A Tale of One Deviant (Book 2) (Technically Hiatus, but kind of not)

Chapter 211: Party Crasher

Something in my brain flipped when the scent of the magic in the arena reached me because of the wind. Most of the tension that had been in the air between Keir and me began to muddle with confusion as even he frowned and looked over his shoulder at the strange thing happening behind him-

     "Princess...what did you do to that man?"

     I was wondering the same thing, curious, making sure I stayed between Keir and my family while drifting up to look over the railing at Brownie down below.

     He smelled like...me?

     My magic.

     Ah, I blinked, remembering. That's right...what happened to him? I did remember running into such a strange scenario, but something distracted me, so I couldn't get to the bottom of why that man's aura looked like mine, smelled like it, tasted like it-

     Only those two stood there in the whole arena. It was a bit hard to see, but every battle had been hard to see with just your eyes and an arena fitting the hundreds of people that had turned out to see what happened that year. So I'd put screens around, big ones above the fight, so anyone that wanted to see details or one-on-one fights instead of just stick figures whacking each other or flinging little balls of fire one way or another could really get a good picture of it.

     And I saw there, making my own eyes widen the longer I stared, was not the watered-down giantkin that I had left behind not that long ago.

     What the...

     No. What I saw was-

     Did you really think he would just learn how to mess with his Status himself if you left him, Master? Naturally, Kiki chided me from where she sat next to Martin and Sarah, having appeared somewhere along the way without anyone noticing. Likely alarmed as well about all of the appearances of apostles and gods just pretending the barrier I put up didn't exist. I taught him a thing or two. He's a product of my teachings.

     I drifted over the railing, staring down at Brownie's Status. I brought it up, but it was over there in front of him...so I just had to strengthen my sight and read from there, too lazy to go over.

     "Not bad for a mortal. You did that, Kiki?"

     "Thank you for recognizing my effort, Keir."

     "And what about the human woman," he jerked his chin over towards her and we both looked that way. "Did you do anything for her? That's probably the strongest mortal I've seen in nine hundred years."

     "I did nothing for her."

     "Hohhh..." Keir unlocked his legs from the railing and slide them both over to the other side, so smooth, facing the other direction with his arms folded again. Smile gone from his face, looking over both of their Statuses. "Impressive. And you didn't do anything for her either?"

     "No," I shook my head, completely calm, comparing their stats. "She's the control of the experiment as the strongest human I've ever encountered. He's got a lot of potential to be fighting apostles someday, if you train him right. So, I was trying to figure out the fastest way to make someone stronger without just pure training-"

     "And that would be manipulating Statuses, but mortals can't do that because Tiyana locked them out of the system. However, from the looks of it...that man can access it. What did you do?"

     "I don't know," I sighed, waving a hand in the air before tucking it back to where I'd also folded my hands and went to stand on the railing with my geta. "I don't remember. Some apostle crap. Kiki?"