"...He doesn't care how his children live in this place," Raven said, her voice tinged with embarrassment as she pulled away from my arms and wrapped herself tightly in her cloak from head to toe. "He doesn't care how much they fight or how they settle their conflicts. He forbade them from killing me, but he didn't forbid them from beating me. In his opinion, that should help me embrace my demonic side."
"You mean he wants you to go feral?"
"Yes," Raven nodded slightly, lowering her head. "On Azarath, I was taught emotional control, but here, only anger helps achieve success. The angrier I get, the stronger my magic becomes. And the only way to stop the abuse and violence from my older brothers is with incredibly powerful magic."
"Do you have many brothers?"
"Three: Velial, Rascoff, and Shug. You saw them. There might be more, but... if there are, they turned out weak, and Trigon didn't acknowledge them."
"Turned out?"
"A demon can set the potential of their child during conception, but it requires giving up some of their power, as I've heard. No demon would do that. And they certainly wouldn't create children who could potentially be stronger than them. So no one deliberately sets potential; it's left to chance. As for my brothers, they're somewhere at the top of the mid-tier. They can hold their own against a higher demon for a short time, but not for long."
"But now they're gone, right?"
"I don't think so," Raven ruffled slightly, lowering her eyelids a few millimeters. Despite her hood being pulled so low that the shadow completely hid the upper part of her face, her fiery eyes were still visible. In reality, it looked very strange, but the shadow under the hood naturally made everything invisible except for her eyeballs and the part of her face below her nose. I wouldn't vouch that there wasn't some magic involved here. "They're pureblood demons, and we're in a demonic dimension. Most likely, you didn't kill them, just temporarily drained them to a bodiless state. After some time, they'll either recover on their own or Trigon will summon them and give them new bodies."
"Not good..." I echoed. I don't think a narcissistic asshole like Trigon would lift a finger to "find and punish-devour" some random mortal who wandered in, but he might send one of his lackeys. Or they might come on their own to curry favor or seek revenge if that trio really survived.
"Yes, but..." Her crimson eyes shyly glanced at me. "Your power is roughly on the level of a higher demon, and... I don't know how you did it, but now you have demonic energy, so they won't be able to try to possess your body again, and in a direct fight, you'll win."
"Are you saying they won't dare attack again?"
"Maybe," she averted her gaze again. "Or maybe they'll want revenge, just better prepared. To them, you're an outsider. If a higher demon from another Archdemon's service appeared in Trigon's lands, they'd hunt him too. Though, of course, with caution."
"But what's the point of such a hunt if the demon won't die anyway?"
"They can die. There are ways. The simplest is for the killer to be significantly stronger than the victim, then they can destroy their soul, not letting it escape. So if such a demon falls into Trigon's hands—it's the end for them," the girl paused, seemingly lost in thought. "Demons can also be imprisoned. And that's easier. In theory. But I don't know how."
"And these books don't have a way?" I nodded toward the ominous folios on the stone bookshelf.
"No," Raven followed my gaze. "These mostly describe combat magic and ways to summon demons to other dimensions. Trigon is a conqueror of worlds, and he needs me to be his conduit, like what happened with Azarath. I'm only half-demon, so I can travel between dimensions without the restrictions he has. That's why he gave me these books—to better serve him later."
"How strong is this Trigon?"
"You can't handle him," the girl raised her voice slightly, looking at me with a warning glance. "You're strong, but he's an Archdemon, and this is his land. There's no weapon that can harm him here, and his power can't be exhausted by any battle. The dimension itself will feed him."
"So how do we escape from here? There must be a way."
"There is," the sorceress nodded. "I know a few inversion points where we can open a portal to Earth, but they're guarded, and I don't have enough strength to get there. Besides..." she slumped, "I only know a little about spatial magic, but opening a portal from Hell is not the same as from Earth or Azarath. And Trigon isn't in a hurry to give me the necessary knowledge."
"And of course, the only way to get it is from him..." I said sadly. It seemed logical. Because... well, how else? This is genuinely strategically important information. Though then it's unclear how Raven managed to escape from this lovely place in the canon... Well, no need to think about those versions of universes where she didn't escape and ended up a natural evil princess of Hell.
"No..." she answered, not very confidently. "Such knowledge should be available to many demons, those who are smarter and have enough power for such magic. But they won't share with me. Some, like my brothers, would be stopped by Trigon's order. Others are too vile and wouldn't agree to help on their own. There are also higher demons, not related to him but acknowledging his authority, but they might ignore the ban on killing me, so approaching their domains is even more dangerous than the inversion points."
"Makes sense..." I had to admit.
And if you think about it and look at the situation from this angle, why would a demon withhold information about how to escape from Hell? This isn't some human ruler who has to worry about "illegal border crossings and subjects fleeing," every such crossing is a chance to either expand their own domains or at least cause trouble for someone else, which would only bring them pleasure, not problems. Obviously, it's only Raven who's so "lucky," and her father, not being a complete idiot, understood that with such "wonderful loyalty," his daughter, given the chance, would immediately flee in an unknown direction. And she wouldn't fall for "call your father to talk" a second time. However, understanding the situation, even if incomplete or outright wrong, doesn't answer the question of how to get out of this situation (and dimension).
"Well..." After examining my thoughtful face, the sorceress hesitated slightly. "I do know the basics and can derive the necessary spell... Probably..."
"Someday, and that's not certain," I finished for her. "Hmm... You say I'm roughly as strong as a higher demon?" And that's despite her not having seen the full extent of my Kryptonian power, and if she had, she probably wouldn't have understood it. And if I don't want to face Trigon, especially on his turf, since I understand that this guy would take down Superman without much effort, then with the lower-tier guys, there might be options. Though blindly charging at some creature with the title "Higher Demon," even if this is the DC world and not D&D or, God forbid, Warhammer, I really don't want to.
"That's a bad idea. A very, very bad one," Raven, apparently understanding my thought, was strongly against it.
"I agree," I nodded, "but I don't have a better one. And just breaking in... um, where can we break in to them, and looting the library outright isn't something I want to do."
"That's also a problem," the girl hastened to add. "Not everyone here has libraries. Many only keep knowledge in their heads or in a special closed magical area that only they can access. And you can't know in advance which demon might have just books."
"And why do you...?" Without finishing, I looked questioningly at the cabinet.
"I'm not very good at it. It's very draining. To move things from place to place like that is possible, but to keep them constantly—only if you're a higher demon."
"Okay, but... we have to do something," it was obvious that she herself dreamed of getting out of here, so there was no need to even mention it; I myself wasn't sure if I didn't need water or food. It seemed like I had enough energy, plus magic, or rather, the magical field (or whatever it's called here), but who knows. The prospect of tasting those leech-eels didn't appeal to me, though I suspected that sooner or later I'd have to.
"We do," she agreed. "And first, we'll need to hide you."
"Hide me?"
"As you may have noticed, your 'mortal essence' is very noticeable and quite attractive. Now it's been supplemented with magical energy... very strange, but... if you don't want every not-so-smart creature in the vicinity to come running after you once we leave my hideout..." There was no need to continue. It was all clear.
"And how do we do that?"
"Wait, I'll try to make an amulet..." After some thought, the Archdemon's daughter suggested.
"Okay..."
Over the next few minutes, the girl rummaged through her meager belongings, found what seemed to be a spare cloak clasp—the one shaped like a round red stone in a golden setting—and, taking it in her hands, whispered something... not very clear. I heard and understood the words, but their meaning slipped away from my perception, while I felt the fluctuations of the magical field around the sorceress, and then began to see them, as Raven's hands were enveloped in the now-familiar violet light.
She whispered for a relatively long time, and when she finished, she sighed in relief, as if she had done some heavy physical labor.
"Here," she handed me the resulting brooch. "I'm not very good at creating magical things, and it would be better if you learned to hide yourself, but this will do for now."
"Thank you," I accepted the ornament and immediately felt the same energy in it that the girl had enveloped me with back there—at the battle site. And I was also puzzled about where to attach this thing.
My suit was made of some super-technological materials with metallic properties, and there were known doubts that an ordinary needle could pierce them. However... It seemed that Dr. Donovan had said something about simulating ordinary clothes and controlling them through a neurointerface?
Focusing on the sensations that the skin and aura gave, adjacent to the suit, surprisingly quickly allowed me to find a way to give it commands. The theory of how exactly to visualize the thought to make the jumpsuit take the form of ordinary jeans with a T-shirt was in the memories I had received, but I didn't need to completely redesign the clothes into a civilian style; I just needed to attach the brooch to them. Fortunately, that same neurointerface turned out to be quite friendly, and after mastering the "new aura limb," figuring out something similar that obediently responded to desires was not difficult. As a result, a small section of the leather-metallic "fabric" near the collar (approximately in the same place where the stone hung on Raven herself) simply parted, opening up a neat round cutout the size of the amulet, and when the golden setting was inserted inside, the "fabric" came together again, weaving the object with its fibers and, as it were, cementing, forming around it not a "fabric" at all, but a clearly metallized surface-plate.
At this moment, the concealment magic enveloped me again, causing the aura to react, but... being part of the clothing, it was inside the aura, and the reaction was different. This Kryptonian part of the organism seemed to sniff and probe the new object that the owner had put on, and then enveloped and permeated it, as it did with clothes and objects I took in my hands, protecting them from damage and negative reactions of physics. And although there was a small attempt to absorb the new type of energy, it stopped the moment I noticed it and negatively perceived it. And then—it was over: the aura simply began to protect the amulet just as it did my body, without trying to independently interfere with its operation.
"You said that it would be better if I learned to hide myself and that I have magic," I stopped listening to my sensations and turned my gaze to Raven. "Can I really learn magic?"
"Most likely," the girl nodded, who until then had also been closely watching the process of integrating her creation into my suit. "Ordinary people can't. Only rituals and the use of magical items. But you have power, and a lot of it. Not as much as a higher demon, but more than an ordinary sorcerer from Azarath."
"And can you teach me?" I understood that it sounded presumptuous, but after everything, it would be quite silly to be shy. And I wasn't going to insist if she suddenly refused. I still had to deal with my Kryptonian-Luthor heritage, and I felt it would take a very long time.
"Yes, I'll help," she nodded without the slightest doubt or hesitation. "But..." Here she became embarrassed again and looked away, "only later. I need to rest after the battle with my brothers and creating the amulet. I'm not falling over yet, but teaching requires a clear mind, and using a large amount of magical energy is exhausting."
"I see..." I looked around, paying special attention to the stone bed and the lack of many passages to other rooms in the walls. "Should I... go somewhere?"
"No need," the girl shook her head, turning toward the bed. "You must be tired too. I don't have mattresses or blankets, but it's better than the wasteland above. Lie down wherever you're comfortable," and, without looking in my direction, and with her heart beating a little faster than usual, the sorceress climbed onto the bed and settled on the far side of it, facing the wall, wrapped in her cloak like a blanket.
"Thank you again," I didn't refuse or try to be clever about "I don't need sleep!"
The strange, roughly tanned skins on the stone bed, if they were meant for softness, didn't fulfill their purpose at all; for my current self, this wasn't a problem, but my side couldn't help but note this fact. On the other hand, perhaps they protected against the cold of the stone... I don't know, it's not important.
I also lay down with my back to my companion so as not to unsettle her with my gaze. And although sleep didn't come, lying down and thinking was just what I needed. My first rest in who knows how many hours. My first chance to think in peace and quiet.
Death, rebirth in the body of a Superman clone, Lex Luthor, Superboy, demons, meeting the real Raven... Undoubtedly, the method of throwing a chick out of the nest showed its effectiveness in terms of quick acceptance and adaptation to a new reality, but now that a minute of peace had come... My mind was once again filled with confusion and a whole cavalcade of conflicting thoughts, emotions, and questions, among which (how could it be without it?) was the great "What to do?"
One thing was good: the question "Can I trust her?" regarding the girl behind me didn't arise as something worth considering. From all the sources I knew, Raven was the kind of person who would rather voluntarily go to the scaffold than sacrifice a comrade's life. And even if I was unlucky and she was a cunning deceiver here... I still had no options—either I trusted her, or I tormented myself with paranoia, but still cooperated, since there were no alternatives to escape from here, and if in any case she was my only hope of salvation from Hell, then why torment myself pointlessly? She was the only hope.
So it turned out to be easier to believe in the knowledge of the character's image than to tear my nerves apart, especially since I couldn't influence anything anyway. Besides, I simply wanted to believe her. To believe the only being that could help me. And besides... it was Raven! Who could not love Raven if they watched "Teen Titans"? That's what I think—only a scumbag. But... the question of trust was the least significant of the pressing ones, and my thoughts were haunted by much more troubling concerns...
Meanwhile, on the other side of the bed.
The girl lay with her eyes closed, trying to control her breathing. Inside, everything was trembling, her fingers and toes were shaking with nervous chills, and in the lower part of her abdomen, a strange pulling sensation had settled, which confused her thoughts and made the nervous trembling even stronger. Trying to pull herself together and distract herself, Raven focused on her power, simultaneously preparing a shift into the shadows, a protective dome, and an attack with raw magic. It was difficult and exhausting, but at least somewhat calming, because... it was familiar. Because there was a stranger next to her. But... it was precisely because this stranger was next to her that she was in a state where preparing for battle was perceived as familiar and soothing.
It was strange. Unusual. For the first time in over four years in Hell, she had met someone who didn't try to attack her or force her to reveal her dark side in some other way. This guy, Henry... so... unusual for this place, so human, so... handsome... He had appeared out of nowhere and possessed amazing power. And a complete lack of knowledge. He had accepted her so easily. He wasn't afraid. He didn't grimace in disgust, even though she sensed his essence, and it wasn't evil. It wasn't righteous either, like her mentors in Azarath, but still... He didn't attack when he learned the truth.
And that was precisely why she kept a "combat readiness" set of magical techniques at the ready.
Because that doesn't happen.
Not here.
In this kingdom of violence, treachery, and cruelty, it's impossible... simply unimaginable... absurd to meet someone like that.
There must be some catch!
She had stumbled upon him completely by accident, drawn by the strange noise and uncharacteristic migration of the rock scavengers. And since any strangeness in this place could be a harbinger of big trouble, from which it was far from certain that one could escape or hide, she had gone to see what was happening. And she saw him—the first normal person in many years. The first with normal skin, normal eyes, normal limbs. Dark-haired, blue-eyed... He was about her age. Handsome, as if he had stepped off a fresco in the Azarath theater. His muscles bulged through his tight suit, his hands were covered in demon blood, and he even spoke in her mother's native language, which Raven hadn't heard for even longer than she had lived here.
And he was surrounded by her "brothers'" minions, who were also here, already mocking and anticipating the imminent slaughter. Grinning with self-satisfied smiles, so similar to the one Trigon had given her when he appeared after the summoning ritual, a second before he incinerated her mother...
And she intervened. For some reason...
Without even understanding why.
Perhaps it was some subconscious desire, responding to the hated smirk that had haunted her nightmares for years? A shadow of her former humanity, awakened by the sounds of the language from her mother's homeland? Or... was it hope? That painful, long-dead hope that she seemed to have lost long ago? Now she couldn't even say. But, as is customary in Hell, no good deed goes unpunished. And, trying to save a stranger, she had exposed herself, for which she paid with a brief fight and captivity. But then... The stranger turned out to be a mage, or rather, a strange magical being, apparently artificially created to fight demons. At least, what happened to Velial suggested that. But... he saved her, dealt with Shug, Rascoff, and their entourage in mere moments, and... And he not only looked like a normal person, he treated her like one.
He didn't try to insult her, anger her, or use her in any way. He didn't mock her. He didn't brag. He didn't look at her as a tool and a thing created by Trigon for his needs. He just... just greeted her...
From the tightly closed eyes of the girl, traitorous tears silently slid down, and her breathing once again required especially strong willpower to avoid turning into sobs.
She was so desperately happy to meet at least someone connected to her past life—to her carefree, happy childhood, at least someone she could talk to. She had been alone for so many years, dreamed of seeing a person, hearing a human voice, feeling human warmth. And he... he gave her that. He hugged her. Accepted her. Didn't turn away. It was so... so...
When he said that her past didn't change anything, when he touched her and tried to comfort her... her heart simply burst with pain, but it wasn't the kind of pain she was used to. Not the pain that destroys and breaks, but healing pain. It tore at her whole being, but with it came relief. And also peace... and joy.
But now the euphoria had passed, and the worm of doubt began to gnaw at her mind. Could she really trust Henry? What if this was another trick of Trigon's, a new, more cunning and sophisticated plan? A deception designed to give hope and crush it at its peak, to plunge her soul into despair again?
Raven was so tired of being alone in this hell, she so wanted to talk to someone, to trust someone. Very much. Words couldn't express how desperately she craved such a meeting. And yet, the suspicion nurtured by her past and the faith in others, almost physically crushed by doubts, squeezed her in a vise of uncertainty. And so she couldn't relax, fearing a stab in the back, yet at the same time expecting and almost hoping for it. Because then everything would be so familiar, easy, and simple. And this strange timid feeling in her chest, called hope and faith in the better, would finally go out, freeing her from doubts and fear. But how she wanted not to be wrong again... and finally find someone she could trust.
Exhausted by the day's series of not the most pleasant events, the girl eventually passed out, more from exhaustion than falling into normal sleep. She didn't wait for the blow. And so the next "morning," she continued not to understand what to do, but... the corners of her lips, eternally curved in a frown, for a moment curved into a faint, but still a smile.
In the demonic dimension where Trigon ruled, there was no such thing as the change of day and night. Time here was counted by internal clocks, magic, or fatigue, if there were problems with the first point and you lost track of the passing hours, not catching their flow. My internal clock was surprisingly accurate for a being that easily stepped out of the general flow of seconds for everyone and could live in its own eternally frozen world, and yet even I couldn't vouch for the accuracy of my sensations, according to which more than four weeks had passed since my meeting with Raven.
During this time, I learned quite a few new details about my body. For example, that I could sleep quite well. Sleep, however, came to me not as a result of fatigue, but rather as a consequence of self-hypnosis. Making myself fall asleep was difficult—constant thoughts and excellent physical condition with constant vigor didn't allow me to drift into drowsiness, even if I lay with my eyes closed for three hours. Only control of consciousness, by pushing these thoughts away, consciously detaching from them and other emotions, allowed me to achieve the desired result.
Raven herself taught me this control as the foundation and cornerstone of magic. Meditation, calming the mind, helpful concentration mantras—without all this, according to the girl, it wasn't even worth thinking about taking control of mystical power. The magic of this world was dangerous. Even skilled sorcerers could harm themselves if they made mistakes. In our case with Raven, the situation was aggravated by the demonic nature of our energy. Neither I nor the girl had purely demonic energy, but it still reacted extremely strongly to negative and sharp emotions. It looked like uncontrollable outbursts, the activation of techniques that weren't intended to be used, on things that weren't even thought to be applied to.
It was easier for me—the Kryptonian aura counteracted the "unauthorized" release of energy outward, but Raven vividly and clearly explained what chaotic thinking, amplified by mood swings, could lead to. Stones flying in all directions, exploding rock fragments, spontaneously igniting soil, levitation going crazy and arbitrarily activating, which so eagerly tries to smash your spine by imprinting you into some surface—this is an incomplete list of problems accompanying a mage unable to tame themselves. Moreover, using magic really was exhausting—large outbursts risked sending an overzealous sorcerer into oblivion on the spot.
Therefore, even pureblood demons, in a sense, can boast of quite clear thinking, it's just that their clarity is expressed in constant negativity and emotional arousal of themselves in one narrow vector, without breakdowns in other directions. In other words, demons don't have sudden mood swings—they fiercely hate you always and always want to gut you, without a chance of sudden apathy, bright joy, or tenderness; all their fluctuations are only within one spectrum, without crossing the walls of the emotional "corridor," from which they can be torn apart by their own power. And those who are older simply have more experience in managing magic, so they don't let go of control even with sharp changes in the situation. However, since Raven and I couldn't boast of a couple of hundred years of active practice and "getting the hang of it," we were left with only the method of self-control and meditation.
But I digress, and meanwhile, besides learning how to sleep, I also gained the ability to cut my hair and style it. As it turned out, the aura could easily keep them in one position without any styling gels or other products that prevent the hairstyle from getting messy. A small everyday convenience, but quite important in my realities, since the hair of this body was, on the one hand, long enough for the bangs to sometimes get in my eyes, but on the other hand, not long enough to tie it back with a rubber band. Of course, a normal haircut would perfectly solve this minor misunderstanding, but the properties of the Kryptonian aura in terms of styling were revealed faster than this issue began to really bother me.
Actually, the secret of how Superman shaves, cuts his nails, and all that other stuff, I found out a little later than styling, and it consisted in the fact that you need to fold the aura at a sufficient "depth" so that the hair stops being invulnerable along with the rest of the body. Completely suppressing the aura to become a completely ordinary person was impossible, but weakening the surface strength of the body was possible. Moreover, it wasn't necessary to do this all over the body at once; it was quite possible to deprive one hand of protection while expanding the aura on the scissors taken in the other (from Raven's supplies), thus giving them super-characteristics. And yes, I also learned to normally expand the aura on objects in my hands, so now, if desired, I could fly with a large boulder in my arms without creating any shockwave.
As for the girl with two pairs of eyes, well... she taught me, told me about what was here and how, explained the strengths and weaknesses of specific demons... she was silent.
Raven turned out to be a 100% introvert who likes to be silent and listen, doesn't demand attention, and doesn't feel discomfort from long silences together. At the same time, she was very attentive, sensitive, and... tired. Not physically, although she did need regular sleep and couldn't do without it, but her mental strength was very depleted. She tried not to show it, but she was terribly tired of loneliness and simply blossomed from the fact that I was there and she could talk to me. It might seem, how did you determine that, my dear Henry Cavill (don't disgrace the name, since you've taken it!) and hasty Superman clone, if she ninety-nine and nine-tenths percent of the time carefully maintains a poker face, speaks in a quiet, monotonous voice, and generally the corners of her mouth are always turned down? But... it was felt. How her heartbeat changed; how, inaudible to the human ear but noticeable to me, lively notes appeared in her voice; how her double eyes lit up... Although that's not quite accurate—they always burn, here it's more correct to talk about the tilt of the eyelids, the direction of the gaze, the trembling of the eyelashes... In short, I saw that the girl was desperately tired of being alone and the very presence of a person she could talk to was a joy for her.
And she never once showed me her gray-skinned form with two eyes, which would come to the mind of any DC fan at the name "Raven" first. I didn't pry into why, didn't even stutter that I knew about it, but if you believe the cartoons, when she is in her demonic form (that is, with red skin and four eyes), she is stronger than in her usual form. Considering that she had lived in this world for about four years, I could assume why she was used to walking like this and didn't think about changing her appearance.
And yes, Raven had lived in her father's domains for about four years. Trigon's destruction of Azarath happened when the girl was fourteen; she didn't like to talk about this topic, but I learned the date from her slips. As I learned that her cloak was traditional Azarath clothing, except that it acquired its blue color here, and at the moment of the death of the world that had sheltered her, it was white, like everyone else's around her. In general, all her clothes were enchanted, and the red stones in the gloves and cloak clasp helped in controlling magic, although, according to Raven herself, both the enchantments and the help were more symbolic, protecting the material from damage and dirt, but not helping in battle at all.
And also, about the clothes... To my shame, I must admit that my virtue did not pass the test of these weeks. I would like to say that I resisted for a long time and fought with myself, but... no. When you live in one room with a beautiful girl who, although not the embodiment of hypersexuality, is still very pleasant to the eye and cute, plus you also sleep in the same bed, and you yourself don't even need sleep... In this situation, I gave in very quickly. Almost immediately, as I finally relaxed and realized that sleep wasn't coming, and the anxieties were over, and I could look around.
In short... The "X-ray vision" of the Kryptonians really allowed me to look under the clothes and see everything as if there were no shadows under them. True, there were marks from the elastic and underwear, and that slightly spoiled the picture. Well... It was also possible to look under the skin and muscles. At first, not immediately focusing on the right point, I saw them as if they were all lit up by a lamp. The depth of vision penetration was determined by the focus point on the principle of "looking closer-farther," and at the chosen point, nothing prevented seeing everything in detail and even in very-very small "resolution," naturally allowing to see each speck of dust or hair follicle on the body. Raven and I, by the way, had no hair follicles on our bodies anywhere except the head. And through my own skin, I couldn't see anything, no matter how hard I strained my eyes.
In short, I was ashamed. Or rather... my mind was ashamed, I tried to scold myself, to reason and all that, but emotionally... emotionally I turned out to be quite the scoundrel. This didn't prevent me from restraining myself... most of the time, but I restrained myself exclusively with my mind and upbringing, not with self-perception and sincere shame. Fortunately, when using the ability to see through objects, my eyes began to emit a faint but quite noticeable white light, which disciplined me. And, of course, mental control—self-discipline, without it there was no way...
"Azarath... Metrion... Zinthos..." Sitting in the lotus position on the floor of the cave, I repeated the mantra that the girl had taught me, with my eyes closed, repeating the meditative exercise she had shown me for controlling magical power.
I didn't need to search for energy within myself or learn to consciously direct it somewhere—both were present in me from the moment I acquired it; the exercise allowed me to rather calm it—change the spectrum, filter, tune. And I really felt that during the repetition of the lesson and detachment from the surrounding reality—from sounds, smells, extra thoughts—the magical energy inside me changed, becoming somehow more even and obedient. This feeling was difficult to convey with the words I knew, but it was distinct and clear. And also pleasant. How the magic synchronized with my calmed consciousness, how it took on the properties of serenity and bright contemplation... this acted in reverse on the consciousness, bringing peace to the heart and the feeling that everything was fine. I wouldn't be surprised if it was precisely this practice that allowed Raven to endure so long in a world of total evil and cruelty of her father.
"We need to leave," after some time, Raven's slightly anxious voice pulled me out of meditation.
"Something happened?"
"My father is looking for me. He's found me," the girl carefully but quickly swept away books and other small belongings from different corners of the room with magic, levitating them into a small violet-black portal in front of her.
"Found?" I instantly jumped to my feet. "Is he coming here?"
"Not himself. And yes, he's found me. I can hide from my brothers and other demons, but not from him. He is the master of this dimension, and ever since he awakened my demonic blood, we've been telepathically connected. I can block this connection so I don't hear his voice, but he can still find me through it. Especially in this place," the last of the folios flew into the black surface, and the bedding from the bed flew after it, after which the anomaly in front of the girl collapsed.
"And what do we do? Who will he send?"
"I don't know. It's different every time," Raven's eyes dropped to the floor. "He's teaching me to be a demon this way. To fight. We need to leave this place before the squad arrives. There will be a chase, but by moving to another area of Trigon's kingdom, we can break away and create a new hideout."
"So what are we waiting for?"
"... " The girl silently nodded and moved toward the exit.
We left the cave without incident and had already begun to fly away at the maximum speed Raven could muster, but the hope that everything would be fine deceived us as soon as it formed. First, I sensed with my aura how the magical power around us, quite rarefied but still spread everywhere here, suddenly surged, concentrating precisely along our path of movement, and then events galloped away.
Going into acceleration, I managed to catch Raven and pull her out of the epicenter of whatever was about to happen just as she reached the focus point, but then the breakthrough still happened. It looked like a sudden swelling of the ground beneath us into a huge hill, from which, like from a giant pimple, yellowish pus gushed out. Thousands of cubic meters of pus!
They sprayed into the sky like a stream of water from a hydrant, almost burying us in themselves, and, having reached a height of about fourteen stories in a column, just as suddenly froze into the likeness of a melted candle. A second—and the "candle" shivered, twitched, and grew large black spikes. After which, at the top of this monstrosity, something like a maw opened, from which poured out entanglements of tentacles and eyes with membranous "demonic" wings.
"Abilers," Raven said briefly, getting up from my arms. "Don't let them near you," and, not lagging behind her words, she spewed a diverging cone of magical energy from her left palm toward the wall of creatures.
Ah, so lower demons. Semi-intelligent, alone they pose almost no danger, but they're rarely found alone, leading a pack lifestyle. Their main weapon is the sucker. They attach themselves to the victim, hindering movement, and simultaneously suck out magic. When that runs out... they drink the rest.
I finished the thought, already "burning with a hot gaze" a group of flying eyes. And preparing, if necessary, to go into acceleration, taking the demonic lady with me. Although these things didn't look (and weren't sensed by my aura) as something powerful, but who knows? I remembered how a swarm of fireflies took down Archimonde! Here, of course, it's a different universe, but who knows?!
"Are you sure he's training you and not trying to kill you?!" Burning another cloud, generally about a dozen times four creatures (which, against the natural hordes continuing to fly out of the "tower," was nothing at all), I voiced the pressing question.
Even at a glance, there are several hundred thousand of these flying pests here, if not millions. And no matter how quickly I charred the cloud with ruby beams, the demons scattered in all directions and tried to surround us faster than they were finished off. Raven's "Shadow Beams" were less focused, so they killed more creatures, but they still required a certain concentration from the sorceress, and gradually exhausted her.
"If I start to die, Trigon will give me access to his power. Then I'll survive, but for some time I'll turn into a berserker, possessed by the thirst for destruction, until I can suppress the demonic rage," the sorceress dryly reported new details about what she had to endure, not stopping her attacks on the swarm of monsters, beginning to quickly fly away from them backward.
"Can we escape?" I also began to retreat level with her so we wouldn't be buried under them.
"Only if we kill at least a third of the colony, otherwise they'll drive us into a corner," the sorceress replied.
"Hmm..." I thought again, "slowing down" time.
Kryptonian brains and reflexes are quite the cheat. I don't know if Superman used the ability to calmly think in battle, but I found it extremely useful. So, theoretically, by engaging my acceleration to the maximum and picking up the lady in my arms, I could calmly get away from them, and then the girl would have much more time to hide both of us. But the problem was that, de facto, I had already done this, and the result was weak. Of course, now I was under disguise, and Raven wouldn't sit idle either, but trying what had already shown its ineffectiveness was, to put it mildly, stupid, especially when the expert unambiguously says that we first need to thin out the opponents.
Moreover, Trigon would still know where we were and could easily send the swarm after us again if he decided that the 101st karate move was the wrong training and not cool at all. But if I started an epic battle here using all the power of the Kryptonian organism, it might attract unnecessary attention from the archdemon. On the one hand, if he was watching everything "half-asleep," he might think that his "beloved daughter" had gone berserk and started behaving as a proper demon should, that is, arranged a massacre and slaughter. And that's good, it should be praised and shown that this is the right mindset, that is, to give a "reward," in Raven's case, meaning "not to interfere and not to pull for some time." On the other hand, the old demon might notice that such a massacre was caused by the girl's new friend, and... Here it's unclear how he would react. Maybe, from a demon's point of view, such friends are also useful? Then Trigon is unlikely to worry and get tense about it. But what if he again considers it unsportsmanlike? Do we need that? We don't need that! But if I take her away at acceleration speed, he might decide that his daughter has learned some cool teleportation, and then next time he'll come up with a "lesson" that excludes the possibility of retreat. And losing the chance to escape is more dangerous than the first option. So... we arrange an exterminatus!
After making such a decision, another thought came to my mind, which I didn't hesitate to try. Picking up the girl at acceleration speed, I carried her far away, giving her a head start but not taking her beyond the horizon, then darted back and grabbed one of the "flying eyeballs"... to attach it to my arm.
"Henry!" Raven exclaimed in alarm when I returned to her and into the general flow of time.
"It's okay, I want to check something!" I explained my actions, stopping her with a wave of my hand.
And I began to observe the demon. It didn't let me down and tried to do... something. From my point of view, it looked like some... um, spike that tried to pierce my aura and latch onto something inside me. And at first, it even succeeded, and I felt as if my strength was being drained from me. Not at the level of a deflating balloon, but with a large water-filled bag in which a tiny little hole had been poked, it was comparable. And, as with Velial, my "Kryptonian aura" quickly figured out the negative effect and... cut off the attempt to attach. But that was just the beginning. I felt how my body adapted to the demon's "probe," which continued to try to reconnect to my powers.
Soon it succeeded, and the demon's "energy jaws" were cynically drained. As a result, the "flying eye" shrank and fell off as a dried mummy. And in my head, frames from one movie in cult dubbing automatically appeared. You know, where "You fucking bastard, motherfucker, come here, you dog shit, decided to come at me? You stinking piece of shit, motherfucker, huh? Come here, try to fuck me, I'll fuck you myself, bastard." Well, honestly, my aura behaved exactly like that—it vampirized the vampire itself.
"Um?" Raven saw this too.
"It choked," I shrugged. "But now I have an idea! Hey, flying asses! Come here! I'm tasty!" And, taking a run-up, I flew into the very thick of the demons.
They lived up to my expectations and came to devour me themselves. It's just that the adapted Kryptonian aura was not to their teeth; moreover, it dutifully "drank" the bastards, and the further it went, the faster and more efficiently. The stupid lower ones couldn't realize this and continued to kill themselves against me with the purposefulness of lemming-suicides. As a result, after about thirty minutes, it was all over, and I felt that now I had a little more mana, and the aura had become somehow stronger. Not by the total power of the "flying eyeballs," but perhaps five, or even ten percent compared to my past self, I had added. And that was nice.
"You... you..." The sorceress's eye twitched. The lower right one.
"What? That was the fastest way! If we fought them, we wouldn't have had enough strength, but this way they killed themselves..."
"That was dangerous and very risky!"
"Well, I first checked that my body could handle them," I objected to the girl.
"And if they had a cumulative effect? Or mutual reinforcement? If they formed a 'star' and hit five or ten times harder! Could you have withstood that?!"
"Um..." A belated squad of goosebumps walked down my spine at the realization of how I could have flown in. "I didn't know... Sorry."
"Okay..." She sighed. "After all, you still know very little about magic... But don't do that again," and, looking at my face (and sighing heavily again), Raven corrected herself: "Or discuss such adventures with me."
"I promise," I nodded. "And thank you for your concern. When a beautiful girl worries about you—it's very nice."
"Let's leave this place as quickly as possible," Raven turned away, carefully "not noticing" my attempt to make a compliment and flatter.
"Okay," I agreed amiably.
As a result, we had to fly quite far: although the enemy was destroyed, according to the girl, such losses in manpower would please "Dad," who might indeed think that Raven fully used her demonic power, but at the same time, it could attract unnecessary attention from other lower-ranking demons. In general, the situation in the region promised to be too "tense" for a quiet, peaceful bookworm, which the sorceress wants to be. So we "strategically regrouped" for several hours, leaving between us and the battle site a total of no less than five hundred kilometers, or even more. However, with space in this dimension, it was complicated, so the real distance could be either much less or much more.
The new place for the "lair" was a hilly "forest," as much as this concept correlates with a landscape more suitable for some "biopunk" than a normal world. In the sense that you can't immediately determine whether it's organic or normal rock? In short, having chosen a sufficiently sturdy rock, Raven proceeded to create a hideout.
The first stage involved creating a cave, and quite a clever creation—at that: the girl recited some chants and somehow particularly intricately "flashed" magic, as a result of which the walls of the hill we had chosen retreated on their own, creating a cavity. I suggested simply cutting out the rock, but the girl didn't approve of the idea: not only would such a method leave behind a lot of debris, which would definitely give away the new hideout, but it would also "kill" or severely damage the rock, so that it would feel somehow completely different in local perception, and everyone would know that there was something there. So I could only morally support the sorceress while she literally cast spells over our future home.
After creating the cavity and the already familiar furnishings from the previous hideout, the next stage began: additional enchantment and the application of concealing spells, designed to finally smooth out the "magic disturbances" and not only give the modified rock its original appearance, but also additionally shield the created interior space, which would allow us to relax a bit and not maintain the concealment spells (or not worry about the charge of the concealing amulet, as in my case). All this took several more hours. And by the end of the "construction work," the girl looked frankly not very good.
"There... Done," she sighed tiredly, closing her eyes. And began to fall forward.
"Raven!" I rushed to her, catching the girl and not letting her fall.
As the examination conducted (to the best of my abilities and the rules of decency) together with the magical "intuition" showed, everything was normal with the sorceress, if we don't count general fatigue and magical exhaustion—I almost didn't sense in the girl that "thing" which I had become accustomed to constantly sensing in her. But no other problems were found by me. Apparently, she overdid it and passed out. It's no wonder—she had carved out and enchanted a fairly large cave, even if it was still "one room," not counting a couple of nooks. And before that, there was a long flight, and she had also managed to fight, even if only a little, but still. In short, nothing serious, apparently, and all she needed was a little rest. But...
I looked around our hideout.
The girl didn't have time to unload her things, so the only comfort here was the stone "bed," made of a smooth stone slab, somewhat resembling, if you think about it, an altar for all sorts of ominous sacrifices. That is, just a "stone block," a modernized version, huge. And resting on such a thing wouldn't be very comfortable. I would even say very uncomfortable. And... in short... thinking a little...
In short, I laid Raven on my lap, having first sat down on the stone bed myself. Of course, she had a cloak, and it could be used as a bedding, but undressing the girl seemed excessive, and taking off my own clothes to lay her down seemed even stupider. And, well, embracing a beauty whose appearance wasn't particularly spoiled even by two rows of eyes, I was not at all against it. And when the sweetly snoring sorceress also snuggled closer in search of additional warmth and, possibly, greater softness... In short, despite not the best premises, I liked this situation. So I happily embraced the beauty snuggling up to me and, kissing her on the crown of her head, closed my eyes—a little meditation was a good idea to keep my mind from wandering to thoughts about where else I could kiss the sleeping beauty. Besides, there was nothing else to do now, so why not?