Walking in Shadows – Bird is the Word 2

"You'll need to transfigure sand into boat cradles as well as repairing all the boats and don't forget to clean the sand and water," Xander ordered as he spun the wheel, causing the ship to turn in place, showing a clear view of the size of the Boat Graveyard and how much decay and pollution Sirius would have to deal with.

"You don't think I can do it!" Sirius accused Xander. "After everything we've done, you don't think I have enough power to fix all this!"

"In a single spell?!" Xander challenged.

Sirius paused and examined the Graveyard. "Two spells," he argued. "I can combine clean and repair, but mass transfiguration is in a class all its own."

"You're going to fix all this?" Taylor asked hopefully, as Armsmaster put his weapon away, seeing that neither one appeared the least bit hostile.

"Of course," Sirius replied. "Or at least I'm going to try. I'm kinda missing the one thing I need to ensure success though."

"What's that?" she asked intently.

"A wetblanket to tell me I shouldn't be doing it," the Skeletal Mage explained.

Armsmaster mentally nodded to himself that was quite definitely his cue. "Of course you shouldn't do it," he said stiffly, "it is city owned property. Regardless of how much good you'd be doing, there are laws against it."

Sirius froze in place and got a manic gleam in his empty eye sockets. "Shouldn't do it?" he asked mildly.

"Not if you're a law-abiding citizen, no," Armsmaster agreed, forcing himself not to laugh.

"Watch me!" Sirius declared, his wand vanishing up tattered sleeve as he stepped up to the railing and raised his hands. The illusions he'd cast boiled away as he unleashed a tsunami of power onto the ground below.

The four stared in shock, as even Sirius was amazed at what he'd unleashed. Black fire crawled across the ground, rebuilding what had once been, leaving perfection behind, perfection coated in a thin layer of frost.

"No cradles?" Armsmaster questioned.

Sirius waved his hands wildly while chanting something under his breath, something which Armsmaster would later find a match to in a Disney movie called Bedknobs and Broomsticks, causing the ships to wiggle and balance themselves on their keels while the sand rose up around them, changing into braces of wood while bundles of glass chains formed out of the sand, glass chains that showed no signs of train while securing hundreds of tons into place. "Ha!"

*THUD*

Xander laughed and took off his eye patch. "That was beautiful!" He tapped the center of the wheel before striding over and picking up the unconscious Sirius in a bridal carry. "Let's get him inside, he'll recover faster with a little alcohol inside him."

The pair of parahumans followed while Armsmaster thought to himself, 'Spells? Does he think his ability is magic? The power-set displayed seems like a grab-bag cape, but far more powerful than the norm.'

"Smelling salts would probably be a better choice," Taylor pointed out.

Xander pushed the door to the Captains' cabin open with his foot and the two followed him in only to stare around themselves in shock.

Xander whistled and a carpet the size of a two car garage flew down to land in front of them. A campfire of blue flames cheerfully burned in the center surrounded by a wide variety of furniture.

"Come on, people," Xander told them striding onto the carpet and dropping Sirius into a Laz-Y-Boy recliner.

The two costumed heroes slowly followed him.

Xander reached into an ice chest and pulled out a beer. He shook it a few times before loudly tapping the top of it, like he was trying to disperse the bubbles inside.

Sirius bolted upright and snatched the can out of his hand before popping it open and showering himself in beer as the can all but exploded in his hand. "You shook it up," he noted, wiping beer off his face before chugging the rest of the can.

"And you stole my can," Xander replied cheerfully, before opening the ice chest and taking out three bottles of butter-beer. "It's non-alcoholic," he assured the parahuman pair.

Taylor looked around the Captain's Cabin, which was scaled for someone twenty times their size. "Okay, I'm willing to tentatively accept magic may exist." She reached up and unlatched the bottom of her mask.

Armsmaster took a tentative sip. "This is pretty good."

*POP*

A tiny green creature dressed in rags that stood about three feet high appeared and snapped its fingers, cleaning Sirius up. It gave a put upon sigh before vanishing with a pop.

"Looks like someone shaved a monkey and dyed it green," Taylor said, numb with shock, as she took a sip of her butter-beer.

"House elves," Xander replied, "they feed off of two things, Magic and Drama."

"Great maids and housekeepers though," Sirius added, grabbing another can of beer from the ice chest.

"What are your powers?" Armsmaster asked.

"Reality alteration," Xander replied. "Which in layman's terms is called… magic."

"That is a much more palatable term," Armsmaster admitted, while mentally framing the questions he wanted to ask and figuring out the best way to phrase them.

"So where are you from and what do you do?" Taylor asked.

"We travel from world to world, hopelessly lost, and mostly play tourist," Xander offered.

"You don't come from Earth Bet?" Armsmaster asked, just to make sure.

"We're not from this branch of creation at all," Sirius assured him.

"Have a seat and tell us about your world," Xander suggested. "We looked up a bunch of stuff online, but I'm sure there's tons we missed."

Taylor looked to Armsmaster who gave her a subtle nod before carefully setting his armored weight on a chair, which creaked alarmingly, but held firm after an offhand gesture from Sirius. "Well… I suppose it all started with Scion…"

*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*

Skidmark stared around himself, clear headed for the first time in well over a decade. He was the leader of the Archer's Street Merchants, a gang of junkies who dealt drugs to nearly half the city and now… now he was clean. And not just him either, the entire place and everyone who was in it were clean, inside and out. He ran a tongue across his newly returned teeth and made a decision. "Everyone, wake the fuck up, I got something to say!" he yelled, causing piles of bodies to stir and then stare around themselves in shock as well.

He waited for the group of now ex-junkies to quiet down and give him their attention. After several minutes he quit waiting. "You jackasses, Listen UP!" The crowd turned to stare at him. "I think we've all seen where the hard shit leads and I doubt any of you want to go down that road again."

"Baby, you may want to give everyone a few minutes to adapt, or at least a few joints," Squealer suggested timidly, knowing he didn't like being interrupted, but reading the crowd well enough to see that nothing was getting through their shock.

"Good point, babe," he agreed, making her smile. "Break out the pot, dump the harder stuff in the trash!"

Squealer pulled out a joint and lit up, taking a deep hit and holding it for a handful of seconds while passing the joint to Skidmark. "So what's the plan?" she asked after she'd exhaled.

"Just figured out that the track we were on was heading for a gorge. We need to think sustainable life styles and business practices," he explained. "Before I started in on the rock I had some plans."

"Not sure pot alone is going to be enough to keep up going," she admitted. "I mean in terms of money."

"Most of everyone's money goes for harder shit," Skidmark explained, "but if you remove that from the equation, the way we live is dirt cheap, but that's only part of it. I'm saying we sell more than just pot, we sell pot and alcohol, we open up actual clubs. Fuck man, we can even open a Starbucks looking joint for the yuppies, but stock it with five times the legal limit expresso and hash brownies!"

Squealer smiled. "I can make coffee that's almost rocket fuel, but how are you going to keep the cops out?"

"That shit's easy," Skidmark said with a smirk. "I actually own all our territory. We don't have the straight up manpower to keep out the ABB or Empire, so I bought out this slum a chunk at a time, lowered the rent on the shops and apartments to just what was needed to keep shit together and had snitches call the police anytime those butt nuggets made an appearance."

"You're shittin' me?!" Squealer demanded in shock.

Skidmark smiled, his perfect white teeth almost glowing. "Bitch, I told you when we hooked up I'd take care of you."

"Through thick and thin," she agreed, eyes getting damp.

"The hard shit may have fucked with my head, but I still had some half decent plans in the works," he assured her. "We'll be like one of those hippie fuckin' communes, but with bacon and beer!"

Squealer laughed and stretched. "I could also make some security modules for vehicles, maybe sell them through Toybox."

"A little re-branding, like the PRT does with their own capes, and we'll be golden!" he said.

"Won't it be obvious?" Squealer asked, taking one last drag.

"Of course, but as long as we actually stay the course, they'll leave us alone," he explained. "They don't got the manpower to deal with people who aren't being cunts."

"Hey, Boss," said Steve, who was one of the more level-headed members of the Merchants, trying to get Skidmarks attention.

"Yeah?" Skidmark replied, feeling pretty mellow.

"I just took a peek outside," Steve explained, "and the entire block has been unfucked, not just us."

"Including the junkyard?" Squealer asked, staring at Steve with a laser like intensity.

"I could see the gleam of restored chrome from the door, it was almost blinding," he replied.

Squealer made a noise that cause both men to slap their hands over their ears before she sprinted across the warehouse and out the door.

"Ow, ow, ow!" Steve moaned.

"I ain't gonna see my bitch for a week or more now," Skidmark complained.

"Sorry, Boss," Steve apologized.

"It was bound to happen," Skidmark said, shaking his head. "Let's go get the lay of the land and see how far the unfuckening has spread."

*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*

"So you decided to fix the local economy on a whim?" Taylor asked.

"Exactly," Sirius agreed. "We like to leave things better than they were when we arrived, so if we have the power to fix something we figure it's right to do so."

"Much better than the typical reaction to finding one had power," Armsmaster said. "How about some introductions?"

"Great idea, I'm Xander, I have a really cool car that's been enchanted up the wazoo, a magical weapon I like to call Excali-bat and a pretty firm grasp on the use of runes."

"Runes?" Armsmaster asked curiously.

"Certain symbols can be empowered with quantum flux to great effect," Xander explained.

"Just say magic, it's much less painful," Armsmaster requested, wincing under his helm.

Sirius chuckled. "I am Sirius Black, a wizard with an allergy to responsibility. I'm searching for a way back to my reality and what Xander forgot to mention is that he's a Roman demigod."

"I'm a priest of Aphrodite and Eros, hardly a demigod," Xander disagreed.

"Roman gods exist?" Taylor asked doubtfully.

"Beings of power exist on other planes of existence that match the stories here," Xander explained. "They look after and bless those that empower them with psionic energy."

"Gods exist and feed of off belief, but that doesn't mean they ever existed here," Sirius translated.

"And Sirius is extremely powerful, but has little control," Xander added.

"Your turn," Sirius said to the parahumans.

"Very well, I'm Armsmaster, a Tinker with the PRT," he introduced himself.

"He's a hero of great renown, having been active for well over a decade," Taylor added. "People like to comment on his ever present Halberd online."

Armsmaster nodded. "I specialized in pole arms so I could increase my effectiveness in battle. It makes my name more than a little ironic."

"If I was a superhero, I'd have a name that had nothing to do with my power just to confuse the enemy," Xander offered.

"That would be a valid tactic, but once word gets around you're simply left with a name that doesn't fit right," Armsmaster disagreed.

"A name to mislead them, but appears to be connected to my ability," Xander explained. "If I could control Gravity, I'd claim magnetic powers and manipulate metal. When they attacked me with people in ceramic outfits, I'd hit them with ten G's and claim I manipulated the iron in their blood. As long as they think they know what's going on they won't look for another answer."

"Now that could be effective," Armsmaster conceded.

"And what is your name?" Sirius asked Taylor.

"I haven't picked one yet, I just received my powers a couple of months ago. I control insects," she explained.

"You guys require some huge mental thing like discovering you have cancer of the puppy to get powers right?" Xander asked, making everyone stare at him in horror. "What?"

"That is the single most disturbing phrase I have ever heard," Armsmaster said.

"And a very disturbing image," Taylor agreed.

"I think I just got powers from hearing that," Sirius said before turning into Padfoot.

The two parahumans stared in horror.

Xander sighed. "Listen, that was simply the wrongest thing I could think of and he turns into a dog all the time!"

Sirius pretended to try and walk, falling over as if he wasn't used to having four legs. He whined loudly.

"I swear to god, if you don't turn back now, I'm going to torch your porn collection!" Xander threatened.

Sirius quickly turned back to normal. "Not the porn!"

Armsmaster sighed. "I can't believe I fell for that one, especially since I know that a person Triggering knocks out every cape within a full city block."

"Trigger events are nothing to joke about," Taylor said, "a lot of people never fully recover from them."

"Sorry," Sirius apologized.

"I was asking because one of my abilities is to heal others' mental damage," Xander explained, trying to get back on track. "It's part of my job as a cleric of Aphrodite and Eros."

"A master ability?" Armsmaster questioned.

"There's no control or even a knowledge of what's going on," Xander disagreed. "I hug them and their mental problems fade."

"How do you know that's not a response to being hugged?" Taylor asked. "Some people could just simply need a hug."

"Because it's cured phobias and compulsions as well as conditions you'd normally need drugs to treat," Sirius said. "I know spells to cause people mental problems and he cures those in seconds."

"Probably easier because they aren't exactly deeply rooted, your magic being an external cause," Xander guessed.

"Can anyone become a cleric of Aphrodite?" Armsmaster asked curiously, seeing the utility of such an ability.

"Anyone who makes the proper sacrifice and honestly performs the required duties," Xander agreed, feeling a bit excited about spreading the faith.

"I'm listening," Armsmaster said, leaning forward.

Taylor had a brief mental image of a fleeing Lung being chased by an Armsmaster with arms outstretched to hug him, shouting, "Let me love you!" She quickly buried that thought and listened in on the discussion.

Typing by – Sitheus Maximus