Mage Among Superheroes

Chapter 461 - 461

And so, after informing Midnight of the merits of our plan, my feline buddy gave his assessment.

"You're crazy."

How uncharitable. Perhaps we needed to explain it again.

"Let us start over," I said. "Rodentia likes squirrels. You remember how she easily turned against the Bunvorixians? And, well, the rest of that villain team up."

Midnight rolled his eyes. "It wasn't that long ago. I am quite familiar."

Zeb couldn't help but interject. "You totally are! A familiar."

"... yes."

I cleared my throat. "Anyway… she basically wants to do that more, with the resistance. A real cause to fight for."

Midnight shook his head. "It's a big ask to trust a supervillain. Even if she's the straightforward sort… what happened to the Bunvorixians she captured? Spot?"

"Oh!" Zeb bounced slightly. "She's done with them, so she'll give you the ones that aren't joining the Bunvorixian Freedom Initiative."

"... What happened to them in the meantime?" Midnight asked.

"Umm…" Zeb thought for a moment, then looked at me. "Some sort of mind control cheese?"

"You're the one that was talking to her," I pointed out. "Anyway, didn't she call it something like 'fact fromage'?"

"Yeah! That!" Zeb nodded. "Mind control cheese. She separated out the ones that knew about the conspiracy and those that didn't. She said she wouldn't mind recycling them if you didn't want them."

Midnight grimaced. "I'm… not sure I want to know. But Celmoth would very much like to have the opportunity to properly execute Spot. And we can do so with some civility. As much as you can have when killing people, anyway."

I frowned. "I hope you're not planning to tempt fate again."

"Oh no," Midnight said. "We're done using him as bait. We plan to be swift about it. And hopefully the Bunvorixians can't reach Celmoth anyway. The official announcement will come after his death, though."

"Good," I said. "Because otherwise I would have to remind you what he did to Zeb," I pointed. She still had a couple patches of gray fur. People said she was as healthy as could be and Ceira had offered to keep trying Regenerate, but it was a reminder of the sort of magic Spot chose to use.

Even if I was going to kill someone with my magic, death magic was a worse way to die. And it led to worse consequences after death. Even if he didn't understand the metaphysical consequences, he should have known how foul the magic was simply by using it. And he clearly didn't care.

It was better if the Bunvorixians didn't have him. Even if they had some other people with classes, they would be a significant distance behind in terms of training. Frankly, I was surprised he had survived my Shocking Grasp. I hadn't intended him to.

"Enough with that," Midnight said. "Once the Bunvorixians are dealt with… you want to smuggle a supervillain to another planet?"

"One she can't get back from easily!" Zeb said. "The resistance could really use someone like her permanently around. And I'll keep my nose sniffing!"

"I can't imagine Extra would approve of this," Midnight said. "And Turlough just got finished getting back in their good graces."

"I got pretty far back into the positive," I noted. "I can spend some."

"Good will isn't currency!" Midnight said.

I disagreed. "It totally is."

Zeb interjected, "Either way, they wouldn't care about sending someone to Bunvorix. With the state things are in- basically war- Extra's policies don't really respect their borders right now. No, our borders. And it's basically an official request from the resistance!"

"In that case," Midnight said. "Why not make it an actual official request?"

"... Extra has policies against working with supervillains."

"For good reason!" Midnight said. "Come on, guys, it's not that hard."

I had to try another route. "Do you think Celmoth would push against this?"

"We wouldn't let Rodentia within a lightyear of our territory," Midnight said.

Obviously. But I kept pushing. "Yeah. But what about Bunvorixian territory? Surely you can see the benefits for your people. You want the resistance to succeed, don't you?"

"Well, yeah, but-"

"And we need Rodentia!" Zeb said. "New Bay will be glad she's gone."

"Until she comes back with new tech on top of which she builds insane super tech weapons."

"Hmph," Zeb said. "Do you know how long it takes to revive a species and repopulate an entire planet?"

"Not really," Midnight said.

"Yeah, me neither," Zeb admitted. "But it's probably a while. I think Rodentia is already pretty old, so it might even be long enough for her to retire! Assuming she doesn't get her hands on a rejuvenation pod and adapt it to humans, of course."

Midnight sighed. "Why would you say that?"

"... Because we don't want it to happen?" Zeb tilted her head. "What's wrong?"

Midnight shook his head. "Nothing. I can't believe people say black cats are unlucky." He pondered for a moment. "I suppose we can trust her fixation to last for a while. Just make sure you don't get in trouble for helping her avoid arrest or something. Though to be safe, you might clear it with the Brigade."

"I don't work for them anymore!" Zeb said. "I'm gonna be a full-time resistance member!"

"Right," Midnight said. "I forgot you retired. So…" he glared at me. "You were already convinced to do this stupid plan. What do you think about getting the Brigade involved?"

I considered the question. "I think they would be obligated to stop us if they knew. But nobody will be mad if I get a pest out of the way."

Midnight grumbled. "I still think you're crazy, but I can see why you want to do it. Don't cause an interplanetary incident."

That sounded tough. "With Rodentia?"

"... Don't let anyone connect you and thus me and Celmoth to it," Midnight clarified.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Oh good. Because Rodentia was absolutely going to be an incident for the Bunvorixians. But if it was just Earth against Bunvorix, they started it.

-----

The first thing we did was officially retrieve the Bunvorixians. The Celmothians, with Midnight persuading them, were willing to accept his judgment of which ones were responsible without prying about the source. Only Spot really mattered, anyway. They would want to interrogate the rest, and they might not have specific crimes they could try them for. Obviously they could come up with charges, but Spot's involvement had been recorded many times. Celmoth at least cared about showing evidence to their own people.

After sending the prisoners off to Celmoth, Zeb and I took the rest to Bunvorix. It wasn't my job to judge the sincerity of any potential recruits for the resistance- someone else would figure that out. I just delivered them and tried to organize a location where Rodentia could be… planted. Because she was going to build out her own base, guaranteed. That was how mad scientists worked. She needed to be able to coordinate with the resistance without exposing them.

Obviously she would be super obvious once she began her work. Bunvorix had some rats, but not gigantic robotic ones. And they also didn't have humanoids, so if Rodentia had a civilian identity it wouldn't do her much good.

After we came back, Rodentia contacted us… and we went out into an alley to meet her.

-----

"So," Rodentia said. "How long do I have to go through?"

"A little over a minute," I said. I could already feel robo rats gathering beneath a manhole. Super tech had a sort of feeling to it.

"Disappointing," she said as she looked at me. "I was hoping to have somewhere around three minutes." She sent me a meaningful look. "One hundred and seventy-nine seconds would be fine."

Maybe I should drop her into the sun. She knew too much.

"Oh don't be like that. I've simply had repeated opportunities to scan you. That last lightning spell… do you know how hard it was to revive Spot?"

"Revive?" I raised an eyebrow.

"Yes. Resuscitate. Bring back to life. That sort of thing. Traditionally, we use electricity. Obviously, any more of that wouldn't be viable."

"If you can bring back the dead-" I began.

"I'm not interested. And it's circumstantial. Barely different from what could be done in a hospital. Some people might be wary of nano-rats as well."

I made a mental note for Midnight to check the prisoners for nanobots. Anyway, that explained why Spot had basically been a mummy. I thought I should have killed him, and I probably technically did.

"Anyway," Rodentia said. "Can I have two minutes?"

"If I could, what would I get for it?" I asked. Confirming my capabilities, even to some extent, was risky.

"Aid for your friend," Rodentia gestured to Zeb.

"That's something you already want to do," I pointed out.

"Fine," Rodentia said. "You can have my goggles." She reached up and pulled off a rat mask. Beneath which was another rat mask. "Deal?"

I wondered what the chances were that those were the actual goggles. Well, I hadn't fully expected to get something. "Deal. Two minutes. Watch their tails," I said. I held out my hand as I gathered mana.

She handed it to me. I shoved them into a pocket and readied a timer.

I gave Rodentia a countdown. At the five second mark, rats began swarming. I was prepared to Teleport away if they went for me. Rodentia didn't have any deep grudges against me, but there were petty problems. Fortunately, she didn't seem interested in settling minor grievances at the moment.

A wide Gate opened up to one of the fake subway locations on Bunvorix. Tunnels were a good place for Rodentia to start.

Zeb had been standing by to make sure everything went well, but her destination was also Bunvorix. Maybe that was why she didn't protest too much as she was washed through with the tide of rats.

"Okay bye!" Zeb said. I couldn't see much more than her nose, though that was pretty normal lately. She did have her squirrels with her. Because it was a long term move, Miss Flutter was already there- her wingspan didn't make transportation easy. And Fluffy might be too tempted to eat some robots, so he was waiting for Zeb as well.

Rodentia was also carried away by the swarm of rats. How many was that? How much material did she even have? Good thing she was going away.

"Bye," I said, a moment before my timer was up. "Zeb knows how to contact me if necessary."

Rodentia waved. "Don't worry. I have your number."

The Gate closed.

Did she? Did she also have interstellar links that would make it work? Maybe she was planning to tap into local Bunvorixian stuff. But maybe she just wanted to see my reaction.

I put on the mask.

"New user detected! Please register with the Rodentia Rat Reading network if you wish to make further use of your power scanning device!"

Figures. It would probably explode if I tried to force something. And now I had to get scanned for nano-rats.

Hopefully Rodentia would actually be helpful for the resistance and not get distracted by some sort of dairy factory. Well, I'd keep in touch.

-----

If someone had told me when I first wanted to become a mage that I'd wind up engaged in interdimensional diplomacy regularly, I might have changed my mind. Now I was in contact with so many people and I couldn't just say 'go talk to someone else'. In most cases, they couldn't.

For example, I had to contact anyone from Earth #2 I had to reach out to them with Sending. They had all sorts of powers there and the Humuruns had pretty neat abilities, but nothing that worked between realities. Relatedly, I very rarely lost Sendings these days. Getting good at spatial magic in general meant I was good at that, and it hadn't ever really been random chance when it failed. I might even be able to force a connection to Master Uvithar, but if I revealed his location to whoever was after him… it would probably not be worth it.

I did get contacted by some people first, though. Like Sir Kalman, and I was his official contact. There wasn't anyone much better on Earth for the job, as nobody else came from that world. Even if Malaliel would do fine, usually he wanted me anyway. The good news was that the Order of the Lion hadn't needed me lately. No wars or anything. And Khonsu- Spellshot- hadn't really needed me either. There weren't endless numbers of orcish prisoners to transfer or anything.

The one person who didn't need to contact me directly was The King of the Many-Colored. He might have actually given up his name, or maybe he thought it was funny that I didn't know it. Anyway, both he and Riala could contact me. But they could have also contacted Malaliel, since they'd met her in person. Any connection I had wasn't any different.

Sometimes, I was asked about my studies and things like that. Composing an answer was pretty simple. Other times…

"Zuresh launched an attack today. Want me to blow up their castle with your spell?"

"You can do whatever you want," I replied.

Normally, that would have been the end of the conversation. It wasn't a cheap way to talk to people, and it was slow. Though I notice that it didn't always take ten or twenty minute each way. In this case, it was closer to five. A slow text conversation, maybe.

"I heard about your recording stuff. Want to send me something so I can take a 'video'?"

"That's unnecessary. Are you really going to blow up their castle?"

That was my fault. I shouldn't have asked a question.

"Of course I am! If I don't at least hit the palace they'll forget that their snooty royal lives are in danger. Then I have to wipe out the whole army and that's no fun for anyone." It seemed this guy was willing to push the limits of a single spell, as it continued. "I have an official request for Extra to send me recording devices to further our interdimensional cooperation."

"Fine. Send me the details."

"I want something that can see far and still look good, preferably that can run on mana."

"... I'll see what we can do."

Though I'd be passing that request to Extra, I was likely to end up having to get involved. Could I enchant batteries to accept mana? If I could, so could Aidura as well- though I would probably have to break some in experiments. It was cheaper to do that on this side of things.

Getting that series of messages reminded me that I had more reading to do. I'd been busy, so I hadn't spent quite as much time as I could have on studying that world's form of magic. The efficiency of added components was very nice, and maybe I could compile a book with Jerome's help for people who had our options.

I wasn't sure if it should be part of the same series as Spell Mastery or not. I supposed it didn't really matter. I wasn't going to publish them. Though I did want to see how Wrickle would respond to my manuscript. Maybe I should try to meet up with her again now that I was better at spatial magic.

Or maybe I should wait until I got a natural upgrade in Maze to see if I could get Master Spatial Magic. This might be a good time to push for that. If I couldn't achieve it, meeting Wrickle afterwards might be useful. If I could avoid trouble with other mages at the same time. Maybe some sort of… anti-divination Sending spell? It wasn't supposed to be interceptable to begin with, but I needed to be cautious if I wanted to contact her.