Fixed the chapter fourteen thing, finally. Gods I'm an idiot sometimes. Hope you enjoy the new chapter!

"It's just over here," Taylor called out, making sure to be loud enough for all of the assembled capes to hear. Not that it was much of an issue, really, given that there was about ten of them. Although she could understand why so few had signed up. Considering the casualties, most of the capes would want to be with their loved ones or family.

For her, even if she hadn't been one of the ones organising it she would've been there. Not because of a sense of duty, but…

It beat waiting nervously in a couch for her father to come home. He was going to come home… he had to. He just hadn't been able to yet, for whatever reason.

He wasn't dead. He wasn't.

The distraction helped. Taylor idly wondered if any were in the same boat as her. Taking a glance at the stone faced Glory Girl, she decided that yes, there were.

Taylor sighed as she finally made it to where she remembered the Case 53 had been. The moment she thought of it, she started blushing in embarrassment, remembering how she'd described them to Armsmaster. That had been… really insensitive.

"This the spot?" Armsmaster asked quietly from besides her. She gave a subtle nod, and Armsmaster turned to address the assembled capes. He raised his voice and spoke. "Thank you all, once again, for coming."

'All' was probably a bit generous, to be honest. The assembled capes consisted of Glory Girl, Legend, the majority of the ENE Protectorate, although lacking Triumph and Velocity, her, and one out of town villain. Still, she could understand what he meant. Volunteer work the day after an Endbringer fight wouldn't exactly be top priority for most, which just made it all the more surprising Legend had shown up.

Although to be fair, previously that would've been an amazing amount of capes to see in one place. Her perspective was just a bit skewed after the massive array that showed up for Leviathan.

Especially considering the fact that they had been told to expect the cape they were looking for was probably dead, meaning the entire premise of the 'mission' could easily be worthless. Well, except for giving the cape a proper burial, and letting any friends or allies they may have had that they were dead.

Oh, right, Armsmaster was still talking. She tried to pay attention to what he was saying.

"… Let's get started."

Never mind then.

Battery immediately blurred forwards and moved a large chunk of rubble, what looked like the majority of a wall, out of the way, and managed a few other relatively large bits before coming to a halt, and beginning to recharge. Assault and Glory girl stepped up to take up the slack, while the rest of the capes began moving bits of rubble around, with Legend breaking the largest chunks into smaller pieces with surprising care.

Taylor looked around a place for her to start, and then began moving rock, depressed by how little she could actually do. Sure, she was matching Armsmaster in his strength enhancing power armour, but with a decent amount of charge she could do a lot more. But it would still be really awkward to ask a cape to take a moment to violently kill her, and on her own she wouldn't be able to gain a consequential amount fast enough for it to result in a net gain of time.

The next piece of rubble she turned over had a small, brownish red stain that was almost certainly blood. Taylor quickly flung it away. At least that confirmed they were in the right spot.

Thankfully, the next few chunks only had a few tiny spots.

Battery zoomed back in and took quite a few chunks of rock with her before stopping to recharge again, and soon a pile of rubble began to form as they all kept digging. It was tedious. It was hard. But I was definitely distracting, and that was what she needed right then.

Within about twenty minutes, they finally found the chamber… thing the cape had been in, which was surprisingly intact, even though the majority was filled with rubble. The capes digging quickly shifted over, and began being considerable more careful.

"If you can hear me," Armsmaster said loudly, "We're getting you out of there."

Probably best to cover his bases, she supposed. The last thing they wanted to do was surprise them. The cape could be alive; surviving rubble would be easier than surviving Leviathan, even if only briefly. There wasn't any response.

The out of town villain, who up until then hadn't really done anything, interrupted.

"Definitely sensing a lifeform down there, and it's beating steady. Whoever they are, they're alive, and not suffering any life threatening injuries."

Huh. That actually seemed like a useful power… although she didn't really get how they'd use that in a fight. Why'd they become a villain, anyway? That sort of power would be more useful as a rogue, helping with search and rescue after disasters or fights. Then again, that would get fairly boring pretty quickly, and she could understand the drive to fight. She hadn't never been a violent person, but the moment she knew she had powers she went out looking for one.

That was kind of weird, actually. Sure, she'd been looking to help people rather than just beat people up, but she couldn't say the fights weren't entertaining, in a sick kind of way.

Taylor shook herself to focus as the rest of the capes resumed shifting rubble, and began pitching in.

Glory Girl lifted a rather large chunk of rock. There was a flash of movement, and she was gone. Not even a yell, or any audible kind of warning. Taylor froze, and the chunk of rubble she'd been holding dropped. What?

A few of the other capes reacted more competently, leaping out of the way of the rubble.

"We are not your enemy! Stand down!" Armsmaster yelled loudly.

The rubble shifted violently, and there was a scream as the Case 53 exploded outwards from the floor. Glory Girl was nowhere to be seen.

Strangely, the human torso on top seemed… asleep, or unconscious, yet the rest of the body began moving almost immediately. The lower half was grievously injured, but even as she watched the wounds healed themselves rapidly.

Now that she had a better look at it, the lower half was even stranger than she thought. A mishmash of limbs and gigantic mouths, how it even moved she didn't know.

Apparently it could see them, too, because the mouths let out a screech and began charging towards them. The human torso on op jolted slightly, but remained asleep and muttered something Taylor couldn't make out.

Also, now was really not the time for her to get lost in her thoughts, given that they were running right at her in a way that was very clearly aggressive. Apparently the cape's power gave them some automatic defense system, or something. End result was it was now a fight, and the cape had entirely ignored Glory Girl's invulnerability.

Taylor coiled her legs and leapt up and over the cape. Maybe if she touched their face, they would wake up?

Unfortunately, a weird tentacle like thing shot out and grabbed her ankle. It started pulling her towards one of the mouths.

Shit.

Well, at least she knew what'd happen to Glory Girl, but if that were the case, she should've been fine. Best not test it.

Taylor spun herself, using the tentacle as leverage to draw her knife, and used the small amount of charge she had to cure the tentacle. One of the mouths let out a low groan of pain, even as the body began lunging for her. Before she could touch the ground, or the mouths could swallow her, she felt someone grab her aggressively by the waist and she was suddenly about fifty meters to the right.

Battery set her down on the ground, and Taylor stabbed herself to reset the damage. It was kind of disturbing how familiar she was getting with sliding her knife between ribs. She knew all the weak points from practice, and she could easily reach the heart.

"You okay?" Battery asked hurriedly.

Taylor nodded. "Thanks for the save."

In the sudden distance, Taylor could hear Armsmaster call out once again for her to stand down, as the rest of the capes finally finished reacting.

…Had it really only been about two seconds?

Either way, they were ready to fight the cape, and judging by the complete lack of acknowledgement to Armsmaster's words, and the charge they were beginning, they would have to.

As if on cue, Legend's hands began to glow, but the out of town villain interrupted him.

"Your flier's still alive and in there! Be careful!"

"Where exactly?" Legend replied curtly, his face falling into a slight frown.

The out of town cape sounded exasperated. "I can't get a good read on her! All I can say for sure is there's three separate lifeforms; the torso on top, the rest of the body and a signal that matches your flier on the inside. It's like the whole thing is one giant heart, but at the same time not. Just be careful!"

The cape began bearing down on the group even as Taylor began making her way over, and Battery started to charge up.

Legend fired off an array of lasers at the various limbs the cape was using for support. Almost all of the mouths let out an inhuman cry of pain, even as the body toppled and the… legs, although most of them weren't actual legs, began to regrow. The three remaining mouths began to… vomit?

The capes nearby scattered as tentacles began shooting out at them.

"Sensing more lifeforms that look almost the same as your flier, but the original's still in there. I'm guessing clones of some kind," The out of town cape… she really needed to learn his name as some stage, called out.

As if on cue, the three mouths finally spat out whatever they were… yeah, she couldn't think of what to call it but regurgitating, so she'd have to go with that.

Amounts the regurgitation were a few malformed chunks of meat, a few of which seemed alive and were writhing and… no, focus.

There were also three naked ladies. Taylor fought the urge to cover her eyes even as she blushed. This was a fight, no time for that. As she got closer, she saw they closely resembled Glory Girl, although one of them had black hair rather than blonde, and… blonde eyes? Not a color she thought was possible.

… Still not the time, damn it! Why was she so distractible!

The black haired one and one of the others took a moment to orient themselves, even as the Case 53 began getting to its feet, with the final one screaming bloody murder and charging the nearby Dauntless, who didn't hesitate.

The Glory Girl clone… thing covered the last few feet with flight, still screaming, whereupon she clanged into a force field which sprung up from Dauntless's shield. He retaliated by stabbing her in the face with his Arclance, triggering his lightning at the same time. She'd though the lance would bounce off, but apparently this Glory Girl wasn't quite as invulnerable as the real one, because the lance buried itself all the way through the head, and the corpse twitched as lightning ran through it.

Dauntless kicked the corpse off of his lance as Taylor recoiled in disgust. Gods, that was horrible. He probably hadn't meant to kill her, judging from the way he was flinching, but still.

"They aren't fully sentient, and that one was empty even by a puppet's standards," The out of town villain… damn it, she was just going to call him Heartbeat. Heartbeat, called out.

Taylor let out a breath. Okay, that would make things a bit easier.

The other normal Glory Girl began charging the villain, as if annoyed he was talking, and took to the air. The black haired one seemed content to watch curiously, gently floating a few feet upwards.

Miss Militia pulled out a big gun, some kind of high caliber rifle, and began to take aim, before jumping away as the Case 53 leapt at her. Shit, she'd completely forgotten.

Assault leapt in the way, kicking one of the tentacles that was reaching out for Miss Militia, before dashing away as the Case 53 focus its attention on him. Good to know it was easily distractible. Heartbeat frantically dodged underneath Glory Girl clone B, who was swinging with reckless abandon.

So… a pretty accurate clone, then, from what she'd seen.

Taylor immediately felt bad for the inner remark, and sped up a bit, managing to get herself between the clone and Heartbeat just as it finally would've landed a punch. The punch went straight through her, painfully, causing her to reset about a foot to the right. Damn, just as well she'd made it.

Taylor checked her charge. Five percent…

"The clones have super strength!" She called out as she ducked in the way of another punch headed for Heartbeat.

There was a noise like thunder as Miss Militia fired, and a bullet bounced off of the Glory Girl clone, although the clone flinched. Taylor punched it in the face just as Miss Militia fired a second shot. Both… went through, and Taylor shut her eyes as blood went everywhere.

A small part of her brain was annoyed she'd have to clean blood off her costume again. The rest of her brain was pissed off at that part, and trying not to panic.

The… uh, former person slumped to the floor, and she turned to face the Case 53. Just in time for it to regurgitate about half a dozen more Glory Girls, even as Armsmaster, Assault and Dauntless desperately cut the tentacles reaching for them, and Legend burned off limbs wherever he could, as well as covering parts in ice that seemed to do a decent job of slowing the Case 53 down.

"Real one's still in there," Heartbeat said, panting heavily.

"Buy me some time!" Armsmaster called, leaping backwards as the other two picked up the slack. He started talking even as he ran away, tapping what she thought was his earpiece. Calling for reinforcements, maybe? If so, he probably wouldn't be successful, given how all the possible reinforcements had been at the Leviathan fight. Hopefully they could get a Dragon suit or another member of the Triumvirate, though.

… She remembered a time when she wouldn't be able to say their names without squealing, let alone casually think of them as possible reinforcements. Being a Hero was weird. Heck, she didn't really have any reason to be able to think like that, maybe she was just desensitized because she'd seen so many famous Heroes yesterday?

Taylor jumped in slight shock as her thought process was cut off when she reset. Probably a good thing, she was still in a fight, and one of the Glory Girls had just hit her.

She felt a wave of fear wash over her, and she rese almost ten meters back, the fear instantly subsiding. So that was Glory Girl's aura? Good to know she was immune to it.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Armsmaster running, still talking. Two of the Glory Girls were in his path, and then a second later with a shimmering of blue, and without slowing down, they weren't. Sure, she'd seen the blue, see-through blade cut through Leviathan, but that was still ridiculous.

The blade flickered out. Apparently it was power intensive, which was understandable.

There were another three cracks of thunder, and the Glory Girls chasing Miss Militia lost their heads. That just left Taylor's.

Why couldn't they all be like the strange, non-aggressive black haired one, and just watch them? Sure it would be creepy, but it would be easier.

Thankfully, her clone's aura didn't seem to be working fully, because Taylor was able to approach again. Judging from the way Miss Militia seemed a lot more at ease, it was just hers who'd been having that trouble. Or she assumed so. Armsmaster was capable of fear, she just figured he'd hide it.

The clone swung at her wildly, and Taylor let it hit her, before hitting back with the most of the charge she'd gathered. Her hand broke against the skin, but Taylor felt whatever resistance was their drop, and her follow up strike killed the clone.

Did Glory Girl have some kind of breakable force field, rather than invulnerability? Why had no one told her this? It certainly explained why Miss Militia kept double tapping. Although the fact that she could double tap with an anti-material sniper rifle was a bit ridiculous.

The Case 53 began to vomit again, this time creating almost a dozen intact Glory Girls. Taylor REALLY didn't want to think about the... failed ones any more than possible. Where was it getting all of those chunks of meat? Some of them were still squirming.

"The original almost came out with that group, but not quite. Her heartrate's increasing, so whatever knocked her out seems to be wearing off," Heartbeat called out. A bright bolt shot forwards at him, and he barely moved out of the way.

Great, apparently this group didn't just have Glory Girl's powers, because one of them was shooting lasers, and another created a hard light shield. Hereditary powers, yay. Because fighting Glory Girl wasn't fun enough, they had to fight the rest of New Wave.

Most of them began charging towards the three fighting the Case 53, with a few headed at Miss Militia and the one with the lasers headed at Heartbeat. Taylor moved herself to intercept.

There was a deafening series of bangs from Miss Militia, as she killed as many as she could before the two after her got close enough to worry about. The first she took down with what seemed to be an entire belt from a portable machine gun, but the second's hard light construct seemed to ignore the bullets.

Legend spared a brief moment to dispatch four of the remaining five clones directly helping the Case 53. The last one almost got Assault, but Battery blurred in and tackled him out of the way, killing the clone and then getting back before her charge ran out.

The clone with the lasers, and upon closer inspection slightly green hair, began firing at Taylor. Most of them gave her the equivalent of a light burn, but one tore through her and she reset a moment later, thankfully before they could fire again. Just as well she hadn't let Heartbeat take the hit. She was… fairly sure he wasn't a brute?

In the distance, she heard the Case 53 retch again. Great.

This time, only two fully formed, and one sort of half clone came out. The half one twitched a bit and whined, before the Case 53 accidentally stood on it, and put it out of it's misery. Of the other two, one was unconscious, and… clothed?

"That's her! She's ou- AH!" Heartbeat cried, as Taylor felt one of the lasers go through her. And apparently keep going. Thankfully, no chunks seemed to be missing, so the damage likely wasn't permanent.

With a blur, Battery rescued the unconscious Glory Girl. The clone besides the real one, who had been trying to attack, was dealt with, leaving just the laser, hard light and black haired clones. Once Glory Girl was out of danger, Battery set her down.

Taylor stepped forwards to try to deal with the laser clone, but it nimbly avoided her blows. Joy. Thankfully, Heartbeat didn't seem to be in danger… unless he was already hurt, although Armsmaster was running his way.

Much to her surprise, the black haired clone started flying at her. She would've thought they'd keep neutral. Nonetheless, Taylor mentally braced herself for the hit, only it never came.

Instead, the laser clone dropped to the ground with no head, and the black haired clone stared impassively at it's body, before looking up at Taylor.

Shit, what to say. "Uh, thanks," she settled on. Damn it, she was not very good at talking.

The clone made an attempt at what she thought was a smile, but ended up more like a half grimace, half gasp, and then flew off. A moment later, the Hard Light clone was dead too.

Then the black haired clone made completely see-through clothes out of hard light, which was both funny and alarming. Funny because the clone seemed incredibly satisfied with it's clothes, alarming because apparently they were a Glaistig Uaine type trump.

"Everyone, get clear!" Armsmaster yelled, and the capes all got away from the Case 53 as fast as they could. She didn't blame them. When Tinkers thought something was dangerous, it was usually a whole new kind of dangerous.

The Case 53 was still on their tail, so Armsmaster fired his second… no, first, the second was the blue one… halberd's grappling hook, which arced into the cape's way and froze in time. The Case 53 ran onto it, almost cutting itself entirely in half as the string gave no ground. It let out a bloodcurdling screech.

Battery blurred in and pulled him out of the way, and the grappling line seemed to elongate as they gained distance, even as the cape still struggled to free themselves from the line that ran through it's body, now that it had healed around it.

"You're good!" Armsmaster said, presumable to his microphone, because a moment later a missile streaked past and impacted the cape, only to miss and land about six feet in front of it.

Or so Taylor thought, until it expanded into a cage very much like the one she'd seem Armsmaster use on Lung what felt like so long ago, expect larger and visible stronger.

What the fuck. Tinkers were BULLSHIT. A missile WAS NOT A CAGE.

Taylor sighed.

Armsmaster's grappling line retracted sharply, just in time as a second missile impacted on top of the cage, spraying containment foam all over the bars, and effectively trapping the cape. At least that made some kind of sense from a mechanical standpoint.

Actually, that felt a bit anticlimactic. She'd kind of expected a big explosion…

Although, seeing as how the Cape was apparently asleep, they would both be kind of needless, and murder. It wasn't their fault they'd defended them self while asleep. The cage rattled a bit, but the foam held strong, likely due to sheer volume.

She let out a sigh as she felt the adrenaline wind down. The rest of the capes began making their way to her general vicinity, Battery carrying Glory Girl, who was starting to wake up, and Armsmaster pulling…

She wasn't even sure she should be surprised by now, but she still was, because Armsmaster had hidden an entire first aid kit somewhere.

She sighed and stabbed herself, instead of letting herself fall to the ground.

It was a far more efficient way of dealing with exhaustion.

Response to Reviews:

Winter's Folly: Maybe, Maybe not :D SS will be coming back soon.

goddragonking: Thank you! Hope you enjoy.

GrumpyCat43: Something like that. It was more her shard than her doing to work, and it basically dropped a multidimensional energy blast against Leviathan.

Bobboky: Thanks!

Shiki Shiori: Nope! Never seen that :D

TheWickedTruth89: Thank you!

Amatsumi: Hehe, I try. Maybe I'll even ACTUALLY FINISH THE STORY o_0

This isn't a prod at others by the way, I'm just an obsessive person. I have one thing I focus on at a time, pretty much to the exclusion of everything else.

In other news, Dark Souls 3 comes out tommorow for me :D

Law77: Tank & Spank is the best meatshield!

ultima-owner: I tried to get across just how tough Leviathan was, glad I succeeded. We can't really compare Levi to anything, as we have no Godzillas in our world.

.guerra: If Legend seemed annoyed, that wasn't fully intentional. It was less of a general annoyance and more 'I just watched a hundred people die and accomplish nothing' kind of thing.

Loyaltothelegion: That was why I deliberately tried to make Armsy likeable :D Too many people forget Taylor in canon was an unreliable nartator. While Armsmaster had his flaws, who doesn't?

Same with the Undersiders thing. It doesn't always make sense for her to become friends with them.

Glad you enjoyed :D

xxxrae97xxx: Thanks! I'll try!

EternityDragon2610: Taylor is #1!

Dawnk41: Awww! Thank you! Also, I've seen things like that too, which is why I made sure she wasn't some super god like person. Glad you enjoy!

Akuma-Heika: Khepri was associated with rebirth.

Also, thanks for the corrections! The Sophia thing will come soon.

By the by,, I really DO appreciate the corrections, just can't really think of anything to say to them. I'll try to fix them if I can find them.

Fixed the Endbringer thing.

As for Aster, Taylor will probably never find out what happens, given she has no way of knowing.

Trickster dead? You don't have to know him to be glad :D

TrashTackle: No clue who that is, sorry, but yes?

dragolf: Hmm... Hadn't heard of Deadpool beyond a passing mention when I started writing, but I did watch the movie, so... maybe?

Derox-1223: Thank you! Hope this one's better. And I know my writing isn't the best, that's why I practice :D

Guest: Chapter 14 thing is done (Ominous music) sorry it took so long to figure out the formatting thing.