Mage Among Superheroes

Flasher very rudely shot a laser at my face before I even finished casting my spell. Fortunately I had my personal Energy Ward, and Francois made sure the Power Brigade had some nice head protection even if it didn’t look like it.

The good news was that Bunvorixian style barriers didn’t have any inkling that magic existed and thus was not set up to stop temporal manipulation or… other wards. Which meant that suddenly, his lasers weren’t going anywhere. In theory Slow would lower the power of the laser as the mechanisms that produced it should have a specific output over time, and less time.

With the advantage of Haste, we should drastically outspeed Flasher. If he was alone, we’d probably crush him. Instead, there were a good half dozen other members of the Mod Squad behind him. “Kick and I can handle the mooks!” Shockfire called. “The rest of you focus on the big guy!”

I had seen how long it took Flasher to break through Sorority’s Energy Ward before. I was interested to confirm it would take twice as long for the personal Energy Ward around him. Then again, it could be diminished by personal magic resistance. That wasn’t a special thing, just something that stopped magic doing nearly unlimited things to unwilling targets. Otherwise, fairly simple magic could just kill people.

Of course, Slow worked under the assumption that the individual affected by it would be resisting so I didn’t expect anything weird with that. I watched as Shockfire raced to a convenient angle and released a blast of lightning he’d saved up. Even if the Mod Squad insulated their tech in such a way they weren’t extra weak to lightning that didn’t mean it wasn’t still deadly.

Flasher tried to move in front of the blast, but at a relative speed of way slower he didn’t quite make it. Which was still impressive because that implied he almost did. His reflexes were way too fast. Or processing speed, I imagined, since he wasn’t just making pre-practiced motions.

Several of the goons lit up as I prepared the next spell for Flasher. It might incidentally make Shockfire’s blast irrelevant, but that remained to be seen. Thirteen mana, a relatively inefficient spell for attacking a single target- but powerful enough to balance out and more importantly the element I needed.

Swirling cold sprayed from my outstretched staff, alighting upon its target… which was Flasher and everything behind him. Except it didn’t quite reach beyond him. Unlike with the Bunvorixian ships, his barrier seemed to somewhat mitigate the spell. It seems they’d observed the battle carefully and spotted the weakness. Of course, it wasn’t so easy to make up for a fundamental weakness so the barrier only partially worked. Enough that the distance and Flasher’s body blocked the mooks behind him, but not enough that he didn’t get covered in a sheet of thick ice.

Midnight had decided to test Water Blast. It was something we had discussed, not on the assumption that cyborgs would be inherently clumsy against such an assault but because it was an odd form of attack. Zeb had theorized it would count as a high velocity projectile and thus be negated by the barrier, but we hadn’t been able to test on intact barriers. Too many people had gotten their hands on the remains of the battle and said resources were spread thin- both legitimate parties and villains.

Unsurprisingly, Zeb was right. The barrier didn’t completely negate the Water Blast, but what made it through was basically just a splash. A few droplets of water hit the frozen layer of ice and froze in turn. Technically, that was bad since they would be adding heat to the system- but not a lot.

The lasers probably did more. Fortunately, that was holding long enough for Sorority to test how the barrier reacted to physical threats. Pretty well, actually. Probably to stop things like dropping commandos onto their ships. Hasted Sorority was fast but not high-velocity-impact fast. She punched, kicked, and grabbed at the barrier. It didn’t seem to transfer the impact to Flasher, though he was a big dude so it was difficult to tell. One thing we did know was that the barrier couldn’t be infinite.

Rather than trying to brute force her way through, Sorority split into a half dozen individuals and began to attack with an extendable baton. She could have been equipped with a more lethal weapon, but she could only carry so much before it got problematic. Most of the time, she could grapple her opponents and take them down efficiently.

Midnight continued testing things, including Firebolt- fully resisted by the barrier- and Shocking Grasp. That meant running forward, but unsurprisingly the barrier rejected Celmothians. Not that it was surprising because it was keeping Sorority out as well.

Rather than trying another large attack into what was now a crowd, I had Energy Ward prepared. In the worst case, even if I could somehow miss it wouldn’t harm any of my allies. The purpose was to place it on Flasher again, once his laser broke through the other.

It was at that point the bestest important member of our team revealed his true power… and pressed his nose into the barrier. We had been uncertain how a rust mole would interact with energy constructs, and the results were… much like lasers. The barrier kind of turned into a goo where he rubbed against it, and Fluffy pawed some of it into his mouth. He didn’t seem to like the taste, though, as he instead just pushed his head through, lunging for the ankle of a very surprised Flasher.

Probably. Maybe he wasn’t surprised, as his leg kicked backwards at the utmost speed someone under time distortion could manage. Sadly, just like Haste didn’t have as much of an effect on increasing impact as one might assume, Slow didn’t reduce it that much either. There was a loud cracking sound and the horrible scream of metal. But fortunately Fluffy had Stoneskin active. I think he still broke a tooth though. There was blood around his mouth, and I was pretty sure Flasher didn’t have any organic parts in that ankle.

The cyborg managed to yank his leg away, but not before the damage was done. His ankle was just a mess of exposed innards with a clear matte of rust. I also noted he never turned his head during the whole exchange. Rear facing cameras, maybe? Not a huge surprised. Then again, maybe his head couldn’t turn. I’d been aiming for his torso with Blizzard, so it was mainly his head and upper body that were frozen, down to his waist.

I had the feeling Flasher didn’t like me, based on the way his laser suddenly grew brighter the instant Energy Ward failed. I saw it rapidly eat through the ice on his arm. I threw my arm in front of my eyes and cast my Energy Ward at the big mass of super tech energy that was him.

I felt Midnight doing something at that moment, and then I heard a very loud sound. It wasn’t difficult to put together the amount of mana he used and Sonic Lance, though we were fairly certain that shouldn’t have gotten through the barrier.

Not feeling any horrible lasers coming at my eyes, I lowered my arm and was able to see why it worked. Midnight was inside the barrier, having crawled under Fluffy. The fur of the ‘bear’ was completely saturated by a weird goop as he continued to chomp at Flasher. I saw a bunch of exposed junk on the side of his torso where the frozen components had shattered to the Sonic Lance. A commendation worthy tactic.

Then, I felt a surge of energy. I was still gathering mana to retaliate when Flasher disappeared. I still didn’t expect people like him to teleport, and more specifically so easily. I hadn’t cast Dimensional Anchor in time. However, rather than being a fatal mistake it was a valuable learning opportunity.

“He’s still in the base!” I called. “This way!”

Shockfire dropped a limp mook, the cyborg man’s face a look of surprise as his mechanical parts refused to do anything. Or perhaps it was better to say they didn’t have any way to do anything, since the batteries were drained. Not every cyborg used electricity to transfer power, but it was still one of the most common methods even for super tech. As long as Shockfire could handle any blades or other physical weapons from the Mod Squad, there wasn’t much else they could do.

Kick showed that his training with the Brigade had paid off, neatly taking down the rest of the Mod Squad goons.

This was about the time our Haste wore off. “This way!” I said. “There was some sort of surge of power from the base itself when he teleported!”

Casting Haste again nearly drained me dry, but we needed to make use of every second we had. The ground trembled, and without other distractions I could feel the fluctuations of power coming from Great Girl and Iron Shell. I really hoped that the structural integrity of this place was up to snuff. Iron Shell had already proven she could have a building dropped on her and survive, and I had no doubt the same was true for Great Girl- but there were the rest of us here to think about.

“Command,” Sorority called in with her comms as we ran through the halls. “We’re looking to continue pursuit of Flash Circuit. Local teleportation. Are we needed elsewhere?”

It took an excruciating amount of time to get a response, because of Haste. “Negative, Sorority. Continue with your previous objectives.”

That meant Great Girl was winning the fight, probably. Or at least not losing. I imagined it would be pretty hard to take down Iron Shell for good, but Great Girl wasn’t just sitting on her position but continuing to train and grow stronger. Or weaker, when it was convenient, but we didn’t talk about her ability to shrink. I didn’t think I would survive any of the things that were causing the base to shake.

“It should be through this door!” I said to the team. “I can’t feel Flasher in there but that was his destination!”

The door in question was big, metal, and automatically resealing. And yes, we did try the handle. That resulted in another gatling turret popping out, which Shockfire melted with a huge gout of flame. Not great for our air quality, but it was brief enough.

Sorority tested the wall. The Mod Squad was probably smarter than to put an impenetrable door next to a plaster wall, but we had to know. Her swing put a slight scratch on it.

“I don’t know if we can get this open in any reasonable amount of time,” Sorority grimaced.

“I’ll work on it,” Midnight said. “This looks like an electronic lock so my suit might be able to do something. Especially if they ‘upgraded’ it with Bunvorixian tech.”

I nodded. Hopefully it wouldn’t take long. Wasn’t there a spell for this? I think Jerome said he took it. I technically had enough mana for that, and this wasn’t the first time I’d run into the issue of locked doors or the like. So it was worth purchasing a lowish level spell. But as it would take the last dregs of my mana, I wanted to see how Midnight was doing.

“Progress?” I asked.

“Uh, partial success,” Midnight said. “This might take a while though.”

I nodded. “I’m pretty much out of juice. So don’t expect me to contribute more than thwacking or shooting people,” I said to the team. “But I can try one thing. Worst case scenario, it just makes a loud noise.”

I didn’t actually wait for a response. We had just been shot at by a gatling gun, so it wasn’t like our presence had gone unnoticed.

I stepped forward and rapped my knuckles on the door. “Power Brigade, open up!”

Of course, the Knock spell did its own knocking, which was much louder. A loud thud. Then another. Finally, a third.

“Nice!” Midnight said. “That bypassed a lot of the troublesome stuff! I think-” the door clicked open. “We got it.”

The door slid sideways, revealing a room- but no Flasher, for now.