The pair of villains were running interference for Purity, distracting and trapping the heroes to set them up so Purity could blast them out of the sky.  Purity was too high up for us to interfere with, which meant we had to find another way to get her attention.

Hmm. I’m sure a message written in giant letters made of darkness in mid-air, saying “WE’RE HERE” ought to do the trick.

(Unlike Buglish, Darklish uses apostrophes.)

Regent handled that for us, sweeping his arm to one side.  Rune slipped from her position on her floating piece of balcony.  Another gesture from Regent, and the girl was left hanging from the side.

Nice work! 😀

“Don’t kill her,” I told him.

“Right,” he looked up at the girl.  Seeing her struggle, he shouted, “Better make sure you can land somewhere safe!  I’m dropping you in three seconds!”

…fair enough.

The rock drifted in our general direction, and we backed the dogs up.  When Rune was over the rooftop, Regent swept his hand to one side and brought her down to a painful landing.

Ow.

Hi.

“Fuckers!” the teenager in the cowl and robe screamed, “I’ll squash you!”

You don’t like the Undersiders very much, do you?

The big pieces of rubble in the sky above drifted our way.  One suddenly stopped levitating and dropped.

I wonder, can Regent’s power interfere with this kind of thing? Probably not.

Rune was the source of the debris that had struck us, which was rising back into the air as I watched.  A teenage girl in the service of Empire Eighty-Eight, Rune was a powerful telekinetic capable of lifting nearly a ton.

Had to be a girl, huh. I’ve been having a hard time not assuming male, due to Rune (ROO-neh) being a male name in Norway. If I slipped up and said “he” somewhere, that’s why.

Seems like I was off-base about her power involving symbols, too.

So did that debris miss someone else and just happen to almost crush the Undersiders, or has Rune spotted them?

Several things weighing up to a ton, judging by what I saw.  She hovered in the air, crouched atop a piece of building as big as a garbage truck, with more similarly sized pieces of rubble orbiting her.

Nice.

The drawback to her power was that she needed to touch things before she could move them with her mind, but that seemed fairly inconsequential right this moment.

It does seem helpful to some extent – it ought to slow down her reloading. Although there’s probably nothing stopping her from reusing the same debris she already threw at them.

Bitch whistled, and Brutus surged forward in our pack.  Brutus turned partway into an alley and leaped.  He latched his claws on one wall of the building, half turned, then leaped across to the neighboring building.  Zig-zagging upward, he ascended to the roof in a span of seconds.

Oh hell no.

Ahahaha seems like it took Taylor a moment to realize what Grue meant by “Up!”

Judas followed, and Angelica was only a heartbeat behind.  If I’d thought our travel over the rooftops on our last escapade had been rough, this was sadistic.  Or masochistic.  It depended on where I assigned the blame.

Hehe

We reached the rooftop just in time to nearly be squashed by a huge chunk of building that dropped from the sky like a meteor.  Angelica lurched under me as she leaped to one side.

At least no one’s wearing ruby slippers.

New Wave’s fliers and Purity weren’t the only ones in the air.  Aegis was also up there on the side of the good guys, but Purity had backup from Crusader and Rune.

Oh hey, more people. Looks like Rune is here after all, though not working directly with Othala at the moment, and… wait, Aegis can fly? Huh. If that was shown or mentioned back in Agitation, I forgot it.

“Around!” Tattletale pointed over Grue’s shoulder.

Wordlessly, Grue steered Judas into a turn.  Bitch, astride Brutus, a bit ahead of Judas, looked over her shoulder and turned to join them.  Angelica was happy to follow after.  Together, we detoured left to a side street running parallel to the ongoing battle.

Yeah, might not want to dive right into that. Sounds like Tattle has a specific destination in mind, though… Does she want to talk to someone at the other end of the battlefield, or something?

“Why?” I called out.

“Safer!” Tattletale replied, without turning to face me.

That’s fair too.

A crash behind me made me duck.  Manpower, a powerful seven foot tall athletic figure decked out in white and yellow, had been thrown through a brick wall.

Hi there! You look like a bruiser, like I theorized.

Maybe more than one.  He seemed unhurt, but he was a fairly durable guy.  Personal electromagnetic shielding, if I remembered right.  He was still struggling to his feet after we left him behind.

Hm. Sounds similar to Glory Girl’s forcefield.

“What’s our plan!?” I shouted, raising my voice to be heard as one of Purity’s blasts crashed down to the street to our right.

I thought Tattle was going to explain that between chapters! Maybe she just explained the thing the plan is based on, and not the plan itself?

“Get her attention!” Grue replied.  He pointed,  “Up!”

Oh boy, here we go.

I guess distracting Purity might help New Wave get some good hits in? The thing Tattle Knew could easily have been that there’d be heroes on the case. But that seems too simple.

I’d hope for a bit about Clockblocker not being happy to see Taylor, but when I think about it, he might not have seen her in the first place. It’s a bit unclear how much footage of Skitter is available to the public at this point.

He fought alongside Flashbang and Brandish, and I could identify Krieg, Victor, Othala and Alabaster in their immediate vicinity.  Further away were Night, Fog, Panacea, Vista and Clockblocker.

Oh hey! Still no sign of the Protectorate proper, but there are a few Wards, at least.

I’m curious about Brandish’s powers. She sounds like she might be awesome, but I have no clue what her powers might be besides that they’re probably similar to Glory Girl’s in some way. That said, my working theory is that Lady Photon and Flashbang are siblings, so most of GG’s powers seem to come from her father’s side of the family. Maybe Brandish’s power involves respect or fear, which mixes with the light theme on the paternal side of Glory Girl’s family to give her the angelic aura of respect/fear.

Also of note in this quote: Othala is here, but Rune doesn’t seem to be. I had speculated that the two of them worked together, but unless Taylor just couldn’t identify Rune or they’re out of sight, it seems that may not be the case.

Maybe Laserdream’s lasers can cause the target to hallucinate, or something like that.

Mother and daughter shared the same general powers; flight, the ability to raise forcefield bubbles around themselves, and the ability to project lasers from their hands.  As a consequence, their fight with Purity was something of a light show.

More evidence that the nature of the powers can be somewhat hereditary. It’s worth noting, though, that this Arc also contained evidence that it’s not always the case, since we now know the powers of both Alec and his parahuman “father”.

Also, jeez, as if Purity’s power wasn’t a light show on its own, she’s fighting a team I’ve speculated to have light-based powers almost all around. Add that to the “this is very fitting” pile, I guess.

…

What if Kayden is a member of this family? We don’t know her maiden name. Maybe she was Kayden Dallon, or Kayden whatever-surname-Photon-Mom’s-part-of-the-family-has?

Below, it seemed, there was an all-out war.

Right, we still had a few of Purity’s cape subordinates unaccounted for, as well as many of her mundane ones, and not everyone on either side can fly.

Is the Protectorate down there?

As she targeted Glory Girl, one of Purity’s blasts of light slammed into the edge of a rooftop.  Debris showered down, but was deflected by a bright blue forcefield.

I wonder if the forcefields are differently colored based on who made them.

Also, I noticed that Taylor said Photon Mom and Laserdream shared general powers. That means each of them can still have additional powers or quirks to their powers that differ from each other, so that’s a thing to watch out for.

That would be Shielder’s power at work.

Oh, naturally.

Actually… that’s one of those minor differences right there, even if it’s not between the family members I was talking about – Photon Mom and Laserdream can make “forcefield bubbles around themselves”, but this forcefield was described neither as a bubble nor as around anyone.

The leader of New Wave had named herself Lady Photon, but in the wake of New Wave’s founding, and the revealing of their secret identities, the media had latched on to the idea of a superheroine mom and dubbed her Photon Mom.

Ahahaha

Like any true fandom.

*glances over at the Steven Universe, Undertale and Homestuck fandoms*

…

Huh. It’s actually extremely fitting that it’s New Wave that’s up against Purity. We’ve got a villain whose family was taken away because her secret identity was revealed, up against a hero team that is big on the whole family thing and has willingly revealed their secret identities.

It was apparent to anyone who followed cape news that the name really bugged her.

Hehe.

Lady Photon’s daughter and niece were in the air with her.  Laserdream and Glory Girl.

Respectively, I assume. Let’s see, how does this match up with my previous speculations about the family tree? Krixwell from 3.11 said:

“I have a feeling she’s listing them in the same order as the relations, though, which would make Flashbang Glory Girl’s dad

and Lady Photon her presumably paternal aunt.

Manpower would then be the uncle. Maybe a bruiser type, like Browbeat? 

Laserdream and Shielder are most likely children of Lady Photon and Manpower.”

It’s looking good so far!