It was hard to describe what I was feeling at the moment. I didn't necessarily get any stronger than I was seconds ago, but it felt like I suddenly could bring every ounce of my stored power to bear all at once.

It felt amazing though, like I had lightning running through my veins instead of blood.

But it did come at a cost. I could feel my stamina burning away by the second. This battle had gone from a marathon to a sprint.

"Dammit! Everyone stay back. If we can st- ack!" Paladin tried warning the other heroes, but I had had enough of his interference for the moment. Before he could finish his warning I surged forward and seized him by the throat.

"Sorry, but why don't you take a nap for now?" I punched straight through the hasty shield Shielder threw up in between us and nailed Paladin in the stomach. The force of it was too much for the White Dragon and he went slack in my grip.

His allies all cried out in surprise at my sudden burst of speed and all tried to respond at the same time. Glory Girl rushed me while Laserdream and Shielder tried peppering me with their energy blasts. I took the opportunity to throw Paladin's unconscious body at Glory Girl. Even with her 'enthusiasm' for taking down what she saw as the bad guys, she wasn't about to let him fall so she was forced to break off and catch the idiot. Which gave me a few moments to focus on the main annoyance left in this fight.

Shielder.

He was the one stopping me from simply blasting the other heroes from afar with spells, he was the one allowing Laserdream to just sit there and attack without retaliation, and he was the one that was protecting his allies from getting taken out of the fight, making this entire fiasco take much longer than it needed to.

So he had to go.

To his credit, Shielder recognized I was going after him next and was able to put up a much thicker blue construct before I managed to hit him. Too bad for him he must have either underestimated me or was running low on whatever his powers ran off of because my fist shattered the thing like glass before burying itself in his torso. I winced as I felt something crack, meaning I definitely hit him a bit too hard, but he did have a healer on his team. He should be fine eventually.

""ERIC!""

Of course that didn't mean that his sister and cousin weren't enraged by their family member being violently knocked out of the fight.

Too bad for them without the younger teen blocking me, there was nothing to stop me from just bombarding them with spells anymore. Six new sigils lit up in preparation to quickly end what was left of the fight…

…only to fizzle out as I was forced to dodge out of the way as a bolt of lightning and some light purple beams shot through the space I had just been occupying.

I turned and was immediately displeased to see four more heroes flying towards me. Lady Photon, who I sort of expected since her kids were fighting me, along with Dauntless from the Protectorate and Aegis and Kid Win from the Wards.

I think I had managed to attract every major flying hero in the city. Maybe some of the small time independents would start showing up at this rate. Not that I could afford to wait that long. The Boosted Gear was burning through my stamina too quickly for that.

"Well, looks like everyone turned out just for me. I'm flattered, truly." I greeted the new arrivals while I tried forming a teleportation circle under me. Ironically while my combat boost was increasing my magic power enough I could have teleported a hundred times without feeling the strain, my own residual energies from my earlier spells were making it impossible to actually target anything.

"We don't just let villains run rampant through the city." Lady Photon said harshly. I don't think she liked me beating up her son.

"That's nice. Though if I'm being considered a villain can you do me a favor and tell me why? This is only my second time out in uniform, you know."

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

"Disturbing the peace, assault with a parahuman power, destruction of property, and since I doubt you are going to surrender peacefully resisting arrest." Oddly Lady Photon was the one to answer. I would have expected Dauntless to take the lead since he actually was a government employee, but the Greek themed hero seemed content to let her speak for him.

Something to think about later though.

"So defending myself when your niece decides to beat me up for no reason is illegal now?"

"Don't listen to her, she's part of the Empire!" Glory Girl interjected, still holding an unconscious Paladin. "I caught her facing down Paladin with a bunch of E88 goons and a black kid they had beaten up."

"Two issues with that." I glared at the idiot she was holding. This was all his fault. "One, I'm not with the Empire and unless something really messed up happens never will be. Two, I never touched the kid in the alley, the idiot you're holding should be able to confirm but frankly I think I've overestimated his intelligence recently."

"You're wearing their colors!"

"And you're blonde with blue eyes! You must be a Nazi sympathiser!"

"Right, sounds like this is a bigger mess than it seems." Dauntless finally spoke up. "If you really haven't done anything wrong you won't mind coming with us to the PRT HQ to get things straightened out, will you?"

"And if I don't want to?" I asked mostly out of curiosity.

"I'm afraid I have to insist. This fight was simply too noticeable for us to just sweep things under the rug."

That was actually a more mild stance than I was expecting from someone with a six-to-one advantage, but I guess he was more interested in deescalating things than bringing me in. Ironic considering the city we were in.

And unfortunately not a choice I was interested in at the moment.

My teleportation circle flashed and started glowing as it finally made the connection and the heroes all tensed at the sight.

"Sorry, but I have more important things to do today than talk with you guys today." I said with faux regret in my voice.

"If you choose to fight you will be labeled a villain." Dauntless warned even as lightning danced around his lance.

"Good thing I'm not fighting then." I smirked. Then with a snap of my fingers teleported back home.

[RESET.]

Just in time too.

I practically collapsed onto the floor as all the strength in my body vanished making my limbs feel like cotton candy.

"That was close." I muttered, waiting for the weak feeling to pass and just feeling the coldness of the floor seep into my limbs.

'It wasn't bad for the first time using my power.' Ddraig commented idly.

"Yeah, I'm going to have to work on that. I got tired out way too quickly."

'You should adapt fairly quickly. Devils are physically superior to humans after all.'

"Not only that though. I relied too much on simply overpowering everyone. If the other heroes had just attacked instead of standing around and talking I would have lost."

'Hmmm' Ddraig grumbled. I could tell that he didn't like the idea of losing just because more people showed up any more than I did. I guess that meant figuring out a training schedule sooner than I thought.

There was a more immediate problem though.

I might have been able to finish food shopping, but that wasn't my only stop for the day. I still needed to actually get some cooking utensils or else I was going to be limited to basic sandwiches eaten off a napkin.

Which meant going back out for more shopping.

I sighed and picked myself off the ground. I think I would take the bus this time. I was too tired to teleport.

-o-

I barely held back a yawn as I wandered through the mall debating with myself if eighty dollars out of my dwindling money stash was worth it for a knife set or if it was better to just get one or two separately.

Apparently even though the fight hadn't really stressed me out too much, it was going to take more than a forty-five minute bus ride to recover. Definitely needed that training schedule. If only to recover quicker than I was.

Still, my tiredness had its upsides. Looking like I was about to fall asleep had discouraged most people from trying to make smalltalk. That left me free to shop in peace.

I decided the knife set was overkill considering I was only cooking for me at the moment, I could always get it later if that changed, and headed for the checkout when I noticed a group of college age girls walking the same direction, all of them talking very animatedly. Even from a few feet away I could clearly hear their conversation.

"So it's all over PHO now?"

"Yeah, even if it wasn't that long, a fight between ten capes is a pretty big deal."

"If you can call it that. Most of them didn't even do anything. They just stood around until Lucifer teleported away."

I guess that answered if anyone had gotten a recording of that fight. Did people just always have a recording device ready, just in case a fight broke out? I made a note to check it out when I got home. Who knows, maybe there was a cool screenshot I could use.

"Yeah, I don't think anyone was expecting her to run away like that." One of the girls commented before making an obvious effort to change the subject.

I mostly tuned the group out after that. They were still pretty loud though. Enough so that when they moved onto hair products I knew they were discussing me as I waited for my items to scan.

"There is no way it's natural. She has to use some kind of dye."

"On that much hair? You'd need to do touch ups constantly. It's natural."

"You two could be a little louder, you know." One of the group said grumpily. "I don't think they heard you in Boston."

"Oh c'mon Crystal, lighten up." Uh oh, "I know you're upset about Eric but isn't that why you came out with us? To relax a bit?" I tried to subtly pay more attention to the group behind me without actually looking at them.

"Speaking of Eric, maybe we could dye your hair? Even just a temp thing if you want."

"Sam, I don't know anything about hair dye. What would I even get?"

"I know, we'll ask her!" I could practically feel the group's attention fall on my back. "With hair like that she should at least know the basics."

"Sam…wai- Alex, hold on! Guys, I don't want to bother her!" I knew Crystal's protests were ignored when I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned to face a group of girls including a very reluctant looking Crystal Pelham, aka Laserdream. And the second she saw my face I realized she recognized me as well.

Welp, goodbye secret identity, I guess.

"Hi there, I love your hair!" One of Crystal's friends gushed. "We were looking for tips, anything you could share?"

I smiled back awkwardly. What was I going to do now?