The case turned out to be, of all things, a small remote control, which the villainess pushed. The moment she did, a rover appeared, shimmering bright neon colors and swinging a turret around to face Fursona. She dodged as it opened fire, filling the room with popping, cracking sounds and the smell of gunpowder.
I wanted to help her out, but one look at the flying villain, and I knew the moment I did, he’d slide over to take out Tractor-Beam-Girl. She tossed another henchman back at his friends, using him like a bowling ball, but her focus was fully on them. If the surfboarding supervillain got a clean shot at her, she’d never see it coming.
I used [Solar Wing] and leaped into the air, hovering between my teammates and the villain. “What are you doing here?”
“I should ask you the same thing! You’re in our territory. As the Second V, I hereby declare war on you, Magical Girl Understudy!” The Second V shot forward, not giving me time to think about how I’d already fought the Second V, and she was a melee-focused ground fighter.
I dodged left, avoiding his ramming attack, but he turned on a dime as I lowered my wand to fire a [Starlance] at him. The board sliced across the gap between us like a knife, and as it did, I saw the sharp-looking edge parting the air with a hiss.
I thought quickly as the board seemed to slow-motion around. My [Starlance] fired, but it wouldn’t be enough to stop the board, and if I shifted to a different Costume, the team would lose air support. I had only one play.
I took the hit right in the chest, letting my superhero damage eat it.
[HP 8/12]
[True Grit! +1 Grit Point]
[Dramatic Damage! +1 Drama Point]
The board slammed me into a shelf, which wobbled and collapsed sideways into another, but I managed to keep my wings under me. I shook my head and raced to get back between him and Tractor-Beam-Girl. If he wanted to play a ramming game, my best play was to give him no space to ram in.
So I dove, tucking my wings in, and slammed down onto the board feet-first.
The Second V looked at me, eyes wide, and I pressed my advantage with [Spotlight Strike]. It highlighted his nose. A moment later, my fist crashed into it.
[Stylish Strike! +1 Flamboyance Point]
He blinked and recoiled, destabilizing his surfboard, then kicked out at me. It went high as I ducked, and the board rocked above the still-collapsing shelves. Somewhere in the rubble, Fursona and Tractor-Beam-Girl were locked in combat—had I helped them or messed up their plans? None of this was going the way we needed it to!
Then the Second V’s boot slammed into my stomach, and I tumbled off the surfboard.
This time, I used [Bit-Part Barrage] even as I fell. I’d been saving it for the Second V I thought we’d see, but if she wasn’t going to show up, I’d give this guy everything I had. The half-dozen [Stellar Rays] punched upward toward him, puncturing his stupid surfboard. A moment later, my temporary hovering stopped, and we both fell toward the ground.
[Dramatic Damage! +4 Drama Points]
I used [Quick-Time Change] to activate [I-Frame Transform], merged brains and bodies with Tails, and fell harmlessly through the twisted, mangled shelving to hit the ground. The Second V wasn’t so lucky; as I watched, he hit seemingly every single shattered strut he could find. He skidded across the concrete floor and crumpled into a pile in the corner, then started pushing himself slowly to his feet.
I had to press. Pressing might knock him out of the fight. If I could take him down, Tractor-Beam-Girl and I could crush the rest of the henches, then help Fursona. So I rushed him, activating [Hometown Heroine] for the speed boost and [Leaping Leopards] to close the gap.
In response, he lifted his surfboard and slid it onto his arm. It clicked into place. “The Second V knows no fear!”
THUMP!
I hit the surfboard shield, bounced off it, and lost my [Leaping Leopards] damage, but the impact knocked the Second V off balance, and he wasn’t ready for my [Doom Ball] follow-up. My scratching claws and kicking paws ripped across his armor and skin, and his yelps of pain competed with Tails in my head.
I tried to, but the surfboard’s blade crashed into me as the Second V swung wildly.
[HP 7/12]
The blow didn’t do much, but it was enough. In the moment it took me to recover, he sprinted toward Tractor-Beam-Girl. I whirled to help, but I’d used my best movement power, and he tossed the board back under his feet for extra speed. At the same moment, the other V—and she had to be a V—abandoned her rover. “Go! Go!” I shouted, as much at Fursona as myself, but it was too late.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Both villains hit Tractor-Beam-Girl from behind, driving her to the ground. The Second V grabbed his shield, holding it up to block their retreat as the henches piled in, pinning Tractor-Beam-Girl and dragging her down the hall. “Guess you lose this round, Magical Girl Underloser!”
“That’s a super-dumb insult!” I shouted back, rushing to the door, but he slipped through it and slammed it shut. I kicked it. It shuddered in its frame but refused to budge.
[End of Act One: Act Two in 3 Minutes]
“Well, shit,” Fursona said. The sounds of a struggling superhero faded into the distance as I kicked the door a second time. [Hometown Heroine] faded away, and my next kick barely budged it. I sat there dumbly while Fursona tried the handle. “No dice. We need to get outside before the next Act starts. They won’t stay here!”
Fursona was right. It didn’t matter that Tractor-Beam-Girl had been caught or that our Patrol was a disaster. What mattered was that we figured out where they were taking her so we could bust her out and turn this around. I’d traded well with the Second V, and if we could get a mismatch, whichever V Fursona had fought would go down. We just needed Tractor-Beam-Girl to create that mismatch.
We picked our way across the wreckage and stepped outside just as Act Two started.
[Power War: Beyond Good and 3V1L: Act Two in Progress]
“It’s weird that it’s a Power War Episode, huh?” Fursona asked. I paused halfway through summoning my sailboard under us. She was right. Our other 3V1L Episodes hadn’t been—or at least hadn’t started as a Power War. Whatever that meant, I doubted it’d be good.
“Hang on, Fursona. They took a truck to get here. They’ll be on the move again. Keep your eyes open." [Solar Wing] finished, the sailboard popped into existence, and we took off, Fursona stiff as the neon board beneath our feet. Vicegrip was our sidekick. We’d brought her into this Patrol, and I’d look as hard as I had to to get her out.
We didn’t have to search for long, though.
----------------------------------------
We caught the tail end of 3V1L’s convoy surging up from an underground garage. The black SUVs stood out like a sore thumb in the run-down, industrial Poudre district, but their identical looks and blacked-out windows made it impossible to tell which one Tractor-Beam-Girl was in—if she was even in one.
I got overhead and pointed. “Okay, we’re going to tail the convoy from as high up as we can. Think you can change into Eagle-sona on the board? It’d give us some flexibility.”
She tried—I’ll give her credit for that—but halfway through shouldering off her bag, Fursona froze up completely, shivering. She couldn’t even pull the bag back up; it hung there, dangerously close to the steering bar. “I’m sorry,” she chattered through her shaking.
“It’s okay. We’ll come up with a different plan, that’s all. Maybe we just tail them and hope they all go to the same place.” I wrapped an arm around her kangaroo waist. In truth, I didn’t see any way they wouldn’t split up. It was the best tactical choice they had. Split up, put both Vs and Tractor-Beam-Girl in one convoy, and try to get us to split, too. That way, they could overwhelm whoever went after the right convoy and sacrifice the wrong convoy to keep the other hero distracted.
“Sorry,” Fursona sniffled again.
“Don’t be sorry. I knew that was a big ask.” Even though I was trying to play it cool, I gulped as we gained altitude. I had a backup plan, but honestly, it was an even bigger ask than my first plan. I decided to put it on the back burner for now. Maybe we’d get lucky, and they wouldn’t split up. “It’ll probably be a short drive. South Poudre isn’t that big, right?”
“Uh-huh. You’re right. We’ll only be up here for a minute—maybe two—and then you can put me down,” Fursona said. Even through the modulator, I could hear her almost crying and gritting her teeth at the same time, and my heart broke a little bit.
“I'm Sorry I freaked you out, Bee,” I whispered, ensuring the camera drone wasn’t close enough to pick it up. “I won’t drop you.”
“I know, but it’s a long way down. What if—“
One of the SUVs’ skylights opened, and a surfboard-riding Second V erupted into the air.
“—that happens!?” Fursona wailed.
“Shit,” I muttered. Then I dove, racing down to meet the villain. “I’m not going to drop you, Fursona, but you’ve gotta trust me. Grab the steering bar!”
She did, and I let go. “Good, now keep us in the air. I don’t care where we go, but keep us in the air. If I say left, pull left. Right, go right!” The Second V came closer and closer, and I fired off my first [Starlance]. It ripped across the sky, leaving a pink-and-blue trail behind it, and fizzled out of existence somewhere behind him as he rolled.
“Okay. Got it. I’ve got it.” Fursona turned the sailboard slowly, bringing it around and speeding away from the Second V. I turned, hanging on to her shoulder, and readied my wand. With her piloting, we couldn’t outrun the Second V.
“[Starlance]!” I shouted, firing another lance through the air. This one hit, but not hard enough to knock the Second V off his surfboard. “Fursona, turn us all the way around! We can’t lose the convoy!”
[Dramatic Damage! +1 Drama Point]
She listened, and the sailboard slowly spun around. “Good job, babe. Now, no matter what happens, keep us over them. If they split before I beat this guy—“
He dove from above, and I used [Bit-Part Barrage], hoping it wouldn’t cancel [Solar Wing]. If it did, I had no idea how I’d keep my promise to Bianca, and I couldn’t let her fall, but I couldn’t let his bladed surfboard crash through my sailboard, either. The world froze as I spun, struggling to find him and aim. Then, beam after beam surged toward him, lighting up the bright noon street even more.
[Dramatic Damage! +3 Drama Points]
I breathed a sigh of relief as the surfboard broke off just twenty feet away; I’d missed my first, stunning shot, which might’ve been enough to knock him out of the fight. Still, we’d bought a moment. I took a deep breath. “You’re doing great, babe. You’re doing great. Now, how’s the convoy doing?”
“They’re splitting up!” Fursona said. “Two groups! What do I do?”
I grimaced. This was it—the nightmare scenario. We had an airborne enemy, and the SUVs below were about to scatter. “Dive. Pick one of the groups and dive!”
She stiffened again but pushed the sailboard’s steering bar forward, and we started descending. The stinking, industrial air whipped past my face as we raced for the right-side group. Then, suddenly, we were right on them. Behind us, the Second V bore down, gaining by the second. I gulped again and made my next big ask. “Fursona, I need you to jump into the last car!”