Saturday, October 25
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The next morning, I wasn’t any more confident that the white-armored freshman superhero was really our best choice. If anything, my apprehension had kept both Bee and me awake way past our bedtimes.
Still, we’d told Tractor-Beam-Girl—honestly, the name was one hundred times better than Vicegrip—to meet us at the Mister Felsic status at 8:30, so we both crawled out of bed, changed into our superhero outfits, and headed over. The hulking stone figure of Tokyexico’s greatest former hero loomed over TU’s quad, and I landed on the dying grass nearby, let Roo-sona off, and strolled over.
“Took you two long enough,” Vicegrip’s cutting, sarcastic voice said, and the tiny heroine stepped out from behind a pillar. She stood shorter than Bianca—shorter than Su-Bin, too, I realized—and her dark eyes glared out from under her helmet, which covered her hair completely. Each of her two gauntlets included flared metal, almost looking like loudspeakers, with her hands shoved through the middles.
“It’s 8:24, kid,” Fursona said through her modulator; I’d spent enough time with the kangaroo to know she was annoyed. “We’re right on time.”
Then, in my ear, Bianca’s voice said, “Nod if you think she should go home.”
I shook my head slowly. Whether we liked it or not, we’d committed to the patrol, and to mentoring Tractor-Beam-Girl for at least the next couple of weeks. We needed her to pass Team Compositions, and she needed to see what superhero life was really like without whoever had been helping her out. “Okay, Vicegrip, we’re going on a Patrol in the Poudre districts today. There’s an organization called 3V1L that’s been growing in power there, so we have a few goals.”
Tractor-Beam-Girl seemed to be listening as I explained what we wanted to accomplish. Then I got to the stinger. “So, it’s a long shot, but if you can fly, we can get to our start point in just a few minutes. Otherwise, we’ll take a bus.”
“I can definitely fly,” Tractor-Beam-Girl said. She glowered at me as if daring me to ask her to prove it.
I wasn’t in the mood to play games, especially with Fursona complaining in my ear. “Great. We’re heading to Poudre north. Let’s go.”
Fursona stood in front of me, and I summoned my sailboard with [Solar Wing]. We took off, hovering nearby—both of us wanted to see Tractor-Beam-Girl fly.
She put her arms to her sides, seeming to press her elbows into her waist until the armor practically merged, and then fired two gravity beams from her hands. They pushed her up into the air, where she wobbled, staring defiantly at us. “Show me where we’re going.”
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As soon as we landed at the park, I could tell it was a bust.
The fight between 3V1L and Sister Sly’s weird religious cult or whatever had been drawn out, and a bunch of the playground and skate park were still wrecked. It made sense; MIRACLE contracts were awarded in a priority, and with all the fighting over the last few weeks, no one had the time to fix up a city park—especially not when it was in contested territory.
But just because construction crews weren’t here working didn’t mean we’d find any evidence of 3V1L. Someone had been over the park with a fine-toothed comb—and a bunch of garbage bags. Honestly, I’d never seen a city park so spotless. Riverside didn’t have the resources to hire this kind of maintenance, and Confluence Park in Tokyexico was never this clean. Even the beach near Tortuga West, where Bianca and I had spent a couple of lovely weeks this summer, didn’t hold a candle to it.
That meant someone had cleaned it up with serious intention, and I could tell immediately that they’d intended to throw anyone following them off their tracks.
“So, who won?” Tractor-Beam-Girl asked, staring at a swing set’s scorched, mangled remains. The rest of the park wasn’t much better—clean, but destroyed. 3V1L had attacked in force, and Sister Sly hadn’t spared any expense in fighting back.
“No one,” I said, shifting into Lucky Star. As I did, I fired up an [Investigative Casting Call].
[Investigative Casting Call]
[Investigative Episode: North Poudre Patrol - PG]
[Role: Amateur Sleuth! Do you accept the role? (Yes/No)]
[Role Focus: Cunning+Flamboyance]
[North Poudre Patrol: Act One in Progress]
“So, what am I supposed to do with this?” Tractor-Beam-Girl asked defiantly.
“Accept it,” Fursona said. I could tell her patience wasn’t high—probably from the lack of sleep last night, but also from Tractor-Beam-Girl’s attitude problem. “Then start looking around. They have to have missed some sort of clue. If you find it, I’ll give you a gold star.”
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“Wow, Fursona, that was rude,” I said once Tractor-Beam-Girl had disappeared into the nearby trees to look for a retreat path.
The kangaroo heroine nodded. “Yep. Tractor-Beam-Girl doesn’t have a clue how these work. I almost want to ask her if her mother helped her find Episodes, but I’m afraid it might be true. Someone definitely did, because her Episode backlog’s too extensive to have never done an Investigative.”
“Uh-huh.” I used [Card Curio], looking for a clue—any clue—that might’ve been missed. I stared at the old, bearded man. “The Hermit. We’re looking for accomplishment and success, and someone who needs to be alone to accomplish those? So, let’s try poking around near Sister Sly’s side of the park.”
[Good Thinking! +1 Cunning Point]
“You’ve got it, Understudy,” Fursona said. Then she shouted over her shoulder at Tractor-Beam-Girl. “Let’s go! Over here! Bet we’ll find something.”
“But…no, this doesn’t seem right. This doesn’t seem right at all. If we needed to track down Sister Sly, we’d know right where she was. We wouldn’t need to hunt for evidence. She’s in her church, ten to one odds,” I said, still walking toward where the Hermit was sending me.
I hadn’t taken fifteen steps when I saw something half-buried in the mud. This was it! What the Tarot card wanted me to find! It had to be! I reached down and dug through the mud until I’d uncovered it. Then I wiped it clean enough to read. “Fred Callahan, 25679 Madrid Street? A driver’s license. There’s no way someone would be dumb enough to leave this behind, is there?” I asked.
“Nope,” Tractor-Beam-Girl said. “They’d have to be a real idiot. This is someone else’s.”
Fursona didn’t say anything for a long moment. Then, slowly, she started talking. “It…could be what we’re after. Henches act pretty stupid sometimes. I think part of it is the Style System rewarding them for it somehow. But the point is that a hench could easily have left their ID here and not found it again.”
“So, if that’s true, let’s go bust Fred Callahan!” Tractor-Beam-Girl said.
I held up a hand to keep her from running off. Then, before she could get too bored, I used [Audition Notes].
[Audition Notes for Fred Callahan: This Extra is…]
“That’s weird.” I waited a moment as the rest of the text appeared.
[Audition Notes for Fred Callahan: This Extra is not currently home. In fact, he hasn’t been home in nearly a week. He may be still in the Poudre districts, but if he’s not, he definitely hasn’t flown anywhere.]
[Good Thinking! +1 Cunning Point]
“Ooookay, we’ll check out 25679 Madrid,” I said, summoning the sailboard.
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“This has to be your guy,” Tractor-Beam-Girl said.
Fred’s house—and it was an actual house, though not anything like the one Vigilant Vow had used as a hide-out—was full of evidence to support her claim. From the devil mask and red cape left on a chair to the stacks of hundred-dollar bills in the corner, everything about it screamed ‘Supervillain.’ And that was a problem.
“I’m not convinced…” I mumbled. Something felt off. Almost like…like… “Remember the set-up by Sister Sly?”
Fursona nodded. She hopped up from where she’d been checking out the basement. “Yeah, the helmet planted to get us fighting 3V1L. You think this is another trap?”
“I don’t know. It all feels too convenient.” I reached for another Tarot card, but something between the mattress and box spring in Fred’s bed caught my eye before I could pull it. “Hold on a second.”
I lifted the mattress, and there, lying mostly covered by the mattress, was a sword. A vicious-looking sword—one I’d seen before. The Third V had used it in ‘The Root of All 3V1L.’ If it was here…
“Fursona, this isn’t a hench. This isn’t a hench at all. Fred Callahan is the Third V,” I said.
[Good Thinking! +1 Cunning Point]
“Oh [Beep!],” Fursona said, looking at the sword. I put it down and sat on the bed while she talked. “This is way bigger than we thought. Fred is the Third V. That’s almost unbelievable.”
“Yeah, it is.” I couldn’t believe it, even after the Style System confirmed it. The Third V had been wildly competent; he’d out-played us at every turn, the whole Episode, right up until I’d been kidnapped, when he and his henches had just melted away. For him to screw up this badly—and not once, but twice—didn’t make sense. Fred barely seemed like the kind of guy you’d want henching for you, much less as leadership in a villain’s organization.
But as I looked around the house more and more, I started to change my mind. “It’s too much evidence to be a setup. If Sister Sly were trying to point us at 3V1L, she’d have laid out a better first bait and made this one harder to figure out. We’ve got swords, guns, a pile of cash, and a V’s uniform, all just sitting here. This Fred guy’s not the brightest.”
The doorbell rang, and I jumped. “Vicegrip, can you get that?” I asked.
“Look! It’s a whole god [Beep!] map of the district,” Fursona said, racking up her second censorship warning. I followed her pointing paw, and sure enough, a map of the Poudre district sat half-folded in a corner. Someone had colored chunks red with a marker and then drawn black lines across it.
“Hold on, I’ll get a picture.” I snapped photo after photo of it, then started taking pictures all around the house. This would be a massive setback for 3V1L; I just knew it! We’d struck a massive blow against 3V1L today, and we’d done it without raising a fist in violen—
The doorbell rang again.
“Fine, I’ll get it.” I huffed to the front door and opened it.
A uniformed police officer stood there, her braided black hair tucked into a hat. She took her hand off her hip when she saw me, then nodded. “Magical Girl. We got word someone had broken into this address, and my partner and I were available, so we swung by to take a look.” A second cop waved from their patrol car’s driver’s seat.
“Yeah, that’d be Fursona, Vicegrip, and me. I’m Magical Girl Understudy. We’re starting a series against 3V1L, and the three of us were getting the lay of the land and Patrolling a bit. We stumbled across a clue that this guy might be a big deal in 3V1L, and when we followed it up…well, want to come inside and have a look?”
“No thanks. We don’t have a warrant, and if it’s an 3V1L matter, it’s past our pay grade,” the officer said. She stuck out a hand. “Sergeant Conner.”
“Nice to meet you.” We shook, and I kept going as Fursona appeared behind me. Is there anything else we can do for you officers, either now or in the future? We’ve worked with Detective Rathburn on the TUPD before.”
“Actually, if you’ll be in the Poudre districts, could we put you on our call list? We try to keep a roster of superheroes on call for quick reactions since 3V1L’s so active. The new 3V1L’s tougher to manage, so having a few more options to handle them would be great.”
“Sure,” Fursona said. We exchanged numbers—I made sure they had the Understudy number, not the Anika one—and they said their goodbyes. Fursona shut the door and turned to me. “Where’s Tractor-Beam-Girl?”