Mage Among Superheroes

Flashes of massive trees rushing past were paired with the sound of flapping wings, stirring up the air around them. No sensation lingered longer than a few seconds, and I wasn’t able to wrap my head around the topography or why anything was happening. Then there was a flash of green scales and teeth. A roar. And then I awoke, the dream fading rapidly as they all tended to do.

The dream was not remembered, but I did notice that I felt an odd sensation, as if something was watching me.

-----

I might not have felt good seeing Handface’s body crumpled on the floor, but I did feel good when we got to tell Shockfire about it. And when we determined both Midnight and I got a level, I also felt good there.

Certainly, there was some relief of stress, knowing nobody would be shooting at me. Or at least that particular guy. I could think of a couple rather dangerous individuals that might have it out for me, but I wasn’t at the top of their list. I couldn’t be, with half or all of the city having it out for them. I was thinking of Darkstargirl and Doctor Doomsday in particular. The latter might have a grudge against me, but it was one of many. Just another foiled plan out of a sea of activity. Darkstargirl’s grudge was probably more personal, but she was probably more likely to target Great Girl. And while I didn’t want my friend to have to deal with that kind of stuff, at least she was prepared with a good power and a good team to back her.

Not that I was lacking those, except for a set team these days. There just hadn’t been time to settle down into anything, and honestly I might be spending a large portion of my time back in my old world or messing around with that so it might make sense to stay as I was. The Brigade was still able to call upon me when incidents happened, I just wouldn’t be one of those out in the field with the intent to handle further away incidents.

-----

Doctor Patenaude’s sensory stalks swayed as I explained my current state of mind. “I thought I was supposed to feel better after this but I barely do. I’m still worried this guy might come after my friends even though… he can’t,” I said. “In the most certain way.”

“Who told you that it would make you feel better?” Doctor Patenaude asked.

“Well, I mean…” I frowned. “I just kind of got that impression. I didn’t swear vengeance on this guy in my youth or whatever, but I thought it would be… more. Aside from the level up which I still feel good about.”

“That is more or less the expected result,” Doctor Patenaude explained. “Your mind will take some time to get used to a relaxed state. Your worries about this particular fellow will decrease slowly, but surely. As you said, this wasn’t really a goal you had set for yourself- a proper one that could be worked towards and accomplished- but something reactionary. And even achieving set goals only provides a limited amount of emotional fulfillment.”

“Sounds awful,” I replied.

“That is the experience of sapient life,” Doctor Patenaude said. “Permanent satisfaction is difficult or impossible to achieve. However, if one focuses on the relationships around them it is possible to derive longer term contentment.”

I nodded. It was not that I was actually unhappy… I just didn’t feel the way I expected. And perhaps I should have already realized that I almost never would.

-----

In the various texts I had perused in Master Uvithar’s tower, the rates of failure of cross-planar spells were known to have certain failure rates, but nobody was quite aware of why. One theory was that the conflux of celestial bodies affected the transmission of mana for spells such as Sending. I had been inclined to agree with that until I had been to more planes and made some discoveries.

First of all, some planes didn’t have celestial bodies. Was I then to believe that all Sending spells inevitably went through a material plane even though there were open portals between elemental planes and various others?

I would have also expected a greater failure rate when attempting contact between two worlds laden with celestial bodies, such as Earth and my former world. But it was all in all about what was expected. Certainly not double or even a multiplicative failure rate.

Thus, I was now more inclined to believe that there might be a simpler solution. Perhaps each spell found a route that connected to its destination but that connection could close while in transit. Or it was just more difficult and imperfect casters simply failed.

Regardless of what it was, contacting a sealed plane like where Comhghall resided was a pain in my butt. Transmission of Sending spells seemed able to fail in either direction, so it took a handful of attempts to finally receive an answer.

But ultimately I did get an answer, and it was quite different from what Patenaude had said. I couldn’t say the answers were incompatible, necessarily. I had asked why I didn’t feel fulfilled after defeating a problematic foe. Comhghall’s response?

“This foe likely wasn’t strong enough to feel like an accomplishment.”

That hit me because… wasn’t he strong? He nearly killed me more than once, and caused trouble for the squad before the incident with Shockfire. But… no, if I was asked if Handface was strong I would say that he was not. He had learned to use a powerful weapon, but he used it precisely because he was weak. And while I would not say someone like Mono was weak simply because he used a rifle to fight from a distance, there was still that feeling in my head.

But that wasn’t all. Handface had obtained the power of dragons. Which might not be as exclusive as it sounded, but in practical terms the only things I could say he actually got were the scales and that poison breath. The scales resisted magic, yes, but he was still vulnerable to normal things. Like being shot or stabbed. The latter might have been a bit less effective, but he could have worn a kevlar vest or the like.

He didn’t even show off any other class abilities. Though to be fair, we had intentionally weakened him by keeping him sleep deprived. Being off balance like that could make everyone forget stuff. And if he had class levels, he’d only had them for somewhere around three months. Which as it turned out, was not that long even if you knew how to train properly or where you should spend points. Considering Midnight who was with me in pretty much every battle, he was only level 23 after a very intense year. I couldn’t reasonably expect Handface to be more than level 10-15 in a few months.

In short, my mental picture of his threat had been significantly skewed by what happened to Shockfire. Handface had been dangerous, but not strong. Like a child with a gun. Or magic.

… I really needed to look into that whole Portal Power training program so that people didn’t get themselves killed. At least mana exhaustion was likely to stop most people from tossing out anything too dangerous right away.

-----

It was great to see Shockfire up and walking around. And according to him, aside from feeling generally weak most likely due to laying in bed without a liver for a week, he was feeling fine. Looking at him, I didn’t get the sense he was lying about that.

“I have to say, though I’m not sure if your actions were a bit hasty… I’m glad you took out Deimos. That kind of thing hanging over me- or the rest of us- would make it difficult to walk around outside.”

I nodded. “I get it. Even if it would be useful for me to be attacked, I still didn’t want to deal with something like that,” I replied. “We couldn’t have him still around to get to you, or the rest of the squad. Or anyone else I know.”

“It’s kind of weird,” Shockfire said. “How quickly that was resolved.”

“Death happens quickly, I guess,” I said. “It was… you were almost gone in an instant. Compared to that, it took forever for us to catch the guy.”

“I’d say a week is pretty good,” Shockfire said.

“I think he was too self assured with his new abilities. He probably felt invincible, until he found out he wasn’t.”

“Do you ever feel like that?” Shockfire asked.

“Nah, I’ve had my powers my whole life, remember? That’s normal to me. I was weak until I came to this world, and even then it took a while for me to begin growing stronger. I can barely even cast spells of a certain tier on my own. My fatigue point just hit 20 so I can just manage… huh…”

“What?” Shockfire asked.

“I… can cast anything now?” I tilted my head.

“Is that a question for me?” Shockfire asked. “Because you know I don’t know anything about your abilities that you don’t.”

“I just… hmm…” I frowned. “Technically, I think there’s nothing I can’t do on my own. But of course only if I have the spell. And upgrades are still important. Base level functionality definitely doesn’t work for everything.” I looked at Midnight. “Did you realize this?”

He tilted my head. “Well, you told me you were level 35. But I didn’t really think about it. It’s weird now that you mention it.”

“I… find it hard to believe this is the end. No,” I frowned. “More like the beginning. From here, I could do anything, but I’m only going to improve in specific categories.” I furrowed my brow even further. This had sort of snuck upon me. I’d been messing around with Gate far longer than I ought to have had it, and it had skewed everything.

“You still have to develop your abilities though, right?” Shockfire said. “You can’t just suddenly chuck a meteor down on the city or anything.”

“No, uh…” I pursed my lips. “Not enough points for that,” I said.

“What?”

“I mean I don’t think they would be proper meteors,” I said. “But there’s a spell for that and all. Upgrades would always help, of course.” I realized how big of a gap I had between Gate and the next highest level spell- Chain Lightning. 7 tiers between them, and the rest were all tier 10 and below, with the exception of Scrying- now Advanced Divination Magic- at 11.

I was really going to have to fill in those gaps eventually. Though to cast many higher level spells I was still limited by maximum mana. No point in collapsing after two spells.

Now I was too distracted to talk to Shockfire. “Good luck with your new liver,” I said. “I think some of the guys mentioned testing that on the weekend, if you clear it with the docs.” I wasn’t a huge fan of bars or drinking, but with a few friends it was decent enough.

-----

“Why are we here again?” Midnight asked.

“Testing,” I said. “And this is the only place they want us to use certain things.”

“Well it has to be Gate, then,” Midnight said, as we walked through the doors of Extra. “What could we be testing?”

“Well it’s quite simple,” I said, approaching an empty alcove. “Especially for you,” I said. “Your job is to do nothing here.”

With that, I took a deep breath and gathered 20 mana. The maximum amount that could be spent on Gate, which seemed to be required for a stable portal… especially between worlds. I picked a spot next to Uvithar’s tower, since I’d connected there before frequently enough. I’d already sent Sir Kalman home to the Order of the Lion after he helped take out Handface’s group, and I didn’t want to disturb the people there.

The Gate opened, and while it seemed strong… didn’t even consider going through it. Because while it was steady, I was not. That was what happened when you pushed right up to the limit of the fatigue point. I probably wouldn’t pass out, but that wasn’t the sort of thing you wanted to be on when going through a portal. Instead, I held it as long as I could which turned out to be almost a full minute.

“Cool,” I said to Midnight. “I can do that one on my own, now, if I’m willing to chuck forty percent of my mana at it. Still better to split, obviously. Now then,” I turned to him. “It’s your turn.”

“I can’t cast Gate on my own.”

“No. But you can be the main caster for two thirds of a Gate spell to somewhere you are familiar with. Such as, say, Celmoth. And I’m much more confident we could actually go through.” I could feel Midnight’s emotional response. Excitement. Fear. Doubt. Anticipation. Worry. “Hey, buddy, I’m not saying we have to do it right now. Probably best to set that sort of thing up with people on both sides. But you leveled up as well, so we don’t have to worry so much about you taking charge of it.”

“... Yeah,” was all Midnight said. “I-”

“Obviously I’m not gonna let you go for good,” I said. “Actually, the two of us would probably have to go together. But it would be a nice vacation, I think.”

Midnight hesitated. “I guess we should try.”

“Exactly,” I said. “I’m sure you want to visit occasionally. And don’t worry, I won’t snitch and tell your mother we could technically be there every day.”