Just because Midnight and I could tell that Ceira had a proper bond with both Cel and Bun didn’t mean we knew what it meant. So I attempted to answer questions as they came in.
“Does this mean it’s less effective for each of them?”
“That might be,” I replied.
“Can I share spells with both of them?”
“I suppose you have to try that.”
“Will this inevitably make them weaker than they should be, leading to some sort of horrible disaster?”
I blinked. “How? They’re literally a cat and dog. I’m certain they won’t be any more vulnerable than you expected them to be five seconds ago.”
“Right,” Ceira said, relaxing slightly. “So what should I do?”
“The same things you’re already doing, I guess,” I shrugged.
Midnight nodded. “Make sure you test casting spells on them.”
Ceira nodded. “I suppose I should do that now. So I just use Nondetection while thinking of both of them?”
“And yourself,” I pointed out. “Because you could just cast it on them.”
Ceira closed her eyes, concentrating for a few moments. I could feel the mana flow around her, while at the same time covering her companions. Though it was difficult to detect that particular spell after it completed, I presumed it had worked just fine.
“I’m sure this information would be very valuable to some people. But I have no idea who they would be,” I admitted. “Did that feel more taxing than normal?” It was technically possible she’d simply learned Multicasting there. I didn’t think I felt that much mana, but I could have been mistaken.
“No, it was just… normal.” She looked around. “Hmm. Is it okay for druids to get tired of being outside?”
“As a complete novice on druids, I can tell you clearly that I don’t see why not,” I shrugged. “But hey, I’m a mage and I get tired of reading books.” I still did it, obviously. They were very useful. But without getting experience for the task, I found it much less valuable. Normal mages could just sit in a library all day and grow stronger, but that didn’t work for me.
“Great,” Ceira said, standing up. “Come on you two, we’re heading home.” The striped cat stopped chasing the golden retriever around and the two of them scurried over, running circles around Ceira. “Have you seen my new apartment?”
I shook my head. “Nope… just the old one. And only uh… in a video.”
“Yeah… well, I should show it to you. Just in case you need to know where it is. I’m really hoping to avoid any super related shenanigans but…” she looked down at her companions. “I have the feeling I can’t return to a normal life. Not that I really want to, but I’d prefer to avoid the dangerous stuff as much as possible.”
“Clearly you don’t have Aspect of the Barbarian.”
“Obviously,” Ceira said. “Can people from Earth even have aspects?”
“Huh. You know, I don’t know. I only know a few people with this sort of power from Earth, so it’s not a large enough sample to expect any Aspects. It’s not like everyone has one.”
I recalled Calculator talking about a potential portal power training program. Maybe I should express interest in that. I could at least guide people through early growth in whatever classes they had, and a general explanation of how things would work. Except it was a question of whether they had the whole package or not. Only passing through portals seemed to give points, while mere exposure from this side gave the ability to grow through training after ‘picking’ a class.
Unsurprisingly, Ceira’s apartment was not far from the park. Otherwise it was unlikely she would take her companions for a walk there, considering she didn’t have a car as far as I was aware. Even if she wanted to pay for a taxi or whatever, they weren’t likely to allow pets.
When Ceira opened the door to her apartment, I had comments about the inside immediately. “When you said you were tired of the outside… I didn’t think that we would be going into the outside, inside.”
Which was to say, her apartment was full of plants. They were in pots, dangling off of every surface. Hanging from hooks on the ceiling. On the windowsill. Dangling through an open window. And the most prominent of all, a whole tree smack dab in the middle of the living room.
“Well, all of these guys were rescued from my old apartment so… I figured I owed it to them to keep them alive. And they kinda just kept growing.”
“Why do you have a whole tree?” Midnight asked. “That’s not even an indoor plant.”
“Oh, yeah. That uh… that was a sprout. From your staff. I planted like a half dozen and this was the only one that survived. And since we got back and I moved in here it’s been… growing rapidly. I uh… I don’t know if I can fit it out of the building now.”
I frowned. “You still need a job, right?”
“Yeah, look I thought about the Power Brigade but they don’t really need gardeners or vets or whatever. And I’m not really interested in combat roles.”
“You don’t mind working with heroes, right?”
“Why would I?”
Midnight had an answer for that. “Because some heroes kinda suck.”
“Well… yeah,” Ceira shrugged. “But that’s because they’re people, and some people suck.”
I nodded, “Right, well, I know a lady who would be interested in this tree. Oh, and I suppose you wouldn’t be working directly with heroes if it works out. Instead it would be… working with a mad scientist who works with heroes.”
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
“That sounds worse but you say it like it’s better.”
“Vilhelmiina is great,” I said. “And the heroes let Darkstargirl take the limelight for years.”
“Everyone makes mistakes,” Ceira said.
“They’d better hope it was a mistake,” Midnight said.
“Anyway,” I shrugged. “You really need to get this tree out of your apartment. Or it’s going to start growing through the floorboards and you’ll lose your deposit.”
“Pretty sure that ship’s long sailed,” she said, looking at her two companions dashing around the apartment and sometimes on the walls.
“You can probably fix any wooden components… You might see if Khithae or someone with repair abilities can come over and help. You know, whenever you move out. Assuming you can’t learn that stuff yourself.” I hesitated to say it but… “I also know Clean. So I can help with stains, at least.”
“For the moment, I’m just keeping my landlord out. But I really should do something about this tree. You think anyone would notice if I just planted it in the park? They put in new trees all the time.”
“Can you carry it there?” I asked.
“Well, no. I was thinking with Warp Wood I could bend the branches to get it out the door, though, and we could kind of drag it along…?”
“I really don’t think it should be in a park. My staff is genuine fake Yggdrasil, after all.”
“I- you said that before and it still doesn’t make sense.”
“Tech supers do weird stuff, and Yggdrasil might not ever have existed in this world. But it’s probably as close as it can get.”
“Yeah, well… I’ll think about that option, I guess.” She looked around the apartment. “I think today’s the day I need to water most of these guys. So uh, it won’t be that exciting. I’ll see you later, I guess?”
“Of course,” I said. “Any time. Well, I mean, when we’re not on shift. But other than that, I’m glad to hang out.”
“Me too,” Midnight said. “Even if those two are a bit too eager to play.”
-----
Calculator apparently had something that required my attention, as I learned when I came in to work the next day. So we met up when he was available- which took a bit, as he was always darting between things. The Power Brigade could probably use another person or two that fulfilled similar roles, so he wouldn’t have to be involved in so many things. He was probably constantly thinking about a dozen things. Then again, mundane managers survived and some of them were apparently effective. And he wasn’t really the only one involved. Just the most important one.
“Good, both of you are here,” he said. Without waiting for a response, he went directly into his explanation. “There are quite a few people in New Bay employed in the avenue of reviewing security footage about incidents involving criminal supers. This information is shared easily among certain organizations for the sake of tracking and cataloging threats. The Brigade had numerous individuals flagged, and one just popped back on the radar that is of particular interest to you.” He flipped around the tablet that was constantly with him and began a video. “Recognize anyone?”
A dark room, through which a fellow in a green mask was stalking. If I hadn’t been expecting to see someone there, I might not have picked him out- and even with the high angle it was difficult. That was why the security guard didn’t notice him in time. The figure grabbed him from behind, his hands doing something to the security guard’s throat. Perhaps he had a knife? A pool of blood began to form under the fallen figure.
The villain passed closer to the camera, revealing a bald head with a green sheen to it. And then the clip ended, freezing on the last frame that had been considered relevant. Presumably.
“A bald guy…” I frowned. “With a green mask… Wasn’t he in a movie?”
“That’s…” Calculator frowned. “You watch movies?”
“No. They do get advertised to me on search engines, though.” I frowned. “Do you think it was because I’m green skinned?”
“... It shouldn’t be. Mostly because we put anti-tracking tech on all of our members' profiles.”
“Well, I guess it’s not actually like that movie anyway.”
“Are you sure you don’t recognize anything?” Calculator asked.
“Hmm,” I looked at the image. Then at Midnight. “Do we know this guy?”
“I feel like it’s familiar,” Midnight said.
Let’s see. Mask. Claws? Bald head. Veiny lightning scars. “Oh! Do you think this guy is a relative of Handface? Except with claws.” I could vaguely see the shape of a few ‘fingers’ pointing out past his mask. “Also he’s green.”
Calculator just waited for a few moments, taking a deep breath before responding. “Pattern recognition indicates the same exact pattern of electricity scars as Deimos.”
“So… a twin brother?” I asked.
“You- he wasn’t born with scars, you know?” Calculator finally sounded annoyed. “You gave those to him.”
“Oh, right! But I’m pretty sure he didn’t have green skin.”
“Indeed. Something has changed. Along with those claws you noticed, we picked out scales, seemingly all over his body except where the scars are.”
“Scales. Claws.” I pondered. “Last I saw him, he tumbled through a portal that green dragons had come out from. Green dragons live in swampy areas. And also in those areas, there are sometimes lizardfolk. Did he… did he become a lizardfolk somehow?” I asked.
“Or,” Midnight said. “He got dragon related abilities.”
“Oh yeah, that would make a lot of sense,” I agreed. “Everyone’s always getting tainted with draconic crap.”
“... How easy is it?” Calculator asked.
“Well, for a powerless guy like him, he’d just have to not get eaten by a dragon and perhaps gain their favor.”
“Do you think this could be related to your world’s class abilities?”
I frowned, thinking.
It seemed I was taking too long. “It’s fine if it doesn’t fit. If you have to search hard for a way it makes sense, we can consider other avenues.”
“Oh, no. I was just counting how many classes I’ve heard about having their origins in draconic magic. It’s probably like a third of all of them. Or at least a good portion of the magicy, combat related classes. There aren’t like a ton of blacksmiths with draconic origins. At most like two or three I can think of.”
“That sound like a lot,” Calculator said.
“Eh, like half of mages claim to have their powers boosted by a draconic connection. It’s probably no more than one in ten but still. People say it. A few blacksmiths throughout history is honestly barely worthy of a footnote.”
“Wouldn’t they be good blacksmiths?” Midnight asked. “With fire powers and stuff?”
“That’s only like, a third of dragons. Some would be actively weak against fire, and the others would be basically neutral. I guess they might get tough skin, though,” I shrugged.
“I would think you would be more concerned about an individual who wants to kill you, and who had previously almost succeeded, coming back with powers.”
I pondered for a few moments. “I don’t think dragon powers make sniper rifles better. So, I’d say he’s at a similar risk level.”
“Except he’s more stealthy now,” Midnight said.
“Yeah, maybe that.”
I wasn’t ignoring the threat, of course. I just had to make sure I kept up with my bulk orders of industrial diamond dust and granite. I was already a lot stronger than last time we’d encountered each other, and as long as his new powers didn’t augment the specific dangers I’d dealt with before, it probably wouldn’t be that bad.
I did kind of wish Handface had gotten torn apart by dragons, though. He was kind of annoying.