Mage Among Superheroes

Chapter 473 473

I sent Midnight running to grab supplies- basically as many cuffs as we could fit in Storage- while I looked for personnel that would be useful. That wasn't a dig against any member of the Power Brigade, but we really didn't need certain people. That included Great Girl, even though I would bring her along on most missions if given the opportunity.

Messages went out to a few particular people I was hoping were around, while at the same time I absorbed the biggest mana crystal I'd been able to make lately. The creation process was more efficient now, but I still had a limit to how much I could absorb.

It wasn't, obviously. That was just a thing people said. I was lucky that Shockwave was around HQ instead of out on a mission like they usually were. That would help resolve some issues, but we still needed more manpower.

I happened to run across Sorority in a nearby training room- and not too exhausted.

"Hey," I said. "Need you to guard some exits. You in?"

"From what?" she asked.

"Rich jerks trying to escape supervillainous animal cruelty charges."

She nodded. "Point me in the right direction."

"It's every direction!" I said. "Once we teleport in. We can bring two more."

"That's not enough," she said. "You'll want multiple squads for something like this, even if I raise the numbers."

"Well," I paused for a moment. "We can only bring four smoothly."

"Midnight too?" Sorority asked. "Can't you both do it? We can get eight."

"But that would be-" inefficient. Or would it? I pondered that as I considered the options.

We'd already have to Teleport twice to reach our destination. Or risk it on a more expensive single cast, anyway. If we were one percent off, we could easily be a block away outside the fighting pit. Kind of useless if we didn't know how to get in. But if we got within one percent and then used Teleport again… bam, one ten thousandth of the distance off. A handful of feet maybe, which would absolutely place us in the correct room.

And if we were going to do that, we might as well use one more teleport to bring another four people. It wouldn't take two, because if one of us was in position Midnight and I could accurately arrive. We'd already done that just this previous mission.

"We need someone good at tech," I commented to Sorority. "Just in case they have electronic security to use as evidence."

I could blow up anything trying to stop us, but there wasn't much point in stopping people if they were just going to get away.

"Swiss Arms is out," Sorority said. "Unfortunately. How about your lizard friend?"

"Khithae is a noncombatant."

"Then maybe…" she pondered for a few moments, then made a face. "Can you think of anyone else?"

"Not that I know," I said. "But you seem to have someone in mind?" I tilted my head. "Are they not competent enough?"

Sorority sighed. "No, she's… capable. Do you know Format?"

I recalled what I had read. "Polyglot. Hacking powers. That seems highly appropriate, assuming she can fight."

"Enough," Sorority said.

-----

We couldn't afford to spend long picking out a team, so we kind of went with whatever we had. Most were familiar faces. I was glad to snag Magnet Man, because frankly most of the dangerous things random enemies had happened to be made of metal. He was literally always useful. Shockwave was fast, Sorority was flexible, Ice Guy was reliable, Captain Punch was Captain Punch, and Bombino was also here.

He actually had a pretty good power, but it wasn't optimal for incapacitating civilians. Sometimes, we had to make do with whoever showed up. At least Flood was good for crowd control, and his powers would theoretically work well with Ice Guy. I hadn't worked with Flood before, but water creation and control seemed pretty strong.

Then there was Format.

The woman spread her arms out enthusiastically. "Bonjour, mes amoures!"

Sorority leaned in to whisper. "She's not French."

Format didn't seem too disappointed nobody responded with similar energy. We didn't have time to deal with that anyway.

"Alright," I said. "I'm taking the first group in."

That group was Shockwave, Captain Punch, Sorority, and Magnet Man. A good combination of traits to handle what we needed offensively and defensively.

Multicast Haste plus Enhance for physical traits plus Stoneskin and Force Armor… I had no idea what Contingency should be for, so it was set to its normal default of Stoneskin, which would replace what I personally had when it seemed to be needed. Unless Midnight triggered it first. It would be partially wasted, but I didn't know what we would be getting into when I set it up in the morning.

We lost a handful of seconds of Haste with all the teleporting. The first one brought us downtown. To a downtown, I mean. New Bay was a conglomeration of many cities, but this was one of the older ones. Maybe on the peninsula. I didn't stay long enough to get a good grasp on locations.

Second Teleport, a bit over juiced like the first in case there were defenses in place. I had an image in my hand, of a location that shouldn't have changed too much in just a few minutes.

We ended up in the arena at the same time as two dudes in full armor. Probably for purposes of resisting angry powered animals, if I had to guess. The dog was unconscious- and bleeding. The cat was backed into a corner.

Captain Punch cracked his knuckles. "You two gonna cuff yourselves or do I have to do it?"

It was too bad I couldn't solve all of my problems with a Hasted Shockwave. That was because everyone else was trying to solve their problems with speedsters, and New Bay had a lot of problems.

The poor dog was immediately removed from the catch poles that the guys were using. Was it a risk for us to leave a powered, angry animal to roam free? Yeah. We didn't have an animal controller with us, either. But it seemed cruel. To hold them as they were

People were shocked as we appeared, which made them slow to react. That included security, many of which had guns. It seemed it was my job to officially announce how much trouble people were in as everyone went straight into action.

Magnet Man was reaching out into the crowd and snatching guns- or at least flicking on safeties. Sorority had picked out the exits and had vaulted out of the fighting pit at super speed towards them to do what she could about people escaping. Having a person blocking tunnels wasn't an elegant solution, but we couldn't just wait for the next day and greater forces. Not with cute kitties being attacked now.

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Captain Punch was smashing two armored helmets together about the time I painstakingly finished informing everyone they were under arrest for supervillainy and accessory to supervillainy. Talking at a normal pace with Haste active was such a pain.

Midnight and the rest appeared about then. I'd sent him an official ping, but he should have figured out we were in position merely from my location changing a second time. It was just the perfect timing, because a ton of random powers were coming into play around us.

"That one!" I pointed Captain Punch at the strongest guy, or in this case woman.

He leapt through the cage- not even bothering to go for one of the segments Shockwave and Sorority had opened. I expected him to impact the stands and leave a crater, but he suddenly stopped midair. It seemed there was some sort of restrictive field the woman was making. I was halfway through casting Physical Freedom when he tore it apart with his bare hands.

How? It wasn't my job to ask that sort of thing right now. I did finish my spell just so he wouldn't be delayed again.

Shockwave was halfway through the huge pile of mundane cuffs Midnight had dumped out. There were some restrictions to how a speedster could interact with people, but Shockwave was pretty good at grappling. Even those who managed to resist only took a second or two to get into position before iron snapped around their wrist.

Flood was great. He actually managed to sweep away most of the civilians- criminal civilians, but unpowered and unarmed- holding them in a large free floating swimming pool on one side of the stands. It was extremely useful because it allowed Bombino to actually use his powers against the random people with Super Serum and the few naturally powered guards.

The whole place was actually very well defended. We could have had thousands of rounds poured into us already without Magnet Man, which would have been kind of dangerous. I barely had to do anything, though. I mostly defended against various elemental powers with Energy Ward while casting Sleep on individuals or small groups.

Oh, and of course I sequentially pointed Captain Punch at people. It didn't take him long to incapacitate that one woman. Captain Punch's merit as an Executive was basically his combat potential, not other things. He wasn't invincible, but nobody here could hold a candle to him. One individual with a bruiser power tried to block his punches and ended up with two broken arms followed up by somewhere around a dozen broken ribs. Yet at the same time, I was confident that if a normal civilian had tried the same Captain Punch would have held back enough to not completely crush their ribcage. He could wrestle people into submission if he felt like it, but bludgeoning them into submission left a more lasting impression. It also helped draw threat away from the rest of us.

Midnight led Format to find a security center as Flood continued to gather people. It seemed he had some limit on how much he could hold people, but Ice Guy was there to create some mid-duration restraints. They'd last a couple hours, probably. More than enough time for us to properly arrest all these rich people- and there were a couple hundred of them.

No signs of the guy though. Whoever was in charge was supposed to have a power, and maybe a name. Listening to various chatter, his name might be Gideon? Or lion? There were various people who said things like 'if he was here you couldn't touch us!', and maybe they were right.

Also a lot of people asking for their lawyers, but simply being present was going to get them into a huge pile of trouble. Seriously, we caught them in the middle of an animal pit fight where the animals were illegally enhanced with powers.

Speaking of which, we found the rest of them in cages. Sturdy cages, yes, but the various cats, dogs, and rodents were also equipped with shock collars and there were spikes all around. It didn't seem to have stopped them from trying to claw their way to freedom.

There was no way I could depower the whole roomful of them right away, so I did the best thing I could- I knocked them all out with a Sleep spell. Being unconscious for a while should help them. We were going to need some help with all of them, though.

-----

I contacted the only remaining local I trusted to deal with a bunch of dangerous yet hurt animals. Ceira, of course. Too bad Zeb moved back to her home planet for now.

Well, I really didn't want to risk anything with Ceira… but people who knew about her healing career wouldn't necessarily know she was a druid. She'd at least need to conceal her identity. As for the rest, I could absolutely get her to the scene.

I would have to deal with some other things, though. Like Calculator.

"Mage," he said through our local comms. "Do you realize what you've done here?"

"Progressed the mission and saved a bunch of innocent animals. Who I'm going to continue to save," I pointed out.

"Yeah, I figured you would say something like that. But even if it was to progress our missions, this went beyond the scope of-"

"Captain Punch came with me. Blame him."

"He will be separately chastised," Calculator said.

I didn't get why he was upset. Maybe he needed some pictures. "Look at this face. Did you want me to leave your poor cat-clone to get… Knives-ed?"

"What? Also… cat-clone?"

"This one has your powers."

"..."

The silence was deafening. It never took Calculator more than a second to think up a full paragraph of information.

"How certain are you?"

"Seeing him fight? I was ninety percent. Holding him, a full hundred percent." I thought for a moment. "Oh, you're mad because rich people make things complicated. Do you want me to contact a news guy and show some really pitiful animals while people in suits and diamond encrusted dresses are being dragged off?"

"... Yeah, do that," Calculator said. "I'm sure it will be fine."

Speaking of rich people, didn't Ceira have a blacklist of sorts? Even if she wasn't as active in her healing profession, it might be a good statement to all of these idiots. I was aware that rich people had power, but I had actual power. I could also run away to another dimension if I needed to.

Time to check how the rest of the mission was going, and since I grabbed everyone and brought them here I was kind of responsible for that.

"Got any video?" I asked Format once I found her.

"Oui. Very much."

I wondered if she had a weird power thing going on with her ability to speak other languages, because Translation wasn't helping. Or maybe she didn't intend to be understood. That could be a factor.

"Good," I said. "I don't suppose your power can make it high quality?"

"It cannot," she shrugged.

That was fine. Power-enhanced video didn't always work in court. It was, however, excellent at swaying public opinion. I wasn't super good at any of that kind of stuff, though. Midnight, on the other hand…

"Channel 72 news is outside," someone reported.

"Hey Captain Punch! Time to carry some cages. Gently."

He looked annoyed that I specified. "I would never bring harm to cute animals."

Most of the cages weren't meant to be moved. Some didn't fit up the stairs… until he made them fit. He didn't risk damage to the cages, but he was willing to carve out parts of the wall with his bare hands. I just hoped none of it was structural.

I met Zack Brannigan outside, along with… Jody? She had extra eyes, which was probably good for camera stuff.

"Hey. You got lawyers?"

"Do we ever!" Zack said, then squinted. "Will we need them?"

"Eh, I don't think you'll have to lie to get a good scoop here. But still yes. You can choose how much you're willing to air… but just think about how big you could go!"

They should make a profit even if they had to pay some lawyers. Even if they truly didn't do anything defamatory it wasn't always possible to recover expenses- which was dumb but sadly the way things worked sometimes- but they could license their video to probably a billion people.

"Let's start with the heartwrenching stuff," I said. "Look at these puppies. They're injured."

So were a whole ton of humans, but they deserved every concussion and broken bone. In fact, there were dozens of perfectly healthy people that could do with a shock collar and a spiked cage.

The animals probably wouldn't be hurt for long, since Ceira was on her way, but the point still remained. Physical injuries were the easiest to recover from. Though the unstable nature of the Super Serum would also be a problem unless I helped remove power remnants.