He picked up the rifle, aimed, then squeezed the trigger, not knowing what to expect, and what he got was a small flash of light and then nothing. Huh? He ran over, and the jacket looked untouched. In fact, he didn’t think it had moved at all. Of the bullet, there was no sign. Hmm. He was mentally keeping the spell active despite the tiredness he was feeling already, so he trotted back to his mark and rapidly fired three more rounds at the jacket. Each time, there was a small flash of light or something, and then nothing. Neither the jacket nor the bush moved as much as an inch! Woohoo! He wondered how big and fast the shell would have to be for it to overcome whatever it was the spell was doing. Would it work with flying objects like, say, shrapnel? He had no way of testing those problems, at least not at this moment with the gear he had available. Still, he now had a bulletproof shield! Watch out, bad guys! Ha. He had a mental image of himself walking through a hail of bullets like the Terminator carrying that coffin! Woohoo!

But then he sobered as he felt dizzy. He started seeing stars and cut the spell, but he was so drained he nearly fell over. he staggered back to the truck for a drink while he considered things. How did you go about finding bad guys, and is that what he really wanted to do? And would the government be keen on him wandering around doing almost superhero stuff without wanting to study and use him themselves? No. Almost certainly not. Hmm. The last thing he wanted was notoriety. There would be no respite for him, his family, or even his friends. FBI, NSA, KGB, or whatever the current incarnation of them was, bloody Mossad, the Chinese, sheesh. They’d be all over him like the plague! Right. No public displays without a good cover! Damn, that meant no showing off for the girls! He realized that not showing off was going to be the hardest thing of all. Fuck!

Very well, so be it. He had recovered somewhat from holding the kinetic shield on the bush, so it was time to get back to the magic spells. He had thought about fireballs which should be doable in an oxygen atmosphere. He had even come up with a spell that he thought would work. He focused on a bush some distance away and cast the spell, which caused the atoms to vibrate and create heat. A few seconds and a sort of distortion appeared in the air, and then poof!

The whole bush and the air in the immediate area all exploded in a fireball! Which didn’t last very long nor spread to other nearby bushes, which was fortunate, he realized somewhat ruefully as he studied the smoldering remains. The sheer ferocity of the blaze that had engulfed the bush had surprised him. The bush kept smoldering for a while, even though the wood had to be green and full of sap. The surrounding bushes were not all that suitable for getting a brush fire going, which was lucky. He wouldn’t want to use it on any old brush, though! From his previous experience with the few spells he had come with already, he knew he would need to practice the spell to improve control and power, but well, now he was really starting to feel like a wizard from a fantasy novel! And it was all really just basic science, well, not the translocation perhaps, nor the bullet thing, he had to admit. Well, it was sort of, but the force punch thing he was using to push the roulette wheel ball around was, well, it wasn’t really standard physics either, he supposed. At least the fireball spell was basic physics, pretty much, except that he used mental abilities to cause it to happen. Damn. He realized he was still using real physics for the basis of his “magic,” just using it to do things real physics didn’t allow. He supposed he was a sorcerer now. Maybe. Bah, who cares! I can throw fireballs! He laughed out loud and kept smiling to himself all the way home.