Wish upon a Crystal Star

A childish wish on a shooting star before returning to school might seem like it can't change much, but when it catches the attention of something both powerful and bored, the results can be…dramatic.

Right, so this is a story that I have been considering for a bit, although I was never really sure how to do it. Then I remembered another story called Light of the Storm and inspiration, ironically, struck. Basic premise? Taylor can summon the characters from Genshin, all of whom consider her to be a dear friend. In theory, she can summon any of them, but in practice I'll probably limit the cast to the ones I like and can actually write. Also, she can have up to 4 active at one time. Enjoy!

Chapter 1

Twin, crystal stars spun through the cosmos, each one scanning the worlds they passed with their own methods as they sort out a new source of experimental subjects. One pinged the other with a world inhabited by lesser beings and a few hundred years were burnt, before they concluded that the world was far too dangerous to risk their existence as the inhabitants already had some rather impressive powers and instead pointed towards another world more suited for seeding. A brief exchange followed and the two of them shifted their dance.

As they moved towards the new world, the Thinker of the duo spotted something rather unusual. Floating in the void was a shattered corpse of one of their kind, albeit a loner rather than a duo like them. So, it did what anyone would do in such a situation and looted the corpse and, in so doing, doomed both of them.

Taylor Hebert sat on her bed and stared down at her hands, watching as the pale green wind spun around her fingers. She had discovered her power not long after she had woken up when a loud noise in the hospital had startled her. Thankfully, she hadn't damaged anything and managed to get rid of it before the nurse had come to investigate her yelp of shock, doubly so because the tips of her hair glowed the same shade of teal. Now that she was back in her room after spending the better part of a week recovering from toxic shock after being shoved into a locker full of biowaste, she could finally test her powers properly and confirm to herself that she hadn't imagined them.

Now, staring down at the swirling winds, she couldn't help the excitement slowly building in her gut. She had powers! Sure, aerokinetics were viewed with a certain amount of trepidation in the Bay thanks to Stormtiger, but elemental manipulation wasn't an uncommon power, so it didn't have the same issues as some other powersets.

She took a deep breath and closed her fists, dismissing the winds, before turning her attention to the other weird thing she'd been feeling since the hospital. In addition to her winds, she also had the strangest feeling that something was waiting. Like there was someone on the other side of a door who she knew was there but she had to let in. It was a rather off putting feeling, but it was also starting to get really uncomfortable at an increasing rate since she got home from the hospital and she wasn't sure how much longer she could hold it back.

With a mental prayer that something wasn't about to blow up, she released the building tension and…

"Hi Taylor, nice to finally meet you!"

Taylor stared. Floating above her bed was a small, floating fairy-like creature with thick white hair cropped just above her shoulders, dark purple eyes, and light skin. She was wearing a gold patterned white jumper and a dark blue cape patterned with stars, white stockings and boots and had a black, star shaped hairpin and a floating metal halo above her head.

Taylor shifted her attention from the imp to the bottle of pills sat on her desk.

"Right, I need to call the hospital and get my prescription changed," she said, getting to her feet, "The last thing I need is hallucinations."

Said hallucination scowled and stomped her foot on the air.

"Hey, Paimon isn't a hallucination!" it shouted, "Paimons Paimon!"

"Yeah yeah, thats what a hallucination would say," said Taylor, "Your either a hallucination or a Cape and I think I would have heard about someone as weird as you floating around."

"PAIMON ISNT WEIRD!" shrieked Paimon, now looking rather flushed, "Ohhh, if I wasn't here to guide you to use your powers, I'd have given you an ugly nickname by now!"

Taylor paused, but before she could say anything, there was a knock on the door.

"Taylor, honey, are you alright?" he called, "I heard voices."

Taylors eyes went wide as she shot a glance back to the suddenly smug Paimon.

"Er, no, I'm fine," she called, "Just…talking to myself."

There was a moments silence.

"Well, OK," said Danny, not sounding convinced, "I just got an important call from work, will you be alright if I leave you for a few hours?"

Taylor felt a twinge of hurt that he'd put work before her again, but shoved it down, hard. Such call ins were an unfortunate reality in her Fathers line of work and, quite frankly, she didn't want to have to deal with him right now with this Paimon thing floating around.

"I'll be fine," said Taylor, "I'll probably just have a nap or something."

"OK, I left some money on the side if you need to order food," said Danny, "I'll see you later Little Owl."

Once he was gone, Taylor turned back to the still smug spirit.

"He could hear you?!" she hissed.

"I told you I wasn't a hallucination," said Paimon.

Taylor swallowed and slowly reached for the doorknob. If the little imp wasn't a hallucination, that probably meant she was a Cape, which rarely boded well for people when they randomly appeared in the room.

"OK, so if you're not a hallucination, who are you?" asked Taylor.

She wasn't quite willing to make a break for it quite yet if she could talk her way out.

Paimon grinned and struck a pose.

"Paimon is the great and powerful guide for the wielder of Companion Administrator!" she proclaimed, "It's Paimons job to help you master your powers and keep you alive. You may praise me now!"

"Get to the point," said Taylor, "Powers, what are they?"

Paimon deflated for a moment, before pulling herself back up and clearing her throat.

"Well, you've already discovered one part," she said, "You can manipulate Elemental Energy. You're limited to one for now, but I'm sure you'll learn more over time. As for the other aspect of your powers, well thats a bit more…difficult to explain…"

"Difficult how?" asked Taylor.

Paimon hesitated, before her eyes widened.

"LOOK OUT!" she shrieked.

Without thinking, Taylor ducked, just barely avoiding the hand that shot through her curtains, closed windows and all, and grasped for her hair. A moment later, a cloud of darkness phased through the window and corolessed into a girl in a hockey mask with a rather large knife, which she promptly lunged at Taylor with. Taylor responded by blasting Shadow Stalker (because who else could it be?) with a blast of wind and bolted out the bedroom door.

To say that Sophia Hess was pissed was an understatement. Things had really started going tits up for her when the PRT had shown up at school and started sniffing around Heberts locker. She had no idea why they were doing that, its not like the weakling could possibly have Triggered after all, and while it was worrying, not to mention annoying, its not like they could actually figure out what had happened.

Then, she had got home to find an unmarked PRT van outside, just in time to see a rather angry looking agent walking out with a duffle bag that had been hidden under her bedroom floor and contained her real weapons.

At that point, Sophia knew that the jig was up and decided to leave before she was caught. She wasn't stupid enough to try and bluff her way out of that situation, not when the bolts still had fresh blood on them.

After dumping her phones, she headed to one of her many hideouts in the city to rearm and plan.

The obvious first step was to get out of the city. It was now far too hot here and if she was caught, she was dead. The Empire wanted her head on a platter, both for her skin colour and for all of their goons she had dealt with, while the ABB would probably also be out for her blood. While the Empire was her main target, she had also hit the ABB more than once. As for the PRT, well, they might be useless, but they had caught her once and now had a far better understanding of how she went about things. With that in mind, she had to disappear and lay low for a while until the heat died down.

Fortunately, she had a decent amount of supplies squirrelled away around the city for just such a necessity, so she could absolutely pull it off, preferably before the PRT realised that she'd slipped the net and set up checkpoints.

However, before she left, there was one last thing she needed to take care of. After all, it was Heberts fault she was having to run, so Sophia figured she'd get even and deal with the worm once and for all.

It didn't take long to find Heberts address and she lucked out by finding the weaklings room on the first try. She reached through the wall, intending to grab Taylor and finish the job quickly. She wasn't expecting someone else to be there and certainly hadn't expected a weakling like Taylor to be both fast enough to avoid her surprise attack and respond with a powered attack of her own.

Of course, it wasn't strong enough to do more than make her stumble a little before she regained her balance and chased after Hebert, now fully intending to make this HURT. Sophia dove through the floor, emerging in the kitchen where Hebert was holding a landline phone in hand.

A bolt from her hand crossbow put an end to the attempt before Hebert could call for help like a coward as Sophia dropped down and lunged at Taylor again. However, before she could, something small slammed into her from the side, knocking her off balance. She whipped her head around to glare at the new annoyance, only to falter at the sight of the small, floating imp.

"Wha…"

"LEAVE HER ALONE!" shouted the thing, swooping at Sophia again.

Sophia responded by punching it, sending it pinging across the room. Annoyance dealt with, Sophia turned back to deal with Hebert, only to take a fist to the face. The power behind the blow snapped her head back and sent her mask flying, leaving her with just a balaclava she wore underneath to cover her face. She turned a murderous glare on the worm, who barely even flinched as she went for another punch. Sophia turned shadow and passed through her pray, before solidifying and aiming her knife at Taylors spine.

Surprisingly, the tall girl managed to dodge it and grab Sophia's wrist, elbowing her in the face and twisting with surprising strength into a throw that took Sophia completely by surprise. It was pure instinct that caused her to trip Taylor, taking the other girl down with her, leading to the two girls ending up on the floor, wrestling for the knife.

"What the fuck!?" snarled Sophia, "How are you doing this?!"

"I'm a dockworkers daughter bitch," snarled Taylor right back, "You really think he didn't teach me how to fight someone off?"

A solid wrench nearly caused Sophia to drop the knife and she immediately went shadow, slipping out of the taller girls grip and reforming above her to kick her in the side, sending Taylor sliding into the cupboards. Sophia growled as she rubbed her nose, tasting blood in the back of her throat as she felt the sticky liquid between her face and the wool of her secondary mask. The little worm had hurt her, now she was going to make this HURT!

She stalked over to where Taylor was struggling to sit up and raised her knife. However, before she could bring it down, there was a flash of purple light from behind her and the air was filled with the smell of ozone mixed with roses.

"My my, we can't have this," said a sultry voice.

Before Sophia could react, she was struck with a bolt of lightning.

Taylor stared with wide eyes as Sophia crumpled, now looking lightly charred, as the sudden newcomer stepped over the rogue Ward with delicate precision. She was a tall, beautiful woman, with fair skin, green eyes and wavy, shoulder length, honey brown hair tied in a loose ponytail with a rose tie. She was wearing a purple and white dress with open slits at the sides and gold embroidery, black gloves with pale purple trim, a large witch's hat, black lace stockings, and black high heels. A golden necklace with a large, purple amulet shaped vaguely like a bird was clasped around her neck. She almost looked like she could pass for Taylors mother at a distance, aside from the hair colour.

"Are you alright dear?" asked the woman.

"I'm…fine," said Taylor, "Who are…"

"Lisa!"

Taylor and the woman, Lisa apparently, looked over as Paimon shakily floated over.

"Hello sweetie," said Lisa, "Are you alright."

"I'll be fine," said Paimon, rubbing her bruised cheek, "You were right on time!"

"Um, you two know each other?" asked Taylor.

"Yep, this is Lisa, the Librarian of the Knights of Favonius," said Paimon, "Shes one of the people you can summon!"

"S-summon?"

Paimon nodded.

"Thats the other part of your power I mentioned earlier," she said, "Technically, I'm one to, but…theres not that much I can do other than guide you…"

Lisa cleared her throat.

"Perhaps we should discuss this later," she said, "For now, we should probably contact this ruffian."

She poked the still lightly smoking Sophia with her foot.

"R-right," said Taylor, grasping the distraction for all its worth.

She'd deal with the implications of her power being able to summon apparently sentient and powered projections later.

Assault was NOT happy. In fact, he was positively steaming mad. It was rare that his temper got the better of him like this, but if there was one thing that never failed to set him off, it was people wasting a second chance, something Hess had done in a truly epic way. He wasn't entirely sure how she had managed to get away with it for so long, that was what Armsy was working on, but it was pretty clear that Agent Swanson was more than a little responsible. He'd already seen the incompetent woman being escorted down to the cells as the techs went to work on her computers and phones, so that was one issue dealt with. Now they just had to find Hess before she hurt someone.

Unfortunately, it appeared that they weren't going to manage that.

They had received a phone call from the victim who had started this all, Taylor Hebert.

Apparently, they had underestimated Hess' vindictiveness because the damn girl had decided to go and finish the job she'd started with the locker. Fortunately, Miss Hebert was safe and unharmed and had managed to subdue the rogue Ward.

With most of the rest of the Protectorate out on patrol or already searching for Hess on the other side of the city and Game Master was distracted dealing with other things, Piggot quickly decided to send Assault out to respond to the call, which he was perfectly fine with. It would give him a chance to make sure the kid was OK.

Assault made his way to the Hebert house with a van of troopers. Once they arrived, they found the Hebert girl sat on the steps with a slightly charred looking Hess trussed up in Christmas lights laying on the lawn and an unknown Cape apparently tending to Heberts injuries.

Leaving Hess to the troopers, Assault approached the two women. He made sure to keep his stance relaxed while hiding his ready tensing. He doubted the new Cape would prove hostile, but it never hurt to be careful.

As he approached, the two women looked up, revealing a cheap domino mask that oddly didn't go with the rest of her outfit. Hebert let out a slight squeak at the sight of him, which his long experience indicated that she was probably a fan. That made things both easier and harder.

As he approached, the unknown Cape said something to Miss Hebert, then got to her feet and vanished in a flash of purple light. Well, that was a bit of a relief, he really didn't want to have to deal with a new Cape on top of everything else. They could deal with the newcomer later after all.

"Taylor Hebert, I presume?" he asked, getting a shy nod, "I'm Assault, nice to meet you."

"Um, likewise," she said, "What exactly is going on? Thats Shadow Stalker, right? What was she doing attacking me?"

Assault sighed.

"I'm afraid I can't go into to much detail right now, but rest assured that this had nothing to do with you," he said, "You might not know this, but Shadow Stalker is only in the Wards because of a plea deal, which she has apparently been violating since basically day one."

"How did she manage that?" asked Taylor.

Assault shrugged.

"Corruption in the ranks," he said easily, "Every organisation of any size has it and its not always blatant. In this case, it appears that it was her handler wanting to keep her cushy job."

"Should you really be telling me that?" asked Taylor.

"Probably not," said Assault glibly, "But considering that you just got attacked because of our incompetence, you probably should know."

At that moment, a battered truck screeched onto the street and came to a stop outside of the perimeter, disgorging a panicked looking Danny Hebert, who ran past the troopers without looking and immediately grabbed his daughter in a hug, much to her strangled protest.

After letting the Heberts have their moment, Assault cleared his throat and ignored the glare Danny sent his way.

"I'm going to leave the two of you alone for now," he said, "We are going to need to to come in so Taylor can make a statement, but I think we can put that off for now.

"Alright, thanks Assault," said Danny, before ushering his daughter inside.

Assault made a mental note to get the poor guy a gift basket, then headed over to where the troopers had just finished loading the groggily stirring Shadow Stalker into the back of their van.

And done. I probably should add one more scene, but I really want to get this done and posted so I can see some reactions. I might add one to it later.

So, Taylors power. It basically functions similarly to Taylors power from Blackguards and Mercenaries, wherein she can summon characters from Overwatch. Here, she can obviously summon characters from Genshin Impact, as well as having a power similar to the Traveler. She can have four people active at a time, not including Paimon, and who she summons will be chosen based on either who is the most amusing or by random spinning a wheel.

I didn't actually want to use Anemo as her starter element, but as I considered it, I realised that she was actually a shoe in for an Anemo vision, based on the theorised criteria. The only thing shes missing is the lack of height.

Regarding Paimon, I'm going to need some suggestions for potentially ugly nicknames for the various Worm characters who are inevitably going to annoy her. And figure out how I can work in an emergency food joke…

Taylor lives in a place known for its gangs, and is the daughter of a dock worker and a former minion. I refuse to believe that she hasn't been taught at least the basics of self defence. Its not enough to actually match a trained fighter or anything, but she can at least throw a punch and knows how to wrestle for a knife if needed.

Paimon was willing to stand up, very briefly, to a pissed off Raiden Shogun for the Traveler, I figure that she'd at least be willing to body check a delusional teenager, even if she didn't actually do much.

So, a friend of mine suggested I use Lisa as Taylors first summon and it works quite well. Honestly, it was either her or Miko and Lisa is a much better choice until Taylor gets her feet back under her.

I'm not…entirely sure why I came to the conclusion that Lisa looks a bit like Annette, but the idea struck me and wouldn't let go. I don't intend to have Lisa be related in any way to Annette, but it could result in some fun scenes later down the lane.

Hmm, it appears that Assault might know Danny somehow. How could that be?

And with that, I'm done. Don't forget to leave a review on the way out!