When we—finally—snapped back to reality, everyone in the room took a couple of seconds to figure out the new situation, except for Gourmet. She leaned back against the wall and started snacking with one arm tucked behind her head. “Well? Who’s going first?”
I realized right away that it’d either be me or that the villains would get away. Monologue’s power had stopped Waterspout from pinning the door closed, and judging by how he was moving to cover it with his body, he couldn’t do it again.
The other six of us moved at the same time.
Fursona crashed into Quickstrike before he could get moving again, stopping him from pressing his attack on Waterspout with a well-placed pair of kicks. He wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon—her pressure was too high for him to ignore.
But both Tractor-Beam-Girl and I went after Iron Fist—her with the grapple beams and me with a [Starlance] that singed his mechanical fist just before he punched into Waterspout. Three vs. one, we should have been able to take him easily, but a voice shouted, “[Cry For Me],” and suddenly, Tractor-Beam-Girl was sobbing about an elementary school friend who she hadn’t talked to in years.
[Dramatic Damage! +1 Drama Point]
Iron Fist slammed into the watery hero, who absorbed the blow seemingly without a problem. But then his fists started oscillating faster and faster until they were nothing but blurs, and one final, heaving blow splashed the hero across the room. That meant it was up to me, and I only had one Costume that had much in the way of juice.
I’d use it if things got more dire. Right now, I had an advantage I hadn’t been using. I flew into the air with [Solar Wing] and started firing [Starlances] down at the villains, trying to split them between Iron Fist and Quickstrike as much as I could. If I could stall Iron Fist for just a couple of seconds…
[Dramatic Damage! +1 Drama Point]
[Dramatic Damage! +1 Drama Point]
Yes! Out of the corner of my eye, I watched as Quickstrike’s staff blurred and split into four: red, blue, green, and a normal wooden one. Each of them hit Fursona from a different angle, and she spun; her [Fursonal Furcefield] had clearly taken some of it, but not all. I didn’t have time to worry about her, though; instead, I used [Spotlight Strike] and pressed the attack.
I landed a solid hit to his back, and he flew away from the door. I landed in front of it a moment later.
[Stylish Strike! +1 Flamboyance Point]
“If you want to escape, you’ll have to go through me,” I said with more confidence than I felt. I’d avoided the worst of the damage so far, but what I was about to try? That wouldn’t be an option. Waterspout was still shaking off the massive blow he’d taken; he was out. And Fursona hadn’t finished off Quickstrike yet, either.
I used [Quick-Time Change] to pop into Copy Cat, merging with Tails. Then, before my [Freeze Frame] could fade, I rushed Iron Fist.
He looked woozy and out of it, and I glanced over toward Fursona to see her in the same state. I’d help her when I could, but first, I had a villain to deal with, and I’d take any advantage I could get. I hit him with [Cat Scratch Fever], leaving a thin scratch across his cheek, then spun away as the blindness set in for a few seconds. His flailing fist parted the air where I’d just been.
[Dramatic Damage! +1 Drama Point]
I had five seconds to drive in as much damage as I could. I used [Leaping Leopards] to close the narrow gap, then activated [Hometown Heroine] and [Doom Ball] as close to the same time as I could. My claws lashed out at Iron Fist’s chest faster than they ever had, and I zipped away from him as the damage piled up.
[Badass Damage! +1 Badass Point]
[Badass Damage! +3 Badass Points]
[Dramatic Damage! +1 Drama Point]
Then, as he recovered, I ducked back behind him and clawed at his back. It didn’t knock him out of the fight, but between the wooziness and the double vision debuff from [Cat Scratch Fever], I’d have a moment or two to focus on other problems.
Which was good, because Fursona was losing.
Quickstrike’s staff was a blur. He was either using a similar power to [Hometown Heroine] or was just too fast for Fursona. Either way, she needed me over there, so I used [Leaping Leopards] and landed on his back as a battered-looking Waterspout took up a position near the door.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
[Badass Damage! +1 Badass Point]
I scratched and clawed at the freshman villain’s back as Fursona recovered enough to kick him in the face. Then he started dodging and playing defense, and we chased after him, ducking under staff strikes and trying to get hits of our own in when we could. We’d pushed him almost to the door farther into the lair when Tearjerker shouted, “[Cry For Me!]” and I realized we’d messed up—bad.
----------------------------------------
As Tearjerker stepped over Waterspout’s sobbing body, Fursona and I surged toward the door, but the villainess slipped out, and a moment later, so did Iron Fist, leaving us with Quickstrike and a laughing Gourmet. He surrendered quickly, outnumbered and outgunned, and scowled at the room’s floor. “Dammit! They said they’d take me with them if I helped.”
[End of Act Two: Act Three in Three Minutes]
I ran to the door and checked it, but even though I could open it just fine, there was no sign of either of the SSS’s leaders. As I transformed back to Rainy Day, I shook my head in defeat. “They got away. So now what?”
The script was supposed to be the four of us as a backstop, but we’d leaked the two villains we had to stop the most. Granted, Iron Fist was probably out as a serious threat for this Episode. He might be able to ride out my [Cat Scratch Fever] damage over time effect, but either way, he wouldn’t have the superhero damage to take the fight to anyone.
But that left an uncontained Tearjerker, and with a teleporting villain about, that meant she could drop into the fight at any moment. Worse, who knew where they’d end up or how long it’d take them to rebuild?
“I don’t know,” Tractor-Beam-Girl snarked. “Maybe we go find them before they cause trouble across campus. Every hero in TUSSA is involved in this attack somehow, and that leaves no one to stop either of them.”
“I know that. But we’re not going after them. We’ve got to keep pushing into the lair. If Iron Fist and Tearjerker—and Lady Lockless, I guess—are the only villains at large after today, Sara’s plan will probably still work.”
“What is Sara’s plan, anyway?” Fursona asked.
“I’m not actually sure. I think she’s going with a tweaked version of Springlock’s—“
“Uh, are we pushing into the lair?” Tractor-Beam-Girl interrupted.
“Yes. One second. We need to wait for Waterspout.” I didn’t want to push in. I’d just suggested it, but this wasn’t a throwaway SSS lair. This was their main base, under the Student Union Building, and if TUSSA hadn’t had the power to attack it even after my Small Town Super series finale, it’d be wild in there for sure.
So, as the minutes ticked by until Act Three started, I hoped he’d snap out of it before we had to deal with any other vils. The fact was that even though I hadn’t taken much damage, Fursona was on the ropes, and I’d be frontlining unless our tank got back into it. I wanted to save my healing for once he was up so I could hit everyone—before we pushed in, not after.
“Why is this Episode a Power War Episode, anyway?” I asked. “Just because of Monologue? It doesn’t seem like that’d be enough, and he had to have known that he couldn’t really take over the school. The moment he got close to a win, the professors would show up.”
“So where are they?” Tractor-Beam-Girl asked.
Before I could answer, Waterspout pulled himself together with a shake that splashed droplets across the room. “Okay. Okay, you can do this. Don’t think about her. Just focus,” he mumbled to himself.
“Easy there, big guy,” Fursona said, clapping him on the shoulder. “Power through, let’s get this job done, then you can mourn your…fish?”
“Gerbil.”
“Your gerbil, then.”
[Power War: Sayonara, Student Supervillains!: Act Three in Progress]
With everyone up, I used [Virga] to give the team a bit of superhero damage back. Lady Lockless’s superhero damage debuff that I’d taken for her had faded, and I smiled as Fursona and Waterspout stood a bit straighter.
[Medic! +4 Cunning Points]
[HP 8/13]
Then, without more hesitation, we pushed into the lair.
The room we’d been in had been a pretty typical club office, except that the computers weren’t plugged into anything and everything had had a fine layer of dust before we’d wrecked the room. But the hallway behind it felt absolutely spartan. Tile walls, a concrete floor, florescent lights, the smell of stale air, and a slight hum as an overworked air system pushed lukewarm air through the long, narrow space—but no matter how hard we looked, we couldn’t find a single sign of supervillains.
It almost felt like the SSS had vanished, and I was halfway through checking my fourth maintenance closet when Waterspout cleared his throat. “Team, over here.”
Closing the door, I hurried over to him, with Fursona and Vicegrip—I had to stop calling her Tractor-Beam-Girl—right behind me. He had a door open, and a reddish glow silhouetted him as he stared down at…something.
I pulled up next to him and joined him, gaze transfixed.
Whatever it was, it clearly should have been more at home in the Grant Building—or maybe the biology program, I wasn’t sure. It looked like a metal; its surface was reflective and shined red in the room’s light. But it didn’t act like one. The tank it occupied in the middle of the room seemed built to handle water, and indeed, it sloshed back and forth, seemingly trying to escape.
“Hello, Understudy,” a voice said, and I looked up to see a woman a year or two older than me, in fishnets and a black and red outfit—Dark Girl Anima.
“Anima, what are you working on here?” Fursona asked, pushing past me and raising her fists.
“I’m not working on anything anymore, thanks to you and the rest of TUSSA! This is a nanometal cluster, and I was working on it for our takeover attempt, but since you’ve interfered, I’ll have to let it loose now instead!” Dark Girl Anima looked over her shoulder, and as I watched the motion, I realized that we weren’t the only hero squad going after her. A pair of her giant cat-bots fought against two heroes while a third stood farther back, directing them.
“Is that…Punch and Grapple?” Fursona asked.
“Yep,” I muttered. “They’ll get the glory, and we’ll get…”
Dark Girl Anima pressed a button, and the tank opened. Metal poured out of it, and I expected the floor to hiss and bubble from the no-doubt hot steel. Instead, it slid across it, gathering itself up into a blob, then started oozing toward my team. As it went, it ate chunks out of the building’s big metal beams, leaving behind just enough to avoid a collapse and growing bigger with every bit it dissolved.
“I guess the glory’s not important,” I said. I touched the Triad button in my pocket but didn’t press it. “Team, be careful, but we have to win this!” If we didn’t, it’d keep growing, and the whole campus would be nothing but gray goo!