Last semester, when Sister Sly and 3V1L had been at war, the media had focused on the worst fires and danger spots. It had given me the impression that the entire district was on fire, and even though that was clearly a lie, Fursona and I had gotten suited up and out there as fast as we could.
This time, there was no way to exaggerate.
The entire district wasn’t on fire, but it felt that way. And the west half of MoonTech’s grounds definitely was. Tank after massive tank went up, some sputtering as they exploded and filled the air with toxic chemicals, others erupting in gigantic balls of fire that sent shockwaves rippling across the district. Then came the sound.
It was nothing like an explosion on TV, and it wasn’t even anything like Sister Sly’s grenades. I’d never experienced anything like it before. It sounded—and felt—like a giant had slapped me out of the sky and stomped on the whole city. The whump and the shockwave toppled the half-finished building’s frame. Fursona and I were on our way to a property damage record, and we’d leveled the Grant Building!
My ears wouldn’t stop ringing, but I heard Fursona yelling into comms through the tinnitus. “Building building building! Go!”
That seemed like good advice. As another fuel tank filled the air with blazing crude oil, I decided to take it. I aimed for the windows in what I hoped was the administrative part of the plant, zipped through the recently de-glassed window frame, and rolled to a stop on linoleum tiles.
The building’s walls blocked the worst of the shockwaves, but I still wished I’d built my mom’s Costume. She probably had something to make this kind of thing less awful. Tanks kept exploding for the next thirty seconds, and a thick, black smoke started rolling through the window, so I got up to get a move on. “Hey, babe, I’m inside. Second floor, in some offices.”
“Got it. We’re downstairs, heading toward the building’s far side,” Fursona said.
“We?”
“Yeah. I’ve got a few henches who didn’t want to hang around while the whole place exploded. They’re…kind of weird, in an ‘I didn’t want this to happen’ way. Meet us in the back, and you’ll see.”
“Got it. I’m on my way.” The office I’d landed in wasn’t anything special. It was filthy, with grime and dust everywhere, and a dirty computer screen was powered on. I stopped to check it out; the screen was on a pressure relief system, and the words ‘Critical Failure’ blinked across it.
So that explained what had happened outside. I stared at the diagram of the building’s complex pipe network; I could try to relieve some of the pressure and stop the rest of the tanks from bursting, but honestly, this was Su-Bin’s wheelhouse. It was all numbers and blinking lights, and anything I did would probably just make it worse.
Besides, the camera drone was following me. I wiped some ash smudges off its lens and ducked out of the office into a long hallway. And that’s when I noticed that something had gone very, very wrong.
A pair of henches were on one knee, firing pistols, but not at me. A yellow hazmat suit filled the far side of the hall—one with an 3V1L mask covering its plastic face shield. I had this sudden, horrific thought: The Agent had contracted with Haze-Matt?! Then, two jets of yellow-brown gas filled the hall, blowing toward the two stunned-looking henches.
I stepped into the hall, spinning into a [Quick-Time Change]/[Freeze Frame] move, and after a quick Itsy Bitsy Spider dance, fired a [Wind Front] right into the offending, mustard-colored gas.
[Flashy Fitting-Room! +1 Flamboyance Point]
[Steel Yourself! +1 Grit Point]
[Badass Move! +1 Badass Point]
The cloud billowed, filling the office I’d just been in as the wannabe Haze-Matt’s wrist-mounted gas guns slowed. The tank on their back—the suit wasn’t exactly form-fitting—blinked red, then started a spinning yellow-green pattern as it recharged. “Magical Girl Understudy,” the fake Haze-Matt said.
“Listen, First V, or whoever you are, if you keep this up, you’ll be killing your allies. Surrender, we’ll get that power away from you, and you can claim that they made you do it!” I said, facing off against the hulking yellow suit.
“Ah, that’s where you’re wrong. I don’t want to be the Third V. I’ve got such phenomenal power, and the One L isn’t around to stop me. Once I deal with you, I’ll be unstoppable, and even he won’t want to fight me.” The voice from inside the suit had a sinister, half-crazed tone.
“Are you breathing that crap?” I asked.
“No. I’m thriving in it.” The Haze-Matt Temp Villain’s tank blinked blue, and another wave of sulfur-scented gas gusted toward us.
Stolen novel; please report.
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In the end, I kept all three of us out of the gas.
I hit it with another [Wind Front], then with a [Virga] when the gust wasn’t enough. The Cunning points I received from the power were negated by the part where I healed two henches, and when the last of the green-brown particles fell out of the key, I couldn’t see Temp Haze-Matt anywhere.
[Badass Move! +1 Badass Point]
I called it in. “Fursona, be aware that the Third V is here. They’re rogue. The Agent powered them up with Haze-Matt’s powers, but it looks like that came with some…problems. I’m not sure where they went, but I’ve got two surrendered henches. You two did surrender, right?”
One of the henches hastily dropped his handgun while the other held her hands in the air, whistling and kicking her weapon away from her like she was totally innocent. “Yeah, yeah, they made me do it, et cetera, and so on,” I said, waving them over to a bathroom. “Hide in here or come with me. Your choice.”
“Okay. I have a half-dozen henches with me. We’re on the production floor, which is…probably not ideal,” Fursona said. “You have no idea where the Third V is?”
“No idea.”
“We’re coming with you,” the lady hench said.
“Great,” I muttered. “Just great.”
[End of Act Two: Act Three in Three Minutes]
At least we had an Intermission to get moving, but all the henches were complicating things. Now that they’d surrendered, I was supposed to keep them safe—but how was I supposed to do that with Temp Haze Matt out there? They clearly didn’t care about anyone else’s safety; if they had, they’d never have rigged the tanks to overpressurize and blow, and they certainly wouldn’t be using chemical weapons by their allies.
So, with a mixture of relief and apprehension, I pointed at a door. “Does this one lead to the work floor?”
The guy nodded. “Yeah. Through there. You’ll want a mask, though.”
I almost pointed at the domino mask on my face, then thought better of it. Instead, I followed him to a locker room where a handful of gigantic, thick-lensed gas masks sat around. He helped me fit it to my face, and I stared at him through the thick plastic lenses. “Why are you helping me?” I asked.
“Because I didn’t sign up for this. I thought the One L would use the plant for weapons or something, not destroy it. This is my job, and it’s the only work I can find in South Poudre. Now I’ve got nothing. Henching’s not a career for me—just a way to make ends meet for a couple of months. This was.”
“Well, shit,” I muttered. “Fursona, I’m going to send the henches toward Tranquility. She’s not likely to shoot them on sight, and they seem like the kind of project she’d want to deal with. You good with that?”
I was halfway to the production floor when Fursona answered. “Yeah, makes sense. We’re looking for a way out. Most of mine are construction, with one manager type. No one knows what’s what down here, and it stinks.”
“Okay, hold your position. I’ve got a plant worker hench here. We’ll come get you, and I’ll have him lead the others to Tranquility. Is she still holed up across the way?”
“Yes. I think so. She could have moved to deal with the explosions.”
I nodded. “Got it.”
We stepped out onto the production floor, and I winced under my mask. “Has this place ever gotten a safety inspection?!” It reeked of acid, even through the gas mask.
“What’s a safety inspector?” the man asked, shrugging at the rickety-looking catwalk over three huge tanks. Unlike the ones outside, they hadn’t exploded. Also unlike the ones outside, fumes billowed from their open tops. The cavernous metal room’s girders and beams were exposed, with a thin metal wall separating it from the outside; I could probably punch a hole in it with [Limelight Barrage], but that came with risks. How stable was the building after the multiple explosions? I didn’t know.
[The Righteous Cause: Act Three in Progress]
“Magical Girl Understudy, I know that’s not your name,” Temp Haze Matt’s voice echoed over a loudspeaker. “Why don’t you take off that mask and give the world a look at the girl in the car?”
I tensed, looking up at the ceiling. How did they know that? And where were they? On the catwalk or behind a tank? I couldn’t tell, and that scared the hell out of me. The employee-turned henchman-turned guide pointed at the wall, and I nodded. “Let’s go,” I whispered.
We crept along the wall, closer and closer to the back wall. I kept glancing behind us. How could someone in a bright yellow suit be so sneaky?
Something clinked off a steel pipe, then exploded with a tiny bang, and the passage we’d just come through filled with bright green smoke. “I’m going to find you, and I’m going to let everyone know you’re nothing, Understudy. Then I’ll find that car.”
How the fuck did he know about that? I pointed toward the back, then made a walking motion with my fingers. The two former henches nodded and started moving, and I used a [Quick-Time Change] to switch back to Understudy and [Solar Wing] to get some altitude over the slowly expanding gas. The brilliant wings expanded from my shoulder, and I leaped into the air over the emerald smog.
I circled. My two henches were dashing ahead, not bothering with stealth, and another gas grenade exploded behind them. This time, the chemical mix was red-brown and descended quickly onto the steel braces and concrete floor. Spots of rust exploded across the room.
I had to find Temp Haze Matt before they found my henches—or Fursona. She wasn’t equipped for this, and neither were the henches with her. So, the next time a gas grenade rattled against the floor, I looked around.
And there they were. Their bright yellow suit flashed as they dashed along one of the catwalks below me, and I dove. I fired a [Starlance], which hit them square in the back, right next to the gas tank. They turned, looking at me with a shocked posture as I landed on the far side of the catwalk. “You hurt me,” they muttered incredulously.
[Dramatic Damage! +1 Drama Point]
“Yeah, I did. Listen, we’ll get you out of that suit and get you some help, but you need to come quietly. Haze-Matt’s not someone you want to be—trust me. I wish he hadn’t died, but it has to be torture being him.” I didn’t want to think that Temp Haze-Matt was as bad as the original. Maybe Dr. Ayers could put their brain back in order, or someone else could. But I also wasn’t equipped to talk a villain like this down.
“You hurt me!” Temp Haze-Matt’s posture changed, and my heart dropped. They aimed their chemical sprayers at me, clearly getting ready for battle. “No one’s hurt me before, not since I made this my lair. You’ll pay for that!”
Their sprayers started spinning, and a trio of grenades fell from the tank contraption on their back onto a feeding device on their belt. I raised my wand.
I’d have to do this the hard way. They weren’t going to come quietly.