Chapter Text
Chapter Two: Mariposa Alone
“Did you think we’d let this opportunity pass us by?” The tall dark man hissed. Scattered throughout the room, the San Fransokyo heroes all tensed up - most noticeably Frost and his younger sister.
“Oh really dears, you can’t be that stupid,” Two witch like women laughed, their skin almost waterstained and wrinkled. Mirabel caught Atlantica grab the brown haired reporter's hand and step a little in front of him. They must have been familiar with those two.
“Mira, look,” Camilo whispered, getting his cousin's attention. She looked quickly to the side, grimacing as the shades of awesome chattered excitedly.
“Miercoles,” She whispered.
The rest of the villains in the room laughed and started to circle, all locking on to their regular heroes. With the ambush, it was clear they thought they had the upper hand.
“Okay Sugarus Squad!” Shockwave yelled, phasing through some sort of bug thing and firing a blast of electrical energy back at it. “Hit ‘em hard!”
Phantom disappeared and the two speedsters high fived and started running, while Spec held her hands up to her head and her boyfriend got ready to defend her if necessary.
“Regalos!” Abuela yelled like the family wasn’t already jumping into action. “Mariposa!”
“Yes Abuela?” Mirabel tried not to sigh as the older woman grabbed her by the back of her super suit.
“Civilian duty,” She said, then shoved her back out towards the ballroom doors.
“ABUELA!” Mirabel almost shrieked, growling in anger.
“Do it now Mirabel!” Madre Vela snapped, forgetting her granddaughter's secret identity. “No fighting!”
“ARRRGH!” She groaned. “Fine!”
Despite Abuela’s obvious lack of faith in her, Mirabel moved the non-supers out of the room relatively quickly. While speedsters and teleporters were usually on civilian duty, they’d all gotten caught up in the big fight.
She started with the reporters who weren’t also fighting back - aka, Jim Hawkins from Monstressor. Then she grabbed up little Agnes Gru, who was the girl Antonio had been dancing with. Then she moved out the people Abuela would murder her over if they got hurt.
“Y’know I could help them,” She groused. “It’s like they all forget I’m a superhero too,”
“It's not that bad,” Jim offered. “Ari-Atlantica always doing this ‘save him by sacrificing yourself or pull off extreme shows of power’ schtick,”
“I uh… really should be in there,” Ted Wiggins - Shockwave’s friend - said anxiously.
“Oh god, I hope Wil never does something like that,” Cornelius Robinson said to Jim. Mirabel groaned again. “But you’re right Mariposa, this does feel a little… unnecessary,”
It was. They’d moved out from the main fight and into a side room that doubled as a security chamber. They’d found an unconscious NSA agent slumped by the desk, which was a clue that the villains had probably camped out there as well.
Mariposa crowded around the computers with Cornelius, Jim and Ted. Against the back wall, Franny and Vex Robinson were sitting with Agnes, along with a few of the injured agents and invited press - including Roxanne Ritchi, who looked anxious to get back out to cover the battle.
“Why do you want to go in there?” Mirabel suddenly asked Ted, who paled.
“Why don’t you just go back in there?” Ted asked in response.
“Abuela will kill me,” Mirabel muttered. “Believe me, I’ve done it before,”
“Why do you want to be in there?” Jim asked curiously. Ted’s hand twitched, like he wanted to grab something. His eyes darted back and forth, but he leaned forward so only the other three could hear him.
“I’m the L.O.R.A.X.” He said. “But my armor got messed up on the trip here, and I need to fix it and get back in there,”
“You’re the L.O.R.A.X?!” Mirabel asked. “Infierno, we both need to get back in there!”
“I doubt one or two more people would help anyways,” Cornelius said, looking at the monitors. “We need a distraction,”
“Something big, that will trip them up,” Jim added with a sly smile. “Where’s the main control room?”
“How would I know?”
“Chill Robinson,” Hawkins said. “I know you helped build this damned thing,”
“Fine,” Cornelius relinquished. “The power station’s at the base of the structure, and yes, I could build something that could… disrupt the fight,”
“Like what?” Mariposa asked.
“An anti-power field,” Cornelius said, looking up. “I built one when Wil got his powers and they were unstable. I could replicate it with materials here, but… it would stop everyones powers. Both heroes and villains will go down,”
“But it would stop them?” Mariposa asked.
“As long as it was running,” The scientist said. “And I know the San Fransokyo heroes have training for powerless situations,”
“I can get my armor working if you give me enough time,” Ted said.
“I’ll help,” Jim agreed.
“It's a chance we’ll have to take,” Mirabel muttered. “Okay, doc. Build it.”
Mariposa snuck down to the power station, passing empty room after empty room. If any agents had been down here, they’d either been taken out by the villains or pulled into the fight.
“There yet, Kid?” Jim’s voice rang in the comm in her ear.
“Shut up Hawkins,” Mirabel shot back. “I’m at the door,”
She opened it quickly and slipped inside, using an override code from Cornelius. There were several computers and individual power stations, but the main one was in the middle, slightly larger than the others.
Mariposa strode towards the console, fingers grabbing at the small machine hooked onto her hip. She was a few feet from being able to plug it when something small and dense hit and sent her sprawling into the wall.
“Ohoho, not so fast!” A voice laughed, and Mirabel growled.
“Shades of Lame,” She hissed, glaring at Yolo as the little monkey monster tipped back his head and laughed. Blue flames shot up around him, and Mirabel threw a hand up to protect herself from the heat. Still laughing, the flames dissipated, leaving a large blue puma in Yolo’s place.
Mirabel hauled herself up, getting to her feet just as Yolo launched himself at her. She ducked and let the villain throw himself into the fall, then ran towards the center console.
A burst of warmth at her back told her that Yolo had once again changed shape, and she threw herself to the ground just as a piercing ‘caw’ split the air around her and a large bird of prey barely missed her head.
Yolo spun back around, but Mariposa was faster, delivering a swift kick into his wings. The effort knocked them both back, but Mirabel shoved herself up and tried to reach the panel for the third time.
She unhooked the device Cornelius had made, then reached to plug in it, but something twisted around her leg and yanked her down. Something cracked, and she almost cried out in pain.
Yolo - now as a snake, leered over her, ready to bite.
“Ready to die, little butterfly?” He laughed, turning back to his original form. Mirabel winced, then threw her head up, smacking it into Yolo’s and throwing the small shade backwards.
“No.” She spit. “I’m too stubborn,”
Yolo seemed to be unconscious, so Mirabel made quick use of him - tying his hands behind his back with her grappling hook. She went back to the console, rigging up the machine and getting it ready to turn on.
“And… there!” Mirabel said, ready to hit the button when she was interrupted by a low laugh. She looked just in time to see Yolo’s tail hit a large screen on the same console she was working on.
There was a loud alarm sound, then everything went black.
Everything in the ballroom went black, startling both the heroes and villains. As the alarm started to blare, emergency lights flickered on, relighting but in a dimmer yellow.
At the same time, the entire compound started to fall out of the sky.
Everyone was suddenly knocked off their feet, hitting the ground hard or flying up into the air. Heroes who could fly struggled to stay steady, grabbing others and getting them to safety as they tried to figure out what was going on.
In the surveillance room, Jim, Cornelius and Ted helped everyone hold on. The pressure shoving them into the ground grew, and Ted and Jim shared a look.
“Come on Mariposa,”
“COME ON!” Mariposa shrieked, using the console to pull herself upright. “I’m so sick of stuff like this happening!”
She grabbed the loose machine and whacked Yolo over the head with it, slamming his face into the console and further throwing him into unconsciousness. She pulled herself towards her grappling line, retying the Shade up and securing him to the other side of the room. Then, she crawled back, managed to find and reconnect the anti-gravity device.
With a thump Mirabel hit the floor, groaning in pain. Her leg felt practically dead at her side.
“Mama’s food, mama’s food,” She whispered, reaching into a pocket and pulling out a crushed half of arepa. Mirabel stuffed it in her mouth, relishing the healing feeling as it rushed through her body.
She worked fast after that, reattaching the anti-power device and setting it up in the computer system. With a flick of a switch and a few permissions on the computer that the device bypassed, she watched as the energy field in the wall flickered and strengthened.
It was up.
“I’m coming up!” She yelled into her commlink. “Lorax, do you have your armor?!”
The anti-power field hit the ballroom just as fast as the anti-gravity had.
“What is happening?!” Someone screamed when their powers stopped.
Dimension tried to teleport over, but nothing happened and he hit Skoro as she suddenly stopped and hit the ground.
Flurry and Frost fell out of the air in tandem, crashing into a drink table. When she turned to look at them, Solarflare’s golden hair stopped glowing.
“What is going on!?” A villain screamed. “Pitch!”
The Nightmare King hissed as his shadowing minions suddenly disappeared. He also seemed to have no idea what was going on, and glared at the heroes suspiciously.
“My powers are gone!” Fuerza screamed in terror. “My strength! It’s gone!”
The panic didn’t last long, and the fight picked back up. While some of the supers struggled without their powers and almost started to run, people like Archer and Gru were still moving at full speed, mostly because they’d never really had powers in the first place.
The door to the ballroom suddenly slammed open, and Cornelius, Jim and Lorax ran in - led by Mariposa.
“Hands off my family!” The young Regalo shrieked. At her battle cry, the three jumped into action - all using their technology they’d stashed or built.
The villains reeled backwards, surprised at the extra fighters. There was a cheer as the younger heroes joined in, then everyone else.
The villains were so stunted without their powers that most were captured quickly. A few made a break for the doors, but only some escaped. When they were done, Cornelius’s machine timed out, and the anti-power field stopped.
“Thank’s kid,” Frost said, ruffling Mariposa’s hair. “Everyone cheer for Mariposa!”
“Mari-posa! Mari-posa!” The Omega’s started up, cheering loudly and clapping. Suddenly, her siblings swarmed her, almost knocking the young hero onto the ground.
“Good job sis,” Isabela whispered.
“It was a good plan,” Dolores added and smiled.
“My awesome powerless baby sister,” Luisa sniffed.
“Knew you had it covered,” Camilo said.
“I told you that you were the coolest super cousin!” Antonio cried as he grabbed her leg and his leopard bumped her back. “I told you!”
Mirabel looked up and smiled at her parents and aunt and uncles. Even Abuela was smiling at her. Behind her family, the rest of the world's supers looked on in awe and appreciation.
Being a non-super super was a pretty good gig sometimes.