A roar went up from the henchmen, and I could hear them rushing through the darkened laundry room. I dashed for the door, using [Hometown Heroine] to get some speed up. Behind me, Fursona screeched again as the Third V’s sword cut through the air with a hiss. I hesitated, looking back as the supervillain rushed my sidekick.
“Go!” Fursona yelled. She flapped her wings, shooting a jet of air at the villain and launching herself away from the sword at the same time. “I’ve got this!”
“No, you don’t!” The villain roared.
A small part of me knew I should stay. But more important than beating the villain, Fursona was giving me a chance to do what I wanted to do. Or at least, what I’d said I wanted. If I hurried, I could save the police before the swarm of henchmen hit them. It’d be the right thing to do. But at the same time—no, whatever it was, it could wait. The cops outside probably couldn’t.
“Hurry!” She screamed, using her wing to block a sword stroke. Sparks and feathers flew, revealing the frame inside her fursuit’s arm.
This time, I started running, letting [Hometown Heroine’s] brilliant blue aura speed me through the hall. A henchman turned to stop me, pistol in hand, but I gave him a [Cat-Scratch Fever] as I ran by, and the gun fired harmlessly into the floor.
[Dramatic Damage! +1 Drama Point]
Then I charged up the stairs, pouncing on another henchman with [Leaping Leopards] and knocking her cold. She hit the ground with a thud and then bumped down the stairs. I felt for her—she’d be covered in bruises when she woke up—but I didn’t have time to deal with it. Gunfire and yelling from upstairs had my full attention.
[Badass Damage! +1 Badass Point]
When I rushed into the apartment building’s atrium and looked into the intersection, the police and Detective Rathburn had hunkered down behind their patrol cars. Meanwhile, the henches had found cover behind some concrete planters on their side of the street. Neither side had clean shots, and the police were mostly firing to force the henches to stay down.
That meant I had a little time. I rotated to Rainy Day, doing the full Itsy Bitsy Spider dance as bullets bounced off the street and ricocheted into the air. Then, poking my head out of the apartment door, I activated [Power-Weaving] and used [Thunderhead].
[Pause for Effect! +1 Drama Point]
Truthfully, I didn’t know if this would work, but it had to be worth a shot.
As the clouds built up, a henchman turned toward me and opened fire. Bullets ripped past my head, and I pulled back to avoid them, but one caught me in the shoulder and spun me around, throwing me to the street. A moment later, [Hometown Heroine] expired.
[HP 3/11]
I used [Quick-Time Change] and switched to Magical Girl Understudy. But when the Style System’s message came in, I couldn’t tell if [Rejuvenation] counted toward the [Power-Weaving] combo.
[Rejuvenation Activated! HP 7/11]
[Flashy Fitting Room! +1 Flamboyance Point]
[Floating Points: 3 Drama, 1 Flamboyance]
I didn’t have time to find out, though. The spotlights and orchestral music faded, and I spun again, dressed in my pink-and-purple dress and wand in hand. Then I pushed myself off the ground, landing behind the gun-toting henchmen, and fired a [Bit-Part Barrage] at them from the side—where they didn’t have cover!
[Stellar Ray] blasts smashed into the gunmen, knocking them out of cover and scattering them across the sidewalk as the combo-infused beams hammered into one, then another, and then two more, hitting ridiculously hard from the [Power-Weaving] combo I’d built up!
[Dramatic Damage! +4 Drama Points]
[Power-Weaving! +6 Drama, +3 Flamboyance, and +1 Grit Point]
The police stayed in cover for one beat…two…three. Then Detective Rathburn poked his head out from behind a car. “Attention, henchmen, surrender now!” He shouted through a megaphone.
I rolled my eyes. “Otherwise, I’ve got more where that—“
“3V1L made me,” I henchman whined, hands going up. “I never asked for this!”
It was almost unbelievable. Every time a henchman got into a bad situation, they always used the same routine. As the police officers started cuffing villains, I took a deep breath and turned back toward the door. Fursona needed my—
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BAM!
A gigantic eagle, battle-damaged and missing feathers on both wings and its tail, crashed through the door and into me! Behind her, the Third V stalked up the stairs, sword glowing a vicious, dark maroon color.
—help!
----------------------------------------
“Get to cover! Get to cover now!” Fursona screamed at the flabbergasted-looking cops. She turned and screeched again, bombarding the supervillain with sonic force that passed an inch from my head. Then, she fought her way free from our tangled limbs.
“What’s going on?” I asked. I hadn’t expected Fursona to win solo, but she’d barely delayed the supervillain, and she looked like she’d been through the wringer!
She shook her head. “No time!” Then she dodged a sword blow, flapping into the air and sending another burst of air toward the villain. The cloud hid me from him momentarily, and I ducked behind a bullet-pocked planter to think through a plan.
There were, as I saw it, three problems.
Problem One: The Third V. He had super-cool sword powers, and clearly, he was more than a match for Fursona’s eagle costume in close quarters. I might be able to handle him in Copy-Cat, but I couldn’t be sure, and I’d already used a few of my powers, including [Cat-Scratch Fever]. I thought Fursona had the right idea to hit him from the air, but she didn’t have any firepower to stop him. That led to…
Problem Two: I’d stripped down Magical Girl Undergrad to win the Investigative Episode, so I didn’t have any ranged attacks I could use from the air. I could—
The Third V’s sword slashed toward me with a wicked hiss, air crackling, and I instinctively pulled back and used [Quick-Time Change] at the same time. The blade froze an inch from my [I-Frame Transform]-protected neck, and I shivered as ‘90s hip-hop music echoed in my head. I hit the ground, labcoat swishing and TA-1LZ already unfurling her cannon. A second later, the sword sliced through my neck and out the other side with no resistance, my power protecting me from both it and his follow-up stab.
“Evil Breakdown at 45%!” TA-1LZ shouted through loudspeakers. Then her [Head-Cannon] opened up on the villain, peppering him with bullets that bounced off instead of punching through his superhero damage.
I threw myself to the side, and a moment later, a gust of wind filled the intersection as Fursona gave me cover. I scooped up a pistol from the ground, popped the magazine out, and began fiddling with it, sprinting toward the police cars as officers scattered.
Right behind me, the Third V charged, doing his best to ignore the bullets slamming into his arms and legs. His sword swung down, cleaving through the flashing blue-and-red lights on top of a cruiser and into the caged back seat. While the villain wrestled his sword from the wreckage, I grabbed one of the light bulbs, yanked it free, then jammed it into the pistol where the magazine had been.
“By combining Bright Light particles and standard gunpowder-based explosives, I’ve created…a laser cannon!” [Science has Rules?] activated, and a moment later, I pulled the trigger.
Bwoooonnnnnmmmm!
I’d been wrong. It wasn’t a laser cannon. Instead, a riot of color erupted from the gun’s barrel, blinding me momentarily and whirling around the Third V’s head. He spun and slammed into the ground, twitching for a moment.
[Dramatic Damage! +1 Drama Point]
“Alright, it’s a Light Taser, then. Cool!” I said.
Fursona dove from the sky, smashing the Third V into the ground and working him over with her talons, but she couldn’t dislodge the sword from his grip, and as he recovered, he slashed across her chest, and feathers flew. She caromed across the intersection, out of control, and the Third V got to his feet and turned toward me.
Then, a moment later, a red, black, and white figure swung across the battlefield, slapping something across my face as it scooped me from my feet onto a rooftop. It slapped another device across my wrist, and I dropped my gun. Something slammed into TA-1LZ, and she shorted out.
I turned my head to the newcomer and blinked stupidly. Everything suddenly made sense in the stupidest possible way.
The new super was a fox fursuit, every bit as nice as either of Fursona’s. Red-orange fur poked from the nun’s black-and-white habit, and unlike Fursona’s gender-neutral suit, this one was definitely female. A belt around her waist was filled with gizmos and devices, and though none of them were as intimidating as Professor Panic’s bots, they seemed much more well-made
She pointed at Fursona. “You’ve fallen into my trap, and so has 3V1L! I’m taking your sidekick, Fursona. If you want her back, come find me in North Poudre!”
“Oh god,” Fursona muttered, gazing up at us. “Understudy? You’ve got this, right?”
“I think—“
The fox-nun interrupted me before I could finish. “See you soon, Fursona!”
The new villain grabbed my wrist and tossed her grapple into the air. It hooked onto a nearby building, and a split second later, we both jerked off our feet. Before we reached the apex of our swing, the grapple retracted, and we plunged through the air.
I screamed, but the villainess laughed and tossed it toward another building. It latched on, and away we zoomed, quickly outpacing Fursona’s eagle form. My heart plummeted as she banked, then turned around. My powers worked just fine. I didn’t have anything to handle close-range grappling as Lab Assistant Panic.
A few minutes later, a System message I’d been dreading came in.
[End of Act Two! Act Three in Three Minutes]
We landed inside a broken stained glass window high in an abandoned church’s tower. Organ music played as we hit the ground, and a single henchman in a monk’s robes opened a door. The villain dragged me through and down some stairs, then into the church’s main hall.
“Sister Sly, I presume?” I asked.
“Yep. Soon, that wannabee will know who’s the best fursuit-themed super in Tokyexico! And even better, 3V1L will be weak while we take over Poudre!”
As she laughed maniacally, I tried to shift Costumes. If I could hit her with Copy Cat or Rainy Day, I could turn this around. But the moment I did, the device locked to my wrist activated, sending a shock through my arm.
“Nice try, but I do my research, and I developed that device specifically to keep you in your scientist get-up.”
“Well, then you know it’s only a matter of time before I go full villain! You think you’ll rule the Poudre districts, but I’m the future, Sister Sly!” I said.
“I think not.” She shoved me at another robed henchman, who led me toward…a chair. A chair in the middle of a circle of steel plates. As he secured me to it, I got a bad feeling in my gut. The chair stood right on the dias, where the preacher’s stand would have been, and I realized that Sister Sly was a Genius, just like my ex-boyfriend.
‘Okay, you’re planning and plotting, but what’s your endgame?” I asked, turning in the chair to look at the fox-suited villainess.
The steel panels moved, revealing a tank with a real, one-hundred percent genuine Junior Florida Maneater in it, circling twenty feet below me. Lasers fired from the ceiling, walling off the tank in reddish light, and I groaned inside as Sister Sly laughed. “Total domination by the time the Power Wars start, control of the Poudre districts, and no more Fursona!”