The end of the alleyway literally thrummed with technology. And rats. Though technically the rats were also technology. I could only barely make out Rodentia herself behind her pile of rats. She called it something specific last time… adaptive rat shielding?

“I’ll hold off the incoming groups,” Magnet Man said, looking back and forth down the street. “Knives and Bombino, try to deal with Rodentia herself. Mage, if you could stay in reserve…”

Knives began with a barrage of red, her energy blades slicing through the air. They stabbed into part of the tower of robot rats, scattering oil and gears everywhere, but there was still a whole swarm of rats remaining.

Bombino took the time to charge up a larger blast. Instead of needing Magnet Man to group things up, they actually handled it themselves, by huddling around Rodentia. A pulsing sphere of power flew towards her… only to be met halfway by a yellow-orange beam. It washed over his orb, changing the color but not seeming to stop it in any real manner. Then it struck the rats, exploding… into a fountain of cheese?

A sort of chittering cackle came from Rodentia. “Behold, the power of the Cheese Ray Mark III!”

I certainly beheld it. Super tech always felt weird, but that thing absolutely required powers to function. Unlike the pile of rats, which were just robots that were a bit too functional. Certainly, they didn’t feel like that much.

The new swarms came in from either side, and the fact that they were able to do that meant Rodentia had way too many of them. At least she was actually present here, and there weren’t just this many wandering around everywhere. Though there really were a lot.

Magnet Man was trying to hold off two waves at once, but he could only affect so many at once. If he actually controlled magnetism he could probably just pull them all into the center of a heap or two, but he seemed to be holding the ones in front to block them, while toppling others that made it over.

“This is actually much harder than I thought!” he complained.

“I’ll take one out!” I said. “Bombino, perhaps you should get the other?”

“I’ll keep Rodentia occupied!” Knives called back.

With our plan in place, I looked towards one of the piles. Should be pretty easy to avoid collateral damage. I gathered mana, focusing on the robotic rats as lightning arced between my outstretched fingers. It didn’t really matter which one I targeted first, as the whole pile was quite close together. Thus I let the Chain Lightning go, seeing it take an odd path that curved a bit to the side before contacting the first one.

Tech supers tended to make their robots shock resistant, since that was otherwise a large weakness- but such a thing could only go so far. I honestly didn’t know if Rodentia fit in that group. What I did know was that there were numerous bright flashes with lightning snaking every which way through robotic rats towards other ones, and a moment later the whole pile was half-melted slag that smelled strongly of ozone.

Bombino took out the other pile easily enough. There were a few individuals that Magnet Man bashed together so that we wouldn’t have anything sneaking up on us, but my Chain Lightning didn’t seem to have missed anything, especially since it wasn’t restricted by the rats covering each other like Bombino’s explosion.

I only caught a few glimpses of Knives, red and yellow flashes. One of the cars across the street was just a big wedge of cheese now. With the Cheese Ray Mark I it might have simply been covered, but I had the feeling this one did more. Hopefully it still didn’t replace organic matter, or Rodientia would be jumping a handful of danger tiers. That would get her taken out quickly, but I really wanted to not be one of the casualties that made it happen.

Either way avoiding the cheese ray seemed important. Though Rodentia seemed quite focused on shooting Knive’s ranged attacks out of the air, turning them into little cheese wedges that the rats in front of her then chewed up.

“Bombino!” Magnet Man was done mopping up the little guys, “Ready?”

They didn’t have to say what, they just knew. Bombino charged up a pulsing sphere of energy, flinging it forward. The rats tried to move in front of it, but… stopped. There was a large explosion, with dust and smoke filling the alleyway.

“Did we get her?” Magnet Man asked.

“I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to ask that,” I said. “It will only lead to-”

“Chahahaha!” Rodentia’s voice rang out from within the smoke. “You’ll never pierce my RAT shield!”

“Wasn’t it called adaptive rat shielding before?” I called back.

“That’s a different thing!” she retorted. “And you seem to have indeed busted that! RAT stands for Repurposed AEGIS Technology!”

I frowned. “You’re not supposed to put acronyms inside of other acronyms! It’s bad form!”

“Who can stop me?” Rodentia cackled.

“Nobody really,” Magnet Man shrugged, clearly not speaking for her benefit. “Lots of people do nested acronyms and it hasn’t stopped. About that AEGIS…”

“Probably stolen Doctor Doomsday tech,” I supplied. “Repurposed, I mean.”

That made things a bit more difficult. Or did it? That was exactly the sort of thing we were looking for. And she must have already bypassed anti-capture measures.

Yellow beams flashed past me as I took cover behind a dumpster. Or rather, a particularly large camembert. I noticed the car wasn’t a yellow ‘swiss’, as well. Apparently the new cheese ray didn’t have just one result. Also I didn’t know it was definitely camembert, but the cheese was famously stinky and the former dumpster didn’t have other obvious features.

I ducked out from behind the cover to see the adaptive rat shielding still rebuilding itself, and I took the opportunity to fire off a Sonic Lance. Chain Lightning was just too expensive for a single target. Sonic Lance was already overkill for most non-bruisers, far beyond the killing threshold for normal people.

Cracks appeared on the surface of the nearly invisible AEGIS. Or RAT shield? This was why people shouldn’t be allowed to just name stuff. Either way, it showed I both had an effect but could do a little bit more.

I considered my options as a small rectangle was tossed towards me. When it landed where I had been standing I recognized it as a rat trap, the sort with the snapping lever. It wasn’t particularly hard to avoid, knowing where it was, but it would still be an inconvenience. Taking shelter, I summoned Mage’s Reach and slapped it. It almost exploded under its own force, as it grew several feet across and flipped over. Seemed dangerous.

I scoured the alleyway for more. At their miniature size they would be difficult for those with worse darkvision to handle.I worked on the ones away from my companions first, making them all snap closed as Rodentia continued doing her thing, shooting her cheese ray and rat cannon and tossing all sorts of garbage everywhere.

I saw an opportunity when I finished with the traps I could find. I slunk back towards Magnet Man as Bombino and Knives worked on Rodentia’s defenses. “The AEGIS is that metal belt. I don’t suppose you can just… disconnect it?”

“Sorry,” he said. “It blocks powers.”

“Then, when they break the shield… can you pull it off? Or hold it still?” I whispered. “I still have Mage’s Reach. We can coordinate to yank it off.”

“Sure thing,” he said.

As he did, I cast another Mage’s Reach, representing my left hand, slipping it along the dark corners of the alley. Bombino blew away the pile of rats- there probably wouldn’t be enough for it to reform- and Knives directly hit Rodentia’s stolen shield even as the mad scientist tried to shoot her attacks out of the sky instead of… dodging or something.

The cracks expanded and then… disappeared. Both of my hands moved in, grabbing. Rodentia turned to run, but was held still by her belt. I barely saw her pull something more out of her backpack. I fiddled with everything that seemed like it might be a latch as I yanked on the belt. It came free around the same time the blinking rat Rodentia had below her double in size, then tripled. Then it exploded, of course.

The entire alleyway shook. Windows shattered, cheese and oil got all over everyone, and bricks crumbled off of the nearby buildings. Rodentia was rocketed into the sky- not the most sensible method of travel, but it worked for her I guess. She managed to land on a nearby building, stopping only to yell, “Cheese you later!” before she disappeared.

I frowned. “... That doesn’t even really sound like ‘see you later!’”

“What should you expect?” Bombino shrugged. He looked around the alley. “Good thing none of us were fighting up close.”

“Yeah,” Knives said, hanging her head. “Lucky me I guess. I just didn’t want to be in point blank range of a stupid cheese ray.”

I looked at the AEGIS or RAT in my hands. “Well, good news. It hasn’t immediately disintegrated.” Maybe this would give us some knowledge for how to manage that more. If we could get some from the myriad of orcs running about, it would be useful. Or learn how to defeat them in general.

-----

“Unfortunately…” Vilhelmiiina drew out the word, “It is now powered by cheese. So even if Doctor Doomsday is using mana to power some of these, this one is… not useful for you.”

“I mean, a cheese powered barrier would be… fine?” I tilted my head.

“Perhaps,” Vilhelmiina agreed. “But I will need to do destructive tests to learn more about the methods intended to stop me from doing… well, exactly this.”

“Does Rodentia not do the same thing?”

“She seems to prefer obfuscation though obscurity,” Vilhelmiina replied. “Intentionally or not. Even as a tech super, I don’t know if I could replicate the most important parts of her constructions- specifically the mini-fusion reactors. I don’t know if them being cheese-fueled would make it easier or more difficult to replicate, as all of it is…” she just shook her head.

“I see. So, it doesn’t store mana? What about other things?”

“I haven’t seen much that does,” Vilhelmiina replied. “Just those murderous daggers. Unfortunately, after the ones you obtained Doctor Doomsday seems to have included protections against capture. Perhaps that was always the plan and the first batch was rushed.”

“Does it completely destroy them? At least the materials should remain, right?”

“I suppose. But that doesn’t do much good. I don’t know how to make anything work with mana. How about yourself?”

“Uh… enchanting materials wasn’t an area I had a chance to delve into.” Master Uvithar should have had something on the subject, but it might not have been available to apprentices. Or maybe I glossed over it since it didn’t seem like it would help me. There was only so much I had been able to study in the decade or so I was working under him. “How do you think Doctor Doomsday does it? Is it just… tech?”

“A good question, to which I don’t know the answer,” Vilhelmiina admitted. “He might have greater understanding, or… accomplices. Or potent minions, more likely. He doesn’t really do a good job working with people. He has a way he wants things done, and I saw it lose him conflicts in the past when allies disagreed with his notions.”

“He sure does have a lot of minions now,” I said. It kept the Brigade very busy, though most of us would prefer dealing with lesser threats. Even I wouldn’t want to go up against Doctor Doomsday directly. Sure, surviving a conflict like that would be great experience… but I heard he had actual death rays and managed to avoid being taken out even though he’d been near the top of the threat list for a long time.