One month later, the abandoned construction site had a secret. Deep in its concrete basement, behind a reinforced steel door, was their new headquarters. Simran had worked a miracle. By tapping into an old, forgotten government power line that was still active, she had brought the basement to life. It was now a chaotic but brilliant workshop, filled with her custom-built equipment.
Tonight, the work was finally done.
The four young women stood in the center of the room, while Krishna watched from a simple desk with a laptop and a microphone. This was their command station. On his screen was the feed from a basic police scanner app.
The girls were wearing their finished suits. They felt invincible.
"All systems are green," Simran, now as Anura, announced, her voice clear through their private comms link. "The suits are ready."
As if on cue, the police scanner on Krishna's laptop crackled to life. "All units, we have a Code Three in progress. Armed robbery at a major jewelry store near Paithan Gate. Multiple assailants. Hostages confirmed."
The four heroines looked at each other, a surge of adrenaline in the air. This was it.
"Okay," Krishna said, leaning into the microphone, his voice serious. "We don't know what we're walking into. We have no maps of the store, and we don't know how many robbers there are. A stealth approach is the only option. Rukhsar, you go in first, disguised..."
"No time, Krishna," Rosy, as Judith, interrupted, her voice booming with confidence. "They have hostages. We go in hard and fast. I'll smash through the wall and create a shockwave. They won't know what hit them. We can handle it."
"That's too reckless!" Krishna argued, his voice tight with worry. "You're going in blind! It's a bad plan!"
"It's the only plan that's fast enough," Judith shot back. "We're ready. We can do this."
The others, buzzing with the power of their new suits, quickly agreed. Krishna could only sigh in frustration. He was their leader, but he was miles away, just a voice in their ears. He had to trust them.
"Okay," he said, his voice full of concern. "Okay. But be careful. I'm right here on the mic. Report everything."
The four heroines gave a determined nod and disappeared up the ladder. Krishna watched them go, a knot of worry tightening in his stomach.
Moving across the rooftops of Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar, they felt like gods. They landed on a building across the street from the jewelry store, a scene of flashing police lights below. The police had formed a perimeter, but they were staying back, helpless.
"We don't know how many are in there," Anura stated, her helmet scanning for any information it could gather from the outside. "I'm getting nothing."
"It doesn't matter," Judith said, pounding a fist into her armored palm. "On my mark. Three... two... one... GO!"
She leaped from the roof. She didn't use any weapons; she didn't need them. She was a living weapon. She charged, a saffron-red missile of pure, massive strength, and smashed directly through the brick wall of the jewelry store in an explosion of dust and debris.
"Judith, what's your status?" Krishna's worried voice crackled in her ear.
But Judith didn't have time to answer. The scene inside was chaos. There weren't four robbers. There were five, and they were not stunned. They were professionals. After a moment of shock, they opened fire with automatic weapons from all corners of the room.
Judith was hit by a hail of bullets. Her armor held, but the sheer force of the impacts drove her back, sparks flying everywhere. She was pinned down. "There are five of them!" she yelled into her comm.
The other three heroines rushed in through the hole she had made, but they had entered a kill zone.
Rukhsar tried to shapeshift to cause confusion, but without knowing who the leader was, her ability was useless. Pritha touched the marble floor, and her body became bulletproof stone, but she could only shield one small group of hostages as the robbers moved around, using the terrified civilians as cover. Anura was trying to process the chaotic scene, shouting tactical data that no one could follow in the noise and confusion.
"They're flanking you from the left!" Krishna's voice shouted in their ears, trying to make sense of the panicked reports they were feeding him. "Judith, fall back! Pritha, cover the east side!"
But his commands were useless. He wasn't there. He couldn't see the field. The team was in chaos, four powerful individuals acting on their own, getting in each other's way.
Then, the situation became a nightmare. The leader of the robbers grabbed a young woman and pressed his gun to her head.
"EVERYONE FREEZE!" he screamed. "One more move from any of you freaks, and she dies!"
The four heroines froze. All their power, all their amazing technology, was useless. They had failed. They had charged in with arrogance and strength, and they had only made things worse. A feeling of icy, helpless fear washed over them.
But the robbers had made one crucial mistake. They were so focused on the four costumed heroes that they had forgotten all about the police outside.
Suddenly, two flashbang grenades were thrown through the hole Judith had made, exploding with a blinding white light and a deafening bang.
Everyone—the robbers and the four inexperienced heroines—was disoriented. Through the smoke, a team of tactical police officers stormed into the room from the back entrance. They moved with a calm, professional efficiency. In seconds, they had tackled the hostage-taker, disarmed the other robbers, and secured the room.
It was over.
The four girls stood there, their ears ringing, their eyes adjusting to the light. The normal, non-powered police had just succeeded where their superpowers had failed. They hadn't saved the day. They had been saved.
A wave of shame and humiliation washed over them. Using the smoke and confusion as cover, they scrambled out of the hole in the wall and leaped back onto the rooftops, retreating into the darkness.
They didn't speak a word on the way back to the headquarters.
They climbed down into the basement and, one by one, took off their helmets. The triumphant feeling of wearing the suits for the first time was gone, replaced by the bitter taste of failure. Krishna was waiting for them, his face grim. He had heard everything.
The room was silent for a long time.
Finally, Rosy looked down at her powerful, armored hands. "We failed," she said, her voice full of shame. "The police... they saved us. And the hostages."
They looked at each other, the hard lesson of their first mission settling in. All the power in the world meant nothing without a plan, without teamwork, and without the right leadership. They had been arrogant. They had been reckless. And they had almost gotten someone killed.
Their journey as heroes had just begun, and they had already stumbled.
[To be continued…]
Support me: vanshbosssrahate@oksbi (UPI ID)
Author: Vansh Rahate
Editor: Vansh Rahate
Story by: Vansh Rahate
Under: Alaukika Studios