Author’s Note: Gore warning for the first half of this chapter. Just calling it out because that’s not the norm for this story, it’s mostly mild in my opinion. Look for the section break with ----- if you want to skip it.

The middle of combat was technically not the right place to learn a new spell and use it for the first time… but there were a large number of very sharp buglike things to contend with. I couldn’t take them out one at a time, and though I hadn’t used the spell I was choosing, I had studied it in preparation as one of my possibilities. The correct choice would have been getting this a few days ago and practicing, especially since I wasn’t tight on points, but people didn’t always make correct choices.

25 points. That sort of luxurious expenditure would be a dream half a year ago. That was how many points it took to learn a 13th level spell, with a similar mana cost. If I was familiar with the spell I might have tried to reduce my mana expenditure, but I didn’t want to lower power, range, or worst of all control.

Lightning crackled around the tip of my staff. It didn’t actually gain anything from originating there rather than my hand, except some flexibility in how I aimed. My first target was one of the large dog sized creatures with blades as front limbs. Followed by all of the ones behind it, and the larger examples with the wicked tails. And specifically not Great Girl, the ones immediately around her, or the elephant sized monstrosity.

The lightning moved not in a bolt, but in a bouncing wave, curving up and almost away from my target before arcing back down. The first target lit up briefly as lightning coursed through it, before chaining to the next, and the next. It was good that I had planned out its whole route ahead of time, because there wasn’t a moment to redirect it. Through a half dozen ‘small’ creatures, then one of the larger ones, a car, several more of the smaller ones, it finally fried two man-sized invaders before grounding itself in a stop sign, melting it.

A couple of the smaller ones actually exploded, and I knew I would never be able to use this on people without powers unless I could reduce its power to somewhere less than a tenth. The rest of the smaller ones were smoking piles of limbs on the ground, and the larger ones fell over, twitching. The car only exploded a little bit.

The whole display provided an opening for Grasp to deal with the lesser individuals around Great Girl, flinging them into each other in pairs, enhancing the power she could generate in any one area while at the same time avoiding damage to streets and surrounding buildings.

The size-changing woman had her teeth and claws fully out, and her Hasted form ducked and weaved around bladed claws and tails. I realized how much she had to hold back against regular people, because she quite easily cracked the exoskeletons of these monsters. If we hadn’t seen them attack people, it could have been a problem- no matter how inhuman they looked.

That left the big one, overall much more massive than Great Girl even at her largest- though it was shorter than her fifteen foot maximum. She ducked under its scissoring front claws as it tried to slice her apart, pushing herself to that maximum. I almost moved in to cast Enlarge, but I saw something more important to be doing. The portal being no longer stopped up behind the big one, there were at least another few dozen of the smaller varieties.

“Grasp! Try to keep them in the portal!”

I rushed forward, Haste close to wearing off for all of us. Half of it had been used up just getting here quickly. I didn’t have to actually touch the portal, but I needed to be closer. Grasp did her part, shoving the first wave back into the others and toppling them into a pile, then holding down the whole mass. Clearly not something she could keep up forever, but it provided me the time I needed to approach and then begin tearing apart the portal.

Something about it felt different from those I was used to… but that was probably a good thing. It was most likely natural, instead of caused by Doctor Doomsday. Either way, it responded to my spell, the ten foot diameter portal shrinking quickly to half that size, collapsing towards its center. I used the last of my mana to twist it fully closed, but as I was doing that one of the smallest creatures leapt through, perhaps having climbed the pile of things. A sharp claw cut down the front of my chest. Francois wasn’t going to be happy about that. But at least I was fine. The defensive material of my suit would have probably prevented most damage anyway, but I also didn’t go on patrols without Stoneskin.

I thwacked the creature with my staff, then again. And again. Exoskeletons were a pain. At least each consecutive hit stunned it or threw it off balance for a moment. Eventually, I cracked its head and it stopped moving. It would have been faster if I knew any of their weak points, because skulls hardly counted. They were tough for a reason.

Behind me, Great Girl had for some reason gotten in a sort of wrestling match with the huge one, her hands clasped on its arms just behind the large scythe blades. Her clawed fingers were digging into the exoskeleton, leaving marks as the two of them strained against each other. Then something snapped- it appeared to be the whole segment connecting the creature’s left claw to its body.

Great Girl yanked and then she had the creature’s claw in her grip. She spun it around and brought it around on the large one’s head, finding it was sharp enough to cut through the exoskeleton and spraying green and purple ichor everywhere.

-----

When the news vans arrived, Great Girl was still covered in ichor. There were giant dead bugs all over, a few crushed cars and one that might have been exploded by lightning but could have also been destroyed by something big and stompy, maybe.

I had to admit, though she was quite effective, there was perhaps a reason Stargirl had a bigger following. Besides being a hero and thus specifically advertised for, Stargirl also could fly and fight from a distance, keeping herself in pristine condition for photo ops. But also Great Girl could stomp her into a crater in the ground, and Stargirl was biased more towards easy jobs than being as effective as she could be.

Great Girl frowned hard as she looked at the carnage around her.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. “We managed to limit the casualties significantly for something so dangerous.” People were already being carted away in ambulances… though probably not all of them were alive. I had seen some death in the various portal incidents, and while it certainly affected me Great Girl had to have more experience.

She shook her head, “I’m not sure if these were the originals or the other version… I just hope they weren’t from our reality.” Technically, it was just hers. Though I did live here now, so maybe it was mine as well.

Dismantling the portal had returned most of the mana I spent on the process- otherwise I would have been reeling on my feet. I took a closer look, really feeling it. It turned out using Arcane Sight was unnecessary. “It’s not,” I said. “Just a random portal to some sort of other world.”

“Good. I really don’t want to have to deal with a swarm.”

-----

Wrapping up after the incident, nobody complained too much about the one exploded car. I would have to work on that, of course, as it would have been much worse if Chain Lightning jumped to a living target I didn’t intend. There was a lot of power in it. It was more than halfway to the top tier of spells, after all. Its power would be cut back a bit by it covering an area, but it still had more than twice the power- and more than twice the cost- of Sonic Lance.

“I think we worked well together,” Great Girl said.

“Well… yes,” I agreed.

“... You don’t sound like you mean that,” she countered.

“I do, but…” I frowned. “I’m not quite sure what it is. I think the team was well coordinated. Map got us there by the best route.” Of the squad, Map was the only one not present- but she was listening in. “This particular incident Mono was not able to show his effectiveness, as it was resolved quickly. But I have seen him in action previously. Grasp coordinated excellently with me, even with a new spell.”

“Was that a Chain Lightning, by the way?” Great Girl asked. “Told you it would be cool. My friends always talk about it.”

Did the rest of the squad not know she was a nerd? Looking at their faces… they definitely did. Who was she even hiding it from? “It’s good,” I admitted. “Back to my thoughts. You of course defeated the big one. Everyone was very effective.”

“... And?” she tilted her head, waiting.

“I’m not sure you actually need someone like me,” I said.

“What are you talking about?” Great Girl shook her head. “There was no way we would have gotten to the scene in time without you. And I was able to wrangle with that swarm because of Haste, too. Then you helped pare down the numbers. Grasp is good for dealing with a few at a time, but her power is never going to blast things with lightning.”

“Sadly,” Grasp nodded.

“So what’s your issue?” Great Girl asked. “It’s okay to be honest.”

“Well,” I shrugged. “I’m not quite sure. Aside from Chain Lightning, I mostly just contributed to improving the two of you.”

“And closing the portal,” Grasp pointed out.

“So?” Great Girl said. “You once Hasted Shockwave so they could go save their- go help support a retired super. That’s a big deal. And getting us to the scene quickly. You have amazing support abilities.” She leaned a bit closer, looking at me intently, “Supports are very important and no less than anyone else. Don’t forget that.”

“You’re right,” I had to admit.

“But…” Great Girl shrugged, “If you don’t feel comfortable in that role, then find something else. The Brigade had all sorts of options, though we appreciate having you here.”

“Agreed,” Grasp said. “Haste allows me to make more accurate use of tactical repositioning.”

Mono looked over at me with one eye. “... I haven’t gotten to have Haste yet.” He paused, almost to the point I thought that was all he was going to say. “But I can definitely see how quickened thought processes would help me.”

Map’s voice came through the nearby meeting room speakers. “Don’t underestimate your contributions! I calculated your efforts saved at least six to ten civilian casualties due to the rapid response.”

Great Girl looked at me, clearly thinking. “Is it an experience thing? Do you not get experience for buffs?”

“I get some experience for any contributions to combat,” I said.

“But less?” she asked.

“I believe so.” Though it was difficult to tell, because I could never have the same battle twice. Replicating the same battle in training would always give less experience, both because it was not serious and because it didn’t involve anything new.

“I see,” she nodded. “Anything big you’re saving for? A goal?”

“I… not really.” I shook my head. “Just being able to get experience at a reasonable rate has been quite exciting. Though I suppose I do want more levels just to be able to cast whatever I want.” Chain Lightning was already kind of close to the limit on how much mana I could control at once. It was now my highest level spell outside of Gate, so that made sense. But I couldn’t technically cast Gate at all, and I could barely use Chain lightning twice from full mana.

But I had some free points. And I now had enough variety of abilities that I should strongly be considering increasing efficiency. The only real question I had was whether spending points on upgrades limited my ability to gain ‘natural’ upgrades or not. Then again, being more efficient right away might just be worth it. There really wasn’t anything I had to rush towards. I just had a strange feeling I was going to need to keep increasing my levels. But that could have been all the years of missing out on being able to improve.