Chapter 83: Welcome to Bayville

1st September 2005, Bayville

(Jasmine Sayre POV)

It was Monday morning and as usual, I was driving from my cottage to my job. I was in my car, a black 1967 Chevy Impala, definitely one of my favorite cars. I modified it slightly, for my own comfort to be honest; the car was nigh unbreakable, was enchanted to fly and turn invisible on command. It also powered entirely by magic; the fuel tank had a rune that constantly conjures petrol and vanishes the exhaust fumes. It was pretty tricky to do it, especially because of the automatic electromagnet field generated in places with a saturation of magic and the possibility of the car gaining some kind of limited sentience but I had a long time to practice, hence the masterpiece I am currently driving.

I hadn’t had a good night sleep; I kept dreaming of my time in Greece, with Hestia. It’s been a long time since I dared to think of her. I spent a couple of centuries mourning her. But at least she wasn’t dead, and I hope that she is happy in the Olympus Realm. I was lost and broken after the ascension of the Olympian. I spend decades just roaming around, doing nothing, until I found myself in Nepal. I don’t know if I meant to go there, I had barely used magic during my journey but perhaps I was subconsciously wanting to go to a place where I could heal, where broken people go to get fixed, perhaps I was hoping to move on, to feel happy on day. But when I found myself in front of the doors of Kamar Taj, I didn’t hesitate and entered.

I threw myself in the studies of sorcery, something that I neglected after the fall of Atlantis. Truth be told, I realized how little I was doing before going there. I fought against unspeakable opponents, Gods and Demons alike and for the first time, I understood how little I mattered in the large tapestry of fate, how powerless I really am in the face of such power. I thought myself invincible, unbreakable. I was wrong, I was an ant fighting monsters. I became a symbol of power and magic, I was the most powerful defender of humanity, demons quivered at the mention of my name. They called me a goddess of magic behind my back. It made some sick sort of sense; I was calling myself Hecate back then. It was that period that I was the most active as Death’s hunter; there was so many idiots experimenting with their souls like it was some toy which resulted in some rather disturbing results and even an actual eldritch abomination once.

But I wasn’t a fighter by nature, I was a scholar. Hence my time was mostly spent studying and theorizing and it was when I experimented some very obscure and dangerous magics that I realized my most powerful enemy, time.

Traveling back in time is possible in one or two ways, I had to either be an observer or be part of the events themselves. It’s not possible to change the past; it has already happened; you can only be a part of it. And I was a part of it, I was unknowingly a figure of history. And it had to happen in a way with no paradoxes or changes; time always wanted to right itself. Should I change something from its destined path, the universe itself will fight back using every dirty trick it could. It would make absurd things happen by manipulating their probabilities.

My presence in the past was a necessity as I have roles in history, but I could feel it was a reluctant one. When I became sorcerer supreme and studied the eye of Agamotto, also known as the time stone, I realized that the stone was unenthusiastic to work with me. It’s difficult to explain, it was like it was resisting somehow. Magical artifacts tend to develop a certain sentience over time, it’s extremely limited but it can oppose to a wielder. The eye of Agamotto held an infinity stone, something far more powerful than simple magic which allowed the artifact to develop some sort of personality.

It didn’t matter as the stone kept resisting me. Perhaps it was because of my jaunt through time, hence my potential to rip reality apart or perhaps it was because I am the chosen wielder of the soul stone, although I lost it when Olympus fell, and infinity stones do not like to share.

After a few centuries, I passed my title as the sorcerer supreme to young master of the mystic arts called Cagliostro. The kid was bright and an academic at heart. However, he was a monster on the battlefield. A very wise man for his age.

My time in Kamar Taj helped me heal from my heartbreak and gave me a new lease in life. The immediate proof of how many times earth was being targeted by outside forces, grounded me. It gave me a mission; to protect this world.

When I was traveling outside Rome in the second century, I came across a ritual that was taking place. A witch, was trying to sacrifice the countless souls of Rome to cure herself of her curse. The witch was powerful but she was also desperate. She was born with the innate ability of absorbing souls to live but couldn’t control it. Her soul was fundamentally different, constantly needing a supply of soul energy, having to feed on a new person every few years to survive. I had no choice and stopped the ritual; it was against the natural law, not that it would have worked anyway. I guess that’s what desperation does to someone. When I did stop it, the residents of Rome realized what had happened and attacked the witch. I saved her from getting burned alive. It was only then that I realized who she was. Selene.

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She was another immortal, and she too suffered the same loneliness. When she asked me who I was, I had no answer; Morrigan was a name of legends, a name that instilled fear in the hearts of men, even back then. I answered with the first name to come up in my head, Medusa. I had abandoned this name when I lost Hestia and it was quite disconcerting to be honest.

It didn’t take long for us to live together. For the first time in centuries, I had a home. We told each other stories, shared our experiences, our hopes and dreams. I ended up telling her my real name; I couldn’t handle someone calling me Medusa for too long. Memories of Hestia haunted me at the mere mention of that name.

We helped each other. She kept me grounded and I helped her control her gift. Her ability was at its heart a spell, or more accurately an always active bloodline limit, like parseltongue and metamorphs, but it was based on soul magic instead of blood magic. It was mainly because of her birth somehow. From my analysis, someone had performed a ritual during her birth that made her absorb the soul of her mother. It was an attempt at creating some sort of super witch with immense power. Unfortunately, the ritual ruptured her soul. Her energy was leaking and she needed a constant supplies of life force to survive.

The absorption ability was at its core, Selene’s magic trying to save her somehow. It was instinctive and it was always on. She couldn’t touch someone without killing them. She stayed alone for thousands of years. That was until she met me. I was undoubtably one of the most knowledgeable people on the topic of soul magic in the world. I devised a small runic artifact to temporarily seal her soul, hence stopping her need for soul energy. I then slowly taught her how to control the magic, as to not kill everyone she touches.

The artifact I made wasn’t some kind of cheat to her abilities. No matter how powerful it is, her soul was still leaking. I needed to teach her proper soul magic so that she could patch up her soul. It was painfully slow but fifteen centuries later she had a powerful soul, although she had a very powerful lifeforce from the thousands of people she had feasted on; she needed an obscene amount of lifeforce to survive and there was still a lot left when her soul was healed. She still could steal someone’s lifeforce but refrained from doing so too much in risk of straining her already fragile soul. She still sometimes used it as an attack spell to knock out her opponents.

We spent centuries together, only staying apart when I either had a mission from Death or a role in Time; after I properly honed my senses, I could somewhat make of what they needed me to do. I was very spiteful of this because it sometimes took me centuries away from Selene to fulfill my mission and it almost always ended up with me getting attached to mortals and losing them, whether to old age or simply to some sort of senseless violence.

Speaking of Selene, we got progressively closer over the years. I genuinely don’t know when our friendship started to turn into a romantic relationship and I’m glad today that it was explicit. I would have probably refused, afraid of getting hurt again, scared from losing her like I did Hestia. Even now, thoughts of my first love still hurts me. My relationship with Selene started subtly but became without a doubt, the greatest thing that ever happened to me.

Selene was someone that challenged me, someone that even after thousands of years of life kept surprising me, especially with her ambition. She joined her little club of business tycoons that pretty much rules the world. I gave her control of my company, Marvel Corp., where she was partnered with my Morgan Evanshade persona, ruling one of the most successful entertainment companies in the world, be it movies, books, comics, TV or newspapers. She left most of the boring stuff for Alfred to do, but she was always involved in politics.

Although, for some reason she changed her usual clothes for something a lot more risqué at home; Selene stood around five feet nine with long black hair loose to the small of her back, a fit trim body encased in a leather corset and leggings, and crimson colored lipstick standing out sharply on her pale features. To look at her one would think she was a young woman, around twenty five or so, with a rather unhealthy dominatrix fetish. I truly regret showing her those bondage videos; she became obsessed with them. Thank God that she didn’t where that when we go out in public.

I stop my train of thought when I arrive at my destination; Bayville High where I have worked as a teacher in the last three years. I got out and entered the school, ignoring the high school boys gaping at me. I knew I was attractive but this was getting ridiculous. I get inside my usual classroom and wait for the students to enter.

My first class were the senior students, who held some of my more troublesome students but mainly the reason of my stay here, Jean Grey, the Pheonix Force avatar. The mess with Fawkes pretty much guaranteed a dark phoenix avatar should Jean awaken without my help. Not that Xavier’s meddling is helping, I tried fixing things discreetly using telepathy but it was only a few days later that Xavier tightened his mental binding on her powers even more so. I refrained from doing so again but I was running out of time; I would have to reveal myself to her to start training her properly. Honestly, the girl was a mess. Her emotions didn’t make any sense, which was purely Xavier’s fault and she kept making choices that are influenced by the telepathic thoughts of the others around her.

I sigh, I needed to take care of it soon. Anyway, I had a lesson to start, “Hello, for those who don’t know me, my name is Jasmine Sayre, you may call me Ms. Sayre and I’ll be your history teacher this year.”