Mage Among Superheroes

Though Calculator didn’t strictly need to be present, I was glad for his presence because he was good at conveying information quickly. There were only five others present counting Midnight and myself. The other three were Kick- the cyborg- Shockfire, and a woman whose name I didn’t know. I should be able to access her in the records if I knew it, but I couldn’t feel a specific power to search for aside from it all being part of her. Was she a bruiser of some sort?

A casual search of our super database hadn’t brought anything up, and I wasn’t willing to just snap a picture of her and use a reverse image search. It would be easier to ask, but before I could Calculator began his explanation.

“As you all know,” he said, “You’re here because of the Mod Squad. Something concerning has occurred with their recent activities. Let’s see if any of you can spot it.”

I watched a few videos he showed, mostly security cameras. As usual, they used lasers and stuff as they stole components to theoretically shove into themselves later. Were the lasers slightly stronger? I couldn’t tell without experiencing them. And I felt like they might have been different in other ways that I couldn’t quite place.

Kick was the most experienced with the Mod Squad. “They have new upgrades,” he said. “New materials and stronger beams, I think. That’s… not great.”

Surprisingly enough, Midnight had more than I did. “I think those are… Bunvorixian beams.”

Calculator nodded. “That’s what it looked like to me as well. It seems they have gotten their hands on some of the debris from the battle. Unsurprising, considering what happened. There were quite a few smaller ships that might have been imperfectly salvaged. And of course the whole thing with the mothership,” Calculator added. “But we haven’t seen anything from that yet. Currently, we have no reason to suspect the Mod Squad is working with Doctor Doomsday, or they would be better equipped in many ways.”

“So what are we going to do about it?” Kick asked. “No offense, but I don’t think this group can take out the whole Mod Squad.”

“Probably not at current, no,” Calculator admitted. “You’re being set up as a temporary squad. Most of you have worked together before, and your task will be to patrol the areas the Mod Squad frequents most. If possible you are to capture any member of the Mod Squad you can, prioritizing those with these new augments. Unless they have more advanced fabrication abilities than they should, Bunvorixian technology should be non-replicable in their hands. Oh, and if you can confirm the presence of said technology you don’t need to catch them in another crime.”

Normally, the Mod Squad was able to walk around unimpeded… because being a cyborg was not illegal. So unless there was something tying them specifically to the super gang, it really was pointless to try to stop anyone. I was sure people were trying to piece together evidence about individual members, but all my experience had been them actively causing trouble.

I wondered at what threshold they counted as having a power, if cyborg was an exclusive or semi-exclusive thing in that regard. I didn’t think Swiss Arms had lied to us, but she was extremely augmented. Iron Shell, based on what I had seen, clearly was at such a level as well- she literally scooped up random parts and incorporated them immediately. Kick…? I looked over at him, and wasn’t sure. He was only partial replacement, and not super high tier. Not weak, though, so he might have surpassed whatever threshold. Would Bunvorixian tech change that threshold at all?

“If we’re going to be fighting together,” Midnight said. “I’d like to inquire at the powerset of our final member. I’m not certain if the rest of you have met her but I know Mage and I have not.”

The woman nodded. “I’m a Splitter,” she said simply. “Depending on the circumstances, I can display super strength and endurance.”

Interesting. “Is that something you activate?” I asked. “Can we increase the probability of those circumstances somehow?”

Calculator answered that. “They are sufficiently experienced for a deeper explanation to be worthwhile, Sorority.”

She groaned. Perhaps not at having to explain, but her moniker. I knew most of ours were bad, but I didn’t really get what was terrible about hers. As a splitter, she was effectively a group of women. It wasn’t too far off, right? Not a great name, but functional.

Before anyone could say anything, she continued. “It’s pretty simple. I’ll keep the exact details secret, but I always have physical enhancements. They’re just split between my copies. So I have full power if it’s just me.”

Even more interesting. “We need to test what happens to magical enhancements.” In fact, I’d barely used any of my magic on other friendly splitters. Maybe a couple minor things on Squad Ten? “If they also split it will be less… functional,” I said.

“Better to find out before we go on patrol,” Sorority agreed. “I hear you have quite a variety of enhancements.”

“And they work best on a group this size,” I said. Counting me and Midnight as one, of course. Though I had the feeling Multicasting could get more efficient, aside from simply allowing improvements. With nobody to guide me on that, it was just an unproven gut feeling. I was getting better at those, but I was still wrong often enough.

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“The easiest way to test this is for you to get hit,” I said.

“Alright,” Sorority declared just like that.

Huh. “Usually people are more resistant to that.”

She shook her head. “As long as you aren’t doing anything extreme, I can’t see an issue.”

“I’m gonna hit you with my staff,” I said.

“Magic?” she asked.

“Well, yes. But not in any way that should be relevant here. There’s no point in testing if I can dispel my own abilities.”

Speaking of that, I should learn the actual spell. It was inefficient, but having something that countered any ability with sufficient mana was useful. Then again, if I was inefficient most supers would last longer than I would before being drained. Anyone worth bothering with, at least. Maybe I should just increase how much mana it could store? That was… not actually something I could do myself, but way more efficient. Surely ‘yggdrasil wood’ could hold more than a few slivers of magic metal stuff inside of it. Though it was that very stuff that did the dispelling, not the wood at all.

“So how do we do this?” she asked. “Do I split and then…?”

“Oh,” I pondered. “We should really test all of the options, I suppose. It’s highly likely you’ll count differently from other splitters, not that I have significant experience with any of them. Stay like this, first,” I said.

Casting Force Armor was easy. Even if I spent the full mana cost, it was exactly 2. As low as anything that wasn’t a cantrip could get. Somehow, it felt more stable to use only a tenth of my potential mana control. Which looking at it from another angle was really that I’d been doing things that were too hard up until now.

“Okay, you can split now,” I said. She did, but I was quite surprised how it happened. Swarm definitely just pulled apart. Squad Ten was quite similar. Sorority… was just suddenly standing next to herself, her original position empty. Technically both were overlapping with where she had been, but the exact middle of where she had been was empty. Interesting. Did she have to do that or was it just convenient? Probably unnecessary to know. I held up my staff. “I’m just gonna hit you in the gut. I’ll try not to go too much beyond the threshold…”

“As long as you don’t use powers, it would be fine to hit me unarmored like this,” she said.

“Noted.” I wouldn’t hold back, then. I took a good swing, one impractical for in combat since the windup was too obvious, and cracked apart Force Armor. It was actually rather difficult to do in a single blow. Relatedly, that probably meant I could crush someone’s ribcage or something similarly deadly. But again, people usually didn’t stand still and that someone would have to not be a super.

I looked at Sorority carefully to confirm, but my senses hadn’t been wrong. The ward had broken on both at the same time. I’d felt it split between the two of them, but now there was nothing left. Had it been weaker? No, I barely got through.

“Alright,” I said. “In theory, both were fully protected. We might want you to split further for testing purposes, however far you feel comfortable.”

We did several more tests at three, four, and five copies. No matter which one I hit, Force Armor broke for all of them- and it wasn’t any weaker. I could also apply it to any of them and unless I specifically tried to limit it, it just worked for all of them.

“That’s handy,” she said. “An extra layer of protection. Though it’s a bit… non-optimal for how I function. A good emergency feature, but I try not to get hit.”

“Good choice,” I nodded. “Now, I’m going to try Energy Ward for a similar test. This one will be a bit… more.” I did some mental math. Well that lined up nicely. “Are you particularly weak to sound waves?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Don’t think so. How strong?”

“The portion that hits you shouldn’t be any stronger than the full force of that swing. The actual force should be several times more, and there’s some chance you have to receive that.”

She nodded, and returned to being three- again, without moving. “Like this should be fine.” I barely even felt her power activate, it just happened. Quick and efficient. She clearly had experience.

I maximized the output of my Energy Ward, so that it would line up with the natural progression of Sonic Lance. Firebolt would take far too many castings and thus too much mana to wear through it, and I didn’t believe that Water Blast would actually be affected.

Sorority stood firmly in place. Three Sonic Lances without boosting their output was almost exactly perfect. And conveniently, I was able to hit each of the clones once just in case something weird happened. Though I wasn’t sure if it was weirder for it to affect multiple copies naturally or not. Either way, it worked just like we’d tested before, absorbing a set amount as if she was all just one target. Which maybe she was. We could experiment with Multicasting some other time.

“Great,” I said. “Now let’s move on from defensive spells. Those are boring anyway. Next is… Haste.”

“I’ve heard about that,” she said. “Should be interesting.”

I cast it. She moved around hesitantly for a few moments- by which I mean she almost immediately started running from my perspective. And as she moved, she split into more while keeping stride, then unsplit. She continued testing things for the whole duration of the spell- about two minutes, now. More from her perspective. From what I could tell it seemed fully functional. That was… very good.

“Fascinating,” she said as she returned. “I can’t believe it worked that well. I could feel the difference in how gravity pulled me down, and watch your reactions.”

I nodded. Now we knew Haste was good. Very efficient on her. “Alright. Next we might need to go to the gym. Unless you want to keep your lifting numbers secret, in which case we can find something sufficiently heavy to bring here I suppose.”

“It’s no problem,” she said. “Is this, uh… Enlarge? I’m kind of excited.”

“Oh,” I shook my head. “I don’t think that would work well with the equipment, but we could do that too. I was just thinking Enhance Body, which will directly make you stronger. I feel like it might be inconvenient to have a giant splitter?”

“That’s… probably true,” she admitted. “I’d like to try it, still.”

I nodded. “Coming right up.”

I was looking forward to her fighting things with my boosts. Should be worth a good chunk of experience, right? So long as she didn’t get zapped by a thousand lasers, but that was something that could already happen so I’m sure she knew how to handle that kind of stuff. I couldn’t make out any details, but I had the feeling she was somewhat older. Not anywhere close to Hammerfist’s age, but not totally young and spry either.