"...can't detect magic itself, but its effects on the world can be tracked from how phenomena appear without source." As Jerry talked, the illusion of Earth projected over the table shifted, details and symbols added to something that resembled a weather map. Except not just climate changes but also things like illumination, gravity, electromagnetic radiation and similar things were tracked. The amount of detail was more than should have fit in an actual image, but just as the illusion allowed everyone around the table to see the same thing regardless of observation angle, it also gave more details. "Depending on the power used, different source-less phenomena are generated. Changes on the planet's magnetosphere around Dill, Oklahoma, for example are a result of Liz's hidden base and from the extent of those changes we could tell something really big was there."

  "Can every super be tracked like that?" General Rinaker asked, already suspecting the answer.

  "Most powers have some sort of impact in the physical world, but not every such impact is big enough to notice, or consistent enough to point towards a given super," Mandy added as most of the extra details on the illusory Earth vanished, leaving behind a few dozen blinking spots. "But the larger discrepancies have a footprint on things like weather, seismic waves, human and animal behavior, or electromagnetic emissions and a combination of divination spells and enhanced technological sensors can reveal patterns... patterns that showed a worrying trend. Look at the map and tell me what you see."

  "Florida is a mess, but we already knew that," I immediately quipped then my eyes narrowed as I caught on to what Mandy must have been hinting at. "Those 'footprints' in New York are from the attacks there, yes?" The sorceress nodded. "If these are only the larger discrepancies... why are most of them the same as the ones in Miami?" My senses raced along the illusion, my mind picking up and combining information at superspeed. "Also New Mexico, off the east coast of Japan, Alaska, that mountain in Montana, Devon Island in Canada... half a dozen locations in Europe and China?!"

  "You see the problem," Jerry said with a nod. "The larger momentum discrepancies are you, the electromagnetic emissions are my larger-scale tech and the weather changes are from Mandy as one or more of us were involved in most major incidents. However, every single location shows both unusual trace chemicals and impossibly consistent results from all random number generators in the surrounding area during the incidents. Eleven out of fifteen show a three hundred percent intensity increase of all light with a wavelength of seven hundred and forty-eight nanometers along with equivalent uptick in street and domestic violence, and five hundred percent increase in accidents, equipment failure, food spoilage, disease and natural-seeming deaths."

  "Ah, I see," the General caught on too. "Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Eleven times is an enemy faction executing a coordinated attack against us. Is it four or five hidden actors though?"

  "We can't tell," Mandy admitted, throwing an angry glare at the illusion. "The accidents, spoilage, disease, apparently natural deaths... those were secondary effects of The Wizard's magic. The bastard leaked ruin everywhere he went, fueling his rituals with destruction, degradation and human sacrifice. He was building up to something big, too, doing worse each time he tried. At least we finally got rid of him."

  "You killed him?" Liz exclaimed in surprise. "Wouldn't that make things worse? If anyone could ensure his death would result in some escalating disaster it would be the guy who thought the Invaders' magic was not dark enough."

  "All of us here know there are worse things than death," the redhead sorceress said smugly. "His death wouldn't have satisfied me, I admit. It would have been letting him off too easily."

  "Huh..." the black-haired girl tilted her head, looking at the redhead oddly. "You do carry a magic stick but I'm not seeing nearly enough beard for that quote."

  "Maybe," Mandy admitted with a chuckle, brandishing her ruby-red crystal staff playfully. "But my magic stick is way bigger."

  "Less banter, more problem-solving, ladies," General Rinaker interrupted. He'd been taking notes with pen and paper conjured out of smoke - or rather, the ghostly outline of a soldier had been doing so for him. "We need to identify who is in that villain league or at least track them and scout out any place they frequented to get more information."

  "Couldn't we ask the Wizard?" I suggested. "If we already have one of them in our hands..."

  "The Wizard is in no condition to be answering any questions," Anne informed us with a shake of her head. "The drawback of using his kind of sacrificial magic can cause all sorts of damage if you mess up and it looks like he messed up big time... emphasis on 'looks'."

  "What exactly do you mean by that, young lady?" the General asked my sister with interest.

  "During our fight, his spells had very little impact on him despite him having almost nothing to sacrifice nearby. The costs should have been higher for the kind of effects he pulled off. But after he was captured..." my little sister scowled. "He was practically a husk. Both Amanda and I examined him, and the toll on him had been greater than his efforts would have demanded, not smaller. Problem was, his body was not very affected but his mind was full of holes. Nobody would choose to sacrifice their own minds instead of their bodies; superhuman bodies eventually heal. And the damage was mostly in his memories and past associations which makes even less sense... unless it was not him that chose the sacrifice."

  "Tying up loose ends, then," Rinaker mused. "Couldn't your magic uncover anything else?"

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  "You don't get it. The damage was not just mental," Anne clarified with a shake of her head. "It's not that he lost many memories of his past, he lost his actual past. As far as the Wizard is concerned, he never associated with supers other than us in the past six months. Anything he got from such interactions is gone; knowledge, magical growth, wealth, the boosts he got from rituals, the bindings he placed and magic items he made, gone."

  "Someone else did that to a super of the Wizard's weight class? Without either of us noticing in the aftermath of the battle?" I asked her. The implications were... disquieting.

  "I don't... think so." Yet she sounded a bit uncertain, which was not at all reassuring. "As far as my divinations can tell, it was his own dark magic that caused all of it as sacrifice for the spells he tried to kill you with and later fought me as well. It's just that... someone else decided what would go into the sacrifice. Which also makes no sense; only the one deciding to make the sacrifice can choose what is sacrificed."

  "If it's so perfect a dead end for getting information I agree it has to be someone's design." Rinaker's pipe vanished in a puff of smoke and he rested his chin on his steepled fingers. "We already knew the attacks on the US and beyond had required organized effort from multiple supers but every sign pointed towards different, independent interests. Terrorist groups, one of the Invaders' more intelligent monsters left behind, attempts from allied governments to get supers of their own, even various weaker supers wanting to act like comic book villains... but a single group being involved with all of them? That beggars belief."

  "Not entirely," Liz disagreed. "If the main actors were states or even people from around the world multiple conflicting interests would be the norm, but we're talking about small numbers of survivors from a single state. More realistically, we're talking survivors in the low hundreds from a single, relatively small city because those would be the people with the most time and opportunities to gain significant power. People who might have known each other, even fought together against the initial invasion."

  Liz waved around the table, her meaning obvious. Here was just such a group and we were already cooperating in our efforts at affecting the situation around the entire world - except we'd chosen to make the world less horrible instead of blowing things up to get stronger. "Then it makes perfect sense for it to be a single group. It also makes sense for them to target us; even if we weren't already cooperating with governments and being against wanton destruction, we would be rivals for global influence. And if it's one thing the kind of entitled homicidal bastards willing to burn the world and rule the ashes cannot stand, it is rivals."

  "Ugh, I hate it that it makes sense," I grumbled after thinking it through and not finding any obvious holes in Liz's logic. Seriously, how stupid were those people to embrace the ideas and foul magic of the very Invaders that very nearly destroyed human civilization, when doing so would ultimately make them indistinguishable from those monsters?

  I saw Amanda, the General and my sister similarly ponder then grudgingly accept Liz's assessment, but not all of us did.

  "That is a very well-thought theory... but still a theory," Jerry spoke cautiously. "What if you're wrong? What if, despite what you're suggesting being the simplest and best-fitting explanation, it turns out to be wrong? It is not impossible that new supers, supers that did not gain their powers during the invasion, have managed to gain enough power to cause all these incidents."

  "It doesn't matter, does it? We don't have another lead right now," Liz countered. "Staying on the defensive and ceding the initiative to enemies willing to attack multiple world governments or blow up whole mountains in their efforts to control the board is not something we can afford." The dark-haired girl shrugged dismissively. "Besides, do you really think any newer supers are capable of influencing events at such scales? You've seen the limits of newly gained powers, you've been training kids with powers yourself. Could even groups of them set up any of the plots and challenges we've faced? Because ours can barely stop from blowing each other up on a good day, let alone set up international conspiracies."

  On one hand, Liz was right. The three teenage miscreants I'd been trying to pound into a semblance of heroism over the past few weeks at General Rinaker's behest were not nearly skilled enough or powerful enough to threaten any single individual in the room; even Anne would mop the floor with them. On the other, I agreed with Jerry that Liz's theory could easily be wrong. In fact, it felt as if we were missing something obvious, or at least something I should have thought about. And yet... not playing catch-up on all the disasters and ambushes was also valid.

  "I see I am about the be outvoted," Jerry let go a frustrated, drawn-out sigh. "I can't even say that trying to seize the initiative is wrong, it's just that focusing on neatly-fitting, convenient explanations is a good way to get blindsided by events that don't nearly fit into logical explanations."

  "What if we didn't?" The idea I was about to propose was not exactly some convoluted yet genius plan that would lead to victory without fail, yet sometimes simplicity was an advantage. "Not all of us are good at investigation, strategy, or setting up surveillance networks, magical or not. We also need someone to keep doing the obvious and direct things and let's face it, I make for a very good distraction." I leaned back in my chair to better show off my swimming suit. The cooldown for using the Super Suit ability again had long since run out, but if it wasn't broke why fix it? "Who knows? Our enemies have targeted me several times already. Maybe the next time they'll expose themselves... and if not they'll have to run out of forces to attack me with eventually."

  "Let's not get ahead of ourselves," the old man put in his two cents, though he appeared to be thinking of something else from how his eyes stared at nothing. "Before we look into our enemies or set up any traps, there's another reason we should look into the survivors of the Invasion; more allies. The five of you did not ruin the invaders' plans by yourselves."

  "No, we didn't," Mandy mused, then nodded. "Did you have anyone specific in mind?"

  "As a matter of fact, I did," General Rinaker admitted and with a puff of smoke his previously empty left hand was holding up a photograph of a dark-haired, nerdy, somewhat goth teenage boy surrounded by half a dozen glowing symbols. "This is Timothy Oswald Wright, a chronologically sixteen-year-old former freshman from your own school with the power to create written symbols with complex, interactive supernatural effects."

  "Wait, I remember him," I spoke up as memories of the final battle against the invading monsters came up. "He helped enchant the energy cannon we used against the enemy leader."

  "Yes, that's the boy," the General agreed with a curt nod. "And since the day before yesterday, all of our agents and surveillance systems can find no clue as to his whereabouts. Locating him is a priority, as we suspect he's been abducted..."