Mage Among Superheroes

About a quarter of our time on the streets was spent watching Great Girl shove, lift, or otherwise reposition vehicles that were getting in the way of people running for shelters. There was enough transportation infrastructure in New Bay to make it not a total nightmare, but traffic was still very real. People moving on foot took up vastly less space, but there was also less space available.

That was where another half of our time went, freeing up space from things trying to take far too much of it. Aggressive, bitey sorts of things. A few police officers in riot gear were forming a line to hold back a bunch of rabid wolves, their durable plastic shields making it difficult for the creatures to find purchase. However, the constant press was likely to wear them down- and the creatures might find their way around given time.

For a mass of individuals like that, Chain Lightning was one of the most efficient things I knew. A single casting could take out a whole pack at once without worrying about the diminishing effects of hitting many subsequent targets. I could still only do it a few times, but even if I were to perfectly snipe wolves with Firebolt I could only take out 7 or 8 for the same price. And while there were lower level area of effect spells, there weren’t many that let me pick and choose targets.

Grasp began to pick up the bodies of the wolves and toss them onto the vehicles. “We’ve broken through!” she called out. “Continue to get them to safety!”

“Critical point one block southwest,” Map commented in our ears. “Fire creatures, the spread is barely being held back by Quench. Heroes are engaged and in need of urgent assistance.”

We were already making our way there, hopping from roof to roof of cars for the most part. Power Brigade training was diverse enough to involve mandatory obstacle courses… and I very much appreciated all of the physical training I had gotten. Jumping around made it difficult to keep Midnight on my shoulder, but it was also very easy for him to run between and under cars. Great Girl shrunk herself down so as to not cause significant damage to the vehicles.

“Before we get there,” I called after her. “Let me give you another Energy Ward.” We might need more for the rest of us, if the fire things had ranged abilities, but it was slightly more efficient to do three castings individually- counting Midnight and I as one, of course.

The situation looked pretty dire. There were six figures standing over ten feet tall and clad in fire. I could vaguely make out a form beneath, indicating they weren’t pure fire elementals, but I didn’t recognize them exactly. Perhaps they weren’t from my world, or simply something less common that wouldn’t have been in the books I studied.

One of them staggered back as I didn’t hear the sound of a rifle. But despite a temporary hole appearing in its head, it only staggered back for a moment. But at least that relieved the pressure on the two heroes fighting the creature as they dodged beneath the flailing limbs.

One was a woman in purple, wielding two blades of energy matching the color of her outfit. Or probably the other way around. She chopped at the legs of the creatures as she went, slicing into them and causing them momentary pause as she did so. Then there was another figure in blue and yellow. Lightning went from him in all directions- except for his battle partner, so that was something at least.

“Oh, I know those guys!” I said. “Slicer and Dicer! We’re here to help!”

The guy shoved the figures away with lightning and turned to look at me. “That’s not my name, you idiot! Oh, Mage!”

“That’s wrong?” I said as Great Girl charged in, putting one in an immediate headlock. I was trying to figure out how to best contribute to the situation. “... Sparky and Zappo?”

A giant purple blade cut one of the figures in half vertically, revealing her with both hands on a single blade. She also revealed the inside of the creatures briefly, a solid core of some sort that didn’t involve any sort of organs. “Now you got me wrong!”

Well, I guess I didn’t remember their names then. I did remember we ‘fought’ an ooze ‘together’ though. By which I meant they chopped it into pieces and zapped it with lightning, both of which simply made it split into a great number of violent lumps. I was anticipating the same thing happening with the fire creature, though I had hope that it would instead fall to the sides and go out. Instead, it simply shot some of its dark brown core goop between the severed halves that pulled it back together. That one then began to march towards the flaming building- and presumably Quench.

“Lightning doesn’t seem to take them down,” I hypothesized aloud with Midnight. “And obviously fire is out. The best Sonic Lance could do is blast a hole in their middle, which probably won’t be enough. What do you think?”

“It has to take some energy to burn like that, right?”

“Not necessarily,” I said- but as Grasp shoved another flaming creature into Great Girl’s arms, I took stock of the battlefield. Energy Ward was good but… it shouldn’t really work for sustained contact like that. And neither of the heroes were extremely burnt. Singed, at worst.

But the building was very much on fire, and despite the water hero’s efforts he wasn’t able to completely stop it. I thought about readying a Sonic Lance to take down the one approaching him, but I saw it reach out towards the fire and pull it away. That only momentarily reduced the burning in one section, but it gave me critical information.

“Did you see that, Midnight?” I asked.

“It… ate the fire?”

“It ate the fire. More than that, the others are clinging together in a group instead of surrounding those three. I think it’s worth trying Energy Ward to see what that does to them.” With that, I called out in front of us, “Great Girl! Drag those two over here, please! Sparky and Slicer, try to hold off the rest!”

She was somewhere around twelve feet tall right now. I knew it was awkward and tiring for her to be at max, and even this height was something only reserved for battle. Great Girl began to drag the two towards me immediately, and the two heroes also jumped into action even though they were yelling at me for some reason.

The one who had moved off to the side began to angle towards Great Girl, but a silent shot to its knee brought it down for a moment. Then another toppled it forward. All that, and I was pretty sure Mono was also shooting at something further down the street. Grasp doubled down on that one’s isolation, wrapping her transparent energy tightly around its arms and chest so it was facedown on the asphalt and unable to easily get itself up.

“I’ll get the left one,” I said to Midnight, reaching out towards but not actually touching the flaming creature. I had never used Energy Ward to try to keep a creature away from its own energy, and wasn’t even certain it would do anything. I felt some resistance as the creature subconsciously resisted the effect, but it was also busy trying to tear beefy arms away from its throat so it couldn’t concentrate fully. On the other side, the effect was much the same as Midnight performed the same action.

A moment later, the flames flickered out leaving behind only… dirt? Clay? Dark mud? I didn’t imagine there was much potency left to the Energy Ward, but it didn’t seem to be combating anything now.

The creatures began to slow their struggles, moving sluggishly. The formless heads popped off the creatures as Great Girl squeezed harder all at once. It was unclear if they were actually dead, but they were at least incapacitated for a moment.

“The other ones are trying to get to these!” I warned, but Great Girl was already charging towards the four that Sparky and Zappo were holding back. “Quench! I know you’re doing important building protection but could you splash that one?” I called, pointing towards the prone one.

“I already tried to put them out!” he yelled. “Look!” The guy conjured a bathtub full of water in the air over the prone figure, and its midsection went out. “... Huh.” Without me prompting him again, he tossed two more globules of water at its head and legs, everything faded. Then he went back to dealing with the building. “If you can hold them still like that I might be helpful!”

“That’s great, Quench!” I said. “We should be able to bring these down with Slicer and Dicer!”

For some reason, those two were showing significant increases in their abilities. Maybe it was fighting just one opponent each that was doing it, but purple blades were chopping one of them into even chunks faster than they could stitch back together. And the other one was convulsing with power as the lightning guy yelled something. The flames on both were dimming, even without being directly put out by something.

Great Girl flung a fire creature towards Midnight and I. We exchanged looks and thoughts, each gathering mana frantically in that instant. It landed right in front of us, struggling to its feet but our spellcasting was far faster. It only took a quick instant to gather two mana each, and we simultaneously finished our Energy Ward. Which was great because if we had been planning on different spells I had no idea what would happen. All that training together allowed us to communicate without clear verbal instructions, it seemed.

Unfortunately, we only half put out the creature and it reached its feet. Maybe because it wasn’t distracted, or maybe it was the small loss in efficiency due to Assistive Familiar Casting having only two upgrades. Either way, it didn’t matter. “I’ll distract it!” I said, leveling my staff. “You find an opening to get it!”

Ducking under a flickering arm, I was reminded my hair was already mostly burned away. I thwacked the creature’s elbow with my staff as it reached for me, and found that it was still slightly slower than previously seen. I had thought I might need to dodge around for longer, but Midnight was already behind its ankles waiting. I waited for another swipe and ducked in to strike it in the belly. I knew it wouldn’t significantly hurt the thing, but that was the highest I could easily reach and should be good for a distraction.

The second casting was enough, diminishing its flames. However, I did spot tiny flickers coming from the two bodies it had walked over. I stomped them out, making sure they were truly gone before looking back towards the others. Great Girl was waiting patiently in front of Quench as he conjured water over a few seconds and dumped it onto a creature she was holding at arm’s length. Her Energy Ward seemed to have worn off, but Francois’ outfits were still highly fire resistant- fireproof by ‘normal’ standards, but he reminded us there was always something hot enough.

As for the other two, the flames had faded away. Apparently doing a sufficient amount of damage to the central body was sufficient to defeat the creatures. Useful, if we ever encountered them again.

“Good job Quench,” I said. I turned to the others. “Sparky and Zappo.”

“Why?!” the purple woman held her hands up.

“Why what?”

She put a hand to her forehead. “You obviously remember us. But why do you only remember his name?” she gestured to Quench.

“Sorry. It was Slicer, right?”

“I’m Dicer,” she said.

“And I’m Zappo,” the man clarified.

“I said those.”

“Only like half the time!” the lightning guy complained.

“Hmm… well, don’t worry about it. You guys should probably watch these to make sure they don’t relight or something. You’re breathing hard.”

Grasp was in the middle of pulling them away from each other with her powers, just to make sure if there was any flame it wouldn’t easily spread. There was plenty more to do in the city, but I was missing something I expected.

“Where are Doctor Doomsday and his minions?” I asked. “I assume they’re doing something in this chaos.”

The purple lady had an answer for that. “I heard they’re fighting Castle and Captain Control in another part of the city.”

“I can confirm that,” Map said in my ear. “It isn’t quite clear what his target is, but heroes have engaged him.”

I wondered if I should get involved with that.

Nah, not yet. If I was going to fight someone crazy like that I wanted to have a plan. And it was probably quite far anyway, since I couldn’t hear the sounds of battle. Speaking of which, we should probably seek out the last vestiges of trouble.