You get some answers from Smut King. Snowflake picks a fight. But before you can intervene a mysterious and mischievous creature appears...

Back in the hallway, where you have been abusing the nano-scale surveillance equipment built into Snowflake's outfit, you smack your hand against your forehead.

"For fuck's sake." you mutter. "That's clearly a different girl, not the one from that scumbag stepbrother of mine, Elliot's stalker photograph. She would've been on a different continent at the time that picture was taken, and this european chick outright said that she never tried to get an abortion. What are the odds that TWO big-boobed redhead superheroines with the same hairstyle, of about the same age, and the same height, managed to get pregnant from hook-ups within a few weeks of each other?"

Even as you ask the question, a sensation of guilt creeps in at the edge of your mind. After all, the only thing stopping you yourself from being one of a set of three tall, busty redhead heroines to get knocked up within the same brief window of time was pure luck. Thinking back, you count off on your fingers. Within just the first few months of becoming a real heroine, there have been at least four separate occasions where guys have gotten to cum inside you. Or five, if that shapeshifting freak from the Wonderland Warriors who'd been impersonating Dr. Rainbow counts as a 'guy'. No, wait... it might be more than four. There was that time you and Dr. Rainbow followed those low-ranked kung-fu hero guys after they showed up to help you during a robbery, and... fuck! You got used to the utter debauchery of life as a superheroine so fast that incidents where you had unprotected sex with complete strangers can get pushed to the back of your mind as barely notable.

You sigh. "Oh well. If the alternative is being a bitchy prude like Red Balloon or mom, I'd rather risk it." A moment later you flinch. "Gah... oh shit, mom is technically back in costume as 'Nightingale' at the moment, isn't she? I hope she isn't in the HQ to have heard me say that about her. I need to kick this monologuing habit of mine... C'mon, Rikki, focus, focus!" You think. Speaking of mom, some good might still come of this. If you can get that video the four perverted guys (and one perverted nonbinary) in there were watching, you can selectively show it to your mom to pre-emptively throw cold water on Elliot's stupid blackmail attempt.

"Oh hell," you say to yourself, forgetting your resolution from mere moments ago to keep your thoughts internal. "That's gonna be an awkward conversation. 'Hey mom, I can't explain the full context right now but it's very important you watch this hard-core porno with me, but only the parts I say you should watch.' Gah... still, I'd rather have a crappy card up my sleeve than no cards up my sleeve at all." Unfortunately, since Snowflake's costume doesn't include a helmet or earpiece, you can't tell her to get the video, and the camera-head creep who makes these things said you aren't high-ranked enough to check these things out. Hm... while I'm stuck here..."

You wander back to the window and knock on it again. There is a set of loud stomping before the shutters open, and you're confronted by Smut King/Cinema Castellan again. Despite lacking a face, you somehow feel that he's glowering at you. "Yessssssssss?" he asks, clearly very annoyed to see you again so soon.

"I have a couple more questions..." you begin.

"No, no!" the burly man-camera hybrid makes a fist. "I told you, either tell me which video you need to view, or 'exit stage left' immediately!"

"Ok sure, but, you're a former supervillain working here as part of a plea deal, right?" you say with a smirk. "So, do you actually have any power or authority to make me leave or refuse to answer reasonable questions?"

There's a pause. "Grrr... and to think," he gestures theatrically, "I was *this* close once again to feeling sympathy for all these cocksure young women who end up making appearances in my films... that feeling has officially passed." he slumps forward. "Very well, proceed with the interrogation."

Your mind goes back to some of those... ill-considered fucks from the recent past. You THINK you got your period a couple weeks ago but it was suspiciously mild. "Just to be sure... I don't appear in any of these movies, do I?"

Again, despite having no face, you feel like Smut King is looking at you as if you're stupid. "Considering that the 'Thunderbird' identity has existed for approximately three days, it would be quite an impressive speedrun if you had. In fact that would have been a new record, even when compared to Starling who managed to earn herself a ticket to maternity leave five days after her official activation as a heroine, 17 years ago."

You gulp. You don't know what's worse - that the heroine holding the current record for getting pregnant fastest after putting on the costume also had a bird-themed identity, or that you came very close to beating her record.

Smut King continues. "I don't think you understand. My equipment doesn't detect 'incidents', it records them after the fact. So unless you had a different codename when what you have in mind happened..."

Ack. Your dad's long ago disappearance is enough of a trauma on your psyche without watching a movie of the night that led to your existence so you'll pass on asking about 'Nightingale'. You speak again: "Nevermind that, I want to know something else. So this camera of yours can see through time and space, right?" You think back to what Photobomber told you about Green Streak. If you can figure out which woman eventually, er, helps him become Photobomber's father, it'd let you clear that pest off your list. "So you could see someone in the future?"

The former villain and still-current pornographer raises his hand as if to call you stupid again, but then stops. "Hmm. I wasn't ready for that one. I suppose... theoretically? I didn't design the camera, and its inventor is tragically no longer available to ask. I've never tried such a thing. There's no setting for tuning it to the future... but perhaps it could be modified. I wouldn't know how to do that, though, and in any case, the device is too valuable and irreplaceable to experiment on like that."

Aha. Now you're getting somewhere. Photobomber is an expert on this time-travel nonsense. But he's also a wanted villain, so there's no way you can invite him in here to fiddle with a prized artifact. Assuming you even trust him in the first place. Let's put a pin in that one. ...'valuable and irreplaceable'?

"Uh," you ask with a wrinkle of your nose, "why is it so important to record every instance of a hero or heroine 'participating in the miracle of life'?"

Smut King's answer is curt and guarded this time. "I don't have permission to tell you that. Ask Maiden America, but don't get your hopes up for an answer."

You drum your fingers on the countertop. "Oh... I guess I should ask." you feel a cold sweat. "There aren't any videos for a 'Dr. Rainbow', are there?"

The camera-headed creep types away at an outdated-looking computer terminal. "Is that with an i, or a y?"

"An I..." you say, furrowing your brow. "Just how many of these sick videos are there, anyway?"

"I wish you'd stop insulting my vocation..." the bulky man behind the window says with weary resignation. "But if you must know, as of today, two hundred and fifty one."

Your eyes bulge out behind your goggles. "TWO HUNDR-!!! What the FUCK is wrong with this city? Jesus Christ!" you say so loudly it's a good thing the room Snowflake is in is soundproofed. So much for your idea of wading through this smut to find the redhead girl from the women's clinic that Elliot had mistaken for you. "How many of those were in costume?"

"All of them." Smut King says casually. "What a heroine does in her secret identity is her own business..."

Trying to rationalize this depravity, you blink. "Hell..." you gasp, "even factoring ones who got a termination, that's got to be a lot... no wonder there are always so many new prospective heroes and wannabe villains popping up every year..."

"I think you've misunderstood again," Smut King says. "If it's in the archive, it wasn't terminated, naturally or otherwise. There'd be no practical justification for keeping such a video around if it ended in abortion or miscarriage. If a heroine chooses to permanently renounce her status, any recording she might be in is incinerated. If it weren't for that policy there would be hundreds more of these films."

"But..." you stammer, "250!! That's almost triple the size of the League's whole roster! How can there be so many?"

The perverse archivist shrugs. "Bear in mind, that's over a period of more than forty years. Back in 2015, for the first time we had a heroine whose mother was conceived in one of the chronologically oldest recordings appear in one herself... I put a particular amount of effort into those two 'sequels', I hope they stand up compared to the original masterpiece by Celluloid Crusader. Would you like to check out the three-part collection? An unbroken chain from a heroine back in the early 1980s all the way down to her great-grandchild... it's truly inspiring what sacrifices the heroines of this city make in the name of justice..."

With the weary, put-upon artiste persona that this 'Cinema Castellan'/Smut King guy puts on, it's easy to forget that you are, in fact, dealing with an utterly deranged pervert who honestly belongs in an asylum. "I'll... I'll pass on that. I'm leaving." you say flatly.

"Wait, Thunderbird." he says. "Your inquiry about Rainbow?"

"Oh, yeah." you're still wearing a disgusted look. "Make it quick."

"I'm showing here that a 'Dr. Rainbow' appears in two videos."

Your heart leaps into your throat. Damn it! You're too late! But... "Wait a second..." you say. "I thought you said you only made these horrid things after the fact when it was confirmed by other means? And didn't Doc only become a heroine, like, six months ago? I specifically remember her telling me she didn't apply until after getting her medical license."

"Indeed." he says calmly. "And?"

"Oh." you consider. "So... when you say 'appears in'," you make air quotes with your fingers, "do you mean, like... stars in?"

"Let me check the notes." he taps at the old computer again. "Ah, yes. She is what I would call a 'supporting character' in both of those. The 'title characters' would be 'Musical Magica Mindy' and 'Summer Sunshine', respectively."

You sigh with relief. "Oh jeez, Doc... when she gets back from vacation, I do owe Julia an apology. I guess she wasn't exactly wrong about Dr. Rainbow being a bit of a bad-luck charm as a partner. No wonder they ordered her to report to the HQ for extra mandatory combat training just in time for me to meet up with her." You run a hand through your yellow-dyed hair. "Well, thanks Smut King, I feel like I need to go get some bleach for my brain but this has been very informative. I'll do my best not to let the Weather Watch burden you with any additional editing work."

"Considering eight heroines got kidnapped by Queen of Hearts and her 'Wonderland Warrior' minions the very day that your team was formed, Thunderbird, I think it may be a bit too late for that. But I appreciate the sentiment."

Just as you're walking away, you hear a muffled commotion from the viewing room. It sounds like... a female voice shouting. Oh, damn it. Snowflake can't keep out of trouble for five minutes?

At first, you decide not to go inside to check, since even if Snowflake did pick a fight, it's not unlikely that it will soon be turning into a tryst.

Alas, that doesn't seem to be the case - it seems that it turned into the sort of fight where Snowflake is genuinely pissed off, not the 'You disgust me you sexist pig, now kiss me' kind. The door to the viewing room is smashed off its hinges with a clatter by a massive snowball, which you can see contains 'Ben', the guy in civilian clothes who was formerly the hero Bulletman and is currently the baby-daddy of that heroine 'Justits Vippe' from, uh... what country is Copenhagen in, again? Poland or something? Why does that stupid continent have so many countries in such a small space, unlike the sensible western hemisphere?

"I'd better go rein Snowflake in... I don't even see what was so bad about that one. Enthusiastically consensual, no infidelity, no coercion, no deception, no power dynamics, and the guy ended up sticking by her? I'm pretty sure I saw a wedding ring on his hand. By this sleazy League's standards that video was practically a fairytale love story, but Snowflake found an excuse to start a fight?" you mutter.

As you watch, you can see Neon Knight charging at Snowflake from behind, but she's already turning the snowball into one of her musclebound snow-golem things. You groan in frustration and roll your eyes. "Uuuuuugh! For someone with snow powers, that girl has no chill. Good god, she should've called herself... uh... hothead-flake instead."

To your surprise, you hear slow, sarcastic clapping from behind you. You whirl around, ready to yell at Smut King, but he's gone, and the window is closed. Instead, you see a big-headed, eighteen inch tall, smirking little gremlin of a man wearing a suit and a bowler hat, floating in midair: 'Mr. Magopolis' or whatever his name was, who you first spotted signing some kind of unholy contract with Red Balloon.

The magical imp-creature continues slowly applauding. "Nice one! 'Hothead-flake!' Ya think of that one yourself, Thunderbuns?" His smile suddenly vanishes as he sees you cocking back your sonic power-glove.

"Disable all safety limiters." you say flatly, accessing the voice-activated advanced controls of your gear. "Amp factor to 500%."

"Wait, wait! Hold on! Listen to what I got to say first!" the floating leprechaun-like man holds up his palms plaintively.