The loud sound of a gunshot rang out. Sir Kalman staggered back half a step. And that was the end of that. Maybe there was a small dent? If so, it faded away fairly quickly.

“I’d say that’s sufficiently bullet resistant,” Calculator said. “Now we should get back on track. The sooner we get there, the sooner people can act.”

It had only been a shot from a pistol, but that sort of thing was enough to shatter my Force Armor spell. Obviously a bit of low level magic wasn’t going to be as strong as properly enchanted steel, but it was surprising how much difference there was. Then again, the more important layer of defense was my outfit which could stop a few shots as well. Just not so effortlessly.

It had just been a test to make sure Sir Kalman would be at least somewhat protected, given how annoying it would be to lose our otherworld diplomat. I certainly didn’t want to have to explain that, and besides I liked this guy. There was always the chance that he would still die- battles with supers and those who worked with them weren’t exactly save- but it was just as likely that both of us or just myself would die, cutting off all access to my former world and making everything pointless. And I wouldn’t be around to have to deal with it, so bringing Sir Kalman along was fine.

Calculator shuffled us along quickly to a car that brought us to the airport. I’d heard about planes and how annoying it was to actually get aboard them, but we drove directly onto the airfield with only a brief stop by someone with a scanning power. Perks of working for a fancy mercenary organization, most likely. Then we got directly onto a fancy jet, walking directly up some stairs.

Aside from the pilot, there was exactly one other person there. Calculator introduce the man, dressed in plain clothes. “This is Zakaria Beridze, from Extra. It is his job to help with verification of world resonance and confirmation of extraction as we find individuals from your world.”

“A pleasure to meet you,” Zakaria extended his hand. “I’m not much use as a combatant, but I can at least help smooth the process. Especially if identities can’t be verified easily.”

Sir Kalman and I shook his hand in turn. I didn’t really know what to say, so I went with vague greetings. Midnight extended his paw as well, and Zakaria didn’t hesitate for a moment to reach out and shake it.

Not long later, we were preparing for takeoff… and I was about to fall asleep in the wide chairs. The only thing that kept me from passing out was the desire to actually see what achieving flight was like, and the creaking of Sir Kalman’s armor as he nervously shifted in his seat.

It was a strange feeling, becoming heavier then almost feeling weightless for a moment before finally returning to the realm of normalcy. It was strange, looking down on New Bay from above. It looked so small, and I supposed compared to the size of the world it was small. But its towering buildings and density made it seem far vaster than it really was… and compared to any city from my world, it certainly had more to it, given it was a conglomeration of continuous cities that had merged together to better resist the troubles of the increasing supernatural occurrences in the area.

I looked over at Sir Kalman, who was frozen in place instead of jiggling his leg or drumming on his knee like he had been. “Are you alright?”

“... People were not meant to fly.”

“Of course we were,” I said. “That’s why there’s a spell for it.”

“How does such a large metal thing stay in the air?”

“Mostly by going very fast, and pushing itself along,” I said. There was also some stuff with lift and whatnot, but that hardly mattered. It was all about being tossed into the air really fast. I looked over at Midnight, who had his own chair. The seatbelts were varied enough that smaller folk like martians could have put them on, but they weren’t made for someone like him. Still, the handful of seats on the private jet were large enough he could curl up in the middle of one without any worries.

Midnight did look out the window for a bit, seemingly bored. “This would be so much faster if we were teleporting.”

That was true. But unfortunately, I didn’t have the ability to accomplish that. To my understanding, there wasn’t a long range teleporter in the Power Brigade either. In theory we could take two Gates which would technically only take a couple minutes but would expend four hours worth of mana that we didn’t have. Or we could spend somewhat longer and arrive rested. And bring along this guy without going through another dimension or Mars. It seemed that extradimensional travel was preferred only if it was the only option.

Mana and rest were the most important things here though. Midnight would be back at full before we arrived in seven or eight hours, and we could actually get some sleep. We’d been Scrying people all day and night, and were back into the daytime now. We would be arriving sometime in the early morning, given the time difference.

Best to sleep. Though first we needed to help Sir Kalman relax. Fortunately, each seat came with its own set of headphones, and while I didn’t even want to try to convince him to take off his armor, he would at least remove his helmet. It took a while to find music he found pleasing, but with the window next to him closed he could forget where we were and relax.

It was kind of funny, actually, because I had the feeling the guy would be more relaxed if he were in hell or under attack by monsters. Yet here we were, perfectly safe in the air.

-----

After I got some sleep, I felt better. But despite the technical comfort of the seats and their ability to recline exactly as much as desired, they still weren’t an optimal location for rest. I got maybe five or six hours.

Seeing that I was awake, Calculator came over to me.

“... Do you sleep?” I asked quietly.

“Enough,” he said, turning the seat in front of me to face a small shared table. “Since you are awake we can begin with relevant briefings. We will be working directly with the Crown Forces and Roscolm Subdual. The first to verify everything is on the up-and-up, as well as to manage political fallout… the second to help deal with the involvement of non-supers. They have specialists for taking out mundane folk who don’t directly fight.”

I could do that too. I just didn’t have the spells for it. “Like who?”

“Like rich idiots who got involved with criminal activities,” Calculator explained. “It’s much harder to get anything from charred corpses.”

“Hey, I don’t go around frying people.” I could knock someone out with Shocking Grasp by controlling the amount of power it had. Though I suppose they sometimes got a little charred.

“It’s still preferable to have specialists. And locals,” Calculator reminded me. “Since as you might have noticed our combat forces are somewhat limited here.”

Well, we had me, Midnight, Sir Kalman… and Calculator. Which was admittedly kind of limited if we were going to be doing much. Not really good for raiding a mercenary base- if that was what we even ended up doing.

-----

As we came in for our descent, I saw Yew-Kay for the first time in person. There were two larger land masses connected by a single land bridge. Sir Kalman watched as well, though I could tell it took more effort.

Calculator explained things to us as we approached. “For most of history there has been a complicated relationship between the neighboring countries inhabiting this area. Great Britain came about from the larger island merging into a single country, and then expanding their reach towards nearby Ireland. Northern Ireland joined them, creating the United Kingdom. But the majority of Ireland was still its own independent country until things got shaken up by the arrival of supers. And one super in particular.”

“Who was that?” Midnight asked.

“The supervillainess Volcanus. One of the most powerful supers the world has seen to this day, she created a very large chain of volcanic lairs in a string between the two main landmasses. And then… she died. Probably. Either way, they all exploded at once, both rising up and leveling out. With the sudden addition of a landbridge from the center of Ireland’s east coast into Wales, the dynamics changed rapidly. In large part because of the disasters resulting from that very same incident. The name came about from people fooling about regarding extending the UK, and somehow this happened. There was a vote for the official name and… somehow this one slipped into the list. I’m fairly certain everyone involved blames the other guy, and perhaps it only came about because more people thought everyone else would vote for something sensible. But ultimately, it is what it is. And nobody can agree on anything for long enough to change it to something else.”

“What an odd story,” Sir Kalman said. “Why was it decided by a vote instead of the monarch?”

“Because that’s how most countries work now,” Calculator said. “Besides, they couldn’t really agree on rulership at the time. Ultimately there was a ceremonial marriage of Irish leadership into the current Crown, and nobody’s bothered to think about it too much.”

-----

When we arrived, we were met by a black stretch limo. It had no official markings or anything, but I felt a bit of super tech involved with it. Out of the vehicle stepped a wrinkled old woman, who came forward to greet us. “Calculator,” she said, extending her hand.

“Lady Recollection. Good to see you in person.” As soon as their hands touched, I could feel the woman’s power activating. No, it was before that. But I had anticipated such a thing, as it was better for both ends to verify identities. Calculator introduced each of us, and we were inspected by Lady Recollection in turn.

“You say you work for the Crown?” Sir Kalman asked.

“Quite so, but that does not make us knights like yourself,” she smiled in turn. “Even those of us who are knighted would be quite unrecognizable to you, I imagine.”

He nodded. “So I have heard. I have only seen a small amount of the strange powers of this world.” He looked around. “You come unaccompanied?”

“Squad Ten is in the car,” she gestured. “And if there was to be a fight here, might as well just sacrifice an old lady like myself.”

“I didn’t mean-”

“Don’t worry,” she waved him off. “I am aware of my own lack of combat prowess. Now then, let’s get you in contact with the others.”

We filed our way into the limo, where we found one fellow in military garb waiting for us. “... Where’s the rest of the squad?” Sir Kalman asked.

The guy just chuckled and pointed to his chest.

“I’d bet he’s a splitter,” I explained. “He should be able to make copies of himself.”

“Not too hard to figure out,” Squad Ten said.

“Yeah. But the question is… do you change your name often?”

Squad Ten raised an eyebrow.

“Well, if you train and are able to make another copy of yourself… do you become Squad Eleven?”

He just shrugged. Not very talkative. Or perhaps… smarter than he looked. Because if I was a splitter I wouldn’t want everyone to know what my maximum number was. I didn’t know the details of how Squad Ten’s particular powers worked, but given his setup I assumed it wasn’t terribly far from Swarm’s in that it would replicate equipment. The most important factor was whether injuries were shared or not. From what I could tell, that was the defining detail that separated strong splitters from the weak- if injuries were shared between clones or even just a portion as they merged with the main body, a splitter was much more fragile.

We drove through the darkness of pre-dawn, presumably to go meet up with the promised other supers. Presumably some people good at fighting, and some good at not killing people. Those capabilities could overlap, but that wasn’t always the case.