"a," =speech "a," =thoughts "a," =through intercom or television "a," =magic "a,"=dream
Kindred Spirits
Lucas' POV
I got home around 3:38 P.M. My parents had that look that told me they had only woken up a couple hours ago. They greeted me, "So how was The Dark Forest?"
"I liked it. Great food, wide variety of books and great service," I answered. I put my jacket on the hook and continued, "I gained a few friends while I was there too. Their names are Mary and Christina. They're twin sisters and pretty smart but their personalities are quite different."
"Are they cute?" my mom said with a mischievous look on her face. She probably said that just to embarrass me. I saw my dad and could tell he was on the verge of bursting out in laughter.
I smirked, showing that I knew exactly what they were trying to do, and answered, "Actually they were quite pretty."
My mom pouted at not being able to embarrass me and my dad said, "How can you say that so casually? Are you not attracted to them or something?"
"I am attracted to them, I'm just not looking for a relationship at this moment," I explained for what seemed like the thousandth time. I looked at the clock and said, "I have to go ask Hexiphilius a favor," before walking over to my room. I walked over to my dresser and grabbed Hex's medallion, which is what I use to summon him. I held the medallion out in front of me, closed my eyes in concentration and chanted thrice, "Hexiphilius, Hexiphilius, Hexiphilius."
"You know your voice kind of starts to echo when you use your magic," I heard a voice say. I opened my eyes to see a small figure standing in front of me. The figure was 3' 4" and had a bronzed skin tone. His hair was a pale purple color and done in the tonsure style. He was wearing a very dirty miniature repairman's suit with tools lining all of the pockets. His hands were covered by black fingerless work gloves and his feet were sporting boots that at first glance might appear to be leather but was actually made from fabric woven from threads of wrought iron.
Hexiphilius, or Hex for short, laughed and said, "It's good to see you master Lucas." "The same to you Hex," as I shook his hand.
He returned the hand shake and after pulling his hand away asked, "So what do you need? Is it another case file that needs my examining? Or is it a device that needs tinkering?"
"Actually I need you to gather some stuff for me. Gold, silver and wrought iron thread, black leather steel-toed combat boots, a silver duster, a white dress shirt, black dress pants, a pair of black gauntlets and some black foam latex. Also, I need the materials rather quickly, preferably by tonight," I answered.
Hex seemed to consider it for a few minutes and finally responded, "I could probably get the materials to you at about seven o'clock."
"That's perfect Hex. Thank you," I thanked the gnome.
The gnome turned to leave when he looked at me with a questioning look on his face. "Can I ask what you need these things for?" Hex questioned.
"I'm making an outfit for my new superhero persona," I answered.
Hexiphilius' expression changed to that of shock and he said, "Wow. I guess that means you'll not be needing my help on cases anymore huh."
I thought about his statement and after mulling it over, I replied, "Actually, I'll just have to squeeze them into my schedule somehow."
"I'm sure you'll figure it out," hex encouraged me. "Anyways, I'll leave the materials on your bed when I'm done." Then he turned around and left through a portal into the Outlands, sort of a pocket universe where creatures such as trolls, fairies, and gnomes are born. I put the charm my dresser and sat on my bed to read a book.
Meanwhile with Raven
I was sitting on the couch, sipping my tea and reading my book, when Robin walked into the room and informed me, "Team meeting in a few minutes. We're going to be discussing the new superhero in town." I nodded showing I had heard him, then Robin left the room to tell the rest of the team. I stood up and walked over to the kitchen table, which is where we usually held meetings. The first people to join me at the table was Starfire and Cyborg. Waiting for the meeting to start, Cyborg started fiddling with his arm probably adding a new setting for his sonic cannon. Starfire was sitting there looking as happy as ever. With nothing really happening, I went back to reading my book.
After a few minutes, I heard the door open and saw Robin followed by Beast Boy walk into the room. Beast Boy sat in his usual spot by Cyborg while Robin sat at the head of the table. Robin addressed all of us saying, "You all already know why I have called this team meeting so let's get straight to the point; what do we know about the new superhero in town?"
Cyborg answered, "We know that he didn't have enough time to put together a proper costume."
"We know whenever he uses his powers Raven gets a weird feeling in her chest," Beast Boy added.
Starfire didn't have a lot to add so she just said, "What Friends Cyborg and Beast Boy said."
"We know his approximate measurements, that he is male and he uses magic. So basically nothing," Robin finished. Our esteemed leader sighed out of annoyance while scrunching his eyebrows and clutching his forehead as if he had a headache. Robin turned to me and asked, "Did you find any explanation for the feeling you were getting when he used his abilities?"
"I found plenty of explanations that would only make sense if one of two things was true. Option one, I would have to be his twin sister which is impossible since I don't have any siblings. Option two, I would have had to take part in at least one of the rituals described in the books which I have never done," I answered.
"So we're back to square one," Robin concluded. I could tell that not knowing something when he was supposed to be a detective was annoying him greatly.
"Why don't we ask him to be part of the Titans, then we can ask him any question we want," Beast Boy suggested.
"That could work. We'll need to be there the next time he shows up which, if I'm right about his morality, will the next time someone is in danger," Robin agreed. The Titan's leader ended the meeting with, "Titans dismissed."
The other Titans left the table to back to what they were doing before the meeting. Robin walked into the gym to train, Beast Boy went back to his room to do whatever it was he was doing, Starfire left the tower, most likely to go to the mall and shop for clothing in an attempt to catch Robin's attention, and Cyborg went to the garage to continue working on his sonic cannon. I was left sitting at the table, thinking about the new superhero when I came to a sudden realization. "If I get a feeling in my chest when he uses his powers, maybe he'll get a feeling in his chest when I use mine."
Back with Lucas, three hours later
After about two hours of argument, I finally convinced my parents to let me do this superhero thing. The winning argument was that I would allow them to help me make and enchant my disguise, and sure enough, that is what we were doing right now.
"Please pass me the wrought iron thread honey," my mom asked Dad, who complied with the request. Mom was sewing the hexagonal grid onto the duster, while Dad was etching runes into the gauntlets. I was making sure everything fit and imbuing the completed articles of my costume with magic to activate the runes and enchantments. The pieces that were completed so far were the boots, the dress shirt, the dress pants, and the mask. We had been working on the costume for about an hour now and we were nearly done. Normally we wouldn't be doing stuff like this by hand but making stuff the old fashioned way actually allows the objects more time to absorb ambient magic, or magic that our bodies are naturally surrounded by, enhancing the strength and durability of any enchantments we put on them. The only way to get the same effect without doing it the old fashioned way was to have around eighteen wizards working on it at the same time.
Each of the completed pieces exuded a protective field with the strongest ones being on the mask and boots. The protective fields would protect me from temperatures up to 2,000 degrees, electrical discharges up to 400 milliamps and most melee attacks such as punches, kicks, clubbings, slashes and stabs. The mask's protective field would be strong enough to stop small to medium caliber bullets. Anything that did get through the protective fields would be weakened significantly. The boots' protective field would also completely protect me from fall damage up to about 100 feet. Falls from greater heights would have the damage divided by a decreasing variable as the altitude increases. At about 120 feet, the damage is divided by 10. At 140, it's divided by 9. At 160, by 8 and so on until the height reaches about 300 feet. At that height, the charm would be completely overwhelmed and not work.
On top of the protection charms, some of the pieces of my costume had secondary enchantments that would help me. The mask had two such secondary enchantments on it. The first was a sticking enchantment that would prevent anyone from removing it besides myself and anyone I gave permission to. The second was a obscuring charm that would prevent anyone from looking through the mask without removing it, even if they had X-ray vision like Superman. The boots had a featherweight enchantment on them that did exactly as you would expect as well as speed and agility enhancing charms that made me run twice as fast as normal and jump about 6 times higher than the world record high jump.
We finished the duster and gauntlets twelve minutes later and we activated their enchantments. The duster had a protective field as strong as the one on the mask while also sporting two secondary enchantments. The first was a friction-reducing enchantment that made me able to run in it without it being cumbersome. The second enchantment was a magic satchel enchantment that made the insides of my pockets open into a pocket dimension in which I could store things much bigger than my pockets. The opening of my pockets would also expand to accommodate objects of any size.
The gauntlets had a protective field with a strength greater than that of my mask and duster, being able to stop larger caliber bullets. The gauntlets held the most amount of secondary enchantments at twelve. The first allowed me to expand the protective field to the size of a shield whenever I activated it. The second made it so that whenever I was carrying someone, the protective field would expand to surround and protect the person. The third multiplied my lifting strength by ten, which resulted in a 10,000 lbs maximum bench press capacity. However, the force that my punches hit with would remain unchanged unless I let it. The fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth and eleventh enchantments allowed me to use my most commonly used combat spells without the incantation simply by what I did with my hands. These combat spells are fireball, lightning bolt, water blast, arctic wind, smoke screen, earthquake and blinding light. The twelfth enchantment made it so that whenever I put on the gauntlets, the rest of my costume would follow.
With the costume complete, the only thing left to do was come up with a new name for my superhero persona. So far my parents have suggested Magic Man, Super Sorcerer and other lame names like that. I mean no offense to them but nobody would ever be intimidated by someone who calls himself Magic Man.
"You have a lot of silver on you so maybe it could have something to do with silver?" Mom pondered.
Immediately I came up with my superhero name, which was, "Silver Sorcerer."
Mom and Dad gained considerate looks and Dad answered, "I like it. It's catchy and it's straight to the point. And it's not lame like you thought our previous suggestions were Lucas."
I blanched in embarrassment at being read so easily as well as inadvertently calling my parents lame. I apologized, "Sorry."
"It's okay Lucas, we thought the names were rather lame too," my mom accepted the apology. I hugged her and Dad before grabbing my super-suit and making sure the costume summoning charm would work properly in the future. I walked over to the window overlooking the city. "Look out crime of Jump City, cause Silver Sorcerer is ready to start slinging spells and blasting curses," I said to no one in particular.
Meanwhile at Jump City International Airport, Third Person POV
A plane landed at the airport, nothing out of the ordinary besides one of its passengers. Her name was Lucia Triton and she was a black haired, blue eyed, 22 year-old witch. She was wearing a green tube top that emphasized her rather generous bust, a black sweater that was left unbuttoned and covered her shoulders, a pair of jean capris and black high-heeled sandals. As she got off of the plane, behind her were three big, buff guys that she used her pheromone-emitting necklace to seduce into carrying her luggage for her. The group walked to the front doors where Lucia flagged a taxi and the guys loaded all of her luggage into it. As she got in the taxi, she turned towards the guys and seductively said, "Thanks boys." Then she blew a kiss at them that made them forget about her and climbed into the taxi. When the taxi pulled away, all the guys remembered was getting off the plane and walking to get a taxi.
Once in the taxi, Lucia flirtatiously told the driver, "The Ritz Hotel darling, and make it fast. I have someone I want to meet there."
"O-o-okay pretty lady," the taxi driver stuttered and drove off as fast as he could without breaking the speed limit or getting into a crash.
Lucia smirked at how easy it was to manipulate men and thought to herself, "Did you really think you could hide from me Lucas? Watch out my beloved because this hot and bothered witch is coming after you with love and affection!"
Back with Lucas, at the same time.
I felt a shiver go down my spine as I was getting ready to go to bed and thought to myself, "What was that?"
Meanwhile at the Titan's Tower, Raven's POV.
"Why do I suddenly feel like smashing something?" I asked myself while clenching my fists in anger.
"Raven, it's your turn," Beast Boy informed me, which brought me out of my thoughts. He, Cyborg, Starfire and I were playing a board game while we waited for Robin to get back with the Chinese food. It was his turn to pick it up since the place we ordered it from didn't deliver. There were plenty of other places to get Chinese but this place was the best.
The game that we were playing was Parcheesi and the current standings were from losing to winning Starfire, Cyborg, myself and Beast Boy. As it was my turn, I picked up the dice and rolled a ten. This was enough to tie myself with Beast Boy, putting another one of my elephants in home. Next it was Cyborg's turn so he picked up the dice and rolled a six. Starfire rolled after him and got a twelve and landed on one of Cyborg's donkeys. This put Cyborg in last place and got her a twenty space boost which was enough to put her in second behind me and Beast Boy. Just as Beast Boy was going to begin his turn, Robin came in with the Chinese food that we ordered. We decided to pick up the game later and ate our food.
When supper was done and Robin was in the training room, the rest of the Titans and I got out the Parcheesi board and continued from where we left off. By the time the game had ended Beast Boy won the game, I took second, Starfire took third and Cyborg took last place. Everyone left the room and went about their usual nightly business. Starfire went to watch Robin exercise, Cyborg went to work on the T-Car and Beast Boy went to his room to do whatever it was he did. I walked to my room to complete my nightly routine of meditating for an hour, reading my books, getting ready for bed and finally going to sleep.
Thinking back to the feeling of anger I had earlier, I theorized the cause might be related to the feelings I have been getting in my chest and the connection I have with the new superhero in town. Whatever it was, the anger was gone now.
It seems as if the connection between Raven and Lucas is more complicated than originally thought. What will this mean for the future? Keep reading and find out.