Matt slowly looked up. Some of the lights that hung from the ceiling were swaying. "It's on the roof!" One light started swinging violently as the ceiling above it began to buckle, right over the center of the dance floor.
"Shit!" said Jennifer, seeing it too. She reversed direction and they both pushed through the crowd of dancing students towards the impending structural failure. "Watch out!"she shouted as she spread her arms wide and shoved a group of students out of the way. Matt did the same, just as the light and a sizable chunk of ceiling crashed into the floor behind them. The dancing ceased as everybody turned to see what had happened.
The creature was now visible through the hole in the ceiling. It was another of the big, twenty foot tall versions, this time outfitted with cyborg enhancements. It snapped off another piece of the ceiling with its mechanical right arm and let it fall, while letting out a shriek even louder than the music. It reached down into the gym with a metal fist that was covered in spikes, and then the fist shot downwards, propelled by three trails of flame and dragging a large chain behind it.
Matt turned and dashed into another pair of students, pushing them out of harm's way as the fist slammed into the floor just behind him. "Rocket fist flail! Wicked!" he exclaimed.
"Don't admire the monster's weapon!" Jennifer scolded. More pieces of ceiling fell as the monster worked to widen the hole. The DJ finally stopped the music, and after a brief stunned moment of silence, the crowd of students fell into panic. The mass of screaming people rushed towards the exits but became bottlenecked, most were trapped in the gym. Only Matt and Jennifer remained in the middle of the room as the rest were squeezed against the walls by the pushing and shoving. The creature, now with sufficient clearance to come through, leapt down and landed in front of them with a loud thud. It screeched again while retracting the chain back into its arm.
"We've got to get you to somewhere you can transform," Matt said.
"There's nowhere to go and no time. It's going to start killing people!" Jennifer replied. "The secret identity was a pain in the ass anyway," she muttered under her breath, and then called out, "Gimme a V! I! C! T! O! R! Y! What's that spell? Victory!" On the final word she thrust her fist into the air, and the charms flew off her bracelet and circled around her, turning into a swirling cloud of golden sparkles. She levitated off the floor, and all her clothes vanished, leaving her completely naked. The rush of sparkles tickled against her skin, especially her tits and pussy. A sports bra and thong formed around her body. The striped braid appeared, starting from her shoulders and meeting in the middle, then the shell formed moving downward over her breasts, stopping with the lower braid. Bloomers formed over her thong, and the skirt pleats appeared, spinning around her body, drawing closer to her until they attached at her waist. Ankle socks and boots formed around her feet. Her hair blew wildly behind her, then came together and wove itself into a single braid down her back, secured with a red hair tie. A yellow glow appeared over her nose, then split into two that moved up and back, creating the visor. From the top of the visor and around to the back of her head, the helmet formed. A final flurry of sparkles moved over her chest, leaving behind block letters that spelled out "Cheer". Then the sparkles lowered her to the floor and dissipated.
The monster's fist clunked back into place against its wrist, and it raised its arm to launch it into the crowd. Jennifer ran towards them, calling "Baton!" She skidded to a stop in front of the amazed students and shouted "Baton Twirl Blazing Shield!" The spinning barrier lit up in front of her just in time to blunt the impact of the rocket fist, though she still was nearly knocked over. "Matt, go!" she shouted at him.
"Well, the cat's out of the bag now. Emergency pilot retrieval, dimensional fold, activate!" he said, and disappeared.
Jennifer's baton vanished as she tossed it aside and commanded, "Pom-poms! Fighting Spirit Fiery Burst!" She launched a fireball right into the monster's face, and while that had it distracted, ran straight at it. She slipped around to its rear, and hit it in the back of the knee with a shout of, "Pom-pom Flaming Punch!" She jumped clear as it fell backward and landed with a crash on its back. She circled around to its head, now within reach, and started pounding on it with more rounds of "Pom-pom Flaming Punch!" The monster responded with a punch from its left arm that hit her hard and sent her tumbling across the gym floor.
She rolled all the way into the collapsible bleachers which were currently in their stowed position against the wall. She shook off the hit and pulled herself to her feet, then saw the creature working its way back up as well. "Baton! Spinning... Ignition... Burning... Pike!" she said, calling the baton back and transforming it. She scrambled up the bleacher stack and stood on the top row, in front of one of the large windows that lent light to the gymnasium during the daytime. "Hey, asshole! That's right, stay on me, I'm over here," she yelled, hoping to keep the monster's focus away from the other students, many of whom had forgotten about escaping and were watching the battle. It seemed to work, it kept its cold stare on her as the chain pulled its metal fist back into place.
"Are you outside yet?" Jennifer asked.
"Just got here," Matt replied.
Jennifer swung her polearm behind her, knocking out as much of the window's glass and the muntin bars between panes as she could. "Big ugly's getting ready to come straight my way. I'm going to hop out ahead of him. You have me covered?"
"Roger that," Matt said, and crouched Panther down in front of the window, ready to go. He heard fast and heavy footfalls as the creature charged at Jennifer. She jumped backwards out the window, followed almost immediately by the monster's entire right arm, its running punch carrying it all the way forward into the gym wall. Matt caught Jennifer in Panther's left hand, then as he pulled her clear, he reached up with his right hand, grabbed the beast's arm, and pulled. His assist to the creature's momentum added enough force that the wall crumbled, and the giant cyborg insect thing was pulled through the collapsing bricks and outside the gym.
It stumbled for several more steps before falling forward, but as it went down it aimed its right arm back and fired off its rocket fist. Matt already had attached Panther's axe in shield position on his left forearm, and quickly raised it into a defensive position, much to Jennifer's screaming displeasure. The fist bounced off the shield with a loud clang. "Sorry about that. Oh shit!" Matt said as a trio of missiles exploded against Panther's face, right shoulder, and right thigh. Three wisps of smoke rose from the missile launcher rack that had unfolded from the monster's back over its left shoulder.
"Setting you down now," Matt said. Just as he released Jennifer, he had to quickly raise his arm again to fend off a hit from the creature's fist. The chain was spooled out only a short length now, and the monster was swinging it around like a true medieval flail weapon while continuing to launch missiles. Even with its height deficiency against Panther, the flail had excellent reach. Matt was overwhelmed, blocking as much as he could but taking more hits than he could stop. The fist flail even got him in the left arm as he shielded Panther's face from another missile strike. The creature stepped forward, pressing its advantage as Matt slowly fell back. With no breaks in the attack, he couldn't find an opening to fight back. Even an attempt at using Panther's shoulder cannons failed. With Matt constantly dodging, they couldn't hold a target lock, and he gave up on that after two shots missed completely and hit the school instead.
"What can I do?" Jennifer asked.
"I'm open to ideas!" Matt said.
"Okay. Then it's time to be aggressive. B, E, aggressive. Pom-poms!" Readying her weapons, Jennifer once again made a charge towards the monster's vulnerable legs from behind. This time, however, she had to stop short and dive sideways to avoid the missile that shot into the ground from the rear end of the missile rack. "Fuck!"
"Agreed!" Matt said. Alarms were sounding in his head as the damage to Panther accumulated. Then the monster got in a lucky shot, three missiles right over Panther's shield and directly into his left shoulder. The joint failed, and the arm fell useless at his side. The flail fist got in another hit, slamming into Panther's head. "Goddammit, you and that fucking rocket fist flail!" Matt shouted, and without thinking he reached forward in desperation and tried to catch the fist in Panther's right hand. He missed, but he did end up with the chain wrapped around his wrist, halting the flail's spin. The two giant foes paused momentarily, caught off guard by this turn of events.
"Well, shit," Matt said in astonishment. He grabbed the chain, lifted his leg to brace his foot against the creature, and pulled. More chain slid out from the monster's arm. Matt took another handful of the chain and yanked again. However it worked, there was plenty of length in there as the rocket fist had shown to have a decent range. Matt kept going until Panther had several loops of the chain hanging from his hand. Then he let out some slack and began coiling it around the monster, starting at the legs and working his way up. In short order he had the creature completely tied up in its own chain. He untangled the end from around Panther's wrist, took hold of the fist flail, and smashed it into his opponent's face. The beast promptly fell over, hitting the ground with a tremendous thud. Matt sighed. "Now why the fuck didn't I think of that earlier?"
"Nicely done, though," Jennifer remarked as she strolled over to the monster's shattered head. "Megaphone! Roar of the Crowd Scorching Sonic Blast!" The resulting explosion was somewhat restrained by the chain wrapped around the creature, but regardless it was still blasted into quite a few pieces. Cheers went up from the students watching from inside the gym.
"Are you okay up there? Panther really took a beating," she asked.
"Yeah, repairs will take a while on this one. As for me, hey, I smashed a giant hole in the gymnasium. Living the dream," Matt replied. Jennifer smiled at that. Her smile didn't last long, though, as three army Humvee trucks screeched to a halt in front of the school and several armed soldiers jumped out of each of them. Matt sighed again. "I suppose there's no avoiding it this time," he said, raising Panther's still functioning right arm in surrender. Jennifer put her arms up as well.
[Ending Theme: "Mechanical Love" by In This Moment]
"Debbie Woods here, reporting live from Bensonville. That was one hell of a fight! But now that Matt and Jennifer have been outed, what will the fallout be, and what's the army's interest in all of it? Nothing will be the same! Come back next time for all the consequences and more naughty action, in Cheer Raider and SABRE Panther, Episode 10: 'Quickie on Base! Uncle Sam Wants Us!' Go! Fight! Win!"
