Superhero life? Super-Sized troubles!

Before flying off to the frozen ass-end of Canada to clean up some mess the usual suspects had concocted in some secret lab, I was in desperate need for some me time. Superhuman powers might come with a lack of a need to sleep, but rest periods were still important. Maybe the headaches were a warning sign, a hallmark of too much work and too little play, because since coming back I'd only rested for more than an hour at a time just once... and that had been several weeks before. Stopping monsters (human or otherwise), doing emergency relief, training the kids, testing my always developing powers, showing the flag and talking to the press; everything had snowballed until my days had become a continuous, never-ending chore.

Enough was enough. I'd convinced the General that the kids needed at least a day of mental, if not physical, recovery after their last battle, preparations for their first deployment and appearance on camera included. It had the advantage of being true; that I'd vanished as soon as said downtime began was entirely coincidental.

Flying from the base in Nevada to my new house in New York at the leisurely pace of a couple miles per second was actually relaxing for once. No kids to watch over, no emergency to scramble to, no debate or interview to prepare for. Just me, the stratosphere, and the Earth spread out below in all its majesty. Flying was, is, and will continue to be the most awesome of my powers' many applications. Nothing, not the adrenaline of combat or the accomplishment of saving people and creating new things could compare to the sheer freedom it offered. I might be a hero first and a person second these days, but not nearly to the extent of many comic book heroes... except for Superman. For all his powers, modern fiction's greatest hero chose to spend more time in his career as a reporter or his personal life than actual heroics. While I'd always agreed with the realism of that portrayal only now that I had my own powers and responsibilities did I understand why.

It was impossible for someone with super-senses to remain ignorant of all the bad things that happened around us. People were fragile, people made mistakes, errors of judgement, fell prey to accidents... people died. In any large metropolis like, say, New York, someone died every two and a half minutes. Someone suffered considerable harm every ten seconds. Even if I spent every single second of every day rushing from place to place, I would not be able to help everyone in even a single such city. Moreover, to intervene in most of those cases would be to intrude in people's homes... and though they would be grateful that day, they would hate to be under observation every moment of every day for all their lives.

So for both their peace of mind and mine, I chose not to watch or intervene. Chose to aim supernatural help against supernatural threats and natural disasters and left everyday problems to be resolved by mundane solutions... or not. At least that's how I saw things while flying upside-down sixty thousand feet above the ground. Philosophy wasn't really my strong point. Who knows? Maybe my perspective would change once my legs no longer pointed at the sky.

xxxx

The manor house the government had bribed me with remained as I left it; empty of people and free of bugs of both the living and electronic kind. From countless tracks across its grounds, clues and details barely visible to human eyes without a crime investigation kit and a lot of skill, it was clear that several hundred different people had tried to bypass the security measures I'd left behind. Or possibly far fewer people wearing shoes of different sizes and carrying various loads every time, I guess. After discovering the apparent sixty-year-old lady gardener was actually a twenty-something agent with shapeshifting powers on my first day in the house, I would not discount the possibility, no matter how remote or absurd. Occam's Razor died the moment powers became a thing.

A thin circle of dust surrounded the three-story building, a perimeter marking the outer limits of the protections I'd left. Occasionally, the circle was interrupted by corpses of rats, squirrels or other small animals, all invariably missing their heads and sometimes the upper half of their bodies. Landing lightly on the ground, I frowned at the mess. When I'd set up the disintegration barrier I hadn't considered the obvious in retrospect issue of animals crossing it head-first and dropping dead before they could be entirely disintegrated. Just as obviously, any municipal cleaning crews had been avoiding the apparently deadly use of powers. Yes, the barrier was entirely safe to humans. No, I had not left any signs saying so and I doubted most people would believe them - especially if any sticks or pebbles they tested the barrier with disintegrated.

Fortunately, the minor oversight had a quick solution; I simply pushed the remains into the house's defenses with my powers, disintegrating all visually unappealing sources of stink. Then I pressed against the invisible dome and with only minor difficulty went through the repulsion effect that to an ordinary person would effectively function as an impenetrable wall. Then I stopped and checked the barrier with Force Awareness again, then facepalmed.

It was a good thing I had not invited the kids over. The barrier had been set to disintegrate, among other things, all sorts of disguises. A close examination of the construct's magic showed that 'disguises' was taken to include all clothing. The reason I had not realized was that "items of power made by me" was another of the exceptions and thus my costume had remained unaffected. Had I used the option to invite guests in the barrier would not disintegrate said guests - but it would disintegrate their clothing.

Problem was, the properties of the force field were permanent. They could be added to by adding more fields or partially modified by layering effects together, but they couldn't be changed at their base. It wasn't the only problem either; more issues of interpretation or unclear intent just made trying to fix them more trouble than it was worth. With an exertion of Greater Proximakinesis' and Force Adjustments' ability to negate forces entirely I shattered both the repulsion and the disintegration then got to work.

It was time to protect my new house properly rather than throwing up some quick and dirty enchantments.

xxxx

Nearly two hours later, a new five-layer dome had been finished. A better-worded disintegration field, a repulsion layered with a weakening effect that would make attempts by supers to force their way through far more difficult than before, then a nullifier of any signals from sources that hadn't been approved by me. Last but definitely not least, a field of Immutable Force and Action and Reaction layered over all the others so the enchantments would be far more resistant to tampering by other powers and would affect intangible things too. All in all, a far higher level of security than before.

It was by no means impenetrable, of course. Its greatest weakness was that it was just a thin dome rather than a solid sphere; anything that could bypass the need to cross the barrier was simply not subject to the defenses. That had been easy to prove just by using Spatial Leap to teleport across it, but far harder to fix. The field couldn't be extended deeper into the house. For one thing, that would take far more effort and time. For another, the defenses would kind of negate having a house in the first place, especially the disintegration effect. For about five minutes I'd considered a second field that simply attempted to crush anyone without permission. Then I remembered that this was supposed to be my home, not a Bond villain lair. Bond villains tended to die to their own traps anyway.

Perhaps a field to evict intruders by force? This had similar issues with the crusher, in that it would both take too much power to fill in the interior and would cause unfortunate incidents if *someone* forgot to invite people properly. Sitting in the living room's probably-antique, definitely old fashioned sofa, I closed my eyes and mentally went through all the various security ideas I'd come up with or read about in fiction, that my powers could make reality. Animated objects that hunted down intruders. Invisible swords or hounds of force. Trap bubbles that activated when an intruder crossed through specific areas. A field that prodded, tickled or needled intruders until they gave up. A similar one that simulated various accidents which I eventually gave up as too complex to program in any sort of reasonable time. A massively amplified gravity that pinned anyone invading the premises with their own weight.

All of them were unfeasible for one reason or another, inefficient, or hilariously dangerous... but they were also fun. Like that another two hours had passed in the blink of an eye and I found myself feeling relaxed, even happy. All the stress of the past weeks was... not gone but not pressing down on me either. Magic was so much fun; changing how the laws of physics worked locally not for some grand design or eldritch purpose but just because you could and because it was cool and awesome. I was enjoying myself in a way that I hadn't since... forever, really.

I should be making something useful, more than just glorified security for a house I only spent a day in every other week - and I would. All the work with barriers had given me the perfect idea for it, even. But first I would see if I could block teleportation.

Slowly and just for one corner of the living room I extended a forcefield very different from all the previous ones. It didn't directly apply force to intruders, disintegrate them, alter gravity or make some offensive construct. Thin filaments of force spread in a dense yet gossamer web, a complex network that strained both my Force Awareness and my mind's ability to handle sensory information through my superhuman Vigilance attribute to their absolute limits. Again and again and again the field simply failed, beyond my ability to visualize and guide my powers in its construction.

So don't try to visualize it all at once, dummy, the rational part of my mind chided the rest of me for taking the idea and running with it. Slowly, painstakingly so, I visualized layer after layer of what I wanted Forcefield Creation, Action and Reaction and Focused Invulnerability to do. Inch by inch the field took shape, an entirely immaterial thing that was also very physical and tangible from a certain point of view. It was the hardest, most complex enchantment I'd ever done, a kludged-together, overly complex field that only covered a couple dozen cubic yards and seemingly did nothing.

The two force-based powers had to be added to my "Force" slots in the correct order along with Lasting Force, while Action and Reaction had to take up a "Self" slot along with Force Awareness. The only reason it was possible at all was that everything except Forcefield Creation was both a "Force" ability and a "Self" ability, allowing all five skills to work together - barely and with great difficulty. But they did work and the result did stabilize instead of exploding with all the power I'd spent an hour pouring into it, turning New York into a crater.

...in retrospect, maybe experimentation should be done in uninhabited areas in the future, right? Right.

Wiping sweat off my brow, I prodded the field with both my powers and a finger, to no apparent result. That was... more or less as expected? It wasn't supposed to do anything except in one very specific situation. Holding my breath, I dropped the powers I'd used to create the construct, slotted in Spatial Leap and teleported.

Then I found myself on my elbows and knees on the floor, feeling as if I'd been kicked in the gut by someone with my own strength. It was by no means pleasant. More importantly, the teleportation had failed. Bracing myself, I tried again. The second failure ended with me lying on my side and trying to puke my guts out while nausea twisted my stomach like a pretzel. But I had to be sure, certain that this thing would not rupture if someone tried to overcome it repeatedly and we got to the Crater York situation.

I woke from the third failed teleportation with blood dripping off my nose, a deep-seated ache in every inch of my body as if I'd pulled apart and put back together only halfway, plus the mother of all migraines. My regeneration had slotted in automatically, my power's way of telling me I should stop doing stupid things, so I just sat there and recovered for the next half an hour. It was very different from any physical or magical wound I'd ever been on the receiving end of before and I suspected someone without my level of durability would have had their atoms splattered all over the living room instead.

The construct showed no signs of strain whatsoever. That had been the theory, but it was good to have confirmation. How do you stop all the various transportation powers others could develop? In fiction there were always magic wards against such things but no details on how they worked so I'd improvised. The one thing almost every transportation needed was a viable destination. Trying to teleport inside a wall was supposed to do bad things to you, which made sense. A normal barrier of force might not work for this though, not to mention how it would block use of the barred room to normal entry.

The solution I'd come up with was to bestow Focused Invulnerability to air molecules within the field. The one thing they would be completely invulnerable against? Being moved aside by transportation powers. As far as incoming teleporters were concerned, the air within the field would count as if it were completely solid for the moment of their teleportation. An invulnerable solid in fact that would refuse to be pushed aside for them to appear, so their teleport would fail. Or it would succeed and they would get messily tele-fragged. And for the clever intruder that teleported while intangible, Action and Reaction would let it affect them anyway.

Sweaty, bruised, but thoroughly satisfied, I shambled over to the bathroom to relax after half a day of hard work.

xxxx

Once again I lay in a pool of molten, steaming rock, playing with the viscous, glowing orange fluid while thinking of my three students. There were even bubbles courtesy of impurities being burned away into slightly corrosive, lethally poisonous gas. The smell was a bit strong but the heat was just right for my level of durability after all my various active enhancements had been adjusted to let the lava through.

The kids were terribly unprepared. They still sniped at each other, had a tendency to charge blindly and not think things through, had terrible situational awareness, and the plans they did make were worse than no plan at all. Basically, they were typical teenagers. They were also a couple of years younger than my class had been when we'd been thrown into zombies, and over ninety percent of my class had died horribly. Unfortunately, I could not protect them any more - or so I'd thought until I had started toying with defensive barriers for the house.

I was far more of a brawler than a wizard. The old Maya had been a cheerleader and a more than a little violent girl taught to throw a punch by a disgraced ex-marine that had laughed at proper parenting guidelines. Gaining powers had not changed that much. I liked thinking up enchantments as a hobby and could use them in an emergency, but Mandy had been the sorceress and Jerry the engineer. Me? Give me something to pound with my fists or violently explode with short-lived power combos and I was golden.

So before I worked on something the kids' safety might depend on tomorrow, something had to change.

Name: Maya Wennefer Bio: female human, 17y11m23d

Known skills:

Points: 8/218

Action and Reaction, Chronal Leap, Empowering Regeneration, Eyebeams, Focused Invulnerability, Force Adjustment, Force Awareness, Forcefield Creation, Forced Acceleration, Greater Proximakinesis, Immutable Force, Instant Action, Lasting Force, Retributive Defense, Super Suit, Spatial Distortion, Spatial Leap

Attributes: Might 50, Agility 25, Reason 6, Vigilance 22, Ego 25, Luck 7

Word of Force: Power IV, Control III, Versatility IV, Number of Effects III, Range II, Scope II

Word of Self: Power IV, Control III, Versatility III, Number of Effects III, Range II, Scope I

Eight points to spend, so many ideas, so little time. For once, Might was not going to help. Raw power I had plenty; I just needed to use it better. The option of adding more known skills directly was also discarded. Enchanted items were made with a combination of skills that was as much an art as it was experience; one or two extra skills I had never used before would probably interfere with the rest; better stick to what worked except try for more of it.

To that end, I put two points in Vigilance. Making the anti-teleportation barrier had strained my perception and ability to handle information to the breaking point; just loosely visualizing the molecules in a few cubic inches of air and how they moved made tracking the people of a large city seem laughably easy in comparison. Vigilance was also intuition, finding patterns and opportunities and using them well. With two more points I was already seeing mistakes in my prior enchantments as my grasp of what Force Awareness showed me increased, almost insignificant flaws and how they could be fixed. Both my thoughts and actions flowed better, seamlessly, not in ways they couldn't have before but reaching and keeping at the best I could manage more easily. In many ways it was only a few percentage points of increase, in others the difference between getting things right the first time, every time.

Those were not the only changes, but by this point being able to see a broader spectrum of light, listen a few more steps up the frequencies than what animals could do or accurately count the leaves of a tree half a mile down the hill was not particularly important. Force Awareness might be less detailed than my other senses but it exchanged that for accuracy and penetration and I'd been using it for so long adapting to the changes only took a minute or two.

Sensory ability was not the only issue with my enchanting though. Power combinations, especially the more complex ones, only came with great difficulty and the results were tiny in volume. Whereas even a relatively weak wizard could throw a street-filling fireball and sorceresses like Mandy could throw around city-block-sized enchantments on the fly, it was the work of an hour for me to fill a small room. If I was to do more with this aspect of my powers that had to change too.

I used two points to boost the scope of my Word of Self array of powers to the second rank. Then I spent the last four points to do the same for Word of Force, raising its scope to the third rank. Immediately, I felt all my powers that affected an area expanding significantly. This had little impact to purely personal effects as long as I used them, but slotting them into a Forcefield? That became several times easier, faster and less costly. Fields for the powers I had more experience using could now easily fill three or four small rooms at once, or a single large one like the manor's living room. There was also a small gain in control simply because the individual skills wouldn't strain to spread across a volume, letting me focus more of my attention into detail work.

Name: Maya Wennefer Bio: female human, 17y11m23d

Known skills:

Points: 0/218

Action and Reaction, Chronal Leap, Empowering Regeneration, Eyebeams, Focused Invulnerability, Force Adjustment, Force Awareness, Forcefield Creation, Forced Acceleration, Greater Proximakinesis, Immutable Force, Instant Action, Lasting Force, Retributive Defense, Super Suit, Spatial Distortion, Spatial Leap

Attributes: Might 50, Agility 25, Reason 6, Vigilance 24, Ego 25, Luck 7

Word of Force: Power IV, Control III, Versatility IV, Number of Effects III, Range II, Scope III

Word of Self: Power IV, Control III, Versatility III, Number of Effects III, Range II, Scope II

It might not be the leap in sheer power that would let me punt giant monsters into orbit, but artifice should be much easier. Just to test things out, I combined Forcefield Creation with Proximakinesis to pull a lump of soil from the front porch, through the foyer and living room and finally into the bathroom where I'd made my lava pool. The pull was faster, easier.

I amplified vibrations in the lump of clay with Force Adjustment, then filtered its constituent substances with Greater Proximakinesis as they melted, then boiled away. There was only half a percent of Titanium in the mixture by mass, but about ten grams should be enough for three rings. I tore the compounds apart by lowering their binding forces via Force Adjustment then extracted the pure Titanium and shaped it. It was faster, not nearly as costly in effort as it would have been before. Alternating through multiple different fields and tracking their overlapping effects was easier with sharper, more streamlined senses, making shaping the rings as easy as writing a letter of the alphabet.

Three lustrous silvery bands floated over a pool of lava, like that scene from my favorite movie from more than a decade before. Now, what enchantments were appropriate for three overconfident kids about to have their first solo mission?