Mage Among Superheroes

Jet nodded as we went over the basics of mana to her. “That fits in with what we have figured out on Celmoth, through the efforts of those you previously rescued. You indicated that they might develop strange abilities but… most of them seem fairly normal. They’re just… better at things? Until they get tired quite rapidly.”

“Better at what kinds of things?” Midnight asked.

“Oh, you know, their nanosuits run more efficiently and so do many of their workstations,” Jet commented.

“... So did all of them become artificers?” Midnight pondered.

I frowned. “I would suppose that makes sense, since that’s the main thing they are exposed to. But I would still expect different things.”

Jet continued her earlier statements, “Well, I did say most of them. A couple of them exhibited lightning and fire based abilities. And one… became strangely good at influencing people. He said something about a shiny human…?”

“In armor or…?” I tilted my head.

“Seemingly unarmored, yet able to survive concerning injuries,” Jet commented.

“That was probably Lustre,” Midnight commented. “And the others… could have unconsciously sparked their class choice from us,” Midnight said. “Since we were using spells when we rescued them.”

“So what do artificers do?” Jet asked. For some reason, the two Celmothians turned to look at me.

“Why should I know? They’re weird, even in my world. You’d probably do better asking Khithae, since she has more experience.” She didn’t have the full class unlocks, since she was only exposed to a portal without going through. Unlike the Celmothians. “Midnight, did we tell your people about status windows?”

“I don’t remember,” Midnight admitted. “Would we need to? That only matters if people are exposed to your original world… for an extended period… oh.”

Jet frowned- a facial expression I recognized from my long term interactions with Midnight. “I don’t remember anything about a… status window? Does it happen occasionally or…?”

“Like a projected computer interface,” Midnight explained. Translation couldn’t quite clear up the wording on its own, but Midnight could explain in his native language just fine. “People should have a level and points to spend… kind of like a game. That will also let them preview most abilities they can unlock.”

“I certainly don’t recall anything like this,” Jet admitted. “How would they access such a thing?”

“You just have to think about it,” Midnight said. “It’s really that simple.”

“Hmm, that would mean I could…?” Jet tilted her head.

“Only if you went to Turlough’s former world.”

“Indeed,” Jet nodded.

“You might also have to spend time there. It’s not super clear.”

I nodded. “Everyone involved happened to do so unexpectedly, for the most part.”

“Though,” Midnight said. “Maybe they weren’t there long enough. Since we only waited a couple hours.”

Ultimately, we didn’t have an easy way to contact anyone until Jet returned. Technically Midnight or I could use Sending for one of the group we rescued but our connection was… tenuous. I didn’t even know their names.

“This has been an enlightening conversion,” Jet said. “We might be able to produce something that could detect mana.”

“We can also give you a primer on levels and mana and stuff to give to them,” I added. “Since we didn’t have a good one prepared before.” We hadn’t exactly been expecting to find them among others.

-----

About half of Jet’s weeklong trip had already passed. A week wasn’t enough to learn about a new world, country, or even city… but it was enough to see some of Midnight’s favorite bits. But not all of Jet’s time ended up being spent with us. Some of it was spent on… what was it called? Oh right, ‘official diplomatic matters’. Something about establishing proper contact with Celmoth into the future, considering their people had appeared on Earth’s hotspots before and likely would continue to.

Midnight and I might have to do some of the actual contacting stuff and definitely transporting, since even with space flight and on-planet teleportation it didn’t seem that Celmoth had a way to reach Earth through normal means. Then again, maybe they simply hadn’t known it was something they could or should do. Some people had simply disappeared without the indication that they should have showed up somewhere else.

It wasn’t my job to think about that stuff though. I’d help for Midnight’s sake- or if I got paid- but that was about where my interest ended. I had no intention of being part of Extra’s day-to-day operations.

-----

Since Midnight and I didn’t want to be selective about introducing our friends, we were finally going to meet up with Ceira. We just needed some time for Jet to get used to the idea of cats and dogs being animals and pets. She’d technically heard that before she came to Earth, but she hadn’t seen it.

I had to admit that it was an odd idea. It was a step further than me imagining humans keeping an ape like a chimpanzee or orangutan as a pet- they were present in zoos, and sufficiently far removed from humans that it wasn’t odd. Instead it would be something nearly indistinguishable from human. Though Midnight seemed to have learned to spot the difference, aside from the intelligence they acted with.

We could have tried to arrange to meet Ceira without her companions, but it seemed a bit dishonest. She didn’t have to be with them all the time, but they were her buddies. And we also wanted to show Jet that dogs could be friendly. This was our best opportunity.

Obviously we were going to meet at a park. Parks were nice. And the two animals had far too much energy to be cooped up inside all the time. Or almost any of the time, from what I heard.

Our attention was drawn by friendly barking from Bun, though obviously Jet didn’t get the friendliness in the sound.

“Bungo, sit!” Ceira said, calling out to her dog with his code name. “That’s not Midnight.”

‘Bungo’ looked at the cats on my shoulder, tilted his head, then whined. He then began to sniff around, looking between the two and ultimately turning his head towards Midnight.

“It’s strange,” Jet said. “The sounds are familiar, but not really close to speech at all, are they?”

Having little exposure to proper Bunvorixian language, I didn’t know what to say. Certainly, actual meowing didn’t sound like Celmothian to me, though I probably couldn’t properly vocalize the animal sounds or the speech.

The brown and black striped form of ‘Celery’ skittered onto Bun’s head, finding that he was intentionally stopped. The higher perch brought the cat closer to the two Celmothians. Cel meowed.

“Very odd indeed,” Jet repeated. “You would be Ceira, then?”

“That’s right,” Ceira nodded. “Your son looks a lot like you.” Coming from her, that meant something. I might not distinguish between black cats- or Celmothians- all that easily, but she should be better at it. Midnight had jumped down, and Bun looked at Ceira, whining. “Free,” she said. “You can go play.”

Cel immediately wrapped paws under Bun’s chin, pulling him back, and then the three were racing around. Seeing the intentional way Midnight moved, I thought I could probably pick out someone like him without the bond. Obviously with it the matter was trivial.

“I hear you have powers as well?” Jet began the conversation.

“Yeah,” Ceira nodded. “I’m a druid. That’s uh, plant and animal based stuff.”

“Can you show me? If it’s not too difficult,” Jet added.

“Sure, lemme just find…” she looked around on the ground, picking up a dandelion puff. “Perfect,” she said. First she blew at it, letting the pretty white fluffy bits fly around, then she caught one between her fingers. From there, just a small injection of mana and it grew into a yellow flower over the course of half a minute, like watching an accelerated video. Then she bent down, poking a small hole in the dirt and placing its roots in there. “I can make seeds sprout. That’s the easiest yet most miraculous thing.”

“... Wow,” Jet said. “That’s quite a bit more impressive than simply throwing around energy like Turlough and Midnight.”

“Thank you,” Ceira said. “Though Turlough does some pretty amazing things too.”

“Mostly for fighting,” Jet pointed out. I just shrugged. That was how things were for me.

“... Turlough,” Ceria commented as she stood, looking past me. “Don’t look now, but… there’s a great dane over there.”

“Is that a problem?” I asked.

“I mean… I think it’s Spot.”

“Oh, that’s a problem,” I nodded.

“... I’m impressed you actually didn’t look,” she said.

“Practice,” I explained. “Can you get a picture or otherwise confirm?”

“Sure…” Ceira said. “How about…” she pulled out her phone, turning it horizontally. “Say cheese!”

“What?” Jet asked, swiveling her head back towards Ceira- she had been looking towards Spot. Or maybe just a big dog.

“It just means to smile for the camera,” I said. “Don’t worry about it, it’s not supposed to make sense.”

The digital shutter sound came from Ceira’s phone, and she turned around to show us. “Actually you could have just used your front camera,” she commented. “But there he is.”

“It certainly looks right,” I said. “But I can’t feel anything. Oh hey look, it’s Titan.”

“Who?” Ceira asked.

“That big guy. One second.” I tapped my comm so it would start actively broadcasting to Power Brigade HQ. “This is Mage, we have a code DSG at Coon Meadows.”

“Elaborate,” came the response. For some reason, I got the impression they didn’t understand what I was saying at all.

“Spot and Titan are here, as well as a smattering of thugs related to Darkstargirl.”

“Ah. Dark Star’s minions… Spot and Titas, are you certain? Do you see her or Gloom?”

“Not currently. I’ll broadcast from my phone.”

At some point during that process, Ceira whistled. “Cel! Bun! Come here guys!” she kept her voice enthusiastic, but I could detect a strain of worry. Or maybe that was from Jet, as I still had trouble reading people’s emotions without some sort of magical connection.

“Those fellows are villains?” Jet asked. “Including a Bunvorixian?”

“Seems like it,” I said, performing that camera trick Ceira mentioned. This was certainly a lot more covert than pointing my arm directly at people.

“Match confirmed with high accuracy,” came the voice from my comms. “Orders are to continue monitoring the situations. Try to stay out of trouble while backup is sent.”

“You know me,” I said. “Which means that was never going to work anyway.” Also, they were already approaching. It was odd, I couldn’t feel any mana from any of the suspicious group individually, but as a whole it was still there. “You should probably stay out of this, Ceira.”

“Are you kidding?” she said. “That guy is making dogs look bad. Also you’re my friend, and this is my park. I would suggest we go over towards those trees there, though,” she gestured.

“We’d better do that quick,” I said, already walking. “They seem to have suspicions we caught on.

“What’s going on?” Midnight asked, running behind Cel and Bun. “Is it a fight?”

“How’d you know?” I asked.

“Because you have that weird calm excitement,” Midnight said. “Time for buffs?” he asked.

“Absolutely,” I said. “But with six of us, we’ll have to stretch I think.”

“... We have a lot of bonds though,” Midnight said. “I think we can do it.”

“Good,” I acknowledged his determination. “Stoneskin first, at two to one.”

Just about the time we began gathering mana, I felt the same from behind us- and the echoes of the various mana among the crows was unleashed. Ugh, those thugs had a lot more time to practice now, didn’t they?

As for our magic affecting six people… Midnight was right about the bonds. The one between Midnight and Jet didn’t seem to help any but Ceira, Cel, and Bun seemed to only count as one between them. Or at least… no more than two. Which meant with Midnight and I counting together, we would be fine regardless of other factors. It still required focusing on more targets at once, but that wasn’t too bad.

Jet was surprisingly calm, lifting up her paw and watching as her fur gained a stony gray texture. “Fascinating. This is some sort of defensive magic?”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t count on it too much though,” I said.

“What’s next?” Midnight asked.

“Actually…” Ceira said. “Can you… make them big?” she asked, gesturing to her companions. “I don’t know how yet.”

I grinned. “We can make everyone big,” I said. I kind of wanted to kick Titan right in his big fat face. Or whatever his name was.