Chapter 64: 60. Early Morning Noir (III)

“Something just occurred to me,” Jay said. “Did you dress up after I gave you the Call or were you already dressed?”

She didn’t have the Agility to dress that fast and get here before him.

“We were staying at a place nearby. One that belongs to our dad. Macy helped dress me, do my makeup, and everything else.” Emily used her hands to guide her [Spooky Friends] Skill to surround the spirit.

Jay clucked as if he should’ve known. The [Crafter] Class had Agility as one of their two primary Attributes. The other was Discovery, which would’ve helped Macy craft the outfit for her sister. Like a professional fashionista with a penchant for theatrical dressing.

“Another point towards [Crafter] being the second best class behind [Freak],” Jay said jovially, finding his good humor as dawn started to break.

Emily looked like she wanted to snort derisively at him. She stopped herself short since this involved another Divine.

Jay wouldn’t have minded. He liked a bit of back and forth. Just like when he was messing with Frank. It helped lighten the mood for Jay while dealing with a dead man who had worked with others to capture and beat his mom bloody.

Otherwise, it was really hard for Jay to keep his good mood and find something to joke about. So, Jay turned toward another subject of interest–Emily herself.

Emily paced around the area. From what Jay could perceive, law enforcement and the CWG hadn’t gotten to this spot yet. Blood, bullet casings, and a good amount of evidence had gone unmarked by forensics. The assassins must've removed the bodies when they caught Jay's mom. But the spirit Emily planned to interview had remained.

Despite Jay’s high Perception, he couldn’t sense the spirit Emily spoke of under regular circumstances. It was very easy to overlook. But Jay had a trick.

It helped that Emily specifically circled the spot where the spirit lingered. She had her personal ghost friends corral the area with her. From there, Jay concentrated on his emotional gravity sense. He felt a creepy, quasi-real depression of negativity.

It was a weak presence. At least to his senses. Very unlike the living. Emily’s ghosts had more of a presence, even.

When Jay concentrated on Emily’s friends, they left impressions that had more of an effect on the living world. This answered the question of whether Jay could sense spirits or not.

But it wouldn’t be natural for him.

Having a [Medium] made spirit sensing immensely easier. The [Medium] Class was inclined toward spiritual matters. Watching Emily made Jay’s 30 Intellect curious about the unknowns of a [Medium]. Their spiritual powers seemed more whimsical than regular magic, even.

What led to Emily choosing Death as her Affinity, for example? And how could she be a supportive Champion with such a divergently different angle to the Class compared to Brit’s more traditional-sounding Holy Affinity?

Her Incantation Feast of Flowing Life suggested other avenues existed other than the traditional fantasy stuff. But Emily’s path certainly did look evil. Was that okay in the Multiverse Protectorate Pantheon? Maybe the affinities were like tools, not essentially good or evil, and were all dependent on how the person used them.

“You’re staring,” Emily said.

“Just having some thoughts,” Jay said.

“About me?”

“Nice ego trip, I approve,” Jay said. “On a more serious note, you being a Death [Medium] is gnarly, scary, and kinda evil-sounding. I’m wondering how that works as part of our Pantheon.”

Mike was probably geeking over this more than Jay after their junkyard magic show-off last night. They’d catch up on theories and ideas later.

“You have no clue how many questions I have for you and your [Freak] class,” Emily said. “And your experience in your dungeon. YoAnna mentioned she was worried for your team.”

“Team Four and a Half Idiots,” Jay said. “Or FAAHI, for short.”

Emily gaped at him, the spent cigarette falling from her mouth. Jay sparked a new one and slipped it between her lips for her.

The [Medium] continued to puff as normal.

“YoAnna didn’t take it that well, did she?” Emily asked.

“It was Frank’s idea.”

“Bastard.”

“You can grill him on it at school.”

“He’s not a student.”

“Doesn’t matter. School arc demands a bad boy transfer student,” Jay said as if everyone should know.

Emily looked at him like a degenerate. She turned back to her work. “My friends are almost done softening him up. I want him pliable and ready before I bring him from the immaterial to the material.”

“Sounds more like a spirit interrogation than an interview,” Jay said.

Emily let his statement hang for a heavy moment. “Call it justice after Commander Steele held us in cells.”

“The shadow to my sunlight, huh?” Jay rubbed at his jaw, wondering if he should start digging a little deeper into Emily as a person. Then he decided the time wasn’t appropriate for that.

“Thoughts, Jay?” Emily asked.

“Can’t get too deep on the first date,” Jay joked.

“Fine with me. This best first date I’ve had so far,” Emily said matter-of-factly. "Low bar, though. Most of my dates were fake goths or journalism kids who take themselves too seriously. And whatever Macy throws my way."

Uh, what?

Before Jay could convince Emily he was joking about this being an actual date, the [Medium] waved her arm sharply. A chilling wind filled with banshee-like wails gusted around the small alleyway. Scraps of garbage scattered with the wind. The temperature lowered.

Despite the Central Florida August morning, Jay’s breath came out as an icy fog.

“Jay, the mooks are closing in,” she announced. “Keep them from bothering me. My work is here now.”

Jay’s mood became serious again. “Got it.”

He dropped the gravity hologram of his mom’s capture. It wasn’t a huge power, but it drained consistently. He’d recovered pretty fast from the junkyard fight in mana, thankfully, so he had plenty to spare for a brawl against confused Systemless.

Then again, maybe they wouldn’t make a big fuss if Jay talked to them. He could explain what was happening.

That train might’ve left the station, though.

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A squad of black-ops-looking men turned the corner with tricked-out submachine guns. They didn’t shoot Jay and Emily right away. But they rushed and shouted at the violent and magical teenagers aggressively.

The black-ops mooks had their guns up–the barrels pointed at Champions. Their demands for Jay and Emily to drop their weapons (did they mean for them to drop the magic?) and get on the ground grated for Jay.

Someone up the chain must’ve been in the same school of dumbassery that Commander Steele had graduated from with flying colors. Could be the World Knife acting up again, but Jay’s [Slayer of Assassins] Title was still vibing peacefully.

Emily paid the aggressive law enforcers no mind. Her entire faith was placed on Jay’s shoulders. That amount of Conviction had weight to it. It brooked little to no questioning. It moved Jay not to let Emily down.

“[Dance Floor Relativity]." Jay blasted his magical field forward as far as it could go. It reached more than four dozen feet when he concentrated, pushing to a range he’d never attempted before. Spreading it that far diluted the power needed to break past magical defenses and Poise. He was strong enough to catch the entire black-ops mooks and send them spiraling up ten feet.

Dance Floor Relativity leveled up to 17!

[Dance Floor Relativity, Level 17]: Reorientate gravity’s effect on yourself. Choose to extend a limited field for objects, willing allies, and/or enemies with insufficient Poise/magic defense. Variable mana costs from moderate to high. Dancing helps mitigate mana costs. Leveling up increases the range of field, effectiveness, and Perception scaling.

Jay cut off the Skill from there, having fallen up with a smooth flip to count as his dance. Thankfully, the Skill accepted any dance before or during the cast when mitigating the mana expense.

Unlike the mooks, Jay had [Moonwalker] to soften his landing under gravity’s normal rules. The black-ops team crashed down hard. 

It was a good thing they wore helmets. Nobody’s brains got splashed across the ground. But there might be some hurt ribs, sprained joints, and a few strained necks among them.

Jay closed the gap in one easy bound. “[Weighted Touch] for you. [Weighted Touch] for you. [Weighted Touch] for you, you, you, you, and the rest of you.”

[Weighted Touch, Level 1]: You and your familiar can touch/enchant a target and multiply gravity’s effect on them and their gear. The effect is determined by your Perception and the target’s magic defense. More mana input increases the effect. Touching is more effective. Leveling up this Skill improves your magic scaling and enhances Kleo to extend this Skill’s enchantment range beyond [Orbital Mastery].

Jay packed enough mana into each weighted touch so that every man was thrice their own weight. There were eight black ops mooks in total, costing Jay a little more than a -110 Mana Points altogether. Skills tended to be more expensive in their early levels since the amount of work it took to use them was harder compared to when they were higher in Skill level. At the very least, this was a good experience for leveling the new Skill.

Weighted Touch leveled from 1 to 3!

The black-ops mooks struggled to move and cursed at Jay.

"Stop threatening us." Jay shrugged. "Better me than her. She's not as nice as me."

They were still pissed even though Jay was saving them from death, which was literal on multiple levels. Thank goodness Emily wasn't a Death [Freak]. Jay could only imagine the horror of that coming to fruition.

Emily hadn’t started her work just yet. She was probably stewing in death energy while waiting for the all commotion to calm down. It might not be a good idea to mess with spirits when there was hostile activity near.

A single man walked out from around the corner with his hands up. The first rays of dawn broke through the alley, shining golden light that caught the man’s face, illuminating his familiarity.

“Derek,” Jay called. “Shouldn’t you be asleep right now?”

The surfer-like dude working as an MPC Agent looked haggard and beat down. He gave Jay a sheepish smile as he stepped carefully around the struggling black-ops mooks. Once he got between them and the teenagers, Derek gestured for Jay to wait a moment before turning to the mooks.

“Dudes, I got it from here, just back off,” Derek said.

“They killed one of ours!” yelled a black-ops mook.

“One of yours shot at the most important group of teenagers on the face of the Earth,” Derek said. “I understand the circumstances. Your man had some hard stints overseas. But you should’ve kept a closer leash on your people, and this is not helping.”

“Then why are we letting living weapons walk around and do whatever they want?” asked another mook. “For Christ’s sake, they’re all over the fucking morning news at this point.”

Derek sighed. “The agency was hoping we’ll get a week or two before the news break. It was an eventuality, but one we can still mitigate to give us more time.” He shook his head. “Still, I must ask you to back off and await further orders. This is not up for discussion.”

“Who’s got their hand up your ass?” A mook sneered.

“Other than my bosses in the agency?” Derek spread his arms. “The Secretary of Homeland Security.”

Jay’s 30 Intellect remembered that position being close to the President. Sounded like an American governmental big wig. Probably the overhead of the three-letter agencies.

That cooled the jets on the black-ops mooks. The duration to [Weighted Touch] ended. The mooks picked themselves up.

They looked angrily at Derek, Jay, and Emily. They radioed their chain of command and got confirmation that Derek’s words were gospel.

The mooks backed off and disappeared around the corner. Derek dragged his feet to the nearest wooden crate and parked his ass on it. Face in his hands, he rested for a moment before looking up.

“I’m one of your liaisons between the CWG and the Champions until the MPC is up and running in good order again,” Derek said. “Please, for the love of God, be nice to me. It’s been a wipe-out of a morning, dudes.”

“I’ll try." Jay pointed at Emily. “Her? Dunno. But she looks like she’s annoyed most of the time.”

“I’ve been waiting for things to settle down before proceeding,” Emily muttered.

She gave Derek a hard look, her ghosts getting ready to spook him.

“Hey,” Jay said, waving a hand. “Don’t do that with him. He’s had it rough. His partner turned out to be a double agent and would’ve killed him if Kleo didn’t intervene.”

Emily looked from Jay to the weary MPC agent. Her eyes remained hard and cold. “Are you sure he’s not an assassin?”

“He’s not,” Jay confirmed confidently. “Can you be nice to him, please?”

The Champions stared at each other for a minute. Jay pleaded with his eyes to get past Emily’s hard and stony expression. Her Conviction could be a pain here if she refused to let her guard down. Eventually, he had a breakthrough.

Emily sighed, softening up a little. She regarded the agent with something akin to mercy and patience. The greatest gifts from an everyday mean girl. She kept her ghosts from harassing Derek, so things were looking up for the poor guy.

Jay checked if Derek had a lesser System, but there was truly nothing there. He was as mortal as they got. Jay figured Derek would be okay narratively since he was a named supporting character and avoided getting killed off. And this was his second appearance in an even more helpful role.

“Can I do my thing?” Emily asked.

“Please, be my guest,” Jay said, finding another abandoned crate. He took a seat next to Derek and gave the guy a pat on the back in sympathy.

Derek looked like appreciated the gesture.

 

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