Mage Among Superheroes

The next time I showed up at Coon Meadows park, the destroyed copse of trees had significantly recovered. Not just that, but the surrounding area of the park was flush with new life. The trees were still pretty small, but considering it was fall the fact that they had sprouted at all was pretty impressive. Other plant life had grown significantly as well.

When I arrived, Cel and Bun were chasing someone in a nearby field. A small someone that I quickly recognized as Izzy. “Hello,” I said as I stood next to Ceira as she watched. “I didn’t expect to see Izzy here today.”

We hung out occasionally still, but since she had a job that functioned during normal hours and I’d been quite busy with interdimensional and interplanetary travel lately it hadn’t been that much.

Seeing the aggressive game of tag she was playing with the pair of animals, it was clear she hadn’t just been sitting around slacking off. Her class abilities could obviously augment her movements, but Cel and Bun were augmented as well. Even if Ceira’s level was lower, there were two of them to deal with.

The tactics seemed to be Cel trying to trip her up by diving between her legs- and given her size that meant quick movements to keep from even being touched. Bun would leap at her with paws extended or nip and her hands, but she twisted around while avoiding both animals. I knew how difficult it was to keep track of two opponents at once, but she was managing it expertly.

I vaguely recalled some Scout abilities that would help with that, but her execution was clearly well honed.

While the skirmish was clearly friendly in intent, I realized it was more than just a game of tag. They weren’t able to touch her, but Bun’s chomping teeth looked fairly serious. I also saw Cel’s claws extending, larger than normal cat’s claws.

Then there was the part where her movements had a spare bit of room to kick Bun away, sending him tumbling. I wasn’t one to accept animal abuse, but roughhousing was quite different. No, this was serious training. I could see it in their eyes.

Cel managed to slash Izzy’s ankle the second time Bun went flying- nearly all the way to us observers- and that kept her off balance for the dog to return, leaping and grabbing her arm.

“Alright, I surrender!” Izzy said, and Bun immediately let go. I could see a trickle of blood running down her forearm.

“Doesn’t that hurt?” Midnight asked as she walked towards us.

“You’re asking me if something hurts?” she raised an eyebrow. “You’re standing on the shoulder of the guy who’s the type to keep punching people with a broken hand.”

“It still hurts, though,” I commented.

Midnight nodded. “I have experienced Turlough. But that looks like a fairly sizable wound.”

“It’s not a big deal,” Izzy said. “Bun has to get a proper grip or I’d just slip away and they’d never beat me. Plus, Ceira will heal me when we’re done.”

“Are you done?” Ceira asked.

“No way! Especially not with this guy here,” she poked my belly with her finger. “You owe me a proper brawl.”

“Sure, we can head over to HQ,” I nodded.

“Nah, not in a fancy training room. Right here.”

I shook my head, “I don’t think that will work out. I’d rather not risk fatigue out here.”

“It would be a no mana fight,” Izzy said. “So you’d still be pretty effective. And I already checked out everyone at the park, no fanatics.” She spit into the grass. “But we’d take them out if there were any.”

I nodded, remembering a previous incident. People with portal powers would be significantly better trained now, but even Titan wasn’t that big of an issue and he was one of the best I’d seen working with Darkstargirl. “I can agree, but I’m not going to remove my outfit and that will dampen any blows.”

Thin cloth wasn’t generally effective against blunt force impact, but Francois didn’t slack off with his gear. The concealment feature was quite nice too, though looking like I was wearing normal clothes only achieved maximum effectiveness when I changed my looks too. At that point, I would just be using Disguise anyway. Still, not being automatically picked out as Mage was good enough for me. I wasn’t the only person with green skin. Or the only orc, even. Though most of the others seemed to work for Doctor Doomsday.

“Hmm,” Izzy pondered for a few moments. “I wouldn’t want to make you vulnerable out here. How about you even things out by making us the same size?”

“I can do that,” I nodded.

“Let’s do it then!” she grinned. I reached towards her with my magic, casting Enlarge. Soon enough, Izzy was my height… and then a little taller. “Huh.” She looked down at me. “I thought this only doubled my height?”

“At base,” I agreed. “But you know. Upgrades and stuff.” I hadn’t even pushed it to its maximum, or she would be somewhere around eight and a half feet tall, instead of seven and a bit. Half a foot taller than me was much closer than normal, and it wasn’t worth micromanaging the spell to get closer.

“Alright. Let’s not waste this spell!”

After I nodded, she took the first swing. We’d sparred a few times with Enlarge cast on her, so she wasn’t entirely new to it, but her relative difference in size still greatly affected her tactics. Izzy was used to strikes, but grappling wasn’t in her normal repertoire- at best she would tackle someone’s legs. She was quite capable of resisting grabs herself, of course, so I wasn’t terribly advantaged there.

I didn’t think about things too much as limbs flailed. Izzy’s enhanced strength from magic made up for my protective gear, but ultimately it was hard to say if there was a winner between us. I just remember both of us ending up on the grass having toppled away from each other and unable to get up.

A catlike tongue was licking my forehead, and it wasn’t Midnight since he was still over to the side.

“Are you lunatics done now?” Ceira asked, looking down at me.

“Yep, we’re good,” I said. Izzy gave an acknowledgement as well.

“Well since you don’t have a puncture wound to fix I think you can get by with Replenish,” Ceira said.

Before I could say anything, she gathered a few mana and cast the spell on me. “Well, you didn’t have to do that. A few bruises is pretty normal.”

“I wouldn’t call that a few,” Ceira said. She walked over to Izzy, but she didn’t gather quite as much mana as I expected for Regenerate. Noticing my look as I propped myself into a sitting position, she explained. “Now that I can cast the whole thing, I’ve been able to do partial versions. I don’t think it will grow anything back except near full power, but it stitches up smaller wounds better than Replenish.”

After our spar, Ceira asked Izzy and I to help her remove some old trunks and roots. Her magic helped dig them up, but she still needed someone to take them away. Apparently she’d worked out something with the city, and I’m sure they were quite glad to get the park not looking like a disaster zone sooner rather than later. And maybe for cheaper, since they would otherwise have to pay a plant based super.

“Are you charging the city for this growth?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Maybe if I needed the money, but I really don’t. It’s mostly because I like this place and want it to be better.”

If my Storage was empty I could have taken some of the chunks more easily, but I had various things inside including my staff. “Hey, did your project to grow a sprout from my staff ever work out?”

Ceira shook her head. “Not so far. Seems like it needs something more than a pot in an apartment, even though I can get most things to grow well. You think I should plant it out here?”

“I’m not sure about that,” I said. “The city might care about planting non-native plants. And I’m going to assume most of it isn’t.” Even by Vilhelmiina’s own words, it was just a hybrid of a lot of things and not real Yggdrasil wood.

-----

While I might have liked to spend all my time at the park, the Power Brigade had pretty good training facilities and I was technically responsible for the growth of some of our newest recruits. Most of them were doing well with their training schedules, but they still required some guidance now and then.

I wondered if I should ask Izzy to consult for our newbies, because she would be quite useful for some of them. For example, Flexy Guy wasn’t a scout like her but he could still benefit from her combat style experience. He had some official moniker but I couldn’t remember it. Same with the barbarian, though I knew it was some sort of animal. Angry Bee? No, that wasn’t it.

Well, whatever. He was the brother of the mage in the group, so he was Barbro. His problems could probably be solved by Izzy too. For example, one of his main complaints was it was hard to fight because he was short.

“I just can’t get in a proper hit,” he said.

I nodded. “Certainly, reach is a valuable advantage in combat. However, against certain opponents you’ll be so far outclassed in that category that you have to compete in different ways. Overcoming your weakness is good, of course, so find a way to leverage your strengths.”

“All I’ve got is muscles and anger,” he grumbled.

I wouldn’t say it was all that reasonable for him to complain. He’d put on probably twenty pounds of muscle in the past few weeks. Not enough to match a proper bruiser, but that was without raging for extra strength. He’d probably surpass me in pure muscle soon, regardless of the height difference.

“Then keep working on your skill. Maybe get good with a long weapon like a spear.”

“Spears are a bit…” he furrowed his forehead. “Lethal.”

“Sometimes that’s necessary,” I said. “I could suggest a long staff, perhaps. You might even be able to get one that turns into a spear when necessary. You would regret not having the option if it became necessary, I think.”

“I guess,” he nodded. “I just thought I’d fight with my fists like a true bruiser.”

“You might get there eventually,” I said. “But even most of them can benefit from a weapon.”

“What about Great Girl?” he said. “She doesn’t use weapons.”

I had some counterpoints to that, as she used everything from other enemies to nearby trucks as weapons quite frequently. But that would get us off track. “Oh, I actually have a good idea. We can show you that reach isn’t everything.”

“I mean I understand that but it’s still a problem I’ve noticed.”

“I’ll get an expert in here.” I might have tried to show him myself, but I was not a class meant for melee combat. My training was good enough that I could beat him at the moment in our natural sizes without additional abilities, but that wouldn’t last. Like I couldn’t beat Izzy, if she were really serious. She might be a good way to show him, but there was a better option before then.

-----

“Why me?” Great Girl asked.

“Because you… have a good understanding of the difference size makes,” I said. “Also it’s good for morale for you to train with new recruits.” She just crossed her arm and glared. “Aww, come on. The spell will make you less than half height. Nobody will easily figure out your real height.”

She grumbled. “Since when can you shrink people, anyway?”

“Like three weeks ago,” I said. “For my visit to Celmoth.”

“Ah. That makes sense.”

“I’ll see you there later,” I waved.

“Wait- ugh.”