Sunlight poured in through the windows, but even that was not enough to wake Sarah, who I had thoroughly worn out during the night. Even asleep, there was still a light smile on her face. After making sure that the blankets were covering her, I slid out of bed and quietly walked out of the room. Knowing that she would be sleeping for some time longer, I manifested my raiment then teleported to the alley behind the restaurant where I had been getting breakfast for the lost souls in my care.
The bakery owner recognized me immediately as I had pre-purchased food for my island residents for the next two weeks, making me one of his favorite customers. I made sure to request that all the pastries had some fruit, or vegetables for the few that worked. He happily ducked into the back and reappeared a few moments later, carrying several boxes filled with pastries.
"I have everything together right here," he said, placing the boxes onto the counter.
"Thanks... could you add a couple of extra pastries and two coffees today?" I asked.
"No problem at all," he agreed readily and started getting the extra food and drink.
"Thanks, Hector," I said as I picked up all the boxes.
"Thank you, Asynia," he replied with a big smile.
I gave him a nod then carried everything out and to the alley behind the store. I teleported away and reappeared in the main hall of the plantation. There was little fear in anyone's face, a marked improvement, as I brought down the food, and Selviana's brave little girl even waddled up to me. Chuckling, I put the food boxes down and picked up the kid, tickling her softly as I infused my mana into her body to strengthen her health.
Surprisingly, the eldest child, a girl around ten years old, asked in a soft voice, "Are you a Superhero?"
"I guess you could say that I am," I replied.
"Then… we really are free?" one of the adult women asked.
"Yes, you are. I can take you back to the mainland if you have a place to go, but you are also welcome to stay here on the island. I have two other companions that are renovating the island, who can also build you all your own homes away from this place and help you grow food and purify your drinking water," I replied.
"We want to leave this place," she said firmly, standing up.
"Then follow me. I'll show you to the buildings that my companion has already made," I agreed.
The other women and children stood up along with Selviana. With the wave of a hand, the boxes of food floated up and in front of me, so that I could keep carrying the little girl in my arms. I led the group up from the basement, out of the dark plantation, and into the morning sunlight.
Geobrin had built a small village of stone houses up on the cliffs on the east side of the island while Hanoharu had planted fields of vegetables and grains along the stone road that laid between the village and the fishing dock. Selviana used a rejuvenation spell on the group to make the walk easier for the young ones, and about fifteen minutes later, we were up on the top of the cliffs, at the stone village where Geobrin was creating an elegant water fountain. No two buildings looked alike in the village, but that was not surprising with the raccoon having freedom; still, he had designed the place to flow seamlessly together and encouraged community, which this group needed.
"This is Geobrin, another one of my companions. He is the one that made all of these buildings for you to use and can alter anything that you need. Selviana will introduce you to Hanoharu later, when he comes back from tending his garden down below. Be careful of wandering through the fields as he likes to play tricks on people who enter his garden; nothing he will do will hurt you, but he loves painting people's faces and sticking them in weird costumes," I chuckled.
"Hello! I would be very happy to make this place perfect for you. Please let me show you what I have created so far," Geobrin squeaked earnestly after hopping off the fountain.
Geobrin was far too cute for anyone to fear him, so the children and women followed him around without too much coaxing. I passed off the young girl to Selviana and left the food on one of the kitchen tables, aside from what I had purchased extra for Sarah and me, then teleported back to the suite. Thankfully, Sarah was still asleep, so my entire trip went unnoticed by her.
I refreshed the coffees with a minor Time reversal spell and placed them on the table along with the small bag of pastries before I sat down next to Sarah on the bed. "Wake up, beautiful. You told me that you needed to be up by ten," I coaxed as I ran my fingers through her hair.
She moaned softly as she slowly woke up and blinked her big green eyes up at me. I could not resist leaning down and sealing her lips with my own for a moment. She chased my lips for a moment as I pulled away then laid back with a sigh of contentment. I chuckled lightly and grabbed the cup of coffee for her.
"Mmm... breakfast in bed too? It's a wonder that you're still single," Sarah remarked after she propped herself up and took the coffee.
I chuckled, "Well, drifting around has that effect, which is probably why my family has pushed this company on my shoulders."
"Poor baby," she teased after a sip of her drink.
Before I could retort, the phone on my bedside table started ringing which made me groan with annoyance and Sarah chuckle. I stood up and walked around the bed to get my phone while Sarah sat up and slowly got out of bed. I did not have the number saved, so I could guess that it was the front desk or, more likely, Morgan Lexington.
"Hello?" I asked, answering the phone.
"Good morning, Miss Zarra. I hope that I am not disturbing you," Morgan said, formally.
"Not at all, Doctor Lexington. How can I assist you?" I replied with a sigh.
"I was wanting to discuss your previous offer. Would you be willing to meet with me at my private vineyard in the hills surrounding the city?"
I smirked, knowing there was little reason for him to meet with me outside the city aside from them wanting to confront me, but with Sarah in earshot, I was not going to call him out on it. "Sure, send me the address, and I will be there as soon as I can."
"Thank you, Miss Zarra," he replied before hanging.
I shut off the screen and tossed the phone onto the bed.
"Doctor Lexington? As in Principal Lexington of Brightton University?" Sarah questioned with some shock.
"Yes, my friends pulled some favors and got me a meeting with Doctor Lexington. I plan on setting up a large scholarship fund and commissioning a research project that will look into some robotics that would facilitate my new company as I have to completely revamp the business thanks to my cousin's former shady dealings," I explained with a bit of truth as I did plan on setting the scholarship and commission if I ended up working with Morgan.
"Impressive," she replied.
"Not really. I'm just smart enough to utilize the help of intelligent people," I retorted with a smirk.
She shot me a smile and placed her coffee down before she started getting dressed. I dressed as well since I was not looking to reveal my powers to Sarah directly. While she was a nice girl, neither of us were under the illusion that this was nothing more than a passing fling between us. Once dressed, we both grabbed our coffees, and a pastry each, then took the elevator down to the lobby.
"Let's exchange numbers. I'll be in town for a while still, so you can hit me up whenever you want to relax," I suggested.
"Sure, that sounds great," she agreed.
We exchanged numbers and then I managed to convince her to let me call a taxi for her, claiming that I needed one anyways. The hotel ended up having its own shuttling service for VIP customers, so I did not refuse, and we both took the ride downtown. She got out at a set of dorms while I had the car drop me off at the Grand Nexus where I wandered around for a few moments before finding a secluded spot to teleport away.
Morgan had texted me the address while Sarah and I had been in the elevator, but that was not how I planned on finding him. I appeared high in the sky outside of the city, above the hills, and shifted my vision to Life Force. The twinkling specks of life were like a galaxy of stars when looking down at the ground, but it was the brightest ones that drew my attention as they were the strongest in the area.
Surprisingly, it seemed that I would still be dealing with the Lexington Family alone. With him drawing me outside of his precious university-city, I had been expecting him to mobilize the HA properly, but now he truly had me curious. He already understood that my power was outside what he and his family could handle, so I was interested in seeing what gave him this newfound confidence.
Instead of simply teleporting to his front door, I decided to quickly form a mask out of my raiment and fly down to the house. It seemed that his private vineyard was not the only one in the area, which reminded me that my new favorite wine was local, so maybe I would track them down later. If a small investment could help secure me a regular supply of wine for my new house, I would be more than happy to throw money at them.
Dipping down low, I zoomed above the neat rows of grape vines and approached his house. It was clear that they were aware of my approach as both Overdrive and Psionica exited the building. I almost expected them to attack me on sight, but they stood patiently outside of the courtyard as they watched me approach. I landed without flair and shot the duo a cocky smirk as one wanted to beat the crap out of me and the other was a voyeur.
"Enjoy the show last night?" I mocked, looking at Overdrive.
He coughed lightly as he looked aside, not wanting to answer, but that did not satisfy his nosy mother.
"What are you talking about?" Psionica asked.
"Your baby boy decided to watch how my evening played out with my date, long after it was clear that I wasn't going anywhere for the evening," I retorted.
"You did WHAT?!?" she yelled.
"The only thing that you and Dad could agree on was that I had to watch her; why is it my fault when I did?" he defended.
"Did they also tell you to record it with that fancy suit of yours?" I taunted.
"I did no such thing!"
"The file is labeled Alcone.Race.5.2.83," I chuckled. "Your sister is a powerful telepath, but far from the strongest with me around... Now, as much fun as it would be to watch your mother hand you your ass, I believe that Morgan requested that I speak with him."
Psionica's eye twitched with annoyance, but who it was directed at more, I was unsure since my mental shields were in place; after all, I did not want to ruin the surprise.
"You can go ahead inside. I will make sure that file is erased," Psionica replied with a forced neutral tone while her telekinesis firmly locked Overdrive in place.
"Why, thank you, Celeste," I said while holding back the urge to laugh at her son's impending doom.
I walked past the two into a small courtyard with a nice garden and a koi pond with a small waterfall and several lotuses that had yet to bloom. While there was a seating area in the garden, it was empty, so I continued onto the front door which opened automatically for me.
Upon stepping inside, I was welcomed by rich wooden floors, exposed beams, and soft, golden lighting from wrought-iron chandeliers. The walls were adorned with antique-style paintings and handcrafted bookshelves filled with leather-bound tomes and vintage decor, giving the impression of a classic, well-loved estate. Plush armchairs and a grand stone fireplace invited relaxation, while large windows offered breathtaking views of the rolling vineyards.
Beneath the rustic charm, hidden panels in the walls conceal touch-activated control systems, seamlessly integrating climate control, security, and entertainment. The fireplace, though appearing traditional, can shift into a holographic display, revealing high-tech interfaces when needed. The study desk, carved from dark walnut, disguises a sleek, retractable touchscreen workstation. Even the wine cellar below, with its arched brick walls and aged barrels, harbored a climate-controlled vault with biometric access.
"I must say, you know how to design a house. Whenever I get my new one, I may ask for your contractor," I commented as I walked into the living room where Morgan and Rae were sitting by the fire.
"My construction bots did the work, but I have contracted them out from time to time. I hope Celeste and Adrian did not offend you," he said while fishing for what happened to the other two.
"Not at all," I replied as I walked over and sat on the couch across from them. "I believe that they are discussing ethical uses of their powers, or rather technology, in his case."
"Rae, will you go check on them and remind them of the matter?" Morgan asked.
"Sure," she agreed as she stood up.
I waited until she walked out the front door before I chuckled and said, "Your son has a video of me and my date, specially saved, that your ex-wife is ensuring is deleted."
Morgan sighed heavily, obviously annoyed by the news, and responded, "My apologies. We asked him to alert us if you left your suite as you are a powerful unknown element, but there is an obvious line of privacy that he broke."
"Not his first offense, huh?" I asked.
He coughed uncomfortably and replied, "Unfortunately, it isn't. We believed it was just a phase that he grew out of, but it seems that we need to re-evaluate that belief."
"Heh, even superheroes have skeletons in their closet," I chuckled.
"Despite our powers and desire to make this world a better place, we are still human."
I shrugged and agreed, "Yeah, that you are... So, why am I here, Morgan?"
"I want to formalize your offer to see if we can come to a proper agreement," he replied.
I chuckled, shaking my head and putting my feet up on the coffee table in front of me, to Morgan's obvious displeasure, and said, "Sure, we can make this more official, but your baby boy has added on an additional requirement on my side."
Morgan sighed heavily again, but nodded his head and agreed, "I understand. Will you state your terms?"
Celeste, Rae, and Adrian walked into the room and joined Morgan on that side of the room.
"Well, as I said before, I want to examine every raw sample of minerals, ores, and plants that are within the university storage, no matter if they are toxic or radioactive. For that, I will give you permission to ask for my help ten times with matters that your HA either can't, or are too busy with other matters to handle. To even have a chance at that deal, though, comes with the understanding that you are done monitoring my movements. You already know that I have the ability to teleport, so why you even bothered trying to watch me makes me question your intelligence," I said.
The dark look on Celeste's face made it fairly clear that it had been her decision to have Adrian watch me, but she did not say anything to directly confirm it.
"No matter what, I will assure you that any monitoring that you experience from now on will only be done by the security system that watches the streets of Brightton," he stated.
"Acceptable."
"As for your request to examine the samples, you mentioned that you were going to look into enhancing some of them. If you find something that you can modify, could you share with us a few samples?"
"Greedy, aren't you?" I chuckled. "Tell me, if one of those enhanced samples proves to be the next miracle cure all, what do you plan on doing? You won't be able to replicate my methods to make more of it."
"I think you are doubting our ability," Adrian could not help but interject.
"And you are far overestimating your own. I was able to read your mind from over half a mile away while I was preoccupied with my date last night. Do you think that's something your sister could achieve?" I mocked.
"I would still like to request that I can watch the process or have some information on it, so that we could attempt to replicate your results," Morgan said to tactfully stop the chance of Adrian starting an argument.
"Meh, whatever... I'll let you watch, but unless you have someone with an understanding of magic and the ability to sense different elements, you won't get much. Even then, the chances that they will be able to reproduce it are astronomically low, so again, I ask you, what will you do?"
"If it can save lives, why wouldn't we help the world?" Celeste snapped angrily.
"There are thousands of people starving to death all over the world, yet I don't see you handing out food on the street corner," I retorted. "Spare me your self-righteous bullshit. It's easy to say to someone 'do more', but even if I worked myself to death, there would still be people complaining that I didn't do enough. Human nature is as greedy as it is generous, kind as it is cruel; the only question is what the current the mood is."
Celeste's expression hardened, but Morgan placed a hand on her forearm in a calming manner.
"If there is something revolutionary that comes from those samples that we can not reproduce, what would you need in order to trade for them?" Morgan asked.
"Something of equal or greater value, but exact pricing can't be calculated until I have an idea of what all is useful. So far, the only thing that I've seen that has any real value to me are those mana crystals that you were using in your mana detector and even those aren't too hard to come by," I replied and formed a glowing blue crystal of condensed mana, also known as a mana crystal, to emphasize my point.
Morgan's eyes were locked onto me as I formed the crystal in front of him. I could guess that he had watched other magic users make the crystal, but I doubted that any could form them as quickly and easily as myself. Just to mess with them all more, I smirked and popped the crystal into my mouth where it dissolved instantly as my body reabsorbed the mana that I had expended. Funnily, I could see the pain in both Morgan's and Adrian's eyes as they watched me swallow the crystal.
"A million credits gone like that," Adrian muttered under his breath.
"Good to know that I can make some easy money if I need more," I chuckled. "So, do we have a deal, Morgan? I've got plenty of things that I could be doing that are a lot more fun."
"I can agree to your request to examine the university's samples, but there is another matter that I would like to bring up and hope that it won't affect our relationship," he said.
"Out with it," I retorted, rolling my eyes.
"We want to test your strength and see if you are as powerful as you claim," Celeste replied for him, having lost her patience with Morgan's measured approach.
I smirked, "Heh, fine, but I have a condition of my own."
"Okay," she said.
"If you actually manage to win, I'll be your personal fucking servant or whatever you want, but when I win, Rae will start coming with me once a week for me to train her properly. She's barely scratched the surface of her powers."
"I don't need more power," Rae stated immediately.
"You don't, but what you do need is proper control over your telepathy; it doesn't have to be in a permanent 'on' state, you know?" I retorted.
"Other telepaths have tried helping her, but haven't been successful," Adrian interjected.
"Wait for your mother to agree to my terms before tempting me to beat the stupidity out of you, brat," I said, giving him a look.
"My daughter is not a bargaining chip," Celeste growled.
"Fine, let her struggle with controlling her telepathy and never be able to have a real relationship with anyone because she can't help but invade their minds, which includes you and the rest of your family," I retorted.
"Mom... I want to try her training. Her mental defenses are stronger than anyone I've ever crossed paths with, so she must have some idea of what she is talking about," Rae said quietly.
"Fine, I agree. Now, let's see if your bite is as big as your bark," Celeste said darkly, glaring at me.