Merlin laughed without bothering to look at Elder Wu, leaning herself against his desk. "I like her," she said, picking up one of the many pictures of Aperio littering the desk of the Vampire. "Doesn't give a single fuck about what they think."

"She is causing undue chaos," he replied with a sigh. "I've already fielded no less than ten calls from our friends in the White house.” Elder Wu glared at his phone. "We should never have told them about us. Office of Supernatural Affairs, my ass."

"If we hadn’t told them, Benjamin would have," Merlin said with a shrug. "And you can't say that the office doesn't help us. It's as old as this country and has always been there when we needed it. Sadly, this moment is out of both our control and theirs, so a-looking for a scapegoat they go."

"They probably want to know if we know anything," Wu replied, "which we do. If I said no, they'd know I'm lying, and I really don't want to explain to them that the woman who just appeared on TV is the very reason magic exists on this world in the first place."

"Oh, please do tell them. In fact, if you don't I might." Merlin laughed. "They would try so hard to get her. It would be hilarious!"

"You know as well as I do that they wouldn't even believe us if we told them what she is." Wu leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes for a moment before he pulled open one of the many drawers in his desk to retrieve a bottle of blood from it. "This situation is gonna kill my entire stock."

"You own and operate more than one blood bank. I doubt a few bottles here and there will make so much as a dent in your reserves." She shook her head. "It's not like this is still the eighteen hundreds, where Benjamin would zap you whenever you dared to drink blood."

"I hated that man," the old Vampire mumbled, taking a sip from his glass. "The only good thing he did was founding the office." He huffed. "I also don't own those blood banks, I sponsor them. Indirectly, of course."

"Same difference," Merlin replied, waving him off. "Point is that you will have more than enough. It doesn't matter either, as we have to deal with the office first. They won't get to her on their own and we have to tell them something."

Merlin shook her head and pushed herself away from the desk she had still been leaning on. "I wasn't joking that I would tell them, by the way. I don't care if they believe me or not, but I sure hope they do. The mental image of their agents running around trying to get close to her is hilarious."

"You really only do things because they seem fun to you," Elder Wu said with a sigh, not moving in his chair. "We are at the brink of what amounts to an apocalypse, powerless to stop it, and you only wish to sow the seeds of more chaos."

Merlin gave Wu two thumbs up and a smile. "Yep."

"Seems like your meeting with Aperio has finally pushed you over the edge and into proper insanity."

"It did not," Merlin replied indignantly. "All she did was make it very clear that my methods are shit, and that I am not allowed to use them on anyone but myself." Not that that would work, anyway.

Her rather unique method of immortality came with more than a few catches that made the whole ordeal rather annoying. Though, with the prospect of more mana on the table, in the future she might not have to make as many bodies in fear of failure. Not only that, but she could restart the process of actually furthering her own strength. Making a body that can hold more mana naturally also takes more mana. The current one she occupied was only as good as it was because she had used some of her last crystals to fuel its creation.

"So, in essence, she gave you a stern warning." Elder Wu gave a half-hearted laugh. "Guess the mother part of 'All-Mother' is accurate after all."

"It wasn't a motherly scolding," Merlin replied, walking around the desk and towards the door. "More like… bad mafia boss, I guess? Plenty intimidating, but not because of what she said. Rather, because I am sure I can only imagine the tiniest bit of what she can actually do."

Wu took another swig of the blood, letting out a long sigh afterwards. "Well," he began as he leaned forward to place his glass onto his desk, "we know for certain that she is an expert at throwing the world into chaos."

"Don't be so negative about it," Merlin said, wagging a finger at the man. "We have tried to make this exact situation happen for centuries now. Our plans simply never involved making others our equals. Mostly because we thought it was basically impossible, but still."

The old Vampire remained quiet for a moment as he pulled various pieces of paper from the drawers on his desk and placed them on it. He shuffled them around, bringing them into some semblance of order that only made sense to him. After another minute, he reached into one of the various piles he had made and retrieved a rather thick set of papers loosely bound with a red string.

"Not impossible," he said, placing the papers at the end of the desk closest to Merlin. "Just very costly. The amount of mana required to forcefully attune someone to it is, frankly, ridiculous. There might be other methods, but we never found those and gave up further research attempts when the mana began to grow thin sometime in the fourteen hundreds."

"Well, it might be time to start trying again." Merlin shrugged and walked back to the desk, grabbing the papers Elder Wu had gotten for her. "Or we just wait until our newly returned overlord decides that the rest can get their magic now. Only a matter of time before she does that anyway."

///

Aperio tugged at one of the straps of her bikini before she adjusted the bag slung across her shoulder. She let her gaze wander over the beach she now found herself at, only a little annoyed at the fact that she had to carry their things and could not simply pull them out of her Void. Should've just stuck with my dress, she thought to herself, doing her best to not bring out her wings. That would've been more comfortable.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

The beach itself was decently full, a good number of Humans lounging about in the sun or swimming in the rather large river that likely gave the city its name. And enough non-humans to make us not stand out. Probably. Aperio was still herself, so a good chunk of any mortal’s attention would drift her way at one point or another regardless, but it should be fine for the time being.

"It's been a long while since I have had a day at the beach," Caethya said. Her love stretched herself, letting out a satisfied sigh. "Finally, we actually get to relax a little."

"Do we really?" Aperio asked, showing her love all the mortals who currently could think of nothing better but to stare at them. "At least a few of those will come to bother us, I reckon."

"I am pretty sure they won't," Eleanor chipped in, stepping past the two Elves and moving towards a mostly empty section of the beach. "Most people will be too scared to try."

The All-Mother could not help but smile at the words. While she usually did not like the fact that her presence scared people, today it would be a most welcome boon. Until more of those suited mortals come. Ever since her appearance at 'The Standoff,' as it had come to be called, there was a certain set of mortals that were trying to get to her. The only thing that connected them was the fact that they carried a golden badge bearing the letters 'OSA'; something that made them stand out everywhere they went. To Aperio, at least. Would be nice if they said what that stands for, though.

So far, she had taken to simply teleporting them random places whenever they got too close, then tracking them once she set them loose. It had not revealed much as they promptly went back to their task, only using a phone to send a message that was nothing more than gibberish to Aperio away.

Sometimes they would sneakily hide a device before moving on to the next location, presumably to spy on the people there. Whenever they did that, she usually also let said device fall on their head before teleporting them and their gadget away. None of them seemed to too happy about that happening, but Aperio hoped that they would learn at one point or another that she did not want to be followed. Maybe I should teleport them into one of their prisons to drive the point home?

"You'd think that," Caethya said, taking Aperio's hand and leading the All-Mother along, "but you underestimate what lengths people are willing to go to. Plus, it's only a matter of time before they make the connection between her and Earth's first hero. They did find the pictures of her in Riverburg fairly quickly, after all."

"I do not have wings, so I cannot possibly be that person," Aperio said as she looked down at her love. "Plus, I am at the beach with my girlfriend while an uncountable number of crimes are being committed. A true hero would stop them all, no?"

"Pretty sure the number is perfectly countable." Caethya smiled at the All-Mother. "But I am also certain that most of those are none of our business. And the ones that are…"

"I am taking care of those who cannot wait for everyone to gain their powers to begin their career in evil."

Eleanor stopped, unfurling the towel she had been carrying under her arm and placing it on the ground. "And now," she said, sitting down, "it's time to do nothing!"

Aperio followed suit, reaching into the bag she carried and pulling out two towels that were thrown perfectly onto the sand with a flick of her wrist. Eleanor shook her head at that, but the All-Mother paid her no mind, instead lying down and letting out a long breath. "I want to sleep."

"Want, or need?" Eleanor asked.

"Want," Aperio clarified, shifting slightly as Caethya laid herself down next to her. "I do not need to sleep, but I find it enjoyable nonetheless. It affords me a brief respite from juggling, well, everything." She hesitated for a moment. "Exhausting is the wrong word, but preventing myself from perceiving everything does get a little tiring… Maybe boring is a better word?

"That is also not quite right," the All-Mother admitted, tilting her head despite the fact that she was lying down. She stared into the sun, squinting slightly to better focus on its ever-shifting surface. "Annoyed is probably the best descriptor."

///

For a moment, Eleanor wanted to tell Aperio that staring directly at the sun was a bad idea, but that thought was quickly dismissed. The woman could probably walk on, swim through, or hover in it; whichever of those options was correct for the surface of a star. Maybe I can convince her to try that?

The mortal mage closed her eyes and shook her head in an effort to clear it. When vision returned to her, she saw Caethya shifting around a little before using the All-Mother's stomach as a pillow. Neither of them seemed to mind the looks they were getting, having started to chat in that infuriatingly incomprehensible language of theirs.

How can they be this unbothered by everything? she asked herself, tugging at the various magics she had cast beforehand to make sure nobody broke into her home while she was gone. Maybe all of this did actually tire her?

As far as Eleanor could tell, Aperio had brought more mana to Riverburg alone than had been on the entire planet before. And that was only the initial wave. Ever since then, the level of ambient mana had been steadily climbing; enough that she was starting to worry that the normals might notice soon. Not that that mattered much after the All-Mother's appearance on TV.

The idea that she would go undiscovered here on the beach was more than a little silly. Simply hiding her wings and not wearing her dress only removed two striking features, leaving her perfectly recognisable. Her height alone makes her distinct... Her build and the ears don't help, either.

Eleanor let out a sigh and laid down on her own towel, doing her best to avoid thinking about the literal Goddess lounging behind her as well as the myriad changes happening all over the world, not to mention those that were still to come. She could not even begin to fathom what a world in which everyone had magic might look like, but what she did know was that conflict would be a large part of it, at least in the beginning. There were too many people on Earth with grand ideas they were willing to die for, for the change to happen peacefully. The council itself held more than a few such people.

Let's just hope Aperio helps with that, she thought to herself as an ethereal giggle came from the All-Mother.