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Not for the first time, Alice Romanova wondered why the teleport beacon for Peregrine wasn’t moved to Portal Corp instead of being kept right at the other end of the island. At least three quarters of all hero work here was based through there to a hundred different realities, after all. It’d make more sense than having to run across the city every single time.
Explains why Valles moved here, Purrfect Archer thought to herself as she leapt from the rooftop, passing over another street. Without even slowing, she twisted in midair, summoned a handful of arrows, and fired them in a single volley. The Rikti below fell to their knees, their armors medical systems teleporting them away as it registered their injuries from the rain of arrows. Rolling as she landed on the next rooftop, the catgirl sprinted across it, then jumped again. Passing close enough to a higher building, she ran along the wall, seemingly ignoring gravity entirely as she made her way towards Portal Corp.
The soldiers there let her pass without comment or delay, drawing a slight frown from the girl. Heading into the lobby of the east building, she recognised Unai Kemen waiting for her, the perfect person to speak to about it. “Your guards let me right in,” she noted.
“You’re a rather well known young lady these days,” he replied dryly.
“I took down a Nemesis duplicate of myself last week,” she pointed out in return.
Unai stopped to consider that, then scowled. “Very good point. I’ll make certain to talk to them.” Gesturing for her to follow, he ran her through the internal security properly, then headed for the lifts. “We’ve had a survey team get caught in the middle of a global crisis in one of the realities we’ve been studying,” he explained. “Most of the team were safely extracted, but one of them was captured by soldiers of an alien invasion force.”
“What’s the survey conditions?” she asked as they stepped into the lift.
“We haven’t made contact with the governments there yet,” Unai replied. “There’s no focal point for super-villains like the Isles here, but there’s a few dozen little dictatorships and banana republics across the planet. Add in about as many super-powered terrorist groups as we’ve got here, along with their own versions of Malta and the like...” He shrugged as they descended several hundred feet. “We’ve got enough problems here without drawing more hostile attention.”
Alice chuckled lightly. "Well, that's a reasonable attitude. So, I need to get in and get your researcher out without being noticed?" Her tail twitched as she smiled. "While I am good at being sneaky here, I may just stand out in another reality."
"Not as much as you'd think," Unai said as the lift doors opened. A man in his early thirties was standing in the hallway, clearly trying not to look panicked and clearly failing. "Purrfect Archer, this is Doctor Jameson, our head researcher on the target reality."
"Miss Archer," he said, shaking her hand, before handing her a manila folder. Alice opened it to see the photo of a somewhat nervous looking woman in her early twenties, with brown hair, freckles and rather large glasses. "Katie Lovell," Jameson explained. "She's an intern, specializing in advanced technology."
"Why was she kidnapped?" the catgirl asked as she memorized Katies face, then turned the page to see a number of poor quality photos of various skull faced robots, which Alice guessed were taken from television reports and camera phones.
“She wasn’t the direct target. Those robots are the ground forces of the alien invader, a creature called Brainiac. From what we can tell, someone was attempting a planet-wide superpower creation event. Some kind of advanced nano-technology they call Exobytes. Apparently, Brainiac has sent an invasion force to capture people infected by these Exobytes and attempt to harvest them.”
“And Miss Lovell is infected,” Alice finished, nodding. “Had she manifested any powers?”
“None that we’d seen. We were heading for the extraction point when half a dozen of those robots appeared, one of them said something about the Exobytes, then they grabbed Katie and teleported away. They didn’t even pay any attention to the rest of us,” he added, an interesting mixture of relief, irritation and shame flickering over his face.
Unai spoke up again as Alice looked at more pictures, these ones of a shining city with alien ships floating overhead. “Brainiac hasn’t detected Miss Lovells tracking beacon yet, we hope, and we’ve been able to track it to one of the ships he has in position over the city of Gotham. The local armed forces and their own heroes are fighting back, and I think they could win. But letting Miss Lovell stay in captivity too long is unacceptable. It’s too likely that Brainiac could notice something odd about her, probe a little deeper...”
Alice nodded. “And the last thing we need is yet another parallel reality trying to invade us,” she finished. Unai nodded, and the heroine skimmed the rest of the folders documentation. A brief primer on local heroes and big name villains, known abilities of the Brainiac robots, and so on. “How close can you get me?”
Portal Corps security chief frowned. “We can get you onto the ship, possibly even at her location. But we believe at that kind of range, Brainiacs sensors will be able to detect the portal. The engineers assure me that a half second portal can be modified to look like a more conventional teleportation effect, but we’re not going to be able to get you back out that way.”
Archer looked at Kemen for a moment, her expression serious, then she nodded slightly. “So, I need to find Lovell, free her, then get off the ship and go to ground?”
“That’s the best bet,” he agreed. “If you do have any attention drawn to you, you should be able to maintain your cover story until we can reestablish a lock on you and open a portal planetside. It could be four or five days,” he warned her as they stepped into the portal chamber.
Looking down at the hole in reality contained within the spinning machinery, Alice considered that, then turned to the very end of the manila folder, finding a collection of bank notes that didn’t quite match local currency, along with identification for an ‘Alice Romanova’ that had a very nicely modified picture of her. “Human me. Cute,” she chuckled, taking the money and id, vanishing it into thin air. “Now, I don’t suppose you happened to make some identification for Inyme as well?”
“Inyme W’tin?” Doctor Jameson wondered, then jumped slightly as the woman in question appeared next to Alice with the familiar flash of a mission teleporter.
“Of course,” the Rikti replied with a dry smile. “I’d hardly let Alice go off to another dimension that’s being invaded by alien invaders alone.” Unai smirked faintly, taking a small collection of cards from his shirt pocket. “Clever man,” she chuckled, nodding to Alice before heading for the portal. The catgirl grinned and followed.
***
Katie flinched back as the robot grabbed her by the arm and dragged her out of the force-field container. It held her there for a moment, studying her, before throwing her aside onto a raised platform. “COMMENCING EXOBYTE ACTIVATION AND EXTRACTION. SECURITY FIELD ACTIVE,” it declared, the words seemingly repeated by the walls of room they were in. Another forcefield appeared around her, a grid of gleaming orange light.
Scrambling to her feet, she watched as more of the droids stepped in, carrying large barrels that they attached to the side of the platform she was trapped on. Then, as she tried not to whimper in terror, they stopped mid-motion. “TELEPORTATION SIGNATURE DETECTED. SHORT RAN-” The statement was interrupted by the nearest droids jawless skull shattering as an arrow punched clean through it. It slumped to the ground, disabled, as a catgirl appeared in midair in a flash of light, kicking another droid hard enough to throw it across the room. Behind her, a darker skinned woman in a simple jumpsuit appeared, raising a hand at several of the droids, which were slammed up into the roof.
“PRISONERS HAVE ESCAPED,” the droids said, moving towards the new arrival. “UNEXPECTED EXOBYTE ACTIVATION. SECURING.”
“Yeah,” the catgirl replied with a smirk, Katies eyes widening as she recognised her from the news back home. “You try that.” Spinning on the spot, she pulled a half dozen arrows out of thin air and fired them from her bow all at once, taking down all but one of them. That last one she simply looked at, and it was thrown backwards and crushed into the far wall.
“Purrfect Archer!” Katie squeaked. The woman turned towards her, a confident smile on her face. “Oh my god, it’s really you! I mean, I’ve always wanted to meet you, I’m a big fan, but I never thought-”
“Easy Miss Lovell,” she smiled, stepping towards the platform. “Let’s see about getting you out of there for now, shall we?” As she turned her attention to the platforms computer terminal, the other woman stepped towards the doors, seeing what she could do about locking it.
Inyme W’tin, Katie realised. The Rikti infiltrator that... hadn’t quite defected so much as somehow started a new Rikti faction, if she was remembering the stories on the Internet properly. Even as she tried to remember the details, the woman in question turned towards her, and an understanding of their cover story simply appeared in her mind.
“Oh, right,” she nodded. “Makes sense. I mean, given we can’t go telling them the whole story and we don’t want Brainiac to know and-” she squeaked again and made herself shut up, taking a few deep breaths and trying to stop her hands from shaking. Archer looked up at her and smiled slightly.
“Don’t worry Katie,” she reassured her. “You’ll be fine.”
***
The girl was radiating so much terror it actually made Alice slightly nervous. Understandable. While Paragon City had the chance of being threatened by various super powered criminals, with threats ranging from muggings to body hijacking, there were a lot of heroes active there. Being kidnapped by alien robots in an alternate universe was an odd one, even by the standards of someone working at Portal Corp.
It was helping that she was one of Alice’s fans, as embarrassing as that could be at times. The concept of an nineteen year old catgirl (Sure, she looked older, but her age WAS a matter of public record) being a calming presence on a woman in her mid twenties was rather odd, but given she no longer looked about to throw up, Alice counted it as a win. Inyme considered it amusing. Now, if only she could convince the force-field to power down...
The sound of a door sliding open at the far end of the hallway caught her attention, and she looked up to see another half dozen droids marching through. “Oh for gods sake,” she muttered, stepping away from the controls and raising her bow. “I’m working here!” Inyme merely smiled, her casual confidence all the answer needed, as a storm of psychic energy shredded them. “Thanks love,” she said, enjoying the simple satisfaction her other half radiated, before turning her attention back to the terminal. It wasn’t going well. “I’m not going to be able to trick this thing into turning off,” she commented. “I’ll have to take the brute force solution.”
“Mind if I try it?” a new voice asked, and Alice blinked, looking up at the roof in surprise. This wasn’t the harsh, mechanical voice of Brainac she’d heard before. This was lighter, female, friendlier. “I’m Oracle,” she explained. “I’ve managed to access Brainiacs network. He’s trying to lock me out, but so far he’s not having too much luck. You’re not the only prisoners with super powers he’s lost control of. There’s fighting going on on most of his ships at the moment.”
“If you can get Katie out, I’d be happy to do my part to help with that violence,” Alice said with a smile. Hidden behind that smile though, she and Inyme shared a quick mental conversation. Alice had seen Oracle mentioned in the quick briefing Portal Corps had provided. Possibly an AI, or a very good hacker and all round genius, she was one of the major players in this realities hero community, operating as a mission control and general power behind the scenes. The two women quickly debated the problems of coming into too much contact with local heroes, but eventually Inyme had to agree with Alice that since contact was already made, refusing it would only draw suspicion.
“And I’m happy to help... hmm.”
“Hmm? What do you mean, hmm?” Katie asked nervously, adjusting her glasses.
“The system has safety protocols in place to try and prevent superpowered prisoners escaping,” Oracle replied. “I can trick it into thinking it’s extracted the exobytes, but only after I’ve activated them.”
“Wouldn’t it make more sense to have better security for when they HAVE superpowers?” Alice pointed out, frowning. Inyme didn’t actually roll her eyes, but her bond with Alice did a remarkable job of conveying the image to the catgirl. It was blatantly obvious to her, and Alice for that matter, that Oracle was thinking that both the women not trapped in force fields were powered up by Exobytes, and was operating under the theory that more firepower would be needed to make up for lack of experience.
Of course, both Alice and Inyme were anything but inexperienced, and that led to an interesting debate on if they should try and think of a way to stop Oracle from giving a rookie superpowers. Their cover story might struggle a bit, but it might be safer to keep her as a non-combatant. That said, she might be very useful with powers. They’d both seen people that landed on their feet when dropped into the life.
“Hmm, you’d think so,” Oracle said, unaware of the telepathic discussion that was going on.. “But I think it’s more a containment issue. Once they’re active, they’re usually extracted almost instantly, so they must not see it as a problem.”
Inyme considered blowing the door hydraulics and locking it down, but then abandoned the idea and walked over to join Alice at the platform, looking up at Katie and mentally noting that Oracle could at least make her justifications sound plausible.
“I think it’s a bit of a problem!” Katie squeaked, eyes wide. “What’re these things going to do to me?”
“Judging by what I’ve seen so far,” Alice said, keeping her voice calm and reasonable, “it’s going to give you superpowers.” She was actually going by what she’d been briefed on by Portal Corps, but no need to mention that in front of a local. “I don’t know how to tell what type, but I know that much.” Katie still looked like she was going to have a panic attack, so Alice pressed on quickly. “I know, it’s scary. But I’ve been there before, and I’d like to think I did alright.” Katie hesitated, and Alice could feel her emotions wavering. “And I could really use some help getting out of here,” she added, then managed not to wince as Inyme noted with more than a little amusement that she’d made it impossible for the girl to refuse, given the hero worship.
Sure enough, Katies emotions calmed, and she nodded. “Okay. Let’s do this.” Taking a breath, she tried to brace herself for... well, Alice wasn’t entirely sure what, exactly, and she didn’t exactly have time to consider it further. The doors were opening again, revealing another dozen drones, a half dozen purple droids that were bulkier and more heavily armored, and something else. Something much bigger. Looked very Arachnos really, but then, she thought that about almost anything spider-like. In this case, it was the jaw-less skull design Brainiac seemed to favor, with what looked like an actual giant brain mounted in the back, all on top of mechanical spider-legs.
“That,” Oracle said flatly, “is an Overseer. Be careful...” her voice trailed off, and Alice smiled slightly. Inyme smiled wider, and Alice could sense her anticipation as she got ready to grab the mechs mind.
“Purrfect Archer,” she replied. “Get Katie powered up. I’ll buy you the time you need.” With that, she began walking forward calmly, flames dancing around her as another arrow appeared in her hand. Inyme hung back, letting Alice grab the attention and let her work.
“THE PRISONERS WILL BE SECURED AND RETURNED FOR EXTRACTION,” the Overseer stated, as energy emitters mounted on the humanoid robots began to glow.
Her smile widening into an outright grin, Alice broke into a run. “Just try it!” she laughed, leaping over the first shots. Twisting in midair, she fired down into the middle of a group of droids, the arrow detonating and scattering them everywhere. With a crackle of ionised air, a force-field snapped into view around the Overseer and it charged towards her as she landed. Somehow though, it missed her entirely, colliding with a two of the sentry drones and crushing them against the wall. Alice laughed, her eyes darting over to a clearly amused Inyme, who had determined that the Overseers vat-grown brain was so very easy to play with.
***
She was a Paragon girl. Grew up in Founders, survived the Rikti war, made certain to continue her education in the aftermath of that. She’d been nearly mugged by Hellions, had Clockwork try to steal her phone, and dodged Rikti and Zombies whenever they popped up. She’d even had run ins with Crey and the like. Kate had seen heroes at work hundreds of times, charging in to take down villains all over the City. While she was the sort of person whose idea of facing evil was to get out of the way and let someone more qualified handle it, she knew the difference between raw violence and skill.
And she could see that Purrfect Archer and Inyme W’tin were damn good. The catgirl never stopped moving, working to keep her distance and fire off arrows with better accuracy and speed then any mere human should be able to do. Off to the side, Inyme worked unnoticed, making the Overseer dance to her will and forcing the other drones to have to dedicate some effort to disabling it. Every now and then, one of them got too close to her or tried to line up a shot on her, and she responded with a blade of purple psychic energy that punched clean through her target and dropped it then and there. Brainiac drones went down with shocking speed as they tried to close in on Archer, the woman shifting from ranged combat to melee with ease, using an arrow like a dagger and stabbing up through the underside of a drones skull. As it fell, a wave of a hand surrounded another target in flame, and then Archer was airborne again, leaping over the now rather battered looking Overseer and reducing its giant brain to pulp with half a dozen arrows.
“PRISONER REMAINS UNSECURED,” Brainiac declared. “REDEPLOYING SUBJUGATORS TO EXTRACTION CHAMBER FIVE.” Sure enough, Katie could see even more of those larger purple drones stomping down the hall towards the still open main doors. Inyme stepped up next to Archer, the pair smiled at each other, and then they both sent a wave of psychic energy rampaging down the corridor at their victims.
After that, Katie was a bit too distracted to pay attention. Her body suddenly went wild, waves of heat rippling over her skin, her heart racing faster, her eyes watering. Gasping, her knees gave way and she fell sideways, bouncing off the force-field with a brief spark of energy and sprawling across the platform. Chest heaving, the young woman managed to roll onto her back, then lay there, trying not to throw up.
“Stay calm,” she heard Oracle say. “I know it’s an odd sensation, but it’ll pass in a few moments. Just stay calm, and you’ll be alright.”
“You... You’re not the one on fire!” she gasped, her voice cracking. Closing her eyes, she forced back the nausea, then winced as sharp spikes of pain raced out in both directions from her knees. The pain reached her hips and lingered for a long moment, then it burned out with one last sudden crack that made her legs spasm. As the pain faded and her legs were left feeling rather odd, Katie managed to sit up enough to take a good look at them.
What she saw made her stare in shock. Instead of the short, slightly flabby legs she was used to (Despite many attempts to improve them at the gym), Katie found herself staring at a pair of impressively long, sleek legs emerging from under her skirt. Her shoes had actually ripped open as her feet grew, leaving them in just her now rather strained stockings. As she watched though, her stockings vanished entirely, and her ruined shoes reformed themselves in a blaze of green light, covering her feet in a pair of rather nice knee-high boots.
Then her attention was pulled away from her lower half as the pain returned, moving up past her waist, over her shoulders and down her arms. Her elbows gave way, dropping her back to the floor, and she bit back a moan as the pain intensified, then vanished with the same physical spasm as before. There was a moment of that same sensation of oddness, but perhaps more importantly, a sudden uncomfortable pressure on her chest before her blouse and bra gave up the fight. "Oh damn!" she managed, clumsily bringing one arm up to try and cover a chest that had gone from barely A-cup to V-chan. The hand and arm were unfamiliar as well, smooth and delicate, with just a hint of muscle definition. Even as shocked and disoriented as she was right now, she could feel her waist and stomach were much the same, all smooth and lighter.
If only it wasn't happening like this, a part of her brain noted wryly as that green light covered her now rather ruined clothes. In seconds, they reformed into a dark black armored bodysuit with purple highlights. Armored gauntlets covered her hands and forearms, even as a cape flowed down from her shoulders.
The final shift was expected, and it came fast, and she closed her eyes as pain ripped across her face. She wasn’t able to hold back a pained scream as her jaw cracked and her face re-sculpted itself. Opening her eyes, she hoped that her face was still her own and managed to climb to her knees. The green light flickered over her face, and she felt the bodysuit move up her neck and grow over the top half of her face, forming a mask.
Then, like a switch was thrown, the pain and disorientation vanished entirely, and Katie leapt to her feet, looking around. She could see Purrfect Archer and Inyme W’tin, still standing in the doorway of the chamber, surrounded by the remains of dozens of Brainiac drones. They both looked virtually untouched, unconcerned even. Another wave of drones was coming down the corridor now, both women ready to meet the charge.
The glow of the platforms force field faded, and without a moments hesitation, Katie unhooked her weapon from her utility belt and charged towards the fight.
***
Despite how calm snd confident she looked, Alice was starting to worry a little. Not in terms of her ability to match what was coming at her, or Inymes ability to do the same. They were tearing the drones apart and were likely to keep doing that for some time. The problem was that eventually, Brainiac would decide the three women were costing too many robots to be worth capture, and then he’d either send in siege units, or figure out a way to open this section of the ship to space, and while she didn’t think she was immodest about her abilities, she rather doubted her abilities to handle hard vacuum.
Meanwhile, her lover was more worried about Katie. The pain, disorientation and fear radiating from behind them had her thinking that perhaps they'd made a mistake in trusting Oracle. Alice reminded her that they hadn't really had much choice, and they'd just have to work with the consequences, and got the mental version of an irritated grumble back.
Focusing her mind, Alice was about to drain the power of the drones closing to melee range, when the state of Katies mind shifted almost completely. The terror was replaced by mild fear, kept under tight control. Pain and disorientation faded away, anticipation and a sense of ease and physical comfort filling the void. And then she was moving, charging towards the fight.
Both of the other women moved out of the way, falling back to support Katie, just in case, but both of them eager to see what she could do. Which meant they both got a good look at the impressively tall red-head Amazon in a black and purple bodysuit nearly decapitate the closest drone with a swing of her quarterstaff.
Raising an eyebrow, Inyme looked over at Alice, not even needing her telepathic link to convey her astonishment. They’d both seen physical changes taking place over a short time before, usually from Kheldians, but this was drastically different from the five foot tall woman they’d come to rescue.
“Well,” Alice said. “I’d say you’re battle ready.”
Smiling, Katie twirled her staff and swept out the legs of the last drone in this attack wave. “I feel it,” she agreed. “What’s the plan?”
“Oracle, where to?” Alice asked, summoning more arrows. “Do we have an exit, or do we have targets on the ship?”
“Brainiacs forces are moving into deeper into the atmosphere. I’m trying to get through the transporter shielding, but I think you’re going to have to actually destroy several of the systems for me to have any luck.”
“Then lead the way,” the catgirl smiled, breaking into a run down the corridor, the other two women close behind.
More drones appeared, emerging from side corridors and storage bays, but they still weren’t properly prepared for the trios skill levels. Alice was nowhere near where they expected her to be, her arrows destroying their joints and power cores before they were able to retarget her, Inyme scrambled their systems and left them shooting at the air before her telekinesis ripped them apart, and even Katie was learning impressively fast, her staff hitting hard enough to crack armor and break the machine underneath.
Stepping around a lunging drone, Inyme sent it flying into a wall and glanced at Alice. The catgirl sensed the question and nodded slightly as she reached out and wrapped another enemy in flames. Stepping back from the fight for a moment, Inyme turned her attention to Katie entirely and focused. Instantly, the girl was pulled into the telepathic link. Not on the scale of the bond between the two lovers, but more like a radio headset, letting her hear the pair as they shared ideas and tactics. Before she knew it, she was moving with instinctive ease, moving at the front of the trios charge through the ship.
***
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