As I stepped out of my home and began to make my way to the famed Casa Madrigal I found myself quickly facing a long trail of people. I quickly began to walk by the people, and I chuckled as I heard some people begin to complain that I was bypassing the line but quickly retracted their complaints when they saw who I was.
I was as close to a celebrity as I could be without being a Madrigal myself and that came with certain social benefits. One of them was that people often let me do little things like this without much if any, lip.
One thing that didn’t stop was the quiet whispers I heard as people noticed that I was holding something. I was taking my gift-wrapped present to Antonio and his family, and I was willing to carry the thing with me publicly and physically rather than use my supernatural abilities to store it. I wasn’t even the only person who would be giving Antonio a gift, since Mirabel had already given him a stuffed tiger to play and snuggle with.
The whispers were interesting to me, as many people speculated that my gift wasn’t intended for Antonio at all. I listened to them with mild amusement though I kept my emotions hidden and my face only showed excitement to see what the youngest Madrigal would be able to do.
“Is he taking a gift to Mirabel? That’d be a surefire way to at least soften the memories this day must invoke…”
“Do you think that’s for Pepa? It’s been… a while since she left the house.”
“Oye mira, Fernando has a gift! Mariano might need to keep an eye on his girl.”
“Maybe Luisa is finally getting some love. He’s the only person in the village taller than her, but compared to her he’s positively puny where it counts.”
The whispers were all quite funny. I didn’t mind them and I kept my head held high. That said, one of them contained a pretty good idea. Giving Mirabel something today would surely go a long way towards helping her as she recalls the traumatic events of the last gift ceremony…
I silently resolved to give her something as well, and thankfully I had quite literally the perfect item for this exact sort of impromptu scheme. It sat in my inventory, waiting to be called upon and when the time came I’d call upon it and use it to maximum effect.
I knew that tonight was not going to be a great night for Mirabel and that she’d need someone who had her back. Meta-knowledge was handy in moments like this, especially when the totality of a jump occurs over a few days rather than a few weeks, months, or even years.
Short jumps like this were actually somewhat rare, though several of the Disney jumps were exactly like this. Meta-knowledge was a necessity to properly manipulate and control the events of universes and settings like this, otherwise things could go off the rails quite easily.
The key figures of the magical realm named for the magical phenomenon that brought it to life, Encanto, were all gathering as the sun finished setting. The Madrigal family, the Guzman family, and the heir of the newest named family, the Garcias, were all convening on Casa Madrigal.
The young Adonis-like heir of the community’s biggest business was a strapping young man. He carried himself with a beyond-human level of natural grace and charm, and as he strode past the line of people hoping to see the child who was about to be gifted his own superpower he temporarily became the center of attention.
The gazes of wives, daughters, sisters, and nieces turned to him. As did the gazes of several men, all of whom felt both lust towards and envy of the supernaturally beautiful being.
The gift-wrapped parcel that the figure was holding was also the subject of attention. People whispered about the strange gift and speculated as to the identity of the future recipient of the thing. Andrew, or “Fernando” was actually quite fond of the attention and was internally beaming as he basked in it.
The god had lived his whole life being average in many different things and wasn’t used to being the center of attention like this. He was fond of it, and he was positively reveling in the attention he was getting as he confidently strode up the cobblestone road that led to the magical home.
He naturally attracted the admiring, lustful gazes of many, and he stirred long-forgotten feelings in the hearts of many elderly onlookers. It was difficult to see the conceptually handsome entity and not be distracted by his mere presence, which was itself a quite feat.
The actual reason for this was a bit more complex than him having imbibed essences that made him conceptually handsome. The truth was that the strange figure had an eerie soul, one marked as strongly by light as it was by darkness.
Andrew’s soul was touched by a number of virtues and sins in nearly equal measure. The sin that held the strongest sway over his very being was greed, which had manifested most strongly in his decision to go ahead and imbibe every essence he could get his hands on. At the same time, the virtue that most strongly influenced him was the virtue of good works.
Andrew was greedy, and he liked the attention he was receiving, but he was equally interested in doing good works. He wanted to grow in power, in every meaning of the term, but he also cared for people and wanted to uplift those around him.
Andrew was keenly aware of the two directions his soul could have gone in. He was not frightened by this knowledge, just intimately aware of it. He had no particular emotional reaction to this self-awareness, but it did temper his plans and was a big reason why he was interested in doing things in ways that others could have, at least somewhat reasonably, perceived as slower than necessary. He was not interested in efficiency, and he was not impatient.
At the same time, his grand and cosmic awareness were fully on as he made his way towards the Casa Madrigal. His awareness was so potent, especially with regards to things like sins, that he was actually able to passively sense the lustful thoughts he incited in others. This was a wholly new ability that had been granted to him by his powers naturally interacting with each other.
Deep within Andrew lurked a quiet space where his powers dwelled. In this space his powers could interact, mix, mingle, and even allow for wholly new usages and functionalities. This space existed within him as a consequence of two particular oddities of his nature.
The first oddity was due to the assorted essences he had imbibed. Some of them, such as the essence of skill mastery, had paved the way for him to become a being without true limits, and that meant unlimited growth.
This was made far more potent by the fact that one of his powers was the same mysterious power that allowed Najimi Ajimu to spontaneously develop wholly new powers every single day. When that particular power touched another power in the strange space that existed within Andrew it caused wholly new powers to appear within its wielder.
The second oddity was the result of an intriguing choice he had made hours ago. When Andrew had been navigating an array of Choose Your Own Adventures he stumbled across a little number named “Power Creator Xenon”. That potent CYOA was not just a power-listing power fantasy, even though he greedily used it as one.
In addition to listing out powers for those who sought to become superheroes that document also listed out mutations that “Supers” could have. These mutations were all quite varied in their utility, and Andrew had actively chosen to ignore a number of them, but a handful were incredibly useful.
The other reason Andrew’s powers could create wholly new functionalities on their own was his possession of two potent mutations: “Adaptability” and “Hypermutation”. These two mutations mixed within the young hero and created an anomalous area within him where all of his powers touched and mutated horizontally, occasionally causing wholly new abilities to bud within him.
The quiet figure did not feel like stealing hearts, which was the only reason why those who looked upon him did not fall for him outright. His was a supernatural, conceptual attractiveness that transcended things like aesthetic preferences or sexuality. His beauty also responded to the state of his heart and his interests thanks to the potency of the essence of the true fae.
Due to the fact that he was not in a romantic mood his beauty was in a sort of passive state where it still burned itself into the hearts of those who laid their eyes on him but wasn’t strong enough to incite obsession or passively steal a heart.
He made his way to the front door leading to the courtyard where a crowd of family friends of the Madrigals were gathered and speaking to the Madrigals. As he reached the group he began to smile and greet the Madrigals with a friendly smile on his face.
“Hello, Madrigals!” I uttered, excitedly, as I stepped past the final people who were standing in the doorway between myself and the Madrigals. Several of them, including Camilo, Dolores, Antonio himself, and Luisa, turned to face me and they all smiled brightly back at me.
As they smiled at me I felt a genuine burst of joy well up within me and I instinctively felt my physical appearance subtly shifting to reflect my legitimate joy. The smiles on their faces were genuine, and behind me, I could hear people beginning to sing and celebrate this joyous occasion.
Every living member of the Madrigal family was present and beside Antonio at the moment. Even the infamous matriarch of the family, and famed accidental architect of the Encanto, Alma Madrigal was here! She was a tall woman and she held onto the famed candle which provided each of the Madrigals with their magical powers.
The golden candle was glowing as brightly as it had the very hour it was first lit. It passively radiated an aura of thin but potent magic, and as I studied it I felt the powerful magic it was perpetually emanating. Alma held onto it with a tight, steel-like grip, and I could see the tension of that grip by glancing at her fingers. She valued that candle more than she valued many of the people in her courtyard!
I walked right up to Antonio and smiled at the little boy. He was a curly-haired child, with the features of someone whose youth was one of joy and play-filled afternoons. I knew him quite well and as I laid my physical eyes upon him I extended one hand towards his hair and gently patted the boy.
“Hey, Antonio. How are you feeling?” I asked, softly. He gently looked downwards and quietly muttered a soft response. I heard the words and I consciously softened the look on my face as I knelt downwards and gave him the gift I had brought for him. I sensed the curious stares of Dolores, Camilo, Pepa, and Mirabel, as they saw Antonio inch closer to me and grab the gift.
He gazed at it with incredibly warm eyes and I heard his heart hammering in his chest as his little hands began to paw at the gift-wrapping. Pepa chuckled and stepped toward us as Antonio managed to begin to tear away the paper and his eyes widened.
He let out a quiet gasp and began to more speedily tear away the gift wrapping as soon as he saw the tiny fraction of the anteater he had just caught a glimpse of. As he continued to tear away the gift-wrapping he began to let out a series of high-pitched, joyful laughs. The other Madrigals drew close to him as he tore through the paper and they all gasped in awe at the sheer beauty of the painting I had created for Antonio.
In order to create the painting, I had passively used various essences, such as the hypercompetence essence, the essence of miraculous aspect, the essence of the polymath, the essence of the nova, and the essence of the animator. Those essences all either boosted my actual artistic abilities or boosted my ability to boost my artistic abilities in real-time. In each case, by mixing them in I was able to create an ever more lovely painting so by the time I had mixed them together I had created something truly special.
I could audibly hear the hearts of each member of the Madrigal family pound in shock and awe as they studied the painting once the thing was fully revealed. It wasn’t just of an ant-eater, it was of various Colombian animals frolicking together. The painting was, even by the standards of my once uncultured eyes, a work of art, and the Madrigals were stunned as they studied it.
“Fernando…” Pepa whispered, the first of her family to audibly react to the painting once the thing was fully revealed. I could hear the tears welling up within her green eyes, and I felt the air around all of us warming up.
“Pepa relax… Otherwise, we’re all gonna start to sweat!” Isabela chided, though even she was affected by the sheer beauty of the painting. She couldn’t tear her eyes off of the art I had created. In her case, it was because of the background of the object, since the background was the Amazon Rainforest.
Mirabel was the first of the family to tear her eyes away from the painting, as she was able to look up at me a few seconds after she began to stare at the painting. She was silent and I could tell she was attempting to put her words together in her mind before she spoke.
“Hey, Mirabel…” I uttered, interrupting her before she could speak. This frazzled the young woman who began to blush as soon as I spoke, which caused me to chuckle softly. While I chuckled I also reached into my pocket and mentally scanned my hammerspace inventory.
In the inventory laid a powerful item that was perfect for this moment. Everyone’s eyes were on the painting still and their attention was mostly diverted from the moment happening between Maribel and me.
I quickly found the item I was searching for and I pulled it out of my inventory though I didn’t yet reveal it. At the moment the “perfect gift” was in the form of a tiny box in my hands, and as I touched it I realized what it was; a tiny candle.
“Listen… I know that today might be a bit hard for you and I wanted to get you something.” I told the blushing black-haired woman. She stiffened when she heard me be one of the few people to acknowledge, to her face, that today wasn’t a great day for her. I could also feel a wave of relief emanate from her when I acknowledged this simple reality.
I pulled the small pink box out of my pocket and presented it to her. It was while I was doing this that the other members of her family were able to begin to wrench themselves away from the painting. Alma Madrigal was one of the first Madrigals, aside from Mirabel, to see my gift to her granddaughter.
I sensed the quiet fury bubbling within Alma as she stared at her granddaughter. The sin within her heart was actually strengthening me, but I still hated it. I also refused to sit idly by
“Fernando… What are you…” She stammered, too quietly to be heard by those around her, before I turned my gaze to her and activated a powerful but admittedly somewhat darker power I possessed; “Puppet Master”.
This vampiric power let me control the physical actions of up to a galaxy’s worth of lifeforms or objects with nothing more than a thought. I didn’t want to do anything overtly malicious with it, I just used it to forcibly silence her and readied myself to politely remove her from the situation.
She suddenly found herself unable to continue her remarks, but I didn’t want to be cruel so I simply willed her to tap Pepa’s shoulder softly and quietly whisper to the middle-aged mother that she was going to Antonio’s door. Pepa smiled at her mother and nodded respectfully at the matriarch who did as I silently bade her do. At the same time, Pepa moved forward and gently took the painting I had created for her son so he wouldn’t lose or damage it.
Anything short of an ascendant entity couldn’t hope to resist the power I was using on her. Truthfully entire Disney jumps could be cheesed by this particular power, but I preferred not to use it unless it was against something like an abuser or other unpleasant entity. I was more than willing to use it against Alma since she had been about to spew a hateful tirade at Mirabel.
Mirabel reached out and took the gift I was ready to offer her in her hands all while softly smiling at me. She studied the box and I watched her joy reach the very core of her being. The gift I was giving her was a fiat-backed item and even as she took it from me I felt another one pop into being in my inventory.
Mirabel opened the box, taking off the top of the thing quite excitedly, and giggled when she saw the tiny replica of her familial artifact. She pulled an expertly crafted replica of the arcane item that had granted her family magic.
“Fernando… Did you make this?” She asked me, as she gazed at the beautiful object. I smiled at her and shook my head. I didn’t feel like lying to her, though I couldn’t exactly tell the full truth either.
“I found it. And when I did I thought of you.” I told her, gently. A truth, and a lie. As I spoke I could feel her impression of me changing, improving quite dramatically, thanks in part to the array of perks I possessed.
Powerful perks, some of which only passively boosted my overall charisma such as from my body mod, and others of which boosted things like my ability to appeal to members of my preferred gender were working together. This was coupled with the potent effects of the item I was using, which was somewhat uncreatively named “The Perfect Gift”, which made the impact of the gift on Mirabel’s heart pretty significant.
Moments like this were also quite fun for me from another angle. At the moment an array of powers in the back of my mind were active all at the same time, showcasing different paths I could take to achieve a number of different goals, and several of them were fun in many different senses of the word. If I wanted to I could effortlessly plan how to find my way into the hearts of assorted heroines!
I wasn’t especially interested in doing that at the moment, there were adventures to be had before we did anything like that, but having the freedom to do so was quite nice.
Mirabel was also not the only person who had a bit of an interest in me at the moment. I possessed a handy power that made me the slightest bit interesting to anyone of my preferred gender who had the smallest tinge of arcane talent; “Dragon Aura” which was a curious ability from the Waifu Catalog. With it even being in my presence was enough to make magical and supernatural would-be partners who could have children at least mildly interested in me.
It was at that moment that the attention of the moment was shifted from us back to who it was meant to be on; Antonio. This happened thanks to the timely intervention of Alma Madrigal, the complex character known to much of the internet as “Abuela Madrigal”, due to her relationship with Mirabel. The matriarch of the Madrigal family stepped towards the edge of the second-floor walkway on which she was currently standing and began to speak.
“Family, friends, neighbors, the time has come for the ceremony! Please clear the way for Antonio, and allow him to walk unimpeded towards his door.” She called out, speaking in a loud and refined voice. When she was done speaking everyone, even Antonio’s fellow Madrigals like his mother and Mirabel stepped away from the lad to give him breathing room. Mirabel stayed close to me and occasionally glanced at me, shyly.
As we all did as we were told Antonio turned to gaze at Mirabel and at me. There was a look of visible terror on his face as he glanced at us and he motioned for the two of us to come and hold his hand. Mirabel’s face shifted completely when Antonio asked her to come and join him and I saw panic fill her gaze.
“I can’t.” She mouthed, silently. His eyes filled with tears as she refused him, and I gently shook my head at her response. I stepped toward him, but I felt Mirabel’s hand land on my chest in a gentle effort to stop me. I looked at her and smiled sympathetically, but refused to be stopped by her half-hearted attempts to keep me away from Antonio.
I heard a number of shocked gasps when I stepped out of the crowd made up of Madrigals and walked toward Antonio. I gently grabbed the little boy’s hand and nodded reassuringly at him. I was able to do this so surely because I knew that this wouldn’t mess up the ceremony, thanks mostly to my out-of-context knowledge of Encanto as a film rather than any sort of in-context knowledge of the setting of the same name.
Mirabel, seeing me softly grip Antonio’s hand and smile at the lad in her place caused her to feel a dizzying array of emotions all at once. She froze as she attempted to process the feelings she was feeling, and Antonio looked up at me gratefully. The two of us began to walk towards the stairwell that would lead up to the rooms of many of the younger Madrigals.
As we walked over there all eyes were on us, and I could feel the boy’s trembling heart pounding even through his hands. As we walked I decided to comfort Antonio, and I silently transmitted feelings of faith in himself into him. This was a simple usage of my powers as a potent divinity and “Angel Monarch”.
With every step Antonio grew braver and braver. By the time we were up the stairs he was aglow with confidence, and was the picture of childhood purity, joy, and bravery. Alma gazed at him, proudly, and refused to acknowledge my presence. She stepped towards him, candle in her cupped palms and began to speak softly to the boy.
“You will serve this community and strengthen our home.” She uttered, as she knelt down slightly and Antonio stepped towards her, his eyes locked on hers even while he reached forward and touched the candle. He touched it and as he did a series of soft gasps emanated from the crowd around him.
I felt his soul shift as he was imbued with the candle’s energies. I also felt a jolt of almost electric energy flow into him and propel him to gently pull away from the candle. He did so, all while nodded at Alma and he stepped towards the door.
Unlike Mirabel, so many years ago, he did not wipe his hands on his clothes while approaching his door. Instead of doing anything like that he silently walked straight to the door, and nervously put his hands on the doorknob that was affixed to his door.
The very instant that he touched the doorknob a golden glow began to emit from it, covering him in a soft aura of light. He was bathed in the light for a few moments until a solitary toucan sailed towards him and perched itself on his shoulder.
The toucan looked at the boy and began to quietly, politely squawk at him. He turned to face it, and the look of wonder on his face from the magic he had just seen became a look of innocent joy. He listened to the creature for a second and then began to excitedly nod at the strange thing.
“Yeah, I can understand you!” He almost whispered, excitedly. I could also understand the creature, and I began to smile right as the first whispers behind me began. People were telling people about Antonio’s gift, and the news began to spread so fast that the massive audience of onlookers didn’t even hear Antonio continuing to respond to the bird’s words.
“Of course, they can come!” He said, joyfully. I turned my gaze to the sky just in time to see other birds, other toucans, be summoned by the gentle bird who had perched on Antonio’s shoulder. Distantly, other animals began to dash towards Antonio and the Casa Madrigal, causing sounds that only Dolores and I could hear as they began a joyous dash towards the protections of the casita.
All around us cheers began to erupt from the humans as the ceremony reached a formal conclusion. I could hear hundreds of voices excitedly clamoring to share in Antonio’s joy, even while I heard Mirabel begin to step out from where she had been standing and gaze in the direction of Antonio and me, quite sadly.
I turned and gazed at her, and saw that she was slinking off away from the rest of the crowd, which was steadily beginning to surge in the direction of Antonio and me, with the Madrigals leading the pack. Pepa was already half the way towards us!
I knew that Mirabel was destined to make a big discovery tonight, so while the crowd surged towards me I silently created a clone located in my fancy home who would step out of it when the time came. In the meantime I allowed Mirabel to have her moment to be sad and to mourn the devastating impact of this moment on her emotional state, though I also knew that doing it this way would soften the overall impact it’d have on her emotional wellbeing since she wasn’t seeing Antonio’s joy and success up close.
