Robert Meta
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Brockton Bay's Marvelous Mage - Chapter 108
🕑 Added 2025-06-24 15:11:16 +0000 UTCAs Menja, a thirty-plus-foot-tall armored woman, lunged at me, I leaped out of the way, diving toward her to avoid the spear thrust. My hope was that by staying close to her feet, not only would she struggle to attack me with her weapon, but her twin sister would also be unable to attack me, not without risking hitting her sibling.
Unfortunately, I failed to consider the fact that friendly fire was not an issue for them, since their power drastically reduced the effectiveness of all attacks. That meant they could swing at each other as much as they wanted, never having to worry about hitting each other.
As Menja was recovering from her jab, Fenja lashed out with her sword, stabbing downwards as I double-jumped up onto Menja's foot. Almost immediately, I had to dive off the armored boot as Fenja's sword came crashing down. It bounced off the armor plating of the boot, but by then, I was rolling behind her ankle.
Now, I had done some serious brainstorming while trying to figure out how I would take down the Empire capes, particularly Fenja and Menja. They were both pretty potent, and unless I figured out a way to take them down quickly. If I couldn't find the chink in their armor, either they could go on a rampage and hurt a lot of people, or I would be forced to open up all the stops, potentially causing just as much damage.
So, I analyzed the evidence I had. I knew that Kaiser was happy to send the twins out to send a message despite claims that he cared about casualties. The only reason the twins weren't seen fighting more was because their presence was usually enough to stop a fight before it started.
However, Kaiser very rarely sent them to fight against Lung, and when he did, it was usually done as a fighting retreat, under the guise of trying to minimize casualties and damage. But what if the real reason was that if they stayed, their weakness would be exposed? Something about Lung had been dangerous for them, the only question was what.
I immediately crossed off anything that Lung was doing directly. He was strong and dangerous, especially when his hands turned to claws. But all of that was wasted on the twins. They could weather punches, scratches, thrown cars, or even balls of fire thrown or sprayed at them. So why did they retreat so often?
I repeated my battle with Lung over and over in my head, before finally realizing that Lung had another way of hurting people, beyond his physical, purposeful attacks. The twins' powers negated direct attacks, but what happened when the person they were fighting turned so hot that the air around them was enough to burn something? What happened when there was no attack, no directed focused impact, threat, or action, just an ambient increase in temperature that was enough to cause damage?
If I was correct, it would explain why they could fight him at first, but the more and more they did, the more they were focused on retreating. Lung got hotter and hotter the longer he was fighting, until he was hot enough to melt the asphalt he was standing on. Rather than let their secret be exposed and make fighting them significantly easier, Kaiser would pull them back before they could get seriously burned.
Unlucky for them, I now knew the secret to taking them down, and even worse, I had had enough time to create my own custom spell to make it happen.
I just felt a little bad for how brutal it was going to be. They were Nazis, so I wasn't going to lose any sleep, but… It was still going to be brutal.
As I hid behind Menja's foot, the massive woman spinning to try and catch me, already starting to kick and attempt to stomp on me, I reached along my belt and grabbed a specific full spell crystal, one containing the answer to the size-changing brutes. I held the crystal out, and after diving forward to dodge another stab with Fenja's sword, I aimed it at Menja's bare leg.
"Heat!" I shouted, a glowing orange beam of magic firing from the crystal.
As it traveled, several circles of magic, filled with a few arcane symbols each, expanded around the beam before it made contact with its target. With the spell successfully cast, I tapped a teleport crystal, the stored magic whisking me away out from under the two giants.
I didn't go very far, since I needed to watch and control the spell. The spell I created was a steady rise in temperature over a specific area, starting hot and getting worse until it was eventually hot enough to cause second-degree burns. Unfortunately, I couldn't just leave and wait, since I was still feeding the spell. On top of that, just leaving a spell like that running would have been cruel, since eventually it would just burn her leg off.
It did not take long for Menja to realize that something was wrong. She cursed and slapped at her leg as if she had expected it to be on fire. When that did nothing save expose her fingers to the growing heat, her cursing changed into shouting, and eventually screaming as her skin started to show signs of burning. Now, Fenja was trying to help, burning her fingers as she tried to do anything to help her sister.
Eventually, Menja collapsed back onto her butt, screaming and shouting, desperately trying to pull off her boot, which wouldn't do anything. That was when I canceled the spell, walking out of my cover. I raised my staff and wordlessly cast my loudspeaker spell, a pale yellow circle appearing above my staff. I held the circle in front of my lips and shouted, a line vibrating song with my voice inside the circle.
"Fenja and Menja! As you can see, I figured out the gap in your power. Shrink down to normal human size and surrender!"
Menja's eyes were wide and wild, already red as she breathed heavily, trying to catch her breath. As my magnified voice washed over them, Fenja growled, grabbed her shield, and hurled it at me. The expanded shield was about the size of a large sedan, but she threw it like it was a frisbee. I dived forward, just managing to get under the iron banded shield, rolling to my feet and sprinting towards the pair. Menja was still struggling, unable to stand even with the spell gone, while Fenja stood ready, towering over me with her massive sword in hand.
Then I vanished, teleporting behind her, well within range of my spell.
"Heat!"
The spell fired out again, this time slapping into Fenja's leg, the orange beam casting off light before it vanished, the spell solidly connecting with my target. It only took a split second for Fenja to realize what had happened, but unfortunately, it did not have the effect I was hoping for. Rather than surrendering and demanding I remove the spell, she pushed forward, clearly thinking she could stop the magic by stopping me.
I teleported away again, disappearing from her view and reappearing on the second floor of the building they had excited in their grand reveal. Kaiser's explosion of metal blades had shattered a good chunk of the windows above the entrance, giving me the perfect place to take cover. Fenja whirled and spun, looking for me before eventually spotting my location. She couldn't quite reach me with her boss's blade garden in front of me, so instead, she hauled her sword back like a spear and hurled it at me.
"Oh shit!" I cursed, fumbling for a moment before grabbing another crystal from my belt.
In a moment, I disappeared, reappearing along the rubble of the central fountain, just in time to watch the sword smash into just about where I had been standing, the blade punching into the building. It stayed there, half impaled into the building, debris and more glass falling to the ground.
Her wild, aggressive attack turned out to be her last act before my spell got to her. The large villain collapsed to her side, screaming and clutching her leg, cursing my name. I stood up straight, wincing as the burns around Fenjas leg got worse and worse.
"Stop it!" Menja finally screamed, visibly shrinking, staring at her sister. "We surrender! Just stop!"
I cut the spell immediately, Fenja's screaming changing to pained moans immediately. I pulled out another crystal containing another spell, just in case, but neither of the capes tried anything. Both of them continued to shrink, eventually returning to a normal size. The moment they were small again, I slapped them both with a knock-out spell, letting out a sigh of relief once they were both fully out. I then used an iron acorn to build them with wooden vines. When I was confident that they were properly locked in place, I finally started to look around.
"Alya, how is everyone doing?" I whispered, looking around for flashing lights or any other signs of a fight.
"They managed to take down Purity, but Glory Girl was injured," Alya explained. "All three are on their way back."
"What about Crow and Smokey?"
"Victor and Othala were already taken down when they arrived. "Seems like another cape stumbled into the scene. A bug controller."
"Bug… Taylor?" I asked, eyes going a bit wide. "I forgot about her. Did Crow make contact with her?"
"Yes, she is walking with them," She responded. "They are bringing Victor and Othala here now."
I nodded, letting out another long breath, before turning back and facing the massive explosion of metal blades behind me. Using my metal control spell, I carefully shifted and bent the metal from Kaiser's bouquet of sharp, pointy blades, looking for the man himself. Eventually, I reached the center, and rather than tempting Kaiser to create another explosion of knives, I pulled the armor away from his stomach and knocked him out immediately, carrying him back to his compatriots.
As I was laying him down, the first batch of my own compatriots arrived. Manpower, Glory Girl, and unconscious Purity are all being carried by a shield platform created by Lady Photon. The moment they landed, I made my way to Glory Girl, who was clutching a bloody, burned-looking arm, wincing as she stood.
"Here, let me numb it first," I assured her, quickly blocking her pain, the young woman letting out a sigh of relief.
"Thank you," She said, turning to give the unconscious Purity a dirty look. "Bitch tried to double-tap me."
"I'm glad she missed," I said, Glory Girl nodding in agreement.
I finished healing her pretty quickly, the burns washing away with a simple spell. When I was done, I made sure that Purity would stay unconscious, before double-checking her health. Besides some light bruising and a minor concussion, which I fixed, she was fine.
Once I was sure Purity wasn't going to drop dead for some random reason, I checked over Kaiser, Fenja, and Menja as well. I was just finishing up the two women's legs when Smokey and Crow arrived, each carrying a bundled-up person. Taylor, or at least who I assumed was Taylor, was with them, standing back a few feet.
Her costume looked pretty impressive, like it had been professionally made. The armored platings looked fancy, with a dark green shine under a matte black finish that had an interesting effect. At a glance, it would probably let her be sneaky in the dark without appearing too villainous in the light.
"One skill stealer and one power granter, slightly bruised," Crow said as she and Smokey laid their targets down, before Crow turned slightly to gesture back at Taylor. "Though we hardly did anything, you got this one to thank for that."
"Weaver," the cape said, stepping forward and holding out her hand. "My name is Weaver."
"It's good to meet you, Weaver," I said, shaking her hand with a nod. "Thanks for your help."
"Gotta do better than that, Arc," Crow pointed out, gesturing to the still incapacitated Victor, who I absently stunned as we were talking. "This guy had you lined up with a pretty big gun, something bigger than a fifty cal. Not sure how it would have turned out if he hit you, but I'm pretty sure it would not have been fun."
"I… don't know what that would have done to me either," I admitted, more than a little shocked. "Thank you, Weaver. You could have saved my life very well."
"J-just trying to be a hero," She responded, visibly clamping down on her stutter.
"I'd have to say you're doing a good job so far," Lady Photon cut in with a smile. "Helping take down the last capes of the Empire is a great place to start."
Weaver stood a bit straighter at the praise, and I nodded in agreement. After a moment, however, I focused back on the tasks at hand. There were an awful lot of sirens going around the city, which was far from a good sign.
Okay, by the sounds of it, this is not the end of tonight's fighting," I explained with a frown. "It seems like the Empire goons were ordered to go around the city and cause chaos, most likely to tie up my golems and the guardians. It sounds like they have tinker tech in the field as well. They pulled out all the stops for this, and the police and PRT are going to need help keeping up. That is assuming they haven't already retreated."
"Even if they have, it will be good for the people to see us out and about, helping keep things calm," Manpower explained. "We will get everyone else involved and start patrolling."
"Right. Well, I'll get these guys to the PRT," I explained, gesturing to the last free Empire capes. "Then we can get to work as well. Weaver, you interested in helping?"
"Yes, absolutely," she responded. "I… I'm a good scout, and I can work on crowd control."
"That sounds like you should go with New Wave, then," I responded. "Crow and I already have an overwatch cape helping us. That said, when this is all over, we should all meet you and discuss what happens next."
"Donuts and debriefing," Glory Girl said, a little too excited. "Sounds like a good way to finish the night. C'mon Weaver, we'll show you the ropes."
Weaver looked a little upset that I was going to send her off with New Wave, but my suggestion for a debriefing afterward and Glory Girl's excitement seemed to sway her, and she nodded.
"Alright, reaching out if you hear anything or need help, and keep your eyes open, the guardians should still be out doing their best," I said, pausing for a moment before continuing. "Also… thanks for coming to help. I kinda jumped in feet first without checking that I had you guys go catch me. So thanks for showing up."
"Happy to help but these animals behind bars," Lady Photon assured me, summoning a shield for Manpower and Weaver to stand on.
I nodded, and Crow waved as they lifted off. The small team of heroes left to get to work, while Smokey and Crow helped me gather the Empire Capes. On teleport crystal later, and we were standing in front of the PRT building with several very skittish guards just barely not pointing their guns at us.
"Hello, I'm here to make a delivery," I explained, rolling Kaiser over with my foot. "Six Nazi idiots, hold the ketchup."
Comments
Miguel Garcia
I just realized something, why hasn’t Boston PRT asked if Arcanum knows anything about Weld’s condition/can help him at all? He does seem very similar to the golems on first glance.
Other
Thanks for the chapter! Btw what happened to that 'pretty big gun'. Did they just leave it on that rooftop? It should make for some compelling evidence if they take it to the authorities at the very least. That said, keeping it off the street should be a major plus
Alex I
A fair number more spelling errors and missing or incorrect words then usual. Personally I'm fine with a slower release schedule if you are getting overwhelmed.
Noob
Tyftc
Miguel Garcia
“You could have saved my life very well” should probably be “You could very well have saved my life” “without checking that I had you guys go catch me” should probably be “without checking that I had you guys to catch me”
Miguel Garcia
Coil, smashing his office in a throwaway timeline: No! No! No! Nooooooooooo! Meanwhile: Assault staring absolutely terrified at a madly cackling Piggot: I regret ever wanting to make her laugh…
Jacob Gondringer
Tftc!
