Thursday, October 8
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Bianca and I sat in front of the screens in the Green Room, staring at our rogue’s gallery. The gold circle representing Sister Sly hadn’t grown smaller in the weeks following our fight in the Poudre districts. If anything, she seemed to control more territory, not less. 3V1L had to be fighting against her, but it seemed that whatever they were doing, it wasn’t working—or at least, not well enough to actually stop her.
Theseus hadn’t expanded his territory, but that wasn’t surprising. Our fight with him hadn’t been about control, but about denying him power. I cringed; he’d no doubt weaponized the laser system we’d failed to keep him away from, and he’d be that much worse the next time we fought, but at least he didn’t seem motivated by expansion.
The worst one was Livestream, though.
We hadn’t seen him, but his shows were all over the internet. He didn’t have a studio, just a hacked camera drone that followed him and recorded his every move. That is, his every move as a supervillain, but also as a normal person (though he blurred his face). He seemed like the ultimate chaos agent, and sure enough, his electric-blue dot wasn’t ever in the same place twice. Worse, he’d piled into a dozen Power Wars fights, never picking the same side to support.
“Battle plan?” Bee asked. “What do we do here?”
“3V1L is just doing their thing, and if I’m reading this right, they’re a little preoccupied with Sister Sly’s expansion in North Poudre. We could probably leave them both alone, especially with the Power War going. Then, we have Theseus. We should honestly try to slow him down, but if we can’t, that’s okay. He’s a professional, he’s working for a corporation, and he doesn’t have any interest in us or what we’re doing. He’s on the list because of the past, not the future,” I said.
“So that leaves Livestream,” Bee said. She paced back and forth. “And we have no idea where he’s going to strike, when he’s going to strike, or what he wants—other than internet fame.”
“Right. So, we can’t just hunt him down because there’s no telling where he’ll be, and he’s unpredictable. We need more people. How’s Tractor-Beam-Girl doing?”
Bee laughed. “Vicegrip? As far as I can tell, fine. She’s not exactly rocketing up the leaderboards, though. I get the feeling she needs a teammate to take advantage of her powers—either that or more skill rolls so she can do a little more than just—“
“Grab a bad guy, yeah. Should we invite her on a Patrol or something? Maybe offer her a minority share of our partnership?”
“Nah, let’s wait another week or two. Then we can have it be a school assignment instead of her thinking we need her.”
I grinned and stood up. “Smart!”
“I thought so. Let’s figure out our recruitment pitch while we wait. Maybe something about possibly beating Flare’s ass? That seemed to motivate her last time.”
“Har har. Nah, I’m thinking we offer her a partnership, not as a sidekick, but as a heroine. We can bring her in for the six weeks we’re studying three-hero teams, then either find someone else as our fourth or cut her loose and pair with another duo for the four-person lessons.” I paused, giving Bee a chance to interject. When she didn’t, I cleared my throat. “How about a different battle plan? We’re meeting up with the Triad later today. What’s your plan for support?”
Bianca considered for a moment. Then, after far too much pondering, she started talking rapidly. “Okay, I was going to say I should go Roo-Sona and run escort while you take care of any Extras, but that doesn’t make sense if the Triad wants us hunting enemies, so I think we could have two plans depending on what they really want us doing. Let’s call one plan Serve and Protect and one, I don’t know, how about Lieutenant Danger?
“The first one’s hunting bad guys, reporting them to the Triad, and doing rescue and support as needed. I’d be Eagle-Sona, and we could split up and talk through our phones—“
“Nah, we’ll need something better. Hopefully, the Triad will help set us up for success. But I see what you’re saying. We’d be better at scouting, we’d both be mobile, and it’d give us the most ability to protect Extras.”
“Yeah! And then, for Lieutenant Danger, I’d have to suck it up and go Roo-Sona, but you could fly us into range against minor league lieutenants. That’d give us the most firepower to take them down.” Bee sighed. “I wish I could quick-change. That’d be so overpowered.”
“It really is. So, for the meeting today, we’re going as…”
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Bianca grinned. “Eagle-Sona and Understudy. You can show off your support build if you want, but we’ll both fly over ourselves.”
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Friday, October 9
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The Triad’s secret base wasn’t in any way a secret—the massive pyramid loomed over Parker district, taller than all but the tallest Mid-Town skyscrapers. Extras they’d hired bustled here and there, working on computers, cooking, and helping maintain Tele-Portal’s gear and Underdelver’s mech suit. Almost entirely concrete, tunnels and rooms lay scattered inside the pyramid like an ant nest, with the training room at the very bottom and the Triad’s command room near the top, just below an observation deck that gave Tele-Portal instant access to anywhere in south, central, and west Tokyexico City.
We’d been in the Triad’s training room before, but never upstairs, so when Tele-Portal called down the elevator and beckoned us inside, I couldn’t stop shivering. Nerves and excitement fought a war inside me, and I felt like I’d had three too many cups of coffee this morning. This was the day! The day I’d finally get to try out Rescue Girl Lucky Star!
The elevator opened into a high-tech, futuristic-looking command room; Bud Lightbeam waved from one chair while Underdelver grinned near a low workbench. Tele-Portal strode into the center of some device that looked a lot like the Ilneats’ costume designer, and when she raised her hands, a holographic map of Tokyexico City zoomed out to cover the floor. I jumped as the Council of Heroes spire shimmered into reality just below me.
“Okay, Triad and auxiliaries, the reality in Tokyexico is that we’re losing this Power War—otherwise, Golden Goose wouldn’t be camped out in the CoH building,” Tele-Portal said. She snapped a finger, and huge swaths of the city went red. “These are areas currently claimed by Lord Destructo, McHammer, a few recently un-retired major league villains, and King Cold’s Coalition.”
“That’s…half the city,” Fursona said, staring.
“Yep. Hang tight for a second. I’m not done.” She snapped again, and more went yellow, this time in islands between the sea of red plus a big continent in the Poudre districts. “These are minor-league villains staking claims on the side, plus 3V1L, which still has enough reputation that the major league vils aren’t going after Poudre. It helps that there’s not much there worth claiming, though. Just factories and residential.”
More snaps followed: Red and black stripes for areas where major league villains were fighting each other, red and yellow for major-on-minor combat, and light blue against red and yellow for places where local heroes fought delaying actions against the encroaching villains. “There’s one more color, and that’s hero-controlled safe areas,” Tele-Portal said. A few navy blue dots appeared, mostly around the Council of Heroes building, the Triad’s Triangle, and Tokyexico University, but with a few other cut-outs around the map—including a huge one far to the north.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Stella-Lunar. The other big one to the east is the In-Your-Endos. We don’t mess with them, and neither do most villains. Now, since Golden Goose killed Haze-Matt, the villains have actually been doing better. He was such a wild card that they had to manage him almost as much as we did, but they don’t have to watch their backs as much with him out of the picture.” Tele-Portal clapped, and a series of symbols covered the map.
I stared at them—a few made sense, like X and O, but one looked like a pair of Gs, and another was…”Is that a…”
“Dick, yes. A cartoon dick. These symbols represent patrols. X means it’s taken by a normal hero. O means it’s not. The two Gs is Golden Goose. Do not go there. The cartoon dick is the In-Your-Endos. Do not go there!”
“Okay, got it,” Fursona said. “We’ll stay clear of all that.”
“Good. Here’s the mission. We’re going to assign you three unclaimed patrols into major-league territory. You need to maintain a presence in each of them at least once a week. Just be seen on the streets, let the people know the villains haven’t won yet, and make sure you carry these,” Underdelver said. He handed us each an earpiece. When I put it on, it locked around the cartilage, sealing itself in place. Then he handed us each a button.
“That one’s a personal favorite,” Tele-Portal said. “If you push it, it’ll open a portal at your location. It’s one-way only, but it’ll let me know where you are, and I can move the Triad in. Your job is to find the major league villains so we can fight them.”
“We’re bait. Got it,” I said, wincing.
“No, you’re scouts. You figure out where they are, call in the Triad, and we take care of them before Golden Goose or Stella-Lunar gets involved. The second we show up, you switch from finding them to dealing with their lieutenants or evacuating the battlefield. We’ll keep the major leaguers occupied so you can do your job, and you keep the battlefield clear so we can do ours,” Bud Lightbeam said.
Tele-Portal nodded. “We want to know three things. First, if Golden Goose, Stella-Lunar, or the In-Your-Endos move in, we want to know they’re there, and we want you to leave. We don’t compete with any of them for…various…reasons.”
“Yeah, things get weird when A Cat That Can Talk gets involved, not to mention the rest of that pervy team. I have no idea how they keep themselves running,” Lightbeam said.
“Tele-Portal rolled her eyes. “Right. That. Second, we want to know if a district seems clear. That is, if you show up in Evergreen and there’s no sign of villains, we need to know that. We’ll update the Council of Heroes, and they can try getting a minor leaguer established to hold the district down. Even if it’s just a neighborhood, let us know.
“And third, we want to know if you find any villains minor league and up. If it’s a minor leaguer, feel free to engage, but report in first. Some of our civilian assistants will be on the line for that kind of thing. But if it’s a major leaguer, press your buttons, open a portal, and wait for support.”
Underdelver nodded from the machine he was working on. “Kids, she’s serious about the ‘wait for support’ part. Once we land, we’ll give you an objective, and from there, you’ll be responsible for handling it. But until we show up, do. Not. Engage. A. Major. Leaguer.” He emphasized every. Single. Word.
“Okay, got it. Call in villains and empty districts, get support for heavy hitters, take out lieutenants, and keep people safe.” What they wanted us to do was exactly what we’d prepared to do, so that was nice! “We can do that. Which districts?”