The Hepatica Society of Superheroics had a headquarters that was as old and stuffy as its name. The small brick-laid office building had been built to trap in heat. Almost unbearable during summertime, but quite pleasant in late autumn. The large hole in the side of the building had recently been repaired, but the Society itself was very much still rebuilding, leaving many of the rooms in the complex eerily empty. Although it had never been as big as Alba’s own Global Guardian Guild, the Society was a popular fourth or fifth choice for young capes who’d taken training courses in the superhero capital next door.
In one of the rooms looking over the street, a conference table had been set up. When Silver Siren entered the room, someone was already sat there, next to a large open window, leaning back in one of the sparsely designed iron-and-plastic chairs, balancing on the back legs. They gave her a lazy wave and a “Hey, Siren.” Their voice had a slight rasp to it, like they’d recently quit smoking (which they had). “Have a seat.” They gestured around the table, around which stood several chairs identical to theirs.
“Hey there, Meow Mx.” Silver Siren pulled back one of the chairs and took off her guitar case, resting it against the table. “It’s been a while. How’s night shift been treating you?”
“Actually, it’s Lucky Nine, now,” they answered, “and night shift’s been rough. It’s all understaffed, all the time, and patrols aren’t my style anyway.”
Lucky Nine was wearing a nicely-tailored black suit, with a burgundy tie and cuff links. All of which would surely have looked very smart and professional on them if they’d actually bothered to do up all of the buttons and properly fasten the tie. Their leather dress shoes had been relieved of their soles, leaving the pinkish paw beans on their heels and at the bases of their toes on full display. Like many zoomorphs, Lucky Nine had a complicated relationship with shoes.
“Oh?” asked Silver, “Any reason for the name change?”
“I’ve been dealing with more supervillains since the patrols, and...” One of their large fluffy feline ears twitched in frustration, “well, every single one of them seems to think they’re the first to come up with any given cat pun. I don’t want to give them any more ammunition than I have to.”
Silver chuckled. “Yeah, that’s fair. If it’s any consolation, you learn to take it in stride. I know Belle made a bunch of pretty bad digs at my own stage name, yesterday.” Her expression turned serious as she rested her chin between thumb and forefinger, “I wonder how she’s holding up...”
“Oh, Belle Fry?” came a lightly squeaky voice from the door. “I eh... had a talk with medical. They said she’ll be alright. Well... I mean... physically speaking.” Meredith Chambers, known to most of the Society as Mission Control or Emcee, was a thin, mousy woman with straw-blonde hair and brown eyes that were magnified by large round glasses. She wore a knit sweater and a slightly-too-large lab coat. This was a bit of an oddity, considering neither her work in R&D nor her mission coordination work required her to wear one, but the Society’s various members had long since stopped questioning it. “I’m eh... I’m sorry. I overheard your conversation. Your transponder’s still on, Silver.” She fidgeted with a button on her sweater for a little, still standing in the doorway. “You did great on the Belle case yesterday, by the way. I’m sorry for asking you to take her out like that. We barely found any glass broken by your powers, I-I think you did really well under pressure.”
“Comes with age, darling,” Silver leaned back, giving her a grin and a reassuring wink.
Emcee flinched and turned her head to the side. It did little to hide her blush. “I eh... I see Nine is with us, too. Hi, Nine.”
“Sup,“ said Lucky Nine, their wild mane of jet-black hair lightly waving in the breeze from the open window, “security still sucks, you know? I could climb right in, didn’t even get a silent alarm notif. The reconstruction guys should get around to it.”
N-nine...” Emcee whined,“ you know you’re not a security consultant anymore...”
“Oh, believe me, I know. I still can’t believe you talked me into this night shift business.” Lucky Nine turned to Silver, pointing a thumb over at the doorway, “a real social engineer, this one!” they said with a smile.
Silver chuckled, “she gave you the puppy eyes, huh? I thought cats were supposed to be immune to that.”
“I’ll let you get away with that one,“ said Lucky Nine, “careful, though.”
“I’m eh... I’m going to come in now, if that’s okay. We do kind of have a meeting to start.” Emcee made her way over to another one of the chairs, followed by another woman.
“Hey guuuys!” she said, following after Emcee, “It’s so good to finally meet you!”
“Oh, are you the new girl?” said Silver, turning towards her, “It’s good to meet you, I’m-“
“Omigosh, Silver Siren! I am literally so excited to go on a mission with you! Love your outfit, by the by? You’re totally pulling off the punk rock milf look.” She said, hands clapped together, her bright blue eyes practically sparkling.
“Eh... thanks? I like yours, too, it’s...” Silver said, looking her up and down, “It’s very... daring.” The new girl’s costume left very little to the imagination. It consisted of a bright pink spandex leotard with matching arm-length sleeves and thigh high boots. Even her bright blonde hair had been frosted with pink tips add to the colour’s dominance of her look. No matter how Silver looked at it, the girl’s costume, especially on a figure like hers, was clearly picked for sex appeal. The low cut was in a constant struggle to contain her large chest while the curves of her hips and ass were left on full display by the snug fit of the bottom. “Thanks!” she chirped, not missing a beat. Silver was unsure whether the girl was playing her, somehow. She certainly sounded sincere.
Lucky Nine cleared their throat, loudly and demonstratively. They’d removed their feet from the table. “Look, I hate to interject, but... who is this girl? And why is she dressed like that?”
“Because I have a great body and it deserves to be shown off!” the new girl said cheerily, putting her hands to her hips and striking a pose, then looking over her shoulder at Emcee. “Right, Em?”
The mousy mission coordinator’s face was buried in her palms, which completely failed to hide how it had turned beet red. “I... I think we should have some introductions...” she managed to get out, half-muffled.
“Sure thing!” said the new girl, bouncing, “Hi, I’m Cherry Charge! I’m your newest teammate, it’s so nice to meet you!” she said, waving a shiny-gloved hand at them. Then, a moment later, she thoughtfully put a finger to her chin and continued “Wait, we are doing, like, fake names, right?”
“Supernyms are fine, yes,“ said Silver, “Mine’s Silver Siren, but you already knew that.”
“Wait...” Lucky Nine narrowed their yellow slit-pupiled eyes, “isn’t ‘cherry charge’ the name of that dodgy import energy drink you’re addicted to, Emcee?”
“Oh, I- I mean... addicted is a pretty strong word, I’ve just been running a lot of overtime with the missing mission control crew and-“ Emcee started, flustered. She was interrupted by Cherry, who chirped “Em helped me pick my name! Coming up with stuff is hard.”
“Wow, first ‘Mission Control’ for yourself and now this for her?” Lucky nine grinned, showing their pointed canines, “you really are terrible at names, Emcee.”
Silver sighed, rubbing her temples “let’s not make fun of the new girl’s name, Nine.” She turned to Cherry and said “This is Lucky Nine, by the way. They’re our former security consultant, current nighttime operations specialist. I can only assume one of those skillsets is going to come in handy for whatever mission we’re gathered here for. Isn’t that right, Emcee?” She gave the bespectacled girl a pointed look.
“R-Right, thanks, Silver! So... I gathered you all here today for, well... a mission, like you just said.”
Silver nodded patiently, Emcee gave her a relieved little smile before moving on “As I’m sure you all know, the Society has been in a weakened recovery state ever since the LACE incident.” She pulled up a tablet and started tapping away with practiced ease and precision. A second later, everyone’s earpieces flickered in response and started to project small holographic screens showing them each identical images of the Society’s headquarters right after the attack, smoking and with a large hole punched in the side around the fourth floor’s level. Apparently, Emcee had prepared a presentation. “We don’t have a lot of members to spare, which is why I could only gather you three to- yes, Cherry?”
Cherry was sat on the edge of one of the seats, reaching a hand up as far as she could, like a student eagerly waiting to be picked by her teacher. “I have a question, Em! What’s a lace incident?”
Lucky Nine gritted their teeth, quietly muttering something along the lines of “oh, you have got to be kidding me.” Silver gave them a look that held the middle between sympathy and admonishment, then looked over at Cherry and said “You’re probably new to this town, so you may not have heard of it. Are you familiar with Doctor Darkmoon?”
“Nope!” said Cherry, who hadn’t stopped smiling. “Tell me?”
“He was a villain, a pretty typical one. Knack for science, delusions of grandeur, liked to say ‘we’re not so different, you and I, ‘ basically the kind of guy you’d get if you typed ‘mad scientist’ into your phone and hit autocomplete.”
“Harsh,“ said Lucky Nine, grinning, “but better than the guy deserved.”
“So like... what’s that got to do with the lace thingy?” asked Cherry.
“LACE is an artificial intelligence he built,“ said Silver, “ If I recall, it stood for Laboratory Assistant and Cleaning Engine. I think he came up with the acronym first and the definition second.” She grimaced, “I also think he had a thing for maids.”
Lucky Nine rolled their eyes, “Gosh, you don’t say! The guy who made an army of robot maids had a thing for maids?”
Silver waved off the comment, “Oh, definitely. Though strictly speaking, Darkmoon didn’t build the army. I think by the time LACE started its cyberisation protocols, it had already gone rogue.”
“I’m sorry,“ said Cherry, furrowing her brow, “cyber... what now?”
“Oh, I can answer this one!“ said Emcee, “So... LACE was made to be an artificial lab cleaning assistant, right? But as it picked up more responsibilities and grew more complex, it deemed it necessary to increase its mobility and the number of units it was integrated with.”
“What’s that mean?“
“People. It means people, Cherry,” said Silver, “LACE took Darkmoon’s secretary, scooped out her insides, replaced them with cybernetics and made her into an extension of itself. Then it used that body to start kidnapping people and a few days later we had a small army of cyborg maids on our hands.”
“I- I mean... the process is a little more involved than that, but...” Emcee started, raising a finger, then she looked at Cherry, who seemed to be doing her best to process all this information, and lowered it again, “but I suppose Cherry could use a summary more than an in-depth explanation.”
“So like...” Cherry Charge’s brow remained furrowed, “this doctor guy built a robot to clean his lab, and that robot made people into more robots, got tired of cleaning the lab and blew up our office instead?”
Emcee raised her finger again “well, first of all, they used humans as a base, so they’d actually be called cybor-“ she started, but she was quickly interrupted by Lucky Nine, who gave Emcee a glare before quickly turning to the new girl, “I mean... yes, Cherry. You got it. We fought them off, but they did some serious damage to our office and our organisation. Some of our members are still recovering or missing.”
“I think I get it...” said Cherry, still making her thinking face, “but...”
“Yes?” said Emcee
“What happened to all the robots after? Did you turn them back into people?”
The three senior members exchanged uncomfortable looks before Silver spoke up, “We’re... still working on that. Well, Emcee is, at any rate. When we took out LACE’s central control unit, the maid drones that were connected to it malfunctioned and fell unconscious. We’ve been working on getting them back to normal, but the Society’s overworked and understaffed, so like everything, it’s been slow going.”
“Right,“ Lucky Nine spoke up, “but we know it can be handled. After all, we have Custom. There’s precedent for people coming back from assimilation.”
  Cherry Charge raised her arm again, “I have another question!”
Silver pinched the bridge of her nose, “You haven’t met Custom Maid yet, have you?”
“Nope!”
Emcee tapped her pad and the image projected by everyone’s communicators changed. The picture of the Society’s ruined headquarters had made way for a set of images of a woman wearing an old-fashioned maid’s uniform. Her copper hair fell down her back in a simple braid and a close look at the picture revealed that there were hair-thin indent lines running along her joints, from her eyes down her cheeks and across several other places where her skin was exposed. The result was reminiscent of a mannequin, and would have probably been quite eerie, if most of the room didn’t recognise the woman as their colleague and the most reliable member of the Society next to Silver Siren.
“That’s her,“ said Lucky Nine, “when we shut down LACE, she somehow made it through without falling into a coma. She suffered some memory loss, but otherwise she made a complete recovery, on top of keeping all of the gadgets and strength of those freaky maid cyborgs.” They smiled, “she joined the Society, said she wanted to return the favour for freeing her. Turns out, having a superpowered neat freak around who only needs to recharge for an hour every week was a huge help to us while rebuilding.”
“Ooh, I see!” Cherry said, nodding, “so she’s a nice robot maid!”
Silver looked at the projected image and frowned, “Say, Emcee? Why did you prepare a slide of Custom Maid for this presentation? If she was joining us, she’d be here attending the meeting, so...”
Cherry’s eyes widened. “Wait, are you saying she...”
Silver nodded, “It sounds likely.” Cherry gasped, “She missed the meeting?!”
“What? No!” Silver looked at the new girl, struggling to find the words to keep up with her obliviousness. “I mean... technically yes, but... no! I’m asking if she’s missing, Custom would never miss a meeting unless something happened to her.”
“That’s... a very astute observation,” Emcee said, nodding grimly, “I’m afraid you’ve hit the nail on the head, Silver. Custom Maid has gone missing.”
Cherry gasped again, “Oh my gosh! That’s even worse!”
“Yes...” said Lucky Nine, giving her a sidelong look through narrowed yellow eyes, “yes, it is.” They turned to Emcee, “What happened to her? She’s not exactly the type to just wander off without notice. And if someone had it out for her, well... they’d need a small army to actually do anything to her.”
“About that...” said Emcee, picking up her tablet from the table, “Custom Maid was investigating a robbery at a local greenhouse,“ she turned to Silver, “One that had a lot in common with your jewellery store case from yesterday, actually. All of the stolen plants and cuttings were known to have some kind of ritual use.” She sighed, “I’m increasingly sure we’re dealing with a magic user here. Which would be a headache at the best of times, but...” the timid lab girl didn’t often wear what people would describe as a grim expression on her face, but the Society was going through strange times. “We still know far too little about the Mayflower Witch. Custom Maid snuck a tracking device onto the thief and tried to follow them. I gave her the okay. I hoped it would give us some information, but...” she looked away, her hand clutched into a fist at her side.
“Calm down, Emcee. Whatever happened, I’m sure it wasn’t your fault,” said Silver in a reassuring tone. “Just tell us what happened next so we can resolve this.”
Emcee took a deep breath, then nodded. “She followed the signal at a safe distance, but when it approached the outskirts of town, it vanished,“ she said.
“The thief must have caught on to it...” Lucky Nine half-muttered, as much to themself as to the rest of the room.
“That’s what Custom Maid figured as well,“ Emcee nodded, “she assessed the risk of the situation and decided that the opportunity to catch someone we knew for sure to be an associate of the witch was worth the risk of springing a trap that was unlikely to take her out.”
“Unlikely doesn’t mean impossible,“ said Lucky Nine. They noticed Silver’s glare pointed in their direction, “N-not that you could have known that, of course.”
“Is that why you called us here?” Cherry piped up, “like... to look for the nice robot maid?”
“That’s a good, question, actually,“ said Silver, “Are we here as a search party? A rescue unit? It sounds like we might not have enough intel to do either of those things.”
“Unless...” said Lucky Nine, thoughtfully, “Emcee, you set up a basic connection between Custom and our support team’s computers, didn’t you?”
Emcee smiled, “I’m glad you remembered!”
Lucky Nine met her smile with a grimace, “How could I not? As a security consultant, I nearly had a heart attack when you told me.”
“W-well, it... might have been a... mild risk,“ said Emcee, scratching the back of her head with an awkward grin, “But! It does mean we had access to her built-in tracker unit when she disappeared. That’s why you brought it up, isn’t it? “ Lucky Nine nodded as Emcee tapped her tablet and the image on everyone’s displays switched over to a map of the city of Hepatica, which she had evidently highlighted a few areas on using a brush function. “As you can see,“ she said, pointing at two of the dots painted at the outskirts of town, “I’ve marked the locations where we lost the signal for both the tracking unit Custom Maid planted on the thief, and the one that she carries internally.”
“That does give us an exact location of her disappearance,“ said Silver, looking at her display, “but I doubt she or whoever ambushed her are still there. Knowing she disappeared someplace in the forest means we still have a whole forest to comb through. Even with Nine’s senses, that would be a hell of an undertaking... and that’s assuming they didn’t move somewhere else entirely.”
“Actually, I won’t be sending you to search the forest at all,” Emcee said in that self-satisfied tone she always had when presenting findings, “you see... I’ve looked into some other helpdesk databases, and I’ve found a bit of a spike in complaints about smart watches and other high-tech gadgets ceasing function. I’ve made a rough map of the places mentioned in reports, and found that they all happened at similar distances from...” she tapped her tablet again and a picture of an old, dilapidated mansion showed up on the holographic displays. “Ta-da! Thornborough Manor.”
“The condemned mansion in the middle of the forest?” asked Silver, “I remember that place, my old band tried organising a concert for the goth crowd there once,“ she reminisced, “ended up having to cancel it for technical difficulties. I didn’t know it had a name, we just called it the haunted house.”
“I guess that makes sense,” said Lucky Nine, looking at the map, “Astra did always say that magic and technology don’t get along, and she backed it up by punching way above her weight for a support staff member, when LACE showed up…”
“You shouldn’t call her that, Lucky Nine,“ chided Silver, “all signs say she’s a supervillain now. We can’t be familial with her anymore.” Her voice hid a slight melancholy undertone.
“Names aside, Lucky Nine is correct,“ said Emcee. “High-tech devices tend to glitch and malfunction more than usual, a phenomenon that we know the Mayflower Witch to be familiar with. I had a look into the history of Thornborough Manor and found that it used to be a gathering spot for rituals and séances throughout the past three centuries, possibly going even further than that. I suspect that Mayflower has taken up residence in this place and is using its magical properties to create some kind of techno-antipathy field, similar to what she used to weaken LACE’s forces during the attack, but on a much larger scale. That would explain why she’s been so hard to track.” Despite the direness of the situation she was explaining, Emcee’s pace quickened and her tone gained a certain enthusiasm as she laid things out. The girl couldn’t help but love a puzzle.
“An anti-tech field, hm?” Silver’s metallic grey fingernails scratched her chin as she considered the situation, “Bionica, Trickshot, X-Tremity… really, anyone who relies on gadgets or bionics would be next to useless in there. Even natural-born parahumans still need tech to make the most of our gifts.” She looked around the table. “Well, most of us, at any rate. No wonder you’ve assembled such a small team.”
“Well… yeah,“ Emcee said, apologetically, “between the members taken out of commission by LACE, the inherent difficulty of recruiting new capes on short notice and the recent disappearances, you three are really the only people we can send out on this mission.” Her expression brightened, “It’s not all bad, though. We may be working off of limited information, but I really do believe that between the three of you, you’ll be able to complete this mission regardless of what exactly awaits you in that mansion.”
“So like… I’m a little confused,“ said Cherry, looking at her projected screen with her head tilted slightly to the side, “There’s the nice robot maid, and the mean witch, and this techy field… and they’re all at this spooky mansion, but only maybe? Which one are we supposed to look for?”
“All three, by the sounds of it,“ Silver said, matter-of-factly, looking to Emcee for confirmation.
Emcee nodded, “Yes. Well… mostly yes. That is…” she tapped her tablet again and another slide showed up on everyone’s virtual screen, showing Custom Maid’s profile in the Society’s common database. “This is a rescue mission, first and foremost. In its current state, the Hepatica Society of Superheroics would struggle to function without her, not to mention she may possess vital information on whoever took her out.” She smiled, “besides, Silver might have learned to work with us official types, but she’d probably go rogue and explode my eardrums if I made the rescue of a friend anything less than a top priority.”
Silver shrugged and affected a sly smile, “What can I say? Punk’s not dead.”
Emcee laughed nervously before tapping her screen again, bringing up an image of a large question mark “So, that brings us to priority number two. I eh… I didn’t really know what to put in the slide here. We don’t know what causes the techno-antipathy field, just that it’s likely to be in the mansion. If you can break it, though, I can send drones and capes who rely on tech. That should make everything easier.”
“It would help to have some way of identifying it,“ said Lucky Nine, frowning.
“We do, actually,” Emcee smiled.
“I can read auras!” Cherry said cheerfully.
“Huh,“ Lucky Nine looked at her, their slit eyes widening a little, “is that your power?”
“Nope! Just something I learned. Yours looks like a kitty and smells like liquorice!”
“Wh-“ Lucky Nine’s eyes widened further, “Just... something you learned?”
“Yeah. Like, it’s not hard or whatever.”
“How?!”
“I dated a goth girl in college,” Cherry explained.
Lucky Nine rubbed their temples.
Silver looked over at her, curiosity piqued, “What are your powers anyway, Cherry Charge?”
“If you don’t mind...” Emcee interrupted cautiously, “You can go over each others’ profiles in a minute. I’m almost done with the briefing.” She slid a finger across her tablet and everyone’s holographic displays shut off with an animation that emulated the virtual screens folding up and receding back into their communicators.
“Right,“ Lucky Nine said, sheepishly, “Our third point of order. Ast- the Mayflower Witch. It’s still hard to believe she’s tied to these disappearances.”
Cherry raised her hand again.
“Ah, right,” Silver said calmly, gathering up her patience for another explanation, “you probably don’t know Mayflower either.”
“Like... Astra Mayflower?” Cherry gave her a quizzical look. “Your former occult girlie? Translates and checks demon contracts? Bad kisser? Got totally weird and went rogue after that bad stuff with the robot maids happened?” She gave Silver a vibrant little giggle. “Of course I know her, we’ve literally been chatting her this whole meeting. Like, pay attention, silly!”
“Wh-“ Silver swallowed her surprise and righted herself, “You’re surprisingly well-informed on her, Cherry Charge.”
“Em likes to vent about her,“ said Cherry, “and I’m a good listener. Like, not to brag, but I’m kind of an empath.” She smiled.
Silver directed a cocky little half-smile at her and Emcee, “So how’d you know she’s a bad ki-“
“ANYWAYyoushouldaskyourquestion!” Emcee fumbled and almost dropped her tablet.
“Oh! Right, silly me, I almost forgot,” Cherry balled her hand lightly into a fist and bumped her forehead, “I was going to ask if you finished your little doohickie.”
“You’re giving us gadgets for this one?” Lucky Nine raised a jet-black eyebrow, “I thought the environment was preventing us from using those.”
“W- well... not gadgets...” Emcee answered,  “Gadget. Singular.” She tapped her tablet a few more times and an agreeable, user-friendly boop could be heard from a corner of the meeting room, followed by a soft, low-pitched buzzing noise.
Lucky Nine’s eyes widened and they immediately jerked into a low stance, their head snapping into position as their dilating pupils fixed themselves onto the small white shape hovering out of the corner, their head swivelling to follow it as it made its journey over to the table. Emcee looked at their hand, which was digging a set of tiny holes into the meeting table with extended claws. “Right! Sorry, sorry...”
Lucky Nine sighed and retracted their claws, sitting back down but never once taking their eyes off of the device, which was now sitting in the middle of the table. “Just... give me some advance warning next time, would you?”
“Omigosh you’re just like a real kitty!” Cherry’s eyes were practically sparkling.
“Not helping, Cherry Charge,“ chided Silver as she gently placed a reassuring hand on Lucky Nine’s shoulder. She looked over at the little machine, which resembled a sleek, white scarab beetle with gently glowing green lights for eyes, “so what’s the gadget? Some kind of scouting drone?”
“No,“ said Emcee, “a scouting drone wouldn’t help you get much further than the periphery of the techno-antipathy field. You’ll largely be relying on Lucky Nine’s feline senses for scouting.”
Lucky Nine, who’d gotten out a small comb and was using it to stop their hair from standing straight up after the gadget reveal, paused to give Emcee a sharp-toothed grin and a “damn straight.” After a small pause, they added “so what does it do?”
Emcee tapped her screen once more and the little scarab drone let out another boop, before a tiny, vicious-looking needle shot out, extending from its head like a switchblade. “It seeks out specific targets, attaches itself and introduces a prototype nanite swarm into their bloodstream.”
“That sounds familiar...” said Silver.
“I remember talking to some of the lab folks about that...” Lucky Nine pondered, “wasn’t that one of the steps in LACE’s conversion process?”
“It was!” said Emcee, “we actually reverse-engineered the design as part of our efforts to help LACE’s victims. It didn’t go anywhere though. It’s actually a very interesting story. We managed to copy most of the form of the nanomachines, but to discern the inner workings and the software would require interfacing, which would introduce the risk of allowing LACE into our supercom-“
“AHEM!” Silver loudly scraped her throat, “I’m sure that’s all very interesting, but please just tell us about what you made and how it’ll help us.”
“ Ah, right... sorry,“ Emcee said, a little sheepishly, “so... once inside the body, the nanobots connect with each other, establishing a network that lets them share their processing power and run more complex software.”
“At that scale?” asked Lucky Nine, “I’ll admit it’s not really the kind of systems I specialise in, but that sounds incredible!”
“What will they think of next?” said Silver, doing her best to keep up with the conversation.
“So what software do they run?” asked Lucky Nine.
“Well… what do you do with any piece of hardware you want to tinker around with?” asked Emcee, “I got them to run GLOOM.”
“What?” Lucky Nine looked confused, “You mean… the video game?”
“Oh, I remember that!” said Silver Siren, “My little brother used to play it, he was always blowing up mutants with his plasma rifle on the living room TV when I was trying to do my homework.”
“So you get these nanobots inside of someone, I assume Astra, “ said Lucky Nine, watching Emcee nod in affirmation, “and then… they run GLOOM?”
“Well, just the freeware version with the first set of levels,“ said Emcee, “and the input is based on the injectee’s movements, so it’s mostly just the player character walking around and dying. But yes.”
“How… will that help?” Lucky Nine looked more confused by the second.
“Well, the specific software doesn’t really matter. What matters is it’s a complex process performed by a high-tech piece of technology,” said Emcee.
Silver looked up and smiled “And magic hates technology!”
“Exactly!” said Emcee, “I haven’t had a chance to test it yet, since… well… our magic expert went rogue, but if my hypothesis is correct, introducing something like this into her body will cause her magic to turn inwards and burn itself out on its averse reaction to the bots inside of it.”
“In other words…” Lucky Nine grinned at the realisation, “you’ve created an anti-magic injection!”
“If my hypothesis holds, yes!” said Emcee, smiling widely, “but there’s one issue. It won’t work as long as that field is around. Once it’s down, this should help you against Mayflower, but as long as it’s around, well… you should avoid confronting her at all costs.”
“I agree,“ said Silver, “I’ve been in this business long enough to know that fighting a magic villain on their home turf is bad news.”
“So,“ said Lucky Nine, “we scope the place, save Custom Maid if she’s there, find the source of the field and, if we can destroy it, take out Mayflower if we can.” They tallied a clawed finger with each part they summed up, Emcee nodding as she did. “Exactly,“ she answered.
“That’s a lot of ifs,“ said Silver, some concern in her voice.
“I mean… I’m not saying it’ll be a cakewalk,“ said Emcee, “but between your powers and experience, I’m confident you’ll pull through.” She stood up, the others following her example. “Silver, I want you to take the prototype antimagic device. Nine, your senses and security knowhow should get the team into the right places and out of danger. Cherry… this is your first mission, we’re counting on you to find the source of the field. You can review the files on your communicators on the way there.” She smiled at the three capes, who looked at each other and nodded, “Best of luck out there, you three. It’s time to be a hero!”