The engine revved as Zack Brannigan angled the news van towards where it looked like Shooting Star had been going. News about Shooting Star was a mixed bag. Sure, she was a hugely popular hero, and was bound to get some views, but everyone would be posting the same things and the larger news channels would pick up most of the traffic. But if they could get something exclusive…

“I have a good feeling about this one Jody,” Zack commented as he turned a corner with the maximum legal haste- it wouldn’t do any good to get pulled over on the way to something potentially big.

“Too bad Mage is just on guard duty. He’s usually getting himself in trouble. Or maybe he is. We could have bugged his phone…” the camera woman trailed off.

“That would be excellent for getting exactly one story and then broken kneecaps and a stint in prison,” Zack shook his head. “Also I like Mage so I’d rather not snoop. Er, snoop indirectly.”

A flash of light inspired Zack to make a right turn, hopefully leading him towards his goal.

-----

I could feel the power in our captain’s palm building up to its very limit. Usually in battle he didn’t have time to gather that much. “You are disrupting licensed mercenary operations. This is your last warning,” he said. “Stand down.”

Stargirl’s response was a blast of her power straight to his gut. Between that and her previous charge, which I’d barely recovered from, I wondered if I might not prefer to fight Gloom instead of her. Sure, he filled my soul with dread, but she was terrifying. And I doubted Mental Freedom would be of any use.

I felt the majority of my Energy Ward being torn through in that single blast of sunlight, which meant it was more than enough to be lethal to a normal person. She should know we were supers, but I wasn’t sure if she would have sensed the Energy Ward.

Our side’s response was swift. The captain released his built up attack, the torso sized orb of ice shooting forward and exploding, coating the surrounding area in ice several inches thick. That included Stargirl for all of two seconds. But that was enough for me to throw a Sonic Lance straight into her center of mass. Shockfire also released a bolt of lightning he’d kept in reserve from earlier in the day.

Both of those would be only minimally hindered by the ice- even if it had been full thickness. As it was, by the time our attacks came the ice was a thin sheet that exploded apart into a cloud of steam, which was still too damn bright. Was that an intentional tactic on Stargirl’s part? It seemed she could see just fine.

I couldn’t see what damage was done because of the light, but she was clearly still intact, full of power and flying. All that after enough damage to take down most heavies. Then again, Great Girl had punched her so hard she made a crater in the ground and Stargirl just walked it off.

I wanted that power. I couldn’t have that specifically, but I could grow so much stronger. And I would, if I survived this fight. That required dodging the fireballs she tossed at us, because I was not going to let my Energy Ward be wasted by tanking hits. Captain Senan got an ice barrier up between two crates- which were way more durable than they had any right to be. Acid Man collapsed into a puddle. Shockfire was crazy enough to only half duck behind a crate, his palm outstretched to try to absorb some of the fire. Suns were just fire I guess. The final blast in the quick flurry, each of which had concerningly high power output, should have been tossed towards Midnight. At least, that was the logical answer.

Instead, it was flung at the poor little martian Evans. I couldn’t see what happened to him as I only knew it was him because I saw a bit of his head poking around a crate.

Then I sensed another source of power, and realized we’d forgotten something. The freaking dog. Or Bunvorixian, actually. I could feel the magic forming, and though I wasn’t familiar with the specific spell I could tell it was a malevolent enchantment targeted at our squad. As it seemed to blanket the area, dodging it would be useless.

Then I heard a loud yelp and saw the above-average dane called Spot flip into the air above the crates. It seemed someone hadn’t forgotten him- that someone being Midnight of course. I couldn’t keep my attention on that because of the fire witch trying to burn me alive, but I did see him leap into the air after Spot, his paw crackling with electricity.

Stargirl was zipping around up above, lobbing deadly attacks down at us with seemingly no limit. The captain was doing his best to hit her with ice spikes- no need to be gentle at this point. I needed to do something that would be the most effective. Fire was out. Electricity didn’t seem that good even if I could touch her. Sonic Lance might work, but only if I could aim it properly.

So Slow it was. That was honestly the best choice, a restrictive ability against a strong opponent. As long as it worked, of course. That would depend on her resistance. But as it let me vaguely target the area above us, I did my best to focus it around her and tried to slow her perception of time. For some reason it didn’t immediately use all the mana I provided for it, so I pushed through the last point. Maybe it would be a waste of that point, but this had to work.

And it did. Suddenly, both Stargirl and her following projectiles were moving like molasses. Even having absorbed the biggest mana crystal I had, I was basically out of mana. Less than a handful left. I could manage a discounted Sonic Lance, perhaps… but I thought I would prefer something more enduring.

Obviously the rest of the squad didn’t miss an opportunity to play their hands. Captain Senan fired ice spike after ice spike, nearly instantly melting in the power around her but at least he was tearing up her outfit- no doubt of similar defensive utility as our own.

We still had to run around, ducking and covering but with much more ease as the attacks had slowed in both velocity and quantity. Stargirl should technically be able to put out the same amount of power, but I wasn’t going to tell her that.

Shockfire took the opportunity to return a couple of Stargirl’s fireballs back at her. I had assumed she would be resistant to that- and maybe she was- but there was enough power there to drastically reduce her glowing. I could actually see her now, instead of just a bright spot.

Acid Man did something I’d never seen before. Maybe it was a secret technique, maybe it was something wholly new. Given the nature of his abilities he wasn’t good against flyers, but he had a large ball of green goop in his also green and goopy hand. He stretched back his arm, snapping it forward and flinging the orb of acid which I really hoped didn’t contain any of the human part of him. Stargirl saw it coming, and though it began to boil away in her heat, it still landed on her left forearm, raised to protect her face. She said some more very unheroic and colorful cusses as it clung to her.

Then a gunshot rang out. My head snapped over to see Evans, half of his very large face blackened, standing fully on top of one of the crates. The bullet struck her in the thigh, only causing a bruise- which was totally unfair because even instantly melting the bullet wouldn’t have removed its momentum and fire wasn’t solid. The rest of a clip followed shortly after, then Evans jumped away from the slow-motion counterattack. He might have hit his head on a nearby crate if not for the stoic Olim catching him- from behind cover.

Midnight was still in a heightened state of emotion, but stable. I had the feeling he was standing guard over a comatose Spot- and he wouldn’t have much mana left either way. Even the two Energy Wards would have taken out a good third of what he could do at their reduced price.

I only had a little more mana than necessary to cast Mage’s Reach, and to retrieve something from Storage. Those two were basically unrelated- while I would have liked to carry around a little button that turned off supers if I could touch it to them, that was at best my staff, and I didn’t have the mana for that. One point of dispel would have done nothing.

Mages Reach wasn’t as useful without mana for Shocking Grasp, but I still reached up to grab onto Stargirl’s ankle. She slowly looked down to see what it was, and Captain Senan finally landed a good hit, freezing one of her arms. Not that he hadn’t been hitting before, it was just her powers melted his ice so fast. This one lasted more than two seconds, and as she tried to yank herself away from my grip I pulled back, limiting her movements one step further than the Slow.

And since I was out of mana, I only had one other method of attack. It was maybe not something very ‘super’, but neither was a Turlough out of mana. I aimed for the torso in general, pulling the trigger on my gun. Not a very magely weapon, but at least it wasn’t a stupid axe. Each shot made Shooting Star’s light fade slightly, bruises and maybe even actual wounds forming on the woman. I emptied my clip, reloading when she toppled out of the sky.

I was tempted to shoot her on the ground. She’d definitely just tried to kill me and my team. Great Girl didn’t like her. She didn’t like me. But I was better than that. She might be a fancy hero, but I got paid to actually follow the law.

Captain Senan moved forward first, ice armor coating him, arm outstretched. “Shooting Star. You’re under arrest for criminal trespass, willful assault on active supers…”

Somehow Stargirl still managed to talk, clutching her side where she crouched. “I know you’re working for Doctor Doomsday you damn filthy orc!”

“... And hate crimes,” Captain Senan said as he encased her in ice.

-----

“... you damn filthy orc!”

Zack Brannigan took a deep breath and looked over at Jody. “Please tell me you were filming.”

Jody looked over at Zack with every single one of her eyes. “Oh, I was filming alright.”

Zack raised his hands to the heavens, tears streaming down his face. “The god of news does exist.” He grinned, “Or at least the god of paparazzi. Good enough.”

There was a huge hole in the warehouse, melted walls- some of the ceiling was caving in. Metal crates had turned into piles of slag. And extremely conveniently, the angle of flung about crates allowed a nice view of the scene.

“This is Zack Brannigan of Channel 72 news,” he said, turning to face the camera with a smile. “You heard it here first folks. Shooting Star just destroyed a warehouse, attacked members of the Power Brigade in good standing- one of which she had a grudge against, I might add. Clearly this was a targeted attack on Mage and his team.” He took a deep breath. “It’s a shame when good heroes turn bad, but Channel 72 news will always be here to report on it.”

It was very, very hard to not do a happy jig.

-----

A blue blur that resolved itself into Shockwave appeared holding a box. “Special delivery,” they held it out to Captain Senan. “Wow she’s melting that stuff fast.”

Inside the box was a pair of handcuffs. “I’ll put them on,” Maks volunteered. “I’ve got the best resistance just in case something goes wrong.”

There was no argument- he just took them and clasped them on Stargirl, who had been constantly melting our captain’s containment. Once the cuffs were on, all of that stopped- and Captain Senan pulled off the remaining ice before flopping up against a nearby crate.

Everyone else looked about ready to do the same.

“You know, I heard the report,” said a figure suddenly standing among us. “But I was hoping it wasn’t true.”

Standing there next to us were two Brigade Execs. Movebrain- who could teleport and thus seemed to be how they arrived in the middle of us- and Captain Punch, the one who had made the comment.

“You know I wouldn’t lie about that,” Captain Senan shook his head.

“Yeah, but we could hope that you were under some sort of mental control,” Movebrain commented. “Alas. This is going to be a PR nightmare even if we’re in the right here.” His eye flickered over to Zack Brannigan. “And the news got here before us?”

Zack waved, “We caught her being racist on camera!” He yelled back. “It’s got thirty thousand views already! Also I’m definitely standing on public property so you can’t stop me!”

“... I don’t know if this is better or worse,” Movebrain shook his head.

People just kept arriving, it seemed, because the next made a loud crash. The guy looked like he weighed three hundred pounds, except then I saw he was covered in metal so I had to significantly up that figure. This guy was… nobody important though.

He cracked his knuckles- which seemed like it should have been impossible given they were fully robotic. “Hands off my teammate.”

Teammate? Oh right, Stargirl had a team. This guy was called… uh. I knew his name, for sure. I definitely didn’t have to look it up on my phone. Fryzor? That sounded right. Also- funny and totally unrelated coincidence- I had no signal now even though I got a call earlier in this same warehouse.

My skin hurt. Why did me skin hurt? And how was it darker and red and wow some of it was even flaking. Was this a sunburn? I didn’t know orcs could even get sunburn. Or maybe this was just a regular burn. All that leaping around didn’t mean I’d fully avoided everything. I was scorched all over, my nice suit all blackened. Francois was going to be so ticked off.

“Ahem,” Olim tapped my shoulder- which twinged. “The package is ready for departure. If you could so kindly help escort it to the dock?”

By that he meant help push it on a cart, down a previously unseen ramp which led down to a little cave- with a dock. If you could call a few dozen planks slapped together a dock. “What do we do now? I don’t see a boat or anything.”

“Just shove it into the water,” came a voice from below. I bent over to see a familiar face. Sirine.

“... We’re not fighting are we? Because I’m really not up for that right now.”

“No,” she shook her head. “I’m here to deliver.”

“... Were you the one who recommended my team?”

She shrugged, “I knew you were competent enough and that at least some of you wouldn’t just attack me. Can you let me get moving now?”

I took half a moment to think about whether I could or should do anything. Was it my job to stop every potential criminal I saw working for any random person? No. Not today, at least. Also Sirine was fine. She helped save a kid from that kraken on Halloween. And Deimos wasn’t here trying to kill me. I shoved the crate towards the edge, where she caught it with a large bubble of water and pulled it along with her as she swam away.

I looked back towards Olim, “So we’re done, right? Because I want to go home and sleep.”

“We are done,” he nodded. “Thank you for your service.”

Everyone who worked for Kendrux was so nice. Too bad I didn’t get to sleep until the sun rose because of stupid Brigade stuff and all of the sworn testimonies I had to make. And helping Midnight convince people to arrest the ‘dog’. At least the Brigade brought drivers for each of us to get back home quickly.