"I gotta say Dennis, this has got to be your worst plan yet," Chris, AKA Kid Win, said as he looked around the corner
"Worse than baiting monster dogs into biting me Chris? Really?" Dennis, Blocker of Clocks, replied, his head appearing around the corner just above Chris's.
"That one only put you in mortal danger," Chris noted.
"Can't help but notice you're still here."
"I mean come on, do you see that? How could I not?" Chris replied, looking at the large metal fortress before them, currently connected to the mainland with a large metal drawbridge. At the gate, as well as on the ramparts and just patrolling through the area, were fat men in metal armor, sweating in the heat and so underfed they would soon be normal-sized men. That, however, wasn't the interesting part. No, the reason the two of them were here was far more important than a few perfect copies of a well-known and truly goodhearted person being forced into slavery and treated as less than human. The reason they were here, was the girls.
Walking in and out of the fort at irregular intervals were, first of all, the maids. Girls their age in the cutest of uniforms, going in and out of the city to shop, visit friends or family, or just go for a walk. That alone would be enough to get the heart of any redblooded Ward pumping, but there was more. Current intel suggested the presence of at least nine different Runes, each of them a cute blonde and only one or two of them a white supremacist. Good odds, those.
"Incomiiiiing!" a voice called out, and as Chris and Dennis looked up, they saw a girl with a mechanical arm coming out of the sky, crashing more than landing on the drawbridge with explosive violence. Black hair and a scary dark mask were matched by wooden wings with white feathers glued to them. He wasn't much of an aerodynamicist, but he was pretty sure that crashing was exactly what you'd expect from the set-up.
Seconds later, a second girl, this one with a bronze arm and some sort of toga but otherwise almost exactly the same, dropped down next to her, landing gracefully with fluttering wings.
"I told you, don't fly too close to the sun, it'll melt the wax!" Greek Icarus said, holding out a hand which her twin grabbed.
"That doesn't make any sense! It's colder up there, I even installed a cooling rig to make sure!"
"Yet you still dropped like a rock, same way I used to do."
"Shouldn't have called myself Icarus…" the girl mumbled before the pair of them took off in the direction of the fortress, armored Chubsters giving way to them as they approached.
Icarus, and other, hotter, Icarus, Dennis thought to himself. He wasn't quite sure which of them was better. Miss grimdark vigilante kind of reminded him of Shadow Stalker a bit, which was both a con and kind of interesting, while a girl in a toga just couldn't be ignored.
"So, shall we?" Chris asked, still staring at the two girls through his visor.
"Sure thing, let's do this!" Dennis replied, and the two of them stepped into the street, and made their way onto the drawbridge, stepping confidently past a mother with two children and a box of baby milk making her way out.
The sturdy metal under their feet, Dennis could see the Chubsters staring at them. Staring, but not stopping. His devious plan was working, they'd actually get in like this! Hell, they'd probably get mucho cred from Piggot for a successful infiltration once this was over.
"So, what do we do once we're inside?" Chris whispered to him, trying to act confident.
"We'll try to reach the top floor," Dennis replied. "That's where the most important capes are, from what I've heard."
"Her Lieutenants? The ones they call the 'Five-stars'?" Chris asked, wide eyes behind his darkened visor.
"Even better," Dennis replied. "It's where she keeps her waifus."
"Halt!" a voice suddenly called out as they approached the end of the bridge, a large and sharp portcullis floating menacingly above them, guarded by two Chubsters, one of them wearing a bikini instead of armor, the other obviously Lovecraft inspired, what with all the tentacles and such.
"What's wrong Chubby?" Dennis asked, trying to stare at the eyes, and not the naked body, of the offending Chubster.
"Don't think I recognize you," he said, giving them a heavy inspection. "Can't see your names either."
"Malfunctions sometimes," Chris quickly bluffed. "Have you tried turning yourself off and on again?"
"How would I do that?" the man asked.
"The first step? A mirror," Dennis proposed. "The second? I'd say porn, but you'd need working internet for that so… do they still make nudie mags?"
"Nevertheless, explain yourself, we do not recognize you," Ch'tubster said with seven mouths.
"That's simple," Dennis said. "I'm The Clocker, a Clockblocker where a universe where all the heroes are villains and vice versa, but where the guys that are heroes here are called villains because they fight against the tyrannical regime of the Endbringer Kings. You can tell that I'm from a mirror universe because all my clocks run backwards, and the edgy black spikes on my armor are because my universe is stuck in the 90's."
"Seems legit," Chtubster said.
"Sadly yes," Bikini-man agreed. "And you?"
"Kid Loser," Chris replied. His armor spray-painted black for the occasion, black lipstick and a t-shirt from a shitty band over the chestpiece to make the picture complete. "I'm Kid Win but I think he's a poser and my shit is like, way tormented and stuff."
"Yeah, I remember when I had that phase," Ch'tubster said.
"So we can go in?" Dennis asked? Already stepping forwards into cute girl paradise when Bikinubster suddenly protested.
"Wait a second… something's off."
"What do you mean?" Ch'tubster asked.
"Kid Loser, don't you have anything to say to me?"
"Told you you should've gone with Kid Loss," Dennis whispered, happy that his sweat wouldn't show behind his helmet.
"It's a dead meme and it was never funny!" Chris whispered back before looking at the Ch'tubster "What do you mean sir?"
"What I mean is… I think you're a fucking poser!" his many mouths yelled out in anger. "What you would've said if you were a real goth and not a fucking poser was 'It's not a fucking phase and you're not my mom!'"
"Gotta admit, he has you there," Dennis stated, while Chris's hand went to his light-pistol (or rather, dark-pistol, given his current theme, he'd somehow managed to make black lasers.)
"We fighting our way out?" Chris asked.
"I thi-" Dennis started replying, when he was interrupted by a shouting tween.
"Hey fattie, Ninety-eight point three-seven-four-eight percent chance you let me through right away!" the girl shouted.
"The what now?" Ch'tubster asked, turning around and drawing what looked like a weapon stick out of one of his mouths.
"Eighty-seven percent chance I'll beat you up and leave you crying like a girl even younger than I am," the diminutive brunette continued.
"Yeah, like I'm going to buy that," the Bikinubster said, both of them seemingly forgetting about the two infiltrating Wards.
"I have super-powerful future sight and shit, I'd totally be five stars if I got summoned, just ask my buddy Hot-Hand!"
"Cinderhands?" three of Ch'tubster's seven mouths asked.
"I guess? My name's better though," the girl said. "Go tell him Dinah's here. He promised me he'd kidnap me over a week ago!"
"Fine, fine," Ch'tubster said, and as he did so, one of the tentacles on his back detached, and started squirming its way into the castle proper.