They were ready to move out. Leo and Will chose to stay and man the base, and the rest paired up to go and patrol the city. Annabeth rode with Piper, Reyna went with Nico, with Hazel on a Mechanical horse riding besides them, Frank and Katie went together, Travis and Connor rode a chariot and Jason and Percy shared another.

Annabeth and Piper rode to downtown, Reyna and Nico and Hazel went to the docks south, Travis and Connor chose the train yard, Frank and Katie to the commercial district and Percy and Jason stayed in the docks, and patrolled the area on foot after parking the chariot someplace safe.

It was the middle of the night, and they were getting bored, being ADHD, when suddenly, they heard a roar, and saw a jet of flames from a few blocks away.

Taylor was having a bad night. She was crouched on the roof of an apartment, holding her breath and praying that the dragon man climbing the building didn't find her and roast her alive. 'How did I end up there?' she would think in the coming days. She had been minding her own business, patrolling the docks, looking for a mugger or a drug dealer to apprehend, make a name for herself as a superhero, so she could rub it in the faces of the bitch trio. But then she found Lung, and she decided that discretion is the better part of valor, and when she started retreating, she heard Lung saying that he wanted to kill children, and that plan went up in flames. She attacked him and his minions with a swarm of all the bugs that she could gather. The minions had run away, but Lung was growing to be a dragon. It would've been very helpful that when PHO said that he gets stronger the longer that he fights, they would've mentioned that he turns into a fucking dragon. She heard and sensed him coming up above her through her bugs, and sprayed him in the face with the can of mace that her father insisted she take with her outside.

There was a roar, and a crash, and Taylor sensed two people running towards Lung with long weapons drawn. She couldn't tell because of the bugs were mostly attacking Lung and she couldn't spare them to make a better picture of the two.

Lung heard them coming, turned around to look at them, gave a roar of "I 'ill 'u", and charged at them. Taylor peeked over the short wall that she had been hiding behind of, and saw two greek hoplites, each holding a sword and shield, running to different sides from Lung. He went after the one with the blue horse plume, breathed a jet of flames at him, and blocked a swipe from the gold plumed one from the right on his iron scales. The blue plume who had hidden behind his shield attacked now, ducking under a talon and left a mark on Lung's left thigh that made him roar, and healed right in front of their eyes. He leapt back from a grasping hand, swiped at the other hand, and bashed Lung's snout when he opened his mouth to breath fire.

The gold plume one chose that time to attack, stabbing Lung in the arm, and jumping back from a tail attack. Lung gave a growl and suddenly exploded with fire.bThe fire pushed the back, and the gold plume one rose in the air, while the blue one rolled away.

Suddenly the air started to feel heavy, Taylor felt her hairs puff up from static, and there was a flash of light and a boom of thunder and Lung screamed in pain of being struck by lightning. He grew a foot, and wings started to grow from his back. He focused his attention on the flyer, and a few seconds later Taylor saw the blue one driving a trident of all things in Lung's back (didn't he have a sword just now?). The heavy feeling returned, this time more uncomfortable, and three lightning strikes hit the metal body of the trident, and went straight into Lung's body and nervous system. Lung was stunned, and suddenly he seemed to be struggling to breathe, then he fell unconscious.

"Now you remember to use that trick?" the blue one incredulously asked, and the gold one shrugged, saying, "I'm still getting used to it. Sue me."

They turned to walk away, and Taylor felt it was safe to move. She stepped back, still crouching, and there was a crunch of gravel under her shoes. She became rigid and listened carefully for any sound. The area was silent, and she gratefully relaxed. Her swarm was depleted and she was out of pepper spray.

"Whatcha doing?"

Taylor let a shriek escape her lips and stood bolt upright. The adrenaline from before was still running high in her system, and she looked around to see the two guys from below standing before her. They were taller than her, around 6ft4, and were packed with muscle. The armor on them gleamed in the light, and there were symbols etched on the breastplate. They studied her, and the blue one said, "First time?"

Taylor nodded, and he said, "Well, you have the luck of the damned kid. Why did you stay and fight when you realized it was Lung?" he asked her curiously, and she took a moment to answer.

"I heard he wanted to kill children. Was he talking about you?" Taylor was internally kicking herself, having put her life on the line to save these two obviously powerful Parahumans.

The gold one, with a lightning bolt and an eagle overlaid etched on his breastplate, said, "No idea. it's our first night in this city. Still, you should be proud. not many would be able to stand against Lung with the equipment that you have. I guess you didn't expect this to happen, did you?"

Taylor felt a touch of happiness at the praise, and behind her mask was a light dusting of pink on her cheeks.

"So, introductions! this is Tempest and I'm the Hurricane! the new heroes of Brockton Bay. What's your name, kid in intimidating costume?"

Taylor started to say her name out of reflex, and stopped.

"Wow, you're that shiny? And you still took on Lung? Impressive." The now named Hurricane whistled, and after a brief look with Tempest said, "Come on kid, let's get out of here. Don't want any nosy little shits to listen on us."

(Hidden a couple of buildings over, Lisa had an affronted expression on her face.)

Taylor thought about it a couple of seconds, and agreed to go with them. They climbed down the fire escape, and stepped out of the alleyway and into the street, when there was a loud rumble, and a bike came speeding towards them. Armsmaster had arrived.

Jason had to admit, black and peculiar described the girl's costume to a T. A deep grey in color, with plates made of... are those snail shells? and the mandibles around her jawline, sulfur yellow lenses for her eyes, with her hair a dark mane around her head, not forgetting her unnatural stillness, she looked like a predator in the dark. If Jason hadn't seen worst things in the past, he would be a little concerned. But she was obviously a mortal. She had potential, standing up to Lung like that, or attacking from afar as was the case, and obviously untrained. Simply put, she was pure potential.

So when hearing the rumble of the bike, they turned towards that direction, and saw a man on a futuristic bike, in full armor, looking like the robocop, except with a goatee. He came to a stop a few yards in front of them, jumped of the bike and brandished a halberd and said, "You gonna fight me?"

The girl in the middle of them stiffened from shock, and Jason and Percy shared a look. Percy shrugged, and Jason turned to Armsmaster and said, "Are you sure you can take us all? We took down Lung, you are obviously very smaller than him." There was a sound of protest from the girl, and Jason said, "Well the two of us. we still outnumber you."

The girl (it was getting tiring to refer to her as the girl in his head) found her voice and said, "But that's Armsmaster! He's the head of the Protectorate! you wanna fight a Hero?" The capitals in her speech were obvious.

"He started it," Percy said. "And he took one look at us and jumped to 'Villian!' ! and he pulled a weapon on us!"

Taylor ignored him and turned to face Armsmaster. "I'm a hero! Lung said he wanted to kill children and I tried to stop him. Then Tempest and Hurricane came and beat him to unconsciousness."

"Children you said? That must've been the Undersiders. They are petty thieves. They had robbed one of his casinos a while back and had robbed one of his cash houses now." Taylor's good mood was gone now. So she had risked her life for those who could defend themselves, and were villains to boot.

Jason, when seeing her downtrodden body posture, told her, "Don't worry about it Taylor, what you did was heroic and shows your character. Don't forget that you still saved children, after a fashion."

Armsmaster looked around the scene and said, "So you took down Lung. The ABB is gonna be looking for whoever took him down. And word is he got himself a bomb tinker recently. So who's gonna take credit for it?"

Percy and Jason saw this for what it was, trying to intimidate the newbe, and take credit for himself. But they waited to see how the new girl would handle herself.

Taylor thought about it, it would be better not having this much attention on herself, and having the leader of the Protectorate owing her a favor would be beneficial in the long run. Having thus decided, she turned to Armsmaster.

"You should take credit for it. Being an accomplished hero you can deal with the repercussions better. I don't think I can stand against Oni Lee by myself."

Armsmaster obviously liked this, as his posture relaxed. and said, "You should join the wards, they would give you a safe place to know your powers better, and the backup would come in handy too." He then gave her his card, and said, "If you need help, or support for anything, you can contact me on my personal number."

He then moved towards Lung, and was about to inject him with something from the end of his halberd, when Taylor said, "I injected him with a lot of spider and wasp venom, there were a lot of black widows, and a few brown recluses too."

Armsmaster hesitated, then went and shot Lung with the tranq drug anyway, citing procedure and such. Taylor looked uncertain, but shrugged and let it go.

they stayed silent as Armsmaster loaded Lung in a cage on his bike and left, Then Hurricane said, "It's getting pretty late, kid. Mind a ride from us to your neighborhood?"

Taylor felt conflicted, on one hand, she was coming down from an adrenaline rush, and was about to crash, on the other hand they might learn of her home address. In the end, she accepted, and Hurricane gave a loud whistle, and after a few seconds rumbling of hooves could be heard.

To Taylor's amazement, an honest to God chariot came hurtling down the street, without a rider and with mechanical horses of all things.

Tempest and Hurricane jumped on, with Hurricane on the reins, and he said, "Hop up girl!" Taylor hesitantly stepped on the chariot, and the hung on the handles for dear life as they went barrelling down the street. Somehow she managed to give them the general address of her house, and they stopped a couple of blocks from her house.

Hurricane gave her a trident key chain, and said, "if you want to meet again, pull the trident off its handle. if you're in trouble, break it and we'll come running to where it will lead us."

"Is it, like, tinkertech? can you track me using this?"

"No, nothing like that. when you do what we said, it will give a pulse that can be felt by our systems back at the base. It doesn't have the juice to keep tracking you for the days that it may take for you to contact us. Plus, the rules won't allow it."

"What rules? I didn't know being a cape had a set of rules."

"They're called the unwritten rules, and they are basically,

1. Don't Go After Anyone Out Of Costume

2. Don't Escalate A Fight

3. Don't Sexually Assault The Ones That You Have Won Against.

4. The Families Of Parahumans Are Out Of Bounds.

5. Don't Go After Civilians.

There are a few more, but as I said, they're basically they're a gentleman's agreement, a set of guidelines to keep things civil. or else there would be mass chaos in the country. Those that break the rules tend to be sought after by everyone, and don't last long. But we can talk about these things on another time, as I can see you're tired." With that, they turned the chariot and with a last 'call us', sped into the night.

Taylor walked the rest of the way home, stuck in thoughts of the night, and walked into her home to find her father sitting on the sofa, looking straight at her.