It's Incredible How Weak Magic Makes You, Isn't it?

Chapter 1

In truth, I always ragged on Superman and the rest of the Justice League when I was a human. I mean, sure the whole protecting your family thing is great and all. Totally noble, but if you can move at the speed of light and have x-ray vision that seems a bit redundant to me. But after the War of the Monarchs, I understood just how necessary it was to guard my identity tooth and nail. Not to protect my family, they instantly surmised what I was despite my best efforts to avoid that, but to protect myself.

You see, the forming of the Council of Eight was not the last significant milestone that the Monarchs went through, and it wasn't even close to being the most significant. A few months after the end of the War the internet had regained a significant amount of traffic(though nowhere near its previous levels) and chatrooms began to overflow with talk of Marks that began to appear randomly on people's bodies.

This in of itself was fairly underwhelming at first, until Marks began to show up on Monarchs as well. The first of the Council to bear a Mark was Nocturne. It had been at a Council meeting in Sweden, the Meetings changed locations so as to not show favoritism to one country over others, and the Mark had appeared on her right shoulder. As she described it, it was ice cold for a moment before stopping. Naturally this was something that the Council felt needed be discussed. Fortunately the internet was already on the case. Some lucky reporter managed to get a picture of her tattoo and it was circulating through the message boards before long. This was how the Tamers were discovered.

The name, Tamer, was another invention by the internet. Though their exact purpose is yet unclear, it seems as though they are intended to be nature's little counterbalance. Tamers are pure human. The only difference is the Mark that they share with their Monarch. Nocturne was the first to meet her Tamer and, just like that, the two became inseparable. Her Tamer's name was Mica, and if true love was a thing those two were the poster girls for it. Now, I know what you are thinking. Tamers are the Monarchs' true loves, or whatever. But, thankfully, that is not at all the case. It just happened that Nocturne and Mica became a couple. The next of the Council to find their Tamer was Drift and he didn't have to look far for his. His own twin brother was his Tamer.

This had been a startling revelation for more reasons than one. Drift had simply walked into the Council room, his brother walking beside him, and looked at us expectantly. Naturally, Valiance had asked what he was doing here. It should be noted that, up until this point, not a single one of us knew what the others looked like as a human. This had been something of an unspoken rule in order to keep good 'working' relationships. But Drift had taken that rule and curb stomped it into oblivion. After being challenged by Valiance, he took his Monarch form and we all instantly recognized him. His brother held up his right hand, and Drift his left.

As it turned out, Drift was natively Japanese. He had moved to Taiwan at a young age, and both countries now hailed him and his brother as heroes. I should back up a bit. Drift had left that meeting as a human, walking before the swarm of reporters and other media organizations, and had changed into his Monarch form in front of them. They had gone ballistic and nearly wet themselves with excitement. Now Drift, whose real name was Takeda Hiro, and his brother, Tanagi, were living the high life. Celebrity status? Forget it. They were in a league all of their own.

It wasn't long before others in the Council decided they wanted their own slice of the spotlight. Nocturne was the next to go public with her human name and identity. Her Tamer had already been sleuthed out by the internet, so that was less of a reveal but they were both just as big of celebrities as Drift and his brother. Sweden never held a bigger party than the night that she revealed herself as a born and raised Swede. Then Rain and her husband revealed their identities to the world as Monarch and Tamer. Those two were Canadian and insisted that they didn't want any elaborate parties. The rest followed their lead. Break and her best friend were Russian. Whisper and his little sister were Egyptian.  Khione and her husband were Scottish. Valiance and his lover were former residents of Hawaii. The world had gone a little weepy at this when Valiance had called the largest press conference in recorded history and revealed his identity and that of his lover. He had told them that he had just barely managed to get his lover out of Hawaii in the nick of time. He described what it was like to lose his family to something he should have tried to stop. This was why he had decided that something must be done. Unfortunately, tracking down more Monarchs to join his cause had taken time.