Mage Among Superheroes

“So tell me again why we’re training to make my magic weaker?” Jerome asked. “Wouldn’t I want to be stronger? So I could take out something like that other plant monster with the vines.”

A reasonable enough question, but I had answers for that. “You’re not making your magic weaker, you’re learning control. You ever been in a fight before that?”

“... a few.”

“Anyone try to kill you?”

“No. Not really.”

“Great. So we’ve established a few things here,” I nodded. “First, you know something about fights. And you’ll probably get in them again.”

“I-”

I held up my hand to stop him, “It’s just a fact. I’m certainly not in a place where I can tell you that you shouldn’t fight. But remember what you said about the first plant creature you killed. The thorny one.”

“It burst into flames and turned into a pile of ash.”

“People don’t burn that easily, but as it turns out they also don’t do so well with any part of them set on fire or burned even skin deep. A single Firebolt is enough to kill someone, like shooting a gun at them. If they don’t die, they might be crippled. And you’d be better of not doing either of those on accident.”

“But what about monsters? When they show up again…”

“You want to be able to respond appropriately. The one that burned up could have been taken care of at lower power, I’m not saying you should have known that ahead of time, but it’s something you’ll have to be able to figure out for the future.” From what I’d seen of New Bay, there was no chance that there wouldn’t be more dangerous incidents, and even if he didn’t seek them out Jerome was exactly the sort to get involved if something happened in front of him. “Now, how many Firebolts can you cast before you pass out?”

“Three. Because I have six mana and they cost two each.”

“I’d count it as two, because you pass out on the third one. If your enemies aren’t dead or incapacitated for longer than you passing out from mana exhaustion, it doesn’t matter if you got another shot. Of course, that’s if you’re alone, protecting just yourself. If you have to protect someone else… just make sure you aren’t going to make things harder for whoever you were protecting when you pass out.”

“It’s kinda sad to be restricted to doing so little…” Jerome frowned.

“You’ll level up, and also… that’s the point here. You could do five Firebolts at half cost and still be on your feet. If you get a little ten minute break, you could do one more.” I paused for a moment, “I’m not advocating using Firebolt on people. It’s pretty messy and you really don’t want to start a fire when you miss. But if you have to, think about how strong it needs to be. Don’t forget you can miss.”

We practiced for a while, with him taking shots at me while I had Energy Ward active. Over the next two hours he shot a total of eighteen Firebolts at vaguely half power. Some were less, some were more. Energy was more mana efficient defending against them- about half cost- and it was better than Shield because it lasted between rest periods if there was extra energy, and it didn’t scatter deflected energy around us into the side of a building. Just because most were brick and concrete didn’t mean nothing could catch on fire.

“That’s so cool,” Jerome said. “That Energy Ward thing. I could just like… never get burned? Could I pick up something hot with my hands?”

“Sure, just make sure you cast it before you do that. And don’t forget other people don’t have it.”

“Awesome. So you cast it like…” Jerome began to gather mana. I would have stopped him, but he was the one who would suffer the consequences of mana exhaustion. It wasn’t a dangerous spell, so he’d have to really screw it up to do any more harm than that. I stepped forward to catch him so he didn’t hit his head- he had Force Armor on, but it was still possible to get a concussion if you hit wrong. “... Like this?”

I stopped with my arm about an inch from his shoulder, then reached up to tussle his hair. “That’s it. Good job. Just one question. How much mana did you just use?”

“Well I cast it at half so… one?”

“That was definitely two full points,” I said. “Which is two. Which should have more than knocked you out.” I chose to ignore him successfully casting a fourth level spell on his first attempt at reduced power for the moment. “Did you level up again… twice?”

“I don’t think so.”

“How much mana do you have left?”

“One?”

“And before you cast?”

“Uh… I didn’t really think about it.”

“Sit with me for a second,” I gestured for him to follow me to a nearby set of stairs where we could be vaguely comfortable. “Are you certain you haven’t leveled up again? Have you been practicing magic?”

“Mostly Shield,” Jerome said. “You said that one was fine to do alone.”

“It is. How many times can you cast it?”

“Three, but then I’m basically passed out.”

“Not actually passed out?”

“I let it last for the whole minute, so I should have um… some left.”

“How much?” I asked. I knew, but I was also responsible for teaching him to do math… and sometimes mages needed to be specific.

“Three tenths? Because it’s one mana per ten minutes, right?”

“Right,” I nodded. “Which puts you at less than half a mana remaining, which is definitely the passing out point. You sure you haven’t been downcasting subconsciously?”

He thought for a few moments, which was good. “No, I just let it flow naturally.”

“Hmm,” I scratched my chin. “That doesn’t quite line up.” Even with the increased mana regeneration that was happening now- I’d approximated it as somewhere close to ten percent higher in normal locations- there was basically no real difference between .3 and .33 mana in terms of incapacitating a mage. “Let’s have you rest up and test something.”

During times where he was recovering mana, he did school work about half the time, while taking some time to simply relax. I would answer any questions he had, but honestly I was useless at history. I did, however, learn how all of the instructional books were arranged. Finding answers in the books was easy, since it was always in the section that people had been asked to read. I taught Jerome some reading techniques, and though he said he was bad at reading it seemed like he just needed practice. Like math.

“Okay,” I said. “You recovered?”

Jerome nodded, closing his eyes and breathing in slowly. “Yep, I feel full on mana.”

“Great. Cast Shield consecutively like you practice,” I held my phone in my hand, “The natural flow, not trying to conserve anything.”

As he cast the spell I paid close attention to every detail, especially the mana he used. It was not as natural to feel someone else’s mana expended as it was for one’s self, but approximating was possible. And there were things that could be judged from the quality of the final spell. My phone also helpfully had a timer.

One minute and five seconds went past. “Great. Again.” One minute seven. One minute four. The fluctuations could be any number of reasons, such as imprecision in my measuring technique… but they clustered around a number I had been anticipating.

Jerome looked exhausted afterwards, as he rightfully should be. “See now… I can barely… think…”

“Point six, would you say?”

“What?” Jerome asked.

“More or less than half a mana remaining?”

“It should be, uh…” Jerome was looking at his fingers, indicating he was thinking about math dazedly.

“Just your feeling, not a calculation.”

“More?” Jerome said cautiously.

“Well that’s something. You’ve upgraded your proficiency in Shield.”

“I thought that took points?” he said awkwardly.

“So does learning spells,” I pointed out. “And you’re clearly not level four so you can’t possibly learn Energy Ward alone, let alone that and everything else.”

“... What does that mean?” he asked.

“It means you should practice whatever you want to get good at… and if it’s Firebolt make sure you’re somewhere safe.”

It seemed he was still probably level 1, but I had no doubt he’d reach level 2 soon enough. It was triple the amount of experience, but it was hard to say how much killing a monster had put him over the first level threshold to begin with. And unlike myself, he should gain experience from studying and using magic.

Jerome’s mother came out. “Heading to work, mom?”

“Yes, that’s right,” she nodded. “Before I left I wanted to talk to, uh…”

“Turlough,” I said, gesturing to my unmasked face. “The other name is kind of dumb anyway.”

“Right, Turlough then. I had a question about that, actually.”

“Hmm, will it take long? Should we start walking since you have to get to work?”

“Um, I, well…” she sighed, “Probably should.” There was an awkward silence for a few moments as we began walking. She looked around to make sure there was nobody within easy earshot, but aside from some cars driving by with their windows up the evening light had few people casually walking about. Especially in the current neighborhood. “So you have powers.”

“Obviously. It’s not unusual where I come from.”

“Do your powers ever make you weirdly fast?”

“Define weirdly fast. There’s magic to make people fast.”

“I see,” she bit her lip. “Can I see it?”

“You could even experience it. Though I’ll probably tone it down a bit to make it more comfortable.”

“That’s fine. I’d like to know if it’s the same as… something else I’ve seen.”

I held out my hand, gathering just a bit of mana for Haste. I focused mostly on shortening the duration, though I was certain the power would also suffer from the reduction in mana.

Tylissa took my hand and the power flowed into her, then she looked back confused as she found herself ahead of us. I vaguely waved as she walked back towards us trying to talk, and a handful of seconds later I could finally hear her properly. “-going on?”

“That’s the Haste spell,” I said, “It makes you faster, but because of that you also talk fast and are hard to understand.”

“Oh,” she said. “That’s… interesting. It’s different than what I saw before, though.”

“What did you see?” I asked. “Speedsters exist, but I’m sure you know about them already.”

“It was during the portal incident. After Jerome passed out, there was a girl with swords that chopped up the other plant monster. She moved quickly and… elegantly.”

“Hmm, that could be… lots of things really,” I shrugged. “I wouldn’t really know more unless I see it.”

“I see. Well, that’s fine,” she nodded. “Uh, Jerome can walk me the rest of the way and knows how to get home safely. I’m sure you’re busy with other things so you might want to head back?”

“I have time,” I shrugged. “This girl with the swords,” I said. “You sure it was a girl? Not just… a small woman?”

“Well, uh… hmm. She… might have been?”

“Hmm.” Had Izzy saved Jerome? There could certainly be another woman with swords, but a halfling? That was more rare. There were certainly other people of similar sizes, but they usually had more distinctly alien appearances like Zorphax the Martian. I kind of wish I had a picture, but I didn’t. So I described her.

“Yes! That’s it!” Tylissa nodded. “Since you know her, I take it she’d a super, then?”

“Hmm? Well, in the same way I am basically. It’s complicated, but same as I’m a mage she’s a scout. Why?”

“Um, no reason, really…” she said. “Well, work’s just around the corner. Since you have time, could you walk Jerome back?”

“Sure,” I nodded. He’d be fine unless he got attacked by a super, presuming he kept Force Armor active like I suggested, but I really didn’t want him to have to Firebolt someone. Even I hadn’t killed a person. That I knew of.

Tylissa went down the alley and quickly stepped into some rear door with a burly guy standing next to it. There was no signage in the rear, but the front made it pretty obvious with more bouncers and the like.

Even with his dark skin, Jerome’s blush was obvious as he noticed me checking out the signs. Embarrassment, certainly. I knew that certain professions were looked down upon even as people eagerly flocked to their services. The stigma also existed in my world, but people had to do what they could to survive. Though working at a club was at least safer than some other professions.

“Come on Jerome, let’s get you back home.”