Not that she had a choice. They were gathering an army, and if she wanted this to work, she had to do her part. The Princess took a breath to steady herself, brushed the bluebird off her shoulder, and stepped inside.
A rousing cheer greeted her from the table nearest the door, as the Fairy Tale Girls raised their various brightly colored beverages in a merry hello. “Princess!” cried the closest of them, a willowy blonde whose hair extended well past her feet, forming a shaggy heap the size of a Saint Bernard next to her chair. “What are you doing here? We haven’t seen you in forever!”
“I’m here because I have a job for you, ladies,” said the Princess, stepping closer, looking around the table. Six of them were there. That was more than she’d been hoping for; she would have settled for three. “My friends and I, we’re going up against The Super Patriots. We need your help.”
“The Super Patriots? Why would we want to attract their attention?” The question was asked by a girl with skin as white as snow, and hair as black as her blasted heart. “They leave us alone. We return the favor.”
“That may be, for now, but what happens when they decide that y’all are worth going after?” The Princess crossed her arms. “You know that day is coming. They’ve convened focus groups. They’ve done studies. One day, they’ll figure out how to sell you, and when that happens, you’re going to be at their mercy. Unless you come with me, today, and help me take them down. Now please. Help us.”
The Fairy Tale Girls were a curious bunch. Magical heroes all, although none of them had the flexibility or raw power of the Princess herself—which was a good thing, since out of the six who were sitting in front of her, there were only two she’d have trusted with more than negligible authority. They looked more like a themed roller derby team than a group of heroes. But they could fight, and she’d trusted them with her life more than once. She needed them.
Snow Wight and Rose Dead, the phantom sisters of the Enchanted Forest. Rampion, whose hair could strangle the life from a man. Beauty, whose lover’s lycanthropy had proven to be unexpectedly contagious. Brittle Red, with her basket of limitless tricks. And of course, their leader, Cinder, without whose word none of the others would move.
Slowly, the white-haired girl in the glass slippers inclined her head. “All right,” she said, in a voice that grated like bottles breaking on stone. “We’ll join your fight. Why the hell not? It sounds like a good time.”
One by one, the Fairy Tale girls stood, leaving money on the table to pay for their drinks. They followed the Princess out of the bar, and as they walked, she only hoped that she knew what she was doing. If not, well…things were about to get interesting.
Jolly Roger stood on the top floor of the casino that bore his name, wishing he felt less uncomfortable; wishing he really knew what he was doing there. Dame Fortuna shared none of his discomfort. She crossed her arms, eyeing him like he was something she had scraped off the bottom of her shoe.
“You’ve got a lot of nerve coming here after what you did, after what you didn’t do,” she said. “I thought you were a running man nowadays.”
“You’re the one who told them where to find me.”
Dame Fortuna shrugged. “That was just business. The little animus came here asking for information, and she was willing to pay the price I put in front of it. If you’d stayed in touch, you could have made a counter-offer. Maybe you would have topped her offer. I guess we’ll never know, now, will we?”
“Toony…”
“Don’t call me that. It’s Dame Fortuna to you.” Dame Fortuna’s green eyes blazed as she stepped closer to Jolly Roger, a scowl distorting her perfect features. “You left us. You ran out, and you left us. How do you like the mess they’ve made of the world in your absence, hmm? You handed them the keys to our destruction.” There was no need to specify who she meant by “them.” There had only ever been one “them” where Dame Fortuna was concerned.
“I’m back now,” said Jolly Roger. “I’m going to help set things right. But I need help to do that, Toony. The girl’s trying to build an army. We’re going to need luck on our side.”
“I won’t leave Vegas.”
“Won’t, or can’t?”
For the first time, sorrow seemed to break through Dame Fortuna’s rage. “Both,” she admitted. “The web of chance and circumstance that keeps us safe here depends on me to maintain it. If I leave, and your army loses…I can’t take that risk.”
“But we can.” Lady Luck stepped forward, Fortunate Son at her side and Showgirl close behind them. “We’ll help you, Mr. Roger. For the sake of what you were to my mama.”
I was more than you know, thought Jolly Roger, and said nothing.
Dame Fortuna said it for him. “No. Absolutely not. I won’t have you risking yourself like this.”
“I don’t think you get to make that choice for me,” said Lady Luck. “You raised me to be a hero. It’s time that you finally let me do that.” She met her mother’s green-eyed gaze without flinching, and waited.
In the end, Dame Fortuna looked away first. “Damn you all,” she muttered. “You bring my babies back, Jolly Roger, do you hear me? I won’t forgive you if you don’t bring my babies back.”
“I will do everything in my power to see them safely home,” said Jolly Roger. He removed his hat, bowing low to Lady Luck and the others. “My ship, and glorious battle, awaits.”
As the Phantom Doll sailed away across the Vegas sky, only Showgirl looked back to see the shadow of Dame Fortuna standing on the casino roof. She was crying, and her tears became dice as they fell, tumbling down by her feet. Showgirl looked away, feeling vaguely as if she shouldn’t have seen, and the ship sailed on.
Garden Show had turned her down. It wasn’t really a surprise; her only power was plant control, and she wasn’t particularly strong, which was why The Super Patriots had never tried to recruit her into active duty. Still, a pair of hands was a pair of hands, and Velveteen had been hoping they could at least coax the minor heroine into a supporting role in the battle to come. Instead, she had shaken her head and said, “I have things to take care of here at home, and that’s never been my world. But my little girl…she’s twice the elementalist I am. They’ll come for her one day. Kick their asses.”
Then she had closed the door, leaving Velveteen standing alone on the front porch.
Velveteen sighed, turning to head back to the magic mirror checkpoint that Jackie had created for this recruitment pass. She could head back to the Phantom Doll, find out whether the Princess had been successful in recruiting the Fairy Tale Girls, and maybe then…
A group of people in brightly colored costumes were standing on the sidewalk, preventing her from making it back to the alley where she’d hidden the magic mirror. Velveteen stopped, tensing. She hadn’t come expecting a fight. She had no backup, and nowhere near enough toys.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
“I hope so,” said one of the women. Her costume was a dozen shades of blue, and there were green streaks in her curly brown hair. “We heard tell you were assembling an army.”
Velveteen blinked. “Mississippi Queen?”
“In the flesh, my dear.” The Claw’s old mentor smiled, her teeth very white against her dark skin. “We want to join you.”
“But…” Velveteen took another look around the small cluster of heroes. She couldn’t have named them all. The ones she did recognize were all employed by The Super Patriots. “Your contracts…”
“Allow us to fight against management if we have reason to believe they may have been compromised by a supervillain,” said a woman Velveteen didn’t recognize. Her costume was also blue, but it wasn’t the stylized blue of cloth; it was the muddy blue of living water, and it flowed around her body like the tide. Catching Velveteen’s look, she said, “Lake Pontchartrain. Water control.”
“With Lakey along, my limitations don’t matter,” said Mississippi Queen. “She generates more than enough water to share a littl
e with me.”
“Rue Royal,” said a man. “I freeze time.”
“Epiphany,” said a woman. “Photon manipulation.”
“Ash,” said a man. “Fire control.”
Mississippi Queen smiled again. There was a dangerous edge to the expression. “So, you going to let us march in your little Mardi Gras parade? I promise you, everyone here knows how to party.”
“They’re not going to take this lying down,” cautioned Velveteen.
“Honey, we wouldn’t be here if we thought they were. You wouldn’t need us, and we’d be able to be good little corporate soldiers, keep our doors closed, and only come out when a better form of management was in place.” Mississippi Queen shook her head. “You need us.”
This time, Velveteen smiled. “You’re right,” she said. “We do. Follow me.”
Together, the six superhumans walked into the alley. There was a bright flash of light, and the smell of snow, and they were gone.
“I have to go.”
“No.”
“This isn’t up for debate.”
“Then you’re doing something wrong.” Celia Morgan stood, turning her back on her sister as she looked resolutely out the window. “Let them fight The Super Patriots. If we’re lucky, they’ll win, and things will be better. But you’re not going.”
Jennifer—better known as “Jory” when she was in her green and brown uniform—actually laughed. “Did you forget who was the older sister here? You can’t forbid me to go.”
“I’ve been alive in this reality longer than you have. I think you can’t claim to be older than I am. Not anymore.” Celia whirled. “I lost you once. I will not lose you again, do you understand me? Once was one time too many. I can’t survive it a second time.”
“Cee…” Jennifer walked to her sister, placing her hand against Celia’s cheek. “You aren’t going to lose me, I swear. The current team doesn’t have an earth manipulator of my strength. They can’t take me out unless they can hit me, and that’s not going to happen. But they can hurt Velveteen and her friends, and without her, I wouldn’t be here to have this argument with you. Now come on. Stop fighting with me, and let me go.”
“I can’t lose you,” whispered Celia.
“You won’t. I will always find a way to come home to you. You’re my baby sister, and I love you.” Jennifer kissed Celia’s forehead. “But right now, the world needs me to be a hero, and since that’s the only thing I went to school for, I figure I should go ahead and be one.”
“Come home?”
“I always will.”
Then Jennifer was gone again, and Celia Morgan, the woman who had become Governor of Oregon to avenge her sister, put her hands over her face and cried alone.
The deck of the Phantom Doll was packed with bodies. Some of them floated in the rigging, or hung suspended from ropes; Snow Wight was phased halfway through one of the masts, and no one quite dared to tell her that she was standing in the middle of a giant piece of wood. Feeling sick to her stomach, Velveteen allowed Jackie and the Princess to help her up onto a wooden crate. They stepped into position to either side of her. Victory Anna was nearby, assembling another of her ray guns.
Velveteen took a deep breath. Only for you, Yelena, she thought, and clapped her hands. “Hi, everybody. Can I have your attention, please? Everyone, can I have your attention?”
The crowd kept talking.
“SHUT THE HELL UP!” shouted Jackie.
The crowd stopped talking.
“Uh, hi,” said Velveteen. “Thank you all for coming. I’m, um. I’m Velveteen, and I guess I’m leading this little corporate takeover. Everyone who’s here is here because you have a reason to hate The Super Patriots. Maybe not the idea of them, but the thing that they’ve become. They destroy us. They chew us up and spit us out, and they do it pretending it’s about justice when it’s really all about the bottom line. They take away our identities, even our minds, and it’s time for that to stop. All of it.”
A few people in the crowd shouted encouragement.
Velveteen took another deep breath. “You’ve been divided into squads, and we have a plan of attack, at least in the beginning, but we all know that no plan survives its first contact with the enemy. So here’s the real plan for today: win. Don’t die. Try not to kill anyone. And take those bastards down.”
“What about the mind control?” asked the Claw. “We know they’re controlling half the heroes they’ll send up against us, and we don’t have any psychics.”
“Leave that to me, boy,” said Jolly Roger.
“So do we know what we’re doing?” asked Velveteen.
This time, the cheer was all-consuming. This time, the fight was really on.
There was nothing subtle about a pirate ship sailing through a clear sky; the advantage of surprise was never going to be on their side, save perhaps in the sense that The Super Patriots had been given a very long time in which to become complacent. On some level, the people who ran the corporation believed that nothing would ever challenge their right to control the superhumans of the world. Still, the paparazzi were piled four-deep around the gates at headquarters when the Phantom Doll sailed by overhead, circled once, and came in for a landing on the perfectly manicured lawn.
“Aim for the rosebushes,” said Victory Anna, with undisguised spite. “Let’s damage their landscaping like they’ve damaged my heart.”
“You are a very unique lassie,” said Jolly Roger, and tweaked the wheel to the right, sending the ship’s prow tearing through the heart of the ornamental rose garden. Victory Anna squealed with glee. Somewhere in the building, an accountant who was watching the scene outside on a monitor moaned in financial agony.
“You don’t know the half of it,” drawled the Princess. She was wearing a new ball gown, this one six shades of pink encrusted with sparkling pink crystals that matched her tiara. If only she’d been followed by songbirds instead of ravens, she might have looked positively sweet. “We ready?”
“No,” said Velveteen. “But we’re going.”
The heroes swarmed from the boat. Some launched themselves into the air: Whippoorwill, with her wings spread proud against the sky, Epiphany, riding a beam of glittering light in Mardi Gras colors, even the Princess, standing once more on her trusty flying carpet. Others ran. In at least one case, the ground itself reached up to form a bridge, allowing Jory to sail into her place in the lineup.
They didn’t attack. They couldn’t attack. There were ways these things were meant to be handled, appropriate forms that distinguished the heroes from the villains. In the aftermath—and there would be aftermath, no matter who won—they would need all the footage taken during the fight to show that they had been in the right. From beginning to end, they had to be heroes.
Velveteen walked to the front of the formation, a stream of dolls, plush toys, and action figures marching along behind her. Victory Anna and Jackie stood to her left; Jolly Roger and the Claw stood to her right. For just a moment, it seemed like everyone was holding their breath, waiting to see what would happen next.
“You can stop pretending you don’t know we’re here,” said Velveteen. She scanned the grounds as she spoke. There were topiaries shaped like animals. She could use those. You never believed I’d move against you, she thought, and said, more loudly, “If we’re going to do this, let’s do this. Or are you scared of a bunch of second-stringers who don’t have focus groups to tell them what to wear?”
The mighty doors of the headquarters of The Super Patriots, Inc. began to slowly swing open. The gathered heroes tensed, waiting to see what would come next. And out marched, and flew, the assembled forces of the West Coast, the West Coast Junior Division, and so many, many more. On and on they came, full heroes and trainees alike, their fists clenched and their faces dark with grim determination.
“Oh, God, they’re sending the kids,” whimpered Jory, who had talked to Celia more than enough to know what had happened to this dimension’s original versi
on of her. “They can’t really expect us to fight kids, can they?”
“No,” said Epiphany, who was hovering next to her, a sad expression on her pointed pixie face. “They expect us to turn around and run away rather than be the people who came here and raised arms against an army of children.”
“Vel…” said Jackie, uncertainly.
“Try not to hurt them,” said Velveteen, and while she never raised her voice, everyone on her side heard her. That was Cinder’s doing. Glass can cut, but it can also transmit sounds, when it’s bent the right way, when it’s held in the right hands. “The kids are innocent, or as innocent as any of us were when we were their age.”
“So about as innocent as a kegger,” muttered Jackie. “Got it.”
“If it’s you or them, choose you,” continued Velveteen. “I’m sorry. But choose you.”
“You’re trespassing!” shouted Sparkle Bright, striking a perfect pose in the air. The Super Patriots had more fliers, noted Velveteen, almost dispassionately; they would have the air advantage. Fine. That just meant they had to be grounded. “Remove yourselves immediately!”
“I invoke the hostile takeovers clause of the corporate governing contract,” Velveteen shouted back. “A supervillainous force has seized this building. We fight for justice!”
“No!” Sparkle Bright’s face contorted in camera-unfriendly rage. “You don’t fight for justice! We fight for justice!”
Velveteen’s smile was s low, intended to provoke a violent response. “Oh yeah?” she asked. “Prove it.”
Sparkle Bright shrieked, a whip of solid red light lashing from her hands to hit the spot where Velveteen had been standing only a second before.
The fight was joined.
At first, The Super Patriots took the superior position. They had more fliers, after all, and high ground is important in any sort of battle. What they didn’t bank on was the sheer number of elementalists fighting on Velveteen’s side. Swallowtail was grounded by a carefully timed strike from Lake Pontchartrain, who was in the process of flooding the south side of the lawn. Mississippi Queen was riding a raft around the newly created water, and from there, she sent twisters and aggressive waves after the fighting heroes. Action Dude tried to shout for someone to take out the water manipulators, and received a face full of lake water for his troubles.