With Stella in Eclipse Form, my tactics had to change—a lot.
I knew, for sure, that I couldn’t handle her at full power. Maybe—maybe—if I’d had Spotlight Star, but I’d already used it. She didn’t have much superhero damage left, but I couldn’t switch to any build that could take advantage of that.
At the same time, I couldn’t just leave. I had no idea if Theseus, Gourmet, and Foamy Flash had escaped yet, and letting this monster get to them would be…bad for everyone. So, as she swaggered toward me, I used [Solar Wing] again and dove out of the building. This time, I wasn’t looking for windows to hit her. I just wanted to avoid Earth’s most powerful heroine.
She fired a [Maximum Starlance] that punched at least as hard as mine did in Spotlight Star. It slammed into a building, and concrete shards filled the air in front of me. I slid to a halt, landing and sliding across the sidewalk to avoid the worst of it, then switched to the sailboard. A thin barrier against her firepower was better than nothing.
I was almost forty feet up when she started using [Total Eclipse]. Right away, I felt the sailboard getting less and less solid under my feet. Below me, twisted traffic lights and broken asphalt faded into blackness as the afternoon gave way to pitch-black night. I fired a [Starlance] back toward Stella-Lunar, but as it flew toward her, it grew less and less powerful until, when it finally hit, it seemed weaker than my level one [Stellar Ray] had.
[Dramatic Damage! +1 Drama Point]
I threw myself through a shattered window and rolled on the glass shards, coming up with wand ready. Outside, the whole world was black. Then, the silhouetted form of Stella-Lunar rose through the air.
I started running.
Behind me, the darkness blazed suddenly as [Starflame] filled the office building. If it could burn, it did. If it couldn’t, it started melting. I leaped out of the building’s far side as a gush of flame seared my back. [Solar Wing] caught me on the way down, and I headed straight down the Hot Zone’s main road.
[HP 1/15]
Okay. Resources. I had to have something here. One [Quick-Time Change]. No heavy-hitting powers unless I could cobble together a couple of weapons with [Science has Rules]. Plenty of small moves, but nothing that would shift the flow of battle here.
Running away it was, then.
If I could outmaneuver her, I might be able to get to the door back to the Council of Heroes building. From there, we could…I don’t know…shut it? Or, at the very least, I’d have some3allies. And even if I couldn’t get there, I’d have a better chance of turning things around against any of her other forms.
I turned around; Stella-Lunar stood on the road. She wasn’t pursuing, though.
Instead, tendrils of darkness formed around her. I fired a [Starlance] at her in a bid to stop her attack. When that one hit to no effect, I tried again. Another hit, but basically nothing.
[Dramatic Damage! +2 Drama Points]
The tendrils ripped through the air, tearing at me just like they had in Vigilant Vow’s lair. I flew through the air, rushing toward the asphalt even as I tried and failed to use [Solar Wing]. The impact would definitely knock me out of the Episode. So the real question was whether Stella-Lunar felt merciful.
Based on how hard it had been to change her mind about Vigilant Vow, I doubted it.
But…something was wrong. I should have been slammed into the asphalt by now. Instead, I was still mid-air, suspended by [Dark Side of the Moon’s] tendrils. I wasn’t flying anymore. Now I just hung there.
Stella Lunar walked up to me, knocking the wand out of my hand. It clattered on the ground, landing near a gutter drain. I braced myself, waiting for her to kick it the rest of the way, but she didn’t move. Her brow wrinkled under her mask. “Something’s wrong here, Understudy,” she said.
----------------------------------------
I had one chance. One opportunity. I had to convince Stella-Lunar that she was on the wrong side of this war.
It should have been easy. She’d just been involved in kidnapping a child, and she had to know that Golden Goose’s situation wasn’t right. But I couldn’t approach her on either of those fronts right now.
“Yeah, there’s something wrong. You read the diary, right?” I asked. I didn’t bother trying to wiggle free. Any attempt to resist was just going to piss her off.
“No. Not that,” Stella said. The orange corona around her body faded a moment later, and a yellow, star-shaped halo appeared behind her head. I could finally see her face—and her eyes. Something felt wrong about them. They weren’t the confident eyes I’d seen in all her Episodes, or the vengeful ones I’d stared at when she’d come for Vigilant Vow.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
She looked worried.
I hit the ground as [Dark Side of the Moon] faded. But before I could attack or run, I got a system message.
[End of Act Two: Act Three in Three Minutes]
I hadn’t even realized it wasn’t Act Three. That meant…the beat-down wasn’t over. But it also meant I was in for a power reset!
“Listen, Understudy,” Stella-Lunar hissed at me, her voice dropping until it was little more than a whisper. “We’re not on the same side, but I should have had backup. I haven’t seen a single V in almost five minutes. So let’s slow down and figure this out. Something’s wrong here.”
“Other than kidnapping kids, you mean?” I mumbled, picking myself up and glaring at her. She might be the enemy, but as I replayed the fight so far, she was right. I’d seen essentially no other pro-Ilneat supers since Kaiju Kid went big. “What do you think is up?”
“I don’t know. I can’t get a hold of my studio to ask, either,” Stella said.
“So what do we do?” I asked.
“Nothing’s changed,” Stella snapped. “You’re still my enemy, and I’m still going to beat you. Just…let’s call our fight postponed until I figure out what The Agent’s up to here. Maybe he had to pull his Vs for some other reason.”
“Like, to kidnap more kids?” My voice dripped with sarcasm, and I held my wand at my side—not exactly ready for battle, but not relaxed, either.
“I’m not going to talk about that right now.”
I shook my head. “Of course you’re not. But I’m going to. I’ve been doing this for years, and until last week, I’d only found two real heroes—the Narrator and Tranquility. No one else is doing what’s right because it’s what’s right. They’re doing what plays well on TV.”
“Not now,” Stella-Lunar hissed again.
[In Hot Water: Act Three in Progress]
Nothing happened. Stella-Lunar and I stood in the middle of the street, ten feet from each other, ready to fight again. I had all my moves back, so I thought maybe I could make a show of it at least. And it was Act Three, so anything could happen.
But neither of us was expecting a volley of gunfire from across the street.
The first bullets peppered us before Stella-Lunar or I could react. One punched into me, dropping my superhero damage off completely. Others slammed into Stella-Lunar, and I threw myself onto the asphalt. But before I could return fire, another of her black holes appeared in front of me, absorbing the gunfire.
“Get your butt over here!” Stella shouted, and I looked around. She was halfway to the office building I’d leaped out of. “That won’t last forever.”
I didn’t have much time to decide—stick it out against the 3V1L henches that had started moving onto the street or follow a superhero who’d tried to kill me twice? Neither looked like great options, but Stella-Lunar wasn’t actively shooting at me.
I ran toward her.
The moment I got inside, Stella-Lunar launched a barrage of beams across the street, collapsing awnings and facades on the henches. I picked off one with a shotgun who’d made it almost across the street.
[Dramatic Damage! +1 Drama Point]
“Okay. Battle plan. You’re out of the fight unless you’ve got something,” Stella snapped. She used another power, and the street, already damaged, buckled as gravity twisted and turned.
I nodded, slow-transforming into Rainy Day. As soon as I finished my Itsy Bitsy Spider dance, I used [Virga], this time healing Stella-Lunar. She nodded in appreciation. “Okay, I’ve got four minutes until my next Eclipse, so let’s focus on getting to safety. If we’re not there by the time I get back to full strength, I’ll finish this.”
[Medic! +2 Cunning Points]
[HP 3/15]
“So we’re friends now?” I asked.
“No. We’re allies of convenience. Those henches didn’t care who they shot.” She pointed at a bullet hole in her costume. “That makes them our enemies. Work for you?”
“Absolutely.” I started a [Thunderhead], then used [Virga] again. The healing rain kept filling our shelter even as the henches pushed harder. “Wonder why he’s not using Vs.”
[Pause for Effect! +1 Drama Point]
[Medic! +2 Cunning Points]
[HP 6/15]
“No idea.” A blast of starlight filled the whole street, ripping across it like a carpet bombing, and henches flew everywhere. The screams were ear-splitting, even over the explosions. “I’m not holding back anymore, though.”
I nodded. “I’m going airborne.” Then I [Quick-Time Changed] back into Understudy. The moment I finished, Stella-Lunar let loose with another [Sunbeam], cutting across the battlefield. I leaped into the air on [Solar Wing], getting enough altitude to avoid her ridiculously strong attacks.
[Flashy Fitting-Room! +1 Flamboyance Point]
[Rejuvenation Activated: HP 11/15]
She was right. She hadn’t been going all-out until the last minute of our fight. Now she was. The gravity shifts were almost overwhelming to fly in, even aimed well away from me. But even going all-out, not all the henches were focused on her.
I fired a [Limelight Barrage] into a group that had climbed onto the building’s roof with some kind of machine gun. They scattered like bowling pins, leaving the weapon behind, and I blasted it with a [Starlance] just in case. Then I circled the building and opened up on another pair of henches trying to flank Stella-Lunar.
[Dramatic Damage! +6 Drama Points]
The henches couldn’t possibly beat us both. They probably couldn’t even beat me at this point, much less Stella. So what were they thinking? A shot hit me, wobbling me in the air and knocking the air out of my lungs, and I gasped in a fresh breath as I dove.
[HP 9/15]
No matter how many we took out, they just kept coming. A few weren’t moving at all—was Stella killing some of them? I couldn’t tell, and I didn’t have time to find out. Another volley of gunfire ripped across the street.
Then everything went silent. A moment later, gravity reversed, throwing cars, henches, and broken rubble into the air. It slammed down with a crashing sound that filled my ears and a pressure I could feel in my skull.
Stella-Lunar had switched Forms again, this time back to Moon Form.
The battlefield went quiet except for a single pair of hands clapping. I landed on the roof next to the machine gun’s wreckage as a familiar-looking man in a suit and tie stepped onto the street. “Well done, Magical Girl Understudy. The two of you survived what should have been the perfect ambush.”
The Agent rolled up his sleeves. “So now, it’s just you, me, and my Vs.”