Bee’s Honda’s gauges and meters were all redlining as she pulled into the Walnut Tower parking lot and slammed the brakes with a creaking, squealing cacophony. I already had my seatbelt off and the door open before she’d fully stopped, and we sprinted the stairs like a pair of madwomen; there wasn’t time to take the elevator.

“Okay, when we get up there, we’ll get changed, then what?” Bianca asked breathlessly.

I sucked down some air as we rested on the eighth floor landing for a second. “We head over to the address, try to do some digging, and see what we can see. It’ll be easy.”

“You say so.”

“I do.”

We kept running past the door to Su-Bin’s floor. I winced but kept going; I’d call her later when there was time, but right now, we needed to get to the Green Room, get changed, and get airborne. I even pushed—gently—past Avan, who eyed Bee and me with curiosity. “Hey, Anika, how was your—“

“No time right now. We’ll catch up later. Coffee tomorrow?” I asked, then grimaced as Bee looked at me with a raised eyebrow. “The three of us, I mean.”

“Sure, but I’ll hold you to it this time,” Avan said.

I nodded breathlessly and kept moving until we disappeared into Room 1301 at the very top of the tower. “I’m going Eagle-Sona for this one,” Bianca said. She tossed her backpack aside, pulled off her jacket and pants, and changed into shorts and a tank top even though it was January. I stared at her jealously for a second, still in my winter clothes, then started my own transformation.

As the light show ended and the music stopped, I tucked away my wand and let Tails hop onto my shoulders so I could have two free hands to get Bee all strapped into her suit. “That’ll be a good move for this one. I’ll head in on the ground, but if you can cover me from above and let me know if 3V1L’s making a move, that’ll help a lot.”

“That’s the plan.” Bee put the eagle mask over her head, and my girlfriend disappeared, replaced by my partner again.

I quickly rebuilt Copy Cat into the stealth suit it could totally be—complete with [Set Dressing] and [Pouncing Panther] for maximum invisibility, but also dropping [Doom Ball] and [Hometown Heroine] to make room. Without them, I’d be missing a ton of firepower: hopefully, we wouldn’t have to fight until I could shift out of the recon and infiltration build. After another moment’s thought, I dropped [Fursonal Furcefield] too; I needed investigative powers, and [Check the Script] looked perfect.

Then we headed to the rooftop and took off, me on [Solar Wing] and her under her suit’s power.

I’d only been to Thornton a couple of times; before the Power War, it wasn’t somewhere you went unless you had to, and after, the In-Your-Endos had kept it more or less under control—but all that meant was that there weren’t a lot of villains. If anything, the derelict buildings and shattered sidewalk that’d never quite recovered even before the Bear Lord rampaged through it were even less inviting now.

It wasn’t somewhere I’d choose to live, that was for sure.

But the second we crossed into the district, the Investigative Episode popped.

[Investigative Casting Call]

[Investigative Episode: Thornton on the Outs - PG]

[Role: Amateur Sleuth! Do you accept the role? (Yes/No)]

[Role Focus: Cunning+Drama]

We accepted the call and flew in toward the broken district.

[Thornton on the Outs: Act One in Progress]

“Okay,” I said over comms, “We’ve got three goals. First, find the address. Second, see if we can find evidence of The Agent or a V. And third—“

“Avoid the In-Your-Endos,” Fursona said. “Definitely avoid the In-Your-Endos.”

“Yep.”

We had to hurry, because it had taken almost an hour to get home—even with Bee’s reckless driving—and we only had a little while to stake the place out. If we couldn’t find any evidence by the time the sun set, we’d have to call it, and we’d be back to square one.

So, there wasn’t much time for subtlety.

Still, that didn’t mean we’d be careless. “I’ll loop around above and let you know what’s going on,” Fursona said. “You hit the ground, get shifted over, and move in—but be careful. I can be wherever you are in five seconds until you go inside. After that, it’ll get more complicated.”

“Got it.” I dove hard for the street a block away from the target building, landing in a vacant lot whose weeds were poking through the dirty-looking snow. I quickly shifted into Copy Cat, using [Quick-Time Change] to merge minds with Tails, and moved into a nearby alley.

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[Flashy Fitting-Room! +1 Flamboyance Point]

“Okay, you’re half a block south of the target,” Fursona said. “You should go stealth here. There’s no way The Agent doesn’t have guards outside, whether it’s his lair or not.”

“Agreed,” I murmured—muttering carried less far than whispering—and used [Set Dressing]. I could still see my paws, but no one else could, in theory. But I still couldn’t waltz right in. “Any sign of the In-Your-Endos?”

[Dastardly Plan! +1 Cunning Point]

“Negative. Keep moving,” Fursona said. Was she enjoying the pseudo-military operation we had going on? I liked the air support, but what I wouldn’t give for some Theseus missiles for extra cover.

I stepped out into the street, counting on [Set Dressing] to keep my presence masked. The old, abandoned house could have been Su-Bin’s parents’ place for all I knew; even with winter covering the worst of it, it clearly hadn’t been maintained in a decade or more. But the downstairs windows were still intact, and the front door was locked. I started making my way around. “Do you see a way in?”

“No. I’m doing a wider pass to check the sides.” Fursona went quiet, and I saw her shadow zip by on the snow-covered yard. I waited nearby, counting on the camouflage. Someone walked by ten feet from me. Then they kept right on walking, even as I stared at them.

“Okay,” Fursona said after a minute. “The second floor’s all boarded up, except for one window that looks like they tried and failed to do it. This place has to be miserably cold.”

“I’m on it.” I moved into the yard, feeling snow crunch under my feet. When I looked behind me, a line of prints marked my passage. I stared at them, but I didn’t have any way to deal with them. “Think they’ll decide my prints are a mountain lion’s?”

“What? Like Snagglemaw? No way. You’re too small.”

“That’s what she said,” I said.

“That is what I said.”

That was weird. I didn’t usually make jokes like that; they’d seemed on the immature side since I was Collidus’s age. But I used [Check the Script], which highlighted not only the target window but a fence that, with a little work, I could use as a launch pad—or a second push-off point for my double-jump.

[Good Thinking! +1 Cunning Point]

Then, gathering my legs under me, I let Tails aim us. [Pouncing Panthers] went off, and we flew through the air, bouncing off the rotten wooden fence. We landed halfway into the window, and our claws scrabbled for purchase. Tails said.

[Badass Move! +1 Badass Point]

After a moment, I took over and dragged us into the attic. “We’re in. Infiltration successful.”

“That’s…” Fursona trailed off.

“That’s what?” I asked, moving through the attic and looking for ways to see what was going on below.

“That’s…great. I’m going to do a wide, high patrol. Something’s not right here,” Fursona said. “You won’t have air support for a bit, but you’re inside anyway, so it’ll be fine.”

“Okay. I’m moving in.”

The attic boards creaked slightly under my feet, but so did the whole house. More importantly, I couldn’t hear another sound, and neither could Tails. Plus, I was invisible, so it wasn’t like anyone would find me even if they tried. I still tried to move quietly, though.

Eventually, I found a place right over the door where I could see—barely—down into the dust-covered entryway. It certainly looked like no one had been here in months. Then, at Tails’s urging, I laid down and closed one eye. The other watched.

And I waited.

And waited.

----------------------------------------

And waited.

And then, for variety, I waited a little more. It had to have been an hour, and we were running out of time. Maybe it’d even been longer; I couldn’t check because the light from my phone might give me away.

Fursona hadn’t been in range in a while; I had no idea what was keeping her, but I’d sent her a signal for comm silence, so she wasn’t expecting to hear from me unless something went wrong. She’d sent a busy signal back.

And I’d learned something about Tails.

She got bored easily, and when she did, she started whining about wanting to do something, or at least sleep. The emphasis on the do was a little odd, too, but I ignored it for now.

So, honestly, when the door opened with a piercing screech and a man in a tattered Haze-Matt suit stepped through, I almost screamed. I did jump a little, and he looked up toward the ceiling for a second before continuing into the hall. He walked to a pad on the wall, typed in a code, and opened a door.

“Fursona,” I muttered as soon as the door closed. “Our friend just showed up.”

‘Great, I’m a little busy,” Fursona yelled over comms. “How about you do the spying, and I’ll just keep getting screwed here?”

“What?”

“Nothing,” she said. In the background, something that sounded like an electric sander howled. “I’ll fill you up—in, Jesus fucking Christ!—later.”

“Ooookay.” I turned my attention to Fake Haze-Matt, who’d slipped through the door. The attic boards were probably creaky, so I made sure to move as lightly as I could, testing each board under my paw and trying desperately to follow him. I also used [Check the Script] to see if it’d highlight where the temp villain was going.

It did.

[Good Thinking! +1 Cunning Point]

He hurried through the hallway toward a bedroom—or at least, something the right size to be one—and opened the door. There, in a spiked 3V1L helmet, sat an Extra.

She sat in a rickety-looking wooden chair and nodded when Fake Haze-Matt pushed through the door. “About time you got here. The boss wants a debrief.”

“Of course he does. And you’re recording it, I assume?”

“You assume correctly. So, you were tasked with stopping the Mutual Assistance League and taking back their section of Poudre. And that failed, obviously.”

“Obviously.”

I stared down as the Extra interrogated the temp vil like he couldn’t fill the whole room with toxic smog in a half-second. He couldn’t anymore, but it was still shocking to see her lay into the man who’d once been Fake-Haze-Matt. She pushed hard, ignoring his frustrated responses and pressing him with a list of pre-built questions that felt like nothing a chaotic mess of an organization like 3V1L would use.

And the whole time, I listened for anything—anything—that I could use. But it wasn’t until the end that I finally got something.

“Alright, V Number Three, this concludes our meeting. You are to report to 3V1L headquarters back in North Poudre and return your helmet. Consider your employment with 3V1L terminated, effective immediately. You can collect your final paycheck when you return your helmet, and the organization will pay you 60% of your wages via mailed check for the next month while you search for alternative employment.”

The Third V—Fake Haze-Matt—sputtered, the chemical tank on his back chattering and hissing as it filled up. I tensed, ready to use my catlike reflexes to stop him or flee. But the hench didn’t flinch, and after a moment, his shoulders slumped.

“Wait, I’m being fired after going up against four heroes? Of course I lost. The whole situation was unbalanced, even with Haze-Matt’s powers.”

The hench stared at him, and I could almost see the smile under her mask. She held out a slip of paper, and he snatched it as she kept talking. “That is correct. The date and time of your offboarding is on your notice. Your services are no longer needed.”