Opening Note: So yea, this happened. Blame Spacebattles and the Worm ideas thread. I have no idea what kind of impact this will have on Second Contact's production (which is currently stalled thanks to some spectacular writer's block), and I'm not 100% certain of where this is going, but I'm having fun writing it, so I'll see where it takes me.

Templar
by Agayek

Chapter 1: Initiation

The wind roared in my ears, joining the staccato rhythm of my heart, as I arced gracefully through the air. My breath was uncomfortably warm behind the strip of rough cloth stretched over my mouth and nose in a half mask while my cloak whipped wildly in the wake of my passage, tugging gently on my shoulders with the clasp, but I pushed the small annoyances aside. Nothing so minor could ruin that eternal moment when I hung in the air, dozens of feet between me and the ground. It was a sign of the power I now wielded, the freedom I now had. While I was up there, there were no bullies, no pressure, no worries. Just me and the night sky. It was everything I'd ever wanted condensed into a scant few seconds.

And it was ending far too soon.

My legs jolted from the impact with the roof and I turned it into a roll with the ease of months of practice. The hood of my cloak settled comfortably over my head as I regained my feet and I let out a small satisfied breath. My instincts had been right after all.

I was hesitant at first to use the costume I somehow knew was the right one. The tough jeans and long sleeved work shirt, both dark colors that would blend easily with the shadows, were just fine, as were the worn leather gloves one of my dad's friends on the docks had given me, but adding on an ankle-length billowing cloak clumsily made out of a tough dark purple blanket I had found at the local Salvation Army had seemed a bit excessive.

In the end though, I figured it would have been a shame to go to all that effort and not at least try it out. I would feel kinda bad if I had bought that whole blanket and came away with nothing but the small tube made from scraps of it that I was using as my mask.

Fortunately, it appeared to have paid off. I had been running and jumping for over ten minutes straight now and it hadn't once gotten in the way, or even fallen loose. I was still kinda worried about wearing it in a fight, but with my powers, it wouldn't be too big an issue.

I hoped anyway.

I shook my head, forcing down the negative thoughts. I couldn't afford to scare myself out of this. I was going to be a superhero. If I gave up before even really trying, I'd... well, I'm not sure what I'd do, but it wouldn't be pretty, and I don't think my dad could take that.

"Focus," I quietly growled at myself with another shake of my head. "You can worry about that later."

Before I could start dwelling again, I turned my attention to the roof of the next building and began to run. I took three long, loping strides and on the fourth, I reached into the void that lurked deep within me and pulled.

A strikingly cool sensation, like nothing so much as diving head first into a cold lake at the height of summer, thrummed through my veins in a glorious rush. At the same time, living shadows surged from nowhere, billowing around me in an inky cloud carried by an intangible wind. They swirled around until they covered me entirely and, with a sensation I had no words for, I moved.

My vision was consumed by writhing shadows until, guided by instinct, I blinked. My eyes flickered closed and when they re-opened, liquid shadows sloughed away from me with a softly audible thump and my fourth step landed on the corrugated roof that was my chosen destination.

Without missing a beat, my run picked up exactly where it left off. My long strides crossed the warehouse quickly and I kicked off the street-facing edge in another long jump that set my cloak to flapping. I arced gracefully over the street, ignoring and in turn ignored by the cars passing by below, until, moments after I hit the apex of my leap, the far side came into range.

With a swirl of shadows and a quiet thump, I pulled myself out of my fall to the street and appeared on the rooftops once more, a small grin on my lips. Teleportation was way too much fun, even with the range limitations I had to deal with.

Not stopping to dwell on it, I immediately took off running, hopping and blinking from roof to roof as I made my way toward the Docks. The buildings grew visibly shoddier with every block I passed, with a corresponding increase in the number of drunken bums, streetwalking whores, and bored gang members out in the streets and alleyways. None of them were doing anything wrong though, so I kept to the rooftops and maintained my patrol.

Finally, my attention was caught by a group milling around outside a two story building further down the street. They clustered together passing a cigarette lighter back and forth and in the light of its flame, I could see them clearly. They were, to a one, asian and while their clothes varied wildly in style, they all wore the same mix of red and green, the colors of the Azn Bad Boys, or ABB for short.

I would have ignored them, content to simply pass them by on my way to find something more important, it wasn't illegal to loiter after all, if it wasn't for one thing. None of them were talking.

I had passed by dozens of 'bangers tonight, and the one thing they all had in common was that if there was more than one of them, they would not shut up. That a group this size would stand around in silence struck me as very wrong. They were planning something, and I couldn't imagine it would be anything good.

I considered, briefly, dropping in on them and taking them out immediately. I was pretty sure I could do it, thanks to the increased speed, strength, and durability that came with my powers. If I fought smart, I may not even have to take a punch. I was equally sure the dark shapes I could see in a couple of the gang members' belts were guns though, and I had no desire to test if I was bulletproof.

No, I'd have to be a bit more subtle than that.

The shadows swallowed me once more and dropped me lightly to the roof of the building right above the gang members and I tried to come up with a plan. I had to take out the ones with the guns first, preferably without their friends knowing about it. I just wish I had the first clue how to do that.

Plans and possibilities, most inspired by movies or TV shows rather than anything that would actually work, raced through my mind, only for my thoughts to be derailed as the door beneath me slammed open with a bang and out walked a big, shirtless man covered in tattoos of eastern dragons. He was easily six and a half feet tall, taller than any other asian man I'd ever even heard of, and wore an ornate metal mask styled after the dragons from which he drew his name. I recognized him immediately.

This had to be Lung, the undisputed leader of the ABB and one of the most dangerous capes in the entire city. He had gone toe to toe with the entire local Protectorate team and managed to escape more than once, if not outright win. There were even rumors he had fought Leviathan, an Endbringer, solo and driven the thing off.

Outside of Scion and maybe Eidolon, I don't think there was any other cape, living or dead, that could claim that.

I'm not too proud to admit that I panicked a bit at that realization. My thoughts raced as I tried frantically to re-work my half-complete plans to account for Lung's presence. From what I'd read online, his power was a gradual transformation that escalated as he fought. The longer he was actively in combat, the stronger his powers got. I didn't know the full extent of them, but he at least got bigger, stronger and faster while his skin turned into metal plates and his regeneration kicked into high gear. And that didn't even begin to take into account the fact that he was a pyrokinetic, able to create and control fire with a thought.

I had no idea how I could possibly take him on in a fight and, honestly, my will to try was declining with every passing second. I was just a kid after all, and I'd only had my powers for a couple of months. Hell, this was my first night out in costume. I wanted to be a superhero, but I didn't want to die.

That was when Lung's commanding, heavily accented basso broke into my panicked thoughts. "-ole from us. You see the children, just shoot. Doesn't matter your aim, just shoot. You see one lying on the ground? Shoot the little bitch twice more to be sure. We give them no chances to be clever or lucky, understand?"

I froze. I couldn't walk away now. Not after that.

I looked around quickly, hoping against hope that I could spot a payphone or something nearby so that I could call the real heroes in and let them handle Lung. As usual with my luck, there wasn't a phone in sight, and no one in this area would so much as open the door with the way I was dressed. Not at this time of night.

Below me, Lung finished his speech by grabbing one of his men's arms and checking the time before he barked something in a language I didn't recognize and took off down the street. His lackeys, twenty of them at the least, hurried after him without hesitation, an air of deadly intent settling around them. I dithered for a long moment, paralyzed by fear and indecision as they got further and further away from me.

I watched as Lung neared the very edge of my range, silently relieved that I wasn't fighting him and hating myself for it more with every passing second. He hit the edge and I knew; this was a turning point, not only as a cape but as a person. I now faced my first real test of character and I knew that if I chose wrongly, I wouldn't ever be able to live with myself.

There was only one real option here, if I wanted to be able to look my dad in the eye ever again.

With a quiet breath, I reached out to the void within me and slipped through the shadows once more. I appeared just ahead of Lung and over two stories above the ground. Gravity asserted its hold in an instant, pulling me down toward the oblivious gang members below. My cloak filled with the air of my passage, billowing ominously but doing nothing to slow my descent.

I brought my hands together, wrapping one around the other and raised them both over my head. I had one chance to stop this and live, and that was to take Lung out of the fight immediately. Anything less would end with me charbroiled. I just had to hope I was strong enough to do it.

I was mere feet away when I discovered the flaw in my cunning plan. Lung looked up.

I wasn't sure if he had heard me coming, had some kind of danger sense with all his other bullshit powers, or just glanced on a whim, but it didn't change the end result. He saw me coming and immediately tried to backpedal out of my reach. Shouts of surprise began to come from his goons, but I ignored it. I needed to get this hit in or I, and those kids, were dead.

Thankfully, I was close enough to the ground that Lung simply didn't have the time to get his massive frame all the way out of my reach. The instant I was close enough, I brought my hands down on his chest with all the force I could muster. Guilt surged as I felt something give beneath my hands, but I quashed it ruthlessly. He could heal. That was more than could be said for the kids he wanted to murder.

The hit carried Lung all the way down to the asphalt, where he hit with a wet crack and a roar of mixed pain and rage, only to immediately swipe one massive hand directly at my head. I tried to spin around the blow but only managed to end up taking it on my shoulder instead. Even with my superhuman toughness and his complete lack of leverage, it still managed to send jagged spears of pain shooting through my entire arm.

Good god, Lung really was a monster.

I was far from out of the fight though. I took the power of his blow and turned it into momentum. Momentum I used to swing up to his head and, faster than he could defend against, slam the sole of my steel reinforced work boots straight into his mask. A resounding snap rang out from the point of impact, echoed a beat later by the solid thud of Lung's head snapping back against the ground.

In the same motion, I grabbed the wrist he had swung at me and completed my spin. Active effort joined momentum and Lung was jerked off the ground by his arm. I carried on the spin another quarter rotation and let go, sending the gang lord flying dozens of feet. He tumbled wildly through the air until I lost sight of him down one of the street's many side alleys.

Then I turned my immensely pleased attention on the rest of his gang, ruthlessly suppressing the large part of me squealing in glee at my success. Resentment and anger at my intrusion simmered behind most of their eyes, but it was buried under thick layers of fear and numb shock. I had just manhandled their boss and done more damage to him than most of them had probably ever seen him take after all. They were hesitant, wanting to attack me but afraid of the consequences, and the conflict had them off-kilter.

So, before they could recover their equilibrium, I threw myself into their midst. I took the first three down in that initial charge, lashing out with superhuman punches that took the fight right out of them. By the time the third hit the ground, the others had recovered their nerve. They surrounded and threw themselves at me with angry cries on their lips and, where possible, weapons in hand.

Without stopping to think, I blinked to the opposite side of the mob and charged at their unprotected backs in silence. Another four of the gang fell in as many seconds before I was forced to blink away. This time to the roof of a nearby building.

The gang's fear was palpable. Grips tightened nervously on bats and pipes. Bravado and insults, both carrying no small quaver, filled the air. I watched it all impassively, my eyes roving over the band until I finally spotted what I was looking for. The pair of the henchmen carrying pistols in shaking hands.

I marked the second's position and willed the shadows to take me once more, dropping me right behind the first armed thug. He spooked immediately, alerted by the sound of my passage. He reacted instantly but it was already too late. By the time he turned around, he was right on time to catch my punch on his chin. He buckled immediately, unconscious before he hit the ground.

A thought took me to the second one who, distracted by my first attack, didn't even notice me until I clocked him upside the head. He fell limp, the gun falling to the floor with a clatter that rang loudly in the small street.

As one, the gang turned to look at me and I did my best to look large and intimidating. "I suggest you go home," I said, purposefully deepening my voice.

They looked at each other, back at me, and the next thing I knew I was staring at a dozen backs as they took off the down the street as fast as their feet could carry them. Giving in to impulse, I nodded sharply then clapped my hands together like I was shaking off dirt.

"Alright!" I crowed to myself, the victorious grin on my lips clear in my voice. I idly glanced over toward the alley I had thrown Lung into. "Now let's go get Lu-"

I had just enough time to recognize the dumpster that came rocketing out of the alley before it hit me.

The steel box slammed into my side at frankly ludicrous speed. My ribs moved alarmingly from the hit, two of them cracking audibly before it swept me straight off my feet. Supernaturally tough or not, I was still a stick-thin fourteen year old girl. I weighed maybe 140 pounds soaking wet. The dumpster weighed... substantially more. Blindsided as I was, there was no way I wouldn't be carried right along with it.

A scream of raw agony tore its way out of my throat, but even through the haze of pain I knew I couldn't still be riding the dumpster when it hit the wall. As tough as I was, just being struck by the thing had, at best, fractured my ribs, and that was when I was out in the open and free to be moved. When crushed against a wall? I didn't want to think about what would happen.

Desperately, I reached out to the void and willed myself somewhere else; I didn't care where.

The shadows responded to my call immediately, boiling out of the aether like smoke to swallow me whole. Writing shadows swirled around, closing over my eyes right as tremendous pressure pushed against my free side. I felt a flutter of mind-numbing panic, sure that I had acted too late, but the pressure disappeared in the same moment.

I stumbled out of the shadows a few feet away with a gasp of equal parts pain and relief, one hand automatically rising to clutch at my injured side. My heart thundered its terrified rhythm in my ears, nearly drowning out the earthshaking boom of the dumpster colliding with the wall, and my ribs shrieked their discomfort with every breath. That had been way too close. I tried to force my body to relax, but the adrenaline was simply too thick in my system. I would just have to deal with it.

A moment later, I was glad for that. Dust and small pieces of garbage had been thrown into the air by the impact, but the thin veil did nothing to hide the gigantic, smoldering form of Lung from me as he came barreling out of the alley. More to the point, it did nothing to hide me from him either.

I could tell the moment he set eyes on me. A sense of absolute, incandescent rage settled over the street like a scalding blanket and a new star was born on the street. Fire exploded out of Lung in a raging torrent, incinerating his clothes and licking at the walls all around him. Orange-white light seared my eyes and each breath burned my throat, but that was nothing compared to the roar. It was a deep, primal bellow of rage and hate, just human enough to ensure I could feel every fibre of Lung's fury.

The fire lit up the street like it was high noon, banishing the shadows that had hidden the full extent of the changes he had undergone. I felt my heart stop. He still looked human, mostly, but his skin had been replaced with metallic silver plates, like overlapping knives or spades, dyed yellow and orange by the dancing flames, and he was bigger than a human had any right to be. He topped eight feet easily, maybe even as high as nine, and was more than three times wider at the shoulder than I was. As if that wasn't enough, long, wickedly sharp claws had replaced his fingers, transforming his hands into something closer to eagle's talons.

His eyes, though, were the worst. They burned with an inner fire, like twin pools of molten steel, roiling with the sheer force of his hate. Hellish light blared like a beacon, clear even through the haze of heat and fire and smoke between us. There was nothing human left in that gaze. Not even the cracked and comically deformed mask on his face could take away from the raw terror those eyes inspired in me.

I knew then that if he got his hands on me, I was going to die. Painfully.

He didn't give me any time to contemplate that fact either. He came charging out of the flames like some kind of primordial god, both hands poised to do terrible things to me. And he was fast. Before I'd even consciously realized he was moving, he had closed half the distance between us.

There was no time to anticipate or plan, just to react. So I did. Instincts I had spent the last two months working religiously on honing with one of dad's friends, under the excuse of 'self defense lessons', guided my body through what I could only hope was the proper response. My right foot slid forward, turning my body slightly, before I dropped into a low crouch mere inches from the tips of Lung's grasping fingers, ruthlessly suppressing the protests of my ribs. Metal claws flashed past my back close enough that I could feel the searing heat they radiated even through my thick clothes.

My left hand lashed out and wrapped around one of Lung's wrists in the tightest grip I could manage. My gloves starting sizzling the moment contact was made, sending flashes of white-hot pain radiating out of my palm, but I pushed it aside with a colossal effort of will. My free arm shot up from my side, planting an elbow straight into Lung's stomach. I twisted then, hard, and, just like it did with Mr. Anders when we practiced, Lung's own momentum carried him up and over my shoulders in a graceless tumble. My legs nearly buckled under the sudden, immense weight now pressing me down, but, thankfully, it only lasted for a moment.

Lung landed heavily, taking the brunt of the impact on his head and shoulders before the rest of his body could catch up. Unfortunately, the hit barely fazed him. His legs hadn't even touched the ground before he grabbed a fistful of my cloak and pulled, yanking me off balance while his other hand lashed out at me, claws bared.

I blinked away as fast as I could, vanishing from his grip and appearing on a nearby rooftop, but not before twin lines of bloody agony had been stitched across my gut. The cuts throbbed painfully, adding their voices to the chorus of pain from my cracked ribs and singed hand. Still in the street below me, Lung roared out his frustration and anger at my disappearance, but I put it out of my mind. I had done what I needed to. Lung's gang was unconscious or scattered and Lung himself had been delayed at the least. There was nothing more to be gained from fighting him except a painful death, so I was going to leave. And if I had my way, I'd never see him again.

I just had to limp home and I could chalk up tonight as a win. One hand rose to press against the cuts on my stomach, in a probably-vain hope to stem the bleeding before it got too bad. The moment my hand touched the cuts, renewed pain surged through me in a wave and dragged a low hiss through my clenched teeth.

Lung's raging cut out instantly and my heart sank. Somehow I just knew, his powers also included enhanced hearing. A conclusion that was reinforced when the building trembled beneath me and Lung exploded over the roof's edge in a swirl of fire.

"'ound 'oou, mo'rfu'r!" he growled, the muzzle his face was starting to shift into doing as much to mangle his speech as the knives that were replacing his teeth. "'ie!"

Fire exploded out of Lung in a massive, unstoppable wave that filled the entire rooftop. I threw myself away from the flames, blinking away right as they reached me. I came out on another rooftop with the scent of smoke hanging heavily in my nose and sweat running in rivers down my face, but I wasn't on fire and I had a street between me and Lung so I called it a win.

Unfortunately, Lung wasn't so eager to let it go. The instant I had re-appeared, his head had snapped around on his too-long neck to look straight at me. Without even bothering to climb all the way onto the roof, he threw himself into the air in a tall arc that would take him right to me in a matter of seconds. The same motion also sent a massive gout of flame screaming my way, scything toward me in a wave of total devastation.

It was clear immediately that I couldn't keep bouncing across rooftops. He could, evidently, pick me out immediately and follow along not much later. I'd never be able to get away like that, not as injured as I was. I needed to try something else. I blinked away moments before Lung landed, stepping out of the shadows in an alley back at ground level before hurrying away on foot, desperate to be out of sight before Lung managed to follow.

I made it all of six steps before the alley was awash in light and fire. Lung fell out of the sky wreathed in fire and fury, like some kind of avenging angel. I threw myself forward into a dive, just barely managing to evade his claws. He hit the ground behind me with an explosion of dust and flame that covered the whole alley. My mask prevented me from choking on it, thankfully, but I made a mental note to invest in some goggles as I scrambled to my feet with watery eyes.

Lung loomed out of the gritty dust, smoke and burning garbage and I had to fight the urge to gasp. He had grown another two feet since last I'd seen him standing, not even counting the length of his neck, and a tail thicker than my leg and longer than I was tall had sprouted from his back, forcing him to hunch over even when standing upright. His face was a nightmare mix of dragon and terminator, nearly two feet long from snout to neck.

The only thing that hadn't changed was his eyes.

A shiver of raw, undiluted terror ran down my spine. I wasn't getting away from him. That just wasn't possible, not anymore. Lung was going to kill me, and there wasn't a damn thing I could do to stop him.

And it pissed me off. I had been helpless for the last two years, forced by my own weakness to stand idly and watch as the psychotic bitch I had once thought of as my best friend did everything in her power to ruin my life. But I was a cape now. I wasn't supposed to ever be helpless again. Yet this two bit thug had effortlessly smashed whatever delusions of adequacy I had entertained.

I couldn't take that. I just couldn't. It didn't matter anymore. Lung was going down or I was going to die trying. There wasn't anything else to be said about it.

Resolve set, I threw myself at Lung with the fiercest shout I could muster through cracked ribs. The dragon-man reared back in surprise, his eyes widening in a way that would have been funny were I anywhere else. As it was, I was too hurt and too scared to even begin to find it amusing. I moved in in that brief window of surprise and threw a punch as hard as I could right into Lung's stomach.

He staggered back half a step from the blow, but beyond that he didn't even seem to feel it. One massive, clawed hand swung down toward me only to swipe through dispersing shadows. I came out right behind him, my hand already swinging at the closest point I could guess to his kidneys, to equally ineffective results.

He spun around in a murderous backhand that I barely managed to blink away from, only for his tail to catch me by complete surprise. It slammed into my already injured ribs like a freaking train. I felt something give and pain consumed my world. Incoherent screaming tore out of my throat as I went flying through the air. I had never felt so much pain. I barely even noticed as I bounced off the wall of the alley and fell bonelessly to the filthy concrete.

Even through the haze of searing agony though, I couldn't not feel the earth shake with every step Lung took. I forced my eyes open and glared at him through tear-blurred vision as he slowly stomped toward me. I tasted blood on my lips and every breath brought a fresh wave of searing agony. It was a fight just to stay conscious, let alone moving.

No, I berated myself. I wasn't going to die like this.

I called out to the void and slipped through the shadows as fast as I could, first to a few feet behind Lung then, before my shadows had even had a chance to fall, I blinked again to right beneath his feet. Pain assaulted my senses in a jarring wave, but the brief moment of confusion, when Lung spun to face nothing, was worth any amount of pain.

I lashed out in the strongest uppercut I could manage, aiming as low on his torso as I could get. My earlier blows had done nothing, but I couldn't let him just kill me. I was going to hit him with everything I had, in the weakest spot I could think of, and I was going to hurt him.

That was when it happened. The void within me surged forward like an eager puppy, surging through me in a cool, soothing rush to pool in my right wrist. The surprise nearly caused me to stumble and alert Lung, but I caught myself at the last second and followed through with the punch. I had no idea what was going to happen, but it had to be better than nothing.

My fist slammed into Lung's armored crotch and I could feel my knuckles pop. A bright flash of green light seared into my eyes and a deafening roar of pure pain slammed into my ears. Lung stumbled forward in mindless agony, boiling blood pouring out of his crotch in rivers. I blinked in abject shock at the sight. That... was not what I had expected. I looked down at my clearly broken fist for an explanation and let out a shriek at the sight that awaited me.

Extending out of the back of my hand was a sheet of glowing green energy. I hurriedly turned my hand over and gaped at what I found. The energy had simply appeared in mid air, maybe half an inch above the back of my wrist, before reaching out in the same direction as my forearm for two feet or so. It was maybe six inches wide at the base, but it tapered off as it went, getting narrower and narrower until it formed a wickedly sharp point around a foot and a half past the end of my knuckles.

I blinked. I had shoved that through Lung's... I choked off that thought before it could finish forming. I couldn't afford to be feeling pity right now. I looked up to find Lung had already stopped bleeding and whirled on me, his expression somehow even more murderous.

"Fu'r!" he roared in barely-discernible English. Fire raged all around him, the inferno giving voice to the true depths of his fury. "Ah 'il 'oo!"

He swung a fist larger than my head at me before he'd even finished speaking, but I was already gone. I had hurt him. I had injured Lung. I was nearly giddy at the thought. I could actually win this. That knowledge alone did more for me than any dozen powers could have. Sure, he could still regenerate whatever I did to him, but that just meant I'd have to do more damage in less time if I wanted to knock him out.

I stepped out of the shadows at his shoulder, my bladed hand lashing out at his side even as he tried to throw himself away. I drew a long, bloody line through the metal over his ribs and chest before I was forced to blink away from a flash of fire once more. I appeared directly behind him and thrust my blade forward. His spin to face me drove the blade straight into his tricep. He bellowed again, an animalistic sound of pain and hate, and tried to pull away, but I threw myself past, twisting my blade as I went.

I reached his front, twisted my arm, and the last three quarters of his left arm fell into the dirt.

There was a brief, eternal pause, and then fire consumed the world. Lung simply exploded. There's no other word for it. Fire surged away from him in all directions in a relentless stream. The trash floating in the air was incinerated in an instant. Dumpsters and trash cans glowed white hot, their contents erupting in massive firestorms in a fraction of a second. Even the walls, brick and steel most of them, began to run under the raw heat of Lung's naked rage.

I felt a brief moment of thanks for the existence of the Manton effect; likely the only reason I hadn't combusted along with the rest of the alley. Even with that though, my clothes were already starting to smolder. I needed out of that alley in the worst possible way. So I left.

A thought and a swirl of shadows brought me to the opposite side of the closest building, only to dive to the side in the same motion. Lung burst through the thin metal walls of the warehouse like the Kool-Aid Man less than a second later, barely missing trampling me in his charge. The flames wreathing him dimmed and he glanced around, clearly searching for me. In that oh so small moment of inattention, I struck.

The shadows swirled around me and deposited me on his overlong snout in the same heartbeat. Fire blossomed all around me, but I ignored it. I had one shot left. I couldn't afford to flinch. If Lung was still conscious afterwards, I was dead. A part of me felt a bit bad for what I was planning to do, but the rest of me shouted it into submission. He could regenerate whatever I did, and he was planning to kill kids. He could deal with it.

My bladed wrist shot forward the instant my feet touched his nose, slamming the tip straight into his eye. His whole head jerked back and an agonized scream tore out of his throat, but he was still moving, so I wasn't done yet. My free hand gripped a ridge sticking out of his head and I threw myself toward the ground. Momentum and force twisted his neck painfully and dropped Lung to all fours. I forced his movement to continue, slamming his head into the ground as hard as I could. Concrete cracked under the force of the blow and the fires surrounding me abruptly died, but Lung was still roaring and weakly struggling. I pulled the blade out of his eye, stood up, and took a single step back, then charged forward in a textbook soccer kick that drove my steel-toed boots into his temple as hard as I could.

The metal in my boots dented from the blow, painfully pinching my foot, but Lung twitched once and lay still, his only motion the rise and fall of his chest. I stumbled back a step, scarcely able to believe my eyes. It was over. I had won.

That realization brought with it pain. More pain than I had ever imagined possible. The adrenaline in my system was fading quickly, and every one of my numerous injuries was making quite sure I knew exactly how stupid I had been. Every movement hurt. Every breath hurt. Hell, just existing hurt. I let out a low groan of abject suffering, unable to work up the energy for anything more expressive, and forced myself to take a step. Then another.

The next thing I knew, I was curled in a ball on the dirt, clutching at my injured ribs while tears of hot agony poured out of my eyes. Every attempt to move just made it hurt more, so I stopped trying. The moment I did, a stray thought crossed my pain-addled mind and I had to fight a giggle at its absurdity after everything I'd been through tonight. How the hell was I going to explain these injuries to my dad?

-[]-

I lay there on the dirt for... god, I don't even know how long. Time had lost all meaning for me. It could have been ten seconds or ten days for all I could tell. Either way, I was definitely not ready for it to end when it did. Especially since it ended in a torrent of near-freezing water. My muscles twitched at the sudden shock of icy cold, sending tendrils of searing agony racing through my consciousness. I gasped and shrieked at the same time, the two combining into some kind of demented hiccup that abruptly turned into an agonized moan.

"-rry," a voice, masculine and dripping with insincerity, was saying when I came back to myself a moment later. I was panting heavily, and flinching with every breath, but the shock had, somehow, pulled a small sliver of lucidity out of me. I latched onto it like a lifeline. "But you were kinda on fire."

"Ah," I mumbled softly. That should probably have been more important to me than it was, but I was too exhausted, too cold, and in too much pain to care. "Th, thanks. Fi' bad."

"Yes," a new voice chimed in from the other side of me. A girl's voice I was mildly surprised to note. "Fire is very bad."

I didn't like the playful condescension in that voice. I did not like that at all. With a pained groan and far more effort than I really wanted to think about, I flopped over onto my back and sent a scathing glare at where the voice had come from. I found myself looking at a girl in a skintight black and purple costume. Her long, messy blond hair hung free around her head, partially obscuring the domino mask over her eyes. An easy, disarming grin stretched across her lips as she raised her hands in mock surrender.

I hated her already.

Still, she at least sounded sincere when she continued, a note of apology in her tone. "Easy there. We're not gonna hurt you. We owe you one, in fact."

"And we're not dumb enough to get on the bad side of someone who can do that to Lung," the first voice said. My eyes flicked over to the source and I had to blink in surprise. Either I was hallucinating from the pain, or someone had found their costume in a renaissance faire. I wasn't sure which was worse. He wore a white mask that wouldn't have looked out of place in a Venetian carnival, a ruffled white shirt, and skintight leggings that disappeared into knee-high boots. He would have looked like a half-decent attempt at the standard fantasy bard, if not for the scepter and honest-to-god crown. I really had no idea what to think about that.

I had other things to think about anyway. "We?" I managed to force out, even as I struggled to look around.

"The Undersiders," the blond answered me. "You can call me Tattletale."

"And I'm Grue," a new voice, deep and masculine, but tinged with well-hidden wariness, interrupted. A man wearing black motorcycle leathers and a helmet of the same color stepped into view next to Tattletale. His helmet swung side to side, its wearer clearly appraising me from behind the stylized skull its visor had been sculpted into. He pointed at something on my right, well outside my vision. "That's Bitch, or Hellhound if you want to be PG." I briefly contemplated turning to look at whoever he was pointing at but dismissed the idea. I'd have to move way too much. I settled for flopping one of my hands around in an uncoordinated wave. I didn't get a response, but Grue carried on like that was normal. "And the smarmy ass who emptied a bucket on you is Regent."

Renaissance boy waved at me. "Charmed, I'm sure."

"Hi," I mumbled. "What d'you wan'?"

"Mostly just to put that fire out," Grue said. "And say thanks. You saved our asses tonight. If Lung had been there to back Oni Lee like he planned, I doubt any of us would have gotten out alive. I wasn't about to let you burn to death after that. We owe you one."

"'at's nice," I mumbled again. The adrenaline rush from my sudden dousing was fading rapidly and I could feel my thoughts slowing down. I needed to do something about that, I realized. All the TV shows and movies said that falling asleep while injured was a bad thing after all. "Any a' you a healer?"

"N-" Grue began, sincere regret in his tone, until Tattletale cut him off.

"We're not, but the Protectorate cape that's coming can take you to a hospital," she said briskly. She stepped around me and I found myself instinctively following her with my eyes. "And don't worry about your ID. PRT hospitals won't take your mask off, unless they really need to. They'll be here in about a minute, you'll be fine until then. We can't be here when they show up though, so we're gonna scram."

I blinked at that. Why would they need to leave before the Protectorate arrived? I knew I knew the answer, and I knew it was obvious, but my exhausted and pain-filled mind refused to provide it. I fought against my own mind, trying to dredge up the answer, while the Undersiders disappeared from view. There was some scuffling from somewhere, followed by a series of heavy footsteps. Then, with no further warning, I found myself staring at a monster straight out of a nightmare. It was completely skinless, nothing but raw, wet muscle and exposed bone in the vague shape of a demented crossbreed of a tiger and a komodo dragon. And it was big. I couldn't say exactly how much, but it was large enough that Tattletale and a brunette I had to assume was Bitch were sitting comfortably on its back like it was a freaking horse.

That last fact was the only thing that kept me from flying into a blind panic. It wasn't enough to stop me from flinching away from it though. I groaned as my injuries protested the sudden motion and fell limp once more, throwing a glare with all the ire I could muster through the pain at the girl. It wasn't much.

"Before we go," the blonde said from her perch, eyes glittering and a vulpine grin on her lips. "What's your name?"

I twitched in a motion that might charitably be called a small shrug. Her eyes widened, surprise clear, but I carried on. "Dunno. 's my firs' night."

There was a low, impressed whistle and Regent and Grue rode up on another monstrosity. "One hell of a first night," Regent drawled insouciantly.

"Te, tell me abou' it," I slurred.

"Another time," Grue cut in. He glanced to me and his voice turned apologetic. "We gotta go, but we still owe you one. We'll be in touch."

Bitch whistled once, clear and sharp, signalling their mounts, and, in a blur of creepy flesh, they were gone.

-[]-

Without the distraction provided by the Undersiders, I slid quickly back into a pain-filled stupor. My thoughts swam sluggishly from topic to topic, never staying on any one long enough for me to make sense of it through the haze in my thoughts. The world drifted in and out of focus for a while, and I was content to let it. It hurt less that way. I lay there, my mind constantly half a second behind the world around me, until a voice, calm and deeply masculine, filled the silence between my quiet whimpers.

"-ound them," it was saying as my brain drunkenly lurched into gear. Heavy footsteps sounded out in a hurried rhythm from somewhere nearby. "Lung and a villain I've never seen before. Both heavily injured. You'd better call for a couple ambulances."

I blinked at that. Did I just get called a villain?

"No' a villa'," I mumbled as fiercely as I could. My tongue felt thick and leaden in my mouth, slurring the words into a barely recognizable mess. "'m a hero!"

My ribs flared in redoubled agony from the effort I put into that speech and a low groan rumbled out of my throat. Liquid fire surged through my veins. Searing agony pulsed from my many injuries. Small, pathetic whimpers leaked out of my throat with every breath. A small, distant part of me noted loud scuffling sounds and the continued murmurs of the unknown voice, but my mind refused to do anything but dwell on the pain.

That same part of me noted a tiny, nearly unnoticeable prick on my forearm, but the rest of me easily noted the soothing rush that flowed outward from that point. Icy coolness flowed through my veins, banishing the pain everywhere it touched. In moments, it had spread all the way through me and the sudden lack of pain bordered on outright pleasure. I went limp and moaned loudly in relief, relishing in my newfound ability to simply breathe without pain. It was glorious.

I made to get up, but a large hand pressed firmly against my shoulder. A bearded face, eyes and nose covered by an iconic v-shaped visor, appeared in my tear-blurred vision. I recognized him immediately. Armsmaster. He was a real hero, one of the most respected members of the Protectorate, the government-sponsored superhero organization that protected the US and Canada. And he also happened to be the leader of the local Protectorate team here in Brockton Bay.

"Don't move," he said commandingly. He gently but irresistibly pushed me back down. "You're only numb. Moving will only aggravate your injuries."

"Oh," I said stupidly, silently kicking myself. Of course I wasn't healed. How dumb could I be?

Before I could descend into a proper funk, Armsmaster handily derailed my train of thought. "Ambulances are on their way," he said calmly. "What happened here?"

"Lung happened," I answered bluntly, my exhaustion thick in my voice. Now that the pain had gone, all I could feel was a bone deep weariness that weighed on me just as heavily as the pain had. I took a moment trying to force my brain to think back on the frantic and terrifying minute or so that was our fight, but all I got was one big blur of terror and pain. There was one thing I did remember clearly though, and probably always would. "He and his goons were gonna kill kids." I told Armsmaster, my voice losing strength with every word. "I objected. He didn't like that."

"He wouldn't," Armsmaster said without inflection. "What happened to his arm? And how did you do it?"

"Relax, Armsmaster," a new voice interrupted, a gloved hand coming to rest on his shoulder and pulling him back from leaning over me. Once he moved, I caught a glimpse of the woman standing next to him, a scarf styled after the American flag wrapped around the bottom half of her face. It was Miss Militia, another of the Protectorate's heroes, though not one I knew much about. "You can ask her tomorrow, after she's had a chance to rest."

Armsmaster didn't look terribly happy about that, but he nodded and stepped back, giving the woman the chance to lean down over me and give me what might have been a smile behind her mask. "The ambulances will be here soon, don't worry about that. I have to ask though, do you know where Lung's arm went? The paramedics will want to know."

Did I? I asked myself, examining the blur of frantic memories of the fight. It took an embarrassingly long time, but eventually I remembered. "Oth-" I began tiredly before I ran out of energy. I took a deep breath and forced one arm to flop in the general direction of the warehouse Lung had charged through to get at me. "Other side. Look, look for melted walls."

Miss Militia glanced to Armsmaster. He nodded before turning and marching through the hole Lung had made. Slim tendrils of darkness began encroaching on my vision as she looked back to me and said, "We'll take care of that. Now, do you have a name?"

The darkness was growing in my vision and my thoughts were growing fainter and fainter. As consciousness fled, a single word slipped past my lips.

"Templar."

-[]-

Director Emily Piggot, leader of the Brockton Bay Parahuman Response Team, strode briskly into the meeting room in the heart of the Protectorate Headquarters, her demeanor crisp and professional, giving no hint that she had just been pulled from her bed at nearly four in the morning. She glanced between the seated forms of Armsmaster and Miss Militia and made her way to her seat, the tension building in her shoulders relaxing despite herself as she took in the distinctly pleased atmosphere of the room. At least she could be confident there weren't any new or looming disasters to deal with.

Which only served to make the question of why she was dragged out of bed in the middle of the night much more pressing. She made a point of settling firmly into her seat and frowning severely at the pair of parahumans, silently pleased by the way the pair tensed at her obvious displeasure, before she asked, "What's the situation?"

"We have Lung in custody," Armsmaster answered without preamble, as was his wont. "And the cape responsible is unconscious downstairs."

Director Piggot blinked at the matter-of-fact pronouncement. That was not what she had expected to hear. "Explain."

"Approximately 93 minutes ago, we received an anonymous report that Lung was rampaging through the Docks," he said calmly, dryly reciting the facts of the situation with the ease of one long used to giving debriefings. "Myself, Miss Militia, Battery and Velocity were dispatched. When we arrived, we found several unconscious members of the ABB but, beyond a dumpster embedded in a wall, there was no sign of Lung. Velocity brought the gang members to the police while the rest of us split up to search the area. I found Lung and an unknown cape-"

"Templar," Miss Militia interrupted smoothly.

"Templar," Armsmaster echoed without missing a beat. "About three blocks away from the original site. Both were heavily injured and Lung was unconscious." He slid a thin manilla folder across the table to the Director. "This is the current medical report on both."

The Director picked up the file and absently skimmed it as the hero continued. "I sedated Lung and asked Templar for details before she passed out. From her testimony and an examination of the area, it appears as if Lung had ordered his men to kill children and she engaged him in an effort to save them. They then fought a running battle over multiple rooftops and alleyways and even through a warehouse."

"What kind of collateral claims can we expect?" Director Piggot asked despite being well aware she wasn't going to like the answer. Lung was involved. That much was a given.

"Reasonably low, all things considered," Miss Militia answered. "Most of the buildings were abandoned and the emergency response teams were able to keep the fires from spreading very far. I expect it to be no more than thirty thousand dollars in total."

"Good enough," the Director replied tiredly. She despaired inwardly at the thought of that sum being considered small, and worse, that that was true where Lung was involved, but pushed it aside to focus on the next topic of import. One hand closed the folder of medical reports and waved it at the heroes. "Now, what do we know about this... Templar?"

"Very little," Armsmaster answered. "She's very new, that much is obvious. When I asked, she claimed to be a hero, and my gear said she was telling the truth. This is supported by her claim that she was fighting Lung because he planned to murder children, which I also have reason to believe."

"Seconded," Miss Militia offered. Director Piggot nodded at that. Armsmaster may have had the interpersonal skills of a rabid honey badger, but he was a Tinker through and through, capable of building technological marvels decades, if not centuries, ahead of human science. The testimony of his equipment backed by Miss Militia's more human insights was more than enough to convince her.

"And what of her powers?" The Director flipped the folder open and dropped it to the table, pointedly tapping one finger on one particular page. She scowled at the report on the still-transformed arm the hospital had supplied. "How did she manage to incapacitate Lung and cut through skin that needs a plasma cutter to penetrate? And, more importantly, how did she do it and get away with only second degree burns and minor broken bones?"

"My best guess is a sword of some kind, ma'am," the resident weapons expert offered. "I'm not sure how she avoided more severe injuries, but Lung's wounds were definitely inflicted by a blade. From what I saw, I would say fifteen to twenty inches long and four to six across. Something like this, I think." A small ball of light rose above the edge of the table and settled by her shoulder before transforming into a rough approximation of a roman gladius. "My first instinct is that her power is similar to mine. If she can create weapons, it would explain why we couldn't find any, and similarly created shields could explain her lack of more severe injuries."

"That contradicts nothing I saw," Armsmaster said with a nod. "I doubt we will learn more until she wakes up."

"Yes," Director Piggot agreed. "Now, what do we do with her?"

"Is there a reason not to offer her a spot on the Wards?" Armsmaster asked, confusion leaking into his tone.

The Director fought back a sigh and tapped the medical report again, her scowl growing. "She mutilated Lung. Severed an arm, ruptured his intestines, and, lest we forget, drove a spike of some kind through his eye and into his brain. If he were anyone else, we'd have a corpse on our hands. We can't tolerate that, at all. You know as well as I do how important good PR is, especially for the Wards. If word gets out that our newest recruit is going around chopping people apart, public support will vanish overnight."

"True," Armsmaster admitted grudgingly with a small frown. "But she still managed to best Lung on her own. I don't like letting a hitter like that walk away if she's willing to work with us."

"If I may, ma'am," Miss Militia interjected before Director Piggot could respond. When the Director nodded at her, she continued. "I suggest we wait until we can talk to her about it before making a final decision. She is quite young, and it is well known that Lung can regenerate. It was likely a desperate choice in one of her first real battles, not a deliberate act of malice."

Director Piggot considered that for a long moment before finally nodding her assent with a heavy sigh. "It won't hurt anything to hear her out first." She glanced at the clock on the wall and had to suppress a wince at the time. So much for going back to bed. "Call Panacea once it reaches a reasonable hour and request that she comes in to heal this Templar. We'll get our answers then."