Princess Pop vs the Sky Raiders

“So, how’s the superhero career going, Tessie?”

“Well… I had an, um, incident recently.”

“Incident?”

“Yeah… Look, I can tell you about it, but you gotta promise to not tell anyone else. It’s kinda embarrassing.”

“I promise, Tessie.”

“Pinky promise?”

“Look, if you’ve trusted me with the secret of your superhero identity, you can trust me with an embarrassing story, right?”

“Right, okay, well… Have you heard of the Sky Raiders?”

“Hmm… Aren’t they some kind of private military company?”

“That’s their official version, but they’re actually more of a bunch of bandits with high-tech gear, doing all kinds of raids and stealing all kinds of stuff. They’ve got a lot of jetpacks and flying vehicles, and they fly around causing trouble all over Paragon.”

“Geez, every time you tell me about the stuff going on in Paragon City, I get more and more glad that I moved to the west coast.”

“Hey, it’s a lovely town, as long as you stay away from the leaky nuclear powerplant at the center.”

“Uh…”

“Anyways, the other day one of my contacts gave me a tip that the Sky Raiders were attacking some high-tech research center at the top of a skyscraper in Steel Canyon. So, I go over there…”

“Who did you bring along?”

“Oh, I went by myself.”

“Wait, hold on… You decided to take on a gang of heavily armed mercenaries with military training… all on your own?”

“Well, yeah, that’s like Superhero 101 stuff. I do it all the time.”

“And you wonder why I worry about you?”

“Aww, I’m a big girl, I can take care of myself. Anyway, so I get to the skyscraper, I take the elevator to the top, and I use my voice powers to lay waste to all those goons.”

“You always make it sound so easy.”

“Well, it was! At first, I projected my voice and did some voice imitations to confuse them, but eventually I gave up on the subtle stuff and just knocked them all out with sonic screams… Except one.”

“There’s always one that gets away, huh?”

“Yeah, it was some guy with a jetpack, who had grabbed some of the loot the Raiders had come to take, and he jumped out a window to fly away. And normally, I would probably have let him go. I had already taken down everyone else, if one of them got away it wouldn’t have bothered me too much. But then, just before he jumped out the window, he turned around and shouted ‘You’ll never catch me, Princess Pop!’ at me.”

“Oh dear…”

“And I was all full of adrenaline from the fight, so I was like, oh, it’s on! I’m not gonna let that guy get away, no way!”

“But, uh, you can’t fly, can you?”

“Nope! But I do have my teleporter belt, that I can use to travel long distances instantly.”

“I don’t like where this is going…”

“So I activate my belt, and I aim myself to appear right in front of him, so I would grab on to him when he flies by.”

“Geez, Tessie, that must have been some adrenaline rush you were on.”

“But I kinda, um, missed? Like I didn’t time the teleportation exactly right, so instead of getting a good grip on him, I just sort of hang on to his leg.”

“Well, that’s better than missing him completely, I guess.”

“Yeah, but he immediately starts doing all kinds of maneuvers and spins and rolls and stuff to try to shake me off. And I’m just hanging on for dear life, panicking and having no idea what to do next.”

“Sounds like some dates you’ve told me about.”

“Oh, shut up. Anyways, we’re all spinning and tumbling through the sky, high above the skyscrapers… And then his jetpack starts to sputter. Apparently, he wasted too much fuel on all those maneuvers, so… We start falling towards the ground.”

“Oh my god, Tessie…”

“At first I’m thinking, like, okay, is this how I’m gonna go out? A pink, white and blue spot on the sidewalk next to a skyscraper? But then I finally remember the ‘recall’ button on my teleporter belt.”

“The what-now button?”

“It’s like, I can push it to instantly teleport back to where I was before the most recent teleportation.”

“And you didn’t think to do this during the whole time you were doing that air ballet?”

“Well, like I said, I was panicking! I just remembered it when I was plummeting towards my doom!”

“Makes sense, I guess. So you pushed the button?”

“Yup! And boom, instantly both me and the Raider were back inside the skyscraper. We sorta fell onto the floor, and it took us both a moment to get our bearings. But I was able to get on my feet faster than he did, and I had enough wherewithal left to quickly knock him out with a sonic blast.”

“Okay, um… All’s well that ends well, I guess?”

“Yeah, but here’s the embarrassing part: After I had knocked him out, suddenly all that spinning and tumbling and whatnot caught up with me, and I got really dizzy.”

“Oh, Tessie, tell me you didn’t…”

“I threw up. Just lost my lunch completely. I was on my hands and knees, barfing. At least I managed to avoid getting any of it on my suit, but… I wasn’t exactly a glamorous superhero popstar just then.”

“Oh, honey…”

“But that wasn’t the worst part. When I was finally done, I thought to myself, well, at least there was nobody around to see that. All the Sky Raiders were still knocked out, and the regular personnel had evacuated before I got there. But then I look up… And there’s a security camera, right above me. It caught the whole thing.” “Oh, nooo…”

“So when the scientist came back, they were all like, ‘thank you for stopping the Sky Raiders, Princess Pop! We’re in your debt, is there anything we can offer you as a reward?’ And normally I’m like, ‘no thanks needed, citizen, just doing my job.’ But this time, I was like, well, there is one thing…”

“So did they do it?”

“Oh yeah, they were very respectful and understanding, they went through the security tapes and wiped the, um… incriminating evidence. Like, can you imagine if that footage had gotten out on the internet or something? I would probably have died from embarrassment!”

“Well, that’s some adventure, Tessie. Did you learn any lessons from it?”

“Yeah, I’ve learned that I should stay away from the Sky Raiders in the future.”

“Okay, not the lesson I was hoping you’d learn, but I guess it’s something.”