Mage Among Superheroes

Faceeater was yelling at us. Probably. This was an unfortunate day to have only Zeb hooked up with Translation, but I really didn't need it for English and we hadn't anticipated any need. I sure wasn't going to spend the time and mana while in battle with a dragon.

Zeb was barking up a storm. Hopefully she was commanding her squirrels to get somewhere safe or something like that. There was no way they should fight a dragon.

I mostly kept tabs on Faceeater by how she stomped around and made angry dragon noises. I was doing my best to keep the vast majority of a very large tree between me and her. I could still see some glimpses of her wings and tail occasionally, though I did my best to keep away from her reaching neck as she came for me. The face was the most dangerous part of a dragon. Not the only dangerous part, but it was the one with the most reach and the part where all of the bad acid came out of.

I got a glimpse of Rocky and Mrs. Rocky. It was difficult to say they looked fine, but they didn't look like they had just tangled with a dragon. Maybe a handful of bloody feathers and a limp forelimb between them?

"Zeb! Tylissa!" I spoke through our local comms. I should have said 'Herder' and 'Wolf' but that really didn't matter right now. Through our comms I didn't have to worry about whether or not Faceeater spoke English, as long as she didn't also have super hearing. "If you can get over to the griffons I can get us out of here."

A few barks and some bird noises were exchanged. "They won't run away when there's a threat to their forest," Zeb said.

"We might have to anyway. Tylissa?"

"Unfortunately, I'm on the far side of the dragon," she commented. "As a scout I have pretty decent movement abilities, but I'm not highly trained in evasion!"

What a shame. Maybe we should see if Izzy could provide her an intensive course on that after this. It was really great to see someone come out completely unscathed from a nominally undodgeable wide area assault.

Dragon face. I shot it a few times with my pistol as I twirled around the base of the tree. I doubted I could even crack the scales, though the power wasn't too bad. Maybe if I hit an eye or the inside of the mouth, though. Even with Haste active I wasn't willing to focus on that compared to dodging.

"I got them to agree to go behind this one tree for a second!" Zeb declared. Fortunately, I was at the right angle to sprint over there and the magical acid breath that came at me from behind wasn't even that close to melting my posterior as I reached the griffons- and Zeb.

Half of our plan wouldn't work, but I could still toss out Energy Ward. With Multicasting, it was sufficient to hit myself, Zeb and her squirrels, and the two griffons. Technically Wolf too, but she wasn't within range. I still flung the magic generally at her, hoping to get at least a partial effect. Or maybe it would enhance a tree. I couldn't tell, because there was too much dragon garbage flying about to get a good read on more subtle magic.

After Energy Ward, it was time for Stoneskin. I couldn't cast it at full power with Multicasting both because of my fatigue limit and because of upgrade limitations, but it would still be pretty good. I had no idea if it would do anything for stone griffons. But to save time I was doing it for me and Zeb anyway, so the mana was already going to be used. Maybe they would be double stone griffons. It was probably better than nothing.

It was quiet for a moment. Then, I heard a whooshing sound- too far away and in a direction I didn't like at all.

I picked a random direction to round the sequoia I was behind, seeing Faceeater had once again taken flight. If she was leaving I wouldn't mind, but I didn't get that feeling. Indeed, a moment later she circled around and came not towards me but towards Tylissa.

Zeb confirmed it as the dragon roared. "She says that if you won't fight she'll eat the easiest target!"

I frowned. I hadn't even done anything to her. This was annoying. I would happily fight a dragon in other circumstances. "Tell her that she was the one who ran away the first time!"

I needed more targets. Ignis. He should also be able to hold her off for a bit. I poured a bunch of mana into Summon Moderate Elemental. More than it should normally hold. It was a bit risky, but I wasn't going to any crazy degree. I would definitely be hitting 'negative' mana from that point onward, though, so I would have to stay in control of things manually.

A tall fire elemental appeared. Normally Ignis was waist high, but this time as his flames appeared he was significantly taller. Was it actually someone else? As the figure resolved in my vision, the top of the flames settled into the solid form of a tophat. I also notice the moustache that came with Summon Moderate Elemental was a bit larger, poking out from behind Ignis. He was carrying a pot… and I had no idea if he was properly acid empowered and thus able to resist Faceeater, but I had to assume he could do something.

"Ignis! Take down that angry flying dragon!"

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It was a big ask, but I really didn't know what else to say. If we could get her back on the ground he could probably burn her. Maybe he could throw fireballs from where he was. The forest was wet enough that I wasn't too concerned, and he could eat the fire if it spread.

But he didn't do that. Instead, he hefted his pot and… waited. Maybe he just couldn't reach her. That was what I was thinking as she was getting awfully close to Tylissa's tree. A quick snap of her neck once she was past it and she would see around the back side, able to breathe a cone of acidy death.

Ignis began to bounce his pot up more, swinging it in wider arcs.

"She's probably immune to acid!"

Ignis just nodded, but he didn't change what he was doing. Eventually, he swung it all the way back and thrust it out to the full length of his diminutive arms. A huge spray of green liquid tinged with orange light blasted up into the air. I couldn't see anything, but I had the feeling it hadn't hurt Faceeater at all as she barely even made an annoyed grunt.

Then I saw her wing clip a tree as she came out of the spray. She caught herself before crashing down, with powerful and definitely magical flaps of her wings, but I realized something. Ignis may seem foolish, but he was pretty good at using his abilities. I hadn't been able to see Faceeater in that whole thing, but she hadn't been able to see either.

It had bought Tylissa enough time to rush behind another tree further out of the flight path. That was good, because no way was I letting my apprentices mother get hurt.

Faceeater seemed annoyed, swooping slightly lower and spraying a blast of acid at Ignis. He, in turn, held up his pot and caught everything. I frowned. It wasn't completely outside the realm of possibility. Acid was a form of energy just as much as anything else, and it was what I'd wanted. He just seemed stronger than expected. Maybe it was the tophat?

I couldn't think about that too much. I only had maybe twenty seconds of Haste left. My mana wasn't limitless either, but I clearly needed a big spell to hurt this dragon. Tylissa had unfortunately gotten further away, and the rest of us weren't gathered together anymore. We couldn't easily escape. Maybe I should have insisted on it. I might be a bad team lead.

What could I hit this dragon with? Meteor Swarm? If I didn't actually connect it wouldn't be much better than last time when I detonated them around her in the air. Gate? If I could get her to stick her neck through one and then close it… but she probably wasn't that foolish. Plus, magic resistance might make that less viable. If I had anything quick that could hit her wings that would be good, but I wasn't sure I did. Spatial Rift might be good, but placing it would be difficult.

The collateral damage… wasn't something I could think about at the moment.

"Ignis! Can you hold up for a while longer?"

He gave me a thumbs up. That would have to do.

Somewhere, I lost track of the griffons. I hoped Zeb had convinced them to go to safety. We could still manage to get the rest of us out of here. I would keep enough mana to Teleport… though I'd have to manually balance things. That meant two more big spells at most.

I took a couple shots at Faceeater's wings as she turned about for another pass. If she wanted to target me, I'd have to give her that option. I wasn't quite sure how I would defend myself properly, but if she came into melee I could severely overcharge Shocking Grasp. That would have to do something. If I consumed my phone battery… it should be pretty good.

It seemed that she was either wary of my Energy Ward or out of breath for the moment- I knew that dragons couldn't repeat it forever. Either way, she was flying lower. I supposed she might just want a different angle. Should I move slightly closer to cover, or would that set her after Tylissa again? She was getting pretty close, and I wasn't sure if Ignis could successfully blind her again. I expended my clip and another one as quickly as I could, but I think I only successfully punctured a few insignificant holes in her wings.

I had mana gathered, but I wasn't sure which spell it was going to become. Holding onto unspecified mana took a lot of concentration, especially at low mana, but it was necessary.

I wasn't ready to see squirrels suddenly blitz past Faceeater's head. She instinctively snapped at them, but one of the two avoided her and the second flying squirrel actually grazed her eye. I had no idea if a squirrel could actually cause damage, but being poked in the eye still wasn't fun.

I wondered if dragons had eyelids. Faceeater definitely pulled her head down after that. Then she was tackled by two griffons. She roared in frustration, and though I didn't speak Draconic without magic I could guess it meant something like, "Again?"

Rather than get tangled up with her again, however, the griffons just raked Faceeater's wings. That was great, even though she was tumbling directly towards me. Gate? Gate.

I decided on Gate, but I got Spatial Rift. Or maybe a Gate without a destination. I had only wanted some sort of unquantifiable danger, and I got a vague feeling of dread as Faceeater crashed into it and got stuck to the Spatial Rift as it began to pull in leaves, fallen branches, small shrubs…

"Tell the griffons that should be enough!" I called to Zeb. "We're regrouping and leaving."

I really wanted to toss a Meteor Swarm on the momentarily incapacitated dragon. The problem was, I didn't know if it would kill her. It might just make her even more angry. I really wished Great Girl was here because she could probably just rip off the dragon's wings now. She had wrestled dragons before, though she hadn't killed them. Just tossed them back through some portals so we didn't have to deal with them.

Ignis rushed the downed dragon. I hoped for his great success, but I knew that even if he 'died' he would ultimately be fine. But even with the amount of mana I'd pumped into him, I wasn't confident that he was powerful enough to cause any real damage. Did his fire even really work in this form? Eh, he could eat fire in his 'water' form so… probably.

When I reached Tylissa, she was covered in squirrels. Presumably all but the two 'flying' squirrels. Had they actually attacked a dragon? Of course they had. At least Zeb kept safe. The two griffons were also circling around to land at Zeb's prompting. It was time to go.