//------------------------------// // Chapter 13 // Story: Shard of Magic [Worm crossover] // by blake0831 //------------------------------// Despite the distance Starburst had managed to put between the her and the explosion, the blast wave was still enough to knock her around for a loop. "Starburst? Come In! Get out of there!", she could faintly hear Aegis's panicked voice through her headset. Internally, her mind scrambled for something, anything to do. 'Oh crap, Oni Lee is here! He uses grenades!' 'Grenades? Use SafeGuard!' 'How far? Oni Lee's teleport is rumored to be line-of-sight.' 'I'm in the open sky and glowing. He can see me from anywhere!' 'Set as big an area as possible!' It felt like it took an agonizingly long time to stabilized her flight and gather the required amount of energy, her body tensed. Finally, it was ready and- itchy ear lobe! Starburst whirled around and activated the power (she barely noticed the sphere of faint teal light erupting from her body at the activation.) as well as putting her shield between her and the serial suicide bomber. Despite her bracing herself, there was no explosion. She managed to get a glimpse of a falling body before it disintegrated to ash. 'No explosion? Great!' A part of her cheered. 'Now, to get out of here-' Another Oni Lee appeared in front of her. Startled, Starburst moved back quickly and again imposed the shield between them. "WHUUMP!!!" As Starburst reeled back from her second explosion knockback, her mind whirled, the rest of the world seemingly in slow motion. 'The grenades still explode? Why? Did Safeguard fail? Does grenades not count?' A detached part of her responded, 'Spell renders all weaponry within range at the time of casting safe. Oni Lee's teleport works via duplication. Duplicated grenades likely count as new weapons.' 'What?! I need to keep activating the power over and over?!' 'No, he'll just keep trying to kill me. I need a different way to stop him.' 'I need to stop him from teleporting. I need a power to stop teleporting in a large area!' [QUEEN ADMINISTRATOR: INVOKING ADMINISTRATOR PRIVILEGES: DATA REQUESTED!] As Starburst stabilized her self from tumbling around again, she could feel her power working frantically. She looked around, trying to see where the next one would be coming from. 'Is this a lull? Make a break for it now?' Starburst frantically thought, trying to get her thoughts in order. Deciding to at least get somewhere else, Starburst dropped the shield power and flew away, a long teal contrail trailling after her. And not too soon, as she heard a 'WHUUMP!' somewhere behind her. As she resisted the urge to glance behind her, she felt the new power slid into place ('Royal: Persistent Self-Sustaining Wide Area Broad Spectrum Teleport Nullification and Interdiction spell matrix'). Wasting no time but having to slow down a tad to concentrate, Starburst desperately poured energy into her new 'Teleport Jammer', setting as large of an area as she can manage. Just as Starburst was about to set the power off, Oni Lee appeared yet again in front of her. In her panic, she yelped, switched directions and activated both the new power and putting up a new shield. Tumbling out of her third cloud of explosion, Starburst stabilized herself again. 'Did that work?' she thought as she looked around warily. "-me in. Starburst! Are you alright?!" Aegis's voice came in. Had she accidentally tuned him out during her panicked flight and dodging? She quickly flew away, her disoriented bearings slowly coming back as she put more distance between where the last explosion was and her. She didn't hear any more grenades going off. Did it work? "Ae- Aegis?" Starburst asked dazed over the headset. "I- I think I lost him. Where are you?" she asked as she looked around. It looks like she had managed to get herself quite far away from the casino. 'And yet, Oni Lee had still managed to chase-teleport me all over that distance and speed', a part of her faintly noted. "Over here. To your left." She turned to look, and to her relief, her Radar highlighted a red dot a fair distance away. She banked and head towards him. Still no more explosions. She must have lost him. "Are you alright?" Aegis asked frantically when she got close enough to make his figure out beyond a blob or a dot. "Ye- Yeah. Just shaken." Starburst answered shakily. A quick inspection showed no visible external injuries. "Oh Thank Scion." Aegis said in relief. "Come on, we need to get you checked out at the Rig." "Oh" Taylor eloquently responded. "Why the Rig?" Aegis looked at her. "You got caught in several explosions. You could have internal injuries. The Rig has better medical facilities to check." he answered. "Oh." Starburst said in response. They were silent rest of the flight out. ************************** Armsmater found them in the Rig infirmary, the doctor checking over Taylor. "Oni Lee responded to the robbery from somewhere else and must have mistaken you hovering near the site for one of the thieves. Or at least a vigilante." he speculated after hearing from them a briefing over what happened. Taylor asked from her bed. "Why.... Why did he chased me all over? We ended up quite far away." Armsmaster shook his head. "The ABB don't take thievery against them lightly. Oni Lee most probably wanted to make an example out of you. The fear inspired by the act keeps the rank and file in line." While Taylor was quietly musing over this, Armsmaster continued. "Though it is admirable that you wanted to help by getting more intel, taking risks like that is dangerous." He chided. "We almost lost you to an over-zealous retaliation by a cape." "But," his voice softened. "You did follow orders to not get closer and engage, despite wanting to. So far, your only fault here was that you lingered too long at the scene. And you tried to disengage from the conflict. Oni Lee's persistence and ambush isn't a strike against your conduct." He got up from his chair by the wall. "I'll make a report to the Director regarding the incident." he rumbled. "While its likely you won't be punished too harshly, you would probably have to attend the mandatory training courses and additional safety talks a lot sooner than planned at least." "Now get some rest and recover." Armsmaster grunted as he leaves. "Barring nothing serious, you still have a big day tomorrow." Taylor was silent, until Carlos spoke up from next to the bed. "Huh.... That was... an interesting first patrol for you." "Yeah." Taylor said. "....Only in Brockton Bay, right?" "Yup." Carlos sighed. "I got to go. Reports to file, got to write down what happened from my point of view." "Okay." Taylor responded. "And Taylor?" he said when he reached the door. "Hm?" Taylor answered in askance. "Glad you've made it out of there okay." He said with a quick smile. She smiled back. "Yeah. Same here."