Within the Apple Chapter 5D

*****

Glory Girl grinned widely as she surged ahead, out over the bay toward the ship, leaving Magus farbehind in the process. She heard an echoing sound of what was probably a gunshot in the distance, Brockton Bay sucked sometimes, but couldn’t place it so she pushed on to win the race while keeping an ear out for followup shots.

“Winner and still… huh!?” She started to crow, only to come to what would have been a screeching halt, if she could make such noises while in the air, as she got closer to the big ship and saw Magus already there standing on the deck.

“What the?” She pun around, looking behind her, but he wasn’t there. “No way! Cheater! I call cheater! I know you didn’t pass me!”

“Can you cheat in a race when no one set any rules?” He asked, finger on his chin as he pondered the question with a philosophical air.

“Yes!” She snapped, landing beside him on the rusted deck. “You cheated!”

“How?”

Glory Girl grumbled, “I don’t know how, but I know you cheated.”

“If you don’t get caught, it ain’t cheating,” He told her with an infuriating smirk.

“Bullshit. You, sir, are pure bullshit.” She grumbled as her phone rang. “Hang on, have to get this.”

Magus just shrugged amiably and turned to look over the large ship, and then the sea beyond the straight that led out of the bay area.

“Amy? Oh, are you ready to go home?” Glory Girl asked, “Sorry, lost track of time. Met the new Cape, Magus. No, he’s a cheating cheater who cheats, but he’s funny about it at least.”

Magus half turned and gave her a deep bow and flourish, to which she just flipped him off, much to his apparent amusement.

Rolling her eyes, Vicky said bye to her sister and hung up the phone.

“I have to go,” She said, “my sister is done with her shift at the hospital.”

“She’s a doctor?”

“You don’t know about Panacea?” Vicky asked, surprised. Within Brockton, she was arguably more well known since she’d triggered earlier and was more likely to be out and about, but Panacea was an internationally infamous name.

“Not from around these parts, if you’ll recall.”

“Everyone knows my sister, especially outside the city,” Vicky said, her tone fond. “Panacea is the world’s foremost healing Cape.”

He looked at her sharply, “A healer power? That is something you don’t see very often.”

“Tell me about it,” Vicky said, forgetting herself momentarily. “Everyone seems to want a piece of her.”

“Tough on her?” Magus asked softly.

“Yeah. She sees things the rest of us don’t have to,” Vicky sighed. “Lot of pressure. Anyway, I have to go.”

“Of course. See you around, Glorious.” He flipped her a salute.

“Glorious,” Vicky grinned, “I Like that, maybe when I rebrand at eighteen. Catch you later, Magus.”

*****

Xander watched the Capelift off and speed back toward the city, thinking about what he’d learned thus far.

The local form of super powers were different from what he’d seen in both Marvel and DC’s variants that he’d visited. It felt almost familiar, once he spotted it when Battery started charging up.

Definitely some form of outer realm contracting, or something damned similar. Never even heardof anything of that nature on this kind of scale, though.

Outer Powers weren’t generally the sort to hold this kind of interest long enough to do what he was seeing here. Empower a supplicant or even a few? Sure, they did that all the time, usually in fairly subtle ways but occasionally in straight up super power ways too. However, they tended to lose interest quickly, and for people to be continually empowered like this over decades?

Definitely on the stranger side of things.

Mind you, he’d seen stranger still… not often, but he had seen it.

They were definitely using magic too, though not human magic… or demonic for that matter.

It almost reminded him of the magical energies that his custom wands converted his own raw power into, stripping them of the emotional content that he suspected gave Olivander’s wands their near sentient status.

Definitely worth checking into a bit closer.

Xander leaned back against the superstructure of the old ship and peered out over the ocean as the sun was settling down over the horizon. He pulled out his Spellphone and flicked it easily open.

“Willow.”

*****