It was possible that Sorority would be annoyed with me for my comments later, but she stuck by my side for the moment. Simultaneously, three of her cracked her knuckles. "You heard Mage. You have no legitimate reason to be here, so it's only going to be worse for you when you lose."

Solidarity was good. It would have been nice if we had anyone properly scary so that they might actually want to give up. Because these baby heroes- Tower, Dull, Dirtmaster, and Parrot- clearly had heads far too big for their shoulders.

"You heard them!" Tower said, standing to his full height which was still shorter than me. "They're going to harbor the villain!"

These people were getting in so much trouble even if they won. Actually, kicking their asses might be doing them a favor- because even if they took in this guy they absolutely couldn't use any evidence they found. If there was evidence.

Oh! I should have used Enlarge for intimidation! Even bruisers were afraid of bigger people. It seemed a bit too late, as they were rushing towards us. By which I meant Tower with his fists raised and Dirtmaster with his dirt hammer. Parrot was just standing there yelling at us. "You won't last, villains!" Was that supposed to be a famous voice? Some superhero that mattered? I didn't recognize it. Maybe it was Parrot's real voice, but I doubted that he sounded so… confident.

Dull was approaching more slowly. That was good. It gave me a chance to make choices. Let's see… if there were only three of us, I could save mana on Multicasting, right?

That wasn't how it worked. It always took the mana for three. But… I figured I could swing it. Sorority was going to want Enhance for physical. I might too. Midnight wouldn't be upset. Let's say… 10 mana? 2 for 3 seemed like a fair ratio.

It worked, but I couldn't be sure I got full power without doing a weightlifting test. And we simply didn't have time for that. Sorority had to punch Tower in the face. The guy took it like a champ, holding his ground and not even flinching. His fist went straight through Sorority's chest and- oh good that was one of her clones. Because a death here might be the end of all of our careers. It still shattered Force Armor, though, since they all shared that. It couldn't be helped.

Speaking of clones, either Sorority or her second clone launched an uppercut that hit Tower in the jaw. I didn't see how it should be much different from the first strike, but he went flying. Was her real body stronger? I didn't think that was the case.

Midnight dodged around Dirtmaster and went straight for Dull's legs. With Shocking Grasp active, he swiped out with his claw and- nothing. Huh. Midnight felt even more surprised than I was. We knew he was a power negator, it was just surprisingly… effective? No. Boring. It didn't have any visual flare.

Sorority caught Dirtmaster's big hammer just behind the head as he swung down. And as she held it with two hands, she punched him in the ribs. Oh, she already made another one. I didn't even notice.

I shot a Firebolt at Dull, just to see if a different sort of spell reacted differently. It just kinda stopped existing before it hit him, but I didn't have a good angle to see at what distance. I was fairly certain he didn't have an active reaction, though.

Then he shot a lightning enhanced Firebolt at me. I felt the power coalescing, mana that was both mine and Midnight's. So he was more than just a power negator. How annoying!

He wasn't anything like Shockfire. I liked Shockfire.

Tower was back, and he and Dirtmaster together were keeping Sorority on her back feet. They pretty frequently took down one of her clones. How she always managed to keep her main body from taking damage I didn't know. Good training, I supposed. If she could predict how people would attack, she could choose which to place where. But that didn't seem like enough. I thought she would normally take some wounds, otherwise I wouldn't bother protecting her clones if I could manage it.

Oh! She was reabsorbing them before the hit caused full damage. She was probably getting slightly worn down, though. And if nothing else, a bruiser like Tower would be harder for her to brawl with using only her secondary abilities and a small boost. Enlarge? There was room, but we hadn't practiced that enough. Might make her worse.

I hit Tower in the chest with a Sonic Lance. That was quick enough. He slid back a couple steps, but that was all. Still, it provided some space for Sorority. As for Midnight, he had tried a few spells against Dull. They weren't working. How bothersome.

And Parrot wouldn't shut up. Wasn't I supposed to shoot someone? Ugh, my head hurt. Chain Lightning should help.

These people were tough, right? I could afford to boost it a little. The limit was… eh, whatever.

Dirtmaster was first. I maneuvered around to a good angle. Boom! My ears hurt. Chain Lightning went through him, then next it went through Tower. Dirtmaster was laid flat on his back. Tower remained standing… but he wasn't moving.

Dull was next. I didn't think about not targeting him. He had just gotten hit by a laser from Midnight- good call- and then my spell connected. A lot of it disappeared. The rest hit him in the face. He screamed, like he'd never been struck by lightning before.

Well, that was everyone.

"Y-you killed them!" The most annoying voice I ever heard suddenly spiked that headache I was feeling. Oh right, there was still Parrot. "Y-you'll be sorry!"

I pulled out my handgun and shot him three times in the chest. His outfit clearly wasn't made by Francois, because it barely even met bullet resistant standards. He staggered backwards and…

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"Dammit," I said. "Why did I do that?"

Dirtmaster was… twitching. That was fine. Dull also wasn't dead, because he was groaning. Had I really used my maximum amount of mana? I boosted Chain Lightning to hit harder than Meteor Swarm, probably.

Tower was still standing so he was probably f- oh wow no he was not. I'd seen people unconscious with their eyes open before, once or twice. The man was out.

"... Parrot had some kind of headache inducing ability," I commented.

Sorority was currently checking both Dirtmaster and Tower for a pulse. But that left one free to speak to me. "Had?"

"Has! Probably. He'll just need a ride in an ambulance."

"We'll need three."

"Tower is fine then?" I tilted my head.

"Nah, he might go straight to the morgue. His heart's stopped."

She gave me a look that indicated that wasn't something that should actually happen.

"I can fix that," I said.

"No." Midnight commented. "I'll do it. I wasn't the primary target of Mockingbird. I only got the secondary effects and I still…" he gestured vaguely to the smoking hole in Dull's suit. Well, at least his chest was still mostly intact beneath it. I could see the burns, and I couldn't see through him. "Null got it pretty bad."

Yeah, the laser damage was probably worse than his face. Turns out his abilities didn't work on pure tech. He was nothing like Shockfire after all.

"Put Rook on his back," Midnight said to Sorority. One of her was currently calling in the ambulances, by the way. She was optimistic enough to go for four. She struggled with the bruiser for a moment before he suddenly lifted and then was horizontal. Two of her set him down, holding feet and shoulders.

Midnight hopped on his chest and began bouncing up and down while steadily using Shocking Grasp, focused on his heart. Maybe twenty or thirty seconds later, he suddenly took a deep breath, arms flailing and cracking the ground around him. Midnight got clipped as he leapt away.

"Incoming," Sorority said.

"That was fast," I commented. "Usually-"

"On the other side. Neon Void."

Ugh. Of course. "Do we just leave them?"

"None of them are dying. I'll meet you there."

Sorority disappeared. All three of her. Didn't she have to spawn clones from her real body? Didn't she have to touch her real body to absorb them?

Oh. She was way stronger than advertised. Because if she could propagate clones from clones or… whatever else… it was pretty hard to cause her serious damage. Though theoretically she could be hurt through her clones. Unless that was a lie too.

I wasn't going to rat her out, obviously. It just affected what buffs I would give her in the future. She was on our side, so her being better than advertised was only a benefit.

Midnight and I circled around opposite sides. I heard Sorority calling in the intrusion on our comms- the info would be relayed to the incoming ambulances, but it should be fine. They would just have to make certain they came from the far side. We wouldn't let things spread that far.

Some kind of beam cannon punched a hole in the wall of the warhouse as I rounded the final corner. I already had mana gathered, and since that beam was black and horrible looking I didn't think it was something I could easily use Energy Ward against. Besides, I had enough gathered mana for Chain Lightning. Or Blizzard.

"Sorority! Cone!"

Now, me yelling a warning would indeed give the Neon Void an opportunity to dodge. But none of them had supernatural dodging abilities. As it turned out, you needed magic to avoid a space-permeating attack, when they were just in a wide alley with no cover.

There were more than a handful of indigo skinned aliens with shiny black eyes. Then there were a bunch of ice statues. But it was fine because the ice was only outside. Maybe the top layers of their skin. I tempered my mana usage. I knew what I was doing. I would accept no responsibility for the dumb heroes who messed up my focus. I had enough control even with my magic not auto-balancing, unless someone intentionally eroded it. Parrot really had to work on that, because a lot of villains also tried not to kill heroes but they often could. Not because they liked heroes, but because they didn't like heroes going after their heads. Broken ribs and jail were far preferable to death.

Midnight hopped up on the cannon and threw it into Storage before the big guy holding it cracked the shell around him. Good, that was our biggest problem. Sorority managed to cuff one of the guys- his wrists were in the right place- but we still had four or five Neon Void guys trying to tear holes in the warehouse.

Hopefully that hole didn't cause any real damage. But we could only do our best.

I finally had a moment to cast Haste on Sorority, and with Physical Enhance already going… guys didn't stand much chance. She was already a half-bruiser and a splitter before I got involved. Her strikes caused people to double over, while her grapples twisted arms behind people's backs. I noticed whenever she cuffed someone that the cuffs disappeared from every copy, but it didn't seem to matter which of her did it.

She did run out, though we didn't need power restraining shackles since the Neon Void relied on super tech- we just had to strip them of their devices. Midnight and I pulled out enough stuff from our storage, and we called in some vans to arrest them. Nobody was hurt enough to warrant an ambulance, but they'd get checked out after they were booked in jail.

I wasn't going to take responsibility for going too hard on some trainee heroes when they both provoked us and literally messed with my head, but I did need to consider the situation. I still hadn't killed them, which indicated some restraint left on my part. Mostly, though, I wasn't worried about casualties as much as making sure I didn't hurt any of my allies. Had I just been lucky with my spell choice? I really needed to be safe. I had Mental Freedom to help as well, but I hadn't been expecting mental manipulation. My own willpower needed to be good enough to recognize things like that and protect myself. Or I might make a mistake I would regret.

I wondered if we could still get concessions from the heroes. Because I could come up with pretty good arguments that they were double at fault for that situation. It wasn't blackmail when we just took advantage of city policy, was it?

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