Mage Among Superheroes

The person I reported to was pretty much always Calculator these days. Since things were going to end up passing through him at some point, it seemed to make sense.

“So your mission report…” he said, eyeing it suspiciously.

“Is there anything missing?” I asked.

“It says here… Zeb got a big bat.”

“Dire bats are massive,” I confirmed.

“You closed one of three portals you discovered and destroyed a ton of lasers..”

I nodded. “One of Doomsday’s portals. Did anyone pick up the beacon we tossed through?”

“Unfortunately not. Though it is expected that his lairs are well sealed.” Calculator looked back at the device in his hands. “The final thing… ‘brought back a magical girl’.”

“Temporarily,” I clarified. “She’s from an alternate dimension and all that, and I was having trouble targeting her Japan.”

“Is this the end of the report?” Calculator asked.

“I did note that Zeb is still writing up some technical specifications of some things. Anyway, we couldn’t really do anything about the other portals with the squad we had. We did manage to accomplish our allies’ objectives of tipping the scales, though.”

Calculator nodded, thinking for a few moments- which was far longer than usual. “You weren’t able to determine why only mana-using individuals were able to pass through?”

“Not really,” I said. “I assume some sort of dimensional barrier shenanigans. Obviously it has to differentiate between living creatures and objects.”

“Obviously,” Calculator agreed. “Now then, about your other assessments…”

“I don’t think I’m a good leader. I’d really rather not be in charge of a squad if we can help it.”

“You were successful, though. And you brought back your whole squad unharmed.”

“Healed,” I said. “That’s quite different. The elves provided high level healing services to help people recover from various wounds. Frankly, we probably got lucky by virtue of having an unexpected style. The Portal Squad still needs to spend a lot of time training to get levels… though now they can get trained ranks in abilities too.”

“Do you think our training methods were inadequate?”

I shook my head. “We just need to remember that most people choose their class when they’re young, and even if it only grows inefficiently in the first decade it would be expected for people to reach level 20 or 30 as they grow into their adult life. Our trainees were far short of that. The Brigade’s training did give them other practical battle skills which allowed them to survive, but since I grew up somewhere peaceful I let myself forget that everyone having a class means it’s easy to select competent individuals for military matters.”

“I could say that’s a failure on our part as well,” Calculator admitted. “We’re so used to dealing with gangs at best, not military.”

“We were lucky that the strongest people would have been tied up on the front lines,” I concluded. “I don’t think a straightforward approach is viable for entering the city we Scryed.”

“Indeed,” Calculator said. “We’ll coordinate with Extra to see if there is a viable option in the future. For now, your job is to rest and recover. Oh, and I suppose to return this magical girl to her home dimension.”

-----

“So you will see, sir Turlough, that the visual aesthetic of the two Japans, while similar, has diverged slightly.”

I nodded. Zeb and Khithae had rigged up a way for Momo to charge her phone- just because both worlds had a portable computer/communications device didn’t mean that they would use compatible charging technology. They had to convert to the right voltage and put together some sort of connector.

A tech super probably could have whipped something up in a few seconds, but it took them a week to get something that they thought was safe to test, made from printed parts.

“I do see some differences,” I admitted, “But they’re not as obvious as what I might expect between different sections of a city. Fortunately, I should be able to focus on the right world easily enough, and now that we’re here we shouldn’t have any worries about ending up on this Earth.”

“What do you mean?” Eglantine asked.

“Well, Gate makes interplanar and interdimensional portals. Interplanetary works too, but it’s better if they’re out of system.”

“Why?” Momo asked.

“Because it’s specialized for long distance travel,” I shrugged. “There’s other stuff for short range.” Speaking of ‘short range’, I hadn’t really gotten to use Teleport. I’d picked it up a while before as a safety measure, but that had all been after we were in my old world. Having no clear knowledge of where we were going nor the ability to transport such a large group, it had been sitting stagnant for the few weeks I’d had it.

But it was too much mana to test it right before trying to send Momo back home. We might need all of our mana. So today was focused on that.

Before just trying to toss her back home, however, we had an extradimensional resonance specialist to see.

-----

Given our return to Extra hadn’t been specifically planned ahead of time, we’d managed to miss Zakaria. He had been out of the office, and since we hadn’t been in any particular hurry and Momo had been happy enough to hang out in a hotel with Eglantine, it had been a couple days.

Technically, we didn’t have to do any of this. But Malaliel was interested in potentially establishing contact with Momo’s dimension, and the two didn’t object to the idea. Whether it was practical to stay in contact was something that would be worked out in the future.

“It’s strange,” Eglantine commented, “To have an entire organization devoted to extradimensional affairs. Though perhaps if our worlds did not have to deal with the Scouring, we would have established such.”

“It depends on how much you interact with such things,” Midnight said. “My people dealt with one particular neighbor and we’ve not been at peace as far as I remember. So we didn’t have anything either.”

“Same with my old world,” I agreed. “Earth here is pretty unique in that regard, I suppose. Ah, there he is. Zakaria!” I waved across the lobby. The man was dressed in the standard uniform for Extra’s non-combatants.

“Good day, Mage,” he commented as he approached. “And…”

“Momo is best here,” she explained. We had cast Translation on the pair of them to make things smoother. “I would only stand out more in my other form.”

“Very well. And…” Zakaria’s eyes scanned the area, landing vaguely where Eglantine was. “This should be… Lady Eglantine?” His eyes suddenly changed focus, presumably as she revealed herself. “I don’t think people mentioned the colors.”

Eglantine made a face I felt was some sort of pleasant smile. “It’s not as if there are many other talking porcupines here to get confused with, I think. You could not see me, but you could sense me?”

“You have an extradimensional signature about you,” Zakaria confirmed. “My abilities are good for little else but confirming that and its resonant dimension. I can confirm we have not registered any of your people.”

“I see,” Eglantine nodded. “Do you personally verify everyone who comes to Earth, then?”

“Oh no,” Zakaria shook his head. “That would be far from feasible. Even New Bay alone is more than I can handle. Among other things, people like me can often replicate the signature of different dimensions. Fortunately we tend to get numerous repeats, either because certain connections were formed or by intention. So there are far fewer dimensions to remember than individuals. That’s why new dimensions are important to pay attention to. Though you may be an isolated incident since you came indirectly.”

“Since we have him,” I said. “We can easily verify if I get the right place. So we can get you guys home in just a few minutes.”

“I see,” Momo said, bowing gracefully. “In that case, I must say I was pleased to make your acquaintance.” She turned to Midnight. “You as well. I hope your people can come to know peace.”

“Thank you,” Midnight inclined his head. “In fact, we have made some progress on that lately. Even if it is but a few individuals.” Even if Zeb had been somewhat frightening in her approach early on, I knew Midnight had come to like her- like everyone else, really.

We moved to the travel hall, since it really was Extra’s job to make sure everyone got to where they belonged safe and sound. Or if they couldn’t, finding them a new place.

Momo showed me the pictures she had again, and I focused specifically on her connection to things. I couldn’t guarantee we would show up in the alley she left from, but I was confident in getting her to her world.

Together Midnight and I gathered mana, and slowly a Gate began to form. It was a bit tough, clearly not a strong connection. But it didn’t seem to be trying to stop our connection, either.

“I can confirm this has the correct dimensional resonance,” Zakaria commented.

“Yes,” Eglantine said. “This is definitely our Japan. Come then, Momo.”

The colorful porcupine wandered through the portal. Momo stood behind her, hesitating.

Eventually the portal closed with her back in her home world.

“I could not even turn around to provide my thanks one more time,” Momo said, looking down at Eglantine. “Sir Turlough provided great kindness for us as strangers, and now we will never speak again.”

“I’m not sure I would say never,” I commented, prompting her to turn around. “You were kinda standing half in the portal,” I pointed out. “So we kind of nudged you through. I wanted to make sure you didn’t stumble back or anything.”

Momo looked horrified. Perhaps at being overheard? Personally, I understood how difficult it was to say things sometimes… until you finally just did it. She fully turned and bowed. “My deepest apologies. I have caused you great risk and now you are trapped here away from your own home.” She seemed to notice Midnight, sitting on my shoulder. “The both of you, even.”

“We’re not really trapped,” Midnight said, his tail swishing. He turned slightly towards me, but I knew what he was going to say before he did.

“Pretty much that,” I added. “So… I imagine this ‘Scouring’ thing you’re dealing with has some powerful negative vibes to the whole thing, yeah?” I said. I gestured vaguely down the street from where we appeared. It looked mostly like any big city to me, though a higher percentage of signs weren’t in English but Japanese. And a few in other scattered languages, as normal. “We should probably go deal with whatever that is.”

“Indeed!” Eglantine said, climbing up and around Momo. “There is no time to waste! Take on your empowered form!”

“Midnight,” I said. “Haste them, please.”

Since there were only two bonded pairs here, it was more efficient to have two individual castings. Multicasting was triple the price for four- now five- castings- so we didn’t need it yet. And it wasn’t high enough level to get full use out of Haste.

Sparkles of course flowed around Momo, transforming her traditional garb into a much darker dress contrasted with red highlights. Her hair also grew from around shoulder length to waist length, spreading and widening. It was probably a good enough shift, if nobody was watching. Fortunately, the streets were fairly empty- which should have been our first clue that something was wrong.

“Come on!” I said. “Let’s go fight these things!”

“I’m the one responsible for-” Strife began, but Midnight cut her off.

“Give it up. He likes to fight, so let him fight,” Midnight said.

At first I was surprised when Strife managed to swiftly outpace us, but then I remembered that her transformation probably also made her body stronger. I was just a very fit individual, nothing more. My stride length helped me keep up a bit, but with both of our speeds equally magically enhanced of course the one with a bit of magic of her own would pull ahead. I saw Strife gathering quills around her and wondered if the Scouring needed to be stabbed to death.

Nah, probably any magic would do. And if that didn’t work, I could still help support Strife or the others up ahead.