Tarrasqing a Question

[Alain the Carnedge]

Each attempt to get information on the Tarrasque was a horrible failure. There was almost nothing on the Dataverse which described how powerful this monstrosity was. Each try was met with some form of "This thing is dangerous and looks terrifying. Steer clear, idiots", and, shockingly enough, wasn't helpful at all. Probably because nobody tried to fight it or, more likely, nobody survived to tell the tale. More likely still: both. Alain rolled his eyes at the distinct lack of useful data, the holographic screen of his device fading before his eyes as he let out an exasperated sigh.

This is going to be a long day, huh?

Stifling a yawn, he thought about what to do next. Almost all the abilities of his companions were concealed from him, and he hadn't revealed his ability to use blood magic to them. Everyone appeared to be secretive, and this was no help in the end. If there was this much distrust in allies, teamwork was unlikely. If someone gets hurt, tough luck, put some dirt on it, you'll be fine. If someone's about to get killed, there wasn't going to be any "taking the bullet" like in the movies. Everyone'd do their own thing, and it was every man for himself once the fight begun. It was almost certain that there'd be some fatalities, unless everyone was a lot more powerful than they had originally let on.

Alain closed his eyes to enter another of his "thinking trances". His original power still hadn't come back to him. With it, he could go out there and outright level the area around the creature until it itself were just ashes that would blow away in the wind. But that unfortunately wasn't an option. He was used to restricting his magic so as to not arouse suspicion, but being completely unable to bypass these restrictions was new. It wasn't any fun at all. But, then again, this wasn't quite as big of an issue as you'd expect. He could build back his power, and while it was unlikely that the full thing would return, he could fill that gap with a lot of influence and strong allies. Work for the most powerful faction and become one of their most trusted "friends" to gain what he had lost again. And this was just a single move from one of the players in Omni's little game. One move of many to come.

There was little purpose in trying to coerce his new pals to just tell him all their secrets. They were likely fearing betrayal, and from someone who appeared out of nowhere behind their host, looking suspiciously like an assassin? It's unlikely they'd tell him anything other than the general plan, except for Aang, who seemed a lot more trusting than was wise. So, there was only one way to gain knowledge about everyone else. The hard way. He tried to undo the lock on his right eye's enchantment, focusing what energy he could into undoing the seal. It hadn't worked before, and it didn't work here, so the block remained. Alain could feel Omni taunting him, laughing from above...well, it was just his imagination. Omni wasn't actually laughing at him. Or at least he hoped so. As he imagined Omni giggling to himself like a maniac in the heavens, he remembered. There was a completely obvious method of undoing the lock, though he wasn't sure if Omni allowed that or not. Regardless, he slapped himself for missing something so obvious.

He tried to focus the Omnilium in his body to his right eye, using whatever sorcery this was to undo one of many seals on his magic. It was draining, to say the least. Having your inner power moving around your body isn't a pleasant experience, more specifically feeling like a demonic slug's moving through your veins, but he set to work regardless. He knew that he'd felt himself getting gradually stronger with time in the Omniverse, but undoing this seal was difficult. He had to do it himself, unlike his other powers which returned without any input from him. It was likely intentional though, knowing things about others is a great advantage. You can destroy plans with just a few words or actions with the knowledge of how-to. Even the strongest being could probably be beaten by an intelligent yet normal man. Which was partly the reason that Alain never got addicted to power: he knew this and also used it to his advantage. But now it did a lot more good. Without that mindset, he'd probably get destroyed trying to stand his ground against a horde of vampires, claiming that he's "the strongest in the universe!" like an idiot.

Thoughts of a far more egotistical bounty hunter aside, Alain could feel the block on his enchantment lifting. Slowly but surely. Unfortunately, his eye was blind for the moment as it adjusted to the changes, but years worth of gathered information flowed to his head, years of gathered information that was by all purposes useless to him at this point in time. No single person would've cared about any of the data as none of those people were in the Omniverse, so he didn't bother memorizing any of it. What mattered was the not-so-safe secrets of his new pals. They might not WANT to reveal their black magic or whatever abilities they were using, but they didn't have much choice in the matter now. There was a sharp jolt of pain as his eye "reactivated", and he winced, but it was a small price to pay for his right eye vision's return, and more importantly, the return of his analysis magic.

It was only then when he noticed the skeletal butler sitting beside him. Man, I spaced out. Ignoring the sandwich that the undead had brought with him in case of poison, fully aware that it was kind of hypocritical to distrust his allies so much after thinking about how secretive they were, he gave the undead a quizzical look. "Can I help you?" Before the butler could respond, however, Alain noticed that the kid, Aang, had left the building and went to the stables. Assuming it was time to leave, he moved to follow, then remembered the undead was still around and feigned politeness in hopes Mephisto wouldn't go after him for such a minor offense. "Ah, gotta go. Excuse me." He walked after Aang, ignoring the urge to kick the butler for fun as he passed.

The second the stables and Aang got into view again, Alain decided that first, he should test his technically-not-new ability in case it worked differently than it did before. Channeling magic energy into his eye, a type of miniature profile came up, which slowly filled with different kinds of information about the kid. Aang apparently had an aptitude for wind magic, owned some weird flying bison thing, and a bo staff glider. He wasn't totally new to combat and was pretty fast, but couldn't take hits all that well. Other than that, he could jump pretty high and could do some acrobatics. Alain almost shrugged to himself. It could've been worse. The profile faded from his vision just as he stopped in front of the Avatar with hands in his pockets, speaking in the usual bored voice he always had. "Guess we're waiting, huh?"