It's time you get to the bottom of this scheme - you go to track down Jack of Hearts.

"I don't understand why you're upset, Thunderbird. I think this is wonderful!" Dr. Rainbow chirps happily as she skips alongside you. "Imagine how much guilt your poor stepfather was feeling all these years, knowing that he'd betrayed your mother's trust by doing the hippity-dippity with her own daughter and never told anyone about it. Now they're even, and they can reconcile with no hurt feelings for anyone! Just like I was able to help Snowflake and their partner Griffin!"

"Yeah, uh... if nothing else, I'm sure Eddie will know better than to get indignant when mom announces she's having another kid." you shake your head. "At least now I know why Green Streak acted so weird on the day we met, Doc. Like - he's so dedicated to his image of being a super playboy who gets in the spandex of every new heroine that he had to make a big show of trying it with me, and then 'accidentally' got distracted until after those trainers in the Zone of Danger made a mess of the two of us."

Cringing as you imagine what's going on right now, and realizing this is how Molly must've felt every night for months knowing you'd become a heroine in this city, you sigh heavily. "I had no idea that he was carrying a torch for the original Nightingale this whole time. Although it kinda makes sense. I guess Streak had been a fan of her whie he was growing up, so once he was a full fledged hero, he fixated on getting to live out his fantasy some day."

"I'm happy that you've come to terms with it, Thunderbird! Which means I'm also sure that you won't be too upset if I mention that I kind of asked Mr. Green Streak to take the remains of the netora-rod and throw it onto the top of Mt. Everest. Right?" Dr. Rainbow asks hopefully, hugging your shoulder.

"The what?" you cock your head.

"The netora-rod. It's a yucky, no-good magical artifact that I accidentally discovered before I came to Acropolis and tried to seal away once before... remember my #2 archenemy, Baconator, was going to try and use it to do not-PG-rated things to original generation Nightingale?" Dr. Rainbow gulps loudly.

"Oh, that." you pause. "Wait, I thought mom broke that thing in half. Shouldn't a magical artifact not work if it's been broken?"

"It absolutely shouldn't have! I had to learn that the hard way with my caduceus wand one time! Oh, I wish I had an intuition as good as yours, Nightingale!" Dr. Rainbow gushes. "Who knew that Green Streak was knowledgeable enough about forbidden eastern magical arts to repair it? And here I thought that tailoring was his only hidden talent!"

You narrow your eyes. "Or... somebody else skilled with magic fixed it for him. Someone he knew well enough to ask to help him repair a magic item that, by its very nature, has only evil uses. Either that, or there was a heroine in the League gullible enough to believe Green Streak when he told them that he needed to seduce a married woman in order to save the world."

There's an awkward silence. You give Dr. Rainbow a hard stare. The cutesy asian heroine just smiles brightly like usual. After a long time she turns around and looks behind her shoulder. "Uh oh! Did I get some male discharge on my stockings again?" she looks down. "I've been embarrassed like that before."

You shake your head and roll your eyes. "Nevermind." Of course, your implied accusation went completely over Dr. Rainbow's head. You are sure that she doesn't have it in her to actually withhold the truth about something, anyway. "So.... there's a thread to pull here. You remember I told you that I did the Faustian bargian thing with the same little floating imp guy as Red Balloon, right?"

Dr. Rainbow's smile almost disappears and she waves her index finger at you. "Told?"

"Yeah, yeah - confessed." you say through gritted teeth. "Anyway, he was clearly trying to fuck up my 'Weather Watch' team from the beginning. And I'm like 80% sure that a being like him is the kind of thing you would conjure with magic, not science. I'm pretty sure he was trying to convince me and Red Balloon both to scuttle the team by tricking the other team members into getting pregnant, or something."

You pause and put a hand on the square-shaped hole in your costume that exposes your (still flat, for now) stomach. "...which he may have succeeded at. Speaking of that, Doc, how long does it take for sperms to, uh, reach their destination?"

"That's a complex question. If an ova has been released, it can take as little as an hour, or even less. But in many cases the ova isn't released until a day or two later." Rainbow says in an uncharacteristically precise and matter-of-fact tone. "So there should still be time for emergency contraception!"

You cringe again. "Those make me feel sick, and I need to be at the top of my game right now. Besides, I don't know if they even work for me. I took one after that impulsive meet-up with a guy I met online who turned out to be my stepdad Eddie, and it didn't stop me from needing to go to the women's clinic a few months later. I'm really hoping La Petite Mort has a hidden stash of those micro-robot things somewhere but I can't go and ask her for one right now."

"Why's that?" Dr. Rainbow asks.

"Because, La Petite Mort's best friend is who I suspect is behind some grand villainous scheme, especially after what Queen of Hearts told us. I think that our true enemy, the League's true enemy, is none other than... Raven Woman!" you say, conjuring a dramatic thunderclap with your superpower for effect.

"Eeeee!" Dr. Rainbow girlishly puts her hands on her cheeks and swivels her petite body from side to side. "No! It couldn't be! Raven Woman always dresses in black and is rude and mean to everybody! Which means she MUST have a hidden heart of gold underneath that prickly exterior! That's always how it works with heroines, just like with you, Thunderbird!"

"That's just what she wants you to think! It's the classic double bluff." you say with a self-satisfied nod. "Besides, aside from her, who else in the League HQ would've been able to repair that broken adultery-inducing magic dildo thing so Green Streak could **** it? Are there any, except for you?"

"Umm... errr..." Dr. Rainbow's face suddenly goes bright red and her irises become yellow, the color of fear. "There were a couple of new heroines who'd just joined, but... they are, um... not active in status right now, due to reasons...."

"Oh, yeah. 'Magical Melody Mindy' and 'Summer Sunshine', your fellow magical girls you were partnered with before me, who had to change out their costumes for maternity dresses, right?"

"AHHHH!" Dr. Rainbow loeses her footing and almost faints, forcing you to catch her. "Who told you about that? I asked the records department very, VERY nicely not to spread that around and give other people the wrong idea!"

"I found out from the titles of the videotapes in Smut King's archive up on the 3rd floor." you pause. "Oh, that's right - you weren't there. So, you remember the hologram of the supervillain in that scenario where you and I, uh, 'fought' side by side for the first time? The weirdo with a camera for a head? Turns out he's working for the League now."

"Third floor?" Dr. Rainbow looks around, not having been paying attention to where in the HQ building you were going. "Does that mean...?"

"Yup." you lead her up to the closed shutter built into the wall in this nondescript, out-of-the-way hallway, with a small soundproofed theater just a little further down the hall.

The shutter slides up, and you again see the musclebound, pornography-obsessed, reformed (supposedly) former villain with a movie camera for a head. "You again." he groans. "It's been a very long day. I just now finished editing the Aegis Angel video and I'm about to move on to the Shining Crusader tape - both highly involved projects made necessary because SOMEBODY decided it was a good idea to repeatedly give enhanced virility to Hot-Cross Bunny's main bruiser Walrus just because he asked nicely."

Dr. Rainbow covers her face in her hands and whimpers. You put an arm over her shoulder and hug her. "Come on, don't worry. Nobody blames you, Doc. This insensitive camera-headed jackoff was just joking, right?"

"Hmph. YOU caused me some extra work too, a few months ago with that magical song stunt of yours, Thunderbird. And I had been so enthusiastic about retro-recording a truly taboo scene, only for my hopes to be dashed into disappointment."

"Huh?" Dr. Rainbow peeks out from behind her hand. "Sorry, I'm completely lost. What are you talking about?" she sounds more than a little afraid to ask.

"Don't worry about it, Dr. Rainbow. But what you're saying just confirms my suspicions, Smut King." you say authoritatively.

"I told you - it's 'Cinema Castellan' now." he pleads indignantly.

"Do you have a video from my last day as Nightingale, featuring someone called 'Starburst' and/or 'Mechanoid'?" you ask pointedly.

"What?!" Smut King/Cinema Castellan is taken aback. A little red light on his camera head starts blinking erratically and the lens adjusts itself, which is probably his equivalent of raised eyebrows. "Who told you about that?"

"You don't need to know that, creep. Just give me the damn video." you say in a tone that brooks no dissent.

"I... I can't." Smut King sounds nervous now.

You raise your fist, and the amplifier power-glove on it whines ominously as you charge it up. "I'm already in a lot of shit, Smut King, more than you could imagine. Beating up a former villain wouldn't make any difference at this point."

"No, you violent, impulsive idiot!" Smut King replies indignantly. "I mean I actually can't. There's only one copy of each recording and I just rented it out."

"To who? Spit it out already! Don't make me have to 'press your eject button', because if you do, I'm gonna press it HARD." you say menacingly.

"To your teammate... Snowflake." he says.

You stare at him quizzically. "What? But how would Snowflake know about this? They weren't there for the interrogation of Queen-" you stop suddenly, and laugh. "Oh. Ohhh. Let me guess. Snowflake just stormed in here and demanded to know if there were any video titles featuring Jack of Hearts, right? I don't suppose it occured to Snowflake to just wait a few weeks and then pee on a stick."

"I... uhhh... Thunderbird, your insight is so much better than mine. What's going on?" Dr. Rainbow pouts pitifully.

You point at the camera-headed weirdo. "For some insane reason the League of Propriety has a policy of keeping a recording of every time a superheroine in costume gets knocked up, and this guy uses a super-science movie camera that can record through time and space to do it. I guess Snowflake didn't bother asking how it works, so she - sorry, 'they', I keep slipping up on that one - doesn't know that Smut King's camera doesn't detect it happening, just records the, uh, 'event' after a heroine registers as pregnant." You shake your head. "A device like that could be the most powerful crime-solving device ever made, and THIS is what they use it for..."

"Oh no! That's horrible!" Dr. Rainbow wails. "Who allowed such an unethical invasion of privacy?"

"Maiden America herself." Smut King responds. "As for the why of it, I couldn't tell you. She's never informed me. I'm the second person in charge of this archival task. I don't need to know. I'm doing it for the art."

"Look on the bright side, Dr. Rainbow." you say, patting the short, petite azure-haired woman on the head. "See that big shelf of videos in the room in there, behind Smut King? Every single one of those represents a superheroine becoming a mom."

"That isn't true, actually." Smut King says. Dr. Rainbow looks momentarily relieved, until he continues: "Those are section 'A' of the the supervillainess and henchwoman archives, courtesy of the male heroes. The superheroines are over there." he points at somewhere you can't see through the open shutter. "And there. And over there. Not counting the top-security videos, of course."

Dr. Rainbow's mouth is hanging open and her eyes are wide. You rub her shoulder and reach down and give her butt a little grope under her skirt, making her yelp and jump.

"Like I said, you should look on the bright side. The mistakes you've made don't seem like such a big deal in context, do they? You're not bad luck to your teammates. It's this League and its crazy rules that are bad luck for all of us."

"I'm.... that's... that's a really wonderful thought, Thunderbird! There's no use crying over spilled milk. I can tell that you're already coming out of your vengeful phase! Now, I want you to promise me..." with surprising suddenness and forcefulness, Dr. Rainbow reaches up and grabs your facemask, pulling you down to her eye level. "...you won't start any fights with Snowflake. They've had a very tough day already. So no mean words, no using your powers, and especially no rough stuff!"

"Even if she attacks me again?" you ask gamely.

"I've got my wand back now and I'm fully charged with happiness! If you get hurt, I can heal you in two shakes of a bluebird's tail feathers!" With that she gives your ass a slap that makes you jump with the suddenness of it.

Smut King begins pulling the shutter back down. "If you don't mind, Thunderbird, while you're at it please collect the tapes from Snowflake, if they're done with them."

"...tapes? Plural?" you raise an eyebrow.

"Don't be melodramatic," Smut King responds. "It's only three. Small time compared to some of our League's illustrious male heroes. If he doesn't learn some remedial sex ed, I'm going to have to dedicate an entire shelf to Copper Tiger and his various other monnikers."

"Where IS Snowflake, anyway?" you ask.

"Where do you think? The same place they caused so much trouble before you left." With that, he closes the shutters completely with a clang.

From what you can hear, when you focus, there are indeed some lewd and indecent sounds playing in that small cramped theater room. Since you don't know how long Red Balloon will be occupied, you march right up and shoulder the door open.

"AHH! FUCK!" that shrill feminine exclamation doesn't come from the movie screen but from one of the seats. You see that Snowflake is sitting slumped deeply in one of those seats facing the projection screen... with her legs spread wide, suit half-unzipped, and both hands down between her legs. "OCCUPIED!"

Seems like even if Snowflake didn't find herself in any of those tapes - yet- she's still suffering the effects of that power-boosting aphrodisiac just as much as you are...