Portal manipulation should count as a fight. I was actively working against something- whatever mechanisms Doctor Doomsday used to create and sustain the effect, for one. I didn’t know if it did, and I certainly wasn’t going to be keeping my experience window open to try to figure it out. I was just putting my thoughts out to the universe in the hopes I got more experience.

  Castle was doing all the actual fighting. She had pulled a shield from somewhere- a thin sheet of metal that she unfolded. It didn’t look like much, but with her power going through it it seemed to block the various assaults of the robots on the other side. It was too bad I didn’t have any enchantments on her, so I probably wouldn’t be getting any experience from that. Though perhaps she was powerful enough that it wasn’t a real challenge anyway.

  Stray lasers and bullets still made it past her. She couldn’t block the whole portal, though fortunately the bots were happy enough to mainly focus on her. A few pushed past, which generally involved dropping towards the streets- or gliding at best. Other supers would deal with that, though.

  I flew closer to the portal, staying low to keep out of the trajectory of attacks. A spiky, round bot nearly landed on my head but I thwacked it with my staff. It didn’t seem particularly injured, but we were launched towards opposite sides and it continued to fall. Soon, I was beneath and then behind the portal. The safest side to be, assuming someone was handling the rest.

  Slowly, I began to tug on the edges. I might be able to close it all at once, but that would be a large effort and leave Castle trapped. She was strong, but not necessarily to the level it would be safe to trap her in another world while being swarmed by enemies. Plus, the city probably wanted her for other incidents today. She could fight Doctor Doomsday, so I wanted her around.

  I shrunk the portal until no more bots were getting out, then flew above and slightly in front to get a visual on the situation, after applying some defensive spells. Stoneskin and Energy Ward seemed prudent. Indeed, as I became visible I was targeted past Castle’s protection.

  “I’m going to need to finish closing the portal!” I warned. “You should get out of there.”

  It was hard to hear anything over the sounds of gunfire and lasers impacting Castle, but I was fairly certain she responded in the affirmative. Either way, I began carefully shrinking the remaining portal. If she wasn’t out by the time it was a yard round, I would drag her out.

  It didn’t help that the bots were shouting something about ‘extradimensional intruders’. What language was that? Clearly not English but I’d heard it before. “Hey, can you stop shooting and stuff? We didn’t make this.”

  It was unclear if my attempt at diplomacy did anything, which means it was several times better than that angel incident. At least they didn’t get more violent. Castle ducked out of the portal, dangling on the edge for a moment.

  I didn’t want to find out what would happen if I shrunk the side she was holding onto, so I worked on shrinking the portal from the other end. At least I was capable of such modular decisions. I’d first really experimented with that on Earth #2. It was really good for intentionally hurting things.

  Once the portal was about a foot tall- or because she was tired of having her fingers shot at- Castle swung towards the roof. I rapidly tied up the rest of the portal, slicing through a metal cannon that was pointing out. The surge of mana was… rather disappointing. Maybe whatever caused that portal-closing mana generation was world dependent.

  “I have a little more flying time,” I commented to Castle. “It’s probably more convenient than jumping.”

  “You should have started with that!” she laughed.

  “I can’t do it forever. Next portal?”

  I looked down to see one of the bots get smashed by another. Was that Chuck down there? I think he was red, so it could have been. Something about the shape of one of the bots seemed familiar. The bots were sort of a funny shape. The heads of the ‘humanoid’ ones in particular hadn’t been entirely round.

  Oh, that was it! Khithae’s language. I hope Earth #3 didn’t get too mad about us breaking their stuff. Though they probably ended up in our world first. Unless someone threw something into the portal when it opened. Doctor Doomsday might also have provoked them on purpose.

  -----

  “Anyway,” I summarized to Midnight. “I helped close a couple more, others faded on their own or were dealt with by heroes or mercs. The city survived, you survived, everything seems… alright.”

  “Not great, though,” Midnight replied. “Far more people were hurt. Both before and during the incidents.”

  “And most of them won’t even get portal powers,” I said. “Maybe none of them. Except the normal ratio for traumatic incidents in New Bay. I didn’t personally see any portals that would have led to my old world or any of its planes, but there might have been some.”

  Midnight nodded. “I’m not certain what Doctor Doomsday gained from this. There wasn’t even a good reason for people to listen to him in the first place, and now any power fanatics aren’t going to fall for this again. Unless they’re just crazy.”

  “I thought it was pretty crazy to listen to him once,” I pointed out.

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  “Maybe. But… if you didn’t have powers, what do you think you might do to get them? Probably some dangerous stuff, right?”

  “I’m not sure if I’m a good example. I’m from a world where everyone has powers.”

  Midnight shook his head. “Here in New Bay, people might feel like that. They see them every day. And yet, they don’t. So it’s a lot like you.”

  “I just needed a way to get experience, though.”

  “And everyone else probably just thinks they needed a way to get powers.”

  “Hmm.”

  I was busy thinking about how many people per day I could put through a Gate. Safely. A few hundred worked if they were going one way, but people would probably need to go in and out. I wasn’t sure how long people needed to be around stuff to get proper class unlocks, either. It took several hours off-plane to get natural growth, but that wasn’t an issue. Unlocking a class in general only took a few moments of exposure.

  Probably thousands of people could walk near a Gate. If we just gathered everyone in New Bay who wanted powers, it would only take… forever. I’d have to hit tens or hundreds of thousands to make a decent dent in the population, and people probably wanted that. But if I got enough and those people grew to be able to make their own Gates… Well, they’d need some connection to my old world. Would getting powers from there be enough?

  “This is a difficult topic,” I concluded.

  “Yeah. Anyway, we have to presume Doctor Doomsday got something besides chaos, but there wasn’t any big break in… that anyone will admit to.”

  I nodded. “So… what next? We kind of need to know why ninjas were after you. Or rather, after you on Earth #2. Did they know you’d be there? Are they working with Zentha?”

  “... could they be?”

  “They’re from the same world. Why wouldn’t they be able to?”

  “I just assumed they’d be enemies with her.”

  I shrugged. “Unless she’s one of the bad guys. Though there’s probably multiple factions of them. So, how do we find her?”

  “Have we decided we’re doing that? When?”

  “Well, either she’s working with them or could otherwise tell us something,” I said. “And she was somewhere in that same world. So, we come up with a search method there and either find her or determine she left, we’ll resolve one thing at least.”

  “Hmm,” Midnight nodded. “Sounds a bit risky, though. What if she’s dangerous? If she is, for some reason, working with ninjas… it could be a trap. Or it could be a trap anyway. Or she could just be a more experienced and more powerful mage capable of taking on both of us at once.”

  “Right.” I hadn’t really thought about that. Just because she was a divination specialist didn’t mean she couldn’t chuck Meteor Swarms at us. If we knew what she was going to use it would be different, of course. “Maybe we should get the Brigade involved. But we’d also have to talk to the magical girls.”

  “Why not ask them directly?” Midnight commented.

  “They’ve got enough garbage to handle from their own world,” I said. “Plus, they don’t fight humans and wouldn’t get paid for it.”

  “Anyone we bring with us might not get paid either. Unless you’re willing to give up your pay?”

  “Eh…” Most of the material component testing had been on the Power Brigades budget. “I’m not really hurting for cash right now. My main expense is rent.” Once I’d gotten stabilized, I really hadn’t needed more money.

  “... You’re investing, right?”

  “I have talked to the Brigades financial advisors and did what they recommended. Also, I don’t think we’re allowed to make any directly.”

  “Why not?” Midnight asked.

  “Divination magic. They don’t want powers to affect the economy. Directly, I guess. Obviously it will still happen.”

  “... Can they enforce that?”

  I frowned. “Why, are you worried about something?”

  Midnight shook his head. “I was just wondering.”

  “I assume the people concerned about future stuff are just as invested as Extra and their extradimensional and extraterrestrial branches. Or maybe they have a department that covers that?”

  “Extratemporal?” Midnight tilted his head. “I really hope that doesn’t come up often.”

  “Anyway,” I said. “We should bring some magic resistant mercs and try to find Zentha. Or the other way around, but people will need to be on standby for an afternoon or something.”

  “Maybe once things settle down here,” Midnight said.

  I shrugged. “We can’t help with repairs anyway. If there are any lingering portals, though…”

  -----

  The next few days involved a lot of messaging and very little actual action on the part of myself or Midnight. Ceira wanted to know if there might suddenly be a bunch of new druids. I mentioned that people probably didn’t get a lot of portal powers. She sounded disappointed. I’m glad she wasn’t trying to monopolize anything.

  What was a bigger deal, to some, was what Khithae discovered. Or rather, what happened involving Khithae. She was brought to the labs to help repair and analyze some of the robot debris when she recognized the technology involved. I… probably should have mentioned that I recognized the language, but that was the same day and I’d been concerned about Midnight’s return. Also Captain Punch, but I’d assumed he would be fine. It didn’t really bother me if some random executive got hurt anyway.

  Extra wanted to talk to me and Khithae about that world. She didn’t want to go back. I was a terrible choice for diplomacy. So mostly, they asked her for information on the dimension so they could mitigate future conflicts. I got the feeling Extra was annoyed with Doomsday. These portal incidents were probably a pain.

  Speaking of which, I was called upon to provide translation services a few times. Helpfully, Midnight could do it as well. And Bolster. And Jerome, if they just needed someone to cast the spell and not to remain in any sort of danger zone. I might suggest he be considered for an internship with Extra or something. People here thought he was too young to work full time or whatever, but it wasn’t like he could actually cast spells all day anyway.

  I was willing to bet I could even teach him to help close portals. Just in case. And the more things I taught him that I didn’t want to do, the less I’d have to do them. A perfect arrangement, since he could get experience doing normal, boring stuff.