And there it was, it had happened — I’d used Negromancy, and watched as a figure gathered itself out of the ground and rose up, passing in its final stages from a “mud golem” state into “common garden-variety Black man.” Correction — not so garden-variety, judging by what I saw next: a Black man in a thoroughly recognizable costume with an “S” on his chest…
was simply too much for my delicate teenage psyche.
“How?
Why?
What did I do to deserve this?” I all but whimpered, staring at this…
this creature that had just permanently cheapened the image of Superman for me, forever.
“Current trends, the demands of ‘communities of color,’ the general drift of film, the games industry, and every other publisher toward catering to exactly those communities — and here’s the result: the symbol of the best, most perfect, most ideal man is now a gay Black man,” Superman informed me, in a heartfelt tone…
sigh…
Superman.
And here I’d been grumbling about Henry Cavill’s take on the role as the current (as of Gennadiy’s time) Superman.
Give me that Brit back!
I’ll happily settle for a British Superman!
Okay, wait…
he’s gay too?!
Aaaahh…
all these “communities” really are a cancer on this world — a far bigger one than some people (and Skrulls) like to paint mutants as!
“That’s…
that’s disgusting!
No offense,” I added the last part after reminding myself exactly who I was saying this to.
Sure, Negromancy, unlike a Gacha summon, gave me full control over whatever I summoned, but if Superman took offense and decided to act up, I simply wouldn’t have time to use that control — not against his speed.
“I understand.
And I agree with you.
Despite the character’s long existence, people could never quite bring themselves to genuinely believe in and accept a normal Superman — too perfect.
But this…
it’s much easier to believe in someone with flaws.
Someone who’s worse than you in at least skin color and orientation, and just like that the collective unconscious shifts easily onto this image.
Cheapening everything it possibly could, and leaving me with nothing but the memory that things used to be better,” Superman said, with a shrug.
“My condolences,” I said, having just imagined for a moment what it would be like for me if, while still being myself on the inside, I suddenly had to be overcome with entirely different inclinations, entirely different views on life, and had to literally climb into somebody else’s skin.
Horrifying.
I’d rather die.
Though in Marvel that would probably be the wrong choice too, since death here can be worse than slavery for some people — or slavery itself, for that matter.
Overall, those words, combined with my own — apparently very vivid — imagination, made me genuinely feel for the fate of this “fallen idol.” So my sympathy for him was sincere.
“Thanks.
And don’t mention it — you can get used to anything.
Oh, and by the way, summoner — you’re quite the looker.” If that was meant to be some kind of smooth subject change, it was a spectacularly bad one.
And if it wasn’t…
then the sheer force with which my butt cheeks just clenched could’ve bitten clean through a knife blade!
Not that it would do me any good against Superman.
“Sorry, buddy, but he’s already taken!” announced a familiar voice, though with unfamiliar intonations and inflections.
Actually, not even unfamiliar — just intonations that weren’t at all characteristic of the voice’s owner.
“Yorha, you’re here too?” — for some reason that struck me as strange, but why?
Some thought was scratching at the edge of my consciousness, but I couldn’t catch it.
I turn to face whoever’s speaking, and…
“AAAAOOOOOoooooOOOOoooo!” — a not-especially-long but thoroughly pain- and despair-filled wolf howl tears itself out of me.
Yes, there behind me and slightly to the right stood 2B.
But what a 2B!
Sure, she’d swapped her color scheme for white — hair included, now black — but she herself had also become…
a Black woman!
And with horror I recall that, yes, I had indeed summoned — not all the Black people my skill allows, but definitely a solid dozen.
“Are you all right, master?” — oh God…
in the voice of this wrong 2B I could hear exactly what I had Very much wanted to hear in my own Yorha’s voice: unguarded, open concern.
And considering that, while visually…
let’s call them “some differences” existed, the voice matched a hundred percent, I nearly melted into a happy puddle right there.
But then one wild thought stopped me, stunned me, and pulled me back together.
“I hope you’re at least not an aggressive feminist lesbian who dreams of slitting her master’s throat for the crime of being a normal, straight white man?” I asked with a shudder.
Because that scenario…
was entirely possible.
After the gay Black Superman, my faith in humanity had taken a serious nosedive.
“Huh?
No, I’m more of a smart assistant-slash-helper, forced to keep an eye on her teenage master, who, for lack of experience and on account of his young age, doesn’t listen to wise advice, does things his own way, and constantly messes something up.
And it’s that ‘something’ that I have to fix — sometimes without even my master noticing — since he’ll surely come around eventually and start using his head and listening to me,” 2B described an entirely different template, with total seriousness.
And I also started to feel sick — because that template fit my own Yorha too.
Completely.
After all, she’d more than once suggested I do things differently, far more logically, and given advice and made proposals, but the dogmas hardwired into her subconscious from her old world wouldn’t let her argue with me too forcefully.
Not only was I human, which — given her past and her built-in programming — already elevated me to a position of unquestionable authority (and from this angle, her little gestures and hints that I was acting…
let’s put it gently…
unwisely…
look even more amusing), but her model’s series and assigned tasks had always made her a decent fighter, capable of independent decisions within the scope of tasks already set by her superiors, while still fundamentally being a subordinate who took orders “from above” — a position I now occupied.
So for every not-so-bright suggestion of mine, she’d search for an alternative herself and propose it, and when I didn’t agree, she’d carry out my orders anyway.
Flawlessly, I might add.
“And I’m also offended by your doubting my orientation, after so many years of living together and even having a daughter together already,” 2B added, meanwhile.
Wait, what?
Several years of what?
What daughter?
I am not ready for this!
Either my face had been vivid enough that 2B read the whole thing off it, or I’d said all that out loud while in the depths of shock, but Yorha waved a hand off to one side.
Where four other summoned Black men, dancing to some vaguely familiar tune, were carrying a coffin.
What in the actual hell was this?
No wait — from behind them, shouting “Daddy,” out popped an eight-year-old girl.
A Black girl, with recognizable features that blended something of 2B and something of me.
That was the last straw for my sanity, and with horror I…
jolted upright in my hospital bed, waking up and gasping frantically for air.
“Damn it, regular nightmares are better than that,” I flopped back into bed at the exact moment my phone started playing its ringtone.
Who the hell calls this early?
Turned out to be 2B.
And I sincerely hoped this wasn’t round two of the nightmare.
You know, that whole “dream within a dream” nonsense.
“Yeah?” I answered, already braced for anything.
“Master, you’re having nightmares again.
Maybe I shouldn’t have left.
I read that at moments like this you need care and support, and that with your injuries you need looking after and rest — which nightmares are entirely incompatible with,” a whole slab of information was immediately dumped on me, in what was, on the surface, a calm voice, but I could physically feel the waves of care radiating off her — genuine, wanting nothing in return, a pure desire to help and protect.
No, not even the most realistic dream could convey that; so I wasn’t asleep, and this was my 2B.
Except…
“How do you know I just had a nightmare?” — yes, strangely enough, even after the nightmare, the dream, and this wave of care that would normally reset the brain of a teenager like me, I still latched onto that particular fact.
No doubt the influence of the Jun Lee card, from Aquarion.
“Master, there’s a camera installed in the corner of your room, next to the door, covering the whole room, including the window.
Standard precaution for VIP rooms,” Yorha informed me, in that same neutral tone.
Meanwhile, I felt like an idiot.
And it got worse once I realized that all those vivid emotions, words, and gestures from when I’d been spinning the gacha…
damn it.
“Don’t worry, that’s contraindicated for you right now” — so apparently 2B was keeping very close tabs on my condition too.
“You’ve already hacked into that camera, haven’t you?
Which means you should have seen, well…” “How you used that power of yours again — the one you got me through?
Judging by the fact that you resorted to it, your last fight must have given you what you needed to master your previous ability, which is exactly why you went looking for a new one.
I hope that means you won’t have to take such risks and get into trouble again, now that the requirements for learning your previous power have been met.
And going forward, you should choose your powers more carefully, so you don’t end up with more requirements like that one — the kind that put your life at risk.
As for the cameras — I didn’t just hack them, I took control of them.
So at moments when your behavior might cause you problems, I simply loop one of three pre-recorded clips into the feed: you reading, you sitting at your laptop, or you watching something on your tablet.
The live surveillance feed is available to me alone,” came the calm answer to my hesitation and unspoken concern.
Because if someone outside looked at that footage without knowing the full picture…
I’d be transferred to a psych ward.
But the fact that it was Yorha watching — she already knew about my power, even if not all its nuances, so her observation wasn’t all that frightening.
And frankly, this was exactly the kind of care I’d expected from her.
Strange that I hadn’t thought of the camera myself.
Then again, my carelessness had always been at an admirably consistent level, yes.
“Just make sure nobody notices what you’re doing with the camera — someone has to maintain the local network, right?
And another question — you didn’t stop at just the one camera, did you?” — some reasonable thought was popping into my head for the second time this conversation.
To someone unused to this sort of thing, it might sound a little strange.
But it was simply logical.
Especially coming from 2B.
After all, sooner or later they’d patch up my legs, and then I’d no longer be confined to the bed, and she’d have to take control of the hallway cameras too.
I understood her motives now, but she’d definitely thought of this in advance, if only from the angle of “why break into the surveillance system twice when you can do it all at once.” Not to mention the point that it would be better to catch any suspicious individuals — clearly heading my way with less than noble intentions, of which there might now be a few, given my recent exposure — not in my room, endangering my life, but on approach.
Ideally at the hospital entrance itself, or at the front desk, once it became absolutely clear they were coming for me.
What’s more, if it was handled quietly, I wouldn’t even find out I’d been in danger at all — as Yorha put it, “you need rest.” And it mildly unsettled me that I was starting to understand her logic.
“Yes, I’ve checked every camera in the hallways and common areas, wherever such cameras exist.
I’m also pulling data from the two rooms adjacent to yours, in case of an intrusion attempt through them.
Unfortunately I wasn’t able to secure the same coverage for the lower-tier rooms — they’re not VIP rooms, so no policy of guardianship and protection applies to them, and the privacy protections in your constitution are observed instead, meaning there simply aren’t cameras there, aside from the hallway,” came the exhaustive answer — one that lined up completely with what I’d already guessed.
“Fine.
Then if anyone from my family shows up at the hospital, or just anyone of interest, get in touch with me ahead of time,” I asked.
“Understood,” came the terse reply, after which we returned to the subject of her coming to see me…
yeah, in the middle of the night, basically.
I did manage to talk her out of it, though; besides, in case of emergency I hadn’t forbidden her from using any means necessary to protect me.
Right now I was in absolutely no shape to fight, and unnecessary conflicts with the doctors over visits outside of visiting hours were the last thing I needed.
I already had more than enough attention and complaints directed my way (especially from my attending physician).
And it would be wrong to complicate life for my mother’s colleagues, many of whom I’d known since I was little (in my old life).
So, drawing on every ounce of my diplomatic talent (which a former social-phobe like me technically didn’t have), I managed to convince Yorha to just keep watch from a distance.
And to react to danger however she saw fit.
On that front…
restrictions were pointless — I’d learned that lesson the hard way.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
There are chapters ahead.
com / BifrostFics