Waking up with only a modicum of muscle aches and bruising was an odd feeling. I almost didn’t recognize where I was, despite being a place I had lived in for over a month. Then again, I had probably spent more time away from my third apartment than living in it. Courtesy of Doctor Doomsday.

“Ugh, I hate that guy,” I muttered. If it had simply been that he tossed us through a portal to our probable deaths it would have been one thing. But he had specifically targeted Ceira just because I did the sensible thing and talked about my conversation with him. Though I didn’t have any indication he was going to honor anything to begin with. He might have already had the plan in motion from the time I refused to join him.

Some day, I was going to punch him in his smug face.

As I rubbed the sleep from my eyes I tried to remember what I had to do today. First was a status check, health and training and the like. Then a debriefing. Finally after that would be a meeting with Doctor Patenaude.

I could sense Midnight was already awake in his apartment across the hall. We ultimately made our way to the Brigade together, avoiding the most convenient route just in case Doctor Doomsday was watching. Our apartments had been thoroughly checked out while we were away, and they were found to not be compromised.

Hopefully Doctor Doomsday had forgotten about us. Or at least had other priorities. New Bay was a big place, and he had so many schemes going that one guy from a single mercenary organization shouldn’t matter to him too much. Though his ability to keep up so many schemes meant that as soon as I was back in the news, he would likely find out. Maybe he would want some re-revenge. I should keep my head down.

I shuddered. Was I afraid? It had to be me, I hadn’t even told Midnight what I was thinking. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

“A good question,” I responded. Well, I owed him at least that much. “I think I’m afraid of Doctor Doomsday.”

“Who isn’t?” Midnight replied. “He’s one of the biggest bads in all of New Bay. Anywhere on Earth, even. And he already caused us so much trouble.”

“But we survived and grew stronger so… I shouldn’t be afraid.”

“But are we enough stronger?” Midnight asked. “I don’t think his whole villain organization is something we can catch up to in a couple months.”

“So what do we do?” I asked.

“Same thing as always. Rely on all of our allies.”

I grimaced. I still wanted to punch the guy. Did… did the orcs who worked for him get to punch him? If they didn’t, were they just wasting their time not growing as much as they could? Maybe they didn’t even know how to make the most out of Aspect of the Barbarian. Somehow, I doubted Doctor Doomsday cared about their personal growth as long as they made competent minions for specific plans. Anyone who worked for him was an idiot swayed by promises of power. Though he did provide some power, a quick boost from equipment wasn’t as good as consistent long term growth. Though having both was nice.

-----

“It’s good to see that you weren’t overusing those mana crystals of yours,” Doctor Martinez commented. “Other than that, your health seems surprisingly good for the conditions. You gained a good bit of muscle and grew a little taller, even.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell the man that mana crystals were nearly pointless on a plane with five or more times the normal amount of mana regeneration. Theoretically I could get something like half an hour’s worth of mana over the course of a day from crystals, which wasn’t really worth it most of the time. I hadn’t needed to do that the entire time we were with the ancient orcs.

And now I was back here where the mana levels were… still higher than Mossley. Discernibly above the norm, and higher than when I left unless this particular room was an anomaly.

I felt like something was missing on the way out, but I couldn’t quite place what it was. I continued to ponder it until I came across Great Girl. “Hi Mage!” she waved and smiled.”

“Good morning,” I said. Then I punched her in the gut.

Even though that resulted in me being grappled on the floor a few moments later, I didn’t think it could have happened with a better person. “What the hell was that, huh? You under some kind of crappy mind control?”

“... I am not,” I said. “It’s just a bad habit I picked up. And why crappy mind control in particular?”

“Because if it was any good it wouldn’t involve you starting a purely physical confrontation with me,” Great Girl pointed out. “Also, how is punching people in the gut a ‘bad habit’?” She let me go so that we could face each other.

I gave a quick explanation of my time among the orcs. And why it made sense with everyone having Curse of the Barbarian.

“Huh. I get it,” Great Girl said. “But you’ve gotta warn a girl! And I don’t necessarily mean each time, but you were lucky to get out of this with all your bones still intact you know. Or like, your everything if you had spooked me too much. I can have claws and sharp teeth.”

“Hmm. Yeah,” I nodded. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” she said. “So, should I expect this in the future?”

“Well… probably not,” I admitted.

“Oh,” she sounded somewhat disappointed. “Why not?”

“I mean, you don’t get experience or anything so…”

“But you do,” she pointed out. “I don’t mind helping out. Especially if things are meant to be quick. Speaking of which…” she stood up. “I do have things I’m supposed to be doing.”

“Me too,” I admitted. Hopefully Calculator wasn’t too annoyed. Though if he was, he probably wouldn’t admit it.

-----

The full debriefing involved more than just the Brigade. Ceira and Izzy were part of it, and also some people from Extra. Specifically Malaliel, but not Zorphax. Well, it made sense that the Martian wasn’t here because this had nothing to do with anything Extraterrestrial.

Our job was to fill everyone in on the things that happened between Sending spells. Which was really quite a lot, as it turned out a few sentences wasn’t enough to describe a day.

“... So he had a permanent portal there,” Malaliel said. “Well, not that that’s unexpectedly criminal. But considering it was an especially difficult place to enter, we have to assume he can sustain portals to anywhere he is aware of. At least in theory.” The angelic woman pondered for a short time. “You are now able to traverse to your home dimension at will?”

“I should be able to. I haven’t actually attempted to go back just yet. It might be harder from this direction?”

“I see,” Malaliel nodded. “Either way, you need to become aware of some restrictions now that you have the ability. Extradimensional travel has restrictions for good reason, as I’m sure you have experienced. Your hometown was occupied, after all. Given those circumstances it was approved to bring through other members of the Brigade, but that may not always apply in the future. As long as we can confirm the security of these Gates we will not restrict you from returning to your home world, of course.”

Calculator interrupted, “And you have a work visa with us so you can always come back here.”

“To approved locations, so that we don’t have anyone panic,” Malaliel said. “Specifically, don't use your living room in the future.”

“I needed somewhere familiar.”

The angel nodded. “That is understood. But the situation is no longer an emergency, so it would be best if you stuck to approved locations. And if possible, give prior warning.”

“Ugh, sounds annoying.”

Calculator shook his head, “It’s probably not any worse than flying.”

People just flew from place to place without restrictions though? Oh right. On airplanes. I had heard about the necessary security involving them.

“Annoying as it is, we would also prefer you keep the amount of unnecessary extradimensional travel down. Though we do have a request related to that.” Malaliel shifted her wings behind her. “If you could act as an ambassador to your world, we would greatly appreciate it. It seems to be involved more than casually in Doctor Doomsday’s plots, and Extra would prefer to coordinate with them instead of coming into conflict. There’s no indication your world as a whole is attempting an invasion, after all.”

I frowned. “Listen. You’ve met me.”

“I have,” Malaliel agreed.

“I’d be a terrible ambassador.”

“You are capable of both traveling to the necessary place and communicating with the people there. Those are the most important qualifiers.”

“Or…” I drew the word out. “I could just bring someone else and make them talk. Because all of that also works for other people.”

“As long as you would remain available,” Malaliel said, “That would be acceptable. Though you still need to personally be involved in setting up relations in the first place. It is unlikely that they would be open to outsiders for a myriad of reasons. You at least know people there.”

“Yeah,” I admitted. “But the most important person I know is missing.”

“Something that might best be solved through cooperation,” Malaliel said.

That was actually something I hadn’t considered, and quite important. “I suppose so.” I looked at Malaliel. “Do you have a power?”

“You could consider it that way,” she said.

“So if you went you wouldn’t get a portal power. What about Zorphax? Do Martians have powers? Does he?” I frowned. “Can I just give people portal powers?”

“Don’t.” Malaliel’s words were firm. An order. “While it is none of our business to restrict individuals from gaining powers in general, we don’t know if it’s safe yet.”

“Literally everyone from my world has these abilities,” I pointed out.

“And everyone from elsewhere has had them for a year at best. So while the people of your world might be safe, we cannot guarantee that remains true for others,” Malaliel said sternly. “So on behalf of Extra, I wish to make it clearly known that unauthorized use of portals with the intent to give people powers is strictly forbidden.”

“... Don’t you wanna know, though?” I stroked my chin. “Oh. That’s why you said unauthorized huh?”

“We will not make such decisions likely,” Malaliel shook her head. “But the option will be left open for the future.”

“... My apprentice is already affected, can I bring him with me?”

“I would advise caution. And if I recall correctly, he is still young enough to require his guardian’s position.”

“Yeah, I’d ask his mom of course,” I said. It was strange. For most of my life, I’d wanted to get away from Mossley but found there was nowhere to go. Now I could go anywhere, and I was itching to go back. I’m sure Doctor Patenaude would have something to say about that later.

-----

Everything wrapped up in time for me to have a late lunch, though I hadn’t even gotten in any exercise or training yet so the day kind of felt wasted so far. Still, I found Sophia at lunch. Her mask was off, so that was her name.

“Don’t worry,” I said as she eyed my approach. “I wouldn’t waste food or break anything you were carrying on purpose.”

“It’s important to have those restrictions,” she nodded. “Though being on your guard in general is good. She’s at it again, you know? You should be careful.”

“She… who?”

“Dark Star,” Great Girl sighed. “Man, I hate her.”

“No really, who?” I tilted my head.

“Seriously, again? I thought we already went over this.”

I frowned. Dark Star. Dark. Star. Stargirl. Shooting Star. “... Is she Stargirl’s sister or something?”

“It is Shooting Star!” Sophia said. “You know, after she was broken out of prison.” I looked at her. She looked at me. “... Oh right, that happened while you were literally in another world.”

“Does that usually happen so fast?” I asked.

“Superheroes turning supervillain?” Sophia shrugged. “I mean, you know how she was. It’s not a surprise except for those who ignore the warning signs.”

“I meant the breaking out of prison thing,” I admitted. Either way, I kind of understood why Sophia had been so grumpy during our reunion. She had probably been dealing with all sorts of trouble. And based on people’s naming preferences, the edgy upgrade of her rival’s name was probably annoying. After all, Sophia didn’t have any choice but to be Great Girl, and now her rival got to be Darkstargirl.