The Big Damn Fight

Peppi, in the interim, had found friends in high places.

A desperate gaggle of civilians had encamped themselves on the flat-topped roof of a multi-storey data centre, led by some mouthbreather or another who knew in his edgelord gut that shit was going down. His name was Clancy Splinterson, to everyone's embarrassment save his own. His Freedom™-loving military-industrial-complex-boner-induced headcanons made real and shoving him in position of Prime Protagonist, like the worst kind of fanboy he'd Totally Fuckin Called It and was pretty insufferable for it.

Clancy had scrounged up anyone civ-side who'd hear him out, rigged some firecrackers and a remote detonator in the centre's lobby, and tried not to act too excited when they bagged themselves an alien. He got his now-fearfully-admiring underlings to pepper the sagging slag-replicant with bullets until it stopped moving.

They weren't quite anticipating Peppi, who scrambled effortlessly up the five floors in two highly dramatic leaps and knocked out a guy's teeth with a dozen rings on a string. Done with fleeing aliens for five goddamn minutes, the Cloak blossomed about the collar into something very Stéphane Rolland.

"Morrows t'yehs! Ah'm yer princess-royal Peppi and ah'm lookin' fer some rugged-strong leggers to do that, uh, thing." She raised an arm in what she hoped was the universal lasers-for-hands gesture, accenting it with sound effects. "Zyoop-pew-vyooo."

"... Guns?" guessed an IT guy, hefting his rifle.

"Spare m'the technicals, handsome. I got three of 'em down dirtways guilty of pesterin' royalty." Peppi beamed at the nonplussed crowd, twirling her string-of-rings and making the guy she'd socked in the teeth whimper. "One bitta digit-glim, fresh off Mon Sango's jewellerin' district to the man who bags m'ssailants. Hop to it!"