Within the Apple Chapter 8B

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Xander had once again spent the night, what remained of it, out on the old tanker that was blocking the mouth of the bay. A few wards setup around the perimeter had given him some measure of comfort, and he added a few more splashes of comfort to the place, including tearing out an old Captain’s chair from the bridge and moving it to a place that sat overlooking the sea, and currently the sunrise, to the East.

He lounged there, thinking on the events of the previous night.

Taylor had certainly shown signs of accidental magic, but the sheer power of that first burst that took him out of the sky both concerned and intrigued him.

That was more than I would expect from any magical child, it was almost on par with a directed assault rather than an undirected magical outburst.

There were differences, though, and he could recognize the lack of intent in the burst that clearly defined it as undirected.

Still… there was something in it…

He sank into his occlumency skill, the real world wavering away as Xander immersed himself into the mental one.

Xander easily located the traces of obliviation that had removed memories of the event from his mind, his defenses had managed to cut it off before it had gone on to fully remove even the traces of the obliviation itself. That left him knowing that somethinghad been taken from him, but not what it was exactly.

Memory removal was a tricky thing, though, and he knew from experience that it was generally impossible to fully remove memories… however, the sooner you got to it, the easier that it would be to accomplish, and this removal had been accomplished almost immediately after the experience.

Obliviators could only wish to get to witnesses this fast…

Frustrated, he found that while there were traces to be followed, they weren’t much.

Sighing as he came out of the meditation trance, Xander stretched out on the chair as he considered his options. Full recovery would appear to be impossible, but with time he expected that he’d be able to get at least partial recovery of the memories in question.

The really interesting thing was what hadn’t been erased, however.

It wasn’t undirected magic after all.

What he’d assumed to be accidental magic on the part of Taylor had turned out to have two components. The emotional burst of accidental magic that he’d detected… and another one pushing the first, but stripped of the emotional content completely.

He’d never seen that before… or, nearly so. His own wands and some of his gear stripped emotional content from magic, which was one of the things that made him such a threat to the Magical forces he’d faced in the wars back home. Someone armed with his gear could strike from the shadows and fade away, leaving no trace that could be matched to a magical signature.

If he’d wanted to be an Assassin, he’d have been the terror of the Magical Nations.

More a terror than I am already, at least, Xander thought with a mental and physical smirk.

The stripping of emotional content indicated an artificer at play, he decided. Someone powerful, though, because they were clearly doing things on a level he’d rarely encountered… and only in upper power level universes.

That matched with what Myxlptlk had said, though.

We have a major player in the area, someone who could easily fit in with any of the upper powered universes… but not a Pantheon. The Gods, or HellGods, would never strip their magic like this. Their egos wouldn’t allow it.

Pulling all emotional content from the magic like this essentially anonymized the source. Gods depended too deeply on worship, on their every action screaming I Did This!

So… not a Pantheon. But what the hell does that leave?

Unfortunately, he wasn’t likely to figure it out anytime soon, so Xander reluctantly set that aside as he got to his feet and debated his next actions.

He would be staying close to Brockton Bay for a while, that was now a given. Even if he could leave and head home, that wouldn’t be happening. He’d accepted Mr Hebert’s gratitude and sealed the Life Debt between them, albeit reluctantly. If the man had only accepted his assurances… however, the man was one with both latent magic anda strong sense of personal honor.

Most believed that a life debt was a one way obligation. The person who had been saved owed the savior.

That really wasn’t how it worked.

In many ways, by stepping in, Xander had taken responsibility for the life he’d saved. Certainly, the Heberts now owed him a debt… but he too was bound. Everything Taylor did from this point forth was on his balance sheet.

With that debt sealed, Xander was going to have to hang around and make sure that she had some guidance with the new abilities she’d likely acquired. At least enough to ensure that anything she did was because she chose to do it and not because she was so untrained as to not have any choices.

Never have had an apprentice before,he thought. Might be fun.

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