Mage Among Superheroes

“Did you hear the news?” Midnight asked.

I chuckled. “Midnight, you know me better than that.”

“... Yeah. So, the parts that are publicly available weren’t widely reported. Just that a couple executives from Extra are ‘being investigated for corruption’. By which I mean they’ve already been taken in already.”

“Hmm, does this mean we can walk around with our new laser pal out in the open?” I asked.

“Uh, I’m sure Calculator will let Zeb and us know when that’s okay.”

“I’m surprised it took days,” I said. “We had that info a while ago. Surely it doesn’t take that long to just arrest some people?”

“Well, the political ramifications make it more complicated. And I’m sure Extra wanted to minimize bad publicity.” I frowned at him. “... And they needed to dig deeper to verify co-conspirators that were less obvious.”

“That makes sense,” I said. “Though Malaliel could have interrogated them.”

“Despite how useful it is, her word doesn’t mean anything in court,” Midnight replied. “Stuff with powers gets tricky, especially if she can only tell when people are lying, but not exactly how.”

“I kind of figured she got more than that,” I said. “But I never really tested it.”

“Because you don’t lie.”

“I’ve lied plenty of times,” I said.

“I don’t think illusions and trying to distract enemies in combat count,” Midnight said.

I shrugged. “I do lie sometimes. I just don’t see how it would benefit me most of the time. Especially with angels and stuff who would know.”

Ultimately, I expected everyone to figure out lies eventually. And while I liked fighting, I wasn’t interested in turning people against me. There were plenty of people to fight without ruining friendships or other potential valuable relationships.

-----

It may have taken me entirely too long to figure it out, but just because spells did one thing didn’t mean that I had to stick to the narrowest interpretation of that thing. Energy Ward blocking outgoing energy was one thing, but even combat spells had different applications. Though I couldn’t usually use most of them because toppling structures on my foes was not a Power Brigade approved method of combat.

Still, I’d gotten motivated to improve my spells in more ways. I still thought that the number that came from upgrades, both point based and through training, was important. Direct power and mana efficiency were something that couldn’t be discounted. But I could be more efficient with my spells in other ways.

Obviously I’d learned to hit people in the right spot. I knew a Firebolt launched at someone’s arm and at someone’s chest would have quite different effects, depending on how strongly it hit. But I could do better than that. Probably.

Midnight and I were training together, and the spell I felt had the most potential was Chain Lightning. Perhaps that was because I had some sort of affinity, either inborn or simply due to focusing on Shocking Grasp during my early days, snapping up partial points of experience without causing true harm to the villagers. Regardless, I felt we could do a lot more with Chain Lightning.

“Alright, so, here’s what I’m thinking,” I explained to Midnight. “I can already bend the arcs slightly as I move from one person to another. Enough to go around shallow corners. But there are many situations where cover gets in the way. Not only that, but sometimes the timing works out so that you’re in a good spot but don’t have the mana or whatever. I think there’s something pretty cool we might be able to do.”

“What’s that?” Midnight asked.

“I think I can bounce the lightning off of you to another target without losing potency.”

“You think?” Midnight said, clearly alarmed. I was getting better at reading Celmothian expressions, but mostly it was the bond.

“Well, obviously we’d use Energy Ward just in case it didn’t work like that,” I said.

“Energy Ward?” Midnight shook his head. “Why don’t I shoot lightning at you and see how that feels?”

“Okay,” I said. We looked at each other in silence for a few moments.

“You know, sometimes I forget you’re like that,” Midnight sighed.

“What, did you think I’d refuse? Obviously once we determine it can work I’m still going to need to target you, since we both need practice. But I don’t mind being the target for testing.”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Midnight said slowly.

“Good. That’s probably an important detail to make this work,” I explained.

“I- well, yeah,” Midnight agreed. “So we’re just… going to do it?”

“Well, we need to set up some targets. And some walls,” I said. “Otherwise we won’t have anything to chain from or to. It might not let us bounce off a primary target at all.”

“Why do you even think it’s possible?” Midnight asked.

“Because I thought about it and it made sense to me,” I replied. “And yes, sometimes those thoughts are wrong. And sometimes we end up with Assistive Familiar Casting or Multicasting.”

“Okay but Comhghall definitely helped us with the first one, so he already knew it would work,” Midnight pointed out.

“And nobody’s told us this doesn’t work, so it might,” I replied.

“I don’t have the available willpower to refute your logic right now,” Midnight said.

-----

Lightning blasted towards me, piercing through Energy Ward and trickling through my Power Brigade suit. What was left was still an unpleasant amount of electricity that then weakly bounced towards another target as it slipped out my side.

I was glad we hadn’t targeted Midnight first, though with the Celmothian technology in his gear he might have fully absorbed the remaining power it had. Either way, I didn’t mind it so much. Sure, it was painful and all that but… I could take a handful of zaps before I had to go see a healer.

“What are you picturing?” I asked.

“I’m trying to sort of have it… slide off your skin? For lack of a better description.”

I nodded. “That makes sense. Though obviously, it’s not doing that.” It definitely went through me. “Maybe we should try bouncing it off targets without harming some of them.”

“Is that an option?” Midnight said. “Because we should have probably tried that before I blasted you three times!”

“Nah, the bond between mage and familiar should make that one easier,” I said. I wondered if we had to actively resist somehow? That would negate about half of the point, though. Well, I was the one who usually- but not always- figured things out first. From there, our technique somewhat spread to the other- though personal practice still seemed vital.

Let’s see, what made sense? I stared at the handful of targets, arrayed in a vague cluster. Something simple like not damaging every second target made sense. They were stationary humanoid shaped things, made from the moldable stuff the training rooms had. There was some limit to how much we were supposed to damage things, though even more serious stuff could be repaired with magic. Khithae was probably busy- though I did notice that even the ceilings were in good repair.

I tried not to blast the first target, as lightning coursed through it. So far, Midnight and I hadn’t noticed much difference between the options. Power was always reduced on later targets as it was eaten up to some extent.

All I really got out of my first attempt was more experience directing the zaps between targets, which all seemed pretty smokey. My second and third attempts weren’t much better, and though I was tempted to try more complicated patterns that seemed problematic when I was already going for something specific.

Midnight was right. It did make sense for it to go around things, climbing across the skin or whatever. But Chain Lightning really seemed to want to go through. What iff…

My fourth attempt pierced through dummies one after another. I felt something was different, but we’d have to get official measurements to know for sure. Ugh, I really wish spells didn’t cost so much so I could use the big ones more. But I probably wasn’t even supposed to be using level 13 spells for a while, even if it was technically possible.

I stopped to think for a few moments. Back at level 0- which I’d been stuck at for a frustratingly long time, and again at level 1- the basic fatigue point was 2.5. Half of the starting 5 mana pool, and it continued to be half of the basic mana pool. So at level 1, where you could have exactly a single 1st level spell with points, the fatigue point was 3. At level 2, if you hadn’t spent any points you could have a level 2 spell, costing 2 of 3.5 as the limit. In short, it really seemed like you weren’t supposed to approach the limit. Indeed, it seemed like somewhere around two thirds was probably preferable, though probably closer to half.

And if the books I studied had been useful, they might have mentioned some of that. Well, they were useful. I learned how much power spells had at what level, depending on other factors. Area spells were worse, things with restrictions were better. Level 4 Energy Ward could just about counter level 13 Chain Lightning. Or a couple Sonic Lances.

I definitely needed to write this stuff down for the various people who also had classes. There was the Portal Party, of course, but there were also the Celmothians who were just starting out. Zeb didn’t use magic, but it might still be useful.

Of course, I didn’t care how much mana I was ‘supposed’ to use. Yes, I would leave myself vulnerable if I cast a couple big spells and then ran out of mana. But that was what friends and training were for.

-----

Further patrols hadn’t resulted in running into more members of the Mod Squad, though it was reasonable that they kept their heads down in the days following an encounter where we nicked a whole double handful of them.

“So far, you have been successful,” Calculator said. “Keeping them down for a few days is good on its own, but I would expect them to act again regardless. Hopefully we can predict their location. It would be nice to track down their leader, of course, but Iron Shell is hard to track.”

“... Does she not smell like anything?” Zeb asked.

“Actually, yes,” Calculator said. “Or at least, she had certain upgrades that minimize various otherwise obvious signs that might linger. Few leaders last without something like that. Actually, it seems the smell thing specifically most likely was bolstered recently.”

Zeb pondered for a moment, then she suggested something. “Did they implement --------?”

“That word didn’t translate,” Calculator explained. “Could you try something else…?”

“Uh, let’s see. I could call it a scent negator. Anti… smell… otron?” Zeb tilted her head.

“Scent negator is better,” Calculator confirmed. “So is that an actual piece of Bunvorixian tech?”

“Oh yeah,” Zeb said. “Obviously. Even if Celmothians are bad at smelling stuff it’s still useful.”

Midnight flicked his tail. “You’re just better at smelling stuff far away. We’re more discerning.”

“Fluffy might be able to pick out scent negators,” Zeb pondered. “Or he could at least eat them.”

“Sure, but if we actually know where they are…” Calculator shook his head.

“Sorry,” Zeb said. “I don’t know how to make a jammer.”

“That’s fine,” Calculator said. “Though if you could list any known weaknesses…?”

“Hmm…” Zeb pondered.

“I promise that we will do our best to protect the worker caste of the Bunvorixians.”

“Any ships that go down still have good engineers,” Zeb said. “And not all the soldiers are bad.”

“What about the leaders?” I wondered aloud.

“I met some of the leader caste that were nice,” Zeb confirmed. “They never seemed to get assigned to anything, though.”

“Regardless,” Calculator said, “We need to find a way to reliably track down Iron Shell.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Okay what?” Calculator replied.

“I mean, I can probably Scry her. At least, we don’t know anything about her having advanced scrying blockers or anything, right?”

“... I grew too used to that not working on most of our enemies,” Calculator admitted.

“Mostly the big ones. But we’re pretty sure they’re not working with the hardest guy, right?” Darkstargirl and Gloom had some of Doomsday’s annoying blockers I was fairly sure, but most people wouldn’t.

“That will be your new priority,” Calculator said.

Pfft. Not nearly as fun as zapping things with lightning. If only I could find some way to not spend that mana. Except that wasn’t how spells worked. Mana made them do stuff and was used up to do that. It would be nice if I could borrow mana from other people, but aside from Midnight I hadn’t seen a reasonable way to do that.