Much later, John was happily snug in a non-euclidean section of the Shadowcrest library, [[Scanning]] Magical text after text.
Things had gone great! Especially with Sindella Dear's help, since she offered to straighten out whatever that mess outside was turning into.
And that was double awesome, because John did NOT want to go out into the madness that he totally was NOT responsible for.
The newly Crafted structures and cars and stuff that had replaced all the damaged beyond repair original junk? Not his issue anymore. And good luck convincing some insurance agency that your house burned down when by all appearances it was now of HIGHER quality than when the properties were purchased.
The regrown parks, cleaned up side alleys (All sorts of tasty junk had just been left around in piles! Who does that!?), the suspiciously replaced no-longer-lead water mains underground? John had made a list, and she had confirmed that she would let the various people know if anyone freaked out about that stuff.
…And yes, for the record: People were freaking out about all the cleaned areas.
Apparently some of the filthy areas he had fixed up were like, part of New York's charm? Or cultural heritage? Which was news to him, and made him double glad he had focused only on fixing up the broken stuff he had stumbled over instead of rebuilding this entire city or whatever.
Not to mention the new stuff… Especially the numerous new animal care facilities filled with all the cured and saved creatures John had stumbled upon and gathered up during the chaos. There were apparently laws and building codes and stuff that did NOT appreciate a whole bunch of unknown facilities being Crafted overnight, and that was a massive mountain of paperwork all on its own!
Well, now they now technically belong to the Zatara family. So they could handle it, hopefully.
…Wait, had he told Sindella Dear about that? "Hey, Zatanna…"
The girl looked up from her dino egg, held in her lap. "Hmm?"
John set aside the most recent book he had just [[Scanned]]. "Did I mention at dinner that I altered a whole bunch of online documentation to pass ownership of a few locations and businesses to your family's portfolio?"
She stared at him. "No. And doing something like that would be illegal. VERY illegal."
Huh? Oh! OH… Oops? "Well, never mind then."
Zatanna's eyebrow was up. "John?"
Ignore her tone, get back to [[Scanning]] books! "On a completely unrelated note, can I hide…" Oops. "I mean, can I do some research here for a few days? Like, without leaving Shadowcrest?"
Because even here, under the protective embrace of Zatanna's {{Home}}, John could FEEL somethings without eyes trying to seek him out.
Well, not him directly, the intentions were more towards 'The idiot causing all this madness', but John was thankfully self aware to the point of realizing that yes, he was probably the target of all those seekers.
Which was good! Because a good number of those unseen watchers were Magical matrices, aka: Spells!
And he needed more samples of that stuff!
…Slight downside though. John could TASTE some higher level energies mixed in with the mortal works. In between the cameras and the remote scrying attempts and demonic hauntings and all that, something with Divinity (or at least the CONCEPT of Divinity) was ALSO poking about.
Shouldn't be that big of an issue after a few days though. Hopefully.
On the other hand? If things got too messy, he could always just rely on reality offering more transportation suggestions. Or leave this Realm entirely, as a last resort.
Zatanna went back to hugging her massive dino egg. "Don't you do anything that John does, you hear me? I don't want MY familiar to become an internationally pursued hooligan, thank you very much!"
Now THAT was a thought! "The famous Zatara dinosaur familiar, the reptile of mystery and wonder… She could be called the 'Larceny Rex' or 'The Robber Baron-saur', and collect delicious things to snack on like I do!"
His friend didn't hesitate as she glared at him. "No."
John hummed. "Maybe she could be a con artist? The Dapper Swindlesaur?"
The anger in those eyes was growing. "John. No. My egg baby won't do anything bad like that! They will be cool and collected and..."
Heh! "The Suave Swagosaur?" Ooh! "Wait, they could be 'The Debonair Dino-Dandy'!"
Zatanna blinked at that. "I'm sorry, what?"
Hell yes! "Oh, haven't you heard? The Debonair Dino-Dandy is a dinosaur of exceptional elegance, charm, and cunning!"
Wait, he'd need some props for this… Right, Craft some stuff up. "With an impeccable fashion sense reminiscent of a bygone era, The Debonair Dino-Dandy is often adorned with accessories like a monocle that glints mischievously…"
This one was a bit modified honestly, and the material was closer to transparent steel than glass, and maybe he had imbued the entire mess with a few Concepts of Observation and Truth and Discovery and whatnot… It should work for this.
He handed it over as he grinned! "...Also, also! They'd wear a suave bowtie that perfectly complements its scales, so I guess I need to make it easy to let it stay clean and alter its coloration… And perhaps even a tiny top hat perched at a jaunty angle!"
Yes! The TINIEST of jaunty hats! "Not just one hat though, like a bunch of options! A captains hat and a pirate one, maybe some chef toque, that's the tall white one that they wear in those kitchens on TV…"
And a fireman's hat and a divers helmet and a miners hard hat and some accessories from road work crews and a flower crown and…
~~~Pocket System~~~
Zatanna watched as her impossible friend just started giggling to himself while a growing number of brightly covered hats slowly built up into a larger and larger mound.
…John might not be entirely sane. "Don't you listen to him, little one. You should only wear stuff like that if you WANT to, not because other people think it is funny or whatever… Although, it might be cute…"
And suddenly John was RIGHT THERE in her face, carefully placing a bright pink baby bonnet somehow on the top of the dinosaur egg. "Here we go, perfect! And I have this fake pacifier too, with some double sided tape on it… We can just stick it to the shell and the Egg-Baby would be ready to go! Oh WAIT, it would need a diaper, right? Not to prevent messes or whatever, but more for the look I mean…"
…Well, honestly that WOULD be pretty cute.
Yet no! She'd stay strong! "The bonnet is enough, thank you John."
He stared at her, still holding the pacifier… Then at the egg… And back at her, looking lost. "But… Don't babies need pacifiers?"
Was he pouting? "It keeps them quieter by letting them have something to keep their mouths busy." She held up her egg. "This is an egg. No mouth. No pacifier."
John slumped a little. "But I mean, after it's born, I think it will have super sharp teeth or something even if it normally eats insects. Any pacifier I make THEN will either be chewed apart immediately or be too strong and maybe hurt their mouth…"
She blinked at that… And took in how disappointed he looked right now… Sigh.
Fine. "Here, give me that thing." She took the pacifier and popped it onto the eggshell. "There."
John grinned like a madman! "And now the…"
Nope. "No diapers."
"Aww…. Well then, can I at least push the stroller a bit?"
The what now? "What stroll… WHY DO YOU HAVE ALL THAT STUFF!?"
John blinked, covered in baby paraphernalia. "Why wouldn't I? Now, where do you need the egg warming crib nest? I have one themed for this library and a few for the other rooms…"
What!? "Weren't you studying magic books just now!? And asking to squat in our library to avoid the consequences of your actions!? When did you even have TIME to get all this stuff together!?"
The annoying boy shrugged, pulling out even MORE junk! "Meh, I can multitask."
~~~Pocket System~~~
Sindella glanced at the magical surveillance of her little darling being exasperated… "I'm glad she's having fun with her friend… Even if he has accidentally ruined my evening plans."
Her husband snorted. "He's dropped a massive mountain of complications on our home for dessert… Though I do appreciate him letting us handle this mess instead of just wandering around some more causing even GRANDER feats of chaos. But he's far too quick with those baby goods! He needs to BACK AWAY from my little girl! Can't he read books from some OTHER branch of the library? One a few dozen rows further away from my baby!"
She snickered at his overprotective rant. "No matter how old he looks, John is almost astonishingly innocent with his desires and goals… I doubt he even bothers with subterfuge or deceit."
After all, with power levels like his… Why bother?
Anyway, that wasn't the issue right now. "I've separated the incidents that he provided me into a number of categories, but we still need to gather short summaries of each incident so I know what to prioritize."
Gesturing at the paper documents, they began numbering themselves. "Each stack starts with a a letter, each page is an incident and is marked with a number. Help me better organize this mess so I can make sure nothing horrendous happens while I am busy putting out the tiny fires John accidentally started."
And there were a NUMBER of them from what she could tell.
People and creatures casually transferred from one location to another, properties vanishing or being changed entirely with something massively modified, arguments from owners and renters and everyone in between about who was responsible and which contracts were invalidated and… Hmm. "When will our lawyers arrive to help with the legal side of all this?"
Her husband grunted, checking something. "Another hour, traffic is horrendous now that so many roads are repaired… The change is causing backups and paranoia."
Well, that was annoying… But it would allow them to have extra time to get a handle on all this. "I think we should focus first on the people and creatures that have been brought here from places NOT local, the ones that might be from other dimensional versions of New York. Both to settle the new immigrants and to verify the animals aren't sick with something contagious."
After all, a property owner trying to evict tenants because their shithole apartment complex was actually WORTH something now was an issue that was less urgently dire compared to potential plagues or accidental interdimensional kidnapping.
~~~Pocket System~~~
Grace watched a live video stream of John cheerfully decorating the library with even more baby related celebratory festivities. "Have any of your agents managed to come up with a workaround, Mistress?"
Jessica grunted over her work interface. "No. Whatever reality does when it 'guides' John around to hide him seems almost absolute. The Pocket System is essentially the core of my brother entirely at this point, so it should NOT be possible for it to ever 'lose track' of him when [[Stepping]] around."
It would be like turning left instead of right when going to the grocery store and accidentally losing track of your skeletal system. "At the very least, any disconnect between John and this place should have DIRE consequences… So the fact that everything is fine means that we are missing something. Something big."
At the other end of the virtual table, Temptation snorted. "The Pocket isn't losing track of Master. It can't, that'd be silly… No, WE are."
That caught Grace's attention. "What do you mean?"
Temptation shrugged. "When our Master [[Steps]] somewhere using reality's hints, he avoids all attention… Even ours, despite us being WITHIN him as he moves. Whatever reality is doing, it causes us to just… Not recognize that we can see, hear, and contact John until we 'catch up'. If you look at the data logs, you can see us all freaking out over 'losing connection' while John is happily wandering about on our monitors like usual."
What!? "That can't be true!" Quick, pull up the logs and… "Oh dear…"
Jessica on the other hand groaned. "No WONDER we can't fix the problem… There ISN'T an issue with John or his modules! WE are the ones unable to connect facts and reality until reality allows it."
Temptation grinned! "Yep! Our master's pretty amazing! And from what I can tell, the only reason WE are able to eventually REALIZE what is going on is thanks to us being here, inside the Essence of our master and the core of his being. Anything out there is going to stay confused for a really REALLY long time, apparently."
Jessica's eye was twitching. "YOUR master. John is YOUR master. He's just my little brother, thank you very much."
The black temptress waved that off as minor details compared to the overall issue… And Jessica grumbled some more, even as she went back to reassigning agents away from this particular issue.
Grace kept examining data… "Unfortunately I think this ability is too dependent on the good will of the local Realm's reality for us to deliberately duplicate the effect for other security modules… But at least we know there isn't a risk of him somehow being stranded or disconnected from all this…"
She paused when a SPYRAL agent dashed in with an eager grin and a report, passing it to a bemused Jessica Doe and standing to one side… "Was I wrong? Did one of the research teams manage to…"
Jessica's grin was growing slightly manic. "They think they've cracked Magic."
Temptation blinked. "What, we scanned enough spells and stuff to cast junk?"
John's sister kept reading the report in eagerness. "No, more than that… They think they've managed to decode the core principles entirely. Not just limited to local abilities and resources, or to magic and spells…"
"They think they've defined actual M̙̮̭͖͕͚a͔̙̗͙̖͇̪̝͚̺g̼̫͕̲̳̥̯̱̥̟͓͖̙̟i̲̬̟͙̱͎̺̪͎͈̘̫̻c̤̣̲͚̦͔̳͍̻̜̯!"
…Oh.
That DID seem to be a big deal.
