[Shock Value: Act Two in Progress]
Fursona hadn’t shown herself by the time the second act started. I wasn’t sure where she was, but that didn’t worry me at all. Part of the plan was to make it look as real as possible, from the fight with Honeycomb and Vigilant Vow to my facial expressions when my partner-turned-foil attacked me.
So, instead of looking around trying to find her, I decided to cause some mayhem.
The first building was about a block from the Hot Zone’s border—conveniently, the fight with the little league heroes had pushed me right to an abandoned apartment complex. The building towered over me, four stories of broken windows and chipped, faded paint over cinderblocks. A few dead plants clung to its sides, and browned weeds poked through the thin layer of snow.
It’d be perfect.
I started charging [Wallshocker]. This was the move that had blown up the bank in my mom’s first Episode. I’d read it and immediately realized that a weakly-charged version would be fine, but a bigger one could very easily level a building. That was what had happened to her unintentionally.
That was what I was trying to do now.
As power coursed through me, I couldn’t help but start laughing. Tails stared at me, and I could tell that if she was TA-1LZ, she’d be warning me about an impending villainous breakdown. But I didn’t care. This was the way—the first step in…something. I hadn’t fully decided what, and right now, all I could focus on was the blue-white lightning building in me.
I had to let it go. I had to hang on another couple of seconds. I couldn’t.
The lightning ripped out of me and blasted into the wall. The fragmented glass and plywood covering empty window frames gave out first, bursting into the building like they’d been hit by a three-ton hammer. The destruction was incredible; even [Limelight Barrage] didn’t usually hit this hard. I couldn’t stop laughing, holding my hands up like a mad scientist.
But it was only starting. The electricity poured out of me, and the lowest row of cinderblocks began glowing.
I decided I’d listen, just this once. But I also wanted to see it go up, so I took cover behind a nearby car that sat on its rims, tires long since rotted away.
The building seemed to collapse outward. Cinderblocks started falling into the street, and I stared at the countless tons of weight hovering overhead as Tails kept running. Then, blue-white light filled the air, and the whole thing collapsed inward. Shattering blocks filled the air with sharp fragments that bounced off the car and blew out windows all along the block; it sounded like Theseus’s machine gun going off, combined with the roar of MoonTech’s fuel tanks exploding.
And it didn’t stop for almost a minute. When it finally tapered off, my chest hurt from laughing, and I was covered in dust that I brushed casually off my shoulder. “That was fun!” I said. And it was. I’d rarely been a villain, and only for a little while at a time. The only other time had been helping Gourmet out, and Ramsey Fieri barely counted.
But this? Giving myself willingly to a full breakdown? This was fun.
[Devastating Demolition! +5 Flamboyance Points]
And it paid? This was—
“Never fear! The Justice-Lizard’s here! Throw down your arms, evildoer, and surrender!”
Fursona’s Kaiju costume stomped out of the dust, eye stalks bobbing up and down as she squared up. I grinned. “You’re right on time, hero! Right on time…to lose!”
I used [Blitz] to close the distance before the bulky suit could react, slamming into her at full speed and knocking her backward. Then, as her tail whipped toward me, I ducked, sliding across the rubble-strewn asphalt and letting it shred my tights around the knees.
[Badass Damage! +1 Badass Point]
I’d hit her, sure, but she looked like she’d barely even noticed. Her flame breath washed over me, and I felt the heat sizzling my superhero damage away. I backpedaled, wishing I had a better ranged damage loadout for handling her.
[HP 7/14]
“Hey, don’t forget the goal,” she said over my earpiece. I’d forgotten I was even wearing that; honestly, I wasn’t sure I cared about the goal anymore. A superhero was trying to stop me from my rightful reign of terror over this district. This was mine; Power War rules said so!
Her arm went up, and I followed its outstretched claw as it pointed over my shoulder. There, far away to the south, a reddish haze was slowly filling the air. “Everything’s working. Make this look good.”
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“Oh, so you’re going to try to trick me!” I shouted, using [Shock and Awww] to send a brutal shockwave across the ground. It knocked her off her feet, but not anywhere near as far as the little leaguers and their familiars. Not anywhere near as far away as I needed her, either.
[Dramatic Damage! +1 Drama Point]
Worse, I’d only gotten one point. As she recovered and slammed her clawed fists into the ground—sending her own shockwave my way—I used [Live Wire Limit Break]. The extra speed in my wire-wrapped limbs and my brain gave me one way out from the slow-motion pulse.
[Good Thinking! +1 Cunning Point]
I jumped. High. And backward. My feet hit the still-shaking ground, and I recovered, then backed away from the dinosaur filling my vision. She hadn’t even used the juice box yet—I knew, because she was supposed to use it at a specific point in the fight—but she was still kicking my butt. A claw slammed into me. Then another. The impacts threw me south toward the open lot next to the Hot Zone.
[HP 5/14]
I was almost there. But I couldn’t take these kinds of hits.
As Kaiju-Sona charged, I kept up the [Live Wire Limit Break], using it to escape from the furious, fursuited superhero. A pair of camera drones—one of hers, one I didn’t recognize—followed her. And the moment I had enough distance, I started charging another [Wallshocker].
The power charged.
So did Kaiju-Sona.
I wasn’t sure what she was even trying to do. Was she trying to stop me? Or just make a show of things? From my perspective as a villain, I couldn’t be sure. But what I could be sure of was that the three abandoned buildings nearby would put a stop to any real aggression she had.
The [Wallshocker] fired.
[Devastating Demolition! +5 Flamboyance Points]
◄▼►
For a moment—one brief, empty moment filled only with the ecstasy of victory and the agony of loss—I thought I’d killed Fursona. The abandoned apartments fell on her, burying her under a hundred tons of bricks and concrete, and it was all I could do to [Blitz] away from the chaos.
The dust cleared. The sounds of shattering walls stopped. And all I could see along Fitch Street was a pile of rubble that had to be five feet thick, or maybe ten.
Then, something started rumbling in the midst of the devastation.
The rumbling turned into a roar, and I took a step back. Then another. The ruins swelled like a bubble. Then…
The bubble popped.
Kaiju-Sona’s full form erupted from the ground, roaring a jet of flame that lit up the entire district and almost—almost—rivaled whatever Fanfic was doing across the city. I took three more steps back; she wouldn’t stop growing! And then, as her massive, googly-eyed head turned toward me, I turned tail and ran.
There was no way I could take her. I’d just used my most powerful move. And I hadn’t gotten three steps when the rhythmic stomping of her chase filled me with horror. I glanced over my shoulder.
She wasn’t fast. Her legs churned so much slower than mine. But one lumbering stride covered the same distance for every ten steps I took. I couldn't extend my lead even with [Live Wire Limit Break] going.
“Hey, don’t forget, run toward the Hot Zone!” Bianca shouted in my earpiece. “We need to stick to the script!”
Right. The script. Control flooded over me. I wasn’t a villain—not really. I was just playing one on TV. And now that Fursona had used her giant form, we had a limited time to execute the plan. So I kept running but turned toward the Ilneats’ enclave within Tokyexico.
Not that I stopped fighting, though.
As Fursona’s massive tail thrashed through the air, I used [Grounding] and allowed the impact to disperse across the network of wires enclosing my body. It hurt, but not like it should have. I could totally tank like…two more of those hits. Maybe three, if I didn’t mind losing all my superhero damage!
[True Grit! +1 Grit Point]
[HP 3/14]
I [Blitzed] away from my partner, bouncing off her leg as I dashed. The impact knocked her aside—by a couple of millimeters, maybe. Then I was out of range again, flames licking at my costume’s backside.
[Badass Damage! +1 Badass Point]
Then, there it was.
The Hot Zone.
I’d been in it dozens of times, meeting with Rocko, and I’d seen it from the pinnacle of the Tokyexico Council of Heroes’ building. But this close, and on the ground, it gave off an entirely different feeling.
The snow had melted all around it in a massive circle extending fifty feet around the border. The buildings on the other side were also different: low warehouses and the occasional spike-like, windowless skyscraper. And, of course, the heat beat down on me, made worse by Fursona’s flame breath, which she still hadn’t shut off.
I backpedaled yet again. “Okay, ‘hero,’ time for my stand!”
“If you’re making a stand, stand still!” Bianca yelled in my earpiece. “We need to make an impact here, and I can’t do that if you’re running away!”
I complied. It hurt to comply with a hero, but if I had to cooperate with one, at least it was her. But that didn’t mean I was going down without a fight. I used [Grounding] to root myself in place and take the inevitable hit, then started charging my last [Wallshocker] of the second act.
Fursona’s massive bulk slammed down into me, her foot trying to crush me like a bug, and I resisted the urge to scream. Everything went clear through the villainous breakdown. This was the moment we’d set up the entire Episode for.
[True Grit! +1 Grit Point]
[HP 1/14]
In the distance, I could see Vigilant Vow’s familiars returning to the fight, and overhead, Honeycomb buzzed her way toward me. I was going to lose. And that was okay because I was also going to win. The goal was in sight.
[Wallshocker] went off, the rippling blue-white lightning coursing through Fursona and disintegrating the two familiars. Buildings tumbled around the empty lot we’d meticulously chosen as our entry point into the Hot Zone. An alarm blared in the distance, and dust filled the air.
[Devastating Damage! +5 Flamboyance Points]
When it cleared, devastation surrounded us. Between Fursona’s rampage and my [Wallshocker], we’d hit the Hot Zone’s border as hard as we could. Electricity still coursed through the air overhead.
But we’d missed something.
The Hot Zone was intact.