The revelation that the bumbling but kind man I’d spoken to every now and then on the roof of the building was the same guy who killed Kelly hit me harder than I thought. It didn’t really sink in when Laithe had originally dropped that bombshell, but over the rest of that evening I had come to a few realisations.

The first, was that I needed to do what I was doing for different reasons. The goals I’d started out with when I became Vulptrix were fuelled by vengeance and anger, and they were toxic. The second realisation was that I needed to find a way to get through to that big dumbass that he was doing things wrong and hurting people in the process.

That would come later though, because I had a very real task with very real consequences if I failed to take it seriously. Rescuing Kelly was going to take some planning, which is what Robin, Laithe, Unbowed and myself had been doing for the days and weeks leading up to it. Our planning sessions had been interrupted a fair few times, but we’d gotten there eventually.

Which is why we were all lounging in Unbowed’s bunker receiving the dadliest glare known to man.

Unbowed was sitting there with a drink of some description in his hand, regarding us with exasperated patience. He’d tried so hard to get us all to sit properly like normal people… but he was dealing with a bunch of lesbians, and that shit just was not going to work. We sit how we want!

Taking a drink from her beer, Redd asked, “Are you even sure the superteam won’t have moved in yet?”

“Yeah the superhero grapevine says they aren’t in yet. The people I talk to are pretty reliable,” Laithe told her from her position snuggled up against me with an arm draped over my shoulders. I could tell she was feeling protective, I mean sure we were pretty touchy, but I was just getting that vibe.

“Yeah well while you do all your parts, I’ll be doing the real work…” she bragged, sighing as she took a drink from her bottle, “I’ll be trying my best to keep as many preoccupied at Limbo. Been putting out word that we are doing a drinking contest there, buy in is twenty bucks and winner takes the pot. Can’t wait for a dozen lightweights who think their powers will give them an edge, to show up. It’s all about practise and technique.” 

Nel gave a soft snort and piped up, “I’d love to humiliate you by showing everyone how a tiny irish girl can drink you under the table, but I’m on transport and will be stuck waiting in the cold at our rendezvous point.”

That would be funny. I’m a lightweight so I’d lose instantly, but it would be fun to watch from the sidelines… or participate and cheat.

“Children! Please! Let's stick to the topic and make sure everyone is one hundred percent on the plan. Next up is Robin, I don’t agree with her part but at least it keeps her safely away from the tower,” Unbowed groaned tiredly. On one of the other couches, Robin giggled, receiving an admonishing look from her milkdad.

I was a little jealous of their parent-child relationship honestly, even if neither of them would admit to it. I wish my parents had been half as attentive and caring as he seemed to be. I could count on one hand the number of times my parents had shown actual real affection for me as a person.

Robin glared back at him and complained, “Umm so I need to break into the substation on two hundred and sixty two South Street, then overload the Yelmorn line and take out the substation… Why can’t I be a part of the tower raid? Kelly is my friend! You really expect me to let you to rescue Kelly and cause mayhem in Yelmorn, while I’m off knocking out the power? I promised her!”

Robin was right, she did have a claim to being one of the people who broke Kelly out of that hellhole, but she was also super important for the mission doing the job she’d been assigned.

Worming my way out of my girlfriend’s arms, I walked over and sat next to her, putting a comforting arm around the pouting girl, “Hey shhh it’s about getting her out of there, not the glory or whatever. I’ll make sure she’s safe no matter what yeah? Plus no one else can do the job you’ll be doing, and you can always come help at the tower afterwards.”

Robin sighed somewhat theatrically while she watched my tail twitching around in my lap, “I guess… I just hope she is actually there… If she is I want to be there.”

Activating yet more dadpower, Unbowed spoke up, “Can I at least say I would worry less, if you were not in the thick of the action and somewhere where you can at least run away if things get too hot?”

Milkdad’s words did not have the desired effect, and Robin turned a grumpy glare in his direction.

“I’m sick of being a bird in a cage to protect! My friends need me,” she frowned.

Getting up out of his seat, Unbowed moved over and kneeled before Robin, “I know Robin and hopefully if everything goes well you’ll be able to walk free again. I’d take you with me while I infiltrate the top floors and gather as much intel and evidence as I can, but I know that is not where you want to be.”

Pouting, but acquiescing Robin said, “I know, it sucks! I know Kalia and Laithe have the most dangerous job in this and I know they have more experience, but it doesn’t change how it feels”

From back on the other couch, Laithe grinned cheekily and said, “I mean, you’ll have a hundred or so kilovolts of electricity to play with, that sounds pretty fuckin’ dangerous to me.”

Ending her statement with a wink, she ignored the protective glare she got from Unbowed. Wow, she was just as cheeky as every said I was. Just because I was a fox everyone focused on my own cheek more than hers.

Instead of commenting I decided to bring the topic back to the matter at hand, “So with our super dangerous job. The elevator down to the basement levels is hidden on the tenth floor, but we have to go in through the 5th because there aren’t any windows on the four floors above and below the tenth right? We don’t want to go in where there might be legions of hired goons?”

“Goon?” Redd snorted, ”Isn’t goon what you down under types call wine? Besides an all out brawl sounds like it could be stress relieving.”

Cutting Redd off before what I assumed would be a conversation that he wouldn’t want underaged ears to hear, Unbowed said,“Ok so it is settled, Nel is transport and getaway, Robin is taking out the power and security systems, Kalia and Laithe are on wreck and rescue and I’ll be keeping a low profile this time and gathering as much hard evidence as I can that implicates those at the top.”

We all nodded confirmation with determination clear among the group.

****

Since our target was the elevator hidden on the 10th floor, Nightbinder had her arms wrapped tightly around me while I clung to her in turn. We flew low over the rooftops of the city, sometimes dipping between the taller buildings on our approach. Gosh, I hated flying like this. Don’t get me wrong, I loved and trusted my feathered girlfriend, but there was something deeply unsettling about being just a slip of the arm away from a very long and painful fall.

The cold air of the early springtime evening whistled through Nightbinder’s feathers as we alighted on an adjacent building to wait for our time to strike. I was glad that Robin had agreed to the plan to blow out the Yelmorn tower’s power infrastructure, as it was rather risky for her to do. Still... if it worked, we’d have a major advantage on our hands.

We’d been there less than five minutes when it happened, and boy was it glorious. You could almost see the power travelling down the lines as the lights in each consecutive floor exploded into darkness in rapid succession. It was like a wave rippled up the enormous tower, bringing darkness with it. A second or two behind the power dying came the physical manifestation of our reserved little goth friend’s powers.

Black lightning could be seen snapping from point to point on the exterior of the tower for a few moments, following the ripple of darkness up the building. The display ended with a hush falling over the area around us as all the little people had their daily routine interrupted by the display of power.

Nightbinder wasted no time, launching herself off the rooftop with a cry of excitement towards the 5th floor, our easiest entrypoint. She crashed through the thick glass window mace first and sent glass flying into the night. I was a moment behind her, teleporting across the empty space between the buildings and materialising on the other side of a very much still intact window next to my lover.

“Nice entrance, do you think they know we’re here?” I teased her.

“I will chain you up I swear,” she threw back.

“You know I like it when you do that,” I purred.

A bullet cracked past me and shattered the window I had been so proud not to have broken just moments before and I groaned.

“Oh, nice Vulptrix. I see you really did your best to keep things from being too broken,” Nightbinder laughed as she threw her mace at the love security goon who had fired his pistol at us.

The mace flipped end over end through the air before slamming into the man with a wet crunch. He flew back against a wall and slumped to the floor with a groan.

“Damn, that was… will he be alright?” I asked.

“Yeah, he’ll be fine. I’ve learned a lot since that first time I met you. I can make my mace kinda soft now, to pull the blow a bit so I don’t kill them,” she shrugged.

“Clearly we need to talk shop when we get home, I’d be interested to know what else you can do,” I remarked, genuinely interested to know about her growth as a hero.

“Sounds good, maybe we can even find a way to make it fun,” she laughed with a wink.

“Oh my gosh. Let’s go, come on pidgeon it’s time to be the misunderstood good guys,” I giggled, slapping her on the ass and moving towards the stairwell.

“Pidgeon?!” she exclaimed, following behind me.

“Yup!” I said as I teleported through the door and into the stairwell.

I started ascending straight away, and moments later the door was broken and hanging off its hinges. I sent a questioning look her way and received a smirk in return. She had no shame. The poor door!

The 6th floor was clear as I rushed past it, but approaching the 8th we started to hear hard footsteps and hushed conversation. A lot of people were coming down the stairwell at us. I knew Nightbinder wouldn’t be able to see much, so I finally retrieved the glowsticks we’d packed during our planning session and held it ready.

We reached the 7th floor at the same time our foes reached the 8th, and when I looked up between the gap of the stairwell I saw a group of armed mercenaries. They weren’t the boring goons I’d fought at in the showroom when I’d stolen the legs, these guys were fully decked out in black body armour and night vision goggles. Holy hell we were in trouble.

They saw me at the same time I saw them, and it was all I could to do call out to Nightbinder, “Shit! Through the door!”

I followed my own advice and teleported through the door onto the 7th floor. Nightbinder followed in a cloud of debris moments later. I bet she was secretly enjoying all the smashing she was getting to do.

“You know, you could take me with you next time!” Nightbinder complained from behind me.

“Yeah but then you wouldn’t get to break the doors!” I laughed.

“If I didn’t break the doors, those goons wouldn’t have free passage!” she sighed in exasperation.

“Details, gorgeous… details,” I giggled, running through the cubicles to get some distance from the door.

I could hear her rolling her eyes behind me even as she turned and readied herself for the attack.

The goons didn’t rush in, but rather stormed in with shotgun and shield wielding armoured mercs. It was honestly pretty damn scary and intimidating, at least until a writhing mass of ethereal chains coiled around their legs and pulled them off their feet. Oh hell, she wasn’t watching the dudes with guns still on the other side of the door.

To cover her, I pushed myself through the veil and slammed a fist into the gut of the guy who had been aiming at her, knocking the wind out of him and discharging a jolt of stunning energy into his body. He groaned and slumped to the floor, but I didn’t have time to watch as one of his buddies levelled his rifle at me. He fired, the bullets tearing through my body.

Except, the body of mine they tore through was an illusion, because in typical anime fashion, I was now behind him and had left a clone in my place. The base of his skull became a very brief new home for my fist, and then he was on the ground in a heap. The stairwell was filling up with heavily armed and armoured mercs by now though, and I made the sensible decision to retreat back into the room with Nightbinder.

“Yo, hot girl, we gotta find another way up, someone left the tap running up there and it’s pouring out black armoured goons like no tomorrow,” I quipped as I appeared near her.

“Alright smartass, let me just-” she grunted, headbutting a shield toting mercenary partially into a wall, “-alright, what do you suggest?”

I quirked an eyebrow and pointed upwards theatrically.

She looked up in confusion, then grinned, “Oh, this is definitely why I date you. You just get me!”

Without any more prompting she deftly whirled her mace in her hand a few times and then launched it straight upwards. A cloud of debris rained down on us, along with a few pipes and some hunks of still smoldering cabling.

“Alright, you cover me while I break things,” she ordered.

“Righto!”

I casually flicked my hand --a movement I didn’t need to do-- and the door disappeared, replaced by a seemingly solid wall. I was honestly curious if it would actually work on them. Sadly it didn’t, and a gun poked its nose through the pretend wall and fired randomly into the room, missing us by several degrees.

Plan B I guess. My form multiplied like some sort of foxgirl russian doll, and suddenly there was a screaming mass of clones running at our enemies. They took to the new situation with predictable grace and began firing wildly into my clones.

See, something that had circulated through word of mouth, twitter, and what have you was how I operated as Vulptrix. They all knew this trick by now. I liked to rush around with a bunch of intangible clones of myself wreaking havoc while I slipped through them and laid into my target. They knew this, but I also knew it. Their wild shots did nothing because I was standing back and watching Laithe smash her way through the ceiling. It didn’t actually take her long, and then suddenly I found myself grabbed around the waist and unceremoniously tossed up through the hole.

The room above was much the same as this one, a room with freshly installed cubicles everywhere that had yet to have anything else installed. I rushed over to one of the cubicles and began dragging the wooden frame of the thing over to the doorway. I could hear bullets whizzing around on the other side of the door as they continued to deal with my illusions.

Hoping they didn’t realise what we were doing, I wedged the cubicle against the door and went for another one. If I hadn’t been wearing my new incredible super suit, I would have been left gasping and wheezing after one of those things, but now I could move them like it was nothing.

Nightbinder arrived on the floor a moment later and asked, “Up again?”

“I guess so?” I grunted between heaving more cubicles into the path of the door.

She got to work on that while I piled everything I could find in front of the door. Not long after I was satisfied with my work, they began trying to get through, and I had to stand back and bullets started thudding into my barricade. Oh dear.

Nightbinder got through the second ceiling before they got through with their shoving and bullets. It sounded like they might have sourced a battering ram from somewhere.

I was moving over to my girlfriend to be tossed through the hole when I saw a gun barrel through the hole she had made. I grabbed her as fast as I could and ported us away. Bullets tore the carpet up where we’d been standing and I stared at them with wide eyes. Far out this whole thing was incredibly dangerous.

“Can’t you just teleport us up there?” Nightbinder asked with a wince from beside me.

“I don’t know… I’m not very good with the pitch axis. It fucks up a lot,” I replied, trying to think of ideas… wait what if…

I looked around at the large floor we were on. This floor had no windows, the reason why we hadn’t been able to enter here. We hadn’t wanted to teleport into a space we couldn’t see, so we’d chosen to go through the windows. There was however, plenty of space to make more holes.

“Follow me,” I told her, rushing off to another location that the mercenaries upstairs couldn’t see.

“Alright.. Clobber me if I get out of control,” I told her, and her eyes went wide.

I looked down at my arm before she could protest, and it was oh so easy to set it into it’s warped state again. It was as though the thing was sitting there like an idle puppy, and I’d said the word “Walk”.

I could feel the emotionless state begin to wash over me, but I was ready this time, and I fought it as hard as I could. I pointed the arm upwards as fast as I could, and then unleashed its power. A torrent of strange energy that was barely perceptible washed out from my arm and into the ceiling, tearing it apart, component by component, molecule by molecule, atom by atom. There was nothing left but a large ragged whole where I’d pointed.

I fought my arm now, trying to get a hold of it before it consumed me. I watched it creeping further up my bicep, trying to gain more ground, more power and control over me. Fuck! I looked up at Nightbinder in panic as I realised I was losing this battle and found her gaze. Her glowing violet eyes were overflowing with worry and she took a step forward. Wow, what a woman.

She was clad in her new suit, a matte black leather thing that clung to her perfect curves like a second skin. Her wings were extended out slightly behind her, the feathers aglow with the familiar violet colour, as was her curly hair. She was beautiful… and she was my girlfriend. I loved her. I felt myself fill with resolve. Fuck this weird arm thing, and not in a fun way.

I looked back down at the advancing arm and forced it to calm with my renewed resolve. I couldn’t regain the lost ground, but I was able to turn it back to normal. Phew.

“Please don’t use that shit again,” Nightbinder gasped, grabbing my face and turning it back towards her for a hard kiss.

“S-sure,” I stuttered, looking into her eyes when she parted from me moments later.

“Good, now up you go,” she said gruffly, hoisting me up above.

The coast was clear directly around the hole I’d created so we stayed quiet and watched Yelmorn’s hired thugs surrounding the previous hole. Time to clear them out I guess…

We lunged forward together and laid into the unsuspecting mercenaries with flying fists and singing chains. I used a technique I had only just thought of now to befuddle my enemies. As I went to strike, my arm became many arms, all striking from different angles to confuse their attempts to block me. It worked fantastically, and soon we had the goons laid out on the ground… or down the hole.

“Holy shit, We rock!” Nightbinder chirped.

“We really do… now what do you say you put another hole in the roof? I’m not sure it’d be a good idea for me to do it again,” I said, giving her a rub on the back as I pointed up with the other hand.

“You got it girl,” she winked, and stepped forward to begin breaking things.

We didn’t meet any further resistance on our way to the tenth floor, but when we got there…

“So, I see you’ve finally followed your theme eh fallen angel?” a scornful voice said from ahead of us.

Seraph stood before us in all her golden radiant glory, all six wings flared in challenge as she regarded us with a simmering anger.

Beside her was Bastion, or as I now knew him, Leo. He was staring at Nightbinder with a look of confusion and apprehension. He’d gotten an upgrade to his outfit since the last time we’d seen him. The leather had been upgraded with steel plate armour that was intricately designed to fit close to his body in most places, only the low risk areas were not covered. They were painted over in a sky blue matte lacquer. It looked good on him I grudgingly admitted, like some sort of modern knight.

“Let’s try and at least be polite Seraph,” he sighed, then turned to Nightbinder, “So why is it that you’re here Nightbinder? Why are you doing something so overtly villainous?”

Raising an eyebrow, Nightbinder replied, “How do you know this is villainous? Do you have any other information except that there’s been a break in? Both of you have just assumed that because Yelmorn are some established entity that they are in the right.”

“There is no room for such weak thinking here. You are breaking the law!” Seraph growled, flexing her hand and summoning her sword.

“She has a point. You can’t just break into a place. There’s channels to go through if Yelmorn is doing something wrong,” Bastion retorted.

“Both of you are so high on your own privilege you can’t see how fucked the system is for anyone but people like you. You think anyone is going to give a shit what we think? Even outright throwing hard evidence at behemoths like Yelmorn doesn’t work anymore! They can just pay their way out of it!” I shouted, already irritated with their ignorance.

“Enough! Criminals do not get to argue their case until they are before a judge! Kneel or I will make you kne-” Seraph started, but she got a charged fist to her spine.

I’d teleported in the middle of her speech, slamming a fist into her back with all the anger I could muster. Fucking sactimonious bitch. She gasped and stumbled forward, turning with a look of fear in her eyes. Alright then, let's take her down a few notches.

“Shall I take your sword from you again?” I grinned, putting as much menace behind my words as I could while I flexed my hand.

She backed up, her eyes wide with alarm. I teleported back to Nightbinder’s side, leaving a lunging illusion in my place. That illusion flared with the terrible visage of madness I had become that day at the festival. The arm twisting with angry impossible geometry. She screamed, a real high pitched squeal of terror.

I couldn’t help myself. From my girlfriend’s side I let out a burbling laugh, “Holy fuck that was funny.”

She whirled towards me, “You fucking bitch!”

“Last I checked, Nightbinder was an angel, not a dog like you,” I grinned.

I got an angry growl in response and she threw herself at me with all the super speed she could muster. Fuck she was fast, I only managed to dart away in the nick of time. From further away I watched Nightbinder leap to engage bastion, and I set myself to the task of dealing with an irate glowing duck. Quack.

She swiped left and right in the blink of an eye, and I was forced to teleport away again. In an attempt to regain the initiative, I had some illusions rush her from different directions, all trying to get a blow in on her. It didn’t work, she had seen me teleport, and sent a searing blast of energy at me from her eyes. The golden beams missed me by millimeters and impacted a wall behind me, exploding violently in a hail of drywall and rebar.

Alright, plan B... if you can’t be nuanced, put on a grand performance instead! I loved doing it this way anyway.

She stood there for a moment, staring at me with a frown that said she’d expected to hit with that shot. I began to swap my hips slightly, then put a hand up theatrically and clicked my fingers. Illusory speakers appeared, and as I’d hoped, they started playing the song I had chosen for them. Lets go! Thumping bass came first, as with most of the music I was into, and then a bit of piano accompaniment.

I started dancing, and so did the dozens of clones I spawned, we swirled and swayed in time to the music, teleporting --or appearing to-- about the new dance floor I’d created. Seraph stared around with a thoroughly bemused expression on her face, until I got close enough to swipe her legs out from under her with a swift teleport and slide.

She fell flat on her back with a thump, a single feather being ejected into the air like an exclamation point. Gosh the look of rage that flared across her face was a sight to behold. I got out of there fast. Turning up the volume, I added yet more illusions and some disco lights to confuse her even more.

As I’d thought, she started indiscriminately blasting away with her face laser thing, and I flattened myself on the floor behind a sawhorse to get out of the line of fire. She was so easy to manipulate I swear. I could almost sit here and let her wear herself out while she added to the pyrotechnics of my performance, but we were on the clock… so I had to take her out of the equation somehow.

The easiest way to get her out of the picture was to also get her out of the building, so that was what I was going to do. But damn, how was I going to achieve that? I looked around for a way to get her gone, and came upon an idea. I’d need to land some real hits on her, fake her out and then get her to follow an illusion outside in rage.

I banished my silly multi-fox rave and taunted, “Hey you ready for this?”

I reached down and pretended to pick up a huge piece of I beam. It was an illusion obviously, there was no way I was going to be able to pick up almost a ton of twisted steel, but she didn’t know that. I teleported forward into range, and swung it. The idea being to have her reach up with her sword to block my attack, then reach in with a fist while her guard was elsewhere.

As I swung the intangible hunk of metal through the air, something strange happened. I vaguely remembered the feeling from my fight against bastion in the factory when I had clobbered him with an armoured fist. The huge illusory beam of steel I was swinging became very much real, I could feel its weight suddenly settle in my hand, but momentum carried it forward.

Turns out, Seraph cannot block a chunk of steel that big. Her sword few out of her hand with a twang, and the I beam continued ponderously onwards into her chest with a crunch. She shot back like I’d fired her out of a railgun, hitting a window and shattering it into a million shards of glass. The steel club continued after her, yanking itself out of my grasp and landing skidding across the floor with a grinding noise. Holy fuck what?

Seraph was gone out the window like I’d just punted the angry goose out there with a swift boot, but really that was a minor concern beside the now very real hunk of metal sitting rather innocently on the floor. I hadn’t been sure in the factory all those weeks ago, but I had definitely just made one of my illusions real… Oh my god I was gonna be rich! Time to make tons of gold, and… and cute clothes! Oh my gosh and all the food I could ever want! I’d-

“Vulptrix!” My girlfriend yelled from a ways away, “What are you doing? We have a job to do and things are getting dicey over here!”

Right. Yes. Rescue Kelly first, then plan the best ways to use my newfound unlimited power.

Turning to look at what was going on with her duel against Bastion, I found she was contending with much more than an ignorant misguided editor in a costume. More goons were turning up, as well as a few more heroes with their garish costumes. I noticed a frowning clicker up at the front. Damn.

“You go rescue her! I’ll hold this mob off!” Nightbinder called out.

“You got it! Stay safe!” I replied, rushing for the elevator.

I almost made it before Bastion moved to stop me, and Nightbinder being now engaged with far too many other problems to stop this particular one from getting in my way, I had to get around him myself. He put up a barrier in front of himself and braced for me to run into him, but I leapt and spun into the air, landing feet first on the ceiling. Before gravity could pull me down on top of him, I sprung back down on the other side of him, thanking tinker the whole time. This suit was great.

I reached the elevator and hauled the doors open using the moderately enhanced strength of my suit, then leapt feet first down the shaft with Bastion not far behind.