Sunny Sky 1.5

Taylor fixed Marion with a stern glare. "Well, I'm waiting."

Marion opened his mouth to reply, but Assault cut in, "Ah no need to be mad at Marion. He was kind enough to let us in and offered to make us a snack. Battery and I just came by to do a wellness check and see if maybe your savior had made another appearance or if you remembered more details now that you've had some time to rest."

"I see." Taylor said neutrally. What the hell did you tell them and why did you invite them in of all things?!

I told'm I was friend from school and that you were out getting lunch.

Why did you offer them food?!

What else was I supposed to do? My mama raised me with manners.

Assault coughed politely. "Ms. Hebert, just so you're aware, your eyes kind of glaze over when you do… whatever it is you're doing." Taylor felt a spike of panic, but Assault raised his hand in a 'hold-it' gesture. "There are certain loose rules that the majority of capes abide by, one of which is honoring civilian identities. We respect the rules as do some villains even, but others won't. Just thought you should know. As far as I'm concerned, you're just an ordinary person, a victim of a terrible incident at school."

Lisa from behind Taylor, let out a bitter scoff. "Yeah, which is why we were just out having coffee and got shot at by snipers." She muttered.

Battery shot a glare at the blonde. "Something you want to say?"

"Oh nothing, just remarking on how fucking useless you all a-" Suddenly Lisa's eyes went hollow and she marched past Taylor and the two now tense heroes, before heading up the stairs and out of sight.

I took care of her, Taylor. Alexander mentally projected. She was getting… irritating. Her thoughts were rather loud. Would you like me to remove her memories of you?

You can do that?

There are many things a proper telepath can do.

Taylor hesitated. That sounds a little too… violating. Just keep her out of the way for now.

As you say.

Battery cleared her throat to snap Taylor out of her conversation and the hero gave Taylor a mild frown. "Your friend is rather opinionated."

"She's not my friend. I met her barely an hour ago. Then some thugs tried to mug us and a cape intervened. She was kind of rattled, so I offered to let her stay here for a bit to recover." Taylor replied carefully, editing the truth a bit.

"Very kind of you." Assault chimed in with a warm smile. He really was the nicer of the two.

Taylor felt herself blush slightly, but tried her best to keep her face neutral and shrug a bit. "It just seemed like the right thing to do."

"Well pleasantries aside, I do have some good news for you. I stayed up past my bedtime and did a little digging on your bullies." Assault started, his smile fading into a pained grimace. "Perhaps we should-"

He didn't get to finish as a car smashed through the side of the house and struck him in the chest, carrying him into the next room with a massive burst of dust and debris! Taylor let out a scream at the sudden fit of violence and part of the ceiling started to sag as the load bearing wall was obliterated. Battery let out a curse, the circuitry on her costume beginning to glow brightly. Gunshots rang out too quickly for the heroine to charge her power in time and she went down with a spray of blood.

Get down T!

Taylor threw herself to the floor just in time as more bullets filled the air, whizzing overhead. The hell is happening!?

Mercs, a metric butt-ton. Plus a few costumed bastards.

Why didn't your defenses kick in yet?! Taylor flinched as a bullet ricocheted by her leg.

I got interrupted by the two Protectorate heroes at your front door! I need more time and a better damned power source than the city grid. I'm a miracle worker, not magic.

A sniper began firing and Marion cursed into her mind. She felt his physical form drop away. Xander!

On it.

Xander suddenly dropped into the living room, fully costumed up. He was wearing a white suit and curved mask that covered his eyes, but left the mouth and hair free. He had on a white glove on one hand, but the other was exposed to be a prosthetic of sorts, a black metal with glowing green lines carved into it. Striding up and placing himself in front of the hole in Taylor's house, he threw up both hands. Bullets immediately begin to ping off an invisible barrier. A spinning device was flung over Xander's- no he was Conductor now- head. Rather than explode, Deadeye materialized.

"You good Taylor?" Deadeye asked even as he pulled out a pair of pistols and opened fire on the crowd of mercenaries that were beginning to advance on her home.

"I've been better," she snarked back. "They got Marion already."

Xander suddenly vanished and in his place was a bulky cape, built like a football player, made even more so by the armor he wore. He wore a grim expression, even as he pulled out a handful of ball bearings.

"Sorry about this."

As Taylor felt Xander scream and vanish in her mind (she caught a glimpse of a large, bear-like creature), the new villain held out his hand and all of the ball bearings exploded into motion with bullet speed. Like a shotgun, but infinitely more deadly.

Luckily, Assault chose that moment to reappear, a red blur forming between Taylor and the accelerated metal. Each one ricocheted and pinged off of Assault like he had a forcefield around him or something. With a single leap forward he kicked the villain through the air and then dashed into the midst of the mercenaries that were even still unleashing a wall of bullets. Nothing seemed to touch the Protectorate hero and Taylor felt a bit of awe at the skill and power he showed, flowing around firing mercenaries, punching or kicking them through the air with enough force to disable, but not kill. This was what Taylor wanted to be. Someone who could look at crime and kick it in the face, someone who could help people.

And then a second sun bloomed on the ground. Assault let out a horrible cry of pain as the front of his costume began melting in the intense heat. He kicked off the ground backwards and even as he was falling, beams of scintillating light fired from the underslung barrels that some mercenaries had attached to their rifles, seared into his body, sending him tumbling to the ground.

Taylor felt her breath catch, felt her mind snap into focus. They claimed villains had rules. Boundaries. Now they were here, attacking her home unprovoked, killing her friends, and probably some good heroes too, one that had bothered to actually care. All Taylor could hear in her ears was a deep ringing, even when Deadeye took an energy beam to the chest trying to protect her and vanished.

Then she felt it. She felt him. Sorrow. Despair. Utter rage. Whoever was on the other side of her power, watching through the veil of it, she could feel the hatred pouring off of him. He had a deep and abiding respect for a certain code of conduct. Anything else led to open war between heroes and villains. The villains wanted to escalate?

She would show them escalation.

Taylor felt a scream build in her throat as her power summoned a super on par with Legacy. She had thought Legacy was difficult to maintain, but that was when she was fresh and hadn't been using her power for an extended period. Just upon his appearance, the new Super caused her an immediate headache. She mentally strained and felt blood begin to dribble out her nose and down her chin so luckily he remained. Taylor knew that her head would kill her for the next week or longer, but it would be worth it if she could get out of this alive.

The super stood to his full height and held out a single hand. Every single piece of debris in the house rushed to the hole in the wall and covered it in a perfect barrier. The noise of gunfire faded. He wore black robes that gave him the appearance of great height and a solid physicality. A hood and black mask hid his facial features, but even through the mask of glass-like material, Taylor could see twin emerald eyes burning with power. In his right hand was a staff of black metal, runes and symbols carved into the surface of it. They too began to glow with an ethereal light. The staff was topped with a snarling silver wolf's head, its eyes glowing the same shade of eldritch green. Taylor knew as soon as he appeared. He had spoken to her once. Legacy had told her of him. But now…

Archmage had been brought forth.

"You must be Ms. Taylor Hebert." He greeted her with a smiling voice. "Nice to officially meet you. Were it better circumstances I would greet you face to face, but forgive me if I remain in costume for this encounter."

"A-Archmage, right?"

"Indeed. You were wise to summon me child. Legacy would have been a worthy contender of course, but it would have been all too easy to shoot you while he was busy with the rest." The eldritch green eyes swept towards the source of the shooting. "Now ordinarily I might feel irritation that you summoned me for such a trivial encounter. But I take exception to those that break the old code, what you call 'the unwritten rules'. So I shall assist you here."

Archmage clenched his fist and then opened it. The barrier of debris shot forth in a wave of deadly shrapnel, mercenaries crying out and dropping. To their credit, those that survived took cover and began to return fire. The supervillain snorted and flicked his hand as if swatting a fly. A massive wave of force seemed to smother the battlefield, sending each mercenary flying. The bulky villain that accelerated objects with a touch, tried to send a van flying toward Taylor, but the vehicle merely bounced off of a barrier several feet away and up into the sky. Archmage responded by throwing out his hand and dragging the villain into his grasp. Gripping him by the throat, the supervillain stared like an apex predator at a helpless bit of prey. Whatever he seemed to be looking for, he didn't find it in the parahuman and with a single gesture, the villain was sent rocketing into the sky. The massive bear-like creature attacked next, trying to attack from Archmage's blindspot where it had snuck around the house. The super didn't even move an inch as it slammed into solid air. Archmage sent it a flat look, shook his head and finger like he was scolding a child and then crushed the thing until it popped into nothing like a soap-bubble. A flickering sun began appearing, but Archmage just snorted and held out a hand in a claw-like motion, as if gripping something.

"Fun fact Ms. Hebert: On our Earth, only 3 telekinetics ever possessed the control necessary to not just move matter, but also energy." Archmage stated casually, as if discussing the weather. "I mean really, what is energy except matter in a state of transition? Too few truly grasp this or have the understanding to apply it in combat." He closed his hand and the sun flickered out.

Behind the backlines of the downed mercenaries, Taylor finally caught sight of two figures standing near a van, one wearing a bad Baron Samedi outfit, the other a well made red and black costume featuring suns. Both started running to get into the van, but a simple tapping of his staff on the ground was enough to crush the van into a tight ball, causing and then cutting off a human scream. Blood began to pool from the wreckage and Archmage actually winced.

"Oops."

Then with another motion of his staff, both the two remaining capes were lifted off their feet before being driven into the ground with bone shattering force. Another scream filled the air and Archmage put out a hand, dragging Taylor and himself a few steps backwards. The final cape that the villains had deployed against her slammed into the ground with a wet splat.

All of the violence finally overwhelmed her and Taylor turned around to begin vomiting in disgust and horror. She had just been so angry, so panicked, that she had summoned the first super offering its help… and she'd brought a monster into her world. She focused on unsummoning him, but shivered when Archmage only fuzzed at the edges slightly before staying in the physical world.

"My dear, that only works on the weaklings you bring into the world. Beings such as Legacy and I? We can choose to stay if we so desire. Just follow my lead and play along when the Protectorate arrives. I'll get you out of this mess." Archmage murmured soothingly as he patted her shoulder. It was a weirdly paternal gesture from a man that had just slaughtered so many like it was nothing.

Before long the sound of a motorcycle filled the air, followed by sirens and cracking thunder. A van pulled up and a full squad of PRT troopers began to fan out. Among them were Miss Militia and Triumph. The motorcycle appeared and the blue armored form of Armsmaster dismounted, halberd already out and buzzing with some kind of plasma. In the skies, Dauntless descended, arclance crackling with raw energy. A red blur materialized into Velocity, Brockton's resident speedster.

"Unknown parahuman!" Armsmaster called loudly, voice amplified by something in his armor. "Stand down and back away from the civilian or we will use all needed force against you!"

Archmage let out a deep chuckle. "Oh I would love to see you try tin-man." He muttered to himself.

Taylor braced herself for another fight and debated fighting through the killer headache to summon Legacy or any other super that could fight Archmage one on one, but the supervillain instead simply allowed his staff to vanish into nothing and then stepped forward, arms held out in a peaceful gesture.

"I surrender. Take me to your leaders?"