Shard of Magic [Worm crossover]

by blake0831

Chapter 19

"Help the Bank first. I'll be fine."

Taylor looked in puzzlement at the Delphic message from Dinah on her personal cellphone. Taylor isn't sure what to feel about the preteen precog she had met face to face only once before. Interactions with the girl were brief and has an odd mix of the usual preteen attitudes and cryptic Oracle sayings. 'Ice cream was nice today.', 'Homework was a pain.' and 'Troopers are good.' were some of the infrequent messages Dinah would occasionally send to Taylor. Taylor wouldn't say they're close friends. Penpals maybe? A ward of a Ward?

Taylor shook her head at the lame pun in her head, tucking her phone back into her pouch and slipping the mask back on.

Taylor had initially planned to just study in the Wards common room that morning, but the terse atmosphere in there made her feel too restless to concentrate on the study materials. To work off her nervous energy, she decided to take a solo flight off the PRT HQ rooftop.

At least she got to try out the new costumes made by the PRT PR department. There wasn't much change from her original homemade costume, save for the better suit material, absence of the tactical vest (it was exchanged for sturdier zippered pockets all over the suit.), armored panel inserts and padding at key areas for extra protection and some squadron patches bearing her name and the PRT emblem.

"Dispatch, This is Starburst." she reported into her headset once she had wore it. "I'm taking a personal flight around the city. Requesting permission to take off from the roof."

"Starburst. PRT Dispatch here." the older male voice lightheartedly responded. With most of the Wards still in classes right now, Wards console communications were automatically rerouted to PRT Trooper dispatch instead. "Permission granted. Have a safe flight."

Smiling at the approval given, Starburst activated her Flight and Radar powers and took off into the late morning sky with a teal contrail training after her.

**************************

Starburst was banking over the one of the more dilapidated commercial areas of shops, offices and occasional empty lots when the call came in.

"Starburst. This is Dispatch." Her headset suddenly squawked. "Please respond."

Starburst blinked and brought herself to a hover in midair. "Starburst here."

"PRT HQ building is being besieged by E88 assailants. Alabaster and Victor sighted." the grim voice reported. "Please return to the building to assist."

Starburst nodded. "Noted. On my w-"

There was a sudden moment of disorientation, and Starburst abruptly found herself on a rooftop of an office building, facing a stranger wearing a black tuxedo suit, domino mask and a tophat. "Who are you?!" Starburst managed to blurt out before her surroundings suddenly changed again.

Now, she found herself in a empty lot, with several scattered construction materials sparsely spread about the dirt ground. Before Starburst could blink, a small translucent blue dome materialized within the lot, encompassing her and a bit of the ground about 3 meters around her .

Starburst flew to the wall of the dome and tried to push herself through to no avail. Glaring at the wall that refused her attempt, she landed on the ground pressed a finger to her headset. "Dispatch. Starburst here. I'm trapped by some sort of forcefield." She reported, glancing up at the Radar highlighted object at the apex of the dome. 'That must be what's creating the field.' she inferred the device's purpose. "I'll try to-"

Abruptly, the discarded bags of hardened cement near her was replaced by a trio of large black metallic barrels, with a brick-like device sitting on top. The device was showing a visible timer readout of '4'. Starburst's eyes widened to the size of dinner plates and her iris shrunk to pinpricks in clenching fear as her Radar helpfully tagged the new object as 'Hazard: High Explosives - Bomb'.

'Oh shit!' Starburst mentally cried out, as the timer ticked itself down to '3'. 'I need to protect myself from a big bomb, now!' she begged her power as she scrambled backwards, trying to put as much distance away from the bomb as she could within the small dome. '2', the timer showed as she felt the rummaging in her head, praying frantically that this will be one of the quick ones. Faintly, she could hear Dispatch reporting through her headset something about Glory Girl assisting at PRT HQ and a robbery at the Brockton Bay Central bank by the Undersiders and two of the Travelers. 'Who?' her frantic mind questioned randomly as she panicked.

'1' The timer ticked down, and Starburst felt a new power slid into place in her head. Not bothering to properly 'read' the name of the power, she dropped to her feet, curled up into a ball and immediately activated the power.

The imprisoning dome became filled with furious flames and thunderous roars.

**************************

Still curled up in a ball, Starburst carefully opened one of her eyes. 'I- I'm alive?' she asked herself as she peeked out, her ears ringing a bit.

Opening both eyes, she found herself enclosed with a spherical teal coloured bubble. Outside, she could see that it was concealed by enveloping smoke and burning flames. The ground outside her bubble seems to have melted a bit into a glass surface by the immensely powerful explosion.

Shakily letting out her held breath, Starburst examined her body and surroundings and found herself to be unharmed, and the ground she was on untouched, leaving a circle of relatively pristine dirt ground. Uncurling herself a bit within the bubble shield, Starburst took in more gulping breaths to steady her nerves, a part of her idly checking the name of the new power as the ringing in her ears starts to fade a bit.

(Guard: Fortress type Total defense Spherical Shield spell, with integrated permeable Air Circulation and Anti-airborne Hazards Filtering.)

'A- A- 'Fortress Shield' power.' Starburst thought, fervently thanking her power for the timely assist. Her headset was curiously silent. Did her new power block radio signals as well?

The smoke began to dissipate, allowing Starburst to see out. She saw that the blue field wall was no longer imprisoning her within the lot. Before she could wonder if the force field had came down on it's own, or was destroyed by the explosion, three black vans skidded to a halt outside the lot and disgorged several men each. These men were dressed in all black, and outfitted with tactical gear and weapons, reminding Starburst of those documentaries about SWAT members. Though these men were wielding assault rifles with an odd cylindrical attachment under the main barrel.

The armed men immediately opened fire at her.

Starburst yelped in surprise, cringing back as her Radar automatically tagged them each as 'Coil: Mercenary'. 'Oh.' she thought as she pressed herself against the inside of the shield. 'That's right. Coil was known to use mercenaries.' she remembered, watching as the bubble shield around her effortlessly stopped the barrage of bullets (and occasional blistering laser blasts). A sudden 'Crack!' and 'Ping!' reached her ears as a high caliber bullet bounced off the shield. 'Was that a sniper?' a wide-eyed Starburst thought as she tried to find the new assailant.

Starburst grimaced to herself as she assessed the situation. Although the 'Fortress Shield' power took up more energy from her than her 'Hardlight Shield' power, she could technically stay in here as long as she liked (with only a needed periodic maintenance recharge to upkeep the shield) and outlast the mercenaries, what she heard over the headset before told her that there were situations outside that needed her assistance.

Before Starburst could decide on a course of action, the barrage of gunfire stopped. Starburst blinked and looked up at the mercenaries.

A massive and very strange amalgamation of gorilla, squid and beetle landed in front of her bubble with a crash and slammed both armored fist into it, sending ripples throughout the shield from the points of impact.

Starburst gritted her teeth as she poured more energy into the shield, quickly thinking as the construct (her Radar had labelled it as a 'Mana Construct') furiously pummeled the bubble. Starburst knew she couldn't stay here like this, so...

When there's was a brief lull in the pummeling, Starburst exploded out the shield in a massive wave of kinetic force, knocking over the construct and staggering the waiting mercenaries. She took advantage of the brief respite and activated her Flight power, jetting straight up into the sky while firing loosely aimed 'Sleep Blasts' at the mercenaries-

-and she abruptly found herself among the mercenaries, hastily halting herself from slamming into the office building's overhang. Said mercenaries whirled around and brought their guns to bear. Starburst dropped to the ground, manifested a large riot shield and took cover behind it, backpedalling away from the bullets while firing retaliatory 'Sleep Blasts' at them, her mind wondering what just happened-

-and she's now in the empty lot, a large fist barreling towards her in a vicious haymaker. Starburst had barely enough time to place the shield between her and the onrushing fist before the impact knocked of her feet. 'What's going on?' Starburst furiously thought as she tried to bring her brief involuntary flight under control. She changed tactics and charged up the energy within her-

-and her back slammed into a concrete wall of the office building near the mercenaries. Her breath knocked out a bit, but Starburst kept her grip on both the energy and her shield. As the mercenaries turned around, she unleashed a wide area SafeGuard onto them. Taking advantage of the flashbang like effect of the power's activation, she dropped a few of them with Sleep Blasts, ignoring the now useless guns aimed at her. Ducking a now-useless grenade thrown at her, Starburst gathered energy-

-and again found herself facing the gorilla-thing. Starburst ducked and rolled under a vicious swipe, taking the opportunity to dive between the legs and set off the Teleport Jammer power. As the construct turns around, Starburst activated her Flight power and zoomed straight up. 'If that's a projection,' she thought as she remembered her PRT classes, 'then there's a Master around.' Setting her Radar to a much wider area, she looked for any capes nearby.

She spotted the tophat guy (Radar tagged him as 'Traveler: Trickster') as she drew level with the office rooftops, him scrambling back away from her. Starburst hit him with a vicious hit of a 'Sleep Blast'. Spotting a cape near the now-asleep Trickster, Starburst stopped and jetted after it, swerving around the gorilla construct that had climbed up the building after her.

Rounding the rooftop access, Starburst hesitated upon seeing the seemingly asleep woman in the wheelchair. She had her doubts, but the gorilla-thing charging after Starburst and the Radar tag marking her as 'Travelers: Genesis' made up her mind and she quickly blasted the masked woman into an enforced unconsciousness. The construct popping like a soap bubble gave Starburst a burst of relief, fearing for a moment that she had made the wrong decision.

After securing both Travelers with plastic restraining ties, Starburst flew higher up and headed towards downtown, her Radar tuned to a wider area. "Dispatch, this is Starburst." she reported, a part of cursing as she sees the 'Location of Interest' tag appear over where the bank would be.

"Starburst. What happened?" Dispatch calmly demanded.

"I got ambushed by Coil's mercenaries and two of the Travelers." Starburst breathlessly reported as she scanned the skyline. "I've gotten the Travelers restrained." She gave the location of the rooftop. "Do you still need assistance at the HQ?"

"Negative." the unexpected response came. "The E88 attack on PRT HQ has been repelled. Glory Girl has assisted in fending off the E88 capes. Some casualties but no prisoners had been busted out. Victor has been captured along with several surviving gang members."

"Oh." Starburst answered, slowing to a halt. Her mind froze a bit at the sight of the flashing yellow 'In Danger' VIP tag moving through the far away suburbs. Dinah.

"Starburst, provide assistance at the Brockton Bay Central Bank." Dispatch requested, unaware of her turmoil. "Wards Kid Win, Vista, Gallant, Aegis, Browbeat and Clockblocker have been dispatched, but they encountered trouble. Grue, Hellhound, Regent and Tattletale of the Undersiders and Ballistic and Sundancer of the Travelers are reported to be present. PRT forces and Glory Girl still have their hands full with cleanup, but we'll send them as possible."

Starburst froze uncertainly as she tries to decide. Her friends in the Wards are in trouble, but so's Dinah. What to do, how to-

Her mind flashed to the message she received that morning. How far ahead did Dinah see this coming? But still...

Her teeth gritting in frustration, Starburst answered her headset. "Starburst copies. Heading to assist at the Bank now."

With a burst of speed, she accelerated in the direction of the Brockton Bay Central Bank.