Superhero life? Super-Sized troubles!

The moment we touched ground outside the barracks, Cindy fell on her hands and knees and emptied her stomach on the ground. Little miss 'Everywhere', it turned out, was motion sick... or at least travel-at-mach-thirty sick. With the war sirens still wailing loud enough to wake the dead, we couldn't afford to waste even a moment so I'd pulled all the stops my passengers could survive and gotten us back faster than they had ever flown. Leaving the slightly dizzy kids to recover just outside the barracks, I flew just below the speed of sound, using my powers to limit turbulence while getting to the General's office in only a few seconds.

The good General was watching several feeds of an ongoing battle, some of them the black and white of thermal cameras, others the shaky but full colored view from hand-held cameras, almost certainly cell phones. In the feeds a line of National Guard armored vehicles, Special Forces in black uniforms and face-concealing helmets with no obvious insignia and maybe forty people in military fatigues shooting much heavier guns that a normal person could ever lift or making the shots of mundane weapons glow like sci-fi lasers were desperately trying to stem a tide of more obviously powered attackers.

They were losing horribly, already close to the point of breaking as they came under attack from within and without. People in matte black power armor suddenly appeared in their midst, shooting energy weapons with the fire rate of semi automatics but the firepower of light rocket launchers. It wasn't teleportation; the hostiles came out of the shadows, the cameras catching them a split-second before the soldiers did. It was either some form of advanced stealth or the power armor wearers had some sort of minor concealment power. Considering the uniformity, I was betting on the latter.

The stealthy power armors were bad enough but the real threat about to overrun the defenders were the towering, vaguely humanoid statues of black metal. Thirty feet tall each, they lacked articulation, their metal bodies bending as they walked. From a singular, cyclopian eye-hole in their heads came blasts of energy on par with a tank's main gun, blasting apart barricades and other cover as they slowly advanced. Most of the National Guard's heavier vehicles were already burning and those that still survived were all but useless. A tank fired at one of the giant metal statues practically point-blank, barely knocking it back a step and denting its metal chest. In retaliation, another statue closed in with the tank and punched down. The statue's fist struck like a wrecking ball, bending the tank's gun barrel. Then it punched again and again, crumpling armor, breaking its suspension and bending its treads from the extra weight before finally flattening the turret with its third blow.

The video feeds were so engaging in a horrible sort of way it took me several seconds to notice a very familiar building in the background, then the rest of the familiar skyline. The battle was taking place in Manhattan, and unless I missed my guess about the attackers' objectives, all of the General's carefully arranged plans must have just been hit in the gut, caught and drawn behind the mess hall while they were reeling, then shot repeatedly until they were reduced to an unrecognizable mess.

"Good, you're here," said General said with an aura of forced calm over barely restrained violence ready to blow up against the first available target. "How soon can you and the kids be there?"

"I can be there whenever you want," I told him, ignoring his immediate scowl at my tone. "The kids won't be going."

"They are the most powerful supers in the entirety of the US after you and the Warden, recruited to solve exactly that kind of problem." He tapped his hand against the nearest screen a bit too hard, toppling it. It fell off the desk and cracked against the floor, the image winking out with a crackle. "This is a national emergency, an all hands on deck type of situation. Plus, it is not your decision."

"They are untrained fourteen year olds, maladjusted to their powers, and under enough stress to pop a vein, enhanced physiology or not. The most likely outcome of throwing them into that clusterfuck is them to start blasting the bad guys without a plan or coordination and setting off the powered equivalent of a ten-ton bomb in the middle of the city, killing everyone in a two-block radius." Mark might even do it deliberately if he got angry, frightened, or surprised enough. "Besides, not my decision? Your fastest transport needs a ten-minute warm-up followed by a three-hour flight to get there... which will be a hundred and eighty-five minutes too late, the way the battle is shaping up.

I stared at Rinaker's lined, prematurely aged, too-thin face. Two pale green eyes stared back like chips of stone. In the background a clock was ticking away seconds while the many feeds ticked away lives. He had seen wars, faced politicians and Presidents, possibly fought himself more than once and built that iron will over forty years in the US military. I, on the other hand, was less than a third his age and had been just a schoolgirl less than a year earlier. But I had fought my own classmates and teachers turned flesh-eating monsters, lived through the ruination of my home state in ways that made the worst of the World Wars look tame, faced a demon in combat and lived. In the end, it was the General that turned away.

"Fine, we'll do it your way. But there will be consequences, and every life lost because you fell short will be on your head."

"I'm well aware of the hero's burden," I told him. It was something I'd long since reached a resolution on, the very day I'd chosen to be a superhero and not just someone with powers. Superspeed gave far too much time to think between or even during events for introspection to be avoided even for someone as thick as the small-town high school cheerleader I'd been. The conclusion it had led to was that helping in these situations was my choice, but I'd do it my way. I'd listen to advice, use contacts and information, but ultimate responsibility would fall to me and me alone. Otherwise I would either die as a hero trying to follow the moral judgement of others, or live long enough to become a monster out of rejecting said moralizing in all its facets.

"That remains to be seen," Rinaker threatened, but there was a glimmer of respect behind the rage. "And Wennefer? Those responsible for this attack must be crushed, whoever they are. It must be done and it must be seen or we're all done."

"You think I didn't notice the UN headquarters in the background?" I asked with a raised eyebrow, but most of my attention was on the feeds. I couldn't just barge there without a plan so I needed every last bit of information I could get before my arrival. If that meant delaying for a minute or two and more soldiers dying... I couldn't save everyone and trying anyway might lead to saving no-one. "It's not Liz, though. I've fought her golems and these mock-ups are not hers. The street is barely cracking under their feet instead of being crushed under hundreds of tons of metal. The energy beams are barely stronger than conventional cannon, and being dented by an Abrams tank's main gun? Liz could make a beercan tougher than that."

"I know it's not her. If the Warden had betrayed us things would have been worse and I'd be dead," Rinaker said with some exasperation. "No, this is someone trying to make supers look like a threat." At that I raised both eyebrows and gave him a smirk. "More than you already are, anyway. The 9/11 attacks started a decades-long worldwide campaign against terrorism and pushed through heightened security measures that would have seemed insane before. This one is going to be worse. Far worse."

"Why? The UN building might be a symbol, but it's not unique and don't tell me various parties in other continents won't prefer the Geneva building become the official HQ." In fact, there was something about this whole attack that was off. Why such an open attack? It was still broad daylight in New York and the whole thing was televised too. Criminals, supervillains or otherwise, did not usually go for that level of public attention.

"They might have under other circumstances." The General frowned in distaste. "Certain political oversight committee thought it a good idea to convene and discuss the whole 'super' conundrum because the covert approach was not working and more and more people became aware of the phenomenon. They talked to the President and some of our allies." He shrugged, feigning nonchalance. "Apparently, they were convincing. I was not informed due to my previously speaking out against such a convention." He punched the desk and the desk broke. "Those absolute fucking morons!"

"...how many foreign delegates are in there?" I demanded, suddenly a bit apprehensive about charging to the rescue on my lonesome. If some country's delegate was killed on my watch...

"It's a major convention about the most important matter of our time, secrecy or no." The bastard had the temerity to laugh at me. "All of them are there, of course."

Well... shit.

xxxx

I was flying closer to Utah, ascending at a steep angle while pulling on the acceleration as the air became thinner. Unlike my single trip around the world months earlier, I could not afford to move outside of time for too long. I had no idea what other surprises the bad guys had prepared for me in New York. Because if they'd known about a supposedly secret gathering of the UN there was no way they didn't know about me; I'd made enough appearances that even if the various alphabet-soup services had managed to keep a lid on them, those that knew what to look for would have gotten at the data. All the difference was between how much they knew, how much the General knew, and how much there was to know and keeping my most tiring yet most unusual ability in reserve until I could see the situation up close and personal might make all the difference.

To that end, there was one more thing I could not afford to procrastinate about;

Name: Maya Wennefer Bio: female human, 17y10m19d

Known skills:

Points: 14/207

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 48, Agility 24, Reason 6, Vigilance 12, Ego 24, Luck 6

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

One of these days I'd start checking my character sheet more often and not leave investing my growing magic for the last second. That day would probably not be today, so I used my new ring to do the old song-and-dance. Liz had been certain the anchor ring she'd given me could show a visual representation of my abilities at any time and place after the initial scans had been completed... and she was proven right. If that hadn't been the case I'd have had to wing it, access the well of power that were my abilities instinctively and try to boost myself blindly. Saving power against future needs did not make sense with the fate of the world at stake.

The Earth's atmosphere thinned out, giving way to the harsh, crystal clarity of space. Far in the distance and just disappearing under the horizon to the West, something larger than the average satellite or even space station had loomed. Someone was building orbital bases already? I'd check it later, after I ensured the latest crisis did not blow up in everyone's faces and the super-terrorists laughed as the New Cold War of superpowers suddenly became nuclear-hot - and I was not speaking figuratively.

There were changes in my sheet beyond my age. Apparently, the few fights I'd had along with the sparring against the kids had finally pushed my powers to grow just a little. That was represented in part by an extra free point, a little more raw power to be invested either in my various active powers or to further boost my base attributes. However, the other half of it was the development of the "Eyebeams" skill, probably due to how often I cobbled together such an effect through Forcefield Creation. An attempt to see what the skill did had my ring getting warm as it tried to parse the instinctive knowledge from the actual power to the limited representation that was the blue-colored interface.

Eyebeams: twin beams of force as powerful as the user's base melee blows but narrowed to one square inch each. May reduce applied kinetic energy to increase momentum or the inverse. Beams attenuate by 1% per cubic yard of total volume covered and can be reshaped to any cone or line shape within volume limits. May add one Force effect to the beam's volume, or replace the base effect for a total of two Force effects.

Even before Liz's ring displayed it for easy perusal, the instinctive understanding that came with my powers let me know how useful the power was. Superficially, it seemed like a worse version of Forcefield Creation that was limited to beam shapes and attenuated with distance. In reality, they had twice the raw power of the other skill, made using the beams in complex trajectories a lot easier than trying to shape a Forcefield on the fly, and could be adjusted to produce several interesting effects. All in all, they were more a combat skill than Forcefield Creation's utility. Plus their appearance now hinted at how creating new skills worked; once upon a time each new power would have taken a permanent expenditure of my accumulated magic but my powers' versatility seemed to have grown enough that skills could be gained through practice. Who was I to say no to another power-up? The only apparent downside was that skills couldn't be gained in emergencies if at high costs, but I'd not actually checked.

Now, what would be the best way to invest against the chaotic but highly delicate situation I was about to enter? Trying to see if I could still get new powers through investiture was right out. Anything I got would be brand new and with battle a minute away I'd be as unskilled in its use as the kids. Plus the more my raw power grew, the more dangerous testing new things around other people became. Doing so within spitting distance of the United Nations delegates during an already complex situation? There were probably easier ways to start World War three but off the top of my head I could not find one.

That left boosting my force-based powers, boosting my self-oriented buffs, or boosting raw physical and mental abilities. Immediately, I saw that there wasn't enough accumulated magic to increase the most useful aspects of my active powers. The magnitude and versatility of either force effects or personal buffs would take sixteen points for each aspect of each category... and I was two points short. Increase the number of active effects then? Going from a total of six to seven would help... but wouldn't really add something I could not already do, only more convenience. Range and especially scope would have been great... for an open engagement across the Rocky Mountains or for fending off a giant monster by the coast. The coming fight in the middle of the city? My powers' current reach was plenty.

No, this was the wrong way to go about it. What did I really need for today's Charlie Foxtrot? What boost would be the best option to see through things to the end without making a mess of half of Manhattan or being surprised by one of the bad guys' plans? When put that way, the answer was obvious.

First, to deal with any enemies that had been given leaked information about my abilities. My exact physical strength was something I'd downplayed, holding back on both using it to its fullest and fully enhancing it when anyone had been watching. The military might have the numbers from the scans, but with the scaling lacking reference points or known units what that gave them was estimates. Anyone that had leaked info would hopefully be under similar misconceptions, but just in case I put two points into Might.

As with every other time I'd invested energy in this way, I felt my body ever so slightly shifting. Once upon a time, increases to physical strength and durability had been accompanied by bulking up or even gaining inches of height. These days, in order to accommodate my other abilities my body gained toughness, stiffness and inertia, the better parts of being denser without an actual mass and thus weight increase. The subtlety was appreciated; I was already an even seven feet with a mostly amazonian build and the proportions of a far shorter person. There might have been taller women still but none with my size that weren't also, well, fat. Call me vain, but I didn't want to put on weight, let alone become a mountain of muscle. It was something that would happen without keeping my attributes balanced and since I'd seen how easily supers who invested too much into physicality could become like the Hulk it was something I always kept in mind.

That balancing was done with another point each to Agility and Ego so they were no less than half my Might score. The former required my body be more flexible, which it couldn't be if there was too much muscle for my limbs to flex or my size too large to be maneuverable. That requirement put limits in physical growth and forced my powers to go for effectively denser muscle and bone that could not become impediments and looked better in the process. Ego was, well, the attribute of being awesome. Not just beauty but symmetry and, at the levels I had it, perfect streamlining and a flawless rapid healing that both prevented ugly scars and did away with crippling wounds. But if that had been all, I'd probably have invested just enough to get the model-level looks I'd always wanted then saved further investments for other fields. But Ego was also perfection of self; strength of personality, charisma, willpower and resilience vs trauma. Superheroes had to deal with a lot of trauma, and without a literally superhuman sense of self I'd have probably become a PTSD-riddled wreck... or a monster. That it also helped shrug off pain in a fight or let me stand before a certain General and tell him "no, you move" that was just the icing on the cake. And if it came with a bit of extra pride and vanity? Well, nobody was perfect and I'd take those two as my reward for fixing the world's messes.

Then I put the remaining ten points into Vigilance and my perception practically exploded. Even without Force Awareness, my vision became both telescopic and microscopic to at least some extent. My hearing picked up the turbulence of the incredibly thin atmosphere at this height as well as the crackling of both radio waves and other forms of interference at the very edges of hearing. Balance, proprioception, timing, interoception all skyrocketed to the point I could get more than millimeter precision with my every move near-instinctively and could track my own pulse and other vibrations through my body. Slowly the increased sensory load integrated and fell into the background, not filling my every thought but the information there and internalized. Patterns in everything became sharper, easier to both notice and follow so that the shape of cities below was feeding me information about local conditions based on what I knew about how city life worked. The movements of clouds and pattern of air currents paired with my perception of forces made predicting weather for days the matter of a single look. For a field where I had more experience such as athletics or combat? Enemy body movements would be like an open book.

Name: Maya Wennefer Bio: female human, 17y10m19d

Known skills:

Points: 0/207

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 6

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

I even noticed how paying attention to my powers sheet while flying had made me overshoot the halfway mark and keep accelerating all the way to New York. Now I was flying so quickly that I'd leave the whole state behind in seconds and be all the way to Britain by the time I could brake to a more normal speed... at least conventionally.

Oh well. The Heinlein maneuver should work as an alternative braking method...