Mage Among Superheroes

We ended up in the middle of a business park, which was of course not a park and only a place for businesses nobody wanted. Otherwise, they wouldn't be exiled from the view of the populace.

Earlier in the day I'd dealt with some C list villains. I didn't remember most of their names. There was one lightning guy… Frankenstein, I think? That sounded about right.

It wasn't really important, though. The important thing was that we were back because some sort of monster melted some of the local art installations.

I looked at a statue that had clearly been vandalized. You couldn't even recognize the face of the person it was supposed to be, and the other details were all screwed up. "I see," I nodded. "So the villain hates the concept of legacy, thus they destroy our memories of the past."

"Umm…" Midnight commented, "I think that one is just like that. The melted one is over there."

Now that he mentioned it… it was very suspicious there were no lingering traces of power for an active scene. I turned towards where Midnight gestured and saw a few metal rings sizzling in a pile of green gloop.

"Yeah okay," I said. "That one does look slightly more defaced."

Relatedly, it had a strong trace of mana. The reason I hadn't noticed it before was because… I didn't know. I'd had that problem a couple times lately. I sure hoped I hadn't burned out my supernatural senses along with everything else that happened. Then again, anything would be an acceptable sacrifice for Midnight.

Once I was paying attention I did pick it out just fine, though. And I could even sense some lingering traces of where it was going. "It seems to have run off that way," I pointed, my arm drawing a line towards the front of a building where there were about a dozen shattered windows.

"Yeah that's… pretty obvious," Acid Man commented. He carefully stuck a finger in the metal-melting goop. "Hmm, it's not any compound I know of, but it's certainly a powerful acid. Fortunately, it should eat itself out in a few moments."

On the assumption that whatever did that would probably use the same sort of attack again, I cast Energy Ward to protect us against acid. I did my best to tune it to the forest green stuff eating away at the concrete and metal, but I wasn't really familiar with the properties and I wasn't going to dip my finger in it, so I simply did my best. Multicasting might not have been worth it because only '3' of us needed protection against acid, but I included Acid Man anyway.

We all looked up towards the large building. In addition to those already mentioned, we had Knives and Antagonist. I scratched my chin. "Do you think this villain is working with Frankenstein? Though I don't really get why anyone would attack a business that makes spark plugs and not like… the factories."

Antagonist shrugged, his mirrored super suit concealing his true body. "I suppose that's what we will find out, once we catch this villain. I believe there is a likelihood of civilians still inside, so we need to watch for them."

Knives created some of her red energy blades as we approached the building. "The point of infiltration is pretty obvious… should we fly directly there?"

I could see how among all the shattered windows there was one frame that was particularly bent and twisted. "Seems reasonable." It was just a simple Multicasting, and as long as I was conservative with my mana usage I felt like I had so much more. Even if the latter half of my pool would be lacking stability, I was actually way better at manually stabilizing my spells now. As long as I didn't overcast spells, I wouldn't run out of mana too quickly… and being able to fly seemed useful. Especially since signs indicated something scrabbling in through the window.

I did try to sense the location of this thing as we went up, but the trail stopped shortly inside the room. Perhaps some sort of active concealment? Either way, there was a fairly clear picture.

"Quadruped, most likely," Acid Man commented. "And claws, obviously."

"Wide," Midnight added, seeing how large an area of cubicles had been pushed through.

We followed the initial trail of destruction that also happened to match up with various lightning scars from earlier. It was becoming increasingly likely that this villain was after the same thing. At least this area should be free from civilians, though it would really be better to get everyone out of the building if some villain had a massive acid monster with them.

Traces on the ground were less than they had been, specifically regarding the claws. But we had to continue into a hall regardless, moving carefully. Nobody took any note of a particular door until it exploded into pieces.

There was a massive roar and a fanged and green-scaled head that took up nearly a third of the doorway. I vaguely noticed it whip out into the hallway as a cone of gas sprayed towards us. Training and sense said to dodge. Practicality said there was a wall to my left. I didn't think to do the sensible thing and stand behind Acid Man. Not that it would have helped much, as the gas spread around everything. I even got some in my lungs, despite doing my best not to breathe it in.

This was the point at which we would have been in serious trouble if we hadn't had some idea what we were going up against. Fortunately, Energy Ward did a good job protecting myself and Midnight, though I wasn't sure if it would last another round… and the gas was clinging to us and dripping down like condensation.

Acid Man was fine, obviously. Both he and his suit were specially able to deal with various forms of acid. Even Knives and Antagonist did better at avoidance.

"Ugh!" Antagonist said. "That's awful! Where's its master?"

I ducked through the wall that had previously been in my way, but was now about as tough as a wet paper towel. "... It's just the dragon," I commented.

Oh, right. The head was a dragon's head. Thus the scales, fangs, and acid breath.

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"... It's so hard to turn into non-humanoids," Antagonist complained.

I was a bit busy with the dragon yelling at me. "... devour your heart! …"

I didn't understand most of what it was saying, but I got the tone and that it wasn't friendly. As I went into the room it whipped around towards me, ignoring the three left in the hall. I rapidly recast Energy Ward on Midnight and myself while at the same time ducking under a tail sweep.

Then a massive head was reaching towards me, trying to eat me. Or maybe just my heart but that didn't make me feel any better.

Midnight was brave. Hopefully he knew what he was doing as he leapt forwards off my shoulder, dashing beneath the thing. Well, he was pretty hard to target I supposed. Also, the dragon was trying to eat me.

What did I even do? I'd never done anything to a green dragon except that one time I fought a bunch of wyrmlings that invaded New Bay. Or maybe that was a couple times. I hadn't even killed all of them!

I threw a sonic lance into the approaching jaws. I think I managed to chip a tooth. Massive teeth chomped down on my elbow and pulled away, and I was just glad that it looked like most of my arm was still there, under the blood.

If I had known the dragon wanted to eat me specifically I would have acted differently. But at least its focus gave opportunities for others. Acid Man had a grip on one of its wings, while Midnight seemed to have frozen its whole belly with a point-blank Blizzard. Knives was tossing her blades and they actually pierced into the scales rather easily. It probably wasn't often she got to stab things without reservation. This probably wasn't the right time to comment on the sapience of the dragon.

I heard the building cracking as I continued in the one direction that wouldn't lead me back towards the dragon- towards a window. It was pretty much intact. The building trembled as suddenly there was a second dragon out in the hall. Antagonist breathed a cone of acidic gas over Acid Man and the dragon to… precisely no effect. The dragon didn't even look when he grabbed its tail.

I leapt through the window, covering my head with my good arm even as I cast Stoneskin. I could only say sorry to most of my teammates, but they weren't getting a multicasting at the moment.

"Get back here!" I could understand the dragon fairly well. "Mage Turlough, I will devour your entrails!"

"Oh!" I shouted as I turned in flight. It was a good thing we chose to fly up. "I know who you are!" I pointed at the dragon. "You're that one on the news! Faceeater!"

The dragon- I didn't have the proper expertise to determine male or female in the middle of combat- lunged towards me, leaping out the window even as Antagonist tried to yank on her tail. That left just Acid Man clinging to a wing, but even if he got tossed off he could fly right now so it was totally fine.

"That is not my name!" the dragon roared. "I am-"

Dragons weren't really vulnerable to anything. Conversely, they mostly resisted their own element so I could just blast with anything I had. As long as I didn't hurt Acid Man. Meteor Swarm would… not be a great idea. I was about to throw out a Chain Lightning when my recent habits got me to do something different with the same quantity of mana.

I really hoped elementals fighting for me gave experience. Also that Ignis could beat up a dragon or whatever. It was probably important to win and stuff.

"Ignis!" I called my elemental friend, using the Moderate version which was the best I knew. "Blow this jerk out of the skies!"

A three foot tall fire elemental appeared, rapidly flapping its arms. I was still pretty sure that it didn't make sense, but air was turning out to be quite useful. Ignis did just what I asked, appearing above Faceeater's wings and creating a sudden blast of wind downward. It was not my job to question how that worked with the sizes involved.

Acid Man was blasted off to the side, but he stabilized himself in the air. The dragon crashed into a bunch of shapes. Another art thing, I supposed. I wasn't taking any responsibility for the damage caused by knocking something straight down to the ground, people shouldn't put their stuff beneath big dragons.

A red dragon dove out of the building, breathing a cloud of burning red gas. Sadly, it wasn't fire but still acid. That was how Antagonist's powers worked. It was pretty spooky though, and Faceeater clearly thought so. The dragon jumped back, roaring.

Although not looking particularly injured, the dragon flipped its head around to take in all of us. Midnight and Knives were also flying out the window. "Hmph. Just try to catch me, weaklings!" The dragon's claws helped acceleration as wings flapped, lifting the twenty foot long- not counting the tail- beast off of the ground.

"Did you hear what it called you, Ignis?" I said. "Blast that dragon back this way!"

It worked precisely once. Knives got in another few good punctures, and I cracked a few scales with Sonic Lance. However, the dragon steadied itself. Acid Man couldn't do much damage against a dragon, it seemed, so his harassment didn't do much. He got swatted away by a wing as the dragon ate Ignis. Seemed like it would cause indigestion, except I felt the magic disappear. So no fire in the belly.

Antagonist tried to catch up, but he wasn't unlimited in his abilities- he didn't always match their power. Up to a certain level he could either match them or even outclass them, but once they were beyond his limits he was a weak reflection. Thus, slower. And the rest of us flying with the Fly spell were quite a bit slower.

"I'm calling it off," Acid Man said. "Any further and we'll chase into occupied areas. We can accept this victory."

I didn't have anything that could reach that far anyway. Except… no, Meteor Swarm would blow up some buildings. Or… would it? "Can I try something?"

"One thing. If it's safe."

"It should be," I said.

I really hoped it would be. Alright. Meteors from the sky… but it wasn't actually making meteors come from the sky. It was just making them at a distance. The acceleration was an important part of the spell… probably. Either way, as the green dragon got further away I cast Meteor Swarm and aimed up.

It worked. Or at least, they didn't crash into the ground and blow things up. Instead, the four distinct bits created airbursts around the green dragon, though none hit directly. Targeting was hard at such a distance.

It continued to fly away.

"Aww," I said. "I thought I might get it."

"What was that?" Acid Man asked.

"That? It was just M-" I caught myself. "Multicast Fireball." People didn't need to know I had Meteor Swarm. Midnight did, obviously. But unless people had been watching at the quarry which they weren't supposed to be, they didn't know about Meteor Swarm.

"Wild," Acid Man said. "Must be difficult to find a place to use it."

"Yeah. I only brought it out because there was a flying enemy," I said.

We lost the dragon. Now, normally one would be suspicious about such a result. After all, it was so big. However, once the bleeding wasn't a factor and people lost visuals… there was magic resistance to consider. Well, it was fine as it flew out of the city for the moment… but I was a bit concerned that a dragon wanted to eat me. I still didn't fully understand why. Were mages extra nutritious?