Several days passed.
Oasis had promised Karry that they would go to their own sources, which mostly meant jumping up on a bus to Ottawa to visit the CSL’s headquarters. They missed having a car, but neither they nor Alice could afford one right now, and asking Katarina or the League for money was right out of the question.
Their reasoning for going to the League’s headquarter was simple. They was a library there, not terribly large, but it did contain a restricted section in which all of the tomes of dangerous magic confiscated at the border of the country ended up. They didn’t have terribly old nor very powerful stuff, as all the truly problematic pieces ended up being shipped to the Vatican to be either destroyed, neutralized, or locked in their vault, but Oasis hoped that there might be a reference somewhere that might give them a hint as to what to look for next. Just like when they were writing essays at school, they wanted to start with the obvious texts, and then just keep going backward through their sources and references until they got to either dead-ends, of they found the root texts and studies from which all of the other branched out.
They’d gotten that idea while talking with Alice, who had brainstormed at them possible places where the Tyrant might have gotten his information regarding Karry’s pendant. She was still angry, but she was willing to help.
It had dawned on them in the small hours of the morning, when they were both exhausted and frustrated with the situation, and Alice had once more suggested calling in Richard and telling him everything.
See, the Tyrant had been a politician. That was how he’d managed to amass his army and his platform from which to launch his conquest of the world. So in the beginning of his rise to power, before he had gotten his hands on Karry, he would have had access to everything an average politician in Canada could get access to; the Parliament Library, defence secrets, and the restricted section at the CSL. Only two of them would probably have informations about magic, and only one of them was available for Oasis to consult. There was no way in hell that they could access military stuff, but the CSL library was a decent start. They doubted that Karry would be able to enter League premises, so it fell to them to physically make their way to Ottawa and spend days, perhaps even weeks sifting through magic books in pursuit of a way to destroy the necklace.
At least they had the time for it. According to Alice, they’d been fired from their job when they’d failed to show for several days after arriving in the past (whoops), and they’d already made the switch from going to a physical university to an online program. Oasis had already completed the administration classes once, so they weren’t too bothered about doing it again, even though the material was thirty years old. That left them with plenty of time to pursue more important matters, namely saving the world.
They just hoped that they wouldn’t have to consult Vatican-kept books, because those would be such a hassle to obtain access to. They would require at least two other superheroes to sign off on their request, a measure set in place to prevent younger heroes from making too many “frivolous” book requests from the others affiliated superheroes libraries around the world. Oasis was still considered a junior hero, and wouldn’t get their seniority until 2024, a year in which the American league would poach several members of their administrative council, opening up their chairs for young and optimistic heroes to take over. The perks had been mostly a fancier bullet proof vest and more paperwork, but Oasis had enjoyed the job while they’d had it nonetheless. And they’d certainly enjoyed the seniority. Although perhaps they could get Richard to sign off on their book requests to the Vatican, if they told him they were trying to take down Karry? It wouldn’t even be a lie.
They texted Alice this, and she replied with a poop emoji. They were currently waiting in line with the other passengers at the bus station, waiting for their ride to pull up, and had nothing else to do but to text theories and half baked plans at Alice and receive increasingly elaborate strings of emojis in response. Over the last few days, they’d mostly made up, although a tension still existed between them. Alice had pressed Oasis for details over their plan to save the world, but there were still things that they didn’t want to tell her. The possibility that they might have to kill the child Tyrant, for example.
They didn’t know what they were afraid of. That she’d stop them, or that she’d be right to. Either way, there was no point in making her worry about it until they had more information to go on as to what the famed turning point of this year would be.
A security guard approached the passengers, and Oasis groaned internally. They hated when public transport checked their bags, especially when they were carrying Ginette. When the man checking everyone’s purses and backpacks arrived in front of Oasis, they pulled their SCL identity card and showed him. Their superhero identity wasn’t written on it, but their clearance level was. It basically indicated that they worked for the League in a pretty high capacity, and usually that meant that security around various places knew to leave them alone. They wished it also worked on police, but they tended to be much harder to impress.
“Oh!” said the guard, eyes widening as if it was the first time in his life that he saw a badge like that. Which might very well be the case; Richard tended to come to Toronto by flying, and by that Oasis didn’t mean on a plane.
He glanced at Oasis’s bags, and they knew that the wheels in his head were likely turning and arriving at the correct conclusions. Even though the card didn’t give away Oasis’s identity as SwordBright, they were carrying a sword bag. They had considered, for a while, more subtle ways of carrying Ginette places, including perhaps hiding her in an instrument case like in the movies, but all around they found that a simple black sword bag with ‘Toronto fencing club’ embroidered on it was a lot more efficient, and less awkward to haul from places to places. Toronto had something like eight fencing schools and clubs anyhow, which meant that a surprisingly high number of people walked around with sword bags like it was a completely normal thing to do.
It was only when someone, for example a security guard, saw both the CSL card and the bag in close quarters that they started to get suspicious about Oasis’s true identity.
The guard floundered for a moment, his eyes going from Oasis’s bags to their faces, before he looked over his shoulder to where another guard was watching the doors. Their eyes met, and from her body language Oasis assumed that she was the one in charge here. “Just give me a minute.”
He walked off to talk with his supervisor, and then the both of them walked up to Oasis again and gestured them out of the line.
“I’m sorry,” said the supervisor gruffly, “I know you’ve got a pass, but we’re still going to have to check your bags. Could you follow me?”
“Sure,” said Oasis, grabbing their duffel and sword bag and shuffling behind them up to the security’s office. “What’s the matter? There’s not usually that much security on buses that stay in the province.”
“I’m afraid that there’s been a terrorist threat on Ottawa,” said the first security officer with a grimace, shutting the door behind them. “We still don’t know if it’s a super villain threat or something else. Everyone’s taking it very seriously. Is that… why you’re going over there?”
His supervisor cleared her throat. “You know we’re not supposed to ask about SCL matters,” she reminded him. She waved Oasis toward the table in the center of the room. “Please put your bag here, sir. We’ll just do a quick visual check, and we assure you that anything we see is going to remain confidential.”
Oasis nodded, putting both their bags up on the table and zipping them open. They really didn’t care in the end if the security guards knew about their superhero persona, as long as they didn’t make a big deal out of it. They weren’t going to Ottawa because of a threat alert, but they were going there for business, and the last thing that they wanted to do was to miss their bus.
They opened up their duffel bag, revealing their helmet and jacket inside on top of the rest of their personal effects, and then parted the sides of their sword bag to expose Ginette to the air. Seemingly despite themselves, both security guards stepped forward to look at the items with awe on their faces.
“Holy shit,” breathed the man. “It’s the real thing!” He looked up at Oasis, literal stars in his eyes, and gestured down at the open bags. “Can I…?”
His supervisor elbowed him in the ribs. “Steve! We’re only supposed to do a visual inspection!” but she looked as impressed as her partner, and Oasis was feeling indulgent. Maybe it was a bit egotistical of them, but it felt nice when people were impressed by them. Especially since they were going to spend several days in the one place in the world were people definitely were not.
“Well you can’t touch the sword,” they said, although it was always hilarious to watch people being thrown back by the spells on the hilt. “but you can try the helmet on if you like.”
Steve let out a noise that sounded a little bit like a squee, and reverently picked up Oasis’s custom helmet. He turned it over this way and that, admiring the airbrushed designs and stripes of LEDs covering it. His partner whistled.
“That’s nice work. Where did you get it made?”
Oasis shrugged. “I found a nice website that does custom designs and doesn’t ask too much questions, I could write you down the address if you want?”
The conversation went on like that for a little while longer, the two guards being surprisingly into superhero stuff (for Steve) and custom motorcycles and leather jackets (for his supervisor June) until Oasis gently suggested to them that as nice as this all was, they still very much had a bus to catch. The two guards apologized profusely and let them be on their way, but not without both giving them a strong handshake and wishes of luck with whatever the heck was going on in Ottawa.
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