Kevin Curry
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Devils' consultancy 10
🕑 Added 2024-07-29 14:00:13 +0000 UTCThe Monday update isn't done, but this is, so you get this early. I'll post the Summon Perfect Warlady chapter on the 1st.
Both chapters will become public at the usual times for each.
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[Batman aka Bruce Wayne]
He heavily disliked having to leave Tanya, Dick, and Selina behind to attend to other matters… but the League of Shadows being in town warranted such a thing.
When he was training for his vengeance, one of the many places, the last place in fact, he had studied was a secretive combat school in the Middle East, altough one that had far outlived all current regimes and thus considered themselves above any one nation. In fact, they were so old, the word ‘assassin’ was derived from their origins.
He didn’t know it at the time, of course. Even ancient orders still needed to recruit new talent, and it was through one of their recruitment centers that he had drawn the interest of the immortal master, Ra’s Al-Ghul. Or rather, the interest of his daughter.
In hindsight, it was the same thing that had drawn him to her that now drew him towards the dangerous Selina Kyle. He liked dangerous women.
In any event, Ra’s got it into his head that Bruce would make a fine match for his daughter, as one of the most talented among the new blood, and he had accelerated Bruce’s introduction to the darker side of the League of Shadows, which he naturally objected to.
One martial arts duel with an ancient master later, and he was out of the Middle East and on his way back to Gotham. Their return could only spell bad things, particularly as they introduced themselves by murdering the founder of Arkham Asylum, Dr. Amadeus Arkham, interred in his own facility. While doing so, they also murdered the current director, Dr. Achilles Milo.
Which meant that there was another mass breakout. Just barely shy of a month of relative peace, ruined by an ancient order of assassins that claim to want to impose order instead of chaos. To think, Ra’s wonders why he disagreed with their methods.
It was always easiest to catch them within hours of their escape, and this time was no exception. In two hours, he managed to catch six escapees and send them right back on their way. Six down, twenty-eight more to go.
Then he got news from Dick about what happened to Tanya. Spontaneous summoning, felt for several seconds before triggering, right in front of Selina. He immediately suspected Hecate, mostly due to the obvious motive of completing her work. His psychological profile on her was fairly brief, mostly stolen from Arkham’s records. It was diagnosed as delusions as well as an exceptionally long-lasting post-pardum depression, seeing “Lilith” and her quest being the only thing that gives her life meaning.
Was she connected to the League of Shadows? Their philosophies were similar… He wasn’t aware of any magical tradition associated with the League, but that didn’t mean a whole lot when you got down to it. He didn’t see nearly all of their resources. What did Tanya say about her mother when he asked her for strategic details? She mentioned blood magic, but also that she’d need to investigate the library for details on what blood magic could do. He doesn’t remember any follow-up to that, so she likely never found the relevant books to report on the capabilities of blood magic.
He mentally adjusted the danger of ‘fleshwound’ higher, as exposing his blood would likely be a bad thing, as well as reclassifying environmental blood as a potential weapon for Hecate, but otherwise couldn’t think of any particular countermeasure that he was equipped to implement. Maybe some kind of spray that ruined any blood for her use? Would that work? He’d need to do some research for suitable formulas…
But that was for future encounters. Today, he’ll just have to improvise. Normally, finding a random kidnapped child that was literally teleported into their captor’s custody would be an impossible task. However, Tanya had thought ahead for this kind of scenario. While his attempt to summon her back failed, he did still have the tracker that she embedded in a magical compass, one of her feathers acting as the needle. It was a bit large, but apparently the specially treated water, doped with her blood, was how it stayed enchanted, so it needed a fair amount of it in order to have the two-month shelf life.
The first time he found a League of Shadows assassin standing guard, he knew he had found the right place. The weird thing was that he had also found Catwoman. “Why are you here?” He asked curtly. Where was Richard?
Selina jolted, surprised at his presence. “Batman? I’m not stealing anything today.” She immediately said, “There’s this kidnapped girl, you see-”
“I know.” Batman said, interrupting her. “But why are you here? Don’t you have someplace else to be? Someone to watch?”
Catwoman looked at him strangely. “Okay, how did you know I was babysitting? For your information, I asked my neighbor, she’s a pleasant old lady,” Yes, Mrs. Dennis. 73 years old widow, connected to the Falcone crime family but not in a way that he expected any trouble. “-to watch the boy. I’m not going to be the one to tell Bruce Wayne I lost his daughter.”
“Let me handle this.” Batman insisted, “The League of Shadows are killers.”
“Good thing cats have nine lives.” Catwoman retorted, “How about this: You start beating them up, and I’ll steal away the girl while they’re distracted.”
Under normal circumstances, as much as the term can apply to this life, that would be a good idea. However… “Hecate uses blood magic. Be very careful.” He knew that there was nothing he could say that would dissuade someone with that expression. She was resolved. “I don’t know who else they’ve brought, but expect each and every one of them to be skilled combatants.”
The place the League of Shadows was guarding was a typical building in the Bowery. It was about seven buildings away from Crime Alley, the bottom floor was a mediterranean restaurant, while the upper floors were apartments. His first priority would be determining which apartments were controlled by the League, and which were civilian bystanders. “Intel. What do you have?” He said gruffly.
Catwoman pointed to a window in the middle of the building. “That’s where the ninja came out of.”
Nodding in acknowledgement, Batman used his laser microphone and directed it to the window. “I thought you said she was supposed to be intelligent?” Drawled an androgynous voice. If he had to guess, a man with a relatively high-pitched voice. “What exactly did you suppress with your hypnosis spell?”
Hecate’s voice giggled. “Ah, she’s just happy to see her Mommy. All I did was suppress the time since we were separated, with a little extra to make sure she’ll be obedient. We can still train her for the mission, we just need to keep things light. Lilith always acted like this with me. Come on Lilith, can we show your Uncle your serious face?”
Yep. It’s the right spot. Batman used the alternative use of the laser microphone, it also included a projectile launcher that fired surveillance devices coated in a sticky polymer. One near-silent ‘shoo’ sound later, and he was able to listen in on that window without needing to point the laser mic at it. Ah, he should fill in Selina. “Hecate’s brother is present.” He said, “Assume that he is also a blood mage.”
Catwoman hummed. “I’ll sneak in from the inside.” She said, “You go for the window once I’m ready.” She suggested.
It was a bit risky… but they were pressed for time. “Go.” He said, continuing to listen in.
“So do you dress like that because you think it looks cool, or because you get an employee discount at Hot Topic?” Tanya drawled, imitating her uncle’s cadence.
Hecate’s brother growled. “You realize that us sharing blood just makes you weak to my magic, right?” He asked warningly.
“December, don’t you dare.” Hecate said immediately. So that’s his name. “You wanted her to prove that she’s more than just my baby girl, you got it.”
Batman crept up to the window, using a fiber-optic camera to peer inside the room while he waited for Catwoman to get into position. December was, as Tanya had implied, mostly dressed in black leather, with the most notable exception being the ornate wrappings on his arms, stained with blood. Does he cut himself for magic? He had long black hair, and looking between him and Hecate, the family resemblance was quite apparent. Were they twins? They looked about the same age…
“Once Abdul comes back with the extra supplies, you can make the portal out of here.” Hecate had managed to retrieve her ‘supervillain outfit’ from Arkham’s lockers on her way out, so she was dressed in her usual manner: a black robe covered in red arcane symbols, cut to show off her toned physique. She was seated on a couch, cuddling Tanya while feeding her a bottle of milk, who seemed quite satisfied with that arrangement. That wasn't surprising; whether it was an effect of the trauma of hell, part of being reborn and thus having the sensitive nerves of a newborn, or just her personality, she had always enjoyed human contact. Tanya had a thin blood-red circlet around her forehead, in addition to the same black dress she was kidnapped in.
Still, who else was in the apartment? The Batmobile deployed the ultrasonic scanners and started feeding the Intel from the sonar-like device to his mask’s systems. Eight total people. The League of Shadows preferred teams of five, so adding the assassin he already knocked out and subtracting Catwoman, there was likely one more important person. Talia?
Catwoman was in position, so it was time to strike. Batman vaulted through the window, slipping through the narrow gap with far more flexibility than one would think, looking at his bulky frame. In a single heartbeat, he had seized December and slammed the man’s head into the floor. It was a bit more brutal than normal, but December was a high-threat target.
Hecate screamed in fright as he neutralized her brother, and the look of fear on Tanya’s face was regrettable, but she wasn’t in her right mind; hopefully they’ll be able to deprogram her.
The other assassins burst into the room, and Batman had to divert his focus into dealing with them; the League of Shadows didn’t employ base thugs. Fortunately, the last assassin wasn’t Talia; it was instead a black man who wore a tiger-striped shirt. Given how he flared his fingers exactly how Catwoman did despite not having claw weapons, he assumed magic blades like the kind Tanya had were in play.
“I don’t know how you found us, Batman.” Said the black man, “But now you face the Bronze Tiger!” With a surge of magic, his hands shifted to claws, and his skin vanished under a layer of fur. Ah, some sort of were-tiger, then.
As he fought the other assassins, he noticed Catwoman slink up behind Hecate, and she whispered to them: “Hey, follow me. I’ll get you out of here.” Hecate, surprised at the new arrival, nodded weakly and started to sneak out. Sometimes the cultivated fear in criminals was inconvenient, sometimes it was useful.
Bronze Tiger was definitely one of Batman’s more difficult opponents, but after liberal application of his taser gloves and some moves that would kill a normal man (which he ironically learned from Ra’s), the man finally fell unconscious with several broken bones. With a push of a button on his utility belt and whispering some details into a microphone, emergency services were informed by a mostly pre-recorded message that there was a need for medical attention.
Job done, he walked in the direction that Catwoman led Hecate away, taking deep breaths to cool down from the exertion. Apparently, Catwoman was unable to keep deceiving Hecate, as the two women were now fighting. Hecate’s arms were covered in blood-red gauntlets, while Catwoman kept close, grappling with the woman. Tanya observed with her finely honed vacant expression. “Help Mommy!” Hecate screeched.
Tanya took a moment to think. “Uh… Okay. I need a rhyme…” She seemed to struggle to put thoughts together, and winced after a beat, clutching her head. Hm, she seemed so much more put together when he was listening in… Was it because she was resisting now?
Hecate then belted out some curse words in Arabic and sliced her leg, shooting off a glowing stream of blood which infused into the circlet. Immediately, Tanya burst into flame, transforming into her demon form. The circlet had grown into a full crown, and Tanya’s magic surged, forming into the usual sharp constructs arranged around her limbs, wings included. She roared as she floated upwards, positioning her limbs to maximize her combat defense.
Fortunately, he was prepared for this. He brought out a small perfume vial and spritzed it in Tanya’s face before she could fully ready herself, immediately triggering a coughing fit as he rushed to keep his distance from her flailing. It was expensive, buying a genuine saint’s fingerbone and dissolving it in sacramental wine blessed directly by the Pope using the most magically potent version of the ceremony… but Tanya agreed that such a thing was a necessary precaution in the event of mind control. Anything of lesser potency just pissed her off.
Interestingly, it didn’t actually burn her, it was more of an allergic reaction. She described it as feeling ‘about 70% of the way to mustard gas’ (which he did not appreciate being said while he was eating), but without any long-term damage. The CT scan noted some swelling, and there are a few other minor symptoms when she turns back into a human, but nothing that seasonal allergies couldn’t cause.
It only took about two seconds of flailing for the magical blades to gutter out, so while she did end up tearing the floor up enough to fall through, Tanya was then pinned by rubble and thus fully neutralized. Batman walked up to Hecate and grabbed her by the arm, yanking the two women apart and putting her into a hold that should keep her from doing anything. “Remove your control.” He demanded.
Catwoman used the opportunity to slip into the hole in the floor. “You don’t have the right to separate me from my Lilith!” Hecate insisted.
Batman intensified his grip, painfully wrenching Hecate’s limbs. “Release her.” He repeated.
To her credit, Hecate was fairly resilient, but then Tanya floated back upwards, distinctly missing the bloody crown. “You are a stupid fool, saying you see me as a mere tool.” Tanya said icily. She gripped Hecate’s arms, drawing blood, before letting go and drawing out power. “The bond we share is real, draw in blood this magic seal!” the blood flaked off, as well as the blood-red gauntlets, and went to Hecate’s collar, creating an intricate magic circle. “I sense magic, go back or it will be tragic.” She said, pointing back at the room.
As usual, he ignored the more tortured part of the rhyme and rushed back towards the room where December had woken up, and he had already created a blood-red portal, a line of blood from his arm keeping it maintained. He was twitching his offhand as if manipulating a marionette, and Bronze Tiger’s insensate body was floating in the air. “Tch. Useless.” With a gesture, he cut off the stream of red, and the blood coming from his arm was launched in a wide spread towards Batman.
Dropping to the ground, Batman avoided the presumed attack, but before he could recover his footing, December went into the slowly diminishing portal with Bronze Tiger, which promptly accelerated its shrinkage so that it was impossible to do more than throw a tracking batarang through the then-fist-sized aperture.
“Bruce? I think I deserve an explanation for this.” Selina said, mask off and scowling.
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[Tanya Wayne aka Rhine]
One of the core tenets of blood magic, at least according to the tomes she had been reading, was that it only functioned with ‘virgin’ blood. Not in the sense of sexual virginity, of course, although it was a common misconception. But once blood had been used or affected by blood magic, it was no longer usable for anything else.
So the magical seal Tanya had placed on her mother’s magic was simple: It turned her blood type from A negative into O negative. Until she gets rid of it, she’ll be unable to use her blood as a catalyst for anything. Not impossible, particularly with help, and altering her medical records is rather inconvenient, but it should give them some time to catch her again when she next escapes Arkham.
Why did she have a spell that did this? Well, as it turns out, the ancient Tula, one of the precursors to the Aztec Empire,.knew a bit more about medicine than the history books would have you believe. The spell was supposed to ‘clean’ blood of ‘impurities’ which would allow it to be used in blood transfusions. There were tons of magic books in dead languages that she could read just fine, and while their methods of getting the blood into the patient left something to be desired, it was solid magic.
Naturally, they were experimenting with ways to modernize this ritual so that it could be done without brute-forcing it with her own personal magic. Unfortunately, the spell was always designed to be used on a person, who was supposed to be ritually purified in other ways too, most notably by becoming a eunuch and adhering to a strictly controlled diet. So they were waiting on Professor Blood to get back to them on how to get started on that.
“So this is where the magic happens, huh?” Selina mused, looking around the Batcave.
“If you want to be more specific, the magic tends to happen over there, specifically.” Tanya said, amusedly pointing towards her little nook of magic books and ritual paraphernalia. “Everywhere else trends towards the realm of science.”
“Good evening, Miss Kyle.” Alfred said, holding out a tray of snacks. “Would you care for a spring roll?” Tanya immediately snatched three up with telekinesis, passing one to Richard. She was famished!
“Thanks, Alfred!” Richard said, immediately chowing down.
After everyone got out of the Batmobile and settled down into the magic nook, which was also where all the comfortable furniture was, Bruce broached the topic. “So, you’ve had time to digest the story. I trust that you’ll be, at the very least, keeping it to yourself?”
When Selina didn’t answer immediately, Tanya grinned wolfishly. “If you’re going to resort to blackmail, it’s best to get that out of the way now, while it’s still understandable that Bruce Wayne would be giving a paramour large sums of money every month.”
That provoked a response. Selina’s face twisted in disgust. “No!” She said strenuously. “I won’t tell anyone.” She chuckled ruefully. “Yeah, sure, blackmail the billionaire that spends every night beating up criminals. That’s sure to go well.” It actually would, but her believing that works too.
“This is why I like you.” Tanya said honestly. “You have a refreshingly rational outlook on life when you’re not stealing things.” She’s very down-to-earth in her viewpoints, really. It’s probably from her unknown, presumably very poor, background that she hid with that fake one.
“You are surprisingly vicious when you’re not pretending to be a toddler.” Selina commented, nervously chuckling to defray the stress.
Tanya puffed out her cheeks, faux-offended. “I’ve been downright angelic, I’ll have you know. Have you met toddlers? They’re like cats, adorable little sadists.” She speaks from experience, as someone who has had to spend extended periods playing with them. Largely enjoyable, but it did require one to consciously ignore the implications of what they draw amusement from at times.
“Even when you had me look for the Riddler in the closet?” Selina asked, quirking an eyebrow. She seemed more at ease with the banter…
Tanya chuckled. She remembered that joke. “Yeah, that was funny.”
Richard looked confused. “I don’t get it. What’s so funny about the Riddler in the closet?”
“When you’re older.” Tanya said, waving him off. As usual, Richard looked incredibly offended by it.
Changing the subject, Bruce cleared his throat. “If you’d prefer to no longer be associated with us, I would understand. This life isn’t for everyone, and I’d never involve anyone against their will.”
“Well, I’m definitely not going to be going around beating people up.” Selina said immediately. “But… I think I’d like to see where this goes.”
Richard pumped his arm in triumph. Tanya was also glad this ended relatively well.
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The good news was that the puberty blockers worked. The better news was that it also stopped the overclocked furnace that was her metabolism, as the metabolism was caused by the magically accelerated maturation, not the other way around, so she no longer experienced constant hunger.
Granted, she now looked like she decided to celebrate graduating officer’s school with buying a lifetime’s supply of goth makeup, with her ashen pale skin and straight black hair, but she spent a lot of action-packed years with this rough appearance due to puberty taking so long from the malnourishment, so if she had to be stuck with it for even more years, she was fine with that. After all, if she really needed to look a little older, she had magic for that.
With her now half-way sensible biology, it was now safe to transition her public image to a vaguer ‘child prodigy’ kind of position. All that was needed was a few public-ish (when you were as wealthy as the Waynes, the line was drawn differently than most) displays of childishly insisting that she was a ‘big girl’ now and was ‘not a baby’ anymore and then such a large pivot suddenly made as much sense as anything else did when it came to children. The transition was still stretched over a few months, but that was just opsec.
More importantly, they made some good progress on commercialization of rituals, isolating a group of five magical effects under the vaguely-defined umbrella of ‘medical procedures’ and, over a total of three years, built a prototype facility, recruited enough college students that were sufficiently in tune with the supernatural to train up on the procedures (although the intersection of ‘interested in the occult’ and ‘willing to work a 9-to-5 job’, even in Gotham, was a lot smaller than Tanya had anticipated), and refined the procedures enough to finally reveal Waynetech’s magical division to the public officially just four days after Richard’s eleventh birthday.
“-and now, introducing the Director of the newest division of Waynetech, Dr. Degurechaff.” Bruce said, stepping away from the podium while giving a polite applause.
“Guten tag, members of the press.” Tanya said, in the blonde-haired, fair-skinned body of her second life. “I am Dr. Degurechaff, and I’m here to announce the official opening of ArcWayne, the new magical research division of WayneTech. It is our hope to use the power of magic to provide consistent, repeatable solutions to modern problems. Questions?”
Of course, Lois Lane was the first to draw Tanya’s eye. Clark Kent was right behind her. However… “You.” Tanya said.
“Vicki Vale, Gotham City Gazette.” Miss Vale rattled off as an introduction. Always had to favor the local news outlet first. The Daily Planet liked to think itself as having a global audience, and it did have a national one, but if she wanted to start with those, she’d have picked one of the bigger ones. “Three questions: First, why did Mr. Wayne pick you to lead a division about magic? Are you a wizard? And if so, why aren’t you dressed like one?”
Tanya blinked. Well, she expected softball questions, but… She looked down at her skirt suit. It was tailored to her exact measurements, which had actually grown a little since she had started using this form more often. She no longer looked like a malnourished waif, although it did still take some padding, a mature hair style, high heels, and makeup to make her not look like a teenager. Officially, this identity was twenty-nine. “I prefer the term ‘sorceress’, although quite honestly there’s not enough of a magical society to standardize the terms. Everyone pretty much calls themselves whatever they want.” Tanya took a step out from the podium, wanting this next bit to be unobstructed. “As for your other question, there was rather substantial debate on whether or not I should dress like a practitioner, which is one of the more broadly accepted generic terms, like an executive, as that is my primary role in ArcWayne, or as a doctor, as medical magics are to be our initial offerings.” Tanya clapped her hands, which was the cue for them to turn off her microphone, and made her next spell as dramatic as possible. “Rhine. Berechnung. Mahou. If I’m to front as magic’s start, I should at least dress the part.” She interrupted any attempt to overhear her exact words with snaps of her fingers and other somatic percussive sounds, doing a little pointless dance to really sell things.
A pool of shadows opened up, and motes of light shot out of it, impacting her body and replacing whatever was there with a glow like luminescent paint. Over the course of one whole second, she was fully coated, and then it dissipated, showing off her new outfit. Instead of the smart skirt suit, a robe covered in Enochian script (the runes creating an enchantment to keep the robe comfortable in all but the most extreme weather conditions) over a silk blouse and a two split skirt. She thought about having the spell change her makeup too, but thought that was too much.
Accessorizing the ensemble was a very witchy hat, the very image of ‘powerful sorceress’. Walking smugly back to the podium, Tanya cleared her throat. “To answer your last question, the reason is because I’m never far from a change of clothes. Next?” She pointed straight at Clark. “You. The big guy.”
Lois looked annoyed with not getting picked. Clark picked it up smoothly, though. “Clark Kent, Daily Planet. Reports have been vague as to what exactly you intend to do with magic. What problems are you solving? There’s no FDA approval for anything medical.”
“We do actually have one functioning ritual that has approval.” Tanya corrected, “It’s a blood purification ritual” that they finally got working on extracted blood, “-that produces blood that is indistinguishable from ordinary O negative beyond a white blood cell count of zero,” Which was a bit of a bastard to add in, but the FDA insisted, and the results were well worth it. “-no matter what blood type the original sample was and regardless of any diseases that may have been infecting it.” Pretty much any bacteria or virus was completely wiped out by the same change that removed the white blood cells. They were researching applications for this that allow it to be useful without nuking someone’s immune system, but it was not currently a priority. “Production scales aren’t the best, and logistics on transfusion blood have always been tricky, as the purified blood’s shelf life isn’t that much better than the ordinary kind… But we’ve already gotten a contract with the Gotham Blood Bank to process a portion of their donations, and with that success we plan on openly recruiting additional talent to expand operations and for test subjects for our experimental procedures.” She pointed towards another reporter. “You.”
“Parker Peterson, New York Times.” The average-looking man said, “What are your academic qualifications? What’s your doctorate in?”
“Ancient Languages.” Tanya replied. How Bruce managed to get her a doctorate in Archeology and Ancient Languages quickly was pretty funny; he just asked Oxford for some mesoamerican artifacts to translate (they had a few) and, once she spent a few days magically creating “proof” of her translation, they were falling over themselves to award a doctorate to the “genius” that managed to find and decrypt a cipher between the extinct Chicomuceltec and the much more available to translate Chuj. The cipher was fabricated, but the translations were real, so Tanya didn’t care. The process took about three months.
Still, she had to elaborate on how it was applicable. “We’ve gathered rituals from many ancient magical cultures. Of the five, we have two mesoamerican,” the blood purifying ritual was only about a thousand years old, but the Olmec ritual of regeneration dated to before the Fourth Apocalypse War, three thousand years old. It had a lot of potential, but also… problems. “one celtic,” the fertility one, “one egyptian,” Tanya was admittedly a little skeptical of the feasibility of the ancient egyptian skin cream as a pharmaceutical product, it was very expensive to make and didn’t last very long for the advertised anti-wrinkle benefits, but it did do a fantastic job against chicken pox when Richard contracted it, and it absolutely destroyed the acne her teenage body had developed after a few months of eating greasy American food. “-and an Atlantean one.” It was rather nice of Aquaman to provide something from his own archives, when requested. It was a recipe for a potion whose purpose was to allow non-atlanteans the ability to breathe water, but the execution of the effect was endearingly thorough, and could be applied as an alternative to intubation, once a few kinks with administering it are worked out and production is streamlined. She would, of course, be endorsing its total ban as a performance enhancing drug in athletic competitions. Especially swimming ones. “I personally translated the majority of the original documents we acquired.” Mostly because she specifically requested to be given non-translated texts when possible. It was an attitude that Professor Blood approved of.
Tanya pointed to another reporter, who spoke up immediately. “Maxine Michaels, Associated Press. So, I notice that you’ve been rather measured with your company’s promises, and your achievements modest, but what kind of grand promises were made to draw the interest of the notoriously risk-averse Bruce Wayne?”
Tanya chuckled. “Well, if everything goes well, we’re able to successfully streamline that initial ritual, get production costs down, and staff ourselves sufficiently, all without any as of yet unforeseen devastating side-effects or other medical disasters that any experimental procedure or pharmaceutical risks…” She trailed off, going over her hedges in her head again if she missed anything. “Then we can hope for a fertilization procedure that cares so little for the fertility of the father, it can be used for lesbian couples.” After a moment she added: “The other four were acquired after Mr. Wayne’s initial investment.”
Honestly, she was just happy they stayed away from the forbidden questions, although the first one did kind of stray close. They weren’t allowed to comment on her youthful appearance, and they weren’t allowed to ask any questions that were skeptical of the existence of magic. Her flashy transformation at the first excuse hopefully helped on that front.
It was a good start to the next phase of her business plan.
