medium] gave him a reassuring nod, saying nothing about the past couple of minutes. Jay appreciated that kindness very much from one of Team Divine, especially since she was guarding him, too.

He closed his right eye and focused on his left eye–the one harboring [Eye of Venerated Madness]. The Talent had multiple perks. Seeing past the [Obscurification] Talent to inspect another Champion’s mini-profile was one. Seeing ripples of near-future events was another. The third perk was also time-related, so when Jay concentrated on his home, he sought a single event with someone he gravitated toward.

His mom.

Chance x8 dropped to Chance x6.

Jay gritted his teeth as [Eye of Venerated Madness] rewound time for his viewing. The Talent started using his gravity Perception to map things out in his head. His 30 Intellect could barely handle it, forcing Jay to open his other eye and use his full Perception to combine past events, gravity, and his regular vision. The end result revealed a magically augmented world where Jay’s central focus followed the gravity ripples that formed from his mom’s hurried movements.

He was looking back in time.

It was almost too sci-fi for even him.

Jay’s vision overlaid current reality and time with images of the past. As if every event that involved his mother marked gravity, leaving detailed observations for him to follow with instinctual timestamps.

It was limited to a thirty-foot area in front of Jay’s vision. And everything that wasn’t ten feet near his mom became hazy.

Jay’s eyes shone like bright colorful lights throughout, making the news reporters, police officers, and CWG agents freak out (although the latter group was freaking out because of their failure to contain the secrecy).

The CWG agents stormed the teenagers. As if the CWG agents could simply stop Jay and Emily with physical threats. Jay was too busy to afford them his full attention as he offered Emily his arm again.

Emily graciously took hold of him once more. Then she pressed her [Spooky Friends] into service for another round. Just like the last doofuses, who tried to intervene, Emily's ghosts harrassed the CWG agents to keep them back.

Their zippers flew down. Their belts unbuckled. The air around them chilled to a sub-freezing point. And they had mad mutterings filling their ears that were haunting and dark.

The CWG agents screamed and ran away, unable to endure Emily’s ghostly servants. Jay wondered if part of Emily’s Conviction scaled with [Spooky Friends]. If that was the case, no Systemless human here could outlast that Skill. Especially if Emily leaned heavily into her main attribute along with her Death Affinity.

If she wanted to, Emily could probably scare people to death without too much overt magic, which was great if the pair of Champions wanted to stay discreet. But Jay knew that Emily was not the secret hush type.

She was the Journalism President. She was all about exposure. And Jay’s ego was too big to hide secrets he found inconvenient.

They were the worst pair of secret magical teenagers to let off the leash at a big news-worthy site.

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