Z-Truck had been ecstatic when she heard about the commotion going down at the subway and she had rushed right in there through the tunnels, outrunning several trains on the way in. In only twenty three seconds, she had found their escaped supe and grabbed him, already on the way back towards the restaurant. His escape had been unforeseen, but now that he was out, Vogel would probably want to get rid of the evidence.

It was a pity. She had rather liked taking Hold X down to the restaurant, but she couldn’t risk Protectorate Sod finding out the man had escaped under her supposed watch. That would be bad for everyone there, but especially bad for her. No one really enjoyed getting on the Protectorate’s bad side.

“You’ve caused me plenty of trouble, you know that?” she said to her captive, slung across her shoulder. “You’re gonna regret that now.”

Z-Truck ran on for a couple more seconds, but then she felt the supe stir. She briefly considered whether she should have tied him up, but a tremendous blow hit her like a hammer on the back and both of them went rolling onto the floor of the tunnel.

Z-Truck came to a stop on the tracks. She picked herself up and shook the stars from her eyes.

“Hey, what gives?” she said to the supe. He was lying a short distance away, getting to his feet. “Can’t have you getting away.”

The escaped supe turned his head towards Z-Truck’s voice. His eyes narrowed and he ran towards Z-Truck, a punch forming in his hand. The Septet member simply darted to the left, avoiding the punch. The fist crashed into the tunnel wall and made a sizeable hole in the brickwork.

“Ooh, so you’re strong. Guess what? Doesn’t matter how strong you are, you can’t take down what you can’t hit.”

Z-Truck sprinted behind the supe and grappled his arms, holding him down. The supe struggled for a few seconds, then jerked his head back and hit Z-Truck on the nose. Z-Truck saw lights explode in front of her face and she let go, staggering backwards.

As Z-Truck tried to recover, the other supe whipped around and punched her in the chest. Luckily, Z-Truck’s constitution was stronger than the average human’s, but she was still launched back into the opposite wall, cracking it into an outline of herself.

“Ow…” Z-Truck said, stepping out from the crater. “Okay, now you’ve pissed me off.”

The male supe took another swing at Z-Truck, but this time she was ready and ducked under the blow before swiveling her body into a side kick. The other supe was launched down the tunnel and flew at least twenty feet before crashing to a stop.

“Heh,” Z-Truck said, walking over to the downed supe. “Now you’re coming with me.”

Z-Truck bent down to pick up her quarry, only stopping when his arm reached out and tried to grab her leg. Z-Truck hopped backwards out of reach.

“You’re still trying to fight me?” she said incredulously. “Do you know who I am? I’m the Z-Tru- ow, hey!”

A piece of loose concrete bounced off Z-Truck’s shoulder. The other supe was picking up debris and throwing it at her. Despite having a nigh-indestructible physique, the bits of concrete still hurt and Z-Truck backed off, hands over her face.

After a few seconds, the throwing stopped and Z-Truck looked up. The male supe was on his feet and running away from her. That did not worry Z-Truck unduly, she was a hundred times faster than this pathetic excuse for a supe. All she had to do was… why were the tracks shaking?

The male supe rounded the corner of the tunnel and out of sight, just as a subway train came roaring down the tunnel. Z-Truck watched in disbelief as her quarry ran at the oncoming train and at the very last moment, jumped forward. He smashed through the front window and landed in the lead carriage.

Z-Truck swore and turned to run, keeping just ahead of the subway cars to see what her objective was doing now. Before long, they had arrived back at the station where Z-Truck had first snatched the other supe.

“Hey! Hey! Stop the train!” Z-Truck hollered at the driver. “In the name of The Septet, I order you! Stop the train and let me get on!”

The train driver looked surprised, but yanked on the brakes for the train, causing it to come screeching to a halt right at the station platform. The doors hissed open and people poured out, loudly complaining and yelling about the sudden stop. Some had fallen over and were rubbing at their joints, but Z-Truck had other things to worry about.

The Male was now rushing out one of the doors, scrambling away on all fours. Z-Truck shook her head and dusted her rainbow coloured hair. That man just didn’t learn that he was dealing with the world’s fastest superhero.

She took a step back and was about to sprint forward when a voice yelled from somewhere outside the train.

“Hey, it’s Z-Truck, everyone! She’s here to give us her autograph!”

Suddenly, she began getting swarmed by civilians of all shapes and sizes, flapping blank sheets of papers and pens in the air, hoping to get her autograph.

“Hey, no I didn’t, hey, wait!” But her words fell on deaf ears as more and more people came closer. Even the train conductor seemed at a loss of what to do, since he was now unable to close the train doors and continue on his way.

Z-Truck tried to look beyond the sea of people, but she was unable to sight the Male any longer. He had actually managed to get away from her, the fastest supe alive.

“Farm it all…” Z-Truck breathed and looked back up with a smile. She still had an image to keep up. “Who wants an autograph?”

The crowd around her cheered even louder and the train conductor looked at his watch and sighed. At least he had a good reason for being late.

“See, my plan worked,” Prenchie told her friend as they made their way out of the subway station, right on the tail of the Male. “These supes will never miss an opportunity to receive fame and glory. Especially members of The Septet.”

“One good plan doesn’t outweigh all the farm ups you’ve done over the years.” Father’s Coffee shot her a look, then pointed to their target. “Besides, we still have to catch him or that plan won’t even be for anything.”

“What do you think we’re trying to do?” Prenchie complained. “Come on, rapidement! You've got to run.”

"Yeah, I know that."

“Sunny and I are comin’ up to ya. Did a little side detour to grab a little somethin’ for our supe friend,” Mulcher's voice buzzed. “Just keep us updated on where ya are.”

“Do you think we can even keep up?” Prenchie asked Coffee as they continued their pursuit of the Male. He was fast, and he was steadily widening the gap between them, much to her dismay.

“Less talk, more running. We gotta get him before Z-Truck breaks out of that little distraction.”

“That I caused.” Prenchie smiled smugly.

“Not the time, Prench. We ain’t got much time here. Who knows when Protectorate Sod will show up? Once she’s here, I don’t think we should keep going.”

“Then we got to speed up!” Prenchie leapt to the side of a man carrying a crate, knocking him over as she zoomed past.

Father’s Coffee, unfortunately, wasn’t so fortunate or agile. As the crate fell, bags of ice cubes spilled out and spread out across the pavement, creating a sizable obstacle for her to cross. She tried jumping, but her foot slid on a few cubes near the end of it and she slid forward before flipping up into the air and landing on her back.

“Argh, are you serious? Where did my life go wrong?” She rubbed her head as she watched as Prenchie kept going. If anything, at least she was still somewhat hot on the target.

“Mulcher, where y’all at?” She pushed up to her butt and rubbed the back of her head. “He’s heading down Stirwood and Maple. Prenchie’s still after him.”

“Comin’ up from Northwart,” Mulcher replied, then pushed Sunset Shimmer’s shoulder to signal her to move on.

Sunset nodded and followed up behind the older woman, pulling her coat’s collars higher and closer to her face as the cold wind bit at as it wafted by. If anything, at least she was a little warmer from all the running they were doing.

The streets were bustling with people today and she found she had to sidestep a lot of them to get by. Mulcher just pushed her way through everyone, but that wasn’t something she was going to willingly do.

Sunset began to process just what they were doing now. They were chasing after a male supe that could tear people to shreds with his bare hands. And she didn’t even have a weapon to defend herself with. It didn’t seem like an ideal situation at the moment, but then she remembered the little canister Mulcher had grabbed from the back of the van. She said it was an old gadget from her time fighting supes in the past and that it would help, but she hadn’t mentioned what it was exactly. Sunset could only hope that it wasn’t a bomb. The last thing they needed now was to be labeled as terrorists.

All this still felt a little too much for Sunset to handle, but she continued to tell herself that there was no going back anymore, now that she knew the truth about superheroes. Someone needed to do something. Sure, Mulcher and the Girls could probably find someone else to help them, or maybe not, but Sunset felt she needed to do her part to expose the grizzly truth of what was going on behind the scenes, regardless of what she felt. She didn’t know how life could even get so wrong, but here they were now.

“He’s headed for the docks,” Prenchie’s voice said on the radio.

“Come on, Sunny, keep up,” Mulcher called from the front. “We’re comin’, Prenchie, calm your tits.”

There were a few more corners and more people to weave around, but Sunset soon found herself and Mulcher along a side alley, finally devoid of people and if memory served her right, it would lead them right down to the docks.

By now, she was sweating, even in the cool wind, but she wasn’t complaining. It was helping to stave off the cold, though she hadn’t run this much in a long time and it was starting to wear her down. She made a mental note to get some exercise once she found the time to do so.

“We’re arriving at the docks!” Mulcher yelled as she kicked aside a trash can and ran on.

Sunset leapt over it and followed. Just at the end of the alley was the end of concrete, now leading them out to the wooden floorboards of the pier where dozens of big white ships floated, anchored to the docks by ropes and probably… anchors themselves.

They spotted the Male running ahead, leaping onto one of the many ships as Prenchie followed, almost falling into the water with a misstep.

“Right, Sunny, go on after him.” Mulcher held the canister in her hand smugly. “I’ll cut ‘im off at the other end.”

“Uh, alright.” Sunset followed on after Prenchie.

She could smell the salty air of the ocean as she jumped onto the first yacht, and it was something she hadn’t smelt in a long time, not since Pine took her to the beach one time. She still remembered their time in the warm water, burying him under the sand, and even their little escapade in the changing room, but that had all been so long ago. Now she was here, trying to catch a supe that could literally tear her apart, limb from limb. Whatever Mulcher’s plan was, it had better work.

Sunset ran through the first yacht and hopped out the side of the helm, spotting Prenchie and the Male already two ships away from her. She climbed over the railing and jumped down to a smaller yacht below, breaking into a run along the side of it as she raced for the other end. She saw Prenchie grab a flagpole, then swung around it and cut off the Male’s escape, but she was easily pushed aside as the supe ran on, but she still managed to reach an arm out to grab his leg, his momentum causing him to fall flat on his face.

Sunset used this time to catch up, climbing onto their yacht and grabbing a lifebuoy on the way. She wasn’t armed, so this was better than nothing.

“Hey, hey, stop!” she called to the supe as he struggled back on his feet. “We don’t want to hurt you!”

In a flash of something heroic from within, Sunset approached him and without warning, she slid the lifebuoy down around him, trapping his arms before he could reach her chest and rip her heart out, or at least, Sunset pictured that happening.

“Nice one, Petite Sunny!” Prenchie cheered and let grinned, but the Male lashed a foot out and caught her across the face, knocking her down to the yacht’s lower level.

“Please, stop!” Sunset raised her hands as the Male turned to her. “We’re not here to put you back in a cell. We just want answers. Yeah? We want to help. We want to take down Vogel.”

The Male stopped fidgeting and eyed her.

“She is very correct, mon ami.” Prenchie climbed back up, a bloody welt above her left brow. “We do not wish to harm you.”

From behind Sunset, there was a sound of something releasing and for a second, she thought it might’ve been Z-Truck, but then a metal canister flew by her head and landed by the Male’s and Prenchie’s feet, spewing gas. She recognized it. It was the canister Mulcher had been carrying around.

She spun around to see the gruff woman standing there, her arms folded and she watched on.

Prenchie and the Male began coughing and in only a few seconds, they both fell to the floor, unconscious.

Sunset covered her mouth with part of her jacket and hopped up to the older woman. “What the hay, why’d you have to knock out Prenchie too?”

Milly Mulcher shrugged. “Circumstantial. She just happened to be standin’ a tad too close to the bloke. What does it matter? We got ‘im! FC, bring the truck around. We’ll load ‘im up in the back.”

“Right,” the other woman’s voice sounded in their earpieces.

Sunset watched the Male’s sleeping form. They did it. They caught the supe, and with him, they might be able to learn what Z-Truck was doing with all that Hold X. It was a thin layer of ice they were walking on, having a supe that could tear them apart, but it was better than nothing.

Author's Note

Very random title, hah, but alright, it's been a while since I've updated this. I hope y'all will still be reading it. Cheers, and continue to stay safe!