Masks 2

"Oh, sure. Excuse me." He said to Red Reaper, placing the epty coffee cup on the lawn chair and stood up. "Alright, what can I hep you with?"

She takes him to the side and runs a hand through her hair, taking her mask off and pullin' down her hood once she's out of the line of sight!!! Gotta let that SWEETLY STYLED COIF of hair breathe for a sec.

"Alright. So. I lied. It's not really about wizertry. Sorta is? But not totally. See, Lizzie's convinced all wizerts gotta end up traumatized, aye? And I dinnae have any inclination t' debate that, cause I'm sure we'd argue o'er the thing fer an hour or two. But I got a question."

DEEP BREATH.

"Have you ever tried ta cheer th'old goat up?"

Desmond's features suddenly turned very hard.

"Yes." He said simply. "And I advise you dont question about why I did that. She's actually a much better person now than she was when I met her, time has healed those wounds somewhat and picking at them would serve no purpose. Let that sleeping dog lie and if you want to cheer her up, do so without asking her why she's so down to begin with."

"Aye, aye, calm yer feckin' tits - she's already told me. Gods." She rolls her eyes. Fuck, this guy is  like in the comics. That really is so Raven.

"I was gonna ask what the hell ye've tried, so I can get a feel fer what I oughta do. Not ask fer ye to go off on a gods-be-damn't lecture on me. I know I'm new, but fer the sake of yer mum's arse, I'm a grown woman - let's not flip our shite."

Desmond's features didn't soften for another moment or two. He looked over at the bar briefly for a second.

"Play some video games with her some time. She enjoys that more than she's willing to admit. Missed out on a lot simple fun when she was younger, then never got a chance afterwards. Probably still doesn't given the recent decades, her lifestyle as the Demon, probably thinks she too old. Insist on it just once. You'll see."

Finn NODS. This is USEFUL. She is THANKFUL FOR THIS.

"Aye, got it. Will do. I swear tae the gods, I'll get tha' old ninny tae go on a date wit' some poor bastard who ain't suspectin' the awkward bullshit tha's to come a' some point, or I'll die tryin'." She takes a long drink from her Irish coffee. "Okay. Question two. Nick. How d'ye get the bastard tae not get weird about bein' yer da?"

"You don't." Desmond said rolling his eyes. "Never had to face the consequences of his actions this personally before, good or otherwise. Until you showed up him having kids was something he may have only thought of intellectually, he'd be stupid not to, but now here you are, saving his life, and as much as you dont care about it, and as much as he thinks he doesn't, he does. He can't help it, he's too good of a man to not care really despite his, frankly, criminal character. He'll leave you alone if you ask, quite happily, but you can't stop him from feeling what he's feeling. If he somehow magically became a young man again, he'd probably go on about his usual lifestyle, He's Nick, its what he does, but he'd probably dial back on being as loose with women from now on. The thought will be in the back of his mind from now on, might make him better in the long run, who knows."

"Oh and about Demon and the dating, just... Don't. Trust me on that. Let her do that in her own time in her own way, nudge her, certainly, but dont hook her up. She's the opposite of Nick in that respect."

"Okay, but have ye considered..... that perhaps I'd rather the fella just. Stopped??? Like, I get it, fella has a sense'a obligation n' all - but I'd like to nae have a bastart wanderin' around tryna be my da' or actively tryna avoid me, yeah? That make sense 'nough?????"

"And I'm not gonna set her up!!! But that's my end goal."

"Yeah I get it, but you cant fix other peoples feelings on things like this, whats done is done. You cant ever just be another person cause you're not. Give him time, he'll find a middle ground without being annoying, but its never gonna be different than what it is."

"But when it directly influences how he treats me..." She sighs. She's not gonna get anywhere with this fellow, and she's gotta accept that.

"Okay. So I figure I should ask before I trip o'er it and send you screamin' after me - mind if I ask what yer damage is? Assumin' you haven't broken Lizzie's theory."

"Oh, my damage?" Desmond said, he then lists off a few things matter of factly. "Well I did get lynched and set on fire and left dying in the street in the undercity that one time, nearly sold my soul to the Black Eyed Man, btw if a Black Eyed Man ever makes you an offer, refuse, he'll make it seem as if its way more binding than it is, just dont believe him and ignore him, save yourself the trouble, killed an innocent man while clearing out a rogue vampire nest in the old Solomon City Undercity, shotgunned him in the face while he was handcuffed to a radiator being used as a bloodsack. Met him during the visitation, he's in Heaven now and he's forgiven me for it, which is fine I guess but it fucked me up for a while. Had my first war while clearing out a Fae city, fun times." He coughed lightly.

"Got bitten by a vampire, once or twice, lost count, you better pick up the anti-vampirism potion while you're at it, vampires gonna be a big problem if we take the omnicorp out, trust me, recruited a bunch of guys to a team, immediately lost them when the fae raided my new base and I've been carrying that guilt for decades since, was almost assassinated by the fae during the train ride from hell, they sent a really dangerous assassin after me I barely survived and saved the train before its rigged to blow engine brought it over a destroyed bridge and blew up, one of the few upsides, got captured by the fae and brutally tortured for months, upside to that is I let go of my genocidal burning hatred of their entire race afterwards because they were making me just like them. Turns out not all fae are like that. Just the American kingdoms."

"Got nearly killed, maimed, brutalised and wounded a hundred thousand different ways but thats nothing new, wizards had makeshift healing potions before that medigel tech was new, fixes broken bones and everything, which is good because being a wizard attracts weird shit to you non-stop and there's nothing you can do about that, its part of your nature of being a wizard, its why I'm trying my best to ensure my students are the best prepared for their new lives as free mages after the omnicorp is defeated. Probably forgetting a few other wars in there somewhere. But otherwise there's nothing really 'special' about me in terms of traumatic damage, shit just happened after I became a wizard, before that I was just a loser dropout posing as a Wizard detective, conning rubes while I sorted out their superstitious nonsense... Until I used my thumb as a lighter that one time. Everything changed after that."

Esen looks back to Maria.

"Right! Thanks!"

She turns again to Tlaloc.

"So, uh, I know you're a god but um, what sorts of stuff do you do apart from godly things? Like what're your hobbies?"

"Well, it's been a long time since I've been able to do any of that, but I like making clothes. I like going on long hikes through the mountains, camping, don't like cities much. I'm a fan of R&B music. Oh, and I really like recreational fighting. Boxing, brawling, wrestling. Good stuff," Tlaloc replied.

Maria stared out into the distance as she had a goddamn flashback to Desmond going off about His Damage once before. Oh Finn. Oh Finn you fool. But no she TOTALLY wasn’t paying attention to that- “... R&B, really? See- I didn’t even know that. You’re on a roll! If any of that interests you you’ve got the coveted potential bonding activity in the works.”

"Ok, my money at this point is on 'clone'..." Lux murmured to Minimax and Devana, frowning.

"Sounds possible," Devana whispered back.

"He's actually from an alternate dimension," Emily told them, standing nearby.

***

Tlaloc happily awaited more questions from Esen.

"Oh, R&B, sick! I know some DJs out in New York, I can get you in touch with some of 'em. Damn if I'd known I'da brought a mix or two they are seriously amazing."

She feels more at ease knowing that this very powerful guy is a fan of down-to-earth music.

"Ohhh like the Robot Invasion, huh..." She
bapped a fist onto an open palm as understanding dawned. "Volts make another gate?"

"A Volts from another dimension made another gate. That's how Tlaloc ended up here," Emily told her.

***

"I'm not from this dimension, actually," Tlaloc told Esen. "But give me their details. If I'm ever in this Earth's New York I'll pay them a visit."

Finn blinks. Damn. Didn't exactly expect... all of that??? Jesus christ??????

By the end she's rubbing her temples. What the fuck. What the fuck, dude.

"...Okay. So, gonna hit the points... one by one.... Yikes, yikes, got it, why, yikes, hope yer cough gets better, yikes and will do, yikes, yikes, yikes, triple yikes times one hundred thousand, gonna have tae hit doubt on tha' just like wit' Lizzie, sounds like a good plan, why the fuck d'ye keep referrin' tae 'other wars' like it's just sommin' you can just fukkin' do. Alright. I think... I think that hit all of it."

She takes a deep breath and sighs. "Funny, though. I'm a PI posin' at bein' a loser dropout and sortin' out people's practical nonsense. It was flashlights fer me. Flashlights and fire. Weird shit. Why's it always like that???"

"Aw damn well I guess you gotta come by when this is over and I can give you some mixes to take home."

"Oh, when you're magic manifests? No idea. When I asked Demon back in the day she called it magic puberty, which is funny when it happens in your twenties." he said shrugging. "Manifests differently for every mage, no rhyme or reason to it, different ages, different ways. Some get it from having dreams, some on the spur of the moment life or death thing, sometimes they're just fucking around and they start speaking magetongue and summon a fireball in their bath tub. That actually happened to someone once."

"The long and short of it is its random, its human specific, we're kind of mutants but a stable recurring variant in our species going back thousands of years, its not entirely genetic, it can skip generations or never appear in a bloodline ever again. You're probably going to get weird dreams for the rest of your life, some even prophetic or revelatory, as a mage you'll have some weird primordial gift you are especially good at, some form of magic you can just do without much training or understanding, my mother could teleport, which is an insanely high tier magic spell only the highest archmages could pull off normally, just as an example. I know I can't, neither can Nick or Demon, and we're among the highest tier mortal human mages left alive at this point to give you an idea of how out of the park this ability can get."

"Will do," Tlaloc told Esen.

“Ooh- a strong finish! Didn’t even have to prod that one you just went for the hangout that’s pretty good... Also, is making people mixtapes still like? A thing people do? Or is that as retro as it feels?”

Maria RELEASED Tlaloc from the confines of this exercise, taking herself a seat on a bar stool as she considered the grading.

<OK, AU TLALOC?!?!!?! GET OVER HERE AND SPILL!! THE!!! DEETS!!!> If anything, this was even more interesting than Maria growing a secret dad clone! The golden messages were accompanied by some visual kaleidoscoping to really drive home her excitement!

<You can bring the kid over or w/e but come say hi dammit!!!>