Chương 220: Act 3, Chapter 69: Paper-thin reasons

Day in the story: 24th January (Saturday), night time Elle Erikson"How can I demonstrate that?" I asked in response to the question of my usefulness to the team.

"It's up to you," Liana spoke and sent one more glance to Laurent. It indicated that whatever transpired between them, she wasn't quite as done with him as she declared officially. Which was understandable. Those kinds of personal betrayals should be dealt with behind closed doors.

"I can do it, but apparently not here, as the decorum rules of Bohemian nights forbid displays of magic." I said, looking at Bastien, who nodded once but could not hold my gaze, ashamed of what he did. There was a small tint of guilt within me—it was I, after all, who orchestrated his change of heart. Don't. He is the one who acted on it. He should have told you about what is between him and her. You played that really well, channeled your inner Jess Hare like a real professional manipulator.

Somehow this makes me feel even worse. [I think I might switch my seats and join you, Elle.] Traitor. Very fitting, given the topic of the night. I almost laughed in response, but stopped myself in time. [Not that, I do not oversee all of you. That was meant as a joke.] We know.

"That is true," Laurent replied.

"We need not only to get out of the house, but out of the grounds outside as well."

"Seriously? We just came. Can't we just enjoy the ball for a while or something?" Patricia asked, reaching for some snack from a tray placed on a table near us.

"I somehow am not in the mood for partying anymore, Pat. Let us take some fresh air… again." Liana replied.

"Why don't you two go alone and we stay partying?" the seer replied, taking a drink from a stand.

"I voted against and will accept the common decision, but that doesn't mean I have to be present for the presentation. Kito?"

"Patricia, you know that I am interested in other Domains of power. I will not waste an opportunity like that to put foul stuff in my body."

"Fine. Suit yourself. Milo?"

"Same. Sorry, Pat, but I want to see the demo." Piotr Milowski replied, smiling widely. Something told me he would be the most unhinged of them in actual battle. With a Domain related to baseball, he had to be a fighter, at the very least.

"Suit yourselves, everyone. I am staying."

"Patricia, please. Your input is invaluable," Lia told her.

"Fine." She mumbled in response.

"You all owe me a good party." She took some kind of a small sandwich from a tray and started walking toward the doors out.

"Come! What are you waiting for!" She demanded, and the way everyone followed made me rethink my assumptions about the group's leader. I followed after them, taking one last glance at this strange Jesuit warlock dancing like a possessed man with an elderly lady who was somehow much more springy than her usual walking suggested.

Illuminated by this deliberate construction of lights, the hall gave the impression of containing everything inside, as if encased in a crystal, with walls reflecting the light in just the right places to support that illusion. It was beautiful, but it was just a play. A show made to impress.

"Can we talk later?" Laurent whispered as he joined me in the tempo.

"Yes, we will talk, but please do not whisper to me like that in a group," I said in a normal tone.

"I have nothing to hide, and if I were to be a part of you all, I'd like others to know that." Nothing to hide, is a good one. Don't you have anything more worthwhile to do? I have a few spare brains, for entertainment.

"That's fine," he said, when we reached the stairs outside. The two men that had fought when we first got here were standing by the railing, talking and laughing, while one of them had a handkerchief in his bloodied nose, while the other's shirt was covered in blood and his eye socket swollen. There was also a ring of people on the grass and two more fighting inside of it, duking it out with fists covered in shadowlight.

"I wish I could do it already," Kito said, looking at those people.

"Coating?" Bastien asked.

"Yes."

"They told us that it will take years. We just have to brace ourselves for long meditation and training sessions," Liana told them.

"How were you taught to do that?" I asked, as we reached a path on the ground that led outside of the property's territory.

"The usual. Focus on yourself, what makes you—you, etc. And try to guide Authority over yourself. Why do you ask?" Liana answered, and I stopped in my tracks to gain their attention. Even before they realized, I already used shadowlight to cover myself in a thin film of it that shone with its own fantastic cues. When they all finally realized I wasn't moving and turned back to see me, they were literally frozen in motion.

"How old are you?" Kito asked.

"Not the greatest question you can ask a lady. I am twenty-one."

"No way," Patricia said.

"Oh. Do I look older than that?"

"That's not what I meant. You look the part, the age doesn't match what you can do."

"Never seen anyone below thirty who can do that," Piotr said.

"I think most people are given wrong advice about it. I understood it instantly when someone told me what it is about."

"And what is it?" Liana asked, looking at me, and at Laurent, who remained silent.

"We have not only Authority over the subject of our Domains, but over ourselves too. It already makes us stronger and faster than a normal human, right?" I asked them.

"That's standard stuff for now. We've been told that a hundred times already." Kito stood with his hands behind his back, but he looked tense and focused.

"The advice that did it for me was about control itself—over my needs, goals, and decisions. I was asked to realize that I have a choice not only in everything I do, but also in who I am, so it is not about understanding what drives you, or who you are deep down, but about the fact that it lies within you to decide that and change it." The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

"That is kind of beautiful," Patricia replied, while Piotr looked at the fists he made out of his hands in front of himself.

"It also makes more sense, as Authority is about changes we apply to something, and not about what that something was in the first place," Kito said.

"It's still a difficult concept to grasp," he continued.

"Thank you," Kito replied.

"I will meditate on that during my next session. See if it is a better approach." „That sounds paper-thin at best," Liana said.

"You can't have control over everything that happens to you."

"It's not about what happens, but how you react. Let's say you lose a leg. Seems drastic enough, and you would have every right to be pissed about it, and if that is your choice on how to react, then you have every right to do so. But most people would react out of resentment, anger or sorrow in that situation, not because of the decision that they consciously made, and that is the difference.

There is a power deep within your soul that gives you an Authority to be strong enough to make decisions no matter what challenge or obstacle or even a feeling you are presented with."

"Love it!" Piotr shouted, as his arms covered themselves with white and red shadowlight.

"You should be a teacher. That's easy as fucking." The red spilled all over his body, and white spiraled within as all of it settled over his form. After his accomplishment, I'd seen that every single one of them tried to repeat it, but without the same success.

"You guys suck," he added, and grinned ear to ear toward me.

"I double vote for you to stay with us."

"I am not an omniscient shadowlight control master. Just this part came easy to me. I am glad you found my instruction satisfactory in improving yourself."

"That's impressive, but I want to see your actual Authority in action," Liana interrupted our little moment, as she gave up on trying.

"At least we know that there is real merit in what you've told us. Milo is more accepting of new things than most, it's not a surprise he resonated with your words first."

"Of course, I am happy to show you what I can do, but it is difficult to understand how to supplement your group when I know nothing about what you are capable of. Besides Laurent, who I guess is more of a support with his power set," I replied, as we resumed walking toward the big gate leading to the road outside the grounds. Some people were already there entering an Uber.

"You have good instinct with Tien," Kito took it upon himself to explain.

"He is the one that supports us. With his editing skills, he can make a way where there was none, or make an opponent weaker, smaller, us bigger, and many different things. But he is not much of a fighter, so he stays back, where the girls are too." No one dared to interrupt him when he spoke. Was he a leader after all? Or maybe they did not have a clear structure and this voting was how they decided on difficult issues.

"Patricia is a seer and therefore the most important member. She is our guide and a treasure seeker. She is our warning system and our medic."

"Medic? Seers can heal people?" I interrupted them.

"Heal in a magical sense? No. But she is a medical doctor."

"Always happy to help," she mumbled in response.

"Oh, I did not expect that," I replied.

"Trauma surgeon," she added. That would make her at least around twenty-seven years of age, if that mattered at all.

"Yes. Liana and I share the Domain of our parents. We are both insect enthusiasts, but the way in which we progressed with the soulmarks differed, and so we take on different roles. Lia is our tactician; she can order those incredible creatures around to do her bidding and, in the right circumstances, become almost indestructible, while I can force evolution upon them and use them to change my physical form briefly, accepting what they offer.

I am usually at the front, making sure that nothing gets past me, so others can do their job."

"And I am there to make sure that if whatever we face has a body, it will surely be missing it in those last few seconds of its existence," Piotr added.

"Yes. Milo is a powerhouse of pure destruction," Kito added as we passed the road and went onto a small beaten path into the woods.

"I can hardly offer anything as spectacular as all of you already have at your disposal. I am more of a generalist in the sense that, given time, I could provide an unusual, creative solution," I started and reached into my tote.

"I have power over paper, that I can shape into various things and bring to life," I told them, and released an origami spider web-slinger I took out. It shone briefly when I threw it onto the tree nearby. I coated myself with shadowlight too, to provide a source of light to illuminate the dark we found ourselves in, so they could properly watch.

"Those paper creatures will follow my instructions, just like your insects would do yours, but they also can provide me with additional things," I added, and when their attention was on the arachnid on the tree, I released another one onto the ground.

"Things like what?" Piotr asked, as he covered himself with his own light.

"This one can behave like a normal spider would. It will make a web," I told them, and my minion jumped from one tree to the other, leaving a silken thread behind. A bridge it used to get back through, while pulling another silken line behind itself.

"The web it makes is stronger than a typical spider's web and can be used to make a trap, a bridge, or other things I could envision. But I guess that's what Liana can do as well, right?"

"No, I can't. Spiders are not insects. I have no control over them."

"Okay, so that's one thing I can do. But I have more freedom in how I design my paper creatures," I told them, and with a slight of hand produced a paper bird to show.

"How did you do that?" Patricia asked.

"Can you summon them?"

"That was a trick. I have dexterous hands. But I can indeed summon creatures like that if I have made them before and put their images onto paper. I carry a book with me that I call a spellbook, that allows me to bring stuff like that out of thin air, but since it's more costly in Authority, I also carry a few actual physical specimens," I replied, working around the truth to my advantage. With a quick move of my hand, I let the bird fly away as it soaked shadowlight carrying my Authority.

Leaving a faint streak of that magical light behind itself, it soared to one of the trees farther away, where I infused the bomb painted on its wings to become the real thing. A second later, a small explosion shook us all, and splinters of the tree that the bird hit were thrown around.

"O kurwa!" Milo shouted.

"I love it!"

"You made paper explode!?" Patricia shouted the question in total befuddlement.

"Yes. I did. Whatever I can envision, I can usually make."

"That is pretty damn good, but nothing really we can't do ourselves," Lia said.

"You did not show anything that would make you irreplaceable."

"Patricia, you are a seer and you provide the group with intelligence about the things you all pursue, but what about non-magical dangers? About physical terrain and things like that? You can't actually see what's on the other side of the wall, right?" I asked.

"That's correct. Can you?"

"Yes, I can. Would that make me useful?"

"Of course," Liana replied.

"Can you prove your claim?"

"Yes," I told her and walked closer.

"Bastien, you can edit photos and use a phone to do that." I turned to him. He just nodded in response—still boiling in the kettle of his own making.

"Can you undo the changes you make to exactly the previous state?"

"I can. Correct."

"Take a photo of me and remove my eyes." Each one of them gasped, hearing me say that, but besides Laurent's slightly agape mouth, they did not protest. He slowly reached for his phone, directed a camera at me, and snapped a picture. I did not smile for it. A few seconds later, I felt an intrusion of foreign Authority that I let pass through unopposed. And a heartbeat later, I stood in front of the gathered people with a face devoid of biological eyes.

"That's an impressive power," I told Laurent, then turned around and stopped exactly facing Piotr, who, upon seeing my face directly, furrowed his nose in disgust.

"Hit me."

"I don't hit women," he replied, placing his hands on his hips and raising his chin. I saw everything perfectly through my little spy-der I released when they were not looking and the tattoos I had on me.

"Ouch!" he shouted, when my fist landed on his stomach, supported by shadowlight around it.

"A cheap shot… doesn't—count!" He took a wide stance with his legs and tried to catch me with one of his hands, to attack me with a hook from the other, but I moved aside the arm, leaving him with no purchase, and dodged the hook by cleanly flowing underneath the arc. He smiled widely in response, dropped low and charged me with his shoulder, so quickly I had no time to dodge or jump backwards. He hit me and ran with me for a few feet before he stopped and set me on the ground slowly.

"That's so fucking beautiful! Love it! You almost got me and you could not even see me."

"Give her the eyes back, Tien," Lia told Laurent, and a heartbeat later I had them back on my face.

"That's the thing—I could see everything perfectly." The spider I released when they were not looking scurried down from the trunk of a tree it had climbed before. With a few quick jumps, it hopped onto my leg and moved up my body, to go toward my outstretched open palm. Liana and Kito were deeply interested in my creation and observed it keenly all the way.

"Those critters have eyes painted on them. Eyes I could use to see through," I explained.

"We have seen them in the hotel and wondered what they were," Patricia said.

"Yes. I leave them so they alert me of dangers."

"And you can spy with them like with a drone?" Piotr asked.

"Yes."

"How many can you have active at the same time?" Patricia added her own question.

"Enough for anything we'd need," I answered, looking directly at Lia.

"Is that a reason enough?"

"Paper thin," she replied.

"But I will vote yes, for now. You are free to join our meetings, and we will decide when the time to go comes."

"Which is when, exactly?"

"Around one to two weeks," Laurent answered.