Vol.4 Ch.37 – Disaster Domino
Chapter 37: Disaster Domino
Rachel was torn. On the one hand she wanted to spend more time with Abigail, get the girl to open up a little more, but on the other hand her girlfriend Jeanne was giving her a very obvious Come-Save-Me look, sitting next to the brooding Omega.
She was still wondering what to do when Abigail said: “I think I'll head to my room for a bit.”
“Will you be alright?” Rachel asked. Alone with her thoughts wasn't where she wanted Abigail to be right now.
“I just need to clear my head, take a shower, that kind of thing.”
“Yeah, but will you be alright?” Rachel asked again.
A pause. “I'm feeling like myself for the first time in forever. I'll be alright.”
“Okay.”
“And, Rachel?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
**
Abigail had a lot to think about.
Sleeping with Rachel had made her feel things she hadn't for the longest time, had awakened feelings and, yes, cravings she hadn't felt before, at least in way too long. Seeing Rachel so obviously smitten with Jeanne should have soured it but it didn't. If anything, seeing the way Rachel looked at the angel made her see the woman in a better light. She could almost understand what Rachel saw in her, could see her as more than just the woman who had beaten her.
And at the same time, that little voice inside her telling her that she was too weak and had a way to fix that was back again, louder than before.
Elaine had gone through with the Oath right before the attack on the refugee camp, in order to gain the strength to protect everyone. And now there was a mission that might end up even more dangerous. If Heaven sent who Abigail had understood to be some of the heaviest hitters, that likely meant this mission was even more dangerous than the last. Could she afford to leave the power the Oath offered behind?
She kept telling herself that this wasn't like what Elaine had gone through. Her family wasn't at risk. But even so Abigail felt that if she didn't do it now, she never would.
**
“Hey babe,” Rachel said as she slunk into the seat next to Jeanne, bumping her shoulder into her girl.
She'd come over because Jeanne had had that fascinating combination of uncomfortable and longing for her on her face but...
Rachel didn't like to think of herself as a petty person but she'd seen the way Jeanne had stiffened when Omega had called her a devil fucker. If Tall, Dark and Broody didn't like angels fraternizing with demons then she didn't really have a choice but to provoke him, did she?
And so she placed a hand on Jeanne's cheek and deliberately made her face away from him, turning her head until their eyes met.
“Hi,” she husked.
“Hi,” Jeanne replied.
She leaned in, just slow enough that Jeanne could pull away if she was uncomfortable with the situation, but she wasn't.
They kissed passionately, right in front of the asshole angel. She wasn't petty enough to keep her eyes open and watch him squirm but she did run a hand along Jeanne's waist to get her to moan into the kiss.
“Miss me, babe?” she asked when they finally broke the kiss.
“Lots,” Jeanne said. “Maybe you'd want to...?”
Rachel smirked. “Yeah, let's.”
And so the two of them left Omega sitting alone at the table.
**
“That spell is nasty,” Kaja said, watching Elaine casting her acid spell.
“Have you seen anything like this before?”
“I've seen acid spells before. I've even seen a celestial use Tiamat's acid breath before, but I never knew just how nasty the spell actually was.”
“Can you recreate it?” Elaine asked.
“If you tutored me on it for a day I probably could,” Kaja said. “But as is I can only guess at how it works. This is truly advanced wordweaving.”
“What about your spells, then?” Elaine asked. “Do you have something you could show me?”
Kaja bit her lip. “Most of my complicated spells are either too powerful for casual use or they're enhancement spells that aren't great for showing off, but...”
The angel turned toward the target range, held a hand in front of her and then balled a fist. A moment before her hand closed on empty air an ornate golden bow snapped into existence, her hand closing around it. She drew Winds into herself, more and more, rivers of power flowing, and then aimed the bow at the targets. The magic flowed into an arrow she summoned into her free hand, then she nocked it, took a deep breath and then loosed it.
The arrow had been made of golden energy wrapped in ice blue. As it traveled the ice blue magic broke off, turning into multiple prisms made of ice that shot toward the target, encircling it. When the golden part of the arrow reached the target it pierced through, then hit a prism, ricocheting off it and hitting another prism, again and again, the single light magic arrow piercing the target again and again, dozens and dozens of times until the target was more holes than matter.
Kaja turned around, looking satisfied with her work but then her smile wilted a little when she realized that Elaine didn't seem that impressed.
“I've done that before with my crystal swords,” Elaine admitted. “Not quite to your level, though. How do you keep the light magic from fizzling out?”
Kaja bit her lip. She wasn't used to other people, mortals even, being this good at magic, as even parlor tricks like this one were orders of magnitude more complicated than what most mages were capable of. Either Elaine was a prodigy or this project was far more effective than she had given it credit before.
“The arrow is created in such a way that it has mass,” she explained. “It's not a beam of light so much as a ball of plasma held in the shape of an arrow. This makes it dense enough not to dissipate instantly.”
“But is it even still light magic?” Elaine asked. “Plasma is made from condensed air.”
“It's both. The air is condensed, then super-heated with light magic. The light magic is necessary for the arrow to properly ricochet off the prisms. Without it the plasma would just melt the ice. Though I suspect that would be less of an issue if you're working with crystal swords.”
“I see,” Elaine said. “Could you show me how you create the arrow?”
“Absolutely.”
**
She seems a lot more relaxed, Mare thought as she watched the angel talking magic theory with Elaine. The anxiety from earlier, the one she had caused with her questions, had sloughed off, revealing a girl who simply reveled in her magic. It was clearly a hobby she could lose herself if the world got too much for her and Mare was glad Elaine could give her some of that peace right then.
At the same time she had a lap full of pixie, Aurora leaning into her, nursing a pack of fruit juice. Her first magic lesson had evidently tired the girl out.
“You don't have to stay here for me,” Aurora eventually said. “I'm fine again.”
“It's alright,” Mare said, not wanting the girl to feel like a burden. Especially because she wasn't. “I'm just people watching.”
“People watching...” Aurora muttered and began to look at the people in the training hall as well.
Elaine and Kaja weren't the only ones training. Almost every team had at least one person there taking the opportunity to get one last training session in before the operation. Thankfully Alejandro wasn't among them.
But for Mare this was a valuable opportunity for growth. While she was certain that switching Awakeners would pay dividends in the long run, she hadn't actually gained any new Bond Levels yet and so, for now, people watching and snatching up threads of memories was still her main way of getting stronger. And as she had expected, watching Elaine and a magical prodigy from Heaven talking magic yielded more than a few memory slivers for her to learn off of. The angel was apparently a living repository of highly advanced magic and it was the easiest thing in the world to learn new spells from her.