Books books books books books and more books. Zaheer was running an underground operation at this point, having left the airport and a shade to follow the others from a distance. Fromanzio was active coordinator to the dozens of Jinn stealing spell tomes from wherever they could find them.
Zaheer had acquired the small apartment before leaving for London. A small transaction he was easily able to afford, he simply used transmutation to make a large quantity of gold. The retailer did not question him.
"The loading and unloading dock is full right now, please wait for a book representative to accomidate yo-I SAID WAIT! DO NOT MAKE FROMANZIO RIP YOU TO SHREDS!"
Fromanzio was less than thrilled with his new duty, but Zaheer was impossible to approach when he was reading. The left pile was discarded books that were either finished or had nothing worthwhile inside and many Jinn were working to return said tomes.
"Just like old times again." Fromanzio sighed. One of the tomes caught his attention. "Ohhh! Master, lookie here! One of the Jinn found a book on Thaumaturgy!" Fromanzio rushed over to the hooded mage's side and excitedly bounced with it stuck out. If Zaheer started using those spells, things would explode in a beautiful mist! Fromanzio couldn't wait to see that. Zaheer was so much more interesting compared to his other masters in that regard.
As Zaheer reached out to grab his next tome from Fromanzio, he suddenly found himself floating out in what he could only describe as a flaming ball of death. Strangely, instead of being instantly incinerated and forced to revert to his more powerful Ascended form, Zaheer was perfectly fine. His hoodie was even perfectly unharmed. He let the hood down, revealing his plain bald head, a singular snake tattoo running down the back of his tan head.
Something was strange here, someone wanted him. That or he was being imprisoned for something. That last one bothered him because this wasn't a cage he would likely be getting out of. Zaheer was slightly nervous as he yelled "If this is about those humans I incinerated a few years back, that was an accident I swear!"
"There have been worse emergences unto our stage."
Behind Zaheer, was a suit of armor in a wizard's cloak, both very large. There were odd markings adorning the creature, and no skin, in place was a metal mask. On it, were the magical incants representing law and order
The creature 'stood' or floated rather, at something like ten feet. "We needed to speak to you, and I figured that you'd enjoy the view, your obsession with power, now you get to see more than you could create. And if you play nice, that last part could change."
Zaheer stood still, looking at the burning planet to his right and the sun to his left. He sighed. This wasn't a punishment, the other Ascended were finally recognizing him to a degree. This was bad. He wasn't ready for them yet, not enough power and without Richard or Lucius to help him, the creature behind him could easily rip him to shreds.
"You have been watching me then?" Zaheer began. "I suppose I should have checked better for spies. When I saw the Roman go after Richard instead of myself, I figured I was in the clear. Guess not."
Zaheer kept his eyes on Mercury. Quite a sight to behold. The power to create something like that was far beyond him for now, but the secrets these people held...could prove to change that.
"What is it you want then? Wouldn't want to waste your time I suppose."
"Spies? Really? We don't need to spy to see what happens on Earth." The Creature 'walked' over and pointed down to the planet "I want to make you able to do that, if you agree to cooperate with us. See, we don't mind you being immature and disagreeable-that's your business."
"You know Richard Fortnight, yes? Follow his example. See, we're rather tied up with other business, so we need you all working together nice and tight. But don't worry, the Faction takes care of loyal employees. You work for us, we make you able to do it better... and then if you just so happen to enjoy those benefits personally... all the better for anybody."
Zaheer did indeed know who Richard Fortnight was. The Roman was going to be taking quite a bit of that poor bastard's time. Didn't he have a girlfriend? Would suck to be her Zaheer supposed. Ascended don't waste time on family, might not be long before Richard goes eons without seeing her. Either way, Zaheer didn't have time to waste jumping through their hoops.
"And I assume that comes with thousands of years of mindless service. I don't have time for that. That said, what you guys do is interesting to say the least. I will agree to this under one pretense. I am sure you are aware of my work yes?"
Zaheer turned and faced what he figured was the police of the Ascended. Seemed the most likely anyway. Most books didn't go into specifics beyond the three most important. "There is a certain demon who has been ignoring me for quite some time. The weapons forger, Azazel. If I do this, I want an audience with him under the assumption he will make something for me. Will this work for your order?"
The creature laughed "Children are so cute. You won't have any thousand year missions, we just need you to help Richard keep the fort down on Earth. If you agree to our deal and let us have a little more time do do what we need, we'll get you whatever cap pistol you want."
Zaheer wasn't amused. The Ascended was toying with him. Who did he think he was? Zaheer wanted even less now to cooperate with these self righteous power dealers. Still, if he kept his cool, it would work out.
"I don't want a ""Cap pistol"". I want something more important to me. If Azazel can craft a weapon capable of splitting a planet in two, I am sure he could make me an object capable of granting me knowledge of every spell known to demons, angels, and whatever else their influence reaches. It would prove an excellent starting place for me to expand upon. I assume by "keep the fort", you mean you want Arzhaela and whatever else comes along dead or sealed. I would normally chose to leave that to others, but as long as there is something more rewarding than a few more humans living their short lives out, I will be happy to help. I already know where Richard is. He is about to have to deal with a rather large army poised to ruin his week."
Zaheer put out his hand to the creature. "Shake on my deal and consider him perfectly safe."
Zaheer was honestly curious as to why they needed him for this, Richard was more than capable of handeling this. He supposed it might be more towards keeping the others safe. He could do that.
The Judge chuckled "I'm a Judge of the Arbitrators. If I want you to jump, you better follow the law on how high. Look, I'm sure this all seems very arbitrary-hah- to you, and I don't care what you think of it. Help the Humans, I'll give you a spellbook to start out, good old and unique." The creature reached into it's billowing cloak and held out a heavy looking tome with seemingly no effort at all, the thing was the size of a full dictionary. It also had script on the front in a language Zaheer had never even seen before.
Zaheer looked at the book and scratched his head. It looked like Azazel would be on his own perogative. Which raised another question. Although it seemed he was pretty much without options. "I have two questions, one, how am I supposed to read that, two, why are the Ascended so concerned with humans?"
The Judge looked at Zaheer "You're still in your teenage stage? Really? I think I got to deal with you as spite from the others. Is this because I broke up with Sara back when I was trying to screw Cleopatra? Look. You want power, to us you're like a child, and I'm trusting you with the equivalent of a crossbow. If you can't figure out how to use it, then that's not exactly our problem. What do you care about our reasons anyway?"
Zaheer sighed. More work for him, though he supposed it would be worth it. He could get a few of the Jinn under his employ to research it while he was away. "Simple intrigue really. You don't have to answer. I will find out on my own soon enough anyway."
The Judge chuckled again "We care for Humanity. You wouldn't understand why, not yet. Eventually, maybe you might."
Zaheer laughed along with the Judge. "Perhaps. Now I request you send me back so I can rip that horde from the inside out. I have a particular demon who will be very excited to let loose for a bit."
The Judge shrugged "Try not to cause too much damage, we kinda need to keep SOME people liking us down there, and London happens to be where some of them live."
"If you would like, I could turn the zombies into lolipops and have the Jinn hand them out to all the kiddies. Not as fun as making them all com-bust, but it would be entertaining to see the PIA's reaction to it."
The Judge shrugged "Focus on something else, if you can find it. I'm sure Fortnight can take some shamblers." The Creature then walked between the sun and Zaheer "Have you ever fallen from orbit before?"
Zaheer had a look of pure annoyance with the Judge. This might hurt a tiny bit. "Can't say I have. Guess I am about to find out."
"Call it a learning experience."
The Judge smiled to Zaheer, and before the younger Ascended could say anything, he found a blur of gravitational and physical forces he couldn't even label twisting and cycloning around him. Looking around, he noted the patterns.
He now understood how Richard pulled a few of the stunts he pulled during the plane battle.
As he turned his decidedly non-physical perception in the direction he noticed he was going unreasonably fast, he already saw Earth approaching. Doing a quick stint of math, he figured he was going somethingl like 2c. Beam him up, Scotty. Now he had to slow down before he obliterated the planet he was supposed to protect, as he was calculating his spells, he suddenly felt a horrible sensation, like he was vomitting out his entire being, multidimensional and all, then it was vomitting actual vomit out. He'd come to a complete stop-the only thing within this quarter of the galaxy at objective stop. Noting the physical impossibility he was committing, he felt Earth's gravity apologetically try to help him down. Lovely.
For the first time, he could actually SEE conventionally what was going on. He noted that a Human would feel like it was beautiful. Briefly he wondered if he could get a girl to see this-it'd be a good trick to play for favor. Looking behind him, he saw the Judge watching. Zaheer could practically FEEL the humor of the creature. Then he could only feel the very odd sensation of being weightless despite the fact that he was getting put at extremely high velocities. Looking at his three dimensional form, he noted that suddenly he was a very low-mass ball of supersolid force. Looking at the ground, he noticed that he was about to land in a small crowd of zombies outside of London. Benefits of multidimensional sight included high velocity comprehension. His impact was remarkably low-damage, he hit like a cannon ball and the small pack of undead was obliterated. Stumbling up from the odd experience of pain and nausea being felt for the first time in years, he noticed he had some brains. And liquefied bones. And liquified many things on him. "Lovely."
Zaheer had no time to waste with whatever those things were. He wasn't instructed to pay attention to them and the Judge probably wanted to piss him off even more by ruining his clothes. Zaheer burned the liquified zombie off of him and teleported to his library.
Fromanzio stood still at Zaheer's desk. His master left, to do something...without him! "Unforgivable! Absolutely unacceptable! Fromanzio is not a secretary to leave at home while master goes off to do fun things without him! He isn't even wearing an apron! The nerve of some people!"
Fromanzio turned to see a terrified Jinn below him. Normally Jinn were proud, but Fromanzio and Zaheer easily outclassed them and used them for spies and errand boys. Their invisibility and shape shifting proved extraordinarily useful in that regard. Fromanzio turned his hand into a sharp bunch of claws and ripped the demon in half. A black ichor clumping on the ground quickly vaporizing and returning to Zaheer who had now teleported behind Fromanzio.
"What did I say about killing my servants Fromanzio?"
"But master! You left and did fun things without your dear friend! Fromanzio can smell the burning corpse on you! What did you do without Fromanzio! He must know!"
"I got summoned by the Ascended. They want me to help get rid of Arzhaela." Zaheer slapped the tome on the desk. "This is their payment." Zaheer ordered the Jinn to do as much research on his book as possible and several shades quickly grabbed it, leaving to go talk to individual masters, all of which Zaheer had talked to a few years back. He didn't summon them to do cartwheels for him and they used their vast knowledge to help him identify things. Quite a nice deal for all involved.
Looking through the eyes of his Jinn spying on the group, he figured Fromanzio could gather information from the human agent while he talked to Richard. Could be funny to see the thing's reaction.
Zaheer teleported in front of Richard and sent Fromanzio to his destination with a message. Get some information from John. "We are working together now Richard. Get over it and tell me what you know because the faster we get done with this, the sooner I can get back to my research."
While Zaheer butted in on Richard, Fromanzio took a slower approach with John. Everywhere around the agent, the lights started to flicker. A voice too familiar to the agent started to permeate the air. "Johnny boyyyyy it is I, your old business partnerrrrrrrr. Bwooooooooo."
