Within the Apple Chapter 5B

*****

Xander didn’t think he was ever going to not be amused by the reactions stating that aloud got, especially locally.

After Glory had mentioned it, he’d actually snuck a few minutes on his phone to look up this Myrddin chap and quickly found that he was at the center of quite a bit of mockery for his use of the magic angle. Part of Xander found it all rather amusing, of course, while an admittedly smaller portion actually was just slightly affronted by it all.

The idea that Magic didn’t exist was something he normally understood, to be honest. Most people, at least back home where the Statutes existed, had never really seen evidence of such a thing… and while faith in something’s existence might be a virtue for the religious, Xander didn’t consider it as such for himself.

Here, however? In a world where people flew and threw lasers from their fingertips, and whatever else there was out there in the Parahuman world? To not believe in magic was, frankly, insulting.

Oh, if the science had managed to explain it all… or even a significant portions… or any of it, really, then he would be more forgiving.

However, as best his research had been able to determine, while they had a reasonable idea of some of the effects of powers… no oneseemed to have the slightest of clues when it came to their causalsource.

For Xander, that reekedof magic.

Perhaps he was wrong, of course, there was such a thing as experiential bias that had to be taken into account, but if you couldn’t explain something then Magic was as good a placeholder as any other to use in the meantime.

Battery, in particular, seemed to disagree.

“Really?” She asked flatly. “That’s what you’re going with?”

“I speak naught but truths,” He told her, hand over his heart before shrugging, “Unless it’s important enough to lie… or funny enough.”

Assault chuckled, turning it into a cough quickly when Battery turned her glare on him.

“Can you explain any of what you do?” He asked, mildly curious.

She sighed, “Just because I don’t understand the mechanics of it, doesn’t make it magic.”

“Can anyoneexplain the mechanics of it?” Xander pressed.

That got him a dark glower, which answered the question neatly.

“I’ve seen things that would warm your soul, and things that would curdle your heart,” He told her, quite honestly. “Magic so ancient it predated humanity, and technology so advanced that calling it magic was about as close as anyone living could get. The difference between magic and technology is far slimmer than you think, fair lady.”

Battery rolled her eyes, “And I suppose you know what the difference is?”

Xander winked at her, “Of course. The difference is… Consciousness. We’re all magic given form. Our tools, sadly, are but inanimate hunks of increasingly refined rock.”

She just sighed, “Well that’s one way to put it. Allow me to ask the question in another fashion, then… what can you do?”

“Anything I imagine.”

Battery groaned, rubbing her forehead before shaking it and just pushing Assault forward.

“You talk to him. I have a headache.”

Assault snickered at her, but obediently stepped forward, “I don’t suppose you could be more specific?”

Xander shrugged, “Honestly, it’s easier to tell you what I can’t do in some ways, though even those are less hard and fast rules and more that it’s normally not worth the effort to do them.”

“Oh?”

“Creating money, in the old way of thinking,” Xander said, “is a no go. That means conjuring gold and silver and the like is pretty much impossible. Same goes for food, for most of the same reasons.”

Assault seemed to take a moment to process than, frowning behind his mask, “but you can… conjure other things?”

“Sure,” Xander flicked his want, making a bouquet of flowers appear from thin air, which he then caused to float over toward Battery, hiding a grin when Assault quickly stepped between them and plucked them from the air instead.

“Cute,” The red clade hero said, glaring at him before checking the flowers. “Huh. Seem real.”

“They’re not,” Xander told him, “Just an energy construct that will fade in a few minutes. Making them real requires more power and focus.”

“But you can make them real?”

“I… can make them permanent,” Xander said cautiously. “Real… that had implications on a genetic, molecular, and atomic scale. They would be ‘real’ in the sense that they exist, but not real flowers, if you get the difference.”

“Huh, ok that is impressive,” Assault said after some thought, “And you can do that with… anything?”

“Sure, but some things you want to be real in the real sense, if you get my drift. Gold, for example, is only gold if you get it right down to the atomic level,” Xander told him. “It would take me absolutely ridiculous levels of focus and power to make Gold, and the same holds true for food… though water and many drinks are possible.”

Now Assault rubbed his forehead, “Wait… why is water and drinks possible, but food isn’t?”

“Water and alcohol are pretty simply, molecularly speaking,” Xander shrugged. “Making water from air can be done with a dehumidifier, or by burning hydrogen and oxygen in the correct ratios, both of which exist in air. Alcohol is more complicated, but it’s a known process… probably because some drunken wizard decided it was worth spending the time mapping out the molecule. Don’t know the history there, if I’m honest.”

Xander flicked his wand again, making a gold bar and letting it drop to the ground between them.

“Sometimes you just want the shape of something, and that I can do easily.”

Assault murmured a bit, bending down to pick up the bar.

“Huh…” he said, hefting it, “Feels close.”

“Won’t pass any test, not anything serious at least,” Xander affirmed. “and similarly you wouldn’t want to try to eat conjured food. Though if it’s permanently conjured, it won’t harm you at least.”

“And if it isn’t?” Assault asked tentatively.

“Depends,” Xander answered. “Short duration, no real harm either… but a long duration conjuration done with sufficient skill might be enough to be digested and processed into your cells. Then, when it turns back into energy… well, you wind up with holes where you shouldn’t have any. Done right, in theory, you could cause someone to bleed internally. That would be almost as hard as conjuring food in the first place, though, and there are much simpler ways to kill someone.”

“Ugh,” Glory Girl grimaced, “Gross.”

Xander nodded, “Yeah, but that’s Magic for you. Great and terrible, all at once.”

*****