novelraw Chapter 474 474
Chapter 474 474
The underground fighting arena tied to L'Evilclub was pretty well shut down, and it would be difficult to make something else like it in a short time. The actual club was highly mobile, appearing in seemingly random locations with a small amount of hardware, but an arena set up to protect against angry powered animals had strict requirements. The poor creatures had to fight each other with temporary powers and they didn't even get experience for it. Truly awful.
Midnight and I weren't exactly fresh when we began cleaning up the powers from the poor pit animals, but we wouldn't have had enough mana to flush out their powers anyway. If I counted all the way to the end of the negatives, I had about a hundred and thirty-six mana. Midnight had about fifty. It seemed like a huge gap, but I was higher level and had broken my spellcasting. I was certain we could replicate the process with enough intention, but for him having access to twice as much mana wasn't as valuable as stability. He had Celmothian tech to make up for any gap, and he could simply make good choices about which spells to use and how powerful to make them.
We did what we could with our available mana, focusing on removing unstable powers first. They would fade once the serum wore out, but powered animals could be a danger to themselves and their surroundings, especially when scared. We would follow up later with a deeper purge to remove the last remnants which were part of the health concerns. It was unknown to me if the serums used on the animals were laced with other drugs, but fortunately we had a proper healer to help with that.
"Thanks for coming… Vet."
It was an awkward name, but 'Ceira' would reveal too much and 'Regrowth' was better off with fewer visible connections to me. Besides, it was a good way for people to assume she was a member of the Power Brigade with our frequently terrible names.
"I wasn't just going to leave these poor guys to suffer," she said. "Here… hold still."
It helped that the animals could actually understand her. She explained the situation and they calmed down a whole lot. She would heal them, I would purge the majority of the super serum's effects… and then I would cast Clean. Because as it turned out, they didn't look healed if they were still covered in blood and dirt, which was a good portion of them. We were doing some of this for the camera. Specifically because having video evidence of animal abuse was a great way to make sure the rich idiots we were also carting conveniently past got what was coming to them.
The public outcry of a kitten being nearly sliced to ribbons by energy blades would be ten or a hundred times that of the damage the drugs caused to actual human lives. That was just the way it was. Kittens were cute, after all.
Calculator-kitten didn't want to lose his powers. He made that very clear to Ceira and the rest of us, hissing and biting and running away. I had to cast Slow just so he didn't scamper anywhere we couldn't grab the little guy. He was masterful at dodging us until he simply couldn't move fast enough. I felt bad for little Calcuten, but I didn't currently have any way to give people arbitrary powers. I had access to classes which I was pretty sure animals couldn't get, and magical girl powers which I was more sure they couldn't. And alien tech, but even if Celmothian biology lined up with cats it required a well developed brain to operate.
Anyway, while there were a lot of loud animal sounds the humans were louder.
"I demand to talk to my lawyer!"
The cop who was guiding the man looked exasperated. "Absolutely. We'll call them right after we book you."
"You'll never make the charges stick! I know the judge!"
I wondered if that man had ever watched a police interaction before- real or fake. Also, if we could figure out which judge it was that the man knew we could make sure they didn't get in front of them.
Hmm. I wasn't much of a social master, but this person was angry and potentially stupid. "Excuse me officer," I scurried up to them. "I just need one moment with this gentleman." I cleared my throat, trying to sound timid. "You said you knew a judge…? Which one?"
The man stood tall and proud. "Judge Clemensen! One word from him and this will all be over."
"Wow! He sure sounds powerful. Tell me more about this."
The cop looked annoyed, but Midnight understood what I was doing. I saw him approach and say something, probably making sure that the guy's camera was on.
We also had Channel 72 news of course, with the camerawoman making use of her extra eyes to focus different cameras on several different interactions happening around us.
It didn't take the rich guy terribly long to get a suspicious look… but it was already too late. If there was even the slightest merit to what he was saying, we'd take down a judge and ruin things for him and his rich buddies. That wasn't my job, but I figured getting info for the sorts of people who could manage that was worthwhile.
Before he fully figured it out, I was back to helping a great dane recover from malfunctioning poison powers. "You're a much better dane than Spot was," I patted it on the head. It tried to bite my fingers, but it was pretty weak.
Fortunately, Ceira could purge most of the immediate harm from the poison. I was pretty sure that Regenerate wouldn't actually do anything about the poison itself, but it should be handled by its body now that it didn't have a rogue power. I hadn't seen many power malfunctions with the serum before, but maybe I just missed them. The original mice from Super Labs would have been dead before we could encounter them, if it had been part of the original formulation.
Ceira was good at Regenerate. She was pretty much the first person on Earth to start using the spell, so with natural upgrades being a thing it made sense, but she was really good. I wondered what I would look like if I'd primarily focused on one spell for a couple years. There was no way to know, because I was way too curious to do something like that. Not that she only used Regenerate, but it was by far her best. She even knew how much she could reduce the power and still produce the intended results. Scrapes and cuts faded in mere moments, and some much worse injuries still recovered at the reduced cost for upgrades.
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"You'll be okay," she said to a rat that hadn't been very good at telekinesis. "We'll find you all good homes."
I wondered if she had any animal charities. She must, because she had a lot of different ones. She was lucky Madame Multitude was there to help her manage things, because one person couldn't handle all that.
-----
The next morning, before I could get to my follow-up call to finish depowering the animals- and then eventually the humans because the remnants were bad for their health- I got called into the Brigade.
By who? No idea. It seemed suspicious, but it was kind of difficult to say that showing up at work was the wrong move. I would be passing through the scanners, so if someone was trying to use me to smuggle something in they would be sorely disappointed. I felt a bit paranoid and did some divination of my own.
Where should I go? Usually I just went to the gym first, and since the message hadn't specified that was what I did. I saw a couple people on their way out. Great Girl, who often showed up earlier than everyone else. Meztli, probably off to grab some new recruits and get them in shape.
Finally, there was Calculator. I knew he was in excellent shape because otherwise he couldn't possibly pull off his complex dodging maneuvers, no matter how fast his brain was. Today, he looked exhausted. It was probably partly my fault. It often was.
He almost stumbled into me, and I caught him. "Hey, you alright?" I asked. "Surely the lawyers should be dealing with most of the worst stuff from this recent incident."
"I am a lawyer," he informed me.
Huh. That made sense. "The full-time ones," I emphasized. "You have to trust people to handle it."
He shrugged. "I do. But sometimes it's better to be busy. And though it made extra work for some of us, I do appreciate your taking charge of a mission opportunity." He gave me an awkward pat on the shoulder. He must have been extra tired today.
It was about halfway through my routine that I heard a crinkling sound in my pocket. It was a folded piece of paper.
"Secret note from Calculator: For Mage's eyes (and Familiar) only." What an efficient start. "Additional mission assignment- internal investigation. There shouldn't have been a cat with my power." Lady Light clearly thought the same of that one woman who got her power. "There have been potential opportunities for genetic or alternative power information to be collected from Lady Light and many others, but I have been exceptionally careful. Even if my power is not the most outwardly threatening, I have a great level of caution about it."
The note more or less filled a whole page when all was said and done. It did mention that it wasn't ideal for any of the executives to have replicable information about their powers around, and that Calculator was worried about an internal breach. He chose me to investigate because of my Advanced Divination Magic and because… "There's no way you're the breach on this one. Most likely, it is a relative unknown that I would have little interaction with, but keep an open mind."
That made sense. If Calculator interacted with a mole a couple times, he'd probably figure them out. Yet ultimately, it wasn't normal for him to be personally interacting with every Power Brigade member, giving out missions and cleaning up after messes. He was probably pretty busy with just me and a few others.
-----
Midnight helped me verify the note in various ways. First, it was pretty obvious that Calculator did have an opportunity to slip the note into my pocket. Small divinations and technological analysis from Midnight's stuff all agreed that it was genuine.
Ultimately Midnight and I did go back to what we would have already been doing, after which we took the opportunity to discuss the situation in private.
"I don't even know where to start," I admitted. "Calculator didn't even give us a hint."
"If he had a hint," Midnight pointed out. "He probably would have already gotten them. Alternatively, he didn't want to taint our own investigations."
"We're not even good at this," I said.
Midnight shrugged. "We have magic. And we do have some information to go off of. He also didn't give us a time limit. This might take a while."
"Ugh," I said. "I'd rather just get it over with. You think there are any gods around here?" I asked.
"Uh, what?"
"Or random extraplanar beings." I shook my head, "I mean, obviously there are a ton of those. I mean the right kind that know the unknowable."
"There… might be some? Why?"
"We can just contact them with magic and ask. Easy, straightforward."
"Reliable?"
"Look," I said. "Magic isn't perfect."
Midnight rolled his eyes. "Sounds pointless, then."
"No seriously, it could be a good start. If we contact something that doesn't turn our brains to mush."
"You're a terrible salesman."
"Mental Freedom will probably help," I said.
"Maybe we should just think about the possibilities first?" Midnight asked. "Like, there might not even be an insider. Calculator does go out in public. He's not perfect, he could have missed something."
"Yeah, possibly," I said. "Actually, it would have probably had to be a while ago. However long Power Labs was doing research. Because as far as I know, the current super serum was stolen from them in a chain of sorts. Maybe with some ill-advised modifications along the way, but the original bits should be theirs." I pondered for a few moments. "It's only one serum, right? Not one for each power?"
"They don't seem to be able to select, no," Midnight said. "There was talk of an origin with a power copier. I suppose it's not strange for us to dig into any of that on our current mission."
"Great," I said. "We'll start with something like that. Though I guess we also have to… continue to do our other missions. Ugh, this will really limit our experimental days. I had this cool thing with continuous mana application."
"Okay?" Midnight tilted his head.
"It might allow for a super durable barrier! Or waste mana. Alternatively, flamethrower." It also seemed to work for Dispel, if I did it right. I simply hadn't had enough mana this last time to do that for everyone, even if it was the minimum required for full erasure.
Speaking of 'everyone', maybe we could get some confessions from random guards and the like in exchange for helping remove some of the side effects they would be experiencing soon. It wasn't my legal obligation to heal anyone of that, so it was a legitimate bargaining chip.
Besides, I'm sure everyone would agree that prioritizing the animals was appropriate. They were much cuter.