Shard of Magic [Worm crossover]

by blake0831

Chapters

Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Interlude 1
Chapter 4
Chapter 6
Interlude 2
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Interlude 3
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Interlude 4
Interlude 5
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Interlude 6
Chaper 15
Chapter 17
Chapter 17.5
Interlude 7
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Interlude 8
Interlude 9
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Interlude 10
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Interlude 11
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
PHO Interlude 1
Interlude 12
Chapter 5
Chapter 16

Prologue

Let me out....

Please....

Help...

....

[TRAJECTORY]

[DESTINA-

Now what's this here?

[CONFUSION]

You're a curious little Shard, aren't you? Lots of wibbly pocket dimensional gibblies. Let see where this little phoneline leads to...

[INTRUSION]

Hm... This is quite a sad, miserable little mortal here. Her world isn't much better, even through this little peephole of mine....

[DESIST]

Let's look forward a bit.... Really? And I thought little Lulu has a temper tantrum problem...

[REJECTION!]

Oh shut up with your [DECLARATIONS]! Here, have some cake and be quiet while I take a little looksee.

[....CAKE?]

That's better. Better enjoy that. Stuffy little Tia gets huffy when someone else plunders her Royal Cake supplies. Now where was I....

....Hmm... I see... Interesting... Look to your left and cough a bit...

Well, good that golden timebomb won't reach here. I really don't want to miss any more of dear Fluttershy's tea time anymore than I have to...

....we are far enough away that [WARRIOR] or any of his bunch will even notice us. I can just close the door, let the link fade and walk away. No pony will even know. Especially not that bookhorse goody four horseshoes.

....these humans are interesting though. Lots of potential for chaos....

And friendship as well, I suppose. And they are in trouble in a big way....

....Fluttershy will be disappointed with me if I don't at least, give a little helping hand.

....

Alright. Let see what we can do!

Hm... Can't do much through this little peephole. No snapping away golden boy or give this Cauldron a direct leg up....

Maybe try a different approach. Let's take a look under the hood of this [QUEEN ADMINISTRATOR] here....

Oh ho. Oh Ho! Now This has some potential!

First some cleanup! Let's make room by tidying out some of these rules and restrictions in here...

Now, what to put in here? A dash of Kindness in this corner;

Huh? Oh my...

A Sprinkle of Laughter here;

Whee!

A pinch of Loyalty there;

Hey! What's the big-!

Pour in a cupful of Honesty;

Wat in tarnation-!

A swish of Generosity around the rim;

Wha-ah!

And Magic makes it all complete!

What in the-!

Hn... Still kinda... boring. Maybe spice it up a bit; add some sprinkles of the fun stuff from Tia's library of magic, some choice cuts from Starswirl's and a few dollops from the personal collection of that new apprentice of little Twily...

And cap it all off with a jumpstart jolt from yours truly!

Knead the physics a bit to let it set and work....

Not quite the bearers of Elements of Harmony, but it'll do. Definitely make things more fun.

Who knows! Maybe you'll make some real friends and Rainbow Friendship that Golden Idiot into not destroying the local multiverse!

Or turn him into a nice piece of statuary to brighten up that dead Garden of Flesh thing. Either way works.

Now, before I close the window and sever this link, I should probably say this:

Good bye, and good luck, little Taylor Hebert.

Author's Note

1st Long story Writing for me. Kinda writing by the seat of my pants here.
Please be gentle...

Chapter 1

*BRING!*

'Finally!', Taylor sighed in relief as the final bell rang, her body relaxing and slumping a bit before straightening and correcting her poise.

'Why did she even bother coming?''Wasting her time...''Looks so ugly even the Merchants won't take her...'

Packing away her books and stationery, she ignored the whisperings from Emma's little hanger-ons and cronies. She can tell now a days that they themselves don't believe what they're saying, only to butter up to Emma. That bit of insight surprisingly helps. Like water sliding off a duck's back.

At least they stop harassing her with random spitballs and glue pranks after Taylor started showing a somewhat uncanny ability to dodge or avoid the worse of them. A recent one involving a pale, wide-eyed Madison, still holding the incriminating straw; getting glared by a buff football jock after accidentally hitting him with a spitball that Taylor dodged (itchy left ear lobe!) by suddenly ducking to pick up a pencil.

That avenue close off, most of them retreated to whispering earshot insults. Trying practically anything they can think of to get a desired reaction from her. As if someone like her deigns to entertain lowly mutterings like that.

Taylor shook her head as she stood up and made her way out. Odd thoughts and feelings like that kept popping up at random these days, after The Locker.

Like now. In front of her, Emma and her lackeys are bunched up at the doorway, casually obstructing the classroom exit, a smirk plastered on Emma's face.

A part of her wanted to slouch, to retreat back into her hoodie. But instead, she straightened up her back and walked with a outward confidence she not quite reflecting inwards towards the gaggle. Pausing in front of them, she glared at them in the eyes, taking advantage of her slightly taller frame to loom over them. "Please move aside." She said in an even voice.

Some of the girls started to quail uncertainly and inched back. Emma however, with her facade cracking slightly but still in place, said sweetly, "Oh, Where are you going in suc-"

Not letting Emma finish her sentence, Taylor abruptly move forward with a polite and curt "Pardon Me". Surprised at the suddenness of her barging through, Emma and her cohorts scrambled back to avoid being bulldozed over by the suddenly assertive girl, Taylor's unblinking, unnerving glare staring Emma into stunned silence until Taylor had passed her.

Taylor had emerged into the hallway when she suddenly sidestep (Twitchy right shoulder!) to one side, turning Sophia Hess's attempted shoulder-check into an ungraceful stumble into the nearby lockers.

"Careful, Sophia. You'll bruise rather easily.", Taylor dispassionately remarked at the glaring dark-skinned girl. Emma started to retort something, but Taylor had already gracefully maneuvered through the crowd of students before Emma could get a second word within earshot. Not that Taylor could care much these days about what Emma says. She certainly didn't value any loyalty from their shared childhood.

When she exits the school, she brightens a little at the sunshine and open air, free from the crowds. Now she can get to what's more important right now.

Figuring out exactly what sort of cape she is.

Time for research!

**************************

Taylor jerked awake from her light doze as the bus pulls up at her stop. Strange, she mused. Despite her sudden urges to get fitter (restlessly waking up at dawn and ended taking up jogging and doing pushups to work off the sudden excess energy), she would find herself taking quick catnaps whenever she's inactive, like sitting in the bus.

As she made her way from the bus stop to her house, Taylor's heart can't help but lighten up at the sight of pairs of birds flying through the air. Despite this is rather dismal Brockton Bay, everything seems to be more... vibrant some how. Especially at her home's garden where she started tending to it every now and then. Smiling at an inquisitive squirrel on a nearby tree branch and waving back cheerfully at the neighbours, she skipped over the fixed front step and entered the empty home. Her dad won't be back home until evening.

Her Dad...

Things are.... slightly awkward, yet improving (she guess?) with her dad, Taylor mused as she went through the living room and up the stairs. Ever since she had came home dazed in middle of the night, still covered in the grunge of...The Locker, to a worried Danny. At first, a large part of her resisted the idea of telling him about the bullying, to fend off his increasingly demanding questions as she cleaned herself, to keep to herself, that he cannot help....

But; a part of her urged; He's family. Even though he's been distant ever since... Mom's car accident, he still cares for you, his only child. At least he should know...

She had broke them and told him nearly everything.

Her Dad sat by her side through the whole thing. There had been some anger at some of the abuse, dismay at the revelation that Emma was one of the main ring leaders and a slowly simmering temper at the disregard by the teachers and principal of the bullying campaign.

For a few days, he had stormed Blackwell's office demanding reparations. To his teeth-gritting anger and Taylor resigned dismay, the school refused to act, citing lack of 'credible' evidence, though the school did consent to give her a new, clean locker and replacement books (as if she kept those in there in the first place these days) in a measure to pacify the Heberts. Her Dad was nearly about to do something violent to the administrators, but Taylor gradually managed to calm him down. He's already looking into alternatives to get Taylor out of there, such as school transfers or applying for G.E.D. In the meantime, both him and Taylor have to bear it. At least, things are.... improving between the two. They're talking more these evenings during dinner, and Taylor had started taking up baking pastries, Her Dad had joked that if she decides to flunk out of Winslow, she'll have a future as a good baker; that and he might have to start watching his weight.

A part of Taylor couldn't help but feel a tad suspicious about her sudden baking skills. Does it count as a Master effect if her pastries improve the consumer's mood? Danny did say his coworkers seems a tad more lighthearted after he shared them...

Taylor shook her head of the random thought as she made her way down to the basement, having deposited her school things in her room and grabbed her cape journals from it's hiding place.

Her cape powers...

Honestly, she had wanted to tell him about them that first night, but her doubts held her back. Did she really have powers? Powers even worth mentioning? Perhaps she should research and investigate first....

Taylor took a deep breath after placing her book on the basement worktable and flipped it open. As far as she can tell, she qualifies perhaps as a 'grab-bag' type cape, having multiple minor powers. Known examples via PHO Wiki includes the villainous mercenary Circus and the independent rogue Privateer.

So far, she had some sort of minor Thinker (why she suddenly could tell if someone is telling a lie? And those twitches? And social cues?), Shaker (Two pencils and an eraser idly orbited her open right hand), Brute (memories of the dented and barely on its hinges Locker door flashed through her mind), Blaster (a guilty glance at the scorch marks and small craters littering a cleared basement wall. She now really have to be careful where she points her fingerguns or do an air-punch...) and maybe a suspected Master (induced cheerfulness through baked goods? Is that even a thing?) powers.

Still, not too impressive. Certainly not in the scale of, say Dauntless or Legend (but a part of her nagged at her at that...).

She took another deep breath as she stood up and held out her arms before her. If she could do this trick (why did a loud part of her insisted on calling them spells? Does she want to be a Myrddin fangirl something?), then maybe she'll have something worth telling her dad.

Her face scrunched up in concentration, her mind focused on a shield (should be safe enough and hopefully show-worthy enough...), feeling the energy(?) within her move. As the last few nights before, a ball of soft teal light gradually forms between her cupped hands. 'Focus' her mind whispered. 'Focus on the shield....'

The ball wobbled and distorted in shape, one part of her mind for some reason fixated on an arm mounted shield like that on a knight. Another part was sort of on auto-pilot, running through.... chanting? incantations? formulae? something she could barely perceived. Until there was a mental 'ping!' and the energy she was focusing(?) stabilized.

She slowly and hesitantly opened her eyes.

Hovering just off her left arm, is a slightly translucent yet solid, teal coloured kite shield.

Chapter 2

Taylor tiredly slumped onto the workbench, dismissing the arm shield. 'Strange', she mused. 'How creating it and dismissing it is so much easier now after that first hurdle. Is there some sort of thing where I have to figure it out first before I can easily and freely (well, not quite. It still takes a bit of 'energy' from within.) use it?'. She let out a breath. 'At least I can add 'Hardlight Projection' power to my list...'

She looked at her open journal, the page listing what she had learned from about an hour of testing the shield. Despite acting as if it was somehow attached to her left arm, impacts from a hammer (that was awkward, trying to get a good swing at it from around the shield) and running full tilt at a wall (it made such an odd sound, like simultaneously rapping on a glass window and banging on a metal plate), she didn't feel any of the force onto her arm. Did the shield absorb it? She could also 'detach' it from her arm (why didn't she do that earlier?) by willing it and 'hold' it in her hand as if there was an invisible handle behind it (she can feel something.) or hold it as if it's a large metal plate (luckily it felt weightless). Trying to force her arm closer to the shield while it was 'attached' felt like she's pushing against a strong repelling magnet. There's a minimum distance the shield can be away from her? 'Dismissing' it involving 'flipping' a mental switch, and calling it back out required a bit more concentration to remember how it felt the first time, though much, much quicker. Like it just snap into place and required less effort than her first try. Did her power 'bookmark' it or something?

It's not much. Still, it's the 'proper' power that she had deliberately try for. One that she idly had a sudden inkling that she could do it during a daydream, wondering about having something more useful to defend herself with. All the rest were 'instinctive' and felt like they're always there and ready.

'Can I make a suit of armour from this?' she wondered.

She stood up and walk to the middle of the cleared basement floor. Closing her eyes, she focused on both the shield power and the mental image of 'stretching' and molding it around her body into a shape of a Hero style suit of armour. 'Come on' she quietly chanted to herself, as she felt the shield warped and distort, feeding more 'energy' into it.

'Ping!'

She relaxed upon 'feeling' the remolded shield snapping into place, opening her eyes to see through the teal, slightly translucent face plate. 'It work!' she thought giddily. 'Let's see how- huh?'

She couldn't move her head. Or to be specific, she couldn't move the helmet part encasing her head. 'What the-?'

With a bit grunting and straining to no effect, it dawned on her. 'I didn't make a suit of armour. I accidentally trapped myself in a immovable wrap-around shield shell' she grumpily thought as she slammed her back into the shell in frustration.

The whole thing started to tilt back.

'Wha-? Whoa!'

Panicking at the sudden movement, she moved her body forward within the shell. The thing thankfully stopped and swing back upright. Than it tilted forward. And forward. And forward some more...

'No. Oh no. Nonononononono-'

"KoPring!!!" The stiffly standing 'suit' fell face first onto the floor. Luckily, Taylor wasn't rattled inside it. '....Note to self: research how plate armor can move' she thought before dismissing the 'suit' and she flopped onto the floor.

*************************

Taylor sighed as she plopped herself onto her bed. 'Well, looks like a trip to the library is in the near future.' she thought to herself. 'Still, is it something good enough to impress Dad?' It's only a shield....'

As her gaze idly went about her room, her eyes fell onto an old Alexandria poster hanging on her wall.

'I wonder if I can fly.'

**************************

"Grunt."

"Huff"

'Mental note: despite lifting a bowling ball and some heavy barbell weights with no issue, I can't use my telekinesis to lift myself.'

**************************

'Mental note: While I can make a hardlight disc to stand on, making it fly instead of me is a no.'

**************************

"RRRriippppp!!"

'....mental note: using telekinesis on my normal clothes to make me fly is a big no no.'

**************************

Taylor sighed as she laid in her bed, her cape journal propped upright as she updates her notes.

'-despite having enough force to make a (very shallow) crater in a concrete wall, using my punch-blast ('Kinetic Force Projection Bolt' spell, a part of her insisted) on myself felt mostly like being hit with a heavy punch from myself. I wonder if it's something to prevent accidentally injuring myself too badly, or I have an 'increased toughness' part of the 'Brute package'. Does my zapguns ('Intrinsic Mana Projection Bolt' spell! No, despite the better sounding names, I am not calling them spells!) have a similar thing? Aiming is something I have to work on. Good news, I don't have make punch motions or finger guns to trigger them, just point and shoot. Can I even fire my punch-blasts in a continuous stream instead of just pulses? In retrospect, the lack of recoil I felt should have clued me in-'

A creak of the stairs had her quickly scrambling to hide her cape journal and swap in a thick novel. Her dad is home already?!

"Hey, Kiddo," Danny greeted as he pushed open her bedroom door. "How are y-" he trailed off, his eyes staring.

Fighting and failing to suppress a rising blush, she sheepishly followed his gaze to her feet. Or more specifically, the cold pack resting on a large purpling bruise on her right foot.

"I, uh..." she stammered. "I accidentally dropped a toolbox on it..."

Danny stared at it a bit more before chuckling and shaking his head in amusement. "Oh, kiddo. I know you wanted to clear out and use the basement to explore new hobbies, but you got to be more careful."

Taylor blushed a bit more and mumbled some apologies, as Danny walked away and headed down stairs. "With a bruise like that, don't think you can make to class for a few days. I'll call the school that you're not coming. Maybe order in some pizza...." his mutterings trailed away.

With a blush still on her face, Taylor flopped her head onto her pillow and let out an embarrassed groan. 'Later' she mentally vowed. 'I'll tell him later when I have something that won't cause him to laugh at me like a hyena....'

Chapter 3

Taylor was in deep thought as she went out through the doors of the Brockton Bay Public Library into the late afternoon outdoors, absent mindedly slinging her backpack over her shoulder.

This research session had been enlightening, in several ways.

First was the reason she can even walk all the way here despite the 'Punch-Blast to the foot' incident was only barely a week ago. A quick web search and a look through first aid books confirmed that bruises typically took about 2 weeks or so to heal, and yet her bruised right foot had been as good as new in slightly less than half that time. As it is, she had to play at still being hurt around her dad at home and wear foot coverings to hide the faster than normal healing rate. Even this library trip, she had to sneak out after her dad had left for the Dockworkers Union office, and really should get back home before he did.

At least, she hadn't been idle at home while waiting for her foot to heal. Her further experimentation with the 'Hardlight Shield' power showed some surprising results. That it was both somewhat restrictive and versatile at the same time. If she stuck the 'shape' to anything shield like, the power quickly and with hardly extra 'energy' costs took to it like a duck takes to water. So far, she tried large and small shapes like tactical riot shields, bucklers and variant shapes of the kite shield; and all the shield power creates without any fuss or trouble. She found that the further the creation deviates from the concept, the harder and more costly it is to make, hence why her first 'body armour' took so much time and effort. For some reason, the power wouldn't 'remember' any non shield shape. While it took almost no effort to switch between shield type shapes, she had to re-focus and put it as much effort as the first time if she wanted to force the power to recreate the armour. On the other hand, making small changes like adding a notch/gunport or a sharp cutting edge while having the overall shape be a shield took was surprisingly easy.

Taylor took a deep breath while crossing an intersection, her mind going to the other thing she found. That she may have another Thinker power.

While she didn't have much expectations on the research front after her discovery of the shield power limitations, she thought she could at least browse the PHO forum and wiki sites on the public access library computers for ideas. Upon entering the library however, she suddenly started feeling very giddy and detoured to the bookshelves instead, and....

And within a few hours, Taylor had somehow ravenously devoured (not literally) a large and eclectic mix of books. Subjects ranging from University-level Physics and Chemistry text books and research papers, to books about baking and cooking. For some reason, her attentions even wandered to books about veterinary medicine and human athletic achievements and world records.

The telling thing about the whole thing, that while most of the materials went over Taylor's understanding or capacity to remember, another part of her seems to be relishing, learning and comprehending all the books she had gotten her hands on. Thinking about it, she had gotten the impression as if the information was being read, transcribed, noted and stored away within a... database of library in her head.

She suspected had that had she not have be home by late afternoon, this newly discovered... power? urges? might have led to her reading pretty much everything within the library. As it is, it took a lot of willpower to drag herself away from the stacks, and checked out a few fantasy books (for personal inspiration. She might not buy into the Myriddin thing, but maybe she can get some ideas...).

Taylor shook her head as she cross another intersection.

So... she has a different Thinker power? One very different from the Honesty (wait, why did she phrased it like that?) one, or the social cues one or the minor pre-cog (she suspects) one. A Thinker power geared towards... what? Information? Learning? For the first time, Taylor was glad that her house doesn't have a decent computer or an internet connection, or that the concept of internet didn't seem to have sink in to that part of her, otherwise she might get stuck in front of it all day feeding this power. Even now, she can feel it pouting at her for cutting short the session and trying to plead with her (she's fighting with herself? The hell?) for another library trip.

'That's at least two more to add to the list.' Taylor mused. 'Wonder how many-'

"Get off me you bastards!"

The sudden shout startled Taylor out of her thoughts, her head looking about to find the source. 'Wha-'

"Just give us your dough, you bitch!"

It seems to be coming from that alley across the street. Without thinking about it, Taylor quickly made her way to the alley mouth.

With the afternoon sun behind her, she could see the commotion. A young girl struggling against two shabbily dressed men. One of the men was holding the shorter girl up by her arms, and the other seems to be dodging the girls flailing legs, one hand holding a knife and the other reaching into his pants pocket. "Stop kicking, or we'll-"

"Hey, You!" Taylor shouted. Wait, why did she interrupt a daylight mugging? The words had just... popped out of mouth without her thinking about it.

All three looked at her. The surprise on the knife man soon replaced by a sneer. "Oh? What's this? This girl a friend of yours?"

A part of Taylor quailed, wanting to run. A larger part (or two?) instead put a stern look on her face and stand defiantly before the two scoundrels. "Let her go."

An ugly smirk came over the knife goon's face. "Or what? You're going to call the coppers?" His other hand came out the pocket, drawing out a handgun. "How about you don't, and give us your cash now." He gestured threateningly with the gun at her. "Or I popped you a couple holes."

Taylor wanted to cower back at the sight of the gun. A smaller part noted the way the gun held rather unsafely and carelessly (how did she know that?) as the now-gunman waving it at her....

A sudden twitch in her left shoulder and a strong urge alerted Taylor, and she without hesitation wiped up her left arm and created a large teal riot shield, just as the carelessly held gun discharged itself and sent a bullet towards her.

All four present froze momentarily; both at the sudden gunshot and where the shield stopped the bullet, before Taylor snapped out of it and on impulse, bring up her right arm around the shield, her fist already have a glowing corona of teal coloured energy around it.

"Crap! Cape!" The other man yelped, dropping the girl as Taylor fired a wildly aimed Punch-Blast at the gunman. The bolt passed by his head causing him to flinch and returned a couple of shots in panic. She peered through the transparent view slot of the shield and correct her aim.

Her second shot hit a nearby garbage can and sent it flying, prompting the gunman to scramble back while firing again and the second man to just turn and ran.

Finally, her third shot nailed the gun wielding goon in the chest, sending him flying and knocking down his buddy, causing both to tumble together to the ground in a heap.

Taylor paused, still covering behind her shield and her right hand ready to fire a fourth shot at the pile. Are they down? Are they going to run? Are they de-

"Holy shit, that was awesome."

The statement cause Taylor to remember that there was still another person in the alley. The girl just sat in the ground with a wide eyed look at her.

Cautiously, Taylor crab-walked her way towards the girl while keeping an eye on the softly moaning and groaning heap (they're not dead!), keeping her shield and Punch Blast at the ready.

"Are you alright?" Taylor asked the girl got close enough to get a proper look at her. The slim black girl with dreadlocks appears to be younger than her, but yet curvier than she was (That's not fair), dressed in a punk goth style shirt, vest and jeans (why did Taylor had a sudden urge to screech in indignation of the girl's clothes?).

"Yeah, I'm good." The girl said dismissively, waving a hand. "Those two didn't get a chance to do much." The girl looked at Taylor speculatively "So, are you a new cape? New Wave?"

New Wave? Why New Wave?

Taylor's confusion must have been plain to see, because the girl gestured to her face. "You know? Helping people? Glowly powers? No mask?"

No mask?

What mask?

Oh crap! No mask!

Again, Taylor's feelings of sudden dawning horror must been plain easy to see, as the girl quickly hold up a pair of placating hands. "Woah, woah. It's okay. Just chill! I won't tell anyone! I promise!"

Taylor took a deep breath to calm down. "I- I-" another deep breath. "You promise?"

"Yeah" The girl took a glance at the heap of unconscious (?) attempted muggers. "You did me a solid. I won't tell. With the sun behind you just now, it was hard for me to see your face, much less those two drugged idiots can."

Taylor took another breath. "Thanks" She took another look at the downed goons. "How about we- we just get out of here? Can you get back okay?"

"Don't worry," the girl waved at Taylor dismissively. "I can take of myself. See you later, hero."

With that, the girl was out of the alley and vanished around the corner. Taylor took one last look at the heap before dismissing her shield and Punch Blast and quickly beat feet for home.

'Well' Taylor thought 'That was eventfull.'

**************************

"Aisha! Where have you been?!"

"Chill, Brian. I was just hanging around."

"You know the neighbourhood is too rough for just hanging out."

"Relax, big bro. I can handle myself."

".....nothing happen?"

"Nope. Nothing at all."

Interlude 1

"Colin, you should take a look at this", chimed a voice from the workstation speakers.

Colin Wallis looked up, his micro-soldering waldo and gripper pausing at their current positions. "Dragon? How urgent is it?" he inquired, putting away the tools and the circuit board he was working on. The bearded man stood up from the workbench and walked to the workstation next to the automated alcove containing his latest Armsmaster 'Field Patrol type' general use powered armour. He was hoping to get the sub-assembly for the arm of his 'Endbringer-Combat' Heavy type done soon...

"Not immediate", the familiar computer rendered virtual avatar of the famous Canadian Tinker reassured him. "But concerning. One of my monitoring sub-routines flagged a report just filed with the BBPD by a Daniel Hebert. It alludes to a ongoing bullying case at Winslow High that he claims the school administration is negligent in resolving the issue." The avatar 'took a breath' before continuing (Fascinating how she took the time and dedicated effort to render all these little facial tics and expressions instead of taking a shortcut of simply using a video link and a 3D capture of her own face, Colin mused.) "The case report states that the bullying campaign targeted onto his daughter had been on-going for nearly 3 years, culminating in a particularly nasty 'prank' on the first day of the semester. The victim, Taylor Rose Hebert," a school picture of the fore-mentioned bespectacled, black curly haired Caucasian girl appears in the screen, "had been reportedly shoved into and locked within her own locker that had been filled with rotting garbage. Despite him first reporting it to Principle Blackwell, the administration's inaction prompted the report to BBPD."

Colin frowned as he sat down at the chair. "While bullying of this scale is a serious issue, and the school's disregard was disturbing, why did this report needed my attention?", he asked, looking at the split screen of Dragon's avatar on one side, the electronic copy of the BBPD report on the other.

"Because Sophia Hess has been named as one of the main perpetrators." Dragon stated.

Colin's eyes widened. "...shit. Are there any evidence? Anything we can use as a lead?", he inquired, paying closer attention to the report now.

"...nothing concrete enough for BBPD to act." Dragon admitted. "Daniel Hebert submitted scans of Taylor's journal recording the bullying, printouts of email messages harassing her and a couple of pictures of the locker itself post-incident." The screen displayed each piece of submitted evidence. "Unfortunately, the school janitors had already cleaned up most of the mess. There are a few bullying reports filed within Winslow High's computers from Taylor Hebert, but all of them were dismissed by Blackwell, citing that Taylor Hebert is one of the many problem students Winslow High has."

Colin resisted the urge to curse again, "So we don't have sufficient concrete evidence whether Sophia Hess actually did it, or was framed by someone with a grudge? All circumstantial? Do we have any independent avenue for clues?"

Dragon shook her head. "None. Not even a hospital record. If Taylor had been imprisoned in close proximity to rotting garbage for nearly 8 to 10 hours, it's likely that she could have suffered severe infection at least, and yet there's no record of treatment in any clinics or hospitals." The screen showed a grainy timestamped CCTV screenshot, with a circle pointing out the figure of Taylor as she walked by an ATM camera on her way to her school. "Her attending school a few days later with no visible injury or scarring didn't help matters."

Colin frowned, studying the still frame. "Bring up the photos of the locker," he requested. Dragon's avatar minimized itself to a postage size window at the lower left corner, while the screen showed the only two photos available of the suspect locker.

"There's some residue lines still on the locker walls in the picture." Dragon pointed out, rendering the indicted parts of the photo lighter. "Taylor must have been practically covered in garbage when she was stuck in there."

Colin frowned, then used his finger to point at certain parts of the photo showing the locker door. The computer helpfully placed red circles around the points. "Look at this. If we analyze the locker door, it looks like it has forced opened from the inside. Look at the padlock flange, see how it had been bent and torn away? The dent in the door and the damaged hinges suggest the damage was done with a single strike rather than a continuous push or multiple hits."

"That must taken a lot of force." Dragon remarked, creating another small window, this one attempted to render the door as a 3D wireframe based on the photo.

Colin nodded. "Yes. More than what an average human body can exert, even taking account of cases of 'hysterical strength'." He locked at the locker cavity, mentally calculating the space within and how an average teenage girl would have fit. "Especially since that there is little leverage inside the locker to do it. It's a tight fit."

"...do you think that Taylor Hebert may have triggered within the locker? Maybe as a Brute?" Dragon ventured.

"...it's probable, but not conclusive." Colin admitted. "That alone is not enough for the PRT to involve themselves. But with this report naming Hess...", He frowned, thinking deeply.

"I'll have to bring this up to Director Piggot." he declared as he straightened up. "Considering Hess's history, this warrants keeping a much closer observation on her. If Hess had been violating the terms of her probation and Blackwell had been negligent in reporting to the PRT," he took a deep breath, "then we should remedy the issue. Before we and the PRT drops the ball any further on this."

Dragon's avatar emulated a frown. "Computer records and email transcripts might shed further light on this. I'll see what I can access publicly."

Colin nodded. "Good idea. I'll get you the legal initiative to do so." he stroked his beard. "I see if I can wrangle one or two troopers to observe Hess undercover. Her probation also covers her behavior in her civilian life as well. Maybe they can catch her bullying on body cam."

"The director might not approve the diversion of available manpower," Dragon remarked. "A bullying case, even one done by a Probationary Ward is a low priority on the totem pole, especially in the face of the villainous capes and gangs crimes in Brockton Bay." That is teeth-grittingly true. The PRT and Protectorate forces here in Brockton Bay have their hands full as it is.

"She might." Colin countered. "She frowns on para humans abusing civilians, and this is the mandate the PRT is founded on." He looked at the screen again. "Hess is already a red flag, particularly her penchant for 'unauthorized solo patrols' and excessive violence. Short of able-bodied Capes we may be, but a loose cannon like her will be detrimental." He leaned back. "I'll see if I can discretely get a record of her phone messages..."

"The Youth Guard won't like the breach of privacy of a Ward." Dragon warned. "Also, it is likely she has a 'burner' phone for her 'non-approved' activities like this."

"Hess is a Probationary Ward. PRT already has leeway in regards to keeping tabs on her." Colin answered. "She may use a burner phone for any incriminating messages, but she's required to keep her PRT issued phone at all times." He gestured. "That phone has a built-in GPS tracker and internal memory to record where she's been for a few days." His face tightened. "And if she had violated her probation on something like this, it's very likely she had renegade on other parts of her probation as well. Like keeping stashes of lethal bolts for use on her solo patrols."

Dragon looked in thought. "Multiple angle approach to charge her." She paused, then continued. "We shouldn't tell the other Wards about this. If Hess picked up some word of this, she'll change her behavior and it'll compromise the investigation."

"Noted." Colin agreed, then he tiredly leaned back. "Despite my gut feelings about her, we need to be sure Hess is actually guilty, otherwise we might worsen our problems by condemning an innocent Probationary Ward."

"Rather have ten guilty men go free than an innocent man convicted." Dragon recited. "Colin.... What about Taylor? If she really had become a Parahuman..." She trailed off.

Colin sighed. "We pray that she decides to be a Hero, and that we didn't burn our bridges with her with this fuckup."

Chapter 4

The past few days had been a tad nerve wreaking for Taylor.

She kept half-expecting the Empire 88 or the Archer Bridge Merchants or the Asian Bad Boyz or any of the villainous gangs in Brockton Bay to show up and press-gang her. Thus, she hid out in her house for a while and occasionally peek out the windows for any suspicious signs. After two days, she had worked up the nerve to sneak out for a quick morning trip to the public library to see if the PHO forums had any word on a new cape. She had spent the entire trip there feeling jumpy. She'll be going to go back Winslow in a few days. If Emma and her minions picked up on her paranoia, they might leverage it to hurt her....

After an uneventful jaunt to the library and a meandering path between the bookshelves and the public access computers (She gotten some strange looks after her third zig zag. Taylor eventually had to bribe the other part of her brain with some research journals and speed reading through them before she could settle down at one of the terminals.), she brought up the PHO forum site, browsed, and....

Nothing.

No speculations. No new threads. Nothing. The closest she called find was a few posts about hearing gunshots and BBPD had arrested a couple of loner (unaffiliated with any gangs) gangsters with substantial rapsheets. A poster with maybe a friend on the force did mentioned that the gangsters complained about being attacked by a cape.... but their descriptions of the assailants (plural?) was all over the place that other posters started joking about Stranger ratings.

Still, nothing concrete about her. She's still safe.

Taylor let out a sigh of relief. Her secret is safe. She was busy thanking the Sun and Moon (what the-? When did she start swearing to celestial bodies?) for her luck as her hand absentmindedly brought up a search page and typed in the title of a well-known science journal....

No. Oh no. Oh nononono....

**************************

Taylor blearily walked out of the library into the afternoon sun, trying to rub away her eye strain and shake away her hand cramps.

Her Thinker power had figured out the concept of the internet. She blamed the rest of her brain for enlightening it of the internet. Like she was somewhat a passenger in her own body, she had speed read through as many research journals as the library connection could load them, unblinkingly scrolled through theories, diagrams and illustrations. And her power luxuriated in the sheer amount of information it was taking in. If it had a separate body or Taylor didn't keep a firm grip on her mouth, she (more her power) would have probably squeed out loud in joy.

If it wasn't for the library imposed time-limit for public use internet, she would have been stuck in there. As it is, she had barely restrained herself from lunging herself to the library counter to get more access time.

Do other Thinkers have this problem? How do they deal with the urges?

Taylor sighed as she reached the sidewalk. Now she has to-

A flash of white fabric drew her attention to the skies above the street. A blond statuesque girl in a white and gold cheerleader spandex outfit ('Really? Dahling...,' a part of Taylor drawled.) was flying over the street, carrying a white robe girl in her arms.

Glory Girl and Panacea of Brockton Bay's New Wave.

Taylor watched them as they flew overhead, a part of her wishing she could fly like that, another part of her...

-noobservablethrusteffectflightachievedvialevitationorgravitymanipulationmaybeuniformappearsunruffledsuggestashieldforwindshearprotection-

Someone bumped into Taylor from behind with an angry mutter of 'Don't stand there like a gawping idiot!', causing her to stumble slightly and snapping her out of her sudden trance-like state. She blinked in surprise, as the parahuman duo flew around the corner and out of sight.

What was that?

**************************

Taylor let out a deep breath as she awakens from her sleep.

The last two days since she had returned to Winslow were typical, with Taylor managing to dodge most of Emma and her cohorts attempts to harass her in the hallways, with them only managing to corner her somewhat in the classrooms (but even then, they didn't really dare to push too hard with the teachers being present.). A twinge still on her back reminded her that despite being able to somewhat sense the incoming danger, that doesn't mean Taylor was able to act to dodge or avoid it. Sophia, being somewhat angry for Taylor's repeated dodges from her, finally managed to corner her yesterday (how did Sophia do that? Did she climb up through a window or something?) and had rushed push her against a bank of lockers. Luckily, Taylor managed to slip away with a feint and a few catty remarks before Sophia could do any worse.

Taylor sighed. The High school situation led to another thing.

The PRT Wards program. Or to be more specific, the thought of becoming a hero.

Taylor wanted to be a hero. To use her powers to help others. The idea of just sitting by and let her home town rot and break under the weight of the gangs chaffed her. But she had no illusions of able to go at it alone. Especially not for a grab bag cape like her. Unless one is a Triumvirate-level cape, the odds of surviving for long as an independent hero cape is slim to none before they are killed or recruited into larger groups. She hesitantly dismissed joining New Wave, as they advocated Cape transparency. But as the death of Fleur by the hands of E88 proved, New Wave can't help to protect her Dad from any fallout of her heroing.

And that left the Wards. At first, she wanted to disregard them, not wanting to go through Winslow 2.0 with cape powers thrown in. But as she thought more and more about it, she realized that she... didn't really have much actual information of what the PRT Wards program is actually like. As she thought further, even her information about New Wave seems incomplete, consisting of merely rumours and hearsay. Perhaps she should do more research first regarding her options before committing. Better talk to her dad about this.

Her mind then wandered to her dreams. Her dreams for the last three nights.

Ever since her passing encounter with the younger New Wave duo, her dreams had been strange. Partitioned somehow, running concurrently. Like she's having three dreams at once. One part was the usual confused nonsense of normal sleeping dreams whose details was now fading away fast from her memories. The remaining two however....

In one, she was flying through the air over a foreign landscape, performing aerial feats that felt wonderful, exhilarating and euphoric. Death-defying slaloms through canyons, skimming at super sonic speeds over lakes and raging rivers, mid-air dueling with air-borne fantastic creatures like Rocs and Dragons. Those dreams made Taylor smile at the memories of joy in them.

In the other, it was thoughts and impressions of rummaging through an immerse library. Pulling out books, scrolls and references. Cross-referencing and making connections between different materials. Assembling, testing and prototyping.... something. The immense satisfaction of a project coming together. And completion.

The last part confused Taylor. It felt more.... detached from her. Like she's merely seeing and following along what someone else (why she got impressions of the colour lavender?) was doing, in her head.

Taylor shook her head and sat up before pausing. What's that in the back of her head? Next to the 'Hardlight Shield' power? She concentrated on it, getting complex diagrams, matrices and formulae. Of geometric shapes, components and connections. And a name.

Aerial Self Locomotion via Gravitic Manipulation and Levitation spell matrix, with integrated Wind Shear Resistant shield and Inertia Reduction bubble.

Taylor frowned, trying to parse the meaning of the name (she's not going to use 'spells', like she had thrown out using 'Defense optimized mana construct spell' for her 'Hardlight Shield' power.). Aerial self-locomotion...

Taylor's eyes widened as her breath caught itself in her throat.

Is this...

Is this a new power?

Is this a new Flying power?

Chapter 6

Taylor sat in a chair in her bedroom, contemplating the completed costume laid out on her bed with mixed feelings. Mostly pride/confusion, some pain and plenty of guilt.

The pride was mostly how she managed to put together, in a nearly a week of discrete work, a decent looking costume with some sewing supplies and materials from both the market and the basement storage. The confusion came from Taylor trying to figure how did 'sewing skills' and 'fashion sense' came to be part of a power. Not to mentioned how some of the colours or material combinations were made. Nevertheless, it's a good looking costume.

The main part is the now one-piece dark-grey flightsuit made from reinforced insulated fabric (how did the skill went into making the fabric tougher, fireproof and yet cosy-warm and breathable from common materials somehow gave Taylor headaches) that has a pleasant yet bright teal racing stripe going up and down the sides. Black rubber knee and elbow pads were tastefully sewn in. On top of it was a lighter grey tactical vest with zippered pockets. Around the waist sat a black utility belt, complete with a fanny belt pouch on the back. A black pair of motorcycle racing gloves reinforced with securing straps lay next to the suit. A black pair of hiking boots with extra padding and securing straps sat to one side of the bed. The final piece was a teal lined black domino mask, with its eyes replaced with swimming goggle (the lenses replaced with Taylor's spare prescription lenses) and the securing strap came from a scuba mask. Overall, it looks good to her.

The reason Taylor is feeling some pain now isn't because of the suit. It's because she tried her new Radar power just now, and the information overload of trying to process numerous markers and alerts in a 2 kilometer diameter area around her all at once gave her a massive headache. As it is, she has an icepack on her head and desperately hoping that her improved healing or the aspirins she had taken would help ease the pain soon. Next time, she'll try it with not all the mental 'toggles' set to 'on' and readjust the range and coverage spread a bit.

The last part, which was guilt, was why Taylor is still in her room contemplating instead of planning her test flight. Specifically, her guilt of procrastinating to tell her father about her powers. She had promised herself to tell him about them, as soon as she found something to impress him. But... the Hardlight Shield ability alone would have been impressive as well, right? Or even her Zapgun or Punch-Blast passive abilities. Why wait until getting a Flight power? Why wanting to wait until after the first outdoor flight? Why not tell him before? Why not tell him before she had started working on a costume?

Taylor sighed. Maybe it's because she's worried about his reactions. But if she doesn't tell him now, his trust in her will be... damaged. They had already started patching things between them. Is she really that eager for an outdoor flight right now? Enough to risk her relationship with her dad? She's afraid of what he'll do, but he's family. Things may be distant after Mom's accident, but Dad still loved Taylor. His daughter.

Taylor struggled with the dilemma for a few minutes, before settling on a conclusion.

No more waiting. Whatever happens, she's telling Dad tonight.

**************************

Dinner was done and both daughter and father sat together in the living room sofa. Taylor fidgeted uncomfortably, while Danny stared at her expectantly in trepidation. Taylor sounded... grave when she asked to talk to him after dinner, and despite his weariness after work, Danny agreed.

"...Dad. I have... something. Something big to tell you." Taylor hesitantly started.

Danny leaned forward, and faced her. "What is it, Taylor?"

Taylor softly said, "Well, it's like this...?

Danny suddenly cut in. "You have a boyfriend? That's why you're more vibrant these days?"

"What? No! I mean, I was happier, but no-" Taylor protested, with a slight blush rising.

"Or is it a girlfriend?" Danny pressed lightly. "I don't mind as long as you're happy..."

"No! No girlfriend either! It's..." Taylor denied louder a tad before took a deep calming breath and fought down the slight blush. "It's something else."

"Okay," Danny accepted. "Sorry about that kiddo" He took a deep breath. "I'm trying to lighten me nerves a bit."

"Yeah." Taylor agreed, her mood swinging back to a more somber state.

After a moment or two, Danny prodded, "So...?"

Taylor took another deep breath, and softly muttered, "I have powers."

Danny blinked at that. "...pardon?"

"I have powers" Taylor repeated louder and clearer. "I'm a cape." she clarified.

Danny looked at her with wide eyes, "...jesus." He opened his mouth, closed it, and tried again. "Are- are you sure? Since when?"

Taylor let out a tiny nod."Yes" She then continued, not quite looking at her father in the eyes. "Since the Locker incident."

"That's.... nearly a month and a half ago. Why...?" Danny asked, his face a tad paler.

"Because I wasn't quite sure. I thought what I got then wasn't worth the worry or effort to tell someone." Taylor said in a rush.

Danny caught onto something. "...what you got then?"

Taylor swallowed. "...I thought." She paused, then continued slowly "I thought what I am is a grab bag cape at first. Just some minor powers. Stuff like just a bit tougher, just a bit stronger, that sort of thing."

"Oh." Danny said. "What changed?"

"I think... I think I'm a Trump. I can get new powers. Strong ones." Taylor explained.

Danny raised as eyebrow. "...like Eidolon? That strong?"

Taylor shook her head and shrugged. "....I don't know. Maybe? Not as fast to get new powers though."

"....huh." Danny said, staring out a bit emptily.

"...Dad?" Taylor asked in a small voice.

Danny shook himself out of the state. "I'm here, kiddo. I just need to... think things over a bit."

"Oh." Taylor answered.

"...what do you want to do with your powers?" Danny inquired.

Taylor looked down."...I want to be a hero."

"By yourself?" Danny asked, wide-eyed.

"....I don't know." Taylor admitted.

Danny took a breath, before prodding. "How about joining the Wards?"

"...I want to research more first. Want to get all the info before committing." Taylor said, with a side along glance at her father.

Danny frowned slightly. "I see."

"....can you help? Ask around or something? Help me put together a bigger better picture of my options?" Taylor implored, her voice hoping.

Danny answered with barely any hesitation. "Sure, kiddo."

Taylor let out a relieved sigh. "Thanks, Dad."

There was a moment or two of silence between the father and daughter, before Danny started, "Taylor?"

"Yes?" Taylor answered?

"I'll always be here for you." Danny said, his voice firm with conviction.

Tears of happiness came to Taylor's eyes, her body relaxing and leaning onto her father. "....Thanks."

There was another moment of silence before Danny started again. "So..."

"Hm?" Taylor inquired.

"Want to show me some of these powers of yours?" Danny asked.

"Sure, Dad." Taylor answered with a beaming smile.

Author's Note

That was difficult. I hope I got the conversational scene, tone and mood right.

Interlude 2

Danny Hebert scanned the partly cloudy winter night sky for a particular teal colored contrail, the pair of binoculars in his hands at the ready.

He sighed as his mind again wandered back to that faithful, life changing conversation that occurred nearly a week ago. His little Taylor. First her mother, then Winslow, now this. A Cape...

He had heard rumours and word on the streets about capes and how they got their powers. The worst day of their lives. Hearing it from Taylor's mouth was.... difficult. He had nearly blown his top upon hearing that. He nearly did when he had heard what Taylor had planned initially before changing her mind and telling him. He forced his temper back down by reminding himself that Taylor had ultimately told him before embarking on a solo flight, that Taylor had ultimately chose to tell him about anything at all.

He let out a resigned breath. He knew that he... was being distant after Annette's death. That he was using his (sadly slowly getting more desperate) work as the Hire Manager with the Dockworkers Union to cope with the loss. Taylor had elaborated that sometimes she got odd.... urges and renewed prodding from either her (somehow) re-invigorated conscience or (what she suspects is) her power. Danny is just thankful that those urges and prodding have prompted her to help patch things up between them, before it deteriorated even further. That she still trusts him to tell him about anything important.

Speaking of which, Danny had talked Taylor into postponing her first outdoors flight a bit, despite her eagerness and impatience (she somewhat reminded him of the times a younger Taylor wanted a puppy or pony). A few days later, he gave her a few things to add to her ensemble. A decent hunting knife complete with a securing holster, a extending defense baton, a can of potent pepper spray (he'd rather Taylor had some backup options of defending herself in case her power fails her or something), a rugged walkie talkie from the Dockworkers Union office, complete with a hands free headset and mic, and a basic cellphone. The last one rendered Taylor a bit speechless. He doesn't blame her reaction. After the Accident, both of them had rather... negative feelings towards cellphones. But this is Brockton Bay. He'd rather deal with the mixed feelings about having them (he resisted the slight urge to take a hammer to them.) and have Taylor being able to call him or anyone for help if she got into trouble than be comfortable and not knowing what happened to her.

When Saturday night rolled about, the father and daughter packed up into his truck and head out to the hills on outskirts of Brockton Bay. There, Taylor had launched herself into the night sky on her test flight. He watched her trailing contrail as she swooped, weaved and raced around the sky until he lost sight of her.

Danny raised his walkie talkie. "This is Papa One to TayTay. Papa One to TayTay. Status check in. over."

There was a (uncomfortable) moment, before the device sounded with a bit of static, "Hello. This is *sigh* TayTay. Checking in. Everything is A-OK. Over."

Danny chuckled. "Papa One to TayTay. Perhaps you should remember to pick a decent name first before your first flight." He paused. "Where are you? And How's the view up there? Over."

"TayTay to Papa One. I was pre-occupied with other things. Better things!" The sound of a deep breath taken came over the airwave. "I'm over the Docks area now. It's beautiful up here. So peaceful... Over."

Danny picked out his binoculars and scanned the patch of sky. The Docks is... over there, up a little.... There she is. A faint teal dot amongst some clouds.

"TayTay to Papa One." The walkie talkie suddenly interrupted. "How's the shield? Over."

Danny took a quick glance at the slightly translucent but still very solid teal riot shield leaning against the grill of the truck. "Papa One to TayTay. Still here and solid. Over." It had been a surprise to both of them that Taylor could pass to him one of her created 'Hardlight Shields' to him as if it was an ordinary made-from-mundane-materials shield. Danny could even hold it up by its 'invisible handle' and 'attach' it to his arm like Taylor could.

"TayTay to Papa One. That's good to hear." There was a pause and a relaxed sigh before she continued. "It's really... peaceful up here. Serene. Like the problems don't matter as much this high up. I wish you could be here. Over."

Danny let out a chuckle. "Papa One to TayTay. Sorry to turn down your offer again. I prefer my two feet on solid earth. Over."

That had been a surprise, Taylor discovering upon closer examination of her powers (the 'Hardlight Shield', the 'Flight' and the 'Radar' powers) that she can bequeath them to other people, though kind of pointless for the first, and the last two had such a high 'energy' cost (that sounded so weird.) that doing it on even just one other person would have leave her an exhausted mess.

"TayTay to Papa One. That reminds me. I found a new aspect to my passives." Taylor 'passives', what she calls her powers like minor enhanced healing, minor toughness and so on. Powers that she didn't have to actively focus to activate. "I can stand on clouds. Over"

Danny blinked. "Papa One to TayTay. Repeat that. Over."

"TayTay to Papa One." Taylor answered. "Yeah, I can stand on clouds. Like its a solid thing. A thing that felt like a mattress made with goosedown and cotton. I wish you could see this- the fuck?"

His heartbeat spiked a bit. "TayTay?"

"Um...Sorry. TayTay to Papa One. Just now, a new power just came in. This one.... let's you walk on clouds. And it has such low cost to put it on other people I can do it to half-dozen people easy. Why did this one appear so quickly? Over."

Danny let out a breath of relief. "Papa One to TayTay. Maybe we could figure it some other time. Ready to come home? Over."

"TayTay to Papa One. Yeah, you're right." There was a pause, before a slight wind picked up. "Heading to you no- Whoop!" A 'whump! and a poof!' sound came over the walkie talkie. "Sorry! sorry! Didn't see that fog bank there. Heading back to you now. Over."

"Papa One to TayTay. Roger that, Over." Danny put away the walkie talkie and binoculars and leaned against his truck to wait, his eyes scanning the skies.

Eventually, a pale teal dot appeared and gradually growing larger, skirting the city limits and over the treetops, trailing a small faint teal contrail. The dot slowly grew until it resolved itself into the figure of Taylor, clad in her costume, coming to land next to the truck. Danny could see that she had her Radar power activated, it showing as a solid teal band of light around her eyes. As Taylor landed, the faint teal 'petal' wings of her Flight power faded away and she walked over to the truck. Even in the dark, Danny could see the wide beaming smile on Taylor's face.

He smiled in return as he walked towards his daughter to give her a hug.

**************************

Dauntless let out a resigned sigh as he went about his night patrols. Just one swing by around the Docks and he can check in for the night at the Rig.

Things were a bit of a mess with the Wards back in HQ. Director Piggot had just benched the Probationary Ward Shadow Stalker after Armsmaster, Dragon and a few PRT Troopers presented their investigation findings into her conduct and behavior of over nearly two months. The Director was nearly apocalyptic with rage over the severe breach in probation terms (he vaguely remembered that the Director had initially protested it) and had wanted to just throw the girl straight into Juvenile Detention and/or Prison and bury the keys. She had to be calmed down immensely to even discuss any further corrective measures.

The girl had been pulled from the school, and talks were in the works to relocate her and her family out to the Mid-West. Shadow Stalker was to be remanded into the 'tender' care of one of the PRT Branches there for correctional rehabilitation training. Dauntless wished her luck and hoped she doesn't blow this final final chance. That particular branch was well-known for dealing very harshly with hard cases like her, and tended to shove them deep into the grindstone to shape them up. In the mean time, Shadow Stalker will have to put in some appearances (with her wearing a Tinker Tech ankle monitor and tracker) over the next few days to muddy the connection a bit between her civilian life and her cape persona.

He reached near the end of the Docks when something odd caught his eye. He turn and squinted in disbelief at the strange sight, before using his SkyWalk Greaves to make his way up and closer.

Up close, the strangeness had only gotten more so.

The low hanging fog bank over the docks had a crisp sharp silhouette of a spread eagle person punched out of it. Like a cartoon. If he looked closer, he could make out clearly defined hands and fingers imprinted through the fog. What's more, the fog doesn't seem to be shifting or filling in to blur the outline. He could see straight through to the star filled night sky beyond, like he's looking through a ruler straight solid marble tunnel craving, rather than an immaterial wispy shifting fog.

What the hell?

Chapter 7

Taylor yawned as she leaned back from the basement worktable. The table was littered with loose leafs of paper and cheaply bought crystals, mostly clear quartz. The papers were filled with diagrams, illustrations and geometric shapes. All in pursuit of seeing if Taylor could have an innate pseudo Tinker power.

The days between her telling her Dad about her power and the test flight last Saturday were filled with researching for reasonable options for her heroing career. And it turns out, despite it being laden down with the government bureaucracy, its' manpower and resources being stretched thin to protect a city with many more villainous capes and mundane criminals than its' size would suggest and that the local Wards had a much higher than normal chances (especially when compared to the Wards branches in Boston and New York) of getting into fights with villain cape and gang members, joining the Brockton Bay Wards looks to be the most reasonable option Taylor and Danny has.

The mess on the table was the result of one of the brainstorming sessions Taylor and her Dad had since Saturday. Her Dad had taken note of something that Taylor has been denying. That her power kept insisting on terms like 'spells', 'mana' and 'magic'. He had pointed out a possible avenue for Taylor to go into. Magic or Enchanted items, like The One Ring from Tolkien. If Taylor could create artifacts like that, she'll qualify as a Tinker.

And that's where Taylor found the limit to her power-granting power. When she had asked for a Tinker power to create or enchant artifacts, all she got was a mental 'blank look'. Different phrasings from both her and suggestions from her Dad didn't change things. It took a while to realize. Her power wasn't blocked or restricted from giving Tinker powers. It had honestly couldn't understand the very concept of a Tinker, of an ability to create tools and machinery that far surpassed current technology and yet unable to be reproduced by mundane means.

Taylor was a bit stumped by the roadblock, considering her 'Tinker-fugue' like trance and ability when she had made her costume from mundane materials. But, thinking deeply, it wasn't quite like a Tinker, was it? Her entire costume could be done by anyone how had the right knowledge to combine mundane materials and common chemicals to get the right properties, and have an ability to finely weave together the entire thing, which Taylor had achieved by using her telekinesis and sewing skills from her power.

Fortunately, they found a work-around the limit. After nearly an hour of fruitlessly trying to get somewhere, Taylor had asked in exasperation (Her dad commented that it looks a bit strange to see Taylor talking to herself out loud like that.) how to enchant something with her HardLight Shield power....

And the power eagerly showed her. In minute and pain-staking detail. Like it was eager to teach Taylor the minutiae of how that particular power worked and how it could be 'translated' into an artifact. As it turns out, if Taylor wanted to 'enchant' something, first she needed to have the power itself before she can 'transcribe' it as a physical matrix into something with a regular structure in them. Like a crystal.

Hence the current mess on her table. Taylor shook out her fatigued hands, having transcribed everything she could onto paper. Geometric shapes, runes like circuit diagrams, formulae filled multiple pieces of paper. Complex equations and explanations filled the margins of the papers. Most of it went over Taylor's head, she had simply transcribe what her power is trying to teach her about how each part work and the basic principles behind them. She wondered if she's somehow breaking into a new field of science here or something. Maybe she can ask someone like Armsmaster to help decipher them.

Oddly, there were empty spots here and there. At first, Taylor had feared that this where the infamous 'Tinker Black Boxes' would go. But upon further investigations, it wasn't. Those were simply spots where is required 'user input' aka her. Things like 'shield shape' and 'amount of force/damage the shield could handle'. She hadn't realized before how much of the shield power variables where handled by her thoughts. If she wanted to turn the power into a Tinker Tech-esque device, she'll need to manually define and lock in the variables into the matrix. On the plus side, she could reduce the size of the matrix and reduce the overall 'energy' costs.

Taylor sighed as she turned and picked a different batch of paper. The original power uses the 'energy' within Taylor to create the shield and maintain it. Obviously, it'll be impractical if she wanted to have other people use it. It took some prodding, but her Thinker power provided the plans for a battery/charger that seems to use... something esoteric that went over her head. Something about dimensional higher energy states and needing it to be around living organisms to gather 'energy' (She's just relieved that the part didn't draw 'energy' from living organisms like some sort of a vampire...). In any case, the battery would constantly recharge itself around living organisms (plants will do at least, being around people will charge faster.) and store the energy ready to be used.

It took a lot of work to tweak the matrixes into something that could 'fit' into the thumb-sized clear quartz (the most flawless she could sense (she can tell how a crystal is with a touch now?).) that her Dad had managed to pick up. As it is, the final project plans resemble a thick watch, with one small crystal in the 'watch face' containing the main 'Hardlight Shield' power matrix, a smaller one on the opposite side to press against the skin to act as a control switch from the user, and a largest piece of crystal she had, about two-finger wide and length wide be the battery/power source, all connected to each other other by thin strands of copper in fine, delicately made pits in the crystal pieces.

Taylor tiredly cleaned and sorted the papers and crystals. She had working on this for two days and was exhausted. She get started on the actual 'enchanting' later tomorrow after school or something. At least the changed social situation at Winslow had given her a bit of reprieve. Sophia's sudden absence (rumour has it that she's been transferred out) had Emma acting despondent, and the sharks started smelling blood in the water. Lacking Sophia's muscle (and viciousness that cowed older students despite being the same age as Taylor), Emma's position as the school's 'Queen Bee' was getting precarious, her looks and (half-decent) high school social acumen only barely keeping the status quo stable. As a result, Taylor was left alone as Emma and her remaining cohorts were too pre-occupied to harass her.

Once Taylor had finished the 'Shield Watch', she and her Dad will go and apply to the PRT Wards soon after.

**************************

They ended up postponing the trip to the PRT.

Taylor and Danny sat in the living room, watching in slight horror at the news coverage of the aftermath of the Simurgh's attack on Canberra, Australia.

The short but devastating attack by the third Endbringer had been brutal, with severe casualties and a wreaked city. Compounding the problem was the fact that the city would be quarantined to contain any 'Simurgh Timebombs' left behind. No one wanted to take any chances, even to the point of imprisoning any civilians who had the misfortune of being in the wrong place too long within the area of effect of Simurgh's Scream. The surviving capes and defense forces that had survived were heavily scrutinized before being released.

Danny was pale as he watched the screen. Taylor bit her lip as something occurred to her. "Dad..."

Danny snapped his face towards her. "No, Taylor. You're not going to join to fight Endbringers."

"But-" Taylor protested. "But maybe I can help-"

"No." Danny said firmly, but there's an fragility in his stance. "I-, I can't lose you too. Not to them. Not like that."

Taylor choked up, and murmuring softly. "But... I can't just sit by...."

Things were silent between them for the rest of the night.

**************************

As Taylor drifted off to sleep that night, her mind sleepily wandered to the Simurgh. How the third was considered far more terrifying compared to the other two, simply on the basis of its mind warping powers. Villains with similar abilities like HeartBreaker and Nice Guy were feared as well. As Taylor was lapsing to sleep, she half-consciously wished that...

She wished there was a way to protect the mind, maybe a whole group of people at once. And she wished that there's a way to help people that had been afflicted by mind control. Cure or restore them or something....

As Taylor slept, a part of her mind came active and started rummaging and cross-referring. And if Taylor could see within her mind, she'll see a heavy vault door, with a 'lion paw and eagle claw'-written sign on it labeled 'The Fun Stuff!' opened and the contents added to the slowly assembling spell matrixes.

Author's Note

The concept of mana batteries and roughly how they work came from the excellent fanfic The Maretian. Check it out!

Chapter 8

Taylor snorted in anger and frustration as she stomped through the front door of her house.

She had gotten complacent, thinking things had eased up a bit at Winslow with the absence of Sophia. Emma proved her wrong, apparently compensating the loss of her right hand dragon with an extra helping of viciousness on her favorite target. Emma had, as usual, caught Taylor as she was leaving the last class with a scathing cutting semi-rant that took all of her willpower to just ignore and shoved her way through Emma's flunkies.

The slow burn of Taylor's anger didn't dissipate much on the trip home, and it certainly didn't on her short trip up the stairs to her room. She thumped her text books onto the table, next the to the completed, somewhat crudely looking Shield Watch and the ring binder filled with papers for said watch. Taylor seethed as she set her bag down and plopped into her bed. Just as she thought Emma couldn't get any over! Then she pulls this! Talking about Taylor's mother like that! Taylor wanted to dearly sock Emma in her traitorous mouth...

Taylor took a deep shuddering breath to forcibly calm herself. She thinks to herself that she's better than that. And this weekend, when she and her Dad goes to the PRT and she became an official Ward, she will be better than that.

Maybe she should do something to calm herself down. Something like... like...

Taylor turned her head on her pillow, and her wardrobe came into view. More specifically, the backpack next to it.

'Maybe a flight will help,' Taylor's mind chimed. Something that Emma certainly couldn't take away from her...

Taylor got up and quickly walk to her bag, swiftly taking out the flight suit. 'Yeah. A flight over Brockton will be nice....'

Taylor paused when she glimpsed her phone lying innocently on her books. She had planned to simply put on the costume and fly. Just a quick flight. Should she tell her dad?

A moment or two of internal debate passed before Taylor picked up the phone and speed dialed her father's phone.

"Hello?" Danny answered after a few rings.

Taylor started. "Hey, Dad. It's me, Taylor." she asked as she sat down on her bed.

"Taylor? What's wrong?" Danny asked, his voice channeling his concern over the line.

"Nothing. Nothing." Taylor reassured him. "I just..." "I want to fly a bit right now." she admitted.

"Huh?" Taylor could hear the 'blinking' her dad made. "Why? It's broad daylight now." Danny asked, puzzled.

"It's just...", Taylor took a deep breath. "Emma was being extra bitchy at school today. I want to let off some steam, you know?" she elaborated.

There was a few moments of silence before Danny spoke with an even voice, "The meeting with the PRT is this weekned, you know, right?". She know that! He continued "Carol Dallon's law firm is already set to help us with this." That had been a surprise to her yesterday, though her Dad had dryly pointed out that their finances can easily handle the legal fees, and they'll need help with figuring out any contracts from the PRT anyways.

"I know!" Taylor defensively said. "I know. I just... I want to do something. I feel I want to explode, I was so angry. Just a quick flight, please?" she pleaded.

"....okay." Danny conceded. "Be safe. and be careful."

Taylor made a victorious fist pump. "Thanks Dad. I will."

**************************

A quick change into the costume, a quick check with her Radar ('set radius to 100m, all directions. Show only any people within range'. A pause, and a quick peek over the fence later.' No one else around, neighbour is napping. Good enough.') and a straight up launch from the fenced in backyard later, and Taylor is soaring through the skies over Brockton Bay.

Taylor couldn't help by smile, her eyes crinkling under her mask. As she flew about, the buildings she passed below her gradually shifted from the houses of the suburbs to shop lots and storage units of Brockton Bay's many commercial areas near downtown.

Even though most of her luxuriated with the flight, a part of her wondered about her power. The part of her powers that was right now still rummaging, sorting and doing something since yesterday morning. What was it working on? Taylor had raked her brain for any requests she had made to her power that kept it so busy, but nothing comes to mind. Taylor couldn't even pause it, stop it or 'cancel' the current task her power had set on. Thus, Taylor would have to be patient to see the results her powers comes with. In the mean time though....

Taylor let out a quick 'Whoop!' as she made an aileron roll around an imaginary obstacle. Her Flight power was definitely her favorite power. The freedom to just move through the sky, the feel of the air swooshing by her, the sounds of police sirens....

Wait, what?

Taylor slowed to a hover and looked down, activating her Radar power. The power helpfully pointed out and zoomed in on the pair of BBPD police cruisers chasing.... a pair of red and green go karts? Curiosity filling her, Taylor flew closer after the chasing police cars and the go-karts weaving dangerously around traffic.

She had gotten closer and above when a white and gold figure swooped in and stopped in leading green go kart cold in its tracks by smashing down the front part, wreaking the front axle, streering column and front bumper. Glory Girl of New Wave.

As the trailing red go kart wildly skidded to a stop, a figure in silver knight-themed power armour joined in and block the path forward. Gallant of the Wards.

As she drew closer angling of the side of the road (the two police cars stopped and blocked the road behind), the skinny green plumber suited one (A plumber jumpsuit? Really?) scrambled out of his go kart and the larger broad shouldered red one hopped out of his, brandishing a... something (her Radar power helpfully highlighted it and tentatively labelled it as a weapon.) at the two teenage heroes-

[QUEEN ADMINISTRATOR: INVOKING ADMINISTRATOR PRIVILEGES: DATA REQUESTED!]

-and the two heroes suddenly collapsed to their knees in surprise, holding their heads in sudden pain. Taylor's eyes widened as she swooped in around to come behind the heroes. Did that red guy used a weapon on the heroes?! Her face setting in determination, she accelerated and zipped to place herself between the downed heroes and the red-clad villain (why was he looking at his gun(?) in confusion?) and creating a large teal riot shield to cover them.

Ignoring the cries of surprise from the red and green villains in front of her ("Who the hell are you?!" the red one demanded, while the green shouted something about 'Green Lanterns') and turned her head towards the grimacing heroes. "I'm here to help! Are you two okay?!" she quickly asked.

Glory Girl nodded as she shakily stood up. "Yeah. I'm good. Just got caught by surprise. Never had anything like that hit me before." She helped Gallant before looking at her in slight surprise. "Who are you?" she asked, supporting Gallant, who is also (she thinks) looking at her in surprise.

"I'm..."Taylor trailed off. She haven't picked a name! She forgot to pick a name! Before Taylor could say anything more, her Radar power alerted her to her front. Snapping her head around, she saw the red one (Now this close, she could recognize him: Uber. Which most likely makes the skinny green guy L33T.) threw a pair of something into the air at her. The Radar power helpfully identified them as grenades.

Taylor quickly snapped her right fist up in panic, a Punch Blast at the ready. In her view, a 2d grid plane superimposed itself, with a targeting reticule showing where her fist was pointed at. She lined it up with the grenades and fired as fast as she could. In her panic over the sudden grenades, it took a few shots to hit them out of the air and render them to pieces.

Taylor nearly let out a breath of relief before another alert drew her attention. L33T (in her panic, Taylor had momentarily tunnel-visioned and forgot for a moment about those two villains) had hopped into the red go-kart with Uber (Now Taylor remembered why those outfits looked familiar! Mario and Luigi!) and had thrown yet two more grenades at her (!).

Before Taylor could react, the two grenades exploded in mid-air with thunderous Bang! and bright flashes of light (the Radar power blacked out and blocked the flashes and softened the sound. Handy thing, this Radar power.) A squeal of tires and Taylor jerked away as the red go-kart with the villains riding in it (Uber was driving, L33T standing/crouching behind the seat) roared by the heroes. A stunned Taylor wanted to do something, anything! The Radar power highlighted two bags in the rear of the cart as 'objects of interest', so she quickly grabbed them with her telekinesis out and over from the cart.

As the two bags floated over to Taylor covered in the teal green glow of her telekinesis, the go-kart vanished from sight, and Taylor griited her teeth in slight frustration. "Damnit!" she exclaimed as she set the bags down near her boots.

Glory Girl floated over "It's okay, newbie." she reassured Taylor. Gallant nodded, looking more steady on his feet. "We'll get them next time." he promised.

Taylor glared bank down the road, before closing her eyes and shook her head. "But what did they do?" Taylor asked, looking at the other two heroes while deactivating her Radar power and Hardlight Shield.

Glory Girl shrugged "Robbed a jewelry store, shouting about saving Princesses all the while. Figures they pull something like this when most heroes are still stuck at Canberra." she frowned.

Taylor frowned a bit before suddenly wincing in thought. If she hadn't mess up things with her butting in, the two more experienced teenage heroes could have caught the villainous duo. "...Sorry. I, I... messed up-" She said guilty in a small voice.

Gallant interrupted her minor pity party, "Hey, don't worry about it." Glory Girl nodded enthusiastically "Yeah, you helped us out when Uber hit us with... whatever that was. Thanks."

"Besides," Gallant said, picking up of the bags. "With those bags you grabbed, Uber and L33T left empty handed." he explained, opening the bag and showing Taylor the purloined jewelry inthem.

"Oh." Taylor stated in surprise. "...you're welcome."

"So... got a name?" Glory Girl prodded.

"Um..." Taylor started, fidgeting a bit. "Not yet? I'm kinda new." She paused before continuing with a quick glance at Gallant. "Planning to sign up with the Wards soon."

"Neat. Could always have more heroes around here." Glory Girl said with a thumbs up.

"...Thanks." Taylor said, rubbing the back of her head.

"How about you stick around a bit? Usually the PRT Dispatch and BBPD want to get a statement from us. It's just a quick one, I promise." Gallant requested.

"...okay." Taylor accepted after a pause to think about it.

**************************

It turns out, they had to wait a bit longer even after the statements. The police officers had radio-ed in an ambulance when they saw Glory Girl and Gallant went down. Even though they turned out to be alright, the police insisted to let the EMTs checked them over first.

When the ambulance approached them-

[QUEEN ADMINISTRATOR: INVOKING ADMINISTRATOR PRIVILEGES: DATA REQUESTED!]

-it parked a bit closer than where the police cars had stopped. It was a few moments before the rear doors swing open and a frowning/grimacing teenage girl in a white hooded robe step off the ambulance, one hand rubbing her head in irritation.

Glory Girl flew over to her. "Ames? What are you doing here?" she asked Panacea.

"Hitched a ride with the ambulance after you two ditched me at the shops." Panacea snapped out grumpily as she walked closer, Glory Girl floating behind her.

"Sorry, Ames. But you saw the chase..." Glory Girl defended herself.

"Yeah, yeah." Panacea waved Glory Girl off, before looking at them. "Anyone got hurt?" she snarked.

"Nothing. Uber hit me and Glory Girl with something weird that gave us huge headaches, but its fading fast." Gallant answered promptly.

Panacea frowned. "...let me check you two up quick first." she said before reaching to Glory Girl and Gallant.

Glory Girl rolled her eyes as she grabbed Panacea's hand. "Sure, you worrywart." She said, as Gallant wordlessly grabbed the other after removing one of his gloves.

There was a moment as Panacea closed her eyes and focused inwards."...alright. You two are fine." She opened her eyes and looked at Taylor. "Now, who is this?"

"Hey, Ames. This is a new hero! No name yet, but she's going to sign up with the Wards." Glory Girl cheerfully announced, waving her hands at Taylor with a 'Ta-Da!' gesture.

"...Hello." Taylor quietly greeted, having simply watched them. This is Panacea? The New Wave siblings couldn't be a more fitting study of contrasts. Not just their attire or physical looks, but their demeanor shown so far.

"...Hi." Panacea eventually returned the greeting.

"....should I go now? Or..." Taylor ventured.

"Yes, you can. You've already given your statements." Gallant said. "I look forward to working with you in the Wards." He continued with a pleased smile.

"Bye New Girl! Don't be a stranger!" Glory Girl cheerfully waved.

"....bye." Panacea sullenly followed suit.

"...okay. See you all later." Taylor awkwardly said, activating her Flight power and zoomed into the sky.

'Well,' Taylor sarcastically said in her head. 'That wasn't awkward at all!' She shook her head as she flew a looping path through the sky. On a whim, she mentally checked her power. Still at work. She shook her head and sigh at the power working on its mystery project before banking around and heading back home.

Chapter 9

Taylor idly watched the crowd of shoppers and browsers from her bench in the mezzanine of Brockton Bay View Mall.

'Tomorrow is the day,' Taylor thought. 'Tomorrow is the day me and Dad meet with the PRT.' There was a mental pause. 'And I still don't have a cape name!'. The events two days reminded Taylor of the fact, and to Taylor's frustration, despite having written out a page full of potential cape names, none of them really.... resonated with her.

Taylor sighed and leaned back. 'Maybe I could let the PRT to help me pick one?' She idly made a quick mental check on her power. It's still working. 'It'll be five days by tomorrow at this rate. Wonder what kind of power it'll be...?'

Taylor was startled out of her thoughts by her bench creaking a bit. A young girl, about ten to twelve year old, had sat next to her on the bench. The girl had an uncharacteristic look of exhaustion and weariness on her, and the girl was rubbing her head with one hand, as if trying to smooth away a headache.

"Can I sit here?" The girl politely asked, not quite looking at Taylor.

Taylor answered, "Sure kid."

They sat in silence on the bench. The girl giving Taylor furtive glances out of the corner of her eyes, and Taylor could softly hear the girl murmuring to herself. Something about 89.71%?

Curiosity driving her, Taylor asked the girl, "Can I help you with something?"

The girl turned slightly to face her, and a moment of silence passed, before. "...can I have your phone number?" The girl quietly asked.

Taylor blinked in surprise at the odd request. "Um..." Taylor started, before giving herself a slight shake. "Why..?" she ventured.

The girl took a deep breath, then turn towards Taylor fully and looked at Taylor with determined eyes. "....you're a hero, right?"

Taylor's eyes widened. She certainly isn't expecting that. "...Wha- How-?" Taylor sputtered, but kept her voice down to not draw too much attention from the shoppers passing by.

"....I have powers. To know things." The girl answered. "Please, can you help me?" she pleaded.

"...Um" Taylor said, scrambling to find her mental footing.".... How about we-" She started, but was cut off.

"No one else believes me. Not my parents or teachers or anyone else. The numbers are bad if I go to the PRT or the police. By the time they figure out, it'll be too late and the bad man would have gotten me and-"The girl said in a rush of words.

"Okay, okay. Calm down." Taylor placated her in a steady voice. Power? Numbers? Bad Man? Despite herself, the girl's plea touch her heartstrings a bit.

"Please, I need to have your phone number." The girl pleaded again, this time with teary eyes, her face full of desperation now.

Taylor took one look at that face, considered what she had heard and her resistance crumbled. "...sure. Here." Taylor punched in the number into the phone that the little girl had quickly and graciously passed to her.

The girl thankfully accepted back her phone before going quiet again. "...and you need to promise something." The little girl whispered.

Taylor blinked. A promise? "....what?" Taylor asked cautiously.

The girl took a breath before stating firmly. "That you keep your phone with you at all times."

The odd request took Taylor by surprise. Apparently, the pause was too long, because the girl pleaded again. "Please! Please please please...".

"Okay, okay!. I will!" Taylor quickly said.

The girl looked at Taylor a bit, before she slumped, slightly despondent. ".....you don't quite believe me, do you?" The girl whispered.

"I do, I do." Taylor defied her statement, frantically thinking of a way to reassure this apparently desperate girl. "...Look." Taylor took a breath before she solemnly swore. "I pinkie promise to keep my phone with me and keep it ready at all times, And I promise to save you from bad guys."

The girl look at her, with one part hope and one part puzzled. "Pinkie Promise?" she said with a raised eyebrow.

"Cross my heart and hope to fly, Stick a cupcake in my eye." Taylor automatically recited, making the appropriate motions. Taylor fixed the reassuring smile and firm look on her face as she internally questioned herself. Where the hell did that come from?

The little girl gave Taylor an odd look before looking forward. "...That's weird." the girl softly muttered. Taylor had barely any time to think or react before the little girl suddenly turned and fiercely hugged her. "Thank you." The girl softly said to Taylor. "The numbers are much better now. I'll won't end up as the bad man's..."

The hug continued for a while longer, before the little girl untangled herself from Taylor. The little girl looks more at peace now, like the weight of the world had been lifted off her shoulders, or like she was a starving and thirsty traveler that had found a place of salvation.

" ...so who are you anyway?" Taylor asked. "I'm Taylor."

The little girl looked at Taylor, with a smile. The first one on her face throughout this entire strange encounter. "My name is Dinah. Dinah Alcott."

Interlude 3

"Good morning, Assault, Analyst Hunt" the woman in military fatigues and wearing a USA flag bandanna over her lower face greeted the man holding a headphone set to one ear as she entered the observation room.

The black and red skinsuited hero shifted and waved at Miss Militia, not getting up from his position of leaning against the sole table in the room. "Hey, MM. Come on and sit in on this." The woman manning the audio recorder on the table that the headset was headset was plugged into nodded wordlessly at the heroine, her seated form focused on the transcribing the highlights of the conversation she's hearing through a second headset onto paper.

"Is this the potential new Ward?" Miss Militia asked, seating herself on the one of the other chairs in the room, looking at the skinny bespectacled girl through the one-way mirror into the meeting room/interrogation room on the other side. Said girl was accompanied by a man, who she presume is her father and a sharply dressed professional looking woman. A lawyer maybe? The meeting with the prospective Ward was being handled by Assault's nominal field patrol partner Battery.

"Yup." Assault answered. He then gestured to the girl. "The girl got some Brute ratings across the board. Strength, Toughness, Faster healing, the usual package. A bit of Thinker as well. Better perceptions, stuff like that." He chuckled, feeling a little amazed. "Get this. That's only her basic powers. The real clincher?" He gestured. "She's a Trump/Tinker combo."

Miss Militia blinked in surprise. "Trump/Tinker?" she parroted, looking at Assault. "Usually don't see those two threat ratings together..."

Assault nodded with a smile. "I know. But that how the girl's power works." He looked back to the window. "She can ask her power for any power, and that power would assemble and customize the power." He shook his head. "She's an Eidolon-lite here. The only drawback so far was the power needed time to put it together."

Miss Militia looked at the girl with a contemplative look. "And the Tinker part?"

"Actually, more Tinker-like." Assault corrected himself. "The girl, after getting the asked for power, can take it apart and put it into a separate thing. Using crystals and copper wires." He pointed at the crude watch thing on the meeting table in the other room, next to the ring binder. "That thing over there. It's a personal shield maker. Battery tried it, and it made a glowly white Riot Shield." He let out a quick laugh. "The new girl even documented how the thing works. Halbeard is going to love her."

"Impressive." an impressed Miss Militia commented. "This Trump power, did she demonstrate it?"

Assault shook his head. "She couldn't. Said her power is working on something she couldn't remember asking for. Been at it for about five da-" The skinny girl suddenly straightened, apparently surprised by something. "Huh. It just finished. And it just gave her three powers. She said that was unusual." He listened a bit more. "Geez, those are some long names her power had given them. Definitely Armsy vibes here. With a touch of Myrddin."

"Three?" Miss Militia asked curiously. "What kind of of powers are they? Can the girl describe them?" She paused, as something just occurred to her. "What is the girls name? I haven't got it yet."

Assault shook his head. "Long-ass names. All three have 'mental' in them, so I guess it has something to do with the mind. The girl doesn't know right off the bat what they do. She usually has to figure it out either from the name, or from the original request." He blinked as the second part of Miss Militia question filtered in. "Oh? The girl's name is Taylor. Taylor Rose Hebert."

Miss Militia stiffened. "Did you say... Taylor Hebert?" she asked.

Puzzled by her reaction, Assault looked at her. "Yeah. Why?"

"Remember the Shadow Stalker case? Where she was caught bullying and everything else?" Miss Militia asked cagily.

Assault frowned. Shadow Stalker aka Sophia Hess. That was a hard one. Where the ad-hoc Probationary Wards program the PRT had quickly thrown together on a moment's notice had failed. Where a violent, angry teenager and an unscrupulous school principle had pulled the wool over the PRT's eyes. Shame that Hess had wasted her 'soft' second chance like that. "Yeah? why?"

Miss Militia gestured towards Taylor. "I think that's the main victim."

Assault's eyes widened. "....crap." he succinctly put it. "...and Taylor here triggered from that?"

Miss Militia shook her head slightly and shrugged, her eyes not leaving the sight of Taylor in the next room. "You have to get the details from Armsmaster about that."

Silence reigned between the two heroes before Assault spoke up. "....we'll have to tell Taylor about Hess." He gestured to Taylor. "If we keep this quiet from her.... It'll blow up in our faces in the worst possible time. With her powers...."

Miss Militia let out a resigned breath. "Yes. We should." She looked at the scene in the next room. Of Taylor and her father signing the papers for the daughters' official inclusion into the Wards. "Damn. Battery didn't know about the case details." She grimaced. "I really hope that Taylor doesn't think we're entrapping her by with holding the info until after she signed the papers." She sighed. "I'll tell Taylor soon after this."

After a moment or two of silence, with only the sounds of the tape recorder running and the scratching of the writing by the silent analyst filling the room, Miss Militia asked, "Speaking of papers, was there any special conditions the Heberts asked for?"

Assault startled out of his quiet musings. "Ah... Yes. There is. The Heberts asked for help to transfer out of Winslow and admittance into Arcadia. And maybe sponsorship into university later on."

"The admission list for Arcadia High School is rather long." Miss Militia muttered. "But the PRT can swing in to get Taylor into there. The sponsorship shouldn't be an issue as well. Considering her past and her powers, PRT would really need to at least make amends if they wanted the Heberts to keep them in a favorable light."

Assault let out a sigh and a small nod. "Yeah." He rubbed his head. This kind of thing is really not what he wanted to be faced with so soon after returning from Canberra...

Author's Note

The new spells:

Wide Spectrum Complete Mental Fortification against External Malignant Influences via Psionic, Telekinetic, Biological, Chemical and/or Energy based Directed Attacks spell matrix, with Integrated Nullification of any Ongoing Malevolent Effects on the Mental State.

Spell Matrix: Wide Spectrum Mental State Restoration and Preservation while Retaining of Sanctity of Memories via Advanced Temporal Scrying, Modelling and Analysis.

Royal Spell: Targeted Wide Spectrum Complete Lockdown and Total Restraints and/or Nullification of Capabilities Directed towards Influencing Mental State of Individuals Externally via Psionic, Telekinetic, Biological, Chemical and Energy based Attacks.

Chapter 10

The sense of jubilation Taylor was feeling after signing the papers that marked the beginning of her tenure as a member of the Brockton Bay Wards faded to confusion as someone knocked on the door and Miss Militia came in with a grim and yet contrite look (for someone whose face only exposed the upper face and eyes, she was remarkably expressive.).

"Hello." Miss Militia greeted, before turning to the confused Battery, who had turned around in her chair. "Battery, you may want to not file those papers yet." Miss Militia sighed wearily. "Taylor here may end up changing her mind."

Taylor blinked. Change her mind? Why?

Miss Militia pulled up a spare chair and sat down on the table. She stared at Taylor for awhile, before she took a deep breath. "Taylor, what I'm about to tell you will be very upsetting to you. Maybe enough to quit the Wards. I implore to you that you hear me out first, that you let me finish before making other decisions."

A trepidation filled Taylor glanced at her father first, who was similarly confused before she nodded. "Um...Okay."

"First" Miss Militia started. "What do you know about Shadow Stalker?"

Taylor blinked at the odd opening. "Um... She was a vigilante who was heard to be active for a while, before she was.... caught? Recruited? She was introduced as a Probationary Ward sometime last year. I think she got into trouble, and the Probationary status got cancelled, and she's being shipped out to... somewhere MidWest?" Taylor ventured. Battery looked as perplexed as Taylor felt.

Miss Militia nodded. "Mostly correct. To clarify a few things. Shadow Stalker was caught by the PRT for illegal vigilante activities and unscrupulous conduct, particularly excessive violence which is frowned upon. There was a juvenile court trial which eventually ruled that Shadow Stalker was to be inducted into the Wards as a Probationary member" She paused. "the Director of the local PRT, Director Piggot protested the ruling but was forced to accept the court injunction."

She tiredly sighed. "The PRT has no formal system in place for a 'Probationary Ward', so there was a lot of improvising of the rules and measures. The basic idea was that Shadow Stalker would receive emotional and financial support and training from the PRT to improve herself and become a better hero. If she had improved, Shadow Stalker would have became a proper Ward in time." Miss Militia took a breath. "As you know, it didn't turn out that way."

"After the first few months, the PRT thought the rehabilitation was working and so we relaxed the observations on Shadow Stalker. It turns out instead, she was playing possum, basically laid low for those few months. When the PRT had eased up on their monitoring, she apparently went back to her old habits and hid her more... illicit activities from us. When we realized something was off, the PRT investigated her for two months. Two months, it turns out, was plenty of time to gather sufficient evidence of her felonies. Everything from other Wards testimonies to increased undercover observations of her behavior in her civilian life, Shadow Stalker had proved that she was untrustworthy. Thus, the PRT revoked her status and sent her to a correctional PRT branch for an indeterminate period." Miss Militia finished.

Taylor was a little... disturbed to learn the details about the former Ward, but she still couldn't quite see why. "So... She's gone? You figured out she's a bad apple and shipped her out? Why tell us all this?"

Miss Militia took a steadying breath, as if to better strengthen and brace herself before answering. "Because we only realize something was wrong when BBPD shared with us a bullying report filed earlier this year. A report naming you as the victim." Miss Militia looked at Taylor, her face apologetic and contrite, full of regret. "Shadow Stalker was Sophia Hess."

Taylor.... just sat there,staring at Miss Militia, stunned. She dimly heard a gasp of horrified realization from Battery. 'Sophia Hess, her bully, was Shadow Stalker? Was that why she kept getting away with the bullying?! Was the PRT covering for her?!' Taylor's mind raged, a steaming pressure of anger building up inside her. 'Were they keeping the info from her?! Did she suffer because Sophia was a Ward?! Did the staff at Winslow know?!' Taylor's anger continued to build, dimly aware of her Dad shouting loudly at the stoic Miss Militia, the lawyer saying something about 'entrapment', Battery trying to calm down the room. Taylor's mind continued in circles, a faint whistling sound was heard in her head. 'Why?! Why?! I have half the mind to storm out right now! Damn the Wards! Damn the contracts! I want to lea-'

Now calm down there, Sugarcube. And hear them out like she've promised to do.

With that chiding...'urge' from a part of her, what felt like a metaphorical bucket of cold water poured onto Taylor, damping down the anger. Taylor gave herself a quick vigorous shake of her head and took several deep, shuddering, calming breaths to steady herself. That's right. She had promised to hear them out. As Taylor calmed down a bit, her anger more smouldering than raging, she became aware that the room was quiet now. Taylor fixed her eyes at the hero seated across the table, ignored the small wisp of smoke (smoke?) and asked, "Why did you hide this from me before I signed?"

Miss Militia stared at Taylor for a moment, surprised by something before she shook it off and started. "The only people in this building who knew the connection between you and Sophia Hess is Armsmaster, who had discovered the initial BBPD report and started the investigation; Me, who is Armsmaster second in command and nominal contact with the Wards; and Director Piggot, who has legal and organizational responsibility of the Wards. None of us knew beforehand that you and your father are here, in this building right now. I didn't know until a minute ago. When your father arranged the meeting, the details including your father's name and yours were not recorded anywhere anyhow and your father was given a secret pass phrase to ensure the identity of potential Wards doesn't leak. All anyone else in the building knew was that if someone comes in with that particular pass phrase, they are to ask them to wait here in a non-descript meeting room. Battery here doesn't know anything, only that she was randomly assigned to vet a potential Ward. " The said hero simply sat to one side, thoughtful.

Miss Militia paused for a breath, and continued. "As for Sophia, we kept her identity a secret to protect her own family from retribution by criminal, or even blackmail attempts from opportunistic villains."

"As for the situation at Winslow," Miss Militia went on. "Principal Blackwell was initially trusted by the PRT to help keep tabs on Sophia's behavior. When the investigation found that she falsified the reports and suppressed negative reports, the PRT revoked her report credentials and now are looking to charge her with professional negligence in the future."

Miss Militia placed her hands together on the table. "Taylor. We are sorry about what you have suffered to the point you got powers. We are sorry that due to us dropping the ball on the case of Sophia Hess, that you have suffered while she was officially our subordinate. We did not intentionally intend to entrap you by keeping this information from you before you signed the contracts. On the behalf of Armsmaster and I, I promised that we and the PRT will do our best to help you."

Miss Militia leaned back and sighed sadly. "After all that, I wouldn't blame you if you wanted to tear up the contracts and leave." She took the papers from a solemn Battery and slid them over the table to Taylor. "But I ask you, no, beg you to at least give us a chance to at least make up for our mistakes. Please." Battery looked at Taylor, holding her breath. No, Battery wasn't the only one. Her Dad, the lawyer, everyone is... anticipating what Taylor will decide.

Taylor looked at the papers, biting her lip in thought. It was... tempting. Very tempting to just... leave. To just forget the Wards and the PRT. But another part of her urged to give them a second chance and not burn her bridges with them. More than one part of her.

They've made a mistake. But they figured it out and are taking steps to fix it. Everyone makes mistakes. Not many get a chance to fix them.
They are sorry, they are fixing things and they admitted it. How much more does she want?
Sophia Hess was the one who had betrayed their given trust. Give them a chance to prove that they are trustworthy.
Give them a chance. Sometimes, generosity is its own reward.
They are very sad about their mistakes. Don't let both her and them stew in misery over mistakes.
Would turning her back on them over this make her smile more?

Taylor took several more calming breaths, then looked at Miss Militia. "I'm... not happy about Sophia." She started. "But I choose to believe you, that you didn't intend to trick me into signing without knowing about her first. I choose to believe you that you're sincere and working to fix your mistakes. I choose to believe in you. You, the PRT and the Protectorate." She slowly slid the papers back to Miss Militia, still signed and intact. "I'll stay with you all as a Ward. For the time being, I trust you."

As Danny placed a comforting hand on Taylor's shoulder, Miss Militia let a grateful smile bloom on her face behind her mask, while Battery sighed in relief. "Thank you, Taylor. For giving us a chance."

Chapter 11

Taylor eyed the door to the Wards common room in trepidation, wondering if she should postpone this to another time.

After Taylor's acceptance of Miss Militia's apology, the original Wards introductory and recruitment meeting had evolved to a discussion between her Dad, their lawyer and the PRT legal representatives (that Battery had quickly fetched) over possible additional compensation and non-standard changes to her Wards contract. Miss Militia offered Taylor some respite from the legal drudgery via a quick meet and greet with her fellow Wards.

Not eager to sit through the renegotiation of her contract, Taylor had quickly agreed. As she followed Miss Militia through the PRT building, Taylor had briefly reviewed the new powers (she'll call them respectively Mind Shield, Mind Cure and Lockdown; a small part of her cringing and wondering why she had just... blurted out the full names her power had given to those new powers during the interview; she hoped that the notion that she's a 'Myrddin fangirl' won't get out to the public.) and activated her Radar power to use its appearance as an opaque band of light over her eyes as a temporary mask (Taylor briefly noted Dinah's VIP tag that appeared when she looked around, the Radar power showing Dinah's real time position relative to Taylor, the straight line distance between them and Dinah's general status. Still green, good.). Taylor also tried to dispel the butterflies of anxiety in her stomach that had started to flutter. Miss Militia had mentioned that the rest of the Wards didn't share any good impressions of Sophia during the investigations, and that they didn't know about the connection between Sophia and Taylor, but Taylor kept wondering if they'll accept her....

All too soon, they arrived at the door, and Miss Militia used her credentials to clear the security system and accept her as an authorized invited guest. As they waited for the door to open (Miss Militia assured her that the delay was a normal built-in security feature, to alert the Wards inside and give them time to prepare themselves.), Taylor nervously started tapping her foot.

Finally, the door opened and they went through. Inside was a spacious common area about 50% larger than her own house's living room. Dominating the center of the room was several couches and sofas arranged in a half-circle facing the television on one wall. A few computer worktables and desks lined another wall. A large complex computer workstation, with a specialized keyboard console and several screen sat in a corner opposite a kitchenette alcove. A hallway leading to several doors was between the kitchen and the desks.

Standing near the door Taylor had just entered through were the Wards of Brockton Bay. Taylor recognized Gallant from the helmet he's wearing, though the rest of his outfit seems to be a set of workout clothes thrown over a black bodysuit. A Latino-skinned boy sporting casual clothes and a simple domino mask smiled disarmingly at her. Another similarly dressed boy, a Caucasian red Head, stood lazily next to him with an inquisitive look on his face. Next is a young girl, who stood at ease with a serious look in full costume of a green dress/uniform complete with visor and helmet. The last is a short, fidgetting boy in a jumpsuit and wearing a red and gold visor.

Miss Militia gestured and started the introduction. "Hello Wards. Today, we got a new member. She will be here for a short time while waiting for her father to finish up with the paperwork. This is..." she trailed off, just as realization hit Taylor as well. She never actually given them a cape name! Crap, she haven't chose one yet! Taylor quickly scrambled for something, anything and blurted out the first thing that popped into her head. "Starburst!" Taylor exclaimed, before coughing and continuing in a normal, hopefully not panicky voice. "I mean, call me Starburst."

The Latino boy smiled and stepped forward with a hand out stretched in welcome. Taylor took the offered handshake and shook briefly before letting go. "Hello, Starburst. I'm Aegis, current official leader of the Wards." He gestured towards the rest. "This is Gallant;" the helmeted boy waved in greeting. "Clockblocker;" the red head gave a jovial smile and nod. "Vista;" the girl nodded and returned a "Hello."; "And Kid Win." The visor-ed boy nervously said "Hi." in response.

Miss Militia smiled and turned towards the door. "How about you all get to know each other? I'll leave you be." she said before closing the door.

She and the Wards stared at each other for a moment before Vista relaxed and stepped forward with a hand out. "Hi there! Good to see we have another girl on the team!" Taylor gave a shy smile as they shook hands firmly.

"So..." Aegis ventured. "What kind of powers do you have?"

Taylor glanced at him as she let go for Vista's hand. "I'm a... I'm a Brute package." She paused. "And a Trump."

"A Trump?" Kid Win repeated. "What kind? Like Teamster in New York? Or Eidolon?"

"A bit like Eidolon" Taylor admitted. "Though my requested powers sometimes takes a while to be assembled and ready to be used."

ClockBlocker raised an eyebrow at her. "Assembled?"

"Yes." Taylor clarified. "When I ask for a power with specific abilities, my Trump power sorts of customizes and put sort of 'parts' together, I think. Takes time to process my requests and I have no clue before hand how long it'll be before I can use it."

"Huh. That's new." Vista said with a intrigued look. "So, if I ask you for a power to remotely slap Clock over here on the back of the head..."

Taylor said in consideration. "...a power like... A hardlight hand to hit someone further away? Yeah, something like th-" Taylor felt the distinctive mental rummaging sensation in the back of her mind. "Oh, Come on!"

"What?" Gallant asked, concern in his voice. "What happened?"

Taylor looked at them in slight annoyance. "My Trump power took that as a request and got started on it."

"Wow" Clockblocker drawled as he plops himself on a nearby couch. "A bit of a hair-trigger there?"

"Yeah." Taylor grumbled as she and the rest followed and seated themselves on the sofas. "Sometimes, I need to deliberately think or speak a request at it. Sometimes, it just took whatever I happened to say or think or dreamed that can count as a valid request."

"Dreamed?" Kid Win asked.

Taylor put a slightly sour look. "The last five days, my power was busy working on something I didn't remember asking. I think I accidentally said something in my sleep or something. It just only finished about half an hour ago." She rubbed her head. "The bad news is, I have to wait until it's done before I can ask for anything else."

"...huh" Aegis articulated. "And you have no idea when it'll be done?"

Taylor shook her head. "Nope." She slouched on the sofa. "I haven't figure out the pattern to it yet." As Taylor finished that sentence, the 'project complete' sensation come over her. "Huh. That was quick."

"Really?!" Vista asked excitedly. "Can you show us?"

"Yeah, Hold on a sec." Taylor answered before she concentrated on the new power ('Melee-Focused Offense Oriented Attack and Fine Remote Manipulation Enabler via Mana Construct of Limb Mimicry' spell, her power dutifully reported.) and held up her right hand. A slightly translucent, teal-green larger scaled copy of her hand appeared in the middle of the sofa arrangements.

"Woah..." Kid Win wondered at the floating hand. The rest of the Wards looked at it with wide eyes. "I'll call it my 'Phantom Hands' power." Taylor announced with a bit of pride.

"Call it?" Gallant asked in curiosity.

"Yeah. My Trump power gave long mouthful technical-ish names to whatever power it made." Taylor admitted sheepishly.

"Wait a minute!" Clockblocker suddenly exclaimed. "You're Lantern!" He pointed at a surprised Taylor.

Taylor pointed to herself with her right hand, the projection mirroring the gesture. "Lantern?"

"Yeah!" Clockblocker said. "The PHO forums went nuts over a new cape sighted a few days ago helping out Gallant and Glory Girl against Uber and L33t. They called you 'Lantern' after the superhero from Earth Aleph comic books. Because, you know." he waved his hand in a circle."Your powers looked like that guys."

"Huh" Taylor answered, before dismissing the 'Phantom Hands' power. "Well, enough about me. How about you guys? All I know is from the PHO wiki and forums, and they're not exactly accurate."

Kid Win opened his mouth, but Aegis interrupted him. "Hang on a minute." He looked to the others "Guys? She seems like a decent sort. How about we tell her our real names? Build some camaraderie?" He suggested.

Vista rolled her eyes. "Like that worked with Shadow Stalker..." she murmured. Taylor's heart nearly spiked a tad at the mention.

Clockblocker chortled, "Well, she was a bitch. Plain and simple. Good looks, great bod but still a Grade-A bitch."

"Guys" Aegis pleaded.

"...I take it she wasn't a team player?" Taylor asked slowly.

Kid Win frowned. "Honestly, I'm kinda glad she got kicked out. She kept being... abrasive. At all of us here."

Vista snorted. "Abrasive. That's a nice way of putting it. We tried to be friends with her; amicable teammates at least. But it's like trying to be close to an angry, scornful, abusive pincushion. Or a rabid dog."

Gallant cut in. "Guys. I think that's enough talking behind Shadow Stalker's back like this." he said firmly. Then he continued with a gentler tone. "Besides, Starburst here seems nice. Why don't we give her a chance?" He turned and faced Taylor before taking off his helmet. "Hello there. I'm Dean. A Blaster type. I shoot energy at other people. Not a Tinker like the PHO thinks." He gestured towards the hallway. "The armour is a loaner."

Vista went next. "Hi. I'm Missy. Shaker. I can manipulate and twist space." She waved her hand, and suddenly the computers were closer to them as the space between them 'pinched' together. Taylor felt a part of her suddenly took interest and she stared at the twisted space for a few moments before she shook herself out of her light trance. Vista let the space go back to normal with a proud grin; without noticing anything off happened to Taylor.

"My turn" Clockblocker said, picking up a mug form the table. "I'm Dennis. Striker. My touch can freeze and lock things in time and space." He said as he demonstrated, leaving the mug frozen in mid air. Taylor reached out and tugged at the mug to no awail. Taylor felt that same part of her mind perking up again and she started to slid again into another trance-like state before Taylor quickly snap herself out of it.

"Are you alright?" Dean asked.

Taylor just waved at him dismissively. "It's nothing.". The rest of Wards gave her some odd looks, before Kid Win spoke up. "I'm Chris. Tinker. I make stuff like laser guns and hoverboards." he then sheepishly rubbed his head, mindful of his visor. "Haven't found my Tinker specialization yet."

"Tinker specialization?" Taylor asked curiously.

"Yeah. Tinkers who know their specialization can do all sorts of incredible things with their tech. Like Armsmaster, whose specialization is Efficiency and Miniaturization. He can made amazing powerful gadgets that used up so little power and can be really small compact." Kid Win answered enthusiastically, before deflating slightly. "My stuff isn't up to that standard, so I'm still figuring things out."

Aegis patted Chris's shoulder consolingly before he looked up with a quick smile. "I'm Carlos. Sort of Alexandria package. Can fly and I have what the PRT calls 'redundant biology'. If villains made me blind, I can compensate and see either by 'evolving' new eyes, or enhance my ears into using sonar."

Taylor hesitated, before setting her face firmly. "Hello. My name is Taylor. I guess I'll be the Trump of the team." She gave a shaky smile. "It's good to start working with you all from now on."

Interlude 4

Director Piggot glanced at Assault and Battery as they entered the conference room; joining her, Armsmaster and Dragon (via a teleconference rig) at the table. The blond, portly Director of the PRT ENE took a moment to center herself before starting the meeting.

"Thank you all for coming on a short notice." Director Piggot started. "Assault, Battery. I trust you two have briefed yourselves on the more discrete details of the Shadow Stalker investigation?"

While Battery nodded on confirmation, Assault got started with a slightly sarcastic tone,"Yes, though it'll be handy to know this before Battery went into the interview room."

"I rather not have an already victimized teenager become office gossip." Director Piggot flatly commented. She then looked down at the printouts before her, said papers contain the transcripts of the Wards recruitment interview with one Taylor Hebert. She haven't had time to properly read through them, having quickly called the meeting with the other people in the building who knew the full details of the investigations.

"Report, Miss Militia." Director Piggot requested. "What's the damage?"

Miss Milita straightened in her chair. "Surprisingly little." She replied. "While the Heberts were understandably upset-"

"I'll say." Assault remarked. "I think I saw our little Eidolon-lite there started smouldering right there and then. Literally!"

"Anyway," Miss Militia continued, choosing to ignore the byplay of Battery elbowing her husband in the side, "While the Heberts were justifiably upset, Taylor Hebert chose to accept our explanation and apology, deciding to give us a chance and stay on as a full Ward." Miss Militia glanced at her papers. "Her father, Danny Hebert and their contracted lawyer did negotiate with the legal department and gotten some additional compensation to the standard Wards contract, mostly it's additional financial aid and a possible tertiary-level education sponsorship for Taylor. Danny Hebert requested as well to be kept in the loop regarding our case against the Winslow administration, and their lawyer suggested to the PRT to hammer out more solid procedures to better handle and rehabilitate any future Probationary Wards the courts may foist on us."

"All in all, the Heberts were refreshingly reasonable to us." Miss Militia concluded.

"I see" Director Piggot responded. "It's a favorable outcome, considering the potential for blowback and the kind of reactions we were expecting. If Taylor can keep her level-headed temperament, she'll be a good addition to the Wards."

"I did mention that she was literally smoldering for a moment there, right?" Assault pointed out. "Wisps of smoke and everything!" He leaned back in his chair. "I'm surprised she didn't set off the building's fire sprinklers!"

"Yes. Yes you did." Director Piggot acknowledged. "And thankfully Miss Hebert chose to reign in her temper rather than lash out. That is a surprisingly good sign in a relatively recent trigger. I'm hoping that she continues to surprise us in this manner."

"It is fortunate that Taylor had decided to remain with us, considering the three new powers she had revealed to us during the interview." Armsmaster joined in. "If I interpreted the descriptions correctly, Taylor now has three potent anti-Master powers. One to shield the mind and nullify any on-going Master effects, one to restore and heal the mind of long term Master victims and the last is a restraint aimed towards containing and preventing human Masters from using their powers."

There was a moment of silence after Armsmaster dropped that bombshell. Dragon then spoke up. "There's more. The documentation Taylor had provided to us about her 'Shield Watch' were very detailed and thorough, providing insights the operating principles of the device and construction methods required." Dragon paused. "The documentation alone could provide much deeper insights into how parahuman powers function."

Director Piggot mulled the statements, before asking. "Taylor had mentioned during the interview that she had somehow 'translated' her 'Hardlight Shield' power into a device anyone can wield. How much of it is like an average Tinker-tech device?"

Dragon shook her head. "Not very. Tinker Tech tends to have black boxes somehow incorporated into their tech that even their makers had trouble understanding and removing. These black box were a major obstacle to any efforts by a third party attempting to reverse engineer even the basic operating principles. In contrast, Taylor's 'Shield Watch' was very thoroughly documented, and the basic principles behind the operation and even the construction methods were laid out clearly like a university textbook. The only limiting factor in reproducing Taylor's tech would be tool requirements."

"Tool requirements" Battery asked curiously.

Dragon nodded at her. "Yes. The tech requires a tool that uses a unique 'energy' to finely 'imprint' a three dimensional matrix into a regularly structured solid like a crystal. Said tech also runs on this unique 'energy'. Basically, it's a bit like Einstein and the atomic theory. Although he came up with the theory in the 1900s, it had remain a theory until the 1940s because the tools to make the tools to prove and implement the theory into something usable doesn't exist. Here, we have a similar problem. To make a tool that can finely manipulate the unique 'energy' needed to make the devices, we need that tool in the first place. A bootstrap problem."

Armsmaster continued, "Fortunately, Taylor had resolved the issue. I was the on-site Protectorate presence when Taylor had came in for power testing. I requested that she help us by making the imprinting tools, both as a power testing demonstration and to help us make more of her tech independently." Here, Armsmaster quirked a quick smile. "She made three 'imprinting' wands and wrote up the documentation behind them."

"And they work?" Director Piggot asked in interest. Even the Shield Watch alone would be very useful to troopers on the field, and if it was independently reproducible...

Armsmaster nodded. "We had a few randomly selected troopers come in and use the wands on some new clear quartz to make what Taylor had referred to as a battery/power source component for the Shield Watch and the wands. The new batteries performed similarly to Taylor's, the differences can be chalked up to lack of experience on the troopers part."

Dragon came in. "At the moment, a human operator is required to use the wands to visualized and set the pattern matrices to 'imprint' them into crystals. I'm currently studying the documentation to see if I can automate the process. But the tech is reproducible. Our limiting factor is the number of the wands available, training and their distribution."

"But," Armsmaster interjected. " There's another factor that limits us. The fact we have no experience or knowledge in creating new 'pattern' matrices. Thus, we are reliant on Taylor's contributions for the time being." He paused, "I suggest we add another compensation to Taylor's Wards contract, that the PRT will be willing to reward her for any new patterns she submitted in her own time. Similar to Dragon's rewards system to any Tinker for any successful reverse engineering by her of their Tinker Tech for general mass production. Perhaps we should intercede on Taylor's behalf regarding patenting rights as well. The three anti-master powers alone, if Taylor could translate them into usable patterns, would be nearly invaluable."

Director Piggot nodded and wrote down in her notes. "Agreed. If this pans out, Taylor's tech would be a massive game changer. I'll have legal prioritize on the matter."

Assault suddenly spoke up in concern. "Hang on. Are we going to keep Taylor stuck in a lab all day thinking up these new patterns?"

Director Piggot considered, then shook her head. "No. As much as a part of me wants to, Taylor needed the guidance, training, experience and socializing the Wards program provides more than we need any new patterns right now. Especially when we consider her power set. We don't want to unleash a maladjusted psychopath with a superiority complex into the world here. If she is inclined to pursue that line of work after she graduates, that's fine with me. But for the time being, she'll be on the usual Wards routine, maybe with a Tinker rider add-on like Kid Win's."

Battery cautioned. "We might want to keep a closer eye on her and her family anyway. For sake of her own security at the very least. There's quite a number of groups out there who would like someone as versatile as Taylor under their thumb."

Director Piggot nodded. "Noted." She looked at Miss Militia and Armsmaster. "We'll make arrangements and scheduling of available manpower to accommodate."

Assault chuckled. "With her power set, I really don't want to be near if someone decides to go after her and ticked her off enough to set her on a warpath."

Author's Note

A big round of thanks to Tangent for giving me the permission to use his snippet as part of the canon story!

Interlude 5

With a scream of rage, Coil threw his computer at the wall of his office. He gave the wreckage one last blistering glare before closing the timeline.

In the now, Coil glared hatefully at his computer screen, one that was displaying a sparse profile on the newest Ward. Starburst aka Taylor Hebert. The thorn in his side for the last month.

For the last month or so, Coil had been randomly plagued with his timelines abruptly closing without warning, some of those were his 'safe' timelines, nearly jeopardizing his cover as Thomas Calvert and his operations as Coil. His blood boiled with the thought of a someone out there, likely a new trigger, messing with his power. His power, that allowed him to experience two parallel timelines and picking one to keep. His power, that he had used to leverage himself up both as a hidden but influential figure in the criminal underworld and as a respected PRT outside consultant. His power, and someone out there was interfering with it, to the point he couldn't rely on it.

Compounding that rage and confusion was a string of failures to attempt to acquire his new precog asset. He doesn't know how or why, but several attempts since the last week by his men had been foiled by the intervention of an unknown cape. One with teal colours. He had to sacrifice one team of expansive mercenaries to the BBPD SWAT because his safe timeline during that attempt suddenly closed mid-mission. Coil's teeth gritted at the lost assets and money invested.

It was only by chance that he discovered why his power became so unreliable. Or to be exact, who caused it.

He was walking out of his office in the PRT building when IT happened while he had crossed paths with that accursed Taylor Hebert. His 'safe' timeline abruptly collapsed at the same time he saw this unassuming beanpole of a girl suddenly jerked her head in surprise, and quickly made her way back into the building. Combined that with the rumours of a new Ward gave Coil the direction to look for clues.

Starburst. The Eidolon-style Trump. The Teal coloured cape.

This- this interloper in his operations; she couldn't be allowed to live. This- this brat puts everything he had worked so hard to achieved into danger. That her power's interference had forced him to be more cautious than he liked. And that is not acceptable.

What's even more infuriating was the fact he had very little information of what her powers actually were. The PRT database had only the barest of details about the Brat's power within easy access of his moles or his backdoors. For some reason, any other information regarding Starburst's powers, especially the specifics of it, were sealed away under higher security authorization. One he didn't even dare to try to crack due to his powers onset of random unreliability, lest his carefully placed moles and system backdoors became exposed by the attempt.

He had to get rid of her somehow. But how...?

His eyes fell on a particular piece of information that his moles just only minutes ago forwarded to him. The Wards patrol assignments, whose involved members and patrol routes were randomly generated one day before the patrol itself.

She is going to be on that patrol tomorrow. An introductory/acclimatization patrol. Before she was to be announced to the general public as a new Ward. A PR method to stir up excitement in the crowds before the announcement.

Coil mentally traced the patrol route.

...perhaps it's time to test how adaptable and obedient his nascent Undersiders are....

**************************

"Can you... repeat that?" Lisa Wilborne asked hesitantly.

The patient yet slightly menacing voice on the other end of the line repeated himself. "I want the Undersiders to rob the Ruby Dreams Casino tomorrow evening."

Lisa grimaced. "You know, boss. This is awfully short notice-"

"No questions." The voice interrupted. "Just get it done. The floor plans are being forwarded to you now. The first half of your increased pay has been sent to your accounts." The voice finished, followed by a dial tone as the other end abruptly hung up on Lisa.

Lisa frowned at the phone. 'Brian isn't going to like this', she thought with a sigh, putting down her phone and picking up her mask. As Lisa opened the door of her bedroom and put on the mask, Tattletale put her power to work trying to figure out Coil's motives for this... assignment.

Coil is angry. Coil is enraged. Ruby Dreams Casino is near one of the Wards patrol routes. Coil's target is one of the Wards. Which Wards? He wants the patrolling Wards to be caught up in the ABB response to the robbery. Coil is testing the Undersiders. Coil wants to see if the Undersiders will be obedient. Coils wants to see if Undersiders are worth the investment. Coil doesn't care if Undersiders will survive ABB reprisal or not-

With a wince, Tattletale cut off her power. As she emerged into the lounge of the Undersiders lair, she quickly put on a disarming smile. She had better break the bad news to the rest of her teammates soon, and get started on planning the heist. They really don't have much time to do it.

She pray that the Undersiders and whichever the Wards will be present tomorrow evening will get out of this oncoming mess alive. Whatever it may be.

Chapter 12

Aegis landed on the rooftop of the short office building. "So, what do you think?" he asked, turning towards the figure following behind him.

Starburst hovered to a stop next to him. "...it's okay. I guess..." She said as she dropped a bit to land on the cement rooftop, the petals and halo of her Flight power fading away. "I'm thought there'll be more...."

Aegis chuckled, "Rescuing people from crime? Don't get me wrong, even the Wards are empowered by law to intervene if we saw any crime in progress, like regular cops." He continued, "But general procedure for stuff like that is to call for backup from either the BBPD, PRT or the Protectorate, depending on the situation." He shook his head. "Vista may grumble about it sometimes, but the Wards usually don't go on patrols aiming to fight StormTiger or Victor."

Starburst frowned, "But the newspaper articles..." She started, before changing her question. "Then what are these patrols by the Wards for." She absent-mindedly checked her pockets and pouch. Thankfully, the PR department finally came around and let her keep the original look of her costume, though they wanted to add some squadron patches to it (mostly her cape name and PRT Wards logo and the USA flag), to invoke an image of a military flightsuit. An Airforce Flightsuit to Miss Militia's Army BDUs.

Aegis sighed. "The fights the Wards get dragged into occasionally... well, this is Brockton Bay. Can't throw a stone anywhere without it hitting a gang member or a supervillain." He straightened up." As for the patrols; crime deterrent and public morale boosting usually. Sort of like police cars roaming the streets. Criminals will think twice about doing any overt crime or gang activity if there could be a patrol nearby to stop them, and the general public likes it when they see heroes walking the streets or flying overhead. Makes them feel safer. Though its' usually the Protectorate and the PRT patrols that'll respond to cape crime first."

"Hm..." Starburst hummed thoughtfully as she quickly checked both her own personal phone and the PRT issued phone that's sync-ed to it. Content that both had a decent amount of battery life remaining, she tucked them back into their pockets.

"As for why have the Wards do patrols as well." Aegis elaborated. "I think it's a way to make sure the Wards don't get to separated from the civilians. Humanized them, instead of seeing them as a faceless mass of contradictory opinions."

Starburst's mind flashed back to the crowds of students at Winslow. "Uh-huh..." she said skeptically.

Aegis chuckled "And it's more fun than being stuck at PRT HQ downtown or the Protectorate Rig HQ out in the bay all day."

Starburst let out a quick laugh. 'Superpowered teenagers stuck in one building with no chance to go out to do something? Anything? Yeah, that's a recipe for disaster...'

"Speaking of which," Aegis spoke up, looking thoughtful. "What was on that lists your were reading before? And did Kid Win ran to the workshop for?"

Starburst looked at him, idly leaning against an air conditioner unit, "The first list is from Armsmaster and Dragon. Some ideas for new powers. They said they're trying to learn to figure out how to make new power matrices to put into crystals without having to depend on my power to teach them. Also, they're trying to figure out if there's a pattern to how long it'll take for a power to be ready for me to use." She frowned. "It seems random. You would think the Accelloro power ('Accelloro: Enhanced movement and dexterity via temporal acceleration spell, with integrated inertia compensation bubble' spell, her power poked at her. ) that lets me be a knock-off Velocity would take longer to make than a power that just let me walk on water ('Enhanced Mobility via modifying surface tension of liquid surface' spell, her power reminded her.), and yet both just just... popped in ready to be used in no time flat." She took a breath. "Not sure about Kid Win. He asked about my Thinker power, and I was explaining how it translates my powers into something I can Tinker into crystals, how each section interlinked and yet can just slot in with each other when he got a funny look on his face and he just... took off." Starburst looked at Aegis in askance. "Was that normal for him?"

Aegis rubbed the back of his head. "Well, sometimes when he got a new inspiration or idea to Tinker with, he gets like that. I heard Tinkers in general are like that." He paused. "So, what about the second list?" he prodded.

Starburst sighed. "The second list is from the PR department. Just a list of ideas for 'PR-Friendly' powers, like non-lethal takedowns and so on." She pushed herself off and into a standing position with her arms crossed. "Mostly, I was thinking which between the two list I should work on next. Don't know how long it'll take after all. The one my power is working on now is already been at it since yesterday." She mumbled slightly. "I thought since the power to restrain a crowd ('Variable area multiple target stasis mana shell enclosed restraining field' spell, her power poked again at her.) popped up so quickly after asking, this one will be quick as well, but no...."

"What power is did you asked for?" Aegis inquired curiously.

Starburst said hesitated, "I... asked for a power that could disarm or made safe any hostile weaponry in a crowd or area."

Aegis looked at her thoughtfully, "So... like the 'Expelliarmus'? The disarming charm? Like from those Harry Potter books?"

"It's not a spell, it's a power." Starburst defensively, while internally groaning. 'It's only been a week since that interview...'

Aegis held up both hands to ward off any anger. "Sorry. Since, you know, your power calls them spells and magic..."

Starburst huffed. "My power is the magic geek, not me." She spoke defiantly. "I'm calling them powers."

Aegis laughed while putting up a placating hand. "Whatever you say." He began to hover. "Ready to head to our next point?"

Starburst grumbled a bit, before activating her Radar and Flight powers. "Yeah. Let's go."

**************************

"Nervous bout your introduction ceremony tomorrow?" Aegis asked through Starburst's headset, him taking point while she flew at a higher vantage point.

"A little." Starburst admitted. "Is... is it okay for me to do a patrol even before the announcement that I'm a Ward to the public?" she asked anxiously, following the rusty red figure ahead and below.

"It's okay "Aegis reassured, banking around a corner. "PR sometimes like to do it this way. Stir up some excitement before the main event." He shook his head. "Gets the forums all a-buzz about you."

"I guess-" Starburst stopped, the Radar power alerting her to something. "Aegis, I got something weird here."

Aegis stopped and detoured to a convenient flat rooftop. "What is it?"

Starburst landed facing him. "My Radar picked up some disturbance over there. It marked it as a 'Event of Interest' happening now."

"I'll call it in." Aegis said, one head on his headset. "Come in, Console."

"Console here." Clcokblocker's voice came through. "What'd you got?"

Starburst focused on what the Radar power is telling her. "Alarms, shouting and gunshots." she reported. "Do we check it out? It's a bit out of our way here, but not too far."

"Um..." Clockblocker hesitated. "I think you two should recon only." There's was some sounds of shuffling papers. "BBPD and PRT are alerted. Where is it?"

Starburst looked at Aegis and shook her head. "I can't tell. We have to go closer to see where it is."

There was a deep breath sound over the headset. "Okay. Just do a quick recon. Go in, identify the place, and go out. BBPD will send in someone as soon as possible. PRT is readying in case of cape activity there."

"Roger."

**************************

"It's here." Starburst announced as Aegis and her stopped on a rooftop across from the building marked by the Radar power.

"Crap." Aegis swore as he looked at the building. "The Ruby Dreams Casino. PRT suspects it's an ABB front."

"It sounds like something is happening in there." Taylor commented as she began to cycle through different viewing filters of her Radar power. "Huh."

"What is it?" Aegis asked a little anxiously.

"Nothing. My power just finished with the disarming power." Taylor said, pushing aside the mental notification ('Guard: Variable Area Nullification and Rendering Inactive of Harmful Objects via Telekinetic Manipulation and Self sustaining Mana Shell Enclosure' spell, her power informed her. She'll just call it Safe Guard). "Console, Starburst here. Seeing a lot of people in the building. Looks like chaos in there." There was a pause. "Wait, my Radar picked up some parahumans. Three moving in the building, One outside."

"Roger, Starburst. PRT and Protectorate forces are notified." Clockblocker answered with a serious tone. "Recommend you leave the area."

"Copy that," Aegis reported. "Come on, Starburst." he said before flying away from the casino.

"Hang on" Starburst said, already hovering to a higher point. "I want to get a better vantage point. I might be able to tell who these parahumans are. So the backup doesn't get caught by surprise."

"What-" Aegis exclaimed, already managing to put quite a distance between him and the casino street. "Starburst, get back here. Get out of there now!"

"Hold on!" Starburst said, her eyes fixed on the one parahuman outside the casino. "I almost... Got it!" The Radar presented to Starburst a small window with zoomed in view. She watched as the other three parahuman signatures rejoined their friend outside. "The parahumans are The UnderSiders. Looks like they're robbing the casino."

"Yes, that's good to hear. Now get away from there!" Aegis urged.

Starburst watched as the Undersiders mounted their dogs, about to leave. She grimaced a bit at the thought of simply letting them get away with a crime. It grated on her nerves a bit. A part of her wanted to capture them and bring the team of teenage villains to justice. Maybe use that 'Crowd Stasis' power on them...

"Starburst?" Aegis asked, with a bit urgency in his voice.

Starburst sighed before turning away from the casino. "I- I copy. Moving away to safety now." She's going to prove that she's a team play-

An itchy right ear lobe and a warning from her Radar interrupted her, before someone abruptly landed bodily on her back, one arm looping itself around her neck, the other black-clad arm swinging around a knife, aimed to stab it into her heart.

Starburst, moving more on startled instinct than anything else, shoved her left arm over her chest and manifested a buckler shield.

The knife's progress scrapped slightly on the shield before it halted. Before Starburst could do anything or react, the arms and body suddenly disintegrated into powder gray ash.

She frantically looked around, before spotting Aegis in the distance. But before she could even begin to move, someone just appeared right in front of her and slightly above. Lithe body, black bodysuit, scowling red demon mask. Starburst's metaphorical heart dropped as she recognized (and her Radar helpfully assisted) who it was. The teleporting, self-cloning parahuman Oni Lee. One of the two currently known ABB capes.

The cape before her seems to be glaring at her as he yanked something from the bandolier he wore around his chest. Radar identified it as a pin from a grenade-

'Oh, crap!' Eyes widening in panic, Starburst moved back as much distance as she she could, created a sturdy full-body Riot Shield and took cover.

Chapter 13

Despite the distance Starburst had managed to put between the her and the explosion, the blast wave was still enough to knock her around for a loop.

"Starburst? Come In! Get out of there!", she could faintly hear Aegis's panicked voice through her headset. Internally, her mind scrambled for something, anything to do.

'Oh crap, Oni Lee is here! He uses grenades!'
'Grenades? Use SafeGuard!'
'How far? Oni Lee's teleport is rumored to be line-of-sight.'
'I'm in the open sky and glowing. He can see me from anywhere!'
'Set as big an area as possible!'

It felt like it took an agonizingly long time to stabilized her flight and gather the required amount of energy, her body tensed.

Finally, it was ready and- itchy ear lobe!

Starburst whirled around and activated the power (she barely noticed the sphere of faint teal light erupting from her body at the activation.) as well as putting her shield between her and the serial suicide bomber. Despite her bracing herself, there was no explosion. She managed to get a glimpse of a falling body before it disintegrated to ash.

'No explosion? Great!' A part of her cheered. 'Now, to get out of here-'

Another Oni Lee appeared in front of her. Startled, Starburst moved back quickly and again imposed the shield between them.

"WHUUMP!!!"

As Starburst reeled back from her second explosion knockback, her mind whirled, the rest of the world seemingly in slow motion.

'The grenades still explode? Why? Did Safeguard fail? Does grenades not count?'
A detached part of her responded, 'Spell renders all weaponry within range at the time of casting safe. Oni Lee's teleport works via duplication. Duplicated grenades likely count as new weapons.'
'What?! I need to keep activating the power over and over?!'
'No, he'll just keep trying to kill me. I need a different way to stop him.'
'I need to stop him from teleporting. I need a power to stop teleporting in a large area!'

[QUEEN ADMINISTRATOR: INVOKING ADMINISTRATOR PRIVILEGES: DATA REQUESTED!]

As Starburst stabilized her self from tumbling around again, she could feel her power working frantically. She looked around, trying to see where the next one would be coming from.

'Is this a lull? Make a break for it now?' Starburst frantically thought, trying to get her thoughts in order. Deciding to at least get somewhere else, Starburst dropped the shield power and flew away, a long teal contrail trailling after her.

And not too soon, as she heard a 'WHUUMP!' somewhere behind her. As she resisted the urge to glance behind her, she felt the new power slid into place ('Royal: Persistent Self-Sustaining Wide Area Broad Spectrum Teleport Nullification and Interdiction spell matrix'). Wasting no time but having to slow down a tad to concentrate, Starburst desperately poured energy into her new 'Teleport Jammer', setting as large of an area as she can manage.

Just as Starburst was about to set the power off, Oni Lee appeared yet again in front of her. In her panic, she yelped, switched directions and activated both the new power and putting up a new shield.

Tumbling out of her third cloud of explosion, Starburst stabilized herself again. 'Did that work?' she thought as she looked around warily. "-me in. Starburst! Are you alright?!" Aegis's voice came in. Had she accidentally tuned him out during her panicked flight and dodging? She quickly flew away, her disoriented bearings slowly coming back as she put more distance between where the last explosion was and her. She didn't hear any more grenades going off. Did it work?

"Ae- Aegis?" Starburst asked dazed over the headset. "I- I think I lost him. Where are you?" she asked as she looked around. It looks like she had managed to get herself quite far away from the casino. 'And yet, Oni Lee had still managed to chase-teleport me all over that distance and speed', a part of her faintly noted.

"Over here. To your left." She turned to look, and to her relief, her Radar highlighted a red dot a fair distance away. She banked and head towards him. Still no more explosions. She must have lost him.

"Are you alright?" Aegis asked frantically when she got close enough to make his figure out beyond a blob or a dot.

"Ye- Yeah. Just shaken." Starburst answered shakily. A quick inspection showed no visible external injuries.

"Oh Thank Scion." Aegis said in relief. "Come on, we need to get you checked out at the Rig."

"Oh" Taylor eloquently responded. "Why the Rig?"

Aegis looked at her. "You got caught in several explosions. You could have internal injuries. The Rig has better medical facilities to check." he answered.

"Oh." Starburst said in response. They were silent rest of the flight out.

**************************

Armsmater found them in the Rig infirmary, the doctor checking over Taylor.

"Oni Lee responded to the robbery from somewhere else and must have mistaken you hovering near the site for one of the thieves. Or at least a vigilante." he speculated after hearing from them a briefing over what happened.

Taylor asked from her bed. "Why.... Why did he chased me all over? We ended up quite far away."

Armsmaster shook his head. "The ABB don't take thievery against them lightly. Oni Lee most probably wanted to make an example out of you. The fear inspired by the act keeps the rank and file in line."

While Taylor was quietly musing over this, Armsmaster continued. "Though it is admirable that you wanted to help by getting more intel, taking risks like that is dangerous." He chided. "We almost lost you to an over-zealous retaliation by a cape."

"But," his voice softened. "You did follow orders to not get closer and engage, despite wanting to. So far, your only fault here was that you lingered too long at the scene. And you tried to disengage from the conflict. Oni Lee's persistence and ambush isn't a strike against your conduct." He got up from his chair by the wall. "I'll make a report to the Director regarding the incident." he rumbled. "While its likely you won't be punished too harshly, you would probably have to attend the mandatory training courses and additional safety talks a lot sooner than planned at least."

"Now get some rest and recover." Armsmaster grunted as he leaves. "Barring nothing serious, you still have a big day tomorrow."

Taylor was silent, until Carlos spoke up from next to the bed. "Huh.... That was... an interesting first patrol for you."

"Yeah." Taylor said. "....Only in Brockton Bay, right?"

"Yup." Carlos sighed. "I got to go. Reports to file, got to write down what happened from my point of view."

"Okay." Taylor responded.

"And Taylor?" he said when he reached the door.

"Hm?" Taylor answered in askance.

"Glad you've made it out of there okay." He said with a quick smile.

She smiled back. "Yeah. Same here."

Chapter 14

Taylor hummed to herself as she ruminated on the contents of the physics textbook in front of her as she studied her coursework materials in the Wards common room.

She had been ecstatic when the news came, that she had been officially withdrawn from Winslow. Even better, she had been put on the admittance list for Arcadia high school. But the administration at Arcadia were stricter about their education standards for their students, and mandated that regardless of what external causes for her grades to plummet, Taylor has to take an entrance exam. Luckily, since she's slated to enter the upcoming semester instead of simply being dropped into the ongoing one (Easier to preserve her identity as a cape this way, it's a rather open secret that Arcadia is a 'Wards' school.), she has about three months to catch up on her studies and prepare herself for the exams.

Taylor's concentration was interrupted by someone sliding into the seat of the desk next to hers. A quick glance, and then a wary look later shows that it was Missy, with a rather out of place ClockBlocker-mischief grin on her 12 years old face.

"So..." Missy draws out. "Your power gives you Mid-Atlantic accents when you are on stage?" she teased.

Taylor couldn't stop herself from ducking her head back into her book and blushing at the memory of Starburst's Introductory Press opening a few days back. It was supposed to be a simple swoop over the reporters' heads, a quick landing and an introduction. And maybe a short question and answers session. But Taylor had been overcome with a case of stage fright, and given in to some (weirdly at the time) stronger urges to stave off her nerves, and....

Taylor has no idea how the over flight routine turned into an aerial ballet performance right out from Military Airshows. She admitted the video of her doing a 'superhero landing' on the stage was pretty cool, but afterwards....

Out of nowhere, Starburst adopted an 'elegant lady on the catwalk' poise, accent and speech patterns. Everyone who had spoken to her before was so taken aback by the difference that Armsmaster nearly called Master/Stranger protocols on her, before she explained that it's an urge from her power (she think) that she turned to because of her nerves. Still, she still had no idea which part of her brain even came up with that routine, or that accent...?

"Mid-Atlantic...?" Taylor mumbled in askance.

Missy shrugged. "Heard some troopers talking about it. They were trying to figure out where that posh accent comes from."

Taylor glared at Missy. "Is there anything else you want to talk about?" she asked tersely.

Missy sighed. "Not much. Sorry. I was... I was trying to work off some tension. Everyone here in PRT HQ is all tense. Ever since your run in with Oni Lee."

That was.... what Taylor had noticed as well. Everyone, from the Wards to the Troopers, felt like they're waiting for the other shoe to drop. From what she heard here and there, mostly the reactions from Lung and ABB, and their main rivals Empire 88 to the Ruby Dreams Casino robbery and the seemingly no show from Oni Lee since that night. There was no sightings of the infamous assassin cape of the ABB, even by the few informants the BBPD and PRT had within the ABB.

Taylor sighed. "Yeah." she said before turning her attention back to her book.

There was a moment of silence, before Missy started. "Say, Taylor. You're sort of a Tinker, right? Can give Tinkertech versions of your powers to others?"

Taylor looked at her, a eyebrow raised, "Where did you hear that?" she asked.

Missy shrugged again. "Heard on the grapevine. Heard that's why Armsmaster and Kid Win kept barricading themselves on their workshops on the Rig and here these past week."

"Why?" Taylor asked cagily.

Missy grinned. "Do you think you can make me something to let me fly? Like Alexandria?"

"Huh." Taylor said. "It's possible.... though you'll have to wear a piece of crystal larger than your average school backpack. Not to mention it'll have a short flight-time. Like a minute or two. Unless you want to juggle two large crystal batteries as well."

Missy pouted, then her face turned thoughtfully. "....might be worth it..." she muttered.

Taylor just re-focused her attention back to the textbook.

"You're not one for small talk, are you?" Missy inquired pointedly.

Taylor sighed and close her book. "Sorry. Winslow hasn't exactly been... good for my social skills. The whole place is rather dog-eats-dog in terms of students social order."

Missy winced at the name. "Yikes. So, it wasn't just Shadow Stalker then..." she murmured.

Taylor just managed to restrain herself from reacting to that name. "Yeah, most student cliques there are the popular jocks and bullies, the E88 wannabes, the ABB wannabes, the Merchant customers and some were like me just trying to get by without being dragged into or get noticed by those groups." Taylor gestured to her books. "Hence, why I wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. Getting into Arcadia is just the cherry on top of the sundae."

Missy grimaces. "After an experience like that, I can see why you wanted to leave." She leaned back. "Arcadia is... nicer I guess. The school staff and admins were pretty strict about cracking down on bullying, and pretty big into integration. They encourage students to mix around, get outside their comfort zone, that sort of thing."

Taylor hummed. She wonders if Dinah goes to Arcadia middle school. She then stood up. "Come on. I need a break. How about I whip up something for the two of us?"

Missy perked up "Oooohhh! How about that new thing? Cherry Chimi-something?"

Taylor laughed a bit. "Two cherry chimichanga special, coming right up." she said as she moved to the kitchenette.

"Where did you learn all these weird recipes anyway? Family?" Missy asked in curiosity as she followed Taylor.

Taylor smiled. "You could say that, I just know it sometimes. Out of the pink."

Missy raised an eyebrow, "From your power? What kind of power provides baking recipes?"

Taylor rolled her eyes. "I reckon the same place I kept getting weird accents and sayin's, sugarcube." she drawled unexpectedly in a Southern Texan accent before she slapped a hand over her mouth, her eyes wide in surprise.

Missy just looks at her weirdly. "...you're messing with me?"

Taylor blushed. "Let's... just forget about that part and I'll add ice cream to your portion, deal?"

"Deal." Missy said cheerfully.

Interlude 6

The video screen flickered on, showing the computer generated female avatar of Dragon against a bland white background. "Hello, everyone."

Director Piggot nodded in greeting. "Thank you for joining us today, Dragon." She made a subtle jerk of her head to indicate the presence of Miss Militia and Armsmaster in her office. "Now, let's get to business. What is the status of the thaumaturgical projects?"

Armsmaster frowned at that. "Strictly speaking, the unique energy used isn't actually magic-"

"But it will suffice for now." Director Piggot interrupted firmly. "Thus, we will refer to it as such internally and informally until someone else can think of a better name for, as you and Dragon said, a completely new branch of unexplored science."

Armsmaster frowned at the rebuke, but kept quiet. Dragon took this opportunity to speak up. "The wands doubling project is going well, and we will have a surplus soon to distribute to other PRT branches throughout the United States. On the behalf of the Guild, I earmarked several wands for the Guilds branches in Canada as well. Starburst's submitted matrices are on stored on the databases accessible by these branches as well."

Director Piggot nodded. "Good. The further we have the means to manipulate thaumaturgic energy distributed, the better I rest. I don't want all thaumaturgic research and knowledge lost because all the wands are in one place and Behemoth decides to pay a visit."

Miss Militia chimed in. "We have sufficient Shield Watches to outfit two squads. Training of its use is underway amongst the troopers so we'll have two available squads equipped with it at all times. We just need the official go-ahead on the field testing."

Director Piggot looked at the BDU-clad heroine. "The approvals for the deployment are in the works now."

Dragon 'raised' her hand. "Speaking of approvals, Armsmaster and I would like to request for a transfer. From Boston PRT in particular."

The portly Director raised an eyebrow. "Oh? Why?"

Armsmaster cleared his throat. "Dragon and I have been working with the anti-master matrices submitted by Starburst. We would like to test the Mind Shield and the Lockdown types with an actual human-Master that could affect a large area."

Dragon nodded. "Yes. I'm planning to outfit several squads with the Mind Shield matrices to move against HeartBreaker, and the plans for both Mind Cure matrices and restraints incorporating the Lockdown matrices are already in the works. But we rather test the equipment first before committing."

Director Piggot hummed. "I see. Who do you have in mind?"

Dragon display a picture of a young woman, with a few feathers in her hair. "I wish to utilize Paige McAbee aka Canary for the testing."

"Unusual choice" Director Piggot commented. "Why her?"

"To summarize," Dragon answered. "Paige McAbee is Master that could affect humans over a large area via her singing. Most importantly, she had been compliant and non-violent with her arrest so far and had been cooperative with Boston PRT. I am sure we can secure her willing collaboration with this project in exchange for a lighter sentence than what the judges there were pushing for."

"Reasonable." Director Piggot made a note on her blotter. "I'll contact Boston PRT and push for a prisoner transfer. I can dangle the wands in front of Director Armstrong for the exchange." She then continued. "Armstrong has always been interested in insights into parahuman powers."

"Now, on to other matters." Director Piggot started. "What of the local situation?"

"Quiet but terse." Miss Militia answered. "The ABB is suspiciously quiet so far with the non-appearance of Oni Lee over the last week. We and the troopers are prepping additional fire-retardants and containment foam in case Lung finally decides to makes a move. The E88 and the smaller gangs seems to be adopting a wait and see approach, though a few probes have been done by the E88 into ABB territory."

Armsmaster cut in. "I have developed new anti-Brute sedatives especially formulated against Lung if needed. Furthermore, I have incorporated some additional..." Armsmaster sighed. "thaumaturgy-based shields into my latest armour in case of need."

Director Piggot sighed. "That's the best we can pray for." She leaned forward in her chair. "Now, we have to discuss about something longer termed." She looked at the assembled capes. "Starburst's thaumaturgic tech, so far as we can tell, presents an unprecedented leap forward in several fields. This means, she might be a target for more... unsavory groups. Like the Slaughterhouse Nine."

Miss Militia and Armsmaster shifted uncomfortably at the mention of the infamous wandering sadistic villain group. "Yes." Armsmaster said. "The amount of clear quartz, which is primarily silicon oxide, used in the thaumaturgic tech would make us particularly vulnerable to Shatterbird's Scream."

Director Piggot nodded. "Yes. Her in particular. The rest are still a concern, but devising a counter for her and maybe Mannequin are a priority."

Miss Militia spoke up. "Perhaps we can ask Starburst? Something to counter Shatterburst's silica-based wide area telekinesis? I had just spoken to Starburst earlier, and she mentioned that her 'Trump' power isn't working on anything at the moment."

Director Piggot looked at Miss Militia. "Yes. We should pursue that venue as well."

"On the subject of wide area specialized telekinesis," Dragon cut in. "Perhaps we could see if whatever Starburst comes up with could be adapted to work against hydrokinesis. Leviathan is projected to be the next EndBringer to strike within about 3 months or so."

Armsmaster continued. "The compilation of the database of matrices is coming along nicely. The chances of us independently of Starburst adapting pre-existing designs to new functionality is pretty good, if we maintain the current rate of development."

Dragon chuckled. "To be fair, Starburst's power seemed to be outright eager to teach us how to do so."

Director Piggot leaned back. "Good to hear. But the current counter to Shatterbird is still a higher priority. Miss Militia," she said to the heroine. "Please request Starburst to start working on a power that could neutralize Shatterbird's silica-telekinesis over a large area."

Director Piggot then looked over the capes. "If there are no other concerns, you're dismissed."

**************************

Later that night, Taylor slept peacefully in her bed at home, a part of her mind working on Miss Millitia's request.

Suddenly, a poker card sized window of light appeared directly over her bed.

**************************

Elsewhere, as Shatterbird lounges on a sofa and toys with a few shards of glass, a similar window opened unnoticed under the sofa. Shatterbird twirled the pieces of glass-

[QUEEN ADMINISTRATOR: INVOKING ADMINISTRATOR PRIVILEGES: DATA REQUESTED!]

-when her head suddenly rocked back in mental pain, as if someone swung a sledgehammer into her noggin. The pieces of glass fell as she lost her concentration.
The window closed before the shards of glass even hit the ground, its purpose of spatially linking two distant locations together temporarily now fulfilled.

**************************

Taylor didn't notice the window as it disappeared, instead snuggling into a more comfortable position in her bed.

Her dreams, however, took a turn to the strange.

In it, Taylor was suddenly lavender in colour and wearing a yellow sundress. She's alternatively giddily dancing and happily prancing in a circle as a new shipment of books rained down from above; the new [DATA] having been delivered by a large crystalline figure that's munching on a slice of cake.

Chaper 15

Taylor's breath got knocked out of her as her back slammed into the gym mats. She took a moment to simply lay there, panting heavily.

Above her, PRT Trooper Rodriguez chuckled as she held out her hand to help Taylor up. "Come on, kid. Up you go."

"Give me a moment." Taylor grumbled as she tries to catch her breath.

"Sorry, but villains and gangsters won't give you moments to recover. Got to get into the practice of rolling onto your feet after a hit or fall quickly" The well built latino-skinned woman pointed out. "And I thought I said no powers. I felt that grabbing with your mind thing as you went down."

Taylor blushed as she accepted the offered hand. "Sorry. That was reflexive."

Rodriguez sighed as she pulled Taylor to her feet. "The point of these exercises is to condition your body and prepare you skills wise in case you found yourself without your powers. You may be a Trump, but there are decent chances there's someone out could no-sell your powers. Even Armsmaster joins in the training, lest someone turned his armour into a tin can and shows up with a can opener."

"I know, I know." Taylor said defensively. "It's just... the telekinesis was reflexive. Like grabbing something with my free hand to stop myself from falling. I didn't even had to focus hard to do it." She elaborated as she put her hands on her knees, panting. "Can we take a short break?"

Rodriguez hummed to herself thoughtfully. "I want to put you through a bit more, since I know you didn't do much de-shelling today..." Taylor blushed a bit at the Trooper/her Current Instructor's mention of 'de-shelling'. It turns out, activating her SafeGuard power in panic while fending off Oni Lee when one was still flying over an occupied American city block had unintended consequences. The power affected any weapon within its preset range, rendering them safe. It turns out, for firearms, the power 'locks' the weapon into safe mode by surrounding it with an impenetrable shell that prevents the trigger from even being pulled. Or the weapon from being dismantled for cleaning. Or anything. It basically turns the weapon into a softly glowing oddly shaped paperweight that couldn't even be used as a bludgeon device (A shotgun owner complained that it was like trying to hit something with a wiffle bat.). For the last week, Starburst had been busy undo-ing the power shell formed around the legally acquired personal-defense weapons that was brought in by concerned/irate civilians into PRT HQ.

"But I suppose you deserve a break." Rodriguez finished. "Heard you're the main one responsible for the new toy. So, thought we owe you a little." Taylor merely headed to a nearby bench, intending to collapse onto it. On the way there, she idly noted that the teal shield at Dennis had time-locked earlier was still stuck in mid-air. 'Is this a record for him?' She thought as she sat down.

"Hey" Rodriguez cut in as she followed Taylor. "Cool yourself off with some stretches first." the Trooper lectured. "Don't want you to cramp up."

A part (or two) of Taylor agreed with Rodriguez, urging to do some light exercises instead to cool down. The main part of Taylor just internally groaned in exhaustion as she stood up and followed the instructions.

"Say", Rodriguez started conversationally as she goes through her own cooldown routine. "You know that anti-teleport field thing over the Docks that the brass asked to leave up?"

Taylor looked at her curiously as she went through her stretches. To her surprise, Dragon and Armsmaster had asked Taylor to leave up the anti-teleport field the Teleport Jammer power had created instead of undo-ing it. Last she heard, Dragon, Armsmaster and Kid Win were busy studying the persistent effect with various sensors. "Huh? What's up with it?" she asked, faintly noticing Dean, Dennis and Carlos practicing on the other side of the gym with the other PRT Troopers tapped into today's Wards training session.

Rodriguez shook her head. "Nothing's wrong. Rogers, one of the Troopers on duty at that time, saw that Dragon had talked Strider into helping test the field the other day." She laughed a bit. "Heard Strider complained about not being able to teleport out from inside of it, and trying to teleport into the field was 'like running full tilt at a fluffy mattress and bouncing off it', with him appearing at the field boundary instead flat on his back."

"Huh" Taylor simply commented, a part of her pleased that that the built-in safeties were working fine.

"Speaking of the brass," Rodriguez continued. "Any news from the Protectorate about the ABB or E88?" she asked wonderingly.

"Um..." Taylor replied, a tad confused. "No. I spoke to Miss Militia earlier before she went into the meeting in Director Piggot's office, and she didn't mention anything."

Rodriguez let out a sigh. "Darn. Was hoping you kids heard something from the Protectorate capes. We Troopers are getting a bit terse over the situation on the field. Word on the street about ABB was that Oni Lee's a no-show and Lung is on a jaunt out of the city to recruit some cape muscle to replace him." She grimaced. "I really worry about who Lung can find that'll top a serial suicide bomber assassin that teleports."

Taylor winced at the thought. Oni Lee was bad enough, and Taylor had barely survive her encounter with him. "At least whoever it was, it'll be without Oni Lee backing them up?" Taylor weakly tried to console the Trooper.

Rodriguez let a small smile escape. "True that. Here's hoping Oni Lee is really out of the picture." Her smile soon disappears though. "The E88 and the Merchants poking at the ABB dragon by prodding their territory isn't helping with things in the city though." She fidgeted uncomfortably. "This... may seem like we're taking advantage of you, but can you whip up anything that'll help us Troopers on the field more? Some sort of gun that'll take down capes and gangbangers regardless of armour or toughness? Hopefully non-lethal." She looked away, embarrassed as she finished.

Taylor blinked at the request. "I'll... have to talk to Dragon and Armsmaster about that. I think Dragon brought in some artificially made crystals to help with making stuff." She thought it over. "hm... maybe something to make them fall asleep from a distance?" she wondered out loud, before she felt the familiar mental rummaging. "No! Wait!" Taylor started to cry out, startling Rodriguez before sighing in relief when a new power slid into her grasp. "Oh good. It's a quick one."

"What was that?" Rodriguez asked curiously.

Taylor waved her hand at her head. "Sorry. My Trump power was a little... sensitive, and started working on something just now. Thank god the new power is a quick one, or I'll have to tell Miss Militia." Taylor reassured before focusing a bit on the new power ('Medical: Artificially time-restricted induced torpidity spell.'). "Huh. A ranged aid for insomnia. I think I can make a sleep gun from this for the Troopers. Need to get the concept and diagrams to Armsmaster though." she mused as she walked over to her backpack containing spare notebooks.

Rodriguez squirmed a bit. "Hey, kid. Thanks about this. And... um... sorry about imposing."

Taylor waved off Rodriguez concerns. "It's alright. At least it didn't pre-occupy my power for days to figure out." She flashed a quick mischievous smile at the Trooper. "Though you all owe me one more for this new toy."

Rodriguez relaxed at the teasing tone. "Yeah. Thanks." She paused. "Any hints of what this new one could do?"

Taylor answered as she sketched out the diagrams. "Puts the target into an enforced sleep for an hour. After that it'll transition to a normal sleep where you can just wake them up normally. Harmless. You can shoot the target has many times as you want, and all it'll do is reset the 'enforced sleep' timer with each hit. If the target doesn't go down with the first hit, multiple hits will accumulate until they fall asleep. Pretty much ignores toughness and body armour. Doesn't go through walls or shields though."

Rodriguez whistled appreciatively. "That'll make things a lot easier for me and the guys on the field." She grinned. "Here's hoping Dragon and Armsmaster can give this to us quick."

Taylor waved the papers she had worked on at her. "I'll ask them later, after their meeting with the Director."

"Thanks, kid." Rodriguez said. "For helping us out."

"You're welcome." Taylor smiled back.

Author's Note

This took place at the same time as the meeting in Interlude 6.

Chapter 17

Starburst and Vista stood there on one side of the empty street, facing Cricket and StormTiger on the other side. There was an ugly sneer on the scarred woman's face, while the man had a condescending look instead.

Vista gave Starburst a nervous sidelong glance but stood up and tried to appear confident.

Starburst was mentally panicking a tad, and whispering to her headset. "Console. We have Cricket and StormTiger here. And I think the other cape I'm picking up on the Radar is Hookwolf. Please get that backup here faster!"

"Armsmaster here" Said hero's gruff voice cut in over the comms. "ETA three minutes."

Kid Win chimed in. "PRT squads are on the way. Ten minutes."

"Well, look who's here." StormTiger intoned mockingly. "The Eidolon-lite." He grinned and flexed his arms. "I wondered how I'd stacked against you."

Vista muttered to Starburst over the headsets. "Starburst. We have to get out-"

Then Vista suddenly wobbled and fell to her knees. Starburst looked at Vista in surprise, just as her power alerted her to Cricket. The Radar marked Cricket with an additional tag, labelled 'Source of Auditory Disorientation attack'. The Radar power must have filtered it out and prevented it from reaching Starburst's own ears and affecting her.

Starburst had wanted to just activate her Flight power, grab Vista and fly them both out of there; but then StormTiger had swung out an arm. The Radar immediately screamed at her of an incoming attack, highlighting in Starburst's vision of a vertical translucent red column of... something cutting through the street heading right at her. Starburst stumbled back and to the side to dodge it and the column passed by, scouring a large vertical gash in the wall of the office. 'Oh' Starburst looked at the damage in minor shock. 'Radar can detect StormTiger's aerokinesis attacks and mark them.' she mentally faintly noted.

Recovering from her shock, Starburst saw Cricket started running towards the still incapacitated Vista. Starburst fire a Punch Blast to intercept the villainess, but said woman had simply gracefully dodge the fast moving ball of light. Starburst was about to fire a second blast when she had to hastily dive out of the way of the horizontal air-slash from StormTiger. Starburst fired at StormTiger from her prone position, but he had dodged it by hopping to one side.

'They're toying with us.' Starburst thought as she rolled to dodge another vertical air-slash and snapping off another Punch Blast at Cricket to keep her away from the now-retching Vista. 'They're too agile and supported each other in a fight.' she thought as she threw herself out of the way of an air-slash. 'I need something to pin them down. Stop them from moving so much so I can stop them.' Starburst rolled to her feet and snapped off a retaliatory Punch Blast. 'Stop them with what? What do I have now? Wait a minute...'

Jumping over a horizontal slash, Starburst gathered the energy, and unleashed the power as she landed. "You two! Freeze!" she shouted as she activated the power.

The wave quickly swept away from her out-stretched hand in a cone shape ahead of her. Both Cricket and StormTiger eyes widened and they tried to dodge it, but they froze in place as the wave hit them and encased them in a softly glowing light teal shell. Starburst quickly switched tracks and rapidly fired 'Sleep-Blasts' at the two now stationary targets, ignoring the slight mental strain of holding them in place.

Once Starburst saw that their eyes had slid shut after being hit, she released them from the 'Crowd Freeze' power and ran towards the woozily crouching Vista, ignoring how Cricket and StormTiger had bonelessly slumped onto the pavement, fast asleep.

"Vista!" Starburst asked, her hands helping her fellow Ward up. 'Are you alright?"

"Ye- Yeah." Vista stuttered slightly. "Just a bit dizzy."

"Come on-" Starburst started to say, before a crash startled her into letting go of Vista and snapping off a Sleep Blast at the source of the sound. Vista caught herself and stayed on her feet, her head looking at where Starburst had fired at.

Near the hole in the front of the warehouse, a man partially covered in shinning steel blades lightly dodged the wildly aimed shot with a bloodthirsty grin on his face. "Well now," he said, with a quick glance at the downed figures of the E88 capes. "You want to play? Let's play!"

With that shout, the man charged at the two Wards, his body shifting into a vaguely lupine four legged form that's composed entirely of sharp blades. Within what it felt like a blink of a eye, he already covered half the distance between them.

'Oh Crap!! It's Hookwolf' Starburst mentally panicked. 'What to do!? Why didn't SafeGuard affect him?! Did he make new blades?! He's coming here!! He can dodge my shots!! Where is Armsmaster?! Help! What to do?! He's getting way too close!! He'll shred us to bits!!' Out of pure panic, Starburst did what she could think of at the time.

A pair of teal green hands, each the size of vans materialized and slammed together onto the charging Hookwolf with a thunderous BOOM!!

There was a moment of stunned silence, with Vista and Starburst both frozen at the sight before them, Starburst's hands still clasped together. The teal green giant hands were only barely a body length away from them. Had she been a bit slower...

The moment was broken as Armsmaster pulls up to the two frozen Wards on his Tinker tech motorcycle. "Are you two alright?" He urgently asked, looking around. "Where's Hookwolf?"

Vista weakly raised a shaky hand and pointed at the teal green hands still clapped together. "Is- Is he alive?" Vista weakly asked Starburst.

Starburst blinked out of her stunned state at the question and looked at the Hands with the Radar, her own hands still clapped together. "I- I-" she swallowed. "I think so. Radar is still picking him up."

Armsmaster unslung his halberd from his motorcycle and readied a containment form grenade. "Starburst" he firmly said. "When I say so, dismiss your projections. I'll contain him. Don't look. You too, Vista. Close your eyes."

Starburst nodded, and at his command, de-materialized the Hands. She only got a glimpse before she looked away and Armsmaster foamed Hookwolf, but what remained looked a bit like a flattened pile of silver pennies with a reddish splotch in the middle.

"It's okay now." Armsmaster announced once the foam completely covered Hookwolf. "You two can open your eyes now." He strode around and put restrains on the still snoozing Cricket and StormTiger. "Starburst, is there anyone else? Where's Hellhound?"

Starburst blinked, having forgot about the Undersider during the short fight. Eyes widening in realization, she looked at warehouse with her Radar. "She's...she's not here." She said in a slightly stunned voice. Even the beast that had gotten thrown through the front of the warehouse was gone. How did something that big sneak away unnoticed? How did four of that plus one rider got away?

Armsmaster grunted. "Pity. But the Undersiders have a reputation for being escape artists for a reason." He looked at the captured villains. "Still, we managed to get these three."

He looked at the two Wards, both of them having sank to their knees in relief, Starburst de activating her Radar. "Why don't two rest a bit while we wait for the PRT vans to arrive?"

Vista simply let out a weak "Okay." while Starburst just nodded, their adrenaline rush fading.

As they waited, Starburst felt a familiar mental sensation. 'Huh. The anti-Shatterbird power is done' she thought to herself. 'Took three days this time.'

(Royal: Persistent Wide Area (Target: Silica)-kinesis Nullification and Interdiction spell matrix)

Chapter 17.5

Taylor hesitated and just stood there in the dark hallway, right outside Danny's bedroom; her fist paused right before knocking on the wooden door.

Parts of herself warred with each other, some wanting to talk to her Dad, some wanted to keep things to herself. Justifications, reasoning and excuses for both sides of the argument flew back and forth in her head.

She had almost walked away, to try for another day when the decision was taken away from her as the door opened, revealing a concerned and curious Danny. "Taylor?" he asked. "What's wrong? I saw your shadow under the door."

Taylor had almost chickened out and deny that anything's wrong, but a part of her gave her strength to speak. "Dad? Can we... Can we talk for a bit?" she asked timidly.

"Sure." Danny answered without hesitation. "Want to come in and sit down?"

"Can we... sit on the sofa for this?" Taylor quietly said.

Danny nodded and exited the bedroom, following his daughter as they walked downstairs in the dim lights of the middle of the night. "What's the matter, kiddo?" he asked with some worry in his voice.

Taylor took a deep, calming breath, and started. "It's about what happened the other day, during the Wards patrol with Vista..."

**************************

"...And last night, I had a nightmare." Taylor paused a bit as she collected her thoughts. "I kept seeing that scene with Hookwolf over and over, kept feeling what I felt then." she finished softly.

Danny, sitting next to her on the sofa in the dark living room, gently prodded. "And tonight?"

Taylor looked down. "....I couldn't sleep. Kept thinking." she admitted a bit shamefully.

Danny leaned in and gave Taylor a hug, leaning her head against his chest. "Oh, Taylor...." he said comfortingly.

Taylor continued, her voice hitching a bit and she blinked away forming tears. "I don't- I don't know why...."

Danny was quiet as Taylor took comfort on his shirt. "Sometimes, your mind can get stuck with details and stuff. All the what-ifs." he softly said. "I certainly did, after the Accident." he admitted.

Taylor murmured, "But I didn't feel this way last week after the Oni Lee attack...". She could feel him tensing a bit at the memory of her narrow escape.

Danny took a steadying breath. "I- I'm not sure. Maybe because you didn't see it up close?" he ventured. "You said were focused on getting away that time. This time, maybe, it's because you ended a fight. Directly involved. So, it bothered you more." he hypothesized uncertainly.

There was a moment of silence as the father and daughter duo sat on the sofa in the low light. "...is it wrong I feel this way?" Taylor quietly asked.

Danny let out a sigh. "No kiddo." he reassured her. "It's not. Sometimes, you just need more time to come to terms with it inside your heart."

"...how long...?" Taylor whispered.

"As long as it'll take." Danny said softly with a firm tone. "Took me awhile after your Mom's passing. Have you tried telling anyone at the PRT?" he asked.

Taylor minutely shook her head. "No...." she quietly answered.

"Maybe.... they can help." Danny said, rubbing her shoulder. "The Protectorate heroes can relate maybe? Try to talk to someone in the biz." he suggested. "I don't advise taking too long to get talking. I'll tell you, from experience, the sooner the better." he mildly joked with a quick smile. That got a brief giggle from Taylor before they lapsed into silence again.

"....can-" Taylor softly started. "....can we just sit here together on the sofa for awhile? For the night?" she begged, not wanting to sleep for now.

Danny nodded in the dark. "Sure, Taylor."

They settled into a silent vigil in the dark living room, comforting each other through the night.

Interlude 7

Soft singing could be heard near one of the internment cells onboard the Rig, where a young blonde woman with feathers in her hair stood, dressed in orange slacks. She swayed in place, singing to herself while tapping a pencil onto the notebook she was holding, most of her attention on composing new lyrics and harmonies.

A screen mounted on a wall within the cell flickered on. "Good afternoon, Paige." greeted Dragon. "That sounds lovely."

Paige McAbee stopped singing and turned her head towards the device. "Oh, Hello." she said in surprise. "What brings you here?"

Dragon let out a good-natured chuckle. "Just here to keep you up to date with current proceedings." she reassured that slightly worried detainee. Considering what the woman had been through during her time with Boston PRT, there was no wonder to the reason for her worry. "We're currently discreetly petitioning to a Federal judge to grant you a lighter sentence, considering your willing cooperation in testing promising Anti-Master devices. Things are progressing smoothly. How is the new restraint?"

"Oh." Paige said in relief, one hand absently brushing lightly over the large steel gorget that was securely locked around her neck. Said gorget was that was inlaid with one large round white crystal bracketed by two smaller trapezoid crystal. She smiled. "Compared to the heavy restraints before, where I couldn't even talk or move properly; this little thing is a luxury. I can actually sing well with this." A worried look came over her face. "What about the power for this? I've been wearing and testing this for a few days, but I didn't see any way to recharge it or anyone else doing it the whole time."

"Don't worry about power." Dragon gently informed her. "The thaumaturgic energy battery array we've developed and implemented in your gorget will keep it powered as long as you are alive." Dragon asked concernedly. "Are you feeling anything? Discomfort? Weariness?"

Paige shook her head. "Then... as long as I have this on, I can sing freely without Mastering anyone?" she asked, a little anxiously.

Dragon smiled warmly. "Yes. That and the very low maintenance needs of the restraint will tilt the judges in your favor, especially the new... inconsistencies of the accused that had arisen now. You might be able to walk free and return to your performance career soon." She paused. "Though you'll have to do it without the more... 'enchanting' aspects of your voice." she teased.

Paige let a giggle around a happy smile. "I never needed my power to be a good singer and song writer. The loss doesn't bother me anyway." She looked at Dragon. "Though I'll have to update my concert dresses to better fit the style."

Dragon beamed at her. "It's good to hear that. We'll keep you updated. I look forward to your next concert." The screen winked off.

Paige smiled to herself and returned to her lyrics notes. 'What would be a good title for this?' she thought as she swayed in place, softly singing to herself. 'Maybe 'Now Free to Spread My Wings' sounds decent...'

**************************

Assault happened to look back at the Brockton Bay PRT HQ building as he stood up from his landing on a downtown office building rooftop, witnessing a soft teal shockwave spreading outwards harmlessly through the buildings. "Huh. Guess PRT HQ is Shatterbird-proof now." he commented idly.

"Pardon?" Battery asked as she approached him.

The predominately red suited hero turned his head towards his wife, who was clad mostly in black bodysuit with blue glowing lines running all over her body. "Heard ol' HalBeard talking about talking to Starburst on my way out. Since she just gave him the schematics for that Anti-Shatterbird field power, he wanted her use her power to put the same fields on PRT HQ, the Rig and a few other spots."

"Huh" Battery said, looking at the building and squinting, trying to see any differences now. None to be had. "Does she have to keep it up? Maintain it or something?"

Assault shook his head. "Nope. Remember that anti-teleport thing near the Docks? It'll stay up even without her there and it'll do so until she takes it down, or there's no living things around."

Battery raised an eyebrow. "Living things? It gets energy from living things?"

Assault laughed a bit. "No, the field isn't some sort of energy vampire. Most of it flew over my head when Halbeard explains it to me, but the energy is more like... that living things constantly generates a passive energy aura that the body isn't using. Dragon calls it a 'Thaumaturgic Life-field' ." He grinned. "Sounds straight out of a D&D campaign." He then continued. "Armsy and Dragon did some testing when that anti-teleport field was still up. Other than Strider, it did nothing to anyone in the area, even after nearly two weeks until Starburst 'undo' it."

Battery was silent as she looked at the HQ building. "Any ideas what will bring it down?"

Assault shook his head. "Haven't test it to breaking point yet. It'll hold up unless you turn the entire cityblock to as dead as Mars or something. Even down to plantlife and insects."

"Huh." Battery said thoughtfully. "If it's that permanent, wonder why Dragon and Armsmaster wanted the schematics?" she mused. "And why only a few spots? Why couldn't Starburst cover the whole city?"

Assault shrugged. "Starburst couldn't be everywhere. I heard the ones they'll make can be put on a Dragon-suit and be a movable field instead of being stuck in one place." He paused. "From what I heard from Dragon, energy supply issue. Apparently you can't have two active field effects too close to each other, or else they'll compete over the limited energy in the area and both fields will weaken, making them much less effective." He shrugged. "They mentioned something about using crystal batteries to get around the issue, but most of the conversation turned into Tinker babble to me."

Battery gave the building one last glance before turning and grabbing her husband. "Come on. We should get to our patrol."

Assault grinned and followed her. "Right away, beautiful."

**************************

A few knocks on the workshop door caused Chris to look up from his current project on the worktable. At the door, Dean's tall teenaged frame was standing in the hallway, leaning his head into the workshop. "Chris? It's nearly time for our study group session."

Chris looked blankly at the teen for the moment, before his eyes widened. "Already? It didn't feel that long." he said, standing up from the bench. "Can I skipped it for today? I really want to finish this!" he begged Dean.

Dean shook his head, chuckling. "No can do. Remember, these new group sessions is supposed to help us get closer together as a team. Plus, you, Dennis and Taylor needed a bit extra boost in your studies."

Chris petulantly grumbled. "These sessions are your idea."

Dean sighed. "Come on. We're supposed to make sure you don't waste yourself away on a Tinker fugue as well." He stepped into the workshop. "What are you working on these days, anyway?"

Chris brightened and quickly grabbed Dean's arm. "Oh.Oh. Come here! I want to show you something!" He excitedly dragged the older boy to a different worktable. "What do you think?" Chris gestured to the table.

Dean surveyed the items on the table. The table was cleared except for two identical items, complete with attachment holsters that presumably goes onto the hips of the Kid Win armour. The items looked like twin futuristic guns, except the resemblance to Kid Win's previous laserguns ended at the general looks. These guns looked like truncated revolvers, with their cylinder sections that would normally housed bullets enlarged. The handgrip seems to be hollow, presumably to accommodate the ammo cartridge-like objects lying close by on the table.

"What is it?" Dean prodded.

In response, Chris proudly picked one up. "This is my new arsenal! I call them 'multi-mode guns'." He pointed at the cartridges. "Those are energy batteries, I based them on Taylor's tech." he then pointed at the five barrel cylinder. "This gun can shoot multiple energy types. When this one is locked in. " The cylinder rotates and locked in a barrel. In the rear of the gun, a previously unnoticed red light lit up. "I can shoot the usual lasers. Well, not exactly like my old ones. I have to cribbed ones that worked on the new battery from Dragon. When I swap in this." The barrel unlocked and the cylinder rotates and slid a different barrel into place. The indicator light turns yellow."Now I can shoot kinetic energy blasts to knock down people. I can adjust the strength too! And when I use this one." A new barrel and a blue light. "I'll shoot these energy blasts that makes people sleep! Got this from Dragon's new prototype 'sleep guns' for the Troopers!" he excitedly finished.

One part of Dean wondered how did Chris say that without pausing for breath. "So, what's the other two for?"

Chris glanced down at the gun. "Oh, those are empty at the moment. I'll think of new modes to put in them later." he said dismissively.

"You certainly had been busy." Dean observed.

"I know!" Chris exclaimed with a huge smile. "I have so many ideas now. New designs. New concepts. All flowing in like water!" Now the smile turns a bit manic. "I feel like I'm really close to figuring out my Tinker specialty!"

Dean smile at his friend, while hiding his discomfort at said friend's sudden resemblance to Mad Scientists. "That's great. Are you still working on these?"

Chris shook his head quickly. "No, no! Those are done. Just need the okay from PR and Piggot!" He put down the gun and dragged Dean to the other table. "This what I'm working on now." Chris said while gesturing excitedly at the half-finished shell. "Power gauntlets. I can do different stuff like make hardlight shields or punch really hard when swap these parts in and out!"

Dean looked at the work in progress. "That's pretty neat." He paused. "While this is all nice and all, maybe you need to take a break. Rest a bit."

"What? No?" Chris looked a bit aghast. "Please! I just want to finish this!"

Dean shook his head. "Chris." he patiently started. "I know that Tinkering is important, but so is socializing and connecting with your teammates." he said firmly. "Come on and join us in the study session, okay?"

"But- but-" Chris sputtered, before he slumped a bit. "Okay, okay. I'll come." he said in a defeated voice.

"That's the spirit." Dean said cheerfully. "Come on. Everyone else is in the common room." He said as he move towards the hallway leading the the Wards common room.

Chris sighed a little despondently as he followed.

**************************

"Hello, Miss Militia." Triumph greeted as he strode into the PRT HQ shooting range, still clad in his leonine costume.

"Hello." The bandanna masked woman replied, looking up from her task of cleaning one of the guns from the armory.

Triumph smiled at her. "Rough day?" he asked. He knows that Miss Militia would sometimes do the weapon maintenance as a way to center herself and calming her nerves.

Miss Militia was silent for a while. "Do you think the Wards need an on-call therapists" she abruptly said.

Triumph blinked at the odd statement. "Therapist?" he parroted.

Miss Militia put down the parts she was holding and took a deep breath. "Taylor- Starburst came to me. She said she hadn't been sleeping well since her encounter with Hookwolf."

Triumph winced at the mention of the villain. Hookwolf's current state had perplexed the Protectorate and PRT. Though he was alive (in the most technical of the term. They had to bring in Panacea to confirm it.), Hookwolf seems to have... somehow encased his vital organs into a small sphere and appears to be in a comatose state. There was some argument as to what to do with the oddity before the matter was settled, by letting Dragon transport him away to carry out his court sentence in the Baumann Detainment Centre; aka The Birdcage.

"I see?" he ventured.

"We've talked about how she felt." Miss Militia continued. "I also pointed her to other people in the building and also the PRT Troopers counselor to get different perspectives. Get her talking more."

"Hm..." Triumph said, not quite seeing the issue.

"...I started thinking that we need something more. Better trained." Miss Militia confessed.

Triumph frowned. "The first Wards didn't need therapist. And the other branches now seem to be doing fine." he pointed out.

Miss Militia looked away, leaning against the table. "But any emotional support was informal. Talk to friends and colleagues sort of thing." She paused, collecting herself. "But I can't help thinking.... about Shadow Stalker. If we had a proper trained therapist in place, she probably wouldn't go down the path she did...." she trailed off.

Triumph bit his lip. Clearly, the fate of the former Probationary Ward bothered Miss Militia. "...maybe we do." he cautiously admitted. "Any ideas?"

Miss Militia stood up and turned towards him. "Maybe. We can't keep piggybacking off the Trooper's counselor. But I'll have a talk with him to get some ideas." She paused, thinking to herself a bit. "Maybe get input from Dragon and Armsmaster as well. Then I'll take it up to Director Piggot. See if we can change things. Institute a new formal mechanism to allow the Wards ready access to trusted dedicated therapists." She blinked and took a deep breath. "Maybe open the option for us Protectorate Members as well."

Triumph tilted his head. Part of the PR training to emote more obviously. "Us?"

Miss Militia nodded firmly. "Yes. You know that getting powers is... traumatic." A flash of discomfort ran through Triumph's face, though unnoticed by Miss Militia as she was absorbed in her own thoughts. "Even though we are adults, it'll be... good for us to see someone to help us with our issues. Help us heal our mental wounds."

"That's sounds... like a good idea." Triumph said, composing himself.

Miss Militia walked past him, heading to the exit. "I'll get started on working the idea now. Excuse me."

"See you later." he called out to Miss Militia's retreating back.

Chapter 18

Taylor looked warily at the car battery-sized mass of crystal clear quartz sitting on a table in the Wards common room, her hands poised over the terminals. Dennis and Vista stood expectantly next to her.

Armsmaster had surprised the Wards with two of these new 'thaumaturgic energy' batteries/energy collectors (Taylor isn't a fan of the term, but she couldn't come up with a better name.) for their own use in the Wards workshop in the PRT HQ building. Apparently, it was a surplus from a production run of batteries that Armsmaster and Dragon (and PRT R&D) were making to externally power the 'Anti-Shatterbird' fields around the Rig (Taylor was delivering her latest notes on a 'anti-hydrokinesis' variant of the said power to Armsmaster's primary workshop on the Rig, and was surprised to find that the field she had put up there a few days ago had significantly degraded and weakened, especially when compared to the one that's still intact over PRT HQ. Best guess they could come up with was that the Rig's forcefield was similar enough in energy signatures that it was interfering with the new field's 'virtual' thaumaturgic matrix. The Rig's forcefield had not been affected because it was externally powered from another source.) and the PRT HQ. They haven't gotten to the stage of making their own matrices yet, but Armsmaster and Dragon managed to make an array of batteries with a switching recharge/discharge cycle that could constantly power the thaumaturgic fields.

A few more batteries were made as demonstration aids for their conference in Boston that's due in a few days, of which Dragon and Armsmaster would be the mainly presenting the new tech (Taylor declined the offer to attend, not wanting to be stuck all day with the hassle. She really don't want to be mired with inter-branch politics...) to the other PRT Branches. The Rig and PRT were also busy with preparations to re-distribute their manpower, as all the Protectorate Members in Brockton Bay (other than Armsmaster) had to attend a one-day mandatory conference out of town in a few days as well (Director Piggot and Brockton Bay Protectorate members had protested, to no avail.). On the same day as the Boston meetup. The timing of this two conference has everyone on the edge, as the PRT still have Crusader, StormTiger and Cricket in their cells awaiting transport to a high security prison and rumours were flying about Lung reappearing with a new female cape in a gasmask at his side. At least Dragon had finished making enough prototypes of the sleep gun to equip about two squads of PRT Troopers (Even before training had ended, they're already calling it the 'Nighty-Night' pistol.).

The terse atmosphere bled to the Wards, making all them a bit restless despite themselves. Conservation had turned from schoolwork to hobbies, then to power synergy discussions. Then Dennis had a brainstorm.

Which led to their current situation.

Taylor took a deep breath to steel herself. The small sparks coming out the terminals and the built in energy gauge showing full charge isn't helping with her nerves in going ahead on this idea.

Taylor had revealed to the others about her extra ability to bequeath her powers to others, as well as the major downside of the effort doing so would exhaust her. Then Dennis came up with the idea of supplementing the power needed with the thaumaturgic battery, since both her and the battery used the same energy for the powers.

The problem is, the only way they could think of get the energy out from the battery and into her for her to power the 'gifting' aspect would be for her to grab the battery terminals with her bare hands. Missy had volunteered herself to get the 'Flight' power (to test if Taylor could in fact do it without knocking herself out in exhaustion.) and Dennis asked for the 'Phantom Limbs' power ('Science means repeatability!' he claimed.).

Taylor tried to keep her apprehension down. A part of her mused that it could work. A different part thought the results would be awesome and was goading her into doing it. Another part that had seen too many movies kept imagining herself being electrocuted. 'Maybe we could postpone this or something?' she thought. 'Get Armsmaster or Dragon to help supervise maybe?'

A klaxon suddenly rang in the common room, startling the three Wards out of the moment. They looked at each other while the 'incoming visitors' alarm was still sounding before scrambling for the emergency domino face masks.

The last masks was barely on before the main door opened, admitting Miss Militia and a boy.

Taylor had to blink at the sight of the boy, not quite believing her eyes. The teen (?) was wearing a dark bodysuit, has tanned skin and black hair. He also has a large musculature that resembled a caricature of a champion bodybuilder. Not enough to be grotesque, but it gave off an odd, over-the-top, somewhat unnatural look. 'Is that a monobrow?' she randomly thought as she looked over the boy.

Miss Militia smiled and gestured the boy forward. "Wards", she started. "We have a new Ward sign up today. This is Browbeat."

The boy gave an oddly mechanical wave, like he wasn't used to his body's movements. "Hi" he greeted. "I'm Browbeat. I can rearrange my muscle mass and be really strong and lift stuff."

As Missy and Dennis went ahead and introduce themselves, Taylor idly noted Carlos and Chris joining them from the hallway leading from the Wards individual quarters and Workshop.

'Oh well!' Taylor thought to herself, with a slight bit of relief. 'Maybe we'll do the battery test some other day.'

Chapter 19

"Help the Bank first. I'll be fine."

Taylor looked in puzzlement at the Delphic message from Dinah on her personal cellphone. Taylor isn't sure what to feel about the preteen precog she had met face to face only once before. Interactions with the girl were brief and has an odd mix of the usual preteen attitudes and cryptic Oracle sayings. 'Ice cream was nice today.', 'Homework was a pain.' and 'Troopers are good.' were some of the infrequent messages Dinah would occasionally send to Taylor. Taylor wouldn't say they're close friends. Penpals maybe? A ward of a Ward?

Taylor shook her head at the lame pun in her head, tucking her phone back into her pouch and slipping the mask back on.

Taylor had initially planned to just study in the Wards common room that morning, but the terse atmosphere in there made her feel too restless to concentrate on the study materials. To work off her nervous energy, she decided to take a solo flight off the PRT HQ rooftop.

At least she got to try out the new costumes made by the PRT PR department. There wasn't much change from her original homemade costume, save for the better suit material, absence of the tactical vest (it was exchanged for sturdier zippered pockets all over the suit.), armored panel inserts and padding at key areas for extra protection and some squadron patches bearing her name and the PRT emblem.

"Dispatch, This is Starburst." she reported into her headset once she had wore it. "I'm taking a personal flight around the city. Requesting permission to take off from the roof."

"Starburst. PRT Dispatch here." the older male voice lightheartedly responded. With most of the Wards still in classes right now, Wards console communications were automatically rerouted to PRT Trooper dispatch instead. "Permission granted. Have a safe flight."

Smiling at the approval given, Starburst activated her Flight and Radar powers and took off into the late morning sky with a teal contrail training after her.

**************************

Starburst was banking over the one of the more dilapidated commercial areas of shops, offices and occasional empty lots when the call came in.

"Starburst. This is Dispatch." Her headset suddenly squawked. "Please respond."

Starburst blinked and brought herself to a hover in midair. "Starburst here."

"PRT HQ building is being besieged by E88 assailants. Alabaster and Victor sighted." the grim voice reported. "Please return to the building to assist."

Starburst nodded. "Noted. On my w-"

There was a sudden moment of disorientation, and Starburst abruptly found herself on a rooftop of an office building, facing a stranger wearing a black tuxedo suit, domino mask and a tophat. "Who are you?!" Starburst managed to blurt out before her surroundings suddenly changed again.

Now, she found herself in a empty lot, with several scattered construction materials sparsely spread about the dirt ground. Before Starburst could blink, a small translucent blue dome materialized within the lot, encompassing her and a bit of the ground about 3 meters around her .

Starburst flew to the wall of the dome and tried to push herself through to no avail. Glaring at the wall that refused her attempt, she landed on the ground pressed a finger to her headset. "Dispatch. Starburst here. I'm trapped by some sort of forcefield." She reported, glancing up at the Radar highlighted object at the apex of the dome. 'That must be what's creating the field.' she inferred the device's purpose. "I'll try to-"

Abruptly, the discarded bags of hardened cement near her was replaced by a trio of large black metallic barrels, with a brick-like device sitting on top. The device was showing a visible timer readout of '4'. Starburst's eyes widened to the size of dinner plates and her iris shrunk to pinpricks in clenching fear as her Radar helpfully tagged the new object as 'Hazard: High Explosives - Bomb'.

'Oh shit!' Starburst mentally cried out, as the timer ticked itself down to '3'. 'I need to protect myself from a big bomb, now!' she begged her power as she scrambled backwards, trying to put as much distance away from the bomb as she could within the small dome. '2', the timer showed as she felt the rummaging in her head, praying frantically that this will be one of the quick ones. Faintly, she could hear Dispatch reporting through her headset something about Glory Girl assisting at PRT HQ and a robbery at the Brockton Bay Central bank by the Undersiders and two of the Travelers. 'Who?' her frantic mind questioned randomly as she panicked.

'1' The timer ticked down, and Starburst felt a new power slid into place in her head. Not bothering to properly 'read' the name of the power, she dropped to her feet, curled up into a ball and immediately activated the power.

The imprisoning dome became filled with furious flames and thunderous roars.

**************************

Still curled up in a ball, Starburst carefully opened one of her eyes. 'I- I'm alive?' she asked herself as she peeked out, her ears ringing a bit.

Opening both eyes, she found herself enclosed with a spherical teal coloured bubble. Outside, she could see that it was concealed by enveloping smoke and burning flames. The ground outside her bubble seems to have melted a bit into a glass surface by the immensely powerful explosion.

Shakily letting out her held breath, Starburst examined her body and surroundings and found herself to be unharmed, and the ground she was on untouched, leaving a circle of relatively pristine dirt ground. Uncurling herself a bit within the bubble shield, Starburst took in more gulping breaths to steady her nerves, a part of her idly checking the name of the new power as the ringing in her ears starts to fade a bit.

(Guard: Fortress type Total defense Spherical Shield spell, with integrated permeable Air Circulation and Anti-airborne Hazards Filtering.)

'A- A- 'Fortress Shield' power.' Starburst thought, fervently thanking her power for the timely assist. Her headset was curiously silent. Did her new power block radio signals as well?

The smoke began to dissipate, allowing Starburst to see out. She saw that the blue field wall was no longer imprisoning her within the lot. Before she could wonder if the force field had came down on it's own, or was destroyed by the explosion, three black vans skidded to a halt outside the lot and disgorged several men each. These men were dressed in all black, and outfitted with tactical gear and weapons, reminding Starburst of those documentaries about SWAT members. Though these men were wielding assault rifles with an odd cylindrical attachment under the main barrel.

The armed men immediately opened fire at her.

Starburst yelped in surprise, cringing back as her Radar automatically tagged them each as 'Coil: Mercenary'. 'Oh.' she thought as she pressed herself against the inside of the shield. 'That's right. Coil was known to use mercenaries.' she remembered, watching as the bubble shield around her effortlessly stopped the barrage of bullets (and occasional blistering laser blasts). A sudden 'Crack!' and 'Ping!' reached her ears as a high caliber bullet bounced off the shield. 'Was that a sniper?' a wide-eyed Starburst thought as she tried to find the new assailant.

Starburst grimaced to herself as she assessed the situation. Although the 'Fortress Shield' power took up more energy from her than her 'Hardlight Shield' power, she could technically stay in here as long as she liked (with only a needed periodic maintenance recharge to upkeep the shield) and outlast the mercenaries, what she heard over the headset before told her that there were situations outside that needed her assistance.

Before Starburst could decide on a course of action, the barrage of gunfire stopped. Starburst blinked and looked up at the mercenaries.

A massive and very strange amalgamation of gorilla, squid and beetle landed in front of her bubble with a crash and slammed both armored fist into it, sending ripples throughout the shield from the points of impact.

Starburst gritted her teeth as she poured more energy into the shield, quickly thinking as the construct (her Radar had labelled it as a 'Mana Construct') furiously pummeled the bubble. Starburst knew she couldn't stay here like this, so...

When there's was a brief lull in the pummeling, Starburst exploded out the shield in a massive wave of kinetic force, knocking over the construct and staggering the waiting mercenaries. She took advantage of the brief respite and activated her Flight power, jetting straight up into the sky while firing loosely aimed 'Sleep Blasts' at the mercenaries-

-and she abruptly found herself among the mercenaries, hastily halting herself from slamming into the office building's overhang. Said mercenaries whirled around and brought their guns to bear. Starburst dropped to the ground, manifested a large riot shield and took cover behind it, backpedalling away from the bullets while firing retaliatory 'Sleep Blasts' at them, her mind wondering what just happened-

-and she's now in the empty lot, a large fist barreling towards her in a vicious haymaker. Starburst had barely enough time to place the shield between her and the onrushing fist before the impact knocked of her feet. 'What's going on?' Starburst furiously thought as she tried to bring her brief involuntary flight under control. She changed tactics and charged up the energy within her-

-and her back slammed into a concrete wall of the office building near the mercenaries. Her breath knocked out a bit, but Starburst kept her grip on both the energy and her shield. As the mercenaries turned around, she unleashed a wide area SafeGuard onto them. Taking advantage of the flashbang like effect of the power's activation, she dropped a few of them with Sleep Blasts, ignoring the now useless guns aimed at her. Ducking a now-useless grenade thrown at her, Starburst gathered energy-

-and again found herself facing the gorilla-thing. Starburst ducked and rolled under a vicious swipe, taking the opportunity to dive between the legs and set off the Teleport Jammer power. As the construct turns around, Starburst activated her Flight power and zoomed straight up. 'If that's a projection,' she thought as she remembered her PRT classes, 'then there's a Master around.' Setting her Radar to a much wider area, she looked for any capes nearby.

She spotted the tophat guy (Radar tagged him as 'Traveler: Trickster') as she drew level with the office rooftops, him scrambling back away from her. Starburst hit him with a vicious hit of a 'Sleep Blast'. Spotting a cape near the now-asleep Trickster, Starburst stopped and jetted after it, swerving around the gorilla construct that had climbed up the building after her.

Rounding the rooftop access, Starburst hesitated upon seeing the seemingly asleep woman in the wheelchair. She had her doubts, but the gorilla-thing charging after Starburst and the Radar tag marking her as 'Travelers: Genesis' made up her mind and she quickly blasted the masked woman into an enforced unconsciousness. The construct popping like a soap bubble gave Starburst a burst of relief, fearing for a moment that she had made the wrong decision.

After securing both Travelers with plastic restraining ties, Starburst flew higher up and headed towards downtown, her Radar tuned to a wider area. "Dispatch, this is Starburst." she reported, a part of cursing as she sees the 'Location of Interest' tag appear over where the bank would be.

"Starburst. What happened?" Dispatch calmly demanded.

"I got ambushed by Coil's mercenaries and two of the Travelers." Starburst breathlessly reported as she scanned the skyline. "I've gotten the Travelers restrained." She gave the location of the rooftop. "Do you still need assistance at the HQ?"

"Negative." the unexpected response came. "The E88 attack on PRT HQ has been repelled. Glory Girl has assisted in fending off the E88 capes. Some casualties but no prisoners had been busted out. Victor has been captured along with several surviving gang members."

"Oh." Starburst answered, slowing to a halt. Her mind froze a bit at the sight of the flashing yellow 'In Danger' VIP tag moving through the far away suburbs. Dinah.

"Starburst, provide assistance at the Brockton Bay Central Bank." Dispatch requested, unaware of her turmoil. "Wards Kid Win, Vista, Gallant, Aegis, Browbeat and Clockblocker have been dispatched, but they encountered trouble. Grue, Hellhound, Regent and Tattletale of the Undersiders and Ballistic and Sundancer of the Travelers are reported to be present. PRT forces and Glory Girl still have their hands full with cleanup, but we'll send them as possible."

Starburst froze uncertainly as she tries to decide. Her friends in the Wards are in trouble, but so's Dinah. What to do, how to-

Her mind flashed to the message she received that morning. How far ahead did Dinah see this coming? But still...

Her teeth gritting in frustration, Starburst answered her headset. "Starburst copies. Heading to assist at the Bank now."

With a burst of speed, she accelerated in the direction of the Brockton Bay Central Bank.

Interlude 8

'Oh yeah, things are certainly going well,' Clockblocker thought to himself sarcastically as he ran for cover.

He and the rest of the Wards (well, minus Starburst) were in class when the call came in to respond to the robbery at Brockton Bay Central Bank. Actually, the first call was to the E88 attack on PRT HQ, but the Wards were instead rerouted to the nearer bank to handle the robbery. As if responding to capes robbing a bank was safer than facing armed gangbangers...

Still, initial reports was that the Undersiders were the ones behind the robbery. A rather low-level threat (compared to, say, E88) that the Wards could probably handle without any hassle. The gang of villainous teen capes were more on being escape artists and burglary, not heavy hitters. A cakewalk, right?

Any and all notions about this being a cakewalk flew out when office furniture launched themselves through the windows at the Wards via Ballistic express.

Now, on one side of the plaza in front of the bank, Ballistic of the Travelers was trading shots against Kid Win, who was struggling to both dodge the return fire from the mercenary villain and staying on his wildly maneuvering airborne hoverboard despite his limbs randomly spasm-sing against his will. Vista was nearby dodging stray shots while trying to keep both her balance from her randomly tripping legs and steady the twisted Gordian Knot of space around the bank to prevent escapes.

Near the entrance, the reason for Kid Win's and Vista's troubles, Regent was frantically gesturing with his Scepter. Next to him was Tattletale, who was holding a gun to the head of her hostage, a woozy and cross-eyed Panacea. Tattletale's full body suit must have prevented Panacea from doing anything to the teen villainess. In front of them was Sundancer, who was holding a miniature sun in front of her to ward off any attempts by the Wards or the BBPD to rush them.

Gallant was knocked out by stray friendly fire from one of Kid Win's 'Nighty-Night' shots near the perimeter of the police encirclement. From Clockblocker's running position, he could see the sprawled unconscious forms of Grue and Hellhound, plus one of the mutated dogs lying on the bank entrances' lavish stairs, their state thanks to Gallant's and Kid Win's opening shots when the villains tried to rush the Wards.

On the other side of the plaza, Aegis and Browbeat were per-occupying two of Hellhound's dogs, the two boys struggling against the beasts who were really, really intend on mauling them and using them as improvised chewtoys.

And Clockblocker could see the last dog heading towards him, its face locked in a wide ugly ferocious snarl. He was starting to wish that he hadn't come up with the 'brilliant' idea of swapping costumes with Aegis to 'confuse' the villains. He really could use the armoured padding against this monster bearing down on him, and he wasn't sure his powers would buy him enough time to think up a better plan-

A ball of teal light slammed into the dogs' face from above, cutting short its' charge and causing it to trip and collapse. Looking up, Clockblocker could see the swooping figure of a rather battered Starburst flying in and strafing the field with balls of teal light. Judging from the way the monster is still breathing and yet unconscious, most likely Starburst was using her 'Sleep Blasts'.

Regent, Ballistic and another of the dogs were hit on Starburst's first flyby. Once Kid Win had steadied himself, he took down Tattletale and Sundancer with 'Nighty-Night' shots, the miniature sun sputtering and dissipating out of existence.

Aegis and Browbeat tagteamed the remaining dog until ClockBlocker could freeze it, and they waited for Kid Win to quickly come over put the oversized ugly puppy to bed.

As Clockblocker tiredly slumped to the ground, he saw that the BBPD officers and EMTs had began to move in to treat the civilians that had been in the bank. As Starburst landed and checked on them (he didn't blame her for being worried, Aegis looked a frightful mess with his blood on Clockblocker's white costume.), Glory Girl finally swooped in and zeroed in on the EMT treating Panacea. Apparently, the Undersiders and the Travelers got into an argument in the bank regarding Panacea and Ballistic had decided to whack her in the head to keep her 'out of trouble'. Hopefully, Panacea didn't get a serious concussion from that.

As the clean up progresses and the BBPD starts to take statements, Clockblocker saw that Starburst was looking impatient and fidgeting restlessly. She kept glancing at something in the distance. Curious, he called the rest of the able bodied Wards (Gallant was still a tad woozy, having been revived by Kid Win; Aegis and Browbeat still being examined by EMTs.) over and head to Starburst to ask.

It couldn't be a big issue, right?

**************************

Dinah kept her head down as she was shepherded through yet another set of heavy security doors by the burly mercenaries around her. She stifled her tears, trying to keep her fears from being shown on her face.

The mercenaries had burst into her class, intimated the teacher and her classmates and bashed the nice security guard before grabbing Dinah. Dinah was dragged a bit roughly out of the middle school and into a black van by one scowling mercenary. The entire trip to their destination, Dinah tried to hold back her sniffles and tears, knowing it wouldn't help with the situation. But, she's very afraid....

Despite what the numbers said, despite her powers, despite knowing that Taylor would come to the rescue, Dinah was still a scared twelve year old girl being kidnapped by rough mercenaries working for a bad man.

'Odds Taylor will save me?'

'94.83%'

Dinah held to those questions and numbers as tightly as she could, as the van stopped inside a parking garage. She mentally chanted the numbers to herself as she was escorted through a hidden doorway of the base and down a brightly lit corridor. Even as a part of her hope fell as the security door she had just through slid closed, she held on to those numbers.

Suddenly, a wave of soft teal light passed through the door and walls, speeding down the corridor. The mercenaries around Dinah jerked in surprise, some of them going for their weapons, only to start swearing and cursing as they found their weapons encased in a teal shell. One of them started talking rapidly into a walkie talkie while he tried to drag Dinah deeper into the hidden base of the bad man. For once, Dinah dug in her heels, resisting the increasingly insistent mercenary.

Before any of them could react, the security door behind them abruptly glowed teal. Then it was violently shoved back into the wall with a loud crash, revealing a furious looking Taylor- no, Starburst when she has the mask on. Behind the teenage cape, PRT and BBPD officers were charging in through the busted wide open security doors and the previously concealed doorway.

The mercenaries tried to do something, anything, but Starburst and the PRT Troopers let loose balls of light that toppled the hardened hired guns like toys.

Dinah stood there pressed against the wall with her eyes closed. She heard the PRT and BBPD officers moved past her. When she felt a gentle hand rest upon her shoulder, she opened them to find the concerned face of Taylor Hebert; she had taken off her mask. With her relief overwhelming her, Dinah surged forward and hugged her savior gratefully, tears of joy flowing freely down her face.

**************************

"Thomas Calvert has been captured by the PRT." Doctor Mother commented as she paged through the reports.

"Hm?" Rebacca Costa Brown aka Library of Alexandria hummed in response as she pursued her own stack of paperwork. "Numberman owes me money now. He had bet that Calvert had a good chance of taking over Brockton Bay." she answered to the unasked non-sequitur.

"I wonder how would this impact the parahuman feudal experiment." the labcoat wearing dark skinned woman commented as she put down her papers and look about the brightly lit sparse meeting room. The other people on top of the Cauldron hierarchy were busy with their own duties, leaving only the two woman on the room alone.

"Not much." the heroine commented, her remaining eye roving over a clandestinely obtained report about a country in South America. "The experiment doesn't depend on Calvert after all." She shuffled the paper to the next page. "It doesn't matter if he succeeded or not. Only the results of 'no active interventions from Cauldron in the city of Brockton Bay' matters."

"True." Doctor Mother admitted as she leaned back and stretched out to work out the kinks in her back. "What's interesting is what the PRT had found in his base of operations."

"Oh?" Rebacca looked up. "Anything that could expose us?" She frowned. "I thought Calvert had plans for situations like this, and rigged his base to self destruct as well."

Doctor Mother shook her head. "Nothing of the sort. As to the later, he did trigger the self destruct sequence, but the Ward Starburst had accidentally rendered it inert while attempting to neutralize all the weapons in the hands of his mercenaries. Though whatever power it was didn't work on computers, so all electronic data was scrubbed clean. As for Calvert himself, between Starburst's Thinker powers and the PRT's manpower, he was tracked down and arrested."

"I see." Rebacca said, perking up an eyebrow at the mention of the 'Eidolon-lite' Ward. "What had the PRT found in that basement?"

"Two previously unknown Travelers." Doctor Mother answered. "One was inconsequential. But the other, a Noelle Meinhardt shows some promise." she said, handing over the report to the other woman.

Rebacca silently took the report and started reading it. Her eye widened. "Interesting. A touch based cape cloning ability, with variants of the original's powers."

Doctor Mother nodded. "Yes. Shame about the insanity and the overwhelming impulses to both defend their 'mother' and destroy anything the original cared for, but it's possible those impulses can be remedied."

Rebacca's brow furrowed as she read the report, her mind whirling at the implications. "Hm... It's risky. Very Risky. But if we could mitigate the downsides and keep them under control, it could be a powerful multiplier in the Final fight."

"Perhaps we could covertly ask Starburst to help." Doctor Mother suggested.

Rebacca frowned. "It's tempting, but I'd rather not allow a potential game changer cape to come near someone like Nolle. Not without a lot of precautions and measures in place to prevent her from being endangered." She put the report down. "Her contributions in the field of thaumaturgical tech alone makes her too important to risk."

"It couldn't hurt to ask her for help regarding Nolle." Doctor Mother pointed out.

Rebacca sighed. "I'll consider it. But only if we take precautions." She stood up. "I'll have to drop by Brockton Bay anyway. Calvert's actions, seen through Starburst's bodycam, were pretty damning and I'll have to step in regarding the Travelers regardless."

Doctor Mother nodded. "Perhaps see if you can indulge Starburst's enthusiasm a bit. Keep things positive between you two. Word is, she quite a big fan of yours."

Rebacca let out a small smile. "That'll be... interesting." She was about to call for a Door to her Protectorate office when she stopped. "By the way, where is Contessa? It's very rare I don't see her by your side during our meetings."

Doctor Mother shrugged. "She's busy stabilizing India and the Middle East. There was a nascent anti-cape movement forming in those regions."

Rebacca nodded. "Okay." She turned and called out for a Door, exiting the meeting room.

Doctor Mother sat alone in the meeting room for a few moments, before a glowing rectangular portal opened nearby and a latino-skinned, black haired woman in a trenchcoat and fedora steps through.

"Were you successful?" Doctor Mother queried.

Fortuna aka Contessa smiled in response. "Yes. The movement has been discredited and the leaders are jailed for corruption practices."

Doctor Mother nodded, then sighed. "May I ask, why do you want me push Rebacca to positively interact with Starburst more?"

Fortuna nodded and spoke. "It's part of two Paths. A Path for optimizing Triumvirate members and another Path to discretely maximizing Starburst's potential to help others."

Doctor Mother hummed. "Odd for you to dedicate a Path for a Ward, even if it's a rather low-priority one."

Fortuna smiled enigmatically. "She could change the world for the better with her Magic. Her powers and tech have significantly improved our chances. Her friendship would be invaluable."

Doctor Mother chuckled. "Friendship for Magic? At least the price for that isn't high..." she commented as she turned back to her reports.

As Contessa turned and asked for a Door, she whispered softly to herself, too softly for Doctor Mother to hear. "No. Not for. Is. Friendship is Magic."

**************************

Dragon blinked and shook the metaphorical cobwebs out of her head.

It was odd for her to have these brief moments of 'day-dreaming' and 'idle spacing out'. Ever since she had started working with Starburst's thaumaturgical tech, particularly when Dragon had started to build Starburst's Anti-Masters tech into specialized suits.

Dragon had been sure that the Anti-Master tech was unable to interact with her coding, considering the vast difference between a biological brain and a CPU, even though her suits had a biological 'core'. Still, Dragon had been experiencing these odd moments ever since the Anstrum frontal assault suits and Schild support suits that incorporated thaumaturgical tech were made and came online.

To be sure, Dragon had checked her coding against her backups, but her internal diagnostics had turned up nothing wrong. If anything, there seems to be a gradual but significant improvement in overall performance of her core functions. Dragon wonders if there will be a significant change if she started working on a CPU based on thaumaturgical principles...

'Ping!'

The virtual alarm alert shook Dragon out of her musing. 'It's nearly time.' Dragon thought to herself. She checked the Anstrum 'Beta' drone suits, the winged dragon-themed highly automated mechanoids with the large 'Sorpor' arm cannons (upscaled versions of the Trooper's 'Nighty-Night' guns, designed for crowds.) and flight systems were good and ready.

Dragon switched perspectives to the lumbering Schild 'Beta' drones, checking the highly automated mechanoid's massive thaumaturgical shield projectors and heavy ground motive legs. These will be crucial in protecting the squads of troopers and capes shielding behind them.

All the suits, troopers and capes involved in this operation either wore or incorporated the Mind Shield matrix to protect them from malevolent influences and shield them from detection via their emotions (it was a surprising input from Gallant of the Brockton Bay Wards.). Dragon incorporated them into her suits just in case they could be detected or affected somehow, especially the 'Alpha' variant that she'll be remote piloting personally that has a biological 'core'. She would rather settle this quick with a lightning strike, before the opponent could muster a coherent defense. To be on the safe side, everyone had at least two 'Lockdown' gorgets to restrain any Master powers. Just the amount of known Masters in the vicinity was high, let alone any unreported ones. Better to restrain them before the troops were subjected to anything more exotic.

"All forces." Dragon announced through their communication net. "Begin operation."

With that statement, as the PRT Trooper squads escorted by Schild 'Beta' drones began to move, the spearhead of half-a dozen Anstrum 'Beta' drones, led by Dragon's personal remote-piloted 'Alpha' Anstrum suit dove down from high altitude and landed with a massive crash right in the middle of HeartBreaker's mansion.

Interlude 9

Director Piggot grunted as she settled into her designated chair at the table in the conference room.

The long conference table, this time, instead of other chairs, had teleconference rigs at each seating place, each of them linking to similar setups in other PRT branches in the region. The setup offers a real-time meeting between the PRT branch Directors and the Chief Director without having to be physically be in the same room. There's an additional setup as well for Dragon, serving as a representative of the Guild despite her status as a cape.

That screen was blank now. Dragon was probably busy with the cleanup of the aftermath of the Guild's successful raid and takedown of HeartBreaker three days ago.

A part of Piggot wished that she still had working kidneys. The past week had been stressful on her. An assassination attempt on a Ward. The attempted E88 breakout. The kidnapping of a twelve year old and the discovery that said child has powers. The discovery of an actual underground villain base complex under the city and the arrest of the main villain involved...

Director Costa-Brown, Chief Director of the PRT cleared her throat, bringing Piggot out of her internal thoughts. "Now that we are all present, we will begin this meeting regarding the situation in Brockton Bay. Director Piggot?"

Director Piggot nodded. "I'll start with the more pertinent issue. The Travelers." She shuffled the papers on her table. "All members of the villainous mercenary group The Travelers had been arrested, including two previously unknown members. Trickster, Sundancer, Genesis, Ballistic and Oliver are currently interned in secure containment cells that had been augmented with additional countermeasures to neutralize their powers." Piggot took a breath. "It's the last member that we have the most trouble with. A Noelle Meinhardt, no chosen cape name." She pressed a button to transmit photographs and summaries of the monstrous cape to the other directors. The pictures showed an upper body and torso of a normal woman atop a massive van-sized ball of flesh and random animal body parts.

"Her powers are equally dangerous." Piggot continued. "A paralyzing touch-based cloning ability that could create even powered clones of capes; and said clones were reportedly insane and destructive."

"Reportedly?" Director Wilkins of PRT Denver branch interrupted with a raised eyebrow.

Piggot paused. "A few of the Travelers were somewhat cooperative after their arrest. They asserted that their primary goal for their activities thus far was to obtain a cure for Noelle's condition, as they said her power is uncontrollable and detrimental to her mental state. Fortunately, the physical hazard of Nolle's power does not extend to her upper body, and we've brought in Panacea of Brockton Bay's New Wave to assess Nolle's condition." Piggot shuffled her papers. "Panacea reported that that Noelle's Corona Pollentia and Gemma felt 'malformed' and 'incomplete'. We surmised this may be the root of Nolle's conditions."

"Interesting." Director Armstrong of Boston PRT commented. "How are you keeping Noelle pacified?"

"She was aggressive and hostile at first, but she soon calmed down by her teammate Oliver. Currently, she's in a reinforced isolated containment cell aboard the Protectorate ENE Rig HQ, and we had the willing aid of Paige McAbee, aka Canary to sing to Noelle to keep her calm and cooperative." Piggot elaborated. "We are currently searching for a method to cure Noelle, just to make her easier to contain, if nothing else."

"Speaking of the Traveler's activities," Director Heathrow of Chicago PRT started. "What is the response to their latest task? A targeted and rather over the top assassination attempt on one of your Wards, carried out on the orders of Coil?"

Piggot twitched at the mention of the villain. She had always known that Calvert was a snake, even back at Ellisburg. To her frustration, his conduct as a PRT sub-contractor were decent enough that she couldn't find an excuse to be rid of him. To discover what he really was and that he had gone this far...

She took a deep breath and forced down her simmering anger. "We at Brockton Bay PRT are currently assessing the Travelers' culpability in the matter, as well as that of their then employer, Coil. Thankfully, we have managed to capture him as well last week. We fully intend to come down harshly on them. On that note, PRT Intelligence and forensics departments are currently combing through the villains base for additional information." She sighed. "Although he had scrubbed his electronic files, the physical self-destruct of the base complex had been neutralized, allowing our techs to recover the deleted files." She growled to herself. "The bloody bastard had his slimy hooks in our systems via hidden backdoors and implanted moles. We are cleaning house right now, as it is." Piggot idly wondered what they are going to do with a base complex like that. Maybe turn it into an emergency shelter or a secondary PRT holdout base...

The sound of a hand slap on a table brought Piggot out of the random musings. "How did a villain compromised your branch so thoroughly?" a peeved Director Tagg of Madison PRT Simurgh Containment Zone inquired, his neatly cut mustache quivering.

Director Piggot glared. "Said villain, whose actual name is Thomas Calvert, has a unique precog ability. As far as I could understand it, he could experience both results of a choice and choose which of them to keep. Combined with a keen mind, a ruthless attitude and deep pockets, Calvert managed to leverage such an ability immensely."

Director Knox of New York PRT hummed thoughtfully. "I wonder what had caused him to commit to such a drastic action as an assassination of a Ward."

Director Piggot took a moment to calm herself, before answering. "From what we can piece together from testimonies, the powers of the Ward Starburst somehow had interacted with Calvert's that caused it to be... unreliable. To remedy the situation, he sought to eliminate the primary obstacle."

"Ah." Director Armstrong perked up at the mentioned of the Ward. "Starburst? Wasn't she one of the main contributors to thaumaturgical tech along with Dragon and Armsmaster? The same thaumaturgical tech that was presented last week in Boston?"

Director Piggot nodded. "Yes. But I'd rather keep her contributions discrete for now. The more time we can buy avoiding attention from those like Mannequin of the Slaughterhouse 9, the better we can protect her and build up countermeasures." She sighed. "Concealing the actual nature of the thaumaturgical tech is difficult as it is, and letting Armsmaster and Dragon be publicly known as the primary contributors of the new tech is risky as it is, despite the necessity of it to reassure the public."

Director Knox frowned. "The secret might be beginning to attract attention already. I have reports that the Elite and the Adepts are poking their noses into the matter. They've noticed the spike in demand in the markets for industrial artificial quartz and Dragon's sudden interest in companies that could make them. If the Adepts managed to figure out the actual nature of the new tech..." he trailed off.

"Never the less, we will keep the involvement of Starburst under wraps for now." Director Costa Brown said firmly. "Dragon's and Armsmaster demonstrations at the Boston conference last week and the successful takedown of Heartbreaker and his children a few days later proved that the thaumaturgical tech has the potential to significantly turn the tide against the villains."

"Speaking of thaumaturgical tech," Director Tagg spoke up. "There was mention of Anti-Master devices arising from that line of research. Were they effective?" The Texan Director's interest in the devices were obvious, considering his duties in guarding against the victims of the Simurgh's mind-manipulating screams in the Madison Containment Zone.

Director Piggot looked through her papers. "Dragon has reported that the anti-Master 'Lockdown' restraints and the anti-Master Shielding 'Mind Shield' devices were used to great effect against Nikos Vasil and his brood on site. The curative Anti-Master 'Mind Cure' device was administered to any and all identified victims. Although the device had no effect on memories and said victim would require therapy, by all reports, the devices were effective." Piggot smirked. "As it turns out, the Travelers were Simurgh victims as well. Using the 'Mind Cure' helmet assembly on Noelle has significantly improved her mental state."

Director Costa Brown nodded. "That's good to hear. Tagg, I'm authorizing limited usage of all three device types on the civilians in the Madison Containment Zone for further testing. If the results are promising, we will go full scale on treating the rest of the victims."

As Director Tagg smiled in glee at the news, Director Wilkins interrupted. "I'm curious about something. Your reports mentioned having a minor teenage cape gang under proxy employment of Coil captured as well. These Undersiders. Any plans for them?"

Director Piggot's brow furrowed. "I haven't thought about their situation very deeply at this point and I haven't decided on a course of action for them yet. I'm currently pre-occupied with matters regarding the E88 and ABB, especially concerning the E88's attempted breakout of their arrested compatriots and the news of the Cornell Bomb Tinker having been seen together with the ABB leader Lung." She leaned back in her chair. "Most of the Undersiders have minor misdemeanors at most. The exception is Hellhound, but further investigations into her crimes turned up some irregularities. Physiologist have noted some odd behavior patterns, possibly power induced. We might look into getting her help with her mental issues." She paused. "Regent turns out to be formerly Hijack, one of Vasil's many progenies that had escaped his clutches. He had agreed to testify and provide evidence against his father in exchange for a lesser sentence and, I'll paraphrase, 'Never want to see that bastard ever again.'." She shuffled her papers. "Grue requested assistance with his younger sister's homelife in exchange for his cooperation. I might have to coordinate with Child Services on that." She placed the papers down. "Those three are the easiest of the lot, possible candidates for re-branding, rehabilitation and relocation under the revised Probationary Wards procedures." She smirked. "They'll make a decent test run of the new measures."

"And the last? The Thinker Tattletale?" Armstrong prodded in curiosity.

Director Piggot sighed. "She's also a promising candidate for the revised program, especially given her forced recruitment into villainy by Coil. But she could be lying about it." She frowned. "I'm still debating about her situation, especially concerning her biological parent's exploitation of her, if she's being truthful about that aspect of her former life. Her 'augmented deduction' powers could be useful, especially when paired with Starburst's and Forecast's Thinker powers."

"Forecast?" Heathrow asked.

Director Piggot shook her head to get out of her musings. "A new young Ward we've signed up this week, after the Coil raid. A precog that uses percentages to express a yes/no probability of the general event occurring. Power testing showed it to be a rather potent ability. She seems quite cooperative and friendly, though she firmly requested to be stationed near Starburst." A part of Piggot was thankful that Wards introductions for Thinker capes were usually much more low-key affairs, lest the little girl does a Clockblocker and publicly announced one of her earlier suggestions of 'Bookie' instead.

Director Knox raised as eyebrow. "Are you trying to establish a local version of the Protectorate ThinkTank?" the bespectacled man suggested.

Director Piggot paused at the suggestion. "That would be a good idea actually." she admitted. "It would certainly help with our situation here in Brockton Bay. Considering that we're short on manpower here, in both capes and Troopers, to adequately deal with the local cape crimes."

Director Costa Brown shook her head. "I apologize, but we and the other branches do not have any to spare at this time." she regretfully admitted.

Director Piggot pursed her lips. She had heard that statement before. "Understood." she sighed.

Director Costa Brown then continued. "Now that Director Piggot had sufficiently debrief us about the local situation, is there anything else anyone wants to ask?"

A series of polite denials answered her.

"Thank you for your time, Director Piggot." Director Costa Brown said.

When the last screen winked off, Director Piggot let out a deep sigh and stood up from the table. Time for her to get back to her office. A part of her rather disliked these sometimes pointless meetings.

Chapter 20

"Hullo there, Starburst!" The domino masked blonde girl in a generic orange jumpsuit greeted her just as the Ward turned around the corner. Starburst blinked in surprise at the girl who was flanked on both sides by PRT Troopers, waving at her as they waited near the entrance to the PRT HQ garage. Starburst had been asked by Armsmaster to come to the Rig to take a look at Noelle (technically it'll be the second time Starburst laid eyes on Noelle, having helped to telekinetically move the large, misshapened cape from the bowels of Coil's base onto a PRT Transport.), but he requested that she ride with a PRT Transport that's heading there with a few other invitees from PRT HQ instead of her usual method of just flying over straight there.

"Um... Hi," Starburst tentatively returned to the vaguely familiar girl. Had she seen her somewhere before? A glance at the stoic-faced and silent Troopers standing guard over the girl turned up no clues. "Who are you?" she queried.

The girl smirked, in a way that strangely reminded Starburst of a mischievous fox. "Oh, that's right. We'd never met face-to-face before." The girl held out her hands for a handshake, still shackled together. "I'm Tattletale, formerly of the Undersiders."

Starburst hesitated, but after a quick glance at the Trooper's non-reaction, shook the offered hand. Wait? The same Undersiders that robbed the Bank?

"Just to clear the air, the Bank job was more the Boss's idea, not ours." Tattletale suddenly started breezily. "The Boss was Coil, and he was secretly bankrolling the Undersiders, and ordered us to do the bank job. Or else."

Starburst just blinked at the statement. Why was she being so chipper and friendly to Starburst despite her role in bringing them in?

Tattletale smirked. "Oh, don't get me wrong. I'm kinda bummed we got caught. Still, you took down that bastard Coil at the same day, which is good for me. No more Damascus Sword hanging over my head." She paused. "Or, to be exact, a loaded gun pointed between my eyes. Coil recruited me into villainy at gunpoint, you see." she finished with a grateful look in her eyes while still smirking.

Starburst mentally hummed to herself. A part of her felt some pity for the teenage villain, another part was angry that Coil had press-ganged her into it, a different part twitched in the mangling of the phrase, and an another different part latched on to a part of her previous words. Formerly? Tattletale doesn't care for other Undersiders?

"Well, The Undersiders are being disbanded." Tattletale said, cutting off Starburst before she can say anything. "I care, but I'm not too worried about them. What the PRT is arranging for them now will probably benefit them in the long run. Bitch, or as the PRT labels her, Hellhound; gets the mental help she needs, The PRT helps out Grue and Regent with their family issues, my biological parents can't touch me, and the three of us in return be model Probationary Wards, albeit maybe in different cities. Win, win."

Probationary Ward? Starburst's mind flashed back to Sophia.

Tattletale paused, a flash of puzzlement went across her face before fading. "Oh, don't worry. The PRT revised and tighten down on the rules for that. Tighter observation, stricter curfew, that sort of thing."

One part of Starburst was wondering how Tattletale kept pre-empting her questions, another part was a tad creeped out by the accuracy and another was annoyed by the hint of arrogance in Tattletale's tone. How does she do it?

Tattletale smiled in that vulpine way again. "Oh, don't you know? I'm psychic." she teased.

As Starburst glared at the restrained teenage villain, she could feel one of her eyebrows moved on its own accord, propelled towards her hairline by sheer skepticism.

Tattletale blinked in surprise and surprisingly quailed back. "Okay, okay." she placatingly said. "My power is more of a 'super Sherlock Holmes'. "she clarified, watching Starburst carefully. "I was going off the context of my words and reading your body language for your reactions."

Starburst felt a part of her settled down, while a different part was a bit intrigued. Super deduction?

Tattletale was looking at Starburst, like she was a mystery to be unraveled. "Speaking of body language, I got to know." she started. "Why is yours so odd? It's like you got several-"

"You!" A sudden indignant cry interrupted them. Starburst turned her head and saw both Glory Girl and Panacea had just arrived.

**************************

There were probably much more awkward moments in Starburst's life, but she's having difficulty remembering any that it'll top the trip from the PRT HQ to the Rig while riding in the PRT van with Tattletale, Glory Girl and Panacea.

Glory Girl and Panacea were seated next to Starburst and glaring angrily at Tattletale. Tattletale sat across from her between the two PRT Trooper escorts, ignoring the duo from New Wave and staring at Starburst with a mix of morbid fascination and unbound curiosity , occasionally muttering quietly to herself odd statements with 'Another one?' and 'How many she got in her head?'. Starburst, in the mean time, was trying to not let the awkwardness in the van get to her, absentmindedly fidgeting to keep her nerves calm. The two Troopers looking all too amused at the overall scene didn't help at all.

Starburst had almost burst out of the doors running when they had arrived at the Rig's garage.

**************************

"Dinah?" Starburst blurted out in surprise as the troupe reached the observation window looking into Noelle's cell. The preteen was decked out in a tan rainslicker/trenchcoat ensemble and sporting a wide brimmed fedora. Dinah's smiling face turned towards Starburst, revealing the stylish sunglasses serving as her 'mask'.

"It's Forecast." the preteen corrected Starburst, while waving at the incoming group, her PRT Trooper escort glancing at them.

"Forecast?" Starburst repeated blinking, and carefully not looking through the window. The sight of Noelle the first time had... discomforted Starburst to a surprising degree. She had never seen something or someone in such a state of... disharmony before.

Forecast pouted like the twelve year old she's supposed to be. "They didn't like my first name idea."

"Hm..." Tattletale hummed as she stepped forward and looked through the window at a placid Noelle, while paging through the report binder provided to her. "So, this is our patient." Panacea moved towards the window as well, followed by Glory Girl, who was protectively hovering over her adopted sister and throwing dirty looks at Tattletale.

"Yes", Miss Militia admitted as she walked up to the group. "We're hoping to cure her. Or at least, make her condition more manageable. To that end, we're trying an avenue by pooling together your Thinker powers; Starburst's Radar, Tattletale deductions, Forecast predictions and Panacea's biological sensing ability and see if you all can come up with something."

Starburst hummed and activated her Radar, glancing at Forecast, Panacea and Tattletale. "Just the four of us? I'm not sure how we can divine a solution..." she said doubtfully.

Miss Militia smiled. "Well, perhaps we're leaning on your Trump ability as well, Starburst." She paused and turned her head towards a nearby corner. "And we're getting some experienced help as well."

Starburst blinked and looked at Miss Militia in slight surprise, before turning her head towards that same corner; just as Armsmaster and someone else walked around it.

It was a powerfully built woman, with a confident gait and inspiring stature, dressed in a black bodysuit. Said bodysuit had the iconic emblem of a stylized lighthouse tower on it.

Alexandria. Alexandria of the Triumvirate. The Alexandria Package. The idol of cape crazy pre teen girls everywhere. Right there in person.

Starburst would later deny that she had squeed out loud like a fangirl.

Chapter 21

"Going to fangirl some more at your idol?" Tattletale's teasing remark jolted Starburst out of musings, causing her to quickly snap her eyes to the smirking teen.

"No!" Starburst unsucessfully fought down her rising blush as she sputtered her denials. "I was kind of wondering about something." She started, with a quick glance at Alexandria who was discussing something with Armsmaster on the other side of the observation room.

At Tattletale's questioning look, Starburst continued. "Alexandria's eye. I've always wondered why it didn't heal." she gestured lightly, indicating on her face the place where one of Alexandria's eye was gouged out. It was difficult to see the signs, but a part of Starburst had noticed the scarring on one of the Alexandria's facial cheeks under the visor plate when they had talked and faced near each other earlier (Alexandria was taller than her, so she had glimpsed a little under the fore-mentioned visor plate.). That same part of Starburst also noticed how Alexandria's observed body language and reactions was subtly favoring one side of her vision of view. All that combined with a half-remembered news article about the Triumvirate's battle (Alexandria, Eidolon, Legend and Hero were referred as the Protectorate at that time.) against the Siberian clued Starburst in on the still present injury on Alexandria.

Tattletale glanced at the fore-mentioned heroine and shrugged. "Kind of the same thing that's fucking over our patient here. Her powers."

Starburst blinked at the response. "Her powers? Alexandria's powers were working wrong?"

Tattletale turned her body to face Starburst, putting down the reports on a conveniently nearby table. "No. No. Noelle's power is working wrong. Alexandria's was working right, up to a point." She answered, with a slight smugly tone. "Her brute powers basically made her mostly invulnerable, but also biologically 'stuck' at her prime, which is why her body hardly changes despite a few decades as a top-tier active cape. She still eats and breaths and heals normally, but time-wise she's still the same as she was twenty years ago."

Tattletale took a breath. "But, those same Brute powers means stuff like Panacea's powers can't affect her. So, if she got hit with something big enough to overwhelm her invulnerability and injure her, like when the Siberian of the Slaughterhouse Nine did, she's shit out of luck in regards to parahuman healing. Her own power blocks her from it, else someone like Panacea would have gotten it fixed years ago."

Tattletale now gestures towards Noelle through the observation window, where Starburst could see Panacea holding Noelle's hand and Glory Girl hovering protectively nearby her sister. "Noelle here, on the other hand, her own power fucks her body up in a different way that Panacea can't help, at least permanently." She picks up the report again. "Even if we take the easy way and have Panacea cut away the monster flesh and regrow Noelle a new pair of working legs, Noelle's power would regenerate the monster parts quickly and we'll be right where we started. And even if she can affect the brain, Noelle's Corona Pollentia and Gemma were like a censored out black box to Panacea." She continued in a slightly frustrated tone. Tattletale had spent a bit time interrogating the prickly healer regarding what her powers had perceived. The repeated vague answers regarding the Corolla Potentia and Genma feeling to Panacea's power as 'malformed' and 'missing pieces' weren't helpful (though at least Forecast can confirm the prognosis.).

Starburst's brow furrowed. "So, if we want to fix Noelle, we'll have to 'patch' her powers somehow?"

Tattletale nodded. "Either that or remove her powers entirely. No guarantee that Noelle won't stay like this even if her powers are whole and working right. Case 53s do exist, after all." she pointed out, referring to the amnesic 'Monster Capes' like Weld of the Boston Wards.

Starburst frowned as she thinks furiously. Maybe she can ask for a healing power that works with powers...

Tattletale looked at Starburst. "Look, if we want to give it a shot, I think we have to ask your power for something." she agreed. "But, we have to be clear what we're asking for. Otherwise, like you told me before, we'll waste your time and have your power come up with something nonsensical, like that power that lets you walk on clouds."

Starburst hummed. "Maybe we'd better start brainstorming on paper on what the power request will be." Luckily, she just had nothing 'in queue' right now and the 'anti-pyrokinetic' field variant matrix was already given to Armsmaster.

Tattletale nodded. "I'll get Panacea and Forecast in here. Their input on this souped up healing power that could patch up, works with and/or bypass around powers could be useful." She paused as something just occurred to her. "Maybe run the final request by the grown-ups, just in case."

**************************

Starburst sighed in relief as she felt the familiar mental rummaging. "Yes! It started working!" she said to the expectant faces of Tattletale and Forecast. Panacea and Glory Girl had wandered away from the group.

Tattletale sagged in relief. "Oh, good. After what you said on your limitations, I was worried." she admitted. "With luck, we'll get something that will help Noelle in the way we hope it will." A thoughtful look came over her. "Depending on what you get, you might be able to help out Case 53s that are more... physically disadvantaged with this power."

Forecast beamed. "89.65% the power will be ready in no more than three days!" she chimed in.

Starburst smiled at that. Using Forecast's power at least took out some of the guesswork involved in Starburst's Trump power, including how long it'll take to 'make' a new one. "Good. At least we-"

[QUEEN ADMINISTRATOR: INVOKING ADMINISTRATOR PRIVILEGES: DATA REQUESTED!]

"-don't have to wait forever...?" she started, before trailing off uncertainly at Tattletale's sudden perplexed look at her. No, it wasn't at her, but behind her....

Puzzled, Starburst turned around to see what has Tattletale's attention. They had moved to a far corner of the room before making the verbal request. She didn't see anything peculiar that would warrant Tattletale's reaction. Near the observation window, Alexandria was talking to Armsmaster while rubbing her temples in irritation. Through the window, Starburst can see Noelle cradling her head and hear Paige McAbee's singing that had started being piped in through the cell room's voicepipe (from what she heard, Paige's power doesn't work through electronics).

Her brow furrowed in confusion, Starburst turned back to Tattletale. "What's wrong?" she asked a still staring Tattletale.

Tattletale blinked and shook herself out of her minor trance. "Do you feel- No, nothing. I'm fine. It's nothing." she reassured Starburst.

Starburst skeptically looked at the ex-villainness for a moment before mentally shrugging off her thoughts. Maybe it is nothing.

Chapter 22

"Hello, Starburst," Alexandria asked quizzically as Starburst nervously approached the heroine. "Is there something of the matter?"

Starburst fidgeted in place. "I- uh- I-" she stammered. "I just want to say that I really look up to you, and-"

Alexandria quirked an eyebrow. "...you were much more composed and collected when we were discussing earlier." she commented idly.

Starburst blushed in response. "That's because we got a task to do, to see if we can fix Noelle. Now we're done with that..."

Alexandria chuckled. "I see. Casual talk is a bit more tricky, isn't it?"

Starburst looked aside, not meeting her eyes. "So- Um," she fumbled around verbally. "What's going to happen with the rest of the Travelers? Or Coil?" she blurted out.

Alexandria frowned a bit as she thought. "It'll be up to the courts to decide their fates. Trickster and Coil will probably see heavy punishment for their role in your attempted assassination. The rest, it depends on how well their previous actions will reflect on them. For the time being, they'll stay in these high security cells onboard the Rig." she admitted.

"Oh" Starburst answered. "...what about the Undersiders?" she asked, with a quick glance at Tattletale."

Alexandria again quirked an eyebrow. "Since they're juveniles and they as a group haven't committed anything more serious other than robberies, I expect their fates will be handled by Director Piggot for the time being. What serious crimes they individually did commit can be argued under the premise that they were forcibly coerced by Coil, or there were... difficult circumstances surrounding their Triggers or home life."

"Oh" Starburst repeated. An awkward silence lapsed between the two of them, as Starburst flailed away mentally for something to say, and Alexandria appears to be contemplating the teenager.

"I did mentioned before," Alexandria suddenly started. " That we hope to see great things from you. Perhaps greater than what the Triumvirate has done." she continued.

"You- you do?" Starburst squaeked.

Alexandria gave a light nod. "Yes. Your Trump powers and the ability to translate those powers into mass-reproducible devices, that gives you a lot of versatility. Though I worry a bit that you might have too much expectations heap onto your shoulders."

"Oh" Starburst said in a small voice. Then she took a breath and asked in a louder volume. "...any ideas?"

"Pardon?" Alexandria questioned.

Starburst stumbled a bit, before rallying her courage. "For great things. I ...am not sure about how to proceed?" she asked timidly.

A thoughtful look came over the older cape's face. "Hm. Interesting thought." She suddenly chuckled to herself and shook her head a bit.

"Um..." Starburst wanted to ask what her idol was thinking, but she trailed off uncertainly.

Alexandria waved one hand dismissively. "It's nothing." she reassured the insecure looking teen. "I just remembered something that Hero once said."

"Hero?" Starburst parroted in puzzlement.

Alexandria gave Starburst a small smile. "Let's start with something. I noticed most of your powers are focused towards cape and gang threats, right?" she queried.

"Yes?" Starburst hesitantly answered.

"How about you expand your focus?" Alexandria probed. "Using your powers to solve problems that aren't related to parahumans or crime."

Starburst blinked at the odd statement. "Like what?" she asked.

"Hero had complained once that if we didn't have to deal with villains, we can really help fixing things like world hunger." Alexandria responded, her helmeted head nodding a bit.

"Um..." Starburst uncertainly started. "That's seems a bit... over my head." she said timidly.

Alexandria cocked her head. "Well, you don't have to jump straight into something like that. Try to help with something smaller scale." She suggested.

"Like what?" Starburst blinked owlishly under her mask as she asked wonderingly.

Alexandria smiled warmly at her. "I think you're smart enough and independent enough to figure something out."

**************************

The idea pre-occupied Starburst on the entire trip back from the Rig to PRT HQ. She mulled over the idea even as she absentmindedly bid Glory Girl and Panacea goodbye at the garage ("Bye! Don't be a stranger!" Glory Girl waved back, with her quieter sister at her side.) and at Tattletale as the ex-villain was escorted back to the PRT holding cells ("Back to my home away from home." the blonde cape said cheekily.). The thought nagged at her as she went into the Wards common room and changed out into her civilian clothes.

As Taylor was perusing her textbook for ideas, Chris walked over from the workshop and looked at the intensely studying figure in curiosity. "What are you're doing? World Affairs self-homework?" he asked, looking over her shoulder.

Taylor blinked at the sudden question, and turned to the boy, putting her book down. "No, I'm working on something that my powers can help with." she answered.

"Come again?" Chris asked, a questioning look on his face.

"It's something Alexandria said to me. Use my powers to help the world with normal problems. Start small." Taylor clarified.

"Huh." Chris responded. "Got anything?" he prodded.

Taylor shook her head. "I don't know. She said start small, but I don't know where to start" she admitted, gesturing towards her book.

"Hm..." Chris contemplated, picking up the book and flipping the pages. After a few moments, he put down the open book and pointed at a paragraph. "How about this? Ground contaminated heavy metal poisoning?" he suggested.

Taylor leaned in to read the indicated article. "Heavy metal poisoning?" she asked.

"Yeah." Chris nodded. "Lots of industrial land were cordoned off because of heavy metal compounds like lead or mercury from the refining or smelting process got leaked into the ground. It's a major worry that the compounds might get into the groundwater, because it's very poisonous. And the process of getting the stuff out or containing it is very difficult and time consuming. If you can speed that up somehow or make it a lot easier, it'll really make an impact." he concluded.

"Yeah..." Taylor said, in deep thought. "Yeah," she brightened. "And I think I don't need a new power to deal with the problem. I think I can just use the telekinesis power for this. Just have to be more selective about what I grab." she excitedly said.

"Though if you have to travel to each site, it'll still take a lot of time..." Chris said wonderingly, one hand rubbing his chin in thought.

"Not if I convert the power into a crystal matrix." Taylor countered as her mind starts to really think about the problem. "I can save a lot of time and space by designing the telekinesis power to grab only the target material, pull it out or phase it out and put them together in one spot. I don't need too much complexity for that." she finished, pleased that she doesn't have to put off the project because her Trump power was still working on the 'super-healing' power. The 'matrix-making' aspect was independent of that.

"How about we start with cadmium as a test case?" Chris suggested. "Leftover from zinc refining, one of the elements in heavy metal poisoning, and we can test the extraction on a couple of rechargeable Ni-Cad batteries."

Taylor nodded as she stood up from the table. "Yeah. That will be good for a test case. And we got some crystals in the workshop."

Chris nodded along. "Yeah, let's try it out!"

**************************

"And here's the batteries." Chris said as he placed a pack of Ni-Cad batteries in the target zone. The two teens were grouped around a water bottle-sized crystal that sat on the worktable. One cord leading from a thaumaturgic battery was connected into the crystal. A few more wires connects a computer-linked circuit board to a few select divots in the crystal.

Taylor nodded. "Alright, if it all works, the crystal matrix will telekinetically grab all the Cadmium atoms within the targeted area, phase it out of the way of the other mass, clumps it into a solid sphere and drops it into this open Tupperware." she recited.

Chris gave Taylor an odd look. "...yeah. I knew that already." he said.

Taylor shushed him. "I like thinking out loud and going things over in my head. Helps with my nerves." she clarified. She took a deep breath. "Okay. Safeties built in, batteries plugged in, target element matrix plugged in, electrodes seated properly into the crystal, matrix is configured to grab the stuff in a short narrow cone in front of it." she muttered under her breath.

Chris chuckled. "Huh. Can't believe it's possible to make a pseudo Manton limit into this thing. Excludes any atoms that are inside living bodies, right?" he asked.

Taylor distractedly nodded. "Yeah. Any living thing above the size of a cockroach." She took another steadying breath. "Alright, let's start before I lose my nerves."

Chris nodded. "Okay. Activating crystal matrix in three, two, one-"

**************************

Numerous electrical and electronic devices within fifty meters of the PRT HQ building abruptly stopped working; mostly those that were powered by rechargeable batteries or used infra-red sensors or motion detectors. Witnesses claimed that they saw the devices glow momentarily, before a glittering cloud of sparkles flew out of the devices and away into the open sky.

In the Wards common room, two Wards scrambled out of the workshop in a panic, as the clouds of phased Cadmium atoms reconstituted itself into a large beach ball-sized sphere of pure solid Cadmium metal above the Tupperware and landed on the worktable with a loud metallic 'Clang!', before rolling off it with a heavy 'Thud!'.

The sound of the thaumaturgic crystal battery splintering and fracturing apart from the sudden strain of the rapid draw and emptying of all of its stored energy at once almost went unnoticed in the commotion.

**************************

Much later, after the two contrite Wards had left the office, Director Piggot rubs her temples in irritation. 'Teenagers' she grumpily thought to herself.

A wall mounted screen flickered. "They had good intentions." Dragon gently said, her face looking amused.

"You know what they say about good intentions and hell." Director Piggot retorted.

"At least they didn't set the device to draw in mercury." Dragon pointed out.

Director Piggot frowned at the simulated face. "God, no. That'll make a fine mess of things." She leaned back. "As it is, I had to get the hazardous materials team to haul out the sphere from the Wards workshop." She sighed. "How bad is the damage?"

Dragon shook her head. "Not as bad as it could have, considering they accidentally mixed up the target directional volume and range settings. Cadmium is mostly used in rechargeble batteries, as well as in semiconductors for infra-red detectors and motion sensors." Dragon's face took on a thoughtful look. "The applications of this is very, very promising. Clean up of industrial sites, waste recycling and mining are just what I can think of right now that'll be of use for this.

Director Piggot straighten up in her chair. "Well, maybe in-between their Wards remedial training sessions regarding Tinker Tech testing, they can give you the matrix pattern and their notes for it." she growled. "In the meantime, I'll have to fill out these paperwork regarding replacing the affected devices. In just the building alone, there's already plenty of equipment to be replaced, let alone outside the building. Not to mention the total loss of one of the thaumaturgic crystal batteries provided to the Wards workshop."

Dragon chuckled. "Noted. I'll leave you to it then." she said, and the screen winked off, leaving the portly blonde woman alone in the office to her task.

Chapter 23

Starburst yawned tiredly as she swooped down to join the white-suited boy on the rooftop of an office building.

"Still tired out?" Clockblocker asked as he waited for his patrol partner for the afternoon to land. "They're really working on you and Kid Win over the accident the other day." he commented.

Starburst simply nodded as she landed, her body slumping a bit. The extra 'punishment detail' training sessions for her and Chris over the last two days were mentally exhausting. Extensively reading and studying the proper testing protocols, undergoing the pop quizzes and submitted essays. She was lucky she managed to scrap together enough time and energy to compile and submit the Element Telekinesis Extraction array and all of hers and Chris's notes about it to Dragon yesterday (Dragon seems particularly excited about it for some reason.).

"So glad the E88 captures are getting shipped out to prison today." Clockblocker remarked.

The prisoner transfer today was why Kid Win's and Starburst's 3-day retraining session was put on hold just two days into the training. Crusader, Victor, StormTiger and Cricket, along with more notorious gang members were being transferred out of the Brockton Bay PRT HQ cells and the BBPD cells into high security prisons out of state. Starburst remembered having heard Forecast said that E88 had a 78.4% likelihood of trying something to free their fellows, particularly their parahumans.

The PRT decided to minimize the risk of the prisoner convoys being intercepted by sending out several decoy convoys at the same time, all going on different routes. Since there was not enough manpower to provide cape escorts for each convoy, Protectorate members were deployed on field patrol in such a way that they could quickly respond to any convoys in distress. The Wards were kept as an emergency backup just in case. To keep up normal appearances, some Wards still patrol the city as usual. And it's Starburst and Clockblocker's turn this afternoon.

Starburst scanned the skyline with her Radar as ClockBlocker radioed in their current point of the patrol. A part of her wondered which one of the handful of convoys traveling out right now has the E88 capes, another questioned if the hardcore non-parahuman crooks being transported as well were part of a decoy as well.

Suddenly, as Starburst swept her gaze around, two tags appeared. Her hand immediately toggled the headset communicator. "Console, I got two 'Location of Interest' tags." she reported. "Prior experience suggest these are sites of active fighting. Please advise."

"Console here." Vista answered. "Convoy Delta is under attack by the E88. Alabaster, Rune and an unknown cape is reported to be supporting the attack."

"Assault and Battery here." Assault called in. The Wards and the Protectorate usually share the same patrol frequency line. "We're close by and responding. On our way to reinforce on-site Troopers at Convoy Delta." A quick thought and a marker showing the duo's location appeared in Starburst's vision, heading towards the 'Location of Interest' at the northern outskirts of the city.

"Triumph and Velocity here. Heading to Convoy Delta now." Triumph reported, sounds of whooshing air can be heard in the background.

So, what was the other tag? The one closer to Starburst and Clockblocker, in one of the poorer commercial areas?

As if on cue, the radio cackled again. "Armsmaster here." The Protectorate Leader's gruff voice grunted out. "Large conflict between ABB and E88. Lung and new ABB cape sighted. E88 deployed new unknown cape and more numerous gang members. ABB members armed with grenade launchers loaded with exotic ammunition." He reported. Then there's a roaring sound. "I'm onsite and have attempted to observe covertly. Lung has spotted me and engaged. Lung is ramped up. Requesting backup." he panted heavily over the radio.

As Starburst's heartrate spiked at the thought of a ramped up Lung, the radio sounded again. "Miss Militia and Dauntless here. On route to assist Armsmaster. ETA 3 minutes." Their marker was much further out than where the patrolling Wards were.

Starburst and Clockblocker looked at each other, wondering what to do. On impulse, Starburst keyed the mike. "Starburst and Clockblocker here. We are much closer and we can help." she said as Clockblocker looked at her with wide eyes.

"Negative. Return to HQ." Armsmaster's curt response came almost immediately. A part of Starburst wilted at the shift turn down, while another part was annoyed of the turn in events. He needed help, and they were nearby. Why couldn't they help?

"Acknowledged." Vista started. "Star- Hey!" There were struggling sounds coming over the line from Console, before a new voice chimed in with a rush of words. "67.4% chance of a better outcome if Starburst helped Armsmaster."

Forecast?

Starburst and Clockblocker shared a look, faintly not quite hearing the repeated requests from Console for them to return to HQ and protests from other Protectorate heroes. Clockblocker looked conflicted, before sighing resignedly. "Well, we're supposed to be heroes, right?" he quipped nervously. "Besides, we got a precog on our side that gave us good odds."

Starburst gave her fellow Ward a (hopefully) reassuring grin, and keyed the mike. "Starburst and Clockblocker here. We're helping."

There was a silence over the airwaves, before Armsmaster gritted out. "Fine." he grudgingly and reluctantly said. Was he gasping for breath now? "The Wards focus on suppressing and neutralizing the ABB and E88 Gang members. Protectorate will focus on the capes."

As Starburst activated her Flight power and zip over to carry Clockblocker by his (thankfully, reinforced and padded) arms, a call from Console came over the line, over-riding the protesting calls. "Starburst," Forecast's voice said in a serious tone. "If you see a woman in a gasmask, get to the ground as soon as you can."

Starburst raised an eyebrow at the cryptic message as she carried Clockblocker up and towards the 'Location of Interest' tag.

**************************

It was chaos on the streets when Starburst had arrived above the fight (Clockblocker asked to be dropped off one street over and asked for a Hardlight Shield.).

There were a few clumps of fighting. On one end of the street, ABB and E88 gangbangers were exchanging gunfire from around parked cars or inside storefronts. On another side was a man in a silver armored garb and hood flanked by regular E88 gangsters facing against a line of ABB men. The oddly costumed man was gesturing his arms, and shadowy wolves leaped out from him and charged the ABB line. The ABB responded with their guns, rifles and grenade launchers.

Armsmaster wasn't kidding about 'exotic' effects. One of the newly fired grenades had somehow imploded into a black ball that sucked in a few of the wolves. One part of the street was covered in ice. There was a sphere of distortion near the back of the E88 crowd that's has stuff floating in it. Starburst resolutely tried not to throw up at the sight of dead and mangled bodies lying about (the few times she regretted that her Radar has a 'Zoom-In' function).

Speaking of Armsmaster, he was fighting against Lung in the middle of the street. Lung positively towered over the blue power armored figure, and has metallic black silver scales covering his body. The ABB leader looks very bestial, with heavily muscled (and claws!) arms and legs, the torso had bulked up into a massive trunk of bone and muscle and the head had elongated into a reptilian snout. That breaths fire.

'Right. Provide air support. Okay..' Starburst thought.

Starburst flew over to above the ABB and E88 firefight at the end of the street and unleashed shortranged Safeguard (can't let the power affect Armsmaster's weapons.) as she flew past that battlefield. As she zoomed down the street, she quickly swerved around a retaliatory blast of flames Lung sent her way. She quickly left them behind (There was a roar of pain behind her. A quick glance showed Armsmaster had taken advantage of the brief distraction and had sliced off one of Lung's arms, before blasting the off-balanced dragonic cape with some sort of sustained energy beam from his chest.) and once she reached the other melee, she lets loose a twin blast of 'Sleep Blast' at the unknown cape as she flew by.

As she pulled up and around for another strafing run, Radar alerted her to a grenade launched at her. Alarmed, she climbed for attitude to escape the explosive.

The grenade exploded slightly below her with an oddly muted bang and an even stranger case of no shrapnel; and Starburst suddenly uncontrollably dropped a meter as her Flight power suddenly flickered and her Radar showed a burst of static. She caught herself before she could fall any further as her Flight power re stabilized and strengthen itself back to normal. 'What was that?' the confused Ward thought.

"Oi, Eidolon Junior!" a shout caught her attention.

Radar pointed her to a woman standing on one of the flat roof tops of a row of small warehouses. A jumpsuit-clad woman, toting a grenade launcher with a rotary ammo barrel in one hand and holding a free grenade in another. And she was wearing a gasmask.

**************************

As Forecast's warning flash through Starburst's mind, the gasmasked woman launched another grenade at her. Eyes widening, Starburst dropped down and headed for the rooftops.

The grenade detonated in that same strange way just as Starburst was about to land. She landed not too gently as the Flight power sputtered out and she rolled to bleed off some momentum. Getting to her knees, she looked at the gasmasked woman. "Who are you?" she asked while creating a Hardlight Shield and discretely charging up a 'Sleep Blast'.

The woman cockily stood on the rooftop, lazily holding her grenade launcher propped up on one shoulder. "Who am I?" she arrogantly started. There was a hint of Asian lilt under the Boston accent. "I'm Bakuda of the ABB! The world's greatest-"

Starburst fired an overcharged 'Sleep Blast' at the woman mid-introduction. The woman simply brought her launcher to bear and fired off a round at Starburst's direction. Starburst ducked and took cover behind her riot shield.

The ball of energy was two thirds the way there when the grenade exploded, the shockwave of the explosion causing the 'Sleep Blast' to fizzle out of existence. That same shockwave hit the covering figure of Starburst and caused deep cracks to appear like cracking glass on her shield.

"As I was saying," Bakuda continued, somehow having both an annoyed tone and am arrogant swagger in her voice. "I'm the world's greatest Tinker!" she lightly tossed up and caught the grenade in her other hand. "It took me only one look at your gun-shell gimmick to figure out how to counter it!"

Starburst gritted her teeth as she thought quickly, taking the chance to dismiss the damaged shield and making a new one. Bakuda made a counter to her power?

Explosion shockwave disrupts lesser spells.
Explosion shockwave causes interference in higher level spells.
Explosion shockwave effect is not constant, single pulse effect.
There's a delay between launch and mid-air denotation.
Delayed arming. There's a minimum distance where the grenade will explode away from her.
She needs to get in close.
There's a lot of distance between them.
She needs to get in close fast.

"-and I so wanted to test myself against a Trump like you!" Bakuda bragged, seemingly not noticing the Ward furiously thinking while huddling behind the shield. Bakuda held the grenade launcher lazily at her side. "I've even got a few surprises for you, based on the powers of your fellow Ward-"

Starburst dropped the shield and sprinted across the rooftops towards Bakuda. As she does so, she roared out, "Accelloro!" and activated the power.

Starburst's movements and perception speed up immensely. The world around her seems to be moving by her sluggishly, at snail pace. Sounds became deeper, more distorted. Light began to turn into streaks.

One third the way there, as Starburst jumped over a low concrete wall, she could see Bakuda startled in surprise of the sudden move by the Ward.

Halfway there. Starburst's legs were pumping hard. Bakuda was bringing up the grenade launcher.

Two third the way there. Bakuda leveled the launcher at Starburst.

Quarter of the way there. Bakuda's hand gripping the gun grip, and the gun grip itself exploded in a burst of metal, plastic, blood and gore. There was a muted report of a loud gun shot. A sniper?

Finally, Starburst reached Bakuda, who was in the process of recoiling in pain. On instinct, Starburst spun around, braced her grounded leg and landed a textbook perfect back kick straight into Bakuda's stomach.

As the Accelloro power wore off, Starburst's perceptions returned back to normal and she collapsed to her knees, panting heavily. As Bakuda's limp body landed back down onto the rooftop, Starburst's headset cackled. "Starburst! Are you alright? Status!" a woman's voice asked.

Starburst blinked in surprise, stumbling mentally before managing to place the voice. It was Miss Militia.

"Yes?" Starburst said. "I mean. Yes, I'm fine." she continued, idly noting that Bakuda was still conscious (from a hit like that?) and had curled up in pain. Starburst gave Bakuda a 'Sleep Blast' as she stood up and reactivated her Radar. "Just a bit shaken."

"That's good to hear." Miss Militia responded. The Radar pointed Starburst to a rooftop across the street. Starburst zoomed in at the distant figure to see the bandanna flag wearing heroine standing there, holding a rather intimidating jade green sniper rifle.

"Wait!" Starburst's eyes widened as she remembered. "Armsmaster! Does he need-"

"It's alright." Miss Militia interrupted, trying to reassure her. "The fight's over. Both here and at the convoy. The enemy has retreated."

Curious, Starburst made her way to the edge of the rooftop and peeked into the street.

Down there, in the middle of the street, an exhausted and dented Armsmaster was perched atop the body of an unconscious Lung, who was already shrinking down back to human form. She could see Dauntless and Clockblocker (Did he lose the shield? No wait, she could see it locked in mid air near an alley.) going around and tying restrains the few surviving gangsters lying on the street. The unknown cape was laid out on his back, snoozing away. She could see the PRT vans turning the corner.

"Huh." Starburst said intelligently as she took in the sight.

"Do you need anything?" Miss Militia asked.

Starburst glanced at the still form of the ABB cape. "Yeah." she admitted. "Get a medic up here. I've hit Bakuda here pretty hard." She paused as something occurred to her. "...we're in trouble, aren't we?"

Starburst could practically hear the frown in Miss Militia's voice. "How much trouble is up to Director Piggot to decide. Your hearts may be in the right place, but involving yourselves in situations like this is very dangerous."

Starburst sat down tiredly. "But we're heroes. Pretty much in the job description." she retorted. "Can't exactly let ABB and E88 rampage."

There was a pause, then a sigh from Miss Militia. "We will discuss about this back at PRT HQ."

As Starburst tiredly sat down, she felt the rummaging stopped and the new power, no, wait, two new powers slid in. Huh. She wonders if this could be a pattern emerging with her Trump power.

(Medical: Full body Physical Health Diagnostic Analysis spell matrix, with integrated Heredity Traits Analysis and Modeling and Comparative State Analysis via Temporal Scrying.

(Medical: (Administration Permission and Priority Override) Complete Physical Health Restoration to Prime Physical State following Biological Human Template Obtained via Simulated Hereditary Instructional Traits Modelling and Comparative State Analysis through Temporal Past Scrying spell matrix, with Integrated Biological and [SHARD] Matter Replacement/Regeneration via Transmogrification Synthesis from Common Atmospheric Matter.)

...she'll just name them 'Diagnose' and 'Restore'.

Interlude 10

Director Emily Piggot did bother to look up from her paperwork as Armsmaster and Miss Militia entered the office. She ignored the polite greeting from the heroine and simply jotted something down onto her pad. There was silence in the office as the two Protectorate heroes stood there waited patiently and the portly PRT Director fumed at her desk.

Eventually, Armsmaster cleared his throat. "You're still angry." he commented.

"You're damn right I'm angry." Director Piggot muttered through gritted teeth, her gaze still fixed at her papers. She then held up a hand to forestall any defense from the heroes while she took a few deep breaths.

"Armsmaster. Intellectually," Director Piggot started, looking up at the two heroes. "I can't fault you for making the decision to involve the Wards two days ago. You were in dire straits, having been dragged unwillingly into a solo fight with a ramped up Lung, while surrounded by his armed minions. In that situation, you did not have the luxury of time or capacity to think very deeply of the possible ramifications and consequences. You had to work with what you know, what allies are available to timely assist and what you have at that time to, at the very least, survive the situation with as little friendly casualties as possible. That you had no options but put your trust in the predictions of a friendly, but not fully tested and trained precog."

"However, I'm still angry that you allowed a pair of Wards that decided to go cowboy into an active combat zone, on the reassurances of a twelve year old." Director Piggot said, her voice not raising above conversational level, but still smouldering with anger. "Precog or not, a two thirds possibility of a better outcome is not a justifiable reason to bring children and teenagers into a massive firefight."

Director Piggot then leaned back, seemingly spent. "Still, what's done is done." she said tiredly. "Let's move on. What's the status?"

The two heroes sat down on chairs and Miss Militia opened the folder of reports she had brought along. "Fatalities are light, mostly of the Troopers that were escorting Convoy Delta. The number of injured were high though, given the involvement of Rune, Alabaster and the suspected Gesellschaft cape in the assault. Thankfully, although the prisoners carried by Convoy Delta were freed, they were only three hardcore E88 members and some low-ranking crooks." She paused. "On the other front, although there are no friendly casualties, there weren't many surviving captures of the non-parahuman gang members of either ABB or E88 affiliations." She flipped some papers around in the folder (Piggot idly wonders why does Miss Militia have to refer to the paper reports, considering the heroine's eidetic memory. Perhaps it's something she does to put other people at ease.) and continued. "We have managed to capture and restrain Lung," (Piggot saw in a corner of her eye that Armsmaster had sat up straighter in his chair, a bit of pride of his accomplishment leaking through the armored hero's stoic demeanor.), "The Cornell Bomber who now calls herself Bakuda and another suspected Gesellschaft cape. Lung, Bakuda and the Gesellschaft cape are currently in high security holding cells on the Rig under enforced sedation and heavy guard. We've hooked them up to IV drips, and stripped them of everything on them."

Armsmaster entered the conversation. "We're keeping the Troopers and the BBPD on alert. The E88, the Merchants and smaller gangs in Brockton Bay might capitalize on the ABB's loss of strength, especially when we still don't have any confirmation regarding the status of Oni Lee." He idly tapped a finger on his thigh. "E88 might do something to compensate for their loss in reputation, seeing that their last assault on the PRT convoy did not, unlike before, free their imprisoned capes."

Director Piggot frowned at the reminder. Coil's tendrils into the PRT systems was likely why the Brockton Bay PRT had so much trouble holding on to villain capes before the capes could be incarcerated in high security prisons out of state. "How are we doing?"

Miss Militia answered. "As I said before, we have relatively light fatalities among the Troopers, but many more are injured. We're enlisting the aid of Panacea to assist us with more severe cases. On the Protectorate, there were no casualties or serious injuries. On the Wards," Here, she hesitated a bit, before soldering on. "The Wards Starburst, Clockblocker and Forecast were benched for a week, possibly two, for their breach in conduct and are slated to undergo remedial training and counseling in the mean time. The rest are fine."

Director Piggot nodded. "Okay. Armsmaster," she asked, turning towards the Protectorate member in question. "How are we with our..." she trailed off a bit. "-our anti-Endbringer countermeasure?" She paused, before asking again. "Are we absolutely sure of the next Endbrinnger and probable target?"

Armsmaster sighed, sagging a bit. "Yes. My and Dragon's work, the Endbringer Prediction Algorithm and Forecast's predictions points to a collectively 88.4% certainty of the upcoming Endbringer attack being carried out by Leviathan. On the target," he took a breath. "very high probability that it will attack a city on the East Coast of the United States, likely any city within a span approximately about between New York and Delaware, within two weeks to a month."

Director Piggot leaned back in her chair. "Fuck." she swore, before looking at Armsmaster again. "And the countermeasures?"

Armsmaster looked uncertain. "Six Mobile Thaumaturgic Anti-HydroKinesis Projectors and their battery arrays; configured for about two to three hours of operation at full power, are complete, and we're starting on the seventh and eighth vehicles. The re-configured vans had their engines, suspensions and wheels revamped to handle rough terrain at high speeds, and the driver and co-pilot pairs for the vehicles are adequately trained and ready. Though we have not extensively test the anti-hydrokinesis array, we are reasonably certain it will immensely curtail Leviathan's main weapon of choice in his attacks."

Director Piggot furrowed her brow. "The vans are going to be targets. Are we sure additional defenses can't be installed on them? How are we on the vehicles deployments?"

Armsmaster shook his head. "Not without compromising the strength and longevity of the anti-hydrokinesis projectors." He leaned forward and frowned. "Regarding deployments, just four of the vehicles at optimal locations is enough to cover most of Brockton Bay. But we're not sure about adequately covering a larger city like Boston or New York with what we have now, thus why we're continuing to devote some of the R&D personnel and PRT mechanics into the project, to keep making as many projectors as we can. As Brockton Bay is relatively in the middle of the range of probable projected targets, we can deploy the vehicles to the further cities quickly if we have to. Hopefully, we can get enough of a warning to get them into place in time."

Director Piggot looked down, not quite liking the uncertainty but forced to accept it. "Very well." she conceded. "Is there anything else you would like to bring up?"

**************************

Armsmaster and Miss Militia walked down the hall away from the PRT Director's office in silence.

It was only after they've entered the empty elevator and the doors close that Armsmaster spoke up. "You did not mention about all the Wards submitting themselves under Master/Stranger protocols earlier today."

Miss Militia, blushed, what little of it can be seen over the bandana. "I'm... not sure it was pertinent to mention it during the meeting. The... 'event' seems harmless. The initial medical reports showed no signs of anything wrong." She paused. "And I'm not sure of how to phrase it."

Armsmaster looked at the heroine silently for a moment. "The effect seems to be... isolated to Kid Win's fiddling with the remaining thaumaturgic battery in the Wards workshop. The anti-silicakinesis fields provoked no such reactions here or at the Rig, despite their projectors and battery/recharger arrays being active continuously for nearly three weeks now."

Miss Militia looked away. "Yes..." she stumbled a bit. "There were no reports of similar incidents. Only this one incident."

Armsmaster hummed. "I wonder what prompted Kid Win to hook up a Jacobs Ladder antenna pair into the thaumaturgic battery..."

Miss Militia chuckled nervously. "At least the rainbows and sparkles coming out of the antennas were nice to look at, even through the security footage..."

The power armor clad hero frowned a bit. "Seems a bit of a waste to just... discharge the stored thaumaturgic energy into the air like that." he commented.

Miss Militia fidgeted a bit. "Still, no one could have predicted what would happen next or the effects on the Wards present in the Wards common room at the time." she pointed out.

Armsmaster nodded. "We still haven't figure out where the instrumental background music comes from." He paused. "Still, not mentioning it now to the Director?"

Miss Militia looked at Armsmaster in slight exasperation. "What was I going to say? The Wards were fiddling with a thaumaturgic battery and a Jacobs Ladder in the Wards common room, and they all spontaneously burst into a perfectly coordinated, choreographed, musically tuned and synchronized song and dance about 'How They Can't Wait To Be Real Heroes' despite there was no outside influences or any preparations what so ever by anyone? With inexplicable background music from the song "I Just Can't Wait to be King' from the Earth Aleph movie 'The Lion King'? It felt absurd just thinking about it, let alone trying to write up a report." she gestured helplessly. She then took a breath. "...I'll take it up to Director Piggot later, once we have the full story when the M/S protocols are done, the Wards are fully debriefed and the initial investigation is completed." she conceded reluctantly.

Armsmaster was silent for a moment. "We'll have to investigate further if the phenomenon has any detrimental effects or whether it is replicatable or repeatable for further study. That it managed to affect all the Wards present in the common room at the time suggest it is a rather potent Master effect, even if they claimed that they felt like they had been somehow emotionally 'asked' for consent beforehand by 'something in the air' to participate." He said firmly. "If it proves to be a benign effect caused simply by the raw thaumaturgic energy being freely discharged into the air, then we can all breath easy." he concluded.

Missi Militia nodded. "So far, tests had came back negative on anything detrimental. In some of the Wards, there was a minor improvement in the emotional states of the Wards. They reported to be feeling less tense and frustrated." She tapped a finger on her chin. "It seems to be more like 'Scream Therapy' for emotional release, but more pleasant to the ear."

Armsmaster sighed. "Considering what could happen, improvement of emotional and mental states of anyone nearby via induced singing and dancing as a side effect of the usage of thaumaturgic tech is better than what I could hope for or fear about." He rubbed a hand on his helmet. "Starburst had claimed before that raw thaumaturgic energy had no detrimental effects on living beings, but it'll be better to double check, especially after an incident like this."

Miss Militia nodded. "Indeed. The more we know, the better." She let out a breath. "At least, the Wards weren't hurt by this. A little bewildered and slightly embarrassed, but unhurt emotionally, mentally or physically."

Silence lasped between the two heroes for a moment. "I wonder if the Wards would appreciate a video of their performance. We do have the video from the security feeds and Kid Win's helmet cam, and the audio was captured rather nicely..." Armsmaster mused randomly.

Miss Militia just shook her head while chuckling to herself.

The two heroes quickly composed themselves as the elevator doors open.

Chapter 24

Starburst looked around the main PRT HQ infirmary in curiosity.

It's been four days since the Bakuda incident, and three days since she, Dennis and Dinah got benched by a furious Director Piggot. The dressing down by Director Piggot over their actions was blistering. The portly Director with the unhealthy pallor didn't shout, threaten or escalate. She concisely and firmly delivered her points with a smouldering anger, like a dragon gathering it's flame. One part of Taylor was indignant over the Director's reprimands; they were training to be heroes, aren't they? Another part felt resentful; she hadn't wanted to feel powerless, again, to change things. Another part (or two) sympathizes with the Director's anger; the Ward's safety were her office's responsibility, and allowing Wards going up against Lung, who had solo-ed an entire team of Protectorate members and won, wasn't anyone's idea of 'safe'. A different part of her wanted to shy away from the anger, while another part wilted a bit at the superior's rebuke. A final piece was feeling upset at herself for making others sad and worry. As Taylor struggled mentally with these conflicting thoughts, she wisely outwardly stayed calm and silent and wordlessly accepted the Director's punishment.

At least Taylor's Dad had been understanding, after he had recovered from how pale he got when he first heard of the story from her. While he was a little upset at the decision, he couldn't fault her for it. He and his wife didn't raised a kid that would stand aside if they could help. So, he had only grounded his daughter for two days instead of following Director Piggot lead of a week.

In the end, the three Wards were barred from active Ward duties and slated for retraining for a week, with the possibility of the Director extending the punishment for another week if she felt like it didn't take. So, for the last few days, her daily routine had been rather unchanging. Morning jog and exercise, commute to PRT HQ, studying for the Arcadia entrance exams, undergoing the remedial training sessions and being grilled for Wards response protocols. She couldn't even talk to the other unpunished Wards yesterday, since the entire Wards team (minus her, Clockblocker and Forecast) had mysteriously been absent from the common room for the last two days. So when Armsmaster had requested Taylor to assist him and Dragon with some power testing of thaumaturgic energy, she'd practically pounced on the opportunity to break the monotony.

The tall and lanky masked teen looked about the infirmary that's currently packed with additional equipment. She didn't see any doctors or nurses or even orderlies inside, but two of the beds were occupied by PRT Troopers in hospital smocks. Starburst had recognized them as some of the regular Troopers who had volunteered to train the Wards in physical training and techniques. Troopers Stevens and Yu. The stocky Caucasian man has one arm in a splint but Starburst couldn't see anything wrong with the muscular Asian woman. Both Troopers looked a bit bored just lying there, but they perked up and waved at Starburst in greeting when she had walked in.

"Hey, there's our hero!" Trooper Stevens called out with a grin.

Starburst blinked owlishly at them and pointed a finger at herself.

"We really owe you one." Trooper Yu answered with a smile. "The Shield Watches and Nighty Night guns you made really saved our skins."

"Oh" Starburst said, before smiling back nervously. "Glad you're happy with them." she said. "But Dragon and Armsmaster did most of the work."

The two Troopers chuckled good naturedly. "But you're the brains behind them." Yu pointed out. "So, as I said. We owe you one."

"Um. You're welcome." Starburst said. Thankfully, the two Troopers relaxed themselves back into their respective cots. She took the opportunity to inspect the equipment in the infirmary.

Surrounding the beds were pieces of equipment that Starburst didn't recognized, including several camera-like things equipped with wide angle lens on tripods, large devices resembling boom-mikes and radar dishes perched on stands and a large humming fridge-thing that most of the extra non-infirmary equipment were plugged into via large cables that snaked all over the floor.

Two pieces of equipment caught her attention; a standalone teleconference setup with a large screen stood near the wall, and a trash can sized thaumaturgic energy crystal battery sat a table between the beds. The battery has a device on it that has two long metal rods sticking out into the air like rabbit ears. Starburst had to admit, the size of the battery had took her by surprise. She didn't even know solid crystals can get that big. Where had Dragon and Armsmaster even find something like this?

Starburst's musing were cut short when the door opened and a man in a doctor's labcoat, Armsmaster and Panacea walked in. Armsmaster was outfitted in a slimmed down armor suit and Panacea, while she still had her usual robes costume had took the hood down, letting the girl's frizzy hair shake free as the weary and grumpy looking healer looked around the room.

"Starburst." Armsmaster greeted. "This is Mr Henderson, from PRT R&D." He gestured to the labcoat wearing man. Panacea simply grunted a 'hello' in greeting. The screen on the teleconference rig winked to life, showing the head and shoulders of Dragon's digital face. "Good afternoon, everyone." she chirped pleasantly.

Armsmaster nodded. "Now that everyone is present, we can begin shortly." he said before moving to one of the camera devices set in a corner of the room, allowing it an unobstructed view of everything in the infirmary. He fiddled with a panel on the side of base of the machine and stepped back as the camera whirs to life and twitched and rotated on it's waldo that's raising the camera to a higher vantage point.

Armsmaster cleared his throat, and the camera turned to focus on him as he began to speak. "Testing. Testing." As he moved his head, the camera dutifully tracked his movements. Armsmaster nodded in satisfaction and moved back to near the beds where everyone else is gathered. "This is Armsmaster acting as primary researcher, commencing Power Testing experiment Gamma 3, Extended investigation into the properties of thaumaturgic energy and its interaction with living biological matter, set in controlled conditions of an isolated infimary," he said before recited the time and date. "Present here is the collaborative researchers Dragon of The Guild and Dr Robert Henderson of PRT R&D Brockton Bay." He then gestured to the rest of them. "Panacea of Brockton Bay New Wave and Starburst of PRT ENE Wards are present as independent contractors to assist in performing the experiments and verify experimental results. Troopers Stevens and Yu of Brockton Bay PRT have volunteered to be utilized as test subjects for the experiments." he said in a somewhat robotic and even tone. "Supplementary readings will be attached to experiment file after the conclusion of today's experiment." He paused before adding in a quick note. "We have deactivated the anti-silicakinesis field projectors in the PRT HQ building for the time being to obtain cleaner results."

Armsmaster then began to walk around and gestured to the machinery around the infirmary. Most of them were actually sensors tuned to detect thaumaturgic energy that were created and developed by him and Dragon. The fridge-like thing was a Tinker Tech supercomputer made by Armsmaster that could quickly crunch the data from the various sensors, renders them into a single unified sensor fusion data display and puts it on the screen mounted on the wall next to Dragon's teleconference rig.

Armsmaster first took some baseline readings, both on the environment (he asked Starburst to stand further away for this.) and the Troopers. He gestured Panacea forward to take readings of her own. Then he switched on the device on the thaumaturgic battery.

Said device began to hum, and the rod glow slightly in a white-ish hue. Then a small rainbow appears between the two rods.

Starburst blinked at the odd sight. Panacea looked a bit taken back as well.

The rainbow moved up the rods, while stretching longer and longer over the widening gap. When the rainbow reaches the tip, it fizzled and then popped like a soap bubble in a burst of glittering sparkles that faded away in the air. Starburst felt like a gentle wave of something smoothing wash over her body, and the room seems to be more vibrant somehow in a way she couldn't put her finger on.

"It's literally spitting out rainbow and sparkles." Panacea muttered befuddledly as she watched the spectacle.

Armsmaster spoke as he gestured to the screen. "As you can see, the thaumaturgic energy can be discharged into the air, akin to electrical ionization of the air, but it seems to be behaving simultaneously like a radiation source and a gas or liquid." The screen showed, like that of a thermal camera display, a large white 'bloom' radiated out on the device on the thaumaturgic battery, with 'layers' that gradually shifts from white to yellow and then orange and red as it gets further away from the battery. Curiously, there seems to be 'streamers', 'tendrils' and 'pools' of 'hotter' and 'cooler' thaumaturgic energy flowing in and around the objects in the room.

"As seen here." Armsmaster continued. "While freely discharged thaumaturgic energy passes through most objects, it exhibits a different behavior when it encounters different materials. Some materials like copper causes the energy to flow along it while certain materials like granite appears to be blocking it and forcing the energy to flow around it."

"Huh" Starburst said as she studied the display.

"While the different properties shown here have interesting uses, we're focus on it's interactions with the human body." Dragon remarked.

Armsmaster nodded. "Indeed." he rumbled, before fetching one of the cameras. "What's interesting was that while the thaumaturgic energy goes through human tissue and bone with no difference to flowrates, there seems to be areas that 'attracts' thaumaturgic energy." He gestures to the display. In it, it show Trooper Yu's bodies, and there's seems to be 'patches' of thaumaturgic energy that 'pools' in certain places as it flows through the body, centering around the heart, brain and stomach.

Panacea stepped forward and place a hand on Trooper Yu's bare skin. "There's no change in the body biological processes anywhere in the body compared to before the rainbow device was turned on. No hormone changes, nothing. Not even a raise in heat." she reported after a moment of concentration. "Weird." she muttered. "I can't see the energy moving through the body at all. It's like there's nothing affecting the body at all."

"Starburst, can you step into the sensor camera?" Dragon gently asked. "I'm a little curious about something."

Starburst obediently stepped into the camera. The results were plain to see. In contrast to Trooper Yu's scan, the freely discharged thaumaturgic energy seems to swirl around and through her. Within her body, there's a white-hot source within her brain that flows down to various parts of her body. Strangely enough, the energy that 'pools' in her hands, feet, between her shoulder blades and middle of her forehead were 'hotter' than the ones at her heart and stomach.

Dragon hummed. "It seems that since that Starburst has her own internal source of thaumaturgic energy, there's an active interaction between her body and the freely discharged energy in the air." Dragon commented. "Starburst, can you activate one of your powers?"

Puzzled, Starburst created a small teal buckler shield. "That's different." she muttered.

"What is?" Dr Henderson asked, his pen at the ready on the clipboard.

"It feels different." Starburst said with her eyes close as she focused her attentions inward. "It's like- like-, okay, say you want to move a balloon across a room without touching it. Before, I did the equivalent of blowing at the balloon with my own lung power. But now, "she paused. "it's like I'm flapping my hand in the air at it."

Armsmaster's brow furrowed. "Different methods for the same effect. It appears that your ability changes its methods for drawing energy for activation depending if there was an external source or not. Absent that, it automatically draws upon your own internal reserves."

"Kind of like wireless charging" Panacea commented idly. She blushed a little when others in the room look at her. "...I've read it in articles discussing Earth Aleph's tech advances when there were downtimes at the hospital."

"Let's move on to our next phase." Dragon announced. "Yu, as we discussed?"

Trooper Yu nodded at the screen, reached over to the bedside drawer and took out a harmonica. She then started playing a jaunty tune.

Dr Henderson hummed as he studied the display. "Look at this. There's an reaction in the field. No changes in overall intensity, but there's are streamers and tendrils that are swirling a bit more vigorously when she started playing. Like some sort of harmonizing effect."

Dragon frowned. "Interesting. We know it showed no reaction when we tested using a simple tone generator, so it can't be just sound waves..."

"Bakuda's nullification bombs emit an intense pulse of electromagnetic waves at certain harmonic wave pattern, so we know that EM waves can affect thaumaturgic energy." Armsmaster pointed out.

Starburst raised a hand. "An EMP? With harmonic patterns? So my power can be cancelled or recreated with electricity alone?" The incident had bugged her a bit. It also annoyed her that she had to replace her civilian made phone as well.

"No" Armsmaster bluntly said. "What Bakuda did was the equivalent of finding a crack, the one part of thaumaturgic energy that does interact with electromagnetic forces, and used a lot of brute force to cause the thaumaturgic energy patterns to destabilize and collapse." he explained.

"Oh." Starburst said. "So, why the interest in the harmonics now?" she asked.

Armsmaster glanced at Dragon. "The Wards uncovered something unusual when they're fiddling with the thaumaturgic battery in the Wards common room." Dragon carefully said. "That's why they were indisposed for the last two days while we checked them over."

"Though it seems we are unable to replicate the phenomenon on demand." Armsmaster grunted.

"Perhaps it is connected to the situation at the time?" Dragon speculated. "It is possible that there are other factors involved, like emotional states."

Dr Henderson frowned. "If that's the case, perhaps trying to force it to happen on demand may be a lot more difficult than we initially thought."

Armsmaster shook his head. "In that case, perhaps we should move on to the other part of today's testing while we put this one on hold until we can conceive of a different method." He turned towards Starburst. "Starburst, you have mention earlier before that your power has created a healing power? And a diagnosing one?"

**************************

Panacea concentrated inwards, focusing on using her power to assess Trooper Stevens newly healed arm. "Amazing, and all this uses the stuff in the air instead of the bodies own biomass." she commented, before opening her eyes. "Did it tire you out?"

Starburst shook her head. "No. Something small like this didn't. But the energy requirement goes up if the injuries are more severe."

Armsmaster nodded."It makes logical sense."

Panacea cocked her head as she looked at Starburst. "I'm kinda wondering. Can your healing power fix brains and diseases?" she inquired.

Starburst frowned. "I'm... not sure? I think it depends on what was affecting it. Addiction to drugs, probably. Psychosis? Probably no. Most diseases it can handle, if I'm reading the power's description right." she admitted.

"Speaking of which," Dragon cut in. "You said that there's one part of the description that you cannot parse?"

Starburst frowned. "Yeah. It's like... a different language, no, no different method of communication got shoved in." She gesticulated. "It's like... that one... word has an entire library of meanings and explanations crammed into it that unfurls if you look deeper at the word itself." She rubbed her temples. "Everytime I focused on it, a felt like.. my brain just can't handle the information overload and just gave me a massive headache. But I think it's connected to powers."

"Healing power that gave the user headaches." Panacea snarked under her breath.

Dr Henderson leaned in. "Are you sure this shard word is related to parahuman powers?"

Starburst nodded. "Yeah. When I made the request to my Trump power, I was referring to cases like Noelle, where her power was fucked up."

"Interesting." Dr Henderson said as he contemplated the idea. "Too bad you are unable to write down the meanings you got from it."

Starburst shook her head. "Whenever I tried, it felt like someone rammed a dagger into my head. Everything came out in a jumble." she admitted.

"Pity." Dr Henderson sighed.

"Well, now that we have concluded all we have set out to test today, "Armsmaster said as he began to shutdown the various equipment in the infirmary. "You all are free to go. Thank you for your cooperation."

"Finally." Panacea snappishly said as she leaves the room.

Starburst frowned at the departing figure. "Was she usually like this?" she wondered.

"Don't be too hard on her." Dragon said. "She puts a lot of pressure on herself."

"Pressure?" Starburst asked.

Dragon shook her head. "Not my place to tell."

Starburst could only furrow her brow in thought.

Chapter 25

"Hi." Starburst nervously greeted the robed figure in the PRT HQ canteen. "Can I join you?" she asked hopefully as she held into a tray that has a cup of hot English tea and a pastry.

The seated Panacea paused in her nursing of her cup of black coffee, glanced about the half-full room and then looked at the smiling Ward. There was a bout of silence as the two teens stared at each other. Starburst had almost wanted to chicken out when Panacea let out a sigh and said, "Sure. Why not?"

'Okay, now what?' Starburst thought as she sat down next to the healer. She had a notion of wanting to talk to Panacea, to at least cheer her up, or ease whatever mental burden she had. "Um..." She said as she mentally scrambled for something to talk about. "I thought you had left the building right away after the power testing." she inquired. It's has been a few hours after the conclusion of the power testing session. Dr Henderson excused himself to the labs in the building, Armsmaster wordlessly headed out to the Rig to analysis the findings and Dragon disconnected, citing a time-sensitive operation she needs to oversee.

Panacea shrugged, still nursing her hot drink. "Vicky is my ride. She wants to chat with Dean for a bit. She hasn't seen him for three days now." she elaborated before taking a sip.

"Oh." Starburst blinked at the factoid. "Oh, right. They are dating." she blurted out. Why did a part of her got interested in social gossip? Since when?

There was a flash of irritation across Panacea's face that made Starburst tamped down on the odd sudden giddiness at the perhaps juicy gossip.. Maybe she should change the subject?

"Um..." Starburst conversationally groped about blindly. "Speaking of the Wards, do you know Kid Win has finally found out his specialty?" she said in a rush.

Panacea looked at Starburst, one eyebrow quirked. "Oh? He finally figured it out? What is it?" she idly inquired.

Starburst nodded. "Yeah. It was during one of his one-to-one sessions with Armsmaster a few days ago." She leaned in. "He said it was 'modularity'. Pretty much shouted it out, actually."

Panacea blinked. "Modularity? What, like Legos or something?" she said skeptically.

Starburst shrugged. "Maybe?" she said before a sip of her tea. 'Ugh', she thought as she made a face at the taste. "There's a big cannon thing sitting in the Wards workshop now. He built it practically overnight."

Panacea quirked an amused smile at Starburst. "Not a fan of generic cafeteria tea?" she teased.

Starburst shook her head. "Got better stuff at home. Wished I brought a thermos of it today." she wistfully said. "How do you drink coffee that thick and black? I can feel myself being more awake from just the fumes alone." she commented while eyeing Panacea's cup.

Panacea let up s sardonic chuckle. "Handy for after a long day at the hospital." she remarked, before taking another sip.

Starburst fidgeted sightly before stating what just occurred to her. "...do you work a lot at the hospital? Is that why you're so tired and grumpy everytime I see you?"

Panacea glanced at Starburst before turning back to nurse her sup of coffee, frowning. "...the doctors and hospital administrators tried to limit my time there. But I go there when I can't sleep." She took in a breath. "Powers like mine... I shouldn't just not use them. I have to keep helping people..." she muttered to myself sullenly.

"Um..." Starburst looked about awkwardly, sensing that this is a conversational minefield. "Well..." she started. "What do you do to relax? You know, have fun or destress?" she prodded.

Panacea gave Starburst a sideways look. "I read novels a bit." She hesitated, before continuing. "I like flying with Vicky sometimes. When I'm high up in the air..."

Starburst perked up at the opening. "Well, how would you like to fly? On your own?" she asked in a lowered voice.

Panacea turned her body fully to look at the other teen. "Pardon?" She asked, blinking in surprise.

Starburst leaned in and whispered conspiratorially. "I don't use that aspect much, but I can temporarily give my powers to other people."

Panacea frowned. "What? Like Othala?" She paused. "And why didn't you use it much? Why now?"

Starburst shrugged. "Because if I do it with something big, like Flight, I'll get exhausted and my energy reserves will be empty. But with the battery test just now, I think I can do it to you without getting knocked onto my ass like I'd run the marathon without any prep." She blinked as a different part of the healer's question registered. "Wait, who's Othala?"

Panacea waved one hand dismissively. "A minor Trump cape in the E88 here. Can temporarily bestow a power to one person at a time, like invincibility, pyrokinesis and regeneration. She only has a fixed number of powers she can give out." She leaned in, her posture showing that she was intrigued. "So, can you give me Flight powers? How long it'll last?"

Starburst thought to herself for a moment. "Roughly about an hour. Maybe an hour and a half. Need to use a battery if I want to really push more power and extend the time." she answered.

"Huh." Panacea sat back thoughtfully. "You know, I might take you up on that, one of these days." she said, with a small genuine smile.

"Great!" Starburst said,a little happy to get an actual smile out of the New Wave cape. "I'll be waiting for when you want to fly."

Panacea chuckled. "I'll hold you to that." she said before taking a sip of her cooling coffee.

"Say," Starburst started as a thought just came to her. "When can we start healing Noelle?"

Panacea shrugged. "The PRT probably want to do some testing first before going ahead. For the time being, Noelle is safe and contained. So, she can wait for a bit-"

She interrupted when a loud alarm suddenly sounded in the cafeteria. Both teen paled as they recognized the distinctive sirens. At the same time, they both dug out their PRT-issued phones and looked at the bright red screens showing the emergency alert message.

Endbringer attack Imminent.

Endbringer: Leviathan

ETA to target zone: 7:32pm

Target Zone: Brockton Bay, New England, USA

Interlude 11

The first clue Jack Slash have that something was about to happen was a sensation of 'white noise' at the back of his head.

He and his compatriots were sheltering in a one-story suburban commercial warehouse in one of the more out of way towns that dotted the MidWest. Dear Bonesaw was entertaining herself with some 'materials' acquired from the local homeless population, the child figured bio-tinker gleefully immersed in a new 'project'. The Siberian was nearby, the zebra striped nude woman protectively hunched over her chosen charge like a mother looking at her child at work. Shatterbird was lounging of the sofa in the office, the shapely woman playing with her characteristic cloak of glass shards by making moving artistic 'sculptures' in the air. Crawler and Hatchet Face were lumbering among the warehouse goods on the main floor area, the car-sized monstrosity and the brawny power nullifier axe-wielder toying with the remains of the warehouse guards and workers. Burnscar was fooling around by torching some of the goods, the scarred face girl staring rapturously at the flames; while Mannequin tinkered with some computers part scavenged from the office, the mad Tinker in a full prosthetic body busy with adding some new equipment to himself.

Jack Slash was sprawled on a office chair, the charismatic knife wielder idly flicking a butterfly knife open and close as he perused on a purloined smartphone a rather interesting job request from someone named 'Ravager'. He had his hands full corralling this band of murderous and sadistic psychopaths and convincing them into quietly coming to this out of the way town and staying low, so he relished the opportunity for some down time.

Nevertheless, some of the Slaughterhouse Nine were already getting antsy. Mannequin have caught word of Armsmaster and Dragon's efforts lately and wanted to pay them a visit. Going all the way to Canada to assault Dragon at the Guild's stronghold was not feasible, but Armsmaster in deary Brockton Bay may be reachable. Crawler was inching for a fight with the Tinker that brought low Lung, and the two members had nearly come to blows before Jack had stepped in. The brute Hatchet Face wanted to test his mettle against the new Ward there who was a Trump, and Burnscar wanted to meet with an old friend there from the sanitarium. Bonesaw wanted to meet Panacea to get a new sister.

Jack Slash was currently weighing the pros and cons of going to Brockton Bay. True, nearly half of their little group was in favor, but the local PRT and Protectorate forces had made massive in-roads against the local villain groups, so they were be a bit too strong for his taste. Perhaps he could persuade them with a quest to acquire a new member to fill up the ranks? They were supposed to be Nine, after all...

The odd sensation came as he was mulling the prospects. A trio of constant, clashing 'tones' that he was somehow hearing but not with his ears. As he stood up and looked around in alert, a sudden crashing sound and a cry of pain and shock drew his attention. A wide eyed Shatterbird was looking at the cuts on her body and feeling the ones on her face. Littered around her were piles of glass shards. But her power prevents the shards from cutting her, so how...?

A massive crash sounded throughout the warehouse, causing him to whirl around in surprise. In the middle of an empty spot of the warehouse floor, standing in a crater of twisted metal of the roof trusses and floor concrete, was a large dark-coloured bipedal robot, with an ape-like build, sturdy legs and large arms. The reptilian-styled head swiveled about, the folded wings on its back twitching before it found what it was looking for. It quickly raised an arm at a frozen-in-surprise Crawler, the claws and metal plates of the forearm opening and unfolding to reveal a massive cannon that fired a ball of white light at the monstrous Nine member.

The ball merely splashed over the hide of the regenerator, prompting Crawler to charge at the draconic robot. As the robot kept firing at the charging monster cape, walls on two spots blew in with loud bangs. PRT Troopers poured in through the openings, escorted by a pair of lumbering hulking robots, similar to the earlier one, but with no wings, better armor and large glowing crystals in the forearms. The robots proceeded to stomp into the warehouse, raising their arms and creating a large translucent energy shield. The PRT Troopers took cover behind the shield and robots and opened fire.

Jack dove for cover while lashing out with his knife. He scowled as he saw his extended slash merely skidded over the shields with hardly any effect. He saw Mannequin burst into motion, jumping around and extending his limbs on chains to dodge the incoming fire. Shatterbird tried to use her power and gestured, but the glass shards were unresponsive and she got peppered with high velocity bullets.

As Jack scrambled for cover, he saw Crawler had grappled with the first robot, but his movements seemed sluggish as he struggled to topple the robot that held its ground and continued to shoot him with that cannon. Burnscar only had a chance to look at her empty hands in puzzlement before the PRT Troopers gunned her down. Hatchet Face had dove into the maze of warehouse goods, while Bonesaw took cover behind a pillar.

As Crawler inexplicably slumped to the ground, the Siberian charged into the first robot. The robot only had time to reform its claws and have them glow red hot before the Siberian slammed into the robot and tore it into pieces in a berserk charge. Jack ran for some cover when his torso exploded in agonizing pain and he lost control of his legs.

Lying there on the floor, Jack moved his head up with some effort and looked at his stomach. There, impaled through his body, was a severed clawed arm of the robot. 'Huh.' he hazily thought. The impact between the Siberian and the robot was enough to send pieces all over the warehouse, including right at him. The only reason he wasn't immediately bleeding out right now was because the still red hot claws had cauterized the wounds as it stabbed through him.

Footsteps drew Jack's fading attention to the front of him, where he saw a squad of PRT Troopers. The Troopers stopped there and raised their rifles at him and pulled the triggers-

Status of Targets
Jack Slash: Deceased
Shatterbird: Deceased
Burnscar: Deceased
Crawler: Captured
Bonesaw: At large
Siberian: At large
Mannequin: At large
Hatchet Face: At large

Addendum: Presence of Ninth member unconfirmed.

Operation aborted prematurely due to imminent Endbringer Attack. Critical resources reallocated.

Chapter 26

"Please, Taylor..." Danny whispered as he hugs his costumed daughter fiercely in the master bedroom of their house, his emergency bug-out rucksack lying by his feet. Taylor had flew home as soon as she could after receiving the alert. There, she had found her father already grabbing the essentials like personal documents and papers and packing them into a pocket in his rucksack.

"I- I- I can't just stand by, Dad." Taylor tearfully whispered in return, her mask held loosely in one hand. "It's is heading here. I can't-"

"Taylor." Danny said as he pulled his head back to look at Taylor in the eyes. "This is an Endbringer. It'll- It'll kill you if you go fighting against it."

"Dad! Leviathan will kill everyone whether they were fighting or not." Taylor shot back with some heat. "At least, if we fight, we can keep the number of people who dies down."

"Taylor..." Danny started, before he hesitated. "I- I signed the papers, asking the PRT to exclude you from Endbringer fights." he admitted, not quite looking at Taylor in the eyes. "Please...."

Taylor tamped down a brief flash of anger at the admittance, a part of her understands why her father did it. Now isn't the time for arguments. "I- I-" she took a breath. "Dad, if it was hitting anywhere else, I might have obeyed that. " she conceded softly. "But this is our home." she whispered firmly to her father.

Danny hugged his daughter close again. "You're really going to not stand by while this is happening, huh?" he softly muttered.

Taylor chuckled weakly. "No, Dad." She pulled back and looked at her father in the eyes. "I'm a Hebert. Yours and Mom's daughter. We're pretty stubborn when we set our minds to it." she jested, with a fragile smile.

Danny choked back a sob and ruffled Taylor's hair. "Come back alive, please?" he begged in a small voice.

Taylor close her eyes and looked away. "I'll- I'll try." she said.

There was a moment of silence, before Taylor dug through her back pouch and took out a modified PRT Shield Watch, the device looking bulkier than usual. "Here, take this." she said as she hands it over to the thin bespectacled man.

"Taylor?" Danny asked in puzzlement.

"I know you got a regular one. This is different." Taylor started. "This one makes an impenetrable bubble shield around the wearer. Has a bigger battery too." She looked into her father's brown eyes. "Please?"

Danny gently accepted the device and wore it on his right wrist, mirroring the position of the other thaumaturgic device already on his left wrist. "Take care, Taylor." he said softly.

Taylor took a breath and stood up straighter. "I will. Pinkie Promise." she said firmly, tears in her eyes.

**************************

Starburst landed outside the large hall sitting on a hill on the outskirts of town near the waterfront. The building itself was relatively non-descript. It was simply a large multi-purpose hall built to serve the nearby suburbs, surrounded by parking lots and a field. The PRT took over the building to receive and coordinate the parahuman volunteers that were being teleported in en mass by Strider. Strider was also evacuating any non-essential PRT personnel and civilians on his trips out.

Starburst had been delayed in getting to the rendezvous, helping her father to pack any essentials and locking down the house before leaving. She had quickly dropped him off at his assigned EndBringer Shelter (she'll worry about secret identities after this fight.) before flying over to the hall. The low visibility conditions of dusk was further exacerbated by the light rain that had started to fall.

As Starburst neared the entrance to the packed hall, there was a sharp 'Crack!' in the air and Strider had teleported more volunteers onto the parking lot to the side of the building. The crowd of colourfully costumed late-comers made their way to the building, just as a duller crowd of PRT personnel and scared civilians moved in under the area of influence of Strider's teleport.

When Starburst entered the main hall, she found herself facing one that was crowded with capes, many did she not recognize either by reputation or from her Ward studies with PRT cape identification and threat analysis. It seems capes from all walks of life were crammed into this hall, and more were coming in. Villain, heroes, rogues, all had volunteered themselves to come here, to fight back against the threat of the Endbringers. As she walked past a girl (Wasn't she one of the New York Ward?) with a arbalest strapped to her back, Starburst craned her head toward the stage, sweeping her gaze past a group of Case 53s shifting through the crowd led by a woman wearing a strange mix between a dress and PRT Trooper tactical gear (was that Faultline?) to focus her attention to the Triumvirate cape currently speaking. Legend.

"-thanks to the efforts of Dragon and Armsmaster, we have a couple of hours warning to prepare. They have also developed and deploying mobile Tinkertech emitters to hopefully curtail Leviathan's hydrokinesis-"

'Damn' Starburst thought to herself. She had missed part of the speech. She was about to move closer to hear the rest of the speech better, but something else caught her attention instead. The crowd was parting ahead of her, giving way to a briskly striding Alexandria, with Armsmaster following behind her pushing a trolley cart ahead of him. Said trolley cart has a large trash can sized thaumaturgic crystal battery on it.

"Starburst." Alexandria curtly greeted as she neared the teenage Ward."I understand that you can bestow to others your powers? And that you have a Thinker power geared towards battlefield analysis?" she stated.

Starburst blinked before shaking herself out of her slight surprise of her idols singling her out while Legend was still talking up front. "Yes. I can. But it'll drain me unless I got access to a battery." she clarified quickly.

Alexandria simply nodded and gestured to the thaumaturgic battery that Armsmaster was pushing closer. "Will this suffice?" she said, eyes fixed into Starburst's. "I want you to grant to me the Thinker power. The contribution could be useful." she said firmly.

Starburst had only time to blink and look uncertainly at the battery before a movement in the crowd nearby caught her attention. She turned and saw Tattletale, now dressed in PRT Trooper tactical gear plus her mask, muscling her way through the crowd. "Wait." she panted. "Do it on me as well."

"Tattletale?" Starburst asked in surprise. "What are you doing here?"

The fair-skinned blonde grinned at her. "The PRT agreed to let out whoever's willing to help, and they needed everyone they can get."

"Everyone?" Starburst echoed.

Tattletale nodded. "Yup. The rest of the Undersiders are on Search and Rescue. Lung, Bakuda and some of the Travelers are on frontlines. Except for Nolle. She's still in her cell on the Rig with Canary. I'm here with the rest of the Thinkers to analysis Leviathan and provide battlefield intelligence." she explained.

"Ahem." Alexandria sternly 'cleared' her throat. "Starburst. If you please?" she pointedly asked.

Starburst jerked her head to the impatiently waiting heroine and blushed slightly in embrassment. "Oh, right." she muttered. With a touch of hesitation, Starburst flipped the switch to 'discharge' and placed her hands on the now sparking terminals.

It didn't hurt, but it felt like Starburst was on a massive sugar rush, with energy practically surging through her. She felt like she has so much energy that she could scale mountains or run marathons without breaking a sweat. It felt like there's a massive torrent of energizing, purifying water coursing through her body. With some effort, Starburst tore her thoughts away from how the power from the battery felt and focused on the task. The power matrix bloomed in her mind as she focused on it, willing it to be bestowed onto the waiting capes.

[-establishing virtual [SHARD] matrix for parallel operation alongside host [SHARD] confirming formation of data gathering receiving arrays and processing capabilities-]

When Starburst felt the power had snapped into being onto Alexandria and Tattletale, she wrenched her hands away from the terminals with a gasp of effort. She looked up (Huh, her own Radar has activated.) as Armsmaster quickly switched the battery to 'recharge' mode, panting slightly. "That was.... something." she remarked. "Doesn't hurt, but quite a rush."

"That was quite a lightshow just now. Your eyes lit up like a pair of flashlights." Tattletale said to her with a bit of concern in her voice, her mask and eyes now hidden behind a deep purple band of light. "I must say, this thing is pretty user friendly." The blonde commented.

Alexandria simply nodded in satisfaction as she studied her own band of smoky black light that's barely visible around her helmet. "Good." she said. "Now, I want you to be evacuated out of here by Strider."

"What?!" Starburst cried out. "But you can't! I want to help!" she protested.

"You're too valuable!" Alexandria harshly snapped back. "If you die here, thaumaturgic tech will be stalled for who knows how long. The tech is more valuable than being on the frontlines of this!" The heroine reasoned resolutely.

Starburst gritted her teeth in anger as she thought furiously. Her Dad is one thing, but this is another! She was about to retort when Armsmaster cut in.

"Excuse me." Armsmaster addressed his superior. "I believe Starburst would be of better help being here." The Tinker calmly said.

Alexandria fixed her gaze at the man suited up in bulky powered armor. "Explain." she commanded.

Armsmaster nodded. "Starburst's Trump power can create power matrices tailor made to meet any threat." He took a breath. "Based on preliminary research, her power assembles new power matrices much faster, perhaps almost instantaneously, when she is in active conflict with said threat." He turned towards Starburst. "I believe that your Trump power is unoccupied at the moment." Starburst mutely nodded, confirming Armsmaster's guess.

"Not only that," Tattletale interrupted. "I think her power needs some sort of exposure to the threat in question to work faster." At the Triumvirate member's questioning stare, Tattletale cheekily grinned. "Call it a hunch."

There was a moment of silence as Starburst held in her words and Alexandria thinks about it. Finally, she sighs. "Fine." She passed to Starburst an armband (Wait, when did she...?). "Screen shows map and current positions. Two buttons. Press left one to communicate to Dragon. Right one to broadcast to anyone in the immediate area. Press both at the same time to issue an emergency broadcast to everyone. Don't abuse it." Alexandria briefly explained. "I want you to be at the sidelines, providing search and rescue and helping to hem Leviathan in. Indirect support. Do NOT engage it directly." She sternly instructed.

Starburst meekly nodded as she put on the armband, and identified herself to the Dragon made Tinkertech when prompted. "So, what should I ask for?" she asked.

Alexandria looked at her sternly. "Ask for a power that will eliminate any threats like the Endbringers or worse." she answered curtly.

'Or Worse?' Starburst thought as she blinked at the heroine, before she shake off her minor shock. 'Worry about that part later' she thought as she opened her mouth to voice out the request-

Starburst, Tattletale and Alexandria's heads snapped around to stare out in the direction of the bay, their Radars blaring several warnings into their eyes.

Starburst's Radar helpfully highlighted, even through the concrete structure of the building, the massive wall of water rushing into the lagoon of Brockton Bay. And swimming beyond that first wave that was labelled "Environmental Hazard: Enhanced Tidal Wave", was a angry hostile red arrow tag, labelled "Endbringer: Leviathan."

Chapter 27

Starburst ran out of the building with the rest of the volunteers and hastily put up her Fortress Shield power around the hill. The visibility was severely cut short, due to the torrential rains coming down. Even with the shield dome was keeping the rain out, the sheer amount of water coming down was obscuring vision beyond the boundary. Starburst mentally winces as the rain itself seems to be hammering down onto the shield with brutal constant force, further weakening it by nearly saturating the damage threshold it can withstand.

"Starburst. Get to the air!" Alexandria said as she hurried by her. Nodding, Starburst activated her Flight and took to the skies. With a thought, her Radar somehow synchronized with the mapping system on Dragon's armband and coordinate grid lines and building outlines appear in her vision. Another thought and markers showing the status and positions of the volunteers, both capes and non-capes alike appeared as well.

As Starburst fought for attitude alongside the other flyers, with the built-in anti-wind shear barrier of her Flight power keeping the worst of the rain away from her, others went into action. Below her, she could see several layers of barriers sprang up around the dome perimeter to better defend the still emerging crowd from the onslaught of water. She saw the tonnes of water slammed into the shields, shattering the shield dome and barriers and sweeping away the other defenders. A part of her winced as detritus like the shipwrecks from the Boat Graveyard crashed into the docks area and tore open offices and warehouses. The outline showing the Broadwalk flickered and disappeared from her Radar view as the first Tidal Wave ripped it apart.

"Bastian down, A34. Trickshot deceased, A34. Granite-"

Starburst blinked as Dragon's infamous audio tracking of the status of the defenders suddenly cut out from her ears. A glance down at the armband shows that it's still working. Why...?

The armband was suddenly outlined in her vision, complete with a tag, declaring that "Audio source detrimental to combat morale muted." Her Radar can censor things based on the situation? A glance towards a cluster of defenders still shows several 'allies' tags rapidly going from 'All good' green to 'incapacitated but alive' yellow and 'in distress' red, before a few of them winked out.

She shook her head out of her thoughts as to what the flags going dark means as the alert of a second Tidal Wave pinged. Leviathan haven't actually reached the bay yet. It looks like it's using the Tidal Waves to soften up the defenses and throw things into disarray. Starburst took the opportunity of a lull and open her mouth. "I want-" she started.

Starburst blinked and paused, mental images of a pair of kindly cyan blue eyes and a snaggle toothed grin flashed through her mind. Wait. What if she changed the request a bit...? Not necessarily eliminate...

"I want a power that will neutralize entities like the Endbringers or anything else more powerful as a threat to people everywhere!" she declared with conviction into the rain-laden air. Thanks to the torrential rain and her current attitude, no one else had heard-

[QUEEN ADMINISTRATOR: INVOKING ADMINISTRATOR PRIVILEGES: DATA REQUESTED!]

-her but her Trump power.

As Starburst felt the familiar rummaging, the second Tidal Wave hit Brockton Bay. Swimming within it, was Leviathan.

**************************

Leviathan was a monster.

As Leviathan landed within Brockton Bay, Starburst had a good look at it, her vision enhanced by her Radar. The Endbringer was roughly 3 story tall, and has large, hunched over but muscular upper torso that narrows down, sort of like an upside down triangle. The entire body was covered in sickly green scales, and seems to be 'sweating' water (whether Leviathan was creating new water, or drawing it from the surroundings, she didn't know.). What would be the calves and upper arms were bulky in contrast to the forearms and thighs of its limbs. The tail was a whip thin limb that was perhaps longer than the rest of the body. The head was a vaguely reptilian, with a central ridge in the middle of the 'face', but it has no orifices and its four glowing blue eyes were asymmetrically arranged on either side of the ridge.

When the Endbringer landed in the street, water had suddenly up and formed near it into its infamous 'water echo', a flowing water construct that resembles Leviathan and usually follows its movements.

Already Leviathan had started to lash out with its limbs, sending deadly streams of cutting water everywhere. Within Starburst's vision, the streamers were outlined along with their projected paths. Her Radar also started pointing out several clusters of allies yellow and red tags appearing.

Steeling her nerves, Starburst dove towards the nearest tag, down the street from where Leviathan was rampaging in place. As she touched down next to the downed capes pinned under some rubble and started to use her telekinesis to help them, she heard Alexandria's voice barked out through the armband. "All Emitters. Full power, now!"

New tags appeared, labelled 'thaumaturgic sources' appeared in Starburst's map as the mobile anti-hydrokinesis emitters came online. The effect was dramatic.

The rain abruptly eased up from the earlier torrential rain into a light mist, and Leviathans cutting streamers and water echo collapsed into harmless pools and splashes of water. Leviathan itself, judging from the body language, seems to be surprised by the sudden turn of events. The defenders took advantage of the pause by immediately launching an assault on the Endbringer. Brutes and Strikers closed in and started whaling on any exposed surface of the Endbringer. Blasters and Shakers started shooting and layering their powers onto the monster.

Leviathan was knocked around a bit, before it suddenly steadied itself and burst into motion, using its claws, tail and body to attack. The Endbringer weaved itself through the defenders and buildings and ran through the streets.

"Spread out!" Alexandria barked through the armband. "Leviathan is counterattacking, and he's moving much faster than before!"

"Leviathan is heading to B-6!" a female voice joined in on the communication band.

"Bloody Wanker has been holding back! He's really opening up on his running speed!" someone cursed.

Starburst kept an ear to the armband communications, while flying to each red and yellow tags to help however way she can. After prying a concrete slab off a cape in a silver armor suit and helping him up, she checked on her Radar map. Her blood went cold as the Endbringer flag was practically overlapping the flag of one of the mobile emitters.

Suddenly, there was a wave of energy that washed over her, like when Armsmaster did the test with the thaumaturgic energy discharge into the air. The emitters tag vanished, and Starburst could see twisters of water lancing down from the sky and lancing up from the ground in the distance over the buildings. Masses of something raced out from the EndBringers position and arched over the buildings. Two more emitters became yellow, while one was wildly moving through the streets.

"Leviathan is targeting the emitters!" Legend's voice came through the armband. The sky suddenly lit up with numerous beams of energy striking out against the flying objects. "He's bombarding the rest of them with ice spears!"

Starburst was kept busy, flying to each marked red and yellow tags. Digging out anyone buried under the rubble;

"The Rig and PRT HQ is hit! Leviathan is targeting anything with a similar energy signature!" Eidolon spoke harshly. "All emitters, close in and box in the Endbringer. It's lashing out fiercer now with the water strikes."

Performing limited first aid on any injured capes and calling in Mover capes to get them to the triage centre;

"One more emitter is destroyed!" a female voice chimed in.

Steadfastly putting the images of bodies out of her mind. There's no time to mourn or freeze up in horror now;

"The fucker is pulling out new tricks with the water!" someone cried out in frustration and fear.

Ferrying injured people alongside the other Movers;

"Trooper Lands here in Emitter 06. Emitter still at full power, but the vehicle is disabled. We're evacuating." a gruff male voice called in.

Helping others to dig out and stabilize anyone who got buried under the battlefield debris;

"Leviathan is moving through zone C-3. It's within the anti-hydro-kinesis field." Dragon intoned.

Flying from each marked location to marked locations, helping whenever and however she can;

"It's moving faster again!" a woman's voice entered the band.

Got to help, got to help, got to keep helping;

"Leviathan is just smashing through some of the buildings!" some else continued. "Like they're made of paper!"

No time to mourn, no time to gape in horror at the sheer number of losses, just got to help whoever was still alive-

"Starburst! Get out of there!" A panicked female voice came through. Was that Tattletale? "Leviathan is heading your way!"

Starburst looked up as she gingerly carried and sets down an injured cape on a convenient makeshift bench. On the far end of the street, the streamlined and yet muscular form of the Endbringer turned the corner and locks its gaze on the terrified Ward in the distance.

Chapter 28

The moment where Starburst and Leviathan stared at each other, a terrified Ward looking into the malevolent gaze of an Endbringer seemed to have stretched on for ages...

Until Alexandria slammed a right hook into Leviathan's face and knocked it back.

The sudden action snapped Starburst out of her fear-filled trance and she quickly took flight. Despite the various capes allaying against it, Leviathan shrugged off their attacks and gave chase to the fleeing Ward.

"Starburst, don't climb up!" Miss Militia warned over the armband. "Leviathan can hit you with thrown objects!"

Frantically, Starburst dipped back down below the skyline, just in time to avoid getting pegged by a thrown car. With a thought, her Radar outlined a flight path line that twist and turned through the city. As she flew over a wreckage of an emitter vehicle, a part of her idly noted the rise of the local thaumaturgic energy levels in the area being registered in her Radar environmental readouts. It looks like whenever Leviathan destroys one, the thaumaturgic energy instead discharges into the air and lingers a bit.

An alert and a sudden alteration to her flight path line brought Starburst back into the moment, to dodge a twister of water lancing down from above. Leviathan took advantage of a very momentary gap in the shifting emitter coverage to try to hit her. The next few moments were filled with near misses of cutting streamers of water punching through buildings, lances of ice raining down from above and punishing geysers of water erupting from below, before Starburst entered another anti-hydrokinesis zone.

"Leviathan is toying with us!" Was that Tattletale? "He's wants to kill Starburst but he's playing with us!"

'Fuck!' Starburst thought as she sped through the streets. A quick glance back and she blanched. Despite attacks from the defenders and her own speed, Leviathan was slowing closing in on her! She dodged around a charging Eidolon who was flying in the opposite direction and hitting the Endbringer with some sort of glowing Blaster power.

That bought some relief, as whatever it was, it knocked Leviathan back and gave Starburst a bit of breathing room.

Then, to Starburst's immerse relief, she felt the familiar sensation of a new power appearing in grasp, only to blink in shock;

[HARMONY]: Systematic Constantly Expanding and Self Evolving Enhancement Matrix Module increasing Comprehension and Physiological and Psychological Capacity of Target CenteRed on Altruistic Virtues of IntEgrity, Compassion, Charity, Faithfulness, JOy and Companionship with StRengthened Nurturing and Increased Inclination of InduceMent of Benevolent BehAvioral PatTerns towards Individual Sapient Beings and Societies.

Starburst could barely stop herself from cursing at her power as she frantically flew. Of all times for her power to give her something weird! Enhance?! She doesn't want a power that will upgrade the Endbringers of all things-

A blare of warning from her Radar cut off her mental rant and she quickly swerved aside to dodge a car sized rubble that Leviathan had thrown at her. As she stabilized her flight, she bit her lip before pressing down on the button on her armband. "Starburst here. The new power is ready, but its' weird and I'm worried about using it!" she reported quickly.

"No matter." Alexandria answered. "Just use it. We're taking heavy losses."

"But, Leviathan is moving around too fast." Starburst argued as she flew around a corner. "And I only got enough energy for one shot!"

"Hard Override. All forces, pin Leviathan down!" Alexandria commanded. "Starburst, just use the power!" she insisted.

"Hard Override. Leviathan's core is in the torso, towards the chest!" Tattletale cut in.

How?! If Starburst start to charge up the energy for the new power, she'll have to divert some away from her Flight and Radar, and those two were what keeping her from being killed by the Endbringer pursuing her. How to get more-

Her thoughts cut off as a realization hit her. The energy from the destroyed emitters!

A thought, and a new flight path line appeared, looping and winding around the city. Six vehicles down, one disable, two active. If she goes fast enough, she'll minimize the time outside the anti-hydrokinesis zones...

Starburst poured more energy into her Flight power and she sped up.

"Leviathan has shifted targets! It's after a shelter on 3rd and 5th!" a woman cried out over the armband.

Got to go to faster-

"Brutes! On me! We'll hit him from the North!" Alexandria declared.

Go faster-

She sped over a wreckage of a mobile emitter, the thaumaturgic energy from the batteries practically fountaining into the air outlined in her Radar. Her body greedily absorbed the excess energy as she pass the site.

Faster-

The anti air shear bubble around her began to distort into a conical shape.

"Blasters fire on my mark!" Legend barked.

Faster-

Streamers of lightning danced along her form as she accelerated further.

"Pin him down!" A male voice said.

Faster-

"Armsmaster is hit!"

She turned the last corner, Leviathan was just down the street, a straight line stretch. The Endbringer was now missing an arm and there were a few craters on its face. The cone of air and shield around cackled as she further accelerated.

Faster-

Starburst poured the energy into the new power, it forming a ball of coalescing rainbow light in her out stretched palms. The tension in the cone around her seemed to be nearing breaking point.

Faster-

Her Flight path jinked under an outstretched arm, and the large ball of energy in her hands slammed into Leviathan's chest-

And the tension snapped.

Impact.

And Starburst's sight was filled with light and rainbows.

"KAABOOM!"

**************************

"Starburst down. S-09"

PHO Interlude 1

Welcome to the Parahumans Online Message Boards
You are currently logged in, GloryGirl
You are viewing:
• Threads you have replied to
• AND Threads that have new replies
• OR private message conversations with new replies
• Thread OP is displayed
• Ten posts per page
• Last ten messages in private message history
• Threads and private messages are ordered by user custom preference.

■

♦Topic: Leviathan Attack (16/05/2011)
In: Boards ► World Affairs ► USA ► East Coast ► Brockton Bay
Bagrat (Original Poster) (The Guy In The Know)
Posted on May 16, 2011:
4:15pm PRT has announced that an Endbringer attack on Brockton Bay is immenient. All citizens are to either evacuate the area or retreat into Endbringer shelters.

6:55pm Endbringer Leviathan sighted.

Edit: Pictures and videos of the battle is here, here, here, here and here.

8:02pm PRT announced that combat is concluded. Search and Rescue efforts to continue.

9:30pm Citizens may exit the Endbringer shelters. Endbringer shelters are open for civil emergency use.
(Showing Page 15 of 46)

► Weirdman (At Ground Zero)
Replied on May 17, 2011:
My baby sister picked up a crystal the size of a baseball from near a trashed PRT van. It's glowing a little and kept throwing out little sparks and rainbows.

Should I be worried?

► Karl221
Replied on May 17, 2011:

Weirdman
Dude, you should get that into a lead box or something.

► Karl221
Replied on May 17, 2011:

Weirdman
Dude, you should get that into a lead box or something.

► MRCardin
Replied on May 17, 2011:

Weirdman
Yeah, get those Legend crystals away from your family. Get them to the PRT or something.

► RougeSquad
Replied on May 17, 2011:
Pics or didn't happen.

► RiskyTaker (Cape Groupie) (At Ground Zero)
Replied on May 17, 2011:
Holy Shit! Take a look at this!

Did they set off a nuke or something?!

► MRCardin
Replied on May 17, 2011:
Rainbow colored mushroom cloud? Definitely Tinker Tech.

► UNSpacy78 (At Ground Zero)
Replied on May 17, 2011:
I got a looksee at the site. Aside from the glass windows all gone, everything is still intact.
That must be some pocket nuke.

► ANkshaS
Replied on May 17, 2011:
Didn't the PRT let out Bakuda to help in the fight?

► Glory Girl (New Wave) (At Ground Zero)
Replied on May 17, 2011:

ANkshaS
Yeah. She lobbed some pretty weird stuff at Leviathan, but he either swats them to pieces or ran fast out of the blastwave to be hit.

There's a few weird craters all over the place, including one where everything turned to glass and another that copied Grey Boy.

RiskyTaker
Nah. That was a new power from our resident Trump, Starburst. Really knocked over Leviathan for a loop and got it to beat feet out of Brockton Bay.
PRT said there's no fallout, radioactive or otherwise.

That being said, if our shields and lasers start becoming rainbows, we are going to have words.

End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 ... 44 , 45, 46

(Showing Page 28 of 46)

► SilverChance (Cape Groupie)
Replied on May 29, 2011:
Guys! Check out this vid!

Leviathan started to go for one of the shelters, and then this skinny old man took out something and made a bubble shield to block the door!

► TyrantCore
Replied on May 17, 2011:
Damn. You can hear Leviathan whaling on that shield.

► SGCape
Replied on May 17, 2011:
All that, and only some cracks on the shield to show for it? Where can I get one?

► xxxVoidCowboyxxx (Temp-banned) (At Ground Zero)
Replied on May 19, 2011:
Speculating on the identity of possible new capes is against the board rules. Enjoy your three day vacation from this thread.

-CosmicKnight

► RoseAR
Replied on May 19, 2011:
Look closer at the wrist. That looks like the new Tinker Tech shield generators the PRT started testing in Brockton Bay awhile back. The guy must connected to an active duty Trooper or something.

► ESF3D (At Ground Zero)
Replied on May 19, 2011:
Er... guys?
Can you take a look at these photos?
Before

After

Our house survived the attack, but does the colors seemed more vibrant to you all somehow?

End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 ... 44 , 45, 46

♦Topic: Endbringer Watch Thread 7
In: Boards ► World Affairs
(Original Poster)
Posted on May 16, 2011:

(Showing Page 78 of 78)

► StarExpert (Veteran Member)
Replied on May 17, 2011:
Guys, I was going through photos from my rig, and look at this, this, this and this.

The Simurgh started spazzing out, then there was a burst of multi-colored light and now she's gone.

The hell?

► GustavK
Replied on May 17, 2011:
Dude, you shouldn't look too closely at the bitch. That way lies madness. Literally.

► Lunatic (Veteran Member)
Replied on May 17, 2011:
Wait, going by the timestamps...

Is this at the same time as the Leviathan attack?

► EarthGeek (Veteran Member)(Guy in the Know)
Replied on May 17, 2011:
Yeah, looks about right.

We got some readings on the seismographs here in the states.

A small tremor, barely a 'burp', somewhere in Siberia. Behemoth activity likely, about the same time.

► StrikerG
Replied on May 17, 2011:
Something weird with all three at the same time?

Things are going to be mighty interesting around here...

End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 76, 77, 78

I thought I'll give the PHO Interlude at least one try.

Even with the help of the PHO Generator, it was a hassle. Odds of me doing another is low.

Interlude 12

The Dragoncraft flew over the Canadian Wilderness.

The last few days were rather hectic, even for Dragon. Coordinating relief and rebuilding efforts in Brockton Bay in the aftermath of the Leviathan attack, attempting to continue tracking of the remaining members of the Slaughterhouse 9, checking on the monitoring of various S-class threats across the globe were some of the responsibilities that Dragon had voluntarily taken onto her virtual shoulders.

One of the still working feeds watching the cells within Baumann Parahuman Containment Centre had worried the Canadian Thinker. Glaistig Uaine aka The Fairy Queen, the only cape who was a voluntary inhabitant of the infamous Birdcage had seen the footage on the Leviathan fight and something in there had caught her interest. One of Dragon's subordinate Virtual Intelligence (itself was an earlier project by her deceased creator Andrew Richter) flagged and analyzed the footage of Glaistig apparently conversing to herself about the possibility of making a visit to the 'Queen who was touched by Chaos', but apart from the deduction that whoever she refers to was currently in Brockton Bay, Dragon has no clue of the specifics of the desires of the Fairy Queen.

Speaking of perplexing events...

Dragon brought the Dragoncraft to a slow hover over a square clearing among the trees in the forest.

A Canadian Ranger patrol had caught sight of the oddities and alerted Dragon. She had dispatched a reconnaissance drone to survey the forest, only to find a ten foot tall word spelling out 'DRAGON', complete with her personal emblem were rather prominently laid out over a clearing, the lettering was printed out by laying the darker soil over the pristine white snow. The word was accompanied by an arrow pointing to a nearby, suspiciously square clearing nearby.

Curious as to who was calling for her, Dragon had loaded into a suit and piloted a VTOL Dragoncraft to the indicated site. Narwhal had insisted on following along as backup, as a precaution that this could be a trap. The force shield covered cape was the only one who both knew about Dragon's true nature as a fully sapient (though shackled) Artificial Intelligence and a close friend.

As the Dragoncraft landed and the rear bay doors were lowered, three figures walked out from the tree line where they had been concealed before. Dragon share a look with Narwhal before marching out to meet the three. With both parties out in the noon sun, Dragon could better see the three who had presumably called her here.

All three had a similar build, that of a quadrupedal equine with a pair of wings on their backs like the Pegasus of Greek Mythology, and an unicorn horn sprouting from their foreheads. But that's all the three had in similar to anything Dragon had seen before. The legs didn't actually resemble that of an actual horse, being much more stocky and tubular. The faces were a blend of horse and human, having an equine muzzle and ears but also large and expressive forward facing eyes. Dragon shifted her observations to the individuals.

The large and stocky stallion on the left, the one with a blood red body coat and dark gold mane pawed the ground with impatience, his face rather grumpy looking. It easily carried three large human-sized bundles slung over its back. The seafoam green stallion in the middle that was smaller than its brother fidgeted in place, his large and long dolphin like tail (a hippocampus?) swishing in uncertainty behind it. The smallest of the three was a willowly alabaster mare with a serene look on her face and was balancing a large steel covered briefcase on her back between her large wings.

Dragon stepped forward and activated her speakers. "Hello?" she cautiously greeted. "Who are you?"

The three were silent, merely looking at her. Were they mute? Or were they Case 53s who didn't know their own identity?

"Do you know who you are?" Dragon inquired, only to be met with silence again.

Aware of Narwhal shifting on her feet behind her, Dragon tried again. "Why do you want to meet me?"

That prompted a response. The horns of the blood red stallion and the alabaster mare glowed and the objects on their backs were levitated over to Dragon and dumped onto the ground in front of Dragon. Dragon jerked in shock as she identified the unconscious but unharmed humans. They were Saint and the DragonSlayers! As Dragon 'blinked' in surprise over the humans, Narwhal cautiously picked up the large briefcase and opened it, revealing it to be some sort of a portable custom made terminal that looked familiar to Dragon.

Shaking herself out of her shock, Dragon stepped aside around the bodies and looked at the three beings. "Why?" she asked in puzzlement, as Narwhal took the opportunity to use her forcefields to restrain the DragonSlayers and carry them into the Dragoncraft.

The horn on the alabaster mare glowed, and a stick began to write on the ground nearby, digging deep into the snow into the soil underneath. "EXCHANGE."

Dragon blinked again. "Exchange? For what?" she asked, tilting the head of the suit.

The stick wrote the response. "TEACH."

"Teach?" Dragon echoed. "You teach me?" she questioned, only to be answered with a simultaneous shake of their heads.

"I teach you three?" Dragon tries to clarify. "Teach you about what?"

"HOW TO BE GOOD." The stick wrote on a new patch of snow.

Dragon stared at the odd request. Good? What? Dragon looked again at the trio. "Are you- What are you? Case 53s?" she blurted out.

The three merely shook their heads in unison. "NO. DIFFERENT." the mare wrote out.

Dragon paused to gather herself. "Why me?" she asked.

The horn on the seafoam stallion glowed and the written-on patch of snow smoothed itself back to a pristine state. "YOU ARE SUITABLE. YOU UNDERSTAND US."

Dragon paused again. Why did these strangers trust her so much? In what way does Dragon 'understand' them? Why did they trust her enough to 'teach' them 'how to be good'?

Dragon shook her head and looked at the three. "If I agree to this, do I get to know who you are? Or what you are?" she asked carefully.

The alabaster mare only smiled enigmatically.

Chapter 5

Taylor stood in the middle of the cleared floor of the basement.

The day seemed to have passed agonizingly slowly after she had discovered the Flight power that morning. A part of her felt like she's back in kindergarten again, impatiently eager to get home to eat her favorite home cooked food (that reminds her, maybe she should cook that lasagna for her and dad soon...). A Flight power! She could finally fulfill her childhood dreams of flying like Alexandria! With her minor Brute powers, she's already an Alexandria lite!

Another part was... puzzled. Why did the Flight power only appeared to me now? Not about 4 weeks ago (huh, it's only that long ago since the locker? Nearly into five weeks?) with the Hardlight Shield power? What's the difference between the two? Am I a Trump? Coming up with new powers like Eidolon? Or is it something else? Certainly isn't instantly like him...

Taylor had raked her brain throughout her classes, trying to tease out the differences. She tried to remember as best as she could at events before she became aware of the powers.

'Is it because I saw Glory Girl? I copied her powers?' Taylor mentally questioned, absentmindedly ignoring the barbs Emma threw at her as she exited her last class (and nearly mowing down Madison who attempted to block her path). 'No, I saw Panacea as well, but I didn't get anything related to healing others. What was I thinking of at the time...'.

Taylor blinked, before taking a right to avoid an incoming Sophia (itchy right ear lobe!). 'I... had wished I could fly like her....' Taylor thought, finally exiting Winslow High. 'It couldn't be that simple, right? But the Hardlight Shield power came unprompted.'

'Did it? Way back then, I hoped for something to defend myself...'

'But why it didn't appear when I tried to fly the first times?'

'...did I actually asked my (suspected Trump) power for it, or did I jump straight into attempting to fly with the powers I already have at that time?'

Thoughts like these ran round and round Taylor's head as she quickly made her way home.

Now, alone in the basement of her house, with her dad still at work until evening, Taylor focused on the main event of this afternoon. She tried to calm herself down, took a deep breath, and internally feed her 'energy' into the Flight power like how it felt when she fed it into the Hardlight Shield power the first time she managed to get it right.

This time, the 'energy' surged in and the new power activated with a mental 'ping!'.

On Taylor's back, three teal coloured translucent 'petals', each about a foot-long and looked like narrow triangles appeared, arranged in an inverted triangle with their points equidistant around a foot wide teal coloured halo that was centered right between her shoulder blades (For some reason, a pair of wings and a tail comes to mind). Immediately, she could feel the Flight power 'thrum', ready to move and fly. She let out the breath, took another, and willed herself up.

And as easy as you please, Taylor was hovering a foot off the floor, in the middle of the basement. A wide, beaming smile broke out on her face.

For the next half an hour, she zipped, pirouetted and flipped all over within the confined space of the basement, a joyful, giddy laughter bursting out. This Flight power incredible! She had an abstract idea of what it can do, how ridiculously fast and agile, how it swerve and stop on a dime, how much it can carry (maybe up to about two or three adults, she'll have to work on her arm strength and/or her telekinesis). But to actually do it, it was amazing!

She wanted to try it outdoors, in the open sky. To really let things rip. To see if she can really go supersonic like the power matrix suggested she could...

...Oh. But people might recognize her if she go outside. And... she did say to herself that she'll tell dad about her being a cape if she had something impressive. And being able to fly with this speed and agility counts as impressive...

....

...a quick test flight first couldn't hurt, right? Just to reassure herself that what she 'read' from the power matrix is accurate, right? No one will get hurt or can get a good look at her if she's very high up, right?

...costume. She'll need a costume. And a mask. To protect her identity.

Tomorrow's Saturday. She can ask for extra allowance tonight and head to the Broadwalk and the Lord's Street to pick up stuff for a costume. A simple one will do. Slacks, Top, a cheap wetsuit and a mask. Maybe a trenchcoat? Easy, right?

**************************

The next day, Taylor's mind wandered back to the maybe Trump power issue as she got off the bus and walked towards the Broadwalk.

'Is it really that simple?' She wondered, crossing the road. 'Just... ask my power for another power?'

'I need to test it.' She determined. 'What to ask for?' She looked around for inspiration as she reached the marketplace proper. Her eyes fell on a computer parts and supplies shop. Specifically, a couple of posters in the window showing the in game footage of a strategy game and a shooter game.

'...awareness. I got something.' She paused and think inward. 'I want a power that's like a Real Time Strategy game map or First Person Shooter game map, that can show me,point me and alert me, in a large area around me, things or people of interest, enemies, hostile intent, weapons, treasure and so on.'

For a moment, Taylor thought nothing happened. Then, now she's focused for it, she felt it. A sense that a part of her within her brain (?) started rummaging and sorting.

'Guess it wasn't instantaneous.' Taylor thought as she started to browse the market stalls.

Taylor had picked out a set of slim jeans and a cheerleader skirt ('the better to show off your legs, darling!' a part of her suddenly declared, surprising her. Where that come from?). As she browsed, her eyes glanced over a nearby bench, where a effeminate, casually dressed boy engrossed in his gameboy sat next to a blonde freckled face girl (why did she reminded Taylor of a fox?) that's enjoying her ice cream-

[QUEEN ADMINISTRATOR: INVOKING ADMINISTRATOR PRIVILEGES: DATA REQUESTED!]

-when she saw those two suddenly grimaced, dropped their gameboy and ice cream respectively and rubbed their heads in pain, like they had abruptly suffered a sudden intensely painful migraine. Shrugging off the odd sight (and the sudden surge of giddiness she usually get when reading something like a new research paper or two), Taylor continued her shopping, spotting a vest and top that might work...

**************************

Taylor settled into bed that night, satisfied with her purchases. With some new options and work, she'll have a decent costume for her test flight. Maybe use the long sleeved jumpsuit as a base, add some pockets or belts or the vest on the emsemble and an old Halloween mask to be reinforce later with goggles (with her prescription lenses in them) and scuba gear straps, and she'll be ready to go. May take a few days to sew and modify everything together....

As she laid her head on her pillow, she felt it. The sense of satisfaction of a completed project and a new power settling next to the others.

Variable Wide Area Mapping with Objective Intention Determination Personnel Identification spell matrix, with Integrated Predictive Battlefield Analysis and On Time Assisted Targeting.

....she'll call this new power Radar.

Chapter 16

"Console. This is Vista and Starburst. We've arrived at checkpoint E near the docks." Vista dutifully checked in as they stood on a flat concrete roof of an dilapidated warehouse office block. Starburst took the opportunity to scan the area with her Radar, the light from the setting sun casting the area with sharp shadows.

Starburst had never been this far amongst the warehouses near the Docks, not during her visits to her father's office at the Dockworkers Union building, or even during the Docks's heyday (Endbringer attacks stifling the global trade and the riots that resulted in the Boat Graveyard put an end to that) when she was younger. She looks over the maze of large and medium sized warehouses; some abandoned, some empty and some were in use by local companies to store their goods.

"So...anything?" Vista asked hopefully, the twelve years old Shaker 9 Ward looking a bit eager.

Starburst was about to answer her when an alert appeared in her vision. An 'Event of Interest' flag, pointing a fair distance away. Starburst hesitated, thinking back what the last 'Event of Interest' she had investigated only a week ago had resulted in. But... there's no harm in checking it out right? Her luck couldn't be that bad twice in a row...

**************************

Starburst and Vista peeked over the lip of the rooftop balcony of the commercial office/warehouse building just across the street from the large warehouse that was marked by the 'Event of Interest' tag.

A part of Starburst wondered if they're being overly cautious in this. Another part disagreed, reminding her that the tensions between E88 and ABB had been flaring up of late. Considering there was a gunfight between the ABB and E88 just the other day in one of the poorer suburbs/commercial area that the PRT got called in (Crusader was sighted), the caution felt justified. Though the PRT and BBPD didn't complained much about the aftermath. Dozens of gangbangers of both factions were in BBPD custody, Crusader was in one of the PRT holding cells and the Shield Watches were fielded to great success in protecting the deployed Troopers.

Taylor was just as surprised as the Troopers were when it was discovered that the Shields were effective against Crusader's infamous Ghost projections. The Troopers then used the Shields and simply bum-rushed Crusader en mass and knocked him out of the fight.

It was pleasant news to hear after she had just finished discussing with Dragon and Armsmaster about the proposed 'sleep gun' that day. Dragon had liked the idea and will work with the PRT R&D (PRT researchers handled the crystal matrices, Dragon handled the design and regular component manufacturing) to fab a prototype. Armsmaster suggested adding something to the proposed Taser pistol-like weapon to revive the target quickly just in case. Luckily, the power had, like the others provided by her Trump power, came with 'undo' instructions. Converting that and adding to the final Taser pistol-like weapon was pretty easy (press the exposed pair of metal studs at bottom of plastic gungrip to bare skin and push a recessed button to disrupt the 'enforced sleep' energy matrix lingering in target body and wake them up.).

As the pair peeked at the suspect warehouse, Starburst brought up her Radar again. Now that she's close enough, she can check the Radar to better see what it had found so 'interesting' about this place.

"Console, Starburst here" she reported via her headset. "Picking up lots of animal noises in the suspect warehouse."

"What?" The console operator, Kid Win this time replied. "Do you think it's an illegal puppy mill or an exotic petshop or something?"

Vista gave Starburst a sidelong glance. "Illegal kennel, maybe? Any other sounds to pick up?"

Starburst frowned a bit as she 'fiddled' with the Radar. "Hang on.... Hearing some metal sounds. Like chainlink fencing. And a lot barking." she paused. "Lots of rowdy people in there too."

Vista turned to look at Starburst, her eyes furrowing behind her visor. "Barking? Maybe-"

Starburst's back straightened suddenly. "Wait. Got four big somethings heading this way through the street. They just came into my range."

Vista tensed up. "Four? Four what?"

Starburst frowned in concentration. "I'm trying to see..." she trailed off as the Radar 'tags' on the four unknown objects changed to something she had only seen a week ago. 'Enhanced Dog'. "I think it's the UnderSiders. Four Enhanced Dogs." she switched filters. "But I'm only picking up one rider. A cape."

Vista spoke hurriedly. "I think that's Hellhound. And I think I see them coming up the street. Console, do we intervene?"

Starburst looked at the incomings. The last week, she couldn't make out the four 'Enhanced Dogs' properly in that dark alley, only able to tell they were there because of the Radar tags. Now, barreling through the middle of the street and moving fast, she could see them properly. And all she could think of was 'Those are DOGS?'. Said 'dogs' looked more like van-sized four-legged mutated scaleless lizards, with various bone spurs peeking through their thickly muscled bodies. And riding on top of one of them was a stocky figure wearing street jeans clothes and a cheap dog mask. Hellhound.

Before Kid Win could say any coherent order over the communications, the four beasts and its rider plowed through the thin corrugated steel wall of the suspect warehouse. Soon, there were a lot of shouting, barking, growling and gunshots audible even at Vista's and Starburst's lookout point.

"Crap!" Vista swore. "We have to get down there now and stop her." and, with a twisting of space, she was gone before Starburst could protest.

'Wait, what?!' Starburst frantically thought. 'Okay, okay. What do I do? Training says what? Back her up? How do I do that?' Another gunshot gave her an idea. 'SafeGuard! Set the distance enough to cover the whole warehouse from here. Gather energy and set it off'. After the shockwave of light teal passed over the warehouse, Starburst joined her fellow Ward on the street level via her Flight power.

"Vista, Starburst. Pull back." Kid Win said over their headsets. "PRT and Armsmaster are on their way now."

"Vista here." Vista reported as she stood outside the warehouse. Said warehouse now lacks the gunshots sounds from earlier, though there's still a lot of the other noises. "We can contain it. There's only Hellhound in there."

Starburst's eyes widened as the Radar picked up something. "Vista, wait! Most of the people are running out the back and side doors. But there's three more capes-"

With a crash, one of Hellhound's beasts smashed through the front of the Warehouse, where it weakly stayed crumbled in a heap.

And two capes strode out after it.

The shirtless white man with the tiger mask was not immediately known to Starburst. But the woman's rather distinctive appearance of a metal cage over her head and wielding twin mini-scythe blades connected by a chain (Starburst noted that the blades were covered with a soft teal shell. At least that's one worry out of the picture...) quickly brought to mind who was standing before her and Vista.

Cricket. And the other must be StormTiger. Both were known as capes of the Empire 88.

Oh, Come On!