Crap. Need to call Miu off before she murders her way all the way down to the peasants.
Typing off a quick command into an email, he sent it Miu’s way. She was well outside of radio range he was betting. With any luck, the notification would catch her interest if the signal relay could get it out to her.
Several video clips fed into his inbox. Opening the first one he cleared his throat. “So what is it I’m looking at here? While it loads, that is. Any type of—”
“Just watch,” Kit said.
“Fine, fine.”
Biting down his impatience, Felix managed to wait quietly.
The video blipped once, then turned on.
It was a church service.
He couldn’t recognize the religious iconography in the video on the walls. There was no point in guessing at the religion for Felix. He’d never had a mind for worship so there simply was no base knowledge for him to work off of.
A man stood on a raised dais and was standing in front of a podium. Felix assumed the man was giving a very good sermon since he was being drowned out by applause.
Finally noticing the look of horror on the man’s face, Felix realized it wasn’t applause.
It was a grinding, shuddering rumble that was increasing in volume every second. To the point that it was simply too loud for the microphone on the camera to pick up anything else.
Light began to shine from a symbol on the wall. One that was smaller than the others. It was dull at first, then it exploded into a blazing beam of scorching whiteness.
The video cut out after that.
“Was that a bomb?” Felix asked, moving to open the second video.
“No. It wasn’t. In fact… the next two videos are the same, though one is from outside of a museum. A museum of religion,” Kit said.
“Alright. I’m not sure what’s happening here. When did this happen exactly?” Felix asked.
“A minute or two after the recordings blanked out.”
That means that whatever my friend did here… affected Earth. But in what way?
“Ok. I’m up to speed. But… what does it mean? Did anything happen afterward? I mean, did they just go back to normal?”
“Yes… and yet no. A few religious leaders… exploded. A number of people simply died. Stranger still, some recovered from terminal illnesses and diseases. Some that they simply shouldn’t have been able to,” Kit said.
“I… I don’t even know what to say to this. It doesn’t make any sense,” Felix murmured. He really didn’t either. None of it registered with him as anything that connected with what he knew.
“Maybe it’d help if I told you that every single spiritualist, from the weakest clairvoyant, to the strongest necromancer… passed out. When they woke up, they were all changed. By and large, most of them are incredibly stronger than they were previously. Especially those devoted to religions or cults.
“You know how Witches and Warlocks were believed to simply be a lower form of Magic or Wizardry?”
“Yeah. Their magic was very similar, but it couldn’t put out enough power to be useful.”
He’d actually looked into it at one point. Most of them used fairly mundane relics and simple beliefs to fuel their spells. Once he’d realized that it would only do enough to get him in trouble, Felix had dropped the study fairly quickly.
“Every Witch and Warlock in our employ reported in. They experienced a massive upsurge in power.”
“They did?”
“Orders of magnitude greater. They also reported something else.”
Felix was in a bit of a hurry and didn’t really have time to play this game, but he imagined Kit was enjoying herself.
“Oh? And what’s that,” Felix said amiably.
“Sorry, I know this bugs you. It’s just so exciting. They all reported that… that something reached out to them. Reached out to them and they suddenly felt complete. Whole. The spiritualists said something similar.”
Something reached out to them?
“This is a guess but… you said that they were gods that you saw? Gods and goddesses?”
“Yeah. Apparently the enemy prayed and—oh. You think…?”
“What I think is that in the tales passed down, priests were magicians of their own caliber. Before the non-human races appeared.”
Frowning Felix looked up and out onto the bloody grasslands. His history was shaky at best.
“Quite a few people thought it was the end of the world back then. I mean, the non-human races just appeared one day, and by all accounts, magic was at an all time low.
“And now… we opened a portal to another world and all of the… the religions… woke up,” Kit said.
“That seems pretty far fetched,” Felix said.
“I would agree. Except that we actually have a priest or two in our ranks. They also reported similar events to the Witches and Warlocks,” Kit said. “And apparently, they got a more direct message.”
“And that was?”
“’We have returned.’”
“That sounds ominous,” Felix said, feeling like he’d done something incredibly stupid.
“That it does. Way to go there, Pandora. Let’s pray hope is still in the box. I can’t imagine gods from thousands of years ago being up on today’s morality and society. I’ve already notified Lily and she’s working to get whatever info we can. She still has contacts in the magical community after all.”
Felix pressed his hands to his face.
Everything kept getting more and more complicated.
“I’ve got Jessica on the line,” Andrea said, looking up from her terminal.
Felix closed his eyes and rubbed at them with his palms. It’d been a few weeks since the battle on Legion world. Election day was literally around the corner now.
Tomorrow, even.
Felix was feeling tired and run down at this point. He was quite glad for the governor race to be over soon. Win or lose.
“Yeah?” he said.
“She said she linked up with Erica. They have some others from other stations they want to bring in. She’d like to schedule a meeting with you to go over it,” Andrea said.
“Uh huh. And pump me for a story as well. Her career has really skyrocketed since we’ve been feeding her and Erica stories,” Felix muttered. Opening his eyes he blinked a few times, trying to get everything to come into focus.
“They’re pretty,” Andrea said suddenly.
“That they are. And I’m already with a lovely wolf Beastkin and her sister. Go ahead and schedule the meeting for today. I wanted to drop those stories off with her to sink the other candidates tonight anyways. I’ll pack things up and head over that way. I need to stop by Felicia’s lab first and see how things are rolling. She promised me a peek at the new Fist,” Felix said, standing up.
“Nn!” Andrea said, her cheeks turning a faint red. “Adriana is happy… by the way. We joined briefly the other day. They’re happy being Adriana and our sister.”
“Good. Off to see Felicia,” he said, leaving the ANet and entering the elevator.
He’d taken to hiding here whenever he needed some time to himself. Few people would venture into the ANet floor willingly.
Two Adrianas smiled at him as he passed by, watching him intently. Practically staring at him.
They’re quite a bit more intense than the Andreas.
A few minutes later and Felix couldn’t help but wonder if this had been a bad idea. Felicia had been excited to see him.
Which made every inch of skin on his body crawl. She was never happy to see him.
Unless she wanted something
“Felix! Great timing. I wanted to talk to you,” Felicia said as she stumped over to him as he was cleared through security.
“Oh? And what does my armorer need?” Felix asked, unable to help himself.
“Eh? More people, honestly. But I wanted to talk to you about Legion’s Fist, and your points,” Felicia said. She smacked the back of her hand against his stomach and went in the opposite direction she came from. “This way. I want you to look at this.”