Industrial strength magi.., p.1
Industrial Strength Magic, page 1
Other Stories by Macronomicon
The Stitched Worlds
Wake of the Ravager
Fair Princess
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Contents
Chapter 1: Inciting Incident
Chapter 2: The Quest
Chapter 3: Class Selection
Chapter 4: Maths
Chapter 5: My Weakness Is Bullet #3
Chapter 6: Tinkering
Chapter 7: First Date
Chapter 8: Dressed for Success
Chapter 9: No Plan Survives First Contact
Chapter 10: Debut of Paradox
Chapter 11: Mk. II
Chapter 12: People Are Complicated
Chapter 13: Brainstorming
Chapter 14: Social Armor
Chapter 15: Fiscal Armor
Chapter 16: Physical Armor
Chapter 17: ADHD Is My Superpower
Chapter 18: Tung-Stan
Chapter 19: The Minor Leagues
Chapter 20: Quest Complete!
Chapter 21: Tide’s In
Chapter 22: A Night on the Town
Chapter 23: Paradox 1-Day Builds
Chapter 24: The Law of the Beach
Chapter 25: Replicator
Chapter 26: Perry’s a Ticking Time Bomb
Chapter 27: Gym
Chapter 28: Juggling Train Wrecks
Chapter 29: Obfuscation Through Chaos
Chapter 30: A Night In
Chapter 31: Mistakes Were Made
Chapter 32: Prop Comedy
Chapter 33: Lockdown
Chapter 34: Out of the Frying Pan
Chapter 35: Into the Flier
Chapter 36: Disappointment and Improvisation
Chapter 37: Perry Bites off More than He Can Chew
Chapter 38: Embrace the Chaos
Chapter 39: Tactical Hugs
Chapter 40: That’s Not How Therapy Works
Chapter 41: Plans and Workout
Chapter 42: Rampage FOMO
Chapter 43: Worrisome Side Effects
Chapter 44: Taking Inventory
Chapter 45: The Highlight Reel
Chapter 46: Nemesis ≠ Bullying
Chapter 47: You’re Cordially Invited
Chapter 48: Bureaucracy
Chapter 49: Shower Reveal
Chapter 50: Soggy Battle
Chapter 51: Cognitohazard
Chapter 52: The World Is Spookier than You Think
Chapter 53: From Bad to Worse
Chapter 54: You Can’t Accidentally Summon a Demon, Paradox
Chapter 55: (IN)FAMOUS
Chapter 56: Wheelin’ an’ Dealin’
Chapter 57: Opportunity Knocks
Chapter 58: Date Night
Chapter 59: Paradox’s First Loss
Chapter 60: It Takes Two to Tango
Chapter 61: Wayward’s Defensive Disguise
Chapter 62: Removed from the Equation
Chapter 63: Gor’s Disintegration
Chapter 64: Safety Meeting
Chapter 65: Small but Aggressive
Chapter 66: Night Raid
Chapter 67: Berserkers
Chapter 68: Matador
Chapter 69: A Missed Opportunity
Chapter 70: Walkabout
Chapter 71: Closure
Chapter 72: Level 5
Chapter 73: Life Revolves Around the Wall
Chapter 74: Combat Shopping
Chapter 75: Battle Etiquette
Chapter 76: Exit Stage Left
Chapter 77: Adventures in Super-Tailoring
Chapter 78: Super Teen Delinquents
Chapter 79: Junior Varsity Mind Control
Chapter 80: Parental Guidance
Chapter 81: Street Cleanup
Chapter 82: The Morning After
Chapter 83: End of the Lin
e
Chapter 1: Inciting Incident
Growth Spell (Neophyte Difficulty)
Ingredients: Unicorn dung, glowstone
3 dung to one glowstone ratio by mass, powder each ingredient until fine, mix until homogenous.
Invoke the name of the owner of the dung to activate dung’s receptiveness to essence. Continue invoking as you bathe the mixture in sunlight—Ultraviolet? Perry’s question was written into the margin of his mother’s spellbook beside the instructions—to activate the glowstone. Stir well to ensure the entire mixture has been exposed to sunlight. After the ritual is complete, sprinkle the dust on any plant to cause rapid growth. Magical effect of dust will fade within two hours, best used immediately.
Perry glanced at the canister full of dehydrated shit.
It had a smiling cartoon unicorn giving a thumbs-up. Ignoring that logical impossibility, Perry glanced at the back of the canister.
Meet Dave the Unicorn. Dave is a humble unicorn from the Manitian Eldwylds. With nothing but a shoestring budget and a desire to deliver his produce onto the doorsteps of as many humans as possible, Dave has turned Dave’s Magical Gardening Supplies into the go-to place for exotic, high-quality magical ingredients for even the most demanding gardening projects.
Contents generously provided by Ko’berath the Trembling.
“Okay…” Perry looked back at his mixture. It was brown with hints of gold and bits of glimmering light where the sun caught tiny pieces of powdered glowstone.
It wasn’t gonna get any more mixed than that.
Perry glanced up at the sun: directly overhead. No better time to give this a shot.
“Ko’berath, Ko’berath, Ko’berath, Ko’berath,” Perry said, as clearly as he could while he carefully folded the dust, making sure all of it caught the sunlight.
The mixture began to glow more and more vibrantly as the glowstone activated, until it shone bright gold.
Is this it?!
Once the brightness plateaued, Perry took a pinch of the dust and sprinkled it on the seedling waiting nearby in its pot, his heart pounding in his ears.
…Nothing.
The seed sat there, covered in a fine dusting of the golden poop-glowstone hybrid, trembling in the gentle breeze. Mocking him.
“Is something supposed to happen?” Heather asked, kicking her heels as she watched. Heather was the daughter of one of Dad’s coworkers. They lived nearby, and they’d been hanging out almost as long as he could remember. The slender girl was wearing a white T-shirt and loose jean shorts, the brilliant sunlight making her curly hair seem like it was on fire.
“Yeah,” Perry said, scratching his chin as he checked the back of the two-thousand-dollar tin of dehydrated shit. They couldn’t have gotten the name wrong, could they? It was a simple matter of collecting unicorn shit in an appropriately labeled bucket, after all.
“Maybe it takes a while?” Heather asked.
“I saw Mom do it in the garden,” Perry said, shaking his head. “It was really fast. Really fast.”
The redheaded girl approached from her seat in the lawn chair and read the back of the canister. “Maybe you need to say the whole name?”
“‘The Trembling’ is just a moniker, not the unicorn’s true name.”
“Well, then maybe they got the name wrong?”
“No, it’s guaranteed,” Perry muttered. “I’ve seen Mom do it a hundred times and it’s never failed. This is supposed to be one of the easiest rituals in existence. She even used this canister last week!”
Perry was checking the glowstone mother for impurities when a sudden, horrifying thought occurred to him. There was only one variable he hadn’t considered: himself. He closed the lid on the plastic barrel of light-reactive salts, ice running through his veins despite the summer heat.
“You do it,” he said, turning to his classmate.
“Do what?” she asked.
“Say the unicorn’s name while stirring the dust,” Perry said, grabbing Heather by the shoulders and steering her towards the table, prompting a squeak of surprise from her.
“O-okay. Take it easy, Perry,” Heather said, picking up the spatula and watching him warily. Perry merely watched expectantly.
“Umm…Kolobath—”
“Ko’berath,” Perry corrected.
“Right. Ko’berath, Ko’berath, Ko’berath, Ko’berath,” Heather spoke, stirring the dust, which rapidly regained its brilliance as sunlight was reintroduced to the glowstone.
Once it had reached the peak of its vibrancy, Perry reached out and grabbed a handful of the glowing dust, throwing it on the seedling.
Heather squeaked and scrambled backward through the grass as the terra cotta pot exploded outward, roots searching every which way.
The cheap plastic table collapsed under the sudden weight of the tree, dropping the questing root system to the ground, where the roots immediately buried themselves in the earth. The trunk of the oak tree shot into the sky, towering above Perry’s suburban two-story house.
Perry wanted to rage. He wanted to cut down the tree out of spite and light the stump on fire. But none of that anger could make it past the all-encompassing hollowness he felt inside.
Even the simplest magic was barred from him.
Forget about following in his mom’s footsteps and becoming a cape; he couldn’t even become a gardener. He was as Dull as they came. According to Mom, anything alive and cognizant could complete that ritual, so either Perry was a machine and didn’t know it, he was in a coma, or he was some kind of…magical insulator.
Non
The last door on his ambition of being like his mom had just slammed shut in his face.
“Wow, that was awesome!” Heather said, climbing back to her feet and craning her neck to view the top of the tree. “I bet we could see Nexus from the top of it!”
With the enthusiasm of youth, Heather grabbed onto one of the lower branches and began scaling the monument to Perry’s inadequacy.
“I’m…I’m gonna go lie down,” Perry said, barely holding back a sob. Can’t cry in front of a girl.
“Are you okay?” she asked, dropping off the branch. “Do you think your dad will be mad?”
“Probably,” Perry choked out as he staggered toward the sliding door leading into his house. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Perr—”
Heather’s voice was cut off as he slammed the sliding door behind him, his stagger turning into a sprint as he flew into his room, locked the door behind himself and dove straight into his bed.
***Five Years Later***
Perry stared out the window of the school bus. There wasn’t much else to do. Sometimes he caught an extra fifteen minutes of sleep before arriving at the George Carlin High School for the Overprivileged, but today he wasn’t sleepy.
Just bored.
There was a rumble as Hurricane flew overhead, causing all the kids in the armored transport to smoosh their faces up against the bulletproof glass to get a better view of the cape flying overhead, flirting with the sound barrier.
Must be something exciting going on, Perry thought, glancing up at the superhero before he disappeared over the horizon. Or maybe he just wanted to flex for some kids.
Mr. Rogers had clearly stated in the Superhero Ethics & Law course that flying heroes were not allowed to break the sound barrier unless there were extenuating circumstances: i.e., an emergency.
Only problem was, there were more emergencies for capes than there were non-emergencies. It could reasonably be assumed that anywhere they were going was the site of an emergency.
So if Hurricane wanted to buzz a school bus…nobody would bother to look twice.
Perry looked away.
The rest of the ride was uneventful, and they made it to their classes without anything unusual happening. Pretty standard, given The Tide was out.
School was...fine. Perry laughed with his friends, slept through half his classes, and avoided Heather as best he could, given the two were in the same grade and shared a couple classes: P.E. and Ethics.
It made sense. People with a higher probability of Triggering and adopting ‘the lifestyle’ were fast-laned into the Ethics courses.
Given that Perry’s mom was Hexen, he had been forced to attend every Ethics course since preschool. It didn’t matter to them that he’d taken the class eleven times already, nor did it matter to them that he was as Dull as they come.
It was a fairly common occurrence that a cape or cowl’s offspring would gain powers, although the how of it was the subject of much speculation.
Whether it was because of their environment, genetic disposition, higher-than-average kidnapping rate, or the super-parent’s mucking about with their children’s genome, it was statistically evident that a super’s kids had a one-in-five chance to Trigger, as compared to about a one-in-a-million chance for the average Joe.
So, Perry spent his life under the microscope. Of course, now that he was in his senior year, he did appreciate the convenience of having a class he was guaranteed to be able to nap through.
“Anyone wanna tell me what Turbo did wrong? Mr. Z.”
Perry lifted his head with a snort, blinking the gum out of his eyes. “Guh?” he asked.
“What did Turbo do wrong in this scenario?” Mr. Rogers asked, pointing at the projected wall of text.
“He moved a kid who was too young to be subjected to Speedster force,” Perry said, yawning. “The rules for a Speedster moving civilians are the same as those on an airbag: nobody under the age of thirteen, unless it’s the only option.”
“And how often is it the only option?” Mr. Rogers said.
“About eighty-three percent of the time,” Perry said, laying his head back down and resting his eyes for a moment.
Click.
“Alright hotshot, how about this next one?” Mr. Rogers’ voice barely registered in his daydreaming.
“If by ‘next one,’ you mean the next slide, then Captain Hope messed up by assuming his tactile telekinesis would apply to the inside of the ice cream truck, which it did not, smearing the passenger.”
Click, click, click. Perry heard the projector click three times.
Three more clicks forward is the one about Darklight and the hacker holding a million pensions hostage. She used mind control to get him to step away from the computer.
“How about this one?” Mr. Rogers asked.
“Mind control in a non-combat setting is illegal no matter how bad the other guy is,” he said, eyes still closed, head still resting on his desk.
Scattered snickers echoed through the class, but Perry didn’t really care.
“Mr. Z, see me after class.”
“Sure,” Perry muttered, drifting off.
***After Class***
“Mr. Rogers, why did you ask me to stay after class? I’m not in trouble like this waste of space,” Heather said, motioning to Perry.
Perry shrugged.
“Obviously, I’m failing you two as your teacher,” Mr. Rogers said, his fingers laced as he looked up at Perry and Heather, who deliberately stood as far apart as their teacher’s desk would permit.
“Failing? But I’m getting straight A’s?!” Heather demanded, leaning over the desk, her animosity towards Perry temporarily forgotten.
“No,” Mr. Rogers said, taking off his glasses and rubbing the bridge of his nose. “I am failing. As your teacher.”
“Oh,” Heather said, mollified.
“You’re both getting straight A’s, and Heather, you do a much better job of hiding it, but you’re just as bored as Perry over here.”
Perry and Heather glared at each other.
“As an educator, it’s my duty to make sure that the two of you are actually learning something, rather than just waiting for the bell to ring. I’m going to change your grade for the semester, from the tests, to a project.”
“But...but…” Heather protested, unable to come up with a reason why she should be excluded.
“But you like the ‘easy A’ every year to pad your GPA?” Perry guessed.
“At least I’m not sleeping through them,” Heather retorted.
“And it’s going to be a group project,” Mr. Rogers said with calm, measured menace.
“What?!” Perry and Heather demanded in unison.
“You heard me,” Mr. Rogers said. “Your grade for the year is going to depend on putting your differences aside for half a year.”
“Is that the project?” Perry asked. “Because being in the same room as her without turning to stone is a pretty heroic task.”
“No—” Mr. Rogers started, but Heather talked over him.
“You think I wanna smell your funk?” Heather demanded. “If I’m lucky, I’ll Trigger to survive the smell alone!”
“No—”
“I suppose you thought it was funny, handing me a heart-shaped bar of deodorant for Valentine’s?” Perry asked. Her vapid friends had tittered about it for weeks.
“It was freakin’ hilarious,” Heather said, her jaw set.
“What’s hilarious is that I use it,” Perry said with a faint smile. “I use the present you touched with your bare hands…everywhere.” He drew out the last word, loading it with meaning.
“AW, gross!”
“CHILDREN!” Mr. Rogers said, standing from his chair, his face crimson and darkening fast.
Perry and Heather’s lips clamped shut.
“I don’t know what kind of baggage the two of you have, but you better stow that shit.” Mr. Rogers’ ex-soldier was peeking through his sweater-wearing mildness.
“The project is—”
“We have to interview some capes and write an essay about their experiences,” Perry blurted.
Mr. Rogers stood there, his jaw hanging open, face approaching a shade of purple.
“I mean, it’s an ethics course. Telling us to go out there and muck around in the world of supers would be dangerous and unethical; can’t do a practical project without risking the lives of your students. Can’t interview cowls for the same reason, so it’s pretty much gotta be an interview and essay, right?”
