The Hot Zone hadn’t even noticed my [Wallshocker].
The blue-white lightning from the power rippled up an invisible barrier along the border, less than a foot away from me. It surged back and forth, and it was disgustingly clear that our plan had failed to consider one crucial detail. I remembered back to the Holding the Bagge Episode, and Professor Eustace Bagges, the Ilneat professor Monologue had tried to kidnap last year.
He’d ignored most powers that Episode.
So, of course—of course—we’d failed to remember that. And we hadn’t even considered that the Hot Zone might have some crazy alien force field. But if that was the case, how did Extras get in and out to do the maintenance work and stuff the Ilneats needed? I’d watched them go in and out from the Council of Heroes building after my first fight with Stella-Lunar. Was the shield down sometimes? Maybe we’d just timed this badly.
Everything was quiet outside of the Hot Zone for a moment, though I could hear the alarm howling away inside. A brick overbalanced and tipped, clattering down a wall of rubble. And I stared at Fursona.
“I think we’ve lost this one,” Bianca said in my ear-piece. I couldn’t respond verbally, so I nodded. “Play along. We’ll reset and try again after we figure out what to do about that.”
I nodded again.
“Evildoer, it’s time to face the music!” Full Kaiju Fursona shouted. Then she roared a flaming breath my way and stomped forward.
I was getting really tired of taking falls, though. I’d lost to Theseus specifically to force her to use all her power to beat him, but that didn’t mean I had to lose this Episode. So, as the flames ripped toward me, I used [Blitz] and ducked between the massive Kaiju’s legs.
[Badass Move! +1 Badass Point]
“I can’t win,” I yelled back, echoing Honeycomb’s battle cry earlier, “but I can not lose!”
A glob of honey hit the ground next to me, and I spun, activating [Live Wire Limit Break] to get more speed. My plan at this point was pretty simple. I needed to get rid of either Vigilant Vow or Honeycomb, then draw out the fight against Kaiju-Sona until she burned all her sugar fuel. And to do that, I’d need to slow her down.
[Good Thinking! +1 Cunning Point]
So, as Honeycomb dove toward me with her flower skirt fluttering in the wind behind her, I used a fast [Shock and Awww]. The burst wasn’t as powerful as a partially-charged [Wallshocker], but it tossed her through a boarded-up window, and I followed a moment later.
[Dramatic Damage! +1 Drama Point]
She was just getting up and turning when I used [Blitz] to quickly knock her back down, then pummeled her into submission with a series of speedy blows. The moment her hands went over her head, I stopped; just because she didn’t know who I was didn’t mean I wanted to be responsible for breaking her. But I needed her down and out. “Sorry about this,” I said.
[Badass Damage! +3 Badass Points]
“Sorry about what?”
I punched her in the nose. Hard. She went limp. Then I shouted out toward the hulking Kaiju and three familiars that Vigilant Vow had summoned. “Your ally’s down and my hostage.”
Kaiju-Sona roared, and for a moment, I thought I’d lose the Episode right there. But then she shrank down with an almost deafening yawn, returning to her normal size to stand next to a furious-looking Vigilant Vow. “What are your terms, then?”
I’d already gotten what I wanted; it was unlikely Fursona had the juice to keep fighting after being Full Kaiju for so long, and with Honeycomb down, I could negotiate this into a draw. “Simple. I hand the bee girl to your ally, he leaves with her, and we keep fighting.”
The kaiju’s googly eyes bobbed as Fursona nodded. I almost sighed in relief, but one of the camera drones had its lens on me. Instead, I laughed a little for show. “Good choice, ‘heroes.’ I’ll bring her to the window. You wait one minute and then take her.”
The second I had her propped up against the wall for Vigilant Vow to grab, I retreated into the building. Abandoned armchairs lined the walls, and the carpet had long since rotted away, but clearly, this had once been a decent place to live. Still, I needed some space, and I needed to make sure I wasn’t being followed. Not by either of the heroes and definitely not by any camera drones.
Once I was finally far enough away that I figured it’d be safe, I started a Transformation Sequence and switched over to Magical Girl Understudy. It hurt to throw away a possible win, but control was coming back, and right now, the priority was getting clear before someone investigated the alarm and the attack on the Hot Zone’s shield generator. And, unfortunately, that meant taking the L.
Stolen novel; please report.
It didn’t take long to fly back over with Solar Wing and land next to the exhausted-looking plushie Kaiju. “Sorry I’m late. It took me a while to get across town. Did you beat the vil you were after?”
“No. No, she, uh, got away,” Fursona said, not looking at the camera drones.
“Oh.” I made a show of disappointment, thankful for my high school acting career. “Do you think you can help hunt her down?”
“No. I’m drained. I had her, though. It was the craziest fight I’ve been in in…a week or two, I guess? Probably on par with the Grant Building Dogpile for destruction, and for her to survive a three vs. one? That’s one tough vil. I hope I don’t have to fight her again.”
There was subtext there, which meant that there’d be more than just subtext later. I wasn’t getting a lecture, but I already knew what Bianca would say once her suit was off. That Shock and Awe was dangerous. That her powers shouldn’t be used without a lot of thought. “Come on, then. Let’s get you home. Some other hero will have to deal with her.”
“Are you sure? I could figure out a way…” Fursona yawned, and I raised my eyebrow at her below my mask. “…to get home myself so you could take the fight to her. You’re fresh. If you found her, she’d be finished.”
“No, you’re beat. Let’s go.” I pulled her in front of me and took off on my magical sailboard, leaving pink and blue contrails behind in the evening sky.
[Episode Canceled: Power War: Shock Value]
[Alias - Understudy] [Archetype - Magical Girl] [Community Rank - 155/523]
[HP 1/14]
[Styles and Skills]
►Archetype Skill - Transformation Sequence
►Combo Skills - Power-Weaving
►Badass (42)
►Cunning (34)
►Drama (31)
► Limelight Barrage 2
► Starlance 2
►Flamboyance (66) (Skill Roll Available)
►Signature Skill - Adaptive Armoire 3
►Stored Costumes: (Rainy Day, Copy Cat, Lab Assistant Panic)
►Solar Wing 2
► Quick-Time Change 3
► Improvised Ovation 1
►Grit (28)
► Freeze Frame 2
[50 Flamboyance Credits Used. Rolling Skill!]
[Rank-Up! Wallshocker 3 > Wallshocker 4: Damage to buildings extends farther from the epicenter.]
----------------------------------------
“Fuck!” I swore as we flopped onto the Green Room’s couch. The TV was off, and neither of us went for the remote. Over in the corner, the computer monitors had been turned off; they’d been off for over a day because neither of us wanted to work on 3V1L right now.
Maybe that had been a mistake.
Maybe we should have stayed on target. If we’d just kept working on tracking down The Agent, we’d probably have made progress. Maybe we’d even have pinned him down by now, somewhere where he couldn’t just vanish into thin air. It was just so damn frustrating; we couldn’t make progress on anything. I wanted to scream. I wanted to cry.
Part of the crying was the growing headache, which was why I wasn’t screaming. It had started building as we flew home, hitting like a hurricane before I could get to the ibuprofen. And now that I was here, it had me fully in its grip. I was supposed to be making phone calls. Instead, I sat on the couch, looking dejectedly at the turned-off monitors over my shoulder. “So, that went pretty badly.”
“Yeah. Do we want to do a postmortem on it? Could be helpful.” Bee asked. She was mostly out of her Kaiju-Sona suit and looking exhausted, but unlike her last two Full Kaiju appearances, we’d taken precautions, and she had a glass of juice in her hands—and the whole pitcher on the conversation pit’s coffee table. She looked a strange combination of sad, tired, and relieved as she sipped her orange juice.
I nodded slowly, holding back frustrated tears and shutting my eyes to keep even the Green Room’s well-balanced light out. “We didn’t do the right research. We should have known what the Hot Zone’s defenses were like, but we assumed we’d be able to waltz right in. That was a mistake. If we try again, we need to be better informed.”
“Okay, sure, but what went well?” Bee asked. “I haven’t psychologied you in a while, but it seems like you need it here. Positive thinking and growth. So, what did we do well that we could capitalize on later?”
“Uh,” I said, stalling. From my perspective, the whole thing had been a disaster right from the time…
“Oh, right. Bringing in Vigilant Vow and Honeycomb helped set up the stakes and made Shock and Awe feel like a serious threat.” Once I’d gotten started, I found other positives. “The finish let me not lose to Kaiju-Sona, which was good for me emotionally. We picked a great place to bring Shock and Awe; she’s too destructive to use anywhere else, but Thornton being almost completely empty was perfect. You got to win a solo-ish Episode. Kind of.”
“Yeah, those are all good, but even the finish wasn’t a complete waste of time. We learned something useful about the Hot Zone. Now, we just have to figure out how to use it.”
“Or if we even want to use it.” I massaged my face. “Look, we took a shot. It didn’t work. Now, we need to cover our butts for a bit. That means not putting ourselves out there as enemies to the studios, at least not any more than we already are.”
Bee’s hand rested on my knee, and I cracked open my eyes to look at her. She had a worried expression on her face. “Costume got you whooped? I get that, believe me. Kaiju-sona does it to me every time.”
“No, I don’t think so. I probably just need to sleep it off. Feels like a hangover.” I stood up. “It hurts behind my eyes.”
“I hate that. Yeah, go to bed. I’ll take care of any evidence in the Green Room. We can go deal with the Outback Stakeout House tomorrow.”
“No, there’s one thing we need to take care of before I can go to bed, and that’s Rocko. We need to make sure they know our story, and it’d be best coming from me,” I said.
“Yeah, the part of the plan where you have an alibi for not being there. You were at, what? Shakespeare Club?”
“That’s right.” I pulled my phone, turned it on, and winced. The bright blue light hurt to look at, and I could feel a tear working its way down my face.
Then Bee’s hand closed over it. “Go. To. Bed. I’ll make the call.”
“Thanks,” I whispered as she kissed my forehead. I turned to head for my bed, with Bee following me as I went, orange juice in one hand and my phone in the other. She watched as I stripped down, changed into pajamas, and brushed my teeth, wincing the whole time. Then she tucked me into bed—for a moment, it irritated me, but then I remembered I’d done the same thing to her when she’d been exhausted after being Full Kaiju the first time.
“If you need anything, let me know. Otherwise, I’ll be back in here in a minute or two,” Bianca said from the door. Then it clicked shut, leaving me in blissful darkness. I barely even thought about the canceled Episode. Instead, my eyes squeezed shut, and by the time Bee joined me, I was too asleep to notice.