AN: I got a few reviews concerned I was going to surprise you for the sake of it. Don't worry the idea came first, and I loved it. Surprising all of you is just gravy. See I realized this fic isn't just about Taylor and Shirou anymore, and the writing should reflect that. I've decided not to limit interludes to the end of arcs for now. I don't think it'll be one to one but I'm not certain just yet. I'm just… Ehh, let's say I'm letting myself get lost in the flow a little bit :)

So, without further delay

Interlude: Lily

I fidgeted nervously as I sat on Jason's left. Dani was to his right and the survivors of the Brockton Bay wards sat across from us. Gallant, Vista, and Clockblocker. Clockblocker was missing his right leg mid ankle down, though he assured us it was only temporary. Gallant was in a very generic grey costume because his power armor was destroyed in the attack, but he was otherwise alright. Apparently, another member, Browbeat, had also survived but after getting injured in the attack his parents panicked and pulled him out of the program.

Our new teammates… or maybe that was a bad way to think about them. This was their home and their team. We were the newcomers after all. Regardless, there was a definite air of caution about the boys, and Vista seemed to be on the verge of outright hostility. Not great considering we hadn't had time to do more than exchange names yet.

"Alright." Jason sighed as he placed a closed file on the table between us. "Let's clear the air." He looked directly at Clockblocker. "My team and I requested a temporary transfer here the day after the fight. The reason for that request," he flipped open the folder showing Taylor's file complete with a picture of her in and out of costume. "is her. That's Arsenal and as of three days ago she ran away from New York, and our team, to get here."

Gallant, Dean leaned forwards and a momentary look of shock flashed across his face. "I recognize her." The other two turned to look at him. "I got called in to help with her MS screening right before..."

Dennis's head snapped around. "Wait, this is the girl who Stalker triggered?" Missy stopped glaring at us in favor of looking at her teammates. Something I did as well.

"Wait what? You know who caused her trigger?" I glanced over at Jason who rubbed the bridge of his nose.

"The cities director attempted to reform a vigilante. The girl caused Taylor's trigger in her civilian identity." I snapped around to look incredulously at the ENE Wards.

Denis raised his arms in a warding gesture. "Hey, not our idea, not our fault. We all knew she was a bitch, word straight from the Director was to just deal with it."

Jason tapped the table to draw attention. "It was all in her file." He shot me a look. "It was her business and I wasn't going to discuss it without her permission. That issue was resolved. She took off on us because her Dad was here when the attack happened." That drew winces from the local Wards. "She tried to request a transfer first, but that got shot down because she was on mandatory leave. She wasn't willing to wait two weeks to come looking. So, now she's here without backup, or oversight, on a manhunt. My team and I requested this transfer to come after her."

Jason took a moment to look right at Dennis. "I didn't intend to get put in charge here, that decision came from higher up the chain."

Dennis shook his head and grimaced. "You're welcome to the job. Was only ever going to be in charge for a month or two, and after losing Carlos… never really wanted the job in the first place. Besides I'm no good to anyone until Panacea can replace my leg." He gestured at the stump. I tried not to look. The empty space made my gut twist in ways I had a hard time describing.

Jason dipped his head.

Missy had looked away from the conversation in favor of examining Taylor's file.

"We got a report about her yesterday." She said before reaching for a nearby tablet. "The costume isn't a perfect match. I think she ditched the skirt for a sash or something… yeah, here it is." She slid the tablet around to show us. "She's calling herself Legacy though."

"Captains Hill." Dani muttered. "Is that nearby or."

"It's not." Gallant answered almost absently as he looked over Taylor's file. "It's about halfway across the city, and there is a lot of gang territory between here and there. Right now, we've got orders to stick to the downtown area. Only the Protectorate capes are going into the gang territories. We've got our hands full just maintaining order here."

I shot a look at Jason who was just leaning back and rubbing the palms of his hands into his eyes. "Damn."

"So, are you all going to take off after her then?" Missy asked with an edge. "And what happens when you get her back? Are you all going to just head back to New York?" The implication that we didn't care about them or their city was more pointed than I had expected.

"We're here until the situation stabilizes." I offered ignoring the first question. Part of me wanted to tear off and find Taylor, but it wasn't exactly my call to make. "Legend made it clear we could be here for a few months if that's what it takes."

"We aren't going after Taylor yet either." Jason spoke up without looking at anyone. "She's got two weeks of mandatory leave. If we let her run around that long before we try getting her back… we might get lucky and just convince people she was on leave then came to join us here as soon as she could. She's not going to go for any plan that involves her leaving, not unless she finds her Dad. Maybe not even then."

I doubted we would get that lucky. Someone would put the pieces together, and then we would have a scandal on our hands. That kind of attention and the restrictions it would bring… She wasn't going to like that at all.

"Besides if she can't find her Dad in that area of the city, she'll have no choice but to come to us. No point rocking the boat just yet." He checked his watch. "According the schedule your director forwarded me Vista and Gallant are due for a patrol. I'd rather we all get used to working with each other as soon as possible though, and we need to get familiar with the City… "Vista, would you mind taking the girls with you instead, while the guys get me up to speed?"

Missy cast a mulish look Dean's way before nodding acceptance.

{}{}{}{}

Watching someone young enough that Legend would have locked up in the club house team crunch whole streets into a handful of steps was impressive. Watching her go about patrol with the bearing of a veteran member of the Protectorate rather than get sucked into the lighthearted banter Phantom and I tried to get going was actually a little disturbing. She had the same serious barring about her that Hood and Arsenal could seemingly to summon out of thin air. What worried me was, I had yet to see her drop it.

Still, it had only been an hour and we were on patrol.

"There." Vista pointed ahead at a half hazard collection of tents and tarps. People milled about. Some coming in with bags filled with what were presumably rescued possessions and others going out with determined looks. Most of them were carrying something they could use as a weapon. Lengths of pipe, sporting equipment, knives. There wasn't any theme or standard just whatever they could find which could conceivably be used to hurt someone.

She scrunched space once more those this time noticeably slower. "We'll have to walk normally. My power doesn't work very well around so many people."

I nodded and tucked the tidbit away. Knowing what your teammates could and couldn't do was the absolute basics.

Stepping through compressed space we must have looked like we blurred into existence. The people tensed up at first. Then they seemed to relax. I didn't quite understand until I caught someone's eyes dart to Vista before they calmed down. They didn't recognize phantom and I. We were unknowns here. They were afraid of us. It made sense. It was prudent of them. It still stung.

Would the villains here really be so brazen as to just march up to an aid camp in broad daylight? Especially one only a few miles from the PRT's main office?

Walking through the camp we stopped to talk with the troopers. Just the troopers. None of the civilians seemed to want to speak with us. It was odd. In any crowd there was at least one person that was brave enough to march up to us and start asking stupid questions, but not here. The why bothered me like a loose tooth. Not really painful, but odd enough to keep me poking at it.

Were they afraid? Were they angry? I doubted they were really in shock from the attack given that had been days ago… Then again maybe that was insensitive. How much time did it take for the reality of an Endbringer attack take to sink in? Maybe they just had to much going on to get excited about heroes.

In the middle of our second camp I realized that Phantom and I had stopped trying to banter with Vista. We'd stopped bantering with each other as well. I wasn't even sure when we had stopped. There was a weight in the stares of the people around us that seemed to settle on my shoulders and in my gut. It hounded me, asking why I wasn't doing more? Why I wasn't doing anything?

I wanted to help these people, but I had no idea how to do so. I couldn't repair the city or return their possessions and loved ones. All I could do was try and keep crime rates down. I couldn't even do that from here because the criminals were out in the city and it would be next to impossible to tell the looters from those trying to reclaim their possessions.

We were all but useless here.

The sound of shouting and flesh against flesh was almost a relief. It gave me something familiar to deal with. Phantom went intangible and ghosted right through the crowd. Even though she wasn't physically touching anyone, people still lurched back in surprise. I followed in her wake making full use of the space opening in her wake. The sound of light steps behind me hinted that Vista was right behind me.

We got to the scene just in time to see what looked like a fight between two people devolve into an all out brawl. At least twenty people ranging from late teens to early forties throwing fists and feet at anything that moved all screaming and shouting. There was a moment of perfect clarity before Phantom dove into the mess where I saw a man's nose break and blood begin flowing.

I shouted for them to stop but it was too far gone for that to work.

Then I was in the mess trying to pin people's shoes to the ground with darts and dodge punches. Ethereal blue beams flashed in the corners of my vision as Phantom literally cooled off the mass of angry humanity. Then I caught a blow to the back of the head and the fight became hazy blur I did my best to stumble through.

{}{}{}{}

I gingerly sat on the couch and leaned back until the backrest could take up the job of holding the ice pack against the back of my head. Dani wearing a worried expression darted around me in a circle, casually phasing through the couch when it got in her way.

"Dani, would you please sit down? You're making me dizzy." I asked closing my eyes so I wouldn't be tempted to try and follow her progress. When I opened them, the girl was pouting at me from across the coffee table where she was seated in a recliner.

"Are you sure you're alright?" She asked, wringing her hands.

I gave her a slight smile in spite of my mounting exasperation. "Medic said I'm fine apart from some bruising. No concussion. I'll be alright.

Jason marched into the room closely followed by Dean. Both boys carried a small crate.

"Right, so, I probably should have thought about this before, but given Dani is the only one of us three with variable lethality and we are going to be dealing with a lot of angry civvies… We'll I come bearing gifts." Missy poked her head out of her room, freshly changed into casual clothes.

"We've got tasers and batons for everyone. I wanted to snag some confoam grenades, but I'm not willing to threaten the quartermaster just yet." Jason started laying out the weapons in question on top of the coffee table.

Missy eased up to the table and slowly picked up a taser as if she expected one of us to take it away.

"How'd you get this past Piggot? They've never let me have any kind of weapon before." Missy asked with no small amount of suspicion.

"Permission? To get people I'm responsible for the tools they need to do their jobs safely?" Jason shook his head. "Forget that. You, Dean and Lily are all soft targets. Dennis too once he gets back on his feet."

The pun earned an appreciative snort from said redhead.

"My options are punch people or blow them through a wall. These aren't much, but they give all of us a few more options."

Missy eyed Jason cautiously. Finally, she gave a decisive nod and snapped up a baton as well before rushing back to her room. Planning to hide them maybe?

Critically I eyed the spread on the table and had to admit he was right. A baton would have been nice to have in the middle of that melee… Though really, I should have stayed on the fringes and kept to sticking people to the ground by their shoes. Getting in that mess had been a mistake. I'd just never seen a bunch of normal people keep fighting after capes got involved before. Gangsters? Sure, plenty of times. But regular people… Well once or twice if they were high on something. But those people hadn't been. They were just angry.

I'd have to be more careful. Legend warned us that things would be bad here. I suppose I just hadn't realized how bad.

Jason gave me an assessing look. He probably wanted to ask how I was doing, but in the end, he only shook his head and told me to take it easy for the rest of the night. I vaguely registered him asking Dani to help him raid the cafeteria for everyone and then the room settled into silence that made me want to twitch.

I never liked the quiet moments, or being alone. Here I was up to my neck in a mess like I'd never seen before chasing after a girl who might not… She was just so serious. I'd never met someone who managed to hide their preferences by being convinced no one out there would want them before. Yet here I was, even if only as a friend she deserved to have someone in her corner for once.

"You alright?"

My eyes popped open to find Dean seated across from me. "It's just some bruising and a headache. I'll be alright tomorrow."

He shook his head. "Ah, that's good, but I meant… I'm an empath I can see emotions and you're… a bit all over the place." He ruefully rubbed the back of his neck. "I try not to pry, but I tend to worry about people."

I blew out a breath and leaned back. I closed my eyes and martialed my thoughts before answering and even then I kept my eyes closed. "I'm here chasing after a friend I want more from. A friend who may never be interested in more. I've been here all of one day and I've gotten my but kicked by a bunch of civilians. I haven't even seen your cities villains yet." I cracked my eyes open and favored him with a wry smile. "I think I have every right to be a little worried, and that's not counting the blow to the head."

It felt nice to admit it out loud. Dani knew, even if I hadn't ever come out and said it. She was observant. And if she knew Jason knew. But, well… Dani was positive enough to encourage anything and Jason for all of his good traits was not a romantic. Fred… ughh, no. The fact that we both liked girls did not mean I wanted to be one of the boys. Dean didn't know me, or Taylor. With any luck he'd actually give an unbiased opinion.

"Ahh." he blushed lightly but didn't say anything.

I cocked an eyebrow. "That's it, ahh? No questioning my sanity? No platitudes about finding the one someday? No warnings not to get my hopes up? Just, ahh?"

He twitched a bit in his seat. "My girlfriend and I have broken up and gotten back together six times now." He grinned sheepishly. "Everyone thinks we're crazy. They keep telling me to just find someone else to date." He shrugged. "She's worth it, and I guess I am too since she keeps taking me back." He smiled softly.

Something inside of me uncoiled.

"I don't know if things will work out for you." Dean admitted. "But if you were willing to leave everything behind just to come after her? It sounds like she's worth it to you."

I closed my eyes and thought back on all the moments Taylor and I had shared. My lips twitched upwards. "I think she could be."

Dean smiled warmly at me. "Then that's really all there is to it isn't it?"

"I guess you're right." I smiled back. "Thanks."

"Anytime."