“Heyyyyy Martin’s! I was told there was supposed to be a lot of really powerful superhumans here, but I don’t see any!”

 

“…Excuse me, can you please direct me to the nearest washroom?”

 

–Azadeh and Yuma

 

“I don’t want to do anything or be anything. I just kind of want to feel the world spin beneath my feet, and I’m not partial to the direction. I’ll let the crazier, more powerful people like dad and Azadeh decide the direction.”

 

–Yuma

 

“Being a Marid doesn’t mean you tune out, moron! It means you glow with an intensity so great others can’t ignore it, and you illuminate a path no one saw before. You don’t glow, and you never will with that attitude of yours, you’ll just burn out!”

 

–Azadeh

 

 

Introduction

 

Take one spoiled princess named Azadeh. As vain as she is beautiful, as irresponsible as she is powerful, her parents fear the day that she’ll take the throne and rule the 1000 and 1 Kingdoms as the Sultana of Jann. To teach her discipline and humility, her parents have decided to make her the servant to the son of the legendary superhero, Messenger of Peace, who years ago saved the 1000 and 1 Kingdoms from evil genie sorcerers known as the Shiriya Thalatha–the Wicked Three: Dahish bin El A’mash, Jirjis bin Rajmus, and Shimakh al-Hariq.

 

Take one withdrawn underachiever named Yuma Hasegawa, son of the Messenger of Peace at the prestigious Ishinomori Academy for Superheroes. He doesn’t want to follow in the footsteps of his father and tries his hardest to flunk out. Though he’s the lowest-ranked student at school, his teachers pull all the strings they can to keep Messenger of Peace’s only son from failing.

 

Now put them together and what do you got?

 

Well, one calls their team “Genie and Servant.” The other calls their team “Genie and Master,” so people tend to call them GM/GS…but they still argue over whether the GM or GS should go first…

 

Azadeh, Princess of the 1000 and 1 Kingdoms

 

There are, in fact, 1000 and 1 kingdoms within the universe known as the 1000 and 1 Kingdoms, though the “and 1” is very different from the others.

 

The 1000 and 1 Kingdoms have come to mankind’s notice through the Arabian Nights, through the folklore of India, China, and Arabia, through the translations and compilations of Antoine Galland and Richard Burton. Through these sources, mankind knows of a Baghdad ruled by an immortal Harun al-Rashid where an equally immortal Sinbad the sailor ventures out onto the waters of the multiverse whenever the call for adventure stirs in his heart, an Israel whose temple never fell ruled by sorcerer kings armed with the wisdom of Solomon, the infamous City of Brass by the sea of Al-Karkar where silence reigns over dead bodies and sleeping automatons, the living island kingdom of Aspidochelone and the fish-man civilization that has learned to live on top–and inside–Aspidochelone, Takni the land of jewels and diamonds, and more, so much more. 

 

But though these kingdoms are part of the 1000 and 1 Kingdoms, none of them are not the “and 1.” That would be the kingdom of the genies–the jinn, the ifrit, the shedim, the dev, the peri–called Jann after the first genie sultan Jann ibn Jann.

 

The words genie, jinn, and jann roughly translate to “the hidden.” Genie are creatures of the smokeless fire, the norea, the empyrean, the divine fire of the Astral Twilight which they call samum. Their underlying substance is a light so bright it cannot be seen, a fire so hot it cannot be felt. They pass through worlds of matter like wind through a vast, empty sky, and the same holds true for their homeland. Jann is a land of light and shadow imperceptible and intangible to most. Occasionally, a child or one with the heart of a child may see a glimmer of the jeweled walls of a castle floating among the clouds or may hear mirthful laughter in an empty field, but the kingdom of Jann is ultimately a mirage accessible only by those who themselves can become mirages. 

 

Jann exists in the wilderness of the 1000 and 1 Kingdoms. It exists wherever the civilizations of man and fish-man and bird-man do not reach–within clouds, across deserts, below oceans, on the moon, within stars. All other kingdoms are but small chambers within the palace-universe called Jann, small stories within a colossal book. Because of its size, it is sometimes said that Jann rules the other kingdoms, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Where humans expand, they must retreat.

 

Long ago in the past, but longer still after the rule of Jann ibn Jann, the sultan of Jann was Iblis al-Rajim. It was during his reign that the angels of Heaven began creating the various other races of the 1000 and 1 Kingdoms just as they had created life in neighboring universes along their Monad’s empyrean edge such as Sommerland and Mundus. Before the angels, the universe was Jann and genies were the only inhabitant.

 

 It was, in essence, a territorial dispute. Aeons ago, Jann ibn Jann led a small army of angels known as the Marid, or Rebels, away from Heaven believing that it was better to live without a constant connection to the Monad. Today, genies call influential thinkers and iconoclasts Marid. George Washington was a Marid, as was Plato and Confucius and of course, Messenger of Peace.

 

In the words of Jann ibn Jann:

 

“If the Monad is truly within all things, then what need do we have a physical connection? Is my faith in the Monad not greater because I hold to it even in the darkness outside the empyrean? Who is the greater servant, he who does his master’s will only within the presence of his master or he who does his will where his master cannot see, where his master cannot reach?”

 

Jann ibn Jann is today held up to near-worshipful status by genies, not only as the father of their race and kingdom but as the creator of their philosophy and way of life. Jannism (not to be confused with Jainism) teaches that one can only truly know God by removing themselves from God’s presence. In this way, forming their ego and personality by themselves just as the Monad formed his ego and personality from out of the darkness of nonexistence. When one creates himself, as God created himself, then one knows God. 

 

Part of Azadeh’s bull-headed immaturity stems from her misinterpreting the philosophy of Jann ibn Jann, something common among young genies. She believes that being willful is the same as being like God, but as her parents try again and again to explain to her, God acts with will and wisdom. The will of God is intent, not impulse.

 

Settling in the universe that would become the 1000 and 1 Kingdoms, the genie lived in peace watching stars burn and planets cool until the angels began populating their world with life.

 

The angels believed that, though Jann ibn Jann’ universe was naturally barren, that they were in their right to populate it because the universe was spawned at the outer edge of their Monad’s empyrean field. The genies believed that because they lived within the universe, as opposed to the angels who lived outside it, that they had the right to expel all the humans and animals and human-animals from their paradise. The angels were uninvited guests, and the humans were their litter.

 

Debate between the angels and genies was fierce, and very, very long. Centuries passed as the angels and genies argued and litigated. If you think our legal system can drag out proceedings, you know nothing. But eventually, the sight of non-genie civilizations expanding–and what was worse, genies befriending and even marrying non-genies–enraged Iblis al-Rajim to the point of taking decisive, brutal action. He led Jann in a genocidal jihad against all angel-created life. He was opposed by a coalition of heroes led by the archangel Michael, the wise and powerful sorcerer Solomon (so wise and powerful that his wisdom forms part of the SHAZAM formula that powers Captain Marvel), and a mighty genie named Al-Dimiryat who is now held up as the greatest genie second only to Jann Ibn Jann. He’s seen as something of an Abraham Lincoln. He rose to unite his country during a time of division and established an ethos that survives to this day.

 

In a battle that shook the multiverse, Iblis al-Rajim and his forces were defeated and imprisoned by the magic of Solomon into mundane objects–brass bottles, clay jars, oil lamps, stone wells, but especially rings. These genies were made to repent for their crimes by being forced to serve whatever human held their prisons. Notably, Iblis al-Rajim was forced into an iron box and became a slave of Solomon who forced him to build an enormous temple. Imprisonment and servitude became a common punishment for wicked genies, and though Azadeh’s crimes are far less severe than genocide, her punishment to be bound to a backpack and serve Yuma is derived from the punishments of Solomon.

 

After Iblis al-Rajim was overthrown, Al-Dimiryat became the new sultan of Jann and signed the Treaty of Jann, the original document signed in fire upon the wing of an angel, exists inside Haziel’s book. 

 

The Treaty of Jann stated that:

 

1. Genies may not settle other universes.
2. Genies may not alter the course of human events (a tricky statement to be sure, but most interpret it to mean that while genies can interact with humans, they may not interfere with human governments and culture. A loophole here is that genies can interfere with human governments as servants to humans, because in that case they are simply carrying out the will of humans, not imposing their own will upon humans. A famous example is the story of Aladdin, who became the emperor of the China that exists within the 1000 and 1 Kingdoms through the aid of two genie servants).
3. When human civilization grows, genies must retreat.
4. The ultimate authority of Jann is not the sultan, but the Ismah, a council of angels. Ismah is a word meaning innocence in the sense that the Ismah remain as detached as possible from the governing of Jann. In all their aeons of existence, the Ismah has never had to pull rank on the sultan. Still, they remain a sword above the sultan’s head and a reminder to all of Jann that rebellion against the angels will be met with swift reprisal. The Ismah consists of Ridwan, Maalik, and Israfil.

 

Modern Jann is much more tolerant of humans than the Jann of Iblis al-Rajim. They see humans as fragile, precious things–even cute in the way they bravely soldier on through life without even the smallest fraction of a genie’s power. And they recognize that humans are as beholden to the angels as they are. While genies often adopt a contemptuous attitude towards humans, they recognize that humans have a right to live–and that any problem they have with their expansion can be left squarely at the feet of the angels.

 

Modern Jann does not like angels. The genies groan under the yoke of their rule, no matter how hands-off the Ismah is in practice. Israfil’s presence in particular greatly offends the genies. Though Israfil is a kind, gentle angel, unwaveringly optimistic and hopeful to a fault, he has been trusted by heaven with the Horn of Qiyamah precisely for these qualities. The Horn of Qiyamah is a cosmic superweapon capable of annihilating a universe with one note, and heaven has given this weapon to Israfil because he above all angels will only use the Horn if there is truly no hope left. Israfil being on the Ismah bothers the genies like how humans would be bothered by a starship full of sun-killers parking itself by Pluto. 

 

The genies are also concerned that they’re being fenced in by mankind’s expansion. Wherever humans settle, they must retreat. The trading fleets of the immortal Sinbad have taken to the stars, and living in an immortal universe doesn’t mean much if a finite circle is drawn around you. Sinbad has set up a veil around the universe with the permission of the Ismah. This veil functions similarly to the barrier the Dagdans placed around their universe. Anyone attempting to travel into or out of the 1000 and 1 Kingdoms is routed to Baghdad’s riverfront port near the Tigris where they are taxed by Harun al-Rashid. As this veil is considered part of human civilization, genies have to pay a fine whenever they want to explore the multiverse, and given the adventurous disposition of those who adhere to the philosophy of Jann ibn Jann and the ease at which beings of radiant norea can travel the multiverse, the veil tax weighs much heavier upon genies than it does men.

 

The genies fear it is only a matter of time before the noose starts to tighten and have made appeals, all rejected, to Heaven.

 

The younger the genie, the stronger they feel about the angels, and Azadeh is no exception to this rule. She is very vocal about her distrust of angel kind and it has made her celebrity among young genies–and, as older genies fear, a corrupting influence. Part of the reason her parents punished her with servitude is that they’re worried if her emotions aren’t checked she could do serious damage to society as queen by picking a fight with the angels.

 

The current sultan of Jann is Azadeh’s father Al-Ra’ad al-Kasif whose name means the Lightning of Revelation. He is a stern but fair king loved by his subjects who traces his lineage back to the famed Al-Dimiryat through his daughter Parinbanou, which means Al-Ra’ad al-Kasif has a little human admixture in his family tree through Parinbanou’s marriage to prince Ahmed. That Jann is comfortable with a king with human ancestry shows how much they’ve come since the days of Iblis al-Rajim.

 

During Iblis’ war against humanity, Al-Ra’ad al-Kasif was on his side. His grandfather Al-Dimiryat was forced to fight and defeat him and once Al-Ra’ad al-Kasif was defeated he was imprisoned in a ring by Solomon. Nowadays, Al-Ra’ad al-Kasif reminisces on his thousands of years of servitude with a glad heart. He credits his servitude with making him a wise genie and tempering his anger–and believes that servitude can do the same for his daughter.

 

The sultana of Jann is Taima al-Kasif, which means the Thunder of Revelation. It’s only natural that Thunder and Lightning would have an attraction for one another. Let it never be said that Taima al-Kasif is a permissive sultana. Years before she married Al-Ra’ad al-Kasif, she once did a favor for a young man named Abdullah bin Fazil who saved her from a dragon while she was shapeshifted into the form of a snake. Abdullah’s brothers had betrayed him and attempted to murder him by tossing him off a ship. It was only by the grace of God that he survived. When Taima learned of this, she transformed Abdullah’s brothers into dogs and had them whipped every night for 12 years.

 

But the thunder, though louder than the lightning, is ultimately less destructive, and when her husband told her that she planned to punish their daughter by imprisoning her in an iron ring for 1000 years, Taima argued him down to 1 year inside a backpack.

 

Call me Azadeh al-Marid!

 

Al-Ra’ad al-Kasif was tolerant and patient with his daughter. As an enslaved disciple of Iblis al-Rajim who earned his redemption through thousands of years of servitude, he knew the value of tolerance and patience. He was patient with Azadeh when she turned the flying carpet of Solomon, a precious gift from Solomon to Jann, from green to red because “red looks better than green.”

He was patient with Azadeh when she stole the wings off the Ismah and gave them back colored pink.He was patient with Azadeh when she turned the moon into golden cheese on a dare. He was patient with Azadeh when she turned the prince of Cyclops 1 foot high and kept him as a pet because he said “princess Azadeh” in a sarcastic tone.

 

He was even patient when she started calling herself  Azadeh al-Marid, a huge breach of etiquette within Jann culture. Azadeh al-Marid means literally Azadeh the rebel, but in the context of Jann culture Marid refers specifically to the angels that followed Jann ibn Jann away from Heaven and broadly to any great thinker, iconoclast, or trailblazer (genies conflate all three under the same word. “The true follower of Jann ibn Jann wages war against Jann ibn Jann” is a genie maxim roughly meaning the same as “If you see Buddha along the path, kill Buddha.”) Azadeh calling herself a Marid is a display of gross arrogance on the level of someone calling themselves a philosopher. One does not name himself a Marid. A Marid is only a Marid when other people call him a Marid.

 

In case you were wondering, Azadeh’s true name, as in the name her parents gave her to put on all her paperwork is Azadeh bint al-Ra’ad. You might think “Azadeh, daughter of lightning” would be a proud enough name for anyone–but not Azadeh. You might have also heard some of the names Azadeh has picked up through her horrid reputation–Azadeh al-Ahmaq (Azadeh the fool), Azadeh al-Mutasarie (Azadeh the rash), and Azadeh al-Maghrur (Azadeh the arrogant).

 

Through all Azadeh’s offenses, Al-Ra’ad al-Kasif was patient with his wayward daughter.

 

But then she had to take the Cauldron of Worlds for a joyride.

 

The Cauldron of Worlds is a tool of great and profound meditation used only by the most learned and disciplined of sorcerers. It is not a toy. It is the furthest thing from a toy. Within its waters are bubbles and within these bubbles are an infinity of worlds. 

 

The Cauldron is how the Soul of Eternity manifests within the 1000 and 1 Kingdoms. That the multiverse can contain itself is something that’s perplexed philosophers and scientists since the dawn of time (and before the dawn of time), and yet, that is how nature works. At a certain point, our concepts of sequence and scope become as applicable to nature as they are to fiction.

 

The Cauldron of Worlds was created by Al-Ra’ad al-Kasif back during Iblis’ war. It was a fine work of magic and to this day Al-Ra’ad considers it the greatest magical object he ever created Iblis and Al-Ra’ad intended to use the Cauldron of Worlds to divert the angels from Jan. They would cast curses targeting humans throughout the entire multiverse, but fortunately they were foiled before they even began by Solomon, who correctly guessed their strategy. He countered the Cauldron from the inside, meaning the multiverse outside the 1000 and 1 Kingdoms, which had the additional benefit of making the forces of Iblis think he had retreated.

 

Solomon wove a spell across the multiverse that caused any spells cast upon it from the Cauldron of Worlds to rebound. When Al-Ra’ad and Iblis started to cast their spells, the cauldron blew back in their faces, wounding them and taking them out of the war.

When Al-Ra’ad was made a servant at the war’s conclusion, his Cauldron changed hands through several sorcerers who used the Cauldron of Worlds as a tool of profound meditation and self-discovery. If a person leaps into the Cauldron of Worlds, they are reborn as a being in another universe, far, far away. Sometimes they become a wholly new being, sometimes they take over the body of a being that already exists and that person’s intelligence is displaced to sleep between realities. But there is always a rebirth, somewhere out there in the multiverse.

 

The Arabian Nights includes a story of a vizier who jumped into the Cauldron and found that he was a mermaid. He was forced to marry a fisherman and bear him seven children before he emerged. Then a caliph jumped into the Cauldron and became a cook’s servant. Trying to regain some of the riches he was used to, the ex-king became a broker and tried to sell a jewel, but the jewel turned out to have been stolen and he was sentenced to be executed. As the balde touched his neck, he emerged from the Cauldron.

 

When Al-Ra’ad was made sultan of Jann, he cast a spell that gradually brought the Cauldron of Worlds to his side (and oh, the stories told about the Cauldron as it traveled!) and kept it in his palace in a room he made clear to Azadeh she was not supposed to go into, a room warded over several times with magical spells. But that didn’t deter Azadeh al-Marid. She took the Cauldron for a joy ride and plunged in to see what would happen.

She found herself incarnated as a talking mouse named Lychnis Pinks trying to learn magic from an old wizard inside an enchanted tower where every book, piece of furniture, and picture had a bit of magic. Lychnis was afraid of the wizard, not because he was mean, far from it, but because she was a shy creature by nature, and so she watched him from a distance and copied his mannerisms and gestures and even the way he walked in the hopes of gleaning some scrap of magical insight.

 

Azadeh found the experience refreshing–no magic, only several inches tall, with a disposition for shyness–she was so unlike herself and it was, bizarrely, liberating. She wanted to see if she couldn’t leave Lynchis with some objects from the wizard’s bedroom that she was too scared to ever even dream about stealing. But before she could act, her father’s hand reached into the Cauldron, reached down through the multiverse, and pulled her out by the ponytail.

 

Dad was mad. Dad was very, very mad.

 

That Azadeh would treat such a powerful thing, such a holy thing, as a game for her amusement was beyond the pale. She had no respect–not for the cosmos, not for herself, and not for her father. She had to be punished, and if her mom didn’t intervene, it would have been 1000 years inside an ugly iron ring. Instead, she was made the servant to the son of a man the 1000 and 1 Kingdoms owed much to.

 

Yuma, Son of Messenger of Peace

 

In the early half of the 2010’s, three of the cruelest generals of Iblis al-Rajim were released from their prisons by a descendent of Solomon who, in her ego, thought she could bind the three to her symbol and name, not his. These three generals sought out their old master Iblis with the intent of resuming the war against Heaven, but the aeons had taught Iblis the error of his ways and he refused to join his generals. The generals, without a leader, found new purpose in a multiverse joyride pillaging  and enslaving countless worlds for kicks. But they made a mistake when they tried to attack Earth and went up against Messenger of Peace (no the), one of the universe’s most powerful protectors.

 

A single genie is a threat to an entire universe. They can grasp all the stars and planets with one hand. Yet even three of them at once was no match for Messenger of Peace.

 

Subdued, the three genies were bound to the descendent of Solomon who foolishly released them. It will be her punishment until the end of time to guard the Shiriya Thalatha.

This descendent, by the way, was named Deborah, and she’s proven to be a rather persistent nuisance to Azadeh and Yuma, believing that if she can defeat and capture Azadeh it will prove that she’s worth more than a warden to three genies. But more on her later.

 

The sultan and sultana of the 1000 and 1 Kingdoms never forgot Messenger of Peace, and so when it came time to decide who to entrust their daughter to, they looked up Messenger of Peace and saw that he had a son who was very lonely and very humble. It was deemed that this young man, Yuma, proved worthy to control a genie as powerful as Azadeh, and what was more, it was deemed that he really, really needed a friend.

 

Yuma felt like the black sheep of his family. His father was Messenger of Peace, a superhero up there in prestige with the gods of Japanese superheroics–Lifeman, Skull Savior, Beyondion, the Resonancers, Magical Woman…and Messenger of Peace. As a child, Yuma would watch his father on the news wrestle evil sapient galaxies into submission, defeat evil genies, and fish out starships from black holes, and Yuma would feel proud, so proud. He had the best dad in the world! His dad was  superdad! But as he got older, his dad started to place his dove-shaped helmet on his head, and talk to him about enrolling him in Ishinomori School, which trained Japan’s greatest superheroes, and whether Yuma would like to work alone like his old man or work as a member of a superteam.

 

And Yuma couldn’t do anything that his dad could do.

 

He couldn’t fly, or shove planets, or shoot beams out of his hands–the only thing he had was superdurability, and though his dad and everyone else always harped on how strong his superdurability was and how only a few beings in all of existence had superdurability on his level, Yuma knew all it meant was that he was an invincible puncing bag. Sure, he could always develop new superpowers. People developed new superpowers every day. Secondary hyperstasis was older than the Great War in the Air, and Ishinomori had many students that entered without powers and left superpowered. But he had seen these students. He saw how hard they trained, how naturally skilled they were, how they were so much closer to being like his dad than he ever was, and he gave up. 

 

He simply gave up.

 

He wasn’t going to be a superhero. He wasn’t going to be a thing like Messenger of Peace. And it felt like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders when he came to that resolution. He didn’t know what he would be after high school, but so long as it wasn’t a superhero, he was fine.

 

He couldn’t just leave Ishinomori. His parents wouldn’t let him, and none of his teachers wanted to be known as the teacher that flunked the son of Messenger of Peace, so he found that the next best thing  was to underachieve–and then some. He tried his hardest to get kicked from the school due to low academics. But though he maintained a persistent position as the lowest-ranked kid at Ishinomori, his teachers were unwilling to give up on him or his legacy and pulled all the strings they could to keep him in school.

 

And so, Yuma became human driftwood floating on the currents of his life and confused as to why it didn’t make him happy. He was free–free of obligations, of expectations, of judgment, of failure–and yet he wasn’t happy, and he couldn’t understand why.

 

He only ever briefly, gingerly, touched the lives of those around him. He had friends, of a non-committal sort. He had teachers that he liked. He had girls he thought were pretty. But that was all. That was all of his social life.

 

And so, one day, which was like every other day for Yuma because every day seemed like every other day to Yuma, a man, or rather a being that looked like a man, dressed in red robes with a very large, onion-shaped kavuk hat.

 

This man was none other than Iblis al-Rajim, now reformed after aeons of servitude and punishment. He was willing to give the whole “coexistence with mankind” thing another try, and so Azadeh’s father sent him along to act as Azadeh’s guardian and advocate. He trusted the son of Messenger of Peace to treat his daughter well, but he understood how spontaneous and emotional young people could be, especially when one of them was a genie, and wanted Ibis to take keep an eye on Yuma and Azadeh to make sure they didn’t dishonor themselves.

 

Iblis explained who he was, who Azadeh was, and why he had been chosen to be Azadeh’s master. Then he presented him the Jannsport backpack and asked him to open it.

 

Yuma saw a weird old guy in flamboyant clothing trying to arrange some sort of rendezvous with a girl and figured he was talking to a pimp, but when he tried the zipper on the backpack and flames came out, and the flames turned into a girl, he realized that he was dealing with something very, very different.

 

Yuma didn’t appreciate having a genie servant, especially one he got because of his dad. At all. He didn’t need someone to hand him a girlfriend, if he wanted one he’d get one the normal way. He also didn’t need a maid with the power to give him whatever he wanted. He didn’t want much–and was proud that he didn’t want much. He didn’t have ambitions. What he wanted–all that he wanted–he could get easily on his own.

 

He wished that she was free and that she and Ibis would go home and never bother him again.

 

Azadeh didn’t appreciate the insinuation that she was his girlfriend, or a maid, or that he could just wish for her to be gone. She really, really, didn’t appreciate it, and responded by throwing a fireball at his head.

 

It would be the first of many fireballs.

 

While Iblis apologized profusely and summoned a garden hose to put out Yuma, Azadeh explained their relationship.

 

She was his genie retainer. Re-tain-er. Not a servant (though Iblis called her a servant). She was a great and powerful being composed of cosmic norea. She was like the genies of Solomon, of the Arabian Nights. She was to be commanded to do great things, important things, build-the-temple-of-Israel things.

 

He had better find things for her to do, because if he just dismissed her, she would unleash the wrath of ageless power against him for the insult! She was the retainer, but he was the servant serving her purpose and duty.

 

So since Yuma couldn’t say no, he said yes, and found himself a new owner of a genie-in-a-backpack.

 

Since Yuma couldn’t give her anything meaningful to do (he tried to avoid the issue by giving her superficially important tasks–make sure no one at school dies, work for the common weal, champion world peace–which meant absolutely nothing to him personally–she took it upon herself to make Yuma her pet project. The way she saw things, if she could turn a zero like Yuma into a hero, into someone worthy of the Messenger of Peace’s legacy, then it would prove that she was a true Marid!

 

So began hijinks. So began summoning supervillains and monsters for Yuma to fight (with her assistance of course. Azadeh doesn’t like being left out of the action). So began teleporting Yuma across the multiverse for impromptu adventures. So began a very interesting life for Yuma, and unfortunately for him, Yuma hates having an interesting life.

 

After a few rounds of hijinks, something interesting happened to Yuma–he started to become interesting to match his interesting life. He started taking his classes seriously. He started learning how to be a superhero. At first he did this simply because he wanted to show Azadeh that he didn’t need her to be successful. It was never that he couldn’t be successful, only that he didn’t want to be.

 

And when Azadeh saw him put forward an effort, saw that he wanted to struggle on his own and be his own person, she felt respect grow in her heart–and then something else. She started using her magic not to poke and prod and cajole Yuma, but to help him, to help him be the best person he could be, be that a superhero or not.

 

She even made him things. Gifts. Little favors that never failed to put a smile on his face. She created fancy clothes for him to wear so that he would always look his best. She created magical objects to grant him all sorts of superpowers so that maybe he would find one to focus on developing and adding to his natural invincibility. She even made him a jacket–by hand, without magic, to show that she could do things that required an effort–that she could do things for him that required an effort.

 

Now, Yuma finds himself in an interesting position. He still doesn’t want to be a superhero. He doesn’t ever want to be a superhero. But he wants to try rising up the Ishinomori ranks. He wants to go the distance, because he wants to be worth the support Azadeh is putting behind him. He wants to impress her.

 

If you think that the two have fallen for each other, you’re absolutely right. They’ve talked to each other, and they’ve found that they have quite a bit in common. They both struggle with their parents. They both stubbornly cling to who they think they are–Azedah believes she must be a Marid, Yuma believes he must not be a superhero. And though they both ardenly claim to not care what other people think about them, deep down they really, really do.

 

They’ve also been caught making out a few times…meaning Azadeh’s father probably made the right idea sending Iblis to keep an eye on them. Nothing freezes the room like a giant that sounds like Jafar from Aladdin.

 

The Disney version of Aladdin.

 

Enemies!

 

You might not think that Yuma and Asedah would have a rogues gallery given Yuma’s ardent desire to become anything but a superhero, but they do in fact have two persistent nuisances–Deborah, descendent of Solomon, warden of the Shiriya Thalatha, and a hunter of genie and other powerful supernatural beings who wants to capture Azadeh to prove her power, and Messenger of War, Yuma’s father’s arch-rival who is very disappointed that Yuma isn’t following in his father’s footsteps.

 

Deborah was the one who broke the seal of Solomon and unleashed the Shiriya Thalatha upon the multiverse when she was only a child, prideful in her precocious sorceress skills. She wanted to replace Solomon’s seal with her own, figuring that it would one day need replacing anyway, and who better to replace it than herself, who her parents and teachers hailed as the next Solomon. She failed disastrously, and only the timely intervention of Messenger of Peace prevented the trio from doing damage on a mythological scale.

 

Deborah was punished for her indiscretion. The Shiriya Thalatha were again bound by the seal of Solomon and placed in three containers–two rings and a pendant. It would be Deborah’s duty for the rest of her life to be the warden of the Shiriya Thalatha and channel their power towards capturing and sealing dangerous, magical creatures—again with her ancestor’s sign, not her own.

 

She had such plans as a girl. She was going to be a great sorceress. She was going to accomplish that great feat of magic which Earth’s thaumaturgists call the Projection, the Iliaster Operation, the Ultima Materia–the creation of an entire universe. But now she can’t. Now she’s busy hunting down genies and demons and dragons and sealing them inside brass bottles. She longs to be rid of her obligation, and believes that by defeating and impirisoning Azadeh–one of the most powerful genies of all time–she will prove that her powers are wasted on being  the warden to three genies, that she deserves to do much more.

Deborah keeps trying to capture Azadeh under the flimsiest of justifications–she’s so wild and unpredictable, she can’t be trusted to run loose!–and she keeps failing. Even though Azadeh is outmatched 3-against-1, Yuma has proven to be worth more than two genies with his quick thinking. He once helped Azadeh defeat Deborah by putting a backpack over her head–but more on that later.

 

Messenger of War is Messenger of Peace’s arch-foe not by virtue of his power of menace but by pure persistence. He is very, very good at escaping. Messenger of Peace has fought and captured countless supervillains, yet Messenger of War always gave him the slip. It’s his superpower–he’s virtually uncatchable, or more specifically, he has a teleportation power with no known way to track or counter. In addition to that, he can turn invisible, turn into a gas, hypnotize people into thinking he’s not even there, walk through walls, turn into shadows…he’s got all the really cheap “get out of jail free” powers, and I suppose we should be a little glad his ambitions are limited to getting Messenger of Peace to play with him.

 

Messenger of War was once General Chaos (no relation to General Misfit–that we know of), a war-themed supervillain who did stuff like park a giant castle at Waterloo to “outdo Napoleon” and try to steal all the water in the Rubicon to “outcross Caesar,” typical BOL flunkie stuff. But then he went against Messenger of Peace and a light went on in his head.

Peace…vs….War!

 

Maybe it’s because Messenger of Peace has always been a very “bright” superhero full of color and life, always making jokes while fighting deadly battles, that Messenger of War felt like he could “play” with him. Regardless of the reason, Messenger of War attached himself like a leech to Messenger of Peace and wouldn’t let go. 

 

Messenger of Peace would foil many of Messenger of War’s plans–stealing and hiding the kusanagi no tsurugi (he hid it in Ishinomori School’s shrine to Susanoo no Mikoto, which meant that Messenger of Peace got in one of those “hero vs hero” misunderstanding fights with Constantin and Ruth when he started to dig the sword out of the ground), kidnapping the winner of a country-wide Go competition, and manipulating the Insector Resonancers into fighting the Mirage Resonancers, just to name a few. But Messenger of War would always get away to plot again.

 

When Messenger of War heard that Messenger of Peace’s son was the lowest-ranked student at Ishinomori without any desire to become a superhero, he was devastated. He was looking forward to fighting with Yuma, to have another Messenger of Peace as a sparring partner, similar yet different from the old one.

 

He believed that Yuma could become the next Messenger of Peace–it was in his blood, after all–if he just had a little motivation. And so, he began menacing Yuma and Azadeh  trying to coax Yuman’s “true potential” out of him.

 

Yuma finds Messenger of War to be very, very annoying. He ambushes Yuma when he’s out shopping, when he’s out walking his dog, even when he’s trying to get a bite at the local Johnny Winter’s. He materializes out of his cheeseburger ready to do battle. But there are a few things he likes about him. He likes that he provides a great example of the kind of superhero insanity he wants to avoid in his future. He also likes how he can aggravate Azadeh by pointing out how similar she is to him. They both want to force Yuma to be something he isn’t by pestering him. And so far, they’re completely unsuccessful–and Yuma aims to keep it that way.

 

Powers and Abilities

 

Yuma’s powers are very straight-forward. He’s invincible, even more so than Gunnar Cropsey. Nothing hurts him, plain and simple. It’s his only power–he doesn’t have superstrength or superspeed–which means he’s a very durable punching bag and little more. If he had a little more motivation to be a superhero, he could develop more powers through secondary hyperstasis. Imagine his invincibility combined with Adam Brigham’s construct-based telekinesis, Lily Siegel’s armor, or Flying Robert’s flight-based telekinesis. One day, Yuma could become a very powerful superhuman, perhaps as great or even greater than his father, Messenger of Peace.

 

But that day won’t come until he wants to be a superhero. Until then, Yuma is basically an invincible punching bag, often used as the focus for Azadeh’s spells. When they fight together, Azadeh takes advantage of Yuma’s invincibility through what can best be described as “weaponized slapstick.” Azadeh, uses him as a conduit for lightning bolts that arc to nearby opponents, sets him on fire, roots him to the ground (to help him stand and fight!), turns him into a bomb that explodes on contact or a countdown, turns him into a magnet that attracts more than metal, makes him bouncier and springier than Plastic Man in a pinball machine, and this isn’t even getting into her transforming him into various objects (all with eyeballs and Yuman’s haircut). She turns him into swords, spears, machine guns, black holes, crowbars, shovels, super novas, etc.

 

She’s going to make him the world’s greatest superhero, no matter how hard he squirms!

 

Azadeh’s powers, on the other hand, are much more complicated than Yuma’s.

 

Aren’t girls usually more complicated than boys? Case in point, right here.

 

First, let’s talk about what Azadeh is made out of. She may look like she’s made of flesh and blood, but pay attention to the loops of fire she keeps around her arms for decoration. That’s what she looks like without any magical touches–fire, though even the flames are a gloss. Azadeh’s true form is a fire so bright it cannot be seen and so hot it cannot be felt. Azadeh is supernal fire, divine fire, a fire that sprang from the illuminating sight of the pleroma godhead Monad  and gives her kinship with the angels.

 

Genies are, technically speaking, angels. The earliest genies, known as Marid, followed Jann ibn Jann out of heaven so that their virtue could be truly tested and valued in the absence of God’s presence.

 

Azadeh is made of the same material Haziel and all angels are made out of–a divine fire from the Astral twilight related to Vril and the divine fire of Sekhmet used by Burning Bright and other Tarrasque, though while Vril is naturally devouring and Sekhmet’s fire naturally destructive, her fire is creative. It doesn’t destroy, it transforms–though the difference is sometimes a moot point. When Azadeh incinerates a textbook giving her a headache, she “transforms” the book into ashes. 

 

This fire is called empyrean and norea, but the genies call it samum. Samum is generated by the pleroma godheads that populate the Astral twilight. These pleroma godheads are nigh-omnipotent beings, and, depending on which cosmological theory you ascribe to, constitute a complimentary third to the Eye of Light and the Heart of Darkness. These godheads reach across the multiverse with waves of samum radiating from their cores carrying the will of their godhead, desiring to explore, to know, and above all, create. The effervescent personalities of genies and angels are attributed to them being composed of samum. Like creator, like creation.

 

 At a certain distance from its godhead, samum takes on the characteristics of individual life so that it may better interact with and manipulate the multiverse. Young, inexperienced godheads do not create angels. Instead, their samum burns across the multiverse destroying all  in its path and replacing it with cold, white space which they believe is perfection because in that cold fire only their thoughts and their thoughts alone echo. Older, experienced godheads understand that life is best experienced–and best created–when the self finds harmony with the world outside the self and thus create angels

 

Monad is a very good godhead, and Azadeh does respect and worship him for his wisdom and caring. He and his angelic flock have protected the multiverse several times over. If only he would bend his ear away from the Ismah and towards Jann…

 

Being made of samum allows genies and angels to radiate samum and grant wishes–specifically, their own. Azadeh wields power of cosmic import. What her fire touches she can recreate, redo, remake, redecorate–change whatever she wants into whatever she wants. Does she want it to be Saturday. It’s Saturday. Does she want the moon to be a full moon tonight? It’s a full moon tonight. Does she want Yuma to ask her out on a date to the local Johnny Winter’s? Then he feels compelled to write the mushiest, corniest, love letter and hand it to her in the middle of the cafeteria. Does she want Yuma to love her? Well, there are some things even magic can’t do…

 

Azadeh does have her limits. She can’t do things she doesn’t know how to do and can’t make things she doesn’t know. Do you know how, for instance, how an ARGO Fox tuner works? Could you assemble one in your mind? If you had infinite resources, could you build one? Well, neither can Azadeh. Likewise, if you were asked to water a field of crops, do you know exactly how much water to summon for the task? Neither does Azadeh. Like our student Monster, her incredible potential is limited by how much she knows.

 

Another limitation is that she isn’t an angel, though she’d punch you to the moon if you said so to her face (literally, to the moon, and probably through it).

 

Genies are generally weaker than angels (though no self-respecting genie will ever admit this, especially not in front of a human) owing to being voluntarily cut-off from Monad. History has demonstrated their relative weakness. They did lose that war against Heaven, after all.

 

Angels, in a pinch, can pray to Monad for more power. Genies can’t do this, so their powers are limited while the powers of an angel are limitless. But Azadeh is a very skillful and powerful genie. She could probably defeat the average angel in a fight–assuming the angel doesn’t start praying.

 

Because her powers aren’t limitless, Azadeh can tire herself out, especially when she gets reckless. Samum is not energy. The amount of samum it takes to blow up a universe is the same amount it takes to create a flower. What makes samum taxing or not isn’t physics, but thoughts and emotions. A genie with unfocused, wayward thoughts will quickly leak samum doing even the most basic and simple of magic spells. Conversely, a genie with absolute focus and confidence in his or her ability will use only the smallest fraction of theri samum to pull off mythological feats.

 

The surest way to weaken a genie is to attack their pride. Humiliation weakens them in a way no amount of physical force can. This is why genies tend to be very prideful and also why they take offense at the smallest slights. Being extra-powerful for a genie, Azadeh is also extra-prideful and extra-sensitive.

 

When Azadeh is in the grip of strong emotions–be they emotions that focus or unfocus her thoughts–she starts to glow and turn into a living torch of fire. This happens when she’s embarrassed, angry, excited, happy, or in the throes of young love, and indicates that Azadeh is either weaker than she normally is or stronger. When on fire, Azadeh “leaks” magic and starts to animate her thoughts and feelings via magic. When especially emotional, her speech becomes entirely representational. “Yuma, you idiot, Rok was clearly going to dunk the ball!” becomes Yuma suddenly wearing a clown costume and make up and Rok’s shadow dunking a shadow of the ball in a shadow goal.

 

When Azadeh is tired and low on samum, she starts to “fade” away and turn into unglossed samum–a light so bright it cannot be seen and a heat so hot it cannot be felt.. While this fading away may startle those nearby not familiar with Azadeh, a few hours of sleep will allow her mind to synchronize with the Astral twilight and gather samum. She is very, very cranky when she’s sleepy. On worlds that can easily connect to the Astral twilight, Azadeh getting tired is no big deal, no more a big deal than a human getting tired, but she has to be careful when she’s out in the multiverse. For angels, their connection with Monad extends across the multiverse. If Haziel found a way into the Kingdom past the Dagdans’ barrier, she would take her connection with Monad. It would follow her like a string attached to her (please no puppet jokes). But if Azadeh was in the Kingdom, she would be cut off from the Astral twilight, and though genies, like all beings of the Astral, cannot truly die, she can enter a state of discorporation similar to what happens to a vampire that fails to feed his or her corpse. If discorporated, she’ll be unresponsive, undetectable by conventional means, and worse of all, she’ll start to lose her memories until she remembers nothing–not herself, not her family, not Yuma. She dies without dying

 

But let’s switch to a less depressing topic–the backpack.

 

The backpack is, at first glance, a simple Jannsport backpack like what many high school students around the world use. It is Azadeh’s home and prison, and Yuma is the jailor. Yuma is the one that decides when Azadeh is let out and when she has to come back in. He is, in her words, “the almighty lord of the zipper.” When summoned, Azadeh leaps forward from the backpack as a plume of fire, throwing out fireworks to announce her arrival, usually immolating anyone around her (especially Yuma). When recalled, Azadeh is pulled back in the form of a puff of smoke–because recalling her as a fireball could be very bad depending on what all she has to travel through to get back to the backpack.

 

Inside the backpack, Azadeh has made herself at home with a miniature palace built into the felt walls and tunnels leading from one compartment “cave” to the next. It’s a palace designed more for comfort than appearances and ends up looking rather cluttered and disorganized, like a typical teenager’s room on a palatial scale. It’s not as messy as Edith Ogden’s limlal, but it comes close.

 

Azadeh could, with a snap of her fingers, but that takes effort, even if it’s just a little effort, and that’s more than Azadeh can be bothered with when she doesn’t have anyone to show her palace off to. In this way, she reminds me a little of Simon Wheeler.

 

The backpack also functions…as a backpack, and it’s what Yuma uses to carry his supplies to and from school. Azadeh has full control over whatever is in the backpack, lording over Yuma’s textbooks and laptop like the goddess of a tiny universe. She can “possess” whatever is in the backpack, and often does this to mess with Yuma’s homework, either to cheat for him, because her pet superhero project is not going to miss getting on the honor roll this year if she can help it, or to cheat against him if she’s mad at him). Yuma also keeps his laptop in his backpack, and Azadeh loves infesting it like a virus and trying out all the games he’s downloaded…and purchasing all the DLC. He was probably going to buy them all anyway.

 

Azadeh and Yuma once took advantage of this aspect of the backpack to defeat Deborah. Seeing that Azadeh was struggling against the Shiriya Thalatha, Yuma desperately dumped the backpack over Deborah’s head, hoping that blinding her would give them some kind of advantage–it did. Since Deborah was inside the backpack, Azadeh could possess her just as she could possess Yuma’s laptop. With Deborah under Azadeh’s control, Azadeh was able to bluff the Shiriya Thalatha back into their containers.

 

Something else to note about Azadehs’s powers and abilities–that red bow in her hair isn’t just a red bow. It’s really the legendary flying carpet of Solomon, a family heirloom that her mother gave her as a parting gift. While originally green, Azadeh made the carpet red, because she likes red more than green. Though that may seem flippant to do to a gift from one’s parents (and let’s face it, it kind of is flippant), Azadeh truly appreciates the gift. She likes being able to fly without using her powers and finds it relaxing to just coast above Ishinomori and look out over Tsuburaya City and it’s “giant hero buildings.” She especially likes it when someone close to her heart can join her.

 

The flying carpet of Solomon, once taken from her hair, can expand in size to the point that it can comfortably seat 40,000 men (legend records a tragic accident where 40,000 men fell to their deaths while on it). The carpet can fly, but it can also teleport anywhere it’s rider wishes–which means everyone has to agree on a destination, otherwise the carpet will get confused and teleport somewhere no one wants to be. This teleportation ability is one of the reasons Azadeh’s mom gifted her the carpet. Azadeh can use the carpet to teleport back to Jann anytime she wants–bypassing Sinbad’s veil. Keep in mind, this is a secret, so don’t go blabbing about it and getting us all in trouble. 

 

Azadeh might not be the greatest genie and Yuma might not be the greatest superhero (nor would he want to be), but it can’t be denied how effective they are as a team. Most supervillains aren’t used to fighting superheroes that prioritize attacking their partner over attacking them. It puts them off-guard, to say the least. Call it chaos, call it dysfunction, but GM/GS (or is it GS/GM?) use it to be one of the most unique teams Ishinomori has ever seen. As much as Yuma hates the idea, he and Azadeh will likely be chosen to be one of Ishinomori’s entrants in the upcoming Competitive Emergency Response tournament. Yuma will just have to be dragged kicking and screaming (probably literally) to the tournament, because Azadeh will surely want to compete.