Chapter Thirteen - Run In With Rattles

The villain was only a few blocks away, but that still meant that they had to run along the full length of a road, and Emily found herself running short of breath about halfway to the nearest intersection.

Her sisters, obviously, had the kind of endless energy that kids had and were keeping up without any issue.

Emily glanced over the shoulder and winced. Her minions were spread out behind her. Liam and Sam were the only ones keeping up. Liam without even breaking out in a sweat, but he clearly looked like he was an athlete of some sort.

The others... weren't doing so well. She figured that they got about as much exercise as any other college student her age, only they didn't have the dubious advantage of having to run after a gaggle of brats all the time to make up for missing cardio.

Still, she figured she could do much better, and made a mental note to maybe, somehow, find the time to hit the gym.

Also, she'd need to start carrying a stick of deodorant with her. She didn't have a purse while in costume, so she only had what could fit in the rather slim pockets of her costume, and that wasn't much. At the moment she could feel sweat already collecting on her back and she knew she'd have no choice but to clean her costume again.

And she also realized that she was distracting herself from what was coming up. Slowing her run to a jog, then coming to a panting stop, Emily tried to call out to her sisters, didn't have the breath for it, then just snapped her fingers a few times as if calling for a dog's attention.

It worked, as her sisters slowed down too.

Not wanting to look weak in front of her minions, she resisted the urge to bend down with her hands on her knees to catch her breath and instead just huffed as much air as she could and hoped that her face wasn't too red.

"Trinity, one of you run ahead and tell me what you see," she said. "But be subtle about it!"

"Got it!" Trinity said with a quick, sloppy salute. Then she ran across the road without looking both ways and Emily choked on a scream. Somehow she made it to the other side safely, but she was going to have words with Trinity later... again.

"Girls, stay close. We don't know what this guy can do... do we?" Emily turned towards Sam, who came to a stop next to her and grinned.

"We don't know much," Sam admitted. "He's going by Rattles though, and I read that his powers make things shake a lot. Don't get in close, basically."

"Right," Emily said. "Athena, hit him with whatever you can. Maple, do you have any ranged options?"

"I left the toaster at home," Maple muttered.

"That's okay, we'll... figure something out. Trinity, Teddy, be careful when you get close to him, alright?"

"Yeah, sure thing, Boss," Teddy said.

Emily swallowed, her heart was still racing, but it was getting better. "Okay. Sam, can you keep the minions back? I don't think anyone wants to actually get into a fight."

"Yeah, we'll stay out of the way," Sam said. "Also, boss, it's Minion Red today."

"Oh," Emily said. "Right, sorry." She wanted to make excuses about how much she had on her plate at the moment, but she had too much on her plate to find time to do that.

"I'll keep everyone safe, no worries," Sam said with a thumbs up and a wink.

The others caught up around then, but Emily had her plan--of sorts--worked out already and she really didn't want to have to go through the awkwardness of explaining it all to her new minions. "I'll leave it to you," Emily said before turning and crossing the street with her sisters' hands in her own.

They crossed another street at the next intersection, and that's when Trinity spoke up. "Ah, okay, so the me that's ahead can see what happened. There's a big brown truck on its side and a bunch of security guys are all knocked out. The other villain's there too. He keeps walking back and forth from an alleyway nearby. He's taking all the money."

Emily frowned. "Any police?"

"Nope!" Trinity said. "There's some people hiding, and lots of cars stopped."

So, they'd have a crowd of onlookers to deal with. Emily didn't like that at all, but there wasn't much she could do about it.

Stolen novel; please report.

She made sure all of her sisters were masked up at the next intersection, then she patted her cheeks and tried to shore up her bravery. It helped that things were moving so quickly because she didn't have time to second guess herself. "Let's do this," she said.

Emily came around the corner with her sisters spread out around her.

It was a smaller street, two lanes only with wide sidewalks on either side. There were a few shops nearby, but most of the buildings here were residential with a few notaries and barber shops squeezed in for good measure.

As Trinity had said, a truck was tipped over onto its side in the middle of the road, a road which was massively cratered. At a glance, Emily guessed that the reason the armoured truck had crashed was because it hit the fresh crater wrong while moving too quickly. Momentum and gravity did the rest of the job.

There were clear signs that this was more than just a freak accident, however.

The top of the cab was ripped apart, and two men in security-officer uniforms were laid out on the street, knocked out--or so she hoped.

The back of the truck was opened up, one door laying flat on the road. Even as she looked, a man stepped out of the back of the truck with a large bag slung over a shoulder. He was wearing biker leathers and a mask that looked like a grinning skull.

There was no doubting who that was.

"Alright, comrades, let's mess him up!" Teddy shouted before she sprinted across the street.

Emily gasped, her hand reaching out uselessly to grab at Teddy. Trinity was already rushing ahead as well, and Athena was squinting hard at the other villain.

He turned, watching them come. "Who the hell are you lot?" he asked.

His answer was having Teddy turn into a roaring grizzly bear that leapt forwards, a huge paw swiping out at him.

Rattles jumped back, then ducked under a second blow. He flipped the money bag over his shoulder and threw it into Teddy's face where she grabbed it with a powerful chomp and shook.

Bills flew everywhere, which was all the distraction Rattles needed.

He stomped a foot down and Emily felt the ground quake underfoot. Those closer to him had it worse, and two of Trinity's bodies tripped.

Then the road caved in before the man and Emily gasped as Teddy started to fall into an opening chasm.

"S-sisterportation: Teddy!" Emily gasped.

An entire bear flumped onto the ground right in front of Emily with a deep grunt. She coughed, and the money bag fell down at her feet. The contents, Emily noted quickly, were covered in bright blue paint. A security feature?

She stepped around Teddy and searched for Rattles only to find the man in the act of spinning around. His booted heel crashed into Trinity's chest, sending one of her bodies flying back. It fell into the crack running across the street and then poofed with a bust of smoke only to reappear next to one of her other bodies. Fortunately, still in costume.

Rattles stumbled back as the other Trinity that had made it across rammed into his legs, but it didn't take much for him to grab her by the face and shove her back.

Something he regretted when Trinity bit him.

That body puffed into smoke as well as the air around Rattles trembled and Emily found herself stumbling as her entire body was vibrated.

When she glanced across the street again, Rattles was slipping into an alleyway.

"Should we go after him?" Teddy asked.

"No," Emily said. "No, that's a bad idea." A power like that, in the tight confines of an alleyway? She didn't want to risk it. Besides, things hadn't worked out as ideally as they might have.

Emily looked to her sisters, checking on Teddy first, but her injuries were superficial at best. Trinity had been hurt, but all of her hurt bodies had popped and so she was as fresh as ever, and rather proud of herself for having gotten a bite out of Rattles.

Athena was frowning, and Emily noticed that Maple was half-hiding herself behind her owly sister.

That... would need to be addressed, but after all of this was handled, because in typical HRF fashion, the good guys were showing up after the action had finished.

***