The squad was back together just the next day, even Rocker- though he was barely waddling about. Captain Senan had offered to have our meeting in his recovery room, but he insisted on getting up and about.

“I want you to know I’m proud of all of you,” the captain said with a smile. “Even you, Joe,” he looked at Rocker. “Though don’t do anything foolish like that again. You’re not invincible. Clearly.”

“And my axe got busted,” Rocker sighed. “What a shame.”

“... when did you get an axe?” I asked. “I thought you only had a guitar.”

“I think it’s another word for guitar…?” Midnight said cautiously from my shoulder.

“Oh.”

Captain Senan returned to his speech. “The fact that we can all stand here today, even if we’re all a bit beaten and battered, is a clear sign of improvement. In six months, or less for some of you, a team of newbies banded together to take on one of the highest profile superheroines in the city. You weren’t even fresh.” He turned to Joe, “And though you weren’t present for that, I am confident your contributions would have been valuable. It was only with your help that we made it that far relatively intact.”

Acid Man spoke up. “Our victory was only thanks to you, captain. My attacks were hardly useful. And Mage slowing her, of course.”

“I did make her easier to take out,” I admitted. “But barely more than that. That new ability you pulled off was critical. And Shockfire actually managed to directly rebound attacks from her.”

“That’s right. Everyone contributed admirably,” the captain nodded proudly. “And that includes Midnight, dealing with the supporting Bunvorixian. Ignoring him could have gone quite badly. On that topic, it was determined that he was properly registered- but that doesn’t absolve him from responsibility for criminal assault. Our lawyers will be dealing with that for the next few months.”

I had a concerning thought. “Do you think they would have attacked if I wasn’t there?”

“Does it matter?” he tilted his head. “You didn’t do anything wrong. If a heroine like her can’t control herself, she shouldn’t be in that position. On that matter, though, we will need to be cautious in public for a while. There’s no guarantee she doesn’t have more portal power fans who might come for any of us. And her squadmates… might not take it well. Remember, the law only protects you from subsequent attacks. We have to survive first. On that topic, we’ll be engaging in a period of special training and staying off the streets for a while. If you don’t know what you should work on, I can provide some ideas based off of the last mission.”

I did have ideas, of course. All sorts… including some oddities to sort through in my abilities. I understood that training could directly result in improvements… but except for Mana Crystal Deposition, nothing had two upgrades from training. I wasn’t sure if I needed more focus or to do something special. Every increase I could manage there would save me points that could be spent in other areas, while still providing the power and efficiency.

I thought about what I would work on first as I stepped out of the meeting room, only to come face to face with another figure. Well, close enough. I was taller, wider, and all around bigger. No, it wasn’t Great Girl in her natural form. Rather, it was the slight figure of Shockwave with their arms crossed, leaning against the wall. “Word on the street is you have improved your abilities with Haste.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Really? How did you hear that?”

“I have my sources,” they grinned.

I grabbed Midnight by the scruff of his neck, dangling him in front of me. “Does this have something to do with the large fish that appeared in the kitchen last night?”

“It was fresh tuna, Turlough! How could I resist?”

“Given that Shockwave wouldn’t have known anything had happened without some information, someone must have solicited a bribe,” my eyes narrowed as I stared at Midnight, his eyes turning away from my gaze.

“Look, it really doesn’t matter who said what first, right?” Midnight laughed nervously. “Maybe you should show our friend what we can do?”

“... I would make you do it, but I suppose it’s outpacing Familiar Bond again. Fine, let’s go. Anything in particular you had in mind? The track again?”

“At some point,” Shockwave said. “But today I want to try something in one of the training rooms.”

The Brigade almost always had some rooms available, and as long as we weren’t going to smash anything up it was easy to snag one with a bit of waiting otherwise. Not every room was able to adaptively recover- and if they were they could only do so much with available material. Sometimes they were scheduled for something specific later, limiting the options. The worst we would do, however, was damage the paint. And maybe some speakers.

“Not gonna like,” Shockwave said, “I don’t remember if we’re even or if one of us owes the other favors.” They shrugged. “We can just say the balance shifts more towards me owing you something.”

“I can definitely think of ways you can repay me. I have some things to test.”

“As long as it doesn’t hurt,” Shockwave shrugged, then looked at me. “... It won’t hurt, will it?”

I thought back to Stargirl flying at me, deflecting her with my staff and the cussing that followed. “... We will start slowly and if it does hurt we can stop.”

“Speaking of Slow,” Shockwave said as we entered one of the tall, cylindrical rooms. “I want you to use that on me.”

“I thought you hated that?” I asked.

“I do!” Shockwave said emphatically. But it’s for training. Actual training and not… fun training.”

“Alright,” I nodded. “How slow?”

“How slow?” They tilted their head. “The slowest, I guess? How slow will that be?”

“One moment.” Let’s see. Two-thirds at base. Five total upgrades. Somewhere around fifty-eight percent, but at full power that was another quarter. Somewhere around forty-seven percent. “Slightly less than half speed,” I said.

“Bleh, sounds awful. Yeah, do that.”

“Alright, are you ready?”

“Man, that’s a big question. Is anyone ever ready for this?” Shockwave sighed. “Go ahead.”

I gathered five points of mana, reaching out towards Shockwave. The gesture wasn’t completely necessary, but it was the easiest way to mentally aim. A cloak of time draped over Shockwave.

“Is… it… done?” Shockwave asked. I nodded. “Ugh, I hate this. Though it does put me a bit closer to talking ‘normally’.”

After that, Shockwave took off, running around the room. Reducing their speed by half did not suddenly make them not a speedster. It just meant if we were racing I would get lapped fewer times. The small room still didn’t take long to make a full loop around, though I could actually vaguely see Shockwave at the far side of the room, where my eyes didn’t have to travel as quickly.

There was still somewhat of a trembling breeze as they passed, ruffling my coat and hair. “Hmm, not good enough,” Shockwave mumbled on one of the loops. I wasn’t sure what the plan was, so I just watched Midnight.

We had stopped by to pick up a training dummy, where Midnight was practicing swipes with his claws. When regular cat sized, those weren’t really dangerous without the addition of magic, but I could tell he was practicing for maximum contact. Shocking Grasp would be most effective that way, though it didn’t need more than a couple moments. During a battle, however, one would expect an enemy to be trying to avoid you.

Midnight also conjured up Mage’s Reach, maneuvering a floating paw to shove the training dummy directly in the chest and then the jaw. Though it wasn’t particularly stable, the stand at least held it up against the force he could provide. Even when he used Enlarge- though he was certainly closer to knocking it down. And he was able to reach higher with his actual paws, targeting the midsection and looking actually dangerous with his claws and teeth.

It took a while to figure out Shockwave’s actual reason for training. It was the second cast I noticed them running as quickly as they could- an effort I never actually could perceive if they were hasted. When I was finally asked to take times, I saw a better than marginal increase between two consecutive laps.

Then, halfway through the third casting, somewhere around forty seconds in, Shockwave suddenly was no longer slow as they looped around towards me. I didn’t manage to click the timer as I was avoiding being bowled over, though Shockwave did turn before actually barreling into me.

“... alright…?” I heard part of a question, with Shockwave now standing in front of me.

“That was loud,” I said. “Give me a second to recover.”

“What even happened?” Shockwave asked. “It should have continued for a while, right?”

“Were you fighting against it?”

“Well, sure. That was kind of the point of the training. Pushing my boundaries while slower.”

I shrugged, “You broke the spell.”

“That… wasn’t quite the intent,” Shockwave mentioned. “I was trying to limit the shockwaves I let off. Like your Freedom thing does. I could go faster and… not break windows. I think it was working but…”

“But you negated the spell.”

“Yeah. That. Does it have something to do with my powers?”

“Anyone can,” I said. “But your powers might make it easier. Only one way to find out. If you focus on that specifically…”

As it turned out, it only took Shockwave ten seconds to do when focused on that. That was still ten seconds of being less than half speed- potentially a very critical ten seconds- but it bypassed most of the duration.

“Midnight, try it on me please.” I didn’t have much mana left- enough for another two casts. “I want to see how long it takes me.”

Then I was slow. With few reference points besides Midnight and Shockwave it wasn’t extremely clear, but the way they stood and shifted was as if they were in fast forward. Which meant Shockwave had a lot of experience looking ‘normal’ all the time, because I hardly even noticed that. But since they had to do that for speech, I assumed it worked the same for other things.

I felt slow, even though my thinking and movement were both equally slowed together. There was just something weird about moving around. Then I remembered I was supposed to be negating the spell. Not with my staff, though- that would ruin the purpose.

It didn’t take too long to throw off. Maybe fifteen seconds. I guess if we had similar willpower, Shockwave’s power didn’t help.

“Not bad,” Midnight said. “That was like forty seconds.”

“Oh, right. I was slowed.” It felt like fifteen or twenty seconds, because my perception of time was slowed. How scary. “Let’s try one more time, to see if it’s a matter of practice or if Shockwave is just better able to resist.”

I didn’t waste any time at the start wondering at the weirdness of being slowed and got straight to unraveling it. It was like trying to push away a heavy blanket with my mind, and I felt myself get tangled up in it for a while. But I found I was every so slightly faster- a few seconds of real time.

“Well,” I said. “Considering that you broke through that in ten seconds of real time, either your power helps or you have natural talent in that regard. I don’t really have other spells to compare, so…”

“That’s good I suppose,” Shockwave said. “Though now I have to resist it but not break it to continue the training. How much more can you do?”

“About two,” I said. “Then I’ll have to rest for a while.”

“Great.” Shockwave nodded, “We’ll do that, maybe have lunch or a snack… then we can try the thing you wanted to do. Or we could wait for another day.”

“Today should be good, but I’ll still need mana.” I wondered what negating powers felt like. I didn’t have anything innate to myself, so even if I dispelled everything it would only set me to normal. It might hurt, given Stargirl’s reaction, but that could also have had something to do with punching a staff and crashing into metal crates. Also my limited attempts with my squad mates hadn’t shown much there. I was interested to find out.

And maybe improve some of my spells a second time, if I could learn what was stopping me- be it simple practice or a trick.