They were walking through residential areas back toward their home when they saw the first sign. Two seagulls flew overhead with loud squawking, a state of affair which would have been utterly unremarkable if each hadn’t had four pair of faintly glowing eyes. Oasis didn’t know what these things were called, but they did know that they seemed to be the only one to see them, so they’d taken to calling them magibirds.
Magibirds were just like regular birds, and people who weren’t immune to magic saw them as such, too. But they were actually… Well, they didn’t know what they actually were. It’s not like anyone else could see them and tell them what the specie was called. But those gulls fed on magic, that much Oasis was sure. They could always be found near places where SwordBright had to intervene, and eventually they’d learnt to follow the bird as soon as they saw them. It would usually lead them straight to somewhere they were needed, and it was much more efficient than listening in to police scanners.
Magigulls, like the two that were flying overhead, meant that something was going on, but that it wasn’t all that bad, yet. Like regular seagulls, they fed on garbage and spills. Their presence meant that someone, somewhere, was doing spells uncontrolled, and likely bleeding magic everywhere.
It was pretty common, among amateur wizards. Magic behaved, generally speaking, like a boomerang. If one didn’t take any protective measures, their spells tended to expand out of them, and then snap back. Like the recoil of a gun, basically. All spells behaved differently, with some recoiling immediately and others taking years. Curses were especially hard to predict, working slowly and insidiously. But it was one of the laws of nature; the effect you had on the world would be reflected back to you, and harm begets harm. Experienced magic wielders knew how to shield themselves, or how to redirect the magic shock wave in safe ways, usually by grounding themselves to an anchor that would take the damage instead of them.
But beginners didn’t usually know how to predict the recoils, and depending on the level of the spell they’d been attempting and its purpose, they could severely hurt themselves. That was why curses and destructive spells were prohibited by the government, among other things.
Oasis was of the opinion that there should just be classes on magic to explain all of that to people, but it wasn’t the done thing. Magic was supposed to be this mystical and secret art, and tradition wanted that people learnt it by joining covens and doing internships. Except that what actually ended up happening was that people picked it up in bits and pieces on Youtube, and then tried to call a bag of chips toward them and ended up hurtling themselves halfway across the room. Which then left a big magic-grease stain on the fabric of the universe, and lured in the magigulls.
To find whoever was responsible and see if they were alright, all Oasis had to do was to follow the birds and they would lead them to the source of the magic. Easy. They ran after the birds for several blocks, before slowing down when they arrived at what they assumed was the source of the disturbance. Several more magigulls were already on the roof of the convenience store up ahead, one of several near-identical Seven-Elevens on Dundas street.
Oasis blinked. People didn’t usually try to cast spells in stores, unless…
Another bird joined up with the rest, back-winged and covered in eyes, it’s bald red head sporting two wicked-looking horns. Oasis cursed, and reflexively placed a hand on the sword at their hip. That was a devilture, which could only mean…
They gulped and ran across the parking toward the entrance of the store. Already, black smoke was rising inside, the ground shaking with malice. The jugs of windshield washer stacked outside rattled in their rack, and hairline fractures were starting to manifest on the glass of the door.
Oasis yanked said door open. The pressure exploding out of the store would have been enough to have anyone off their feet, but to them, it barely even registered. They strode inside of the shop, with all of the confidence of someone who could not be affected by magic, and surveyed the scene.
The night shift employee was hiding behind the counter, curled up in a ball and arms over her head. Next to her, a cell phone was smashed in pieces on the floor. The racking were in disarray, boxes and cans and bottles spread everywhere as if a whirlwind had just raged inside of the store. Two customers were in the back, trapped under fallen racks. The girl was crying, and her boyfriend was yelling something at the thin man in the black raincoat standing in the middle of all this, still surrounded by dark clouds and orange wisps of a wind you could actually see. Bright sparks flew from the tips of his fingers, curled around a gun. He was pointing at the employee and yelling in a dark and ancient language. Hanging from his neck was a gleaming golden chain with a pendant that looked like a cross between an eye and a fish. Oasis somewhat remembered it being the symbol of a cult, but the last time that they had seen it had been very long ago, so they were a little fuzzy on the details.
“I’m going to have to ask you to stop,” said Oasis calmly, in the same dark and ancient language and using their most serious and authoritative Superhero(TM) voice. It was time to be SwordBright, and the heavy mantle settled on their shoulder like a comfortingly weighted blanket.
The wizard turned to look at them, his face gaunt and eyes blazing, and raised the gun in their direction. The wind howled, and exploded outward. Everyone and everything in the Seven-Eleven went sliding backward aside from SwordBright.
They tensed. They didn’t mind a bit of magical mayhem, but people were in danger here. This had to stop. Eyeing the gun warily, SwordBright drew out their sword, and all of the action in the store screeched to a halt. The robber’s eyes snapped to it, his surprise at seeing it bringing the wind and sparks and nefarious clouds to a standstill.
Even the customers and the clerk raised their heads to look at it. SwordBright grinned beneath their motorcycle helmet. They knew that Ginette deeply unnerved people, so they gave it a slow twirl, enjoying how all eyes moved to follow its path.
Ginette, the Sword of the Chosen, was all white, although “white” felt like a weak way to describe it. It was the Ventablack of white. No shadow dared touch the blade, so the eye didn’t register any relief or any texture on it. Looking at Ginette made one feel like they were living in a comic book and someone had taken scissors to the page, cutting out a blank spot in the shape of a sword. It didn’t even glow all that much, which might have been the final nail that made people’s brains give up. It seemed as if the pure saturated blankness would have been easier to reconcile with reality if it had been a light source of some sort. But no; sometimes Oasis forgot the blade in plain sight in their bedroom, and then woke up at night to a darkened room with a single, illogically white object somehow existing alongside the shadows of night. Certainly, it was blinding to look at; but it didn’t illuminate the other objects in their room either. It looked like a ghost sword.
To preserve Alice’s sanity, they’d eventually agreed to wrap some hockey tape around the hilt, but they enjoyed their opponent’s reactions in battle too much to bother doing anything to make the blade less unnerving. It was a distinct advantage to be able to distract an enemy with the sheer unearthliness of your chosen weapon, after all.
It also made the media ballistic because any photo of them with Ginette was guaranteed to look photoshopped.
“What the fuck is that,” muttered the wannabe wizard, his gun lowering slightly.
His eyes flickered, the magical glow that had animated them so far fading to a muted ember.
“It’s a sword,” answered SwordBright, on autopilot. They took a step forward, holding their hand out. “Now, kid, give me the gun, please.”
The wizard startled, raised the gun again, and fired one shot. It hit the wall behind SwordBright’s head, who threw themselves aside. The customers started screaming. The magical wind kicked up again, ratting everything in the store. Bottles of beers crashed out of the shattered fridges and bags of chips went flying.
SwordBright stood back up and started advancing on the wizard again.
“No! Stay back!” he yelled, extending a hand. Beams of crackling energy burst out of his fingers, like some sort of Emperor Palpatine rip off spell. The magic lightning passed straight through SwordBright like they were a ghost. They shivered, always expecting this to hurt or a least to tickle a little, but as usual, nothing happened to them. The glass window behind them exploded outward into the street, sizzling sparks bouncing and glittering on the asphalt like embers.
At this point, SwordBright knew better than to keep going forward. They stopped and tilted their head, sword lowered at their side but still ready should they need it.
“Did you protect yourself from that spell?” they asked the wizard, who was hunched over, panting, a hand on his stomach. The other was still limply holding the gun, hanging by his side. The glow in his eyes had almost completely receded by now, replaced by deep purple bags under his eyes. This entire scene must have taken a lot of energy out of him, because he looked positively drained.
“What?” he managed to ask, looking at SwordBright as if they were speaking nonsense.
SwordBright braced themselve and counted down the seconds before the recoil hit.
The air in the destroyed convenience store seemed to still, then shiver a little, before the glowing sparks on the parking lot outside rose up in the air and sailed backward toward their origin point like a video in reverse. They passed through and around SwordBright, who again was barely disturbed, before slamming back into the wizard who had cast them and sending him flying through the air. His back hit one of the few shelves that were still standing, and he toppled into a pile of canned beans and mac and cheese boxes.
Silence reigned in the air for a few moments. Oasis, suddenly feeling awkward standing untouched in the middle of all this destruction, cleared their throat. “Everyone all right?”
They looked over the counter at the employee who was starting to get up from her crouch. “What the fuck,” she muttered, picking up the pieces of her cell phone. She seemed unhurt.
“Um, can you help us?”
Oasis moved through the mess toward the teenage girl, who was still stuck under a fallen shelf, and her boyfriend, who was trying to get her out. The boyfriend in question was clearly much taller and bigger than Oasis, so they didn’t really know what the couple expected them to do, but they obediently grabbed the edge of the shelf and helped them pull it up anyway.
They managed to get her back to her feet, but she grimaced and held her leg, and ended up leaning on her boyfriend.
“Are you hurt?” they asked, worried.
“Yeah, I banged my leg real bad,” she said, “but I’ll live. Um, should we call the police?” she added, looking at the employee that was still poking at their ruined phone.
“I don’t… yeah? Probably?” she said, bewildered. “Magical Whirlwind wasn’t really covered in the training manual…”
The boyfriend looked at Oasis. “Hey, you’re a superhero, right? So what happens now? Should I bring Jennifer to the ER for her leg now or do we need to stay to give a statement?”
“Right,” said Oasis. They straightened up their spine. They used to flounder this part, because the CSL wasn’t very big on ‘post crisis’ training and they never really wanted to stick around to deal with the police. But they had thirty years of doing this job under their belt now, so they took control of the situation, getting Jennifer sitting down on a chair in the back store and instructing the employee to call the police. They would stay to give their own statement instead of vanishing into thin air superhero-style, which they knew by now would make everyone’s life easier. But before that, there was a small deviation from procedure that they would allow themselves.
They walked up to the unconscious wizard and, before trying them up with some zip ties they’d found next to the car oil bottles, they slipped a CSL card into their hoodie pocket. It wasn’t the standard business card, but the one with the number of the League’s Ontario lawyer on it. Oasis was only supposed to call them if they themselves were in trouble with the law, but in this case they figured everybody could make an exception.
With the future they’d seen, every magical hand would be needed on deck, and that was excluding the Tyrant and their fuckery. Just… a lot of super villains were in the future. So many of them. That Youtube wizard had a lot of potential, and it would be a shame if they were to end up in jail, picking up even worse habits than robbing convenience stores. With a little chance, maybe the League could even help them away from whatever cult they were embroiled in.
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