The Protagonist Syst 243 Magic Is Magic

243 Magic Is Magic

“Damn.” I whispered at a teenager having the body to pull off Zatanna's outfit.

Zatanna's eyes that were looking around at everything around her, focused on . She gave

a once-over and smiled knowingly. “Are you enjoying the show, handso?”

“I could ask you the sa thing.” I answered. Even though I was only wearing faded jeans and a t-shirt, they fit well and I looked good.

“I claid dibs first!” Green Fairy suddenly said.

Lisa Drake barked a laugh. “You tried to.” She said and nodded at Zatanna. “He even offered her a hand to shake.”

Green Fairy opened her mouth to refute that and then sighed.

Zatanna looked impressed. “You must have a lot of magic potential for a fairy to refuse a freely given offer to share.”

“He does.” Rose Psychic said. “His first accidental apparition was at eight years old and he travelled halfway across the country.”

All three young won whistled, clearly impressed.

“Your parents must have been pissed.” Lisa said and Zatanna nodded.

“How long did it take you to get back?” Green Fairy asked.

“Only a few minutes. He saved soone first and apparated back ho afterwards.” Rose told them.

“You seem to know a lot about that.” I comnted and tried to poke into her head with a very light telepathic probe. It was firmly rebuffed by her husband, whom she sohow shared a body with.

“None of that now. My secrets are my own.” Rose admonished .

“I wanted to know how you knew.” I responded.

“You can ask.” Rose said with a smirk.

I sighed. “Why? You'll give

the sa answer.”

“Yes, I would.” Rose said and motioned for Zatanna and myself to follow her. “Usually, if soone is too young to handle their magic and it goes out of control, we try to assign a ntor of sorts. In Zatanna's case, we didn't need to. Her father quickly stepped in to help her handle the magical energies her body had access to.”

“And in my case?” I asked as we walked across the quad towards a building that looked like it had apartnts inside.

“After careful observation of your... ahem... many many apparitions...” Rose gave

a look full of judgnt and she found

acceptable. “...you didn't do anything that needed the imdiate help of a teacher.”

The building's doors opened on their own.

“We also couldn't find an appropriate person to fill the role, considering the types of magic you were using.” Rose said as we entered. “The dorm is co-ed and also split between the sexes and species, so you're on your own for keeping your personal space personal.”

I sighed again. “I only just moved out of the house on my own and now I have to share a room with soone?”

Rose patted my shoulder. “It won't be that bad. You'll see.”

I highly doubted that as she brought us into the male wing of the building. We went up the stairs two floors and down a hallway to stop at the third door. She knocked once, waited for a breath, and opened it. Floating in a seated position was a smug looking young man wearing sunglasses indoors and my danger sense blared at

about both him and the thick book he held.

“Sebastian Faust, et your new roommate, Clark Kent.” Rose introduced us.

I didn't hesitate and unleashed my full powered heat vision upon the book. It incinerated almost instantly, as did the young man's hands, his guts, and then his spine. Faust scread for the second it took for

to raise my gaze to his face and his head disappeared.

Zatanna gasped and Rose sighed as she gave

a sad look.

“Was that really necessary?” Rose asked

as she waved her hand and reversed ti in the room. My heat vision was still on, so I did the book again and then his head. “Clark, stop that!”

“You want

to bunk with a future villain that's planning on sacrificing several virgins for more power.” I argued as she reversed ti again. I did his face first this ti.

Rose shut the door and reversed ti again. I burned the door down and killed him again.

“We're trying to save him from that!” Rose spat and glared at .

“You're doing a terrible job of it if he's still alive and thinking those thoughts.” I countered.

“Private thoughts are supposed to be private, Clark.” Rose said and didn't try to reverse ti again. She realized she was just causing Faust to suffer as she tried to save him. “Just because he's thinking of killing soone, that doesn't an he will.”

“He's not killing them. He's sacrificing them. The demons he's going to summon to empower himself will do the rapes and murders, so he's mostly guilt free.” I explained and Zatanna gasped.

Rose looked disappointed with . “You need to be a bit more accepting of people to properly help them.”

I gave her a stern look back. “If you've kept an eye on what I've been doing for the last few years, then you know I am perfectly fine with helping keep soone on the right path.”

“Yes, so why are you...” Rose started to ask.

“I have an inherent danger sense that's telling

he's evil. It's not hinting at it and it's not warning

he could be evil. He's just evil.” I interrupted and answered her.

Rose sighed and crossed her arms. “I need so ti to find you another dorm assignnt.”

“Why? This room's fine.” I said and motioned behind her. “I removed the danger.”

“I ant I wanted to get you away from here to restore him.” Rose said.

I shrugged. “I can hit him from anywhere, so making

leave won't save him.”

“You are causing him to go down the dark path faster!” Rose tried to argue.

“To gain more power to defeat , yes?” I asked and she nodded. “Then I'm right and he's a constant danger to those around him he knows are stronger than him. How many people will he have to kill before you decide he's not worth saving?”

Rose opened her mouth to answer, paused as she listened to sothing, then sighed. “Let's just get Zatanna settled into her dorm for now. We can co back to this later when you've cooled off.”

I wanted to argue that I wasn't angry and her pointed look stopped . “Sure. I'd like to see where the daughter of a stage magician is going to live and what kind of monster you're pairing her with.”

Five minutes later, we were in the female wing of the dorm and standing outside Zatanna's room.

Rose knocked on the door and waited for a breath, just like she had with my room, and opened the door. “Pia Morales, this is your roomate, Zatanna Zatara.”

Again, my danger sense went off, only it felt different this ti. It wasn't as demanding or pervasive, so she was a threat, only a minor one or could be a huge one in the future. Her thoughts on the other hand... I pushed Rose out of the way and walked into the room, ignored the woman's protest, and put a hand on the young black woman's shoulder.

“You are not your power, Pia.” I said and she looked shocked. “If that was true, I'd be a mindless entity roaming the cosmos looking for two brain cells to rub together, without realizing I had been solving the problem I had without knowing it.”

“Wh-what?” Pia asked

as her black eyes were full of confusion and locked onto mine.

“Entropy. It's easily bypassed by shifting to a new dinsion.” I said and she still looked confused. “That doesn't matter right now.” I said and paused the world.

Rose gasped behind

and I glanced back and saw her head turning around and looking at the greyed out world with wonder.

I went back to what I was doing and added Pia Morales to my party as a temporary mber, then spent the Karma Points I gained from killing Sebastian Faust on taking her Necromancy power and giving a healing power similar to what I had given to my mom in Worm.

I only gave her the basic tune-up package and not Vicky's powerset, since that wasn't sothing Pia needed in her life. I sohow gained a ton of Karma Points from that and laughed, making Rose behind

speak up.

“Clark what is this place and why are you laughing?” Rose asked.

“I've apparently solved a huge future problem without realizing I was.” I said and paid the points to remove Pia from my party without consequences.

“You don't an Sebastian, do you?” Rose asked .

“No, he's just evil.” I said and unpaused the world.

Pia caught her breath and stared at

as she felt the changes she had undergone.

“I'm sorry for barging in like this, Pia. I just saw your sad face and knew I had to say sothing.” I lied and she narrowed her eyes at . I smiled and gave her shoulder a squeeze. “You should have an easier ti of things now.”

Pia nodded, knowing I was telling the truth that ti.

“Being cute helps.” I said and she blushed, because she knew I wasn't lying. “It was nice to et soone that's going to beco one of the best healers in the world.”

Pia looked embarrassed and stepped back, removing my hand from touching her, and she frowned slightly at losing the feeling.

“It's not fair to compare.” I whispered and walked back out of the room.

Rose gave

a look that said we needed to talk. “Zatanna, go on in and pick a bed. Your other roommate...”

The bathroom door opened and a sexy goth girl stepped out wearing only a towel. “Great, you're giving

another whiny bitch of a roommate to deal with?”

“June Moone, this is Zatanna.” Rose introduced her.

“I prefer Enchantress when in this form.” The goth girl said and stopped beside one of the beds and looked over at . Her face changed from annoyed to interested. “Who's the hunk full of yummy magical energy?”

“He was just leaving, as was I.” Rose said and turned around and shut the door. “You might want to avoid her.”

I gave her raised eyebrows and she didn't elaborate. The thing was, my danger sense barely tingled. Either Enchantress was much more relaxed about things or she was very good at hiding how evil she was. Maybe that was why Sebastian Faust set

off so much? He didn't bother trying to be less imposing magically and was too dangerous to ignore?

Rose took my arm and led

back down the stairs and out of the building. We passed soone riding a Pegasus as they landed and sauntered around a crowd of relaxing students. A few of the girls barely looked at the horse and the guy riding it let out a disappointed sound and kicked the flying horse into action and flew away.

“It takes more than a pretty horse to impress a girl at a magical academy.” Rose inford .

“Was it a manifestation, a summon, or a familiar?” I asked.

Rose paused walking to give

a searching look, smiled at my genuine curiosity, and brought

into the main building. “It was a summon and a familiar, which will make things a little awkward for him during class.”

I chuckled at the thought of trying to have the Pegasus perch on the guy's shoulder.

Rose brought

into her office and sat

down in front of her desk. She walked around it and sat down herself. She didn't say anything as she stared at

and looked deep in thought.

“You're going to keep reacting like that, aren't you?” Rose asked .

I gave her a blank face back. “How long did you say you had surveillance on ?” I asked and she didn't respond. “About that, if you knew I had magic, why didn't you send a letter or sothing when I was eleven?”

Rose scoffed. “Thanks to those books, everyone thinks magic manifests the best at eleven.”

“It doesn't?” I asked and she shook her head.

“You proved it yourself that you can be any age to have magic appear. So are born with it, so need to mature for it to appear, and so need to wait a specific ti before their magic settles and can be trained in its use.” Rose said and smiled knowingly. “In your case, it's been exactly seven years.”

“Seven...” I paused and thought it over. It really had been exactly seven years, from 8 years old at the end of August, to 15 years old and the end of August.

“Seven is a magically significant number.” Rose said and folded her hands under her chin and rested her elbows on her desk. “Now I just have to decide what to do with you.”

“Well, you're married, so the options are limited to academically.” I joked and she huffed. “You could...”

A glowing orange circle appeared on the right wall and interrupted . The center filled in and swirled with an unnatural darkness. A man dressed in a villain costu styled like a Victorian era Egyptian Pharaoh ripoff stepped out of it and his hands were glowing orange, probably to maintain the magical portal.

“What has happened to my bastard son, Doctor Psychic? I can no longer feel his magical resonance!” Felix Faust asked, angrily.

I wasn't one to miss an opportunity when it was handed to . My heat vision burned through the side of his head and lted his brain before he could cast any more spells. I thought about casting a stasis spell on him and chose not to, in case Rose reversed what I just did and the spell wouldn't take. I cleaned up the ss by burning up the rest of him, too.

Rose sighed and gave

an exasperated look.

“What? He's pure evil.” I said to defend myself and my actions.

“My pocket dinsion is supposed to be a safe haven for all magical beings.” Rose said.

I stared at her for several seconds and didn't laugh in her face. Barely. “You believe that.”

“It's one of the main tenets of running this university. All of the staff have to uphold it as well.” Rose said. “Otherwise, we couldn't have professors like Xanadu and Frankenstein teaching here.”

I was taken aback hearing that. “Do you an the man or the monster he created?”

Rose smiled. “Most people assu I an the monster, even if he wasn't really one.”

That gave

so very important information about Rose Psychic. She either could use her powers to the point that she could portal into the past or she could access dinsional analogs where ti either ran differently or events happened to ensure certain people still exist.

“Is he or she a descendent?” I asked and Rose's smile grew, which ant she wasn't going to tell . I looked down at the small pile of ashes on the floor by the wall. “Are you going to bring him and his son back?”

“Yes.” Rose said and didn't say anything else.

“Then you need to understand that all of the deaths they cause from that point forwards, will be your fault.” I said and she caught her breath. “They are gone and done with now. There is no more danger to anyone, especially , and you want to restore them and let them murder more innocent people?”

It was my turn to give her a disappointed look and she knew she deserved it.

“I don't think I can learn anything good from an institution run by a woman whose morals are so corrupted that she can condone so many future cris against humanity.” I said and stood up. “Do we need to head back to the quad for you to send

back ho?”

Rose sat there and didn't respond as she stared at .

After a minute, I shook my head at her and walked over to the door to her office. “I'll just go say goodbye to my new friends while you enable the deaths of so many people.”

Rose stayed behind her desk as I left the office and went out into the quad. I saw Zatanna, Enchantress, Lisa Drake, and Green Fairy surround Pia Morales as she healed an overweight kid in a wheelchair. I went over to them to say goodbye and to tell them about what was possibly the shortest enrollnt in a university of all ti.