novelraw Chapter 471 - 471
Chapter 471 - 471
The thing about magic- at least my magic- was that you had to cast a spell all at once. You couldn't cast half a spell and then do the other half later. Contingency was actually two spells to make one happen later, with the full cost.
I was thinking about that as I eradicated the already-fading remnants of power from the three mercs in front of me. One good dispel magic could negate what they had, but if I used too much it was inefficient. But if I split my magic into a large number of individual pieces they were less potent for the same amount of mana.
It would be nice if I could use precisely what I needed, but each person reacted differently. For one, the blood control guy that we were giving the benefit of the doubt about only trying to knock us out was far more exhausted than the merc making solid fire. After all, that guy had to wrestle Honey Badger's blood as the barbarian repeatedly attacked him. Well, partially. He'd also been holding his own blood in after Honey Badger sliced him up with his axe. Just once, though. That was pretty conservative. We applied some super glue- named before superpowers were a thing- to the gash before I negated his power, though I was pretty sure he was unconscious anyway.
I knew I needed more mana for the fire lady, where I probably spent two or three extra mana for my dispel magic. Compared to my total stores it wasn't that much- a few percent- but compared to that individual spell I might have saved as much as 25-30% efficiency if I knew exactly where to stop.
The final guy had been pretty expertly not killed by Midnight, but his power was actually almost non-functional at the end. After all, he'd been controlling me and then Midnight to the best of his abilities, going up against magical defenses. If he'd been a mind controller- and his powers were expected to still exist after this- he'd be taken to a specialized facility. As it was, body control was still pretty troublesome especially since he could still make use of powers, but clearly it took some time to attune. Otherwise he would have immediately started using my magic instead of being late to use a Chain Lightning and screwing it up.
Speaking of which… "Bandage, can I get some lightning damage treated?"
She raised an eyebrow. "After that?" Then she grinned. "Of course. I'm not going to blame you for what you didn't choose to do. Though try to resist better."
"It was body control. My mind didn't even properly struggle. Then he screwed up a Chain Lightning inside me…" I grumbled. It was a good thing he hadn't done it right and also targeted me, because I could be paste. I was pretty sure people could bypass most of the limitations on internal targeting for themselves, though that depended on various factors. I hadn't ever tried to create a fireball inside myself, for obvious reasons.
Maybe something more… tame? Like an ice cube in my stomach. Hmm.
We couldn't afford to spend too long on this group, but a couple minutes was fine. Besides, we mostly needed to secure this passage so people couldn't escape down the stairs. Obviously others were still watching the final exits, but the more people we caught in here the fewer they had to deal with.
-----
My body still ached and I moved stiffly, but I could still participate in the mission. I had quite a bit of mana left, even after all my other activities. Plus my gun, once I picked it up and reloaded. It was getting low on mana itself, but it would always be a pistol.
Midnight lagged behind with me as we cleared various rooms in this illegally built out warehouse-turned-barracks. "How ya doin, buddy?" I asked.
"... I don't like having my body controlled."
"Same," I agreed. "Also my magic. I feel like I should have better been able to react to all that."
"Next time, you will do better," Midnight assured me. "You always do."
"Like, I could teleport a bullet around a corner," I suggested.
"Terrifying," Midnight said.
A much longer conversation than that would have to wait. We had more skirmishes a short time later, requiring us to refresh Stoneskin among other things. I was doing my best to sense people with powers, but there was so much going on I could really only focus on the next room for just our squad. I could feel various surges of power throughout the area, but they were muted by distance and barriers.
"One strong one," I commented as we approached a pair of double doors. "It feels like… light. Actually, it feels a lot like-"
The doors flung open. Gunfire rang out, but it didn't really hit us much. Probably for the same reason we didn't immediately take out the woman flying towards us. She was super bright. My eyes hurt.
Boom reacted with shock, "Lady Light?!"
I clapped him on the shoulder, "Even if it is you should still blast her." She wasn't supposed to be on this mission, and she wouldn't be encountering us without warning. I took my own advice, throwing a ball of lightning down the corridor. It was actually something someone suggested, but it had various downsides. No, it didn't explode like a fireball- I would just use Fireball for that. Instead, once I had it past all of my allies I let the fist sized orb expand to fill about half the hallway- the middle half.
Somewhere in there was Lady Light. Or someone with powers that felt a lot like hers. I felt my spell hit something, and I could vaguely see the outer edges continue on. It didn't seem to cause any ill effects to the actual target, though.
I couldn't actually be sure how many forms of attack the real Lady Light had. I did know that it included a light whip- sometimes solid, sometimes not. When something wrapped around my ankle, I wasn't taken entirely off guard. Boom was, though. He'd tossed a few Sonic Lances down the corridor, most likely on target. When we were suddenly pulled towards each other, he hit me right in the shoulder and spun me around… but I still managed to place my free foot to steady us and use my functional arm to help steady him.
We were going to have to work on Boom's absolute targeting later. Even if he was using a 'microphone staff' as a focus, he didn't have to entirely on the direction he pointed it. It should have been easy to aim in a wide cone from his orientation, with perpendicular spells also being valid.
Needless to say I wasn't doing much with magic at that moment, but Midnight was trying to restrain the brilliance of our foe with a reverse Energy Ward so that we could actually target her and not a blob of light. Though there was a slightly brighter silhouette of a woman in the center, I was pretty sure most of the time it was a burned afterimage. Midnight's Energy Ward… only dimmed her for about half a second. That was a lot of power output.
Our melee combatants were chopping at her, though the actual effectiveness was unclear since they had to be careful not to hit each other. Iron Hawk might be the best without sight, but it was still useful.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
Bolster had wisely decided to do something about the people shooting towards us from the room beyond. The outer ring of my lightning ball spell would have hopefully hit a few people back there, but it wasn't really focused. She just tossed a Fireball, and I hoped that this place was up to code and that there wasn't important evidence in that room.
I really wasn't feeling great about my current state, what with the busted shoulder and the lightning damage from before. I certainly didn't want to have to keep ducking under what sounded like something really sharp as it cut through the air and scraped against the walls. Stoneskin wouldn't work against these bullets forever, either, so…
Time for the first field test of Maze. I'd been gathering mana for something, and a troublesome single target was precisely what this was designed for. It was impossible to mistake my target, as she was both flying in the middle of the corridor and concerningly powerful. I didn't quite juice the spell to its maximum because I was already going into negative mana, but I made it strong.
There wasn't anything to see when she disappeared- except for the image still burned into my retina. The light was just gone as she was sent away.
We couldn't immediately see when the light faded, but it was still better. My vision shortly adapted, the diminishing polarization in front of my face reminded me it could have been worse without gear. We hadn't come equipped for this specifically, but flashbangs were a serious possibility. A super that could put out the brightness of a flashbang continuously was pretty harsh. Lady Light didn't hurt nearly that much to fight against.
"She'll be back soon!" I warned my team. "Let's take down the rest of these chumps first!"
I also sent a quick message to Calculator only asking him to confirm Lady Light's location for later. Just in case. Getting copies of actual good powers had happened before, but usually they weren't so… strong.
Fighting regular thugs- perhaps mercenaries with bad branding- wasn't tough. The smart ones immediately dropped their guns once they saw Honey Badger rushing towards them. No point risking it. There was a reason some minions tried to beat supers with melee weapons. Yeah, it was almost a guaranteed loss but broken bones were better than dead. It was all about respect. Or something like that.
Anyway, I shot a few of them enough times for them to go down. They probably had bulletproof vests, so they'd have some broken ribs. These guys got to skip the frostbite, though.
Then we set up to take down that light lady. If we had a bit more time I would have liked to go more complex like a wall of stone precisely around where she had been, but I couldn't expect much more than a minute so instead I put up a couple pillars. The floor sagged after the second one, so I stopped there.
Everyone was ready to shield their eyes. If we actively prepared, we wouldn't worry about the initial shock. We also moved to positions where we could attack freely without hurting each other. I was normally fine approaching the frontlines, but I was running out of everything. Mana, stamina, pain tolerance, you name it.
We only had a moment to act as our target faded back into reality- approximately half a second. It was impossible to be certain when someone would escape, since the spell didn't fade because it ran out of mana but because the solution was reached. Or maybe there would be something to feel, if the person and spell were still on this plane for me to sense.
Light Woman began to appear- it would be more convenient if she wasn't Lady Light, so she was given a new name by me.
An axe chopped towards where her torso should be. Iron Hawk had her thighs squeezed around one of the tone pillars and was punching at her head. Twirl was actually standing behind the other, ready to react as appropriate. Midnight and I multicast Haste for followup attacks, while Bolster and Bandage were on defense duty. Boom got to stay back and do the boring part of bard stuff, enhancing people's attacks with magical music.
Though maybe bards liked it. Did it need to be music? Every bard might have simply committed to maximum noise across dimensions, and it wasn't actually necessary.
The fact that Light Woman remained intact after the first assaults was impressive. I'd seen Honey Badger cut through the legs of a Bunvorixian tower, so her light barrier holding against that was impressive- and it wasn't even close to the first hit she had taken. Relatedly, Iron Hawk should have been ignoring some of that barrier and the woman took the blow to the head admirably.
But because we weren't quite as blind, our positioning was better, and we weren't being shot… she found it very hard to counterattack. Especially with sudden pillars limiting where she could swing a whip. She had to follow some rules when they actually solidified.
After a few rapid exchanges, she turned to flee. Right into Twirl, who stabbed her through the heart. Too bad it didn't matter, because she was intangible.
Iron Hawk leapt after her- speed amplified by Haste- and kicked her in the spine, knocking Light Woman into the floor. If that seemed unfair, it probably was. Twirl could probably learn to hit intangible things, but it would take more training.
We didn't even need the follow-up Slow spell, but I cast it anyway. It was pretty unfair, hitting someone who was supposed to be intangible with a speed difference so fast they were practically paused. I wondered why her head could crack against the floor when she moved through people just fine. Just one of those strange power rules, I supposed. No going through structures… or maybe she just had to get some of her around someone.
Yeah, the next time her head smashed against the floor some of her face almost seemed to disappear in it. It wasn't just being squished. Probably. Maybe we could review the footage later, though if this really was Lady Light's power maybe we should be respectful. Unless she'd turned villain.
Iron Hawk kept hitting Light Woman in the head until we could see better. Then she cuffed her. It was difficult to use even powered cuffs on semi-tangible individuals. They sometimes worked, but if they slipped out before they fully activated you could drop them and it was a whole mess.
Once the light was gone, we pulled off the woman's helmet. That partially explained why it had taken so long for her to pass out… but inherent toughness and good gear choices were both praiseworthy.
"Is that… her?" Boom asked.
Honey Badger shrugged. "Dunno. Anyone ever seen Lady Light's civilian identity?"
None of us had.
"I do have something to help confirm," I commented. "I think this floor should be clear now?"
We checked in with Map, and she confirmed that the mission was winding down. There had been some problems with some powered animals in the basement- specifically bringing them down nonlethally- but we'd brought all this manpower for a reason.
With no requirement to act further, I began to gather mana for Dispel Magic. Somewhere around twenty points was the plan, most of what I had left. Not my absolute limit, but I wasn't interested in experimenting with powerful uncontrolled Dispel Magic at the moment. That was too much of a risk if I pushed every limit I had. Just one was fine.
I might have been a bit woozy from everything, because the magic kind of started before I was done. I kept gathering mana and it kept flowing into Light Woman in a stream. Thinking about it, a continuous flow of mana should have had exactly zero effect. Normally.
Something was still happening, though. The first time I'd removed serum powers in a clinical fashion had been on Thiziri, and this felt much the same. The power seeped deep into her body and eradicated bits and pieces lingering around, but it didn't damage her. Real powers were part of the person.
My magic slowly spread until it couldn't find anything. Then I naturally let it fade. I wasn't sure how much mana I actually used, but it felt fairly efficient. Certainly, I didn't use more mana than I was planning.
"Yeah, it's fine," I said. "Super serum."
"Obviously," Lady Light's voice suddenly appeared over our squad's comms. "You have the woman pretending to be me, right? Bring her out so I can punch her."
It wasn't my job to tell her that would be bad for PR. So I would let someone else do that. It also wasn't my job to help carry the woman formerly known as Light Woman with a broken shoulder, and even though it was his fault it wasn't Boom's job either. Honey Badger ended up doing that.
I was going to go take a nap. It might happen to be in the Power Brigade clinic, but the nap was the critical part.