Brockton Bays Marvelous Mage

By the time my feet slammed into the ground, I could hear the impact, as my ears were fully healed. Around me, I could see and hear people screaming, holding their eyes or their ears, quite a few of the E88 bleeding from the latter. I could see Rune lying on the ground, her manhole mount not far away. She had been flying when the stun bomb spell had gone off, taking the brunt of the explosion straight to the face. Not only was her leg twisted in a way that was not normal, but her ride had also slammed into one of the gang members, his shoulder a disfigured mess.

He was lucky it wasn't his head.

I advanced towards the group, jabbing out with my fingers to launch sparks of lightning, which arced across the clearing into the crowd of E88, driving a few of the screaming men to the ground.

I ran closer, swinging my staff and clocking another stunned gang member, shattering their arm with the blow. I then slammed my staff on the ground, sticking it up straight in the dirt. "Magna pila suspendisse scintillae" I intoned, casting one of the few spells that wasn't compatible with my staff because it was two-handed.

I tossed the coconut-sized ball of lightning magic that formed in my hands, the spell landing on the ground by a large clump of still reeling neo-nazi bastards. It exploded, a blast of blue lighting energy that knocked the Empire thugs down and tossed the closest into the air.

As I yanked my staff free of the ground, I took a small moment to look over where the victims of this bullshit were. Most of them were already fleeing, stumbling away and running into each other. Thankfully, the stunning blast spell came with the ability to marginally direct the effects of the blast, so I managed to avoid hitting them directly. Usually, the less potent side was pointed back at the caster to avoid deafening and blinding yourself, but I was happier with the alternative.

I cursed as I realized quite a few of the people were still injured, and others were being dragged away, bullet wounds bleeding large red stains in their clothes. Some of the empire goons must have fired instinctively from the blast of stunning magic, the sound of the shots covered by the damage to my ears.

Before I could move to help, a massive blow struck me from behind, slamming directly into my skull. The impact almost drove me to my knees, even with my steel absorption. I cursed and swung an arm out, casting the same wordless blast of electricity that I had used to counter Shadow Stalker's attack a few days ago. As I spun, I could see Alabaster stumbling backward, armed with a baseball bat, his body still twitching from my counter.

It looked like my five seconds were up.

"Fucker, you know I can't feel that, right?" He shouted, already raising his bat again. "You can't stop me!"

He swung the bat back at me, but I managed to raise my forearm to block it. The bat cracked, half snapping from the impact. Rather than mourn the loss of his weapon, the pale white mutated cape pulled out a pistol that had been holstered at his hip, firing as he raised it upward. Bullets slammed into my leg, stomach, and chest, hitting harder than anything I had been hit by before. They didn't penetrate my skin, but each impact was like a deep physical blow, like a hard punch from a professional boxer.

I slammed my staff down at his hand, which broke with an audible crunch, his pistol falling to the floor. This didn't slow him down, though, as his other hand was already bringing up his other pistol. Rather than try and disarm him again, I brought my staff back up to his chest.

"Fulgur parvum fragmentum!" I shouted rapidly, almost stumbling over the incantation but managing to plow through.

The full-worded, staff-enhanced spell slammed into his chest, blowing a chunk of his shirt and skin off, revealing his sternum to the open air. He fell backward from the blow, the lightning slamming him down into the ground. I cast the spell twice more, one on his chest again and then again on his pistol, causing the bullets to cook off and explode in his hand.

Mentally counting down, I whirled around, casting magic as quick as I could, taking down the E88 foot soldiers one after the other, keeping them from reorganizing and getting back to their feet. The already scattered gang members futilely tried to escape my range.

My final target was Krieg, who was starting to recover from the initial stun, already standing to his feet. I knew he was a brute, so I quickly full cast my spark of lighting, the spell sparking out and slamming into his arm. He screamed again, clutching his arm as he collapsed back to the ground. I felt a wave of confusion, but I didn't have the time to consider it as something slammed into my side. A blade slid off my skin, unable to penetrate, slicing into my clothes instead,

"I told you, you fucking kike prick! You can't take me down!"

"And you-"

My rebuttal was cut off as the villain's reclaimed pistol being fired along my back, six shots that I'm pretty sure cracked at least two ribs. Thankfully, they missed my spine, or I would not have been able to power through and turn to face him.

I spun around and once again slapped the gun from his hand, but not before he fired twice more, hitting me in the stomach. The impacts drove the air from my lungs, making it impossible to curse nearly as loudly as I wanted to. This man was nothing but a fucking nuisance, and if he kept distracting me, Krieg, who I was pretty sure could actually hurt me, was going to pick me off at his leisure.

Frustration getting the better of me, and knowing that he would regenerate from it anyway, I slammed my staff under his chin, even as his broken hand flipped and returned to its unbroken state.

"Cast!"

My vision dimmed as a bolt of lightning the width of a basketball exploded out of my staff. It arced upwards into the sky at a low angle, completely atomizing Alabaster's head in the process. It seared his flesh, cauterizing his neck, and then continued upwards into the night sky, eventually dissipating a few hundred meters upwards. Alabaster's body slumped to the ground, headless and motionless.

Knowing I was once again on a five-second timer, I spun around, turning to find that… Krieg was already running, carrying the still unconscious Rune on his shoulder, one arm hanging useless by his side. Several other gangers, basically everyone who could stand, were running with him.

I spun back around and rushed to the nearest homeless community member who had failed to escape, clutching their leg as they tried to stop their wound from bleeding. They were pale from blood loss, shivering in the cold as their body struggled to keep functioning. I quickly started to heal them, using every second I had. When I finished with them, I moved on to the next, always keeping one eye on Alabaster.

With every second that passed, I expected him to stand back up. That was his power, after all, always recovering from no matter what damage he took. Only this time... he didn't. He stayed exactly where he was, blood oozing slowly from the partially cauterized wound.

I was on my third patient when the Protectorate finally arrived in the form of Dauntless, one of their more easily recognizable members. He was dressed as a stylized Roman soldier, complete with a golden helmet, chest armor, and a leather strip skirt. His shield, spear, and boots all sparked with white electric energy, spitting and crackling audibly, even from this distance.

The hero landed among the still-unconscious members of the E88, scanning the area with his weapon ready. Once he spotted Alabaster, he tensed, raising his shield and clearly preparing for him to get back up. I turned back to what I was doing, focusing on the people who were injured. By now, some of the community members who had managed to run were returning, allowing me to fix their ears and damaged vision. I had just finished telling all of them to go find other people who were affected so I could fix them, too, when Dauntless finally spoke up.

"Arcanum, what happened?" He asked, the crackling of his armor and weapons getting closer.

I stood and turned, happy to see that he was at least approaching me calmly, his weapon not pointed at me. Behind him, I could see Alabaster, still headless, now had handcuffs on.

"I've been helping this community with healing and a few other things," I explained. "It must have gotten back to the E88, and they tried to use it against me."

I walked past him, giving him a wide berth as I walked to some of the unconscious or struggling Empire members, of which there were four.

"I understand, but- wait, what are you doing?" He asked, sounding concerned as I kneeled beside a broken gang member.

"Rendering aid," I explained.

I scanned the gang member and healed them exactly enough that they wouldn't die, but left everything else, including the mangled arm from the nearby manhole cover, alone.

"Wait, why… did you stop?"

"I stopped the internal bleeding in his shoulder and fixed the cracked skull and brain bleed," I explained with a shrug. "The rest is up to him."

I finished stabilizing the other two gang members before standing up and wiping my hands off on my jacket.

"Now, what were you asking?" I asked, walking back around him to help more of the returning community members.

"What happened with Alabaster?"

I finished healing someone's ears, pausing both to answer and to let my mana refill. In the distance, I could hear the sirens getting closer and closer.

"I… I don't know," I admitted, shaking my head. "I was under the impression he would… revert any damage to himself. That's what his power is, right?"

"Yes, I've experienced it dozens of times before," He agreed. "He is… annoying to fight. What did you do?"

"I fired a massive fuck off lighting bolt through his head," I explained, starting to heal people again. "Ask Assault. He saw it during the whole power testing debacle."

"You… okay. I don't understand why his powers aren't kicking in, but considering he isn't reverting…"

Dauntless stopped talking and began to sub-vocalize, clearly talking to someone through a radio or other device. As he spoke quietly, I suddenly remembered that Alya had been very quiet throughout the whole fight. Now that I was paying attention, I could still feel her through our connection, but she felt incredibly weak, too weak to even talk. It would be at least a couple hours before she would be strong enough to communicate. I shook my head and returned to healing the victims.

It didn't take long for the PRT and police to show up after that, as well as a single ambulance. Considering there were supposedly spots of E88 activity all over the city, the fact that even one showed up was surprising.

Not long after that, Assault and Battery also showed up, entering the clearing at a jog.

"Arcanum, it's good to see you in one piece," Assault said, heading directly to me. "Do you feel up for going over what happened?"

I nodded and began to retell the last… well, it was technically under ten minutes, even if it felt like hours. As I did, I could only watch as the PRT and Police started covering some of the bodies around the clearing with white blankets. Up until this point, I had been pointedly avoiding looking at them, but now I couldn't look away.

"I… I don't know why my lightning killed him," I said, shaking my head as I answered Assault's question. "I was under the impression he had been hurt a lot worse than this over his career here at the Bay."

"He has been. I've seen him reduced by everything below chest by friendly fire from Purity." Assault agreed, shaking his head. "It's not even the first time he has been hit by electricity. A few months ago, Glory Girl dropped him onto a live power cable. He walked that off fine. Do your powers have some sort of trump effect? Like their damage is always true, or it beats regeneration?"

"No, absolutely not. I'll admit, my attacks don't always behave like normal electricity, but there's nothing in them that would counter someone's power, whether it's regeneration or… whatever he could do," I said, gesturing to the Alabaster's corpse. "Are we sure he is dead? Is there any variation of his revamp?"

"No, it's always 4.3 seconds," Assault responded. "Okay, listen. This is obviously some sort of power interaction or an unknown problem with his powers. Considering he was absolutely engaging you with lethal intent-"

I scoffed and grabbed the bottom of my shirt, pulling it up to reveal what I knew was some severe bruising. Sure enough, looking down, I could see some horrendous levels of purple and black forming where each of the pistol rounds that Alabaster was firing at me impacted. As if to hammer home the point, a few of the flattened bullets fell out of my clothes as I freed them.

Just acknowledging the bruises and most likely cracked ribs was enough to remind me I was really pretty beat up, the pain seeming to flare at the attention.

"Damn, yeah, okay," Assault nodded, wincing as he saw the injury. "Listen, I'm going to make a judgment call and say you're free to go, but please, don't move too far outside the city. This is pretty clear cut, especially if all these people collaborate on your story, but well… I will definitely lose my job if you run."

"I'm not going anywhere," I explained. "Especially not when the other community I just helped is at risk as well."

"Right, okay, good," He said, reaching up and running his fingers through his hair, shaking his head. "There's gonna be a lot of waves from this, Arcanum. A lot of waves."

"I know. But doing nothing wasn't an option," I responded, nodding in agreement. "They threatened innocent people to get to me, and I slapped them down for it."

"Yeah, I don't blame you," He replied. "But the E88 doesn't respond well to power games. They will push back, especially with a member dead."

"I know," I said, turning to look around.

I suddenly felt very exposed, standing there in the clearing behind the dealership. Alya was still recovering, and I had no way of knowing what was going on in our surroundings. As my heart rate began to increase, I had to physically resist the urge to pull my winter cap off to reveal the restriction I was feeling.

Not too far away, I spotted John, who I had healed earlier, standing by and talking to some of the people from the community in hushed tones. I turned back to Assault.

"Keep me in the loop if you can."

The man nodded, and I gave him a half-hearted salute before turning back and making my way to the group John was talking to.

It was time to see what I could salvage from this.