Luckily, the laser grid wasn’t lethal.
It did sting a little, but it burned off everything that could stink. By the time the elevator reached full speed, it smelled less like body odor and half-treated sewage water and more like…stale. Like air that’d been treated too many times, and a hint of bleach or chlorine.
As the elevator crept downward, I slow-switched to Rainy Day and used [Virga] to top Fursona and myself off a little, so when the door did open, we’d be more ready to face whatever was coming. The plan at this point was pretty simple. We’d find Doctor Jackson, grab her, and leave the way we’d come in. Simple, for the most part, meant foolproof. And if something went wrong? Either one of our battle strategies would help, or we’d have to do some improvisation.
[Medic! +2 Cunning Points]
[HP 8/15]
Besides, what could go wrong? The Agent probably wasn’t here, and we’d already beaten three low-powered Vs. Chances were good we’d just have more henches, and maybe a big fight on the way out. Easy peasy.
I’d just switched back to Understudy when the door opened, and Fursona and I dashed out into The Agent’s prison.
The hall looked like any other secret underground hall—nothing special, just fluorescent lights hanging from the ceiling and bare concrete walls. I’d seen it all before, even the traps that popped out of the floor and walls to slow us down. I even blasted a couple of turrets with [Starlance] for good measure, but most just…weren’t a threat.
[Dramatic Damage! +2 Drama Points]
“Where’s the challenge?” Fursona bellowed from inside her Kaiju suit. She kicked a bomb away, and it exploded against the concrete wall, showering the whole hallway in dust. I couldn’t help but agree with her. If these were the best defenses keeping Doctor Jackson imprisoned, we practically had her freed already.
The cement dust swirled and coalesced into a man-shaped figure with a rough approximation of the 3V1L devil helmet on his head. “I’m afraid you’re about to find out, unless you’d be so kind as to surrender. We’ve got cells just for the two of you.”
“No thanks,” I said, firing a [Starlance] toward the V’s chest. It passed through him, though the rest of the dust shivered like static on a TV.
[Dramatic Damage! +1 Drama Point]
“Very well. I can do this the hard way. As Second V, I will—“
I never got a chance to figure out what he’d do, though. Fursona crashed into him, and the dust scattered across the hallway floor. “Let’s go!” she shouted, lumbering toward where the prison had to be. But even as we ran down the hall, the Second V formed in front of us again—this time spraying out of a drain on the floor in a burst of water.
“An Elementalist!” I said
“No. The Elementalist,” he replied. Two huge, watery arms crashed into the floor, filling the hall in front of us with a wall of water. It hovered overhead as Fursona roared into battle. Then, just before she made contact, the Second V released the flood, washing us down the hallway in a localized, directed tsunami. “Time to put out your spark of resistance!”
[HP 6/15]
Even as the waves receded, though, the water was already heating up around us. He’d shifted again, this time to fire. “I will boil away your will to fight!” The lake spread out, covering the entire floor. But it vaporized even faster. The steam exploded down the hallway, ripping chunks of concrete off the wall and exploding lightbulbs.
I took cover behind Fursona’s bulk, and the heat washed over us. Then she was charging again. This time, I fired [Limelight Barrage] into the flaming supervillain’s body, punching holes in the blaze. He was still stunned when Fursona hit him like the tidal wave that had just hit us.
[Dramatic Damage! +5 Drama Points]
Then he vanished, only to appear down the hall in concrete dust form. “You two are persistent, aren’t you? We’ll see how much fight you have when I go after the prisoners!”
“Fuck,” I muttered under my breath. “We’ve gotta move fast!”
But no matter how fast we moved, the Second V was faster—and he knew where he was going. All we could do was follow him deeper into The Agent’s prison.
----------------------------------------
In a way, fighting the Second V was a lot like fighting Waterspout in classes last year. Most of his powers were easy to avoid—waves of water, or dust clouds that choked the air but that we could dash through without taking damage. But his matter-switch forms only seemed to take a fraction of the damage we needed to be doing.
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So even though Fursona and I had cornered him near a door with a keypad and retina scanner, we couldn’t actually bring him down. And worse, he was determined to get that door open.
I [Quick-Time Changed] to Rainy Day as the Second V transformed into his watery form. There wouldn’t be time for a full-on combo, so instead, I fired off a [Ride the Lightning], hoping for the extra damage from the water to matter. It did, but not enough. Even as the bolt hit him and coursed through his liquid body, one hand reached for the keypad.
[Flashy Fitting-Room! +1 Flamboyance Point]
[Steel Yourself! +1 Grit Point]
[Electric Light-Show! +1 Flamboyance Point]
Fursona charged him, and I knocked him away from the door and into her arms with [Wind Front]. But even as she wrapped him in a bear hug, he turned into a wisp of wind and rematerialized in front of the retina scanner—this time looking like a person. We both lunged for him.
[Badass Move! +1 Badass Point]
The door popped open, and my hands closed on grains of sand as he slid through. A second later, Fursona threw herself into the already-closing door. It crunched shut on her waist, then started slowly grinding open as her massive plushie limbs shoved against it. “Go!” she grunted.
I didn’t waste any time—I was already halfway through the door, stepping on her plushie stomach to get by, when she said it. Behind me, Fursona roared, and the door kept screeching and grinding as she forced it off its hinges. Then it toppled to the floor, and she picked herself up.
We stood in a nearly standard prison block, built just like the ones I’d seen in Almhurst, or on old police dramas. Only two things were different. First, only a handful of cells were full—all on the same side. And second, the air was all but choked with dust.
“Surrender, or the prisoners die,” the Second V yelled. He was everywhere: on the catwalks, in the common space, and inside the cells. The air grew thicker with dust every second, and it was only a matter of time before the prisoners couldn’t handle it anymore. Already, someone was coughing and choking in a cell next to me.
I [Quick-Time Transformed] again, this time into Rescue Girl Lucky Star. “Can you get the cells open?” I shouted over the whirlwind that had engulfed the entire prison.
[Flashy Fitting-Room! +1 Flamboyance Point]
[Rejuvenation Activated: HP 9/15]
“Yeah!” Fursona’s claws wrapped around one of the cell doors, and she grunted. Then she roared and leaped onto the common area floor. Then, she started growing.
Part of me wanted to scream at her to stop; we needed to save our big powers as long as possible. But the rest of me knew this was the only way. As Lucky Star, I couldn’t fight the Second V, and I couldn’t switch off of her quickly either. It was all on Fursona to fight—and to open the door.
So, as Full Kaiju Fursona filled the prison and started prying doors open, I hurried inside. None of the prisoners in their individual cells looked anything like supers; they weren’t in costume, and they had defeated, beaten looks to them. But even so, I reached out to the first one and used [Noncombatant Teleport].
A moment later, he vanished.
[Dramatic Rescue! +1 Drama Point]
“Stop that!” the Second V yelled. He switched to fire, and suddenly, the whole prison’s temperature skyrocketed. I hurried to the second cell, repeating my [Noncombatant Teleport] trick and getting those [Rescue Rearm] activations, but there were still three more. Even though I’d be able to handle the heat—barely—the prisoners wouldn’t.
[Dramatic Rescue! +1 Drama Point]
“Fursona, you have to stop him!” I yelled.
She roared in response, slamming into the pillar of flame that’d once been the Second V. They crashed into the wall right above the prison’s entrance, her fire breath piercing into the villain’s chest.
Then, suddenly, the heat cut off.
I didn’t have time to figure out what was going on. My hand snaked through the third cell’s bars and grabbed the skinny-looking man’s hand. A second later, he, too, had vanished.
[Dramatic Rescue! +1 Drama Point]
As I ran to the next cell, though, a sudden burst of wind knocked me off the catwalk and to the ground. The Second V had vanished, or he’d gone Wind Form. Something was collapsing near the entrance, too; the whole tunnel sounded like it was falling, and the rumbling even shook my teeth. I looked for a set of stairs, but couldn’t find any that weren’t destroyed.
Fursona. Fursona was a set of stairs.
[Good Thinking! +1 Cunning Point]
As she stomped toward the reforming V, I ran headlong toward her tail and started climbing the spines and fins that ran along her back. She didn’t even notice me; a gout of flame burst forth, covering the Second V, whose sandy body broke into shards of glass. At the same time, I leaped back onto the catwalk and sprinted toward the next cell.
“Annie, look out!” Fursona thundered. I ducked and wrapped my hands around the bars.
A second later, the tidal wave hit.
[HP 6/15]
It knocked me into the prison’s wall, driving the air from my lungs, but even as the deluge filled up the cell in front of me, I got a hand free and touched the prisoner. And that was all it took; she disappeared into thin air a moment later as [Noncombatant Teleport] activated.
[Dramatic Rescue! +1 Drama Point]
That left one more.
The Second V formed in front of me. This time, the dust compacted into something like clay, with two huge fists. He swung at me, and I ducked a second too late. The blow rang my head like a bell.
[HP 3/15]
But he didn’t get a chance to swing again.
Fursona’s fiery breath blew over him as I threw myself to safety. I could see the clay man’s skin hardening even as he tried to switch to another form; the freshly fired clay spread across his body, and when she was done, only the V’s face could move. He couldn’t shift, either. We had him beaten.
“Surrender!” I said. “Otherwise, I’ll let the dinosaur do what it wants with you.”
Fursona roared.
“Alright. You win. I’m done,” the V said. He strained against his porcelain prison, but couldn’t move a muscle except to blink.
“We’ll be back for you,” Fursona said, shrinking back to a reasonable size. A juice box crumpled in my earpiece, and I winced at the sound. But, hopefully, she hadn’t been Full Kaiju for long enough to compromise her regular powers.
As the V complained and whined, we hurried to the second to last cell on the row. And there, with her arm in a sling, was Doctor Jackson.