This was it. Theseus wasn’t getting away this time, and together, Fursona and I outgunned him. Nothing he’d pulled so far was a surprise; it had been a misplay to slow transform in front of him, but it wasn’t surprising to eat a laser for it. It wasn’t even a shock that he’d chosen to run. Theseus was always pragmatic in classes, and if he had a backup plan for being attacked in his lair, it wasn’t inside his arming room.
Besides, moving him away from the sparking, shorting re-arming machine only benefited us because we’d be able to return to our original plan.
Fursona slipped through the half-ajar door first as I switched back to Understudy.
[Rejuvenation Activated: HP 8/12]
I hadn’t used any critical resources yet besides my [Ride the Lightning], and I could still combo off in all sorts of fun ways, but Understudy worked best as a back-liner to Fursona’s bruiser. By the time the music faded, she was waving me forward into another hall. Something at the far side hummed slightly, and a rhythmic thudding sound pulsed down it. “Trap?”
“No, maybe not. Remember Professor Panic’s factory? What if this is Theseus’s?” I glanced at the far door but couldn’t see any security other than cameras we’d already—in theory—hacked.
Fursona nodded and hurried down the corridor. I followed, wand at the ready for a [Starlance], but nothing jumped out at us, and no alarms or traps triggered. I punched the door’s opening button, and it slid open. Fursona rushed in, with me a step behind.
The room was nothing like Professor Panic’s factory under the Grant Building.
If anything, it outclassed it by miles. Instead of a slapped-together assembly line made of corrugated tin and rickety scaffolding, this one had the financial weight of one of Tokyexico City’s most powerful corporations behind it. Everything looked clean, efficient, and high-tech, from the smooth rubber conveyors to the perfectly calibrated lasers fusing arms together.
Not that most of those arms looked built for fighting with. Almost every line in the factory room was filled with arms and legs that looked more suited for an unpowered person than for Theseus. In fact, the villain was ignoring everything on the belts. Instead, he made a beeline for a drone that cut through the air toward him.
“Not so fast! [Starlance]!” I fired the pinkish-blue bolt toward the drone, and to my surprise, it hit. A moment later, it detonated, throwing Theseus back to land on a conveyor belt that carried him away from the wreckage as Fursona sprinted to get between him and it.
[Dramatic Damage! +1 Drama Point]
Theseus fired his laser back my way, filling the air with its whine, but I dodged onto my own conveyor and fired back with [Bit-Part Barrage]. If we could knock him out quickly, maybe he wouldn’t be able to—
[Dramatic Damage! +3 Drama Points]
“Understudy!” Fursona shouted. She cut in, kicking at Theseus and knocking his laser off-course and into the ceiling. “Deal with the drones!”
“You got it!” I yelled back. Another drone was coming in, this one with legs that looked suspiciously spider-like. I fired a [Starlance] at it, but this one vomited chaff like the one during ‘Dark Hand,’ and the lance hit a piece of junk instead of the drone. A moment later, it dropped the legs right next to Fursona, and Theseus quickly leaped out of his own limbs and into the spidery ones.
“Alright, now we’re in business! When I’m finished with you, you won’t have—“
“A leg to stand on, I know,” I interrupted before Theseus could finish.
Bweeeeeeeem!
His laser cut across a conveyor, which snapped from the sudden heat. Metal prosthetics flew everywhere, and in the chaos, Theseus leaped from the room’s floor and spider-gripped onto the ceiling. “I do whatever a spider does!”
His sword arm stabbed down at Fursona, who ducked under another belt; the torque from its movement almost ripped Theseus from the ceiling, but he wrenched his blade free. Then, scuttling like an upside-down crab with a laser cannon, Theseus charged me.
I fired a [Starlance], hoping to knock him off his feet and onto the floor. Instead, I blasted the ceiling tile as he moved ridiculously fast. His sword arm flashed out, catching me across the chest, and even though superhero damage took the worst of it, it still hurt.
[HP 6/12]
I rolled with the blow as best I could, ending up under my own conveyor. Before I could recover, the blade thrust through the rubber and steel overhead, stopping on the floor three inches from my nose. I bit back the second half of my scream and tumbled away from it, only for him to stab down on my other side.
I was stuck, bracketed in with nowhere to go, and a sparking, screeching conveyor overhead. The next stab was going to be on me, so I braced myself. The moment I thought it was coming, I used [Quick-Time Change] and went to Lab Assistant. I sat there as the seconds ticked by, waiting to eat Theseus’s slice with [I-Frame Transform]. One second. Two. Three.
[Flashy Fitting-Room! +1 Flamboyance Point]
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
[Steel Yourself! +1 Grit Point]
My power faded.
The second it did, Theseus’s arm punched into my stomach, and this time, I didn’t hold back a scream.
[HP 3/12]
The bastard had waited. He’d known what I was going to do. TA-1LZ leaped from under the conveyor and opened up on the supervillain with her Gatling tasers. Theseus pulled his sword free from my stomach and didn’t stab again. I sighed in relief, gasping. I’d have a bruise across my entire stomach, but superhero damage had definitely saved me there, and I crawled out, coughing.
“You good?” Fursona asked. She hopped back into battle, kicking out at the supervillain.
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“Great. Then stop the rest of those from getting to him!”
I looked over my shoulder. Three drones cut across the room toward the fighting, bringing weapons closer to Theseus. The first looked like the energy shield. The second might’ve been the debuff-grapple, and the third? I couldn’t identify the third, but it didn’t look good. There were at least five arms all attached to a central shoulder joint; how many limbs could Theseus control?
I didn’t want to find out, so I dove toward the first drone’s rubble, dodging another whining laser that knicked the back of my lab coat. Then I used [Science Has Rules?] and started assembling…something. “We’re going to use microphysical energy and tension-release valves, plus Higgs-Bolton particles—“
“Higgs-Bosun,” Theseus interrupted.
“—Yeah, those, to build a catapult! TA-1LZ, get over here!” I slapped the device together, and my power activated. My familiar leaped across the room, servo-powered legs propelling her through the air in just a few bounds. She landed on a flat surface that, almost uniquely to the whole device, wasn’t crackling with energy. I pulled the trigger, and she shot through the air with a yowl.
[Pseudoscientific Mumbo-Jumbo! +1 Drama Point]
She hit the first drone as my cat-apult fell apart around me. I activated [Speed-Hacker] to knock out a second one, and it fell out of the air and onto a conveyor belt, which dragged it into a quartet of cutting lasers.
[Good Thinking! +1 Cunning Point]
TA-1LZ opened up on the third drone, sending a web of cables across the battlefield and, a moment later, shorting it out. It plummeted onto the battlefield, its wreckage sliding between Theseus and Fursona, and I spared a glance their way. She’d managed to break the focusing lens on his laser, and without his ranged weapon, she was more or less holding her own.
That left the last drone with the shield arm. As it drew closer, TA-1LZ fired into it point-blank, but it managed to drop its re-arm package right next to Theseus, who swiftly popped the ruined laser arm off and installed the shield.
I cursed and shifted from Lab Assistant Panic to Copy Cat, hating every second of the slow transformation. By the time I’d finished, Theseus was pushing Fursona back toward the door, looking worse for wear but not out of the fight yet. She’d clearly started getting the worse end of the trades now that he had two arms again, and I used [Power-Weaving] and [Leaping Leopards’d] my way into battle.
[Badass Damage! +1 Badass Point]
I landed on Theseus’s back before he could skitter out of the way, and the impact knocked him aside. Then, Fursona kicked his legs as he whirled to face me, and he buckled for a moment. A drone entered the room, but I ignored it. We’d entered the damage race part of the fight.
Theseus’s sword slashed at me, and I took it with [Fursonal Furcefield]. Then, before he could raise his shield, I swung in with a [Cat-Scratch Fever]. The attack hit, and Theseus flailed in panic as the blind effect set in.
[True Grit! +1 Grit Point]
[Dramatic Damage! +1 Drama Point]
[Floating Points: 1 Badass]
I cursed, realizing too late that I didn’t have a combo set-up in Copy Cat, and then slashed out with my claws as Fursona kicked out another leg. “Surrender, or I’ll finish my combo!” I yelled, bluffing as hard as I could.
And, shockingly, it worked. Theseus glared at me as his vision returned, then slowly disconnected both of his arms. “Get me back to my lair, let me pick up my regular arms and legs, and you can march me off to the police. This is getting too expensive.”
I nodded slowly as one of our camera drones ducked down next to the three of us. “Alright, Theseus. Since you’re disarmed, I guess we can give you a hand on this one thing. But be careful. I’ve got my eye on you, and if you try anything funny, I’ll have to put my foot down!”
“Stop, please,” Fursona laughed through my earpiece as Theseus scowled at me. “I’m gonna piss myself, and that’ll look great on camera.”
[Episode Finished!]
[Episode: Power War, Short: Armed and Dangerous - PG-13]
[Penalties: 0x Rating Warnings - No Penalty]
[Episode Finished! +3 of each Style Point]
[Winner Winner! +3 of each Style Point]
[Role Focus: Cunning+Flamboyance - Goal Partially Met: +5 Cunning Points]
[Alias - Understudy] [Archetype - Magical Girl] [Community Rank - 192/523]
[HP 3/12]
[Styles and Skills]
►Archetype Skill - Transformation Sequence
►Combo Skills - Power-Weaving
►Badass (39)
►Cunning (48)
►Drama (34)
► Bit-Part Barrage 2
► Starlance 1
►Flamboyance (47)
►Signature Skill - Adaptive Armoire 3
►Stored Costumes: (Rainy Day, Copy Cat, Lab Assistant Panic)
►Solar Wing 1
► Quick-Time Change 3
► Spotlight Strike 1
►Grit (50) (New Skill Roll Available)
► I-Frame Transform 3
[50 Grit Credits Used. Rolling Skill!]
[Skill Upgrade! I-Frame Transform 3 to Freeze-Frame 1: Freeze time for up to one second at a time after a transformation. No powers may be used while time is frozen, but you may move as normal]
I put a hand on Theseus’s back and pushed him—not roughly—toward the door back to his lair. “So, how’s the new gig?” Behind me, Fursona gathered up Theseus’s legs.
“It’s fine,” he said, glare fading. Then, a grin broke out on his face. “I’m giving Alkirk a hand with their Research and Development. Turns out, I’m an ideal test subject for their prosthetics division, because they can install anything on me, run their diagnostics, and then re-install my regular limbs. It’s going to give them a leg up on the competition.”
“Stop,” Fursona snorted from inside her suit.
“Okay, but why run as a villain in that case?” I asked.
“Well, Alkirk’s working on a bunch of different projects, and sometimes, they need a little corporate espionage to solve a problem. I provide that service, and in return, I get this awesome penthouse that you two half-destroyed.” He led us to a door, waited for me to open it, and stepped inside on his remaining spider legs. “A little privacy? There’s no way out, and I’ve already surrendered.”
I glanced at Fursona, who nodded. “Just follow the Code, Theseus.”
“More than you, Fursona,” he shot back, then dipped inside. “Legs, please.”
As Fursona passed him the legs and shut the door behind him, I rolled up my new skills.