[The Righteous Cause: Act One in Progress]
Fursona and I walked toward the construction zone, on alert for the ubiquitous 3V1L henches and maybe even a V or two. This was it—hopefully, there’d be someone who knew something about The Agent’s whereabouts, and we could get started on tracking him down.
“Plan?” I asked my partner.
“I don’t have one. We’ll just hit fast and hard. We’re both fresh and ready for this, right?”
“Right.”
The MoonTech chemical plant wasn’t the biggest one in South Poudre—at least, not yet. But the sprawling construction around the existing tanks and pipework left no doubt about the company’s intentions. A sign on the broken chain-link fence said that MoonTech was striving to be North America’s biggest supplier of industrial lubricants and cleaning supplies, and that this construction would bring up to one thousand jobs to the Poudre Districts.
The plant itself was still operational; either that, or the whole area around it was permanently acid-scented now. I pointed toward its tangle of smokestacks, tanks, and pipes. “I bet we’ll find whoever’s in charge there. The Mutual Assistance League should be nearby, but they’ll just hold the line and keep anyone from getting behind us.”
BANG!
Before I could keep strategizing, a gun fired. It sounded louder than the pistols 3V1L’s henches used and came from behind us. A window exploded at the chemical plant’s office. “That’s our cue!” Fursona yelled, hopping into the active construction zone.
I followed her, and a chrome camera drone followed me, but I hadn’t even gotten halfway in when a whole crane-load of steel I-beams plummeted from the sky and crashed into the ground, knocking me aside even though they missed.
[HP 12/13]
I whirled as rumbling sounds filled the construction yard. “They’re in the machines!” I yelled as a bulldozer crested a hill and lurched toward Fursona. She hopped its blade and landed on top of the machine’s cab; I saw her swing into it feet-first, but then a backhoe’s bucket spun toward me, and I had to duck. I fired a [Starlance], which punched into the machine’s windshield, cracking it.
[Dramatic Damage! +1 Drama Point]
The driver stopped the massive machine and leaped free just before it could fall into an exposed foundation pit. I was already running toward the steel skeleton of a new warehouse, firing another [Starlance] at a hench with a welding torch. The pink-and-blue bolt of energy hit the man in the chest. A moment later, he fell into the foundation.
[Dramatic Damage! +1 Drama Point]
But the whole battlefield was chaos already. There were a dozen yellow-painted construction machines. The whole place was a maze of wet concrete, exposed rebar, and open trenches half-filled with wires and pipes, and the henches—
Something hit me in the shoulder and knocked me to the ground. I rolled into the foundation, following the already-surrendering henchman.
[HP 11/13]
But I didn’t have time to deal with him. I used [Solar Wing] and threw myself back into the air, where the tower crane was already picking up another load of steel girders. The camera drone followed me, and I reached the huge machine’s cockpit in just a moment. I landed above it, magical wings retracting, and pulled the door open.
The familiar mask of a V greeted me, along with the swirl of a red cape. A moment later, he was outside the tower crane, on top of its huge metal arm, with a crossbow in one hand and a metal shield in the other.
I looped around and joined him. “You’re copying Crossbow?”
“I don’t even know who that is,” The V shot back. “I’m the Second V.”
“Never mind. Of course you don’t know.” I leaped toward him, then froze mid-air, spinning and firing a [Limelight Barrage] toward him.
[Dramatic Damage! +2 Drama Points]
The first ray missed. So did the second, and he ate the third with his shield. But the last two punched into him one after the other, and I was already dodging the expected crossbow bolt. I didn’t expect a second one right after it, though, and only [Quick-Time Change] and [Freeze Frame] saved me. I landed, already shifted into Copy Cat; if he wanted to play the ranged villain, I’d be melee.
[Flashy Fitting-Room! +1 Flamboyance Point]
[Steel Yourself! +1 Grit Point]
The mind-meld between Tails and I finished, and my two tails flicked out to help me balance as I charged toward the Second V, a hundred fifty feet in the air. Below me, Fursona was kicking ass—literally. She booted a hench out of a dump truck, tail-slammed another, and leaped out of the way of a slow-moving steam-roller.
Then I hit the Second V. I immediately [Doom Balled], clamping my limbs around him and scratching through his cloak and costume until little lines of blood appeared. He slammed me with his shield, but I was a cat—and also protected by [Fursonal Furcefield]—and the blow didn’t knock me completely off the crane.
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[Badass Damage! +4 Badass Points]
[Tough Kitty! +1 Grit Point]
He backed off and fired another bolt; this one punched into my chest, and the armor didn’t stop it. I stepped back half a foot to absorb the blow, and my foot slipped. And just like that, I was hanging above the battlefield, scrambling for purchase as the V walked confidently toward me. “I guess this is where the One L’s thirst for revenge ends,” he gloated, looming over me.
[HP 9/13]
I reached up and slashed his foot with [Cat-Scratch Fever].
[Dramatic Damage! +1 Drama Point]
He recoiled, staggering away from me as I pulled myself back up onto the crane. His shield dropped onto the crane, then bounced away toward the construction zone below as he clutched his eyes, shouting something I couldn’t understand. For a second, I thought about pressing my advantage. Now was the time, after all. But instead, I lunged forward and grabbed his stupid cape.
He struggled, but I had a few uninterrupted seconds without his vision. I tripped him, slamming him shoulder-first onto the crane, and kicked out at his crossbow until he dropped it. Then I started yelling at him. “Crossbow? Seriously?”
“I still don’t know who that is!” he yelled back.
“God dammit, stay here. I’ll be back for you!” I stepped away, running to the other side of the crane. [Cat-Scratch Fever’s] damage over time and status effect would keep him down, and he didn’t have his weapons, either. Then I slow-transformed back to Understudy.
The rest of the fight was down below.
As soon as I finished my transformation sequence, I leaped off the crane, trusting [Solar Wing] to catch me on the way down. I landed on a hench with my full weight, using [Spotlight Strike] to smash through his point of superhero damage before he could pull the trigger on his cheap-looking pistol. It still went off when it hit the ground, burying its bullet in wet concrete.
[Stylish Strike! +1 Flamboyance Point]
Then, it was a whirlwind of henches with construction tools.
I punched one in the face, took a shovel to the shoulder, and [Starlanced] one who came at me with a goddamn jackhammer. What he thought he’d accomplish staggering toward me with that heavy thing, I couldn’t say, but luckily, the heavy power tool’s engine landed on him when he hit the ground, not the chisel.
[Dramatic Damage! +1 Drama Point]
[Badass Takedown! +1 Badass Point]
Then Fursona erupted from a pile of henches. I hadn’t even seen her under there, but when the first hench went flying a dozen feet in the air and hit the ground next to me, I realized that not only was she swarmed, but she was handling it just fine.
I launched myself back into the air, strafing the battlefield with [Starlance] and taking out one hench who’d taken a position up high in the construction’s metal frame with a gun. He screamed on the way down to the ground, just like in the movies.
[Dramatic Damage! +1 Drama Point]
The battlefield was quiet-ish for a second; machines’ engines were still rumbling, but no one was fighting. Fursona breathed heavily enough that I could hear it without my earpiece, and her suit was covered in dirt, wet concrete, and water. She grinned. “Good to be back at it, huh?”
“Yeah. Yeah, it’s good.”
Something hit the ground below me and lunged toward the crossbow. His red cape was stretched out like a parachute, and as he hit the ground, he rolled toward me, reloaded in one smooth motion, and fired.
As the bolt zipped toward me, I had just enough time to realize that I hadn’t seen any notifications about the damage over time part of [Cat-Scratch Fever].
Then it exploded.
A dozen darts slammed into me, knocking me out of the air before I could dodge or transform. I hit the ground, rolling as tiny strings wrapped around me, pinning my arms to my sides. When the rolls stopped, I started pulling against the tiny strings. They were parting, yes, but not fast enough.
[HP 6/13]
Ten strings left. Five. Too late. The Second V loomed over me, but this time, from farther away. He loaded his crossbow and pulled the string back. Then he took aim—
WHAM!
The full weight of a Bianca-sized plushie kangaroo smashed him into a patch of wet concrete. His crossbow bolt launched and clattered into the unfinished building, then exploded, this time in a fiery blast. I freed myself and launched back into the air with [Solar Wing]. Fursona had the Second V in hand, but interference from the henches could tip the balance.
So, as his minions surged toward the fight, I landed between my partner and the oncoming construction henches.
I blasted the first two with [Starlances], but they were moving fast, and I needed something with more stopping power, so as the first shovel headed for my…head…I used [Quick-Time Change] and [Freeze Frame]. As the blade passed through my skull like it wasn’t there, I did the Itsy Bitsy Spider. Rainy Day’s weather-themed Costume formed around my sixth-grade self, and I opened my eyes with a flash of lightning.
[Flashy Fitting-Room! +1 Flamboyance Point]
[Steel Yourself! +1 Grit Point]
I was already building up a storm with [Thunderhead], but it wouldn’t finish fast enough, so I pushed the whole group of burly, masked construction workers with [Wind Front]. They tumbled backward, and I bought myself and Fursona a few seconds.
[Pause for Effect! +1 Drama Point]
[Badass Move! +1 Badass Point]
They were already picking themselves up, though, and the storm wasn’t done forming. It crackled overhead, but was I going to have enough time? I wasn’t sure. I had one more transformation, but no real powerhouse moves left. So I backed up, all five foot zero inches of me, as the towering construction henches rushed me again.
They’d almost reached me when I [Rode the Lightning].
[Thunderstruck! +1 Drama Point]
[Electric Lightshow! +1 Flamboyance Point]
As the tendril of lightning ripped through the first hench, the others paused for a moment. Then one in the back turned and ran, and I smiled, already [Quick-Time Changing] into Understudy.
[Flashy Fitting-Room! +1 Flamboyance Point]
[Rejuvenation Activated! HP 11/13]
Fursona was wrapping up her fight with the Second V, I only had a half-dozen henches left to deal with, and the whole battlefield was under control except for the water leaks, idling machines, and—
CRASH!
—something that hit me like a truck.
It wasn’t a truck, though. As I folded around the machine’s engine block, conflicting emotions went through my head: anger, disbelief, and a little bit of fear.
Then my head tried—and failed—to go through the white van’s windshield at the same time as its brakes squealed. I hit the ground and, thankfully, rolled down into a pit that was half-filled with water. The van lurched to a stop, hazards flashing.
[HP 9/13]