Mage Among Superheroes

Before Jet was officially welcomed into New Bay, she had to meet with Extra and receive a briefing on local laws, especially as they related to her use of technology. Fortunately, that process was made easier by planning ahead, and our ability to cast Translation for her. She’d already been briefed on the major points.

Mostly it was noted that penalties for crimes would be more significant if advanced technology was involved- a standard bump up to supervillainy. She also couldn’t sell or give technology to others, though Midnight might be an exception since he was Celmothian. But to stay in the graces of Extra, we weren’t going to push the limits of what they would let us get away with. Even though they were prepared for extradimensional travel, most of what they were meant for was accidental, with those who could choose to travel between dimensions being more of a rarity.

Interplanetary travel was only common with Mars. Celmoth was a great number of systems away, so only wormholes or similar features like portals resulted in their arrival on Earth. And ultimately, those portals tended to converge on certain hotspots like New Bay.

The general rules were easy enough for Jet. Purely defensive measures were always okay, and using weapons for self defense purposes was fine. The last thing was more of a note for Midnight and me, but we obviously weren’t supposed to take a civilian along on mercenary work. But we were taking a low duty week for that purpose. Aside from maintaining our training, we would only be called upon if something critical happened.

So it was a coin toss, basically. We could have a peaceful week, or there could be another portal incident with Doctor Doomsday and krakens would be destroying everything along the edge of the bay. Midnight would probably prefer peaceful, but it wouldn’t be an accurate representation of our day-to-day.

-----

Accommodations for Midnight’s mother Jet were easy enough, since Midnight’s apartment had sufficient room. If her stay was going to be longer term perhaps that might be an issue, but for a single week it was reasonable enough.

“This city is not too bad,” Jet commented after surveying his apartment. “Even if it’s not properly set up for people like us, there are at least some accommodations for people of different sizes.”

“It’s not so great without the right knowledge,” Midnight said. “I might have starved, not knowing there were people that could help. Because we look like some animals they have here, called cats. And sound like them.”

“And you didn’t have anything with you,” Jet nodded.

“Well, yeah. I wasn’t planning to go out, so I didn’t suit up or anything. And then the teleporter…” Midnight shrugged.

“You have picked up odd mannerisms from this… Earthling?” Jet looked at me.

“I’m not from this world either,” I replied. “Except more.”

She nodded. “Hmm, yes. A world with magic.”

“This world had magic from other realities already,” I added. “But mine was more newly connected, as far as we know.”

“I have felt the effects of your magic several times,” Jet said. “Both with your strange messages and your portals.” She looked at Midnight. “It’s strange to see my son using magic as well.”

“You haven’t even seen the weird things yet,” he said.

“I think magic hands are pretty weird,” she replied.

I frowned. “Really? It’s not that different from what your suit does, correct?” I had seen the silver coating covering her stretch out and close the door behind them as they left Midnight’s apartment, for example.

“But why does it make hands?” she asked.

“Because hands are useful,” I said. “Pretty sure he could just make paw shapes if he wanted to.”

Midnight just stood there for a moment. “... I never thought about it. Because I just copied what you did.”

“Your magic comes from Turlough, correct?” she asked. “Though your bond?”

“Something like that,” Midnight said. “Though I have my own mana and level. We effectively share points and practice.”

Speaking of bonds, I could vaguely feel something from Jet, filtered through Midnight. “Do you think it’s odd? Our bond?” I asked.

“Mostly that it’s with a non-Celmothian,” she replied. “That’s not something that is supposed to happen. Though we mostly have experience with those fiendish Bunvorixians as neighbors.”

I stroked my beard. “So you might actually be able to bond with people in general and just never had the chance with other decent individuals?”

“We have other neighbors,” Midnight said. “But most of our people remain on our homeworld. But I feel like someone should have noticed. Wouldn’t it make sense that we mostly are attached because of Familiar Bond?”

I raised an eyebrow. “You think I’m unfamiliar with assumptions about how the world works affecting how it actually does? Just assuming you can’t or won’t form bonds like that would probably have a huge effect.”

“... huh,” Midnight vocalized. “Hadn’t really thought about it like that.”

I felt a tidbit of thirdhand turmoil from Jet. “Surely we would have tested something like that already.”

“Everything has to happen for the first time at some point,” I said. “Clearly being around people isn’t enough. Midnight has been here with friends and hasn’t formed a bond with someone else.”

“But I also thought I couldn’t,” Midnight added. “So that doesn’t prove or disprove anything.”

-----

After that discussion, it seemed reasonable to meet some of Midnight’s friends. It’s just a lot worked for the Brigade and had secret identities that it was better to avoid even potential compromises of. Though we could do something with disguise. Midnight and I didn’t like to use that when meeting with friends, as I wasn’t ashamed of being an orc anymore… but when moving around the city, it was sometimes useful.

There weren’t a ton of orcs with cats that would ride around on their shoulder, and we did have some enemies. So we tried to keep some level of subtlety for the sake of friends outside of the business. Which was mostly Ceira, Jerome, and Izzy. Even Jerome’s mother worked for the Brigade now as a tracker.

Of those available randomly throughout the day… well, that was actually Ceira and Jerome. Izzy had a day job doing deliveries, but Ceira was still figuring things out. Though she’d need to do that fairly soon, as there was only so long supervillain relocation funds would last for. The whole national park thing had fallen through for them with Ceira’s abduction and that journey, though perhaps either or both of them would look into things outside of New Bay again.

The only thing that made us hesitant about Ceira was that she had a dog. Jet kind of needed to get used to the idea that dogs weren’t Bunvorixians before that made sense… or we at least needed to arrange for a time where she could leave her pets home alone for a bit.

Jerome, however, was still homeschooled. Or rather, I think he had just started taking a couple classes at a local community college while he was still finishing up requirements for his G.E.D.

Thus it was that we chose to contact him first. When I told him that Midnight’s mother was on Earth, he was happy to invite us over.

Jerome’s current apartment was much better than the previous one, which had about enough room at the dining table for one person- if they didn’t care about fitting into one of the chairs. This one had a comfortable sitting room, still only about enough for a handful of people but a reasonable step up.

When Jerome opened the door, there was an electronic cleaning robot behind him. The flat round kind, of course. Tracking for the Power Brigade paid well, but not enough to get humanoid robots. They were a rarity even in New Bay. Well, ones with more than basic functionality at least. Even most tech supers didn’t make humanoid death bots. Rodentia’s were rats, obviously, Vilhelmiina’s were more gun than body, and Doctor Doomsday’s weren’t humanoid either. The closest thing were the Mod Squad, but they were cyborgs which was a human base, not robots.

“Welcome!” Jerome said as he opened the door. His eye flicked between the two Celmothians, easily settling on Jet as the new figure- the gear among other things gave her away. “Jet, right? Do you have Translation cast?”

“I do,” she said.

“I still need to learn that,” Jerome admitted. He looked at me. “Do you think it would help if I learned other languages first?”

“Help what?” I replied. “Because learning the spell isn’t that difficult. Though obviously I did it with points.”

“I don’t really understand this points thing,” Jet admitted as we entered the sitting room. “What a strange mobility device.” She moved closer to the cleaning bot, taking a good look. “No, it’s something else isn’t it? It’s not large enough or fast enough for a human to ride, and it has buttons in the middle of its top."

I was somehow surprised, even though I knew she should understand technology. She was wearing it, even, quite a bit more advanced than this cleaning bot.

“It’s for cleaning,” Jerome replied. “I mean, that’s what it does at a base.”

The sound of its vacuum and the whirring of its mechanisms was actually rather quiet, on the scale of such things. We were able to talk comfortably instead of yelling over it. Then it did something weird. Both its spinning brush and the vacuum stopped. It turned towards Jet and began to move towards her. She took a few steps back and to the side, but it turned and followed. “What is it doing?” Jet asked.

“Uh…” Jerome frowned. “Try patting him on his forehead.”

“What?” Jet asked.

“Wait for him to get close and tap your paw on the front,” Jerome said.

Jet looked and indirectly felt uncertain, but she stood and waited. It was odd. When she tapped the robot it beeped and booped… happily?

I furrowed my brow as it then turned towards me. It rolled right up to my feet, stopping a few inches away. I bent down and pat the cleaning robot on top. It spun around completely, beeping rapidly. “Jerome… what’s going on with this thing?”

“Well, you see,” he began to explain as it circled around my legs. “I was messing around with some magic and…” The cleaning robot began to beep and whine. “Uh, I think he wants to meet Midnight too.”

“What?” Midnight asked.

“Right so,” Jerome finished his earlier thought. “I was planning to get a familiar. Like a normal one. Maybe a bird or something. I bought the spell and was just messing around but then it actually did something with Rob here.”

The little robot seemed quite distressed with Midnight being out of reach, so I helped Midnight down to let them ‘meet’. “I thought I felt something odd,” Midnight said.

I thought I was the one who sensed it. But who could say? Either way, it was clear enough now there was a bit of magic bonding the two. Midnight placed a paw on the robot, which seemed immediately satisfied with its results, before turning and scurrying over towards Jerome, where it sat on the floor next to him.

“It’s weird, right?” Jerome said.

“Usually people build their own homunculus, if they’re going to bond to a construct,” I said. “Though that is in part because that’s the only way to get one.”

“So it’s not weird?” Jerome asked.

“It is extremely abnormal,” I replied. “I would place it one tier lower than the oddity of Midnight and I in terms of strange results involving the Familiar Bond spell.”

“... Why do you call it ‘him’?” Jet asked.

“Well, I don’t know,” Jerome shrugged. “I just picked something. Same with his name.”

“Why does he have a personality?” she asked.

Jerome looked at me. I had an answer to that. “Well, normal animals and constructs are imbued with greater intelligence when they become familiars. I don’t see why that couldn’t be the case for the simpler intelligence of a robot.” In short, it was magic either way you looked at it.

“Right,” Jerome said. “So, yeah. Everyone, this is Rob. Rob, this is my teacher Turlough, his friend Midnight, and Midnight’s mother Jet.”

The robot whistled, a sound I was fairly certain was not part of the normal repertoire of a cleaning robot.

“I picked a good apprentice,” I smiled at Jerome. I would much rather have this than something boring.