Half an hour away from the school where Nathan casually showed a picture of Olivia to one of his classmates, Olivia herself stood in the middle of Nathan's newest major purchase. She was wearing clothes not entirely dissimilar from those that the illusion of her wore in the very picture that Nathan had proudly shown his classmate. And she was bored. 

The skillful woman, a battle-tested commander of various legions and a possessor of powers both her own and those of her home's owner was not being entertained. She was standing in the middle of the vast living room that was now Nathan's new home on Earth and she listened to various conversations being had by the several workers that Nathan had employed to facilitate the move into the new place. The bored woman sighed and resigned herself to doing this well. She allowed herself a moment to reminisce about the conversation in which Nathan tasked her with this unenjoyable task.

"If you do this, and do it well, it will make my life easier." Nathan explained to her, a few days ago in the depths of their wing of the manor inside of The Sanctuary. 

"But why?" She asked, half protesting as she gazed into the eyes of the strange figure who owned the artifact in which she and various other beings either lived or were trapped. 

"Because I want to consider this a test run. In the days to come I am going to need you, and the others in here, out of here more often than not. Earth is changing. And it is changing fast. But I need to see how you all act outside of the confines of The Sanctuary. And I know that I can trust you, but I still want to how you behave myself." The young man said, thoughtfully. 

The warrior and skilled leader sighed as she studied the one person The Sanctuary itself obeyed. There was a resolution visible in his gaze that he often lacked. As she studied it she quickly realized that in this "Her husband-to-be" was an immovable object. That realization annoyed her, but she knew better than to really hate a man with a certain degree of stubbornness. Such a man, especially when that stubbornness was directed in the right direction was capable of great things. 

"Understood Nathan... I'll do as you ask. That said, you should tell the others as well." The commander urged, speaking honestly to the young man. At that remark, Nathan chuckled and began to smile. 

"Oh, I already have. They are excited." He explained, vaguely. 

"They... What?" Olivia responded, legitimately taken aback by those remarks. Nathan smirked at her, a smirk the commander both hated and found a tiny bit endearing. 

"Oh yeah, they are quite intrigued by my Earth. It's not a bad idea for a few of them to accompany you. I'll only send the ones I believe can behave." Nathan replied, his smirk softening just a touch.

The others that Nathan had mentioned were elsewhere throughout the apartment building. Some of them, such as the woman known as "Thundergirl" to the people of her native world, was known already to Olivia. Others, such as the surprisingly ancient goddess named Gaia, were not. And yet, each of the people in the apartment was specifically chosen for the privilege. 

"Thundergirl" was once a superheroine herself on an Earth not unlike Nathan's. She was a powerful woman who natively possessed a number of "Type-Red" and "Type-Orange" superpowers, and was likely to become a major figure as far as Nathan's schemes and plans were involved. It was likely that she would make her public debut to the people of Earth before he did, which was itself a significant sign of how much this young superheroine mattered in the schemes and plots of Nathan, now that he was armed with knowledge.

Gaia was, astoundingly, a powerful goddess known to Nathan as one of Greece's ancient parent deities, the mythical creator and personification of the earth in ancient Greek mythology. The truth was a bit more complex than that, but Nathan was adamant about befriending her and learning more about the powerful goddess. The two of them agreed that this gesture would go a long way towards achieving that goal.

Suna, a potent angel long trapped in The Sanctuary was also one of the few creatures freed from it for the time being. She was in the kitchen, diligently and dutifully overseeing the installation of various cutting-edge appliances throughout the room.

I casually used my "Multisense" power to keep an eye on my new apartment. As I did I answered Raul's questions about Olivia. Unsurprisingly the man was quite curious about her. 

"Oh yeah, she's awesome. She really likes horror movies, weirdly enough." I explained, honestly. That answer, incidentally, was not a lie. Olivia was a sucker for horror movies and frequently asked me if things found in horror movies were real. Annoyingly enough, I was often not able to give her a confident answer since I tended not to know. 

As I answered Raul's questions about Olivia, I felt my mind wander. It was, admittedly, quite difficult to focus on something like school at the moment. It wasn't school's fault that I had risen far above mundanity’s sway, but at the moment even without paying attention, I was capable of fully dominating any sort of intellectual clash I could have in this environment. That said, my mind momentarily turned to areas where I was lacking.

I had incredible flexibility, due to the unique and parasitic nature of my abilities but I was still not as powerful as any real specialist in any singular area. To date, the only potent beings I had fought against were Bigman and the three witches who had formed a small coven of their own millennia ago. None of them were especially powerful, or actually dangerous, but they were all beyond the abilities of any mundane humans. That said, that wasn't enough. I needed more experience. 

Even at this very moment, countless magical creatures were preparing to step out of the shadows and into the world of man. If humanity and its protectors were not prepared then when humanity's ancient foes stepped out of the shadows and into the light of the sun they would change the map. 

No settlement on Earth, no matter how big or small, or how rural or modernized, had been spared the infiltration of ancient spirits and eldritch monsters. Even Tegucigalpa was now the home of dozens of duendes, diminutive spirits who no doubt served as the eyes and ears of greater fey and spirits of nature. In the folklore of Latino and Latino-influence cultures, duendes were minor spirits who were attuned to homes, forests, and families, and often interacted benignly with humanity.

To date, the small creatures had been relatively tame and had been smart enough to avoid me directly but my magical abilities were great enough to detect them even though they had always hidden from me. And, annoyingly, I still didn't have the right to gain the physiology of any sort of fey creature. As I wondered about them, I silently sent a message to Gaia, one of the few people I knew of who may have known about them.

"Hey Gaia, do you happen to possess 'Arcanescience' or any of its variants?" I asked, opting to begin one of my first real interactions with the potent goddess by first attempting to learn what sorts of powers she possessed as a goddess. As I asked that, Raul asked me another question.

"Have you kissed Olivia yet?" The man asked me, a curious and probing smile on his face. He was a jovial sort and there was no sort of ulterior motive to his question, instead, there was a sort of mundane curiosity that was so forward that it caught me off guard and actually snapped me back to the present. I opted to allow myself to blush as I considered the question for a moment.

"Uh... I actually haven't." I confessed, honestly. Now to be fair, there were circumstances that I wasn't about to reveal that kept me from kissing Olivia, but I couldn't quite reveal that to my kind, but mundane classmate. Raul's face lit up in shock as he heard that, and at that very moment Gaia's quiet, motherly voice whispered into my mind. 

"I do not, Nathan. But I do possess a divine connection to life, as part of my deific portfolio. I can sense all lifeforms, provided they are not alchemical or mechanical in nature, up to a range of a few kilometers around me." She explained, her kind voice filling my mind as she spoke. I sensed that her words were truthful, and took a second to add that knowledge to my own. 

"Hmm... In that case, you can sense the presence of the duendes near you, correct?" I mentally asked, opting to continue learning what I could from the goddess. She possessed something that was, in my experience, utterly unique to herself; divine physiology. I didn't know and hadn't ever met any other deities, and so if I wanted to know what she knew, I needed to try and learn from her. Especially if I wanted to try and learn from her organically, rather than trying to steal or copy what she had. Her next response came a second later.

"I can. The little dears are very cute, loyally serving the assorted faerie courts that are gradually planning to return to this part of the world." The goddess revealed, and in her opinionated statements revealing that she was aware of their goals. That had been a fact that had eluded me until now and was a firm reminder that even in my empowered state there was a lot I didn't know. That was a humbling, and necessary, reminder.

In the several days that had passed between my purchase of the apartment building where Gaia was currently located and now I had curiously peaked deeper into the minds of the various beings who dwelt within The Sanctuary and found that among "The Trapped", a rank which included Gaia, there was only so far I could see, uninvited. 

The various inhabitants of The Sanctuary who were themselves powered creatures often possessed an innate ability to shield differing parts of their minds from even my surprisingly powerful telepathy. It seemed, at the moment anyway, that if I had wanted to learn their secrets I'd need to spend time with them. They were even capable of resisting my "Psychometry" power, though invariably to a smaller extent than my potent telepathy. And Gaia was one of the possessors of the greatest resistance to either of my signature psychic abilities. This wasn't really surprising, she was a literal goddess after all, but it was something that left a small part of me in awe of her power.

"The faerie courts..." I mentally muttered, aware of at least a few of the implications of such a startling fact being revealed. Every passing minute brought them a bit closer to the world of man, and to gaining the power to cause a permanent shift in the politics of this part of the world. I needed to go ahead and figure out some method of getting close to the duendes, and to the courts that they served. 

"I... may need to acquire some sort of faerie physiology. If I do then that may allow me to get closer to the duendes, and to the courts, without doing anything that might be perceived as a hostile act..." I whispered, in the depths of my own mind. Such physiologies were probably ones like those of elves, and if I wanted such an ability the key probably laid in The Sanctuary, where I already had elven followers, or in Terra, where I knew such creatures existed in numbers rivaling those of that world's human population. 

"I suppose this means that elves are the next target of my attentions..." I realize, in the back of my mind. As I do, my mental self begins to smile. I knew a decent amount about the different kinds of elves. If I could gain an elven form, I'd be able to do a fair amount more with the few powers I currently possessed that were tethered to nature and nature magic. Gaining an elven form would be an exciting boost to my existing power, in much the same ways that gaining elemental forms were exciting boosts to specific, potent powers of mine.