As it turned out, Celmothians were smart. The thing was, the project we had done on their home planet was actually a lot harder for multiple reasons. That teleportation inhibitor had been designed to cover a larger section of city. Mana regeneration on Celmoth was slower- close to 'baseline' levels. Meanwhile, on Earth we had almost concerningly high mana regeneration and we only needed to cover a small building complex. Emphasis on the small, in some cases.

Celmothians liked towers, but they weren't planning to have a full towerful of them living on Earth. Certainly not within the near future. The embassy didn't need to be that big and in fact smaller was better. After all, they had to deal with Earth's power grid… and they could almost guarantee attacks from Bunvorixians. They hadn't often been that bold within New Bay itself, but their recent lack of prominent activity was actually another reason to be worried.

Anyway, the enchantments were easy. Easy-ish. We'd had to redo a couple, but only because we were working to a high standard. We wanted more than functional.

We weren't done in just a day or two, and in fact the pace of building was keeping ahead of us- but that was because advanced tech and construction supers were involved. It was a very expensive series of buildings for their size. New Bay was probably ecstatic at the flow of money. Even if they wouldn't likely be paying property tax, the construction alone employed people and resources from within the city. There simply weren't that many supers anywhere else. Not without drawing people from across the country or on another continent.

-----

Every day, we spent a few hours working on the enchantments. We were most limited by mana recovery, though taking our time to do the enchantments right was important. Even if they didn't do much more than make it harder for the other security measures to be bypassed, they were a critical component of things. Especially with so many people throwing around magic. The Celmothians were also concerned about powers in general, as they didn't have New Bay's long history of dealing with that sort of thing.

We tended to leave in the late afternoon, pretty exhausted. That was really inconvenient when someone attacked us as we were leaving.

"Mage and Familiar!" some crazy lady yelled at us from further along the sidewalk. "Surrender yourselves to captivity."

Midnight glared at her. "What? No."

"Not a chance in infinite hells, random lady."

It came to mind that we weren't in outfit… but it really wasn't hard for anyone who knew to recognize us regardless. It was going to be more annoying to deal with any recordings later though.

She wasn't that strong. I could feel her power. It felt like… fakeness. Illusion was the word non-tired orcs might use. Her costume seemed to be fairly high quality… except for the complete lack of super tech or any features that would make it more than clothes. There weren't any defining features that stood out to me and indicated who she might be. She should really talk to her publicity department about that.

"In that case, I shall have to overcome you! Because I really need this bounty."

I had a few different bounties, I was pretty sure. Mostly black market ones from people like the Mod Squad and other groups I often came into conflict with. "Which one?" I asked.

"There are…? You won't get me to reveal any secrets, mercenary!"

"Okay," I said. People had already given us sufficient distance- nobody wanted to get involved in a battle of supers. The street would probably be closed off in a couple minutes.

I cast sleep where she was standing. Nothing happened.

"What was that supposed to do, huh?" She just stood there with her hands on her hips. "No, seriously."

"Disintegration spell," I said.

"What?" She cussed a few times, hugging her arms to her body. "You're crazy! But, uh, I'm immune to such things so…"

Water Blast was next. Straight through her head… then her head snapped back and she toppled to the ground.

No, it wasn't high enough pressure to go through anything? And it hadn't even splashed.

Oh right, illusions. I was already tired, and she was lucky I was actually controlling my mana properly.

A street light tried to smack me on the head. I wasn't going to bet on that being an illusion, so I jumped back and to the side. It could have also been at a weird angle, so I tried to be unpredictable in my movements.

It certainly made a solid sound as it hit the ground, but I wasn't a hundred percent convinced that was the sound of a street light hitting the sidewalk. And yes, I had heard it before, just not frequently.

Midnight was taking small shots throughout the area, sweeping around a low powered laser. The first image of the woman had already disappeared, but three more had appeared. One in the middle of the street, standing among some abandoned cars, and one behind and ahead of us on the sidewalk.

It was a lot to pay attention to, which was why I missed the mailbox when it headbutted my midsection. It shoved me back but it was wide, blunt, and slow so it didn't actually hurt.

"Tampering with mail is a federal crime!" I called out.

"The mail should be fine!" she retorted.

I blasted at the one in the middle of the street. Water still, because I wasn't feeling very threatened and didn't want to set buildings on fire.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

"Whoa!" she ducked out of the way. "Careful! If this was really me it could be dangerous!"

It was for sure her. I could see the way she tensed up and her other two illusions lowered in power. She might have been offset from what I saw, but she'd definitely been in that general direction. If she was smart, she wouldn't still be.

Unfortunately, my attacks didn't stop her from trying to squash Midnight with a gumball machine. I… wasn't even sure why the things even existed. Did people buy those? Maybe it was a retro thing. Earthlings liked retro.

Midnight obviously wasn't going to get hit by a gumball machine. He was clearly hesitant to annihilate it, though. Who knew what that thing cost. Certainly not me.

This was so annoying. Who even was this? I just wanted to go take a nap and recover to positive mana. Oh wait. "You're that Thazzi girl!" The mayor's cousin or niece or something. I was assuming this was what a wimpy version of Mystrome should be like.

"It's Thiziri! No, wait. I'm Anima!"

"Animal?" I asked as I tried to kick the light. I felt nothing. But the mailbox had definitely been real. It still was, but I was briskly walking out of its reach as it hopped after me. "That's not a great name. Maybe try Toylusion."

"Hey, that's not actually half bad. No wait, stop trying to distract me!"

I was ninety-nine percent sure she couldn't really toss a car at me, but I dove out of the way regardless- into the street between other cars. It gave me a chance to gather mana as I hid for a moment. I needed a bigger spell, but I wasn't planning to bring down the block or anything. I just wanted some Arcane Sight. With enough skill it would reveal illusions.

Animal wasn't as incompetent as she looked. She really wasn't in the same spot as any of her visual illusions. Instead, she was peeking over a car, trying to spot me. I had the convenience that I could see the magic making her appear to be elsewhere, but she didn't seem to have any supernatural senses. Her eyes were also unevenly dilated, making her look crazy.

I intentionally looked away from her. I even let her hit me with a car door as I moved around. I knew how to fall properly, so it was fine. She also couldn't tell I had mana built up, so when she changed angle to try to see me better she didn't know I was waiting.

I pointed my two fingers at her like a gun, releasing a somewhat upcast Dispel. It worked with mice, so why not people? It was hard for me to even temporarily turn off proper powers- usually I could negate a small aspect for a few moments- but the mice were less stable. If this was the same source, it should be similar. Though she was probably stronger than the mice, or maybe just better at figuring out how to actually activate powers.

She staggered back, and I vaulted to my feet. Before she even really understood what was going on, I had one arm in my grasp and was moving around behind her. "You're under arrest, Animal."

Midnight was darting over. "She said her name was Anima, by the way."

"Yeah, that."

I pulled suppression cuffs out of Storage and clicked them on her wrists. "Anyway, you're going to jail."

"Umm, about that. Remember that thing you said before? Could you not remove my mask?"

I looked at Midnight. He shrugged. I could feel the full extent of his apathy emanating from him.

I texted Brigade HQ for advice. Normally I would have verbalized my questions, but this could be a delicate matter. After a short back and forth, I had my orders.

"The Power Brigade will be taking you in directly," I said.

"Oh. Uh, good? Eep!" For some reason she was surprised when I tossed her over my shoulder. "Put me down! I have legs! I can walk on my own!"

"Your legs are short."

"They're pretty average!" she protested.

"Same thing."

We didn't want to be out on the streets longer than necessary. It sure would have been convenient if we could use her powers to hide our progress, as we got more than a few stares. We had taken the time to mask up before leaving the incident site so that we wouldn't look like weird kidnappers. Maybe super kidnappers, but the Power Brigade logo and us walking down the street should be helpful.

-----

"What did you do to me?!"

For some reason, this lady was unreasonably angry. "Just suppressed your powers for a bit. You don't even have cuffs on anymore."

"They're gone!" she flailed her arms. She was dragging her fingernails along her arms. "No no no… they can't be! I just needed to bring you to them…"

I was a great interrogator, considering I hadn't even been trying. "Yeah? Who?"

"That's a secret!"

Darn. There went my new career.

"When are you letting me go?" Thazzi asked.

"What makes you think we're just going to let you go?" I asked.

"Well… my uncle…?" she tilted her head. "Obviously."

Something like five minutes later a man stomped in along with Calculator and Lady light.

"Uncle! Finally!"

She lunged for him to hug him, but he just held an arm out, pressing against her shoulder. He looked her straight in the eyes. "What are you on this time?"

"Nothing! I, uh-"

"You don't get arrested by the Power Brigade for supervillainy for nothing. I'm quite certain they have high definition recordings to back up their claims. But I'd rather hear it from you."

"Well, look, the thing is…" her eyes darted around. "I can't just… I got the new thing, you know?"

"Presume I do not."

"The Juice! Super in a Syringe. You know."

"Is that what happened to your mother's car?"

"Well I- I was going to buy her a new one. Once I was earning, you know."

I had some insight here. Thiziri needed powers.

The mayor, who had a name I didn't even have to look up real quick- Izem- looked quite disappointed. "She wouldn't want dirty money."

"It wouldn't have been! I could have joined up with SSI or something…" she muttered. I wondered if she remembered there was an audience. Also SSI was the worst choice.

"Not even considering hero work? That's the guilt talking." Izem crossed his arms. He looked to the executives. "I don't want her booked. But…" he turned back to glare at his niece. "If she doesn't cooperate, I can't ask you to bend the rules that hard." He turned towards the door, stopping with his back to the rest of us. "So I suggest you remember who told you what, Thiziri."

She looked sick at the very prospect. Though, she was looking pretty sick regardless. We should probably get Martinez in here.

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