With Friends Like These 3-6

As the lights flickered and died and the building shuddered from some distant explosion, Taylor immediately thought about her dad. Was he safe? Was he okay? Was he hurt?

A second of darkness filled the room before an emergency light in the corner of the chamber flickered on, re-illuminating everything in erie red light.

Her friends were still there, rendered into crimson Endbringer silhouettes on the mats.

From each of them she got different feelings: Wariness, Curiosity, Apprehension to varying degrees. Anticipation especially from Levi, as he fell to all fours and bristled at whatever threats they would soon all face.

It took another second for Taylor’s mind to properly shift gears, for her to get into motion. “Dragon, what’s happening? Is my dad-”

“Your dad is safe, Taylor,” the hero replied. Her tone was deadly serious, which was all that Taylor needed in terms of convincing that this was serious. “He’s still in the conference room upstairs. As for what, the local Empire 88 appear to be attacking the PRT with a large number of capes and unpowered soldiers. The explosion you felt a moment ago was a breaching charge failing to penetrate a concrete wall.”

“Oh.” Taylor flashed back to a couple of nights before, where she and her friends had fought and captured two of the members of the gang.

“Presumably, they are exploiting the lack of personnel and security to try and attempt a rescue of their fellow villains,” Dragon continued.

“What are we going to do?” Taylor asked her.

Dragon’s head swiveled toward Taylor. “Be heroes. Normally, I would advise against fighting in this situation and to wait for the proper Protectorate response. But…” she trailed off. “Are your friends ready?”

Taylor nodded, feeling her friends’ shared readiness. “What do we need to do?”

“First,” Dragon looked toward the two scientists. “You two should seek shelter. There should be a safe room down the hallway.”

“We’re aware,” one said.

“Don’t have to tell us twice,” said the other. They both moved quickly to the exit.

Dragon continued after they left. “Tiamat, considering that you are neither technically or legally a member of the Guild yet, there isn’t exactly a whole lot I could order you to do or not to do. With that said though, you could consider this to be a, how could one say it, an evaluation of sorts?”

“An evaluation?”

“Indeed. Nobody has exactly seen how you and your teammates here fight. Well, a couple have, but since they are all villains, their eyewitness testimony is unreliable to say the least.”

The building shook again. Dragon’s head tilted, and Taylor got the impression she was reacting to some sort of data feed in her helmet.

“It would seem they’ve breached the outer wall of the holding areas. My initial suggestion would have been to use the private elevator to go up to the roof and engage them from there, but considering your friends’ current volumes and dimensions, that would be impractical at the moment.”

With a thought, Taylor pulled on their tethers, shrinking them back down to their usual sizes. One by one they landed or climbed into their positions on her head and shoulders.

“Of course,” Dragon noted with a hint of amusement. “Seeing that is something that I am going to have to get used to.”

“Yeah. Lead the way?”

“Of course.” Taylor followed Dragon out of the testing chamber, following her back to the elevator and the way they came.

The doors opened for them, and both heroes stepped inside. “Normally the elevators are non-functional in an emergency situation, but I can override them.” The doors closed behind them and already the elevator was moving. Taylor noted that Dragon hadn’t even pressed any of the buttons on the control panel, but she probably had other more direct means to access it.

“What capes are outside?”

“According to the security cameras, most of the known and affiliated capes of the local Empire are present. It would be easier to list the ones that aren’t. In that case, Purity, Night and Fog.” Dragon’s head quirked. “It would appear that Victor and Othala are occupying a rooftop on the far side of the plaza in front of the PRT HQ.”

“Simmie?”

Bad guys? She chirped.

“Yeah, could you go take care of those two?”

“Forewarned, Victor is likely heavily armed, based on his known habits of using a sniper rifle at range.”

Tinker stuff! Simmie replied. Taylor just reached up to pat her on her head.

The elevator stopped, and the doors opened to a short hallway, at the end of which was a door. Dragon strode out and Taylor followed, past the topmost landing of the stairs. She threw open the door, letting sunlight flood into the short and narrow passageway. The tile gave way to gravel as they walked out onto the rooftop proper, and to the edge of the building overlooking the villain capes below.

“Rawr?” Fight? Benny asked.

Taylor chuckled. “Oh yeah.” They were high enough that below them, Taylor could see everything. There were easily a couple hundred unpowered Empire gang members down there, judging from the small sea of red and white, the gang colors of the Empire.

From just around the corner of the building rose a plume of smoke, presumably where the Empire had set off the explosives to gain access to the building. With the enhanced senses that her costume’s helmet provided her, Taylor could easily tell the Empire capes apart from the rabble. Like Dragon had said, most of their roster was present. Fenja and Menja stood out from the rabble, literally, as the twin capes having already grown to giantess proportions. She could see Hookwolf there too, clad in his serrated metal form.

Her friends hopped and floated off of her shoulders and head. Taylor pushed on their tethers, growing them all to their dimensions from before. In a moment, Benny and Levi were once again towering over her, as Simmie floated by her side.

“Taylor, the PRT and Protectorate are on their way,” Dragon said. “As well, several of my more combat-oriented suits will be arriving shortly.”

“You want us to wait for them?”

Dragon was silent for a brief moment. “Their efforts to reach their comrades are being stymied by Narwhal downstairs. Slowed, but not stopped.”

Taylor nodded. She was about to say something, but Benny cut her off, pointing down at the crowd below.

“Rawr!” Snack Man!

“Wait, Snack ma- Oh.” There was only one person that Benny had nicknamed that. Hookwolf, from the other night previously. It would of course make sense that he was here to free the other captured members of the Empire.

“‘Snack man?’” Dragon asked.

Taylor didn’t have time to reply to Dragon, because Benny promptly took a leap of faith, jumping from the edge of the rooftop and toward the plaza below. Taylor, already at the edge of the building, could only watch in horror as he plummeted towards the ground below.

Taylor looked down and saw that Hookwolf was looking up at Benny as he fell. In that frozen instant, the metal-clad cape looked panicked and scared, his steel claws carving grooves in the pavement in a desperate struggle to get away. Through her tether, she realized that Benny was holding the other cape in place with his magnetism powers, and preventing the villain from escaping.

Benny crashed into Hookwolf from above at roughly terminal velocity, pancaking the villain and leaving a crater in the plaza. No, not a crater, the whole section in front of the building had simply collapsed into a void below. A parking garage, Taylor realized. Once, she’d watched a video on TV about the local PRT ENE, and recalled the host talking about it. Benny had just knocked Hookwolf through its ceiling.

And distantly, through the massive cloud of dust the action had kicked up, Taylor could hear an exclamation of Snack man! From below.

“Expedient,” Dragon said. “But somewhat destructive.”

Taylor’s cherry red blush was hidden by her mask.

“Hopefully that will stop Hookwolf…” Dragon trailed off, as shapes stirred in the dust cloud. “Never mind then.”

As the dust began to clear, Taylor could see Benny and Hookwolf down below, grappling with one another. No, not grappling. Hookwolf was dragging himself up a giant and broken slab of parking lot, with Benny firmly clamped onto his back. Snack Man! Taylor heard Benny roar again from below.

Climbing out of the hole, Hookwolf tried in vain to twist and shake Benny off of him, crashing into the side of the PRT building as he did. But Benny held on doggedly. Taylor wondered why none of the other villains were helping their ally. Were they all in shock?

No. Squinting, she could see Kaiser gesturing to the other capes. She was too far away to hear what he was shouting, but she saw him point toward the breach in the PRT’s wall. He made a motion toward the giantesses, and they began to step forward to help Hookwolf. But before they could render aid Hookwolf took off, bolting down the street and weaving between vehicles, his unwilling jockey roaring Snack Man! The entire way. A moment later he rounded the corner and was soon out of sight.

“Well, that… happened,” was all that Taylor could manage to say at that moment in time.

“Tiamat, later on I will have to make sure to teach you about avoiding and minimizing property damage,” Dragon spoke from next to her.

Taylor grimaced. “Should I go after him? Them?”

“No, I will,” Dragon affirmed. “This suit is insufficient against massed parahumans, but it should suffice to engage Hookwolf, or at least pry him and your, ah, friend apart. Maybe.” She stepped up to the ledge, and Taylor noticed the back of the suit expand and unfold into a pair of flight surfaces. “Armsmaster and Miss Militia are downstairs and joining the battle. Also, I have additional suits en route. They should arrive in about… three minutes.” Taylor got the impression that Dragon was smirking behind her helmet’s faceplate. “Do you think you can manage until then?”

Taylor smiled back, feeling her other two friends behind her. “I think we can, yeah.”

“Good.” With that, Dragon leapt from the hole, a pair of engines firing to life as she did. Taylor spared a moment to watch her arc toward the direction that Hookwolf and Benny had gone.

“Right, then. Guys?”

Fight? Levi asked.

“Yeah,” Taylor answered him. “So, who wants to go fight some Nazis?”