Mage Among Superheroes

It was strange to hear a cat talking as if speaking a language. People who did not know my magic like I did might have found it natural that Translation would allow me to speak to a cat, but it was not. There was another spell specifically for animals, as they did not have a language of their own.

In short, I had determined cat buddy wasn’t a cat. “You should probably come down from there,” I said to the black not-cat on the end of the branch above me.

“Why? Just to be food for you or the lizard? Or worse, a Bunvorixian!”

“Why would we eat you?” I asked.

“Because you’re barbarians who allow fiends such as that to roam your world! What else should I expect?” The black cat gestured with a paw towards something, while Khithae just looked at me confused.

“Turlough, why are you just meowing a lot?” My brain jolted for a second upon swapping languages, but I still ultimately understood her words. “Are you going to help get the cat down?”

“Pretty sure he’s not a cat,” I said to her. When I was consciously thinking about it I could tell which language I was speaking, and Translation made use of whatever I knew my intended recipient spoke. Convenient, but it needed to be as a repeated expenditure of mana every couple hours. “Probably an alien or something.” My eyes traced where cat buddy had ‘pointed’, then I looked back to him. “That’s a dog.”

“I don’t care what you call Bunvorixians, but I recognize one when I see one.”

“Same with me and cats,” I said, “But you’re not a cat. So how does a Bunvorixian act?” I was willing to entertain the possibility that the dog was also an alien. It wasn’t entirely impossible. But I was also aware that dogs were just a native thing on Earth, as they were in Granbold.

“They are vicious predators who tear apart anything they can get their hands on,” cat buddy explained. Technically I could say the same thing about cats, but he probably didn’t want to hear that. “They are cunning and subversive. A proud race that would like nothing more than to wipe out Celmoth in its entirety.”

“I’ll be right back,” I said. Then I walked over towards the dog’s owner, who was currently throwing a stick. He was a man with mid tone skin that appeared to be a few years older than me. The dog brought the stick back and ran circles around him. “Excuse me, can I pet your dog?”

“Sure,” the man nodded, “Though he likes chasing a stick more.”

I bent down near the big, fluffy yellow dog with a stick sticking out of his mouth on both sides. I wasn’t actually all that familiar with dogs, but I’d seen some people with them recently. As I got close and scratched behind his ears the dog leaned on me. “Hello… boy?”

“Girl, actually.”

“Hello girl. You’re a good girl, aren’t you?”

The dog rubbed her head against my leg, whining, then dropped the stick onto my feet. Getting the message, I picked it up and threw it over the grass. A blur of yellow fur darted off and then quickly returned. As I concentrated on this dog, I would be able to pick out if it was actually speaking anything or just making dog noises.

That was the same for cat buddy technically, but most of the time I hadn’t actually been trying to talk to or understand him. It just so happened I had enough exposure now when we met again, though perhaps when I’d spoken to him before it had already begun to translate for me.

My conclusion didn’t take long to reach. If this yellow fuzzy creature was a Bunvorixian it was an extremely good actor. But I was willing to bet quite a bit it was just a normal dog. I returned to cat buddy’s tree where Khithae was still waiting with her arms outstretched, trying to coax the cat to come to her.

“I think I can handle this,” I said to her. Then I turned to cat buddy up in the tree. “I don’t know if any Bunvoraxians are here on Earth, but I can say for certain that thing over there is just a dog. A normal animal that is simply enthusiastic. So you can come down now.”

“I could,” the black furred not-cat responded. “But I don’t want to.” He might have been convincing if his stomach didn’t growl at that exact moment.

“How long have you been up in that tree?” I asked.

“I have been lounging here for the majority of a lazy afternoon,” cat buddy said.

So trapped in a tree for a few days, probably. He would be pretty thirsty along with his stomach growling. “I’m going to get you down now,” I said.

“Ha! As if you could even reach me,” he said.

If it was reach… I had it. I wouldn’t need it for long, though. I reduced the amount of mana going into Mage’s Reach, concentrating on reducing the duration. If I just used less mana I couldn’t be sure what ways it would be less effective. I’d never tried reducing anything but duration on it, actually, because that seemed like it would be a mistake.

First one hand then a second appeared, semi-real hands with a glow that was too faint to make out in the sunlight. I slowly moved both of them towards a very shocked not-cat, who seemed confused about where he should move. I tucked my thumbs in up behind his front legs and lifted.

“What sorcery is this?” cat buddy meowed. “Unhand me!”

“It’s just regular magic,” I said as I carefully set him down on the ground. “Nothing special.” I took a good look at him, “Want to go get some food?”

“I can fend for myself!” cat buddy said as he dashed off, right towards the dog. The dog quite happily tried to play with its newest friend, moving to stand over cat buddy and nudging him with her nose. Cat buddy was toppled over and started slowly flailing his legs. “Unhand me, villain! I will not go down without a fight!”

Though his claws were outstretched, there was no power behind his limbs as they gently batted against the dog’s nose. “Maxie! Come!” her owner called. “Leave it alone!”

The dog’s withdrawal signaled a shallow victory for cat buddy, though he was slow to realize it. I had already walked over to him by the time he stopped flailing. “Hey, cat buddy, I never got your name.”

The black not-cat slowly rolled to his feet. “My name is Midnight Deathstalker.”

“Midnight? That’s a good name, with that nice black fur,” I nodded.

“It’s not about my fur!” I could see cat buddy’s face scrunch up. “It’s my preferred hour to hunt!”

“I’m sure it is,” I said as I slowly hooked my arm under his belly. From what I’d seen, this guy had probably never hunted in his life. “Did you like that stuff I fed you before? The hot dogs? The tube of meat.”

“Was that Bunvorixian meat?” Midnight looked confused.

“No. It’s not made out of dog either,” I said. “Cows, I think.”

“It was alright,” he said, “But the thing in the metal bowl was of a quality more suited to my refined palate.”

So he liked the hot dog but preferred canned tuna. Good to know.

As I walked back past Khithae, I introduced us. “Oh, this is Midnight by the way. Midnight, this is Khithae. And I’m Turlough.”

“K-” Midnight almost coughed, “T-” he spread his mouth wide as he tried to say them. “Yes, well, I have no need for names for the lizard and the green one.” I’m pretty sure that was him saying he couldn’t pronounce our names. That made sense. I was making weird meow noises, but that was with magic.

“Midnight is it?” Khithae began to stroke from his head down his back. “You’re a real troublemaker you know?”

I didn’t bother to interpret that. I just watched as his eyes slowly drifted closed in bliss. Though he protested halfheartedly. “I… derive… no great pleasure from such actions… it is meaningless.”

If he’d actually said to stop, I would have told Khithae to respect his opinion. But Midnight might have realized that as well. Me holding him under my arm was non-negotiable until I got some food in him, however. Couldn’t have him scurrying off hungry and thirsty.

“Oh yeah,” Khithae poked me in the shoulder. “Were those hands your power?” she asked.

“My power? Oh yes, those were magic. I suppose I haven’t shown you any yet.” She knew I worked for the Power Brigade, but the nature of my ‘power’ simply hadn’t come up. I hadn’t thought to talk about it, and Khithae had sort of gone along with the general idea that asking about someone’s powers could be considered rude. That was still weird to me, since the potential capabilities of every class were fairly well known in my world. Not that I was just going to hand out my full spell list to just anyone. “The ability to speak your language is magic too.”

“That’s a weird combination of powers,” Khithae commented. “Though I suppose it’s kind of like a mental thing? Telekinesis and telepathy.”

I could do those things too, though I think she meant the general effects rather than the names of specific spells. “Well, I have a wide variety of abilities,” I half-explained. “So much that it’s hard to summarize what I do.”

“And thus it’s just ‘magic’,” Khithae nodded. “Do you have a cool name? Like Master of the Many Hands? Mind Drainer? Archmage of the Seven Towers?”

“I’m going to be honest,” I said, “I don’t know if more than three or four people who work for the Power Brigade have ‘cool names’. I’m just ‘Mage’.” I was aware that some people were leery of letting their ‘true’ identities and names be known. And if I knew of any magic that worked off of birth names, I might be concerned about it as well. But I was from somewhere that didn’t hide such things.

Some people hid some things of course. A necromancer who was raising an army of the undead for some nefarious purpose would usually try to prevent people from knowing who they were so they didn’t get killed, but they might still let it be known they were a mage if they went to a city. That would depend on how paranoid they were, of course.

As for myself, I saw no reason to hide too much from a friend, even one who was only my friend through the coincidence of living nearby and eating meals at similar times.

As we went to get Midnight something to eat, my thoughts drifted to him. He seemed quite incapable of taking care of himself. Now that I knew he wasn’t a cat but a sapient being… my opinion of him barely changed on that front. It just changed from ‘helpless animal’ to something else. Maybe something like a kid who couldn’t take care of himself? I had no way to determine how old Midnight was without asking, and no reference for that even if I knew, but if nothing else he seemed to be someone who’d never had to work for his food. How he ended up on Earth was a question I doubted I would get an easy answer to, though I would ask soon.

“Midnight,” I began. “I’m sure we can both agree that you don’t like being hungry.” I didn’t wait for a response of any sort, because there was no point in letting him protest that. “Clearly this area isn’t much good for hunting,” that was a lie just to make him more willing to listen. There were tons of rats and mice in the city, and I saw many birds in the park. He should probably be able to eat those, even if he wasn’t actually a cat. “I’d be willing to offer you a supply of food when you need it in exchange for some occasional work. Though to try that, I’d have to try a special thing to keep us in communication.”

“Hmph. What would make you think I’d want to stay in communication with you, green one?” Though he protested, I could tell he was thinking over it. “I do not know what this ‘thing’ is, but I have found myself bored as of late. I shall let you make the attempt.”

“Okay,” I said. “There’s just one more thing. It’s a sort of magic bond. It won’t last if you don’t want it to, but it will let me know some things about you.”

“Green ones are capable of cross-species bonds?” Midnight asked curiously. “Now I am curious.”

“Well, don’t get too excited,” I said. “It might not work.” Actually, it probably wouldn’t work. Midnight wasn’t a cat. But I had enough points left to try something, and if it didn’t work I could just get an actual animal as a familiar. It would be useful for some things.

I spend the points to get Familiar Bond, then the mana to activate it. I felt a small string snap tight between myself and Midnight. I had no idea if that meant it worked or not, because it was something that took time to grow strong. Maybe it would just break apart once it found that he was incompatible. But I really hoped it would work, because cat buddy really needed someone to keep an eye on him.