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If we were fresh, I couldn’t necessarily say we had a good chance to beat Darkstargirl, but I would have bet we could hold her long enough for reinforcements to arrive. Unfortunately, Midnight and I had already spent most of our mana providing protections for our group and the rest fighting Spot and this big guy.
After Darkstargirl destroyed the entire copse of trees we were sheltering in with a single attack, negating most of our Energy Ward as well, things weren’t looking good for us. So I immediately set my sights on the sturdiest piece of cover still around.
That cover tried to fight back. Indeed, rather forcefully. But while Titan or whatever was a fairly big guy his raging fury wouldn’t last forever… and I was bigger. More importantly, I was better at wrestling. With my staff out of juice, I had moved to hand to hand combat for this particular endeavor.
Ultimately, I managed to exploit the difference between a thug working under a supervillain and a proper mercenary. I faked a twinge in my knee… and then the guy was too slow to exploit it. So I did it again, and he lunged towards me. That was enough for me to slip around his side, twisting my arms around him on one side, then securing my position behind his back with my arms twisted under his shoulders and behind his neck. Because of my current size, my arms crossed each other quite a bit, my hands almost reaching my own shoulders on either side.
That did ultimately make him less good as a human shield, but he was still quite functional when I used him to block a few small blasts of energy from above. For some reason, that seemed to annoy the flying woman quite a lot, which made me want to keep doing it. When she tried to target someone else, I simply used my long stride to carry my shield to cover Cel and Bun.
Midnight was most capable of avoiding things himself, so I figured he was fine. Ceira was somewhat vulnerable, but she was sheltering behind one of the few half-standing trees. Jet was… presumably still invisible somewhere.
The cat and dog were fending off Spot, and even though the Bunvorixian was using magic to augment himself he seemed to be running out of steam. Or mana, really. Most of the rest of the fanatics were already down from Darkstargirl’s opening explosion.
I felt a larger surge of power come from the sky, and I knew I only had a moment to react. I could barely block for Cel and Bun, but Ceira might be in trouble. However, Darkstargirl had dropped closer to the ground so I attacked with the only weapon I had available, specifically the seven foot or so man I was holding in my arms. I doubted it would hurt someone as strong as her, but enough momentum in a projectile always had a chance of disrupting people.
For my toss, I imagined what I’d seen Great Girl do in the past. It wasn’t really close, but the inspiration helped me send the man end over end, resulting in him going foot first into Darkstargirl’s face. He hit just about the time she released her blast of stupid shiny black power, which shot from her flailing hand and streaked towards a nearly empty part of the park.
Nearly empty because there happened to be a news van there, just out of range of the explosion. Well, most of it anyway. Pretty sure I heard shattering glass, but the frame of the van was intact so they probably survived.
Not that we had time to worry about other people. Darkstargirl didn’t suddenly stop existing just because I sent her reeling, though she did seem to have caught her large fanatic and was lowering him slowly to- no wait she dropped him from like twenty feet up.
My plan was to catch the final piece of cover remaining. Spot was pretty close to my size, as he was a massive dog to begin with and we’d both been magically enlarged through different spells. Cel and Bun were half singed, but their other injuries were smaller as Stoneskin had prevented quite a bit of damage.
Midnight seemed to have a plan. At least, wherever he was running off towards the edge of the park he felt fairly hopeful. Maybe that was just a plan to take shelter, which I honestly didn’t think was a bad one. I’d been ready to fight a couple of these guys, not for Darkstargirl to show up a few moments later. Lesson learned, if I survived.
Something hot hit me in the side. No, it was cold. Freezing. Actually, it was both. It was a very unpleasant feeling, but it was a purely physical one. I thought it wasn’t nearly as bad as the direct mental anguish that Gloom caused. Speaking of which… wasn’t Gloom buddies with Darkstargirl now? If Gloom showed up, it would not be good. But Gloom couldn’t fly, I think, so hopefully we had time.
I staggered towards Spot, reaching out for him, but the Bunvorixian leapt backwards. I was prepared to charge after him, but large roots suddenly blocked my path- along with Cel and Bun. At the same time, another wave of heat and cold rolled over me. The roots and remaining stumps of the trees were all scoured away, leaving no cover for any of us.
I saw an evil grin on Darkstargirl’s face, and realized Spot had retreated to a safe distance. Looking around, the only thing of use I could find was my dropped staff, which I lunged for. My outfit had already protected me from quite a bit, but Francois was already going to be mad at the damage to said outfit and also myself. My staff was a bit sturdier.
It had grown with me as I first held it, but now it looked rather pathetic. Objects would shrink a few seconds after losing contact with the primary target. Even so, I held the staff in one hand, tilted across my body for all the good it would do. I actually managed to parry a small ball of blackness, but Darkstargirl was tossing attacks with both hands, half and me and half at the other targets she could find. Everyone was dodging around as they could but we were exhausted and this flying woman still looked fairly fresh.
I had felt Midnight cast Haste at some point, but the speed at which he was now moving was still outside the bounds of my prediction. It was a sudden acceleration that I couldn’t help but turn towards… and my head snapped up. He was like a streak of lightning through the sky, swiping his paw across Darkstargirl’s face as she held a particularly large orb of darkness over her head. He continued on through the air, and then he was falling as his arc continued. He certainly didn’t feel happy about that falling part, but I saw him land on his feet halfway across the park.
Sadly the attack didn’t stop Darkstargirl from charging her attack. I stood at the ready. Should I throw my staff? No, that was stupid. I did have enough mana to cast Mage’s reach, though, and position it closer to her so that any explosion would spread out before it reached us.
She didn’t even bother avoiding my obvious attempt to block… and she was right to do so, as while the staff held up just fine Mage’s Reach dissolved under the power. Sparkling black like the night sky flew towards me. And then my vision was filled with purple.
A scream more of anger than of pain came from in front of me. The explosion of dark power didn’t make it around the large figure- larger than even myself at the current moment. But the purple figure was only there for a moment. It then turned into a blur, as I just barely comprehended Great Girl backing up briefly… then charging forward, leaping into the air.
The panic on Darkstargirl’s face as she flew directly up into the air was quite satisfying, as was the way she tumbled head over heels a moment later. Presumably that part was Mono’s work as Great Girl didn’t manage to touch her.
Great Girl spoke in a manner I only barely understood from my previous exposure to Hasted people- Shockwave always knew how to modulate their speech rate properly. “I’mgoing toripyouapart!” Great Girl growled.
For her part, it looked like Darkstargirl believed her, flying even higher once she stabilized her spin. She looked towards something I couldn’t see then shook her head. “It’s getting too hot here. I’ll get you next time!” With that, she began to fly away.
That didn’t stop Great Girl in her wolfed out form from looking like she was going to pounce, but even Hasted and fifteen feet tall I wasn’t sure she could reach a hundred feet up.
“We can catch Spot!” I said, yelling to draw her attention and pointing towards the fleeing Bunvorixian.
She growled but nodded, almost bending over to all fours as she chased after the not-so-great dane. With Haste, it didn’t really matter if dogs were better runners… and Great Girl might be a step away from going full wolf.
I looked around when I felt a surge of power, and I looked down to see Movebrain standing there with a few sets of cuffs dangling from his hands. “We should probably start securing people.”
I took the biggest size available and went over to the big guy. “You’re going away for a long time, Titan.”
“It’s Titas,” Movebrain connected me.
The big guy grunted as I approached. He was in a half crouch, and he didn’t put up much of a fuss as I cuffed him. It looked like he had a broken ankle… from the fall maybe. Or from the collision with Darkstargirl, but either way that was his own problem. “… I like that name, actually,” he said. “Can I be Titan?”
Looking over at the news van and Zack Brannigan excitedly speaking into the camera, I shrugged. “Looks like it.”
My gaze soon ended up on Ceira, along with Cel and Bun. Bun… looked like he’d taken the brunt of the damage in the fight, and there was a lot of blood in his fur. I was fairly certain it was exaggerated by his size, and that some of it was probably Spot’s… but Ceira didn’t seem to be getting that.
She looked over at me as I approached. “Replenish won’t be- I don’t think I can heal this much! My mana…”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m sure it looks worse than it actually is.” The dog whimpering didn’t really help my case, but he might have been trying to agree with me. “If you leveled up, you’ll have a little bit more mana and some points you can spend to increase your efficiency. I’m sure you can do just fine.”
“… Right,” she nodded. “Points. I can… and with my mana…” she furrowed her brow as she grumbled to herself. “But all the trees…” She shook her head. “No, I have to do it.” She reached out her hand to Bun and cast a spell that was definitely not Replenish. I’d never seen it before, but given the amount of mana she put into it I could guess.
Apparently, she wasn’t as low as I had assumed from her earlier words. Then again, we were fighting in her domain. The park’s natural environment would improve her mana regeneration, and she might be able to draw more from it… though I couldn’t really say there was much in our immediate surroundings that I would call particularly druidy anymore.
I caught Ceira as her legs gave out, holding her so she could watch her spell work. Cel also watched with great interest as the wounds on Bun’s side closed up before my very eyes. The dog whimpered, but the way he nudged Ceira’s face it seemed more concern about her than himself.
“Regenerate, huh. I didn’t think you could cast that yet.”
“Well, I…” Ceira shook her head. “After the thing with your friend, I put a bunch of upgrades in it… and this one was enough, I guess.”
Unlike Replenish, which boosted natural healing in somewhat less immediate way, Regenerate was quite startling to watch. It even removed most of the blood from Bun’s fur, as presumably the rest of it wasn’t his.
“Young lady, do you happen to be looking for work?” I heard from next to us.
“… Huh?” Ceira tilted her head, still clearly a bit dazed.
Movebrain was standing there in his nicely tailored suit. “The Power Brigade could use a healer like you. Actually, if that power works on everyone, the New Bay Super Association would gladly hire you as well. I could get you in the door if you’re not interested in working for mercenaries.”
“… You’d do that? Why?” Ceira asked.
“Because the more people we have with healing powers in the city, the better. You’d free up other people to do more.”
Ceira frowned. “I’d never really thought about it. My healing wasn’t that good before.”
“I suppose you must have been practicing well,” Movebrain said.
“Well, sort of. But mostly I’m just able to cast a better spell now.”
“… Ah. Portal power?” he looked between her and me. I just nodded. “Well, if you can do that again, nobody’s really going to care where. It’s interesting, though, I didn’t think they could be that strong. Then again,” he looked at me. “Perhaps it’s because we mostly have untrained newbies.
“I’ve been busy!” I held up my hands. “And I don’t know anything about healing anyway.”
“If people can get this level of healing in less than a year… we really need to push this angle harder,” Movebrain said.
“Well, most people won’t be able to do this. For two reasons,” I added. “Mostly because they won’t have as much experience. But they also probably won’t have the full package.”
“Ah yes. I was briefed on that. Now that I think of it, you were the young woman Mage here was rescuing from Doctor Doomsday, correct?”
“Yeah,” Ceira sighed. “I really wouldn’t recommend that just to grow stronger more quickly.”
“Fair enough. But we can invest for a few years into the future easily enough,” Movebrain said. “Five or ten wouldn’t even be that bad if we can heal wounds like that.”
I wondered what he would think if he knew that healing wounds wasn’t even the astounding part of that spell. Well, I’d let Ceira make her own decision about whether she wanted to explain how that was supposed to work.