Mage Among Superheroes

Despite how she looked and frequently how she acted, Zeb was highly intelligent. She was capable of discussing complex technological topics I could barely even begin to comprehend. Maybe with a decade of focused education I would get it, or maybe not.

But also, as intelligent as she was, Zeb was often quite dumb.

"Rocky wouldn't do that!" she complained. "Tell them it was someone else! We can't get Rocky in trouble."

I sighed. "If Rocky is doing what we agreed, it will be fine. The last part won't happen regardless. Still, it's possible that he didn't understand the complexity of what we asked."

Zeb looked offended. It was all in the ears. "He knows what a trail is! I asked him."

"And he might not be able to see them from where he was, or he forgot, or any number of other things. Regardless, we have to go investigate."

That was about the time Tylissa arrived, our third and final member for the mission we were on today. Midnight wasn't present, because we shouldn't be doing anything dangerous.

"I think I should bring twenty," Zeb commented. "Just in case there's trouble."

I shook my head. "You don't need twenty squirrels. That's too many."

"Together we only count as one, right? It should be fine."

"I wasn't talking about the Teleport limit."

Tylissa cleared her throat as she bent down towards Zeb. "I know you want to bring a lot of your friends along with you, but some will have to stay behind."

"Twenty is already leaving lots behind!" Zeb protested. "Any less than that and they'll think I'm choosing favorites!"

I raised an eyebrow. "I'm sure you do have favorites."

Zeb inhaled sharply. "Don't tell them!"

"Relax," I said. "You know they don't pay attention most of the time. Also they don't really speak English."

As a beastmaster Zeb could communicate with them. That extended to those around her to a lesser extent, but as seen with Bun and Cel even if they were smart animals they were still just animals.

Tylissa and I eventually managed to convince Zeb to only bring twelve squirrels. Eight Earth squirrels and all four Celmoth squirrels because they needed to get used to Earth, apparently. Any more negotiation than that would cut into our mission time.

I didn't actually have anything against her bringing as many companions as she wanted in theory, but there was limited space in a car. Getting a van would be a bigger hassle just to drive over to Extra. We didn't have to go there, but there weren't a lot of convenient and secure places to return to, so it was better to be seen both going and coming.

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Wolf had directions. That was what I was supposed to call Tylissa when we were doing anything related to the Power Brigade. Jerome's mother had been trained as a powered scout. I wasn't sure she would have gotten an interview without me, but she certainly wouldn't have finished training and kept the job if she wasn't qualified. There were never enough trackers to be had, and the Power Brigade couldn't just wait for more people to randomly manifest super scent.

We could totally make a bunch of werewolves, but we wouldn't. Both because it might provide people for competitors, and because New Bay would frown on unsanctioned power propagation. It wasn't all Extra's fault. The Hero association also had opinions about such things. Extra just got involved more when the particular method involved something unearthly.

She was navigating with her phone… which didn't mean she wasn't doing her job. She was the one that had made sure she had some pins to bring us where we needed to go. "The first one is over here," she commented. "Probably about twenty minutes."

Normally, we wouldn't be all the way out here in the Great Sequoias for Power Brigade business. However, our association with Rocky gave us a connection. Furthermore, New Bay was still the closest hub of supernatural activity. There might be random people in various cities around, but there wouldn't be whole groups easily contactable. The forest rangers here had already decided that the matter was out of their expertise.

Twenty minutes wasn't too bad of a distance. I had done my best to get as close as I could to the destination, but I didn't have the whole forest memorized or anything. I'd only been here a few times.

"Ugh," Tylissa made a face. "We're close."

Zeb hung her head. "Yeah. We are."

I tilted my head. "I figured. But how do you know?"

"The smell!" They said at the same time.

Oh yeah. Maybe we didn't even need Tylissa. Except Zeb wasn't trained for scouting purposes. She might be able to track something by scent, but that didn't mean she would be the best choice.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

We circled around to be more upwind as we approached the bear carcass. It was pretty gruesome and smelled awful. Large portions of it were missing, which was expected from the report.

Wolf put on her best human face. I wasn't sure if she could actually turn off her enhanced canine sense of smell or not, but I think maybe her mask could cover that. She professionally crouched down and assessed the situation. Zeb pulled away to give an inspiring speech to her squirrels, probably reminding them that they were safe and powerful and stuff. Not like anything that ate bears would probably bother with squirrels.

"Ugh," Wolf made a face. "This wasn't a bird. I can say that much."

"How can you tell?" I asked.

"Too many tears alongside each other. A few other things that are guesses. Mostly, though, it doesn't smell like a bird."

"Not to sell out Rocky, but doesn't he have lion paws?"

"Mage, no! Bad mage!" Zeb shouted from a distance.

Wolf shook her head. "It's not that either. I've been to the zoo recently. I know what lions and fur smell like. Oh, and this part here... it's melted."

"Hmm." That was all I could say. I attempted to sense something supernatural, but the results were… vague. I wondered if Advanced Divination magic was enough to learn something here? An image of the scene, or a more clear sense of aura or something. I first activated Arcane Sight, but got nothing clear. A waste of mana, but sometimes that was how things were. Further magic amplified that vague aura enough for me to potentially recognize it if I saw it again, but I couldn't even say if I'd noticed it before. "I've got very little."

"I think I can follow the trail," Wolf commented. "Whatever it was went this way, flying low."

"It wasn't Rocky!" Zeb complained.

I reached down to pat her on the head. "Even if it was, we'll just remind him what he needs to do." The park didn't actually mind culling the bear population a bit. They just didn't want people to stumble upon the carcasses too easily, as it worsened their opinion of things.

They would clean it up, of course, but this one was left for us to investigate because it was unusual, even if they couldn't say precisely how.

We continued on with our two resident scent experts agreeing on the direction. Apparently whatever this was had a unique smell- and the remains of bear they wore on them were likewise powerful.

"I know what Rocky smells like," Zeb said. "It's definitely not Rocky."

Something like half an hour later, we ran into Rocky standing atop the carcass of a bear. No, not just Rocky. There was another griffon.

"Gasp! It's Mrs. Rocky! I've never met her before!" Zeb excitedly ran closer. "Hi! Hello! Nice to meet you!"

Most of the time, Zeb's excessively friendly approach resulted in whatever she was moving towards running away. Or pouncing on her. This time, however, the second stone griffon just cawed at her partner, who responded in kind. Neither seemed worried.

"You did such a good job killing a bear," Zeb said. I could feel her using her abilities to communicate with unbound animals. "You're great hunters! Oh, wait. You aren't supposed to leave them near trails though. You didn't? But we just saw something back there."

I more or less understood the conversation from just her side of things. There were some chirping and screeching bird sounds in response. Mrs. Rocky was munching patiently. Were neither of them at the nest watching the eggs? I presumed they had eggs, but I didn't actually know that now that I thought about it. They certainly would soon, if they didn't.

"Some other thing did it?" Zeb tilted her head. "What sort of thing-"

"Mage!" Tylissa slapped me on the shoulder with great force. I probably would have turned to look right away anyway, but her clear urgency didn't hurt.

It gave me enough time to react, which was to shove her lightly away from me. "Take cover!"

Then I ran in the opposite direction. Tylissa wasn't supposed to be engaged in combat, so I could only hope running at an angle that was slightly towards the incoming green blur that it would target me.

I didn't make it behind a tree. They were huge trees, so it should have been easy. Instead, I was covered in acid as a roar washed over me.

I was pretty sure I knew what the green blur was, as I felt Force Armor immediately collapse. My suit lasted long enough for me to cast Energy Ward- just on myself unfortunately. I wasn't close enough to the others.

I did get behind the tree before massive jaws clamped down on me, so my running wasn't fruitless. "Zeb! It's Faceeater!"

Loud screeches suddenly filled the forest. Rocky and Mrs. Rocky clearly weren't happy to have someone eating faces in their territory. I very much appreciated their enthusiasm, but…

"I don't know if stone griffons can handle a dragon!" I yelled. "Zeb, tell them to be careful!"

Tylissa was focused on staying in cover. Not that it mattered because Faceeater was specifically trying to murder me. She was coming back for another round, and I only had half an Energy Ward left after it fended off the rest of what was hanging on me. I cast Haste so that I could properly dodge… preferably moving into cover.

Before Faceeater could properly attack, two stone griffons pounced on her, tackling her out of the sky. It didn't look like either of them kept a prominent position, however. They rolled away with little harm on either side.

I didn't believe a green dragon would be weak to a specific element, so I took advantage of the opening to use Sonic Lance, adding more mana than normal. I had a big target, after all, so even if my aim was slightly off I should still hit. I didn't expect anything else to suddenly get in my way.

Maybe I should have. Fortunately, squirrels were small. Even gliding squirrels with spread out flaps of skin. There were two of them, and they went right past Faceeater's head. They'd better be careful or they'd get their own faces and everything else eaten. With Haste giving me more relative time to react I managed to hold back on the timing of my Sonic Lance and blast the dragon in the chest instead of blasting one of them. I think I cracked a couple scales, but mostly it looked like I slightly shoved her. Magic resistance sucked, especially since dragons were already massive and durable.

I looked for Zeb, rushing towards her. If this dragon sprayed acid around, any of her squirrels could easily be melted. I needed to help with that, and the griffons, and pull out my gun…

I did the latter as I ran. I regretted not pushing for a higher caliber weapon sooner. There wasn't supposed to be a dragon here. This was hundreds of miles from the last known location of Faceeater! Sure, it wouldn't be that hard for a dragon to fly here but it was still concerning.

Should we fight? Maybe we shouldn't fight. If I could get everyone gathered together, I could just Teleport us away. I wasn't going to risk Tylissa. Fighting wasn't her job. And I didn't want either Rocky to be hurt. Nor Zeb, but she was officially signed up for battle missions so it was more about mitigating risks rather than completely avoiding them.