Chapter 10

(October 22 2015)

The evening news was filled with reports about me. Apparently, Ghost Spider was not exactly a rookie like me and had been active for quite sometime. Hence most of the report was about me and speculations about my power. The public's reaction was mixed, to say the least. While a majority of people supported me, there were people, mainly the antimutant community and of course and triple J, calling me a menace to society and calling for my arrest.

Simultaneously, a government official also released a statement asking me to stepforward and register as an enforcer for the government inexchange for being sponsored by them. Frankly I wasn't surprised. Despite having the Avengers on speed dial, the Avengers didn't really answer to the government, but rather to SHIELD which answers only to the world security council, hence not exactly American. As such they had been trying very hard to start a superhero team of their own, which would solely be loyal to the United States government.

"Turn it down please. " Carl practically hissed as he ate another mouth full of meatloaf. He was increasingly more agitated and we all knew why. Both Carl and his wife was an avid supporter of the senator Robert Edward Kelly, the figurehead of antimutant activists.

" I swear these freaks keep coming out of the woodwork. Why don't they just lock those animals up already. I mean the Senator already....." He slept on droning and I simply chose to ignore his words as I kept OK eating my meal.

{Flashback}

My neck still felt sore after the hug Kamala had given me when I finally approached her. She had given me the mother of all bear hugs upon seeing me. After a what seemed like ages, she let go of me, chastising me for giving her a heart attack. I had promised to make it to her as we began searching for the others.

The search didn'tast long as we found all three of them not far from us, apparently trying to look for us as well. I looked at Peter with an amused expression as the man lied through his teeth about what he was doing. What surprised me though, was Gwen doing the same thing. I could tell because she was stumbling over her words and was bejng rather vague. As for Felicia, I watched as she calmly told us about how she hid inside one of the supply closets on the second floor. The way she had said it made it seem that she was telling the truth yet I still remembered our mysterious saviour and how she had similar hair as the girl infront of me. It made my doubt her words despite not having any other evidence other than the two of them having similar hair to one another. Still, they was no point in pressing her, aside from blowing my cover as Valor.

We all went our separate ways after finding our belingings, but not before I exchange numbers with Kamala who had finally managed to get a phone of her own with the promise of visiting her at Jersey sometime.

{End of Flashback}

I eventually managed to finish my meal which allowed me to leave even as Carl continued his rant. I honestly didn't care what Carl thought about my other persona nor anyone else for that matter. I acted because I was worried about my friends not to seek the approval of people I don't even know.

Besides I had better things to worry about. Namely flying. I had managed to improve my Mastery of the levitation spells but I still found it a little lacking in some areas, mainly speed. Though maybe I'm a bit too underwhelmed since I was more familiar with how fast people like Iron man and captain marvel are able fly. When I had shared my dilemma with Madam Han, she had simply instructed me to continue my training and that I'd find what I was looking for in the later chapters of the grimoire. Which now leads me to the second set of problems I was currently facing.

I had gathered early on that I needed to meet certain requirements to access more chapters. The first few chapters needed me to unlock my mana. The next one needed me to dispel the rune. And I had a sneaking suspicion that the next requirement is to master one particular spell. Here lies the problem.

While I called it a spell, it was more like a discipline. It was called the Mana Wind Breathing Technique . It was a technique created my ancient socerors after researching several martial artists and their Mastery over their chi. Many martial art styles had a breathing technique that stimulated their core leading them to temporarily create more chi within them. The Mana Wind Technique was created by extensively researching this phenomenon. The key difference between this and its martial arts counterpart is that the martial arts version was designed to increase production of chi, which is created from the life energy inside someone whereas the Mana Wind Technique absorbs mana from the surroundings at an incredibly fast rate surpassing even the mana potions. It was an extremely useful thing to know especially if I find myself in a place with low mana density. Which would hinder my natural mana intake severely. Though the process itself is quite dangerous as interupting it would purge the user of all of his mana causing them to faint from mana depletion.

Even master socerers have trouble with this mainly because it is derived from martial arts which is quite different from magic. And I was no different.

At the moment, I barely could manipulate the mana around me to that extent. As I had been accustomed to focusing them more onto the foci than on myself.

Perhaps that was the reason why I found myself back in Forest Park. I needed a change in scenery. I hadn't returned ever since my run in with Doom and instead had been training over at Madam Han's. But now, I needed more space to check the full extent of my power.

I started by enchanting myself with a levitation spell before slowly floating upwards while trying to maintain my balance. Everything was going well until I reached the 20ft mark, where I began to feel lightheaded as I was still unaccustomed to this height. As such I stopped my ascent and simply remained still in an attempt to get used to height I was at. This had been more or less how my training had gone past few days. Turns out the heroes were simply making flying look easy while infact, it actually was a lot of work especially for a novice mage like me. I mean we can't all have Cloaks of Levitation who does the heavy lifting unlike a certain Socerer Supreme.😑😒

After getting accustomed to the height, I managed to float up another foot and a half when I started running out of mana at which point I began descending back down. Despite all my efforts to keep my landing elegant and graceful, I stumbled and almost fell on my face. Thankfully there was no one else there to me like this. Or so I thought.

The first thing I heard was a branch snapping and almost immediately, I was on alert with the arma, ready to summon a weapon as I didn't have enough to bring out my staff. Tense silence then fell on the surroundings as I attempted to pinpoint who or what had made that noise to no avail. As such, I was forced to tap into what little mana I had left and use [Sight] to find the elusive intruder and what I saw shocking.

Usually mana from living things came in bright colors colors and shades. Representing the life energy that they are composed of. However, whoever was stalking me had black strands of mana coursing through him. And it was enough for me to know what it was. A demon.

As realisation hit me, I began slowly inching away from it, hoping to run and evade it. However, the moment I moved, I heard something charging at me. In a split second I summoned Lux just as a shadow leapt at me. I slashed at it, only guided by my instinct. The creature howled in pain as its momentum was still able to knock me down at the cost of burying Lux deeper inside it. As the creature stood on top of me, all I could see was its silhouette under the darkness of the night. That was until I felt a warm liquid drip on to me just before the creature let out a roar in anger and swiped at face only me to raise my other hand causing its attack to hit it instead. If this had happened a few months ago, I would have been scared shitless. However, I was not the girl who was helpless to defend herself anymore. No I had spent my blood, sweat and tears so that I would never have to experience that again. And that was why I was going to take ths thing down myself.

I ignored the searing pain in my arm as I twisted the blade still embedded inside the demon causing it to wince it pain. I used that opportunity to flip the creature over me, making it fall onto its back before promptly getting up myself. The creature followed soon after, it's ember like eyes glaring at me with hatred. It was at this time that I properly caught a glimpse of the demon. It was humanoid despite being on its fours, it had pitch black skin with a head that looked like a cross between a goat and an alligator.

It dug its claws into the ground before its body tensed like a prowling tiger. In response, I took a combat ready stance, with Lux outstretched with and with my now injured arms behind me for balance. Based on what had transpires up to this point, it was clear that the demon infront of me was either a fledgling, recently born or just a weaker version of its species. Its physical capabilities didn't seem to surpass that of an ordinary mountain lion yet despite the secondary enchantments on Lux which was designed to be used against familiar, spirits and even demons, the demon in question didn't seem too fazed with the injuries I had given it.

Unfortunately, I couldn't really think out this particular conundrum for long as the demon lunged at me, and in response I sidestepped gracefully with Lux swinging at a upward, diagonal angle that inched closer to the demon who was still in midair. The blade managed to make a cut near the side of its torso as the demon finally hit the ground with painful howl before swinging its claws at me in an arc. I managed to block it just in time with Lux but its actions continue to puzzle me. Getting cut with Lux should have been like adding salt to a wound for the demons. Yet aside from the initial reaction, it was treating the cut as if it was just a scratch.

The demon used my monetary distraction to swing its free claw at my side, catching me in the abdomen leaving me with three relatively deep gashes. The attack also left me unbalanced which the demon took advantage of by hitting me in the face with the back of its hand, the impact sending me flying several feet, causing me to let go of Lux as I hit the ground facing away from the creature.

The footsteps that followed made me realise that the demon was now swiftly approaching for its kill and I rolled out of the way just in time as loud thud followed soon after that seemed to slightly crater the ground. I stopped, with now facing the demons would appeared to have tried to impale me with its claws while I was helpless on the ground.

With it still recovering from its attack, I saw the perfect opportunity to try and end this. I summoned Icon before hurling it at the demon, aiming for its eyes. It seemed to be success as the demon began violently trashing around and trying to remove Icon which was embedded where one of its eyes should be. Seeing this, I proceeded with the second phase of the plan as I began casting the spell. A red rune appeared on the blade, along with a white one.

The two runes floated around the blade before becoming static at a finally finished casting the spell. Almost immediately, a small explosion occured around the blade, sending blood all around its epicenter. Smoke obscured the demons face and when it dispersed, I saw it standing with half of its head now missing before it fell onto the ground lifeless. I quickly scurried onto my feet and retrieved Lux just incase the creature was playing possum but after a few moments, it's corpse began disintegrating, which was all but confirmation of its demise. I breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing that.

The spell or rather spells I used were not really powerful. At least not by themselves. I first cast a delayed fire spell and around it, I cast a wind spell designed to compress air around the dagger. What followed next was simple physics as when I activated the fire spell, it ignited the oxygen within the compressed pocket of air around the dagger. This combined with the magic enhancing property of Uru resulted in a small localised explosion which caused the demon's demise.

I was about to dispel Lux when I heard more footsteps approaching my location. I turned around and to my horror, I saw a group of demons like the one I had just dispatched approaching. I clutched Lux as my situation turned bleak and the creatures kept on reducing the distance between us.

That was until a sigil began glowing under them much to my surprise. This caused them freeze on the spot before their bodies began convulsing in pain. Shortly after that, they too disintegrated like the one I had taken down.

"Are you hurt?" I heard a voice behind me and I turned around to find a floating man wearing a set of blue robes as well as a familiar cloak. It took me less than a moment to realise who this was. He was one of the people who had saved me from Doom, the man who is considered as the Socerer Supreme.

Dr Strange.