Chapters 16-20
The demon was thoroughly dead. I had impaled him with over 20 light spears after all. I was frankly surprised how easy it was. Maybe I was just that aweso? I was riding the high of my victory until the system ca raining on my parade when my observe skill leveled up.
[Observe Level 2 - shows more details of the targets this skill is used on.]
I wanted to facepalm after using the skill on the Demon's corpse.
[Corpse of Marigor the Gluttonous - Son of the Beast][Level 16:][Age: 1… ]
I had killed a literal toddler of a demon… No wonder he could hardly fight back at all. Demon's must grow incredibly quickly physically because his body is the size of a car and weighs thrice as much.
"Other than that though," I monologued to myself, "I'd say I had a pretty good first day in this new life. I leveled up twice, I saved Heather Potter from death by Voldemort, I t the Ancient one, I went on an epic chase sequence through London–"
[I seem to recall you complaining for a few hours straight at that point.]
"Silence from the peanut gallery please."
[QQ…]
"…And I started a blood feud with The Hand. All that off spawn in 24 hours…" I finished.
[It was a very impressive first day. Most Gar's don't accomplish nearly that much.]
"How many other gars are there anyway?" I asked the system.
[Hundreds? Thousands? Who knows. So Gars get so powerful that they no longer even need their systems and they pass them onto new people.]
"That's surprisingly nice of them." I would expect most Gar's to hoard their systems forever to hold onto the power.
[It's not nice or altruistic actually.]
"What do you an, system?"
[Gar's cannot enter other Gar's multiverses without being invited. However, if those powerful being's are no longer Gars…]
My eyes widened at that realization. They would be able to invade the multiverses of Gars and attack them! These invaders would be multiversal level entities at that point and there's no way a new player like myself would stand a chance if that happened to . "Am I in danger of that happening?"
[It's always a slight possibility, but there's only a handful of beings like that. They usually won't leave their realms either, because the reverse is also true. Gar's are free to invade their realms as well since they are no longer Gars themselves. They could send subordinates to scout out this universe though.]
"What'll I do if that happens? Will I even know?"
[I will know, and will issue you an ergency kill quest on any extra dinsional scouts.]
"Thanks system. I can always count on you!" I smiled to myself. If there were only were a handful of evil Ex-Gar's out there, I wouldn't have to deal with any issues that often.
"..."
[Warning! An ergency Quest has been issued! An extra dinsional invader has been detected!]
"Are you fucking kidding !" I exclaid.
[Yes, I was just kidding…]
"…fuck off system…"
…
"That was a job well done, Layla." The Ancient one said as I stepped through the portal into the Kamar Taj courtyard. On the other side, a few sorcerers passed by and went through the sa portal into the theater. I wondered why they were going back there, but the Ancient One answered without needing to ask. "They'll be recovering the demon's remains before anyone else can. A lot of dark rituals could take place with actual demon remains." She explained.
I nodded to her explanation. "You might want to have them hurry then, I'm pretty sure a certain spy organization was investigating the hand." I warned her.
The Ancient one seed surprised to hear that. "Interesting, this tiline is diverging more and more…" I heard her mutter to herself. She probably didn't an to say that out loud so i didn't comnt about it. She finished her muttering before looking at with a raised eyebrow. "I'm surprised you're not embarrassed to be seen like… that."
"Huh?" I looked down at myself and blushed in embarrassnt. My dress that Penemue had made for was completely shredded… My skin all over the place was exposed and the important bits were only covered by a few remaining pieces of fabric.
The ancient one snapped her fingers and so monk robes appeared in front of . She told to et her in the reception chambers once I stopped looking like I'd just stepped out of a warzone.
I looked down at the offensive clothing she had given with a say. I wasn't exactly a fan of robes, but I supposed they'd have to do… for now.
I made sure to store away my shredded dress in my inventory. Hopefully I can find soone to repair it in the future. It held sentintal mories after all. Once I was dressed like a discount Hogwarts student, I t back up with the Ancient One in the reception chamber.
XXX
-WIth Nick Fury-
"Report, Agent." Fury spoke to Natasha over the other end of her communicator. It wasn't exactly a phone per se, but a high end communication device that directly(and illegally) piggybacked off nurous satellites to remain untraceable.
"I briefly made contact with our query, but I couldn't speak to her for long. She seed to be in a hurry." Natasha explained to him. Fury thought that 'hurry' was an understatent. The woman would have made major headlines had he not secretly put the kibosh on the dia.
"Was that why our caras showed her running at olympic level speeds through the heart of London, all the while, staring at that weird compass?" Fury asked. Yeah, that drew so eyes. A few videos had even been put online, which SHIELD imdiately had taken down. Natasha confird that was the case. She then explained how their supposed angel was in a hurry chasing down… a demonic ninja cult. That a sorceress had told her about…
"…A ninja cult?" Fury asked. Nothing in this job fazed him anymore, but that was still weird. Fury had admitted to Romanoff earlier that he had seen so weird shit in his days, but he wasn't expecting honest to god Ninjas. He was expecting this to be a more otherworldly situation to be honest. "Were you at least able to confirm whether or not Layla had any hidden wings?" Fury asked.
Fury let out a sigh when Natasha told him that she had failed on that part. Layla had never displayed any wings to her. Natasha did confirm that Layla was able to create a lightsaber, or a lightspear as she called them. That was enough for Fury to speculate that Layla's wings were probably also real. Also, that she was either an actual Angel, or possibly an Alien. Fury wasn't sure what would be the more shocking situation if the world ever found out about her.
"Woah…" Agent Romanoff trailed off from the other side of the line. "You need to get a cleanup team down to my location imdiately, sir. This entire theater is littered with ninja corpses." Natasha had called Fury when she was on the way to the location she had given Layla earlier. It sounded to him, like she had just arrived. While she was on the way there, she had regaled him with the full encounter she had with the Angel. That included Romanoff's short assessnt of the other woman.
Fury didn't care about any of that right now though. In fact, he'd have to put his plans for contacting the Angel on hold after the revelation she had given his agent. Japan, an entire country, had supposedly fallen under the control of a secret demon worshiping cult… AND NO ONE KNEW! It was HIS job to know about things like that and prevent them from happening. He had obviously failed. Part of him would like to suspect that the Angel was lying, but Fury knew that just wouldn't be the case. His instincts were telling him so. As a spymaster, he'd learned to listen to his gut.
"Ok, Romanoff. You sit tight there and wait for our cleanup crews to arrive." Fury ordered her before he hung up. He then sent an urgent ssage to his other two most competent agents. He'd have to step lightly if what he suspected was true.
…
A few monts later Agents Coulson and Barton stepped into his office.
"You called for us sir?" Coulson asked. Fury gave them a look that they imdiately recognized.
"Ah, so it's one of these situations then?" Barton joked. "So how fucked are we on scale of 1 to 10?"
Fury just glared before answering. "7… maybe 8 even." The two agents' eyes widened at his answer.
"What!? The hell happened? Did Nat discover a secret alien invasion or sothing!?" Barton questioned.
Fury exhaled in irritation. "I wish it were so simple… No, she discovered the existence of a secret cult that has allegedly usurped total control of one of Arica's closest allies. Japan has fallen gentlen, and none of us knew about it"
Both agents were now open-mouthed staring at him in shock from the news. "An entire country!?" Coulson exclaid, "Wait, Japan had been trying to get one of their people on the World Security Council for a few years now. Were they trying to infiltrate us as well? The other councilors were even considering letting them join." Coulson explained.
Fury nodded. It was only thanks to the efforts of the Chinese council mber that Japan had been stonewalled from joining. Fury wondered if they suspected sothing was wrong as the country's closest neighbor. "You two will both be going to Japan to investigate. But I need you both to use extre discretion. If the higher echelons of the country truly have been infiltrated, I want to know. Natasha is going to try and find our… informant again to try and get more information. If she succeeds, I'll relay it over to you both." Fury said as he gave them their orders.
"Although they haven't joined the council yet, we still have had a few agents from Japan join shield in the past year. Are we going to have them investigated?" Coulson asked. In response, Fury just raised his eyebrow and gave him the 'do you even need to ask?' look. They were SHIELD, the greatest spy agency in the world. Of course they were going to thoroughly investigate all of those agents. Not only that, Fury lanted the fact that he wouldn't be getting much sleep this week. He knew his own paranoia was going to force him to do extra work and thoroughly investigate ALL of his agents now. Where there was one mole, there were bound to be others nearby…
XXX
-One Month Later-
"Am I just really untalented with Eldritch magic?" I asked as I struggled to create a portal to the Arctic with the sling ring on my finger. I briefly got to see a glimpse of the frozen tundra before the whole thing collapsed pathetically. I had yet to make a stable portal that lasted more than a few seconds. Needless to say, I sucked. This magic was a lot more difficult to learn than Angel Magic was.
"I'd say you have average talent as a sorceress." The Ancient One was standing next to in the courtyard. "It takes most students a few months to master the sling ring alone. A single month to get it working for a few seconds is about right." She explained.
'I'm not most students though!' I lanted in my head. I'm a Gar. A Fallen Angel Gar. I was a literal magical being with built in cheats! Learning magic was supposed to co super easy to !
[You need to raise your Intelligence more for that to happen. While it will not make you smarter, it will raise your magical comprehension talents. You should have no problems with the sling ring at 50 intelligence.]
And there was the system, once again, dropping new information on my lap. My intelligence stat was sitting at 36 after I spent the stat points I got from killing the baby demon. 'Why doesn't raising intelligence make you smarter?' I asked the system in my head.
[Before that change was implented, Gars who rapidly raised their intelligence experienced personality changes almost over night. So Gars may or may not have had psychotic breaks because of that. Now if you want to get smarter… you have to study.]
'I suppose that makes sense.' I reasoned. That would be like going from Morty to Rick overnight. You really would go crazy.
"If you're quite done spacing out and talking to the voice in your head, I actually have sothing to discuss." The Ancient One said to . She looked mildly uncomfortable for so reason.
I gave her a curious look. "What is it?" I asked.
She started to explain. "This is not sothing I ever expected to happen in the remaining ti I thought I had left. The tiline has completely changed with your arrival and our divided realm returning together. Because of that, I am hesitant to allow major events to play out without intervention."
"So you want my help with these major events?" I asked.
The Ancient One nodded to . "You told that the only magic you were currently interested in were the sling rings–"
"Yeah, I want to travel to other planets at so point!" I interrupted her in my excitent. She gave a minor glare in return. "Sorry, please continue."
"There's nothing more we can teach you about using your sling ring. You just have to practice more with it on your own." She explained. "And since you now find yourself with nothing to do, I have a task I require your help with."
I told her to lay it on and she did. My existence had completely screwed up her foreseen tiline. She didn't know what ramifications that would have. What she did know was that one of the most important humans for the advancent of the world was going to be in more danger because of it. She didn't want to restore the tiline, because that was impossible, she just wanted to make sure that person didn't die.
Following her explanation, the ancient one handed a new ID, passport and papers with information for my new Swiss bank account.
I just raised an eyebrow as I read my new fake IDs na. "I'm Layla… Grigori?" I questioned her. "Isn't that a little on the nose?"
"It's the best we ca up with. Trust , we put it to a vote and this was the best option." She said.
"Who's we? And why didn't I get a vote!?"
"That's not important, you have all your papers. Don't screw up or the world might end."
"Wait!? What!?" I exclaid before an orange portal opened up beneath and I was unceremoniously dumped in a new location. It looked like a restroom. Also… my clothes had magically changed. I was wearing what looked like a secretary outfit… The ancient one had the power to make clothes out of magic and she chose to wear those ugly colored robes all day.
"I should have asked her to fix my dress…" I muttered.
[She did…]
"What?"
[Her magic allowed her to reach into your inventory, WHICH SHOULDN'T BE POSSIBLE, and she fixed the dress Penemue gave you.]
"Holy shit…" That woman's magic skills were scary. I guess that's what studying the art for hundreds of years straight would get you though.
[Yeah… Makes you think about how bullshit it was that Doctor Strange reaches her level in only a year or less.]
"Protagonist's are just built different I guess..."
KNOCK KNOCK
"Excuse , is anyone in there?" A woman's voice called out as they knocked on the other side of the bathroom door.
"Yes I'll be right out." I answered automatically. "Welp, ti to go face whatever situation the Sorceress Supre just dumped on …" I muttered quietly. I opened the door and stepped out. As I looked around, I appeared to be in what looked like a corporate office. There were nicely dressed business n and won wandering around all over. At least I wasn't under dressed.
"Oh, wow. You're just as pretty as in your application photo." A blond woman dressed similarly to myself was the one who knocked.
"Thank you," I replied to the woman. "And might I just say that you look absolutely beautiful as well." I said to her with a smile.
She smiled back at . "Thank you. I'm Pepper Potts. You're Layla Grigori right. I received your application for the secretarial position this morning. Why don't you step into my office and we'll start the interview for the position of Mr. Stark's secretary." She said as she led to a nearby office door with her na on it.
XXX
Here I was sitting in an office undergoing an interview for a job I did not apply for. Pepper was sitting across from behind her desk conducting it. I think I was nailing it so far.
[You could not be failing this interview any harder if you tried…]
"Ok Layla, next question. As his secretary, you should know a bit about Tony's family. What was the first na of Mister Stark's mother?" Pepper asked .
The system was clearly doubting my capabilities as a working girl. I'd have to prove it wrong once again, obviously. As an Ironman fan, I also knew the answer to this question. "It's Martha." I said confidently. I rembered her na because of that one scene where the two heroes were fighting and one of them shouted "Martha" and they stopped. Both of their moms had the sa na.
[Host, that was Batman Vs Superman… You're not even in the right universe.]
Fuck…
Pepper just looked at with mild disappointnt. "It's Maria…" She trailed off before continuing. Ok, maybe I was failing this interview… I wasn't expecting to even be in an interview!
Pepper shuffled so papers in front of her. "It says here you studied at Dartmouth and were the top of your class…" Pepper started with an impressed look on her face. What the hell Ancient One!? Top of my class at Dartmouth!? Why couldn't she have picked a less impressive sounding fake background?
[You wouldn't have gotten the interview if she had...]
Pepper continued. "...How would you rate your experience studying under Professor Everstein? The head of that departnt? He and Tony are good friends." Pepper explained.
"Oh, he was just such a brilliant man! Truly ahead of his ti. I know he definitely doesn't compare to Tony though." I spoke my lies with a completely straight face. Thank you, acting skills lvl 2!
Pepper just stared at for a mont awkwardly.
[Wait for it…]
Pepper sighed. "…Layla, Professor Everstein is a na I just made up. You clearly didn't go to Dartmouth, and your information has clearly been forged. Recently in fact. Don't underestimate Stark Tech's background checks." Pepper said with a glare. "So who are you and why are you here? The only reason I haven't had the police co and arrest you is because your docunts were professionally forged. Are you with SHIELD?"
Pepper continued to glare at . I just stared back awkwardly, making her glare even more! Pepper looked really cute while she glared at – No! Those are bad thoughts. Begone Sin of Lust!
[It's not going away ever…]
Well shit… Who would have thought the Ancient One couldn't give a solid background.
[I don't know why you put faith in the Ancient One's falsified ID's ever holding up against modern background checks. The woman literally reads by candlelight…]
'That makes so much sense logically, but she literally dumped here and everything happened so fast!' I whined in my head.
"Well?" Pepper asked as she folded her arms in front of herself. "Let's hear it, Layla Grigori. If that is your real na. Who are you and who do you work for?"
I sighed before shrugging to myself. Might as well sort of co clean I suppose. I adjusted myself in my seat before sitting tall and smiling confidently at Pepper. "I suppose I should properly introduce myself. My na is Layla, but not Layla Grigori. I guess you could call Layla of the Grigori. I prefer Layla of the Fallen though. It rolls off the tongue better." I introduced myself to her properly.
Pepper tapped a button on her desk before a real life holographic screen popped up in front of her. "Jarvis, give any information you have on the organization known as the 'Grigori.'" Pepper spoke to the interface.
"Right away miss." An eloquent English voice projected from the speakers in the office. I held myself back from squeaking in excitent at the fact that Jarvis himself was literally in front of ! I had so many questions for him! I pouted internally that I wouldn't be able to ask them for now…
"Information on the so-called Grigori has been found and compiled. It is… an old organization. If it even exists at all. Historical records put its founding at over 1000 years ago. No information has been heard about them since." Jarvis explained.
"And where did this information co from Jarvis?" Pepper asked as she gave a curious but cautious look.
"The bible Miss Potts. The Grigori was an organization composed of all the Angels who supposedly fell from Heaven but didn't join Lucifer. Hence, I am hesitant to believe such an organization is real." I sat there as Jarvis finished his explanation to Miss Potts.
"Thank you Jarvis, that will be all." Pepper clicked another button and the holographic screen cut out. She turned back to with a clearly skeptical look on her face. "Angels that fell from Heaven, huh? Well then, Layla of the Fallen. Where are your wings?" Pepper said with a laugh. She clearly did not believe the Grigori was real. "Also, know that security is on it's way because your little prank has clearly failed so now–"
I released my four black wings from my back. Pepper imdiately cut herself off as her eyes turned wide and she just stared at in shock.
And then she fainted…
XXX
Pepper had hired surprisingly. I told her that I know absolutely nothing about being a secretary and that I was only here to protect Tony from dying… because I'd apparently ssed up the tiline and Natasha wasn't here to take the job. I may have left that last part out. I'm also pretty sure Pepper might think I've been sent here from 'On-High' to protect Tony. She saw my wings and imdiately forgot I was from the Grigori who rebelled against Heaven.
…
We rode the elevator down a few floors where it let us out on the building's gym floor. There I could see a man who could only be Tony Stark practicing boxing in a ring with a larger man who I also assud to be Happy Hogan.
WHAM!
Tony landed a pretty solid hit against Happy's gloves. "Ha! You see that, Happy! I'm a natural at this." Tony gloated as he threw so more jabs out that Happy blocked.
"You got so good form sir." Happy replied. I could tell he was just kissing his boss's ass though. Even from my perspective, who didn't know anything about boxing, I could tell Tony's form was diocre at best.
Pepper made a throat clearing sound and the two n stopped sparring before turning towards us.
"Hey there Pepper–Woah!" Tony greeted Pepper before he noticed standing next to her. To his credit, he didn't check out nearly as much as I figured he would have if he wasn't in a relationship with Pepper already. Or were they dating at this point? They were on and off again so often I couldn't rember.
Tony hopped out of the ring and walked over to the two of us. "So you're my new secretary? Nice to et you. I'm Tony Stark." He held out his hand for to shake. I did so and introduced myself.
"Hello, Mr Stark. I'm Layla." I smiled at him and Happy who looked like he had his brain reboot upon seeing . I was starting to realize my appearance would be having that effect on regular humans a lot. The Ancient One didn't bat an eye at because she's probably faced actual succubi in her life. And Voldemort was also more freaked out by my wings than my actual appearance. I'm pretty sure he was also a eunuch or sothing…
"Please, call Tony." He said before he turned and spoke to Pepper. "Where'd you find this woman? She looks and sounds like she just fell from Heaven…"
I let out a small laugh while Pepper had a mortified look on her face from his comnt. She had asked on the elevator ride down here to keep my true identity a secret from Tony. He was apparently under a lot of secret stress and she didn't want him to have an existential breakdown on top of that. I had also agreed because I'm pretty sure SHIELD had Tony under constant surveillance even if Natasha wasn't here for whatever reason.
"Thank you for the complint Tony." I said and Pepper seed to sigh in relief. I think she thought he had offended with his comnt for so reason.
"So Layla," Tony said. "I know you were just hired…" He looked at to finish.
"Ten minutes ago." I answered.
Tony nodded. "...Ten minutes ago. But, how is your French? We're heading over to Monaco tomorrow to watch my team race in the prix. OF course, as my secretary you'll have to be there. It would also be great to have a translator as well."
"I'm completely Fluent in French." I replied.
Tony turned to Pepper and gave her a thumbs up. "As intelligent as she is beautiful. Once again, good hire Pepper." Tony turned and headed back to the ring. "Our flight leaves at 6am tomorrow, Layla. Don't be late." He called out over his shoulder.
Once Tony was focused back on Happy in the ring Pepper turned to . "You speak French?" She questioned in surprise.
"I speak every human language. I can also speak to all animals. Although, they're not great conversationalists. They mostly just ask for food or water." I explained.
Pepper had a look of realization. "R-right. Of course you can speak to everything…"
"So we're going to Monaco tomorrow?" I asked. I guessed we were at the start of Iron Man 2 or this world's version of it. "I don't really have anything to wear." I don't have any money at all to my na actually… All those Ninja's I took down didn't keep any money on them. I'm pretty sure they just stole everything they needed.
"Oh right," Pepper said. "Here. Here is your company credit card. Normally we audit these, but feel free to spend however much you want. We won't be doing that to you for obvious reasons." She handed a black credit card that had 'STARK' on it in big print. Well then… looks like my money problems were taken care of for the ti being.
Pepper left alone after telling to be at the building at 5am the next day so we wouldn't miss the flight. Although, it was a private plane so it's not like it would leave without us.
…
I took the elevator down to the lobby and exited the building. The streets were bustling and I found myself in the heart of LA.
[So you've been given a credit card with no limits and you have an inventory to store everything you buy. Are you going to abuse it?]
"Fuck yeah I am!" I cheered excitedly.
XXX
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