66 - Professor Panic's Lair

“…and the itsy bitsy spider went up the spout again!”

Fursona laughed as I transformed into my Rainy Day Costume. “You ready, Squirt?”

“Yeah, yeah, make fun of the kid,” I said. “Let’s go.”

Fursona led the way down the stairs into the Tokyexico University Engineering and Applied Sciences building. We’d agreed that having two melee-focused superheroes in such tight quarters didn’t make sense, and even though [Bit-Part Barrage] was extremely powerful, I’d built Rainy Day for this exact situation. My wand had shifted, turning blue aquamarine instead of its usual pinkish tourmaline.

It wasn’t just that Fursona was tougher than me, or more suited for melee fighting. I let jer lead for another reason; she knew where to go. Since she’d been here before, I just followed her down the hall and over to…a maintenance closet? “Are there any maintenance doors on campus that aren’t secret lairs?”

“I bet most of them are real. The maintenance and custodial people need to work, right?” Fursona turned the handle. It didn’t move, and she shook her head. “I figured it’d be locked, but you’ve gotta try, right?”

“Right. So now wha—“

Crash!

I flinched as Fursona kicked the door on its hinges. It twisted, the hinges’ screws tearing out of the frame. She kicked it again. The whole thing ripped free this time, slamming into the ground with a screeching, thudding sound.

I glared at her, arms on my hips. “A little warning next time?”

She laughed. “Sure, Squirt. This is the right door. The lights were red last time, though.”

Sure enough, the ‘maintenance room’ behind it was instead a long, dim tunnel lit by a few green-tinted lightbulbs. Fursona pushed inside, shaking her head. “Your ex has style.”

“Shut up.” She was right, though. Professor Panic had always known how to set a scene. I couldn’t help but approve of the green lights; they flooded the room, Fursona’s suit, and my skin a sickly pallor. It felt sinister. Intimidating.

Evil.

God damn, he was good at this.

“THE MAD PROFESSOR GAVE HER A GIFT!

BUT SHE NEVER FINISHED IT, NOW HE’S QUITE MIFFED!”

“Behind us!” I didn’t have time to squeeze past the half-unhinged door as the Panic Pal swarm rushed me. Their tiny arms flailed around, pounding on me, and one bit my shoulder, teeth gnashing into the Rainy Day Costume’s poofy sleeve. At least they weren’t swearing at us.

[HP 4/7]

Fursona started to push back through the door, but a steel wall slammed down between us before she could. I had just enough time to read the sticker on the wall—‘Professor Panic’s Portable Panic Room’—before the bots looped around to fight me again.

“Professor Panic, stand down!” I shouted as I got back to my feet. With four bots, including the speaker bot hanging back, and my superhero damage approaching half-strength, Rainy Day didn’t mess around with [Stellar Ray] or anything. I used [Ride the Lightning], filling the hall with a thunderstorm.

[Stylish Strike! +1 Flamboyance Point Pending]

[Stylish Strike! +1 Flamboyance Point Pending]

[Stylish Strike! +1 Flamboyance Point Pending]

As the storm abated, the last remaining bot retracted its singed speakers and swooped toward me. I waved my wand. “[Stellar Ray]!”

The familiar, bright beam isn’t want I got. Instead, a wave of bubbles zipped across the ever-closing gap between the Panic Pal and me. As each hit the bot, they popped, tearing at its thin metal plating until, just a few feet from me, it ricocheted off the floor and into a wall.

[Dramatic Damage! +1 Drama Point Pending]

I checked the hall leading to the stairs; no more bots, at least not for the next few moments. However, I could hear a hip-hop beat and something thumping against Professor Panic’s Portable Panic Room’s walls. After a moment, it stopped. Then the door opened, revealing a panting Fursona, her hands on her knees.

“Well, shoot. I didn’t expect a trap that soon,” she said.

“There’s no way he moved in this fast. Dad said he’d only been missing work for a few days.”

“Yeah, he had help. He had to have help.” Fursona helped me across the busted, shattered maintenance door—I was too short to get over it easily—at least as Rainy Day. Then, we started down the hallway.

We hadn’t gone ten feet when the lights flickered. A screen activated, and Professor Panic’s face filled it. His voice echoed down the empty hall, slightly staticky. “So, Magical Girl Understudy, you’ve found my Tokyexico outpost.”

“Yeah. Look, Professor—“

Before I could finish my sentence, the screen spoke again. “Don’t interrupt my speech, Understudy. I gave you a gift, and we were going to finish it together. I made plans to visit, and you told me not to. You had a Costume you could have worn. We could have spent time as Professor and Lab Assistant and ruled the world…together.”

“I told you I didn’t wa—“

“But that opportunity is long past.” It wasn’t him, I realized. He’d recorded this. When had he moved in here? Had he been here during the TUEAS Dogpile Episode? Or had his bots been here getting ready? “Now, there is no Professor and Lab Assistant. There is only the Professor…and revenge!”

The screen changed to some words in bright red. ‘First LABRAT in 0:20.’ The timer started ticking down—19, 18, 17—as Professor Panic’s Portable Panic Room closed on either side of the hall. “Magical Girl Understudy, prepare to lose.”

“Your ex is a real charmer,” Fursona quipped.

“Yeah, but he’s so good at Drama. Professor Panic, I’m still the [Hometown Heroine]!” I said, posing as heroically as I could in my kid-sized body. The familiar blue glow covered me and my The Cloud-themed outfit.

9, 8, 7

“Not much room,” I muttered. The hallway had a few doors on either side, and we needed more space for a proper fight. I pointed. “Can you get that door open?”

3, 2, 1

“You got it!” Fursona headed for the door. As she started kicking at it, a different one popped open just below the screen. A LABRAT stomped out. This one did not have an accompanying swarm of Panic Pals. What it did have was a second [Hypercompression Cannon]. It started charging them up as the timer set to forty seconds. 39, 38…

Bang! Bang!

I threw myself onto the floor, ducking one of the shots. The other shoved me into the Panic Room wall with a thud, but even before I hit, I was already moving, waving my wand and pointing it back at the LABRAT. “[Stellar Ray]!”

[HP 3/7]

[Gritty Recovery! +1 Grit Point Pending]

My fight against LABRAT in the Riverside Bank’s safe deposit box room had proven that[Stellar Ray] didn’t have the punch it needed. I couldn’t beat LABRAT 1.4’s armor. I expected the beam to dissipate on its chest plate or something.

That’s not what happened.

[Dramatic Damage! +1 Drama Point Pending]

Instead, as the bubbly beam started popping against its armor, something else popped too. The LABRAT’s right cannon dipped toward the ground for a few seconds, green lights fading across its whole side. Then it lit back up and kept charging.

This wasn’t, I realized, a LABRAT 1.4. Even with the flight module on the 1.4, it couldn’t possibly have the power to fly from Riverside to Tokyexico. I thought back; just before we’d broken up, Peter had been rambling about the 1.5s; about dropping weight, adding solar collectors, and reducing armor. That had gotten the LABRATs to Tokyexico alright, but it had turned them from juggernauts to…less armored juggernauts? Yeah, to that.

31, 30

Bang!

“Fursona, help me take it down! [Stellar Ray]!”

[Dramatic Damage! +1 Drama Point Pending]

The next bubbly burst caused a similar reaction; the gigantic robot staggered. Off-balance, it struggled to recover, but before it could, a mass of faux fur and fury slammed into it. Fursona kicked and thrashed while I, as Magical Girl Rainy Day, looked for an opening to cast another [Stellar Ray].

23, 22, 21

Bang!

At point-blank range, the LABRAT couldn’t miss, and Fursona went sailing. She crashed into the screen, which fizzled out. Then she slammed into the floor. I heard her groan as the air got pushed out of her lungs from the impact; superhero damage helped, but it didn’t stop everything.

Worse, I was sure the timer was still running. We needed to not be here.

“[Stellar Ray]!” I blasted the LABRAT again, then grabbed Fursona by her costume’s collar. [Hometown Heroine] was still running, and the door that the LABRAT had been waiting behind was still open. If I could—

[Dramatic Damage! +1 Drama Point Pending]

Bang!

The LABRAT fired again, and the airburst slammed into my back. I kept hold of Fursona’s costume, and we slammed into a wall. I struggled to my feet—so did Fursona, who’d recovered enough to start moving.

[HP 2/7]

[Gritty Recovery! +1 Grit Point Pending]

The door was right there. We took two steps and dipped through it into a small room; this one could have been a maintenance closet if it wasn’t empty. Fursona slammed the door shut and leaned against it as the first airburst smashed into it. The door shook in its frame, but it held.

“So, what now, Squirt?” Fursona asked.

I thought about our options. There were four doors, and I didn’t like our odds against four LABRATS at once. The door shook again as another [Hypercompression Cannon] fired.

We couldn’t stay here. And we couldn’t wait too long. I started transforming back to Magical Girl Understudy. She had the powerset to solve this problem—or at least dig us out of the hole we were in. As soon as I transformed, I pointed at the door. “Open that on my count, and get ready to fight.”

[Rejuvenation Activated: Hit Points 5/7]

Fursona nodded.

“One…two…three!”

The door flung open. I was already spinning, using [Bit-Part Barrage] on the two LABRATS stomping forward. Their cannons fired in a long volley, and bursts of air slammed into Fursona. She was using her body to shield me!

Then [Bit-Part Barrage] fired.

[Dramatic Damage! +1 Drama Point Pending]

[Dramatic Damage! +1 Drama Point Pending]

[Dramatic Damage! +1 Drama Point Pending]

[Dramatic Damage! +1 Drama Point Pending]

[Dramatic Damage! +1 Drama Point Pending]

[Dramatic Damage! +1 Drama Point Pending]

[Dramatic Damage! +1 Drama Point Pending]

The LABRATs had nowhere to go. They were both stuck inside the door, trying to get to Fursona and me, so almost every beam in the barrage slammed right into their spotlight-covered frames.

As ray after ray slammed into it, a flash of green light filled the hall and room. Its torso burst into flames a moment later, then tore itself apart as my feet hit the ground.

My jaw dropped, and I looked away from the still-ongoing explosion. I’d never made something the size of LABRAT blow up before.

[Don’t Look At Explosions! +1 Badass Point Pending]

I’d hit the second LABRAT hard, too, and Fursona hit it even harder, slamming a pair of kicks into its chest. It collapsed, and a moment later, the kangaroo heroine was on top of it, slamming punches and kicks into its armor, which buckled and popped. Its lights went out.

The green lights overhead flickered, then went white-yellow. A moment later, Professor Panic’s voice filled the hallway. He sounded…panicked. “Understudy! Quit breaking my bots!”

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