With the information he had something potentially important, Jerome was escorted off to a different place. They weren’t going to take out an unknown piece of potential Doctor Doomsday tech in the middle of Power Brigade HQ. He was escorted away by both Calculator and Captain Punch, so I wasn’t particularly worried about his safety- and even if I had been able to go there wasn’t much I could do. I wasn’t supposed to use magic on threat of strangling by Doctor Martinez- if further overuse of magic didn’t kill me first. My physical combat capabilities, while above the average human, were still not on a level that properly competed with supers.

It bothered me. For how much I’d grown recently, there were still things I couldn’t do. Even opening the gates to get to Jerome and back was outside of my true capabilities. I needed Midnight to just barely squeeze by. Though… it shouldn’t bother me to rely on Midnight. He was my familiar. A member of my squad, roommate, near-constant companion for the last few months. I tried to understand, and decided that relying on him was only a small part of it. Some of the rest was not my own mental discombobulation.

Perhaps sensing something, Midnight began a conversation. “Penny for your thoughts, Turlough?”

“I don’t accept worthless denominations of currency,” I replied. “I was considering my lack of power and wishing I had more.”

“You have more than most people will ever get,” Midnight pointed out.

“Not anywhere I’m used to. In my former world, I would be approximately average for my age, except for the random weird things I’ve learned. Here, I mainly interact with supers who have more power, endurance, or both.”

“Some of them, yes,” Midnight admitted. “But you make good use of the powers you have.”

Maybe I did. But I didn’t like passing through on the bare minimum. Things could have gone so much better with the portal or on the other side. “That’s about all I got,” I admitted. “I feel like you have concerns that are not just wondering if you could have been infected with lycanthropy.”

“I suppose. I don’t know if it’s really important or anything. It can wait.”

“I will admit I cannot do much right now,” I nodded. “But that does not mean you need to wait to voice your concerns. I can feel how much you care. I hear it might do good to speak of it.”

“Well…” Midnight began slowly. “I was thinking, now that you have Gate…” Midnight continued to hesitate. “No, nevermind. We should at least wait until you have more levels so it’s not so straining.”

“Midnight,” I reached out to pat him on the head, “I appreciate your understanding of my condition, but you still did not say anything about what you want. Yes, it will likely have to wait. If it’s for Gate… maybe five or ten levels. That could be six months, a year… I’m honestly not sure. But I should know what you are waiting for.”

“I want to go home,” Midnight said. “Or at least try to. I mean-” he corrected hastily, “I don’t plan to abandon you or anything after all you did and your investment into me. And I like the life I have here, but…”

“You want to see your family,” I nodded. “Let them know you are alright.” As one who didn’t ever have a real family, I didn’t directly relate, but I knew that was a thing people were supposed to want.

“Yeah,” Midnight nodded. “We could visit.”

“I… don’t know if it will work,” I admitted.

“Why not?” Midnight asked. “Is it too far? Do you need to know what it looks like? I could help with that.” From Midnight’s mind I felt what were almost images, memories of a place I couldn’t quite grasp.

“It’s just… you’re an alien, right?” I asked. “From another planet in this dimension?”

Midnight nodded. “Yes, that seems to be the case. Celmoth has no direct contact with this place. Mostly those jerks from Bunvorix. But some of us end up here, and it should be the same dimension.”

“Then… it might not work,” I admitted. “Gate is meant for crossing dimensional boundaries, not moving about within one.” Sensing disappointment, I hastily continued, “That’s not saying there aren’t other options. Teleportation, maybe. Though it would likely require some sort of target point. Preferably a magic circle set up for such things.”

“... We have teleportation pads?” Midnight tilted his head.

“I would need to know their rune sequence… but yours use technology, right?” I frowned. “It seems… difficult. Though there are other options. If you just want to get in contact, there’s easier magic for that. I haven’t bothered to learn any because cell phones exist here. But Sending should work at any distance or across planar boundaries. It’s not a great quantity of communication at once, but you could even use that yourself. Next level, I suppose.”

“That would be… quite reasonable to start with,” Midnight admitted. “I would like to be there in person, at some point, but that sounds much more manageable. I would appreciate you picking that ‘Sending’ spell up at your earliest convenience.”

“Soon,” I promised. “I get a lot of experience for nearly dying. Or getting into a fight that has the risk, I suppose. I don’t know if actually getting injured makes a difference.”

“I would argue that the injuries are not worth it, even if they do. Not if you end up like this.”

“Half of this is just… overestimating my magical capabilities and also how many mana crystals are safe to use.” If all went well, the crystals in my blood vessels would dissolve in a couple days and things would be good. My injuries could undergo more accelerated healing tomorrow at the latest, once my body could handle it.

A knock at the door revealed another figure, prompting us to turn to look. It was Jim, in his outfit that was a calming sky blue arrangement of cloth that gave him a somewhat humanoid shape so people wouldn’t freak out upon seeing him. It also very clearly said Power Brigade: Jim on it (with a small representation of him to indicate that he was supposed to look like that). Seems like it was a lot of trouble just existing. He said something- a greeting- and I waved back.

“Hi Jim! Sorry, no Translation magic going on right now so I can’t use your proper name. Doctor said I should avoid using magic, too.”

“I suppose I can speak in your near unpronounceable human tongues,” Jim slunk into the room, moving in a way that looked unnatural since he didn’t really have legs to take steps with. I wasn’t sure what else I would have expected from someone whose entire body seemed to just be tentacles though. “I heard you were injured in the most recent portal incident and some personal matters, and came to visit.” There were parts of his speech that sounded like nobody was saying them despite there being words, while other parts sounded like two or three people were speaking at once, sometimes making his words unclear.

“Thanks,” I said.

Midnight interrupted before I could say much more. “I can still use magic. That should be fine, right?” I nodded. Having magic cast on me would probably have different results than trying to use it myself. And if I learned otherwise… well, we would know for the future. Everything felt fine as I sensed Midnight’s mana flowing into both of us.

“Well then,” I adjusted my language to Jim’s. “As I was saying, thanks for coming to visit, --------.” He perked up as I uttered his actually unpronounceable name. Jim understood that people literally couldn’t address him ‘properly’, but that didn’t mean he didn’t like hearing his proper name if it was possible or speaking in his own native tongue. Like pretty much everyone, I supposed. Now that I actually spoke both Common and English, I could say I didn’t have that much preference… but clearly there was some, as Translation still made everything seem like Common to me.

“Thank you, Midnight,” Jim bowed his body towards him. “I find this much preferable.”

“It’s no big deal,” Midnight said. “Just a bit of effort for us to all be comfortable.”

“I didn’t have much reason to visit besides offering my wishes for your swift and full recovery,” Jim said.

“Well, if you need to be going, I don’t mind,” I said. “But you can hang around for a while if you want. I believe Midnight and I were between discussions.” I looked at him for visual and mental confirmation, which I got.

In the end, Jim did stay awhile. We talked about what I’d been through, Jim’s experience with the portal stuff, and then daily life. Jim talked about not having many friends, but if we didn’t count people from work I was pretty sure he beat me out. He’d been in New Bay for years, after all, and was friends with a few mundane people who were actually willing to give him the time of day or not run screaming. For that, I applauded the fact that he never just bundled himself up completely but was willing to walk around with his true self on display.

At the same time, Jerome was off dealing with things I would hear about later.

-----

Jerome was now looking at a mad scientist. Living in New Bay his whole life had taught him to not make assumptions about people, and that included tech supers. Some of them were surprisingly normal, often CEOs or where they didn’t have the leadership skills they took other high ranking positions in companies seeking to develop things that could be replicated by those without powers.

This woman, however, was a mad scientist. She had long white hair that was waving about on its own, as if there were a wind of some sort in the underground bunker they’d come to. She had goggles and wrinkled skin where things weren’t covered up by tubes and wires coming from her overdone outfit.

“You said it’s small, right kid?”

“About like this?” Jerome tilted his head, motioning to indicate a small box.”

“Will it fit in there?” she gestured to something that looked like a safe made out of lightning.

“I think so,” he said. “I’m not sure how I’m supposed to get it in though.”

“Just drop it through the top,” she said.

Jerome looked over his shoulder to a window where he could see his mother watching. She was not necessary for what was being done, so she couldn’t be in the room, but just letting her into a secure facility like this was more than enough. Didn’t stop Jerome from being nervous though. He could see Calculator next to her, one of the Power Brigade’s executives. Even he wasn’t in the room.

Captain Punch was, though. The burly man barely fit into his outfit, which simply had a fist emblazoned on his chest. “Alright kid,” he said. “Can you just pop it out wherever?”

“From somewhere I’m touching, more or less.”

“Show me,” the mad scientist said, leaning in eagerly.

“Sure, uh… ma’am.”

“Oh! We haven’t been introduced. I’m Vilhelmiina Koskinen.” She nodded. “I don’t do any of that secret crap, so no stupid name like Captain Punch here.” The mercenary twitched slightly, but didn’t refute her claim.

Jerome demonstrated with a pen, pulling it into storage and making it appear near the tip of his finger. “I can hold onto it as it comes out, but the tip of my finger is about as far as it goes.”

“What about your toes?” the mad scientist lady asked.

“I… haven’t tried?”

Captain Punch held up a hand. “I think that’s enough for the moment. Attempting to contort his body for minimal range would likely result in unnecessary danger. Just stand behind me, reach your hand over the containment unit, and drop the device in.”

“Alright,” Jerome nodded. “Are we ready?”

“Fine,” Vilhelmiina said, rolling her eyes. “I’m ready. I have questions for after.”

Captain Punch stepped right up to the containment unit, nearly touching it with his pecs. Jerome stood behind him as indicated, reaching around with his arm. “Okay, dropping in three… two… one…” Jerome used Storage to pop out the device he’d found. A small cube dropped into the lightning cage, passing through the top easily but not falling out the bottom.

The cube distorted and bent, growing larger with a concerning fluctuation of energy Jerome could vaguely feel. Then it snapped back into its previous size and shape. “Ah ah ah,” Vilhelmiina wagged her finger. “No self destructing, little mystery box. I must pry apart your secrets first.” She looked it over. “Yes, definitely Doctor Doomsday’s work. It radiates just the right type of careless disregard for everything and the minimalistic design to accomplish what it needs to do.” She nodded. “It will take some time to inspect, but it is properly contained. You should properly reward this young man for managing to bring this.” Then her eyes snapped to him with a crazed grin, “So about that magic…”