“So then,” Ginger Snap asks, “what do you do when you face something you can’t beat? Something so powerful you have no chance of winning?”

Despite herself, Eldritch leans in to listen in the corner. The two girls wait, trying to hide the intensity of their need to know. To the trained eye of Vicious, they might as well tell him outright. It is clear to him that both girls have something specific in mind when thinking about Ginger’s question.

He pauses, his eyes narrowing behind the mask. Then, he speaks. “I took the contract on Beacon,” he begins, “and I got closer than anyone else aside from Ash to killing him. I did it because unlike the rest of the villains that try to beat him I don’t care about what makes him strong.”

Cocking her head to the side, Ginger asks, “What do you mean? Didn’t you have to plan for his power?”

Shaking his head, Vicious corrects her saying, “No, I didn’t. I didn’t want the glory of beating him in front of cameras or the notoriety of the kill. I just wanted the contract. So unlike everyone else, I was willing to do whatever was necessary to attack him where he was weak. I didn’t care about what makes him strong because I didn’t need to care. I only had to focus on what makes Beacon weak, and that is where I struck.”

“Which was…?” asks Ginger, leaning forward in excitement.

Vicious shakes his head and places a finger to his lips. “That’s my secret,” he replies. “But the lesson is clear. If you can’t match your enemy, find a weakness and exploit it.”

Snapping back to the present, Ginger Snap refocuses on the giant mass of flesh and pus in front of her. Cussing gently, and in a decidedly unladylike manner, she leaps out of the reach of HeadHunter’s flailing arms.

Trembling, Ginny focuses on the next blow as it arrives. With a graceful twist she dodges and spins herself out of the way. But her footwork is not enough, and with a stumble she falters finding herself falling to the floor!

Quickly, she tucks into a roll that brings her around and away from the monster for a bit longer. Huffing from the exertion, Ginny pauses to catch her breath. Before she can, however, she finds herself dodging once more as HeadHunter advances with preternatural speed! Ducking quickly, Ginny feels the ichor-laden fingers of HeadHunter barely graze the top of her suit. Barely is enough, however, and as the corrosive blood coating HeadHunter’s hands slides onto Ginny’s helmet she finds herself facing an impossible choice. She can either cast off her helmet, or take the full brunt of the blood on her unprotected skin!

Mouth settled into a determined line, Ginny throws off her helmet and angles her face down as she forms a new one from the metal that coats her figure. She will have to hope that was enough to obfuscate her appearance from anyone else in the room, for while they appear incapacitated Ginny knows better than to trust mere looks.

The flurry of movement does nothing to help her catch her breath, and in fact does much the opposite. Coming up under her new mask, Ginger Snap is panting as she fights to remain calm in the face of HeadHunter’s vicious attack.

“Time?” she gasps out.

“Twenty three hours and twenty five minutes,” replies her suit.

“Ughhh,” groans Ginny, “Can’t you calculate how much longer?”

“Unfortunately the rate of decay cannot be determined, nor can the age that will trigger a reverse-transformation.”

Ginny huffs in disappointment as she dives out of the way of another attack. Spinning to her feet she leaps backwards as HeadHunter lurches like a top, bringing arms around in a sweeping motion. Then she has to dodge again as a pillar of flesh and teeth kicks out at her chest. With a groan, Ginger parries and sheds her gauntlets in a swift motion. As armor reforms around her hands she darts back yet again.

“Can’t be much longer now,” she whispers, fortifying herself to unearth a bit more energy. “Gotta be soon.”

Time, dear reader, does not bend to the fickle whims of fate, destiny, or desperation. For all Ginny’s internal pleas she cannot avert the fatigue settling into her bones or the exhaustion of this long slog. The fight moves inexorably toward a conclusion, but in this battle against the grindstone of time Ginger possess no provenance from above or below to save her. It is simply the contest of wills, the unthinking, unaware monster railing in constant rage against the desperate girl beset on all sides by her enemy and exhaustion. When the end comes, it does so quickly.

It is with a slow motion that Ginger dodges the next attack. Ducking under the first blow, she slides herself backward in a catlike leap that leaves her balancing precariously on her toes.

Teetering, she cannot regain control fast enough to avoid the next battery as the mountain of ghastly flesh seethes toward her. Any pretense at finesse is gone from HeadHunter as it body slams into Ginger and clutches her tight in the embrace of the hundred horrid hands. Little mouths gnash and snap as they seek to bite into the metal of her costume, scrabbling against the hard exterior.

In her suit, Ginny screams out, “Let go of me!”

Warning sounds emanate from the helmet as the suit says, “Critical failure reported on all systems. Ms. Napp, this suit is unable to maintain physical integrity. Apologies Ms. Napp the-”

With a sudden rush, the sound cuts out and Ginny is alone inside a coffin of collapsing metal. Inside the empty mask, her eyes whirl in fear as she tries to find a way out. Panicked, she begins to hammer at the suit screaming, “Let me out!”

Hyperventilating, she pushes in vain against the constricting arms before shouting again, “Out! God, out! Let me OUT!”

Groaning, Ginny leverages her inert suit to push against the collapsing metals. With a thrust of her feet she bends the corroded metals up into the belly of the beast and shoves backward as hard as she can. Failing, Ginny begins to kick wildly in desperation. Once, she hits HeadHunter to no avail. Twice, she strikes in desperation, a creeping feeling of sick fear crawling down her spine. Three times, she lashes out wildly trying not to feel the creeping lightness of the metal as it dissolves around her feet. Four times, she pushes with a burst of strength that comes as a last gasp before her resolve crumbles. Five times, she taps into something that Ginny S. Napp has never experienced before. Burning blood from Headhunter runs down her feet, blistering the skin as she digs into the hundreds of gaping mouths and pushes off with everything she has left.

The sudden motion proves enough! With a heave, Ginny bursts free of HeadHunter and falls a few feet away. Her feet covered in tiny blisters, she cannot stand as the beast lumbers toward her, intent on recapturing it’s prey. Behind the crumbled remains of her mask, Ginny cannot speak. Her exhaustion is too much, and all she can do is lay helplessly as the thing advances.

It is then, dear reader, that time’s thoughtless advance rewards the other half of this fight. Just as the first sickly looking hand reaches out to brush Ginny, it begins to wither in on itself. Slowly the smaller arms transform into brittle branches that slough off and fall to the ground. The mouths that snapped so wildly begin to shed teeth in a hailstorm of calcified bone that continues into unidentifiable material making up the cocoon that was HeadHunter. Sliding out in a slick slurry of water and sludge is a much younger version of Lady Spade who lies inert in the puddle the bio-waste forms.

Shaking, Ginny curls her feet up to her chest and lies on the ground. Rocking back and forth she begins to crawl over to the smashed door to the main room. Once there, she hauls her body onto the metal sheet and passes out atop it. A minute passes, everyone in the room lying helpless on the floor.

On one end is Ginger, slowly sinking into the metal door. Scatter around her is Eldritch, blood leaking from her ears as she lies on the ground a few steps away. Across from them are the queens, led by Lady Club and Lady Diamond. Trapped in a magic box is the Queen of Hearts, still unable to escape after the scream of HeadHunter left her inert within. In the middle of the floor lies Lady Spade, a child amidst the ruins of her empowered tumor.

A beeping noise stirs Ginny from her exhausted slumber. As she slowly reacquaints herself to her situation and the steady throb of pain in her feet, a voice says, “Ms. Napp, rebooting is complete. Would you like to engage auto-defense systems?”

The beeping continues and the voice repeats itself. “Ms. Napp, rebooting is complete. Would you like to engage auto-defense systems?”

Ginny curls up on the doorframe, now reduced to a skeleton by her suit’s metal assimilating ability. The beeping continues. “Ms. Napp, rebooting is complete. Would-”

“No,” says Ginny, cutting off her robotic companion. “Welcome back. I was afraid I’d lost you.”

“Crash logs indicate that critical failure occurred in several subsystems before mandatory shutdown occurred. Automatic reintegration of untainted metals allowed for rebuilding critical infrastructure, as such this suit is back online.”

Rolling over to her back, Ginny stares up at the celling. “Haaaaa,” she exhales in exhaustion. “Can you even die?” Ginny asks with a hint of trepanation in her voice, somewhat afraid of the answer.

“Integration with your biological circuitry is almost complete, Ms. Napp. Given a few more months of calibrating it would be highly unlikely that this suit would ever be completely destroyed. Alternatively, this unit is equipped with designs for an implanted version.”

Ginny lies on her back for a minute, processing the suit’s words. Then she begins to giggle. Laughing for a few seconds she stops, wincing as she aggravates the wounds on her feet. “Ahh,” Ginny murmurs. Then she rolls herself up into a sitting position and says with an audible huff, “Implants! Women shouldn’t feel pressured to get implants!” Laughing to herself she adds, “God! Elly’s crazy feminism is rubbing off on me.”

Chuckling, she crawls over to her downed ally and smacks her lightly across the cheek. “Hey! Elly! Eldritch! Mighty Maiden! Wake up!”

“Uuughhhh,” moans Eldritch. Slowly, she rolls herself over and sits up, staring around in wonder at the destroyed room. “W-what happened?” she asks slowly, uncertain.

Ginger Snap laughs grimly and says, “The Queen of Spades is a real bit-”

“Whoa!” Eldritch exclaims, “What is that!” pointing at the remains of the tumor that grew around Spade.

“HeadHunter,” Ginger replies. “Do you remember it screaming?”

Frowning, Eldritch shakes her head and answers, “I do, but to think it would turn into something like that… powers are crazy sometimes, huh?”

“You have no idea,” Ginny says with a shake of her head. Then she grimaces and points to her feet, “Do you know any healing spells?”

Eldritch inspects her feet for a few seconds and then says uncertainly, “I do, but I don’t know if they would help with this. Plus, they take a lot out of me. Let’s get Rabbit free and the queens into police custody first, then I’ll do what I can.”

“Deal,” says Ginny. Then with a snap of her fingers, she creates a wheelchair and pushes herself toward the still-inert lineup of queens. “Got any spare metal? I’m going to be cutting it close if I make handcuffs for all of them.”

Eldritch shakes her head and says, “I can use magic on them, but I don’t have any spare metal. They probably have some with Rabbit, however.” Turning toward the door the Queens came from, Eldritch straightens and says, “Let’s get these girls locked up and go see, shall we?”

Ginger wheels herself over as Eldritch wraps a set of glowing bonds around Lady Club. “We’re good, let’s go see what the Rabbit has to say.”

“Perfect,” Eldritch says, straightening up and surveying the room one more time. “So what happened while I was out?”

“Oh,” sighs Ginger, “nothing much really, just a totally awesome fight between me and a supervillain.” With a sly smile she adds, “When you’re a real superheroine I’ll tell you all about it!”

Friendly jibbing at the end of a difficult battle, dear reader! If nothing else, a clear sign of the budding bond between the two, a bond that will be tested next week in… “A Hatter, a Hare, and a Tea Party!”