"God-OWW dammit, Adam! One request! Don't get caught up in anything stupid!"

I laughed, patting Lisa's head while spreading some of my Demonic Energy to soothe the divine induced headache.

"In my defense, I was just at the bookstore and which ever one dressed as Luigi just crashed through the glass front out of nowhere." I shrugged as I worked open the wax paper around my sandwich. "I was just reading up on more history and making small talk with the locals."

"So both my history lessons and my body aren't good enough for you anymore?" Lisa sniffed, feigning a pitiful look, "You left your jacket with that new woman you're seeing. Ah! I should have known. My mother was right about your philandering ways!"

I rolled my eyes at the soap opera delivery.

"Maybe then you'd dress up in a sexy school teacher's outfit and drill me again? I'm sure the lessons would really stick then."

Lisa flushed slightly, lips puckering cutely into a pout.

"Perv." She softly snorted a small huff of air out of her nose.

"Devil." I shrugged, grinning as I felt my lips pass over my canines.

After feeling Lisa finally give the signal that she was free to receive me and found a place for us to stay, there was no reason for me to stay on the premises of the busted up bookstore.

I disliked the idea of leaving my new toy/friend alone, but family was more important and I had my own priorities and I had been assured by the local law enforcement that her identity had been verified, her father contacted, and was on his way.

I left my jacket with Tay-Tay, leaving a note folded up and tucked behind her ear stating to keep the jacket that I'd come and find her later to get it back. I couldn't exactly leave a number, as I still had none, but I left a trace on her so that I could just seek her down later, same as Panacea.

It wasn't a complicated spell, even most newbie Devils could figure it out after a bit of time. All I could feel was the direction that they were from me and a vague sense of distance. Not ideal for human sensibilities and the accuracy of GPS that was the norm, but either way, no problem for a Devil with intentions. Only issue was that the more traces you created and left the harder it would become to distinguish.

I left none on Lisa as a sign of trust, although she could always ping me for emergencies with the magic circle disguised as a ring tattoo.

Only Panacea and Tay-Tay had actual Traces that I could hunt down like a bloodhound.

Luckily for Tay-Tay I truly meant her no harm.

Though the same couldn't be said for Panacea. I still wasn't sure what to do about that particular snag, and a part of me was a bit ashamed to bring it up to my only Peerage. It was just one of those things that were done out of habit, but was a COMPLETE oversight. It was my fault, but also not really my fault.

Hindsight is truly 20/20.

"Still," I looked around, changing the subject, "This place is surprisingly big. Are you sure we can afford it?"

The apartment only currently had a couple of now magically cleaned couches from the previous owners, but had a living room, kitchen, master bedroom with a bathroom, and two smaller bedrooms with a detached bathroom that was a bit cramped. The hardwood flooring needed a new coat of varnish or carpeting, the wallpaper was slightly peeling, but there was genuinely decent floorspace. Frankly it was a lot worse than what I was used to, but much better than what I was expecting to put up with given our current complete lack of resources.

Lisa was closing her eyes, enjoying the soothing feeling of my minor healing as she subconsciously was leaning to my touch like a cat against a warm radiator as she exuded a smug aura of pride. I know that Demonic Power isn't addictive, but I was starting to wonder if I was accidentally creating a dependence. Though I also saw nothing wrong with that, as possessiveness was a common Devil trait. Doubly so sometimes for we Gremory.

"Mmm." She hummed, "I chatted up a couple of creepy middle-aged businessmen that were looking for a good time-"

My eyes narrowed. Speaking of possessiveness.

"-but they all shook off after realizing that I wasn't the kind of person they were looking for. Made enough small talk to get treated to a few cups of decaf coffee with the ones that had real money though. Since my eyes have gotten good enough to see credit card numbers at a distance, I bailed on them once got enough of a read to figure out their PINs and hit up some ATMs. Then I found this place and it didn't take too long to realize that the landlord was in a bit of heat with E88 after he failed to pay off some of his dues and I just gave him a lump sum for two months. We're only on the edge of their territory, but the landlord's unfortunately a bit of a racist. He signed up with them and they've been bleeding the dumbass dry. Dude literally shot himself in the foot. But luckily that means we'll get free water and power for a month cuz I negotiated a bit, but we are completely broke once again. Hmm. Well, had just enough left over for some Bahn Mi though."

I sighed as I pet Lisa some more, feeling her lean into my shoulder with contented breaths.

If this had been my original Earth, I would have been able to provide fully for my Peerage. Frankly I felt inadequate. Like one of those stereotypic drunk husbands that their wives worked themselves to the bone to provide for.

I'd have to rectify it soon.

"Alright then. I'm going to start handing out some fliers tomorrow with wish-fulfillment Contracts. You get a rest day in."

"Nuh-uh. You're a trouble magnet, mister. Not making that mistake twice." She muttered from my shoulder.

"No, you're staying home and practicing how to make teleport jumps with magic circles. I bought enough printer paper to imprint a bunch of circles onto and you're going to have to practice."

"Ooh. Hmmm. Ok that sounds fun. Seriously, don't get into trouble again."

"I won't, I won't." I reassured, "I'm just going to hand out some fliers. Maybe stick a couple onto a lamppost. I'll even disguise myself with magic."

"Ugh I can't wait to do all this cool hocus-pocus." Lisa groaned with anticipation, "This is such bullshit that I have to train and learn everything."

"Power earned is more satisfying than power given." I laughed, "You'll get it all down quickly I'm sure. You're a Bishop, magic should come easily to you."

"Cool. I'll be flying and turning people into goldfish in no time."

I laughed, finally getting my Vietnamese sandwich unwrapped with my free hand.

"I believe in you. You're my precious Bishop. You can do it."

I munched into the tasty sandwich as Lisa warmed to the touch.

The next morning I set aside about two dozen sheets of paper where I magically imprinted a Gremory Peerage Magic Circle with Lisa's name in Devil Runes. Luckily, whether Lisa was her original given name or not, I just had to be able to recognize her as Lisa for it to work, so it shouldn't be too much of an issue. It was more important that she was a member of my Peerage more than anything.

The rest of the sheets of printer paper were simple.

"We live in a world of superpowers. What's wrong with a touch of the supernatural? Make a deal with a Devil and have your wishes come true. No souls, no firstborns, no blood sacrifice! Payments are negotiable. Barter and favors allowed. Instructions: Use only after sunset. Place hand on circle and have a desire in your heart. Must be alone and indoors." Lisa read aloud, "This looks suspicious as fuck."

"All we need is one or two people to start." I replied, lacing up my boots. "While i'll be passing out a bunch and leaving them around, I'll target some people specifically as I hand them out."

"...The PRT is going to hate these. No magic compulsions on the fliers, right?"

I nodded.

Nothing would go into the fliers themselves.

…But maybe one or two of the people I approach personally?

Nobody would know.

I had to get the ball rolling somehow.

"What're you going to do if too many people make requests all at once?"

"They'll see that they enter a queue. Like this." I conjured up what the magic circle would.

Crimson glowing script in Blackletter Gothic Font that stated: ? ﾝﾔﾱ? ﾝﾔﾢ? ? ﾝﾔﾲ? ﾝﾔﾞ? ﾝﾔﾰ ? ﾝﾔﾯ? ? ﾝﾔﾲ? ﾝﾔﾯ? ﾝﾔﾫ? ﾝﾔﾩ? ? ﾝﾔﾞ? ﾝﾔﾦ? ﾝﾔﾤ ? ﾝﾔﾥ? ﾝﾔﾦ? ? ﾝﾔﾦ? ﾝﾔﾥ? ﾝﾔﾰ ? ﾝﾔﾲ? ﾝﾔﾣ? ﾝﾔﾩ? ﾝﾔﾢ?. ? ﾝﾔﾬ? ? ﾝﾔﾯ? 1? ﾝﾔﾱ ? ﾝﾔﾫ ? ﾝﾔﾦ? ﾝﾔﾢ ? ﾝﾔﾬ? ? ﾝﾔﾥ? ? ﾝﾔﾢ? ﾝﾔﾱ ? ﾝﾔﾳ? ﾝﾔﾦ? ﾝﾔﾞ? ﾝﾔﾩ? ℭ? ﾝﾔﾫ? ﾝﾔﾯ? ﾝﾔﾠ? ? ﾝﾔﾢ? ﾝﾔﾦ?.

"Obviously the bolded letters change based on your position, and once it hits one or two in the morning it will tell them to try again tomorrow and that they'll have slightly more priority."

"Damn. Ok, if I saw this, I'd definitely try it once. You'd just need to get some people's foot through the door."

"That's the plan. I adjusted the spell so that people can take photos of the magic script as well, let it spread on the internet. This isn't the same as my Earth, so people are free to believe it's a couple of edgy Capes having fun instead of actual Devils."

"Ok, I'm going to go get a library card. I've gotta see PHO's reaction to this all tomorrow. Unless you can negotiate for a laptop or something. That could also work. Actually we need cell phones first…"

"It still astonishes me that your version of Reddit is called Para-Humans Online. More than half the site isn't even about Capes."

"It started as a forum to discuss Capes. The name just stuck." Lisa shrugged. "Ok, you go out, stay safe. Don't drop that disguise, you look good as a brunette. I'ma keep trying to make teleportation work."

"Good luck, and I'd damn well hope so. My mother's a Bael. Uh. They're brunettes." I overexplained needlessly.

Lisa laughed as she waved me out the door.

"So Devil physiology doesn't give a shit about genetic phenotypes, good to know." I heard her mutter to herself as the door shut.

Luckily it was Saturday and plenty of pedestrians were about.

Even under a magic disguise I still looked rather similar to my original appearance and a few smiles and winks here and there were enough to go through a bunch of fliers quickly, allowing me to stay on the move whenever it looked or felt like I was about to be approached by a PRT officer.

I had to take a break around noon as it seemed that there was a definite increase in patrols. I had thought it was completely possible that I was being paranoid, but while under a camouflage illusion as I ate a salted pretzel from the Boardwalk I noticed a red blur moving about the streets that was taking down my fliers. Some additional PRT enforcers too were tearing down the fliers they could find.

It was hard to see from a distance, even with my enhanced vision, but it was a man in a red outfit with an aerodynamic helmet of the sort you would see on a cyclist. The fastest of the three Protectorate speedsters in the Bay, I presumed, Velocity.

"Well that's bothersome." I muttered, "And a bit too sudden for my tastes. Must be a pre-emptive measure just in case. What a bother."

Luckily I had already passed out a good amount by hand personally. I supposed I could hold onto the rest for another day. Once my services would start getting some traction and be considered a bit more of a normal occurrence it wouldn't be so strongly impeded. I'd need to make new ones keyed for Lisa as well in all honesty.

Or I could just have it magically disperse a stack of fliers towards every human in a given area like a paperwork carpet bomb if I so desired.

Frankly I had half a mind to do that right now, but I didn't want to go out of my way to actively antagonize Protectorate leadership and protocols at the moment.

I needed more allies, not more enemies.

So I spent the afternoon leisurely watching people as I sat atop a building whilst magically blending into the skyline. Mostly people out to have a good time, but a pickpocket here, the palming of a dimebag of drugs there. Sin truly sat just under surface level here in Brockton Bay.

While my family would have cleaned up the edges a lot more, it was satisfactory to my sensibilities.

Sin was yet for the living, after all.

I stopped back into the apartment with a box of cheap bagels and some cream cheese to feel the constant blinking of Demonic Energies. It seemed that Lisa had figured out how to teleport around after all.

That was good, for a very logical mind such as herself, normally the human magic system rooted in calculations tended to be easier to conceptualize, despite being harder to both learn and master.

"Having fun I hope?" I called out as I closed the door, letting my illusive disguise drop, feeling comforted by the normal glow of crimson hair in the edges of my peripherals.

"I need you to teach me everything." Lisa appeared in a dim flash of purple light from a magic circle sheet on the floor by the doorway. "Magic is the tits!"

I had been a bit worried when her trigger for activating magic had turned out to have been something potentially traumatic. The feeling of a coil of rope tightening around her wrist as it went from slack to intensely tight, was her description. She had been quite shaken about the way her magical mental trigger manifested initially, constantly rubbing her wrist as she practiced the most basic of magical exercises on the bus ride to the bay, but had been able to put that to the side as she distracted herself by elaborating on history for me.

It was a common misconception that triggering one's magic as a newborn devil was as easy as imagining the most 'cool' and powerful thing they could. The truth is that it needed both a sufficient amount of magical power and a sufficiently powerful enough image to initiate magic. Powerful enough Devils eventually are able to forgo the need for mental triggers altogether but it is a powerful enough crutch for newer ones.

But not every newly reincarnated Devil reacts exactly the same way.

Sometimes whatever trauma that led to their deaths or the way they were forced into service could cause a severely negative emotional magical trigger. Frankly it could be a wide number of factors that led to such instances, and sometimes they would react poorly to said negative triggers. Then snowballing further that was part of the occasional reason that it led to the murder of their Kings and the way of the Stray Devil. One of many reasons that Stray Devils would form.

It's why it was often encouraged to have said reincarnates to imagine a more positive emotional trigger for their magic. To make it fun and exciting.

I had tried to do just that, but even with all my advice and encouragement the emotional trigger to Lisa's Demonic Power had been restrictive. Binding. Painful.

And while she had told me that it had felt like it tightened about her wrist, she often held her breath when initializing her Demonic Power as if it was also choking about her neck. I just pretended to not notice, as she didn't seem to wish for my pity in the moment.

I just snuck in extra headpats where I could, trying to give her some positive reassurance without addressing the deeper underlying issue. She would tell me when she was ready one day. We were Devils. We had all the time we'd ever need.

But she soldiered on and now had even managed to figure out teleportation via anchors. I wasn't sure if she simply had a decently strong sense of willpower or I was being overly cautious and protective, but I was proud of her either way.

"I will, I will." I pat her head as she preened, already becoming more accustomed to the lighthearted act of physical affection, "We'll just find a nice, quiet junkyard where you can learn to do some simple Blaster exercises soon."

"Hell yeah, I'ma get some lasers!" She whooped, throwing her hands up.

Ah, I remember the first time I managed-

I shook my head to clear my thoughts.

"Alright, alright. Tonight though, we're going to go see if we get any Contract calls. You'll shadow me and just observe for now. Feel free to bring it up to me if you notice anything truly unusual, as your common sense and powers of observation are a literal level above mine."

"Got it, boss!" She chirped with a mock salute. "Glad you're aware of that."

I laughed.

"Also, it should be obvious, but you don't have to agree to anything uncomfortable or outside your ability to fulfill. It's important that we make sure they know we're here to grant their wishes, but we can't necessarily bend reality to our will. It's up to you what the value of a wish granted is, but it's not about monetary exactness, it's about getting the contract done, fulfilling requests, and increasing your power. Got it?"

"Ggggot it!"

"Alright. For now, bagels. Then we wait."

…The bagels were ok.

It wasn't until about 7:10PM when we got our first ping.

They were indoors, they were alone. The minimum conditions were met.

Instead of just appearing in a flash of light, it was easier to create a pathway when it came to multiple people for myself. Thus a tear in reality like a wound in reality ripped open in a ripple of crimson light.

I adjusted the black domino mask on my face, despite Lisa's insistence a full helmet didn't suit me well, while dressed in a conjured up fancy suit befitting Devil nobility for flair, ruffled collar, gemmed brooch and all. With a high-collared embroidered cape to match. Flamboyant enough to get people suspecting that I was wearing a wig, as my hair color was a bit more outlandish.

Lisa had rolled her eyes, squeezed into tight black yoga pants, a light purple top, and a domino mask of her own.

As the masks were created via magic, they had that more cartoon superhero style of black mask with white material that allowed unhindered vision through it which was capable of warping drastically to better emulate the spectrums of human emotions.

Our first 'customer' was a tall, gangly teen with a lot of acne, a mouthful of half-chewed pizza that stared as the bitten slice in his hand fell to the dusty hardwood floor with a plop.

"Ohg shid." He hurriedly swallowed. "Fuck this shit's real. Hey man I was just joking around with-"

I interrupted with a smile and a laugh.

"No worries, Contractor. No worries. I am Maou, this here is my Bishop, Oracle, who will be shadowing me today. Learning the ropes, as it were. As advertised I am here to help in what ways I can, and am in no way here to harm you. Don't fear."

"Uhhhhhhh. Ok. Shit, naw this is tight." He grinned excitedly, "I got real fucking Capes in my house!"

"Calm down, numbnuts." Lisa snapped, seemingly off put by the teen's behavior, level of cleanliness, and disrespect. "Just because you're home alone doesn't mean you should be so damn loud."

"Ah damn. Uh, sorry. Wait how'd she- OH ORACLE I GET IT. Yo, I'm sorry."

"Your apology is more than acceptable." I nodded cordially. The first time a human interacts with a Devil Contract was always their worst foot forwards, after all. "But you must have something that you wanted, some wish, no matter how small. Was it merely to see if the sigil would work?"

"K-kinda?" He sheepishly scratched the back of his head. "Like, I just kinda did it for fun, ya know? B-but what kind of, uh, wishes can you do? It said I didn't need to swear my soul, or promise my first born, but idk what then yall want."

"Depends on the wish." I shrugged, "The scale of what you want could be as simple as making you dinner with what you have at home, degrees of companionship, to go and get some vengeful pranking done on a bully at school, get your cat out of a tree, anything. Of course, the grander the request the more we'd have to get in return. And we're here as, Rogues I believe is your word for it. We can fully deny your request as well. It is… give and take after all."

"Wait. Like. I could get you to do my homework for me?"

I grinned pleasantly.

"If that is all you desire."

"...Aw fucking sweet man."

It was good that some humans were simple.

He wanted his math homework completed, and that was easily doable. I could just have my magic formulate the answers and the lead up work to it as long as it wasn't of too high level and didn't even need to take care of it myself. I did inform him that he would simply have to copy it in his handwriting.

I charged him for half his medium pizza (mushrooms, bell peppers, and pepperoni with extra cheese) and five dollars, which he handed over with a greasy grin. His parents had left him enough for something more but he had skimped a little to save the extra cash for his own pocket, which now found itself into mine.

We returned to the apartment to split the remaining pizza as the bagels hadn't been quite enough.

That and doing a bit more curbing of expectations.

The majority of wish granting was truly nothing glamorous, but it served purposes for Devils beyond that of pure monetary gain. And there would be those with money that would require something bigger and grander eventually.

But yes, most Contracts wouldn't be so glamorous.

Like our second Contractor: a petite brunette in her freshman year of highschool so hopped up on hormones and boy-crazy that she had to be talked down by Lisa into just a normal back and foot massage net us fifty bucks and a bottle of cooking sherry. She wanted to pay double to sit in my lap and cuddle but Lisa, sorry, Oracle shot her down, making the excuse that we had run out of time. I was sure that if Oracle wasn't there, she might have been making even more adult requests, judging by how she seemed to be stripping me down with her eyes, but at the very least I wouldn't have been interested in anything truly intimate with random strangers. I did, offhandedly, think it would have been funny if a strip dance had been requested. I'd never performed such actions before, but you'd think it decently instinctive for a creature of sin like a Devil, right?

Our third Contractor was an old man that used a flier he had seen posted up as scrap paper to sketch a pretty good picture of a squirrel in a park, very cute. Unfortunately he had fallen down on it at home and wished to get some help standing back up. I enchanted his suspenders to slow his fall to protect him within a twenty foot drop for the next week as a service, letting him test it to his wonder and amazement after helping him up in case of another accident and earned two pounds of frozen pork shoulder from his freezer and a box of home grown potatoes that would start spudding soon if left unattended.

Those were left back at the apartment. Certainly it wasn't cash, but it was easily almost a week's worth of food.

A young boy left home alone that wanted me to play hide and seek with him 'paid' me with a small ziplock bag of weed that his father peddled as a 'Merchant' that he didn't exactly understand the value of. I worried that he would get in trouble for this misplaced product (it was no small amount like a dimebag but rather a stuffed full sandwich sized ziplock), but Lisa assured me, clearly equally worried for the child, that his father had misplaced weeks ago, shoving it in his kid's backpack to avoid it being taken by a cop and then had completely forgotten about it. Poor kid had been lugging the thing around every day for almost a month.

She received wide sparkling eyes with a "How'dja know, pwetty lady?" that actually made her laugh.

And our first night ended with a panicking husky blond teen around thirteen to fourteen years of age that needed help changing a diaper, as his mother had left for her night shift and for some odd reason seemed to have no idea what he should do. He was rightfully on edge when he realized the Contract was a real thing and not someone's idea of a prank but the boy was desperate.

Magic made both cleaning and changing easy, and I calmed the baby Aster down naturally without magic, having more worldly experience at being an older brother. I did not know if it was that I felt sympathy for him or out of jealousy that he still could interact with his blood relations that led me into walking him through how to take care of his baby sister better. Practicing how to hold her, changing some practice diapers the non-magic way a few times upon a conjured up mannequin, much to his embarrassed chagrin that he even needed the refresher course in the first place.

Oracle was oddly quiet while looking about in this apartment in particular. She touched nothing, but it was clear that she was reading things about the room that was of concern to her, but nothing she wanted to address immediately. Which was fine by me.

Theo shook hands with me, both our hands a bit cold and clammy from washing in the sink with plenty of liquid soap.

"Thanks again Maou. Like I said earlier, I don't have any money, but uh, here." He handed me a rather nice watch, a decently well maintained Tudor which should still go for a few hundred at a pawn shop. "You can probably pawn that off or something."

"That is true, and I agreed to receive a watch for helping change a diaper… but this is more than what-"

"Just take it man. I don't- I really don't want it anyways. I… honestly I was just gonna dump it in the water by the boardwalk tomorrow so you're just saving me the trip. But you were like… uh. I didn't know what the heck to do, but for a Cape going around as a Devil making deals, you're a cool dude."

"No problem, Contractor Theo." I laughed, "I too had to change my baby nephew's diapers a long time ago. I was happy to help. But it's late and time for us to depart. Perchance call another day, although do remember: Every time you purchase a wish, you shan't be able to personally call on our services for three days."

"Oh, uh. Any specific reason for that? J-just askin."

"That, good Theo. Is a secret."

"Oh, uh. Ok. Gotcha. Cape stuff." He laughed meekly. "...cape stuff."

Lisa and I walked through a newly formed portal and she let out a long sigh of air.

"Something wrong?" I asked.

"...If Theo calls you again, be careful. Not 100% sure, but pretty sure his mom's a Cape. Divorced recently too. If it feels like she might come home early, just leave. To be safe."

"Ah." I nodded, "Any ideas on who?"

"None of my suspicions are good. Nothing concrete. But that watch? We definitely shouldn't get rid of it in E88 territory."

"Oh." I hummed. "That sounds bad."

"Yeah. Real bad."

"...Is this a good moment to mention that I'm ordering you to register us to attend a local highschool?"

"WHAT?! WHY?!"

"Yeah I thought not. Your reactions are too fun to miss out on though."