The view from the top of the office tower was astounding. Somehow the city, an ugly sprawl of hazy gray by day, was a beautiful sea of lights by night, some moving and others not. Only one person was around to enjoy the view from that particular angle: one watchful guardian of the city, a dragon standing at the edge of the roof with one foot resting on the raised concrete edging, his hands balled into fists and resting on his hips. A pity that nobody was likely to see him from his vantage point...

The wind at the top of the tower blew his long cape to the side, as well as the long single whisker on each side of the dragon's snout, tufted with yellow fur that matched the mane that ran down his back. He wore a pure white fedora with a buckled strap around the base, resting between the pair of ivory horns on his head. The hat matched the color of his cape, elbow-length gloves, knee-high boots, the mask that covered his eyes, and his spandex briefs with the large utility belt just above them. The rest of his green-scaled body was bare, including his broad chest, powerful arms and legs, and the six-pack of abs above the waistline of his spandex. His tail hung behind him, a few inches off the ground, his mane continuing down to the very end to end in a tuft of yellow fur at the tip.

By day he was an office worker like so many others; but by night, he was White Hat, superhero and thwarter of crimes, cyber- or otherwise.

Suddenly, he felt a buzzing against the right side of his head and reached up to his headpiece. Custom-made by himself, it had a small speaker positioned over his internal ear, and a flip-down microphone, secured firmly to his right horn to ensure it wouldn't fall off. Lowering the microphone, he pressed his first two fingers against the side to accept the incoming call, and spoke in a clear voice. "White Hat here."

"It's Blue Team," the voice on the other end announced. "We've caught reports of a bank robbery in progress at the corner of Main and 16th!"

"Justice is on the way!" White Hat acknowledged, flipping the microphone back up. Reaching for his utility belt as he leapt from the rooftop, he pulled out a gadget that unfolded into a hang glider as he fell, allowing him to take a direct route to his destination. Between skyscrapers and over smaller buildings he flew, spotting his destination easily: an unmarked van had crashed through the outer wall of a bank and people were fleeing the scene, the bank's alarms blaring at full volume. In the chaos, much of the nearby traffic had gotten into a tangle; it would take the police too long to navigate through it.

White Hat, however, would get there any second now...

The goons carrying out the robbery could only have looked more stereotypical if they'd had black and white striped outfits instead of all-black. The one shouting orders from beside the van never saw White Hat coming until he turned at the last second, just in time to have two booted feet plant against his chest, knocking him to the ground. But his cry attracted attention from the other robbers nearby, two of them in the middle of carrying out duffel bags stuffed with their ill-gotten gains. Only their tails were visible, a fox on the left and a canid of some sort on the right; as they turned and dropped the bags, White Hat let go of his hang glider, dashed forward and-

==OOC==

"Snake eyes?!" Zhen groaned, holding out both hands towards the dice on the table incredulously. "Come ON! This is my big entrance!"

White Hat was a flagrant self-insert for Zhen; the dragon who had just been struck by the fickle whims of fate looked much the same as his character except for being dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. Other than being perhaps almost but not quite as muscular as White Hat was – certainly according to his character sheet – they were basically identical, by intent.

At the opposite side of the dining room table, sitting behind a folding GM screen, Zhen's wife who went by the nickname of Code couldn't help but chuckle. The lizard was also dressed casually in a fleece shirt and track pants, her scales blue-green on most of her body while her softer ventral scales were sea-green instead. Her long tail swished in the air behind her as she glanced down at the tablet computer she had hidden behind the GM screen, then looked back up and across the table at Zhen.

"The dice giveth, and the dice taketh away," she quipped. "Mostly taketh. Are you going to use a reroll on that?"

Zhen inhaled deeply, and let it out as a disappointed sigh. "No," he muttered, picking up his pencil, "I'd better keep them for later. How much damage do I take?"

==IC==

-promptly took a punch to the face from the one on the left, sending him reeling back against the hood of the van. Before he could recover from his stun, the robber moved in and swung again, striking the side of White Hat's head and knocking off his hat, which landed on the van.

As the thug raised his fist to strike again, White Hat managed to raise his right hand, gritting his teeth. A shimmering red wall of energy appeared momentarily to intercept the blow. The Firewall jolted the would-be robber and sent him staggering back, clutching at his hand and wincing. The canine pulled out a gun, but White Hat was already on the offensive, one hand grabbing his hat as he pushed himself off of the hood of the van. Donning his hat at the same time as he struck the goon's arm, he knocked the gun to the ground, before slugging the robber with a one-two punch that sent him sprawling on the pavement.

The other one recovered just in time to get elbowed in the chest by White Hat, then struck hard on the back with both arms. Finishing him off with a kick to the side as the robber was on all fours, White Hat heard a shout from inside the bank and dove for cover behind the van just before gunshots rang out, another alarm starting to ring across the street as a storefront's window was shattered.

Screams from nearby alerted White Hat to the presence of bystanders, so he reached for his belt and pulled out a flashbang, popping off the pin with his thumb before hurling it over the van and into the bank, putting his hands over the sides of his head and closing his eyes. It went off a moment later, still loud enough for him to hear, and he rushed in while the two bank robbers were reeling, staggering with their left arms over their eyes. One rose his gun as if to blind-fire, but White Hat took him out first, kicking him in the chest. His bullets sprayed off into the air as he fell, and the other one shook off his stun just in time to see White Hat's gloved fist approaching his face; a moment later he was out cold on the ground, and White Hat was kicking the gun from the last goon's grip.

Grabbing the still-conscious thief by the back of his collar, White Hat hauled him up off the ground and held him up as he futilely flailed and kicked at the air. "How many of you miscreants are there?" White Hat demanded.

But his question was answered by someone else. "Drop him and put your arms up, loser."

Letting go of his captive, who promptly faceplanted on the ground, White Hat turned back towards the bank, where a new trio awaited him. Well, four, technically, but the fourth person was a hostage, a red panda woman who had been in the wrong place at the wrong time, perhaps on her way back from a formal event going by her fancy clothing. She was being escorted at gunpoint by a much bigger and taller calico cat woman with a short-barreled rifle that she had aimed at her hostage's back, while the other two robbers beside her were fully masked, a ferret and a skunk going by their tails. Both had duffel bags of ill-gotten gains on their backs, and were alert and watching him. He'd have to play along for now.

Assessing the situation, White Hat raised his arms to buy time. "Rest assured, you will be found and brought to justice," he told them.

"Spare me the lecture, mask-face," she sneered. Glancing at her minions, she commanded, "You two, go get the others up. We need to get out of here before the police show up."

They both looked at her to reply with "Yes, boss," and for a brief moment, none of their eyes were on White Hat. It was all he needed.

He lunged forward with one hand extended, conjuring a cylinder of shimmering red around the hostage, protecting her as he charged in. The cat's bullets struck the shield harmlessly and then White Hat was on her, kicking the gun from her hand as the hostage screamed in fright. He landed a follow-up strike on the cat's chest, but she wasn't going down that easily, and she swung for him, forcing him to block the blow on one arm.

"Shoot him, you idiots!" she shouted, swaying to the side from a punch and throwing one of her own that White Hat caught in his hands. Her minions took aim, but White Hat spun around, knocking the leader's feet out from under her with his tail, arms thrusting out to hurl throwing stars at both of them that knocked their guns from their hands. He dashed to one, sending him sprawling with a haymaker punch, and knocked the other to the ground with a flying kick, leaving just him and their leader.

Who had another gun.

The pistol bullet zipped past White Hat and struck the building on the opposite side of the street. Thrusting out a hand, White Hat put a semi-cylindrical barrier around the cat thief, her second shot striking the shield. "Not on my watch; I'm putting you in Quarantine!" White Hat taunted her, closing the distance to get back in punching range.

His first swing, she blocked, and she kicked at him in revenge, striking his shin. Shoving her to knock her off-balance, he landed a quick one-two punch before winding up and...

==OOC==

"She had one hit point left," Code calmly stated. "Just FYI."

Zhen ceased his triumphant dancing in his chair, his smirk fading as he rested his hands on the table. "What a waste of a crit," he grumbled, glaring at the dice on the table. "But whatever. It still finishes her off."

"That it does," Code confirmed. Leaning over the GM screen, she inquired, "So, how do you want to do this?"

==IC==

...sending her flying with an uppercut back through the broken window of the bank, leaving her sprawled on the floor, her gun landing some distance away a moment later.

Triumphantly, White Hat dusted his hands off and straightened his hat, looking around to make sure there weren't any others and that none of the ones he had subdued were getting back up. The hostage he had saved was still standing nearby, cowering behind the van, but when the fighting seemed over she stepped out and bowed deeply. "Th-thank you, White Hat!"

"No trouble at all, citizen," White Hat replied gracefully, returning the bow. "Find somewhere safe to take cover until the police arrive."

She ran off, and White Hat turned back to the bank to investigate, stepping through the broken windows. He saw the open vault door and peeked inside, immediately noticing that most of the safety-deposit boxes inside had been forced open with power tools in a very destructive manner. A straightforward enough robbery.

Or so it seemed on the surface.

White Hat took a moment to study the vault door. There were no signs of it being forced open; rather, the panel beside it cheerily displayed the words "Access Granted" on its tiny display. An inside job, perhaps? But that would be too obvious; only a handful of people would possibly be able to legitimately open the vault, and it would draw too much suspicion.

The vault was behind the teller desks, the entrance to which had been left open by the robbers. White Hat stepped inside in the hopes of finding more answers, but all of the terminals were off. What about the manager's office, though...?

White Hat's suspicions were confirmed as he delved deeper into the bank and found the door to the manager's office lying on the floor, having been knocked off its hinges entirely. The computer at the desk was on, and sticking prominently from the tower itself was a USB drive. Approaching it, White Hat took a closer look: it was jet black, featureless but for a single symbol on it that looked like what one might find on a TV remote's power button.

White Hat frowned, glancing at the computer. What he had first thought was some novelty wallpaper or a screensaver was actually a full-screen image of the same symbol: a vertical white line over the top of an almost-complete circle. And as he watched, the symbol pulsed, sending a rippling wave across the background. This wasn't just a run-of-the-mill bank robbery after all, but a sophisticated cyber-crime.

He pulled the USB drive out from the computer, and was briefly startled when the computer played a brief sound indicating a USB device had been removed, at a volume far louder than was strictly necessary. Sliding it into one of the pouches on his utility belt, White Hat stepped back outside. It was the only clue he had to go on, but it might prove an important lead.

==OOC==

"You leave the bank just in time to see red and blue flashing lights as the police pull up," Code narrated, looking down at her notes.

Zhen gave a snort. "Naturally. They're not going to try and do something stupid like arrest me, are they?"

"That depends," Code teased, "What's your faction relationship with the police department? Minus three?"

"Plus one, actually," Zhen replied, tapping his sheet with one finger.

She raised an eye-ridge. "Really? You're the one who was going on about how useless the police in these settings are."

"They are," Zhen agreed, "But whenever the hero is on the wrong side of the law, they suddenly become the most competent and powerful force in the world. Besides, they always show up everywhere, so they're the worst faction to have a negative relationship with."

"Are you metagaming, Zhen?" Code asked in a playful and teasing tone.

"No," he corrected her with a short chuckle, "I'm merely making sensible character choices. A super HERO shouldn't be too antagonistic to the police. Moreover, White Hat is a defender of Justice!" Zhen posed dramatically at that declaration, flexing both arms. "And, regardless of competence, the police department represents justice in the city."

Code gave a chuckle and conceded the point. "Fair enough. In that case, you recognize the officer on the scene, who is helping round up the robbers and put them in the back of the police cruisers. What do you do?"

==IC==

"Sergeant Meles," White Hat announced in greeting as he stepped back out from the bank, broken glass crunching under his feet.

The badger turned away from the officer with him. "Ah, White Hat," he greeted coldly, "I should have known it was you from all of the pummeled criminals left on the ground."

White Hat folded his arms. "Should I have saved some for you so you could dispense justice directly?"

"Hell no, I want them booked quickly so I can get back to my coffee," Sergeant Meles grumbled, then flashed White Hat a grin. "Thanks for making my job easier."

"Speaking of which, have you perchance found any clues while searching them?"

"Just this," the sergeant replied gruffly, reaching into a pocket and taking out a sheet of paper wrapped in an evidence bag.

White Hat struggled to read it through the plastic, eventually finding a way to hold it that didn't reflect the light from the nearby streetlights or the police cars' flashers. It seemed to be a print-out of an email, but the sender's address was an obvious throw-away. It laid out the plan for the robbery, but nothing White Hat didn't already know: they were to crash into the bank, plug the USB drive into the manager's computer, open the vault, then make off with whatever they could carry. They were also supposed to destroy the drive as soon as they were done, but fortunately for him, they hadn't. Or perhaps he had interrupted them before they could.

He frowned a little at the very last paragraph, which said they could keep everything they took. It was suspicious – who would hire burglars and then let them keep all of the loot? He then frowned even more at the final sentence: 'PS: Do not print this email.' They clearly weren't the brightest bunch.

White Hat passed the paper back to the sergeant. "Very interesting, don't you think?"

"Not really," sergeant Meles replied impassively. "Thugs tried to rob a bank and got taken down. Happens all the time. We'll put 'em away and that'll be the end of that."

"Someone else has clearly orchestrated this."

"And we'll wring what we can out of them back at the station."

Raising an eyebrow, White Hat tried again. "Doesn't it strike you as odd that the instructions tell them to keep all of the loot?"

"Not as odd as a guy in white spandex bringing fists to a gunfight, no."

For a moment there was silence, and then White Hat took a breath. "Right, well, I'll leave you to the easy part," he said simply, no longer feeling guilty for keeping the USB drive. "Best to get out of here before the journalists show up."

"If only I had that luxury," sergeant Meles grumbled. "Try not to punch anyone else out on your way home, I can only ignore so many instances of assault & battery in one night."

"Come now, they were self-defense. Sometimes other-defense too!" White Hat protested, but the badger gave him a glare, and White Hat sighed. "Very well, enjoy your night, sergeant."

==OOC==

"Not going to give him the USB drive?" Code inquired.

"Of course not. They can have it eventually, but I want to examine it first back at Double Colon One. Besides, if the police could be trusted to handle anything in this city more villainous than parking tickets, I'd be out of a job."

"Harsh."

"When are the police in a superhero show EVER good at their job?" Zhen pointed out.

"Yeah, that's pretty fair, honestly. Anyway, how do you get back to your base of operations?"

"Well, normally I'd have someone from Blue Team pick me up," Zhen murmured, looking down at his character sheet. "But I can probably make my own way back. How high are the buildings around here?"

Code gave him an odd look. "Why?"

"Well, my grappling hook only has a limited reach on it."

"You're going to grapple to the top of a skyscraper?"

"Some tall building, yes," Zhen scoffed, "You didn't think I was going to climb that many flights on the fire escape, did you?"

"Well, that would explain how White Hat got such meaty thighs," Code teased.

Zhen chuckled. "Oh, THOSE are the result of a strict exercise regimen. Anyway, is it that important? Grapple, hang glider, head back."

"Not going to call for a taxi?"

Zhen shook his head, then put on the same voice he used for White Hat, with his constantly hammy delivery of every sentence. "Justice cannot stand idly by waiting for a taxi to pick it up!" he declared, adding an exaggerated gesture for dramatic effect.

"Mm-hmm. Anyway, you get back to-"

Zhen abruptly cut in, "And I will insist that Blue Team plugs it into an air-gapped computer to do their analysis."

Code gave him a smirk. "Darn. Immediately compromising your home base would have been a great revenge plot setup. I think that wraps up the day, then?"

"Yes," Zhen agreed, then puffed out his chest and affected White Hat's voice again. "Justice never rests! Her agents, however, must sleep from time to time."

Chuckling, Code reached behind the GM screen and scrolled through her notes a little. "All right, then. The next day..."

==IC==

Up in the big conference room on the 14th floor, only the faint hum of the overhead lights and the air conditioning provided any background noise to the seemingly endless droning of the overpaid suit giving the presentation. Bar charts, graphs, and many other things the whiskered dragon didn't care about in the slightest. Dressed in a suit and tie with an open jacket, Zhen-

==OOC==

"Wait," Code cut in, "White Hat's secret alter ego is... literally you? You're playing as yourself? Zhen Wei, technical director?"

Zhen shrugged. "Stick with what you know, right? I know if I could spend my spare time making superhero gadgets instead of bouncing from meeting to meeting, I certainly would."

==IC==

-was bored out of his mind. Yet, such was the life of a technical director, forever being dragged into meetings he had no reason to be in. At least he had been able to secure a spot at the end of the table, where he could angle his laptop such that no-one else in the room would be able to see its screen. He rose his gaze up from his computer and over to the screen at the front of the room briefly, saw that he still didn't care, and returned his attention to the laptop on the desk before him to check something far more important: the report from Blue Team.

They'd quickly figured out from the USB drive that it heralded the involvement of a particular cybercriminal who went by the alias of 'Malware'. Her profile was on the screen before him: she was a lizard with blue-green outer scales and a sea-green front, yellow eyes, and few distinguishing features from other members of her species. For that reason, despite her extensive list of crimes – and that was merely the ones that had been linked to her conclusively – she had never been apprehended. He scrolled quickly through the list of warrants out for her arrest, sparing the front of the room only another momentary glance to pretend to pay attention. Far too many to count were for unauthorized access to secured systems, but there were others for variety: grand larceny, insider trading, software piracy, cracking DRM, indecent exposure, identity theft...

Zhen's eyes widened and he quickly scrolled faster past the images embedded in the report relating to the indecent exposure counts. He'd have to have a word with Blue Team about what was appropriate to send him while he was at work. At least he had pulled the report down through his personal VPN so that corporate wouldn't find out about it.

Taking a breath and acting normal, he made sure no-one was suspicious of him before reading onward, but fortunately the meeting seemed to be dulling the senses of everyone in the room, including the speaker who was talking in a monotone voice. According to the report, part of what made Malware so difficult to apprehend was that she had a superpower of her own: the ability to hijack and take control of electronic devices. Fortunately, it only worked on things within a few feet of her, which was why she'd needed the rent-a-goons to plug in the USB drive at the bank and hijack it. 

Blue Team had found out what she was after, too: digital assets. The robbery itself had merely been a cover, and the goons would run off with everything from the vault, while Malware transferred a small fortune through an untraceable network of accounts to funnel it back to herself for her own purposes. Many of which involved drones and robots, another reason she was so hard to find: it was rare for her to go out to do any of her deeds, instead sending robotic minions and only resorting to hired help when necessary.

Which likely meant she had taken up residence in the city, somewhere. His city. Well, White Hat's city. Zhen glanced up at yet another bar graph about earnings projections that he couldn't possibly care any less about, and sighed internally; he'd much rather be out there, but unfortunately superhero work didn't pay the bills all that well. The gratitude of the citizenry wasn't an acceptable currency.

But where could he possibly find more leads? By Malware's design, the hired goons had known nothing they could even tell the police to begin with. She'd contacted them entirely through burner phones and throwaway email accounts and they'd never met her in person. She was too good at this game to make such basic mistakes. The USB drive proved her involvement, but did nothing to help locate her, as they had retrieved it from a dead drop. That meant it'd be up to Blue Team to remain on watch for any potential trouble in the city that he could take care of.

Eventually the meeting ended, and Zhen left the conference room, dropping off his laptop at his office before heading downstairs to go get some coffee before the next meeting. The weather was nice enough that his suit jacket would suffice, so he strolled out of the front door of the office tower and headed across the street towards the coffee shop. Even at this time of day the downtown area was still busy, with cars and people coming and going, visiting all the offices, banks, government buildings, and whatever else they needed.

Standing at a crosswalk waiting for the sign to change, the sound of squealing tires barely caught Zhen's attention. There was always some careless driver around somewhere in a city like this. The loud crash moments later, however, caught his full focus as he turned his head and peered down the street in the direction he had heard it from. An armored security truck had run off the road and crashed into a streetlamp, bending it but not knocking it over. A very careless driver indeed.

Or so Zhen thought until several flying drones zipped past him towards the truck, and the two men inside of it climbed out and aimed guns at them. Bystanders nearby began to flee, and so did Zhen, though for a different purpose – while everyone else was seeking shelter, Zhen simply needed privacy for a moment. White Hat could be on the scene in just a moment!

Ducking into a nearby alley, Zhen took cover under a doorway, making sure nobody was looking at him before clenching his right hand into a fist...

==OOC==

"Er... what IS the name of the city?" Zhen murmured, slowly lowering his hand from the dramatic pose he had struck.

"Uhhhh..." Code trailed off, scrolling through her notes for several seconds.

"You didn't name the city the game takes place in?" Zhen asked, raising an eyebrow and gesturing for emphasis.

"Names are hard!" she offered as an excuse, tapping on her tablet. "Just call it 'the city' or something."

"I can't have 'the city' in my catchphrase!" Zhen objected mirthfully. 

"Okay, fine, give me a moment and I'll come up with a name."

He leaned back in his chair. "Even this is more effort than some superheroes have put into their settings," he joked, "Which one was it who lived in a city named Metropolis?"

Code gave a snort and tapped at her tablet a few more times, pausing a couple seconds between each poke. "Ugh, these are all terrible," she grumbled. Glancing up over the GM screen, she pre-empted his question with the answer, "I'm using an online generator."

"What, no computing pun for this one?" Zhen teased playfully.

"Those take time to come up with. Plus I can't really think of anything close to 'city', 'berg', 'opolis', etc..."

Zhen held the end of his muzzle and tapped a finger against it thoughtfully. "Well, think of how some cities are named and just put a twist on one of their names," he suggested. "There's plenty that are named after trees or lakes or animals. You can't just change the name of a city after it's founded. That's even harder than renaming a server!"

Code gave a chuckle, drumming her fingers on the table for a moment in thought. "What's a common name for a..." she mumbled to herself, then paused, and nodded confidently. "Okay, I think I've got one."

"What is it?"

"Stringfield," she replied, grinning widely.

Zhen blinked, then gave a deeply exasperated and disappointed sigh, burying his head in both hands. "I hate it," he grumbled after a moment, "It's perfect."

Snickering to herself from behind the GM screen, Code swished her tail back and forth. "Thought you'd approve," she teased. "Anyway, you were doing your thing?"

Zhen cleared his throat and sat back up. "Ah, yes. So, I thrust my hand upwards," he began, making the motion himself, "and declare, 'Justice never rests, and I am her agent: the Shield of Stringfield, White Hat!'"

It was cheesy enough to serve with crackers, but Code found his delivery charming regardless. "Go on."

Emboldened, Zhen erupted into a poetic description of what happened: a wind blowing around his character, billowing out the loose parts of his clothing. A film of light covering his body, blocking it from sight. Streams of energy coalescing around his arms to form his gloves, and then surrounding his legs as well to make his boots-

"Wait, wait, wait, hold up," Code interrupted, her voice incredulous despite the smirk on her face as she held up a hand with her palm towards Zhen. Making an effort not to laugh, she went on, "Are you... are you doing a Magical Girl transformation sequence into White Hat?"

Zhen froze in mid-gesture. "Um," was all he could manage, flustered from being put on the spot. Looking aside, he muttered, "...maybe?"

Code gave a little smile and chuckled. "Hey, I'm not judging. Well, okay, maybe a little, but not harshly, you know what I mean. I just normally wouldn't associate the superhero genre with... you know, Magical Girl shows."

Exhaling, Zhen sheepishly rubbed at the back of his head, ruffling up his mane. "I'm a fan of them, all right?" he admitted, "I watched a lot of them when I was younger and they stuck with me. I know I'm not really... part of the target audience, but I still liked them. I couldn't resist. Besides, if you think about it, they're just superheroes targeted towards girls and young women."

"It just caught me off-guard," she reassured him. "I think it's hilarious, I'm not laughing at YOU."

"Thank you," Zhen murmured, turning and looking up at her.

"The whole point of this is to be indulgent with what we think is fun," she reminded him, giving him a smile from across the table. "So keep going, go the whole distance."

"Yes, I will." Clearing his throat, he straightened back up in his seat. "Now, where was I...?"

==IC==

...and then the shimmering light wrapped elegantly around Zhen's waist, emitting a brilliant flash as it solidified into his pristine white spandex briefs. From his shoulders, a glimmering luminous sheet unfurled as if from nowhere, billowing out behind his body, becoming his heroic cape. The mask that served to hide his identity took shape on his face, and became solid just as he opened his eyes with a determined look. Only then did the light begin to diminish, revealing the rest of his muscular body that wasn't covered by his outfit. As the light faded, White Hat struck a pose with one foot forward as he donned the white fedora that had appeared in his right hand, the tiny buckle on the strap around the base gleaming brightly as he raised the hat to his head and donned it, sweeping his left arm out behind him and holding the pose.

After a suitably dramatic pause, White Hat dashed out from the alley, launching himself into the air with his wrist-mounted grappling hook and pulling out his hang glider to speed off towards the robbery in progress. With sufficient height to pull out his hang glider, White Hat flew towards the disabled truck, taking stock of the scene: in addition to the smaller flying drones, there were a number of other robots gathered around the truck, mostly quadrupedal in design with turrets on the top. Traffic had ground to a halt as all the nearby vehicles had pulled over, the drivers taking cover in or behind their vehicles, but the robots seemed singularly focused on the truck being hijacked. Its drivers were both lying prone on the ground beside it, seemingly knocked out.

White Hat's boot soles collided with one of the flying drones as he kicked it out of the sky and knocked it to the ground, smashing it to bits against the asphalt, but his dynamic entry only served to draw the attention of the other robots. As their guns turned to him and synthesized voices declared "Threat detected", White Hat jumped onto the nearest of the combat drones and reached into its internals, ripping out electronics in a shower of sparks as the robot crumpled to the ground just as he jumped off of it.

Raising his left hand just in time to put up a shield, White Hat caught several bullets on his Firewall before ducking behind the truck for cover. The flying drones pursued him and he ducked aside just as one tried to fire a taser shot at him, the electric prongs striking the side of the truck where he had just been standing. Only one of the gun bots had visibility to him, so he dashed forwards, skirting around it faster than its turret could turn. Once he was behind it he reached over and grabbed the rotating turret barrel, yanking it upwards sharply, tearing it from its mount completely and tossing it aside.

That just left two of the gun drones on the other side of the truck, but the flying ones were still coming for him. He leapt up and grabbed onto one, pulling it back down with him; it struggled and tried to fly away until he smashed it with his other fist, and a well-aimed throw with the wrecked drone took out another. White Hat felt confident – these drones were barely able to put up a fight against him.

Crouching down, he peeked under the truck to see the legs of the gun drones as they maneuvered around the truck, attempting to pincer him. He crouched down and rolled under the truck just in time to avoid another taser shot, springing up to catch the gun drone at the back of the truck from behind. It almost stepped out of the way at the last moment, but he still managed to grab onto its hull, hanging on as its legs stomped around on the road. White Hat fumbled with one hand to try and grab something important, but he couldn't get a good grip and had to keep hanging on as the robot tried to throw him off.

The other gun drone came around the front of the truck, its turret barrel swiveling towards him, and White Hat heard it declare, "Target locked." Getting an idea, he let go of the robot he was holding onto and stepped back, raising a Firewall with his left hand to stop the imminent hail of gunfire. Most of the bullets tore into the drone in front of him, which collapsed onto the road, a victim of friendly fire, and his Firewall stopped all of the shots that would have hit him. Ducking back behind the truck, White Hat saw the last flying drone lining up to take another shot at him, but instead, he pulled out a throwing star and threw it with a quick motion.

It struck one of the sets of propellers holding the drone aloft and got jammed in the mechanism, stopping the propeller from turning. The drone careened off to one side, spiraling to the ground and crashing nearby, allowing White Hat to turn and use his grappling hook to pull himself up to the top of the truck. From there he leapt down onto the final turret robot from above, smashing his gloved fist through its internals and sending broken circuitry clattering onto the ground, the robot freezing up and then collapsing as he pulled his arm free and dusted his hands. Around him, people were cheering, and he posed with his hands on his hips, cape billowing out...

...no, wait, they weren't cheering at all. They were trying to warn him! White Hat spun around and looked upwards just in time to see a trio of heavy drones swooping in, a large electromagnet dangling under each one. White Hat took a step forward only for a tiny drone to fly in front of his face, a large camera embedded in it looking directly at him. He swung for the drone and it flew off, up and over the nearest building, but the distraction had delayed him enough: the electromagnets had latched onto the top of the truck together. The drones began lifting it off the road entirely, bypassing the tangled mess of traffic in front of them.

White Hat had to act fast. Dashing forwards, he hurled another throwing star at the closest drone, but these ones were sturdier and with much larger propellers that he didn't even make a dent in. Using one of the stopped cars as a springboard, he leapt upwards toward the rising truck, his right arm extended. He only just barely managed to touch it, but couldn't get hold, and landed back on the ground, left behind as the heavy drones made off with the truck.

And the tracking device he had attached to it.

It was the best he could do. As he watched the truck fly off, he heard sirens approaching, and turned just in time to see several police cars pulling up at the edge of the traffic jam the chaos had caused.

==OOC==

"Of course," Zhen grumbled. "Always just OUT of the nick of time."

Code snickered softly. "Their response time is a very consistent sixty seconds too late to be of any use," she joked.

"Naturally. Do they do anything useful?"

"Not for you, of course not," Code teased. "They mostly set to restoring order and getting traffic moving again. Fortunately your positive relationship with the police means they're not going to try to arrest you, but a leopard detective comes over to interview you and take a statement, introducing himself as Officer Pardus. What do you tell him?"

Zhen shrugged. "I have nothing to hide. I tell him everything that happened." He quickly added, "AFTER I arrived on the scene. White Hat's secret identity shall remain a secret."

"Of course," she agreed with a smirk. "Fortunately it looks like the truck guards were just tased and are still alive, and your quick action saved anyone from getting hurt. They're grateful for your help."

"Grateful enough to give me a reward?" Zhen asked hopefully. He wasn't surprised, however, when she just gave him an amused look with her eyes half-closed, staring in silence until he sighed and leaned back in his chair. "I didn't think they would."

"They're on a tight budget," she remarked. "What else do you do?"

"Do the robots have any kind of identifying markings on them?"

"Nope," she answered with a shake of her head. "What, do you think they'll all just have Malware's symbol on them painted in bright yellow or something?"

"Why not?" Zhen asked jokingly. "It's not like the police would figure out what it meant if they did."

She chuckled in agreement. "True. But no."

"Then I'll find somewhere quiet to talk to Red Team..."

"How?"

Zhen tilted his head. "With my communicator?"

"You didn't mention that in your transformation sequence," she teased.

He rolled his eyes. "Did you want me to make it longer?"

"Definitely not," she muttered. "All right, go ahead."

==IC==

White Hat put a hand to the side of his head to activate his communicator. "Red Team, come in," he said quietly, standing as far away from the crowds of onlookers and police as he could.

There was a pause, and then a young voice came on the line. "Afternoon, mister!"

White Hat's eyes narrowed behind his mask. "Robert? Where's Red Team?"

"Right here!" the kid replied. "It's the middle of a weekday, so everyone else is at work. It's just me and Alice right now."

"Right," White Hat grumbled. "Can you take a message for the rest of Red Team once they come in?"

"Sure thing, Mr. Hat, what do you need?"

"The first thing I need is for you to never call me that again," White Hat insisted emphatically. "The second thing is that I need you to let Red Team know I need them to locate the tracking device that I planted."

"Oh, I can do that for you, Mist- uh, Sir Hat!"

"It's White Hat," White Hat insisted through gritted teeth. "Robert, please leave it to your father when he comes in."

"Aww, all right, if you insist, I'll have my pa do it," the kid replied. "Lemme just write that down for ya... locate... tracking... device. There!"

It would have to do. "Thanks. Stay out of trouble," White Hat replied before ending the call. After ducking back into an alley to change back, he-

==OOC==

"Wait, wait, wait," Code interrupted, "You un-transform instantly, just like that? No extended animation, no playing your theme song again?"

Zhen shrugged. "They never show Magical Girls un-transforming, do they?" he asked rhetorically, "They always just do a scene cut, and they're suddenly back to normal."

"I... suppose you're right," Code conceded. "Okay, then what?"

"I'll go get my coffee and return to work before people notice I've been gone," Zhen replied. "I need to keep up appearances."

"Yes, well, about that, news is going around. Lots of those bystanders had their phones out and there's video footage all over the place of your beatdown of those robots. Several of your coworkers have already seen it, and one of them remarks on the close resemblance to you."

"Uh-oh," Zhen said quietly. "Uh... I join in on that, and wonder if he might be my long-lost brother."

Code snorted in amusement. "All right then, Roll +Deception," she instructed pointedly.

Picking up his dice, Zhen took a deep breath as he rattled them in his hand before tossing them onto the middle of the table. Both of them glanced at the dice before Zhen pumped both fists into the air. "Box cars!" he declared proudly, his sudden motion knocking his pencil off the table and making his whiskers sway back and forth.

Nodding as Zhen bent down to grab his pencil, Code seemed impressed. "All right, then. They believe you completely, and soon the office is buzzing with a rumor of your long-lost brother who's a superhero crime fighter. Who looks exactly like you, coincidentally. Must be a twin. There's no other possible logical, rational explanation."

Grinning, Zhen settled back into his seat. "I'll do what I can to help cement that rumor," he told her, "And maybe make a few remarks about how incredibly handsome and strong White Hat looks."

She couldn't help but smirk, giving an "Mm-hmm" as she scrolled through her notes a little. "I think that wraps up that scene, then. So let's fast-forward to that night..."

==IC==

There were plenty of interesting people around in the city's parks, even at night. Mostly pet owners taking their pets out for a walk, and a few groups of youths here and there, as well as the occasional couple out on a date. Zhen had long since finished the take-out dinner he had ordered and was wandering around, on the lookout for any potential trouble, but it was a quiet night. Red Team had locked on to the tracking device's signal and traced it to the Malware's hideout, an office building that had been abandoned and then taken over by a shell company she must have been controlling. Now all that was left was for Zhen to kill time until things got quiet enough that he could attempt an infiltration. They'd sent some recon drones over to check the premises as well, allowing him to lay low in the meantime.

That was the plan, anyway; as Zhen was walking around the perimeter of the park, he felt his headpiece buzz and took out his phone, pretending to answer it as he tapped the communicator with one finger. "What is it?" he whispered quietly, making sure no-one was close enough to listen in.

"White Hat, you've gotta get down to the docks, now!" came the voice from one of the Red Team members. "Something big is going down! REALLY big! I sent over a drone and the scanners are all lit up! Warehouse five! Get over there, now!"

"On it," Zhen acknowledged, putting away his phone and hurrying in the direction of the dockyards. At the first opportunity, he ducked into an alleyway-

==OOC==

"Okay, we're not doing that whole routine a second time," Code cut in before Zhen could get any further. "You change into White Hat. What next?"

"What?" he protested, "But it's my... my thing! I have to say the phrase and everything! It's even written on my sheet!"

"We haven't got time for that entire sequence every time you change into White Hat," Code asserted. "Otherwise we'll be here all night, and I'd like to keep this moving."

"Come on, it's a big part of the character!" Zhen insisted, "I spent a lot of time figuring out what it would look like!"

Code sighed. "At least give the abbreviated version or something in future."

"Fine," he conceded, "But I can do the full thing sometimes, right? They always get to do it in full each episode."

Rubbing one hand against the side of her muzzle, Code eventually agreed, "All right, all right, I'll meet you halfway. Once per episode. But you've already used yours up for this episode, so let's move this along. I've got plot events I want to get to."

"All right, I can live with that..."

==IC==

-and after a flash of light, White Hat burst out from the alley, grappling up to the nearest roof and taking off from there to head to the dockyards, a few blocks away from Malware's hideout. Hang-gliding over the outer walls, White Hat was surprised at how quiet it was – almost suspiciously so. The only sign of life was the gate guard watching the road in, who didn't see White Hat flying in from above. Had the guards inside already been neutralized?

Aging white paint on each warehouse's rusty exterior denoted the number of each building, so finding warehouse five was easy. The front doors were open, as was the skylight at the top, which White Hat flew towards, flaring up his hang glider to land gracefully on the roof. Creeping over to the skylight, he peered inside, expecting to see a gunfight or some nefarious meeting going on, but the warehouse seemed abandoned.

"Red Team, come in," White Hat whispered, holding a finger to his headpiece. "I'm not seeing anything here. It looks quiet. Are you sure it was warehouse five?"

"Positive. But the scanner went dark a half-minute ago," his support team member responded. "They might have taken out my drone. See if you can find it."

If the drone had been detected, then whoever was on the scene might have already fled. White Hat stuck his head through the skylight to check again, but saw no signs of movement, so he fixed his grappling hook to the edge of the skylight and used it to descend quietly and gently to the ground. The warehouse seemed abandoned, its shelves bare – the perfect place for villains to hold a clandestine meeting, certainly. He examined the ground as he walked, looking for footprints or other signs that someone had been present recently, but didn't seem to find anything...

==OOC==

"...then again, I rolled a four," Zhen griped, "So who knows if there's actually nothing or if I failed to spot it."

==IC==

...so after crossing most of the warehouse, he cast his gaze upwards, listening for the whirr of one of his team's drones. It was conspicuously absent. Had they taken it with them?

He began walking towards the front doors to look for footprints there when he spotted it: on a floor in the corner, discarded and lying upside-down on the ground, next to a wet cardboard box that was on its side. He approached cautiously, on the lookout to see if anyone was using it as bait, but the shelves were empty and there was nothing for anyone to hide behind.

"I found the drone," White Hat whispered into his communicator before crouching down and picking it up. To his surprise, it wasn't broken: its casing seemed intact and its propellers didn't appear to be damaged. He flipped it over, looking at the small display on the top of it, but instead of the usual diagnostic information, the display showed only one thing: a symbol that looked a lot like the one you'd find on the power button of a remote...

Before White Hat could register its importance, he heard a bang from beside him, and a thick white gas erupted from the cardboard box on the ground, surrounding him in moments. He coughed and held a hand over his mouth as he stumbled away, trying to reach the exit, but barely made it halfway before falling to his knees and then collapsing on the ground, his consciousness slipping away from him as the sleeping gas overtook him. With the last of his strength he reached for the communicator attached to his horn, but blacked out before he could activate it.

==OOC==

"...the last thing you hear is Red Team asking, 'White Hat, what happened? White Hat? WHITE HAAAAAAT!'," Code informed him with suitably dramatic voice-acting.

"Damn it," Zhen grumbled, glaring at his dice, still lying on the table tauntingly, displaying 1 and a 2 face-up. Then his eyes widened, and he reached for the dice. "Wait, I have rerolls! Can I use one?"

Code gave him a nod. "That's what they're there for! Go ahead."

Zhen snatched up the dice and shook them excessively between both hands before tossing them onto the table. His excessive zeal sent one of them careening over the edge of the table, leaving the other one showing a 3. "It doesn't count!" Code declared before the other die even hit the floor, "They have to land flat and on the table. Reroll that one."

"I know, I know," Zhen muttered; not because of her ruling – she'd already covered that one before they'd begun – but because as he reached for the die on the carpet, it was showing a 5. "All right, here goes."

He shook the die and rolled it, staring in intense disapproval at the single pip on its uppermost face once it came to a stop. "Really?" he demanded incredulously, "I have a +2 bonus! Literally any other value would have passed!"

"Ouch," Code sympathized, then reminded him, "You do have another one..."

Sighing, Zhen shook his head. "No, the Great Luck Dragon clearly has it in for me right now," he grumbled. "So, what happens? I've been captured?"

Code nodded to him and looked down at her notes. "Yep. Eventually, you come to in another location..."

==IC==

White Hat groaned as he came back to his senses, his head still a fog from the sleeping gas, finding himself lying on his back. He tried to get up, but found that his wrists and ankles were both securely tied down to the big metal table under him. Fearing the worst, he opened his eyes and looked up, and was very glad to discover that he was merely in some sort of storage room, rather than on a surgical table somewhere. It was still freezing – not aided in any way by the fact that he was almost naked, with only his mask and his hat still on his head. His gloves, boots, cape, communicator, and even his spandex had been taken from him.

He couldn't tell if he was still in the dockyards or not, but the ceiling of the room he was in was a lot lower, perhaps in some side office somewhere. There were overhead lights, but they were off, and the room seemed to be lit entirely by light coming in through a side door. Another door at the far end appeared to lead into a side room, though he couldn't see very much of it. Twisting his hands and curling his fingers, he tried to dig his claws into the ropes around his wrists, but they were out of reach. He was truly stuck.

He struggled again against his bonds, turning his head to the side. The table was old and rusty, and the ropes around his wrists were tough. He didn't get far before a voice came from directly behind him: distinctly female, yet amused at his plight, and thick with villainy. "Did you enjoy your little power nap?" the other person asked him, stepping into his field of view. "Are you ready to come out of hibernation now?"

Malware.

He recognized her immediately from the pictures he had seen in the report Blue Team had sent him. Six feet and three inches tall, mostly covered in blue-green scales with a sea-green front. Her long tail swayed behind her as she walked, and she was dressed very skimpily: a pair of thigh-high black stirrup socks matched the shoulder-length bridal gauntlets. The vest around her upper body left her shoulders and midriff exposed, the three-quarter-circle at the top forming her symbol when combined with the zipper going down it providing the vertical line. She also wore a simple band around her tail, and the only other item of clothing she had was a loincloth with front and back sections, narrow but long enough to reach all the way down to her ankles. It was secured with a golden ring at her right hip, leaving her upper thighs, belly, and most of her tail bare.

"I figured you wouldn't be able to keep your whiskers out of my business," Malware taunted, staying a few paces away from the table, folding her arms as she gloated. "So I set up a little honeypot for you, and you fell right into it..."

==OOC==

"...uh... Zhen, are you all right?" Code suddenly asked, looking over at her husband with concern.

Tugging at the collar of his shirt with one finger, Zhen cleared his throat. "Oh, I'm fine, I'm perfectly fine," he reassured her. "But that voice you're doing for Malware is just... phew!" He arched his eyebrows at her as he fanned himself with one hand. "It's doing -things- to me."

Relieved to hear he was okay, Code's face broke into a wide smirk. "Is that so?" she remarked teasingly, her tail swaying back and forth deviously. "Well, get used to it, because this is the part where the villain gets to monologue."

"Oh no, what a terrible fate," Zhen pretended to despair.

==IC==

"...and now, here you are, so easily caught and put in quarantine."

White Hat tugged at his bindings again to no avail. "What is your vile plan, fiend?" he demanded.

Malware gave a long, insidious chuckle. "I see no need to tell that to a man who is about to die," she told him, pacing around the far end of the table he was attached to. As she did, he saw that the back of her loincloth was made of two sections that hung down behind her legs, leaving her ass exposed, her tail swishing temptingly as she walked. "Oh, and don't expect a rescue. I took over your communicator quite some time ago; it's mine, now, and reports your location as wherever I say it is. Your team should be digging around the city dump looking for you right about now," she gloated, flashing a toothy grin in his direction. "And I traced the signal, so I know where your home base is – once I'm done with you, I'll go take care of your friends. And then nobody will be able to stop me!" She threw back her head in a mad laugh, then grinned at him once again when she was done.

The situation certainly looked grim. He had to keep her talking while he figured out an escape plan. "Where are my clothes? What foul plans do you have for them?" he asked.

"They're mine now," she told him, "I do rather like to keep trophies of my... conquests." Stepping over, she reached out and slid her fingertips up the front of his bare body, from his belly up to his chest. "Because we're not done yet, White Hat. We're not done here until I say we're done."

White Hat squirmed on the table. "Then why did you leave my mask?"

She stood back up straight, looking almost offended by the question. "Listen," she told him sharply, "I may be out to dominate the world, but there are rules to follow, and taking off a superhero's mask is just RUDE. What kind of uncultured two-bit mastermind do you take me for? I have standards!"

"...and the hat?" he inquired.

She calmed down a little and smirked at him. "Well, you look good in it," she answered plainly. "Plus, it's in your name. I can't take your namesake item. It'd be like if I stole Captain Electric Sword's electric sword."

==OOC==

Zhen arched an eyebrow. "Captain... Electric Sword?"

Code shrugged. "I used an online superhero name generator," she explained.

"I see," Zhen murmured. "And that was the best one you got?"

"Of course not. The good ones I'm saving for later instead of wasting them on throwaway jokes!"

==IC==

Zhen tried to glance downward, but his own muzzle blocked his sight. The cold air was enough to know his state of undress reliably enough. "But why am I naked, then?"

Malware flicked out her forked tongue, smugly looking down at him the whole time. "Why not?"

"It seems rather... impolite."

She chuckled deeply for several seconds. "Oh no, not at all. There's no etiquette about taking off a superhero's speedo, actually. Just the mask." Reaching out to him, she put her hand around his neck, giving it a brief yet assertive squeeze before sliding her fingers back down his front. "And it's just as well, because I've got a going-away present for you." Putting on a mocking tone, she went on, "It would be such a shame for the brave, noble warrior of justice known as White Hat to be unfulfilled in his final moments, wouldn't it?"

"What are you planning?" White Hat demanded, struggling against his bonds again to no avail.

Malware's hand reached between his legs, her fingertips brushing against his sheath before sliding down over the curve of White Hat's ballsack, curling her digits underneath the two large testes and caressing them. "You're about to find out," she said menacingly, rubbing her thumb in between his balls while her fingers played against the backs of the two sensitive orbs within.

==OOC==

"Ohhhhh noooooo," Zhen moaned in mock despondency as he shifted in his seat, finding his jeans growing tighter. "I'm going to be dominated by the incredibly hot supervillain version of my wife and am completely helpless to stop it, hoooooow terrrrrrrrible. What am I ever going to dooooooooo."

"I know, I know," Code replied with a chuckle, feigning sympathy, "It's such a shame. Poor White Hat. How will he ever get out of this one?"

"Oh, I don't think he's getting out of it," Zhen joked, "I don't think he'll even be able to ATTEMPT to escape until after she's done with him. It's his incredibly specific yet nonetheless crippling weakness." Picking up his dice, he tossed them back onto the table and without even looking at the result, he quipped, "Oh look, I failed to escape. I guess I'm stuck..."

==IC==

White Hat squirmed as Malware manhandled him, unable to pull away from her hand on his loins as she continued to feel up his balls, rubbing and caressing one large orb at a time. "Wh-what are you doing?" he stammered, tugging at the ropes fruitlessly.

"I'm being accommodating to my guest," she answered slyly, bringing her other hand over to fondle both of White Hat's balls at the same time, reaching up with her thumbs to tease the collar of his sheath. "You won't be leaving this room alive, so wouldn't you like your last minutes to be spent in ecstasy?"

He grunted and struggled once again, but the ropes held him fast; she truly knew how to tie them well. And she clearly knew how useless his attempts to escape were, as she ignored them and instead focused on teasing him, succeeding in coaxing his cock out from his sheath with her continued pleasuring of her captive. As her fingers slid up and down the sides of his sack, caressing his heavy nuts, she hummed approvingly as she watched the pointed tip of his glans emerge, followed by each of the four ridges on the underside of his cock as his shaft grew and swelled out from his sheath. "Well, well," she commented, "It seems like someone wasn't compensating for something at all, though I should have guessed from the size of these balls of yours. It's almost a shame to have to end you, but I can't let you interfere with my plans."

Panting for breath, White Hat began, "You'll never-" only to be cut off as a groan tore from his throat when Malware bent over the table and wrapped her mouth around his cock, continuing to tease his balls as she began sucking his sensitive flesh and bobbing her head along his length. Her ministrations were slow, teasing and working him up as she slid her thin tongue over his throbbing member, slicking each curve and ridge of it with her saliva. White Hat could only gasp and moan in response, his hands clenching at the air as his bonds held him fast, and his attempted movements only succeeded in bucking his hips, thrusting his cock further into her mouth for a brief moment.

Continuing to suckle, Malware took her right hand away from White Hat's balls, turning her left hand to extend her fingers underneath both orbs to roll them around in her hand while she reached for the ring holding up her loincloth. Releasing a catch on it, she let the ring swing open to allow the garment to fall to the floor, and only then lifted her head away, flicking her tongue against the tip of his cock as she did, a single string of saliva connecting her mouth to his flesh for a brief moment before it broke.

White Hat panted for breath, staring up at the ceiling. "I'll never talk," he told her between breaths, trying to ignore the raging erection jutting up from his crotch that indicated his body's interest in a very different sort of intercourse. "Do your worst."

But Malware just chuckled and stroked her hand up over his front, along his muscular body. "Oh, White Hat, don't you get it?" she teased, lifting up a leg and starting to climb up onto the table. Curiosity got the better of him and he looked down, tilting his head to one side to he could see past his muzzle. Malware straddled his lap and loomed over him from above, her loins now bare – almost. A strip of black tape covered over her pussy, yet regardless she got into position over his throbbing shaft, reaching out with both hands and putting them on his pecs, pinning him down against the table. "I don't want you to talk," she crooned, lowering her hips until he felt the very tip of his length nudge up against her unobstructed rear hole. "I want you to MOAN!"

She sank her hips downwards, moaning in tandem with White Hat as her sphincter spread out around his pointed glans and she began taking him into her anal tunnels. Her toes curled while White Hat's body tensed up, gritting his teeth while Malware trembled against him from the penetration, feeling each of the ridges on the underside of his saliva-slicked shaft bumping her ring on the way in. "Ooh, fuck, that feels good!" she moaned out as she sank down all the way until she had taken his entire length into her ass, grinding her hips against his lap. "Mmh, I'll have to get a toy made to look just like your dick... that way at least someone will remember you!"

White Hat struggled against the restraints to no avail, now further encumbered by Malware's weight on his body as she rode him, and hard. Every raise her hips was just so that she could slam them back down, her tight tunnels engulfing his length each time. His struggles only seemed to please her, especially whenever he tried to move and only ended up bucking his hips, thrusting up into her, making her moan out. Despite his best attempts to keep his mouth shut, he couldn't stop himself from giving pleasured groans too, shutting his eyes tightly as he tried to focus on his escape, as fruitless as it seemed.

"Relax, nnh, and give in..." Malware told White Hat, grinning and leaning over him, panting from exertion and occasionally letting out a little cry of pleasure of her own as she vigorously slammed her ass down on his cock again and again. "Let me take over..."

"N-Never!" White Hat wailed in a wavering tone, his resolve unconvincing as his attempts to escape grew weaker. "I will... never work for a... a... villainess like you!" Any further attempt to fire back was lost in his moans as he clenched her anal tunnels around him, surrounding his sensitive flesh in the squeezing embrace of her rear passage.

"Work for me? Ha!" she taunted as she slowed her pace, but only to ram her hips down on him even harder, her rump audibly smacking against his thighs. "Oh, no, I don't want that. Recruiting heroes never works out, they always turn back to the side of good sooner or later." She ground her hips down hard and moved them in a circle, making White Hat tense up and moan out, his hands clenching and his toes curling. "No, I just want you to relax so that I can walk away from here with an ass full of cum as a souvenir!"

She pulled her hips up most of the way and slammed them down again, making White Hat shiver as he moaned out in pleasure. "Fiend, I... I'll never..." he forced out between panting breaths, but every upwards and downwards motion of her ass made him shudder, and she was groaning out too.

"Never cum? Doubtful!" she retorted, rocking her body back and forth as she held onto his chest. "I can already feel you leaking like a faucet inside me! You're loving this!" It was true; he'd never been in a hole so tight that clenched around him in the way hers did, stretching to take him yet remaining snug around his shaft. The only resistance he could offer was a refusal to admit it, even as his cock drooled precum into her ass, slicking her insides up even more to make her motions easier. She panted a bit before continuing, "Ahhhn... the only question here... is if it's going to be you or me who pops first!"

She rammed her hips down and ground on him again, squeezing hard, and wrested another shuddering moan from him in response. "Admit it!" she commanded as she resumed riding him, bouncing her ass in his lap and taking his leaking cock into her anal tunnels over and over, "You like it!"

"I..." He moaned out again, his answer already obvious. She wanted to hear him admit it, and he wouldn't give her the satisfaction, no matter how good it felt. Gritting his teeth, he held on as best he could and gave a weak, "I won't...!"

"Go on!" she told him again, panting and gasping, bouncing on his lap with even greater determination. The air was filled with the noises of her hips meeting his, his slicked cock sliding in and out of her tailhole, and their gasps for breath and pleasured moans and groans. "You're enjoying this, aren't you?"

"Nn..." he began, but it caught in his throat, suppressed by another moan. She shoved her hips downwards again and clenched hard, sending a shock of pleasure through him.

"Admit it!" she ordered, and then suddenly slowed down, leaning in closely to him. "Admit you're loving this... or I'll stop!"

She ceased her movement. The complete and sudden lack of stimulation beyond merely feeling her walls press against his sensitive flesh was unbearable! White Hat couldn't stop himself from letting out a needy whimper as his cock throbbed against the walls of her ass. "Ah! N-no! Not that!" he cried out almost immediately, squeezing his eyes shut more tightly.

"Then admit you love it!"

"Yes! Yes, I do! I doooooooo!" he moaned out, ashamed at his admission... but how could he not? The tightness of her rear passage around his shaft was the most intense pleasure he had ever felt! He wanted, desired, CRAVED feeling her around him, no matter how much he didn't want to admit it out loud!

"Yes, what?" she demanded, her breaths coming more heavily as she slowly began moving her hips again.

"Yes, I'm loving it! I-... I'm loving what you're doing to me!" he moaned, taking a heavy breath and summoning all that was left of his willpower for a final act of defiance. "...but... you're still a villain!" White Hat managed to assert, trying to maintain some amount of dignity. "This changes... nothing!"

In response she only gave a cackling laugh, though it was cut off by a moan as she shuddered atop him as she thrusted her hips back downwards. "I know!" she declared madly, "That's the best part!" And with that she picked up where she left off, bouncing hard and fast, his cock getting swallowed up by her anal tunnels over and over again.

White Hat gave one last futile struggle against his ropes, but it was for naught, and soon his resistance was at its end. He knew all was lost the moment he felt a tingling along his spine heralding an oncoming orgasm, and the best he could do was delay the inevitable by attempting to tense his body. But perhaps sensing that he was on the edge, Malware slammed her hips down again and pinned his to the table, commanding him in a clear and authoritative voice: "Cum!"

He couldn't hold on any more, in any sense of the phrase. He tipped back his head and let out a loud moan, both of defeat and of orgasm, as he ceased fighting completely. His hips bucked up to drive his cock into Malware's ass as deep as it could go as his balls clenched and pulled up in their sack, his flesh pulsating as he began to unload into her guts. Her own moans intensified as she bounced on his bucking hips to drive herself over the edge just after him, and he felt when she reached her climax because her ass tensed and clenched hard around his shaft, milking him for every drop she could get. He writhed as much as he could in the restraints as her walls rippled over his dick, and he continued to pump hot, thick cum into her, her tight anal walls holding in every last drop of it. The tape over her pussy prevented her from squirting onto him, but her orgasm was obvious enough from the intense cries of pleasure she gave and the way her tail lashed, interspersed with triumphant cackling as she reveled in having brought White Hat to his peak.

She continued to clench and milk him until he flopped underneath her against the table he was tied to, ceasing all movements but for the rising and falling of his chest as he panted for breath. Malware remained atop him too, panting along with him, grinning widely from her afterglow and the satisfaction of her conquest...

==OOC==

Zhen panted for breath and leaned back against his chair, his eyes barely open, his jeans around his ankles as he breathed deeply in recovery. Code, across from him, was in a similar situation, and while he couldn't see what state of undress she was in, he had a good idea: both of her hands were reaching down and out of sight. His dice were still left on the table off to one side, after Code's joking requests for him to "roll to resist climax" and "roll your cumshot", while hers were in front of the GM screen from her amusing "roll for domination" near the start of their erotic tangent.

She was the first to recover from their mutual fun. "Shall we... take a break?" she offered between breaths.

"Yes," he murmured between breaths a few inhalations later. He'd have to get some paper towels for the mess under the table. At least the linoleum would be easy to clean. "Clean up and... clear our heads."

They got up to do just that as Code extracted her fingers from her holes, kicked her pants off, and wandered off with Zhen. Without a doubt, mutually masturbating with the GM of an affectionate parody superhero game while roleplaying an erotic encounter with her was – by far – the nerdiest thing Zhen had ever done in his life... but he wouldn't have traded it for the world.

==IC==

Eventually, however, Malware pulled off of him with a groan and climbed down from the table. "Well, I'd say I hope you enjoyed that, but I know you did," she taunted him. "But now, it's time for me to head home – and you, to leave this mortal coil."

White Hat watched, his daze after his climax only partly faded, as she bent down and reached under the table. His eyes widened when the object she brought up was a block of explosives, and she began setting the timer on them.

"You fiendish cur!" White Hat spat, struggling again at his bonds.

"Yes, yes, I've heard it all before, and it rather loses its effect when you've just blown a thick load in my ass, you know?" she remarked offhandedly as she pushed at the buttons on the front. "It's a pity to have to kill such a good lay, but you've become a thorn in my side, and I'd rather like to avoid the part where I have to suffix that with 'for far too long'." 

"Is that all? No elaborate death trap, just a time bomb?"

She gave a short if still maniacal laugh and grinned up at him. "Well, this was rather impromptu. I have all the good death traps back at my hideout," she taunted him. "And I'm not going to waste those on some two-bit wannabe hero who couldn't even resist a little sleeping gas!"

==OOC==

"That was the dice, not me," Zhen grumbled. He and Code had long since cleaned up, caught their breath, and returned to the table with refills for their drinks to continue the game. Code chuckled at his remark, and he went on, "Okay, but, why not just kill me?" 

"Do you ask that in-character?"

Zhen scoffed and shook his head emphatically. "Of course not, I don't want to give her ideas."

"Well, put it down to the villain's code of honor, then. Besides, it would be a very short campaign if she just pulled out a gun on you."

"Yes, true."

"I know your true weakness, White Hat!" Code declared in Malware's voice. "Bullets... from a gun!"

Zhen snorted, his mouth curling into a large smirk that perked up his whiskers. "Then again, I could put up a Firewall and stop her..."

"Anyway," Code went on, "I'll need you to roll for your escape attempt. For real, this time, no more fucking around, since we're done with the fucking, around or otherwise."

"For now," Zhen teased, picking up his dice.

==IC==

Setting the explosive down on the table between his legs, right next to his crotch, even going so far as to push it up against his balls, Malware flashed him a grin. "Ten minutes should be plenty of time for me to get away, even in this traffic."

"You will never get away with this, evildoer!" White Hat grunted as he tugged at his ropes.

"Oh, but I already have!" Malware fired back. "I look forward to seeing the news sites tomorrow. Even if it will probably be clickbait. 'You won't believe how this superhero met his end!' or some such." She gave a sigh. "Journalism really has gone downhill since the good old days, don't you think?"

"If I say yes, will you let me out?" White Hat muttered, trying and failing to wriggle his right hand free of his ropes. She merely laughed at him and turned the bomb so that the timer faced him, pressing the button to start the countdown. "Next time..." he began as she turned away, and he quickly tried to think of something to delay her. "...I'll be the one on top! Then we'll see how smug you are!" was the best he could manage.

"Aww, that almost makes me sad that there won't BE a next time!" Malware taunted, grabbing her loincloth off the floor and securing it around her waist as she began to leave. "It's been lovely, White Hat, but it's time that you were shut down, permanently. Goodbye!"

With that she stepped out from the door and slammed it shut behind her, plunging the room into darkness, but for the tiny red lights from the LCD display on the bomb that were ticking their way down. "Malware!" he shouted, but there was no reply, and he didn't waste his breath any further.

White Hat tugged at the ropes again, but it was useless. He had to think of something else! He couldn't move his hands very far, since his wrists were bound, and firmly at that. But only his arms and legs were tied up... his tail wasn't dexterous enough to untie the bindings around his feet, but what about the rest of him?

Shifting to the side, White Hat managed to lean his upper body over and tilt his neck enough to bring his muzzle close to his wrists. Of course, Malware had used a timer that beeped every second, a constant reminder of the countdown to his demise, as well as just being incredibly annoying. His Firewalls wouldn't be able to withstand an explosion, and certainly neither could he, so this was his only option...

He managed to sink his front teeth into the ropes around his right wrist, and pulled. The rope was tough, and the end of it was somewhere beyond his reach, probably around the table leg. But his teeth were also sharp, and he tugged harder at the rope, biting and chewing it, trying his best not to panic on every beep. He had lost count of what the timer was at, but didn't want to waste time looking at it; knowing how much time was left wouldn't help, and time spent looking was time he could better spend freeing himself.

One by one he bit through the coils of rope around his wrist, until he was able to start pulling his hand free as the bonds became loose enough. He couldn't get through all the rope coils, but didn't need to; as soon as he was able to pull the ropes up a little bit, he pulled his hand down and out from the rope, freeing it from confinement.

As he rolled over, he took an opportunistic look at the timer. 6:47. He had to hurry.

Making use of his free hand to help loosen the ropes, White Hat bit at the restraints on his other wrist, ripping at them and gradually freeing himself with a great deal of effort. He slipped the digits of his right hand under the ropes to pull on them and get them loose after biting fully through the rope once, gradually working them up enough to tug his hand free. Now that he had both hands available, he sat up, and looked in dismay at the bomb: 2:56. He didn't have time to free his legs. He had to disarm it.

But he couldn't see anything!

White Hat truly began to panic as he held onto the bomb. He was out of options. He could get maybe one leg free in time, but that would be it. But what if...?

He gently lifted the bomb and lowered it in his hands, trying to gauge its weight. It seemed like a normal block of explosives. Definitely not something he wanted going off right next to his manhood, even if it had long since retracted into his sheath. But maybe...

2:14. He didn't have time to think it over.

He did his best to recall he layout of the room. Malware had left through the side door, but she hadn't closed the door to the far room. He tried to think of where it was. On the left side, wasn't it...?

The timer beeped in his hand, giving a louder chirp when it hit 2:00. Gritting his teeth and raising the bomb over his head with both hands for stability, he threw it with all his might. All he had to go by was the sound it made as it hit the floor, and it sounded like it was far enough away that he would be safe. Bringing up both hands, he conjured up the strongest, widest Firewall he could manage between himself and the bomb, waiting for-

The explosion left his internal ears ringing and the sudden light nearly blinded him. Shrapnel and debris were flung against the Firewall, and the shockwave knocked White Hat's hat off his head, the heat washing over him intensely. Yet the distance he had thrown the bomb and the wall that mostly separated it from him did its job, and he survived, even if he was left dazed, suddenly finding the space much brighter now that the roof had been blown up in the next room over, collapsing it. Part of the wall had come down too, but he wasn't caught in the collapse, thankfully, and he slumped back against the table, counting his blessings and recovering, muttering darkly under his breath about how only a villain would have a bomb detonate at 1:57 instead of letting it count all the way to zero.

Yet as his hearing returned, he heard sirens nearby, stopping close to his position, followed by the sound of car doors opening and shutting-

==OOC==

"Oh, sure, NOW they have a ten second response time!" Zhen groused.

"Well, duh," Code remarked without even looking up from behind the GM screen, "There's no criminals on the scene. How quickly the police show up is inversely proportional to how much you want and/or need them to."

==IC==

-before he heard footsteps rapidly approaching, one of the officers shouting in code about the situation, presumably into his radio.

The side door was flung open and a lion in a patrol officer's outfit stepped inside with his gun drawn, quickly followed by a huffing and puffing panda with donut crumbs still around his mouth. The lion officer swept his aim around the room, but quickly surmised the situation when he saw White Hat still tied to the table.

"Well, you're one lucky son of a bitch," the lion told him, while the panda leaned on the wall, his gun aimed at the floor as he panted for breath. "What happened here? Kinky playtime go wrong?"

"Malware," White Hat tried to explain.

The lion gave him a skeptical look. "What, like, one of those ransom wares?"

"No, the supervillain," White Hat offered, but was met only by a blank stare. "Criminal mastermind? On the cyber crimes' Most Wanted list?" More blank stares. "Wanted for larceny, piracy, identity theft, indecent exposure...?" Still no reaction. He sighed. "Greenish lizard? Great ass?"

"Oh, her!" both officers exclaimed at the same time.

White Hat almost facepalmed, sighing more deeply before continuing. "The devious wench trussed me up like a roast, stole my clothes, and left me with naught but a time bomb for company."

"So, kinky playtime went wrong, got it." The lion crouched down by one table leg, reaching under it to untie the ropes.

The moment they were undone, White Hat climbed off the table and retrieved his hat, not to put on his head but to cover his loins with. "That's not really what happened, but I can give a statement if you could give me something to wear and a ride back to the station, officer...?"

"Leo," the lion replied.

==OOC==

"Wait. Hold up." Zhen suddenly cut in. "Officer Leo?"

"Yeah."

"And he's a lion?"

"Yeah."

Zhen's eyes narrowed, and he reached in his pocket for his phone. "What was that officer's name from before? The badger?"

"Officer Meles," Code replied, but the fact that she had a giant grin on her face already told Zhen he was on to something.

"And the other was... Pardus? A leopard?" he murmured, tapping at his phone.

"Yep," Code told him, barely holding back her amusement.

Zhen completed another search, then all but slammed his phone down, for dramatic effect more than anything else. "You've just been naming all the police after the scientific names of their species!" he declared.

Code couldn't contain herself any more and burst into raucous laughter. "I'm surprised you caught it at all!"

"I wouldn't have if you hadn't used a really obvious one!" Zhen retorted, but he couldn't stop himself from laughing too, his whiskers perking up. "Were you going to just keep doing that forever?"

"I'm still going to!" Code informed him, flashing a wide grin. "At least now you know what the theme is."

==IC==

"Sure. Having a naked guy in the back seat won't be any worse than a drunk that throws up back there," Officer Leo told him.

"And I need to make a phonecall, if I could please borrow one of your phones for a moment."

Officer Leo glanced down at the hat White Hat was holding over his crotch. "There's a payphone near here."

"I don't have any money on me!" White Hat pointed out. "She stole my clothes. Besides, I'll be lucky if the phone is still attached to the box, let alone working."

==OOC==

Code looked thoughtful for a moment, tapping one finger against her muzzle. "Wait, so... how do your clothes work?"

"Pardon?"

"I mean, you get them as part of your transformation sequence, but Malware stole them. So like... can you not transform anymore? Or do you get new ones?"

Zhen blinked and stared for a moment. "Um... you know, I don't know. I don't think it ever comes up. Since, you know, they can't really steal the Magical Girl's clothes and leave her nearly naked in a cartoon aimed at a younger female audience."

"Surely some adult knockoff of the genre has done this before, though."

"Pornographic takes on the Magical Girl genre usually don't keep going after the Magical Girl loses her-" Zhen began, then quickly coughed and corrected himself. "I-I mean, I have no idea, I've never seen any."

"I think you rolled snake eyes on THAT deception check," Code teased, grinning widely.

"Ahem. Anyway, at least in the daytime versions... yes, there's sometimes some clothing damage, and yet, their outfit is always pristine when they change into it," Zhen mused, still feeling embarrassed. "And it kind of just forms out of energy, so... it's effectively a new one each time?"

"Isn't your communicator part of-"

"Anime logic," Zhen cut her off.

"And the utility b-"

"Anime logic."

"I see. Do you lose your powers if your entire outfit gets removed?"

Zhen looked thoughtful. "That's invariably how it works in the, ahem, -adult- shows, yes, but White Hat follows more regular superhero rules. The outfit is just an alter ego to fight crime under. It doesn't grant him any abilities he doesn't normally have. He's always super-strong and just has to hide it when pretending to be normal."

"Fair enough," Code conceded. "I guess we'll say the stuff Malware stole disappears when you un-transform. Which you can't do while people are watching."

"Definitely not now, no. Anyway, I need to get in touch with Double Colon One tell them how I'm doing."

"Well, you'll have to take a short ride in the police car first. With your hat over your lap. You wouldn't want to get busted for indecent exposure, would you?"

Zhen snorted. "Why? So Malware can give me a 'not so different' speech next time?"

"Ooh, good idea, let me write that down," Code joked, pretending to type furiously on her tablet for a second. "Anyway, you get to the police station, they bring you a towel, and you make your phonecall. Are you warning them that Malware is coming?"

Zhen smirked. "No need. If she compromised a communicator to locate the source signal, she's out of luck. It pings back to Red Team's support truck, so wherever she looks, it won't be Double Colon One."

"Ah, clever," Code remarked with a nod.

"But they do need to be told to stop searching the city dump, and to shut off their transmitter for a bit while they come get me," Zhen added.

"All right. Well, Malware went back to her hideout first to gloat, so they're all safe."

"Good. Does anything else happen?"

"Other than the Red Team member flirting with you when you climb into the van mostly naked?" Code joked. "No, not really. You give your statement to the police, they promise to help, you know they won't, etc."

"Mm-hmm. Well then, once I return, I'd better start working on striking back against Malware. Here's my plan..."

==IC==

Zhen stared pensively at his laptop, listening to the rain drumming on the windows. Malware's face stared back at him from one of her mug shots, and he kept his gaze fixed on it, his elbows on his knees, one hand resting on top of the other as he held them in front of his muzzle.

Could he really do it? Was he really up to the task of taking down Malware? Perhaps he ought to hang up his hat and let someone else take this one. There were plenty of other criminals in the city he could turn his attention to, and other superheroes fighting crime in their own ways. She had already defeated him once, and utterly so. Captured, bound, stripped, and ridden until his will had been broken and he had confessed his pleasure in the heat of the moment. And if not for his quick thinking, she would have killed him, too.

He continued to stare at her picture. In his head he could hear her voice, taunting him, demanding him to give in, and how readily had done so. Submitting to her and giving in to her demands. She had broken him, and made him dance like a puppet, saying what she wanted him to say, even orgasming on demand. His shame from being so defeated was only increased by the fact that she had engaged in no mental trickery with him – no mind-control device, no drugs, no hypnosis. It HAD felt that good. He HAD wanted more. And he HAD loved it.

He glared at her unmoving picture on the computer screen, taking a deep breath. He thought of that moment again, and his own protestations – however weak they were. It changed nothing, he had claimed. He had been speaking of her at the time: she was still a villain, and he was still her enemy, no matter how much physical gratification she gave to him. She had, after all, attempted to kill him right after that.

But it went the other way, too, didn't it? It changed nothing about him. He was still White Hat. White Hat wouldn't give up so easily. White Hat wouldn't let one defeat stop him. White Hat wouldn't mope at home feeling sorry for himself. White Hat would keep going, because Justice never rests. Stringfield needed its shield.

Zhen reached out and closed the lid of his laptop. He could never defeat Malware, no. But White Hat could.

Raising a hand, he declared to the empty room, "Justice never rests-"

==OOC==

Code made a 'go on' motion with her right hand. "Yes, okay, you turn into White Hat. What next?" Zhen grumbled, but she shook her head and waggled a finger at him. "Nuh-uh, don't give me that. It's still the same episode. You already got your transformation sequence. I did enjoy that little bit of character development, though, so you can have some bonus XP for it during the wrap-up."

"Fine, fine," Zhen sighed. "I'm really going to milk my transformation for all it's worth in the next episode, just so you know."

She flashed him a grin. "I hope you do," she teased. "Make 'em count."

"I will!" Zhen asserted, then cleared his throat. "After a RUDELY and -unsatisfyingly- glossed-over transformation sequence..."

"Biased narrator much?" Code joked.

==IC==

...White Hat headed out into the rainy night. If he wasn't going to be stopped by what Malware had done to him, he certainly wasn't going to be deterred by a bit of inclement weather.

Flying on his hang glider was difficult in the rainstorm, but it also obscured his approach to the building Malware was using as her hideout. It had once just been an ordinary office building until its owners had gone out of business and the building had been left derelict. At some point it had been bought and turned over from one company to another; White Hat didn't know which of those was the first one Malware was using to hide her tracks, nor did it matter. He would take out the threat more directly.

He landed on top of a nearby building to take stock of the situation. There were no guards that he could see, nor were any lights on in the building. It looked like the empty derelict it was supposed to be. But his information was accurate, and the tracking beacon he had placed on the truck had led it back to his building – more than that, Red Team had pinged it earlier, and confirmed it was still on the premises. Furthermore, it hadn't suddenly changed position at any point, so it seemed unlikely that she had compromised it or even located the tracker at all. This was the place.

"She wouldn't expect it, but it would be foolish to go in through her front door," White Hat muttered to himself.

==OOC==

Code snorted in amusement and looked up at Zhen, who was grinning. "Oh yes, definitely. Her front door is very well-guarded. Anyone who tries to go in that way is going to meet a grisly end."

Zhen gave a long chuckle in response. "More foolish heroes than I might consider going in the front to be the default option, but I know better," he joked in White Hat's voice.

==IC==

Climbing down from the roof and approaching on foot, White Hat stayed behind the wall that surrounded the office's parking lot, long since abandoned. It wasn't in the heart of the city, so there were strips of grass and a couple of sparse trees between the wall and the next buildings over, and he crept along beside the wall, keeping to the shadows to stay out of sight.

Only once he was behind the building did he scale the wall, jumping up and grabbing the top of it. He peeked over the wall and into the back of the parking lot, but there were no signs of movement. If he didn't know any better, he'd think the place truly was abandoned. Pulling himself up and over the wall, he dropped down into the parking lot and crept forward in a crouching walk.

The back of the office building had a ramp leading down underneath it, perhaps for freight delivery at some point in the past. No doubt the truck with its locator tag on it was still there, but unfortunately for him the shutter doors were down, blocking off access. He could break through, but that would alert her to his presence, and the longer he went undetected, the better...

A little late, he thought to raise his head and look for cameras. He saw only two, both at the corners of the building and pointing away from him, positioned to pick up anyone driving or walking around the building – but not climbing over the back wall. He smirked to himself as he moved closer to the building, looking for another doorway. There were some fire exits, but they were one-way. The only door that had a handle on the outside was, of course, locked.

Such an obstacle might foil a less resourceful hero, but not White Hat. Pulling out a little cylindrical gadget from his tool belt, he pressed it up against the keyhole on the door handle, and pushed a button on the back of the cylinder. He had never learned how to pick locks himself – but he didn't need to. The AutoPick did its job, extending tiny metal arms into the lock and pushing the pins on it into the correct positions. A light on the top blinked green for a moment, and he turned the handle, opening the door slowly and quietly.

Stashing the AutoPick back in his belt, he crept inside and let the door close behind him, plunging him into darkness, though only briefly. After his last encounter with Malware he had obtained a pair of night vision goggles, and he quickly put them on over his eyes-

==OOC==

"Over your mask?" Code pointed out.

Zhen just smirked. "Yes," he answered, holding his index finger and thumb around his eyes for emphasis. "Goggles on top of the mask."

"I'm sure if you get caught, Malware will lose an action to laughing at how you look," she remarked playfully.

"Well, I -would- have just upgraded my mask, but I only rolled an 8 on my equipment upgrade check, and SOMEONE used her once-per-episode Interference ability to force me to take the 'it takes a long time' penalty on it," Zhen reminded her.

"Hmm, I wonder who that might have been?" Code wondered, giving him her most innocent look. "Some incredibly resourceful and lusciously sleek-scaled villainess, no doubt."

==IC==

-revealing a rather plain corridor. White Hat frowned; surely there was more to it than that. He made his way deeper into the building, but there was nothing of interest to be found. Only long-empty cubicle farms, anything of value having been taken away for resale years ago. Had he been misled? Perhaps the truck had simply been placed here as bait...

But then he remembered the freight ramp. Of course, the underground section! Why put anything on the upper floors where it might be found when she could simply hide underground? The next question was obvious: how would he get down to it? There was an elevator near the reception area, but its door was open, showing no signs of being active. Perhaps it had been locked in the open position when the building was abandoned. Getting an idea, White Hat entered the elevator anyway and bent over in front of the control panel, inspecting it closely. At first glance it all looked quite normal, and he saw buttons for two basement floors. But as he looked more closely, he noticed that there were some marks on and around the screws holding the panel in place. Someone had taken them out and put them back in, and none too gently, either. For what purpose? To rewire it, perhaps?

Cautiously, White Hat reached out and pushed the button for B1. To his surprise, the lights inside the elevator suddenly came on, the doors closed, and the elevator hummed to life, beginning to descend. Warily, he pushed the night vision goggles up to his forehead and stood ready in case some compartment popped open with a trap or the top of it opened up, but instead, the elevator came to a stop as normal and the doors opened.

And THEN the trap sprung.

A synthesized quartet of voices declaring "Intruder detected" were the only warning White Hat got to raise a Firewall before bullets pelted it from the four sentry guns set up to face the elevator doors. He ducked to the side of the elevator and hid next to the panel, pressing a finger into the button to keep the doors open as he took cover. There was no longer any doubt that he was in the right spot; beyond the sentries he had seen a well-lit green metal-walled corridor, and sentry guns were not something that was simply left lying around in an office building.

Fortunately, he had means to deal with that, and took an EMP grenade from under his cloak, pulling the pin and tossing it out from the elevator without exposing himself any more than necessary. Another hail of gunfire struck the back of the elevator car and the walls around its doors, and when the EMP grenade went off, the lights around him went out. Cautiously, White Hat peeked around the corner again, raising a Firewall just in case, but the grenade had done its job and the four sentries were completely inactive.

He had to assume Malware knew he was there, unfortunately, but at least he had infiltrated her hideout. Sprinting out from the elevator, he ducked behind the cover of a large box in the corridor, then moved on to the next doorway to peer around it. He had to find her quickly before she could escape. She had clearly been busy: the basement, once a parking lot, appeared to have been largely converted into a full-on lair with green metal walls that occasionally bore her emblem. The walls divided the floor up, and thick metal shielding along the ceiling covered up presumably all the cabling she had run, stopping people like him from cutting the cables or pulling them out. Not that it would have been easy to reach with how high the ceilings were.

He rounded a corner only for more sentry guns to pop out from boxes in the ceiling, and he dove forwards into the next room for cover before the guns could fire. What was once the freight entrance was now a storage area, with the shutter doors at one end, the stolen truck at one side of the room, many boxes piled up, and – to White Hat's dismay – even more automated defenses. Malware had clearly spared no expense.

Caught between two sets of ceiling turrets, White Hat put up a Firewall to protect himself, holding both hands out to keep the screen of energy between him and the guns as he ran for the next doorway. It seemed like he had set off every alarm on the premises, as while he was able to burst into a corridor with no sentry guns, instead there were bipedal robots with gun-arms marching towards him from both ends of the corridor. Glancing around, he saw a door with a paper sign taped to it that read "Malware's Office – Keep Out!" and barged through; it had to be a trap, but it was probably better than the one he was currently caught in.

To his surprise, it actually was an office. At the far end of the room was a high-backed computer chair in front of a large array of monitors that appeared to show camera feeds of the building. Had the door sign been a double-bluff? A thick burgundy-colored carpet covered the space between the dark green walls, and White Hat locked the door behind him before creeping forward as quickly as he could. If she was really there, he needed to catch her by surprise...

"Well, well, well, seems like you're still up and running after all," he heard just as he grabbed the back of the computer chair and spun it around. It was empty. "I knew you were still around after your clothes mysteriously disappeared, but I didn't think you'd be foolish enough to come back for round two."

He looked up and saw Malware's face on all of the monitors in front of the chair, watching him with amusement. There was a computer there, a beefy-looking tower with a clear side on its case and a number of glowing LED lights on the inside, its powerful fans keeping it running. He reached out for it, but he just heard Malware scoff. "That's my gaming rig. You won't find anything helpful on there," she taunted.

White Hat cautiously looked up at the monitors. It seemed like it wasn't just a prerecorded message. "Then where are you?"

She laughed at him, her cackling voice filling the room. "Now why would I tell you that?" she replied as he tapped on the keyboard, bringing up a login screen. His brow furrowed as he noticed that it didn't look like any he had seen before. "You're not getting in," Malware declared confidently, "Not unless you're somehow familiar with the OS I wrote."

==OOC==

"She wrote her own operating system?!" Zhen blurted out in disbelief.

Code simply nodded at him. "Yep. And when you inspect the computer closer you see that it's all proprietary ports. No USB. She knows what she's doing."

"Clearly," Zhen grumbled. "And I suppose it's too much to hope there's a post-it note with her password on the underside of the keyboard?"

==IC==

Malware laughed again as White Hat inspected the post-it note he had found under the keyboard. "Don't bother, it's just another honeypot," she taunted. "Anyone who enters the login credentials on that sticky note sets off the alarms. Not that you even managed to get that far undetected."

White Hat frowned and tossed the note aside. "Then I believe that leaves us at something of an impasse," he grumbled.

"Hah! Hardly. You're trapped in there and entirely at my whims. Though I must say, I expected a brute like you to not even bother trying to be subtle, especially with the bright white clothing." Her mouth curled into a grin as she went on, "I'm pleasantly surprised to discover you decided to try entering through my back door."

==OOC==

Zhen snorted, giving a look at Code, who was smirking widely. "Are we really doing this?" Zhen asked her. "Is that where this is going?"

"You bet," she retorted, her tail swaying back and forth deviously. "Let's see what you've got."

==IC==

White Hat folded his arms, glaring back at Malware's face on the largest screen. "You claim to know a lot about my preferred entrance for someone I only met recently."

Malware laughed at him briefly. "Did you really think you were the only one who could do a little investigation into their adversaries?" she retorted. "Your previous exploits are well-documented, White Hat, and subtlety isn't your strong suit. You always just barge right in through the front door, so I expected you would do it again."

"Maybe I felt like something a little different this time," White Hat fired back. "Or perhaps I realized I would need a different approach for you. Besides, your front door was far better protected."

"I don't want people using my front door!" Malware snapped. "I have sixteen hidden sentry guns pointed at it solely to take care of people who try anyway. I take all my deliveries in the rear instead."

White Hat flashed her a smirk. "And yet, you were unprepared for me coming in through the rear. It seems my entry was something of a surprise."

"Your actual attempt at stealth was unexpected," Malware admitted, then broke into a wide grin. "But it's far more fun when someone uses the rear entrance instead of getting stopped at the front. You've gotten awfully deep inside, after all, and the longer this lasts, the more fun it is for me."

"I'm not done yet," White Hat asserted, leaning forward. "I'm going to delve even deeper. I can't be stopped that easily."

"Is that so? You have no idea how deep this place goes, White Hat. And here you are, all alone. You really should have brought some protection."

==OOC==

Zhen frowned, resting his chin against his thumb and forefinger for several seconds, before he gave a sigh. "All right, I'm out," he conceded. "You win. I can't come up with another one."

Code laughed triumphantly and leaned back in her chair. "You can't beat the master!" she declared with a wide grin. "But you held out longer than I expected. I've taught you well."

"I'll be sure to prepare better for next time," Zhen teased. "Perhaps we ought to move this along, though."

Code nodded, looking down at her tablet behind the GM screen. "Yes, where was I...?"

==IC==

White Hat smirked at the monitor. "I'm far from defenseless. Don't think this will be as easy as it was last time. I'm coming for you, Malware, and Justice will be delivered!"

She laughed again and turned around, multiple monitors all showing a sudden view of her bare ass as she mooned him across the video feed, lifting her tail high, the strip of black tape over her pussy just as visible as her exposed sphincter just above it. "If that's what you think, you can kiss my sleek, green, shiny ass, White Hat!" she shouted, bouncing her hips up and down.

"When I get my hands on you, Malware, I'll do a lot more to your ass than that," White Hat threatened, raising a gloved hand and pointing it at the biggest monitor.

"Good luck, I'm behind seven proxies!" she taunted, grinning maniacally at him over her shoulder. "You, on the other hand, are going on a trip to the recycle bin."

Her long tail curled down and tapped against a keyboard or button offscreen – White Hat couldn't tell what it was, and soon he had much bigger problems. A trapdoor under him opened up and he fell down it with a yell, starting to reach for his utility belt to pull out his hang glider. But he only fell one floor and landed on the swivel chair that had been dumped down with him, his hat gliding down and landing nearby a moment later.

Grumbling, he rose from the chair, looking around as he retrieved his hat and returned it to his head. The room seemed fairly ordinary, with more green metal walls, yet unlike some of the other passages he had been through there was no decoration at all: no monitors, no cables, and not even Malware's symbol painted on the walls. Looking up, he saw that the hole he had fallen in through was closed over now, but there was a door at one side of the room.

Just as he began to head over to it, he heard machinery coming to life, and a ratcheting sound above him. Looking up, alarm overcame him as he saw the ceiling beginning to descend towards him, and he dashed over to the door. Whether it was locked or not he had no idea – there wasn't even a handle, doorknob, keypad or other way to open it from the inside. But that was fine; his door-opener didn't need any of those. Cracking his knuckles, White Hat reared back, and swung his fist as hard as he could at the door.

==OOC==

"What do you mean, 'It doesn't budge'?!" Zhen blurted out. "I rolled almost maximum damage!"

"I mean, it doesn't budge," Code reiterated firmly. "She just got done telling you she's been doing her research on you! Your default response is to punch things! Of course she's going to make a punch-proof door!"

"Stupid competent villains," Zhen grumbled.

==IC==

However, his fist struck the metal surface without so much as denting it, and White Hat gritted his teeth as he almost bounced off of the door, wincing and rubbing his gloved hand. Malware's laughter came from all around him through hidden speakers a moment later to taunt him further. "Nice try, White Hat!" she cackled, "But that door is made out of reinforced manganese steel alloy! You can punch it has hard as you want, but you're not getting through! Do keep trying, by all means; that was quite entertaining."

Grimacing, White Hat backed away, then approached one of the walls, overly aware of the ceiling above him continuing to descend relentlessly. He felt along the walls, only to hear Malware cut in again. "The walls are made of the same stuff, so don't bother! Just sit there and wait to be compressed!" she called over the speaker, before laughing madly again.

Turning around, White Hat checked the walls again, but there was nothing of note. Perhaps there was some hidden passage, but if there was, he had no idea where to even begin looking. There had to be a camera hidden somewhere for her to watch him, but he couldn't see it. The ceiling was getting closer and closer, and it had the same plating over it. Perhaps he could try to break through the door where he had been dropped through, but he'd have to wait for the ceiling to come into reach, and he wouldn't have much time left after that if it didn't work...

He looked downwards, then blinked, scuffing one foot against the concrete floor. "And what about your floors?" he asked aloud.

There was a brief pause. "That's cheating!" Malware suddenly blurted out, and White Hat knelt down, flexing his fingers. It would be a challenge, but less of one than the impact-resistant metal.

He slammed his fist into the floor and cracked it, wincing a little but gritting his teeth and enduring it. Super strength only counted so much towards ignoring physics. Each impact sent vibrations up his arm, but on every punch, he damaged the floor further.

Malware, however, had tricks of her own. The ratcheting sound intensified as she sped up the ceiling, making it come down faster. White Hat gritted his teeth and began swinging with both arms, pummeling the floor with alternating blows, sending cracks further across the floor – and hopefully deeper, too. But he was running out of time, especially with Malware sending the ceiling down faster. He heard the swivel chair that had fallen down with him get knocked over as the ceiling pressed onto its headrest, and when he felt his elbow smack into the ceiling, he knew it was now or never.

Bringing up both hands and clasping them together, he swung down as hard as he could into the floor. He felt the floor shift under him, and raised his hands again, banging them against the descending ceiling. One more hard impact and he broke through, the floor under him collapsing into the room below and taking him with it.

It was a very rough landing on top of a pile of broken chunks of concrete, and had it been any more than one floor he would have been seriously hurt. Even as it was he jarred his legs upon landing and fell off of the pile of rubble to land on the dusty floor next to it, groaning and sprawling out on his back. And not a moment too soon, as he heard the chair being crushed followed by a great thud above him as the ceiling struck the floor of the room above, sending down more dust and small bits of rock to land on White Hat's prone form.

As he recovered from the fall, slowly rolling over to get onto his knees, White Hat took a look around. The space he was in wasn't natural, but it wasn't part of the building above. It had clearly been dug out with some sort of heavy drilling machine, but to what end? Some escape tunnel, perhaps, or maybe a way to access the sewers, or an underground vault of some kind, maybe. By collapsing the ceiling he had partly blocked it off, but not fully, and there was enough space for him to maneuver past the rubble if he had to.

He couldn't hear Malware, but since the tunnel seemed completely unadorned but for a simple series of lights running along the top of it, it was unlikely she had cameras or speakers down here. Getting his bearing as he climbed to his feet, he dusted himself off and straightened his hat. No doubt she would be sending some of her automatons after him.

==OOC==

"Oh yeah, I should have her do that, shouldn't I?"

"Oh, come on...!"

==IC==

...as if on cue, White Hat heard metallic stomping up ahead. Rather than retreat, he ran forward; if that was where the robots were coming from, then that was his way out of here.

He reached the end of the tunnel and found an open area full of digging equipment, as well as a simple platform elevator, from which several robots were disembarking. Lunging forward, he punched the front-most one as hard as he could while it was raising its gun-arm to point at him, and sent it flying backwards into the robot behind it. Like dominos, they fell over, all the way back to the elevator platform.

Stomping on the arm of the closest robot and shattering it under his boot to stop it from shooting at him, White Hat then leapt forward and ran across the fallen-over robots and onto the platform, shoving each one back down against the ground to interrupt their attempts to get back up. Pressing the button on the controls to ascend, he then began shoving and kicking the robots off of the elevator as it slowly rose up into the dug-out shaft above it. The second robot he had knocked over took aim and fired, its bullets only striking one of White Hat's Firewalls harmlessly, and then the platform rose high enough that the rock hid him from view.

He came up back into Malware's base, in some sort of side room. Whatever purpose it had been put to before, it was now little more than a storage space with a hole in it. A power cable ran along the walls and towards the elevator, right up until White Hat picked it up and ripped it apart in a shower of sparks to ensure the robots on the floor below did not follow him up. From there, he slipped out through the door and into the corridor.

It was a now-familiar sight of green metal walls, occasional monitors, and Malware's little emblem painted here and there, but with an additional feature: a map. After checking both directions along the corridor, he approached the map and looked it over. "Awfully convenient..." he murmured, inspecting it. It seemed accurate enough, or at least the shape of the outline resembled that of the building itself, but something was bothering him...

==OOC==

"Well, in that case, Roll +Genre Savviness," Code teased. "By which I mean, +Cunning."

Zhen picked up his dice and rattled them in his hand, tossing them onto the table. "Ugh, four," he grumbled, "My bonus only brings it to five..." He glanced down at his character sheet, and then spoke up again before Code could continue. "Wait, I still have a reroll left!"

"Oh? Go on, then."

Inhaling deeply, Zhen picked the dice back up and covered his face with his other hand as he shook the small plastic cubes. "Come on, give me a break here..." he murmured, tossing the dice about within his hold a little longer before dropping them onto the table, keeping one hand over his face. When Code said nothing, he spread his fingers out and opened one eye, peeking down...

A four, and a five. And with his bonus...

"Ten!" Zhen declared proudly, thrusting a victorious fist into the air, his whiskers swinging back and forth from the movement. "Ha-haa, finally!"

==IC==

White Hat narrowed his eyes at the map. Yes, it was awfully convenient. Too much so. After all, if Malware relied entirely on robots and sentries, why would there be a map, except as yet another trap? That meant the room labelled 'Malware's Office' on the floor he was on was probably full of lasers or poison gas or sawblades. Or laser sawblades with poison gas emitters attached to them. But then, where was her real office? His eyes scanned the map, and...

Ah. Yes. Bio-Waste Processing Facility. That had to be it.

But now that he was back in her lair proper, she had to have cameras everywhere. She was probably watching him right now, for that matter. So, feigning a moment of inspiration, he reached out and tapped on the room labelled 'Malware's Office' with his index finger. "There!" he declared, careful not to ham it up too much... before recalling that his persona as White Hat was always a large ham. If he didn't overdo it, then THAT would be suspicious. "That witch thinks she can just throw a valiant agent of Justice into a crusher and get away with it?" he went on, "We shall see about that! Justice never rests!"

He marched off down the corridor, pleased to not encounter further robotic resistance – though he didn't exclude the possibility that she had disabled them in the hopes of letting him stumble into her trap. But as he approached an intersection, he stopped, scratched his head, and looked around. "Was it... this way?" he wondered aloud, before turning left. The 'wrong' turn, by the map, but taking him exactly where he truly wanted to go.

He feigned being lost just a little longer before reaching the door to what claimed to be the Bio-Waste Processing Facility, at which point he dropped the act entirely and simply kicked in the door – or tried to, only to discover it was made of the same reinforced material as the crusher room's door. Undeterred, he grabbed the handle and threw the door open instead to make the best dynamic entry he could while wincing from the lingering pain in his leg.

"Malware!" he roared out, as she spun around in her chair, one leg resting atop the other.

"Well, well, well, I guess you do have a brain after all," she remarked as she faced him. She had been sitting in front of an array of monitors again, this time showing camera feeds to all the different parts of the building. A mini-fridge under one side of her U-shaped desk hummed away and a small set of drawers loaded with an impressive array of snacks stood above it. Even more screens and monitors lined the side walls, over a series of display cases, stands, and hooks displaying the trophies from her conquests – including White hat's own hat and-

==OOC==

"Wait, no, those disappeared, didn't they?" Code murmured, furrowing her brow.

Zhen shrugged. "Anime logic," he offered as the best explanation he could give again. "She did mention it earlier, so..."

"Okay, scratch that last part, then. In that case..."

==IC==

...displaying the trophies from her conquests – with a space reserved for White Hat, under a name plate and a picture of him.

White Hat gazed over the series of trophies. Other superheroes she had defeated, presumably. Most he didn't recognize, but one...

"You killed Packet Storm?" White Hat gasped in disbelief.

"And he almost got me, too!" Malware replied with a wide grin, arms on the armrests of her chair. "Just like you, he got all the way to my control room. Too bad for him, he contracted a sudden and fatal dose of lead poisoning."

White Hat held his hands ready at his sides, prepared to put up a Firewall. "You simply pulled out a pistol and shot him like a common criminal?" he accused.

Malware chuckled, shaking her head. "Oh, please," she scoffed, "A pistol? Far too small to satisfy me. I like them bigger. A lot bigger!"

Reaching under her desk, she suddenly pulled out a shotgun stashed there and pointed it at White Hat as he rushed forwards. Unloading both barrels at him, she struck only his Firewalls, though enduring the impact of the shot pellets against his shield strained him greatly. The recoil sent her office chair backwards as well, out of White Hat's reach as he swung for her. Nimbly, she dove off of the chair and out of the way as he lunged at her, and she sprang to her feet, backing away from him.

"It's over, Malware!" White Hat insisted, following her step for step. "Give up and come quietly, or I'll take you by force!"

"You already know firsthand that I don't cum quietly!" Malware taunted, raising a hand and snapping her fingers. Panels on the opposite walls flipped around to reveal a pair of sentry guns, but White Hat was already springing into action. He ripped the first one off of its mount entirely and hurled it at the other, smashing the automated turret. Before Malware could summon any more of her robotic minions he lunged for her again, his hands grasping only at air as she danced away from him.

"Don't think this will be like last time," White Hat growled as he sized her up, looking for an opening, keeping pace with her as she stepped back from him. "In a fair fight, Justice will always prevail."

"It's a good thing I don't fight fair, then," Malware retorted, snapping her fingers once more. White Hat prepared for more automated defenses, glancing around when nothing appeared from the walls, ceilings, or floors.

"What did-" White Hat began, but it was merely a ruse; Malware lunged at him in his moment of confusion, swiping with both hands and the sharp claws at the ends of her fingers. He barely backed up in time to avoid having her gouge his front, but he didn't get away quite untouched, as her claws tore through his spandex briefs and shredded them, the tattered garment falling to the floor and leaving him exposed.

He backed up and so did she, though her gaze flicked down to his loins as his movement made his heavy balls bounce about in their sack. "Not quite my intention, but I don't mind a second look," she said, her mouth curling into a grin. "Since we had such good fun the first time."

White Hat narrowed his eyes behind his mask. "If you think your taunting will work on me, think again," he sneered, adjusting his stance. As he did, he saw Malware's eyes flick down to his loins again. He would take any advantage he could get.

"Are you sure you don't want me to tie you down again?" she offered with a smirk. "You enjoyed it so very much last time..."

He lunged and nearly got hold of her, but she was just too quick, leaping aside so that his fingertips only just barely brushed her scales for the briefest of moments. Stepping forward again, she lowered her body and attempted to sweep his legs out from under him with her own, but he jumped over them and reached out once more, this time getting a hold on her shoulder.

It was enough to hurl her to the floor, and she rolled on impact, still taken by surprise. Getting up facing away from him, he wasn't sure if it was intentional or not that she flaunted her ass to him on her way up, the back part of her loincloth still doing nothing to conceal her hindquarters. By the time she spun around to face him again the tip of his cock was peeking out from his sheath, aroused by the sight of the same bare ass she had flashed at him earlier.

Seeking to apprehend her before she could recover, White Hat reached out for her again to try and grab hold of her, closing her hands around her shoulders. She twisted away and pulled out from the grasp of one hand, smacking away his hand as he tried to get his other hand on her, swinging at him with her tail and striking his side. White Hat held on until she swung an elbow at him and hit his chest, but as he backed off he shoved her forward, sending her sprawling to the floor again. He caught another glimpse of her ass as she scrambled to her feet, turning and narrowing her eyes at him as she began to take him more seriously.

"You're getting a little TOO into this, don't you think?" Malware taunted him as she took notice of his growing erection. "I've heard of a justice boner, but isn't that a little overly literal?"

White Hat was unfazed, assuming a fighting stance once again, circling around as they kept facing each other, looking for an opening. "Justice will be dealt regardless of any distractions, even if they come from my own body," he growled. "Perhaps I am merely excited at the prospect of ending your reign of terror."

"Better heroes than you have tried and failed!" Malware spat, lunging forward. Throwing everything she had at him, she launched a flurry of punches and kicks in his direction, sending him stepping backwards every time he moved to block or dodge one of them. As he got closer to her desk she spun and launched a high kick at him that he managed to stop, grabbing her leg and holding onto it – even if it did leave her with her legs spread wide and her loins bared right in front of him. As he struggled to maintain his grip while she fought to escape it, his gaze drifted over the black tape covering her slit and then to her other hole...

She might have taken advantage of his distraction had she not been caught in a difficult position, or if she hadn't been admiring his endowments in return. Collecting himself as he strained to keep his hold on Malware's leg, White Hat had a moment of inspiration. He began pushing her leg away, threatening to unbalance her, and she pushed back, arms and tail held out to keep her balance on one foot. The more he pushed, the harder she responded – until he suddenly let go and stepped aside.

With White Hat's resistance suddenly gone, Malware staggered forward towards her computing desk, and White Hat was on her again in a flash before she could regain her balance. His gloved right hand pressed between her shoulders and shoved her down against the clear tempered glass surface, rattling the objects on the desk. His left hand was quick to grab onto her left arm and as she tried to fight him off, he snatched her other arm as well, bending both of them back behind her as he slid his grip down to her wrists, tightening his hold. She struggled and tried to break free, but he had her held firmly, and her struggles succeeded only in shaking the desk and knocking a few objects off of its edges.

==OOC==

Code grinned deviously over the top of the GM screen. "Well, congratulations, you have her pinned. Whatever are you going to do with her?" she asked in a seductive tone.

Zhen smirked right back at her. "Pay her back, of course. I've got a score to settle from our last encounter."

Chuckling and leaning closer, Code lowered her voice and spoke alluringly. "Go on, then. Tell me what you'd do to me if I was a bad girl..."

==IC==

"I've got you right where I want you, Malware!" White Hat grunted as he wrestled with her. She swung her tail at him and struck his side, only for him to pin it down under his arm. As he held the wriggling appendage in place, he asserted, "You can't escape!" while staring down at her exposed ass. Desire burned inside of him and he tightened his grip on her wrists. "I warned you that next time... I would be on top!"

He moved in close and grinded up against her ass, sliding his stiff shaft in between her cheeks, already leaking clear fluid from the tip. There was more than one way to put a criminal in her place. Malware kept up her resistance, but in response to his words she merely scoffed, "Hah! You couldn't top a teddy bear! Do your worst!"

Snorting, White Hat shifted his hips and lined up with her back door, pressing his cocktip up against it firmly. She clenched and resisted his intrusion, but he didn't relent, pressing harder against her rear. "Impossible, Malware... I always do my best!" He grunted and pushed again, his pointed glans beginning to penetrate as he overcame her resistance, and she curled her toes against the floor with a groan. The tightness around his cock was intense, and she continued to clench even as the head of his cock slowly popped into her, making them both gasp out. The first ridge on the underside of his length pushing into her was what finally overcame her, causing her to ease off from a vice-like grip to a mere firm tightness. The rest of his cock was suddenly able to press forward and bump his other three ridges against her sphincter on the way in, before he hilted inside her with a firm smack of his hips against her ass.

The end of her tail lashed in his hold as he groaned while she cried out in angry pleasure, her body shuddering as he pulled back out, taking note of how far he had to move his hips to withdraw his ridges before plunging back into her. Her eyes shot open and she groaned aloud while he grunted in pleasure, his burning desire only partly sated by the tight walls engulfing his cock. Over and over he thrusted into her, yet she didn't cease her resistance, still trying to tug her arms free of his grip. "Is that all you've got?" she taunted him, "I've had a better fuck from-"

White Hat pulled her backwards as he thrusted in as hard as he could, making an audible smack as his hips met her ass, groaning out as he did. Malware's eyes rolled up and she moaned aloud in response, her forked tongue hanging from her mouth for a moment before she pulled it back in. He didn't allow her to get another word out, repeating the motion, hammering her with hard thrusts and grinding his cock into her depths on each stroke, his heavy balls swinging forward and slapping against the tape covering her pussy.

Grunting from effort as well as from the intense pleasure, White Hat had to fight to keep his eyes open just in case she pulled any more tricks. But the longer he kept it up, the more her resistance seemed to wane; with every heavy thrust into her ass, filling her anal cavity with his shaft, she struggled a little less and moaned louder. Her tail stopped trying to wriggle free and instead wrapped around his body as if to tug him in harder, and there was less anger in each of her moans.

"Nnh... you... aah..." she tried to force out between breaths and gasps of pleasure, talking over the sound of White Hat's hips smacking her ass and his balls slapping her taped-over pussy.

He gritted his teeth as he struggled to maintain the hard thrusts, easing off slightly and increasing his speed instead to compensate. He would break her, just as she had broken him. Assuming he could last that long; his own tail was swishing back and forth as he reveled in the pleasure of pounding her lusciously tight ass. "Accept... your... punishment!" he groaned out to her, copiously leaking precum into her ass, slicking up his movements considerably.

"Or... what...?" she managed to retort, her hands clenching into fists, her toes curled, her eyes rolled upward. Her ass was still incredibly tight around him despite how much he had been fucking it, and he wasn't sure how much longer he could last.

But before he finished, he had to claim victory...

"Or..." he began, panting, ramming his hips up against her ass as hard as he could, pulling back out and doing it again with a gasp. "...or I'll stop!"

He slid his length out of her entirely, but his desire flared up from a small blaze to a raging inferno. This was a terrible idea! Maybe she could make such a threat idly, but for White Hat, it took every ounce of willpower not to plunge his cock right back into her depths as he stared at her ass. He trembled, panting for breath, his dick throbbing with need, every part of him screaming to finish what he had begun and to claim his orgasm inside of her.

But however hard it was for him, it seemed even worse for her. "N-no...!" she cried out in impotent rage, renewing her struggles on the table. "Put it back in... put it back in!" Malware demanded, writhing about against his hold, making him struggle to hold onto her. She shoved her hips backwards, trying to push her ass back onto his cock, but he shoved his knee against her rump and pushed her forward again. "I accept... whatever the fuck it was! Just fuck me! Fuck me NOW!"

He wanted to hold out longer, but he couldn't – hearing her beg was just too much. Pressing his drooling cock up against her rear entrance, he slid back into her, sawing his ridges over her anal ring as he did. She cried out again in pleasure and he shuddered, trying to play it cool even if he had lost control of himself again. His primal urges were driving him now as he fucked her as hard as he could, ramming the full length of his shaft into her over and over as hard and as fast as he could. She began to scream in pleasure as he drove her to an orgasm, her tail squeezing around his torso while the tail flailed back and forth, her whole body shuddering from the force of her climax.

And on top of all that her anal walls clenched and spasmed around his throbbing cock, finishing him off. He felt the tingling of his incoming orgasm just moments before it hit him, granting him only enough time to gasp before he came. Leaning over her and pinning her arms down to the table, he moaned out in ecstasy as he once again felt her lusciously tight walls rippling over his cock, except that this time, he was the one in control. He unloaded great, thick ropes of his cum into her rear tunnels, his balls pulling upwards as they rested against her covered slit, blasting their contents deep into her other hole. Every throb of his ridged shaft signaled another gout of seed erupting into her, and White Hat groaned and shuddered in place as he filled her up.

Both of them were left panting for breath, but when White Hat opened his eyes, Malware was clearly more out of it. Her eyes were crossed and rolled upwards as she stared vacantly, and her whole body had gone limp, her chest heaving with each breath. Warily, White Hat pulled both of her hands together behind her back and reached under his cloak for rope to tie them with, binding her wrists together, but she didn't resist. Even when he pulled out and knelt down to tie up her ankles, she surprised him by clenching her ass to hold in his load, but made no attempt to escape.

==OOC==

"Kinky," Code murmured with a grin, wiggling her hips from side to side on her chair. "Does White Hat always carry rope around just in case he has to tie up a big bad lizardess?"

Zhen chuckled, shifting in his seat. The encounter had certainly gotten them both riled up, though they hadn't indulged in it quite as much as the first time. "There are other uses for it, you know. But yes, he always has some rope."

"Mmm, well, you put it to good use this time," she teased. "So, what next?"

"Well, now I need to foil her plans, whatever that entails..."

==IC==

Standing back up, White Hat grabbed onto one of the back strips of Malware's loincloth to wipe his own cum off of his cock before taking a seat in her computer chair. Cracking his knuckles, he declared, "Now then, let's see what you've been up to," as he took advantage of the fact that she hadn't locked the screen when he had burst in on her.

The first order of business was to find out what she had stolen from the truck. Accessing the camera feeds, he rolled them back to when the truck had been brought in. He half expected Malware to taunt him, but he only heard her breathing, too senseless after their romp to reply.

It didn't take him too long to narrow down the truck's arrival, and he zoomed in the camera to try and see the labels on the boxes being taken out. Machine parts. Heavy-duty ones, too. For her robots, no doubt; they were enough of a menace already, but with sturdier parts normally used on heavy machinery...

He tried to check her emails, but was prompted for a password, and moved on instead to her documents. They were organized surprisingly neatly, which made it easy for White Hat to find what she had been working on most recently, in a folder labeled "Project Botnet". Sure enough, there were files for a new model of robotic soldier she was working on. The pieces fell into place: the money she had stolen, the robust parts, and maybe even the manganese steel alloy she had used on the walls of the crusher room. She was going to build her own robot army, sturdy enough to withstand even the kind of punishment he could dish out!

"Well-" he began, swiveling around in the chair, only to catch her breaking free – he had secured her arms and legs well enough, but he had forgotten her tail! She had the end of it pressed into the ropes around her wrists to undo the knot, and just as he was turning around, she stood back up and freed her hands, letting the ropes fall to the floor.

He began to get up, but she hopped away from him with her bound ankles, moving sideways towards the nearest wall, leaking a trail of his cum along the way. "You'll have to fuck my ass harder than THAT to render me senseless!" she cackled as she shoved her shoulder up against one of the wall panels, which rotated to let her into some secret passage. He chased after her, but his larger frame had a hard time squeezing through the gap, and he got stuck halfway. Not that it mattered: the passage was only a few feet long and led into a hidden elevator that she had already closed the door of, and he heard it zipping away from him upwards.

Pulling back out from the secret passage, White Hat let out a groan of frustration. The monitors above the computer suddenly changed to show Malware's face, still a bit flushed after she had been fucked so thoroughly. Not thoroughly enough, apparently.

"You may have won this time, White Hat, but you're on my personal blacklist now!" she sneered at him. "If I can't have those parts, no-one will! You won't need more than a few minutes to get out, right?"

The lights and the monitors all suddenly took on a red hue as a four-minute timer began counting down on the screens. Eyes opening wide in panic, White Hat bolted for the office door; even if he reached the secret elevator, there was no guarantee he could get it to work, even if it came back down in time, or at all.

Robots were waiting in the corridor for him, but he barreled through them like a wrecking ball, shoving them aside and knocking them into each other, turning the corner before they could open fire. He ran for the elevators as alarms blared to announce the self-destruct system's activation, only to find they were deactivated, the panels above the doors showing only a single red X.

Not that that would stop him. Reaching the doors, he jammed his fingers into the gap between doors and forced them open, grunting and straining as he did, his muscles bulging with effort. He entered the elevator the moment he could squeeze through and immediately reached for the emergency ladder, pulling it down and climbing up, simply punching the trapdoor on the top open instead of wasting time opening it properly. Above him stretched the elevator shaft, and he raised his right hand upwards, firing off his grappling hook into the blackness above. It shot up and out of sight, and he gritted his teeth, the blaring of the alarms only partly muted by the walls around him...

But the hook found purchase on something and yanked him upwards. He zipped in a flash to the very top of the elevator, discovering that he had hooked onto the pulley at the top of the elevator shaft. It was a small mercy that there was a maintenance walkway at the top, and he swung over to it, releasing the hook to land on the metal flooring. It shuddered underneath him, but held, if barely, and he barged through the closed fire door shoulder-first, the impact jarring his body but not stopping his movement.

"Two minutes until self-destruct," the automated system announced, and White Hat's panic grew. If it was anything like her time bomb...

He came out into the top floor of the office building, and ran straight for the nearest window. It was plate glass, but he had overcome much harder obstacles that night, and he crashed through it shoulder-first, leaping out from the top floor of the building. Activating his hang glider, he soared away from it and breathed a sigh of relief. It had already been several seconds, so perhaps she hadn't elected to use the same trick more than-

A thunderous explosion behind him proved him wrong, his hang glider shaking in the air from the force of it, the night sky lighting up briefly. The cacophony continued as chunks of concrete and steel rained down around the building, but fortunately he was outside of the danger and flying away fast. Banking in the air, he turned to land on the corner of a nearby building, looking back at last.

Little remained of the building that Malware had been using as her hideout. A pity, too, as much of the evidence and clues that could have been used to track her down had likely been incinerated. But he had stopped her, at least for now, and her plans would be delayed while she relocated. The fight wasn't over, but he had won this round.

He shivered as a cold and wet wind blew by, chilling his exposed loins. One thing at a time. The first order of business would be to get back to Double Colon One without being seen...

...but after that, would be trying to track down where Malware had gone.

"Justice never rests," White Hat murmured to himself as he readied his hang glider again. "And neither will I, Malware."

==OOC==

Code gave a short bit of applause as Zhen finished his delivery of White Hat's closing remark, one fist held over his chest dramatically. "And that'll do it, I think," she declared, "Well done."

Zhen grinned widely and proudly, puffing out his chest. "Thank you," he told her. "This was a ton of fun. I hope we can do it again."

"Just as soon as I write up another adventure for you," Code teased. "I'm done for the night, though. I'll figure out how much XP you got tomorrow."

Zhen nodded, leaning forward a little. "Yes, for now... that was a very memorable adventure. Perhaps you might be interested in re-enacting White Hat's showdown with Malware?"

Her broad grin told him all he needed to know, and they both got up together. "No rope, though," Code reminded him as he stepped up to her side and put an arm around her back. "I'm not into getting tied up in real life."

He chuckled and began to walk off with her, letting his hand drift down her back until it rested on her ass, giving it a playful squeeze. "That's probably for the best," he agreed, "I never learned how to tie rope, but I can keep you pinned all the same..."

As he leaned in and whispered a safe-word to her just in case, the two of them exited the kitchen, leaving the dice and character sheets behind for another night.
