I AM EMPOWERED, pt.18: The Twitter-based YEAR ONE prose dealie continues!

<Note: You can check out I Am Empowered's previous installments with this tag.

And now, back to Emp's first-person narration in (old) Twitter-based 140-character format, taking place roughly around the beginning of Empowered vol.1. 

We've hit the point in this loose jumble of episodes that no remaining chapter is complete; all the remaining material from this abortive project is a series of fragmentary sketches that wheeze to a halt in an inconclusive manner. 

This next tale, incomplete though it might be, relates Emp's real-world financial woes to a battle with a trio of (typically doofy) bad guys.>

STRAIGHT CASH, SUPERHOMEY (part 1) 

We join the desperate capefight already in progress downtown, as I'm battling the trio of supervills who have (appropriately) dubbed themselves the "Cash Crime Cartel."

I'm rapidfire-VORPPing with spectacular but low-power Deadly Jazz Hands, pinning Money Master and Kap’n Koin down behind some parked cars—

—which, for the record, I am trying not to directly blast, as gratuitous destruction of civilian automobiles is one of the caped community's most obnoxious tendencies—

—but nonetheless, I'm wincing as I hear sheet metal denting and car-window glass expensively breaking from VORPP shrapnel, imagining how pissed I'd be if that were MY car. 

Cartel weak-link Card Charger slips around behind me, though, hauling the heavy, card-controlling hardware—"cardware"—he uses for villainy.

His gear boots up, and his namesake weaponry—a swarm of deadly-ish, electromagnetically (I think) manipulated credit cards—takes to the air. 

I duck and dodge and yelp as a sudden storm of razor-edged, keening Visas® and Mastercards® whips and buzzes and swoops around me.

I was already getting buttkicked by credit cards in civilian life. Now, I'm getting buttkicked by credit cards in my superhero life, too.

So, when Charger's cards begin slashing rents in my supersuit, a sudden, irrational, unreasoning surge of credit-triggered anger grips me. 

I, um, totes lose it, and furiously fling out my Deadly Jazz Hands, VORPPing in the general direction of Card Charger and his Visa®storm.

The Mother of all VORPPs, way more powerful than I'd intended, roars down the street in a blinding, all-consuming flash of ravening energy.

Before the churning dust, roiling smoke, airborne debris, tumbling cars, and blasted-up pavement can stop moving, I frantically rush in.

I'm terrified that, thanks to my seething, berserker-like hatred of credit cards, I've just vaporized a hapless supervillain by accident.

Relief knee-weakens me when I finally locate Card Charger slumped unconscious in the wreckage, battered and bruised but, yay, non-vaporized.

His bulky, card-controlling hardware pack—now a mangled wreck—clearly took the brunt of my inadvertent overVORPP, I notice thankfully.

Sadly, I'm so relieved that I fail to notice the nearby row of parking meters, the only street artifacts still upright after my VORPPery. 

Parking meters are surprisingly durable, often the "last men standing" in battle zones. Less surprising? They often contain plenty of coins. 

Out of the corner of my eye, I spot Kap'n Koin in the distance, his beefy arms flailing and gesticulating bizarrely. "Oh, crap," I blurt.

The nearest parking meter detonates explosively, sledgehammering me in the belly with a staggering shotgun blast of coins and metal debris. 

Ouch: Kap'n Koin is using his currency-based psychokinesis from afar to turn the parking meters into a row of numismatic claymore mines.

The next parking-meter explosion knocks my legs out from under me. Blasts 3 through 6 mercilessly, brutally coin-kick me while I'm down.

In the blink of an eye, my poor, wildly sparkling supersuit expends most of its surface area protecting me from the coin-blast claymores.

The shredding membrane's fading powers shield me from the full impacts, but I'm still beaten, pummeled, and knocked around ragdoll-ishly. 

Battered, stunned, my suit in tatters, I'm dizzily struggling to my knees when a duffel bag overflowing with cash thumps down beside me.

I look up, briefly catch a glimpse of Money Master grinning at me before a seething mass of $100 bills erupts out of the duffel bag.

Money-Master-animated greenbacks whip out at me, magically bonding together into banknote chains that lash themselves tight around my body.

Swarming bills quickly pin my arms to my sides and cinch dollar-link straps taut around my thighs and knees and ankles. 

Blur of Benjamin Franklin, sharp sniff of moneysmell as bills plaster themselves over my eyes and mouth, firmly blindfolding and gagging me.

About $50,000 later, I'm helpless, cocooned from head to toe in an unyielding, skintight shroud of supernaturally self-adhering greenbacks.

Semiconscious, I make a few weak, faltering attempts to struggle against my currency cocoon, but soon slump back down to my knees, defeated.

The last things I hear before passing out? Money Master's victorious guffaw, and the click of his cellphone camera immortalizing my pwnage. 

I wake up briefly in the back seat of the Cartel's getaway "Cashmobile" SUV, I think—still blindfolded by banknotes, I can't be certain. 

I can hear Card Charger groaning beside me, and I feel what has to be the wreckage of his cardware gear pressing uncomfortably against me.

Not a surprise that the Cash Crime Cartel have taken me with them, given that I'm trussed up with the equivalent of twice my yearly income.

I ruefully contemplate that I've gone from helplessly struggling with money, figuratively, to helplessly struggling with money, concretely. 

Then I pass out again, in the midst of considering that my present predicament is far less stomach-queasy than my actual financial situation.

I wake up again in the Cartel's crappy-smelling lair, still cash-cocooned and powerless, sprawled on my side on cracked, uneven concrete. 

Quite clearly, the cheapskates of the Crime Cartel aren't bothering to spend much of their namesake Cash on their low-rent, smelly old HQ. 

Nearby, Card Charger moans and Kap’n Koin snorts derisively as, I assume, he tugs the cardware gear off him. (Clank, hardware hits floor.)

Footsteps crunch over to me. "There's a 'Homeysite online reserved for ransoming you, right?" Money Master demands, crouching beside me.

"Mmph," indignantly. The SuperHomeys do indeed have a special site for ransoming captured members, but it's not reserved JUST for me, okay?

(That being said, some Sad Truthiness: In the program's history, I've already been ransomed more times than all other 'Homeys put together.)

When Money Master peels the bills from my mouth, though, I meekly tell him the address and, sniffling, explain the online ransoming dealie. 

Ah, but while I may appear helpless and stammer-y and blushingly mortified, my mind is furiously racing through a hasty but fiendish scheme.

Luckily, I read up on the Cash Crime Cartel's HomeyWiki entry only a few days before, and have even worked up a few villain-whupping ideas. 

(Not for nuthin' was "Advanced Strategies and Innovative Tactics in Cape-on-Cape Conflict" my all-time favorite Suprahuman Studies course.)

The Cash Crime Cartel's members thoroughly loathe each other, but stay together to exploit the heightened brand awareness of a shared theme.

(Studies show that theme-based supervillain groups—the Ice Pack or Klown Klan, say—boast higher recognition value than non-themed teams.)

While Kap’n Koin's powerset is the most potent, he still feels disrespected because he controls only the lowliest monetary denominations.

With these crucial factoids in mind, I spring my hastily improvised trap once Money Master leaves the room, leaving me alone with the Cap'n.

I quickly draw his attention with some futile struggling. (Go figure: Writhing, wriggling superheroines always draw male capes' attention.)

I hear him chuckle indulgently as I give up and sag back against my cocooning bonds with a comically deep sigh of utter defeat and despair. 

"I knew I was out of my league," I moan. "What chance would I have against a team so badass that the Atrocity Clique is buying them out?"

Kap’n Koin's indulgent chuckling abruptly stops. I hear him stomp closer to me, then growl, "The hell you talking about, superchica?"

Innocently, I explain that I'd been held hostage at Atrocity Clique HQ a week ago (truth!) and heard them discussing his team (untruth!). 

"Moustache Magus claimed he'd acquired you guys as a new Atrocity Clique affiliate," I coo, coaxing a sharp intake of breath from Cap'n.

Me: "He said you had signed the contract and gotten the advance already. Kinda sounded like they had to pay out more than they liked, too."

Blindfolded by dollars, I can't read Kap’n Koin's expression, but his increasingly heavy, rasping breathing tells me all I need to know.

Me: "In fact, I remember him complaining about the redundancy of sending such a huge, lump-sum cash payment to, y'know, a cash-based team." 

Note: The Atrocity Clique, as one of the most profitable bad-guy groups on the West Coast, really does buy out rival superteams on occasion.

Moustache Magus, howeva, would do a 'stache-ruining spit take at the idea of buying out a group of bottom-rung losers like the Cartel. 

Me, knife-twisty: "I'm pretty sure he mentioned talking to Money Master and Card Charger, anyway. Maybe you should ask them about this…?" 

No reply from the Cap'n, but I can hear him fuming—for reals! He's exhaling in such a drawn-out manner that I can barely keep from laughing. 

The only sound missing, here: A teakettle's rapidly escalating whistle. I'm glad I can't see his presumably reddening face, or I'd crack up. 

What can I say? As an oft-downtrodden and disrespected heroine, I rock mad skills in the "exploiting bitterness and resentment" department.

NEXT WEEK ON "I AM EMPOWERED": Emp's manipulative scheme bears violent fruit!

TOMORROW ON THIS HERE PATREON:  Possibly another installment of Vintage Con Sketches, though I'm not 100% sure about that.