Brockton Bays Marvelous Mage

As I stood with the other heroes, Sarah Pelham paused whatever she was saying for a moment to nod and greet me.

"Hello, Arcanum, are you finished?" She asked, seemingly fighting the urge to check on Amy herself. "Is Amy okay?"

"Yes, Ma'am, Amy is in near-perfect health. She is lucky that her smoking didn't cause more damage," I admitted with a frown, unhappy with how close it had been. "I was able to heal and clean them up pretty well. I also made my other offer, but…"

"I already told them everything," Sarah assured me. "Or I plan to, at least."

"Ah, I see. Well, I scanned Mark and concluded his previous head trauma is affecting his current state of mind," I explained, now going into detail. "I offered to try and heal it, but Victoria hadn't explained what had happened yet, so he defaulted to waiting for his wife to discuss the possibility."

"Dammit… okay, I'll talk to him," She said, pausing for a moment before looking at her own husband. "Actually, Neil, it might be better for you to do that."

"Yeah… you're right. I'm on it," The older man said with a grim nod, leaving the group to head inside the room.

A few seconds later he returned, his brother-in-law following him out and down the hall towards the nurses station. When they were out of sight, Mrs. Pelham let out a long sigh.

"I really hope you can help him," She admitted. "But he is going to wake up to a whole lot of problems."

"Sarah, if you could…?" Miss Militia said, prompting Mrs Pelham to nod

"Right. As I said, once Amy is given a clean bill of health by the hospital, she will be taking a prolonged break from healing," She explained. "She needs time for herself, both to figure out what is going on and to come to peace with it."

"Sarah, while I understand that she needs time…" Miss Militia said, wincing as she spoke and sounding unhappy with what she was saying. "And I truly wish this wasn't the case because she is a kid, and she deserves to have time to recover and heal… but the PRT depends on her to an unfortunate degree. Without her here to help keep us going after we are injured… we won't be able to keep up."

For a moment, I frowned, opening my mouth to respond, only to realise she wasn't entirely incorrect. A quick bit of mental math showed that the Empire alone dwarfed them in size, and they even had access to a healer. Without Panacea helping to keep the Protectorate up and pushing back... Miss Militia was correct.

"I wish she wasn't right," Assault added, shaking his head. "We should have seen this coming and prevented it, but we depend on her powers."

I could see that Sarah Pelham wanted to be angry with what she was hearing, but in the end, she could only mutter out a curse. Before she could say anything, I spoke up.

"I'll fill in for her," I volunteered, the group turned to focus on me. "At the PRT and here at the hospital. With some triage measures in place here, we could cut the amount of healing down to a level I am comfortable with."

"I'm not sure we can afford your rates," Miss Militia admitted. "At least not for consistent injuries."

"Then we can negotiate a temporary alternative price. I refuse to work for free, but while I'm covering for Amy, I can afford to take a hit."

Miss Militia gave Assault a look, and the red-themed hero nodded, stepping away from the conversation and putting his hand to his ear. Meanwhile, Sarah Pelham reached out to my shoulder and pulled me into a hug. It caught me off guard, but I managed to not make an idiot of myself.

"Thank you," She said, pulling back with a small smile and watery eyes. "Thank you for everything you've done for Amy and our family. This is… all of this… Thank you."

"Of course," I responded simply, giving her a nod as she pulled away completely.

It took a few minutes for Assault to finish his conversation, during which Mr. Pelham and Mr. Dallon returned. The depressed father gave me permission to heal his brain injury, and after I warned him it would likely be a slow, gradual transition, I fixed him up. It took a bit of juice and one of my more powerful spells, but the results were positive, and I was hopeful that he would be able to finally shake off his issues.

For now, though, it was still affecting him, and after a shallow thank you, he returned to Amy's room to sit beside her bed.

"You should keep an eye on him as well," I pointed out once the door was closed. "He is going to be looking at a lot of his past through a different lens now. Chances are he isn't going to like what he sees."

"Do you think he is…" Sarah asked, trailing off before actually asking if he was a danger to himself.

"I would love to say no, but he… well, he basically watched his daughter get neglected. Kind of neglected her himself…"

Mr. Pelham let out a curse under his breath, sitting down heavily in one of the nearby chairs. His wife looked about, ready to join him.

"Just keep an eye on him. If he seems to be spiraling, then you can react from there," I explained, Sarah Pelham giving a firm nod in understanding. "He should steadily improve over the next few days, but if he doesn't, call me."

Assault came back not much later, and after getting my permission, he gave Director Piggot my phone number. The woman in charge immediately used to call me. After some discussion, we agreed that for emergencies, I would come to the PRT, and for non-emergencies, they would quietly bring their people to the hospital. That way, I could get all my healing done at once, in one place.

Not long after that, I had a similar conversation with one of the medical directors of the hospital. Until Panacea and I could share the load of healing, they would create a list of people who needed my help. No illnesses that could heal on their own, no bone breaks that weren't dangerous, anything that wasn't life-threatening or life-altering would be treated by normal doctors. If they had insurance, I would get paid, and if they didn't, I would do it for free. Of course, as usual, my guidelines were a bit more flexible for children, but they were mostly the same.

With the stopgap in place, I finally left the hospital. It was way too early to still be up, and I had a long day ahead of me. I had quite a few rituals to prepare for if I wanted to take full advantage of the new moon. I made sure that Mark, Sarah, and Victoria all had my number, with permission to distribute it among the rest of their family, before setting back out to the Docks community. I needed to sleep, and not only was there a bed for me there, but since I also needed to talk to Olivia, it was convenient.

I was thankful that Troy could basically guide himself, especially to locations he had been to before, because I fell asleep twice on his back, trotting down the empty streets of the Docks. When I finally arrived, I made my way quietly into the same sleeping space that I had before, happy to find it unoccupied. I crawled onto the foam padding and was out before I could even put the covers up.

The next morning, I woke up tired but managed to wash away some of the fatigue with a general healing spell. With any luck, a cup of coffee or two would solve the rest.

I left the sleeping area and made my way into the open space around the community. While enjoying an apple and an avocado for breakfast, I made my way around the community, asking about Olivia. I made sure to use one of her fake names, handing out healing as needed. After about ten minutes of getting no answers, the woman herself showed up.

"Heard you were looking for me," She said in a severe tone, pausing for a moment before smiling. "What's up?"

"I wanted to ask you something. Would you mind…?" I asked, gesturing to an alleyway that led away from the general community area.

"Ooo, ominous," She said before giving me a shrug. "Alright, fine, lead the way."

We left the community behind, Troy following after us as we looked for a private spot. Alya confirmed we were alone before we both sat down on an old, crumbling set of concrete steps.

"So, I wanted to make you something," I explained, getting right to the point. "Something to work with your powers. I wanted to know if you were interested since it could…. Well, it could lead to more eventually, and I wanted to know if you'd prefer just to stay out of it completely."

"What do you want to make me?" She asked, raising an eyebrow. "And what's the catch?"

"I haven't decided yet, to be honest," I said with a shrug. "But it would synergize with your powers, at least thematically, if not actually helping you with them. As for the catch, there is no catch, I'm just hoping you'll help defend the community or even work with me, but it's not a requirement."

She looked at me for a moment before snorting and shaking her head with a chuckle.

"Your such a fucking boy scout," She said, considering my offer for a long moment before nodding. "Alright, yeah. I can't promise how much of a help I'll actually be, but yes, you can make something for me, even if it draws me into this whole cape thing."

"Cool. Then I need to go find some containers," I said, standing up and dusting myself off. "When I do, I'm going to need a big vial of blood from you. That acceptable?"

"Really not inspiring confidence by asking for my blood," She pointed out, shaking her head. "But yes, it's fine."

"Good. Stick around for a bit," I instructed. "I need to go shopping, but it shouldn't be too long."

I quickly changed out of my uniform, pulling a set of civilian clothes out of Troy by using my plant manipulation spell to open a partial cavity in his chest. When I was done changing, pointedly ignoring Olivia's wolf whistles, I stuffed my costume back into the same cavity.

After a quick goodbye, I left the alley at a jog, leaving Olivia with Troy while I made my way to the more populated streets of Brockton Bay, eventually hailing a cab. I stopped by several stores, stuffing a duffel bag full of everything that I wanted or would need and running up a significant cab fare before having the driver drop me off nearby where I had left Troy. He was still there, waiting for me, and as I approached, Olivia appeared out of a shadow, fading in from the relative darkness.

"'Shouldn't be too long,' huh? You were gone for almost two hours!" She complained. "You're lucky I happen to be a fan of lazy mornings."

"I miss lazy mornings," I said with a chuckle, carefully putting down the duffel bag full of supplies I had bought. "Come here and sit down."

She nodded, once again sitting down on the worn concrete steps. Using a bloodletting spell for ritual crafting, I filled up a twenty-milliliter glass vial with her blood, stopping it with a natural cork. I now had hundreds of the same vail, thanks to a relatively well-stocked arts and crafts shop. A quick healing spell later and her finger was all healed up. I was very careful to direct the magic to her finger and keep it away from her scars. When the wound disappeared, she looked at her finger for a long moment.

"You could fix me, couldn't you?" She asked, looking up from her finger, her mismatched eyes locked on to me. "My scars, I mean."

"I could," I confirmed with a nod. "I was advised not to bring it up when I first saw you, though."

"...and my eye?"

"Yes."

For a long moment, she looked at me, studying my face. Eventually, she slowly reached out and took my hand, pulling it to her face until my palm was over her eye.

"Please. Just fix the eye," She said, sounding guilty of all things.

"Of course. Hold still, I might have to cast it multiple times to deal with the set scarring."

When she nodded, I focused my magic and chanted softly so I didn't startle her.

"Oculum laesum sana, visum ei restitue."

A triplet of arcane symbols glowed around the back of my hand, gathering healing magic before it pushed through me and into Olivia's eye. I repeated that spell three more times before finally pulling my hand away.

Olivia's eyes fluttered open, revealing a pair of bright green eyes, both of them completely clear of any scarring. I healed just enough of her eyelid that she could comfortably blink and look around, her eyes latching on to mine.

"Not bad, huh?" I asked. "Thank you for trusting me to help."

"It wasn't really about trust, but thank you," She said, standing up and looking up at the sky, then back down to me. "I think I need to go, but I'll see you again soon, yeah?"

"Gotta give you your gift eventually, don't I?" I responded with a small smile. "I'll be around, and you have a habit of finding me pretty easily."

"Hard to miss you," She shot back, turning to fade into a nearby shadow. "See you around, William."

"See you around, Olivia."

She vanished, leaving me 'alone' next to Troy. I quickly put my costume back on, storing my civilian clothes before climbing up onto Troy's back. I could feel the weight of the blood vial in my coat pocket, as well as the more physical weight of the duffle bag full of materials on my back.

By this point, it was only about noon, but already, I needed to get back to my forest compound. There was a lot I wanted to get done today, or more specifically, tonight, which meant I had a whole lot of work to do in the meantime.

The sooner I got to work on what needed to be done, the sooner I could start to prepare for the new moon and the several rituals I wanted to perform in order to finalize my compound.

I quickly rode through the city, making my way out past the outskirts and eventually heading into the forest. I made a decision that I would come and go from the forest as Arcanum, and then once in the city, I would take my costume off if I needed to attend something as a civilian. At this point, the only thing I really did as a civilian guise was shopping, mostly because I didn't want people to associate Arcanum with buying a two-hundred pack of glass vials with a natural cork seal or a second package of slightly larger vails.

When I finally got back, I let Troy wander around a bit as I offloaded everything that I had bought into the storage tree trunks. When I was done, I grabbed one of my enhanced metallic acorns, eager to get to work on my bedroom tree.