Chương 62: Sarah Stellar's Spectacular Support

Sarah Stellar, aka Sun Light, was actually having a pretty good day. Ms Chillwind had finally pressured the rest of the team into joining her for early morning training and it had actually gone really well. Somehow, it had been the perfect thing to get Northwind and Ion Blast back on speaking terms after yet another fallout which was like the fourth one she'd been around to witness in her short stint on this team.

In her opinion, those two were an absolute disaster of a romance who really needed to split up for real, but Sarah wasn't about jump into that drama as the newcomer. At the very least, going through some classic hero drills managed to get the whole team in sync once more. Moreover, it felt like she was finally making friends with the rest of the Guardians now, with Hexxi and Thorn Thrower inviting her along for a hangout after today's shift.

Nothing special planned, but it felt like they finally saw her as just another part of the team rather than some scary veteran here to give them all bad grades in super hero-ing or something. Speaking of grades, as of today, she'd gotten everything sorted out with her schoolwork. Under the Young Guardian program, she was being given even better accommodations than she'd been getting with her old team and so hadn't needed to dip out on her senior semester.

It would mean a hell of a lot more summer courses to graduate, but she'd be hanging out with her old friends by next week with a ton less stress on her back. A few tutors from Amberheart had been helping her out a ton the past couple days, and her biology homework no longer looked like arcane scrolls. And speaking of which, she was finally no longer failing history class since one of those gals actually was really good at explaining the 1600's Sanctum Reforms in a way that normal people could understand.

She'd almost squealed with joy when she saw her latest test score in an email after training. Yeah, that made her a nerd but it felt good to not have D's and F's across the board. So when today's mission had involved fighting an actual villain, it was just the cherry on top of an already perfect day. There'd only been one unfortunate detail.

"Good – ugh – good job team," Phantom Foil managed not to heave as he called the mission done. Wastrel grumbled. The literal trash villain sat all tied up after putting up quite the fight against the team. Admittedly, they'd underestimated the D-lister a little bit which meant more than a few of them would need a bath as a result now. It put a little bit of a damper on the good day almost everyone seemed to have been having.

"Do we really need to stick around?" Northwind asked, picking a banana peel out of his hair.

"The Arrestors are just going to give him a slap on the wrist and let him go." Phantom Foil's face wasn't visible beneath the thick hood he wore, swirling shadows obscuring his every feature, but Sarah swore she could see him frown.

"Rules are rules," Reggie said, with a lot less conviction in his voice than a leader should probably have.

"Since they're not on the scene, we're supposed to stay here." A few of the Young Guardians glanced over at Sarah, clearly wanting her to challenge that. This had been an unfortunate trend. Her history as part of a "real" hero team had invited a lot of division into the Guardians, with about half of them clearly not accepting that she wasn't there to take over for Foil not matter how much she insisted. She kind of hated this. It felt like everyone was trying to force her to be Reggie's enemy for no real reason.

Sarah stood up straight, ignoring the awful smell from a suspicious puddle on the ground next to her that she really hoped she hadn't stepped in, and backed up PF, "Other heroes might get leeway, but we're all probationary here. If we break the rules then they have to bench us for at least a week." The frowns broke out all around as she joined in as the "bad guy." Sarah shot a look at Foil, and swore she saw a smile as she had his back.

An idea sparked at that, and she decided that she might as well help out team morale even further, "Since Wastrel is a known threat that has cooperated with arrest in the past, however, only one of us needs to stand by here." She caught herself before telling them to head on back, letting Reggie give the order so she didn't undermine his authority any further. He walked over to her and leaned over, "Thanks. You really don't mind?" She shook her head, "Go on, let them get cleaned up.

I can fly back as soon as they're done here." Reggie nodded then turned to the rest of them, "That's what we're doing. Sun Light will join us back at base when she's done. Let's go home, team." That earned cheers all around and several of the Guardians ran over to thank Sarah personally before their ride swung down from the clouds.

Sarah didn't envy the Amberheart cleaning crew that would need to get the smell out of the Guardian Jet – which was actually more of an elongated hover car – since all the garbage covered teens would thoroughly ruin the seats on the ride back. She waved goodbye to her teammates and watched them go, wearing a smile that still felt genuine. Wastrel's long sigh brought her attention back to him before he spoke up, "At least one of you was a real hero rather than just a trainee…"

She frowned at the offhanded insult towards the rest of the heroes who had just beaten him before examining the despondent villain as he sulked on the ground. The restraints on him weren't even inhibitor cuffs. He could probably still summon up his powers if he wanted to, something she'd half expected him to try the moment the others had left. Her evaluation also noted how listless his eyes appeared as he stared vacantly off in the distance.

Not an ounce of resistance was left in him, even though he'd been putting up more of a fight than usual, at least as far as she could tell. As Sarah thought back on her few previous encounters with the low level villain, something hit her.

"Don't you normally have minions?" she asked, glancing around to see if any of his goons were hanging around to try and spring their boss. A look of pain crossed the man's face and his head slumped, "Most of them scattered after the League moved in and made an example out of me. Jones and Vicks were the only two left and they dumped their gear off this morning. Haven't been able to pull a solid job in weeks so they're running off to find someone else who can give that to them. Fuck…

Thought since Metal Head went and made something of himself that I just needed to try harder myself." Sarah eyed him carefully, "You know Menace?" The captive villain smirked before the expression dropped off his face, "Used to… Same weight class, so he'd join the rest of us losers for drinks every now and then. Guess that's over too now that he's running around in cool new armor and flying with Terrorantula. Godsdammit, I used to be the one with his shit together in our group. Oh come on...

Who am I fucking kidding? I might've had henchmen but I live in a fucking garbage dump." The villain squeezed his eyes shut, fighting back tears. Sarah looked away, instead focusing down the street for any sign of approaching Arrestors. They'd been called in midfight by Foil, but it had definitely sounded like the sentinels weren't in a hurry to swing by. She noted the traffic a couple blocks down was beginning to inch forward.

"… Do you mind if-" she began to ask. Wastrel stood up, revealing that only his torso was actually bound with the wires and bands that Foil had placed on him, "Yeah, yeah…" He lurched his way to a secluded spot on the sidewalk where he could slump in the shadow of a short staircase that jutted out from a nearby building. He collapsed there, head pointed towards his lap as he chewed his bottom lip to prevent himself from crying.

She felt sorry for him for a moment before remembering how much effort he'd just been throwing into trying to fight off the Young Guardians. All so he could rob a store nearby. Probably the first of many given that he was trying to make off with the cash register like a common thief. So what if he was crying right now? He'd been trying to cause all sorts of trouble just minutes earlier. Because one former troublemaker gave another a chance, echoed ArachNed's voice.

She stared down at the man, dressed in an intentionally patchwork outfit that sort of looked like a century-old suit and sporting a bandanna mask. A man who had spent more years as a villain than she'd been a hero. Someone who had never shown a single inkling of wanting to change or even stop harassing people. He probably had more fights with heroes under his belt than some League members.

"Why do you do what you do?" she asked. He looked up, "Pfft, Arrestor's taking that long? Why the fuck do you think? My powers are shit but this is the only way I get to use them in a way that fucking matters."

"Couldn't you, like," she gestured, "just be a garbageman?"

"Kid, I was a fucking garbageman," Wastrel huffed.

"It's how I got these powers in the first place. Someone dropped a cosmic reactor core down a chute – probably trying to steal it. I got hit with cosmic rays and still got the worst set of powers you could imagine." Sarah's eyes widened. She knew plenty about cosmic powers thanks to her family.

Lots of weird stuff came from space giving off all kinds of weird energies, some of which had a habit of giving out some really esoteric abilities if you got bathed in them – or in her case, if your parents got hit with those space rays. Mostly people that walked away from cosmic exposure tended towards energy based powers if they got powers at all, but that wasn't a guarantee. Cosmic reactors were attempts to harness these strange energies using terrestrial science with just the slightest amount of alien know-how.

Mostly for electrical purposes but honestly, Sarah suspected a lot of people wanted a "cool superpower making machine." Regardless of the intent, no one had quite figured them out just right and they tended not to grant powers as much as simply vaporize people when their shielding failed, so his story was surprising on a number of levels.

"Yeah, yeah, anyways the point is that the city's got rules and shit about super powers so you can't just fire all your workers and replace them with a supe. ¹ And since they already had a couple telekinetics at the storage facility, I put them over quota," Wastrel explained.

"Got the boot when they caught me levitating some cans into the truck. Picked a fight on the way home and got thrown on villain registry. I figured I might as well commit." His voice was petulant and Sarah had to keep herself from snapping back with comments about how he'd spent the last ten years. She wondered if Ned had to deal with this much self-centeredness with his villains. An ache in her neck gave her the feeling that was probably the case.

There were plenty of people who got caught up using their powers during a heated moment and got on the Arrestors' bad side who then turned things around and didn't spend all that time forming a gang and terrorizing the city. She looked back at the street they'd fought in, still littered with the remains of some of the fight, even as cars slowly began to weave around the worst of it.

It was hard to feel too bad for Wastrel when this whole street would be an absolute mess that was going to cause traffic problems for hours. Well, if the Restoration Team swung by with the Arrestors, then they might have this whole thing solved in- Sarah looked back at Wastrel, "Have you ever considered being a Cleaner?" He sighed, "I'm done with janitorial shit. Just… I see what you're doing here, but I don't…"

"No, no," she shook her head.

"I mean part of Victory's Restoration Team." An eyebrow raised, "I… don't think my powers work that way." Sarah shrugged, "You ever try to move rubble? Isn't that just trash?" He scoffed only to think about it for a moment, "Huh… it is, isn't it?" Sarah glanced around. There were a couple of civilians milling closer, pretending not to look her way. She couldn't blame them for being nosy considering the two of them were still in full costume. Still, it made this next part a little… risky.

As stealthy as she could be in her bright white and red costume, she moved her arm over to the stair wall that Wastrel was resting against. Her hand brushed against the edge of it and she fed a little bit of energy into her fingertips as she squeezed down, just enough to crack off a piece. It tumbled to the ground at Wastrel's feet.

"Can you move that?" she whispered. He shot an inquisitive look up at her before focusing on the small chip on the ground. Half a second later, it began to levitate.

"Huh…" he muttered before looking back up at her.

"I mean… still, I've got a whole record. I don't think they'd take me."

"We could always see," she told him with a forced smile.

"I could put in a word with the Arrestors when they show up and we could figure out things from there." Wastrel glanced back at the small chip hovering in midair, watching it slowly rotate less than a foot off the ground. He was quiet for almost a minute.

"I… When this didn't work out, I was planning on sucking it up and joining the League," he admitted. Sarah's blood ran cold at that. Wastrel might be a pain in the neck, but he wasn't a monster. Not like the stories she'd heard from other heroes about how League villains acted.

During her last couple trips to Orion, the Squad had been fiercely protective of her in ways that had annoyed her at the time, only for Aunty Wave to let slip some of the stories about supes her age that had gone missing in the rougher parts of town. Orion might be a sparkling gem of a hero city, but its villains were all the worse. Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

When Terrorantula had bitten her, right before she'd passed out, she remembered the stories of those missing heroes. A part of her had wondered, especially when the League had shown up less than a day after her fight with Terror, if the woman had joined up herself. That was one part of her conspiracy board actually. She still hadn't fully discounted it even after the woman's speech last night. Perhaps the Iron Menace had been recruited by the villain organization?

She felt like that was wrong, but another part of her couldn't shake the bad vibes she was getting from the spider villain's actions. And now here she was, listening to Wastrel of all people saying he was planning on signing on with the League. All because he was feeling helpless.

"I don't-" she began.

"Yeah… that was a bad idea," Wastrel shook his head.

"I've seen how they treat their bottom rung. Alright, fuck it, fine. I'll try it." Sarah blinked in surprise, "Really?" Wastrel shrugged, "Yeah, sure, I'll see how this goes. Besides, I heard the paycheck is surprisingly decent. Might as well see if that's true before I burn anymore bridges by selling out." She placed a hand on his shoulder and noticed a hint of a smile before he turned away from her and pretended to pout.

In that moment, she finally understood why Ned spent so much time trying to help his villains out; she felt proud of what she'd done here. She'd quit the Squad to try and figure out who she wanted to be and, right now, the feeling in her gut said this was closer to that than she'd been in years.

The whole process had been even smoother than Sarah had expected. After waiting almost half an hour longer for the Arrestors to show up, the sentinels on hand were rather helpful with getting Wastrel in contact with the Restoration Team. One of the trio of Arrestors had even pulled her aside to enthusiastically thank her for finding a solution to Wastrel once and for all, apparently having dealt with the aftermath of his fights on more than one occasion.

It really was bizarre seeing them quickly uncuff the villain and be so blase about the whole situation, but she guessed that Wastrel had been through this whole thing multiple times and rarely made a scene. Still, the few times she'd had to stick around to wait with villains during her time on the Squad had prepared her for a whole host of sentinels to sweep the scene and record evidence while ensuring the perpetrator was contained.

Seeing just three of them pile out of a car and casually chatting with the guy who had just been fighting the Young Guardians felt wrong. She shook those thoughts aside as she flew through the air towards Amberheart. She was choosing to focus on the look on the former villain's face when he'd made the call right in front of them. Apparently, the guy he talked to was an old coworker of his back when he was a garbageman and was more than happy to help get him on-boarded as soon as possible.

The recent crime streak had left the department winded and the idea of getting someone who could help out with their powers and knew enough about the city's sanitation to not step on toes immediately was a godsend to them. Wastrel was officially starting his new life next week. His face had said what the man couldn't bring himself to. This was a fresh start and the exact thing he needed at his lowest point: a way forward that didn't feel like starting with nothing. Sarah smiled, pleased with herself once more.

She was making plans on how to celebrate when something slammed into her at high speed, flipping her end over end. It grappled onto her, squeezing her tight and threatening to crush her, even with her enhanced durability. Her arms scrambled, trapped against her sides as cosmic energy tried to empower her muscles enough to break the hold. Her legs spasmed and kicked out wildly, striking what felt like solid rock in her struggles.

She let the energy inside her flow into her eyes, preparing to zap her captor when she finally took in what had hit her. Blood red hair flowed through the air and a pair of hazy golden eyes looked up at her over an extremely messy smile.

"Ssssstar Light! Right?" Thana slurred her words while one massive arm unwrapped itself so the massive woman could pat the heroine on the head.

"You're… the kid of Captain Come're, righ'?" Her clumsy pawing at Sarah's head freed one of her arms which she used to pry the woman off of her just enough to breathe and WHAT WAS THAT SMELL?! Sarah gagged and Thana quickly released her, "Oopsssss… Shorry." Sarah wheezed and her powers stabilized her in midair, "Ugh… I'm okay! It's Sun Light. My name. Sun Light. Uh… and dad's Commander Cosmic." She gently floated away, realizing the horrid stench was coming from the disheveled goddess who was smiling dumbly at her.

Sarah's body tensed, wondering if she might be under the control of some awful villain's power.

"That's right!" the Stormdaughter clapped her hands together, wobbling in midair when she did so.

"Sorry, not great with namshe right now… Not good with a lot of things… But it's okay!"

"It… is?"

"Is what?" Thana cocked her head, red hair spilling over her face. She sputtered as it fell in her mouth.

"Um… are you- I mean, is something going on?"

"Nope!" the goddess swung her arm as she exclaimed that, twisting her around as she floated.

"Nothing's happening because it's all wrong! Hehe! I got it all wrong!" An arm reached out and slapped Sarah on the shoulder. The force of the blow sent her falling end over end before she caught herself. It wasn't enough to cause any damage but she'd been caught off guard. As she looked at the befuddled woman hovering above her, staring down at her, Sarah gradually began to catch on.

"Are you… drunk?" she asked, cautiously ascending back up towards the woman. The Stormdaughter pinched her lips together before once more returning to a thoughtless smile, "Yep!"

"Uh… should you be flying?" Sarah glanced past the woman and saw an antenna on a nearby roof that appeared to be bent at an odd angle.

"I'm fine!" Thana said before attempting to lean on empty air. She spun for a second before giggling and righting herself, "I've had worse! Caused worse… If I get hurt then I desherve it!" She laughed at that, but it left Sarah horrified. She began to drift away from the vikor woman, trying to gain some distance before her conscience began to yell at her that leaving the lightning goddess in this state was irresponsible.

"What the hell am I supposed to do…?" she muttered to herself while Thana floated past her.

"Hey! Where are you going?" Thana's face was perplexed, "... I don't know? I think I wanted to go to Misery's Call… or The Slam? Do you know which one is open right now?"

"Those are… villain bars, I think. Uh… I'm underaged so I don't really know?" Sarah shook her head.

"Wait, why are you going to villain bars this early?"

"Cause Evelyn was right!" she pumped a fist in the air.

"I shoulda just… been a villain…"

"Okay, no," Sarah shot in front of her and pushed against the woman's shoulders as she continued to drift forward. The attempt had been to stop her or at least slow her down, but the cosmic forces propelling Sarah forward didn't seem capable of dealing with whatever was lazily moving the goddess forward. Still, the woman came to a confused halt.

"W... hat are you doing?" Thana asked lazily.

"You need to stay right here for a second. Okay?" Sarah began tapping at the communicator built into her gloves.

"I just need to call someone real quick."

"O... kayyyyy…" Pick up, pick up, pick up…! Sarah thought as the line rang, watching the inebriated goddess blink slowly as a slow terror rose in her. She was not equipped to deal with this and didn't know where to begin. Thankfully, Reflecta did answer.

"Hi, sweetie," her aunt's voice came out on speaker.

"Is this an emergency?" That tone alone made Sarah want to tell her it was nothing and hang up but she shook her head, "Uh… kind of. I'm really in over my head." Thana giggled and began to float upwards, literally dangling over the heroine's head.

"Okay. Alright," the stress in Aunt Flec's voice bled away as she focused entirely on Sarah.

"What's going on?"

"Is this a bad time?" she asked, despite herself. A part of her felt guilty, worried that she might've caught the Squad midfight. Her aunt sighed, "Sorry. Someone made a mistake and hurt someone accidentally. We're trying to track them down right now because we're worried about them. I'm waiting for Amberheart to get back to me on where they've been staying while they're here. In the meantime, we're doing a quick sweep of some last known locations looking for her." Her. Might be a coincidence but…

"Um…" she looked upwards, "Are you looking for, uh, the... Stormdaughter?" The line was quiet for a second, "... Yes. How did you know?" The goddess grinned and stuck a finger out to tap her forehead.

"She's here with me," Sarah said, swatting the hand away.

"She's a little… out of it."

"Ah." Reflecta took a deep breath, "Sun Light, dear. Could you please tell us where you are right now?" Sarah scanned the street below her but didn't recognize it on sight. She glanced over at Thana who seemed to have become distracted by a cloud above them.

"Could you stay here?" she asked. The woman turned around and cheerfully nodded.

"Everything alright?" her aunt asked as Sarah moved down towards the street for a better look at some of the signs nearby.

"Uh, she's had a little bit to-" she glanced back and saw Thana floating right beside her.

"I thought you were going to stay up there!" Thana looked confused, "But where were you going?"

"I'm just going to look at where we are. I'll be right back!" she practically pleaded with the woman.

"Okay, I'll come with you!" was the cheerful reply.

"Is she… drunk?" Reflecta asked.

"How?!" Sarah eyed the goddess, who smiled, "Fast beer… no… quick beer?"

"Speedster alcohol," Reflecta said gravely.

"Okay. That would do it." Sarah remembered that her dad and Uncle Tag, the name she'd always known Space Racer by, apparently weren't affected by normal drinks. Uncle Tag had liked to complain about the costs of going to bars to meet people before giving that up a few years back.

Her curiosity had led her down a rabbit hole one night that had started on "Speedster alcohol", a type of spirit that had to be specially distilled to work on extremely high metabolism bodies without just making general use poison, and it had ended when she realized she was twenty tabs in and looking at 17 th century fishing boats.

"How many have you had?" Sarah asked, remembering that Uncle Tag tended to need to have a ride home if he had more than five drinks a night. Thana held up three fingers with a conspiratorial grin.

"Three cans? Okay, that's-" Thana shook her head, the drunken smile growing wider.

"Three bottles?" Sarah squeaked. Another shake of the head.

"... Three cases?" Thana clapped and nodded, giggling once more as she lost her balance.

"Ooooooookay," Aunt Flec sounded worried.

"Honey, could you please keep her there? Preferably away from everyone else nearby? I'll ping your location, okay?"

"Y-yeah…" Sarah nodded.

"Hey, Ms. Stormdaughter. Could you please follow me?"

"Yep!" Thana drifted her way, wobbling a bit as she kept pace. Sarah led her through the air to a nearby rooftop, opting to ascend a little further than they'd been hovering at in order to move the two of them away from the view of the street below. Once she landed, she carefully led the other heroine off to a corner where she'd be further out of sight from anyone looking out a nearby window of any of the surrounding buildings.

The larger woman obviously allowed Sarah to guide her, cheerfully prancing along with unsteady steps. Once she let go, Thana grinned and patted her on the shoulder. Sarah noticed cracks form underneath her feet.

"You're a good kid…" she muttered only to sway on her feet.

"I'm sorry…"

"It's alright," Sarah instinctively responded, a hand already reaching out to steady the drunken goddess.

"Nooooo… it's not…" the woman's eyes glistened.

"Evelyn shouldn't have done that… and now… now…" The vikor woman sank to the ground muttering to herself with occasional sniffles interrupting her. Sarah exhaled, not realizing she'd been holding her breath. A ping on her wrist let her know that her family had a lock on her location. That meant possibly seeing her dad again. She wasn't sure she was ready for that. Still, she felt like she couldn't leave Thana here like this. She might be a goddess but right now, she was just a mess.

Sarah sighed, leaning against the edge of the rooftop herself. She couldn't help but feel like her perfect day had just slipped through her fingers.