Mage Among Superheroes

After entering an office building that looked as if it had no connection to news at all and taking an elevator to the seventh floor where I had to walk past a group of people that were for some reason all working in the same big room I finally made my way to a door marked “Channel 72 News”. The paper sign was half peeling off revealing the “Janitor” underneath, but that still indicated this was the right place. I knocked and got a prompt response.

“Mage?” Zack Brannigan said as he opened the door. “Right on time.”

The room he stepped out of was cramped, little more than a few monitors on top of a table. Instead of going in there he took me to another room which was slightly less cramped, and had a table plopped right in the middle. There was a green backdrop and about a thousand lights, plus a large camera and a person standing behind it.

“Huh.”

“What?” Zack raised an eyebrow, “Did you think I was the only one working here?”

“I didn’t think you had a real camera,” I mentioned. I had mainly seen them with the other news channels.

As for the other person, it was a woman with a rather prominent pair of eyestalks coming out of her forehead. They looked around independently while her main eyes locked on me. “The messy look, huh?”

“What?” I tilted my head.

“Don’t worry about it, we can work with that.”

Zack waved me over to one of the chairs. “Before we start the actual interview there are just a few background questions. If you don’t want to answer or the information is secret just let me know.” I nodded. “So, you go by Mage. The only real information I have is that, plus that you recently joined the Power Brigade. Anything else you can tell me? Where are you from?”

“I’m extradimensional.”

“Interesting, but not fully unexpected. What else about your people?”

“I’m an orc,” I gestured to my face in general. “And a Mage, which is why my hair looks like this. Though I’m an orc, I lived in integrated communities most of my life.”

There were more questions about me in general where it was clear he was trying not to offend me. I was used to that, but instead of it seeming to be because I was an orc who might just ‘randomly’ get mad and tear his arms off or something, he seemed to actually care about upsetting me. Then again, I was here for an interview.

“Alright, thanks,” he nodded. “I might ask some of these again on camera, so be ready for that. Now I’d like to get this started. Jody?” He looked over to the woman on the camera, who pressed a few buttons and gave him a thumb’s up. “This is Zack Brannigan of Channel 72 News, bringing you an exclusive interview with one of the saviors of the residents of Happy Heights Apartments. This is Mage of the Power Brigade, one of those devoted to keeping our city safe even if they haven’t donned the mantle of hero. Mage, what can you tell me about the fire and the rescue operation?”

“I was actually the first one to spot the fire. A spark of flame among fluorescent lighting. Well, obviously the residents would have noticed but they were a bit busy at the time.” I tried to keep my grins minimal as they could exaggerate my tusks. “I called it in and the Brigade sent over everyone they could. We were the first ones there, followed moments later by some local supers.”

I continued to explain with Zack prompting me towards specific details, ultimately culminating in my mention of Shooting Star’s late arrival. He took the reigns from there. “That’s right folks. Just as we mentioned in our report last night, some supers showed up just to take credit for a deed that was already done.” He seemed to steel himself as he spoke. “Not all supers are heroes, but all of those who showed up to risk their lives saving people and the building are heroes in my book.”

Except heroes got paid… differently. From what I understood most got paid less than even a rookie like myself, except for the most popular ones. But I was willing to let Zack talk in exchange for what I would get out of it. Specifically information. Channel 72’s finances were ‘a little tight’, but Zack and his ‘crew’ knew things that I didn’t, and I’d heard some samples already. Things that the Power Brigade didn’t know, or at least didn’t have easily accessible. As for whether it would ultimately be worth it only time would tell, but I didn’t need more money right now anyway. Not until I was going to buy rubies or fancy ivory.

-----

On my way back to work I passed by Happy Heights Apartments. Only a day later and it hardly looked like it had been on fire at all. Well, okay, it still had broken windows and burn marks… but none of it had collapsed. I could tell some repair supers had been to work already, as there were eerily pristine sections next to others. There was magic for that, but even the larger spells could only really handle a window at a time. Generally supers here were capable of more sustained action. Aside from preventing the collapse of the building most of the rest of the work would probably be taken care of manually, but those who lived on floors the fire hadn’t spread to were already moving back in and others were clearing out charred hunks of furniture.

It wasn’t a result anyone wanted, but it was a hundred times better than what could have happened. Nobody died and the building could be put back together. People had some burns, but ultimately we’d worked fast enough to save them. That felt good, even if I didn’t know whether or not I’d be paid for that time. I presumed we would, though.

My only regret was not checking my experience beforehand. Fires were dangerous, but I wasn’t sure if they counted as a battle or not. I was missing critical information. Ultimately, I’d have to figure it out some other time.

I didn’t have any specific duties except for being around and keeping up with my training, but there was a surprise waiting for me. Or an unexpected visitor or… whatever.

Jerome was there, with his mother. There was a special area on the first floor where they could wait, and I’d already approved such a visit… but hadn’t really expected it. “Hello again,” I waved.

“He wanted to see you again,” Jerome’s mother commented. “To thank Midnight for saving him, among other things. We saw him earlier.”

“I’m pretty sure I only made things worse for you,” I admitted. “You’re the one who saved me.”

“Actually,” Jerome rubbed his hands together nervously. “I wanted to ask… if you could teach me magic?”

I’d already told him before, but I could see the desire inside of him. “I’ll say it again. I don’t think I can. But I can try.” I didn’t want to turn down the kid, but while learning absolutely contributed to the effectiveness of a Mage or any class from my world, the basic functionality just… worked on its own. I became a Mage, and then I could sense mana and pick spells. I didn’t want to get his hopes up, but I also didn’t want to ignore his desire.

Sure, I had become a Mage because it was the one I thought was for smart people and some kids called me dumb because I was an Orc, but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t have wanted to learn magic anyway. Magic was awesome, and the kind that Mages made use of were the best among them. I didn’t really care about plants or healing like other people dealt with.

Among the very few things in my storage when I came over was what could loosely be called a book, as it was multiple pages bound together. Mostly it was a vague explanation of magic along with copies of helpful tables for determining spell effectiveness and mana cost. Just going by feel was the best way to get yourself unconscious through Mana Exhaustion in battle. I pulled it out to show Jerome and his eyes widened… then squinted. “Do I have to learn to read magical runes?”

Oh right. It was written in the common language of my world, which meant both letters and numerals were not something he would understand. “I’ll have to translate it…” I shrugged. “Though it’s not like I’m prepared with a lesson plan right now anyway.” I remembered what Master Uvithar suggested, but I’d have to include things like trying to learn to sense mana. I didn’t know if it would work, but Jerome deserved at least an honest attempt.

-----

Over the next few days I translated and printed out all of the information I had for Jerome, leaving out everything unnecessary. I showed it to him and he flipped through the book. There was a frown on his face, one he was clearly trying to suppress but ultimately he sighed. “I uh… I don’t think I’m smart enough for this.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“There are… a lot of big words. And is this algebra?”

“Yes that’s right,” I nodded. “The way math is done in this world has a few different conventions, but none of it was too complex so I just rewrote it.”

“I guess… I can never be a mage.”

“Why?” I raised an eyebrow.

“I don’t understand any of this.”

“Oh.” Then I shrugged, “So what? If you already understood it all, then you wouldn’t need to learn it, would you?”

“Uh, I guess not?”

“Great. So what’s the first thing you don’t understand?”

“Everything?”

“We’ll start on the first page then.”

Having mostly been on the other side of the equation followed by studying on my own… it took some time for me to actually get going. I wasn’t understanding which things he didn’t understand and why. Whenever I asked, he just implied he wasn’t smart enough. But I wouldn’t accept that. I understood there were some people with actual cognitive disabilities, but Jerome wasn’t one of them. He just… didn’t know things.

It took a while to get him to admit that he could barely read at all, even though he was nearly a teenager. So I did something Master Uvithar did for me… except he used actual magic. I would have, but I didn’t have the points to spare nor the mana to keep up with it all day.

“Let’s start with explanations of some basic things magic can do,” I said. “Spells all start with minor effects, and cost one point of mana equal to their level. Easy enough, right?”

Jerome nodded.

“Storage takes something and puts it… in a secret magic place.” The actual functionality of that was hard to explain, so I moved on quickly. “The next level has things like Force Armor. It’s an invisible field but you can touch it.” I cast it on him, then showed what it was like to press a piece of paper up against him, how it bent against an invisible barrier just around him. I went through higher level spells until I got to Enhance Mind. “Then there’s Enhance Mind. It helps people think better. I can only use it on you a limited amount though.”

After I ‘used’ that spell on him, I started teaching him whatever he seemed to need to know. Which was a lot. The first session we covered a smattering of words and some math. We also covered how to look up words in a dictionary, even if you didn’t quite know how they were spelled. In my world I would have said that it was magic, but apparently there were computers that were pretty good at guessing even misspelled words. If it was written it was easy, but for spoken you just had to figure out if it fit with other words. Context, and all that.

Just a few hours wasn’t going to really get us anywhere, but we set up another time to work together. The second time we’d be reviewing things and there would be no ‘Enhance Mind’ involved. Master Uvithar did the same thing with me, and I found reviewing really was much easier even without magic. I was really fond of those memories.

Something was weird though. I was pretty sure I had been able to sense mana ever since I selected the Mage class, but I honestly couldn’t remember what Enhance Mind felt like to have cast near me. Well, it had been more than a decade.