Sparring against Izzy once more was slightly nostalgic, despite the vast differences in actual performance. I was now properly trained and over six feet tall, a serious advantage… with some notable drawbacks. I had reach and muscle, but it severely limited my patterns of attack. Punching someone at waist height was more than just a little bit difficult- and lowering my stance made my intentions obvious.

Given that she was faster without relying on powers- no class abilities that required mana usage at least- as well as having a level of physical strength greater than her body height would imply it wasn’t odd for me to suffer a defeat. My only real advantage was my more formal unarmed training.

Making use of my longer legs for sweeping attacks seemed like it would be valuable, but when I tried she managed to slip around and kick me in the back of my supporting knee. It wasn’t really damaging, but it threw me onto my back and opened me up to following attacks. Those unblocked strikes were a deciding factor in weakening my Force Armor. I managed to get to my feet and duck into a good straight right impacting her ribs, but a single good hit wasn’t enough and she countered with her own uppercut to my jaw. As Force Armor shattered there was barely any remaining force behind the blow, so it just shoved my head back slightly.

I sighed. “Lost again, huh. We’re going to have to even the playing field for the next round.”

“Oh yeah?” Izzy said with her hands on her hips. “Gonna cast Slow?”

“Oh. I still need to learn that,” I nodded as I made my mental note. I didn’t have to save points anymore as I already learned Gate. “But obviously that would be too much. You’d just have to use your abilities to counteract it, which would kind of ruin the point of a vaguely even playing field. There’s a better option. Midnight can use a beneficial spell on you to even the playing field.”

“How would that work?” she raised an eyebrow.

“It’s pretty easy,” I said. “Enlarge should make us basically the same height.”

“Can do,” Midnight said helpfully, refreshing the Force Armor on both sides first. It only cost about 1.5 mana for each use, so while it wasn’t fully sustainable he had plenty of uses available. Enlarge was closer to 3 points, with a higher level and fewer upgrades.

Looking at Izzy being eye level again, I wondered how I ever thought she was a kid. Maybe some combination of baggy clothes and wishing for a friend. With Enlarge she was actually slightly taller than myself. That was both a combination of its upgrades and Izzy’s actual height. At more or less three feet tall, she was either tall for a woman or halflings weren’t actually half human height. Just close.

Our next fight was more of a brawl and reminded me that our former closeness, tenuous as it had been, had been founded on a solid core of what I cared about in friends. It wasn’t the only thing now, but the ability to punch someone in the face for experience was nice.

At this size, Izzy was slower than normal but somewhat stronger. More importantly, she was the one unused to fighting opponents of her size, since her last regular experience had been more than a decade prior. She still had more total combat experience and her level was still ahead of mine. Even without spending mana for things it had intangible effects that couldn’t just be ignored or turned off. Not that I would have wanted her to go easy on me.

When our next round of blows ended, the two of us were sprawled out on the blacktop with various bruises developing. I honestly didn’t know which of us had continued fighting after Force Armor broke, but we both had the basic level of control to not seriously hurt each other. I had missed doing this. Yet I was also reminded of the pain of loss and separation- things wouldn’t just go back to how they had been, nor should they.

“Wow,” Jerome commented as he leaned over me. “You two really went at it, huh?”

I’d forgotten that he and Tylissa were still around. Midnight I couldn’t ignore, both as my current access to magic and as a constant mental companion. “Casual training is much less effective.”

“Was that training?” he asked. “Did you learn anything?”

“It’s hard to fight people half my height,” I replied. “Could probably ask Great Girl about that. Either way, I got 22 experience. So yes.”

“Does that count as learning though?” my apprentice said as he helped me to my feet. “It’s just… growing stronger.”

“I can learn a new spell,” I said. “So I’d say so.”

“Ugh. Whatever.”

“Speaking of which,” I said, “You learned a Scrying spell without me? We didn’t really get a chance to talk about that. I’m impressed.”

Jerome nodded, “I knew you could use Scrying and stuff. I just tried to make it happen. Ultimately it was more like Locate Object and Arcane Eye.” He concentrated for a second, “Now that I have this window, it says it’s ‘Basic Scrying Magic’.”

“Like what happened with light,” I said. “Interesting. Also- your window is in English, I presume?”

“Well, obviously,” Jerome said. “I don’t speak anything else.”

“Mine is in common. I’ve just been translating.”

Midnight had his own thing to add to the conversation. “Mine is in Celmothian. So is yours when I can see it.”

“And the inverse for me looking at your window,” I agreed. “It’s fairly well known that it shows up in the natural language of its users. Less well known is what it looks like for those who can’t read. All I can say is… I couldn’t read it.”

After that, I spent some time explaining the mechanics to Jerome and Tylissa. Well, aside from the basics Izzy was more helpful for Tylissa- she knew how scout abilities worked, after all. Now that they apparently had the full package of a class including points from levels, they would want to spend those points vaguely efficiently. I wasn’t sure what that meant anymore, given what could be done with training. Would it be better to maximize one thing and train others? If the total level applied to the training difficulty, that would be the case. Otherwise, some combination would allow a few key abilities to grow to greater heights. I suggested they take a few days to think about what they wanted to do with the points. They couldn’t just be taken back after they were spent.

And having just learned that things weren’t as they seemed, I mentally tried to unspend some points. Shield seemed like a safe bet, in case I broke something. Despite various attempts, nothing happened. I even tried my best to believe it was possible, to the same lack of results. That was comforting, in a way. Not everything was turned on its head.

-----

With the click of a pen, Doctor Martinez was finished with his inspection and writing the results. “Okay, Mage. I can now give you a clean bill of health. There doesn’t seem to be any lingering effects. However,” he waggled his finger, “That doesn’t mean you have an excuse to just start messing around with crystals again. Having you out of commission for a week is one thing, having you be dead would be something much more difficult to fix.”

Even though we didn’t know if it was possible to kill myself with that, I understood the point. “I get it, doctor. But speaking of messing around with crystals…” He sighed. “I would like to confirm that forming them doesn’t come with any consequences. Since you just inspected me, you should be able to get a clear picture.” I could tell he wanted to object, “Look, I’m not going to not use what power I have if I need it. This will just let me know if my preparations are dangerous.”

“Fine,” he agreed. “But if I confirm it comes with its own buildup, I need a promise to be careful.”

“I promise,” I said. “This recent thing all involved my nemesis and apprentice, I’ve been careful otherwise.”

“Alright,” he said. “Go ahead.”

I gathered mana, forming a crystal in my palm. It grew in all directions, eventually reaching the edges of my palm- though that was with the various offshoots. It wasn’t completely covering things, as I should imagine for something containing somewhere around four points of crystallized mana. That was all I could comfortably make with Mana Crystal Deposition, about half of my thirty-one mana spent to produce the crystal.

I felt the cross sectional scanning power of Doctor Martinez carefully move through my body, starting with my head and down to my torso, then out to my limbs. “No signs of crystals. Can you do that again?”

“Give me a few minutes,” I said. I didn’t want to fully run out of mana, and taking breaks between using huge chunks was good anyway.

After repeating the process, Doctor Martinez confirmed the same results. “I still see no buildup. So you can do that part of things a reasonable amount. But try not to make too much or you’ll be tempted to consume them.”

He was right about that, so I planned to limit myself to one per day until I had a handful at most, even if that meant leaving a bunch of mana unspent and potential recovery unavailable. Wouldn’t do much good if I hurt myself again, and twenty or more spare points of mana would be sufficient.

-----

Squad C-4 was finally back on patrols together. There was some expected downtime after the latest portal incident, but I specifically was out of commission for actual duty. With a cleanish bill of health and the go ahead to use magic again, I was eager. I could even try out a new spell if something came up, circumstances permitting. Though realistically, it would be useful against any villain. The problem was quantity, as I could only affect a few targets.

Our entire squad was patrolling together, including Rocker. He was nearly done with his community service requirement- in fact I was fairly certain he could be done if he wanted to. There was just the option to actually negate his record instead of just completing his time, after which he could get back to whatever civilians with sonic powers did. Or join someone as a super. Sure, he’d been pretty crazy back at the mall but he’d mostly caused property damage. Insurance didn’t like that regardless of repair supers existing, but it was on the lower boundary of crimes. It was only a big deal because of the amount, the fact that he used powers, and the whole part where he resisted arrest.

With Handface gone I was pretty confident that we weren’t going to be targeted specifically. However, I’d heard over and over that overconfidence was dangerous. Thus, in addition to ourselves Midnight and I used Force Armor on Ice Guy and Shockfire. They were the most vulnerable of the group, because even though Captain Senan was the strongest of us, he still had to be able to create a barrier or some such to resist an attack. Acid Man and Rocker had reactive powers- which put them both in a coveted tier of abilities that were resistant to most mundane dangers. Thinking of bullets in particular, Acid Man would just have a hole through him that didn’t matter, and Rocker’s power would deflect or limit the kinetic impact of reasonable projectiles. That included rifles.

Unreasonable was where alien or super tech came into the picture- both more advanced, but one simply outside of the scope of Earth’s general usability and the other not able to be understood by anyone except with powers. Super tech might actually function by normal rules, but nobody had figured out if there was an actual connection to the current understanding of the universe.

The call came in at the same time as we were a block away from the bank. It wasn’t a coincidence- we were contacted as the closest supers. The timing was just convenient for us to rush over to find a group of individuals who were only barely masked. Big bulky guys, they were dressed mostly in black. They shimmered strangely as I felt some sort of power around them. Atypical for mooks in this world, they carried large axes. Guns were available enough and the thought of going into melee combat with supers was unappealing for most.

“Hey, Turlough,” Midnight said. “Don’t they, uh… hmm. What I’m trying to say is they share some features I can’t help but notice.”

I tilted my head. “Tall?” No, that wouldn’t be it. Ah, I got it. “Oh, you mean the green skin and tusks? Didn’t know there were this many orcs in New Bay.” I looked towards Captain Senan. “So you going to do the thing?”

“I was just appraising the situation,” he said. “And also it’s not strictly necessary where an obvious crime is in progress. Even so…” he took a breath. “Halt! You’re under arrest!”

The orcs acted as expected. Which was to say they turned, hefted their large axes, and charged towards us. A simple Firebolt seemed like a good start, so I aimed straight for the chest of one. My spell splashed against the shimmering nothing around them. “Hmm. Interesting.”