It was early evening. The crisp autumn air was doing its best to cut through the warmth provided by Silver Siren’s jacket and Lucky Nine’s fur. Here, at the outskirts of the forest surrounding Hepatica City, it was doing so in full force, unimpeded by the rows of old stone houses the two of them had passed to get here alongside Cherry Charge. Cherry, for her part, appeared completely unbothered by the cold, despite wearing the least out of the three of them. There were some theories that people born with parahuman abilities had some resistance to weather and the common cold that allowed them to wear their often-skimpy costumes year-round. Silver had always been sceptical of this line of thinking, but seeing Cherry walking alongside herself through the treeline in her little pink leotard with an almost contempuous disregard for the concept of late fall was enough to give her second thoughts.
“Aren’t you cold?” she asked eventually.
“Huh?” asked Cherry, turning to face her, “Oh, I don’t like... get cold. I think it’s a hero thing?”
“It’s not,“ said Silver, “at least not universally. I have to layer my costume to adjust it to the season, and I had to spend a week recovering from hypothermia when I got hit by Chiller Bee’s stinger attack last year.”
“Could be part of her power set,“ said Lucky Nine, looking back from a few steps ahead of them.
“About that...” said Silver, pulling up a file on the holographic display of her communicator, “I had a look at your file, Cherry. It doesn’t really give me a clear view of what your power is.”
“Huh?” said Cherry, “There’s a power thingy on the form, right? Em told me to put my power there, so I did.”
“There’s a power entry, yeah,“ said Silver, scrolling down to the relevant point on the file, “but it just says ‘pink’ on yours.”
“Oh, so I did fill it in right!“ Cherry looked relieved.
Silver pinched the bridge of her nose, “I’m sure that it’s much more intuitive to you, Cherry,” she said, diplomatically, “but as someone who’s going to have to form strategies around our team’s strenghths, it doesn’t really tell me much.”
“It does what it says,” said Cherry, “it’s pink.”
Silver sighed. “What does that mean, Cherry? You just... ‘do pink?’ Is that your power?”
Cherry shrugged, “I don’t know, like, yours also had just one word. Do you just ‘do audiokinesis’?”
Silver had to take a second to process this, her need to stay a good, patient senior clashing with a need to shout at her that yes, obviously, because audiokinesis is something you can actually do, while another part of her was frankly just shocked that Cherry had done her file-reading homework at all. Before she could say anything, however, Emcee’s small voice came in through the team’s earpieces. “If eh... If I can weigh in?” she said, her audio quality a little lower than normal out here in the woods, losing little fragments of syllables here and there, “we... well, we lost Cherry’s original test results in admin...” she said apologetically, then her tone turned more confident as she pressed on “but I can assure you, if what’s left of our training room dummies is anything to go by, she’d score at least a B minus on the James-Singer scale on both offence and defence, and that’s a conservative estimate.”
“Hmm...” Silver mused for a moment, sizing up the rookie cape. “What do you say, Cherry? Can you take point, if it comes to it?”
Cherry put a finger up to the beauty mark on her chin and took a moment to consider this. After a few seconds, she asked “Like, point is where you run ahead and just start fighting the baddies, right?”
“Yes, Cherry. That’s what taking point means,” said Silver, keeping her tone polite.
Cherry made a fist and clenched it close to her torso in an enthusiastic gesture that made it hard to ignore her arm squishing her chest. “Yeah, no probs! I can totally do that!” she said, beaming. “I’ll get the attention and leave the tictacs to you!”
“You mean... tactics?” asked Lucky Nine.
“Oh, I like, already have some bubble gum? Thanks, though!” said Cherry.
“I-I’m sorry... I know it’s a little unorthodox,” said Emcee, “But Cherry shows promise, and she’s got the skills your team needs.” After a brief pause, she added “A-and I’ll sit down with her and update her power profile after you get back. Promise.”
“I guess we’ll just have to work with it,“ sighed Silver, “chances are you’ll have your chance to prove yourself soon enough either way, Cherry.”
Lucky Nine nodded, “Probably a good way to look at it. Those profiles help, but they don’t exactly give you a full story. I mean, they still haven’t added my secondary power to mine.”
“Ooh, you have extra powers?” Asked Cherry.
“Well... not exac-...” Emcee started, but Lucky Nine interrupted “You can’t tell me that I don’t really have super luck, Emcee,” rolling their eyes with the ‘really.’
“I don’t know what to tell you, Nine,“ said Emcee, “You’re registered as a class 3 zoomorph, subtype feline. That’s the only result from your parahuman test. There’s no gene for luck.”
Lucky Nine grabbed a low-hanging branch and nimbly swung over some nettle bushes. “I’m banned from every casino in town, Emcee. One in ten safes in facilities I’ve tested, I’ve cracked by just punching a random number and getting the right combination. What do you call that if not luck, hmm?”
“Look,“ said Silver, sounding tired, “I’ve lost enough bets to you to believe that you have... well, something going on there. But I do think Emcee’s got a point. Your file is to help mission control and your teammates plan around you, and you shouldn’t plan around just getting lucky, no matter how much it nudges the odds in our favour to have you on our team.”
“Exactly!” said Emcee, “It’s a black box, we never know if or when it’s going to run out. These files have to have a basis in science, Nine, and scientifically speaking, there is no such thing as random chance, only causality that is too intricate for us to understand. In scientific terms, luck doesn’t even exist.”
“Well, neither does magic,” said Lucky Nine, their claws extending in annoyance, “and that was still on Astra’s file!”
There was a brief silence as the three capes continued to walk deeper into the forest, the crisping of leaves underfoot and the dwindling birdsong of the day filling in for the halted conversation.
After a few long moments, Emcee came back over the earpieces with a hesitant “A-actually...”
“Mayflower Witch. I know.“ Lucky Nine sighed. “I still can’t believe we have to fight her...”
“With any luck, we won’t,“ said Silver, her tone level.
“Yeah, but... you know what I mean,“ said Lucky Nine, “she was just our shy little support goth. She fed the strays in the alley next to HQ. Hell, she baked us those little skull-shaped chocolate biscuits, last Halloween! Why her? She gave Silver a sombre look. her slit pupils partially dilating in the early twilight.
Silver shrugged with nearly-convincing nonchalance. “Who knows? It’s not exactly unheard of for capes to turn villain. And Mayflower’s a black magic user, so she’s got demons and corruption to deal with on top of that. Maybe she just got unlucky.”
“I guess... “ said Lucky Nine, “Still, it doesn’t sit right with me. I’d like to know what happened, at least.”
Emcee came in over the connection again, accompanied by some static, “If I can weigh in... Nine, as much as I appreciate the curiosity, I don’t think now is the best time.”
“She’s not wrong,“ said Silver, pushing a low-hanging branch out of the way and keeping it lifted for Cherry to pass under, “if everything goes well, this mission can put the Society in a position to capture the Mayflower Witch. If that happens, we can ask her all the questions we want, but we have to get there first.”
“I agree, one thing at a time,” said Emcee, “There’ll be time to ask questions later, we’ll make sure of that. But now is not the time to be a detective, now’s the time to be a hero.”
After a second or two, Cherry came in over the line. “She can’t see you nodding, she’s on audio only, duh!” She giggled, “I swear to gosh, you two are such ditzes sometimes.”
“She’s got us there,“ said Silver, with a slight chuckle.
“Takes one to know one,“ grinned Lucky Nine.
“Now, now,“ said Emcee, but it was hard to hear her over a burst of static worse than before.
“Emcee?” asked Silver, “We must be getting close to that field, you're barely audible. Can you hear us? Come in.”
“Le-... new gi... and focu-...” is all Emcee could get out before the connection cut out altogether and the three were left in silence without their support.
This made it clear beyond any doubt. They were now fully inside of whatever magical shroud the Mayflower Witch was casting over the depth of these woods. Silver quickly felt a sense of deep unease wash over her. She felt alone, suddenly realising how used she’d become to the constant open lines with Mission Support she’d been on through the Society’s rebuilding crisis. Anxiety crept up in the back of her head, the feeling that she was at a turning point. A quick glance at Lucky Nine made it clear that they were going through something similar and, somewhat surprisingly, even the spring in Cherry’s step had diminished some.
“Heads up,“ she said, keeping an even tone. “I’m not sure what’s going on, but I don’t think it’s just our tech being disrupted. Keep your wits about you.”
Lucky Nine nodded. “Something is very wrong with this place. We should find the source and stop it as quickly as possible. Keep an eye out, Cherry.”
“Sure thing, kitty cat.” Cherry nodded back with an earnest expression.
The weird anxiety persisted as the three pushed on. After a few more minutes, Lucky Nine piped up: “We must be pretty close by now. I’ll climb up and see if I can see the mansion from the treetops.”
“Good call.” Before Silver had gotten both words out, Lucky Nine had jumped up almost twice their height, placing a soleless shoe onto a nearby tree trunk and digging their claws into it for support as they grabbed a thick branch. The little puff of white fur at the tip of their jet-black tail zipped back and forth wildly, helping them keep their balance while scaling the large, red-leafed oak with parahuman nimbleness.
When they’d made it about two-thirds of the way up, however, Silver detected a faint whooshing noise from deeper in the woods. She produced a quiet but urgent “Watch out!” right next to Lucky Nine's ears, which had already perked up in the direction of the sound. They quickly changed directions and made a big leap for the next tree over. It was just in time, too, as something crashed into the oak they’d been climbing, sending the whole top of the thing crashing down and leaving Silver and Cherry in a cloud of splinters and dust on the ground.
Silver unslung her guitar, grabbed Cherry’s hand and yanked her down into the shadow of a nearby chestnut tree. She concentrated on the sounds around her, trying to make out where their assailant was, but the main thing she picked up was the rustling of leaves as every bird in the vicinity was flying away from the loud attack. The first thing she could sift out from the noise was the soft tip-tapping of Lucky Nine’s paw pads traversing the tree branches rapidly away from their position, but just as she recognised the sound, it was interrupted by another loud impact that took down a second tree in the middle distance. Silver could just barely make out the silhouette of a thankfully still-intact Lucky Nine frantically scrambling for cover among the leaves.
“Visibility is low here,” she whispered to Cherry, continuing to scan their surroundings, “the attacker must be nearby. Keep an eye ou-” she stopped suddenly as she recognised a leather object stuck in the nearby oak tree that was just brought down. “Crap,“ she whispered. Buried in the tree’s trunk were the flattened remains of an American-style football. “that’s Touchdown’s move...”
“You sound worried,“ Cherry whispered back, “should I do the point?”
As she started to get up, Silver grabbed her wrist and gestured for her to be quiet. “I hear footsteps coming this way. There’s one more of them out there. I’ll pinpoint their location, then we’ll blindside them.”
Silver concentrated and tried to suss out the source of the footsteps, but they stopped soon after. There was a faint thud coming from the same direction, then a few seconds later there was a distinct and much louder creaking noise, accompanied by the crisp of leaves and the small thuds of acorns hitting the ground. Cherry looked over in the direction of the noise, which had gotten loud enough for people without her well-honed hearing to pick up as well. Looking over, the two capes could see a large shape starting to move as one of the oak trees uprooted itself and started to move in the direction Lucky Nine had gone off to. It wasn’t as large as the one they’d tried to climb earlier, but it still stood several metres tall, with thick, knotted branches that moved surprisingly dextrously, keeping it balanced as its roots carried it across the forest like crab legs. Perhaps most strangely, Silver noticed that about halfway up the length of its trunk, it seemed to be adorned with a dark blue, tree-sized, expertly done up formalwear tie. “Damn... “ she hissed under her breath, “that’s the work of the Branch Manager.”
Cherry just sized the thing up. “I can take a tree,“ she said. She sounded like she meant it.
Silver didn’t have time to be sceptical or taken aback by this. She just took the only chance presented to her and nodded. “Go for it,“ she whispered, “I’ll look for the woman controlling it.” She wasn’t sure if Cherry had actually heard that second sentence, because as soon as she’d gotten the ok, she leaped out from behind the tree, put one hand on her hip in a confident pose and pointed the other at the oak, loudly proclaiming “Hey, tree face! I’m point!”
The walking oak stopped in its tracks for a moment, as if wondering what it should do. Then, it changed directions and started moving towards Cherry, reaching out to her with one of its roots and attempting to wrap it around her. Before it could do so, however, Cherry held out one hand and manifested a small, glowing pink orb that hovered just beyond her open palm. She aimed the gesture at the extremity that was coming for her and, with a small grunt of effort, released a radiant beam of bright pink energy that cut clean through the wood. The cut-off portion of the root fell to the ground, inanimate, while the stem that was still attached to the oak recoiled away from her. The animated tree only took a second to gather whatever it had for bearings and propel itself at Cherry with its many wooden limbs, but a second was enough for her to send another volley of searing hot pink radiance at the arboreal menace. It took a heavy blow, losing a branch or two and flinching back, taking little crab-like steps from side to side, as if unsure of how to approach Cherry.
Silver watched all this from a small distance, using her audiokinesis to dampen the sounds of her footsteps as much as she could while thanking her stars that, despite her ditzy behaviour, the new girl really was as good in a scrap as she’d claimed. Concentrating, she could faintly hear a click, followed by dispassionate woman’s voice coming from a particularly densely forested patch of the woods, about fifty metres away. “Forego capture,” it said in a hushed monotone, “Eliminate this intruder.”
As soon as it was done speaking, two more large ambulatory trees, both wearing ties, and a scuttling shrubbery holding a tiny briefcase separated themselves from the overgrown patch in separate directions to rush at Cherry in some sort of arboreal pincer manoeuvre. Silver had no idea how Cherry, who was still busy figuring out what to do with the wildly thrashing oak tree she’d brought down to the ground, would square up against these reinforcements, and ideally she’d like to never find out. She swiftly and quietly made her way over to where she’d heard the voice come from and readied her guitar. If she could just take out the plant controller without being noticed, she figured, she should be able to finish her and Cherry’s side of this fight quickly and move on to find out what the hell was driving Touchdown of all people to attack her team on the other front.

Lucky Nine wasn’t much at home in the wilderness. They’d always thought of themself as more of an alley cat than a forest dweller. That said, they weren’t a complete stranger to the woodlands on Hepatica City’s outskirts. When zoomorph puberty had first set in, as the doctors had predicted it would, their parents had taken them out camping and hiking in these woods for several years in a row in some well-intentioned but ultimately unfruitful attempt to allow them to “get in touch with their animal spirit.” Lucky Nine was fairly sure there was no such thing. Their parents weren’t even parahumans, let alone zoomorphs, they were just upper-middle-class office workers with good hearts and some questionable books on superpowered childrearing. But while their excursions into this forest hadn’t done much to accomplish any kind of inner cat spirit bonding, spending a few weeks a year clambering around treetops was giving them the experiential edge they needed to not get pulverised by whatever lunatic was hurling supernaturally impactful sports balls at them right now.
Lucky Nine kept up a quick pace, changing their trajectory regularly, keeping their movements hard to see and harder to predict. While this allowed them to hold on, they were definitley on the back foot. their attacker kept up a relentless pace, not giving them any opportunity to catch their breath, let alone move on to mount some kind of counterattack. That was, until the loud noise of an electric guitar resounded through the woods, one of Silver’s power chord attacks. The balls stopped hurling past for a moment, the noise must have distracted their assailant. They weren’t one to question a lucky break, especially since luck broke almost universally in their favour, and jumped down to pounce at the source of the projectiles. In the blur of their leap to the ground, their extended claws hit something sturdy and smooth that, after a split second of stiff resistance, gave way with a loud snap. When they hit the earth – perfectly on their feet, as always – it took them a moment to realise that their claws had gotten stuck in something wooden and wouldn’t retract easily. When they turned around, they finally saw the person they’d been fighting. She was a tall woman with an athletic build and blonde hair pulled up in a messy ponytail that had a few twigs and leaves left in it, no doubt picked up from the ground she’d just been knocked down to. She was wearing a black skirt, a choker with a small gem set into it and a bright red varsity jacket, one sleeve of which had been torn off and was fluttering to the ground in-between herself and Lucky Nine. Standing up in one smooth motion, she looked from the tattered sleeve to the arm underneath, which was made of polished wood and ended abruptly in a cracked ball joint that represented the elbow. Lucky Nine looked down and realised that what was stuck to her claws was the remainder of that wooden arm.  They hid their shock at the artificial dismemberment they’d just enacted, their mind racing, trying to think what a full-time cape like SiIver would do, remembering that she technically was a full-time cape now. They pulled themself together, ignoring the rapid thumping of their heart, placing their free hand on their hip and mustering their cockiest grin. “Now there’s a farewell to arms,“ they said, demonstratively waving their half of the prosthetic, “what do you say, feel like turning yourself in before I take the other? That one looks a lot less disposable.”
The woman looked her up and down. She didn’t look impressed. In fact, there wasn’t much of anything to read on her face. After a second or two of silence, she took a step forward.
“So is that a yes, or...?” Lucky Nine asked, the confidence they’d put on growing shakier. The woman took another step forward. Lucky Nine held up her free hand and extended her claws demonstratively. It didn’t seem to impress, the woman broke into a sprint. A well-honed athlete’s sprint, too, much faster than anything Lucky Nine was ready for. They made the swipe with their readied claw, but it was a clumsy last-second reaction, quickly knocked out of the way by a fluid movement from the woman’s good arm. They went for a second, clumsier strike with the claw that still had a wooden forearm stuck to it, but her attacker moved with a robotic kind of efficiency, wasting no movement and showing no aggression, simply catching Lucky Nine in the side with a ruthless blow from her black, knee-high boot. As Lucky Nine hit the ground, they managed to dislodge the limb from their claw and flung it at their assailant, who simply caught it in a swift motion of her good arm and dropped it to the ground. Lucky Nine scrambled to get to their feet, but the woman put a knee on their lower back and a hand on the back of their head, pushing them to the ground. “Touchdown,“ they heard her say in a slightly strained monotone. They struggled to get up, but noticed that, despite the relatively light amount of pressure the woman was putting on them, they were having trouble moving. Their face was getting pushed harder and harder into the dirt of the forest ground, some force spreading from the points of contact with the woman’s hand at the back of their head. No, it wasn’t that some force was pushing them down. Rather, they were somehow... getting heavier? The weight of their body was slowly growing, and they could already feel that it wouldn’t be much longer until... until what? Until they’d be crushed between the ground and nothing? Until their bones and muscles would collapse under their own weight?
As horrible speculations raced across Lucky Nine’s mind and the pressure their body was putting on itself kept growing, they suddenly felt a jolt and heard a loud vocalised noise that it took them several slow, slow seconds to identify as... a sneeze? The woman let go and stumbled back. Lucky Nine tried to turn their head to look around, but found that their entire body was still stuck firmly to the ground, unable to move. After a few more moments, though, the woman stumbled into Lucky Nine’s line of sight, sneezing uncontrollably, looking very uncomfortable. She seemed to have trouble breathing, and... was that a rash breaking out on her good hand? As she stumbled off into the darkness, it hit Lucky Nine. Cat allergy. The girl they’d been fighting had a cat allergy. Quite a severe one, too, by the looks of it. They let out a weak laugh that turned into a cough halfway through. They almost couldn’t believe their luck. Almost.

About a minute later (at least they thought it was about a minute, hard to tell time when you’re being crushed by your own body ), they started to be able to wiggle their head around just a little. They thought in another minute or so (again, rough estimate), they might be able to roll over onto their back, but before that, there was a rustling in the nearby underbrush, followed by the metallic sheen of Silver Siren’s boot stepping into view, followed in turn by the rest of her as she crouched down next to Lucky Nine. “Oh my god...” she said, “are you alright?”
“I’d nod, but my face is kinda glued to the ground,” said Lucky Nine, letting out an anemic chuckle, “some kinda gravity power, I think.”
“Then... it was really her, wasn’t it?” Silver put her hand on the back of Lucky Nine’s, “You fought Touchdown.”
“Was that her name?” Lucky Nine’s question was slightly muffled by the dirt pushing against the side of their mouth, “it’s what she said when she... y’know.” They strained for a moment, achieving little to no movement. “I eh... tried gesturing wildly there. Kind of a this-whole-mess mime. Didn’t manage. On account of this whole mess.”
“She laid her hand on you, the flesh-and-blood one, not the prosthetic, and you suddenly got much heavier?” Silver asked.
Another beat. “Tried nodding there, for the record,“ Lucky Nine said, “didn’t work.”
“It should clear up after a few minutes. I’ll keep an eye out, just stay put for now,” Silver said, readying her guitar.
“Wasn’t planning on going anywhere.” Lucky Nine spat out a crinkly, brown leaf with a soft “blech.”
Silver squatted down next to her. “I’m surprised you didn’t know Touchdown. She’s one of our bigger names, you know?” She extended her hand towards Lucky Nine’s head. “Scritches?”
Lucky Nine weakly shook their head, “Thanks, but I’m trying to quit.” They tentatively gave moving their fingers a shot, noticing there was actually a tiny bit of give in them now. “And yeah, I've only done contracts and night shifts. There’s a lot of colleagues I don’t know.”
“Yeah. Yeah, that’s fair,“ said Silver with an awkward smile, “it’s easy to forget sometimes that not everyone in the hero business is that deep into it.”
“So... why ‘touchdown,’ anyway?” asked Lucky Nine, “You know, as a brand. what’s gravity manipulation got to do with sports?”
“Oh, that,“ Silver Siren said, “it’s because she has to touch things to make them heavy. You know, it’s why she likes to say ‘one touch, and you’re down’ after she does her thing.”
“Didn’t say that when she pulled it on me,“ with some effort, Lucky Nine rolled their head onto its back. It still wasn’t comfortable, but at least twigs and leaves weren’t at risk of getting into their mouth as they talked. “And if you’ll pardon me shitting on the woman who just gravity glued me to the earth... that’s a pretty weak basis for a theme. I mean, she barely even had a costume, just a dumb red jacket.”
“Varsity jackets are a sport thing. Plus, she’s got that athletic bodysuit and the cleats... I’d say that’s hitting enough of a theme.” Silver paused, “Sorry, I probably shouldn’t be defending her right now.”
“What was that?” Asked Lucky Nine, lifting their head.
“Well... y’know. I wanna believe in Touchdown, I’m sure there’s something unsavoury going on, but she still-“
“No, no,“ Lucky Nine dragged themselves to an upright sitting position, leaning against the bottom half of a broken tree trunk,“ her costume. What you described. That’s not what she was wearing.”
“Huh,“ Silver mused, raising a pierced eyebrow, “say... she wouldn’t happened to have been wearing... black?”
“She was!” Lucky Nine pushed their arms against the ground, testing their weight, “A skirt, boots, pretty simple stuff.”
“Capelet?”
Lucky Nine managed half of a stiff shrug. “Dunno. Maybe under the jacket? Why do you ask?”

Branch Manager was lying on the ground, unconscious. Her simple, business-like bob cut and smart, black-rimmed glasses were the same as the ones Cherry Charge had seen in the picture depicting her getting away from a stock exchange robbery. It had accompanied a news article from several months ago, the last known sighting of the local supervillain. Rather than her cream pantsuit and heels, though, she was wearing a skirt, slightly above knee length, along with set of knee-high boots, a capelet and an amethyst-set choker, all jet black. She would’ve looked like she was all set to hop on the nearest broomstick and fly off to a full moon sabbath, if it weren’t for the fact that she was lying in the dirt after being knocked out by one of Silver Siren’s sonic bursts.
Cherry approached the bespectacled girl, letting a gleaming silver pair of handcuffs dangling off of a pink, glove-clad index finger (Cherry had informed her that she’d brought a fuzzy pair that matched her own colour scheme, but Silver had strongly objected to this notion and lent one of her own pairs to Cherry instead). She grabbed Branch Manager’s wrists and slipped on the cuffs, locking them tight with a quiet but clearly pronounced click. “There you go, all snug and tight,” she said to no-one in particular, taking a step back and admiring her handiwork. Then, she noticed something. A little glint of magic. Her irises shifted to a vivid magenta as she focused them on the mana spectrum and... “omigosh!” there it was! It was faint, but there was something arcane worked into Branch Manager’s choker. She approached to have a closer look. The magic wasn’t particularly powerful, but she could see there was some kind of oracular charm on it, as well as... something she couldn’t quite place. The former was a problem, it meant she couldn’t take or break the jewellery without risking it being noticed by the caster, presumably the Mayflower Witch.
Before she could decide on doing anything, Cherry was interrupted by a nasty headbutt that knocked her to the ground. “Yowch!” she yelped. She looked up at the now-awake Branch Manager, who regarded her dispassionately. “Like, what the heck, lady? You’re lucky I have a bubble butt to land on, I literally could’ve broken something!”
Branch Manager didn’t respond. She just raised a boot and started to bring it down towards Cherry’s stomach. Cherry was no longer surprised, however, and reacted by sweeping the other leg out from under her, sending her tumbling. She quickly got up and straddled the prone, handcuffed girl, pinning her down. Cherry gave her the meanest pout she could muster. “Alright, bob cut. I’m gonna give you one more chance to surrender, but only because those boots look kinda cute on you. After that, I’m gonna be one hundred percent that bitch. Understand?”
Branch Manager just continued to look at her, blank-faced, the setting sun reflecting in her glasses. Cherry could feel her continue to struggle beneath her. “you even, like, conscious right now?”
Again, no response. On closer inspection, though, Cherry could see a faint bit of movement in her lips. Was she... whispering something? Cherry leaned in to get a closer listen, pressing a palm on her bob cut to pin her head down and stop any more headbutts before they happened.
“-thoughts no mind dolls just serve no thoughts no mind dolls just serve no-“
Cherry frowned and made a "tssshh" noise through her teeth. “Gosh, that witch really did a number on you, huh?”
“-thoughts no mind dolls just-“
She put a finger up to the beauty mark on her chin and thought for a moment. “I don’t think I can fix this. Like, probs not in general, tbh, but here and now? For sure not.”
“-serve no thoughts no-“
“It won’t last very long, but like... I think I can do a duct tape solution?” Cherry said, looking back at Branch Manager. “You know duct tape? You use it for just-for-now solutions.” Cherry said conversationally, “Em taught me it’s not actually duck tape, like the bird. It’s Duct, with C-T. Because it’s for pipes, not just for bad girls.”
“-mind dolls just serve no-“
Cherry giggled and softly bumped a fist to her forehead in a silly-me mime, “Right. Duh. You’re all zonked out on witchy mojo right now. I’m such a ditz, sometimes.”
“-thoughts no mind dolls-“
Cherry snapped her fingers and produced a bright pink flame the size of that of a small candle that rested on her index finger. She pressed forefinger and thumb together, transferring the little flame from one to the other.
“Just... serve no thoughts no...-” her mantra slowed down just a little bit as she watched the light move up to her.
“Okay, so...” Cherry placed her other hand behind the former supervillain’s head and lifted it up. She offered no real resistance, still watching the flame. “I’m gonna need you to, like... smell my perfume for this part? No worries, though, it’s all easy-peasy, just...”
Branch manager gave a muffled and rapidly slowing whisper of “mind... dolls.... just.....” Cherry pushed her face up into her cleavage, then smiled and continued in a chipper tone of voice “There we go. Now, this might make you feel a little pink...” she took the flame on her thumb and pushed it into Branch Manager’s temple. Slowly but firmly, like she was pressing prints into clay. She held the other girl firmly in place, feeling her struggles slow down, then stop. A moment after, she let go and stood up, leaving her slumped on the ground. Her blank expression had made way for a slight smile and a small damp patch was barely visible on her black skirt.
“How are you feeling?” asked Cherry, looking at her handiwork.
Branch Manager slowly lolled her head back and looked up at her, letting out a slurred “...pink...”
“Okay, perf!” Cherry smiled brightly, “Now, I’m gonna need you to do me a teensy little favour...”