Stella's place

As you rounded the next street corner, you felt a strange sensation, growing in height and transforming once again! Safiya had decided you had traveled far enough from the warehouse to allow you to be back to normal. Hmph, you might've been able to have a little fun in that body, to get to know a new identity... but you weren't calling those shots. To your benefit, Safiya did use a bit of her magic in your favor--your hair was nice and trim, your body slightly more fit, and the business attire you'd been wearing looked like it had been custom-tailored to you, rather than hastily purchased at the mall.

"Wow... nice trick," you said, before hailing a taxi.

"I treat my masters well, and my friends better." Each time you heard the Jinn's voice, you couldn't help but glance around, wondering if anyone else did, since she was speaking at full volume. No one else, not even the taxi driver, said anything if they could indeed hear her. "No need to talk, but you did ask a question about Emilia earlier, I'll answer when we're moving."

"52nd and Elm, please," you tell the driver, and then you slump back in your seat, rubbing your face as the weight of basically stealing something that had belonged to Emilia King, even if it had been implanted into you, came bearing down on your conscience. You had given the driver the location for where your girlfriend lived, and you hoped she would be in a good enough mood to help you work through that issue--if you could at least ignore the other issues you and she had been having.

You waited patiently, listening to silence for a while, as it seemed that Safiya wasn't interested in talking. After about a block, though, she worked up the courage. "...I was present the night Emilia lost her family. I'd been with her grandfather, and father, throughout many hardships, to the point where I was basically part of the family. I even got a driver's license when Reggie asked me to learn instead of just enchanting a car, says Safiya King on it... Uh, anyway. I thought of Emilia more like a daughter than her own true mother did, but Emilia never saw it that way, even when her biological mother felt so little connection to the family, Emilia still wanted very little to do with me. To her, I was the wedge that started to break the family apart."

You leaned your head against the back rest, closing your eyes to listen to Safiya's tale. "The night that everything changed, we were at a lake house, just her, myself, Reggie, Archie... her mother had already removed herself from the picture at that point, I don't know where she'd gone. I don't know what happened to cause the lake house to seemingly erupt in flames from all sides, but it smelled like magic. Poor old Archie was always tinkering with some little magic puzzle box to keep his mind sharp, maybe something had gone wrong with one of those devices. I was going to look for him, to get everyone out alive, but Reginald was adamant that I had to protect his daughter and get out. I told him I could find Archie and get him out too, but he used a wish on me. I had **** but to take a screaming Emilia out of her home, away from her family, and protect her as we watched the house implode. There was not even the slightest trace of either King by the time we could finally examine the rubble, that's how devastating this event had been."

You sighed a little, looking out the window, you weren't far from your girlfriend's place now. This was a heavy burden Safiya was placing on you, however... but, you were starting to understand why it wasn't such a simple task for the two to simply work together. "I love Emilia like a daughter, but I felt such shame that I couldn't help myself to save them all because of that wish. Emilia knew I could have as well, had the wish been worded properly. I still don't understand why Reginald did that, but it's done now, and I'd hidden away ever since, partly because Emilia didn't want to see me for so long when I reminded her of the past. But I also felt like I took something from her, and kept taking, which is not my place as a Jinn--I am meant to be a giver, in my role. So, I hid away."

When the driver stopped, you paid and climbed out of the car, free to speak again without anyone bothering you on the empty street corner. "Why now, though? She's got this tool, she's sticking magical objects in people, surely she has a reason to include you in all this?"

"Well, she is filled with schemes and plans, more so than Archie or Reggie ever were. I'd sat in her study on a shelf for years, so I'd heard it all. Always chasing down ways to undo her curse, or add to her magical hoard, or build an army, apparently. She's got spies and knights and sorcerers aplenty now, we're merely being added to her roster of usefulness in what she thinks is this budding war between her and companies some of Archie's friends founded. So, congratulations, you're one of the M's now."

"The what? The M's?" You hurried up the stairway toward your girlfriend's apartment. Twelve floors, it was quite the haul, but it gave you more time to talk with Safiya since nobody else ever used these stairwells.

"That's how Emilia herself described it: Magicians for those who work for her. She thinks Yabusa is making the 'Machines', and Hideki is making 'Mutants', for what reason I don't know but it's serious enough for her to bolster her defenses. She's really pulling out all the stops lately."

You count on your fingers. King Enterprises, Hideki Corp, Yabusa Robotics... you paused. "What about Shaw Sciences? I usually hear about them."

"Emilia isn't worried about Shaw, they're a relatively new player in things, merely a wild card and thorn in everyone's side, but they can be handled. She does have an M word for them, though: Morons."

You chuckled, as you knocked on a doorway once you'd reached the twelfth floor. Stella lived in a nice area, and her apartment was extremely classy and filled with only the finest decorations. You had somehow convinced Stella that you were on the cusp of greatness with this VR business of yours, and while you had hoped there was a real connection there, it seemed that the promise of large sums of money on the way really helped grease the wheels for your relationship. Compared to your own apartment, hers was a palace.

Safiya fell silent as you patiently waited at the door, wondering if she was even home. It wasn't like you to show up unannounced, but this was a special circumstance. Finally, you heard footsteps heading toward you from the other side of the wall, before the door swings open.