Mage Among Superheroes

I did consider trying to close the fiery portal, but even if I could do it I doubted that Vilhelmiina would appreciate it. She might have some sort of plan that needed these portals to be permanently active.

There wasn't really anything inherently wrong with fire elementals, but they were probably the worst option for city base crime fighting what with all the flammable buildings and people. So only getting a fire elemental and then a fire elemental with a pot of water under one arm was a bit… inconvenient.

I took a look at my points. Was there any reason not to spend them? So far, I hadn't come up with a good one. I might invest massive amounts into a single low level ability at some point to see how it broke things, but that wasn't necessarily a good idea.

Points were for spending. I had enough to purchase Summon Moderate Elemental, so that was what I did. I positioned myself carefully to optimize my ability to call upon a powerful water elemental. 13 points of mana… No, I doubled that to try to separate things as far from what had been happening as possible.

I felt it, coming to my call. I saw a swirl of water form in the air. And then… the clay pot surrounding it and a very bouncy and still waist high fire elemental.

"... It's you again."

The fire elemental tilted its head.

"You're the same one as I kept getting," I explained. "I recognize you."

The fire elemental pointed at its face, where there was a flaming moustache as if to say 'it couldn't possibly be me, I have this poor disguise'. Certainly, it didn't have that before. But in that case, how would it know that it was different?

It seemed that I wasn't going to gain any ground here. "Well, just to save some time, do you think other elementals of the same tier you know would also agree to be summoned?"

It nodded seriously.

"Alright. You can go for now, until I actually need you."

When it was gone, I sighed. I might never be able to call upon anything but a low ranking fire elemental at this rate. Or maybe I'd have to find some other connection to different elemental planes.

I supposed I shouldn't keep Frank waiting. As I left the room I realized something. I glanced over my shoulder at the label by the door. Though I knew it said 'misc. portals', I also knew I couldn't read that. Since I constantly had Translate active I hadn't really thought about it. I wondered if Frank had knowledge, or if it was from being around Vilhelmiina previously.

Or maybe it was a language I'd come in contact elsewhere. I couldn't place it, though. It didn't use any familiar alphabet, not that I knew many. I could recognize the English alphabet and its associates, a few other forms of writing from Earth, and Celmothian and Bunvorixian. So it wasn't any of those. Or Common.

As I walked past Frank, he suddenly continued moving as if he'd never stopped. "We will reach the exit shortly."

"Thanks, Frank."

The cannon bot led me to a cylinder a bit bigger than me that turned into an elevator… which came out in a park bathroom stall somehow.

-----

The whole point of visiting Vilhelmiina was to try to get a replacement for my staff, but that part hadn't worked out despite the other stuff I got. Another clip of antimagic bullets was nice. The ability to summon a minor fire elemental was nice, since I hadn't been successful with that before. It might bring me closer to a spatial magic mastery… hopefully.

As for the staff, my next best option was Ceira. She was busy, so I wasn't able to get ahold of her until evening. We ended up speaking on the phone, just because texts would be awkward. And were more easily monitored. Both of us had various protections, but it was better to be secure if possible.

"You're asking about that Yggdrasil sprout?"

"That's right," I said. "I lost my staff due to unforeseen troubles. Vilhelmiina apparently doesn't have the ability anymore."

"I get it," Ceira said. "That thing is hell to keep alive. It springs up like a weed, but it's so greedy for nutrients that it falls apart just as quickly. Through a couple changes in apartments and a good bit of magic, I barely have anything to show for it."

"Oh. Well, if you can get something staff sized- maybe a bit bigger than six feet tall and a couple inches across so that someone can work with it- I'll… owe you another favor. I'd offer to pay you but the money would be pretty meaningless. I could Teleport you somewhere or take you to another world or dimension, within reason."

"Hmm…" she pondered. "Tell me about that Teleportation stuff. Because even if I make most of my rich clients come to me, I still lose a significant amount of time on transportation. I don't usually waste mana but it also means I don't get much time to relax. I- hold on, I need to take this other call."

I was put on hold. I didn't even know our phones could do that. Maybe Ceira had a special system. It wouldn't be that weird. I waited a good ten minutes before she got back to me.

"-and if you threaten anything like that again I'll just let you die!"

"I feel like that wasn't meant for me," I replied.

"Eh, sorry Turlough. I had to yell and I wasn't going to actually do that at the client. Instead, Angela will be sending them a more diplomatic version of that."

"If they made you that angry, maybe you should just let them die."

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"And let all their money go to worthless heirs? Hell no! I've got medical clinics to build in third world countries, and third world countries to turn into first world countries!"

"Can you do that?"

"I'm going to try," Ceira said. "As far as medical centers go, given the time constraints most of what I've gotten done are simple things. Even if you throw a ton of money at stuff it takes a while to build a building and get staff. Thank goodness I've got Angela to visit all those places for me because I absolutely could not personally verify even 1% of these things."

If Angela betrayed Ceira's trust I was throwing her through a portal to somewhere awful. I'd just have to find the real one. But from what I'd heard, Madame Multitude was pretty unimpeachable.

"Do you get to see any of it?"

"Maybe if you Teleport me places! Can you do that with pictures?"

"Yeah, but there are distance and change limitations. Also I really need to test some of my current limits after I broke magic before I actually Teleport you."

"... Good point, dude. Hey, actually, what I need most is to get away from cities. For mana."

I nodded, not that she could see me. "Right. Because you're a druid." Theoretically a connection to nature could promote both mana regeneration and maximum mana improvements. Though, Mana Manipulation for Mages was obviously a bit lacking on the non-mage stuff. I probably shouldn't bring her to the quarry.

"It shouldn't take much effort to get back to the Sequoias. We need to figure out how much Teleportation will be matched up against a staff, though."

"You can also help me pick spells."

"I'm not sure you want that. I'd default to combat ones."

"Exactly. I shouldn't need them. But I might."

"Petrify," I said.

"Uhh…" Ceira hesitated for a bit. "I don't want to kill people."

"They can be unpetrified later. And even if their heart stops, people can be on standby to fix that."

"... I'll consider it."

I would also consider it. Though I'd need to be able to reverse it and that meant another spell. And I didn't have Regenerate, which would matter if I broke bits off of them during a mission. Oh, but I could put someone in Storage! Only if they were tiny or I got way more capacity, though. Especially since stone would be denser.

-----

Now that we were fairly sure I wasn't going to blow people up unintentionally, I was getting back into regular patrols and missions. Of course, there was still a lot of time reserved for training, and that included spending some time with new recruits who also had portal powers. Though, most of them would be working from previous lessons I'd given and not receiving personal instruction from me. For one thing, some portion of them were taking up support positions- healing and things like that.

In fact, I think there were a couple med school students. I wasn't sure if they had been in med school before they got powers, but there were a couple clerics and druids in the mix. The Brigade was going to help them get practical experience. Normal hospitals weren't always prepared for a magical residency.

Currently, it was just Midnight, myself, and Shockwave on patrol. It was a bit short of a proper squad, but we were there half to remind people that supers were protecting New Bay… and half to respond to emergency situations.

We got a call. I cast Physical Freedom on Shockwave. Midnight cast Haste. We might have swapped roles, but we weren't certain that it would work out. Even Shockwave didn't want to risk that, because they preferred to not spend their paychecks on broken windows.

"KImback."

I was pretty sure Shockwave left out some punctuation there. And pauses.

"That was fast," Midnight commented.

"That is the point," Shockwave balanced their speech pretty quickly.

Before Haste could run out, we got another distress report from the dispatcher in our ear. "Coordinates are-"

Shockwave was gone. And then back. Technically, I could see them running back and forth, but it hadn't taken long to get around the corner. I would find it hard to react to Shockwave, but I could still witness them. Speedsters had limits, after all.

Rather than walking next to us, Shockwave was in front. "Some kind of gas," they reported. "Also, more orcs."

"Doomsday?"

"Hard to say."

"We'll have to take a look."

Midnight and I ran off, with me casting Haste. I constrained it to a normal cast, so that I could be sure I would end up with functional friction and stuff. It didn't cost that much now, so it would be more of a waste not to speed us up.

As it turned out, the strange gas was pervasive enough as to be a smokescreen for the whole street when we arrived. Shockwave was waving a sheet like a giant fan, but that wasn't quite enough. Quite possibly Physical Freedom was interfering, though maybe they wouldn't be able to swing the sheet without.

"What are the chances its flammable?" I asked Midnight.

"Can't tell," Midnight said. "My suit is very confused. It's not anything natural."

"Well, I'm not going into an area with an unknown gas," I said. "Standard Power Brigade protocol. But…"

I moved forward and reached out my arm, grabbing as much as I could with Storage. Actually, as a gas I probably could have taken a lot more if not for range limitations. I wasn't touching enough of it. That was probably a limitation in my expertise, though.

Then I release the few cubic feet of yellow-grey gas away from the rest of it, casting Firebolt into the air at the same time, piercing through it.

"Not flammable," I said. Next I had to determine how much mana I was willing to risk on the task. Normally, I would have been conservative. At the moment, I felt like I had so much.

I stabilized a Conjure Moderate Elemental, trying to get an air elemental. I had no proof that it was in any way better than the Minor version, but I could hope.

A swirl of wind and air. Then, flames. I should probably name this little elemental. I was pretty sure it was just one.

A mustachioed fire elemental flapping its arms really hard looked eagerly over its 'shoulder' at me. "Blow away all that gas," I said, pointing.

There was some chance this would do nothing at all. I was hoping that this elemental came from a strange reality where it could somehow at least perform the air elemental tasks I'd called for.

It began to spin on its toes, arms out. Faster and faster, until I could feel a significant breeze even from over ten feet away. Then it twirled into the gas cloud. I really hoped it wasn't more flammable when gathered together.