[Rank-Up! Freeze Frame 2: The time-stop lasts two seconds instead of one]
[Rank-Up! Starlance 2: Starlance tracks better, offering increased cornering]
[Rank-Up! Virga 2: Rain produces additional healing for allies only]
[Rank-Up! Solar Wing 2: Automatically deploy glide-wings even when not in use]
[Skill Upgrade! Leaping Leopards 1 to Pouncing Panther 1: Gain invisibility for a moment before leaping, hitting the target’s weak spots]
I had a lot of skills to deal with, and as the rolls came in, I stopped to think about each of them. [Freeze Frame’s] increased time stop was powerful; the extra second would be an eternity for making better choices and dodging even more attacks, and I was a little shocked it was a Grit power. Sure, it’d help defensively, but it had big-time offensive applications if I used it right.
The rank-up on [Starlance] could help a lot, too, but my bet was on it being a minor change that’d help it hit more but not change its usage. I was more excited about the [Solar Wing] change, which was a nice safety net—literally. And [Virga’s] upgrade—which finally made it the asymmetrical power I wanted it to be—had the potential to turn it into a game-changer. I had to keep in mind that it still healed my enemies, just not as much as friends.
But the skill upgrade from [Leaping Leopards] to [Pouncing Panther] looked disgustingly solid. Not only did it keep the original power’s two hops, but stealth for a second or two would leave my opponents even more off-balance. Would it be worth it to completely retool Copy Cat into a stealth and ambush Costume? Maybe. I’d put some thought into setting that up soon, but it definitely had the tools now.
But more pressing than that were our newfound allies. I needed to talk with them and debrief them on what we’d found—especially Tranquility. She seemed like the brains of the operation.
The Mutual Assistance League, such as it was, had moved in as soon as Fake Haze-Matt went down, and within a minute, the henches were disarmed, sitting against an outbuilding and chatting quietly about how ‘he made me.’ When one of them asked another what she’d do with her pay, I couldn’t take it anymore.
I stalked away from where War Bear and Fursona loomed over our prisoners—an intimidating duo for sure—and joined the angelic-looking Tranquility near the epicenter of our fight with Fake Haze-Matt. The chemical plant had taken a beating from our battle, and it didn’t look like it’d be open anytime soon, but I had to ask her something.
When I caught up to her, Tranquility was clearing the work floor with a golden wind that slowly blew the chemical fumes—and the solvent soaking the concrete floor—into one corner. “Hey…so, that’s done,” I said.
“Thank you. Did you figure out what you needed from it?” she asked, not bothering to look at me.
“Yes, I think so. The Third V was a shocker, though. Did you know he was in there? He almost felt like a trap specifically for me, and he was out of control.”
Tranquility stopped the wind with a wave of her hand, and the towering chemical spill she’d piled into the corner wiggled like Jell-O. It didn’t slide down and re-cover the floor, and I stared at it briefly while she talked. “No. We’d only seen henches and the Second V. And you say he was just attacking everyone?”
“No. He had Haze-Matt’s powers.” I explained The Agent’s role in everything, since if the press knew, there wasn’t any need to keep it from potential allies.
As I talked, she nodded thoughtfully and continued touch-up cleaning, adding gallons of liquid to the already towering pile of undulating water. “That should do until a proper clean-up crew can get here. It’ll be a mess if it lets go early, though. I’ll ask War Bear to put in an emergency clean-up request. Maybe we can MIRACLE this area or something.”
“Yeah. One of the mooks said something about this being the only job he could get in-district.”
“That’s a pretty common reason these poor people go hench,” Tranquility said sadly. “Some of the districts got left behind. The Poudre Districts aren’t Thornton levels of bad, but they’re not doing well, and that’s part of why War Bear and I decided to start the Mutual Assistance League here.”
This all sounded like an elevator pitch she’d given a dozen times—or a hundred—but I let her roll through it. I’d met a lot of superheroes in my career, but she seemed like one of the first who really, truly cared about the people she was supposedly fighting for, and as she talked about economic depression, revitalization, and how most henches weren’t the problem but the symptoms of one, I started to realize she really believed what she was saying. She sounded a lot like The Narrator got when she talked about her kids.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
After a minute, I nodded slowly. “We should catch up sometime when I’ve finished dealing with The Agent, Tranquility. But right now, I’ve got to get back to my hide-out and start planning my next move.”
“Your next move. I see a problem with that, though,” she said as sirens screamed into the night. She flapped her wings and hopped up to the top of the building, then waited while I flew up. She pointed down at the police, then at the cars following them, and I groaned. Were they media, APPEAL, or something else?
“The police won’t be able to hold Fake Haze-Matt, and when they let him go, he’ll talk to 3V1L about what happened. Do you have a plan for that? Because if you don’t, you’d better act quickly on whatever information he gave you.”
I shook my head. “No. I’ll go talk to the cops and see if they’ll take him to Almhurst for a while. They did that with my…old rival, a sort of protective custody until they could move him home.”
“Okay.” The sirens were closing in, and Tranquility nodded and held out her hand. I shook it, and she continued. “You’d better go manage the police, then. And your fans.”
With a groan, I took off and landed near the first blue-and-red set of lights. Sure enough, it wasn’t just the police or the media; how my fans had found me, I had no idea, but it was going to be a long afternoon.
----------------------------------------
Saturday, January 2
- - - - -
I stood in Almhurst Penitentiary’s entry, staring at the green-caped, goggle-clad hero behind the desk with an incredulous look on my face. “What do you mean you can’t hold him?”
“What we mean is that your hench in a suit doesn’t meet the legal definition of a superhero anymore now that his powers are gone, and he’s got connections with lawyers who represent some very powerful villains and know how to play the game,” he said. He flipped through some paperwork, obviously trying to end the conversation. "So we can’t hold him.”
Fursona wouldn’t take no for an answer, though. “Listen, we’re trying to hunt a serious business villain and get him off the streets before he kills again, and—“
“Blah blah blah,” the hero said. “Listen, someone like Haze-Matt? Sure, we could keep him. He was a danger to himself and everyone around him. Someone like that kid we had in here last year? Yeah, he wouldn’t survive a trip back to his hometown, so it’s easy to hold him here. But this guy’s a mook. He wouldn’t last three days in here.”
“So give us two.”
“No.”
The industrial orange smell was oppressive—probably something the chemical plant had made—and I could hardly think as the desk hero’s goggles slowly moved from me to the monitors he was…monitoring. “If that’s all your business here, I’m going to have to ask you to leave. Almhurst doesn’t typically do guest visits, and especially not on release days.”
I groaned, rubbing my eyes. “Please help us. We need twenty-four hours. Can you give us that, at least?”
His gaze shifted to me, and he fiddled with his keyboard, sighing. “I can send you to see The Warden, but that’s all I can do. If anyone has a solution, it’s him. But he won’t be happy to see you, and he won’t bend the rules. He never does.”
“We’ll see about that,” Fursona grumbled.
“Thank you,” I said, nodding. “Which way?”
“Upstairs, two rights, then a left. Follow the arrow. The remote will only get you into the doors you need. Don’t try anything else, or you’ll see The Warden in a way you don’t want.”
“Thanks,” I said again.
He nodded and went back to staring at his computer. Was he playing a game or monitoring the building’s security? I couldn’t tell, and I didn’t care. All I cared about was getting to our meeting with The Warden.
We climbed the steel stairs, following the desk hero’s directions very carefully. The arrow on our remote led us through a maze of white, corporate-looking hallways, and we eventually arrived at an office door. My hand had almost touched the steel handle when it sprang open, revealing a room filled with computer screens. Almost all of them showed different angles of Almhurst’s obviously extensive security network, and they flicked through loops so quickly I could barely see each camera angle.
But the biggest monitor displayed a digital face. Its lips moved uncannily like a person’s, and its green-gray eyes pierced mine unblinkingly. “Magical Girl Understudy and Fursona, here about Prisoner 8343563, formerly the Third V,” it said in a digital drawl.
I nodded. “Are you The Warden?”
“I am. You’re trying to extend a prisoner’s incarceration extralegally. Why?”
Fursona cleared her throat. “Because he’s given us information that only helps us hunt down The Agent if he doesn’t know he’s given it to us. If the hench confesses, our fight in South Poudre will have been for nothing.”
“Not nothing. Your fight removed several henches from the streets for a couple of days and gave the Mutual Assistance League help when they needed it.” The electronic voice interrupted. “The Mutual Assistance League has a history of excellent post-conflict action, but lacks the firepower to win the battle first.”
Some of the screens flicked through old news stories about the Mutual Assistance League’s best efforts in the Poudre District, mostly against old 3V1L, and their post-Episode actions. The attempts at bettering the district, their work finding employment for former henches, and so on—they’d been busy, but they’d rarely outright won, even when they had a whole league.
The voice continued over them. “Thanks to you, they can focus on what they do best: fixing the district. And if I’m lucky, there will be fewer henches from the Poudre districts filling my temporary holding cells.”
“So, will you help us?”
“No.”
I wanted to cry. I needed to get moving, though, because if The Warden couldn’t—or wouldn’t—help us, we had hours before Fake Haze-Matt got released and tipped off the rest of 3V1L. But I couldn’t move. The TV screen face stared at me piercingly.
“However, I will tell you that he’s due to be released in two hours, so if you want to do something, now is the time.”
I nodded as the door popped open, and all the screens went blank. Then, I headed for the door. It wasn’t much. We’d have to go today, and go quickly. But already, a plan was forming in my head. We’d run an Investigative Episode, then try to parley that into a real one—one that’d end with us squaring off against The Agent. Hopefully, he wouldn’t have henches with him, but that seemed unlikely.
As we stepped through the door and back into Almhurst’s quiet administrative hallways, The Warden spoke again.
“Thank you for helping Tranquility. She means the world to me. And thank you for your super service.”