Mage King in Amalgam-Verse (Marvel) (DC) (HP)

6 - Devotion (r18)

Warning: Explicit Content

{Brooke Manor, Greater Manchester}

{1st August 1989}

Three years. Three beautiful years.

Matteo was willing to admit that, well, things might've gotten a little out of hand.

He hadn't aspired to have this much. Not at first.

The most prevalent reason behind the whole 'adoption' scenario, the reason he had even thought to seek out a guardian, could be summed up in one word. School.

Matteo had died a college freshman– he went through five years of elementary, three years of middle, four years of highschool, half a year of college... just to have to do it all again?

Matteo had only been eight when he awakened Mastery, but just two more years of school was enough for him to decide that, no, he wasn't doing that.

That was why Camilla was now his 'mother,' and Chloe was his 'tutor.'

There was also Mrs. Richards, but that had been less of a recruitment, and more along the lines of a transaction. Money for immortality.

Mrs. Richards wasn't 'his,' not in the way Camilla and Chloe were.

Not in the way that his 10+ devoted maids were.

'Fourteen maids...' he recounted, grinning, 'and sixteen women total, all of which are wholly and utterly devoted to me, Matteo. Their owner, their master... their deity.'

The thought made him smile. But no, he hadn't been trying to start a cult. It was just that, six bedrooms, three acres, and 12,000 square feet... it was kind of a lot. Yes, all of it could easily be cleaned with magic, but that obviously wasn't something that he could explain. Nor did he want anyone to think that they cleaned their house themselves.

Instead of mind-wiping away his problems, it was easier for Matteo to just 'recruit' maids. In fact, it hadn't even been his own suggestion– it had been Camilla's.

Which, well, it made sense. Her fetish of 'lording over' his other women, along with being his legal mother, had turned her into a Head Priest of sorts.

And while Matteo didn't need fourteen maids... it was hard for him to just not acquire them.

When he has a spell that finds the location of his ideal women, on death's door, ready to take Matteo as their master, if it meant they continued living? Even if it meant being 'his,' in every sense of the word...? How could he not? It was nearly always active, so whenever Matteo got a nearby 'ping,' well, it was time for Matteo to acquire another devoted maid.

And after three years, they weren't just ordinary maids, no.

Matteo had been busy.

He had been training them all in magic and combat, Camilla and Chloe included, nearly as often as he had been dicking them all down.

And after three years of pursuing perfection, he had come to... an understanding.

Magic was flexible. Extraordinarily so.

Flexible in the way that, if two identical people were raised on two different magics– one being traditional American Sorcery, the other Indian Ritual Magic– their varied upbringings would lead to two different understandings of magic... a difference that was so prevalent, that it literally manifested into reality, physically altering the way their mana functioned.

Magic was the energy used to bend the laws of the universe, and while some things were harder to do with it then others, it was quite literally what you made of it.