Industrial Strength Magic

Chapter 105: A magical Night

Heather was eating a pre-ball snack to tide her over, while Perry explained some of his security system.

“So I went and install a dart launcher in the ceiling of the venue. If you or I make finger guns at someone, the machine will see that and dart them.”

“Dart them with what, tranquilizers?” Heather asked, stuffing another cracker in her mouth.

“A demonic blood-contract.”

“Mmm,” she grunted, nodding.

“Taadaa!” Nat’s voice came from the changing room, prompting the two of them to crane their necks to look.

Heather gave a sharp inhale that caused her to start coughing cracker bits across the floor, while Perry’s jaw hit the floor.

Nat’s dress toed the line between erotic and classy, with a dip in the front that accentuated the generous swell of her chest, while the fabric of the dress itself seemed to cling to her backside in a way that hinted at exactly what was in there.

The fabric was black and iridescent, making her look something like a sexy raven in human form. The mox feathers somehow solved the problem of shadows on black fabric, accentuating her figure and the glow of the iridescence.

The dress struck with orders of magnitude more impact than any of the coveralls they’d seen her wear before.

Nat frowned, glancing between the coughing Heather and silent Perry as the lack of response stretched out.

“Do you guys not like it?” she asked, her body language shifting in an instant from confident to embarrassed.

“Your beauty has stunned us into silence,” Perry said.

“R-really?”

Heather nodded, eyes watering as she coughed the last bits of cracker out.

“Good, you guys look great too!”

Heather was wearing a green dress that made her hair pop like the wick of a candle. The Mox feather woven into the fabric ensured that she looked even more like a supermodel than she already did, her dress conforming to all the right places.

Perry was wearing an Earth tux that he’d given some subtle Manitian design alterations that would be a nod to his dual citizenship.

“Eh, she’s alright,” Perry said with a shrug. “Dibs on the first dance with Nat.”

“You…suck,” Heather rasped before taking a drink of water to clear her throat.

“Aww, don’t be mean to Heather,” Nat said, giving the taller girl a hug. Heather shot him a victorious grin over Nat’s shoulder.

‘First dance.’ Perry mouthed at her while grabbing his magnetic reader from the workbench.

“Hold still a moment, I wanna make sure your dress is booting up properly,” Perry said.

“Booting up?” Nat said, glancing at him from the corner of her eye while he pressed the reader against the small of her back.

“Yeah, the dress was installed with some basic machine learning to allow the contracting fibers to get to know each other and your movements. Right now it’s still just figuring out it’s neural net and what is connected to what, but by midnight it should be ready to operate at full capacity. Full capacity being about three thousand newtons of force.”

Three thousand newtons was just a bit more than a boxer’s punch. It wasn’t car-crushing levels of force, but Perry was working with a dress material about as thick as typical velvet, so it was pretty good all things considered.

“Ooh, is that distributed or per-part?” Natalie asked, looking down at her dress with excitement.

“Bit of a hybrid,” Perry said, motioning for Heather to turn around and checking her boot progress with the magnetic reader. “Minimum boost of five hundred newtons on all parts of the dress concurrently with a floating overclock that would allow temporary boosts up to three thousand for individual actions, like a punch or a jump.”

“Sweeeet!” Nat said, grinning. “Jeez, I would’ve loved to work on this with you, but the surprise was good, too.”

“Does mine make me strong too?” Heather asked.

“No, yours is designed not to suffer wardrobe malfunction when you turn into a liquid or bounce around the ceiling, and repair itself when you turn into a sea-urchin and stab spines through the dress. Couldn’t have both types of fibers, unfortunately.”

“Fair enough,” Heather said with a shrug.

“Oh, by the way, your dresses have a Bargand’s Favor woven into the fabric. If there is an emergency, tap the crook of your left elbow with your fingertips three times. That will apply the temporary tattoo, turn on our communicators and locators, and put the venue into lockdown. I don’t expect anything to go wrong, but you never know.”

“Got it,” Heather said, while Nat nodded.

Perry checked his tux, which was operating within expected parameters, then he checked his watch and took a deep breath to calm his nerves.

“Alright, the cab should be here any second now,” He said. “Let’s go do this thing.”

He felt a small arm wind around his own as Nat took his arm before looping her left arm through Heather’s.

She looked up at the two of them innocently.

“I’m sorry Perry, I don’t think I’ll be wearing this dress long enough for it to calibrate.”

“Oh, that’s fine,” Perry said as he patted her arm. “It’ll pick up again next time you wear it.”

“BAHAHAH!” Heather erupted into raucous laughter, and Nat joined in, giggling as the three of them headed out of Perry’s lair and onto the street.

The asphalt of the street was lit by a single, lonely lamp, casting a narrow pool of light at the very edge of the motel’s parking lot.

“So…cab?” Heather asked, scanning the deserted parking lot.

“Wait for it…” Perry said.

“Wait for wha-“ Heather was interrupted by Nat grabbing her arm and letting out an involuntary squeak of excitement.

Clip clop, clip clop, clip clop.

A single beautiful white stallion with a gracefully curved ivory horn cantered down the street, pulling a glittering carriage that seemed like it’d been carved out of pure opal.

“Oh. My. God.” Natalie whispered.

“Sometimes I forget you’re a magical prince,” Heather murmured.

They looked at Perry disbelievingly as the carriage came to a halt at the edge of the curb.

“Go ahead,” Perry said, motioning towards the carriage.

The sheer fantastical nature of it had penetrated Heather’s carefully crafted tough-girl façade and she let out a cry of excitement as she and Nat raced up to the carriage and climbed in.

“It’s bigger on the inside!” Nat’s voice emanated from the door of the carriage.

Perry sidled up to the unicorn while Nat and Heather were distracted.

“Thanks dude. That was perfect dramatic timing.”

“Beats selling my own shit like Dave.” Paul The Cabby Unicorn said, appraising him with a critical eye. “Just keep that dramatic timing in mind when you’re signing for the tip, buddy. Now get in the carriage, I got other fares tonight.”

Perry nodded and climbed into the enchanted carriage. It was bigger on the inside, with long bench-seats with plenty of room to sprawl out, much like a limousine.

The carved opal of the cavernous space was upholstered with rich red velvet stuffed with downy softness, and lit by drops of light that seemed to drip from the opal stalactites above them, lighting the area with a gentle throbbing reminiscent of a heartbeat.

There was a bed for long trips in the back of the carriage, which Nat was bouncing on with a manic grin while Heather continued to scan the opalescent carriage in stunned silence.

“You guys are gonna wanna take a seat,” Perry said, settling down in one of the bench seats beside the window. “At least for take-off.”

“Take off?” Nat said, eyes widening. “Take off!?”

Perry motioned Natalie over to the window and plopped her down on his lap so she was tall enough to see outside.

Clip Clop Clip Clop Clip Clop

There was a gentle lurch, and the wheels of the carriage burst into phantasmal fire before they began to rise gently above the ground, turning towards the north as the carriage wove between the towering skyscrapers of Franklin City.

“Whaaaaaaaaa….” Heather’s voice trembled as she looked down at the street far below them. All three of them had their fair share of flying, but floating high above the street in a magical carriage pulled by a mythical beast was an entirely different experience.

“It actually works by magically applying the bouyancy of the fire to the carriage itsel-“

“Ssshhhhh,” Natalie said, holding a finger to his lips.

An electric heartbeat passed between them before Nat twisted in his lap and replaced the ‘shushing’ finger with her own lips, pressing him back into the soft velvet headrest.

Perry gave Heather a thumb’s up behind Nat’s back.

Heather’s eyes narrowed.

‘it’s on’ she mouthed at him.

***One magical Carriage ride later***

“Behold!” Perry said, spreading his arms wide to encompass the massive palace on the corner of Settler’s Drive and Oddball.

Heather scanned the crush of people and Manitians of every variety winding their way into the building as she helped Natalie keep her feet on the stairs out of the carriage.

“Was this here earlier?” Heather asked as Nat wobbled beside her. “I recognize the open market over there, but…Oddball street?”

“It was not here earlier, very perceptive. Gramma thought this would be a good place to host it because it’s on the border of Funkytown and the rest of Franklin City, and the obelisk there is a good landmark.” Perry pointed out the monument to everyone who’d been left behind on Manita when they’d fled to Earth.

They’d actually had the graffiti cleaned off of it for the occasion.

“She added…an entire street?”

“Yup, let’s go in,” Perry said before leading them to join the stream of attendees entering the building.

The entryway was huge, big enough to accommodate species of every shape and size. And it did.

Perry could see several Morkops, those elongated yeti-looking fellows, along with some Orglaf, the naked mole-rat people. There were also more popular fantasy creatures, like vampires. The clingy bastards.

There were of course ‘humans’ all over the place, albeit manitian humans, which, while very, very close, weren’t technically human. And the occasional Earth human, usually either friends or work acquaintances of a manitian.

After a minute of slowly advancing forward in the line, They met with the crier who announced people as they arrived.

“Invitation, please.”

Perry slipped him the invite, along with a gold coin.

The half-siren’s eyes widened, but he didn’t argue with the note on the invite.

“Announcing the Tinker, Lady Natalie Smith, and her consorts, Lady Heather Skinner, and Sir Paradox Zauberer!” The man bellowed, his voice ringing through the entire ballroom more clearly than a P.A. system.

Matter of fact, there was actually a spell one could make using siren vocal chords. Not that Perry was going to do it. It just existed.

He re-emerged from his brief thoughts to witness everyone in the ballroom turn to face the door with the utmost confusion. You could hear the swish of fancy dresses and the shuffle of fancy shoes.

Then Perry and Heather broke into a cackle as they guided Nat toward the tables, where everyone was mingling pre-dance.

It wasn’t long before the annoyances of hosting a ball began to make themselves apparent. Several of them in fact.

“Cousin!” George Frepon said as he approached with his half-dozen brothers and sisters, including a few active magical supes. Every single one of them was tall, handsome and blonde, in diminishing height by age, all the way down to the eleven-year-old Rodney, who was actually about the same height as Nat.

“I’d heard you were mischievous, but to think you’d play a prank on everyone by asserting that she was the…umm…” He glanced down at Nat, with Perry and Heather on either side of her, looking up at him curiously.

“…Anyway, aren’t you going to introduce us?”

Perry choked back a sigh and did so.

“Heather, Natalie,” Perry said, pointing. “This is George, Mary, Francine, Thomas, Reginald, Ellanore, and Rodney Frepon. They represent the majority of my second cousins.”

The other three were too young to attend.

“I thought the Zauberer line was..” Heather blew a raspberry and let her wrist go limp.

“Second cousins.” Perry said. “My maternal grandfather’s brother’s grandchildren.” Perry should’ve made plans to deal with them, but unfortunately their disruptions weren’t egregious enough to dart them.

Perry glanced at the dart launcher hidden in the ceiling.

He was tempted though.

“Nice to meet you, George, Ellanore, Francine, Thomas, Reginald, Mary, and Rodney.” Natalie said, curtsying each of them in manitian fashion.

Rodney blushed and hid behind his sister.

“I like her,” George said, a smile growing on his face.

“We got dibs,” Heather said, causing George’s smile to turn into a frown of confusion.

“Anyway, we’ve been watching the news recently,” Ellanore said, the second-oldest cousin taking a half-step forward. “You’ve been doing quite well for someone of your…condition.” Ellanore was a part-time cape with the name Moonlight Flash. She specialized in flashing people in the moonlight. Or something of that nature. Perry was too sour at her to follow her career. “It seems as though you’ve taken after your father.”

“Thanks,” Perry said. For insinuating that I’m a magic-less cripple.

“That reminds me,” George said, raising a finger like it had just occurred to him, when this entire charade had been at least partially planned out in advance.

Politics is a lot like pro wrestling, now that I think of it.

“We were talking, the seven of us, and we came to the conclusion that your grandmother never would’ve thrown this ball if she didn’t have great news, and she never would’ve invited you if you were still Dull.”

George made a smug face. “So we think this is her attempt to show off your new magic and make a splash.”

“Wow, my grandmother is really predictable to people with your condition. You’re absolutely correct.” Perry said, only allowing the tiniest amount of sarcasm to enter his tone.

Pretty sure George heard it though.

“Well, we haven’t got all night, can you give us a demonstration, or are you waiting for an announcement?”

Light

4/5

A pale white light sprung up above Perry’s finger.

“And that’s about all I can do right now.”

George’s expression went from stunned to confused to incredulous to highly amused.

“What, was a glow-worm spirit the ony thing they could fit in there!?” the sixteen-year old Francine asked, prompting the rest of her family to give polite twitters.

“It was Abun’Zaul,” Perry said with a grin.

A moment later, they all burst into gales of laughter, Perry included. They were laughing because they thought it was a joke. Perry was laughing because they were a joke.

“My god, Perry, if nothing else, your handicap has sharpened your sense of humor.” George said, throwing an arm over Perrys shoulder and steering him away from his friends. “If you really had Abun’Zaul in you, you would have a target on your back the size of Franklin city. That spirit is the Zauberer’s most valuable relic. Absolutely priceless.” He lowered his voice and locked his gaze with Perry’s. “Even my father would be tempted.”

“Good thing it isn’t, because Attunement high enough to contain Abun’zaul doesn’t exist. And if it did…Such a person could accidentally wipe out any evidence your family existed at all.” Perry said.

“Is that a threat, little Paradox?”

“It couldn’t be a threat, because I don’t have Abun’Zaul inside me…but if I did…would it really be a good idea to try and take it away?” Perry asked quietly.

“I looked into that demon you fought while you were in Washington city. The local mages there sent word that the demon didn’t die from being impaled. Demons, even low-class Earth-bound ones, typically don’t die from physical damage. It died because something aggressively consumed its soul from the inside out.” George whispered, his voice barely audible.

“Now this particular species was a soul-eater. Do you think it got a taste of something it didn’t like?” George’s face was less than an inch away from Perry’s.

Perry turned his head and planted a wet smooch on George’s cheek, causing his cousin to reel backwards, wiping the saliva off like it was battery acid.

“Who knows?” Perry said with an innocent smile as George schooled his expression back to neutral.

“Well, enjoy your night, Paradox,” George said with a bow. “I’m proud of your accomplishment and I look forward to you mastering more of the essences granted by your spirit. Whatever it may be.”

“I give it about a month, take a lot of practice, you know.” Perry said with a shrug.

George nodded and returned to his siblings. A moment later the gaggle of irritants followed their oldest brother towards the dance floor.

Perry turned to where he left the girls, and froze.

In the fifteen seconds his back was turned, Heather and Nat had disappeared.

Perry checked his watch and realized it was five minutes later. George had roofied him with some kind of time-perception spell, and the girls had gotten bored and wandered off.

I gotta find them before Heather snipes the first dance. If she hasn’t already.

“And now, the man of the hour, Paradox Zauberer would like to give a prepared statement.”

An intensely bright spotlight landed on Perry as the ballroom floor beneath him rose up, creating a stage that everyone could see from any point in the ballroom.

Goddamnit, Gramma. Perry thought, pasting a smile on his face. The game was on.