Mage Among Superheroes

Chapter 470 - 470

Was it expensive to teleport around? Not really anymore. At this point, casting Teleport cost about 1.6 times as much as Sonic Lance used to and I had more than triple the mana capacity I'd had when I first got it. That wasn't counting being able to go into the negative values. Of course, Sonic Lance had been pretty costly when I first got it… but regular Teleport wasn't an issue.

I yoinked Shockwave with me to appear next to Midnight, watching over a nearby warehouse. I was willing to appear a couple blocks over if it didn't work as smoothly as anticipated, but with Midnight as a target we were very precise, even though Teleport probably shouldn't normally be that effective. Then again, I wasn't exactly pushing it to the limits in other ways.

Though Midnight and I could have unlocked many of the doors, it was better for someone else to do it. We had our own limits to consider, and it seemed there were some overlapping security concerns. In short, if they were able to connect to the systems, they could turn off various devices and unlock doors.

Why was everything connected together? Convenience, of course. Seriously, even Doctor Doomsday had networked groups within his base. That said, he also had plenty of separations so the whole thing couldn't be taken down at once.

"Done," came a voice over comms. Map, I believed. Was she involved in hacking…? I supposed that made sense, but someone might have had to form a physical connection. "Commissary information remains ninety-five percent accurate. Prepare to engage."

Everyone was given individual routes to efficiently clear out the area. One would presume that a warehouse wouldn't require much. What did they have, a couple offices? Except they had clearly been doing some illegal construction here, as there were many separate rooms and even multiple floors.

These guys were so going to get in trouble with inspectors.

Gunfire rang out immediately. That was expected, really. But if the Power Brigade couldn't deal with guns, we wouldn't be very successful. That didn't mean they were riskless, but they were a known danger.

As far as standard weapons went, Stoneskin was a pretty good counter. Not as good as simply not getting hit or putting a wall between you and the bullets, but it was possible to combine defensive layers. Midnight and I were joined up with the portal squad for this mission, which meant we split the burden with Bolster. Bandage also had ways to protect people as a cleric, but none were better against bullets. Any other threats we would react to as the time came.

There was a reason we put the people with good senses and fast reflexes out front. As we began to climb stairs to the second floor, Iron Hawk and Twirl stopped and kept back the rest of us. Bullets rained down from the landing above, digging into the walls and stairs. They seemed to have enough penetrating power to be troublesome for standard Power Brigade members. We preferred having mobility, though of course individual members got heavier gear instead of Francois' work.

I was considering blasting the landing above us out of existence when those two moved simultaneously, Iron Hawk running out of cover and straight up the wall while Twirl leapt from one rail to the next to reach the landing on the opposite side. Shots rang out immediately, but they didn't mean much if they weren't on target. Maybe a few grazes, but that was what Stoneskin was for.

There were sounds of solid impacts, which must have been both Iron Hawk's fists and Twirl's stun baton. The latter complained. "They've got such thick armor!"

Clearly it wasn't that much of an issue, because the gunfire stopped a few moments later. "Come on up!" Iron Hawk called.

I saw her standing on the chest of a woman in thick body armor. It seemed to be a completely unnecessary position given the various states of incapacitation people were in. Some had crushed chests- their armor having been bypassed- while others had less visible damage, though I finally spotted one where Twirl had managed to lodge his baton beneath the chin of their helmets, getting them in the neck.

Whether they lived or died wasn't really our concern if they started with gunfire, and we had given the whole building a warning. Sadly, we hadn't had the time to wait for people to come out and surrender because they might escape through some secret tunnels. Or secret secret tunnels, because we knew where some of the regular secrets were and would have people ready.

Our team secured the landing, making sure to disarm and cuff everyone that was still breathing. That was actually six out of eight of the fallen figures, which was surprising with the damage I'd seen. They were tougher than standard thugs, forcing more damage to incapacitate them and still holding on.

"Powers confirmed!" came a call-out on our comms. "They're likely taking the serums."

That wasn't really a surprise. What kind of supervillain would it be that didn't try to give their own thugs powers? They might or might not have left out the other drugs. I wasn't confident that this sort was the good employer type, but we didn't actually know who was in charge yet.

The first individual we encountered with powers had a lightweight bloodred outfit… and he took down Boom the moment our bard rounded the corner. Seriously, the guy just toppled over. My respect for the bard had grown over time, so I was just going to assume he ran up against a bad power matchup. I wasn't quite sure what it was, though. Something internal, but not mental. It all happened in an instant, and there were kinda also guns being fired at us.

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I was already attacking with Chain Lightning, starting at the guys in front. As it turned out, standard issue armor never really accounted for intentional electrical shocks. At best, they could handle incidental issues- a live wire or something like that. Not lightning that was told to go through you. It still dampened the magic each person it went through, along with their body of course, but I was confident I could handle the whole group. I got through five people before a sudden glowing barrier appeared.

Bright. Hot. And coming from… a second individual. Behind the rest, of course. She had covered for the other guy, who I was now determining to be a hemomancer. A blood controller. At least, if my reading of what he was attempting to do to Bolster was right. She was clutching her head and leaning against the wall. A sudden change in blood flow to the brain would take nearly anyone out. Efficient. We couldn't let him do that, though.

I wasn't the one who was going to stop him, though. Honey Badger took that upon himself, seeing his sister in pain. A good barbarian could handle their rage, and with a combination of normal and magical anger he launched himself forward in a seemingly reckless fashion.

Bandage was already ready with an Energy Ward. Even if she couldn't exactly match what that lady did, she could create a decent barrier to protect against something like flames.

Nobody expected them to be solid, though. Honey Badger hit the barrier head on and was sent rebounding away.

That was cheating. Whatever that was clearly wasn't solid. But that was superpowers for you. Besides, the laws of the universe could only be bent so far. Honey Badger flicked his pole weapon, revealing the axeheads the Bunvorixians had nicely put in for him during our first unintentional stay on their planet. Then he chopped it apart.

That was the downside of being solid. It went both ways… at least enough. It was already molding back together by the time he pushed between the slices, but he was moments away from chopping the blood controller in half.

Relatedly, the guy lost focus on what he was doing to Bolster. She still didn't look great, but she managed to stagger back- and I helped get her around the corner. Bandage had already dragged Boom out of view and checked his vitals. She didn't seem incentivized to take any drastic measures, so he would probably be fine.

I lined up my gun at the woman making the solid flamelike stuff. Cold would probably be fine. I managed one shot to her chest, but suddenly my arm moved on its own. My gun pointed straight at Bandage… and I shot.

Her face was icy, both before and after the bullet hit. Had I ever mentioned that head armor was the most important thing that a mercenary could have? There were all sorts of downsides to helmets, which was why the translucent semi-rigid material Francois made was such a miracle. It could take a regular bullet just fine. That's what my pistol had… just with a little bit of cold enchantment.

She grabbed my arm and tried to knee me in the gut, but my body moved back. She wasn't able to land any proper hits, but she kept my gun pointed away from her.

I didn't like this at all.

"Mage isn't in control!" Midnight warned. He could tell that much from my own emotions. "I'll try to stop it!"

Mental Freedom washed over me and did exactly nothing. Yeah, that made sense. I'd been mentally struggling against the control and I hadn't so much as caused my arm to twitch off course. Whatever was going on was coming from a third individual around a corner, but I couldn't exactly point them out.

Oh, no, wait, I could. I made an arrow out of a few balls of light. I should probably try to get better at light magic, but there were so many things to study… and just this much was sufficient.

I was relieved that even if this guy could control my body he couldn't control my magic, until he started doing that. Mana began to build up, leading towards a Chain Lightning if my estimate was correct. I wrestled against it. Unfortunately, it seemed like my current limit of mana control was far less than it should have been, as I only had a handful of mana to wrestle against several times as much.

The spell didn't work, at least not correctly. It only found one target… which was me. Some guy cursed using my voice, which indicated he could feel my body. Very rude.

That was fine. Midnight would take care of him in a moment. The guy was zipping past people's feet towards my sign. Not very subtle, but everyone else had to deal with other people with powers. Who could deal with a little alien guy?

He was the second strongest one here, though- and with his Celmothian technology it was a decently close match.

I felt the control on me drop. "Hey I-" I deflected a punch from Bandage. "Could you not-"

Obviously she was planning to incapacitate me, but given that neither of our powers were geared directly towards physical capabilities, I was at an advantage. I had more experience in hand-to-hand combat- even if she had certainly brawled quite a bit before entering the Power Brigade- and I was bigger. I was also much better at using my body than the guy who had been controlling me.

"Hey, back in control now," I said as I tossed her back around the corner towards her temporary patients. Boom was already awake, and Bolster was becoming steadier on her feet.

"Prove it," she said.

I shot the rest of my clip towards the fire lady, then tossed my gun. She had made some inventive shapes out of her power… and also just a sword. I was pretty sure she could cut bullets in half… if she could hit them. Sadly for her, the blood control guy was getting his face repeatedly punched by Honey Badger so she was having to go against both Twirl and Iron Hawk. The blood control guy was now using what was probably a lot of his own blood as a shield, but it didn't really help. He was lucky he hadn't just been chopped in half, though.

I felt concern from Midnight. I had already anticipated some trouble when the control over me dropped, and I was ready with Physical Freedom. But even before that took effect, I got a sense of relief from Midnight as I heard the sound of Celmothian weaponry firing. Yeah, his suit could just shoot lasers and stuff. It was more of a mental control than physical, and if the guy took over the body…

Eh, we'd figure it out if he survived. Or not, because he probably wouldn't retain his power. Speaking of which, I should probably just depower this bunch once we had them incapacitated. I would hate to do that to people with real powers, but I was just speeding up the process. Besides, they'd probably prefer it to certain other methods of making sure they weren't a threat. Those could be more violent. Power suppression cuffs would probably work, but we couldn't risk it with some of these powers.