Saturday, November 21
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I looked at my phone, frowning. According to Honeycomb, Vigilant Vow had actually followed through on following her schedule—or at least, she hadn’t noticed any power disruptions. Even more encouraging, he’d signed up to replace the villains Tottergarten had lost when the Anti-Nap League resigned. It wasn’t enough for me to tell if his redemption was working. But it was something.
Well, that meant something, but I couldn’t be bothered to puzzle it out. I had far too much on my mind.
In the last few weeks, we’d raided 3V1L lairs all across South Poudre, but we hadn’t caught so much as a whiff of a V, much less the One L we were hunting for. Bianca firmly believed we could find him, but our Episodes never amounted to much more than another stormed lair, usually with minimal drama except for the clues that we’d missed leadership by a week, a day, or even an hour—but always too late.
It’d be frustrating if it weren’t for the Triad auxiliary Episodes, which almost always ended in wins. Between the Triad, Stella-Lunar, Golden Goose, and the dozens of other heroes in Tokyexico City, Power War Three’s Tokyexico campaign looked like it was just about over. Sure, 3V1L still controlled most of the Poudre districts, and McHammer and Lord Destructo had an enclave north of Thornton, but Acid Burn had fallen off as a threat, and several other villains had been sighted in different towns. Even the Anti-Nap League had backed off a little.
The situation was so good, in fact, that Golden Goose had left—and Lord Destructo still refused to leave his lair. She’d said her goodbyes publicly last week, along with a threat: if things got worse, she’d be back. And she’d be pissed.
Power War Three was well in hand.
Which made Sara-N-Dipity’s all-member TUSSA meeting the main priority for the evening. Not only did she claim to have an important strategic shift to tell the club about, one that she claimed would secure the campus from disruption over the ever-nearing finals week, but she’d sweetened the deal with carry-out pizza.
So, while Fursona filled her drink bladder with something Hephaestus had poured her and I munched on a pizza, we listened to Sara lay out her plan.
“Okay, agenda first. We’re covering club priorities for the long stretch to finals,” she said, signing. This time, Springlock watched her fingers, not Milo’s, though they sat next to each other in the front row. She nodded along as Sara kept going. “We’ve been working hard across the board, all of us, and we need to celebrate our wins, too. We’ll do that before the main topic. And, as usual, we’ll open up the floor for concerns, because I may be a master of probability, but I can’t see the future!”
That got polite laughter, and she waited for it to fall off before continuing. “Celebrations first. This has been the third-lowest year for super-related crime on campus so far—and the lowest for a Power War year. We’re down almost sixty percent from last fall, which is huge. I think a lot of that can be attributed to our decisive win in the Orientation Episode. However, I want to specifically thank Punch, Grapple, and the Springlock team for pushing hard against any SSS pop-ups.”
She waited until the smattering of applause stopped, and I saw Punch look at me smugly. I shrugged back at him; we’d never gotten along, and his twin brother was by far the cooler of the two. Then, once things calmed down, Sara kept going. “Now, I have a feeling that something’s going to change soon, and we’ll be seeing the SSS again—probably over finals week when they can maximize chaos on campus. So, I have a few ideas to keep them in check.
“First, I’m calling an all-hands for the week before finals. Cancel your plans if you can. Springlock will explain more.”
As the blue-clad superheroine and Milo stood up, I winced. She seemed happy enough in her role as vice president, but my vote had propelled Sara to the seat of power, and I couldn’t help but feel guilty. Her fingers started flying, and a moment later, Milo started interpreting. “Alright, after some discussion, Sara and I have decided on a modified version of my original plan. She saw a lot of problems with it in its original form, but this new one helps solve some of those.
“First, we’re going to launch a major offensive against the SSS starting on December 2. We’ll try to knock their operations out completely, and not give them enough time to rebuild or make an alliance elsewhere. From what Sara says, Iron Fist is pretty much in control, with a small Tearjerker alliance acting as a check against him. If we can split them, we can beat both factions without too much risk. Of course, ideally we win right there.”
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I nodded slowly, but already, I could see problems. Aside from the risk of an all-out Episode—I still remembered the Grant Building Dogpile from last year—Fursona and I needed to deal with 3V1L. Rocko had put all his advertising budget into our war with them, and he’d be furious if I got pulled off onto something else.
But I bit my tongue for now. The nice thing about Sara-N-Dipity meetings—other than the pizza and beer—was that she gave everyone an opportunity to pitch in with her ideas. Just because she was 93.5% right about something didn’t mean she couldn’t be more right, and despite her ego, she knew it.
So I waited while Springlock finished telling us about the battle plan, then while Sara took the podium back. “So, what do we think about this plan? Open floor.”
“Hey, we’re in the middle of a war,” Fursona said before I could open my mouth. “We can’t just bail on 3V1L.”
“Yeah, the Triad doesn’t need us at this point, with the Power Wars being so close to resolving,” I pitched in. “But our studio’s really pushing the 3V1L problem. How will this all-hands offensive against the SSS play into that?”
Sara nodded slowly. “I understand the question. You’re worried about your show’s future, right?”
“Yeah,” someone said from the audience. I thought I recognized the voice, but I couldn’t be sure.
“We’ve got a chance to wrap up 3V1L. Our Investigative Episodes and raids on their lairs are going really well,” I lied. I didn’t care that she’d probably see through them. I needed to make my case as best I could. “We need a few more weeks, and we’ll have 3V1L rooted out.”
“Against that, I’ve got a pair of probabilities. If we have your help, we’ve got an 87% chance of a quiet finals week. If we don’t? 63%. That’s math,” Sara said. Then she sighed. “If we delay our offensive until the seventh, we can have a 79% chance instead. That’s the best I can do, and you have to be with me. Can I count on you and Fursona to be there?”
I hesitated, gulped, and nodded. “Yes. You can count on us.”
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Bianca and I had never planned this hard, but we needed a fast win. Sara was right. She needed us. But we were right, too, and if we didn’t have the time for a solid intel-gathering series, we’d have to be perfect. So, as the evening grew later and later, our planning got more and more frenzied.
We stood at the whiteboard together, uncapped markers in hand. On one wall, we’d printed a map of the Poudre districts and University, and we’d used old-fashioned push pins to mark not only 3V1L’s territory, but every lair’s location—every one we knew about. On the whiteboard, we’d written and erased a dozen theories about where the One L was, his plans, and how we could catch him off-guard. Bee didn’t buy that he was Monologue, and she even had me questioning myself. We had new battle tactics for the two of us; we’d calculated that we could BS a 4-person team essay for Team Composition and still pass the class easily, and neither of us wanted to bring in more people after Tractor-Beam-Girl.
So, instead of making a plan with the idea that the Triad would be right there if we needed them, we’d drawn up a plan of attack that let us isolate a single V—based on where we’d been seeing them pop up—and quickly beat them before rotating to another. The plan was to mop up all three, then wait for a fourth to show up. Wherever that one did, we’d find the One L nearby. It wasn’t a perfect plan, but it was ambitious, and if it worked, we’d be free to deal with the SSS.
And, on one screen and in defiance of all our plans, half of North Poudre blinked gold and red.
Sister Sly had begun her next gambit to take control, and it was a big one. The other screen played news from North Poudre as her invention-wielding monks rolled across the district, taking over lairs we hadn’t even known existed while talking heads made a big deal out of it. “Why did Golden Goose leave?” One asked. “If she only knew what was happening, she’d surely have stayed to put an end to 3V1L.”
I laughed and put a cap on my marker; Golden Goose wouldn’t have stayed for a minor league problem. No way. Then I sat on the couch, stretching until my shoulder popped. “Let’s just watch this for a bit, okay? Our best plans don’t take a distracted 3V1L into account, and since we’re not committed, maybe we should just let Sister Sly’s henches weaken 3V1L.”
Bianca nodded but grabbed her backpack. “Agreed. This is our chance, though. We’ll get a good picture of what’s happening, then commit to an Episode.”
We watched the news for almost half an hour before coverage looped, and in that time, we started to get a good idea of the evening’s chaos. Cameras always made it look worse than it was, but the 3V1L and Sister Sly spat had definitely turned into something more.
A dozen street fights had broken out around Sister Sly’s church—it looked like 3V1L had been making a move, and Sister Sly had caught them out. A few minutes later, firebombs started going off across the district, and habit-clad henchmen attacked the 3V1L minions fleeing the fires. Now, both sides seemed completely committed; in the half-hour we watched, I caught sight of Sister Sly and two possible Vs leading 3V1L teams.
According to the news, emergency services were overwhelmed, and resources from nearby districts were flooding in. A few little league heroes had carved out sections of the district and kept the henches back, but wherever the Vs and Sister Sly fought, the heroes melted away.
After watching another pointless fight resolve with a V’s appearance, I’d had enough. Regular people who lived in the Poudre districts—people who hadn’t asked for this—needed help, and Fursona and I were ready to go. We might not find the One L if we attacked now, but we’d definitely give both Sister Sly and 3V1L a black eye, and that had to count for something.
“Come on. We’re going up there and landing a real blow against 3V1L.” I transformed into Understudy, helped Fursona into her Eagle-sona Costume, and headed for the roof. A camera drone met us up there, and we took off into a Casting Call.
[Casting Call]
[Episode: Power War: Prayers for the 3V1L - PG-13]
[Role: Avenging Angel! Do you accept the role? (Yes/No)]
[Role Focus: Flamboyance+Badass]
On the horizon, the Poudre districts glowed orange.