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  Stray Cat Strut (A cyberpunk system apocalypse!) - OngoingFluff (A superheroic LitRPG about cute girls doing cute things!) - OngoingLove Crafted (Interactive story about an eldritch abomination tentacle-ing things!) - Completed!Dreamer's Ten-Tea-Cle Café (An insane Crossover about cute people and tentacles) - HiatusCinnamon Bun (A wholesome LitRPG!) - OngoingThe Agartha Loop (A Magical-Girl drama!) - Volume Two Complete!Lever Action (A fantasy western with mecha!) - Volume One Complete!Heart of Dorkness (A wholesome progression fantasy) - Completed!Dead Tired (A comedy about a Lich in a Wuxia world doing Science!) - OngoingSporemageddon (A fantasy story about a mushroom lover exploding the industrial revolution!) - OngoingPast the Redline (A girl goes too fast, then she does it again) - Completed!Magical Girl Crystal Genocide (Magical Girls accidentally the pnet, and then try to fix it) - Completed!Magical Girl Rending Nightmare (A sequel to Crystal Genocide! Cute girls in a soviet dystopia having a picnic on the roadside) - Volume Two Completed!Noblebright (A shipcore AI works to avenge humanity) - Completed!The Complicated Love Life of Ivil Antagonist (The Empress of Mars finds love) - Completed!Pokebun (Broccoli Bunch in the world of Pokemon) - HiatusQueen Violence (An Assassin Reborn as a Kitten) - Completed!No Strings Attached (An Elden Ring/Bloodborne inspired progression fantasy) - OngoingSave Scumming (A time-looping system apocalypse) - Ongoing

  Chapter Twenty-One - How the Heroes Do It

  "You've got the next shift?"

  Jezebelle looked up from her tablet and at the man addressing her. He was in a full costume, mask that covered most of his face except for his mouth and nose, skin-tight bodysuit over legs and arms, and a sort of almost militaristic top. He had a small patch on his pel that read Wrap-Up.

  She knew that he'd once worn a different name. Iron Chains. That much was hard to hide when his costume featured dozens of chains, some around his torso, others around his arms and wrists.

  "Yeah, yeah I'll be out in a minute," she said.

  "Sure. But don't be te! Every minute counts!" Wrap-Up turned and walked off, leaving the fp to the tent she was in to flutter close.

  She'd been in the camp for four days already, and she was extremely tired of it.

  The HRF had some practice setting up this kind of miniature tent city, of course. This Endgame wasn't their first rodeo, but it still felt like sometimes they weren't as organized as they maybe ought to have been.

  Some supplies were only arriving now that should have been here a couple of days ago, and it was really straining things at the camp.

  Fortunately, they were in the 'hero' camp, not the rger evacuation camp just a kilometre or so back. She'd done a patrol of that camp, showing the fg, as it were, and it had amazed her how desperate and despondent people could look while just doing nothing.

  At least that camp had supplies and such. She could understand them being the first priority.

  With a sigh, Jezebelle stood up and set her tablet down and plugged it in. If she had patrol, she'd want every percentage of battery power she could get, because wow was it ever boring.

  When she signed up to the HRF, she had a pretty realistic view of what to expect. Sure, there'd be gmorous hero work, saving lives and such, but she knew that it would mostly consist of visiting pces and smiling for the cameras.

  She knew that she'd be asked to participate if an Endgame happened. It was right there in her contract. She even had the contractual right to refuse unless the Endgame reached a certain danger threshold, the kind of danger threshold that had only been seen a couple of times in the st decade.

  Jezebelle was happy to help. This would look great on her record. If they happened to win, which there were decent odds of, then she'd be coming out of it with a second power. She might even be tapped for power research, which would be a... boring but well-paid job.

  But this was boring beyond her wildest imaginings.

  Jezebelle got into her costume fully. As one of the few masks here who didn't care about her civilian ID, she had the advantage of not having to wear a partial costume all over, but she still kept her gear close.

  After a few minutes, she was dressed up as Gmazon once more. A skin-tight suit that had padding over important pces and... supports over other locations, coupled with a loose jacket filled with small armoured ptes and hardy boots and gloves that could handle a long walk.

  There might be a lot of long walks in the near future.

  She didn't need any weapons with her power, but she carried a colpsible baton, just in case she needed to smack a fool.

  So far, the only fools she'd seen that needed smacking were her coworkers.

  She slipped the stick in a pouch at the small of her back before picking up her tablet and pcing it in a bag. She was ready.

  Stepping out, she was greeted by a warm, rather humid afternoon, with the sun hidden by a thick yer of clouds.

  The hero camp was id out so that the main roads through it formed a rge H of sorts, with tents along the edges and some temporary buildings on the inside. That included the command centre, which was a mobile home with a second floor and a communication array sticking out the top, and a small warehouse-like building that was serving as barracks and an armoury for the HRF troopers.

  The camp had walls all around. These unfoldable barricade walls that the troopers had set up on the first day here. They'd dug trenches around the outside as well, to keep the space a little more safe.

  From what, she wasn't sure. Maybe it was just past experience with other Endgames talking, so far...

  "Gmazon!" someone called out, and she gnced down one of the corridors and found a small utility truck in HRF colours waiting. Wrap-Up was in the back, and a trooper was at the wheel. Plopped down in the passenger seat was Obscure.

  The older woman was a little-known heroine that, before this, Jezebelle had never heard of.

  She supposed that fit.The woman was dressed in all grey and bck body armour, with a rare full-faced mask. Her power was one that allowed her to manipute shadows, turning them into physical objects to fight with.

  And she had some sort of memory alteration ability as well, which was kind of terrifying. Or it would be if she wasn't an experienced hero.

  "Hello, Obscure," Jezebelle said. "I'm in the back?"

  "Unless you expect me to sit back there?" Obscure asked. "My knees aren't what they used to be."

  "You can't be more than thirty," Jezebelle said.

  "Forty-Six. I'll have you know. I could be your mom. Now hop in the back."

  "Yes ma'am," Jezebelle said. She grabbed onto the cold steel handgrips on the back of the truck and pulled herself up and into the box at the rear. A few benches were welded to the side, and there was a space in the centre for them to toss gear into.

  Wrap-Up was across from her, arms crossed, one leg up on the centre bit. "You're almost te," he said.

  "Almost isn't," she replied. "Just the three of us?"

  "For now, yes," Obscure said. "There's another joining us. Cheatah, from Eaucire."

  "I know her," Jezebelle said.

  So far, there were some thirty-odd heroes involved in the Endgame. That didn't mean that all thirty of them were deployed at the same time.

  In fact, it was very much the opposite.

  The truck took off, and she watched the camp and the vehicle parking around it disappear behind them as they got onto a highway, then gunned it towards Saint Aire.

  She clung on, a little afraid, but also a little thrilled at the sudden burst of speed. She had been more excited the first time. Now she knew what waited for her.

  The checkpoint before entering the Endgame had moved back. She knew because they had poles marking out where it had been previously, and the st one was a whole metre past the edge of the current checkpoint.

  They were let in after checking their credentials. It wasn't a big affair. The three heroes just had to fsh their names over their heads and that was proof enough of who they were.

  Not like anyone was sneaking into the Endgame anyway.

  Entering Endgame.

  And then they rode into Saint Arie and towards The Objective.

  It was a rge building in the centre of town. A bank, once. Three stories tall, with modern-looking architecture, right next to a police station that the HRF had taken over.

  "You're here!" someone shouted as they arrived. Some hero in a green suit that she didn't really get to know yet. He had a bow folded up in a sling on his back and was waving at them as they showed up. "Good to see ya!"

  "We're here, yeah," Wrap-Up said as he jumped out. He didn't even give her a hand to help her down, not that she was sure she wanted to touch him much.

  "Anything happen?" she asked.

  "No more than the st shift," the hero said. "Boring as shit. Maybe you'll get lucky? I just need two more shifts to get enough Copper Points to unlock one of those neat little powers!"

  "That's not bad," Jezebelle said.

  So far, they hadn't exactly been swimming in those points. A shift on guard duty around the Objective would gain her a single point.

  Copper Power ShopTotal Copper Points: 3

  That was three days worth of effort on her part. And the list of avaible powerups was... kind of me, actually. Stuff that would let her tag things and remember where they were, or keep awake for longer without needing to sleep. One of them created a fshlight.

  She had a fshlight. Her power was fshlights. It was... not a cool set of powers.

  She just hoped that they'd get something better after winning this Endgame.

  "Well, we'll leave you to it," the hero said. He looked like he was in a hurry to get anywhere else. Anywhere less boring, that was. "Have a nice shift!"

  ***

  A note from RavensDaggerAnyway, here's the new fic:

  I died nine months from today, on the day that Fortress ENE, my home and one of the few safe cities left in North America, was assaulted by a million monsters pouring from the same portals we'd been exploiting for years.

  Nine months. I have nine months to find out who is responsible for the breach, which corporation stands to gain the most, and who is pulling the levers of power to burn my home down.

  What do I have?

  A shitty apartment on the outskirts, a job interview in the morning that I'd passed nine months ago, and my obese cat, Mister Couchtop.

  Oh, and the ability to set Save points and Reload to them as often as I want, reliving entire days or a few minutes over and over again until I get everything just right.

  Yeah... I can do this.

  ___

  This story is very good and cool, and you should read it.

  Save Scumming has:- Cute horny main character- Time-looping magic- Lots of progression- OP to... more-OP main character- Cute girls- Mister Couchtop the overweight but friendly British shorthair cat

  Link: Save Scumming | Royal Road