Different people had different ideas about what was good for New Bay and what wasn't. Some people didn't think it was a huge deal. Others- like the city officials- seemed to think that hundreds of uncontrolled superpowered mice was 'dangerous'. Apparently, the heroes weren't doing that well with bringing them in… and keeping them was another issue.

I didn't really see the big deal. There were more people with portal powers than these guys… though I supposed the mere existence of these mice was an embarrassment for some. Because of the highly illegal nature of the experiments and the fact that numerous heroes were associated with it- whether they chose to be or not.

Anyway, with all of that for some reason the city wanted to go after Rodentia even though she probably only had a couple dozen of the mice in her care, if that. However many fell into that tunnel that she made. Relatedly, the city had already scoured the massive drill tunnel she made but it crossed through a number of underground complexes including the overly developed sewers New Bay had with no clear indication of which way she had departed. Otherwise, they probably would have found her right away.

"And that's why the two of you are here," Calculator finished his explanation, looking between me and Midnight. "Bolster already made attempts at Scrying the location of Rodentia, but all we got was this…" he waved his arm and the projectors in the room recreated the three-dimensional image in the Scrying 'orb'. Though only one angle was really relevant.

There was a rat holding a sign- a robot rat, based on its perfect stillness. The sign read: 'Your surveillance attempts have been logged and reported to the rat authorities. Don't make me turn your powers into molten cheese'.

"Obviously the threat is a bit…" Calculator waved his arms vaguely. "But relevantly, Bolster wasn't able to achieve anything else after a few days of attempts."

"Too bad," I said. "She's been getting pretty good at this stuff."

Even with all of the upgrades Midnight and I shared, we weren't all that much better than Bolster. Last I checked she had four or five upgrades, while we had nine. A relevant difference, but the larger factor would be my ability to use more mana than really should fit in a spell. It significantly improved power, even if not necessarily other factors, so it would likely help break through barriers.

I had a tiny amount of trepidation at the possibility that Rodentia would actually be able to follow through with her threats. However, it was just a threat. It would be easier for her to just kill people, and I wasn't as worried about her compared to Doctor Doomsday. She didn't even have to know I was involved.

Midnight was here to improve our overall practice, and to provide supporting mana. He could actually provide the normal cost for Scrying, 11 points, while I provided the remaining 13 to maximize my output. Maybe 12 for the sake of stability and… consciousness. I was pretty good at not knocking myself out when hitting my limits now, but it was better to just not worry about it. Since Scrying had to be sustained for a time, it was better not to push things.

Assistive Familiar Casting didn't have enough upgrades to fully support Scrying, but it was worth it. Splitting the mana cost was one thing, but this was also a good way to train Assistive Familiar Casting itself. The more we used it, the smaller any potential gaps would become.

Even using excessive amounts of mana, I felt real strain trying to lock onto Rodentia or anything of import connected to her. The Scrying did fixate on that one sign carrying rat, but I was eventually able to yank it away. But despite getting free, it was only momentary before I ended up at another location where there was now a pair of rats holding a different sign.

'I know you're watching' the sign said. Then it pointed to a strange black orb with swirling fluids inside it. I could see various words, but it ultimately settled on one thing. 'Oraclops'.

"Who's Oraclops?" Midnight asked.

"A seer that awakened her third eye through permanently sealing her original two eyes," I said, repeating the words I had read in a bio sometime before. I did try to know about the various supers in the city, but it was a full time job to keep up with all of them. "I think the name is… oracle and cyclops smashed together?"

"... I can't tell if that's a good name or a terrible name," Midnight admitted. "I've been exposed to far too many strange ones."

It was pretty clear that Rodentia could not, in fact, discern which individual was spying on her stuff. That was encouraging, and led me to push a bit further. The spell was running out of juice so we probably wouldn't see much, but I wanted to find something not locked down.

I got an empty room. I spun around the viewing angle- it was faster than walking around the cube- but it didn't reveal anything useful. Not to me, at least. However, there was one trick I wanted to try. Great Girl had suggested it.

How had it gone…? My view was bumping up against one of the walls, but if it was thin enough I might somehow 'clip' through the wall? She'd shown me what it looked like in some videos. I might have accidentally done things like that before, but rarely on purpose.

It wouldn't hurt to try. "Midnight, try to focus on stability." If he was doing that, I could try things that were very much not stable.

The Scrying spell was supposed to be locked onto a person. Sometimes an object, rarely a place. It did not like wandering around freely. That was probably what let it sit in the Advanced tier instead of the Master tier. There always had to be tradeoffs for efficiency.

This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

But if you were already breaking magic, why not do it a little bit more? There was way too much mana powering this spell already, so maybe it would do something. I spun the image and… darkness. But not actual darkness, because I'd be able to see with that. The image was inside a wall. And then?

A shelf. I was pretty sure that was what we saw before it blinked out, the swirling mists fading away in an instant.

"Excellent," Calculator said. "Let's review the footage."

Seeing it replayed, without the focus I had on the spell, it was actually quite disorienting. The images didn't smoothly transition from one to another, and the final moment was even worse. But… we did have at least a few frames. They were slightly blurred from the image source moving, and more than half of the angles on the cube were nothing at all, but we managed to see a shelf. It had some syringes, and a label. Convenient.

I couldn't quite make out the words. '... soup?' I tilted my head.

"Cabbage?" Midnight suggested.

"Garbage injectors that usually give super cancer," Calculator declared. "Or at least that is a fairly probable version of things. See here, one frame earlier, these few letters are less blurred. Combining all of the frames we have…" he moved back and forth, clearly for our benefit as it seemed he'd memorized them when they flashed by the second time. "Something like what I said. This is a… concerning coincidence."

"Doubt it," I said. "I was thinking about the Super Labs incident, so if those are related to that… it probably wouldn't be random."

"Do you think you could get there again?"

"We can try."

We tried. The first time had apparently had a little luck. Relatedly, we always kept stumbling across the second sign, telling us 'who' was spying. The third time, it said 'Mage'. That was disconcerting- was it becoming more accurate? We were worried about that for a second, but the fourth result was 'Kevin'.

"... Is there a super named Kevin?" I asked.

"Several," Calculator said. "But not as their official moniker, and not all are public knowledge." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Nothing I know fits here. But for some reason I feel like it's meaningful."

"Write it down then," I shrugged. "Anyway, I don't think we'll get anywhere with this route. Throwing more power at this doesn't seem to be the answer. We need connection. Like, say, a superpowered mouse. If only I caught one of those."

Calculator held his head high. "It is not my job to secure prisoners. That's on the city. We might be able to secure some of the other-"

Something on his tablet made him stop.

"Something wrong?" Midnight asked.

"I'm betting all of the mice escaped," I said.

Calculator glared at me. That meant I was right.

"I'm not responsible for securing prisoners," I shrugged. "It's not my fault."

"This one might be."

"No way," I shook my head. "I've been here."

"Three loud sounds, like knocks on a door. Then all of the cages opened."

"There are other mages," I protested. "There's like two thousand people with Portal Powers!"

"Did you know Super Labs can't lock any of their doors?" Calculator asked.

"Their security sucked anyway," I said. "After Rodentia's thing the city should have taken out all of their research if they knew what was good for them." I paused. "What does that have to do with me, though?"

Calculator's look told me I should try to remember something. I remembered lots of things, but none of them were relevant. So I kept trying.

"... Knock is instantaneous, not lasting. There's no way it's still doing something."

"Want to bet?" Calculator asked. "We can go take a walk, and you can tell me if any of your power is still lingering there. How much mana did you use?"

"Listen," I said. "They wouldn't let us through anywhere. I couldn't go around opening every door one by one."

"How much?"

"... All of it? But some of that went towards Multicasting so really it was only somewhere around double the normal amount of mana. Not six times."

"I see," Calculator said. He saw a lot of things, but he didn't always say what they were. "Well, regardless of fault… if you want a super mouse, you're going to have to go out and catch some."

-----

"Is he mad?" I asked Midnight. "I can't always tell if he's mad. Sometimes he yells at me when he's mad and it's easier to tell, but sometimes he stops saying things."

"I think…" Midnight drew out the word. "That he's putting in a lot of work to make sure everything gets blamed on Super Labs and the fools who ran it, and not on innocent mages and familiars who might coincidentally appear to have some sort of connection," Midnight said. "... Did you have any idea Knock could do that?"

"I could see it permanently keeping doors unlocked," I said. "But! I don't think that has anything to do with the mice escaping. There's just no way. It's been too long. Maybe one of the mice has Portal Powers though?"

"Or a copy power," Midnight said. "That's more likely, with power exclusivity."

"Ugh, like Antagonist."

Antagonist was nice, I just didn't like the idea of more people with powers like his. Obviously there would be, but not knowing what people might do would be annoying.

There was one issue though.

"It would have to work on a long delay," I commented. "I can't think of any heroes like that off the top of my head… but I suppose we could research it."

"Might not be a hero," Midnight pointed out. "Could be some villains or mercs got mixed in with the powers they were handing out. Anyway, if we can find a lead… Calculator will be happier, regardless of his current feelings."

So he would. Time to look things up. And maybe we could track down some mice as well. I was willing to bet they wouldn't try to run away if they got enough cheese. Mice liked cheese, right?

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.