“We are fighting, then?” Jet asked as we headed into a nearby copse of trees.

“I suppose we don’t have to,” I admitted. “However, they’re already approaching so Midnight and I will need to hold them off while backup arrive. You and Ceira should probably go.”

“If you are confident in survival with just the two of you, then I would not suggest retreating from a Bunvorixian with my addition, even considering odd powers,” Jet said, glowering towards the approaching group. Then something odd happened. She barked, loudly. I had a small amount of exposure to the Bunvorixian language before, but I wasn’t able to pick anything up from what she said.

“What was that?” I asked.

“Just reminding that fellow that I have diplomatic protections and he is a criminal,” Jet said.

Midnight flicked his tail. “I don’t think that’s going to convince him to not attack us,” he pointed out. “Given he’s already very wanted and all.”

“I wasn’t trying to convince him not to attack. You should probably do that thing you were talking about where everyone is made big, or whatever. They’re getting quite close.” She tilted her head. “It’s odd, I don’t see ranged weaponry among them.”

It was actually possible for either Midnight or I to cast Enlarge on all of us together without sharing the burden, but we split it anyway. It was good practice, and we didn’t want to hit either of our mana pools too much.

Before we actually cast, Midnight hopped to the ground, and Jet followed suit. Which was good, because I really didn’t want something as large as they turned into on my shoulder. Midnight, Jet, and Cel were all about the same size, and then they were vaguely the size of a mountain lion. And not the small bobcats, either, a proper great cat. I estimated they were about the same size as Spot, the great dane. Not quite the same proportions, though.

Technically, since I’d also Enlarged myself they didn’t look bigger to me, but comparing them to the nearby trees and the people walking towards us… they were big. And Bun? He was enormous. The way he growled at the approaching people wasn’t that scary from my angle, but some of the people shuddered.

It was just about time to start throwing lightning, but we needed to give official warning. Mostly because I didn’t recognize everyone as escaped criminals or fugitives. I let a little bit of electricity play between my fingers as I withdrew my staff from Storage. “Two among you are fugitive supervillains, if the rest of you don’t want to be charged with supervillainy you’ll take this chance to leave.”

“No way man!” one of them said.

“Yeah, supervillainy is awesome!”

Well, at least that would make some lawyers happy. And unlike the big guy and Spot, the rest of these guys wouldn’t get rescued specifically. Though if we caught Spot and Titan or whatever he was called then they would be thrown into somewhere with much better security than before.

I could feel people gathering mana all around me, and I was worried about what they might do. But the first spell to be finished came from Ceira. Suddenly, half of the trees around the group suddenly swung towards them, their branches extending. The grass in the area also began to wrap around their feet.

Most of them were caught. Titan ripped himself out immediately, roaring. Spot, meanwhile, suddenly grew quite a bit larger. But it wasn’t Enlarge, as it came with a lot more glowing after the fact. Well, there went Bun’s size advantage. Spot could give Great Girl a run for her money with that size- though I suspected Great Girl would overcome him through other means. She wasn’t just big.

My Chain Lightning hit Titan directly, and I had to say… I really expected more. As it flowed through him, he only slightly grimaced. Just that, but it was supposed to hit harder than Sonic Lance. Then again, he probably barely had any levels at the time.

The big guy charged towards us as my lightning moved to its next target, Spot. He also didn’t go into sudden cardiac arrest, which was both expected and disappointing- though he looked like it worked a bit better than on the other guy, despite his current massive form.

The rest of the chain lightning zapped through various others. At least they convulsed properly, though I noticed how much my spell weakened with each one. They weren’t unprotected, but had some sort of super suits… even though their clothes had mostly looked normal.

Ah. I realized there were no smoking holes in any of their shirts. So it was some sort of illusion. Perhaps related to why I hadn’t sensed them individually. That wasn’t helpful immediately, but perhaps later.

As it turned out, they weren’t all stupid enough to come fight us unarmed. Several had hidden blades, while others pulled weapons out of nowhere. Or rather, Storage. It was easy enough to recognize that. One of those few who hadn’t been Entangled even pulled out a few guns.

That was when things got chaotic. A massive dog and cat dove into a pile of people, while an even more massive dog and a big angry guy shoved their way through that crowd. Just because the big guy didn’t have a weapon didn’t mean he was less dangerous. And maybe he would start ripping out a tree or something. Sure, he was within ‘normal’ human size limits, but I was pretty sure he was a Barbarian so he might still be able to do that.

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Another pulse of magic from Spot flowed out over the group, and I could only presume it was bolstering them somehow. From there, the battle became pretty chaotic. I was glad I’d taken out some of the masses, but there were still at least a half dozen people with unknown powers, and weapons as well. They wouldn’t remain tied up forever.

Jet had… disappeared somewhere. Midnight was backing up Cel and Bun. The two animals were flanking Spot, who was biting and clawing at them. The two of them worked quite well together against the larger dog, though I could tell they didn’t have proper combat training. Midnight, however, did. And he was quite good at picking out weak spots in people’s gear. In this case, it was Spot’s tail. He slapped it with a good Shocking Grasp, and while it was probably less effective than my Chain Lightning still, it wasn’t that far off for much cheaper.

I made a mental note that whoever made their outfits had trouble with odd shapes like tails. For the record, Midnight’s tail was well protected by Francois’s work.

The big guy was actually smaller than me at the moment, as Enlarge made me almost as tall as Great Girl’s limit of fifteen feet. I was still a bit shorter, and it didn’t come with as much proportional strength increase, but the size was still valuable for things like smacking Titan in the face with my staff, sending him staggering backward. I would have expected to have shattered his skull, but he was charging back towards me a moment later.

There were two yelps. One as some of the random fanatics attacked Bun, injuring my favorite dog as they attacked en masse. Then another much more pleasing cry of pain from my least favorite dog shaped individual a moment later, as Spot somehow got a cut along his forehead and across part of his eye. I couldn’t see Jet, but it hadn’t come from any other source so it had to be her, right? The Bunvorixian barked angrily, and while I didn’t get a clear translation I could tell it carried with it the weight of profanity.

“You jerks!” I heard Ceira yelling. “That’s my dog!”

That didn’t do much for her except get one of them to point his gun towards her. It was there I somewhat regretted making Ceira large- it didn’t really improve her combat capabilities and just made her a bigger target. Two shots rang out. Well, at least Stoneskin was working as she only grimaced- but that wouldn’t hold out forever.

Ceira didn’t just stand there, of course. She reached out her arm, causing a tree branch to wrap around the man’s outstretched arm. That pulled his arm off center as he continued to shoot wildly, but only for a moment before the sounds suddenly stopped. I suppose that made sense, as the gun looked to be more rust than anything else. Modern materials might be a little bit rustproof, but they weren’t magically rustproof.

It was a pretty cool combo, as I was fairly sure Ceira had actually channeled the rust through the tree. I would ask her about that later- when we weren’t actively being assaulted.

“Uh-oh,” I said as I felt something. “Midnight! Help split some Energy Ward!”

Midnight obviously felt the same thing, and he scurried over. We gathered mana as I continued to fend off the big guy who would not go down while sweeping my staff to keep back a few others who were more cognizant of their bones being breakable.

Alright, so we needed to protect against fire. Star fire. Dark… star fire. Would that make it cold? Ahh, hell, I didn’t know. I just thought about whatever crap the incoming Darkstargirl had bursting out of her. I didn’t know where Jet was, but I tried to reach out to her as well as the companions I could see as I cast Energy Ward.

I watched the sky momentarily, and saw Darkstargirl sway off course for a brief moment. But I had to admit, I wasn’t ready for this. I’d calculated for all of the people who had been around, and we’d been doing fine… but Darkstargirl was a bigger threat.

“We need to hold off for reinforcements!” I called. “Watch for her specifically!”

I activated the dispelling magic stored in my staff as I thrust straight into Titan’s chest. He never even tried to avoid it… so when suddenly his magical rage and whatever Spot had done to bolster him began to unravel, he wasn’t ready. I heard a decent crack sound as he tumbled backwards. I really wished I could save that for Darkstargirl, but we couldn’t afford to fight all these guys and that flying jerk.

I thought we had a few more moments before she got to us, but I forgot. She wasn’t a melee combatant, but an omnirange high powered super. Which sucked. We had about half a second to dodge behind trees as she gathered a huge ball of black fire and threw it into the copse.

The very good news was that I’d attuned Energy Ward properly. The other good news was that Ceira was the furthest from the center, so she wasn’t as affected. Bun and Cel were surrounded by a bunch of people… which muted the blow. Because obviously Darkstargirl didn’t care who she hurt. She barely avoided exploding her fans before she officially turned evil.

Once I could see, I made out a bunch of scorched humans, flaming trees, and a tumbling cat and dog pair that was very swiftly no longer on fire. Their fur didn’t look great, though. Maybe we should get them a proper super suit.

I managed to spot Jet momentarily, as her shimmering silver suit worked to blend back in with the surroundings. It seemed she’d come prepared with more than utility, which very much explained her confidence.

It seemed Darkstargirl couldn’t repeat such a large explosion indefinitely, or maybe she was too busy blocking something from her face- though I couldn’t see or hear whatever it was. Just a tiny trickle of power. Ah, wait. That would be Mono, wouldn’t it? It didn’t fill me with confidence that she was so easily shrugging off rifle shots, but it still made me feel better that she was being inconvenienced at least.

I wished I had gotten more magic negating bullets from Vilhelmiina. Then again, I didn’t regret how I used them.

“I’ll get you this time, you damned filthy orc!”

Well, at least Darkstargirl knew what she wanted. I just had to figure out how to make her not achieve those goals… with practically no mana remaining.